Twitter

A Vine for its Time

I’m addicted to Vine, Twitter’s recently acquired 6-second video service. I Vine my dog-walking, my coffee-making, my cookie-baking, my car-washing. I Vine everything but my wife, and only because she won’t allow it. (If I ever do, I’ll also Vine my time in the doghouse after she finds out.)

It wasn’t too hard to become addicted. I’ve tried many video services before: YouTube, 12seconds, Qwik, and others that came and went even faster. Vine is right for its time. What makes it different?

How NOT to Manage Promoted Tweets on Twitter – #WorstHotelEver

I’ve been in marketing and communications for the past ten years and I must admit that marketing mistakes have been made. For example, there was the time I left the “L” out of the word “Public” on that full page ad. In a similar (yet more automated) fail, Doubletree Hotel (Hilton) just showed up as the Promoted Tweet on Twitter for the new trending topic, “#WorstHotelEver.

Pinterest Designer Launches an Elegant New Ecommerce Service @Gumroad

Pinterest designer, Sahil Lavingia, appears to have created another winner. Lavingia’s latest invention is Gumroad, an ecommerce site designed to help entrepreneurs sell via their social networks. Gumroad allows sellers to offer an existing product or service with amazing ease and at a very low cost. Right now the other main ecommerce options are using …

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KONY 2012 and the Age of Online Activism

The KONY 2012 campaign is a great example of how people can come together to raise awareness on an important topic.

I work for a labor organization and a great deal of the work we do is tied to feet on the street. We organize people and money for the benefit of our members and society. When it comes to doing online activism, this is still something that is new in the social justice arena.

Yes, it’s easy enough to create a Facebook page or a Twitter page and send out an email now an then. But those types of efforts rarely have a major impact when they are done as items on a check off list and not as a significant and urgent component of a campaign. The KONY 2012 campaign does just that.

The KONY 2012 campaign includes a strong narrative in regards to the devastating effects of children being recruited into a personal army and it uses new media to help get the message out. At the time of this post, the KONY 2012 video has over 43,300,000 views on YouTube, is filling up Facebook timelines, and is trending on Twitter with the “Uganda” and “Invisible Children” terms.

Gawker Security Breach Forces Massive LinkedIn Password Changes

I received two security-related emails in the last 24 hours. One was from Gawker Media stating that there was a breach via its commenting system. The second email arrived this morning from LinkedIn, asking me to reset my password because my account was disabled for “security reasons.”

According to this Gawker blog post, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Gawker, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin, and Fleshbot were all affected by the security breach.

Five Tips To Let Your Message Run Wild

I love sharing information, including technology trends, social media How To’s, breaking and local business news, and information on advocacy groups. On Twitter, I’ll share 5-10 items per day, sometimes in a rapid fire method. On Facebook I’ll “Like” or “Share” several posts a day. Multiply these activities by the number of Twitter and Facebook users and you have an unprecedented amount of sharing and re-sharing.

So why limit the scope of your message?

Five Design Tips To Let Your Message Run Wild

I love sharing information, including technology trends, social media How To’s, breaking and local business news, and information on advocacy groups. On Twitter, I’ll share 5-10 items per day, sometimes in a rapid fire method. On Facebook I’ll “Like” or “Share” several posts a day. Multiply these activities by the number of Twitter and Facebook users and you have an unprecedented amount of sharing and re-sharing.

So why limit the scope of your message?