So as part of my “garden leave”, I’ve been focusing on my “brand” as it were. I’ve read a variety of books and articles over the decades on how to do your “brand”. Originally, a lot of my “brand” was focused around VMware’s EUC product line but these days I want my brand to be focused around me and what I bring to the world (which is a lot more than virtualization and VMware).
Branding is said to be best if you do the following:
- Define your audience
- Create content
- Be consistent
- Build authentic relationships (trust building)
- Tell your story
- Be authentic and transparent
- Use multiple platforms.
Now looking at this list, I’m trying to define my audience based on my interests and expertise (without using VMware — somewhat of a challenge). I’m trying to create content here and on YouTube at least once a week (or more). I know I’ve always been authentic and transparent (probably more than I should). That all said, it’s this last point I’m going to talk about in this post. But I’m discovering that, like a lot of things, social media has changed.
The Cringe-Worthy Chronicles of Social Media’s Rise
Now, when I first ventured on the internet, back in 1992, the equivalent of social media was IRC (Internet Relay Chat). It was live discussions between people in chat rooms that were usually topic specific. Along with that were BBS (Bulletin BoardS) that many small internet providers had. In fact, you’d join a BBS and they would sometimes have access to the broader internet (back then it was primarily colleges, universities and the military). I joined because my uncle and his friends had a BBS game (it was called Pyroto Mountain and rather addictive at the time) — and now I feel old.
Anyways, those two places — IRC and BBS games — were where I started to learn about online socializing and got comfortable with it. AOL/CompuServe floppies were common in various computer magazines and short text messages were still in their infancy. My uncle Paul told me that it would be important to be able to type fast and still have good grammar. It was on Pyroto that I learned to have discussions on politics, the world and everything in between.
Around that time, something called ICQ came out. This introduced the concept of internet chats being limited to a few characters (450) which meant you had to be concise and to the point. I was a NT/Win2000 System Administrator at that time and talking with colleagues via ICQ was far easier than doing a lengthy email.
It wasn’t until the early 2000s that we began to see social media as we do today, albeit far more basic. LinkedIn (2002) was one of the first and rapidly became the more professional social networking and job searching site. MySpace (2003) and Facebook (2004) were the start around the same time that the commercialization of the Internet really took off. Originally, MySpace and Facebook were about connection to friends and family but a lot of that has changed due to the algorithms that Meta now has in place.
Youtube (2005) rapidly became the place to post videos about all the weird things in the world. And then, there was Twitter (2006). It was the next big social avenue. And not surprisingly, people took to these 5 main places to share ideas, be creative and generally experience a kind of community.
MySpace eventually faded out to Facebook; YouTube has remained rather strong, although now part of Google; LinkedIn has continued to grow (apparently at 1 billion users as of 2023); and Twitter… well. Now, over my life I’ve used all 5 of these sites to varying degrees and for different purposes. Facebook largely is to keep contact with friends and family. YouTube has been the place for videos that are funny; from dashcams; a quick how-to or audio sounds for meditating/studying. I even posted my own videos there (I’m still working on what to post other than random thoughts — although there does seem to be an audience for that, go figure!).
Filter, Fake, Repeat
Prior to this you really only communicated with those that you knew and trusted. And that was one of the key parts of the internet was trust. It was inherent that everyone was rather honest and there for common benefit (or, maybe I was just too naive). The commercialization of the internet, which began in earnest in the late 90s, eroded a lot of the trust that was natively (or naively) there to begin with. Social media allowed you to expand some of your trust beyond your immediate circle of friends and family.
Twitter was kind of unique because it presented real-time sharing of individual thoughts, both good and bad, unfiltered for anyone to read. Various events like the 2006 earthquake in California (4.4 on Richter scale); Iran protests (2009); pro-democracy protests in Syria (2011) and so on were tweeted (or microblogged) as they happened. These microblogging events allowed the everyone in the world to experience what was going elsewhere in real time. And allowed for grassroots support of events when people felt they were the only one in the world.
Now, Twitter has certainly changed over the years. But it wasn’t until it was purchased and rebranded as X that the most significant change occurred. Rather than being the corner where ideas can be shared, the algorithm was changed to promote more right-wing tweets. (You can find the original study at the WayBack Machine’s Site here).
So why does it matter? The owner of Twitter/X can do whatever they want on their platform but those choices have consequences to the rest of the world. One of the biggest, I contend, is that it further erodes any trust that might have existed in social media (to a degree it did have some trust and community built in).
Decentralize This!
Now, when Twitter’s (I still call it Twitter; X just never resonated with me) ownership changed and there were mass layoffs at Twitter (around the middle-to-end of the Global Pandemic), there was a definite change air of the community. It was around this time that I lessened my activity on Twitter (not that it was huge to begin with — I had amassed an amazing 400+ followers); gave a try to Mastodon but found it difficult to connect beyond the server I joined; and increased my activity on LinkedIn (coincidentally, Broadcom completed it’s acquisition of VMware around the same time).
So I languished a bit, just watching the world and whatever news I could get. And then a few weeks ago, I came across Bluesky. It has been refreshing and energizing for me. While the feel/look is similar to what Twitter might have been, it’s unique in that it’s decentralized and allows you to choose your own algorithm/feed; it’s API is open for all (Twitter has closed it’s API unless you pay); and the microblogging has done well (the South Korea martial law imposition and reversal was “skeeted”* live).
And the newness of Bluesky has given me a sense of purpose to work on my “brand” and to figure out what to focus on. The tech world is more than VMware and part of what I’m finding on Bluesky is new ideas and thoughts. Most importantly, I’m finding a new sense of hope and a glimmer of trust.
So what are your thoughts on social media, X and/or Bluesky? If you do venture to Bluesky, give me a follow (@linusbourque.com).
*I’m not sure why they choose “skeet” as the term to postings as opposed to flutters (to match their butterfly icon).
Leave a Reply