Social Media as a Distraction

Social media is a waste of time.  There, I said it.  Yesterday, I read a long blog post by a guy I’ve never actually met.  Then I read all the comments.  Then I left a comment, offering advice he asked for. It made me no money.  It gave me no leads.  It helped me cross nothing off my to do list. I fell a few…

The Data Portability Issue Isn’t Going Away

So Robert Scoble has his account suspended by Facebook for using an automated script to harvest his contacts and their email addresses (see my previous post), and all hell breaks loose. Scoble, whose account is later reinstated, is denounced for being a publicity-seeking limelight hog, and for using a script from Plaxo that is an egregious breach of Facebook’s terms of use (since it uses…

Facebook Continues To Sell Out Users

There is no expectation of privacy in public, last I checked. If I'm on the sidewalk in my underwear (yes, I've been on the sidewalk in my underwear – it was the Rocky Horror midnight show when I was younger and skinnier) it's kind of hard to get upset when other people see me. So why should Facebook, or any other social (public) network, be…

Yahoo Pulls Plug On Picks

There are a lot of strange and funny things on the Web, but as of this week, there's one less place that showcases them; Yahoo Picks has been shut down.