Day 3 of 100: When Systems Fail

Of course, right after I go dark on social media, my webhost starts having problems. For the past couple of days, service has been spotty, which has no doubt affected your ability to read the posts I’ve been writing.

It’s even more frustrating on my end because I didn’t want to get back on Facebook/Twitter just to communicate server issues. My options were either a) not say anything b) have someone else say something or c) leave it alone.

I chose to leave it alone and logged the dates, but it brought up another realization. While it’s great to have a website, if you have pretty decent traffic and all of a sudden your website goes down — then what? How do you let people know the status? You can’t email everyone but you could send a message out to Twitter and Facebook where it has a better chance of reaching people. No, it may not hit everyone, but shooting out that information would be doing due diligence.

So yeah, in this case my site having troubles lately has nothing to do with Starscream (my computer). Completely random occurrence that just so happened to coincide with going dark. Curses, foiled again!

If you have recommendations for webhosts, please post them in the comments below. Thank you!

About 100 Days: From April 4th to July 13th I’m turning the lights off on Facebook, Twitter and IMs for personal use. Read 100 Days: Turning off the Lights on Social Media for more information. You can also read the 100 Days post archive.

April 6, 2011
Permalink ∞

Day 2 of 100: On News and Sharing Links

I’ve always known intellectually that it’s easier to share links through social media, but I had no idea how quickly that would impact me.

Last night, we had some friends over and they had mentioned this article about how the app pricing model doesn’t work RPGs. Because I hadn’t been on Twitter or Facebook, I didn’t see the article.

Here’s where it got interesting for me.

In a typical day, I would have booted up Twitter or Facebook, looked it up on one of their profiles and then clicked over to the article. Since I made a pledge not to use those tools, now if I want the article I have to do one of three things: a) ask for someone to e-mail me the link b) type in the domain name of the article and manually look for it there or c) use natural search to find it.

Internet http, photo from sxc.huI used natural search and found it pretty quickly, in part because the article was recently published and the domain had good SEO. For articles that haven’t been published in a while that are suddenly popular again? Well, that might get a little more time-consuming because it may not be apparent what the newest or the most popular pages on a website are. Plus, not every website has great SEO. There are some domains I’ve researched for professional reasons that didn’t even rank for their own brand name.

The other interesting thing about getting a link on Twitter or Facebook, is that I don’t need to rely on asking someone to share something with me that they think is cool. By following people I like, admire or want to learn from, I can see what they’re reading without ever developing a face-to-face connection. Sometimes it’s funny; sometimes it’s informative. Regardless, it’s a potpourri of information that points directly where I’d need to go, rather than house all that information on one website and ask me to take a second or third click.

Of course, with some of the advances in the web recently, I’m seeing more and more regular websites integrate with Facebook and Twitter. I’m not a hundred percent sure that’s such a good idea because even though those links come through social media, some of the business-related ones (e.g. products and whatnot) look really fake. I’m of the belief that not every website needs to integrate with social media, especially since it’s a cocktail party. In my experiences, social media works best when it’s “natural” as opposed to “engineered.”

Since I encountered a situation that not only affected me, but forced me to go around social media to find what I’m looking for, I can see the value in these tools is the ease-of-use because it facilitates rapid decision-making. Last week, I would have instinctively known it’s importance not simply based on the one link alone, but the volume of people that were talking, sharing, commenting and interacting with it. While I feel it’s too soon to know if I could recognize that now (e.g. there’s lots of conversations happening all the time about lots of links) the conversation I had isolated the news and not only made it more important to me…but I was more curious about it and wanted to listen because I hadn’t already talked about it to death. The conversation wasn’t a rehash of what happened online; it was new.

Wow, all that from a single link!


About 100 Days: From April 4th to July 13th I’m turning the lights off on Facebook, Twitter and IMs for personal use. Read 100 Days: Turning off the Lights on Social Media for more information. You can also read the 100 Days post archive.

April 5, 2011
Permalink ∞

Day 1 of 100: Starscream, a Curse and Why 100?

*tap, tap, tap* Is this thing on?

So it’s Monday afternoon and I’ve managed to get through the entire day without even thinking about Facebook or Twitter. Well, until writing this post.

I’ve also managed to yell at my computer, which I’ve dubbed “Starscream” — twice. The computer name came from a poll I took last week where people on Twitter and Facebook suggested names and then voted on them. It feels like it was the last “fun” thing I did before going dark and I laugh every time I think about this. My office is decorated with all things geek — including a spectacular set of 80s Transformers illustrations which people didn’t even know I had. To my right I have the original Star Wars fan club poster of the Millenium Falcon, a signed Thor print, Soundwave and Blaster. That doesn’t even begin to cover the collection of things on my desk and the other two walls.

Outside of pouring through the tubes to see reader’s reactions for Paths of Storytelling, I didn’t really use the net for much else this weekend. Reviews… Oh, how I’m wondering what those’ll turn out to be.

ANYWAY. I digress.

So… Where was I, again? Oh yeah, the Curse. You know that saying about how people are wrong on the internet? Well, if Damn You, Autocorrect! is any indication, sometimes people aren’t always wrong. Maybe they posted a typo or maybe they were trying to be sarcastic. Truth is, not everyone is dumb yet, when the Curse strikes, that’s exactly how it feels.

I call it the Curse of Well, Actually. What happens is, is that in our need to get accurate information online, of which there’s sometimes very little, we correct someone using these dreaded words. I’ve done it; others have done it, too. In our desire to find accurate information, though, sometimes this really downplays the person’s intelligence on the other end.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, after I announced the 100 Days experiment I got some interesting feedback. My fiancee, Matt, declared that I’ll be back on by the end of this week. A few people thought one hundred days was a long time to be off of social media; others wanted to track my progress and see what the results were.

The obvious question, of course, is why I chose one hundred days. Well, here’s the interesting thing about that. The reason why I picked that length of time, is because rumor has it it takes that long to learn a new routine. What I want, is to do two things before I even start the rest of my day: work out and work on my novel. Period. I need to do these things regardless of how much time I spend on them and what other commitments I have during the day. Otherwise, Argentum will never get done and I’ll continue to feel like a sea slug, even though I’ve been hitting the vegetables hard.

So that’s the reason behind the length of time. After all, if I want to have a series of novels gracing the shelves of your local bookstore, I have to focus on the work. It sucks, because I do enjoy hearing how everyone else is doing, but there it is. To establish two good habits I need to break a bad one.

– Monica

April 4, 2011
Permalink ∞

100 Day Experiment: Turning the Lights Off on Social Media

I don’t know about you, but lately I feel like I’ve been a little scattered. There’s always something shiny and new online, and there’s no better way to see, hear and share those new and shiny things than through Facebook and Twitter. That’s when I realized: I’m checking Facebook and Twitter before I open up my e-mail. I’m not reading through a website anymore, I’m scanning a headline or a link and making snap judgments. When the political unrest happened here, I spent more time on these interfaces, too. When I had a new release? Same story. I’ve been glued to my computer screen watching reader reactions to Paths of Storytelling for Vampire: the Masquerade.

Light Bulb | Taken by Buckey at sxc.huLately, I feel I’ve been getting news poisoning more easily and I’ve been moodier than usual. (Incidentally, news poisoning is my definition for what happens when people’s moods shift from upbeat to negative after hearing so much bad news.) I hear about all the things going wrong with the world — earthquakes, floods, rebellions, etc. — and I wonder what I (or anyone else, for that matter) can do. It’s overwhelming.

Add any positive news, book releases, business offers, or whatever else on top of that and I head straight into information overload. Now, it’s not: “Hey, social media is this fun thing that allows me to share news and connect with people.” It feels like either I’m connected or I miss out. If I log-in just one day late, I’m obviously not paying attention.

The analyst in me also recognizes that social media, especially when coupled with web analytics, has a built-in reward system. I see instant feedback: traffic, likes, comments, RTs, shares. I see instant validation. But to what end? Well, that’s what I want to find out.

So, I decided to try an experiment that was limited in its scope and manageable on my end. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Rules for the 100 Days Experiment

    Go Dark on Social and IM – No Twitter, no Facebook, no GTalk or Skype unless used for business purposes. My blog and FlamesRising.com automatically feed to my Twitter account, so for all intents and purposes my account will remain active. Same thing with Facebook. I recently bit the bullet and created a Monica Valentinelli on Facebook author page that’s public and assigned an Admin. So, people can still follow my work without me having to log in and approve them as my FB friends.

    Avoid Analytics for Personal Use – Web traffic, sales data, etc. can be its own distraction because it is, in a sense, validation for my efforts. For this 100 days? I don’t want to know how many followers I have, where my work ranks on the various sales lists or how many friends on Facebook are commenting. I am not going to watch what happens to my blog, newsletter or RSS feed traffic either. I’m simply going to shut off the “rewards” until all this is over.

    Focus on Creation and Maintenance, not Consumption – If I want to be an author and sell books, then I need to put most of my efforts into the content creation, rather than the consumption, category. As a creator, I already don’t watch a lot of television. For this jaunt, though, I’m going to limit visual media (video games, movies, TV); I won’t have it on while I’m working and will only use it when I’m taking a break. I’ll probably explore this further in an upcoming post. I’m also going to put more work into my blog. Part of my reasoning behind this is explained below; the other part is that I own this website. I don’t “own” Twitter or Facebook which, for a writer, is dangerous.

    Utilize my Blog for Accountability – One of the things that’s worked for me in the past, is to have a mini-goal that serves the purpose of accountability. Did I create that day? If I force myself to report my creative activities and personal goals, then I’m going to accomplish them because someone on the other end of the line will hold me to it. In my experiences, the best way to achieve this would be to blog more frequently than I have been. After going back-and-forth, comments will be open and moderated. If you want to, you will be able to read about my observations. It won’t all be serious, I’m sure.

    These Rules are for Personal Use – If a widget is broken and I need to test it? If a company throws millions of dollars at me and I need to engage? If a gaming company or publisher asks me to do a scheduled chat? The idea of a hundred days is for my personal, rather than professional, use. Otherwise it will hinder–rather than free–me. Can’t have that happen.

    Rely on E-mail to Communicate – Often, people will talk to me about a review on Twitter or ask me for a favor on Facebook. While I’m happy to oblige and help out where I can, because we’re all just slogs here, I feel this is also contributing to my information overload. To be clear: it’s not that I feel anyone is doing anything wrong, this may be part of my desire to be connected and never take a break.

    E-mail is more manageable for me because of the way that I organize it. So, for this 100 days I’m opting to use that as my primary form of internet communication again.

What’s freaking me out a little, is that on the internet? A hundred days is a long, long time. If seven years on the internet take place for every one year in real life, then this experience will be the equivalent of two and a half online years of reduced interaction. I have absolutely no idea what, if any, effect this will have on my online reputation or presence. I’m a little worried that I’m going to fall back into obscurity, since I’ve made several new personal and professional connections through social media, but the only way to know for sure is to experiment. So, I guess the appropriate thing to say is… Wish me luck!

The 100 days begins on Monday, April 4th, 2011 and ends on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011.

April 2, 2011
Permalink ∞
Previous Posts




Looking for Monica’s books and games that are still in print? Visit Monica Valentinelli on Amazon’s Author Central or a bookstore near you.

Archives

Back to Top