New Common Knowledge Column in Northside SF: Anti-Social Media

My third column in Northside San Francisco:

Anti-Social Media: Be My Friend No. 3,467

Downtown BART and Muni stations have sported some rather curious ads over the past few months. A major smart-phone company is seeking to entice new customers by stressing what it must believe to be the major strength of its product: support for popular social media applications.

In the process the company is making some fun applications sound boring and trivial, which I think undercuts the sales pitch. The idea is that you can get your friends’ tweets, Facebook updates, and text messages without having to do something difficult, such as go to a regular computer or, frankly, use any other smart phone, all of which already allow you to do these things.

Read the entire article.