“I just use Facebook to meet up with friends or to know what’s happening next week,” he said. “My parents and older people abuse Facebook. They put too much out there.” Like a lot of young adults, Marty doesn't have much use for email, though he uses it with his cousins “as a way to tell longer, more involved stories, mostly about how out of it our parents are.”

I'm considered part of Marty's generation, despite our 10-year age difference. But the only common ground we had in that conversation was the Phillies and smoking a cigarette in the parking lot of a bar. When it comes to technology, I might as well be his granddad.

Born in 1978, I’m a millennial in name only. I’m really a Luddite. I don’t get technology, and for a long time I tried to convince myself I didn’t want to get it. My view on the latest cyber advances was lack of interest and occasionally hostility. I imagined that this rejection marked me as an iconoclast or a rugged individualist. A real man listens to Led Zeppelin and doesn’t listen to Led Zeppelin on iTunes -- that sort of thing. Now, thanks to that mulishness and vanity, I feel like a clamshell of a man, outdated and struggling to communicate with the rest of my cohorts’ fancy smartphones. At the age of 33, I've been left behind.

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Franzen’s A Great American Writer and all but I don’t give a much of a damn about his opinions on anything (see: Edith Wharton obvi). Or I do. Is it really surprising that Franzen doesn’t care for Facebook or Twitter? His overall comportment does not suggest an affinity for the levity of social networking. I can’t really say I love Facebook, myself. It has become increasingly hard to make sense of the interface and I keep getting invited to parties and readings in Bali and Temecula and I don’t live in those places, so the experience is, at best, fragmented. At the same time, I don’t need to proselytize my dislike unless I’m on Twitter. Who cares? My opinion doesn’t matter nor does Franzen’s, though he is Very Fancy, so in the calculus of mattering, his irrelevant opinion is less irrelevant than mine. Math.

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The antiseptically titled “Abuse Standards 6.1: Operation Manual for Live Content Moderators” (along with an updated version 6.2 subsequently shared with Gawker, presumably by Facebook) is still available on Gawker. It represents the implementation of the Facebook’s Community Standards, which present the social media site's priorities around acceptable content, but stay miles away from actually spelling them out. In the Community Standards, Facebook reminds users that “We have a strict ‘no nudity or pornography’ policy. Any content that is inappropriately sexual will be removed. Before posting questionable content, be mindful of the consequences for you and your environment.” But, an oDesk freelancer looking at hundreds of pieces of content every hour needs more specific instructions on what exactly is “inappropriately sexual” — such as removing “Any OBVIOUS sexual activity, even if naked parts are hidden from view by hands, clothes or other objects. Cartoons / art included. Foreplay allowed (Kissing, groping, etc.). even for same sex (man-man / woman-woman" (sic).

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“Sometimes?” she replied.

“It’s called Twilt, that feeling,” I answered, laughing, having coined the term on the spot.

Twilt (n): the particular brand of guilt or self-reproach that results from posting, liking or commenting on items on Facebook or Twitter while simultaneously not responding to emails, text messages, phone calls or other types of personal communication with the knowledge or anxiety that the specific message senders will notice your public offerings and question your lack of private ones. Twilt, while related, is not the same as the guilt that results from general Internet-specific procrastination such as browsing blogs or online shopping, which, though it may result in its own brand of self-disgust, generally has no public shame component.

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Wilson, himself a former truck driver, is speaking at the first-ever Trucking and Social Media Convention, and he's trying to get those assembled to formally register comments on a federal transportation site in response to new regulations. That these phrases he tells them not to use are all direct quotes from previous comments will not dampen his determination. “Until we learn where to start, we’re just going to end up with that angry attitude,” Wilson says. “But let’s fight the bureaucrats with bureaucracy!”

So it’s not the fieriest of rallying cries. Most of the 170 drivers and advocates gathered at the Gold Strike Casino in Mississippi’s second-tallest building (31 stories) are plenty fired up already: at new federal regulations and local traffic enforcement, at big carriers, at the perception that despite their toil, truckers don’t get any respect. Post-deregulation realities and the decentralized nature of their jobs have largely left them without a seat at the table. That leaves Twitter.

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Obsessed with idea of being alone in a room w/old unwanted glassware & crockery, obliterating things till satiated, then someone else sweeps 7:25 AM Aug 3rd, 2009 from web

Consider the supermarket sagas. It was a place I spent a lot of time, both because I had young children to feed and because that’s where the pharmacy was. I would wait in line to pick up the narcotics and antiemetics, trying not to look at the varied pleasure-enhancing condoms. If my husband Kevin hadn’t “followed” me, I would have whipped out my phone to share some bitter thoughts about ribbed strawberry rubbers. But when I wheeled my cart away after begging for one or two pills to get him through a Sunday night, I did tweet:

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Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports on the extent to which the Army’s public affairs office is interested in public and media opinion of the Bradley Manning case, noting that P.R. staffers prepared daily summaries of the coverage of the ongoing legal proceedings. This bit jumped out at me:

The Army used a commercial service called VOCUS to track traditional and social media coverage of Manning's hearing. The Pentagon pays close attention to the volume of tweets about the U.S. military during high-profile incidents, like the Air Force One flyover that distressed New York City residents in 2009 …

Here (.pdf), via Gerstein, is the Public Affairs Office media coverage summary that refers to “1,045 social media conversations about the hearing.” It also notes that “the VOCUS media site listed most of the coverage of Manning as negative, the majority of the coverage about the hearing remains balanced and factual.”

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You may not have heard of Klout -- not yet.

But that doesn't matter. If you're on Twitter, or even Facebook, Klout has heard of you. And Klout has ranked you, with a single tidy number meant to sum up your influence and engagement in the social media sphere. Klout.com is a social media analytics company based in San Francisco. Three years ago, it began ranking Twitter users according to the splash their links and witty repartee made among their followers. Since then, it's grown to include activity across social media platforms, and has established itself as a major arbiter of influence in social media circles. Klout, in effect, has clout.

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The story in the earlier article was that our sprawling intelligence and national security apparatus was caught off-guard by social media-fueled uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, and that they were going to take steps to be better prepared in the future.

DHS Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the department was still trying to figure out how to use Twitter and Facebook information for law enforcement purposes. And they seem to be starting completely from scratch:

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Chomsky, of course, is a left-wing icon. As an accomplished linguist, prominent political activist and perhaps one of the most important public intellectuals of the last half-century, people pay attention to what he has to say, especially since he has been so pointed in critiquing mainstream media. But is Chomsky himself "crowding out" social media at the expense of voices that ought to be heard?

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Why? I wondered almost immediately. These were people to whom I hadn’t spoken in more than 15 years, people I hadn’t much liked at the time, people with whom I’d had little in common besides geographic proximity and attendance at the same underperforming high school in central Virginia. I regretted it instantly, but tried not to worry. After all, I’m Facebook friends with plenty of people I don’t know well or like much, second cousins in south Florida, random playgroup moms, people I’ve met on planes or at Starbucks. What did it really matter -- having a few more virtual strangers in my life. That was what I thought. Then, a day or two later, I read one of their posts.

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It's not the first time it has been asked. Gilad Lotan at SocialFlow (and erstwhile Microsoft researcher), spurred by questions raised by participants and supporters of the Occupy Wall Street protests, asks the question: Is Twitter censoring its Trends list to exclude #occupywallstreet and #occupyboston? While the protest movement gains traction and media coverage, and participants, observers and critics turn to Twitter to discuss it, why are these widely known hashtags not trending? Why are they not trending in the very cities where protests have occurred, including New York?

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First, it gives people who have something to say an unprecedented audience that’s both instantaneous and quintessentially democratic. The eulogy is no longer the preserve of the great and the good. Online, anyone can be a broadcaster, a commentator or a curator of news and information.

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Facebook also added a "Ticker" at the top right hand side of the page, which provided a real-time Twitter-like stream of status updates from all my friends. When I first checked it, it was packed with complaints about the new interface change. Judging solely from comments from my friends, people don't want Facebook deciding what's most important, Facebook's suggestions were wrong, irrelevant and insulting, and why oh why oh why can't Facebook leave a good thing alone?

Oh, and people hate change. And, goddammit, they're switching to Google+ (which conveniently opened its doors to the general public today), or Twitter, or giving up on the Internet altogether.

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Here's the story: Over the weekend, several Anonymous members were banished from the Mountain View search giant's buzzy new social network, Google+, apparently because content they hosted on their accounts violated the service's community standards. You might expect that the Web marauders -- responsible as they have been for high-profile hacks of Visa, Amazon, Pay Pal and, most recently, the U.S. military -- would retaliate with a full-out assault on Google. That isn't the case, though. Instead, they've decided to fight fire with fire. They're aligning with another organization called Presstorm to start their own social network: AnonPlus.

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Because we have taught him to be compassionate and take pity on the uncool, he shared a Google+ invitation with me. The moment was the digital equivalent of his preschool days, when he'd arrive home to proudly gift me with a handmade object of unknown utility. "This is lovely," I'd say, my heart swelling as I considered the lump carefully, trying to figure if it looked more like a candy dish or a paper clip holder. "What's it for?"

When I ask the 17-year-old version of that boy what Google+ is for, he says -- texts, actually -- "its pretty sick, there're a lot of cool features thatll be awesome once more people get on. like better chatting and you can really control who sees what."

Alrighty then. Feeling positively hip, I head over, activate my invitation, upload a good-hair-day picture and type in a few simple words for my profile that seem to fit well with the spare, airy Google interface: "Writer, editor, public school advocate, parent, lover, friend, walker of dog." So far, so good.

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I stuck with that for a little while. But there were two big problems.

First, I was bombarded with friend requests from people I barely knew or didn't know at all. Why? It soon became clear that large numbers of people weren't approaching Facebook with the reality principle in mind. They were playing the usual online game of racking up big numbers to feel important. "Friend count" was the new "unique visitors."

Then Facebook started to get massive. And consultants and authors started giving us advice about how to use Facebook to brand ourselves. And marketing people began advocating that we use Facebook to sell stuff and, in fact, sell ourselves.

So which was Facebook: a new space for authentic communication between real people -- or a new arena for self-promotion?

I could probably have handled this existential dilemma. And I know it's one that a lot of people simply don't care about. It bugged me, but it was the other Facebook problem that made me not want to use the service at all.

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Opinions on the service run the gamut. Here's a look at key early reaction:

The New York Times' Claire Cain Miller notes that Google's difficulties in the realm of social media have already taken a toll on its status as "entry point" to the Internet, and wonders if Google+ can really help make up for lost time:

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The sale to online advertising network operator Specific Media is expected to close later Wednesday, a day before the end of News Corp.'s fiscal year. News Corp. will maintain less than a 5 percent stake in the company.

The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005, but users and advertisers have fled the site for other hotter social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Specific Media confirmed the acquisition but not the terms of the deal Wednesday.

"There are many synergies between our companies as we are both focused on enhancing digital media experiences by fueling connections with relevance and interest," said Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook, in a statement. "We look forward to combining our platforms to drive the next generation of digital innovation."

Specific Media, based in Irvine, Calif., was founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook.

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