Reciprocity, Social Networking, and Ads
Shockingly, I now have twice as many followers on Twitter than I am following. And having discovered that not thoroughly examing a persons Twitter feed before following is a big invitation for spam, I’m now behind in the netiquette of following the non-spammers.
Sounds labor intensive and kind of nonsensical, no?
[twitter]
I found a little app that I like, Yoono, that runs in the sidebar and creates a feed that combines Twitter and Facebook. Most importantly, it lets me edit the feed to some degree. So I don’t need to follow every friends activity in Farmville and Mafia Wars. If I have time to kill, I can actually go to Facebook and play. But in the course of a normal day, when I have stuff to accomplish, I can read the highlights. This was especially handy when SIL was posting baby on the way updates.
It’s a much better method, than what I was doing previously, which was not logging in to Facebook more than once a week. Because it can truly be a time sink.
I’m thinking now about the rules of engagement for comments. Because I have unfriended a person, because person has digressed to being unable to talk about anything unrelated to getting laid. Ditto for comment to my blog. I could go on. But I’ll spare you.
[unfriend]
So here’s the question: is social networking skewing the filter of polite behaviour? Too much freedom to get our thoughts out in the world? Too easy to pull the trigger and hit enter?
In my defense… I use my standard test for peoples actions and whether I need to be party to them and look for a pattern. An occasional foot in the mouth in my estimation is typical. Toxic with regularity is to be avoided.
Then there is the business end of things. I’m good with reading a few times a day about somebody’s hobby or profession, unless it is the only topic. Or it gets all hourly spammy. But the pay per post type links on twitter. Ugh. Isn’t this why people pay for cable, and tivo, and subscribe to xm radio? Me anyway.
Hulu has this new feature where you have to watch an ad to keep it free, but get to choose which ad. I like this. The trojan condom commercial where Joe Average hooks up with a hot girl because she is a vampire is hilarious. And there is a bacardi ad that I like because of the music. On the other hand, there’s a VW ad and a banking ad that I hope I never have to see again. Fortunately, I haven’t had to. I can stick to the R rated condom and liquor commercials that entertain me.
We’re about to turn the cable back on. We turned it off because it’s a time sink and crazy expensive considering we can watch tv free. Except that there is a racquet for tv and sports. DH cannot watch his sports on the pc. They are blocked or otherwise unavailable. So after months of torture, I suggested we turn it back on. Some people drink in the evening and unwind. DH watches sports. I like him better with his sports. He’s happier.
I have not missed tv much, because I watch Hulu and Netflix and whatever else crops up. I miss DH having tv, golf in particular. I will be pleased to see Law and Order SVU again. And I will like lifting weights while I watch tv. I don’t do that when I’m on the computer, because I’m attached to a headset and the screen is small.
Damn, I’m wordy tonight. And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Related posts:
I cannot imagine people wanting to hear anything in particular about my sex life, or how often I am or am not getting laid…especially my family. I mean, my mom reads my blog. Although, to be fair, I do lock things sometimes to specific audiences. And I’m sure I’ve spoken about sex at some point…but, um…just no.
I watch HGTV to unwind. Is that weird?
Marne, I don’t think watching HGTV is weird. I used to like it a lot, when we first moved into our house. Then I became bored with it. But I’m sure I will get to like it again.
I’m all for a bawdy joke here and there. But the details of anatomy and constant trolling get on my nerves. After a while it’s like you’re hanging around with a wannabe porn star. Which might not offend me if I didn’t have my small child in tow, depending on the amount of contact. People can want to be whatever they want. I just don’t need my preschooler to know about it.