Social Media Top 5: Social Media ailments? Don’t hold your breath for a cure
February 16, 2008 – 5:28 pmTime again for my Social Media top 5, a weekly round-up of items, real and imagined, from the world of the Internet and social media:
Email apnea seems to be a real illness. Do people stop breathing when they read email? Another reason to wean yourself off. there are certain emails that might make me stop breathing, but most of them would be from the HR department.
Anyway, here are 5 other Internet/social media-related ailments I see down the road:
1. ooVoo Mouth: constantly discussing one of the new Internet “shiny objects” can actually bring to life what we thought was an urban legend; yes your face can “feeze that way.” Look what happened during the My ooVoo Day promotion, when one video chat host said “ooVoo” one too many times:

I could only look on helplessly.
2. Facebook Zombification: you thought “Zombie bites” were harmless, didn;t you? That notion is so wrong, George Romero just made a movie about it:

3. Twitter clipping: the tendency for heavy microblogging addicts to cut off their sentences, no matter how well constructed, after 140 charac
4. Utterz confusion: conducting conversations across several different Internet-based platforms, and not being able to remember where the conversation started, or where the best nuggets and ideas reside. Symptons are disorientation, dizziness, and nausea. (not tied to Utterz, but heck the name is cool). I discussed a benign version of this ailment here.
5. Seesmagoraphobia: an acute condition, signified in extreme cases, largely by Seesmic, Utterz and some YouTube users, by a preference for recording badly-lit webcam “bon-mots” and waiting for replies over face-to-face human interaction.
Technorati Tags: chris+brogan, socialmedia, twitter, utterz, seesmic, facebook, email+apnea, oovoo





6 Responses to “Social Media Top 5: Social Media ailments? Don’t hold your breath for a cure”
I was going to comment here but then I thought I would make a video or audio response. nah.
By howard greenstein on Feb 16, 2008
I definitely think I suffer from Twitter Clipping, I hope they continue to search for a cure :) Thanks for some nice light hearted fun reading, sphunn http://sphinn.com/story/29012 :)
By Martin Bowling on Feb 16, 2008
Oh a joke. I get it. … humour. :P I actually took this seriously for about 10 minutes. Internet Police will be here soon. “Put the Mouse DOWN and back away from the keyboard NOW”. Serves me right
By Laurel Papworth on Feb 16, 2008
Gosh, I am super-glad there are still humorous bloggers online. You broke my ooVoo Mouth with a very huge smile! Thanks, mate!
By Chris Abraham on Feb 16, 2008
That’s ooVoo mouth? And here I thought Chris was practicing chimpanzee linguistics for his upcoming blog on bringing lower primates back to the social media conversation.
And what do you call that look on your face, Doug? ConfooZoon?
By Don Lafferty on Feb 17, 2008
Glad people are enjoying this, even if it is taking some of you awhile (Laura :))
Don, I think I have a look of BeMooZment
By Doug Haslam on Feb 17, 2008