Posts Tagged facebook
WordCamp Victoria 2012
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, events on November 14, 2011
I have had the absolute pleasure of hosting WordCamp Victoria for the last 3 years, and we are set to have another one on January 14th, 2012. Unlike the last 2, I am going to speak at this one.
My topic is Social Comment Systems: Integration and Comparisons.
To make it easier for people to comment on your blog, there have been numerous social integrations in the past few years. The goal is to make it easier for people to authenticate themselves, and make it easier to login. So, rather than creating an account at every blog you post a comment on, you can login using Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, Google, using your OpenID or other networks where you already have an account.
There are numerous ways to integrate WordPress with various social platforms, including Facebook, Disqus, IntenseDebate and more. I will explore the pros and cons of these, talk about some features people should be looking for, and demonstrate the integration and configuration for Disqus.
The target audience for this talk will be bloggers, web developers, community managers, etc. I will cover the basics, but will also cover the integration, as such I have listed it as an “Intermediate” skill level.
Want to learn more about my speaking, click here.
Still haven’t registered for WordCamp? Click here to register now.
Population of Facebook Now Exceeds Population of G7
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on June 27, 2011
Mashable has declared the population of Facebook – measured in users who have logged in at least once in the last 30 days – is now 750 million.
Much has been made of looking at Facebook as though it was a country, so you could compare it with others to see which countries have the largest population.
So I thought it was notable that this latest figure exceeds the population of the entire G7 – the (misnomer) Group of 7 most industrialized nations (notwithstanding the latest economic wreckage) – France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States and Canada.
The population of the G7 is 744,342,375, according to Wikipedia.
Of course Facebook has some work to catch up to India, China or the OECD, but at this trajectory, it doesn’t seem that crazy.
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?
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.
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!
Top 5 Tips For New Facebook Pages
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, internet, social media on March 22, 2010
1. Make your page title as generic as possible.
If you are setting up a page to promote your company brand, this may not be an option. But generic pages are far more likely to gain fans than brand pages.
Think about it this way – if you have a website about “Travel to Asia”, do you think Facebook users will be more likely to become a fan of “Travel to Asia” or “TravelToAsia.com”?
As much as it pains you, there are far more people who are fans of “Travel to Asia” than there are fans of your website.
In my experience, people are far more likely to share their photos, videos and comments on more generic sounding pages, and more likely to randomly recommend it to their friends.
All this builds a larger community – a community, remember, that you can promote your website and services on.
2. Set up your page properly.
Put an image on your page. Design your page nicely. Through the magic of RSS, import your blog into your Facebook page.
Change the settings so that fan comments appear to everyone, enable comments, videos, photos, and discussion forums!
3. Name your page.
It’s much easier to share your Facebook fan page if you can give a short, concise, and branded URL for it, rather than some ridiculously long address.
Which looks better to you?
If I had $1 for every time I saw a Facebook fan page with over 1,000 fans, but no vanity URL, I’d be rich! It used to be 1,000 fans were what were needed to name a page, then it went down to 100, and now it’s a mere 25 fans! Do you have 25 friends who can fan your page?
Promote your page on Facebook, Twitter and your blog.
Facebook is here to stay. It’s not going away. Get over any concerns you have about losing traffic to it, and take advantage of the community-building tools it has!
Facebook has a little widget you can add to your website to promote your page, it’s called the “fan box”. Click on “Edit Page”, then “Promote with a fan box” (middle column, third section). Here’s what it looks like:
Of course you can link to your Facebook page in a bunch of ways – with a nice Facebook icon, a text link, or with the Meebo Bar.
Advertise your page.
You can advertise your website on Facebook (and I do suggest any serious business considers this). But did you also know you can advertise your page?
My favourite form of advertising on Facebook are fan page ads to “friends of your fans”. If you have 100 fans on your page, there are probably thousands of “friends of your fans”.
Suppose “John Smith” is a fan of your page, “Acme Widgets”. John’s friends will see an ad pop up occasionally showing your “Acme Widgets” page, and saying “John Smith is a fan of Acme Widgets. Become a Fan?” One click, and they’ve signed up!
The old marketing question in this case has gone from “Do I trust Acme Widgets?” to “Do I trust my friend’s positive opinion of Acme Widgets?”
But why would I pay Facebook to advertise Facebook?
First of all, you need to get over the old rules of web marketing – you are not advertising Facebook, you are advertising your brand on Facebook.
There is another big reason: comfort.
The fact is that Facebook users are far more comfortable with Facebook then all those other scary websites in the world! Once a fan becomes comfortable with your fan page, they’ll become far more comfortable with visiting your website.
Is Google Buzz the Twitter Killer?
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, internet, social media on February 16, 2010
Will Buzz Kill Twitter?
Some have compared it to FriendFeed, some have called it Google’s answer to Facebook, and some are just annoyed and can’t wait to turn it off (in GMail, you can scroll to the bottom and click on “turn off buzz”, by the way).
Others have predicted Google Buzz will annihilate Twitter! They make a compelling argument.
- It’s a sophisticated broadcast notification system, much like Twitter.
- It’s public.
- You can send images (and you don’t need third party applications like TwitPic).
- You can automatically feed Buzz from other services (Blog RSS Feeds, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, etc.).
- Your Google profile is now your Google Buzz profile, and has much more information than a Twitter profile (yet, uglier).
It’s overwhelming like FriendFeed, but this is offset in part by neatly integrating right into GMail (which is certainly the most open tab on my browser). This means you can have a peak, or you can completely ignore it – but it will always be at your fingertips, beckoning you…
And does anyone have any doubt that “Buzz” will very soon be searchable (and from Google, no less)?
Will Buzz kill Twitter? Maybe. Maybe not.
What do you think?
Top 10 Social Media
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, personal, social media on December 1, 2009
I have written various articles on social media in the past, and a few people have asked what my favourites are. The following list is not “the best”, nor specifically “the best for application X”, rather my favourites – those I enjoy using or gain specific benefit for using.
10. Ning‘s (like Your Canada)
Ning is a really cool product that allows you to launch your own social networks around specific themes. Your Canada is an example of one I launched to add a social component to our popular Your Canada website.
9. FriendFeed
Everyone was getting excited about FriendFeed, the ultimate social media collaborator. It’s a cool tool because it let’s you tie all your social media activities into one stream. It can be a bit overwhelming though, so I find myself using it sparingly these days.
8. YouTube
Anonymity is still the name of the game on YouTube. As a result, you get poorly spelled and otherwise idiotic comments on videos all the time. This is too bad, given that it otherwise is the best place for exposure, and the tools to connect people socially are actually pretty good. The social aspects of video are still developing, and I suspect a number of other sites may take the lead in “social video” while Google focuses YouTube more on commercializing what they have (and doing this primarily by pushing sponsored videos, vs. an advertising model). Some to watch include Vimeo, DailyMotion, 12seconds.tv, Ustream.tv, blip.tv, and about a few dozen others.
7. Flickr
Yahoo! has one product that kicks ass and totally owns it’s vertical, and that is Flickr. Flickr is the best social medium for sharing photos/images. Picasa is Google’s alternative, and it is OK. A few others are Photobucket and Flixya, but they are a long way from successful at this point.
6. Digg
The DiggBar has revolutionized Digg (much to the chagrin of the ol’ skool Diggers). I use it all the time, and am a bit of a Diggaholic now. It’s a great tool for sharing interesting stuff you find on the web. It also has some great integration tools to very easily share “Dugg” stuff on Facebook and Twitter. I use Digg every single day.
5. Instant Messaging
Three years ago this was number one (followed by blogging and online forums). Three years ago, I did 100% of my instant messaging using MSN Messenger. Two years ago, 80% was MSN and 20% was GoogleTalk. Today, 50% is Facebook, 30% is GoogleTalk and 20% is MSN. As always, ICQ and AIM are 0%. Instant messaging is still a great way to get ahold of people in a hurry.
4. Blogging
I love to blog. I have at least 5 blogs I update regularly, and I love posting comments to other people’s blogs (which is what makes it a social medium). I also love WordPress; I am a total convert to the platform. I even organized a WordCamp in Victoria a few weeks ago, which was tonnes of fun.
3. Facebook
I was a Facebook holdout for ages, but have grown to like it. I like it because almost everyone I know is there. The platform itself is annoying sometimes, and frustrating at others, but they have the critical mass, so it remains a tool I continue to use, even if I use it despite itself.
2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is great for business. At a recent presentation I gave at the University of Victoria to all of their business students, I asked several hundred students how many of them were on Facebook, and almost every hand went up. I then asked how many were on LinkedIn, and about 5 hands went up (I think a few of those hands were faculty, too). This is ashame. LinkedIn is a great tool for business, but also for career building. The guy sitting next to you in class today might be CEO of some big corporation in 10 years. Stay in touch and add them to your network on LinkedIn. I’m not sure if I got through to them or not.
LinkedIn is easy, passive and a great way to introduce people. It’s sort of like a virtual business mixer, but doesn’t require you to smile and dress nicely.
1. Twitter
Even people who love Twitter make fun of it. Twitter is an amazing tool for connecting with people and getting a message out. Through the power of the retweet, your potential network is huge. That conference I organized back in #4 above – I used Twitter as the primary medium through which to promote it, and over 100 local (and international) people showed up. Not too shabby for something people love to make fun of.
Loading ...I’ll review my list every once in awhile as my tastes change. It’ll be interesting to look back in the future and see what has changed.
I can already say that “FriendFeed” used to be much higher up the list, and I expect there is a good chance Google Wave and Foursquare will appear here in the next year or two. The influence of mobile and video (and mobile video) should introduce a few new angles to the equation, too.
A few others that I use that didn’t make the top list are Plaxo (11), Yelp (12), Identi.ca (13), Vimeo (14), Meetup (15), SlideShare (16), MySpace (17), and StumbleUpon (18). I have profiles on a few others, but don’t use them much.
I’m always happy to connect with people I know on any of these networks, see my social media links in the right column to link to my profile, or visit my Contact page.
Happy 5th Birthday Firefox!
Posted by Paul Holmes in events, internet, social media on November 11, 2009
The Mozilla Firefox browser is 5 years old! Now that Internet Explorer isn’t nearly as awful as it once was, and Google Chrome has started to raise some eyebrows, we often forget the effect Firefox had on the world.
They made a cool site, and a cool video.
And, of course, they published it on Twitter and Facebook.
Admittedly, I use Chrome most often these days. But Firefox is still an amazing product, and perhaps one of the best examples in the world of how a great open source community can contribute to a better world – literally.
AURP Conference 2009
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, social media on October 20, 2009
I am delighted to be speaking at the AURP Conference in Vancouver tomorrow, on the topic of using Social Media in the promotion of technology parks.
I was actually a bit surprised that social media wasn’t being embraced more by technology parks around the world, especially given their propensity for “technology.” More importantly, social media is an excellent opportunity to further some of the underlying goals these parks strive for:
- Creating a technology center of excellence
- Developing a hub of innovation
- Connecting people with ideas
What better way to “connect” people than using social media?
As just one example, in researching for the discussion, I discovered that only 11 technology parks in the world have Facebook fan pages — and most of those are quite underutilized. I do hope some of the ideas I have prepared will encourage the participants to take a fresh look at what social media can do for them, and more importantly for the companies that reside in their respective parks around the world.
For those who are interested, these are the slides I am using for my presentation:
Social Media
Network
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