Social Media - Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

This thread is to discuss developments, interests, problems, queries...whatever, in online social media.

The announcement of Google Wave is very interesting for techies and marketers right now, and may have big implications for the future. For other views see ZDnet or Mashable for more insight.

****ing amazing!!!
I watched the video and signed up to be enlisted as a tester right away. Great moment where they searched the twitter wave and saw what the people in the audience had been saying about their presentation. Gave me shivers. The translation program is incredible. This is one of the most exciting moments. And yet another Epic 2014 prediction come true.

Google Wave could be transformational - yet another well thought (especially on the open development side) platform. I did some evaluation of the original Analytics system and have also signed up to be part of the "Wave Team' - great brand name as well. My bet is next year Wave will be as much a part of the social lexicon as FB or Twitter.

The implications for FB, Myspace, Twitter - maybe even regular email are huge. FB has stagnated in new members, Myspace is losing its user base, and twitter is desperate to find a way to monetize its platform. Google can wipe all from the floor - it has the programming base, it has open source and app development at the heart of Wave, and at any time can monetize the system with its own advert platform.

Unlike the others, Google also has its own mobile OS (Android) being used now by a number of handset providers in Europe. I believe T-mobile has, or will be, introducing an Android platform phone in the US. (sell Apple shares?). I'll bet Android and Wave have been co-developed - it makes sense.

Now imagine using Wave to 'push' directly into FB, Twitter - any social network - with one click. Using Open ID you could theoretically input and respond to any VV thread, and make that topic part of a larger conversation. That would make any advertising potential from other SM (social media ) problematic - users could be singularly on the Wave platform, and not even see say FB ever again, while still using it!!

Finally, the drag and drop, multi window interface. This is so frigging brilliant I almost cried. Quite often using VV, FB and other systems I have mutli browser windows or tabs open to copy/paste text, pics and links. With Wave you can imbed search functions into one main window and simply drag the relevant 'scrape' into the message, post or stream - AND - if you copy part of an article it can be automatically trackbacked and linked. The ultimate copyright attribution utility.

Amazing

This will be a problem for IE 8, which is not fully HTML 5 compatible. Safari, Firefox and Chrome will be browsers of choice as http://wave.google.com/ takes off.

Allot of talk recently on VV and in the media about the future of news, how traditional corporate media can be relevant in a modern mashed up internet age.

While this thread should not be totally about the upcoming Google wave - it is big, and possibly far beyond just a trend. This could be the way we interact online well into the future.

Google Wave and news
Never underestimate Google. That should have been my 41st WWGD? rule. Just as I was thinking they were behind the curve on the live web - and argued they should buy Twitter - Google attacked it from the left flank with Wave.

In Wave, I see more than a new generation of email cum wikis cum Twitter cum groupware. Because it can feed blog and web pages and Twitter, I see a new way to create content, collaborative and live. I see a new way to make news.

That little scrape from an article, with a top link, took me 3 steps, and an open tab with the actual blog post. Import a Wave API into VV, and that goes to one step, with drag and drop, no copy/paste (and opening quote tabs)

How this might affect news - and this really excites me.

Imagine a team of reporters - together with witnesses on the scene - able to contribute photos and news to the same Wave (formerly known as a story or a page). One can write up what is known; a witness can add facts from the scene and photos; an editor or reader can ask questions. And it is all contained under a single address - a permalink for the story - that is constantly updated from a collaborative team.

Here, I speculated about the topic becoming the new atomic unit of news, supplanting the article with wikis that contained a snapshot of what we know now, blogs that treat news as the process it is, links (do what you do best, link to the rest), discussion, and media of all types, some even live (Twitter, Qik.com). Marissa Mayer also gave journalists advice on the new form of news, telling them they needed to maintain updates under a permalink for the story so it could be searched and found.

Wave takes this to the next level. It combines the notions of a process as people add and subtract and update; it has the benefit of a wiki - a snapshot of current knowledge; it can be live; it can feed a blog page with the latest; it can feed Twitter with updates; it is itself the collaborative tool that lets participants question each other.

Wave isn’t just the email we’d invent if email were invented today, as was Google’s goal. Wave is what news can be if we invent it today, as we must.

Wave is the new news.

Google Wave is cool and last week I thought it was pretty much the coolest tech thing this year but Project Natal by microsoft which will have facebook and twitter interactivity is a game changer, actually no it is a world changer. If it works like it does in this trailer.

<object width="580" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oACt9R9z37U&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oACt9R9z37U&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="360"></embed></object>

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=oACt9R9z37U

Must be that little box thing hooked up to the the bottom of the tv.

Does anyone communicate in person anymore or has it come to the point where we can only interface with other members of our species via technological tools?* I am no luddite, but I have to say that nothing replaces actually face-to-face conversation no matter how many bells and whistles one adds to the communication arsenal. And yes, I am well aware of the irony of posing this question in an online forum.


*I have seen groups of teenagers sitting collectively and communicating to each other only through their cell phones/blackberries etc. and I find this sort of thing kinda freaky.

Does anyone communicate in person anymore or has it come to the point where we can only interface with other members of our species via technological tools?* I am no luddite, but I have to say that nothing replaces actually face-to-face conversation no matter how many bells and whistles one adds to the communication arsenal. And yes, I am well aware of the irony of posing this question in an online forum.


*I have seen groups of teenagers sitting collectively and communicating to each other only through their cell phones/blackberries etc. and I find this sort of thing kinda freaky.

LOL - ranting about personal contact in a thread titled 'Online Social Media'. Then again - where else? At a school camp last week the kids were SMS'ing each other while on the same beach (check out this tidal pool!), and at night from their cabins. They were also posting pics directly into facebook - some were in constant contact with 'Mom' posting everything they were doing. These were 12-13 year old grade 7's. This generation is so wired. (remember when the term 'wired' meant something else?)

You are so correct about personal contact. It is vital for true understanding and empathy. No matter how technically adept online avatars become (2nd life is a good(?) example) nothing can currently replace the often subconscious clues we receive from one to one, or group, real life meetings.

I am blessed to enjoy a weekly Friday lunch gang - we meet at Canoe (it's been going for yonks - and the staff always have the tables ready with peanuts and drinks right for 11:30 - nice being regulars!). To miss that would require a serious event - nuclear terrorism or having to babysit - it is that essential to all of us. During the week we email, FB, twit - yet the weekly face to face is a must.

Not to mention during a discussion in an online forum.

The Victoria Chamber of Commerce is finally on Facebook. They have (at the time of this post) 17 fans, 3 posts, and the most recent activity?

Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce edited their Founded, Website and Company Overview.

Ranting to VV viewers on how backward local Victoria business is generally on the web, is simply preaching to the choir: so I will.

Around the CRD we have technology parks, high end Universities and Colleges, and so many artists, designers, developers and consultants we must have per capita more innovative online potential than any similar sized region in Canada, if not North America. Yet look at the average small business in town - outside of chain franchises (and many of them don't do online anything well) most businesses either do not have any web presence, or it is so ineffectual it actually hurts, rather than enhance, their credibility, and marketing.

VV is a classic example of being well ahead of the curve locally - this board got everyone excited, and quite a few active, with some media attention, but the technology and idea for a regional discussion board was in use even a decade before Mike and Dylan took the plunge. Kudos to them, we would not be on this BB board without their efforts - kudos also to Metrocascade, which is trying to aggregate all the quality individual blogs around Victoria. Kudos to all the local bloggers who are saying what others cannot, through lack of expertise, or will not online, because 'Victoria organizations only follow a traditional marketing model' (quote from a client this week - unbelievable)

The web is an open - top down, bottom up playground. The fact the Victoria Chamber of Commerce only this week set up a Facebook page is incredibly telling. They should be leading their member businesses by example - well, in fact for Facebook they are: very few other local members have a page. With the VCoC representing so many web design, marketing and technology companies - why has this taken so long? The Facebook page app system for businesses and organizations was part of the Obama campaign over 18 months ago.

Even for local social groups and movements, the online usage is stark - and the VV thread on the Johnston St. Bridge is a great example. VV members have debated, often emotionally, over restoration vs rebuild, yet it is only in the past few days that historical preservation side (or should it be frustrated individuals) have appeared on Facebook. (and the people here are 'supposed' to be into online social networking!) - just a note on that: as I am in favour of a new build bridge, no way was I going to make the suggestion when it came to mind 3 months ago. Again, kudos, but why did it take you so long?

So, what's with Victoria? Why does it take forever for young, and not so young, web interested, even savvy, business owners, and organization marketers, to actually activate Facebook and online social networking pages, and use them to their full potential?

If you know of local businesses, and organizations, that use online social networks to their advantage, post it here.

As soon as the Seals announced they were the team to play here, I set up a fan site.

To date, my fan site is double the members that the official site has. Ditto Salmon Kings.

As soon as the Seals announced they were the team to play here, I set up a fan site.

To date, my fan site is double the members that the official site has. Ditto Salmon Kings.

well done VHF - my point exactly.

The standard bull crap line is that we spend more time outdoors but I can't imagine that is actually true.

As soon as the Seals announced they were the team to play here, I set up a fan site.

To date, my fan site is double the members that the official site has. Ditto Salmon Kings.

VHF, could you post the links? I am writing an article on this issue and need some examples.

VHF, could you post the links? I am writing an article on this issue and need some examples.

Seals site, I actually decided to share this with Chris Logan from Logan's Pub:

http://www.facebook....gid=28500932807

Salmon Kings fans:

http://www.facebook....?gid=2235676320

The standard bull crap line is that we spend more time outdoors but I can't imagine that is actually true.

We Victorians spend more time outdoors than who? Eskimos in the winter? Probably.

As an IT professional/senior manager with nearly 20 years in the business I always find these discussions very interesting; if I had to bet my guess is that the vast majority of those folks waxing poetic about this or that new technology development - online social media being the latest flavor of the month - typically are not in tech for a living, unless they own a technology-oriented or dependent business. In which case the preoccupation with technology developments is somewhat understandable.

I can tell you though that after a 50+ hour work week with my head buried in technology-business process-vendor-contract-HR issues, problems and questions, the very last thing I want to do is play on a PC. At best at home I check my (business - what else?) email, and maybe surf an online forum or two, like VV, for 15-20 minutes, tops.

Truth be told I'd far, far rather be outside riding bikes with the 11 year old, pushing weights in the gym, fishing, or working on my tan. The majority of IT managers I know pretty much feel the same way; although I have a Face book page (15 minutes a week spent there...'max'), Twitter - and the time people seemingly devote to that phenomenon - leaves me utterly cold. I can't be bothered...and especially when its 25 C outside

Uh oh. Looks like someone has gotten themselves banned. ^^

Facebook has brought me closer to people I haven't seen in years. There's much to be said for Facebook connecting people - too much if you ask me.
I just want some ppl to leave me alone!

LOL, true dat GumGum. That is one aspect of FB that even I will concede: I've been tracked down there by some people I haven't seen literally since the 3rd grade.

My earlier point was merely that, believe it or not, there are plenty of activities available that don't involve sitting on one's butt all day (and night!).

Rick