Tag: facebook

Contribute to my Neurofibromatosis Network charity drive (via Facebook) and aid research into the genetic disease

John Fontana November 26, 2017 facebook, Facebook fundraiser, Fundraising on Facebook, Neurofibromatosis Charity, Neurofibromatosis research fundraiser, Neurofibromatosis Type 2, neurofiromatosis fundraiser, NF1, NF2 research, NFR2, The Neurofibromatosis Network, The NF Network interweb, Medical Comments Off

My dance with music and marketing

It really shouldn’t be that tough promoting a band on Twitter, should it? I’m talking Rock’n’Roll here (or just plain Rock as it’s referenced now) and a quartet in the genre since 2009….But who’s only had a full album since May of 2016 and who’ve only had a Twitter account since June.

It’s a project, that’s for sure, but I’m helping the Pretty Voices as best I can. On their Twitter account at the moment, they currently have 17 followers. That’s a wee bit better than the 14 they had as a lasting number until a few days ago. I’ve already added plenty of new accounts to its follows list (avenues to help promote the group) but it’s a project, that’s for sure. Thus is the life of a band – trying to gain exposure. It takes some experience with the tool and in marketing. Something my time in the Boltosphere has brought me.

By the way, the group has 378 “likes” on Facebook. That’s only a fraction of people who have experienced them and liked them on the radio, on the Internet, and in reality. If you’ve heard them, if you’ve enjoyed them, see what they have to offer here on Facebook.

John Fontana October 20, 2016 facebook, indie rock, indie rock band, Pretty Voices, social media, the Pretty Voices, twitter Entertainment Industry Thingies, interweb, Music. & Lyrics Comments Off

Yahoo Messenger irrelevance

To remain an Instant Message client user in this day and age is odd. It would seem a bulk of long-time Internet users are mobile users now, utilizing on-the-move means of contact made possible by social network. Facebook Messenger is popular just by being there and the mass of friend connections that are out there. Google Talk is used because of Google’s own broad reach through contact mediums (not counting Google+ which may be five years old as well as a dead vessel when it comes to personal interaction through the medium). Two major Internet brands lead the way on instant communication, while some age-old mediums are still accessible (AOL IM and ICQ) it just seems more common for old friends to stick around on those while new friends / reconnecting old friends are doing it through the aforementioned Facebook or GTalk.

And then there’s Yahoo….

Yahoo got my attention in a broad social fashion in the early 00s – heck, it may have been ’99, I forget – with chat room functionality, personal profile and email. For years it was the definition of relevant because there were numerous alternatives but not of quality while the Yahoo brand was at the top of the ‘Net. Yahoo Profiles preceded modern social media profile (MySpace and then Facebook) with ability to truly socially interact by way of Yahoo Messenger. Your user name on Yahoo gave you access to that or Yahoo Mail for that matter.

Yet here we are now and it’s a dead zone. Yahoo will be ending the traditional, desktop version of Yahoo Messenger in early August. The means I use to access it, the Trillian IM client, will no longer have access… And it actually has long seemed access lacking, to be honest. That’s not on Trillian, that’s on Yahoo Messenger use. People have migrated away from Yahoo Messenger for one reason or another with the passing of time. In fact, this irrelevance goes further by way of Yahoo Mail. The mail application remains open and all that but with the passing of time, my own use of a Yahoo account (and my friends) have graduated to either Gmail or personal domain names and accounts tied to them.

You’ll still e able to access Yahoo Messenger, but with limited means to do so it will be ending the services relevance to many, including myself.

I’m likely going to explore deleting my long-held Yahoo account and perhaps that might be the secure thing to do for those out there that have ancient (and still accessible) accounts with them. For a guy going by “Johnny Fonts” as a nickname in this day and age, my old screen name “artfuldodger9” (and the bells and whistles at Yahoo that I used to access through it) has lost all relevance socially and in functionality.

John Fontana July 16, 2016 AIM, AOL I'm, facebook, Google+, Gtalk, I'm Clients, ICQ, instant message clients, social media, Trillian IM Client, Trillian Messager, yahoo, yahoo mail, Yahoo messenger, Yahoo Messenger changes interweb, Personal Comments Off

It's lonely on the chat client

Socializing online has evolved, it would seem. Proof seems to show in how people are conducting themselves online through mobile means with their smartphones or tablets. It’s brought a little quirk that’s surprising in some ways and which shouldn’t be: The fact the stand-alone instant message clients seem to be turning into relics from the past. Read More

John Fontana March 18, 2016 America Online, AOL I'm, death of the I'm client, facebook, Facebook Messenger, G+, Google+, Gtalk, I'm Clients, ICQ, instant message clients, Instant messageing, Internet evolution, myspace, Prodigy, Prodigy Interent, Skype, Smartphone I'm clients, SMS/text, SMS/Texting, SnapChat, social media, trillian, twitter, Twitter as to SMS/text, Yahoo Mesenger interweb, Personal Comments Off

A social reaction to an aloof social-media status response

I tend to be a wise ass when I set a status message on Facebook, or I’ll play around with pop culture, or music, or share small, small things in a very unclear way. It part of it is me trying to draw attention and yet also have positive interaction with friends. Talking about private issues in truth and honesty, as a guy, is going to just lead to complaints / mockery from guy friends.

It can also piss you off as hypocrites participate in comments.

Monday morning I dropped on to Facebook and one of the top status messages currently going on my timeline was a female friend telling a personal story tied to….bathroom stall graffiti. My friend is divorced, still trying to move on in life after the divorce (the marriage ended abusively). Between that status, written at sometime around 2 AM, and other thoughts dangling in my mind in recent days, I put up a very personalized status of my own – a little generalized and grandiose but the message was honest:

“Why is it the most mundane and yet immense social destination of life, love, is a journey that fails so completely for me? It’s an adventure with someone that just never materializes into the joint trip.”

A private status just went public, why? Because of the response I got. See, with a status like that you’d think to either be hands off or encouraging. That’s private and personal. What I got was a dense, reactionary reply from someone who had been who I had a very stunted journey with when it comes to love. Someone who was alienated by life, had long interest in me, and who threw it all away. We’ll put it that way. Someone who’s twice married and who slept around before, during, and after marriage:

“Love is elusive. You won’t find it if you are looking for it.”

That’d be a profound remark if the responder did not have ties to my statement, as someone I failed the journey with. And I’d willingly open up a conversation on the point – that I had some great leads when I was least looking for romance – if she wasn’t an example; an example of one, who wasn’t elusive but who dropped the entire idea when it was least convenient.

Love isn’t elusive. It’s too easy for some to find to be considered that way. The fact I hear of marriage and babies from so many friends of both genders I’ve known (some of whom I’ve been attached to) is counter to the notion of elusiveness. Even dating that lasts more than a single or few nights, or lustful romances that come and go… That’s something more than what I’m experiencing.

The only thing elusive is what path I have to take to actually find myself in a mutual romantic involvement without being taken for granted or used for the moment. Someone who wants to take the trip in life with me and someone I want right by my side for the trip.

John Fontana January 25, 2016 facebook, lonely, romance, the adventure of love dating, Personal Comments Off

Overdue: Deleted my MySpace profile

Late 2004 I had a friend I met through Yahoo chat who only had images through this weird network type thing called MySpace… She had joined the network because of the indie music scene on there and socialized with both real and online friends through there.

This was before their was wider network access to MySpace and therefore I had to join in order to view any member’s profile information or photos. So in early 2005 I joined MySpace…

And hated it the entire time I was involved.

MySpace was like the AOL of social networks to me. Oh, it had a lot of bells and whistles you have seen copied and imitated by other networks… It introduced people to the web in general in a lot of ways (design wise – with customizable profiles where you could change every aspect of your profile with a bit of CSS know-how, which fathered an entire sub-market of web design sites). It was the forefather of other social network sites and catered to the mainstream while it’s “competitor” — Facebook — was aimed specifically at the college crowd and linking college students and alumni.

I connected with a few people on MySpace – old friends, new friends – but generally loathed the experience. MySpace was technologically obsolete, even if it’s vision was advanced. Social networking and it’s strength for marketing and message spread was something only just catching on.

The problem with MySpace was that it did not advance itself like most web properties do — no significant design changes, no huge additions or subtractions. Oh, there was one significant change that helped put it on the outs with me and others: More flash advertising. Videos, interactive applets and other intensive ads that belabored my browser and annoyed my web surfing experience. I don’t want to see a video for “Miss March” when I just want to see the message that was sent to em from an old friend! I just wanna’ log in and get it done.

Why did I stick around four years with MySpace? Friends who aren’t on Facebook (which I joined at the behest of hockey bloggers in 2006 or so, after the network started allowing the general public to join). Family as well. Just appeasing them because there was no way to stay connected to them without a Myspace profile.

But really, it’s over now.

I didn’t like the Web 1.0 design, I hated the crappy design jobs that people employed on personal profile pages, I hated (abhorred, loathed, etc) all the flash bullshit that was lumped onto people’s profiles (tons of youtube videos stacked on top of each other, tons of different photo album bells and whistles in the middle of the profile, etc) as well as the advertisements.

In the end, MySpace felt like a toy that had never had it’s packaging improved. A toy that’s never had it’s design flaws corrected besides the barest of changes. A toy that’s been improved-upon and leaped over by it’s competitors.

A toy that’s lost it’s novelty and wore out my patience early on. I endured. But no longer.

John Fontana August 6, 2009 facebook, myspace, social networking Social Media, interweb, Personal Comments Off

Reconnecting

A little more than three years ago, I wrote a quick post about friends from my childhood in New York and Sylvain Avenue Elementary School. I invoked a few names in said post without thinking anyone would… well, you know, come across the dang thing. It’s just one web page, one blog post, out of millions and billions of web pages on the interweb, right?

OK, I’m lying. I knew that there was a high chance someone would come across the post, but the question remained if they would, and who it would be, and how they’d react.

Flash forward to a Saturday night in the autumn of 2007 and an email, sent through this site, from one of my long lost friends who I referenced. A year of conversation with them later and the posting of my 4th-grade-class-picture later led me to get back in touch with quite a few people. I don’t want to reference them by full name here as I am guilty enough of name-dropping in the past in order to get facts straight… But I’ve gotten back in touch with long lost friends who I had known since Kindergarden, I’ve gotten back in touch with shorter-term friends who I had known from 3rd grade on…

It’s almost scary about the amount of re-connecting that’s transpired through Facebook for me. It’s also heartwarming to know I was not flat-out forgotten by people after I left New York.

John Fontana March 23, 2009 facebook, friendship, sylvain avenue Personal Comments Off

It finally happened…

…I’m on Facebook. For good or for ill.

John Fontana February 6, 2007 facebook, HP Web Sites of Mine Comments Off

Typing is an adventure, reading should be too!