Bill C. sent me this link a few weeks ago and I've meaning to blog about it. Go check it out.

I think he's got some good points there, specifically as to what advertising is when you boil it all away. It's an interruption wanting to sell us one thing when we're in the middle of doing something else. This is true. When you go to Needcoffee, there's a better than average chance you're probably not wanting to see an ad for singles dating service. So there's been a huge mismatch between what might be relevant for you to see vs. what you're actually seeing. I think this happens better online than it does in the real world–in "real life," I would constantly be amazed at the offers I'd receive via snail mail. For example, a special deal on replacing the siding on my house–while I was living in an apartment. It just takes a little bit of checking to know that my address was an apartment at the time–and yet here I was getting mail about an offer I simply could not use.

The internet knows where you are just by your IP, so I'm assuming you're not seeing the same ads I am in some instances. But still, it's not working the way it should. So while I agree with some of the author's ideas in that article, I think the answers are a little simpler and less advertisageddonish.

[[ Continued ]]

Ryan Cars0n's got it dead on the money when he writes about why he doesn't use places like Flickr, digg, and MySpace: there's just not enough freaking time. I work about eighteen hours a day and like him, I'm good if my inbox is below 2000 and my RSS feed is below 5000. There's just too much shit to sift through.

My own personal reaction to these sites are:

Flickr. I've never really understood Flickr, honestly. It's for photo sharing. I guess if I was an actual photographer trying to get my stuff out there, that would make some sense. But if you want to see my photos (and I'm not sure why you would), come to my site. I need the traffic.

del.icio.us. Sounds like a good idea. Bookmarks online. In fact, a lot of people use it to create nifty link posts for all the stuff they don't feel like writing up individually. Micro Persuasion does it. Warren does it. We Make Money Not Art does it. I looked at it, and I apparently have to give del.icio.us access to my WordPress to do it automagically. What, are you nuts? Asking a paranoid person to give out a password? My therapist will call you shortly.

Digg. Nice for getting links, but there's an awful lot of crap on there. In fact, I just use diggdot.us to pull in Slashdot, Digg and del.icio.us links and just skim through them. I don't really "take part" in the social activity of digging stories.

MySpace. I got a MySpace account so I could get access to a couple of pictures I needed for bands to run stories about them. It's been useful for contacting bands, but beyond that, my page basically points you to here and Needcoffee. Again, I have a blog. Why do I need another blog? Why do I care how many people have friended me? I hate people.

Most of the other true social bits on there I've never even heard of, honestly. But as the title reflects, I am anti-social.

Like I mentioned: Ryan's right. Who has the time to maintain multiple web presences? But in a way, I think he's half-right. Let's say you had the time: why would you use that time to maintain multiple web presences even if you could? Talk about dividing your forces. And really, if you're serious about having an effective web presence, you're putting your content in a place that you don't control and they get to run ads on it and get revenue that you might have gotten.

These days you're socialable if you're not on the sites. With RSS feeds, you can have this blog's feed on your Friends page in LJ. So it's not like I'm missing anything there. Warren's all over the place, but even he has a central hub at WarrenEllis.com, and he doesn't lack for coverage anywhere.

Everything's scattered to hell and back. The true tool is going to be what allows you to do everything you could possibly want in one place. WordPress (and its umpteen plugins and widgebots and stuff) is the closest I've seen.

I dunno. Maybe I'm the one that's missing out. What say you?

Update: Fuck. Well, you could read this on LJ if I could just code HTML properly. Just how the week's been going, folks.

Overkill is my second novel. I will be posting it online chapter by chapter in a new One Tusk blog here.

You can either subscribe to that RSS feed or if you want to keep abreast of everything I'm doing just stay tuned to this station. Everything I post will get an alert on here as well. Enjoy.