Posts tagged "social media"
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1 day ago
Where You At? - The Rise Of Location Aware Apps
One of the major trends that appear to be forming in 2010 is the location aware applications made popular in social games such as Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown and Brightkite. Facebook is also getting ready to debut its location aware service at their annual f8 developer conference next month, Google Buzz which launched just over a month ago includes location awareness on the mobile side and Twitter introduced location aware features into its API November and has just today (March 12, 2010) announced that geolocaton is enabled when using the Twitter site. With many startups currently involved in the location aware market and the big social networking sites getting ready to launch their own location aware services it looks as if this market is ready to explode in 2010.
Who’s Driving All This Growth?
Even with this explosive growth in the location aware market the normal mobile user is still unaware that these types of services exist and if they are aware they don’t really care to use them and yet many others worry about their privacy. As usual it’s the bleeding edge technology enthusiasts and early adopters that are currently driving the growth that this market is seeing. Will Facebook and its 400+ million users be the company that brings location aware application to the masses and adoption by the “regular” user?
Is It A Game Or Something Else?
That would completely depend on which service you are using at that time. Gowalla, Foursquare and MyTown all have social gaming aspects baked into their systems while others like Twitter, Buzz and from what I understand Facebook only offer the ability to post your current location.
Privacy Concerns
In today’s social network driven society being a friend with someone no longer means the same thing that it did ten years ago. It used to be that a friend was someone you actually had personally met and exchanged information with, the term friend is now so loosely used that it can mean anything from an actual friend to some anonymous user who sent you a request and you accepted. It is clear that many of us have decided on minimal privacy and to further remove the privacy barrier many of the location aware apps give you the ability to send an automatic Facebook update or tweet letting all your friends or followers know where you are. Sending it to Facebook may not be the worst thing depending on what privacy controls you set up but by tweeting out your current location and unless you have a private account your location is now entirely public and searchable using the Twitter search.. As pointed out quite slyly by PleaseRobMe.com sharing your location with others in this type of social setting could be used to detect when you aren’t home and alert potential home invaders to an opportunity. As you can see the ability to let everyone know where you are at all times is a privacy concern that users need to be aware of.
Who Are The Major Players?
- Foursquare –With apps for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry and a mobile site they make it hard not to be able to check in at your location. With features such as the ability to share your location experiences with friends, a gaming system centered around earning points and badges and the ability to become the mayor of a location potentially earning you free stuff it’s easy to see why Foursquare sits as the largest in the market with just over 500,000 users.
- Gowalla – You could describe Gowalla as Foursquare’s arch nemesis and much like Foursquare it has apps for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm as well as a mobile site. Gowalla lets users check in, earn passport stamps and collect virtual souvenirs.
- Brightkite – Like the other location based sites previously mentioned they have apps for the iPhone, Android devices, Blackberry phones and a mobile site accessible by other phones. Brightkite is more of a location based social service than a game as it allows you to see where and what your friends are vs earning achievements and unlocking items.
- Buzz – Google has seldom used location based service latitude for a while but really dove head first into location with their launch of Buzz this past month. Much like Brightkite, Buzz is more of a location based social network showing you where your friends are and showing your friends where your last check-in was. Since Buzz is tied to Gmail there are theoretically over 100 million users who can participate in the mobile version of Buzz.
- Facebook – Facebook is a wildcard as it is not 100% known what their location based service will bring when launched in April. It does sound like Facebook will allow outside developers access to the location based information through their API so third parties will be able to develop location services using the data supplied by the Facebook users. With 400 million users whatever Facebook does it could propel location based services into the mainstream.
What Is The Social Media Impact?
The current crop of location aware apps barely make a dent when it comes to social media as their user base pales in comparison to those of Facebook and Twitter. But, things are about to change quickly once Facebook enters the market and as Twitter users begin to become more comfortable sharing their location amongst their followers. It’s only been within the last year or so that mainstream regular computer users and businesses have became comfortable enough using social networking sites to share content that it may be a while before we see the adoption of location based services amongst the mainstream communities.
Marketing Opportunities
Location aware based apps present an entirely new are of marketing and advertising opportunities that should be investigated and explored further by business. Gowalla and Foursquare are already partnering with established brands to provide location based product placement and recently Foursquare partnered with the movie Valentine’s Day to help their users find the most romantic places in their cities. The niche marketing opportunities that present themselves within Foursquare or Gowalla are near endless. A local bakery could offer a free treat to the mayor of the bakery or a rare passport stamp could be offered to the user who visits the most and by earning that passport stamp the visitor could get a discount on their purchase. This type of real world reward will keep users coming back to the business and they willl continue using the app. The creative possibilities within this market are near limitless.
Where Do They Go From Here?
Unless these services can gain mainstream market appeal they are destined to remain on the fringe in terms of user adoption. The market appears to have been legitimized with the addition of Google, Facebook and Twitter joining in. As always the case with social networks you go where your friends go and so it will be interesting to see which service mainstream users gravitate towards.
Please leave a comment below and let me know why or why not you use any of the location aware services and if you do which is your favorite.
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2 days ago
Location Based Services: What’s Your Take?
It’s no secret that at this years
SXSWf8 conference Facebook will be announcing and probably launching its location service. This will potentially bring 400+ million Facebook users into the location based market. Does Facebook entering into this market legitimize what Foursquare and Gowalla have already been doing? Should Foursquare and Gowalla be worried about Facebook’s entrance into their market? Are you looking at advertising and marketing opportunities for your business or brand in the location bases services market? -
2 days ago
14 Tools Or Services To Help You Get The Most Out Of Twitter
Using Twitter or any of the other social networks shouldn’t be a painful experience but yet many people find the thought of using Twitter to be a daunting and scary task. With that in mind I have come up with a list of 14 excellent tools and services you can use to help get the most out of your Twitter experience.
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A robust desktop app - The Twitter website has come a long ways in terms of functionality since its inception but it still lags far behind many of the free desktop clients currently available on the market. You can find Twitter Desktop applications that are cross-platform and built using Adobe Air and you can find operating specific applications as well. The desktop apps include many enhancements and functionality over Twitter website including:
- Image upload to supported services
- Automatic URL shortening using third party services
- Multiple account support
- Access to other social media networks from one app
- Multi-Column view to divide up your @ replies, direct messages, searches and keyword tracking
- Quick use buttons for retweets, sending direct messages or @ replies
- A Good mobile app – Much like the main Twitter site the mobile version of the site is missing many of the features and functionality currently available in the different flavors of Twitter mobile apps available. Many mobile Twitter apps include features found on the desktop such as image upload and URL shortening. Since I currently run Windows Mobile and have experience using Windows Mobile I highly recommend looking at PocketTwit but if you run an iPhone or Android based device there are numerous apps available that you should consider looking at.
- A different browser based app – In case you are unable to due to company policy, don’t want to install a new program on your computer or haven’t found a Twitter app you were satisfied with yet, there are many browser based alternatives available to use instead of the Twitter site. These browser based apps include much of the same functionality you would find in one of the previously mentioned desktop apps, but are available from any computer browser without installing additional software. Some of the best browser based apps to check out include:
- Bit.ly – If you plan on sharing any links on Twitter you need to get a bit.ly account and begin harnessing the powr of their api key. Bit.ly has become the standard URL shortener on Twitter and for good reason. Many app developers have already integrated bit.ly into their apps and an account with bit.ly includes free analytics so you can track just how well your shared links are doing.
- Twitpic – Twitpic is my and many others Twitter picture sharing service of choice. It was the first image host dedicated to the Twitter platform, is very easy to use and is integrated into many third party apps already.
- Listorious – Listorious is a directory of available Twitter Lists broken down into different categories for easy discovery. I have talked about the importance of Lists and how to create them in another post so I won’t go in to details here, but if you are looking to subscribe to or find new and interesting Twitter users or Lists; Listorious should be your first stop.
- Wefollow – WeFollow is a Twitter discovery tool used to describe you using hashtags to the rest of the community. If you’re looking to be discovered on Twitter add yourself to the Wefollow directory under the appropriate hashtags or if you’re looking to discover other new and interesting people to follow start browsing Wefollow under the relevant category.
- TweetMeme – If you are looking to discover the hottest and most shared links on Twitter look no further than the aggregate site TweetMeme. Categorized into categories and sub-categories Tweetmeme makes it easy to find exactly the type of content you are looking for and with their top Tweeted stories you can get a glimpse at what is currently trending on Twitter. Adding the Tweetmeme button to your own site can help your content become more easily shared.
- Twitter Grader – Twitter Grader is a free Twitter analytics tool you can use to check and compare your profile with the other users who have used the service to help determine how influential you are on the social network. Grader will rank you profile, offer you Tips and Suggestions if they find anything odd about your account and they have a tool for checking if another user if following you back.
- Twitalyzer – is another free Twitter analytics tool that offers many additional features over that of Grader. Twitalyzer looks at metrics such as: impact, engagement, influence and generosity. If you only look at one Twitter analytics tool make sure you look at Twitalyzer because in my opinion they are the best.
- TweetStats – TweetStats is another free analytics tool that graphs your Tweet timeline, Tweets per hour, Tweets per month, most active Twitter days of the week and your reply stats. This is a good tool to analyze when you are most active on Twitter, the times when you are least active and who you have the most conversations with on Twitter. This type of information can help you decide if your Tweets could be sent out at a different time or day to further your engagement.
- Search.twitter.com – There is going to come a time that you will need to either find something or monitor something on Twitter and at that point you are going to have to turn to search. The Twitter Search (formerly Summize) is a very good real time Twitter search engine with advanced search features such as location, dates, and hashtags to help you pinpoint exactly what it is you’re looking for. Looking for a review on that new restaurant near your house? Try the Twitter advanced search to find this information quickly.
- Twitvid – I rarely need to post video to Twitter but when I do I have found myself turning to the easy to use Twitter video sharing service twitvid. Twitvid accepts video uploads up to a maximum size of 2GB in size and with no time restrictions in place. You can upload and share your videos directly from the twitvid site or by using one of the applications that currently have twitvid already built in. twitvid also shows you what the most popular videos are at that time, recent video uploads and who the most popular members are. Twitvid can be used to discover new content or to promote your own videos.
- OneForty.com – Just in case you run into a problem on Twitter and are in need of a solution look no further than the Twitter app store OneForty.com. oneforty is extremely easy to use as it is broken down by category, essential apps and trending apps. If you can’t find what the Twitter app or tool you’ve looking for at oneforty chances are it hasn’t been built.
If you have used any of the above mentioned tools or services please leave a comment with your review or if you think I missed a crucial tool or service that all Twitter users should be using please let me know that as well.
If you found this guide to be of any use please consider sharing it with your Facebook friends or Twitter followers by clicking on the Facebook or Tweetmeme icons below.
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A robust desktop app - The Twitter website has come a long ways in terms of functionality since its inception but it still lags far behind many of the free desktop clients currently available on the market. You can find Twitter Desktop applications that are cross-platform and built using Adobe Air and you can find operating specific applications as well. The desktop apps include many enhancements and functionality over Twitter website including:
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4 days ago
14 Tips To Help You, Your Brand Or Your Business Get Started In Social Media
Are you looking for a few tips to help kick start your social media/networking experience? Here are 7 Do’s and 7 Don’ts of social networks that can hopefully help guide your social media journey in the right direction and because I couldn’t stop writing there is a bonus tip at the end.
Do
- Do go and join at least one social network right now and after creating your account sit back, monitor and discover how that social network works before posting or sharing any content. As author Ray LeBlond once said “You learn something every day if you pay attention.” So before you jump in and do something you may regret later you must first learn how the community interacts with each other and you must learn how to use the different features contained within that particular social network.
- Do make sure to accurately and truthfully fill out your user profile including a real picture (or at least something that represents you) of yourself. This allows others in that social network to get to know the real you and will help them to trust you in the future.
- Do spend plenty of time actively communicating and interacting with your community. Not only will you learn a lot from your community but you can also help your community by answering questions, sharing content and if applicable pointing them in the direction of your services/website/blog. A quote I enjoy that applies here is:
“A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.”
In other words you can learn by watching but at some point you will have to interact, engage and participate in order to truly learn how to make the most out of social media.
-Chinese Proverb - Do spend time using the search features at whichever social network you are currently on to actively seek out and discover new and interesting individuals who you should friend or follow. You can’t have a sane conversation with yourself and in order to participate in meaningful conversation and begin to build a community you are going to have to go out and find those you wish to communicate with.
- Do take the time to remove and block any spammers that may have latched on to you like the parasites they are. By taking the time and effort to block and report spammers you are helping the social networking sites become a safer and cleaner environment for all users. If spammers find a social network increasingly aggressive towards their tactics eventually they will leave to find an easier place to spam their wares.
- Do make sure you share quality links and content from others with your community. Sharing useful and relevant content with your followers and friends shows the community that you are there for more than just self promotion.
- Do realize that the internet and social networks are increasingly transparent and it is very easy to be found out as a fake or imposter. The best advice I can give to those wishing to use social networks effectively is to always be yourself and to pretend to be someone you aren’t. If you like hockey, show that you do, don’t try and fake your knowledge of football because you will fail. If you are a heavy user of curse words (maybe tone that down a bit) don’t censor yourself simply to gain a larger audience.
Do Not’s
- Do not be afraid to try new social networks. They may only currently have a couple of hundred members but they could quickly turn in to the next Facebook or Twitter. When it comes to social media and social networks it is almost always more beneficial to be an early adopter rather than a late follower. At minimum by being an early adopter you will be able to secure your chosen username to help further your branding efforts.
- Do not be offended if you follow or friend someone and they do not reciprocate. You should only be following or friending those individuals who you find interesting and relevant anyways and those who enhance or add to the quality of the conversation. If they don’t reciprocate the follow at least you are still getting something out of the relationship because they were someone you found interesting to begin with.
- Do not fall into the spammy cycle of follow/unfollow or friend/unfriend simply to get a notification to them in hopes they will follow you back. This can be considered a form of spam and is highly annoying to the individual who you are trying to entice to follow you. Why not engage in relevant conversation with this individual instead? Chances are they will friend or follow you a lot quicker if they know you are adding to the conversation and not just trying to inflate your numbers.
- Do not use a fake profile picture (such as that of a scantily clad blonde) to try and entice more friends/followers into following or friending you. This is a common tactic among spammers (especially on Twitter) and after being found out as a fraud you will almost certainly be blocked and/or reported as a spammer.
- Do not solely use the social networks to promote your own blog/product/service etc… Self-promotion is a good thing but excessive self promotion will get you unfollowed or unfriended rather quickly. Instead of only self promotion try engaging with your followers in a real conversation, try helping by answering questions, ask a few questions yourself and yes even promote your products/services or site.
- Do not stress out over your follower/friend count. Inflated numbers matter very little, instead what really matters is the quality of users and the quality of conversation that is taking place within your community. Strive for quality and not quantity.
- Do not expect overnight success using social media. It is very difficult and rare to see a company, individual or brand jump into social media and instantly garner hundreds or thousands of fans. Instead work daily at growing your community and increasing your brand’s online presence.
Bonus
- Try not to limit yourself to using only the web interface for whichever social networking platform you are currently using. There are plenty of high quality and free third party tools available for Windows, Mac’s and mobile devices that integrate many great features, combine many different social networks into one centralized place and can greatly increase your productivity and efficiency when using the social networks.
Are there any tips or guidelines I am missing that you could offer up in the comments to others who may be reading this post? If you liked this post or found it useful in any way, please leave a comment below or share it with your own community using the Retweet or Facebook icons below.
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4 days ago
Control Who Sees Your Facebook Content With Precision
Recently I was asked by someone how they could share an image to their Facebook profile but limit the access on who could view it. This individual wasn’t a new Facebook user asking the question either,it was a daily user who had quite a lot of experience using Facebook and was familiar with most of the settings.
Within Facebook you actually have the ability to precisely control who sees which content you share and they have made it relatively easy to do so. After showing this experienced Facebook individual on how to properly limit access to those they determined could view their posted content I figured it may be a good idea to share this information with others who may not know about this valuable feature.
This guide will be broken into two separate parts: List creation and Content sharing and privacy controls.
List Creation
Depending on the amount of Friends you have on Facebook you may find creating the lists of people to be a time consuming chore but a necessary one if you wish to precisely control who you want to view your shared content. Do you really want your boss to see the pics from your Saturday night drinking binge? Chances are you don’t and that is why the creating the lists of people is a critical step. After the initial creation of lists and the adding of friends to lists is completed any friends you make after can then be added to your created lists.
- After signing in to Facebook click on the Account tab on the right hand side of the screen. You will be presented with a drop down menu that looks like this:
Click on the “Edit Friends” link - You will now be in the Friends screen of Facebook. In the mid-left panel of the Facebook friends screen you will see this:
Click on the Friends link. This will take you to a screen where you are presented with a list of all of your Facebook friends. - On the right hand side of your friends you will see a drop down arrow labeled “Add To List” that when clicked will look like this:
This is the screen where you will create your new lists that will be used to group your friends into or where you will add your friends into Lists you already have created. As you can see I have Lists created for Family, Friends, Other and Social Media. SMS Subscriptions is a Facebook created group. - Since you will probably not have any Lists created place your cursor in the Create new list field and give a name to a new list that you would like this friend to appear in. One point to remember is that Friends can appear in multiple lists.
- You can now go through your entire Friends list and either create new lists or add friends to existing lists. This is an important step that must be completed if you want to control who sees what you share on Facebook. Something to remember is that Friends can exist in multiple lists. For example you may work with your brother so he could theoretically be placed into a Co-Workers List as well as a Family List.
Content Sharing And Privacy Controls
Now that you have divided your friends into appropriate lists you will now be able to precisely control who is able to see the content you share on Facebook.
- If you click on the What’s on your mind status update field or click on one of the many Facebook share icons you will see a lock icon and two buttons that look like this:
- Click the lock icon and you will be presented with the following view:
From here you will want to click on the Customize link. This is where we begin to configure our privacy sharing options. - A new window will pop up and from here you will click on the field beside where it says “These People:”
Choose the link that is highlighted here called Specific people… - After selecting the link Specific people… the pop-up on your screen should look like this:
In the text field labelled Enter a name or list you can start typing the name of specific friends or Lists that you wish to share this content with. Like the rest of Facebook this field is auto-complete so don’t worry if you can only remember the first letter of a friend or list you wish to share this with. Alternatively from this screen you could choose to hide this content from specific individiuals or lists.
For example you may wish to share your birthday pictures with friends in your Family List so you would choose that list to share those pictures with. Perhaps you went out for your birthday and had a little to much fun but still want to share your pictures with all your friends except your co-workers. In that example you would choose to enter the List Co-Workers into the Hide this from field.
A critical point to remember here is that individuals can belong to multiple lists. So you may have a friend on your Co-workers and Family list so that individual could still see the pictures posted to family.
Now that you know the steps it takes to create lists and how to share content with only those you choose you should be able to precisely control who sees what content and avoid some of those embarrassing stories we’ve all heard about.
If you would like to learn even more about Facebook privacy features the fantastic blog All Facebook has an extensive guide on the subject: http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/12/facebook-privacy-new/
If you liked this small guide to Facebook privacy please leave a comment below or feel free to Tweet or Share this post with those in your Twitter or Facebook networks by clicking one of the icons below.
- After signing in to Facebook click on the Account tab on the right hand side of the screen. You will be presented with a drop down menu that looks like this:
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