January 2010 Archives

Some of my colleagues in marketing asked me to share my knowledge of the web—everything from HTML to social media. They think it will help them in their careers, and it will. But I plan to make them suffer. I set up server space to get them started (the single nice thing I will do for them during this boot camp), but, particularly if you have a web host (I recommend Modwest), you can play along at home on most of the drills. If you're willing to sweat blood, that is.

Drill #1

You have 24 hours to complete this task. Do not ask anyone—especially not me—for help until you have fully Googled the problem on your own.

1. Download and install a free FTP client. Log in using the protocols I emailed you. Create a directory named whatever you want in /htdocs/www/bootcamp/. (This is your personal directory. You'll see that I have a directory named "sarge.")
2. Create a second directory within your personal directory. Name this one "images."
3. Find a picture of someone, preferably someone you know, doing something stupid. (We are going to ridicule this person publicly.) Upload the image to your /images directory.
4. Next, open a new document in Notepad or Wordpad or SimpleText (not Microsoft Word).
5. Go to this this page and copy the source code into your document.
   
6. In your document, change the code so that page title, headline, and text say something different, and so that it references your image instead of mine. 
7. Save your document as "index.html"
8. Upload the document to your personal directory. 
9. If you did everything correctly, your web page will appear at www.avenuedmedia.com/bootcamp/name-of-your-personal-directory/
10. Post a link to your page in the comments of this blog post.
    

I don't find Facebook addictive or even interesting.

I check Facebook once or twice a day and skim updates from friends and family. It's nice to know that individuals with whom I share varying degrees of closeness are still kicking. But that's about all I get out of it: Confirmation that certain people are still alive. Surely there's more to it than that.

The writer Corey Doctorow argues that the subtext of the banal musings posted on Facebook is "I am thinking of you, I care about you, I hope you are well." Maybe so, but Facebook more often feels like a waste of time than any other social media in which I participate. Something about the platform encourages banality. Which is strange, because, unlike Twitter, Facebook was developed as a gated community in which only people you select can see what you post. (Facebook's recent ghastly changes to their privacy defaults are a topic for another post on another day.) So why the hesitation to post anything meaningful?

(Full disclosure: the majority of my posts on Facebook contain maps of where I have ridden my bike. If it can get more banal than that I'm not sure how.)

1. Facebook undermines conversation. Sure, you can post something, and dozens can comment on it. But it's a free-for-all, like a verbal spitball fight from opposite sides of a large room. The spitballs never connect midair; they just go splat. Since every comment becomes a non-sequitur, people tend to post comments that can stand on their own, bearing little relevance to the original post.
   
   
2. The "Like" button. Is there anything lazier?
   
   
3. Its attempts to be more like Twitter. Even as a late comer to Facebook I recognize that it ain't what it used to be. The Wall, which was once the main selling point, is now subordinated to the News Feeds and Status Updates. (Related: Can anyone explain to me the difference between the two?) At least when you posted on someone's Wall you were attempting a personal connection. Now Facebook functions more like Twitter, except, let's face it, your circle of friends and family isn't nearly as interesting as the strangers you could be inviting to your dinner party on Twitter.

How do we fix Facebook? We don't. You could thread the comments, add a "dislike" button, scrap the Twitter-mimicking. But Facebook's management has made clear that it doesn't want to be fixed. It just wants to monetize you. Time to move on to the next hot social media phenom: picking up the phone.*



*Yes, I know this makes me sound like a smarmy old git. But it's in line with one of my New Year's resolutions to acknowledge special occasions more. I plan to achieve this through snail-mail cards and phone calls and, for the bigger ones, actually planning in advance for once. Because I know something important is being lost when we resort to e-greetings and Wall posts.