Media in 2018 is much different than the utopian dream of the internet we all had back in the early days. Your Favorite Mean Green Blogger came of age when dial up was still a thing, so I am old. I remember the time before Facebook and yes, I did use MySpace.
Before we were all trying to get Google and Facebook to notice us, bloggers relied upon sharing links themselves. You found out about something cool the very old fashioned way: through word-of-mouth. More truthfully, you found out by link-on-blog. The blogs I read and thought were cool would link to something they saw and thought was cool and worth my while. If it was not good, then I would be less likely to follow up on a recommendation. If it was great I would be (probably) add the other site to my rotation. It was organic and natural.
This blog tries to maintain that ethos by linking to some places worthwhile and useful to you. When googling is a verb, you can usually just find what you are looking for by asking Google for what you want. Very few click on the links there.
The problem, as evidenced in this great piece by Molly Osberg on Gizmodo, is that when you let big giant Search Engines or Social Networks be gatekeepers for your traffic, you become subject to their whims.
Facebook coopted the most powerful recommending engine in nature — our proclivity to believe our closest family and friends when they give us a recommendation — and put it into an algorithm. Osberg’s story is hilarious in a very cynical way in that an entire company was set up to figure out the best way to game Facebook, all the while oblivious to the fact that Facebook never cared about them — or us — at all.
In light of this, I want to remind you to recommend this blog by copying the URL and pasting it into a message client — email, iMessage, SMS, WhatsApp, etc — and sending it to someone you think would enjoy it. Bookmark the site in your browser — yes, you can do it on your phone also. This site has an RSS feed also, so if you have something like Feedly or some other RSS Reader you can do your own aggregation. Do not rely on Reddit, or Facebook, or Twitter. None of those companies care about you, even if they know everything there is to know about you.
I am a millennial in that I do think it is better to have a personal, meaningful interaction than to be game-ified and sold. I do not write click-bait articles because I do not want to insult your intelligence. Still, I want more people to find this and read it so I am relying on you to do so.
Perhaps you can start by sending the link to the 2018 MGN Season Preview. It’s only $9.99 and it has 100% good reviews*
* – The people who have read it that were talking to me in person.
Image credit: MGN Illustration / photo credit: MattsMacintosh Macintosh & IIc via photopin (license)
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