One little “like” made me notice Gurbaksh Chahal

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Source: Via.me via Åsa on Pinterest

This picture of a fish made by the Swedish artist Tyra Lundgren with a reflection of my iPhone cover with Paul Frank’s Julius the Monkey is the reason to why I noticed Gurbaksh Chahal. You see, I visited the exhibition showing Tyra Lundgren’s work at Gotlands museum, took this pic and uploaded it to my Via.me-account. Some people liked this pic and when it is someone I don’t know, I usually check them up. Then I saw that Gurbaksh Chahal had liked my pic. So I checked him up at his Via.me account. And I got a pleasant surprise because he seemed to be a pro-user, meaning that he had an almost perfect mixture of business and private stuff published on Via.me.

I got curious and then I had to check him up even more as soon as I could sit down by my MacBook. I guess, for all of you who lives in US Gurbaksh Chahal is well known, but I live in Sweden. I’ve never heard of him before I started to google, the following text is from his About.me page:

At the age of 16, Gurbaksh dropped out of high school to pursue his dream as an entrepreneur and started his first company, ClickAgents. It was one of the first ad networks focused around performance based advertising. Eighteen months later, he sold it for $40 million to ValueClick.

So, that’s quite impressing, right? But the thing with this guy is that even though he really know how to make money, he also seem to have an understanding about the meaning of life which can be tracked back to his roots in India and his background: his family moved to US when he was four years old and even though they were very optimistic about building up their lives in this country with so many opportunities, they didn’t have much money to start with… It’s a rather classical american story about the self-made man I think, but I don’t think it’s usual for the ”average self-made man” to use his success for giving back to humanity and also to honor his grandmother as his prime role model. And I don’t think it usual for a rich man in US to have a positive view about paying the taxes.

I think it’s wonderful to see how he has managed to shape his own kind of success in a way that’s more than just earning money. And in the video clip below he’s talking about The BeProud Foundation that is about being proud for being just the way you are.

I’m amazed when I think about how social media let us get in touch with each other across the globe and I’m very happy that Gurbaksh liked my pic so that I could discover who he is.

Israel loves Iran – one of the best campaigns I’ve seen!

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I am filled with admiration for Ronny Edry who started the campaign Israel loves Iran. He is a graphic designer, lives in Tel Aviv and set his mind to try to show people in Iran that he doesn’t want war.

I am writing a book about social media and that’s why I have interviewed Ronny. His message is so simple: if people on both sides in a war communicate with each other, it gets harder to keep on fighting. The more images we get of life in an enemy country, the easier it gets to understand how similar we are to each other. Social media is the tool that makes his campaign possible.

Read more at their

Read more at their homepage and check out their Facebook page Facebookgruppen!

Oh? Google+ isn’t social media – well that’s a relief!

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As you might have noticed I wrote about Google+ and the lack of dialog in it’s news feed. I also pointed out some interesting statistics about how people use Google+ – or rather, they barely don’t use it.

Today I read another article stating that Google+ isn’t social media, it’s an extension of Goggle’s search engine and a complement to the other tools Google offer.

Horowitz believes as more users ”upgrade” to Google+ — which essentially just means letting Google know who you are — it’ll become clear to them that Google’s many services become much more useful. And at some point they’ll find the Stream. 

”When Google knows that I’m a man, and I live in this zip code, and I went to this school, and I have these interests, my entire experience gets better,” he explains. ”You will discover our engagement is massive, and guess what? Your friends, family and loved ones are already here. It’s not as if we need to acquire users. We just need to bring them into the light.”

I’m not paranoid and I’m not uncomfortable with different companies collecting information about me on the Internet. I can see why it’s done and I can also see that it sometimes makes my life easier.

But Google is pushing it too far. They have become the biggest spy network on earth. I have started to use DuckDuckGo or Yahoo more often as an alternative to Google. Ironically I write this blogpost in Blogger that Google owns… Right now I feel like Google is a virus that has spread all over the world and now when we all are affected by it, we can’t get rid of it.

Some people claim that Apple is pushing their ecosystem too far with software, hardware, services and content – but you have to ”pay the ticket” to get inside. Google is everywhere even if you never paid anything to get caught up in it’s network. You ARE stuck like glue in the huge Google spiders net without any intention to be it.

For years I have felt that I buy Apple devices because I don’t want to bother my mind with all the choices and uncertainty that follows when you buy PC and Android. Some people call that giving up one’s freedom and commit to the ”Apple religion”. Some people would even say that Apple is evil because of this. I chose Apple because they offer the best and I feel great to be an Apple-lover.

Now I’m starting to feel that I also pay for my freedom to not get secretly used by companies like Google. I know, I can’t fully get out of Google’s net, but at least I can use other search engines.

I might shut down my Google+ account as well. I don’t really use it. But since I am Swedish, I think it could be handy to have ”something like Facebook” where I only write in english. Maybe I have to find something else?

I can also move my blogs. But I like Blogger! The same goes for YouTube. I like to use YouTube… It’s so annoying that Google owns all of it!

I don’t know about Google Reader though: if someone knows a way to get a similar service for finding news – please tell me!

Google+ doesn’t encourage dialog

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Since the launching of Google+ it has remained kind of a mystery if people use it or not. Some reports (usually Google’s reports) have claimed that there are a lot of users on Google+, but where are all those users? How do we interact with people on Google+? Who are the users?

On June 7th we got new statistics in an infographic by GoGulf. Very interesting statistics! As expected Pinterest showed great result with 11.7 millions of users – which is amazingly good for a newcomer. Number one is of course Facebook with 901 millions of users, second comes Twitter with 555 millions, the third is Google+ with 170 millions, the fourth is Linkedin with 150 millions and number five is this Pinterest with ”only” 11.7 millions – so, what is so special about that?

Well, it’s one thing to register an account and another thing to actually use it. It’s no surprise that Facebook got 7012.9 millions visitors per month, but it’s a bit scary to see that Google+ only gets 61 million visitors per month and then comes the real surprise with Pinterest: 104.4 million visitors per month. Hey, Pinterest must be doing somethings right, that Google+ has missed?

Let’s take a look at the average time a visitor spends on these social media. Facebook gets 405 minutes per month. Google+ gets only 3 minutes per month – yes, that’s correct, only 3 minutes! So, what about Pinterest? Hold your breath, here it comes: 405 minutes per month! People spend as much time on Pinterest as they do on Facebook! That is very interesting. Why?

I have been very suspicious about Pinterest. I couldn’t figure out how to use it or why I would want to use it. Then I just started to use it last weekend. And somehow it caught my interest. It didn’t take long until I got response on two of my pictures, which made it more fun. One week later I notice that I somehow spends time arranging my pics on Pinterest and that takes some time. I also spend time browsing pics.

Now I also see a reason to use Pinterest. It adds another, visual dimension of my personal brand. It shows what kind of pictures that interest me and that is a visual way to tell the story about me. And it’s fun and maybe a bit relaxing too?

What do I do on Google+? I feel sorry for Google+. When I was a kid I tried to play with all my toys, one at a time, because I didn’t want any toy to get sad. It’s like that with me and Google+ – I don’t want Google+ to get sad, so I visit Google+ with a sense of responsibility. I go there and scroll down the news line and I don’t really find much of interest there. It’s about the same news as I already get from Twitter or Facebook. I don’t see much of interaction between the Google users either.

I thought it was because I chose to write in English on Google+ – I’m Swedish, so most of my network is Swedish too. But I thought that I needed to do something different on Google+ to make it something more than just a copy of what I publish on Facebook. So, my plan was to write in English and also try to get more international persons in my circles. I thought it was a good thing that I could follow strangers, like I do on Twitter.

Now I realize that I’m not that much different from others. They have also chose to follow strangers on Twitter. My experience is that the only one’s that get some activity in commenting on their posts are well known persons like journalists or other VIP’s. So, a lot of people that doesn’t know each other, go there and comment, this VIP doesn’t comment so much back and it gets rather boring. We don’t get the feeling of interaction, the dialog never starts.

You can’t build networks with total strangers. You need to start with some kind of core group and then expand. The more people you know, the easier it gets to add a new connection. And communication is what a relation is built upon. Communication is a two-way action. I have my core group on Facebook. I can’t migrate that group to Google+. And why should I tell anyone to start an account on Google+ when it’s so boring?

So, how did it all go so wrong? I think that to start with Google’s reason to start up Google+ as a ”Facebook killer”was wrong. That is the thinking of a copycat and a copycat lacks in depth of understanding the needs that leeds to a new idea. Google+ didn’t really have an idea. Secondly, the idea to be able to add strangers to your circles (a bit like you add the people you follow in Twitter) probably seemed like a good idea in order to get people to get a lot of connections fast – but it also means that it encourages people to add strangers, which means: add people that you don’t really interact with. That works on Twitter, but it doesn’t work on Google+ because you expect more interactivity and dialog from Google+.

3 minutes per month – that’s the result you got poor Google+. I’m so sorry, but I can’t really see how you should be able to change that? Though, I might be wrong…

Automatic updates ARE NOT SOCIAL!

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I read this article, Why automating social media marketing could change Facebook, at Mashable Business and I got so angry, well, lets say I got mad! The article is very good and points out several problems that could follow when a lot of companies try to get an easy ride to success in social media. There are always people who try to outsmart the system by using shallow methods that lack in credibility.

Since we have done business creating websites since the middle of the 90’s we have seen a few of the methods come and go. At one point it was about meta-tags – because we didn’t understand enough by that time and because the search engines worked in another way, we put a lot work hours into come up with amazing, long lists of meta-tags so that the homepage would get a good position in the search results. But then it got worse, people started to write all kind of word as meta-tags like ”sex” or ”porn” just to get more visitors. Hey? What’s the point of having more visitors if they are not part of your target group? It’s about helping the right customers to find the right homepage. Right?

I am not a huge fan of Google, but they are absolutely right when they change the search criteria so what really counts is activity in updating together with good and relevant content on your homepage. Today your homepage can get banned from Google’s search engine if you try to fool it. That is so good.

Even so, now and then we still get this calls from companies that want to help with SEO = Search Engine Optimization. Or worse, our clients get these calls and start to think it might be an good idea. But it seldom is. They work in the grey zone, trying to outsmart Google. The right thing to do is to be active in updating your homepage with good and relevant content. That is all you need to do. That is all you should do. You have a homepage to make it easier for people to find information about your company or your products.

Since social media has become an important part of marketing now people try to outsmart social media. One example is a person I admired from start, Guy Kawasaki. I thought he was so cool when he was an Apple Evangelist and I’ve read his book ”The Macintosh Way” with great delight. That’s why I started to follow him on Twitter, that’s how I found him on Alltop and I also bought his book Enchantment. Somewhere on this road I lost it… or he lost it?

The tweets I get when following @GuyKawasaki comes from a tweet-robot. Where is the enchantment in getting tweets from a tweet-robot? They are just links to articles from AllTop. Some of the articles might be interesting – but I feel cheated because the twitter-name should be something like @AllTopGuyKawasaki (though it’s a bit long, but that’s not my problem). Transparency. Be honest about who you are, what you are representing. That’s enchanting. It’s not enchanting to send out automatic tweets under a personal name. I’m sorry Guy, but I just don’t buy that. It gets shallow.

Lets get back to where this blogpost begun, automating social media. I believe it’s impossible to automate social media because when you start to publish automatic updates, you lose the personal feeling and then it’s not social. Then it becomes yet another way to spit out information. Social media is about creating an interest for your person or/and your company. Social media is about dialog and participating. Social media is about sharing and caring. A tweet-robot or any other automatic method can’t ever be social. The value in Facebook, Twitter and the rest of social media is the fact that it is social. Simple as that.

I can accept that you at certain occasions set a date for when you publish an update or a blogpost, like if you are launching a new product. But it should be used very carefully and it should never be used in a way that imitates real, personal updates. Then it is cheating and cheating is the opposite of trust.

I’m so sorry, all you people at companies that think you can replace human beings with robots and become masters of social media – I just don’t believe you. You will just succeed in adding suspiciousness to social media. And that’s what makes me mad. Stay away from social media if you don’t get the concept of being social!