General
How to handily tell tech bloggers to STFU
Every so often a post comes around that lays the hammer down, but sadly, it won’t really get the time of day because of the so-called A-List and leadership in Silicon Valley. Techmemes and Techcrunches and Valleywags and Scobles mean exactly jack. shit.
You probably don’t know who Karoli is. She prolly isn’t live on Qik.com (come chat now!) You DO however, probably know the names of everyone who has weighed in on the Twitter auction, waxing on and on about community and is it right and people aren’t for sale and so on and so forth. You might know some hot shit Forrester analyst or some hot shit Stanford-bred venture capitalist, and they probably know their stuff about ’social’ things. You might know of people that have bid, you might know a lot of things, I’m sure.
Karoli writes on her site drumsandwhistles.com about the auction of Andrew Baron’s twitter account. She writes two very fundamental things. 1. She doesn’t give a crap one way or the other about it 2. She shows what that money being awarded (or those that bid towards that) could be spent on.
“Let’s think about what $1,550 could do. Especially on a day where there are food riots around the world, people here in our own country are going hungry, food banks are literally begging for donations, and the World Food Bank may well be bankrupt. Some examples:Could fund microloans to help people in underprivileged countries to start businesses, farms , etc to become self-sufficient. Average microloan is $25.00 That’s 62 businesses that could be funded.
In Nepal, it buys a year’s worth of health care for 775 women and children
In Afghanistan, it provides reproductive healthcare and education to 1,240 women.
In Darfur, it trains 124 Traditional Birthing Attendants to care for pregnant women and newborn children.
In South Africa, it provides HIV/AIDS counseling to 124 women.
In Burkina Faso, it feeds 5,167 students one good meal every day.
In Africa, it would fund the construction of 10 fresh water wells
It can feed, clothe and school an orphan child for over a year.”
Because of the ‘mechanics’ of how social and tech blog news flows, this most likely won’t see the light of day. I’m linking to it anyway, because she’s right. I believe there are smart people out there. I also believe there are plenty of chickenshit people out there (how many in your RSS feeds?)
Here’s the link to her post which has links scattered throughout the above list: “My Challenge to Andrew Baron“. If you have any weight in this so-called ‘industry’ of social media, then use it. Be brutal. So you got unfollowed? Fuck ‘em.
Sometimes there are things more important than what we think we know.
Thanks for the reality check Ms. Karoli. (Thanks QueenOfSpain for the tip).
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Discussion
for “How to handily tell tech bloggers to STFU”
Well said. I'd add to this post -- and Karoli's -- that people should first donate to their local communities. If not by opening their wallets than by volunteering their time. If everybody helped in their own communities their would be less need for global assistance. Think about it.
I always thought they should be called twit-ers...
Thanks to you and Queen of Spain for this. It really means a lot that you get it, and I truly hope others do, too. I'm grateful.
Hey, it's a good cause. People will talk shit, always, never let it get ya down. :)
Well said, Eric! Life's about balance, and part of that balance is being able to see the global good, the overall welfare, not just your pocketbook.
I do want to provide a counter point though, could-a-shoulda-woulda is nice and fluffy, but at the end of the day that same $1,550 wouldn't have been spent on any of those things. Those people would have bought things with it that they valued for themselves.
While it is nice to see someone occasionally point out the great potential things we can do with our cash, that doesn't change the fact that unless we cared about those things to begin with we won't be spending our money on them.
You're right about that. I don't believe in telling people what to do with their cash either.
On the other hand, for social media/networking/web2.0 whateveryouwanttocallit to spread and gain traction within communities that are not nearly as entrenched as the tech community is, it seems reasonable to reach out and be a part of the larger world community.
That was really my point. If folks have $1500 to spread around on the purchase of a Twitter identity that will be worthless if it really changes hands, then perhaps it might be used for a greater good elsewhere, and by extension, the goodwill of the inventors, movers and shakers of this community might become known outside of tech itself.
Actually, I don't think Web2.0 is going to spread much farther. I believe the core audience has certainly been obtained already, growth will slow down, and eventually the fat will be stripped away leaving us with useful sets of tools and ideas to implement in USEFUL ways.
Well, who knows, maybe the buyer has a little extra incentive to think. Or Andrew. Or something.
Personally, I think that every person involved in the buying/selling of that twitter account is short a substantial amount of braincells.
I'm sure it's been covered, but people follow that guy on twitter because of who he is. If another person is behind the wheel, they'll simply go elsewhere. This entire auction is along the lines of those people who bid on jars full of air, etc. It's doing it just to say you did it, and there's no logic in that.
To be fair tho, the auction hasn't ended, Andrew has no money from it at this time.
You're right. She's right. I do believe I'll do my part in getting the link around. :)