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What does Kanye West have in common with author Dan Brown?

Although both love seeing their names printed in italics and are obsessed with ancient artifacts (in Kanye’s case, his reputation), both have a link to the theoretical subfield of noetic science. Dan Brown’s lastest outing, “The Lost Symbol,” delves into this discipline which studies vast quantities of information that can, when dissected, support the existence of a collective consciousness. This theory is the basis for outings like the Global Consiousness Project and the Web Bot Project that crawl the internet looking for repetitive keywords, phrases, and data that can reportedly detect the underlying “mood” of the masses.

What does this have to do with Kanye? On Wednesday, Kanye fell victim to the noetic field yet again after being beset with the hottest hashtag, #RIPKanyeWest, on Twitter.

According to reports, the rumor began as a comical response to his appearance in the Spike Jonze directed short, “We Were Once a Fairytale,” that was abruptly removed from his website. Later, false reports of his death in a car crash surfaced after the rumor made its way down the invisible telephone line. Twitter users took the convoluted story and, happily, ran with it. Many news outlets picked up on the tweets immediately, despite being less interested in the previous #TakeKanyeInstead hashtag that began trending in the wake of the VMA incident and immediately following the death of actor Patrick Swayze. The boldness of the tag without the joking nature of the previous Kanye-related topics seemed to pique the immediate interest of mainstream media, along with the fact that the topic remained the top trending topic all day, unlike other celebrity death hoaxes that faded out after being debunked.

The ongoing cyber hostility against Kanye may be tapping into the collective consciousness of former fans or haters in general, but the “jokes” may come to be no laughing matter in the future. The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act may one day prevent trending topics such as this from taking off, deeming the tongue-in-cheek death wish as actual harassment. It does seem that there is rampant hostility against the performer, echoed time and time again in the form of popular Twitter hashtags and trending topics on other social media hubs that were created, not to lampoon his persona, but to either wish or outright announce his demise.

However, as with social media, noetics, and the law in general, nothing is certain. Do we want him “gone” so to speak, or are we just joking around? Since there is not yet a collective answer to that question, the trends and tweets regarding Kanye will continue periodically, indefinitely.

Imma let you finish.

If a tree harboring a bird’s nest fell on MySpace, would anyone be around to hear the tweets?

That is the question the release of the Twitter Sync Official App a month ago on September 21st sought to override in the coming weeks. According to Complete.com statistics via Mashable, MySpace lost over five million unique visitors to the site between August and September. Oddly enough, I’ve recently seen some “friends” add new photos to their albums albeit visiting the site with minimal regularity, as if dressing up their profiles in preparation for digital burial. While these statistics may hold little surprise for the many who’ve expatriated to Facebook, it begs the question of what the much hyped Twitter sync app actually accomplished for the site over the last few weeks.

Tessa Horehled, an Atlanta-based social media consultant and editor-in-chief of Drive a Faster Car, explains that the new app won’t have any significant impact on MySpace’s traffic as the site can be updated via Twitter and associated applications rather than from MySpace itself. Horehled adds, “The added Twitter-ready capabilities could help draw older users back or [encourage them] to finally sign up for the online network.”

Although this may also be the reasoning of MySpace executives, it has not, as of yet, synced with the aforementioned statistics. By contrast, however, Experian Hitwise places MySpace in the lead with average time spent on social networks for September 2009. MySpace clocked in at an average of 25:56 minutes as opposed to the average 23 minutes spent on Facebook. Amy Walgenbach, Manager of Communications at MySpace, responded to my query by stating that MySpace is unable to provide any details on the usage of the app at this time, including associated changes in the amount of unique visits, repeat visitors, and session times.

Through it all, it seems that MySpace got something right by one-upping the competition with the two-way sync mechanism, something that its largest competitor is sorely missing. Says Horehled, “I look forward to seeing if Facebook chooses to match this [two-way sync] capability in the future.”

The real question is, with declining membership and the ability to update status messages without ever having to visit the site to do so, how much further in the future will MySpace continue to be mentioned in the same breath as Facebook or even Twitter, to which it now syncs?

If it falls, will you still care enough to tweet about it?

Texas Tech coach Mike Leach has taken a stand against Twitter, and social media in general. According to Fanhouse, he made it clear that “Anybody that wants to play for us doesn’t have a Twitter page.”

This firm stance against the micro-blogging service stemmed from an incident where a player tweeted a sarcastic comment about the coach being late to a team meeting. According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, linebacker Marlon Williams wondered why he was still in a meeting room when “the head coach can’t even be on time.” Since then, the tweet has been deleted and his page  is now where to be found.

This little Twincident (yeah, I just made that up, see if it takes off), begs a larger question. Who is in the wrong? Moreover, should the NCAA come up with social media policies similar to the NFL or the NBA ?

I understand why Coach Leach would be frustrated with that Tweet. As a college football coach, you are constantly being judged by people who think there is always someone better for the job. Twitter just gives them fodder, especially when it comes from a player after a loss.  As a college football coach it is also kind of cool to be “old school” and reject technologies that give attention to specific individuals and take away from a team game.

Should college football coaches embrace new technologies and social media?

On the one hand, it is very helpful for recruiting. The more channels of contact you have to a recruit, the better your chances of getting them. The downside is that social media can really over-inflate the already over-inflated egos of top college football recruits. Having a fan base on social networking sites can definitely steal their attention from executing on the football field.

Do risks associated with social media, such as breaking up team chemistry and creating fan favorites outweigh the positive aspects of social media in college football? How do you think college coaches should deal with Twitter and Social Media? If you were to create a Social Media best practices guide for the Texas Tech football team, what would it say?

In Part II next week, I’ll take your comments and ideas into account and make a best practices guide.

With the much anticipated release of invites to 100,000 people eager to try Google Wave, many want in as soon as they can.  Currently there are a few ways to get your foot in the door of Google Wave.  Some of the ways are:

1. Signing up previously for a Google Wave account on Google.
2. You are a developer and have access to Google Wave to learn the ins and outs of the application.
3. You get an “invite” from someone else who already has access to Google Wave.

So what are you to do if you are not getting in from any of the above listed methods?  Sure you could repeatedly hound your friends to send you an invite…but sooner or later you might appear as really desperate!

You Can Find Anything on eBay

It’s no secret by now, but for the most part you can bid and buy on nearly anything there is with eBay. So it should not be any surprise that there will be many people trying to capitalize on the Google Wave craze by selling off invites to people who have not found a way to get into Wave on their own.

Selling various Google invites is nothing new on eBay.  When Gmail first came out many people bought an invite on eBay from users who had Gmail invites to share.  The urgency of people wanting to get in Gmail early helped many people make some extra cash from selling off their Gmail invites.

There is no reason to believe that we won’t see the same mad dash to eBay to hunt down a Google Wave invite.  In fact, it would not be shocking to see some outrageous prices paid from people who will do anything to get access to a Google Wave account.

How much are you willing to pay for a Google Wave account? $10? $20? $50+?  Where do you draw the line on what to pay for an invite to Google Wave?  Guess it depends on how bad you want in and how soon you want to get into Google Wave.

To see the latest Google Wave invite eBay auctions, click here.

The internets are abuzz with news about Google Sidewiki. For those who haven’t heard, it’s the newest addition to the Google Toolbar addon to Firefox or Chrome that allows for real-time sidebar comments on any webpage:

This seems like a great way to bring real time to every webpage right? Well, a lot of people are freaking out. In the Google example above the commenter shares some nice tidbits of information that could really help you plan your trip to San Francisco! Is this how the internet actually works?

Well, sort of. For every “Susan Taing” there will be 10 spammers/marketers who will be posting deals on the wiki or trying to direct viewers to their affiliate program or fake blog about whitening their teeth at home or getting ripped.

Some are worried that Sidewiki pages will be used to hijack brands. For example, this morining on the Sidewiki attached to the Apple.com page, users wrote about the “true cost of creating an iphone.” Can you imagine what will be posted on the Walmart.com page?

To stop Sidewiki from being a brand nightmare and a haven for spammers Google needs to figure out a way to verify the conversation.

Before you argue that there is no way for Google to stop spammers from exploiting Sidewiki, I want you think think about Wikipedia. Wikipedia has become one of the most trusted and reliable sources of information in human history. They have serious peer editors that pride themselves on preserving the purity and accuracy of information.

Imagine if Google could build up passionate supporters to do this for Sidewiki. Essentially, in the foreseeable future, you could have accurate and helpful information next to every major web-page you visit. Basically you’d have a constantly updating Wikipedia page that would follow you around the web. This excites me.

So what will be the reality of Sidewiki? Will it be the latest haven for spammers and marketers or will it become the next great source of user-generated information and content?

The last couple of blogs I posted covered applications on Facebook, and how these applications basically were a trade-off between your privacy as a Facebook user (and that of all your friends) and using the application.  Thus, if you wanted to play Mafia Wars on Facebook, Mafia Wars will be able to access your personal information to use at their discretion. The Huffington Post describes the “loss of privacy” in a great article:

The frightening penetration of Facebook, My-space, Twitter and other virtual social communities adds a lot of leverage to this loss of privacy. What you say or write in confidence to someone, can possibly be advertised by that person or worse, by a hacker, and exposed to the whole 200 million users of Facebook or the 1 billion users of the Internet!

The Facebook Application and Privacy settings are found here. Per the agreement with the application:

When you authorize an application, it will be able to access any information associated with your account that it requires to work.

The application can access information like your personal info, photos, and notifications as well as your friends’ personal info (depending on their settings). Please note that your contact information (such as your email) is never available through Platform. All platform applications are obligated to respect all of your existing privacy settings when requesting this information and when displaying it to other users.

To ensure that you control your information, set up your application permissions using the information that you feel comfortable sharing; if you do not want to share your photos, uncheck the photo box. See the image below for details:

Thus even though the application has access to your information, you can allow or disallow certain items for sharing. One of the practices that I have adopted is that if I decide to try an application and I don’t think that I will use it, I simply delete the application and ensure that it is not listed in any of my application “category” settings. Currently, the only apps that I allow on Facebook are Tweetdeck, FriendFeed, and Facebook for Blackberry. Yet, due to the fact that my friends use various applications, I still need to ensure that my settings are set the way that I need them for my own privacy.

Even if you’re not certain what to allow, I would suggest that you at least look to see what your settings currently allow…you might be revealing more about yourself than you realize. If you have any questions on how to protect yourself, please feel free to contact me via a comment, or on Twitter. If I do not have the answer for you right away, I will be sure to find it.

So, there I was, sending a message on MySpace (please quell your laughter) to a friend. I was ready to send it off, hoping that the user would check his account before the end of 2009 when, lo, a small icon labeled DotSpots popped onto the screen suggesting that I create a “Dot” of the message content. Earlier in the week I’d downloaded the program (currently available in beta version via the FireFox browser), wondering if this was the fourth coming of the ancient Project Xanadu. To test my theory and out of sheer curiosity, I figured that it was time to take the Dots for a test drive.

DotSpots, under the wing of co-founder Farhad Mohit, formerly of BizRate and Shopzilla.com, was first launched at the TechCrunch50 in 2008 to rave reviews. The Dots of DotSpots are annotation devices that can be distributed to equivalent copies of semantically similar text on the web. In many tech and social media forums, the format has drawn comparisons to Snipd and Diigo, both services in which the public can link and annotate existing subject matter on the web, but lack semantic matching capabilities. Mohit strongly believes that the purpose of journalism should be to frame issues, investigate issues from all sides, and to provide eye-witness accounts in investigative reporting. Unlike the aforementioned services, Mohit and company intend to enrich news media content by getting a few thousand high quality citizen journalists, bloggers, and activists into the fold as early adopters. This will allow them to enhance formidable news sources using Dots, causing mainstream media outlets to address those three areas. When this occurs, the DotSpots team will approach news publishers with a server side solution to turn DotSpots on for everyone, without the need for the plug-in which is now required to use the service.

As well intended and useful as the program may be, DotSpots is not without its challenges. On Friday, attorneys filed suit against Scribd, a document-sharing service, on charges that it’s broken barriers to copyright infringement worldwide. This accusation is eerily familiar, hearkening back to the old days, and ultimate demise, of DotSpots’ doppelganger Third Voice. When Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation implements a payment system to access their online content, the Dot that links to the information hidden behind the News Corporation firewall will only be available for viewing by those who choose to pay up. Finally, Google Wave, the long awaited gargantuan application and probable Facebook opponent, is preparing for its initial debut in a matter of weeks.

In defense of DotSpots, the company plans to work with publishers of large media sites, in what Mohit hopes to be a partnership that increases the readership of free, advertisement-based, investigative news content, while simultaneously creating a larger user base for DotSpots. DotSpots also plans to launch applications in existing programs such as DotSpots in WordPress in the future. As for Google Wave, Mohit believes the application as it currently exists is too complex for mass adoption. He notes that, as it has in demonstrations, a Wave can be embedded within a Dot so that the content of the Wave can be indexed to the appropriate equivalent text. In fact, any flash embedded program can support Dots, including MP3’s and other music files.

DotSpots will not be following Twitter down the information gossip highway over how the company will ultimately bring home the bacon. Mohit is personally funding the project from the 562 million dollar sale of Bizrate and Shopzilla. He sees no problem in the future of getting advertisers onboard, noting that the service can judge what topics are most highly ranked from where Dots are placed within the context of the larger article. The company itself is also able save money by being fully distributed with no central office, one of the greenest and most flexible solutions for the new workplace environment.

The official logo for the program can be found on the DotSpots About page http://dotspots.com/about/. The peace sign as depicted by a collection of Dots was designed by Mohit’s brother-in-law and represents the inter connectivity of news content to support the larger picture.

The Dots all appear to be paving a path in the right direction. I’m still waiting for more of my associates to download the program so that I can better gauge its usefulness as it pertains to my personal information gathering needs. As far as the project as a whole, the users of new media and the old guard of news media will have to work collectively to make the program, and the feedback it collects, useful. This could be a big step for the future of journalism as long as we can agree on one truth.

There are no Dots in “I”.

Do you remember the first time you read a blog? What about the first time you went on Facebook or Twitter? Did you ever think that a blog or social networking site could be a road to fame, fortune and the American Dream?

The power of the American Dream lies in the underlying notion of social mobility: Anyone can make it to the top through hard work, dedication, and an innovative idea. Regardless of whether or not the American Dream today is fact, or merely a powerful fantasy that distracts us from larger social problems, I think we can all agree that a mastery of social media is touted as the latest route to achieve the American Dream.

I believe in social media. It has absolutely revolutionized the way we communicate and relationships between brands and consumers. We live in an exciting time when it feels like anyone can become successful by using social media. There are numerous examples of social media success stories, from blogs like Perez Hilton to Pro Football Talk to Nah Right that rival (or outshine) major media sources in their niche, to those like Richard Scoble, Chris Brogan, and Pete Cashmore who have become social media celebrities based on their (near) obsession with connecting people and social technologies. There are people who have achieved fame, influence and following via social media in any industry or niche.

On the surface then, it appears that anyone can achieve social media rock-stardom and drive 140 MPH on the social media highway that leads to American Dreamville. While integrating social media into our lives may seem like common sense, we have to remember that not everyone “gets it”, and what’s more, there are many who don’t have the education or resources necessary to use social media to achieve their goals.

To all of those who have become successful using social media, I have something to say to you:

I bet you would have become successful without it.

The social media blogosphere today likes to attack individuals for their failures, especially when it comes to adopting social media. This kind of bashing is fine when it’s aimed at those who are too stubborn to adopt a new technology or those who think that social media is a fad.

But what  about those who haven’t been fortunate enough to get good educations that allow them to communicate effectively? Or those who did not grow up around the internet and understand its consequences?  What about those who don’t have the luxury to take a certain amount of time off to build up a business in order to have a four hour work week?

In our praising of social media as a powerful route to success, we need to remember that there are those who do not have the ability to use social media effectively, not because they are stupid or stubborn, but solely because of unfortunate circumstances.

Am I being overly critical? Do you think we all start at an equal playing field with social media?

Michael Jackson. Ed McMahon. Farrah Fawcett. Jim Carroll. 2009 has been the unofficial year of the death of celebrity, literally and figuratively. From the passing of the aforementioned to the sheer irony and foolishness of Chris Brown’s bowtie, Twitter followers have been some of the first to break the news of a trending event in the realm of pop culture.

Last night saw the #VMA hashtag all abuzz with the news that, yet again, Kanye West stole the spotlight (this time from an unsuspecting #TaylorSwift) to protest her win for Best Female Video in lieu of #Beyonce. A day later has brought us not only the continuing gossip regarding the buffoonery of West, but the tragic passing of actor Patrick Swayze.

In a mashup response to the death of Swayze as well as the continuing public disgust for West, the #TakeKanyeInstead hashtag has just popped into existence, once again informing the public of the popular sentiments in the world of social media. This may come to be the staple hashtag to use for the rest of 2009 should there be another celebrity death or, God forbid, another West outburst.

As of this writing, no conclusive statistics are available on the popularity of this tag, but according to Twemes.com [http://twemes.com/takekanyeinstead], it does seem to be gaining traction, although #DirtyDancing will surely be the “it” tag in a matter of hours. Some may call it crass, others may call it cunning. However, this just proves one thing regarding the Twitter constituency. Twitter users only censor themselves for the purpose of getting their message across in 140 characters or less. And, usually, that message can be heard around the web in a matter of moments loud and clear.

On the last blog, we left off with the following statement regarding Facebook’s Privacy practices:

ALLOWING CAUSES ACCESS WILL LET IT PULL YOUR PROFILE INFORMATION, PHOTOS, YOUR FRIENDS’ INFO, AND OTHER CONTENT THAT IT REQUIRES TO WORK.

Most users hit “Allow,” use the application, and move on. Facebook posts the fact that the user accessed the application by posting the information on the his or her homepage, and on the live feed Wall of all the user’s friends. There is an option to not post at this point, but it does not seem to be used very often. So, the application has access to the user’s entire profile, as well as that of his/her friends. Once the user’s friends add their two-cents to the poll or take a quiz, the application has access to all of their friends. And so on. Soon, like a gigantic spiderweb, the application has access to millions of profiles. Just in case you’re not familiar with these applications, a few of the more popular ones are Gifts, Mafia Wars, Like/Dislike, Flixter, We’re Related, Who Has the Biggest Brain, and Causes. I visited the Living Social website (one of applications I had allowed) to read their Privacy Policy and immediately yanked them off my page. Basically, Living Social declares that a user’s personal information will be collected, used, disseminated to other companies, as well as the fact that they will receive information from other companies to add to that they have collected.

[Living Social] …will collect any information you voluntarily provide, and we may also request optional information to support your use of LivingSocial, such as your year of birth, gender and other demographic information. [Household income, children, geographic location, etc.] We collect information in the form of the content that you submit during your use of LivingSocial, such as photos, reviews, ratings and other information you choose to submit. We may also collect information about you and your friends who use LivingSocial, from any social network you may have connected from, in order to provide you with a more personalized experience. For instance, we may collect your user ID or profile information that you have permitted to be displayed through LivingSocial in order to display you as a friend or in association with your profile and collections. When you order our products or services, you will need to submit your credit card or other payment information so that our service providers can process your payment for those products and services. When you sign up for, or win, any contests, sweepstakes, or other activities that we make available on LivingSocial, we will collect the information designated along with such activity, which may include your contact information such as your address and phone number. If you choose to sign up to receive information about products or services that may be of interest to you, we will collect your email address and all related information. Additionally, we collect any information that you voluntarily enter, including Personal Information, into any postings, comments, or forums within the LivingSocial community. Personal Information from Other Sources We may receive Personal Information about you from other sources with which you have registered, companies who we have partnered with (collectively, “Partners”) or other third parties. We may associate this information with the other Personal Information we have collected about you.

I should have just sent them my wallet, my Social Security Card, Passport, and all of my credit cards in addition any personal information that they needed: gender, sexual orientation, interests, birth date, birth place, and location of moles, tattoos, and facial hair. As stated above, that application is no longer part of my life…we broke up because of the simple fact that she was too damn nosy! Now, to their credit, Facebook does not deny, or spin, their position on this matter. Rather, they smack users in the mouth with one seriously grave fact that will exonerate the company from any and all charges:  Users must willingly opt-in to an application to use it, in essence trading their personal information, and that of their compatriots, to find out “What movie star they resemble.” An unnamed, faceless Facebook spokesperson clearly stated Facebook’s position in the following statement (regarding the Canadian lawsuit):

“We pride ourselves on the industry-leading controls we offer users over their personal information,” said a company spokesperson. “We’ve reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors – most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users…. We look forward to working with [Privacy] Commissioner [Jennifer] Stoddart to set the record straight and will continue our ongoing efforts to educate users and the public around privacy controls on Facebook.”

Facebook is 100% correct. Unless a user hits the “Allow” button, nothing happens. However, it does seem unnecessary for companies to rape profiles when users choose to answer polls, take quizzes, or participate in causes. That being the case,  the ACLU has launched a petition to change the policy practices of the popular site, and, in a seeming contradiction of their goals, have launched a quiz to educate users on the dangers of applications. We’ll leave it there for the time-being. The next post will cover some solutions that are available to you and yours. Thanks for reading.