Posts in category "Opinion"

A Cranky Old Fart Of A Blogger Needs A New Writing Gig

  • Category: Opinion
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  • Posted 191 days ago

I’ve been doing this blogging thing for going on 6+ years now but I find myself in need of finding a new place to call home when it comes to writing about technology and social media, after all the bills have to get paid somehow.

For those that aren’t that familiar with who I am I have been writing news and opinion posts about technology in general, Microsoft and Windows, as well as social media at the following sites over the past 6+ years:

Mashable – a short stint

The Inquisitr – 5+ years

FortyTwoTimes – just over a year

As well as writing here at Shooting at Bubbles, I also maintain the Winextra blog which is all about sharing all the cool things I run across daily when it comes to geeks, nerds and the wacky.

If you are in the market, or know a blog that is in the market for a talented and dedicated writer please contact me at steven@winextra.com and lets see if we can work something out.

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How Freaking Stupid Are These Internet Marketers?

  • Category: Opinion
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  • Posted 242 days ago

I just checked my email and this list of emails all from the same person saying exactly the same thing was waiting for me. The thing is that the emails came into the same specific email address that I use for my contact page at Winextra.

Seriously – how freaking stupid.

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Doing the dog paddle to the future

  • Category: Opinion
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  • Posted 594 days ago

When I was walking back from getting coffee for myself and my wife I found myself thinking about how we are getting so close to the year 2020 and how much I have seen happen in my world from when I was a kid in the 1960′s.

I have seen president’s assassinated, watched as man landed on the moon for the first time (on my 13th birthday to boot). I have seen students killed at Kent State as they protested for a better world and watched as the War Measures Act was enacted in Canada as a response to the FLQ uprising.

Then as I neared home carrying coffee I realized something. @020 is just around the corner and our world, our society hasn’t gotten any better. In fact it could be argued that it has gotten worse.

There is no Star Trek future beckoning us and chances are it never will be but instead driven into copyright and patent hell if our current technological mess is any indication. Any of the moral and social mores that may have guided a possible future reflective of Star Trek have left the building.

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Our red/blue Facebook pill moment has arrived

There has been a shitload of discussion happening around the web when it comes to the Facebook announcement at their f8 developer conference. You know, the one where they have decided that you don’t need the rest of that silly web anymore because they are going to make your electronic womb all nice and cozy with a never ending steam of mental pablum from your vast world of friends.

As Ethan Kaplan said in a post – identity has now been externalized and it will reside on Facebook (that is also where I got the title for this post); and he is right, we are being convinced that in order to have any value we need to be connected to a world created by Facebook (and yes, the same can be said for Google+). It is only by letting them present our identity and life events to the world that they exist.

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If you are using a ghostwriter on Twitter you don’t have a clue about social media

An interesting story showed up over at All Twitter about how a ghostwriter for a so-called social media and Internet marketing professional had been fired and then proceeded to out the “expert” on the self-same Twitter account after finding out that the password hadn’t been changed.

The “expert” in question is Mark Davidson who apparently has not one but three, or rather now two since the firing, ghostwriters for his Twitter account. Now with a bit of a disclaimer I have been following Mark Davidson on Twitter, and now Google+, for a long time but never clicked on the fact that it was ghostwriters populating his stream.

I don’t care so much that Mark got outed but rather the fact that the idea of using ghostwriters to populate your Twitter timeline with so-called social media gems of wisdom shows exactly how social media has become a joke.

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Another note about this “real name” nonsense

  • Category: Opinion, Social
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  • Posted 646 days ago

There is this common point that all these people pushing for us to use our real names on the web espouse – it will bring civility back to the conversation.

Ya. Okay.

What dream world are you people living in?

Just because people use their real names, whether forced to or not, it doesn’t mean that they know how to be civil. Just check any thread of a conversation about politics, sex or any subject you want to pick and you will see some of the most uncivilized comments coming from people using their real names.

Real names are no guarantee that people will think before opening their mouths and showing how nasty, opinionated, and cruel. If anything I have found people who post anonymously or use pseudonyms have more couth and express themselves with more intelligence than their named counterparts.

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The increasing, and important, need for dual identities on the web – real and anonymous

  • Category: Opinion, Social
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  • Posted 646 days ago
image courtesy of The Next Web

image courtesy of The Next Web

The whole anonymous identities on the web argument is older than the web itself. I can remember fervent discussions on the subject back in the old BBS days and the talking points haven’t changed in the intervening years. The only problem now is that the wild west days of the Web are over and companies like Facebook and Google are making themselves the final arbiters of what an identity is on the web; and that is scary.

However that isn’t the argument that I want to look at here, at least not as a major point. What I do want to point out is that now more than ever we need to fight for the right to have more than just the Facebook and Google sanctioned identity when we do anything on the web, and possibly when we aren’t hooked into it directly.

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Are you ready for a hot new buzz phrase?

Buzz words and phrases are the lifeblood of any new hot idea and social media is no different, even if it has been around for a while.

It seems that we have a new buzz phrase headed our way and it’s a doozy. Try this on for size:

IRM: Influencer Relationship Management.

Yup, you to can now manage influencer relationships, isn’t that grand?

This gem comes to us from Appinions and this is how they explain this gag inducing collection of nonsense words:

The first and vital step in IRM is to build a list of the influencers that are relevant to your organization or cause. Keep in mind, they don’t have to be fans of your product and/or service. Second, you connect with them and let them know who you are and let them use your service or product.

As influencers become more ingrained in our digital lives, they will inevitably be a greater interest in them from brands and agencies. The influencer is a huge step forward within the marketing and communications world, and IRM will become its own sustainable wing within the industry in the near future. It won’t be long until we see IRM experts and specialists pop up, just like we saw the advent of social media experts.

The sad part is they are right, we will probably start seeing this term pop up any time soon.

10, 9, 8, 7………

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