Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending November 26

This week was a subdued week for buzz as well as brilliance since Thanksgiving was happening in the U.S. It's understandable that thoughts turn to family, friends and turkey during the best holiday of the year (after Christmas). And after I found this geeky reference to pumpkin pi(e), I couldn't resist making a mention of the holiday. ;)

My favorite story out of all the post-Thanksgiving wrap-ups - that focused mainly on the Black Friday madness - was about AllRecipes.com and its record-setting Thanksgiving Day numbers. If I was a cookbook writer, I'd be shaking in my boots...just a bit. I am a huge fan of AllRecipes and its amazing database of recipes. Not all of them are winners, but I've found some really awesome stuff on there and, like other amateur content sharing sites, it will continue to grow and be very successful.

Facebook, Facebook and more Facebook

Without a doubt, Facebook once again dominated the news stream this week in a huge way. This week's B&B should probably just be titled "The Facebook Edition". They're still building new stuff to accompany the network and bolster their world domination plan deliver a more robust framework that users will become dependent on no matter where they are. Part of this plan involves invading our desktops giving users the option of keeping in touch through a desktop ticker and chat client. And for those who were already super-impressed (please note sarcastic tone) with the amount of distraction caused by the built-in ticker on Facebook's site, they'll be tickled to start seeing sponsored stories show up in the ticker as well. Mind you, if you use IE9 to browse the Web (I don't think I know anyone who still uses IE, but it happens) there's apparently a hack that lets you disable the ticker. No doubt it takes advantage of some of IE's non-standard, proprietary back-end coding. More proof that Facebook has a world domination plan to make us all co-dependent? They're building a phone named Buffy. All I'm going to say is that I'll stick to my iPhone.

We also found out this week that there are no longer six degrees of separation anymore - it's more like 4.74. This news has brought the discussion of the definition of "friendship" on Facebook to the forefront once again. Speaking of friends, how would you like yours to know what apps you're using on your phone? I find this a bit sketchy. Okay, a lot sketchy. Appropriately, it's called "peepapp". I have discussions with my friends about what apps I'm using pretty regularly, but that doesn't mean I list out all 200+ apps for them, nor do I think anyone needs to know. On one hand, it feels like too much information that I'm not authorizing - assuming that people can see the apps I'm using without me having the app (I have no idea how it actually works). On the other, I don't have any apps that are embarrassing that I wouldn't want to share, but just where does this information stop? This one feels icky to me and I'm not one to be worried too much about privacy.

That's not all, folks, and this section is worth the read even if it takes a bit of time out of your day to do it. Rather than say individually that each of these pieces makes good points, I'll just say that they all do. They all offer different insights, but that's the beauty of this social discussion we're all involved in. ReadWriteWeb had some thought-provoking pieces on the frictionless sharing aspects of Facebook. Marshall Kirkpatrick says this new sharing model is just plain wrong - and he makes some really good arguments, also citing a piece by Molly Wood at CNET who posits that Facebook is ruining sharing. Richard McManus waded in to this discussion to say that sharing hasn't been ruined; it's merely been redefined. Given that he says in the article that he prefers to choose when and what to share, I wonder how committed he'd be to this stance if frictionless was his only option. Then Scott Fulton added another point of view when he said we all have the option to opt-out and not share what isn't important to others anyway. Mathew Ingram at GigaOM is (mostly) okay with it, but sees the inherent limitations without proper filters. You see why this is a fascinating discussion. The culture of sharing is changing and we get to help shape it with discussions like this as well as with our sharing behaviors. I'll be throwing my two cents into the ring later this week. Oh, and there's this other little bit of commentary on sharing that shows how Facebook is may be discouraging users from exploring the Web outside of its walled garden.

We're still not done with Facebook. This section is for all you business users. The biggest news this week about Facebook Pages has to do with the newly revamped insights. I'll be doing some research over the next week on the updated insights and I'll post information next week to help users understand what's changed and how to monitor your stats. Regardless of the stats, it's important to consistently engage with fans.

If ever there was an effective argument for integrating an e-commerce site with Facebook, this is it: 50% of visitors are logged in to Facebook.  Makes for an easy way to share what you're buying...just sayin'. That's just one way to get some likes, but the number one way to get more likes is through offering coupons.

One last thing about Facebook - if you're placing ads between October and January, you might want to heed this advice from Conversify and think about a different strategy than you use the rest of the year.

In Other News This Week

This has been a long one, so I'll just add a few (hopefully short) briefs on other stories that caught my eye this week:

I got to see Jeff Jarvis last week and my brain is still buzzing with all the things I heard and anticipate learning from Public Parts when I am done with Enchantment. This week, his post about the do-not-track legislation is worth a read. Just because our lives seem more like open books than they were 20 years ago doesn't mean they necessarily are. That's important to remember.

For those who were wondering when it was finally going to happen, Klout is now factoring in your Google+ activity when it calculates your scores. (They said no one would drop and I didn't hear any uproar, so I guess it was true.) There's also a section on the site that gives you a summary of your activity over the last 90 days and ReadWriteWeb gave a good overview of how scores should be affected. Since the big scoring change in October that left me with a much more accurate score (in my opinion), my interest in Klout has dropped to nearly non-existent. My only reaction when I saw this was to visualize a great big question mark over the section that has my Facebook stats...oh, wait. They aren't there yet. There's logic to that, but it beats me what it is.

Mark your calendars: Tuesday is 'Pay a Blogger Day'! This concept is really interesting. It reminds me of sites like Wikimedia that give users the option of donating to their operating costs. Would you pay a blogger whose content is really good? (I do take checks from Americans and cheques from Canadians, by the way.)

All those times I've said Facebook and Google+ aren't competitors and someone finally listened. Well, sort of. His reasons are more in-depth than mine, but I'm glad to finally see I'm not the only one thinking this way.

Are you using Google+ to its potential? Read this to find out 10 ways you can change your use if you aren't.

Big question of the week: What are your thoughts on sharing? Do we need to have more control or is frictionless the way we're going and we just need to deal with it?

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending November 19

While most people are still talking about the battle between Facebook and Google+ (that I still maintain is ridiculous) I am beginning to think there is a battle - of who gets the most news stories of the week. And, quite frankly, with the numerous different products Google has, Facebook is likely always going to be the winner. They're always the big news of the week, so I'm going to start with someone else for once.

One of my favorite tools to help me organize content and ideas is Evernote. It's become invaluable to me, from the ability to easily clip pages on the web from my browser to accessing my notes anywhere - web, desktop, iPad, iPhone (and they're on the other major mobile platforms as well). My Evernote notes even get searched when I search google, which is great for me to be able to access content I already have on topics I'm searching. This week, Evernote launched a new browser plugin, Clearly. It's a great way to clean up busy web pages to consume the more important content. The downside is that it cleans up web pages to consume the content. No ads, no links within the post. This is even more stripped down than RSS feeds. It is easy to toggle back and forth from Clearly to the live version of the site, so visitors won't entirely miss what you're delivering if they use Clearly, but it will give (in many ways) a much nicer Web experience.

I've been doing some experimenting in a Facebook group on posts that get engagement. What I'm finding is that the easier the question, the better engagement I get across the board. It's given me some insight into why updates from brands are ignored. Mari Smith has put together a great list of tips to help generate better sharing. There is no better indication of an engaged audience than when they want to share your content with their friends and followers. Better engagement from brands will reduce un-likes/follows regardless of the platform.

Speaking of engagement, do you know the difference between engagement and social media optimization? Mashable defines both and explains how adopting appropriate strategies in both areas will benefit you with increased, targeted readership. As other research suggests, engagement begets engagement - though it's not all equal. Maybe there are other ways engagement would improve for brands on Facebook, but friending a brand is going to be a tough sell.

If you have thoughts on ways to improve Facebook pages, you'll be happy to know that Facebook wants your feedback! I'd encourage you - if you're interested - to read on AllFacebook.com about the latest changes to the Facebook Events, Photos and Jobvite.

The introduction of Google+ brand pages means that there is a whole new round of comparison stories. The overwhelming majority (that I've seen) are ho-hum about the Google+ introduction. Many have said businesses don't need to have a G+ page yet...I tend to agree. But there are plenty of compelling reasons why you'd want to start a G+ brand page as well. This isn't any huge surprise since Facebook has about 5 years on Google+ in the page stakes. Not to mention a hefty lead in the user department with 750million (and counting) more users to attract.

By the way, if you're still an individual unsure about Google+, don't worry. It's not for everyone.

QR Codes are by no means mainstream or even "popular" by today's standards. But they're gaining traction and it doesn't look like they're going to fade away any time soon given the diverse and creative ways that businesses are finding to use them.

For over a year, Digg has been taking a dive (I've pretty much ignored my Digg account for two years) and - more and more - Reddit is flying high. I thought about joining Reddit a year or so ago, but decided against it. I'm changing my mind - look for a post about it in the coming weeks. Of course, just as with StumbleUpon, Reddit is what I would term as a secondary network. Not meant to take a great deal of time or replace Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+. Having recently read some other interesting stories from Kenna McHugh lately, my interest is officially piqued.

Foursquare has incorporated new badges that highlight users' expertise in various areas. I hardly need to point out that this will be incredibly useful for people to build proof of authority - particularly for anyone in food and retail, but other topics that are well-supported with location-based information as well. With their recent re-design as well, I have a renewed interest in what will come in the next little while from Foursquare. I think they could be answering users' requests in such a way that is creating a robust, (unbeatable?) tool.

As soon as I saw the title of this 12 Most post, I knew my RSS reader was likely about to get another boost. Thankfully, it's a small boost. I was already following most of them. For the record, anytime I get recommendations like this with a great reason, I'm likely to subscribe. My one complaint about this piece is that there were no links to the blogs, because that would have been really useful.

To me, it's a dangerous practice to definitively say someone is doing social media "wrong". I think that requires proof, such as lack of growth, effectiveness in the network they're building. So, when I saw Mathew Ingram's post earlier this week, I was curious about what he had to say about the use of Twitter by media companies and Adam Singer did a good job of pointing out that social media use just isn't that black and white. On the other hand, sometimes we see people suggest practices that don't have solid logic behind them, so questioning the practice is valuable.

One use of Twitter than we CAN definitively say is just wrong is spam. And it's been getting worse lately. TweetSmarter has some info about it and steps Twitter is taking to alleviate the pain for all of us.

Wendy's recently ran a twitter campaign that netted a secondary account 33,000 followers in just one month. While it's impressive, I'd love to know specifics about their tactics before I would say it's a great idea. If they aren't using methods that are measurable, it's impossible to say how effective such a campaign will be on their bottom line. However, it is a very creative way to gamify social media use and create greater brand awareness as well. General best practice would say that splitting accounts isn't a good idea, but maybe Wendy's has come up with a clever way to benefit from having secondary twitter feeds.

On a final merry note, I cannot believe how tempted I am by this Twitter-sourced ornament! Have a great week!

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending November 12

I'm generally not one to follow celebrities - in the movie star sense - on social networks. I don't really care if they're on social networks at all, though I'm happy that so many with public personas have adopted social media as a way to connect with their audience. To me, it's a good thing. Mostly.

This week Ashton Kutcher made a gaffe on twitter (my paraphrase of his assessment) about Joe Paterno being fired. Kutcher declared he's going to hand over management of his twitter stream. I don't have a lot of interest in this story other than a distaste for anyone letting third parties handle their social media interactions. Chris Brogan nailed it in his piece talking about outsourcing your voice. .

The whole "busy" argument doesn't really fly with me. Why? Tweets are all of 140 characters. It doesn't take thirty seconds to type that out even on your phone. The other argument that doesn't fly is the whole accuracy of information. Who hasn't used social media to vent? Probably someone, but they're the exceptions that prove the rule. Not to mention that there are people out there who are sticking up for Joe Pa - rightly or wrongly, it is happening.

Interestingly, Chris Penn wrote a post this week about testing the value of your content - one of the tests was whether you learned from it. I'd hope that we all learned something from this Ashton Kutcher situation. If the takeaway from those tweets is nothing more than to learn the whole story first, then doesn't that content have a certain value?

This week, Google+ launched Pages for businesses and brands with significantly less fanfare and applause than the network itself. There was much begging and pleading for this to be rolled out in the preceding weeks and months. And what did everyone do when pages were finally rolled out? I'm pretty sure I heard a collective "Meh" from across the Interwebs. Admittedly, there are plenty who are excited about it, but I've seen just as much commentary on the negative end of the scale. I've officially claimed a few pages and that's about as far as I've gone with it. There are some good things about pages that were introduced upon launch, but I wish people would remember that it took years for Facebook to launch pages and then more years to get them to where they are today. Maybe we could cut Google a wee bit of slack and recognize page potential for the long-term. The best suggestion I've seen is to just claim your page and sit on it if you're not happy with the functionality. If you want to jump in - here's how. A little tip for you: Google+ has said no to contests. So, don't think that's a way to get around Facebooks TOS.

Have you been struggling to find the purpose of Google+? This smart post from SmartBlog on Social Media gives us all a good reason to want to be on Google+. I haven't spent a ton of time on it and sometimes I have to remind myself that it exists, but I think it's worth the effort. (And now I want to go to BlogWorld Expo more than ever!) Further support for Google+ came from Mathew Ingram at GigaOM. If you really don't want to get into another social network, that's fine. But if you work in marketing and communications, it's a bad idea to ignore G+.

Facebook gave us all reason to cheer this week when they finally announced they will henceforth treat all third party posting apps equally. I was skeptical so I've been doing a little testing between manual posts and automated posts. I've had mixed results. Sometimes my manual posts are getting more impressions and sometimes they're getting less. It has improved though. I can say that with certainty. So, go forth and use your Hootsuite and RSS Graffiti at will. But if you're using Notes as your feed? You might want to find another option. (I was never a fan of this one anyway.)

Are you a fan of the Top Stories in Facebook's latest updates? Some are, some aren't. That is the one thing in the September changes that I don't care for. Thankfully, Facebook is going to give us back our chronological option...soon.

In a huge win for privacy, Facebook has finally been told they need to stop making controversial changes opt-out (like Beacon, facial recognition, etc.). As for the recent "Take This Lollipop" hullabaloo...here's a great perspective that I happen to agree with. We DO have control over our privacy on Facebook. No one forces us to post anything on there at all. I didn't install the app, but I doubt it would scare the hell out of me.

Speaking of Facebook, have you ever seen a page that resembles a Web site? Yeah, me too. Gini Dietrich has a great post about the pros and cons of this practice. The biggest downsides? You don't own your content and you limit your reach to those who use Facebook, even if that number does hover around 800 million-ish.

Email is officially middle-aged now. Well, at least in terms of human life expectancy. 40 years old last month. Who's heard that email is dying? *raises hand* My inbox disagrees, as do many experts who are pushing for companies to jump on the email marketing bandwagon. It IS a powerful tool, but I'll talk about that more another day.

Finally a LinkedIn post that doesn't encourage people to link their feeds from other social networks.

Do you ever wonder how to drive traffic to your site other than posting links on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook? Wonder no more.

What are your thoughts on the Ashton Kutcher story? Would you ever let someone else post content for public consumption under your name?

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending November 5

In general, the news this week was pretty lackluster - nothing really huge going on, but that doesn't mean there wasn't lots going on anyway, unless you're Google.

The more I see complaints about privacy (especially in regard to Facebook), the more frustrated I become. Look for more on that in the coming week. But, this post from Kelly Clay at Lockergnome really hits the nail on the head when it comes to all the people I see threatening to leave Facebook. Really? Will you? Because it's where your friends are, so are these serious threats or simply expressions of frustration? That said, will those who stay fill in their timeline now that they can back date posts? I'm still very much up in the air about doing this. Partially because of time (I don't have any). Partially because of privacy (I'd like to keep it).

In the ever-popular commentary on the war between Facebook and Google+, a new angle was introduced this week when Google integrated G+ with Google Apps - the enterprise angle. Mashable guest poster, Balakrishna Narasimhan, believes that could be the key to victory and the commentary is interesting, but I say that's just another huge difference that sets Google+ apart and makes it complementary to Facebook. Of course, guest poster, Aidan Hijleh, on All Facebook would probably disagree with me - they think Facebook is going to win. When I read commentary like this from Social Times, I'm convinced that the market that Google is targeting isn't your mom, dad and high school classmates. I've always looked at Google+ as a cross between Facebook and LinkedIn anyway...sort of.

Other Google news includes a facelift for Google Reader and integration into G+ as well. There's been backlash at the changes, but nothing that I think will convince Google to roll back the clock. Other than missing the count of posts I've starred, I have no issues with the update. Gmail is the other big Google product to get an overhaul this week. I'm not a fan of the Gmail interface - I use Outlook as my email client (even for web-based accounts), but they have made some nice changes. With all the integration, including YouTube, that Google+ is giving its users, Google is becoming quite a powerhouse of information and content.

Here's a few other briefs for you:

Why Comments Help You: Bloggers love comments (hint, hint). But have you ever seen the benefits for yourself? Trust me, there are benefits.

Protecting Your Home: We've all seen cringe-worthy posts where someone says too much about something. Here's how to avoid sharing too much about where you live.

Tumblr Spam: Tumblr has admitted to having a spam problem and they're working to resolve it. I have an account, but I haven't actually seen any spam. Unless you count this. (Oh, Klout, you have problems!)

Twitter Ettiquette: I really wanted to share this link with a new follower this week who immediately wrote a sales pitch to me when I followed back. The person did engage with me a bit after, so I held off. I did notice that someone else gave them some advice. Appropriately so since the pitch they were sending to everyone (apparently) didn't apply to that individual. And it made me want to share Susan's tips once again.

Facebook Privacy and Access: In another fun privacy story about Facebook, researchers found it was quite easy to friend users through their mutual friends - from fake accounts.  I'd say this is a great reason to be selective about who you're connecting with.

For all the complaints people have about privacy on Facebook, there are actually some pretty sophisticated features in place to help people protect themselves. Unfortunately, they aren't commonly known.

Social Media in the Workplace: What's your preference: Access to Facebook at work or a higher salary? The answer might surprise you.

Crowdsourcing Life: There is so much good going on in social media. It's overwhelming sometimes - especially when I hear about life and death situations where people are spurred to act and raise awareness.

MySpace getting its SexyBack: Well, at least Justin Timberlake is going to try. This is one story that barely got any play this week. It's the reason I dislike seeing "<insert social network/tool> is dead" whenever I see it. Until you're down to a handful of users, it's not dead. MySpace is bleeding users, but Justin Timberlake has proven himself to be a smarter than average businessman. I'm extremely curious to see what happens with this.

*****

The Business Book Club's first reading assignment was set this week. I started reading yesterday and I can tell this book is going to challenge me in numerous ways. Will you join us?

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending October 29

I think we all know what the biggest story this week was. But just in case you missed or want to read more about what exactly is going on you can catch up through the Kloutastrophe roundup I posted on The Mini Mesh. That's two posts this week on the Klout changes, so I don't need to say anything more about it.

In general, I think reports on studies like this one are interesting to look at, but they rarely have an impact on my behavior. However, it was interesting to me that link placement in the middle of a tweet could get more click-throughs. I've tried it a bit, but I haven't tested it with tracking. There are so many variables that can affect when and why someone clicks on a link that I'm wary of trusting such assertions as hard and fast guidelines for why I do something. The other type of report I see at least once a week is one that outlines advice on the times to post to various networks to get the most engagement. Steve Olenski from The Star Group tells brands that after hours will net the greatest engagement, information that may come as a surprise to many (and goes against what I've personally experienced). Take these suggestions with a grain of salt. Test them with your audience to see what works best. Or these tools might help.

Do you have great ideas for video? There's never been a better time to expand to doing video. It's unbelievably popular and its popularity just keeps growing. And you can make money doing video (if you hit viral gold). When we made the decision to drop our cable over two years ago, I wondered if we'd be bored to tears. That hasn't been the case at all. Technology keeps us in touch with anything we want to see and I don't miss the cable bill at all. More and more are going to do this and it's forcing advertisers to think of new ways to get their message out. Just make sure that if you're going to start doing videos that you tell really cool stories.

QR (quick response) codes are taking off all over the place. It's a technology that is getting a lot of buzz, but not nearly enough users understand or even have an interest in it. The companies who are using QR codes often have flaws in their plan, but Starbucks seems to have come up with a creative use that will help their customers and enrich their knowledge and experience of the brand.

Now that Facebook has had a big overhaul, it looks as if Twitter is next. How do you feel about an expanded timeline with the ability to see conversation threads? Yeah, those are already available in third-party clients and since I rarely ever use Twitter on the Web, these changes don't phase me, but I do think it's a step in the right direction to make their Web access more user-friendly.

How many times has some new information repository started up that will "revolutionize your world" that made you a bit squeamish inside? One thing I clearly remember was 3-4 years ago hearing about Google Health, I think it was called. A place to save your entire medical history. Who wants to do that!? Then I read this and I finally get it. If you've never done a move that took you thousands of kilometers/miles away from home, you might disagree. I have. Digital medical records? Not such a bad thing. With seriously tight security.

A few items to be watchful about

We all know that the intersection of social media and work (for the non-social media worker) can be tricky. I've personally been at companies that had some relentlessly strict guidelines for social media usage outside of working hours. I think it's safe to say I wouldn't want to work for a company that's trolling Facebook to find out if I'm complaining.

Do you comment on public Facebook posts of your friends or those you subscribe to? Does your family? Be sure you want to comment badly enough for third-party apps, like Klout, to pick up on your existence. If you don't want it to happen, refrain from commenting on public posts and be sure to educate your family members too.

Did you know that employers are looking at social media? Who doesn't know that? Yet I see posts nearly every week about it. Now it's affecting law school admissions. What you say on social networks matters and yes, it can come back to haunt you too.

It's discouraging (as a U.S. citizen) to see that the government there has made nearly 6,000 requests for information from Google. Thankfully, Canada (1/10th the size of the U.S.) has made only 50.

The moral of the story? Don't post anything online ever anywhere that you don't want a future potential school administrator/employer/government to see. And don't be fooled by upcoming Facebook privacy updates because with 600,000 compromised logins per day, Facebook privacy still depends a lot on the strength of your friends' passwords. The best way to keep something private on the Internet is not to put it on the Internet.

A little bit of fun

Have you ever been to a site that had established linking guidelines? I think I'd leave and not come back, personally, but to each his own, I guess.

If you're anything like my family, you already have your (five) pumpkin design(s) in the works but these are fun to look at anyway. (What? You don't carve five pumpkins?)

It's not fair to include the pumpkins if I don't include the geeky awesomeness of these costumes! I really wish I'd seen this a few weeks ago - I would have totally used the cloud costume.

Speaking of Klout, what exactly is it again?

The Mini Mesh, which I referenced in the first paragraph, is my Tumblr blog that I try to post to on days I don't post here. Typically, the posts are much shorter and usually contain commentary on a news story or other social media commentary. If you're on Tumblr, I'd love to have you follow me!