Building your brand on Twitter is an important part of whether or not your brand/image will be successful on Twitter.  It is imperative that you not only build a targeted following, but more importantly that you create a conversation with or at a minimum provide your followers with useful information.

In this post, I am not going to go over the basics such as filling out your Twitter profile and uploading an avatar.  You can read about that type of stuff in “Basics of Building Your Twitter Profile.”  Instead I will discuss several items you should focus on should you want your twitter brand to succeed.

Be Proactive

Many tweeps commonly have questions or problems they need help with.  This is your opportunity to step in and come to the rescue by answering their question or atleast referring them to a source that may help them.  By helping them, you not only solve their issue, you help establish credibility and identity among the Twitter community.

It is an even better opportunity to help someone out that you or your company offers as a product or service to resolve their problem.  Not only can this produce a targeted lead, but it can ultimately result in a sale.

If you are not proactive in your niche or area of business, chances are someone else will come along and be proactive.  They will establish the credibility among the community, build the dedicated following, while you are trying to play catch up.  You don’t want that, do you?

Share What’s Happening/Be Newsworthy

If you are typically digging up the newest social media marketing trends or other industry topics, why not share them with your followers?  This sort of falls into the proactive step listed above.  However, providing your followers with newsworthy information, you will establish credibility of being “in the know”.

Make sure what you are sharing is important and interesting.  If you are trying to share something lame, chances are no one will care and you will probably lose some credibility among your followers.

If you don’t have anything unique to share, this is a great opportunity to retweet something that was tweeted to you and will strengthen your relationship of whom you retweeted.

Create a Targeted Following

What good is it to have a bunch of followers if they are not interested in what you have to say?  Not much.  This is why it is imperative to build a targeted following with people interested in your business or niche.  Chances are it will be easier to be proactive and newsworthy with them (see above, wink).

Engage Your Followers

Not only should you be proactive and newsworthy with your followers, you need to engage with them on a more personal level.  By this I mean you should take the time to respond to DM’s and @replies when you can.  While it can be somewhat time consuming, ignoring followers trying to interact with you is not a great idea.  Isn’t your goal to build a brand and relationship with your followers?  I suggest you build relationships with those followers who ARE interested in what you have to say.

Brand Your Twitter Page

While it may not necessarily break you, pimping out your Twitter page is a good idea (just don’t look at my Twitter Page right now lol).  A tricked out page not only is eye catching, but it helps to set you apart from everyone else.  It shows you are actually real (not a bot) as well as an opportunity to provide your Twitter visitors with more information about you or your business.

Monitor Your Brand

Now that you are on your way to taking over the world with your brand, it is important to monitor it.  Twitter makes this easy via the Twitter Search.  Simply type in your business or username, then add the RSS feed to your favorite reader.  Should your name get discussed (both positively and negatively) you will be aware of the conversations taking place.  You can then step in to participate, both for damage control or to thank someone for their positive remarks.  I would not advise ignoring negative feedback, in that it could severely damage your reputation if left un-attended.

In a Nutshell

So here is the quick checklist:

1. Be Proactive
2. Be Newsworthy
3. Create a Targeted Following
4. Engage Your Followers
5. Brand Your Twitter Page
6. Monitor Your Brand

I am not saying that if you choose not to follow the steps outlined above, that you will ultimately fail, but your chances to succeed will be alot lower.  While there may be more to your branding list than mine, I am curious as to your method in order to build your twitter brand.  How do you build your Twitter brand?

Let’s take a step back to some basics today.  By now, you should be well on your way in building your twitter profile.  I am going to review some basics that you need to be sure you have covered in your twitter account.

Establishing An Identity

First and foremost, I hope you are using your online “brand” as your twitter username.  For example, ploked.com has the twitter username “ploked“.  This helps to establish brand and relationship of a site with a twitter account.  If you are not using a name that can identify with your site, business, or identity, I suggest changing your username to suit this.

Do you still have the a basic or default twitter background for your profile?  If so, you do need to take a few minutes and invest some time in creating something that stands out from other tweeps.  While the Ploked profile is not an award winning layout by any means, it does show that atleast I tried to do something with it.  There are plenty of free resources to help you easily pimp out your twitter profile.  A few sources of note are:

1. http://www.twitterbacks.com/
2. http://twitterpatterns.com/
3. http://www.twittergallery.com/index.html
4. http://tweetstyle.com/

If you still can’t find a theme you are looking for, find a site that lets you download the layout photoshop file and use your kick ass photoshop skills to pimp it out to your liking.

No profile would be complete without changing the default twitter avatar.  I suggest if you are a business to use your logo, while if you are an individual to use an actual picture of yourself.  This helps others put a face with a name so to speak.

I recommend editing your profile to include information about yourself or business.  For example, if you have a website, be sure to list the URL in your Twitter account so that followers can check out your site and what you are about.  Provide a location for yourself or business in your profile as well as a name if you choose to.

Find Targeted Followers

What good is your pimped out profile if you don’t have any followers?  Not only followers, but targeted followers.  Face it, if your twitter profile is built to promote your new dog training ebook, you don’t want to build a list of followers interested in stuff like rock climbing….unless they have a dog (wink).

So what is the best way to find followers who are interested in what you have to offer?  Easy, head on over to the twitter search!  Then type in keywords or phrases relating to your profiles interests.  Browse the results and view any potential candidates who you feel are worthy of following.

Be careful not to follow to many people at once since it could trigger flags at twitter.  Typically, I like to target no more than 100 people to follow a day if time permits.  Some people will add you right away, while others in a day or two, and others may never add you.  While I have been bad about this lately, I try to remove people not following me back when I can.

There are a few sites that help you determine who is and isn’t following you which come in handy.  Some sites of note are:

1. http://friendorfollow.com/
2. http://useqwitter.com/
3. http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/
4. http://twitterless.com/

There you have it, a few fundamentals of building the perfect twitter account.  In our next blog post, we will take a look at how to pimp out your profile/tweets by integrating it with your wordpress blog as well as how to promote your content on twitter.

Do you have a suggestion that I may have not included in the basics of building a twitter profile?  If so, let me hear about it!

Does your business use Twitter yet?  Or any social media site for that matter?  If not, you are potentially missing out on future clients, future sales and most importantly increased profitability.  Remember when Myspace, was “the next big thing”?  Well that is sort of where twitter is at right now.  Over the past year, it has gained an increaed following, not only of individuals, but potential customers of yours.

Twitter is relatively a new social networking service that has really changed the meaning of communication. Well, not only in personal communication but also in business communication, Twitter has managed to gain a massive following of users. With this increase of popularity, it only makes sense that Twitter is a great way to promote your business needs.

Twitter is a social networking service that gets the message to your customers or clients at lightning speed, which makes your business promotion in a great way. This is the perfect micro-blogging service that helps in communicating to the world about your business advancements, products and services without any investment. With limited words (only messages with 140 characters can be written twitter), you can communicate in real terms with all your followers.

With the increased popularity of twitter, most of the well established companies the world over now have twitter accounts.  Has your company established itself on Twitter yet?  Companies already utilizing the site find Twitter a great place to promote their business. Twitter, the micro-blogging service, is the best way to reach out to the employees, customers and partners.

This social networking service is also a great place where one can come up with business announcements like the launch of a new product and other special business proposals. You can post these announcements in twitter on a regular basis, which gets you the best exposure to your followers. For example if you are an e-commerce website, then twitter helps in promoting the new products, sales, and other special offers in which you may have. You can also include reviews from the customers in your Twitter account that gives more credibility to your business.

While promoting business through Twitter, it should be noted that you have to give your followers valuable information on your products and services. The more information is added in twitter, the more you get to promote your business through twitter.  One way to offer more value to your followers is to offer some sort of sale or special discounts for twitter followers only.  This means that this discount will only be available for followers of your account.  These followers will feel appreciated and more than likely take advantage of the deal you present them.

Twitter is also a great way to monitor your customer feedback.  For example, you can see what others have to say about your company, products and services, which only helps in promoting your business.  Listen to what others say in twitter helps in building good relationship and in improving your business.  If a problem should arise with your business, you have the opportunity to effectively solve the dilemma at hand.  Others will take note of your proactive solution and see the value you place in customer satisfaction.  However, if you blow off people with problems, chances are it could be detrimental to your business since bad customer service news will spread fast.

Last but not the least; maintain professionalism in the small messages, called tweets, which you sent. Always remember that people like to follow only the professional way.   Do not post up topics irrelevant to your business or products….Chances are that people are following you in order to gain insight on your business and not what you are having for lunch

Twitter is an extremely powerful tool that can explode your business to new heights if properly utilized.  While I only briefly gave examples of a few small ideas, I hope to go more in depth on a future post describing some killer tactics to help your business profit from Twitter.

So has your business used Twitter yet?  What results or experiences can you share?

I search the classifieds for jobs pretty often, I’ve been doing it since my early years of college so I could figure out if there were jobs out there. For the most part, there aren’t any. However, I’m noticing a trend in social media jobs. The general work in social media is something of a cross between marketing,

A president with a Social Media degree? Perhaps in the future.

communications, and editorial; three areas that, in their own, are independent jobs. To prepare for the incoming growth of social media, the first thing we need are more available courses.

As more and more companies are asking for users to be adept in all things Facebook and Twitter, courses in college will help kids cover this. In my opinion, it’s is a lot more useful than foreign language as I have yet to put my elementary French to use. Companies have found it increasingly difficult to manage their social media forums which is why it is becoming a full-time job and something you might be able to cash in on.

• Marketing: Facebook on its own is now seen as a full marketing tool as much as a social media site. Information about things you like can be sent to third parties and companies can even pay Facebook to showcase their site to possible audiences. If you’re hired by a company to use social media, there is a good chance you’ll have to do a fair share of marketing, whether it be asking your friends, paying the premium fee to get users, or guerilla marketing. If the company uses Twitter, your job will be to update often, follow as many people as possible, and to tell them about your company. It’s lot more work than it sounds but it will also reap great rewards if done correctly.
• Communications:  In order to keep your pages happy, you have to keep your fans happy. In short, just talk to them or update them about the progress of your company. Individual replies may seem very hard to do given a massive company social media following,but from time to time it will help with the trust factor between consumer and producer.
• Editorial: All of the above mentioned is useless if you don’t have basic editorial skills. I’m sure when you’re posting a status update for a recognized bank, users don’t want to see something like ‘Yo, dis bank izz awesome, get up on it ya dig.‘ Basic editorial means having a great voice for your audience to listen to, good grammar, and a well rounded writing demeanor. At a previous position, we would write a new update at the same time throughout the day on a balanced schedule so fans could expect it. You don’t want to bombard your followers because there’s a good chance they’ll reject you. If you don’t space out your posts they’ll lose interest.

When it’s all said and done, social media is truly becoming its own career. Last year Birmingham University offered a one year course that focused on social networking sites as communications and marketing tools. Don’t overlook social media as a fad. It’s here to stay and should you know your stuff in it, there’s a lot of money to be made. There’s no telling how far it will go, maybe one day our future president will have a PhD. in Social Media from one of our top schools. Ask not what you can tweet about your country, ask what your country can tweet about for you. I kid.

Reid Stowe has been smooth sailing the media waves after returning from his three-year wet dream to sail around the world without land stops. As he drifted to a dock for the first time in 1,152 days, he choked back tears, acknowledging his parents and greeting his 23- month-old son for the first time.

Reid Stowe broke the record at sea and took his place as water cooler conversation. Not since Captain Sully took on feathered evil doers and saved a plane full of lives landing in the Hudson has there been so much excitement on our oily waterways (oh right, except for that other record breaker this year, BP). The alerted press stationed and readied their cameras as Reid Stowe went from loner in water to wet wipes on land. No sign of a shell shocked man as he spoke for the cameras and united with his family. It’s the good ending for a man that has the same look on his face as the charismatic and tragic bear lover/ bear dinner, Timothy Treadwell. And the resourcefulness of the young nomad, Christopher McCandless. His story, among others in the book Into The Wild, was later made into stinging recreation on celluloid.

Unlike the above determined seekers, Stowe is home safe (and sound? Well, it’s been debated). From isolation to celebration and persecution, he seems to be handling his greeting like a natural. Yes, coming home to your toddler son, girlfriend, and the entire world speculating, all while maintaining that telling smile that few people have- the one of someone on a freaking mission. Stowe built the 70-ft schooner himself, and despite the look of a ship that has been roughing it around the globe, it evokes something most of us lost by puberty and activating some part of the brain that doesn’t get enough action.

But the voyager has other people shaking heads and tirelessly typing out their disapproval. On 1000daysofhell.blogspot.com, Reid-haters paint a picture of a freeloading nut job, smuggling drugs, swindling money and toting a sex slave on some fantastical suicide mission. The site has productively disputed the legitimacy of his claimed occurrences from the beginning, as quickly as he chronicled them in his online communications from sea, 1000days.net – that is until the ship capsized and the computer became a casualty. Only the sailor and a trusty satellite phone survived, luckily.

So, for some, this whole odyssey is old news. Apparently Stowe worked for a decade to get funding, food donations, and ship repairs to prepare the schooner for the 1,000 day trip. The trip was still a familiar setting; he has lived on it since the late 70’s. That’s about seven years before Reid’s girlfriend and baby mama, Soanya Ahmad, did some other kind of sailing… through a birth canal. His persistence in getting funds for the exploration to sea paid off, and in 2007 at age 55, he’d gathered enough support to finally sail off into the sunset with his generation crossed lover Soanya for 1,000 days without touching land.

And though land was successfully avoided, a run in with a freighter was not. Fifteen days in and a collision with a freighter? Red Flag? Maybe just a standard sailing hurdle? Understandable crash, a freighter is like the unnoticeable tip of an iceberg **EXCEPT** upside down and a monstrous obstruction above the water. One would hope that would be fairly avoidable for a seasoned seaman. Schooner VS freighter crash, who wins? I would expect a crushing defeat for a sailing yogi in his own hand built schooner, but the incident didn’t put a damper in the plan. The duo stuck with it until  Soanya caught a case of the hurls every morning and jumped ship after some 300 days. The diagnosis – sea sickness. The reality – preggers.

Reid continued on for another 852 days doing yoga, eating sprouts, and tracing a huge heart in the ocean with his big ship, a shout-out to his now landlocked sea mate. Whether the couple stopped for some tacos in Mexico, or the freighter was really a dinky kayak, or he talked on the phone all day and bartered with fishermen, it’s still a major accomplishment of a man who did what he wanted. And that is how he has made history online, on sea and aboard ship.

The event that captures the attention of every country in the world (except the United States, for the most part) is upon us and will continue to be with us until July 11th 2010. If you’re anything like me, an American who really has no idea about the World Cup but would like to stay tuned to the global event, here are some helpful apps that may aid you.
ESPN 2010 FIFA world cup (Free): There are quite a lot of World Cup apps out there that promise to keep you updated with the latest news from Johannesburg. This app, however, is my favorite thus far for the following reasons. For one, it has a gorgeous, easy to use interface that tells you the schedule, the scores, and the news. You can find out if your favorite players are injured, and watch video (if you get too lazy to read you can just hear what the experts have to say). You can even sign up and create a bracket for the Cup.  That means, if your prediction turns out to be right, you will have some bragging rights. Perhaps two of my favorite options are “Venues” and “Tournament History.” Venues gives you a brief background of all of the fields that the teams are playing on and a map showing where they are. And tournament history mixes the ease of Wikipedia with the trusted name of ESPN. You can now, with the flick of a finger, check in on the history of the tournament so you can know where past World Cup’s has been held, the controversies, and the winners. No longer will you come off as an uneducated observer. Now, you will be able to impress those around you with your supernatural knowledge of the game.

Air Horn (Free):  When you do sit down to watch a match (and you should for history’s sake) a particular sound will resonate thoughout the game. This is the vuvuzela which is a 3 foot long, loud plastic horn. It costs about $1 to make and is sold for about $10 at the World Cup. However, if you have an iPhone and you’re at the Cup, or just sitting on your couch, download the Air Horn app. It’s simple to use. Just touch the screen or shake your iPhone like crazy. With it being free, the only cost is possibly killing your battery from overuse, or the cost of your friendships as you will probably be annoying your friends around you.

Angry Birds ($.99): If you’re wondering why I have a game here, the simple answer is because of halftime. What better way to spend your break than throwing birds at the homes of pigs, since that’s the premise of the Angry Birds game. A bunch of pigs have stolen your beloved eggs and you have to sacrifice yourself, kamikaze style, to show how pissed off you are. And you might very well be pissed off after seeing that your team is down 2-0 at the half, so maybe Angry Birds will help you to alleviate that stress. Angry Birds is also the hottest app at the moment so even if you don’t play it at half time, you’ll still have fun wherever you are.

For as long as I can remember, The Pirate Bay has been engulfed in a media frenzy over its torrent site where users can “share” pretty much whatever they wish, much to the displeasure of the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. However, they have decided to expand on their company with the addition of  a new dating site called “Pirate Date.”

I was hoping this was a joke but after checking out the site and actually signing up (I have NO intentions of dating anyone through the Internet) it turns out that it’s quite real. For starters, you fill out a short form, mainly the basics such as age and location, and then go about finding your mate. The major issue which I noted right off the bat is that there really isn’t any parameters for finding  “the one” – this is more about finding anyone. Even that Apple dating site allows users to have something in common. Granted, it’s their love for Apple products, but still.

The stranger part is that you can link your Pirate Mate profile to your Facebook account, something I chose not to do for fear of ridicule from my friends should they see my page. But by linking Pirate Mate and Facebook, users can directly see the Facebook profiles of potential love interests and find what the site likes to call “Trust Paths.” According to The Pirate Date, they are important because:

In a strange turn of circumstances, Pirate Date advocates social trust, where friends can vouch for other friends through these trust paths.

Even stranger is the Social Proximity gauge that allows users to see how trustworthy other users are based on factors like their relationships between other members and the duration of those relationships. In other words, your social proximity to your best friend is probably 100%.

The poor layout of the site should be your first warning that this site is an epic fail. There are no questions of what I want in a significant other, which in itself is significant enough to count this as a poor dating site. But in the end, I doubt you’ll go far with the site – just look at the image on the home screen . That alone should speak volumes about the quality of this project.

I’ve never been a fan of things I don’t need. I don’t need a snuggie come this cold winter, I don’t need a bread maker from one of those shopping networks, and I don’t need Yahoo Mail teaming up with Facebook. In late May, Yahoo announced that its mail service would be stepping up by making the web more accessible through Yahoo Mail. Sites like Pandora, Flickr, YouTube, and popular blogging sites were magically incorporated last year to seamlessly transfer their updates to your user account for your viewing pleasure. The big news, however, came when Yahoo announced that your Facebook news feed would be accessible through Yahoo Mail. Not only will you see the latest viral videos that your friends ‘like’, but your mail even gets pre-sorted thanks to an upgrade. You can now read the important things first, but those e-mails about inheriting a large sum of money from an African Prince will have to wait. Sorry Nigerian scammers.

The addition of Facebook is definitely a move to help gain more users as well as gain ground on the giant Gmail. The company has been dueling with Google’s Gmail for years, with Google taking a large step recently with the ‘Buzz’ feature which allowed users to share updates with their friends. The mediocre mail service offered from Yahoo is probably hoping that it’s pro-Facebook attitude will help some of the 400 million users from Facebook come to Yahoo.

With this Facebook feature, users can interact with their Facebook account right on their Yahoo Mail page. If you get an e-mail about that special someone leaving a comment on your wall, instead of clicking on the given link which will take you to your Facebook page, now you can just respond live. I do believe that this feature will be a step in the right direction for Yahoo, despite similar endeavors with Twitter and YouTube never having really caught on.

Jason Titus, vice president of Yahoo’s communications division noted in The Wallstreet Journal, “We’re more of an aggregator rather than a core social network,” when speaking of the new change. But all of these changes doesn’t change the fact that Yahoo mail still lacks as a service compared to Gmail which has great features like texting, calendar, video chat, themes, tons of space, and perhaps most importantly, an overall efficient site. While I appreciate Yahoo’s attempt at integrating other sites, I can easily go to those sites quickly. In short, the changes won’t make me a Yahoo Mail convert. However, if you already love Yahoo mail,  this Facebook add-on will probably be one of your favorites. As for you, Mr. Yahoo, you can put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day it’s still a pig, and you are still a subpar mail provider.

Despite both reading and writing innumerable words about Google, the company, it dawned on me that I didn’t have a ton of insight on the search capabilities offered on the site. This revelation came as I searched for a specific print ad created at a former agency. Perhaps more frustrating than not being able to find it was the fact that I it was to help someone else. Which is why I had to keep going long after I should have stopped. I can quit on my own stuff, but feel compelled to deliver for someone else.

Ridiculous considering that the ad had not, to my knowledge, been displayed online. Google can’t find something that doesn’t exist. In the end, I didn’t find it, leading me to search Google about conducting better Google searches. I felt a little better due to the number of returns (206,000,000) but I wasn’t going to look through all that crap. At this point, I decided to see what Google said about searching on Google.

I knew a couple of cool things before this all began.  Certain search terms can be excluded from a query by adding a minus sign before the word you don’t want included. If searching for marketing, but not advertising, enter “marketing -advertising.” This instructs Google to show marketing results, but not advertising. The wild card (*), once used to find file types on a computer (*.jpg = all jpegs) works on Google. Users can also search specific domains for results; to find content about advertising on the Wall Street Journal, enter “advertising site:www.wsj.com.“ To find a specific company, add the company name to the query; “advertising Kraft site:www.wsj.com.“ Google will also perform calculations and conversions. To add, enter “4084593 + 283450″ in the search bar. Google returns 4368043 as an answer.  The other operators are “-” for subtraction, “*” to multiply, and “/” to divide. The conversion function is great because you don’t have to search for a conversion table; to find the number of yards in a mile, enter “yards=.” The search bar will show  a couple of options; yards to meters, yards to miles, or yards to feet.

Google also has some tips for searching Google. On the “Basic Search Help” page, there’s information about making search easy. Google outlines the basics:

• Every word matters. Generally, all the words you put in the query will be used.
• Search is always case insensitive. A search for “new york times”  is the same as a search for “New York Times.”
• Generally, punctuation is ignored, including @#$%^&*()=+[]\ and other special characters. [see note]

Note: Although “ignored,” the @-sign will search for Twitter users; @jl0312 brings up my Twitter page.

There are also some general tips, like keeping queries simple, but descriptive. The weather forecast in Cancun is best as “cancun weather,“ and not, “Weather Outlook in Cancun Mexico.” Zip codes narrow down searches in and around your house; “Bank 66207″ lists banks in Overland Park, KS.

A link called, “More Search Help” goes a bit deeper, explaining, for instance, that Google automatically uses synonyms. A search on health care (with space) will also return healthcare (no space).  If you need to find specific terms without the extra results, add a “+” in front of the word, or “+health care.“ This pages lists several methods to define the results, but also informs that Google team members use these features “less than 5% of the time.”

• Phrase search (“”) The use of double quotes instructs Google to find the exact words. “Wheat germ” won’t show results for wheat germ oil.
• The OR operator Allows for comparative data searches, or searches to separate similar data over two periods. For example,

But wait, there’s more! There are “cheat sheets” available on Google so you don’t have to remember everything; one is located  in the Librarian Center (clear explanations, .pdf format), the other in the help area under Cheat Sheet (not easily downloaded, fuzzy on explanation).  Google covers other nuances for search, beginning with exception. Search is a fluid process, updated frequently to provide more features, increase speed, and update plug-ins.

Although Google states that every word matters, some aren’t included during search; Words like, ‘a,’ and ‘for,’ are a waste of time. A final link for tools on search, this one on “Explore Google Search,” adding a few more tools to your search efforts.

We all do a lot of dumb things that one day we look back on and say, “WTF was I thinking?” For Mark Zuckerberg that defining moment may be when he changed the privacy settings on Facebook. However, the bigger issue may be the movie that is coming out called “The Social Network,”which chronicles the development of Facebook. I highly doubt he’s going to be thrilled at watching himself on the big screen, especially since it seems like his privacy settings are going to be open to the public.

With a slated release date sometime in October of this year, it’s a bit surprising that there isn’t anything close to a trailer, hardly any media hype, and it sounds more like a rumor than an actual production.  But according to reports and a few grainy images (One showing rising star Jesse Eisenberg of “Zombieland” as Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg) the move is very real.

The film is based off of the book “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich which chronicles the rise of Facebook and the falling out between the two creators. Ben Mezrich is no stranger on book-to-screen productions. His book “Bringing Down the House” about MIT students who counted cards in Vegas was adapted into “21.”  There is some irony that in creating Facebook, a site that brings people together, it tore two friends apart. I know what you’re wondering – who was the other guy that helped found Facebook?

Answer: Eduardo Saverin. He reminds me of the other guy in the 80′s band Wham!. Everyone knows George Michael but the other guy eludes me. Oh well.

This film has a rather mediocre budget at around $47 million. Aside from the awkward Eisenberg, there are  only two other well known actors in the cast, the lovely Rashida Jones from ‘The Office” and “Parks and Recreation,” and some guy named Justin Timberlake. When you really come to think of it, you probably don’t need much media hype or well known actors to sell this movie. Facebook has over 400 million users and there’s a good chance many of them are going to want to know how this internet Goliath come about and the story behind the those who created it.

In the end this is said to be a comedy-drama. I expect the comedy to be dorky kids at Harvard letting their hair loose and the drama from the struggles between the two founders. I don’t see this as being the next “Avatar” but I do think there’s going to be some interest surrounding it. Only time show us how Zuckerberg feels about this whole thing and if we will actually “like” this cinematic experience.

Social media isn’t just a “place for friends;” it’s a place for business. In fact, solid proof exists that social media campaigns grow more than leads or traffic, but increase sales as well.  (I recently wrote an article documenting increased sales as a direct result of social media campaigns.)

As more success stories are published, companies that haven’t already gravitated toward social media will begin to do so. This will increase the need for social media managers

There’s only one university of which I’m aware that offers a social media degree. The one-year, full-time, $6,500 program will get you a Master’s degree. However, some online sources doubt the program’s depth. A smattering of online colleges offer social media degrees (i.e., University of San Francisco), but I wasn’t able to find any data on the programs’ success (or lack-thereof).

The problem is multi-layered, the first hurdle being a shortage of  social media “masters” capable of teaching social media engagement in-depth; according to Traffickd, there are at least 475 active social media sites (ironically, two sites that I use regularly aren’t on the list…). Complicating matters further, social media is like shifting sand; a course curriculum in February is obsolete as soon as it’s printed.  These are endemic issues with tech companies, and until there’s a standard, companies that wish to increase their social media prowess will struggle to find knowledgeable social media managers who can not only drive results, but also add value to the organization.

Since it is marketing, I suggest a methodical approach. Before any hiring’s contemplated, check out the landscape. Listen in. What are businesses like yours doing/saying? What are their customers talking about? What vehicles (channels) are they using? Which seem to be working? Where’s the “buzz,” and what does it indicate? Once you’ve figured out your surroundings, outline long-term goals and short-term objectives (if you don’t know the difference, click here). Marketing, social or otherwise, comes at a price. While social media may not require an actual budget, the costs are exacted in terms of  hours and effort.

If you walk away with one thing today, let it be this: TV and radio commercials aren’t usually capable of ruining a company’s brand image. However, lousy social media manners like sporadic communication, message over-kill, poor response-time,  impersonal “canned” responses, spam, inconsistency, can destroy community relations and credibility in weeks.  Proceed with caution and ensure that all those involved are clear on goals, objectives,  strategies, tactics, as well as the execution of all items.

So, what should companies look for when searching for social media practitioners? There’s no formula, nor do I have a  ”right” answer; I do, however, have a few ideas on what to look for in a candidate. While not an all-encompassing list, the following suggestions may provide your business with a little social media salvation:

• iMedia suggests trashing all candidates who label themselves as a “Ninja, Guru, or Evangelist“
• ‘Social media expert” is a claim anyone can make since there’s little proof (i.e., no degree).  How does the candidate back their claim? Did they attend any college courses or receive certification from a credible source? (Hubspot, for instance, offers online courses that culminate with an exam.)
• Online sites like Mashable, ChrisBrogan.com, Hubspot, Techcrunch, and Technorati provide a wealth of insight into the industry, as well as some of its denizens.
• Most people with advertising/marketing backgrounds are a good bet; they understand fundamental strategy. (Note: I did not say “All people with…“)
• Is your prospect strategic-thinking? Chris Brogan suggests asking candidates how they’d report weekly listening and social media work to top managers at a global corporation in under two minutes.
• Ask candidates for links leading to their personal profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, FriendFeed, Del.icio.us,  etc. Start following them.
• Use Twitter Grader or Blog Grader to determine a candidate’s social media influence.
• Your candidate should have some experience with blogging (or a vlog); if not as content-provider, then as editor or planner. Basic HTML skills are a plus.
• Read the candidates social media iterations. Are they insightful, goofy, or shameless personal promotion?
• Does the prospect have a good grip on language use (English in our case)? They’re going to be a “voice” for your company.
• Does the candidate understand the basic online ad measurement? Do they know the principles of search engine marketing andoptimization?
• So, Ashton Kutcher has a million+ followers on Twitter. It’s not about quantity…an idiot can hit request a million times and and net 10,000 friends

Last, but not least:

• Ask tons of questions. I entered, “What questions should I ask a social media expert?” into Google and received 5,730,000 results in 0.28 seconds. There’s no shortage of data.

Other than that, read social media blogs, check out the digital version of the Wall Street Journal, subscribe to RSS feeds, set up some Google alerts, and start to define your company’s online footprint.  Social monitoring sites like Social Mention or Viral Heat might not be a bad idea, either. Don’t dive blindly, but start testing the waters. Social media may change, but it won’t be going away. Also, check out tips on ChrisBrogan.com, iMedia, and Mashable.

In the past several weeks, Facebook has come under fire after widely publicizing changes in privacy settings. With over 400 million users in its grasp and the Internet seemingly bowing down to its every need, this negative publicity must be making Facebook a little uncomfortable, and it’s just getting worse. In April, New York Senator Chuck Schumer asked the Federal Trade Commission to check out the privacy guidelines of Facebook. There are now a growing number of users who are leaving Facebook for good. So far 1,605 people have signed up for Facebook Quit Day on May 31st. Here I interview Matthew Milan, one of the creators of the group. He currently runs his own company that specializes in the strategic side of interaction design for the web and devices.

SR: Who is behind the movement and how did it get started?

MM: The frustration people have with Facebook that you’re are calling a movement [I don't see it that way] has been developing for a long time. Joe Dee and I didn’t look to start a revolt as some have suggested, we just put a URL to a notion that was on the mind of a lot of people right now.  We reached a point where we didn’t feel comfortable being on Facebook anymore, and decided to be open about why we we’re leaving.

What was your biggest issue with Facebook?

While I believe it’s acceptable for organizations to collect and use comprehensive personal data from individuals, they must do it in a way that 1) Gives individuals fair choices to decide how that data is used, and 2) Is done with the intent of serving the best interests of current (and future) society as a whole.

Since Facebook is not doing either of these (and is, in fact, heading rapidly in the other direction), I’m no longer interested in maintaining a presence of any type on the site. If a company doesn’t consider information sustainability in their designs, they are not creating any long term value for humanity. For me, my frustration with Facebook wasn’t about privacy – privacy is a symptom of some emerging bigger issues, which most of us can’t clearly articulate yet. We latch on to privacy as the main concern because it’s an issue we can all directly relate to.

Do you think we have become too open on the Internet?

No. I’m personally quite comfortable with being open on the internet, and I think the people should have the choice to act online just as the act in meatspace. If you want to be private, that’s your choice and your right. If you want to be public, that’s also your choice and your right.

Users are going to be missing out on the largest social networking site, how can they compensate for that?

Well, I personally don’t see it as missing out. I was using the web socially across everything from IRC to Flickr before I started using Facebook, and I’ve got a multitude of options now. Many people are used to going to Facebook for everything, and they won’t be able to compensate with just one single site – they’ll need to branch out and use a range of resources.

I’ve always seen Facebook like high school – it’s a tight, well integrated interaction framework, where you can easily connect with everyone you know or want to know about. It’s not the whole world though and, quite frankly, if you spent your entire life living in the high school environment, you’d become rather socially stunted. It’s not a bad thing to get out and see what else is out there once in a while.

What does Facebook have to do to win you back?

I’m not interested in them winning me back – I don’t get a lot of utility from Facebook and can’t see what they could do to convince me that they were doing anything differently in the future. Honestly, I’d have to see the value of spending time on there AND know that my data and information was being treated with respect and dignity.

What are some good things about being FB free?

I don’t feel like my “information shadow” is being whored out indiscriminately for the rest of eternity. That’s a pretty good one for me.

There are a lot of people against you (pro-FBers), any words for them?

There are always opposing viewpoints, and this is a good thing. For people who don’t agree with my views on Facebook, I encourage them to continue to develop their own position based on a solid understanding of the topic at hand. Having a well formed opinion is the best way for people to make the right decisions on issues like these.  I strongly believe in the reasoning behind my desire to quit Facebook, but I’d rather see people disagree with me intelligently than follow me blindly.

The 4th Annual Internet Week NYC starts on Monday, June 7th.  If you didn’t get your VIP invite to The Webby’s, there are many other ways for all of us nerds to join in the fun. Internet Week NYC, launched in 2008, is presented by The Academy of Digital Arts and Science. Anyone from big businesses to individual bloggers are allowed to attend and host events under the Internet Week banner. The week long festival has been picking up speed each year and this year has secured the massive Metropolitan Pavillion as its headquarters (note the addition of HQ at the end of Internet Week NYC) which will accommodate larger events that require interactive media space.

Webby award winning and prestigious bookmarked site, Mashable, is a major player for social media content and an all around awesome web publisher. Unfortunately, for those of us financially challenged, Mash isn’t holding another free Exhibit Hall like last year’s, complete with food and drink. This time around, Mashable has teamed up with CNN for their first Mashable Media Summit, a full day focusing on the impact of social media in news, branding, and advertising industries. An in-depth conference with a number of experts in social media and other mediums will speak, including  Foursquare co-founder, Dennis Crowley.  A discussion on branding will be lead by Chris Bruzzo from Starbucks. Mashable Media Summit Tickets are still available for about $500, which includes breakfast, kosher lunch, and a wine and networking closing event.

Here are some of the events that won’t put a crack in your piggy bank. “The Feast” revolves around social innovation and  discussing ways to improve the world.  All Day Buffet hosts this inspiring event at “The Apartment” at 101 Crosby, 6/7 at 6:30. A handful of tickets are still remaining for a cool $20! If you want to “startup” earlier on Monday, head over to Whiskey Rebel at 2:30pm for the $15 liquid lunch event “Startupalpha.com” and the “Big Deal Room”. Enjoy ice cold brews and endless popcorn as entrepreneurs get info on new technologies to get your dream off the ground. And, speaking of getting off the ground, Brooklyn Boulder climbing gym is the venue for the free “Social Climber” event. Enjoy DJs, snacks, and refreshments while seeing Internet folks get physical. Click HERE for a complete schedule of events.

The week ends with the posh 14th annual Webby Awards, which I can sum up in five words – “Damn, I want to go!” Actually, winners must sum it up in five words, which can be thoroughly entertaining. By invitation only, Sunset Cocktails are offered the day before the ceremony on top of the swank Standard Hotel. The ceremony gets started on June 14th at the beautiful Cipriani venue on Wall Street, concluded by an after party at the Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel. With attendees ranging from computer geeks to A-list celebrities, the Webby’s have been going strong for 14 years and are the coveted award for web publishers in any field.

The last couple years were hosted by the hilarious Seth Meyers of SNL fame. This year will be hosted by the very funny B.J. Novic of The Office. There will still be SNL cast members on hand, including Amy Poehler, who won Best Actress for her online series, Smart Girl at the Party. Film and Video of the year award goes to musicians “Ok Go”for their impressive use of the internet for their authentic visions and superior videos. Here are all the winners so you can check out the work that got them the cherished Webby!

This is a site dedicated to social media. As such, it’s in the interest of those of us who contribute to Ploked to write informative posts for readers regarding the use of social media, and the numerous networking tools associated with social media, in our daily affairs. I fully acknowledge social media as a tool to increase business, and my posts reflect this belief. A professional media planner by trade, my job depends on determining as much as possible about consumers, using this information to better target advertising messages to potential customers. Obviously, the more information, the better the results.

Facebook

While striving to remain objective and professional, at times I have to question the level of blind trust that we, as consumers, provide to entities outside our immediate control, opting to allow online businesses the ability to access personal information, including birth dates, address, email, family members, friends, and online surfing behaviors. I’ve written posts that substantiate social media’s success at growing businesses. I’ve also written here–and on other sites–posts concerning privacy and the “information for access” model practiced by social media sites. The majority of these posts–questioning the use of personal information–concern Facebook.

Facebook was once a place to share among friends. As the site’s evolved, its morphed into a money-making phenomenon that changes the rules as necessary. Once Facebook respected, and protected their user’s privacy. Then, unforeseen and unprecedented, the site grew from college site to worldwide network in less-than a decade. Facebook ranks among the most popular online destinations, quick approaching half a billion users. Now, instead of respecting privacy, the site uses personal information as a means to make money.

Shh.

Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is 25-years-old and a billionaire. While to some he’s a genius, it’s in our collective interests to remember that Zuckerberg stands to gain by selling information…our information. It’s also important to remember that Zuckerberg, according to those who work for him, does not believe in online privacy. Unless, of course, its his own privacy.

Facebook turned on its users in an effort to improve their bottom-line. Highlighted by Wired:

“So in December, with the help of newly hired Beltway privacy experts, it [Facebook] reneged on its privacy promises and made much of your profile information public by default. That includes the city that you live in, your name, your photo, the names of your friends and the causes you’ve signed onto.

This spring Facebook took that even further. All the items you list as things you like must become public and linked to public profile pages. If you don’t want them linked and made public, then you don’t get them — though Facebook nicely hangs onto them in its database in order to let advertisers target you.”

Your employment info, books you’ve read, music you enjoy, or any like/dislike you label on your profile are all public now. If you don’t want something public, then delete it because there’s no other way to put it on your page. In fact, Facebook’s privacy controls have gotten so complex that it’s a daily endeavor to ensure you’re protected. Inside Facebook lists 17 steps with multiple layers; a total of 200 possible options.

Facebook’s “Big Brother” status grew when they revealed that our profiles–without consent–had been given to Yelp, Pandora, Microsoft, and others. Logging into these sites, according to Facebook, enhanced our  ”interactive, personal experience” by linking us to these sites. Without permission.

So, while you may believe that Facebook has some privacy built-in, they don’t.  The first rule of privacy, as defined by Baekdal:

“I am the only one who can decide what I share.”

Unless, of course, you’re on Facebook.

Last week, I reviewed some Firefox tips and tricks. Due to popular demand, today I’m going to outline some must have extensions for Google’s rising superstar: Google Chrome.

1. AdBlock: Like the one on Firefox, my favorite extension is available on Chrome. All modern browsers have built-in pop up blockers. That’s fine and all, but how about getting just the web content itself. No stupid banner ads. No offerings to lure your kids’ small attention spans (if you have kids). It’s almost like a “stupid” blocker. You won’t get in trouble by clicking on a link with huge tits flashing because you won’t ever see it.

2. Google Translate: Scouring the web for relevant information is usually like a treasure hunt. You find some good things and some shitty things. When you land on a page that’s in another language, you’re all like “Oh fuck” and plan to leave. But wait, don’t leave just yet. In the tech world, leaks are always coming out of China or Russia or some obscure forum somewhere. Use Google Translate to help you out. After setting your default language, Google Translate will automatically pop up in a little unobtrusive bar at the top of your browser when you visit a page that is not in your default language. It’ll ask you if you want to translate the page, and you can pick from many different languages. It’s perfect for the language-challenged. I once used it to translate a page about a dog and a bunny. It turns out the dog and bunny were, like, lovers or something…

3. Facebook Photo Zoom: If you’re like me, you use Facebook for reasons other than poking and liking things. I like to use Facebook to share photos with family and friends. Unlike Flickr, almost everyone I know is on Facebook – and on it a lot. The only problem with Facebook is all the clicking it takes to do something. What if you could see thumbnails of photos in full-size without having to click on the album? Facebook Photo Zoom does just that. Just hover your mouse over any photo on Facebook after installing and voila!, photos automagically zoom in a nice little window that pops up. It’s great to use to check up on a friends’ always changing profile picture, when they appear in your news feed. No, I’m not a stalker…keep it moving!

4. Image Preview: Kind of similar to Facebook Photo Zoom. This extension allows you to create a “lightbox” for image and video searches. Go to Google and search for an image or video. Instead of having to click the image or video and go to the location, it opens up right there. Saving features are left in tact. No need to leave the page. Just brilliant.

5. Weather Underground: It pisses me off that in 2012 people are still weather-retarded. With so many places to receive info on the weather forecast, how could anyone be so ignorant? Right off the bat, I can count a bunch: Web, TV, Wii, iPhone, Widgets, Dash, Chumby, etc. Weather Underground sits nicely next to your URL bar and displays the current weather. Click on the icon and it will tell you how the weather is expected to change over the next few days, with a list of more detailed reports.

That’s my list for Google Chrome extensions. Like the list of Five Firefox Things Everyone Should Know, I hope this will be the first in a series of tips and tricks for Google Chrome users. Send your extension favorites or suggestions to raymond [at] ploked [dot] com or send me a tweet @raykm00

Ploked readers, I must confess something. I’ve been blind to a growing epidemic in America and, possibly, the world. It began in 1975 with the creation of a little company called Apple. While we thought it was just a computer company, we forgot about the millions of people who use all those computers and Apple related products such as your iPods and Macbooks. We forgot that they need love too.

With Windows taking up over 90% of the OS market, it can be hard for these few Apple users to find love, and not even Match.Com or eHarmony would do for their idiosyncratic taste. They needed their own site dating site to cater to them specifically. Enter Cupidtino.

If you’re wondering WTF is up with the name, it’s a mix of “Cupid” and Cupertino, California, the city in which the foundations were laid for what would become Apple, Inc. Cupidtino was created for the Apple users to meet other Apple users on a romantic level. Since the site is still in beta, this is really all the public can see from it at the moment:

“Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products! Why? Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common – personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, taste, and of course a love for technology. We believe these are enough reasons for two people to meet and fall in love, and so we created the first Mac-inspired dating site to help you find other Machearts around you.

Cupidtino will launch in June 2010 exclusively on Apple platforms – Safari, iPhone and iPad apps. It’s time to share the love.”

If you’re thinking, “Who would actually sign up for this?”, the answer is about 12,000 people so far. To prove you are indeed an Apple fan, Cupidtino wants you to check off which products you use and have a picture of you in either an Apple store or with one of your products. The strange system doesn’t end there. Unlike other dating sites that focus on meaningful questions like, “Is humor important to you?”, Cupidtino seems to ask the questions that high school students ask on a first date at McDonalds. Things like what’s on your iPod Playlist or what movies you are checking out on Netflix.

The site just goes to prove that we’d rather connect online than meet someone in person and that’s a darn shame in my book. And really, no one cares if you’re a Mac or if you’re a PC. In fact I normally don’t ask a girl what kind of computer she has until like the 17th date, and that’s only to fill the awkward silence.

But don’t get me wrong. I do believe that there’s probably going to be some people who find that special someone through this thing. With 12,000 people, it’s hard not to find a glimmer of hope. In the end, I feel the same way about Cupidtino as Betty White does about Facebook, which she noted in her opening monologue on Saturday Night Live. “I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time. I would never say the people on it are losers, but that’s only because I’m polite…. Needless to say, we didn’t have Facebook when I was growing up. We had phonebook, but you wouldn’t waste an afternoon with it.”

The location-based, geo-tagging competition is getting hotter. Amid rumors of an impending purchase, upstart startup Foursquare announced they’d passed the million-user mark in late April. It’s a growth rate not seen since Twitter skyrocketed to prominent use, making Foursquare one of the hottest web properties around. At the end of last year, Foursquare’s users stood at 170,000.

Likewise, Foursquare competitor Booyah’s MyTown, has also experienced phenomenal growth, announcing two days ago they’d eclipsed the two million-user plateau.

Both of the companies are based on the wireless market, allowing those “playing” to check-in from various locations, while also having the ability to check on your friends. While the two companies are true competitors, there are fundamental differences in the way they work. MyTown functions as an integrated, location-based digital game. Players earn points, unlock rewards, and can earn enough to purchase a “virtual” location and charge others who land there.

Foursquare is more about connecting with your friends and letting them know where you are, and then for racking up points, prizes, and etc.

However, if you don’t have any friends, neither will be that much fun. Which is exactly why I don’t play.

Recently, the two companies have initiated stricter requirements and improved the software due to the number of cheaters who logged in at a certain location when, in reality, they weren’t there.

Foursquare plans to deliver coupons to a user’s wireless phone based on location, a huge benefit for local businesses.  User-potential is greater in cities that have more people obviously, but according to Kip Cassino, research director at Borrell Associates, services similar to Foursquare have the potential to raise $4.1 billion dollars a year in ad revenues by 2015.

While Foursquare and MyTown focus on gaining users, both may be presented with a much larger problem; Google’s Steve Lee  announced that Latitude, Google’s location-based service, stands at three million active users, with eight million who have signed up. While the media attention is spent on MyTown and Foursquare, Lee stated, “Latitude is not dead.”  Based on the user-base, Latitude is more alive than ever.

The reason, according to Google, that Latitude hasn’t been much of a threat is due to poor support for the iPhone. MyTown requires users to own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch; Foursquare allows for other brands even though the majority of users have iPhones.

Rumored to have a “check-in” feature as well, Lee wouldn’t comment on the future of Latitude; however, with Google Maps, and Google Local Business, Google might have a huge opportunity ahead.

Thus, while Google may be the new kid on the block, they’re the biggest. Fortunately for MyTown and Foursquare, 1/4th of Latitude users have no friends, leveling the playing field a bit. It’s likely that, much the same as Foursquare and Twitter, Latitude and Buzz will be integrated.

Amazon released news that their prized e-reader “Kindle” will gain the ability to use Facebook and Twitter in a very toned down version of the sites. It was just a few years ago that Amazon amazed the world by releasing the reader that often gained attention in subways and parks; it was the future for some and many thought we were moving into a “Minority Report” kind of lifestyle.  However, we didn’t, and the Kindle annoyed me more than it amazed me. I’d much rather the cool, crisp touch of a paper rather than poking away at a lifeless white keyboard. Also, with a newspaper, you are a lot less likely to be a potential target for a serial mugger and you won’t look like a dork. Which begs the question, do we really need social media on the Kindle? I hate to say it Jeff Bezos, but do we really even need your Kindle?

Social media, and other apps, are more user friendly on other devices

To answer the first question, no. If you are technologically minded enough to know what a Kindle is and how to use one, chances are you already have a Smartphone. The point of  the social media application which Kindle is trying to employ is for you to be able to share passages from books with your friends via Facebook and Twitter. While that’s a sweet notion, I’m sure my friends are busy spending time tending tstray cows in Farmville and doing social creeping  on others peoples profiles. They don’t have time to see my favorite passage from the Nicholas Sparks book that I’m enthralled with at the moment. I kid. People just aren’t going to want a bargain version of social media sites. We’re too advanced to accept it at this point.

Secondly, there’s something called an iPad and, I hate to admit it, but the “over sized iPhone” is pretty awesome. What makes it more awesome, you ask? Raymond goes more into it, but I can watch movies, play games, and use the Kindle App!  This allows me to scroll through selections of books from Amazon, in color.  I can also check out my favorite social media platforms in depth, all for around the same price as a Kindle.

I’m sure there’s some tree huggers out there advocating that their Kindle is saving the environment, but that’s why we have an iPad. And then there are those who hate Apple, but get over it. Other manufacturers have also taken bites out of the e-reader market like Sony, Barnes & Noble, and Smartphones which have e-reader capabilities.  These days, walking around with a Kindle is like seeing Zack Morris carrying around that giant cellular phone. It was a cool gadget at the moment but that moment has come and gone. RIP Kindle.

According to Net Market Share, Firefox has a 24.59% market share. Not too bad for an open source web browser. If you’re still on some version of Internet Explorer, check out my previous article “Ditch Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8” on why you should be dumping it. Here are a few tips that I’ve found essential:

Use these techniques to outfox other web browsers

1. Use keywords: Chrome and Safari both have wonderful “Speed Dial-like” quick launch pages to bookmark your most visited websites, but I find it too slow. I don’t want to have to write “Facebook” or “Gmail” or “Google Reader” or god forbid the sometimes long URLs for some blog. To get to where you need faster, create a keyboard keyword shortcut. Here’s how:

Bookmark the website (Control/Command + D). Ex) Facebook. Then go to the “Bookmarks” menu. Click “Organize Bookmarks.” Navigate to where the bookmark is (usually in the Bookmarks Menu or Bookmarks Toolbar) and click on it. There should be a little arrow icon for more options situated at the bottom of the window. Next to “Keyword,” type a shortcut. For example, for Facebook, I keyworded it to the letter “F.” Now when I type “F” and then press enter, Firefox brings me right to Facebook. I’ve done the same for other websites I visit every day, several times a week. Here’s what I have: YouTube = “YT,” Gmail = “G,” Google Reader = “R,” Yahoo = “Y,” and “Ploked” = “P.” These are just my shortcuts, but I find it has sped up the time I spend on Facebook and YouTube by getting me in and getting me out. The faster I can say “done,” the faster I can start doing more important things!

2. Twitter from the address bar: Ever since I became a Twitter user, I’ve been looking for the perfect client for mobile and home use. While there are a variety of wonderful applications available to manage Twitter such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Seesmic, and Brizzly, I don’t want to have to go to the actual Twitter website or open another application for that. The less tabs that are open, the snappier (and cooler) Firefox runs. I discovered TwitterBar, an add-on for Firefox that solves everything. Just type your tweet from your URL bar and hit the little blue Twitter icon. That’s all there is to it. URLs are also automatically shortened for you when it tweets your message.

3. Block advertisements: I know what you’re thinking, but hey, ads get in your way. They’re annoying. They distract. For almost two years now I’ve been using the Adblock Plus add-on and 99.9% of the time it works. I can’t remember the last time a stupid ad has gotten in my way. People will be quick to judge and say people who use ABP are stifling websites from getting the revenue they need to remain online. To that I have to only say: RSS. As a person who uses RSS to get his news, even if I didn’t use ABP, they wouldn’t be getting the money off my click. As far as I know, hits don’t count when run through an RSS reader. After using APB, you will probably notice greater productivity levels. I know I have. When I want to focus on work, and only work, APB is a godsend.

4. Control/Command + K for to search: Searching in Firefox couldn’t be easier. It saddens me when I watch another person’s browsing patterns and habits. Why do Firefox users still feel the need to go to “Google.com” or “Bing.com” for their needs? It’s extra steps. There is a search bar built-in for a reason in Firefox – to give flexibility. Use Control/Command + K to jump right into the search bar. As an added bonus, you can even select from an array of other search engines if you think Google isn’t your thing. Aside from Google and Bing, Amazon, Wikipedia, and Yahoo!, Ebay and others are also available. Save yourself the time next time. Control + K that query.

5. Private Browse: Maybe you’re at your friend’s house, or on a public computer. No one wants the history to be recorded. No one wants passwords to be saved either. Often called “Porn Mode” because of the anonymous browsing it allows, Private browsing is great for online banking and whatever smutty websites you visit in your free time. Use “Control/Command+Shift+P” to start private browsing. Use the same keyboard shortcut to go back to normal browsing.

Private browsing is a feature available only on Firefox 3.5+. If you aren’t on version 3.5, then you should use this opportunity to upgrade to the latest Firefox (3.6.4), as the Mozilla team is no longer producing security and stability updates for 3.5.

Although there are many other nifty features every Firefox user should know, these are the first five I think are essential. I hope this feature will turn into a series. You can help by submitting all Firefox tips/secrets/worthy add-on suggestions to raymond@ploked.com.

Yahoo! suggesting business strategies to Google is like Goldman Sachs advising Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) on how to invest successfully. Not only is Yahoo! behind Google in nearly every category (email, search engine capabilities, online apps, etc.), but even their name sounds like a joke when compared to competitors.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that Yahoo! has some great offerings; their small business site hosting is fantastic, and their analytics are simple to understand and use. Yet, other than those two products, I don’t tend to use Yahoo! very often. Google, for me, has pretty much invaded my online world.

Thus, when I read that Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz has spurned Google for their “lack of diversity,” I was a bit taken aback. I then thought that maybe Bartz was just being tricky, trying to throw Google off their game. The reason I say this is because the criticism stemmed from her opinion that the search engine giant was too focused on search. Huh?

What in the world was she talking about? Google’s clearly dominant in search, but has also cornered the market with a host of other services, including Gmail, Buzz, Google Docs, Google Maps, Nexus One, Google Earth, Google Voice, WAVE, YouTube, iGoogle, and their recent move to purchase dark fiber to compete with online service providers. It should also be noted that the services listed are just a smidgen of Google’s portfolio. Google’s own declaration on diversity is proof that this is an area in which the company places great pride. In fact, if you go to their Diversity page, you can read it with your own eyes (or below):

Never judge a search engine by its interface. Behind that simple search window is one of the most complex technology infrastructures in the world. And it’s run by an equally diverse group of people. At Google, we don’t just accept difference—we thrive on it. We celebrate it. And we support it, for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community.

Bartz’s not-so-subtle words, like a quick jab, were that the Mountain View-based company needed to  ”do a lot more than search” if they were to maintain their current market share and position.

Excuse me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t Google be described as “dominant” in nearly every category?

According to BBC news, Bartz said, “Google is going to have a problem because Google is only known for search.”  Search, she continued, comprises half of Yahoo’s business while at Google, it’s 99% of their business. She then quipped, ”Google has to grow a company the size of Yahoo! every year to be interesting.”

I wasn’t sure if I was going to laugh or cry, especially in the face of Nielsen statistics showing Yahoo! with an audience of 200 million users in 20 countries operating 70 sites and services. While Yahoo! is earmarked as a global contender, critics cite its huge size as being “too wide-reaching” while claiming that the company’s acquisitions haven’t been utilized. Techcrunch wrote that Yahoo! is where “startups go to die.”

Bartz, however, believes that Yahoo! will one day rival Facebook. Yahoo! is planning to expand,  and is  rumored to be ogling Foursquare as yet another website to add to their “empire.”

There’s only one problem – the battery. Batteries haven’t improved as fast as the rest of the computing world. In fact, why the hell are we still using Duracells and Energizers? AA batteries should be obsolete by now. There shouldn’t be a single digital camera on the market that has a battery that can’t last through a days worth of picture taking. No buts. End of story. It’s two-oh-freaking-ten. Designers, get with the times, please!

When Apple revealed their iPhone back in 2007 sporting an internal non-replaceable battery, the world cried foul. Then look what happened. Oh right, no one is whining about it anymore (except for all those Nokia fanboys). The rate at which our gadgets are used to their fullest potential and then disposed is so rapid today that it doesn’t matter. I don’t know a single person who owns an iPhone and has used it to its max for two years and has needed to get the battery replaced – they are still holding charges and bobbing along.

Scene from "The Matrix" (1999)

Asutek (Asus) struck on something interesting back when it introduced the first eeePC and practically opened the floodgates to the Netbook category. Their batteries, at the time, sucked. The original 7″ eeePC ran a variant of the open source OS, Linux, and while it was supposed to be the stepping stone to the future, the OS never caught on. Unlike Windows XP, Linux is so un-bloated that a 3-cell battery lasted quite a long time back in the day. We all know what happened to Linux. Consumers demanded Windows XP, and they got it for another couple years until Microsoft shipped Windows 7. Once everyone made the jump to Windows again on their little Netbooks, people demanded more battery. The 3-cell could no longer cut it. We needed 6, 9, and even 12-cell batteries. As the batteries expanded, the slimness of Netbooks became chunky. The Netbook of today is hardly what you would consider ultraportable. At best, a good Netbook is expected to be able to handle a day’s worth of web browsing, because let’s face it, no one wants to be lugging around an AC adapter at all. Lesson: If you’re going to do Linux, make it a competitor to Windows. I’m willing to bet Google’s extremely feather light Chrome OS will be able to jump start what Asus, HP, and many other companies have failed at.

If you asked me which Atom processor is the best for a Netbook, I’d probably have to spend a bit of time on Google. I’ve lost track of all the Intel Atom versions (now there’s dual core Atoms?). The most important thing when considering any mobile device is now, of course, the battery.

Last year, Apple completely flipped the laptop industry upside down. Following their iPod and iPhone line, they did away with the user replaceable battery in their MacBook Pros and went with a sealed battery. The result of this is more room for a larger battery. According to their tests, a MacBook could get up to seven hours of battery on one charge. My 2007 MacBook gets almost two and a half hours on one full charge. How’s that for a leap in mobile usability! The way it works is, instead of wasting room with battery latches and other doodads, Apple’s been able to expand the battery surface area. They’ve also designed their MacBooks to have batteries that aren’t cylindrical. In their latest update last week, Apple now claims their 13″ MacBook Pro can get up to 10 hours of battery and their higher end models can achieve up to 8 hours. What other notebook can claim those kind of numbers? Early impressions by various tech heads across the web have already been putting the new machines through various workloads and the numbers are in: it’s damn close to what Apple’s claiming.

Anyone with an iPad now knows how impressive the thing is. Hell, even I’m stunned (although I won’t be buying one anytime soon). David Pogue of the New York Times and Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal have both claimed that the iPad can play movies continuously back to back for over Apple’s stated 10 hours. That’s almost the span of a direct flight from New York to China!

Similar to Nintendo’s approach, the time for  bigger, better, faster, and cheaper is slowly whittling away. We are approaching a time where universal access (in industrialized nations) will no longer be a hindrance. We need the energy (preferably clean energy) to power the insatiable digital lives we continue to pursue.

I challenge all electronics designers and producers to herald in more battery efficient gadgets. It’s about time batteries evolved. Whether they be sealed into our devices or not, it doesn’t matter. It only matters that the batteries last long and don’t explode!

Ning, a community builder, is now phasing out their free version, leaving all the non-premium networks without a home. While relocating to another place may not be an issue for most people (small, non-serious niche sites), the ones who planned on making a business out of their site are pretty much left with two choices; build elsewhere or upgrade.

If you find yourself leaning towards the “build elsewhere” option, you might want to take this lesson into consideration: Even free has a price. While it’s a common sense lesson, I constantly run into people who forgo my advice to pay for something they can actually call their own, instead choosing to go the DIY route in search of free.

Free doesn't always equal freedom

I remember a client who wanted to purchase my domain name and services… only to reverse their decision and use a Ning site instead. After trying for a year, their attempt at branding the site not only failed (the brand name competed against my former brand), but they underestimated the complexity of the net in general. They thought upgrading to premium features would help. They did not understand what they were getting into, causing confusion to both the owners and the members. Oh, and they lost a lot of money in the process.

Are free web apps and sites are the devil? This isn’t always the case. I, myself, use free apps on a daily basis because I understand “the cost of free.” The cost I’m referring to can be expressed in a simple equation:

(Ease of use + Ability to grow) – Frustration with limits = The Cost of Free

For example, I use Evernote daily to keep track of ideas I create on the spot, pictures for inspiration, and audio notes. For a free service, there’s a lot of potential to use it without going over the limit (hence the ease of use and the ability to grow part). Then one day, I started to become a bit complex with my note taking, which hit one of the free limits – the monthly bandwidth limit. I mostly use Evernote for text notes, which makes it ideal for writing. But when I finally got my HTC Hero and started to really use it (to store images and audio notes), I noticed I almost hit the limit a few times (cue the frustration with the limits’ factor).  Upgrading is going to be inevitable. However, at an affordable rate, I’d be a fool not to do so.

While some people may love the sound of free when building their own slice of Netopia, let’s not forget that there is a cost because it’s not totally free. While it may not be a problem in the short run, if you plan on making any real money, it’s best to cough it up now and own it all now rather than later.

On a bright note regarding the demise of Ning… now there’s one less social network for wack, cheap rappers and promoters.

Facebook is trying to implement a universal “Like” button for non-Facebook sites so that your friends will be able to see what you like across the Internet. (YouTube just added a “Like” button, but I’m not sure if that has any relation to Facebook, yet.)  Sites across the Internet also have incorporated a share button, one of which is on this very site to help, well, share information with others.

Facebook plans Internet takeover, one "Like" button at a time.

These features, along with things like “Recommendations” and “Live Stream” are known as social plugins which will be broadcasting your information to partnering sites unless you opt out. That’s right, you’re automatically signed up for it thanks to  Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.  It is predicted that 30% of websites will have some of these plugins  in a month. Some of the new features you can expect from Facebook are as follows:

• Instant Personalization: Facebook will try to help the web cater to you by giving up your information when you move to another site like Yelp or Pandora. In the case of Pandora, the music site will be able to go through some of your favorite artists and make Pandora more YOU friendly, because we were too lazy to type in “Coldplay” before. Or you can go to Yelp and see what YOUR friends have to say about a certain restaurant over what a stranger has to say.

• Toolbar: Facebook plans to add a toolbar that it will encourage other websites to use. My guess is that “Like” and “Share” will be included on the toolbar so that you can give instant feedback to your profile of what you’re digging at that moment. In absence of this addition, you could have simply copied a link and posted it to your Facebook profile if you really felt the need to express your love for a certain site.

• Activity Stream: Of course, all those things that you are in fact digging have to go somewhere, so a mini-stream will be created to display all of that activity. In other words, this will probably lead to another Facebook makeover with more clutter.

• Docs: In a final move to ensure its worldwide takeover, Facebook seems to have teamed with Microsoft to take down Google Docs. The idea is practically identical to Google Docs with users using their Facebook accounts to create, manipulate, and share Microsoft office documents. With Facebook accounts known for being hacked and Facebook itself always changing their layout, I wouldn’t want to use these docs to work on an important project.

All of these announcements fall under what Zuckerberg hopes to create, an Open Graph which will help connect the Internet.

If I sound bitter and snide about the whole process, I am. Facebook has disguised the fact that they’re offering our information without consent to secondary sites by making it seem as if their real objective is to streamline the Internet by making it more Facebook user friendly.

To remove yourself from “instant personalization,” one has to opt out and, even then, you aren’t entirely safe. According to Facebook, “Please keep in mind that if you opt out, your friends may still share public Facebook information about you to personalize their experience on these partner sites unless you block the application.”

I remember when I first used Facebook, it was a simple way to keep in touch with my new college friends and post (now embarrassing) pictures of old high school memories. I never thought it would become more business than social, that I would have to worry about my lack of privacy from third party companies rather than a lack of privacy from my family going through the tagged images of myself. I guess, unfortunately, I was wrong.

Want to increase brand recall and awareness? According to a joint Facebook/Nielsen study, social media networks are the place to go for marketers wishing to engage consumers who are nearing the “action” phase of the buying cycle.

Nielsen, citing that brand marketers have repeatedly requested a method to measure the value of social media advertising, made “a major investment towards helping advertisers understand how to achieve their brand goals in a social context.” And out popped the report: Advertising Effectiveness: Understanding the Value of a Social Media Impression, which includes information from Nielsen’s BrandLift that measures data for more than 800,000 Facebook users and their response to 125 campaigns run on the site by 70 advertisers. Nielsen’s BrandLift originated as a specific tool for measuring the effectiveness of Facebook advertising and was rolled out in September 2009 in the U.S. and in the U.K. in January. While many brands have already gravitated to social media advertising, others are hesitant due to uncertain ROI; Brandlift provides these advertisers with some assurance by providing quantifiable data that can be measured by established standards: Ad Recall, Brand Awareness, and Purchase Intent.

Numerous studies have shown that social media users trust friends and unknown (but credible) peers more than other advertising efforts. Thus, consumers need to be reassured by both paid and earned media (word of mouth that is passed, or shared, among friends and acquaintances). The study tracked 14 campaigns on Facebook that used “Become a Fan” as the method to engage consumers. They were then able to measure results in Brandlift from three different executions when users became a fan:

1. Lift attained from a standard “Homepage Ad”
2. Lift gained from ads that featured social context (“Homepage ads with Social Context”)
3. Lift received from “Organic Ads,” or newsfeed stories sent to user’s friends of who had engaged (i.e. become a fan) of the product

The results showed that Homepage Ads increased Brand Awareness by four percent and Purchase Intent by 2%. However, users exposed to the both Paid Ads (1) and the Organic Ads (3) tripled Ad Recall over those who viewed the Homepage Ad alone, from 4% to 13%. The results were similar for both Brand Awareness and Purchase Intent. Exposure to organic impressions increased Purchase Intent, from 2% to 8% overall.

So, what does this mean? Simply, it shows that claims made by social media advocates are now backed by data, hopefully delivering solid proof that social media (Facebook) is an effective vehicle for message delivery in both content (organic) and paid formats.

For those of us who’ve been shot down by both management and clients when the subject of social media is brought up, now might be the ideal time to reignite your efforts…

MoZella‘s music career has been a long and winding road. What’s that now? You don’t know who the songstress is? You probably do, actually, as her voice has been featured almost everywhere at this point.

Mozella Mack

MoZella Mack was born in Detroit but after high school wandered west to find stardom in the City of Angels. When things didn’t come easy, she found herself decorating cakes by day and playing in coffee shops at night. Soon enough, she was signed to Maverick Records in 20004. Since then, she’s toured with Dave Mathews Band, Lifehouse, Michelle Branch, and Five for Fighting, among others. More recently, she’s put out her sophomore album “Belle Isle” and is  gaining exposure from her music appearing on shows such as  “One Tree Hill,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “The Hills,” and “Modern Family.”Her songs bring a mix of pop and soul with a voice as smooth as honey with jazzy undertones that would make Annette Hanshaw proud.  Here I talk to MoZella about music and social media.

SR: So, what are you up to these days?

M: I’m in NYC this week writing with different producers (for myself and other people). Doing the same thing in LA when I’m there too. Staying creative and very busy!

“Oh, It’s Magic” was featured in the Droid commercial…how did that happen? Please tell me you at least got some free swag from Motorola.

I wrote the song with Tim Myers for an ad agency in Chicago. They needed a song for a spot they were shooting. They went with a different tune for their commercial and a few months later Droid got a hold of it and licensed it for their campaign. And no – I never got a free cell out of it. I still have an iPhone! Haha!

You always keep your followers updated via Twitter or Facebook. How do you stay so connected with your busy schedule?

I have apps on my phone that allow me to tweet and update Facebook whenever I have a free moment. Technology is pretty amazing! I love my fans. They are the reason I make music. I enjoy the connection I have with them, so I go out of my way to let them know I appreciate them.

What’s your favorite social media site and why?

I don’t think I have a fave. I love Facebook because my grandma can comment on the same post a fan just left on my page.  How cool is that? My mom and my fans share moments. It’s pretty awesome.

Is there anything you would change about it?

I’m not technical nor do I know a thing about how Facebook works. I just wanna know can I block a person but still make sure they see my posts. It’s a perfect thing for an ex bf or co-worker. You don’t wanna hear about their new girlfriend or their annoying dog but you want them to know how fabulous your life is all the time. LOL.

How do you think social media has changed the music industry in this recent web 2.0 revolution?

It’s shifting so quickly I can’t seem to catch up! Ten years ago, radio and MTV/VH1 were pretty much the only ways to hear new artists unless you were super big into the indie scene. But even then any one of those indie kids would’ve traded that label in for a major deal in a heartbeat. Now the major is sort of irrelevant. I don’t have huge radio hits (though I was signed to two major deals) but I have a pretty cool fan base and my songs are heard worldwide. I had five national commercials this year and three international (along with about 25 film and TV syncs).  Artists have successfully cut out the middle man and can reach people, gain new fans, and have valuable film and TV opportunities within reach. The downside is over-saturation. Now anyone can make a record on their lap top and start a MySpace (page). There is more music being made now than ever. But I think the crème always rises.

What’s on your iPod these days?

New stuff: Laura Marling, Lissie Maurus, JayZ, and Daniel Merriweather. Old stuff: Beatles, James Taylor, old Motown, Phil Collins, an everything from Nirvana to Bach.

Did you know there was a Justin Bieber app that shows you where Bieber is, how would you feel about a MoZella app like that.

Not sure I’m into that. He’s so huge that it sounds like it makes daily tasks pretty unpleasant. Some things need to be kept sacred. Artists give up so much of their personal life to fans, TMZ, etc. I think that app is pushing it. People need privacy sometimes.

Is there any hidden website that is a favorite of yours that you think we should be checking out?

Pinkisthenewblog.com is a fun one. I also think mozellamusic.com is pretty fabulous. [hahahaha]

Any advice you would give to a young and upcoming artist in this digital age…

I don’t really have much advice, except:
A. Be true to yourself
B. Know your strengths and weaknesses
C. Don’t listen to the advice of people who’ve never followed their dreams.
D. Stay positive and focused

CLICK HERE for MoZella performance footage!

Over the past weekend, blurry photos of an alleged next generation iPhone managed to get into Engadget‘s hands. What started out as a rumor and then thumbed by netizens as being a fake turned out to indeed be the real McCoy. Initially thought to be a Japanese clone, MacRumors has since retracted that story. The tale went like this: an Apple engineer was drinking at a bar in California and left a new iPhone prototype disguised in a case to make it appear to be a 3GS. Some one managed to find the device, waited around the bar, but no one came to claim it. He later discovered that his find was a never before seen iPhone incognito. Guy shops it around and Gizmodo buys it for $5,000. According to Gizmodo, the engineer lost the iPhone LAST month on March 18. Gizmodo managed to acquire it last week.

Gizmodo extensively photo/videographed the prototype iPhone and determined that what they purchased was bonafide genuine Cupertino designed hardware. The Gawker Media technology blog (who was silent the entire weekend while Engadget enjoyed their traffic) published their next generation iPhone story on Monday and quickly racked up over three million page views (now at the verge of reaching 7 million).

Netizens continue to nitpick and cry foul at the discovery due to the nature of the iPhone’s design. The lost prototype appears to be a departure from Apple’s “unibody” and “curved” design mantra that they have slowly pushed onto all their hardware lines, including their recently released iPad.

Brian Lam, editorial head at Gizmodo, received a few calls from Apple requesting the phone back. He fired back with the request that Apple officially acknowledge that their find is a real Apple device. Apple issued a letter to Gizmodo late Monday night and Brian happily said that Jason Chen, editor in chief at Gizmodo who was in possession of the prototype, would be more than willing to send it back to Apple.

That’s not all. On Monday evening, while the tech blogosphere was going nutso (this story was even on Tuesday’s The View of all places to talk tech!), Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz posted a story insisting they were on the cusp of discovering who was the poor Apple engineer who lost the super secret device. They discovered that it was a person named Gray Powell. They promptly plastered screenshots of his Facebook profile picture and Flickr accounts for the world to see.

Netizens quickly gripe again and call Gizmodo a douchebag for exposing the Apple employee, claiming that he will never get a job again anywhere and that he is scarred for life. Web commentators continue to slam Gizmodo for their shoddy “investigative reporting” by buying the prototype and then proceeding with unnecessary trouncing on Powell.

To add more damage points, Brian Lam then posts a snarky “apology” wishing Powell good luck and stating that tomorrow is another day. (The apology has since been retracted).

Now that you’re all caught up on the story, I’d like to say something to all the netizens that are complaining about Gizmodo’s journalism ethics:

Two words. TOO BAD.

Gizmodo’s set of writers are journalists. As reporters, their job is to report on things. Good or bad. Life-changing or not. The world didn’t feel sorry for the jerks who continued to reveal Tiger Woods’ mistresses. What about the guy who exposed ex-New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s little affair?

To all the people who said that Gizmodo was unethical in exposing this man, go shove it. They did their job and that’s the end of it. No one ever said the job was all butterflies and cupcakes. It might be 90% clean news for the most part, but the other 10% can be ugly and downright scary. Someone needs to do it. Gizmodo shouldn’t be scapegoated for this man’s failure to stay sober and not lose his secret iPhone.

It was a great story, and they ran with it. The fact that they told it in segments made it all the better.

If Gray Powell gets the shaft from Apple, it won’t be because of Gizmodo’s rummaging around. It’ll be because he was careless on his own accord. Move on people and get over it. This is the type of journalism that takes guts and balls. If you don’t have the fearlessness to run a story, then you probably shouldn’t be working in the news field. Running these stories separate the adults from the kids. These are the times when legends are made and Gizmodo is now basking in web traffic from every corner of the Internet.

Does it really suck to be Gray Powell right now? C’mon! This might be the best/worst day of his life! In the last second there were 65 more tweets about Gray Powell. The world is on your side, Gray POWER! Nonstop supportive tweets to comfort him for his common human blunder. Gizmodo contributor, Jesus Diaz, is the one in the Twitter shitter for ratting out beloved Gray Powell. While everyone else keeps the live feed going on this epic leak of, ummmmm, a fucking phone, I am wondering what Gray Powell is doing… right this second!

1. Browsing the gun selection at Walmart
2. Eating a tub of Ben & Jerry’s and watching Dancing With The Stars
3. Getting a tattoo, shaving his head and bashing out car windows with an umbrella
4. Drinking free pints of Hofbrau at the Gourmet Haus Stadt while high-fiving douche bags
5. Getting a BIG blow job from Steve Jobs. That’s totally not PC.

Yodle is an online advertising company leading the industry in local search capabilities.  They were named the named fastest growing local online advertising company by industry analyst, Borrell Associates. Yodle’s local search business is a simple, cost-effective, and integrated approach to connecting thousands of local businesses with consumers.

Now, Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle has co-authored an all-things-local search guide for online advertising that provides local business owners the ability to find new online customers. The book, Local Online Advertising for Dummies, went on sale April 12th and helps establish Yodle as the authority for local search compared to competitors. Other companies in the local online search provider business include Local Marketers,  OrangeSoda,  ReachLoca, and WebVisible.

Local Online Advertising for Dummies hit the shelves at an opportune time; over the past ten years, consumers in search of local businesses has grown from nothing to 80% of all searches conducted. Although the search market has changed, there are misconceptions about promoting a local business using search. Local Online Advertising for Dummies is the first effort to show business owners how to capitalize on the expanding local search trend.

While the book has been written by Yodle and includes a $100 coupon for Yodle’s services, Cunningham stated that when writing the book, he did so in an objectionable manner so as to eliminate any bias. According to the Wall Street Journal blog Digits:

“I don’t think this is going to be a huge lead generator for us,” said Chief Executive Court Cunningham, one of the book’s lead authors. “In terms of what is in the book, we tried to be fair and balanced.”

Court Cunningham also noted that the book increases the pressure on the growing company due to its authoritative posture as local search leader. Yodle is entering their fifth year of business, and while they’ve grown dramatically in five years, doubling their revenues YOY from 2008 to 2009, the company has yet to realize a profit.

According to Mr. Cunningham, “Our goal is to be the industry leader and we think this a long-term evolution.” Below, he explains the book and its purpose.

Judging from the company’s phenomenal growth (300% from 2006-2007 and 700% 2007-2008) and industry recognition in 2009 by Silicone Valley Insider as “one of America’s hottest start-ups, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that Yodle, and Court Cunningham, have a clear strategy for a successful future.  If you’re a local business looking for leads, pick up a copy of Local Online Advertising for Dummies or purchase a copy online.

It recently came to my attention that a new site, “Unvarnished,” allows you to rate your boss or coworkers. At first inspection, it was clear that this is a totally unoriginal idea. We have websites like RateMyProfessor and RateMDs that help us in choosing which professor is going to give the least amount of work and which doctor isn’t going to pull a Kevorkian. This new site however seems to be an epic fail for the following reasons:

The Name: Unvarnished? I know people try to be clever and think of cool names like Google or Twitter, but Unvarnished is trying a little too hard. Unvarnished sounds more like a type of wood you can buy at Home Depot than an actual website.

The Concept: The website allows you to have anonymity so you can protect yourself while trashing your co-workers. This is probably the dumbest thing in the world and human resources is going to have a field day with this. And – get this – if your co-worker trashes you, there’s no way for you to remove their review. Just imagine the riffs in an organization that can form from one bad review; you could potentially make that person hate everyone at the office.

The Flaws: So if my co-worker Paul ate MY pudding cup with MY name on it and I went to Unvarnished and trashed him, how anonymous is it? Of course he’s going to know I’m the one that was pissed off about losing that precious pudding cup. Next, if you have a job, there’s a good chance you’re somewhat of an adult which means you don’t have time to come home and trash talk your co-workers on a computer. If you have something to say, surely we can be mature about it and talk in person. That’s why the next time Paul steps to my pudding cup, I will be waiting for him in the parking lot.

Co-founder Peter Kazanjy claims to have solved the problem of people who might abuse the system.  Unvarnished wants you to:

• Use their own Facebook profile to post
• In case of a defamatory post, provide your name and personal information
• Be over 21

Thanks for trying Mr. Kazanjy, that was useless. The reason for bringing Facebook into the fray is so I can post on Paul’s wall “This bastard stole my pudding cup” and make him out to be the bad guy. Kazanjy seems to have solved this potential problem by allowing the other person to defend themselves (in this case, Paul would probably say “I was really hungry”). And if that still doesn’t help, Paul can ask his own friends to back him up so people don’t think he’s a total jerk. Also I don’t understand the under 21 rule. Isn’t that ageism? I’m sure there are some people under 21 who can hold their own at a company and who are quite mature. I mean, they trust 21-year-olds to vote. That’s got to count for something.

The BIG Problem: We live in a day and age where social media can both separate and bring us together. We can interact with millions of people at a time on these sites but we also forget that we can interact in real life. This site just proves that we’re forgetting how to communicate with others and how we let our fingers do more of the talking than our own rhetoric. Unvarnished just seems like a good idea that was poorly executed. Instead of this approach, how about a site that shows how great people are rather than calling them out on the dire things they may have done. Yea, Paul probably ate my pudding cup but the next day he apologized and brought me a 4-pack. Too bad I can’t change my original review of Paul, because the world now thinks he’s pudding kleptomaniac.

Samsung might have a smart new phone, but they somehow forgot that most people would be drooling over iPads right now. This doesn’t necessarily help their “record breaking” ad campaign for the new Omnia II, but even if this phone dispensed cash, it just can’t compete with Big Mac…intosh.

Judging from the commercial, this new feature may require some graceful and concise fingering…(clearing throat sound). Grazing the touch screen from letter to letter to create words. No more typing. For me this just means more time erasing. The feature tries to make sense and connect the letters you “swype.” It kinda reminds me of that old T9 crap- always assuming some G-Rated word you had no intention of using. Strangely enough, I know people that – by some miracle – found this process useful. And in its infancy, it’s hard to say if the swyping feature will become popular – or prove to be efficient for speedy texting.

Does the world really need faster texting? Maybe we do. Maybe if we could get a text banged out quicker we would stop fiddling with our phones and get back to socializing with the person next to us.

It’s time to admit we have a problem. We religiously text rather than talk; I even used to have a voicemail that said, “hang up and send a text.”  As my professional role as Whiney Hypocrite requires, I must express my total annoyance when I am in the company of someone who seems to be half-listening as they read and write texts, interrupting as I endlessly vent my latest grievances.  And I feel shameful for my own incessant texting… okay maybe not.

The evolution of connecting via text and its presence in social situations actually is a total disconnect within our actual physical environment. At some point, we are going to celebrate the days when we forgot our phone at home.

For now though, I predict that the Samsung Omnia II will just be another recycled piece of plastic and will be outdated before all the phones have shipped out from the manufacturing warehouse. Oh, Apple, how you have seduced us all. It seems like everyone I know is sporting the iPhone, just rubbing it in my face! If you don’t have an iPhone, you probably have a Blackberry. But if you’re me, you have this:

My phone has ceased to have a touch screen due to a tragic dancing incident that left the face of my phone cracked (yes, my phone can dance!). After a few more crash landings, the side of the phone was left permanently ajar, and in the last few days I have realized how much I use the letters, “B,” “H,” and “Y” – now that they don’t work on the keypad.

I need a new phone, and although I am an avid texter, I won’t be swyping anytime soon. I am ready to finally satisfy my frivolous and superficial desire to own an iPhone. There is no valid reason for my brand selection. I could get a cheaper phone. I could get one with insurance. I could get this Samsung and text novels in minutes. But like the rest of the world, I want the iPhone. So, what are manufacturers going to do to make us want what they are selling? Samsung is trying to win consumers over with the Guiness-Book-of-Records-breaking “speed texting” Swype feature. But knowing what the public wants, maybe there’s an app for that???

Let’s face it, April Fools’ Day isn’t the same as you get older. You kind of push it aside like the Easter Bunny or the fat man in the red jump suit that gives you presents. Thanks to the Internet, this is the reason why some of us became victims on April 1st. These pranks weren’t the standard “Rick Roll.” No my friends, these were very plausible situations and some people (myself included) forgot it was April Fools’ Day and took them to heart. Here are three of my favorites:

• YouTube – The video site took a step in a strange direction by giving users the option to convert videos to text only, making the screen look like something out of  “The Matrix.” The option was noted under “TextP” and YouTube claimed that for every second you spent in “TextP” mode, you would be saving the site a whole dollar. I’m not sure how many people bought into that idea, but it was a clever one.

• Bieber Fever –  Funny Or Die caught the Bieber bug as the site announced that it had been bought by singer Justin Bieber. The site’s logo became “Bieber or Die” and videos of Justin were pretty much the only thing on the main page. I have to hand it to the site and even to Bieber himself. Funny or Die got a ton of publicity from his fans that wandered over out of curiosity. Bieber also appealed to a broader, more adult (though probably less mature) audience by showing his sense of humor.

• Google’s Name Change – Google is known for changing its logo to cater to what’s happening. On its birthday, we see candles. July 4th, fireworks, and so on. In those instances, the Google name remains intact and creative visuals are added to enhance it. You can imagine the shock of millions as they logged on and saw an entirely different name – “Topeka.”  Clicking on it led you to the Google Blog where we learned that the name change came in honor of Topeka, Kansas, which is informally going by the name “Google” for a month. Adding to the reciprocity was a section on how to properly use the term “Topeka”  and specifics involving brand identity under the new name. This was probably the prank that affected the larest number of people and many probably thought it was real. Thankfully, it isn’t. Saying you “Topeka’ed” someone sounds a little dirty.

These were just three of the more popular April Fools’ hijinks from 2010, but there were far more that hit the web that slipped under our radar (4Chan, anyone?). In closing, we have to bequeth honorable mentions to Starbucks for  introducing new cup sizes and to CollegeHumor for opening In-N-Out Burger in NYC. Can’t wait until next year to see what the Internet, in all of its nonsensical glory, has to offer.

The biggest news this week (and probably next week and the following weeks) is, of course, the iPad. Apple’s much talked about tablet computer. Back in January, before the iPad was announced, I posed the question of whether or not we have enough room in our technology-filled lives for a tablet device. Between our smartphones that keep getting more features and our laptops where we do the bulk of our work, the answer was an overwhelming “no.”

Steve Jobs revealed the iPad to be what many concluded -  just a large iPod touch. Despite quickly demonstrating three stripped down versions of iWorks, the iPad was abruptly dismissed as a device for productivity. Many found fault with being able to touch-type with the iPad’s on-screen keyboard. No one wanted to have to pay $70 for an iPad keyboard. Our opinions were based solely on those who had actually seen the device and played with. Apple had also been tightly guarding the few iPads they let developers look into.

On Saturday, April 3, 2010, Apple’s revolutionary “magical” iPad started to arrive via UPS to customers who pre-ordered it. I stopped by the Meatpacking District’s Apple Store in NYC to check out the mythical device. Queuing up in line, Apple staff handed out complimentary bottles of Smart Water for waiting so patiently. I got there around 1pm and was in the store in less than five minutes. No long lines, nothing. I imagined that the real buzz was happening at Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store and perhaps even the SoHo store. I got up to the second floor and waited a few minutes before the person in front of me finished playing with the iPad so I could get a nice go at it. Now that I’ve actually held and played with an iPad, I have to say that this device emits “BUY ME” almost immediately. No kidding. Even my friend, a skeptic on it’s capabilities, was immediately in love.

Safari is gorgeous. If you’ve used mobile Safari on an iPhone before, you’ll be right at home. Never has browsing the web been so intuitive. Steve Jobs was right when he said that browsing on the iPad is the best experience yet. It really is. The first thing you’ll notice is that the larger screen really helps. Unlike the iPhone, you won’t need to pinch or double tap to zoom in as much. As a Google Reader user, I hardly ever go to a website for new articles or stories. Opening Google Reader up, you get swept into the same mobile optimized version you get on the iPhone. The reading experience was nice, but I’m willing to bet that Google will bring out an iPad version of Google Reader like they have already done with the two-pane version of Gmail for the iPad.

iPhone apps look terrible on the iPad. Don’t expect to get much out of your apps you already bought for your iPhone on your new iPad. They look terrible when blown up to fill the iPad’s 9.7 inch screen.

Apple put a big emphasis on the iPad as being a gaming device. Riding on the success of the iPod touch, Apple says that games will look much better on the iPad’s larger screen. I tried a couple of games, including a racing game, and I’m not impressed. Remember when you were a kid and you held a plate up in front of you, pretending it was your steering wheel for your imaginary car? The iPad is now that plate. It’s a nice try, but unless you have ginormous hands where your thumbs can reach over the large bezels and press the overlaid buttons, gaming is not going to be much fun.

The iPad is only 1.5 pounds (.68 kg), but you start to feel it after a while. Holding the device with one hand, you will eventually put it down – I assure you. Apple’s really built the device to be a polished looking premium gadget, but at the end of the day, the gadget needs to work for you. You shouldn’t have to work for the gadget. The iPad needs an “Air” version.

iBooks was nice and smooth, just like the iPhone app Classics. The Wi-Fi model is the only one available right now, but that didn’t stop people from snatching them up. As far as I could tell, there was plenty in stock in the Apple Store I went to. Unofficial sales numbers are predicting that 600,000 to 700,000 iPads were sold on Saturday alone. Comparatively, the iPhone took a whole weekend to sell one million iPhones. If the numbers are more what are projected, then the iPad is a surefire hit. It has the potential to be bigger than the iPhone, and kill all netbooks in one swoop.

Tech junkies have croaked about the iPad not having USB ports, Flash support, cameras, SD slots, etc. However, you forget all about those things as soon as you actually hold one in your hands. Don’t take my word for it. Go out to an Apple Store and test-drive one yourself.

So, what is my verdict post-iPad launch? My mind’s definitely been changed now. I want an iPad, but I’m still going to hold off. The device can only get better in a few months. Firmware updates and 3G models that don’t require contracts and revisions will only make the iPad more desirable. In the same way the iPod Touch’s body changed to the all stainless steel and included physical volume buttons, the iPad will no doubt get some form of webcam in future models. I’ll wait until then. For now, my trusty MacBook is the only place I can multi-task, because we all know it will get annoying if you need to open and close apps just to copy and paste something.

For all you Apple aficionados, we’re down to the last few hours. Thus begins the hardest part, waiting the less than 24 hours away from the  ”big release.” To some of you, it’s like following the Dead on tour; you’ve done it enough to know the ins-and-outs. For others, this may be your first time.  A word of wisdom – always assume the product is going to be bad so that you don’t get shocked into unconsciousness. Plus, if it’s not that bad, you’ll have something to feel good about. If you have an iPhone, assume it will be the same but much more intense; Apple isn’t releasing a new product, but feels they’ve found the missing link. Remember that you can always walk away.

The iPad is a curious gadget; while it’s not really a tablet PC, it’s not an e-reader, iPhone, or iPod, either. Wait! I’ve got it. The iPad is the bridge between your phone and your computer.  The iPad is really a new species – a hybrid, if you will – integrating much of the activities for which we use phone or computer.  I think that it started off as an iPod but didn’t want to become a full fledged laptop.  In a way, the iPad is like a utility baseball player; they can play every position, but their not focused on one particular position.  In case you were wondering, Apple refers to the iPad as an “Internet Tablet.”

Before rushing to the store, or getting irritated by yet another gadget, the iPad does have some impressive standard features. Off the shelf (if it even makes it to the shelf), the iPad will be decked out with the following features:

• iPod and iTunes Store. iPad will sync just like an iPod
• Safari (web browser) and E-mail
• Photo and video storage
• YouTube Application
• The App Store (of course) as well as Apple’s new iBooks and iBookstore
• Maps, Notes, Calendar, Contacts, and Spotlight (desktop search)

The iPad was not created to replace your phone, but it can if necessary by using a Bluetooth headset to place calls over WiFi or 3G using VoIp protocols. Everything is touch-pad sensitive, just like the iPhone.

I’d tend to think that with the speed of technology, waiting might be the best gambit, although I do have to admit that “having it first” is a narcissistic pleasure that somehow defies logic. Yet, first isn’t always best. There are bound to be software bugs mixed in a with healthy dose of user stupidity. Lets not forget all of the other sordid details a new product release brings, like arguments, pushing, fights, disgruntled customers and similar crap. We’re buying iPads to make our lives easier, but we’ll take a couple of shots at our neighbor to do so – all our work towards civility, kindness, love thy brother, and peace all goes down the drain when you’re between me, and what I want. I will fricking kill you if you get in the way of making my life more fluid and urbane. That’s right. I will kill you. (If you happen to meet this person, let them have the iPad. People have been robbed at gun point for a Tickle Me Elmo.)

I’ve played both sides of the fence (waiting in line to be first versus waiting a couple of months) and, as for me, I will take the easy road and wait until the iPad comes out at Target. It will at some point. The best thing that I can say about playing the line game is that you meet some very cool (and extremely weird) people, make friends, laugh, and have good stories to tell. You’ll also have a new piece of gear that will be outdated shortly, and the accompanying bragging rights.

If the iPad is not your gig (the base model starts at $499 and tops out at $850), other manufacturers have similar, though not hyper-promoted, products. You could test drive an Archos, a Viliv, or a Nokia and then go check out the wondrous iPad.

Hey, back off! It was just a thought, that’s all. Maybe a bad one.

There have been rumors running rampant that some of your favorite sites may getting a makeover with a nifty little “Like” button. If you’re familiar with Facebook, you’ll know this button. You’ve probably already used it to show your support for your friends’ status update that read, “At work, major hangover.” Behind this proposed internet wide  “Like” button, there would be a symbiotic relationship between Facebook and third party sites.

What is Facebook going to get out of it? Only one of the biggest advertising campaigns the Internet has ever seen. Of course, Google has a couple ways of promoting ads thanks to YouTube, Gmail, and other streams which top Facebook in quantity. Google can also find out what users are interested in by focusing on their keywords and search history, but that’s as good as it gets. Users on Facebook offer tons of personal information, from geography to age, important golden nuggets for those in the advertising industry. This button will be synonymous with Facebook and will get the site a great deal of exposure. If you see a pair of shoes that you like, all of a sudden all of your friends know by the click of the mouse. Websites will literally be catering to this “Like” button because they, too, can expect additional advertising revenue.

The age old question of “how do we hit our target markets?” will be answered by you because chances are, you will be the one finding things marketed to you. You will also be the one advertising through the “Like” button to your peers, a.k.a. “The target market”

This concept isn’t terribly new. On some sites you can “Digg” or “retweet” directly to your respective accounts, even share articles to your Facebook feed. Being that this is a proposed Internet wide plan that will help Facebook know what you’re into, it’s a bit more intelligent compared to the others. If you’re thinking that Facebook doesn’t have that much power, think again. Recently Facebook overtook Google as the top site on the web (not sure how long that will last). Facebook’s popularity is at an all time high. This universal “Like” button will probably be done a toolkit that will help web developers models their sites much like Facebook’s. The idea of this is a little unsettling for some (myself included). Do you really want to help Facebook  analyze your life outside of Facebook and try to cater to you more than it already has?

Come to think of it, aren’t we all still waiting for the “Don’t Like” button on the actual Facebook site?

The die has been cast, and with it, Google’s future relations with China have entered the “big unknown.” That has to be a difficult pill for the Mount View, CA. corporation to swallow, as much of their success is a direct result of their anticipation and preparation for future events. Seriously, though, did anyone truly believe that China would be the first to suggest meeting at the bargaining table? Never.

No, China’s government is just like any Communist regime; they’d rather posture and save face than actually conduct any sort of meaningful sort of dialog. The Chinese thrive on secrecy, using fear as a weapon, and making life a real pisser for everyone.

According to David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, the process was arduous:

Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Drummond appeared on CNBC and reported in the company blog that Google was prepared to leave China after they – and other online, high-tech companies – fell victim to hackers. Google traced the attacks to China (unofficially). According to Google’s co-founder Sergey Brinn, “On a business level, that decision to censor … was a net negative.”

After the two-month stalemate, it looks as if Google has regained their composure and decided to move forward despite the consequences.

One of my favorite panels from SXSWi asked an increasingly important question concerning digital marketing and online storytelling: “Transmedia 2010, are we there yet?”

Presented by Daniel Lorenzetti and Juan Garcia, the panel looked at the adoption of transmedia storytelling tactics by major media outlets. For those who are just reading about transmedia for the first time, it was first defined by USC professor Henry Jenkins:

“Transmedia is not that new of a concept, but the emergence of today’s social and mobile networking technologies, combined with the myriad of entry points to brand messaging, meaning that transmedia storytelling should be central to every marketing effort, online or otherwise.”

Put simply, transmedia storytelling aims to engage consumers at every entry point by extending a story. This type of storytelling is already commonplace with TV shows like The Office, 30 Rock, and Community where branded web extras are advertised during the airing of the show itself. In this way, advertisers are extending the story from the small screen to the web.

While this is fine and dandy, and also an interesting way to extend a story from TV to the web, many social media purists are asking, “Where’s the interaction? Where’s the engagement?  The power of social media lies in the two-way conversation between brand and consumer! How do these branded web extras create engagement, NBC?”  Those are valuable questions to ask.

The future of transmedia storytelling will offer a greater level of engagement than anything we have seen with social media thus far. Check this out:

“If I Can Dream” is a new web based reality show from American Idol creator Simon Fuller. Five young men and women, looking for stardom, live in a house in Los Angeles with cameras in every nook and cranny. There are even cameras in their cars. While this may seem just like Big Brother, there is a twist – users can interact directly with the members of the house through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook as the story unfolds. This is a new level of engagement, a new level of reality television. What’s more? Similar to American Idol, you help choose who will become a star. The user has a direct impact on which housemate will achieve stardom.

This marks a new level of user engagement in a storyline – you have control of the outcome, or at the very least, an illusion of control, and you get to interact with characters as the story unfolds.

So is this new level of engagement better described as social media or as transmedia?

I think it is best defined as transmedia, where a storyline is available at multiple points, and social media is merely a tool utilized to spur interaction and engagement.

In this way, social media is just a part of transmedia storytelling, and this trend will continue. During the panel, Juan Garcia asked, “Instead of merely checking in at different locations, what if we could leave digital graffiti at each location?  A video that could be viewed by the people who came next? A picture that we encouraged people to comment on?”

This blending of the digital and real world will fall under the realm of transmedia, not social media. Social media will soon be seen “like air,” as envisioned by Twitter’s founders, and as a small piece of an overarching digital strategy that focuses on storytelling and engagement at all consumer entry points.

What do you think? Will the term social media fall by the wayside as it becomes incorporated into just about every digital campaign?

When thinking about fusing video and social media, YouTube is normally the first thing that pops into your head, and with good reason. The site offers original content (see Afro ninja) along with full movies that have made their way online. Facebook, however, seems to be emerging as a possible new launch site for videos and could be a better option in the future when compared to YouTube.

Just this week, Absolut Vodka jumped on the bandwagon by teaming up with Jay-Z for a documentary about the rapper that was set to debut on Absolut’s fan page. The price for admission was becoming a fan of Abolut Vodka on Facebook and, of course, your friends seeing that you have become a fan of an alcohol brand on a social media site.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=340070081191&index=1

The embodiment of a true social screening comes in the documentary “Earth Days”. The film documents the American environmental movement from the 1950′s to the first Earth Day in 1970. After making the rounds at the Sundance Film Festival, it will debut on Facebook on April 11, 2010. The date of the film’s release also happens to be 11 days before Earth Day. In those 11 days, you could choose to spread your new found earth saving knowledge via social media. Unlike the Absolut/Jay-Z, where there’s more pointless promotion than social media, “Earth Days” executive producer Mark Samels and director Robert Stone will be interacting with users while the film takes place. Participating in the discussion will be as simple as posting a question on the wall.

Also with “Earth Days” debut on Facebook, there is hope it will bring in traffic to PBS. On April 19th, PBS will present the film on their television channel. PBS hopes that the buzz from the Facebook viewing will trickle down and help the network boost viewership. Imagine that – social media helping to bring viewers to a  television channel. Who would’ve ever thunk it?

In the end, “Earth Days” is nowhere close to being a ground breaking, awe inspiring film and, for the most part, it focuses on a lesser known holiday. But these  social screenings could be a step in the right direction by mixing community and multimedia.  Music videos, movies, and video game trailers could use Facebook as a tool to get instant feedback while allowing users to interact with producers and content developers on a less daunting level. Research from Chitika shows about 9% of users on Facebook gravitate towards entertainment while on the site, andvif social screenings start to catch on, those numbers will rise indefinitely. Keep your fingers crossed.

These days, everyone wants to be a photographer, because everyone CAN be a photographer. Digital cameras are insanely cheap and the optics that power them are getting better every year. Incredibly popular are digital single lense reflex cameras (DSLRs).

Canon and Nikon, two well known camera companies, can attest to this. In the last couple of years, both Japanese companies have seen tremendous success in the entry-level DSLR bracket. Commonly known as “Pro-sumer” DSLRs, models such as Nikon’s D40/60/3000 or Nikon’s XSi/XTi/T1i are cheap, lightweight, and take great photographs that a point and shoot camera could never produce. Coupled with memory cards capable of storing thousands of photos, it’s no wonder that photography will soon become a profession that doesn’t require professionals.

Any person can just grip a camera, press the button and, voila, make a photo. The world doesn’t need another photograph on Flickr, just for the sake of being able to upload one.

Image courtesy of the tsirkus.org Flickr photostream

Photographs should show something without the aid of text or speech. Photography is all about the visual experience. Much like how a well written story “shows” and doesn’t just “tell,” a great photograph is one that doesn’t need to be explained.

Facebook makes it easy to upload albums and albums worth of photos, but how many of them are worth spots in their respective albums? How often do you see people just uploading everything from their memory cards directly to Facebook?

Again, comparing photography to writing, all the “bad” stuff is edited before it ever makes it to the reader. A book isn’t perfect when it goes through its initial rounds of editing, and neither should your photographs.

Here are a few tips everyone should follow:

1) Delete. This function is so simple, yet so many people are reluctant to use it. Great photographers know that for every ten photos, one or two will make the final cut. Even if two photos do get away from deletion during the first round, one of them is usually deleted in the second round. You will never know what photos are good, great, or terrible if you never learn to tell the difference. Good photos aren’t great. Delete them. You can make better ones when you acknowledge that. Because we’re no longer restricted by film, it doesn’t mean that we should keep all the “garbage” on our photos just because we can. It’ll clog your hard drive when you transfer it over and when you’re low in storage, you’ll kick yourself for not deleting all the lame shots in the beginning.

2) A blurred background does not equal great photography. One of the mistakes that many first-time DSLR users make is mistaking the reason an aperture exists. It’s understandable that first-time DSLR users are making the jump from point and shoot cameras and aren’t primed to bunker down and fidget with the dials and settings for aperture, shutter speed, and exposure. However, understanding what these do is essential to taking photographs. Use depth of field to emphasize or de-emphasize something in the photograph. You will put yourself in a mindset ready for better creativity if you aren’t always trying to blur something just because your camera can.

3) Zoom less. All cameras come with some zoom function. It’s easier to just stand ten feet away and zoom in on a subject. Photography is a physical activity. One of my photography teachers once told my class, “If you see a flaming baby carriage flying down Fifth Avenue and you’re standing across the street and the traffic is in the middle; then RUN and capture the shot from up close.” Your photos will look more honest. It takes real guts to hold a camera inches away from a person’s face and your photos will reflect that, showing every pore on that person’s skin. Zooming less will also teach you some basics about composition; what should go in the frame, and what shouldn’t.

4) Use the Rule of Thirds. One of the golden rules of photography, the RT divides the image with a grid. Two vertical lines and two horizontal lines running parallel from each other form perpendicular points on the image. The rule says that if you place a subject on any of these lines or on any of the points, the photos will be look more dynamic. This all works in harmony with look space.

5) Shoot from different angles. Naturally, we tend to place people in front of a background and shoot. Person + background = boring, flat, and post-card-like. I’m not saying these shots are terrible, but they do become stale after awhile. Listening to what I told you about photography being a physical activity, try different angles. Crouch down, stand on a rock, lie down. Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to spend the extra 30 seconds scouting different angles from which to shoot your photos. Trust me, there will be a difference in your photographs if they aren’t all looking straight forward.

Google China

Google’s finally had enough. After working with the rigors of conducting business behind the Red Curtain since 2006, AllThingsD announced that the Chinese version of Google,  Google.cn,  looks like they may retreat. The earliest the company would be out of the Communist country would be April 2010. A press release is expected in the next couple of days.

Yet, is it really a retreat? You might remember that Google – and up to 30 other online, tech-related companies like Adobe and Yahoo! – fell victim to cyber attacks in 2009 and 2010. The attacks, partially aimed at discovering the identities of Chinese dissidents, were traced to an island off the coast of China.

In early January, Chief Legal Officer and Google’s SVP, David Drummond, released much of the information regarding the attacks during an interview with CNBC. At the time, Drummond outlined Google’s stance on the company’s blog:

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered — combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web — have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn.”

According to Drummond, one option was to shutter Google’s Chinese offices and pull out of the country. This meant that Google would be walking away from the largest potential growth market in the world. Drummond’s message was clear: Stop the attacks and censorship or we’ll cease to conduct business in China.

China responded with a statement that welcomed foreign business ventures as long as companies conducting business

Flowers in China

in China respected Chinese law. This included self or state imposed censorship. If foreign businesses worked under these conditions, they would be able to operate “freely” inside China.  The Chinese government, however, claimed no responsibility for the attacks.

While users laid flowers outside Google’s Chinese headquarters in a sign of respect, the weeks following Google’s ultimatum were met by an eerie silence. Behind closed doors, both “super powers” undoubtedly worked to create solutions that would allow both to “save face” while keeping the tenuous relationship intact.

The quiet was broken yesterday.

The China Business News quoted an official with an unidentified Chinese advertising agency as saying Google would go through with its threatened withdrawal on April 10th, but that Google had yet to confirm the pull-out

While conjecture at this point, if the above statement is true, this will mark the first major U.S. corporation operating in China to cease operations based on principle and stick to their famous corporate slogan: Don’t Be Evil.

Brooklyn, New York is a borough that marches to the beat of its own drummer. It’s a musical mix-tape microcosm in its own right with talent always seeping from the seams and, thanks to Joe Revitte, its streets. His lone dollar van is just one in a herd of dozens,  but there is one little difference. As  it makes its way over pot holes and through traffic lights, music artists inside pour their souls out to a film crew, complete with hidden microphones, and the occasional passenger. This is Dollar Van Demos, the brainchild of Joe Revitte and his wife, Iara.

Here I talk to Joe Revitte about Dollar Van Demo’s and the impact social media has had on the production.

SR: For those who don’t know, explain what a dollar van is and how you work with them.

JR:  Dollar Vans provide cheap transportation ($2) to areas under served by public transportation.  They’re basically commuter vans operated by mostly Caribbean immigrants (especially from Jamaica, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago, but also from several countries in Africa). Since the bus service is slow and the subway reaches only a half-way distance, the dollar vans help transport several thousand passengers per day between their homes to their jobs, shopping, and school.  The vans run only on one route but can stop or pick up riders on any corner. We run with a van on Flatbush Avenue (basically Brooklyn’s “Main Street”) and the dollar vans can be found on other main thoroughfares in Brooklyn and in Queens. We work with a van operated by Black Street Van Lines owned by Winston “Youngblood” Williams, whose company’s vans are legal, insured, and permitted by the Taxi & Limo Commission (TLC) of New York City.  The vans have a deserved reputation of driving at top legal speed, packing the seats full of passengers and pumping great reggae, hip-hop, and soca music from their speakers.

Next to YouTube, what would be your favorite social media site and why?

It’s hard to say, but I like how MySpace allows musicians to completely customize their pages with all of their images and music, I like how Facebook offers smart organization of connections and messages, and I like how Twitter allows instantaneous communication.  We consider every social network to be important to our ever-growing network of connections. One thing I’m really proud of and have a lot of fun doing is re-tweeting and communicating directly with Dollar Van riders on Twitter since some of the messages they send are uniquely hilarious (see our Twitter feed for proof).

How do you go about building such a great fan base on your social media sites?

By working really hard and continuing every moment to work even harder.  We basically make sure we’re continuously contributing to “the feedback loop” where if someone connects to us, leaves a comment, etc. we try to reciprocate with a short, positive reply.

McDonald’s recently borrowed your idea, how did that happen?

After this guy subscribed to our YouTube channel in November, I sent him a message via YouTube thanking him for supporting our channel. He was gob smocked that someone would be thanking a subscriber in such a way and he revealed that he worked for a Chicago advertising agency. He said his client, McDonald’s, was about to launch their new “Dollar Menu at Breakfast” and asked us to collaborate with them. We licensed our concept for two commercials that starting airing nationwide in January starring Joya Bravo and Wordspit. This is proof of the amazing connectivity of the Internet!  The “behind the scenes” footage and the spot starring Joya Bravo can be found here.

What is the most rewarding aspect of what you do?

Just the chance to discover great new music and turn it into a fun music video. Plus the looks on various passengers’ faces when they are presented with the performance (almost universally positive too).

Name your strangest moment in the Dollar Van during production.

Each production have had such surreal and funny things go on, but we always love it when a passenger refuses to get out because they’re enjoying the music so much. An upcoming video by singer Cocoa Sarai will show this happening.

There is a bit of technology involved in producing a Dollar Van Demo, what’s some of your favorite gadgets outside of the van?

One of the coolest things we’ve gotten is a Samsung HMX U10 camcorder which we use to produce our mini-show called “Dollar Van Demos Seen!” (see it on our website where we attend various events and use this pocket-sized HD camera for interviews. This nice gadget came courtesy of Samsung Digital Imaging in exchange for providing regular blog contributions using the camera.

Name any three artists from any time period that you would love to have in the van and what they would perform.

1. Sister Nancy — reggae legend who sings “Bam Bam” – the quintessential dollar van song
2. Bob Marley — the patron saint of dollar van drivers
3. Blackstarr — Mos Def and Talib Kweli because their classic video “Destination” was made in a dollar van
4. Conroy Smith — a lost legend of dancehall reggae who has a beautiful song called “Dollar Van Ride” that screams out for us to make a Demo with!

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into building an internet based entertainment business such as yours?

Establish a uniform name and look across all the social media platforms that appeal to you and continuously contribute  compelling content. Also, we read a couple books that also started us thinking about what we’re doing in a new ways: “33 Million People in the Room” by Juliette Powell and “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuck. Both books are very simple to read in a day or two and provide lots of resources to put a concept together.

Finish the line, “Five years from now, Dollar Van Demos will be….”

Hopefully still making the videos but in other cities in countries!  Stay tuned…



Local Texans in Austin are either grumbling about the slew of youths and db’s about to infiltrate their fair city, or rubbing their palms together for the tourist payday as the 24^th Annual Music & Media Conference, South By Southwest, gets going (or should I say, growing). With social media, networking, technology, branding power, and everything else expanding faster than child obesity, so does SXSW and the amount of attendees.

The Interactive and Film portion kicked off on March 12^th with trade shows, conferences, discussion panels, celebrity interviews, and film screenings, industry parties, etc. The big balls officially drop on the 17^th, as bands from far and wide will melodically mount and rotate the 80-plus stages in downtown Austin. It’s hard to imagine the scope of planning that goes into the non-stop schedule, and if you think you have your itinerary all mapped out, think again. It’s going to get messy once the texts start pouring in – “Go see this show”, “Come to such-and-such film” – and your days become 90% planning, totally souring what should be a liberating mood.

So, we can all count our blessings for phones with email and the “what-the-f*ck did we do before” invention of text…but, like the dearly departed Corey Haim, everything has its limits. For example, if you’re at SXSW, you might text a group of friends, and then you get a text back, you respond, you get one from someone else and you fill them in on what you already heard back, and thus begins the chaotic cycle of simply trying to meet up with your goddamned friends. Sucks to be popular, don’t it?!?

Well, for you high-in-social-demand types, scratch the above time-consuming malarkey. With the new Brightkite Group Text, you can hit all your loyal buddies at once and start a big old text-versation – including pics.  You can use it from your computer, iPhone, iPhone touch, even if you’re not a member of Brightkite. With it, you can still text back from your phone and it will go to everyone on the list in the Group Text. It’s like the “Reply All” of texting. But the awesome thread is still saved with Brightkite, if – unthinkable as it seems – you can’t remember last night.

But for those of you looking to downsize your phone bill, you can cancel that bastard and use Brightkite’s Group Text for all your texting needs. Then meet up with your friends and borrow their phone!  Bite me, Verizon – can you hear me now, bitch?

The implications of that question might be a little bold today, but not by much.

Think about your normal everyday habits online for a few minutes.

In case you haven’t noticed, your online behavior has changed drastically in just the last couple of years.  How much of your news and information online do you have to GO TO to consume, and how much of your news and information COMES TO YOU?

(...Yes, you ARE very lazy.)

Now think about Facebook’s role in facilitating that “bring it to me” behavior.  How much of all that content being served up to you has Facebook’s fingerprints all over it (…on Facebook.com, on your mobile device, via an aggregation tool like TweetDeck)?

Now that we have established your semi-sad dependence on Mark Zuckerberg, what are some of the things supporting the argument that Facebook is becoming the new Internet?

What does Facebook dominate?

1) Scale

Unless you live in a cave, you are probably aware that Facebook is freaking enormous.

• More than 400 Million active users
• More than 50% active users log in every day
• The average user spends almost one hour per day on FB
• The average user has 130 friends
• More than 3 Million Pages (company, brand, etc.)
• 70% of active users are from outside the United States
• More than 100 Million active users access FB via mobile devices

2) Platform

Facebook can definitely play the role of destination site if you like it that way, but its real power is as a platform.

• More than 500,000 active applications
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect
• More than 70 languages are supported and over 300,000 users help translate
• More than 60 Million users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites per month

3) Relevance

Facebook offers a degree of relevancy to YOUR content that is hard to match. Ask yourself this question – what is more important to you?

Information that is streamed to you without a filter other than keywords?

OR

Information that is streamed to you that you know is already pre-filtered by what you have chosen to receive along with  information that is shared from within your personal network?

This is about your personal preferences and trust.  Hands down the pre-filtered content will win your loyalty over the long term every time.  Facebook, 1 – Rest of the Internet, 0.

4) Laziness

We already established that you are a lazy person, but hey, perk up there webslack because apparently everyone else is, too. Go look at the stats above to feel better about yourself.

What does Facebook NOT dominate?

To be more specific, what activities or needs do you still have to rely on other providers/platforms for?  What points support the flipside of this argument that Facebook is not becoming the Internet?

1) Commerce Transactions

Facebook has become an undisputed major force throughout the sales funnel (awareness, research, etc.) due to the same preference and trust attributes mentioned above, but it is not the preferred platform for completing the actual transaction.  There are commerce transactions that occur on Facebook, but for the most part, all significant eCommerce transactions occur outside of the grasp of Facebook.  Rest of the Internet, 1 – Facebook 0 …for now.

2) Search

Real time search is great, but Twitter has Facebook’s number on that for now.  At the end of the day, both Facebook and Twitter are no match for Google.  When it comes to looking for a information about a particular topic in the vast sea of content available, there is no better solution than Google.

"Suck it Mark" -- Larry & Sergey

3) Sex

As open and free as Facebook is (…haters, insert the focus of your rage here), it does still control the content that is made available for consumption via its channels.  Facebook reserves the right to not allow content it deems questionable to be published on the site.  So, for now, you will still have to drag your lazy virtual self outside of the Facebook bubble and over to AssThumpers.com or ImaNeoNaziIdiot.com to get your freak or severe stupidity on.

Agree or Disagree?

I definitely do not consider myself a supreme expert on this subject, nor do I think that the points made are completely air-tight.  There are big holes in the details, but I feel that the general direction of the argument is sound.

If you disagree with me, call me out on my errors and explain where I went wrong.  If you agree with me, say so and drop your knowledge into the holes I left.

Prior to 2006, video games were for the hardcore. Xboxes, PlayStations, and Gamecubes separated the boys from the men. If you didn’t invest in learning button control schemes and combos, you couldn’t rumble with the best players in Soul Calibur II, Halo, or even Mario.

When the Wii launched in fall 2006, Nintendo redefined the definition of video games, shifting it from being a dominantly hardcore subculture to one that is for the true masses. Games that weren’t “games” in the traditional sense such as Nintendogs and Brain Training proved that casual gaming was on the rise. Since last year, Nintendogs has sold 21.67 million copies worldwide and Brain Age has sold 17.41 million copies worldwide. Those aren’t small figures. It used to be that only Mario or Sonic could reach those numbers, but now casual games can, too – because there is demand.

Our lives are becoming increasingly connected to technology, and leisure time is spent almost entirely on the computer browsing the web for the next funny YouTube video. Who has time for video games anymore? Especially to invest 40+ hours in a JRPG? Not many. People today have short attention spans, no doubt thanks to the Internet. We get our information from Twitter in 140 characters or less, from our friends on Facebook, and from tabloid-style newspapers such as the Metro that are given out free but offer no more than a paragraph or two on any given news report. This is the world we live in, and that is the world for which what game engineers need to develop.

A virtual meal in Restaurant City

Take FarmVille, a farm simulation game created by Zynga, on Facebook. Launched in June 2009, FarmVille seems to be unstoppable, boasting a community of over 82.7 million active users since of last February, smashing through every available person’s free time. It’s impossible to be on Facebook and not know at least one person who isn’t harvesting some kind of crop, earning virtual coins, purchasing animals, and expanding their farm plot. Facebook users aren’t playing FarmVille for hours on end. Gaming is often broken down in chunks. Water this, plant that, then come and check on how it’s going in a few minutes or hours.

Will Wright, creator of Sim City, The Sims, and Spore is predicting that social games will rise and broaden the market by as much as 25%. It’s hard put to say that he would be completely wrong. Electronic Arts, one of the world’s largest third-party video game publishers, is apparently also banking on the growing social games sector, otherwise it wouldn’t have paid $300 million for developer Playfish last November. Like Zynga, Playfish has a slew of successful Facebook games similar to FarmVille such as Restaurant City, a game where you manage your own restaurant to earn money to decorate and expand it.

To finalize the significance that social/casual games will become in the future, just take a look at Sony’s newest announcement for their motion-controller interface called PlayStation Move. Using a PlayStation Eye and a Move controller along with a “sub-controller,” Sony is aiming for the slice of the pie from which Nintendo has been happily biting. Microsoft is projected to move into this market as well later this year with their Natal, a controller-less interface.

I remember in 2008, when I briefly interned at a social games lab, no one ever expected social/casual games to take off. Now, thanks to games like FarmVille, there is a sliver of hope for social games to not just be easy enough to pick-up, but hopefully start representing issues that would have otherwise been neglected because they aren’t friendly enough to be marketed.

Yesterday, Reuters released what could be called a “reverse step” in social media policy, which instructs their journalists to avoid bias and specifically instructs them not to scoop the news wire by breaking their stories on social media sites first.

While it’s understandable that Reuters seeks to uphold the trust placed in them by their readers, the policy is moving in the wrong direction as many other online content providers strive to provide information in real-time. Indeed, the past year has seen Facebook, Google, and other online mediums provide real-time results in their search content. Additionally, search aggregators, such as LeapFish, not only provide results based on the major search engines, but access to real-time results as well, all from a single query.

The instructions make it clear that journalists are to release stories via the wire first, and then on social media outlets, including Twitter, secondarily.

The policy advises Reuters’ journalists to seek approval from their managers before using Twitter for any professional purpose, and also suggests that someone within the Reuters organization check the tweets before they’re posted so that personal bias is not disclosed. Reuters also suggests that journalists separate their personal accounts from their professional accounts.

Jennifer Bruin at Mashable states clearly what seems to be the news organization’s major concern:

“[Reuters] is torn between encouraging employees to use social media and the realization that the online behaviors of their staff put them at risk, a sentiment expressed in the comment that these tools, if misused, could ‘threaten our hard-earned reputation for independence and freedom from bias or our brand.’”

As local and national television news leans toward becoming entertainment in the face of poor ratings, news sources like the Associated Press and Reuters are fighting to protect their main business services while simultaneously recognizing that news gathering and reporting is changing. As seen during the conflict in the 2009 Iranian voting violence, the “Miracle on the Hudson” aircraft landing, and the total takeover of Twitter, Facebook, and Skype as the only means of communication during natural disasters, social media’s already on the front lines while journalists are scrambling to arrive.

The BBC has gone the exact opposite route, according to Social Media Today. Their new director, Peter Horrocks, tells journalists to get on-board, or get out:

Peter Horrocks assumed the position of director of BBC Global News last week, and he’s not wasting time with niceties. The self-proclaimed technology enthusiast is telling journalists to get with the social media program or get out.

While news agencies struggle with how to incorporate social media into their services and still remain profitable, it’s certain that social media, as a source of news and information, is not some trend that will go away in a few years. How the major news services handle this new wrinkle in reporting will undoubtedly play a key role in the future of how news is reported.

A long time ago in a far away land called Los Angeles, there was a great king named Conan O’Brien. After several years of his reign, his network turned on him and he went into hiding. Those still loyal to him searched high and low to no avail. Then on February 24th, he came to Twitter and announced, “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.”

He was back, sort of. Before long, his people came back together. Over half a million followed him wherever he went, reading his tweets and, in some cases, retweeting. Soon after, Conan did something most interesting – he began to follow someone. Just one. The “followee: was a 19-year-old college student in Michigan who had only started tweeting two days before Conan under the handle @LovelyButton. O’Brien would then tweet “Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.” And so it did.  Very quickly.

The tweet that launched a new celebrity

Killen hadn’t taken the comment seriously but soon enough, word blazed across the social media lands and she had a following of over 15,000 people. Quite a large number since she was new to Twitter and only had about three followers beforehand. Not only was her name gaining notoriety, she was also amassing a small fortune. When her webcam threatened to prevent her from doing a video interview with MTV, some kind soul who sells horns in Florida bought  her a new Apple computer. And with her wedding set for later this year, she is being offered a tailor made wedding dress by a designer in New York.

We still aren’t sure why Killen was the chosen one. She says that Conan’s people contacted her through MySpace quite randomly and she said sure, not taking it too seriously. But with all the attention and very real treasures, she’s probably had a change of heart. Thousands are reaching out to a girl who, just a couple days ago, was practically unknown.

No one knows what O’Brien is plotting. Him coming onto Twitter was strange enough, but following only one person makes us all scratch our heads. I guess we’ll have to keep following Conan and Sarah to see where all this ends up.

If you haven’t already read the previous piece by Sunil on the Chatroulette site, let me give you a short breakdown. Chatroulette is a video chat-based “networking” site, consisting of two windows for video. The top window will be a random stranger from anywhere in the world, and the bottom window is you. To the right there is a text window. You can turn your video off, but you won’t be getting any action on this site without it. Sunil and I had different ideas about whether this site gets a thumbs-up…which has a whole different meaning if you spend enough time on Chatroulette.

My review is slightly tainted after finding myself more often than not coming “face to dick” rather than “face to face” with these strangers. Sunil found the site “unorganized”, but I think the better term might be primitive. You can “Next” people, “Report” people, or “Stop” – that’s about it.  To me, this is actually VERY organized. I had to give my dad a tutorial on Facebook, which might be user-friendly to the networking generation, but Chatroulette is an attractive site for people that find all the profiling and posting and gifting and fanning and following…overwhelming. And for people who don’t want a profile for one reason or another, there is another turn-on – no membership required! No email and no password, no way to trace or block anyone who disobeys the site’s BS clause forbidding obscene or pornographic material.

I couldn’t get the site to see my built-in camera. While I was problem solving, I figured I could get some help from this great network of people. But with strangers not being able to see me, I got skipped before I could even type “WAIT, HELP” or “Having technical difficulties.” Jeff Foxworthy’s doppelganger skipped me. He appeared to be networking from a suburban, country home den, the kind where your quiet and “keeps-to-himself” neighbor researches the anatomy of young children in a hidden cellar.

I got skipped two more times by guys that probably had browsers like eHarmony.com and the Craigslist personals up at the same time. I was about to throw in the towel until I could get my camera working, when my fortune changed – one person didn’t skip me. All I can tell you about him – Caucasian and uncircumcised. After asking for some insight on why my camera wasn’t working and not getting a reply, I had to ask if he might have a “free hand”, but after a few more spastic strokes, I found myself “nexting” him, still sans video.

Finally, the light bulb went on. I remembered after I reinstalled my operating system a few weeks ago, I hadn’t downloaded Adobe Flash. Problem solved; I was nervous but ready for my close-up. I actually never saw a girl on there, which might be why I was able to keep up a good text chat with a couple of guys. They seemed happy to chat as long as I wanted. So, networking is technically possible. But there are also some other variables that make Chatroulette a risky bet.

For the most part, I was faced with the head of a penis rather than the head that traditionally sits atop a neck. It seems to be the platform of choice for guys who like to “chaturbate.” But I also can see this being a tool for cruel entertainment. In a similar screen grab, a girl that may well already be insecure and rejected in the real world will be subject to insults.

There’s a good chance that you will experience some rejection from people that just immediately disconnect when your face (or whatever) pops up. But a sensitive, tormented teen might also face people that don’t click “next” because they get their kicks ridiculing an easy target. And that’s the kind of activity that makes suicidal teens go for it. Maybe that’s extreme, but it’s not unlikely that an insecure girl, seeking approval, might be naïve to a charming and persuasive person who asks her to compromise herself for his viewing pleasure.

Without actual members, there is no way to objectively say who uses Chatroulette, but based on my experience and the opinions of the few people I had chats with, it’s mostly men, and mostly from the waist down. But there are people on the site that just want to experience networking on a random, instant-gratification level.  I actually had some good chat experiences on there, but without cock-blocking security, this site might be best left in the hands of Chris Hansen.

I have to digress and conclude here with a helpful pointer for Dateline. This could be a great outlet for Dateline’s righteous and fruitful work on “To Catch A Predator”, the eye-opening, pedophile-busting stings mixed with a little “You’re on Hidden Camera” and a side of “Punk’d”! I can see it now – Chris Hansen gliding into the kitchen to spoil the fun for the antsy dullard that just drove four hours, toting nearly $20 on study materials such as Astroglide and condoms to “tutor” a 6^th grade girl. I doubt there is a shortage of perverted numbskulls, but either way… Chatroulette could be the f*cking jackpot!

Do you ever wonder why, with all of the marvelous personal info that Facebook collects, they’d allow an advertiser to run an idiotic ad for mortgage refinancing with a hairy, caveman looking dude on it, or those ridiculous “Find out who Googled You” ads with the image of a college girl that wouldn’t Google you if she were the last piece of ass on Earth?

It’s obvious that the ads must be working because they’re still running. Either that, or they’re running on a pay-per-click basis and no one is clicking, thus costing the  advertiser nothing. I’ve come to think that social media is such a targeted platform that, when an offending ad comes up, I never fail to wonder which “marketing genius” dropped the ball.

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t have anything against banner ads on my FB page, nor do I have anything against the companies behind the ads. What bugs me is that we hear about what a great platform Facebook is for behavioral and geographic targeting, then these Run-of-Site (ROS) ads show up.  I know that money is money, but when the advertising starts to negatively affect the medium, or the brand, it’s time to make a decision on which one is of the most importance.

Why am I bitching? Primarily because I’m allowed. Yet…I do have a point, although it’s feasible that I’m the only person who took notice. This is doubtful, but theoretically within the realm of possibilities.  Maybe Facebook needs the money, although Inside Facebook projects that the social media powerhouse could boost ad revenues from an estimated $700 million in 2009 to a whopping (estimated) $1.1 billion in 2010. Why estimated? Facebook does not release their advertising revenues. So, maybe those “Who Googled You?” ads are working perfectly…

Some of the ads are so poorly targeted (or wholly un-targeted) that I report the ads as offensive.

In case you’re unaware of this “featurette,” Facebook allows users input as to which ads they like or dislike, and why. You can mark the ads as misleading (no one really Googled me), offensive (that chick’s a whore), or just poorly targeted (irrelevant). While it’s not a perfect system, the reasoning behind it is brilliant; the more information you give away, the better Facebook’s advertisers are able to reach you.

Overall, it’s a pretty sweet marketing tool for all involved because it provides you, the user, a vote. There isn’t another ad medium in the world that does that, my friend, so take advantage of it. If you are easily offended, mark the ad that way; I actually mark quite a few as “offensive,” but I’m not easily offended. I do it because I learned that “offensive” seems to be the  single voting button that guarantees an ad won’t show up again. Don’t tell Facebook, though, or they’ll take it away.

As Facebook gathers more information about you, your surfing habits, and your online behaviors, they’ll be able to cross tabulate the data with information that’s related to your demo- and- pyschographic profile. (Demographic information is your age, income range, highest level of education, race, and etc. Pyschographic data is comprised of your opinions, attitudes, and activities.) Over time, the information becomes an accurate picture of who you are and what you buy, allowing advertisers to serve ads to you for items you may actually purchase.

Think about that for a second. Instead of searching for a product, you might just see something that you want to buy on your profile page.

While the following statement may seem obvious, it’s nearly impossible to predict:

“The simple idea is that advertising influences the brand-choice of consumers who are in the market for the product. It’s about how we think advertising works.” [emphasis: mine]

- Erwin Ephron, the man behind is the concept of recency.  Even simpler, take only the emphasized words:

Advertising influences consumers who are in the market…

Pay attention, this is important! If advertisers had the ability to engage us at the exact moment we decide to enter the market, sales would skyrocket. Pay attention to what they come up with next.

We are taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming today in order to honor (and attend) the Second Annual Shorty Awards! The awards ceremony will honor the best represented personalities and social media elites on Twitter, and all winners will give their acceptance speeches in 140 characters or less. Please join us virtually (or vicariously) by going to the official site to watch the streaming video of the ceremony, beginning at 7:30pm EST tonight. You can also follow the @ShortyAwards on Twitter and Facebook.

For more background on the ceremony, please revisit Rocky’s post on the nominees! Join us later in the week for all of the insider details too hot for other social media news sites (we may even name names and provide photographic evidence of debauchery…).

Stay tuned!

No one cares if you’re a Mac or a PC. There is no such thing as being a Mac or being a PC, and anyone who says otherwise is a complete fanboy who needs to grow up and realize that we live in a world where the work that we do is more important than what we do that work on. Computers are computers, whether it has a glowing Apple on its back or not. No one cares, just like an idiot is still an idiot whether they’re rich or poor.

Yes, I’m typing this out on a Mac, but that’s because it’s my primary computer at the moment. However, I could just as easily get a PC and do the same thing.

Owning a “premium” computer that costs nearly double that of a PC will not make you produce better content. I’ve been using my MacBook for almost three years and after switching to Mac, I was convinced that I did better work on Apple’s computers. For the last few years, I’ve deluded myself into thinking, because of my affiliation with the Mac, that I was superior to all my friends who were banging out on their ugly Dells and HPs. How wrong I have been and I am glad that I’ve realized it before it’s too late. My work flow may have improved significantly because of OS X’s more manageable interface, but it doesn’t mean I’ve produced better material.

Some people will say that a beautiful piece of hardware inspires them to create wonderful content and, for a short bit of time, I bought that bullshit too. I was so high from drinking Apple’s Kool-Aid that I completely forgot that I once wrote great articles on a PC (a lousy one at that, a Windows ME).

Apple’s “Get a Mac” commercials with their infamous “Hello, I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC” slogan, starring Justin Long and John Hodgman, would like you to think otherwise. Their iconic commercials have been airing since 2006 and have done nothing but fan the flames between Mac and PC users. Often witty and humorous, Cupertino’s ad agency has really created a cult following through these commercials. It’s not pretty.

The problem is that they’re giving off the wrong impression. Completely trashing the competition wreaks of the “ruthlessness” that is often ascribed to Apple CEO, Steve Jobs himself. People say this guy is a visionary, but it’s always his way or the highway. As well outlined in the recent fallout over including Adobe Flash on the iPad, Jobs dissed Flash as a “CPU hog” that is often the culprit for crashing Macs and called it a “dying technology.”

In the 21st century, being computer literate is much more important than siding with a brand. With the web now the central purpose of computing, being a Mac or PC is even more irrelevant. Knowing how to use services and programs to the best of your ability is what counts.

With that said, I ask everyone to stop this madness now and denounce being a Mac or a PC. One doesn’t make you any better than the other. Taking sides just shows what an idiotic fanboy you are.

When we think of social networking tools, the obvious choices that come to mind are Facebook, Twitter, and (perhaps) MySpace. They  follow a somewhat similar format; you can add your own media (music, pictures, links, etc.), there’s a place for you to give everyone the 411 on what you’re up to or who you are, but more importantly, you can socially network. Your friends or people you awkwardly added to your friends list can interact with you and vice versa. You can even follow people or have them follow you, despite how unbelievably creepy that sounds. So when I first heard Chatroulette being mentioned in this arena, I really began to wonder…is this really a social networking tool?

Here are some things you should know about Chatroulette.  First, unlike Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, there is an age restriction to Chatroulette -  you must be 16 and over to enter. Secondly, anything goes for the most part. Despite the weak warning from the site, anything you do is really all good unless someone reports it. You can see an Al Gore masked man, followed by boobs, followed by some American troops stationed overseas who are just as curious about Chatroulette as you are. Thirdly, this was invented by a 17-year old boy in Moscow, yet the servers for the company are in Germany. Why Germany? Because it’s halfway between the United States and Russia (there’s something oddly politically poetic in that precise planning).

But, I digress. As much as I wanted to shun Chatroulette from the realm of social networking and put it in the category of short term novelty/failed speed dating site, I have to admit, there is some social networking going on there. I don’t just get a link to a rockers music – she can play it for me live. I don’t need to look for the latest pictures; there’s a live feed of your face. And I don’t need to add a comment on a wall and wait for a response. I can tell that strange Asian guy in a bra “Dude, that bra is working for you.” In a way, I am social networking.

It is nowhere near as organized as one of the other major social networking sites, but it works, and maybe it’s better. Socially interacting with total strangers seems to be a bold move, but it’s strangely making the world a smaller place which seems to be the overall goal for social networking sites. In the end, Chatroulette might not be the prettiest person at the party, but it’s the one you’ll have the most fun with.