Whew!It's been a while since I've posted. I had a spate of bad luck. First my laptop mysteriously died, then I lost my wallet while running around trying to get my laptop repaired. Two days later, I tore my miniscus in my knee.

My laptop is semi-repaired thanks to a colleague in my work web department who patiently sat with it, ran checks, updated it, removed and reinstalled programs. However, I have to call out Dell Customer Service, who, perhaps *because* of Jeff Jarvis's loud voice about his experience with them, have been OUTSTANDING in response to me. The customer service rep was patient with me (and I'll admit, I was cranky and frustrated with him) and has called me everyday for 10 days to check on the machine and see how it is working. I would definitely recommend Dell to anyone looking for a new machine.

My latest social media indulgence has been Firebrand. This is an exciting platform for Madison Avenue. It's a home and community for great commercials. I love it! We were all tired of commercials on TV because it was oversaturation. We were drowning in them, ergo, the fast adoption of DVR. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a place for advertising, especially spots done artfully. Firebrand is that place. I love the idea of giving consumers a CHOICE to view ads rather than force feeding us where we are captive. I have a feeling consumers will embrace this less disruptive advertising.

For now, here's one of my favorite spots of recent years:

A great literary voice and technophobe, Norman Mailer, passed away today. He lived a full life, so kudos to him. I imagine him, an alleged anti-feminist, being schooled by Dorothy Parker at round table somewhere in the sky.

I love this quote: "Mailer built and nurtured an image over the years as pugnacious, street-wise and high-living. He drank, fought, smoked pot, married six times and stabbed his second wife, almost fatally, during a drunken party."

Well done, Norman.

I'm at the First Person Arts Festival demonstrating a blog post.

Further to my point about Facebook in yesterday's post, this video sums up how I'm feeling about the social network (hat tip, Mark):



And check it out, I'm in the Metro today! The story is about a workshop I am leading this Saturday as part of First Person Arts Festival. Please come! It's going to be fun and I can use the hecklers;)

Happy Election Day. Here's cool and helpful voting Tool that someone twittered to me recently. The company behind it appears to be non-partisan and agenda free. One can hope...
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I had an interesting discussion today with some colleagues about web 2.0 and web 3.0. I know everyone loathes the term, but it's here, so let's get over it for the sake of discussion.

I stand with Team 2.0, meaning, I don't think 3.0 should even be uttered because 2.0 isn't even flushed out or saturated yet. To quote my friend Josh Hallett, "I've been waiting for four years to get to the second version of my social media discussion."

I tend to think it's media pushing for 3.0 here - and I don't just mean traditional media. I mean CGM too. A nice tidy term to coin and bandy about - it's not just attributable and viral, it's wikiable too.

And sure, I've heard the predictions. "Web 3.0 is semantic web." It's "smart web" or "smart search." The internet becomes your personal "database." It's the Internet moving ahead to suggest to us, based on our past participation, which chess piece to play in interactive games or suggesting topics for blog entries based on an analytic algorithm of the news stories we clicked on, that we spent the most time reading, what we posted to our del.icio.us, related blogs we read and commented on, etc.

Perhaps, after all of this participation, web 3.0 means there is finally a payoff coming? Sounds like web 3.0 is simply the ultimate in lazyweb.

If that's the case, I welcome 3.0. Lately, I find that I'm over many of these online communities I've been involved with for years. I mean, does anyone even remember Friendster? I haven't killed my account there because it's my only link to the friends I had in 2002 or 2003. Whenever it was. When I see a MySpace alert in my mailbox, I sometimes groan because it's usually a friend request from some wannabe gangsta rapper or weeping singer-songwriter. And Facebook, the place where I used to volley cheeky comments back-and-forth on my personal friends' "walls" is now populated by everyone I know, including business contacts. Many of whom are now sending me "vampire bites" and "virtual happy hour cocktails." Huh?

Our social world has become an open book, one for everyone to read and participate in all across the globe. Instead of embracing this endless frontier, I find myself retreating from the boundless universe. I find that I prefer communities like LinkedIn, which are function more than form. Or Twitter, where I can lock my account and only converse with people I agree to "follow."

So tell me, what about all of you? Where do you stand on all of this? Are you in a 3.0 world? Are you loving your social networks? Or, are you growing weary of overparticipation? LMK.