How Social Media Is Working For Small Business [INFOGRAPHIC]

If you're in business - chances are good that you're a "small" business - and you're in good company. According to the 2008 US Census data it's estimated that there are about 27,281,452 businesses - of which 21,351,320 (78%!) are "Nonemployer" businesses.

Yeah, I never really heard that term before, either.

Here's how the Census folks define a "Nonemployer" business:

Most nonemployers are self-employed individuals operating very small unincorporated businesses, which may or may not be the owner's principal source of income.

They go on to say:

Nonemployers account for a majority of all business establishments, but average less than 4 percent of all sales or receipts.

Oh, yeah, on top of that  and ANOTHER 4,661,829 have 9 or fewer employees. That means 95% of all businesses have less than 9 employees.

That's a serious number of folks.

If you're in the upper 5% - you can skip the infographic below - otherwise - stop reading this and fire up your Facebook account!



SOURCE

Always Connected is Not Always Good [INFOGRAPHIC]

Yeah, sure, you have a smartphone, an iPad, AND a laptop. You've got a mad WiFi network at home, at school, at McDonald's, at Starbucks - hell, even your MOM's got a wireless router. No wonder it feels like we can never "get away" - we're just always connected:



SOURCE

The Internet Killed the Postman

So the US Postmaster General, Patrick Donahoe, said if Congress doesn't act soon - that the US Postal Service will cease operations in the early part of next year.

Huh?

It seems that they're going "miss" a $5.5 billion payment this month (to fund future retirees healthcare); and Mr. Donahoe is asking to fire 120,000 workers; not replace 100,000 more jobs (due to attrition/retirements); close 3,700 post offices (out of 36,500); close 300 (out of 600) sorting facilities and stop Saturday delivery - in an effort to stop hemorrhaging an estimated $10 billion this year. That's on top of the over $20 billion in losses over the past 4 years.

The big problem for Mr. Donahoe, is that he needs to get congressional permission to do any or all of the proposed cuts.

Yeah, good luck with that.

We can't even get the Congress to agree on a budget for the country, let alone one government agency!

So why is the agency losing so much money? Well, as I said above, volume is down 22% in just the last 5 years - and the USPS says it could drop another 35% by 2020. The real elephant in the room is the people who work for the post office. Or, rather, their retirement and health benefits.

Labor costs make up 80% of the entire post office budget. Compare that to 53% at UPS and 32% at FedEx - and well, it should be obvious that some of those folks have to go.

As usual, the unions are screaming bloody murder at even the mere mention of layoffs. You see, the postal workers and their unions have a "no-layoff" contract. All 653,000 of them (down from 900,000 ten years ago). The source of all the red ink is mainly due to a 2006 law requiring them to pay an average of $5.5 billion annually for 10 years to finance retiree health costs for the next 75 years.

Ummmmm.... yeah.

So yes, online statements, online bill pay, email, free video chat with relatives a world away, instantly accessible catalogs and daily specials - all these modern conveniences are spurring the decline of printed (and mailed) spam documents.

And, even though the postmaster has been beating the drum since (at least) March 2010; Congress' inaction has now come back with the potential to bite it in the butt - and all during an election year run-up.

I'm sure no one wants to tell his/her constituents (especially those with rural populations) - "Oh, by the way - because we were caught up in political wrangling, posturing and inaction - the Post Office is dead. I sure hope you have one of them thar' interweb thingies..."

It's time (again) - to call, write, email, Skype, social media, tweet and bug the hell out of your Congress Person to get off their butts, take a man pill, and work out a way to keep the Post Office from going away. 

Some numbers (from back in 2010):

  SOURCE

There's A Reason You're Feeling Distracted [INFOGRAPHIC]

Have you ever just wanted to check comments on your Facebook status "real quick" - and then wind up down the rabbit hole for like 3 hours? Well, you're not alone! This awesome look at Digital Distractions at the Museum of Modern Art sums it all up nicely:

SOURCE

How To Get Coments On Yor Posts

I came across a graphic - and I just had to share it with you - because, in my experience, nothing is closer to the truth:




SOURCE

Is There A Tech "Bubble" Or Not? [INFOGRAPHIC]

With the recent high-profile tech IPO offerings (LinkedIn, Netflix, OpenTable) and the recent rumors of high-profile tech companies IPOs on the horizon (Facebook, Twitter, EventBrite) - it's beginning to look a lot like 1999 to me. The valuation of LinkedIn was just.. well crazy. The initial stock price was $45 per share - giving the company a valuation of about $4.5 billion. The stock price is now around $105 per share - that means that LinkedIn has a valuation of about $6.4 billion.

DOH! For LinkedIn? Really?

Here's a great infographic for comparing the great bubble to how things are shaping up today:

Is Social Media Making Us More "Media" and Less "Social"?

OK, so I've written a few times about my take on social media - and I'll admit - it has changed over time. I've gone from mocking it, to loving it, to somewhere in-between, to taking a break from it. It seems that everyone is so intent on updating their status, tweeting "the latest", joining (or being added to) a "circle" that we're forgetting one, teeny, tiny detail: we're not actually interacting with people. In real life.

"Innovention" Is Alive And Well

"Innovention" is alive and well, thank you very much. No, I'm not talking about the make-over of the old Disneyland "Carousel of Progress" - but I'm talking about innovation + invention = "innovention."

Business Cards In A Social Media World

For years, I've always had business cards. Some of them cool, some of them bland, some of them nicely printed on thick stock, some of them over sized, some of them 2 color, some full color. I've also received thousands of other people's business cards over the years. Some of them I kept, most of them I didn't.

The Upside of Social Media

If you've read any of my earlier posts - you'll know that I've always had mixed feelings when it comes to social media.

On the one hand, it's a huge time-suck and it's easy to get distracted and spend useless hours updating your status(es), profile(s), and all responding to others' messages, opening cool links with YouTube videos in them, etc.

With so many social media outlet clamoring for attention - you also have to check multiple services with multiple logins - and then try to keep track of all the "friends" (or "followers" or whatever) you have on each service - and then post relevant stuff to that particular site.

Which site do you check most often? Where should you invest your time? If you have a Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, MySpace and Yammer accounts (which I do) - who the hell has time to check/update all those sites? Even with aggregation tools, it's a nightmare.

Every time I watch Twitter feeds live - I feel like I'm watching the matrix of humanity just like in the movie.

So, I've started to focus a lot of my attention on a couple of services: Twitter and Facebook. Just those two are enough for me at this point! Even then, I have a fairly large number of "friends" on Facebook - but it's nice to read the interesting status updates, browse other folks' pictures and just keep in touch with people.

There are a lot of sad moments, happy moments, silly moments and basically everything in between. I don't comment on a lot of the posts - I mainly just "lurk" - but there are some people who could just really use a bit of encouragement now and then - so I'll post a comment (or snarky remark!).

I don't know about you, but I feel a bit impotent writing "You're in our thoughts" or "You'll make it, don't worry" or some other equally dazzling comment. I mean, I really hope that person gets it worked out or that things turn around for them - or whatever - but it just feels like a store-bought card versus a hand-written one.

You never really know if what you said was even read - much less if it even helped the other person.

So, I've been sort of lax in my commenting of other people's status updates lately - but all that is going to change.

You see, this weekend I was on the receiving end of those comments - when Brenda went into the hospital with a heart attack scare (she's fine - heart is OK). Beyond the incredible support of our family (shout out to Theresa, Julie and my mom!) - the number of caring, thoughful posts on the status updates were something that really helped me out.

In the long hours sitting and waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and waiting!) - I was able to update my status multiple times - and would find myself checking back every 10 minutes to see if anyone responded yet... and 90% of the time - someone did.

It feel really good to know that others were out there lending a sympathetic ear and offering their encouragement and support.

It was beyond just what they said (which was really encouraging) - it was the fact that they took the time to read my status update (among the 100's they have in their News Feed) - and then took the time to formulate a response.

It really made a difference to me - and was very moving.

For those of you who don't have a Facebook account yet - sign up at Facebook.com - and if you are on Facebook - look me up: facebook.com/bobcusick and "add" me as a friend (there's no "acquaintance" or "some jerk" buttons, unfortunately).

Once again, I want to THANK all the Facebook folks who responded to our situation over the weekend from the bottom of my heart.

I'm WORKING Here, People!

First of all - many thanks to all of you who have emailed and called and IM'd and social media'd me about the fact that you miss the regular updates to Bob's World! It's nice to know that people actually read this thing. :-)

And, I do apologize for being a total slacker for the last couple of weeks... BUT - since I've restarted Clickware I've been switching hats so often that I'm getting tennis elbow.

That's one thing that I totally forgot about - when you're (re)starting a venture YOU are where the buck stops. Literally. As in: "If you don't do some work/promotion/billing/marketing/sales/support/follow up today - you won't get paid tomorrow."

I got spoiled when I was working for Servoy I had a terrific staff who all kicked-ass and were experts in their own fields. This allowed me the luxury of actually running the US Operations and update the social media, blogs, talk to analysts, write articles, do product plans, explore new concepts, make videos, etc.

Now, I still need to do all of those things - but I have to do all the other functions as well... and frankly, with that whole "there's only 24 hours in a day" thing, it's tough to do. If it were up to me - I would officially make each day at least 36 hours long - so at least I could get caught up in the span of a couple of weeks.

But, alas, I can't alter the space/time continuum - so I started to take my own advice. You see, I wrote a white paper a while ago called "How To Get Stuff Done" (you can get it here) - and you know, it really does help!

There are so many things that "should" be done - but very few that "need" to be done. I'm finding if I just start with those things that need to be done (and not all the "fun" projects that tend to suck time like a 5 year old drinking chocolate milk) - and then also apply the appropriate "filter" - I can actually get things OFF my "to do" list.

This blog is one of the things that I "should" do - but also one I "need" to do as well. I'll try to keep it updated a few times a week... so DO check back - and please DO keep those cards, letters, emails and comments coming!

The Future: Less IS More

After taking this week "off" from my social media commitments - I jumped back (literally) into the "stream" of the social collective this morning.

Now, those of you who know me know that I'm not the most "social" person out there - and that at the beginning of this wave of social media - I was skeptical (at best). But after being "out of the loop" for a week - I found that I actually missed the time-sucking, endless noise filtering and discovery of hidden gems in my social networks.

Really.

Just due to the sheer number of posts and the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and the fact that I actually need to do "work" as well - I'm finding that the thing I long for is not *less* information - but information that is categorized in the way that's important to me.

For example, I have limited my followings on Twitter to people that say stuff that I find interesting. Now, I'm only following 76 people - but damn Spanky - some of those folks Tweet in real time. Some of the time it's interesting, and some of the time it's just plain annoying to have (literally) 100+ tweets by ONE person a day.

Even if I could process 7,600 tweets per day (100 tweets * 76 people) - there's no way I actually could. I mean, seriously, can you process 500 of ANYTHING in a single day?

That's just one outlet - Twitter. Then there's Facebook. I have a fair number of friends - a lot of whom are really interesting people - and I make every effort to read their status updates and sometimes the links and videos they post. And, more times than not, they have great things to day.

Then there's the "real time" communications - instant messaging via AIM, GoogleTalk, MSN (yeah, I know!), ICQ, and Skype... these generally are the communications that take the place of a phone call. I typically have 3-20 conversations a day (some are really short) to ping friends, colleagues and customers.

Then, there's Skype, my land line phone and my mobile phone. Oh, and then I check my Gmail, email, SMS, and voicemail.

Then, I read blogs and articles, write blogs and articles - and then I check my snail mail.

Ummmm... yeah.

So this past week I entered my time capsule and have only answered phone calls, "traditional" email and voicemail ( ok, ok, so I did a few IM sessions as well) - and I found out that I really felt out of touch. Yeah, I know - it surprised me as well!

So I started looking around for some stuff to help me to collapse all these information streams so I don't lose (what's left) of my mind. Now before I get 1,000 comments, tweets, IM's, emails, voice mails, status updates - I know that there are a great number of tools that will help me manage the Twitter feed.

That's not the problem.

I need something that will help unify all the streams and then help me to put them in context. To help me keep track of my customer's outgoing and incoming communications, my friend's outgoing and incoming communications, my colleagues' outgoing and incoming communications. That way, I have a context in which I can interact.

One of the services I use is called Ping.fm - it helps me to update all my various social networks in one fell swoop. I use Twitterfeed for the same thing for the incoming Tweets. I use RSS readers for blog updates. I use FriendFeed to try to aggregate the social stuff.

The killer app of the future is NOT going to be another way to stream your thoughts or your content. The killer app of the future is one that will coordinate and help you manage all the stuff you're consuming and creating - by author, by group, by relationship type, by content type, by time frame. It will allow you to set a preferred communication channel for each of these contacts and then when you blast your own content - it will reach out and communicate to the masses - but also in a personalized way to the selected contacts you've indicated in the way(s) those contacts prefers to be contacted in.

The future is LESS, not more. Less programs to manage stream of outgoing and incoming communications, less time spent sifting through 12 different types of communications, less hassles in knowing how to communicate effectively with those you need to communicate with.

Yeah, I've seen the future - and less IS more.

Facetweet - Will Facebook Kill Twitter?

Well - as seen on numerous blogs around the world today - it's finally come out that Facebook really DID try to buy Twitter last fall. There had been rumors all over the place that Mark and team was vying to snap up the microblogging site - and roll it into their own offering.

So after the negotiations had come to an unfruitful end (from Facebook's perspective) - they took a play out of the Gates handbook for business 101 - and just decided to build their own microblog format. I say good for them!

Now I don't know Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter personally, and I don't have any inside information as to what they have in the works - but it just seems to me that if someone like Mark Zuckerberg and team come to you and want to buy your brand (for an "undisclosed sum" - read: HUGE cash) - then unless you have a really, really, really good plan to monetize your platform - you should just sell the damn thing.

I mean, really! So, you invented the space of microblogging. Bully for you! It's still not really caught on to the mainstream yet - and your own site's features are so anemic that a whole industry and dozens of others have stepped into the ecosystem to siphon off users from your site (read: less eyeballs for ads)...

So, you have a super simple site - which is a good thing. You have a medium that lots of tech folks (and PR folks) use as sort of a "live AP" feed - also good.

But... ummm... the idea and the tech behind it are... well... just NOT that hard to re-create. The barrier of entry to create another service just like yours is, well, trivial. Just look at all the Twitter-like, me-too spin offs that have come about.

Yeah, you have first-mover advantage, but the Facebook people have a little think called "150 million registered users." Oh, and a valuation that's backed by the largest software company in the world - Microsoft. Oh, and some really, really smart people.... AND... a really robust infrastructure.... AND... did I mention 150 million registered users?

I think it's a good thing that Facebook will put in a microblogging feature - I think that people will use it and that it will really be a welcomed addition to their service. In a way - it's already there. You can see the status updates of your friends, get a "live feed" of what others are doing... so it just makes sense that if you could "broadcast" your status to anyone... you're done.

So - Twitter - unless you're going to announce something (and soon) - I'm afraid you'll be relegated to the MySpace bid of "cool idea, first-mover advantage" slow death. The difference is - you didn't sell out for $850 (while the getting was good).

I hope I'm wrong. Maybe all the people who are addicted to Twitter will continue to tweet forever. I'm sure that people who have used the service for a long time will continue to use it. However, all the "new" people who are just discovering social media (both individuals and businesses) - they WILL sign up for Facebook.

And when they do - they will have a new option to "broadcast" their stuff to anyone on the Internet - as well as to "subscribe" to other feeds. All in the CONTEXT of their friends, customers and other relationships.

OR - they could choose to go to yet another source, start cross posting (or do what I do - and use the EXCELLENT Ping.fm to do it for me) and reading two sets of feeds.

Ummmm... yeah. In-context feeds all in one aggregated place with the largest social network on the planet - or a spartan interface in scrolling format.

My money's on Facebook to win and Twitter to place.

Microblog: Twitter Ethics

It seems like Twitter is gaining in popularity. I was watching CNN the other day - and they actually showed a reporter posting tweets - on the air! What the ??

If I'm watching CNN - I don't want to see people Twittering... or checking their email... or writing a blog post... I want to watch people report the news. If I want to read the CNN tweets - then I'll go on my mobile device or computer and read the tweets.

Some people are just NUTS when it comes to what they tweet. Take the guy who did a "lifecast" of his wife giving birth - yeah... on Twitter! Or what about reporters who get inside access to special briefings from the White House or on an analyst call? If they Twitter the juicy details before the others can write up and file a story - is that "fair?"

How about Twossip (Twitter + Gossip)? Does saying something about a person and then broadcasting it to all your "followers" constitute slander - or are you just doing a "really wide-reaching IM"?

What about the people that use Twitter as a stream-of-conscientiousness tool? I hate those type of people - and they only usually last one day on my "follow" list. I really don't need to read 40 (or MORE!) posts from you a day. I do NOT need to "hear" every single thought that crosses your mind - nor do I want to.

On the other hand - some folks don't tweet enough in my opinion. There are some folks who tweet maybe 2-3 times per day (or sometimes less) - that I actually look forward to seeing a tweet from (Tech show host and radio guy Leo Laport and Servoy developer Greg Pierce to name a couple).

So if you DO Twitter - say something funny, outrageous, whimsical, controversial - it'll just be more fun for everyone. BTW: You can follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bobcusick as well...

Microblog: You're Naked On The Web

OK, well, maybe not naked, per se - but there's sure a lot of stuff out there on almost all of us. This topic seems to be coming up more and more lately - and there was a great blog article by my friend Dan Tynan yesterday that pointed out a new social media site that will do all the hard work for you: Spokeo.

It seems that this little wonder site will take all the "hassles" and legwork out of cyber stalking - or just digging up dirt on you co-workers, employees or ex-girlfriends. From their homepage:

Want to see something juicy? Spokeo searches deep within 41 major social networks to find truly mouth-watering news about friends and coworkers.

Ummmm.... yeah. Welcome to the new way of interacting - and having people know more about you than you probably would have guessed. Part of that is the fault of social media - and part of that is our own damn fault. Hot tip: if you don't want people to know personal stuff about you - it's probably too late. Even if you dump all your profiles on all the social media - there are saved caches of that stuff - and it will probably NEVER go away.

But at least I don't live in New Hampshire! Robert L. Mitchell when doing research for an article in ComputerWorld - found out that his personal information (including full social security number, address, kid's names, etc) were easily found on the Internet - for FREE. It seems that the folks in the good state of New Hampshire, in an effort to make government more transparent - scanned all kinds of tax liens, divorces, and all other matter of "public" data and just made it live.

Nice. If you don't want people to know personal stuff about you... ummm... then just disconnect your phones, your email, your social media - in fact - just turn off the wireless card and unplug that Ethernet cable. Yeah, probably that won't even help at this point.

Microblog: Facebook #1?

According to Comscore - Facebook because the largest worldwide network back in the middle of 2008 - but it's still lagging behind MySpace in terms of page views - 76 million unique visitors for MySpace versus 54.5 million for MySpace.

In the US - Facebook's growth was 3.8% per month (a big number when you're talking about those kind of pageview numbers) - versus MySpace's growth rate of just 0.8% (still - a great number given the sheer volume of page views). Assuming that growth rate continues, Facebook should overtake MySpace sometime in 2010.

The question is - who cares? I think the most important social media site is the one that people are using. The one where you can connect with your customers, employees, friends, and colleagues. So it's important to be on the social network they use as their primary contact point. Most people, if they're on social media at all - are NOT on 6 different services. They're on ONE - or maybe TWO...

It sort of comes down to the age-old "cool kid" factor. A few years ago MySpace was the cool kid - and now, I believe, that Facebook is the new cool kid. What do you think?

Microblog:: Twitter Spam

Deep breath.... deep breath... OK. For those of you that have a compelling need to Tweet more than 15 times per day - here's my personal advice: Step AWAY from the keyboard (or cell phone or whatever).

The whole point of Twitter, and Pownce and Tumbler and ______ (your social network here) is that you share something RELEVANT with your followers. It's NOT a free-for-all.

If you're posting more than 10 Tweets per day - then you're a Twitter Spammer (you know who you are). Stop it! No, really!

Rather than posting what you're reading - or the fact that you just posted and "can't believe it" - there's another medium for you - it's called a "blog." You can rant the whole day - and no one will care (trust me!).

But putting out 150 status "updates" a day is just too damn much. No one CARES! Instead, take a deep breath (get your HANDS OFF the keyboard - no one cares that you took a deep breath) and form some funny or interesting thing to say, and then (and ONLY then) post it to your followers.

We're (I mean I'm) tired of all the spam. If you post and see your own face (only!) on the the entire first page of your XYZ feed - just say NO. NO to posting inane details of what you're doing. NO to inane details of a trip or who you're @ hanging with. NO BODY CARES.

NOW, I'm going to Tweet this post....

IRL - RIP

NOTE: For those of you over 40: IRL = "In Real Life"

So last week when Apple announced that it would pull out of MacWorld next year, and, oh yeah, by the way, Steve Jobs won't be doing the keynote THIS year... people went absolutely bat s**t.

There were 1,000,000 blogs on the topic - rife with speculation that Mr. Jobs had a spat with the organizers (IDG) and that they simply were "taking their dollies and going home." To add insult to injury - they offered up a Jobs Replacement - Phil Shiller. Now, I don't know Mr. Shiller personally, and I'm sure he's a great guy and everything, but geez... he for SURE no Steve Jobs.

Apple's cold press release about the fact that they were just dumping MacWorld - right before the show (January 6-9, 2009) was about as childish and stupid as you can get. It's like getting dumped via a text message.

Would it have killed them to have Steve get up and say "Nothing new... and one more thing... we got NOTHING new to pimp." Then in February or March, just come out and say that due to _______ (insert standard corporate crap here) they are "re-aligning" their tradeshow strategy with market conditions... or something?

The "other" big show that's going on at exactly the same time is the once-huge CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. There was a time where this show was like the old COMDEX show - 150,000 people strong. Where you would physically age while waiting for a cab. When the crappiest, dirtiest, keep-your-socks-on-at-all-times-people hotel room was going for $395 per night. Last year, not so much. This year, even less "so much."

I don't know if it's just a reflection of the recessionary times we live in - or whether people just really don't give a crap - but it seems like (to me at least) that tradeshows in general are just sucking wind. They're expensive for both the attendees as well as the exhibitors (I've been both, many, many times). Yeah, it's cool to get all the useless swag to give to your kids and all, but really - what function do these live, in-person events really play?

We live in a world of 140 character "blogs". A world full of "status" messages on social networking sites, and a world in which 25% of the paper wealth of everyone just vanished overnight.

And it's not just tradeshows. It's user conferences and gatherings. Just last week Novell just canceled their "BrainShare" (user) conference because a bunch of the people said they weren't coming because of restrictions on their travel budgets.

Personally, I say - good riddance. I think it's important to meet with customers face-to-face. There are certain things that Twitter, and emails can't convey. However, I think that the power of meeting with people IRL is the fact that they all share a certain love for a product, service or industry and they want to be around others who are like-minded.

The problem is that with technology being what it is - phones, and Skype and online meetings and webcams are slowly taking the place of speakers, presenters, drinks in the bar and good old fashioned business card exchanges.

I guess the change in the way we interact together was (is) inevitable. There was a time when I had physically printed manuals for all the software I used sitting on a bookshelf. Now I either just use the online help (usually F1 on a PC application) - or I use Google as my online manual. I don't need no stinkin' printed manual - and I don't need to go IRL with other folks to find out about any new developments in my industry.

I get 24 hour news, 500 blogs that report the absolute latest and greatest, etc. However, I think that if shows like MacWorld and CES go the way of COMDEX - a little bit of humanity goes with it. And once it goes, it's very difficult to get back.

I Am Therefore I Tweet

My social media experiment these past couple of months has been... interesting to say the least. Like most social newbies who finally figure out what Twitter is - I was posting about 10 times per day. Yes, I was "that guy" - who told my 4 followers all the inane details of the boring crap I was doing everyday.

I was checking Twitter incessantly - and adding people that I was "following" like it was no tomorrow. I would hit "refresh" multiple times per day - and read all the posts from all the people I subscribed to. I would tweet from my iPhone, from my browser, from a friend's computer... I sounded like a damn Minah bird - tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet!

Then I got a life.

As I cut down on the number of times per day that I would tweet and would read the posts on Twitter, I noticed something interesting things:

1. I actually got more work done
2. People don't really care what I had for lunch
3. Some people "spam" Twitter like a 5 year old with 100+ tweets per day (I've stopped "following" those people)
4. I look forward to the tweets with funny, observant or useful information
5. Only about 20 of the 50+ people I "follow" have anything interesting to say
   

These observations have lead me to be a better Twitter citizen. I now post only stuff that I think other people might be interested in, or might find useful. I've pared down my "following" list to just over 50 people that I actually want to hear from (mainly geeks).

I decided that if I wanted to indulge the "eating ham sandwich" side of me - that I should either set up a separate account for "blather" - or just do like everyone else and post that stuff on my Facebook page.

Then, just as I had completed the Twitter 12 step program, my wife suggests that we try using Yammer - a Twitter rip-off that is meant just for people inside of a specific company (people can only join yammer if they have the same email extension - e.g. @mycompany.com).

Well, Hallelujah! Within the first 24 hours most of the company was on Yammer and were... well... Yammering away. This time, though, no one put what they were eating for lunch. They said what they were working on, what projects where coming online, what interesting sales prospects were saying, comments and suggestions from customers... you know, real "work" stuff.

It's still in the experimental stage, but the results are pretty cool. We have employees in 6 timezones all over the world - and it's cool to be able to get a sense of what they're working on. I'm not sure how to explain it... but it's easier than sending an email, it's less intrusive than IM, and it's fast. The best part is - if no one want to read it (or respond to it), then it's up to them.

If you don't respond to an email or IM, then you're rude and sometimes will cause more than hurt feelings. But if you don't respond to a tweet or yamm (?) - then it's no big deal. You're broadcasting you status - hoping to be helpful, or to give people an idea of what you're working on. You can also ask for feedback, have people check out a link, spread the word about a new success story. It's like a living, Internal newsletter.

Well, with all this social media (special thanks here to Brenda Christensen for keeping the social media banner flying for Servoy!) - my wife (the "other" Brenda) came to me with another suggestion for a useful, online tool that would track what people were saying about any topic. It was basically a free service that would search some sites for any keyword you entered, and show you results on what was being blogged, twittered, etc.

Now I already have a Goggle Alert set up for some key terms - and that works great. But it's limited to what the mighty Google indexes - and not the rest of the world. The site that Brenda suggested - yacktrack - will show you the results of your keyword search across several sites (including Friendfeed, Technorati, Twitter, Google blog search, etc.). It's a pretty interesting service (free for now). The results are interesting - although if you are looking at the blog results, there's no link provided to the actual blog.

I found that the source of the search Google Blog Search - was much more efficient. But, it's nice to have a single service where you can enter a term, and get an overall feel for what the talk is on a topic, then if you're interested, you can always drill down to the actual search engines and get your "hands dirty".

Whew! Now I can finally Tweet-Facebook-LinkedIn-Plurk-Yammer about this entry!

In Social Media We Trust

My entry into the social media realm has been very interesting - to say the least. I've stayed mainly with the mainstream services: FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pownce (shutting down Dec 15th), Jabber, etc.

I've even been able to amass some "friends" on each of the services. I've been pretty careful about who I will add as a connection in each of them - but I was reading an article by Mike Elgan from ComputerWorld the other day that really gave me pause.

He was talking about the fact that it's possible for scammers, theives and other miscreants to "hijack" the identities of people you may really know - and pose as them - in order to gain your confidence for an a scam attack at some point in the future.

He points out some really interesting points: in the social media world we will trust another person who we (think) we know as a "friend." Now that person can see all of our other friends and their profiles. But what I never really stopped to think about was just how easy it would be to steal someone's identity and pose as that person.

Mr. Elgan calls it "How to steal friends and influence people":

Step 1: Request to be "friends" with a dozen strangers on MySpace. Let's say half of them accept. Collect a list of all their friends.

Step 2: Go to Facebook and search for those six people. Let's say you find four of them also on Facebook. Request to be their friends on Facebook. All accept because you're already an established friend.

Step 3: Now compare the MySpace friends against the Facebook friends. Generate a list of people that are on MySpace but are not on Facebook. Grab the photos and profile data on those people from MySpace and use it to create false but convincing profiles on Facebook. Send "friend" requests to your victims on Facebook.

As a bonus, others who are friends of both your victims and your fake self will contact you to be friends and, of course, you'll accept. In fact, Facebook itself will suggest you as a friend to those people.

Yikes! Just think about that for a minute. Someone out there could be on another social media site right now using your name, your photo and your profile to lure people into a scam, or worse. Now, the bad news is - the damage may already be done.

As a precaution, I would suggest that people who are "into" the social media scene (and who isn't these days?) - check out some of the other social media sites by searching for yourself. If you find a fake that's on there - you owe it to yourself to report it to the appropriate service and get the "bad" profile removed.

I've never had to deal with this personally (thank goodness) - so I'm not sure what the policy would be. Do you get to keep the profile up there - but you just take over the username/password? What happens when you want to join that same network after the offending profile as been removed? Can you even keep your same name (your real name) - or will it be blacklisted?

GREAT! Just one more thing to be paranoid about...

If any of you out there have experience with this - or know of someone who does - be sure to leave a comment.