Resolving to Blog More Everywhere

bloggingIt’s a tradition of mine to declare each year to be the Best Ever, each summer the Best Ever, etc. What can I say, I wake up every day feeling like I’m going to save the world — whatever that means. Last year really was the best year so far — the longest, most productive, and most enjoyable. Professionally I closed out a year of employ with Warner/Chappell Music and moved on to my current job at Live Earth, where I am director of interactive — a position so exciting, all-encompassing, and full of boundless possibilities, that I am still training myself to get an adequate amount of sleep. Thanks to the closure of the office for the past ten days, I have slept — a lot — and am now gearing up to return to 125% productivity.

My one-day-at-a-time lifestyle makes it difficult to put an entire year in perspective, for I don’t generally think in terms of beginnings and ends; life is more like an upwardly mobile spiral that cycles with the seasons. And yes, I very much recognize the seasons even here in Los Angeles. While we don’t really have Winter, I could never really pinpoint Spring in Chicago. So the grass and weeds in my yard may be greener than they ever have been before (it’s a brown wasteland in summer) but the days are only now finally growing longer.

I’m very grateful to do what I love professionally and have met some incredible people recently and am ambitious about a 2009 which is bound to include many exciting goals, milestones, and accomplishments on a monthly, weekly, and daily level.

I will blog more this year, however, as is obvious by my recent dearth of blogging, I currently favor other publishing avenues – be it my work blog, or LAist, where I continue to serve as News Editor. There are other places where I plan to publish stuff as well — stay tuned on that. (I DO need to update this blog to a new theme and would still like a WOOZradio logo to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my internet radio station).

I’ve added a “lifestream” tab to this blog where you can follow much of my activities, thoughts, and schemes if you wish. Over the past year I’ve continued utilizing the social web as a personal archive and journal via microblogging and other services.

Much of this is aggregated on my Friendfeed page.
I am an active Twitter user.
I enjoy keeping up with friends and events on Facebook and Upcoming.
I actively post photos on my Flickr account and stream live video to Qik, among other places.
And I continue growing my professional network on LinkedIn.

I keep a list of the (many more) social media tools and services I use here. Please contact or “friend” me on any of the above by clicking on the hyperlinked details. If you’re interested in the sites I browse (when I can), you can browse them too or add my OPML feed to your personal news reader at netzoo.net/opml.

Coming soon: I’ll blog about many of the individuals who’s online presence has helped inspire and influence me in the past year via Twitter and elsewhere.

Happy New Year!

Checkin’ Out Google FriendConnect

google friendconnect opensocialSeems like years since the announcement of OpenSocial, but finally invites went out today for Google FriendConnect and as you can see at left, I’m testing it out. Biggest complaint is that it can’t be constrained to <200px (I confine all sidebar elements to 160px or less, which is why the FriendConnect badge is a bit cut-off). Either way, let's be friends, dammit! Below are the other widgets available. (Actually, they won't render even with my inline.js WP plugin – so check out the widgets here). Play away!

Why Connecting With Obama Will Break Your LinkedIn

I’ve lauded Senator Obama and the Obama campaign for being aggressive social media participants (adopters) in many posts on this blog. And there’s nothing wrong with a national figure having a profile on LinkedIn, whether or not it’s maintained and established by a handler/assistant.

But I will not connect with Barack Obama on LinkedIn. The reason is simple. On LinkedIn.com:

Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

LinkedIn shows you results based on how closely related you are to others based on your connections on the network. So if you connect with Obama, suddenly you are a 2nd connection from any of the hundreds (thousands?) of users connected to him. Because you and these 2nd connections likely aren’t 2 degrees separated — other than the fact that you both wanted to connect with Obama — your LinkedIn experience (should you truly use it as the networking tool that it is) will be severely diluted.

Restrain yourself and just stick to the Obama ’08 LinkedIn group if you feel the need to connect. Then again… if Obama chooses his Attorney General from within his LinkedIn pool, my argument is moot.

Continue reading “Why Connecting With Obama Will Break Your LinkedIn”

Obama Facebook App Targets Your Friends in Battleground States

Obama Facebook App, Swing States, and Your Friends

Barack Obama’s 21-month-long presidential campaign got off to a lively start, owing much to students who used Facebook — among other social networks — to raise awareness and build a coalition. The McCain campaign (as well as every other campaign) struggled but all fell short in attempts to embrace and embolden the millions of social media loving youth to their advantage.

It was easy for Obama. At an early campaign rally, he went on and on about the Students for Barack Obama group on Facebook and how it helped get his campaign off to a running start. This was in Los Angeles in February 2007 and I was there shooting video:

Last week, Obama’s online team went live with an integration of MyBarackObama.com and Facebook via Facebook Connect.

facebook notification election vote obama campaign appTonight I was welcomed to Facebook with a notification asking me whether or not I had voted yet. The greeting came from the Obama app which I had installed months ago. In Facebook — as in much of the online world — Obama beats McCain in a landslide. Messages from campaigns on online networks *could* get annoying if frequent, but in Obama’s case, frequency was not necessary for the messaging to be effective. Facebook users are more aware of social media etiquette than most. Perhaps that’s why they’re so quick to call out the bullshitters and fear-mongers — as much of the online media world is at this point in the campaign (see my previous post).

How has the Obama campaign used social networks and leveraged social media so wisely, even getting up and running on Facebook Connect a month before its official launch? Obama discovered the power of Facebook early on in his campaign and, well, he’s got Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes working on his online strategy team.

See also: Obama Dominates Content Sharing as Election Approaches at Mashable.