rwwmike's posterous

So, the latest craptastic cheerleading effort by blowhard Robert Scoble has hit the Internets and this time we're all supposed to be really excited about the next great thing - a "mobile ambient awareness app" by the name of Highlight.

Not wanting to be left behind on the boat of the NEXT BIG THING, I went and downloaded Highlight the other day and, so far, it's told me about numerous people who I don't know who happen to have been near me at some point in the day. Here's the thing? 

Who fucking cares?

In case you haven't been paying attention, we've certainly seen this before. The last time we talked about "mobile ambient awareness" with such gusto was about a year ago now, when Yobongo was going to change the world by introducing us to strangers nearby. And then we all realized at once - when Yobongo went beyond being a chatroom for Silicon Valley insiders - that we don't really want to talk to strangers after all. Two years ago, I wrote about an app called Meet Gatsby that did something very similar too. When you signed up, you listed some interests. Then, it connected with your Foursquare account and sent you an SMS when you checked in near to someone else who listed similar interests. 

So this time around, Highlight is going to introduce us to people by harvesting our Facebook Likes and our social graph to introduce us to all the like-minded and friends-of-friends folks that pass us by unknowingly throughout the day, huh?

Last night, I was told someone was nearby...because they like "Facebook Platform" and the "Dislike Button" on Facebook. Other interests included...Family Guy, Texas, uhhh, some other bullshit? I don't know. And I don't care.

It was the same thing with Meet Gatsby. You would check in somewhere and immediately you'd get a text message because, get this, someone down the street ALSO likes beer. Or bikes. Or something.

According to Scoble, he's "hyper bullish" (though you could say he's hyperbolic) about Highlight (and fellow ambient mobile location blah blah apps) because... 

there are three use cases that are still unsatisfied at SXSW:

1. Finding people to hang out with.
2. Learning more about the people who are standing next to you at parties.
3. Knowing when your friends are nearby.

Really? Yeah, it always is REAL hard to find people with common interests...when you're a techie hanging out at the largest convergence of techies that goes on for a week and is well-lubed with free booze morning noon and night. And as for learning about people at parties..."Hi, I'm Mike. What do you do? What do you think about...whatever?" Am I really going to wait for Highlight to alert me that someone nearby (gasp!) is also a South Park fan on Facebook? Am I really going to look at that tiny avatar pic and then search them out? C'mon now, people. And as for the third point...haven't we solved that problem time and time again? Not only with check-in services like Foursquare, but if you don't want to bother with checking in, you can use permanent location tracking services like Google Latitude, no?

Want to know what the next big app at SXSW is? Getting your head out of your damned smartphone and talking to the people around you. Download it, quick. It's going out of style.

The past year and a half of my life has been a whirlwind. From tent-blogging in rural Texas to van-blogging my way 18,000 miles around the country, to getting a look at the tech world from the windowless walls of a warehouse in SOMA, it's been a blast.

When I landed at ReadWriteWeb more than a year ago, it felt like the stars had aligned. Suddenly, my former, 8-year-old hacker self could re-emerge and proclaim his love for reverse engineering and proper syntax. (There's nothing more frustrating that an unmatched left parenthesis, after all.

I laugh now to think back on journalism school and how hard it was to write that first 400 word article for "News & Reporting". In my time with RWW, I managed to squeeze out nearly a thousand posts with just under 10,000 comments. I got the chance to argue with the Internet about all sorts of things and even create a bit of an Internet meme, which was fun. Heck, I got to tell Google they'd failed not once, but twice at least. Facebook, too. And Twitter. ;)

In all, it was a hoot, but it's time for me to move on. To what? The next thing, of course.  

I'm thinking bikes, technology, travel, exploration and a bit of good ol' shining the light of journalism on the darkened corners of society so that we may all live better, more informed lives. Or something like it, at least.

Whadda ya got, world?

Hung out recently with two Googlers. One at YouTube, the other at Gmail. The question of social and Google came up. We quickly found our way to Google's many social failures and its current +1 endeavor.

The YouTuber explained that he thinks Google's problem in social is that a bunch of introvert engineers are put in charge of creating a social situation. Seems fair enough. The other, a Gmail engineer from what I gathered, explained that he doesn't understand why anyone would share a link on Facebook. "Why add to the information overflow?" he asked me. Clicking +1 to possibly ensure that "friends" would have a better search experience, he explained, was much more worthwhile.

The difference in thought and approach almost reminds me of my time in China. I went during the height of the Swine Flu scare and a situation with self-reporting (ie doing for the good of the society and others) illuminated something about my thought patterns and those of possibly many Americans. I had gone expecting a top-down control, but instead found a society that had a somewhat reversed value system from the U.S. Here's what I wrote on it at the time:

A few days [after arriving] I got a call from the Chinese government, along with a little package from the Dongcheng Community Health Care Center. Though I was never told a reason, I was to take my temperature twice a day and report it to the hotel staff who would then relay the information to the local government. If anything were abnormal, I was to assume, I would immediately be placed under quarantine. The package contained some masks, a letter from the Chinese government, and informational pamphlet (all of it in Chinese) and a thermometer. I signed a letter saying that I would report daily and refrain from going out in public as much as possible.

“Will they watch me take my temperature?” I asked one of our local hosts, who I figured would be more familiar with the procedure.

“No,” he told me. “You just take it and then tell the hotel what it is.”

The process immediately illuminated a few things about my views about China, my views as an American and the ways of the Chinese government and its citizens.

For me, the whole thing seemed a bit absurd. If I found out that I had a fever, I was to tell the government and therefore subject myself to quarantine? Why would I ever want to do that?

Only in a society where social controls and supporting cultural values are this strong would a self-reporting system, such as my temperature-taking routine, actually work.

I was exhibiting some stereotypical American attitudes. Why would I value the good of the society over what was good for me? That’s what they were expecting me to do, after all, wasn’t it? 

Of course, these aren't the same. The Swine Flu situation had me fearing being held captive in the hands of the Chinese government, while clicking that +1 just has me wondering "What's in it for me?" But that's just the thing - ME.

As one classmate wrote at the end of her time in China, "Harmony of the society has top priority." Google's +1 makes perfect sense if you view it in this light. You're not doing it for yourself, but for others. But I still look at it the same way as when the Chinese government asked me to self report my temperature - that doesn't serve me.

When I "like" some external website using Facebook's "like" button, it's not because I want to help the future of others. I'm not doing it for the good of the whole of society. I'm doing it because I'm saying "Hey, this is something that defines ME as a person" or because I'm saying "This is my point of view and I want to share it with the people I know!" or even, more selfishly and shallow-ly, "Hey, look what I found! Isn't that cool? (And I found it!)."

The immediate hope upon clicking that button, however, is that it is broadcast to the people you're connected to right then. It's not that they, in their potential future search, will be urged toward that same content.

Google has a great idea with its Twitter search integration, in my opinion. Twitter still has a social aspect to where people share things with a purpose in mind and in a situation where there is feedback. There is a context. If I share something absurd on Twitter, I'll get responses. I'll get feedback. I'll get unfollowed. On Google, if I press +1 on all sorts of dumb shit...nothing happens. It all occurs in a void. What, someone is going to remove me from their contacts? Nope. Their contacts is their address book. The one they use for Gmail. Too bad they don't have any other way of telling me my +1 is stupid or offensive.

I digress.

Sharing for the better of others is not "social." Just because multiple people are involved does not make it social. Social involves interaction, feedback, consequences and, possibly most importantly, a sense of self and not selflessness. And if you are doing something selfless, chances are you're Tweeting it or setting it as your Facebook status so that you can bring it back around to YOU and get some self validation.

So, again, what's in it for YOU to click that +1 button?

I'm a firm believer in the idea that people are people. If you treat someone like a person, most of the time they'll return the favor. We're all (hopefully) trying our best...but something needs to change.

And yes, I'm sorry, but I'm talking about this whole PR/press game. It's out of hand. It's too much and I really don't want to snap on one person for the sins of the many.

So here is my "how not to pitch me" primer.

First, a list of things I don't write about:

Coupons. First and foremost coupons. I'm glad your Groupon clone will make a lot of money. I'll admit, I wrote about Groupon raising a lot of money, because it was a billion dollars. And one time, I did write about a deal they made with eBay, but I promise I won't ever do that again. It's coupons on the Internet. It's not technology. Have a uniquely interesting technology issue that your coupon/groupon clone deals with that no other company deals with? That's a technology story for a technology blog.

Enterprise. B2B. SMB. Most marketing and advertising stuff. Affiliate links. 

What does that leave? 

Well, the Internet is a giant place full of interesting things that ReadWriteWeb writes about all the time. Location based services. Group messaging. Social interaction. Communication. Mobile apps of so many varieties. Real-time interaction. Internet TV. Streaming video. Streaming music.  News that affects innovation. Stories with a good news peg. 

And still, I'm sorry, but sometimes it can fit into the right realm and I still may not cover it. It happens. There's a lot of news out there sometimes. For that, I apologize. 

But here's the thing. Over the last several days, people have been driving me nuts. 

Let's go by the golden rule here. It's that simple.

Would you want to receive an email, then another email, then a Twitter message, then several DMs, then some more email and then a phone call, and then some more email over a single story idea that you already said "Yes, I received the email and will look at it."?

Would you want to receive phone calls all morning and afternoon from "Blocked" numbers by people who absolutely refuse to just leave a message so you could listen to it and call them back when you're not in the middle of something?

Would you want to receive a story at 10pm at night that's embargoed for 6am the next morning?

Would you want to talk to someone over and over through Twitter, email, etc, just for them to finally NOT send you the embargoed story and send it randomly to someone else? Or not at all?

Would you want to take a phone call with some company during the middle of SXSW, possibly the busiest and most insane tech event of the year?

The answer is no. You wouldn't want any of that. You might even say "That doesn't make any sense."

So would I. 

I can take a follow-up email. And often, I even appreciate them, because I did mean to write about that story and completely forgot in the onslaught of other emails and stories and all of that. And it is your job to get me to write, I understand that. That's what you're client wants and sometimes, that's what I want too. 

I understand. We're all people and we're all trying to do our jobs here. But I really, really might snap at the next person that calls me with their phone number blocked and doesn't leave a message....well, if I could call them back, at least, I would.

Here's another one. I was living in Poughkeepsie, NY (aka "po' town") and listening to a lot of Bob Dylan. There was one song, Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie, that had this mesmerizing rhythm to it and I wanted to write something like it, so I did. I was working on a photo project documenting what I had dubbed "The Poughkeepsie Bag Men," which were all the homeless men wandering the streets with their shopping carts, and couldn't help but see how the town had fallen from its once great stature. Here it is...

got back alleyways to hide all the cars from roamin' passers-by and the hollywood stars,
sweepin' the streets and keepin' 'em shined for the steelworkers raising their fists in the air
at the FDR contract they long ago signed

boom-time murals are painted on walls of the crackhouses crumblin’ beside the strip malls,
cuz the man is awaitin' and the man is appalled at the prospect of his uprise and the fortune of his fall

its one among many like a poet who calls out to the people it rings through the halls,
it asks for forgiveness, absolvement, repent, for the sins of a country from which it was sent,
it begs for repair on its hopeless descent into the realm of the cities with their baglady biddies,
hopin' to scrounge up a nickel, a dime, to return to the glory of FDR time.

cracks in the concrete taint the attempts of the church goin' shopkeeps to keep the stoops swept,
and the street walkin' hobos get in the way of the beat cop's duty to make every day a pillar in quicksand no one man could sway,
cuz the time is a-comin' and the time has a-went for the rise of a city from its hopeless descent

hopin' for a windfall, gropin' for a line, waitin' for a handout, strivin' to standout,
as a beggar in need, as an actor in line, hopin' for the part and waitin' for the time that the check's in the mail and the rent is on time,

cause they're bein' evicted, they're bein' sent out, they're bein' rejected without a doubt,
to the back alley hideouts, like yesterday's wares, out on the sidewalks and off of the stairs,
with no time to worry and no time to wait, they're out on their asses, they carry no weight in the legal procedings of aristocrat views,
they've not done their duty, not paid their dues, in the capitalist country they chose to peruse, they're trash on the sidewalks and scandals in news

So I wrote this several years back after a particularly epic adventure in which I quit my job and moved across country with a girl I barely knew to move to New Orleans. It lasted one month. I moved with a bunch of stuff in a big truck and left with what I could carry on my back. Everything about it was right and wrong all at the same time. 

we came into town on borrowed hopes

counting 37 cockroaches around the door frame
and the nights i slept there added up to much less
than two backpacks and a cab fare to the train station.

we came into town on misplaced roadmaps
finding misplaced words placed right in our laps.

call me crazy, call me nuts, call me what you will,
or don't at all, i don't expect you will.

we came into town at 90 miles an hour,
running away from ourselves in a rented car,
pockets full of credit cards -
and i remember reading once
a writer runs away from home expecting to find
foreign lands and far away things,

but finds only thoughts of from where he came.

home
is where you know
how to buy stamps.

home is where you get the jokes.

we came into town on two hours sleep,
a brisk night on mullberry street
checkerboard linoleum and counterfeit jazz
finding glowing sidewalks puddled in dollar beer
old men making jazz tunes out of Billy Joel songs
and typical cabbies asking "now, why y'all wanna go there for?"

"i hope
i never see you again,"
you said.

"i hope i never see you again, too,"
i replied.

and all i regret, all i regret
is my baseball glove, sitting on top of the bookshelf.

i loved that baseball glove.