Is The Sky Falling?

The sky is falling
The sky is falling

Is the sky falling? The main stream press and my favorite blogs have come to the same apparent conclusion; The sky is falling. But I agree with Mark Dykeman. Now is the time to be calm and not to panic.

In fact as I posted on FriendFeed the other day, I believe,

“The market is down but the sky is not falling. Many economic factors have converged to be fueled by greed and an election year. 2009 will be great. There is no reason for despair. Undervalued, undervalued, undervalued. Things will go back up. Our future is bright and our economy is resilient.”

There is plenty of cause for concern and despair is all around us. The world economy is flailing, we are in a war with no end in sight, there is an energy crisis, and a fuel shortage.

Despite the outlook I am optimistic. Our country has a storied albeit short history of being resilient, strong, and courageous in times of crisis.

Where has our optimism gone? Perhaps it will return on November 5th. Regardless of the election’s outcome I believe the current problems are exacerbated by an election year.

The future is bright. I look for 2009 to be a great year. In the meantime I will keep looking up at the sky but I am sure it is not falling.

P.S. I promised on FriendFeed last week that I would begin posting again. I have several posts in the works and will get them out soon.

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Declaring Your Social Media Independence

The Evolution of Social Media

I read an article this morning titled “The Evolution Of WordPress.”  WordPress is the fabulous CMS software that powers this blog.  Hack wordpress a great blog that I read was commenting on the changes and improvements the WordPress software has seen.

In the same way the advances in Social media are dramatic.  Systems, methods, and technologies that many rely on were not around or were in infant stages just 5 years ago. 5 years in technology terms is a enormous amount of time but in the real world 5 years is a blink of an eye.  The web as we know it has changed dramatically in the last 5 years.  Its modern inception is only a mere 15 years or so old.

Web applications have given this ‘have it now crowd’ nearly instant gratification.  I have commented before that I am amazed at the feature development of some of the current Web apps.  Just bursting into prominence in the last 6 months or so FriendFeed and Toluu continually wow me with enhancements.

Social Media Addiction

Do you remember life before a cell phone?  Perhaps the cell phone era is difficult to remember we have come to rely on them so heavily. Now when I leave my cell phone at home despite $4 a gallon gas prices I turn the car around and go back for the phone.

I think many of us have the same thoughts about social media.  We have become so attached to Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, and any other social media application that application failure is devastating.

The twitter addicts have been hunting all over for a place to get their fix.  They have stirred the blogosphere into a buzz over start-ups like Plurk and identi.ca.

The twitter addicts seem to have become attached to Twitter in the same way they are attached to power, water, and other necessities of life.  They seem to be the most rabid.  But I venture to say that Gmail, FriendFeed, or Google Reader went down in the way twitter has I would be equally as frantic.  Social media addiction is prominent.

Declare Your Independence

I challenge you to declare your independence from Social media at least for some period of time.  Declaring your independence will assist you in breaking your cycle of addiction.  This should assist in the event that your favorite application goes down or becomes unreliable.  So take a break from social media.

Perhaps we should stop for a minute and smell the fresh air.  It is summertime. We should take a break and get outdoors.  We could take our families on vacation.  I recently saw a user friendfeeding on vacation from the beach.  This flickr image appeared in the friendfeed stream posted from the beach.  Could the addiction be anymore evident?  No friendfeeding or twittering during family time.   Take a break so you can appreciate and enjoy social media later.

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Pownce Needs To Pownce!

Twitter is on the ropes: Pownce should Pownce. The early adopter crowd has NOT jumped overboard and left Twitter. I am unsure why. Pownce appears to be a superior product. I am not debating its merits versus Twitter. Pownce has stability on it’s side. Pownce may have a smaller user base but at least the site stays up.

But for the last few weeks the focus is all about how to fix Twitter. Twitter is really only known to the early adopters and is very simple in concept. The concept for the application is not difficult. Why don’t the users jump ship?

This is a tremendous opportunity for others in this space. Pownce and FriendFeed are positioned to take advantage.

Pownce should definitely well you know Pownce! The time is now. Pownce should step in the ring with press release after press release and knock Twitter around. They should be wowing with features and make people wonder why they ever stuck with Twitter in the first place.

In the last couple of days many things have been written about the new startup Plurk that is just another Twitter clone. Pownce shares files, it has a good established API, and is an established application with an existing user base. The time for Pownce is now.

What would it really take for the users to bolt? Would all it take is for Scoble and several other A list bloggers to band together and choose a replacement.

Let me reiterate that Twitter is very simple. I could see potential in FriendFeed implementing direct messaging and crushing Twitter. That does not appear to be FriendFeed’s goal.

Well someone let me know please why has Pownce not Pownced!