No, it's not all commenters on Digg. Or on YouTube. Or, or, or.
But a whole lot of them seem to be lying in wait to sink their teeth into the nearest virtual pantleg... or exposed jugular. The culture of vehement attack and merciless ridicule is still virulent in a lot of places online. (The whole "You Suck At..." meme is only the latest example.)
The conversation about conflict of interest for bloggers (and other social media types) never really dies down, and flares up constantly in ways large and small.
Sometimes it's something as major as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission going after blogger freebies. Sometimes it's just a drive-by accusation that a blog post is "link bait", and not a useful or genuine contribution to the conversation.
The common thread is this: What responsibility we have to our audiences, when are our own interests in conflict with theirs, and what do we do when that happens?
I know you don't do this, but you probably know someone who does: obsesses about their Twitter follower count. Or Feedburner subscriber count. Or LinkedIn contact count.
And yeah, the raw number's interesting for about three or four seconds. But it says nothing about how you engage with those people (assuming they're people, and not bots - which can be a big assumption), or how they engage with you.
By the time you read this today, the BP/Transocean/Halliburton oil hemorrhage may finally be on its way to a resolution. Or it may still be burbling away, happily coating wildlife, habitat and the region's tourism and fishing industries with a viscous sheen of Game Over.
A lot of us have taken to our networks to fulminate over this without a lot of focus or hope of affecting things - me included. Of course, sometimes you just have to vent (as a certain large, gaping opening in a BP oil pipe could tell you). And raising awareness is a Good Thing.
Are you finding the same thing I am? Where you're having a casual conversation with a friend, and you're in the middle of saying something... well, not exactly secret, but not the sort of thing you want shared with the world... and you stop dead, suddenly worried that it might end up in their Twitter stream?
When I'm talking to someone with a blog, a Twitter feed or even a Facebook account (which, these days, means nearly everyone), I'm often just a little guarded. I have my own guidelines and boundaries when I'm dealing with other people's information - basically, if there's any ambiguity, I ask permission before I share - but I know other people draw the line differently.
There's a lot about Twitter that I find annoying: Auto DMs from people when I follow them ("Thanks for the follow! And please check out my acai berry multi-level marketing site!"). Random, Inspiration Lite™ quotations, stripped of all context. People who invent rules like "you have to follow everyone who follows you." (No, you don't. And you don't have to eavesdrop on an intelligence agency just because they tap your phone line - in fact, they discourage it.)
But just when I get crotchety enough to start shopping for a shawl and rocking chair, along comes what may be the one meme on Twitter that actually warms the cockles of my heart: Follow Friday.
This hasn't been a good past few weeks for Facebook. Growing concerns over what Facebook's deliberately doing to your privacy collided with news about what Facebook's doing accidentally with your data.
I just spent the last two days at Northern Voice. And you know one of the best things about being at a conference that's focused on social media as a personal activity instead of as a marketing function? The lack of buzz words.
Granted, I use them as much as anyone else - including the one in this cartoon. But man, it's nice to speak English again... even if it's just for a while.
...Like, say, the scorn of your friends.
In the spirit of Twitter, I'll make this brief. If you're running a Twitter contest or promotion, then please - I beg you - have entrants do something more useful, more conversational, more interesting than just retweeting a link to your latest sale item or a message about how fabulous you are.
I thank you. Your participants' followers thank you. And at the end of the day, your brand reputation will thank you.
Here it is 2010, and I'm still sitting through godawful, text-heavy PowerPoint presentations with cheesy transitions, pointless clip-art and (pause, Rob, and try to stop hyperventilating)... Comic Sans.
Speakers often focus on what it's like to be giving a presentation, but it's easy to forget what it's like to sit through one - especially the fifth or sixth presentation of the third day of a conference.
