They follow thousands of people with the hopes the eventually they will follow back.  Once they get 100,000+ people following them, they proclaim themselves “A-Listers”.  Other than this, there is nothing special about them.  Well they eventually try to exercise this power by proclaiming revelations about companies like Friendfeed.  So far Friendfeed has only been affected because those that have 100,000+ followers make these outrageous statements over and over again.  You see… Most of these 100,000+ followers are people that have to work for a living and only get online from time to time.  They do not have time to be involved in every story that comes out.  They find themselves at the mercy of headlines.  Does this seem like a familiar theme?  This is the way the media works.  They will make an outrageous claim over and over again to a point that people just accept it as fact and not question it.

Friendfeed is an amazing tool but unfortunately it has lost many users resulting in it losing its popularity.  Soon afterward Google came out with Google Buzz which is almost identical to Friendfeed in function.  The same people that use to say that Friendfeed is dead are not telling the world about how great Google Buzz is.  I will not argue that Google Buzz is a great tool for aggregating stories and allowing personal interaction on them.  As I said, Google Buzz is almost identical to Friendfeed.  One thing that is troubling about these aggregators that I never thought about is their inherent power to give more power to those with 100,000+ followers allowing them more air time.  I have noticed that many times in these aggregators I get the same stories many many times from different people.  What ends up happening is that one person will say something and then a percentage of their 100,000+ followers will repost the story.

This seems a lot like some of the multilevel marketing schemes you see around.  I am sure you have heard of them.  They boast about leveraging the work of others to grow your income capability exponentially.  The same theory is at work here.  One person says something and then hundreds of others will say the same thing.  A percentage of each of the 100,000+ followers will also repost to a point where you reach critical mass.  An individual may hear the same story a dozen times in a single day from a dozen different people.  The notion that it must be true because we heard it from so many different sources comes into play.  The truth is that you really heard it from one source and it was distributed through syndication.  It may appear that it is coming from many sources but it is really coming from a singular source.  I use to wonder why a person would want to follow 100,000+ people but it makes perfect sense now.  The sheer audience makes your voice multiply exponentially.  You can say ANYTHING whether true or not and if a percentage of your followers repost your comment, then a percentage of their followers will also repost it.  Can you see how powerful this can be?  This self promoted, self appointed power could be used for good or bad.  It is my belief that this is how Apple gets all of its attention despite only having 10% or less market share.  It is pretty ingenious if you ask me.  Be careful what you hear and believe because many times you are hearing a regurgitated story and not necessarily multiple sources.  Many people gauge credibility based on hearing it from multiple sources.  They are unaware of how syndication works and do not realize that those multiple sources are really just one person.

It is funny and frustrating that we went the extra mile to treat the lawn for weeds and since the vast majority of the lawn was weeds, we are now left with bare dirt.  This will go down as one of the major backfires of all time.  An attempt to make the lawn look better turned out to be a barren desert.  We are slowly getting it back in shape.  With work taking up a greater amount of time that it normally does my house work has slowed. 

While I am talking about work I must mention a complete 180 degree policy shift with regards to social networking.  At work the computer network has many security rules for obvious reasons.  Among them were the blocking of all social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Flickr, and a host of web based mail sites.  This week higher lever orders came down reversing this policy.  In fact this policy said in essence that social networking sites are crucial to mission communications.

I have to admit that I was completely shocked, pleased, perplexed, and worried at this policy reversal.  Shocked because I thought I would never happen, pleased because I use them myself, perplexed because the policy seems to go against everything we have heard over the years.  Finally worried because I know there will be abusers.  Most companies handle abusers with a heavy hand by removing this privilege from everyone.  I am convinced that it will not last even though I want it to.  I have often wondered why authority figures take this approach instead of dealing with abusers directly.  The best guess that I can come up with is that policing great numbers of people at the same time is time consuming and expensive.  By making these blanket policies, it is easier to be lazy and save money at the same time.  For the time being I will enjoy being able to check my Gmail from work for the first time ever.

I have decided to take a different approach to my behavior on these sites.  For one, I have removed myself from anyone that I work with on all social networking sites.  I not only removed them but I blocked them on Facebook.  This is because I often post on Twitter which updates my Facebook status.  Facebook shows comments of friends and their friends.  I do not want my comments to be held against me at work.  I have removed any reference to my employer from these sites so that I am not representing them on the Internet.  You may ask why I do this.   Well I have a weakness that I am sometimes ashamed of.  I sometimes hear a story on the news that really gets under my skin.  Many times I post my opinion online about that story and it sometimes comes across harshly.  I usually regret posting it after I do it but by then it is too late.  I know I work with a diverse group that range from liberal to conservative and many races.  It is easy to get caught up in the story of the day forgetting there are coworkers that disagree.

For this reason I think it is not wise to follow anyone from your place of employment. You may be friends with one or two individuals and forget that they are friends with other people from work.  Maybe even your boss.  You can easily see the potential for problems.  I have decided that it is not worth the risk.  I know a few people on the Internet that post using a pen name.  They do this not to hide their identity but rather to separate their public life from their employers.  There was a time that I thought they were just being paranoid.  This was until I ran a Google search on my own name and was amazed at how many search results came back, some with pictures of me and my family.  Maybe it is not being paranoid but being wise.  This web site is going to expire soon and I thought about changing the domain to something other than my name.  Is this crazy?  I don’t think so.  If I do, I will leave this one up for a month or so with a link to the new address so those that actually do care enough to stop by from time to time will be able to find it.

I do think it is important to have a brand that is yours but having a distinction from your personal life from your work is also important.  People often ask me why I have my own domain since social networking sites are so prevalent today.  This domain is my brand.  It is my address when Facebook disappears…when Twitter disappears.  I think that it is good to have an online address along with the social networking sites.  Your address can point to the other sites.  Over the years there have been many social sites that have come and gone but the domain makes it easy for your friends and family to find you.  Where most people would not post their home address, they can have their online identity.  Anyway…  I just wanted to explain why I have removed you and blocked you if you were blocked from my Facebook.  There is no offense intended whatsoever.  I know this one was long winded but I have been offline for a while.  Thanks for stopping by.

Once you have a presence that is all yours and that is not going anywhere then you can sign up for other programs or social networking sites.  These sites often have plug-ins that can be installed on your personal page.  Many of your friends will only participate on Facebook, or Myspace.  Many will only get on Frienfeed, or Twitter.  You can see the dilemma where you find yourself jumping from one site to another.  With the advent of the really simple syndication (RSS) feed, many systems have been established where all social site feeds can be fed together on one site.  Friendfeed is one of these as well as Google Reader.    Facebook is the big rave these days with more than 200 million active users so that is where many people gather.  The problem with that is popularity comes and goes with these sites.  You may remember Xanga.com when it was the big thing.  Then it was Myspace and so on.   It is only a matter of time before Facebook will be supplanted as the number one place.  By having your own page that is always there,  people can find you when one of the social sites goes under.  Secondly, by having your own site, search engines can find you allowing people to search for you.

If you have a Twitter account and use it the way it was intended, you will see that it is far more than just an instant messaging (IM) system.  Most of these social sites have a feature built in that allows your Twitter updates to automatically update your status on their sites.  Twitter is so light weight that you can use it even if you do not have a smart phone, or one capable of data transfer.  They allow you to send text messages to a short number, 40404.  As long as you do not post more than 140 characters in a single message, it will be posted on your Twitter page located http://www.twitter.com/yourusername.  Not only can you follow your updates on the Twitter page in real time, but it also updates other social sites simultaneously.  I have found that with many Twitter updates that I send, I get responses on Facebook, Myspace, and Friendfeed.  Since all of these sites notify you via email when someone responds to you, it makes it easy to immediately respond back.

If you ever find yourself bored at the doctor’s office, you can just send a text message that you are waiting for your doctor and someone on Facebook responds and it starts a conversation.  It helps when you are bored and stuck doing something you are not that excited about doing.  So to ask whether Twitter or Facebook is better, you should be asking how do you use them together.  I have met many ham radio operators online that also communicate using these tools.  It is really fun once you learn how to use them.  I hope this helps to explain a few ways to use them together.

It is interesting that despite my many railings against Google Fanboys, I have become one.  It seems that every time I turn around there is another free toy that I can play with.  In fact I am typing this using the Google Chrome browser.  My phone has a Google sync application that syncs my Gmail address book, and calendar.  Anything that I put on the web, suddenly comes to my phone.  This pains me to become a fanboy because I have always had a soft spot for Yahoo since I have been with them from the  beginning.  It seems that Yahoo has decided to join forces with Microsoft’s Bing.com.  Bing is also pretty good at search.  I do like to have all of them succeed because I believe competition is always good for the consumer.  If you have one dominant player then creativity can suffer.  This is funny that I talk about creativity when I am the least creative person on the face of the earth.  I am hoping that Bing and Yahoo can finally get to a point where they are competitive again soon.

This morning it rained as I went to work but as usual it was clear and sunny when I got off work. I really hoped that it would stay around until I got off work so I could enjoy it. Our lawn mower broke down or maybe I should say it was purposely destroyed this weekend.  I will not elaborate on here as to not embarrass the person that did it.  Now we need a new mower just so we can mow the lawn and it is getting tall.  I am just hoping that we do not get a fine before we can get the mower replaced.

UPDATE: 19 Aug 2009

I owe this person an apology.  No one broke the lawn mower but rather it vibrated some screws out.  Since the drive shaft is slightly bent, the mower runs out of balance and vibrates as it runs.  I tightened that bolt and mowed three strips and the bolt came back out.  So I just wanted to say that I was wrong.

I will be going to Illinois in a couple weeks on a personal trip.  I will only be spending the night and then heading back the next day since I need to get back to work.  I was supposed to be going to San Antonio on a work related trip this week but I was cut from the list due to financial concerns.  I am actually glad I was this time because there are things going on at home that need to be dealt with.

My work has been so overwhelming lately because there are so many things going on as well as having new trainees.  It is interesting that I am supposed to be training them and I am a trainee myself.  I guess on the bright side, it shows that my supervisor has confidence in me.  I will think the glass is half full .  With so many things going on at work I often forget where I was.  I am the kind of person that likes to take notes and do things in an orderly way.  Unfortunately I work in an environment where we put out fires through email and the phone.  There is always a crisis going on somewhere in the world that needs our immediate attention.  My orderly notes and to do list has degenerated into a pile of yellow sticky notes all over my desk.  I hate disorder and confusion.  I like to complete a task before starting another but that is impossible in my office.  It is amazing how a letter from a General can get our whole office in an uproar.  It is similar to stepping on a red ant bed and then watching the swarm.  Everyone stop what you are doing and focus on this hang nail the General has.  I say this with some humor but there is some truth to it as I guess it should be in this type of environment.  Despite my talk about being outside of my comfort zone, I love my job.  I feel that what I do is important and I try to do my best.  I just wish everyone could be as blessed as I am.  I will be in class the next two days so I should be able to see some calm before returning the hyper crazed zoo that is my office.

Well I thought I would post a few words since I have not posted much lately.  I love blogging just for the heck of it.  Sometimes I vent like a crazed lunatic and sometimes I just want to tell the world about my day.  It is funny how I come across people that are polar opposites.  Some people are so private and think I am crazy for posting my personal thoughts online.  I have people that tell me that “Big Brother” is listening it so you should not post online.  I got over that long ago when I found that you could search for ham radio call signs online.  Also the County Assessor’s office has pictures of everyone’s home online.  There is just too much going on in the world to worry about “Big Brother”.  Others think it is cool and wish they could do it themselves. I considered taking the blog down a few days ago but I think I will leave it up.  If nothing else, it can be used as comedy when I get into one of my rants.  For those that do read, I appreciate it.

Everyone is telling me that Google Reader is more social now but the only social that I can find is in the settings it allows you to select which social sites you want your posts to go to.  Then on the bottom of each post it has a “send to” link where you can send that particular post to one of the social sites.  My Google account is paul.mccord and so if anyone can connect to me and give me a tour, I would appreciate it.  I am sure it has some nice functions but I have not had much time to play around with it that much.  As I do get some time, I will post back here about my findings.

Google Reader is going to have to be pretty good to “out do” Friendfeed.  I just love the way I can leave Friendfeed on the screen and things just automatically scroll across the screen.  I can be watching TV and see the stories scroll in real time.  This real time scroll is hard to beat.  This is one of the things that I am really looking forward to with the new Google Wave coming up in a couple months.  I watched the hour and 20 minute demo video that is on their site and it looks pretty cool.  As I said before, I will spend some time with Google Reader and give them a fair chance and maybe I will grow to like them.  About half or so of my Friendfeed user contacts also use Google Reader.

The big argument is that Twitter has become so main stream and on practically every news talk show around while Friendfeed has so many more features.  They are arguing whether Friendfeed will ever overtake Twitter.  I think as of right now, I use Twitter the most.  I also use Twitter to update Facebook.  Friendfeed was the first to be able to allow posting stories, messages and allowing others to post messages to them.  Facebook had included that feature lately and I love that.  Friendfeed now has a notifier so you can read your Friendfeed messages right on your desktop.

I love the live updates on Friendfeed though it is very fast if you follow a lot of people.  If you follow a lot of people, you may want to use the filters or you are going to have a headache trying to follow all the information scrolling across your screen.  The incoherence of this post is a classic example of the information overload.  I am typing this at the same time while listening to the Gilmore Gang podcast, and reading the Friendfeed posts as they pop up on the bottom right side of the screen on the notifier.  I truly love it though I remember the nature and anonymity of Friendfeed in the past where it is very easy to be attacked in a very vicious manner if you post something that is not very popular.  If you have thin skin then you may want to be careful what you post because people are very aggressive when they disagree with  you. 

At the moment, Twitter and Facebook are leading the pack and looking at current trends I would say that Friendfeed would never take the lead.  I do know enough to know that you cannot judge by current trends because there was a time when Google was a small part of Yahoo before Google really took off.  There was a time when America Online dominated the online world and most people thought they would never be surpassed in the online world.  Over time you never know what is going to take off.  All I know is that in the last couple of hours since I saw the new beta Friendfeed, and seeing the rate of information flow, I am scratching my head in amazement.  On this one story, there are new posts appearing at a rate of about two per second.  Absolutely amazing real time information.  If you are one of those that must read every post you will find yourself mesmerized and hypnotized by the information overload.

You could literally spend 24 hours a day on Friendfeed where every news story in the universe is streaming across your screen from both political spectrums at the same time.  You could find yourself involved into a religious or political fight in seconds on Friendfeed.  I do like it though because it allows you to see both perspectives on virtually any topic you can think of.  As I said before you could be in a hostile environment easily so you need to be prepared for that.  Don’t let me give you the idea that everyone is ugly and unfriendly on Friendfeed because that is not the truth.  I am just saying there are thousands of people that actively follow these threads 24 hours a day and anyone can see it.  Due to the very nature of its fast and capable social connection, your posts are read very fast and responded to within seconds at times. 

Again, I think this is an amazing interface and destined to go far.  This has only been out a few hours and the traffic is just phenomenal.  Despite this, I am not likely to try to get all my friends to go to Friendfeed because it took me forever to get some of them to go to Facebook and Twitter.  I love all of them but some people do not like all the overload.  As people drift over, I will add them.  I use all three because there are different audiences.  If you are inclined to try these types of toys, then give it a try.  My Friendfeed URL is http://beta.friendfeed.com/paulmccord.  The one thing that makes Twitter so popular is the SMS, or text messaging feature.  This would be virtually impossible on Friendfeed due to the enormous amount of information. 

Again, I would like to apologize for the incoherence of this post, because I have too much information going on at the same time.  I hope you give it a try and see how you like it.  I think you will be hooked in no time.

“Twitter!”

This post was though meant to be a joke, actually made it on Techmeme, along with about every other tech hobbyist’s site including mine.  I wasn’t sure exactly what it was about until I read his Twitter page.  I would not have posted about it myself except that I love Twitter.  This Memorial Day weekend was a perfect example of how wonderful Twitter is.  We went to Lake Eufaula this weekend to visit with my father in-law.  Although I did have a great time, I was missing my connected life with the Internet.  Even on the third floor of his house, I could not receive any wifi at all.  I felt like a smoker trying to survive the first day of no smoking.  At least I could send and receive Twitter messages through SMS on my cell phone.  Even at the water I could stay in touch with those friends that I have online.  Call me an Internet Junkie but this started way before the Internet.  As a ham radio operator of 25 years, I have been accustomed to communicating to remote places.  Now that the Internet has so many communication tools, it fits right in with me.

As always, you can follow me and my happenings by following my Twitter page.  These tools are becoming so widespread that more and more aggregate readers are coming along.  The newest one that seems to be the rage is Friendfeed.  With this new toy, it creates a news feed with all your Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, Youtube, Flicker, Tumblr, among others.  It is pretty nice as you can see my Friendfeed page here.  With Friendfeed, you can keep in touch with all the social actions a person makes on the Internet.  It seems to be pretty cool.  My favorite is still Twitter because of the SMS (text messaging) capability and it automatically updates my Facebook status.  I like that I can get messages through Skype, Flock, Google Talk (ughh).  If you get tired of all my new toys, you can just follow me on my Friendfeed page because it shows them all.  I guess I have sold out for these new toys and love to be able to communicate while mobile.  I just wish I could settle on just one.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: socialnetworking, Twitter, Pownce, Flickr, Friendfeed, Tumblr, Skype, Flock, Google Talk, Facebook, SMS

Can you imagine sneaking up on yourself and punching yourself? I guess that is what Jim Carey did in Me, Myself, and Irene. Anyway, I really like the food fight application. So fare I have been hit with a hamburger, chocolate sauce and nachos.