I could write to you the laundry list of excuses I’ve (cleverly) come up with to explain my lack of blogging. I work too much, I watch too much TV, my fingers were cut off in an act of Chinese terrorism… But I’ll spare you. I’m lazy. I would rather turn on the Bachelorette and sit on the couch with a bowl of cereal than take 15 minutes to say what up to y’all. It’s not that I don’t like you or blogging for that fact, I’m just a bum.

So, I’m sorry blogosphere. I’m sorry readers. I’m sorry for taking such long hiatuses between posts. I’m sorry for depriving you of posts to not care about on a more regular basis. Blame it on me.

It all changed when I changed… to iPhone. I’ll spare you the harp music, clouds rolling in, sun-shining-brighter-than-ever-before analogies that correspond with my switching to the iPhone… (But let me just say, I heard some pretty lovely harp music and saw some pretty freakin’ bright rays of sun the moment I touched this phone.) So, I guess to be accurate it was about four days into my iPhone love affair when some dude (@audette) rolls in talking about his new obsession with foursquare. I sheepishly admitted to not really being in to it and then thought wow, I can’t let this dude one-up me in social media – I better give this thing a shot.

So here I am, two days later (yea it only takes about one afternoon to become thoroughly addicted to the phenomenon that is foursquare), finding myself showing up to venues two minutes early so I can check-in, adding venues I frequent so I can make a run for mayor, diligently trying to oust @Audette as mayor of AudetteMedia Headquarters and pretty much finding any and every excuse I can to run errands so I can check-in at my favorite places.

It’s not only a fun, new social media obsession. I am a better person because of foursquare. Foursquare has made me:

1. Early to work and other activities – I find myself needing to be early everywhere to “check-in” and subsequently look like the go-getter at gym class, workaholic at the office or lunch-rush-beater that I am in fact not.

2.    Social – I get pretty stoked to see other people that might be in the same location as me. I want to meet them, exchange witty banter about how we both use foursquare and become lifelong friends.

3.    An insider – foursquare, or rather foursquare users, give me tips about the places I’m visiting. They might tell me to order one type of coffee over another, or how to find a good deal. They might tell me to avoid the lunch special because it’s gross. I wouldn’t know any of this without foursquare and I am now more valuable to myself and others because of it.

4.    That much closer to a becoming a social media guru – I wasn’t using foursquare, I was pouting in the corner with no badges or mayor titles to speak of, and now I am checking in at multiple venues throughout the day, communicating with other foursquare users and blogging about it here. I don’t know everything about social media, and I won’t claim to, but I know a lot… maybe more than you, and I feel that much closer to being a “social media guru” for having branched out to try something I was scoffing at, just to realize I look like an idiot for scoffing. Try foursquare. It’s good.

So many bloggers, business owners and general internet dwellers out there are playing the numbers game. The more I tweet, the more I automate, the more I push myself on people the greater gain I will get in return. While a lot of followers, participation and fans of your stuff is great and all, you’re nowhere without engaging them.

Are you sitting there, reading this and thinking “but my marketing/social media/branding manager said I need to reach X amount of followers by X date”? Yeah, I know lots of people out there are running to get to a finish line where the numbers tell their success story. The problem with this is at the end of the race your trophy is just filled with a bunch of people who know a big fat nothing about you… And you kind of look like a pig.

What you need to do is make a plan. If your plan includes participating in social media, in any way, whether it be for your business, personal use or whatever, then decide to do unto others as you wish them to do unto you. Or however that goes. We all hate the teeth whitening tweeters, auto DMers, nonsensical bloggers and annoying Facebookers. So don’t be one of them.

Get out there and really communicate what you’re all about. Be open, transparent and oh snap, real. Be authentically awesome. Because if I don’t think you’re awesome just for having a butt load of followers or hammering my Google reader with posts you’ve written in seven minutes while eating your bagel, the people you think you’re engaging probably don’t care either.

Don’t get me wrong, those of you that do a lot with real, quality output I’m proud of you. We should all be like you. But if you can’t commit to quality engagement online, step back and reevaluate why you’re there in the first place. Your 600 followers will appreciate your funny, informative, original tweets much more than 10,500 spammers ever would.

I am smack dab in the middle of a full blown romance with Google Chrome. I’m currently operating Chromium OS, the open-source project behind the Google Chrome browser and I’m searching with unbeatable speed, pages are loading before I can blink my eyes and the plug-ins, minimal browser interface and seamless video streaming is a dream.

Between Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, and now Chrome how is one to choose a browser? Well a.) don’t choose IE… Although as recently as two years ago, almost half of you people poking around the interwebs used Internet Explorer 6.0—the slowest, jankiest, most security-flawed browser on the market. Phew, now that that’s off my chest – I’m gonna say you’re left with Firefox, Safari and Chrome to choose from (Opera – Who? What is that? Who cares? Oh that’s right no one’s really cared since 1996). Nevermind the PC vs. Mac browser debate… And since Safari is a Mac-based browser let’s just skip right over that one too.

All these browser programmers have been competing for speed, stability and intuition for quite some time. Firefox by Mozilla is constantly updating and improving and without a doubt it’s a fantastic browser. Great for speed, great for stability and a pretty intuitive interface (not to mention great add-ons, applications and powerful tools.) Firefox is flexible and the perfect back-up browser.

On to the love affair…

Chrome is addictively fast… I find myself opening new web pages to see how quickly they will load and drooling over the speed at which I can transition between tabs and windows. Chrome is the first browser to keep its processes separated – each tab is given individualized access to your computer’s resources. What?! That means that if one open tab encounters an error, the rest of your browsing session remains intact – that’s right! No more “Oops, this is embarrassing – Please wait while we restore the 24 tabs and 6 important projects you had open” messages.

With Chrome you can Google (that is the new term for “search” right?) right from the address bar. It’s the best way to navigate the web. Chrome will give you search results right in the search bar with drop downs to pretty much everything you might have been looking for. With Chrome you can sync your bookmarks directly from whatever sub-par browser you are using now and Chrome even offers Greasemonkey scripts and sweet add-ons.

In a nutshell: Google Chrome is better than your browser and you should probably get on it right now. Let your own love affair begin…

@shitmydadsays – My dad says messed up shit all the time. It’s good to know someone else’s does too. By tweeting otherwise useless, but hilarious things that come out of the mouth of a 73-year-old man, @shitmydadsays has effectively entertained nearly 1 million followers in 2009.

Whopper Sacrifice – Ditch 10 friends get a free whopper? Don’t mind if I do! The promotion caught on and tens of thousands of Facebook users rapidly ditched their so-called “friends” for free burger coupons. Crispin Porter + Bogusky, representing Burger King, really stepped it up when removed friends got a message stating you’ve “been sacrificed for a Whopper”. The promotion has since been killed, but it sure fired up the first part of 2009 for social media.

Celebrity obituaries – I found out about Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter. I saw Facebook updates informing me Farrah Fawcett had passed away. And I learned that Brittany Murphy died from Twitter reports… Along with the rest of a pool of other celebs that passed in 2009. Twitter has reported the deaths and given friends, family, fans and fellow celebs a place to publicly mourn. Not to mention online streaming video of Michael Jackson’s funeral… But I won’t get into that one.

Susan Boyle – YouTube helped thrust Susan Boyle, an unemployed church volunteer, into the limelight with a video of her singing on Britain’s Got Talent. She went on to sell records, get a high profile makeover and even be featured on Access Hollywood. FTW!

Ashton Kutcher breaks 1 million followers – After a highly publicized race with CNN actor Ashton Kutcher became the first Twitter member to reach 1 million followers. How or why this happened I will never know. When was the last time Ashton Kutcher did anything worth following? #truckerhatsareover

Dominos FAIL – This is how Dominos rolls: They put snot in their sandwiches. And fart on the salami. And we all saw it streaming across YouTube. I bet hiring the high college student picking his nose in the interview isn’t looking like such a bright decision now, eh?

Hudson plane crash – The TwitPics, Tweets and Facebook updates heard round the world. Sarasota resident Janis Krums snapped and tweeted a photo of the miracle landing of a plane into the Hudson River “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”

The United States of Obama – The Obama election campaign was arguably the best social media campaign of 2009. While they didn’t invent anything new, they did pioneer the social media for politics movement. By bolting together social networking applications, both niche and mainstream under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get the vote.