The Social Networker Covering all things in the Social Software industry and networks http://TheSocialNetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/ en-us Thu, 3 Jul 2008 10:16:23 -0500 TheSocialGeeks Episode 4 - Feedly-ing up Corvida Thu, 3 Jul 2008 10:16:23 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/trackback?open&id=TheSocialGeeksEpisode4.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode4.htm Software How-to Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode4.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode4.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/TheSocialGeeksEpisode4.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode4.htm?opendocument&comments TheSocialGeeks Episode 3 - Achieving Plurk Nirvana Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:38:51 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/trackback?open&id=TheSocialGeeksEpisode3.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode3.htm Software How-to Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode3.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode3.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/TheSocialGeeksEpisode3.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/TheSocialGeeksEpisode3.htm?opendocument&comments Swurl - well it didn’t make me hurl Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:30:18 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/trackback?open&id=swurl-well-it-didnt-make-me-hurl.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/swurl-well-it-didnt-make-me-hurl.htm Site Reviews Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/swurl-well-it-didnt-make-me-hurl.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/swurl-well-it-didnt-make-me-hurl.htm
What it does - it aggregates of course.  Put in your username for the proper supported services (about 19 at time of writing this) and it starts pulling info.  From there is provides some views of your social networking activity.  It also will start reading your friends from sites and populate a view.  I was saddened to see even after letting it sit all day it only did Flickr.  I had set it up to see about 8 of my accounts.

The good first -

I like this snapshot view of your activity in a calendar format as shown here:

Image:Swurl - well it didn’t make me hurl

A cool calendar approach that had many sorting abilities.  Lower in this grid, Flickr pictures showed on the day posted as well as YouTube videos I published.  I can see this as a cool widget for all services on your blog.  Forget the dreaded "About Me" pages, put this darn thing on there and let them figure it out.

Your account becomes part of the URL, mine is http://idonotes.swurl.com  .  An oddity was that it would not let me make the name IdoNotes saying caps were not supported.  Now call me crazy but the Internet could give a damn if I use a cap or not in a URL.  Whatever.

There was an advanced setting feature to let you point a CNAME entry at your page.  I know exactly what that mean, but for a basic user, they would be lost.

The bad -
they have the ability to invite your friends, but instead of their server sending it, it pulls up your default mail client.  A pain if you were not in mail at the time.  It also does not allow for you to grab contacts from any of your online services (like Gmail, hotmail, etc) , then select who you wish to invite.  Bummer there.

There was also no widgets yet there are ready to be built nor any RSS feed output I could find.  So once they get settled in some more and furhter in teh beta I will try again ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/swurl-well-it-didnt-make-me-hurl.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/swurl-well-it-didnt-make-me-hurl.htm?opendocument&comments Virtual Gratification Syndrome (VGS) - Forcing Temporary Remission Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:00:00 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/Virtual-Gratification-Syndrome-remission.htm Rant Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/Virtual-Gratification-Syndrome-remission.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/Virtual-Gratification-Syndrome-remission.htm
While you cannot always count on affordable high speed Internet access in hotels across the world, the simple lack of any access is rare.  Almost everywhere I go it is present.  I did find that the hotel we are in had a very limited and slow open access point in the courtyard, but no where else in the property.  While driving around the island, we did encounter a couple small Internet cafes with exorbitant access rate plans.  I was even slightly amused and the number of people crowded around a small snack hut on the side of the road.  I imagined the food was incredible or it was a local hang out.  Until I read a very small sign.  "Free Wifi here".

Did I get overcome with VGS and stop at the stand?  No, thankfully we were on a path for the beaches with no laptop tagging along.  I immediately realized that the always connected state we live in gets even harder with the evergrowing presence around us of wireless signals and data across handhold devices.  We have a constant expectation that the Internet now follows us.  So how do you cope when not in that scenario?

First I found that actually using a map was a handy thing to learn growing up.  With no GPS sitting on the dash, or available in the Blackberry (which only got phone service and no data) you had to rely on yourself for once.  Or could I take it one step further and actually interact with a person by pulling over and asking directions.  We had more fun with the one or two wrong turns that led us into adventures we never would have known about.  Such as pulling over to watch a cricket match in progress and accidentally sitting next to a former player under a shade tree that traded us incredible amounts of passion and knowledge about the game for nothing but a smile and conversation.  Or finding a back road with a simple sign that said 'beach' and encountering where the locals hang out, away from the tourist beaches.  We know why they don't share it publicly, and will never tell where it is either with the courtesy we were given.

Second I arrived at the understanding that always looking up everything you wanted to do on the Internet, was not always giving the best answers.  We had a book on where we were, we had scoured the Internet for information and came up with a great gameplan.  Talk quietly with one or two people from the local area and you learn a lot of what you discovered is there for the tourism.  The hidden gems are gathered through actual communication with people that have no desire to always be connected.  People that have on idea what the Internet says about their area and what sights to see.

Jokingly, there was many a geek in the courtyard as I sent this blog posting up getting their quick VGS fixes.  From small handhelds with wifi to full laptops and on Skype, I saw a worker here shake their head, put a drink on the table and say
"relax man, we have live music, open doorways to the pool overlooking the ocean and no stress."

The guy hardly looked up with a smile as he prized his time online.  I said aloud, he will be ok, he has VGS. ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/Virtual-Gratification-Syndrome-remission.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/Virtual-Gratification-Syndrome-remission.htm?opendocument&comments SkyDeck attempts to hit one out of the park Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:22:22 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/skydeck-attempts-to-hit-one.htm Site Reviews Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/skydeck-attempts-to-hit-one.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/skydeck-attempts-to-hit-one.htm SkyDeck, which is basically an extension to your FireFox browser that shows you statistics on your cell phone usage (minutes and text) wrapped into a social network of your friends.  Once it grabs your cell phone data, which is all done from your local machine watching the network traffic, it then starts pulling data.

Image:SkyDeck attempts to hit one out of the park

Note that it gives a graphical display of your minutes, text and then a drop down for your imported call log and address book.  From the call logs and book you can then start building your social network.

Contacts can be uploaded from any of the following:
  • Microsoft Outlook address book
  • Mac address book
  • Plaxo (with optional merge)
  • Gmail
  • Hotmail
  • Yahoo mail
  • Other mail systems that can export correctly can be manipulated it appears

Once the phone bill and contacts are in it does the number comparison for you, here comes your network.  One interesting thing I liked is that you can take notes on each call for a reference.  Each number gets a name, type of number, person tag and even tag topic for the call itself.  You can then search all calls for certain tags.

One interesting hidden feature was the ability to click and have Google search the phone number in your bill to see if it matches anything publicly known.  There are also some built in searches that can be removed for expensive calls, the monthly bill date as a name (ie June) and incoming texts.

Once you are past this part you can jump over to their social network:
You've seen how Skydeck re-organizes your Address Book: people that you know best rank first.

The Skydeck Network works the same way. Accept as many Connections as you want to, but the people that you know best stay at the top of your list and you see the Connections that they know best.

The bars next to each name show how strong we think each connection is, based on the history of your communications.


I would love to see how this will interact with other social networking systems, but this is still early in the beta.  More late, but I like the ability to start bringing together those I talk to on the phone into networks I use online. ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/skydeck-attempts-to-hit-one.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/skydeck-attempts-to-hit-one.htm?opendocument&comments The further decline of AIM, they are closing their groups Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:35:25 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008023520PMCMIQYP.htm Announcement Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008023520PMCMIQYP.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008023520PMCMIQYP.htm
Dear AIM Groups user,

The AIM Groups product team wants to let you know about upcoming changes that will affect your current experience.  As of July 10, 2008, AIM Groups will no longer be accessible.  Here are some tips that will help you to maintain the information that is important tot you:

- Group E-Mail: Please be aware that you will no longer be able to access your group email address or use group listserv functionality.

- Forum Conversations: We understand that some groups use their forums frequently in order to communicate.  If you would like to save any of these conversations, please manually make a copy of the content prior to July 10, 2008.  They will no longer be available as of that date.

in the meantime, head on over to AIM Groups so that you can get a head start on backing up your information.

Sincerely,
The AIM Groups Team


So basically, screw you, we wont even leave it there as static content.  While we could do this to preserve the data and have it for archiving, we are simply turning off the servers and deleting every backup tape we have.  Thanks. ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/06132008023520PMCMIQYP.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008023520PMCMIQYP.htm?opendocument&comments Advertisers to people -> Can I be your friend? Oh hell no Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:13:50 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008011350PMCMIPDQ.htm Rant Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008011350PMCMIPDQ.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008011350PMCMIPDQ.htm want advertisers in my friend streams on Twitter and Pownce (and Plurk and whatever else) ?

Now, I do like and agree with small, sidebar, unobtrusive advertisers that blogs do.  Heck, I know one of mine does.  It helps pay the hosting and bandwidth bills sometimes.  But to actually invite them in as your friend so you can begin getting unknown amounts of advertising slush.  I hate the crap that comes daily to my real mailbox by the postman.  I definitely won't entertain digital.  I block spammers in email, so they now want to be friendly?

Image:Advertisers to people -> Can I be your friend? Oh hell no ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/06132008011350PMCMIPDQ.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06132008011350PMCMIPDQ.htm?opendocument&comments Using Jott for reading (listening) to hot RSS feeds Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:24:08 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06122008032407PMCMIRX6.htm Site Reviews Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06122008032407PMCMIRX6.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06122008032407PMCMIRX6.htm Jott for some time now.  I use it to send quick reminders, make mental notes, look up items through their nice list of integrations with services, etc.  It also saves me from killing myself while driving by simply talking into my Blackberry over bluetooth instead of typing.  So they just started allowing you the ability to listen to the hottest RSS feeds.  Basically reversing the conversion they do now. (screenshot)

Image:Using Jott for reading (listening) to hot RSS feeds

There is a long list of feeds built in, and you can add anything you desire that is a non-authenticated RSS feed.  What I liked is there is a Twitter stream as well as a Facebook stream.  While I don't use Facebook much at all anymore, having it there for others is a great idea.  There is of course a badge to generate your own feed for Jott as I have done here on this page too.

It reads the feeds well and you can eliminate items like description and author where necessary.  This is the type of technology that makes things like Audible so popular and fights VGS on a consistent basis.  Well maybe it adds to VGS, I will think on that

Overall, a must have service for those that cant read feeds all the time.  Don't be afraid to try it out. ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/06122008032407PMCMIRX6.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/06122008032407PMCMIRX6.htm?opendocument&comments Attention management in the workplace- who makes it important and how social networks fight it Thu, 5 Jun 2008 11:29:11 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/attention-management-who-makes-it-important.htm Rant Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/attention-management-who-makes-it-important.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/attention-management-who-makes-it-important.htm ILUG2008 listening to the keynote address by one of the evangelists from Lotus (Alan Lepofsky), he brought up a section on attention management.  Under it were three areas:
  • importance
  • urgency
  • interest

He brought up some quick areas that had me thinking more.  Importance is a key factor into what you should be looking at and investigating in the workplace.  While you are allowed to stray into numerous sites and other activities, you have a primary job focus that must be met.  With the infiltration of social networking into not on the business, but personal lives, people are drawn away from the primary and into secondary and even tertiary interests.

Social networking fights attention management in some ways. Other people try to send to you, bookmark to you and even drive communities around their interests and what they feel is important.  I know I do that daily with Twitter and blog postings.  When someone sends you an email with the high importance exclamation mark (signifying high importance), they are saying it is important to them (taken from Alan during his keynote).  What he says rings true.  People are telling you their item is important.  You are not flagging it yourself through some rules or tagging magic.  The same holds true when I send a link in Twitter.  I have filtered this information and think that it should be important to you. (Sure I use the Tweets as an archive for myself sometimes too), but I feel that my followers there and even on Diigo want to see it.

Does it automatically have urgency?  No.  No one sets urgency outside of yourself on any given email, IM, tweet or bookmark.  You control the urgency at which you must view it.  So that one really doesn't fit.  No one forces you to open or respond to any of these in any given timeframe.  While you may be looked upon differently if you do not promptly send an out of office to an email, or even ignore IM's, you are not required.  Social networking begs you to make things urgent.

Interest links us right back to importance.  If I carry an interest in a topic or mindset, I follow you on Twitter, read your RSS and see your bookmarks.  How much interest I have in the information you provide is how important it becomes to me.  You do not get to set an importance factor on social networking, I set it by my interest in what you have filtered and presented.

I came in saying how social networking fights attention management.  Let me bring it all together since I don't like you reading terribly long blog postings.  If you follow so many people, have so many RSS feeds and constantly check bookmark services, location awareness sites, lifestreams, you are being driven by social networks to fail attention management to your primary job focus.  Yes there are some of you that this is how a living is made.  But when you introduce a social network to the enterprise, without the proper management you introduce a fractionating of attention management.  You push your users not to focus on what they do, but to explore those tertiary interests that they already have.  No, I am not saying social networks are not valuable to the enterprise, I support, urge and consult on  the implementations, done properly.

Just because you put a business controlled social network into your company doesn't mean you are helping right away.  You might be driving attention management in the wrong direction without offering guidance to employees on personal interest that becomes so important it makes that information more important that their primary attention focus. ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/attention-management-who-makes-it-important.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/attention-management-who-makes-it-important.htm?opendocument&comments Should corporations invest in Twitter presence for customer care? Thu, 29 May 2008 04:01:00 -0500 http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/corporation-customer-care-on-twitter.htm Twitter Chris Miller http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/corporation-customer-care-on-twitter.htm?opendocument&comments http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/corporation-customer-care-on-twitter.htm Episode 143.  Apparently Comcast has a team and presence now in the social media space listening to customer concerns and even responding in some instances.  So how should corporations approach this?

Business to Business (B2B) level
After some reflection, I think a presence by any and all companies is not just welcome in such a forum, but needed.  I have a TweetScan that runs daily looking for postings on a specific software topic.  My returned list during the business week consists mainly of 85% complaints.  Many of these are misinformed/untrained users or a system where the administrators have no clue on configurations.  Think of how perception can be changed by communicating and listening to the needs, wants and concerns of the actual users and not those that pay the big dollars at the corporate level.  Companies can create a custom email, RSS feed or even instant searches with such tools as TweetScan (as shown on EverythingTwitter.com).

Business to Consumer (B2C) level
I think this takes more than one person to monitor and effectively act upon.  If the company is smaller, then it might be possible to have a positive presence by listening, acting and responding timely to the needs and concerns of the consumer.  Larger companies with possibly thousands of followers will need a team to handle this.

Currently many companies already have teams in place to handle the constant flow of email that is sent in or submitted via web forms.  What is so different in moving to such tools as Twitter.  They just came from a phone only support model with tons of operators.  Email was the next migration, followed quickly by instant messaging.  Now with presence costing tons for companies to have a proper anonymous instant messaging support, free tools such as Twitter beg to be utilized.

I humorously tried to search for some names outside of http://twitter.com/ComcastCares and found http://twitter.com/TimeWarnerCares, who knows what else might be out there in alternate names.  There were definitely some organizations listed.

I sense a turn of how we interact once again with companies that are getting the impact of the social media space.

Update: I was sent this link from a comment for a story that Silicon Valley Insider did a few weeks ago. ]]> http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dxcomments/corporation-customer-care-on-twitter.htm http://thesocialnetworker.com/tsn/tsn.nsf/dx/corporation-customer-care-on-twitter.htm?opendocument&comments