Paul O'Flaherty

Social Media Douchebags! Who tops your list?

One thing that bothers me about social media and this entire web 2.0/3.0/stardate 7265.39 climate that we have today is the number of self professed “experts” and “gurus” out there.

I’ve been around the web since pretty much the beginning and if there is one thing I am not, it’s an expert at all this stuff. I never will be. It’s a continually changing landscape with constantly emerging technologies and challenges and in order to get ahead in this, you are on a constant learning curve.

Perhaps, the one thing I do have however, is experience and from that perspective I can tell you, that the vast majority of “experts” are little better than the snake oil salesmen of the 1900’s and televangelists (because for some reason their omnipotent and all powerful god always needs your money!).

Let’s be honest, the vast majority of people involved in the social media/marketing game are just out their to make a quick buck at your expense. The web (and I bet your town) is full of intelligent, highly talented and proficient people, who are willing to give you, for free, their advice, time and help for little more than the chance to network and meet new people and friends.

(As a side note Social Media/Marketing = Social + Media, or Social and Media, or S&M! Think about it!)

Right, let me get to my point here.

Over a year ago, Kevin Dixie (of FuelMyBlog) and I were discussion the fact that all of the social networks always have a list of people you are recommended to follow when you join (or worse yet a list of people automatically added to your friends list) and the fact that this is just plain unfair.

A lot of these people are there, well, because they are on somebody else’s list, which inflated their “popularity” enough that the next site to come along says “Well, they’re on the Facebook/Twitter/Friendster list, that means they should be on ours!”

See where I’m going with this?

You have a situation where the vast majority of “popular” people are either artificially inflated (and not just in terms of their numbers, think silicone), are trying to sell you something, or are involved in obsessive compulsive circle-jerking with other marketers and “experts”.

So what does this have to do with Kevin, or even with you? I’m only stating what we all know already!

Well, here’s the kicker, back when Kevin and I were having that discussion we considered making a “Social Media Douchebags” list.

Basically an “anti-recommended” list.

A list of marketers (@mike_wesely),  trolls (@arrington), people who don’t even bother to write their own stream (@guykawasaki), and bleached blonde wannabes (@ijustine “I am the internet”? What all your ports or open or anybody can log on?) who consider themselves “stars” just because they have a large number of followers. A list of people who take your time, flood your stream and give little back. A list of people who are only popular because of the sheep mentality (@aplusk, @oprah)!

Today I propose that the list finally gets built.

If you’ve got someone you love to hate add their twitter address in the comments below and say why. Over the next few days I’ll sort and compose the list together (giving credit to all and adding in the reasons why!) and post the “name and shame” list of douchebags here.

Maybe then some of these people will stop what they’re doing, change their practices and I don’t know… stop being douchebags?

Who’s on your list of “Social Media Douchebags” and why?

Liz Strauss: Looking for a SM teacher is like night driving without lights

Apparently “Experts and Gurus aren’t necessarily the best social media teachers!”, yep, Liz, you’re have a Diana Troy moment there! Obvious much?

To be fair to Liz, she did write that post 8 months ago but, as evidenced by my twitter stream, this morning, not much has changed since:

RT @fantomaster: If you think you understand science (or computers, or women), you’re clearly not an expert #murphystechnologylaws (or SM?)

In her post Liz gives every budding social media enthusiast a list of traits to look out for when deciding which social media mentors or teachers you should follow:

• Count Internet years. 3 years experience is entry level in the concrete world. It can be extensive experience within Internet time.
• Check for depth. A deep understanding will show itself in the ways a person can describe the culture of the Internet, how it shifts, and how the values of social media worth within and against the values of ecommerce. Look for understanding how how social media as a piece of a comprehensive marketing / customer plan.
• Check for skill set. Even though the teacher may not be the person who’ll be executing the plan, he or she should be well versed in using the tools.
• Check the breadth, particularly the individual’s networks. Social media is business based in influence, relationships, and connections. Discuss how the networks match up to your business and its goals.
• Get the facts. Ask for cases and social media initiatives this person actively led.

Needless to say, muggins here has a few issues with that list, so lets get cracking.

1. “Count Internet Years”. I really don’t think that any measure of time is viable. My grandmother has two laptops, been using computers and the internet for years, has a facebook account, stalks checks up on me on twitter, shops online, streams missed TV shows, has more email accounts than I have fingers on my left hand and still can’t email a webpage to me. Years count for nothing.

It’s about interest not time. Like the college graduate with a great education who still can’t read basic English because they’re lazy and self absorbed.

2. “Check for depth”. How can you check for depth of understanding when you have nothing to compare it to?. If you could truly gauge the depth of somebody’s understanding of a medium, you would probably not require their services.

3. “Check for Skill Set” – Again, same problem. You can’t gauge what skills are needed until you are well engaged in the learning of process and by then you’d already know if the person mentoring you is worth it or not (unless you’re a sheep).

4. “Check the breadth, particularly the individual’s networks” – 50000 followers on twitter will look impressive to anybody who doesn’t understand and is looking to learn.

5. “Get the facts. Ask for cases and social media initiatives this person actively led.” Leading or involvement in social media initiatives is so ridiculously easy to fake, bluff or just flat out lie about that it’s just not possible. Again, discerning whether or not such initiatives have actually taken place is beyond the scope of most people looking for a social media teacher.

The simple point of all this, is that marketers, “experts”, “gurus”, chancers, scam artists, douchebags and folk just out to make a quick buck, rely on the fact that the naive, noob, newbie, 1st time curious, person looking to learn about social media generally cannot recognize the things you are telling them to look for.

That’s why they look for a teacher in the first place and is also why SM “explorers” have such a bad name on the net.

95% percent of so called “social media people” are selling snake oil.

Dear Oprah – I’ve got but one life…

Oprah, I know you’ve got all the money in the world.

I know that, among your legions of slavering idiot sheep stalkers loyal fans, you’d have more than a few who would willingly lay down their lives for you and allow you to have your brain transplanted to their body so you could continue to share your bullshit brilliance, should you kick the bucket something unfortunate happen.

But please, don’t assume that I, or anyone else, has access to your money, kidnappers or legions of brainwashed idiots fans to facilitate an eternal life.

Quite frankly, I find your twitter bio offensive:

Live Your Best Life

Us mere mortals have but one life, there is no best or worst!

Is FAIL Blogs new background advertising a major FAIL?

We’ve been seeing this new style of advertising appearing on a number of sites lately, but it was seeing it on Fail Blog this morning that really set me to thinking about it.

Basically what’s going on, is that the entire background of the site is being used as a static advert, in this case for Spore Galactic Adventures, see the screen grab to see what I mean.

I know that the guys behind Fail Blog have every right to monetize their site, as does everyone, however I can’t help but wonder if such advertising is a cop out?

In this day and age of target advertising, which while not always as targeted as it may be, it is to me at least, a hell of a lot more desirable than some billboard style advert that I honestly couldn’t care less about.

I can’t help but think that maybe this type of advertising is selling out and a step too far! I also think that the sheer size and nature of it destroys the visual branding and recognition factor of the site.

Would you use such adverts on your own site?

Caught on the job

I took a bit of a break this morning from the usual working on web projects to do some electrical and building work.

At this point I’m really hoping that nobody decides to turn the power back on at the fuse box!

RSS Advertising on blank posts! Sponsored by FAIL!

I’ve got absolutely nothing against advertising appearing at the bottom of posts in RSS feeds (I use them myself), but what really gets me wound up tighter than a homophobes asshole in a gay bar, is when publishers feel the need to fill their feeds with multiple blank posts just to display adverts.

I appreciate that most publishers and bloggers want to get paid for their content, to monetize their sites or simply feel rewarded for the effort they put in, but lets be honest, if there is no content then why the heck are you asking me to look at your adverts?

It was the RSS feed from FAIL Blog (which I love btw) that set me off about this today, but they are just one of many culprits that I see everyday in my feed reader!

I can’t even see how these empty posts provide any value to the publisher as all they make me do is skip over them quickly and sometimes even unsubscribe.

How about you? What do you think of empty posts in RSS feeds just to display adverts?

YouTube has PMS

Well that explains everything. Sara sent me a couple of links a few minutes ago to YouTube videos to check out for posting on Daily Shite.

Strangely, none of them would load, then I looked down at the bottom left hand corner of my browser and everything became clear:

Waiting for pms.youtube.com…

The only vanity URL that matters is yours!

Forget Facebook, forget MySpace, forget Twitter. 

When it comes to branding yourself, when it comes to being found online, when it comes to making your mark on the internet the only URL that really matters is your own URL.

By that I mean the one that is your domain, your website or blog, your corner of the web.

Not your name on somebody else’s piece of the web, but your own place. Yours!

A sense of identity is important to all of us and the minds behind companies like Facebook know this.

They offer personalized URLs as a means to provide us with this sense of identity, with this sense of ownership, but they neglect to tell you that the sense of identity will be fleeting and that the sense of ownership is, at best, an illusion.

Companies come and go! How many social networks have risen and fallen in the past few years?

The crowd is fickle and when they move on to the next big thing, as they inevitably do, the networks die off, taking with them your content, your identity and everything you thought you owned.

As Anil Dash said in his post a few days ago, “Exclusive, the future of Facebook Usernames”:

A first wave of "It’s alive! Go get your name!" posts go up on various technology blogs, noting that the service is running a little bit slow. None of these posts mention that you can also register a real domain name that you can own, instead of just having another URL on Facebook.

If you really want to carve out your place on the web you have to secure your own domain and preferably your real name (not some made up name that you may not want, or may not fit 5 or 10 years down the road).

With your own domain you can have your own space on the web, where you are in control and you own everything. Nobody can take it away, nobody can change the rules, it’s your identity and your place.

Once you have that, run off and get your Facebook vanity URL (and again, choose one that identifies you and will still be valid in 5 years time – remember you are your brand) and use it to drive traffic to your domain and while you’re at it, aggregate your content from social networks into your domain so that you have it forever and always.

Make your mark. Claim your own territory on the web! Make it so that when your name is typed in on a search engine, it’s not some social network that comes up first, but you.

Your name, your domain, your identity. You!

Once you’ve secured “you” then it’s time to make friends!

WordPress 2.8 takes a step backwards

The brand spanking new version of WordPress (2.8) was released today and while it contains a multitude of improvements, bug fixes, new features and speed enhancements (see the codex for a complete list), in the few minutes I’ve spent playing with it I have noticed at least one major step backwards in terms of usability.

In the previous version of WP, the plugin page separated the plugins into groups such as “Active”, “recently active” (or was it recently deactivated) and “Deactive”.

This made it really easy to see at a glance which plugins you were using and which ones could be deleted, (or that your lazy ass could simply not be bothered upgrading).

Anyway, the new 2.8 release of WordPress reverts to what the functionality was like in even older versions of WordPress, which is simply listing all your plugins alphabetically in one group, regardless of if they are active or not.

This sucks and is a definite step backwards in terms of the UI of the WordPress Dashboard.

You can download WordPress 2.8 from WordPress.org.

UPDATE: Rowan Price points out that in 2.8 you can filter the plugins by status.

While this is possible, and just a click away, I still think it’s a step backwards in usability.

Eddie Izzard Star Wars Cantina

Eddie Izzard does what is perhaps the funniest Star Wars skit of all time.

Laporte puts the troll… er Mike Arrington in his place.

What can I say, except I Leo Laporte (from TWiT) has made my day.

Thank you Leo, it’s about time someone put Mike Arrington (TechCrunch) in his place.

Leo, I applaud you!