Yesterday marked our fourth edition of Thinkup App Talks, a growing community I'm proud to be a part of. Among the core developers are two people I've followed for a while, Gina Trapani @GinaTrapani and Andy Baio @waxpancake, but there are many others I've met in the past few months who are bright, interesting, diverse people, excited to be a part of this effort. We all gather on the IRC channel #thinkup on irc.freenode.net which you can join via the web at http://lnx.so/tuirc.

Thinkup is an application that is installed on a server. Thinkup has a plugin architecture which will allow many new possibilities, but the first and most basic thing Thinkup does is monitor your Twitter feed, saving all posts you make. It then finds mentions of you and replies, calculates and displays interesting statistics about following and follower numbers and how they vary over time. Thinkup also has displays of posted photos, Google Maps display of replier locations and retweets and much more. There is a Facebook plugin that will follow activity on multiple Facebook pages of which you are a fan. If you are a fervent user of Twitter, be sure to take a look!

Information on how to install, configure and run Thinkup is here. There is a plan brewing to offer hosted Thinkup, which is in my opinion, a very good idea for those who don't run servers. This is the equivalent of using Wordpress.com for your blog. All the setup, management, housekeeping, updates, etc. are taking care of by this managed system. Here is our latest chat with Gina and Thinkup Community:

Thinkup App Talks, April Edition by Thinkup

I had a phone meeting set up with a new member of an agency's team, someone I've never met. After the obligatory Google, following the Linkedin profile link gave me the official bio and career info. But it wasn't until I looked up his Twitter account that I got to the more human factors. I saw that he joined Twitter a relatively short time ago, that he has posted a few hundred times since then, that he is on a small number of lists, has a small number of friends and even smaller number of followers, and his last post was two weeks ago. This would be a typical example of the average "ham sandwich" Twitter user, but since he's in Internet technology and has been for years, it surprised me. It was even more enlightening to look at the posts, absorb the interests, the level of acumen (how links are shared, use of @, RT, via), the choice of retweets and people he follows. Looking at this, you almost know the person, or at least one or two facets of the personality.

As opposed to Facebook, which will not be so revealing unless you "friend" the person, Twitter gives you a lot of the essentials of "knowing" someone without meeting them, without friending them, and without them knowing you looked at it at all.

Consultants have the hardest job in the world.

Why? Well, the work is often based on trying to help someone audit, improve or fix their work. The first step in fixing something is realizing it needs to be fixed, which means we have to criticize. However constructive, criticism isn't easy. A good advisor will always try to explain in detail the basis for decisions concerning content and strategy.

First, you'll hear about how many people told them they liked the current (or previous) work. No one ever stops to think that 99% of the time, people will want to tell you something nice about your work (except if they are paid consultants).

Second, no one wants to hear that their baby is ugly. It's devilishly difficult to make people understand that what they see is not what the average visitor coming to see their site, Facebook page or watching a Twitter stream wants to see. Logs don't lie. Look at what people do on the site or how they interact on social media - they do interact, right? If they don't, your baby is probably uglier than you think.

Third, the people who provide the content and strategies might think they're doing a great job. They've been on Twitter for four months, Facebook for a year and armed with this experience, they think they know all they need to make things happens in the best possible way, right? Not. A consultant, the one who's job it is to beautify your baby and fix the personality of your communication, probably has several accounts. The view that a private individual has after being on Twitter and Facebook and reading all the literature is not much experience at all, really. The consultant has deep statistics of multiple projects in the same area of interest (such as wine) and so has a view that no individual can have. There are many tools out there, some free, some not, that help analyze and improve all facets of your presence.

Fourth, anyone with a view of a single project doesn't have the global vision to know how they're doing compared to standards. Twitter numbers and Facebook fans are such a tiny part of the equation that they're really not worth counting, unless they're extremely low. Even then, if the interaction is there, the magic can happen, developing slowly.

Fifth, the language of "Welcome in my Web Site" or awkward grammar tweets make the whole thing look amateurish. If this is supposed to be "communication", is it wise to use your niece to do the translations? She's adorable and smart, but she probably doesn't have the chops to create the right impression in 140 characters. In person, no one minds an accent or a few grammar mistakes, but in writing, it's there for the world to read, day after day. Get a professional, native speaker to translate.

Sixth, don't shoot the messenger, listen to the message. Yes, you are paying someone to help you accomplish specific goals. Advisors are always open to discussion of what they observe or suggest, but should you pay for advice and then disregard it?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Remember, there is one you, but there are millions of beholders.

 

I registered for Facebook in January 2007. I can't find the exact date I asked to leave, but it was probably later that year, around October. Much to my surprise, Facebook had no way to actually delete an account, you could only deactivate it. That meant, you couldn't log in but your data, all photos, anything you'd ever posted was going to remain with them. I emailed Facebook about this and was told that it was "very complicated" for them to remove my personal data. "You might want to come back." I kept up a two-week discussion with Facebook which ended with them claiming to have removed all of my data, although I have no way of knowing this was true.

I believe today, three years later you can delete your account, although I still don't know what happens to your data. I do know that Facebook, while it may be fun and even useful, is not what I want. Without going into a point by point, I don't see the benefit of adding a stream of personal data to a corportate entity so they can make money (which they need to do to stay in business) by selling it to other commercial entities. I don't feel the distractions of popup suggestions as an advantage to me. I'd much rather have friends tell me specifically what they're doing, and discover things serendipitously by talking to people and using my own prejudices filters that give each friend a credibility weight.

Here is why someone else says he canceled his FaceBook account. Quote: "a large part of what I have to do on Facebook now is adapt to their changes on their terms. This is unacceptable to me, especially when I don’t see the website adding significant benefits."

As soemone who has followed technology since a very early age, I love the idea of always being connected to multiple streams of communication, yet a don't get a good feeling from Facebook. Quite the contrary, I see Facebook as a huge, very media-rich forum of the kind I abhor in the wine or tech world.  I realize many people love it, including some who are far from newbies or technophobes. What I also observe though, is that the most clueless people I know are big on Facebook and they love friending a large number of people without regard to quality.

I think the number of very close friends, the ones you'd do almost anything for, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The next wave might have between 10 and 50 people you know well. When tese numbers get into the hundreds and thousands, it isn't Dunbar's number that worries me, it's the fact that it becomes CRM or in this case ARM: Acquaintance Relations Management.

As a kid, I was ostracized and hung out with other "misfits" of
society. Several of these have gone on to do pretty big things, like
signing Prince to his first contract, producing and recording big
names in the music business, founding important and flourishing tech
companies to name a few. All of us share one thing, we didn't follow
the crowd and so were classified (in high school) as uncool nerds.

Decades later, what comes out clearly is that the nerds have mostly
accomplished interesting and sometime important things, where the
followers who dressed in the latest fashion (remembering my cuffless
pants makes me squirm a little) and were so cool have mostly not done
much. It's important to note in passing that a lot of people who were
NOT ostracized and who were in fact pretty popular also went on to do
great things, but most important to my point is, they weren't above
talking to the likes of us nor did they make fun of anyone.

Humanity will always be full of followers, so many pilot fish around
the leaders, whether this is in the FriendFeed echo chamber, the
Twittersphere or just in high school. If you haven't got the qualities
to dare to differ, you probably won't do as well in life as those who
do. Although I admire Godin's Tribe thing, I also caution people that
the whole thing can also be seen as a pyramid scheme where someone has
to pay (follow) and someone has to lead (be followed).

Pilot fish photo from http://bilder.peter-koelbl.de

Isn't social networking great? It can be, anyway. It's fun and it
feels good, mostly. It can advance your business, get you help by
"crowdsourcing", give you a Zen-like feeling about being part of the
universe. The Internet has fulfilled many of my own dreams and gone
beyond them in some ways.

 I have had the chance to interact in a meaningful way with authors of
technical books I bought, ask questions, get answers, and give them
valuable feedback. I have also taken the trouble to post a few reviews
of expensive technical books, when I thought it was a good idea to
warn people off buying them. While this wasn't a service to the author
of the bad book, it is to the prospective buyers. I have also met many
interesting people in person after getting to know them online. We've
all had these experiences, positive, enriching, win-win situations,
often turning into friendships.

 So what am I bitching about? The Internet is but a reflection of human
nature with a bit of a magnifying glass effect since people will often
be a little more extreme knowing they're not risking being punched
out, slapped or - and this is the big one - not going to be re-invited
to the party. Social networking over the last few years, has created
one type of person I am totally tired of seeing appear everywhere:
the user.

 Everyone knows that on Twitter, for example, you at least occasionally
will re-tweet someone you know or suggest them as worthy of following.
You scratch my back, and I scratch yours, the French call it "sending
the elevator back". On forums, you'll try to come up with useful
answers to queries, share your experience and refrain from always
tooting your own horn. Unfortunately, there are always people who
somehow don't get the party beyond self-promotion. They just use the
media, which doesn't bother as much as when they use people.
Eventually, this grates on the most patient people's nerves. Sure, you
can ignore the borderline spam, but then it interferes with the
efficient reading of a discussion.

 Do you know anyone who constantly answers every forum post with an
invitation to join her site and post content there (thus enriching her
content capital free)? I see this constantly from one specific person
ona forum I frequent. Now here's the punchline: you know who I'm
talking about, right? Yet, we're probably not thinking of the same
person at all, because it's a personality type, not just a unique
person. Not only do I avoid people who promise you the moon and suck
up content from you, but I recommend to real friends they stay away
from these media vampires. The world keeps getting smaller and
eventually the users will be cornered and lynched, metaphorically
speaking.

At the end of a hard day, we like to look at 100% fantasy from the heavy Millenium to the light and airy The Pretender. What made me think of the Pretender just now was the opening sequence:

There are Pretenders among us. Geniuses with the ability to become anyone they want to be.

You don't need to be a genius to invent yourself on Twitter, but a little creativity goes a long way. I've been reading through countless 140-character bios of Twitter users, and it's pretty amazing what you find. The Pretender opening line popped into my head while reading some them. My own profile is pretty pedestrian, basically a list of my interests. What is fascinating is how people re-invent themselves in the mini bios.
 
I wonder if in a few years there will be psychology majors pumping out doctorates about how people fashion their personae on social networks (regardless of which social networks survive). [By the way, it's pretty amazing that a spell checker in my mail client knew the plural of persona, don't you think?]
 
How's Second Life doing? I have the impression it's faltering. Are companies leaving? Talk about Pretenders though, that's the place to invent yourself from A to Z. Back to Twitter, less is more is definitely true of much great art, but are all artists good at minimalism?
 
Here are a few comments I have about Twitter:
 
I don't care how many people are following me or how many read this Posterous series nor do I care how many people follow the people I follow. What I care about is the quality of connectivity. Can we have a short conversation of some kind? I just had three or four this morning. Actual thoughts and ideas were exchanged. The numbers are only important for the Pretenders among us.
 
If you have SEO, diva, expert and other like words in your bio, I know you are not of interest to me. You see, you are no better or worse than me or anyone else on Twitter. Calling yourself a diva or an expert marks you as a one of the Pretenders among us. My step mom used to say, "He who says, doesn't know. He who knows, doesn't say." You're one in a sea of Pretenders, humility and sincerity are in order.
 
When you auto-DM followers with "Check out my site" you are being like the people that come up to you on the street and try to talk you into their religion. This is an insult, in the one case because the religious claim to have a monopoly on the Truth and on the other because I've been on the Internet long enough to find your site if I'm interested. The auto-DM thing comes from the Pretenders among us.
 
You can be a successful Pretender on Twitter, but you won't be among me for long.