FIREFLYFANS.NET on Twitter
POSTED BY: Haken
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 07:36
VIEWED: 8734
PAGE 2 of 2
Well, yeah, there's that, theoretically they'd be fools not to exploit such an obvious hook, but in practice you can't help but laugh.
Just like they did many of the cults and their "influence" techniques mentioned elsewhere, the alphabet soup guys helped bankroll some of the original social networking sites so they could watch and take notes.
I don't consider that inherently malicious, since part of the job of many of them does involve trying to understand social psychology, and I think they're pretty far behind the curve due to inability to understand things outside their own structure though.
Other than the occasional absolute moron, like that guy in PA who got busted for trying to direct folk around the kettling attempts during the G20 fiasco, really there's less nefarious purpose to than than folks assume.
What's ever more annoying is the plethora of amateurs with the same idea, from marketing shills, to would be private eyes, nosy employers, pissed off ex's, and propagandists of all stripe, pump n dump penny stockers, you name it, and all wasting their time for the most part because contrary to the theory expressed by one poster (who also suggested using Twitter for activism, and look what it got that moron in PA, eh ?) that you can "reach" people with a cut down trim-to-fit message.
You can't - problem with Twitter especially is that you mostly ain't talking TO people, you're talkin AT them, which is a different thing, and you see this often enough in the real world that I think it's a substantial source of a lot of interpersonal communication problems and misunderstandings.
It lacks the deeper connection of an actual conversation, even one carried out in the patient fashion traditionally founded by usenet, that we engage in here - that's not to say such things are without use, I know a high volume auto dealer who uses it for updating their selection and daily specials, and that works out pretty well - but for human communication, it removes the humanity that makes such communication WORK properly.
Interesting thing, also about that auto dealer, is that it does, conversely, allow human-to-nonhuman conversation to work - while most of the bots are just marketing shills and badly done scripts, they have a pretty smart one that will answer questions regarding vehicles in inventory and it has a pretty good design behind it, it'll pull the carfax if available for you, explain trim packages in detail, quote kelly blue book values, give you an estimate of your trade-in, even direct you to some payment and insurance estimate calculators, while offering various selling points on the vehicle you're interested in, like high relative reliability or good fuel mileage...
In fact, you could say "Nate" is almost as good as a human salesman, since he's available 24-7 and will get neither impatient or offended, and for a fact he's less pushy than they are.
So it's not without use, it's just mostly used so poorly, is all.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Thats nice, but I hate all social networking sites and won't use them, but if it helps great!
Chaplain of the 76th Independant Battalion
Do not bother dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!
...it's worse than you know...Operative
...it usually is.....Mal
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME