So today, the unofficial day Skynet tried to terminate the human race (revised Terminator time line courtesy of the Sarah Connor Chronicles) Amazon's cloud failed. I find that somewhat funny.
I'm not in the cloud quite yet...here is a list of posts about it: (http://blog.hootsuite.com/notes-on-todays-outage/) I use twitter not hootsuite (although I like Social Oomph), I don't like foursquare(see my previous post on privacy and robberies) and I'm not in the other affected tools. I think Amazon has a great business model (scale up as you get bigger) but its failure today shows the weaknesses inherent in these tools.
I agree that the times are changing; I use twitter more than email, I use facebook more than the phone, I text to my kids instead of call them. But, I still remain firmly grounded with the understanding that stuff breaks, I need to know the basic tools and a sharpened pencil can still be useful.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Social Logins
The topic on twitter today (4-19-11) is the amount of personal data available via social log-in methods. Facebook seems to be leading the pack with the amount of personal data collected, but they are not alone.
My very first thought about this subject: don't share anything online you're not willing to share in public. You don't have to fill in all the boxes because they make them available. Use the privacy settings, check them often, update as needed.
My grandmother was always careful about what she said and to whom after her house was robbed when she told her hairdresser why she was getting a fancy updo "going out to dinner tonight for a family party." Well, the hairdresser's boyfriend was a thief. Similar issue in my life... family friend's son, who was watching our goldfish, told neighborhood troublemaker "they're not home this weekend and I'm watching their pets." We were robbed by the local juvenile delinquents.
Needless to say I don't tell people when I have tickets for any event or if I'm checking out the latest restaurant. I post after the fact if I want. I use different settings for friends-family and people I only know online. I'm teaching my kids to be paranoid. But avoiding social media is not the answer. Learning how to harness the beast is the trick.
My very first thought about this subject: don't share anything online you're not willing to share in public. You don't have to fill in all the boxes because they make them available. Use the privacy settings, check them often, update as needed.
My grandmother was always careful about what she said and to whom after her house was robbed when she told her hairdresser why she was getting a fancy updo "going out to dinner tonight for a family party." Well, the hairdresser's boyfriend was a thief. Similar issue in my life... family friend's son, who was watching our goldfish, told neighborhood troublemaker "they're not home this weekend and I'm watching their pets." We were robbed by the local juvenile delinquents.
Needless to say I don't tell people when I have tickets for any event or if I'm checking out the latest restaurant. I post after the fact if I want. I use different settings for friends-family and people I only know online. I'm teaching my kids to be paranoid. But avoiding social media is not the answer. Learning how to harness the beast is the trick.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Social Media Gone Wild
I've spent a good amount of time this week participating in the Mercedes-Benz Tweet race to Dallas (around the "big game"). Two members of the higher ed community (@tsand and @ijohnpederson) managed to be selected as one of four teams to participate (the others are media personalities, bloggers etc). Each team was assigned a celebrity to "help" and guaranteed their charity $25,000 for being selected. St. Jude's is the "only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance."
So the race begins. I don't have any idea if they thought they could win or if they were just happy to get that major donation... and then the community went crazy. Higher ed is a tight group of interconnected, intelligent, creative and obsessive people. We crushed every challenge, we tweeted enough that their fuel tank NEVER dropped below full (to the point that @tsand thought it was broken) and today, the start of final day 3, they have more than double the points of any other team.
MBTeamS: 65,485
MBTeamGL: 26,345
MBTeamE: 20,486
MBTeamCL: 26,733
Based on how the other teams are doing... that was probably what was expected to happen... a nice close race into Dallas. But the highered community stayed up to finish challenges, ran around to local dealers and sent photos, changed avatars when requested etc.
From the headquarters:
MBtweetraceHQ Mercedes Tweet Race
#mbtweetrace Update: Pts earned from #DLER #challenge: #MBTeamS 325 #MBTeamGL 150 #MBTeamE 75 #MBteamCL 50
MBtweetraceHQ Mercedes Tweet Race
#mbtweetrace Update: Pts earned from #AVTR #challenge: #MBTeamE 70 #MBTeamS 365 #MBTeamCL 160 #MBteamGL 255
This is an example of how social media differs from every other form of marketing communication. If your community cares, they will come out and help when you need them. Or they will at least pay attention to what you are doing. If they don't care, you're begging them to notice.
So the race begins. I don't have any idea if they thought they could win or if they were just happy to get that major donation... and then the community went crazy. Higher ed is a tight group of interconnected, intelligent, creative and obsessive people. We crushed every challenge, we tweeted enough that their fuel tank NEVER dropped below full (to the point that @tsand thought it was broken) and today, the start of final day 3, they have more than double the points of any other team.
MBTeamS: 65,485
MBTeamGL: 26,345
MBTeamE: 20,486
MBTeamCL: 26,733
Based on how the other teams are doing... that was probably what was expected to happen... a nice close race into Dallas. But the highered community stayed up to finish challenges, ran around to local dealers and sent photos, changed avatars when requested etc.
From the headquarters:
MBtweetraceHQ Mercedes Tweet Race
#mbtweetrace Update: Pts earned from #DLER #challenge: #MBTeamS 325 #MBTeamGL 150 #MBTeamE 75 #MBteamCL 50
MBtweetraceHQ Mercedes Tweet Race
#mbtweetrace Update: Pts earned from #AVTR #challenge: #MBTeamE 70 #MBTeamS 365 #MBTeamCL 160 #MBteamGL 255
This is an example of how social media differs from every other form of marketing communication. If your community cares, they will come out and help when you need them. Or they will at least pay attention to what you are doing. If they don't care, you're begging them to notice.
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