Brad Rourke

Category: social networks

  • Performatives In Social Media

    Ever since I discovered them, I’ve been fascinated by something called “performatives” in speech. These are statements that inherently change the state of affairs. The classic one is “naming,” as in “your name is. . . .” Before the statement, I did not have a name (or it was different).  After that statement, I did. It…

  • Social Media As Gateway

    A North Carolina foundation has announced that its Facebook fan page cracked 1,000 fans. The Pretty in Pink Foundation in Raleigh, NC provides financial help to North Carolina women diagnosed with breast cancer. “Pretty In Pink Foundation Reaches Social Media Milestone,” blares the headline. Says the executive director of the foundation: “Reaching this key social…

  • Common Sense Needed Online For Journalists, Too

    On Friday, the Washington Post’s ombudsman ran with a blog post outlining the Post’s new set of standards for employees who use social media (like Twitter and Facebook). The peg for the article was the story of managing editor Raju Narisetti, who evidently thought that Twitter is a private forum where only his 90 best…

  • Twitter Ecosystem Featuring More Teens, Tweens

    It has up to now been enjoyable to make a cocktail party comment that was some version of, “You know, teens don’t use Twitter.” Saying this immediately marked the speaker as someone “in the know” when it comes to social media. While sites like Facebook and Twitter have shown exponential growth, they are not ubiquitous…

  • A One Pager On Why An Organization Should Consider Social Media

    Today I took part in a a conversation with a client who is mounting a broad-based initiative that will be based on holding a number of events around the country. The organization has a proposal from someone to help them use “social media” and, while a couple of key people are convinced of the worthiness…

  • The Social Media Backlash And What I Had For Lunch

    Yesterday an article titled “How Facebook Ruins Friendships” predictably made the rounds of social media as people debated its pros and cons. The article’s argument hinges on three points: 1) that people say inappropriate things on social sites; 2) that much of it is trivia; and 3) this is annoying because no one wants to…

  • How To Be A Nice Person Online

    Humans are social beasts. They are driven to form groups. Every group has its own set of rules — its etiquette. Social media is no exception. A stable set of norms is emerging that governs online behavior. Some of it is adopted from the etiquette of early online environments — like DON’T USE ALL CAPS…

  • How To Think About Your Blog Like A TV Programmer

    The great promise of the Web, which was finally fulfilled by the pervasive existence of blogs, was that everyone would be a publisher. With cheap, easy tools, anyone can publish work that is immediately accessible across the globe.There is literally no fundamental barrier to the creation and distribution of your work. There is a new…

  • Personal And Public Security — What's The Answer?

    By now, most users of Twitter know of what’s come to be called “Twitfail” — French hackers gained access to the personal email accounts and passwords of top executives at Twitter. To prove it, they emailed a large cache of internal strategy documents to the widely-read Silicon Valley blog TechCrunch. After agonizing over it for…