What’s a social robot you might ask? They come in different models:

1. The worker bot - this worker bot is the staple of any social media circle. Having a decent sized sphere of influence, the worker bot tends to the needs of the family unit by being helpful, sometimes overly helpful. The standard hangouts of the worker bot are websites like www.experts-exchange.com and www.linkedin.com where they spew out answers in hopes of gaining some recognition or ‘reward points’ such as where the ‘best answer’ designation is awarded (as the question asker perceives it).

Once a regular of forums where groups of crazy like-minded  individuals hung out, the worker bot trolls the internet looking for ways to contribute. Though their cause is gallant, they expend tons of energy on slackers lacking the creativity to come up with their own answers.

An example – there are seriously vague questions such as this one posted every second on websites like LinkedIN.

Q. How do I setup Twitter?

A. Chosen as Best Answer Good question! I am a Twitter expert with mega crap-tons of followers. Twittering is both an art and a science that is easy to pickup but hard to master. What you need to do is tweet, tweet, tweet until all the search engines pickup all your awesome keywords like #nowplaying #iamanexpertatseo, or #ilovegoogle . Then, the rest is easy my friend =) =)

2. The construction bot

The construction bot likes to build stuff, and cater to the masses by being funny, likeable, and somewhat irreverant. Good examples of this include Maddox, whose website has generated a collection of nerd followers wanting to be as cool as he. His posts include topics like ‘The iPhone Sucks’ and ‘Pirates are awesome.’

At the bottom of every page there’s a visit counter that resembles this: “I am better at Guitar Hero than 1,531,641 people.”

Though his posts have little literary value, his website generates tons of hits. In addition, he’s brought customer service departments to their knees with floods of fan e-mails commenting on his experience with Orbitz, the travel company. Actually, I have had great experiences with Orbitz, in part thanks to active consumers like Maddox that have a piecemeal internet following.

In the end, Maddox quit his job (or was terminated) and is now a social robot looking for another book deal. Another good spinster would be Tim Ferriss. Cool guy, but bad businessman. Don’t listen to his advice, it will get you fired. His book is a good read though…hope his money goes a long way ’cause he’ll never work again and he’s on the hook to produce something newer and better next. Lest he be a one book wonder!

3. The news bot

Seemingly docile and unpresumptuous, the newsbot is by far the most insidious. Having a few computer skills to hone its craft, and even photoshop or dreamweaver skills, the newsbot is a handy dandy helper to mainstream news outlets.

Typically seen wandering around urban jungles, the newsbot totes an iPhone (possibly an iPad) and captures everything, processes it, and digests it into 140 character chunks his crowd enjoys. The typical routine of a newsbot is to first post some replies to its fellow newsbot, such as “LOL @newsbot3 @newsbot4 #inthelunchline #booya.”

Then, it proceeds to hash out his or her own version of the topic of the hour, be it a natural disaster, new gadget release, or a random meetup of newsbots (as if it didn’t happen on a daily basis). “I’m at starbucks with @coolbot and @nerdbot. btw, the new ipad comes out tomorrow .”

The newsbot almost ALWAYS has a blog where they expand on their tweet earlier in the day and embellish it with funny details and/or anecdotes.  The post occupies every category in wordpress (because their concsciousness encompasses the sun and the stars). Most of the time they have a day job and looking for 10 minutes of fame with their crew by the end of the shift.

In the end, the newsbot is the star of his own social media show, which is pretty awesome to his cadre of followers.

Highlights of 2009-2010:
Tweeting while in a plane going down in the Hudson river. Awesome and newsworthy, good fodder for the nation’s army of newsbots.
Balloon boy. funny idea, bad execution. Due to indiscriminating newsbots, it got some undeserved attention.
Obama on Twitter. Come on newsbot staff, give him the mic.
Obama on Blackberry.  Rockin’
Tiger woods jokes. Saw some I can actually use on friends.
Foursquare. Fun. overrated…
#ipad. beat to death.

To sum up:

Don’t lose your individualism. It’s your only weapon against mediocrity.