facebook fail

I don't know how many of you have been experiencing problems with facebook today, but I have not been able to login at all, whatsoever. I know I may be acting a little overdramatic, but this is not good when I conduct some of my business over facebook.
(Ok, so I don't conduct all my business over facebook, actually most of it is over email, but the principle I'm about to discuss still applies)

It's crazy how much we (and when I say we I'm more speaking to myself, but I know it applies to others as well) depend on the internet today. And not just the internet but specific services on the internet...facebook, email (gmail my personal preference), twitter, blackboard, etc.

You don't really realize how much you depend on it until one of those services goes down, or your network as a whole goes down. Just imagine if your email client (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, or your own personal server) were to cease to exist. And by cease to exist I mean that all of your emails were gone, you had no way of sending or receiving emails at all. Just imagine what it would be like.

Ok, so we would be fine as far as communication goes, we would still have our phones, and texting, etc. but sending files or attachments would be difficult, sending a link to that portfolio or video would be difficult.

And the same principle applies to facebook or twitter. Although I don't think they are as essential as email might be, but they are essential for bloggers. For me at least, facebook and twitter are my two biggest ways to generate traffic to my blog. So of course when one of those services is down it kind of throws a wrench in my traffic. Thankfully I don't monetize my blog. If I did then facebook and twitter certainly wouldn't be my main sources of traffic. LOL.

So I'm not offering a certain solution to this idea, all I have to say is that we need to always be careful how much we depend on the internet. Have your emails backed up, and maybe have multiple email addresses registered with different services. Don't put too much stock in different social media such as facebook or twitter because they are not flawless unfortunately, and they will be down periodically.

Just a simple reminder from your friendly neighborhood blogger Josh Burns.

Have a Happy Monday!

facebook status mentions

As you all know, and as it says in my profile, I am a social media enthusiast. Therefore I enjoy using social media and analyzing different social media strategies and what social media organizations are doing.

You may or may not have noticed that this past week facebook released a new feature within their status update. You can now "mention" a friend within your status and it will turn that friend's name into a link to their profile.

For those of you paying attention, they took this idea directly from twitter, which has included this functionality since it's inception 3 years ago in 2006. So for those of you who are on twitter this may look extremely familiar. And believe it or not you implement the functionality in the exact same way as well. Just as on twitter, on facebook you can now "@" a friend and it will mention that friend in your status. So it is pretty obvious that facebook has taken this idea directly from twitter.

Just for the record, about a year ago when facebook began to do a major overhaul of their design and user interface, it was me who said that they were going directly after twitter. I said this because they changed the home page from the old newsfeed to a single feed that contains everything, and again it looked extremely similar to the UI of twitter. And now they have gone and done something like this.

So let me just ask this question...who the heck cares that facebook has now implemented the "mention" functionality into their status updates? I'll be the first to say that I don't care, and I'm sure there are many others who couldn't care less. In fact let me beg a second question...who the heck even knows about this new "mention" feature?
For many of you this may be your first time hearing about the feature. Let's face it, facebook didn't exactly do a great job of publicizing this new feature, and chances are that when people found out about this feature they probably asked the question, so what?

That brings me to my third question...so what?
So what if I can now mention a friend in my status update? If someone is not already friends with that person then it is not like twitter where you can just follow someone without going through an approval process. Whereas facebook is much more private. Becoming someone's "friend" on facebook means alot more than it does to "follow" someone on twitter. So if I see someone mentioned in my friend's status but I don't know them, the chances of me clicking on that their name and "friending" them is not good.

Let's be honest, since this new feature has been released I have literally seen one status that has "mentioned" someone else. Again, I think there are two reasons for this, 1. people have no clue that the feature exists, and 2. people don't see any purpose in this feature.

The truth is, facebook and twitter are two completely different things, and I hate to come out and say it publicly but facebook needs to stop trying to be like twitter. You don't see twitter stealing ideas from facebook and implementing them, in fact the two most recent revisions to facebook's UI have been ideas that have been taken from twitter.

It has been said that twitter is the future of social networking. While, yes, that may be true, at the same time I think facebook is also the future of social networking, but not if they continue to take ideas from twitter.

Regardless, I will still continue to use facebook and twitter for distinctly different purposes, and yes, I will probably use the new "mention" feature on facebook every once and a while, just because it is available, but I honestly don't see this as a revolutionary feature for facebook. They need to stick to what they know and that is private social networking.

Do you use this new "mention" facebook feature?

Why or why not?

Facebook Will Not Die

Recently a friend of mine, John Underdown, wrote a facebook note titled "The Death of Facebook" in which he basically says that facebook is on its death-bed, and that soon it will die. He then outlines some reasons for this happening. Actually to save you some time, just go read the note and then come back and read the rest of this post.

As soon as I read this note I immediately disagreed with it. I held myself back from commenting on it on facebook because I knew my comment would be way too long. I knew that what I had to say would be most appropriate in the form of a blog post. So I waited a few days and then I read a blog post from my friend Joseph Dickens in which he agreed with John in some ways.

So let me just take this time to disagree with both of you. LOL. (Don't worry, I'm friends with both of them so they shouldn't take offense to that). And let me just preface this post by saying that I am very biased towards facebook, as you will see soon enough.

One of the big reasons that they both gave for the near death of facebook is all of the annoying fan pages that people have created, and dumb surveys that you can take. Consequently all of this stuff shows up in your newsfeed. I agree, this is annoying, but its not near enough to kill facebook. O, and by the way, if one of those dumb surveys shows up in your newsfeed all you have to do is click that little hide button, and it won't show that certain survey anymore. That is the nice thing about facebook, is that it has filters, so you don't have to see things that you don't want to see.

Also, it is not like anyone is forcing you to become a fan of "sleeping in" or any of those other ridiculous fan pages that have been created. If you don't want to become a fan, then don't. Its as simple as that.

Another reason that was mentioned was that facebook is always changing their "look" or UI (User Interface) or "design" to put it in laymen terms. And I'll agree that people have complained, and actually facebook has listened to some of those complaints and given the users what they want. And people might turn away from facebook for a couple days, or a week, or maybe even a month, but facebook has over 200 million users. Let me just say that again, 200 million users. Or maybe if I actually put in the real number form 200,000,000 users. I mean, maybe if a couple million stopped using facebook completely for good, that might put a dent in their user base, but even still, they're not too worried about it. They know that there is nothing else out there that can even come close to competing with them in the social networking world, so they know that those people will eventually come back to facebook. Why?
Because everyone they know is on facebook, and again, nothing can compete.

So I hardly think that the change of the design will contribute to facebook's death. After all, as the internet evolves people want information faster and faster, and they are just adapting to that change. And let's not forget about friendfeed that probably has the most real-time interface of all social networks right now. For those of you who don't know, it is a twitter-like service that actually updates real-time in your browser. Somewhat like the new real-time update in facebook except you don't have to click the "show 3 more posts" button, it just does it automatically. So that is the way that the internet world is headed and facebook is just adapting to that.

John also gives the reason of facebook having a constitution, or more properly a "Terms of Service" and people getting upset over the changing of those, therefore leading to people leaving facebook. And my response to that is basically what I just said about people leaving facebook. They will leave, but they will come back. And facebook has to have those Terms of Service, and people were rightly getting upset over the changing of those because I don't want facebook to have the right to do whatever they want with my photos or information...do you? I think that might be something worth getting upset about.

So those are the reasons that John gives that facebook is dying. He says, "We are killing facebook." And John, we most definitely have the ability to kill facebook, but to say that we are, I believe is false, and to say that we are going to is probably even false.

Why?

Because there is nothing out there that can compete with facebook. Myspace has its place in social networking but it will not kill facebook, Twitter has its place, but I believe even that will not kill facebook. Until something comes along that is...(I'm sitting here trying to think of a word that could describe a facebook killer)...amazingly awesome, facebook will not die, after all, there is too much investment in facebook as a company for Mark Zuckerberg (founder of facebook) to just let it die.

Joseph also wrote some other good points on his blog post about texting and twitter and such, but I won't address those right now. If you all have made it this far in the post then I should probably be paying you to read this because the length was enormous, but here's something just as good, whoever goes through and tells me how many times I mentioned the word "facebook" in this post will win a special prize, but you must follow me on twitter @jburno and then @reply me the answer. And if this wasn't the most biased post that you've ever read than I don't what is, because I'm very biased towards facebook, but only because there is nothing else out there that can compete.

So with that, hey, if you want to delete your facebook account for any sort of reason, go right ahead, I could care less, but don't give yourself enough credit to think that you are gonna "kill" the social networking giant we know as facebook.

To those who I have referenced in this post, I love you deeply even if I disagree with you.

What do you think?
I really do want to know. And I'm glad that John wrote that note because it initiates great discussion.

my roommate twitters!!!

I would like to apologize to those readers who have no interest in media whatsoever, my last several posts have been all about media and for me it has been great, because it is a great way for me to get my ideas out there, and get your feedback. But for those who are not interested in that type of thing, it has probably been boring you to death. So this might be the last media related post for a bit. But I've just had media on the mind constantly lately, and there has been lots of stuff going on.


One of these things is that my roommate is now on twitter, and has his own blog. Now I haven't figured out yet whether he's actually realized the value in these things or if he just started doing them because I am huge on both of them. I think its a bit of both.
So his twitter is NateNearpass and his blog is "This is for my people".

He said the thing that drew him to twitter was that he read somewhere that Lupe Fiasco had a twitter, and he had heard me explain the purpose and benefit of having an account, so he decided to go for it, and I'm glad he did. I've been preaching about twitter ever since I realized the purpose and benefit of it, but people just don't get it, and they don't take the time to get it either.

But now that someone who is not a geek is on twitter, I'm hoping that it will catch on among my other friends. I think it will eventually, it just takes a long time. I mean, Nate is already getting discouraged by the fact that one day he had 12 followers and now he only has 9. I told him that is the way twitter is, people come and go. And I told him, it is not as easy as adding friends on facebook. I feel like there's alot more commitment with twitter. I mean it took me 2 years to get to 200 followers. But then again, its not just about your followers, its also about the people that you follow.

Also, to talk about Nate's blog a bit more, he loves to write, and he does it almost constantly, so I think this blog will be good for him. He has posted every day since he created it, and the good thing is, they're not long posts, alot of them are poems.
He was telling me last night that he had a problem that he has written so much, that he could do multiple posts per day if he wanted to. Now that's a good problem to have. LOL.

I told him that its ok if he posts multiple times per day, or he could spread them out over each day, so he always has a post for each day. But I think he's definitely understanding the purpose of social media more and more. And its good. I wish more people would take the time to try and understand it.

Now for those of you who are on twitter, lets show my roommate some love and give him a follow. Let's show him the power of twitter...All together now

Do you twitter?
Do you blog?
Do you have friends who don't see the purpose in either of them?

Let's spread the word, there is purpose in these things, and they can be profitable.

conviction

The Lord is doing something in my life. I'm slowly beginning to understand it. But I know for sure that the Holy Spirit is convicting me of sin. More specifically the sin of selfishness. Selfishness with my time, and with my relationships. This selfishness has also turned into pride in some contexts.

I have always been a quiet guy. Never had much to say, and I've always struggled with what to say when I meet new people. I have always struggled with relating to people. But this struggle has escalated majorly over I guess the past year. Or maybe it hasn't really escalated that much, but instead has come more to the forefront and is easier for me to see. I think it is a bit of both, maybe more of one than the other. But either way this struggle has turned into a sin, and I think it is displeasing God.

I have always struggled with relationships, whether it be with close friends, not so close friends, or even girlfriends. I have always struggled with communication and making sure that it is not just a one-way relationship. I think alot of what I have been noticing in myself has been brought to the forefront because of my last relationship that I was in with a girl. There were lots of things wrong with that relationship, but one of them was my communication.

Through some conversations with my last girlfriend I realized how selfish I really am. And it didn't seem selfish to me at the time, but looking back, I think it really was. I would say things like, "There are some people that just don't seem worth the time that it takes for me to get to know them, or talk with them." My philosophy on relationships here at Moody has always been that it is better to have a couple close friends, rather than a bunch of people that are your "friends" but you aren't close to. And I still somewhat hold to this philosophy, but I took this to such an extreme that I would just ignore people, or it would be really awkward around people when I run into them. I think alot of this comes back to just my inability to communicate well, but I shouldn't be using this as an excuse for that type of behavior.

The way this has become sin is because I won't bother to get to know people that I don't want to know, and therefore that turns into the perception of pride. Or maybe it is just straight up pride. But either way if alot of people are perceiving me as proud then I probably really am proud.

So I've realized alot through my relationship with my previous girlfriend, and then when we broke up I just became somewhat cynical towards girls in general. And I've developed this unconscious philosophy that I don't want to get close to a girl, or become friends with a girl unless I have the intention of getting closer to her, and eventually dating her. I'm still processing through whether this is the right way to think or not. I mean obviously I shouldn't be thinking this way all the time, but I think there is some truth in this way of thinking.

And throughout all of these things happening within my mind, and me unconsciously developing these philosophies on friendships and relationships I have been becoming more and more entrenched and obsessed with the world of the internet and technology, and more specifically the world of social media on the internet. I know, this sounds really geeky, but it is completely true, and this has had an impact on the way that I behave so I think it is profitable that I write about it.

I have always been a geek. Ever since my parents got their first computer back when I was in grade school I have learned more and more about computers, and have gained this ability to problem solve in the area of computers and technology. Then our household got dial-up internet, and this started to shape my world. But there was so much limitations with dial-up internet that I didn't see much profit in it. But then we got high-speed internet and thats when I really discovered the internet. So over the years I have learned more and more about computers, and technology.

So through various different social media mediums I developed this desire to always stay connected to those in my network, or on the internet. Whether this was through facebook, myspace, twitter, blogging, or any other means of staying connected socially through the internet. Through this I cut myself off from the physical world around me. I have become so entrenched in the technology world that I completely forgot about actually nurturing those relationships in real life. Even over the past semester I will spend hours upon hours just sitting in my room, reading things online, building online community, and fulfilling that desire for connectivity and communication through the internet. But I forgot the most important part, and that was that an online community is only as strong as it is real life. And this contributed to my inability to communicate verbally with people. I can communicate fine online, but when it came to face2face interaction I was in trouble.

So all of these things have added to my quiet nature, and have eventually developed into almost a complete inability to interact verbally and physically with another person.

Today is the National Day of Prayer and we have been in prayer sessions all day here at Moody and it has been awesome. The Lord has convicted me of this very strongly, and to be honest I have not fully processed it yet. I came straight back to my room after the session because I knew that I needed to write these thoughts out or else they would be gone.

I know that I need to do something. I need to take some sort of action in order to stop this sin, and reconcile it, but I don't think I am prepared to write about what those things are yet, because I don't even know exactly what they are.

But one thing I do know for sure is that I need to stop wasting my time here at Moody, stop being selfish with my time, and start investing in other people in a positive way. This means encouraging others, getting to know others better, keeping myself and others accountable, and I think choosing one person to really invest some time in. Whatever I need to do to accomplish these things, I will do.

So I want to apologize to those who I have ignored, who I've created awkward situations with, or who I've hurt because of my own pride. I am sorry, and I hope things can be reconciled.

You might read this and say, "Josh, you are being too hard on yourself." But I don't think I am, and if I really am being too hard on myself, then thats good, because I probably need to be.

If you have any feedback for me then let me know, shoot me an email or something.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you all have a glorious day