Will they ever fix that damn Axel? Probably not the way it’s looking.

Yesterday Digg.com relaunched into version 4 and it was a massive failure. Publishers and uninformed Digg users flooded Twitter with congratulatory remarks for Kevin Rose and his crew. Those users did not actually try to use the site which constantly crashed,  displayed the “Fail Trail”, as well as crash messages that the crash issue had a probability rating of being a crew members fault.

Digg has sold out, plain and simple. Power users and a huge percentage of the community have voiced disapproval, yet the Digg camp has yet to address their concerns.

I actually received a tweet today from Digg stating Diggv4 is up and now stable, I clicked the link only to be led to a page that stated “Failed to load story”. Yeah I LOL’d.

So today the big social media news and traffic is Digg’s Epically Failed Relaunch, complete with tweets about how people love the new failure screens. At least Digg is finding a way to entertain us through their failure.

But let’s get down to it shall we? Gone is the video section. Gone is the Bury button. Gone is any hope of us really giving a shit about Digg anymore. Publishers now have more traction than the hardcore Digg community. Digg hit a huge number of page views by content found by it’s user base. It was a way for it’s old users to give main stream media the finger and publish news that was relevant or would be overlooked. Once the huge page views started rolling in, Digg basically said “Hey mainstream media, you want a piece of this? Set up an account, plug in your RSS and go!”

This move pretty much destroyed the Power User and the good content that someone could find on Digg. You can’t unfollow a publisher and the “Your News” section section, based on Digg’s recommendation engine, reads like a Google reader on crack.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Digg is going to take a nose dive from this. The good/overlooked content we were used to seeing, will now be replaced by mainstream media’s bullshit.  If ,that is, you can ever get the site to work long enough to view a submission, or even leave a comment.

I never thought I would ever say this but PLEASE BRING JAY ADELSON BACK!

I really used to like Digg, they had made some mistakes in the past but, at least the site was usable and still somewhat enjoyable.

Now the big question; Is Digg going to listen to it’s true community and fix the issues? Probably not. They invested a ton of time and money into the new model and really want it to work. Not to mention they signed a shit load of publishers up for the new launch. They are no longer what they once were. They have become what all it’s users stood against, a big media sellout.

I would love for Digg to prove me wrong and actually hold a Digg dialogue to address this with it’s user base. Prove me wrong Digg, please. Prove me wrong in the sense that you guys do give a shit about your users and NOT the publishers. If you don’t take that step Digg, you lose out. No one is really going to care and the masses will defect to Mixx, Reddit, and other social news sites.

Digg tried way to hard to stay relevant. If they only realized it’s hard core user base was not going to abandon them, they would have had a fighting chance. Now it’s not looking to good for them.

Image Credit “ITTHING.COM”

So where do we go from here? Do we boycott? Do we defect? Do we bitch and moan? My guess is we can complain all we want, but just like any mainstream outlet, they are just not going to care.

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.

Today I noticed in my facebook suggestions that a good friend of mine IRL had finally created an account. After trying to add him, though, he wrote me a message revealing how he mainly intended to use FB for family and very close friends. This of course I was totally cool with, and wrote back as such, but it got me thinking about all the people who become a steaming pile of butthurtedness when others don’t use social media the way they want everyone to use it.

This is what burnt me out about twitter. Back in the day, twitter was actually used to talk about yourself and your life. Now twitter is more of a link sharing service, which I would be fine with if I didn’t have to deal with a bunch of assholes telling me I can’t tweet about my breakfast. Cream of wheat is delicious and nutritious, to hell with you if you don’t find that fascinating; someone on the internet will.

Social media is built with an unparalleled level of versatility and customization. I think that intimidates people who lack intrapersonal strength and security in their identity. So, instead of having the balls to just do what they want regardless of external feedback they seek to control the actions of others so their actions are justified. This makes for a very uncreative echo chamber rather than a social atmosphere of authenticity. That’s why we end up with jackoffs on twitter who complain about my cream of wheat; underneath their bitching and shallow attempts to control is the hollow, bromidic shell of a truly uninspired soul.

So rock on, my antisocial FB friend; you are doing the word a great service by doing your own thing.

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?

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.

Image Credit Aaron Riddle AcRiddle.com

People…for Pete sake, let’s leave Tweet-speak where it belongs, on Twitter. Do you know how many freaking times I have read a blog post in Tweet Speak? It’s getting out of hand.

There is no reason when you describe someone in a blog post to do this: @SilentJay74. Why not do this?: SilentJay74. See how easy that was? Also you saved yourself a keystroke.

I have also seen ridiculous usage of hash-tagging in blog posts. Seriously hash-tagging will do no good except on Twitter. I recently had a good friend of mine join Facebook. That’s cool, but he hash-tagged there. I can forgive him because he was new to Facebook, but lets not Tweet-speak the shit out of Facebook.

Please quit writing blog posts in Tweet-speak, you sound like a bunch of idiots. Your blog has a hell of a lot more than 140 characters. Here’s a novel idea, use the unlimited words on your blog or website!

UPDATE!: THE GUY WHO UPDATED HIS FACEBOOK STATUS DID SO FROM TWEETDECK! TWITTER IS THE BORG EVERYONE IS ASSIMILATING! RUN! RUN!

Above Image Credit goes to Aaron Riddle, Photography, Logo Design and Illustration. Check out his portfolio and his site at ACRiddle.com

Facebook has attracted the dumbasses. I knew it would happen. They click on every app and ad then their PC gets highjacked with a virus that DDOS’s the shit out of Facebook and Twitter and God only knows what else.

Facebook is not Myspace. Quit clicking on sparkly farie gifs and dumbass apps. (Stupid motherfucker sent you a beer. Send one back?) Fuck your beer, fuck your gifs, and fuck you. It’s fucking morons like these that ruin the web for the rest of us.