Does something’s value really increase because of a recommendation from a trusted source or association with someone else or with some organization?

I’ve been thinking about the idea of how someone’s recommendation, sponsorship, or support can make you seem better than you might actually be. Conversely, name recognition is a form of social proof. I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s Small Is The New Big which includes one of his blog posts, Placebo Affect, The. The post contains the following phrases which triggered some more thinking:

“Why do some ideas have more currency than others? Because we believe they should.”

We’re going to talk about the power of context, reputation, and sponsorship in this blog post because if you don’t believe that they have a meaningful effect on bolstering your social media profile, or your profile in any field of interest, you need to think again.

Continue reading ‘Context, Reputation, and Sponsorship FTW!’ »

Is it at all possible that all of these social media/Web 2.0 toys that some of us love to talk about and use may herald something bigger to come? Could a science fiction novel from 1989 be painting a picture of things that really could come?

Rex Hammock, who someone on Twitter once compared to the Web’s version of Walter Cronkite (which I would consider to be high praise), made the following quick comment on Twitter on June 28:

“FriendFeed, Twitter, Seesmic et al, are pointing in the direction of something. They aren’t the destination.”

This lead to an interesting discussion on FriendFeed about just what that something is. A number of people speculated on the future in terms of the current toolsets that we have.

Let me take a drink of the magic KoolAid and speculate a bit further, as inspired by one of my favorite science fiction novels, Hyperion. Continue reading ‘Hyperion – a different vision of the Web’ »

I’ve created an account on Swurl to see what it’s all about.

I apologize in advance, this isn’t one of those organized and professional reviews, it’s a collection of thoughts.

Things I like: Continue reading ‘Swurl – somewhere between FriendFeed and Tumblr’ »

DON’T PANIC!

As we continue to wonder about the best uses of social media and such, it’s interesting to check out what author Douglas Adams, the author of the stupendously successful Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy phenomenon, had to say about the Internet back in 1999:

Here’s an excerpt:

I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Someone linked to this on either FriendFeed or Twitter a few days ago – I forget who exactly. At any rate, it’s good enough to share. Plus, I hadn’t realized that Douglas Adams had this website, which is cool.

The full text of Adams’s Internet article is here.

Share and enjoy.

I’m going to stick my nose into the Feldman/Israel situation. Sort of. Actually, I’m going to suggest a better use of everyone’s time. It would be for a charitable cause and it would promote social media to boot. Everyone wins.

If anyone is wondering who Loren Feldman or Shel Israel are and what the big deal is about them, Mathew Ingram has written a good summary of their situation. Suffice it to say that the two have exchanged words in public forums and both claims that the other has done hurtful things that have caused different kinds of harm. And puppets were involved. Continue reading ‘With great social media power should come great responsibility’ »

Blogging is a way to promote yourself and your ideas. By regularly publishing creative output, you put yourself out for ongoing scrutiny. But what if you aren’t the type of person who likes to do that? Is there an inherent contradiction between the practice of blogging, and social media in general, and introversion? Does it make sense to put yourself into the public eye? What’s the benefit? Continue reading ‘Is blogging for the introverted soul?’ »