This post was written by Rob Reed. He is the founder of MomentFeed, a location-based marketing, strategy, and technology firm.

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell’s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

Credit: Conversation Marketing – good post, Ian

Years before I started my own firm, I clearly remember a great question designed to trip me up at a job interview:

“So Brian…how many hours of experience do you have on Visio?”
After a chuckle, I regained composure and replied:
“About 4-5 years. Do you catch a lot of people on that one?”
“Yes, I do,” he said with a smirk.

Which brings us to the point of expertise. Lots of people throw around needlessly unqualified labels about how so and so is a guru, maven, or expert. Question is, how do you know someone truly is an expert? Especially in social media – a field so near and dear to our hearts?

The answer? Experience.

I’ve recently read (and re-read several times – ask my wife, she can attest   a book called Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. You have probably heard of another one of his works – The Tipping Point – but this is also a must read.

Mr. Gladwell does a wonderful job of challenging the conventional way of thought on the coveted “self-made man,” rags to riches stories, and innate geniuses (they get help along the way too, read the book for more on this point). Without giving away all there is in the book, he talks about how people don’t come from nothing to success. Even if they are geniuses. Rather, it comes from opportunity and experience.

So, How Much Experience is Enough?

This may sound weird to you, but if you look across all sorts of fields of knowledge, they all converge around a single number. 10,000 hours.

Here’s the kicker. Social media is such a new field, that people could not have been expert practitioners until recently.

Let’s say you started 3 years ago and consistently work your butt off to the tune of 70 hours per week:

• 70 x 50 (give yourself some vacation and sick time) = 3,500 hours
• 3,500 hours per year x 3 years = 10,500 hours

Got that? Testimonials from customers aren’t enough.  News mentions.  Interviews.  Even past performance on a client – you could have just got lucky.  The true measure of expertise is this 10,000 hours rule.

Conclusion, and a Bit More

And here is what I have to add to Malcolm Gladwell’s argument – it isn’t just the 10,000 hour rule, but rather how quickly you got to the 10,000 hours.  Total immersion, i.e. getting 10,000 hours as quickly as possible is an even greater predictor of success.  Keeping in mind that social media is such a new field, many so-called “experts” are eliminated right from the start.

If you’re a business that’s just starting out then chances are you’re not going to have a particularly large budget for your marketing and public relations efforts. A dedicated PR team and advertising campaigns for TV, radio and print are more than likely going to be outside of your reach.

Thanks to the wonders of Web 2.0, though, a small budget is no longer a barrier to promoting your business worldwide, if you know how to harness the power of online marketing and social media.

There are a number of benefits to using an online marketing campaign, and chief among these is lower costs – for starters, it’ll cost you absolutely nothing to set up an account with Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/Bebo and start communicating directly with consumers.

For Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaigns you can set a nominal budget each month, say $10, and then review the results at the end of each month and dedicate more or less money to different search engines and keywords, depending on which ones are bringing you the best click-through rates.
Furthermore, with social media you can get directly to your target market. With a traditional advertising campaign you’re basically throwing your money and message into the air in the hope that it will land on the heads of a few interested parties. With social media, though, you can narrow your efforts down to the specific group of people who are interested in your product and then speak directly to them, one-on-one, which humanises your brand, engenders a sense of trust and community between the brand and the consumers, and provides you with direct feedback from the people who know best – your customers.

A common misconception is that a social media marketing campaign is only going to reach a narrow demographic of tech-savvy Gen X and Gen Y web geeks – yet nothing could be further from the truth. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the number of web users aged 40 and above who use social media is growing constantly, and research backs this up – a 2009 survey by Insidefacebook.com shows that 22% of registered users of Facebook were aged between 35 and 65, with the fastest growing demographic being women over 55.

It’s important, though, to make sure you’re targeting the right social media, especially when it comes to international campaigns. If you’re interested in reaching consumers in Japan, for instance, then it’s no good concentrating your efforts on Facebook because 80% of Japanese social media users are signed up with Mixi.jp, just as Xanga rules the roost in Hong Kong and Orkut in Brazil.

‘Crowdsourcing’ is another great development of Web 2.0 that can be used to commercial advantage. The concept basically does what it says on the tin – for those not in the know, it means to put out an open call to the lumpen mass of internet users to come together and assist with the completion of a project; think of Wikipedia as an archetypal crowdsourcing project. Crowdsourcing can be an extremely effective way to achieve a business goal or to increase your brand awareness – not to mention being cheap – and it’s a great way to get consumers directly involved with your brand.

For instance, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – the world’s largest open-access arts festival – recently ran a crowdsourcing project via Twitter to design their 2010 programme cover. Fans were encouraged to tweet their suggestions for illustrations to adorn the cover and selected suggestions were then drawn by a professional illustrator, whose work was streamed live online. The project was a great success in terms of both building hype about the 2010 Fringe and for strengthening the sense of community and crowd participation that is an essential ingredient of the Fringe’s success.

Lost in Translation?

In another example, Facebook crowdsourced the translation of their localized sites – over 300,000 users helped to translate content into 70 languages using the Facebook translation applications. However, crowdsourcing for technical work such as translation can have its pitfalls – by relying on anonymous internet users to provide and compile data, there is no quality assurance, and languages are particularly tricky beasts; they change constantly, evolving and morphing between regions and dialects, and the potential for error is great.

Getting the amorphous masses to translate your content for a web page or campaign may seem like a cheap and easy way to step over the language-hurdle, but how will you know precisely what your translated text is really saying? You don’t want to end up like Pepsi, whose Taiwanese translation of ‘Come alive with the Pepsi Generation’ came back as ‘Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead’, or chicken entrepreneur Frank Purdue, whose slogan ‘It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken’ turned up on Mexican billboards in translated into Spanish as ‘It takes a tough man to make a chicken aroused.’ Probably best to get a professional translator to either do your translation work from the start, or look over it before it goes out to the world, then.

For the savvy entrepreneur, the online realm has a wealth of ways to get your brand out there and to start connecting with the punters for minimal expense, and when used in combination with more traditional public relations strategies – such as press releases targeted at media sources – your company will be impossible to stop.

Christian Arno is the founder and managing director of global translation provider Lingo24, which works across four continents. Follow Christian on Twitter.

The Olympic television viewing activity, recorded by Nielsen, finds people are online while global events are broadcasted. Marketers may find it lucrative to engage their user base on social media networks during event broadcasts. I engaged communities prior and during the Super Bowl with a client microsite and had fantastic results.

You could see Neal interview some of the brightest minds on cyberspace including thought-leaders in social media marketing and search engine optimization on nealrodriguez.com where he offers his own social media and blog training program.

Building one’s network is no easy task.  I cannot stress this enough: you must love what you do in order to make that work.  If you don’t, you really should have someone doing it for you.  There are different ways of networking: some prefer pure online interactions, others like to meet in person at events, small group/one-on-one meetings – really a mix of all of these should get you the furthest toward your goals.

Something I don’t like about networking meetings in particular is the superficiality of it all.  Your goal in life isn’t just to accumulate business cards – business cards are crap.

It takes a while to really get to know your connections well.  And after a while, it is difficult to keep up with too many people simultaneously.  The famed Dunbar Number holds that a typical person cannot hold together over 150 connections.  So, it is inevitable while you are making connections, you are losing some as well.  Pretty self-defeating, isn’t it? Fear not, dear reader, for I have a solution for you.

Reconnecting.

Let’s work off the premise that it is easier to re-kindle an existing relationship than to start a new one.  Here are 10 suggestions on how to reconnect with others:

1 – Pick up the phone.

This may be difficult for you if you are an introvert, but the more human a connection, the more permanent it is.  Skype voice and video calls are also great for this purpose.

2 – Do one kind deed a day.

It isn’t just about the money.  If you are in social media marketing solely for this reason, well – that’s your prerogative.  I’m out to change the world.  A small task from your point of view can be of great value to others.  Helping a friend and asking nothing in return goes a long way and is remembered.

3 – Keep up better.

“But Brian!” You exclaim. “We can’t!”

Sure you can.  It’s simple to do using some of the following techniques:

• Calendar reminders
• CRM reminders
• Twitter lists
• IM groupings

4 – Be a better commenter.

5 – Guest blog for others and get guest bloggers.

6 – Interview someone.

7 – Be polite.

I’m fond of wishing people well each morning (ok, I may miss a few here and there) – you would be amazed what giving people a little bright spot in their day can do for them.  My friend @JonathanFields is also a fan of similar messaging, often asking people in the morning how he can help them today. (See Jonathan? People are listening and do appreciate your courtesy.)

8 – Make a gathering  of your own.

As an example, last year I put together the 10 in 10 experiment.  Was it successful? I’d like to think so.  The point of it was to connect with people on a more intimate level, my theory being that introverts or newcomers to a conference are pushed aside and don’t realize the full benefits of conferences or typical networking events.

9 – Another side of you.

Show old connections another side of you – if you were previously talking about work, perhaps sharing information about hobbies and other interests may be the way to go.

10 – Tagging.

Though kind of annoying (like the feeling you get when someone sends you a chain letter), it’s hard to ignore when someone tags you in a blog post or Facebook note.  Personally, I find this more passive and impersonal than some of my other suggestions, but it would be hard to argue against its effectiveness.

What do you do to build and keep your social network? Let me know in the comments.

(Image Source: Haley Landsman)

Ever since the concept of gaining your 1,000 true fans was talked about, there have been a lot of discussions on the topic. I’m personally a big fan of the idea; especially in a time where people are more focused on follower numbers and subscriber counts than how they can really help an audience.

In all honesty, I’ve never tried to attract my 1,000 true fans. Yet, I’m at the stage where I can launch a product and garner almost 700 sales, so I like to think I know quite a bit when it comes to building a loyal audience.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what your 1,000 true fans really are. In some regards, they don’t stand out; they are blog readers, newsletter subscribers, twitter followers or just casual browsers. But really, your true fans are the people that:

• Talk about you
• Promote your work
• Use your products / services with pride
• Feel like they are a part of your brand and your community

This last one is important and something that a lot of people forget. Make sure you don’t make the same mistake.

True fans grow your current audience, help you with your output (they’ll happily tell you when they don’t like what you’re doing) and buy your products. If you want to start gaining some true fans of your own, here’s what you need to do.

Trust In Your Own Voice

In order for people to give you permission to lead them, they have to trust you. And I can tell you now that you’ll never gain trust from others if you don’t first trust yourself. As long as you really have the best interests of your audience / market at heart, then believe that whatever it is you’re putting out to the world, is amazing.

Really.

If you don’t believe that your product, service or content is amazing, then why are you putting it out there in the first place? I write not only because I want to document my journey in different aspects of life, but because I believe I have knowledge and advice that can genuinely change peoples lives.

If you care about attracting your true fans, then you must believe that your work is enough.

Live Your Message

When I want to back a politician that is talking about climate change, am I going to vote for the guy that publicly drives his 4×4 around the streets of London, or the one that is constantly caught by the press on his bicycle?

If you’re helping people do or be something, then at least make sure that you have done it yourself or you’re getting very close advice from someone who has. My favourite way to build trust is to help people with a goal, and document my own process of achieving that goal.

For example, because I was able to build such a large audience in the personal development niche, I was able to write a very popular eBook. A few months later, I then wrote a 3,000 word blog post on the exact steps that were involved in the process. I knew my audience was interested in creating such a product, so I helped them to do it by revealing my methods.

If you’re spreading a way of living, a product to use, or a service you adore, then make sure you’re the expert on that product and live by that service. If you’re not practicing what you preach, why should people care about what you have to say?

Be an Expert

I don’t care how many times you tell me you can’t do something or how many things you say you’re not good at, I believe you’re an expect on something. You might actually believe you’re an expert on something but not know whether there’s an audience for that. Either way, you’re still an expert.

One of the most obvious ways to gain a loyal following is to offer the best advice on a given subject. If you are the go-to-source for anything, then you have a great opportunity to grow your fan base. I don’t like to call myself an expert on any topic, but I do make sure that I know my industry / product / service as well as (if not better than) anyone else.

If you don’t want to focus on becoming an expert, at least aim to know more about your ‘thing’ than anyone else. If you can’t see yourself as an expert on something, then at least be an expert at explaining the process, testing as much as you can or overcoming common problems.

Becoming an expert is one of the hardest thing to do, but it’s one of the easiest ways to grow your audience.

Give Away As Much As Possible

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that businesses need ways of making money in order to grow and that constantly giving away freebies isn’t always the best option, especially for start-ups or companies with little cash-flow. However, the strategy of giving as much free value as you can definitely has its place.

When I talk about ‘giving away,’ I’m really just talking about giving your audience as much free value as you can. Some examples of giving this value could be in:

• The content you produce for your own site
• The content you produce elsewhere (forums, guest posts, comments)
• Tools that your industry find indispensable
• The support that your company offers, as standard

I could go on and on about the ways you can give value, but I’m sure you have your own ideas based on whatever business is in your mind right now. There are a lot of people who are worried about giving ‘too much’ away because the value you offer isn’t directly making you money. I agree that there is a fine line between giving free value and deserving to make money for your work.

When it comes to giving things away, remember to be smart, but not stingy.

Now that I’ve shared my tips, I would love to hear yours in the comments. How are you working towards your 1,000 true fans?

Glen Allsopp writes at ViperChill, a blog about viral marketing. He has been with Collective-thoughts since day one, and is now making a long-overdue return.

I am one of the few people who didn’t throw a huge fit when the new version of Stumbleupon left beta. I admired the simplicity of the new interface and, as with most new things, decided to give the overhaul a fair shot before voicing my concerns about its limitations. In many respects, it’s much changed from the Stumbleupon the community had grown to love.

The developers at Stumbleupon attempted to make the site more social, adding in a bit of Facebook, a  bit of Twitter, and some minor changes to the navigation options of your home page. The most important of these new navigation options, the Discover tab, takes users to a page with even more tabbed options: Recent Activity, Top Rated, Shares and Topics.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you don’t nearly have enough time to keep up with all of your subscriptions’ discoveries and stumbles. These options, taking you to popular websites as rated by the community, seemed the answer. Users without the benefit of extra time could now discover the most popular content as selected by their subscriptions, bypassing the time-consuming default Stumble! button and getting straight to the highest rated content. While this may have been a great idea, providing Stumbleupon users with a dynamic and unique page of popular content (it is based on your subscriptions, right?), it really just exposed the fallacies inherent to Stumbleupon. Take a look at your Top Rated tab and maybe you’ll understand where it is I’m going with all of this.

Here are some of the links I’m greeted with when hitting the aforementioned tab:

• d-e-s-i-g-n.ru
• sharenator.org
• acidcow.com
• frozenly.com

All of those pages equate to what we call blogspam. Unfamiliar with the term and what it applies to? Allow me to explain.

Image Attribution

This is a very simple lesson in content creation that we all should understand and start adhering to if we wish to rid the Internet of stolen content and, well, stolen content.

Every image on every site should have attributions for their photos. If a stumble is primarily text and utilizes one image that simply relates to the post, that is fine (though it should technically still have a credit unless the blog owner bought it on istockphoto — or a similar site — or there’s no doubt they own it by some other means).

Here’s what every image should have otherwise (image source links are usually found beneath the image but sometimes a single link will be found in a post’s introduction paragraph):

(Source: Collective Thoughts)

Now, if you actually took the time to visit the links I listed above, you may have noticed the insane amount of traffic each one of the uncredited posts have accumulated. Thanks to Stumbleupon’s update, these numbers are made available to anyone with the desire to do some investigating. The cumulative traffic count for the four URLs is just about 600,000 pageviews. Not too shabby for blog / site owners who create none of their own content and fail to credit other people’s content every time they steal it. I don’t know about you, but I preferred the days when I was ignorant to the amount of traffic these undeserved thumbs generated for these bogus, lazily updated sites.

So, if you’re a site owner, credit your content. And, if like most of us, you’re simply a Stumbleupon user, try to demand more from the sites populating your precious community. Without policing, it’ll just get worse.

Internet radio has been around for some time now–at least since the mid nineties actually (earlier, if you count it’s infancy)–and it has most certainly evolved from those early days of streaming into the smooth and ubiquitous service that we take for granted today. Odds are you have used, or use, streaming audio and/or video and haven’t really given it a second thought. That’s good, and once again we have social media to thank for changing the nature of the game even here. Enter social music. Internet radio with a healthy social networking aspect thrown in. A great way to listen to a giant, 64 oz. variety gulp of music and share it with your friends, and family, or the world. All this and no commercials to boot, what more can you ask for?

Lack of choice never seems to be an issue with the internet and this is no exception if you’re looking to get your music fix online. We’re going to talk about an  exemplar in the field and try to give you a rundown of the features, functions, and what there is to like or dislike about them. So, without further delay, let’s take a close look at Last.fm, one of the more popular social music sites  out there and quite possibly the only social music source you’ll ever need.

I love Last.fm! However, one of the primary complaints about the site’s homepage is it’s busyness.  This may be my only issue with the site, but wow, there’s is definitely an excess of information to digest here. Sure, this may be because there’s so much available music to listen to—which is in no way a bad thing—but there’s a screaming background that users are force-fed as well. You can’t miss it, trust me; it’s a vert for one of those reality cooking shows. It gets on my nerves. Perhaps I’m just sensitive and my distaste for reality shows is getting in the way. Who knows?

Social music sites like Last.fm allow you listen to ‘radio stations’ based on your favorite artists. Search for an artist, song, or album and Last.fm will create a station for you which will only feature music by, or similar, to the artist you were interested in. It’s a great way to expand your music vocabulary by finding music that matches your listening preferences. If you hear something you really love, you can favorite it and it will automatically be sent to your own personal music library; one which you can return to again and again. Tagging is also supported, which is helpful for locating a particular type of sound or music. Tagging also sends items to your library.

Last.fm seems to have quite an extensive music catalog and bio’s are available for many of the artists. I found the bio sections on a few of my favorite bands to be chock-full of information. There’s plenty more information to be had as well, on practically any artist you can think of. Last.fm sports a similar artists list which, as you can surmise, provides you with a list of artists that are in some way similar to whatever artist you were checking out to begin with; another way, aside from just sitting back and listening, to find music you’re sure to like.

You can even create playlists of your favorite songs (assuming the tracks are available in full length of course, and not every track is). While playing around—bad pun intended—I created a very short playlist of songs from a handful of my favorite artists, all of which I’ve saved in my library. I can go back and fire up my playlist anytime I’m not in the mood for the more wide-ranging music selection of a standard artist station.

Now let’s talk about the social aspect of Last.fm. Create a station and you can share it with your friends by emailing directly to their inboxes, post it directly to Facebook or Twitter, bookmark it on Delicious, or you can Digg it. Can you dig it? (Zing!) You can easily tell all your friends about the great band you just discovered, and in turn they might be able to direct you to another that Last.fm just might have missed. There are also groups you can join where you can interact with other users who share your music tastes by joining in on discussions and checking out the group lists. This is, in particular, yet another way to find even more music you’ll love by tapping into the crowd. I love Guster and there’s an active discussion going on in the group right now that asks, ‘If you like Guster, you’ll like…‘. It’s word of mouth times a gabillion.

Another particularly nice feature, and one that’s incredibly easy to use on Last.fm, is the option to purchase very nearly any track you hear. This process is so easy it hurts. Hear a song you like, click the Buy Track dropdown and then choose where to buy the track from: Amazon MP3, 7Digital, or iTunes. Prices are around the 99 cent mark, which is about what we’ve come to expect from other music sources.

That pretty much covers the basics. But, fair warning, Last.fm can be addicting–the more you use it, the better able it is to recommend music to you. Couple this with the fact that you can take your music tastes with you anywhere you can access the internets and you might just grow a third ear for music (I kill me, I really do).

Ncomment is back with his second installment of his WAR series. Reddit has invaded the world of Digg and sent Diggers into hiding to plan a revolution against the alien and robotic army of Reddit invaders. With division of Diggers at an all time high, the Reddit army was able to invade the Digg city and bring it to its knees in a single day.

Ncomment has been able to perfectly capture the political and social issues surrounding social media in his comics since the time they were first introduced. Somehow, he’s hit the nail on the head each time. If you look carefully at his comics, some things are subtle and others not-so-much. Not only does he capture social media issues, he also  includes avatars and logos of well-known publications and social media users.

From TechCrunch Candy Bars, BuzzEdition Beer, The Drill Down Bilboards, Nowsourcing street signage, and The Huffington Post Copy Center, Ncomment has been spot-on. WAR part 2 is packed with social media references and well known sites. Mixx.com has become a refugee camp where Lt. General Panda has begun work on his ultimate weapon (powered by bacon) while the Social Blend news van is parked out front. We even get a look at the Holy Grail itself — the Digg algorithm.

So how does he do it? Ncomment applies one of the best known rules of the Internet, #32, “Lurk Moar.” And boy does he lurk.  Only by doing so has he been able to capture the essence of social media so perfectly — its users. He engages them, gets to know them and then folds them perfectly into his comics. He even takes a stab at Ashton Kutcher and his Twitpics. No one is safe.

WAR Part 2 hit the Digg Front Page and was met by rave reviews of Diggers and Redditors alike.

“Best thing I have seen on Digg all week! LMAO!” says Digger Sexualwasabi.

“Best fffing comic evar” writes glucoseboy.

“I saw this headline and I honestly thought, ‘please God let this be ncomment’ – very well done!” says Jaybol.

WAR Part 2 has been eagerly awaited by social media enthusiasts, more so than the New Moon movie by teenage girls.  Ncomment delivers, and we can’t wait for Part 3.

A friend of mine in Social Media was checking out a site with me the other day and discovered the site had a forum. “Wow! A Forum!” he exclaimed, “That’s so 1999.” His comment made me realize that some people share his same mentality but yet, totally miss the point.

In my dealings in Social Media, and in the internet in general, I’ve noticed that forums still play a huge part in the realm we know as the internet. A ton of internet memes have started in forums and continue to be to this day. So why do people have the idea that a forum is “So 1999?”

Everyone is getting lost in other forms of communication on the internet. Not that using these new methods is the wrong thing to do at all, it’s not. I do feel people should take a step back and look at the big picture. Forums and boards have been around for a long time yes, but they still play a huge part in content delivery; some of that content delivery kept us “In the know” during the Iran protests.  Secret forums were set up by the group we all know as Anonymous during the Iran protests. These forums hosted Iranian Government Proxy information so protesters on the ground could Tweet, Stream, upload, and blog in real time about what was happening there. During that time we all saw the carnage, the resolve, and the martyrs of the Iran protests, thanks to a forum.

One really cool forum I came across this week is MyBlogGuest, a community of guest bloggers. Now, I have to say, I was kicking myself for not thinking of this first.  I ran across this site as a result of a Twitter Stream from Ann Smarty. To me this seemed like a really good use for a forum, so I joined up and noticed a lot of high-end blogs are signing up.

So if forums are so 1999, it seems 1999 put out a really good tool that year, a tool that in my view, we will keep using.

Don’t forget about your friends.  It’s supposed to be social after all.

For any of you that have me on a variety of IM programs, you have no doubt noticed that I typically keep it on the “do not disturb” setting.  This is usually because I’m busy most of the day and really cannot stop to chat.

But wait a minute.  Isn’t social media supposed to be social?

Yes.  Yes it is.  The problem with social for some of us is that it so easily blends with work and play that we find much of our day kept up online.

You have also no doubt seen some of the sore spots opened up by the Businessweek article about being careful of social media snake oil.  I found a follow up post on it from the Harvard Business Review and saw that a few of my social media friends had retweeted it.

Susan aka @buzzedition had retweeted it and it occurred to me that we hadn’t chatted in ages.

What’s the world coming to that you need to get your friend’s attention by retweeting them? Note that this wasn’t her goal – it was just good content to review and retweet.

It almost makes you miss the days when you didn’t feel the need to keep up with every tweet and micro instance of everyone’s day.  To keep sanity, I try to remind myself that Twitter and other such social media outlets are a stream that I can enter and exit when it best fits my time budget.

How do you keep up with your social friends these days? Or, are your relationships deteriorating before you know it? Let us know.

In my last post here on CT, I spoke of not being afraid to jump right into the social media pool and start paddling, not worrying about whether you really knew what was going on or what’s what. So I thought I’d continue that trend and talk (briefly) about that beacon of social media possibilities, lighting the way for all others, that pinnacle of Web 2.0 achievement, the place to be on the Net, because if you’re not–and we’re just being honest here, right?–you’re a nobody, a boob, and a general failure as a 21st century human being. Alright, a bit too far with that last one.

I’m talking about Twitter, my friends, and while I may have put the shine on a bit too thick just now, one might be remiss in underestimating the value and power of Twitter. Now I’m not going to tell you what Twitter is; everybody probably has at least a general idea of it, except perhaps David Letterman.

This isn’t a guide by the way, I figure that’s been done already, and more skillfully than I could probably manage. Also I realize that many of our readers will be familiar with all this, but maybe, just maybe, some of you don’t know. Maybe some of you are like Dave there, afraid of  Twitter or anything social media-like. Let us not forget the beginner’s mind; it never hurts to review the basics right?

One of the complaints I’ve encountered when people talk about trying Twitter, or not as the case may be, is that they simply don’t know what to say. Or having said something, they fear they will look the fool for throwing it out there into the great Twittersphere. I understand; know that you are not alone friends, Twitter can be a little intimidating for some, and there is a non-trivial learning curve. I know after creating my Twitter account that I felt a bit overwhelmed and not a little confused by it all. Pile on top of that the fact that it’s kind of hard to follow conversations that you encounter with people you follow because they’re talking to someone else(this is less of a problem now, especially given the plethora of high quality Twitter clients available).

I introduced a close friend of mine to Twitter a while back, and noticed she wasn’t really tweeting much—OK, not at all really aside from her introductory, ‘Hey world!’—and since we communicate regularly through other means, like the primitive phone, I asked her why that was. She told me she wanted to tweet, but every time she brought up the update box, she just froze. She couldn’t think of anything important enough to say, and didn’t think anyone would be interested in what she was doing every minute of the day.

Behold, two common misconceptions regarding Twitter! You don’t have tweet about everything you do, and if you did,  you would be right that no one would want to know what you’re doing every minute, and you would end up alone and followerless. But, if some of your friends were following you they might want to know that you are, (a) under the weather, (b) dying, or (c) just having a crappy day in general. Your tweets don’t have to be earth shattering revelations, or hot breaking news, unless perhaps you are @MSNBC (in that case carry on). You don’t have to sit and wait for the muse to hit you on top of the head with profound and pithy attestations (I looked at my word-a-day calendar this morning). Think of Twitter as a community of potential friends. I mean they don’t call it social networking for nothing right? Instead of worrying about being important or popular, why not share a link to a site or video you thought was interesting; if you thought it was interesting, somebody else just might as well. See an article that made you so angry you wanted to scream? Link it in a tweet, make others aware of it.

Keep in mind that we’ve been coming at Twitter from a more or less personal angle. More and more businesses are hopping on the social media wagon; maybe your company already has. It would behoove anyone in today’s market to familiarize themselves—at least somewhat—with the flexibility and power of Twitter, and other social media outlets. Earlier this year, Business Week put together a special report which speaks directly to executives on the wonders and possibilities of social media for their companies and/or brands.

And it’s not just larger corporations that are slowly realizing the benefits of social media involvement; small businesses are picking up on the vibes and possibilities well. Again from Business Week, this article discusses some advantages for business owners and tips on how to get started, and why. And if you check out that article you might notice the advice uncannily echoes a running theme in this post, and my last one: Don’t worry about the small stuff, jump on in and get wet.

Here are links to a couple of guides for Twitter. There are a gabillion of them on the Net, but these were most helpful to me. Good luck!

1. Squidoo’s Twitter Tutorial. It even has a video!
2. Mashable’s Awesome Twitter Guide Book.

Jamie slogs through cyberspace in his free time, learning whatever he can, writes short stories, and tends his own blog www.residuetiger.com. You can follow him on Twitter as well: @residuetiger.

Another holiday has come and gone. The crowds gathered on Black Friday and today the techies drain bandwidth for Cyber Monday. With most readers of Collective Thoughts being tech savvy, I don’t have to break down the dangers of online shopping and scams. However, I would like to encourage everyone to pass on the knowledge.

For example, your grandmother or mother (depending on your age), how much do they know about these scams? A lot of baby boomers are taking to the Social Web and think they are beginning to get an idea of how it all works. However, in most instances, this is not the case.

Are you familiar with the old saying about “knowing just enough to be dangerous?” Well, in today’s Social sphere, that statement rings truer than ever. Technology has accelerated at such a significant rate, catching up isn’t so easy for a less tech-oriented generation. They want to use sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to stay connected to their friends, and let’s face it; these sites, security-wise, have become a hen-house of sorts, and there’s no farm dog there to look after them. Weasels and foxes abound.

I, as well as my colleagues, have noticed GenX and GenY are starting to step in and police their family’s actions. Not only in Facebook posts, but also in online shopping, and gaming apps. With all the gaming apps like Farmville, Mobsters, and the hundreds of others, the tech-educated have noticed a lot more scams and virus outbreaks. The problem is that the users of these apps have no clue what they are doing. These apps are addicting and annoying to non-users. I have actually un-friended people on Facebook for being app addicts. I really don’t care how many pigs you raised, or how awesome of a hitman you’ve become. I am concerned for your well being aunt Kim. How many offers did you sign up for to get “FREE” Farmville upgrades? Watch your credit card statement Aunt Kim.

TechCrunch did a great piece on these scams that I highly recommend you read and share with your families. In case they are not techies, direct them to the Washington Post article as well. It really is up to us to watch out for them and educate them.

Speaking of education, in the TechCrunch article they target Video Professor. Apparently Video Professor has some special offers in the game apps to get upgrades for the game. The offer claims that you pay only $10 for shipping up-front. But then there’s always the fine print. Apparently, the $10 is for shipping all of the Video Professor’s library and you have to send them back or get charged $189. A lot of people have fallen victim to this scam. They have seen Video Professor on TV and therefore assume he has credibility and that they’d not get taken by the guy. Video Professor said it’s all clear in the fine print.

If Video Professor wants to show you how to do things correctly on the internet, then why are they doing things wrong? Should you not protect your brand? The web is buzzing about the article where Video Professor was called out and they have even made it a point to go after anyone who criticizes them. Here is my guidance Video Professor, from someone who I dare say has gained an Associates Degree from the Social Media “Community” College but is not an “Expert” or “Professor” in Social Media: Accept the fact that what you are doing is wrong. Do it on as many blog posts and Social Networks as possible. Then, set up a means to refund EVERYONE you have done wrong. Make the refunds as public as possible. Also, engage — not aggressively — but engage your critics. Find out what your critics have to say and ASK them how you can make things better. Additionally, make sure all offers are CLEAR. Not just in fine print. This would absolutely improve your image.

People everyday are taken for a ride, be it online shopping scams, 419 scams, gaming apps, or viruses. Let’s all pass our knowledge on to the less fortunate, and have a great and safe Holiday Season.

We’ve all seen it. What once worked in social media six months ago doesn’t work now. Why, for instance, does a large following on Twitter no longer indicate influence? Or why is blogging no longer as impressive as it was in 2003? Both these examples follow a predictable economic formula:

As “x” social behaviour multiplies, its social value approaches zero.

Let me break that down for you. The more you do the same thing, people’s appreciation of it lessens. The more you do the same song and dance, don’t be surprised if your audience dwindles. This should be obvious, but it’s not.

LiveJournal: An Example

Most of us think of LiveJournal as the walking corpse of the social media world, but it wasn’t always so. It was one of the first platforms to combine blogging with social networking. More fascinatingly, people who had a LiveJournal felt it gave them status: in order to have one, you had to be invited.

Then it happened. Danga Interactive, LiveJournal’s parent company, removed the invite requirement. Soon everyone who wanted one could have one. This was the beginning of the end.

The problem was everyone wrote about the same things: breakfast, cute kittens, and favourite movies. LiveJournal succeeded in the task of being a journal, but as the novelty of public journalling wore off, so did its perceived value. Soon, users left LiveJournal for the unique feature set of MySpace — and we all know what happened to MySpace.

State of the Social Media Union

Most popular social media tools have their time in the sun then go through a slow rigor mortis. Usenet was once the reason people paid for Internet. Chatrooms were how people dated online. MySpace was a “place for friends”. What happened?

Everyone was doing it, and everyone was behaving the same way. Usenet became so burnt out over flame wars, the term “troll” was coined and “Godwin’s Law” became a law. The acronym “ASL” became such an overused greeting in chatrooms, their very purpose became sexual gratification. As for MySpace, “making friends” became the basis of many a Catch a Predator episode.

We are seeing the same pattern of behavior happen on Twitter, Digg, and Facebook — and if people keep doing the same things, those social networks will soon have less social value than they currently have now.

How Can We Add Value?

The social media slide into rigor mortis is not inevitable. The only way to reverse the lessening of social value is to give your audience value. That is to say, behave in a different way from everyone else. If a platform is flexible enough for innovative forms of communication, and if communities are courageous enough to move beyond their own cliches, social media can thrive.

Want to remain relevant in social media? Behave differently.

Social media gives us the ability to practice in public more than ever before.  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

If you’ve ever read The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen (I just finished reading it), you get a pretty clear read on what he thinks of most user-generated content:  very little.  His concerns range from the welfare of professional content creators (who are losing out to massive quantities of amateur content)  to the disintegration of Western civilization by narcissistic neophytes who post amateur videos and pictures on Facebook, YouTube and MySpace whilst reducing their (and our?) collective IQs.  If you buy his arguments, there are some pretty serious problems that Web 2.0 and social media have to be held accountable for.

But the rise of the amateur isn’t one of them.  Amateurs have always been around.  They’re just more visible now.

There’s no doubt that modern Web technologies have made it monumentally easier to create content in a fraction of the time that it used to take to create audio programs, short movies, or magazine articles.  There’s definitely a plethora of user-generated content (the term often used to described all of the comments, articles, videos, posts, etc. made available on ostensibly free websites) on the Web and yes, some of it stinks.  Some of it is excellent and there’s probably a big pile of stuff in the middle that’s mediocre at best. 

A lot of crap was made prior to Web 2.0 as well.  Tons and tons of it.  There may have been less amateur content in years past than there is now because the enabling technologies that make it a snap to publish photos, videos, blogs, and podcasts didn’t exist or weren’t affordable a decade ago.  But it was certainly around.

Amateur video.  Homemade comedy cassettes.  Fanzines.  APAzines.  Community theatre.  Community-access TV.  College radio.  Open mike nights at comedy clubs.

There have always been places for the unpaid creator to practice their avocation.  There have always been people who slave over these hobbies because, well, they’re fun things to do.  Funny thing:  many of them went on to become bona fide professionals, earning a living using the skills that they developed during their hobbies.  The production of dreck is an accepted side-effect of practicing and honing your skills as you try to become better.

The only major change is that people can now practice in public on a much larger scale than the previous generation could ever have done.  They do stuff for free because they love to and because they see it as a means to an end, the next step on a long, daring journey to mastery.

Alternatives to mainstream media have always existed but social media, Web 2.0, and high speed Internet have made it easier than before to publish. 

I don’t deny that social media has allowed some content to come to light that might have been better buried in a locked drawer somewhere out of reach.  But I don’t think that giving the amateur a chance to air his or her work in public is, at heart, a bad thing.  I think it’s a great opportunity for people who have dreamed of a chance to reach a larger audience.  It may make for a noisier world and it may force professionals to turn things up a notch to compete, but the enabling technologies are here to stay.  The genie’s out of the bottle; might as well enjoy the ride.

Image by rhurtubia

While practicing in public, Mark Dykeman writes at Broadcasting Brain and other fine blogs.  You can find him on Twitter when he least expects it.

As a known Social Media enthusiast, I’m privy to a ton of information. I stand on the sidelines of various Social Media realms and watch as drama unfolds. I find that it’s usually the best thing to do when two opposing forces in Social Media go head to head. It’s not that I’m disloyal, don’t get me wrong, but rather that I prefer to not get involved.  “Jay not get involved? Since when is Jay a pacifist? I thought Jay was a Marine!” Well, yeah, I choose which battles to fight, especially when it comes to elite Diggers throwing down on each other.

I refuse to name names, that wouldn’t be classy of me. I am, however, going to give a run down on how the battle has been fought; it’s actually been quite interesting.

It all started with Google. Yeah, you heard right, Google. Google has been posting Sesame Street / Google Logos all week to celebrate Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary. As anyone who is an internet junkie knows, Google tends to do this sort of thing to celebrate milestones or holidays.

One Digger, with a good ratio I might add, had been placing these images on his site, and submitting the new image each day to Digg from his site.  Another Digger saw it but had also submitted the image directly from Google. The first Digger (Digger A) cried Dupe! In doing so he went after the other Digger (Digger B) and reported the image to Digg. Well, things got real nasty.

Name calling ensued in a chat and before you know it Digger A got Digger B banned. A fine line was crossed in the whole ordeal.  Digger A was posting the images on his site, some people calling him out for “Blogspam,” but he considered the images a place holder as Google would change them everyday. Digger B, being an old school Digger, had linked to the original source.  Digger A did not care, he was mad over the whole dupe ordeal. Things escalated sverely after that.

With the banning of Digger B, being an old school Digger, things did not look well for the upstart. I even shot a friendly warning to Digger A. “Hey man, he is old school, watch your step, his loyalties run deep.” I guess my warning fell on deaf ears. The name calling and threats continued. Digger A then lashed out at other people in the chat who were making lighthearted jokes about the situation. With a line in the sand already drawn, my advice would have been not to upset everyone else.

Elsewhere, other old-school Diggers heard of Digger B’s banning at the hands of Digger A. Things do not look well for Digger A. Yesterday his account was banned from Digg, his site is under DDOS attack, a satire blog has been erected to forever mock him and a lot of people in the Social Media Community are upset with him.

You guys still with me on the whole A/B thing?

Many mistakes were made during this dis-agreement.

1. If you do have an issue with someone’s submission, especially a dupe, approach the individual who duped you. If the individual will not take down his submission, make a friendly game out of. (Okay, first one to the FP wins, loser buys a beer at next meet up.)

2. Social Media or Social News Sites are just that, Social! Play well with others. Do not soil your name and give yourself a bad reputation.

3. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  Sound familiar? It should. Same rules apply to any war if you expect to win. If you do have a rival, find out his mistakes and exploit them if need be, but it must be done in a way that keeps you squeaky clean. Name calling and bashing only makes you look bad.

4. KNOW YOUR ENEMY! Good Intel is always key to winning any war. Know who is loyal to them and their amount of influence. Crossing one person could mean crossing more people than you realize.You must also know the level of your rivals technical skill — there are a lot of good hackers out there. Do your homework!

5. Be prepared to defend yourself and your brand. A good defense is also a great offense.

6. Never, Never, Ever, write a check your butt can’t cash. If you have to resort to threats, make sure you can carry them out. Empty threats make you lose credibility.

Hopefully you should never have to deploy any of these tactics. Just like real life, most small conflicts can be settled using a good attitude, and a little respect.

Then again, The Internet is serious business.

In the grand scheme of things I am but a babe when it comes to social media. A rookie. A noob, if you will, though to spare my fragile feelings I’d just as soon you didn’t, really. Nope, no expert opinions here folks, just me stumbling along, trying to learn what I can. Like some great person of yore once said, “I’m just a worm crawling through the dirt of life.”(Actually that was me, I used it as a tag line on one of the many social media outlets I’ve tried, and may perhaps still use, I’m not really sure, but feel free to use it for your own purposes if you like.)  But this is a good thing actually. In Zen Buddhism there is a concept known as beginner’s mind, and it means, basically, that the mind of someone who is new to something (a beginner), is free of the rigidity and ‘old-hat’ mentality of the expert who has seen and knows much. They are open to new things and new ways, and the ever-changing sea of social media is inherently new. Isn’t it?

The metaphor of the sea is particularly fitting because not only is social media, and with it the Internet, constantly changing and growing, it also implies a flow. A constant flow of information: emails, images, blurbs, and yes… tweets. We often find ourselves buried beneath a relentless tide of information. Will it ever stop, or do we even want it to really? More importantly, how do you handle it all?

If you’re anything like me, the Internet has reduced your attention span to that of a gnat; there’s just so much to look at. Sometimes I feel like a cat in a room full of laser pointers. No, really! Even when I sit down at the keyboard with a plan, fully intent of looking up one thing –  just one thing! — if I’m not careful, I end up clicking 57 links, only snapping out of the trance once done digesting  the Evolution of Toilets (via lovetoknow.com).

This isn’t a new idea though, is it? The Internet has been driving us mad with choice from day one. But now we have social media thrown into the mix; Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace just some of the names which come to mind. Naming all of them would be another post altogether (actually that would be another venture-funded web project and a lifetime of work—venture capitalists, feel free to email me, we’ll talk). It’s a wonder we get any work done today at all.

It can be done, and trust me, there are greater minds than this one working on it. David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done, advises that one must be judicious in choosing who and what we interact with online, and even he acknowledges that it’s a slippery slope.

The most obvious issue about social media: Is this a useful way to spend your time, or is it a sinkhole of attractive distraction? It could very easily be one of those one minute, and the other the next! It all depends on why you’re doing it, and this must be evaluated moment to moment. It’s an important distinction to make for yourself, because focus is probably your greatest asset that you can control. You must be judicious about where you place it and what you let grab it, thus reducing your effectiveness.

credit: AFP

I’d like to thank you all for your patience through the times that this site has been quiet. Many of the original authors have gone on and are quite busy, but I didn’t see why that had to be the end of our community.

After about 2 years of reflection, we’ve seen where our strengths and weaknesses were, and wanted to give you a list of what the new Collective Thoughts will be about:

1 – Updates. Things slowed to the point where we were updating only monthly. Look for many more frequent posts in our new organization.

2 – Focus. While the post focus is still going to be revolving around social media, what’s meant by focus is the authors and their perspectives. I feel that we had the SEO / Social contingent, but this time around, we have a more rounded model across the realm of social – including more that are new to the game, PR types and the like.

3 – Bells and Whistles. We’ll be making some changes and tweaks to the overall UI as well as adding in some of the latest new fangled fun gadgets.

4 – Authors. In the past, we have not had guest posts. We’re changing things up a bit adding more regular and guest authors, though at this point it is by invite only. If you’re interested in contributing, contact us.

Looking forward to coming back into the fold with you!

Humans think they’re such hot stuff.  Them and their opposable thumbs.  I’ll have you know that us felines are really the strength behind Twitter.  Don’t believe me? Apparently the San Diego News Network does:

Brians_cat and PETCO haz a conversation

That’s right folks.  PETCO pays Natalie Davis, Director of E-commerce to talk to pets.  We even convinced her to get her cat Leo to start getting up and running on Twitter.

We cats are better equipped than you humans for taking over the social media sphere anyway.  Here’s just a few signs of our prowess:

1. The expression is LOLCats.  Ever see a LOLhuman? Pssh.
2. Cats sleep 18 hours a day, so we’re better rested.  Besides, humans are always too busy “working” to mess with Twitter as we cat professionals are.
3. We outrank you.  @Sockington has 3/4 of a million users following him on Twitter.  Ashton Kutcher and CNN are clearly fronts for the feline empire.
4. Twitter is a bird.  Cats catch birds.  We’ve caught you.

Image credit: Twitkitteh

This has been an informal update by Brian’s Cat – if you want more informal thoughts, follow me on Twitter.

Although I have had these thoughts about this many times before, I never placed pen to paper to convey my thoughts. I began this version of this post while sitting outside of Laidoffcamp/Freelancecamp in Miami. I was watching the afternoon monsoons about to come down on me. I was sitting alone in a garden of hedges and walkways watching the passersby. Everyone seemed to be busy buzzing by. The cool breeze just washed in from the approaching rain. I can feel the electricity in the air. The energy created by everyone that attends social gathering of large magnitude is incredible. The energy feels like the change in the air as a storm rolls in. I also have a sad disturbing feeling of what is about to happen.

photo credit miamisunpost.com

Unfortunately in the past once the excitement of the event dissipated the attendees often fall back into their daily grind and lose their zeal. The positive drive is taken away by the dream stealers and opposing elements. The mega builders in the MLM industry have spoke of this for as long as I can remember. They were always looking for a paradigm shift. Looking forward from where I am at, has technology brought this downward spiral to an end? Can the mix of an online presence keep the energy going?

Let’s look at online social networking; we have so many places to congregate. Every day I am approached by someone new with an idea or thought on how to make communication online one step easier. Although most of the concepts are spun over and over, often there is a spark of true imagination that pops into view. The main downfall of so many ideas is the lack of true open communication. It is difficult to pass the same feelings over phone, let alone a keyboard. If you lack communicative skills you may feel that your voice may never be heard. Video and webcams do help to transfer the visual imagery to a point. If there was a way to capture the intimate relation of one on one conversation like that of being in person, online long distance communications would also see a parabolic leap in growth.

I am one of the biggest supporters of both online and offline congregative tools. Conferences and Barcamps are great for connecting with your online social graph, but only occur over large periods of time. Refresh Miami and Social Media Club of South Florida hold monthly meetings that I have attended for close to a year now. (Both organizations are opening events, some may be near you.) Before that I was also very active in the local Meetups that are held here in South Florida. Now there has been a great surge in Tweetups popping up all around me. Some are even specializing these Tweetup events. Craig of Worst Pizza has taken this idea even further with starting Pizza Tweetups. These events are great sources of support for your online endeavors. They help you to cement your online bonds with the brick and mortar world that many of us are quickly leaving behind. Plus they are a great source to build your social graph with users that would ordinarily not friend you till a physical connection has been made.

I wrote this post to quite some thoughts on what needs to be addressed about online and offline social networking. Do we really need that physical connection to build our networks or is a virtual world something that we are all going to embrace in the future? Tell me, do we really need to attend offline events to grow? Are these events something that will advance the online world? Are these offline events dragging back the innovations that we need to make the next leap forward to a truly virtual world?

What is your view?