“If you think I’ll sit around as the world goes by
You’re thinking like a fool cause it’s a case of do or die
Out there is a fortune waiting to be had
You think I’ll let it go you’re mad
You’ve got another think coming”
The learning curve for Twitter is a fine dividing line between growing pains and outright fraud. On the one hand, the concepts and usage guidelines are being written as you read this. On the other is common sense and integrity of the user. In the on-the-fly-world of Twitter, one misstep can spell disaster.
As it pertains to this idea of proper usage of Twitter, two recent items caught my eye. The first is a national story where some gay and lesbian book titles disappeared from search results on the Amazon site. The second is a blog post by Ryan Ozawa detailing the startling growth in Twitter followers by Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hanneman.
In the Amazon saga, authors whose books were suddenly unavailable immediately began a Twitter campaign to voice their outrage over the perceived slight. Almost immediately, a hacker claimed credit for the “glitch” and a new round of tweets began making the rounds. In two days, the rancor grew so loud that Amazon issued a statement saying that they were implementing new measures “to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future”. As for the hacker, it appears that the claims were false and that a hoax had been perpetrated on the Twittersphere.
Meanwhile, out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it seems as that Mayor Hanneman’s Twitter followers increase from around 40 to 28,000 in the blink of an eye! Upon closer inspection, it seems that these new followers were gained through placement on a Twitter “suggested user” list. The fallout over this situation has yet to play out but, in my experience, Mr. Ozawa’s keen observations are usually followed (no Twitter pun indented) by legions of less subtle critics.
Both could easily be chalked up to innocent missteps and been dealt with through quick responses. For Amazon, the nearly 3 days of Twitter chatter grew to a cacophony that just couldn’t be ignored. Circumstances forced them to take action and that action was completely dictated by their critics. For the Mayor, the idea that 28,000 tweeters (mostly outside the state of Hawaii) had decided to follow him is being viewed with a jaded eye. Just as important is the fact that since none of these people can vote for him and they don’t have any direct contact with Hawaii residents, who really cares how many followers he has.
The Twitterverse moves fast. If you’re not careful, it will run you over and leave you for dead. In both of these examples, I think it’s clear that decisions were based on reactive rather than proactive thinking. So beware! If you don’t plan your course of action in our tech-savvy world and think you’ll skate by just because you’ve adopted new technology, you’ve got another thing coming.
So That's Life? 
Flight of Icarus
04/27/2009The immenseness of cyberspace can swallow you whole if you’re not careful. Much like the solitude of the open ocean, you’re often alone in an unpredictable environment. And, like being on the ocean, the tides, winds, and weather are almost impossible to judge for a novice navigator. In this vastness, people everywhere are grasping for a lifeline. Did I see someone toss out a web 2.0 lifesaver?
You’ve established all your accounts, you populated friends and followers, and you’ve told everyone who will sit still for a minute about your online adventures. You’ve set up britekite to detail your every move on the earth and you’ve posted pictures of every fancy restaurant meal known to mankind. But now, like that lone boater out on the night sea, an emptiness begins to creep in. The real question is, what to do once the excitement of social media like FaceBook and Twitter start to wane?
What we’ve got to start asking ourselves is whether we’ve got another CB radio fad on our hands. Heaven help us, now that Oprah and Ashton Kutcher are the darlings of Twitter, how far can we be from a Twitter movie and song of the caliber of Convoy? Anyone close to Twitter has already seen that the marketing folks have been infiltrating the ranks much like the creature in Alien sticking its tentacle down our collective throats. Once these types take control, they’ll plaster us up against the wall and start picking out wallpaper for the nursery.
Basically, as with just about everything else in life, we have to make a choice to take control or let circumstances dictate the future. As I’ve often pontificated, taking control entails making sense of the morass of information that is gathered though the non-stop interactions being made in social media. If we don’t do it ourselves, the marketers will happily define, craft, and manipulate it for their good, not ours. And, as with Icarus, we’ll fly so far, so fast, and so high that we won’t see the sun until it’s too late.
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