Tweeting Away To Margaritaville

I've been using Twitter for three or  four years now.    I don't in any way, shape or form claim to be an expert Tweeter.   Though I do well understand that Twitter is all about conversations.   I only have a bit less than 400 followers.   Yet I actually know most of these people.   I've visited their blogs and  chatted with them on various websites and forums.   In many cases I know their spouses names and their children's names.    Some of the publicists, publishers staff and authors in my  TweetStream are a bit more professional contacts than friends,  but again I do really know most of these folks.

As I said, I  know that Twitter is all about conversation,  and I have developed a pretty fair knack for having real back-and-forth conversations in 140 character blips.  (If only there had been a college course in editing down to 140 characters back when I was in college--- would have saved me nearly 4 years of experimentation and discovery.)   My activity level on Twitter has certainly had its ups and downs over the years.  There have been days when I tweet and tweet and tweet all day and other days when I just couldn't be bothered.    But yesterday and today as I  (SHHH!!! don't tell) prepare to launch a quirky new site in collaboration with a dear new friend,  I found myself reaching out to people I haven't spoken to much in ages,  calling in favors,  exchanging re-tweets.    I found that Twitter enabled me to put my name and handle in front of a whole bunch of people-- in preparation for the big launch which we will be doing in a week or two.

Today,  I find myself falling in love with social media all over again-- excited and thrilled by all of the great friends and acquaintances  I interact with online and looking forward to a future in which the sky is the limit.   Thank you so much for being part of my online 'family'.

Walking Down The Avenue

I'm reminded, frankly, of the early days of Entrecard.  Before bad management changed a clever and effective social network to a tired traffic exchange,  Entrecard attracted a group of smart, clever bloggers and allowed them to meet, mix, mingle and place small box ads all over each other's blogs.    For me it was a very exciting time when in short order I met dozens and dozens of great bloggers,  made a whole bunch of new friends and saw my blog's popularity skyrocket.   I've been involved in many web sites and forums since then,  but until my recent foray onto Empire Avenue  I had not experienced anything like those heady early days on Entrecard (which, btw, were also remniscient of my early days on Blog Catalog.)

I remember explaining to Rich Becker, shortly after catching the Entrecard bug that Entrecard was Really a social network,  decked out in advertising service clothes.    Likewise Empire Avenue is Really a social network that struts about dressed as a stock trading game.   Each member of EA selects a  Ticker Symbol (1--12 alpha-numeric characters) and other users buy shares in their stock.   You can of course invest your precious Eaves (a virtual currency) in such luminaries as Tony Berkman(e)MEDIAMOGUL,  Johh Gushue (e)GUSHUE,  Richard Becker (e)RRB  or even your humble correspondent, (e)LIBDRONE.

You will connect your social network accounts-- specifically Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Flickr and YouTube,  as well as your blogs to your EA profile.   Your participating on each of these networks, as well as your participation on the Empire Avenue site contribute to raising your share price,  which also goes up each time someone buys shares in you.   Your shareholders earn dividends each night, which are based on your level of activity on your blogs and social networks.    As successful photography blogger Henry Plumley  (e)PHOTOSBYHANK observed:  "It really is a great new way to approach networking. Soon after you sign in, you become wrapped up in researching your target audience and making sure your message is out there for all to see.  What I feel is the best feature of Empire Avenue is the ability to see all your other social networks at a glance. Empire Avenue uses a 0-100 scoring system to rate your performance on all your networks. It’s so easy to see where your strengths and weaknesses are which helps you decide where you need to improve.  "

I've spoken with many members who have found that Empire Avenue gives them the push they need to keep focused on creating quality content and interacting with their audience,  both for the success of their blogs and careers and to keep their share price up.   When someone's share price increases over 100e  they are declared Centurions and are toasted by everyone on the Avenue.   If you do sign up,  be sure to send me a private message.   I'll be happy to invite you to join the #SocialEmpire group on Facebook,  where lots of great EA players hang out and talk about everything from tips on social networking, blogging and EA success to movies, music and their personal lives.    It's a boat load of fun AND it helps you to succeed at blogging and social networking.   What do you say?   Why not try Empire Avenue now,  and receive 2,000 Eaves on me! 

How many people can you really be?

Some days,  blog posts seem to just pop up in my mind,  flow quickly through my fingers and keyboard and onto the screen and twenty minutes later,  I am doing something else.   Other days,  like yesterday I type a title,  spend hours searching for an image,  make multiple false starts and never do get around to finishing.

I have been thinking a lot lately about identity and being online.   When I first when online on Compuserve, our "handles" were longer than phone numbers (mine was the very catchy, memorable 74220,741) although most of us had our settings to display our real names next to them online.   I remember being quite surprised when a friend mentioned to me that she was using a pseudonym on Compuserve.   Were people really whom they presented themselves at online?    On local "bulletin board systems" most people only used handles-- though honestly I never spent much time on BBS's.    In the early days of Internet discussion boards and forums (post Usenet, pre-Facebook) the use of handles was pretty standard,  although it varied a great deal as to whether the handles used were readily associated with the user's real names.  

I have friends I've know and talked to for years  (looking at Cardiogirl) whose real names I don't know.  I also have friends whom I've known by both their name on one site and their handle on another site-- and never realized that both were the same person.  (glancing at Lord Zod)   Facebook seems to have a policy of requiring only real names--  I've heard stories of people who have been locked out of FB for using a handle.  Although I have a friend who does.    And it was on FB that I was chatting with some folks about all of this name/handle, online-identity stuff,  and was a bit surprised at how vehement most of these folks are about only using their real names online.  Honestly,  it seems to me that life is sufficiently complex that there can be perfectly legitimate reasons that some parts of one's life are better conducted under a different handle.

Where do you fall on this?   Do you use your real name Everywhere?  or nowhere?   Do you use different handles for different parts of your online life?

If We All Hate FB, Why The Heck Are We There?

I spend a lot of time online.   I meet and chat with rather a lot of different people.   But I don't recall Ever chatting with anyone who had much nice to say about Facebook.   It's detractors of course are legion.     One woman I know pointedly refuses to get a Facebook account,  saying that the site is data-mining scam that no rational person should ever trust with their personal information.

Many people complain that it is literally _impossible_ to contact them for customer service.   They seem to take feedback only through online reporting mechanisms which often fail to foresee customer's situations,  and since they only allow selecting alternatives,  rather than entering  questions or concerns,  quite fail to anywhere near adequately address situations.   Indeed when one presses the Help Center option on the Account menu, one is presented with a huge array of issues one might need help with.   And information, advice and links are available for any problem Facebook thinks one might be having can be readily found for each of these issues.   But nowhere in all of that is there ever any option to call or e-mail for assistance.

Which leads me to ask,  why the heck do so many of us use their service So much,  even though we all should know by now just how difficult it will be to fix things if,  for example, we accidentally delete or get locked out of our accounts.    One user I spoke with-- who is creating FB   page applications for clients,  said simply that his clients are asking for FB apps, so he is coding FB apps.   Apparently,  Facebook is what people want today.   Buy Why?

Welcome To The Browns

I can't say I wasn't warned that one day my share price would stop rising and would then fall,  displayed on the site as a brown, negative number in parentheses after the share price.   I've noticed for a couple of days now that my growth was beginning to level off, so it wasn't exactly a surprise.    But it definitely is not fun.

I'm not sure if I ever did fully figure out what made me so anger about the departed's sudden re-appearance yesterday.   Part of it I came to realize was anger at myself for having been so very drawn in by someone whom I'm beginning to see is largely a very big ego leading what a friend has described as a "social media orgy".   ("It looks more like a circle jerk to me,"  I replied.   She laughed.)   I still have to look at things like Amplify and paper.li  and decide what other social media/content-creating things I want to do.    Nice as the ego-stroke is from having a rising share price and dozens of stockholders,  I am realizing that the biggest value from participating in EA lies in occasionally meeting a really special new friend you would not otherwise have ever encountered.      Hopefully then,  my EA-addiction is well on the wane and I can continue having fun with it,  but stop taking it quite so seriously.

Why Am I So Pissed-Off?

The problem is,  I really don't understand _why_ I'm so pissed off.   I've known the guy for less than a week.  And while I was surprised and a bit stunned by his abrupt departure from the group he created,  honestly it didn't really ruin my day.    And I can't really say I was surprised either, by the fact that a couple of days later he showed up again.

It seems to me reasonable to have been annoyed that he showed up again without a word of explanation.   He simply re-joined the FB group and created a new profile on Empire Avenue.    What really made me angry though is that most of the participants in this group immediately fell all over themselves to welcome him back with open arms.    Not one person requested an explanation.

To be fair, explanations do appear to be forthcoming.   And when he finally broke his silence, he did begin with an apology.    And yet,  two picas to the right of  'I apologize',  he breaks forth immediately into talking about his problems with Facebook  (and again,  to be fair,  I can appreciate them) and then goes on to talk about 'giving everyone a chance to buy in'  before he connects his 'major networks' to the new EA account.   And everyone is slapping him on the back and saying how great it is to see him again.   And I sit here typing this little account of the story and honestly don't know why I am So angry about all this.    Ron downloaded a cartoon once-- it's late at night and the wife in her nightclothes is urging her husband to come to bed.   He waves her off and continues typing away at his computer, calling out to her over his shoulder "I can't stop now, somebody is wrong on the Internet!"  

Honestly,  I don't know who if anyone is "wrong" in this instance.    Nothing seems to be black and white, cut and dried in this instance.    A friend shared with me that what bothers Her is that he's opening up all this drama.   I can handle drama, though, so I don't think that is it for me.   For now,  I continue trying to figure out my feelings about all of this.   And I keep biting my tongue so as not to say much of anything until I can come to understand why I'm so pissed off.

Watching For A Resurrection?

Full Disclosure:  This post has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Christianity,  share prices, lunar cycles, the sun, the heavens, etc.


I had planned today to blog about my reluctance to Amplify my remarks;  my hesitancy to create my own press.li  newspaper and other various means of giving myself 10 blogs on EA without actually going to the trouble of setting up and maintaining oodles of blogs.   But after playing around with Amplify a bit,  I'm not at all sure what is going on there or what the value and consequences are,   so I put that post on hold to continue a bit along the lines of yesterday's post,  wherein I wrote about death, even though No One Has Died!


My thoughts today turn instead  to the idea of  "resurrection", not because it is getting on towards Easter (although it is) but because the man who disappeared from the group so abruptly on Friday evening appeared, albeit briefly and insubstantially on Sunday.    Weekends are traditionally a slow time online,  although activity often picks up starting Sunday afternoon or evening.   It was Not a slow weekend for my share price-- which as of this writing has soared to 51.34e.   I keep hearing from folks how jarring it is the first time your share price declines.   I know of course they are right and feel quite lucky to still be on an upward trajectory after about 10 days on the site.   Empire Avenue continues to hold my strong interest.  And with hashtags like #EAvKinK and #UterusHighFive,   #SocialEmpire  group on FaceBook continues to be, most definitely,  not your run of the mill FaceBook group.   It was a little slow on Saturday,  but the handful of us who were there had a grand old time,  talking about any and everything.   And of course,  the number of participants did pick up Sunday afternoon and evening.  

I couldn't help noticing during that somewhat more active time,  a member of the group added the departed back in.   Once in,  that user posted a thread  Watch This Space,  and then said nothing else at all.    Who knows,  at this point it still _could_  (conceivably at least) be some kind of publicity stunt in connection with the planned introduction of a FaceBook app to compliment the game and the group.   Although it seems unlikely.   The departed's name came up very rarely,  and the powers that be tried to say very little-- a combination of vague and re-assuring that is tough for even the most talented PR-type to pull off well.   Then comes Monday morning and a couple of those business types march in all decked out in sysop garb and try to say Reassuring Things.   This alarms me.    As I recall the Bible,  resurrections take three days.    I'm willing to wait until Wednesday to see how this one turns out.   But in the meantime friends,  Please.   Hold the sysop stuff.