Confessions of a Social Media Douchebag • Blanks & Postage • Accidental Entrepreneur & Live Music Junkie

Tumblr has enabled me build my own personal community. I’ve found more value in seeing strangers become friends rather than adding people I last saw 15 years ago in school as friends.

David Noel in response Bijan Sabet

I’ve been having a fun little spat with a very dear friend of mine about Facebook. I’m off Facebook and he still thinks it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. This quote explains in exact detail why I love Tumblr more than any feature that the platform has introduced and in general what I love about social media.

3 months ago Short URL 2 notes

Will Path stick around?

One month ago, I took another look at Path. I wasn’t thrilled when it launched a year ago. But Path 2 was a significant upgrade. Like everyone else, I was in love with the UI. But after playing around with it some more, I had similar feelings to Kirk:

So will a shiny top coat of slick sway folks toward Path? I don’t think so. There is a huge added obstacle that no one really mentioned while heaping all that pretty praise on Path. That is of course no one is really “on” Path yet. That’s a problem and makes the service none too valuable. Moreover, I along with a lot of other folks don’t want to have to set up yet another account then refollow, reinvite or find a bunch of new friends just so a service is of value. (Related, it’s why I’ve already deleted Oink.)

I too wasn’t ready to take on another social network, but that’s exactly what happened over the course of the last month. Why? It is replacing Facebook for me, sort of. It hopefully will be the place that I can share and experience the day to day with my close friends and family. Only sharing Path with close friends and family is a key for me and a lesson learned from Facebook. I don’t plan to use Path with business connections, old high school friends who I did not keep in touch with until Facebook, or people I converse with regularly on other social networks. In fact, I’ve already deleted some connections on Path because they fell in one of those categories. If that’s what happens, then Path will be not much different than Tumblr, Twitter, or Instagram. It also could become what Facebook turned into for me (and probably you too). As Mat Honan from Gizmodo puts it:

You’re not going to find as many people in there. And that’s the point. Path isn’t cluttered with self-promotional links or YouTube videos of sneezing cats. You’re not going to see plug in games. And that’s also the point. You’re not going to see the glurge and hurge of illiterate rage and hash tag garbage. There’s no bitching about not getting an iPad for Christmas. There’s no call to re-post this as your status. No obnoxious comments from your hyper-political third-cousin twice removed. There’s no tiresome, turgid competition for the best status updates as one-liners, or increasingly drunken series of 25 photos from last night’s party.

So besides replacing Facebook, why use Path?

I’m not going to focus on the beautiful UI. It speaks for itself. What I like most about Path are two key features. First, Path informs you when others stalk you. This is the best answer to the never-ending privacy questions about social media. Second, it’s all mobile. This will probably change, but like Instagram, your Path experience (with a couple minor exceptions) is 100% on the mobile phone. Knowing that I can’t access my Path from the web means one less distraction.

I know I’m not alone in my feelings about Path. Like me, I see more and more people trying out Path. This is a critical moment for their service. We’ll see if all of these early adopters stick around.

3 months ago Short URL 6 notes

Confessions of a Social Media Douche bag

This photo was taken by Chris Scott a little over a year ago. That’s the back of my melon as I was about to lead another Social Media Club of Charlottesville event.

My business doesn’t provide social media consulting, but we have developed several Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn apps for clients. I used to enjoy learning and even speaking about using social media for business. I attended Social Media Camp in NYC back in June of 2009. I left very motivated to start a chapter of SMC in Charlottesville and I did thanks to some other great people in the community.

Shortly after this photo was taken, my attitude towards using social media for business soured. With one exception last year (for my alma mater), my last speaking engagement on social media was December of 2010. I spoke about how to effectively set up a Facebook page even though I was struggling with my own use of Facebook both personally and professionally.

I realized back then that I was quickly becoming (or already became) one of those social media douche bags.

The tipping point came two months after this photo was taken. I invited Marc from Tumblr and Jeff from Mobelux to present at SMCCville. They had presented back at the first SMCCville event in August of 2008. The crowd back then was pretty sparse, but it’s what I expected. Tumblr wasn’t a household name in 2008. In 2010, I expected a much larger crowd. In addition, the first drink was on the house.

Unfortunately, about the same number (around 15) of people showed up that night. I was embarrassed. I believe the low turnout had to do with the fact that many people, especially in the small market of Charlottesville, weren’t using or planning to use Tumblr for business. At that point I knew that the Social Media Club wasn’t for me anymore. The personal connections I’ve made because of social media, especially Tumblr, is what I love about social networking. I’ve purchased gifts for others in need or donated to charities because of bloggers on Tumblr who I have never met or never will. It was this type of networking that I was hoping to highlight with the Social Media Club. But at some point during my 18 months at the helm, I was sucked into hosting, moderating, and speaking at events on how to blog, facebook, tweet, and use LinkedIn to better your business and career.

That event in February was my last SMCCville event. I deactivated my Facebook account (a couple times, but now I’m off for good) and started over with Twitter - following only people/accounts who tweet about things that make me smile. While I do find LinkedIn a useful tool for initial research in recruiting efforts, I find it totally useless beyond that. My use of Tumblr, of course, is still going strong. I’m kind of surprised, actually. I tired of Facebook after a couple of years. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Twitter until I started over recently. I never pay attention to LinkedIn unless my company is actively hiring. But I keep coming back to Tumblr for the same reason - the community.

And now I’m thankful that all those people I hoped would attend the Tumblr event a year ago didn’t show up. It’s those people, the people only interested in how to get more out of social media for their business, who I don’t want on Tumblr.

3 months ago Short URL 18 notes