I’ve recently tweeted the following:

“ If every ‘love’ tweet I see in my timeline were real, there would be mass suicides every time twitter is down “

That tweet has triggered some reaction, some of them I can’t help considering, given the context, pretty uncalled for.

Since we are all humans, with different experiences and point of view, and since I can’t ask you all something as personal as your own definition of love, based on your deepest feelings and experiences, I am going to give you mine.

Being ready to let everything go, friends, family, comfort, money to follow someone at the other end of the world. Persist and start over without a penny to your name, in a place where you’re a stranger,  to stay with that same person, because he/she needs you. Even if he/she is  ‘only a friend’.

Staying in a city that breaks people and swallow them whole because you want to share it with its citizens, because the most beautiful thing you’ve seen is the sunrise over its buildings, proving you there’s always a tomorrow. Because everything you miss can’t compare to anything you would miss if you left. Even if you’re so often seen as ‘that weird foreigner’.

Forgetting anger, jealousy, lust, grief because he/she opened his/her door again. And be ready to take yet another bullet.

Be hungry together, because you’d rather share the hunger than see him/her in trouble.

Being broken and fix yourself because you’re his/her rock.

Feeling that there is only one home: next to him/her.

You can call me sarcastic all you want, now. But as far as I’m concerned, I need to give more than 140 characters to show my love.

Posted via email from Walking down the dragon's back

I have already introduced the topic with that post. But I think that through all my perusing, musing and meditation, I have found some more factors to why the SNS trend can actually be seen as a bubble ready to burst. Here:

Wrong values and unqualified ROI

From the top of my skull, that's the very first thing coming in, and the topic about which I am the most vehement.

Wrong values because now everything seems to be quantified by either the amount of followers, likes, or facebook friends you get.
The numbers have to be huge, since the bet is  "if you are visible to many, some might buy"; unfortunately I barely believe in that approach, and I'm probably not the only one.
It was probably true a couple of years ago, but now so many have jumped in the bandwagon it derails at every turn, being visible to many means taking part in an infomercial flood invading too many time lines.

Now, I see a huge bunch of consultants and experts wanting to jump at my throat, screaming that the results are quantifiable if you know where to start.
Indeed they are. We hear from the revenue generated from online campaigns. Generated by the ads agencies.
The ROI of the actual advertisers though, is unknown.
I'm not talking about isolated cases, I'm talking about a global survey and real figures; what I want to read is " n% of of the companies advertising on Twitter experienced a ROI of n% during the last 6 month"

Too much snake oil

I'm not saying that every SNS consultant is a fake, but many are still pretty inexperienced, or plain useless.
As a result, many companies are lured into thinking that:

- They can sell online without previous authority (not everyone is called Starbucks)
- They can sell absolutely everything online ( PR is different from sales)
- Having lots of followers/likes/friends is a proof of success (you can buy followers in some forums)

Then, confusing talks about the results come into the game, and mess it up a little more. Take this article for instance.

What do they mean by "countless donations",  "increased their traffic by 300%" or "sales bump of 20%" ?
If I have 1 visitor, having 3 by the next day will be a 300% increase.  Be specific!

What kind of trust do you want to build with these stats? Seriously?
What is economy based on, by the way? Oh yeah, trust.

The balance is fragile

Platforms, users, advertisers and third parties are tied in a very tight way.
The platform depends on the users, drives its traffic through third parties, and exposes it to the advertisers.

If the platform fails, everything is muted
If the users get bored, everybody loses interest in the platform (no content generated)
It third parties are not competitive enough, users will get bored (but then again, what if the platform fails them?)
If the advertisers stop advertising, the platform can't maintain itself (and in the other hand if the "lesser" and noisy ads smother the users, they will get bored)

The not so funny fact being that Facebook and Twitter are in a position of quasi monopole. There is nowhere else to go right now.
Does it mean that investors and companies will keep on pumping in money and effort until someone panics? I hope not.

The topic is being discussed

As I said earlier, economy is based on trust.
You'll always find a base of skeptics being grumpy about mostly every topic you can imagine, that's given. But in the middle of the current SNS fever, articles about disappointments and doubt about the real value of the system (like this one) are becoming more common, and that's not really a good sign.

What can we do so it doesn't burst?

What I have in mind is pretty simple. Diversify, leave more space to the competition, stop advertising stuff no one care about, and start treating social media like, yes, media and not like some universal solution to all advertising problems.
The internet is not limited to Twitter and Facebook, it is a mine of innovation, it's time to remember it and get back to making stuff.

Burstingly yours.
Danny.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

Your Twitter timeline is a bloody mess? You've created lists but it doesn't matter?
The probability is that you are both using Twitter to look for information to share and to keep in touch with some friends.
The probability is, now your timeline is gorged with non-sequitur quotes and repeated bad marketing attempts, that you failed.
Like I did.

So what now? It's time to unfollow everybody, yessir, and re-follow the Tweeps you really bear in your little heart.

I have some easy steps for you:

1. Tell everyone you are cleaning up and starting from zero. You don't hate them, you just need to get rid of all the bots, you were a victim of your own eagerness to make friends and followed too many accounts, people forced you at gunpoint, you're saving the trees...
2. Do that a day or two before you actually press the big red nuke button, some people don't tweet everyday and might be surprised if it happens too fast. Who wouldn't?
   
3. Make a new list with people you will re-follow. Unfollowing them will not delete them from the list. A good way to do so is to check your mentions and private messages, it will give you a good hint about who dialogs with you the most.
4. Once you're sure you really, really want to do it, go to http://www.unfollowall.com/
5. Enter your ID, Password, validate and check your account.
   
6. If your 'following' counter is not showing zero yet, go back to Unfollowall.com and repeat/refres.
7. Time to re-follow everybody in that new list you created.
8. As a couple of extra steps I'd recommend to create some special lists such as "Info only" and "real people" or "nice dialog"  and keep these strictly separated. If you are using a tool such as hootsuite or tweetdeck, it's pricelessly handy.

Notice that you will inevitably experience a drop in your followers, since all the accounts using automated mutual follow will also unfollow you. But then again, you're in there for a reason that doesn't include pleasing the bots. Be tough!

Wishing you a happy reboot!

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr