Social Media — James Poling

Facebook Refreshes News Feed, Starts Encouraging Fresh Interactions

October 24, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

With Facebook’s update of the News Feed one of the new features that seems to have been overlooked and, for me, seems to have the most potential to revolutionize how people use Facebook are the new “Suggestions” features.

I recently made the comment that it seemed as if Facebook had run out of “suggested” friends for me. Now it seems they’ve refreshed how the “Suggestions” features work. Not only is it recommending people you may know and like to become friends with, it now recognizes people you are already friends with and haven’t connected to in a while and urges you to reach out to them. I think this, even more than the News Feed refresh, will revolutionize the way people interact on Facebook.

This is a brilliant piece of work on the part of Facebook that should have a significant impact on the amount of interactions that take place there.

When Facebook rolled out their major homepage refresh back in March which changed the News Feed to a real-time live stream of information, which is a seriously cool feature, many people went ballistic.

Most of the negative backlash was that the new stream was too much like Twitter. The problem with the real-time stream, many argued, was that depending on how many friends you have their updates would be pushed down and off the page before you had a chance to see them. Although Facebook did add a “highlights” tab that was meant to offset that from happening.

Yesterday Facebook rolled out what they hope to be a compromise of the old look and the new one. The News Feed now offers you two views, the “Live Feed” which shows your friends in a real-time stream and the “News Feed” which is a lot like the Facebook algorithms of old.

News Feed:

When you log into Facebook, you’ll see the most interesting things that happened in the last day in the “News Feed” view. News Feed picks stories that we think you’ll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story.

Live Feed:

Once you’ve caught up on what you missed, you can click through to “Live Feed” to see what’s happening right now. As long as you remain logged into Facebook, you’ll continue to see posts and activity from your friends in real-time. You can edit what appears in this view by clicking “Edit Options” at the bottom of the home page

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: facebook, news feed, Social Media

The Email Era is Far From Over

October 12, 2009 By James Poling 1 Comment

Today the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “The End of the Email Era”. This wreaks of the, “Hey, look at me I said something”, approach that apparently passes for journalism these days.

Jessica E. Vascellaro’s premise is that just as email came into our lives a over a decade ago thanks to sites like Twitter and Facebook, among others, it is now waning fast.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.

That would have been like saying, back when email was coming into its own, that it was time to dismantle the United States Post Office and proclaiming it the “end of the snail mail era”.

Twitter and Facebook, among others, may indeed be excellent tools to announce partnerships, and deals that have been struck. They may be outstanding platforms to broadcast to your friends, family or followers that you’re really enjoying the bologna sandwich you’re eating or that you’ll be speaking at Blogworld Expo but they are by no means a replacement for email.

Feelers can’t be put out via Twitter. You can’t work out the final arrangements of a deal on your Facebook feed. The simplicity and privacy of email is exactly what makes its place so secure. While the water cooler may be a great place to brag about your “accomplishments” from your wild night the night before, it’s certainly not the place you’re going to “seal the deal” if you know what I mean.

Hilariously enough, at the end of Vascellaro’s article is the classic: —Ms. Vascellaro is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau. She can be reached at jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com. What? No Twitter username or Facebook profile?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: communication, email, facebook, Social Media, twitter, wall street journal

Why it’s time for Mayor Bloomberg to get NYC 311 on Twitter

June 18, 2009 By James Poling 1 Comment

During Bloomberg’s last two administrations he has spearheaded some very bold initiatives. From the Smoke-Free Air Act of 2008, which at the time was pretty well blasted as a horrible idea but has since made bars, restaurants and offices much more palatable to be in for non-smokers and smokers alike to the GreeNYC Initiative which has a target of reducing carbon emissions in NYC by 30% by 2030.

Like him or not, Bloomberg is not afraid to, at times, swim against the current and support legislation that may be unpopular to a small segment of the population but has or will provide a better quality of life for many, many others.

One very cool program that Mayor Bloomberg is responsible is for is 311. Basically you can call 311 for any non-emergency related question about NYC. Find out whether or not alternate side parking has been suspended, what day your trash pickup is on, report stray cats, annoyingly loud neighbors, literally anything. If they don’t know the answer they will 9/10 times be able to connect you to the dept. or agency that you need to speak to find the answer you need or report the problem you are concerned about.

311′s Mission Statement:

311 is New York City’s online Web site and phone number for government information and non-emergency services. Whether you’re a resident, business owner, or visitor, all the resources of New York City are just a phone call away.

Provide the public with quick, easy access to all New York City government services and information while maintaining the highest possible level of customer service.

Help agencies improve service delivery by allowing them to focus on their core missions and manage their workload efficiently.

Provide insight into ways to improve City government through accurate, consistent measurement and analysis of service delivery Citywide.

Twitter is the perfect social media tool for Bloomberg and 311 to harness for this program. Not only will it allow people to quickly and easily report issues, ask questions or submit suggestions, it will allow other New Yorkers to follow along and build a community of concerned citizens, all with the same knowledge base, that will allow them to see and follow what is going on in their neighborhoods.

In the last two reports on the State of the Twittersphere (pdf) these locations were listed as some of the top locations of Twitter users: “New York”, “New York, NY”, “NYC”, “new york city” and “Brooklyn (represent!)”. That information combined with the fact that at least 35% of all Twitter users live in urban areas, Twitter becomes the perfect storm for NYC 311.

Not only will it be a tangible online branding of a great service, it will be, to all intents and purposes a knowledge base for concerned New Yorkers. By following NYC 311 on my Twitter stream I can not only find other well-meaning, community orientated New Yorkers to connect with, I may very possibly find an answer to a question that I hadn’t even asked yet.

Just imagine the ease of use to send out one Tweet either the night before or the morning of announcing opposite parking has been cancelled. Harnessing Twitter will not only allow 311 to be reactive around a community, it will also allow 311 to be far more proactive about making announcements and alerting New Yorkers to important information.

It’s time Mayor Bloomberg, the writing is on the wall, let’s do this. If you need hand creating general guidelines and best practices for your online Twitter presence I would be more than happy to lend a hand in helping get this winning idea off the ground. Just give me a call when you’re ready.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Brooklyn, mayor bloomberg, new york city, NYC, Social Media, twitter

Seesmic Desktop

June 2, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

If you plan on taking over and/or changing the world one social media network at a time, Seesmic Desktop is likely the tool you should be using to set your plan in motion.

I sat down tonight with the intention of writing a review of SD (yeah, we’re cool like that). After sitting here for a while, procastinating with SD and FriendFeed I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way I can write a completely objective review that wouldn’t come off as anything more than a blubbering endorsement of SD.

After using SD for almost a week the harshest thing I can say about it is that there is still no FriendFeed support, but according to Loic, that’s already coming.

SD may not be quite as aesthitically pleasing as TweetDeck, but it’s cleaner in its simplicity and that somehow makes it even more charming. SD’s clean UI makes it far more appealing to look at for long periods of time. Not to mention, power users of apps care far less about slick UIs than they do about usability. Iconfactory made a beautiful client for Twitter on the iPhone, but Tweetie now dominates the landscape because of it’s features and attractiveness to power users.

More importantly SD’s integration with Facebook is much better than TD and, unlike TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop allows you to login to multiple Twitter accounts at a time. For me, this is a huge limitation of TweetDeck. I have my personal Twitter account and I also create/manage accounts for MLBAM, having a single Twitter login is a major handicap.

On top of all of this, having all of your connections in one place frees you up to do the other things you love to do online. Seesmic will alert you when you’ve recieved a new post or Facebook update. The timelines are great. I can spend my time taking care of everything else I need to take care of (like writing this post) and glance over and immediately see what’s up with two of my Twitter accounts and my Facebook account.

If you consider yourself a social media junkie and use Twitter and Facebook as your primary stomping grounds, you owe it to yourself to download Seesmic Desktop and give it a shot. It’s definitely a game changer. Watch as your network grows and solidifies as you master SD and become a social media ninja.

If you’re more the studious type and less hands on go watch this video of Seesmic Desktop features.

Filed Under: Reviews, Social Media Tagged With: aggregator, facebook, friendfeed, seesmic desktop, Social Media, twitter

Farewell Blogroll, We Hardly Knew Ye

February 8, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

When I started blogging back in 2002 blogroll’s weren’t that big of a thing. In fact, hardly anyone had even heard of one at that point.

Initially, the ideal of the blogroll was a good one. It was intrinsic to the social aspect of blogging. It was a way to pay homage, make connections or just share some kick ass blogs that you liked reading and wanted to share with your readers.

Blogrolls were your own way of advertising your little community of blogs. It was your special endorsement, letting everyone that visited your site know that these other blogs have your stamp of approval. It was a unique idea at the time that I could discover one blog that I liked and immediately be introduced to a number of other like-minded blogs that I might like as well.

It didn’t take long for blogrolls to get out of control with people adding 50, 60, 70 or more blogs to their blogroll. At some point that many links just becomes useless. But, for the most part, blogrolls were still around. They were still a good way to get a little juice from the bigger, more established bloggers. And of course, everyone linked to the big blogs already because they wanted some of that juice in return.

Then one day, people started to notice, hey, the big boys are trimming their blogrolls. And guess who landed on the cutting room floor? Yep, all the small blogs that all played their part in juicing those big boys as they were climbing the ladder.

Even as little as a year and a half ago, while I was running Metadish, a blogroll was still pretty normal practice. Smaller perhaps, more focused and possibly even geotargeted on some level, but they were still being used.

After selling the Metadish Network and taking a haitus from blogging for a while I launched jpoling.com (which soon became jamespoling.com) back in October. I did what any new blog owner would do. I immediately began looking around for like minded bloggers and sites to connect with. It didn’t take long to notice that while it’s still important to make connections, blogrolls were not the way to do it anymore. Virtually none of the sites I visited and liked, big or small, sported a blogroll.

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Filed Under: Blogging, How To Tagged With: Blogging, Blogroll, blogs, linking, Social Media

6 Free and Easy Tips on Using Social Media to Market Yourself Through the Recession

January 24, 2009 By James Poling 1 Comment

2009 will be the year that the scales tipped in favor of social media. We just watched as a man brilliantly used social media to launch himself to the Presidency of the United States.

Considering that, using some of these tools to help us get through the recession seem a little less daunting. It may seem overwhelming, but the fact is, if you haven’t started to brand yourself online, now is the time to get started.

Just a few years ago, many of my friends laughed at the idea of having a blog, even as I found myself building and writing a blog full-time to support myself. Many of those same friends now use a blog as an invaluable tool to building connections. A few are even using a blog as the primary face of their company. Think of your blog as your electronic business card that can hold a lot more information and has the ability to have infinitely more room for marketing yourself.

There are many people losing their jobs in this economy and you want to stay a step ahead of the pack. Here are some free, easy tips to help you create and maintain a significant online presence. Social networking is equivalent of pounding the pavement 20 years ago.

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