TheWayoftheWeb

Peterborough's station on Flickr by rayparnova (CC licence)

In the current economical and environmental climate, we’re all being encouraged to use public transport, but surely there’s one essential paradox that needs to be solved first:

The more people use it, the worse the experience is.

For example, a packed train to London saw me paying to sit in the rather pretentiously named vestibule between carriages, by the toilet, with my laptop on my knees for the two minutes before the battery died and I ended up reading a warning sign for the rest of the journey.

The return journey saw me in an almost empty carriage, in a comfortable seat, with pretty quick wifi, and two plug sockets for my laptop and mobile.

There has to be some way to do something different and make the experience actually improve if I encourage friends and colleagues to join me on the train. Savings, priority for packed trains, or even something really odd, like having a fridge full of free drinks which are only accessible if two or more people both insert barcoded tickets into a machine.

I don’t have the answer, but at least I recognise the problem of trying to convince me to pay more than the cost of petrol for the same trip, and then penalising passengers if the service becomes more popular. And making travel more social and helping self-forming groups may work.

Although I’d already heard about the new logo, I picked up on Pepsi’s more social activites via Edelman Digital’s Steve Rubel, who is working with them, and having joined up, saw some early commentary from Chris Brogan.

Chris talked about How corporations should view comment polices, and I agree that offensive content needs to be filtered unless there is an age restriction on the community. And also that off topic comments and conversations can detract in a single room (I’d recommend having on-topic rooms, and a general one where possible). After managing and moderating forums including those on www.motorcyclenews.com for about 7 years, I’m fairly well versed in polite emails about offensive behaviour and swiftly editing posts on legal and good taste grounds!

There is pre-moderation on comments - a little annoying for speed of response on a microblogging, lifestreaming, conversation service - and even more annoying when the Pepsi team have finished for the day and comments are left hanging. (Note to Pepsi team - the other side of the world is still awake! Maybe find a Pepsi employee in another timezone to help?)

But it will be interesting to see the response to a couple of comments I’ve made about Pepsi’s Terms and Conditions. (I had an acknowledgement from Pepsi’s John Karpf, so it’ll be interesting to see what evolves.) At the top of the Friendfeed Pepsi Cooler room, there’s a hyperlink to ‘a few notes from our lawyers’. Which links to the Pepsi.com Privacy Policy.

Hmmmm

While I acknowledge the need for Terms and Conditions, and stating the standards for a community are necessary, I could have sworn Friendfeed has it’s own Terms of Service, and doesn’t need Pepsi essentially annexing a room! I’m hoping they find another way to express the principles of the room they wish to encourage in a way which doesn’t seem quite so much like our caffeinated overlords have arrived!

But fair play to them, I’d ignored the new logo, and become fairly loyal to Coke due to the cokezone loyalty promotion, (I’m a sucker for free Xbox games!), yet the prospect of a Friendfeed room has made me take a bit of an interest in what they’re up to at Pepsi. I’ll let you know what comes out of the vending machine at work when I go for a drink!

Which is obvious if you’re into social media, communication, conversation and social networking, but less apparent if you’re used to broadcasting out messages.

If that’s the case, I highly recommend this post by Mindy McAdams ‘Social Media, Youtube and Mwesch’.

Especially as it gives everyone yet another good reason to check out Michael Wesch’s absolutely brilliant cultural anthroplogy work on new media and human interaction.

Here’s a taster before you click on the link:

And it’s all for charity.

Social media type Jennifer Leggio is not only running the Nike Women’s Marathon for charity - she’s also persuaded some top social media figures to auction their skills to raise money for Team in Training, the fundraising arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

And you could get some real value by bidding for yourself or your company. Names on the block include Chris Brogan, Joseph Jaffe, Geoff Livingston, Aaron Strout, and Greg Verdino.

If you don’t recognise their names, there is a short bio on the link above. I’ll add in the appropriate blog links in detail when I’m not sat on a train…