I'm CEO, B*tch

Mark Zuckerberg, you funny little man you. But would we even care about you had Jonathan Abrams known what you were up to?

Jonathan Abrams was the founder of Friendster (and also then CEO), the happening social media site around then minus the rising Myspace.com. In the first ever article written about Facebook.com by the Harvard Crimson on Feb. 9, 2004, Zuckerberg had said he used Friendster as a model.

Just as with the popular website Friendster, which Zuckerberg said was a model for his new website, members can search for people according to their interests and can create an online network of friends.

An interesting tidbit if you do ask me. If only Jonathan Abrams of Friendster had heard about Zuckerberg's thefacebook.com, maybe he would have changed the Face of social media.

Guest Blog: Confessions from a Twitter-hater convert

By: Holli Keaton

When Twitter first came out, I had no idea what it was. I would hear people talk about “tweeting” and thought they were crazy people who played some strange bird-related game together.

Eventually, I found out what Twitter really was, and my first reaction was, “Well, that seems stupid.” That remained my response for years. 

On the other hand, when Facebook first came out my freshman year of college, I was quick to jump on board and immediately grew to love it. I could keep in touch with old friends from high school and shamelessly stalk the photos of those with whom I wasn’t so chummy. With Facebook, I was connected. 

And through the years, my enjoyment of Facebook has only grown. Sure, it changes its template or other features all the time, but I’ve never wavered. What started as a way to keep in touch with old friends turned into a way to connect with people I see everyday to what it is today: an absolute necessity to anyone who wants to be a communicator.

While I was living in Facebook la-la land, I guess Twitter was growing right along with it. But principally, I vowed to stay away forever. Everything I could do on Twitter, I could do on Facebook in a much more interesting way. The Twitterverse had other plans.

While working for a newspaper, my boss approached me one day and told me I had to get a Twitter account. After some protesting, I saw that nothing would change her mind. So, I asked someone else to set it up for me, and I cleverly would post something about a random news story every so often.

Looking back, I was the most boring Twitter-user in the world.

Eventually, I left my job at the newspaper, leaving with it, my Twitter account. But a few months later, I came crawling back with my own account @hollikeaton (follow me and I’ll follow you. Come on, it’ll be fun). The truth was, even though I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the Twitter lingo—shorter sentences and hashtags—I was now intrigued.

Here’s why:

-Unlike my biased beliefs, the majority of people did not use Twitter to simply post updates about every move they make. Legitimate news sources and businesses posted information I wanted to know, and I only had to look one place to find it.

-Looking at updates on Twitter was much easier than Facebook. My iPad, in fact, marks the spot I leave off reading tweets, so I can easily stay away from Twitter for days and catch up within five minutes. #thatsboss

-It’s socially unacceptable to update your Facebook page every hour. Tweeting is just fine. (If you are live-tweeting an event you can even post every five minutes).

-Sometimes you accept Facebook friend requests from people you aren’t super interested in. On Twitter, you choose who you follow and no one sends you constant reminders that you aren’t one of their followers.

-Twitter is simple. You post updates. You interact with others who update. And you put up the occasional picture. That’s all you have to learn to do with Twitter. #digit?

-Because many people get tweets sent right to their phone, Twitter is one of the most effective ways to mass communicate to a lot of people at one time. If you are a business not using Twitter, then you are failing to utilize a very effective advertising tool.

-Last but not least, Twitter lingo is more fun than Facebook #amiright? The way I talk in real life includes side bar points. Twitter accounts for that with its hashtags (aka #signs). #thanksTwitter

So here I am, a once Twitter hater now advocating the site for the entire world. If you are where I used to be, maybe it’s time you think about coming around. If you are a business owner who is where I used to be, you need to put aside those notions immediately. #itstime #youarelosingbusiness

Featured image by GeekSugar.com
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Holli Keaton is a freelance writer and social media consultant. Tweet @hollikeaton and she promises she’ll tweet back to you.

YUM Digest: Twin Thursdays (Week Two)

Be a Spaz

Like us at http://www.facebook.com/SocialSpaz.

Then follow us at https://twitter.com/thesocialspaz.

While you're at it you should check out Social Spaz's list addiction at http://listgeeks.com/socialspaz. Everyday for a year straight I will make a list!

Buffy: Not just a slayer, but the new Facebook phone?

Yes, you read right. For the past few weeks reports have been dancing around the Internet that Facebook is currently working on creating a phone that has been given the nickname of "Buffy" after the sassy vampire slayer on the WB.

As far as the rumor goes, Facebook has hired HTC, the cell phone manufacturer, to create a smartphone that specifically will revolve around the social networking power house. The article that appeared on AllThingsD.com on Nov. 21, claimed that this will be a modified version of the Android phone and should be coming out in the next 12 to 18 months.

The phone, once again still rumored, will run HTML5--the latest languages for structuring and showing internet content. This will greatly integrate different FB features into the basic platform of the phone. Buffy will sync messages, photos and contacts between your phone and the site.

Facebook has decline to comment directly or even acknowledge that said phone does exist or will exist soon.

“Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social,”  a spokesperson told AllThingsD.” We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”

So...Facebook is making a phone (we'll pretend we know for sure) but will you get it?

I'll tell you what, I don't think I will. I am a hardcore Facebook user and fan but I don't need to purchase a new phone just for Facebook. I can just use my smartphone now and get on to check my notifications and browse my newsfeed.

I'm all for investing in a phone for convenience and efficiency, just not for one or two less clicks to get to my wall or blog.

Guest Blog: Social Media: A Force for Good

I'm happy to present guest blog number four!

Guest Blogger: Sean Sporman

Social Media: A Force for Good

The Internet is truly a marvelous invention. The World Wide Web is perhaps one of the best, most life-changing inventions of the past half-century. It brings a seemingly infinite amount of information on a seemingly infinite amount of topics to one's fingertips with a few clicks. Worldwide communication with very little to no delay is possible in many forms. Fans of practically anything that can have fans can gather together online to share and express their interests.

Of course, one major part of the Internet, especially in the past few years, is social media. Almost all TV commercials and even some billboards now have “Find us on Facebook and Twitter.” Literally hundreds of millions of people are on both of those aforementioned social networks. And, despite criticism in some circles, I would argue that social media can truly be used for many good purposes and is much more than the waste of time that some on the outside perceive it to be.

I have been in a long-distance relationship for nearly four-and-a-half years. I met my lady through one of the more “retro” forms of Internet social media, the chat room. We became the best of friends and eventually, a couple. She lives thousands of miles away, and thus, we must fly out our respective states to visit each other. In the interim, we use the Internet to keep in touch.

Aside from the cell phone, the two of us use Facebook to communicate, especially during times such as when I am on my lunch break at work or when she has some spare time at her college. Facebook's chat engine may have gone through several changes over the past couple of years, but its a great (and free!) way for us to keep in touch when we can't call each other. We have also just recently begun to use the wonderful Skype for video chatting.

In addition, Facebook is a wonderful tool for keeping up with classmates. No longer does one need to wait for the high school reunion to know what your former fellow students are up to—you can reconnect with them easily through Facebook—from former best friends to those you only knew briefly. I can say that I have become even better friends with some people from my high school that I only had one class with one year thanks to Facebook. I am also happy to keep in touch with many college friends as well, no matter where they may have moved to.

I also use social media for something a little different than most on a daily basis—daily weather status updates. I've long dreamed of becoming a TV weatherman—and hope to become one soon. I follow the weather every day, and a couple of years ago, began the idea of weather updates for my friends and family through Facebook (and Twitter). I started off with special watches and warnings during severe and winter weather, but eventually began doing daily forecasts.


Amazingly, what I thought was a little thing that perhaps a few friends would read turned into much more! I've been told by many people that they check my status updates on weather instead of more conventional means! I have had parents of old high school friends add me for my weather updates. Even the creator of The Social Spaz herself has told me she reads my weather updates daily. While she was chatting with me about writing a guest column for this site, Tyler told me that her step-sister wanted her to go to my page to see if it was going to rain that evening! If I may say so, I think that's pretty awesome right there.

I even provide daily weather forecasts for a friend in Canada, and have had a friend from Wales ask me about the weather on occasion. I especially hope that my severe weather updates during events with possible tornadoes, hail, and strong winds help to keep people safe and provide them with important information.

Aside from providing friends and family with weather information, I really enjoy the chance to cheer friends up on Facebook when I can. I make an effort to tell a sick friend that I hope they feel better soon. And, I always enjoy wishing a friend a Happy Birthday on Facebook.

I've mentioned previously in this column that I've wanted to be a TV weatherman. I was thrilled to be a part of one of the best college TV stations, TrojanVision at Troy University, for nearly four years while a student there. At first, I would use Youtube and post through Facebook some of my broadcasts so I could share them with friends and family outside of the TV market area. I later began to upload broadcasts for other friends of mine so that their friends and family could see them. Even after graduating and having people I had never met do broadcasts, I continued to upload for others—adding them as friends on Facebook and then sharing the videos on their “walls.”

I received some wonderful comments of thanks for this, including ones from their parents and siblings. But, I was happy to do it, since I knew how cool it was to be able to share my TV broadcasts with those unable to watch them live. I recently uploaded parts of a university pageant for two friends of mine as well, including one friend I made through Facebook and later met in person to give her a bag of Halloween candy.

Of course, I am just one person in a huge social world. I haven't even used Google Plus yet, and am still growing a small following on Twitter. I have no doubt that there are others out there that have equally pleasant and positive experiences with social media, which allow people all across the world to connect in increasingly advanced and unique ways.

I want to thank Tyler for allowing me to share this column with all of you, and I want to thank all of you for reading!

Guest Blog: Darfur? I Hardly Know Her!

A wonderful blog written by a fellow blogger here.

Guest Blogger: Will Francis

(A Social Commentary on
Peer Pressure, Apathy, and Mustaches
in the 21st Century)

Every couple of months I find it necessary to clean my Facebook. This process is a sometimes enjoyable one that includes: getting rid of outdated applications, picking a new profile picture, updating my basic info page, and leaving groups that just don’t matter to me anymore. Completing this list is essential if I want to feel like a productive member of this website, and really society as well. This being said I always run into the same obstacle. Darfur. Yes, the small African nation, which so happens to be plagued by genocide and other naughty things, is ruining my online experience. “Why?” you ask. It’s because I’m a coward.

I don’t exactly remember why I joined “For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur”, but I have a theory that it was during a time when my membership was in its infancy and I was floating in a sea of “unparticipation” in virtual activist organizations. Every so often I would read in the news feed that friends of mine had joined this same group and not only that, but had left it too. During these first instances I passed temporary judgments on these heathens which would last for the greater part of a second. This was always followed by instant forgiveness. Then I came to realize that they too had a ritual of tidying up their online domain, and had found it necessary to distance themselves from Darfur for the sake of having less obligations. That, or because it was no longer in style. 

I want to interject that, as I was once a Political Science major, you would think I might know a thing or two about global incidents. Seeing as the Olympics aren’t happening this year, I feel like that just shouldn’t be a concern of mine. I do however have a thing or two to say about genocide. Surprisingly, I kind of respect it. I’m not one for confrontation so when I see that some mustached leader in a far off land has gotten rid of a ton of people, I have to applaud human effort. I find there is no better way to burn bridges between two groups of people than to burn one of groups alive. On the flip side Americans subject themselves to genocide every day. We are successfully phasing out the “Valley Girl” due to tanning bed radiation. From what I understand this has been in the works for years. Not only that, but fast food restaurants are bringing up new victims every day to replace the ones who are dead. Taco Bell has changed our dining agenda forever by adding a “Fourth Meal”, and Wendy’s Baconater is projected to cause more heart attacks than the Publisher’s Clearing House check deliverers. Unlike Darfur we have developed a killing method that is not only socially acceptable but looks good in a swimsuit and/or tastes delicious. 

Recently I was given the opportunity to be intellectually mortified by an aforementioned mustached leader. Dr. Jeremy Lewis, head of the Political Science department at my college and it’s only teacher, teachs the World Politics I am currently taking. It dawned on me during one of the lectures that not only did I not know what he was talking about half the time without the use of Wikipedia, but I never even wanted to come near to having an educated opinion on the matter. It would just take too much time, heart, and money to get to where I might be a guest of Real Time with Bill Maher, and I don't usually persue something unless I know I will be the best at it. All of Lewis’s lecturing on people thousands of miles away or half a century ago in gas chambers I will never tour, being fire squaded against walls I will never touch, or burned alive in their own huts that I will never smell made me void of all caring. It was as if he were talking about every puppy in ever pound in this world and how bad they needed a home. I wanted to help, but I just couldn’t. The task before me was too large, so large that it became useless to even care anymore. This is the kinda crap I think about when I clean my profile.
Marek Grodzicki, the creator of Save Darfur, promises this to be a real cause and that he has in fact followed through with his pledge. This group is different in many ways from other charity websites: It doesn’t ask you to donate. It’s in the title. The only thing you have to do is join and Grodzicki will have one more notch in his belt. If you read the reasons given for this group’s creation Marek makes a point to tell you that it is not for his “self gratification”. Oh. How very nice of him. Not only does he give to charity, but he doesn’t feel better about himself for doing so. Forgive me for being a sociopath, but I find it hard to believe that. Most things I do in my spare time are wholly for self gratification, and if they aren’t I find a way to incorporate that into my activity. Yes, by all means I’m selfish, but don’t ever tell me I didn’t warn you. Why do I put change into the Salvation Army bucket during Christmas time? It’s so that damned lady will stop ringing the bell for a few seconds to say “Thank you, sugar.” Plus, sometimes I’ve done something real naughty, but not as naughty as genocide, and think the sound of a few nickels clanging together will counter that. Fat chance, but it’s a thought, and it’s the thought that counts.

I consider myself a rather proficient Facebooker compared to other college students. I have successfully utilized the privacy settings so that no Sunday School teacher, professor, or future employer may see anything that would otherwise mar my reputation as an All-American-Church-Goin’-Tax-Payin’- Law-Regarding-Boy-Scout. It also helps that I blocked my own mother. It has crossed my mind several times that I could just quit the group and hide it from the newsfeed. As ingenious as that is, it’s also sneaky. And the only thing I hate more than Darfur is conniving and sneaky sons of bitches. I wouldn’t necessarily lose sleep over doing it the easy way. That sort of privilege is given to people who commit genocide. But I do feel that I would be looked at as an insensitive person if I left the group, because as we all know, Facebook is the apart of the real world now and the things we do on it matter in the grand scheme of things. So, I had to choose what I valued more to me: either try to offend the least amount of people possible, or march down the streets with my own pants on. I chose the latter.

Today I have closed a chapter in my life, because when I made the final click I became my own man. I have severed all ties in my relationship to a dying country. Did I feel any different when I went through with it? No, I didn’t feel anything at all. These first couple of months I am going to take it slow. Maybe one day in a lonely Comparative Government lecture I will think about all the good times we had. I might see Darfur on the newsfeed and I will cordially stop and maybe see what has been going on. I will say, “Remember when we broke our first 1,000 members?” There was excitement, sure. But there always is at first. I am going to keep that in mind when I see other charity organizations pop up. As much as I want to “Save the Manatees”, am I really ready to commit? It takes a lot out of me when I teeter on the fence and only care enough to show my concern and nothing deeper than that. It’s going to take some time for me to get over Darfur. For now I am just going to donate to bell ringers, because it is fast, cheap, I feel good afterwards, and right now it’s the only thing I can handle.