Social Networking Quick Tips
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Different Social Networking sites are good for different things. You don’t want the same information on all of the sites.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
1) Facebook is a personal experience. Put your favorite movies, TV shows, and inspiration quotes on the page. Add a few applications that reflect positively on the hobbies and interests that you have.
2) MySpace is impersonal and highly commercial. This site was given over to spammers and tweens a long time ago, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have an account and have control of myspace.com/yourname though. Put a couple images up, make some friend connections, and move on.
3) LinkedIn is your professional resource. Take advantage of all of it’s features. People have been known to get hired because they posted or answers questions on the LinkedIn discussion area. Make connections with people and use those connections, send a friendly message every now and again, ask for recommendations from coworkers and supervisors when appropriate, be sure to link out to your personal portfolio or other social-networking site identities.
4) If you’re not Twittering you should be. If you don’t want to, sign up anyway and try it out. There is a lot of value locked up in those 140 characters and you should understand the system and how it works even if you aren’t going to participate.
5) Social networking is a lot of work, people quickly figure out when you’ve abandoned a particular site, or are only using it for professional purposes. Be personal, be professional. You have to find the right blend for you that fits into your growth goals.
This post is part of Jonathan Coffman’s Lessons In Social Media series.
links for 2008-06-09
June 9, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
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Yum!
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Some good things to keep in mind if nothing else.
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Interesting Idea.
Why Life Has Been Crazy: My Huge Job Announcement
May 23, 2008 by Jonathan · 3 Comments
Over the last few weeks I’ve been dropping hints on Twitter, but it’s about time I just came out with it. I’ve accepted a position at the Public Broadcasting Service. In case you’ve been wondering why the big move and road trip from Missouri to Washington DC was happening, that’s why.
I’m joining the ranks of those working full-time on social-media. Social media is such a huge part of the Internet now, and it’s not going anywhere and I’m here to make sure of that!
My title and job at PBS is Assistant Product Manager for PBS Engage. PBS Engage is the social media initiative funded by grants from the Ford Foundation and the Knight Foundation to get people to engage and connect with all of the great content that PBS distributes (like the awesome new series Carrier!).
The PBS Engage team is only a handful of people and the fate of social media is in our hands! 
Well ok, social media isn’t going anywhere regardless of whether or not we’re pushing for it, but I can dream right?
Feedback and response to Engage has been tremendous already with tons of comments on the Engage Blog, and lots of Twitter followers across PBS shows and communities.
At PBS I’ll be working with some really brilliant minds to come up with new ways of enabling participation, engagement, and conversation based around PBS content across the country. In addition to thinking of great ideas, we’re also building social tools to make things like social-networking even easier for PBS viewers regardless of the distribution channel used.
I’m really excited to be joining the PBS family here in the Washington DC area and am looking forward to seeing all of the progress we make in the next year.
With this new position I’ll be relying on YOU even more than before, so keep those @jdcoffman’s, dms, emails, and Facebook messages coming. Without YOU, there is no social-media.
Why It’s PayPal’s Fault, Not The Browser
April 27, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
About a week ago there was some buzz floating around about how PayPal may block Safari because it doesn’t have phishing protection built in. This has since been retracted by PayPal:
PayPal: No plans to block Safari
A representative for PayPal on Friday said the ecommerce firm is developing features to block customers from logging into PayPal when using obsolete browsers on outdated or unsupported operating systems, but has no intention of blocking Safari as a company white paper seemed to imply.
“An example of such a browser/OS combination might be, for example, Internet Explorer 4 running on Windows 98,” said spokesperson Michael Oldenburg. “In doing so, we better protect our customers from viewing a phishing site through their browser. We have absolutely no intention of blocking current versions of any browsers, including Apple’s Safari, from our website.”
(Nugget by AppleInsider)
Might I suggest that it’s not the browser’s responsibility to block security threats on particular web sites? Maybe it’s my not-liking of blaming others for your own problems but I believe that PayPal and PayPal only is responsible for their own PayPal.com site. It’s their job to keep their customers safe, not browser developers, or any other type of web application developer.
Sure, I have a little bit of a bias here. I used to be a large (in my mind) PayPal merchant, who ditched all that in favor of better customer service elsewhere. I know I’m not alone in that boat. However, I feel the same way when eBay blames Apple or denies support of the site if you’re using Safari on eBay.
(Wait a second, I may be on to something here, both PayPal and eBay are owned by eBay and both were virtually run into the ground under Meg Whitman).
To close out this ranting post, let me say that I fully support web application developers and browser developers who want to protect their own customers from the dark side of the Internet, but I don’t think the fault and responsibility should lie on their shoulders as opposed to a multi-national corporation who certainly has the tools and resources available to help themselves help the world but chooses not to.
Twitter, A Journalist’s Best Friend
April 25, 2008 by Jonathan · 2 Comments
Here’s a little nugget and inspiration I’d love to get some feedback from the masses on:
How I Exercise My Mind
April 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Because I’m constantly connected to real people as well as the Internet it can be difficult sometimes to keep your mind sharp and on focus. I’m not perfect in that regard, that’s for sure. But I do try to keep a fairly clean calendar with important events and conversations.
In addition to my email and calendar practices I also do some other things to try to stay ahead of my mind. For instance, I regularly check my RSS reader to stay current on news and information in topic areas that I’m interested in.
But staying sharp isn’t just staying organized, I also try to get out and walk or run several times a week. I’m not always successful but I do certainly feel a lot better about my workload, stress, and well being after being physically active.
My Nintendo DS also helps to keep me on top of my game, I enjoy taking a quick break now and again to play some Brain Age, or Big Brain Academy. The DS is the first video game system that I’ve purchased in quite a while (although the Wii is awful fun to play if someone else has the equipment).
Ok so this post actually ended up being shorter than you might think, what things to do you do in order to stay sharp and focused?
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-10
April 10, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- Looking over some NAB materials and hounding on my development team to get Contributr back online in time for the conference season #
- Trying to figure out what the heck my Contributr developers have been doing for the last several weeks, not being micromanaged, nor working. #
- Wow that last Tweet was a Twoosh! (The sentence was 140 characters by complete accident) #
- @rosshill Nice find! reTweeting: Restaurant that uses Tumbler as their web site: http://blackbirdbuvette.com/ #
- @rosshill I like all of the Twitter interface changes I’ve found so far today, let’s hope it doesn’t get ‘cluttered’ #
- Why didn’t anyone tell me Flickr released video today? I must be out of the loop this week. #
- It’s not as exciting as you might think but here’s a tag-cloud generated from my Tweets http://tinyurl.com/6o63pw #
- @coreygreenberg You’re using AMP? I don’t run into people who have tried, much less use Adobe Media Player. #
- @CreativeSage Are you campaigning against RickRolling?
# - @efortiz Yeah, it’s a decent enough app, I talked to some of the original devs from AMP last year and it’s "heart" isn’t in the right place. #
- @CreativeSage oic, I haven’t watched the episode yet, it’s on the list though. #
- Retweeting: ijustine: Wanting to hit all the btchr’s complaining about flickr video: http://tinyurl.com/6xbelc #
- @acafourek what hardware do you have again? I don’t think my old PowerBook could handle all that #
- @acafourek that’s a nice setup, I’m looking at MBP’s pretty seriously right now, I get this thing maxed out all the time #
- @britter @chrisbrogan I’m going to have to have my parents Tivo it or something for next time I visit them. I keep hearing good things a … #
- @gerik do you love your Flip video? I got one a couple weeks ago, but NAB next week will be my first big test of it #
- I got my new business cards in today-they match my online branding, Convergence Journalism and New Media Specialist, including my twitter@ #
- Good morning Twitterville, it’s raining really hard this morning #
- @thewebcoach, have direct mail campaigns for social networking sites been effective for you? #
- @conniereece I’m still making up my mind on Everyone being w/ other tabs but I think it’s more Usable now, I see myself clicking on it more. #
- Contributr.net is back online, sans our beautiful new design, the design is done, the coding for it is not #
- Anyone out there who follows me or not from Vermont? @ or DM me please! #
- @awest FlipVideo has a lot of amazing potential to be used lots of ways, it one of my favorite gadgets right now. #
- @digitalmlewis The people behind Kickapps are very good people, I’ve met with them, and it’s a great product #
- I’m meeting with the startup incubator interested in Contributr here in a couple hours, wish me luck! #
- @misslacey123 ugh? #
- @singlegalDC Thanks! Been a while since we’ve talked, everything going well? #
- @leeodden Congrats on 1,000 after 1,400. That’s a much higher conversion rate than I have with my 316/3370 ratio. UR a good value! #
- Headed home from my meeting with the startup people, I’ve got some "next steps" to get started on, first thing, my patents and ownership … #
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-06
April 6, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- There’s a turkey clucking out in the woods behind my house somewhere this morning. #
- Walking Dowm Memory Lane: The World’s First Web Site: http://info.cern.ch/ #
- I’m currently perusing job listings #
- Searching the Interwebs for a job, don’t want my leads to dry up #
- Just finished mowing the yard and putting down some grass seed, hopefully I cant get it looking nice #
- @corvida @scobleizer Oh that Scoble, he just THINKS he’s first to everything! #
- @bryanperson Thank goodness for the "block application/person" button on Facebook huh? #
- @chrisbrogan, if you’re interested the good folks at Twitter can do that for you if you ask them nicely. #
- @chrisbrogan true, no one likes the robots #
- Just got done ‘cleaning out’ some of the "people" I follow on Twitter, and my "people" I mean "robots and spammers" #
- Also took the opportunity to add more of you to my SMS list, don’t want to miss the conversation! #
- @josh_nelson I don’t get HBO but I hear that John Adams is a pretty intriguing series. I’m a Sopranos fan myself. #
- @acafourek hmm, because they’re freaking out of their minds?!? #
- I’ll have to wait for the DVDs to come out so I can add it to my Netflix I guess. #
- @shawnz hehe! Keep the illusion (or are you a great cook?) alive! #
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-03-15
March 15, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- Syncing up my new iPhone ringtones, made two of them tonight #
- I now have "New Soul" (The Macbook AIR song), and "Perfect Timing" (The iPhone commercial song). Cool stuff! #
- 150,000 spam trackback pings to a site that isn’t even live yet, is this the world we live in? #
- Blocking Spammers and Taking Names! (although I’m using IP banning which is less than a good way to do it) #
- Now down to 6-10 spam pings per minute instead of 100+ per minute yay! #
- Done wiping out Spammers from SmartDecision. Hopefully not too many innocent bystanders got blocked in the process #
- Installing Drupal 6.1 and WordPress 2.5 to play around with on my development server #
- wow it’s taking forever to upload and download these files from the server. Multitasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. #
- Still messing around on the Internet, it’s about time to work on Contributr again though. #
- Just finished watching "Little Miss Sunshine". It reminds of a ‘dark’ Chevy Chase xmas vacation type of show #
- @junglemason that’s quite an Overheard, and hilarious too! #
Netdiver Magazine - Best of the Year / 2007
March 3, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Netdiver Magazine - Best of the Year / 2007: “”
(Via Netdiver Magazine.)
In case you needed reminding, there are people out there who are more creative than you or I. Sure we may fancy ourselves pretty creative and innovative but geez, there’s more out there!
Netdiver Magazine put out their Best of the Year 2007 in web design last month and there’s some really amazing items in the showcase. A lot of the sites use the power of Adobe Flash to bring animation, typography, and design to life.
This is both a good and bad thing of course, Flash does allow designers the freedom to manipulate and control how a site looks and feels, but it also restricts the viewer in terms of needing ample bandwidth to view the site and the whole search engine robots not being able to crawl Flash thing (which is improving by the way, thankfully!).
I’d use Flash a lot more in my day to day projects if it was friendlier to the viewers but it just isn’t. Flash is also just plain hard to work with sometimes. Of all the Adobe applications, I think it has the steepest learning curve. It’s definitely one of those things that if you don’t use it, you loose it.
Now go check out those beautiful web designs and be inspired to create something!
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