Christian Ross

Social Media – A Vested Interest

The timing of Ben’s thoughts and Chris’ response have me wondering how many others are dealing with a similar issue of how to control – and express publicly – their social media consumption. I have been contemplating both my usage and the perception of my usage in this arena for some time now.

Where I Network

I make no bones about not being on Facebook. I’ve spouted a number of reasons over the years but most of it boils down to about three things:

  1. 1. I don’t trust them – the shady nature of their data-practices is too hard for me to overlook.
  2. 2. I don’t dig the forced, two-way communication it is formed around.
  3. 3. If we didn’t get along in high school, what makes you think we should buddy up at this point in life?

I’ve heard everything from “you just don’t get it,” to “you’re failing your clients by not being a part of it,” and a few other things in between. None of which I’ve bought into yet.

The concept I understand, and the draw of connecting with others, I empathize, but they’ve hardly done enough to get me to open up my personal digital-trail for the long haul. (You do realize once you’ve signed up you can’t ever actually delete your profile/info, right? It’s in the Terms of Service you didn’t read.) (more…)

Help Jonathan Snook adopt (again)

A major player in the world of web (both design and programming) was looking to adopt his third child along with his wife in the near future, the future came a little sooner than expected.

Read all about it (and contribute if you’re inclined) here: http://snook.ca/adoption

Through the use of twitter, in 12 hours he’s almost hit the $2,000 mark (13% of his goal). Pretty good for a campaign slated to go through April 18th.

There’s got to be a business model for twitter somewhere out there…

Social media amazes me

Before I saw a single news headline or heard anything about it, I saw a flickr image of the plane in the Hudson today taken from a camera-phone by a person on the boat sent to rescue the passengers.

It made it to Twitter and then copied to Flickr within minutes and spread like wildfire from there.

Hudson River plane landing

Kudos to the pilot for saving lives. Kudos to the photographer for the shot and the share. Kudos to the net for changing the way I consume and learn.