Google’s customizable homepage just got social-er. I already use this as a personal dashboard of what’s going on in my world. This will add even more cool stuff:
See the Google IG Social video on YouTube
Tamar Weinberg writes a detailed and extensive blog post over at Techipedia titled: “Quantum Entanglements: The Social Media Scandals” where she discusses a recent scandalous social meltdown.
What can you say about a beautiful girl who died?
I can tell you that when I read this news, I cried off and on the rest of the day. I can also tell you that Kaycee Nicole did not, technically, exist. She was created and portrayed entirely by her “mother”, Debbie Swenson, a middle-aged Midwestern housewife with some serious issues. For nearly two years, thousands followed and supported this fictional construct as she fought a deadly disease, an astonishing run when you consider the challenges involved.
Social media, by definition, pulls at you and draws you in. You *want* to trust, you want to believe, you want to participate… and when someone needs something that you might have (money), you want to give.
The old rule still applies to Social Networks, as well as the Internet at-large… and ANY PUBLIC COMMUNITY (even your neighborhood): “Trust… but verify!”
Be safe out there.
The CFO Strategist blog is posting a series of 101 tips to help make your Linkedin experience as effective as possible.
Check it out.
What do you do when you get a social network invitation from someone you actually know… but you know you don’t want to connect to them?
My initial way to explain BrightKite is that it’s like Twitter (what you’re doing) + Location (Where you’re doing it), which I like. I am trying to determine how to use it (mainly because I use Verizon for my phone service, and it’s currently not supported).
But, I just bumped into it’s Map Friends feature, which shows you where your friends have last “checked in” and how you could find them. (See a screenshot, below of my current friendmap)
This seems to fit well with Brightkite’s vision to enable a social network that helps facilitate real-life friendships as well as virtual ones:
Wouldn’t it be nice to have social community around the locations you frequent? To actually meet new people, not Facebook-to-Myspace, but face-to-face? MySpace has done a really good job of facilitating meaningless cyber friendships with unprecedented ease. Ironically, Facebook does not easily enable face-time with friends at all. At Brightkite we believe tangible community has a place around real-world locations.
My current beefs with the platform will surely be addressed soon:
But I will say overall that my favorite, clear usage for this app at the moment is that it really does help you transcend just what people are DOING, and the conversation (which twitter does so well) and mash that up with actually understanding where people ARE, and what they are doing there.
If BrightKite doesn’t work for you, maybe you need one of these kittehs, instead:
Commoncraft does such a good job of explaining things… here’s a great way of answering the question “What is Twitter?”
I don’t have any idea why this was launched nearly a month ago and I am just finding it, but I think Facebook Chat is a pretty cool idea… and NOT because it’s “CHAT”.
Nevermind that TechCrunch somehow knew about Facebook Chat and I didn’t… must have been that day twitter was down..
First a few screenshots:
The first shows my facebook homepage, with a new “toolbar” along the bottom and a notifications window that pops up:
The second screenshot is a closeup of the status box, showing 9 online friends… 3 active, and 6 idle… and their statuses:
End of the day, I like this tool simply because its providing a drop-dead simple way to:
I don’t know if FB CHAT has additional features, but I would like it to:
The other day I was co-working near someone I had seen before but never met, and who was browsing their LinkedIn profile with the tenacity of an archaeologist.
[I try to be careful with my linking and networking, working hard not to take up time with it I should be doing other things. For example, the fact that I can send invitations via LinkedIn Mobile really speeds things up for me!]
He leaned over after a few minutes and said to me:
Him: Are you on LinkedIn?
Me: Yes. Great tool, huh?
Him: Yes, I love it… its a great way to get to know more people.
We introduced each other and talked cordially for a moment, then he went in for the kill:
Him: So… do you mind if I link to you?
Me: No, not at all…
Him: Awesome. I will send you an invitation…
(pause while he typed in my information)
…see, it’s my goal to become one of those people who has 500+ connections on there. THOSE ARE THE POWER NETWORKERS…Me: (silence, and a little dumbfounded that I’ve just been suckered into his network)
Him: (sensing my dumbfoundedness) Yo-you don’t agree?…
Me: I just think you can do more with a small network of people who TRUST and KNOW you than you ever could with a huge network of people who really have no idea who you are.
Him: (…. thinking now….) … what do you mean?
Me: I mean, I have worked very hard to build my network of trusted associates carefully. My LinkedIn network, for example, is completely made up of people I have had some kind of meaningful connection or communication with. I know I can ask those people for real help or real assistance and they will reply to me because they actually know me.
Him: (…. still thinking….) … well, sure… I can see your point…. but I still think it would be cool to just, you know, be “connected to everybody”. I guess we just have different reasons for networking.
Me: Well, I guess we do.
We went on about our business and, a few minutes later, as I was leaving to go to a meeting, he caught up with me:
Him: Hey, man! You have 447 connections! Woah! There’s no way you actually know all those people!
Me: Well, I didn’t say I started networking yesterday… and… I actually know you, don’t I?
Anyone who’s been on the ultra-portable micro-update network Twitter for any length of time knows they’ve blown past the tipping point of an acceptable social network.
Here’s Some evidence:
In fact, many-a-tweeter these days bemoans the time “before the whole world joined”… back when twitter was a small town, not a bustling city.
I laugh a little to myself when a social network gets so big people feel they have to join out of obligation rather than the desire to connect with people. It just begs the question:
If a Social Network falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it… does it make any noise?
In other words… join when you join. Make the best out of it you can… it’s just like any other conversation you’ve ever taken part in for your whole life: People have been talking before you came along, and they will keep talking when you’re gone.
… the point is to make what YOU add to the conversation meaningful… in your own way.
What do YOU think?