Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
Maybe there is a point where technology ceases to make life easier/better/prettier. I think we’re there. The first person to think “Hey, let’s add a camera feature to a cellphone” probably didn’t have Rep. Anthony Weiner in mind when he thought a camera and phone would be a good combination. And heaven knows Twitter wasn’t around at the time.
But maybe the phone’s camera isn’t the problem. I assume Weiner took his elicit photos with a cellphone camera, right? I mean, he couldn’t have spent more than two seconds thinking this was a good idea, right? It had to be spontaneous (judging from the lack of creativity, right?) Taking a photo of yourself with a digital camera would take too many steps, thus allowing him at some point to say, “Hey this is a stupid idea.”
Anyway, camera phones have been pretty useful in capturing criminals, riots, Middle East uprisings, etc., so l am going to give them a pass for now. But I feel the need to throw some blame around, so let’s continue.
We are told from the movies that Facebook was born out of a college guy’s drunken attempt to get back at a girl with some “hot or not” website. So right away we know that Facebook was built on the premise of alcohol, technology and short messages, mixed with some teen angst and sexism. Is it any surprise that those ingredients would lead to people getting fired from jobs for posting too-sexy pictures of themselves, or worse, their colleagues, on the site? Because everyone knows some Facebook friends are actually friends and some are not, right?
Twitter is a logical extension of that, only with shorter messages to “followers,” who don’t even pretend to be “friends.” And here I think is the main problem. The phrase “social-networking” is an oxymoron. See, social is fun. It can involve some crazy stuff. (But after age 25, perhaps no risque pictures, which some people don’t seem to get.) Networking is designed to get you ahead, in business, in life, in politics, etc. It can be fun, but most likely if you are doing it properly, it shouldn’t be that fun. The most you should end up with at the end of the night is a few more business cards and some LinkedIn connections that you can use when you’re fired because your BFF from sixth grade posted some Facebook pics of you with a controlled substance and you work at the controlled-substance abuse facility.
But beyond people using social networks, businesses have decided they needed to socially network. Because businesses are fun, too. Someone in crazy Cali is tweeting the entire California Public Service Commission’s meeting as I write this. They regulate utilities – utilities that use technology that their very own proponents will tell you has not changed in 100 years. Are the utilities re-tweeting the CPUC’s tweets to their customers? It’s madness, I tell you.
Experts in social networking and in HR departments will tell you to have separate sites: one for business and one for personal use. You see, the two should not know each other. They should not talk and they should not share photos. It’s a simple strategy, but one very few people probably follow. Rep. Weiner did not. In the aftermath of the scandal, stories started showing up in the media about how a simple typing error likely caused Weiner’s photo to be sent to everyone.
(And can we spend a minute talking about the aftermath of the scandal: Bill Clinton officiated Weiner’s wedding, his wife is a friend of Hillary, his wife is pregnant (there are several levels of hell for that violation), his wife has known about his six online relationships since before they were married and he has not ended them (more hell and even more hell for not shutting the hell up about his wife. Shut up about the wife, people. Let her have some dignity by saying this is not about her, it’s about you. Do NOT make her look like an idiot for marrying you. She already knows that. But I digress …)
But maybe it’s not the technology or typing mistake that is the problem. Maybe it’s the people. So here, straight from the MTV Movie Awards earlier this week, is a little advice from Reese Witherspoon. (And is it a sad state of affairs when one writes that a U.S. senator should be taking advice from someone on an MTV awards show?) Anyway, here is Witherspoon’s advice: “When I came up in this business, if you made a sex tape, you were embarrassed and you hid it under your bed. … And if you took naked pictures of yourself on your cell phone, you hide your face, people! Hide your face!”
Maybe Reese could go around giving etiquette classes to lawmakers and others on the dangers of technology. Courses could include “The dangers of drunk dialing/texting.” “Why sexting is never a good idea.” “Sending naked photos of yourself can land you in jail.” The possibilities are limitless.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
Lost in all of the Weiner scandal was Apple’s announcements from its Worldwide Developers Conference, which is best told by this video:
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at: tford@rcrwireless.com.
