social networking and why maybe you should stick to facebook.

Social networking sites are the most prevalent way of staying connected with our friends. In our short lifetimes we have experienced pen pal letters in the mailbox transfer to waiting for our dialup modems to check for our emails to load at sloth speed. Instant chatting became mind-blowing with icq and msn messenger, which now seem ancient. Facebook exploded and suddenly old classmates to  co workers and relatives  are a click away and so are their status updates and floods of pictures.. But do you really care?

People I care about I follow on twitter. Not to say there are not many people I wish had twitter. I should be getting some kind of cut from twitter the way I promote it. But here it is: twitter is for those who are smart and witty and positive. So if you lack all of these qualities, stick with facebook, twitter isn't for you. Facebook has everyone you have to be friends with. twitter is everyone you want to be friends with. From celebrities to authors and politicians to classmates you never saw out of class but share the same interests. A way to vibrantly connect and share with friends in your twitterverse like they are a second away and not in another country. I love the quotation "facebook is everyone you went to high school with, twitter is everyone you wish you went to high school with". You "retweet" what people say that you want heard, spreading positivity and good vibes. Others love foursquare- the site where you update your location and get rewarded for different achievements. I tried it out and it's not my style- but its important to try anything if you want an opinion on it. I can't wait for what is next.

@kalecooper

maximize your social media platforms.

brilliant slides from my social media guru sidney eve matrix. how to connect across social media platforms- stretch your content and networks. what a successful facebook page entails- how to use twitter effectively and admirably.
check out cyberpop for the best digi savvy news.
image: brittney bush

mobile uploads.

There has been a recent surge in social photography in the amount of ‘Mobile Uploads’ on social networking sites. Individuals use their personal mobile handhelds to capture ‘of the moment snapshots’ to immediately upload to their social network of choice. This instantaneous documentation leaves fantastic, raw, unedited footage for your network to view and comment. No touch ups, no glamorized vignette embosses, just the facts. This makes companies skeptical because of how instantaneous (bad) news can travel. I personally especially like this on Facebook, the real deal, no photo shopped images. Individuals tend to take this personal documentation and live through as a sort of “day in the life”, adding pictures of everything from the weather to what they ate to who they saw that day. All captioned with a personalized comment.
The recent popularity has been linked to the technological developments in handheld mobile devices such as the iPhone 3G. News stations encourage viewers to submit their own 'newsworthy' uploads. In Toronto all the latest buzz has been about a mobile upload of a TTC driver asleep on the job. There is constantly battling between Toronto Transit employees regarding fare and wages, and this mobile upload fueled the debate.

right here. right now.

This video is the most powerful combination of facts and delivery I have seen to date. The author of Socialnomics, Erik Qualman produces the video about the growing use of social networking. The video is mostly shared on social networking sites such as YouTube, which makes it very ironic. My favorite part of information is that we live in a generation of consumers that do not tend to listen to advertisements. Trust is within the testimonials of real people who have experienced the advertised services and products. It makes complete sense; consumers in this social media savvy world are very smart. We watch commercials and then ask “Yah, but does that really work?”… followed by a bit of online research before we make a purchase.

photo credit: galessa's plastics, flickr.