matt forrest likes some stuff

Welcome to the graveyard of cool things that have met their match, hashtags. You have joined Ask Jeeves, Slamball, shell art, and your favorite bar (6 months from now). Hashtags are done.

Along with loosing their relevance apart from conferences and events the majority of them I encounter have one meaning to one tweet, and generally don’t add anything to that tweet. At this point I’ll read someones tweet, read the hashtag, and this will be the response.

“Really.”, is another appropriate response. I remember when it used to be cool to have a hashtag with multiple underscores and that were way too long. Carles is the only one that can pull that off. Now it’s just dead. I’ll elaborate on my beef with them now.

Failed sarcasm

Personally I would just rather read in plain text about the funny kid at the bar, strange observation you saw on the bus, or about your work experiences. I don’t think adding #areyouserious, #stragestuffonthebus, or #needcoffee adds to what you have just said. Also it’s not funny. Just use emoji or something. Your sass isn’t original.

Obvious statements

Same vein as above but only slightly different. Thanks for telling me #awesome or #lol. I learned so much more about what you are telling me. Other offenders are #friends, #roomies, #amazing. Just say “This picture is amazing.” Just because you can use the pound sign doesn’t mean you should throw it around as much as the pound handshake.

Thanks for that

Carrying out your hashtags from a previous, generally not worthy of extension statement, isn’t doing anything for anyone. #toomanysocialnetworks, #wherearemykeys, #brunchsohard, and others. Now I know how awesome the thing you are doing is since it’s worthy of a hashtag.

Cool blog, bro

This should be easy. If you have good content on your blog people will read it. You don’t need to add 6 hashtags teling me what you wrote about. I’m good. Say something actually interesting and people might follow you. You aren’t going to get to be internet famous by tweeting #iphone #tech #EDM. Cool your jets.

It’s not Twitter

Keep it off Facebook. I’m done with that. Should be clear but the failed irony doesn’t get better on the Book.

Twitter killed hashtags

If it wasn’t clear to anyone else, I can search things that are going on without your relevant pound sign comment. If I really cared about what was trending I would go look at TrendsMap, particularly on a Sunday around 3pm in Brooklyn where brunch is most always trending.

The new relevant way to tweet? Capitalization and good grammar. Your irony will come off much better.

I don’t use this site other than posting GIFs amongst other web junk. But this is worth being said so go with it.

Before I go further I’ll say this. I don’t interact with the tech community often. I don’t know any of these people personally. And I actually don’t know that any of these companies or people function or behave in these ways. Okay good.

I used to read Mashable often. It had some good articles that gave you some ideas to make your social media profiles a bit more interesting (for work and personally). It showcased some interesting ideas. Some were funny. Some were actually practical. Over time though there were more articles and videos that were just stupid. I actually thought they had some insightful thoughts to share.

Then I noticed the Mashable Twitter profile.

I really didn’t get it. Why isn’t their logo their like every other sane company on the internet? Is this Pete guy that special? Is he just trying to bro-out so he can be recognized by all the BBs at tech events (I think this is the reason)?

It bugged me. A lot. And then I started noticing his mug all over the place. It kept bugging me. I even asked him (well @mashable because that is apparently him) why is that picture up there.

I started paying more attention rather than just looking up something specific I wanted to read about. And I saw a lot of their articles are pretty bad. Really bad in fact. And they are all targeted at certain areas to get hits. Now I’m not against good SEO, but I am against claiming to be one thing (a legitimate media source) and being another (posting anything related to technology or the internet, or sometimes neither, to drive ad revenue).

They came out with their Mashable community at some point, which I thought was them putting their writing into practice. Nope. Just email updates and some other fancy Javascript items I can play with on their site.

I even sent some tweets their way. Seeing as I was a “part of their community” I thought I could get a response about why this was the case. Nope.

So I kept seeing more and more terrible articles that added no value to my day or work. Kept having his mug pop up in my Twitter feed. It’s gotten to be too much. 

So instead of Twitter Littering their account I’m just going to share my grievances here. 

1) Really worthless articles

If social media is supposed to “make the world a more open and connected place” (hate to quote Marky Z but it works) then maybe as a site that reports on social media they should be covering new and innovative ways that end is met. Instead there are posts like these.

10 Funniest Tweets of the Week

So now we just post pictures of peoples tweets?

Girl on Phone Falls Through Pavement Into Sinkhole

She was on a phone so that’s why it needs to be covered.

This Is Crazy: Harvard Athletes Perform ‘Call Me Maybe’

This is relevant because they are from Harvard and that’s where Marky went to school? Or because it’s on YouTube. Seriously it’s not even a good video. At least BuzzFeed just admits their putting stuff up there for mindless entertainment.

Now You Can Smell Like YouTube Sensation Justin Bieber

Not a fan of this kid but I think he is a bit more than a YouTube sensation. Also, WTF.

If you look at their site at any given time there are at least several posts that are along these lines: 8 Pictures _______ (some social media site). Like I said not against SEO but when it’s a lot of worthless content that doesn’t add value for anyone, what’s the point.

There are more if you want to keep the party going.

2) Join our “community”

Community engagement is big in social media. We all get that. Everyone is trying to find ways to do it. When I first came across Mashable it was to find interesting ways people did this (content which they also reuse constantly).

I’m not sure when they started their community but overall I think they break a ton of their own suggestions when they do this. The only valuable feature is the fact that you can follow things that are interesting to you. What that means is that you get a “personalized email” with anything related to those topics. “Please come give us more views.”

Mashable’s idea of community engagement seems to be centered around this one phrase.

“What are your thoughts on ________? Share them in the comments below.”

What blog hasn’t figured this out yet? I feel really engaged with the community.

3) Pete Cashmore’s Ego

I stated this at the beginning but I’ll say it again. Don’t know this guy. Never met him. 

That being said, I don’t get this guy. First off the Twitter picture. They might be the only company or news related group that doesn’t have their logo as their avatar. Begs the question: why?

I’m going to make the assumption that Pete would say something along the lines of:

“Social Media is about people. We think that a brand shouldn’t be faceless. We want to be personable and it reflects how we view the openness of the social web. Our news shouldn’t be coming from a logo, it should be coming from people.”

If that’s the case here’s a bright idea: rotate some pictures of you followers in and out if its about the community. It’s gotta be some other reason.

The frustration wants me to say that it’s because he want’s to impress all the babes he talks to while he’s putting on his rage face.

I don’t know Peter so I can’t say that’s true. But it’s something endemic of a lot of figureheads of social media companies. You aren’t alone, bro.

This article on Gawker kind of sums it up well. Zuck, Pete, and many others will always put their company first in the public eye. They will always say it’s about some greater mission to help connect the world. It’s about the users.

My question is why do you end up with commercials like this then:

I’m not saying don’t take credit for what you’ve done. If you made something really cool or that changes the game, take credit. 

At least the folks in that video are open about it: “We made something cool, and we like the attention”. It’s human nature. It’s when CEOs and others hide behind the veil of some greater mission or idea and pretend they aren’t soaking it up. Explains why Zuckerberg protested The Social Network then took his entire staff to see the movie. And those hoodies. Suit up already.

There are numerous MBAs out here looking to make the next big cool tech thing. I don’t doubt that if you asked any of them there would be some big missional idea behind it or something of the lines of “it would just be a simple way for people to connect and share _______”. I also don’t doubt that they would love the attention too. There is a certain attraction to the shine that comes with running the next cool tech thing.

But back to the point. Pete, if you like the attention just say so. Say you like having your face on a Twitter account with millions of followers. Say you love flying first class and having huge events at SXSW. Say you love when you have a gathering and it was the most checked in venue in _____ city on Foursquare. Then get back to focusing on the company and what you need to do to make it work. Even if that is posting tons of articles that have no depth.

Plenty of other people have managed to set that aside and make the idea behind their organization bigger and more important than their egos. A lot (not all) new tech figureheads have to figure that one out yet. And it’s bothersome.

So that’s that. I’ll still have to read their content, visit their site, and stare at Pete’s headshot. This won’t do much, but if some of these heads of new tech can get over the sensation of cameras on them and worry about actually doing what their mission says those companies/products might accomplish what they want to.

In the spirit of community interaction: “Post your thoughts in the comments below!”