Comments by Mark Lazen Subscribe

On Notice anything different? This is just the beginning….

Thanks James--yes, much performance tuning to come.

On Is Traditional Media Dead?

From Social Media Today--you're welcome and welcome to the community Sam. Hope to see many more posts from you.

On 5 Twitter Management Tools You Can't Live Without

Bill MacKay--In the future do us a favor and be transparent about your affiliations. You don't mean "This" content curation blog. You mean "your" content curation blog. If you're going to link drop, be a man about it!

On Does Twitter Breed Narcissism?

Twitter is an incredibly powerful professional tool, where what on a personal level would be called narcissism becomes just the shrewd tooting of your own horn. If it works for you from that professional standpoint, go at it. What makes something a pathology is when you do it even though it's detrimental. So when you're twittering about the project plan that you should instead be working on, then, perhaps, you have a problem.

On Social Media Marketing for Dummies

All--I appreciate the enthusiasm (and intellect!) of all that responded. I've only got two copies now. I'll have to see if I can lay hands on a couple more so I don't have to send anyone home empty handed. :-)

On Why augmented reality will change the world as we know it?

Beth---We haven't seen an email from you, and not sure exactly what issue you're referencing, but we encourage all our contributing bloggers to add a link back to their original post if they are cross posting from a blog. You can always get us at smt_support [AT] socialmediatoday.com. Thx!

On Social Media and the Death of Civility

Use their real names and a real picture of themselves too! I also played with some video commenting tools, and I think that really drives civility, feels like you're really talking directly to a person.

But the odds are stacked against civility--those intent on throwing rocks will  always have the advantage because it's so much easier to polarize a situation than to hold the center. And of course "success" online is all about getting noticed, and fast. And everyone knows the best way to do that is to start a fire--or pull down your pants.

Really--I'm an optimist. But only because I hope for so little.

On Facebook is just like an old Fiat 500.

People who think of their friends as "capital" aren't very likable people.

On The Facebook Death Watch Begins

@Michael and @Mark--I didn't say that FB has to be the best of everything to stay on top. It couldn't if it tried. The problem is it tries to do too much in one package. And opening their API to developers is little more than a gesture, because FB apps are constrained in so many ways--most of all by that horrible, horrible UI.

The Internet is a very difficult place to squeeze your clients, whether for money or into uncomfortable usage patterns. Because they can and will go elsewhere. Squeezing, of course, is in the eye of them that's being squoze. Google is extracting revenue, but their users don't feel it because it's subtle and prices are incredibly low compared to the value of the service provided. But FB's audience is feeling and expressing much pain now.

Finally I touched earlier upon the argument that FB is attractive to older users now, which appears to be very true. The problem is that that is inherently not a good portent for long-term market dominance.

FB could certainly turn this around if they want. Their management is plenty smart enough. But once you make the decision to beging wringing cash out of your product, it's very hard to switch to a lighter hand.

Thanks for reading all, and for all your thoughtful comments.

On The Facebook Death Watch Begins

@Confused: I'm not sure I understand why your case in point is on point, but I do (and did) acknowledge that there was an ISP dimension to the AOL case that doesn't play in the Facebook story. Still, AOL got about a bazillion people to make aol.com their home page, but they overfished that pond until there was nothing left.

@Martinis: I'm not suggesting FB is going to disappear anytime soon. I do think it's telling that you bring up their strength with the older demographic. Plenty of AOL parallel there!

On The Internet is Killing America's Free Press and Why It Matters

Steve--You say that the paid content model has been "tried and tried and tried" and conclude that it can't work. But the Internet challenge to the newspapers is only 10 years into its run, tops. I think you'll see a handful of consolidated outlets for national and international news, likely under the imprint of the Times Co. and other big players, and people will pay for that when there is no other source to go to for free. Once there are only a handful of entities providing that service, each free of the burden of manufacturing and distributing print editions and operating at a scale where they only need a few dollars a month from each reader, the industry can stabilize.

On Up-and-Coming Web Pro Needed at Social Media Today

Maggie--

You're right--the use of the word "young" was an error in the newsletter. We do not discriminate on age, gender, or race. We only discriminate on the basis of skill.