Eleven things about social and other participatory media and attendant technology that don't warrant their own blog posts but are worth a comment or two...

I've let ten days slip by without a post here... not even a throw-away lift from some other blog.  I'd like to say I've been busy or there hasn't been anything worth a comment, but that's not true.  What is true is that there are always little things to write about, yet I don't necessarily want to stretch them into full-blown posts.  Thus, the fall back "list" approach comes in handy at times like these.

Much of my academic reason to be revolves around social media and other kinds of user-generated content platforms.  I play around with a lot of it, spend too much time with some of it, and still haven't explored most of it.  But that, of course, doesn't stop me from having opinions on it.  I am me, after all.

1. I throw a lot of stuff out on Twitter these days, and those tweets show up in the column to your left.  I kind of like the micro-blogging concept, and it seems like a good way to promote links and other stuff that might be cool but doesn't warrant a blog post.  Micro-blogging -- Twitter -- was something I initially ridiculed (me?  ridicule?) when it was mostly "I'm at the car wash" or "I'm having lasagna tonight for dinner."  And rightly so.  But I actually like Twitter a lot for following people who actually have interesting things to say or otherwise pass along.  I learn as much from my well-selected list of Twitter feeds as I do from any other single information source.
2. I tell myself the aforementioned Twitter Feed column on Kerfuffle counts toward my blogging activity.  It doesn't, really, but at least there is something fresh on the blog.  Not valid.  Fail.
3. Fucking Facebook is the root of all evil.  It's like a car wreck I have to keep looking at.  I cross-post to Facebook a lot of stuff I also put on Twitter.  Some Facebook "friends" (who aren't really friends or they would know better) get miffed by my snarky and irreverent self (mostly the Twitter stuff) and either threaten to de-friend me for calling stupid things stupid (please, be my guest) or go to great lengths to scold me and correct my "far left loony" way of thinking.  But I admit I like the back and forth dialog, especially with people who have a sense of humor, don't take themselves too seriously, and know at the end of the day, Facebook doesn't really matter. 
4. I lasted longer on FourSquare than I thought I would.  I think I was doing it for about five weeks.  And then I just stopped.  I guess there are a few reasons.  First, I'm 50 years old, for chrissakes.  I don't need to be broadcasting every bar I visit.  And since most of the places where I "checked in" were bars, taverns or restaurants, I mostly seemed to be telling the world "I have a drinking problem" or "I need to tell you I am out on the town so you will think I have some kind of life."  Second, there really wasn't much of a reward for doing it.  It was more like a chore.  A boring chore.  That's not a great attribute for a social media site.  I'm over it.
5. Gowalla, a rival of FourSquare, only had me for about ten days.  And I was doing it simultaneously with FourSquare.  Yes, I was broadcasting on two networks that I was not home, and therefore my place was a better burglary target.  Not smart.  Gowalla has a nicer interface, but always seemed to be kind of buggy, and was hard to correct once something was in it.  I'm thinking they will disappear soon.
6. Want to get "mayor" status on FourSquare at a popular place?  Register it as a new location and spell the name wrong.  Worked for me on a place and I was so happy until I realized I fucked up the name.  But for about a week, I really thought I was a playa at one of the main university buildings.
7. Remember how cultishly popular GoogleWave was about six months ago?  A few weeks ago I couldn't remember it's name... kept drawing a blank.  Why did we even think that thing was cool again?  In any case, I gather it is now so not-popular that anyone can use it, no invitation required!  Hooray!  I totally missed that big announcement.  In fact I only learned it's wide open when I went looking for the link I needed for this item.  
8. How come more people don't use EyeFi?  Maybe because they don't have any idea about it or what it does.  (It allows your camera to automatically and securely upload your digital pictures directly to your account and on to your laptop through the internet as long as you are in a WiFi zone you can access. Way cool!)  It came on the market about a year ago and I ran out and bought the SD card for it and thought it was great.  They have since added a lot more features, options and capabilities.  They even pumped out some radio advertising to promote it as a Mother's Day and Father's Day gift idea.  I'm still the only person I know among my friends and fellow grad students that uses it. Nevertheless, it is probably the best technology toy I've added to my arsenal in the past year... and it remains relatively inexpensive.  You should consider trying it if you like taking and sharing pictures.
9. How did Facebook become a legitimate replacement for regular email?  Friends (the real kind) who should know better are using Facebook to send me messages that really should go via regular email... according to me.  Yeah, I suppose it's effective in that I see them... eventually.  But stop it.  Unlike virtually all open email platforms, Facebook messages live in a closed system, making it harder to use outside of your collection of "friends."  I tend to ignore Facebook messages until there are a lot of them.  I think I have six or seven backed up in there.  I'll get to them. Later.  But shoot me an email to my primary account on mac.com or wisc.edu and I'm all over it.  Because it's real email.  Again, of course, according to me.
10. I'm never sure about trusting user-created reviews, especially when it comes to anything that is either really subjective (like movies and restaurants) or ideologically charged (books and other intellectual property dealing with politics, religion, academic theory and stuff like that).  It's too easy to slam something you don't like, often without even reading/visiting/seeing the thing in question.  Need proof?  Look at the reviews on Amazon.com for Ann Coulter's or Keith Olberman's or Glenn Beck's or Ed Schultz'z newest books.  Almost all the ratings are either 1s or 5s.  And many of them post almost immediately after -- and even before -- the book is released. Like all of those haters tossing 1s out there actually bought and read the book they are slamming.  And the same can be said for the fans too.  Makes all of the reviews suspect me thinks.
11. I registered for a MySpace page much earlier than I registered for a Facebook page.  I have 726 Facebook "friends" (albeit many I have never met and only am linked with because a friend request from anyone with a Newfoundland dog in their profile picture is automatically accepted).  Meanwhile, I have exactly one MySpace friend... and he's that founder guy who "friends" everyone.  His name is Tom Anderson... I just looked.  It's rather telling that I don't even have a bookmark on my browser for MySpace amidst the maybe dozen other social networks I have in that bookmark tab.  But for you, Tom, I'll add MySpace.  I might double my number of friends as a result!

In looking over all this stuff, I have to smile when I think back to when my brother, sister and I were finally able to convince my parents we needed a "kids line" with telephones in our rooms.  That seemed like a major social networking tool at the time.  Jeez, I'm old.  And, it appears after re-reading this post, cranky.  Must be the heat index and slight hangover from all the beers at last night's John Hiatt show.