Christian Ross

Social Media – A Vested Interest

The timing of Ben’s thoughts and Chris’ response have me wondering how many others are dealing with a similar issue of how to control – and express publicly – their social media consumption. I have been contemplating both my usage and the perception of my usage in this arena for some time now.

Where I Network

I make no bones about not being on Facebook. I’ve spouted a number of reasons over the years but most of it boils down to about three things:

  1. 1. I don’t trust them – the shady nature of their data-practices is too hard for me to overlook.
  2. 2. I don’t dig the forced, two-way communication it is formed around.
  3. 3. If we didn’t get along in high school, what makes you think we should buddy up at this point in life?

I’ve heard everything from “you just don’t get it,” to “you’re failing your clients by not being a part of it,” and a few other things in between. None of which I’ve bought into yet.

The concept I understand, and the draw of connecting with others, I empathize, but they’ve hardly done enough to get me to open up my personal digital-trail for the long haul. (You do realize once you’ve signed up you can’t ever actually delete your profile/info, right? It’s in the Terms of Service you didn’t read.) (more…)

Depend much on social media?

While I am all about utilizing social media to market your product and I am also in favor of using it to garner as much feedback as possible from the consumer, there is a limit to which I would take it.

I’d say the creator’s of the new Joshua Jackson film One Week crossed that line recently. Their attempt to garner some hype over the movie was probably set back slightly after taking a full-page ad out in a Toronto newspaper this week and including a page filled with reviews of the film.

My guess is that they stuffed it with so many reviews to hide the fact that they were actually comments from users about a clip of the film on the video hosting site YouTube. And that at least half of the comments noted that they had not yet seen the film but are more along the lines of “this movie is going to be fantastic” and “can’t wait to see this.” Ouch. Social media marketing gone very wrong. I’m betting they know the fact this this movie should have gone straight to DVD.

See for yourself. (more…)

Help Jonathan Snook adopt (again)

A major player in the world of web (both design and programming) was looking to adopt his third child along with his wife in the near future, the future came a little sooner than expected.

Read all about it (and contribute if you’re inclined) here: http://snook.ca/adoption

Through the use of twitter, in 12 hours he’s almost hit the $2,000 mark (13% of his goal). Pretty good for a campaign slated to go through April 18th.

There’s got to be a business model for twitter somewhere out there…

Social networking?

I get the computer equivalent of a funny look when “Internet people” find out I don’t have a Facebook or Myspace account. In fact, I get quite a few funny looks when I mention it to live people as well.

There are many reasons why I have chosen not to sign up for an account to either one. Tonight I will submit reason #4638 to my list of why I don’t plan on staking claim to a piece of Myspace real estate:
(more…)