I am so revisiting my decision to camp out at one location for Internet Week. (One Location, Camping Out) I did that one location thing today, and it was not the best of experiences. I mean, it was good. It was pretty good. But I had this lingering feeling that I was missing out. There's a lot happening at other sites as well. I complained a few days back about how Social Media Week has you going all over town, and that is not the best idea, and I am not so sure no more. There is a certain thrill to ending up at a new location.
The Metropolitan Pavilion is a great venue, but it really is just this one big open space. There's the main stage, and there's the AOL stage, and both have bad acoustics. And there is this classroom. I spotted Charlie O'Donnell in there towards the end of the day. He be pontificating. The final event of the day was an Onion event. Onion's three developers presented. Baratunde was apparently back from Georgia and in the audience. The dude had been flooding my Facebook stream with his tweets. Apparently Kevin was on the same trip: small world.
The BuddyMedia stall was the best one. They were serving popcorn. I had three bags. And there was this stall that had this game projected on the wall called swatting birds. I got two workouts playing the game.
Image via CrunchBaseI am fond of the New York Times. Both NYT and I seem to like the same font: Georgia. I did not learn that from the New York Times, but the similarity lead to affinity. It is a great paper. If I could get only one source of news - thank God I don't, thank the wild wild web - the New York Times might be in contention. And I take hometown pride.
Reading articles in the New York Times feels like reading a book. As in, the quality is great. In most cases it is better than reading a book. Because many many people work on any one article. There is a lot of collaboration. Most books gets written by people who think they are smart enough that they can go solo.
I once read a tweet from someone from the New York Times - Indian dude - during the Gulf Crisis. He made it sound like he was going home after like a month. He said he had been working on this one article. The article took me five minutes to read. And I am like wow. You mean you and many others worked on this for a month? To give me a great five minute experience?
My childhood best friend - the only person I have "tagged" as such - is on Facebook, but we don't do Facebook, Twitter, Gchat, we do very little Gmail. He only comes alive on the phone: I wish we talked more often. And I'd love to get him to move to New York. He is in Georgia, the state. He is an engineer who went to engineering school in India, and came to America after winning the diversity lottery. He has a green card, a wife, a daughter. We grew up in Nepal.
The most prolific litterers of my Facebook stream are not people I know best in person. One I have met only once, or maybe twice, but I doubt he will recognize if he were to meet me again: Baratunde Thurston. I tried to get his attention a few days back. Your profile photo is scary, I said. He did not notice, he did not respond. He is one of those for whom Facebook is a broadcast medium. He updates his status every other minute. He is speaking, he is not listening.
8 - yes, that is her middle name - is also very prolific. I met her on Plenty Of Fish, we have never met. But she was not one of my Plenty Of Fish horror stories. (Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King) She was impressed I had managed to track down her Gmail address. We exchanged a few emails, became Facebook friends. She said she was dating Craig Silverstein. Which Einstein? Is he googleable like you? I asked. I ended up exchanging one email with Craig: Craig Silverstein. Recently 8 made me do this: http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1643658620
I decided to use Twitter as a broadcast medium myself. (Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter) But on Facebook I have opted for something else. After all, this is my second Facebook account. The first one Facebook deleted afer I had acquired about 1500 Facebook "friends." I have about 50 pending friend requests. I am open to online only friendships. But some of these who send friend requests are not up for exchanging even emails.
Define Social Media
In trying to figure out social media I think a lot of us start at the wrong end. Instead of starting with people, we start with old media. And so new media looks fancy and intimidating. All new media is saying is anyone who can come online can broadcast. All new media is saying is people now have the option to talk to each other in a big way. It is weird that was never possible before. Because the concept is so very simple.
Meeting new people, finding new information, establishing new connections, enriching existing ones, social media makes all that possible. People are all the rage on the web.
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