Cris: How have you personally changed as a guitar player?

Matt Jones of clients Cowboy Mouth: I think I'm more show oriented now than I used to be. I used to be feet planted and everything had to be perfect. And that to me was a good show. And being in Cowboy Mouth has shown me that the shows where I play perfectly have actually been the ones where Fred walks off stage and says, "What the hell was that, man? You weren't in it."

I said, "I was. I was right in the pocket."

Fred said, "I don't care how you played. It was boring."

If you are making a mistake but you are doing it at 200 miles an hour, Fred doesn't mind.

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(Hire Cris to develop your online content. [email protected])

​Facebook killed my lists. I used to have lists on Facebook that neatly organized the pages I followed. I had one for music, one for news, etc. When I clicked on one, it would bring up the posts of just the pages on that list. It would display them in reverse chronological order and no posts would be omitted. As an additional plus, no sponsored posts showed up when I did this.

This functionality was part of Facebook. It did not take a special hack to create this. 

Yesterday they all disappeared. Now I am once again at the mercy of the Newsfeed. Yes, I can select "See first" in the follow settings for the pages. I can also turn on notifications so that I am alerted whenever one of these pages puts up a new post. But doing that for every page I follow would make things kind of a mess. 

It is disappointing because I am probably going to miss out on some interesting posts, posts I would have seen with my lists.

It is also a reminder that no social media platform belongs to the people who use it. Make sure you maintain a website and blog. You need an online property your followers can count on. 


(Hire me to develop your online content. [email protected])

(Hire Cris to develop your online content. [email protected])

​Social media stats are nice to look at. On rare occasions they are helpful. But if you are basing your worth on those numbers, you should find a good therapist as soon as possible.

​There are a number of intelligent, creative people doing interesting work. But when these people get on social media many of them revert back to high school. Suddenly they are just copying the "cool" kids (some of whom are actual kids) in a desperate attempt to be popular. 

"I know it doesn't say anything about the technology we are developing, but I was told memes with unicorns are hot right now."

I don't think that is how you find your genuine fans. I think that is how you show the world that, after all these years, you are still trying to be the prom queen. 

The CEO of Reddit has apologized for editing users' comments. Whether you think his actions were justified or not, I think the point is that whoever runs a social platform gets to play by different rules from its users. And while I am still pro-social media, it is reminder why you should not give up on your own website and blog.