Bill Cammack

I’ve been transparent on the net since 2006, almost three years ago. In that time, I’ve gotten extremely used to people knowing SOMETHING about me before they meet me. Some people know that I edit. Some people know that I hang out with a lot of chicks. Some people know I’m into Social Media, etc etc…

In December ’07, I wrote “Are You A Tech Elitist”, and in April ’08 I wrote “Digital Internet Snobbery”. The basic point of the two was that as I was moving forward with better Social Media sites, I was losing track of people that never moved ahead. This was fine with me, because I needed to interact with the progressive people in order to remain progressive.

Eventually, I realized that the people I was interacting with wasn’t a function of friendship, but a function of “who was it that made it to the next tech level?” Are you in AOL rooms? Me too. Are you on AIM? Me too. Are you on MySpace? Me too. Are you on Facebook? Me too. Are you on ooVoo? Me too. Are you on Twitter? Me too. They’re all a bunch of divisions, and being that there are so many hours in the day, the lesser formats of interaction and socialization are left in the dust. It’s necessary, because only the people on THIS level are going to find out first about the NEXT LEVEL and become “early adopters” and most likely the Heroes and Rockstars of the near future (as far as our fisbowl / echo chamber’s concerned).

After I wrote those, I stopped reaching forward towards people and started looking back. Recently, I found friends from former jobs I held (when I used to 9-5, back in the day). I found friends from MIT that I had lost touch with. I found friends from High School and friends I grew up with, so I decided to see if I could find anyone from Elementary. :) This is what led to this post. Read the rest of this entry »

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I was fortunate enough to attend a New Media Dinner last night which was hosted by Mr. Strauss Zelnick and featured a discussion moderated by Mr. David Remnick.

One section of the discussion focused on the print media and their online properties vs random bloggers….. (Like MEEEEE!!! *waves* :D). David asked the group [paraphrasing] “What do you see as the future for major media companies?”. I elected not to say anything, because as y’all know who read my material, I don’t like to throw in two cents and leave it at that. I wouldn’t have been content with throwing my idea out there and having the conversation just move on, so I saved it for this morning.

Basically, the point was that there have been major publications like the New York Times (NYT) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and television networks like ABC, CBS & NBC that have had the media industry ON SMASH for, like, forever. That’s all going away now, because everybody has phones that either have still photo or video capability and everybody AT LEAST has a blog, and at most is hooked up to some sort of live-streaming site like Qik. All bets are OFF when Ustream releases their iPhone app. It’s going to be live video straight to people’s phones… crazy! :D

Anyway, the question was basically how people saw these Mainstream Media (MSM) groups evolving to keep up with and remain viable in these changing times. My prediction will be based on several things that guests brought up during that discusssion.

Fact vs. Opinion

In any situation, there are at least two elements. There are “The Facts”, and then there are people’s OPINIONS ABOUT “The Facts”. Read the rest of this entry »

Bill & Flo, originally uploaded by Bill Cammack.

Bill Cammack & Florence Holdeman

Now… We already went over this in “How to dress your girlfriend”, but we need to revisit the topic, thanks to this Jessica Simpson situation.

Ladies… Do yourselves a favor. This is 2009 and we’re living the Social Media life now, so you never know when “Photo Ops” are gonna come up. Make sure that juuuuuust in case, you’re at the top of your game when you step out the door.

Obviously, this is even MORE IMPORTANT if you’re a celebrity and you’re going to be on stage in front of people with cameras. It’s even MORE important if you used to be FOYINE, and now you’re not. We’ll get to that later. :)

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about Jessica Simpson, how her body used to look and how it looks right now. Clearly, she’s put on a GANG of weight, but she could have avoided most of the tabloid chatter if she had dressed properly for her new shape.

Now, all of y’all have been to the ghetto at some point, or at least you’ve seen one of the millions of ghetto movies that Hollywood likes to make, so you know that there are lots of chicks out there with…. more bounce to the ounce… that accessorize and do what they can to look as fly as possible. This is because they know what size they are and they know what to do with that.

Play It Where It Lies

OTOH, there are tons lots of chicks that aren’t aware that they look differently now than when they were slim and they try to dress the same way they used to. No Good. The only reason that stuff worked for you *before* was that guys would have liked to see you with ANY clothes on or with NO clothes on. At this point in time, it’s critical to “leave something (or, a lot) to the imagination”. Read the rest of this entry »

Lindz & Bill V-Day post – 75 hours live, originally uploaded by Bill Cammack.

Recent Visitor map for Lindsey Chen & Bill Cammack’s article: “Top Ten Valentine’s Day DON’Ts!”

Post: January 29, 2009 5:54 pm

Screenshot: February 01, 2009 8:32 pm (75 hours live)

Continued from “Time, Business & Handouts [Time, Part 1]“ and “Time, Part 02″

One of the by-products of this startup culture we live in is that people don’t know when to buzz the %*^& off.

I know this because I’ve been living that lifestyle for a couple of years now. The only thing that matters is that the job isn’t finished yet. Whatever you have to do to finish it and however long it takes, that’s what you need (and to a masochistic degree, WANT) to do.

No. I do not want to go out for a drink with you. I want to implement a new feature on my site. Going out with you is a waste of my time, *AND* it’s just pushing me further back in finishing the project that’s bringing me an actual ROI in the future.

The other day, I was awake @ 3 am and I thought about something I needed to talk to some company about. I looked their number up on the web and called them. I was actually ANNOYED at the fact that I was going to have to wait until maybe 7 am to speak to them! hahaha THE NERVE!!!

That’s the life we live. “There are four hours until I can do what I want to do”, as opposed to “You know what? Just because I’m awake and functional doesn’t mean anybody else IS or NEEDS TO BE”.

Social Media

All this connectivity makes it even worse. There are too many ways for people to monitor your online presence and think they have an opportunity to grab at your time. You ignore their phone calls and they text you. You ignore their texts and they email you. You ignore their emails and they call your other phone. You ignore their voicemail and the look for you on Facebook… or MySpace or AIM/iChat or Twitter or Pownce or Jaiku or on your website or in Ning communities or in forums or bulletin boards…….

It would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly pathetic. :) It’s like they’re going “How dare he post on Twitter when he didn’t return any of my calls? :O” “How dare he go out partying and post 35 pictures on the net when my project deadline is coming up? :O” Well… That’s just the thing. It’s *YOUR* deadline until you pay me to make it MY business at all. MY job is to have a good time. Period. If I elect to stop having a good time and help you accomplish YOUR goals in return for some of your money, then that’s business. Other than that, anything I tell you that helps you out is. a. FAVOR.

Another thing about this is that just because you see me on Twitter @ 4 am, that doesn’t mean I’m interested in or willing to discuss ANYTHING about your business with you. This isn’t the help desk. This isn’t live customer support from India. If I can help out and choose to, good for you. If I choose not to, that’s how it went. Read the rest of this entry »