Been busy since last night. Reading. Writing. Updating my internet presence. Streamline. Streamline. Streamline.
Couldn’t sleep. Now I am tired, but I feel like I should just plow through the day. Reading manuscripts for Write Bloody takes the wind out of you. Some damn good writers out there.
CLEANING UP MY INTERNET FOOTPRINT
I’ve been thinking a lot about how completely reliant I am of the internet these days. Not that I haven’t been pretty reliant over the past 11 years, it just seems that with so many social networks out there and so many apps available to stay tuned, turned-on, and tempted, I am using the web more throughout my day. Especially now that I use my BlackBerry for so many daily (every)things, I seem to easily forget that it’s all web all the time.
What I use most for networking:
• Gmail/G-apps
• Facebook
• Twitter*
• LiveJournal
• WordPress for my website
These are all also accessible from my BlackBerry thanks to apps. This makes things very, very easy, but not uncluttered and litter free…
To me, there is way too much “web-litter.“ Web-litter (litternet?) is electronic ephemera that exists because it is too easy to create, and does nothing to move your intended web experience along, becoming what I would also call a “yellol light“ (get it? yel-lol) well before a necessary red light stop point. Web-litter is NEVER quality information. If it has an intellectual value, then it cannot be rubbish. Trivial information is fine, as long as it is still info. Web-litter is useless.
I don’t know why I wish the web weren’t so cluttered, but to be honest, what killed Myspace for me were those UGLY "glittery" images of "Happy Valentine’s Day!" with a teddy bear holding a heart, or a 4-leaf clover and a leprechaun wishing me a "Happy St. Patty’s Day!" Fuck Valentine’s Day. Fuck St. Patty’s Day. Do some research. They’re both wack and offensive. I despised seeing new digi-glittering jpegs as comments on my page. They look horrendous and it made me de-friend people because that’s all they ever did. They never actually sent me a message or left text comments. What’s the point in staying?
Imagine the web represented by people and places you know. Someone you trust and rely on very much is your email account. Maybe your journal is your greatest living confidant, and Facebook is a café someone told you everyone you know goes to, and so you either live there or avoid it like plague. (Now that I think about it, it’s more like a strange voyeur café where we can come and watch people without them knowing… Creepy.)
Web-litter would be the most annoying people ever. Ever. Constantly bombarding us with shit, lol-crap and terds. I have created my share of web-litter, but I want to stop.
MY EXAMPLE PLAY
WEB-LITTER HUMAN EQUIVALENT: Hey, McGee! Look at this picture of this cat! I added this misspelled caption to it to make it cute!
ME: Get the fuck away from me. You just ruined my stride. My mom says we can’t play anymore.
FIN
I bring all this up because I know so many lazy people out there who aren’t doing shit aside from creating and trading this shit. Don’t support it, especially when you have other shit to do!
DO YOU HAVE A WEBSITE? ("No, but I have EVERYTHING ELSE.")
I get so frustrated with people, especially other poets, who have a dozen or so different web-networks to be seen, heard and contacted. I am floored that there are any poets who want to make a solid living at touring or get their name and work out there and still do not have their own website. Just do some research – invest a little cash – and you’ll see that it’s pretty easy to get your own site up and running. WordPress is a great place to start. I host my WordPress site on 1and1.com. I hear GoDaddy.com is very user friendly and inexpensive. I’m sure people can comment with other awesome web hosting services.
EDIT: When I was touring festivals with T.O.F.U., I talked to a lot of producers and record label types. I asked them what they look for in an act aside from skill and stage presence. They said they wanted awesome people who believed in themselves. They paid more attention to acts who knew their own aesthetic and had a solidly designed web presence, and very specifically, their own website. It didn’t matter what it looked like, since any label would revamp it anyway. It was just that they could see that the act was willing to put money where their mouth was and do the work to be taken seriously. According to them, If the only place to listen to your work is on Myspace, and it’s been that way for years, then you probably have a long way to go and don’t actually intend to get there.
*TWITTER
I’ve been using it for a while and all I do is text the same message to Facebook as a status update and to Twitter as a tweet. Is Twitter just a whisper scream into a dark hallway in the hope that someone will respond? I get it and I see that it can be useful, but when I go to read other people’s shit, it’s text-based web-litter. I like the quasi-tangible responses on Facebook and LiveJournal. Maybe I don’t use it enough or maybe I’ve already exhausted all possibilities with Twitter.
How’s Myspace doing? Is it okay? Is it eating right? Do people go to visit?
–––––––––
Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 20 January, 2010 at 8:36 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged facebook, networking, personal, twitter, useless, web-litter, web-presence, website, wordpress. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
Actually, if you really want an odd perspective, take a look back at everything you’ve used online since you’ve been on.
Remember how freakin’ cool AOL was and how amazing that 56k modem was back in ’97?
Twitter
I’ve been working with Twitter for awhile as well, and I too am not seeing the vision of it’s greatness… I am not disparaging it (yet), but I have yet to see it become a great tool, either for personal or business use.
Re: Twitter
The only thing I seem to effectively use Twitter for is to follow amusing pseudo-celebrities. Otherwise, it’s not of much use.
MySpace, on the other hand, I use nearly daily for work, researching and communicating with bands.
This is a lot of good stuff to think about.
You put me in mind to self examine, and I will, but also a few thoughts:
1) personal life litter– I just don’t get all those “give someone a plant” or “decorate your wall” etc. on Facebook. And I especially hate that I may be construed a bad friend because I constantly ignore them.
2) ditto–forwards. My mom, whom I do love buckets, is a devotee; but mostly not as much to me anymore. And I hate that it hurt her feelings when I tried to explain.
3) work life litter–one newish, or growing, problem I have= the bezillions of sites that sell posters of paintings. When I am doing serious work research, they clutter up my artist searches with zero info. I haven’t figured out a way to screen them yet.
Re: Twitter
one may not see the effectiveness of twitter oneself, but the world has picked on. post shows as i’ve late, i have had just as many people if not more ask me if i’m on twitter as opposed to facebook.
yes ti can be used pointlessly to update people as to your need for sleep or what you are eating but the world is using it and how one chooses to dialogue with said world via the twitter tool is up to you and i believe only just barely being scratched. from what i’ve heard/gathered and believe, the majority of the crazy amount of donations for the haiti relief effort was and is due to phone texting and twitter.
i know a lot of us see twitter as an even more pointless networking tool but as i stated above, after recent shows i get more questions about my twitter account than my facebook presence. after my last show, which probably had a huge demographic of 15-25 year olds, within two days i had probably 100 new followers on twitter as compared to the 30-50 via facebook.
it dont matter if we believe in the possibilities of twitter, the kids love it and are on it.
I know! I remember my friend upgrading from a 14.8k, to a 28.8. We couldn’t believe how much “faster” his connection was, and thinking back on it, it must’ve taken 4 to 10 minutes to get on line.
I never had a AOL account that I remember. Working at Kinko’s (’00-’03), we’d get weekly shipment of AOL discs, shrink-wrapped individually with a cardboard sleeve and a display box for the counter. We’d put ‘em out for customers, but being Silicon Valley, nobody ever took them. Sort of blasphemous considering we were within a few miles of 20 or so much more efficient internet service porviders. So they became frisbees for us employees.
I wonder how many are still on the roof?
Re: Twitter
I think it is important to look at it as we can make it work for us, and not what it will do for us.
I think a lot of older users, and I put myself in that category too, approach the internet and especially social networks in a mode of, ‘Okay, I’ve signed up. I have my username. Now what? When does all the contacting start rolling in?”
You mean we actually have to do more and be productive, like in daily life. Yes.
I think I am understanding just how to make Twitter work for me. Read on.
Re: This is a lot of good stuff to think about.
If you search in Google, there is an “advanced search” link to the right of the text box. That can help a lot.
I have noticed that posting gigs on Twitter tends to draw out just as many people to events as Facebook does, with much, much less work and at about 20% of the reach.
It’s silly to delete my Twitter, it’s just a matter of using it more wisely.
How often do you actually communicate with people on it? And I mean back and forth for more than two three messages each?
Re: This is a lot of good stuff to think about.
True, but I haven’t been able to figure out a workable filter. I’ve tried to eliminate words like poster or reproduction, but it doesn’t help much. I don’t think there is a way to filter out internet vendors? I tend to do a lot in Google books, so no problem there. Also just been turned on to Google scholar…
This is definitley where I could see Twitter being of value, in the more immediate, “hey, come on out and see me” sort of vibe.
I also think that commenting on live shows might be a value, I have some additional ideas in mind, but I haven’t done any yet, so I have no results…
i dont use it for much of a communication tool, like a dialoguing tool. i’ve replied to folks via twitter maybe three or four time?
Re: Twitter
Yeah, I think that’s why I phrased it the way I did, because I seem unable to use it effectively. Which is weird because, like, I’m totally a social networking web site machine. I think some things just click with an individual and some don’t.
Then again, coming back around to MySpace when I was using it strictly for work was neat. Gave me a whole new appreciation for it, even if I can concede that ReverbNation is better.
I agree its silly to delete your Twitter — you don’t throw out a hammer just because you’re not using it. You put it back in the toolbox.
I think there’s a phenomenon around Twitter where not everyone engages with it the same. I think, if you have a high number of followers OR your followers are tightly packed in the same geographic area, then it might be helpful for promotion, but for some reason, it doesn’t quite work for me. Not the way Facebook does. But then, I’ve had that exact same conversation with someone who swears it works the other way, so surely, there’s some human variable in there.
I remember them sending the discs to us here in Ohio. Everyone had them hanging from trees in the winter as a cheap Christmas decoration.
But AOL was one of the only things we had over here in the Midwest. Of course we had problems because my parent’s home number was one digit off the dial-up access number and modems were misdialing constantly!
Reminds me of a similar phone number situation. In San Jose, Yellow Cab has a very distinct phone number, but it seems that it’s not distinct enough. The most common mis-dial calls an older couple.
Imagine the amount of calls they must get from drunk people looking for a cab? I did it once, needing a ride to the airport. It was 3am. They just answered with, “If you’re looking for a taxi, the number is…”
They were very courteous.
Mom would start calling people back, waking up parents, and asking if they knew what their children were doing.