YouTube, You Do?

I learned a lot about YouTube in the Citizen Marketers reading this week. I have used it a few times, but mostly when someone else has sent me a video of something funny. I have searched for a few videos when I had something specific in mind, but I had no idea how fast it grew, the full capacity of its functionality, or that it is also considered and actually quite successful at being a social networking site.

According to McConnell and Huba, YouTube "...came out of nowhere in November of 2005...[and] by its six-month anniversary [it] was reportedly reaching more people than the Web sites of all the major television networks and popular yet traditional media like the New York Times. It was serving 100 million videos each day to 6 million people."

McConnell and Huba use YouTube to profile a case study organizations considering creating their own democratized community. Here is a summary of the 6 lessons to be learned:

1. Community is the founding principle behind YouTube, and social media tools democratize involvement. Private email system allows people to link to one another without the fear of receiving spam-a-lot.
2. Sharing videos is easy as pie. Watch a video, and press a button to share.
3. Statistics, statistics, statistics. You get to instantly know how many viewings your video receives, how many comments have been posted for each video, the number of "favorites" each video receives, and any "honors" it has won. "Data transparency has been one of YouTube's strongest attributes. It doesn't hide data; it flaunts it."
4. Upload a video, get your own personal page, just like Facebook, or MySpace. Now anyone can follow any more videos you post.
5. Design was simple and unassuming. It appeals to all ages and is easy to use.
6. Search functionality is actually better than Google Video. Again. It's super easy to use.

I love it. I am YouTube's newest fan, and I haven't even uploaded a video. But you know what? This is a site that even my parents will love, especially when I start uploading videos of my daughter. :)

"All the Little Birdies...

...on Jay Bird Street, love to hear the Robin go Tweet, Tweet, Tweet..."

Welcome to Twitter!

I love the idea of Twitter but to be honest, I'm a little afraid of getting completely addicted to it. My main concern is that I have enough to do with my day. I have deadlines, I have phone calls, I have a projects that are waiting for me to complete. Maybe because I am social, opinionated, and well, probably a little A.D.D, that I think I am going to have to fend off Twitter for a while. I'll be on that darn thing all the time and saying way too much.

I already have to turn off my IM and not log into Facebook during the day, because if my friends see me online, then I'll be getting messages all over the place. I like the concepts of it being useful in PR and Customer Service of companies. I have even observed it being used during a conference, and I thought it was pretty cool. But really, what do all these "Twitter"-ers (?) or Tweeters - maybe just bloggers, then - do for a living that allows them to be on Twitter seemingly 24/7?

It almost seems like the most popular Twitter feeds are populated by people that get paid for doing this. In the real world, I have deadlines to meet, clients to impress, and all sorts of other things that, if I were Twittering all day, would probably not be getting done.

I think I'll just observe for a while longer. Limit my interaction. My A.D.D. will probably lead me back. Someone else will probably peer pressure me into twittering anyway, and then I'll be doomed. Oh well. As long as I keep that song stuck in my head.

Mashup Facebook and Del.icio.us? A Call for Programmers.

I am fairly new to Facebook. I signed up about 2 months ago. I just never thought it was something that I would use. I have been on LinkedIn for several years, so I thought of it as more of a distraction than anything. But a project came up at work that required me to be the Facebook go-to person, and I couldn’t really be answering questions and solving problems unless I had some first-hand knowledge about it! And, of course, I was giving into peer pressure, as well. All of my friends kept telling me that is was addictive and fun and I really needed to get into this century and sign up already.

So now, I have about 60 friends (meager in the eyes of many of you Facebookers out there), and yes, it is fun. I admit it. But while I do like to check my account when I’m on my computer, I wouldn’t say I’m “addicted” yet. I don't have it on my mobile phone, and I don't run to my computer every chance I get.

The thing about Facebook that I find bizarre though, is the number of people that have sent me friend requests that I really wouldn’t consider to be friends. People that I either haven’t talked to in 15+ years, and that 15+ years ago, I wasn’t really that good of friends with anyway; or people that I have never had a conversation with. I have had several people from a previous employer that sent me a friend request, but that I have never had a conversation with. It’s weird, isn’t it? It's probably weirder that I feel guilty when I decline the request. Like I am going to hurt their feelings or something.

Are the number of friends you have a status symbol of your popularity? Is it a need for people to feel accepted if their friend count is over a certain number? I just don’t understand the people that send friend requests to anyone and everyone with whom they have ever been cc’ed on an email (think mass distribuion from the HR department of a major corporation)? These are people that I would not be able to identify in a line up, even if someone paid me.

When I signed up on Facebook, I didn’t even send friend requests to everyone in my personal contacts folder. Maybe it’s me, but while I am embracing technology it doesn’t mean that I want everyone I have ever met or been introduced to know what is going on in my daily life. The thing is, in my line of work (PR), I really need for people to have more access to me and to what is going on. In other professions, like sales, real estate, politics, and other public figures, Facebook is an awesome tool, to keep your name and your face in front of people you may not know, or may have only met once or twice. It can be reinforcement of facial recognition so people will remember who you are, even if you don’t necessarily remember them.

So where do I draw the line? Where do I start accepting “friend requests” from people I don’t really know? Maybe the answer is to send them to LinkedIn. I sort of wish there was a polite way to decline their “friend” invitation and refer them there instead. Or maybe there could be a "back door" acceptance that just moves them your LinkedIn account.

Here's an idea... Someone should come up with the "Not so much" friends of Facebook or maybe add a function of Facebook so you can tag your friends, like you tag your bookmarks on del.icio.us. That way, you could move all those people you really don't know, or maybe those people you sort of know, but don't really like, into specific folders so you get to choose what information you want to share with them. That way you can still keep in contact with them if the need should arise somewhere down the road. Now that site, I would not hesitate to sign up for!

Social Bookmarking - My New Google

Social Bookmarking is a new term for me. I am still trying to figure out what all I will use these pages for and which one(s) I will choose. First, there are so many from which to choose that making that decision is difficult. They all seem to be too similar to make any distinction besides a few minor functionality differences. Second, it seems a little creepy that other people can be spying on my surfing and saving of pages, I know I can make my bookmarks private, but will I remember to click that little button? And third, since this is still a fairly new concept to me, I think the full functionality of is still to be seen.

My first impressions on their usefulness are optimistic though. At their base, the first and foremost reason that anyone would want to use one of these sites is to be able to access your “Favorites” from any computer.

Social bookmarking is the way to solve several problems that can arise from keeping your “Favorites” on just one computer. Have you ever been at a friends’ house and wanted to show them a new site you had found or an article you had come across, but couldn’t remember where it was? Have you ever had a computer crash and were not able to retrieve all of your data, namely your “Favorites”? (If this hasn’t happened to you, beware, it probably will someday.) Have you worked on a project or paper that required doing research online? You probably browsed a million sites, but didn’t want to mark them all as your favorites. Or have you been at a friends house, surfing and found a site you really like? Social bookmarking is a way to store all of these sites, without having to remember what they are, write them down, or have a drop down list a mile long.

Another use for these sites is research. When you Google a topic, you are at the mercy of Google’s random search abilities or the price tag of a company’s desire to be placed at the top of a search list. With these social bookmarking sites, you can do a search, the same as you would with Google, but you get the wisdom of the membership base, versus the revenue generator that Google uses to push companies to the top of the search list.

The “Perfect Match” exercise wasn’t really for us to find some random person for the sake of finding our “Perfect Match”, but rather a way to help with researching a topic or finding someone with similar interests. By utilizing the tag clouds of people with similar interests, you can use them to help you do your searching on topics of interest that they share. When you find that “Perfect Match”, it is sort of like having someone else do your research for you.

Even if you aren’t doing research, if you find someone with similar interests, you can use them as a filter for articles you might be interested in or sites you may want to check out. It’s like having a friend tell you about a great new site they found, except that you really don't know the friend, just their tag cloud.

The biggest decision I have now is which one do I choose? In reading the article by Michael Pick and comparing the sites, I have at least narrowed it down to 2 (delicious.com and digg,com) with a standby backup (stumbleupon.com) if neither of these suits my taste.

I think the distinction, between the first two at least, is that I will use one for work, school, and research (delicious.com) and use the other for more personal things (digg.com) and if I feel like randomly (sort of) searching for articles, then I’ll try my luck with stumbleupon.com.