Dave Cayem

Saw this Bing ad via Google AdSense on Delphi Forums. Does this mean Bing is advertising with Google?!?

The realm of social media experts tends to be an echo chamber. (Note that social media experts universally hate the term “social media expert.” They prefer “rock star.”) Everybody’s on the same page. Everybody says everybody else’s work is “awesome” or “valuable.” The conventional wisdom is, well, conventional.

In hopes that I’ll spur some discussion, I’ve compiled a list of things I disagree with most social media types about:

It’s not about the numbers

Many social media types have thousands of connections on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Large numbers of connections seem to be the way one is validated as a social media star. I say that having thousands of connections is antithetical to the spirit of social media. Social media is supposed to be about starting conversations. Can you really have a conversation with thousands? Perhaps those with thousands of connections are more interested in creating an audience than creating a conversation.

Twitter is not mainstream

I really like Twitter. I find that I use it a lot more than any other social medium. But Facebook is a lot easier for most people to understand. Things like hashtags, retweets and @replies are simply too geeky for most people. Photo and video sharing via Twitter is also difficult. I rely on Twitter for news about technology, social media and online marketing. And nothing beats Twitter for getting a read on what people are talking about right now. But Twitter will never become mainstream in its current form.

Coffee tweets are evil

Coffee, like bacon, is big among the social media elite.

I like my coffee. But I don’t care about yours.

You provide no value or entertainment to your friends and followers by telling everybody how your coffee tastes, how much you’ve had, how much you need, where you’re purchasing it, how you’d like to receive it intravenously, etc. (Unfortunately, my idea for a #nomoredamntweetsaboutcoffee Twitter hashtag went nowhere.)

Location sharing is boring

OK, I admit it: I’ve never used Foursquare. I simply don’t get the attraction of making your location public. But even if you are into letting the world know where you are, that doesn’t mean that the world cares. Unless most of your Twitter followers are in your metropolitan area and might want to connect if you’re in the same neighborhood, they really don’t have much use for this information. And they really don’t care if you’re the “mayor” of your local supermarket. So why clutter your Twitter stream with this stuff?

To be honest, I’d be a little worried if lots of people expressed an interest in my whereabouts. We used to call that “stalking.”

There’s nothing wrong with email

I’ll never understand why some people prefer to handle private messaging through Twitter or Facebook. What’s wrong with email? Everybody already uses email and checks it regularly. I don’t have to be a connection or friend for us to exchange email. Most importantly, email won’t restrict me to 140 characters.

Stop repeating your tweets

Lots of social media types update their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other services at once. There are lots of tools that let you do this. But just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. First, those that you’re connected with on multiple services will see the same thing multiple times. Second, your Twitter updates with @replies and hashtags make no sense to your Facebook friends. Unless they’re on Twitter. But then, they already saw your update on Twitter. Get it?

Message boards are the purest form of social media

I believe that the decidedly unhip message board is the most social form of social media out there. Message boards create content through social interactions among peers. You really can’t say that about many other forms of social media other than Twitter (which is essentially a giant chat room). On a blog or social profile like a Facebook page, one person is speaking to many. Others may be able to comment, but they’re commenting on another person’s turf. It’s not peer-to-peer.

By the way, podcasting is not a form of social media. It’s a one-to-many form of communication. There’s nothing social about it. Don’t get me wrong, I think podcasting is very important and I’m a huge fan of the Adam Carolla podcast. But it’s not social media.

So that’s my take on the state of social media. Please add your two cents. After all, it’s the social thing to do.

I spent the first ten years of my professional life as a journalist and the last ten as an online media professional. So when I read about how The Associated Press plans to seek compensation from Web sites they feel are unfairly using their content for free, I felt the tug of split loyalties.

In my role as the manager of online community sites, I have to deal with the problem of people copying entire news articles into message boards. On Delphi Forums, we discourage it. But we encourage people to post a line or two from the story, link to the full story, and discuss that story in our forums. The way I read the coverage of the A.P. announcement, that kind of activity wouldn’t be threatened.

But consider Google News.

As I write this, the Google News home page has excerpts from 27 news stories from across the Web. Some of those excerpts go on for 40 words or more. You could argue (as I would) that any one of those excerpts falls under the category of “fair use.” But taken together, they provide Google with free content for an online news digest. I’m sure lots of people scan that news periodically to find out what’s going on and never click through to the original sources.

Granted, the Google News home page doesn’t carry advertising, so Google probably isn’t making any money from it. But what if it did?

The A.P. and other news organizations spend millions of dollars sending reporters around the globe to cover the news. They have a right to be compensated for doing so. That’s why I cringe when I see comments like the TechCrunch piece comparing the A.P. to the RIAA and Jeff Jarvis’s desire to “Kill the AP.”

The A.P. announcement was short on details, so perhaps my thoughts on this issue are premature. But for now, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Added on April 9:

On the other hand, maybe I was too eager to jump to the A.P.’s defense.

I love my iPod Touch.

When I bought it, I had to make a decision about how much capacity to spring for. I ended up going with the 16GB model. Not ideal, but it carries enough music to keep me happy and I couldn’t justify spending another $100 for the 32GB model.

But with news that Lala is working on an iPhone app, the whole notion of capacity may become irrelevant.

Lala is a music site where you can listen to, buy, and store your music. It’s the storage part that’s important here: You can store practically limitless amounts of music on Lala and stream it to your iPhone or iPod touch (with a WiFi connection). That means you can have access to huge amounts of music even with an 8GB player.

On Lala, you can listen to any of the six million or so songs in their library one time for free, and you can “buy” a song to listen to online as many times as you like for $.10. It’s not clear to me if the one free listen, $.10 online purchases, and music that you own outright will all be available via the iPhone app. But if that’s the case, you might be looking at the biggest challenge yet to the iTunes Store…at least for iPhone and Touch users.

I’ve blogged previously about the Adam Carolla podcast and how I think it’s the leading edge of a wave that will sweep away the old model of broadcasting.

My man Jeffrey Ross is on the podcast today.

Funny stuff.

Have a listen.

The pioneering LA punk band X helped get me through high school. They’re getting on in years, but they still tour and still put on a pretty good show.

The band has dubbed their spring tour Total Request Live 2009 and they’re letting their fans vote for the songs they’ll play in each city.  There’s an online poll for each stop on the tour with about 40 songs to choose from.

I’m hoping to see them when they come to Boston.

Here are the songs I voted for with links to listen to each on Napster:

Los Angeles [Live]

The Hungry Wolf [LP Version]

Devil Doll [Live]

Burning House Of Love [LP Version]

Have-Nots

Are there other bands doing similar things?

If you’re into X, what do you think of my picks?

I’d never claim to be a Twitter expert (I’ve only got 158 followers).  But I am using Twitter a lot these days to connect with friends and colleagues, and stay abreast of industry trends.

Here are a few Twitter utilities that I’ve found useful:

tr.im

Most Twitterers use a URL shortening service like TinyURL when sharing Web addresses. tr.im creates short URLs and provides useful statistics on who is clicking on those links. It even has built-in tools that allow you to shorten a URL and tweet it at the same time.

pic.im

Run by the same people that run tr.im, pic.im gives you a place to store an image you want to share via Twitter, along with a compact URL to access that picture.

txtb.in

Twitter’s 140 character limit is unforgiving. txtb.in gives verbose Twitter users a way to cheat the system.  If your comments run long, type them into txtb.in, grab the compact URL the service provides, and tweet the results. txtb.in is essentially a way to create a disposable Web page that holds your text, along with a Twitter-friendly URL the access the page.

Selective Twitter Status

Lots of people use various social media tools to update their Twitter and Facebook status at the same time. But what about those times when your tweet makes no sense to your Facebook friends — like when you tweet @ replies? With this Facebook app, your Twitter updates are copied to Facebook only when you add the hashtag #fb. Very simple. Very handy.