Now, before you descend on me like a swarm of locust for backpeddling… read on!

I’ve long been a proponent of the idea that social media marketing, or trying to make sales through “the social media channel” is a beyond a waste of time… it is driving potential business away, never to return. And for everyone’s sanity, including my own, I still feel that way! This past weekend at BarCamp Memphis, I had the opportunity to have some extended discussions that included this very topic. One blog owner was very concerned about having any advertising on their site saying they had made a huge investment gaining the trust of their readership and didn’t want to risk that by selling ads. At the same time, there has to be a viable revenue model or many sites, including some pretty popular ones, will not be able to continue. Well, maybe there is a way…
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I’ve been thinking about a series for a while now that explains my bio that seems to be floating all over the Internet these days. It never even occurred to me that it needed explaining until I was quizzed on it recently. Since then I’ve refined it a bit, swapped out a few words, and now I think it is a pretty good description of, well… me. I’ve actually struggled with whether to do this or not, I didn’t want to come off too "about me" but, after all, this is my blog… its kinda like visiting my house and seeing the collection of stuff that describes me… so why not. Oh, BTW, its not really going to be in any particular order. For instance, today’s entry is about the Digital Nomad Lifestyle, mainly because I saw a related post on GigaOM that got me thinking on the topic. I’ll update this post as a Table of Contents of sorts when new posts in the series go up. Hopefully, when they’re all done they’ll make more sense. Thanks for reading so far! SO, without further ado… here we go!

Confirmed Internet junkie, blogger, and marketer pursuing the digital nomad lifestyle. Oh, and I LOVE a good debate, Shiner, and my Bride!

Enjoy,

 @jtrigsby

Just about everyone expects the folks over at Facebook to open up most or all of the user-contributed data to developers tomorrow! Its far short of “breaking news” but it does have some pretty big implications for the way us social media folks live and work.

First, what exactly does it mean that Facebook is exposing their user-contributed data to developers? Well, mainly it means that there is about to be an explosion of apps that interface with and make use of Facebook data, not the least of which will be the messaging available on “The Wall.”

Marketing folks, especially Internet marketers, have been salivating over the thought of having unfettered access to Facebook user data. Just think, not only do I know who you are and what you like and where you live and etc, etc… but I know it about all your friends too! AWESOME!

So, is this going to be another backlash like the Facebook terms of use update a few weeks back? I’m not really sure, I kinda think the terms of use update was aimed at making this possible. I think that the real power of this new avenue into Facebook user-contributed data will manifest itself outside Facebook. Kinda the same way the impact of AOL email manifested itself outside of AOL. Yeah, they made it available and easy to use for the masses, but that just opened the door to a whole new world of possibilities.

I think the AOL example is important for Facebook in another way too. Yes, AOL did really well for a while and made TRUCK LOADS of money, and now look at them. They got way too happy with themselves and worked their way right out of a job. Could the same thing happen with Facebook? Maybe, the scary thing is we don’t even know what we don’t know yet!

Look for mergers too… or at least some way to mash up all your feeds that’s better than anything we have today. I’m a HUGE fan of TweetDeck, in fact its open right now as it is almost all the time. Now that I can send and receive Facebook updates in TweetDeck, I don’t got to Facebook nearly as often…and I can’t tell you the last time I was on the Twitter site. Add to that FriendFeed and all the numerous knock-offs and you simply have too many status update like feeds to keep up with. Something has to give.

Anyway, look for lots of news out about Facebook tomorrow, April 27th and if you’re a Facebook fanatic, watch closely!