I’ve had a few pages Stumbled before, but never like this. Not even close. It got me thinking… “are most Stumblers like me?”.

I Stumble a lot myself. I probably spend at least a half hour every day Stumbling, sometimes more. The three things I love the most are lists, images, and anything to do with Libertarianism. One of the reasons I got into Stumble is because there was so much pro-freedom content available and it seemed, unlike Digg, that the Stumble crowd was very non-partisan. Or at least, not into party politics.

While the assertion made in the title is purely an educated guess and contains no statistical data, 20,000 visits from StumbleUpon is a pretty big deal. And apart from a few comments and emails that seem to believe Democrats somehow represent Libertarian values, most of the comments and e-mail I got from that post were very much in support of true American liberty.

This tells me that a huge segment of Stumblers enjoy lists and are not in favor of the current two party system.

That makes me proud to call myself a Stumbler.

We did the interview over skype, where the audio was recorded, and Jed moved it to text format for NetSquared.

You can read the full interview here.

These are the questions I addressed.

-Jed Sundwall: What is the stated mission of the Sam Adams Alliance?
-When did you get started with the Sam Adams Alliance?
-So Sam Adams did not begin as a tech centric initiative.
-What are your largest initiatives?
-Any notable successes?
-So it was fully open?
-Which social media tools have you found to be the most useful?
-What is your rationale for embracing open source software?
-I assume that your philosophy on what makes good software transfers over to your philosophy on what makes good laws as well.
-How do you propose to get people involved with these projects?
-Tell us more about Judgepedia.
-I’m looking forward to something like Fire-chief-pedia. I’m amazed at how many people we’re expected to vote for without having any idea who they are.

Go check it out. It’s a pretty good read.

Here is how I see this working… you can either comment here on my post with a link to the post you write on your own blog with each of your networks, or you can simply comment here telling me how to add you/network with you on your social networks.

The idea is to create a big list of center-right bloggers who wish to be better networked via social sites. For everyone who participates, I’ll list you here along with a link to your blog.

Network away!

Facebook
OK, so the first stop for me is Facebook. I don’t spend much time on Facebook any more these days, but I still log in once per day to get the updates and make sure my profile hasn’t burned to the ground. If you’re logged in to Facebook, you can visit my profile here. Please feel free to add me to your list, or drop me a link to your profile and I’ll add you.

StumbleUpon
Next is my personal favorite… StumbleUpon. I’ve been using Stumble for some time now. Unfortunately, I’ve had to bounce around through several accounts so I have no established account at this time. I am, however, working to establish my main SU account, and I would like to invite everyone here to join my friends list. You can view my StumbleUpon profile here.

Tagged
This was JUST pointed out to me by Publius Forum, so I’m a noob on Tagged. My Tagged profile is here.

YouTube
I watch videos like crazy, but rarely submit them. Don’t be surprised by that. My YouTube profile is here.

By the People @ Ning
Then there is By The People, a social networking group over at Ning.com. By The People functions similar to MySpace, only it’s cool. If you’re a limited government activists and would like to network with others who share your view, this might be just the place. Check it out!

Technorati
Does anyone really still use Technorati? I mean, the results are fairly easy to manipulate, and spammers have noticeably taken advantage. That being said, I still run a profile and would be happy to exchange favorites. View and favorite all of my blogs by clicking here.

You can favorite my blog by clicking the button below.

MyBlogLog
I need to log in and make some changes to this account, so please forgive me if the information there is a little outdated. You can add me to your network by clicking here.

Digg
I’ll admit, my friends list is a mess and I don’t really use it to find stories and content. However, if enough of you are willing to start networking via Digg, I think I can persuade myself to clean up the list and start using it more aggressively. You can view my Digg profile here.

LinkedIn
This network is one that I consider a little more professional than the rest. I use LinkedIn to discover the background of a lot of people I work with in politics, and I find it’s a great place for resume building and contact management. If you have a LinkedIn profile and would like to connect up, send me an invite using ericjodom@gmail.com. My profile can be found here.

There ya have it! Like I said, if you write a post like this, please leave me the URL so I can go add yours as well. If not, just leave me a comment with your networks or any instructions on what I need to do on my end to connect up with you.

Best Regards,
-Eric Odom

Thanks to the paperwork coming through, I’ll finally be able to make some of the changes around here that I’ve been wanting to make. I’m pulling all of my blogs into one single place, which is the main domain here at FreshVisionMedia.com, and I’ll be moving my consulting business to this site.

Lot’s of changes coming…

So before we get it all underway, I want to plug my social networks and give everyone a chance to connect in. I’ll also be listing the bloggers who I read daily via RSS.

Networks

-Stumble (sorry, I had to open a new account today because my old one was a complete mess)
-Digg (I don’t really use Digg much anymore, but I still have an active account and will Digg stories from time to time)
-LinkedIn (ericjodom@gmail.com)
-Facebook (I’m VERY active on Facebook)
-MyBlogLog

Daily Reads via RSS

-impNerd
-Blog About Your Blog
-Blogging Notes
-Hack Wordpress
-Me and My Drum
-ShoeMoney
-Inside Facebook
-All Facebook
-The Make Money Online dot net
-Lorelle
-Mandarin Musing
-WP Candy
-Road 2 Blogging
-Blog Perfume
-Linkfog
-Jeffro2pt0
-Self Made Minds
-SEO Noobs
-Wordpress Publisher Blog
-Blue Verse
-Guide to Blogging
-The Blog Entrepreneur
-Ari Shohat (BIG fan of Ari’s DigitallyImported.com)
-Caroline Middlebrook
-ThinkBlogger
-Internet Babel

Yes, it’s true that I don’t have many “A-List” feeds. To be honest, I’m tired of reading most of the A-listers. They spout the same stuff over and over again and I find it much more refreshing to read through the “smaller guys”.

Also, this is only a small percentage of my feed collection. I chose to publish this list because the above bloggers actually blog daily and maintain that pace with regularity.

So, a big thanks is in order for all of the blogs mentioned here. You guys/gals have provided me with tons of good information and I very much appreciate the efforts.

Keep it up, and have a great 2008!

-Eric Odom

But that excitement quickly faded when I started noticing big changes in the algorithm that were, in my opinion, harming the quality of the site.

First came the bury brigade. Through the massive change in the algorithm, Digg apparently gave a lot more value to a “bury”. What this did was allow for Digg “clans” to play a significant role in controlling homepage content. It wasn’t necessarily that they could easily promote stories; Rather, they could easily keep stories from being promoted.

It was during those days that I felt the site lost its “user generated content” appeal and instead became a site ran by self appointed moderators who operated based on political agendas and favoritism for specific companies or brands.

For example:
If an Apple Fanboy likes Apple but not Microsoft, he SHOULD simply vote for Apple content in the Apple category. Instead, he spends ample time trying to bury Microsoft stories regardless of their quality simply because he doesn’t like them.

This is not what I thought the original intention of Digg was. This is not how a true Democracy works. When you go to the voting booth, you can’t both vote for your candidate and subtract a vote for the candidate you don’t like. That’s absurd!

But that is how Digg works, unfortunately.

And now things seem to be getting worse. I typically stay away from Digg these days. I might visit the site once or twice a week, but it’s totally random and only when I’m bored of YouTube and my RSS Feeds.

But yesterday I was desperate for a good video to watch while eating a piece of pizza, so I figured why not? I dropped in to Digg to find this story on page one.

Microsoft says Vista is more secure than XP, OSX, and Linux

Two things.

1) To say that Vista is more secure than Linux is to admit self ignorance. As an ubuntu user, I can proudly claim that I have never, not once, had ANY issues with security since getting rid of Vista.

Never!

2) How the hell did a Gizmodo story hit the front page with 40 votes and only 1 comment?

I’ve seen stories with 90 votes and 20 comments in less than four hours slip in to the Digg abyss never to be seen again. But somehow a Gizmodo story makes front page without even lifting a finger?

Now this would in no way strike me as being odd if the story had lots of comments, wasn’t being disputed as being inaccurate, and if top Digg users have not started a petition regarding Digg’s decision to up the vote requirement for front page.

The moral of the story is that Digg’s algorithm is all screwed up and doesn’t work in a way that fits the original vision of the site.

Basically, Digg is broken and the damage continues to get worse.

Shame…

By the way, you can add me here.

Personally, I’ve always agreed with those who feel Digg traffic sucks. I’ve had a few pages hit the front page at Digg, one of them resulting in 12,000 visits within a few hours. But very few of those visits converted into revenue, bookmarks, or RSS subscribers.

That being said, it’s still interesting to see a comparison put up showing stats of Digg traffic vs. CNN traffic for the same page.

Notice how the CNN traffic is greater in numbers, stays longer, and visits more pages.

I used to think Digg would become a portal for a far more intelligent user base, but unfortunately, the Diggbats ran the quality users off the site. Which explains the hit and run traffic now dominating Digg pages.

Interesting…

Right now the names of the individuals involved are kind of bouncing around, so I’ll refrain from posting them here. But, I will link to other stories where names have been stated.

Basically, two college students, one believed to be from Penn State, decided to dress up as Virginia Tech shooting victims for a Halloween party. They went as far as splattering fake blood all over their Virginia Tech labeled clothing, and cutting holes to represent bullet wounds.

Apparently this was done to add “shock value” to their Halloween party. According to the male student involved, it was an intentional move aimed at gaining attention.

“It’s not that it was funny, it’s that we are notorious and infamous in the state college, so we have to do things that push the envelope just for shock value,” he said.

Now that’s class, isn’t it? /sarcasm

The female involved made the mistake of posting the pictures on her Facebook profile, which have since been shared and have spread like wildfire. In fact, a Facebook group was started a few days ago and as of this moment has about 500 members. Death threats have been made, threats of physical harm, and some of the most vile insults hurled in the direction of the offending students.

Needless to say, this was no walk in the park.

The weird thing about this whole story is that neither of the two students have shown any sympathy, remorse, concern for what they have done. In a phone interview with the male student involved, the reporter seemed somewhat taken back at the fact that the student apparently found no wrong in his actions.

Listen to the interview via YouTube.

Facebook can be a powerful community on events such as this. And Facebook is only a small part of the internet.

The moral of the story is… don’t be stupid. It really is that simple.

I guess it all depends on how you view it, but from the direction I’m looking, some of these new Facebook apps do nothing for the Facebook experience itself. In fact, all they do is market an outside product or service.

Take the Free Unmetered Host application for example. The “application” is explained like this.

Welcome to FreeUnmeteredHost.com

We offer free UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH hosting with 12 gigabytes of disk space. There are no hosting fees, bandwidth usage fees, overage fees or hidden fees.

Our network is BGP enabled and consists of a variety of backbone providers, each providing connectivity that means you have the fastest most reliable service.

» 12GB Disk Space
» UNLIMITED! Bandwidth
» PHP 5 Support
» mySQL databases
» 100mb per second
» Instant activation
» Domain Name Support
» Easy to use WYSIWYG editor
» File Manager
» 24/7 Technical Support
» Full FTP Access
» name.freemeteredhost.com
» 99.9% Uptime

Here is a screenshot in case you don’t feel like visiting the actual page.

I’ve sent a message to a member who had apparently tried to use it, and got an intriguing response.

Hi Eric,

When I initially tried the application I honestly had no idea how it would work. I just wanted to see if the free hosting part was valid. After I installed the application, a banner ad started appearing on my profile page.

That’s not exactly what I had in mind, so I got rid of the application and that was that.

Sorry I couldn’t help.

-XXXXX

Sounds like this app is nothing more than a marketing scheme set up by Free Unmetered Host.

If this is the case, couldn’t it been seen as abuse of Facebook, the FB community, and everything the site represents? Or am I looking at this from the wrong angle?

I first heard about the Moveon assault on Facebook over privacy concerns about a week ago. At the time the story seemed so silly and irrelevant that I pushed it aside and did what MoveOn needs to do… moved on. But I’ve since received several e-mails asking for an opinion on the online battle.

So here it is…

The Short Version
The short version is that this is an anti-capitalist, politically motivated, pointless and disruptive push by MoveOn.org.

The Long Version
What is odd about this attack is that so many users are becoming frantic over “privacy concerns”. You know, as if this is some new phenomenon we’re seeing with Facebook and the “data sharing”.

Ethan Zuckerman provides a good example of this. Ethan displays a wonderful rundown of what happens with the new Facebook Beacon Ad program.

If you’ve got a Facebook account, try this experiment: Go to overstock.com and buy something. (I recommend Kwame Appiah’s “Cosmopolitanism” if you’re really stuck for something to purchase.) As you complete the purchase, a window appears in the bottom right of your browser window, announcing “Overstock.com is sending this to your Facebook profile”.

Okay, let the window disappear – on my browser, it takes only about ten seconds for it to disappear. Now log into Facebook. You’ve got a new item in your mini-feed, the message “Overstock.com is sending a story to your profile.”

There’s a check-off box to allow you to hide this message in the future – i.e., let Facebook post this “story” without warning to you – to turn it off, it requires you to click “See More”, then “Edit Settings”, then tell Facebook that you don’t want Overstock.com to post stories to your profile.

Fair enough. To try this out, I purchased tickets of “The Mist” at Fandango. Sure enough… a little window appeared at the lower right letting me know the site intended to send the details of the purchase to Facebook. I’m not sure how long it was there, but it was there long enough for me to know full well that I needed to click “no thanks” to stop the details from being sent.

But even if that wasn’t easy enough, are we now complaining because we have to “click -See More-, then -Edit Settings-, then tell Facebook that you don’t want Overstock.com [or Fandango in my case] to post stories to your profile” as if it provided a nightmarish internet experience in doing so?

Ethan goes on to say:

For me, the overwhelming feeling was one of uneasiness – in my head, at least, this isn’t how the web works.

That would be, in my opinion, absolutely incorrect.

I remember when a similar fit was thrown back when Gmail started picking up momentum. Bloggers and e-pundits were going wild with the “privacy violation” cries. Many claimed that because Google was reading your e-mails in order to display relevant ads the company was committing some unforgivable sin. Yet, all the while the entire system was carefully laid out in Google’s TOS.

Now, virtually everyone I know uses Gmail.

The bottom line is that while “free” might not have a price, it will usually come with strings attached. In the case of G-mail it was the ability of Google to scan your e-mail for keywords and relevant content. Facebook, which by the way has become one of my favorite social networking hubs, provides us with a powerful suite of e-tools at a whopping price of FREE. In return, I might have to click a time or two to change some options.

So what? Is it that big of a deal?

And what MoveOn seems to have left out is this.

FaceBook Privacy Policy

Could it be said that a discussion with Facebook should have taken place to clarify some of the Beacon Ad rumors? Sure! But MoveOn isn’t interested in common sense tactics. MoveOn does absolutely nothing to help users understand how to preserve internet privacy. MoveOn did not in any way explain the proper methods of making a complaint to Facebook, which also happens to be a member of Truste.org.

MoveOn is simply stomping up and down for attention and the group is using an issue it has nothing in common with.

And finally… why my initial complaint of anti-capitalism? MoveOn claims that special interest groups and business use Facebook to further a message, cause, product, or service. This might be somewhat true, although one can argue that by creating social networks themselves you are creating profitable “spheres”. I see nothing wrong with that. And it certainly hasn’t lessoned the value of my own personal Facebook experience.

Ironically, Moveon is currently using Facebook to promote an agenda.

When all of this nonsense dies down, Facebook will still be just as popular. People like me will still be using it more and more each day. MoveOn’s fan base will still believe someone is out to get them. And most Facebook users will realize this wasn’t such a big deal afterall.

In fact, it’s kind of cool.