By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Emily Matthews, who is currently applying to masters degree programs across the U.S. She loves to read about new research into health care, gender issues, and literature, and lives and writes in Seattle, Washington.
The folks at Facebook seem to always be tinkering with their formula, and within the last couple weejs, Facebook introduced a new type of profile: Timeline. It’s quite a change from the old type of profile, with your picture in the left-hand corner and your wall covering the majority of the page. Now you can essentially chronicle your entire life, from birth to the present.
The first most obvious change is the cover photo that spans across the top of your profile. This seems to be a change that makes your profile more like a blog with a header image. Your cover is to “fill this wide, open space with a unique image that represents you best. It’s the first thing people see when they visit your timeline.” You can choose from photos you have already uploaded in your albums or upload a new image from your computer. For my cover photo, I decided to go with a Wordle image that I created from one of my pieces of fiction. Perhaps use an image from Flickr as your cover photo if you’d like something artistic. The cover allows you to customize your profile to a greater extent than Facebook has allowed before.
The next most obvious change is the wall. The wall has disappeared and been replaced by your stories, with staggered boxes on the left and right with your status updates, photos, friend activity, and everything else that was normally posted to your wall. It’s a little busy in its layout; your eyes bounce from one side to the other, trying to figure out what should be read or looked at first. Facebookers dislike change, and messy change is often the first to frustrate.
The third most obvious change is the timeline itself. Facebook has always fallen short in its ability for a user to go back to older posts. Now you can click on the year you want (right-hand side) and go back to posts from years ago. Enjoy déjà vu when yuo read status updates and friends’ posts from five years ago or more (depending on how long you’ve had a Facebook. I have had my Facebook since my senior year of high school, so reading posts about dinner reservations for prom brings back great memories. The timeline feature also allows you to post “life events” within the timeline, such as moving to new places, attending schools, getting married, having children, earning a degree, etc. You can post photos to accompany these events. Your timeline even includes a post of when you are born! Although I would, perhaps, stay away from posting an actual photo of your birth.
The new Timeline profile is available now if you would like to play with it, and it’s a rather fun new entry in Facebook’s incessant tinkering. Some days I rather wish for the old school profile and news feed (remember when the news feed didn’t even exist?), but the Timeline is interesting enough to play with that, hopefully, not too many people will complain once they are forced to switch over.
January 6th, 2012
By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Mandy Miller. Follow her on Twitter at@MandyMayM.
For those that weren’t A+ students with your AP Stylebook, there’s new hope for you. The Associated Press just released AP StyleGuard software that helps edit your documents to ensure content meets style guidelines. While at face-value, this seems like the saving grace of a tired over-caffeinated reporter, PR professional or procrastinating college student, I’m a bit skeptical of the new technology.
Remember back in the day when you used to have to write out your spelling words on PAPER with a PENCIL? If you misspelled something, a red squiggly line didn’t pop up. The only red line on that paper was the grade your teacher wrote. In later years of English class, a green line didn’t suggest replacements for fragments. Today, I hear of students using computers to ‘write’ their spelling words. Must I go further on this “Back in my day…” spiel?
This somewhat ties back to my earlier post on if technology is eliminating jobs (Are Watson and His Tech Buds the Reason for High Unemployment). Are we innovating ourselves out of work? Of course we create new technologies with the intention of making workflow more efficient, but does this not clearly illustrate that technology is taking away our talent and moving us down a notch on the food chain of employment?
I’ve worked with some extremely talented copywriters in my short time span in the ‘big kid’ world, and I know for a fact they didn’t have any of these programs in the years they have been working. What do programs like this mean for the future? Of course they can catch funny typos, but will it come to the point where a copywriter position won’t even be needed? Will skills in AP style not even be appealing on resumes? What other technologies in other industries are eliminating the need for a human workforce?
December 16th, 2011
By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Mandy Miller. Follow her on Twitter at@MandyMayM.
In case you haven’t heard, there are a few sex scandals going on in the world of collegiate sports lately. The national media first placed the spotlight on Penn State and later on Syracuse, not to mention others that likely popped up consequentially. Sad news continued with the recent shooting at Virginia Tech which wasn’t the first tragedy to strike the university in the past decade.
While the stories at hand are truly sad, it poses an interesting question of how university officials handle university image beyond a crisis situation. Does negative media drastically affect enrollment? After all, even though an academic environment, higher education is a business and has to meet a bottom line. Of course, a vast majority of income flows from the athletic department of universities and colleges, but there is also the thousands that pour in through tuition and fees. Given the challenge of ‘selling’ a school to student (and the likely paycheck parents), how can universities best position themselves as a safe and enriching environment following the close of a negative news cycle (or cycles for Penn State)?
It doesn’t take a degree to notice that the bad media and negative attachments of crisis situations sticks with a university for some time. Should staff ignore the negative image attachments in hopes of going away? Should they change their brand and position entirely?
It’s a tough spot to be in given that in cases of shootings or scandals, officials don’t want to ignore the issues at hand, making it seem that the community doesn’t care about the accusations or tragedies, but at the same time, it’s not exactly a bruise they want to flaunt to the public.
I believe it comes back to branding, however drastic or minimal it is. As much as many would like to quickly move on from these situations, it’s not a realistic goal to assume a quick turnaround with branding. Engagement is also key, especially in very delicate situations such as those listed above. This provides a prime spot for an organization to utilize social media, especially give the college population is so active and engaged on these channels. That being said, staff will likely want to evaluate the level of engagement, depending on the situation.
What are your thoughts? Is there a solve-all for these situations? Do you feel any of these universities or others in similar situations have handled their challenge in an ideal way?
December 12th, 2011
By Taylor Pepe
You have contacts in high places.
Your freshman year roommate: Executive producer of Mad Men. Your childhood best friend: CEO of Jack in the Box. Your ex: modeling in Milan. With your own jet-set lifestyle, keeping track of where your friends are can be quite an undertaking.
Thankfully, two ambitious blokes from Harvard have harnessed the power that is Google Alerts and created a service called Newsle, now available. Think of it as refined version of Google News that only shows you updates for your specific friends and contacts, instead of random internet people with the same name (thinking of you Michael Bolton).
Working the site is pretty simple, once you log on, set up an account and import your Facebook and/ or LinkedIn contacts. After that, you have the option to browse a list of celebrities, athletes, and public figures you can follow (awesome, Wendy Williams and Dave Couiler news at the same time).
After that, your account will begin showing you a newsfeed involving the friends you’ve imported. Looking to research (stalk) a reporter who just approved your friend request on LinkedIn? You’ll now be able to see everything he or she does that’s newsworthy surely giving you an advantage the next time you want to pitch them on behalf of your client. Remember that classmate you had to do that one project with your sophomore year? Newsle makes it easy to see how their blossoming NBA career is going (time for that winter visit to Miami).
The coolest factor is Newsle offers a tool for measuring everyone’s Fame Factor, so you can see how you stack up in newsworthiness against your friends.
Fairly confident Rondo has you beat.
December 8th, 2011
By Ben Haber
Love them or hate them – no one can deny the power politicians have to inspire passion and fuel engagement. Obama’s 2008 election campaign proved that with the right social strategy, that power still has room to grow to unprecedented levels. Now it seems that every politician has embraced social media as a means to build a groundswell of support to impact change.
Yesterday morning, I sat down with MITX and Avectra to run through details for an upcoming webinar (Planning for 2012: Attracting and Inspiring your Audience like Today’s Savvy Politicians) we’re hosting to discuss just that. We asked each other – what can we learn from today’s politicians to inspire and engage our own audiences, memberships and constituents? Where do they get it right, wrong, and everything in between?
From mobilizing your ground forces to identifying and understanding your influencers, it was clear to all of us that it’s not about how many Fans or followers you get in a week – it’s what you do with them – that it’s not about what tools you’re using – it’s the strategy behind how you use them.
And don’t think that I just opened the kimono on what’s to come from the webinar – I have a strong feeling that this 45 minute call barely scratched the surface. So with that said, please join Larry Weber, CEO and Chairman of Racepoint Group; Debi Kleiman, President of MITX; and Richard Davis, CEO of Avectra on December 12th at 2:00pm EST to learn how to initiate and execute your social engagement strategy to make 2012 your most successful “campaign” yet.
Click here for more information on the event and registration details.
December 1st, 2011
By Taylor Pepe
You’re a person of the world. You can flourish in any culture. One day, you’re chatting it up with your buddies in Boston. The next night, you’re discussing the finer points of architecture in Spanish in Barcelona. The day after, you’re wooing foreign directors in Cannes. Good thing you’re able to tweet in multiple languages.
Twitter and other micro-blogging sites that were originally huge in the States are undergoing a rapid transformation that is paralleling a much larger internet trend: it’s becoming less Anglophone.
A recent study indicated “unique” Twitter users based in the U.S. decreased from 62 percent in June of 2009 to just over 50 percent in January 2011. Who then is taking charge of the Twitterverse?
It turns out the Dutch are not only great at brewing beer and making chocolate, they’re also phenomenal tweeters. The study pointed out that just over 22 percent of the entire Netherlands’ online population is using Twitter. Coming in right on their tail are the Brazilians with just under 22 percent. Indonesia ranks in at 19 percent. So, where’s the U.S.? Oh that’s right, coming up strong with about 8 percent of our online population engaging on Twitter. Being no statiscian, it’s pretty safe to assume that out of the 200 million+ tweets generated a day, many are not in English.
But what languages are now taking charge? Google’s Compact Language Dector (CLD) embedded in the Chrome browser can tell you what language the web page you’re on was originally written in. In a brilliant move of late-night decision making, Mike McCandless extracted this software and a guy named Eric Fischer applied it to Twitter.
The map above shows a sweet aerial shot of Europe and where people are tweeting. That’s cool and all, but the coolest information we can derive from it is what language people are typing in. For example, Belgium tweets in Dutch and French, and Switzerland tweets mainly in German with a smidge of French sprinkled in.
Some areas are all sorts of unexpected. Catalans, for example, tweet in their own language and not in Spanish. German seems to make up a large portion of Central Europe, but out of nowhere, a large portion of Austria seems to be tweeting in Italian – as do multiple dots in France.
Wondering what the U.S. looks like? It’s straight forward English with a few exceptions along the Tex-Mex border where Spanish is the language of choice, and also around St. Lawrence where a strong contingent of French makes an appearance.
That’s fascinating and all, but I’m interested in the blue Danish dot in the Jordanian desert, why no one is tweeting in Lithuania, and if Spanish is becoming the dominant language in Bermuda.
November 22nd, 2011
By Ben Haber
How will the departures of Arrington and Parr affect TechCrunch and Mashable?
TechCrunch and Mashable – two of the most popular and influential blogs over the past several years – have recently seen major changes in their editorial staffs.
At TechCrunch, founder and lightning rod Michael Arrington left the company in September, highly visible writers Sarah Lacy and MG Siegler, and CEO Heather Harde followed suit. At the same time, Mashable has seen Jolie O’Dell, Jennifer Van Grove, Radhika Marya, Brenna Ehrlich and Erica Swallow all depart the company, and this morning it was learned that their most popular writer to-date, Ben Parr, has been fired.
TechCrunch and Mashable have been on similar paths of growth, and are now both seeing – for the first time – some major departures from the editorial staff. In fact, both outlets lost their most recognizable people (Arrington and Parr) who have built their own personal brands over the past several years.
This begs the question: are people reading TechCrunch and Mashable because the like the blogs themselves, or because they like specific bloggers? In today’s media world where social media is an extension of the blog itself, writers have become their own brands, and have built up quite a following – sometimes exceeding the popularity of the outlet they work for.
If I were to venture a guess, I’d say that Mashable will move on without any major hiccups, because their business model is more about the content then the person, and they have a lot of very good writers. However, TechCrunch has always been about Arrington and took on his personality – both good and bad. Without him on board, they need to figure out what their direction is.
What do you think? Do you read TechCrunch and Mashable because of the content they publish, or because of the people writing the content?
November 21st, 2011
By Ben Haber
Some current (and now former) Mashable writers celebrate St. Patrick's Day in March 2011.
Mashable has seen several writers flee over the past few months, as new leadership at the company works to change the direction and make the popular blog more mainstream in its news coverage.
Jolie O’Dell, Jennifer Van Grove, Radhika Marya, Brenna Ehrlich and Erica Swallow all recently called it quits, following the hire of Lance Ulanoff (the former EIC of PC Mag). Ulanoff has been tasked to make Mashable a global news organization, covering business, entertainment and sports, in addition to social media and technology news. When O’Dell left to work for VentureBeat, she attributed her departure to the direction Mashable was taking, and noted in her blog that Mashable was moving away from insightful content – which she valued and enjoyed writing. Van Grove was one of the first writers to work for Mashable, and had been at the company since November 2008. Like O’Dell, she also left to work for VentureBeat.
Business Insider has some more details on the changes occurring at Mashable from unnamed sources:
- Cashmore brought in Ulanoff to expand the site’s news coverage to general news and launched entertainment and world news verticals.
- Adam Ostrow, who had been editor in chief since the company started, relinquished his position. One source close to Ostrow described it as a “demotion disguised as a promotion.”
- Ben Parr was offered an enormous cash payout as long as he stays until 2012. One source said Parr was offered a compensation package, on top of salary, worth more than $100,000 and less than $300,000.
- Mashable let go most of its events staff: Kate Hayden. Karen Hartline. Site manager Brett Petersel was laid off in February. Mashable describes all its departures as “mutual.” Sources told us that they left because they disagreed with the direction of the company.
- Multiple sources told us Cashmore is looking to sell Mashable in the same way The Huffington Post sold to Aol.
Since Ulanoff came on board, Mashable has reportedly seen more unique visitors to the site then ever before. So even while they they are driving away some well known writers, their new content continues to bring in new readers.
UPDATE (11/21/11)
Editor-at-Large Ben Parr, has been fired by Mashable. The reasons for his termination have not been disclosed, but it is rumored that he and Mashable could not reach an agreement and that the compensation package he was supposed to receive didn’t happen, and the fact that the public found out about it was a breach of contract. Parr has not tweeted anything since Friday (11/18) which is rare for him. Except for Pete Cashmore, Parr was certainly the most recognizable reporter at Mashable. Parr has confirmed his departure from Mashable, but does not know what he will pursue next.
November 16th, 2011
By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Mandy Miller. Follow her on Twitter at @MandyMayM.
I was listening to a NPR story on the recent challenge held at Harvard against the famous IBM Watson. As you may recall, Watson beat out the all-time Jeopardy champion, Ken Jennings earlier this year.
In the NPR segment, the reporter posed the question if technology is the reason for the elimination of many high-skill jobs. It got me thinking – have we out-invented ourselves? Are our technologies a reason for so few jobs today? What will my kids have to look forward to when entering the workforce? Will I even have a job in 20 or 40 years?
While we can laugh at the thought of the robotic future running our society, the thought isn’t that far from reality. When you consider how many assembly-line jobs were eliminated through new manufacturing technologies, who’s to say what else can’t be eliminated? Look at how many telephone systems are now automated for customer service, airlines systems have self check-ins and more efficient farming technologies we have to plant and harvest more and better yields. For auto repairs, so many cars are so electric that a mechanic can hook them up to a computer system for a quick diagnostic.
The story did note that healthcare would remain virtually untouched in terms of doctor-nurse and patient interaction. I’m not 100% in agreement with that. As you may also remember, shortly after Watson beat out Jennings, Nuance Communications and IBM announced a research collaboration to bring Watson to healthcare. From that announcement, many questioned how Watson would redefine healthcare, and, in some cases, especially for more dangerous military scenarios, eliminate the need for a human physician. Could it be with how automated our medical records are becoming that we could also be going to a computer (no, not WebMD) for a doctor visit?
I’m not convinced that our society will go sci-fi and we’ll have a robotic nation, but I do feel that we need to grasp the full scope of the lack of innovation in this country. Granted, you can’t go a day without seeing a story about how innovation has flat-lined. In a time where unemployment rates are at an all-time high and we face a double-dip recession, we really have to continue to address societal problems and create new industries. If we don’t, I really don’t feel we can keep up with technology. As corny as it sounds, as a human race, we need to keep up with the technology that we’re inventing. While technology makes our lives easier, we have to, in essence, be competitive with our own gadgets.
What are your thoughts? Are we so encompassed in the luxury of our own technologies that we are ignorant of our own (potential) demise? What is our solution?
November 14th, 2011
By Taylor Pepe
The closest most of us will ever get to having a chauffeur: The Cab Driver.
Living in the city creates a whole array of necessities, one of which is quick transportation from point A to point B. Another is getting their in one piece. However, the latter part has always been a gamble, especially in Boston cabs.
Well, not anymore…
Check out SaferTaxi, a new website and app. now available from our friends across the pond which allows you to instantly gather and share some insight on the driver issuing you around the city in the hope that the fear of a negative review will inspire your driver to provide the highest level of professionalism. This should allow all cab users to have a more enjoyable experience.
So, say you’re in the North End impressing an attractive model you’ve just met at the bar with your flawless command of the Italian language when your phone goes off and your friends invite you to DJ a house party in Brighton. Once you’ve hailed your taxi, enter the license plate number or the driver’s registration ID into the app. Faster than a cabbie can navigate Comm. Ave. you’ll get a full rundown of your driver’s history including: ratings, reviews, and most importantly, safety records (should you receive a Lord of the Rings length response, you may want to opt for another driver).
Once you’ve safely arrived at your destination, you’ll be able to plug in your own ratings, feedback, and tales of how you and your driver sang a duet to the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling.
Additionally, your account stores all of your reviews, so if you happen to lose your wallet you’ll be able to look up the cab you rode in, and begin to hunt it down.
Or look up who you had the best musical connection with.
November 10th, 2011
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