uber.la

Being honest is task 1 in today's social media milieu. If you are false, salesy, scammy, or overly self-promoting, you may end up alienating the folks you are hoping to attract and influence.

Thus my lambaste of Guy Kawasaki a few days ago. The author of The Macintosh Way had turned to the dark side and begun to use the powers of "the twitter force" for evil. So as his followers soared past 100k, Mr K saw an opportunity to make his influence even bigger. Perhaps in an attempt to make his Twitter persona larger than life. "How can he be so many places at once," many people asked when Guy would tweet about so many random and yet connected things.

But somewhere along the path our Twitter guide extraordinaire lost his way, discarded the connection and trust he had built with his initial followers and  began to lend out his Twitter ID to 3 other people. I wonder if there was any hesitation as Guy gave out the password on his account. I have to imagine there was a twinge, "Use the force, Guy. Stay true to the force." [I'm sure we've been watching too much Star Wars at our house!]

And then it was done.

People still commented about how prolific Guy K was. How he was one of the Tweeters to follow. And he was rewarded with status and numbers up near new President Obama. And still he was everywhere.

But the connection, the integrity of the Guy Kawasaki brand was lost. Though his picture was still on the messages.

and his name was still on the info line, the GR at the end of the tweet meant that someone else was posing as Guy.

Now we can all probably imagine plenty of reasons why someone would use their 100k+ followers to do more and be more. To sell more and influence more. But I propose to you now, that at the moment Guy Kawasaki authorized the use of name and gave out his password to 3 other people, we all felt a tremble in the force. "As if a million voices were suddenly silenced."

FINDING THE WAY BACK

Today I see that Mr. Kawasaki has taken SOME steps to clean up his name and twitter stream.

On April 10th, Guy Kawasaki posted a mock interview with himself.  And he reveals his 3 Ghostwriters and their initials that identify their tweets. He even gives search strings for removing the Ghost Tweets from his twitter stream. But mostly he comes off sounding like he's trying to say it's okay to GhostTweet even while sounding like a jerk.

Q. Okay, but what if I don't want to see any Alltop promotions?
A. Probably, the easiest thing to do is UFM (unfollow me).

And it appears the Kawasaki Filter account was created April 9, perhaps while Mr. Kawasaki was writing the self-mockumetary interview.

Favorite this

The Kawasaki Filter Account

Well, I am sorry to say, that the "filter is not enough." Only by purging the Ghosts from your soul can you regain your former purity. So here's the plan.

Put your Ghosts on a different channel. I well documented and honest channel. Here is a great example of how it could look.

fanscape - a collective tweeting authority

You're awesome, you can come up with some clever name for your tweeting army.

And finally, return to the shining path of honesty. Tweet as yourself, the GUY KAWASAKI. Change your password and don't let anyone have it. Let me follow YOU and ONLY YOU without relying on some arcane search filter to remove the chaffe from your wheat.

The time is now Kawasakisan. Illuminate The Way Again for all of us!

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/return-mrK

NOTE: Oh, and one more thing, GUY, why do you keep deleting my comments on your Just the FAQs post? That is not the way Social Media is done. If you disagree with my comments, then respond. I will put another comment up shortly, I hope you choose the honest path to discussion and not suppression.

Just the FAQ's by Guy Kawasaki

UPDATE 4-13-09 Posterous Comments Actively Deleted. [Maybe stop by the page and add a comment about how you feel and see if yours is deleted too. New past time #kawasakibaiting]

comments set back to ZERO?

And just for example, here's how Mr. Kawasaki's Tweets appear now:

I'm just about done here. 5 out of 7 tweets! Cutesie Robots? Women over 55? Cat Wanting to Kill their owners? UG!

Guy Kawasaki is TwitterGhost Number One!

One final irony popped in my twitterblinded mind just a second ago. There to the right of this post >> just over there in the navigation column, is my Alltop Badge. Mr. Kawasaki's Alltop. I've snagged my two listings as proof of my inclusion. Cause if The Guy gets mad, I bet I could get dropped from the top. I hope not. But I sincerely hope Mr. Kawasaki gets with the program.

alltop-frienderati listing 4-13-09

alltop.socialmedia listing 4-13-09

Tags: be real, easiest thing, getting real, getting real with twitter, ghost tweeter, ghostwriters, guy kawasaki, guykawasaki, helpful hints, kawasakisan, non-REAL Tweeters, posterous, questioner, real people, real time, return for guy kawasaki, return for kawasakisan, return to the way, search max, the twitter ghost, tweets, twitter ghost award, twitterghost