Google Dynamic Views Suck. It's Back to Old Blogger.

Well, that was a nice experiment with Google's dynamic views for blogger, wasn't it?  I don't know how many of you got to see it in action because DV's don't work with third party analytics, so I had no idea who was checking out ABM. I know through Google Analytics there were lots of visitors, and because DVs were flashing pictures and links at you like Saturday night at the carnival, there were lots of page views, but I have no idea who you were. Or what you were looking for.

So it's back to the old look until Google gets off its high horse and realizes what people really want (or at least this peep) isn't necessary what Google wants for him.

I'm a sucker for technology. Give me a button to mash down on and I'm there. And I don't read the manual. I just dive in. And I liked the interface it gave to old Action Bob, nice and spiffy and all dynamic just like the name promised and it caused people to at least look at more content. But flash is no substitution for real content, for real information.

I'm loving social networking more and more, especially since now I see it in real action with #Occupy. About a year ago I was at a very high faluting party at BU and there was a Very Big Deal professor (tweeds, flannels, just the right length hair) there holding court for all his pretty little blonde grad students, and he was joking about technology and proud of the fact that he didn't know Twitter from his professorial ass. And this was about the time when China was shutting down the Internet and he asked me with a broad wink to his harem what was Twitter good for. I mentioned China and freedom, and that wasn't good enough for him. He fired off some dumb joke that was meant to dismiss me, but it only lowered my opinion of him to about what Obama's approval rating is today.

But you have to draw a line in the sand. I don't own a smart phone out of choice (well, I'm really broke too, so I can't afford the additional monthly payment) but I really don't want to be that connected. I still want to engage in the world, face to face, in real flesh and blood. And when I'm blogging, I want to know who I'm talking to, and what they're looking for.

Oh Good Grief, Not Another Blog: Digital Presence Sure Is A Lot Of Work

I forgot where I saw it or what the number was, but the number of Web pages being generated daily, or by the second, is some astronomical Eisteinian figure. Not that that means anything, except companies like EMC or whoever the "leading worldwide provider of enterprise-wide storage devices" is nowadays are hopping up and down. Hoarders of the digital ones and zeros.

I had to make a new blog. It's over on my new Web site, which I also had to make. The site is my digital presence as a playwright, and everyone, I'm told, has to have one. So the little nerd in me found a cheap (Weebly--it's free!) development platform (only a nerd would use that term with a straight face) and in less than two days I had me a brand-spanking new Web site. Pretty darn proud of myself, yes I am. Who said all those years in high tech were wasted years? Just for some gravy I also threw together this little puppy. Aren't I a hot shit? Oh, when you check out the puppy, vote for me. I might get my card up in Times Square and wouldn't that be awesome for An Emerging Playwright?

But now I have the problem of having to keep two blogs going. It's like two stoves in the wintertime, they have to generate some heat or else the analytics will drop. That's right, I added my own analytics to the site, so I could track visitors. Plus I have to keep my site current with new content or else people will stop coming. Oh shoot, and I started another blog at BU for my creative writing class to post, so I'm going to have to watch that one, too. And let's not forget my Facebook page. I post a lot there, there, reposting and commenting.

All this digital presence stuff sure is lot of work. When am I going to have time to write plays?

Internet 2.0 Fortune Cookies: Knee-Deep in Social Networking

Two days ago I learned I passed my French exam which means I have completed all my coursework for an MFA in playwriting from Boston University. And, as my first act as a graduated playwright, yesterday I, as an artist of the 21st century, began work on a Web site to promote my plays. (Every playwright has one.) So yesterday I started it and today johngreinerferris.com went live. One thing you learn how to do in grad school is write and work fast and under pressure. And one thing you learn from working in the computer industry is how to intuitively use computer tools including development platforms that to someone else (read, non-nerdy types) resembles foreign language manuals on how to survive a nuclear meltdown.

Plus, I put together an About.Me page. Which is where I learned about Klout. Klout says that I am an Explorer, and that I actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You're exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you "get it", we predict you'll be moving up.


Klout also says, You are influential to a tightly formed network that is growing larger.


And, You do not engage with very many influencers.


Also, You have the ability to generate actions and discussions.

And, You have a small but tightly formed network that is highly engaged.



Does all this sound like something you'd find in Internet 2.0 fortune cookie?

Well, Klout sure is making me feel like Mr. Cool Hipster. Mr. Nerdy Pants. Mr.--oh, to heck with it.

Yes, anyone who follows me on this blog knows I'm a nerd who is fascinated by all this social networking Internet 2.0 or whatever it is "influencers" are calling it now. But while the influencers are coming up with names for things, people like me want to use them to engage in some serious discussion.

I know Facebook and Twitter take some serious abuse (even by me sometimes; oh, they can take it) about how shallow things can get. That's not the fault of the technology. The fault lies with the people who don't know how to a) use the tools; or b) don't see the full potential of the tools. But there's no denying: Facebook and Twitter and blogs and Web sites can be the source of some serious dialogue. You just have to know the limits of the technology, and the limits are there and very real.

They will never, I repeat, never replace face-to-face human exchanges. Skype and all that are all very cool for adding dimension to human interaction, but there's nothing that will replace feeling a warm handshake. But for giving a theater on the other side of the country a good idea of who I am and what my work is all about, Weebly did the trick.

Networking and the Theater

I'm the sort of writer who all he wants to do, deep down, is sit in a little cottage overlooking a quiet body of water and write all day. And then at the end of the day I spend the time with Sue and my kids and my dumb dog and listen to some music and have a nice dinner with a decent bottle of wine on the porch that overlooks the water.

Well, that ain't the way it goes.

What's I'm learning more than anything about the playwriting business is how much of it is a business. And how much I have to learn. There's TCG and Humana and the O'Neil Center and this fellowship and this conference and how it seems you have to know all this and be connected to all that. You just don't write a play and people recognize you for the genius you are and then they put it on and everyone loves it so much they come to the next play that you write. It may seem as if that's how it works, but that's only the outside looking in.

I've always been a writer, no doubt. But I've always been bad at networking. I've always been one of those people on the fringe, watching. Hell, I thought that's what writers did: They observed then wrote about the things they saw. And I always thought the social part was best left to the people whose time wasn't occupied with writing and art.

And I've never been good with groups, always much more comfortable one-on-one with people. 

And I know so much of this is colored by all that time--years!--spent in the corporate world, trying to fit in with people who I really didn't fit in with. I truly was the round peg trying to fit into the square hole (and square it was, so surprising for what you might expect from a software company, so mainstream, so conservative, so mind-numbing boring, filled with people whose value system was based on a house in the suburbs and not rocking the boat.) But that all came later. There were places and people who I look back open with a great amount of fondness. At one point I worked in a department where now I realize we really were all family.

But the world changed and business changed along with it, until finally I found myself in some sort of twisted Fellini/Tarantino/Disney world. Which brings me to networking.

I would have to go to conferences (all of them in Orlando because that was the sensibility of the president and owner of the company) and I would spend about a week trying to blend into the wallpaper because no one, and I mean no one, had a bit of interest in spending time with me. It was high school all over again, except I actually liked high school. I guess, yes, in retrospect, I lived out my high school days in my thirties, dealing with people who, as Lou Reed sings, were doing things I gave up years ago. I went from having friends and working with people who respected me and the work I did, to being a veritable outcast. I'm not even sure how it happened.

I remember one particular incident--an evening soiree, I guess you could call it--where I was with some co-workers, people who I shared an office with and with whom I worked with everyday, who actually ditched me. Ditched me. I can't believe I just typed those words and that I can truthfully say that something that embarrassing happened to me as an adult. And the next day we all acted like it didn't happened. No, what the hell happened to you guys? Where'd you go? I thought you were going to wait for me? None of that. Just an obvious signal that we don't like you. That was just one of so many times when I just swallowed my pride and said I have to do this. Yeah. I know. The question is why did I have to do it, and the answer was I could telecommute most days of days a week and it paid good money, which meant I could take care of my kids while my then wife could work on her career. The things we do for our loved ones.

The company would put us up in these hotels dotted throughout the theme parks, actually pretty nice rooms, and I would dread it, because I would have these nightmares that were ferocious. One I remember with such vividness that even today I wonder if it was a dream or if it actually happened: I dreamed that storm troopers burst into my room, broke the door down, and I clearly heard gunshots, and the sound of ejected cartridges hitting the walls and the floor and furniture, and the smell of gunpowder. What part of the recesses of my psyche that came from I don't know, but it's pretty telling that my soul was pretty damaged by about then.

So, now I'm learning and seeing how important it is to be connected in the theater world, but I think I still have vestiges of PTSD. I'm not kidding. The idea of doing all that schmoozing, I'll honestly say, scares me. You'll notice that when I go to plays alone, I bring a book, so I've got somewhere to dive if it gets too weird for me.

But here's the happy ending. It's never gotten too weird. I am finding that people are accepting and friendly and genuinely seem to like me. (Please leave your Sally Field jokes at the door.) I'm finding that people do accept me for who I am, and are interested in the work I'm trying to accomplish. I've known all along that theater people are some of the most accepting, open people you can find. That age doesn't mean a hill of beans to them (unless of course their age precludes them from getting a part) and that young people in the theater, for the most part, are willing to work with someone twice their age without a second thought.

It seems all my life I've wanted to make the world a better place. It's a concept I applied to my freelance business, and it worked. The business was successful and I was happy. I'm not sure where all this going or rereading this post where this rant came from. It's just the mind and the creative process at work. Just another stretch of the path I'm going down.

Sayōnara Facebook: How Do I Get Off Facebook?

It's been two full months since I blogged. Yeah, been busy. Not that I'm not busy now, but the main reason I'm back in this space is I quit Facebook, ostensibly for just awhile, taking a breather, but it's been two days and I'm liking it. I'm not sure what it is, what's the big deal about leaving Facebook (what leaving?--it's a Web site, you just don't log on.) It's the decision to turn your back on a digital society and it seemed momentous at the time. It's severing a connection and I'm not sure if it's the severing or the the perceived loneliness that is most scary.

But for me, it's a relief.

I didn't realize how much time I was wasting just surfing the site, lurking in other people's lives. (Wait, I was well-aware how much time I was wasting. I just didn't have exact figures. Exact figures probably would have disgusted and embarrassed me.)

I didn't realize the amount of energy it takes, the amount of emotion that I was feeling. It reminded me of high school, where you'd stand aside and watch all the cools kids doing cool things, and feeling bad because you weren't doing cool things, too. (Well, that's what I did in high school anyway.) So much of the status lines weren't directed at me; most of my 400+ "friends" were people who I was marginally acquainted with, many from the past with whom I've lost touch, and many of them for good reason. Facebook is so good at keeping that top layer of friendship alive, but nothing deeper. I once called it, life-support for friendships in that it keeps friendships alive--barely. It allows for just enough contact to keep a friendship or acquaintance alive, and nothing more.

And I was so tired of scrolling down and seeing posts for things that I simply couldn't have cared less about: Go Pats, Celtics, Red Sox, and Bruins. References to Glee, Mad Men, DWTS, Project Runway or hell, any stupid TV show.

I stayed with it for so long mostly because there were a handful of people who actually posted things that elicit thought or debate. Taught me something. And I especially liked actually "meeting" people who I had a lot in common but never met, although I actually one night in Cambridge did meet two Facebook friends for the first time face to face, and it was a enjoyable and very cool experience.

And I'm going to have to work harder at keeping up with the local theater. It was where all the fringe theaters posted their shows and special deals, and I'm going to have to work to keep up on that. But hey, with the Internet, you can run, but you can't hide.

I think the clincher came though recently when I heard a Very Big Deal go on and on about Facebook, how he just joined because someone signed him up, he didn't understand it, he joked about the idea of friends, but all in all the whole performance was for his benefit, and I thought to myself, yeah, if you're on Facebook, it's passe. Time to move on.

It was fun, and I may log on sometime just out of curiosity. But I've had a two very productive days, and I'm not so sure I want to give them up. Funny, there's a link on my toolbar, and all I have to do is click on it and log back on, but I'm not even tempted. The hard part was making the break. Once you do that, it's easy to stay away.

Blogging, social media, and ink in your veins

Nice.

More good news from this past week.

The website, Online Social Media, picked up my post on Gather.com about the Facebook page.

Writing and politics and the news and blogging is all a passion for me. I can't not do it. As it's said, I have ink in my veins.

I was talking on the phone yesterday with Rick Holmes, the opinion editor at the MetroWest Daily News, for whom I freelanced for about 10 years. We talked mostly about the Tea Party Express that was just in Boston. We both were there, and we sort of swapped impressions, just trying to figure things out.

And today, I spoke with a friend of Sue's who writes for the Wall Street Journal. I told her about my post on Gather.com, Hip, hip, hooray: The SEC (finally) charges Goldman Sachs with fraud.

The media's reputation is kind of in the tank, but it has nothing to do with serious, hard-working writer types who do the day to day, and everything to do with--surprise, surprise--the business guys like Turner and Murdoch who want to see themselves in history as some sort of William Randolph Hearst.

Jiggling breasts and SEO and long hot showers

It's been over a month since I last posted to Action Bob. And I do see that people have been checking in. I've been concentrating more of my writing time--what little there is--over at Gather.com.

Yes, I've said it over and over: I'm a word whore. I'll write anything for money. And Gather.com hired me as a Social Writer, which is just a fancy term for someone they've identified who can drive traffic to their site, adding value to it, and are willing to pay me pittance to do it. (Too bad a certain client of mine doesn't have the same confidence that I can drive traffic, and so we'll soon be parting ways.) Anyway, over the course of a thirty year career as a copywriter I've stated my job description as someone who makes wealthy men wealthier. And that's what I do. I know how to get people to part with their money through words, and just as a reminder, Bob Markle is the name of a character I've written who works in an ad agency. Yes, the belly of the beast, the engine that fueled this economic downturn we're living through now, encouraging people to buy, buy, buy even though they can't afford, afford, afford it.

But this little spot in the digital world is so comforting to me, because here I don't have to worry about Google Trends or SEO or Google-identified keywords. Writing on the Web is more about timing and trends and content is a long third, and it's something I can do only for so long. I mean, check this out:

A posting about one of the latest Facebook memes attracted 24,788 views. (Is a certain local college marcom group taking note of this?)

But a post on the unemployment figures for older Americans garnered a paltry 38. And we wonder why America is going to hell in a handbasket.

I can write about Facebook and the latest celebrity public embarrassments only so long, and then I just want to take a long hot shower with lye soap--you know what I mean?

For those of you who have been checking in, thank you for taking the time. I know I've been remiss in keeping my promise of keeping this site interesting. And for those pervs who stumble on this site because you've searched for "jiggling breast" here ya go. From May 14, 2008. I know it's not exactly what you were looking for, but life is filled with disappointments.

16 things about myself....and the nature of self-absorption

All right, we all know the drill by now. Someone sends you an email, or in the case of Facebook, a note comprising a list about themselves. Usually it's pretty trivial stuff. It's kind of an unwritten rule about that sort of thing. It should be trivial and written with a bit of irony for spice. That's the recipe for cool and hip today. Don't be deep or serious, and God, what would we do without our irony, just to show how intelligent and world-weary we all are. We're talking their favorite ice cream, if they're a morning person or night owl. That kind of stuff.

You write a list and send it back to them and to a bunch of your friends. It's a chain letter, is what it is.

It's all part of today's scene filled with pop stars and bloggers and FB pages and social networking, tailor-made for today's digital voyeur.

And yes, in the interest of full disclosure, I realize I'm being as self-absorbed as the next person on this blog. Probably more so, because of the three keywords for this blog, one is "personal". The other two, not that you're interested but I'm so self-absorbed that I'm going to tell you anyway, are "theater", spelled with an "er" at the end and not the snobby "re", and "music."

So, the other night with a fever of over 100 degrees, I plopped down on the couch, probably feeling a bit like an Argentinian wine: unappreciated. And I dug kind of deep, because one of the people who tagged me had a FB friend who he tagged write some pretty revealing things about herself. And I took her lead, because it was kind of interesting for me to read these incredibly personal and potentially hurtful details about this stranger. She broke the mold, as they say. Man, honesty in this world is rare, isn't it?

I am so sick and tired of irony and world-weariness.

And being unemployed, you just don't get that stroke that you get when you're out there being a part of things, not that I was a part of anything when I was out there in the working world. Here's a news flash people: It's all smoke and mirrors. It's all a ruse.

So I guess, deep down, it was all just me crying to out to be recognized. Yelling out like so many others that I exist and I'm worth taking notice of.

I've been criticized in the past for writing too personally on this blog. What will potential employers think? (I hope that anyone who is looking for a writer will see that I'm the real deal, that's what I hope they think.) That blogging is nothing more than an exercise in self-absorption. Yeah, I can see the arguments. I can also make the argument, as I do so often, that I truly believe that we are all in this together, connected in ways we can't see. Not connected by the Internet, but a real universal web that transcends time and space. Think Einstein. And that shared experiences, learning how others experience called life, can be a good thing.

So, because I know you're all so intrigued with me and everything about me, here's the list, taken from Facebook:


1. I'm only doing this because Grant tagged me and so did Jess and I am feeling awfully guilty about not playing along. So that's #1...I pretend I'm a rebel, actually revel in it, but deep down I just want to belong like everyone else.

2. Despite wanting to belong I prefer being on the fringe. I know it's contradictory; deal with it.

3. I would prefer to be an animal than a human any day. My first choice would be a coyote. They're awfully smart and hang out on the fringe.

4. I wish I was a better guitar player. I would, like Robert Johnson, make a deal with the devil to make it so. I wouldn't give my soul, though. I'd trade all my acting ability. To me that's more than a fair deal. We need more guitar players than actors in this world, I think.

5. I wouldn't make the deal at a crossroads at midnight though. I'd prefer mid to late morning.

6. Most of the time I wish I weren't white.

7. When I was really down and out I was in the emergency room and they asked for the name of someone to contact in case of an emergency and all I could give them was the name of my dog, Bob. So, somewhere Robert Greiner-Ferris is listed as my son.

8. I think #7 is awfully funny; please don't feel sorry for me. I hate that.

9. I'm the happiest now than I've been in a long time.

10. Someday Sue and I want to travel around the world together.

11. I keep a list of people I'd want to have a beer with. Jacqueline Onassis is on it. So is Einstein.

12. I think that just as the polar bear has developed huge feet that act like snowshoes in an arctic environment and a voracious appetite and an ugly temper to find food in a world where there is little food, so we have developed emotions like kindness and sympathy and empathy. We are a species capable of destroying ourselves. Without those emotions we would certainly have wiped ourselves out a long time ago. They're surely survival traits. Have you ever known a polar bear to exercise kindness and empathy?

13. I have to be in the middle of reading a book. If not, something's just out of kilter in my life. I'm currently reading two books.

14. Although both my parents came from large families, I'm pretty much an orphan. Once I call Sue, Kathryn, Allison, and John, I'm pretty much tapped out. And I only have a couple of really good friends. I don't mind it though. I used to want a big wonderful family and a huge social life, but now I know it's won't come in this life and I''m okay with that.

15. There's actually an incredible amount of strength that comes with the ability to be by yourself.

16. This seems to me that it should be a big finish, but I can't think of anything that comes close to fireworks. So, I'll just leave by saying I truly believe we as a society have yet to understand that those who inflict emotional pain are no different than those who inflict physical pain. They're thugs, any way you look at it. And we as a species have not developed the senses to see the actual human parts that hurt. They're there; we just can't see them yet. Just because Bob can't see red, doesn't mean the color red doesn't exist. I can hit you and be arrested, and for good reason. But you can inflict emotional pain and nothing will happen. But the pain is the same.

Social networking in a nut(shell)

The idea is to put things in context, right? To figure out what's going on. Try and see the big picture.

So, when last week a bunch of us actor-types were emailing each other after our schedule of classes had run its course, there was this flurry that caught my eye.

During a random thread that morphed into talking about our names--some of us have really long names; some longer than others and one has a string of names that's almost unpronounceable. They're beautiful names, just hard for people with, shall we say, not a lot of experience pronouncing central European names. She just threw it out that maybe we should help her with a stage name.

I picked up on one of her middle names--Dominique--and Raphael pulled something off Youtube saying she could even have her own theme song and it all just tickled me so much I begged to blog about it. The end. (Well, she did say, go ahead and blog about it. I don't like to ambush or surprise people on my blog. I guess it's called blogiquette.)



We, in our own primitive digital way, were preserving and extending the experience of the class we just were all in together, even preserving our personalities and roles. I was feeling the joy and happiness and the fun of being with this group of people, and it was all coming through my monitor and headphones.

It's kind of my job to understand the Internet and the Web and social networking and the whole digital experience. (It's also a good excuse to say that at this point because right now I'm blogging at work.) We've all experienced this kind of frivolous kind of back and forth emailing I just described, the heart of which became social networking complete with totally unreadable MySpace pages and all that poking and super poking on Facebook that I consider to be an enormous waste of time. It is also quickly becoming the engine for commerce on those same sites. MySpace and Facebook are just a trend. Again, repeat after me: When you wrap your head around the concept that any media, including social networking sites, are just a medium for advertising that delivers an audience, you'll do fine.

But while Starbucks and Visa and American Apparel and Sunkist are all vying for our attention (me, me, pick me!) we mortals are just trying to keep in touch with one another. And that's the beauty and the power and also the dark side of the Internet.

We've evolved to depend on our ISP and phone provider more than we ever depended upon Ma Bell. The fact that our--what do you call these companies?-- communication providers?? --the fact that our communications providers today haven't understood their new role in society is a matter for Congress to look into. I think it's a better idea for Congress to investigate why (rather than what Roger Clemens shot in his butt, for example), if my email account goes down that Comcast will take up to a week to fix it because it classifies my account as an entertainment account.

Email and Internet access has become too integral to our lives for it to be classified as entertainment.

Friends, family, and acquaintances can keep up on what's going on in each other's lives. Why is that so important? Because we are social animals, peeps, there's no other reason. We crave each other's company, to the point where we'll take the craziest, most dysfunctional relationship over being alone.

There's some real power here, and for those who don't understand it, it's like giving a chimpanzee a loaded gun. It's like playing with fire.

You're typing, peeps, but it isn't letter-writing, no more than your cell phone is the same as that old black rotary thing that used to sit in the hallway in the 1960s. It's not the same any more than a digital eNewsletter is the same as a piece of direct marketing that used to clog your mailbox on your porch.

You're talking about some serious connectivity. You're talking about some serious, long-haul communications, across time and space. We're starting to inject a little Ensteinian principles in our lives. It's so damn easy to hit that send button, isn't it? So much easier than writing and sealing an envelope and licking a stamp and walking to the corner mailbox. All that time to think about if you really want to send that letter. What you really want to say.

It's so easy to stay in touch with people you really shouldn't be staying in touch with, isn't it? Old boyfriends and girlfriends. Ex-lovers. Preserving and extending all of that dysfunction. People who, in the "olden days" would have been gone forever. They could be living in the same town and you'd never see them. Gee, I wonder how so-and-so that creep is doing, and that would have been the extent of the thought. But now you can act on that thought as easy as google411. Or somebody sends email with a distribution list the size of the NYC telephone directory, because it's so darn easy to just click, click, and click some more. And you see an addy and think, what the heck, where's the harm? You're feeling so disconnected right now...but that's where you're wrong. We are all so connected we might as all be in the same room together. And that, my friends, is really the way you should think about it...

The good, the bad, and the ugly. All at your fingertips. Social networking and commerce and relationships that should have just been put on the shelf.

And if you can't tell, I think it's all good....

Facebook

Sat (well, actually SRO) through a presentation on Facebook today. That's one of the cool things about Agencyland, there are some interesting presentations made by Somebodies. Pretty interesting until the agency marketing, strategy, and general old guard started peppering the guest with questions about click rates and branding campaigns. One exec even was either bold enough (or tactless enough, depending on your pov) to say our clients weren't interested in groups as small as 5,000. Well...goodness...give me 5,000 good leads over 5,000,000, but welcome to the world of Big Business.

I do the Facebook thing, and I'm not sure why. Peer pressure, I think.

On a slow day I'll check Facebook numerous times an hour, just like I'll check email every five minutes even when I didn't have email five minutes ago. (Where is everyone? Does everyone hate me? Why don't I have friends? I need some attention here, people....) I want/crave to see what others are doing. There's something reassuring to seeing someone updating their page, like seeing a far-away light in the darkness, that there are other living, breathing people out there manipulating the bits and bytes in the same sphere that I inhabit. I feel connected, but only slightly.

Facebook is a helluva lot of work. Forget Facebook, social networking is a lot of work. I guess if you want friends, you gotta work for them.


There's the touch, and that's really all there is. C thinks it's all a bunch of bunk, made for the self-absorbed who all they can do is talk about themselves and don't know how to have real relationships. And I think there is a heckuva lot of truth to that. But truth be told, I don't think there's really much difference between dressing up your Facebook page and choosing the shirt you're going to wear to work. It's all for show. Hello?

There's the status message. Updated, it has to be clever and funny and smart. It's hard work to come up with that everyday, and it's important you stay within the boundaries dictated by white middle-class America. John wants to live in a trailer in the middle of the desert with a loaded shotgun by the door is not an appropriate status message on Facebook. At least not in my little world of friends. You gotta fit in, but you don't necessarily have to join the team to play the game.

The shallowness of a Facebook relationship isn't, quite frankly, any more shallow that most relationships I've had in my life. Just like you can count on one hand the number of great teachers you've had in your life, I'm sure most of us hit a certain age and can do the same with the relationships they've had in their life. Most friendships and relationships are just training ground for when the shit really hits the fan, when the chips really fall, and if you're ever unfortunate enough in your life for some general crisis to turn you into a human World Trade Tower you'll find out fast enough just how deep your friendships and relationships are. Most aren't.

Face it, peeps, as a species, most of us are pretty shallow. And I think we all know that. And I think, like it or not, that's exactly the reason that Facebook and MySpace and Bebo and Friendster and Reunion.com et al exist. It's the reason they can exist. People crave touch, and most prefer a poke or SuperPoke over the real physical deal. Whatever their excuse--they don't have the time, the energy. Some will even tell the truth and say society has twisted them to the point where they are emotional cripples and a digital relationship, one they can control with a keyboard and mouse, is preferable to a real one. Did I say preferable? I meant to say required.

But given my rant, I still think there's something there. Something really big. And the problem is we haven't tapped it yet, and I don't think we will before the marketing and strategy and analysis people catch up with their need to quantify clicks and page views. (One page view, to the right person, is worth all the big numbers. That's communication. That's relationships. One passionate true love is worth a ton of one-night stands.)

What's the next big thing? It's not digital. Never will be. The next real big thing will be when digital lets us cut the cord from digital.