According to Wikipedia,  the Luddites were a group of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life.  They could get wild at times, sabotaging  and destroying the looms and machinery that displaced them.  The movement was named after General Ned Ludd or King Ludd, a mythical figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest.

The Luddite movement has continued in various forms right into the present.  And some lots of days I can really relate.  Like when I wake to 541 items in my Google Reader, scores of important Tweets from close friends, 2 or 3 screens of emails,  and scores of irresistible updates on my Facebook home screen.  And then the phone starts ringing.  We love our electronic toys.  Toddlers can manipulate iPads;  Baby Boomers, challenged for years with programming their VCRs, are texting before breakfast.  Grandma is Skyping with her grand children.  Everyone is a geek and/or a social media guru.  Millions of us have become homemade journalists, posting our wittiness and brilliance to our blogs for all the world to see.  We’ve got to keep up with all, because if we don’t,  we shall perish.  …Or not.  

If you are like my friend Bill Wendel and me, you have observed and maybe yearned for  the blissfulness of modern Luddites: reading the newspaper in the morning, printing out their emails, taking notes  with a pen and paper instead of Evernote, and being totally perplexed at why anyone would want to report what they had for lunch on that Twitter thing, or why they would get on the computer to make friends on the Facebook.

I am thinking about declaring a monthly personal Luddite day; leaving the laptop closed, and turning off my mobile phone, finding a newspaper to read – totally off the grid.  Kind of scary.  Maybe I’ll start with a Luddite hour.

Here’s another Luddite post from 2010:   Luddites 2.0

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[Note: Originally posted a year ago 2/1/2011 on Joe Spake's Weblog -You think things have changed with QR codes and how they are used over the past year?]

It’s that time of the year.  The first day of February triggers something in lovers or wannabe lovers, as we start trying to think of romantic things to do for those we hold close.  I was inspired yesterday, while in an online chat with the ever-insightful  Bill Wendel about Valentine’s ideas. Everyone has seen the little candy hearts with phrases of affection.  The candies by Necco and Brach’s are everywhere during the first half of the month, and are ubiquitous symbol of the Valentine’s Day celebration.

So if you are looking for something a little different, why not make some little QRs to share the love.  Put them on mini cards, stickers, or t-shirts. You can generate QR Codes from text, which generates a much less complex code that will still scan, even when greatly reduced.   Make some different QRs that target those popular phrases:  I LOVE YOU, BE MY VALENTINE, SO FINE, MY BABY, YOUR ROCK MY WORLD, and leave them around for your techie lover to scan.  I have thought about little stickers on Valentine’s gifts and cards, and even making big confetti to spread around in public places. Share your ideas.  Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

Made your QR Valentines yet?

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For a while last year it looked like we might lose  Delicious, the King of online bookmarking and my favorite curation tool, as owner Yahoo did some strategic re-arranging.  Delicious was bought by the founders of Youtube and is now rocking on as good as ever.

So what is Delicious?

Think about how you arrange files on your computer:  perhaps that MS Word document is filed in a sub-sub directory of my documents like  C:\….\MyDocuments\business\correspondence\john_smith_ltr.doc.  Delicious allows you to organize Internet content in the same way.   If you find a blog post you want to save, you simply paste the link into delicious, assign one or more keywords and the article is saved to a specific URL – for example:  http://delicious.com/joespake/socialmedia/  will take you to the articles I think are interesting enough to save.  There are lots of possibilities for sharing with this simple format, and as a bonus, Delicious lets you generate an RSS feed for the sub-directory.  Wanna subscribe to my social media saves? just go to http://www.delicious.com/v2/rss/joespake/socialmedia.   Watch this screencast to see how easy Delicious is to use.

And what does curation do for me?

Having significant information at your fingertips is important if you blog, speak, or are in any situation where you would want to share information.  You can use your curated items to archive your great work or the great work of others, and you can use the keywords to drill down to the most specific levels.  If you are selling Xwidgets as part of your inventory, you might have a keyword for Xwidgets where you curate the latest and greatest articles from the Web on that topic.  You could just forward the link (like my link above) to get your customer up to date and establish yourself as an expert.

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• 10 Hysterical Political Parodies on Twitter
  Fake Twitter accounts can be hilarious!
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  I think we all fit into one or more of these categories
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  via Erik Qualman ~ socialnomics
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  There’s no putting it off, FB timeline is coming for everyone, and soon.
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  ~ Brian Solis
• "It’s completely up to you" ~ Seth Godin
  More wisdom from Seth Godin

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 <— I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to push that button

I’ve ignored my friends who have told me that Facebook has an absolute, drop dead date for Facebook users to cut over to Timeline.  I think for a Baby Boomer, I have done pretty well rolling with all the changes that FB has put me through over the relatively short time they have allowed the public to play on their little site.  And I have adopted social media across the board too, much to the puzzlement of my age peers.  Part of the reason for any success I have had in social media is  an attitude of looking forward and not looking back.  The timeline in my brain starts now and goes forward.  Sure I have some great memories, but those memories are to be relished and shared with those who are close – not with the whole world.

I know FB is free; and I know how to tweak security settings.  It just seems that there are parts of all of our pasts that we just don’t want dredged up.  It looks like I can’t hide much longer. Today Mashable reported that Facebook will be forcing everyone to get on the Timeline within the next few weeks.  As promised back in December, 2011, users will be notified at the top of their home screen that they have 7 days to get their Timeline tuned up and turned on.

I really fear Timeline because as we dig into the past, something like this could surface:

So now the question is, do I push the button and start working on my Timeline, or wait until I am under the 7 day gun?  Are you already on Timeline?  How’s it working for you?  Have you been hiding like me, or have you just never heard of Timeline at all? Your comments, whining, and rants are welcome.

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According to eMarketer, US spending on online advertising will exceed spending on print advertising for the first time in 2012, and the trend will continue as advertisers find more value online.  Online advertising  spending in 2012 is predicted at $39.5 Billion, compared to $33.8 Billion for all print advertising.  By 2016, the projection is  $62B for online vs. $32.3B for print.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, more and more of us are getting news and information online.  Think of how much time you spend online – work, research, news gathering, social media, compared to the amount of time you spend with print media – newspapers, magazines.  I think it’s obvious that print advertising will not be making a comeback.

What’s your opinion?

Related Articles:
US Online Ad Spend to Close in on $40 Billion – emarketer.com
US advertisers to spend more on digital than print: study – breitbart.com
Online Ad Spending to Surpass Print for First Time in 2012 [STUDY] - mashable.com

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  Interested in using QR codes for Marketing. Please learn to use them correctly.
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Katy on the empty streets of Hot Springs

I like to vacation when other people aren’t vacationing.  Which is why we like to vacation in January. The townhouses were all pretty empty at Sunbay in Hot Springs, Arkansas, except for ours.  The famous bar at the Arlington Hotel was empty when we stopped by for Martinis.  Not many tourists walking and gawking on Central, except us. We had some nice walks, met some interesting local artisans, and generally relaxed.

Here’s what I learned on vacation:

1.  If you feel guilty and go to a gym, don’t use equipment you aren’t familiar with.  I tried out some Nautilus machines, and had strained muscles for the rest of the vacation.

2.  Many locals in resort towns have no idea what all the outsiders that come to town do there.

3.  Getting my car repaired, including a scheduled major maintenance, at the dealership in Hot Springs was much cheaper and faster than getting the work done at home.  And they gave me a free loaner car.

4. No matter how good of a gambler you think you are, you don’t always have a winning day.  Our vacation dates overlapped the first 2 days of racing at Oaklawn.  Each day we sat near people who were seasoned gamblers, with tip sheets.  We all had net losses, but at least Katy and I enjoyed it.

5.  You never seem to get to the pile of books you brought along that you have been meaning to read.

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Ever see this symbol before?  This post is not about RSS (Real Simple Syndication) or how it works.  It’s about the the computer literate folks I encounter every day who are not utilizing the power of RSS feeds to simplify their lives.

Unless owners of sites block their feeds, any website with dynamic (frequently updated content) has a feed.   The feed updates and syndicates changes, i.e., new blog posts, updates, news articles, for anyone to grab.

So when I am discussing a particular blog or site with someone who just surfs to it occasionally, I always ask if they “subscribe”.  I am often met with a blank look when I tell them they can automatically receive updates  every time their favorite blogger posts, or their favorite news outlet adds a new story.  You can subscribe to the feeds for sites you enjoy through a piece of aggregation software like Google Reader, and like magic, receive all the latest updates for everything you like on the web.

A big piece of my connection with the world comes through my 211 feed subscriptions, which include Google and Twitter alerts, specified feeds for local and national news, social media, technology, and real estate posts from industry leaders, and some fun stuff too.    I don’t spend much time surfing and Googling, because I have the content I want served up to me.  If  I find a great blog or site, I just add it to the list.  Sometimes when I open the reader, I there are 300-500 articles in queue; I can easily whittle the list by headlines, to efficiently get through a lot of fresh news quickly, while bookmarking the best.  I don’t touch newspapers, or much other print media, because by the time something gets to print, it’s old news.

There is a lot of power in RSS for syndicating content across the wide spectrum of media, and many tools to spread the word via RSS.   In future posts I will discuss leveraging feeds, but for now it would make me happy if you started getting at least some of your favorite online content served up to you like a big bowl of grits  in the morning.  Play around with the Google Reader and see how easy it is to subscribe to any site that sports the orange symbol above- start by subscribing to this one!

If you use your Google Reader as a major information source, let me know in the comments along with how many subscriptions you have.  Also, if RSS is foreign to you, don’t be embarrased to comment.  I would love to discuss.

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  Thought provoking commentary.
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  If you like looking for social media love in all the wrong places, this post’s for you.<
• 10 Creative Ways to Use QR Codes for Marketing
  Interested in using QR codes for Marketing. Please learn to use them correctly.
• Why Google’s Social Search Is Too Much, Too Soon
  What do you think about the social search. Comment below.
• Things We Should Ask The ROI Question About Before Social Media
  The next time someone asks you about the ROI of Social Media, send them a link to this.
• Now you really need to get into Google Plus ~ via Mashable
  It’s all about the search.
• Scott Stratten’s “Worst Use of Social Media” post | Social Web Learning
  A classic Social Media FAIL!
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• 5 URL Expanders to Help You Avoid Spammy Links ~ via Mashable
• Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut ~ via mashable
  Google flexes its muscles. Are you using Google+ yet?
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  Definitely worth 2 minutes!
• 10 Ways to Trade Your Old Electronics for Cash – via Mashable
  Do you have a drawer full of old electronic stuff, too?
• How to Access the Best New Features in Google Analytics ~ via Mashable
• Why the Social Funnel? New eBook from Awareness ~via Socialnomics

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