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Wednesday 27 October 2010

Not The Only Show In Town.


Talking about how we now migrate between different social media/networking sites.

Those older sites are not, now, the only show in town.

Here's a link to Ken's blog post, that i mentioned in this video:
http://socialmediajourneys.blogspot.com/2010/10/using-your-website-as-content-hub.html

Thursday 21 October 2010

Social Media - Fun For All Ages

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to talk with a group of about eighteen senior citizens visiting Los Angeles as part of a tour organized by Road Scholar (formerly Elder Hostel), an organization that creates educational tours for older adults of locations around the world. The tours include a great deal of artistic and historical sites, as well as talks from representative locals.

As a "filmmaker," (in quotes because hardly anyone works in film anymore), I was asked to speak with this group for an hour before they left for their tour about my own perspective as a media professional working in what is essentially a company town.

When this opportunity was offered to me, I was intrigued with the challenge of talking about the media industry, what I do for a living (create non-fiction/documentary work), and all of the changes that are taking place in my industry - in particular, social media.

I like to describe visual social media (i.e. YouTube) as a "third platform" beyond that of television and motion pictures.  For those new to the concept, it helps to place this new form of communication in a historical context as the natural evolution of a form of visual expression.  I also expressed my belief that this form of communication might eventually provide huge new opportunities for an entirely new breed of entrepreneur.

I told them about the community aspect of social media - the idea of followers/subscribers, and the like, and the various forms of expression from blogging to podcasting to YouTube-style vlogging.  I spoke of the emerging media literacy being as important as literacy itself proved for the development of civilization.  I spoke of the growing army of citizen journalists, and told them how Social Media Journey's own Andy Gunton became, in effect, a media outlet of his own after the recent Hastings pier fire.

I introduced them to the great simplicity of Flip (and Flip-like) cameras, and the fact that this is a form of expression that is practiced by people of all ages (of course, I mentioned YouTube's Geriatric1927).  

The group was fascinated, and very much engaged.  We probably could have gone on for another two hours.   They were intrigued with the possibilities, particularly in regard to cameras like the Flip, and excitedly shared ideas with me after the discussion about how they could use this technology.

Talks like these leave me wildly optimistic about the future of social media.  We're still at the very dawn of this era...

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Blogging For Action.

On Friday October 15th, myself and 5,693 other bloggers, took part in this years Blog Action Day 2010.
This has now become an annual event, since Blog Action Day was founded in 2007.

I took part for the first time last year, when the theme was the environment and straight away i realised what a great idea this was.
This year, the theme was water and once again i decided to write my own blog post, to help with the global discussion, on this increasingly important topic.
As did Ken, one of the other contributors to this blog.

So, why am i talking about all of this here?
Well, i just feel that this illustrates how far we've come over the past decade, or so. Especially, in the ways in which social media is used, or can be used.

In the past, the ordinary citizen, didn't have many ways in which to convey their thoughts about important topics. Well, certainly not in ways that might actually be heard, read, or listened to.
We could have written to a newspaper and hope that our letter might be published. Or, maybe, we could have rang a talk radio show, if we had the courage to do so.
But, now, we can all express ourselves far more freely and to a potential worldwide audience as well.

According to the Blog Action Day website. The blogs posted this year, have been read by over 41 million readers. That's a very impressive figure.
Now, i'm sure, that my own blog was not read by that amount of people. But, at least it was available to be read and by a potentially far bigger audience than any newspaper, or talk radio show. If you were allowed to air those views in the first place that is.

We all have opinions and now we have the means and the technology to share them with the rest of the world. Most of us bloggers now have an audience for those views, that just wasn't possible a decade ago.

But, there are other aspects to this that i also think are important.

Blog Action Day and many other campaigns like them, are global campaigns. They have the potential to bring people together, from across the world.
The rise of the Interent and social media has, in effect, encouraged users to integrate and collaborate, on a global scale. That, may well end up being it's greatest legacy.

Campaigns, such as this, also expose us to new ideas and global concerns. They make us think about topics that we might not otherwise have concerned ourselves with. Or, maybe even knew anything about.

Whilst writing my own blog post about water, i had to do a little bit of research. I doubt that i was the only one to do so either. That little bit of research taught me things that i was unaware of and even corrected some misconceptions.

So, apart from expressing my views, i was actually learning from the experience too. And, of course, that learning was only enhanced by reading the blog posts of my fellow bloggers.

Bloggers do get some bad press and i'm sure in some cases, deservedly so. But, something like Blog Action Day, shows that blogging can be a force for good.
It gets people involved. It opens our minds to new topics and global issues. And it teaches us along the way too.

So, i guess the lesson to be learnt from all of this, is - Get Blogging.
You'll, quite possibly, be a better person because of it.

Saturday 16 October 2010

Using Your Website as a Content Hub

Not too many year ago, but ages ago in internet time, everybody was building personal websites. No knowledge of html or css or xml needed; services like GeoCities or Homestead (etc.) made it easy to use ready-made templates, upload your photos, type out your life story, and have a website.

Those services are now long gone, as people started considering their "home" as their profile page on a community site such as MySpace or Facebook. Another development was the replacement of the static content web page, with the dynamic content blog. Blogger (where this site is hosted) was one of the pioneers and still a major player, but WordPress and others have also risen to dominance here. Now add twitter to the mix, and podcasts, and photostreams, and videos..., and pretty soon you've got content spread across a half-dozen sites or more.

Personally, I regularly post content to three or four blogs, two Twitter accounts, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr (photos), Soundcloud (music), and Audioboo (podcast). Okay, maybe I'm a bit on the extreme end. But this is a social media blog you're reading, so I'm going to guess you just might appreciate my situation.

For some time I've struggled with how to effectively combine all these different content streams into a single, well-designed, website that presents all of my online output. I must not have been the only one wrestling with this issue, as two new services have recently popped up offering a solution: About.me and Flavors.me.

Flavors.me was the first to launch, and I quickly signed up (see my page here). I was given a choice of several basic layouts, simple instructions on choosing a background image (I uploaded my own), and a list of services to import my feeds from, including blogger, linkedin, facebook, flickr, twitter, etc. Within a few minutes my page was up and running and looking great.

The feed from each service (blog, twitter, etc.) is displayed as part of the page. Without leaving my flavors.me page you can seamlessly click through my content from a variety of sources. This was it - exactly what I'd been looking for forever. I finally had that one, single destination website that I could point people to and have all my content readily visible.

The free version of flavors.me did limit the number of feeds I could import, but I was happy enough to pay for the full version. I've also assigned one of my personal domains, kengoldstein.ca, to the page.

Then About.me launched. Even though I was happy with my Flavors.me site, I still wanted to try it out (see my page here). On first glance, it appears to be almost a clone of Flavors.me; choose a template, upload your background image, select your feeds to import, bang, you're in business.

But immediately frustrations surfaced. I still cannot get my background image to scale correctly. It either tiles or expands way beyond the window. And it will only allow me to include one blogger account or twitter account at a time. The other other blogs can be added as extra links, but will not display inline. For my purposes, these problems add up to a huge FAIL.

On the positive side, I gotta admit that About.me has the much better domain name. Flavors.me is, well, kinda silly. I don't care, as I use my own domain name, but still.

If you have multiple content streams and would like to combine them in a single, personal hub, you really should test them each out. Leave a comment below with which one you prefer, or if you use a different (and better?) solution.

Flavors.me - FTW! Silly name, and fee required for full features, but works like a dream. Exactly what I wanted.
About.me - When you launch second, you're supposed to improve on the original idea, not mess it up. FAIL!

Thursday 14 October 2010

Power To The People?

I have just read an article in The Word magazine. One of my favourite magazines as it happens.
In the article, the writer mentioned that he just been to see a pre-screening of The Social Network, here in the UK.

Obviously, movie reviewers and journalists have been seeing new movies earlier than the rest of us mere mortals for many years now. But, now some things have changed.

As the journalist mentioned. Before seeing the movie he and every other fellow reviewer, were told that they were forbidden from giving any opinion about the movie in any form, until October 11th. A few days prior to the UK release date. Even though the movie had already been released in the USA.

This embargo covered such social media avenues as Twitter, Facebook, Blog posts etc.
As was pointed out in the article, this was especially ironic, considering the subject matter of the movie.
The Social Network was not allowed to be discussed on any social network. Hmm...

Now, this is by no means the first time that i've heard of these type of controls and effective gagging orders being put onto reviewers and journalists.
As media companies, in their many forms, get increasingly paranoid about potential bad publicity and leaks, these controls are likely to become even more widespread.
But why?

I do understand why companies would be concerned about the potential leaking of their music and movies all over the Internet. And i know that record companies have now started playing new music down the phone to music journalists. Or, inviting them to "special" playback sessions, where they have to leave their phones etc outside. But, stopping a reviewer even talking about a movie is getting a little bit ridiculous, in my opinion.

All of this paranoia does, partly, explain the reason why movies and music are increasingly finding their release dates corresponding, across the world. Similtaneous release dates are becoming far more frequent. Partly as a result of piracy concerns.

But, as with anything out in the big wide world. It is the quality of the product that really matters. As has always been the case.
No amount of gagging orders and secrecy will help to stop the news that you have unleashed a huge turkey of a product onto the unsuspecting public.

And, this brings us to the real crux of the matter.
The reason that we are not being allowed to hear the opinions of reviewers and journalists, is because of the power of social media.

There have already been examples of new and very expensive movies, that have bombed at the box office, because of the power of social media and word of mouth generally.

Word of mouth has always been a very valuable tool to anyone selling a product. But, in these days of increased use of social media, that word of mouth can spread like wildfire and within timescales not before seen.

You may well have been thinking of going to see that brand new blockbuster movie, at the weekend. But, because of your numerous social media connections, your friends and anyone else whose opinion you value, may well be telling you to avoid that new movie like the plague.

We all know that we always tell far more people about something we dislike, than we do about something we've enjoyed.
Now, those opinions are available at the click of a mouse.

So, maybe this is a case of power falling into the hands of the people at last.
No longer do we have to be sucked in by fancy advertising. We can just listen to the opinions of those whose judgement we value, or listen to.

This is what those huge media corporations are really worried about, when they attempt to gag those reviewers and journalists.

But, there is one very easy solution to all of this.
Release good quality products in the first place.

I wonder if that idea will ever catch on?

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet.

For somebody who is a, self confessed, social media junky, i was actually quite late onto Twitter.

I'm afraid that i was one of those people who, initially, thought that Twitter couldn't possibly be of any use to me. After all, what use is just 140 characters to somebody who regularly makes 10 minute long videos for YouTube, Or, whose blog posts could probably test the patience of a saint?

Yes, i was one of those who said, or says "I don't want to know what you had for breakfast" etc etc.
That is a common argument given by non Twitterers and i even heard this very point made by the actor Sir Michael Caine just last week. In his defence, Michael Caine has now joined the Twitterati and, just like me, has realised the error of his ways.

I was dragged, virtually kicking and screaming, onto Twitter in September, 2008.
That may well seem like a long time ago, especially in the world of the Internet. But, as somebody who, generally, signs up to most of the new social media sensations, i was actually quite late off of the mark.
Most of my online friends were already well and truly addicted to Twitter by then and it was in fact down to them that i signed up in the first place.

My moment of epiphany came during a road trip, with some fellow YouTubers, in the USA, during 2008..
It was during that trip that i saw, at first hand, the way that Twitter could and did connect people. It wasn't all about your choice of breakfast cereal after all.

Obviously, since that day, i've never looked back.

Like most Twitter users, the way that i use Twitter has evolved over the years and has led me in some interesting directions. Something that i may well talk about in future blog posts.

But, Twitter, the way that it is now used and how my own use has evolved, was brought home to me last week, when i was caught up in a local news story.
I have talked about aspects of this in a separate blog post.

What i realised after that event, was the way that Twitter is used, by myself and others, to spread the news and our coverage of it.
We can probably all think of recent major news stories in which Twitter has been used in this way. But, it really brings it home to you, when you are a part of it yourself.

I was very impresessed by the way that the vast majority of news organisations, radio and tv stations were using, watching and interacting onTwitter. It has become a major source of news for us all. This is something that has really crept up on everybody and something that i'm sure the founders of Twitter never considered when they first started the service.

Twitter has now become, for many including myself, a primary way of communicating with friends, family, contacts and even complete strangers.
It has also become my primary source of news coverage, from right across the world.

Twitter also links me to viral videos, interesting newspaper and magazine articles, blog posts, local events and much, much more that i would never have seen, or heard about, otherwise.

I, for one, would never have expected all of this when i, very tentatively, signed up to Twitter back in September 2008.
I guess that this just goes to show that things are not always what they seem?

If you have your own Twitter story to tell, please let us know. We'd love to hear it.

By the way, what did you have for breakfast?

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Citizen Journalists

Yesterday, i became a citizen journalist.

At around 6am yesterday, my wife told me that the radio was reporting that our local pier, here in Hastings, was on fire. So, being the social media junky that i am, i got up, grabbed my iPhone and digital camera and ran out the door as fast as i could. I didn't even brush my teeth!

Now, at this point, my only thought was to take some photos and maybe some video footage, mainly for my own use. If it was any good, i might then post it onto my various social media sites, just in case anyone may be interested. I didn't even bother to take my main video camera.
I also didn't know if the radio reports were true, or not.

It was only when i got down onto the seafront and saw the full extent of the fire, that i realised that this was something a little different. This was big.
As somebody said to me later in the day. Somebody that i only "met" yesterday via Twitter by the way. I was now recording history.
I can't say that i fully realised this at the time. But, i did know, straight away, that i had to record what i could and then pass it on.

So, i quickly took some photos, from a distance and then, literally, jogged along the seafront to get as near to the burning pier as i could.
As soon as i got close to the pier, i took some video footage with my phone and also some more photo's.
I then did something that i would not even have thought about doing, even a few weeks ago. I recorded an AudioBoo podcast
Somehow, i just knew that i should record something, describing what it was i was seeing right in front of my eyes.

So, where did that urge to record this historic event come from. Especially the AudioBoo?

I fully believe that it is my time using social media that did it. Somehow, using social media had prepared me for doing exactly what i did yesterday. Using social media had taught me how to do it. What to record, what to photograph, what to say and how.

Yes, other people were taking photographs and even video footage. But, as far as i'm aware, i was the only person who intended to share them in the way that i did. And i'm almost certain that i was the only person who thought to record some kind of audio commentary as well.
As i suggested earlier. I would never have thought about doing that, if i didn't use AudiBoo in the first place.

It was only then that i realised that there was no media presence around at all. No reporters, no tv crews, no microphones, or obvious news cameramen, or photographers.
I had suddenly become a citizen journalist.
Myself and my fellow onlookers were the only people recording this piece of local history and national news.

It was then that i realised that i needed to get home and get my footage, photo's and audio "out there", as soon as i could.

The first item i posted was the AudioBoo. Within 5 minutes of it going live, i receieved an email from AudioBoo, saying that they had "Featured" my post on their front page.
I then posted some of my photos onto TwitpPic. I followed that by quickly editing my video footage and uploading it to YouTube. All of these uploads were then linked to my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

To cut a long story short. Within an hour, i had been contacted by the BBC, the Brighton Argus newspaper and my local newspaper, who even came to my house to collect my video footage. I was also newly "followed" on Twitter by several radio stations, news organisations, reporters and local people.

My photo's, video and AudioBoo were Tweeted around the World. As well as being used and linked to on many websites. Including the Brighton Argus website, where one of my photos was used as a headline image.


As somebody else, commenting on my AudioBoo, said to me yesterday, "This really shows how journalism exists within the hands of everyone who has the technology"


I couldn't have put it better myself and this goes to show that we are all now potential citizen journalists. We are the people who are normally first on the scene of any major incident, or news story.


Citizen journalism and social media have combined to break and cover major news stories such as the protests in Iran and the Hudson River plane crash, amongst others.


And apart from enabling us to be the first to report the news to the world. Our continued use of social media is actually training us to do so.


We have the technology. So, let's use it.


Just use it wisely and safely please.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

12Seconds Completes its Fifteen Minutes

Okay, I'm sure the title of this post is a bit trite, and has probably already been used, but I couldn't resist. For those who missed it, 12seconds.tv is (soon to be was) a micro-vlogging site, headquartered in Santa Cruz, CA, for the past three years or so, that yesterday announced they will be closing shortly.

Micro-vlogging? Let me explain it this way: What Twitter is to Blogger, 12seconds.tv was to YouTube. A video sharing site, but with the length of each video limited to, you got it, twelve seconds.

After a well-publicized launch it looked like 12seconds.tv was off to a good start, but the user-base never grew beyond the over-eager early adopter crowd (such as myself). Meanwhile, one founder was distracted with a new baby, the other founder battled cancer (he's feeling much better now), and the entire worldwide economy crashed.

Technical problems were also an issue, and certainly one of the problems I didn't use the site much after the initial rush. But the twelve second limit itself was an issue as well. Tweeting is easy and does not take much set-up or any time at all to post. Turning on your webcam, or even an iPhone app, getting lighting right, checking for background noise... it all takes a little more effort, including uploading your product only to find that you really needed 13 seconds.

Meanwhile, others have stepped up to fill the "post video to twitter" category without the twelve second limit.

An article today in the Guardian UK asks, "As 12seconds.tv closes, what is the future for video communities?" The article also notes that Seesmic has shifted focus from its original video service as well, but in so doing points out that:
"... community [is] humanised by the format of video which, while it demands more from its contributors, gives back more in the quality of interaction."
I think that quote says it all. The quality of the interaction is what it's all about. Yes, it takes a certain type of person to be willing to turn on your webcam, shine the light in your own face, and talk to strangers. It's certainly not for everyone. But I know I've been rewarded for that effort with high quality friendships.

While I often have trouble convincing my contemporaries of that fact (my collaborators here excepted), I have always had faith that the next generation will understand it innately. The Guardian article quotes Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jason Calacanis as saying very much the same thing:
"The next generation will be able to do it more inherently, they will grow up knowing phones with Facetime and computers with iSight. Where our generation knows how to write a good quip in a comment, the next generation will know how to do that in video."
Today we say goodbye to 12seconds.tv, but not to online video, or using video as the basis for building online community. In fact, that journey has barely yet begun.

The Age of Media Literacy?

As I was recording this audioboo podcast about a talk I'll be giving in a couple of weeks to a group of senior citizens on an educational tour of Los Angeles, it occurred to me  that as I talk about my career in media, and the realities of living in the film industry's "company town," I might touch on social media.

It's a challenging proposition.  Most of these tourists range in age from their 60's up to their 80's.  I expect that a good percentage of them will be online to some extent - some will even active in Facebook.   It should prove interesting to learn their various levels of online activity.  I'm pondering an analogy that could define social media.

We live in a time when we can use the tools of popular media to communicate with others - to develop community - express ourselves and reach, at least theoretically, a virtually unlimited audience.

Still, it's a challenge to define a form of expression that is still developing.

Perhaps we're living in an age akin to the development of literacy in advanced societies - where reading and writing became accessible to more and more people, leading to a more informed populace, and ultimately transformed those societies.

Similarly, media literacy can bring the most effective means of communication in the modern world to millions, where just a few years ago, such tools were limited to a select few.

What changes will media literacy bring?

[My personal blog, and links to my own social media world, can be found at http://worldaccordingtorich.blogspot.com]

Saturday 2 October 2010

Why "Social Media Journeys"?

Well, the answer to that question is probably, if you're reading this, you are on a social media journey of your own. Whether you have realised that yet, or not.

We all got here from somewhere and part of the purpose of this blog, is to chart that personal journey.
Whether that be the story of how we got here in the first place, where we are trying to get to,  what we've learned along the way. Or, just our experiences during that journey, both good and bad.

We all have a social media story to tell and the aim of this blog is to try and tell that story. Whether that story be mine, or yours.

On our individual journeys, we all stop off at different social media and networking sites. Be that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace etc etc. And that list is getting ever longer.
We aim to talk about our own experiences with all of those sites.

One of the reasons for this is that social media is still a relatively small affair. It might not seem like it to those who are already here. But, there are billions of people throughout the world, who have yet to start on their own social media journey.
Over the next few years and especially in this age of ever increasing mobile internet use, many of those people will be embarking on their own personal journeys.
If we can help those new users in any way, by sharing our own experiences and assist their first faltering steps into the world of social media, this will have been worthwhile.

Another focus of this blog is a question i raised in a recent YouTube video announcing this venture.
That question is "How has social media changed, or how is it changing your life?"

I think we can safely say, that for the vast majority of us, our exposure to social media changes us in some way. Those changes can be both big and small. For some people the effects are, quite literally, life changing.
We aim to cover a wide variety of topics around this question. Talking about both the good and the bad effects of social media on our lives.
We also intend to talk about how social media has possibly changed our attitudes to the people that we interact with around the world.

There is also the question of how social media is changing the world in general.
We have probably all seen how social media has become a big buzz word in the world of advertising. Any business with an eye to the future is trying to muscle in to the world of social media. We'll be discussing the good and bad sides of this as well.

Well, i think that gives you all a flavour of what to expect in the future.

As you may have noticed, i have been joined on this blog by two fellow contributors.

Ken has been on the Internet and using very early forms of social media since the 1990's. Here is his story. So, he has wide experience of social media, both from a personal and from a business point of view.
I have known Ken for nearly 4 years, via YouTube etc. I finally got to meet him earlier in 2010, when i visited California, where he lives.

Rich is a relative newcomer to social media and will therefore be telling us about his first steps and experiences into this new world. This is his story. Rich also lives in California and has wide experience in film making.
I have only known Rich since early 2010. But, was lucky enough to meet up with him as well, during my trip to California.

We also aim to have guest posts from different people, telling us their own stories and discussing various different aspects of the social media experience.

So stay tuned.  It promises to be an interesting and eventful future for us all.
It's good to have you along for the journey and be sure to tell your friends all about Social Media Journeys.

When the (Social Media) World Began

Computers got cheap the year I graduated from college/university.  I remember the commercials that were running at the time, with William Shatner hawking the new Commodore computers.  The VIC-20, with 5k memory, and the Commodore 64, with a whopping 64k.  One was $100, the other was $200.  I bought the cheaper computer, found out just how cool the computer world might be, and sold it to a friend a month later and bought the top-line "64."

Right away, I bought a 300 baud modem - that's about as slow as you can go, and the only consumer modem available at the time.  The entire idea of connecting with the world was exciting - even though I was sort of fuzzy on what that actually meant.  I experimented with calling up local computer bulletin board systems, but I also signed up for the biggest BBS of them all - Compuserve.  At that time, it was a text-only system.  Everything scrolled up the screen.  News, special interest groups, and limited text-only games were fascinating, but Compuserve chat was fascinating.  The idea that I could hold conversations with random people anywhere in the world (well - anywhere in America at that point), fired my imagination.  There were chat rooms of any variety - some created by Compuserve, and others by users themselves - so it was relatively easy to find like-minded people.  I still remember the first few people with which I chatted - another recent college student, a woman in her 50's, and others, all discussing issues of world peace! Where would this all lead? I was filled with anticipation for the future!

I still am.  Though I was an early user of some social networking tools, and have used it throughout my career for research, inspiration and communication, I really didn't understand what it meant to be a content creator and an active part of an online community.

How and why that all changed is part of what I hope to explore here.  I look forward to sharing the journey!

In the meantime, feel free to explore my vlog, blog and audioboo podcast - you can find it all on my blog at http://worldaccordingtorich.blogspot.com

Friday 1 October 2010

The Quality of the Conversation

An audioboo regarding the question of quantity and quality in the number of "followers" or "subscribers" an individual has on any social media site (twitter, audioboo, youtube, etc.). It seems to be an answer that most individuals grasp instinctively, but that marketing experts are slow to understand.

Listen!