Archive for the 'Social Computing' Category
Open ID - easier Internet logins
For anyone who spends time on the Internet and takes advantage of social media technologies in particular remembering a growing list of passwords and login details can be a challenge. Thankfully, there is a solution in the making in the form of OpenID.
Open ID is an open identity system that allows you to use one single identification (or digital identification) across many of your favorite sites. Participant sites include the likes of Ma.gnolia, pbwiki, 37 Signals, Technorati and Plaxo.
With Open ID, you register once for an ID then use that to identify yourself on different sites. The result: you don’t have to remember numerous login and password details. It makes surfing much faster, more secure and less of a pain.
Developed by the OpenID Foundation an organisation that was formed in June 2007 to help promote, protect and enable the OpenID technologies and community, the group is quickly expanding and some of the behemoths in the industry are now OpenID providers.
To claim your ID use a reputable providers such as MYID, Claim ID or Vidoop and make the process easier by using a downloadable browser plugin like Vidoop’s to manage your standard logins.
At last my brain can take a rest and doesn’t have to store all those endless password details.
How to widgetize your blog or website
Susie Gardner from Hop Studios gave a pretty good demo of how to add widgets to your blog today at Northern Voice. Widgets, also called plugins or badges, are little apps which consist of bits of code that once added to your blog or website, pull in external information. They usually appear in the sidebar of your blog. These widgets could pull the latest news feed from a site such as Voxant, the latest Dilbert cartoon, a list of books you are reading or meaning to read, the weather, or a series of flickr photos.
These widgets can be a fun way to add content to your website. The only downside of adding these, is that you have to dabble in the code a bit which can be scary at first. Additionally if you’re blog is on a hosted platform such as WordPress.com or Typepad, you may not be able to add these.
So how do you go about adding a widget?
First let’s select a widget. Of all the widgets mentioned during the presentation, I found polldaddy.com the most interesting. As the name would suggest polldaddy allows you to create polls.
- First you need to go to their site and sign up for an account. This is done very easily simply by filling your name and email. (Don’t you love people who don’t ask you for every possible detail?)
- Next, hit create a poll.
- Type in your questions.
- Type in your answers,
- Select the “look” of your poll.
- Hit save and Voila!
You will then be sent to a new screen with code which may look scary, but here’s the catch. You don’t need to know how it works. Just copy and paste it. That’s it. And here’s the poll I just created:
Now, for this example, I’ve copied the poll in the body of my text. I don’t really want to clutter my sidebar with more stuff, but if I wanted to, I could have a permanent poll anywhere on my site. The beauty of this widget is that simply by login in to my polldaddy.com account and creating a new poll, the poll on my website is automatically updated.
I mentioned earlier that widgets usually appear in the sidebar of your blog. This is where dabbling in the code gets a bit tricky. If you’ve set up your own blog and have access to the presentation, you can go to the template editor, locate the sidebar.php and add the widget code in there. If you are like me and using WordPress which you’ve downloaded and customized, you can also use the widget editor, but be careful and make sure that you back up all of your files, just in case you mess things up.
I should also point out, that if you copy and paste code into the body of a post, like I just did, save the post and come back and edit it, chances are the code for your widget will need to be updated. The visual editor in WordPress seems to alter the code every time you save and edit. I’m not sure why, but it just does… So just add your code once you are happy with the post and no longer need to edit.
Have fun.
Web Directions North is a Wrap
There are many reasons why one should attend conferences. It’s a great way to meet new people, share ideas, learn from your peers and see what everyone else is doing. But more importantly, for me, the main reason is to convince myself that I’m not alone. Others have had the exact same problem and may have a solution that they can share. This year’s Web Direction North conference did just that.
Josh William, the founder of Firewheel Design and founder of my favourite invoicing system, blinksale gave a great talk on how he took his company from the bedroom to the boardroom. His presentation was very insightful and made me realize that some of the business issues I’ve been casually sweeping under the carpet, will need to be addressed soon.
Tara Hunt presented a series of examples where citizens have come together and created solutions to better their cities, transit and build better communities. Although I wish her talk would have provided more examples of government sites as the title had promised, she managed to convince me that we can’t wait for governments to take action and fix everything. By trusting their citizens, governments can use eager web developers who build websites and web applications and build better communities or change their way of thinking.
Indi Young also demonstrated how people are the ones who need to be listened to and influence the web. When coca-cola came up with their new formula a few years ago, they weren’t fixing any problem, but instead just focusing on their product and the result was a disaster. Innovation doesn’t happen when people create great products, but rather, when they fix people’s problems. Using mental models, Indi Young discussed a series of examples where she showed us that by asking the right questions she was then able to look at marketing and product opportunities. As a result, her mental models enabled me to think of a new way I can visualize web projects.
This year’s Web Directions North conference was a great showcase of how people are using Web 2.0 technology and web apps. The message that stood out for me, was that webmasters no longer have roles to play but every site needs a “community manager”. The Web is no longer about “The Company” or “The Man” but rather about communities. For the past year or so we’ve had a huge increase of requests for blogs and content management systems (cms) at Bluelime Media. As a result we’ve been building more and more sites using WordPress and our clients seem to be happy, but Boris Mann’s presentation made me think that other types of cms may be better or at least worth a look. I haven’t downloaded my copy of Drupal yet and I’m not 100% convinced, but I may need to follow his advice or at least attend a drupal templating meeting just to see what the fuss is all about.
As with every conference, my brain is full and I’m knackered, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Ways to leverage your Facebook network
The first concept in using Facebook (or any social media for that matter) is to stay top-of-mind with your friends/network. You can do that subtly by showing up in their news feed and more overtly by sending various invitations.
Concept 1: Stay top-of-mind in your network
There are a lot of different ways to show up in your friend’s news feeds. Here are a few:
- use status updates as a way to broadcast what’s new with you. Announce an event, a launch, something that interests you, or simply how you feel that day.
- import blog posts, shared RSS items, social bookmarks, etc. automatically into your profile. This also lets your network know about things that interest you.
- post photos of your life, work, events, etc.
- tag other’s photos
- seek your friends’ wisdom: ask questions with the “My Questions” app.
Concept 2: Expand your network
As well as reconnecting/staying in touch with people you already know, social media is a good way to make new connections. Here are a few ways to do that:
- join your Neighbourhood to meet people around you
- join a group that interests you, or start a new one and invite others to join. There’s bound to be a group that interests you.
- create an event on Facebook for a real-world event. You can send invitations and get RSVPs.
- set up a page for your business, product or organization. Invite your friends to become a fan of it. When they do, their friends will see “Jane Smith became a fan of…” in their news feeds.
I think with all social media it’s important to be authentic. If you share information or do activities that feel right for you then your friends are likely to accept it and may be interested in it. But if you post really pushy messages or do stuff that is clearly selling, you might push people away — into filtering your news out of their feed.
If you want to learn more about Facebook and marketing through social media, here are some good places to start:
- Capulet’s social media eBook - these guys know their stuff.
- 12 Ways to use Facebook Professionally
- 24 Ways to market in Facebook
- 6 Ways to promote your cause in Facebook
- How Non-profits can use Facebook
P.S. I wrote this post as part of a series of introductory tutorials on blogging and Facebook.
P.P.S. Tell us, have you observed or tried anything around networking in Facebook? What’s worked or not worked for you?
Don’t Risk Losing Control of Your Brand
At a new media session at CES that I attended last week the panelists cautioned companies to ignore new media (especially blogs and social networks) at their peril. If companies insist on being ostriches with their corporate heads in the sand, they risk losing control of their brand.
Last weeks furore over Tim Horton’s employees and their Facebook antics is a case in point. With over 3,400 members, the “Rules of Ordering and More” group lists 80 or so tips that customers should take to heart if they want good service. Apparently the group is administered by Timmy’s employees unbeknownst to their employer. Its actually quite funny - you should take a read.
Had Tim Hortons (the famous Canadian Donut franchise owned by Pepsico) been monitoring the Internet effectively, the company would have been aware of groups like this much sooner and could have put contingencies in place to protect its brand or HR policies to outline appropriate employee conduct on the Internet. Had it been more proactive it could have channeled the publicity it received last week to its benefit rather than detriment.
Companies cannot ignore web 2.0 technologies any longer. They must, at the very least, be listening to what is being said about them even if they are not ready to be contributing to the conversation: in that way they have a chance at least of maintaining some control over their brand.
Northern Voice 2008
Registration for Northern Voice 2008 is now open. This two day conference is an amazing conference for the price. Sixty dollars buys you two days of conference about blogging and social media. I learned a great deal last year and look forward to it this year. It sells out every year, so if you are interested,hurry up and register.
Getting to First Base
Now if that isn’t a catchy title, I don’t know what is. Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo have just released their eBook Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook. I’ve only read a bit of one sample chapter and already learned a great idea: to make a social media resource page on corporate websites. That would be similar to a press kit, but for the age of citizen journalism. They also include a quote from Dirty Dancing. How apropos.
Simple Steps to Facebook Page Set Up
Last week Out-Smarts joined the growing number of companies setting up shop in Facebook and added a company “page”. Similar to an individual’s Facebook profile, a company page allows friends to become “fans” helping your company establish its brand and grow its network. Your company “page” is also the foundation by which to use Facebook’s new Social Ads advertising capabilities (should you choose to advertise in that forum) and to track and monitor your Facebook visitor traffic. Best of all, its really easy to set up:
1. Go to:http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php;
2. Choose your category of business (from: Local Business; Product; or Artist/Band/Public Figure), enter the name of your company in the text field et voila! - your page is ready to customize and publish;
3. Customize your page by adding hours of operation, uploading logo and pictures, including links to your site and blog and applicable Facebook applications that your audience will enjoy. Once customized the page is ready to publish so click on the button to the right of the edit page to do so;
4. Finally, send out an invite to all of your business contacts and friends so that they can become a fan (a fan is to a page what a friend is to a profile - the more you have the more people you reach), view company updates and participate on your page. Your logo or thumbnail image appears in the “I am a fan off” section of the fan’s profile so the friends of your friends see it and so your company profile and network grows.
Is there a doctor in the (Facebook) neighbourhood?
Recently I was contacted by a new potential client about a website redesign. When I asked how they’d heard about me, I was surprised to hear “Facebook“!
Facebook has allowed other companies to create little extras (widgets, I suppose you might call them, or applications if you’re techie) that users can add to their profiles. A while ago I added Neighbourhoods and joined the Roberts Creek Neighbourhood. I was one of about four people. Seriously. It was so small, I almost left. Good thing I didn’t, because that’s exactly where they found me.
There’s now about 14 people in my “neighbourhood”. I wonder what they all do for a living…
P.S. Here’s some other things we’ve had to say about Facebook recently:
8 Reasons for Using Facebook for Business
5 Lessons In Getting Quoted, Linked & Discussed
Stumble Upon Something New
I’ve been stumbling quite a lot lately and its nothing to do with cool beer on a summer day. I’ve been stumbling upon new websites, blogs, and videos with StumbleUpon, a great Web 2.0 tool that downloads to your browser and allows you to sample web pages according to your specified interests.
I’ve tried using other social bookmarking sites like Digg and Del.icio.us and nothing has hooked me so far. StumbleUpon is easy to set up: register and download the browser add in at StumbleUpon, click on the Stumble button on your browser toolbar and off you go. You can flag and tag those you like, give the thumbs down to those you don’t (further honing in on exactly what interests you) and you can share finds with friends.
E-bay bought StumbleUpon earlier this year and it remains to be seen how this will change the offering. Recent updates to the interface have annoyed longstanding Stumblers and they have been criticised for their insensitivity to freedom of speech.
Social bookmarking sites like this are evolving and becoming more dynamic with alternatives like Trailfire also gaining popularity. Its becoming easier everyday to find and track new sites you like and you might just stumble upon something amazing.