Coffee on the Keyboard

On Monday, I deleted my Facebook account. A day before I hit the button, I posted a note letting people know where they could find me online if they wanted, and promising more of an explanation: here it is.

I’m a control freak. I run my own web servers, mail server, IRC server, CI server, SVN server, so I have control. If I could afford the colocation, I’d run them on my own hardware. Hell, if I could afford the bandwidth, I’d install a rack in my closet.

But most importantly, I want control of the data. My data.

Facebook recently made two changes to their service that signal a significant and frightening shift in their position on data—specifically who owns and has control over data. They automatically linked interests to public pages, and they introduced “Social Plugins and Instant Personalization.”

Until now, even if I decided to be permissive with my data, I still felt like I was in control of them on Facebook. With the new “connections” feature, as the EFF says, “Facebook users now face a Hobson’s choice between the new Connections and no listed interests at all.” I no longer have the option to share my data with the subset of people I know: either I share them with everyone, in particular advertisers, or I don’t post data at all.

I mention advertisers because they are most likely consumer of the vast quantities of aggregate data Facebook is creating with the new connections feature. Surely no individual will gain anything from knowing that several million people share their interest in Lady Gaga.

And until now, I had the ability to whitelist the applications with which I shared data. I routinely hit a wall as I browsed my friends’ activity, where I would be asked to choose between sharing my data with an application or not seeing its content. More often than not, I chose not to share, and live without the content.

This makes three things about the Instant Personalization onerous: the presumptive sharing with third parties; the shift to a blacklist, where I must specifically opt out; and the willingness to share data even if I have opted out in general.

• Facebook has decided that Yelp, Microsoft’s Docs.com, and Pandora should have access to my data. I was not part of that decision.
• If I opt out and turn off Instant Personalization, Facebook will still share my data with these third parties, if my friends choose to use their services. Again, I am not part of that decision.
• In order to prevent Facebook from sharing my data with them, I have to manually block each application. That’s annoying, but manageable when it’s just three applications, but it’s not scalable.

This is all scary. Facebook could not have made these changes if they honestly believed that I own my data, and they have access with my permission. These changes indicate that Facebook believes they own my data, and will do with them what they please, unless I go out of my way to ask them not to.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the protest groups that form on Facebook after every major change. Sure, Facebook staff are more likely to notice a Facebook group with 100,000 members than 100,000 individual blog posts, but in our socio-economic system, the real way to signal displeasure to a business is to stop using that business—the online equivalent of “voting with your wallet.”

So, like a few others, I’m taking my data and going home.

I’m willing to share my data with Facebook as long as I ultimately feel in control. It’s possible that I’ll come back to Facebook if they’re willing to not only fix these particular issues but also make it clear that I am ultimately in control of my own data. That doesn’t seem likely.

What do you think about Facebook, these changes, and your data? Let me know in the comments.

Facebook served as an aggregator of my activity online, and now all those aggregated feeds are alone and disparate again. I’m looking at turning jamessocol.com into a lifestream/aggregator to make up for it. I looked at Planet Venus but wasn’t thrilled with it. If you know of any cool software for that, let me know. Otherwise I’ll write something and play with things like Redis, Node.js, Tornado, and/or other neat stuff.

And yes, I know Tornado is from Facebook.

Robert Pondiscio started a great discussion on Twitter in the classroom over on The Core Knowledge Blog. In particular, I’m interested in one of his comments:

If someone invented a 21st century hammer it wouldn’t dramatically change the training and experience a contractor would need to build a house. Nor would anyone suggest that “tool fluency” is now the soul of carpentry. And so it is with information literacy. It dramatically expands access to information. It doesn’t change how we process it.

The emphasis is mine. Now, whether tools like Twitter or Today’s Meet are useful in classrooms is a broader discussion than I want to deal with right now*, but here’s a more specific question: does the way we access information alter the ways we process it? (more…)

If I could’ve sat down with Chris Brogan and Laura Fitton six months ago and asked them one thing, it would have been: “Who, exactly, are you marketing to?”

There has always been a small thorn in my paw about social media marketing. It’s the same thing that bothers me when people come on TV and promise to help make you rich. All you have to do is… sell a book that promises to make people rich! It’s the same feeling I get when I read Problogger and wonder: “Do I want to listen to advice from a blog about blogging? Would I do better to listen to someone like Jeff Atwood?” (more…)

There is an op-ed floating around Twitter today: As a social network, Twitter is a dud. Is it ironic that an article deriding Twitter is being spread on Twitter? Irony is so ill-defined.

Twitter is not for everyone, and I respect that, but the author, Alex Groves, seems to be basing his entire point of view on Ashton Kutcher. Alex claims (and this may well be true; I don’t know since I’m never on Facebook) that “[t]he only problem with all this twittering by celebrities and politicians is that they are on Facebook much more often.”

Based on this, Alex argues that Twitter is an “unnecessary” alternative to Facebook walls and warns that “[b]y spending more time on social networks and the Internet than we need to, we enable ourselves to become reclusive, sheltered from family and friends.”

What Alex is ignoring is that most people are not (just) following celebrities. If we look at the number of “following” relationships—even relatively inactive people often follow 30 or 40 others—the 1 million “follows” of Mr. Kutcher seems much, much less impressive.

What occurs to me, the more I see Twitter on newspaper websites and on the Today show, is that there are multiple communities within a larger community like Twitter.

On the very smallest scale, you may have a “community” of family and friends that are mostly following each other. You may have a TweetDeck group set up for them. That kind of mutual relationship leads to what Clive Thompson of the Times called “ambient awareness“. I would encourage Alex to read Mr. Thompson’s article, it might answer his question: “How does one know if his friends are OK?”

Now, Alex is absolutely right that spending too much time on the internet can take time away from other meaningful activities, like “enjoy[ing] a crisp, clean-smelling spring morning.” (With my allergies, I don’t think I have ever “enjoy[ed]” that.)

But the same could be said about almost any aspect of life. Too much time at work causes you to lose time with the family. Too much time away from work can make you lose your job. Too much time using computers can give you carpal tunnel.

On the large end of communities, I think you could classify several, such as “people interested in social networking,” “people interested in marketing,” “people interested in programming” (I’m in all three of these communities) “people interested in celebrities,” “people interested in news,” “people interested in <insert your special topic here>.”

I would argue that these communities reflect real-life relationships the same way the small communities do. A person who is more likely to read Us Weekly is probably more likely to follow more celebrities. A person who enjoys Britney Spears’ music is more likely to follow her. Just as I am more likely to make a joke about the word “const” on a construction sign, I am more likely to follow John Resig.

Alex asks, “[w]ith all the good we can do online, including disseminating information and spreading knowledge, why do we become obsessed with Britney Spears tweeting about playing with the boys on tour?”

I contend that the people Alex is really criticizing (surely many of the newest users) are the same people snapping up People at the checkout lane and watching TMZ in the mornings. Furthermore, he fails to recognize the rather large community of users that uses Twitter to share information and resources, follow the lives of people who may be emotionally, but not physically close, or generate other types of value.

The complaints he levies could—arguably should—be equally directed at Facebook, MySpace, several websites, magazines and TV shows. Alex is confusing “Twitter” with a culture of “celebrity worship.”

I argue that the people creating value off Twitter (and Facebook) are the same people creating it on Twitter. If all you follow on Twitter are celebrities, you obviously aren’t contributing much to that community’s conversation. On the other hand, if your community is broad, and includes peers, friends, family, then you have a unique opportunity to both benefit from, and provide benefit to, that community.

Fortunately, the way Twitter works, I don’t need to follow those celebrities. And neither do you, Alex.

Try these strategies to lose followers and waste your time on Twitter.

1) Have no name, photo, bio, or website.

Avoid looking like a real person at all, in fact. If you arbitrarily capitalize and ignore the 140 character limit, you can look even more like a robot.

These are at the top of your profile. The only things I know about you are your profile info and your last 20 tweets (last 4 or 5 if you don’t convince me to scroll down). That’s not much time to grab my attention and sell yourself to me. Don’t waste that precious “above the fold” space.

2) Follow 3,000 people before you bother updating.

This goes back to number 1. Bot-like behavior is definitely appreciated. It’s even better if you follow completely disparate people, like you just grabbed all the users off the public timeline for an hour.

If you have no followers and no updates, there’s no compelling reason to think you actually listen to any of those followers.  When you follow thousands of people, you’re devaluing every one of them. Yeah, there are some broadcasters who make a point to follow most of their followers, but getting @chrisbrogan’s attention is nearly impossible.

3) Never reply to or retweet anyone.

Make a point to ignore everyone you follow, especially if you follow thousands of people (see #2). If people think you’re listening to them, it gives them power over you.

If you think of Twitter as a one-way medium, you’re missing out. Interact with people and have conversations, or you’re slightly less interesting than a radio DJ. At least they take requests sometimes. Yeah there are broadcasters, @nytimes comes to mind, but if you think you’re the New York Times, you’re too delusional for me to care, anyway.

If you’re lucky, I’ll see 7 or 8 posts at the top of your profile. If none of those are replies, you might as well not not have any. Keep the dialog going.

4) Include Your URL in Every Tweet.

The two best uses of Twitter are to promote your own stuff and to drive up your Google rankings. Make sure every tweet has a link to you!

I will unfollow with extreme prejudice if I think your only goal is to drive people to your site. Twitter is not push marketing. Twitter is a community and a network. I will not visit your site, and Twitter puts rel="nofollow" on links. It’s a waste of time and its annoying.

Don’t share the same link over and over, don’t only link your blog, and don’t link yourself constantly. Do share good, new content, whether it’s yours or not.

5) Definitely Be Inconsistent.

Don’t post anything for two weeks, then dump seven or eight tweets in the space of an hour. It’s your job to keep your followers on their toes.

Whether I’m following you for fun (@dr_crane) or for information (@mashable) resist the urges flood and to go dark. Don’t be afraid to go to that meeting, take that long weekend away from the computer, or whatever it is that you do, but please don’t fill my entire stream when you come back. You really should keep some of those little tidbits in your head.

If you honestly discover 6 great things in 10 minutes, and want to share them all, then go for it. I’ll thank you. Short of that, try to rate-limit yourself.

That’s why I unfollowed you.

Why would you unfollow somone?

Update: #6. You sent an automated Direct Message after I followed you.

If I want bots, I’ll follow @nytimes. I don’t really care if it’s a “thank you” or a pitch: bots are annoying. Chris Brogan is right.