Archive for the 'Social Networks' Category

clipped from www.weblo.com Weblo Properties offer you the exciting opportunity of owning absolutely any property that exists in the real world - well, a cyber copy of it, that is! Buy and sell cities, states, airports, historical places, buildings, even your home. But you have to be the first to get it on Weblo! Own cities and states and you’ll become the Mayor or Governor, you might even become the President of your country. Get paid for advertising revenues generated from your properties.

=>> California is sold for $53,000

=>> The White House is going for £10m.

=>> At the time of writing, England is up for grabs.

=>> There’s an auction section as well just to crank things up to a fever pitch…

If you do go and buy anything at Weblo, do come back and let me know and I’ll feature your property on ZenGuide.

Flickr - notice the spelling (no “e”) - is a social networking site for photographs. You can sign up for a free account and upload your photos. Once you have an account, you get a dedicated webpage address for your photos eg http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourchosenflickrpagename. You can give that link to anyone so they can go to view your photos there.

Public/ private

You can display all or some only of your photos as public (for anyone and everyone to see) or private (which only your friends and family can see). In order to for friends and family to see your private photos, they will need to sign up for their own Flickr account as well - that’s a bit more cumbersome than allowing the whole world to see your pics but then if privacy is important to you, then it’s worth those extra couple of steps for your friends and family.

People viewing your pictures can leave comments for each photo. You can turn comments off if your prefer.

Groups

You can set up a group with your family and friends so you can all pool your photographs.

There are also different public groups on Flickr that you can join. eg if you have photos all about cars, you could pool your car pics into a car group which will have photos by other car enthusiasts. If there isn’t already a group for cars or whatever theme you are passionate about, you can always start one of your own.

People are also using groups in creative ways. Here are some groups to explore:

I love this one - Stick Figures in Peril: photos of those warning signs showing stick figures in all kinds of terrible situations. It makes a nervous person like me feel that the whole world is a minefield of terror…

This one is brilliantly creative - Tell a Story in Five Frames: use five photos in sequence to tell a story. I featured some good short photo stories on my arts blog, Fusion View, in the post “Micro Photo Stories”

This one is starkly hypnotic - Urban Explorers: the invitation to post your photos here says. “photos and stories about abandoned paper mills, condmened hospitals, decaying barns, etc… please do not post typical cty pictures here.”

Creative Commons Licence

For bloggers, Flickr is a great resource for free photos to illustrate your posts. In the “Search” section, choose “Advanced Search” and click on the option to Search within Creative Commons-licensed photos and type in the keyword you want.

Creative Commons Licensed photos are those that their creators have offered to the world to use for free by clicking on the relevant Creative Commons Licence option within Flickr. The only condition is that you credit the creator and link back to the Flickr page where you got the photo. Note that you should check if there are any restrictions in the Creative Commons Licence restricting commercial use or changes to the original photo.

Many ways to upload your photos

There are a number of ways to upload your photos. You can go to the Flickr upload page and upload it 6 photos at a time from there. Or you can download the Flickr Uploader onto your desktop and upload loads and loads of photos all in one go. Or you can even upload photos by email from your email account or your mobile phone - Flickr gives you a dedicated email address to email the pics to.

Tags

Tags are handy labels you can give to your photos so you can easily find them again. You can also search other people’s public photos by tags to see, say, all pics tagged with “car” or “Malaysia” etc.

Free versus Pro Accounts

The free account allows you to upload up to 200 photos. There is also a monthly upload limit (based on megabytes per month). And you can only create 3 “sets” or folders.

The Flickr Pro Account costs US$47.99 for two years (or US$24.95 for one year). There is no limit to the number of photos you can upload nor any monthly limit. You can also create as many folders as you like.

Conclusion

I like Flickr and use it now for all my private photographs. The interface is a little bit complex and takes a bit of exploration and getting into the mindset of the people who designed the site. But overall, I find it a quick and easy way to sort and store my photos and also to share photos with my internationally-based family - there’s nothing like getting an update from my cousin in Australia and being able to see her photos on Flickr within minutes of her uploading them!

According to a Microsoft survey, 75% of blogs hosted by Blogger.com are spam blogs. These are the free blogs that have “.blogspot.com” as part of their domain name that up till now have been used primarily by personal bloggers and those who don’t want to spend any money on their online presence. This disturbing new trend was reported on a legal blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, in April 2007, by Kevin O’Keefe a US lawyer.

He makes the point that law firms who use the free Blogger platform to save money are therefore in a blogging network surrounded by spam blogs. I would add my voice to this concern - as a business owner, are these the kind of blogging neighbours you want associated with your corporate blog? If “.blogspot.com” is widely known as the blogging platform of choice for personal bloggers, people who don’t want to invest any money in their web presence and now spam bloggers , what does it say about your brand to have that as part of your domain name?

I reported awhile back on the recent US survey that indicated that 75% of the wealthy in America read blogs. This is a great opportunity for businesses who would like to reach this group via blogging. But the wealthy and powerful are most likely to be used to top-quality, high-value goods, services and experiences. Will your .blogspot.com domain and generic template give them a blog-visiting experience that is going to meet those expectations?

I came across a US-based life coach who was offering services that would help his client achieve “excellence” and “peak performance”. His copy was all superlatives of that nature. But his blog was a .blogspot.com blog - and he was using the first template you come across when signing up to a blog on Blogger. I have to say, I didn’t believe that he believed a thing that he was saying.

There is a reason why designer goods stores and top-notch service firms are fitted out luxuriously with top quality wood and shiny marble, gleaming glass and indoor exotic plants and water features. They all add up to say “We’re worth it” and “You, as our customer, deserve the best visiting experience.”

For a business to have a free .blogspot.com domain - especially if you don’t even make an effort to customise the generic template - seems to me increasingly like trying to setting yourself up as luxury goods outlet offering Gucci and Versace products and then selling them out of the back of your car on a lay-by.

The survey “Connecting Web Spammers and Advertisers” can be read as a pdf file. It has been said by other commentators that the survey was commissioned by Microsoft, who are rivals with Google, the company that owns Blogger.com and the outcome was bound to have something negative to say about Blogger. Personally, I like Blogger as a starting point for new bloggers - because it’s free and it’s easily customisable, it’s a great place to practice your blogging skills. It’s also ideal for personal bloggers and others who have little or no budget. But for business or corporate blogging, you really need to see blogging as part of your brand and marketing strategy and act accordingly.

I’ve also blogged earlier on the merits or otherwise of free blog platforms in my post “Are You Worth It?”.

Disclosure: we offer a bespoke website and/ or blog design service starting from £500 and a year’s hosting from £30. But you don’t have to use our design services - our consultancy is about helping you enhance your online presence not just selling web design services. So, if you want a bespoke blog, one place to start is to speak to the people who designed your main website and see what they can do for you - or if you’d like to find out more about how we can help with designing your integrated website and blog, by all means email or call me via the Contact Us link at the top of this page.

Photo: thanks to alaska.net

A recent survey by the wonderfully  named Luxury Institute reveals that over three quarters of the rich in America read blogs - up 25% from two years ago. In contrast, only one quarter of the general population read blogs. A third of rich Americans use social networking sites as compared to only 16% of the general population. The “rich” in this study were 1000 web users making more than US$150,000 (GB £75,000) a year.

This is good news for businesses with high-end goods or services to offer - especially if they are blogging or considering a blog for their business.

The study focuses only on America. I expect that one could make a correlation with the same demographic over here in the UK, or anywhere else in the world. It wouldn’t surprise me that those with more disposable income would have the means to read blogs and interact on social networks - computers ain’t cheap. And knowledge, information and networking are valuable assets that contribute to the success of business people and professionals - so it is probably natural that they would be the ones checking out blogs for information and social networks for contacts.

I think that it’s not so simple as buying a whole bunch of ads on social network sites or on blogs. The audience is likely to be more sophisticated and have higher expectations than the general population so the content of a business blog or social network presence needs to be tailored with that in mind.

Technorati Tags: wealthy, luxury, blogging, social media, social networking, rich

The world was horrified by the events at Virginia Tech last week when a student went on the rampage and shot fellow students and teachers at the campus, killing 32 people. Like many people following the unfolding of events, I am saddened by this tragedy and offer my sympathies to the families of those killed and injured.

Traditional media

When I hear about such horrific things in the news, I turn first to the press and traditional media. I expect to get from that source a reliable and factual reporting of events. We trust the traditional media because we know they cross-check stories and are careful to distinguish speculation from facts and opinion from reportage. Professional journalists arrive at the scene and start finding out what happened, talking to people who were involved, getting stories from witnesses and taking photographs.

New media

With email and social media tools like blogging and Twitter - and the ubiquitous mobile phone, the people involved and others who witnessed the Virginia Tech shootings began spontaneously to tell their own stories, in some cases even as the events were unfolding. The Guardian reported on 17 April that the traditional media was looking to websites for their sources:

News outlets turned to CollegiateTimes.com and PlanetBlacksburg.com, as well as to amateur reporters huddled in college rooms or near the scene who were sending frantic emails to friends and media organisations such as CNN.

CollegiateTimes.com, the website for Virginia Tech’s student newspaper, filed up-to-the-minute online dispatches.

Students were using Facebook and MySpace, social networking sites, to express their responses to what happened, sharing their shock and grief online as they might have done coming face to face in a crisis. ABC News reported these comments from students writing in Facebook:

~ If you are okay! Please update your status in facebook to say something like “I’m okay”

~ We need to get a facebook group started to keep this news story factual and not sensationalized.

~ I too started getting messages from people from different countries wanting more and more info about the incident. Some even went to the extent of asking me to record my reaction over a video cam and send it to them. Disgusting!

Suicide Video

Later, it emerged that the killer, Cho Seung-hui, had compiled a suicide video and digital photo album which he sent to NBC, a US television network. The Guardian reports that following the TV broadcast, the tapes were “rebroadcast instantly around the world on TV and online represents the sinister side of user generated content….The NBC video is the most visited story on the BBC news website and dominates the front page of the Sky News site.”

Plays posted online

Cho was a literature student and wrote plays which centred around murder, paedophilia and revenge killings, according the London Paper, which also reports that two of Cho’s plays “were posted on the internet by Ian MacFarlane, a former classmate of Cho’s.”

Two sides of the media

In this one terrible event, we see the two sides of the media, both traditional and new. The two forms of media can be a source of news and information - and also, a prompt to voyeurism and the unsavoury desire “to know all the gory details”. Social networks can be a place where people can support each other and talk about what happened on the path to healing - or a place for gossip, rumour, hate postings and dark rantings. We can gain fame or infamy by the mere fact of being on TV or online alone. It is hugely disturbing that killers such as Cho can become celebrities overnight for one heinous, savage act and their poor creative efforts pored over like great literature - where they might otherwise trudge on unnoticed and uncelebrated in their lonely lives if they had done nothing at all. For people like that, there is no reward in being good and a huge reward in being evil.

I was in two minds about writing this post. I didn’t want to this post to be yet another space where Cho and what he did is noticed and given airtime - “rewarded” with attention. Yet, it felt important to discuss the role of traditional and new media in this event - in reporting it and also in some ways, being a part of the story by being a means in Cho’s mind to air his grievances and justify himself.

Remember the heroes

So I don’t want to end this post on Cho. I want to end it talking about a hero. Liviu Librescu was one of the professors in the room that day. He was 76 and a survivor of the Holocaust. He blocked the doorway with his body and bought precious moments for his student to make their escape. The Guardian reports “Messages were posted on the web praising the professor. “No act could be more selfless.” one poster wrote.” Let’s remember Professor Librescu and celebrate him. Let’s remember and celebrate the 32 people who died at Virginia Tech.

In the first week or so of launching this blog, I had one of my first visitors, Michael Beck, who also goes by the moniker digitalnomad. He has been a great resource, showing me a number of social networking sites. These are sites where bloggers can register and join a community of other bloggers with shared interests or themes. You can click on a community to join it and also add another member as a contact or friend. This links you into a diverse and international group of people that you can exchange messages with. It’s like joining a club or society or network in the real world - you all come from your different backgrounds and hook up at the club etc to share your knowledge and experiences.

Here are some that Michael introduced me to:

MyBlogLog.com - you can add some code to your blog and when other community members visit your site, their picture appears on your MyBlogLog roll. Take a look at the roll at the bottom of the far right side bar below.

Ziki.com - a similar site but without the picture roll facility.

Zimbio.com - a similar community site again. Here, you can create a page that showcases all your different blogs (if, like me, you have more than one), photos, videos and music all in one page.

Michael is based in Atlanta, USA andmaintains a series of blogs that review and report on trends specific to working and living in a mobile society. He blogs at The SOHO Quest (SOHO stands for small office - home office) and - his Ziki entry says: “Work and Live Where You Want/ Freedom Through Knowledge”. His interests include travel, photography, art, and anything involving e-commerce and nascent technology in the support of personal and financial freedom. Michael’s other blog The Sovereign Journey deals with the issues of personal privacy, natural law, self ownership and self determination.

Did I know him before this? No. Did he know me? No. Here is a great example of how web communities can work - people helping each other because they enjoy sharing knowledge and information. So, thanks, Michael, for being my guide to some new social networks!

I joined the networks out of curiosity and I’ve found that they’ve been a great way to find new and interesting blogs - especially grouped by themes. You can explore - and join - different subgroups eg about art, photography, technology, business, politics etc. It’s also a good way to connect your blog to a wider audience. Zimbio.com, for example, has a feature where you can capture the feed from your current blog and display its contents on the Zimbio site as well as on your own blog. I like MyBlogLog the most at the moment because the communities and contacts are laid out in an easy to follow, intuitive way and its easy to get the concept of what its all about very quickly. I also like the clever little “widget” that you can put in your sidebar that displays which other members of MyBlogLog have visited your site - see the bottom of the far right sidebar for pics of who has visited ZenGuide recently. You can click through via their pics and discover a new blog - and friend.

Update: Ian Delaney, editor of New Media Knowledge (www.nmk.co.uk)told me: “Why I joined (MyBlogLog)? Because I’ll sign up for almost any new web service going! I actually have some misgivings about the loss of privacy that is created by MBL, but not serious enough to close my account, obviously.” Ian blogs at http://twopointouch.com/.

If you’re part of any of the networks I’ve mentioned and would like to share your views/ experiences about them, please do add a comment or email me. Or if you’re part of another network, please do tell me about it via a comment or email.