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Recap of the May 9th Rush Hour

Posted on 10. May, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

Yesterday on Rush Hour, Neil, Cameron and I discussed Neil’s new blog QuickSprout, MySpace’s acquisition of PhotoBucket, Ebay’s impending acquisition of StumbleUpon, HotOrNot changing it’s business model, the differences in community culture and behavior between the various social sites and how understanding those differences helps you more effectively leverage those services, and we also chatted a bit about ways to go about starting up your very own social media site.

(We also reminded everyone that this Sunday is Mother’s Day, so don’t forget to get a card and put it in the mail if necessary!)

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Rush Hour Recap for Wednesday, May 2

Posted on 03. May, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

I meant to post this yesterday, but alas, work-work gets in the way sometimes.

So yesterday, Cameron and I (sans Neil due to a schedule conflict) discussed:

• the Great DiggNation Revolt
• other social media services/sites worth adding to one’s arsenal and tips and advice for exploiting leveraging them
• my adventure last week getting to the front page of Digg for the first time
• a little MySpace and YouTube
• Twitter (You can follow me on Twitter if you’d like… Cameron doesn’t twit)
• and then finally, Brent Csutoras called in for the last segment and chatted for a bit.

Overall, I thought this broadcast went more smoothly for me than last week, even despite the WMR chatroom’s attempts to make me laugh and lose my train of thought. (Yeah, you guys thought I missed that, didn’t you? See, I was paying attention… I just chose to *pretend* I didn’t see it. So nyah.)

Anyway, listen to the 11th episode of Rush Hour on podcast if you missed the live show, and if you’d like to hang out in the chatroom for the next live show, visit WebmasterRadio.fm and install the desktop app to chat. Then just make sure you’re logged in at 4p Eastern/1p Pacific on Wednesdays.

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MySpace Tom mistaken for Internet Pervert

Posted on 26. Apr, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

I was talking with a friend yesterday who was freaking out about his step-daughter’s new MySpace account. Apparently, the daughter had only had the account open for the afternoon and already there was “some 31 year old man” trying to pick her up.

Me: How do you know there’s a 31 year old man trying to pick her up?

Him: He’s in her contact list as her “friend”. He’s 31. She’s a teenager. What else could he possibly want to talk to her for? Knitting lessons?

Me: It seems odd that some random dude would ask her to be his friend like that. Did she put up a risque picture of herself or something?

Him: No, she doesn’t have any pictures up there yet.

Me: K. That’s really odd then. Maybe it’s a bot?

Him: It’s some guy named Tom, and his profile says he’s 31.

Me: Tom? Tom with 174 million friends?

So it turns out Tom is just Tom and not some pervy, old dude looking to score with a little high school girl. After I explained the function of the default friend, he was no longer wanting to strangle poor Tom.

What struck me about this conversation wasn’t so much that the protective parent was worried about some creepy man trying to put the moves on his daughter, but more that this protective parent works in computers and had never heard of Tom, nor was he familiar with how social media in general works. With as much coverage as Web 2.0 gets, and as often as MySpace and Facebook make the headlines in the news, both business and otherwise, you would think that everyone in America would be able to explain what those services are, how they work, or at least what the point of the whole thing is… but they can’t.

The general public only vaguely recognizes those brand names, and couldn’t begin to tell you what the heck they are or what their function is. (Example: Tried to tell my family about installing Pligg over Christmas break… What’s Pligg? It’s a Digg clone. What’s Digg? Um, you haven’t heard of Digg? No. Really?)

Sadly, I think it’s just going to take time for this new wave of Internet “stuff” to become completely mainstream. When I was running an ISP way, way, way back in 1995, I remember being so frustrated with my family for not getting why I was bothering with this Internet thing at all because “it’s just full of perverts and porn” and wasn’t going to last anyway.

The unconverted are saying the same things about social media right now, and I think (I hope) at some point, they’ll begin to grok the utility and non-perverse nature of these types of services.

Until then, though, perhaps “Tom” should make more of an effort to clarify that he’s not friending little girls so he can put the moves on them. ;)

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