UVic Libdub II
Posted by Paul Holmes in events, internet, music, social media on September 2, 2010
Remember the UVic Lipdub video that went viral on YouTube last year?
Being from Victoria, I was initially impressed that UVic did such a great job … until I realized that this UVic was a place in Spain that was hitherto unknown by somebody from Victoria, Canada, who lives a stones throw from UVic.
So, kudos Spanish UVic … but the best may yet be to come!
A local organizer and UVician, Shawn Slavin, has done a bang up job organizing a Lipdub for a certain other UVic – OUR UVic.
How amazingly freaking awesome will that be?
Check out the project on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
It’s all going down on September 25th, bright and early! Everyone is invited. Bring a talent, dress appropriately and stuff – and watch this video. Real keen? Memorize the song, too!
And, if you haven’t heard about this before, watch this video, too …
Top 5 reasons why t.co is a bad move by Twitter
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, social media on September 2, 2010
Twitter announced, by e-mail to every user, that they are going to make their URL shortener (“wrapper”) mandatory on Twitter, and this will be applied to every URL posted, effectively eliminating the need (and, presumably, the functionality) of every other URL shortener in existence.
Here are 5 reasons why this is a bad policy:
- It will put the nail in the coffin for competing shorteners, like bit.ly (which was just starting to look like it had a viable business model). If they go out of business, every Twitter user could be put in the position of having everything they ever tweeted with a bit.ly link become instantly dead.
- Twitter vaguely suggested they may offer some analytics tools for shortened links. Fine. Great. But what if I don’t like your analytics? Can I use the other guy who is offering to do better analytics? No.
- While not the most unstable country in the world (arguably, Libya may be more so), relying on the goodwill of Colombia for every link on your network is not something I’d be inclined to do.
- Shorteners like bit.ly allow people to post to a number of networks, and track link origins, thus aggregating all the activity into one place. Twitter will force people to check two places for analytics, assuming the whole industry is viable at all without allowing their links to be posted on Twitter.
- It’s another slap in the face to the developer community. Companies worked within Twitter’s rules to develop some of these great products, like bit.ly and ow.ly. And, in one swoop, Twitter puts them out of business for no apparent reason. This will hurt future development, as it will discourage others to develop add-ons for Twitter for fear of similar treatment. This comes on the heals of the official Twitter iPhone app, which instantly made all the other apps (many of which were far superior, in my opinion) at a serious disadvantage.
Why doesn’t Twitter work with the few viable URL shorteners that are out there, and allow them to implement into Twitter if they meet certain pre-determined criteria?
This would allow Twitter to universally enable features like previewing links, checking for malware, etc., without forcing users to use one style of analytics, and will also allow companies to continue to brand their shortened URLs (like bitly.pro allows you to do).
Social Media – Top 25
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, personal, social media, society on August 30, 2010
Social Media Camp, Victoria BC, October 3rd, 2010
If you are using social media for business, you are probably best to stick with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (perhaps with a dash of YouTube or Flickr). But if you are a geek like me, you might find a few little gems in this list.
25. Google Buzz
So much buzz, yet so little sting. It’s my new FriendFeed, although I don’t think Google intended it to be used this way. I rarely use it, despite the fact it’s in my face every time I use GMail.
24. MySpace
Oh! How far you have fallen, MySpace. For those of you who haven’t heard of MySpace, it’s a website where you can find music. Is there anything else? Not really. Don’t accuse me of dissin’ MySpace though, you’ll notice this list doesn’t include bebo, hi5, Friendster, Multiply, Plaxo, ecademy, or any of the other also-ran general interest social networks.
23. Identi.ca
It’s like a better Twitter, only it hasn’t reached critical mass. I hope they have some commercial success with status.net, because competition is good.
22. FriendFeed
As predicted, Facebook bought FriendFeed and did nothing with it. It was number 10 on my last list.
21. meme by Yahoo!
I have met some very interesting people on this. It’s another offering that blurs the line between micro-blogging and blogging (like Posterous and Tumblr tend to); it seems to be a great place to profile photography. Like VIMEO, it’s a better network not for the features or marketing potential, but for the interesting users and their content.
20. Hunch
Great idea – a taste graph for the social web. I hope it catches on; a good idea is only that unless it gains critical mass. Notably, the founder of Hunch was also a co-founder of Flickr.
19. StumbleUpon
I have nothing against StumbleUpon, and I know it can be a dream come true for people who spend all their time on SEO. It’s fun and easy to use, but I honestly don’t use it much…
18. Slideshare
Share your PDFs and PPTs easily, embed them elsewhere, and share them directly on Slideshare itself, with your friends and contacts there. Great tool!
17. Goodreads
Do you read good? This is a great social network for people who like to read. I love it, even though I don’t read so goodly.
16. Flixster
I like movies. In fact, I like movies a lot. The Flixster website itself is a bit MySpace-y, but the iPhone app rocks. You can mark movies you want to watch, and rate your movies, and add a review. It doesn’t seem this network has caught on, but I use it at least once a week.
15. Sprouter
If LinkedIn is Facebook for business, then Sprouter is Twitter for business. It seems to be catching on. Time will tell.
14. Tumblr
It’s a blog or a microblog, and a social network, all beautifully united. Simple. Fun. I use it a little.
13. Posterous
Another good and simple blogging tool. Notice Tumblr and Posterous are neck-and-neck, I only put Posterous a notch ahead because I use it to subscribe to some great blogs (and they e-mail me a daily digest). However, I don’t use it much to blog (see item 3 for my real bias).
12. Gowalla
Share your location with your friends. Creepy, but fun and interesting. There are a bunch of tools that do this: Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp, BrightKite (not on this list), and now Facebook Places (not yet available in Canada). Admittedly I use all 4 (soon to be 5) on my iPhone, and sort of get a kick out of it. I like Yelp the best, and it has a legacy review function, which is, in my opinion, way cooler than the simpler Gowalla and Foursquare.
11. Foursquare
It seems to be the category killer, but the game is definitely not over, especially with Facebook getting in on the act, and Yelp revving up their user base. I put Foursquare ahead of Gowalla, because you can be Mayor of the places you visit! Imagine my joy in being Mayor of First Choice Haircutters!
10. YouTube
Oh, YouTube. So famous, so popular, so immature and anti-social. Your comments remind me of things I used to say when I was 12. YouTube is great because it will host your video, and because it has critical mass. But for grown-ups, VIMEO is much better.
9. VIMEO
It’s like a nice YouTube. Better content, and more mature users. I’m a bit surprised it’s done as well as it has, considering YouTube’s market dominance. There have been other contenders in the video space, too – DailyMotion, VEOH, and others.
8. Meetup
They actually had a friend feature, but they apparently phased it out. But it’s still a social network, in that you can find members of your meetup groups, and see what other groups they are in. It also allows you to indicate your interests, and suggests new groups to you based on geography and interest.
Best of all, Meetup is about meeting people in real life, not just online. And isn’t this the best sort of social networking there can be?
7. Digg
Geek alert. I still like Digg. It’s fun. Sorry.
I’m still a bit unsure about the new version (I was an Alpha user), but I think it will be better in the long run.
6. Facebook
I don’t really like Facebook. However, it must make the list because I do like that I can connect with almost all my friends there. Also, it has some great marketing tools (like Facebook Business Pages and Facebook Ads).
5. Yelp
I really like Yelp. I think it’s better than Gowalla and Foursquare. It started out as a review site, but they’ve since added the check-in functions to mirror Gowalla and Foursquare, and you can be a Duke (or Duchess) instead of a Mayor! What can be better than that!? It’s gaining critical mass, albeit not as quickly as Foursquare.
4. Flickr
Best. Photo. Sharing. Tool. Ever. Forget about TwitPic and TweetPhoto and that frog one… if you want to Tweet a photo, use Flickr! It has some incredibly powerful group and sharing functions, and is itself a social network, too. If you’re going to share photos on Twitter, it’s hands-down the most sensible tool to use.
3. Blogging using WordPress
I’m a huge fan of blogging, and a huge fan of WordPress!
I’ve organized two WordCamp events in Victoria, and cannot say enough good things about it. It’s a great product. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s free (you have to have web hosting, but if you have a website, you can add WordPress fairly easily).
There are numerous other blogging tools (some mentioned in this list), but with the self-installed version of WordPress, you own your social media! And you build your own community. You are not reliant on a startup with an unknown revenue situation or business model to host your media.
I’m a big fan of integrating Feedburner and Disqus, too.
2. LinkedIn
Are you in business now? Will you one day be in business? Do you have business dealings? Are you a professional that might expect one or two job changes or career focus changes sometime in the next thirty years? Are you a student? Are you management? Are you between the age of 18 and 80 and expect to live and work for the next 6 months, or longer?
I’m not going to beat around the bush here. I’ve heard all the excuses for not being on LinkedIn. They are all misguided (at best), lazy or stupid (at worst), and of no validity whatsoever.
You must sign up to LinkedIn immediately, and shame on you for not doing so before now!
This is not Facebook – there are no party photos, funny status updates and kid’s stuff. This is serious business, and it will take all of 5 minutes a month out of your hectic schedule.
1. Twitter
I (heart) Twitter.
It can be whatever you want it to be. If you want to talk marketing on Twitter, there are definitely some best practices. But outside of that world, there’s no right or wrong way. Want to socialize? Want to meet people? Want to talk business? Want to talk shop with other people in your business? Want to find out the news or the weather?
Jump on in and join the conversation!
Twitter, as crazy as it may sound, in it’s 140 character glory, is really the everything network, and remains steadfast in it’s number 1 spot on my list.
Epilogue
There you have it, my exhaustive list. You may notice I removed Instant Messaging from the list. I’ve decided it doesn’t apply to this list. Like text messaging, I still use it, of course, and occasionally do business on it – but it’s not inherently social in the 1 to many sense that we’ve come to recognize social media as being.
Like my list? Hate my list? Agree with something? Disagree with something? Did I miss something real obvious?
Robots Of The Future!
Posted by Paul Holmes in humour, robotics, society on August 14, 2010
Robie Junior
It was Christmas, 1987.
My favourite magazine was Popular Mechanics.
I owned an 80286 PC with a 40 MB hard drive, 1 MB of RAM, MS-DOS 4.01, VGA monitor, and a 9600 BPS modem.
From this computer, I operated a BBS – for fun.
My lovely sister, recognizing my inner geekly beauty, bought me the most amazing present I’ve ever had – Robie Junior – a real robot from Radio Shack, and quite possibly the coolest toy ever made!
When it was in solo mode, it would roll around the house. If it hit a wall (or a cat), it would promptly say, “Whoops, excuse me!” Then it would turn around and go in another direction.
But turn on the control mode and it’s your own robot army of one!
Robot of the Future
I couldn’t help but think … it’s 1987, and this robot is amazing! I can’t imagine how much MORE amazing robots will be in the year 2000 … or 2010!
Imagine!?!
And here we are, 23 years later, and robots, uh, well, robots suck!
An R.C. robot, if you can find it, is about the same, or worse, than it’s 1987 forefathers.
Oh sure, we’ve got robots that vacuum your floor … if you have no stairs, or cats. Wow! How freaking revolutionary!
I’m still ticked about the flying car thing, too! But that story will have to wait for another day.
Emerging Geo-location Technologies and Social Media
Posted by Paul Holmes in social media on August 13, 2010
The following is a guest post by James Mowery.
Though it may seem that geo-location is the latest technology trend to enter the realm of social media on the Internet, the origins can be traced to the summer of 2006 in Manhattan. Game developer area/code debuted Plundr at the “Come Out and Play” street festival in New York. Plundr was a pirate adventure game that utilized Wi-Fi Positioning System and it mapped the players’ location in real time.
In 2010, geo-location is causing quite a stir in the social media networks. The predominant technology is GPS. Other technologies used include: geocaching, Wi-Fi Positioning, IP address location, and data mining. Smartphones and other location-aware devices are enabling the prevalence of geo-location into social media. Social networking applications and websites that feature geo-location prominently are often labeled location-based services.
Foursquare seems to be leading the charge as a location-based service and social network. The motto for Foursquare seems to be “Check In”. The act of “checking in” is Foursquare’s main activity. Registered members can enable their location-aware smartphones, cell phones, or netbooks to broadcast their location whenever they arrive at different places such as cafes, bookstores, bars, etc. Foursquare users can follow others on the network, share notes about their observations and activities in the different places, and even play games and earn badges that can eventually give them the honor of becoming the “Mayor” of their favorite business establishment. Business owners can take advantage of Foursquare’s social game platform in order to offer coupons, discounts, or freebies to patrons who earn badges or who become Mayors of their storefront.
There are other emerging social media networks that are touting their clever use of geo-location technologies in order to attract more members. Gowalla, Yelp, and Google’s Latitude are a few examples. Even current social media giants Facebook and Twitter are becoming more location-aware. We can expect that in the near future it will only become easier for social media users to find out exactly where their friends are, at any time.
About the author: James Mowery is a computer geek that writes about technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to laptop computers.
Book Burning 2.0
Posted by Paul Holmes in politics, society on August 3, 2010
The year is 2017.
You get on the bus, and people are busily going about their business.
A handful are talking on their phones, some holding it to their ears, and others watching their friends on the screen. Some people are reading or listening to music on their phone, and about a third of the people are playing or reading on their tablet devices – iPad’s, Kindles, one of those tablets made by a Chinese manufacturer – and that new one that RIM came out with a few years ago.
One guy is reading a book that’s made with paper.
Now I’m no futurist, but this future doesn’t seem very weird to me, nor particularly scary, at face value.
But now consider the added concepts of widespread censorship, like we see today in places like China, which is particularly notable for excelling at censorship. Now think of the long tradition of book burnings around the world – it’s been around about as long as we’ve had books!
Of course, every single one of those devices – tablets, phones, etc. – are all connected to the same network, the Internet.
Is this crazy talk?
It wasn’t very long ago that Amazon demonstrated their power to delete books from their Kindle device.
I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to imagine a future world, not that far off, where there are restrictions on what books are permitted.
Maybe it is crazy. But it does raise some interesting questions, like What sort of protections are there for consumers, both from intrusive governments and intrusive corporations?
What do you think?
Dear Twitter: Please Rob My House
Posted by Paul Holmes in internet, personal, social media on July 21, 2010
OK, not really. Seriously. Please don’t.
But I was delighted to be interviewed for a CHEK News story by Kristen Robinson on this exact topic.
Watch the video on their official Facebook page.
Here’s a couple tips:
- Don’t put your vacation plans on Twitter or Facebook.
- Post those vacation photos and videos when you get back, and date them in the description.
- Think about the potential consequences before you post your location on services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp.
- Think before you post!
My Crappy E-Book – DELIVERED!
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, events, personal, social media on July 13, 2010
Want to get 10,000 followers on Twitter!?! BUY MY E-BOOK!
Want to get 10,000 followers on Twitter!?!
No, I’m not going to charge $0.99 (or 2 for $1.97), as promised, and the first 1,000 people to retweet it will not get a free copy.
This advice is free – for everybody:
The number of followers you have on Twitter means absolutely nothing.
Remember the old analogy: it doesn’t matter how big it is, it matters how you use it.
If you engage with others in a spirit of community (you know, helping your neighbours…), you win and your followers win.
Twitter is an amazing channel for communication, but there are a few things that make it awkward, or even annoying and counter-intuitive. Add spammers to the mix, and the whole experience gets a bit hairy.
So, here’s how I got to 10,000 followers:
1. I stopped caring about the “Home” feed.
The home feed is an age old dilemma for serious Twitter users – once you start following more than a couple hundred people, your home feed becomes effectively useless.
The old answer was to start a “secret” account where you secretly follow the people you really want to? Today, this is much simpler – build a list of the people you truly want to follow.
I use many lists and searches to find who and what I’m looking for on Twitter.
The home feed is dead to me.
2. I discovered the best ways to alert people to your existence is to follow them or list them.
Most people start on Twitter by writing stuff. Intelligent, informative or witty tweets don’t mean anything if nobody is paying attention. Some people get bored and quit; others learn about tagging posts, searching, retweeting, following people, and replying.
I am most interested in connecting with people in my geographic region – Victoria, Vancouver Island, Vancouver, Seattle. This is both natural, and a business decision (my main business, IdeaZone.ca, serves clients primarily in Victoria, and I organize events to serve the region, like the upcoming Social Media Camp).
So I find people I want to connect with, I follow them, and I list them. What have I noticed? Many of them tend to follow-back, and often they send a message.
Many people don’t follow-back.
This is totally fine, and I will eventually unfollow these people. Does that mean I don’t like them anymore? No. It doesn’t matter to me? Remember, I don’t read my home feed, I keep them on my lists, and they still show up in my searches. Some of the best interactions I have are with people who don’t follow me.
I unfollow them simply because Twitter won’t let you follow more than 110% of your followers, so they are using up a notch in my ability to discover and connect with new people by alerting them with a follow.
3. As a policy, I follow people who follow me.
I do this for two reasons: (1) I don’t have time to filter through and find the good or bad accounts, and (2) people cannot send you a DM if you don’t follow them.
The latter is important (for me, not everybody). I’m in business, if I prevent somebody from sending me a DM, I might be preventing them from sending me business, or a referral. I don’t want to risk snubbing a potential client.
I’m fairly certain this policy means I’m “following” some pretty sketchy accounts as a result, but remember, I don’t read my home feed, so all the sketchy people in the world could follow me, and it means nothing to me.
And this, my friends, is how I got to 10,000 followers on Twitter, probably half of them are real people I want to connect with, and the other half are spammers. To the uninformed, it might look pretty to have 10,000 followers, but I can assure you it means nothing – but the several hundred or so folks I have had the privilege of connecting with on Twitter have made a huge difference in my business, and my life.
Thanks for connecting with me!
And thanks for reading My Crappy E-Book.
Who Will Win the World Cup?
Posted by Paul Holmes in humour on July 9, 2010
I’m rooting for Netherlands, but only because of that whole Spanish fishing boat thing in 1995.
Who Will Win the World Cup?
- Netherlands - NED (60%, 9 Votes)
- Spain - ESP (40%, 6 Votes)
Total Voters: 15
Loading ...Go Orange!
My Crappy E-Book
Posted by Paul Holmes in humour, social media on July 6, 2010
I’m approaching 10,000 followers on Twitter (9,546 … oh, I’m so very excited).
Naturally I turned to all my loyal subjects, asking what sort of celebration I should partake in when I reach that elusive 5 figures:
Should I have a little Twitter party when/if I reach 10,000 followers? Or, maybe I’ll promote some crappy e-book about it!
More than zero responses began to pour in, including this nugget of wisdom:
The crappy e-book idea will probably make you a fortune so is most likely the best way to go.
So that was it, I decided right then and there, that I would write an E-Book (and that I must finish it before I get another 454 fans on Twitter). I also decided right then and there, that I would call it “My Crappy E-Book” and sell it for $0.99 on my website (or 2 for $1.97).
But $0.99 is pricey, so I figured a Twitter contest was definitely in order:
Click the link and Retweet it. I can’t give this thing away forever, you know! Oh, and follow me on Twitter.
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