Now this is interesting:
Click through to get the version and see more of the social web than you ever wanted to know about.
Tag - social media
Have you ever seen DearAdobe.com?
It’s a site created by a designer who knows and loves Adobe products … and hates their many flaws. Visitors can add new gripes and vote up existing ones – just for fun, check out the top gripes. Most gripes are about Adobe’s installers (horribly awful), prices (sell-your-organs high), world pricing policy (schizophrenic), and bloated software (slow and complex).
Now imagine reading this as an Adobe exec. Do you think:
a. What great client input!
b. Uh oh – bad press!
Your response determines whether social media will be a blessing or a curse to you.
Posting a link that does not go to where a reasonable web surfer thinks it will go is annoying, tacky, and perhaps even dishonest.
Here’s what I’m talking about – a recent story at ReadWriteWeb:
In fact, in the first paragraph, there are no less than 7 links – and no less than 7 of them are to ReadWriteWeb itself. This is a childish attempt at boosting traffic and gaming Google, and it’s below the stature of a site like ReadWriteWeb.
I left a comment … we’ll see if it stays live.
Please fix:
When you have a name linked, a visitor’s assumption is that the link is to the site associated with that name. Example: Reddit, in the first paragraph.
When you instead hijack that expectation and take users to your own website’s tag page for Reddit, you’re losing credibility and goodwill in order to eek out one more pageview from your readers.
Uncool, unprofessional, and in the long-run, unprofitable.
When I see this Ford skyscraper ad, I’m assuming that mousing over the ad will show me something about the people.
After all, it says “rollover to see their stories.” So that’s the expectation I have – that I can find something out about two real people who really bought a Ford who really had some experiences with it and really are telling them to me.
It looks like an instance of social media marketing: marketing that uses connecting web technologies and real stories from real people to demonstrate how a product or service might be something that I might want to buy.
So far so good …
But when I rollover the ad and see this, everything changes:
Suddenly I feel misled, even lied to. Instead of a story, I’m looking at an ad. A very standard, old-school ad.
Score -1 for Ford.
The moral: don’t mislead customers, and most importantly, don’t raise expectations of A but provide B.
(Unless, of course, B is obviously better and more wonderful in every way than A. And even then, be careful.)
I would like someone to create a new Facebook app, based on the myriads of Likeness quizzes. But instead of likenesses based on fruits, movies, books, cars, friends, or anything else, it would be based on the degree to which you dislike likeness quizzes.
Bah. Humbug.
Twistori is a very interesting way to waste time and yet feel like you’re doing something significant.
It follows the twitters of thousands of people whose messages start include the words
- I love
- I hate
- I think
- I believe
- I feel
- I wish
Pure genius … and hard to keep your eyes off.
What do you love, hate, think, believe, feel, or wish? Tell the world!
Scott Adams has a new Dilbert mashup on his main site, Dilbert.com. Very cool.
The question posed is: are you funnier than Scott? You then get to change the punchline on the final pane of a Dilbert cartoon to something else … and people can vote on your version.
Only problem: it didn’t work as advertised. Not cool.
Here’s my cartoon, and the ostensible problem: “invalid panel count.” I’m not quite sure what it’s referring to …
Check out
http://scoblerizer.wordpress.com/ versus
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/.
That’s Just another little reminder from the universe that URIs were never designed for humans. And that identify theft is all-too-easy online.
It’s somewhat amusing … whoever started the scoble-like blog started blogging on April 13, 2006 with a classic “I’m blogging at last” post, and apparently ended that all-too-brief flirtation just two days later, on April 17.
Someone probably warned him/her that identify theft, even in the blogging world, is a bad idea.
My good blogging friend Leo Bottary asked this question on LinkedIn Answers:
Describe the mindset one needs to be successful at using social media tools?
Here’s the answer I gave:
There’s a few qualities that come to mind:
- some familiarity and comfort with technology
- some commitment of time to engaging with social media
- a relaxed attitude about controlling every aspect of a message
- an ability to communicate effectively
- above all, a desire and willingness to learn
People who are new to social media should get their feet wet by finding some blogs and podcasts in their niches and just reading and enjoying them for a month or so. Get familiar with the conventions and styles that are out there. Read a few books, like Robert Scoble’s Naked Conversations.
Then start simple, with a blog. Add a Flickr account if you’re into pictures, and link the two. Ensure that you’re on Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social networks that might be verticals in your area.
Say interesting, informative things about your industry. Link generously, and be generous with data.
Most importantly, don’t lose it when people disagree. That’s natural, and it’s going to happen. Use these situations as learning experiences. Respond calmly and politely, apologize when you were wrong, and move on. You’ll be respected for how you deal with disagreement.
There are a lot of good answers to that question – follow the link above to see them all.
The entire purpose of this post is to publish a post while having set up WordPress (the software that runs this blog) to ping (notify) flog blog (the software application that updates Facebook with my new posts when I post them here) every time I publish a post.
. . .
. . .
Err, jargon often sucks, but I think we can all agree it can have a wonderful brevity to it.
. . .
. . .
Bleh, flog blog often sucks. It very rarely picks up my new posts, which is annoying. And it still has not picked up my ping, which was sent 15 minutes ago.
UPDATE Feb 21: pls note Trisha’s gracious reply below …
I can’t believe believe people are still sending out link exchange requests:
Hello,
Recently I contacted you regarding a link exchange request. I was hoping that you’ve had the time to review this request and consider my proposal. We are developing a reciprocal link area on our website and would be happy to trade text links with your website. You links will be on the PsPrint.com website, although we are not entirely sure where at this point in the project.
Please let me know if you are interested in discussing this further. You can contact me at trisha@psprint.com or 510.224.2106. If you are not interested in a link exchange, please let me know and I will discontinue contacting you regarding this matter. Thank you for your time.
Trisha Fawver
Marketing Manager
PsPrint.com
510.224.2106
Create. Print. Mail. Faster.
This is now the third email I’ve gotten from Trisha, which is starting to approach spammishness. Note the veiled threat in this statement:
If you are not interested in a link exchange, please let me know and I will discontinue contacting you regarding this matter.
In other words, I’ll continue to receive unsolicited emails until I say yes or until I waste my time composing an email saying no.
I am so over Facebook.
Essentially, I’ve put my Facebook profile on autopilot using applications that suck in all my data from around the web. But I hardly ever go there myself.
Why?
Well, first of all, my employer blocks Facebook. While I certainly wouldn’t spend a long time there anyways during the work day, it’s annoying to get little email notifications during the day about something a friend did on Facebook, and then having to think about that later if I want to check it out.
Secondly, and much more importantly, while the application infrastructure of Facebook is amazing, it’s also fingernails-on-blackboard perky-happy-chirpy-people-on-Monday-mornings annoying.
Let me say that again: ANNOYING.
Everytime anyone does anything, Facebook feels like it needs to notify me. So-and-so is playing Scrabulous, someone else took a picture of a cup of coffee, someone else is super-poking me, and his dog is joining some stupid corporate fan club because they happen to like Tim Hortons coffee.
I love to know when someone has posted a new blog entry.
But I don’t need the minutiae of their every footstep on Facebook. There’s a massive annoyance factor in being sent some kind of message that actually isn’t a message. It’s not a real message … not a note, or email, or IM, or actual communication … but a piece of digital flotsam, tossed off randomly from some interaction with a Facebook application, sent easily and spammishly and automatably to tens or hundreds of “friends.”
But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is that half the time, when you get this piece of digital flotsam, if you actually care to see the picture of the cup of coffee, you have to install the application that the “friend” used when adding it to Facebook. And then you have to sell your soul to the devil and allow the application to know the most intimate details of your online life.
Enough!
The social utility doesn’t have any.
The world is obviously coming to an end when a video blogger like Scoble is at Davos live-broadcasting everyone he meets. Here’s Danah Boyd, who has interesting things to say about teens, technology, and social networking:
Fred Wilson just posted on the future of media based on his kids’ usage and some financial/valuation data:
- Newspapers and radio are down and trending out
- TV series on DVD more valued than movies (better bang for the buck)
- Gaming of all sorts on all platforms is huge. Key thing: doesn’t have to be super-awesome amazing … they’ll play silly but simple and fun games on Facebook.
- Books are still big
- Magazines still big
- Internet is huge – by far the biggest. Especially social sites such as Facebook, but also the kids sites like Webkinz and Neopets (which my kids love as well).
He admits this is based on a sample of 3 kids living with both birth parents who are fairly affluent, which skews the results (many kids don’t have the resources to buy TV series on DVD, for instance).
But what the wealthy have one decade, every has next, right?
I’ve finally, finally, finally invested some time and energy in this, my new blog … and it feels good.
The idea is that Sparkplug 9 is the focus of my digital life. It’s the hub connecting all the spokes of my online interactions.
- Sites
So the latest sites I’ve found useful and interesting are in Links, courtesy of delicious. - Photos
Photos that I’ve considered good enough to upload to Flickr are in Photos. - Books
The recent inhabitants of my bookshelf, nicely organized and maintained thanks to Shelfari, are in Books. - News updates
Nonsense that reflects my momentary state of mind is in Ephemera, thanks to Twitter. - Videos
Videos and little screenshot movies I’ve uploaded to YouTube stream into Videos.
And they all – plus anything that doesn’t quite fit into any of the above categories – make up my online footprint.
Overall I’m pretty happy with how it all fits. It’s all very web 2.0 to be able to link bits and pieces from many different sites. Ideally, YouTube would have a better way to stream your videos onto your site … I’m not sure that having them all appear in one video player is the best option. But overall: not bad.
The beauty of it all is that it’s so easy with WordPress, the blogging software I use. Most major web 2.0 companies supply WordPress plugins to add their functionality to your site. And if they don’t some enterprising and generous plugin writer has, and is sharing the fruits of his labor.
Online identity is a complex thing … we worry about who owns it, we look for different ways to analyze it, we want to control it, and we worry about who will find it.
As for me, I’m just going to worry about creating it. Or, more accurately, living it. I’ll let the chips fall where they may … since the only worse than having a negative online identity is having no digital footprint at all.
Friends are great. Invites to events from friends are fine. Notifications that friends have updated photos or blogs are wonderful.
But, with apologies, since I turned 15 some time ago, I really don’t need invites to a million “likeness” quizzes based on movies I like or don’t like, personality tests based on chocolate flavors I prefer, fan clubs, “presents” that aren’t really presents and certainly can’t be unwrapped, and invites to be “best friends” with someone that I’m already “friends” with on Facebook.
Arrgghhh!
Are we not satisfied with robbing children of childishness by incessantly driving adult tastes in everything to younger and younger ages, so that we must now also perform the inverse and infantalize ourselves with giggly fluffy pink nothings and superpokes and other such nonsense?
Social networking is cool and wonderful. It’s helped me reconnect with friends I’ve lost track of years ago.
But that doesn’t mean I want to act like a pubescent Japanese schoolgirl.
PS:
Since I’m already up in high dudgeon, here’s one more thing that bugs me. I’m not going to add 50 Facebook apps to my account every day, giving them and their creators access to any and all information about me.
So there. Bah. Humbug.
What with the insane euphoria of the web 2.0 crowd having found something slightly less web 1.0ish than MySpace in the social networking space and the insane euphoria of the VC crowd having found a new poster child for massively inflated valuations, I’ve been trying to maintain sort of a cool distance from Facebook.
(While, naturally, having a profile that I hardly touch.)
But this morning an old buddy from school sent me a message. By old buddy from school, I don’t mean university or even high school. I’m talking elementary school.
Wow. I hadn’t even remembered his last name, but I had remembered Jaimie.
Reconnecting with someone you haven’t seen in maybe 20 years is pretty cool.
Well, I’m unhappy to report that Second Life is just as big a pain in the you-know-what as my first life.I’ve had an account for years, but haven’t used it much. However, now I’m doing a paper for my master’s program in educational technology, and thought I’d get back in for some hands-on research.Only problem? Bugs, bugs, bugs.After downloading and installing a fresh client right from the Second Life servers, I’m told during start up that I need the latest version. Clicking the download update button crashes with an unknown error (twice) … so now I’m re-downloading Second Life … all 90 MBs of it.Fun, fun, fun. If this wasn’t for a good cause …
OK, I’ve moved my OPML to Google Reader from Bloglines and I’m going to give it a shot.Based on the last 15 minutes use, it’s probably going to stick.We’ll see …
Count me shocked.
MacSurfer, the grand-daddy and still king of Mac news sites, has unveiled a new look, now in beta. Times have changed, mullets have gone out of fashion, Michael is no longer the king of pop, and tie-dye is out … but MacSurfer, the essense of web 1.0, has stubbornly remained completely and utterly static. So any update is a bonus.
Major changes:
- 1-column to 3-column
- Font size for article titles is smaller
- Tabbed navigation (as opposed to no navigation at all)
- More add space (in the afore-mentioned 2 extra columns)
- Integrated search (not just a link)
- Archives
- Archives!
- Let’s say it one more time: finally, finally, archives! Now that great article you saw on MacSurfer but forgot where it was is findable.
- Translations (don’t get too excited, they’re via Google … “El Maco updating system blue muy excellent sofa” is a likely translation)
- Times when articles added
That’s a lot of change for a grand old dame … but there could be more.
Social features like commenting, submissions, and voting might make MacSurfer less of a jumping-off site and more of a social hub … which I think would translate into significant value for its owners. At any rate: wow – great to see the change.
The world’s first economist studying a virtual world (more accurately: virtual universe) has delivered his first report:
This is the first Econ Dev blog on the economics of EVE. We are heading into unknown territory since there exists no standardized measures on how to describe and analyze an online universe, or if indeed there is a need to have new tools to describe virtual reality. Trade and industrial activities are an important part of EVE and therefore descriptive analysis of trend in quantity traded, price fluctuations and regional differences are always of interest to those participating in that business. In order to fulfill the expectations of pilots we need your comments on this dev blog and which parts are most interesting. Selected sections of this dev blog could be updated on a regular basis if the demand is there.Minerals are the basis of everything in EVE. Most things built in EVE require one or more minerals; some easy to get, others not so much. Minerals provide income for professional miners and newbies alike and no war can be won without having a good supply with which to build and equip an armada. The constant demand for minerals makes the market one of the most effective in the EVE Universe with huge volumes and thousands of trades on a daily basis. That is why examining the mineral market in some depth has been chosen as the topic for the first Econ Dev Blog (EDB).
Good news? Bad news? I don’t know … but it sure is interesting news.
In case you’re wondering what’s going on with this blog, I’m currently taking 2 courses for my Master of Educational Technology program at the University of British Columbia.
Plus doing some home reno, plus I have 3 kids, plus my wife seems to feel that somehow I ought to spend some time with her (odd, that), plus I have a full-time job (money: it’s a love/hate relationship).
So some things suffer.In any case, for my ETEC 522 course “Ventures in Learning Technology” we’re reviewing educational technology ventures: start-up businesses. Since one of the profs for the course is behind a social knowledge storage/management start-up called CrowdTrust, we’re putting most of our thoughts and comments into that system. (Here are mine.)
One thing I wanted to share here is a memo I wrote concerning a company’s pitch for VC money.
Hopefully I haven’t been too savage.
Consumer-generated Media has a nice breakdown of Steve Jobs open letter to early iPhone adopters who hit the roof when Apple recently announced the $200 price break.Excerpt:
What an incredible year to watch and learn from CEO-level behavior in times of crisis and difficulty. First we had Jet Blue, faced with an impossibly difficult situation, take to the airwaves on YouTube, apologize profusely, and announce a new passenger bill of rights. While Menu Foods practically hid their CEO during the pet recall issue, Mattel put their CEO, Bob Eckert, on the website video airwaves to nurture trust and confidence in the wake of the toy recall (a still-in-progress case study). Now we have Steve Jobs, who just wrote and posted the most remarkable letter in response to concerns about iPhone’s recent price decrease. He coupled an apology with a $100 Apple credit for all early-buyers of the iPhone. This is classic Defensive Branding. I predict it will be one of the most discussed, debated, and linked-to letters of the year, and so far I’ve already counted over 800 unique blog postings referencing his letter since 6 PM last night.
A full breakdown of the letter follows …
I want the new iMac.
I want the new iPhoto.
I want the new iMovie.
I want the new GarageBand.
I want the new Keynote.
I want the new Numbers.
I’m not really impressed with iWeb.
Not too sure about .Mac yet.
I don’t really have a need for Pages – Word is good.
Best new iPhoto feature
Better organization of photos. Events is just brilliant … we have 14,000 photos and they’re just a complete blur. Events makes sense, and it’ll be a major enhancements. I called my wife down for that chunk of the demo, and it passed her keenly tuned BS filters. She even said “cool” a few times.
Best new iMovie features
Movie library just like photo library: one of those things that is obvious after Apple does it. Creating a movie in minutes: very needed, and very awesome.
Still needed: easier podcasting
I still think Apple needs a better podcasting tool. GarageBand is not the obvious place to go for podcasting, and it’s still not super simple and easy there, AFAIK.
I guess the title says it all … Akismet, which is a comment spam identification and deletion tool, is under the active menu, Manage, not under Comments.Odd.On a related note, I’m getting something like 5000 comment spam attempts a week, of which about 1 makes it through onto the site.Two things that implies:
- Akismet is stunningly amazingly incredibly good. There are no words.
- A huge amount of web traffic is spambots looking for places to implant their evil input. I wonder what percentage? 1%? 3%?
- Bonus implication: the success rate for comment spam is approaching zero … for blog/forum owners who know about Akismet.
I’ve been slowly taking my MET graduate degree over the past few years. The course I’ll be taking next semester sounds like it’ll be the most interesting one to date: ETEC 522.
ETEC 522 is an online immersion in the global eLearning marketplace with particular emphasis on the environmental dynamics, evolving business models and success characteristics of eLearning enterprises in public and commercial domains. The course will be delivered in a case-study modality from a venture analysis perspective. The primary learning materials will be a “pitch pool” of authentic 12-minute venture finance presentations by the leading executives and leaders of current, real-world eLearning enterprises spanning the diversity of approaches to eLearning business opportunities. Examples representing entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial ventures will provide a balance between corporate and institutional enterprise. As the foundation for practical learning, students will undertake the critical due diligence analysis of these ventures individually, in groups, and with professional venture finance guidance.
Learning? This is fun!
I’ve been searching for a long, long time for a way to save screencasts made on a Mac to Flash. Snapz Pro is an excellent screencast-creating tool, but saves to a QuickTime movie. Flash is more widely available and least likely to have compatability problems.
Today I saw Jing, which looks very promising. It lets you create screencasts (as well as annotated screen captures, and a Mac version was just announced.
I’ve downloaded it, and will try it out, then update this post with my thoughts. Something I’m thinking already: wouldn’t it be cool it if did annotated screencasts!
One interesting thing: screen captures and screencasts are automatically uploaded to screencasts.com, where you can share it with anyone you wish. I don’t know much about it yet, but you can imagine the possibilities of a social network built up around screencasts – sort of like Flickr and photos, YouTube and videos, and so on. Intriguing!
Just wanted to call attention to the fact that my buddies at Agile Media have started up a blog: Personally Speaking.
Agile is a really interesting confluence of traditional printing and modern media, nicely combined in a unified marketing package that is personal, personal, personal.
I’m looking for more great things from you, Peter & Rick!