The Anti-Social Media

Whatever happened to Team Coco?

Conan O’Brien’s feud with NBC and Jay Leno brought a lot of buzz last month. There was a big Facebook fan page, people changed their avatars, and some fans e-mail carpet bombed the NBC Universal executives to keep Conan on The Tonight Show.

None of it worked.

So, we bitched in our tweets, complained in our Facebook statuses, but mostly we moved on. We forgot how NBC wronged Conan and proceeded to start watching the Winter Olympics, even though the Olympics are broadcast on the network that brought him down.

The power of social media is in the immediate. It draws our attention quickly, but without sustained action, its power fades away quickly.  Immediate outcry gets notice, but without action to back it up, it’s all just noise.

Still with Coco?  Here’s what you can do:

• Keep writing those e-mails to tell NBC what programming you want.
• Stop watching NBC

You have to hit them where it hurts, and you have to back it up with real action.  Your angry tweets for one day won’t make a difference, but your eyes and your wallet will.

See the buttons on the right?  I hate them.  There are so many services out there now that use these kinds of buttons to spew stories on the rest of the internet that the best articles are shared to a point of redundancy.  Articles permeate and mutate, and before you know it, you’ve bookmarked the same story four times through Instapaper.

Also, buttons look terrible.  I’m not a great web designer, but I can tell you when I want to read an article, I don’t want to assaulted by icons all over the article.  I don’t want to Digg, (Re)Tweet, Facebook, or Buzz (I can’t believe I said that) articles.  If your content is good enough, I will find a way to share it.  I’m not that incompetent a user that I don’t know how to post a link.

I presume the bigger services will never get rid of these types of buttons.  They need their content to get out as much as possible to pull in those important advertising dollars, and throwing some buttons with easy ways to share and spread content are useful to them.

But for the rest of us, we need to make better content.  We need to make sure each post showcases our very best ability, whether that is written, audio, or visual so people will want to share it.  Because if your content sucks, what’s the point of even putting it online in the first place?

Vote for The Anti-Social Media at Ignite Raleigh:

We’re close in the running to present at Ignite Raleigh 2.  Please visit the Ignite Raleigh site and vote for us to present about the bleak future of social media.  Anyone can vote, so get to it!

This is not social media news, Mashable.

As an aside, isn’t the point of an iPhone that you can bring it to the couch?

This is how I feel about Google Buzz:

Google Buzz is like Gmail had unprotected sex with all my social networks.

I realize Google makes money by running ads against content I search for, or running ads in services I use, like Gmail or Google Reader.  Servers don’t run and maintain themselves for free, so I get that they need to do this, and probably want to make some good money while they are at it.

But the way Google rolled out Buzz was insane.  Instead of a new service that integrated with the old ones, Buzz permanently ties to my Gmail account, which is my primary e-mail account.  Granted, all these people were already in contact with me a lot through email, but I didn’t need to give them all immediate access to my thoughts in their e-mail too, when they probably get my thoughts on Facebook and Twitter.

I’m not buying that users are embracing Buzz.  It seems most people I know wrote, “OMG!  I’m on Google Buzz!” and then they were finished.  My friends who are big on Buzz were big on sharing and commenting on Google Reader already.  I’ll agree that Buzz probably had 9 million posts and comments at first, but how long will it play out when it’s not new and shiny?

I could already read shared items from my contacts I chose to share with in Google Reader.  I don’t need to send them with the whole internet, they’re already out there for the whole internet to read.  Most of my friends share photos on flickr or Facebook, so I don’t need to share them on Buzz.  Finally, I can post links basically anywhere.  So, Buzz just does the same thing, but now it’s invading Gmail.

So, now I have to deal with more unwanted clutter in my Gmail, which already gets a lot of clutter because I’ve been using Gmail for 6 years.

I don’t care that I can turn Buzz off because I never wanted it in the first place.  Google has more than enough ways to get my eyes and make money advertising from me.  I want Gmail to do one thing well.  That thing is E-mail.

Google, you couldn’t Orkut it in the first place, and now you’re nearing my personal buzzsaw.  Stop sleeping around with my contacts, and stay the hell away from my email.

Ask me anything:

Have a burning social media question?  Want to know the best way to lose old friends on Facebook?  Need a laugh?  Use that link to ask me anything. Be warned though, I might not answer nicely.

The point of Anti-Social Media is to break connections for your benefit.  It’s making the decision that unfollowing, defriending, breaking the link will benefit you more than keeping it will.

You will defriend friends and unfollow people, and people will do the same to you.  But you’ll make new, better friends.  You follow people who distribute better information.  Through loss, you will discover.

You can’t find that better information, that important new contact, your new best friend, without evaluating what you’ve surrounded yourself with.  Breaking yourself free of what isn’t working around you or brings you down is worth it.

Your personal brand isn’t worth tarnishing through unsavory connections.  On the social web, you’re not only defined by what you say, but who you’re with.  Don’t surround yourself with trash.

Break the link.  Reap the benefits.

I know you can do it.

This is not social media news, Mashable.