
You need to use social services to understand them - eugenejen
http://cdixon.org/2010/10/23/you-need-to-use-social-services-to-understand-them/
======
pmichaud
I thought this was going to be about social services like welfare and food
stamps, and how people don't understand the reality of those services unless
they've been in a position to really need them. That could be a great article.

~~~
apu
I don't know any particularly good articles/books on this subject, but Morgan
Spurlock had a documentary tv series called "30 days" where he spends 30 days
doing things like living on welfare, working for a minimum wage job, living in
prison, etc. It's a fascinating show, and while he's the first to admit that
even this level of exposure is not equivalent to what people in those
situations actually feel (largely because he has a safety net, and his is only
a temporary condition), it still dramatically shifts your view of what life
really is like for people in very different circumstances.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_%28TV_series%29>

~~~
sachinag
Ehrenrich did a book called Nickel and Dimed: [http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-
Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/08...](http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-
Getting-America/dp/0805063897)

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nphase
I was one of the people that was very gung ho about Twitter's role in the
Iranian Election brouhaha. I recently got an email from a friend linking the
Gladwell post with the underhanded "Look at how wrong you were" statement.

There's nothing wrong with being wrong (albeit in a very public way), but my
response was this: Even though Twitter may not have played as direct of a role
as the media was portraying, it was the open, decentralized nature of new
social media/communication that made it so much harder for the Iranian
government to strangle what got out. These sorts of protests have been going
on for a while in Iran, but those of us in the west have never had such an
intimate, play-by-play look at it until the 2009 elections. That's how we got
pictures of Neda shot to death, stories about the Basij wreaking terror at
night, and so on, practically in real time.

Sure, most of us have forgotten about it and moved on (I haven't; most of my
extended family is in Iran), but the level of coverage and fostering of
connections just means the next time something happens, support from the rest
of the world will be stronger (which I can personally say is extremely
encouraging to my friends/family in Iran -- they've felt isolated, until now).
Yes, I wasn't on the streets in Tehran, but I was helping some of them
coordinate and communicate with shells/proxies/tunnels/etc.

I think at this point, a better interpretation of the phrase "The Revolution
will be Tweeted" would be that in this day and age, if anything is happening
anywhere, it will be tweeted about as close to real-time as possible. Iran is
"lucky" in this sense, they have a fairly modern communication system. Imagine
if live streams of the atrocities in Darfur or North Korea were up on Twitter.
These causes could emerge from being momentarily trendy to actually being a
subject of intense worldwide criticism. And then maybe something good will
become of it.

</rant>

~~~
joshstrike
The decentralized, anonymized web definitely helped get those videos out...but
I don't know whether the social networks really had much effect. Even if they
had, you're assuming that the Iranian gov't cares what a mass movement of its
citizens thinks, which by all indications it doesn't. Things like Wikileaks,
Cryptome and YouTube, which are not social networks in the sense that "social"
is understood by the Valley, have far more potential to influence events on a
government-to-government level -- or between other parties with power parity.
The social nets are just a bunch of squawking parakeets that governments like
North Korea and Iran are free to ignore at will.

~~~
Vivtek
The point isn't that the governments in Iran or North Korea care about tweets
- they don't - but that the people there and here can find common ground,
rendering the governments less relevant. Not "superfluous" - but less able to
influence things for the worse.

~~~
joshstrike
I know that's the positive view of the situation... but if it makes
governments less relevant and makes Facebook more relevant, all it's doing is
shifting the power locus somewhere else, not actually enabling people.
Spreading the word is worthless without power parity and trust. I.E. social
networks don't threaten governments any more than a mob of people in the
street would; empirical evidence in Iran does suggest that the rest is hype.
After all, it's not like the US population started pressuring their government
to invade and save the Iranian resistance -- or the Darfurian resistance, or
anybody else for that matter.

And empowering Facebook isn't such a hot idea, is it? Facebook isn't a
democracy, either; it seems to care as much about the will of its constituents
as does the Iranian gov't.

~~~
glhaynes
I don't so much see the transfer of power as being from governments to social
networking services themselves as much as it being from governments to _the
users of_ social networking services.

~~~
joshstrike
I don't know. Facebook users didn't even have the power to roll back the
outrageous TOS changes, they all know exactly how many of themselves there
are. You're telling me they have the power to overthrow the Ayatollah? If so,
where's the proof that they've made any positive social changes in the last
few years that they've been around? Sure, they helped elect Obama, but that
can also be read to mean that social network groups can be just as easily
manipulated as any other mass of people.

~~~
jeromec
Yes, Facebook users did have that power. Whether or not they took advantage of
it is another story, but if all Facebook's users decided to leave without a
TOS change I bet they would have got the changes because there is no FB
without users -- same with governments. And there is a mountain of difference
between having motivation to try to effect TOS changes, versus a human
condition prevalent with graphic images of your neighbors being beaten and
shot in the streets.

So, yes, I do believe the people have the power to overthrow the Ayatollah (or
any other govt. for that matter) if they are organized enough. Unfortunately,
I don't see that large undertaking helping even if it were to happen because
the Iranian people largely want a theocratic government, which to me will be
inherently dictatorial. It comes down to this: the Internet is inherently
about connections -- connecting computers, which by extension connect people.
It's not social networks themselves that provide the magic, they're just
vehicles riding on top of that fundamental connection potency; that's where
their success has come from. When you want to give people power you let them
connect, communicate and organize. When you want to weaken them, you isolate
them. It's that simple.

~~~
joshstrike
Okay, but networking a thousand jihadists makes a stronger jihad, while doing
nothing to make them better or less violent people. Networking a million
cancer survivors makes people feel better but doesn't do much to cure cancer.
Where is the proof that networking millions of apathetic people is going to
make them one iota less apathetic, as opposed to just reinforcing their
preexisting condition?

~~~
glhaynes
But it's not just networking apathetic people — it's networking all sorts of
people.

~~~
joshstrike
Right. Which has a tendency to reduce all discussion to the lowest common
denominator.

~~~
Vivtek
I don't know about you, but I think the existence of HNN is kind of a
refutation of your argument. I know I never had the chance, here in rural
Indiana, to engage with this many thoughtful people.

What you're forgetting is 99.9999% of all discussion _ever_ has been banal.
The only difference is that Google now indexes some of it. The other 0.0001%
is what changes the world.

And Google indexes that now, too.

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glhaynes
This seems to me to be one of Apple's key weaknesses right now: who among
Apple's top folks is involved in social? There was a big furor when @forstall
joined Twitter... he's up to 33,000+ followers, still with zero tweets. Does
Steve check his Facebook all the time? I don't get the feeling that he does,
based on what I see from Ping.

~~~
TedBlosser
very true - you can tell when jobs called TweetDeck "TwitterDeck" in his
earnings call - quote here: <http://www.businessinsider.com/tweetdeck-steve-
jobs-2010-10> . Hopefully apple doesn't miss the social boat, because i'm a
big apple fan

~~~
Alexx
"Hopefully apple doesn't miss the social boat",

I use social media tools as much as the next guy, but I don't believe that a
company like apple really needs to get 'inside' the whole 'social media'
movement.

I think they're playing the right moves focusing on allowing their platform to
be a great base for these newer forms of media. All their new products and
updates lend themselves well towards being a good base to build robust
simplified online interactions on.

The iPad + App store are a prime example - it's almost the perfect tool to
build easy, simple, social interaction software on top of.

------
roachsocal
I've worked under too many decision makers who think that placing a Like
button on something is a pivotal business model move, or adding a share button
will magically make content go 'viral' -- these concepts are best understood
by those who practice them, not by those who create a blog or Facebook account
as a point of presence.

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zzzeek
I use twitter extensively all day long, and I still agree with Gladwell. The
author of this post seems to misunderstand Gladwell's point. Of course you can
make new friends and business contacts online, including via twitter, which
become strong real life bonds. But can you get 6,000 of your followers to face
down riot police ? Not likely. Gladwell is not talking about establishing a
few dozen close contacts a year. He's talking about motivating vast numbers of
people to make serious sacrifice and commitment around important issues. As it
stands we can barely get enough people to vote.

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terra_t
I remember a time I was sitting in a restaurant run by some Egyptians,
watching a satellite channel aimed at the middle east.

There was a show on that was something like "American Idol"; they listed
numbers that you could text to, in different countries, to vote for your
favorite music videos. One country was Iraq... And i'm thinking, the majority
of these people must be really pacified, not jihadists, if you can get them to
send texts to vote for music videos.

~~~
rue
I find it tremendously sad that this would be surprising to you.

~~~
terra_t
I wasn't surprised. But it reconfirmed my convictions in a memorable way.

I'm pretty sick and tired of the "hate muslims" wave that's sweeping the U.S.
as the election nears. What makes the U.S. great is that people come here from
all over the world and get treated fairly -- at least more fairly then they'd
be treated anyplace else. Yes, we've got discrimination, racism and other
stupidity, but just try immigrating to any place else.

Americans who decide they hate immigrants are turning their backs on who they
are.

------
MJR
This is the exact reason that I ignore any article or blog post announcing
that the author has quit Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or any other social
service. If you're quitting you're not seeing the benefits. The people who
continue to use the services are reaping the benefits.

~~~
jmatt
Ya I hear that.

My take is if you have a way to announce to people that you are quitting
social_network_001 then you likely didn't need it and aren't even close to an
average user anyways. It's when your average user stops or worse slowly stops
using your service that should set off the alarms.

------
mark_l_watson
Since starting work for CompassLabs, I find myself using more social
networking sites as a learning experience.

There are two social networking sites that I have been using long term:
Twitter (I follow people who post very interesting links) and LinkedIn (for
me, just because it is fun: I have reconnected with a lot of people who I used
to work with).

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scotty79
This is necessary but not sufficient. I use facebook but I still don't get
what is the point of using it.

------
moron4hire
Aside: I initially misinterpreted the title in that I thought "social
services" referred to public welfare programs. However, it brings up an
interesting question: does the statement still hold? Is it necessary to use
public welfare programs to understand them properly?

------
QuantumGood
When I last checked, my main account (@TweetSmarter) had more retweets
(lifetime) than the main New York Times account (@NYTimes).

The real reason why? My wife and I offer Twitter advice through that account
to anyone who asks...and a lot of people are really confused out there.

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gruseom
Chris makes a good argument, but there are counterexamples. It's well known
that Ron Conway doesn't use these services. PG's a pretty good counterexample
too, though he did finally dip a toe into Twitter. Ok, two toes.

------
mkr-hn
I was sold on social media when I asked a friend about Square's encryption via
twitter (he was ecstatic about it), and got an answer directly from the top in
response.

------
jakerocheleau
My friends always ask why I pull out my phone whenever we go somewhere. I'm
hesitant to explain "oh I'm checking into Foursquare" because I don't want to
get them hooked too

Basically I agree 100%. There's no reason to tweet or check-in places but once
you start it's pretty difficult to go back. Although maybe I'm just a secluded
Twitter addict

~~~
natch
But there is a reason. Plenty of reasons, in fact, some of which the article
explains.

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notmyname
And you need to be poor to understand and effectively help the poor. And you
need to be a minority to understand the problems minorities face.

Yes, participating in something or belonging to a group helps one understand
it, but participating and belonging are not pre-requirements to help and
understand.

------
MarinaMartin
When I first read this title, I thought "Why is Chris Dixon on welfare?"

------
joshstrike
You can make distractions for the masses or you can consume them; ya can't do
both. If you have a thousand telephones that won't ring, then social networks
are a great way to get suckers to sell your garbage to each other with as
little effort as possible. They're the internet equivalent of reality TV: The
content creates itself, so it's cheap to run; product placement through
aspirational, voyeuristic relationships are the paradigm; topics are vapid,
memory is fleeting. Gen X mostly understands this, but we're basically
irrelevant to the marketers -- actually, in most cases now we ARE the
marketers, which might explain why we have a better handle on it. But Gen Y
seems to have an impossible time grasping the idea that they're being used by
all these neat little tweets and likes. They've got an insatiable appetite for
short-attention-span candy. It's easy fishing if you want to profit off it;
they're like a bunch of trained goldfish in a perfectly transparent tank.
Total advertising saturation has apparently done to our culture what it was
intended to do: Replace genuine interaction with a series of tailored sales
pitches, in a Truman-Show-like fashion.

I guess the question now is, what do we do with 30 million kids who can't
write a complete sentence? And the correct answer is: War.

~~~
mkr-hn
You sound awfully cynical about this. I see the data collection as part of the
service.

They provide a way for people to communicate easily, refine searches and ad
displays to interests, and they get to sell the aggregate data.

It's not exactly a bad deal. I certainly don't miss the days of poorly
targeted everything.

~~~
joshstrike
How can targeted advertising be a service? It would only be a service if you
wanted to buy something but you didn't know what until you saw an ad for it.

I think it's bizarre that anybody who grew up after the '50s would buy
anything based on an ad... and yet... I make a living in advertising because
it's true.

I'd rather live in a world where it wasn't.

~~~
mkr-hn
The targeting is the service. They're going to be there anyway, so they might
as well be something relevant (or at least inoffensive).

