Bonus “Today on Craigslist” from this weekend’s Glenn Beck rally, via Wonkette (note: subject matter not safe for work): well, I won’t post this one, but if you Google “wonkette tea party craigslist honor” you’ll probably find it…

“Everyday -every day- you will have a monkey sighting. You’ll see a picture of a monkey, someone will say ‘monkey,’ you’ll hear a monkey noise, whatever. There are monkeys everyday. If you miss one, don’t worry about it; there will be others.

“A friend told me about the monkey theory five years ago. I’ve seen monkeys every single day since then. Usually several monkeys throughout the day. I can’t escape them. Now, you can’t escape them either.”

Hogwash, I thought. Bunkum! In fact, this morning, I was thinking “I should really write a blog post refudiating the monkey theory.

And then I saw this.

OOOOH, curse you, monkeys! You may have won this one…

But would that it were! If it were, someone like Stephen Fry — actor, auteur, thoughtful social commentator — would boot that Sarah Palin right back to the hostess counter at the Wasilla Applebee’s where she belongs.

Consider:

(True, Fry wasn’t born in the United States. But then I think I read somewhere that Obama wasn’t either, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt his success any.)

One of the most thoughtful people who spoke up in the session (not a panelist, just an ordinary citizen like me) was Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, who runs the Queens Council on the Arts. She is, of course, a creative and prolific blogger herself, not to mention artist, and I was blown away to discover tonight that in between making memorable comments and taking her own notes, she managed to complete four perfectly fine line drawings on her iPad in her spare time during those 90 minutes we were all in the room together. But I digress.

One of the things I think I remember Hoong Yee herself saying during the session is that good blog writing gives the reader something to react to — it has the effect of drawing the reader into a conversation that is bigger than him or her, but that also welcomes him or her to join in.

This is in contrast to, say, a newspaper op-ed, which might try to convince you of something but isn’t particularly interested in your opinion. I’m reminded of Steve Rosenbaum’s Huffington Post column on the death of the “content strategy” and of Clay Shirky’s essay “Gin, Television, and the Social Surplus” — both of which, as it happens, I read earlier today.

Each in his own way is talking about the new ecology of social content — about the irrepressible human desire not just to consume, but also to respond and to create and to share. For most of us, through most of the history of media — and I’m talking about well into my own lifetime — consumption was the only practical option most of the time. What were we going to do, start our own newspapers? (Some of us did. In elementary school, I published something called the Mintz Prints.. But, again, I digress.) Now that’s all changed, and I agree with Clay — the genie’s never going back in the bottle.

The very best social media — this applies not just to blogs, but to any media that’s meant for a participatory public — makes you feel like there’s a party going on, and you’re invited. It does so by saying so directly (“What are your thoughts on this topic?”), but also indirectly: by playing out an exchange of ideas with other blogs (e.g., as I’m doing here), by quoting and referencing the comments of “ordinary people” whom the imagined reader can relate to, by facilitating the sharing of itself through social media tools.

When an organization establishes a reputation for this kind of social media, its online audience starts to grow more quickly, as readers begin returning of their own accord (without having to be nudged by, say, an email program) to “see what’s new.” (As Graham said in the panel, it’s important when they do come back that there actually be something new for them to see. Once you set up the expectation, you do have to feed it.)

I’ll have more tomorrow about what the panelists themselves said on these important topics.

I am generally speaking an adherent of the Getting Things Done tracking philosophy (slightly modified to fit my own personality a little better). If you’re feeling reductionist, this reduces to five principles:

• Keep only one* queue of “things to be processed/evaluated,” and process it regularly (e.g., daily) and systematically, into…
• One master list of things to do, ordered by project, on which you…
• Clearly identify for each project what is the single next action you need to take;
• Review the master list on a schedule (high-level review daily, detailed review weekly) to prune it of cruft;
• When processing the queue, do right now anything that you think you can finish in less than five minutes.

*I actually have more than one queue, but I process them into a single list.

(I won’t get into the philosophy or practice behind this, which are amply explored in David Allen’s books and in a host of cultish Web sites all over the place. But I will say it feels right to me.)

I had a pretty good system going, using the spectacular open-source Taskwarrior command line app. Unfortunately, two things happened. First, my task list got way too long to handle effectively inside a terminal window; and second, I got this iPad, which has Changed Everything.

Now I’m all about the cloud — about finding ways to make my data accessible from anywhere, on any device. And so I’m afraid that a command-line app that ties me to my laptop probably isn’t the right answer anymore.

The Evernote Web site turned me on to Nozbe, a GTD implementation for Web and iPhone that has a new iPad application that launched this week. Like Evernote, all your Nozbe data syncs magically across all your devices. I haven’t had much luck with task management software, which always feels way too heavy, but this one seems a little gentler, so I’m trying it out.

I’m testing it first as a blog workflow management tool. Right now I have my blog post queue stored in about five places: in Taskwarrior, in Evernote, in Google Reader, in my WordPress drafts folders, and in my head. That’s way too many places. I tried centralizing in Evernote, but Evernote (just like Gmail) is more useful as a storehouse of heterogenous, unstructured information that’s universally available and easily searched than it is as a taxonomic tool. So we’re going to test things out in Nozbe and see what happens. So far I’m optimistic. It can’t be any worse than my current tracking tangle is.

I have friends who swear by Freedom, Fred’s previous creation (for Mac and Windows), which disconnects the Internet on your computer entirely, for whatever interval(s) you specify, so you can get work done without distractions. Anti-Social is a narrower tool, locking you out of social media sites in particular, but leaving the rest of the Internet available.

We will leave as an exercise for the reader the question of Where This All Might Lead.

What’s funny to me about this is that if we’re talking about face-to-face communication, this is just common sense that everybody knows. Somehow online, everything is different, and we have to relearn all those basic lessons. (And I wish I could read the email to Scalzi that set off his semi-rant.)

I had lunch with a friend (I’ll call him “Charlemagne,” primarily because that will make him laugh when he reads this) whom I met on IRC in 1994. I did shortly thereafter meet him in real life, but over the past 15 years the overwhelming majority of our contact has been online (these days, usually via instant messenger and Facebook). In a typical 60-day period I’ll talk to him online every other day and maybe see him once.

Then I had coffee with a woman I’ll call “Cleopatra,” whom I was meeting for the first time. (There was a professional context for the meeting.) I brought along “Napoleon,” a coworker of mine whom I knew on Twitter and Facebook for a year before I met him in person.

(By way of backstory, Cleopatra and I were introduced in email by a woman — I’ll call her “Victoria” — whom I initially met after she tweeted about me behind my back and a dozen people brought the tweet to my attention. I did later meet Victoria in person, once, for two minutes in a hallway; but I’ve exchanged dozens of tweets and emails with her — and because she works in social media for an organization I support, I see evidence of her online activity constantly.)

Finally, I had dinner with my friends “William” and his wife “Mary” (not their real names). I was introduced to William online by my friend “Hatshepsut” (not her real name), whom I did know personally, years ago, but whom I last saw in real life in 2005. I see her online every day. I’ve talked to William online at least weekly for almost a year, but have only talked to him on the phone once, and never met him until tonight. William and Mary and I made special advance plans to meet for dinner while they were here visiting New York, and we had a blast.

If there’s any evidence here that participating actively in social media impairs a person’s ability to negotiate real-world social relationships, explain to me what it is. Maybe I’m atypical — but I don’t think I am. That canard that the Internet is a place for social misfits to hide out is dead, dead, dead.

(Also, can you tell I’m in the mood to play Civilization IV?)

To the Anderkoo family, all your friends and family, wherever they are, are thinking of you on this happy day. And to Gene (who is one of my colleagues) — we look forward to having you back at work soon, but not too soon. Enjoy these days that will never come again.

Richard, a 39-year-old marketing executive who uses the service, would like to say, for the record: “It’s not like I really have a lot of problems dating people in the real world.” It’s just that he’s busy, splitting time among four cities, including Washington and Miami, and he figures it’s best to meet as many people as possible.

Online dating has worked for Richard, “but it’s all time-consuming,” so when he heard about Virtual Dating Assistants, it seemed like a convenient solution for an on-the-go guy. “Just from a cost-benefit analysis — me spending all this time on doing things that are purely almost secretarial doesn’t make any sense for me,” says Richard, who asked that his last name not be used because he doesn’t want colleagues or potential dates to know he uses the service.

And because he doesn’t want to advertise to the whole world what a douchebag he is. Seriously?! A “cost-benefit analysis”? There’s a reason why guys like these aren’t batting a thousand out on the market. Read the whole thing, then go take a shower.

Surprisingly, this doesn’t seem so hard. Not to say I’ll actually do it — I don’t anticipate finding the time anytime soon — but I now realize that I could, if I wanted to, learn how to develop the equivalent of

10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD”
20 GOTO 10

or whatever, upload it to the iPhone App Store, and make my fortune!

Incidentally, the half a dozen programming languages I noted above include Perl and PHP — both of which I could probably manage to make a living at if I absolutely had to — so I shouldn’t sell myself so short. But I’ve never studied any variant of C, and even if I had, I’m still a long distance away from being able to bang out the next runaway-hit iPhone game in a weekend and quit my job. Nice dream, though…

I don’t believe in “viral videos.” The “post ‘n’ pray” fantasy of putting a video on YouTube and having it magically spread to a zillion users ignores the importance of engagement and placement. I guarantee you that the million-views-a-day video has good content and at least one of three other elements: a channel with an existing audience, a strategic placement (paid or earned), and the appropriate level of engagement.

Hear, hear. Dear Interweb: more of this kind of sensibleness, please…

hat tip: Chris Royalty

Technology can enhance human contact and creative expression, or can deflect the one and stifle the other, which is what Lanier fears is happening in various ways acknowledged and unacknowledged. In particular, enthusiasm for the technological future, Lanier says, encourages us to reduce ourselves in order to comply with the inherent limits and non-continuousness of technology, rather than envisioning smarter and better technology that can keep up with us. I can’t say he’s wrong.

WIth my friends list hitting critical mass, and the venue database filling out, the whole thing is becoming more than a curiosity from where I sit. As a sort of experiment, I’ve tried to take the game seriously for the past couple of weeks — checking in religiously at every legitimate venue I visit, adding those that are missing, trying to recruit more friends to participate.

As a result, I’m currently leading my friends in points, and (as Andrew Hearst called to my attention this afternoon) I’ve hit the NYC leaderboard for this week, and am currently ranked somewhere in the mid-forties. (The numbers reset to zero on Sunday night, so I have another two days of glory before I fall off the list.)

This certainly won’t last (at a minimum, the resourceful Ryan J. Davis will certainly figure out a way to push back up to first position among my friends, where he usually is). But it’s been fun.

Foursquare has evolved; at least among the comparatively middle-aged people I know, it’s no longer only about keeping track of your friends when they “go out” at night. That’s resulted in some gray areas about what kinds of check-ins are legitimate, which the game designers didn’t or couldn’t anticipate or resolve. So in honor of the game, I’m going to publish a draft set of rules for fair play right here, for your review and comment.

Rule #1: You may check in only at publicly accessible places.

A place has to be publicly accessible, otherwise it’s not fair to others who might be passing by and could benefit from a check-in. Workplace check-ins are legitimate, as long as your workplace is open to the public or frequently visited by people who don’t work there. Checking in at your house is tacky; checking in at the “100 Park Avenue Apartments” is right on the line. I’d say it’s “acceptable,” but I wouldn’t do it.

Rule #2: You may check in only at named places.

A place has to have a name in order to be legit. What I really mean by this is that it has to have a Platonic identity; it has to exist at all times of the day or night, and everyone has to agree on what its name refers to. So, for instance, any named business is okay. “City Hall Park” or “Times Square” or “Staten Island Ferry” are all legit, because everyone knows what you mean. Your doctor’s office is okay. Public landmarks and facilities are okay. “Coffee Cart at 23rd and 6th” (or “JetBlue Flight 807″) — well, now, that’s just sad.

A geekier way to express Rules #1 and #2 together: if it doesn’t belong in a venue database, what are you doing checking in there?

Subway stations are legit (and someone has helpfully loaded all the NYC stations into the system in a consistent manner — search for “MTA” when you’re standing outside the station). You may check in once when you enter the system and once when you leave. NB: A bus stop (streetcorner, parking lot, etc.) is not a place!

Rule #3: You may check in at a place more than once in a day, as long as you go somewhere else in between.

This one will stir some controversy, but I think it’s fair (as long as Rules #1 and #2 are also observed). Abusers of this privilege will be executed by lethal injection.

Rule #4: You must physically be on the premises in order to be permitted to check in at a place.

So, for instance: if Duane Reade is closed when you walk by, you’re out of luck. And parking in the parking lot of a business that is closed does not count as “being on the premises.” Nor does placing an online order from a restaurant via Delivery.com. (However: if you stop at the ATM outside the bank and transact business, you’re on the premises — go to town!)

Rule #5: Hiding your location from your friends is not cheating.

You’re given an option not to tell your friends when you check-in. Use it whenever you like, as long as you’re respecting all the other rules. For instance, you’re not necessarily entitled to know who all my clients are, or where my dentist’s office is, or where I’m taking my sweetheart out to dinner. But if the venues otherwise qualify, why shouldn’t I get the points?

Rule #6: Play the game with goodwill.

This rule always trumps Rules #1 through #5.

We’re still a bit away from Cory Doctorow’s always-on network-in-our-heads; but with each incremental improvement, we move closer to that point, which I feel certain to see in my lifetime. (How’s that for Omni-quality sci-fi boosterism?)