Thank you Aarti Shah for a brief but nice mention of the launch of Socialized on the PRWeek blog.

Tags: PRWeek, socialized, aarti shah

Not sure how to handle this so editing my existing post. Did not want post to lead with misinformation. I had blogged that Twitter seemed to be censoring posts with black bars, but it turns out someone was playing a joke, which I foolishly fell for. Here is the original post: 

Someone recently alerted me that Twitter seems to be censoring words it deems offensive in updates. Here’s an example:

I have removed the user’s name and avatar photo. The four black bars on the bottom line were added by Twitter. You can guess what was there. I find this very objectionable. All Twitter use is completely voluntary. If I don’t like someone’s language, I can easily stop following them.

Addendum: Ahh the speed of Twitter. Mike Keliher suggests that the black bars might have been inserted by the users as a joke, and pointed to this post. If that’s the case, I’ve fallen for it.

Addendum 2.0: The user who typed the update above informs me that he added the black bars as a joke. As a former reporter, I should have known to contact him first. Just shows you should not believe everything you see online.

Tags: twitter, black bars, censorship, obscenity

I was thinking recently about some of the “A-list bloggers” (a term I detest, yet it is widely used), and how some of their juvenile and even aggressive, anti-social behavior presents a “good news-bad news” scenario. (For some reason we always say “good news, bad news” even when expressing the bad news first.)

It’s bad news, because certain people believe themselves to be “better,” more important, and even more relevant than others, and I suppose we live in a meritocracy, but there are some notable personalities who have really gained their fame through a first-mover advantage and are ultimately, well, jerks who use bullying and other questionable tactics to generate traffic.

The good news is, or at least I hope so, that the very nature of social media/networks exposes these people as the jerks they are. With almost universal access (among people who care to have access) to blogs, Twitter, digg, etc., we all have frequent opportunity to openly express our opinions and reactions to these people. Hopefully, public opinion will eventually reward people who provide intelligent analysis, well thought out reasoning and critical thinking, and not those who drive traffic with a baseless cult of personality, by engaging in manufactured online feuds, or by labeling perfectly decent people as “lame” or “losers.”

I have deliberately not mentioned any of the people I am criticizing. I’m trying to express my opinion on this without helping these people increase their influence. You can probably guess at a few of them and I don’t care to link to them.

Let’s hope that as the sport of social media matures, the bullies and opportunists are replaced by people of substance and character.

Jerk = FAIL!

Tags: Jerk=FAIL!

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is an example of a senior executive who is super-engaged with social media. He writes an interesting blog (along with the company’s COO) and he is very active on Twitter. This morning he published the following update:

Can you imagine even three years ago, the CEO of a recognized consumer brand “hanging out” on a Sunday chatting directly with consumers about company strategy? Amazing.

There’s a church I pass in Boulder Creek with a sign that always offers a bit of useful advice. This morning, the sign made a suggestion that is not only useful for life in general, but for online life as well.

Are you worried about a prospective employer’s reaction to the party pictures on your Facebook page? Does a client campaign pose some ethical dilemmas? Worried that a new media tactic might expose your company or a client to risk? If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t do it.