It is really interesting to look at the entire social media landscape right now. It is funny on how many social media sites started off being different and now many of these same sites are trying to make themselves look like other sites. The views of this post reflect the views of Robert Cairns only.

I thought I would take a minute and explain how and why with some examples:

1. Google Buzz/Twitter

Google Buzz is really just a Twitter clone in my opinion. I really do not get much out of Buzz, actually very little. I have not invested much time in it since I am already invested a lot of time in Twitter. The reason Google was hoping Buzz would take off is because people would follow those in their Google Contact list. Well Buzz has not much of a success for me at all in that way.

2. Google ME/Facebook

Google is also trying to get more into the social media universe if it launches it’s social media Facebook competitor, Google Me. Personally I think this is one battle that Google should think about twice before it gets into.

3. Ping/Last.fm

Ping is now a direct competitor to last.fm following music trends. Which one of these will come out number one in the market, time will tell.

Analysis

The reason I bring these three examples up is to show that their is not much innovation going on these days in social media space. A lot of new social media sites are copying existing social media sites in concept and just changing their way of doing things. Personally their are way too many social media sites out their these days. Facebook and Twitter are kings in their spaces.

I really think companies like Google and Microsoft who do so many other things well should stay out of mainstream social media. I am not convinced that these two companies know how to do social media well at all. Look at Google Wave with was a disaster from day one. In the Microsoft camp, Microsoft’s social media integration with MSN messenger is turning messenger into bloat ware. In the long run this will result in the fact that I will use messenger less and less. These two companies need to give it up and go back to doing what they really do well.

The next year will be interesting because I believe a lot of social media sites will be combined either by merger or acquisition. Some of them will just go out of business when they run out of venture capital money. Their are way too many players in this space all doing the same things the same way. Something has to give.

How Do You Decide What Works For You

I usually use the social media avenues that are easy to use, where my friends and business contacts are and which site I feel is going to be in business for a long time. The point I am making is chose some social media sites not all of them.

Conclusion

The social media landscape needs to change and become innovating again. The questions is how? Google and Microsoft need to get out of it and go back to doing what they do best. Consolidations are coming their is no question about it.

How do you feel about the social media landscape?

Normally I use this space this space to talk about what is new in Technology or my opinion’s in social media. Today I thought I would do something a little different. I want to say thank you to all my friends online and offline who have supported me especially over the last few months. As many of you know my Dad is not well and the outpouring of support I have received by friends and family is incredible.

Their are good days and bad days but the caring people in my life who have been their for me deserve a lot of the credit for keeping me going during those bad days. It often makes it easier.

All I can say is Thank you:)

In early October, I did a post on respect. If you have not read it, I would suggest you do. it explains how to show your respect on the Internet and how to get respect back. One of the things I touched on was Auto DM’s in Twitter. I explained why I disliked them. The auto Dm’s seem to be such a problem I thought I would do a post which just focuses on them.

Some people would say oh no big deal, auto Dm’s are just another Tweert, Ignore them! I would gladly ignore them except I am getting tons of them every day. This is what the people who send these Dm’s want me to say but guess what? I do not remember the content of any of them. So the feeble marketing attempt on me has failed.

The following are a list of reason’s why I disliked auto Dm’s, my feelings on them and how I handle them:

1. They are spam. I receive enough spam in my email.

2. I tune them out. I do not remember ads on TV why would I remember auto Dm’s.

3. I will Un-follow you instantly.

4. I will never recommend your product. I will do the opposite – tell people to stay away.

5. If you can make money from your system why not just go and make the money? You obviously do not need me so I will ignore you.

6. If you send me an Auto DM you are not interested in building a partnership/relationship.

7. Continuous auto DM’s will cause me to block you and report you to Twitter.

8. Who cares if you have a system for adding 100 Twitter followers a day. 99 of these are probably spam bots. I ignore these as well.

The key on Twitter or any other social network is not to spam people. It is to show respect and build relationships. This way you will keep meeting great people. Their are many great people to meet and engage with. Why waste your time on people who do not want to engage? The choice is yours….

The last few weeks I have spent more time online in social media websites because I generally enjoy the people. Despite all the enjoyment I have I think it is time to address a major problem online and in society and that is called RESPECT. How do you show respect online and how do you treat people? Unfortunately some people get respect and some people do not. Those who do not often argue that the Internet is not real, people online do not have real feelings. That is so far from the truth that it is not funny. I am one of t he lucky ones I talk online to people from all over Canada and the world as far as Australia.

The issues of respect have been around for as long as people have been online. I am 42 years old and have been online for the better part since I was 13. I have run a BBS, been the NEC for a large Fido net system in Toronto, moderated several online message boards, been heavily involved online in many ways for most of my life. One thing that has not change is how people act and react.

At one time I was a channel operation on the Dalnet network of IRC networks. Back then the big issues was Flame wars. People would not like something someone said and then gang up on that person. The person being ganged up on would enlist his support and then retaliate and so on until it was exhausted. This was were Channel operators came in. We would moderate the flame e wars so they did not get out of hand.

Message Boards were not immune to these either. They had their share and caused many of the good people to leave because they were tired of the way they were treated.

Let’s now fast forward to 2009 and Twitter. Lately the lack of respect on Twitter has been getting out of hand. The type of issues are different than 15 years ago but unfortunately they are still around. What people forget about most in social media is it is all about engaging with people, discussions, getting to know people and building relationships.

The two big problems are auto DMs and @ reply messages that are advertising. I will discuss these two types of non engaging actives individually to explain what wrong with them. I would like to explain how you can be engaging on Twitter. What is most important is building the online community which you are a part off. If you take the time, the people are amazing on Twitter. The key is to get to know them. Once you do your online experience will be even better.

Let’s start with the first issue. The first is auto DMs. What an Auto DM is an automatic direct message. These are sent by Twitter tools to a user of Twitter without manual intervention. The most popular use of auto DMs is to advertise a web site or service. The problem with these auto DMs is they are just another form of Spam. How I handle these is I ignore the auto DM and I will no longer follow the user name which sent me the auto DM. As a result the offending user can no longer send me a DM since I am no longer following them. On Twitter you must be following someone and they must be following you to send them a direct message. The worst part about this is the send user does not get their message out and they will never get another message to you again. So it the long run it is a lose situation for them.

The 2nd issues is @reply spam. In Twitter if you wish to send someone a message you send it as an @userid. What marketers are doing now since people are ignoring auto DMs is sending @reply messages to advertise their product/service without even knowing you. This is spam is the worse way. This also gets me to ignore the user id, block it and report if for abuse. I will also no longer follow the user who sent me @reply spam.

What people have not figured out, is it is ok to promote your blog or service on Twitter but first you need to contribute to the community. Adding something of value is important but getting to know people and showing respect to them is even more important. What People need to avoid doing is what I call the look at me syndrome. The look at me syndrome means someone posts all day buys my service/go to my blog. All I do now is tune these messages out because they are all about the poster and not about contributing to the community.

Getting to know people is important. Adding value to the Twitter community is important. How do you add value people ask? One is to show respect if you like a tweet to re-tweet it(RT for short). Rting good content is a sign of contributing and respect. An RT also gives credit to the originator of the Tweet which is very important. The 2nd way to show respect is to help people. I know if someone posts a technical issue and I can help them I will take the time to assist them in resolving their issue. I will always take time to help someone if I can possibly can.

Respect is not rocket science. It is being aware of other people, their needs, their concerns, getting to know them and most of all caring about the community. If you show respect you will meet some awesome friends on Twitter:) I am very lucky because I have met some of the most amazing people around. The people I know and the relationships I have with them are very important to me.

Take the time to show respect. Your online experience will be better for it,

The Cloud is becoming more and more used everyday. Their are companies starting up all the time and their are companies that close all the time. How many of us think to back up data we store in the cloud? My bet is not many of us. As far as I am concerned if you do not have 3 copies of something you do not have a backup.

This first became a major concern of mine many years ago. I was a Yahoo email user at one time and I had my account hacked. After battling with yahoo for over a month I gave up. I lost all the was stored in my account. Email addresses, emails and contacts were all gone. It was not a good situation and it took me a long time to recover from.

Today I am much more careful. I rely on Web 2.0 apps so much as part of my personal life and business life that I can not afford to lose the data I have stored in the Cloud.

One application that I live in is a Web 2.0 app called Evernote. Evernote is basically Microsoft’s One Note on Steroids. It is a note taking application that manages most of my life. It has information stored in it that I use multiple times a day. I access Evernote from every computer I use plus my Iphone. I back the data up from Evernote on a weekly basis to my local pc which is in turn backed up to my in house server and to Carbonite in the cloud.

I run several blogs including this one. On a weekly basis I back up my data by using the WordPress export feature to my local computer. The data is then backed up to my workgroup server and by Carbonite to another cloud based backup.

I constantly store videos on YouTube and pictures on Picasa Online. This are NOT my only copies of the videos/pictures. These are also copies on my home computer/Home server and my Carbonite Cloud backup.

I think this sort of explains that I do take the time time to keep multiple copies. This leaves an interesting question. What do I do about Twitter/FriendFeed posts and email.

Twitter and Friend Feed are sites where you post information on. The problem is their is no easy way to back them up. When I thought about writing this article I realized I was breaking my golden rule to practice what I preach. I asked a good friend of mine Bill Mitchell on Twitter(@askbillmitchell) on his thoughts and recommendations. Bill recommended a free service called Tweetake. Tweetake takes all your twitter information and backs it up into a spreadsheet. You can then save it on your local computer.

I aggregate all my friend feed posts into Twitter so these get backed up as well.

Email is another service that people forget to backup. Losing my contacts or saved email’s would be just devastating for me. I use a web hosting provider to host my email. Even though they back up my email for me I like to have some control. On a weekly basis I export all email and folders which I store in my hosted Exchange email account to my home pc using the export function in Outlook. I also do the same thing for my contact list. If you are using gmail, yahoo mail or any other mail program the same function can be preformed.

In summary the key is to do a regular backup of all your cloud data. Cloud services can go down or even close down for good. Investing time and energy into a service and losing all your data would not be good. It could cause great personal and business losses. I could not imagine losing all the data I have stored in the cloud.

They key is to get into a regular routine. Backups should be regular and the intervals in between should be based on the amount of data which you can afford to lose. Backing up is the best insurance against losing your data.