Social Media Journeys: social media journeys

Showing posts with label social media journeys. Show all posts

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

Thursday, 30 September 2010

Introduction to My Social Media Journey

An interesting aspect of some journeys is when you set out with no particular destination in mind. Or, to put it more accurately, only a vague concept of the destination. An idea, a belief, a conviction that the destination is out there, although it has yet to be named or defined. I suppose my "social media" journey is kind of like that, as it began long before anybody ever used the term "social media."

Hi. My name is Ken Goldstein, known on many sites by my online handle of "kenrg" and I'm here to share a bit of my social media journey... In brief, I've been online since about 1993, first using text-only dial-up services, then AOL, then an ISP to get directly to the full colorful web. One of my first surprises was the sense of community. Even in plain text, there were pockets of like-minded people, anxious to share information and to connect.

I learned html and posted my first web site around 1995. Shortly after, I added a cgi script for basic threaded discussion and ran a board for a music-related group. Again, community being the focus.

Meanwhile, professionally, I was also a member of an online community of nonprofit and social service professionals, called HandsNet. By 1999 I was not simply a HandsNet member, but had joined the staff as Director of Online Community Development, managing discussion board related to fighting poverty, and supervising the discussion moderators.

When I first opened my account here on blogger.com, nearly ten years ago, it was well before Google had purchased it from Pyra, the original developers. Likewise, I joined YouTube four-and-a-half years ago, before the Google purchase, and have been regularly tweeting away on twitter for nearly four years as well. Heck, I was even a Friendster member long before MySpace and Facebook.

From "online community" to "web 2.0" to "social media" I've been along on the journey, sometimes testing the waters ahead of the crowds, sometimes following, but always eager to learn the latest tools. For me, it's always been about the connections, and about communication. And I believe we have only begun to tap the true power and possibility of this brave new world.

I'm pleased that Andy has asked me to be a contributor to this blog. I will be sharing some recollections of my journey so far, my opinions on where we're going, and some criticisms of those who don't get it (hint: those who think Twitter is an advertising medium will be regular targets of my scorn). And I look forward to your comments on my posts.

You can find links to all my various feeds (blogs, vlogs, podcasts, photostreams, etc.) on my home portal (kengoldstein.ca). Meanwhile, here are links to a couple of recent blog posts to give you an idea of where I stand: