Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

October 26, 2009

User Manual: What to Expect When Using Social Media?

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations”. Elliott Larson

Expectations are – simply put – the building blocks and the breaking points of everything in life.

Expectations Only Lead to Disappointment!

Expectations Only Lead to Disappointment!

Whether in the way we conduct our personal lives or business wise, expectations usually have the power to strengthen or hinder efforts and in turn influence any outcomes either positively or negatively.

Hundreds, no, thousands of books and articles were published about various subjects pertaining to expectations all around us. The main reason for these publications is to prepare individuals for what they might face in certain situations or during specific events or cases and how to deal with them accordingly.


Social Media Expectations: The good, the bad & the ugly!

Preconceptions about a certain concept, person, place and so on have the ability to cause confusion. This is because the human mind conditions itself to a certain way of dealing with things based on prior expectations. Thus, if the expectations are not met, the mind usually refuses to change its perceptions and whatever is at play might lose its credibility and attractiveness element.

Therefore, I thought I would prepare a list, divided into 3 categories: the good, the bad and the ugly. The main purpose of this list is pointing out everything one must expect to encounter through his/her use of social media channels, tools and platforms.

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October 22, 2009

Is Social Media Enough for Maintaining Friendships?

A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway“. Fr. Jerome Cummings

With that said, I found myself asking the following questions: How well do we REALLY know our friends whom we have been connected to only through social media channels for the past months or even years? Can strong, real and long-term friendships be maintained only through social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter? What is the cost we are paying for compromising the sincerity of our friendships my limiting them to brief, limited interactions over the web?

What are friendships, anyway?

Friendship...

Friendship...

As Wikipedia states: a friendships is “a relatively long-term association between two or more people. This association may be based on emotions like love and liking, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment.

Therefore, if a friendship needs the element of time as an essential part of its broad meaning, then there should be some kind of distinction between the quality and value of time rather than its actual duration!

Accordingly, I must strongly stress the fact that valuable and quality time, at least the way I see it, is spent through sharing experiences, face-to-face conversations and adventures carried out together.

Social media maintained friendships have a different meaning!

Speaking from my own personal experience, and taking some stories I’ve heard from a few “friends” into account, it seems to me that friendships maintained over social media take on the following forms of interaction:

  • The Occasional Poke: Facebook people are smart! They thought about everything when designing their unique platform up to the tiniest detail! Thus, if you want to show someone that you remember them or want to grab their attention yet don’t feel like writing them anything in specific, you have the poke feature! And the pokes keep going back and forth! [read full article >>]

September 4, 2009

Follower Trafficking: Would You Sell Your Twitter Followers – Discreetly?

Twitter Followers for Money?

Twitter Followers for Money?

I am 100% positive that most of you have read about, or at least heard of, human trafficking: “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, illegally or legally, in order to control them for the purpose of exploitation.”

But the question is: Have you ever heard of Twitter followers trafficking? I would have to assume not.

So, what do I mean by the “trafficking of followers”? Is it as bad as it sounds? And if given the chance, would you actually try to discreetly exploit your Twitter followers by selling them for a certain amount of money, without their knowledge?



Twitter Followers: Their real, undisclosed value…

Imagine that on a given day, you take a one minute break from your tweeting activities and decide to check the inbox in your direct messages. To your surprise, you find the following message: Are you interested in selling your Twitter followers? Contact me through e-mail for negotiations.What would you do?

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