implicitly put: twitter.

twitter is like sushi. most hate it because it is weird. they come to love it, obsess over it and want everyone to try it once they too appreciate it. that's okay, ignorance is bliss and the unfamiliar is weird and hard for some.
I find myself wanting to and being asked to help people who don't know where to begin with twitter. so I thought I would post a few pointers. if you are an avid twitter user, this will come as nothing new. thanks for reading, and maybe share with that next person who calls twitter lame and a few months later asks what that 'number sign thing' is.

social media & time management.

finding it hard to maintain all of your social media? a couple great suggestions I found in the article 'how to avoid social media overload' help you do just that. the first key is to not be an early adopter of every social media. sample widely and focus narrowly. "Most executives don't need to become social media mavens -- but they do need to know what they're talking about (you don't want to be the only one in the room who doesn't know what a hashtag is)". Personally I also think it is important to use all mediums in moderation, do not repeat the same status on twitter and facebook etc. happy networking.

your status updates bore me, but I'll keep you around in case you are the next gates or zuckerberg.

post grad and the time to build and expand your personal and professional network has never been so detrimental. so why is it that all I want to do is purge my contacts? one of my friends insists that every contact is a potential successor in your future, and another has a strict two hundred cap on her facebook friends- so where do you draw the line? Should you add everyone and accept each request on every social media platform? Does a 'de-friending' mean a burnt bridge? of course social media guru sidney eve matrix has already covered this on cyberpop. sidney relates and explains... "For me, the mass unfriending phenomenon is a teachable moment, which is why I’ve designed a course at Queen’s University starting in January, for fourth year students who are just about to graduate, on building a strong digital platform and persona." I am a year behind on this fantastic course, but I'll be sure to keep up with the slides and share. In the mean time read the brilliant article, platforms constructed and dismantled for your friending frustrations.

tweets that slayed me on this subject...
     People need to stop combining their tweets with facebook... its bad enough your   tweets suck. Now I gotta see them on my mini-feed. @ZAKLONGO 
     Everyday someone with 20 friends, and 1 profile picture, adds me to Facebook. @dylansHotFire

twitter: talking at each other?

I love twitter, I really do, but there is a side of twitter that is less focused on sharing, supporting and innovating and feels more like an annoying nightclub promoter. I had friend tweet this week "twitter seems slightly narcissistic do people really care what car i just test drove?" @jonweiman1. I think there needs to be an appropriate amount of personal antidotes, self promotion and supporting others for twitter to stay relevant and it's use optimal. Jeff Sweat puts it perfectly in Is Twitter Social? "Most of the activity I see on Twitter is really broadcasting. With the exception of a few dozen of our followers, we're not talking with each other. We're all talking at each other." Retweet, follow back and reply and keep twitter beautiful.

friend request: your mom.

 It is no secret the enormous increase of moms on facebook. every status update, every farmville invite and every wall post (that should really be a personal message), we shudder. Cyberpop offered detailed statistics of  millenial moms including, women with children at home are 60% more likely than average adults to be facebook or twitter users. is being online the new happy housewife valium? according to grow it's much more. A World Without Flaws - The Social Media Stepford Wives gives another perspective, one of community versus escapism. Stay at home mothers are able to connect and cope and help other mothers 'online' giving a higher sense of purpose and more social interaction besides kids.

*side note: I have been nannying the past couple weeks and can say from experience my iphone meaning twitter/blog/facebook have been my life lines to humanity.

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

status update.

thank you lelove

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

de-tagging diligence.

our 'tell all generation' has proven to actually use more censorship than those thirty plus on social media networking sites. in the recent ny times article, holson explains how those in their twenties are more conscious and aware of what is being shared on the internet than any other age bracket. in the Pew study, researchers interviewed 2,253 adults late last summer and found that people ages 18 to 29 were more apt to monitor privacy settings than older adults are, and they more often delete comments or remove their names from photos so they cannot be identified. younger teenagers were not included in these studies, and I am almost positive they do not have such diligence in their facebook sharing. 

public property.

Is there any privacy anymore? I love the connectivity modern social networking sites have provided. But I can't help but feel skeptical myself; sharing everything from pictures to locations on networking sites. It is insane how fast and furious this market has exploded. A couple years ago people were skeptical of making purchases online. Now people are recording everything from work out logs to location updates; thus becoming public property of the world wide web. One can publish information about literally anything, and there is already a site dedicated to it. Post one's travel schedule on Dopplr, DNA profile is available on 23andMe.com, and Blippy.com one can make public everything you spend with your Chase Mastercard, along with your spending at Netflix, iTunes and Amazon.com.  Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com and Twitter.com, are the root of this 'share everything' world. DailyBooth.com, founded in London but moving to San Francisco, asks users to publish a picture a day. “It’s the richest and quickest way to share how you are doing and what you are feeling,” said Brian Pokorny, a Silicon Valley investor who recently became the company’s chief executive. Or my personal favorite is Barry Borsboom's, who this year created an intentionally provocative site called Please Rob Me. The site collected and published Foursquare updates that indicated when people were out socializing — and therefore away from their homes. I think that like any technology, this new update crazy world we have come to live in will definitely change not only marketing for companies but create a new tier in law, in regards to the dangers of such access of information.
Source: NY Times April 22 Image flickr: Alcides Fonseca

do something.

The video bellow is a demonstration held on March 30, 2010 for the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) marked the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Day of Action with flash mobs at Chapters Indigo and Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC).I am proud to say two of my very close friends, Brittany Smith and Andrew Bigioni participated in this BDS Day of Action. I asked Andrew about the significance of using a viral video in regards to their project. He said the action was intended to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian struggle (as well as concretely act on the boycotts against complicit Canadian companies), so something that can go viral has the real potential to take that sentiment as far as possible. The wider audience the video reaches, the more people begin to really understand the idea of global solidarity and the more people will be inspired and empowered to do the same kind of thing. Those actions are great on their own but they take on so much more significance when they reach a larger audience. To learn more, please visit www.caiaweb.org or endapartheid@riseup.net. They are always looking for support!

Image credit: Andrew Bigioni, Palestine 2009

testimonials.

Blogs such as Texts from Last Night and F*ck My Life have been getting a lot of attention lately in popular culture. Another blog that is extremely popular is Post Secret. Unlike the previous mentioned blogs, Post Secret offers a more emotional appeal to a wider audience. Readers of the blog submit their ‘secrets’ via post cards, combining old and new generation’s forms of communication. The interconnectivity of the mediums, allows for both generations to connect with each other’s comfort zones in media communication.
A viral video hit is the series “Fifty People: One Question”, in which one question is asked to fifty people in a random location and they answer. Questions such as “If anything could happen by the end of the day, what would you wish to happen?”, “If you could wake up anywhere tomorrow, where would it be?”. Questions that on the surface seem so simple, but when answers start to flow, the emotional appeal is overwhelming. Maybe I am just a sucker for this kind of stuff but I love the power of such simple questions being able to really divulge into the human heart.


Image Source: Post Secret

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.