. . . says Herschell Gordon Lewis, analysing some of the latest communications techniques.

Ever hear of Jonathan Abrams? Probably not. Or if you did, his name isn’t a unique one, limited to one user.

Jonathan Abrams is credited with ‘inventing’ social media. His contribution to the dubious festival of such media was an absolute celebration of Andy Warhol’s promise of ‘15 minutes of fame’ to everybody in the universe: Friendster, heavily backed by knowledgeable businesspeople, the first online social network.

So all those followers, from Facebook and MySpace and LinkedIn to YouTube and
Twitter and whatever, are his natural-born bastard children.

After a brief moment of glory, Friendster flopped. But Google the name Jonathan Abrams and you’ll activate 672,000 entries . . . although you can’t immediately tell
how many are for this Jonathan Abrams.

The proliferation of social media caused Abrams, the parent, to proclaim loudly and publicly: “I invented this stuff and now I’m paying for it.”

(He was referring to the flood of communications, many of which were from people of whom he had never heard, pouring into his phone and his computer.)

The fire-horse must answer the bell. Abrams already has started up ‘Socializr’, a website that lets users invite people to parties and other events.

How crowded can it get?
Just what we need . . . more social media. This column, in this eminent publication, isn’t dedicated to the history of electronic communication. Rather, it’s dedicated to as dispassionate an analysis of communications techniques as a cranky curmudgeon can grind out.

And watching yet another distraction emerge from the boiling media hive is what we,
as professional communicators, don’t need.

A point to consider: the gap between a communication that spurs a positive decision based on that communication and one that represents a bald cry for attention is a gap a great many marketers are trying to bridge.

Why?

The laws of economics are in play. For at least ten years, our best prospects have had to sort legitimate sales messages from the chaff of counterfeit and misleading emails that clutter our online mailboxes  and infect our attitude toward every announcement in every medium.

Facebook and MySpace were reasonably harmless until over-shrewd marketers grabbed them and began using them for less-than-personal purposes.

Then came Twitter, the strange phenomenon that limits a message to 140 characters. What a delightful way to eliminate literacy!

I had a recent email message from a publication with which I’d discontinued my subscription. The subject line: ‘Herschell, open up. It’s important.’

The same day, I had this intrusion on my cell phone:
‘U R inluck, yr 2 get free sub. Rep or lose it.’

You may regard my conclusion as muddy, because I didn’t renew my subscription, and for years I’ve railed against phony use of ‘important’.

But at least my rejection of the email was a mild one. My rejection of the text message was anything but mild.

Conclusion: Be warned. Oh, sorry, I forgot where we are . . .  B-warnd.