Category: Digital Life

Bloody Small Screens

Carl Setzer

If you know anything about me, I LOVE the mobile revolution. However, I’m noticing that posting on the small screens increases the rate of small errors. Little autocorrect word substitutions, mainly. Ones small enough, and having enough of the right letters in a similar sequence as the desired word that they go live wrong.

Had such this morning. Posted an update to a Facebook page I manage with “create” in place of “great”. I read the post several times before hitting publish. Ugh!

I take my writing seriously, so even small grammatical errors bother me. So, with that, I have been trying to post more from a computer, something with a monitor. I notice that my erorr rate is much smaller that way. Plus, I feel more focused.

And I need to recognize I’m human and mistakes will happen. But I never intend to like it, and will be satisfied with any mistakes. Ever.

Online Advertising and the Mobile Revolution

Carl Setzer

As I’ve focused the past few years on marketing, I have no issue with web ads. Currently, they’re the way many web personalities and other sites pay their bills. Family feeding is a fun, fantastic feeling.

However, web designers need to build advertising around mobile. Too often advertising either destroys the user experience, or critically hampers it. Pop ups that can’t be cleared are big issues. Several times this week I’ve struggled with sites where the “close” button was off the screen, AND clicking on the ad took you to a new website. (Sidenote: web devs and designers, use the target attribute on anchor tags. Don’t build ads that push your readers away from your site!)

These things make your site unusable on mobile. And, let me reiterate what’s been stated myriad times: the web’s future is mobile. If your mobile experience sucks, you’re are already behind. Perhaps you’re ahead of the curve on being an anachronism. It’s hardly ideal.

Last year’s whole Google mobile-gedon thing should have pivoted sites over, but, well, nope. But then folks still build auto-play videos on their sites. Thought that went out with MySpace. Since I’m simply griping now, let me add popups asking me to subscribe upon page load. Let them learn what you’re about first. I’ve neverr subscribed to a site BEFORE I’VE READ ANYTHING! NEVER!!!! Build the pop-up to launch towards the end, if you must use them at all. I’d put the ask in the post body, personally.

Developers, build sites for positive USER experiences. Delight your readers, inspire them to come back again. Don’t give in to greed or desperation. They’re ugly.

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Friendship in the Digital Age

Carl Setzer

Lately I’ve pondered “connection”. With several hundred Facebook friends, LinkedIn connection, over a thousand Twitter followers….maintaining connection starts to feel easy. Too easy.

I’m noticing that I interact with a smallish group of the same people on those different channels. These are dear friends, but not  even close to the larger group of people I want to maintain relationship with. So many good folks that I keep thinking “why don’t we get together more often?” That bothers me.

I signed up for Plaxo ages ago, and I really haven’t done anything to maintain that list. But I get emails reminding me of birthdays and any other events (anniversaries) that I noted in my contact when I synced. These reminders are nice in that they trigger me to reach out. That’s a start.

So, I’m trying to “up my game”. Going to build a list of those contacts to, well, contact. I would like to start sending notecards out, too. That just seems nice.

Any of you feeling this lament? This disconnect from connection. What are you doing about it?

Life, Death and Social Media

Carl Setzer
Yesterday had one of the surrealer moments in my life. A friend from childhood has been ailing at Stevens hospital (properly, it’s now Swedish Edmonds), and was given a few days/weeks to live. So, last night he posted on Facebook that he had just hours to live and that this was his last post. With his deteriorating health, I fully believed the statement.
There’s much within this, but I’m focused on the newness of this. Since he has a phone, which can be worked pretty easily even when weak and exhausted, this contact was able to be pushed out.  Made me think of the last minute letters sent by rebels, resisters, those executed for political gain. Those letters were far more effort, and would only be readily sharable with a small group of people. Now, with a few strokes of your thumb, messages are sent to out to thousands, potentially millions. The ease of mass communication deeply changes our connection.
As shocking as such a message is, I expect this to become more commonplace. Perhaps we can eliminate the feeling of isolation. And, in the end, perhaps it’s good. Maintaining connection in the most challenging and intimate of times.

The Ever Changing World Of Social Media

Carl Setzer

Was just reading this piece over at Business Insider: Teens are ditching Instagram for Snapchat at a stunning rate. Well, this reinforces one of my underlying assumptions: that what we’ve currently labeled “social media” is a highly unstable sector.

So, we see that Twitter is falling in relevance; that’s been prognosticated about forever. And the same with the Facebook and it’s sidekick Instagram. But we’re seeing growth with Snapchat. Again, the focus of this article is teens, but I expect they’ll be the leading edge of social media trends.

They have two graphs that really capture things:

And this guy, which I think is more telling:

So, the world is shifting and shifting rapidly. It’ll be good to dive into Snapchat, if you’re not already there.

Time Management and Some Advice From Om Malik

Carl Setzer

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how heavily I use social media. As it’s part of my function for the C&K Team, I easily can spend hours each day wrapper up in it. Lately, I’ve noticed I’m slipping on things I value, the most obvious one writing. The quality of my writing has slipped, as my focus has been on getting content out, not on writing the best stuff I can, on magnifying my quality.

Om Malik posted this recently: Non-Social. He’s backing away from high-level engagement upon all the social media platforms. Going so far as deleting the apps from his devices, so I assume that means he’s only using Twitter/Facebook writ-large from laptops/desktops.

I don’t know if I’m ready to go that far (yes, he’s only going dark for a week, but still…) but I feel that backing off from social stuff will give me more time to focus. I’ve had several folks requesting me finish some of the books I’ve had on the back-burner. With NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) coming up, this might be a good way to leverage my time. However, I haven’t put much thought into novels lately. So, we’ll see.

Anyway, I have some essay ideas I’m pulling together for Medium  (I will have new content up there this weekend) and have some short-story ideas to flesh out. So, I must cut back in other places. Of course, I shan’t disappear entirely. If anything, I hope to be more relevant on the internets.

Other sites to find my writing

Carl Setzer

My foci have moved lately.

If you’re a fan of my poetry, this page is focused on that. I’m quite pleased with the results. Less than a year ago, I had no followers. Now, over 1,400. ‘Tis very validating.

My more general writing has been over here at NotJustSeattle. Over 2,200 subscribers since launch. Again, quite pleasing.

So, come over to these sites and say “hi”.

My newest web project: ForwardFacing

Carl Setzer

I’m moving all my more formal business and technology focused writing over to my new website, Forward Facing. The goal is for CarlSetzer.com to be more of a personal site. Forward Facing will showcase my writing and web work in a more professional manner. At least that’s the plan.

Part of the fun with this, though, is that ForwardFacing.net is showing up in Twitter’s spam/malware database. I guess the prior owners were nasty with it. Anyway, I’ve made the initial request of Twitter to get removed from that list. Which me luck.

Twitter and Rage

Carl Setzer

Every so often I read something on twitter which infuriates me, filling me with horror and revulsion.  I long for the power to remove such wretched souls, deleting the parasitic blight. However, I know that is not my path. Reveling in rage only fills me with misery. I seek the right response, though,  one which shows them the destruction they wreck. Perhaps, someday, such shall be found. Until then, the best I see is to act with kindness to their victims.