Monetizing Social Media

This is a good article from a familiar blog.  They have added a new perspective beyond the usual Facebook and Twitter observations.  The author suggests that Apple with it's App Store has found a way to monetize 3rd party sources.  I agree, but is the App Store a community where teens hang out and adults converse.  Continuation of common thought leads to simple adds like those you find in Facebook.  These may eventually support a portion of Facebooks budget, but something more needs to come from it.  The author suggests that Twitter will be introducing accounts that can be paid for in the hopes that businesses will take this on.  I think the Twitter model actually has some merit.  Businesses will soon see that they want to use Twitter internally, but without sharing with the world for competitive reasons.  Businesses will want to implement their own Twitter for quick brainstorming and the gathering of virtual and naturally formed groups within the enterprise.  This sort of application could foster Intellectual Property gathering or Root Cause determination or simply new innovative ways to solve problems.

http://mashable.com/2009/03/28/monetize-social-media/

Earth Hour a Success

For those of you not sure what Earth Hour is there is a good comment on the last Earth Hour post that describes it.  As for last night from 8:30 - 9:30, timezone by timezone, nearly 4000 cities in 88 countries turned off non-essential lighting as a statement that we must do act on climate control now.  I have read that the response however has changed from street parties to street protests. 

Earth Hour Game

You have to try this game out. You will be addicted immediately and your kids will want to play also.

http://lightsout.earthhour.org/lightsout/

Chris Barger @ GM

Chris is the Director, Global Communications Technology at GM. He has a great attitude and outlook about his work at GM. I recommend having a look at the link below describing his inteview by Shel Holtz, complete with video on his responses to questions.

http://www.simply-communicate.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=910

Social Networking within the Enterprise

It seems that March has been the month of social networks and business mashups. As expected there are many applications and useful ways for the enterprise to benefit from social network and media. Now of course this has been a long time coming, in fact the Wall Street Journal reported on this in the summer of 2007. Here are a list of ways that business is using social networking and media.

• Employee collaboration
• Online marketing
• Product development
• Support services
• Business contacts
• Linkage of business to social media about the business
• Recruitment of contestants
• Public relations
• Learning tool
• CRM
• News feed

Believe it or not, these are examples from news articles that were published in the month of March. The following blog is a nice summary and source of links to the actual articles.

http://blog.sewardinc.com/2009/03/26/social-networking-watch/

Not surprising but Twitter and Facebook are among the most commonly mentioned social networking tools. As reported earlier Twitter has grown 1,382% from Feb. 2008 to Feb. 2009 (CNET March 19, 2009) with now over 7 million members.

Auto Social Media Luminaries

This is a good interview with Scott Monty, Ford's Social Media Luminary with reference and Comparison to Chris Barger, GM's Social Media Luminary. I will be listening to Chris speak to a group of high level executives next week on Social Media.

http://www.simply-communicate.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=1147&d=68&h=60&f=75&dateformat=%25e-%25h-%25y

Being effective with Twitter

For those that are uncertain on how to increase what you get out of Twitter here is a good read.

http://blog.shoutem.com/2009/03/25/build-your-blog-community-with-twitter/

Everything Twitter

Here is a great site that describes everything about Twitter. I think that those of you who are wondering what the big fuss is about Twitter and it's 140 character message this site will clue you in.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/the-ultimate-guide-for-everything-twitter/

Sprint and Clearwire and WiMax, Oh my!

Reading about the new Sprint 3G/4G modem U300. First, the modem and technology are very cool. The modem itself can switch between EV-DO and WiMax, a first I believe. It is a small and rotatable dongle that plugs in to the USB. You can read more about it here.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343549,00.asp

However, also in this article you will read about how crazy the business is for Sprint and Clearwire. In fact, I would ask what the heck Clearwire is doing?

Google email undo

Google has a new feature you can add in that allows you to undo sending a message... sort of. You get about 3-4 seconds to react to hitting the send button, then if you see the message at the top of your screen you can click there and stop the send function. It definitely works, but you have to be on your toes to catch it. Here is how to add it.

On your main gmail screen click on settings

Next click on the Labs tab

Finally scroll down (way down) to the Undo option and enable it.

Go to the bottom of the page and click Save

Now you have the feature.