I’m especially enamored with the idea of writing letters to people who should never read them, and I enjoy reading letters never sent – it’s a juicy form of voyeurism.

Have you ever had so much to say to someone but couldn’t tell that person? Have you ever written a letter to someone and then ripped it into tiny pieces? Have you ever addressed another person in a diary or journal entry?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you’re in luck! The Internet makes it easy for you to write anonymous notes to people who will probably never guess you are writing about them.

Blogger Anna from Shmitten Kitten writes:

I just want to complain about you to the anonymous masses in a place you’ll never see it. Is that too much to ask? Maybe I gotta take this complaining business underground. I need a Fight Club situation where me and a bunch of people can all go and complain about people without them ever finding out who did it.

Here are a few websites where you can post your own anonymous notes and read other letters-never-sent:

Dear Old Love: By e-mailing dearoldlove(at)gmail.com, readers can submit one -sentence notes intended for former lovers. Notes range from nostalgic to angry to heartbreaking and even demanding.

Every day, the editors post (and cleverly title) approximately 10 new notes. What I love about reading these short posts is the chance to “read between the lines” – what takes just seconds to read gives me fuel for my mind to wander for a few minutes. I like to imagine the people writing the notes and also the intended recipients. Sometimes, the notes even read like poems.

If you want to carry your voyeurism with you, you should know that some of the best posts from Dear Old Love have been compiled in a book of the same name.

Ex Boyfriend Dead Letter Office (mentioned in Shmitten Kitten post from above): Similar to Dear Old Love, Ex Boyfriend Dead Letter Office accepts short letters to ex-boyfriends. My favorite thing about this website is the editors post a picture of a stud-muffin celebrity namesake with each note.

Secret Tweet: Secret Tweet is unique because it functions as a blog and also as a Twitter account. You can submit a confession in 140 characters or less, and Secret Tweet will post the confession to the website and Twitter. Characterized by a number, each tweet is completely anonymous.

One has to wonder if bored Internet users are simply submitting ridiculous stories to be considered as Secret Tweets. However, that possibility is what makes the site interesting to me; you will never know if the tweet is true or false, and you can’t help but wonder about the people submitting them (crazy enough to perform some of these acts and possibly even crazier to imagine them).

Following the Secret Tweet account is fun because, every once in a while, a confession will appear in your Twitter stream and catch your attention – these tweets are usually very different from other things people are tweeting.

Letters to Dead People: Celine Song creates designs graphical, black and white letters to dead people, and she posts these letters on her tumblr. In a letter to the living people who read her blog, Celine writes, “It is also really fascinating to me how wildly misunderstood some of these letters are or how some people passionately disagree with me.”

By composing original letters to famous dead people like Shel Silverstein, Adolf Hitler, and James Joyce, Celine reveals more about herself than she does about the dead person. Obviously, everyone would have their own questions that they would want to ask a dead person, if they had the opportunity.

Do you know of any similar websites? Please share links in the comments.

(Photo by internets_dairy)

I blame software like tweet adder and lazy social media marketing managers who run corporate or small business Twitter accounts.

I have managed several small business accounts but have never used tweet adder. However, I’m pretty sure it works with Satan’s charm.

From what I understand, tweet adder will take over your twitter account and automatically follow anyone in a certain location or people who tweet specific keywords. For example, if you operate a business selling jewelry, you can pre-select keywords like “necklaces”, “earrings”, and “bracelets”.

If I tweet, “Wow, I love this Twitter hashtag necklace!”, tweet adder follow me with your jewelry business account.

The problem?

This same automated account would follow me if I wrote, “I hate necklaces! If you mention the word necklace to me, I will rage!”.

It’s gotten to the point that I can expect automated accounts to follow me when I tweet certain words like “bargain”, “anxiety”, “prescription”, and “marketing”. As you might imagine, spammers and anyone selling a get-rich-quick scheme are most likely to use tools like tweet adder. The people who expect instant gratification from social networking are completely missing the point.

Here’s one timely example from the Twitter auto-follow hall of shame: the @SaveABC7 account.

If you live in the New York City metro area, and you are a Cablevision customer, then you know about the Cablevision/ABC-7 dispute. Basically, the Walt Disney Company removed ABC from Cablevision’s system after Cablevision refused to meet some demands. If you’re not from around here, you can read all about this shitshow online.

On Saturday, my friend Ross tweeted:

I really wish Cablevision, ABC, Scripps Network, et al would just settle their hissy fits without broadcasting their propaganda at me.

I replied:

@LosapNJ Yeah, the Cablevision wars are getting old.

About five minutes after I posted this tweet, the @SaveABC7 account started following me. If the person manning this account had actually read my tweets, they probably would have reconsidered the follow.

I shared the news with Ross:

@LosapNJ IMMEDIATELY after I tweeted about Cablevision, the @saveabc7 account started following me…

The same happened to him:

@ryssiebee Same here! They oughta do a context check before following. Bleh.

Social media marketing is about creating relationships, the same way you create relationships in real life. In real life, you wouldn’t just go up to every brunette female and ask her to be your friend if you had already been successful in making one female brunette friend. Each woman is different.

On Twitter, you can’t assume anything about a person just because they are tweeting a word or phrase. Using Twitter search CAN be a great way to find people to follow, but a REAL PERSON has to use it intelligently.

I understand that @SaveABC7 was trying to find new followers as quickly as possible, but the person manning the account could have searched Twitter for words like ABC and Cablevision and then actually scanned each person’s Twitter stream to determine whether or not following that person would be a good idea.

Marketing people might think they’re taking a calculated risk by using tools like tweet adder, but they’re probably annoying more people than helping them.

(Photo by Howdy, I’m H. Michael Karshis)

I promised myself that, upon my return from San Francisco, I would throw even more of my heart and my soul into my side projects, which means blogging here every day, reviving Too Shy to Stop (we already have three new articles scheduled for publication!), and tackling the revision process for “The Prescribed Burn”, my fiction manuscript.

The last thing on this list is probably the most difficult for me, but I am going help myself by taking advantage of two things I already do well: blogging and sharing via social media.

After some thought (not too much), I decided to make use of two domain names that I already own: LaryssaWrites.com and ThePrescribedBurn.com. I set both URLs to point to a Wordpress blog where I am going to post revisions/additions of my manuscript, which is currently approx. 60,000 words in length.

Yeah.

I need to get serious about revising this thing. I have already gone through the whole manuscript twice: once because I had to make it decent enough to submit as my grad school thesis and again because I changed the perspective from third to first person. I have also added a lot of content since May 2009, when I graduated.

Though I feel the story is in the right place, I don’t really like the writing. The language and artfulness of the manuscript is not up to my personal standards; this was not a priority during my first few revisions because I wanted to get the structure right before I focused on the details.

On my new blog, which you can follow most weekdays (new content at 10 AM, just like with Comma ‘n Sentence), I will post very small chunks of the manuscript, revised with close attention to detail, language, and syntax.

In grad school, I would write “harder” because I knew that someone was always holding me accountable. Without that extra push, I have difficulty focusing on what I know I need to do. Dear readers, won’t you be my extra push?

I am completely aware that sharing my work in this way may change the way my completed manuscript will be received in the future, but I’m willing to take a risk; I feel the payoff will be much greater in the long run.

In an essay (read it – it’s good!) from The New York Review of Books about the future of book publishing, author Jason Epstein writes:

The difficult, solitary work of literary creation, however, demands rare individual talent and in fiction is almost never collaborative. Social networking may expose readers to this or that book but violates the solitude required to create artificial worlds with real people in them.

I don’t know where this experiment will lead me, and I may terminate it if I feel that the results are detrimental to my creative process. For now, I remain positive and hope you will follow me on my journey to create a work of art. As always, your feedback and constructive criticism is more than welcome. Love.

Jet-setting to San Francisco made me wonder: how did I ever get around before the Internet? My brother and I were so dependent on our free wireless connection and BlackBerries that I couldn’t imagine traveling without them, at least not as efficiently.

If you are planning a trip, and you use social media, I highly recommend that you casually mention your plans on Twitter and/or Facebook. My mom gets mad at me for doing this because she thinks that, if people know I am traveling, they will try to rob my house while I’m gone.

While I understand her point (see: “PleaseRobMe: Plea to Reevaluate Tweets“), I think the potential benefits of sharing your (vague) plans outweigh the potential risks. Obviously, you don’t have to tell everyone where you’re staying, but definitely mention that you are visiting a city within a certain time frame.

You will be pleasantly surprised. Your friends might see that you are traveling and recommend that you visit a certain place. Long-lost friends that you didn’t even know moved to that city might get in touch with you. Maybe your Twitter friends will suggest a real-life meeting or “tweet up”.

My Internet adventure started when I booked my hotel on Travelocity. We booked the hotel at the last minute, but Travelocity, used in conjunction with Google Maps, was very helpful. Our hotel, the Radisson in Fisherman’s Wharf, was one of the first results in a San Francisco search. Seeing the favorable reviews, I typed the location into Google Maps and searched for even more reviews – nearly every review mentioned the hotel’s excellent location and clean rooms. Perfect.

Without a second thought, I reserved the room.

Shortly after deciding that my brother and I were going to visit San Francisco, I started tweeting about my plans, and @onlyinsf replied to me:

@ryssiebee @aswirst Let me know if you have any specific interests. I’d love to pass along recommendations. http://budurl.com/5g3r

I told the person manning the @onlyinsf account when I would be traveling and that we were interested in arts and music. They replied:

@ryssiebee You’re coming right at the end of the Noise Pop Festival: http://budurl.com/dnwn Let me dig around for a few more ideas too.

And again:

@ryssiebee @aswirst Also check out some sights and restaurants in the Haight-Ashbury district: http://budurl.com/qtum

How cool! I wanted to check out both the Noise Pop Festival and the Haight-Ashbury district. I found out that The Magnetic Fields were playing on March 1st, the first night we would be in San Francisco and the last night of the Noise Pop Festival. However, the show was sold out. I tried looking for tickets on Craigslist and tweeted about my efforts.

One of my regular Twitter friends, someone who I have never met in person, told me that he might be able to get tickets. I was so excited! I said I was interested, and my friends said that yes, he could definitely get tickets for me. I called him, gave him my credit card information (don’t do this unless you trust your source), and he e-mailed me a receipt. When we arrived at the show at the Herbst Theater, our tickets were available at will call.

Using Google Maps on the night of the show, we found out that city bus #47 stopped right outside our hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf and directly outside of the theater. Google Maps told us exactly how long it would take and which bus number we would need to catch. I love using public transportation in strange cities, and this method made it so easy and convenient to get to the concert for only $4 (round trip).

Throughout our stay in San Francisco, Google Maps also let us know when public transportation wasn’t always the best option. To visit the Golden Gate Bridge from our hotel, we would have to make a bus transfer and walk pretty far. For a four-mile trip, the ride would take about an hours. Instead, we opted to take a double-decker bus tour that took us over the bridge and through some famous neighborhoods (we even saw the Painted Ladies from the opening credits of Full House).

I BBMed and text-messaged a picture I took of the Full House house to a lot of friends. My friends Christine had been wanting me to visit the famous house so I felt so happy that I could instantly BBM her the picture.

That night, in Union Square, we had no idea where to eat. We stumbled upon a Mac store and used a MacBook to browse the San Francisco Menupages. Using reviews posted online and keeping Google Maps open in a new browser tab, we found a restaurant just a few blocks away called Millennium, which we would have never found were it not for the Internet access in the Mac store.

Facebook was great for sharing photos and video with my mom, who just recently joined Facebook. She also admitted she was “stalking” my Twitter account to see what my brother and I were doing (I left out the parts when we went to the strip club…just kidding!). With the free wireless connection and my Facebook account, I was able to post pictures to share with my friends, and my mom, who was dying to know how much fun we were having.

The Internet and social media absolutely enhanced our trip. Have you used social media in innovative ways while traveling? Share in the comments!

“I got the idea for the event when I was looking around the web and saw that someone had organized a counter-protest of the same church’s protest of my former high school and the Holocaust Museum in Richmond. I couldn’t believe how many people were involved (over 200!) and it really inspired me that so many people were coming together to take a public stand against this hate group,” said Bridget.

She assumed that only her close, politically left-leaning friends would be interested in attending the counter-protest, but The Sexist (from Washington City Paper) blogger Amanda Hess heard about Bridget’s event and linked to the Facebook page in a blog post.

“I know using ‘funny signs’ to combat a hate group seems a little silly, but it actually speaks to (what I perceive as) the goals for the event. The members of the Westboro Baptist ‘Church’ are clearly insane. There’s no need to try to counter their insanity with logic or try to engage them politically,” said Bridget. “I hope the use of humor and funny signs will show everyone just how absurd their message is. Laughing at them and encouraging others to do the same seems like a more effective way to deal with their hateful message.”

Yesterday, Bridget asked me how she could promote her event beyond the Facebook event page and the City Paper link.

Some easy ways to publicize the event, especially at the last minute, would be to sign up for free event-promotion websites like Eventbrite and Upcoming. She can use Paperless Post to design invitations and e-mail them to her friends. Some people even use Craigslist to publicize events.

Bridget’s event was already listed on Washington City Paper, but she might want to reach out to other local websites and newspapers. Many local news and entertainment sites have pages devoted to event listings, and they attract readers looking for events. If she’s feeling ambitious, she could even try contacting The Washington Post.

Bridget could also contact local bloggers. DCist, Wonkette, and DC Concierge are three popular DC-centric blogs. A quick Google search for DC blogs (she could even search for gay rights blogs) will turn up a lot of results. Using blog-specific search engines like Technorati and Google Blog Search can help her find bloggers who are writing about DC-related things.

Most bloggers, especially on more popular sites, will list their contact information. Then, Bridget would have to craft a creative e-mail (press release style) and convince the bloggers why they should devote a post to her event. They probably frequently receive e-mails from PR people so Bridget should really focus on making sure her e-mail stands out from others.

Anyway, I wish Bridget the best of luck. If you are in the DC metro area on Wednesday, you should join her counter-protest! I can guarantee you will have a good time.

Said Bridget, “I just want the gay couples who are getting married on Wednesday to know that, save for a couple of crazies, the district is on their side and supports their love.”

(Photo by Burstein!)

According to the formspring website, users can “send and receive anonymous questions, and learn more about people you find interesting by following their answers.” As I understand it, formspring is most popular with people who use tumblr. A few months ago, I noticed that some of my favorite tumblr bloggers were taking anonymous questions from readers.

Because I am obsessed with all things social media, I was intrigued by formspring. However, I was sure that the tool  encouraged navel-gazing; I didn’t think I knew enough people who would even bother asking me questions, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer unsolicited questions online.

I was also turned off by formspring’s reputation. The writers at Get Off My Internets, a website I frequently visit, do not believe that individuals should create formspring accounts. In this post, “partypants” wrote:

“I think it shows a level of narcissism that even twitter can’t match. I really hate how everyone suddenly has questions about themselves popping up on their tumblrs from I suppose random readers of their…tumblrs. Ya know, because having a blog where you write about yourself day in and day out just isn’t enough; now we need to get strangers to help us perfect the skill of exposing ourselves online.”

Though Get Off My Internets does have a formspring account, the writers claim it is helpful for answering reader questions that don’t merit their own blog posts.

Armed with this information, I created my account at approximately 3 PM on February 25th. I had few expectations, and I actually felt ashamed for deciding to do something I initially thought was stupid.

I publicized my new formspring account on Twitter and Facebook, and I told some of my friends about it via Gchat. By 9 PM, I received 12 questions.

People that visit my formspring account can’t see the questions that have been asked of me until I answer them. I can delete a question or mark it as spam too.

Users can ask questions anonymously, or they can ask questions using their own formspring accounts. If you use your formspring account to ask a question, you will receive an e-mail notification when your question is answered.

The best part of my formspring experiment is that it made me laugh. Very few people took the task seriously, and I could actually tell which of my friends wrote some of the questions (they were based on inside jokes, or they had a very distinctive tone). A few questions, like “what is the most impressive aspect of himself a man can show you?” and “I’m having some trouble cooking my turkey…What should I do?” were untraceable.

I liked questions that forced me to think seriously about my response, and I was actually surprised that some people even bothered to submit questions like these. My favorite question, in terms of depth, was “who do you feel are some of the most quotable people you know for your blog entries?“.

Anyway, formspring is a fun tool. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone take it too seriously, but I do recommend it as a diversion to share with your friends.

Nothing that makes you laugh can be bad, right?

Also, I’m usually the one asking a lot of questions so it’s nice to be asked questions for a change. You can see all the questions/answers here, and you can even ask me a new question.

“Former children’s laureates Quentin Blake, Anne Fine and Jacqueline Wilson, bestselling authors Jeffrey Archer and Louis de Bernières and critical favourites Thomas Pynchon, Zadie Smith and Jeanette Winterson have all opted out of the controversial Google book settlement, court documents have revealed….

As well as the authors named above, these include the estates of Rudyard Kipling, TH White, James Herriot, Nevil Shute and Roald Dahl, Man Booker prizewinners Graham Swift and Keri Hulme, poets Pam Ayres, Christopher Middleton, Gillian Spraggs and Nick Laird, novelists Bret Easton Ellis, James Frey, Monica Ali, Michael Chabon, Philip Hensher and Patrick Gale, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, biographer Victoria Glendinning and bestselling author of the Northern Lights trilogy Philip Pullman.”

I really do admire the fact that these well-known, well-respected authors and their representatives have chosen to take a stand against Google. They took the time to research the company’s plan, and they decided that they did not want to be a part of it.

When an author’s work is published, he or she can decide in what form the work can be published. The author can restrict publication in other mediums. Google is violating that right.

According to science fiction writer Gwyneth Jones, the company as a digital publisher is now getting “…unprecedented access to billions of tiny payments, for product that costs them effectively nothing, at their point of entry. This seems to mean they don’t have to worry about any form of resistance at all. I don’t like the sound of that, not from anybody’s point of view.”

Despite my support of these authors, I have my qualms; it’s easy to argue about publishing rights when you have a good reputation and an impressive publishing history (easier to obtain in the past, when print was still the only option).

As someone who is working on a collection of short fiction and who one day hopes to be published in some way, shape, or form (I just want my work to be read, honestly), I am fully aware of how difficult it will be for me to get my work noticed once I am finally ready to distribute it to the world.

I’m not the only one writing books.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “More than 10 times the number of colleges and universities offer the M.F.A. today in creative writing than when Associated Writing Programs was founded in 1967. Thousands of graduates now receive such degrees each year.” And that doesn’t include the people without writing degrees who are crafting books!

Oh. my. goodness.

All these people are hungry to be published. Wouldn’t you be too if you spent years of your life working on something that you believed was good? Most of these people would be thrilled if Google decided to publish their work.

Yes, Google only “publishes” authors who have been previously published. But I can almost guarantee you that Google will seek new ways to act as a publishing company in the future.

I’m actually really surprised that twriters are the only ones speaking out against Google. The publishers should be angrier – shouldn’t they? The major houses need to rethink their business models if they don’t want to lose out to Google.

I don’t really have a solution because, to me, the whole thing seems like an unstoppable train. Writers are HUNGRY to be published. One day, the beloved authors cited above and their estate holders will no longer exist. They can only fight Google for so long.

Where are you, publishers? Why aren’t you fighting the good fight?! The best insights/ideas I’ve seen are contained in this essay about the revenge of print from The Brooklyn Rail:

“In a flagrant attempt to compete with Internet culture, to crash books into the marketplace on hot button topics from steroids to celebrities, from political scandal to political ascension, corporate publishers aim now to meet immediate demand. If a book about teenage vampires becomes a bestseller, then the hustle is on to find and market a series about pre-teen vampires. And because of this constant rush to the market with books that have the shelf-life of a bruised tomato—in hardcover, with supplemental cardboard cut-outs that stand in chain store windows and usher customers down narrow sales aisles—this ideology has influenced the ebb and flow of the industry…

The goal for book publishers, most simply put, should not be to undertake a virtual arms race of developing technology with both the Internet and media, or to try to compete on a bloated scale with music and film, or even to translate a work to conform to an undetermined potential future model. The mission for book publishers and print media at large should be to create a product that is irreplaceable and indispensible.”

People are writing irreplaceable, indispensable things, and they are trying, waiting. Their desperation will enable companies like Google to take advantage of them, the creative individuals, ultimately helping themselves destroy their own value.

And then the creative class spontaneously combusted. The end.

(Photo by joguldi)

On February 17th, you wrote an article for Newsweek about the ways that Google is trying to invade our privacy.

“…in its original form, Buzz showed everyone the list of people you e-mail most frequently. Even people who weren’t cheating on their spouses or secretly applying for new jobs found this a little unnerving.”

Are you trying to say that the only people who should be concerned about privacy settings are the people who have something to hide? I didn’t really appreciate your sarcasm (that’s my thing), but I was compelled to write you a note anyway.

I’m not trying to defend Google because, let’s face it: Buzz was kind of a mess.

However, as champion of “The Olds”, you should know that if someone checked your stuck-in-the-ground/attached-to-your-door mailbox every day, they could draw a few conclusions about your most frequent contacts. Assuming you still receive paper cell phone and credit card statements (”The Olds” do that, right?), someone could also find out what you buy (lingerie for your elicit lover?) and who you talk to on the phone (your elicit lover?).

You wrote:

“Maybe it’s a generational thing. People my age (nearly 50, a.k.a. “the olds” in blogosphere parlance) would probably rather part with a few bucks than with our personal information. Younger people don’t have as much money, and don’t care as much about privacy. So they’re happy to go along with the deal being offered to them by Google and Facebook.”

You’re nearly 50, and I’m 24 – let’s find out for sure if this is “a generational thing”. Here are some thoughts:

1) I don’t give a shit who can see my frequent e-mail contacts because I don’t have anything to hide.

2) I do care about who can see my frequent e-mail contacts if that makes these people vulnerable to spam (See “True Life: China Hacked my Gmail Account“).

3) Everything you can find out about me online is everything you would know about me if you knew me in person because I don’t have anything to hide.

3) I’m a marketing professional, and I know for a fact that marketers will find ways to create target markets, Internet or no Internet.

4) I’m a marketing professional, and I don’t think that “being marketed to” is necessarily a bad thing, especially if it’s done well (Google does it well).

5) I don’t have a lot of money, but I do care about a lot of things (See the Comma ‘n Sentence Archives). The fact that I do or don’t care about privacy has nothing to do with how much money I have.

In general, I seem to benefit more from sharing my information than not sharing my information. It’s the same thing with “putting yourself out there”, publishing books, sharing your opinion, speaking on television – you open yourself up to criticism and feedback.

Or you can always move to Montana, buy a ranch, and live there with some cows. No one will ever criticize you because no one will know you exist.

The marketers will always be trying to market something to you, and corporations will always be trying to get away with as much as they can to make more money. Whether or not you choose to participate, someone else will participate and enable the corporations. It’s called free market economics. If you don’t like it, ignore it, for goodness sakes.

Oh, also? Marketing is not the devil. And not all marketers are trying to sell you Viagra pills.

Targeted marketing can be helpful when done well, and I will admit that Google does it well. Their advertising is Targeted with a capital ” T”.

In reference to Facebook, you wrote:

“The real holy grail is your list of friends. With that information, marketers can start sending more targeted messages. If you like a certain movie, or album, or mountain bike, your friends will probably like those, too. So they’ll be good targets for ads for those products.”

Wow, is that bad? Did you know that this might be useful?

I was actually excited when Facebook served up an ad for a fun bar in Jersey City. Sure, I was creeped out by the fact that Facebook knew I might be interested, but I was also happy to learn about this bar.

How about you give us, the young’uns some credit, Mr. Lyons?

If we “don’t have as much money”, why should the marketers care about us? Why should Google want to invade our privacy? Because they actually care about who we e-mail? They don’t care.

I’d rather a Facebook or Google ad be relevant to my interests and demographic then spend miles driving along the New Jersey Turnpike staring at irrelevant billboard after irrelevant billboard.

Sacrificing a wee bit of “privacy” could make marketing more efficient and even “green” too.

After all, this is America – why do you act so surprised?

Love,

Laryssa, leader of the “Young and Poors”

(Photo by Mykl Roventine)

(If you enjoyed my video, please assign a rating and leave a comment.)

My brother’s glowing recommendation and an article in New York magazine encouraged me to try ChatRoulette, a website that allows you to video chat with “random strangers”.

How do you play? Keep clicking “next” until you like what you see. Other users do the same.

I’ve heard stories of masturbating men, playful Chilean girls, boobs, and drunken Irishmen.

Armed with this information, I was nervous, but I decided to try it for myself anyway.

During my session, I saw one headless masturbator, a young man smoking in bed, a frat-boy type guy in Washington, DC, an old man in Kentucky, and a teenage boy in Germany wearing large headphones. I encountered no women during my time on ChatRoulette.

So, what did I conclude? ChatRoulette isn’t scary after all.

However, it is the Anti Social Media.

You see, I truly believe that social media is a means for people to connect in new ways, ways not possible in real life situations.

Think about how many people you pass each day, who you will never see again. You ride a train and stare at everyone around you. Do you ever wish you could connect with those people?

ChatRoulette really is no different than riding a train with anonymous passengers. Unless you choose to exchange contact information with the other person, you will never see them again. You will not even talk to them again. The point of ChatRoulette is to keep moving forward, seeking something novel. You are encouraged to click the “next” button when you no longer feel like talking.

I’m sure some people, like the masturbating men, enjoy the anonymity of the online world.

But the best and most evolved aspects of social media involve the ways you can choose to connect with people very specifically. You can find friends based on common interest or by location. And you can choose to connect with them in real life.

In fact, I think the ultimate goal is to convert your online social networks to real networks. You should want to create and SUSTAIN relationships that you couldn’t normally develop in real life, at least not without any luck.

The people I met on ChatRoulette were nothing more than passing ships.

ChatRoulette is not advancing social media; it’s only mimicking the ways we don’t connect in real life. If you like the voyeuristic feeling you get from riding a train and imagining other people’s histories, then go ride a train. Or play ChatRoulette, if you want to add an international flair to your adventure, without having to leave the comfort of your home. “Sit next to” a stranger on the other side of the world with just one click.

But don’t expect to exchange more than a few funny faces.

I love Google Reader, and I would recommend it to anyone who regularly reads certain blogs. However, even when I manage my subscriptions as carefully as possible, at any given time, I still have 1000+ items yet to read. And that doesn’t count the 100+ shared items from people I follow, trusted, smart people who are good “curators“.

Tell me, Google, why do I need more unread items to make me anxious?

The problem with Google tools like Buzz and Wave is that a lot of people think they should care, given all of Google’s hype, but they’re not really sure how to care.

From the little time I spent on Google Buzz, I saw Twitter-like bits of information, shared links and items, Facebook-like status updates, etc. Everyone with a Gmail account was improvising. And they’re still improvising.

Sure, a lot of people still don’t seem to “get” Twitter and Facebook.

@hannahchristi: exploring twitter.. but i don’t get it.. guess im too stupid to understand xD

@Bully_Crazy: @BajaChalupa I don’t get this twitter thing.

@MaryyyAA: i still don’t get what is so great about twitter. Am i missing something?

But these confused tweeters who claim they don’t understand Twitter actually DO understand Twitter – they are using it, aren’t they? You have 140-characters to write whatever you want or respond to whoever you want. That’s it.

The point of Twitter is that there really is no point. The second a social media website tries to devise a point is the second it fails: social networking tools should give users the freedom to run with them.

Sure, Facebook was founded with a purpose. But Facebook was an innovation that fulfilled a need. Whether they knew it or not, students craved a way to stay in touch with high school friends who went to other schools/classmates at their own schools.

Think about it: where could social media go from there? What new purpose could you possibly create?

Google is “fails” at social media because the company’s efforts are too calculated. Plans work for search, a business that involves algorithms, logic, and very precise movements through the jungle that is the Internet.

But social media is messy, spontaneous, and people-driven, NOT computer driven. Just read this excerpt from a beautiful piece about ChatRoulette by Sam Anderson for New York Magazine. Anderson writes:

“The first time I entered ChatRoulette—a new website that brings you face-to-face, via webcam, with an endless stream of random strangers all over the world—I was primed for a full-on Walt Whitman experience: an ecstatic surrender to the miraculous variety and abundance of humankind…

…Once you dive in, there’s no way to manage the experience—to filter users, search for friends, or backtrack and reconnect with someone you chatted with an hour ago. There’s only the perpetual forward motion of “next.” It’s the Wild West: a stupid, profound, thrilling, disgusting, totally lawless boom.”

The idea is so simple, and the rules are so…nonexistent.

Social media is a child of rogues, of daring imaginative goofballs obsessed with how the lives of people and and habits of societies collide yet don’t necessarily mesh.

I dare Google to make a social networking tool that can win over the hearts of people (strange, smart, quirky, rich, poor, etc.) worldwide. But Google plays too carefully. A company that specializes in delivering relevant search results could never possibly see the beauty in chaos.

(Photo by david.nikonvscanon)