Social Media and Speculation

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In watching my habits socializing – and that of others, I've noticed two trends in social media that I think bear analysis – since social media may be an interesting career for people, and people will be using it in their careers.

What I've noticed is that social media can be roughly classified into two areas: the general (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter) that provide functionality with no goals beyond socialization, and the specific (LinkedIn.com, Crunchyroll, etc.) that provide service based around specific goals or media.

I see this as being the future of social media – there is only room for a few big general players who perfect their craft and deliver general social media functionality.  But there is also room for specialist social media built around particular audiences and services – I myself find myself using specialized or semi-specialized social media as much as any other.  In fact, as the generalist social media settles, the major market may be creating specialized communities that can respond to specific needs and leverage specific knowledge.

For those working in social media, this will lead to some hard decisions – do you go general (knowing there are fewer choices), or take changes with a specific community (taking a different set of changes).  Placing your bet will result in some careful evaluations – work with the fewer larger or the less predictable but wider-spread specialists.

For those USING social media intensely, it involves hedging your bets and determining what you can and should use.   I think enough of the major players and some of the specialist and semi-specialist players (gaia, LinkedIn.com, Crunchyroll, etc.) are defined that you can determine what you want to use and for what goals.  There's enough room out there – and enough potential mergers and changes – that things can shift in at least some markets.

Never a dull moment . . .

– Steven Savage

Stereotype-Fu

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I was reading an interesting article on how stereotypes can derail your personal 'brand'. It made some good points, and I responded with some of my own strategies. I'd like to go into my own ideas of dealing with stereotypes.

If you're reading this blog, changes are you're a professional geek/nerd of some kind, or hope to be. Pretty much you've got plenty of stereotypes to deal with professionally and unprofessionally – the lifeless nerd, the socially incompetent geek, the perverse otaku, etc. You've dealt with them for a long time.

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News of the Day 4/27/2009

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Career:
What will come of Human Resources in the IT Age? HR certainly hasn't moved with the times, so this question bears some thoughts – with so much data out there, what COULD an HR department do? A good read and worth keeping in mind in the future, where you'll need to be aware of what's known about you.

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
How the Obamas deal with paparazzi – via publicity – A quick but fun read. Short version, by releasing so many photos necessary, the Obamas control their image and make paparazzi far less valuable. A good bit of freakonomic thought and media savvy.

Publishing:
Barnes and Noble launches audiobook store online – Sounds like a good straightforward leap into audio. As we've noted here, we're expecting audio to be a fronteir for techno-geekery that isn't going to get the big play of video, but will be important. I imagine if this works out you might find a way to pitch yourself if you've got some audio involvement.

Newspaper decline gets even worse – At this rate I'm expecting a critical 'seismic' change to occur soon as a mixture of failures, consolidations, and new media rewrite the rules within a relatively short time (a year). It may be depressing for some people but the change could mean opportunity as well. Now for further thought where else could a collapse like this happen . . .

Social Media:
Facebooks new Open Stream API is out. What this means is they have a forward-thinking, open-standards-based way for applications to access Facebook data and functions. This keeps Facebook moving forward and defining how things can be done – while leaving standards open – and engaging developers. Interesting thought, their approach is Twitterseque

Facebook has also had voting on policies

The above two news items illustrate an important point on Facebook – they're working to maintain good will while maintaining presence and inviting people into their fold. It's actually a bit Google-esque if you ask me. Taking them on will require either a different approach (unlikely) or engaging them on their own ground (hard but doable). For careers, I'd say this shows Facebook knows what it's doing, and technically these open standards need to be followed.

In the midst of all this Hi5 gets a new CEO. That could be a good sign for their more enterainment-oriented approach.

Technology:
Why selling its search business to Microsoft is a bad idea for Yahoo – Which, if it does happen, is a good warning for career-minded people who may want a piece of the action.

The Oracle and Sun deal analyzed – A lot of redundancy, so expect job cuts and changes, and product mergers or decomissioning. If you WORK with either of them or for them be aware of this.

A roundup of future areas of legal conflcit on the internet – I don't agree with all of them (#1 and #4 seem unlikely or minor at best), but this is a good read in general. I do expect legal issues and social media to come up, so if you work in that area keep that in mind (of if you want to work in that area and have a law background . . .)

Video Games:
Eidos will maintain a separate brand identity from SquareEnix but their new owner expects them to pull out enough to cover the $120 million investment in three years. In a troubled time, that sounds like a lot of money to me – and it sets a goal for Eidos.

Petroglyph and Trion team up for MMORTS – I thought Trion was also doing some work with Sci-Fi/SyFy so I'm wondering what's up with them since they used to be doig a lot of hiring.

And in final geek news, there's now a portable epresso machine

Steven "Microexpresso" Savage