The Obama administration continues to take the lead when it comes to using the latest technology. Not only do they take the lead, but they succeed. Their latest effort is moving the site Recovery.gov to Amazon’s cloud (reported on O’Reilly Radar). Anyone looking to move parts or all of their site to a cloud should consider this, as well as read the article, which provides some interesting facts as to why they’ve done this.
According to CHART OF THE DAY: Email’s Reign Is Over, Social Networking Is The New King. The proof is here:
Now, alot of people use platforms like Facebook for email and instant messaging, essentially transferring what they do with sites and tools like Hotmail and MSN to Facebook. But they are also do more than that, and that’s likely one of the reason social networking is winning out for the time being.
Well, I would recommend you check out this mashable.com post: 9 Killer Tips for Location-Based Marketing. While it is write up with L.B.S. in mind, you could use it for any emerging technology. It’s a good list, and while you are making your plans to better communicate with your customers, I recommend you revisit it and insure you are incorporating the ideas into your plans.
And in this article, Telling Friends Where You Are (or Not) in the NYTimes.com, you can get a good introduction to what they are and who the major players are. You should expect to see alot of development in this area: here’s your chance, if you are not already familiar with them, to get an idea what the fuss is all about.
I like how this story in Advertising Age starts:
“Last week, a client told me that they don’t allow employees to access YouTube at work. “Do your employees carry cellphones?” I asked. The answer was yes, of course. Well then, most of them already have access to YouTube – right in their pockets.”
Very true. And so I would add this additional reason to the five very good reasons listed in the article:
Check out the article in Advertising Age, especially if you are blocking or considering block social networks at your work location.
What struck me when I came across this list at ReadWriteWeb.com, iPad Arrives April 3rd: 8 Apps We Can’t Wait to Try, is that many of the apps that they are talking about are media related (the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others). There are some games there, but the expectation and anticipation expressed in this post on RWW centers on media. I expect these apps will be exciting, but I wonder if this will lead to a wave of more media companies shifting to the iPad. I think to a large degree it will depend on a) how successful people like the WSJ are and b) what other plans media companies have.
Regardless, I think it will be exciting and I expect to see developers for the iPad provide capabilities not even designed yet.
I think this explains itself: Israeli Raid Canceled After Facebook Leak from The Lede Blog on NYTimes.com. What is encouraging is that the military in countries like the U.S. see the value in social media and don’t ban it outright.
Well, not yet, but come fall 2019, they could be, according to this post on Mashable.com that says that:
“Mattel is about to launch a toy that will brighten the lives of some dog lovers … It’s called Puppy Tweet, and it gives your dog the ability to send Twitter updates about what he or she is doing….The collar detects when your dog moves or make a sound, then randomly selects one of 500 pre-written tweets to post to Twitter (Twitter). Your dog has to be within a reasonable distance of the room with your computer in it, though; the tweets are sent wirelessly from the collar to a USB receiver that has to be plugged into a supported Internet-connected device…Since the selection is random, the tweets don’t really represent what your dog is doing. It’s more a placebo that reminds you that your beloved pet is out there doing something, whatever it is. They’re cute though. A couple examples: “I finally caught that tail I’ve been chasing, and . . . OOUUUCHH!” and “I bark because I miss you. There, I said it. Now hurry home.”
It will sell for $29.99 on places like Amazon. No word out on whether there will be something for the goldfish, but if this takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Now that people and organizations have been blogging, setting up Facebook groups, and participating in social media generally, they have had an opportunity to gather feedback. And some of that has been and will be negative. Alot of that feedback is valuable and worthwhile responding to. Other feedback (e.g. from trolls) is not worth your while and indeed may have been actively managed.
If you feel this applies to you, read this mashable.com post, HOW TO: Deal With Negative Feedback in Social Media
This article, What are the most useful social media tools for small business? – Trends in the Living Networks, has a great list of a range of online tools you can use as a small business to communicate, connect, organize and run your small business. Many of them you may already be familiar with, but there’s likely a few that will be new to you.
I also recommend this list to anyone who works for a larger company but is responsible for using social media within their part of the organization. These could be the right low cost for you and your group if you don’t have a larger, enterprise-wide solution to tap into.
