Glen More

I recently came across a interesting statistic:

In the past six months more video has been uploaded to YouTube than all the major networks in the past sixty years.

A particularly astute coworker challenged “Well,what quality is the video content?“. She was right, of course: one of the leading factors behind this statistic was the ability to easily upload iPhone video to YouTube and the site was being inundated by the minutia of daily life, hiding content of any value to the masses. This whole topic has led to proclamations of “The Death of YouTube!”.

Now I have no vested interest in the continued operation of YouTube but this got me thinking about an explanation of how social media can be useful in the face of peoples movies of their dog wearing glasses, tweeting what they are eating or uploading pictures of their bar mitzvah.

Here’s how it works: because content is readily available and plentiful, trying to be an individual in digesting social media is like drinking from the fire hose. What we can control is the people we surround ourselves in the social media space. It is already an ideal place to locate people with like-minded views, similar backgrounds, careers and lifestyles. Once you have this you are 99% of the way to leveraging social media rather than being buried by it.

Here’s how it works: every single person in my sphere of communication shares links, videos, articles and more importantly ideas with me and conversely I share the same with them. Content is already vetted by the fact that it comes from people I trust. Because my network is generally slightly different than anyone else I am able to introduce the new links, videos, articles and ideas to the community.

I say: bring on the content. I will find the quality stuff…because you’re workin’ for me now!

Twitter doesn’t know Twitter. Much has been made about Nielsen Online’s recent announcement of 60% drop off rate after a month on Twitter.

Here is the thing about ridiculously simple communication tools: no one knows how they will be used. It is not like Marconi popped on the airwaves in 1901 with a shout out to station sponsor “Abel’s Used Buggies – Just a stones throw from the haberdasher! Where everyday is Edward the VII Day!”.

I liken it to cave men getting a wheel: the whole Clan of the Cave Bear didn’t run out to AutoMart to buy some sweet spinners as soon as the the disc made an appearance around the fire pit. People need time to experiment, leave a concept and return.

Some of the greatest examples of this are how differently people are already using Twitter. Some people follow celebrities and news. It is a great way to drink from the news media fire hose, and I am not being glib. If that is how you use it then you are using it right. Some people use it to maintain customer service presence in the social media space. Perfect! I personally have a list made up of local industry people. They post interesting links, I do likewise and we are all better for it. Fact is: that is not how most people use it and that is OK too.

Twitter has yet to define its place in the communications landscape. The majority of people will leave Twitter for the simple reason that a societal role for them is not clearly defined and they are unwilling to carve one. That is fine, because the early adopters can work it out without them, but don’t ignore the fact that Twitter has the potential to be the catalyst around which social media enacts change on our society.

You’ll be back. We know. It has already been ‘tweeted’…

As I first post I should enter a little about myself and the goals of this blog. If anything it will give me something to laugh at later when I fail at everything. I am a web developer in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I have an eclectic resume as a web designer, developer, application programmer, CRM specialist, and accounting software developer. Most of my history is in VB/SQL in it’s various iterations but I have learned PHP and mySQL along the way.

I have lofty goals for this blog, both personal and intrinsic:
1) I want to create an SEO friendly site
2) BUT I want to make the majority of it in Flash. To make it harder I want to use Flash CS4
3) Hack up one of the most popular blogs to represent a personal homepage that includes a resume and frequently updated information
4) Learn to use Google APIs (Analytics etc.) and Socal Networking tools like Twitter to enhance the content. I talk about it all day, but I secretly know nothing about SEO.
5) Present an attractive, usable interface limited to the esentials in an effective way.

Success will be measured by a few things:
1) Readership (yeah right, well I can dream that people are interested in what I do)
2) SEO ranking.
3) Ablity to sell a blog centric site to a legitmate business interested in promotion.