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)

Me and Twitter

I am a passionate user of Twitter and especially in the last year I learned a lot about how to use it and made reliable connections with other Twitter users.

However, I have a couple of frustrations about:

- Wish I can have more interactive tools, mostly chat-wise, mostly for the lists you are in.

- 140 words it's a good ratio, but maybe in some cases the conversation is strictly limited.

- The new Twitter looks very clumsy and hard to manage properly.

- Excepting this new Twitter, there are not too much features introduced regularly, despite a need for improvement.

- I wish that, following Facebook's example, to restrict permanently the access to my information of somebody I blocked. It's fair like that, isn't it?

That's all for now. I should prepare my list of #FF.

The best social media tool of the year: Twitter

Image via Wikipedia

I was very active this year on the front of social media, trying at least every day to learn something new, to discover a new application or simply to improve my 2.0 skills. My main focus was to explore how the 2.0 changed our way of life, and I was extremely interested in the influence of the virtual world on the academic life and research.

The best benefits I took from Twitter. I created an account one year and a half ago, but started to use on a daily basis only in March. And, since then, it plays a big part of my virtual life. I found there very interesting people, extremely good resources for what I am interested in and lots of opportunities for expanding my knowledge, including in the area of foreign languages - trying to use my foreign languages for short but efficient communication.

For the next year, I would like to explore more Foursquare for example, as it is a very good tool for marketing and promotion of places and products, but I am sure that Twitter will continue to be a good medium for communication. And, of course, would like to see what's the next diamond in the 2.0 crown.

Wait and see!

How to work with your Facebook fans

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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!

Media Bestiary

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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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