STL Social Media Guy

Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet on Aug. 13 from 10:41 am to 10:02 pm:

• Beyond the Hype: Twitter and customer service: My personal experience - Another great social media/customer service story. This is starting to play into my simmering PR blog item.
• The PR Roadblock On The Road To Blissful Blogging - Michael Arrington, TechCrunch: “…I agree that PR as a profession is broken.” That industry’s problems are similar to the newspaper industry’s — but they may be a year or two behind. I know people in the PR industry who get it, though.
• A blog about technology from BBC News | US media’s crimes against Web 2.0 - Amen to this writer, who discusses issues with NBC protecting its rights to the Olympic Games and the controversy at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet on Aug. 12 from 5:37 pm to 9:00 pm:

• Knight Foundation offers $24m to community news providers - The Knight Community Information Challenge will offer $20 million over five years to support initiatives in the US aimed at using media and technology to better serve local communities with information.
• Is Facebook the Most Popular Social Bookmarking Service on the Web? - ReadWriteWeb - "The big surprise here, though, is that Facebook and MySpace have emerged as hugely popular ways to share items from off-site."
• 35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action - Hmmm. This bears additional research. I love looking at how other companies are using social media.
• Why Twitter Hasn't Failed: The Power Of Audience - "Twitter works and enjoys such strong attachment because it provides real-time access to a well-defined audience." Darned right! It's the virtual community. Try watching the Olympics with your Twitter feed running. It's like being in a bar watching with a crowd. Follow my Twitter feed here.
• Facebook Is Not Only The World’s Largest Social Network, It Is Also The Fastest Growing - As my friend Scott says, "facts, speaking for themselves": "According to figures compiled by comScore, Facebook’s visitor growth is up 153 percent on an annual basis."

Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet on Aug. 12 from 12:59 pm to 1:03 pm:

• Beat Blogging: Timing can impact traffic to a blog - I get asked about this a lot by the bloggers for our site. It makes sense that it depends on the topic. Great posting, Patrick.
• Sean Tevis.com: Running for Office: It's Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll - Friend of mine from a past life, running for Kansas state rep. Check out his cartoon about the process. He is also blogging. Guess it helps when you have a wry sense of a humor and an excellent design sense.

Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet on Aug. 11 from 4:09 pm to 7:01 pm:

• Journalism.co.uk » Who’s behind Wikipedia: Virgil Griffith’s WikiScanner investigates - This is really interesting, based on analysis of Wikipedia posts: "Overall - especially for non-controversial topics - Wikipedia seems to work. For controversial topics, Wikipedia can be made more reliable through techniques like this one." Also posits that anonymous posts/updates are not, by definition, a bad thing.
• Journalism.co.uk » Associated Press launches celebrity news service - For this, the AP is bringing in new staff: "New staff have been hired to work on the service and new video production technology has been bought for its Los Angeles, New York and London bureaux."
• Journalism.co.uk » Salon.com opens doors to readers, asks for tips - Alas, the things we can do with the right tools. Congrats on Open Salon. It will bear watching.
• The San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com Empower Users to Do Good - News release for "Good2gether" (social network connecting givers and nonprofits). Interesting piece of their "how it works" section talks about newspaper publishers faced with "declining readership, ad revenue loss, brutal competition." This, they say, will help us.
• Digital Domain - Goodbye, Passwords. You Aren’t a Good Defense. - NYTimes.com - My favorite quote from the story: When I asked Scott Kveton, chairman of the OpenID Foundation’s community board, about criticism of OpenID, he said candidly, "Passwords, we know, are totally broken." Uhhh, yeah. That's for sure.
• Olympics: Only 0.2% of Viewers Exclusively Watch Online - ReadWriteWeb - I side with this reader: "Color me nutty, but, as much as I love me some Interwebs, nothing beats seeing the 4×100 men's relay in glorious HD." Especially after I just got me my HD TV.

Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet on Aug. 10 from 12:24 p.m. to 8:22 p.m.:

• Philly Inquirer’s pullback of online content just a slower form of suicide « The Future of News - Another view on the Inky. It’s not bad that they’ve tried to find a way to differentiate print from online. Worthwhile to read Ryan Sholin’s interview with Chris Krewson.
• PR 2.0: Introducing The Conversation Prism - Wow. An incredible representation of the landscape for social media in graphic form. This is put forth as an exercise for public relations professionals, but worth a look.
• Pluto should get back planet status, say astronomers - Telegraph - I’m pullin’ for you, Pluto.

A few Yellow Pages stories — including a way to stop the yellow brick from landing on your porch.

This weekend, my daughter needed to find a store for teacher supplies. Her mother pulled out the Yellow Pages. We looked. It was the first time I’d looked at the Yellow Pages in…sheesh, I can’t remember when. Seriously, how is that business still around when I can get the info from Google or from Google on my smart phone or Google from a voice call to 800-GOOG-411?

That edition of the Yellow Pages, by the way, is from our local phone company, AT&T.

Two days earlier, we found a copy of the Verizon Yellow Pages off our front porch — and promptly threw it in the recycling bin. Read the rest of this entry »

These are my links for Aug. 10 from 08:19 to 08:22:

• Three New AIR Apps To Bring Facebook To Your Desktop - ReadWriteWeb - “The more useful of the two Facebook AIR apps is definitely Zebr. This AIR app reminds me of Twhirl for Facebook status updates.”
• Keep Track of Your Favorite Blogs in Gmail - ReadWriteWeb - Seems so obvious now that he’s said it. But I just never paid any attention. Duh!

These are my links for August 2nd through August 8th:

• Pew Internet: Search Engine Use - The percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49%).
• Advertising - Google’s New Tool Is Meant for Marketers - NYTimes.com - Users can also slice the data into finer geographic areas than with Trends and view it on a map. And they can download the data onto spreadsheets to compare it to their own forecasts or research.
• The Mr. Spock Guide to Effective Blogging | Copyblogger - “ITry using a little Vulcan logic to move it in the right direction.” OK. This is a fun read. Thanks, Will. And for the record, I didn’t want “to Pon Farr his pointy ears off.”
• paidContent appears on Guardian site -
• If the FCC comes to regulate the Internet, newspapers will lose their freedom of the press « The Future of News - “…what if the FCC comes to regulate the Internet, as might begin to happen should they be given the right to enforce Net Neutrality policies?”
• Understanding Your Legal Risks When You Blog or Publish Online | Citizen Media Law Project - The risks you could face when you publish online can take a number of forms, depending on what and how you publish.
• TrekWeb.com - First Cut of Star Trek Movie Screened at Paramount with Impressive Results - What can I say? I’m a trekkie.
• Newspaper Consortium Picks Mike Silver As Its First-Ever Leader - Fantastic news for a man I have known and respected for a long time. (via Online News Squared)
• ONA News: 2008 Online Journalism Awards - Finalists - Finalists for the 9th annual Online Journalism Awards, which honor excellence in digital journalism, were announced today by the Online News Association (ONA).
• LATimes-er’s farewell blog item: 42 things I know - Telling reader’s comment: “You forgot to mention that the Times and other large papers forgot or dismissed the small business owner.”
• What’s really killing newspapers: They’re no longer the best providers of social currency. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine - But to read a newspaper and then keep your trap shut is to miss the point: Newspapers are designed to be read and argued over.
• Net Law Luminaries File Amicus Brief in Lori Drew Case - “…the government’s theory … would impose criminal penalties for … violating a website’s terms of service, something … millions of Internet users do every day, often without even knowing it.”