We’re interviewing Dr. Marvin Wankman, a Ph.D specialist in media history at Harvard University, about the demise of social media and why all the predictions about its rise were wrong. Welcome Dr. Wankman.

Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Let me start by reading you a few things that were written in the media about social media in the year 2009. From TIME Magazine: “Social media takes over the world.” From The New York Times: “Soon, we’ll all be tweeting 24/7/365.” From The Economist: “It’s a social media world and we all just live in it.” From Wired Magazine: “There is no doubt that social media will revolutionize the way humans communicate with each other.” Now here we are in the year 2017 and the social media landscape is a shambles. What happened?

Well, it was just another case of media hype. After Sept. 11, 2001, Americans were in great uncertainty. Couple that with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Great Recession, the election of Barack Obama, and the difficulties of traditional media, and people were in an apocalyptic state of mind.  It seemed that the world as we had always known it was changing fast. So with the boom of social media, it was natural for people to think it represented some major new paradigm in human development. But, of course, it didn’t. It was just another bubble.

Didn’t anybody at the time point out that social media was not as revolutionary as everyone said it was?

A few people, here and there. But by and large, their viewpoints were swept away by the avalanche of media coverage that insisted social media was the wave of the future.

What was the turning point for social media, the point at which things began falling apart?

There were many and they were incremental. One of the first was in mid-2009, when reports surfaced that people were leaving Twitter faster than they were joining it. Another early warning was when Baby Boomers took over Facebook, which drove the Millennials away from it, toward a chaotic mix of bizarre alternatives that splintered the community and further confused it. And certainly, in 2010, when Nabisco bought Facebook, that generated a lot of hostility. And it didn’t help when, that same year, Gary Vaynerchuk announced he was quitting all web activity on being hired as the new host of American Idol, after Ryan Seacrest was killed in that freak balloon accident. But I think the real turning point was more subtle. It was when people starting realizing that spending all their free time on social media was boring and non-productive.

There was also a psychological aspect. Remember that case in 2011, when a woman in Omaha sought coverage from her HMO for addiction to Twitter? Saturday Night Live had that Tina Fey parody where she was “twaddicted to twack.” Twitter became a laughingstock. Suddenly, it wasn’t cool to be pecking away on your iPhone all day and night, it was seen as a form of deviancy. Human beings realized that actual speaking — talking to the person next to you — is better than obsessively sending off vapid messages into the ether. Young people began re-engaging with one another. As more and more people distanced themselves from social media, the only ones still using it were the elderly. (It was no coincidence when the AARP declared 2011 “The Year of Social Media.”) The crowning point — the coup de grace — was that episode of The Simpsons in 2012, where Grandpa Simpson was trying to text message, and Bart and Lisa were gagging because it was so uncool.

In retrospect, what lessons can be learned from the demise of social media?

Well, in view of the fact that Twitter went bankrupt in 2013 and wiped out $40 billion in stock value, one lesson would be to be careful where you invest your money! Another is to be wary of anything you hear in the media — especially when it’s the media talking about itself to itself. But probably the ultimate lesson is an optimistic one: when all is said and done, humans are social creatures who like to associate with each other. Social media was too divisive. Rather than allowing us to come together, it pushed us apart. It was an ersatz community, a Potemkin Village of virtual, not real,  relationships. A reaction was bound to set in.

Thank you very much, Dr. Wankman. It’s been fun.

Yes, it was. Thank you.

The site I created this video with, xtranormal, is easy to use and a lot of fun. Check it out.

(Sorry for the bleed-over into text. Working on a fix.)

I read with interest the press release put out last week by my friend and fellow wine blogger, Tom Wark, about his scheme to monetize his blog. Briefly, as I understand it (and there are many levels of this that have yet to be analyzed), wineries will send Tom baseball caps with their logos, and then Tom will make videos for each winery, where he wears the winery’s cap and plugs them.

I’m stunned that no one thought of this before. Here we are, years into the wine blogging phenomenon, with scores of bloggers putting their collective intelligence into figuring out how to make money, and lo and behold, Tom, in one swift, brilliant stroke, has solved the problem! But it’s the least one would expect from this pioneering guy.

Admittedly, Tom actually devised only one way of making money — by selling his collection of caps to the Smithsonian Institution. I’m sure he could make a vast profit — the Smithsonian is funded by the Federal government, after all — but the problem is that the money wouldn’t come in for many years. So the scheme really won’t help Tom in the short run.

In pondering Tom’s CAPitalization plan, I thought of implications that may have eluded him. I freely share the possibilities opened up by this revolutionary new development.

1. Tom should charge the wineries money for giving them publicity in the videos. Of course, he’d have to do this surreptitiously, because otherwise all those investigative bloggers out there would bust him for “selling out.” But this shouldn’t be difficult. What happens in wine country stays in wine country.

2. Tom could move beyond caps to other articles: T-shirts, designer sneakers, jeans, underwear, sportswear, sunglasses, suits, ties, swimwear, evening gowns, even rubber ducks. The list is endless. Automobiles? DVDs? Golf clubs? Think of all the free stuff!

3. Once Tom compiles a huge collection of clothes and accessories, he can develop his own line of WarkWear. He could sell it on QVC and perhaps even team up with Joan Rivers. Fashion-savvy consumeristas who are into wine would find his Spring and Fall collections irresistable.

4. As Tom achieves worldwide fame as a couturier, he would need P.R. bloggers (proggers; see “Hardy Wallace”) to help him do publicity. He could have a contest to pick the winners. He could call this contest “A Really Good Gob.” This would give other bloggers hope that there’s actually some money to be made at the end of the rainbow.

5. But sooner or later, someone is bound to reveal the fact that Tom had been taking money for his cap videos. This would of course destroy his credibility as a blogger forever, but by the time it happened, Tom would be so rich, he’d be able to flip off his critics and laugh at them as he sailed off on his private yacht to his various villas in fashionable spots around the world.

6. Upon winning a MacArthur grant, Tom — now easily the most famous wine person on Earth except for President Franzia — would forgive all those bloggers who had been criticizing him so heavily for so many years. He would invite them to his ranch (located probably in the Russian River Valley) for a giant Kumbaya singalong.

7. President Franzia appoints Tom Secretary of Social Media. Tom, now holding infinite power over Twitter, Facebook et al, and funded by a multi-billion dollar budget, hires all his blogger friends for sub-Cabinet jobs. He holds auditions in San Francisco, New York, etc. and the applicants line up and down the street.

8. By then, of course (I estimate all this to happen around 2018), a whole new generation of younger Tween wine bloggers has arisen. They see the founding generation of bloggers selling out to “The Man” by taking high-paying jobs (with generous healthcare and retirement benefits), and they criticize these elders mercilessly.

9. Meanwhile, the older generation of Baby Boomer print critics has retired to “Geezer Island,” a tropical paradise in the Caribbean funded by President Franzia to honor all those wine reviewers who helped make Two Buck Chuck successful. Twice each day, air cargo planes parachute pallets of Bronco Wine onto the island so nobody goes thirsty. President Franzia makes Geezer Island off-limits to the healthcare death squads, the only place in the world they’re not allowed to go.

10. President Franzia is stricken by a rare disease and forced to quit office. Under the new Nested Succession laws (passed by the TTB in 2015), Tom becomes President of the United States of America. His money and girlfriend woes are gone forever.

11. President Wark’s first executive order is to eliminate all bottlenecks to the free interstate shipping of wine throughout the United States and its territories. A place is prepared on Mount Rushmore to carve his image. The drinking age is lowered to 18, and all is well.

And it all started with baseball caps! It could happen…

The S.F. Chronicle ran this story, courtesy of the Associated Press:

Top media execs wonder how Twitter will make money

At a top media summit held up in Sun Valley (how come I never get invited to these things?), some of the shrewdest financial minds in the country held a workshop on how Twitter is supposed to make money. Twitter’s co-founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, were there.

According to the article, the prognosis for profit is bleak. “I just don’t think [Twitter] is a natural advertising medium,” said Barry Diller. John Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media, expressed similar doubts. The article paraphrased him as saying that “Twitter will be hard-pressed to sell advertising…without alienating users.” It’s “best bet,” Malone supposedly said, “is to simply get people so addicted that they might eventually pay fees.” The A.P. reporter concluded, “Twitter hasn’t attempted to profit from its popularity yet, leaving everyone guessing about how the 3-year old startup intends to pay its bills after it exhausts its $55 million venture capital.”

The A.P. reporter tried to get Williams or Stone to comment, but “they didn’t speak up when other executives expressed doubts about Twitter’s revenue prospects.”

Those Twitter guys

[Later that night, at Sushi on Second, a popular hangout in downtown Ketchum. Two despondent guys are on their fourth round of sake.]

Evan Williams: Did you hear what that schmuck, Diller, said? “I don’t think Twitter is a natural advertising medium.” Like, what the hell does he know about ‘natural’?

Biz Stone: Yeah. [laughs bitterly] Everybody knows why he married Diane von Furstenberg.

EW: And that creep, Malone. He talks like we’re drug pushers. Jeez. ‘Addicted.’

BS: We’re creating twaddicts.

They order another round.

BS: Do you really think we could sell ads?

EW: [shrugs] Dunno. Shinkle said we could, on The Ticker.

BS: Yeah, I read that. But he said they’d have to be “unobstrusive.”

EW: What the hell does that mean?

BS: Well, if Google can do it, why can’t we?

EW: [brightens] Yeah! [lifts glass] We can do it! Here’s to Twitter ads!

BS: Twads!

[both drink]

EW: Maybe Malone has a point. The kids are addicted to Twitter. They can’t live without it.

BS: [making a menacing face and clutching his hands] Ve hef cree-ay-ted a generashun uf dope eddics!

[both laugh]

EW: Do you think they’re really hooked, though? I mean, if we suddenly, like, overnight launched a fee. How many would leave?

BS: I guess all of ‘em, except the truly hooked.

EW: We could call ‘em the twooked!

BS: Twaddicts!

EW: Twunkies!

BS: Twasted!

[both are in hysterics]

EW: You gonna finish that California roll?

BS: Twat’s that you say?

EW: [sighs] There has to be another way besides advertising and subscriptions. I mean, both are risky…

BS: Twisky.

EW: [takes another sip] Remember when we realized this could be huge? I was living in Berkeley–

BS: Right. And I was up in Sonoma, drinking wine.

EW: Pinot Noir, if I recall correctly.

BS: Right! And getting a massage. What was her name, anyway?

EW: You twitted me about it, and I thought, Day-um, this isn’t just about communicating, it’s about having fun!

BS: And getting rich!

EW: [hoists his glass in the air] Here’s to getting rich! L’chaim!

BS: Tw’chaim!

One hour later

EW: Hey, you know what’s really funny? If we can’t make money off Twitter, how are all these people who use Twitter gonna make money?

BS: lol, dude.

EW: Page and Brim had a billion before they were 30.

BS: Yeah. [both lapse into silence]

BS: You know what? I have an idea.

EW: Can you tell me in 140 characters?

BS: Seriously.

EW: What?

BS: Lemme whisper it in your ear. You don’t think I’m gonna say it on Heimoff’s blog?

EW: Why not? Everybody thinks he just makes this shit up, anyway.

Or does he?

In Pennsylvania, the Liquor Control Board, in an effort to be more “customer friendly,” is thinking of selling wine in supermarkets using “automated wine kiosks.” The gizmos would dispense one bottle per customer, but only if the customer (a) inserts a drivers license to prove he’s over 21 and then, if that works, (b) breathes into a breath-testing machine, to prove she’s not drunk.

The proposed kiosk-breathalyzer

The state’s Democratic Governor, Ed Rendell, had been waivering on whether to support or oppose the bill, because he wanted to be assured that the machines would work as advertised. Yesterday afternoon, his spokesman said the Gov is ready to sign off “unless he finds fault with the technology.”

I can fully understand Rendell’s reluctance to approve a device that might allow drunks to get even drunker. After all, an inebriated person could easily cheat by having an accomplice who hasn’t been drinking take the breath test for him. Or, if the drunk person didn’t have an accomplice, he or she could simply bring a filled balloon and let its air empty into the breathalyzer, thereby fooling the machine. Serious concerns.

So I called my cousin, Hank, an inventor (the Bacon Alarm Clock, the Cheesemaking Pedometer, the Wok-Phone) to ask if there’s some way to make the kiosks absolutely foolproof. Hank is the smartest guy I know. He has several degrees, and once was fired from Cisco Systems. After thinking carefully about the situation, Hank came up with the following.

1. First, you’d have to register everyone in Pennsylvania. Get their eye-scans and fingerprints. Then have the machine test them to make sure  they’re really who they say they are.
2. But since this can be manipulated, you’d also have to get a DNA database going for everyone. The machine then would take a tongue scraping to make sure the DNA matched.
3. Faking a blood sample is very difficult, so the machine also would prick people’s pinkeys to match a predetermined blood type.
4. Somewhat more controversial, but vital, is a urine sample. Of course, this would entail a slightly larger kiosk, since some privacy would have to be accorded, and plumbing installed.
5. But still, the person might be drunk, so the machine would also have an attachment, like the Magic Teacup Ride at the amusement park, that would revolve and rotate the person at a high velocity. If the person is drunk, he’ll projectile vomit, an instant signal to the store manager that he should not be allowed to purchase wine.
6. All of the transactions between the applicant and the kiosk would, of course, have to be monitored by a physician, an attorney and a bureaucrat from the Liquor Control Board.
7. Since this would increase the cost of testing, a value-added tax would be levied on the bottle purchased. The exact amount is yet to be determined. The State Attorney-General is investigating the viability of including “value-added” options at the kiosk, such as a dose of Viagra into the wine, and a function for in-vitro fertilization.
8. To ensure that the person, once approved, did not drink the wine while driving, the person would automatically be handcuffed to the kiosk. Consumption could occur, but the handcuffs would not be removed until all alcohol had passed through the person’s system, which would require further blood and urine specimens.
9. Thus, the process will require the presence of porta-potties and cots.
10. Non-Pennsylvania residents will have to undergo autopsies before approval. Please bring proof of medical insurance.

It is thought that this process will not only make the roads safer, but the wine-buying experience more customer friendly. Oh, and if Penn. officials like Hank’s idea, they can send him a check for $1 million. Or an I.O.U. if the state is broke, like California. Whatever.

Last year Napa Valley was a no-show at the first-ever American Wine Bloggers Conference, in Santa Rosa. Instead, Sonoma County wineries were falling all over themselves to capture the eyes, ears and palates of bloggers, who they were smart enough to appreciate might be important players in the review game.

This year Napa is playing catch-up. Better late than never seems to be their tune. (Well, in many respects Napa is more conservative than Sonoma.) No less an august body than the Napa Valley Vintners is taking the entire bloggling group (which could number scores) “over the hill” into Napa Valley, where they will have a Grand Tasting at Quintessa, followed by some fancy winery dinners. The Hall Winery will also be hosting them for a lunch.

Nobody, but nobody pours on the charm better than Napa does when it comes to impressing writers. When they want to dazzle you, they do it with regal pomp and circumstance. I’m sure the bloggers will be suitably impressed, and they should be. Wine blogging has arrived. The fact that Napa cares enough to curry favor is proof. I, myself, am not going to the Conference this year (I did last year), but will look forward eagerly to the blogging that will follow the July 24-26 event.

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Reward. Lifetime supply of whatever we make. You pay shipping.

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If found, please return. No reward, but mention in this space