I once participated as a walker in the Los Angeles 3 Day and was unbelievably impressed with the seamless orchestration of such a massive event. This year, I decided to sign up as a crew member (unknowingly checking the “captain” box in spite of my lack of crew experience), which helps organize on-event to make sure things run smoothly and the walkers are taken care of. My assignment was captain of the check-in team, which meant scanning walkers out of camp every morning and into camp every evening of the walk.

Given that we were to spend four days outside (camping at Chrissy Field) with a lot to do, I was actually looking forward to giving up technology and modern conveniences for a weekend. I figured I’d spend time outdoors, get some exercise, enjoy the gorgeous fall weather and generally disconnect, all while supporting a great cause.

But wait, technology is everywhere, even on the 3 Day.

Forgive me for stereotyping, but given the demographic of 3 Day participants (women over about 40) and the personal and emotional elements of the cause, I didn’t expect technology to play a huge role. But then I would be underestimating just how widespread the everyday use of technology and social media are in our lives.

Check-in crew team member Robin Shannon, an inspiring 6-year breast cancer survivor, led the Twitter initiative (@Walker4Life), tweeting throughout the event from her iPhone. She communicated with walkers out on the route while we were back at camp, exchanging pictures and giving updates on walker progress. Seeing the walker perspective in real-time – views from Ocean Beach and the Golden Gate Bridge, supporters who dressed up and came out to cheer, the infamous and fabulously decorated 3 Day Pit Stops – added depth to the experience and made it more complete.

I myself was decked out from head-to-toe in tech gear with a bar code scanner, walkie talkie and Nextel radio – none of which I knew how to use very well, even though I was supposed to be the young, tech industry maven. When I said goodbye to my crew members (all of whom I loved and was so lucky to work with!), we not only exchanged phone numbers, but Twitter handles and Facebook pages as well.

In advance of the event, all walkers and crew members were given online fundraising pages and I even downloaded a Facebook fundraising application for my friends to donate to the cause and see my fundraising progress.

The San Francisco Bay Area 3 Day included 1400 walkers, 250 crew members and raised more then $4 million for breast cancer research. Each person’s experience and each dollar raised was, to my surprise, enhanced by technology and social media.

This year’s 3 Day season has come to an end, but be sure to follow the 3 Day on Twitter to see how you can sign up for 2010!

So, Clive Thompson’s piece in Wired, “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy” was a breath of fresh air. In it, Thompson analyzes a study done by a Stanford professor that claims that we in general, and kids specifically, are writing more now than ever, and amazingly, 38 percent of that writing is so-called “life writing,” or personal writing.

This is remarkable if you think back to the pre-Internet and e-mail proliferated 1990s. People simply didn’t write back then unless it was for class or work. I remember when I got my e-mail account in 1997 during college, I used this mysterious new creature primarily for sending assignments and occasionally writing cute little notes to my girlfriend, which still felt oddly impersonal. But think how much that has changed. We now use the written word for interpersonal communication more than any time in history. Yes, some of those conversations are, “OMG, u r the gr8est person I no. LMFAO!!1!” – but it’s still transmission of thought through the written word, something that was dying in the pre-Internet era.

That idea of the Internet killing off writing is beyond irritating and is simply not true. For all the “LOL” and trite abbreviations we see online, there is also a ton of useful stuff that kids – and adults – read and write. People simple read and write a ton more than they did 10-15 years ago. And to all the fuddy duddies who complain about the “death of prose” – please, shut up. More reading and writing is a good thing, be it in the long-winded, haughty pages of the New Yorker, or the adolescent ramblings of MySpace.

That aside, it’s just entertainment, right?! Like most of us, I work very hard, I pay my bills almost always on time, and if I want a little brain candy on a Tuesday night for 30 minutes to an hour, I think I’ve earned the right. But what happens when Speidi jumps out of my television screen and invades entirely too much of my virtual space after their 15 minutes of fame should have expired? Because believe you me, these days, it is starting to feel like Spencer is everywhere. And I’m scared.

When reality television first came into existence, the “stars” served duty in their respective time slot and that was it. Sure, a few Real World starlets parlayed their status into college campus tours, and Trista and Ryan regaled a few US Weekly covers with their undying devotion to one another. But as time progressed, and reality shows gained momentum and overall ridiculousness (“The Search for the Next Elvira” was a real show at one point), reality stars ascended into a stratosphere of self-imposed fame, running amok among the legitimately famous like Frankenstein’s Monster. I can barely read NYMag.com anymore without seeing Jon Gosselin in an Ed Hardy t-shirt. How did this happen?!

To be honest, as much as it pains me to say it, we* did this. “We” tuned in to watch, “we” read Perez Hilton’s blog, and the next thing you know we’re following Bethenny Frankel on Twitter and learning how to make a Skinny Girl Margarita. Our devotion to these folks in an arena that should be reserved for those worthy of our time is what’s gotten us to this point. It’s like a slow decline into meth addiction that needs an “Intervention“-like breakthrough moment to pull us out.

As we all know, the last 2-3 years have been a tailspin of growth for more mediums of virtual entertainment, creating even more platforms for reality show participants to gain exposure, create spin offs, and remain overwhelmingly present in the virtual world. Katie Couric has 40,000 followers on Twitter. Heidi Montag has half a MILLION. Not to mention a slew of other ventures in the works: fashion, books, music all being “leaked” and routed through You Tube, Facebook and Tumblr. There is no escape from Mrs. Spencer Pratt.

Or is there?

I’m making a pledge: From here on out I pledge to be a responsible reality television viewer. I will put DOWN the remote once the show has ended and leave it at that. No more gossip blogs or TMZ.com. We too can be responsible participants in the world of social media, following The Michelle Obama News Twitter feed and not Whitney Port’s. Michelle’s hubby said it best: “YES WE CAN!”

I suppose the MTV producers knew putting Heidi on MTV was like giving alcohol to an alcoholic – this circus-like worship of reality celebs was the inevitable. Now it’s time to enroll in AA. Actually, make that RA.

*Please note that “we” is only referring to those of us that actually partake in reality entertainment.

Why else would Facebook spend the past year doing everything in its power to become Twitter? From last year’s major redesign, which introduced the streaming news feed, to today’s new privacy controls which allow users to openly and publicly share information, Facebook has been moving more and more toward a platform where its information (your information) is basically public .

Problem is, Facebook users don’t want that – at least a good portion of them. Facebook is not Twitter. It’s not a platform for sharing everything with the world. It’s a platform for sharing things with friends – with great security walls built in. This is why Facebook was able to ultimately distinguish and separate itself from MySpace, and why Facebook has been able to establish trust with its users. We all feel comfortable knowing that we can share photos of that hilarious Friday night out with our friends – even if we have 350 of them – because of the built-in network protections and privacy settings. With the introduction of the new open settings – which will open people’s information up to everyone on Facebook, ala MySpace – that sense of privacy is going to quickly disappear.

Twitter is great at what it does, and I’m perfectly happy using it to share bite-sized pieces of information with the world. Facebook is also great at what it does, letting me share bigger pieces of information with people I know and trust (plus a few random old co-workers and people from high school, but whatever). The two, however, are very different services that serve completely different purposes.

daybreakers

Of course, this all comes down to money. A more public Facebook is a more search engine-indexed Facebook that sells more (and better targeted) search ads, based on conversations between you and friends that you thought were private.

Twitter envy is a powerful thing. Ev and Biz are everywhere, and Zuck … well, he’s sooo 2007. He hasn’t been on the cover of BusinessWeek in months, and I hear Sarah Lacy won’t even return his phone calls. But, it’s fine, Mark. To paraphrase Minnesota’s newly-crowned junior Senator, Facebook is good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you. They also like Facebook how it is. So leave it alone. Thanks.

Then came the birth of social networking–a virtual way for us to build a community beyond our home, and our hometown. Suddenly, we were able to discuss television shows, music, movies, books and relationships with people that we only sort of vaguely knew. We called them our ‘friends,’ but really they were only acquaintances, and distant ones at that. Through Friendster, MySpace and Facebook, we were able to share our local experiences with people that may have cared about them were able to provide feedback.

Most recently, our community building experience has forged into new territory: the process of building communities with people that we do not know at all. People that live very different lives from us, in states and countries that we may never visit. The process isn’t new: some of us may recall the phenomenon of pen pals–correspondence relationships with people that we had never met or knew. Pen pal chains were often created in grade school and junior high, when random people would become connected through their interests and begin corresponding. The idea of exchanging happenings in your daily lives, sharing book and movie recommendations and venting about problems with friends and relatives with a stranger is still just as prevalent today, if not more so.

These days, niche social networks allow us to make connections with people strictly on the basis of our interests, and community building mediums have opened our eyes to groups of people that are often beyond closed doors. In the case of Iran’s current revolution, the community of protesters is weaving a powerful web, both literally and figuratively, with the outside world.

Our mediums may have changed, but our inherent need for building a community with other people–whether they’re family, friends, or strangers, remains ever the same.

One of the more recent, highly publicized examples, was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s announcement of his bid for California Governor via Twitter and then Facebook and YouTube. Like Obama, he is rallying support for his campaign through the main social media outlets online, and even making his followers on those sites the first to know (yet another blow to traditional media!).

But what’s different about the Mayor’s social media efforts, and most likely those of other politicians in the coming years, is that his Facebook and Twitter accounts were not started solely for the purpose of his campaign for governor. Rather, he’s had these accounts for a while and has been building his group of core followers ever since.

Politicians now have the opportunity to start early and gain loyal followers throughout their entire political career through channels that are constantly feeding them information and enabling supporters to interact and be far more engaged than any email list or static website. It’s a build-up over time, a growing froth of political support.

These people can easily become evangelists to their collective group of friends and followers — a massive broadcast channel that did not exist several years ago and may begin to play a much larger role in the outcomes of elections, especially in tech-savvy cities like San Francisco or New York.

And Gavin knows it too. He used his last 6 characters of his 136 character gubernatorial announcement to ask his Twitter followers one simple yet potentially powerful request: “ReTweet.”

Enter salvation in the form of:

ANDY SAMBERG

It was a sinking ship until a fresh-faced comedian and writer, Andy Samberg, joined the cast in 2005, bringing with him his two Lonely Island partners Akiva Shaffer and Jorma Taccone as writers and an updated comedic direction. “Lazy Sunday”, one of the first of SNL’s “Digital Shorts”,  was one of the most widely-viewed and talked-about SNL creations since Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush impressions.

This video garnered much attention from the media, which was only heightened with further Digital Shorts like Iran So Far, featuring Adam Levine of Maroon5, and Emmy-winning “Dick In A Box”, with Justin Timberlake (coincidentally, LaunchSquad client, Barely Political created a parody video called “Box in a Box”)– all of which were written by the Lonely Island team for SNL.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Digial shorts: Samberg,  who stars in the online-only videos, and the Lonely Island team, spearheaded these seemingly amateurish videos, that created such a sensation that when “Lazy Sunday” was posted to YouTube (illegally) it was viewed five million times before NBC pulled it for copyright infringement.

YouTube leads to Hulu: Fans can now find clips on YouTube, but that was not always the case. The short “Lazy Sunday,” which aired on SNL on December 17, 2005, with its massive viewership caused quite a stir in pop culture, but also helped legitimized YouTube as a viable medium for brands like NBC to invest in. In late 2006, NBC began uploading SNL digital shorts on YouTube themselves. The short “Dick in a Box” which aired on televelision in December 2006, was viewed more than 28 million times on YouTube.

NBC advanced its online video campaign, realizing that many of us go online to watch TV and and expanded into Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and News Corp. The video network provides high definition (if often incomplete) versions of the episodes and allows users to comment.

This brings up a larger point of the growing trend of online television: according to today’s article by Brad Stone and Brian Stelter, “Some Online Shows Could Go Subscription-Only”, the online video network yields a huge viewership, boasting 5 million unique viewers in February. Sounds like NBC really took a cue from YouTube and took it to the next level, but it’s interesting that this service that’s saving not only SNL, but the network, could switch to a subscription model when part of the reason it’s so popular is because it’s free.

Video embedding capabilities: In October of 2008 Mashable reported that SNL producer, Lorne Michaels, was planning an on-demand Website featuring popular clips as well as providing the embed code so that bloggers and news sites and… well anyone can embed the videos anywhere.

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It’s the virality of these videos that inspired to NBC to wise up and embrace outlets like YouTube and Hulu, a decision that allowed them to reach not only a far more massive audience but also a young audience. This audience not only lives online, like the videos now do, but relates more to Samberg’s “in your face” and often brazen comedic style and also appreciates his savvy talent pairings with high-profile pop stars Justin Timberlake and and T-Pain. These attributes ensure that Samberg and his Lonely Island cronies are very well-suited for the task of recruiting the next generation of Saturday Night Live fans, restoring SNL to what it was meant to be – relevant and funny – and by God, he delivers.

There’s no shortage of applications and Web sites that would like to help me track nearly every aspect of my life. I use Mint.com to keep up with my bank accounts and credit cards, and numerous iPhone apps and Web sites will track every bite of food I take, every mile I run, and every pound gained or lost. With an application that is sure to horrify procrastinators everywhere, RescueTime tracks every single application you use and every moment you spend on every Web site you visit, so that you can then sort this data into different buckets to determine your productivity levels.

Indeed, it seems that as a culture we are a bit obsessed with the notion of tracking and quantifying various personal data points for a pre-defined end result, be it to better manage money or time, or lose five pounds. Although this Web 2.0-fueled tracking can be illuminating and indeed quite helpful (Mint.com’s budget tool is especially good), what about tracking the miscellany? The random stuff that makes us who we are? To this end, I returned to a post I had read on one of my favorite blogs, Kottke.org, about a beta service called Daytum.

Daytum describes itself as “a home for collecting and communicating your daily data.” Its potential is brilliantly displayed in site founder Nicholas Felton’s gorgeous annual reports. These are heavily visual, consisting of the numbers that constituted his year (i.e. 33,817 iTunes Tracks Played), an annotated atlas (i.e. Best Mackerel at Yu Zen in San Francisco), and charts (i.e. a pie chart of beer brands consumed). A post-modern approach, certainly, but one that is the most compelling summary of a year or a life I’ve ever seen. After all, isn’t there a cliche about how it’s the little things that count?

My first foray into Daytum didn’t get off to a great start because I didn’t really know what to track. I started by counting my breakfasts, but soon became exceedingly bored with myself since I pretty much eat either oatmeal or granola every day. With Daytum, you can specify exactly what you want to track and how you want to display it, whether in a stacked line chart, as an average, with the greatest number first, etc. Currently, I have a pie chart of all the restaurants I’ve gone to this year, which is heavily skewed towards Soup Freaks, a list of goods baked, and my favorite books of the year (so far).

As one of Daytum’s goals is to communicate daily data, nothing you record is private. The home page displays what others are tracking at that moment, offering surprisingly personal looks at other people’s lives. For instance, you can look at graphs of alcoholic beverages consumed, lists of nail polish colors, pie charts of swear words or nails clipped by finger, and statements like “Best Book Read: Bangkok Tattoo.” Through these glimpses of daily data, you’re able to get a uniquely personal view of what matters to people and what random pieces make up their lives. Today’s Internet, whether or not you attach a name like the “connected Web” or the “social Web,” is at least partially about finding and creating communities. Facebook lets users put up traditional information about who they are and what they like, but Daytum uses broad strokes to enable people to quantify and communicate what really matters to them on a mundane, but incredibly fascinating, level.

I was recently called out on this by Zee M. Kane, a London-based Creative Director at WeDoCreative who, among other online activities, contributes to The Next Web and ReadWriteWeb. After connecting on Twitter, he noticed that I wasn’t too active on my FF account. After some evasive responses, I finally admitted I don’t see what FriendFeed’s good for. When a fellow LaunchSquadder used our office Yammer to ponder the same thing about FriendFeed, I realized, I might not be the only one wondering.

‘If he thinks it’s so good, he can tell my why!’ was my thinking when I posed these questions for @Zee, in an effort to clear it up.

Zee: Personally, I feel if you’re involved in the tech industry, particular consumer services – Friendfeed is the place to be. For research, people’s thoughts, general opinion and the scope of types of content on there…you’re not going to find many better places.

In addition to the research/feedback motive, the site is a great tool… People forget that and, in my opinion, it’s as useful as Google Reader which has clearly become an integral part of most social media heads and other types of people too. To explain without going overboard, with “rooms”, the speed at which content is imported into the site and the various notification options it’s a fantastic way hear/read about the news the second it breaks.

You’ve also got the incredible range of service integrations which make it also unnecessary to visit the other sites.

Finally and quite possibly, most importantly, the community and discussion capabilities are wonderful. The people I’ve met on there I have genuinely become closer to than on any other “early adopter” community but this is quite possibly due to the commenting system in place on Friendfeed. Twitter you are @replying here & there, whereas on Friendfeed being able to comment and have a (relatively) structured discussion is a big plus… You’ll often have conversations lasting days! However, as wonderful as the community may be, you have to give in order to receive on there. You can’t just use the site, sit back and expect the community to revolve around you, you need to get involved.

For a better list of my reasons for using Friendfeed though, read this: http://thenextweb.com/2008/11/12/what-makes-friendfeed-special/

MS: I understand FriendFeed (and have been describing it) as “an aggregator of all of your social media activity and that of the people you follow.” Is that correct? Am I missing anything?

Zee: Yes, it is an aggregator at it’s very core…But I would really start off with the idea of the Facebook “news feed” when explaining it to someone else. Friendfeed, for me, is like the Facebook news feed on steroids. You’ve got a better commenting feature, more active users and a great way to control the content you want to see. It’s also super fast and it’s not just your friend’s information or network (like Facebook) but also major news sources too…so it becomes more of a news feed than Facebook’s news feed, if you see what I mean.

There are many ways to use it though. For example,I have private chat rooms set up for friends & clients on there. I also have a support room for a small startup we’re working on. I have our team discussion forum in another room where we share thoughts, links and work we’ve completed. I blog too with a couple of teams and we have a room to share content and ideas for posts there too. There are many more ways to use the site here: http://www.inquisitr.com/2287/friendfeed-is-google-bait-24-great-ways- to-use-it/ . But yes, at it’s very core – friendfeed is a content aggregator.

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Alright. I guess I buy it. The initial conversation between us prompted me to start a FriendFeed visit once a day for a month just to see what I was missing out on, to make it a commodity in my social media life. So far it’s been very cool and lived up to the praise that Zee gives it. I agree that it has a greater value than the output of information and two-person-conversation limitations of Twitter. The conversation is where the value lies for me.

Zee has listed his blogposts on FriendFeed above and they’re definitely worth checking out. This, is just the quick and dirty version.

Many thanks to Zee M. Kane for his insights here! They’re much appreciated and I think we all came away better people.