• BBC News – The top 100 sites on the internet
  interesting. another example of size doesn't matter on the internet
  (tags: visualisations internet usage scale)

• Chefs Call Proposed New York Salt Ban 'Absurd'
  unbelievable! Every chef knows that salt is not just to be added but it can be integral part of cooking. So when you salt something can be as important as the amount you add. Idiotic.
  (tags: chefs salt food cooking restaurants government regulation newyork stupid)

• Don't Blame Your Community: Ad Blocking Is Not Killing Any Sites | Techdirt
  good response to all those who think adblock is a bad thing. I love it, haven't seen an ad in ages! wonderful.
  (tags: copyright adblock businessmodels content)

• All Creative Work Is Derivative
  Fantastic!
  (tags: creative copyright derivative art amazing)
• Foreign baby in China essentials: IMPORTED BABY FORMULA | China Hope Live
  interesting and utterly unsurprising. wondering when people stop thinking of china as the growth place and see i for the nightmare it is. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fchinahopelive.net%2F2010%2F02%2F09%2Fforeign-baby-in-china-essentials-imported-baby-formula%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2BChinaHopeLive%2B%2528China%2BHope%2BLive%2529%26utm_content%3DGoogle%2BReader
  (tags: china scandal individual autonomy politics interesting)
• Private life drama, baby, leave me out | Marginal Utility | PopMatters
  very good Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popmatters.com%2Fpm%2Fpost%2F120447-private-life-drama-baby-keep-me-out
  (tags: privacy facebook)

• How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers? | The Onion – America's Finest News Source
  Sounds about right!
  (tags: future journalism trends onion newspapers)
• Slashdot Technology Story | Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking
  One of the best threads on why advertising sucks and deserves to die, die, die. Already! And yes, thanks to Adblock plus I haven't seen an ad in ages – happy days! Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F10%2F03%2F07%2F0319253%2FArs-Technica-Inveighs-Against-Ad-Blocking
  (tags: slashdot advertising online adblock businessmodel media)

• Andreessen’s Advice To Old Media: “Burn The Boats”
  Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch.com%2F2010%2F03%2F06%2Fandreessen-media-burn-boats%2F%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2BTputh%2B%2528TPUTH%2B-%2BBreaking%2BNews%2BWith%2BThe%2BSocial%2BHammer%2529
  (tags: media andreessen businessmodel trends disruption_management)
• Photography under threat: The shooting party’s over – Times Online
  (tags: photography rights privacy liberty)
• Foodraker
  fantastic restaurant review blog! not on a budget but worth knowing.
  (tags: foodraker reviews restaurants food Mine!)
• Drumbeat | People and projects making a better web.
  interesting
  (tags: drumbeat mozilla projects mineproject web open)
• Duncan's Journal (This had to have been a fun day of shooting in the…)
  How cool is that?!
  (tags: motorbike cool stunt video)

• Shirky: RIP The Consumer, 1900-1999
  a nice reminder why 'consumer' is dead. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shirky.com%2Fwritings%2Fconsumer.html
  (tags: consumer clayshirky VRM trends socialweb)

Let me count the ways.

First of all, social media these days is whatever most people do online. To someone like me, it was about blogging and social bookmarking, with upstarts like Facebook and Twitter playing a secondary role. To most people these are social media with an assortment of web apps that involve interactions and scale to high heaven. Where is the line between the web and social media for most people? Once they are on Facebook and/or Twitter, it blurs beyond definition.

Secondly, social media, whatever it means to different people, at its most fundamental level is the combination of the internet architecture (i.e. a distributed network) with technology that enables individuals to publish and distribute online without the need to code and without a prior permission from an institutional authority. This, in the long run, will be as impactful as the printing press. (That said, with the rise of the super-platforms, individuals online are herded into silos, their autonomy and privacy taking a beating. But that is a different rant.)

All this has little to do with media, advertising, marketing and PR. Other than undermining them. Watching people from these industries discuss and pontificate on how to ‘do’ – read use, abuse, benefit from, exploit etc – social media is like listening to producers of leather harness for horses, carriage drivers and stable owners talk about cars and how they are going to use them blasted machines. After all, it’s all about transport. Right?!

So once more, with feeling. Social Media is dead as a driver for change. It was killed by the very people it meant to change. Ironically, just like the barbarians at the gates of Rome, they didn’t mean to kill it, they just wanted to have a part of it. But without changing themselves.

The good news is that those people (and their business models) will, eventually, be extinct. It just won’t be Social Media that does it.

Nothing to see here, move along…

Note: This rant was ‘inspired’ by one too many social media event, namely Social Media Reality Check at LSE, organised by POLIS and PRNewswire. Yep, dear reader, PRNewswire. Should have been a sufficient warning!

• Neil Gaiman's Journal: The Goldberg Robinson Continuum
  (tags: neilgaiman funny art)

• » CRM
  interesting how often people confuse any increase of human interaction within business with cluetrain or VRM. it's not about human interaction only (though that's the baseline) but about the improved balance of power within which those occur. And right now, the individual is getting the short end of the stick, to mix metaphors.
  (tags: vrm crm docsearls metaphors individual business)

• Why designers should and shouldn’t code | Clagnut § Design thinking · New media industry · Clearleft
  (tags: code design mineproject UI)
• Putting a Face to a Name: The Art of Motivating Employees – Knowledge@Wharton
  Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fknowledge.wharton.upenn.edu%2Farticle.cfm%3Farticleid%3D2436
  (tags: motivation disruption_management employees wharton)

• apophenia » Blog Archive » obsessively recording and sharing our vacations
  good post on recording and sharing. the main point is to help memories and then strengthen social ties and relationships. public presence and constant outpouring easily tips into Too Much.
  (tags: apophenia sharing memories danahboyd mine_project)