TweetDeck Is The Cleaner Simpler Facebook

TweetDeck is a much used, much beloved Twitter client that you could say has branched out in to being a social client. Yes it still does twitter but they've added support for Facebook, Google Buzz and Foursquare. In particular the Facebook functionality takes you out of that now ad laiden, cluttered Facebook interface and gives you the nice clean columns and blocks you are used to with your Twitter account. With the right set of columns and search terms you can re-create almost the entire Facebook environment with out the annoying crap. The only thing that doesnt come across are direct messages and real time IM but beyond that you can do status updates and a single post to most or all of your networks(depending on what you use). In addition the web version high lights the associated color to the account. Facebook and Foursquare are Blue, Twitter is Grey and Google Buzz is Red. So if you are tired of all the crap on facebook but don't want to leave those friends behind try using TweetDeck to unclutter your social networks.

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Why the Telegraph & Twitter Are Full of Crap

So a hot topic this morning has my blood boiling. Now usually this is just because Mashable posts something ridiculous, most times some Apple loving spew. I'd like to think I keep my temper in check. I usually vent by posting some kind of overtly logical comment, reaping a few "likes" on Disqus and then moving on to something more useful like writing for Teknami. This morning the level of blind ridiculousness hit a new level when several, supposedly, respectable social media personalities were re-tweeting a story from the UK's Telegraph news paper found here that says, only in its title, that more Indians have cell phones than there are toilets.

The first issue is that no where in the article does it quote what the title states. Second there is no link or statement of any kind to back this up. Even the quotation used from the UN individual doesn't include a statement to that effect. The UN individual does state a total sum of money that is needed to meet UN sanitation targets for India but beyond that there is no indication that more phones exist than toilets.

Like wise if we use a little logic and know a little history it's pretty obvious communication has always been more valuable than sanitation. Just pulling a few broad examples. Pheidippides was a greek messenger more interested with delivering the message than stopping to shower up. I have to imagine he also wizzed all over and probably dropped a duce along the way. From the Wikipedia entry:

The legend states that he was sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon (in which he had just fought),^[3] which took place in August or September, 490 BC.^[4] It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the assembly, exclaiming "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, 'We have won.') before collapsing and dying.

 Like wise sailors through out history have gone with out proper sanitation to deliver reports of war, plague, famine and all sorts of other things back to their hiring parties. Are we all freaked out because soldiers routinely deal with high tech equipment like ROV vehicles, weapons and all sorts of technical toys even though they go weeks at a time in the field with nothing more than wet wipe showers and no toilets. Not so much. The point is the two things are totally unrelated and yet some how this is considered news. Are we seriously so bored with ourselves that we have to literally make crap up?

To top it off the old fashioned news paper style of writing what you want and ignoring the consumer/customer is still holding strong with no method to comment on the sorry excuse for a story. There by shoving this garbage down our throats. When are we as citizens of the internet going to start worrying about the sanitation of the net? Internet garbage like this seems to be piling up!

P.S. In what I thought would be a cute turn of play I borrowed the post image from the telegraph. What was more amusing was finding that that Telegraph apparently has a sort of potty mouth. The image came from an article about Britons tweeting or surfing on the toilet.

Social Networking: Out not In

Image via Wikipedia

Unlike a lot of people on the internet I'm not going to claim to be some sort of social media guru or consultant or what ever BS word people like to attach to themselves to try to garner some sort of authoritative position. I will say I'm a long time geek with a proven track record of, more or less, knowing what the heck I'm talking about. I use Twitter and Blogger and Facebook and I read websites like Mashable. I also take an interest in sociology and psychology and the way things and people work. More importantly how they work together. UI's, work flows, interfaces all the stuff that puts most people to sleep in 3 minutes.

This brings me to talk about context and "the social graph". I hate that term but that aside it's what folks in the social media market use. As I'm sure most have experienced if you go to a social website and "like" something or go to a market website and look at something majority of the time you get adverts and links for more of the same. Amazon is a prime example. Go look at TVs. When you come back to your home page on amazon you'll have a giant list of TVs. This is a prime example of in. This is starting at the outside edge of your social graph. What did you look at? Ok now lets find more of that. The software either moves inwards on your social graph or doesnt move at all. Shouldn't these systems be helping you to discover new things, new people and new products instead of telling you what you all ready knew? You all ready know you want a TV so you'll be searching for them, researching them and looking for the best price. Throwing a hand full of random TVs at you isn't really helpful. Like wise if you were just recently searching for a TV you might want to know about either types of TVs different from the ones you were looking at or other devices that are TV related but not exactly TVs per say. Like Boxee or something.

In terms of things like Facebook it's more about whats most relevant vs. whats most popular. Unfortunately children are popular with most of the crowd my age. They post all kinds of things about their kids. While it's most popular I've marked my profile as being single and yet my "top news" is still dominated by what kind of poop some ones kid took last night. All this shows a lack of context building on the part of the social networks. I all ready know all my friends have kids. I'm sitting at the same point on my social graph with this information or moving in to the social graph of married friends instead of moving out in to meet new people singles land.

I'm not claiming I have all the answers. I'm sure building these networks isn't easy but as I look at the churn that happens in my information, in the recommendations that happen on my social network sites. I keep looking at what appears to be a mirror. They keep telling me what I all ready did or urging me to look at more of what I all ready have. Please for the love of all that is good give me useful, interesting, new information instead of letting me know I looked at TVs. That, in fact, did JUST HAPPEN!