A Social Evo/Devo-lution

New Season of Blogs!

2012-01-13T14:34:00.000-05:00

Hello one and all!

It's been too long since I've been sending new articles and updates your way, but rest assured, things are going to change. I'm currently in the works of overhauling the layout, system, and format so that it's easier for me to write, and you to read, and let's me bring more consistent content to your waiting eyes. A lot has changed in the world and there's a lot we need to catch up on!

Have another great day today,
Matt

Holiday Cheer? In Bathing Suit Season?

2011-10-11T15:15:00.000-04:00

Quick sort of observation.

It's proven fact, that stores try to promote their holiday sales and decorations earlier and earlier every year. You go for back to school shopping, and wouldn't you know it. There's also a Christmas sale on that backpack? Or maybe you're buying a Halloween costume. So don't be surprised if you might have an elf outfit next to that skeleton.

And it's not just the sales, it's the decorations. Costco started promoting holiday decorations and merchandise September 1st this year. Yes, they've already been selling Christmas merchandise for a month now. Maybe it's just me, but that seems to be relatively too early. I want to see Fall, Halloween, Turkeys....not Santa.

A few years ago, Nordstroms took the big stand and released a flyer saying, "Our cheer will be starting November 27th. We think holidays should be celebrated one at a time" The picture has made its way around online recently, and a quick Google search will turn it up for you. I commend Nordstroms! Finally, a store that gets it. Holiday cheer..doesn't equal bigger profit. It's how you do it when.

I don't shop at Nordstroms, but maybe this year I'll have to buy a pair of socks there (probably all I can afford there), paying it forward so to speak.

Have another great day today,
Matt

Reebok Refunds for All!

2011-09-28T23:05:00.000-04:00

Do you own a pair of Reebok EasyTone or RunTone shoes? If you do, you better call up the FTC, because you're due a nice big check. Ok, maybe not that big, but apparently all owners are due to receive some type of refund for the purchase for their shoes. Why the refund?

Deceptive...
Advertising!

Apparently the shoes aren't all they're cracked up to be. But that depends on who you ask. The FTC claims that Reebok was marketing unfairly, by making claims that the shoes will tone a certain percentage of muscle in the legs and butt. Allegedly these claims also were substantiated by a few individual outside research agencies.

On the other hand, Reebok feels that these accusations are unfair, and maintains that their shoes do exactly what they claim, as well as the thousands upon thousands of people who have been enthused about their shoes.

So who's right here? Well the FTC already won their case, and there's now a 25 million dollar pot of money to be split among all the consumers who are owed their fair due, whether they liked the shoes or not. So if you liked the shoes, good news! You just got them for free! If you hate the shoes, good news! You just got your money back!

Reebok says that even though they have accepted the offer, that does not mean that they agree with the argument. They have said that they no longer are printing such actual claims on the box, and have removed such phrases from their marketing campaigns. This is a word to the wise for all marketers out there. Keep a careful eye on your facts, and be ready to prove all facts that you claim.

If you don't....the FTC will turn around, and will file a class action lawsuit, and will sue you for 25 million dollars, and will give it back to the consumers. Every time :)

Have another great day today,

Matt

Facehub. Its Facebook, but it's not!

2011-09-24T18:26:00.001-04:00

So everyone has noticed that Facebook is changing. For better or worse, Zuckerberg is making some waves and we only have two choices. We can get in the boat with him and hope we make it, or jump ship and drown in social isolation. Since we all use Facebook, I think the choice is obvious.
So what's to come for the new Facebook? Well rest asssured this isn't going to be a simple layout change like we're usually used to. This time its being rearranged to the core. Rumors are even floating around the the "like" may be removed? How, and why would you do that? How can I like something if you take away the option?
The new setup is supposed to be a way to connect us better. Information will be shared in a much more open format. Every detail in a large timeline format. Privacy freaks, be ready to let your OCD kick in. Supposedly all the TV shows you watch, all the songs you listen to, will be fed straight into your Facebook feed for public pleasure. We can guess this is where the new subscription setup comes in. You subsribe to people and receive their feed in your list.

Now listen, I'm not trying to sound like a Google fanboy, but lets go over a quick translation chart.

Subscription = adding to your circle
List = your circle

Not trying to say there's a similarity, but there is. Google + anyone?

Will this work out? Maybe, maybe not. Alot of people like Facebook for its generality, myself included. Its nice to just have one feed. I usually don't use the seperate feeds on G+ (just circles for posting separately). Any thoughts or comments?

Have another great day,

Matt

Tw-oppelganger; start getting used to it.

2011-09-21T08:43:00.000-04:00

Yes, you heard right. Twoppelganger. It's a word, depending how you want to define it, could have a few meanings. How is it used in the context of this blog? A twitter account that exists, using your name, or your company name, but isn't actually you. It's you, but it isn't you? Thus, your twoppelganger.

Has this ever happened to you? Maybe in a sorta concept it has. Someone took the twitter handle you wanted to have. In other cases it's a little more profound. Someone uses your own personal handle. Me for example, my internet handle basically everywhere is @mattjpino. My twitter, facebook, foursquare, blogger, etc etc etc, all use that same handle. If for some reason it's already taken somewhere, I usually won't use that service. Or I sign up for services just because (that's an article coming in the next few days).

So who has been effected by a twoppelganger? Netflix. Poor little Netflix hasn't been doing too well lately, and their latest twoppelganger isn't helping them much. Netflix has recently announced their split of the streaming service, and the DVD delivery service (also another blog post to come), and their new service already has a name. The DVD service will be called Qwikster. Not too bad a name actually, oh...wait...except for one thing.

Qwikster is already taken. And it's a pot smoking elmo. More accruately, a pot smoking kid who uses a picture of a pot smoking Elmo as his profile picture. I don't think that's the image that Netflix has in mind when it wants people to find them on Twitter. But good news for Netflix, they found their Twoppelganger! We all love finding those!

As more and more people turn to the internet and create a social image for themselves, more and more names are being taken, becoming less and less creative. It's certain that the really good ones are already taken, and the others are filling up fast. So don't be so surprised to find out that if you go to create a new account somewhere, or if you want to create a new twitter account, you might have a twoppelganger (but then again I bet you're used to it if your typical handle is @johndoe)

Have another great day today,

Matt

Buying, Renting, and Subscriptions, Oh My!!

2011-09-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

Buying, Renting, and Subscriptions.

These are the business models of the future, all on a digital level for us to access with ease. When our children grow up, I can almost guarantee you the idea of the "hard copy" won't even exist. Our CD's and DVD's, which are the newest of new will be merely novelties. Instead, our fiber optic connections will allow us to access almost anything instantaneously. What's the point of the clutter when you can just stream everything.

These models used to be approached in two way. The first is hard copy downloads. This is when you pay for something and download it directly to your device to enjoy at your leisure, whether it be forever or for a time base. Now this is still in practice today, and will be for some time, but it's fast to be extinct. With the onset of modern internet connections, we're able to stream all of our content from one place, instead of having to take all the time to download, sort, file, etc. Most companies are starting to move to this system, and it's working fairly well so far.

Now the business models. All three have their pro's and con's, many that we use in our every day, some we might not even realize.

1.) Buying

If you buy, you own it. It's as simple as that. Buying allows the purchase of rights to a media, to give you forever play. You can watch that show for the next fifty years! Really, go ahead and try it! Buying is much more profitable for a company, because they can charge a higher price, largely on the fact that when we rent, we won't watch it again anyway, even if we had a few weeks to do so.

Examples: Itunes, Apps

2.) Renting

Renting is a great little system for the consumer, because it offers a cheaper price on something that we most likely would never even look at again. Why pay full price if you just want to watch it once. Unfortunately, this model is on it's way out, now that companies have realized it's not too smart to rent things when people will just buy them. Why will they buy them? Take away the right to rent, then they have to buy them. Simple as that.

Examples: Apple shows and movies, Amazon Streaming

3.) Subscriptions

This one is my favorite personally, because it offers such flexibility. The subscription service is simple. You pay one flat fee per month or year. You get unlimited content, the all you can eat buffet of media. As long as you can keep paying the fee, you can stay at the buffet. Maybe you sign up for a classic movie site for a few months, and you use it every day, then you wake up and decide, hmm, I hate classic movies. No problem, just stop paying your fee and you're all set. The only downside? You own zero rights to your media. But then again, like mentioned, most of us don't really care if we own the rights, we just want access. If used to it's potential, a subscription pays for itself after one or two shows.

Examples: Hulu, Spotify

I hope this helps to understand the ins and outs of the future of our media. It's important to realize that even though you own something, maybe you're better off not.

Have another great day today,

Matt

Facebook becoming Google Plus?

2011-08-28T16:37:00.000-04:00

Why does my Google Plus page look like Facebook? Or is my Facebook looking like Google Plus? Hard to say.

If you've taken notice or not lately, the two networks are starting to have a lot of similarities. Now Facebook diehards, don't kill me here, but it seems like Facebook is copying some of the new features that Google Plus has debuted to the social networking world. Let's take a look at some of them!

1. Status Privacy Settings

One of the great features Google Plus brought to us was the privacy on our comments, posts, and statuses. I could post the most offensive picture in the entire world. Appauling and immoral, yet with just a few clicks of the right settings, poof, no one but my dearest friends would ever even see it. Down to the exact people that I want to see it. The real reason this feature also is used is the ease of sharing different things with different groups of friends. That doesn't mean it lends a lot to privacy too. If you took notice in the past week, Facebook has rolled out a new list of privacy features, the largest of which is the ability to customize exactly who sees your post. Look familiar?

2. Video Chat

Ok, so maybe they didn't steal this one, but you've gotta admit, they rushed delivery once Google announced their video chat, only days after Google +, but it's obvious who is doing it better. Google Plus has full "hangout" which means that up to 10 people can video chat simultaneously. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

3. Revamped Photo System

Facebook pulled a total overhaul of their photo pages, giving it a much cleaner finer look that Google Plus introduced to us. Facebook's previous layout had loads of options and locations, giving it a pretty vast intricacy. Now it's much easier to view and browse, with a crisp outlay and control.

The biggest and most important here is the privacy settings control. That's the most obvious and direct result of the competition between the two. Even though I do prefer Google Plus, I do have to give Facebook credit at the same time, because it was important to provide users with the greater privacy that we need to safely and confidently browse our social networks without consequence. After all, you're sure to find a job in the future that's going to do that social media background check. Wouldn't want it to be bad news for you.

Have another great day today,
Matt

Tablet Firesale Fever!

2011-08-22T17:13:00.001-04:00

So there was an article yesterday I was reading, that I can't find again (don't accuse me of plagerism because I'm openly acknowledging there is a source :) about HP tablets and why the firesale works (kinda). It's pretty amazing when you stop and look at how well they're selling and what effects this has had on the tablet market in the past few days.

If you haven't been online recently, you most likely haven't "heard of the firesale HP is pulling on its HP TouchPad. Everything must go. It's a clearance sale phenomena with prices at $99 for a 16gb and $149 for a 32gb. In the world of tablets that's unheard of. Especially for a brand as big as HP (or maybe not quite as big lately). Stores and websites have been selling out apparently just as fast as the original iPad did. That's impressive if you ask me, for a tablet that has to he sold because its not selling.

What's my point? It goes to show, people do want tablets. And people are willing to buy them. But only at the right price. So yes, maybe 99 dollars is a little cheaper than normal. But I could only guess if you can sell a high quality tablet in the 199 range, you'd have a winner. Everyone buys the iPad because even if we don't want to admit it apple is a solid and well known brand. If you're selling something that is just like an iPad as the same price as the iPad, consumers will buy an iPad.

So do yourself a favor tablet makers. Take this as a lesson and reconsider your price point. Maybe it will be a little less profitable to not price at full market demand. But perhaps you ll get more sales if you're the best price for the best equipment. Not HP's so so equipment for end of the world prices.

Thanks for reading and have another great day,

Matt

- Written on the Blogger app for Android.

Cartoon of the Week - What happens when we Wiki

2011-08-05T14:30:00.000-04:00

XKCD - Source

Have another great day today and a great weekend,
Matt

QR Codes explained, with videos!

2011-08-04T14:30:00.000-04:00

QR Codes - The most abused technology of 2011

By now most of us should be familiar with what a QR Code looks like. If you don't, there it is, right above this. That's a QR Code. But do most of us know what they are and what they do? Maybe not? Ok, let's talk QR Codes.

A QR Code was originally designed to help itemize and make inventory more manageable. The code uses a barcode decoder to understand the information kept in the code. The three big squares on the side help the barcode scanner orient itself with the code, and the dots inside are placed in such a pattern that it can be read as information and words. Voila, there you have it. A picture that turns into information.

So what are they used for? Nowadays, everything. Unfortunately, they're used for everything. At first they were used for simple things. Virtual business cards, a simple relocate to a website, typically placed on a little window sticker or a business card. But now you can find them everywhere and anywhere. You can find them on billboards, cars, even on some foods. Those applications however, don't typically work as well. But regardless, used correctly, a QR code is a great tool to turn that 300 character URL into a simple to scan and direct bookmark for you website or file.

Below is a few examples of some awesome, and not so awesome uses. Enjoy.

Code is covered by the bottom bar.

How do you scan a code doing 80 down that highway?

Have another great day today,
Matt

Phantom Vibration Syndrome! Ghost Vibrations!

2011-08-03T14:26:00.000-04:00

Are you a victim of Phantom Phone Syndrome?

You reach into your pocket, someone must've texted you. You felt a vibration. Low and behold, no one texted you, no one anything-ed you. Your notifications are just as empty when you reached for your phone five minutes ago. This happens to many more of us then you think, and it even has a name. Say hello to your newest medical condition, Phantom Vibration Syndrome.

Phantom Vibration Syndrome is what the writer of my sourced article calls it, and believe it or not, most of us fall victim in some way. This has to do with the way our brain has become wired to notice our cellphones, and the constant use of our cellphones. We train ourselves to be attentive, until it gets to the point that it becomes an involuntary behavior.

Have you ever noticed that when a group of people are together, if one takes out their cellphone, many more will too? Apparently we love to mimic behaviors, and that's no coincidence that it just feels right to pull out a cellphone at the same time. But even worse than this addictive habit, it becomes more involved in our every day living. We become just a little less detached in thought, and a little less focused in our roles, when we focus so much effort on being up to date with our phones, services, and feeds.

It's nice to appreciate sometimes the simplicity of life, and no phones or electronics. This blog post is meerly about the concept of the phantom vibrations we feel, and the habits that develop even further from these ghost feelings we get. Yet it's just as important to mention that these are just the beginning. Take a little time and just shut your phone sometimes. I love my phone and electronics as much as the next geek, but sometimes we just need to disconnect ourselves.

Have another great day today,
Matt

Social Media Background Check, What's in it?

2011-08-02T12:57:00.001-04:00

Would you pass a social media background check?

As we all know, a lot of companies now perform social media background checks to check on the kind of person they're working with. Now don't be offended, but if you think you're not going to be checked, you're foolish. Companies do do this now, and everything you put online is subject to a check.

No different than a drug test or criminal background check, first and foremost, you do have the right to give consent. So you can breathe slightly easier, yet guaranteed, if you don't check the box that says "I consent" you're most likely going to have a much harder time getting the job. There's now multiple companies that pop up that specifically perform social media background checks for companies that provides a very thorough and ethical way to look into what people are doing online. I say ethical because if a company is to just type your name into Google, they might come across some information that they have no right to be viewing, yet, if they outsource their background checks to an outside company, they will only be exposed to the relevant information, keeping the hiring process overall fair.

So what types of things are they looking for?

According to the video posted in this article, it's mostly the biggies that we have to worry about. Drug use, racist behaviors, sexually explicit behaviors, or overall anything that would be considered publicly offensive. Basically, they're looking for things that are either illegal, or morally incorrect. These companies view through bundles and bundles of information, but all of it is public. Again, it's only public. These companies aren't specifically hacking into your accounts, although they do have some very big grey area rights to buy access to some sites allegedly, such as Facebook, but, don't count on that. Think with certainly, they are only accessing public information.

Only public information you say? Keep in mind, almost everything that we post online is public information. Pictures, updates, blogs, quotes, etc. etc. It's all public. "But Matt", you say, "I keep all my profiles set as private!" And I applaud you for doing so, but don't forget, just because you set your profile to private yesterday, doesn't mean everything goes private. All that means is that everything you post from here on out is private. Those pictures of you mainlining heroin are still public, and forever will be.

So what's the take away here? Think twice when you post something anywhere. If it's public when you post it, it's going to forever remain public. And rest assured, they will find it. These companies use systems almost like a Google search algorithm.

Post Private, or Post Public Forever. It's your choice.

But don't forget, if you post it public, it's going to be part of that social media background check the company will be performing on you. More and more companies are performing social media background checks and you can be sure it will become almost standard to make up the big three, Drug, Criminal, and Social.

So take a second to read and view the article and short video attached that I sourced this post from. It could make the difference of that dream job you may want to apply for in the future.

Have another great day today,
Matt

The Coffee and Donut Conundrum @dunkindonuts

2011-08-01T11:30:00.004-04:00

Coffee Over Donuts

Donuts and Coffee, Coffee and Donuts. You'd think this would be a chicken or the egg type of situation, but you'd be wrong. Apparently we want Coffee, much more than Donuts, even though we do love Donuts, alot.

Dunkin Donuts sells both coffee and donuts, although they specialize in their coffee. Krispy Kreme sells both donuts and coffee, although they specialize in donuts. Depending on your mood and your location, you might prefer to go to one over the other, but so it seems, that most of us just want something for breakfast, and as long as you're a coffee drinker, Dunkin Donuts wins. They just have the better coffee, because Krispy Kreme, as great as their donuts are, isn't known for their coffee. That's not even saying that they have bad coffee, but when you think of morning coffee, Dunkin Donuts is one of the first places people will think of, along with Starbucks of course.

So why do we think like this? Well simply because of what I just said. When we are choosing between the two, we pick the place that suits us better. We're better off picking the place that has the coffee anyway, and has the donuts. It's just better that way. You don't have to guilt yourself into a simple cup of coffee, but you sure would have to for a donut. If you're going somewhere just for the coffee, odds are if you have half decent donuts, you can be sure to sell one..or two...or a dozen with that cup of coffee. There's a variety more of reason laid out in the article I cited, so take a few minutes to check it out. It'll make you think a little bit next time when you want those donuts and coffee.

Have another great day today,
Matt

Domino's Pizza, Marketing Transparency Success @dominos

2011-07-29T11:30:00.002-04:00

Pie in the Sky? Domino's Flips Switch

Want to know the legend of your now fabled Domino's late night college pizza? Read on to hear the tale.

Domino's Pizza. Officially my go to late night craving. They're open until 1am, they deliver, and their food can be super cheap if you can get a second person to eat with you. If you asked me about Domino's two years ago, I think I would have told you it's disgusting, strange, and out of the question. It seems even the marketer can fall for the marketing.

A few years ago, Domino's wasn't doing too hot. The pizza was criticized as a horrible recipe, and the service on top of it was said to be distressful. Domino's was simply another chain in the bunch with a lousy reputation for its pizza. On top of it, there was the public outrage of the YouTube clip showing employees doing dastardly things in the kitchen of a Domino's Pizza shop. Obviously things were not going too well for them.

That's when things were kicked into high gear, and they introduced a marketing campaign that has revolutionized both their business, as well as future marketing practices in what almost seems as a highly unlikely, yet highly ethical way.

Transparency!

I know, this term is pretty unfamiliar in the business world, but wouldn't you know it, it actually works! Domino's pulled the full 180, and so far it's been paying off for them. Starting with the basics, Domino's had their customers send in pictures of the pizza's and orders they were getting. The public loved this and sent in thousands upon thousands. Domino's took all of the information and made all the unnecessary changes, listening to their endearing public.

The next step, they jumped out on a cliff. They admitted their failures! That's unspeakable. The entire campaigns was wrapped around "we screwed up, our pizza sucks, but we fixed everything". It seems as if the public really took to the whole taking the blame thing, because they were willing to give them a second chance. Domino's got a whole new pizza recipe, and a whole new menu. The food now is pretty darn delicious if you ask me. It's no gourmet of course, but that's not the point. It's supposed to just taste good.

After the reworking of the entire process, now comes the super transparency. First comes the online tracker, which tells you not only the amount of fime, it tells you the individual person who made your pizza. So if your pizza shows up looking like crap, you can blame Emilio or Chuck or whoever individually. Then it tells you the name of your driver. Then right below the tracker you can even add your own personal critique, immediate and simple, with no long comment process.

Now the creme de le creme. Domino's went and got a giant billboard in Times Square, and for almost three hours a day, live streams all of the comments people leave, good and bad, straight to the eyes of the people. If that's not confidence in your transparency, I'm not sure what is.

Read the article linked above to hear the whole story in more detail, especially about the billboard they put up. It's pretty awesome to see a company go from failure, to a complete success, in all the most honest and public ways. I guess a little honesty does go a long way still.

Have another great day today,

Matt

Ge.tt - Best site for sharing your files @gettsharing

2011-07-28T11:30:00.000-04:00

Do you share a lot of files with a lot of people? I'm not just talking the occasional picture. I'm talking entire movies, entire albums. Maybe massive power points with entire groups of people.

Ge.tt

There's no .com on that it's .tt, so be sure to put it in the url right.

Ge.tt lets you share any files, of any size, of any amount, for free. There is no catch. It sounds too good to be true I know, but it is. The site is still in Beta mode, but when I recently used it I couldn't find any problems at all. It ran like a charm.

Last weekend I needed to move about ten or fifteen files from my desktop to my laptop, so that I could send them to some of my friends, but I didn't have my laptop with me. To make it even worse, I didn't have a flash disk. Ohh, and did I mention that each file was almost 400mb. In total, all the files came to a grand total of roughly 5gb or so. Quite the challenge to put in an email and simply email to myself. So I turned to Ge.tt for help.

Account creation and login takes no more than 30 seconds, and that's it. You're all set. Now here's the catch and the important part. The service itself has no caps, but depending on your internet connection, it might take you a long time to use the service. Luckily for me I uploaded to the 25 up/25 down FiOS, so this part was pretty easy. 20 minutes or so and all of my files were uploaded. But regardless of even the internet speed, the upload process is painless and simple. Once your files are uploaded, you have many multiple options. You can send people a special link for your set of files you uploaded. You can click little share buttons to share the link directly to a social network. You can even edit the files, removing or adding, at any time, even during upload. Once I had everything uploaded, it saved me the trouble for having to hand out the files to everyone. Instead of having to copy a bunch of flashdisks, especially for the size of files, all I had to do was send one simple link. Half my day, saved, because of the 20 minute upload process and one simple link. Amazing.

You might not find a use for it every single day, but if you need a way to share multiple files with many people that's super easy for everyone, and free! (for now), then I would highly recommend checking out Ge.tt, and see if it suits your needs.

Have another great day today,

Matt

Google Plus. Why you should/shouldn't use it.

2011-07-27T21:21:00.001-04:00

Welcome back blog!

Sorry for such the long time away everyone. It's been the longest few weeks of my life. Word to the wise. Full block summer semesters will drain your life away. But! Alot has happened in the world since, so it'll be alot of catch up to play.

Google Plus

Most of you must've heard of it at some point now. And it's been one of the hottest social trends of the year. So what is G+?

G+ is Google's newest attempt at a social experience. The last few attempts, such as Google Buzz and Google Wave, didn't quite go as planned. Google Wave never really brought on a wave. Google Buzz, well, created more privacy concerns than Google ever needed. But G+ on the other hand so far seems to be different.

For starters, what is it? G+ is a social network, focused largely on the connection between people and content sharing. While Facebook seems to be more sociable in the personal aspect, G+ seems to be more geared towards sharing content. Even though this might seem weird at first, when we really think about it, the internet has geared ever more often towards content sharing. It only seems to make sense that this new network would be more focused on the content sharing side.

So what do I think of it so far? So far, I think it's a great service, and it has a ton of potential. Right now it's clearly in it's infant years, with a system that still is growing its user base, and still is trying to develop who and what exactly it is. The layout and setup of the site is perfect in all things speaking, and it has a lot of great features that can be utilized. The Hangout and Huddle features are awesome features that enable chat in groups, both through video and text, both of which are two features I feel are unappreciated so far. The Photo portion gives a lot of options both in the sharing and organization of the content. The posting also is incredibly simple and easy to use. Besides some of the current features, it's hard to even imagine some of the potential for expansion and integration with your Google account itself. Your Calendar, Blog, Photos, all connected seamlessly with a network. Not just an API client connection, but an actual hard integration. All in all G+ is great if you love to say and share many things, and often.

So are there are downsides to G+? A few yes, but that's to only be expected with something as new as this. The first and foremost, is the ability to post things directly to a persons profile. Call me "2005" but I just think that speaking out directly to a person is a great feature that many other networks have. True, you can @ tag people, so technically this would work just as well, but something about the whole sharing publicly to one person seems a bit odd (even though again, that's just what you do on every other network in the scheme of things). There's also the problem of Community Standards. Don't get me wrong, Community Standards are a great thing, but not when your entire Google Account hangs in the balance. If you're a Google user like me, your entire life is your Google Account. You use Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Blogger (This blog itself needs my Google Account), Reader, Android Market, Apps, Contacts, Voice, Chrome, Chrome Apps. Clearly I've made my point. That list is only the tip of the iceberg. But the actual point there is, if you break G+ Community Standards, your Google account is banned. So long life. So long everything you own. So if you use it, take care to not post anything that will get you kicked off.

Overall, I think Google Plus is a great service, and I recommend everyone at least try it out. It's a little on the quieter side right now, but with thousands upon thousands more growing everyday, it's sure to have enough potential for the future.

Have another great day today,

Matt

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T12:53:00.001-04:00

Happy 4th of July everyone! Here's a song to help celebrate the day.

The Greatest, Strongest Country in the World!

More marketing and media content to come again tomorrow, but today's a holiday, so just enjoy the video instead. No learning today.

Have another great day today,

Matt

Have we become Socially Incompetent?

2011-06-29T07:53:00.001-04:00

I wanted to touch on one topic today, that I've been pondering in my head. No links or articles today. Just some food for thought.

I took an early train this morning to get back to class, and typically speaking it's a full house. Most of the seats are filled. All people trying to get to work. If you've ever ridden a packed train before I'm sure you can understand how it works. A two person seat on the left, and a three person on the right, of which, only one person sits in the two seater and two in the three seater. Stay with me here. I have a point to this.

Its fair to say people aren't too keen to share seats if they don't have to. And that's understandable. But I sit and watch as countless person after person walks by three seaters unwilling to share. Its ok to not love sharing a seat, but hate it so much you would rather stand for an hour straight? Even worse, I watch even more people rushing to get up from a seat when an empty one opens. When you get up from sharing a seat to go to an open one that can only mean one thing. You don't want to deal with people. If you're reading this and this is how you describe yourself, I hope I haven't offended you, but it's true. So think about it? People just seem uncomfortable being around other people any more. Their faces glued to their phones for the entire hour trip.

It just makes me wonder, how socially changed we've become as a society. No one seems to have a common concern for the people around them. Am I the only one who has the concern to carry an old lady's bag down the stairs for her? Or to say good morning to a random stranger? We're all people, it's ok. Don't be scared. We won't bite (well most of us at least).

I still remember one of the best conversations I've had was with this old man on a train. I had never met him in my life. Both heading to seperate places to do separate things, and I sat next to him on a train ride. He said good morning and as did I, and we got to talking. About everything. Simply enough all I could say is it was great.

Besides the point, I just wonder how much of this is contributed by our technologies. It almost seems we've become closed off from the world. People are clueless how to talk and act. It's great to love your technology, but let go sometime. Turn your phone off, turn the TV off, and just stop and pay attention to some of the world around you. It's sure alot more interesting than whatever you're glued to your phone with.

Coupons! Now they're digital, saving money is officially cool again!

2011-06-24T14:32:00.000-04:00

How the Economy has aided the Rise of Digital Coupons

Source

We all love to save money. Money is sparse, and it's important to do the best that we can to make the best of what we have. Typically, we would turn to coupons in newspapers and clippings to save on our every day purchases, or the spur of the moment items. Over the past few years, newspaper redemption rates on coupon clippings have dropped, dramatically. Instead, internet coupon redemption has skyrocketed to a 2009 statistic of 263 percent. This statistics is old by today's trend standards, but it's safe to say that this rate has dramatically increased even more.

So why have people stopped using newspaper clippings like they used to? It's safe to say that people simply just aren't reading newspapers like they used to. Think of the last time you sat down and actually read a newspaper. I can bet that most of you will confidently say it's been longer then you can actually remember. Now with the same question, think of the last time that you looked up a product on the internet, or looked up a coupon for a product you're trying to buy. If you're like me, you look up " [product name] coupon " every time you try and make a significant purchase. Frankly, it would be foolish not to. Internet coupons have grown to big business, and almost anything you can think of may have a coupon in some way. Even services has coupons, such as the free month of internet I got when I signed up for FiOS. All brought to you by a simple redemption coupon.

Internet coupons, or more broadly, social based coupons, have become a hot trend both online and in phone applications. Many geo-location based applications have begun to incorporate coupons and offers specifically into their applications to bring coupons directly to the consumer. These applications can be great because not only can you learn about new businesses to visit and incorporate, you can find offers that will directly apply to your purchase decisions.

So keep in mind, that internet coupons are big business, and most of us love to shop online now. So the next time you go to buy anything, take an extra minute to Google any coupons for your purchases. Odds are you'll find something that you can use. Worst case, you lost one minute. In the scheme of things, one minute is worst the hundreds of dollars your savings can add up to.

Have another great day today and an even better weekend.
See you on Monday!

Matt

Video of the Week - The Oregon Trail: The Movie

2011-06-23T17:42:00.000-04:00

Everyone remembers The Oregon Trail. All that great historical game play. All the interactive experience. Oh and by the way. No one ever actually wins The Oregon Trail. All you do is die. That's all.

Does all of that sound exciting?! Then be ready for this summer's newest blockbuster.

The Oregon Trail: The Movie!

Watch and be in awe. Experience your childhood all over again.

Have another great day today,

Matt

Can companies check your Facebook, and how?

2011-06-22T17:54:00.001-04:00

Social Media background Checkers keep dirt for 7 years

Source

So the biggest question we all want to know is, can a company check my Facebook page, are they legally allowed to, and what can I do about this, as well as many other things. That question has a few parts that we need to look at. When it all comes down to it though, keep in mind. If it's online, any time, even once, it's online forever. Maybe if you owned a Fortune 500 you could wipe some data, but you don't, so it's there...forever. So onto the article!

First of all, who can look at your profile. The simple answer is, anyone can! And that's exactly how we made it. We end up keeping our profiles public so others can see, but we don't think about the other people (companies) that can see it too. The ones that we don't want seeing. So what's the solution to this? Make your profile private, it's as simple as that. If your profile is private then people can't simply log on and look at what you have. There is one technical loophole to this that I will talk about at the end, but unless you're applying for a job at Google or Apple, you should be plenty safe simply making your profile private.

Now you must wonder if they're allowed to do this? Of course they are, anything that's public in the open, is allowed to be viewed by anyone that knows how to search for your name and profile. That's really all there is to say about that. Yes, they can, everything online is public, unless like I just said, you make things private.

So lastly, is this enough to help end it, and can they see anything else? That's a little complicated. If you're looking to apply for a job for a company who doesn't have more employees than the population of your town, you shouldn't have to worry. Major corporations hire background companies to track and look up the information and profiles of people such as you and I. Even if today you place your profile to private, they may have tracked data that was public at the time.

That's the biggest problem with the "Private" setting. Even though we can change it to private, many companies will still have tracked the data before it was set to private. These companies can then share this information for companies that are looking to perform a type of background check on you. To make it even worse, technically speaking, Facebook has the right to sell and share your data with any company they choose to. But wait! There's good news! New laws have now come into effect that disallows companies to secretly use these background companies without your permission first. If they don't have your permission, they can't use these services. Now that's not to say they can't do a search themselves, but if you're set to private, you'll be safe!

Let's recap:

1. Set your profile to private, now!

2. Companies are allowed to look you up

3. Background companies track your data, even data from the past that was public

4. They have to ask your permission to use these background companies

That should help answer your questions, have any more? Leave a comment so we can talk!

Have another great day today,

Matt

To Do List: Check FB, Check FB, Sign Off

2011-06-21T12:29:00.003-04:00

Social Networking Accounts for 1 out of 6 Minutes

Source

If you're like everyone, which you probably are as I mentioned in a previous article, you have a Facebook page. Everyone has a Facebook page, and it's more likely then not if you don't have a Facebook page you either A. Refuse to get a Facebook profile, or B. Don't use a computer. So I'm just going to assume if you're reading this you have a Facebook profile. The bigger question is how often you use it.

Apparently, on average, 1 out of 6 minutes we spend online, we spend solely on Facebook alone. And that's just on average. Sometimes we sign on specifically just to check Facebook. Personally, I'd say I almost always sign on to check Facebook, then I do other things from there. But think about how many things we do online every day. We check out bills, check out bank accounts, read the news, read articles, read tweets, send tweets, look at pictures, look at videos, read blogs, write blogs, read how-to's, read wiki's, work online, take a class online, do research, buy things, sell things, play games, fill out paper work, among many many many other things. I could go on forever. But the point remains the same, that Facebook takes a large portion of our time.

The big point the think about is if Facebook is just another website we access every day, or if it's much more than that. It's easy to make the claim now that Facebook is even greater then the every day page. It's a tool, and a tool portal that gives us the ability to do the many things we like to do online. We use these tools to aid in our daily interactions so maybe it's important to not think of Facebook as the single webpage but a web portal giving access to the rest of the web. Between sharing, business pages, photos, and connections, Facebook opens up a lot of our web activity to our daily use.

Have another great day today,

Matt

Everyone has friends! Sort of...Not really...

2011-06-20T12:05:00.000-04:00

You've Never Met 7% of your Facebook Friends

Source

So first ask yourself how friends you have on Facebook. Then ask yourself, how many are actually your close friends? Did you get a low number, a high number? Now the last question, ask yourself, do you have any friends on Facebook you actually don't even know? If you answer this question with quite a few, then don't be scared, apparently that's pretty normal. A new Pew Study makes the claim that on average about 7 percent, or 16 people, on Facebook aren't even our friends, and worse yet, we've never even met them before. Why would we be friends with someone that we've never even met before? Maybe you're a numbers junkie who will friend anyone under the sun to seem popular. You may also be trying to make special connections through your social web. Both are legitimate reasons, and there is no true definition to what a Facebook friend should really be about.

Most people have begun to develop a pretty broad definition of what a friend is, even though their list of true friends is probably incredibly remote. You used to be able to ask how many friends someone has and they would give you a simple answer. 5 or 6 true friends, with many different acquaintances. But the norm has become that we have over 9,000 friends! I hope some of you got that joke, ha, ha, ha. Regardless though, the point is, take a look at your friend list some time today, and see how many of them you actually know. You might be surprised as to how many of those friends are really your friends. You might even be more surprised to find out, "I added her?"

Have another great day today,

Matt

Cartoon of the Week - Secrets to the Magic School Bus

2011-06-16T16:50:00.001-04:00

Magic School Bus

My childhood was a lie. Ms. Frizzle always seemed to know all the answers. I trusted her.

Hashtags, some think #lazyness but more like #revolutionary #?

2011-06-15T13:57:00.002-04:00

Hashtags, a New Way for Tweets

Source

Hi, I can't wait to take my test today! #LOL #not #fail . Did you notice the sarcasm in that sentence? No? Or did you just notice a pound symbol randomly placed everywhere. If you found the sarcasm, you already know where this is going. If you're simply trying to Google the pound symbol at the moment, you might find yourself a little lost. My friends, let me introduce to you the Hashtag. The hashtag is the topic organizer, the search assistant, the emotion conveyor of the internet.

Hashtags were first made for Twitter, introduced by Chris Messina in August of 2007, to help people organize information for searches. If you were at an event, you would tag your tweet with #concert or such, and people could quickly find relevant information. Hashtags are still used to this today, and they're a great tool for information organization. But besides their usefulness in organizing, hashtags have grown into more of an extra emotion or feeling. In a world where text only portrays one side of the story, hashtags help to bring the other.

Many times now, you find people placing hashtags at the end of their tweets, to help people understand how they feel. Whether it's sarcasm, joy, disappointment, the hashtag helps us to explain how we actually feel, so the reader isn't simply lost in translation of sorts. Many people will use common expressions such as LOL, OMG, EPIC, FAIL or other popular phrases at the end to help get their point across.

Even more revolutionary is the fact that hashtags have begun to branch out of twitter and into common text. Our Facebook's now see hashtags, our emails may have hashtags, I've even gotten a text before with a hashtag. The point is this. We have become a globally socially internet driven world. Thinking of living our lives without our internet and connections may seem possible, but let's face it, it would be pretty hard to live our lives without the constant connections we've grown used to. So if we're going to be in this for the long haul, we might as well make the best of it. Using hashtags helps add more of an emotional touch to our communications, and I can sure say, boy it's about time. I'm tired of explaining my sarcasm posts. #seriously

Have another great day,

Matt

Abandon All Ship, Man the Lifeboats, Facebook is going Down!

2011-06-13T13:11:00.025-04:00

Facebook Users DROP in U.S.

Source

It's happening, the end of days is here, Harold Camping was just a few weeks late, and just was wrong about how it was going to happen. Facebook officially has lost users, according to this Huffington Post article by almot 6 million. That's US users only, worldwide Facebook currently has 687 million users. So 6 million of out 687 million? Pennies in a bucket you say? Well don't be so sure. Facebook growth has skyrocketed since it's initial release. At it's peak, Facebook had 155 million users in the US. So let's look at the hard numbers, using population estimate of roughly 300 million, if you take into account that all children 14 and under account for 20 percent of the population by recent data, that's 60 million that can't use Facebook. That gives us 240 million people in the United States that can. So if you take all the math out, you come to find over 60 percent of the US population uses Facebook every day. That's a lot. Technically, your odds are better of guessing if someone has a Facebook account, then guessing if they're male or female. That sure says something about a businesses stopping power.

So now the bigger question, we know how many people use it, but where did the 6 million people go? Some accounts blame seasonal fluctuations. Facebook has made the claim that summer time drops numbers, between college students in finals and job searches, as well as summer time fun distractions. They seem like legitimate claims, but can we really say that 6 million people all at once decided to simply leave Facebook for summer. I would think almost more the opposite. Most people can't wait to make their coworkers jealous by posting the pictures from their summer vacations up. One solid reason may be some of the overwhelming privacy trends popping up lately, about how much our lives have become a social data bank instead of individual us.

So did 6 million people try and get smart and escape the system, or did 6 million people book one big group cruise (imagine the group rate savings!). Any thoughts or comments by anyone?

Mirror Mirror (Picture) on the Wall

2011-06-06T11:00:00.022-04:00

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Facebook Post is About You

Here's another great article from one of my favorites, Fast Company. I couldn't help but put the song in, the article name just added onto it even more. But here's an interesting concept about Profile Pictures. Apparently over 10 percent of all Facebook pictures are Profile pictures. When it comes down to it that's a whole lot of pictures posted purely on the concern of our initial impression. To us, our Facebook picture is our window to the world. It's how we want people to think of us, and what we want people to think we look like or act like. So when it all comes down to it, the Profile picture is the most important thing on the profile. The very first thing everyone looks to is the picture, and without a good picture, people may just get the wrong idea. But then it gets even more interesting. Apparently the rate of new profile pictures has tripled in the past 5 years. So now that just gives us a second thought. Have we become more concerned with how people think of us? Or is this contributed more by larger sharing and accessibility? Now with modern smart phones and access, we can bring more and more information to the social sphere than ever before. Instead of taking pictures on the digital camera, uploading them to your computer, than separately picking through them, it's as easy as point, click, upload. Congratulations, you can now change your profile picture every 3 hours. Are we more vain? I don't think vain has anything to do with it. Now with social status being a large part of who we are, it may rely more on the fact that we want to keep a positive impression of ourselves. As Orwell always says, "Big Brother is always watching", except it's not Big Brother, it's your older brother, or younger brother, or your parents. Either way, accessibility and information spread may be a large contributor to our profile picture madness.

The Hidden Truth of Advertising! Shocker!

2011-06-03T15:08:00.000-04:00

Advertising Discovery

Ok, so I lied. Maybe it's not the biggest discovery ever made, and maybe, ok, yes maybe, it's not even actually a discovery. But I think it's a pretty funny of how true this comic is. Wikipedia has overly trained us. And rightfully so. Click the link and take a look for yourself. I don't want to ruin the humor of the joke now do I? Normally I explain the links, but I think it's time for you to do your own leg work this time.

"What's in a name?" Social Media Expert?

2011-05-24T15:53:00.000-04:00

Source

Business Insider - Why I will never hire Social Media Experts

Earlier today I stumbled across an article that talked about how much the writer hates the term "Social Media Expert". Frankly, I also hate that term, and I hate when people can't understand the difference. The writer makes a ton of good points, almost all of which I can firmly agree with, although some I might have to explain the circumstance, but overall his point is true. Take a bit to read the article and see what he has to say.

So you've got to wonder why am I endorsing such an article like this? "But Matt, don't you want people to think of you as a social media expert, after all, you write about social media?" Yes, that's true, I do write about social media, and I also write about how important it is to use social media. But, do I call myself purely a social media expert. No, I don't. Because I'm not. I'm a marketer, who uses the tools of social media to promote good marketing tools and techniques. Still confused? Let's break it apart a bit.

Social Media comprises of the social environment and network of people, services, and tools that help promote communication between consumers and businesses. Marketing, on the other hand, is the practice of promoting and selling a product, service, or business to these consumers. So naturally most people are going to assume, they just go well together. And yes, they do. Social media and marketers are like a match made in heaven. More connections, more analytics, and more everything. Social media makes the techniques of the past cheaper, efficient, and more precise.

So, why won't I call myself a social media expert. A social media expert is someone that knows how to use social media. They know the tools, they know it's benefits, and they know the ins and outs of every service and product available in the realm of social media. True, maybe that's part of what I do, but that isn't what I do. A marketer on the other hand, knows how to create campaigns, manage projects, and the ins and outs of the marketing channels. A social media expert does not know how to market, nor do they know how to use social media for marketing. But a marketer who uses social media, brings the marriage of the two together.

Maybe I'm being a bit fickle, but it's important to understand the difference. It's a pet peeve of mine personally, and it drives me nuts. The worst thing I can ever hear during my day is, "What do you do?" "Ohh, I provide marketing consulting specializing in social media campaigns" "So you make websites?" "No......". So for the record, as a marketer, who uses social media, I do not simply make a website and let it sit. Yes I will make a website, and yes I will set up all your social services, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's not the services, but how you use those services to benefit your business. A social media campaign is nothing without good marketing.

The Cure For ADD-vertising | Fast Company

2011-05-18T15:53:00.003-04:00

The Cure For ADD-vertising | Fast Company

We can't multitask. Seriously. We can't. As much as each of us claim to be able to do a ton of things at once, it's just not scientifically possible. Some people may be able to focus on multiple things very well, but no one can truly multitask. One of the biggest problems for advertisers today is this problem, and it's only going to keep getting worse and worse. Every day we're bombarded with more and more information and media, and we're asked to process this accordingly to make decisions. Even worse is that we see so many advertisements it becomes impossible to even manage. Marketers produce these large upscale ads that provide so much media and information, but this article cleverly places out that all of that media may not be helping the cause. I think it's fair to say that big media advertising has become some of the common norm. We feel that if we can provide that much more to a consumer that maybe we can gain that much more interest. And sure, maybe the ad is exciting and interesting at first, but the sad truth is that you're not alone, not in the least bit. Your ad is only going to be the first of many ads seen among the rest. So what's the trick to make it better? Well as this writer notes, simplicity is key, and in some form, it is. Think about some of the best commercials you've seen lately. Were they full of words, phrases, points, all jam packed into a 15 second bit? No, not at all, not as far as I can say at least. If you ask me, you're more likely to encounter a commercial with only a phrase or two. One that strikes out in my mind is the 2 minute Chrysler commercial that aired on the Super Bowl. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is below:

This commercial is perfect. It has a simple tag, simple phrase, simple meaning, but the way it's presented gets the feel across. I know after watching this commercial it sure played into my thoughts, and even made me think a little differently about a Chrysler car than I used to. What'd you think world? Is advertising too much anymore? Can we still multitask and handle information like the world thinks we can? Or are we merely just dealing with it one byte at a time?

The World Wide...Map!

2011-05-18T01:46:00.001-04:00

Online Communities 2

This comic here is one of my personal favorites to follow. Almost like the academia Ziggy perhaps. Usually about three a week are posted and I always get excited for what could be next. One in pertiuclsr I found both entertaining, yet also interesting to think about. Behold the map of the world..of the internet. Now obviously the map isn't to scale, of whatever sort of scale might even be used in this instance? But it's funny to think about how the internet might be divided up and scaled out if it really could be a map. After all, if Facebook was a country it would be the third most populous in the world. Hopefully Facebook doesn't start a revolution. With those numbers they just may win! But anyway, take a look and see how the social media landscape looks. Would you do it differently? Find you might disagree with this? Lemme hear about it.

Smartphones sharing for us?

2011-05-17T18:13:00.002-04:00

Do Android smartphones leak data? | TG Daily

Recent studies have provided some insight into some recent hardware and software glitches that may make our phones a bit more accessible than we would like. Researches did a bit of snooping and looking into the software that we rely on for many of the current and most popular smartphones. Google's Android phones have made an incredible jump in popularity and use, and currently has become just as competitive, if not more, than a just as popular iPhone. The question that becomes raised is if the popularity has grown so fast that this may hinder and push into our security. As we all know, Windows Vista is one of the biggest technical flops to ever happen, and some contribute this incident to rushed and overlooked service. Google on the same hand, has a turn over for system upgrades of months. I trust Google with all of my information online, but can we continue to trust them with leaks as huge as these?

My opinion: We sure can. Just like every software that is ever produced, there are always holes that are found and pointed out. That's inevitable, no software is perfect, and for every "perfect" software, there is going to be someone to find a way to defy perfection. The real trick is how can a company cope with this. Some companies like Microsoft, send update patches for IE9 what might seem like almost on daily basis. Is this good vigilance, or poor software? I couldn't say, but the point is they fix the problem. Google in it's own right, has complete version overhaul on a biannual basis. I think that's a pretty good rate if you ask me. Typically it takes an operating system years to be developed into a new version. If a company can turn out new quality versions per year, I think I can trust them to fix some security holes. Let's face the real facts here. Our lives are full of security holes. It's not a matter that they're there, it's a matter of how well they can fix them.

UPDATE 5/18/11

Google Filling Hole

Just as predicted, Google acknowledged the problem and already filled the hole. Over the next few days we can expect a roll out of the fix force sent to all our devices and the world is safe again. So maybe now the relevance of this post on the problem is no longer, but it's still fair to point out the fact that there will always be holes, in every software and every program. It's not a matter of judging a company merely on the initial security and process of their software, but also largely on how well they can cope and deal with the problems as they are presented to them. Bravo Google, a job well done.

Happy Easter...resume from break.

2011-04-24T15:43:00.001-04:00

Happy Easter to everyone! To the religious, enjoy the spirit of the day. To the non religious, enjoy enough candy until you'll explode. Its been a few weeks since I've been able to come on and update with a nice new post. Sorry to anyone that may be reading and keeping up. School of course is my number one priority and its been a hectic few last weeks. But starting this week we should be back and ready!

Best regards,

Matt

Hooray, it's Friday! Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun! Better start tweeting!

2011-04-08T17:37:00.000-04:00

Why Users are More Engaged in Social Media on Friday

Not sure which seat you should be taking? Has the work week drained you so much you don't feel like making cereal this morning? It's ok! It's Friday! And recent surveys show that your social life turns to full swing today. Apparently, people are the most involved in their social networks on Friday more than any other day of the week. A full 18 percent more. That may not seem to be as big a deal, but it is. Twitter's newest statistics now say that Twitter is receiving over 150 million tweets a day. That's right, that's one tweet for every two people in the entire country. But why Friday? Well understandably, Friday is the day that people start to unwind and switch from their work mode to their social mode. This article really shows the importance of marketing for time. A marketer would never want to send tweets and updates on a Monday, when the work week is just beginning, although if they started a campaign, and they were asking for replies, it's obvious that Friday would be the best day for replies. At the same time, Friday has it's own time period to focus on. You don't want to wait too late, because then everyone will already be out and about. Yet if you go too early, everyone will still be at work. The prime time obviously is a small window, the 5 to 9 period, to get out those messages and get the word out.

Everyone's doing it! Even senior citizens!

2011-04-07T15:17:00.000-04:00

Baby Boomers and Digital Media

A lot of people talk lately about how big social media has become. Everyone is online, everyone has a profile on one service or another. Odds are, if you talk to a teenager, you could bet money they're on Facebook, and the odds are even better that you would win that bet. But lately research has shown that there's one group growing even faster and bigger then the others. Who are they?

Babyboomers!

One of the largest growing markets is the babyboomer and seniors citizen, and this is a market not to be left alone. More and more babyboomers are moving online everyday, and with good reason. The group most likely to be disconnected from old friends is the baby boomer, and with good reason, when we're young, we go to school, and see our friends for entire days. When we grow a little older, we move to college, and even live with our friends. When we work, we work with some new friends. But eventually, the more we work, some of our old friends start to move away to work other places. And then we retire and maybe move ourselves. The older we get, the more disconnected we can become. So this is where to benefit of social networks come into play. Babyboomers have been flocking online in droves, and the benefit of connections has become overwhelming. This market has a lot of potential to be had, and not as many marketers are using this to their advantage. Yes, it's true there are some challenges that come with this as well. As we know baby boomers don't like to be considered old, and specifically referencing this fact will turn them off from your product, but with the right campaigns, a good marketer can always find some leverage into this market.

Facebook Places, Could they be next?

2011-04-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

5 Creative Facebook Places Uses

One of the biggest growing markets has definitely been geo-social location apps, such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places. I think out of the three, Facebook Places has been getting the least amount of attention between the two, although there are some large possibilities that could be leveraged. Because so many people involved with their social media find a large part of their use on Facebook, the Places option could be integrated perfectly into a brand and brand page. I think the biggest problem for Facebook Places to take off is that, people that are already involved in geo-location already have a dedicated app, most likely Foursquare or Gowalla. Most of the people that I see trailing into Facebook Places are the late arrivals, that already missed the early train. The possibilities are still there, with the boom and placement of smartphones being the next common thing. If Facebook and other businesses can manage to spin this around and draw a crowd, Facebook Places has a strong possibility to grow to bigger things. The article that I attached was some of the great ways that companies have used Facebook Places for their business. It sure shows the strengths that Facebook has over some competition, for their complete integration into the Facebook landscape, unlike the parallel check-in system the others champion over.

Twitter Fail, But Red Cross Success

2011-04-05T21:12:00.014-04:00

7 Worst Twitter PR Mishaps

So every once in a while, a mistake is made. Also, every once in a while, a purposeful action is made. No matter what happened, every once in a while a company will tweet an errant remark, completely out of line, sometimes even offensively outrageous. The webpage posted here shows a nice slide show of some of the 7 worst PR mishaps as a result of twitter. Some of these are a bit funny to laugh at, others you may find offensive. Each company deals with these situations in their own ways, for better or worse. I think the simplest thing to do is of course remove the tweet and come up with a reason. Some companies blame hacking, others will admit that an employee has made a rampage tweet. One company I appreciated the best was Red Cross. In their situation, an employee accidentally sent what was meant to be a personal tweet into the corporate sphere of the Red Cross. The Red Cross did the right thing by addressing it, but instead of a serious tone, they ran with it saying "We've deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we've confiscated the keys". I couldn't help but laugh when I read that sentence, because instead of heading for the worst, the Red Cross made humor out of a bad situation. Now granted, this was a complete accident, the poor girl that sent the tweet I'm sure was panicking like crazy, but all was well. Dogfish Head even helped along on the "gag" and told people to use the hashtag she used, and to help donate to the Red Cross. It just goes to show you that sometimes the worst of situations can always be mended.

Automation, Is it really the best idea?

2011-04-04T18:11:00.000-04:00

Social Media Today: Automation

One big, more ethical, conversation in social media is the idea of automation, and it's real benefits or detriments. This conversation could be contributed to not just social media, but even marketing and business in general. Is automation truly a good thing? Or is it weighing you down? The supporter in this case would say that automation is great! Automation saves time, money, and gives a company so much convenience in response and handling issues. Now the detractor would have another argument, and I think it has to start you thinking even a little bit. Automation becomes so impersonal and frankly sometimes it can become annoying. How many times have you sent an email to a support service, and all you receive back is a canned and one lined response in return. Now personally, to me that doesn't say customer service, all that says to me is appeasement. Instead of automation, we have the idea of personalization. Instead of an automated response, you receive a response with your name, a direct answer to your question, and a direct concern for you specifically. What a concept! So I think the biggest question is, does the cost savings of automation pay off in the ROI for your lack of personal interaction? The consumer inside of me tells me that I want a personal look and response. The business man inside of me tells me let's go automation all the way! The savings are extraordinary! But the marketer inside of me, he's not too sure what to think. Maybe we need to reconsider the entire automation concept. What do you think? I'd love to hear your responses.

Profile to Business in 1,2,3...

2011-04-03T13:23:00.002-04:00

Facebook Now Lets You Turn Your Profile Into a Business Page

Facebook recently released the new option for someone to switch a regular profile over into a fan page. This is a great new feature for many small businesses. Alot of people created profiles for their businesses to add some appeal. While it was a great idea to make a profile. That's not the place you want to be. The place you really want to be is a fan page. But then the question comes. I already have 600 followers on the profile. I don't want to create a page and risk losing them? So now the question is answered. Don't lose them. Switch them. So the second question. Why switch? Because a page appears more professional, looks cleaner, and is more adapt for business use. You get all the business features a typical profile won't have.

Publicity Gone Wild

2011-03-29T22:02:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a company tries to do creative things to splash up a bit of publicity in the giant ocean of advertising. One company, Minno, both figuratively and quite literally, a little fish in this giant ocean, tried to do just that by stirring up the pot with a new sneak campaign aimed at the NYT. Minno is a micropayment service, which means, their program allows you, instead of paying monthly, pay pennies at a time to view articles as you go. If you haven't heard recently, the NYT has set up a pay wall blocking users from accessing content unless they sign up for a subscription. Minno tried to circumvent this by hacking NYT pay wall and setting up their own micropayment service in their place. It was a great idea to show the proof of theory for Minno, but wound up being a bit of negative publicity because the NYT times threatened a lawsuit against them (even though their statement says they only "politely" requested because of trademark infringement). Now everything was settled and brushed off, and a bit of no hard feelings all is better was exchanged. As we last know all is well between the two, and Minno now got a bit of publicity, as well as perking itself onto the radar of this writer himself. But Minno should realize how big of a bullet it just missed because what was only a harmless prank could have been disastrous for a new, incredibly innovative company.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-ex-googlers-launch-nyt-for-a-nickel-as-publicity-stunt-nyt-not-amused/

The Proof is In the Tweet

2011-03-29T11:29:00.002-04:00

The latest studies show that half of all tweets are made by only .05 percent of all twitters users every day. Yes, .05 percent, not just .05 "5%", but a half of a percent. That comes out to roughly 20,000 users. It's fair to say that most of those 20,000 users are the big giants, news corporations, media agencies, or any big information highway. This shows a bit of insight into how twitter is being leveraged. Twitter is described as a micro-blog, because of it's short form entry. If you look at a big company and the way they're producing content, it may as well be a full blog. Some accounts such as Google News, continuously pumps out tweets every half hour or so of the latest news. Me personally, that drives me nuts. My twitter feed consists of friends, products, and businesses, but massive feeds straight to our homepage? I couldn't be so agreeable on that one. I had Google News as a friend, but unfollowed them pretty fast. If I want to read the news, well, I know where Google is.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/28/twitter-study-statistics_n_841666.html

Youtube, Best Bet? Probably not.

2011-03-28T19:03:00.002-04:00

Most people think that their Youtube video is going to be the next big viral video to hit the web. But most of the time, these videos go unnoticed to the world. And even more so, most outrageous viral videos, weren't even meant to be outrageous. Most of these videos were posted with the most serious intentions, but only once found funny did they boom. A Youtube video can be great for business if done right, but done wrong could be disastrous.

http://mashable.com/2011/03/27/youtube-marketing-mistakes/

Great Way to Use Twitter

2011-03-28T17:19:00.001-04:00

25 Small Business Twitter Tips | Kyle Lacy, Social Media - Indianapolis

Twitter is a great way for small business owners to express their business and themselves. Consumers love to be able to relate to a business. And even better to know a business wants to relate to them. If a business owner manages a profile it will help develop a brand loyalty for a consumer not only to follow a business but for a business to follow them back and even better to coorespond with them.

Some Do's and Don'ts, Clearly Some Don'ts

2011-03-16T20:38:00.000-04:00

I found the following article to be a great example about some of the pitfalls of social media. Even as great a tool as it is, there are many problems that can come from such a vast span. Information is a great commodity and available to all people, yet unfortunately at the same time, it's available to all people. This is even more important in our time of information because every little thing that we say and do is logged and tracked by every program we use (which I think may just be a good topic for tomorrow), and even if it may be a statement made in anger, frustration, or a lapse of judgement, there is no take backs on the internet. A good thing to keep in mind is, don't say or do anything you wouldn't want your mother to read, or your boss, or anything that your company represents. Well, I take that back, there's a lot of grey area, we still should have the ability to say what we are feeling, but I think if there's any best advice to take, it's to be aware that everything you say or post may come with a consequence, so you hear that world? You've been warned!

"When the Marketing Reach of Social Media Backfires"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/business/media/16adco.html?src=busln

Data Caps

2011-03-16T12:46:00.001-04:00

So one topic that's had me thinking lately is data caps. The basic concept of a data cap is to cover data bandwidth for a data company as to not bottleneck their system. Or in English means, they cap their data plans so that one customer doesn't slow down the network for everyone. Now I get the concept I do. And it makes sense from the business side of things, but it makes me wonder how practical a cap really means. When text messaging was first introduced, the charge per text was insurmountable. But even though we had to pay through the roof for a text message. It cost a cell phone company next to nothing to send a text message. And that only accounted for a small number of texters. Now we all text. And its such a prevelant concept that few people have any plan that doesn't include unlimited texting. If you ask me companies should simply stop introducing text messaging as an "included" feature and simply market it as what's standard. So now we turn around and spread that concept across to 3G/4G/Bandwidth or whatever data connection you may use. Data is now used just as widely as early texting. And we have to pay through the roof to use it. So what some companies do is provide data caps to prevent overusage and so that the company gets the most money for their hardware. If every company was employing this practice that's one thing. But some cell phone companies do include unlimited data for the same price. So for proof in concept. Its a very possible idea and shows no complete neccesary need for a data cap in total. Now there's many details and statistics I left out and I could expand forever on this arguement. But just something to consider. Is unlimited data truely that serious a strain on our networks? Or just a ballooned up idea overexagerated for profit?

Apps: Future or FAD?

2011-03-14T16:06:00.002-04:00

One hot ticket item that you can't escape anymore is apps. Everything we do is being streamlined less through a website and now more through apps. The biggest consumer of apps is the smartphone, with the biggest phone users at the time of writing to Android, Apple, and RIMM, in respective order. Besides just our phones, apps are found heavily in tablets, computers, and and browsers. Apps seem to have exploded out of nowhere and now you can find an app for anything. Now it makes me begin to wonder if the age of central web pages may end and if apps will become the bigger role. More people use twitter on their phones and devices then log onto the actual website. I myself haven't logged onto Twitter's website in months it seems. Is this a good thing? Perhaps. I love my apps. And I have an app for everything I need. I'm actually typing this on the Blogger for Android app. So I start to wonder if there will be a point where we will begin to rely less on browsers and more on actual apps. What do you think? Will apps become so mainstream they're the new norm?

What I'm About

2011-03-14T13:00:00.002-04:00

So you've probably stumbled here from a search engine or side link and you're left stuck wondering, what is this about?

One of the biggest focuses currently in the world is social media. Now that's all encompassing. Television, websites, blogging, social networks, micro networks, whatchamacallit networks, viral video, the list goes on and on and on. Before one product is even released, another is developed that's better. So we need to keep up with the latest advances. I'd love to help.

Now this begs the second question. How do these affect me? Are they good? Are they bad? What are they?
And should I be diving in eyes closed? Hopefully some of my insight can help us understand these in the ever changing world.