By Cyndy Aleo-Carreira of Shakespeare I Ain't (E-mail / Twitter)

I've been on Facebook now for longer than I've had my current Gmail account, and yet I can honestly say I never saw much use for it before the last six months.

Part of writing about tech means that you are forever jumping on the latest social network, trying out the latest app, and trying your hardest to keep ahead of the curve. You leave a trail of login IDs in your wake, rarely revisiting the majority of things you sign up for. You are a serial early adopter.

Of course, the serial early adopters consider themselves elite, above the masses, and when the hoi polloi begin to join a social network, it becomes passé, signalling a time to move on to the next big thing. The problem is, however, two-fold with this approach to determining what's hot and what's not. Without the arrival of the masses, what hope does a company have for profitability? The early adopters are never numerous enough, nor loyal enough, to support a company beyond the intial uptake.


An Early Adopter Panics When the Mainstream Nears...
Even more importantly, though, is how useful an app or a social network is. No offense, but how many times am I supposed to interact with the same people on multiple social networks? My FriendFeed subscriptions look a lot like my Twitter follows, which are probably the same people I'm connected to on LinkedIn, and so on. Up until about six months ago, my Facebook friends list looked much the same.

Six months ago was when things started changing. That was when "the masses" began signing up, and suddenly, I was connected to my cousin in Florida I hadn't seen since she was less than a year old. I found a friend from first grade who now lives in Montenegro. I get to "talk" regularly with my best friend from college who's living in Mexico and my junior prom date who moved South.

I don't need to see the same updates on Twitter and FriendFeed and Facebook from the same people every day. The redundancy of information eventually becomes tiring. Adding in the perspective of the "regular" people outside the tech sphere not only broadens a viewpoint of how things are perceived, but also what's important in the overall scheme of the world, not just the insular world of tech.

So the next time you remark that an app has "jumped the shark" because the unwashed masses have started showing up, think about whether you want all of your daily social interactions to be in the narrow world of tech or whether you should appreciate a wider horizon brought to you by those who aren't as "hip" and "in the know" as you are. I signed my dad up for Facebook myself.

Read more by Cyndy Aleo-Carreira at Shakespeare I Ain't. You can find her on Facebook here and Louis is hiding here.

A little more than two weeks ago, friend and fellow tech geek Drew Olanoff announced he would be raising money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in an unorthodox way. He offered to put his skin in the game, literally, getting a permanent tattoo of the Twitter nickname on his forearm, to the highest bidder. Why? As he wrote, "kids deserve awesomeness". With his love of Twitter and tattoos besides, the unique offer was very "Drew". But the bidding was tremendous to say the least, not to mention fun. I even bid $333 and $555, pushing the bidding forward, even if I didn't expect or intend to win (but I would have paid).

And at the end of it all, Melanie Mitchell emerged as the winner, bidding $2,112 for the privilege. Now that the bidding has closed, and Drew has done the dirty deed, getting inked, and video taping the process, we checked in with Melanie to get the back story.


@melaniemitchell on Drew's arm (via twittertattoo.com)

A quick Q&A follows below:

Who are you and what do you do?

I am a marketing executive heavily involved in the search and social media industries (my bio: http://www.pubcon.com/bios/melanie_mitchell.htm). I also love to travel, read, spend time with family/friends and meet new people.

How did you find out about Drew's Twitter tattoo idea?

Drew and I are "Facebook friends" and he posted the twitter tattoo message there.

What did you first think?

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a tattoo at first, but it was hard not to get caught up in the enthusiasm and passion that Drew had for charity and helping the kids. I thought it was a creative and interesting idea and decided it was something I wanted to be a part of.

What made you decide to participate? And to win?

A couple of reasons. First, it was for charity. I donate to other charities that are important to me, but hadn't donated to Make-A-Wish in the past, but I always thought it was a great charity. In fact, several years ago my friends and I had a conversation about what our Make-A-Wish "wish" would be if we had a choice. Mine was that I wanted to spend the day with the writers from "The Simpsons" during a brainstorming session -- after all they say laughter is the best medicine :). That show is hilarious and I can't imagine what ideas fly back and forth in that room! Second, while I don't know Drew personally, we are in very similar industries and we have cross over acquaintances. I respect him and his work and think he is even more amazing for coming up with the idea. I would (and am) proud to be on his arm. As far as winning, I suppose it was luck of the draw as there were other people also bidding, but I did consciously choose my last bid to be over a rounded number just in case someone else picked the next rounded number up.

Is Twitter an important part of your online life?

It is a part of my life and it is important as far as what I use it for, but I have to admit I don't spend several hours a day on Twitter. I use it to keep up with friends, network with people with similar interests, but also as a learning tool to learn more about areas I'm interested in (like health and nutrition as one example) as well as keep up with trends in technology.

What do you think this promotion says about social media?

It showed me that social media continues to be an amazing way to raise awareness about good causes, as well as foster support for them. Twitter in particular is beginning to shine as a cause marketing platform. Its ability to offer instant action and reaction is perfect for fund raising -- and you are already seeing success on it. In this instance, Drew inspired even more people to donate to Make-A-Wish as a result of his promotion. It was amazing that he brought thousands of people together for a worthy cause.

As you know, Twitter is a way to join the conversation and participate in what is of interest to you. Whether its charity or tattoos or mountain biking or running – there are people out there talking about what they like/don’t like and sharing information every day. It’s up to us as individuals to decide if we want to participate in the conversation and if so then where. Then of course you have the “re-tweets”, which broadens the reach of a "tweet" even further where you can be introduced to someone and their interests/ideas that you may not have otherwise found. Or go to search.twitter.com and search using the “#” sign if you are interested in a particular topic to help cluster results -- as was the case with #twittertattoo.

Now that Drew has the tattoo, what do you think of your name on some guy's arm?

I am honored to be on Drew's arm. As I previously mentioned, we don't know each other personally, but I knew “of” him and his work. Drew has a great reputation in the industry for being a smart and cool guy. Now throw in the fact that he got permanently inked for charity - its a great story and I am glad I'm a part of it.

Have you gotten more followers on Twitter or more notoriety as a result?

I did get more followers, but not more notoriety, however that wasn't the reason I got involved. Lots of people were involved with following the twitter tattoo story and promoting it through "re-tweets" or blog posts or video clips, but my goal wasn't to get more followers or 15 minutes of fame.

After the bidding closed, I was very humbled by the people, many that I didn't know previously, that reached out to me directly to thank me for being so generous. I thought (and think) Drew made the bigger commitment in that he has the permanent tattoo, but I went into it because I honestly thought it was a cool idea and I would have donated to Make-A-Wish afterwards even if I had lost. Since I was lucky and won, it gives me a great story to tell people that "Hey! I'm a tattoo now" :)!! Even my conservative parents think its cool.

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Melanie was generous both in her donating to the charity and in donating her time to answer our questions. I've seen Drew in action and he's quite the evangelist when it comes to new media, this being a great example. Appreciate Melanie's donation and her responses. You can find her on Twitter here, or... on Drew's arm.

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Video Below:

By Corvida Raven of SheGeeks.net (FriendFeed/Twitter)

Connections. That seems to be the word of the week followed by followers. Everything is about connecting to others, but have you considered the type of connection you'd like to have with people?

In a previous guest post on Chris Brogan's blog, I wrote about my frustrations with the decrease in connections as my network increased. I highlighted popular and increasing problems with managing a network or community of over 500 people. One topic I failed to touch is whether or not those connections were short-term or long-term.

Short-Term Connections

If the connections are short-term, then an increase in followers might not be very hard to manage after all. You'll get immediate gratification and so will that follower, without the headache of maintaining that relationship. It's practically a win-win situation for everyone.

Long-Term Connections

However, if the connection is long-term an increase in followers might be the worst thing to ever happen to you. Previous connections may start to fall off the map and new connections may become harder to make.

Think about what type of connection you want to make with the majority of your readers. I use the word majority because it's hard to sustain long-term connections as the number of connections you attempt to make increases. You can't always pick and choose what type of connection you'd like to have with individual people across social networks. To tools to do so effectively just aren't available yet. Nevertheless, it's important that you establish what type of connection you'd like to make and apply the strategies you have for that type of connection with the majority of your audience.

In the long run, it'll make managing and making connections a lot easier on you and your audience.

Read more by Corvida Raven at SheGeeks.net.

As Twitter growth has accelerated, so too have some of the annoyances associated with the service - including the creation of spam bots, fake accounts impersonating others, and automated direct messages, many of which essentially include spam links. After initially including the option to send automated direct messages from within his social networking service, Jesse Stay of SocialToo is stopping the practice, immediately, and leading the charge to block automated direct messages (or DMs) from similar products.

As Jesse wrote in a post this morning (Time to Take a Stand - Yes, We’re Ending the DMs), "it seems many people either have not understood the service, or are simply abusing it, as I believe the spammers have started to take over this system."

In a case where a disruptive minority negated any positive benefits from the majority of above-board users, the ensuing complaints about auto-DM spam have escalated in recent weeks. Auto-DMs were behind much of the week's frustrations voiced by Loic LeMeur, which I previously covered here.

As an advisor to SocialToo, I am especially sensitive to the way Jesse's service, and its impact across Twitter and other networks, is perceived. Before he made the decision to stop the practice, we traded many e-mails and had many phone calls about what was the right thing to do, and would he risk losing some of his users by stopping one feature, or gain more because he took the extra step, which we consider to be right.

Every morning, I've opened my e-mail and been hit with a good number of updates from Twitter. Some might be following notifications, but many more are direct message nonsense. While I do get the occasional legitimate direct message, from the team of bloggers here, or from folks like Loic and Om Malik, I'm almost predisposed to delete, thanks to abuse from the surrounding riff-raff. As a SocialToo user, I am hoping this step by Jesse helps to clean up my Twitter and my e-mail, and that other services will follow suit.