Posts Tagged facebook
Is Google Buzz the Twitter Killer?
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, internet, social media on February 16th, 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 1st, 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 11th, 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 20th, 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:
PhotoBlaster 3000
Posted by Paul Holmes in internet, social media on August 14th, 2009
Sometimes I take a photo on my iPhone that I want the whole world to see!
Do I really want to upload it 7 different times using a bunch of clunky apps, redefine the tags and so forth? No, my short term goal is to get it uploaded, and I can always tag it and such later on.
The easiest way to do this is to enable the ability to e-mail photos to websites. Currently I have this feature enabled on Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, MySpace, YourCanada, and Photobucket. (Click on the link for each one to visit the instructions on how to set it up on your account.)
Have all of these special e-mail addresses set up as “Contacts” in your iPhone. Then, when you take that perfect photo, just forward the photo from within the album, select “Email Photo”, then when the e-mail comes up, send it to these contacts. Your subject line is your description.
I also use Flickr’s Flickr2Twitter feature, which kills TwitPic, or any other similar service, because you get the network value of Flickr, and the network value of Twitter in the same post. And this happens automatically when I e-mail a photo to Flickr (unless I choose not to).
I also built a very geekly hidden e-mail account that forwards my photos automatically to the following services:
- Flickr (and, thus Flickr2Twitter)
- Picasa
I tried redirecting this also to MySpace, Ning and Photobucket, but to no avail. They obviously don’t like redirected mail.
Social Media Interview with Michael Allison
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on August 12th, 2009
I had the pleasure of lunch today with my old friend and social media connoisseur, Michael Allison.
Michael had the idea of interviewing me for his blog, and I thought that sounded like a great idea, so I interviewed him as well. Mostly for my own practice, but also because Michael has a wealth of knowledge on the subject.
Hitting a Facebook Moving Target
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on June 28th, 2009
Facebook vanity URLs are now available for pages between 100 and 999 fans. Hip, hip hooray.
Only problem is, at first it was all pages, then it was pages with 25 fans on Saturday night, now it’s pages with 100 fans on Sunday night.
Who knows where it’ll move next!
What other business in the world changes the rules every 20 minutes like Facebook and gets away with it?
I understand they wanted to prevent spam. Fair enough. I have a few pages and organizations that are not spam.
For those who, like me, made a great effort for their pages (and their client’s pages) to get to the 25 fan threshold, it sure was great to learn that we wasted all our time doing so.
Given that Facebook has changed the rules, I have changed my strategy. I will now fan any page anybody asks me to fan (assuming it is not something totally obscene).
More to come. In the meantime, here’s a few worthy pages to fan:
- The Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce
- CanWire.ca (our news website, which has been up for 2 years – i.e., not spam)
- Prodigy Group (Victoria Business Group)
- IdeaZone.ca (my company page)
- eBrands Media Group (my other company page)
- YourCanada.ca (one of my websites)
Facebook Pages and RSS – A Step-By-Step Guide
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on June 16th, 2009
The most annoying thing about a Facebook Page is that it is called Facebook Page. A page is not the same as your Facebook Profile, it is a separate feature that allows you to build a fan base to promote your website, brand, or company within the Facebook community.
But do any search for “Facebook Page”, and I guarantee 85% of the results will relate to the Facebook profile.
Overview
This entry is how to get your blog to feed on your Facebook Page, and is a step-by-step guide. I wish I had this a month ago, but here it is for the rest of the world.
If you do not know what a blog is, or an RSS feed is, you need to go research this, then come back here later.
Process
- Create a page in Facebook, or load your existing one (this is the easy part).
- In your page, under your image, click on “Edit Page” (sometimes Facebook forgets what page you are on, so make sure your page image and name are correct after you click – restart your browser if it doesn’t work – this is a major source of frustration in some browsers).
- Scroll down to the “Notes” application, click on the little pen icon on the right side of the screen, then select “Edit”. (Note: if “Notes” is not in the list, use “More Applications” to find it, then add it to the page.)
- To the right side of the screen (left of the ads), you will see a link titled “Import a blog”. Click this. (Note: If you have an existing feed, you can delete it by clicking on “Edit import settings”, then click on the “Stop Importing” button.)
- Enter your RSS feed URL in the “Web URL” box, click the consent checkbox, then click on “Start Importing”. (Note: Your RSS feed URL is different then your website address. In WordPress, for example, you typically add “/feed” to the end of your website address.)
- Assuming all was done correctly, a “Preview” screen appears. You must scroll to the bottom of this, then click on “Confirm Import”.
- As per item 2, go back to the “Edit Page” screen. This time, click on the pen icon next to the “Notes” application, and select “Application Settings”.
- Make sure the “Box” and “Tab” are showing as “Added” (you can configure this part of the page as you wish later). Click on the “Additional Permissions” tab, and check the “Publish to streams” item, so your blog entries will appear in your fan’s streams. Click OK.
- Wipe your brow, you’re done! Wasn’t that easy, and don’t you wish you had found this article a week ago?
Twitter RSS Feed
Twitter, technically speaking, has RSS feeds. Given Twitter’s highly volatile state, they are not terribly reliable, and often get rejected. (Perhaps they are also not technically correct RSS feeds, I’m not entirely sure – they don’t import into Facebook or Feedburner, so that’d be my guess.)
So, how the heck do you get your Tweets to import into your Facebook page easily?
I’m glad you asked, because we recently did this with our CanWire.ca Facebook Page, using FriendFeed.
- Set up a new FriendFeed Profile (I recommend using something other than your main account, as you may want to add other stuff to your personal one.)
- Import your Twitter account into FriendFeed.
- Scroll to the bottom of your FriendFeed profile page, and click on the RSS icon next to “Other ways to read this feed”.
- Copy the URL, and paste it in for item 5 above.
Media Overload
If you want to overwhelm your friends on Facebook, set up a FriendFeed account for yourself, and add all your social media sources, then use it’s RSS feed in Notes for your Facebook profile.
You could take this feed, too, and fire it into Feedburner, and allow people to subscribe to your social media as an RSS feed from your personal site.
Egad!
Dude, Where’s My Username? Facebook Vanity URL Antics
Posted by Paul Holmes in humour, social media on June 12th, 2009
Dude, where’s my username? He’s not Ashton Kutcher at facebook.com/aplusk. Get used to hearing the name Benjamin Standefer for awhile. I’d be willing to bet this holds – I don’t suspect Mr. Kutcher owns a trademark on “aplusk”.
Here’s some other fun stuff I’ve come across:
Trademark infringements – facebook.com/FriendFeed, facebook.com/iGoogle and facebook.com/appleinc.
Attempted trademark infringement – facebook.com/mysapce – Jared, you have FAILed.
Famed Internet Marketer Jeremy “ShoeMoney” Schoemaker got facebook.com/internetmarketer.
Ubergeek Robert Scoble got facebook.com/scobleizer for his popular page, and started a very interesting discussion on FriendFeed.
Funny stuff – facebook.com/TwitterIsBetter and facebook.com/UserNamesAreStupid
Oddities – facebook.com/roger and facebook.com/foodie go to the home page, not a user profile.
The notorious “dot” and “dash” issue – no need to worry if you are facebook.com/PaulHolmes or facebook.com/Paul.Holmes, facebook.com/Paul-Holmes, facebook.com/P.a.u.l.H.o.l.m.e.s. or facebook.com/-P.a-u.l-H.o-l.m-e.s- – it all goes to the same page.
Sources (other than me): Kyle Misner, Lindsey Weber, Katharine Holmes, Mike Bracco, and Ben Cooper.
Have some others – please post a comment!
A FaceBook Etiquette Video
Posted by Paul Holmes in humour, social media on April 22nd, 2009
YourTango.com produced this clever video all about FaceBook manners.
I’m fairly certain I have broken all of these rules.
Social Media
Network
