Archive | April, 2013

I want to know which genius thought of Facebook emotions so I can kick his or her ass.

Facebook emotions are little addendum’s you can add to your Facebook status. You might say, “I’m feeling happy!” or “I’m feeling sad.” Others many get more creative and say, “I’m feeling nonchalant.” Still others might cross the line with things like, “I’m feeling you.”

These can also be expanded to illustrate the media you are consuming, such as movies, TV, or books.

Color me unimpressed with this new “feature.”

LiveJournal had emotions in 2003. Clearly, we are advancing the technology of our times by harkening back to the past. My life was so much better when my friends new how I was feeling when I tapped out a typo-laden journal entry and tagged it with “Feeling Stressed.”

In a word where we are seeing media compress into free-flowing streams of micro-media, this is just another shameless attempt gather data to serve more ads. I’ve already seen some ads using this. When I was productive, I immediately got an ad for productivity software.

I wonder if people who are sad get ads for alcohol. Or antidepressants. Maybe they just get ads for ice cream and Oreos.

Sigh.

One more thing to update. One more message to share. All in pursuit of the perfect ad targeting.

Do you use Facebook emotions? Do you like them?

Let me know. I want to “feel informed” next time I go on Facebook.

The other day, I got $50 to advertise my personal twitter account, @JayDolan. Then I got another $100, because I’m a "small business owner."

Apparently, being human qualifies you as a small business. Nothing is more empowering than feeling like human cattle.

In the world where everyone is a publisher, everyone is an advertiser. We all fight for the same attention and notice whenever we publish a message online.

The ability to pay to promote used to be something for businesses only. But now, we see it for everyone. The social networks rely on advertising to generate revenue. That revenue stream is now looking to users who refuse to pay for service in the first place.

• Want to get a message in front of your friends? Promote it on Facebook for $5.
• Need more Twitter followers to feel good about yourself? Buy them.
• Want to get a job at your dream company? Purchase an ad on LinkedIn.

Ugh.

I’m all for paying for what I use, but this model seems unsustainable. At this rate, will I only see messages that my friends have paid to promote? Or if I want my friends to see my post, will I have to pay Facebook or Twitter?

If social media is a great equalizer, why does it seem like it will fall before the almighty dollar?

Finally, you can tell that troll what an asshole he is on Facebook directly.

Facebook announced that pages would have inline comments added to pages. This means that page owners and other Facebook users can reply directly to specific comments. The feature is optional now, but will be turned on for all pages on July 10, 2013.

(As an aside: why did Facebook publish this news on the Facebook + Journalists page? You think such a big announcement that affects all pages would be announced to page managers. Jerks.)

Here’s what you can expect between now and then.

• Thousands of blog posts regurgitating the news that Facebook has turned this on.
• At least one "case study" of a page using the comment replies successfully. This study will demonstrate no real value for a business, but social media "experts" will flock to it.
• Several thousand blog posts of ways you can "maximize" your page with comment replies turned on.
• Hundreds of community managers sighing in relief.

As you can see, most of the "value" here isn’t value. Most of this is marketers trying to compete in a "First to publish!" mentality. For many pages, this just adds another layer of complexity as people get into pointless arguments.

There are two uses that do make immediate sense to me though: hosting discussions and replying to customer service issues.

For discussions, the value of seeing threading conversations makes much more sense. No need to dig through an endless scroll of questions. For customer service, again, you can see everything in one place.

This update won’t stop idiots and morons from hijacking discussions. That will always happen. But at least for now, our conversations on Facebook can make a little more sense.