I was partially responsible for choosing Gowalla as the Texas Social Media Award winner for 2010. While I am happy to support Gowalla and use it myself, I feel compelled to drop a little vitamin C in the geolocation Kool-Aid to make sure people are okay. I’ve had some not so pleasant experiences with someone ...

Dear Twitter, We go way back. Over two years, in fact.  Tech years work like dog years, and I’m pretty sure that equates to something like 50 years.  Anyway. I read in this ReadWriteWeb post, a company called InfoChimps made their intentions of selling Twitter data public in their blog.  Your founder Biz Stone asked ...

I get LinkedIn invites from time to time. Although I’m not a huge user of LinkedIn, I see its merits in its ability to basically get straight to the nitty gritty of someone’s work experience. After all, I like recommending friends for jobs, but not as much as I like recommending people who are actually ...

People often focus on getting huge numbers of followers behind a product. They pour all of their efforts into getting more, often before a product is ready for release. This inevitably amounts to more confusion because your crowd will have different needs, values, and dedication to what you are doing. What does it take to ...

[Editor’s Note: As always, Michelle’s unique point of view and salient observations are too good to pass up. –mrh] I used to work for BMW. As a company, BMW is obsessed with getting your feedback. They don’t send you a survey in the mail or via email–they have someone call you who asks you five ...

[Editor’s Note: This is a subject that John and I have been calling attention to for some time, and Michelle’s perspective on this topic was simply too good to pass up. –mrh] When we think of the poster child for social media, we think of Zappos. The online department store (yes, it’s beyond shoes) puts ...

Today, Facebook acquired the social network aggregator FriendFeed. Some people on Twitter didn’t understand why I cared. Here’s why: I have done everything I can to make social networks “user friendly” and mainstream. I don’t WANT tweetups to be cliquish and I have never tried to exclude my circle to just people who have a ...

“In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.” –CHRIS ANDERSON Are you kidding me? “Free” with a capital F? What are you, Effing Jesus? Chris Anderson seriously needs to slow down. I saw him at South by Southwest  ...