ODonnellWeb

I get the feeling that her publisher titled the book, as “How to do nothing” is not a descriptive title. I was expecting a how-to book more along the lines of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. Instead …

Viral on Twitter

Posted on 07/29/2019 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Twitter

In my 12 years on Twitter I've gone viral twice. The first time was 2015 and it was a stupid Dilbert cartoon. At least this time I added a line of my own commentary to a retweet. My tweets self-destruct after 14 days so this is mostly just to save …

Fake Instagram Influencers

Posted on 12/19/2018 in misc • Tagged with Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

Way back in the day when blogs ruled the Internet getting admitted to the BlogAds network was kind of a big deal. It meant that you could start to make some cash from ads on your blog, and it meant your blog mattered at some level since advertisers were willing …

Trace A Stream

Posted on 12/06/2018 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Facebook, Twitter

Screenshot of Trace A Stream Website

Today is Throwback Thursday, so I'm going old school and sharing a link the way we used to do it back in the olden days before Facebook and Twitter. Going viral back then meant hundreds or thousands of people independently deciding to write about your blog post on the same …

Don't Boost The Trolls

Posted on 10/16/2018 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Twitter

Picture of trolls

On Mastodon, the "retweet" feature is called boost, and it has no capability for you to add commentary. This means if you boost something to your followers, you are amplifying the message. There is no mechanism for the user to boost something while providing commentary on it. This means almost …

The Internet Needs To End

Posted on 09/05/2018 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Facebook, Twitter

Photo of endoftheinternet.com

I was reading the news online recently and realized something. I've been making an effort to get my news from the local paper via their online edition. By online edition I mean a digital representation of the day's newspaper, not the website. I literally flip through the pages, just like …

McNamara's Fallacy

Posted on 04/29/2018 in misc • Tagged with Business, Facebook, Twitter

Help Wanted sign

The entire attention economy is based on the idea that "engagement" (whatever that is) has some monetary value. Likes and favorites are worth something, and thus brands are willing to spend big bucks on Twitter and Facebook ads. Well, some brands. Proctor & Gamble is not convinced.

What if the entire …

The Attention Economy

Posted on 04/29/2018 in misc • Tagged with Business, Facebook, Twitter

Help Wanted sign

What if the entire …

City

Posted on 03/02/2018 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Books

City Book Cover

I read City by Clifford Simak recently. If you haven't read it, it is a dystopian cold war era novel in which man abandons the cities due to fear of nuclear war. Society breaks down as everybody lives in isolation, population dwindles, and eventually most humans abandons the earth, leaving …

The Problem With Algorithms

Posted on 02/18/2018 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Medtronic

Algorithms

Facebook's algorithms are in the news a lot these days, and with good reason. But this isn't about Facebook. I've been thinking about algorithms in general lately. This has been brought on by my wife's insulin pump, the Medtronic 670G. It's the first closed loop pump approved by the FDA …

Social Media Still Sucks

Posted on 02/08/2018 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Facebook, Twitter

social media still sucks

It's been about 5 months since The Great Facebook Unfollowing. If you are wondering how its going, you probably aren't subscribed to my newsletter, as the evils of Facebook and social media are pretty much a weekly occurrence in it. I don't miss Facebook. At all.

I haven't quit completely …

SECRETS ARE LIES- SHARING IS CARING - PRIVACY IS THEFT

Posted on 06/21/2017 in misc • Tagged with Books, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Google

The Circle

SECRETS ARE LIES
SHARING IS CARING
PRIVACY IS THEFT

That is the mantra of The Circle, the fictional but all too plausible social media company that destroys Facebook, Twitter, Google and Instagram in the social media game in the Dave Eggers novel, The Circle. (It was also just released as …

Is Twitter Direct Mail for Attention?

Posted on 05/21/2017 in misc • Tagged with Internet, Twitter

Is Twitter Direct Mail

I was clicking around Twitter earlier today and I ended up on my analytics page, which I never look at because Twitter is entertainment for me, and as long as I'm entertained my ROI > 0. My Twitter stats indicate the following over the last month.

1.5% engagement rate on …

Are You Tired Yet?

Posted on 02/01/2017 in misc • Tagged with Politics, Internet, Facebook, Twitter

Puppies

We are less than two weeks into the reign of Trump the Orange. How are you holding up? I'm pretty much exhausted. This is a quick, off the-top-of-my-head list of the things that are causing me to wake up 2 or 3 times a night.

Will I be able to …

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