Day 366: The Year In Rehab Review

"They tried to make me go to Rehab, I said "No, No, No..."

-- Amy Winehouse


"They said I needed Twitter Rehab, I said "Yes, Yes, Yes!"

-- Jeffrey Sass

It has been a full year since I admitted myself to the INVITATIONS Social Networking Rehab facility. Several thousand tweets later I am still here. Wiser? Yes. Less addicted? Well...

A year ago there was the just the Twittergram. Today there are numerous services that put Twitter on steroids: Seesmic, Utterz, TwitPic, Qik, 12Seconds, and many more all seamlessly connect rich media to Twitter, creating a veritable social media speedball! Temptation is everywhere. And that is without even mentioning Facebook and Friendfeed! What's an addict to do???

IN THE BEGINNING...

How did I end up here? It all started with this video I posted to Facebook a year ago:





Having finally admitted I had a problem, I started on a 28 day journey that has lasted a year... I was fortunate to find INVITATIONS after getting rejected by PROMISES in Malibu for not being a Celebrity.

One of my first tasks after being admitted to rehab was to help produce a Public Service Announcement to promote INVITATIONS, and spread the word about the evils of Social Networking addiction.

Here is the PSA from last year:




Remember QUECHUP? It didn't matter if it was a scam or just spam, it was crushed by a community wide kabosh. If we only knew then what we know now. Although Twitter-bots and Twitter spam may now be on the rise, spam is only one of the Perils of using Twitter, as highlighted in another PSA:



So here I am, entering my second year of rehab with callouses on my Twitter fingers and a cap on the number of folks I can follow. Is that going to stop me from imbibing in my social media?

No way!

Day 303: A Twitter Addicts' Guide To Social Media Services

Call me Ishmael...

With all the WHALE images I have seen on Twitter lately, I can't help but recall MOBY DICK... And like Captain Ahab, there are times when I can't help wanting to exact revenge and harpoon that (not so) elusive whale...

LOTS OF NEW FISH IN THE FISHBOWL

One of the problems the hardcore patients here at the INVITATIONS Social Networking Rehab facility have is to keep the staff from finding out about all the different new SocNets. What they don't know won't hurt us! So, while Twitter and Facebook are recognized as being among the leading drugs of choice for the Social Networking junkie, some of the newer SocNet strains are still foreign to the doctors and therapists here. With that in mind, a few fellow patients and I have prepared an emergency glossary to use to throw the staff off guard and keep them from discovering (and potentially ruining) our latest shiny objects.

Therefore, should any healthcare officials ask you about one of these services, here are the answers you should provide:

What is...

PLURK: The sound the Twitter whale makes when it blows...(and seeing that whale really does blow!)

FRIENDFEED: The hors d'oeuvres served at one of Mike Arrington's (in)famous TechCrunch parties...

POWNCE: The act of jumping on top of one of your Twitter friends when you meet them in Real Life for the first time...

JAIKU: Jewish poetry consisting of 5 syllables, followed by 7 syllables, followed by 5 Yiddish words...

UTTERZ: Cow parts that very few Geeks have ever touched...

SEESMIC: What Keith Richards does when he turns toward Jagger...

QIK: A quicker way to spell "quick."

MYSPACE: What Rupert Murdock calls the Internet.

LINKEDIN: The 16th President of the United States, often referred to as "Honest Abe."

PLAXO: An industrial strength cleaning solution effective at whitewashing your contact list.


If you have your own definitions for these and other services, please add them to the comments!

Day 61: A Seesmic Shift... or a Social Networking Speedball?

What's an addict to do? It has been 61 days since I started the "program" and while I have experienced fleeting moments of social networking sobriety (mostly when asleep, or confined to an aircraft cruising at 30,000 feet) I still find myself lured back into the dark world of Twitter. As I wander the streets, Treo in hand, it seems there is an @somebody on every corner, teasing and taunting me to just give them 140 characters for a fix...

A Seesmic Shift

Now there's a new drug of choice (isn't there always!) If tapping a vein with Text is not enough to get you off anymore, you can feed the demon with VIDEO using Seesmic. Why think and type when you can make funny faces and talk right into your webcam??? Better yet, my Seesmic Videos go directly into my Twitter feed. What a rush! Who needs Heroin and Cocaine to get high... Seesmic and Twitter is my Social Networking Speedball!

Thanks to my new "dealer", Loic Le Meur, I am feeling a bit trapped, and will have to extend my stay at INVITATIONS...



Video by @sass. "Shift" Photo Credit: charles taylor - Fotolia.com