Kruse Kronicle

'Facebook users have low self-esteem'

Times of India: 'Facebook users have low self-esteem'

TORONTO: Facebook is used mostly by narcissists and those with low self-esteem, says a Canadian study.

These type of people use Facebook as a self-promotional tool, says psychology researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh of York University.

Mehdizadeh, who extensively examined the online habits and personalities of 100 Facebook users aged 18 to 25 years old, found that individuals higher in narcissism and lower in self-esteem spent more time on the site and filled their pages with more self-promotional content. ...

I'd resent this article if I didn't have so many doubts about myself. But then I remembered I don't care what they think because it's all about me anyway.  ;-)

HOW TO: Respond when Social Media Attacks Your Brand

Mashable: HOW TO: Respond when Social Media Attacks Your Brand

For all the praise that brand advertisers have for social media, they must be aware that it’s very much a double-edged sword. And for all the free marketing, advertising and brand promotion via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other platforms used to help build an identity and relationship with your customers, it can just as quickly turn on you and your brand.

Social media disasters occur for a number of reasons, the first being that your company probably messed up. It may not have been intentional, but something, somewhere down the line, went wrong enough for someone to complain and it was enough for others to vocalize that complaint en masse. One mistake is all it takes for social media to turn against your brand.

No one is perfect and you can’t expect to please everyone all the time, so the best trick is to be prepared for how to handle things if your company finds itself under attack in the social realm. Here are three examples of companies who were attacked by social media and how they handled, or should have handled the situation. Learn from their mistakes or successes so you can stay on social media’s good side. ...

Interesting article on how social media is impacting advertising and business in general.

Older Adults and Social Media

Pew: Older Adults and Social Media

Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older has nearly doubled -- from 22% to 42% over the past year. ...

Half (47%) of internet users ages 50-64 and one-in-four (26%) users ages 65 and older now use social networking sites.  ...

One-in-ten (11%) online adults ages 50-64 and one-in-twenty (5%) online adults ages 65 and older now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others. ...

Email and online news are still more appealing to older users, but social media sites attract many repeat visitors.

The most depressing aspect of this story is that I qualify as an "older adult."

Open Facebook Competitor Diaspora Sets 9/15 Launch Date Read More

Wired: Open Facebook Competitor Diaspora Sets 9/15 Launch Date  Read More

Diaspora, a nascent open competitor to Facebook that raised $200,000 from online contributors, will launch their much-anticipated service on Sept. 15, the company said today in a blog post.

The project aims to create a social network that puts users in charge of their own data.

Or as they put it a “privacy-aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network.”

Diaspora was started by four New York University students earlier this year after hearing a talk from Free Software guru Richard Stallman Eben Moglen, who said that Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg had done more harm to the world than anyone his age ever had.

Diaspora’s idea of taking on the social network giant  gained momentum and wide publicity in the spring following yet another controversial Facebook attempt to make users share more information publicly. ...

Facebook Places lets friends know where you are

USA Today: Facebook Places lets friends know where you are

SAN FRANCISCO — On Wednesday, Facebook  plunged into the location-based services market in a long-awaited move that should further popularize such mobile "check-in" services and establish Facebook as the leading player.

Facebook Places lets mobile device owners with Facebook accounts share their exact location and find the whereabouts of their friends. The free service, starting to roll out now, can be accessed from iPhone, iPod Touch, Android devices, BlackBerry Torch and the iPad.

Facebook's entry legitimizes a burgeoning online service that is spreading quickly among consumers, advertisers and small businesses but is largely fragmented, says Greg Sterling, an independent social-networking analyst.

The new feature might raise privacy concerns, as Facebook members use a GPS-like monitoring service on themselves and their friends. Facebook spokeswoman Meredith Chin says Places comes with easy-to-follow control settings to opt out of the service. ...

What Americans Do Online: Social Media And Games Dominate Activity

Nielson Wire: What Americans Do Online: Social Media And Games Dominate Activity

Social Network for Dummies

Source

Rent a Friend for £6.50 an hour

Telegraph: Rent a Friend for £6.50 an hour

An internet entrepreneur is making friends available for hire at an hourly rate.

... The US-based site already has around 2,000 members, each paying up to £16 a month ($25) to access the site.

When they see a friend they like the look of, they can rent them for as little as £6.50 ($10) an hour.

Rosenbaum said he wanted to "go a step back" from dating sites and offer a service that was, in the words of his website "strictly platonic".

He told The Times: "No one was offering friendship."

The service is not just about getting people to meet up for a drink or a meal. It lists a host of diverse activities that members might like to hire friends for, including "teaching manners", "snowboarding", "family functions" and just "hanging out".  ...

The Face-to-Face Gospel and the Death of Distance

Christianity Today: The Face-to-Face Gospel and the Death of Distance

Technology is changing our lives at breakneck speed and in unpredictable ways. In just one decade, for example, the mobile phone has transformed the daily life of virtually every church leader in the world. Technology also changes the way the gospel gets communicated, whether through PowerPoint slides, websites, or screens at multi-site churches. We sought out a man who has decades of practical experience with technology in business—as well as wide and deep thinking about its significance.

Al Erisman spent 32 years at Boeing, and for the last 11 of those years was director of research and development for technology. He now teaches in the business school at Seattle Pacific University and is co-founder and editor of Ethix magazine (Ethix.org). He also consults and lectures on faith and economic development, most recently in the Central African Republic and Nepal. He recently spoke with Global Conversation editor and CT senior writer Tim Stafford.

What does technology have to do with the gospel? ...

In China, Labor Movement Enabled by Technology

New York Times: In China, Labor Movement Enabled by Technology

ZHONGSHAN, China — It is labor revolt by text message and video upload, underwritten by the Chinese government.

The 1,700 workers who went on strike at the Honda  Lock auto parts factory here are mostly poor migrants with middle-school educations.

But they are surprisingly tech-savvy.

Hours into a strike that began last week, they started posting detailed accounts of the walkout online, spreading word not only among themselves but also to restive and striking workers elsewhere in China.

They fired off cellphone text messages urging colleagues to resist pressure from factory bosses. They logged onto a state-controlled Web site — workercn.cn — that is emerging as a digital hub of the Chinese labor movement. And armed with desktop computers, they uploaded video of Honda Lock’s security guards roughing up employees.

“We videotaped the strike with our cellphones and decided to post the video online to let other people know how unfairly we were treated,” said a 20-year-old Honda employee who asked not to be named because of the threat of retaliation.

The disgruntled workers in this southern Chinese city took their cues from earlier groups of Web-literate strikers at other Honda factories, who in mid-May set up Internet forums and made online bulletin board postings about their own battle with the Japanese automaker over wages and working conditions.

But they have also tapped into a broader communications web enabling the working class throughout China to share grievances and strategies. Some strike leaders now say they spend much of their time perusing the Web for material on China’s labor laws.

Wielding cellphones and keyboards, members of China’s emerging labor movement so far seem to be outwitting official censors in an effort to build broad support for what they say is a war against greedy corporations and their local government allies.

And it might not be possible if the Chinese government had not made a concerted effort in the last decade to shrink the country’s digital divide by lowering the cost of mobile phone and Internet service in this country — a modernization campaign that has given China the world’s biggest Internet population (400 million) and allowed even the poorest of the poor to log onto the Internet and air their labor grievances. ...

... A looming question now, in fact, is whether and when the government might seek to quash the current worker uprisings if they become too big a threat to the established social order. Already, the government has started cracking down on strike-related Web sites and deleted many of the blog posts about the strikes. ...

Social Networks/Blogs Now Account for One in Every Four and a Half Minutes Online

Nielson Wire: Social Networks/Blogs Now Account for One in Every Four and a Half Minutes Online

The popularity of social media is undeniable – three of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related (Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites. This equates to 22 percent of all time online or one in every four and half minutes. For the first time ever, social network or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online, after the numbers of people visiting these sites increased by 24% over last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours, 31 minutes last year. ...

U.S. students suffering from Internet addiction: study

Reuters: U.S. students suffering from Internet addiction: study

American college students are hooked on cellphones, social media and the Internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full day found that after 24 hours many showed signs of withdrawal, craving and anxiety along with an inability to function well without their media and social links.

Susan Moeller, the study's project director and a journalism professor at the university, said many students wrote about how they hated losing their media connections, which some equated to going without friends and family.

"I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening," said one student. "Between having a Blackberry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people have become unable to shed their media skin."

Moeller said students complained most about their need to use text messages, instant messages, e-mail and Facebook.

"Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort," wrote one of the students, who blogged about their reactions. "When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life." ...

I know I'm not addicted. I can quit anytime I want. I do so several times a day.

Police say teens planned Plaza chaos online

KSHB-TV: Police say teens planned Plaza chaos online

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Police say hundreds of teens planned Saturday's chaos on the Plaza through web sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Officials received several calls from adults Sunday.  Police say it appears the adults saw the postings online but didn't report anything until it was too late.

This is the second week in a row police responded to the Country Club Plaza to clear hundreds of juveniles off the streets.  But Saturday, the crowd reached a record high: nearly 1,000 teens.

"It's 11:30 12:00 at night, and I'm just curious where the parents are,” said Plaza property owner Steve Brennan. “They look 12, 14, 15-years-old.”

Police say most of the teens were 13 to 17-years old and started flooding the Plaza around 10:30 p.m.

Over the course of just one hour, police say a couple was beaten and robbed in a parking lot, a girl in a prom dress was pushed into a fountain at the Mill Creek Park, and a teen was hit with a metal pipe in the Winstead's parking lot.  That teen now has severe facial injuries.  Police say several businesses closed early because groups of teens were harassing their customers, especially those seating at sidewalk tables.  ...

Yet another innovative use of social media. :-) This has been a big topic on the KC talk radio today as you might imagine. Sounds to me like the police acted responsibly.

Predicting the Future With Social Media

HP Labs: Predicting the Future With Social Media

Abstract

In recent years, social media has become ubiquitous and important for social networking and content sharing. And yet, the content that is generated from these websites remains largely untapped. In this paper, we demonstrate how social media content can be used to predict real-world outcomes. In particular, we use the chatter from Twitter.com to forecast box-office revenues for movies. We show that a simple model built from the rate at which tweets are created about particular topics can outperform market-based predictors. We further demonstrate how sentiments extracted from Twitter can be further utilized to improve the forecasting power of social media.

Constant techno communication brings lack of focus and loss of privacy

Kansas City Star: Constant techno communication brings lack of focus and loss of privacy

... Cyber-savvy experts view it as far more than that. It’s an example of how technology — and especially the growth in text messaging and live video chatting — is allowing people to keep in such constant communication that it has begun to radically change the sense of what it means for people to feel together, or alone, or apart.

Researchers even have names for it: “connected presence” or “persistent presence” — the feeling, through technology, that you are with someone when you are not.

“It’s having this sense, this ambient awareness, of your friends or family,” said Mary Madden, senior research specialist with the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. “Even if you’re not communicating or interacting, they have a sense of you being there and being OK, just by you being logged on.”

But the boom in constant connections also is raising significant concerns, from fostering poor focus and lack of independence to the real difficulty of cutting ties in an era of Facebook “friend” connections.

More privacy questions are sure to arise with the evolution of new phone applications. Foursquare or Gowalla now tell people where you are, using Global Positioning System satellites.

Some worry, too, about stalking, domestic violence and being connected to people who are truly unwanted.

“We are seeing persistent texting,” said Parry Aftab, a lawyer and executive director of WiredSafety.org, an Internet safety organization. “People wanting to know where you are at every hour of the day, who you are with. When does it go from, ‘I care about you,’ to ‘I’m a stalker, I’m a punching bag?’ There’s a thin line from what’s reasonable and what’s manic.” ...

Catholics embrace social media with limits

Kansas City Star: Catholics embrace social media with limits

Benedict XVI, the first pope with his own YouTube channel and presence on Facebook, is urging Roman Catholic clergy to use social media to communicate with parishioners and reach those outside the church.

"Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis," the pope declared in January in preparation for World Communications Day in May.

But the Catholic Church has policies that take the "social" out of social media. Parishes that use social media, such as Facebook, are instructed to disable the comment functions of those sites.

The Orlando Diocese's rules for the use of social media, enacted in August after six months of study and debate, expressly prohibit blogs because they imply two-way communication that encourages responses from the public, said Carole Brinati, a diocese spokeswoman.

"Blogging is 'I can comment on that,' and that is what we don't allow," she said. "Some people feel that is shortsighted, but that is our policy."

The purpose of the pope's push for social media is to get the church's message out to the people in as many ways as possible. It's not intended to spark debate; invite opinions and opposing points of view; or open a dialogue between church leaders and parishioners, Brinati said.

Churches have been riding the social-media wave for some time now. Many denominations reach out - either through their own Web sites or sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

By their nature, social media are wide open and egalitarian: Anyone with a keyboard and an opinion is entitled to join the conversation. That makes the incorporation of social media difficult for hierarchical religious organizations or denominations, said the Rev. Anthony Pogorelc, a research fellow at Catholic University's Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies in Washington.

"In some sense there is a tension between social media and traditional, hierarchical organizations like the Catholic Church," Pogorelc said. "With social media, everyone has a voice and can say what they want. In the system of the Catholic Church, more weight is given to the key spokespersons - the bishops or leaders of the church - and what they say." ...

Blogging and Facebook without out comments isn't social media in my book. It is a regularly updated web page but there is nothing social about it.

Invasion of Privacy

Kansas City Star

My Town of Kind!

The New York Observer: My Town of Kind!

A year ago, Natasha Vargas-Cooper, a California-based contributor to the Awl and Gawker, named 26-year-old Manhattanite Katie Baker among her favorite female bloggers in a blog post. Ms. Baker linked appreciatively to the post on her Tumblr, calling Ms. Vargas-Cooper, whom she'd never met, "a lady I luv." After that, "the lovefest continued," said Ms. Baker in a phone interview with The Observer. Ms. Vargas-Cooper commented on Ms. Baker's Tumblr post, writing, "Big fucking fan = me."

The two women began to go out of their way to link to and comment on each other's writings and communicate via Twitter, and Ms. Vargas-Cooper helped Ms. Baker—who asked The Observer not to reveal her day job, where Tumbling is frowned upon—edit some of her writing. When Ms. Baker published an essay on the Duke lacrosse fiasco on the Awl in December, her new friend was one of several commenters who took the high road in defending her against a Negative Nelly in the comments section, asserting, "ELEGANT PIECE, MS. BAKER." And the negative commenter was apparently killed by kindness: he/she staked out Ms. Baker on her personal blog to apologize: "I'm the person who wrote that dick-ish 'Nope, sorry' comment on your Awl article, and it is seriously HAUNTING me! I've never been that mean to someone on the internet, I'm super anti-confrontation and you're a pro and took it pro-ishly, but uggggh I'm sorry I'm such a dick. Really."

With all due respect to the Internet, it has not often been described as a "lovefest"; indeed, it has been better known as a forum for fire-breathing, semi-literate personal attacks. But suddenly, wide swaths of the Web have become bastions of support and earnest civility, where community-members "retweet" or "reblog" each other's bon mots, promiscuously proffer thumbs-up, help sell perfect strangers' books, drive traffic to each other's blogs and real-world events and even defend one another. ...

Loneliness in an Interconnected World

Futurist Society: Loneliness in an Interconnected World

The average American today has only a third as many friends as 25 years ago, and one-fourth have no close confidants at all, according to recently released data from medical researchers. The Internet may be largely to blame, says Michael Bugeja, author of INTERPERSONAL DIVIDE (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Many people have a swarm of friends on Facebook, but do they ever call? “Friending” is not the same as “befriending”—being a friend—Bugeja notes, arguing that instead of creating a global village, the Internet has distracted and distanced us from each other.

One impact is that lonely people have no one to turn to in hard times, whereas during the Depression people relied on each other. Now, when people can no longer afford the communications devices they’ve come to rely on instead of people, they become truly isolated. As a result, suicide rates may increase, even among young children, Bugeja warns.

LISTEN to the Radio Health Journal podcast.

Her Facebook status changed to "single?" Ur dumped

Reuters: Her Facebook status changed to "single?" Ur dumped

LONDON (Reuters) - Digital dumping is on the rise, according to a survey, with growing numbers of people preferring to use email and social networking Web sites to break up with their partners.

Over one third of 2,000 people polled (34 percent) said they had ended a relationship by email, 13 percent had changed their status on Facebook without telling their partners and six percent had released the news unilaterally on Twitter.

By contrast, only two percent had broken up via a mobile phone text.

The rest had split up the old-fashioned way by face-to-face conversation (38 percent) and by telephone (eight percent).

"Digital Dumping will soon take over when it comes to ending a relationship," said Sean Wood, Marketing Manager for DateTheUk dating service for whom the survey was carried out.

"It's often easier, quicker and avoids any misunderstandings."

Nielsen: Teens Sends an Average of 10 Text Messages Per Hour

ParentDish: Nielsen: Teens Sends an Average of 10 Text Messages Per Hour

They may take time out for school and (occasionally) sleep. Otherwise, American teenagers are busy sending an average of 10 text messages per hour.

Researchers for the Nielsen Company learned of the stat after looking at more than 40,000 monthly mobile bills. Nielsen is the same New York marketing and advertising research company that provides ratings for television shows.

Turning their attention to cell phones, researchers also discovered that tweens send an average of four text messages per hour.

Roger Entner, senior vice president of Research and Insights, discussed the revelations in a blog Jan. 26 on the company's Web site.

He writes that kids "text in the morning before they brush their teeth and continue late into the night with the last text messages (also called SMS) sneaked in under the covers right before they close their eyes to sleep. Until now, there has been very little firm data available about how pervasive texting has actually become among the under aged."

Entner calls the results of his company's study "staggering." ...

Tech-savvy 'iGeneration' kids multi-task, connect

USA Today: Tech-savvy 'iGeneration' kids multi-task, connect

Move over, Millennials. You're not the younger generation anymore.

For the past decade, you were the ones to watch. But now, as the eldest among you are fast approaching 30, there's a new group just begging for some attention. They're still kids, and although there's a lot the experts don't yet know about them, one thing they do agree on is that what kids use and expect from their world has changed rapidly.

And it's all because of technology.

"It's simply a part of their DNA," says Dave Verhaagen, a child and adolescent psychologist in Charlotte. "It shapes everything about them."

To the psychologists, sociologists, and generational and media experts who study them, their digital gear sets this new group (yet unnamed by any powers that be) apart, even from their tech-savvy Millennial elders. They want to be constantly connected and available in a way even their older siblings don't quite get. These differences may appear slight, but they signal an all-encompassing sensibility that some say marks the dawning of a new generation.

"The current generation seems to be moving well into adulthood, and there seems to be another generation setting itself up as a contrast to it," says Neil Howe, a historian and demographer who has co-written several books on the generations. ...

In Age of Friending, Consumers Trust Their Friends Less

Advertising Age: In Age of Friending, Consumers Trust Their Friends Less

Edelman Study Shows That Only 25% of People Find Peers Credible, Flying in Face of Social-Media Wisdom.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Whom do we increasingly trust less? Us.

It's a finding that strikes at the foundation of many a social-media marketing philosophy: Tapping into peer-to-peer networks is a way for marketers to tell authentic, credible stories to consumers whose confidence in corporate CEOs, news outlets, government officials and industry analysts has taken a beating. But according to Edelman's latest Trust Barometer, the number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of information about a company dropped by almost half, from 45% to 25%, since 2008.

Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman, believes it's a sign of the times -- and the lesson for marketers is consumers have to see and hear things in five different places before they believe it.

"The events of the last 18 months have scarred people," Mr. Edelman said. "People have to see messages in different places and from different people. That means experts as well as peers or company employees. It's a more-skeptical time. So if companies are looking at peer-to-peer marketing as another arrow in the quiver, that's good, but they need to understand it's not a single-source solution. It's a piece of the solution."

Consumers are a distrustful bunch in general -- the credibility of TV dropped 23 points and radio news and newspapers were down 20 points between 2008 and 2010. 

CEOs up

And when asked how credible they deemed the information they get about a company when a "person like yourself" serves as a spokesperson the numbers again dropped. This year 39% of those surveyed felt the messages conveyed by consumer spokespeople was credible compared to 45% in 2009, the biggest drop-off among all categories.

Conversely, CEOs -- who have of late been trotted out as public faces of their companies in times of stress, such as General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre -- saw the biggest year-over-year increase from 17% in 2009 to 26% this year. Other groups seeing increases in the level of consumer trust were government officials (22% vs. 27%), a financial/industry analyst (46% vs. 52%), NGO representative (42% vs. 44%) and academic experts (61% vs. 64%). The only other group to see the credibility of their word diminish was company employees, which saw a drop of three points (31% vs. 28%).

If consumers stop believing what their friends and the "average Joes" appearing in testimonials say about a product or company, the implications could be significant not just for marketers but for the social networks and word-of-mouth platforms selling themselves as solutions to communicating in a jaded world. The influence of peers has been considered the leading rationale for brands' shifting marketing dollars to social media.

In some cases, social networks themselves may be contributing to the decline in trust. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed people to maintain larger circles of casual associates, which may be diluting the credibility of peer-to-peer networks. In short, the more acquaintances a person has, the harder it can be to trust him or her. Mr. Edelman believes the Facebook component has "absolutely" played a role in diluting trust levels. ...

Social Networking Rises, Especially Among Younger Set

Marketing Charts: Social Networking Rises, Especially Among Younger Set

Social networking has risen among all age groups in the past few years, particularly among teens and younger adults, according to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew research indicates that in 2009, 73% of online teens used social networking sites in 2009, compared to 47% of online adults. Breaking down online adults into older and younger demographics, 72% of adults 18-29 use social networking sites, compared to 40% of their counterparts 30 and older.

Facebook is Tops with All Adults

Social networking adults in all age brackets favor Facebook by a wide margin, with older adults preferring it slightly more. Seventy-three percent of all adults 18 and older who use social networking sites have a Facebook account. Broken down by age demographic, this includes 71% of adults 18-29 and 75% of adults 30 and older. ...

Several interesting charts including:

 

Pepsi Skips Superbowl For Social Marketing

ViralBlog: Pepsi Skips Superbowl For Social Marketing  (HT: Danny Gamache)

Pepsi knows no advertising spot is wanted as much as one on Superbowl Sunday. Traditionally all the brands advertising during the big game use every trick in the book to create the most memorable, noteworthy commercials. Pepsi has always been present on Superbowl Sunday, but not anymore from now on.

After 23 years of advertising on Superbowl Sunday, Pepsi has decided to invest the money in a $ 20 million dollar social programme.

On January 13, Pepsi will launch their programme called ‘The Pepsi Refresh Project‘. People can contribute by naming a project in their community that needs help. The projects that get the most votes will receive help from Pepsi. With this project Pepsi hopes they will create a wave of do-gooding on a smaller scale with people funding community projects themselves. ...

Pope to priests: Go forth and blog

USA Today: Pope to priests: Go forth and blog

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.

The pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.

And just using e-mail or surfing the Web is often not enough: Priests should use cutting-edge technologies to express themselves and lead their communities, Benedict said in a message released by the Vatican.

"The spread of multimedia communications and its rich 'menu of options' might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web," but priests are "challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources," he said.

The message, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs, and websites. ...

Social Media is Business

Interesting vid I found at Danny Gamache's Blog. Talks about how social media is (or should be) at the core of business, not an adjunct.

The Complete History of Social Networking -- CBBS to Twitter

Mac Life: The Complete History of Social Networking -- CBBS to Twitter

It was Jan. 16, 1978, and the world was in transition. The Sex Pistols were on the verge of disbanding. Future Macintosh architect Jef Raskin was settling into his new job at Apple Computer Inc. And it was snowing in Chicago. A lot.

But while Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, two members of the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists Exchange, were holed up during the not-so-great blizzard of 78, they werent wasting their time playing Uno or watching "Logan's Run." They were making history.

Just two weeks after that fateful snowstorm (though the pair waited another two weeks to unveil their creation, since "no one believed it could be written in two weeks of spare time"), the world's first online social network was born.

It all started with former IBM employee Christensen's simple concept. ...

Personally, I'm finding it disconcerting to read "histories" that begin long after I was born. It seems to be happening more and more frequently. :-)

The article mentions Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL). Fifteen years ago I was attending meetings of the Association of Independent Information Professionals. Some of the original WELLians were a part of the group. It was a fascinating group of folks.

Un-Google Yourself

Wired: Un-Google Yourself

The mighty search engine has allowed us to do so many things. “Mighty” is the operative word, as these same search engines (usually the one that starts with a "G" and ends with an "oogle") can also curse us all. If you think about it, any schmuck can find out more about you than you’d like by typing only your first and last name.

Different folks certainly have different tolerance levels for their online persona and how public they want it to be, but thankfully, there are tips to ensure that your boss, your ex, or your mildly interested former friends can keep tabs on you on your terms.

Unfortunately, pleas to remove content on Google fall on deaf, mechanical Google ears. The best and easiest way to remove content from Google (and other search engines in the process) is to remove the content from the internet. This guide will show you how to make the best of the content that is there or how to remove it entirely. ...

NT Wright on Blogging

NT Wright on Blogging/Social Media from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors

Harvard Business Review: On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors

In the World According to Twitter, giving away access to information rewards the giver by building followers. The more followers, the more information comes to the giver to distribute, which in turn builds more followers. The process cannot be commanded or controlled; followers opt in and out as they choose. The results are transparent and purely quantitative; network size is all that matters. Networks of this sort are self-organizing and democratic but without any collective interaction.

The significance of Twitter is yet to be determined; it is a simple, impersonal, and transient application of technology. But very real network effects are a new source of power in and around organizations.

America in the 20th century was called a "society of organizations." Formal hierarchies with clear reporting relationships gave people their position and their power. In the 21st century, America is rapidly becoming a society of networks, even within organizations. Maintenance of organizations as structures is less important than assembling resources to get results, even if the assemblage itself is loose and perishable.  ...

Is Facebook Getting Uncool for 18-24s?

Adweek: Is Facebook Getting Uncool for 18-24s?

In its early days, social-networking site Facebook was propelled to popularity by a college-age crowd that sought it out as an exclusive sanctuary in which to connect with their peers. For that market, it was an attractive alternative to sites deemed to have lost their cool -- like MySpace, which had become a haven for pre-teens and high schoolers.

Now, it seems, Facebook might be suffering a similar migration. According to comScore, as it has gained a broader audience, the older teens and twentysomethings that drove Facebook's initial popularity are using it less. And research by WPP Group's Mindshare suggests that group is reevaluating the site's worth as a tool for developing friendships. Others believe Facebook's cool factor among younger users is waning. "When you start getting friended by your grandmother, I think that's when it starts to lose its cool," said Huw Griffiths, evp and global director of marketing accountability and research at Interpublic Group's Universal McCann.

The numbers have fueled a debate among agencies about the implications for marketers. For some, it has raised a warning flag that if the trend continues, clients may have to revise their social-network marketing strategies. Others believe Facebook's broader growth outweighs any declining usage by the college-age crowd. And still others aren't convinced that younger users on the whole are less enthralled with Facebook, and believe some may be accessing the site via mobile devices that don't show up in the comScore numbers. ...

Younger employees help senior executives unlock social media mystery

Chicago Tribune: Younger employees help senior executives unlock social media mystery

Both groups benefit in reverse-mentoring programs.

Janet Cabot couldn't wait to show Ashley Spohn her latest accomplishment.

"I am so all over this Delish thing," Cabot bubbled, punching up delish.com on her computer in her office at Edelman, a Chicago-based public relations firm.

"Oh, you're doing so well!" Spohn said delightedly, counting the recipes Cabot had collected on the food lovers' Web site. "Look, you've got so much!"

Her pride was as evident as the exchange was notable. Though Cabot, 56, is Edelman's central region president with more than 30 years in the business, she is the student. Spohn, a 23-year-old account executive on the firm's digital team, is the teacher.

Many organizations eager to strengthen their presence in the online world have discovered that they have the perfect consultants on their staffs: 20-somethings who live in that world.

"We grew up with social media," said Matthew Clay, 23, a media executive at Edelman. "We spent eight hours every day on AOL IM."

The baby boomer executives who might have scolded these young people for that if they had been their parents are now turning to them for help. A survey for the Center for Work-Life Policy found that 40 percent of respondents had asked younger colleagues for help with text messaging, social networking and using iTunes.

In formal programs or informal sit-downs, companies are assigning junior staff members to serve as social media guides for their senior ones. ...

The Conversation Prism (Social Media)

The below chart is actually a poster for your wall. Buy here. It is a fascinating chart about social media but I fear putting it on my wall will give me nightmares.

One Educator/Author's Use of Blogging

N. Gregory Mankiw is an economics professor at Harvard and author of leading economics textbooks. He has also been blogging for a few years now.

What he has done is map his blog posts to his textbook. Students can read the book and then use the map to find blog posts he has written that highlight, illustrate or elaborate points he makes in the textbook. You check out the mapping by clicking here.

Pretty cool!

Praise for Technology

Houston Chronicle: Praise for Technology

Tweeting during church services gets blessing of pastors.

It's Sunday night at Woodlands Church, and Pastor Kerry Shook tells parishioners to pull out their cell phones.

He has pocketed his own iPhone for now, but tells everyone else to turn theirs on.

“OK guys, you can start the twitters,” he tells the crowd of about 250.

The nondenominational church recently started a new service encouraging parishioners to tweet their thoughts, reflections and questions in 140 characters or less via Twitter, the popular micro­blogging social network.

Using the real-time messaging tool in church is gaining some steam nationwide and in Houston as some pastors look to make church more interactive, draw in new faces and appeal to younger demographics. Some see it as a diversion, but others — especially in contemporary services — are bringing smart phones to the pews and tweeting away.

The trend is likely to grow more among emerging churches still building their traditions and congregations, said Glenn Shuck, a professor in the religion department at Williams College in Massachusetts.

“In a sense it lends itself more to Protestantism than Catholicism,” he said. “At a Catholic church it would be seen as a disruption, just as it would be at any established church, because power flows from the priest to the parishioners. In this case … it certainly allows parishioners to have a great deal more involvement in what one might call ‘doing church.' ”

At Woodlands Church, the tweets are reviewed by church staff and pop up on a screen behind Shook as he preaches.

He ignores them all until he's done speaking, at which point he takes a look and addresses questions selected by a team backstage. ...

Counselors: Online affairs skyrocketing

Tulsa World: Counselors: Online affairs skyrocketing

Married people are increasingly using social networking sites to cheat, they say.

Two decades ago, they were high school sweethearts.

On a whim, he Googled her on his office computer, and found she lived in a nearby state.

"It's innocent enough," he told himself as he fired off an e-mail to her, "just two old friends reconnecting."

Months later, after an exchange of e-mails, then cell phone calls, in which they eventually talked about their tepid marriages, they agreed to meet at a hotel in Dallas.

This scenario, a composite of clients of Tulsa marriage counselor Brent Sharpe, has become commonplace as the Internet and social media lubricate relationships between people.

"In the last three years, we've seen an astronomical increase in Internet-related affairs," said Sharpe, with the Life Connection Counseling Center. "This whole affairs thing is just off the charts."

Sharpe, a pastor who works primarily with Christian clients in his counseling center, said more than 50 percent of his practice is affair recovery, much of it Internet-related.

"Anything that's good always has its dark side," he said of the Internet.

"Twenty years ago, there was no way to find a high school sweetheart," he said. And social boundaries restricted the face-to-face contact needed for an affair to develop.

The Internet has removed those boundaries, he said, "allowing a relationship to begin to flourish where it never got any traction before." ...

This all makes sense to me. There is a stat that says that one in eight couples together today met through the internet. If true, then it seems it would have strong impact on illicit relationships as well.

Google Wave Intro

HT: Theological Edge

Why Email No Longer Rules…

Wall Street Journal: Why Email No Longer Rules…

And what that means for the way we communicate.

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.

We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.

Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer over instant messaging? Thanks to Facebook, some questions can be answered without asking them. You don't need to ask a friend whether she has left work, if she has updated her public "status" on the site telling the world so. Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services like Google Wave, currently in test phase, which allows users to share photos by dragging and dropping them from a desktop into a Wave, and to enter comments in near real time.

Little wonder that while email continues to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.

"The whole idea of this email service isn't really quite as significant anymore when you can have many, many different types of messages and files and when you have this all on the same type of networks," ...

First NASA Astronaut on Twitter Tops a Million Followers

Physorg: First NASA Astronaut on Twitter Tops a Million Followers

The first astronaut to tweet from space has passed another social media milestone. NASA's Mike Massimino, known as @Astro_Mike on Twitter, now shares his daily experiences with more than a million followers on the micro-blogging service.

Massimino flew in May aboard the final space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. He began a Twitter account about a month before his launch, provided updates throughout his time in orbit and continues to tweet about his post-flight experiences and the life and work of an astronaut.

"I am thrilled that so many people have been following and responding with such wonderful comments," Massimino said. "I tweet because I feel very lucky to have, what in my opinion, is the best job in the world. I've learned that there are so many people around the world who really love the space program and have a heartfelt interest in space travel -- just like me."

Massimino can be followed at: http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Mike

Since Massimino's flight, many other astronauts have begun to share insights of their experiences on Twitter. They offer varied perspectives of both training on Earth and flying in space. Among the NASA astronauts now active on Twitter:  ...

What are the best Facebook Sites and Twitter Feeds?

I'm doing some research on using social media for a service organization. What organizations would you identify as making effective use of Facebook and Twitter? Why do you think they are good ones?

Why Social Media Should Welcome Location-Based Services

Business Week: Why Social Media Should Welcome Location-Based Services

Twitter knows where you are. Or at least it will soon, when it introduces a feature that lets your followers know where you are when you send a tweet. The announcement that Twitter will soon give users the option to disclose their physical whereabouts kindled debate over the role of location-based services (LBS) in social media and elicited criticism that the tools are an invasion of privacy.

I've been trying out a wide range of LBS tools to see for myself whether they're useful or something to be feared. I've used Brightkite; Plazes, which was recently acquired by Nokia (NOK); Germany-based Aka Aki, which I like to use in Europe, as well as a series of lesser-known services.

My conclusion after a year of testing is that far from being a threat, sites offering LBS represent vast, unrealized potential to radically transform the way we communicate and stay connected. ABI Research predicts that LBS will generate revenue of more than $14 billion in 2014, from about $2.6 billion this year.

Besides helping us track our location patterns or the nearest Starbucks (SBUX), these apps collect valuable data about our daily routines and the routines of those closest to us. They track personal tastes in food, fashion, and music so we can receive alerts and location-based notifications. Individual users can use LBS to share relevant information and places with friends. The device maintains a record of our daily routines, and it's constantly looking for people we know who may be nearby. This added layer of movement and context is much more valuable than what's available on existing social networks, such as Facebook, that don't automatically offer location-specific information. ...

Is Social Media a Fad?

Facebook grows and makes money

BBC: Facebook grows and makes money

The world's largest social networking site just got bigger with the announcement it has 300 million active monthly users from around the globe.

Facebook also revealed that it has started making money ahead of schedule.

The company had not expected to start turning a profit until sometime in 2010.

"This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term," said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"We are succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. We are just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.

"We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web," Mr Zuckerberg said in a blog post.  ...

Watch out, LinkedIn: Facebook is gaining on you

CNN Money: Watch out, LinkedIn: Facebook is gaining on you

Social networking site elbows in on LinkedIn's job-finding franchise.

 ... Recruiters have been scouring professionally-oriented social network LinkedIn for qualified candidates for years now. More than 40% of Fortune 100 companies pay to use the site to find talent among its 46 million members.

But social networks are still evolving as places to hire and be hired, and Facebook, with its 250 million members, is gaining ground.

Unlike its more career-focused competitor, Facebook offers members profiles that tend to reflect their whole life. In the past that deterred many who were concerned an incriminating photo or wall post might be discovered by a potential new boss.

That fear is going away as people become more comfortable sharing their lives online, sometimes even blending their personal and professional personas. Some users take advantage of Facebook’s privacy settings to edit the information they present to professional contacts.

More importantly, Facebook is gaining credibility as a tool for recruiters and human resources professionals, the very folks who've been avid fans of LinkedIn. For one thing, Facebook seems to cast a wider net and provide recruiters with more references – and more outlets to spread the news about a job opening. Facebook users have an average of 120 friends. While LinkedIn won’t release this statistic for its members, recruiters say the average number of connections likely is smaller because of the site’s narrower scope. ...

Nearly Half of US Employers Use SocNets to Investigate Candidates

Marketing Charts: Nearly Half of US Employers Use SocNets to Investigate Candidates

Nearly half (45%) of US employers say that they now use social networking sites to dig up information about job candidates, a significant jump from 22% last year, according to a survey commissioned by CareerBuilder, which also found that another 11% of employers have plans in the works to start using social networking sites for screening. ...

... The study, which was conducted by Harris Interactive, confirmed that as social networking grows increasingly pervasive, more employers are using these sites to screen potential employees.

The top examples for rejecting a candidate based on social network information:

• 53% of survey respondents rejected candidates because they posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information.
• 44% passed on a candidate because they saw content related to the person drinking or using drugs.
• 35% rejected candidates because they bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients.
• 29% disqualified a candidate because the person showed poor communication skills.
• 26% rejected a candidate because that candidate made discrimatory comments on a social networking site.
• 24% rejected a candidate because that person lied about his/her qualifications.
• 20% did not hire a candidate because social media revealed that person had shared confidential information from a previous employer.

(As Captain Typo, I especially liked the misspelled "discrimatory" in the line following rejection for poor communication skills.)

The top examples of hiring a candidate based on social networking information:

• 50% say a candidate’s profile provided a good feel for the candidate’s personality and fit.
• 39% say a profile supported candidate’s professional qualifications.
• 38% say it showed a candidate is creative.
• 35% say  a candidate showed solid communication skills.
• 33% say it showed a candidate was well-rounded.
• 19% were impressed that others posted good references about a candidate.
• 15% say it showed that a candidate received awards and accolades.

Top 100 Church Blogs

Church Relevance: Top 100 Church Blogs

There are hundreds of great church blogs and ministry blogs to read, but do you ever wonder which church blogs everyone else is reading?

I do, which is why I have compiled a list of the world’s top church blogs.

Some focus exclusively on ministry, while others are more like theology blogs. Regardless of how you label them, these are the world’s most popular church blogs written by many of today’s most influential church leaders, theologians, and Christ followers. ...

Half of Americans use social networks

USA Today: Half of Americans use social networks

If you needed any more proof about the ubiquity of social media, take a gander at a fresh new report from Forrester Research.

It concludes that four in five Americans use social media at least once a month, and half participate in social-networking services like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

But before you dismiss the social-media phenomenon as strictly the province of twentysomethings and teens, consider the greatest increase in social media adoption over the past year has been among adults ages 35 to 54, where participation has grown 60%, Forrester says.

Forrester based its results on responses from nearly 4,500 consumers.

How to Manage Your Online Life When You're Dead

Time: How to Manage Your Online Life When You're Dead

When her 21-year-old daughter died in a sledding accident in early 2007, Pam Weiss had never logged onto Facebook. Back then, it was used almost exclusively by the young, like her daughter Amy, a student at UCLA. But Weiss knew her daughter had an account, so in her grief she turned to the social-networking site to look for photos. She found what she was looking for, and more — she was soon communicating with her daughter's many friends, sharing memories and even piecing together a blueprint of things Amy had hoped to do in the future through posts she'd written. "It makes me feel good that Amy had a positive effect on so many people, and I wouldn't have had a clue if it hadn't been for Facebook," says Weiss.

Like a growing number of people mourning loved ones, Weiss had tapped into one of the most powerful troves of memories going: their online presence. Though Facebook shut Amy's account after three months (Weiss had copied much of it), the site later decided to keep deceased users' profiles up. "We first realized we needed a protocol for deceased users after the Virginia Tech shooting, when students were looking for ways to remember and honor their classmates," says Facebook spokesperson Elizabeth Linder. The site responded by creating a "memorial state" for profiles of deceased users, in which certain information, such as status updates and group affiliation, is removed. ...

Does a Nation’s Mood Lurk in Its Songs and Blogs?

New York Times: Does a Nation’s Mood Lurk in Its Songs and Blogs?

... In a new paper, a pair of statisticians at the University of Vermont argue that linguistic analysis — not just of song lyrics but of blogs and speeches — could add a new and valuable dimension to a growing area of mass psychology: the determination of national well-being.

“We argue that you can use this data as a kind of remote sensor of well-being,” said Peter Sheridan Dodds, a co-author of the new paper, with Christopher M. Danforth; both are in the department of mathematics and statistics.

“It’s information people are volunteering; they’re not being surveyed in the usual way,” Dr. Dodds went on. “You mess with people when you ask them questions about happiness. You’re not sure if they’re trying to make you happy, or have no idea whether they’re happy. It’s reactive.” ...

... Some of the findings were expected. Sept. 11, 2001, was rock bottom, for instance. Others were less so: the day that Michael Jackson died also lowered people’s mood significantly. The high-water mark was the day President Obama was elected, when the word “proud” was predominant.

Christmas and Valentine’s Day regularly popped as positive times, although words like “guilty” were associated with Christmas and “waste” and “lonely” with Valentine’s Day.

The researchers also analyzed the emotional content of blogs by the age of the blogger, and they found a curious pattern. Teenagers, true to form, rated the lowest, with an abundance of “sick,” “hate” and “stupid.”

With advancing age the tone gradually softened, rising to a high plateau in apparent emotional well-being through the 50s and 60s, then dropping after age 70 — when the word “sick” began to reappear. ...