Last night I went to the federal public hearing regarding the completion of the 241 Toll Road. I am not a political person by nature, in fact I avoid political discussions for the most part because I rarely find that people want to "discuss", but rather they want to impose their political opinion. I prefer to hone my opinions on my own, quietly research the facts and gather objective data, but there still remains an aching suspicion that I am ducking out of the political process from a mixture of cynicism and apathy.
Reflecting on this political apathy I turned to one of my favorite sources for information, Wikipedia, and found this compelling quote from John Dos Passos,
Apathy is one of the characteristic responses of any living organism when it is subjected to stimuli too intense or too complicated to cope with. The cure for apathy is comprehension.
Each speaker was given 4 minutes to make their point. Silence in the crowd was mandatory in order to give each speaker their full turn to be heard. Speakers ranged from public officials, some from the Toll Roads board of directors, impassioned park goers who want their children to have a place to enjoy nature in the over developed mass of housing projects that has grown to typify the Southern Californian landscape, surfers, environmentalist, and Native Americans threatened with losing the burial ground of their ancestors. Big business and the "little person" gathered in one room.
It reminded me of "Town Meeting Day"which we had in Vermont. I remember it of course mainly as a day we had off from school and were able to go skiing for free. People of all walks of life would gather in the town hall and discuss local politics. I reflected on memories of one of my favorite teachers, Mr Altman, who would forgo the teacher's lounge and sit with us in the lunch room and discuss Plato's Republic and point out how fortunate we were to live in a state that engaged the political process on such a grassroots level.
As I sat there quietly and listened to each person make their arguments I was wowed by the statements ranging from emotional pleas to uphold the promise that this land remain undeveloped, to union workers requesting the toll road be built in order to provide jobs and help the economy. From the ridiculous to the profound I am still trying to come to terms with some of those arguments.
I see the blogosphere as the new town meeting. Your blog post are a vehicle to layout your opinion, cite your resources, illustrate your opinion, share a video. The power previously reserved for the traditional media is now in your hands. The town meeting can be held on your home computer, even your cell phone. Communities of like minded folks can join together in social networks, share opinions, take part in the political process.
Would'nt you like to know if someone you have friend'ed on your favorite social network was in your neighborhood? Say to hook up with like minded sports fanatics, or nerds? There is just such a service and it is called BrightKite, a "Location Based Social Network" and it is in invite only beta. If you would like a BrightKite invite reply to this post and we will make sure you get one. With BrightKite you can post your location to predetermined place marks, or send your location via sms. Once you login to a placemark you can email in photos of your location that others who are on your friends list can check out the seats you had at the game, or the sushi you are about to eat for dinner.
The social net is fragmenting at an amazing rate. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to post to all of your favorite sites thru one location? So all of your friends who prefer to be logged into Bebo, Blogger, BrightKite, Facebook, hi5, Jaiku, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Mashable, MySpace, Plaxo Pulse, Plurk, Pownce, Tumblr, Twitter, Xanga, can stay in touch without having to track you down on your favorite social site of the moment. (Plurk! -DRM)
Social Networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn are growing and some people still don't know about them. It's easy to make an account. Simply sign up and see how many of your friends are on there. Then, view their friends profiles and see how you can relate to them or find their knowledge or connections useful to you.
It's a great way to expand your social network and get to know more of your friends friends.
April 10, James Buck was going to head back home from a three-week assignment studying the Egyptian blogosphere.
"I was trying to take some photos of this small protest and trying to be very clear that I was not in the protest, It was very tense." - James Buck
As Buck tried to leave the protest in a taxi, He was chased and then detained by Egyptian police. As he was driven to the police station under the direction of the police, Buck was able to sent out a single-word message from his cell phone to his Twitter account: Arrested. .
Chris Brogan has declared Today. Monday, April 28th "Read and Comment" day. Instead of your typical post (or as well as), get out there and comment on some blogs. Contribute to their conversations. Find some good stuff and add to it.
I am one of those people who need to justify most purchases. When that iPhone came out my creative juices started flowing. Hmmmm ... how can I convince myself that phone is vital to my existence, maybe not vital, but how can it help me? Sometimes you just need a little inspiration. The iPhone is a powerful tool and with every update new functionality is added.
Social Media takes time. Some say it takes more time than they can fit into their hectic lives. What if all you needed was a mobile phone? You could promote your business in your down time, those frustrating times when you can't really do anything productive, the commute home, waiting for doctors appointments, waiting in line at the grocery store, you could even use that iconic device to open up conversations about your business.
Here is a list of the ways I have used the iPhone for social media optimization.
1. The dynamic duo "photos" and "camera" turn you into a photoblogging superstar! Take a picture and upload immediately to your blog. Get more bang for your post and cc your social sites while you are at it. Setting will have to be preloaded and the contact for each social site added to your contacts for easy and immediate access. Once settings are in place shoot your tantalizing picture and post. Be sure to add a compelling title. 2. Find the videos you have loaded up on YouTube and watch them, send them to social sites, email them to contacts, or make the person in line with you at the grocery store watch it. Bookmark your videos on your iPhone. Depending upon your industry and chattiness you will find opportunities to share your videos. 3. I was never a text message sender before the iPhone, but the iPhone's large (by mobile standards) qwerty keyboard makes it easy and accessible. Combine your iPhone with a microblogging client such as Twitter and there are a variety of combinations to utilize. For example: Monitor your keywords and find the conversations as they happen. Using Twitter you can add 'bots' to search conversations which have your keywords in them. These messages containing your keywords can be sent directly to your phone and then your conversation begins. IMPORTANT POINTER: Be sure to adjust your text messaging package to insure your keyword alerts do not exceed your current text messaging package.
Buy technology you love and optimize your settings, bookmarks and features to remove all obstacles to using that technology.
Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends, colleagues, and current events, no matter where you are or what you're doing. For some friends or events you might want instant mobile updates for others, you can just check the web. Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.
During the recent Earthquake and California Wild Fires Followers Set Twitter Ablaze: "Twitter users Nate Ritter and Viss have been busy posting rapid-fire updates of the current wildfire situation in Southern California. Both of them are on the scene in San Diego, and they are doing an excellent job of providing information and news about evacuations, meeting points and anything important that local residents would need to know."
Quite simply: There is nothing more important to teach educators (and the rest of us) about technology, than how to network.
Putting out a fire? Escaping an Earthquake? Planning a class? meeting? Lunch? Conference? and need to be able to update (and update your site?) and be updated via your mobile device? Twitter is how you can do so.
And those reviews are having a considerable impact on purchase decisions. According to a recent survey by Deloitte's Consumer Products group, almost two-thirds (62 percent)of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet. Of these, more than eight in 10 (82 percent) say their purchase decisions have been directly influenced by the reviews, either influencing them to buy a different product than the one they had originally been thinking about purchasing or confirming the original purchase intention. Interestingly, while the percentages were slightly higher for the younger generations, all age groups are reading and acting on online reviews at significant rates. In addition, the reach of consumer reviews isn't limited to the online world; seven in 10 (69 percent) consumers who read reviews share them with friends, family or colleagues, thus amplifying their impact.
"This increasing market transparency can adversely impact the margins, market share and brand equity of consumer products companies," said Pat Conroy, vice chairman and US consumer products group leader at Deloitte & Touche USA LLP. "In the past, clever marketers and advertisers shaped brands, but now consumers are increasingly empowered, everyone has a voice, and information and opinions are instantly dispersed. Consumer product companies need to determine how best to capitalize on this new landscape. Clearly, there will be consequences for those who don't."
Did you get an invite to Quechup? DELETE IT!!! Just wanted to send a note out to everyone to let them be aware of a new social network that is spamming everyone in your gmail address book. If you get an invite from Quechup ignore it. I sign up for these sites all the time. I was sent an invitation from a customer and joined to check it out. When Quechup asked me to invite my friends I did, making sure only to invite Lisa McClure. However, everyone in my gmail address book was sent an invitation. The amount of bad press that can be found with a Google search on Quechup is amazing. Please disregard, trash, destroy, delete, remove, any and all invites from Quechup. and advise your friends to do the same. From now on I will google every invite I get prior to joining any new site. We advise you to do the same. and to contact us directly if you have any questions.
ABSTRACT Tasks like image recognition are trivial for humans, but continue to challenge even the most sophisticated computer programs. This talk introduces a paradigm for utilizing human processing power to solve problems that computers cannot yet solve. Traditional approaches to solving such problems focus on improving software. I advocate a novel approach: constructively channel human brainpower using computer games. For example, the ESP Game, described in this talk, is an enjoyable online game -- many people play over 40 hours a week -- and when people play, they help label images on the Web with descriptive keywords. These keywords can be used to significantly improve the accuracy of image search. People play the game not because they want to help, but because they enjoy it.
Luis von Ahn is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also received his Ph.D. in 2005. Previously, Luis obtained a B.S. in mathematics from Duke University in 2000. He is the recipient of a Microsoft Research Fellowship.
He describes other examples of "games with a purpose": Peekaboom, which helps determine the location of objects in images, and Verbosity, which collects common-sense knowledge. He also explains a general approach for constructing games with a purpose.
Social Media Optimization uses the tools of Web 2.0: blogs, RSS feeds, social networking sites, social bookmark buttons, tagging, multimedia posts, and wikis, to target an audience, create an online presence and to develop familiarity and authority with the customer. SMO is about using these tools in conjunction with a website to spread your content far and wide, to create opportunities for others to link to your site and to establish yourself as an authority.
Social Media Optimization harnesses the power of the social network. Web 2.0 provides numerous and growing opportunities to become a participant in the on line communities. Social networking sites create new opportunities to reach potential customers and to establish a dialogue. Social Media Optimization operates in a way that is analogous to “word of mouth” advertising but is more efficient due to the tools and organization of the internet.
Developing content and posting in appropriate social forums, using the current tools to tag and make your content easy to distribute and link to is the focus of a Social Media Optimization Campaign. Building a wealth of informative posts using various media is an efficient and productive way to spread your reputation and encourage a discourse with customers.
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