The Feed: Blame Twitter

Twitter Trauma: I couldn’t agree more with Bill Keller’s reflections about Twitter and social media in general as empty forms of communication and interaction in his piece “The Twitter Trap.” As he points out, technological advances often come at a cultural/intellectual/spiritual price; we let gadgets and machines do our work for us, and in turn we/our minds become lazy. He offers the examples of how publishing made memorization a less important skill and how calculators did the same for our mathematical thinking. He then extends this logic to social media. How much insightful, intelligent, genuine conversation comes from 140 characters or less? How close are you with your many Facebook “friends”? Are social networks even actually social? I think Keller’s hash tag experiment sums it up nicely: #TwitterMakesYouStupid. NYT   Starbucks Gets Gaga: Two things we don’t need any more of: ever-present coffee chain Starbucks has partnered with none other than power pop star Lady Gaga for a new PR stunt. Starbucks wants to attract a younger demographic, so what better way than to harness the power of Gaga’s social media presence, right? Starbucks will host a Gaga online scavenger hunt across its social properties: Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Gaga monsters, and as Starbucks is hoping, soon to be Starbucks fans, can search for clues and win prizes like special access to a Lady Gaga concert during her 2012 world tour. Wow. Not sure who comes off looking worse here. I guess it’s a pretty equal match. USA Today   WTF Facebook: Ugh, what a gross idea. You can now tag brands and celebrity pages in your photos. Stephen Colbert did a good job covering this latest FB feature, so I’ll let him do the talking. MSNBC

Apply Here: Do you have what it takes to survive an Apple interview? Business Insider

Tubmlr of the Day: Yup, brands, looks like your social media marketing is really working. Dumb Tweets @ Brands.