June 28, 2010 / Barry

Social media before social media was cool

I was involved in one of the original social media. And we never got tickets from the police for doing this one while driving.

Years ago, before most of today's bloggers, tweeters, or texters were born, 1 out of every 10 cars had a CB radio in them. "CB" was short for Citizen's Band, meaning it was the part of the airwaves turned over for the average Joe to use. BTW, I don't mind aging myself by talking about such ancient history because the use of CB proved useful for my success in today's networked world. My handle was Crewshaft. (I can't for the life of me remember why I chose that.)

CB Etiquette that helps in the social world

When communicating on a CB radio, we had to use brief sentences so as to allow others a chance to voice their opinions. When I was a kid, my dad's CB had 23 channels, so the real estate was in high demand. Someone hogging the air was quickly branded and folks would avoid engaging them in conversation for fear they'd never get a word in edgewise. To keep things short, code was invented that has sense worked its way into the lexicon: 
Bear - A policeman or highway patrol
Bear in the Air - Police in a helicopter
Breaker - The person requesting to break in on the channel
CQ - A general call for contact on an open frequency
10-4 - Yes
Negatory - No or negative.

In the Twitterverse, limiting folks to 140 characters has taken care of some of this problem, but there are still some folks who can't seem to control themselves. For a while, some people were putting up a wall of duplicate tweets. Again, Twitter stepped in and made this impossible. Once again, of course, a way around this has been invented called Tweetspinner. This allows you to schedule your spam so as to blast it out on Twitter automatically and at random intervals, avoiding the blocks. Necessity is the mother of invention, even invention to perpetuate Twitter spam.

Brand authority in CB land and in the online world

On a CB radio, developing a brand personality was very important to your media authority. Ditto in the online world. It really came down to authenticity. CBs made you very public. Some folks who were early into the "technology" acted as though no one would find out if they acted poorly on air; of course they were found out and avoided.

Those CB users who treated others with respect, helped out fellow drivers ("Breaker, Breaker 1-9, there's a bear at exit 12), made us laugh, brought us news, and helped in natural disasters, they were the ones who built their brand authority.

Sound familiar? It also works in modern social media. The media has changed, but the game is the same.