• considers the user
• leverages interest in free content
• shows Amazon’s positive offerings. 

Additionally, it’s also not at all intrusive – disappearing the moment someone starts typing.

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To get you that nostalgic feeling, you get the load If you scroll lower you get iconic geocities and under construction logos:

Bet you today’s cyber kids will not get any of this!

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Does it make me a hipster to make a Venn Diagram?

…even if supposedly making that declaration might make me one (MFA Confidential – Jessie Morrison noted in her “Am I A Hipster?” post that denial is a sign that you are).

I’ve been privy to a number of situations where for all marketing categorical intents and purposes I would be stuck in that category – willingness to be on the cutting edge, concern for the environment, awareness of trends, etc.  But while I think that those are qualities I might share with “hipsters”, I don’t feel I am one, primarily because the label is kinda negative.  As in I don’t really feel it’s “hip” to be a “hipster” – heck, if we want to take the persona label seriously, I’d be thrown to the dogs by using the word “hip” in a non-ironic, semi-serious way.  But my opinion against this label is also because I define myself by the things that make me not a hipster – I like to listen to Britney Spears and Taylor Swift and Hilary Duff, I like my corporate-branded McDonald’s Happy Meal that may or may not biodegrate and definitely isn’t made of organic material.

I’ve joked with friends that the following is my definition of a hipster:

A hipster is someone who gets mad at you for knowing something before they do.

I don’t think most people are like that.  I think most people are glad that they can introduce you to a new place or glad when they know the people who provide that information to others.

What marketing/demographic people are labeling “hipster”, I feel they should re-label and re-assess.  I would say that we could be called Connectors (as mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, even if he does cite hipsters in this book as well), but they’re kind of rare and they are the true trendsetters willing to dive into the mayhem.  In truth, despite the venn diagram I made insinuating that I’m “cool” without the attached irony, I think I’m an “Information Sharer”.

So marketing people, tell me something I want to share.  Give me something to care about.  Is what I say going to change the world?  Maybe…likely not.  Are people going to listen to me?  I don’t know.  But I share information anyway because I want to, because it’s important to me, and maybe it’ll be important to somebody else.  And I think that’s the beating heart of all the change in the world – caring - not the people who care to be first.

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Facebook Shifting Borders?

The other day my friend Ian and I were having a facebook wall conversation and it wasn’t until he commented on my message on his wall that I realized you could comment on that as well (hey…there’s some things I don’t pay attention to ).

As my friend Bobby just did the same thing earlier (commenting on my wall post), I write this post being all kinds of  divided.  Is this the end of the wall-to-wall?  It makes sense because then the conversation follows on your profile where it began and you can see the exchange of things.  But then, I feel that you miss that element of two people on different profiles talking to each other.

Twitter-like?

Is this another Twitter-like integration by facebook as well?  Essentially adding in comments to people’s wall posts allows for other people to make their own comments if they knew the person.  I’ve done this on twitter every once in awhile, but though I’ll occasionally throw in a “I don’t know you, but that’s awesome!” comment in a string related to a facebook status, I haven’t really felt the need to do it in facebook.  Or perhaps it’s because I’ve never had the option?

Facebook with Twitterish Features

I’ve not been too big a fan of Facebook’s obvious changes to deflect the Twitter craze, but obviously (sans the Facebook Governance), they are a business and they need to figure out how to combat the competition.  But as individual tools, I see Facebook and Twitter as not different players in the same game (“Social Media”), but rather different dialects of the same language.  Some of its changes, it’s as if Facebook is trying to forcibly integrate another dialect into its own…and well – it’s awkward.  Twitter’s recent changes to interface are more about how to improve itself for its users and I think that’s how it really should be.

Commenting on wall posts, however, I think is just another facebook habit this user has to acquire.

Screenshot - Facebook TOS Voting

Well…sort of efficient. When I tried voting the first couple of times I received all these error messages. In any case, if you haven’t heard voting has now begun for the new Terms of Service (TOS) on Facebook – revised version with an input of comments from users and experts or reverting back to the 9/08 version before the mass hysteria of libertarian-esque outcry (It’s the internet. We’re still the wild, wild west).

Go here to get to the vote.

Way more efficient than Mark Zuckerberg’s inefficient FB blog post.

The vote ends April 22nd 11:59 a.m. PDT on April 23.