My email is aj [at] vaynermedia.com

My twitter handle is @ajv

My Facebook vanity URL is /ajvaynerchuk

This website is ajvaynerchuk.com

Now the question is: “why is my personal brand consistency so bad?”

The first issue: my last name is hard to spell. If I had an easy last name like smith, everything would be “ajsmith,” but since Vaynerchuk is constantly spelled incorrectly, I decided going with “ajvaynerchuk” would be a losing proposition.

The next issue: keeping it short is always nice. You want your “handle” to be easy to remember and easy to spell out / type. I used “ajvchuk” for a bit, but realized people would still insert a “c” before the “k.” So on Twitter, I managed to snag “@ajv” - I thought ajv would be a great handle to use, 3 letters and represents my name.

So now I had “@ajv” and figured that would be something I could run with for the time being. My main goal is to eventually get to a simple “aj” brand - that’s why my email is currently the way it is. When Facebook announced vanity URL’s - it was going to be my mission to log in on that Friday night and grab “/aj.”

Big snag: Facebook needed every handle to be at least 5 characters!

The lack of consistency between online services is directly correlated to the difficulties of maintaining personal brand consistency. If Facebook followed Twitter’s guidelines I could have obtained either “/aj” or “/ajv” and be well on my way to honing in on my goals. Instead, I am stuck with protecting my full name on Facebook and the proposition that I may have to rethink the future of my “handle.”

Are you consistent with your personal brand and screen names? Did Facebook throw you for a loop? If you have an answer to those questions, or any other thoughts, I’d love to read it in the comments section!

When an ordinary fan searches Britney Spears on Google, he or she will notice “Britney Spears (britneyspears) on Twitter” towards the bottom of the first page of results. When they click through that link, this is the first thing they see:

The text above, if it were to become customizable, could be a major asset to brands, celebrities, and in fact, any user of twitter.

If celebrities could use that space to record a quick welcome video that explains how he or she uses twitter, and why the visitor should sign up and follow them, conversion rate would have to improve. The way it stands now, the possibility of losing a visitor based on that generic welcome text is way too high.

Thoughts?

Gilbert Arenas and Blogging

Gilbert Arenas is an NBA star who truly was ahead of the curve. Gilbert started blogging a few years ago, and truly understood how this new media could help him connect with fans. He just recently stopped blogging, most likely due to his problems off the court (injuries).

Chris Bosh and Social Media

Chris Bosh is a young superstar in the NBA, and he is making sure that he leverages social media to both build his brand and to connect with fans. Chris has a YouTube channel where he has uploaded 91 videos of original content. Chris is also very active on Twitter and has a strong presence on Facebook where has 40,000+ fans.

Kerry Rhodes and Social Media

Kerry Rhodes is a young, up-and-coming NFL superstar who has used social media to connect with his fans. Kerry is super active on Twitter, with 1200+ updates in just a few months. The majority of Kerry’s tweets are @replies where he answers questions and thanks fans for their support. Kerry also utilizes Facebook and YouTube to bring additional content to Jet fans.

Athletes using Twitter

NBA player Charlie Villanueva tweeted during half time of the Bucks v. Magic game this past March.

NBA star Paul Pierce gave away tickets to a Celtics game by utilizing Twitter.

NBA owner Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 for comments he made on Twitter about the officiating of a Dallas Mavericks game.

As of Right Now

The majority of athletes using twitter seem to come from the NBA. As the MLB season starts up, teams will begin to promote their product, and I guarantee you will see more MLB stars on twitter (and yes, I know there are some right now). The same holds true for the NFL. Teams and Athletes want to connect with fans, and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is a great way to do that.

Bryan Brinkman is a dude from New York City who likes to draw cartoons and make videos.

So?

Well on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Bryan Brinkman was the object of an experiment. Jimmy wanted to see if he could make a random audience member as big as Obama. Jimmy decided to use his Twitter account, his tv show, and his network to send as many followers possible to Bryan Brinkman.

Here are the early results: (He started with 7 followers)

Twimailer is a relatively new Twitter application dedicated to improving email notifications from Twitter. Instead of receiving a simple email notifying you that user “xyz” is now following you, Twimailer provides you with a more detailed overview of your new follower. The most useful aspect of the email is the brief summary detailing following, followers, name, location, website and bio (image below)



By using Twimailer I can find out whether someone is worth following or not without ever having to leave my inbox. The following/follower ratio gives you an especially quick glance at whether a user is spam or not.

How to install Twimailer

Twimailer has a screencast showing you how to set all of this up, but I wouldn’t recommend following their directions. Chris Messina points out that Twimailer “requires you to change your Twitter account email to point to an address provided by Twimailer — on the whole, not a big deal if you trust Twimailer, but in general bad practice.” For a proper installation of Twimailer kick it to Chris’ tutorial right here

Blogging can be tough and time consuming. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy blogging, it’s just that sometimes it is hard to find a focus and a form of consistency. I want everything I post on this blog to be worth reading and to be of a certain quality. Personally, I feel that my blog design and setup (read: Wordpress) kind of creates this sort of through process.

After my brother Gary made the switch to Tumblr last week, I decided to give Tumblr another go. I tried it out a long time ago, and came to the conclusion that Wordpress was still the best blogging platform for me. Well after a few days of using Tumblr, I have found that Tumblr has kind of recreated my love for blogging. I think it has to do with the flexibility of the platform and the community behind it.

So for now, most of my “blogging” will be taking place on my tumblr account. I am thinking about making a complete switch over to Tumblr, where I will mix long-form blog posts with the quick links, videos, and photos I have been posting lately.

What do you think? Are you a Tumblr user? Pros, Cons?

What is b1nary game?

As described by the developer: “Binary Game is a fast paced highly addictive puzzle game for the iPhone, with very simple and intuitive game play! Turn ON or OFF the correct binary switches to find the number which you are shown at the beginning of each round. Scoring is based on accuracy and speed. Submit your scores online and see if you made any of the high score lists!” You can buy b1nary game by clicking here.

2 different modes of play

b1nary game gives you the opportunity to play a challenge mode, or a speed mode. The challenge mode is a score based game where you go level by level until you can go no longer. Speed mode is a 15 round game where you try to complete each round as quick as possible. Personally I only play speed mode since it is a quick game that does not require a huge commitment.

Speed Mode

The Hook

b1nary game gives you the ability to submit your top scores to an online leaderboard (available here). So instead of competing against yourself, you can compete against anyone who owns b1nary game! On top of that, you can submit your user name as your twitter name, and the leaderboard will link to your twitter account. This feature has cost me hours of my day as I have tried WAY to hard to be a top 5 speed mode player. Thankfully I reached my goal right before writing this review

Can you beat me?

My current best time in speed mode is 33.9556 Let me know via twitter or the comments if you have topped me. If you haven’t downloaded b1nary game yet, you can do so here.

What is your best score?

Leave your time in the comments section!

Reading: Change Your Business or go out of Business - Ryan, founder of Carsonified (the great company that puts on events such as the Future of Web Apps) discusses some of the changes his company has had to make during these down times.

Checking Out: Save the Words - A website dedicated to keeping little-used words in the dictionary.

Watching: How Money Is Counted in Different Countries - A few different ways to count your cash.

Listening to: Momma’s Boy by Chromeo.

Reading: Imagining College Without Grades

Checking out: Snipt - Share code snippets on twitter

Watching: Nothing right now, any suggestions?

Listening to: “The What” by Notorious B.I.G. - featuring Method Man.

What are you reading? What are you checking out? Anything interesting worth watching or listening to? Let me know!

What it is

Plinky is a new service dedicated to improving the blogging industry. The idea is simple, rather than having the user create the content all by their lonesome, Plinky prompts users with questions that help build content. Every day marks a new question that all users have the ability to answer. *If you want to follow me on Plinky, simply click here.

Here is an example of a prompt:

Similarities to Twitter

Plinky also falls under the Twitter umbrella by allowing users to follow and be followed. The system is nearly identical to Twitter in terms of how followers are displayed and used. Again, like Twitter, Plinky has a “public time line” so-to-speak that allows the user to view the rest of the Plinky world’s answer to the days question.

Improvements need

Now onto a few things that need improvement (and please note, I know Plinky is brand spanking new, just putting out some thoughts):

The embedding of answers needs to be dramatically upgraded. This could be a huge play for Plinky, and if the embedded widget with your answer was reasonably good, I would use it often on this blog.

Stats are broken. I am seeing a lot of users who have answered a few prompts, yet the stats still show that the individual has yet to answer any questions.

Comments should allow for direct responses from the Followed Answers page. Rather than clicking through and scrolling down, I should be able to comment right from my stream.

Those are a few of my thoughts. What do you think of Plinky? Do you think it can be the next big thing? Do you have any suggestions?