At a recent SXSW Interactive 2010 mixer we witnessed the following – people bumping iPhones, exchanging Twitter usernames and buying their own drinks. Which is a polite way of saying a ton of people showed up looking to network on social media paydays, but no one seemed to be cashing in yet. It’s as if everyone was following advice collected from keynote addresses, blogs and whatnot on how to properly socialize in the year 2010. It seemed like a hollow charade mixed with peer pressure. As if anyone will be seen as confident players in some Web x.0 freaknik… by iPhoning these newer Twitter IDs instead of swapping older business cards.

Long story short, LonerBoner met a bunch of people who seemed self-employed, freelancing or downright unemployable. Yet all having the idea that they’re movers and shakers in this social media clusterfuck of Tweeting your mobile blog updates to some Facebook page. All these lanyard losers seemed proud of the fact they were dropping money to see the CEO of Twitter. Which is a little questionable, as he’s not a Jim Jones or even Tony Robbins type. His message is only one of creating an abundance of meaningless information. Yet people seem intent on adopting “The 4-Hour Work Week” to autoblogging or “running their own shop,” based on solely on repurposing the cloud of social media soundbites.

The real issue now, is how can this information overload be filtered so that anything of worth differentiates itself from the blather that makes up 99% of the peer cloud that your follow? While Read the rest of this entry »