Social Media Trends for 2010

I came across there six social media trends for 2010 while reading a blog for Harvard Business Review:
1. Social media begins to look less social (or it might seem that way because of all the clutter and noise that we can see on Twitter, facebook, etc)
2. Corporations look to scale (more companies are looking to provide customer support on twitter, etc)
3. Social business becomes serious play (some networks, like foursquare, have a game-like component)
4. Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)
5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline (as 70 percent of organizations ban social networks, employees might be looking to "feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices")
6. Sharing no longer means e-mail (for exmaple, "The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter.")

I thought it was interesting. You can read the full article at
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/11/six_social_media_trends.html

Study: Young kids better with tech than 'life skills'

I found this article online and I found it really creepy. I know we are in social media class and we supposed to look at the positive sides of technology and worlds innovations. However, it bring some concerns...

According to studies 58% of young children can play a computer game and 53% can ride a bike. Well should we consider it as something positive, or negative? We could think, it is good because the technology now days evolves so fast that kids need to know how to operate in this technology based world. But on the other hand should we let kids forget about old physical activities and games that were common when we were young?

What do you think? How we could make it work both ways and make it fair for both sides of personal evolution?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-20029002-238.html?tag=cnetRiver

Leave Your Wallet At Home, But Bring Your Mobile Device

Beginning today, the next time you’re up early or late and need a tall or grande cup of java from Starbucks to keep going, no worries if you’ve misplaced your wallet . . . just be sure you arrive at Starbucks with your iPhone, iPod Touch or Blackberry. You will be able to pay for that cup of caffine using the Starbucks Card Mobile. This “card” is a barcode visible on the screen of your mobile device made possible via the Starbucks Card Mobile app that has been downloaded to one of the aforementioned mobile devices (for Android owners, an app for this device is apparently being worked on). There is a 2-D scanner at the register that will read your barcode. Funds are added to the “card” via PayPal or credit card.

For a society in a hurry and for a society in which the cell phone has become integrated with daily life, this payment method makes sense. Hopefully, though, the time savings part will not be nullified waiting for that grande latte to be made! Of course, you can always make good use of your time checking emails, news, your FB page, etc. on your mobile device.


Source of photo: http://mashable.com/2011/01/18/Starbucks-mobile-payments/

Looking for a job? Twitter can help.

Since the majority of us are graduating in May and will be on the job hunt in the near future, I thought this article and video tutorial could act as one of the many search options we can utilize.

The video shows using Twitter in a job search, with some basic information on Twitter in the beginning. Tutorial videos have a tendency to be pretty dry, but the information you can find is valuable.

Lifecasting: Creepy or Cool?

I wondered aloud in class on Friday what lifecasting was, so I checked it out at home. Lifecasting (not to be confused with the molding/casting process) is basically a continuous videostream of one’s personal life broadcast live on the Internet. It is typically done through wearable recording devices.

My initial thought was, “Who in the world would be interested in this?” It sounds boring and a bit narcissistic. As it turns out, lifecasting has quite a history. Wikipedia offers a very thorough explanation and backstory here. Also, this is an interesting YouTube video that shows how some people (known as “lifecasters) are employing lifecasting.

What do you guys think? Is it weird or something that could actually be effective? How could different companies and organizations use it? I was thinking something along the lines of “A Day in the Life of the CEO.” Other ideas?

Twitter Analytical Site

Though I Tweet, I'm not a frequent Twitter user, and I know I could be using Twitter more effectively.  Via Twitter, I came across this article, 5 Best Analytics Tools, and felt it was worth sharing.
It describes several tools that let you measure how active you are on Twitter, what kinds of followers you have, and what you Tweet about.  Some create graphs to visualize your online behavior, others label you a certain type of Twitter user.
I'm going to test-drive a few and see if these analytical tools can help you adjust your Twitter activity to be more effective and influential.

Welcome to Social Media Strategies and Tactics

Welcome to the class blog.  As you can see, this is a site that was very active last summer during the debut of this course.  I thought I would keep the content on here so that you can see the types of posts that students generated.  Look forward to actively engaging in all things social media in the months ahead!