Hello everyone! The membership drive has been pretty successful, and the ranks have been culled. So now it is time for more of the promised changes.

1. As with my other sites, I am moving the Project to a new host. This will require some downtime, and hopefully there won’t be any problems, but there is always the chance of disaster.
2. I am going to be re-building the site on the new host with a focus on fast, easy responses using the P2 Theme from Automattic. After this, every day or two I will post a short “prompt” or question, which everyone will be encouraged to answer.
3. Under this new structure, there will no longer be a discrete line between Project members and the rest of the social media community. Anyone will be able to register and post their questions and ideas. However, the Project will still be moderated and, if anyone causes problems they will be removed by one of us admin types, so don’t think I am turning this into 4chan. The goal here is to have an open community that everyone can participate in that attempts to address the philosophical implications of social technologies, and anyone not interested in doing that should go elsewhere.

If anyone has any concerns or suggestions, comment or get in touch with me. Expect these changes to be implemented over the coming weeks.

Related articles by Zemanta

• HOW TO: Plan and Promote Events With Social Media (yzerfonteinchronicles.blogspot.com)
• Social Media ROI – A Calculator for Not for Profit Campaigns (futurelab.net)
• Shocking Secrets Of The Social Media Elite (jatinmahindra.com)

OMG we’re all gonna die of swine flu!

No, actually, we’re not. In fact, very little will happen at all. So why is it being so blown out of proportion? Think about this…more people die every day from…well, everything, than swine flu. Name it. Even the common cold has a higher body count. More people have died of being blown up in space shuttles than Americans have died of swine flu. Just think about that. Space shuttles. How rare is that? Swine flu is even rarer. So why is everyone freaked out?

I’ll tell you why…because humans are a panicky bunch. Oh, sure, we like to make myths and stories about ourselves being fearless warriors and unstoppable killing machines, but really we are primates who evolved to live in cooperative groups. We did not gain dominance through martial prowess but through our tendency to work in concert and run when outmatched. Those that didn’t run are no longer with us, genetically or actually. When we try to make humans into these mythic creatures, these warriors, it very often breaks them. Post-traumatic stress disorder, emotional disassociation, and periodic depression are common symptoms of broken humans, but of course there are matters of degree; some are not broken but merely bent, and these often make very good soldiers but very poor humans. While this is regrettable, until humans learn a different way to resolve disputes, it is also necessary. Some must give up their humanity so that others may keep their lives.

But the rest of us are a fearful lot. We repeat unlikely things because they scare us rather than because we know them to be true. We spread fear and inspire chaos. And, even worse, we give license to ourselves and each other to act in idiotic and horrendous ways, all because we were afraid.

So enough. Quit it. You are spreading panic and making everyone anxious for no reason. Quit tweeting and retweeting the latest stupid update on swine flu. Stop making Google Maps mashups. Stop posting the latest WHO and CDC figures. Stop. Even if there were a real danger, this chicken-little crap would not be helpful. Save it for the zombie holocaust…I am sure Tom from accounting will get a big giggle out of your last tweets of “OMG ZOMBIES WDFFBKW” as he chomps your brains.

And on that note…celebrities aren’t celebrities here, so quit letting the media lead you by the nose.

That’s right, I’m talking about Oprah and Ashton and whoever else wants to ply their dirty little trade here. They don’t get it, and most likely never will. Narcissists don’t do well in social media because they give nothing back. Look at the so-called celebrities’ profiles…look at the ratio. Look at how much they interact. Ashton at least seems to make an attempt…most of the “celebrities” seem to think that Twitter is just another place for them to play “look at me!”.

The real celebrities of our ranks are those who interact, who have ideas, and who actually do things. Robert Scoble, Howard Rheingold, Tara Hunt, Leo Laporte, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis…we all know the names. The people (and many more, some of them I am lucky enough to know personally) are the real celebrities of social media. And I know some of you are groaning about me listing all these A-listers and crowing about “internet fame” like it’s “real” fame, but hear me out: I don’t know what “real” or “unreal” fame is. All fame seems to be an abstraction; we made up the concept and apply it as a social construct. And on the basis of this construct I say that “internet famous” (I am talking about the Jason Calacanis kind of web famous, not the Numa Numa guy kind, in case you are confused) is more “real”, or at least handed out for better reasons and according to values I am more in agreement with, than the fame dished out by Hollywood, TV, and the music industries. I like our kind of fame…it comes because a person is smart, cool, funny…not because an executive someone decided to promote them and turn them into a cash cow. I will take the Gillmor Gang over The View any day.

And for my final trick, I will also rant about #amazonfail.

What the hell is wrong with us? Do we so enjoy schadenfreude that we will leap to offense just on suspicion? I was just as guilty in this one…I jumped up on the issue when it first surfaced in the stream and posted, tweeted, and argued as I usually do about anything remotely related to gay rights. And we were wrong. While Amazon dealt with it horribly and I am still unsure as to whether it was a hack (as was claimed on livejournal) or an honest error on their side, we allowed our collective righteous indignation to flow out and attack with no real information.

Why care?

Well, I am a bit shocked at how easily we are all directed. We make a huge noise about how we have taken control of the conversation, but we are really just spinning in circles. If some of our pet theories are true and there is a collective intelligence going on in social media, then this intelligence has just woken up, is barely sentient, and reacts like an anxious teenager: eager to embrace every fad, governed and led around by emotional reactions, and unsure of its own place. If we are to take advantage of this new world, then our “smart mob” needs to get a lot smarter.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Graph Payola – The Twitter Dilemma (inquisitr.com)
• Twitter Explains Their Selections for Default Suggested Users (centernetworks.com)
• Forget Dunbar’s Number, Our Future Is in Scoble’s Number (bhc3.wordpress.com)
• The Vortex: Less is More (guidewiregroup.wordpress.com)
• Robert Scoble is Fake Following (loiclemeur.com)

Just over a year ago, I left the online community that I enjoyed most in the world. Utata is a salon-style collective of photographers, writers, and like-minded people who share a compelling interest in the arts. My time as a Utata member was probably the happiest of my internet years, and it was certainly the period of my most exciting creative growth. Unfortunately for me, though, Utata started its existence and continues to thrive as a Flickr group. And Flickr is owned by Yahoo.

My concern about Yahoo’s human rights record grew until I reached the point where I had to make a choice: get over my principles in order to live with my favourite community; or live up to my principles and get over losing my place in that community.

I hated to leave Utata, but I couldn’t allow my tacit support of Yahoo to continue. I had to walk away.

Why am I telling you this today? Well, aside from the recent anniversary of my decision, I’ve just discovered that part of this site’s community is Yahoo-based. It’s the same brick wall. I want to be a fully active member of this community, but I will not provide moral support to Yahoo.

Yahoo isn’t the only Internet giant with a poor human rights record, of course. Google and Microsoft are up to their necks in it, too, and I guess many lesser companies swim in the same murky waters.

So how do we deal with this problem, when the Internet presents the greatest potential for unbelievable wealth and power to corporations at the same time as it offers the greatest potential for the growth of a global community of individuals?

How will we retain and make full use of our individual and collective freedoms, when it’s in the nature of big corporations to regulate and control user activities?

How can we be free to enjoy our communities, when powerful companies own the platforms on which we enjoy our freedom?

Just saw this tweet from Darren. That was fast.

But Igor the Troll thinks it might have been a scam.

Either way, that was an amazingly short period of time for a reaction. Thanks to everyone who rallied. This proves how much things are changing.

Just saw this from Darren over at ProBlogger. Seems StumbleUpon didn’t like the recent surge from the love-in. Now, StumbleUpon has the right to control who uses their service. However, social bookmarking services make their living on OUR content, the content we produce which they then funnel through their service.

David (theGypsy) had a similar point here. We make these companies what they are, and then they treat us like they are doing us a favor by letting us do so. What service or product, precisely, do any of these sites provide that do not directly or indirectly start with us, the online community? Is it right that they should be able to dictate terms to the people who generate the content they make money upon? What is that old expression about biting the hand that feeds?

Remember the DVD code debacle? Kevin and Digg kept face in the community by recognizing where the real power is in social media…the users. The reason Darren got banned was most likely (I can’t presume to speak for Stumble) the Social Media Love-In, which was a whole bunch of us getting together and exchanging our connections. Stumble benefits financially from us and our connections, and yet Darren is being penalized for something that will bring Stumble profits. How can this be right?

Here is StumbleUpon’s contact page. Make your opinions known.