Professional Resolutions Meme

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This post is about the professional resolutions for improvement that I intend to make in 2009.  I was tagged by @David_N_Wilson. I don’t really believe in “new year’s resolutions” because I think you should always have goals, regardless of the time of year. I’m making an exception in this case because I definitely have a few goals in place that I’ve  been working towards and which will be reached in 2009.

1. Post here at least twice each week. I get post ideas and put them on the back-burner, tricking myself into thinking writing a blog post is hard, but writing is so easy and I think people genuinely enjoy what I have to say.
2. Put together a set of songs that I can use to market myself as an artist. I tend to start songs and release Alpha and Beta versions without ever getting to stable release quality before moving to something else. (I have an idea to give these tracks away in exchange for donations to a charity, but I haven’t worked that part out yet.)
3. Write an e-book. Topic yet to be determined, but will probably be somewhere in the productivity and personal development area. Many people have approached me about this, so it seems it’s something I should get done.

That’s it for now. Since I got tagged, I’m going to tag:

• You!

Twitter Users Cling to It Like a Safety Blanket

image by Rivka5

I recently wrote a post on Blackweb 2.0 which discussed one of the many services and content management systems that aim to extend the usefulness of Twitter. I briefly touched on something that has been in the back of my mind for a while, so I figured I should elaborate. In the post I explained the reluctance of Twitterers to actually branch out and use other micro-blogging services:

Hardcore Twitter users do not like to leave Twitter. Most of them do not feel like exploring other services. Twitter is just too simple to use, too familiar, and all their followers are there. No matter how awesome another service might be, these people are not moving.

I first encountered this when Identi.ca (based on Laconi.ca) was introduced. Twitter was having major problems with stability at the time and I was actually afraid to invest in the service. Keep in mind, I was pretty new to Twitter at this time, so I didn’t have an investment there to protect. Some users started to use Identi.ca for a while, but many have since gone back to Twitter, or try to participate on both.

The second time I encountered this reluctance to leave Twitter was when I discovered a service called Rejaw, which I have written about quite a few times here. I think it’s a great service that provides many awesome features that Twitter does not. It’s almost a content management system in it’s own right.

Even with the unreliable nature of Twitter, the removal of IM access, and the shutdown of Track, Twitter users still refused to let go. Thinking about it now, I get a vision of a Captain going down with their ship.

Since then, with the shutdown of a bunch of features, Twitter is somewhat stable again. I have actually started using it. I got sucked in by the very thing that made others so adamant about not jumping ship. I always knew what it was, but I didn’t really understand. Like being in love, it’s not something that can be explained. You just feel it.

It’s the Community

But this post is not about the community. It’s about the reason we keep seeing services that appear completely ridiculous. Services built on top of Twitter that many of us see as re-inventing the wheel. These services allow you to view your stream in a tree format with embedded media. They allow you to tweet things that are actually too long to tweet, when 140 chars isn’t enough, with embedded media and comments. They even allow you to organize group conversations around the topics you choose.

Of course there are other ways to handle digital asset management and accomplish these things, but many of us tend to forget the reason a lot of people choose Twitter: It’s Simple. Other methods require jumping through a few hoops, creating a couple of accounts, and possibly learning how to use a new application.

What do you do when potential users absolutely refuse to leave another service? You bring your service to them. You come into their space. This is what these guys have done and I actually think it’s a pretty intelligent move when it comes down to it. Twitter users have too much invested in their Twitter community to simply jump ship for your service. Make it so they don’t even need to create an account, just plug in in their Twitter credentials and go.

How do you feel about these hybrid web applications?

Automation Defeats the Purpose of Social Media

The fact that Twitter is so simple and so revered makes it a perfect example to use when talking about social media in general. It provides the most basic framework for what more complicated networking sites like Facebook and Myspace are built upon. You find people and connect with them based on the value they have to offer you. That is the most basic action that occurs and everything else builds from that simple choice of “following” someone.

Auto-Follow

When you follow someone, that’s supposed to mean that you’re interested in what they have to say. Remember, this action is the basis of a social network. This alone will make sure that your network is valuable to you, so what happens when you automatically follow everyone that follows you? As time goes on, the quality of your network approaches zero.

The proliferation of spammers and marketers is just one single variable that ensures this to be true. There are many other reasons you shouldn’t use auto-follow. There are a large number of people on Twitter who you would view as “noise” if you took a look at their Twitter time-line and those same people are going to follow you at some point during the growth of your network.

Let’s use a real-world example. You and I are both content creators. I happen to write about a subject that you could care less about, but I think your content is the bee’s knees. Do you subscribe to me just because I subscribed to you? Isn’t that being dishonest? Fronting? Perpetrating? Patronizing? You don’t care about what I have to say, why pretend?

Auto-Reply

Why? What is the usefulness here within the context of a social network? We keep forgetting the fact that “social” means interactions with real people. That is what makes it different from everything else. When you replace that interaction with a robot, you are telling me that I’m not important enough for your attention. You’re telling me that you’re not there. You’re telling me that you’re kinda rude.

What you’re actually telling me is that you don’t really have time to interact. You are not really interested in all this socal media stuff, but you know that it’s supposed to be good at building your brand or making you money, so you’re making a half-assed attempt at it. Keep in mind, these things may not be totally true, but it’s the impression I get.

Remember when you could call a company and a human would pick up? Wasn’t that nice? Now, you have to speak to an automated system that doesn’t even understand what you’re saying. You probably end up using foul language to get to an actual person. How does that make you feel about that company or brand? Do you feel valuable? Do you feel as if they care at all about you or what you have to say?

“Tweet” or Get Off the Pot

Don’t get me wrong, there are certain specific cases where automation is acceptable within social media. Some entities in this area are known bots and we are simply using social tools to get information from them (@rtm, @timer, etc). There are even cases where you may want to follow everyone who follows you for the sheer purpose of growing your network and kick-starting your ability to interact. Conversations regarding these are all over FriendFeed.

There is also a danger here. We may render our social networks completely useless because of the sheer number of people auto-following, auto-replying, pushing RSS feeds as messages, and sending out automated updates. This is not social. This is spam. This is getting ridiculous.

If you are not willing to put in the time and effort it takes to really be active in social media and to actually interact with real people, please delete your account. If you don’t feel that you have time to build real relationships and you need a robot to speak for you, please delete your account. If the majority of your social interactions are actually automated, you may need to rethink your strategy. Social media may not be for you. I hear mailing lists are all the rage.

Blackbird Is Not About Tech, It’s About Being #blck

Blackbird is a browser created specifically for black people. Now, it’s pretty self-explanatory, so here is a snippet from the website to explain it:

The Blackbird Browser gives you access to Internet sites just like Internet Explorer, plus more community-specific features when you want them. For example, Black Search moves important information from African American sites higher in your search results. Try the Blackbird Browser and see how we are customizing the web experience just for you.

I have seen some great posts on this browser and had some great discussions about it on Twitter (#blackbird). There are a bunch of different viewpoints and opinions that surround this #blck browser. Hate it or love it, it’s here. What I aim to do in this post is simply lay out just a few of the things I’ve heard about it so far.

IBIBSI Syndrome

I have to credit Karsh over at blackgayblogger.com for the nifty acronym, but it means: “It’s black, I’m black: Support It!” I believe this is usually a good mentality to have. We need unity in the community to succeed as a whole, but I also don’t think this syndrome is going to work once we start talking about technology and media. Look at the music industry as an example. We can’t just blindly support and endorse everything black. We will destroy ourselves in the process.

Black People Are Stupid

Are black people really having a hard time finding black content in two-thousand-eight-about-to-be-two-thousand-and-nine? I didn’t think that was the case. Most of us know how to type things into The Google just like other cultures do. That’s Internet 101. You search for stuff. Are black people so dumb that we can’t find things on our own? We need a browser that “gives you access to Internet sites just like Internet Explorer” to make sure we find black stuff on the web? If that’s the case, all you black tech bloggers (that don’t actually exist) need to step your SEO game up. First person that says Google is purposely burying black content gets a open-hand smack in the mouth.

Blackbird Is Not Innovative

Any tech person can take one quick look around Blackbird and see that there is nothing new there.  It doesn’t DO anything. Nukirk already talked about why Blackbird is not that special and they share a lot of my views AroundHarlem, but here is how you make Blackbird:

• Install Firefox (you probably already did this, who the heck uses IE anymore?)
• Get a black (as in color) theme, a hard to read one, with white text
• Get these #blck bookmarks I saved for you on Diigo
• These black video “channels” are a huge selling point and are included above (although I heard they’re a little dated)
• Replace your default search with this black search to make sure you bury all the not-black stuff
• Also, keeping philanthropy in mind, you’ll need this link http://dogood.blackbirdhome.com/

Technology has to bring something new to the table in order to succeed. It has to solve a problem or do something better than or before it’s competitors. Simply being black is not going to make Blackbird a competitor against Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Chrome, Safari, Opera or any other browser you could think of because there is nothing that it does that no other browser can do.

Windows is not the best operating system ever created. It has never done the best job of operating a system. They succeeded because they made the first move and captured the market in a choke hold. Twitter actually kinda sucks. They had to disable nice features like IM and Track due to instability and they still go down on ocassion. None of that matters because they were first and anything coming later will have to rip Twitter’s users away, kicking and screaming, from their community they have built there. I don’t see what Blackbird can possibly offer anyone when they have decided to show up to the browser wars late and unarmed.

Good Idea, Bad Implementation

Why is this a browser? Refer back to the “Black People are Stupid” section and you’ll see where I mentioned that the creators thought a download was simpler for black people to utilize than a browser plugin or link to a portal or social site. Oh, did I forget to mention that up there? Sorry.

I actually think it is a good idea to have a bunch of black content all aggregated, linked, and archived in one place. Being that it’s almost 2010 (I hear we’re gonna get flying cars), I would prefer this to be a website that automatically update itself by scouring the web for black content. Maybe some type of “spider” algorithm that could seek out websites based on keywords and then you could perform search queries to….oh, nevermind.

I don’t know these Blackbird people. I looked at the About page and it named three guys I have never heard of. I don’t even think they are the developers. They didn’t have pics or bios or even links to their Twitter profiles. I heard one of them used to have something to do with The Source back before they started posting malt-liquor ads or something, but what does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China? Who are they to tell me what is black? Why should I let them filter my content at all?

It’s a Teaching Tool for Kids

I have kids, 2 sons and a daughter. I would never let them anywhere near this browser. What if you had to buy a special television set so that you could see black shows? What if you could only get black books at a special library? What if you had to purchase a different type of CD player to listen to black music as opposed to everything else? What would be going through your child’s head if they had to use a special piece of software just to find out about their culture?

• Why can’t we just use what everyone else uses?
• Why do I have to use a “black” browser?
• Is there a “white” browser or an “Asian” browser?
• Does the “white” browser block all the “black” stuff?
• Why can’t black stuff be on the same Internet as everything else?

I have heard people say that it’s good for kids to have things that “look like” them. That’s probably good for toys, books, and other objects, but I’m not sure that really translates to technology. Maybe next we can start teaching black kids in a school with nothing but black students, and only black books in the library. We could also make sure there were only black teachers. Of course, all the computers will only download black content via Blackbird. We could call it Segregation 2.0!

That’s All I Have

I don’t want to down any one’s hustle. I don’t want to belittle any one’s work. I just want you to try and think of the big picture regarding this browser. This is not a new black-owned business in your city. It’s a piece of technology and the rules surrounding it’s success are not the same as a brick and mortar business. You can’t come with a weak product and expect people to buy in based on cultural factors. That’s actually kinda disrespectful.

I also don’t appreciate the fact that I can’t share Blackbird content outside of blackbird. Go ahead and share something from Blackbird and see if it doesn’t tell the recipient they have to download Blackbird to view it. Did Blackbird make the content? No (refer to bookmarks above). So why is it locked inside their software? I see potential for shenanigans.

What do you think about Blackbird? Do you use it? Do you have ideas on how it should have been done? Do you love it as-is? Are you afraid to say anything because you don’t want to be tossed out of the black community? Speak now or forever hold your peice.Can you Digg it?

Pownce Refugees Now Have a Home at Rejaw

After logging into my Rejaw account, I noticed a curious note at the top:

Pownce refugees: Import your old notes into your Rejaw account!

After checking out the link, it looks like the Rejaw guys have got the Pownce import game locked up. View the full shout for details and to ask any questions you may have.

I took a look at the actual Pownce import page and the process seems pretty simple. All you have to do is download your notes and upload the file to Rejaw.

Now you can easily move your old Pownce notes into your Rejaw account. Please be aware that we only import your public notes and any replies to those. We will ignore any private notes and notes to your friends, as well as replies to them.

As I said before, there are many reasons that Rejaw is the best place to set up shop for those that will miss Pownce. With the new import ability, you definitely can’t lose. Again, if you have questions about the import process, the devs are available in this discussion. Also, when you join Rejaw, make sure you shout at me.