I was trying to explain why people should twitter to a group of geeks
that don't live here, and I came to a sickening conclusion. I am
turning into one of the Silicon Valley Borg. In light of this
realization, here is my guide to becoming one of us (or rather, warning
signs depending on how you see it).
- Start reading Valleywag.
It's a casual affair at first. You check it once every week or two.
Maybe you only search for references to your employer. After a while,
you add it to your RSS reader.
- You start recognizing names. Names of people that no one cares about unless they also live in the valley. You may not have had a clue who Robert Scoble or iJustine was before, but now you're following them on...
- Twitter. You can't adequately explain to anyone that doesn't use Twitter already why it's a good idea, but you can't help but create your own account. You start out only updating a few times from your web browser, but then you discover twhirl. Now you've got instant updates of Scoble, your friends, and...
- Gizmodo,
where you're scouring anything related to cell phones so you can figure
out what's going to set you aside from all of the local iPhone wielding
weenies. The iPhone is so trendy, it's untrendy. After all,
you're watching Gizmodo and Valleywag for rumors as to when the 3G
iPhone is going to be released. 60 days is what they are saying now.
You're going to laugh at all the people with their 2G iPhones. Clearly,
you will be superior as 2G is not nearly enough G's.
You need those G's to send... uh... lots of text messages to update
your twitter status! That is, until you start feeling dissatisfied with
Twitter. Tweeting just isn't enough for you, anymore, so you create an
account on...
- Tumblr. You get confused about what you're supposed to be posting where, especially if you already have a blog entirely separate from all of this, so you try to post different content to each site until you run out of things to talk about entirely. In an attempt to drum up content that you think would be relevant to your valley peers, you sit on BART thinking about Mahalo (which, lets face it, no one really cares about), Yahoo!/Microsoft mergers, expensive escorts, and...
- Facebook. As soon as you get home from your job which is probably at Google, since they seem to employ a good portion of the tech force here (let's hope you're not at Yahoo!), you start browsing jobs at Facebook, because you know it's the next big thing. You don't know how they are making money, but most people said the same of Google, too. How many people are driving around in expensive cars here due to getting on on the GOOG stock early on? Sadly, Google stock is starting to tank, so it's time to drop it like it's hot.
- Update your twitter status, check to see if you have any new
friends on Facebook, then go to Valleywag's happy hour. Pretend to
recognize everyone there. Eventually, you will. That's when you should
really start feeling scared. After enough time, you'll have forgotten
that there is in fact a world outside of Silicon Valley. Don't feel bad
- from what I remember, you won't be missing all that much.
