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A short history of a social network on the making, via BBC

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)

The best social media tool of the year: Twitter

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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.

Social books

Just read an article on Huffington Post about the social networking sites for book lovers. I am on Shelfari for about two years, maybe, and, since recently, on Goodreads. I am updating carefully my shelves, with the latest books read. From time to time I am inviting or I am invited for connections and I am watching conversations in the groups of interest or posting random thoughts about books. Until now, the communication with my book mates is nil. A reason might be as well the limited possibility of interacting in real-life, via chat. And, as everywhere, people looking for dating or virtual adventure, are the most active.

Book review: Connected. The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives

For business, personal or academic reasons, staying away of the power of social networks looks as a risky behavior. And the risk is not only of social nature, but might have as well consequences on the level of general health. The book is offering among the first, according to my knowledge, an evaluation of the implication of the network for the social, political, economic and health levels. Becoming in a relatively short time a human superorganism, the network - made up of various gatherings of friends, co-workers, people with whom we share various interests, potential mates - is creating new patterns and social habits and is involved in changing attitudes faster than before.

Although our exposure to information and though, to knowledge, is significantly different, the human qualities required to maintain the flux of information didn't changed at all, because, the authors outline from the very beginning (xi), "altruism and goodness are essential for social networks to grow and endure". And, in addition (xii): "Just as brains can do things that no single neuron can do, so can social networks do things no single person can do".

The pattern of the "everyday social networks" are following the "natural tendency of each person to seek out and make many or more friends, to have large or small families, to work in personable or anonymous workplaces" (p.13). Social networks embrace two fundamental aspects, according to the authors (p.16) - connection and contagion - and are operating according to four fundamental rules (pp. 17-26): "We shape our network", "Our network shapes us", "Our friends affect us", "Our friends' friends' friends affect us" and "The network has a life of its own". And, as "the taste of the cake transcends the simple sum of its ingredients" (p.26). Exploring different aspects - the political aspects during voting, the contagion effect of various behaviors among teenagers (as suicide or sexual experiences) - the resources for making life parterships and building relationships - we have a full picture of our networked world.

The conclusions are based on studies released in more than a decade, with a detailed quantive background. A bizarre exception, in my opinion, is the mention of the case of spreading back pain via social networks (pp.119-120): "Before the Berlin Wall, East Germany had much lower rates of back pain than West Germany, but within ten years of reunification, rates had converged to be the same, with East Germany emulating West Germany's higher rate". The authors don't mention any surveys regarding the medical situation, the working conditions or other specific affects, but the "psychosocial decontamination". This is the risk of exclusive and non-critical inductive thinking.

The novelty brought by the Internet relies on four radical modifications of "existing types of social-network interactions" (p. 275): Enormity - our worlds are becoming increasingly big and global; Communality - the possibility to share information at the level of communities; Specificity of our ties, based on particular interests and Virtuality, under the aspects of our different identities we can shape and assume in the online world.

"We are more connected for a reason" (p. 295) and the better use of our new skills, with the help of our brains connections we already developed during our long evolutive history, is an important asset for knowledge, both emotionally and socially oriented.

Geopolitics of Twitter

Here is a good article about Twitter in Brazil, outlining various trends and explanations for the high level of popularity of this social platform in this part of the world. I would like to read, and write too, more socio-political explanations about using social media. This is my to-do-list for this week-end.

What social media contact would you put on your business card?

A good question, I didn't figure out, even I prepared a new pack of 100 business cards only one month ago.

I will not put my Facebook, as it is mostly designed for friends, relatives, acquaintances, not exclusively for business purposes - despite the fact that I am posting many links and conversations of professional interest. I will mention, for sure LinkedIn, my blog and, last on the list, the Twitter account - even here I mixed many personal interests with the professional ones. A lot of space, isn't it?

Inspiration or/and information

About involving communities, peoples and sharing ideas.

YouTube branding

Five useful ways to use YouTube for branding purposes. As in any other cases of open platform, it is not enough to be present, you need a voice and a coherent and consistent message.

Foursquare

It is a completely new domain for me. As in the last months I focused more on developing the writing skills and getting best advantages out of Twitter and Facebook, I avoided to enter too much into details. But now, found a very good presentation about this network and I am exploring the options. At least, to be aware of the opportunities, trying to integrate it as part of future projects.

The cost of social networking

an agent maybe pessimistic, but not less realistic view. I still keep a positive note about social media, as an amazing tool for improving yourself and your perspectives. As in life, you got to know when to stop and where to go next and why.

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.

StumbleUpon

10 tips for effective marketing. In general, available for other networking sites.

Guy Kawasaki on social media

Yesterday, I attended a very interesting webinar on Twitter presented by Guy Kawasaki.

As an observation related to the style, I very much appreciated the very simple and accessible style of the presentation. Natural, with humour. I am following him on Twitter and often I was surprised by the quality of the articles and information tweeted.

Yesterday, I had the occasion to discover how to be able to put together all these information and to send it further. You could ask yourselves - as I did as well - what is the relevance of sending neutral links about photography, design, social media, travel etc.? It is not better to have your personal message and to create your own brand based on what you are?

Most probably, the last solution is possible too. I am trying to do my best to be as natural as possible, but I am convinced equally that for a big share of my followers, it is not pretty interesting. And, from a day to another the number of my followers is fluctuant, as probably many of them are not interested at all of getting too many links about topics they do not have any clue about - as about science, communities in the Middle East or future of the book (only to randomnly mention a couple of my areas of interest these days).

At the yesterday webinar, the discussion focused on the best use of Twitter for business purposes, Kawasaki considering this tool as a "marketing weapon", able to monitor your own products. But, as well, to engage communties, sell your goods and services and find the necessary support. In order to find out more, you have to use the "search" option for finding not what it is discussed now about your products and business interests, find professionals in the area. You could maintain high interest from the part of your followers providing them fresh information. StumbleUpon or Alltop - the examples he mentioned - could be used to match your interests and identitfy topics worthy to forward. Your tweets could be scheduled, made be part of a campaign developed on other media tools - as Facebook - or personalized via TweetHawk.

One of my conclusion is: it is not enough to be present on various social media tools, you have to know how to let other people notice your presence.

The impact of social media on businesses

The beginning of the conversation.

Time management

I am a fun of the social media from the very beginning: a Facebook account, a Twitter account, various professional networks. I tried to be a trend follower, but wanted to be among the first to see the whole evolution and the changes occurred. And there are tremendous changes, in only a couple of years, even months.

A big problem I encountered in the next month, as the 2.0 activity increased, as my professional interests as well: I need a tremendous amount of time to check, read, select, use and send further an impressive amount of information. Take for example Twitter, where the number of the persons I follow is more than 200: in 5 minutes, at 11-12 o'clock, I receive around 21 updates. Most part of the updates, are related to relevant domains: social design, writing, various political and social activities, academic information. I do speed reading, but still I need time. And perseverance to switch from a news to another, while keeping my offline schedule - including long hours of meetings, business lunches etc. When I am back, the flow of information is entering my world from all directions, so I usually need more than one hour for processing the information.

It is addictive and cutting serious chances to maintain your normal real life interaction. But, in a lot of cases, the information provided via various channels offered me tremendous help in finding new business and academic opportunities and improving my knowledge in various domains.

What to do with my time, though?

For at least two weeks I implemented a very careful system of periods dedicated to this online activities: chat, finding new opportunities, reading and forwarding articles, registering for webinars. When I am very busy during the day, I prefer to perform these operations three time the day, for 40 minutes: early in the morning, while sipping my coffee; during the lunch break; late in the evening. In between, I am trying to catch some time too for writing for various classes and book projects plus blogging - at least two hours the day - and reading - various documentations.

And, of course, at least once the week I take the freedom to refuse to stay too much connected, but going out to look for proper human inspiration.

Time management is everything, but life is everywhere.

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.

Twitter for companies

I will be positive and will outline a couple of advantages of opening a Twitter account for companies. I will refer mostly to companies, whatever the object of activity. From case to case, you have extended opportunities to offer specific information, based on your services. My post want to be a kind of encouragement for all the possible companies to go as faster as possible into the virtual world.

- You get visibility among your potential clients. First of all, you start to spread information about you on various professional forums and webs.

- You have as well the possibility to be aware of what your competitors are doing: what kind of services are they offering, what kind of public events are organising or how they answer various problems facing your market.

- You are in touch with the media and interested journalists. You could offer permanent updates about what you do, about what your clients are doing. You create a multiplied effect and offer any time possible subjects the journalists could write about. Of course, you have to be aware to do not "spam" the web with various kind of irrelevant information, but to be targeted enough to create a certain interest from the part of the journalists.

- The web interventions and the posts related to your activity as well as to the activity of the market are outlining your added value and your special profile. You could easily brand and rebrand yourself among your target groups than using the classical media tools.

But, of course, as I stressed on other occasions as well, a very intensive social media presence is not an excuse or could excuse a poor record in the daily, real life. Rather the opposite. Lying about yourself and your activities "online" are most likely to be exposed by the other partners, neighbors and competitors from the virtual world.

The future of e-mail

I just realized a couple of days ago how useful for me - with not too much time and lots of new and old projects to work on - is the use of the social networks, in comparison with the classical system of the messenger/e-mail.

I have all the people I need for certain purposes - online - I can talk with them and instantly send messages, while checking periodically about news on topics and subjects I am interested in. The newspapers I am fan of, or the other groups I added on my profile are providing me the necessary updates for what I should read. Plus, from time to time, I have also the occasion to make a bit of fun, while seeing some funny posts and other remarks from more or less virtual friends about various posts.

Of course, in some cases, it is embarassing and disturbing to be able to follow fully this hectic environment. Some friends are excessively busy with their virtual farms, aquariums and mafia wars. But, in time, you develop the selective capacity to select the people you could have a valuable virtual or realtime conversation. As in real life, in fact.

My question is for how long we will consider efficient to keep our yahoo e-mail accounts instead of choosing a larger platform for communication, as Facebook. Recently, yahoo introduced also the possibility to create networks and to keep a certain level of interaction with your friends, via various updates - I always wondered why only now, as long as hotmail, for example, is using this system of years already. But still, we are far of the high level of interactivity offered by the usual social networks.

In addition, e-mail and social networking are directly interconnected: for a couple of months already, Facebook and Hotmail make possible the sharing of updates of statuses, images or videos.

So, given the current technological directions, it is more likely that, sooner or later - it could be count in the matter of months in some cases, as the evolution of the social networking showed already - using only the e-mail will become as obsolete as are now, for example, the yahoo groups.