I got a call from a robot today, asking me to call an 800 number about something to do with my Citi credit card. The robot didn’t identify me by name, but it did say that it wasn’t a sales call. So, I called the 800 number (800 200 8054 in case you care). The person who answered asked me for my name and credit card number, which I refused to give them. Why should I hand that out to a stranger, even if the stranger claims to be with Citi and has a lovely speaking voice? So I spoke with a manager who assured me that it was ok to give him the information. “It’s a common business practice,” he told me.

He also said me that the call was legit because there’s a telephone number on the back of my card.

“Is it this number?” I asked.

“No, but you can call it, if you want.”

So I did. They had no notices on any of my accounts, except for a tickler to sell me identity theft insurance.

So, was it all a crafty attempt to either sell me ID insurance or to motivate me to buy ID insurance??? [Tags: citi scams identity_theft]

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What’s up with youth? Why don’t they settle down, get a job, and stay the hell of my lawn, you darn kids!! Aaarrghhh.

danah boyd says: “For the average teenager in the US, if you’re not on MySpace you don’t exist,” she says, just as in Europe if you don’t have a mobile phone, you don’t have a social life.

Friendster was the precursor of MySpace she says. It was populated by freaks, geeks and queers who rebelled against Friendster’s hostility to them. They’d make fake profiles, which Friendster tried to kill off. MySpace went after the people being kicked off by Friendster, including musicians. Music is cultural glue for young people, danah says. A symbiotic relationship grew between bands and fans. The fans invited their friends. They started engaging with their friends. MySpace made the “mistake” of allowing html in the forms, so kids hacked the pages, creating highly personal spaces that people feel they own. A culture grew among those trying to figure out how to hack MySpace profiles.

MySpace profiles were based on Friendster’s, based around dating. But because you can list your friends and comment, it becomes a public conversation space. This causes a shift in what it means to be a friend. They’re writing not only themselves into being, but writing their entire community into being.

Top 8 lets you choose who your best friends are, in public. “Any decision you make about this are wrong.” Nowhere in our public lives do we list who our friends are.

What’s happening at MySpace is very similar to what happens in the rw. Kids are trying to figure out status. But, online social networks have “persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences.” Kids sent the norms based upon the invisible audience they assume is there. She points to Stokely Carmichael having to decide how to speak on TV, the way he spoke in DC to politicos or in the south to congregations. There is no right choice, she says.

Kids on MySpace are constantly being pummeled by marketers, she says. Marketers want to be friended by teens. To teenagers, email is nothing but spam. “That’s what MySpace is turning into.” It’s a huge struggle. “I don’t know if MySpace is sustainable.”

The future is obviously mobile, she says. But how? What will it look like? We’ve assumed Net neutrality: Anyone can build something and put it out there. But not on mobiles. So, how do we take that next step?

[Great talk. Everyone knows danah’s brilliant, but she’s also a brilliant presenter.] [Tags: danah_boyd myspace leweb3 social_networks]

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Mark Dionne points out that emailweb.us—a service that delivers fully-formatted Web pages via email—charges $18 per year, but waives the fee if you can answer 10 of 12 questions about the Gospel According to Matthew correctly. [Tags: emailweb religion]

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What packaging makes your blood boil?

I hate the thick, clear plastic, blister-packaging that’s sealed all the way around and inviolable except with a serious knife or possibly a band saw. And puncturing it isn’t enough. The plastic is so thick that you have to actually carve the product out of its container. Because the cut plastic is itself sharp, I worry about amputating a finger if the knife slips.

I also hate the way the cut plastic smells, but now I’m just piling on.

On the other hand, I find this to be funny to the point of being depressing…

And you? Vent your packaged ire!

[Tags: doep puzzle packaging marketing]

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Aldon Hynes addresses an important question in his response to the so-true-it’s-a-parody Washington Post op-ed by Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu:

So, what is the underlying message of all the political advertisements that you’ve seen over the past couple weeks? Behind all the negative ads and false information, it seems as if the key message of political ads over this past cycle is “We think you’re stupid”.

And, frequently: Be afraid. (Then, of course, there are the weird Cruz Bustamante ads that touted him for California Insurance Commissioner because he lost weight, the subtext of which seems to have been “I am totally freaking nuts.”)

So, what was the subtext of the Deval PAtrick TV ads? (I hope his campaign keeps them up. And adds important metadata, such as when they ran.) Take the first one and the last one. Both are explicitly about hope. Neither says a single word about policy. All show a confident, likable man in a rush of admirers. The ads say that the election is not about issues. The ads show people how good it feels to place your trust in someone, as if you were a better person for doing so. The last one, shown when Patrick was virtually assured to victory, seems to me to be about governance: Once he’s elected, we have a chance to end the alienation we citizens have felt; the Democratic party has been corrupt with complacency, and has been more for the party functionaries than for us. All of them seem to say: Feel good because you support this candidate.

I’m not saying these are good subtexts, although I prefer trust and hope to “Shut up and cower,” for trust and hope are both requirements for democracy to work. But “Trust me, I’m likable,” and “We’ll assume agreement on the issues,” are not exactly where we want the democratic debate to go. On the other hand, the problem is probably more with campaigning through 30-second spots where there’s only enough time for direct appeals to the lizard portion of the brain or to the heart. [Tags: politics marketing deval_patrick aldon_hynes zephyr_teachout tim_woo ]

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Steven Streight suggests three business models that “always work for everybody who uses them correctly and persistently, heck, even sporadically and lazily like me.” I wouldn’t go that far, but the fact that they ever work is proof that the world is better than we think it is. [Tags: business steven_streight]

I am reminded of Larry Lessig’s post on the three economies. Hey, they’re both about economics and have three alternatives.

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Ken Schafer of OneDegree and Tucows asked me at the Canadian Marketing Association meeting in Toronto how people misinterpret Cluetrain. I answer in this brief video. [Tags: ken_schafer marketing cluetrain]

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