Scott Adcox

Doing More With Less Since 1972

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Sorry Facebook–MySpace Had It Right From The Beginning

September 26, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Nothing is easier than self-deceit.

– Demosthenes

Last week I wrote a post that stated Facebook had no long-term direction. Boy was I wrong. The F8 keynote address made it obvious that they have a very clear vision…they want to know everything about everything you do.

They want to seamlessly allow you to share your entire life with your friends. No effort required on your part. Just install the right apps to your Facebook account, and you can share everything you do real time, while also automatically curating the details of your life for later in Timeline.

Technologically, that’s amazingly cool, but it potentially introduces a huge problem. Real time, seamless information about you being streamed to all of your “friends” means it’s hard to filter anything. Since Facebook is so proud of it’s integration with Spotify to share what music you are listening to, let’s use that as an example.

While Facebook is right that people love to share music with their friends, they’ve neglected to realize that people also love to listen to a lot of music that they don’t want to share with their friends. Do you really want your friends to know that you love that Milli Vanilli song and listen to it first thing every morning? Don’t we all have music that isn’t at all cool, but we love to listen to?

Now…think about that exact situation applied to all the other things Facebook wants to know about you: books, movies, websites, food, (lack of) exercise, etc. Now…think about what it will mean when all of these things are lumped together. I’ll save you the suspense and cut to the chase:

Facebook is slowly but surely taking away its users’ ability to present themselves as they wish to be seen. Instead, Facebook is going to force people to be seen exactly as they are.

Take that in for just a second. The real you is going to be out there for everyone to see. Not the version you’d like to present to people.

The real you.

Now is the time in this post when we’re all going to have to be painfully honest with ourselves. Or if we don’t want to examine ourselves, let’s just consider other people we know.

Doesn’t it seem like a lot of your “friends” who are active Facebook users really just see it as the reality show they will never be cast for?

And doesn’t it seem like many of them are crafting an online versions of themselves you know isn’t 100% accurate (just like people on reality shows)?

Don’t you sometimes wonder if these people even realize that they are misrepresenting themselves?

And when you consider the ones you know really well in real life, doesn’t it seem like the only people they are really fooling about these imaginary fabulous lives are themselves and people who don’t really know them?

What’s going to happen when these uber-active users realize they are no longer able to fool other people about their real selves and are also unable to continue to fool themselves?

What happens when Facebook becomes a reflection of real life instead of a collection of beautiful self-portraits created by master artists? What happens when that mirror of their real lives is held up to Facebook’s users’ faces?

That’s not going to be a completely scary thing for most people, but the fact that it’s being shared with everyone else and that it can’t be turned off will be. Are they going to continue to be so active on Facebook, or are they going to dramatically cut back?

Personally, I’m a big fan of the ability to present yourself as you choose online. It’s why I blog under a domain name that is my name. I control it. It’s why I seldom use curse words on Twitter. I control it. It’s why I’m thankful every person I encountered in my 20s didn’t have a digital camera and a platform to broadcast my behavior to the world.

It’s the reason I basically eliminated my participation on Facebook a while back.

I’m not being critical of people who work hard on Facebook to control their online personas. I know why they do that. I get it. I just don’t think they realize that’s exactly what they are doing; and I don’t think they (or Facebook) realize what’s going to happen when the ability to control that is completely removed.

MySpace did a lot of things wrong, but there’s one thing MySpace got right.

MySpace was about me. On MySpace, we could pretend to like only the coolest music by featuring only the coolest music on our profiles. We could pretend to be way better looking than we really are by sharing only the most flattering photos of ourselves. We could pretend to be popular by becoming friends with people we had no interest in knowing and boost our friend count.

MySpace let us all be fabulous. Or gangsta, intelligent, athletic…whatever we wish we really were.

Facebook is about to take all of that away. And the better they get at representing the real world, the more their users are going to have their images of themselves shattered.

Mark Zuckerberg may have made a very critical mistake when he failed to realize that everyone in the world isn’t a billionaire at 26 with hot chicks and cool friends clamoring to hang out with them, even if that’s what we all secretly wish our lives were like.

Plus and Facebook Both Jumping

September 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Every day I read something about how lame Google Plus is because no one is using it. That’s not the impression I’m getting. I see it being used a lot, although mostly by people who presumably can’t stand Facebook.

But that’s not an insignificant number of people.

And yesterday Google announced that Plus is now publicly available (no invite needed) and unleashed a plethora of new features. Facebook has been launching new stuff rapidly lately too, which pretty much indicates that they’re worried about Plus. Don’t believe that? Take note of the way they’re now automatically organizing your friends into Circles lists for you. Yesterday they made some major UI changes with the change to the news feed and the ticker.

When I was a more frequent Facebook user, I was very amused by the complaints from users when Facebook made small UI changes. It’s going to be worth visiting in the next few days to read what will best described as outrage over the mess they’ve created with these changes. This week’s analogy:

Netflix is to name change as Facebook is to UI change

We’ll see, but this misstep could make Plus even more viable. Robert Scoble is betting everything on Plus. And I’m becoming more and more convinced that Google has the best shot at winning the long game. Facebook has lots of users, but it completely lacks anything resembling organization and long term direction.

Data likes to be organized, and users like simple things that don’t change much.

Correct Swimming Pool Temps

September 9, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I’m going to break this down to levels beyond scientific, based on my test data.

I’m proposing a “bust-yer-aise” scale similar to the wind chill factor or the heat index. 80 feels like 88, provided you’re working hard enough.

If 80 degree water in your backyard pool is too cold for you to cool off in, you need to increase the intensity of your run/bike/walk/row/rugby/training. Or mow/landscape harder. Whatever.

And the max temperature for a lap pool should be ~78. If you can’t make yourself sweat buckets in 78 degree water, consult a physician.

A Tech,Education, and Fitness Link Dump

September 8, 2011 / / 0 Comments

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D) – Not often Mr. Reynolds writes something this verbose, but when he does, it’s almost guaranteed to be quotable.

And if I’m peeing all over the wave of hope-and-change hype that got him into office despite his obvious unsuitability, it’s to help ensure that nothing this disastrous happens again in my lifetime. I realize that it’s painful for those who fell victim to the mass hysteria to constantly be reminded of their foolishness, but I hope it’ll be the kind of pain that results in learning.

It’s Not A Mirror, It’s A Crystal Ball – How and why @techcrunch works. And why traditional media is failing. I hope TC doesn’t get watered down by this latest dust up.

The Amazing Colossal Syllabus – The worst thing about this mentality is something I’ve noticed in adults too: their idea of learning is attending a class regularly and getting a certificate of completion. The notion of internalizing the course material and applying it to situations not specifically addressed in the text is completely foreign.

Dim & Dash: Breaking Up – I was once accused of pulling a “frat boy move” when breaking up with a girl this way. Maybe I should have considered that a compliment since she seemed to have a penchant for frat boys.

Quick Math for Understanding Any Goverment Program – Our congressional representatives often measure their success by how many pieces of new legislation they’ve been able to pass. I think a more accurate measure of success is how many pieces of legislation they’ve been able to repeal.

Mauricio’s Ironman – Love reading these race reports! Can’t wait until I get my turn.

Jogging beats weight lifting for losing belly fat – HT @sram9. Personal fitness, like personal finance, is 20% knowledge and 80% behavior. Those numbers may be even more skewed for fitness.

Firefox for Android Tablets Unveiled – Wait…and we still don’t have Chrome on Android devices? This is good news at least.

September 8, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Watching the debates last night, I noticed that other candidates have started to talk about things like auditing the federal reserve and using terms like “Keynesian economics”.

Good job Ron Paul. You started those conversations four years ago and have shifted the debate in some very key areas this time around.

However, I don’t think they are going to be talking about “the fence that keeps us all in” during the 2016 campaign. I’m afraid you may be losing it us a little on that front.

Thinking my money would be better spent this time around helping Newt stir the pot.

 

Lucrative Twitter Niche Identified!!!

September 6, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Twitter is still growing every day, and it’s harder and harder to get noticed and recognized there. No matter what niche you are trying to target with your marketing efforts, it seems like it’s more difficult to build a following among anyone other than the people who are also marketing in that niche.

I was looking over my “New Followers” emails over the weekend and checking out the profiles of some of the people who looked like they may have a motive for using Twitter other than selling me something. There weren’t many to be found. But I did find a new niche. It was serendipitous!

The untapped niche on Twitter is…

People who are just being themselves and not pushing a sales pitch until I want to vomit at the thought of the idea of owning whatever they are selling.

If you are moderately interesting, I’m going to be much more likely to pay attention to what you are trying to sell me when you finally, after gaining my trust, try to sell it. I’m a tightwad, so I won’t pay that much attention, but at least I’ll pay more attention.

If you are really into fitness (or web applications, or politics, or music, or fill_in_the_blank), that’s awesome. Me too. But I don’t want to hear someone talk about one single subject all the time in real life. Why would I want that on Twitter? If you can’t talk about anything else over a cup of coffee, you are probably obnoxious and boring.

And so is your Twitter account.

September 1, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Google released a +1 extension for Chrome last night. Big news? I guess, but maybe not that big.

I’m surprised at a couple of things. First of all, I can’t believe it took Google this long to push this extension out. It’s nice, but nothing that Facebook can’t do for “Like”. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an official “Like” extension out in the next 24 hours. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook acts like this isn’t even happening.

*UPDATE*

Here’s Facebook’s extension, less than 24 hours after….I should do this for a living.

*END UPDATE*

What I really can’t believe is that the +1 button hasn’t made its way to the Chrome base install yet. That’s something Facebook can’t do unless they build a browser and capture market share like Google has. Extensions are great, but they still require people to install extensions, and I’m not convinced that’s something the average user is going to go out of their way to do.

Now…when is the API going to be exposed so that my blog posts can show up in Plus automatically? Twitter has it, Facebook has it.

Well Google?

Get Off The Sidelines, Google + Button Update Coming, and Netflix for Kids

August 30, 2011 / / 0 Comments

These link dumps every few days make it nice for me to keep some fresh content coming, even when I don’t have a ton to say. Of course, if you follow @sadcox on Twitter, you get this stuff almost-real-time…for FREE!

You Can’t Become a Man From The Sidelines – Join your local rugby club this season. Or learn to play an instrument. Or grow and kill your own food. Build a house. Paint a self-portrait. Anything is better than just watching other people live their lives.

Van hits, kills bicycle rider near DeLand – This is Sara McLarty’s father. Be careful out there.

Google+ Share to Specific Circles – Big news for publishers…you’ll be able to decide what images and descriptions are shared with Snippets.

Twitter Based Hedge Fund – Has someone finally found a way to tap the emotions of the market? I’ll stick with logic.

Tenured Professors: Get Out While You Can – This doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility to me. “Get out while you can” may be a little strong, but contingency plans are never a bad idea.

90’s 411: Music, Fashion, Timelines, Movies, TV and More – I’ve perused this site to see if I can find the phrase, “Congratulations Possums on your 1998 Midwest Championship…” Nothing’s turned up yet.

New Swype Keyboard Makes Tweeting And Mapping A Breeze – Best text input method for Android gets better!

Netflix, Now For Kids – Out Netflix is already set up “just for kids”. All of the suggestions are for kids’ shows, because that’s pretty much all that gets watched. Seriously, this is a cool feature!

Hurricane Preparedness – Irene

August 23, 2011 / / 0 Comments

It looks like Hurricane Irene is going to miss us for the most part, although I’m sure we’ll get plenty of rain and some good surf out of it; more surf than I could handle anyway.

Unfortunately, the rest of the east coast may not be as lucky as we were this time around.

We did the usual things to prepare over the weekend when it looked like we were going to be hit, at least the things a newb like me could think of. Power outage is the biggest concern since we don’t have underground utilities in our neighborhood:

  • Remove possible projectiles from the yard
  • Stock up on water, beans and rice, charcoal, flashlights and batteries
  • Plenty of gas for the car and chainsaw
Next up are a couple of things I’m doing to get ready for a bunch of rain:
  • Sprinklers off for a few days…I think we’ve got plenty of water coming
  • Empty the pool down a little…more water
  • Hex the dead tree in the neighbors’ yard to fall into their yard and not ours
Hopefully I’ll be posting mostly surfing photos and not many damage/clean up photos over the weekend.
August 18, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I promise I’m not going to have a daily Ron Paul post like I may have possibly been guilty of during the last election cycle. But here’s a way Ron Paul could could have put his organization and fund raising abilities to substantial use…

Switch parties and force Barack Obama to primary against him.

Just an idea.

**UPDATE**

I realize that’s not possible at this point, but it would’ve been an interesting turn of events.

An Interesting Question, An Interesting Answer

August 18, 2011 / / 2 Comments

From @MatthewHurtt

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/matthewhurtt/statuses/104211751242964992″]

If someone comes up with an App that lets kids remotely control a robot arm that picks up rocks and launches them or throws punches at defenseless passersby, we may be in some danger.

But rocks are heavy. And punching sounds a lot like exercise to me.

From what I’ve seen, that sounds like more effort than many of them would be willing to engage in. Plus, it would be hard to hit your target while simultaneously texting your friends that you are tormenting innocent strangers.

And some innocent strangers punch back.

August 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

This is so unfair to the rest of us.

“We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino’s association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image.”

This almost encourages these ignoranuses and the wannabes waiting in the wings to amp up their behavior even higher. Why not take the money from AF and invest in some higher end clothing, hoping those guys will pay you even more to not wear their clothes? Sounds both reasonable and logical to me.

Now, I hope I’ve never taken my obnoxiousness to The Situation’s level, but I think I could have given him a run for his money on the occasional Saturday night at the turn of the century.

I’m old and have gray hair…not at all the image they want to portray for their brand. If I had any kind of platform at all, I’d go out and dress from head to toe in AF stuff. I’d make sure I was mic’d every time I grunted when transitioning from standing to sitting, and I’d make sure their logo was prominently displayed every time I bent over to pick something up and grab my lower back to aid me in standing upright again.

Cha-ching!

I’m not sure what AF expected when they targeted this market.

Warren Buffet is not Your Grandpa and More Link Dump

August 16, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Warren Buffett, Robber Baron? – Nah….he could never have anything but pure motives.

Mother of 13-year-old who smashed up shop blames government – “His mother described him as a ‘good lad’…” Right. Right.

Putting Your Chores on Auto-Pilot – Skimmed this…didn’t see anything about containing young tornadoes that undo your work faster than you can do it.

7 Facebook Features Google Plus Still Lacks – Uh…well, it DOES have photo tagging, and I’d assume search is coming and will blow away anything FB could imagine. This is Google after all. The big missing piece I think is the API. The rest of the garbage listed here (especially “birthdays”) are just more reasons why I like it better than FB. I’m sure games are coming though. All the other crap too.

Chrissie Wellington – The Importance of R&R – Maybe, just maybe, @ChrissieSmiles knows what she’s talking about. I can think of worse people to take advice from…like everybody.

CS man first in Texas to swim across Lake Tahoe – @zentriathlon did it! Awesome job Brett!

Start-Up Chile – Entrepreneurs Welcome! – Cool idea. Some cities in the U.S. should take note. Chile is on my “to-visit” list.

Side note: Thanks to Michael Silence for his continued support!

How The Ames Debate Could Have Been Won

August 12, 2011 / / 4 Comments

If you watched the GOP debate last night, you are probably worried. I heard one analyst mention that there’s a political void right now in politics (on “both” sides). I know these candidates all have consultants who are highly paid and know more about politics than me, but let me tell you what would have struck a chord last night–focus on the economy.

When I say focus, I mean that someone up there should have answered every single question in relation to the economy.

Immigration? “I think _____, but if we can’t develop a sustainable economic policy, no one will be immigrating here anyway.”

Afghanistan? “I think _____, but if we can’t develop get a sustainable economic policy, we’ll have to bring the troops back very soon or leave them stranded there.”

Guantanamo Bay? “I think _____, but if we can’t develop a sustainable economic policy, those prisoners may as well be hostages that someone’s going to ransom.”

Energy? “I think _____, but if we can’t develop a sustainable economic policy, there won’t be any jobs to drive to and folks won’t be able to buy power to heat and cool their homes at any price.”

While I have my own opinions about what that policy should be, I’m not pushing those here. I’m saying someone on that stage should have been smart enough to relate every issue brought up in last night’s questions to the number one issue on everyone’s mind. That’s the economy, stupid.

It worries me that the “best and brightest” can’t figure out that the economy is all most people are concerned about right now. Once unemployment and the national debt are both down, we can once again enjoy the luxury of worrying about what other people do with their private parts behind closed doors.

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