Web 2.0 Suicide

Evan Ratliff, a reporter from Wired Magazine, attempted to disappear.  He packed up and disappeared with expectation that he would be found.  It was part of a contest promoted by Wired that prompted readers to find Ratliff using various Social Media.  Ratliff would leave clues to his whereabouts by Tweeting or upload images to Facebook.  He didn't make it easy.  He created accounts under pseudonyms and fostered posting in a deliberate attempt to throw friends and followers alike of his trail.  The winner would receive $5,000 for finding Ratliff.  A true Twitterverse Master.  

This whole gag was prompted on the idea that one can't just disappear anymore.  There are too many ways for any teenager with a MySpace account to track you down.  It is now to diffcult to simply vanish.  

Anytime a difficulty arises, it creates a marketable product  Take a look at Web 2.0 Suicide Machine

 The place to go when you want to virtually kill yourself.   It's sole purpose is to help you eradicate your online profiles and your connections.  It promises are return to your "real" life.  We could be seeing the marketing of a potential mass exodous of social slaves to the promise land of "real" life.  

Highly unlikely.  Not mention, it is not total death.  Your "real" friends are still going to be posting pictures and videos of you.  To completely die online means to eradicate your Amazon and Ebay accounts.  But the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine doesn't let help you with that.  When someone dies, there are pictures, videos, bills all left behind, and each record has present and real impact.  With these social media tools, you can't avoid getting published in some way, whether you are in control or not.  

So, this is a warning to all unborn children out there.  If you don't want to personified on the social webs, make sure to run away as soon as you get out of the womb.  Then again, if someone just saw a new born pick up and run off, you know they are going to post that on Twitter.  And the teenage kid with the camera phone is surely going to upload your escape on YouTube.  It seems the greatest effort to stay of the grid may make you the most viral entity on the internet.  

     

Biggy Bob is a great listener

I have been reading "Socialnomics" by Eric Qualman.  In book he describes how angry customers would post nasty messages about bad services they had with particular companies.  Good companies search blogs and Facebook and Twitter for feedback on their service.  Biggby Bob, pseudonym for the CEO of Biggby Coffee, is one of the best listeners on the web of social commerce.  I decided to test this posting a message on my Twitter page for sole purpose getting a response.  I stated that "You know: I never had Biggby Coffee, and I have been in Lansing for over a year. And I love hot chocolate!" Biggby Bob responded in about an hour:  "Go to BIGGBY!"  

This is good social media strategy.  Check out his website for more on Biggby Coffee.  

"Socialnomic"s by Erik Qualman

Check out Qualman's blog at http://socialnomics.net/

The above book is written from a marketer's point of view but it does go deeper into how social media is changing citizens'  and consumers' expectations about transparency and communication in personal, academic, and professional levels.  

He basically draws a distinction between two practices organization cant' live without:  listening to the social web for citizens' and consumers' insights and creating a system by which citizens and consumers can offer insights in way that is beneficial to the purpose and functions of that organization.  

He does not however, get into a sense of methodology but simply offers a list of  dos and donts with compelling facts and figures to back it up.  

The next step is to create a methodology (a marketable methodology) for navigating the social web.  In this case, providing organization with a system of listening for feedback and providing organizations with a system that compels feedback.  The former is citizen and consumer side, and the latter is organization side.  

In the creation of these systems, the citizen/consumer becomes a user.  In which, case usability of these system becomes significant.  This is where the professional writer/technical communicator comes in.  We understand how to analyze user needs and create user-centered systems.  So, users accomplish the tasks they wish to accomplish (praising, complaining, recommending, questioning, inquiring, etc.), and organzations get what they need (citizen/customer feedback).