Social Media Addiction Update: Google + and MySpace Minus

Most businesses rely on supply and demand, and the Social Networking Rehab business is no different. Fortunately, with the continued growth of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, there has been no shortage of needy patients to fill the beds at INVITATIONS, the nation's premiere social networking recovery facility. For the past four years we have helped countless geeks and early adopters beat their need to tweet and revoke their desire to poke. Our highly trained staff has mastered the 140 steps needed for rehabilitation from the scourge of Social Networking addiction. However, we are presently faced with a new challenge putting stress on the status update... There's a new drug in town, and it's being spread by an all-powerful dealer who already has its runners and gang members on the digital corners of everyone's neighborhood. The new addiction is to something bigger than even the behemoth Google. The new addiction is Google +.

Pluses and Minuses

Google + is already running circles around the other addictive social networks. Formerly reformed Social Networking addicts such as Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan have already been spotted spending hours huddling and hanging out in the digital alleyways of Google +. The seductive allure of G+ invitations via Gmail have lured countless others to throw caution to the wind and take a toke of the "G", just to "see what it's like..." Some are inhaling more than others. Some have already succumbed wholeheartedly to the perils of Google + and have been found wandering aimlessly through the Interwebs, leaving a sloppy trail of +1's in their self-destructive path. Interventions are already leading to applications for a stint of Social Networking Rehab. Beds at INVITATIONS are in high demand.

Making Space

Fortunately, we have good news for early adopters needing a little less "+." Due to a steady decline in patients suffering from MySpace addiction, the staff at INVITATIONS has decided to permanently close the MySpace wing and re-open it with a new program fully dedicated to serving patients whose over-dependence on Google + has become a minus in other aspects of their professional and personal lives. The opening of the Google + treatment program at INVITATIONS is already making waves in rehab circles and causing quite a buzz. If you, or someone you care about, is in denial about a Google + dependency, help is now just an INVITATION away.

May We Have The Twitter Addiction Envelope Please: And the Weiner Is...

As evidenced by the oft re-tweeted member of New York's own member of Congress, @RepWeiner, there is no question that Twitter Addiction is on the rise (as was said member).  Try as we might, we can no longer remain flaccid whilst the Twitterverse stands aroused by this latest battle of the (Congressman's) bulge.  As Congressman's Weiner proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, Twitter Addiction is hard.

An Award From The Ward

With all the media atwitter with the sordid deets of Representative Weiner's Tweets, the size and scope of the matter was not lost on the staff at INVITATIONS.  When the highly trained doctors and therapists here gathered in the West Wing of the Scoble Ward to discuss nominations for the guest of honor keynote at this year's annual Intervention Convention, there was only one unanimous choice: Anthony Weiner.  Who better to be invited to speak to a crowd of loyal followers only to find themselves the object of a massive intervention? If that won't spank the monkey on the Congressman's back, nothing will.

Case Clothed

While we hope that Congressman Weiner will take our INVITATIONS intervention invitation to heart, understanding that he may still be in the denial stages of his disease, the staff at INVITATIONS has compiled a few steps from the "140 Steps To Cure Twitter Addiction" that may be helpful to the Congressman as he softly embarks on a road to recovery:

• Step 1 - Do NOT touch a computer or mobile phone unless fully clothed.
• Step 2 - Do NOT Tweet with one hand.... ever!
• Step 3 - Do NOT send out a Tweet that you would not happily recite to your wife and/or Nancy Pelosi.

These are just a few small steps that may help prevent any Twitter boners in the future...

What additional steps would you recommend for the Congressman?

(Editor's Note: Trying to fight my addiction, as an INVITATIONS outpatient I have resisted the urge to post here since the end of last year, but alas, it is too out of character for me to resist the appeal of 140 characters.  More importantly, on behalf of the staff here at INVITATIONS I am compelled to think of the greater good and once again promote our services as the nation's first, and leading Social Networking Addiction Recovery facility.  In other words, "I'm Baaaack!")  

Photo Credit: Kerioak - Fotolia.com

140 Steps To Cure Your Social Networking Addiction

12 steps are clearly not enough to address the ravages of Social Networking Addiction. With mobile phones placing Twitter and Facebook in our pockets, and everyone we ever associated with from grade school to grad school now friending and tweeting us 24/7 with all things arcane, mundane and inane, it is virtually impossible to escape the allure of the drug we call "Social Networking." 12 Steps - the traditional guiding principles outlining a course of action for recovery - may work for substance abuse, but they can't hold a ceremonial candle to the substantial abuse that is Social Networking addiction.

YOUR INVITATION FOR HELP

For several years now the staff at INVITATIONS, the Nation's Premiere Social Networking Recovery facility, have recognized that the original 12 steps were challenged when it comes to Social Media. For example, Step 8, "Make a list of all the persons we harmed with our addiction..." was great until Twitter added the new LISTS feature. Once our patients started using Twitter Lists to create lists of the folks their addiction affected "Step 8" lost some of its healing luster. As if that wasn't enough of a challenge, patients who thought @Scobleizer was their higher power were devastated when he went and unfollowed everyone, cutting the cult of Scoble off at the knees. We may be able to admit we are powerless over Social Networking and that our lives have become unmanageable, but we need more than 12 steps to lead us to the light. We need 140 steps to cure Social Networking Addiction, and we need your help to develop them.

STEP UP AND ADD A STEP!

Who better to develop a 140 step program than the folks who will benefit the most from it. Who better to define the cure than those suffering from the disease. Who better to help me come up with 140 clever and witty steps to a clean, social networking free existence than those whose very existence is dominated by social media. That's right, YOU!

If you are in need of Social Networking Rehab, you can join in and help us create the definitive 140 Step Program. Please add your suggested step in the comments. Between now and the end of the year we will be collecting, reviewing and testing your steps on the patients at INVITATIONS. Then, in January 2010, we will ring in the New Year by publishing an eBook detailing "140 Steps To Cure Your Social Networking Addiction" with the best of your submissions.

What steps are you taking to cure your Social Networking habit??? Please share them in the comments and you will have the chance to be included in the eBook next year! If you have friends who are addicted (and you know you do) please share this and ask them to contribute their "Steps" too!

UPDATE: We have released a new PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT video, with some steps recommended by some of you at a recent Miami TweetUp.

Photo Credit: © chinti - Fotolia.com

Beware Of Fake Twitter Addicts!

As Twitter has hit the mainstream, everyone from Actors such as Ashton Kutcher to TV personalities with only first names such as Oprah and Ellen to Politicians such as the Governator and his lovely wife Maria Shriver have all now become good Twittizens. They have joined the ranks of Shaq and Scoble, to smell like a Kevin Rose and whine like a Vaynerchuk, 140 characters at a time. All these characters are welcome additions to the social networking community, and should any of them fall prey to the siren song of constant status updates and find themselves "addicted" to Twitter, they will not have to worry as we have recently launched a celebrity wing at INVITATIONS, the nation's premiere Social Networking Rehab Facility.

NOT ALL TWEEPLE ARE CREATED EQUAL

While there are some celebrity Twittizens who are legitimately in need of Social Networking Rehab, the staff at INVITATIONS has been inundated with a rash of applications from some more dubious tweeters, claiming to be in need of help dealing with the pressures of maintaining their tens of thousands of followers, while at the same time engaging in, shall we say, less than sincere social networking practices. This behavior is not unlike someone "admitting" to having used marijuana, and then saying they never inhaled. Who would ever make such ridiculous claims???

The mission of INVITATIONS is to help those truly in need, and we have no patience to accept patients who are actually bot-bearing, auto-following, link-baiting, self-proclaimed "gurus." With that in mind, we have prepared a simple checklist to help you avoid inadvertently aiding a false addict:

TOP 10 WAYS TO IDENTIFY A FAKE TWITTER ADDICT

10. The words "SEO", "MONEY", "CASH", "PROFITS" or "WEIGHTLOSS" are part of their Twitter name...

9. You receive an immediate DM when you follow them back.

8. The DM you receive links to their SCAM, er, blog or website.

7. They follow thousands, have thousands of suckers, er, folks following them back, and they have posted 0 updates.

6. If they have posted updates, 99.9% of them contain a link to the same website or blog.

5. The only @replies they have are to other accounts they own ("self tweetillation" or "masturbatory tweeting.")

4. They NEVER Re-Tweet.

3. They Tweet about gaining 1,000's of followers "overnight" (and will show YOU how!)

2. Their profile image is a Dollar $ign.

And the number one way to identify a Fake Twitter Addict:

1. You end up HERE when you look for their Twitter profile!

How about you? Have you encountered any "fake" twitter addicts? If so, please tell us how you identified them in the comments!

Photo Credit: © Fullvalue - Fotolia.com

Day 43: Top 10 Reasons YOU Need Social Networking Rehab

(This post was inspired by Laura Fitton (@pistachio) and Lorri Randle (@mediajoltz) while we were Tweeting things up together in Ontario at the PNME. If you can say "YES" to four or more of the items below, then YOU should seriously consider joining me for an extended stay at INVITATIONS, the Nation's Premiere Social Networking Recovery Facility.)

Top 10 Reasons YOU Need Social Networking Rehab:

10. You have tried to email or IM someone by typing "@theirname".

9. You had to Friend your Physician on Facebook in order to make a Doctor's appointment.

8. You know who Robert Scoble is.

7. Without counting, you can instinctively form cohesive sentences of 140 characters or less.

6. You know who Dave Winer is and don't think RSS is a Cruise Line.

5. You have Twittered someone while they were physically less than 10 feet away from you.

4. You don't think Steve Rubel was one of the founders of STUDIO 54.

3. You left your baby in a car seat on the roof of your minivan because you were responding to an @Yourname Tweet on your Blackberry.

2. You are stressed out trying to figure out how to fit all your Facebook friends at the table for Thanksgiving.

And the number 1 reason YOU need Social Networking Rehab...

1. You are reading this post (and you linked to it from a Twitter message!)


Photo Credit: hazel proudlove - Fotolia.com

Day 29: A Token of Depreciation...

It's Day 29! Where's my bleepin' keychain??? I was politely told by the staff here at INVITATIONS that I did NOT earn my 28 days of Social Networking sobriety Token. I DID get a TechCrunch token, but that was part of the problem. You see, I was granted an outpatient leave to attend the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco. I promised to be on my best behavior and stay clean... I swore to my sponsor that I was going on a business trip and I would NOT be using Facebook or Twitter. Yeah right...

"THE HALLS ARE ALIVE... WITH THE SOUND OF TWITTER..."

How could a Social Networking addict resist such temptations? I had barely arrived at the Palace Hotel when I ran into @chrisbrogan - a Twitter Rockstar! Then, my lips still moist from kissing Brogan's ring, who do I see standing in the hallway but @scobleizer, Twittizen extraordinaire! As one of more than 5,ooo @strangers that Robert Scoble follows, I knew he would surely be delighted to meet ME! After all, we are tight, Scoble and I. I was practically right there with him at the birth of his beautiful new son, Milan. I knew all about the new camera he had around his neck. We've bonded 140 characters at a time, countless times!

WAGON? WHAT WAGON???

TechCrunch40 was gonna be great... and without hesitation, my rehab went out the window. I snuck into a dark corridor of the Palace, where I saw Fatblogger Jason Calacanis sneaking an oatmeal raisin cookie. We shared a knowing nod, and as soon as Jason left, wiping the telltale crumbs off the corners of his mouth, I dug deep into my pocket and withdrew my fix. My trusty Treo 755p. In moments I felt release. I was in. I was Twittering about my encounters with my fellow Twittizens at TechCrunch. Ahhhh...

TWEETUP IN MEATSPACE!

My addiction reached new heights in San Francisco, as I extended my abuse beyond cyberspace and into "meatspace" by attending my first TweetUp -- a gathering of humans who, freed from the constraints of keyboards and SMS are enabled to share food, drink, and even speak in lengthy sentences. Yes, at a TweetUp you get to meet the Characters behind the 140 characters. Talk about a rush! It was great to see so many @'s in person. @CreativeSage even wore her iconic "hat" from her Facebook and Twitter profile pics, adding another dimension to the experience.

So, it is quite clear that my recovery will take far longer than 28 days... but I will get that Token or Keychain sooner or later! (And when I do, I will let you know by Twittering about it!)