No, the reason for the title of this post is simple: By buying more phones, tablets, computers and accessories, you are sending a signal to manufacturers that they don’t need to make anything better in order to get your money.

Think about it: Every year, manufacturers come out with products that are largely the same as the ones they released last year. They push a version of Android that’s supposed to be slightly better than the one they sold you last year, or an iPhone that doesn’t have a broken antenna. And exactly how many versions of the Nintendo Gameboy need to be made until they decide they’ve gotten it right?

If you keep buying something new each year, you send a signal to manufacturers that they just need to put out something – anything – to get you to buy it.

If your phone is good enough, just keep it. Stop replacing the stuff you have if it isn’t broken. If enough people finally let manufacturers know they need to innovate something that is actually new before you give them their money, they won’t keep releasing products that don’t entirely work, need patches, or are just useless collections of molded plastic.

A lot of the time, we all skip past this. After the obnoxious explosion of banner ads in the early 2000s, most Internet surfers developed that extra muscle in their brain that helps them not see banners.

But today I clicked through, and I donated to the cause. That graphic on the right rail of my page shows I did. You should too.

Why? Because Wikipedia is an important source of (usually) unbiased information, a quick resource almost everyone has used at some time, that charges nothing and doesn’t ask you to buy, click or link back to. The idea that some day advertisers would be able to smear their logo feces all over the pages of Wikipedia obviously would make advertisers themselves drool.

The rest of us would likely suffer. Imagine a company with a massive ad buy on Wikipedia – which you know would be expensive, given the amount of traffic Wikipedia gets. Then a decidedly bad story breaks out in the news about said company, and the volunteer editors update this company’s page with that information, just as they would now.

Wouldn’t you imagine that company would put pressure on Wikipedia to remove those references? Perhaps they’d lobby to have their page locked down altogether? Would Wikipedia have the stones to tell this company to shove off? Actually, forget that – would they even have the financial ability for that? If they become dependent on advertiser money to keep doing what they do, everything would balance on ad revenue to keep from going under.

Donating makes sure they continue to have the funds to operate without having to answer to corporate interest. PBS and Public Radio like to lay claim to that, but they still have to mention the companies that give them “grants,” which, frankly, is its own form of advertising.

So I’m asking, if you’re reading this, for you to go to Wikipedia, click on the link to give a donation, and then actually do it. If you have Paypal, it will blow your mind how easy it is to do.

And before anyone starts blasting me about all of the other things I could ask you to donate to, I’ve given to the Haitian Relief Fund this year too. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the Internet. So bugger off.

So what? Sites change their layouts in minor ways all the time. It’s only Twitter. Also, I said I wasn’t going to write about social media anymore.

The truth is, I’m not even writing about social media here. Social media, as we thought of it a few years ago, is already dead. (More on that anon.) Their layout change is really about making space for their new advertising system.

Twitter has been using the right side of their screen for sponsored accounts and tweets for about a year as well. When people had the ability to expand a tweet and viewing it and the exchange it created on the right side of the screen, it pushed advertisements off the screen.

This layout change can only be necessary to improve the visibility of their paying advertisers. If tweets are now expanded below instead of to the right, then all that space on the right can remain advertising space. Twitter isn’t losing impressions because of their layout, they’re losing impressions because so many people go elsewhere – Facebook and Google Plus, for instance.

Obviously, they can do whatever they want – it’s their site. But last year’s layout was, in my opinion, a smart way to make the site functional. This new way of doing things isn’t, so money is the only motivation that makes sense to me for changing it.

How THAT is going to keep me from using TweetDeck or something similar to manage my Twitter account, I do not know.

I’ll keep adding to this as I keep getting more interesting (read as: weird) takes on the death of some guy I’ve never met:

“I wonder how long it will take until they discover he actually died last week, and they kept him in a freezer until AFTER the Apple Product Announcement? I mean, what are the chances of that?” – My Girlfriend

“I called in yesterday, and [co-worker] told me, ‘Steve is dead!’ And I thought, like, who’s Steve?” – Co-worker

“See, I think they found a way to graft his mind into the iOS system – so that when the next update comes out, Steve Jobs will be in every device, and will then be able to take over the world from beyond the grave!” – Okay, that one’s me.

“Apple will do fine, until they unveil iRadio or iStapler in a couple of years.” – Someone on G+

“What about Apple putting a Samsung Galaxy S2 into an iPhone case then calling it ’4S?’” Person on G+ responding to that last person on G+

“The reason the new phone is ’4S’ is so they can then say it’s the new iPhone – ‘for Steve.’ I don’t know if it is masterful, or skeevy.” – IT Guy

“It’s not that some famous person died. It’s that someone hugely successful died at only 56 that bums people out. Because if that’s possible for him, it means none of us are safe. We can each get our clock punched at any time.” – Me again.

“Yeah, but pancreatic cancer is a big deal. You don’t get to string your life along like that UNLESS you have Steve Jobs money in the bank.” – Co-worker

“Whatever you do, keep your mouth shut. You always end up saying something really crass when people die. The way Apple fanboys are, you’ll probably get lynched.” – My Girlfriend, before I left the house this morning

That having been said, I’m going back to one of my favorite subjects today, Google. That is because today Google announced they are adding Snippets – or, “+Snippets, if we are to start correctly employing their attempt at owning addition – to Google Maps.

All you have to do is click on the “Share” button in your G+ toolbar when you’re on a map, and you get a number of options for storing or sending.

Now, if you’ve been wondering why Google Plus would have as much potential as Facebook in the social network arena, this is why.

You see, you probably already use Google Maps anyway. It’s likely you already use Google Search, Gmail and YouTube, right? So you’re reminded that there’s functionality you’re missing out on when you go to these things and don’t have a G+ account of your own.

We’re maybe another two or three years away from Google taking over creating the phone book. The nice thing is, before you call someone, you’ll be able to read their profile, look at satellite images of where they live, get reviews of them from co-workers, read where they like to eat…

Slowly but surely, Google is creating a stalker’s paradise, where no one will have privacy or be protected. Who else is looking forward to all those home invasions?

Here’s a great ad for the Samsung Galaxy S II. It’s great because it gets a lot of things done, quickly.

First, they manage to be offensive. That’s a good thing, because invariably you’ll get people who are easily offended to talk about it, and probably share it around. The end result of hysterical people is usually increased awareness – I’m sure Eminem sold a LOT more albums after all those Christians tried boycotting him in the early 00s.

Think the agency that created this isn’t aware of that? They have a paid placement for this video on YouTube, showing the frame with Jesus on a unicycle. It’s brilliant idiot baiting. Because this isn’t an American product yet – they are pushing it in the American market to let us know it’s coming. What better way to get some easy word-of-mouth than to get bunched up Americans bemoaning their ad?

More importantly, the offensiveness has a place in the ad. It isn’t just shocking for the sake of shocking, but works to show the clarity of their screen (even if it does look a little simulated) and at times creates a metaphor for what they want to say, like the Russian dancer “kicking ass.” We’ve had shock for the sake of shock so long, it’s no longer shocking. People actually demand a good reason for the shock given, or else they write it off as what it usually is – cynical pandering.

That isn’t what was done here, and I appreciate it. This moves fast, has a concept, and doesn’t trip over itself trying to be funny at the expense of their core message: “Our mobile product does a lot of stuff well, and looks neat.”

Four years ago I started blogging for the advertising agency I worked for. They had two blogs – one for the agency proper, and one for the Interactive house. I was writing most of the posts, covering what was happening in Internet news and new media, but also in marketing, advertising, PR and traditional media.

When they told me to learn everything about what people were calling “social bookmarking,” that became a hot topic for both of our blogs. Our readers were hungry for information on the heretofore unheard of Twitter, MySpace, SecondLife… things that showed everyone the future was in progress.

That is no longer a problem, though. Just about anyone can get 1000 followers on Twitter, and once they do they usually use that as proof that they’re experts. There are so many bloggers writing about some arcane Facebook trick, there isn’t much of anything you can’t learn about Facebook with a quick Google search. And the number of stories telling you how you need a mobile app and QR code are legion.

However, there’s hardly anyone talking about communications, messaging, and how social media should be used to help your business. I see a lot of people showing their prowess at getting Likes and retweets and now +1, but then they fall short on how to turn these people into customers. It does not matter how neat all this new technology is if you can’t turn online fans into customers.

So there may still be some posts in the future about social, but from now on it will only be in the context of what you should say. I’ll also continue to post commercials I think do a good job of core messaging, and campaigns that work.

I think this is far more important than tips and tricks, and certainly a lot more enjoyable for me to write about.

Because if I have to write another post about how QR codes don’t work or how to get more Twitter followers, I’m going to pound nails into the floor with my forehead.

Then the Lexus and the Infinity started stealing their thunder. Cadillac’s response was to pretend they weren’t losing their dominance as the luxury car to own, and just kept doing what they’d always done: Turned out expensive, roomy cars with poor gas mileage. And of course, they got stomped.

Cadillac only really started to turn things around when they came out with the Esplanade. Gargantuan SUVs were in, and if there’s one thing Caddy knows how to make, it is oversized cars. And by 2005, you just weren’t anyone unless the Cadillac Esplanade is what you drove to the Source Awards.

Now, in the story above,

Replace Lexus with iPhone

Replace Infinity with Android

Replace Cadillac with Blackberry

Blackberry was also the phone of choice for people who wanted to do more than just talk. When you saw someone with that huge keyboard, you knew they either had a lot going on or an employer willing to get them a phone. It got e-mail, which was a magical concept just 5 years ago, and you could actually type out messages without having to press the 7 four times, then the 4 two times, then the 4 again three times, then the 8 once… because QWERTY keyboards were too cool to be believed.

Then the iPhone and Android phones came out, and the market changed completely.

What was the response of Research in Motion, makers of the Blackberry? They continue to turn out various versions of the same phone. The Curve and be Bold and the Torch have different features, but are essentially the same OS with the same keyboard. (Though the Torch has a touch screen that’s larger than the standard Blackberry, in a lackluster attempt to be iPhone-ish.)

If Blackberry wants their Esplanade, what they really need is a real update to their operating system, better support for third party developers, and prices that make sense for what they sell.

As a Blackberry owner, I do like it. The keyboard is still comfortable, and makes texting one-handed simple. The voice commands work brilliantly – far better than anything else on the market. Blackberry Messenger is still a free alternative to texting – if you know someone else who has a Blackberry, of course.

If RIM can’t figure out how to compete, they need to play to these strengths better. If they can’t do that, maybe they just need to get bought by someone who can. Surely Facebook is considering their options for getting into the mobile market. Buying up the once great house of Blackberry would certainly make the creation of an Official Facebook Phone a lot easier for them to do.

My boss at the time, whose previous experience was solely in print, fancied himself a designer. As such, it was my misfortune to have to be his go-between with the design department. Whenever they would create a graphic, page or banner ad, he would have me deliver notes about cropping it in some slight way, or making some adjustment to the font. While he would never admit it, he did this so he could put his “stamp” on the work being done.

The worst was the day he actually sent me to them to say, “this banner needs to be more blue.” I remember blinking a couple of times at that, not sure even he would say something so dumb.

“More blue?”

“Yes.”

“There’s something wrong with the particular shade of blue?”

“It needs to be more bluer.”

Yes – he actually said, “more bluer.” It makes me think of this scene from, “Amadeus”:

An idiot trying to give criticism for the sake of giving criticism.

The Lead Designer went crazy when I passed this along, and rightfully so. I calmed him, telling him that yes, my boss was an idiot, and no, I don’t know what the hell that means either. I think this is why I had the job of talking to the Design Team – they respected me, even if it was impossible to respect him.

The point of this story is that marketers cannot second guess designers. When a design is run on a page, marketers can look at the resulting traffic, bounce rates, conversions, etc. to back up an argument that some design choice doesn’t work, especially if it has been run against some other choice in an A/B test. Making such calls based on our intuition and taste, however, is silly.

The designers working for you know what they’re doing. It’s likely they’ve done this for some time. They know what works and what doesn’t, because they’ve seen it work and not work before. Their gut call is worth more than a marketer’s gut call, because they have actually done this work in the past.

The reason people who aren’t designers tell designers how to do their job is they think it’s an aesthetic choice. They may like a font or color for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with sound design. In my experience, when testing what the designer came up with against what the non-designer wanted, the designer’s version always performed better. When you’ve done something long enough, you just know what works.

So if you have trusted designers to do a job, let them do that job. If you know better than them, you should be doing the work yourself. If you can’t, you need to unclench and trust their ability.

And if you really want something, “more bluer,” come prepared with the hexidecimal code for the shade of blue you want.

The problem is with there being so many ways to share something simply, a blogger can loose steam. If every interesting thought you have is pushed out in less than 140 characters, you aren’t going to put in the work to spell it out in a full post.

The same is true of personal blogs. Why write out 300 words of why your day is going great if you can just make a quick quip, and attach a funny picture you found?

As I see it, part of the problem is everyone feels a responsibility to be entertaining. It’s high school all over again, where we want to be popular by posting the kind of things that get reshared and retweeted and get us more followers.

I’ve definitely fallen into this trap – especially now that Google Plus is on the scene. That is the point of social media, of course. It isn’t for broadcasting long ideas, but socializing. If you’re using all of your best ideas just socializing, though, you don’t have anything left to blog about.

So if you’re trying to blog, cut down on the fun time with friends and research a topic, or share an opinion with explanations of why you’re right.

That’s what I’m going to start doing anyway.