Tech tips Articles

Hashtag Spam and twitter parties (they are synonyms). If you are not familiar with Twitter, you might not be familiar with hashtags, surely you are familiar with Spam.

Twitter is a microblogging service. You can update your status using just 140 characters. It’s not quite a bulletin board, but it’s not a blog either. In order to maximize your very brief updates, you can add a hashtag to a word and twitter will make is searchable. A hashtag is the number sign #. When groups of people use a hashtag it makes it easier for them to find each other. Quite often at an event there will be a predetermined hashtag in use. The 140 Conference uses the hashtag #140conf take a look at how helpful an event hashtag can be. Shortly, we will all be able to see SXSW emerge as a trending topic, and, for lack of a better term, get the back channel of the conference and it’s parties (or is it the parties and the conference?).

Hashtags, like anything, can be used well, or can be the source of spam. Spam is defined by wikipedia as “the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.” Hashtags are free to create, and could be a marketing dream. Marketers appear to have forgotten that a “free hashtag” isn’t a one way street. Remember when Skittles thought that they would build a platform based on a simple feed? Walmart tried selling mom jeans just two short months later with a “twitter party” (more on twitter parties later), that ended with this (click the picture for a close up):

What’s most shocking though, is that all these months later businesses still haven’t learned. Recently Maria Bailey used the hashtag #WashThemGrow to sell Suave baby soap, but when people asked about the toxicity and the facts surrounding some of it’s ingredients, the twitter party shut down and this was posted about 24 hours later (*eyeroll* I know). I know that Corporate America moves slowly, but this chugging along is ridiculous. Learn something, learn now.

Hashtag parties are spam. Jessica Smith recently wrote that “hijacking a hashtag” is spamming people. I would disagree. The corporate creation of a hashtag is incredibly intrusive. Businesses should be thrilled and honored if they get mentioned on twitter, why on earth would they feel like they have the right to a free focus group? Further, I’d argue that if you actually look at these “parties” it’s the same group of 100 women every week. Can’t you just send them an email? It appears that they are willing to sell just about anything to each other.

Every Friday Twitter becomes unusable to me. I love the way #FollowFriday began, but (to borrow a phrase from Scoble) it has devolved into a mess. I can’t see through the lists of names to actually get to the content, and I don’t want to unfollow people for just one day. May I kindly suggest that if you use #followfriday that you limit it to just one person and also give us all a reason that we should follow them?

I’d like to suggest we all take a page from the Twitter Handbook, listen and love. It’s incredible that Jack‘s interest in the routes of New York City messengers could bring about Twitter. I know some of y’all don’t recognize the import of Twitter, but those newfangled telephones were considered pretty intrusive too. In 1876 folks just hated that darned thing. Much like twitter, they started out as a party line. I think twitter lists and DM’s have brought us closer to the Baby Bells.

Again, if you can look at the internet and see it as one gigantic party line, well, you’d see that Hashtag Parties alienate more than they embrace. They serve the same small circle of potential customers each week, and they are seen by the rest of the community as corporate sponsored spam.

The reason that people are hijacking your beloved hashtag is because it irritates them. I know that sometimes we look at our own work, and can’t see the flaws. This isn’t bad, it’s normal. Sometimes an outside observer is needed. #Journchat is never spammed, why? Because #Journchat brings immense value to the people who participate in it, and (people like me) who simply read the stream either live or later. The world doesn’t owe you anything, and Twitter is a place that recognizes and quantifies that.

Have I said it enough ways?

If you’re having a party conference, by all means let people pick a hashtag, but if your party only lives on twitter… well, congratulations, you are a spammer.

UPDATE: AdAge has an interesting and related post: Do People Tweet About Brands More Out Of Hate Than Love?

Three bits of Netiquette you may have missed:

Comments: When you go to leave a comment on my blog (and most others) you’ll need to add your name, email and an optional URL. If you have a link to point people toward, this is the place for the URL. When you add a URL in the body of a comment it will trigger spam filters, and even if it slips through, it’s bad form. Also don’t use URL shorteners on someone else’s blog bit.ly j.mp and the like are best reserved for Twitter.

Twitter: when you send the same message to more than 2 people at a time people won’t be very interested in your twitter stream. Some folks may think you’re a spammer. I’ll just think you haven’t learned yet. You will. It’ll be okay.

Texting: the first time you send someone a text, it’s nice to say “this is Jessica and …. ” because they might not have you in their phone book, and it’s really embarrassing to take a lovely text and ask, “who is this?” Making people comfortable around you is always in style.

Observations around tech

Tech communities are amazing. I’m very new to the tech scene in Los Angeles, which is thriving. I could be out every night of the week, and surrounded by friends. I love the inclusiveness of LA Tech, and I think I understand why.

Go onto facebook and find the kids you went to elementary school with. If they were short and fat, super smart but also impish and charming, there’s a pretty good chance they’re living in Silicon Valley and driving a Tesla.That short fat kids’ best friend is tall and skinny to the point of gawky, possibly cannot make eye contact, but definitely can play Dungeons and Dragons and possibly belongs to role playing message boards. That best friend is also rich, and in tech.

So, what happens when the awkward smart kids, who may have been bullied are the ones in charge? In my experience, they create cultures of inclusiveness. When I walk into a tech event, I stand at the door, feel my anxiety fall off of me, take a deep breath and realize these are my people. We’re all a little weird, but we stopped fighting it. None of us ever belonged, so we stopped trying to belong. Everyone is smarter than I am, so I know I’ll learn something, and I can just be me.

Tech events are inclusive for many reasons, but probably because it’s a group of individuals who spent a lot of their lives being excluded. The nature of web work is that it’s never perfected, you need your friends to show you the bugs. It’s so much more fun when a friend finds it then when a frenemy does.

Tech is good. I love my family, I love my real life interactions with friends and neighbors, but really? I love my Nexus 1 and my iPhone, and when I’m with my friends in tech, no one asks me why I need to have two cellphones. Y’all get it. My family still thinks I’m weird.

I see the world a little differently. I’m quirky and weird, and I’m okay with that. I’m just grateful that I’ve found a place where my quirkiness can both flourish, and blend in a little.

If you want to do a little Pavlovian experiment, be present at a VC (Venture Capital) networking event and mention LBS. The VC will probably get slobbery and their cheeks could get red. This little video might explain why search marketing gets hot and bothered when you add location.

What does LBS really mean though to us, parents and end users? Location Based Social Networks typically live on your cell phone. Or your child’s cell phone. I have both a Nexus 1 (android based Google phone) and an iPhone, for the most part the apps are similar and Blackberry (though a bit less social) has many of the same.

Here’s the thing, if you or your child uses their cell phone to “check in” anywhere, for any of these apps (applications) then they are leaving behind a digital footprint. For the most part a digital footprint is just fine, but there can be issues. I’m not saying that sharing your life is bad. By definition I’m a bit of a lifecaster myself, and with that being said, there must be boundaries.

One of the reasons Facebook is a problem for kids is that friends of friends are able to see your activities. Some of the privacy issues have been addressed, but Facebook was set up to be like a book. It’s an open network for people to read, share and enjoy. This morning I spent quite a bit of time purging my facebook friends of anyone who hasn’t been to my home. It’s the litmus test I chose, it may or may not work for you. I’m not really sure what, if anything, it will achieve. I hope no one has their feelings hurt, but my husband is entitled to more privacy than he was getting.

With LBS using Facebook to connect you to so many friends, it was also important for me to whittle down the friend list if I’m to continue enjoying using apps like Whrrl* and Foursquare. Foursquare is a marketers dream with people fighting to be the mayor of your business, and updating their twitter and facebook statuses. Again, with friends of friends, and the very public nature of Twitter, using Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl and the like requires a bit of forethought.

For me, the forethought is to fire facebook as my social media black book, to use MySpace instead, and to invest more of my time in Whrrl than the other location based applications. Why? Well, my husband doesn’t use myspace. We’re divorcing our online lives and he gets to keep Facebook, but I get MySpace. MySpace is a bit more like being in a million tiny chat rooms, so it appeals to me a little more as a way to communicate with people outside of my IRL (in real life) neighborhoods. Also, and more importantly, Facebook Connect is used in many of the LBS applications and leaving a digital footprint for friends of friends isn’t very smart.

Please understand that in taking social media off of Facebook, I have separated myself from editors in chief, VC’s, CEOs, reporters, social media gurus and celebrities. This is not a decision I came to lightly.

One of the reasons I’ve been using Whrrl for so long is because of the privacy they have built into it. According to Pelago the makers of Whrrl, “Privacy is one of the core product values that Whrrl was built upon. We take privacy very seriously, and enable anyone to make their check ins private or viewable to friends, trusted friends, or the public. Once you check in, you also have the ability at any time to change the privacy level. In addition, Facebook and Twitter status updates are optional and if activated, can be turned off at any time.” When the folks at Pelago talk about “trusted friends”, what they mean is that there are two levels of friendship on their network, you can be friends with someone or you can be a “trusted friend”. My “trusted friends” are my immediate family and they’re the only ones who get to see the kids, and know exactly where I am.

Being a Mommy Blogger is a privilege. I’m so honored every time just one person reads my posts, and when I meet folks and they say they’ve had the same experiences my heart soars. When you leave comments, I feel good. Really good. I can’t even explain to people what it’s like to have this blog, to have you as a reader. I can’t. It’s good. Please trust that.

Like my friend Matt Singley, I’m reviewing the way I do things. If I’m not your Facebook Friend, and I was three days ago, please don’t be offended, maybe you’ll join me at MySpace? I’m not less interested in your life, I’m just interested in sharing with you in other forums, so that we can all feel comfortable. And appropriate.

Yes I did. I called it a fatitude.We have a collective attitude about fat, and individually everyone has one. Some of us whisper our opinions, this week Southwest Airlines and Kevin Smith are very vocal about their fatitudes.

Do not be deceived. Kevin Smith’s row with Southwest Airlines is not about fat, it’s about deciding who your customers are. The story is (yippee) once again about technology in our every day lives.

For those of you who are not as totally in love with the internet as I, let me bring you up to speed. Kevin Smith is a film writer, actor and producer. He is a hard working guy, made famous by the movie Clerks, however I know that the best day of his acting career was when I visited the set of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Really, I have it on good authority that this was the best day of his working life.

What is not disputable is that Kevin Smith is a celebrity who is clever, hardworking, successful and fat.

Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat.

Ouch a personal dig at Captain Leysath.

And why do you think that is? I say it’s fatitude. Kevin Smith knows he’s fat. Obviously, the man spends his life surrounded by cameras. Now, how does Kevin feel about being fat?

On February 13, 2010 Kevin Smith clearly felt humiliated by his fatness. Well, maybe not by his size, but certainly by Southwest Airline’s reaction to his size.

Apparently humiliating Kevin Smith on an airplane wasn’t enough for them. Southwest’s blogger Christi Day wrote about the incident on the Southwest Airlines blog. Amongst a few other bits of doublespeak and PR spin she added:

Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank – as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest.  He decided to change his plans and board an earlier flight to Burbank, which technically means flying standby. As you may know, airlines are not able to clear standby passengers until all Customers are boarded. When the time came to board Mr. Smith, we had only a single seat available for him to occupy.

It’s nicely written isn’t it? Well, it may or may not be true. According to Kevin it is not true.

“But the last paragraph is still all about your two seat rule. By including it, you guys are still saying I was Too Fat To Fly – or at least NOT correcting it. You even say ‘You’re not here to debate the decision the Employees made.’ But when we spoke, you told me they were wrong, and THAT’S why I was happy and ready to drop all this. I don’t want your money, I just want you to put in print what you told me: that I was grabbed because I was the last guy on, not because I didn’t fit with the arm rests down, or because I couldn’t buckle the seat belt. Because I did. And we both know this.”

When I read that last bit it is identical in tone to the two tweets I have posted above. How? This has nothing to do with an airline flight. This has nothing to do with Kevin’s size. This is about how Southwest Airlines treats people.

Ms. Day’s apology was basically “Kevin we’re really sorry you’re so fat”

Kevin’s complaint is “You’re really hurting my feelings. A lot. Over and over again, just say you’re sorry for hurting my feelings.”

There are two different converstaions being had. Although Southwest is known for listening on twitter, I wonder if anyone is really hearing. Do they get the tone? Kevin Smith called the rest of the world “normies” this isn’t about airline travel.

Matthew Yeomans incorrectly calls this digital populism. The Kevin Smith story would have been a story no matter what. He’s connected, he’s too rich to have to fly Southwest and he’s part of the media. Yeomans also goes on to say:

The combined net effect is that companies find themselves reading attacks on their reputation (whether warranted or not) in the social media sphere before being able to check on the merits of the complaint or how and if they need to rectify it. Sometimes those complaints appear blown out of all proportion (Motrin Moms anyone?) while other times they simply shine a very bright light on a company’s incompetence in a crisis.

Being present on twitter doesn’t mean you’re listening. It just means you’re there. When someone with 1.6 million readers (that you know of) is thrown out of your business, you’d better be sure you’ve made the right move.

When it comes to airline travel Southwest may be a great airline for many people. I know if I’m on a Southwest flight there’s less of a chance that I’ll have to share my seat with someone who is unable to fit in just one. I guess that’s good for someone like me. What bothers me is that Southwest clearly made a mistake as Kevin hopped onto another of their flights a short bit later and fit in the seat. So if they make a mistake with my seat, my luggage or (heaven forbid) my children should I expect Southwest to write about my personal details?

I think not.

* I changed the link in Matthew Yeomans’ quote because I figured I could use the traffic more than Slate.

Do not read this post. Seriously, stop what you’re doing right now and read this:

The Decade Of Publicy Stowe Boyd

After, and only after you have read Stowe’s fantastic post, please continue reading below.

(more…)

I’ve had a super busy day today, but I know many of you come here looking for technology each week.

Today I found out about a great new iPhone app. The American Museum of Natural History (you know the iconic one in New York the one everyone knows) has released an iPhone app. It’s free and it’s fun. You can use it while you visit the museum or just let your kids explore the dinosaurs virtually.

To get the app, just click here, and you’ll be taken to iTunes. Here’s a fun video that explains it more in depth. Since it comes to you via AMNH you know it’s good information for your curious kids.

I hope to be able to compare my iPhone and my Nexus 1 for you next week. I’m still feeling my way around Android.