Credit: Fast Company

Last year only “tweetups” could do this.  A social network that would bring people together to meet each other in person.  I did meet people via twitter, but one on one, not an actual party.  Yesterday morning, I was reminded that it was four square day, as some kids in Tampa last month saw the opportunity of creating a buzz around the math of the calendar, foursquare = 4/16.

I was working yesterday, but did learn of a meetup that was happening a few blocks away at a prominent digital agency, 360i.  The purpose of that get together was to earn a “swarm badge”, earned when at least 50 people check via foursquare at the same location.  So since it was so close, a chance to meet David Berkowitz, and just experience one of these meetups, I made the two block trek.  My colleague Michael Stearne joined me.  Turns out that we were the only outsiders as we kind of “crashed” the get together.  I did alert them that their foursquare meetup was on the foursquare blog.  They were polite and hosted us as we lounged in their “tweetie bar” sipping on some beer.  Thanks 360i for hosting us, even if it was unexpected. 

I contemplated about going to the official foursquare party later that night, which happened to be where I grew up in the Lower East Side, the Rivington Hotel to be exact.  I ended up not going, and after reading the blow below, Im glad I didnt as people were being turned away.  Even Digg founder Kevin Rose had trouble getting in!  No wonder Dennis is not able to return my request for an interview.

The excerpt below says it all when it comes to the mainstream understanding of these online social driven meetups.

“The only people dancing are two girls near the wall. And they’re going at it with reckless abandon. It turns out they’re crashers who have no clue what Foursquare is. “Hang on,” one says after hearing an explanation of the smartphone app that uses GPS to reward people for reporting their locations — checking in — with freebies, boy scout-style virtual badges, or titles such as “mayor.” “So no one here knows each other, but they came here because they all have an iPhone app?” She asks. Exactly.”

Oh, only 116 of the 500 or so people actually checked in, a few were checkins at Gowalla. 

Read the full blog post here, from Fast Company

Is it really?

A very old (in this day and age anyways) Newsweek Article written by Clifford Stoll, took a rather opinionated stance on the Internet and its future.  Clifford veered so far off the road that it is almost funny now, that he made these statements.  A decade after he said it all, he seems to have been moved by the sheer weight of his own predictions that went totally wrong.   Here are a few points he mentioned:

No Telecommuters, No virtual communities and no e-commerce

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic……Baloney

Baloney, Indeed! What can explain the paradigm shift in the way work gets done today? What about telecommuting being a trend that even the U.S President Barrack Obama couldn’t help but notice? Even huge companies like Goldman Sachs and Booz Allen Hamilton have introduced “telecommuting benefits”  for their respective employees. The recent statistics state that there are over 14 million telecommuters in the U.S alone, according to a 2009 Gartner report.

The rise of Twitter, Linked In and Facebook together would crushed his other statements made on the foolhardiness of the visionaries who saw the emergence of powerful online networks which can single-handedly twist the arms of the biggest multi-nationals in a moment.

No Information, No Impact on government and e-learning

Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Online education has been growing relentlessly. Not only are virtual class rooms possible but also interactive in nature. So much has changed since the first generation of e-learning that we now have collaborative learning, multimedia enabled learning and learning from the web using social media, etc.

Newspapers in print are giving way to newspapers online. The newspaper behemoths like nytimes.com and WSJ have taken to Twitter and other forms of social media platforms to dispense news.  Needless to say, it is far more convenient now to log into nytimes/washington post/ WSJ online and from any part of the world that it is to spread the newspaper out and actually sit down to read it.

Government monitors online activity relentlessly while it extends its through the Internet on the other hand. For U.S citizens, the right to information act makes it mandatory for government agencies to host information through Usa.gov.

Internet…a non-place to surrender your time?

What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth.

Poor guy had no way of knowing that this  very “non-place” makes “everyone surrender  time”.  Individuals, businesses, consumers and everyone else who is wondering about the Internet is now online. Tables have changed for the advertising industry, networking is clicks away, no one meets over coffee if they can chat over facebook.  And if no one prefers cybersex to the real thing,why does brazzers.com have an alexa rank of 473 and only about 384 in the U.S?

I know it’s old milk that got spilt over, but Internet really turned out be something Clifford Stoll never envisioned. What do you think? Have you read the article?  What is your point of view?

In case you missed it, I was a guest on Larry Sharpe’s show on Ivory Tower Radio on Jan. 22nd.

Click Here to Listen Now!

Show Synopsis:

Allocution: Gaining an Audience via Social Media and the Web!
Larry explains how networking is farming and not hunting. He’ll show you some effective tactics for long term success. He discusses specific ways to use the web for follow up and how to get someone to be a referral and/or reference source. I comment on building your audience online. We also take calls and emails on the subject, so listen now!

If you are in a small business owner, in a sales position, network at all in NYC, you probably know Larry Sharpe.  Larry is a dynamic sales instructor, speaker, trainer, etc.  He also is a host to Ivory Tower Radio, which is a weekly internet radio show on Fridays at noon.  I’ve heard his past shows, and he delivers relevant, value added content on a consistent basis.  He keeps it fresh, and brings guests from all types of industries.   Its truly an honor to be a guest on the show.  We will be speaking about growing your audience on the web.  So click here at noon and tune in!

Another success story using LinkedIn, if you remember my first post, Kate Edwards met with a business that was searching on LinkedIn for a restaurant consultant.    How about another industry? Enter Colin Wheeler…

Colin offers a variety of insurances for businesses and individuals, backed by one of the most reliable insurance companies, All State.   He sent me this email via LinkedIn sharing his recent success.

Colin, thanks for sharing your success story on LinkedIn!