Photo credit to Zach Klein.

The other day I sat in on a webinar about using social media data in marketing.  The webinar was fascinating – and the accompanying Twitter discussion was even better.  Towards the end of the conversation, one of the presenters made the point that marketers need to give customers something in exchange for access to their data.  He named a few possible benefits to consumers, but they were all just dressed up forms of personalized advertising.  On Twitter, I commented that, “The problem is that the things you get in exchange for giving personal data are custom ads – valuable to the company, not you.” Then I sat back and watched the retweets roll in.

Photo credit to Chris Pederick.

Soon after the webinar, I received an e-mail from Golden Key, a business school honor society that’s long been after me to join.  The email started with the following:

Margaret,

You have visited the Golden Key membership page multiple times, but have not yet completed the online form. Just to remind you…pick up where you left off – your profile information is saved and available for easy completion.

First strike, they called me Margaret.  But, in all seriousness, this e-mail was an example of the problems we had been discussing during the webinar.  The organization is capturing my data for the sole purpose of sending me custom ads that push me down their pre-planned marketing funnel.  Their data capture doesn’t provide me with any value, but serves to provide me with targeted nudges to move me from their e-mail to their website to eventual membership in a neat and orderly fashion.  And I don’t like it.

Photo credit to Gerald Stolk.

Yes, I know this is standard industry practice (I’ve long been wishing that my firm’s marketing budget had room for HubSpot) – but most companies are slightly better at hiding it.  When they make the path you’re “supposed” to take too clear, it feel almost like a trap – like your other options are closing off against you and you’re being herded to an unwelcome end.

My concerns/annoyance about online tracking and privacy are nothing new.  During the webinar, one of the presenters also quoted Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, as having said “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it,” – way back in 1999.  Back then, my only web privacy concern was wiping the browser history of my copious fanfiction reading off of my parents’ computer.

Photo credit to *~Dawn~*.

But, as I’ve grown up in my use of the internet, so has the web’s ability to track who and I am what I do.  I’ve written before about Microsoft using social media data to update Word’s canon and recognize that, if anything, Microsoft is probably behind Facebook and Google’s ability to do creepy, creepy things with our data.  Facebook Minority Report, anyone?

This future is coming and I agree with Scott McNealy; we do need to get over our desire for online privacy.  I just wish that marketers wouldn’t rub our lack of privacy in our faces.

Questions of the day: Have you ever noticed yourself being pushed down a marketing funnel?  Did you feel trapped? Are you concerned about online privacy?  Should we just get over it?

Photo Credit to .::HMU::..

I get a lot of spam – on this blog, on my work blog, and my corporate website.  It feels like the snow that’s still coming down even though it’s March.  (When will it stop?!)  Most of it is rubbish, utter nonsense that I delete out of hand, easily recognizing it for the gratuitous references to Viagra, work from home jobs, or off-shore e-mail providers.

But, sometimes there’s something about it that makes me stop and pay attention.  The way that, even though it’s cold and you wish it would hurry up and get to spring already, perfect snow can still make you think of Santa and Christmas magic.  There’s something about them and the way they’re written than makes me think that they can’t all be from a computer program in China.  And maybe there really is a long lost Nigerian prince who needs my help.

Some of them seem Real – not like they’re real in the sense of the comments that you or I leave, but Real in the sense of The Velveteen Rabbit – that they’re somehow something… more.  There’s a lyric quality to them – something that seems more the akin to theatre of the absurd than to a million spammer monkeys sitting at a million keyboards for a million years.

I find myself hovering over the “mark as spam” button for much longer than I should, searching for meaning that I know isn’t really there.  Maybe I’ve seen too many episode of The X-Files, but I want to believe.

To quote Cher, searching for meaning in spam is as pointless in searching for it in a Pauly Shore movie.  But, that doesn’t mean that I can stop myself.

Questions of the day: Do you read your spam?  Do you ever see anything meaningful in it?  Anything Real?

Photo credit to JD Hancock.

You’ve probably just gotten used to Facebook Timeline and abandoned your “Give us back the old Facebook” page, but Zuckerberg’s gone and moved your cheese again.  GraphSearch, is the newest new Facebook; it integrates search and social – and invades your privacy – as never before.

If you’re like most users of the site, you’ve been through enough versions of “the new Facebook” that you’ve become immune to the hype surrounding an announcement that a new and improved Facebook is on the horizon.  The frequency of upgrades and staggering of the rollouts makes it hard to know when you’ve been upgraded.  Add to that the fact that Facebook doesn’t do version numbers like most software (i.e. there’s no “Facebook 5.1.4” floating in the corner of your screen), and many users don’t even know if they’re on “the new Facebook” or “the old Facebook.”

Photo credit to CityGypsy11.

It’s relatively east to travel back in time to the early days of most websites.  The Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine can take you to (almost) any other website at (almost) any other point in time.  Scraping the recesses of the web, the Way Back Machine lets us relive web 1.0 in all of its glory.

But, it’s impossible to go back and see “the old Facebook” because Facebook’s anti-robot policy prevents The Way Back Machine from returning you a previous version of the site.  While Facebook’s anti-robot policy isn’t too illuminating (saying, basically, robots are black listed by default; see the terms of service (TOS) to apply to be while listed), its TOS is.

Photo credit to twicepix.

Facebook’s TOS for automated data collection is interesting because it spells out very specific rules that automated data collectors must follow when accessing Facebook data.  I say interesting, but I really mean ironic.  When it comes to user data, Facebook violates all these rules itself – that’s basically its business model.  The rules include:

• You will not engage in Automated Data Collection without Facebook’s express written permission.
• You agree that you will not sell any data collected through, or derived from data collected through, Automated Data Collection.
• You agree that you will destroy all data you have collected through Automated Data Collection upon Facebook’s written request and that you will certify such destruction under penalty of perjury.

If only Facebook provided users the ability to protect their data in the same way!  Imagine if Facebook had to get written permission before it could build shadow profiles on non-members (yes, it really does that!), if it couldn’t sell you data (good bye ad revenue), or if you really could make Facebook delete all the data it had on you (good bye future ad revenue).  Facebook couldn’t win if it had to play by its own rules – and it definitely wouldn’t have developed GraphSearch.

Photo credit to cobalt123.

GraphSearch is named for the social graph, Facebook’s term for all the strings of social data that connects us.  It works because robots have scraped your data, but that’s okay they’re the good kind of robots: Facebook robots.  (This is where I need to use sarcastises, one of the new punctuation marks proposed by college humor.)  GraphSearch has indexed every piece of public Facebook data and allows users to search it, as select advertiser have long been able to do.  Now that this data is searchable, you can get a list of Mothers of Jews who like Bacon or Married people who like Prostitutes.

Photo credit to Holster.

Before you all scurry away to remove any questionable like you’re ever made, hold on!  Graph search is only based on publically available data; you can remove yourself from most graph searches by changing your privacy settings.

I’ve received some (well deserved) comments about how I often blog about privacy problems and don’t blog enough about privacy solutions.  Fair point.  So, here’s how you can take back (some) control of your data.  Click the privacy shortcut in the upper right hand corner of your Facebook home page.  (It’s the one that looks like the lock with the three bars.)  Then click “See more stuff.”  Check the setting under “Who can see your future posts.”  The default setting is public, but you can change it to friends only or get specific by excluding certain people or lists (hello co-workers!).

Photo credit to barockschloss.

Graph search will grow based on your future data, but it runs now because of the data you gave Facebook in the past.  You can take back (once again, some) control of your past data by access to limiting past posts.  When you go to do this, Facebook will give you a big scary warning.  Ignore it.  Facebook’s not looking out for your best interest; it’s looking out for its ability to make money.  With this one click, you can reset your past Facebook data to friends only and remove it from most graph searches and public scrutiny.  Sure, your friends will still be able to see the embarrassing stuff you posted in college, but they already can, if they scroll through your timeline for long enough.  And, a friend seeing embarrassing stuff is nothing compared to a prospective employer or an enterprising journalist coming across your long buried college transgressions.

You can’t go back in Facebook time, but with privacy controls you can rewrite your Facebook history.  GraphSearch is currently in the very early stages of its role out, so check your privacy settings now to make sure your misguided likes don’t land you in someone’s GraphSearch of shame.

Questions of the day: Have you rewritten your Facebook history? Have you traveled back in time to an earlier version of the web?  What do you think about GraphSearch: wonderful or wonderfully creepy?

Maggie (Not Margaret) is a blog about social media, marketing, culture, and what’s new on the internet written by me, Maggie O’Toole.   Find anything interesting in the worlds of culture or social media that you’d like to see a post on? Leave a comment or send me an e-mail at 2maggieotoole@gmail.com.

Recently @mattshirley41 decided to explore what his fellow netizens think about the United States and mapped the results.  The United States Is… maps autocomplete suggestions for the 50 states.

The result is an interesting look at stereotypes of and popular phrases about each state.  Georgia probably wouldn’t be on so many people’s minds if it weren’t for the song.  But, how to explain the preponderance of negative stereotypes about other states?  Many states are labeled as boring, broke, or racist, but very few have positive associations.  Best one: “Montana is for badasses.”

Some of the negatives seem pretty easy to trace.  Mississippi is the fattest state,” is statistically true.  But, the meme can probably be blamed on Oprah, who loudly proclaimed it on her show, and Kathy Griffin, who imitated that proclamation in her stand up.

Photo credit to Kalexanderson.

Maybe the multitude of negatives is explained by the fact that we don’t spend a lot of time searching for “____________ is awesome,” – no matter what goes in that blank.  Maybe we’re just more concerned about learning about things that are wrong than about things that are right…  Speculation about our use of negative search terms aside, the negativity of autocomplete suggestions has spawned its own industry, with services like Beat the Autocomplete helping companies and individuals to replace negatives with more positive autocomplete suggestions.

It may seem that the tone and content of autocomplete suggestions don’t matter, but they do.  Like top results, they tell us what other people think about a topic, and imply that maybe we should think that, too.  And, since Google added search-as-you-type, autocomplete drives those all important results.

Photo credit to davidyuweb.

There have been a number of high profile libel suits in which people have attempted to force Google to remove possibly damaging autocomplete suggestions.  Google has generally come out the victor – apparently “don’t shoot the messenger” is a legally defensible position.  I can’t picture any of the states mounting a similar case, but in an era of increasingly tight state budgets and fierce campaigns to lure out-of-state businesses and the jobs that come with them, it doesn’t seem totally impossible.

Questions of the day: If a state were to sue Google over libelous autocomplete which one would it be?  And if they did sue, how could they prove that it really wasn’t true?  Isn’t California really broke?  Isn’t Georgia really on your mind?

Maggie (Not Margaret) is a blog about social media, marketing, culture, and what’s new on the internet written by me, Maggie O’Toole.   Find anything interesting in the worlds of culture or social media that you’d like to see a post on? Leave a comment or send me an e-mail at 2maggieotoole@gmail.com.

Photo credit to atomicjeep.

A while back, I wrote about the possibility of social automation leading to digital dopplegangers who stayed around long after our deaths (Digital Ghosts – Something creepy this way comes).  Looks like I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about this topic.

@tomscott, creator of the hilarious Actual Facebook Graph Searches tumblr and subsequent meme, created a (also hilarious) video on this topic.  When Facebook Resurrected the Dead takes a mock historical perspective on the creation of the digital afterlife.

Whereas I wondered about the strangeness of interacting with the digital ghosts of deceased loved ones, When Facebook Resurrected the Dead looks at the economic and social impacts of immortal surrogates.  Jokingly examining such questions as “who owns the royalties of an album created by Michael Jackson’s digital ghost” and “will the creation of a digitized Jesus count as the second coming and bring about the end of the world,” it’s well worth your time.

The video is a joke, but in a “it’s funny because it’s scary because it’s true” way.  (Well, maybe not the digital second coming thing…)  Marketing automation software is already on available.  Textual analysis software that can pinpoint an individual author based on word usage patterns (identifying an individual’s written “voice”), is on its way.  At some point, the two will meet and combine with a whole host of other products that are certainly being thought of by great minds in Silicon Valley and around the world.  It’s just a matter of when.

Photo credit to c-reel.com.

The part about this topic that I find most intriguing is difficult to put into words.  Humanity’s interest in immortality is nothing new, but it seems like the goal has changed.  Previously, people wanted to live forever so they could live forever – pretty simple.  It was about personal immortality, a never ending experience, fear of death, the unknown, and all that.  But, this new digital immortality isn’t about that at all.  It’s underpinned by the fact that you’re body and your consciousness will be gone – that there will be no you left to experience your immortality.  It’s about leaving something behind – an interactive version of carving “Maggie was here” into stone.  In some way, this kind of immortality is selfish; it’s about creating monuments to our own egos.  But, in another way; it’s not; it’s about leaving behind a new version of ourselves that is truly a man for others – a part of ourselves who exists solely to comfort the loved ones that we’ve left behind.

Photo credit to Montauk Beach.

My Dad would tell me that he doesn’t need to leave a digital version of himself behind because he’s already created four of them, one in my head and one in each of my siblings’.  When we were growing up, he’d say, “A sign of good parenting is that your kids should always know what advice you’d give in any situation.  They should be able to hear your voice in the back of their head.”  He’s probably right – I might not always listen to that voice, but I do always know what it would say.  (Right now, he’d say to stop slouching and sit up straight.  He’d probably also tell me that he’s planning on sticking around for a long time, so I’ve got about 50 more years of advice coming my way.)

I won’t need to talk to my Dad’s digital doppelganger, but maybe some other people will.  I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but some version of this technology is on its way.  I, for one, am excited (if a little bit scared) to see what develops.

Questions of the day: Do you think digital ghosts are coming?  When?  Would you want to interact with deceased relatives Facebook profiles?  Or will you, like me, hear enough of their voices in your head?

Maggie (Not Margaret) is a blog about social media, marketing, culture, and what’s new on the internet written by me, Maggie O’Toole.   Find anything interesting in the worlds of culture or social media that you’d like to see a post on? Leave a comment or send me an e-mail at 2maggieotoole@gmail.com.

Photo credit to sara_anne.

The other day I was working with some colleagues on a plan for digital communications surrounding the upcoming Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM) conference.  Like most things that include the word accounting, buzz about the conference isn’t exactly sticky; it doesn’t rocket around cyberspace like news of Joe Biden’s latest gaff or pictures of Kate’s baby bump.

In order to build excitement for the conference, we’re going to be having social media contests in the lead up to the event.  The topic of discussion: what network to use for the contests: Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Photo credit to afagen.

We initially considered a Facebook campaign.  Facebook makes it easy to host contests and track engagement.  Also, we’re all used to seeing contests, and pass-it-on pseudo chain letters, on the site.  Even if we don’t necessarily believe that “every share means $1 for kids’ cancer research” or “if you don’t click ‘like’ it means you hate puppies,” we all understand the mechanisms of how content spreads on Facebook and the social norms around engaging with it.  Initially, Facebook seemed like the perfect network for a contest – until someone spoke up.  “Um, guys, I want to help, but I’m not going to share AAM stuff on my Facebook page.  My friends make fun of me for working in accounting enough as it is.”  And with that, the happiness balloon popped.  It was disappointing, but it was honest – and it was right.  Trying to get accounting to be a hot topic on Facebook is like trying to get fetch to happen.  Get over it Gretchen.

Next up for discussion, Twitter.  Fast, easy – almost too easy.  “Retweet to win” is so simple it’s almost meaningless.  Like everything on Twitter, it’s fleeting to a point of near irrelevancy.  We knew that we could get people to retweet or reply easily enough, but didn’t know if we could get that to translate into anything more lasting.  Final verdict: let’s give it a try, but we need something else, too.

Finally, LinkedIn.  Of all the options, LinkedIn is the most utilized by AAM members.  We have a super active group, the discussion forum on which has practically supplanted our list-serve.  Members use the group to share their wins, commiserate about their struggles, and ask for advice.  The first rule of marketing: find your audience.  We found them; and they were on LinkedIn.  So, it made sense for our contest to be there, too.  Then someone asked the question, “Has anyone ever seen a contest on LinkedIn?”  And… crickets.  “Has anyone ever seen anything fun on LinkedIn?”  More crickets.  Apparently, LinkedIn is the social network where fun goes to die.  Yes, LinkedIn is a professional network, so it’s only natural that it’s a bit more buttoned up than its social brethren.  But, there’s a difference between “buttoned up” and “stick up your butt.”

After the meeting ended, I googled LinkedIn contests.  No results.  (That’s a lie, there were hundreds of thousands of results, but none of them were about LinkedIn contests.  Curse you, Google algorithm.)  But, hopefully soon there will be.  I’m determined to make fetch happen.  And I’m going to make it happen on LinkedIn.

Questions of the day: Have you ever seen a LinkedIn contest?  Would you participate in one?  Do you actually believe that clicking ‘like’ donates $1 to kids’ cancer research?  Are you trying to make fetch happen?

Maggie (Not Margaret) is a blog about social media, marketing, culture, and what’s new on the internet written by me, Maggie O’Toole.   Find anything interesting in the worlds of culture or social media that you’d like to see a post on? Leave a comment or send me an e-mail at 2maggieotoole@gmail.com.

Photo credit to tqhh

Recently, my Facebook reach has been rather down.  What, I’m I suddenly not as interesting?  Are my pictures not as good?  My posts not as funny?  Although Facebook doesn’t provide individual users with stats about their posts’ engagement and reach, I can tell you what my graph would look like – like a plane crashing from 30,000 feet.

For a while, I was thinking that this was a personal problem – that I’d been so fussed on school and work that I’d let my social media presence slip.  I didn’t even want to think about my Klout score.  Then friends started mentioning that they were experiencing lower engagement, as well.  I started seeing, “Hello, can anyone see this?” posts.  Then I noticed that the same problem was happening on the pages that I admin.

Photo credit to get down

Clearly there’s something happening with EdgeRank, the algorithm which controls which of your posts show up in which of your friends’ or followers’ newsfeeds.  And I think it has something to do with Facebook’s new Sponsored Stories offering, which lets pages pay for expanded reach.

Recently, Facebook quietly implemented this change, and it’s already having a big impact on members’ experiences.  If you’re not a page admin or a web marketer, you won’t have noticed this change, but it is impacting you nonetheless.  By letting pages buy reach, Facebook’s letting them buy spots on your newsfeed.  And, even though your newsfeed may seem like an infinite stream, it’s not – there are a finite number of spots, especially in your most-likely-to-be-viewed top news.  Selling spots in your top news, Facebook’s preventing your friends’ news, you know the stuff that you actually log in to see, from appearing there. 

SPAM by arnold | inuyaki

I’ve been kicking around thoughts on all of these topics for the last few weeks.  What it means that you can buy your way onto newsfeeds.  How I’m pretty sure that these Sponsored Stories are now replacing organic results.  If this paid newsfeed distribution is a good revenue stream for Facebook, or if it’s likely to do more harm than good.

Then I read this New York Observer article which summed up everything that I’ve been puzzling over.  Broken on Purpose: Why Getting It Wrong Pays More Than Getting It Right explains that it’s in social networks’ best interest to have a broken EdgeRank algorithm.

This is a clear conflict of interest. The worse the platform performs, the more advertisers need to use Sponsored Stories. In a way, it means that Facebook is broken, on purpose, in order to extract more money from users. In the case of Sponsored Stories, it has meant raking in nearly $1M a day.

Photo credit to the_green_squirrel

I get that Facebook’s facing financial trouble.  I understand they’re ripping up the proverbial couch cushions looking for change.  But, I don’t think that breaking the system that made them so successful is a good long term strategy for increasing profitability.

Sure, Starbucks could cut costs and increase revenue by selling crappier coffee.  They’d make money for a while because we’re all addicted to our caffeine and trendy cups, but eventually we’d all get fed up and leave.  Google could increase ad revenue by filing the whole first page with ads and burying organic results.  For a while, our fingers would keep typing google.com by rote, but eventually we’d get sick of it and start searching on Bing.  Currently, Facebook doesn’t have a real competitor (sorry, G+!), so maybe they feel that they can play fast and loose with the user experience.  But, I worry that they’re taking our attention and eyeballs (their ultimate revenue source) for granted.  Eventually a real competitor will emerge.  And, if Facebook continues to short change its users, we’ll leave – and take their revenue source with us.

Questions of the Day: Have you noticed changes in your Facebook engagement or news feed?  Do you actually interact with Sponsored Stories (do they work?) or do you treat them like the clutter that they are?  How bad would it have to get for you to leave?

Photo credit to QuinnDombrowski

Have you ever had a moment where you’ve thought, “I’ve found my people?”  That was me, Friday night, at the Booker T. Cleveland Society for the Learned, which might be one of the world’s coolest book clubs.  Meeting monthly in bars, the society’s rules are simple and basically boil down to, you must bring a book and swap that book before the night is out.

The group is pretty self-selecting.  Mainly young professionals.  Dorky enough to want to go to a book club.  Outgoing enough to talk to strangers in bars.  Snobby enough that they will judge your book, and you, by its cover, thank you very much.  So, clearly, I fit right in.

Photo credit to square one studio

With everyone carrying around much-loved books, it was like we were all wearing our hearts on our sleeves.  You can tell a lot about someone by the book that he uses to introduce himself.  Personally, I brought Sarah Vowell’s “The Wordy Shipmates,” which might have been a little too NPR listener of me, but I just read it and really enjoyed it.  I met people carrying battered, mass market sci-fi novels that had long since been loved to the point of becoming Real.  People with giant history tomes, too intimidating to swap for, lest I be expected to finish them and report back in a month’s time.  People carrying books that they must have fallen in love with in high school English and cherished ever since.  (I’m looking at you Vonnegut.)

Initially, I thought that maybe these were everyone’s B-grade favorite books.  The ones that they liked enough to recommend, but didn’t love so much that swapping them away seemed unbearable.  But, then I met a guy who confessed, after his book turned out to have pornographic marginalia, that he had loved this book so much that he picked up a copy at Half-Price Books before coming to the swap.  (Note to readers: flip through second hand books before purchasing.)

Photo credit to zeromk

Towards the end of the night, I began to worry that the rise of ebooks might soon put a stop to The Booker T. Society and other such literary swap meets.  As we read more and more books digitally, our book collections will shrink… or at least stop growing.  I’m worried that, whenever’s the next time I move, I might not take my books with me.  That they might end up in up in boxes that say “donate” rather than “keep.”  That soon I’ll have less of my B-grade books – the ones I love, but not to the point of broken spines.

But, I believe, and hope, that that day’s a long way away.  We might be slowing down the production of physical books, but I can’t believe that we’re at a point where the number of books in the physical world is shrinking.  I’m sure I’ll see it in my lifetime, though.   Maybe then the Booker T. Society will find a way to bump iPads together and exchange files.  Sadly, doesn’t have quite the same romance to it…

Questions of the day: What book would you use to introduce yourself to a stranger?  Do you have A-grade and B-grade favorite books?  How big’s your book collection?  And, are you, like me, worried that it might not survive your next move?

Maggie (not Margaret) by Maggie O’Toole

Formerly MaggieCakes, Maggie (not Margaret) covers technology’s impact on culture, specifically on how we interact with and connect with each other. Have a question or an idea you’d like me to write about? Leave a comment, or send me an e-mail: moc.teragramtoneiggam@eiggam

Photo credit to afagen

Increasingly, the web shows us what it thinks we want to see.  Our Google results and our social media feeds are no longer a real reflection of what the hive mind or our friends have to say on a given topic, but what the powers that be think we want to see about that topic.

Most of the time, they’re right.  As much as we might like to think so, we’re not enigmas.  As we traverse the web, we leave behind digital footprints.  Our likes, our shares, even the pages we view, give Facebook et al insight into what we want to see.

But, sometimes, liking something doesn’t really mean that we like it.  With only the one button to express a myriad of sentiments, a like can mean, “Congrats,” “Cool picture,” “Aww, that sucks,” or many other things.  A like doesn’t actually mean, “I enjoy this and want to see more of it on my newsfeed.” But that’s how Facebook sees it.

Photo credit to Sybren A. Stuvel

Sometimes, the fact that you keep returning to the same website doesn’t mean that you like it.  Hatewatching happens on the web, just as it does with TV.  But to Google, however you’re watching it, love or hate, it’s all the same.  Because it’s your eyeballs that count, not the sentiment that’s going on behind them.

The more advanced the social networks are becoming, and the more information we tell them about ourselves, the more customized our windows on the digital world become.  But, sometimes they’re wrong.  Sometimes Facebook thinks we want to see more of something, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Just think, if you installed the Shaved Bieber Extension, you would be missing out on all this awesomeness. (Photo credit to jake.auzzie)

There’s a new generation of apps that let you fight back when Facebook spoon feeds you the wrong content.  Tired of seeing babies on your newsfeed?  Try Unbaby.me which removes all posts about them.  Getting fed up with Justin Bieber and his legions of screaming fans?  Install the Shaved Bieber Extension, which deletes all references to the Canadian singing sensation.  Looking to avoid something a little closer to home, like maybe an ex?  Try Eternal Sunshine, which entirely removes someone from your Facebook world view, without having to go through that awkward defriending process.

It seems like it shouldn’t be this difficult to avoid things we don’t want to see.  Facebook’s very good at giving us what we do want, so why is it so bad at doing the reverse?  Simple, on Facebook, you can only opt-in – it’s almost impossible to opt-out.  You can only like, but you can’t dislike.

There have long been clamors for a dislike button.  Something to push to empathize with your friends’ posts about being sick or getting a speeding ticket.  But, Facebook won’t give us a dislike button, because it’s contrary to the Facebook ethos.  Facebook is like Cheers, everyone knows your name… and even better, they’re all your friends.  In Facebook, we’re all busy keeping up with the Jones, looking our shiniest and happiest, and a dislike button would mar our happy exteriors.  And Facebook’s in the business of keeping us happy, keeping us coming back for that little dopamine hit that we get when someone likes our status.  (Maybe Ke$ha should make a new song, Your Like is My Drug.)

Photo credit to Sean MacEntee

But, Facebook keeps us coming back in another way too, by delivering sticky content – content that compels us.  To Facebook’s algoriths, a like button and a dislike button would serve almost the exact same purpose.  They would cause you to report which content you found engaging.  Whether you liked it or disliked it, Facebook would know that that content was sticky, and would push more of it your way.

I don’t think that Facebook will ever give us the dislike button.  If they did, they’d probably have to give us two, one for expressing dislike of the information being conveyed in the post, and another for expressing dislike of seeing that information on our newsfeeds.  Since that’s not likely to happen, if you really dislike something and want it to go away, you’ll have to take matters into your own hands.  So, whether it’s babies or Bieber that you’re trying to avoid, don’t tell Facebook.  Knowing that you have such a strong reaction to it will, if anything, get more of it on your feed.

Questions of the day: Are you trying to avoid anyone or anything online?  Maybe Olympic spoilers?  Have you found an app for that?  (‘Cause if so, please share!)  Also, do you want a dislike button?  Think we’ll ever get it?

Maggie (not Margaret) by Maggie O’Toole

Formerly MaggieCakes, Maggie (not Margaret) covers technology’s impact on culture, specifically on how we interact with and connect with each other. Have a question or an idea you’d like me to write about? Leave a comment, or send me an e-mail: moc.teragramtoneiggam@eiggam

Photo credit to anyfain

Recently, I wrote about Facebook’s generation clash, in which teens are abandoning Facebook as their parents embrace it.  But, there’s another generation clash going on in social media, too; this one taking place in the professional world of digital marketing.

Last week, Cathryn Sloane, a student at the University of Iowa, wrote “Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25.”  She argued that social media was created by our generation, for our generation, and that we’ve grown up with it.  That, by virtue of being digital natives, the younger generation has an innate understanding of social media that our elders cannot grasp.

Photo credit to Truthout.org

She’s frustrated by seeing job postings asking for years of experience in social media and, frankly, so am I.  I’ve seen companies asking for 15 years experience in social media.  But here’s the thing: no one has 15 years experience in social media because it hasn’t existed for that long.  That is, unless you take the broadest possible definition and include things like Geocities or MMORPGs.  And, I highly doubt that anyone’s listing “Dungeon Master” on their resume.  (Sadly, mine does not include a reference to my, long defunct, Geocities Spice Girls fan page.)

Realistically, I understand that the people who post jobs with these impossible expectations don’t really mean 15 years social media experience – they mean “please be a real grown-up, not just a kid who’s ‘really good at Facebook.’”  The “grown-ups” of social media marketing responded to Cathryn by making just that claim, saying that it’s their years of experience and broad understanding of marketing tactics that make them better suited for these positions than Twitter-happy fresh-faced grads.

Photo credit to Chris Devers

Meta social media at its best, the debate spread like wildfire.  Most reactions to Cathryn’s article were strongly negative, but I see her point.  It’s an economic one.  It’s the same way that my generation looks at the Baby Boomers and rolls our eyes, knowing that we’ll never see the money that we pay into Social Security because they’ll consume it all.  At its core, Cathryn’s argument is this: on a broad scale, our generation has suffered from a failure to launch, caused by an economic situation that was not of our making.  We need jobs, and these ones should, rightfully, be ours.

While the forty-somethings of social media responded to Cathryn with scorn, they’re the same ones waiting for the Baby Boomers to retire so they can slide into the CMO and VP spots that they’ve long been coveting.  If the economy were in better shape, people with 15 years experience wouldn’t give a second glance to many social media positions.  But it’s not, and they do, and that makes it really hard for kids to get a foot in the door.

Photo credit to nivlek_est

While I totally understand the economic battle lines that are being drawn, I’m not sure about Cathryn’s claim that we really are better at social media.  Initially, I dismiss it out of hand; but then I compare it to another type of nativeness: language.  If you’re not a native speaker or don’t learn a language at a very early age, odds are that you’ll have an accent.  And maybe that’s the issue – that people who aren’t digital natives… they have a digital accent.  That you can hear the analog in their posts.  You know that they’re working to translate from their native, paper language to the one of the web.

I’m not sure if that comparison holds up, but it’s been kicking around in my head for a few days.  So, what do you think?

Questions of the day: Are you a digital native or an immigrant?  Do you think there’s such a thing as a web accent?  And, to Cathryn’s original point, who should the social media jobs go to?

Formerly MaggieCakes, Maggie (not Margaret) covers technology’s impact on culture, specifically on how we interact or connect with each other. Have a question or an idea you’d like me to write about? Leave a comment, or send me, Maggie O’Toole, an e-mail: moc.teragramtoneiggam@eiggam