Posts Tagged ‘social media’

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Evaluating the Buzz

Friday, February 12th, 2010

googlebuzzGoogle’s recent release of Buzz has been surrounded by hype and questions. Only a couple days after its release, it remains to be seen if this new social networking tool will actually take off.  Could it really become one of the social networking elite, or fall flat like Wave?

What is Buzz all about?
Currently, it shares a spot somewhere between Twitter and Facebook. It can be open to the public like Twitter, or updates can be private like Facebook. The API is open to developers in the same way Twitter is, but access is limited to those who own a Google account (similar to Facebook). You can send out short text updates to your followers, but it also has built-in media sharing capabilities such as: Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, Google Reader, Picasa, and YouTube. It only takes one click to tie in each service, as most of those services already belong to Google. You can have Buzz send out an update whenever you post to any of these services, or you can choose not to share. And just like Twitter and Facebook, Buzz is available on your phone to share from anywhere you happen to be. (more…)

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Resolution | Building A Better Coop

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Fads. None of us are immune to them all the time, it’s just that some are easier to resist than others.

For instance, brown was never the “New Black” for me, it was just brown. Chickens, on the other hand, now those were a fad I just couldn’t pass up.

Chicks

Fluffy Yellow Chicks? I’ll take 5 of those Silver Laced Wyandotte’s please! We’re allowed to have 3 hens, but I figured there might be some natural attrition. I also allowed for human error that 1 or 2 might turn out to be Roosters. We watched in awe as the chicks went from fluffy, to gawky to beautiful. Well, all but one of them. I would stand out by the run watching them, the sun glinting magically off their iridescent tail feathers and remark to my partner “Baby, they’re so pretty! Except that one, why is she so ugly?” And then, one day, we heard a tentative, garbled Rrrrr-rrrrr-rrrrr. The ugly one, it turned out was our only hen. (more…)

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I Accept the Challenge

Friday, January 8th, 2010
007-crazy 3D stripes

007-crazy 3D stripes

In response to Tweedle C’s post about Smashing Magazine’s Design Something Every Day challenge, I have accepted and am recording my progress in my blog, Holodek 365. So far, so good! I have managed to take some time out of each day (seven whole days so far!) and create something. I have heard that a 1000 mile journey begins with a single step or seven. Anyway, the idea is to keep your design time to under a half hour per day but sometimes I get carried away. I do, however, find myself looking forward to it each day. I can’t wait to make something and I especially can’t wait to see what other people have done. It is truly inspirational to see others progress, commitment and creativity from blog layouts to simple sketches to photography to type treatment, etc. They are all searchable on Twitter with #daily365.

It was recommended to go with a theme for your designs. Maybe for one month, try to design something retro. For another month try typographic posters. The possibilities are endless. I have decided to keep it simple and vector in the beginning and follow some Adobe Illustrator tutorials. I run across them all the time while doing research for projects at work but never have time to try them. Now I a just add them to my list as I come across them.

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Mobile Mobile

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

It seems everyone here insists on torturing me with holiday music. I don’t hate it, I just don’t really like it and I definitely do not need to listen to it every day for three weeks. I can block it out with my big headphones and my own heavy metal holiday meltdown mix including Black Sabbath’s Snow Blind and Judas Priest’s Evening Star and Slayer’s Jesus Saves. Festive, eh?

Anyway, I ran across this video of Mobile Mobile an interactive installation by James Theophane and it caused me take a break from my usual metal massacre, get inspired and actually enjoy a traditional holiday song.

Experience Mobile Mobile from James Théophane Jnr on Vimeo.

Mobile Mobile is a large sculpture  made of recycled mobile phones that hangs in the lobby of LBi, a marketing and technology agency in the UK. The sculpture plays Choir of the Bells when you tweet it. You can also play it live like a great big circular piano thing with your keyboard. Check it out!

mobile tree

Happy Holidays.

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Social Media Without the Browser

Monday, December 21st, 2009

feedalizrTwitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Digg, these are all great websites.  People use them to reconnect with friends, let people know what they are up to, offer customer discounts, and more.  Some people don’t use their computers for anything but these services and others like them.  While Google sees this fact and is moving forward with their idea that the browser should be the OS (Chrome OS), applications are popping up everywhere to help you maintain your statuses, and update your systems easier.

With the power of Adobe Air, every desktop can get some simple applications that tie into your different social media accounts.  One great one is feedalizr.  It can connect to FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr and more.  With this one application, you have access to all your favorite social media without waiting for your browser to load, and eating up your RAM with a ton of different tabs.

If you happen to be using Ubuntu Linux, you may be interested in some of the upcoming changes for the upcoming 10.4 release.  This next release is supposed to include a new feature called the Me Menu.  If you have twitter and Facebook accounts, this new menu is going to allow you to update your statuses and also tie you into the Ubuntu One online storage.  Pretty rad.

The line between offline and online is blurring more and more, and it’s interesting to see how this affects software development.

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The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Picture this: you are at a beautiful wedding. the bride is gorgeous in white, the ceremony has begun, the couple are seconds away from officially becoming “man and wife” and…. the groom pauses to post a tweet?

This really happened over the weekend when Dana Hanna paused momentarily, pulled out his cell phone and tweeted the following:

resized_original

So, this begs the question: at what point does the speed demon of social media become a train wreck? The internet abounds with examples of destructive social media endeavors, but the one we’ll share today is the Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Let’s get at it. This list is in no particular order of importance. There is no hierarchy of social media sins. And for those reluctant to reform, you can’t simply choose the least of the seven evils and get away with it – they are all bad. (more…)

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Use your social media manners!

Friday, December 4th, 2009

win

As with anything, there is a time, place, and etiquette surrounding social media. Without some simple guidelines, social media has and will get completely out of control. Here’s some genius ideas to keep you and your brand worry free and always looking your best.

Social media mimics real relationships — in many cases. Would you do the following within real face-to-face relationships?

  • Jump on the friendship bandwagon without properly introducing yourself?
  • Consistently talk about yourself and promote only yourself without regard for those around you?
  • Randomly approach a friend you barely talk to and simply ask for favors — repeatedly?
  • Introduce yourself to another person as “Pink House Gardening?”

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may need a refresher course on social media etiquette — and perhaps real-life etiquette also. Here are some egregious sins that you must not perform on social media sites. Avoid these violations and learn how to manage and maintain online relationships on a variety of popular social media sites. (more…)

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“Twitter” is named Word of the Year

Monday, November 30th, 2009

twitter-bird-wallpaper

Each year, the Global Language Monitor announces the most popular word of the year. The monitor uses an algorithm to track social media searches, internet searches, etc. to determine a word’s popularity.

This year marks the first year that a technology word has taken first place; usually the most popular search terms are related to events happening in the world. “Twitter” has surpassed “Obama”, “H1N1″, and even “Michael Jackson”.

For more information, read the entire article here.

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Are Facebook Fan Pages effective? Survey says yes!

Monday, November 23rd, 2009
facebook-tshirt
Facebook Fan Page Benefits
Still need convincing? Here are 6 reasons why you should consider creating a Facebook fan page and the search engine marketing benefits it can bring:

1. Pages are public.
Most of Facebook is behind a login, preventing search engines from indexing. However, some Fan pages are not behind a login and thus search engines can index the page. Hopefully, people will stumble on the result in SERPs, visit the Facebook page, and then get to your site via the link (see reason #2).

2. Pages include links.
Because the pages are public, you can get some nice facebook.com link credit. You can’t use an anchor text, but hey, it’s free.

3. Send “updates to fans”.
One of the greatest features is that you can send “updates” to fans whenever you want. It’s a nice way of building a database of interested users. Send messages about new products, updated website, etc.

4. You control the page.
Making the page before a Fan or a competitor is critical. You want to be able to send the messages, edit or remove sections, and control the information to an extent.

5. News feed.
When a someone joins a Fan page, it’s published in their News feed for all their to read (unless they have turned this off). It makes someone joining your Fan page somewhat viral.

6. It’s free and easy.
Making a Fan page takes just a few minutes – add some information, URL, and upload the logo and you’re done. You can make your page here.

Finally…
PR is currently one of the few forms of marketing thriving during the recession so 2009 will inevitably see Facebook fan page activity increase as companies compete in the current climate. We will check back in 6 months time to see how the top 25 Facebook fan pages have changed, if Obama is still leading the way or Homer can steal the crown…keep you posted!

Thank you Mashable!

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3 Social Media Lessons Taken from the Restaurant World

Monday, November 16th, 2009

cute-food-twitter-cupcake

There is much to be learned about utilizing social media for business. Below is an article from Chris Allison that is a great jumping off place for planning your social media strategy.

Chris Allison is a social media strategist at NeboWeb, where he helps clients make the most of the social web. You can follow him on Twitter as the voice behind @Neboweb.

In the midst of all the noise surrounding social media marketing and emerging technologies, we sometimes get caught up in the grandeur of the transition and forget how this all actually works. When you start looking around, it’s easy to think that what makes a campaign successful is some strange, quirky factor. It’s true, there’s a lot of potential to use these tools for trying out new things and creating out-of-the-box experiences, but that’s not the point. The bottom line is that social media offers an opportunity to bring something useful to your customers. To learn how to do it, look no further than the world of food chains, mobile vendors, and top of the line restaurants.

Below are three lessons from the world of food that will help you better utilize social media to bring value to your customers.

1. Play to your strengths

When it comes to convenience, no one does it like fast food. People don’t eat fast food because it’s hot and delicious — though that helps — people eat fast food because it’s cheap, the food comes out quick, and there’s almost always a place to get it nearby. It’s convenient in all respects. With that in mind, anything a fast food company can do to become more convenient is worth considering. This is an important concept to remember when setting out on your social media campaign, and a lesson well learned from a few top fast food brands: play to your strengths.

(more…)

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