I am not afraid of the semantic web. What I am afraid of is a portrayal it as merely unifying. The web converges but it also destroys and stratifies, and NO ONE can truly grasp how all of these points within the web fully relate. It asks us to separate the truth from our own perspective of that truth. If this Truth exists, we wouldn’t be able to get passed ourselves to see it.

So how will the semantic web think outside a bias? We can try algorithms, but inevitably money and time seem to get factored in. A company called Google seems to always put Knol pages ahead of Squidoo pages on search results, even though they do the same thing. Knol is owned by Google whereas Squidoo is not though. The web is also biased because most people in the world are not on it, and therefore could not offer their own even perspective if they tried.

Food for thought: is the web “more reliable than its parts” if 5,000 people report a story incorrectly and the one person who was actually there is totally computer illiterate?

How will the semantic web distinguish what is popular versus what is right? Can it? How can we take steps so that truth goes beyond hype?

Let’s think about this: say I work for Hummer. This would be utterly ridiculous, because everyone knows I love BMWs and Porsches and feel that driving a Hummer is the equivalent of wearing a name tag that says “asshole”. The more transparent I am, the more it comes across that I am totally miserable and probably hate your guts for wanting to pollute this lovely green Earth with your tacky Hummer. That’s not good marketing. That helps me in no way.

My ex-boyfriend and I ran an eBay Motors store that made half a million dollars profit in one year with just two people running it. Why? 1.) We (and in particular he) loved cars. We would watch every episode Top Gear and went on a vacation to the Laguna Seca race track. It was a labor of love. 2.) We wanted to make people feel happy by buying a car they loved. It felt great to sell a convertible to the women who just overcame cancer and wanted something fun. I loved giving an executive seamlessly good service so they could pick up their car and go on to something more productive. People are not stupid and they know when you care about them and when you are just trying to make a buck. Take care of them and they will take care of you.

Being transparent is worthless if you have no passion about what you do. You can come across as transparently greedy, or transparently bored, or transparently stupid. Having passion and feeling that the service you are providing will generally enrich someone’s life will make you transparent by default. Why? Because you are offering someone something that you see is good that will help them. Who wouldn’t be transparent about that?

1.) Tired your legs must be. Running in my mind you have been.

2.) Nice shirt you have. Look better on the floor it will.

3.) Hurt do you? Fall from heaven you did?

4.) A ninja you must be. Kicking your legs are.

5.) Windex in your pants you must have. In your pants I can see myself.

Can you think of any cool Yoda pickup lines? Please share for others so they can enjoy wasting their time at work.

The semantic web can fix the issue of data portability in social media. How? By using associations to group different profiles together. It also allows people to own their data instead of being at the mercy of every social network.

My apologies for the technical difficulties. Many thanks to Paul Walhus for filming, Juan Sequeda for engaging the dialog, Whurley for fixing my internets, and Giovanni Gallucci for buying me some time while i figured things out.

Check out the details here:

I still hate computers. People call me a geek, but they are so far from the truth. I like what computers do. I hate computers. I like playing tennis and skiing and enjoying the company of friends. In sum, I love living. I don’t want to be behind a computer if I can help it.

So you can imagine my excitement that people are building iPhone apps and are dedicated towards using the semantic web to solve data portability issues. Why? IMHO, social media is boring. Very boring. I’ve driven Ferraris, skied down black slopes in Colorado, and gone crazy on a jet ski. I’ve built roofs for churches in rural Mexico where the streets were not paved and the children looked like they came from a Diego Rivera painting. Life is beautiful and fun, and we shouldn’t sit behind a computer and miss it all.

I need to read more about social media like I need a hole in the head. I just want the stupid stuff to work on my iPhone so I can move on with my life. I like people–just not in the context of sitting behind a computer.

So, for the love of God, so I can move on with my life, BUILD APPS FOR THE iPHONE. GO TO THIS EVENT AT CONJUNCTURED TO DO IT. AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE SEMANTIC WEB SO I DON’T HAVE TO SPEND ALL DAY UPDATING PROFILES. GEEZ.

Here’s the post I put on Seeismic dedicated to this issue:

This sucks.

It doesn’t suck that Microsoft is choosing not to acquire Yahoo. It sucks because Yahoo has an open source initiative that no one in the press seems to be paying attention to. A good example is Search Monkey. If you can’t compete with Google, just open it up and let others improve the search engine.

Who ultimately is the loser in all of this? We are. People are afraid of Google for a reason. They have their hands on a lot of different industries and have the power to shut a lot of people down. When Yahoo struggles with a good idea, Google gains strength in market share. Google can therefore charge more money to us as advertisers so it can further improve its reaches in other arenas. It’s a slippery slope.

I was with a lawyer who is a client of mine and showed a simple demonstration. I Googled “criminal lawyer Houston” and clicked the first ad. I said, “That just cost that guy $20″. With Yahoo struggling, that same ClickAd will go to $30 before you know it. Perhaps the biggest spenders on AdWords should get a clue and throw some developers Search Monkey’s way.

When they see you in person, they expect that you’ve read their Tweets.

TweetDeck helps you organize your tweets into segmented lists so you can better keep track of the people you follow. Here’s why it’s important that you use TweetDeck if you follow a lot of people:

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This is also described by Tara Hunt as “social capital” (i.e. cred that isn’t money).

At Volusion, I never felt like I could use my talent. I wasn’t writing with my voice. It’s a very hollow feeling to come home and feel like your work isn’t really your own.

Lynn at GeekAustin suggested I write for him. He’d had the site “in the garage” for a while and had had some success with the GeekAustin Happy Hours. We decided we’d do some interviews of geeks in the Austin area. Although I never felt I could write in a way that appealed to geeks, Lynn watched as the RSS subscriptions went up.

Lynn felt that writing for GeekAustin was a way for me to show people my talents and build my “whuffie” so that I could get a better job. Although I wasn’t happy at Volusion, I couldn’t be aggressively looking elsewhere because my boss told another employee that if we were caught, we could get fired. It was the best shot I had at establishing myself.

What ensued? I wasn’t pummeled with job offers I wanted. I was pummeled with people asking me to write for their own organizations for free.

Since writing for GeekAustin, I’ve been asked to write for or help with:
1.) RefreshAustin
2.) Green Technology Alliance
3.) SharingHope.tv’s blog
4.) AIR
5.) Conjunctured’s blog
6.) League of Technical Voters
7.) NetSquared
8.) Practical Ecommerce
9.) TakesAllTypes

I know I’m missing some here.

I’ve been asked to head up NetSquared Austin. I’ve been asked to be more active in Austin Social Media Club. People remind me of their events completely out of the blue. I’ve been asked to “pimp” a design firm who said they’d swing work my way, but never did. I’ve had random startups calling to pitch me their product ideas, saying, “Yeah, we could use you later on”. I’ve been told my face is on every Facebook event in the Austin area.

I don’t have health insurance right now. I haven’t been on a vacation in over a year. I’m worried about paying my bills.

Man, whuffie sucks.

I lost one client already which I blame on my extracurricular Web 2.0 activities. I have others lined up which may or may not fall through. I will not volunteer for anything again until I know I can take care of myself. Whether this is with a series of clients I help freelance or at a company that actually understands that I work well with little supervision and with adequate compensation, that’s up in the air.

I’m even looking at two positions in Houston. Houston, people!

I love the Austin 2.0 community. I love Austin period. That’s why I take pictures and write posts with tons of link juice and throw people’s resumes around. But I have to learn to say no, and this post is my first step to saying no.

I’m revising this blog complete with all my services this week. If you know someone who needs help with website branding, copywriting, press releases, blogging or social media, have them contact me at michelle(at)michellesblog.net. Just make sure they pay me in dollars and not whuffie, because I don’t think my landlord takes that yet…

These politicians raise millions of dollars just to get a bunch of cheesy 30 second TV spots and conduct polls. Who the hell actually listens to those worthless ads anyway? How genuine are those user surveys? Here is a medium that is TOTALLY FREE, that gives them direct access to a user base that is educated and votes, and they want to turn it off? I say, get them all on there and let them duke it out for the hearts and minds of voters. I’d love to interact with Congresspeople. It will tell me who’s sincere and who’s smart, and who would be better off selling life insurance somewhere.

Let Congress Tweet? I say, bring it! You can’t hide from the internet, so you might as well embrace the tools that better allow you to leverage it.

Here are ways you can help:
1.) Email your Representative and tell them how you feel about this issue. Find out who to contact and how here.

2.) Contact the Franking Commission regarding this issue. The Franking Commission determines how Congress communicates with constituents. Since you cannot obtain House members’ emails (to prevent spam), I’ve included a link with each Franking Commission member’s contact form. Please let them know that we want to follow our Congresspeople on Twitter, in blogs, on Qik and Utterz, so that we may be more involved in our political process.

If you are busy and want just a pre-filled message, you can use this one if you wish:

Communication between Congresspeople and constituents is a natural part of every healthy democracy. Social media tools such as Twitter, Qik, Facebook, and blogs facilitate this communication better than any other tool throughout history. Twitter has saved people from forest fires, bailed a man who was unlawfully thrown in an Egyptian jail, organized blood drives and raised money against cancer, and spread the word about natural disaster relief efforts. It is a powerful tool that can help you make strong decisions for our nation. I would like to invite you and other Congresspeople to use these tools to more effectively serve your constituents.

You can sign up for some these services here:
http://www.twitter.com
http://www.qik.com
http://www.utterz.com
http://www.plurk.com

Here are the people on the Franking Commission. Just click on their name and it will take you to their contact page.:
Michael Capuano
Robert A. Brady
Zoe Lofgren Zoe does not allow for emails outside her district, so here is her phone number: (202) 225-3072.
Charles Gonzalez (no contact form. What a bum!)
Susan Davis
Artur Davis. He also requires you to be a constituent, so you might want to call at (202) 225-2665.
Vern Ehlers
Dan Lungren
Kevin McCarthy

Let’s let Congress know that it is more communication and not less that will improve our democracy.

This DOES NOT mean that I am willing to give up free advice on social media, website architecture, SEO, SEM, copywriting, blogging or anything of that nature. I spent two years perfecting a layout to sell cars online for BMW of Austin. I spent one year as an Ecommerce Consultant for Volusion, and one year as their internet marketing blogger. This means I have a total of four years understanding what does and does not sell on the internet.

You don’t ask lawyers for free legal advice, or doctors for free medical advice. You pay them for a consultation. This is how commerce works and what allows us to pay our bills. If I give one company free advice, it is not fair to my paying customers.

Please do not take this personally. I just need to earn a living just like everyone else.