Ok, I know people are going to say “What the hell is a political piece doing on SMR?” Let me break it down.

Lately I have seen a ton of sharing on political pieces ie; Obama Care, Financial Regulatory Bills, Tea Party Movements, Australian Government Web Censorship, and this got me to thinking; “WTF PEOPLE!”

I live in Kentucky, and unfortunately Mitch McConnell is the head of the Republican Minority. Every time I turn around Republicans are blocking bills and playing dumbass political games for their lobbyists and pissing me off. The Democrats are also not providing the leadership we elected them to give. Now I have got to hand it to President Obama, he has come in literally bitch-slapped the body politic. HE NEEDED TO!

He currently has introduced a bill to regulate the way big banks do business. He wants to make sure the American People, (the same people who voted him into office I might ad) don’t get screwed by big banks. Mitch (I’m a jackass McConnell) rallied his Republican troops to block the bill. So the SEC, down party lines, brings Goldman Sachs up on fraud charges. “Why?” you might ask, I’ll tell you why.  A Hedge Fund Manager named Jon Paulson created a shitty investment made up of mortgage bonds he knew would fail. Goldman Sachs then agreed to sell this investment to investors, then both Paulson and Sachs bought insurance against the shitty investment, when it failed, they raked in the dough.  The investors, ranged from other firms to Mom and Pops. So basically they were sold crap and not told it was a turd, and lost their money, that’s where the fraud comes in.

Now Rep. Leader Mitch McConnell believes we don’t need regulations. Shit, Really? So Mitch, you are ok with big banks screwing your constituency? Wow? How the hell do you keep getting elected into office? All I hear out of the Republican Party is “Block, Stop, Cut, No way, Hell no.” and the dumbass Tea Party movement is so uneducated to these facts, they remind me of a bunch of seagulls from Finding Nimo looking at Sarah Palin going “Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine”.

Where does it end people? Is it kicking President Obama’s ass? I don’t think so, I believe he is getting dis-heartened from time to time, but he keeps coming out swinging. Are his ideas always popular? No. But maybe, just maybe his ideas and methods are something the US Body Politic has been missing for a while. Big banks need a good smack on the ass from time to time. Banks need to be regulated, all this money they waste could have been put back into the economy on shit that wouldn’t fail. Goldman Sachs paid out 16 Billion in bonuses in January and another 5.4 billion in April. Wow Really? 21.4 Billion? If that doesn’t make you turn your head twice then something is absolutely wrong with you.

I have heard a ton of bitching and moaning about the health care bill. The Tea Party Activists would quote things in Obama’s Health Care bill that weren’t EVEN THERE! I believe if more people would actually sit down and read these bills and legislation, then maybe they could pass judgment. If you haven’t read it, don’t bitch about it.

Australia, damn I feel sorry for you guys. The government is wanting to block over 10,000 websites from the country. The list is growing by the way. What your Governing body has no clue about is how their filter will drain the bandwidth of an entire nation. Hell Anonymous won’t have to continue their DDOS attacks, once that filter is in place, good luck getting to any website at all.

People of the world, do yourselves a favor, don’t just vote for someone, know what they are all about before you cast your vote. Don’t guess, get involved with your local party, be you Republican, Democrat, or Independent. So far the people we are putting in office at certain levels of Government are grossly under-qualified. In a democracy it should be ‘For the people, by the people” not “For the lobbyists, by the money”. So when you cast a vote think about this, would you let the guy flipping burgers at McDonald’s perform a heart transplant on you?

So what’s the point in all this? Get involved, don’t pretend to know, actually find facts, make a sound educated decision before you vote, and for God sake, quit bitching if when you have no clue what  you are bitching about.

Via SocialNomics

Nails it!

Having Social Media as a hobby can be sometimes a little invasive. Like most techies and internet lovers, I subscribe to a lot of trade magazines.  The magazines come to my home and quickly end up in the rest room. I mean come on, who can honestly not say they do not read in the rest room?

I am not the only person who suffers from this affliction.  I have had discussions with a lot of Social Media enthusiasts,  who say if something is going well, and “It’s going to pop”, they carry the laptop or smart phone into the rest room to monitor their contents progress.  *cough* Gerri *cough*

So, back to my original point. I tend to read trade magazines in the restroom, and I really start getting into an article. The articles are usually well written, and just long enough for me to finish my business. Here’s where the problem happens to be.

As a long time user of Social Media, you tend to get to know people. You see them in the Social space all the time. Now at the end of this well written article in this trade magazine, what do I see? I see a familiar face staring back at me in the small author bio. Come on man! Now it seems that this person has invaded my private time. A person I know from the Social Space has written an article that intrigued me during my private time.  Seems kinda weird me.

I am not saying I read these persons articles while only in the rest room. I stumble across articles all the time in print publications that friends of mine have written, not only there but on the radio as well.

I have a nice long commute everyday, so I usually listen to NPR when I am not blasting music. During these trips as Social Media or “New” Media has begun to take it’s strangle hold on society, more and more stories about Social Media are making the news at a national level. It’s always fun to hear a Social colleague on the radio. So far it has happened about three times.

So now my question, is Social Media too Social or has being connected become less private?

Today I’m going to be focusing on a man named Chris Voss.

Now, I’ve known some dickheads in my day. I’ve even known some dickheads who were spammers. But this guy takes the cake.

Now, keep in mind. I’ve been active in the Digg community again, as well as a few other social networks. I’m not hardcore into the scene these days, but I do my part. As such, I get a lot of requests from people either asking for advice on how to get a good article frontpaged on Digg, or just asking to check out their submission.

This is all cool. No problem. Most of these people are just looking for a helping hand.

Then there’s Chris Voss.

I get the following IM from this douchebag earlier tonight.

Voss: YOU MUST SEE THIS ULTRA FUNNY FUNNY VIDEO ¸„ø¤º°¨ ¨°º¤ø„¸ NEXT VIRAL VIDEO [LINK REMOVED] RETWEET! RETWEET!

First off, it reads like a spam email. It’s not personalized. It’s not asking me to spread the link. It’s a demand, and it’s got glittery text shit in there.

My first response is “Fuck this guy”. But then I realized I could have a little more fun.

The following took place.

Me: Ugh, really?

Me: You don’t get “viral”, do you?

Voss: what am i missing

And this is when I sent one of the longest messages I’ve ever put into an IM window.

Me:

Well, a number of things. You can’t spread something in hopes of it going viral and CALL it viral. That’s counterintuitive.

Second, you’re begging way too hard for attention to your links. Your Twitter just repeats the same stuff day in and day out, it’s full of strange text decorations like some MySpace page from 2005, and is generally hurtful to the eyes.

Third, your Twitter profile says you’re a “Social Media Pro”, but looking at your social media profiles, this seems to be a total fabrication. Go look at @zaibatsu or @atomicpoet. Those guys get social media and how to use it. You don’t. Your profile is spewing about 20 tweets an hour for the same thing. You only interact with a few people (just the ones that seem to be retweeting you and further participating in your spam), and there’s little actual discussion.

I could go on and on. And I will.

It looks like you also do social media “Training & Speaking” and “1 on 1 Consulting”. Judging by your twitter stream, I worry for anybody lining up to take your advice. Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t claim to be a social media expert, myself. I honestly don’t have the time and resources to really dedicate to taking advantage of it, but I’ve got a good grasp on it. The problem with you, though, is that you DO have the time/resources, but they’re going to utter waste.

And there’s a difference between asking for somebody to take a look at some content you found or created, and outright begging for them to spread it as more of a personal favor than actually engaging in any community.

Stuff like this is killing Twitter and Digg.

I hope you don’t take any offense or anything. This isn’t intended to be a personal attack against you. I don’t really know you well enough to make any comments on you as a person, but as a “social media person”, I think you’ve got a lot to learn. You’ve got the ability and the time to dedicate to it, which is great, but by no means would I be putting “Twitter/Social Media Pro” in your Twitter bio just yet.

About five minutes goes by and I see the IM window change between “Chris Voss is typing a message” to “Chris Voss has entered text”. Obviously trying to think of a legitimate comeback.

Voss: No i appreciate you private chat with me on it. I’ll give it consideration. I do do things by design that work for me and are a little differnt than what i advise my international clients. you can see my consulting firm at [LINK REMOVED] I can tell you my programs have been very successful for CEOs and companies I have. Thanks for the input I appreciate it.

What. The. Fuck. It’s like my wall of text had no affect on this dude. He did the online equivalent of looking me in the eye and slapping me right in the face. And managed to push off another link to his services.

For those unfamiliar with #blockmonday on Twitter, please educate yourselves and do your civil duties by blocking @CHRISVOSS.

Social Media Rage reseach: http://digg.com/users/CHRISVOSS/history/submissions

37 of 47 Diggs are self submissions, Most with three Diggs.  Verdict: Chris Voss, not a social media expert.

Anonymous post via SMR Anonymous logon. SocialMediaRage.com not responsible for authorship.

Wow seriously Kanye? You go up on stage and take the mic from a 19 year old girl, during her VMA acceptance and disrespect her like that? What the hell were you thinking?

If you don’t know what happened I invite you to crawl out from what ever rock you are under and check the headlines.

Last night at the MTV Video Music Awards Taylor Swift won for “Best Female Video”. Then Kanye’s dumbass jumps on stage, takes the microphone, and says this award should have gone to Beyonce. Taylor Swift, a 19 year old girl, basically had her moment crushed by a jackass.

Kanye later apologized on his blog. ON HIS BLOG? Who  wrote the apology for him? Had he any guts he would have apologized on stage that night.

Well now people may be wondering what does this have to do with Social Media? He he heh. Kanye is getting trashed on the net right now. Go to Twitter and search the tag #boycottkanye. Yeah, it’s gotten ugly. This isn’t the only thing going on.

Last night on a site that will remain nameless as per Rules 1 and 2, decided to become Facebook fans of Kanye West, once they did they proceeded to call him an a$$hole and some other terrible things.

Kanye you opened up a can of worms. It’s time you realized you should not let your mouth write checks your butt can’t cash.  You, pissed off the internet. I hope you have a good PR rep. This stunt might get you attention, but it’s NOT the kind you want.

Like most Social Media users I spend time trolling comments. Maybe I have misguided issues or as Mark Carras from HeavyasHell.com would say “Subscriptions”, but nothing gets me laughing more than when someone get’s totally butthurt when another users disagrees with them.

Most of the butthurt takes place on political or Apple Vs PC Vs Linux threads. You’ve all seen them. Before to long some some gets butthurt because their comment seems stupid to another user. The butthurt then leads to consistent bickering and whining, and before to long the butthurt user has a whole community burying the butthurt, which cause more butthurt, until the user is curled up in a fetal position rocking back and forth in a corner.  Maybe I am twisted but that shit to me is funny.

People it is the Internet. Butthurt will come and go. Remember trolls are everywhere. No sense in crying and whining about it. Look at it this way. If you feed the trolls you might as well be applying more lube for more butthurt to ensue. If Trolls come let them pass. Or don’t, and let me laugh at your butthurt. Either way, butthurt is butthurt and to someone it is funny.

Check out Neal Rodriguez at NealRodriguez.com/vlog. Follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/notifyneal

Why does all social media have to mean something to a business? Honestly, it is SOCIAL media. There will be SOCIAL things occurring on SOCIAL networks and SOCIAL media sites. Sure, some people will be able to make
social media into a business driver, but it does not need to be that
way for everyone.

Have you listened to conversations in your office lately? I bet that
if you conducted some semi-professional research, you would find that over 40% of all office conversations are pointless babble. “So Mike, what did you do this weekend?” In an office setting this is perfectly reasonable, but it is completely pointless babble. What
about the idea of the “water cooler conversations” or “let’s get a cup of coffee”? If
anything, pointless babble should be eliminated from offices, and fully redirected to social sites. That way, we can all be productive at work, and only a handful of people will need to worry about being completely productive on social media.

Rant Off!

Rob Diana.

Rob Diana is the creator of RegularGeek.com, where programming and Social Media Collide!

But for a long time, I’ve noticed a certain type of commenter on submission threads that we all know, and I’m willing to bet almost all of us despise with a hatred usually reserved for those who kick puppies or steal from the elderly.

That’s right…Unnecessary Political Commenter, or “UPC” for short.

This jackass comes into almost every thread and drops either a long-winded political rant (usually filled with inaccuracies and sometimes outright lies), or makes what they think is an incredibly witty one-liner that is almost always in poor taste and completely off-topic.

Not that they care what the topic is–it can be anything from a movie trailer post to a science post to a LOLcat picture, but there they are with their stupidity and ignorance on display for all the world to see.

I know, I’m supposed to ignore them; but with all the political divisiveness online these days, it’s getting harder to ignore such blatant asshattery because it’s growing and spreading like kudzu. (For those of you unfamiliar with kudzu, use the Google.)

I’m starting to hate them almost as much as spammers, and I REALLY hate spammers. Every time I see this type of commenter on a thread, I have the urge to blast them with a verbal onslaught containing all the festering rage I have, which by the way, is a lot of rage.

So UPC, here’s how it is:

1: There are plenty of political articles for you to comment on. Please find them. (Although this likely won’t make you any less of a horse’s ass, at least you’ll be somewhat on topic.)

2: Very few, if any, people actually care about your political opinions anyway. If we aren’t on a political thread, then that probably means we came to that post to get away from you and your ilk. When you show up with your idiocy, it makes most of us wish for the ability to reach through the screen and bitch slap the shit out of you. (I told you…got a lotta rage.)

3: Your kind is considered to be a troll. Did you not know that? Well, now you do. You’re a troll, plain and simple. FYI, the internet hates you.

And so, finally…

4: SHUT THE FUCK UP OR GET OFF THE INTERNET. Preferably both.

Signed,
kat136