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Last week, I met a friend for coffee.  He talked about a business idea, and then he asked me to sum up what people meant by “social media.”  I answered, “Integration.”  Twitter and Myspace integrated with Facebook, Facebook integrates with your personal experiences, and we all use the Social Web to integrate with one another and learn more about one another.

Recently, I tried to explain the concept of Apps to another friend.  I explained that many Apps allow a person to do in one or a fewer steps what once  took several minutes to do even on non-smart phones with Internet capabilities.  Other Apps allow people to do what cell phones could not do that long ago, even with the Internet.  They allow people to integrate with their phones in much the same way they would integrate through social media using their laptops or desktops.

The terms ‘social networking’ and ‘social media’ are often misused and used interchangeably.  Think of social networking in the same way you think of networking.  You network with people you know, people you want to know, and/or people who want to know you.  Now, think of social media in the same way you think of media.  You use various social media channels to network with people, learn information, or tell others your message.

Through social media, everyone who uses the World Wide Web can potentially interact with everyone else who uses the World Wide Web.  And that social interaction through sharing interests and using technologies allows us to integrate our experiences on the World Wide Web with our experiences in real life.

What is ‘social media’ and ‘social networking’ to you?  How do you use them?

Stay social my friends,

Erick

If you didn’t get the memo, Myspace launched a complete redesign intended to turn their social networking site into a social media platform.  They want to be a place where people can find the latest information about their favorite musicians, bands, movies, and other entertaining tidbits.

Among the top searched terms that lead people to Myspace that are entertainment related are Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Empire of the Sun, Eminem, Linkin Park, Black Eyed Peas, Iron Maiden, Lindsay Lohan, Alicia Keys, Tila Tequila, Katy Perry, and Sasha Grey.  18% of people who go to Myspace came from Facebook, and 18.66% of Myspace users go to Facebook after leaving.  The other top sites people come from, which are search engines or social networking sites, make up 34.77% (not including the above 18%) of traffic going to Myspace.  The numbers and types of sites are about the same for people who leave Myspace.

You can now search according to seven categories on Myspace: People, Music, Videos, Photos, Games, MySpace, and Web.  And a celebrity’s or band’s official page is usually the first result in the people category.

I give kudos to the new Myspace.  It’s no longer just a place for friends.  It’s become a place for fans to befriend their favorite celebrities and find other people who enjoy the same things they enjoy.  This will make it easier for celebrities fans to connect with one another.  What do you think of the new Myspace?  Are they on the right track?  I think they should design fan pages to make it easier for people to connect.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media #social#networking #social#web#browser #conversational#web #flock#web#browser

So, you’ve read my blogs about the social Web browser Flock this week, but you’re not ready to give up your Internet browser.  No worries.  Neither am I.  Sometimes, I use Flock, and other times I don’t.  It depends on my mood, and what I need to get done.  If you want to give Flock a whirl, but you’re already set up with another Web browser, you can change your settings.

Click Flock in the tool bar, select preferences, select main, and type any site as your default site.  If you’re like me and you’re an Internet pack rat (You collect and save so many websites that you can’t remember them all), go to favorites, select organize favorites, select import HTML, and import your favorites from Firefox, Safari, or an HTML file.  If you want to export your favorites at a later time, select export HTML file.  You can also import your favorites by selecting File, clicking Import, and going through the steps.  If you go this second route you cannot import an HTML file.

Remember, if you blog, you can integrate your blog with Flock.  Open your Flock browser, click the key icon under the star, scroll down in the left sidebar to blogging, and select the blog service you us.  If you have a self-hosted blog, select Self-Hosted Blog and type your blog URL.  You can also use their photo and video uploader and many other features, so go ahead and try Flock today.

I’ll see you tomorrow.  I may discontinue my weekly “This week in social media,” but I’ll make sure to have something good for you.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Today, let’s talk about how Flock integrates search into the social Web experience.  In the top right corner of the My World tab, you will notice a search bar.  Next to the magnifying glass, you’ll notice the icon of the search engine it’s defaulted to and an arrow key.  You can use that arrow key to change the search engine you use to conduct your searches.

Of course, Google and Yahoo! are among those search engines, but maybe you want to search for the best deals on a new e-reader.  You can make eBay or Amazon your default search engine.  You can also set your default search engine to Wikipedia, Digg, and Twitter among others.

Continuing on in the My World tab, there are preset columns.  One of those columns is marked Twitter Search.  You can use that to create a stream for whichever keywords you want to search for on Twitter.  If you click on “Save Search,” that stream will become it’s own stream allowing you to watch multiple Twitter streams.  And if you want to see which terms are trending on Twitter, there’s a button that will tell you exactly that.

For those who want to search through various media, they can use the search bar in the Media Bar.  To open that click on the icon of the camera near the upper left corner of the browser.  A black bar will appear above the Web page you are on.  On the top left, you will see media streams that will allow you to choose which site you want to use to search for media.  You can also use the search bar on the right side of this screen for a similar function.

There’s more on search, so check out this cool vid.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media #social#networking #social#web#browser #conversational#web

So, now that you’ve downloaded Flock, you need to know how to use it. Well, when you first open Flock, two tabs will appear: Flock – Getting started and My World.  The getting started tab lists the icons of nine social media services you can integrate your social web browser with.  As I mentioned yesterday, there are more, but these are the most popular ones (Notice Myspace is on there).  The My World tab shows four columns with your most recent visited sites, friends activity, Twitter activity with a search bar, favorite feeds, and favorite media.  If you want to change the positioning, you can do so just like you would change the position of a column in a Twitter desktop client.  If you’re not sure what that means, see my blog on The Battle of the Twitter Desktop Clients.  These are just the basics of using Flock.

Now, let’s start setting up Flock.  Once you choose which services out of the ‘stay connected’ services in the Getting started tab you want to integrate into your social Web browsing experience, you’ll notice a live stream of Tweets and/or updates from people you follow appears in the right column.  Without leaving this Web browser, you can respond and/or retweet them.  There are only three options of sites to connect with in your getting started tab, but you can connect with others by clicking on the key icon above the streams.  After you get them all set up, a green dot will appear to signify which ones are active.  To be able to see that side bar again just click on the icon of the person almost all of the way to the left.  Below that, you can select which of the sites you want to see your friends’ streams from, or you can select all.

There’s more on Flock.  For now, check out these vids.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Among the leading stories this week is the redesign of Myspace.  Just a few weeks ago I told someone MySpace is far from dead, but if they want to survive they need to become more of a niche based social networking site that focuses on the music and entertainment industry.  Now, I wonder if my conversation was being bugged.  Anyways, I went onto my account, which I haven’t been on in more than six months, and nothing seems too new.  I guess they’ll roll out new features in the months to come.  Here are some other stories.

Facebook and Paypal Monetize Social Media – I’m taking a finance class, so I’ll let you in on a little secret.  The easier a sales person can make it for you to purchase, the more likely you are to purchase.

Amazon, Facebook, and Zynga to invest in social media start-ups – If you have an idea, this could be your chance to get some change.

Yahoo! integrates with Facebook and Twitter – I think I posted something about Yahoo! moving into the social networking arena last week.  Maybe they should develop a social networking site, and call it Yippee!

Scholastic Launches Social Networking Site – YouAreWhatYouRead.com is a social networking site for book junkies like me.  It’ll be interesting to see how many Randians will use this site to proselytize miss Rand’s philosophies.

IBM makes additions to Cognos 10 – IBM reminds me too much of the days when computers were only for nerds. They’ve figured out a way for those nerds to collaborate through Wikis, blogs, and workrooms.

New Trojan Virus Attacks Macs – Mac users, I suggest you read this article.

Okay, that’s it for this week. Have a great weekend.

Stay social my friends.

Erick

Recently, someone asked me what I thought of Foursquare.  In a word, I find Foursquare a pointless fad.  Okay, that was two. He asked me to explain its popularity.  Well, fads are based on popularity.  Remember long poofy hair, parachute pants, boy George, and  . . . um . . . Myspace.  All those fads found their popularity with big hair bands, rappers who claimed to be “too legit to quit,” androgynous singers, and a World Wide Web popularity contest.  “Congrats, Tila Tequila!  You won!”

Well, now that we have the Social Web, we love to socialize with anyone, anywhere, at any time.  On-line games allow people to compete with one another.  Foursquare is not only a Social Web game, it is a Social Web game that allows people to compete for popularity.  People sign up on Foursquare, go to Foursquare registered venues, and let the world know when they arrive.

In essence, the same things that make “Reality” T.V. shows popular—people’s collective temporary popularity mentality—make Foursquare popular.  Though, just as kids eventually outgrow the need to have the coolest shoe or most popular video game, and the Paparazzi only stalks those stars who subconsciously yearn for mass attention, people on Foursquare will tire of the desire for popularity and the to desire to be followed.

The things that made the 80’s and early 90’s popular faded away, and those fads they made popular faded away.  Right now, online games are popular because “Reality” shows are popular and unemployed people are bored with unemployment.  According to Gallup, the national unemployment rate in Aug. was 9.3% and underemployment was 18.6%.

So, I admit it.  In theory, Foursquare is a good idea.  It fits the basic model of supplying to people what they demand—popularity and a cure for boredom.  When people check in to Foursquare registered spots, they earn points, and those points are redeemable for rewards and popularity.  Though, when people stop demanding popularity, Foursquare will either fade away or they will have to restructure their business model to fit a new fad.

So, Foursquare has its charm, but so did Myspace until Facebook came along.  If Foursquare wants to survive, they need to combine the ideas of Yelp and OpenTable, but don’t make it a popularity contest. Give it another five years and you’ll see.  If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.  But I predict that if they don’t prepare for the collective popularity mentality and boredom factor to fade away, Foursquare will be remembered as the poofy hair of the World Wide Web.

Let me know your thoughts.

Stay Social,

Erick

Throughout the last several years, programmers have developed WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Web design platforms, allowing everyone to take their piece of the Web. Among the most popular of those are WordPress, MovableType, and Wix.  I believe that of all of those sites that allow everyone their piece of the Web, one will revolutionize the way in which we interact with each other through social networking.

For the past couple of years, ever since the iPhone went on the market, everyone has wanted the latest app. In fact, the saying goes, “There’s an app for that.” A while back, Evan Williams (CEO of Twitter) referred to Twitter as being part of a social networking environemt. If sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others are part of a social networking environment, then people who use those sites and connect them to their websites responsibly are social media environmentalists.

During the evolution of websites that allow people to develop their own websites, third party developers have added apps and widgets that allow people to integrate their websites with various social networking accounts. Those third party apps must be supported by that site; though, people want more security in knowing that the apps and widgets they put on their sites won’t harm their sites or their computers.

Finally, one WYSIWYG platform (Squarespace) has developed their own apps, giving everyone the ability to design their own website and the confidence in knowing where their apps came from. And because of this innovative WYSIWYG platform, I believe 10 years from now, we will look back on the Internet in the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century as the decade of Social Media Environmentalism.

In the future, I hope to see Squarespace develop apps and widgets for various other social media sites. And I hope sites such as WordPress, Movabletype, Wix, and others will follow.

For now, we the people of the World Wide Web want apps for that and everything else, and we don’t want to have to worry about our security. Squarespace just started a new trend—Social Media Environmentalism—and those who build their sites using Squarespace can pride themselves on being some of the very first Social Media Environmentalists.

Let’s get a conversation going.  Let me know your thoughts.

Erick