Category Archives: Social Media

This social world.

YouTube Playlist – Fun For Playing at Parties

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I realized that with Google TV a great thing to do for the ambiance at parties is to create a YouTube Playlist to play in the background with the sound off. Sometimes it was fun to have old movies playing or something else, but this is something new and fun I’m going to try soon. I hope there aren’t too many banner ads…

You can feel free to use this too – I think you have to embed it somewhere to make sure that it plays in full screen all the way through. I tried playing straight from within the YouTube interface, but it kept kicking me out of full screen between each video, so if you make one you may have to post your somewhere like this.

You Can Be Uncool And Successful @ Social Media

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Jay Baer (Twitter) just posted a new article predicting the emergence of social media losers. The idea that social media right now is like pee wee soccer where everyone gets a trophy just for showing up and trying to kick the ball. However, as the space and the audiences mature some of the companies engaging and investing in social media will emerge as winners and some will emerge as losers.

In general he makes a good point, but I think that something is missed. Baer says: Continue reading →

Craplogo – the supnah edition

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I couldn’t resist. I just had to see what my logo would look like if I’d paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (at minimum) to some big branding agency to remake me…

Wow. That’s just great. You can go here to crap up your own logo if you want! >> Craplogo.me

Read here for more information about what this is all about:

Google Chat Adoption Anecdote

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This is the first time this has happened to me:

I’ve had lots of friends available on chat for a long time, but this is the first time there were many available, and all had video chat enabled. Google’s push for increased adoption perhaps along with the need to install video chat to use the “call within Gmail” feature that was recently introduced may be driving this. But whatever the cause, it’s pretty cool.

Kiss your phone numbers goodbye… sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Angry Cows Prove Gmail Calling & Google Voice Useful

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Google recently introduced free calling from within Gmail – allowing users (in the U.S. at least) to call domestically for free, and call internationally for very cheap. Here’s why this is interesting:
• It’s a play at Skype and “SkypeOut” – their VoIP to phone service. Google is trying to get the huge user base of Gmail accustomed to chatting, video chatting, and even making phone calls through Gmail.
• It’s defense against Facebook whose chat services are being adopted and used a ton by Facebook users (i.e. everyone). You’d also better believe that Facebook is going to continue to improve its messaging feature, which one day may rival full feature email services like Gmail.
• This is the beginning of the end of phone numbers as we know them.

Continue reading →

Verizon + HTC Incredible + Froyo = Big Fail

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Note to social media managers: If you see a big chunk of your user base getting really really excited about something you’re not going to deliver, you should reach out and tell them that it ain’t gonna happen. And you should do it as soon as you possibly can or else the anticipation will continue to grow, and the pending disappointment will grow along with it, delivering a much more substantial blow when it finally arrives.

This is a short lesson for us all about how telling the simple truth early can save untold headaches later. On August 13th rumor leaked from Mashable.com – a fairly reliable source – that Verizon was going to push the much awaited update to Android 2.2 Froyo to their HTC Incredible devices on the 18th. Continue reading →

Foursquare – It’s Time To Stop Acting Like Dogs

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Foursquare is not a pissing contest. It’s an ant farm. So stop acting like a dog.

A lifetime ago (like two months) I was on a mountain bike trail in Bend, OR riding with my friends @cassondra and @SEOeilish. When we got to the trailhead for Phil’s Trail, a well visited site for bike-minded Bendites, @cassondra checked in with Foursquare. She had been trailing @Audette for a while and knew she was close to overtaking him for the mayorship. A moment later, and it was done – Cass was the new mayor and Adam (Audette) had been ousted. We rode for a bit more, and that’s when it struck me – Foursquare isn’t a pissing contest, it’s an ant farm! (Note: at the time of publication @Audette has triumphantly retaken mayorship of the trailhead. What goes around comes around.) This made me think. About ants. I’ll explain why – I swear. But first I digress a bit…

There was a little spike in commentary several months ago comparing Foursquare to a virtual pissing contest in the sense that people were using it to be territorial, and to claim areas as their own. People were pointing out that Foursquare users acted like dogs that piss on trees and fire hydrants and legs and such in order to stack up points, mayorships and badges and compete for dominance. They were calling it narcissistic and creepy, and worse.

Here’s an example. Continue reading →

Why Jørgen hates nested acceleration platforms

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Update!!: Jørgen was wrong.

Oh Jørgen! Why do you doubt the amazingness of the internet?! You are so crazy like these guys!!

Have you heard of One Million Giraffes? It’s one of my favorite kinds of viral/social experiments on the web. Pointless, but not really. Simple, but executed at a scale that makes it complex. Fun, and with a connection to the tangible world – that is, not entirely digital. And most importantly, it takes full advantage of the third wave of disruption that is currently occurring – the advent of nested acceleration platforms on top of the web as an infrastructure. Continue reading →

Enterprise Admins! Secure Your Facebook Pages

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Hey, Companies! (and individual Page admins as well…) Secure Your Facebook Pages.

Overview

Zoe Hoeltzel PhotosThere is an important detail about Facebook Pages Admin Settings that many Page admins are not aware of, and it represents an important security flaw that needs to be remedied. The creator of a Facebook Fan Page is permanently set as an admin for a Page, and there is no way to remove that profile’s admin settings. This post will provide best practices for Page Creation to avoid this problem in the future and recommendations for rectifying existing problems. Continue reading →

Chatroulette Breaks the Web’s Fifth Wall of Content Production

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Chatroulette is a phenomenon that is sweeping the web like countless memes before it. There was the dancing banana animated gif that started the whole thing off, and ever since then we’ve all been elbow deep in memes. But chatroulette is different – it represents a true breakdown and symbolic revolution of the relationship between content producers and consumers.

If that sentence didn’t make much sense, and it very well might not have, let me back up a second and try it another way… Memes are shared ideas that can achieve deep cultural penetration through viral sharing. These ideas are cultural units, and they have value.

Chatroulette is one of the newest memes on the web and in the world, and although the technology behind it is nothing new, it has tapped into the spirit of the new web – specifically, the idea that we are all content producers now, and that the barriers have been lowered to a laughable extent in terms of who is able to create content. Chatroullette is a video chat site that randomly connects two guests to each other from anywhere around the world. It is dominated by young single white men and perverts, but deep within the layers of perversion there is something beautiful and wonderful there. It was all explained extremely well by Casey Neistat in this awesome video (that you may have already seen): Continue reading →