Written May 2009
by Cliff Feldwick
OK, raise your hand if you recognize “breaker, breaker, one-niner…” – and not from song about a convoy that shows up on “oldies radio”.
Yes, in the wonderful world of crazes, fads and ridiculous pieces of history, the CB radio craze of the 70’s stands right up there. Highly educated folks sitting in warm apartments, talking on Citizens Band radios, trying their best to sound like southern truckers somewhere lonely out on the road. What started as a pretty good idea – lower powered radios that companies or people could use to communicate freely in a local area – became a fad that spawned its own language and culture. And six months later, spawned a rash of amazingly cheap used CB radios in yard sales. The pure banality of what most people were saying finally overtook the uniqueness and dropped that craze to the ground.
So as you see from the headline, its déjà vu all over again, this time with Twitter. Again, an interesting idea – short bursts of “what’s up” that you share with friends or colleagues. Followed by the realization that, in the words of an old parody, “a walk through the ocean of most men’s souls will scarcely get your feet wet”.
Now there are some Twitter fans who are readying their torches and pitchforks, but probably not those who actually use it to convey interesting things. Some of them feed their “tweets” to their Facebook posts, combining the latest in all fads (oops, cultural phenomenons) in one burst. But pardon me if I can’t help but think of the British meaning of the word “twit” when I hear it. For the correct inflection, think of a Monty Python character going “You bloody twit!” Yes, that’s it.
What’s just as interesting is how the business and non-profit community is rushing into this. How many Chambers and focus groups, etc, have held seminars on “social networking” in the last month? Seems like every one of them. But besides seeming hip, has it really gained them much? I have attended benefits and given to walk-a-thons that I heard about via e-mails from organizations and people I like, but I can’t say I’ve signed on to anything based on Facebook posts. In fact, a recent Washington Post article highlighted the low results of such Facebook fundraising compared to e-mails to past donors. No wonder – hidden as they are in the mass of sending virtual beers, throwing snowballs or taking quizzes on “what Star Wars character are you?”, most of us will ignore them quite easily.
Twitter, restricted as it is to posts of 140 characters or less, gives even less opportunity to say something. Smart users end up posting web links in their twits, but isn’t that like sending a short e-mail? I just don’t get the appeal. And yes, I know that Twitter posted a huge gain when Oprah announced she tweets, but remember she has staff to take care of weeding out the junk for her daily. Unless you have staff for that, why would you increase the amount of things to wade through and sort every day? Maybe you have more interesting friends than I do.
Sun sets
And no, I’m not talking about the Baltimore Sunpapers, although that is pretty well dying too. No, I mean the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by the software giant Oracle for $7.4 billion (yes billion) in cash. What does it mean to most of us in the business community? Besides that we should go out and create a software company – good lord, they’re paying out 7.4 BILLION! Probably not much. One of their first moves will be to lay off “duplicate personnel”, which probably translates to 10,000 people for this merger. Just like all the banks eating each other with people lying by the side of the road as a result. I noted while stopping on Snowden River Parkway up at Rt. 175 that Sun has their name on a building there. Wonder what impact it will have locally? Sun, which had been around for 27 years, made primarily high powered hardware, Oracle made almost exclusively software but there is enough overlap to cause layoffs. Bummer.
Grass revisited
The first days of spring/instant summer have arrived, and outside the office window the incessant hum of grass cutting and people with gasoline-powered blowers is in full bloom. I still wonder where all that grass ends up … somewhere south of here there’s an obese goat just munching on a tremendous pile blown there by men in tan uniforms. Better than the probable alternative, which is down the storm drains.
Cliff Feldwick is president of Riverside Computer, and does network set-ups, PC troubleshooting and such techno-wienie things for small businesses. He can be reached at 410-880-0171 or at cliff@feldwick.com. No tweets available.