Posts about social media by Jordan Cooper

social media

Nick Bilton Can Suck My Dick

Posted on March 3, 2013

In the same fashion that George Takei and Mark Cuban went on incessant ego-fueled whining sprees about Facebook post visibility, the most recent spat of this ignorance-laden sense of entitlement comes by way of New York Times technology blogger Nick Bilton in his piece titled ‘When Sharing on Facebook Comes at a Cost‘:

I’ve stayed on Facebook after its repeated privacy violations partly because I foolishly believed there was some sort of democratic approach to sharing freely with others. I feel as if the company persuaded us to share under that premise and is now turning it inside out by requiring us to pay for people to see what we post.

Facebook takes a different view, saying that it is still finding the right balance for the algorithm that decides what people see in their news feeds.

As I’ve taken social media marketers to task several times before, the notion of having a so-called “right” to appear in Facebook news feeds is based upon a false assumption that everyone who subscribes to your updates (or “likes” your page) actually gives a fuck about everything you post. Get it through your goddamn egomaniacal heads already. They don’t.

Despite what these bellyachers claim, the Edgerank algorithm wasn’t designed to bilk a few bucks out of the pockets of brands, businesses and bloviators with large followings. In a similar way that Google displays search results, this mechanism is in place to ensure optimal relevancy and interest of news feed items for an end-user. You know, a normal fucking person. Someone who probably cares more about how their father’s surgery went, what a colleague thought of a new movie, or seeing their friend’s photos from the bridal shower that weekend than reading a half-witted column from a journalist who they’ve never met, spoken or interacted with whatsoever.

Why are they subscribed to your updates then, Nick? They probably liked something you wrote. Many probably read your column on occasion. Maybe some female readers of the Times thought you were cute and just enjoy glaring wistfully at your cover photo. Who knows? All I can most definitely say is that you’re not in any way at the center of their fucking world. Not even close.

While technology douchebags like Bilton (and myself) might operate efficiently in a world of information overload, an average person who doesn’t live and breathe every minutiae, tidbit of news or colloquial musing, frankly needs outside intervention from this deluge – or risks having their proverbial head explode and shutting it all off completely. This, and not a glut of advertising in the stream, is Facebook’s nightmare inflection point.

What makes it even more problematic for the company is that the issue is typically self-inflicted by users themselves (by friending and liking too many things) unbeknownst to the ramifications of that behavior. Is Facebook going to throttle people from doing so and set limitations for their own good? Yeah, let’s see how that flies. Hence their route of providing safeguards so that no matter what, the user experience every time will be as relevant to your interests as possible.

With any algorithm, it’s not perfect. Not by a long shot. Shit, even the eggheads at Google have continually tweaked theirs for over 15 years. Debunking those that believe Edgerank serves primarily as a tool to charge for feed visibility, how can these cyber-celebrities at the same time applaud the online advertising innovation of Google’s Adwords platform which charges for search page visibility in practically the same manner? Aren’t Facebook’s “promoted posts” an extension of that very successful and widely accepted concept? Sounds like hypocrisy to me.

But the issue being addressed in these tantrums have nothing to do with algorithms or business models. It all has to do with a lack of perspective. It all has to do with the unrealistic inflation of self-importance that social technologies appear to provide. And it’s the unwillingness to accept the deflated truth of your actual and limited place in other people’s minds that causes pieces such as Nick Bilton’s to be written. Keep grasping for a scapegoat, dude. It won’t change anything.

edgerank, entitlement, facebook, social media

Take Your Second Screen Branded App & Shove It

Posted on January 17, 2013

It seems as if I can’t go a single day without reading yet another dumbshit article about ‘second screen’ initiatives and the cringe-inducing ‘social TV’ moniker paraded around ad nauseum. Yet throughout all the so-called innovation, vanity metrics spewed about, and proclamations about the fundamental shifts in media consumption, I get the sense that no one has actually consulted with real fucking people whatsoever.

I admit that there’s definitely an hockey stick-like upswing in tablet and smartphone usage while sitting in front of the boob tube, but as I’ve satirized before, folks are rarely doing so to interact exclusively with this television programming. It’s e-mail. Facebook. Instagram. Essentially ubiquitous platforms of general purpose.

Sure, some activity will be tied specifically to the on-screen content, but much of which will not at all. That’s why these ‘walled garden’ apps are destined for the digital scrap heap.

It sounds like common sense to me, but apparently television executives live in a bizarro world. As highlighted by a recent Engadget piece ‘Will TV Companion Apps Proliferate Or Dwindle?‘, we have a Vice President from Fox that is in serious need of a one-way plane ticket back to fucking reality.

“Well, from a purely business perspective, I want everybody in a Fox app,” said Hardie Tankersley, vice president of digital platforms at Fox Broadcasting. “I want to control the experience, I want to manage the advertising. If I could get everybody who watches Fox to be in the Fox app, in the Fox world, I would definitely do that. I’m going to try to create a premium experience inside the branded Fox world,” Tankersley said.

Sounds good in theory, Hard Tank. Unfortunately, no one wants to be in your branded Fox world! You think people give a shit about your ‘brand’ enough to close their Twitter app just to see the same #bullshithashtag tweets, useless extras and of course, some combination of obtrusive ad blocks and network show promos? Go fuck yourself.

Sad to say, he’s not alone thinking this shit. All these television execs seem to exist as self-important twits who not only eat their own dog food, but believe the entire public lives and dies by it. Hey, schmucks. We can get on without you just fine. We have plenty of options at our disposal already, all of which suit our purposes to a tee. We don’t need your goddamn second screen ‘branded’ apps, ok?

According to Tankersley, Fox is currently providing second screen content for six shows, with live programming requiring a fleet of people working every week. In American Idol’s case, a team of roughly 15 people tailors the second screen experience for each week’s contest developments.

Ok, let me get this straight. You’re expecting us to have folders upon folders of show-specific apps, TV network apps and cable provider apps on our mobile devices? All for maybe a one hour usage a week, if we even remember to open it. Hell, we barely remember what show is on what channel anymore. You actually think people give enough of a crap about some of these shows where they’d want to dive more down the rabbit hole? No way.

Keep the fucking app. I’ll fire up Twitter and be just fine with that ‘social TV’ experience. I’d say most people are as well.

executives, second screen, social media, social tv, tv programming

No One Cares How Their Favorite Websites Make Money

Posted on January 10, 2013

Study: Consumers Don’t Fully Understand Social Media & Search

Men demonstrate a higher understanding of Facebook’s monetization strategies at 57%, versus women at 51%, according to findings from The Search Agency and Harris Interactive’s study “2012 Online User Behavior and Engagement,” which analyzes consumer behavior and knowledge around social networks and search engines.

When asked how search engines make money, nearly 29% of survey respondents believe brands pay annual dues for use, while 20% believe that users pay for premium search features. More than one-third of U.S. online adults believe search engines sell users’ personal data to marketers.

While we may take the obvious “duh” business models of Google and Facebook as common knowledge here in the nerdosphere, it still shouldn’t come as a shock when the ordinary, average Joe consumer really has no understanding what powers these online behemoths’ finances. Shit, many people don’t even know what a web browser is.

However, as we technophiles debate the merits of ad-supported media, free platforms and the negative implications when a company’s bread and butter comes from third parties not users themselves, the rest of the general public simply sits back and soaks in benefits from all the positives. But are they the naive ones or are we?

Don’t get me wrong, I always think consumers should become more savvy, knowledgeable and aware in the face of possible exploitation or downright fraud. Yet with platforms like Facebook, would knowing that they make billions off those stupid little sidebar ads and annoying sponsored feed stories even affect how people use it? I highly doubt it.

Take a look at the Instagram clusterfuck last month as a glimpse into the world of “who gives a shit?”. The inaccurate notion that the company could sell your photos was reported by most major media outlets and reached nearly every nook and cranny of the Instagram-using public. Yes, boycotts and rage quits commenced by the vocal minority, but for all intensive purposes people went about their day snapping and filtering photos by the bucketload. They knew what was going on and frankly didn’t care. In their eyes, the benefits outweighed the potential negatives.

While I applaud the initiative of folks like Dalton Caldwell who are currently building out platforms with the core intent of a user-accountable business model, I’d be remiss to ponder whether it’s implicitly necessary to do so when the general public clearly doesn’t view the notion as a credible value proposition whatsoever. This plays directly into the false narrative that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so forth are inherently anti-consumer just by the pure fact they’re beholden to advertisers for income.

Sure, people don’t like ads. Sure, people would rather not have their personal data used for any reason, let alone just for ad targeting. But people, regardless if they’re specifically knowledgeable about these commercial facets or not, they have overwhelmingly spoken with action that the trade-off is more than well worth it. If this weren’t the case, as market forces take effect, we’d have seen a decline in these “free” platforms rather than stunning growth. Are you telling me that this is only the case because more than half the public is just fucking stupid? (Don’t answer that.)

Simply put, no one really cares how their favorite websites make money. If people are getting immense worth out of them for free, as long as it doesn’t cause unmanned drones to snipe them out from the skies, then who are we to call them ignorant for not knowing how the whole value exchange really works?

Call them an idiot for watching Honey Boo Boo, not for using Facebook.

business models, monetization, search, social media, stupid people

Instagram Is Just As Much The ‘Bad Guy’ Here

Posted on December 5, 2012

Instagram Isn’t Twitter’s Bitch

I am in the minority. As are a lot of the people on Twitter today, crying out about the news. I’m certainly in the minority in my household. My nanny is a Facebook user first and almost never uses Twitter. She shrugged at the news. My husband values his Instagram network more than the others, and rarely shares on Twitter as is. He deemed the idea of “Twitter filters” as immediately lame. Tech insiders keep talking about how bad this is for users. But we’re not always representative of the whole. For many, it may not be.

I’m quite surprised (and delighted) to read some “layman” common sense from one of the technorati elite – the acknowledgment that the majority of ordinary people don’t have the same priorities and concerns that entitled early adopter douchebags like us do. Outside of a few folks wondering why some inline photos in their Twitter stream (which they rarely check often anyways) don’t appear as fluidly as they did before, I highly doubt the lack of Instagram’s integration with the Twitter card format will be anything but a blip on the user experience radar.

Instagram has 100 million users, but how many of them are there for Instagram’s own network effects and how many of them are there because they wisely leveraged the network effects of Twitter and Facebook early on?

While there are outlier examples of those who have built a massive audience on Instagram alone, the primary driver of its growth was most certainly visibility on existing platforms. If your pseudo-professional quality photos were walled off inside the app from the start, I highly doubt we’d even be talking about Instagram at this point, let alone it getting acquired by Facebook by a billion dollars.

Social media is fueled absurdly by hooking into our narcissistic dark sides, so the most valuable network to us will always be the one which permits for the maximum amount of reach. Take a look at Facebook’s long-standing march skirting the lines of privacy and you can tell Mark Zuckerberg has known this fact for years. The more public it is, the more it gets used – regardless of the vocal minority who will piss and moan about it.

The same assumption could be said inside of Kevin Systrom’s mind with Instagram’s book-ended strategy shift. Piggyback off of other larger platforms and use the network effect to grow. Then when at some amount of sustainable critical mass, expand your presence to blossom into becoming that very same large platform base – and start locking the doors to prevent competitors doing the same.

If you read the rags about this affair, Twitter is being portrayed as the bad guy. Facebook is being portrayed as the bad ‘big brother’. As I see it, however, Instagram is just as much the bad guy as anyone else. The fact that they’re decidedly smaller and have an ‘underdog’ tag in people’s minds is the only reason they’re avoiding similar vitriol.

None of these parties are doing anything outside of the typical growth playbook any business, online or off, operates by. How many more users does Instagram need before we end up turning on them too?

instagram, narcissism, social media, twitter, twitter cards