Matthew Hurst is Public

It’s that time of year again, when we put into perspective our goals over the last year and look forward to renewing our efforts in the year ahead. While some media outlets and blogs might be content to share lists of top ideas and their favorites things (something my blog does each month), this year I feel compelled to share my hopes for the year ahead by reviewing trends from 2010 I would look forward to leaving behind. Here are the 7 Trends I won’t miss in 2011:

1. Oversharing
   We all have a friend who uses every opportunity to promote themselves, seemingly with no limit to the minutia of their everyday life (I may be guilty of this more than once). But while you may think that your minor inconvenience is an outrage whose solution is only a Twitter-rant away, the rest of us see it as crying over spilled milk. Oversharing was at its end in 2009, so I hope this comes to an close in 2011.
2. Food Trucks
   Sure they bring much needed affordable options and variety to an otherwise staid lunch scene in NYC, but mobile food vendors carry some strong negatives as well. Many trucks try to occupy the same spots each day and are about as mobile as a trailer home, which detracts local competition while crowding the sidewalks. Meanwhile their constant use turns would-be vendors into portable smokestacks contributing their greenhouse gases in return for any savings on food.
3. Tea Partiers
   2009′s insurgent protectors turned into the populist political organizers that dominated the news by turning over control of congress in the 2010 elections. In 2011 these conservative ideologues will have put put their protests into actionable legislative efforts, which will undoubtedly involve negotiation and compromise on core principles, although I have my own doubts their party will continue much longer after the elections.

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Infographic by Buriednexttoyou (via Flickr)

If your friends are like mine you’ve heard them complain all year-long that we’ve lost our private lives, sacrificing anonymity in the interest of advertising data.  Since the beginning of 2010 we’ve heard public figures and friends alike suggest it’s time to quit social media.  Culminating with the FTC’s policy recommendations about internet privacy, 2010 has been another marque year for privacy advocates.

Yet the internet has opened up new windows of insight into each others’ lives, connecting us closer with our friends and sometimes revealing new aspects of our personality between friends.  Often these ideas are shared in public channels, opening individuals to new connections, although others prefer to keep there information between friends alone.  For years there has been a backlash to protect privacy on the internet, but is an open medium paid for with advertising dollars ever truly private? (more…)

Everyday I tell my clients they need join the social media conversation, securing their business’ brand names even when they’re not sure of best practices (much less how to leverage them).  As a social media evangelist I usually mention the benefits of using these tools to build their brand.  So last month I decided to put my money where my mouth was and did something I never though I’d do again: I signed up for Myspace, years after quitting the social network.

Of course I didn’t always feel that way: over 4 years ago I wrote a guide of how to quit Myspace. At the time I had grown enamored with the emerging social networks and what was being called Web 2.0, so I created a one of a kind blog post explaining why I wanted to leave Myspace and detailing how I deleted my account. Since then I’ve joined hundreds more social media websites, become an online marketing professional, and embraced building my personal brand through public conversations rather than using private accounts.  Indeed these days you’re more likely to hear about someone quitting Facebook over privacy concerns than signing up for Myspace.

Since then Myspace has changed.  After signing-up I found some important changes, such as integrating Twitter to update my status.  I’ve noticed significantly less spam in my message inbox, something which MySpace was notoriously annoying for during its heyday, possibly from all of their new spam controls.  Myspace remains increasingly driven by content (musicians mostly), which makes it unique among the social networks.
Along with these changes in how the community functions have come some behavior changes among this audience: (more…)