My exploration of social media
Videos
Google Chrome Icon Recreation – With Lego
Aug 12th
I cam across this great video from the Google Chrome Blog and just had to share. It is fun stop motion photograph using Lego to recreate the logo. There are also several other submissions that can be seen here. As a note, the contest to recreate the Google Chrome icon is great advertising…
What Men Hate About Facebook
Jul 25th
This is a great short clip I came acrross that Mike Bracco shared on Friend Feed. It highlights some of the differences men and women have when using Facebook…. and it made me laugh. Good stuff – so check it out.
Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote
Jul 23rd
How cool it this – to be able to make any surface into a multi-touch whiteboard using a Wii remote. To get the software for to Johnnylee.net under his Wii Remote Projects section.
Social Media Example – Farm.TV and LRC open House
Jul 21st
Farm.TV is a Canadian based social media site for the farming industry. It is perhaps not as glamorous as celebrities and stars using social media, or even the big social networks, but it is a great example of just what can be done with the web using social media.
I personally became aware of Farm.TV through my father Brian Freeze, the Director at Agriculture and Agra-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research Center. Yesterday on Farm.TV they highlighted an upcoming open house at the research center. So check out my Dad, and if you’re in the Lethbridge Alberta area check out the open house – the LRC is quite a cool place, I worked there a few summers as a teen and loved it.
Social Media’s Contribution to Customer Service – “United Breaks Guitars”
Jul 17th
United Breaks Guitars is a great example of what social media can do for customer service. David Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, illustrate with this song and video just what can be done when social media is used to express grievances. Today when I first saw this video – having seen it posted by a friend of mine, Jason Crawford, on Facebook, already had over 3 million views and over 15 thousand comments. News channels and web pages are reporting on in today all over the place so I expect the number to just increase. United has already responded to David about the incident and has tried to make amends… the damage is done though and perhaps they will make some changes due to the incident. (Click here for more information from David)
My point in posting this though is to highlight the change that is happening in business due to social media. Social media makes it so any one’s voice can be heard by millions. You do not have to be famous or clever, or even a good song writer like Carroll. All you need is just a little on line presence to make your voice heard through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or whatever and you can make an impact. For business this means they can no longer sluff you off and ignore treating you right. Customer service is key in this world today thanks to social media; some like Zappos.com get it, others like United do not. It also means that business need to understand this change in dynamic or they could get burned… Just like United.
From Building43 – Innovaion and the Web… and Video on the Web
Jul 14th
From Building43 – Robert Scoble interviews John Kao, the San Francisco strategist and author of, Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back. One of the great points I liked was the conversation Robert and John had on the use of video over the Internet. With the great advancements that are being made every day in video, I agree with them that the conversations in business and with customers will continue to get better and better. Here’s to great video… just like this video interview – it communicates so much more than just text.
the San Francisco strategist and author of Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back.
Layar – The Worlds First Mobile Augmented Reality Browser
Jun 16th
Layar is a cool new browser application to launch soon, first in the Netherlands in July and then hopefully world wide later. It will give the user the ability to use an Android (Google) phone to interact with the world around them – using their camera, screen and GPS to target layers of information on the surroundings. Check out the video and their web site: Layar.eu
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog – On Hulu
Jun 8th
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog just came to Hulu and I am loving it – I had to share. Dr. Horrible is a great musical that draws on the mostly humorous but yet sad and intriguing in it’s simple story showing us the transformation from a sensitive villain to total evil. Well worth the 45 min even if you don’t love musicals.
3D Twitter With Minish
Jun 1st
Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to interact with Twitter in 3D, well that is what the folks at Minish are doing. Minish gives each Twitter account a fish, who’s size apparently depends on your Twitter Status and visualize the tweeters as fish in 3D. Check out their promo video:
Currently they are not accepting new fish but as of July 13 they will begin their second Alpha testing and are adding 1000 new fish. To sign up you need to follow @Minishdotnet to reserve your fish – I did this and am still waiting for confirmation on my spot. I am assuming some time after the alpha we will get a chance to see
I came across Minish on Friend Feed (I love Friend Feed) from Brad Williamson who posted a bit on it there.
Seesmic Desktop – Nice Facebook and Twitter Integration
May 25th
The last few days the new Seesmic Desktop application has been getting a lot of attention. When I first saw it late Friday night I installed it after seeing that you can maintain more than one twitter account with it. I have been using Tweet Deck for my Twitter and Facebook streams but with just one of the two twitter accounts I have (I have one for myself personally and one for the Family Nester Blog). If you could integrate two accounts on Tweet Deck I had not found it. After the install of Seesmic Desktop I was quickly impressed by what it could do and liked the interface a lot more than Tweet Deck. As a note, it states on it’s main page that it works for Mac and PC. I use Ubuntu, a Linux operating system, but Seesmic Desktop is an Adobe AIR program – I have Adobe AIR and it runs great so I figured I would try out Seesmic… and it works great. Check out this video on it: