social networks Archives

THE Can Be a Powerful Word

Monday October 25, 2010

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Did the title of this post, “THE Can Be a Powerful Word”, get your attention? Think about it for a minute. Now if I say: “It’s THE Real Thing” or “When you care enough to send THE very best”, I’ll bet you can name what brand each statement refers to without blinking an eye. Am I right?

Branding is something every business needs to do. Establishing a brand can be taxing. You create a name, you create a product, maybe you get a patent, maybe you apply for a trademark, maybe you copyright your material, and maybe you are the product! And after all is said and done “the customer owns the brand” as Jeff Hayzlett informed us at Blog World Expo 2010.

I am not sure, but I suspect that the Mandalay Bay Resort management was thinking about their customers when (according to Wikipedia) “In 2006, the lettering at the top of the tower changed to ‘THEhotel’ to distinguish the property. Formerly, the lettering was identical to the ‘Mandalay Bay’ letters at the top of the original tower.” You see the Mandalay Bay Resort opened in 1999; however, what is now referred to as THEhotel at Mandalay Bay opened in 2003.

Prior to the name change imagine the confusion a hotel guest faced: What do you tell the taxi driver, upon arrival you might not be sure which hotel tower to check-in at…or you may wander around in the casino and then make your way back to the wrong hotel tower. (Think Co-Op City in THE Bronx!)

As you know Blog World Expo 2010 was held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Convention Center. Happily I was a guest at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay. I can truly say THEhotel is a well designed beautiful hotel. Every room is a suite, no smaller than 725 square feet. And THE is the only word you need to know when you are trying to find your way around THEhotel. They don’t have fancy or clever names for their on-site amenities or venues: THEpad, THEtp, baTHE (toiletries), THElounge, THEcafe, THEstore, THEcoffeebar. (click on the photo on the left) You see what I mean? Simple and understated. This customer owns the brand!

In closing, I would like to share something I rediscovered today about the word THE. Did you know: “that the pronunciation of the definite article ‘the’ changes, primarily depending on whether the following sound is a consonant or a vowel?” Before a consonant sound the pronunciation is thuh, before a vowel sound it is usually thee.

By the way, if you think I am off base when I say THE can be a powerful word, maybe I can interest you in a UBS commercial effort.

On the other hand, THE Google never did sound right and we are told in “The Social Network” movie that it was Sean Parker who advised Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin to drop THE from The FACEBOOK.

Your thoughts?

Barnett, Carolla, Jillette, Hayzlett and Lewis on New Media & Success: #BWE10 (downtheavenue.com)

Reading Time: 8 minutes

The last few weeks your Webconsuls’ team has been busy and our blog has been quiet. I don’t know about you, but it is amazing what you can learn in a month’s time. Here are this month’s five most interesting bits of information that I learned and I want to share with you:

1. Did you know that Gmail has a send limit? About a week ago we received a call from our client saying that she was sending out an email broadcast to her customers asking them to participate in a fundraiser for the victims of the earthquake/tsunami. All of a sudden she noticed that she could not send any email or receive any email. She called us and here is what I learned:

“In an effort to fight spam and prevent abuse, Google will temporarily disable your account if you send a message to more than 500 recipients or if you send a large number of undeliverable messages. If you use a POP or IMAP client (Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, e.g.), you may only send a message to 100 people at a time. Your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours.” (Go here to learn more and keep in mind that many email services have a send limit, this is why some clients like to stay in contact with their clients by a newsletter service like or similar to Constant Contact.)

2. Twitter 2.0 seems to be just around the corner. Rather than have me rehash what someone else has discussed so eloquently, I will point you to the article. “Are We Ready for Twitter 2.0?”

3. Blogger does provide great on-line support. The other day I was on their site and I saw a section called “Recommended Articles and Discussion.” One of the discussions was entitled “Too Many Good Bloggers are Giving Up” . Now, this caught my eye!!! So I clicked on it and enjoyed the conversation. If you have a blog and you have given up or you are thinking about giving up, I invite you to read the posts and join in the discussion. You might just refresh yourself enough to keep on BLOGGING!

4. During the past few weeks our team has been discussing the nature of our Webconsuls’ blog. The questions raised are these: Should it be more technical? Or, do our readers want to learn more about the team as people and read anecdotal stories, as well? I will tell you that the team was split on this, but today I read an interesting article on an SEO/SMO newsletter. The article had to do with Social Networking pitfalls the 4th pitfall to avoid was this: “It’s not about sell, sell, sell! If all you’re doing when you visit the various sites and post your updates is pitch your latest program, product or service then it’s no wonder you’re not seeing results. Share information with your network, whether that’s your own information or you’re passing along information from clients and colleagues. The more you share, the greater your results will be. Whichever social networking arena you’re active in (and it may be more than one) remember the “social” in social networking – it’s to build relationships, make new contacts, and socialize. Inform your network, not sell to them.” I think based on this guidance and our own practical experience from being part of Social Networking sites, new clients may come to you naturally.

5. Finally, as this Columbus Day Weekend gets underway, I know that our New England innkeeper, hotelier, restaurateur, livery, and entertainment clients will be busy beyond belief as the autumn brides and mountains blush and foliage season peaks; but won’t they be surprised to learn that Tucson, AZ has its own foliage season! And yes, Mt Lemmon is 2869 ft taller than Mt. Washington!

This week’s photos are from my days in New Hampshire. The one of the children is of Aaron and Dan enjoying a “Tom Sawyer” moment with children who were guests at the inn. Aaron and Dan were “teaching” them how to rake the autumn leaves and make Leaf People!

“Teach Us to Delight in the Simple Things”…Rudyard Kipling

Let me know what you think of Judy’s “bytes”…see you next week.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Be the change you want to see in the world. As we and our children’s children get stuck with billions is bailouts by the brain trust in Washington for the fat cats on Wall Street, bankers and automakers, social entrepreneurs are using Micro Financing to make real change.

What is Microfinance? From WikiPedia

Some principles that summarize a century and a half of development practice were encapsulated in 2004 by Consultative Group to Assist the Poor and endorsed by the Group of Eight leaders at the G8 Summit on June 10, 2004:

Poor people need not just loans but also savings, insurance and money transfer services.
Microfinance must be useful to poor households: helping them raise income, build up assets and/or cushion themselves against external shocks.
Microfinance can pay for itself. Subsidies from donors and government are scarce and uncertain, and so to reach large numbers of poor people, microfinance must pay for itself.
Microfinance means building permanent local institutions.
Microfinance also means integrating the financial needs of poor people into a country’s mainstream financial system.
The job of government is to enable financial services, not to provide them.
Donor funds should complement private capital, not compete with it.
The key bottleneck is the shortage of strong institutions and managers. Donors should focus on capacity building.
Interest rate ceilings hurt poor people by preventing microfinance institutions from covering their costs, which chokes off the supply of credit.
Microfinance institutions should measure and disclose their performance – both financially and socially.

Microfinance can also be distinguished from charity. It is better to provide grants to families who are destitute, or so poor they are unlikely to be able to generate the cash flow required to repay a loan. This situation can occur for example, in a war zone or after a natural disaster.

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” – Ronald Reagan

Reading Time: 7 minutes

A few months back a friend of mine suggested that I might write a book titled “51 Cards!” When I questioned her on this title, she said: “51 Cards” is the title Kevin (her husband) proposed for your yet to be published autobiography. It alludes to your lamentation that the Baby Boomer generation is “not playing with a full deck” due to the emotional scars inflicted by such events as the Vietnam war, the assassinations of MLK, JFK and RFK, etc.” I think the title is perfect and I have often said that people of my generation lived through many life changing events in our formative years. This is not an excuse, but an explanation of what we are about. And so today, I am remembering August 8, 1974, Richard M. Nixon. It was on this day, 35 years ago, that the President of the United States (POTUS) Richard M. Nixon announced his resignation as a result of the Watergate Scandal.

On June 15, 1974, I received my BA degree from California State University, Los Angeles. What I recall most about my last year in college were the Senate Watergate hearings. These hearings ran from May 17, 1973 through August 7, 1973. The hearings were televised, but remember I was working and going to college full time, so being able to watch the televised hearings was a luxury. The university was nice enough to set up televisions in the library so that the actual social network of students could stop by the library in between classes to watch the hearings. Remember now, this is when we still only had three networks…NBC, ABC, and CBS. Oh, and yes we did have our newspapers. According to Wikipedia “Each network maintained coverage of the hearings every third day, starting with ABC on May 17 and ending with NBC on August 7. An estimated 85% of Americans with television sets tuned in to at least one portion of the hearings.” The Senate issued its seven volume report on June 27, 1974.

Within a few weeks of my graduation I went to work for a small financial corporation. Every evening I would go back to my little apartment and turn on the news. But on August 8, 1974, I hurried home as Richard Nixon was going to address the nation at 6:00PM PST. We had learned this from listening to radio news that afternoon. That evening I watched intently as Richard M. Nixon announced his resignation. That was 35 years ago today and I invite you to listen to part of this speech here or visit the Miller Center to hear the whole speech.

The next day I went to work, but I brought my television with me. At 9:00AM PST, August 9, 1974, all of the employees gathered around this little 12 inch Zenith black and white television to watch Gerald Ford become our 38th president. It didn’t matter which political side of the aisle you were on, this was, hopefully, a once in a lifetime event. If you want to learn more about this time in our history, I invite you to read “All the President’s Men” by Woodward and Bernstein and “Blind Ambition” by John Dean.

It is funny, last evening I happened to catch Lewis Black on HBO. It wasn’t a new bit, but I listened again to him as he described how “our” young lives were ruled by fear during the cold war. We practiced for air raid drills, nuclear bombs, hid under our wooden desks, and watched some of our parents waste their hard earned money building bomb shelters. “51 Cards”, indeed!

“There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.”

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Facebook recently changed their Terms of Service regarding the ownership of the content you upload to their social network. Previously when material was deleted from your account or an account was closed the material connected to that account would be removed as well.

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

A very important note to this amendment is that privacy settings are still enforced. If you have posted something from full public view the privacy settings are also retained in perpetuity.

It was a post at The Consumerists an article entitled Facebook’s New Terms Of Service: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.” which started the uproar.

Mark Zuckerman, Facebook CEO, has responded to the stir on his Facebook Blog
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckermans response.

A couple of weeks ago, we updated our terms of use to clarify a few points for our users. A number of people have raised questions about our changes, so I’d like to address those here. I’ll also take the opportunity to explain how we think about people’s information.

Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with. When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they’ve asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information.

One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.

In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment. …

I doubt this is the end of this conversation.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Have you seen He’s Just Not That Into You? This film opened yesterday and since today is Saturday I thought I would provide a little preview of this romantic comedy. Technically speaking, He’s Just Not That Into You, was not on my to-do list for February 6th, so I have not yet seen the movie, but I have seen the previews. I think this is one of those films that I might be able to convince my husband, Dennis, to see. Why? Eye candy! There are enough “big” stars, both men and women, in this film to keep everyone happy for 129 minutes. For your convenience, I have included a trailer for the movie in this post. You will see that the producers feel that the basic interactive groundrules for men and women are established when we are very young children, which is “he says one thing, but means another” and “she hears what she wants to hear.” As an aside, I remember my first little boy “friend.” In 1954-55 we walked to kindergarten each morning holding hands. His name was Raymond Wood. I think he was always nice to me!

Ok, here is the scoop: He’s Just Not That Into You is based on a self-help book that was written by Greg Behrentdt and Liz Tuccillo. No, neither Greg nor Liz is a psychologist. Both were writers for Sex and the City, they based this book on a famous line from the 6th season episode called “Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little” which originally aired July 13, 2003(yes, the episode title is the name of an annoying song from The Music Man). Six years later and with a reported budget of $25,000,000 we now have a romantic comedy that will either make you laugh or help you escape today’s crazy technical world for two hours.

Probably the most poignant message in He’s Just Not That Into You is this: In today’s world, unlike when I was wondering “why doesn’t HE call?,” a person can’t just expect to hear from someone via a landline phone, they need to worry about every known “SOCIAL NETWORK:” myspace, facebook, youtube, plurk, plugoo, brightkite, ping, twitter, yammer, and the fatal text messaging via the cell phone. As Mary, played by Drew Barrymore, says: “It’s exhausting!”

The fact is love, or what we hope will turn into love, makes us do foolish things. We are all guilty of this, we are human. In 1965 Martha (Reeves) and the Vandellas released “Love Makes Me Do Foolish Things,” it never made it to #1, but many of us loved this song, because in 1965 and for a long time after that, our social networks consisted only of a phone and the Friday night mixer (dance). This song made us cry and if we were really lucky that special someone would ask us to dance and we would forget all our troubles. Escape!

So for this Saturday: Dance to this music,take a break and go away with your friend. Go to the movies or rent a movie,love the one you’re with, and let me know how this works out for you, write a comment on my blog post.

P.S. For the record, if you are wondering what happened to little Raymond Wood. We continued through grade school together as friends. After that we lost touch. In 2006, my mother passed away. As I stood outside the church waiting for her funeral to begin, I looked across the crowd and there stood Raymond. He walked over to me, put his arms around me and said “I wouldn’t miss being with you today.” Precious memories, indeed!

Reading Time: 9 minutes

There are only five full days left to shop for Christmas and tomorrow at sundown the first candle of Hanukkah will be lit. In an effort to assist all of my shopping readers, I thought I might suggest to you to think about finding that really special gift on your local craigslist.org site. Yes, I said craigslist.org and Holiday Shopping in the same breath.

I will admit I am not a great shopper and I have for years, and I do mean years, tried to avoid malls and other small shopping venues. It is not that I don’t want to remember people that I love, but I find shopping exhausting. Over 30 years ago I started using catalogs for holiday shopping and when the Internet began to allow us to shop all over the world in real time, well, let’s just say it made my life easier. Keep in mind for many years I lived in very rural areas and did not have access to the large retailers, so I depended on the Sears’ Catalog and J. C. Penney Catalog.

Now back to cragslist.org. My past experience with craigslist.org was in helping a good friend furnish his home office by using craigslist. It was about 18 months ago that my friend and I had tried to find good sturdy office furniture, etc, but the usual suspects were really only selling reconstructed fiberboard. So I said to him, “Let’s search on craigslist.” We did and what do you know, we found good quality, barely used furniture from a company in Orange County California which was closing down. Within in a few days the home office was complete for about $500, retail valued at about $1700.

You might get the impression that I have had a Craigslist account since its inception. That is not true, in fact, it was only two weeks ago that I set up my account. Why? Like any other “member”, I had something of value that I didn’t need and I wanted to sell; however, I had not been successful in selling this item in any of the old fashion ways. On December 6th I decided to try selling this item with Craigslist. I set up my account and what do you know, by the next morning I had received an email from “Chris.” This was exciting…I answered the email and then I received the dreaded strange reply that looked “just plain nuts.” I went back on Craigslist and read the “scams help page.” I soon realized this “Chris” was up to no good and I decided to follow Craig’s #1 rule: “DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON – follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on craigslist.”

I am happy to report that yesterday I received a call from a gentleman in Tucson who wanted to see my item. He came to our home, previewed the item, and said he might be back in touch. At 2:00PM, he called back and asked if we could meet with him to have the item inspected by an expert. 3:00PM we met at a local mall, the item was inspected and given the “green light” and the transaction was completed!! The gentleman was happy as he had found the perfect holiday gift for his girlfriend and I was happy as I no longer had this item that had been gathering dust, but instead put money in my bank account.

Before I close off this morning I want to mention that while Craigslist can help you find housing, employees, jobs, furniture, etc, you can indeed also make interesting connections. After all, the origins of craigslist are based in Craig Newmark simply trying to provide a way for his friends to stay in touch about community events. You can read an interesting article from Business Week about its inception. Craig is often referred to as a “Community Organizer.” You remember this term from the 2008 Election. Yes, he has helped to organize many communities and when you sell or buy using Craigslist you can play that old game “six degrees of separation.” Take my transaction: I have lived in Tucson for only nine months. I really know very few people here. But when we met my buyer we sat down for a cup of coffee while we wrote out the receipt. Dennis asked the gentleman what he does for a living. To this he replied that he is an artist. We said we only know one artist in Tucson. He asked the name of the artist. We told him and don’t you know the artist we know is one of his best friends and I might add this artist is our oldest son’s landlord. Guess how our oldest son found his duplex to rent? You got it…Craigslist!

SMO, Social Media, Social Networks…think craigslist.org. Happy Holiday shopping.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Recently I received an Amazon.com gift certificate as a gift. I am an avid reader and an avid kindle reader so I am sure that is what my in-laws had in mind.

I have come to rely on Amazon.com for far more than just books. This particular transaction was representative of how social media is molding the customers’ experience for the better and I feel compelled to share the story.

Once people were quite wary of ordering online. Giving their credit card information over the internet to people unseen seemed scary and just not wise. Years later I make most of my purchases online. What is not to love? You can order exactly what you want. There is no trip to the mall. No walking up and down the shopping center corridor looking for that store directory while hoping for one more chance to find the exact brand and model so you can go home.

First it starts with how I select my purchases. I am a review reader and a very specific shopper. I generally know exactly what I want and why I want it. I don’t necessarily come up with these answers myself, but I have trusted experts, think of them as “authority sites”.

I wanted to get a few items for the kitchen. For cooking and kitchen equipment my two top sources are Alton Brown and America’s Test Kitchen. Alton Brown, of Good Eats and Iron Chef America fame, has won me over again and again with his creative and campy show “Good Eats”. His advice and elementary scientific explanation of why things work fascinates me and turns the once mundane chore of cooking dinner into a fun and creative thing to do at the end of the day. His show “Good Eats” is a family favorite in our house. I frequent his website for quick recipes and tips. Alton is welcome at our house any day. Here he is with some Thanksgiving tips.

America’s Test Kitchen is my other authority. They judiciously test equipment and recipes. They recommend good solid equipment and explain why they favor one model over another. I have their family cookbook and it is where I get all my “Mom answers”.

So with “my authorities” suggesting what makes and models are the best purchases I take a cursory look at Amazons’ online reviews and as long as I don’t see any glaring descrepancies in the reviews I make my purchase.

Amazon follows up and makes sure your purchases arrive on time and there is a link so you can track the delivery right to your door. Not everything is actually purchased directly from Amazon as they are the dealer for other merchants and resellers.

This time my entire order arrived within days, except for the pie dish. I had specifically chosen this pie dish for its deep well, perfect for a really deep apple crisp. It turned out that I was not the only one eying this lovely deep pie dish from the reseller unbeatablesale.com as it was sold out. My account was never charged. A few days later I was asked to review my experience. I couldn’t give the transaction 5 stars as I didn’t receive my purchase. I did comment that the item was sold out and while I was disappointed it would certainly not prevent me from shopping there again.

A store representative emailed me as a result of my less than 5 star rating and offered a gift certificate to use in their online store worth twice the amount of my initial attempted purchase.

They listened to my review. They care about the ratings. They care about the rating because the ratings from social media are going to affect their future sales. I am going to shop their because it is convenient and I am heard. If I am not satisfied they are going to remedy the situation.

No hassles. No buyers remorse. I like it.

Social Media improving the customer experience.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

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.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s an unlikely tale but I assure you it is all true. It all started when Darin went out and bought this odd contraption to cut his hair. Sunday morning he announced he was going to give it a go out on the patio and cut his hair all on his own. “What do you think?”, he asked. “Sure”, I grabbed my coffee, shielding it from potential flying hairs and sat up wind to watch the show.

It was actually going quite well. All the tension had left my body and I was resigned to see a normal looking hair cut at the end of this process. Then I heard a click and saw the huge chunk of hair sliced right out of the middle of Darin’s head.

It was the point of no return. He had to shave the remaining hair.

We laughed. I said, “You look like Seth Godin.” We took his picture. We laughed again. He said, “I should be Seth Godin for Halloween.”

Then Darin does what Darin does every time he gets a hold of a goofy picture of himself. He posted it on the internet. Actually, he posted it just once, to ping.fm, titling the post “For Halloween I am going to be Seth Godin”. Ping.fm is a new service which will deliver posts to a long and growing list of blogs, microblogs and social sites.

The next day we googled “for Halloween I am going to be Seth Godin”. The results are interesting.

“for Halloween I am going to be Seth Godin” with quotations filled the first page with results from his social sites.

for Halloween I am going to be Seth Godin (with no quotations)
Out of 4,190 results 3 of the first page results point to to Darin’s social sites.

Our intention was not to rank for these keywords, but what these results illustrate and remind us is that by using the “long tail”, optimizing for keyword phrases we can build traffic sources with our blogs and social sites by titling our posts with keyword rich phrases.

For those who would like a little more information on the theory of the long tail and how it applies to SEO here is a video from one of my favorite experts in the field, Avinash Kaushik.

When you are posting to your social media sites and writing blog posts remember the long tail. Your blog titles are important and over time can develop into a key component of your online success.

What is the single question or problem your customer might be posing to Google?
Are you using the language of your customers?
Can you formulate an interesting story around it?

Your social media sites serve as another entry way to your website and by titling your posts with keyword rich phrases you can grow a nice long tail.

I will be waiting for Darin’s hair to grow back. For more niche specific advice for how you can grow your long tail with social media contact us at Webconsuls.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

“Genuine intellectual curiosity is the attribute established brands need to be successful in the blogosphere.”
– Geoffrey Moore

With every second that passes the world changes, something new and exciting is created or an idea is set into motion that will forever alter how human beings live their life and interact with each other. In the past sixty years a flood of, what would seem to most, irrational ideas have been used as stepping stones to create the most rational and useful technologies that we enjoy in our life. Radio started the information age, followed by television, and now the world world-wide-web; but, kindred spirits either join together or they kill each other, leaving yesterday’s trend behind.

I believe the biggest complaint about television is the lack of interaction in every respect; both commercial and entertainment aspects of television have a human element missing. Human beings have a drive to be involved in everything they lay their eyes on. Internet has provided the ability for the consumer to have a say in what they see and do, the Internet is a means for people to be a part of a growing network with limitless possibilities. It was hard to see at first with the early Internet, but the possibility has always been there waiting to bloom; for a long time the Internet (WEB 1.0) was like T.V., it was just something to look at with many more channels. WEB 2.0 is a totally different ball game, we the people are the players and the umpires – It’s About You!

Social Media is what the Internet is all about, a global village of people sharing ideas, information, and art. Not only individuals, business’ (large and small) are working towards going interactive; through blogging and social networks the world is getting smaller and the possibilities are becoming greater. This revolution has forced television to jump on the train or be left behind; the fact is that people can meet their communication and entertainment needs from one central location. The Internet has given everyone a voice and audience to listen, companies can advertise, sell, and interact with the consumer in a way that T.V can’t provide.

Today, your computer is a portal for all of your day to day media and communication tools to connect with the web. The time has come to join up with social networks and blog circles, this will increase your presence and network; whether for business or pleasure, I believe it will be worth your time to move with the Internet and not against it. Experience the world in the way that you want, at your desired pace; the Internet is no longer growing with you, transversely you’re growing with the Internet. The Internet has already started anticipating your next move and remembers what you are interested in; your computer is no longer an extension of you, rather you are an extension of your computer!

Reading Time: 7 minutes

A while back, I read a very interesting book that compared life to a train ride or a series of train rides.

Life is like a train ride it read. We get on, we ride, we get off. We get back on and ride some more. There are accidents and there are delays. At certain stops there are surprises. Some of these will translate into great moments of joy, some will result in profound sorrow.

When we are born we first board the train, we meet people whom we think will be with us for the entire journey. Those people are our parents.

Sadly this is far from the truth, Our parents are with us for as long as we absolutely need them. They too have journeys they must complete . We live on with the memories of their love, affection, friendship, guidance and their ever presence.

There are others who board the train who eventually become very important to us in turn. Those people are our brothers, sisters, friends and acquaintances whom we will learn to love and cherish.

Some people consider their journey like a jaunty tour. They will just go merrily along. Others will encounter many upsets, tears, losses on their journey. Others still, will linger on to offer a helping hand to anyone in need.

Some people on the train will leave an everlasting impression when they get off. Some will get on and get off the train so quickly, they will scarcely leave a sign that they ever traveled along with you or ever crossed your path…

We will sometimes be upset that some passengers whom we love, will choose to sit in another compartment and leave us to travel on our own. Then again, there is nothing that says we cant seek them out anyway. Nevertheless, once sought out and found, we may not even be able to sit next to them because that seat will already be taken.

That’s okay everyone’s journey will be filled with hopes, dreams, challenges, setbacks and goodbyes.

We must strive to make the best of it no matter what…

We must constantly strive to understand out travel companions and look for the best in everyone.

Remember that at any moment during our journey, any one of our travel companions can have a weak moment and be in need of our help.

We too may vacillate, or hesitate every trip hopefully we can count on someone being there to be supportive and understanding.

The bigger mystery of our journey is that we don’t know when our last stop will come. Neither do we know when our travel companions will make their last stop Not even those sitting in the seat next to us.

I know I will be sad to make my final stop. My separation from all those friends and acquaintances I made during the train ride will be painful. Leaving all those I am close to will be a sad thing. But then again, I am certain that one day I will get to the main station only to meet up with everyone else. They will all be carrying baggage…most of which they did not have when the first got on the train.

I will be glad to see them again, I will also be glad to have contributed to their baggage… and to have enriched their lives, just as much as they will have contributed to my baggage and enriched my life.

We are all on this train ride together. Above all, we should all try to strive to make the ride as pleasant and memorable as we can right up until we can make the final stop and the leave the train for the last time…

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