Exploring Social Media: What’s in Your Bio?

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Exploring Social Media article series badgeIn “Five Tips for Composing a More Effective Social Networking Bio” by Maria Langer of Maria’s Guides, she asks if your social media bio is really saying what you want it to say and makes a good point:

Your bio is your primary way to tell people who don’t know you what you’re all about. If they’re heard about you from someone else or stumbled upon one of your Twitter tweets or Facebook wall posts, they might be interested in learning more. They might even want to become your . . . wait for it . . . friend.

…Think of your bio as bait on a fishing line. Who will it attract? But, at the same time, how many people will ultimately be disappointed by the mismatch between what your bio says about you and who you really are?

She includes some basic tips for creating a virtual biography such as be brief, accurate, meaningful, careful with word choice, and avoiding really personal and private information, but let’s take the picture you paint of yourself online in these various sharing outlets a step farther.

What is most important for you to share publicly? [Read more…]

Exploring Social Media: Twisasters

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Exploring Social Media article series badgeWith the recent fears of a pandemic with the Mexico Swine Flu and an earthquake today in Mexico City, there is a lot to be nervous about. Add to it the continued spread of the conflickr/downadup virus online…with all the manmade and natural disasters and our obsessive interest in them, you would think that there would be an easy way to find out what there is to be worried about in the world.

Oh, wait. There is. Meet Twisaster. [Read more…]

Twitter is a Public Way to Have a Private Conversation

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Exploring Social Media article series badgeMy husband was doing his best to explain Twitter to non-techy friends of ours. As the experienced web user and teacher, I was fascinated to hear how he would explain something he’s never used.

Twitter is a public way to have a private conversation.

He’s very right. In “Silly Out-of-Context Tweets — Can They Hurt?” brings up the “elephant in the room” that describes much of what Twitter is, does, and can do, especially when meets search engine, exposing your tweets to the world. [Read more…]

Social Media Sites Risk Growing Threats and Attacks

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Exploring Social Media article series badgeAccording to Investor’s Business Daily, evil is sweeping social networks, moving beyond email and blogs to where you like to virtually hang out and congregate:

Security experts last week warned that a new strain of the Koobface virus is hitting Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites. It looks for links and passwords to other social networking sites.

Social networking site owners work actively to put a lid on nefarious activity. On Tuesday, a federal judge in northern California issued a temporary restraining order against three people accused of widespread spamming and phishing attacks on Facebook. It comes three months after Facebook won a suit that prevents another group of spammers from using or accessing Facebook data and applications.

Virus creators are increasingly targeting social networking sites and other Web 2.0 technologies such as the micro-blogging site Twitter and instant messaging services from Google, AOL and others. Virus writers are also creating fake profiles of celebrities, real friends or business associates hoping people will link with them. Users can be tricked into linking to the fake profile, which can be loaded with various forms of malicious software.

The article by Brian Deagon showcased Facebook users who responded to an email from a “friend on Facebook” to visit a link that initiated a program that “rifled through his hard drive, installed malicious software and sent the same e-mail to all of Daradics’ friends on his Facebook profile.” [Read more…]

Exploring Social Media: Security and Monocultures

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Exploring Social Media article series badgeF-secure reports on security vulnerabilities with Adobe Reader and Foxit Reader for reading PDF files.

While this could be seen as another day-in-the-life update, the warning came with an interesting twist:

Do note that while we are recommending users move away from Adobe Reader, we are not recommending any particular replacement.

…Instead, we recommend users to find their own Adobe Reader replacement.

This way we get more heterogeneous userbase, which is a good idea security-wise. Nobody wants to repeat what happened with the great IE —> Firefox switch. As 40% of users switched to Firefox, about 40% of the attacks switched to target Firefox.

Monocultures are bad.

In the new world of online social, more and more people using the same tools, putting us all at risk as hackers and attackers move towards the natural migration of popularity. Monocultures are bad as they open the door to mass risks. [Read more…]

Exploring Social Media: Time for a Web App Matching Service

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Exploring Social Media article series badgeLloyd Budd of A Fool’s Wisdom has asked a very important question in this economy and techno-world we currently live in:

Working on a small project with a friend is a great opportunity to check out tools in other parts of the web development stack. I’ve been interested in trying out some of the software project management services and software.

…Likely the best approach for this project would be to first identify our needs and wants and then work through the available web services to find the closest matches.

Like Lloyd, are you stymied as you look at all the available web services, especially in the fast growing open source market, that will meet your needs. [Read more…]

Exploring Social Media: Future Tweets with TweetLater

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tweetlaterOne of the most powerful and useful social media business tools I’ve found for using is TweetLater. With recent feature improvements, it is turning out to be a social media third-party application I return to more and more.

TweetLater was developed by Dewald Pretorius and served as one of the first Twitter applications to permit future scheduling of tweets to Twitter. Tweet now, publish later, thus TweetLater was named.

Called a “productivity tool for busy tweeple,” TweetLater manages all your Twitter accounts from a central console to publish tweets on a schedule or in a timely manner. I use it to publish my daily WordPress Tips and WordPress Plugins on my @lorelleonwp Twitter account, creating tweets months in advance at one time, saving time and energy while adding value for my Twitter followers. [Read more…]

Exploring Social Media: Twitter is Broken, Now What?

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Within the last few hours, Robert Scoble announced that “Twitter is broken” on his @Scobelizer Twitter account.

@loic: Twitter is broken and we all know it. But we muddle along anyway. Bring us better tools so we can view groups we care about.
Scobleizer – Robert Scoble

scoble-twitter is broken

We’ve talked about a lot lately here on the , including Oscar ads on Twitter feeds, asking why Twitter is useful to you, explaining social media and Twitter to your parents, about a UK company offering Twitter business resources, how Norway is using Twitter to fight with Microsoft, Twitter pop celebrities, $35 Million to keep Twitter going, Twitter phishing scams, the BBC Mumbai Twitter Debacle, the US Presidential Election coverage on Twitter, and how Twitter is still a niche but moving into main stream.

Even with all this Twitter news and information coverage, at the heart of it, Scoble is right. Twitter is broken. Now what? [Read more…]

Twestivals in 175+ Cities Around the World Thursday, February 12, 2009

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Twestival is taking the world by storm as one of the first international festivals and fundraising events taking advantage of the popular social networking and microblogging site, Twitter, to spread the word and generate enthusiasm.

On February 12, 2009, cities from around the world will celebrate with a Tweet-up style festival to raise money for charity: water, a non-profit organization that works to bring clean, safe drinking water to developing nation citizens by funding sustainable clean water solutions.

Currently, more than 175 cities world-wide will be celebrating their own Twestivals, including my new home town, Portland, Oregon, and town of my birth, Seattle, as well as a virtual Twestival on Second Life.

There are many ways to get involved. You can attend a gathering in your city (some listed below), upload or buy music from Twestival.fm, participate in the t-shirt design competition, or donate directly. There will be podcasts, videocasts, news reports, and live streaming from many of the event locations, too. [Read more…]

Exploring Social Media: LeVar Burton Passionate About Social Media

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I recently joined a social networking site called Twitter. The reason that I joined is simple. However the reason that I have stayed and made a conscious decision to become as Twitterer myself, is what has led me to this BLOG.

…After lurking for a while (not in a creepy context, simply observing) it occurred to me that I had encountered in Twitter a bona fide community of individuals bound together by common interests and occasionally, ideals….

I feel like I have found part of my tribe in my online community, my Tweeple, so to speak. It is my intention, in the days and weeks to come, to lean on my online tribe for the kind of support, advice, and good humor that any man can expect from one’s community…

For those seeking to understand the pull social media sites like has, the first blog post by LeVar Burton on his new blog summed it up. [Read more…]