Every once in a while, most of us get involved in a client meeting wherein we are asked to justify the expense of social networking in terms of return on investment (ROI). Whether you are charging a company big bucks to completely handle their social programs, or charging them a little to teach them how to do it, they deserve an answer to that question and it is not always easy to justify the expense, especially in the short term … Continue reading
I was feeling left out because everyone had written a column on the Facebook IPO but me. 🙁 As many of you know, I am not a huge fan of the Facebook concept. It seems to me that they are invasively intruding upon our lives for profit, relying on peer pressure and hype to get that job done. Along the way, they are selling the information they collect from us for free to marketers so that our lives can become … Continue reading
I suppose that I would be happier about the virtual life if I bothered to compare it more often to what we laughingly refer to as real life. Despite the problems that are caused by being one step removed from physical reality, there are even more problems in real life than on the Web, although those non-virtual problems are becoming more common online. Those of you that know me well are aware of my feeling towards business and the corporation. … Continue reading
One of the less-desirable facets of social media is the tendency of Web denizens to endlessly promote themselves. The way in which services such as Twitter and Facebook are designed certainly encourages this type of behavior. It is a very annoying trait, regardless of the goal that the user has in mind. And in all of it, there is a certain amount of obvious bullshit. There are two main groups of guilty parties. First, there is the online entrepreneur, always … Continue reading
It’s been a while since I made a peep. I’ve been pretty busy shedding an old life and building a new one. No more Kansas; Pennsylvania, now. No more Lawrence; Williams Township, now. And there is now a different house on a different ridge, this time quite a lot higher and about two blocks from the Delaware River. You know, the one that Washington crossed, though that is about 30 miles downstream. Life is better all the way around. A … Continue reading
When the race goes most often to the shallow and the loud, when integrity and ethics matter not, is it acceptable to resign the field and walk away? When all around is wilderness and Philistines, is there any point in staying the course? When the windmills are covered in advertising, should not one put away the rusty armor and lance, and walk alongside the horse in search of cool, still waters? What point is served when my ears are deafened … Continue reading
If you are reading this, you are spending at least some time on the internet, living in the virtual world. Almost by definition, the virtual world is much broader than our physical world, or at least there is much more of it accessible at one time. That is one of the things that makes it so seductive. There are more available people, more available things, more available information, more available everything within easy reach on the Web than there is … Continue reading
Plurktalk is a weekly live videocast that I do with several of my friends from Plurk. There’s more about it at this link. The first hour or two of the show is fun, joking around and personal stuff, mainly. Recently, we have been staying late into the night, often until one or two in the morning, talking about serious things, like what makes guys act like guys and gals act like gals? Are we what we are, in the main, … Continue reading