the last dance

this tumblr was created to capture my “performance” in conjunction with @platea’s project co-modify. participants were asked to pick a mega corporation or entity that would “sponsor” their social-media activity for the week of 5/3-10/09. when initially confronted with the task of choosing a sponsor, i found myself flummoxed… there wasn’t any brand that i particularly wanted to endorse to say nothing of the fact that i really dislike advertising. after thinking about it for a while, i decided on the most meta of choices and went with twitter, figuring no one could misconstrue the irony.

then came the issue of how to proceed since the focus of my on-line involvement (starting in 2001) has been connected to using images (instead of words) to communicate even when it comes to social media. i figured, if twitter were to chose me, it was because of how i expressed myself and that shouldn’t change because i now had a sponsor. i decided not to alter my posting activity in any significant way, just use the tools/personas i have been developing on line for years (my various flickrs, blogspots, twitter & facebook) along with a couple i have been wanting to try out (u-tube & the 6 word story memes). since i am an archivist at heart, i also decided to document my participation here on tumblr.

a big shout out & thank you to the visionary an xiao for creating a context in which to explore, question and confront the way social media interacts with our lives. and props to the steering committee: courtney bryan, ingrid murnane, edgar roldan, jennifer ng, joanie san chirico and sarah timson, who were instrumental in the creation & growth of a community that flourished as the project progressed. my one regret is that i didn’t have time to follow everyone and to make more responses than i did

on a personal level, participating in co-modify was first and foremost a lot of fun. i had 2 responses from people outside the project (jkirlin & laurie w.) concerning my tweet related posts, which considering my relatively small number of followers/friends & the fact i only made 2-3 posts a day supports the premise that advertising will invade the social media platform via the personal post (and seemingly it already has ) as someone who remembers when it was considered “selling out” to have one’s latest (musical) release used as part of an advertising campaign, co-modify forced me to acknowledge how deeply product placement and branding will infiltrate all of our lives as well confront my inherent reluctance to identify with established corporate and cultural icons. i think co-modify clearly hilights how very viral advertising will become.

in closing, the post that best defines the project for me is the last in the “adapt-a-quote” series …

thank you all for following,
hope you enjoyed the show.

there once was a lass named pete
who always wanted 2 tweet
but all thought her a boy
till she became @joy
& now she finds twitter so sweet

twitter limerick (via random tweets)