The lighter side of the Internet

So far in this blog I’ve tried to focus on the higher order benefits of Web 2.0 and social media but it’s important to remember that they don’t always have to strive for such lofty goals. Sometimes it’s just as important to share a laugh or marvel at the coincidences of the universe.

Yesterday when I was exploring the world of Twitter chat, I wanted to start off with something easy for my first round. Tweetchat, another Twitter platform that allows users to follow a hashtag in real-time, has an active rooms feature showing current conversations. I passed on #rocketscience and #brainsurgery and decided to try out #dogsoftwitter.

I realized that this was not so much a chat but rather just a live stream of posts from around the world. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but I welcomed the distraction. Then I saw a post that made me do a double take. It was a picture of a dog curled up on a bed, but it looked just like my dog, right down to the collar! We got Harrison at a local animal shelter and had him DNA tested to find out he’s a mix of Labrador, German Shepherd, Alaskan Malamute, Great Pyrenees and Rottweiler! We were expecting him to be about half the size he is...surprise! Anyway, I replied to the original poster and shared a picture of Harry. Turns out he shares a similar pedigree with his Canadian doppelganger.

I started to think about the coincidence of this post. Harry is probably not as unique as I think he is; his genes come from fairly common breeds. But what are the chances that they would be posted to Twitter? And if they were, what are the odds that I would happen to see that post? The Internet was built on the idea of networks and Web 2.0 and social media tools advance that idea by making us aware of the connections we never even knew existed. The Internet is a vast place and you never know what you might find once you start looking!

Virtual Conversations

As I was reading about different activities that qualify for weekly participation, I was curious about #lrnchat. I checked out their Twitter page and saw that they host a weekly twitter chat on Thursdays. Wait a minute, I thought to myself, that’s today...what luck! However, my enthusiasm was quickly deflated when I saw a recent tweet stating #lrnchat was on vacation. Oh well, something to look forward to next week. In the meantime, I was curious about what chat on twitter was all about. I’d never hear of a Twitter chat before but it didn’t seem too complex.

Some quick Google searching revealed that a Twitter chat (AKA tweet chat, tweet party, Twitter party) is a pre-arranged gathering of Twitter users to discuss a specific topic. The host will pose questions (Q1, Q2, etc.) and participants will answer (A1, A2, etc.). A designated hashtag (#) is used to link the posts together in a virtual conversation.

I found the site TweetReports which gives a daily listing of the Twitter chats happening. It was a pretty good list with topics ranging from advertising and automotive to technology and writing, with lots in between. Since Thursday was quickly approaching past tense status, I looked ahead to see what Friday’s schedule had in store. As luck would have it, @UrbanBlissMedia was hosting a twitter chat on the topic of social media, Fridays from 9-10 am PST under the hashtag #365social. The TweetReports description seemed appropriate to the theme of #eme6414, even if the focus wasn’t specifically on education.

#365Social covers tips, tactics, news, and trend topics for individuals and businesses using social media.

I loaded up the Twitter client application Twitterfall so I could keep up with what was sure to be a lively discussion. I entered the designated hashtag and waited with anticipation.  As I waited some more I wondered what sort of questions would be posed and how many people would join in the discussion... *chirp *chirp. Nothing, nada, zilch. It looked like their would be no #365social Twitter chat today. Not wanting to admit total defeat I looked for another chat to join. I found Open Mic Career Chat, self-described as a “no-holds-barred career/job search chat. All truth; no BS.” This sounded interesting and the chat was already in progress so I entered the hashtag (#OMCchat) and tweets started cascading down the screen like, well, a waterfall. Today’s discussion topic was about job searching in 2020 and beyond.

The host posted short, broad questions and people would answer accordingly. I found it difficult to follow the full conversation because the tweets were truncated when displayed in Twitterfall and I would have to click the link for each one to read the rest of the post. Then I would go back to the main conversation and have to catch back up. It wasn’t too bad because new questions were posed frequently and I’m sure I will get better at it with more practice. However, it does seem like this format is not designed for a single stream of conversation where everyone participates on one topic, but rather more conducive to spawning a variety of tangents to allow participants to choose what they want to engage in. 

The host brings everyone together in a shared space via the designated hashtag at a shared time and provides a question to get things started, but really, the participants are the ones who decide where the conversation will go.

About three-quarters of the way through the chat, Twitterfall crashes on me. I get a nasty pop-up message about invalid request tokens so I attempt to reload the page - no luck. I switch over to another Twitter client, Tweetchat, and the page won’t even open. UGH! Why is this happening?! I tried a third client application, Twubs, entered the hashtag and I was back in the conversation, whew! The chat was just entering the lightning round of questions when I finally reconnected. Around minute 45 The chat wrapped up the final question and the host thanked everyone for participating and also requested feedback on topics for next week’s chat. And like that, it was over.

There were only 14 contributors in the chat, from Connecticut to California, but it is impressive to think how powerful social media as a platform can be to bring people together from opposite sides of the country and even the world. Amazing things can happen when you bring together the right people and the right ideas and social media tools like Twitter are making it easier for that to happen, one chat at a time.

Help has arrived!

Thanks to a good Samaritan along the information superhighway (remember that from way back in 1993, when our best metaphor for the burgeoning Internet was a multi-lane vehicular thoroughfare? My how the times have changed!) I was able to successfully create my first Instagram account. I decided to create a completely new Gmail account in the hopes that it would not be tied to my previous attempts and be guilty by association. I also created the account from their website on my laptop instead of the app on my iPhone. It worked! I had made it past the gatekeepers and I was in.

I’m still waiting to hear back from the Instagram Team that promised to help me as long as I could prove I was the owner. That’s okay; at this point I’m not expecting anyone to get back to me, although it would be nice to know what had gone awry just out of curiosity. It was frustrating not being able to reach out to someone in the moment and get a resolution to my problem and I felt neglected by the people who should be there to provide support as I waited for a reply to my email. As I scrolled through page after page of help articles that couldn’t help me I found myself getting angry. First at my inability to fix the problem on my own. I don’t consider myself a tech guru by any means, but I feel fairly comfortable about computers and have fixed many problems on my own in the past. This problem was above my pay grade, which meant I was at the mercy of outside assistance and the loss of control is always a difficult feeling to wrestle with. But then my anger turned toward Instagram and their seeming unwillingness to render assistance. I’d been abandoned on the side of the superhighway without so much as a map or road sign in sight.

Support did eventually arrive, but not from Instagram. My support came in the form of a fellow user, like me, who had a similar experience and more importantly had found a successful fix. I was able to solve my problem the way many people do in the age of Web 2.0, by appealing to the masses and posting a message for help in a discussion board. Five hours later I not only had a viable plan of action but also a glimmer of hope knowing that I wasn’t the only one to be wrongfully accused by Instagram and beat the rap. This is something truly unique that the rise of Web 2.0 and social media have ushered in: the sense of camaraderie and shared experience; the feeling that you are not alone, that others have been in your shoes or are right there with you. I didn’t know the person who answered my post, but they responded nonetheless. For all the negatives that can be said about social media, this is one area in which it shines and it reminds us that we’re all in this together.

With my email to the Instagram Team I was waiting for help from maybe a handful of people - the company only had 13 employees when it was acquired by Facebook in 2012. With my single discussion board post my number of possible responses easily doubled that. Plus, it wasn’t just the people in class that could help me, but any experiences from their network of friends and contacts they could share as well. It’s like the difference between cupping your hands around your mouth and shouting “help” at the top of your lungs and radioing “mayday” over Ch. 16 VHF.  The tangled web of connections built by these social networks is ever expanding and with that growth, the ease and speed of tapping into the right connection increases.  Thanks to this experience, I am now one more link in a long chain of connections and one day, I hope to help someone else looking for some guidance along the information superhighway.

When Technology Lets Us Down...

For my inaugural blog post in my Web 2.0 course (#eme6414) I am actually going to be writing about what happens when technology fails us. I am a social media neophyte and just beginning my journey into this brave new world of social networks. I’ve taken some rather small steps in this journey that only a few years ago were considered giant leaps for the industry.

I have thus far resisted jumping on the social media bandwagon but I appear to be embarking on a slippery slope. Up until last month, my social media footprint would have barely registered on the scale with some minimal Facebook activity that coincided with my kids being born; the youngest is now 8, so suffice it to say it has collected a bit of dust over the years. I now have a LinkedIn account and I’m getting started with Twitter; two platforms that I knew existed but had never considered joining.

To round out the social media trifecta, I attempted to create my very first Instagram account this afternoon. Ironically this was actually for another class I am taking this summer (#eme5608) and had the intent of facilitating some informal social interaction among classmates within the online course. I downloaded the app from the Apple app store and watched as the blue circle completed its 360 degrees of travel and transformed into an open button. With a bit of excitement I launched the app and dutifully entered my email address to create my account. It then asked for my name and a password - check. I couldn’t think of anything clever at the time so I stuck with the only name I was given and crafted an elaborate password to protect my account. I clicked next to confirm a username and was greeted by an unexpected error message politely informing me that my account had been disabled for violating their terms. What!? How could that be? All I was trying to do was sign up for an account.

The pop-up provided an option to learn more about my offending actions and according to the help article that followed, some of the things that aren’t allowed are:

“…artificially collecting likes, followers or shares, posting repetitive content or repeatedly contacting people for commercial purposes without their consent.”

I had done none of these things, even if I wanted to (though I admit I haven’t the slightest clue as to how one would go about artificially collecting likes). I hadn’t even made it passed the sign-up screens to engage in any sort of nefarious activity.

Convinced I somehow made a mistake during those three steps, I attempted to create another account using a different email address, following those words of wisdom, “If at first you don’t succeed…” I’m now batting 0 for 2. Apparently there is just something about me that violates Instagram’s terms. I read the help article again and found a link to let Instagram know I thought my account had been disabled by mistake. After answering a couple questions and providing my account name and email I hit send and fired my S.O.S. off into cyberspace. I received an auto-generated reply moments later seeking to confirm that I was in fact the owner of the disabled account. Obviously, Instagram is concerned about securing your personal information, but I had never seen a request quite like the one I received to prove my identity:

I sent off my mugshot and waited for a reply. With each passing hour, my feelings turned from unexpected inconvenience to increasing frustration. I searched the help articles to try and decipher what had gone wrong but they were of little help in my situation. I looked for a chat feature to talk with someone and explain my innocence, but there was no such option. A Google search revealed a promising phone number but warned that it would be unlikely to receive any response through that channel. Sure enough, an automated voice recording apologized that she was unable to provide phone support for most situations and instead directed me to the help section on the website.

As I conceded defeat and waited for an email to arrive in my inbox that would hopefully clear my account of any wrongdoing, I started to wonder why a social media platform like Instagram, built on fostering connections through visual storytelling, was so hard to connect with in this time of need. These new technologies make wonderful claims, but what happens when they break down? I think we have a tendency to overlook how much we rely on these platforms to keep us connected with one another until they fail. Obviously we survived without these recent conveniences of modern technology. Instagram has only been around since 2010. Twitter made its debut in 2006, just two years after Facebook was unveiled. But these tools have become ingrained in the fabric of everyday communication and for some, a fixture in their daily routines. When these tools fail, we can be left feeling lost and disconnected. Granted my current dilemma is not the same as if I was well established on social media and experienced a sudden disruption in service, but it is enough to give me pause to consider the implications of our hyper-connected society. In the meantime I’ll continue to wait for a reply from the Instagram gatekeepers but I think I’ll hang on to my hard copy photo albums just a little while longer.