another try at tumblr

Looks like we can't throw in the towel on Tumblr.
Everyone (but me) seems to love this blog site.
Valerie says it has a "beautiful aesthetic."
And Carol cuts to the chase, touting its

• easy-use form
• it can promote views to your blog

And - my personal favorite and bottom line:

• "the very young founder, David Karp, is really cute."

tumblr vs. blogspot - some help here?

SO many complaints about how hard it is to post on blogspot...
And SO many big Tumblr blog fans.
So...I decided to give Tumblr a try.
Talk about NON intuitive! I've been fighting with Tumblr for days, just trying to get a photo right.
Meanwhile, figuring out how to comment on the blog is like finding the key to Fort Knox.
So, good ol' socialmedia4thenotsosocial@blogspot.com ---
I'm back!

long reads r us

Great news! We're not along. MANY folks - specifically, 9,200 and counting -- don't feel they quite got the story in just a 120-character tweet.

My new hero, Mark Armstrong --gotta meet him-- created "longreads" for those of us looking for a read story on the web.
And thanks, Elisa, for cluing us in!

Running to catch the train

.

Just back from an extraordinary Columbia/Hearst "Changing Media Landscape" discussion with an all-star panel featuring, among others, Tumblr's extremely youthful founder, David Karp, who looked like he just parked his skate board and Mashable's editor in chief, Adam Ostro.
You can catch the entire discussion by clicking here.
The quote of the night?
"Journalism is no longer a destination.
It's now a moving train.
The idea is stay on it."

Ouch.

Tipsy tweeters

Talk about not-so-social.  Seems enough folks are drunk tweeters that a company called Webroot's building a business creating an online social media sobriety test.
(Thanks Indyposted for cluing us in!)

Just a simple download and our computers lock during those tipsy after-twilight hours.
We have to do the typing equivalent of walking a straight line to get them unlocked .

Sounds too good to be true -- or at least serious -- but it is!

breaking blogger commandments

Looks like I broke the first commandment for bloggers, says Inkrebel.com.
This rebel-guy's  "20 common mistakes made by new bloggers" lists using blogspot.com as El Error Numero Uno.
So I'm throwing it out to you.  What do you think?
And no, no, no I am not apologizing ('cz then I'd rack up Mistake #16.)
But is this blogger.com just too tough to navigate?
Please let me know.  After all, as Mr. Rebel says in Mistake #20 --
Humility goes a long way.

Confirmed -- not so social!

With tag lines like "searching content from across the universe" and "inhale the web" some new free online tools  that check our "brand visibility" are hard to resist.
HowSociable?, addictomatic and socialmention offer lightning-speed searches across dozens of social media sites to quickly rank our names, businesses or brand's popularity.
But be ready for some tough love.
As HowSociable told me - more than once!!! - "Sorry, this metric isn't being very sociable right now."

Lap top media

Finally starting getting over the election and I get this heart breaker via my buddy, Teri.
(Thanks a lot, Teri!)
Seems an unemployed Miami Herald writer got lured into writing for Demand Media by their visions of laptops on Tiki bars .
The problem is, DM only pays $3 per story.  That's right.  Less than it costs to cross a Manhattan bridge.
Maybe they meant a different kind of lap top?

today's election goes viral

From dashboards to trackers and from tweets to blogs today's election has been embattled and embraced by social media like never before.
Check out Sree's story in DNAinfo to dissect incoming election results by issues, fund raising--and even candidates' tweeting skills.

Midterm elections duke it out with social media

As Republicans and Democrats duke it out across the nation it could be tough to make sense of  tomorrow's individual election results.
But thanks to a slew of new online graphics we can get and give a quick understanding while gaining local insight on how and why people voted.  Check out Mashable's story here.
And yes; there are even bar graphs that compare candidates' Facebook and Twitter followers.

It's not when we post but when we read that matters

So we're taking a break from tricker treaters and rushing to post our breaking news.
But it doesn't matter so much when we post our news.
What matters, of course, is when folks sign on to read it.

Mashable's got the answer.  Turns out folks tune in to Facebook and other social media sites at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
In other words, when kids get home from school (3 p.m.), when workers settle down from work (8 p.m.)
and, errr, what's our excuse for signing on at 11 a.m.?

Saved by the door bell. Gotta go...

New media lifesaver

So we dove into this ocean of new media.
Now we're drowning in all the tweets, Facebook comments, LinkedIn connections
and creepy Foursquare "I-found-you" coupons we're getting.
How do we stay above water?
Not surprisingly, a bunch of even newer new media forces are extending a hand.
They pull all the comments we receive from all these different places on to a single screen.
HootSuite is a top contender says SreeTips.  And Mashable likes Tweetdeck.
Click here for Mashable's walk through -- on solid ground! -- of options out there.

Google Bell

Should we call it "Google Bell?"

That's right. Google, that massive big brother (mother?) just moved in to the free-phone-call business. 

Unlike Skype, however, it offers free phone calls --all over the world!--only between those with gmail accounts. 

Click Here and a friendly fellow with a crew cut walks you through the easy down load.

• Then, just go back to your gmail account.  
• Look on the left under "Mail." 
• Scroll down and you'll see the new "Chat" function 
• Along with a list of all your friends with gmail.

It's all connected...

via @sree.net  -- Thanks again, Sree!

Tweeting Happy Halloween

From social media to the truly social,
CLICK HERE for a tacky but well-wished singing Halloween message!

Spooked by a snapshot

Well, that explains it.  I hate my twitter photo and keep fighting with the site to change it.
(Check it out and you'll see what I mean.)
Anyway, guess who wins?
Mashable just reported that this time it's not my fault.
The good news (from God knows whose perspective) is that this may be fixed in time for Halloween.
So we can replace that bad photo with an even scarier one...

facebook questions OR we need a "google" for social media!

Facebook recently added "facebook questions" to their chest of tricks  ?
Kinda like Linkedin questions or Twitter questions or email questions 
Or...you get the point.
So my questions is --
When will somebody, say Google, pull all these sites
and their oh-so-many features together into one easy-to-use location?

Let's try posting this to fb ?s and see what they say!

Spoofing new media - check it out

Kicking off an hysterical spoof on social media, TV reporter "Mack Rubbs" tweets his 87 followers -- ignoring the camera and gunshots --to cover a ficticious shooting at City Hall.
Click here to check it out.
Gotta love this Mack Rubbs guy.  As he says as sirens howl in the background,
"It is now 88 followers and I have just been retweeted.  Sweet."

Fast answers from Linked in

Gotta a business question and need a fast answer?
Try Linked in Answers.  It's made for everyone from stay-at-home consultants to Fortune 500 CEO's.
Just type in your question.
You name it... "I've been sued. You know a good lawyer?" or, how about, "I've got a business trip to Camden NJ and need a place to stay..."
"Experts" -- or those of us who think we are, will line up with their responses.
Yet another tip from Sreetips. 
Thanks, Sree!

lifehacker - but no passwords --live in my head

           

Okay, already.  We signed up
             for twitter, facebook, linkedin, youtube...you-name it!
Check.
            New password for every site.
Check.
            Whoops!  What the heck was my password?!?

Well thanks again Sreetips for the link to lifehacker.com's video, how to build great passwords that live in your head.

Ugh...lifehacker lives in my head!

But with such a spooky name, the video's cartoon sounds pretty sleepy.
And this sleepy hacker has some great ideas.
Don't want to tell you too many or you might guess mine.

Forget digital. It's a tidal wave!

That nerve center for news, Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism
just launched the Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
Until now, this media mecca divided itself between four specialties --
newspaper, magazine, broadcast and what until recently seemed like a sleepy fringe called "new media."

But with "new media" AKA "digital journalism" bogarting every media field, this school founded by Joseph Pulitzer of Pulitzer-prize fame just opened the dam for the next tidal wave in communications.

Lucky we got a (one week blogging) head start...

social media for the not-so-social: Comment of the week

Thanks, NB, for the Nutshell mail tip!


"Love the blog so far-great tips (I really like Nutshell Mail btw).And you're right,its not too late,and you can choose what to embrace (or not),and make it yours :) BTW- Sree is fabulous...."


I'm also nuts for Nutshell.
Man, it's hard not to sound like an ad when it comes to these guys...

Nutty for nutshell

Face it.  All these new-media ways to "connect" are pretty darn disconnected
Between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace -- I can go on!---it's hard to stay on top of so many messages from so many sites.
It would be great if we could get it all in a nutshell.  And hurrah! I feel like I'm doing an advertisement here, but this new nutshell mail is GREAT!
It pulls all the new messages we receive -- tweets, invites, friend requests and connections -- from all these different new media sites into a single email.  And it sends the email as often as we want, whenever we want it.
The sign-up is simple.  It takes 5 seconds. Seriously.
In fact, I think I'll check my email from nutshell right now...

Foursquare OR 1984?

Check out the new foursquare how-to video

        with the Stepford Wives voice

          the little-girl-who's-missing-a-nose cartoon

              and the offer that's nearly miraculous   

        "unlock your world...and find happiness just around the corner--"

If this sounds appealing, using Foursquare is fairly simple.  Just click the "learn more" tab (next to the green "join now") for a quick walk through. When you sign in to foursquare with your cell phone, a GPS global positioning service can ID just where you are  -- and what and who are around you.  You'll get recommendations on nearby businesses restaurants and pubs and can even find friends nearby.


Kind of spooky...

What's hot

Seems we've gotta learn not just a new language but a new definition of hot.
And no; I'm not talking (this time) about Viggo Mortensen.
Although he sure is hot...
Lost my train of thought.

Oh.  Right.  Nearly every day there's a new social media site out there.
Which should we focus on and which can we forget?
Mediaweek just narrowed it down for us on their digital hotlist 2010 .  For now, looks like there are just 3  sites we need to put our money on and master--
Facebook, Twitter and Four Square.
Forget Viggo. We can master new media!

Not just our kids - now Twitter ignores us too!

So we finally reduce ourselves to "tweeting"! and now Wired mag shoots us down further still, revealing that 7 out of 10 of all tweets get ignored.
So here, thanks to @sreetips.com, we've got the "good tweets test."
Who comes up with this stuff?
Anyway, to increase our odds that only our family ignores us, our tweets should be:

• helpful
• useful
• informative
• relevant
• actionable
• timely
• brief
• entertaining
• fun

Score your last tweet from 1 -10 in each category. An 80 or better puts you in competition for Twitter valedictorian.  Or at least a front runner for getting read....

Phone France -- or Facebook -- for Free!

Forget Ma Bell.  As Skype says on it's link below, making FREE calls on Skype is easy-peezy.

(They said it; not me.)

ANYWAY...Cheapskate that I am, I thought it was great when we could just link to Skype, http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home, to make FREE calls - even international! -- from our computers.  All we need is the built-in-microphone and speakers our computers come with and a webcam, a $50 add on that can be bought at any computer store.

But now, with new Skype, we can actually phone our friends on facebook.
Here are, as they say, easy-peezy step-by-step links for both:

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/allfeatures/video-call/
 
http://mashable.com/2010/10/14/skype-5-with-facebook/

We true grizzlies are gonna get this

Tweets, blog posts, Facebook comments and emails keep comin’ in…

And hey, that just about sums up what they’re saying:  

Can’t we come up with some kind of cutoff on the ways we need to learn to communicate?
Sort of like those Sarah Palin  Mama Grizzlies risin’ up.
Is there no limit!?!

Whoops.  I’m back.

Anyway, how do we get up to speed? What works and what’s a waste of time?

• Try SreeTips.com for Sree Sreenivasan, that guru of social media, and his constantly updated list of tips and class schedules
• Link to constantcontact.com, the email marketing site that offers free social media sessions
• Check out mediabistro.com for their list of online and onsite classes
• Read some of the online how-to’s, such as http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/twitter-for-beginners/

Send your suggestions.

We true grizzlies are gonna get this!

Outed by Saturday Night Live

Who turned on the nanny cam??

I promise this skit is worth the click!!!

FREE STUFF!

I admit it.  I’m a whore for a bargain.

Show me a deal and I can overcome nearly any phobia. Pay for my plane ticket and who says I’m afraid of heights.  Buy me a city condo and I bet ya I won’t complain about small places. 

Well --surprise, surprise-- the fantastic free social media stuff out there is winning me over. 

The way my new-media assistant prof. Jeremy Caplan  tells it, there are as many new-media deals out there as, umm, let’s just say blogs and bloggers.

Here are some for starters:

• How about http://www.mailchimp.com/.  It's Constant Contact for us cheapskates.  FREE marketing services that design, send and track email campaigns.
• Then there’s http://presslift.com/ Not only is it FREE but, the way they tell it, the site practically makes dead press releases come alive by adding video, audio and links.
• And for us new-media-phobic folks, there’s http://nutshellmail.com/ For FREE it pulls together in a single email all those endlessly overwhelming tweets and facebook updates.

Who said we were cowards in this brave new world of social media?  Oh, eh...that was me.

      

No place to hide

Dylan went electric. Kurtz went Daily Beast. 

And David Carr, in his New York Times story, A Vanishing Journalistic Divide, makes it clear that when it comes to social media, there’s no place to hide.

http://nyti.ms/bbB996

How to post a comment OR How can something this simple be so x#@*! complicated

Busted.  Yes; that was my dear husband writing that response, ("This is brilliant!!!") after my last blog post.
And yes, I did suggest a word or two.
Okay; all three.
But it was for a worthy -- yes, yes -- self-serving cause.
My buddy, Sarah, wrote that she tried to post a comment on the blog but grew so frustrated that she wound up turning to the ol' tried-and-true email to respond.
So we used my hubby for a blog-comment trial run.
And it worked!

• Just scroll to the right of the blog post and click the "follow" button.
• When you get to the next screen that asks you to sign in with an account already created, choose the account you have (Google, twitter, etc.)
• Or, if you don't have one listed, click "create an account" and fill out the next questionnaire 
• This will return you to the "Follow social media for the not-so-social" blog
• Click "follow this blog"
• When you return to the blog, click "comment" at the bottom 
• Or you can skip all this and respond directly by clicking one of the letters right under the post:
• M=email, B=blog, T=tweet, f=facebook

And let 'er rip!

Still time to catch the train

I bet there are a lot of us out there. We've been writing all our lives.  Suddenly we learn that depending on pen, paper and even email is just so... well, so yesterday.  What's with this Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare -- and all those new media names we wish we never heard.
This must be how those macho cave men felt when some young upstart designed the wheel.  Sure looks handy but how the heck do you use it?
Fed up with feeling outdated, I signed up for a fantastic social media course at Columbia University's Journalism School with that guru of all social media experts, Sree Sreenivasan, http://www.sree.net/
And I'm going to share the best tips I learn right here.
The most important, for now, is that it's not too late. Sure, the conductor -- or our kids -- may have called "all aboard."  But the train still hasn't pulled out of the station.