0nce For News

Attending Podcamp Boston 6 ,an Enriching Social Media Experience

jstratford — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:29:13 +0000

Attending Podcamp Boston 6 was an enriching social media experience for me. With over 150 people in attendance there was always someone to network with. With five sessions going on each hour there was a richness in the activity as well.

One of the sponsors was Microsoft, which hosted the Podcamp Boston 6 at the Microsoft N.E.R.D. Center (New England Research & Development Center), It was an exceptional spot for it to be held since it’s a great facility with a wonderful view of the Boston Skyline. The other two sponsors were WHATCOUNTS AND 3thought and they are all appreciated.

The opening session by Chris Brogan and Christopher Penn was revealing and set the stage for the conference. The theme was Share and Takeaway. Each session was well organized, but fluid with time for questions, discussion, as well as suggestions,which made it diverse and engaging.

1. Podcasting 101 Questions, which was facilitated by Doug who stepped in voluntarily. It was a smooth session where he was able to share what he does in certain cases, including his choice of digital video recorder and microphone. With him taking the time to answer that one, people were drawn into asking about recommendation, suggestions, alternate techniques, software, and platforms.

2. Why Google+ with Chris Brogan speaking on one of his favorite subjects and his presentation was excellent since it revealed the functions and uses of Google +. His command of that social network is second to none and though you may have been in the 1st wave of Google invites, I dare say that you would have had some takeaways. I know that I did and it was a great investment of time.

3. Breaking the Bell Curve: Standing Out In a Sea of Same with Tamson McHahon presenting. During the presentation the idea of consciously differentiating yourself in social media was promoted. This differentiation is what can separate you from the others, and is especially important since you’re always building your brand.

4.Blog Writing for Customer Action with Jason Keath from Social Fresh who delivered an excellent presentation on the subject matter, emphasizing the importance of the how and why you are writing. Though it was unsaid as such it was a proper direct response marketing mindset coupled with effective internet marketing strategies. To get us thinking, one of the questions he asked is “What do I want the blog to accomplish?”. His Answer was “Action”, which is apropos.

5. Designing Social Media Influence with Christopher Penn presenting. He had a mind map of the strategic flow and idea creation that matched his style of presenting and was engaging and proved to be challenging to people.

This gives just a taste of the day, since there were five sessions going at a time almost every hour. I hope that I see you at the next Podcamp Boston! #pcb6

Earthquake Centered in VA Rocks the East Coast!

jstratford — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:55:36 +0000

Yesterdays earthquake was in New York and today’s hit Virginia. There were reports all over social media, but things were more tense in real life as people poured out of the Pentagon, and other government buildings to evacuate. Their were reports that the capital building in West Virginia was evacuated as well as many businesses on the East Coast of the US.

This map from the usgs shows the VA earthquake today as well as the one we had yesterday in New York and earler the little 1.2 earthquake in Maine.

“The photo is courtesy of the USGS.”

Earthquake Rocks VA and Up the East Coast and Hits Greenfield MA at 1:58PM

jstratford — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:17:47 +0000

Earthquake Rocks VA and Up the East Coast and Hits Greenfield MA at 1:58PM.

The earthquake was reported up and down the East Coast in a minute from people in VA, WV,NC, DC, MD, NY, and as well as here in MA. We’ll know more soon! Things on the walls were moving side to side, but more evident was the computer monitor moving all around on it’s arm, and the easy chair rocking appx every .5 seconds for about 20 seconds.

There haven’t been any reports of damage or injuries for which everyone can be thankful. More information will follow.

Confirmed: Digg Just Hijacked Your Twitter Links? Is this real?

jstratford — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:29:18 +0000

Digg Just Hijacked Your Twitter Links was the headline of Pete Cashmore’s post on Mashables tonight and the subject of his post.
Digg did just that which is the unthinkable. Digg hijacked your Twitter links and it is for real.

For Mashables and all of us who aggregate content it was a handy place to mark and move to the next. Digg decided to do this without anyone knowing and it’s very underhanded. Even if they claim on Monday that it wasn’t intended that way, well, that’s the effect it’s having on their subscribers and users.

Look at it this way: there’s a natural flow of information moving around and creating discussion which is why we utilize social networking and social media such as social bookmarking which Digg is a part of. There is a viral effect of the aggregation which spreads the excitement and Conversation around the Web virally. Digg may not have thought about this, but their model doesn’t fit in!!!

I’m trusting that Monday Digg will re-evaluate their decision and by then it’ll be cresting the top of Twitter trends and hopefully the other sites which measure what’s hot.

It is a loss to the social media community comprised of millions of users that Digg felt they were above anyone’s level to the point of being underhanded and not exercising some corporate ethics. There was no regard for their customer base and it shows a lack of integrity that it wasn’t disclosed ahead of time.

Personally if they don’t change because of people protesting it, there will be no choice but to leave in 1 week unless they are working on an equitable solution!

News Update!

The Founder of Digg Kevin Rose had been away on vacation for the last two weeks and let people on Twitter know that he didn’t know about the changes.

just now reading the digg short url discussion, I was not aware this changed and will check in on it tomorrow (was on vacation for 2 weeks)about 3 hours ago from Tweetie

kevinrose

So let’s see what happens and hopefully he’ll help turn this thing around. It looks like someone might have implemented what seemed like a great idea without getting it cleared up. Time will tell !

Read the story first hand if you haven’t.

Confirmed: Digg Just Hijacked Your Twitter Links

Where SBA and Social Media Meet – The Score Online Community

jstratford — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:50:08 +0000

SBA and Social Media meet Via the SCORE Online Community in Collaboration With PartnerUp

Business owners now have a unique resource for Social Networking called Score Online Community.

The Score Online community was launched last month and currently advertises that they have 11,000 members. Every person considering going into business or that is already in business should take a look at it and decide for themselves.

There shouldn’t be an American businessman that hasn’t had a consultation with SCORE before launching their business. Just in case someone doesn’t recognize SCORE it stands for Service Corp of Retired Executives and is comprised of 11,000 Business Counselors. They can be found at http://www.scorecommunity.org Score Counselors to America’s Small Business.

With the partnership of PartnerUp and SCORE this Social Media Site gives potential 111,000 additional reach which could be very advantageous.

On the Score Community Social Networking site it states the following:

“Why Join SCORE?

Find People and Resources to Help You Succeed
Exchange Business Opportunities and Ideas
Get Free Advice and Answers
Grow and Manage Your Contacts”

There’s so much that could be said about SCORE since they’ve helped over 8.4 million businesses with advice and this network should help the entrepreneur to broaden the reach, get valid advice from not only peers, but from the SCORE business counselors, and be able to list their business and/or properties, and interact with the community in the forums as well.

Visit Score Online Community and form your own opinion and later on we’ll revisit it and see if it’s as viable as it seems from my perspective.

Spark.ly Closed Beta Launch of the Social Networking Meta-Site Closed Beta June 15, 2009

jstratford — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:26:24 +0000

Spark.ly Arrives on June 15, 2009 as the New and Innovative Social Networking Meta-Site Closed Beta. “Spark a Revolution“.

This new social networking site will give the people who have signed up the ability to join the closed beta and see what the new social media networking meta-site will look like, how it functions, and to see it as it moves through it’s development stages.

It’s important to understand that this is a new model and anyone who has Social Media Aspirations and interests should sign up to be notified of it’s launch. http://spark.ly/

There are three stages in it’s development.

Stage 1. “Social Networking (current stage) enabling members to organize and communicate with their social networking universe from one location.”

One example of what sets this apart from the other social sites as explained by Shane Murray is the “user interface and how you manage people. There’s so much to say about pictures when there’s 100 or 200 of them.” Many of us who are visually oriented people will relate to being on a page of avatars that are unfamiliar. Later these become very familiar to the point of recognition. In our lives outside of the virtual world it’s the same way so it’s very natural to cultivate the same recognition as we do in our daily lives.

Stage 2. “Social Media (Future Stage) they educate and inform their members via self organizing knowledge sharing communities. Think of it as a newspaper in 35 languages with content provided by their members and edited by community managers and editors held to the highest ethical standards.”

Stage 3. “Social Commerce (Future Stage) every member is given a free storefront to sell their items or other members’ items to the world. We connect people with ideas to people with distribution channels via their intelligent marketplace.”

Shane Murray, “By combining Social Networking, Commerce, and Social Media we give our members a powerful voice that allows them to collaborate, exchange, and compete globally.” One of the key areas of focus is “the Middle East is an important market An entrepreneurial spirit is important to get a form of democracy.“

One of the intriguing functions of this is the upcoming Social Media stage where people are going to be able to be “self organizing and sharing” Mr. Shane Murray gave the example of the people with a baseball team wanting to organize in one place. At this stage they have the opportunity to join, setup the community.” This gives the members with the ability to see the information and participate. With people scattered about in different social media sites it can make chaos into order.

To sign up for an invite for it’s closed beta at http://spark.ly/

This is what many of us have looked forward to since there are many social networking sites and with the variations of usernames and passwords as well as attempting to remember them it’ll seem refreshing to see this social site with desirable functions to aid us in organization, simplify things to one hub, and relieve our minds of constantly striving to remember sites we’ve signed up for and no longer use that we receive notices for sometimes daily. On June 15, 2009 it’ll be time to move towards simplicity as it’s rolled out step by step. I’m trusting that many will join me in that very move. I will be looking forward to connecting with you at http://www.spark.ly

The founders of Spark.ly are Shane Murray and Glen Starchman are entrepreneurs and not new to these pursuits or the technology and are well equipped to facilitate the rise of this Social networking, Social Media, and Social Commerce to prominence in the Sphere of Social Media.

For Official information:

Shane S. Murray

Chief Evangelist

+46 76 18 39 577
shane@spark.ly
http://spark.ly