Facebook Public Profiles

On March 4, 2009 Facebook announced...

Evolving to Profiles for Everyone and Everything on Facebook

Facebook is moving towards offering everyone and everything on the site the same experience as with profiles – personal web pages that currently represent each of the more than 175 million users on Facebook. In the next week, all administrators of Facebook Pages will have the opportunity to make changes to the new design and can publish the updated design for all users to see whenever they choose. On March 11th, these Pages will automatically change to the new profile design.

Public profiles will be familiar to all Facebook users because they have the same look and function as the current profiles, including these popular features:

Wall – The Wall displays the most recent and relevant information on a profile. The Wall is a collection of what a celebrity or public entity shares as well as what those connected to them are sharing. People can now easily comment on the content posted.

Publisher – Just as a user can add content such as status updates, photos, and videos to any of their connections’ profiles, the Publisher provides a simple interface for sharing content.

Tabs and Applications – Celebrities and public entities choose the default Tab that all users see when they land on their profile. Some applications that a celebrity or public entity has added to their profile are featured on the Boxes Tab.

News Feed – Users will receive updates in News Feed from public profiles just like how they receive updates from their friends and family. Every time users visit Facebook, they’ll see the latest content from their friends, celebrities, and others they care about.

Check out http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages for more information, and links to Facebook's best practices guides with step-by-step instructions to get started.

Making Sense out of Thousands of Twitter Apps

Rip, tear, cut, paste, I am showing no mercy or ethics in this Twitter scrapbookin' affair... I am out to collect all of the Twitter apps and tips that cross my path. You can use 'em to make Twitter work better, harder, faster, smoother - you get the picture. And if you are still trying to figure out why any of this is valuable, just read: Mining The Thought Stream. Use Spy to tap the thoughtstream... "spy can listen in on the social media conversations you're interested in. What do you want to listen for?"

Better yet... listen to twitter with twisten.fm, an app that scans twitter for music links and then plays 'em.

With a new Twitter app being launched almost every day, it seems that several people have had the same idea... and they have created wiki's, databases and directories to try to keep up with the flow. So, first off you may wish to look at the following:

The Twitter Fan Wiki is an ongoing group effort at trying to keep up with organizing the ever-mounting number and variety of Twitter apps.

Twitbase claims to be the first Twitter apps search engine...

"Twitdom is a database maintained by fellow tweeple like you," say the developers of this Twitter Applications Database.

Dan says his,"...collection (http://twitterapps.co.uk) started off as a post on my blog lo-fi librarian. It quickly got out of hand and a bit messy, so I thought a blog format, where each entry could be assigned to multiple categories, would be more appropriate than a static list. I suppose another advantage is that the comments fields can allow for users to post reviews, or application makers to correct or expand upon my explanations."

My Friend Mari Smith just posted the following suggestion in her newsletter:

Do you have your keywords set up on Twitter alert? You never know when your next best client is tweeting about the very problem you help to solve... or a media contact is looking to interview you about your expertise! Be sure to set up an array of your industry keywords and phrases, then follow and respond to people as appropriate.

[For reputation management and seeing where you may want to comment, also set up alerts for your own domain name(s), and your own name including any common misspellings].

There are several great sites to set up Twitter alerts:

• I've used http://tweetbeep.com for some time; they just came back online this week after a wee server challenge. Creator @mdjensen (Michael Jensen) is awesome.
• There's also http://tweetlater.com that provides a great array of Twitter tools, including alerts. Developer @dewaldp provides wonderful customer service.
• Then there's a new one I just came across http://twilert.com made by @danleach.

I recommend just one of these - but certainly check 'em all out if you wish.

Mari is a real guru, one of my favorite coaches in social media... I'd suggest following her on Twitter if you have not already discovered @MariSmith.

Here's my own collection of useful or interesting Twitter apps, but twhirl is my favorite and I use it every day:

tweetchat - create chat-specific rooms in Twitter to post tweets to a select group
tweetube lets you share your favorite videos quickly with short URLs and tracks the visits and comments from the people that follow you on Twitter.

tweetworks No more clicking through an endless procession of "in reply to" links, no need for hashtags or writing queries on a search tool to get the whole conversation. On Tweetworks, tweets stay together where they belong.
twibs: lists an a-z collection of all the registered businesses on Twitter
twiddeo: similar to twitpic (below), but for video
twitpic: sends photos from your mobile phone and posts a link to them on twitter
twitteriffic is a way to try making some extra cash on Twitter by monetizing your Twitter profile background and you get to pick your price. twittad shows you how it’s done.
twittertise lets you track how many people are clicking on your links twittbot lets a group post on the same account or a single person post to a group of accounts.
twitzu: creates an event with description and location info and sends it to followers and receive RSVPs from them
twtpoll: just what the name implies, regarding querying followers

Oh... and you can follow me on Twitter @by_designwise.

LinkedIn Users: Andy Cohen, CEO of Caring.com

With this post, I begin a study section on using LinkedIn as part of your social footprint. My mental picture of establishing a social identity includes three basic steps that match those in "real" life, or life 1.0 as we once knew it. MySpace is High School, Facebook is College and LinkedIn is the Business World.

There is much debate about how to manage your identity in life 2.0 since everything is virtual, changeable (to a degree), interlinked and public. Student applicants to a college may meet up with a Web-savvy faculty member or a future employer that researches them in social media. They may have already seen those drunken cell phone pics you posted on MySpace for a laugh and yes, they know what LMAO means.

My favorite new Presidential quote, "I am a lefty, so get over it," could easily become a mantra in life 2.0. I am a ___________, so get over it... Trying to hide your true self from your business self will make you crazy and schizoid, depending upon the width of the span between your personal and public realities. The possible anonymity of the Web tempts people to do all sorts of odd things... shave a few years off of their age, add things into their resumes that never happened, etc..

It's much easier to work hard at being real! Authenticity is one of the most important traits in life 2.0 - so get comfortable with living like a goldfish in a glass bowl. If the thought makes you cringe, then social networking is probably not for you.

Did You Know?

Welcome to Lilliput...

Listening to @Pistachio addressing the Montreal Webcom in November 2008 on the value of Twitter... I note her "What's it DO?" slide #21, that includes the following benefits of Twitter: "Surround you with motivating people" and "Flatten hierarchy."

Follow me as we slide down the rabbit whole, googling "greater than quantum." I click on the following...

Quantum Leaps: 7 Skills for Workplace Recreation - Google Books Result

by Charlotte Shelton - 1998 - Business & Economics - 212 pages
There are several ways that we can use the graphic The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of the Parts Living revisited Parts whole greater than sum of Quantum ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=0750670770...

"God eternally geometrizes." - Plato

R. Buckminster Fuller describes the effect as "synergy" - where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. All part of the Twitterverse. Scrolling down I find...

Amazon informs me that the following quote that appears in Quantum Leaps is also included in 41 different books: "Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for." - Gary Zukav author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters

Wikipedia tells me, "The phrase Wu Li in the title refers to one possible Chinese translation of the word "physics," as translated by the Tai Chi teacher Al Huang, emphasizing alleged philosophical commonality between western science and eastern mysticism. The chapters of the book are each titled with other alternative translations of Wu Li, such as "Nonsense" and "I Clutch My Principles."

Zukav says, ""When I wrote The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, I had never written a book and I had never studied physics."

The book was first published in 1979, before there was an Internet, before Twitter. It was based upon experiences and impressions Zukav gathered at an east-west physics conference held at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, in 1976 - hanging out with smart friends. The same reason I have come to replace my former trips to Esalen with daily Twitter-fixes. I like hanging out with smart people. I follow them on Twitter @by_designwise.

So this brings me to my New Year's resolutions... I have intended to read that book for years. I now have it in my hands. I am opening the cover, reading the Foreword which confirms my latest Daoist focal point... that subject and the ground within which it exists are inseparable and have a direct effect on each other, which is why I twitter.

Resolution #2: I will finish reading The Dancing Wu Li Masters on my next trip to Esalen.

Happy New Year!

Blogger templates...

Here's just a sample of...
30+ Great Resources for Blogger Templates

AllBlogTools.com - A collection of over 100 templates from an assortment of a lot of smaller designers. You can look them up by layout, color, subject matter and so on.

Blogger-Templates.Blogspot.com - Keeps a small selection of top-notch Blogger themes up and running.

Blogger-Templates.Deceblog.net - A small selection of unique themes for Blogger accounts.

Blogger-Templates-Directory.Blogspot.com - A large directory of Blogger templates, links to resources for further development and a whole lot more.

"The Medium is the Message" and the message is Video

In Marshal McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964, his famous quotation raised awareness of the effects of the media itself on the content it carries. He went even further in saying that the media itself "is the message." Television was the emerging media at the time and McLuhan compared and contrasted TV's cultural impact to that of print and film. He rated media in degrees of hot vs cool, depending upon the amount of sensual interaction and the depth of envelopment each provided.

Then, something new and perhaps unexpected happened. Media started to blend, signaled some say by the e-mergence of MTV, where music and film intermarried with TV. Now, in the technologically enhanced electronic world of Web 2.0, where "power to the people" should be revived as the mantra of the moment, everyone has the opportunity to produce, publish and watch each others' videos.

If you are reading this blog, I am sure you are already watching YouTube videos. When will you start creating your own? "Who me?" Yes, you... it's not "if," it's "when..." you begin to create and publish your own video content.

Here's a collection of tools and tips on video DIY:

Dave Kaminski at Web Video University says, "Because the Internet has become so over-saturated with “amateur” and “homemade” videos (it’s estimated that 100,000 new videos are added to YouTube every day), consumers have become 'quick to pull the trigger' on videos that don’t immediately grab and hold their attention."

He has a 4-week course that will teach you to the tricks of making professional videos for a reasonable fee, and his weekly free blog tips are worth watching. Here's one of his latest, a Video Interview with Thom McFadden, all about how to present yourself on camera. Thom is an acting coach and creative consultant in Hollywood.

You don't need to spend a fortune on equipment to get started, but be sure to enter at the HD level... shooting high def is soon to be standard. There are some very nice pocket-sized cams with plenty of memory for $150 - $200. Weighing only 3.3 ounces, the Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder is one of the most popular and highly rated. Watch for the new Creative Labs Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder (pictured left) with 8 GB Video Storage and 2x Digital Zoom, which might be even better... coming out next week.

Video marketing online: 5 Most Common Myths