Social Networking vs. Friendship

Last night I was listening to NPR’s “This American Life” podcast on the way home from work.  The topic was Frenemies.  It was a series of stories that dealt with connections between people that are friends, but not really, that put up with eachother and secretly hate, or dislike eachother.  There was even a wonderful poem by David Rakoff which shows how to make a wedding toast to your ex-best friend and ex-girlfriend if  you are ever asked to.

This got me thinking, however about social networking sites and the fact that we “find” people that we haven’t talked to in years.  While a lot of people on our social sites contain connections to our active friends, family members and co-workers, we all have additions to our networks that contain people who we were once connected and for many reasons stopped talking to.

Up until the moment either we, or they add us to their social network, we have had no clue that we even needed to know what they had for lunch.  And once added, purging your list of “Friends” is a lot harder than it seems.

The way to avoid frenemies, is to keep your friendships alive, in real life and in social networking, and to end those friendships that were never really healthy to begin with.  But in the digital age, ending friendships is a lot harder, since we are all interconnected.

Chris Andersen, in his book “Free” states that in Social Networking the number of friends we have is equal to the status and acclaim we have.  The number of people following us creates this mini prestige and in the case of professional bloggers, celebrities and other social butterflies, this number is everything.  For proof on that, we need only look at the top twitter accounts and see that Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres and Britney Spears are all in the top 5.

However, more realistically, for the regular person like you and me, if there are people in your social network that you are not really friends with, or don’t really want to be friends with then what do you do?

One take (and this is geared towards Twitter and Facebook, since those are the sites that I use) is to pare down your list as follows:

1. Get rid of followers who aren’t real, or aren’t really into it.  This means no avatar, no updates, or just generally not interested in what is going on.  These people may not be using the network enough to even notice, and if they ever do, they will add you back.
2. Get rid of people who have small networks. Tweeters with low followers to following ratios, Facebooker’s who you can’t remember how you know them etc.
3. Get rid of spammers.  This is specific to Twitter and other micro post sites.  Get rid of the avatar of the hot girl who offers free DVD’s every week, as well as the user names like “work from home”
4. Keep friends, family and co-workers that you want to keep updated.
5. Use the GROUPS tool on Facebook and put people into their respective places.  This will help when you just want to see what your co-workers are up to on Facebook, and don’t need to know how your friend from 3rd grade’s commute went this morning.
6. On a more controversial note, it’s okay to delete friends, family, anyone from Facebook that you don’t want seeing your posts. What is not okay, is being passive aggressive and just blocking their access to your posts.
7. Be more careful in who you add to your network so that you don’t have to delete later.
8. Don’t ever make those silly “I’m getting rid of people now, so let me know if you want to stay” announcements.  If someone is deleted from your network and want’s back in, they will ask.  That is the time to have a conversation to figure out whether you want them back, or question why you deleted them.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Some thing’s you just can’t Google for answers

In today’s news, Google has decided to heed the advice of the Federal Trade Commission.  They have decided to create a formal privacy policy for their Google Books service.  This is only four days before the G-book Search settlement is set to be approved. (or rejected).

This is interesting, it looks like Google is trying to get on the good side of the FTC and of their opponents, including, Amazon and the League of Extraordinary Publishers, erm.. I mean the Authors Guild.  In a statement by the FTC Chairman, Jon Leibowitz, yesterday he stated that they are hopeful that Google is taking the initial steps to protect the privacy of its users, as well as online readers.  Click here for the PDF Statement.  So why the change of heart?

So let’s look at this from another side today, the side of the librarian and of the e-book consumer.  Economist article Tome Raiders, Google is claiming that “rather than suppressing competition in the emerging market for electronic books, the agreement would increase it by offering a web-based alternative to expensive proprietary systems such as Amazon’s Kindle.”

In essence, Google is aiming to put Amazon or Microsoft out of business, but inadvertently also aiming to build the world’s biggest online library.  This second aim could be the more detrimental outcome of this settlement.  After all, isn’t the whole point of a library is that it’s free to the public.  Libraries are pretty much one of the first open source institutions our culture has had.  Part of the reason why this is getting no play in terms of news action is that the Open Content Alliance is much smaller than the other big boxes and self proclaimed  Authors Guild.  And actually, the OCA is not all too thrilled with the Authors Guild these days.

What I failed to realize and consider in yesterday’s post is that Google isn’t creating an open source book library; they are creating an international book store.  Basically the worlds biggest online bookstore, which may or may not be the prevailing monopoly.  In an internet where every business is evil and we troll every blog post, every company and hate on everything, even I can see that this may not be a good idea.

Another question is, who creates copyright law for America, as well as internationally when dealing in digital media.  We are on new ground here, and have been for the past 10 years.  Congress has failed to act and create legislation for America with regard to digital media, and perhaps Google is not to blame for the fact that they are ahead of legislature in terms of moving towards a digital marketplace.  However, is this enough to make the government stop and look at what is happening, before they are so far removed that they can not intervene? This was the case with the music industry, piracy lead to one industry leader (from another industry at that) taking the charge and now there is a music retail monopoly.  While we don’t like to look at it as such, we also have been okay with the Microsoft Office monopoly, Amazon.com basically killing the small bookstore business, and glossing over it’s smaller competitors.  There is still no clear legislation as to what digital music sellers can or can’t do other than charge us state taxes for purchases and DRM the hell out of our music if they please, and even that is falling apart.

Let’s also face the fact that this is the first time that Amazon is truly being challenged in their medium.  Sure, Sony has given them a run for their money, but they wouldn’t have been able to make it on their own for much longer. In reality, the e-book marketplace will never truly be about the device because the devices are all being manufactured with the same technology right now.  The only differences that are going to matter for the next few years are going to be price point, both on books and on the device, service, and formatting of digital media.  On all of these, Amazon is starting to show signs of wear and tear, while Sony, Cooler Reader, and BeBook all are starting to show better prices, and more options in devices, as well a lack of the service issues that Amazon has faced in the past year.  To Amazon’s displeasure, Sony has also recently partnered with Overdrive, to provide ePub library books to their customers, and Cooler Reader has signed on as a Google Books affiliate, again using ePub as the format of choice.

Microsoft went through this with the MP3 vs WAV file war back in iTunes’ early days.  Now, everyone uses MP3’s as the standard format, and every MP3 player can read other formats such as wav, aac, and other open formats, including iTunes, which has already began to move from their DRM’ed proprietary format to open music for customers that can be transferred to multiple devices.

I own a Kindle, and I love the device, but I am sure that if I had a different e-book reader I would also love the device.  At this point, it isn’t the device that matters.  What I love more than my Kindle, is reading books. Period.  I would love to be able to share my books and donate them to libraries, like I do with my paper books.  And until there is some digital legislation, the only way I can share books is through pirating, or cracking DRM, and my local Library has not gotten a donation of old books for some time now.   Though I am not sure I am ready for one site to hold dominion over all of the books on earth either, even if it means that I can get anything I want, in any format, or in a non proprietary format.

Amazon calling Google Books out…

Amazon is objecting to the Google Books Settlement, so much so that the actual judgment has been postponed until September 8th to allow for them to rally a war cry that will end Google’s endeavor to give us all free open source editions of public domain books.  Really? Do they think they are the only ones?

Well, regardless of how silly it looks, it’s all guns at high noon right now.  My interest is peaked because it was previously foretold, and widely debated, also because it concerns ebooks and the growing ebook war. Also, anytime two titans of industry go at it, I get excited like a kid at the circus.

One of the things that I find interesting about Amazon’s stance on this issue is that instead of going after pirated copies or hacked DRM copies of Kindle books, they are going after a company that is doing what other companies are already doing.  Google, for better or worse is the Prometheus of the information age, and is bringing users information at frightening rates which we should be worried about, but not because they will bankrupt Amazon, or the Media, or even Yahoo.

The reason to be scared of what Google is doing is because we, the consumer are getting vast amounts of information for what we perceive as free, but in reality is being paid by in the way of marketing data being collected by our every click. As soon as you log into your Gmail, Reader, iGoogle, whathaveyou accounts, your clicks are being counted, and trended along with all of the other information they already have about you.  Google know that you like to read historical books about the great depression, it also knows that you secretly search for someone’s name every six weeks.  Google, for whatever you do while logged into their site, knows.  Is this a bad thing?  I don’t know yet, I will get back to you on that one.  Part of me says no, its okay, but then again, 20 years from now Google my change it’s name to SkyNet and releases the drones on our asses.  Who is to say.

What I can say is this.  The word Robber Baron has been thrown around a lot throughout the history of big businesses.  PT Barnum, the Vanderbilt’s,  Carnegie, Edison, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, and now Google.  However, the accusation is interestingly enough coming from yet another BIG BOX business.  In this case Amazon.com.  Pot, meet Kettle.

Now that everyone is introduced, let’s discuss.

• Google’s strategy includes using the much loved ePub book format.  The same format that Amazon has for whatever reason, still a mystery in fact, has decided to not use.  Someone at Amazon surely knows that Open Source is the future since they are familiar with the concept.  Their site, is built on open source software, their Kindle is built on Linux, and well, this just doesn’t make sense.  Why not capitalize on the format while the getting is hot?
• Amazon is not working to fight their competitors on even ground, in fact they are moving so far in the opposite direction, it feels like they are bound to lose. I will never forgive them for offloading the SD card slot, especially when every competitor now has one.
• The Google Settlement, already states that authors will be paid for their works, meanwhile Amazon is sort of paying their authors.
• Besides this, there have also been issues with the search features (Amazon Rank) and Amazon has already violated their own TOS by pulling books off of live Kindles using their own network.  This is the creepiest offense of all.  I don’t even have words for how wrong this was.

Google bombs aside, the integrity of Amazon is slowly declining as they show that while they may  have a fantastic product that could be even better if it had more versions and formats, they can’t be trusted as a retailer in the new world of digital merchandise.

I mean, come on, for all of the shit that Apple pulls, they would never take music off of an iPod, and I totally believe there is a big red button in Steve Jobs’ office that can do this. I think Jeff Bezos borrowed the button from him, but he had to use Google to find out how to use it.

I am waiting with baited breath for Tuesday to see what is decided.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

Writers Block, fighting back!

I have been suffering from writers block, which is why I haven’t posted anything new lately.  In an effort to try to understand this phenomenon I have researched, read and even started a paper journal (remember when we used to blog to ourselves and hope no one ever read it?).  All of this was sort of helpful but mostly went unrewarded.  The paper journal was a low tech solution that also enabled me to be a little more personal with what I was trying to say.  Then again this is because it is, after all, private.

When I first started blogging, it was with a private, or at least semi-private Live Journal account, which I still have, and sometimes use, but up until recently I always kept my off-grid journal, in order to really get out what I was trying to say.  I stopped doing it a few years back and the culmination of not being able to say things, even in the age of Twitter, and Facebook, is that you end up bottling stuff up.

How does this all tie back into technology?  Well it’s as simple as answering a question with a question.

Do you think that with all of the social media, blogs, text messaging and all of the other ways that we communicate our thoughts and reactions to each other, that we are somehow censoring ourselves in a way we never did in a journal?

I am going to take a stab at this question, but would also love some feedback on this.  My feeling is that in a paper journal, we are pretty much allowed to say anything we want, work through issues, and talk about things that other people might call us crazy for.  However in online journals where other people can see your posts, and especially on blogs where you are writing with a purpose, you don’t want to lose your audience, even if you don’t have one.  The myth is that online, we are all anonymous and people pretty much say whatever they want, but in reality, what are we really allowed to say, or allowing ourselves to talk about.

For example, I would love to talk more about my job, and it’s challenges, but I know that some colleagues read this blog, and I know that if I vent, or say something that might be construed as divulging internal secrets, no matter how careful I am not to, there is a risk that I could lose my job.  I did chalk up some of my writers block to the fact that I have been working so much  and have had limited time to decompress enough to NOT think about work, and therefore have ho ideas to write about.   So writing about work, would be the right solution to the writers block, and could probably open doors to write about other topics.

I think part of my problem is that I have to find a way to talk about work without giving away too much information.  So how do I do that?

Name Dropped at Best Buy

I have been helping a good friend of mine purchase a new PC online for the past few days.  She and I have been instant messaging back and forth and trading links so that we could find a PC for her to use for her small but growing photography business.

Of the options we looked at were several Asus and HP models, as well as one Gateway, which the folks at Best Buy were adamant about her getting.   She turned to him and said, The Tech Diva told me not to get a Gateway, to which he replied that everyone will always have something bad to say about something.  She told him that her information was not coming from everyone, it was coming from The Tech Diva.  He pretty much shut up after that.

My reasons against the Gateway is based solely on their customer service, and on the history that they have of breaking down and forcing you to call customer service.  To the average computer user service related calls are what make or break a model in their eyes.   I figured make it easy for her and let’s look at other models.

Some of the basic rules of buying a new computer are as follows:

1. Always shop around.  Never feel that you have to buy the first thing you see, if you like a model, shop around for a better price.  New Desktop PC’s can cost anywhere from $300-$2000, so always look for the lowest price with the model and features you like.
2. Look for internet coupons.  There are tons of resources out there to get you started.  You have to look around, but it’s worth the time and effort to get a few bucks off.
3. Read epinions and customer ratings for items.  They help when trying to narrow down who to buy from as well as what the model’s limitations are.  Read with a grain of salt, but read nonetheless.
4. Don’t be afraid to go to Best Buy, Wal-Mart and even Sam’s Clubs.  There are great deals on models and Wal-Mart has an amazing maintenance plan for their electronics.  I bought my Acer netboook from them.
5. Look up and learn what the specs are telling you.  If you need to know the difference between Intel and Phenom processors you can look them up on Wikipedia, Cnet, or just Google it.  However get to know what the basic specs are as well as what you  might need.
6. Once you have a model that you like, and have configured, make sure you get a warranty plan on it.  This is important because unfortunate computers do act up from time to time, and while it’s great to call on your friends for help, in technology as in life, professional help is often better.

So, my photographer friend is still making her decision, but now she is better informed and still has me to spot check her specs.

In the news today…

I know it’s been a while, and you have  probably been wondering where I have been, especially in the midst of all of the good techy news about the iPhone 3GS, the new e-readers from Barnes and Noble, Amazon’s foibles and screw ups regarding DRM and contracts, and the unsure future of the economy for us MBA’s.   Well never fear, I am back and ready to talk about all of that and more.

I think the biggest news of this week is that Rupert Murdock media mogul and owner of almost every newspaper ever made, ever, has decided that in order to keep the blogosphere from destroying the media, he will begin charging readers for online news.  Excuse me while I laugh at him.  According to Mirriam Steffens, who wrote the Business Day article, Murdock is claiming that quality news isn’t cheap.

<soapbox * Totally unbiased editorial by The Tech Diva*

Mr. Murdock, I totally get where you are coming from on this, so when we are able to get some quality news, we will definitely be willing to discuss payment.  As it is, please who read the NY Times, the Washington Post, and watch Fox News, are not getting quality journalism.  Just sayin’ give us some real news because I am not paying for a story about Octomom, or K-Fed.  Believe me I can pull links like this all day, and I haven’t even got to Fark yet.

/soapbox>

In other news, my favorite micro blogging site, Twitter has been hit with a denial of serivce attack, rendering it useless for about two hours yesterday.  A DoS attack is when a server floods the victim server with so many requests that it becomes impossible to handle legitimate traffic.  Always fun if you work for a web based company and have had your email blocked by a major carrier like yahoo, or gmail.  The biggest impact of this outage is that Ashton Kutcher was unable to tell us what he had for lunch. For shame…

In e-book related news

I have noticed that since the whole Amazon 1984 fiasco, more people are turning to Sony for their ebook reader needs.  Might I make a suggestion?  While Kindle is the better device, I am also becoming wary of Amazon’s sketchy business practices and terms of service changes.  Let’s look towards the future.  I would love to hear back from anyone who has tried a Cool-er Reader.  I would also love to try one of these out and review it.  So if anyone would be willing to hook me up, please shoot me an email.  I am still and probably always will be partial to devices that use SD devices, which is why I still use Kindle 1. Also, can someone please consolidate the prices of the ebooks already so that they cost what paperback’s cost, or at least something comperable.

Special Note

As most of you may already know, I completed my MBA program in April of this year. I am very excited to announce that I will be walking in my commencement ceremony on Saturday July 18th at 10am in Phoenix, AZ. I wanted to share this very special moment with all of my friends and family and with the help of UOP I can.

Watch the 2009 Commencement for University of Phoenix students. The pre-recorded webcast will also be available for viewing within 48 hours after the ceremonies. You can use the link below and join the live simulcast, or if you like, look later for the webcast.

Click here to see the details

* University of Phoenix Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 10:30 a.m. AZ Time

Thanks to everyone for their love and support I would never have been able to reach my goals without your help.

The e-book war is heating up…

In the past few weeks, it seems like the big box stores have begun to notice that e-books are hot.

In the meantime, Barnes and Nobles purchased Fictionwise, a small e-book retailer that boasts a ton of different formats including the Amazon elusive epub.  Why there isn’t one master format, I will never know.

Amazon.com bought Lexcycle, the makers of Stanza, which I previously wrote about.  Now I love Stanza, however I am not yet sure what this will mean for the currently free product.

In addition to this, Amazon.com pre-released the Kindle DX today.  At a whopping $489, here is what you are getting in the 10.4″ x 7.2″ x 0.38″ device.

• a9.7″ diagonal e-ink display
• storage space for up to3,500 books
• native PDF support (FINALLY)
• a rotating display
• 3G wireless (not sure yet if this is built in or by contract)
• text to speech
• whispersync

I for one am excited to see a “textbook” sized e-reader hit the market.  I am wondering how long it will be until they are under contract with the textbook companies and start handing these bad boys out to students when they are accepted into colleges.

Other Tech Divas, and foul play on the blogosphere

Here are a list of some other Tech Diva’s that I have been scoping out on the web.  Enjoy!!

• TechieDiva: From the site: “Techie Diva is technology blog with an undeniable feminine twist”
• Daily Tech Diva: From the about page: “Jessica Fritsche is a blogger, writer, instructional designer and project manager living in Dallas, TX. She has been blogging actively (and inactively) since 1995.”
• Womens Tech-Diva: From the site: “Your guide to everything technical. Includes many features such as building a website, downloading software, Social Bookmarking, Installing RAM, and more! “
• Techdivas: From the site: “Meet the real TECHdivas of our industry”
• Article from BlogHer: Confessions of a Reluctant Tech Diva
• Happy Web Diva: From the site: “My beat is the intersection of the Web, work and life. My goal is to build the best websites I can, and blogging is part of this. It keeps me on my toes.”

In other news:
I received an email this morning from a friend who works as a web producer.  The article is by Toni Bowers over at Tech Republic.  It’s entitled: “Sure she’s a good tech blogger, but what does she look like?”

You can click on the link to read the article, however the rundown of the article is that female bloggers and content writers tend to get rude, or just plain sexist email and comments from some readers based on how they look.  I would love to hear from any bloggers who have had issues like these, be they male or female.  At what point do we start to carry over appearance issues to our writing?  I also wonder if literary and technical writers in the publishing world go through the same thing. 

The US is a very appearance focused society and often we see ugly people as being dumb, and attractive people being smart, unless they are doctors, technologists or other professionals.  At what point is this okay?

Erica is participating in the  31 Days to build a better blog project

My personal Gmail Solution

One of the things I hate about living in the cyber-age is how many email addresses I have accumulated over the years. I am going to share a secret with you. I have 9 non work email addresses. It’s an addiction and I have to say I may need an intervention.  I am always curious as to what features you get, and I sort of like having my handle tied to every domain I can find.  There has to be some support group I can join for that.

Well, my addiction aside, I had to come up with a way to consolidate all of them so that I would be able to actually find the things I was looking for and read messages when people sent them to me. One solution that I came up with was to use two gmail accounts. I created my first gmail using my old chat alias from way back in the prodigy chat days. I also had a gmail account for business purposes using my full name. (Read Resume email address) Lastly there is the one for this blog.

The solution was easier than I thought it would be. Here is the breakdown:

Gmail account #1 Personal Email

• Forwarded 2 AIM email addresses (one for family and one for friends)
• Forwarded 1 Yahoo email addresses (this is my oldest email address and I have a ton of granfathered Yahoo features)
• Forwarded 1 spare gmail account used for junk/craig list and other social media email (more on why I created this address coming soon)

Gmail account #2 Professional Email

• Forwarded my gmail from my First.Last name account  (for resumes, bills, etc)
• Forwarded 1 AIM account (work IM)
• Forwarded school email account (it’s also Gmail)

Now, I only have two email addresses that I have to check.  The benefits of using Gmail for this are that I can respond to someone using any of the accounts forwarded to it.  Also, I am able to tag and sort email by what address they come into.  Also, and this is a major bonus, LESS SPAM.

How many email addresses do you have and what do you use them for?