baratunde.com

So the web is all abuzz with news of Comcast's customer service wading in amongst the people with its shiny new Twitter account. Valeria Maltoni at Conversation Agent is the latest to weigh in on what many see as a positive development. Comcast is diagnosing modem troubles and providing information on new features and even shooting troubles. That's all well and good, but the company is also engaging in small talk and using emoticons and generally exhibiting human behavior, all of which I find quite troubling from a billion-dollar corporate entity. Last night, I had a "conversation" with Comcast. I noticed Comcast engaged in an exchange with someone named Robbie.

comcastcares: @Robbie the next version is really cool! Check out Smartzone http://www.comcast.com/ces robbie: @comcastcares @comcastcares wheres my beta invites to all that!!! i want it!!! comcastcares: @Robbie I want it too! me: @comcastcares you are not allowed to be a real person socializing among real people. you are a nameless, faceless corporation. stop it. comcastcares: @baratunde That just gave me the biggest laugh of the day!! Thank you! me: @comcastcares there you go again. CORPORATIONS DON'T LAUGH. THEY EXPLOIT. Stop acting like people! stop "talking" to me!!

Can you not see the horror that this portends? I made a corporation laugh. This is antithetical to all I have worked for! I'm a political comic and activist, and I have not honed these skills for the pleasure of moneyed non-personages. I'm here to inflict pain on corporations, not mirth! Now that Twitter has allowed corporations to express joy, what is next? Will comcastcares ask if I'm feeling down on a rainy day? Will it, yes IT, offer condolences for lost loved ones? Now that it has laughed, will it also cry? Oh I cannot even imagine what the tears of a multichannel service operator would look like. Most terrifyingly, having expressed joy and soon sadness, what will an angry Comcast do. You know anger is just around the corner, and I don't think it's too soon to prepare for the Wrath of Comcast. Will it tell us to "talk to the hand," or will it merely raise our cable fees at a rate exceeding inflation for the next 10 years? Will it give us the evil eye and curse us under its breath, or will it instead stack the audience at net neutrality hearings with its employees in order to prevent critics from having their voices heard? Might its anger manifest in a violent fit or, more dangerously, through astroturf lobbying designed to deceive the public into thinking there's real, grassroots support behind its interests? Do you see what Twitter hath wrought!?

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So my social media homeysita Teresa Valdez Klein blogged over at Web Community Forum the following

In their new book, Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff outline five major objectives in online community building: listening, talking, energizing, supporting, embracing

If I had to wager, I’d say that the candidates’ efforts on Linkedin fall neatly into the second category. It’s unlikely that the candidates are actually paying attention to the thousands of responses pouring in, but that’s a smaller part of the political equation. The important thing from where the campaigns stand is that these outreach strategies make people feel heard. But, as we online community geeks all know, there’s a big difference between making people feel heard and actually hearing them.

Good point, but I'd like to extend it. I haven't read Li's book yet (though I have it thanks to you, Teresa), but I have been working on a response to BL Ochman who thinks Obama's not using the Internet well at all in terms of empowering people. I'm not lumping Teresa and BL into the same boat, but I'll respond to both with a part of my view on political campaigns and social media. Let's start with Talking 2.0

In this part, politicians with their big heads and big mouths sit on the top, get on TwitterSpaceBookTube, collect a bunch of friends and broadcast their message in a very direct mail sort of way. It's just like direct mail, except the people build their lists on their own. It's advertising beyond 30-seconds and much better targeted. Now, Fundraising 2.0

Again, politicians are at the top of the heap, this time tapping into millions of small donors. Obama is the king of this right now. At this phase, politicians enable donors to solicit from other donors with their own mini-campaigns and donation widgets. This is significant, as it threatens the big time financial interests who've long held the ear (and balls) of our elected officials. Listening 2.0 I don't have a picture here, but just invert the talking image: lots of voices and ideas from the people slapping the politician upside the head. Teresa's LinkedIn post is taking a look at this. Everyone using the web for this purpose has a ways to go. The wiki model has proven most effective at integrating contributions from the multitudes into a coherent work. Will we ever have a wikitician? a wikiacracy? I know Obama has a form on his site to collect ideas and feedback on his various posted policies. I have no idea what happens to that. Do they go to advisors, interns, /dev/null? Not sure. What I do know is that the next layer is essential to reaching a point where campaigns and politicians can meaningfully integrate all that they are hearing from voters and supporters.. Community-Building 2.0

This is a very different picture. The politician isn't necessarily at the top. They are at the center, because it is around them that civic activity is happening, but people's attention isn't solely focused on listening to the politician, giving money to the politician or even talking to the politician. To extend Tereas's line, "as we online community geeks all know, there’s a big difference between making people feel heard and actually hearing them" and enabling them to hear each other. People are talking to other people. The politician/campaign/organization is the hub of this activity but not necessarily the top. They provide tools, however, which allow people to identify and find each other. They provide materials. On Obama's site, this is the my.barackobama.com social network tool. I've seen volunteers from NYC take this tool and use it to organize dinner parties, trips to Virginia and Pennsylvania and more. Folks looking to help out turn here to find activity in or near their zipcode. The politician, in this case Obama, has inspired or enabled communities to form and to take action. Today that action is focused on getting this candidate elected, but what I'm really excited about is how this carries on into the actual governing. There are promising signs from the Obama campaign that they will do more than any president in history or any candidate running to bring active citizens and community into our government. I've written on that here:

if Obama's campaign is successful, it will be because we are successful, and if that happens, I envision a country in which people are more engaged in their government and society and thus check the power of those who already have unfettered access. I know the power of this inspiration because it has touched me and made me committed to seeing it happen in my small sphere of influence. If his revolutionary open government and technology plan and government ethics plan (for the love of god, read it!) comes to pass, we will have more visibility and input into the (corrupt) workings of our government than ever before, and it will be up to us to act on that new information. (BTW, compare that to this assessment of Hillary's tech/communications plan. It pales). With the searchable government spending database he spearheaded (use it!), we may find that the obscenity of our budgetary priorities is so readily available, we have no choice but to protest it. Obama's platform is not just about his positions. It's about the tools and infrastructure he's offering directly to the citizens of this country. Forget for a moment who speaks in a most commanding fashion about the particulars of health care legislation. Forget about beautiful language or alleged experience. Look at what President Obama offers all of us: empowerment. Empowerment like we've never seen. Power we forgot we had. Power that a community organizer trained on the streets of Chicago would recognize in a heartbeat. We may not get an opportunity like this for several decades! Look, I am under no illusions about the forces that wield the true power in this country, but what has been restored by Obama's campaign is my faith (and go ahead, say it, "hope") and knowledge that true power is still held by the people, and that we the people can use more of that power under President Obama than under any other. By far.

These Obama proposals offer unprecedented access to the workings of government for the common citizen. Searchable databases of federal department documents and activities and data, comment periods on non-emergency legislation, streaming video of important meetings. It's hard for citizens to act intelligently without information, and I'm impressed that Obama sees the value in opening the doors. That's the exciting thing for me. Not so much knowing that a candidate actually reads my posts on twitter, but knowing that I can collaborate with my fellow citizens in keeping an eye on government and in building solutions to some of the pressing problems we face. As always, Fired Up!

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Linkbait.

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Another dispatch from the Web Community Forum conference on Facebook. I was added, last-minute, to a panel on using Facebook for outreach and marketing. I shared the stage with Jason Preston, who marketed this very conference almost exclusively on Facebook. Doing a great job with the moderation was Mr. Todd Sawicki. Highlight for me was getting to show the Facebook video where I drowned a puppy because no one was using my group's discussion board. Here are my slides. Steal these ideas. Just gimme credit if they get you rich. (keep quiet if they drive you into poverty). Update 7 December. slide 3 says I have 11,238 friends. Drop the first "1" and it's accurate. Fast typing on stage. Sorry.

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UPDATE 6 December 10:33am (PT) The Web Community Forum twitter feed is doing a good job note-taking (note-tweeting?) on all the panels. Here is a manual cut and paste (yuck) of our curmudgeon panel. * Facebook curmudgeons panel. Fill in the blank "Facebook sucks the most because..." * Tris: Facebook sucsk the most because the groups are absolutely useless * Baratunde: Facebook sucks the most because it destroyed his ability to communicate with his fans * @trishussey says that Facebook sucks because the groups are "useless" * @baratunde says that Facebook sucks because he can't message his groups * Jeremy: Facebook sucks the most because there is a misperceived sense of privacy * @jspepper is complaining about the "mis-perceived sense of privacy" * @jspepper says that people get put in jeopardy when they have public conversations on Facebook * "kids, they just don't get it" - @jspepper * Facebook treats you like a spammer when you're not, says attendee Ellen * if you complain, sometimes things happen unilaterally says another attendee * lack of discussion board notifications is lame Eric Weaver * Facebook the company is "amateur hour" says an attendee who says that they are disorganized when they plan their events for developers * we're all having a really good time here, people are laughing and having a great time * other people can't choose how they want to be contacted, that's a problem * the wall is not a substitute for controlling how people can contact you * "God's green Internet earth" says Tris. LOL! * "search is completely broken" says another attendee in the audience * McClure is going around the room asking people what sucks about facebook. Lots of functionality issues. * to try to find something in the history of posted items - there's no way to hold onto a piece of useful information * a lot of people are harping on search as a problem * everyone hates messaging * @jowyang - let's make some suggestions, I TOTALLY agree with that. Bitching and moaning is all well and good, let's do something positive. * Dave McClure just said, "Facebook sucks, but you're all regular users." @baratunde says, "America sucks, but I'm a regular user of that." * @jspepper says that original college users have a misconception of the privacy and the walled garden - they post everything * @jspepper knows someone who posts all this stuff and by posting their schedule, it led to someone getting raped * @jspepper, "if you don't want to be in a walled garden, don't join." * The biggest problem is the privacy issue and the lack of corporate responsibility for it. - @jspepper * "I don't think Facebook gives a shit about their community at all. They think they're just numbers for advertising." - @jspepper * Dave McClure says that monetization and CTR are really a huge problem. * @baratunde says that e-mail and the telephone are substitutes for Facebook * Facebook messaging is a deprecated version of e-mail * "Never abandon basic features that work." @baratunde * @trishussey wants a POP connection to download his FB e-mail * Facebook has taken us back 40 years of messaging, sayeth @baratunde * @trishussey, "I would rather use Lotus Notes than Facebook messaging and Lotus Notes is the worst e-mail system in the world." * Dave McClure asks how can they improve * @jspepper - FB doesn't care until people rise up and actively abandon * @jspepper, "I'm not writing them off as malicious." * @trishussey - Facebook is a "faux monopoly" because if any one thing blows up, people will leave. * Tris: what percentage of your friends on FB would have to leave for you to go "eh, I guess I don't need to go there as much"? * That's how fragile FB's appearance of monopoly is (tris) * @baratunde - Facebook has a monopoly on my audience. They are good AND evil. They are not "benevolent." * @jspepper, "it's SO not a monopoly." I don't see my parents on FB. There's a diversity of social networks out there that target niches. * Kara Swisher is right when she says that Zuckerberg is showing his youth as a CEO sayeth @trishussey. * @trishussey admits to having been an asshole when he was 25 * @jspepper, you can tell a Harvard man, you just can't tell him much * Dave brings up Beacon - @trishussey says that Beacon belongs in the 4th circle of Hell, but there are things they can do to improve it. * @baratunde - Beacon was the 7th circle of Hell before they changed things * There needs to be a privacy czar that you talk to before you launch something like this (Beacon) - @baratunde * opting out completely should be my choice - @baratunde * @jspepper puts Beacon at 6.5 circle of hell eeven after the opt out because he wants people to see what he's doing in some cases * @jspepper - I do like Facebook, there are amazing things that you can do with it. What they're doing gives them an "evil tinge." * @trishussey - where are the people around Zuckerberg slapping him upside the head? * @davemc500hats is having a lot of fun up there moderating. I can tell by the grin on his face. * @rumford is asking @jspepper, don't you think that FB is a company, they don't need to seek approval or permission at all * @rumford says that pissing off the FB community is a "calculated business risk." * @davemc500hats asks @trishussey, "your daughter is a Web narc?!?!?!" * @davemc500hats asks, "are apps useful? or not useful?" * @trishussey - useful apps die, points out that @rumford said the same thing * @baratunde says that a small subset of apps are engaging, but he's downsizing * @baratunde, "the app process has so biased me against all apps, because they're spam." * @baratunde - don't e-mail me. "you have a walled garden, stay inside." * @jspepper says that he doesn't have a favorite app yet * @davemc500hats asks, "is FB a great development environment?" * @jspepper says that you have no choice but to go to Facebook if you're an app developer * @davemc500hats, $15 billion, "more, less, or no fucking way?" * @trishussey says, "no fucking way." * @trishussey - I would put it into the billions, but 15 is just way too high * @baratunde says, "valuation is tricky and weird. If we all believe it's worth it, it is worth it." * @baratunde says, "it's not going to become the Internet." * @jspepper says that he doesn't understand all the frenzy around the valuation. "They're not making money on advertising yet. * @davemc500hats "poke, superpoke or get your hands off me?" * @trishussey, "i could live without poking." * @baratunde, "I have been known on occasion to poke people." * @jspepper "when men poke me on Facebook, it creeps me out." "This woman keeps on poking me, and I don't know her. It creeps me out." * attendee: what do you not like from a marketing point of view? @baratunde says, "I was using this as a marketer without the proper tools." * @baratunde says, "make how do you know this person? an actionable tool for marketers. also vulnerability of losing all contacts." * @baratunde says, "I want grages!" (groups + pages) * @baratunde says, "Ning has wonderful stuff, but there's no meaning to life without the people. You can't tell people where they should go." * @baratunde, "to just leave would have hurt me a lot more than it would have hurt Facebook."

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a comprehensive, sometime scathing critique of Facebook and its shortcomings (it's worth a read, though long, and builds the basis for this current post). Despite that review, I was still positive on Facebook vs. MySpace and could live with its deficiencies while they sorted things out. I have now changed my mind. Facebook just cost me access to 639 fans/leads/potential customers, and I am partly to blame for trusting someone else to manage my business.

 

Photo via Flickr by B I R D As I pointed out in my previous post, I use Facebook in the same way I use MySpace: a bit of personal communication but mostly artist-to-audience communication in the form of announcements, videos, calendar, etc. Because Facebook does not let you send messages to all or groups of your friends (I have 944 of them) and because I wanted to give people an explicit choice to receive such messages, I created a Facebook Group. I called it "GLOBAL Fans of Comedian, Author & Vigilante Pundit, Baratunde Thurston." The "GLOBAL" was because the first fbook group I created was limited to the Harvard network, and Facebook's staff said they could not change it once set that way. It's also because I will be taking over the world shortly. Over time, this group grew in size to nearly match the size of my email list. In fact, with the growth of these social networks, I noticed fewer and fewer people signing up for the email list at all. I used the group mostly to send my NewsPhlash email messages to group members, three or four times per month at most. It helped get people out to shows, announce cool accomplishments and get feedback from people on ideas. The Facebook group complemented my other "channels" if you will, which include

• My regular email list
• MySpace friends
• Blog/Podcast and associated RSS feeds
• Upcoming calendar and Twitter
• Friendster decommissioned summer 1996 due to lameness

My routine had been that every time I wrote up a NewsPhlash I would send it out via email, blog post, MySpace bulletin, MySpace blog, Twitter announcement and the Facebook group. As more people joined Facebook or began to use it more (especially when they opened it beyond students), I got a higher response to my posts from Facebook users than from email or MySpace. I have always been annoyed at this needlessly, inefficient cross-posting arrangement, but other social media types I respect insisted that you have to do it. It's one of the reasons I prefer blip.tv to manage my podcasts cause they do a lot of the cross-posting for you, especially to MySpace, and anything that keeps me from logging into that design nightmare is a good thing. On August 16th, a big part of Facebook died to me. I tried to send out my latest NewsPhlash to the group. It included announcements of an upcoming NPR appearance I wanted folks to check out, plus links to a recent column and a photo of me with Barack Obama. Exciting ish! Sadly, Facebook did not care how exciting it was. My group message went only to me. I have tried over 50 times since then to send out a group message to no avail. I got into software testing mode and tried from five browsers -- three on my Mac and two under Windows. Nothing. I wrote Facebook, describing the problem. One day later, August 17, they wrote back:

We are aware of the problem that you described and hope to resolve it as soon as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Between then and today, I had tried repeatedly testing the message feature. Nothing. So today I got ahold of a an anonymous source at Facebook. This person was kind enough to talk to me about some of what's going on. Out of respect for this person, I'm gonna keep the exchange anonymous and merely summarize many of the points we discussed

Point 1. Facebook is nervous about groups using the messaging system for SPAM and has some "limits" set up.

SPAM? That's why I created the group in the first place -- to give people an explicit opt-in to my messages. Unlike actual SPAM, people can leave my group at any time. The message source is transparent. If people feel they are being spammed by their groups, they should leave. I wrote back explaining my frustration and thanking the person for taking the time to be in touch with me. Always thank people for their time yall, even if they disappoint you! I basically said I had been building up my group over months only to have it broken. The response was quite revealing. Again, summarizing some points.

Point 2. People sign up for Facebook assuming we're like MySpace, and we're not. We're a very different kind of service.

Ok, tell that to your investors and the media and your users and the public and Microsoft and Yahoo who thought they were trying to buy something a lot like MySpace for $1 billion or more. If people sign up for your service expecting something, either provide it or make it clear to those people that they won't find what they're looking for. Don't get folks all invested then pull the rug out and say, "we don't support that." As for being a "very different" kind of service, I'm not so sure. Different, yes. "Very" different? Meh. More summary:

Point 3. Facebook is focused on "connecting real people with the people they know." Groups were designed for this, but users re-purposed them for things like promotion. We don't want to do the MySpace thing in the area of promotion. We think we can do it better.

I can partially respect that. Facebook does get that users will build whatever they want and can with your tools but is not comfortable with that. Again, there is this point of not being MySpace, and I don't fully get it. Maybe they want less noise than the MySpace system which overwhelms me with event invites and grotesque HTML comments all over my profile. Man, it's good that Facebook's pleasant environment doesn't overwhelm me with meaningless communication like zombie bites or friend comparisons. Again, I gotta give it up to this person for a very professional and empathetic tone. I actually got screamed on by another Facebook engineer who was upset at how I tagged a video and, rather than discuss it with me, bitched about me behind my back to a friend. Good to know there are mature, thoughtful people at the company. Sad to know that the company is being so rigid about how people use a tool. Through continued correspondence I discovered that Facebook says it sets a limit for group messaging. Based on my experience, this limit must be around 500 or 600 people, but perhaps it's a bit different for different users. This, of course, doesn't apply to sponsored groups like "Apple Students" with 400,000+ members, but Apple is paying for the privilege. Me? I'm not spending any money except on silly $1 gifts. All I'm doing is being an active node in the network and increasing its value by providing valuable, ad-monetizeable metadata about myself and my friends. All I'm doing is being Facebook, but what do I know? This is all very troubling. I invested a lot into Facebook, but I've discovered, painfully, that Facebook doesn't value me nearly as much as I'd hoped. I took one of my most important assets, my relationship with my fans, and allowed Facebook to mediate a large portion of it. Sure, I still have my email list and blog subscribers and my pedophiliac MySpace friends, but the loss of access to my Facebook group will be felt. Facebook users are still largely college folks, and that's one of the few groups that will actually pay me to perform. Meanwhile, I have to come up with a way to patch this hole. Unlike an email list, I cannot simply load my Facebook friends into another system as I would if I moved from Topica to Constant Contact. There is no Internet standard for a "Facebook user" like there is for an email address, and that's one fatal flaw in the system for anyone who plans to outlive Facebook. At least Facebook and MySpace have not been my end-all, be-all web presence like some folks I know. This has served as a wake-up call for me and hopefully others. Build and own your online presence. I knew this when I registered baratunde.com way back in 1998 and began managing my own email. I got a bit lazier in recent years, but I'm glad I still have my Baratunde-controlled universe to fall back on. Too bad I can't message my Facebook group and tell them about it. Epilogue - My Plan of Action I cannot afford to wait for Facebook to fix my group messaging, and even if they fixed it sooner, I no longer trust the service with such valuable information. I will keep my Facebook account, but I have closed my Facebook group to new members (what's the point if I can't communicate with them?) and will be sending them individual Facebook messages asking them to follow me in some other, more open, portable, non-hostage-taking way. I'll be adding forums to my own site and encouraging people to follow me with RSS. This will take a lot of time, but it's worth it. Contracting out major parts of your business has a huge long term cost, though on paper it looks more economical. I think we've all learned this lesson. It's sad, I had fun making people random officers in my group with such titles as "Dirty South Regional Enforcer of the Family Name" and "Awkward Turtle Whisperer." I had hoped to eventually make 50 people officers, but Facebook has an officer limit. Nice. More artificial limits on my creativity. I wish it were as simple as saying, "see Baratunde, that's what you get for believing in Facebook," but it is not that simple. I didn't just "believe" in Facebook. This was not a faith-based decision. I used it because that's where the people are. I stopped using Friendster because the people left. The "Internet" has all sorts of more open tools I could use to do what I was doing with Facebook, but millions of people have chosen Facebook instead. It seemed foolish to ignore that. Will people show up just to see me without having their friends, photos and Zombie bites one glance away? Facebook has become to the Internet what RSS readers are to the blogosphere. As I mentioned in a comment on my previous Facebook post:

...no matter how open a system I build/take advantage of, it is worthless if no one is there to use it. I don’t use facebook for fun. I do it because the people I want to communicate with are there, and they are not willing to work with me right now to cobble together the equivalent of an open social network / event manager / messaging platform / internet application storefront / discussion board. Yes it is true that I could individually manage all those pieces, but I guarantee you, only a handful of the people I’m trying to reach would follow me.

I suppose it is time to find out. You can follow Baratunde's musings, show schedule, videos and more at www.baratunde.com, and he promises not to hold you hostage. 

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