With or without the new Facebook timeline

The unexpected took place: the new Facebook timeline is here, for everyone. I am using it since the launch and I must say that it offers a couple of advantages if your social media presence has a purpose: if you want, for example, to outline a certain aspect of your life or if you want to outline a special post. If you are a company, you have more chances of a coherent corporate communication, as it is explained in this article.

Happy timelining everyone! 

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Where you've been when Osama was killed?

Image by gbaku via Flickr

My personal story: for the history of the online world - I was sleeping. When I woke up, I didn't switch on the TV set or open the website of my favorite international newspapers. Not at all, I logged to my Twitter account and to my Facebook account. Since then - the last 5 hourst - I am permanently browsing social media for updates.

But ten years ago... when 11/9 occured, I was in the front of the TV. For a final confirmation, I called several of my friends from NYC asking them what it is all about... The whole operation lasted about 5 hours.

What about you? What kind of recent experience do you have with social media as a source of direct news and information?

Related articles

• News Of Osama Bin Laden's Death Spreads Like Wildfire On Twitter (techcrunch.com)
• Tweet If You See Osama (pcworld.com)
• White House: Osama Bin Laden is Dead (benzinga.com)
• OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD! President OBAMA to tell the WORLD about the details within minutes... (economy4abc.blogspot.com)

Do you still rely on blogging?

If you'll ask me, I will definitely answer "yes"! Twitter and Facebook are useful tools, but nothing more than tools, for widespreading information on facts and figures and ideas. But still, you need to provide a reliable base and this is made of your coherent ideas that you can express and introduce on your blog(s). I still trust it!

Related articles

• Measure Your Facebook Page Engagement (jeffkorhan.com)
• Why I Still Love Blogging (markevanstech.com)
• Why Blogging Isn't Going Anywhere (bloggingwithbeth.com)
• Online video sharing doubles within a year (econsultancy.com)

Zootool

No, it is not a social networks for funky pets...Not at all.

Zootool is a collaborative network collecting, organizing and sharing favorite images, videos and links all over the Internet, created in Germany, but speaking English. After building your profile, you can share links from other platforms as Delicious, Facebook, FriendFeed, Tumblr or Twitter. For the real geeks, it is available as application for Smartphones.

Related articles

• Zootool: Visit your Wild Bookmarks In The Zoo (maketecheasier.com)
• Zootool: Creative & Fun Bookmarking (appreaders.com)

Meeting Skimmer

Skim it when you want to connect several accounts on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr or many other social networks. It's all about efficient use!

On customers, sellers and digital "body language"

I attended recently a webinar on using social media to increase sales. I am not into sales and my chances to ever get into it are very slim, but I am extremely interested about the general process of interaction and communication between customers and clients in the new 2.0 world.

What I've learned about or remembered is that:

- the customers have more control over the products and are imposing their own demands - we are buying faster than the sellers are developing;

- information is vital and your brand is not only what you say it is, but what people says it is - social media is very important and the discourse provided on various tools - Twitter, Facebook, youtube - is providing at a great extent the image of your company and the content of your brand;

- for sales, YouTube is very important: setting up an account and posting a smart, not exclusively expensive, video about your product is a good idea for attracting more customers;

- Twitter is helpful in offering various coupons for the existing or potential clients;

One of the conclusions of the webinar, going beyond the strict domain of sales is that social media requires new skills: as, for example, the ability how to find the best key-words, or how to read a link. The expression of the week was: "digital body language" - I am still thinking about how to better use it.

Surprises from Hotmail

Image via Wikipedia//Surprise, surprise, from Hotmail

The 2011 fortune cookie for some of the Hotmail account holders - approximately 17,335 users - was the disappearance of some of their e-mails (if not all of them). The situation was reestablished today, but the causes are still under investigation. If it was a bug or not, we don't know yet.

I am not a constant user of Hotmail (accessing the account once the month, maybe) but I still keep this address by nostalgia: it was my first ever e-mail account, opened in 1996. Most part of the friends I used to talk with through msn are on Gmail, few on Yahoo and more and more on Facebook or Twitter. But still, I think that you need to have a harsh competition between various providers, which will encourage following high-stakes. Almost one year ago, Microsoft announced a rebranding of Hotmail. The offer by now was to upgrade to the services already offered by the other e-mail providers.

Related articles

• Hotmail users' missing emails returned to their inboxes (techvibes.com)
• Microsoft Speeds Up Hotmail's Demise With Pure Incompetence, May Rely on Facebook Instead (techrights.org)
• Hotmail users finding their inboxes deleted, Microsoft promises a fix (geek.com)
• How to Setup a Hotmail Account in Outlook 2010 (devicemag.com)

The Social Network, the movie

Image by jdlasica via Flickr//Mark Zuckerberg, in the movie of his life

I avoided for a long time to see the movie about Facebook - or rather, about Facebook founder - because I am more interested in the phenomenon than in the personality. If not Mark Zuckerberg, somebody needed to create this network, as it was in the air of our time: a new generation, new skills and needs. A documentary movie was for me more tempting than an artistic movie.

And, I was right. The movie is focused on Zuckerberg's personality - his conflictual and clumsy social connections of the creator of a popular social network -, with some vague suggestions about the ways in which academia faced the online challenge, or the need to reconsider the intellectual property. From the artistic point of view, I couldn't see anything memorable.

But I don't regret I've seen the movie because I realize now what I will expect from a real documented production about social media and its influence on our times.

Related articles

• Mark Zuckerberg Takes Staff to 'The Social Network' (movers.net)
• Mark Zuckerberg's Wardrobe Was The Only Authentic Part Of The Social Network, Says Mark Zuckerberg! (perezhilton.com)

Is e-mail dead?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Some thoughts following the lecture of this article in the NYT. For me, it is rather a matter of thinking strategically and from the point of view of the efficiency. I need all the classical and new forms of communication: e-mail, normal mail, text messages, chat, video etc. In general, any of them. I am ready for any kind of challenge. En garde!

Six Social Media Trends

Image via CrunchBase

The last weeks of 2010: time for evaluations and predictions.

Here is one of them, about Six Social Media Trends.

As for me, I will bet a lot on Foursquare like networks, in terms of increasing profits and creating content and targeted relationships. In terms of innovation, I am sure there will be a couple of small but long term ideas that will orient the more and more intricated networks for turning them into smart tools - for consumers and users and companies - taking into account the feed-back offered by the users themselves. I am curious what Google will offer in this respect.

Here is another interesting article I've read today, about the limits of the Facebook-based activism, by Malcom Galdwell. All we need: people able to use the content and the opportunity of the network. The 2.0 citizen is on the run for the moment.

Related articles

• Trends for Companies Searching for a Social Media "Something" (cloudave.com)

How to work with your Facebook fans

Image via Wikipedia

I am member of more than 300 groups on Facebook. Not many of them are really active and some of them didn't updated their pages for months - when I discover such situations, I am leaving them, without any regrets. Here are a couple of tips how to take care of your fans. There are not too complicated formula, but maybe because of this people simply don't mind to put it into practice.

On Pictures and Words

Image via Wikipedia//The new connectivity

As I am managing several Facebook, Twitter accounts and a couple of blogs - in fact I feel sometimes as a big media owner, even my empire is a very not-for-profit and it keeps me so busy than I do not have time to appear on TV - I am trying to focus on a lot of details, in my efforts (not too desperate yet, but though...) for increasing visibility and getting some profit.

One important aspect is the personalization. Trying to find for each account and blogs representative pictures. It will be far too easy to simply post a picture of myself (which I did only in the case of my personal accounts). My idea is to find the right visual representation for each of them. Not posting a picture is, in my opinion, decreasing the visibility and the seriosity, as you might look as a spammer' account.

Another aspect is updating. As my financial resources are not generated - by now - by this social media activities, and beyond the job I have my family, a very intense social and cultural life and lots of other interests, I have to portion more than perfectly my time for answering to posts, planning the writing schedule, documenting for articles. Sometimes I have to rest a bit, but this is a very insignificant part of my life, anyway. But, as far as I started this "job", I have the ambition of updating at least once the week all my outlets. And by updating I understand more than posting some links I am reading - which I do to, but trying to offer more than this. And, by now, I think that I was able to keep a certain balance.

What I do not like is when I see people who limited their presence at opening an account, adding friends - on Facebook - or occupying a virtual space - on blogger or Twitter - and nothing else. I have, for example, a couple of academics on my Facebook list of friends. All of them, I know, are very active in their real life. Some are having thousand of friends on Facebook. But, they hardly post a link to an interesting article or a comment in months. What is so difficult, when opening the Facebook for confirmation of 100 friends request, to post a link? It rather a matter of creating habits and using some very valuable tools in connecting with people. The same with Twitter. You have new followers - you are announced about this in your Inbox ? If you don't have time to greet them by "names", at least have daily or every two days or when you are entering your e-mail - a short update greeting them. It is not killing your time and it is so so easy.

Happy networking day!

Facebook messaging

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

My impressions, as an intensive user of Facebook:I watched yesterday live the Facebook conference from Palo Alto, for announcing the new e-mail social platform. The persons with expertise in the industry already started giving their opinion on the limits and advantages of this new capabilities added to the social platform.

- The idea to develop the e-mail platform is welcomed. I would need to be able to better organize my e-mail system from Facebook in folders, preferences, categories. I have friends with contacts only on Facebook, and I would like to communicate with them directly on this social platform, instead switching to the usual e-mail.

- I didn't understand very clear the privacy setting for this application. How secure is, for example, the system, for preventing hacking. This new unified formula might be a paradise for the hackers. I don't have all my contacts on the same e-mail, but in the case of Facebook, I could have workmates, family, friends, acquaintances, VIPs. For a hacker, this is opening impressive perspectives on a complex network.

Most probably, there will be introduced other changes and new features once the system will continue to be tested. Don't know if it is good or bad, I would expect more attention for the privacy aspects.

Related articles

• "Facebook Debuts New Messages Platform, Facebook Email" and related posts (dmwmedia.com)
• Facebook mail: it might kill Gmail, but 'it's not email' (guardian.co.uk)
• Facebook Messages puts texts, chats, e-mails in one in-box (usatoday.com)
• Facebook's email service aims to achieve Seamless Messaging (techvibes.com)
• Examining the Security Implications of Facebook Messages (mashable.com)

Media Bestiary

Image via Wikipedia

An excellent piece, a good lecture to enter the week-end, from The New Yorker, by Susan Orlean, about the new social index of our lives.

This new side of the relationships are revealing the superficial side of the virtual connections and the ridiculous situations of fake human empathy. For example, for me it is very funny to observe the interactions that anonymous people are having with personalities on Facebook on the occasion of what used to represent very private moments: birthdays, anniversaries, death etc. Out of nowhere, they are assailed with various congratulations and emoticons. And, the influence-effect is working very well, as people use to follow the example of the others when it is about this kind of collective behavior.

The serious part is the potential you have, if really part of the network, to change and trade ideas. You can get information useful for your work, academic career or personal life. But, the choice for the network is always yours.

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Facebook+Skype-Love

The Skype platform will be incorporated to Facebook, allowing users to have real-time dialogues and conversations. I don't know yet how it is possible to have a selective choice of your Skype details: maybe you don't want to share all the information with all your Facebook friends? Or you want to use it without being bothered with various unwanted calls.

I discovered yesterday the last version of Microsoft Windows Live, newly launched and a bit controversial in terms of security. As a simple user, I discovered elements allowing a better organization of the contacts, the introduction of the video messages and the possibility to select your conversations. I will try to find and test more features over the week-end.

Where is our privacy?

New concerns regarding the use without consentment of identification data of users from Facebook are nothing but new. From my own experience with Facebook or other social networks, the last matter of preoccupation of - by far - too many users is privacy. Despite the relative publicity around the issue of protecting data, too many persons - all ages, as I noticed - are eager to share very personal and direct information about themselves, their families - including children - even their personal finances. No wonder, this is a very real fact. Remember about those people you've meet on a tram and in five minutes they told you everything about relationship, future and the daily meals.

Of course, this is not an excuse to let other people use them for not at all innocent causes. All I wanted to outline was that we do not even ignore our vulnerabilities, but in some cases we even want to let as many inhabitants of the planet as well.

The impact of social media on businesses

The beginning of the conversation.

Townhall meetings via Facebook

The initiator is the republican governor of Minnesota, Tom Pawlenty.

A change (finally!) of strategy in the Republican team? Waiting to see and find out more.

The taste of social power

Just have it right now, after a very short "virtual" conversation with a friend regarding a case of discrimination. Following the exchange, a Facebook support page was created and we widespread the news among our list of more or less virtual friends. Each of us twitted the information as well. The number of fans is increasing from a minute to another among journalists, politicians, public figures, people from various industries.

It is not a blind power, but the decision to assume and explain a certain position. The social power.