I’ve given this a lot of thought, and the problem with social media isn’t all of the noise. Sure, there are a lot of things that you could care less about passing through your Facebook wall and Twitter timeline – but one person’s noise is another’s signal, right? I actually enjoy picking up bonuses in the Facebook games I’m playing, but many of my friends wish they would all be banished from existence.

The sad thing is that Facebook nearly had the answer, but they missed the boat. And Twitter, from what I can see, hasn’t even found the right paddle.

The answer is something I’m dubbing “streams.” And, as our friends the Ghostbusters proved, crossing them isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The idea is simple: Classify different types of content and let users turn them on and off at will. Really, that’s it. But let’s delve a little deeper into why this isn’t just possible, it’s plausible.

For awhile, Facebook actually allowed app specific filtering of your news feed until their most recent overhaul, which – for some inexplicable reason – completely did away with it. Instead of expanding news filters, they banned app-specific notifications which bothered nobody since they could easily be surpressed.

Filtering was only half the answer to Facebook’s problems but a definite step in the right direction – and removing it moves them away from where they need to be. Rather than just allow me to filter and quickly scan all of my friends’ Farmville posts all in one place, they should have offered the option to block all Farmville posts (or posts from any other app) from their feeds. Maybe block is too harsh. Let’s suggest a “toggle” since you could, theoretically, turn it back on whenever you wanted, view it as an entirely separate feed or create an aggregate stream with all of the posts from your games of interest.

Now you’re getting it, right? Social media, just like my iPhone, works best when I can customize it the way that I want it. Make me play in your sandbox your way, and I might go find another sandbox.

Twitter has partly solved the problem with hashtags, but do these really work all that well? You can create search queries against hashtags, and some Twitter readers like TweetDeck allow you to filter on keywords in your selected feeds but – again – these are half measures. Hashtags, I’d argue, are really just a hack, a poor man’s search meta data (hacktags is more like it!).

First, hashtags are prone to user error: One typo or a bad guess at what the prevailing hashtag is for an event or product you’re tweeting about and you’re already out of the game. And hashtags eat into your already constrained 140-character limit. Bah, there has to be a better way!

Here’s what I think needs to happen for all social media that wants to stay relevant: Streams that segment your timelines or news feeds based on different themes and let you decide how (or even if) you want to consume them.

For example, I’m not playing foursquare, and I find the endless barrage of notifications whenever someone I follow visits a Burger King bathroom to be intrusive and a waste of time when I’m poring through a backlog of 150 tweets from the past hour or so. But these alerts are generated via an application (API), right? How hard would it be to use a hidden API code that’s passed with the tweet to define a stream and pass that to the Twitter client outside of the 140 characters being transmitted?

I know these exist to some extent today. I can see that someone posted using Twittelator even though it doesn’t say Twittelator anywhere in the tweet itself. Or, look at this, from a recent foursquare tweet:

That information has got to be passed along with the tweet via the existing API, am I right? So, Twitter devs, let’s use those as a starting point to define streams that can be quickly toggled on and off to make your timeline more manageable.

There are two additional areas that have become barriers to pure Twitter enjoyment, at least for me: contests and live tweeting “events.” But I see a stream-based solution there too. Build these in as switches that the tweeter can activate when posting. For instance, the person launching a contest could set the flag as a contest originator, and any replies or retweets to him get a secondary response flag. That way you could always see the original post to enter if you like, but you could ignore the stream or – if you’re a contest devotee or just curious once you’ve caught up on your core Twitter stream – peruse the contest stream separately.

When you’re going to live tweet something, you could have a secondary Twitter account set aside just for this purpose. But that’s a lot of trouble, so most people don’t bother. Instead, they post something that says, “If you don’t care about (FILL IN THE BLANK), unfollow me for the night.” Well, maybe I do care about – let’s say the Lost finale – but I’m watching it two hours behind you. I want to enjoy your observations on my own schedule. So rather than leave you behind, possibly forever if I forget to refollow you in the morning, let me separate your stream from my regular timeline for a few hours until I’m no longer concerned about spoilers. Perhaps the tweeter could create a custom code (like a hashtag, but hidden outside of the tweet and tied to just their account). I could just click “Joe’s Lost stream” on my client and toggle it off for now and then go back and view it later.

The same stream filtering and mix/match capabilities could and should be applied to keywords, hashtags, lists, whatever you want – but API codes would be the most reliable and “go to” choice whenever they are available.

Think of the power of this approach: You could consume your social media your way, all of the time, crossing to different streams as time permits and only after you’ve quickly caught up on the stuff that matters most to you. Or you could mix them together anyway you like, on the fly.

What’s the worst thing that could happen, total protonic reversal? It didn’t phase the Ghostbusters in the end – they were hailed as heros.

Don’t get too excited about streams: This is just one observer’s idea on how to “fix” what’s wrong with social media today. But I believe it’s a modest one that builds on features like Facebook filters and Twitter API codes that have already been created and could be put to better use.

So, social media makers, why not give it a try? Are you a “god”? Please say yes, and go fix this.

Even though I bought my iPhone 3G last December, I decided I wanted the 3G S for a few reasons: added storage (I’ve already filled my 16GB model!) and better camera topped the list.  Since my original purchase was so recent, I did not qualify for the fully subsidized $300 price, but was offered the 32GB model for $500 (still better than $700 with no commitment). If you bought a 3G last summer, AT&T recently expanded the offer,  so check: You may qualify for the best price.

Rather than brave the launch day lines, I ordered mine last Thursday from the Apple Store online and was promised delivery in about a week. Alas, I noticed during my semi-frequent online order status checks that it was unceremoniously cancelled on Monday. No explanation. I called Apple’s customer service and, despite the fact that I should have been preauthorized after going through their upgrade wizard, I received some vague excuse that AT&T had not validated my offer and I would have to clear it up with them.

I called and then ran down to my local AT&T Store, where they were backordered 7-10 days. I went ahead and placed an order for the 3G S from them in case that proved to be my only recourse, but I had been hearing that the Apple Store across the way had ample supply. Midday Tuesday, my AT&T rep informed me that they could not clear the problem with my account but that I could buy the 3G S at full price from the Apple Store and then walk over and get a $200 credit on my cell phone bill once AT&T re-upped my 2-year commitment. The net here is that I paid an extra $18 in sales tax, but didn’t have to wait an extra week. AT&T promptly canceled my order and promises the credit will appear by Friday.

So now I had an iPhone 3G S but it would be hours before I could start playing with it. The AT&T rep offered me the option to swap my SIM card from the old phone, meaning I could use my old iPhone for now and activate the new one instantly when I got home and was ready. I first backed up my old phone again, and then swapped the SIM and plugged in the new one. The restore process was painless and relatively quick (about 15 mins) but this only restored my core settings and mail accounts. Apps, music, videos and picture galleries were not present when I turned on the new iPhone. Getting these over required a full sync.

It’s worth noting that I am using iTunes on an older Windows XP machine with USB 1.0. Until recently, I had a USB 2.0 card installed but due to conflict problems I had to remove it. (I really need to move iTunes to a newer machine, but every time I attempt any kind of iTunes move it takes six months to get everything fully functional again!) Since Apple depracated FireWire sync, my only option was a 6-hour slow transfer of my apps and media. Once this completed (about midnight), there was still a little work to do. Here are some tips to make this easier:

• Have passwords handy. For security, all Exchange or POP e-mail  accounts require you to re-enter your password in your new iPhone. Exchange and voicemail prompt you immediately after you turn on the phone, and you’ll need to set a security passcode on your iPhone before Exchange will work. I had to reset my voicemail password, which can be done by calling AT&T customer service or logging into https://www.wireless.att.com/. POP mail passwords need to be entered in your Mail Settings. I created a password-protected cheat sheet with the passwords I require most frequently so I didn’t need to wade through my master list to find the handful that I needed.
• Check your apps. Some apps may require password re-entry or account recovery to the new iPhone, though surprisingly many do not. Spend a few minutes launching the apps you use most often and see if they need anything to run. Amazon, Slacker, Tapulous and Flight Control are a few that needed some recovery work. Kindle required me to delete and redownload all of the books that I had bought, though free samples and the older public domain free books still worked fine. 
• Try the new apps. Go ahead and click Compass. You’ll probably never use it, but it’s cool, right? Fortunately, the compass functionality will help other applications with things like directions (though it sounds like you’ll need to pay AT&T a monthly fee to run GPS apps – boo!). OK, now launch the Camera and try the new focus and video camera features. Next hold down the Home button until Voice Control launches. Say something and see if it does it. (I tried, “Play On the Go Playlist” and never got it to work. It was comical, really. I’ll need to start naming my playlists with voice recognition in mind.)
• Revel in the speed. Apart from the three big changes above and the potential for greater storage space, the 3G S’s real advantage is speed. It really is faster. Loading and clearing e-mails takes me a lot less time, and I no longer have to click back and forth to mark some of the bigger messages as read.
• Show battery percentage. The 3G S has a hidden new feature that shows your battery percentage next to the visual battery indicator. Go into Settings, General, Usage to turn it on.