Should social media users exercise etiquette or not? What do you think?

According to Pamela Eyring, who is the President and Director of The Protocol School of Washington, users who are not mindful of etiquette on social networks may quickly run into the negative effects of social media.

“It’s a great way to advertise and market and build networks of people… but we also have to be careful of pitfalls,” she said.

With social media, information – both good and bad – gets distributed very quickly. For example, think about how fast word got out about former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Some would still argue that social networks would lose their effectiveness if everyone demonstrated restraint. After all, one of the driving forces behind the popularity of social media has been that it has given an equal voice to everyone.

As Eyring explained to us, there should be a balance. She believes that everyone with an opinion has the right to express it, but that they should consider etiquette when they post.

“I think there are times when you need to state your opinion clearly… but I think also that it doesn’t need to be nasty,” she said. “You can showcase your disapproval and even anger without being nasty.”

She believes that etiquette is especially important since the line between personal and professional is continuing to be blurred. Many users are getting laidback about what they post, and for professionals, this could be damaging.

“Those professionals who want to take their careers to the next step need to be cautious,” said Eyring.

The Golden Rule that she follows and recommends for others is to think before you post. It’s simple, but those few seconds could save you from having something negative permanently branded to your name.

Just hours after the news broke about the untimely death of Jackass star Ryan Dunn, legendary film critic Roger Ebert called him and his friends out for drunk driving.

Dunn, who was 34, was driving his Porsche early this morning in West Goshen, PA when he lost control and flew over a guardrail. His car reportedly slammed into a tree and caught fire. There was a passenger in the car who was also killed, although police have been unable to identify the body. According to the police report the car went through about 40 yards of trees before hitting the last one and bursting into flames.

His last tweet from last night linked to a photo of him drinking with a couple of buddies. That tweet has since been removed from his Twitter feed. Here’s a screen cap of the photo in question -

This twitpic obviously led to speculation that the horrible crash was due to Dunn being drunk. TMZ reports that one person has said Dunn had three Miller lights and three “girly shots” in a 4 hour period. This is hardly enough to inebriate a grown man. But according to another person, Dunn was “wasted” after drinking heavily. Police have said that speed was most likely a factor in the crash, but there is naturally no way to tell if he was intoxicated yet.

So news of the drunk driving death of Dunn hit Twitter and he has stayed a trending topic all day. The most high profile person to tweet something controversial about the death was Roger Ebert. He tweeted this a little over an hour ago -

Ouch. Is Ebert’s comment made in poor taste? Or does he have a point? Even if he does have a point, is it simply too soon?

Many of Ebert’s Twitter followers aren’t happy with the comment. One user says “that was in disgustingly poor taste.” Another tweets “why is this a joke; he is still a person, have some respect.” One simply tweets “You’re an asshole.”

I happen to love Roger Ebert, who I believe is a national treasure. A statement like the one he made is loaded with intricacies. Sure, drunk driving is dumb and it puts other people’s lives at risk. And another person did die in this accident besides Dunn. But the death is quite tragic and no matter what, he is still a human being with family and friends. Maybe 140 characters isn’t the best place to make a statement on a complicated issue.

Some of Dunn’s fellow Jackass stars have spoken out about the death. Here’s what they have to say -

What do you think about Ebert’s remark? Let us know in the comments.

Add your condolences to the Ryan Dunn page on FamousDead.com.

[Image Courtesy TMZ]

Yes, there is nothing quite like waking up bleary-eyed, dry-mouthed and head-achey to seventy-five (ok, 35) notifications blowing up your Facebook to validate your existence. No matter that only about 5% of those notifications are from people who actually know my birthday – I appreciate it anyways! I know it took at least 15 seconds out of your busy day to log a couple of keystrokes on my behalf, and for that I am grateful.

Honestly, let’s take a second to think about how much Facebook has changed “the birthday.” Because of Facebook birthday reminders, people are now able to pretend that they actually care about other human beings. It’s phenomenal. Ask yourself: How many friends’ birthdays do you know, as in know for real? Three? Four?

And good luck trying to throw a surprise party for anyone with Facebook in the mix.

In light of the momentous occasion that is my day of birth, I’ve decided to compile a do and don’t guide to birthday postings and responses. These are general suggestions that you can use when your birthday and your friends’ birthdays roll around. Here goes.

Birthday Wall Postings

DO NOT: Wish me “Happy Birthday.”

This is incredibly lame. It’s basically the equivalent of you telling me that the sun is shining, or I have a piece of something in my teeth. It’s a fact, I know that it is indeed my birthday. And it’s my birthday, so most likely I’m feeling happier than I am on other days (unless I’m over 40, which I’m not).

INSTEAD: Try the phrases “Happy Brithday, you ______” (something vulgar) or “Happy Birthday, I can’t believe we survived that time we _______” Make a joke, be creative. Remember, for most people, the Facebook birthday post is the extent of what they’re giving. It is in lieu of a present or a card, so it needs to reflect that you put some thought into it.

DO NOT: Put this monstrosity on my wall -

Or this -

INSTEAD: Please just write something. But if you must visually represent your feelings toward me on my day of birth, go with something like this:

DO NOT: Post anything on my wall that is not birthday related.

Dude, don’t ruin my long chain of birthday wishes with something irrelevant and worthless like, “Hey man, I saw your mom in the grocery the other day!”

INSTEAD: Direct Message, Tweet at me, SMS, call me….the possibilities are endless. Just don’t mess up my birthday feed, jerk.

DO NOT: Wish me happy birthday on Facebook if I haven’t spoken to you in over 5 years.

Seriously, you don’t really want to do it – it’s a waste of your time. And it feels hollow to me and I really don’t care. Save us both some grief and skip the post.

INSTEAD: Write me a real letter. I think something about receiving a handwritten letter would do wonders for rekindling a friendship. Bonus points if you write it in some sort of code.

DO NOT: Wish me happy birthday via a private message.

Unlike irrelevant things, I want your birthday wishes plastered on my wall for the world to see. Why? Because if I don’t have enough birthday posts then it looks like I’m uncool and nobody likes me. If only a few people post on my wall, then it looks like I’ve changed my birthday as a joke to fool people. Then everyone else feels skeptical and afraid to post. It’s a big chain reaction that ends up making me look friendless and pitiful.

INSTEAD: Post on my wall! Two, Three, Ten times if you want – I don’t care. Make me feel loved, Facebook world.

Birthday Post Responses

Once I’ve received all of my friends’ well wishes, how should I show my appreciation? Personally, I believe that the person celebrating the birthday should be exempt from response. The best way to thank someone for writing some kind or funny words on your wall on your birthday is to return the favor when their birthday rolls around.

But if you must respond, here are some proven ways:

• The all-encompassing thank you – When everything is said and done, simply post a status that generically thanks everyone who wished you happy birthday.  Pro:  Easy, quick and painless.  Con: Feels like a cop-out, disingenuous.
• Respond to every wall post as a comment under the post – Tell each and every person that wished you well on your wall thank you, right under their post. Pro: You get to thank everyone personally, and it looks like you took the time to acknowledge each and every person individually.  Plus, each friend will receive a notification alerting them to your response.  Con: Well, it will take forever for one.  Plus it looks silly to say “thank you” under each and every post, let’s face it.
• Thank you posts on your friends’ walls -   Pro: Looks really genuine.  Con: If you do it for everyone, it’s going to take up the majority of your day.  If you do it for a select few, you single them out as more important to you than everyone else.  Drama.
• Post a photo to your wall of you drunk, possibly wearing a ridiculous hat – This has to be the preferred way to respond if you must respond.  Everyone will see that you are enjoying your birthday, and hopefully they will be happy for you.  Pro: It’s a fun, interesting way to acknowledge everyone who posted on your wall.  It allows you to say thanks, without actually having to say thanks.  Con: You’re drunk, and in a stupid hat.

So remember, when birthdays happen on Facebook, we are given a chance to connect in ways we couldn’t before the social network existed. But that doesn’t mean that we can take it lightly because it’s on the internet. Make your birthday posts count or don’t even bother. And for God’s sake don’t post a link to any YouTube video of anyone singing Happy Birthday.

Thanks for listening, I’m going to go have a Mai-Tai beer.

Lead Image Courtesy

Such are some of the findings from a recent Intel study over this very topic: Mobile Technology Etiquette 2011. Most, if not all of Intel’s findings are either A. not surprising, or B. obvious when you observe others using their mobile toys. 

The biggest issue concerning mobile device etiquette is a distinct lack thereof. Some of the findings (pdf) include:

All interesting facts and figures, but perhaps the most informative part came when 92 percent of the respondents wished people would use better etiquette when using a mobile device.  While this sounds like a reasonable request, when contrasted with this tidbit of data:

“Eighty-eight percent of U.S. adults agree that people rarely take others into consideration when using their mobile devices in public”

You get the feeling the war for mobile device etiquette has already been lost, no matter how many suggestions Anna Post offers.  For instance, tips like the following are clearly lost on today’s mobile device user:

A reaction consisting of “yeah, right” comes to mind, especially when it comes to the almost-extinct ideas of consideration and respect for others.  Throw a mobile device into the mix and it’s clear Post’s considerable writing ability would be better spent developing step-by-step guides for watching paint dry and lawn mower usage.

You might want to consider wearing longer skirts/dresses.

Or, maybe a message like this, which I could never, ever imagine a need for under any circumstances:

Please consider buttoning up your blouse a little more.

But I’m expecting a sexual harassment suit any day now.

Just kidding.

NiceCritic bills itself as "an anonymous way to send a helpful message," and we’re going to bill it, nicely of course, as a site for presumptuous, uppity, superficial busybodies who need to mind their own friggin’ business.

What? We’re sensitive.

And nonconformist in the most charming of ways, right? 

But I suppose they are going about uncomfortable social confrontations nicely and in a way one doesn’t have to be embarrassed about saying what just has to be said. On the About page, NiceCritic assures the free service is not meant to make anyone (especially the sender) uncomfortable:

This free service gives users the ability to say something to someone that has been on their minds in a safe, non-embarrassing environment. They simply visit the site, pick a statement from a wide variety of pre-written “thought bubbles,” and send that message anonymously to a friend, acquaintance, or relative’s email address. This site is meant to be a constructive critic on a wide variety of potentially-uncomfortable issues. The person being “NiceCritic’d” then has the opportunity to reflect on the message received, choosing to take the suggestion or dismiss it.

At lunch, we can hear it now: "Dude, you got NiceCritic’d? Oh, snap! Eff them. I like your alcohol breath."

I anonymously sent Mike Sachoff one saying he needed to consider closing his curtains in the evening. And he really does.

The good news is I can’t harass Mike about it. The service only allows one anonymous message sent to a single inbox every 96 hours. So the intended target of your discreet constructive criticism has four days to shape up or get served again. Or the recipient can opt out of further messages about how much they suck, and go on with a generally offensive existence.

We’ll leave it to you decide whether these messages say more about the sender or the receiver, even if the sender is anonymous. Meanwhile, here are some fun reactions a recipient can tack to the outside of their cubicle, all of them addressed "To the person who suggested":

"A breath mint would be beneficial today."

Maybe you should learn about personal space. I know who you are, close-talker, and you’re creepy.

"There seems to be some back-hair poking out of your shirt collar."

If you’d stop breathing down my neck, you wouldn’t notice.

"Your clothes don’t really go together today."

Yeah, and you’re ugly.

"Not sharing your candy jar makes you look somewhat unsociable."

You caring whether I share my candy makes you look somewhat immature. And fat, too.

"That old car has been sitting in front of your house for a very long time."

You get rid of the old bag on your porch and I’ll get rid of the old car in my driveway.

"Your cat is quite loud at night."

So’s your wife. Might want to consider a muzzle.
 

 

And there’s subscribing or "following" involved, two words I’ve never liked, the first one involving a process of commitment to another’s ideas, and the second the relinquishing of my self-sovereignty (I don’t expect others to follow, just expect me to follow me, however awry I lead myself).

Despite my misgivings, people have used the thing in some pretty interesting ways. Twittering the birth of a child was one of those ways. There’s also the Twitter rumor mill. And the Twitter foot-in-mouth syndrome.

But who knew there was Twitter etiquette? Robert Scoble, who’s been at the heart of at least one Twitterversy in the past, is pleased to let readers know that when it comes to Twitterquette, he’s a savage.

Scoble outlines 10 Twitter commandments he breaks, from sending more than 140 characters to Tweeting more than five times a day. But my personal favorite is Rule 9:

If other people are telling you you’re spamming, you should listen to them. Me? I tell them to screw off. Why? Because if I’m being too noisy then there’s a little button called “unfollow.” Why should I change my behavior to suit others? Many other people tell me they like my noisy behavior. One thing I like about Twitter is that you don’t need to follow people you think are jerks.

Yes, well, as long as we resist the temptation to worry that our offline behavior will one day mirror our online behavior (I’m a little sensitive to this temptation, having recently been e-lynched by a swarm of teenagers in the comments section because they didn’t like what I said – or didn’t really say – about their favorite rock band), then I suppose being a noisy Twitter jerk won’t be much of real problem.

“We favour using our own IM applications – Google Talk and Gmail Chat – over email to quickly ‘ping’ each other work-related messages and questions,” writes Christine Knight, a “Creative Maximiser.”  Knight goes on to list eight IM-related tips, and although we’ll just hit a handful of them, they are, as she says, “Straight from the Australian Googlers’ mouths.”

Number one hits upon the “I’m busy” sign.  “It generally means that the person is busy,” stresses Knight.  “Don’t IM them to say ‘I know you’re busy, but…’”  Unless, presumably, the person’s car is on fire or something – most folks would forgive an interruption for a message of that nature.

If the person’s car is all right, it’s best to take it slowly.  “Begin your chat with ‘Do you have minute?’ or, ‘Need to ask you a quick question’, rather than diving straight into the topic,” advises Knight in her seventh suggestion.  “Think of it like having a conversation with someone in person.  If you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t say it over IM.”

The rest of the post is an interesting read, but since there’s little point in reprinting the whole thing here, I’ll include only one more tip: “Take advantage of the great features like the ability to set a ‘nickname’ or ‘alias’ instead of using the user’s actual email address,” writes Knight.  “For example, your friend’s name/alias is ‘K007kid’, you can just make it display as ‘Steve’ on your end and stop those ‘who on earth is that again?’ moments.”

So to help anyone interested in learning more about Digg sort through the jungle of information out there I have created the following list of bloggers who in my eyes have proved through their writings on the subject that they really know what they are talking about. These guys have established themselves as authorities on the subject of Digg. So here is the list of the Digg experts along with a few links to what they have written about Digg. I am sure there are others experts out there but these are the ones that I have found to be the most insightful. If you know of anyone else who deserves to be on this list please list them in the comments.

Neil Patel

- Beginner’s Guide to Digg
- How to get on the Digg homepage
- How Not To Get Your URL Banned From Digg
- Spying On Digg

Muhammad Saleem

- The Digg Economy: Socialist Bookmarking
- Why Digg’s Numbers Matter
- Why The Wisdom of Crowds Fails on Digg
- Legalizing The Underground Digg Economy

Todd Malicoat

- Etiquette for Submitting Stories to Digg
- The Search Marketers Guide to Digg

Ozgur Alaz

- Top 10 Actionable Tips (Rules) That Make Me Top Digg User

Stephen

- On Diggs and Votes, but no Reads.
- Digg’s Upcoming Features?

Cristian Mezei

- The Digg Algorithm – Unofficial FAQ

Rand Fishkin

- Why It Doesn’t Pay to Game Digg (or Other Link Aggregation Sites)
- Top 100 Digg Users Control 56% of Digg’s HomePage Content

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Chris Sandberg is an independent internet marketer from who blogs regularly about search marketing and internet business.

He writes about “blog drama”. And, he wrote:

“Whatever Happened to Online Etiquette? from David Pogue at the New York Times came out last week and really struck a chord with me, as I’ve watched the sniping and drama grow. He gives the reasons why people might act this way, chiefly that you are anonymous on the internet or far removed from those you might be attacking. (emphasis mine)

In my blog post, I wrote:

“In my mind, “revolution” was the instant a person figured out they could communicate anything to anyone in the world via email. This brought on dramatic changes to global humanity because it removed the responsibility of being humane. There is no longer a basic requirement to be considerate of other people when you can be anonymous, or blame your behavior on something like, “This is how we do it where I come from and if you can’t take it, you’re a [fill in degrading term here].” (emphasis mine)

This is what’s getting my pot into a tea about the Internet. Of course you can have and share an opinion, but there’s ethical ways of doing that. Though I’m unhappy with Digg right now, I left the door open. I realize it’s made up of a lot people, and some of them may not like what they see happening there either. Maybe they’ll fix their problems. I’m rooting for you who want to do that.
It’s not my job or duty or right to publically torture them. I do have the freedom to voice my concerns and also defend a friend or two. I never told anyone not to use their service. In fact, I went to their site to see how someone could use it better and I posted on that. (The part about filtering what you get there.)

What bothers me is a situation whereby a service lets you filter out what you may not like and in my mind, that’s fantastic and let’s call it a day. However, this is not happening. There are members who don’t use the filters, see something they don’t like and attempt to get it banned. That’s not right.

If you don’t like my mailbox color, or my car, or my hair, or my blog, or my opinions, my ugly websites, or my kitchen with orange pots hanging from the ceiling or my non-fake Christmas tree, does this mean you have the right to go online to try and have me removed?

Bah.

But don’t listen to me. Listen to Danny. Everybody loves him.

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Using the great new Writeboards online tool from 37signals, I am launching an online collaborative writeboard to help combat the rise of snarkiness … The Golden Rules of Blog Etiquette. The writeboard is available online for anyone to add their thoughts to:

URL: http://writeboard.com/3e555ed9feb34b374
Editing Password: begood

The format of the writeboard is in a list of do’s and don’ts for interacting on the blogosphere. Aside from helping to foster a kinder and gentler blogosphere, it may also serve as a good starting point for those who are just getting started in reading and interacting on blogs but not quite sure of the rules. What are your principles for blog etiquette? What are the lessons you have learned in your time interacting with or authoring blogs? I look forward to reading your thoughts on the writeboard …

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