CONNECTEDNESS: Tuning out the Tweets, Turning on the Sweet

Most of my friends are wry, talented, communicators. Most of them would never dream of forwarding Hillary jokes or videos of kittens in costumes. Most of them tune out the banality of their own lives and choose to highlight the profound / amusing. But what happens if you're on that network where every moment is broadcast as if the act of broadcasting is important? Ladies and gentlemen, I refer to this as meta-douchery.

META-DOUCHE: THE MEDIA GARGOYLE
In Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, the author describes an eternally wired group of "Gargoyles" - a group so enthralled in their online personas that they stand immobile in the physical world.

Lately I've attended networking events where attendees sit anti-socially micro-blogging to their unseen audiences. It's too damn much. Isn't technology supposed to connect us in a meaningful way? What's more meaningful than an honest one-on-one conversation?

MOBILE GEO-CASTING: BEING IN THE RIGHT PLACE
If you're working with a start-up company there is absolutely nothing better than being in the right place at the right time. Casual beer can forge lifelong partnerships, an upgrade to an airline's business class can secure your funding, and your boot camp sit-up partner might just be the journalist you're trying to pitch. Face-to-face closes the deal.

Lately geo-related development has received a huge amount of buzz. Google Gears just released a location API for developers to integrate mobile geo-services and take advantage of the search giant's seemingly unlimited storage.

Meanwhile, geo-mobile social networking services like Brightkite and geo-tagging in sites like Flickr and JuiceCaster have become an obvious component of current user-design.

Location-services have become so old hat that a venture capitalist stuck in a snowstorm with a smart phone can probably get shoveled out by a team of desperate start-up founders. Let's face it, if you're an industry influencer, someone is silently triangulating your every move.

Go with it baby! If there's one thing I've learned, it's not every day you're taken seriously. But please, if you've got an audience, take yourself seriously and be original. If I see one more article complaining about Twitter's downtime I'm going to put a fork in my eye.

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CONNECTEDNESS: Tuning out the Tweets, Turning on the Sweet

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