Alex de Carvalho

Links for 2009-11-17 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 PST

YouTube Direct to Link Media Companies and Consumers’ Video - NYTimes.com
YouTube has signed up NPR, Politico, The Huffington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle for YouTube Direct, a new method for managing video submissions from readers. The new feature, to be formally introduced on Tuesday, is a tool to make it easy for YouTube users to submit clips that news media companies can choose to highlight. The site plans to sign up other media partners.

CNJ595: Social Media – Communication, Community, and Literacy

Alex de Carvalho — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:53:45 +0000

University of Miami – School of Communication
CNJ595: Web 2.0: Social Media: Communication, Community, and Literacy
Spring Semester 2010

SYLLABUS

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE:

In a few short years, social media has profoundly changed the online communication landscape. With the advent of new tools and platforms, more and more people are publishing and participating in conversations online. Mass adoption of social computing technologies has led to new types of mediated interaction as people maintain more relationships than any time prior.

As former members of the audience become the creators of content, corporations and media organizations lose control of their marketing message and individuals face new challenges in terms of privacy, identity, and the maintenance of virtual relationships.

After an overview of how we got here, this course explores these opportunities and challenges across a number of disciplines and technologies.

This course is grounded in practice, and you will be required to participate in social networks, forums, blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, and more. Class discussions, presentations by students, readings, and examples of emerging technologies and media will bring us greater understanding of the issues, evolution, and practice of social media. We will also learn from case studies, invited speakers, and our own learning journals, new effective strategies and applications of these platforms.

The class is highly participatory both offline and online. Between the weekly scheduled class meetings, this course’s discussion continues in a variety of online and virtual environments. Those who complete this course will know how to use social media productively, and have a framework for understanding and evaluating new tools and platforms.

ASSIGNMENTS/COURSEWORK:

We will be using a shared wiki, individual blogs, a bookmarking service, and individual twitter accounts as the web platforms for this course.

The wiki functions as the central space for collaboration, where assignments and readings will be posted and discussions will be held. The wiki will also have the required reading list, which may change during the course according to our progress.

The online requirements serve both to familiarize you with new web communication technologies and to continue the discussion beyond the confines of the campus.

Wiki – 5% of final grade. The first requirement is to use the wiki as directed in the class assignments or to add to the discussion or common pages.

Blog – 25% of final grade. The second is to publish a minimum of two blog posts each week on topics relevant to the class discussion, as described in the syllabus and context of the readings. Each blog post should link to relevant resources on the web. The blog will be evaluated on the quality of engagement with themes of the class, the clarity of expression, and the cultivation of community through regular posts and comments. Each blog post must include the tag “S10CNJ595”.

Microblog – 10% of final grade. The third will involve maintaining a Twitter account active with at minimum one posting every 24hrs. Twitter is a free micro-blogging service and community where a post is 140 characters or less. Twitter posts will be evaluated on the cultivation of community through friending, retweets (and being retweeted), and general engagement through @replies.

Social Bookmarking – 5% of final grade. The fourth is to bookmark websites that are of interest to the course, using the free service delicious ( http://del.icio.us/ or http://delicious.com ). Students will be expected to complete 40 bookmarks relevant to class topics throughout the semester, at least 20 of which should be done by mid-term. Each bookmark must also include the tag “S10CNJ595”.

Topical Presentation and Discussion – 25% of final grade. You will be expected to deliver a presentation during the course.You may choose to research and present an existing relational technology (a social network or a social media tool), covering the following aspects: what is the history of the technology or platform? What are the relational aspects and functionalities? How is identity developed? What types of activities created digital traces? How are relationships created and displayed? How are communities formed and managed? How does the social discovery of information, news, and events occur? How does the platform or technology integrate with external web services?
Alternatively, you may choose to interview a recognized thought-leader or entrepreneur in social media, including: how did they get started with social media? What is their field of expertise or strength in social media? What were the milestones in their own online development? What do they consider to be historical milestones in social media (case studies, new technologies, etc.)? What challenges have they faced and what battles have they fought along the way (anecdotes are important)? What is the future of social media?Presentations should be 20 minutes in length with accompanying visuals.

Participation – 20% of final grade. Class participation is required. Students are expected to do all the required readings for the course, to attend classes regularly, to have completed the reading in advance of classes, and to participate actively in class discussion. Students will facilitate discussion, together with one other student, on selected syllabus readings. Each reading will be presented by this team of two students, who will coordinate among themselves and come to class prepared to summarize the material, develop additional themes for further discussion and facilitate broad discussion, working from questions submitted by students. Students will be graded on the clarity of presentation and the level of understanding of the readings under discussion.

Final Exam – 10% of final grade. The final exam will evaluate your familiarity with social media concepts, case studies, and vocabulary.

COURSE TOPICS OUTLINE

Session 1 January 20, 2010 – Meet the social web

Class introductions: who are we and what are our interests; what do we expect and want out of this class?

Instructor and students introduce themselves, instructor explains objectives, assignments and expectations.

Course introduction: what has changed online, how and why we got here:

* Overview of social media and Web 2.0

* Differences between traditional media and social media

* Introduction to wikis, including PBwiki and MediaWiki

Session 2 January 27, 2010 – Blogging concepts, ethics, terms, tools, and techniques

* Blogging culture: authenticity, transparency, authority, influence, ethics, and credibility

* Writing for the web: how do people read and browse online?

* Newspapers text vs. online text: similarities and contrasts

* Corporate blogging

* Hosting your own blog vs. using hosted blog platforms

* Creation of a web site using Wordpress content management system

* Basics of HTML and CSS to get you out of a jam

* Trackbacks, links, tags, sidebars, blogrolls, widgets, and feeds

* Principal search engines for blogs

Session 3 February 3, 2010 – RSS feeds and feedreaders: techniques in distribution, productivity, and monitoring.

All you wanted to know about RSS but were afraid to ask:

* Feed readers: manage your information overload and save time.

* Google Reader and Feedly

* Google Shared Items

* Publishing and distributing your media online; syndicating your media and content to your communities through RSS

* Monitoring your reputation, your brands and your keywords

* Setting up feeds and alerts for the information that matters to you

* Feedburner

* Facebook feeds, Tumblr, Jaiku, FriendFeed and SocialThing

* Blog and social network widgets

Session 4 February 10, 2010 – Social networks, identity, and your brand

* Your life online: considerations when setting up an account

* Your online CV: business networking with LinkedIn

* Social Graph: 6 degrees of separation, in theory and practice

* Online communities and social networks: becoming an active member and participating

* Rapid cognition online

* Social networking for promoting people, products, and services

* How does social network design and architecture affect participation? What else affects participation?

Invited guest: Facebook app expert

* Comparing the platforms: LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, Orkut, and more

* Facebook apps and Open Social

* Whose data is it? Closed gardens and network data portability

Session 5 February 17, 2010 – Additional concepts, platforms, and techniques

* It’s all social. How people connect: framework for understanding and analysis

* Social object: friend-based sociality and object-centered sociality

* The social media starfish

* OpenID

* Photography on the web: what’s Flickr and how does it fit in?

* Copyright and Creative Commons

* Harnessing collective intelligence: social bookmarks, folksonomies, collaborative and active filtering

* Google and Google News search hacks

Invited speaker: web analytics and SEO expert

* How online robots and spiders index and crawl through your content

* Metrics, measurement and analytics

* Search engine optimization (SEO), search marketing, and social media optimization (SMO)

Session 6 February 24, 2010 – Video and audio distribution and sharing

* Mediasnacks. Filming, editing, and publishing a short video online

* Recording an audio interview, editing, and uploading it

* Use of images, graphs, and maps to illustrate texts

* Creating Soundslides with photos and audio

* Using Bittorrent for uploading and downloading large files

* Conversational video: Seesmic is to YouTube what Twitter is to Blogger

Session 7 March 3, 2010 – Your identity online and offline.

Behavior affects credibility, authority, and influence.

What about privacy, security, and ethics?

Special guests: local bloggers are invited to class for a roundtable discussion on their experiences, over pizza and soft drinks

Session 8 March 10, 2010 – Virtual worlds, Second Life, and World of Warcraft

Virtual worlds exist in many forms, and many more are sure to be created. We first look at World of Warcraft, and then explore SecondLife, the immersive virtual world. We’ll look at ways to bridge the virtual and physical world in SecondLife.

Session 9 March 17, 2010 – SPRING RECESS / INTERCESSION

Required Readings: please consult the course wiki

Session 10 March 24, 2010 – Getting things done online, collective action, and sharing economies

What can be done alone? What can be done collectively? How do individuals build up social capital? How can self-interest be leveraged to create public goods? How do people organize online into groups for cooperation, collaboration, and collective action? What are the relationships between collective action, community, and democracy? What mechanisms facilitate collective action and community? Do social networks allow for new forms of production (ie., “non-market peer production”)?

Session 11 March 31, 2010 – Cloud computing, SaaS, open source, browsers, and standards

Overview of open source culture and software. What factors lead to success? What motivates contributors?

Does most of your data reside on your hard drive, or in the cloud? Which data is where? Why? Which factors lead to greater migration of data online?

Does the desktop matter anymore? How does the browser continue to change, and why? What about new desktop (and mobile) clients? Also, we take a look at browser extensions.

Overview of software as a service providers and platforms, for private, personal business, and corporate use. What are the business models?

Session 12 April 7, 2010 – The changing role of PR and marketing

How has online participation in social media affected brand, positioning, advertising, and public relations? What role for community?

We explore case studies of successes and failure in social media communications by brands. Are companies having a hard time adjusting, and if so, why?

Guest speaker: PR 2.0 guru / expert

Session 13 April 14, 2010 – Citizen journalism

What are the models for journalism online? How do they leverage the community? What are the elements of citizen journalism sites? How is the information structured? In which ways do readers and the community participate? How to maintain relevance and quality? If you could build a citizen journalism site, what would it look like?

Session 14 April 21, 2010 – Citizen journalism, part II

Possible guest speaker: director of a citizen journalism website

Session 15 April 28, 2010 – Social media and real life

How do our online social activities affect our lives personally and professionally? What control do we maintain, and what have we given up? What further changes might we expect?

How might this course work better?

Session 16 May 5, 2010 – FINAL EXAM

Links for 2009-11-02 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 PST

Facebook Fan Page Best Practices – The Buzz Bin
Facebook fan pages have become immensely popular for companies and organizations. They love using pages to communicate with their stakeholders. The following eight suggestions will optimize your fan page to create the most vibrant community possible
The future of news is entrepreneurial « BuzzMachine
The future of news is entrepreneurial.
How Social Media is Upending the Enterprise | Fast Company
I am sure United Airlines wishes they had just paid for the passenger’s guitar they broke now that the music video he recorded chronicling the ordeal spread virally and has been viewed more than five million times!
The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave
Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that's notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help. Here you'll learn how to use Google Wave to get things done with your group. Because Wave is such a new product that's evolving quickly, this guidebook is a work in progress that will update in concert with Wave as it grows and changes.
B.L. Ochman's blog: 10 Things Social Media Can't Do
Amid the endless pronouncements about social media -- often shortened to "social" these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about -- is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet.

Links for 2009-10-30 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

The Primal Forces that Drive Social Networks | Digital Tonto
Network Theory has fundamentally changed our understanding about how the world works since its inception a decade ago. Most of all, by understanding how networks form and grow, we can build better ones.

Links for 2009-10-27 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

What can designers do collectively to advance social causes? — AIGA | the professional association for design
Communication designers have always played a role in advancing socially relevant issues. Since one of the special attributes that a designer brings to problem solving is empathy, it is not surprising that there is a strong affinity with causes that affect the human condition. As society looks with ever-increasing consciousness at significant social issues afflicting people everywhere, we see in our membership an intense interest in finding ways to use their talents to play a positive, socially significant role.

Links for 2009-10-23 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Blogging Is Dead, Long Live Journalism | Technomix | Fast Company
Technorati's killer finding is that among the professional bloggers they surveyed who fall into the "full time" worker category, the average salary works out at $122,222--an enormous figure. Those full-timers equate to 46% of the respondees, which means that the majority of bloggers are part-timers--but these guys still take home some $14,777 per year, which isn't to be sniffed at. That means the average blogger salary is about $42,548.
19% of U.S. Internet Users Tweet
The army of Twitterers is growing quickly, per the Pew Internet Project report released today. The report found that 19 percent of all U.S. Internet users now use either Twitter or smaller services, such as Yammer, to share social updates. This was up 8 percent from the 11 percent who used such services in April 2009.
Who's in Charge of Social Media?
"Most organizations and agency structures organize around their own business model rather than what will allow the marketers to be the most successful in social media," said Bryan Wiener, CEO of New York digital shop 360i.
Social Media Club South Florida - November Meeting
On Wednesday, November 11, some of the most notable leaders in Social Media are flying to Miami from places like Boston, New York, Austin, Chicago, and Charlotte, in preparation for a four-day Social Fresh cruise. Let's welcome them to South Florida and wish them bon voyage, with a special Silicon Beach tweetup in their honor. Join us in downtown Miami to wish bon voyage to Chris Brogan, Amber Naslund, Jason Keath, and 25 other of our favorite social-media innovators. They can't wait to meet you!

Links for 2009-10-22 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Listen To The Social Media Buzz With 38 Free Tools! | Penn Olson
Listening to social media buzz is not and should NOT be limited to mere tracking of blogs and Google searches. Other social media sites, such as those for micro-blogging, social networking and pictures and video sharing should be monitored too.
The Web Credibility Project - Stanford University
What strategies do users employ in evaluating the credibility of online sources?
The End of the Email Era - WSJ.com
Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over. In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.
How to build a Facebook community | Socialbrite
Many of the levers you pull on Facebook require time, attention and consideration. You can think of these as the manual levers.
Who Owns Social Media?
I've seen client after client duped into charging a digital or PR agency with-arguably-the most transformational opportunity we've been given in our professional lifetimes and the result is almost always a shambolic disappointment.
Market Engagement Optimization (MEO) and NetTrust Score | Brian Solis - PR 2.0
The most important thing to understand about being successful in social media is the importance of attitude and intention. It’s starting from the right point of origin and with the right mindset that will ultimately guide your choices as you ENGAGE with the market. But if your intention is to take the most money possible from customers, you end up in a different place then if your point of origin is serving that market.
4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business
Companies now face a clear choice: wall themselves in and become increasingly controlled and hidden, or use social media and other means to reveal their human side, welcome transparency, and forge new relationships with their customers. The old game is undoubtedly over, and the question now is, “what can businesses do to transition and succeed in this new era?”
Report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter | Popwise | Fast Company
Email Losing Out To Social Networking
while consumers may be spending significant time with Community sites, it’s coming at the expense of their time with Communication sites whose core capabilities are email and Instant Messaging (IM).
Keep your guard up when using Twitter and Facebook - USATODAY.com
You're careful about what you post online. You know Facebook and Twitter posts can harm your dating and job prospects. And thieves can use the sites to target you. But there's much more to maintaining your security and privacy. Criminals and marketers have found new ways to use Twitter and Facebook. If you're not paying attention, it's easy to get taken.
Do You Know Who’s on Twitter? - eMarketer
US Twitter Usage Surpasses Earlier Estimates - eMarketer
Twitter Doesn't Sell Advertising, Yet 20% of Tweets Mention Brands | Technomix | Fast Company
Perhaps amazingly, some 20% of Tweets were requests for product info or responses to these. The Tweets were flowing between users and friends, or particular companies, and the comments were both positive and negative.
Starwood Hotels Become More Accomodating With Social Media Offerings
Starwood Hotels and Resorts recently released a comprehensive new social media campaign across Facebook, Twitter and the iPhone to help out its guests and other travelers. The applications rely heavily on user-populated content, but the hotel chain has also put its army of concierges to work to help jump start the flow of information.
» Real-time Social Media Counter

Links for 2009-10-13 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

stillness « Miami Dade College Social Media Class Blog
Nice picture of south beach
SKYplay - a set on Flickr

Twitter updates for 2009-09-07

Alex de Carvalho — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Paying it forward at Boteco in anticipation of Brazilian Independence Day #
With @carloscardonas @vinceyeomans at Boteco for independence day festivities http://pk.gd/GS7 #
Depending on what you need, your quickest time to market is WordPress -> Drupal -> Ruby on Rails (or Python) -> Cake PHP #
Seems like I've promoted a giftcard on Twitter. To be clear: I have NOT! I would not. It is spam and I don't know how it hapenned. Yuck. #
Pirassununga … Who has that Twitter Name? http://pk.gd/Gsl #
Pantech. Small. Word. http://pk.gd/Gsm #
Certainly Brazil's independence was Sept 7th, 1822: not a day, month, or year less, according to Wikipedia. Any naysayers? #
Ok, seriously now, I'm not kidding … What are you thinking? #fb #

Twitter updates for 2009-09-07

Alex de Carvalho — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Paying it forward at Boteco in anticipation of Brazilian Independence Day #
With @carloscardonas @vinceyeomans at Boteco for independence day festivities http://pk.gd/GS7 #
Depending on what you need, your quickest time to market is WordPress -> Drupal -> Ruby on Rails (or Python) -> Cake PHP #
Seems like I've promoted a giftcard on Twitter. To be clear: I have NOT! I would not. It is spam and I don't know how it hapenned. Yuck. #
Pirassununga … Who has that Twitter Name? http://pk.gd/Gsl #
Pantech. Small. Word. http://pk.gd/Gsm #
Certainly Brazil's independence was Sept 7th, 1822: not a day, month, or year less, according to Wikipedia. Any naysayers? #
Ok, seriously now, I'm not kidding … What are you thinking? #fb #

Twitter updates for 2009-09-06

Alex de Carvalho — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:56:00 +0000

“Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.” -Isabel Allende

Twitter updates for 2009-09-05

Alex de Carvalho — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Good luck @allisonnazarian tonight on your appendix removal, wishing you a speedy recovery! And thanks @aschek for the head's up #
RT @gauravonomics #ff favorite tech advocates @kiwanja @ushahidi @afrigadget @digiactive –> and of course @whiteafrican @katrinskaya #
RT @jayrosen_nyu "The space between fact and fiction is confused as a litmus test between right and left" http://jr.ly/tqcz #
Cool person #followfriday to @gopalo for whom Twitter has been significant and positive #
RT @HeatherShorter Just accidentally followed a mom-blogger who is obviously paid to tweet about products. #
Insecurity should be one of the mortal sins. It whips up a whole world of misunderstanding and it drains your mojo. Stop. #fb #
"Humans are tuned for relationship" -David Abram #fb #
"The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils — all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness" -David Abram #
RT @jyri: @joi expands on @quixotic's napkin graph of upside vs. downside focus in venture investing http://ping.fm/mnO9m via @ross #

Twitter updates for 2009-09-04

Alex de Carvalho — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Retain your sense of wonder. #fb #
Great article by @vicequeenmaria about our Silicon Beach community in Miami New Times http://bit.ly/igxan (ty @fsutoby !) #
Gathering thoughts for a new presentation on "How Social Media is transforming your business … and South Florida." #
TGIF, you know? And #followfriday too:@davidpjacobson @daveyank @JoseBoza @orical @bsoler @Ines @sandyorton @TilsonPR @isabel_siaba in reply to davidpjacobson #
Friendly #followfriday @angiemoncada @linxter @benbewick @quynhpham @andresbarreto @SMLatam @matthewbyrnes @mylifeandart @carloscardona #
LOL "'circle jerk' may be correct, do the pictured 4some have any tangible business success?" http://bit.ly/igxan I think I know who anon is #
Welcome to Twitter, @angeliqueswann You ARE the next big thing Thanks for all you do. Via @mylifeandart in reply to mylifeandart #

Twitter updates for 2009-09-01

Alex de Carvalho — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:56:00 +0000

GMail? GFail #
"If Google dies tomorrow, 96.8% of Internet users will cease to exist" LOL! (in Spanish by @aschek ) http://is.gd/2LStf #

Twitter updates for 2009-08-29

Alex de Carvalho — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Inspired by Ted Kennedy Jr's poignant eulogy: part I http://bit.ly/HwDPa and part II http://bit.ly/tp8TV (YouTube) #

Twitter updates for 2009-08-28

Alex de Carvalho — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:56:00 +0000

RT @brianbreslin: Overheard "Social media experts are like realtors in 2005: everybody and their mother is one" LOL! #
RT @KeymerPR: @theeconomist on the "sad substitute for thoughtful debate" regarding #healthcare http://bit.ly/3bQjj4 #fb #
Had a great lunch with world traveller @jessicakizorek – I enjoyed the great stories in reply to jessicakizorek #

Twitter updates for 2009-08-28

Alex de Carvalho — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:56:00 +0000

RT @brianbreslin: Overheard "Social media experts are like realtors in 2005: everybody and their mother is one" LOL! #
RT @KeymerPR: @theeconomist on the "sad substitute for thoughtful debate" regarding #healthcare http://bit.ly/3bQjj4 #fb #
Had a great lunch with world traveller @jessicakizorek – I enjoyed the great stories in reply to jessicakizorek #