paz on TypePad

Back from Nowhere, I've got something interesting to tell you about how to use your time to blog, microblog and browse social networks

It has been a while since my last blog post uh?

I've been to Nowhere 2008 and that travel has changed my mind. I've discovered a completely new point of view on time, tasks and basically the rhythm of my life. At Nowhere I had a strange feeling about how the time flows. I had always much time to do whatever I liked, but without feeling annoyed, bored or tired. I was just faster.

(feel free to comment it on flickr)

Then, when I came back everything became crystal clear: I tried to play a main role in my life following my actions with my thoughts, trying to go fast fast fast. I was wrong. what I needed was to slow down my movements and speed up my thoughts. First thoughts, then actions. Simple uh?

Well, playing a main role in your life is possible, but you need to sit back and relax. You don't need just to do things, you need to think before you act, observe a lot, try to be empathic with your friends and be sincere.

(this picture is on Flickr too)

You can't always be on the front line. You can enjoy your life from the back seats, without being only a spectator though. It's just a matter of time. You have to be ready when it's your time. Otherwise you can find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time almost... always! Find your time and use it well. Time cannot be filed then re-used. Every single second of your life is always one shot.

Got a blog? Plan your posts: if you are in a good mood you can prepare posts for the future.

Got a micro-blog? Then post on it whenever you've got something to say, because good ideas usually don't come back.

Received a message on Facebook? Answer asap, because you could start up a nice conversation, and because you're a polite person (polite people answer fast).

A new SMS on the phone? Then, answer (again). If you don't know what to answer, just remember that you'll need to justify with the person who wrote to you about your no-answer ultra-unpolite behavior. Probably she'll understand if you're nice enough.

Oh, don't forget to relax and take your time to enjoy simple things. A glass of water, a sweet candy or a smile. By the way, if you find a person who smiles at you with no reason, smile back and think how lucky you are to be there.

The philosopy of Social Media (humility again)

I think there's an underlying philosophy of the social media universe.

On social media websites the most important thing you can do is sharing: you can share your media, your comments, your votes, your favorites, your playlists. Beyond this facade, there's a strong philosophy based on humility.

I'll try to explain what I mean.

from flickr

Social media sharing is well known: you can share thoughts, pictures, videos, suggestions, placemarks on a map and so on. You're not paid to share your knowledge - well, unless you try to monetize with Google Adsense - and I believe that you do it both as a way of personal expression and to receive feedbacks of your works from other users. These two things are connected, of course, because an uploaded video is something (showing on a website) which can be voted: other people can watch it and let everyone know what they think of it. You're with me? A social media piece is both an expression and a request of feedbacks.

When you create a social medium you want to express yourself but you'd also like to know the opinion of the others about it. Social media standard path is from an individual user (in most cases) towards all the other users.

And the others play a leading role in the social media play: they're responsible for the success or the failure of your social medium. When I say "failure" or "success" I mean that the others assign a social value to the media you're uploading.

That's the point: every social media has a value, which is intrinsecally social. A social media is good if it is good for the users, otherwise it's bad. It's quite simple because social media is absolutely not scientific: if it's good for many people it must be definitely good.

from flickr

And you know what? Everyone wants to be successfull on social media spaces so, what an average social media user do is trying to gain as many supporters/followers as possible (in his own niche). And to do that, the main way is to create social media with a lot of value. The user action on social media networks is thus goodness-driven: every user want to do what's best for as many people as possible. Social media users want to do things to be proud of.

This is the underlying philosophy of social media:

• be creative
• give other people what they want
• do your best to make them appreciate your work

Social media networks are wonderful places after all. Aren't they transforming the whole World Wide Web into a Better World?

Social Media marketing is all about humility

I've just read an article on Media post and I feel enlightened on what social media marketing is really about.

Social Media marketing is not really about marketing mix, advertising, media planning, user generated content, comments, views, backlinks... Above all those things, Social media marketing is about how humile advertisers are about their business.

Are you ready to listen to what people are saying on your products and/or your services? Are you ready to learn something from what you discover? Are you ready to join the conversation and be a part of the game? Are you humile enough to do that?

On blogs, tripadvisor, twitter, yahoo! answers - just to name a few - you can find so many comments, reviews, insights on anything you can imagine that a whole life is not enought to read 1% of them.

A blog post on Engadget - about a year ago - caused Apple shares price drop (AAPL) at the NASDAQ market. Is it really only a blog post? Not quite.

It's a media piece. It's actively shared. It becomes a buzz. Thus becoming REAL on the cyberspace. Then it quickly affects your REAL LIFE entrepreneurial activities. Learn to listen. Be humile.

from Flickr

We all need a Mobile World, don't we?

So Apple finally unleashed the new iPhone 3G.

It's cheaper, slightly thinner, with integrated GPS and faster on third-generation mobile networks. The new iPhone has got the old 2Mpixels camera, but who cares? The iPhone 3G is the must-have for any trendy geek.

But the real news is not about the highly anticipated iPhone 3G, the real news is that Apple has succeeded in developing the best Mobile Platform for the rest of us. We don't need a Blackberry (or EXCHANGE) anymore to be always connected to our calendars, emails... We just need MobileMe and an iPhone/iPod touch.

As I've read on this NYT article, Apple aims to the masses. I agree with that point of view. Apple wants the masses to go mobile. Do we really need to go mobile? Of course we do.

Nowadays, it's absolutely crucial - both for work and study - to be always connected to our email and to the web, because we receive many more emails than SMS and because the information we need are ALWAYS on the web. It's becoming absurd that one must wait to go back home and check email to get your last message, or that we cannot search on Google that thing we don't remember because we are not sitting in front of our Mac/PC.

We need to go mobile if we keep on using massively email and web. The only thing we can do if we don't want to go mobile is not to use email and web. And it's obviously impossible unless we live on a desert island (and even there... watch Nim's Island for more).

The (un)importance of planning: we don't need plans, we need facts!

It seems that web is all about planning. Do we need one more plan? I think we don't.

There are online calendars, online collaborative tools, planning software, file sharing websites, reminders, alerts, GTD applications and so on. The average/advanced web user is probably ossessed about getting things done, in time. I'm currently using Google Calendar (with SMS reminder), Basecamp, Birthday Alarm, 30boxes, Facebook events and a couple of desktop applications. So I'm addicted to these productivity boosters too.

via Flickr

But are they productivity boosters?
Yes. And No.

It depends on what you mean for productivity. There are things you need to remember, and then you can use efficiently online reminders. But there are things you must do as soon as possible, then your online tools are useless. When there's something urgent, the best thing you can do is... doing it right now.

My advice is to use only online tools smart enough to message you (IM, email, SMS) whenever there's that might interest you. You can efficiently use online tools only if you don't have to keep looking at the dashboard every moment. Basecamp supports an email alert system, so does Google Calendar. Facebook events' invitations can be sent via email even to those not registered to Facebook.

The best productivity tools are the ones that you start up and then forget about. They'll come up only when you need them.

Times Reader comes to Mac OS X (finally) and now you can enjoy reading NYTimes on your desktop

Reading a newspaper online can be difficult and not pleasant because of the web pages design. But now The New York Times offers an alternative to Mac OS X users: Times Reader Mac OS X Application (download it here). And it's a whole new way to enjoy NYTimes articles!

Times Reader was already available for Windows users and now comes to Mac OS X. It is a desktop application that lets you read NYTimes online or offline, in a paginated format as opposed to scrolling down a web page. It is NOT free: it costs $6,95 a month (or $69,00 a year). But the Mac OS X beta version of Times Reader is indeed FREE. All you need is a NYTimes account, that you can create here at no cost.

With Times Reader the reading experience is really really cool: you can browse the first page (is it technically a homepage?) of the newspaper, click on headlines, browse by sections and flick through pages. The application weighs only 1.5MB and is based on Microsoft Silverlight, which is required (download it here). The texts are anti-aliased and well-readable, and the speed of the tool is ok on Intel Macs (Silverlight runs really good on new Macs). I suggest you to give Times Reader a try and let me know what you think. Or maybe you can add a comment to NYTimes post on Mac OS X Times Reader.

» download TImes Reader for Mac OS X desktop applications

Are you competitive enough to make Jessica Alba stare at you for 1 minute?

Dear Jessica,
I can beat you!

On Ibeatyou.com you can "challenge the world". Someone challenged Jessica Alba. And here's the video response (real!).

Not only she's incredibly hot, she's also really funny! She was asked to stare without blinking her eyes for as long as possible, and she managed to do it for over 1 minute. She looks completely natural.

I Beat You (IBY) is a web site where you can start a competition with a video, a picture or a text. You can literally challenge everyone, and the judges are the users who can vote your performance (or your pictures/texts). I think the trick is to get your friends to vote for you: the one who has got the more collaborative friends can win, but I bet that Jessica Alba can win hands-down against every one.

Here's the story of I beat you as it is written in Ibeatyouvids YouTube channel (which I subscribed, by the way):

ibeatyou (IBY) was started by a group of very competitive friends. Whether it was determining who had the funniest celebrity impressions, or remembering how many times someone beat somebody else in Nerf Basketball Contests, we realized there was no real outlet to easily showcase our "skills" with other people, or ways to easily let others decide on the true winner. ibeatyou was created for this sole reason alone.

I've just registered on I beat you, and I've discovered that every user can earn points to rank the ladder. I will probably begin with the Stare Competition because it's quite easy to do with a PC and a webcam.

Here's the Ibeatyou page for the Stare Competition and, 'til now, Jessica Alba is the winner (I gave her a 5 out of 5). Having a Jessica Alba's video performance - now that she's pregnant and she cannot act in movies - for promoting a website is a real buzz booster. Well done IBY guys!

Wazzup? HowCast is one of the coolest video sharing site around

I've recently discovered Howcast, and I think that it's simply GREAT!

Howcast is a video-knowledge sharing website. Howcast's positioning is Cool how-to videos and guides from cutting-edge filmmakers, savvy experts - and you!

Howcast hosts some of the best videos I've seen on the web in the last few weeks. Here I give you 2 examples:

• How to have sex in a Car
• How To Make a Move on a Girl While Watching a Movie on a Couch (video of the Day)

The most interesting and catching aspect of Howcast is the "How to" formula. Every video is in fact a video guide on How to *something*. The interface of video uploading lets you add Chapter Markers with text descriptions and printable guides. It's a totally partially new way of knowledge sharing, and it is based on effective social tools - the uploading panel and the "How to" framing.

By the way, the URL of the videos are Search Engine Optimized and the graphic design is really fresh and enjoyable.

Oh, Howcast is still in beta, and the URL is obviously Howcast.com.

What's SEO about? (quote from Bruce Clay)

"It is not the job of Search Engine Optimization to make a pig fly. It is the job of the SEO to genetically re-engineer the web site so that it becomes an eagle."

(from BruceClay.com)

 

And here's a couple of links for those of you who are interested in SEO.

Wikipedia
SEO Code of Ethics
SEO Book
RankQuest
An interview to Bruce Clay about SEO (audio)
Search Engine Land
SeoMOZ blog about SEO
SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization)

New Killer Application on Facebook: Blog It lets you post on multiple blogs!

There's a new cool Facebook App called Blog It: it lets you post on multiple blogs (all main blogging platforms are supported) while remaining on Facebook.

Blog It is a whole new way to post on your blogs: it connects with your blogs directly and lets you post on multiple blogs at once, even if they're hosted on different platforms! Blog It is terrific for intensive and professional bloggers, because you can use it to replicate the content you post on different blogs. It's also a killer application for compulsive amateur bloggers :-D

But the most innovative thing is that you can post on your blog without leaving your Facebook profile pages: Blog It is in fact a Facebook Application developed by TypePad™, and is completely free!

As you can see in the image above the supported blog platforms are TypePad (of course!), Wordpress (both .com and privately hosted versions), Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, Pwnce, Tumblr, Twitter, Vox and Facebook profile status and The post editing interface is really simple and you cannot upload images: but I'm sure it's a limit that will go away with future versions.

Click here to install Blog It Facebook Application »
(Facebook account is needed)

BTW: if you're on Facebook, add me (Pasquale Borriello) to your friends!