Social Days » Social Networks

Event: Network Solutions – Solutions Stars Video Conference

jquig99 — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:56:59 +0000

Disclosure: I’ve been working – in a small way – on this wonderful event with Livingston Communications for Network Solutions. ooVoo (a crayon client) is the video platform of choice for this event.

The Solutions Stars Video Conference is happening October 29th at 1pm. A number of social media luminaries (listed below) – the kind that you usually pay a couple thousand to see – have participated in this incredible event.

The format: Videos will be uploaded one at a time, one after the other and will focus on the following nine areas:

Building Web Presence
The Social Opportunity
Start with Listening
Strategy Drives Outreach
You Need Social Networks
To Blog or Not to Blog
Visibility Through Search
Rising Above the Noise
Time Demands

And when Network Solutions says “stars” they mean it. Take a quick look of the participants:

One of the things I love about this event is that it’s such a cool format – with budgets getting cut and time at a premium, you’re able to experience the best part of an A-level conference without the headache of air travel and seeing all of those people you don’t like anyway.

(Not you. I totally can’t wait to see you again.)

The other cool thing – you can participate! There’s a live chat room, where you can talk amongst yourselves, as well as the ability to ask real-time questions of Now is Gone’s Geoff Livingston and Network Solutions Shashi Bellamkonda.

And of course you have the option to share what’s going on to your social networks and also track this event on Twitter by the #solutionsstars hashtag (What’s a hashtag?).

Also – Please visit the “Solutions Stars Video Conference” event pages on Facebook and Upcoming:

So – please come, experience (and participate in!) this event on October 29th at 1pm – I’ll see you there!

Enjoying Mahalo – Social Search that Works

janequigley — Mon, 05 May 2008 03:20:48 +0000

I’ve been using Mahalo, Jason Calacanis’s “people-powered” search engine for about 5 months – and am really enjoying it.

Mahalo uses “guides” to build our SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) so that the most relevant results are always given the most importance. The problem is the amount of manpower it takes to build out all of those results. So, besides the actual Mahalo employees, the service looks to crowdsourcing to fill in the results – and will pay them for their work (Mahalo Greenhouse).

Then came Mahalo Social, which added a social component to the service and Mahalo Follow, a way of sharing the links you upload to other services including De.lic.ious, Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr, Facebook, Google Bookmarks, Jaiku and StumbleUpon. This was actually the piece that helped me get more involved with StumbleUpon, as Tamar Weinberg – AKA Queen of all Social News sites – was always after me about. Using a quick combination of keystrokes, I can easily post a link to all of these sites, or any combination I’d like.

As an aside – I rarely post links to Twitter – I’m protective of my network and don’t want to spam them with a lot of links.

But what makes any company – especially a startup – is the people. And everyone that I’ve had contact with from Mahalo has been impressive. If I send a feature request or some bug report, it’s been rare that I don’t hear from someone within the hour. Jason has been very gracious about forwarding reports to the right people and I always hear back with solutions or a commitment to fix the issue. This has really added to my enjoyment of Mahalo – even when my links are denied (or added!), it’s with a very polite note.

So who uses Mahalo? I”ve started using Mahalo for search results – it’s fun to see what people recommend and I really enjoy the Guide Notes. But the real value is for people who are looking for simple, specific results, or find Google results too confusing. It’s always hard for me to remember that most people don’t use the Web like I do and need easy tools that make them comfortable. Then I spend some time with my sister, an elementary school teacher with her first Mac, who doesn’t know what Twitter is and is nervous about shopping online. So I bookmarked Mahalo for her. With the easy and clean user interface, she’ll be able to find whatever she needs quickly (Google results are also included on the page).

And that’s valuable to both of us.

Growing Up with Social Networks

jquig99 — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:01:28 +0000

I was celebrating the Holiday with my sister, friends and a bunch of kids (two of whom were my niece and nephew). They were playing Guitar Hero 3 on the Wii, when I overheard this conversation (which I Twittered), “Club Penguin was last year. WebKinz is now”.

About this time, my nephew (who’s eight today), sits next to me, takes my iPhone and shows me all the sites he visits everyday. Most of the adults there were intimidated by technology, most used the Internet at work and only a bit at home.Â They couldn’t get how to use the iPhone. Their kids (no older than 10) were all over it. They passed my iPhone around discussing their favorite websites and communities and answering my questions about what they liked about each. They all own iPods and can connect to iTunes and either buy music, or make a list of songs for their parents to buy. Most had their own cellphones and were adept at taking pictures and video and sharing that media with friends and relatives. None had been on Amazon.com.

They all knew MySpace and most had been on the site or knew kids that had set up profiles – 2 knew of kids who had posted profiles saying that they were 21 (they ARE 10). My niece told me that she has a defined number of sites that she can visit, but if she tries to surf outside the list, she’s blocked and her parents are notified by email. She can’t look at the site until her parents confirm that it’s ok (an email verification).

All the kids talked to me about WebKinz.com, where you register toy animals bought offline and where you can build rooms for these pets and interact with other owners. Club Penguin is still around, but it doesn’t interest them (maybe they grew out of the demographic?).

All the kids were really excited about these new toys they all got for Easter – U.B. Funkeys.

From Amazon.com:

“This specialty starter kit will have you well on your way to U.B. Funkey world — and a possible collection addiction. Funkeys are creative vinyl characters that plug into a larger Funkey hub attached to a computer in order to travel around their virtual world, play games, build a “crib,” and interact with other Funkeys. This starter kit includes the 5-inch-tall white Funkey hub, USB cable, two 2.75-inch-tall Funkeys, and installation software. All in all there are 42 different Funkey characters: three different colors in 14 different designs. Of the three in each design, one is quite common, one is rare, and the third is very rare by collection standards.

By playing games in the U.B. Funkeys world, characters earn coins that they can then use for purchasing items for their “crib.” These rooms are customizable, from wall colors to furniture and plants to accessories, and can also be uploaded for friends to see. Just give your “crib” a name, share it with your friends, and they can visit anytime theyâ€™re logged on. There are four zones that offer a total of 16 games for players to conquer, and 30 stores where they can spend their hard earned coins on more than 1,000 virtual items. Now the question is: Are you Funkey?”

This is Second Life for the Tween-crowd, with a level of marketing, engagement and commerce that SL has yet to achieve. This makes (uneasy) sense to me – their parents understand collecting – from Beenie Babies to baseball cards, which is passed down to their children.

One of the things that interest me is the complete play between offline and online. These kids may need help getting on the Web, permission and (hopefully) supervision once they are on – but they know how to interact and how to become part of the community. They know how to make and share media, email and text message. They all wanted my Gmail address to keep in touch.

These kids never knew a time that computers, cell phones and even DVD’s did not exist. They aren’t cynical over the effects of technology, it’s a part of their everyday life and they are much more comfortable handing the overload and overstimulation of information.

I’m excited to keep this particular conversation going.

Social Days » Social Networks

Event: Network Solutions – Solutions Stars Video Conference

Related articles by Zemanta

Enjoying Mahalo – Social Search that Works

Growing Up with Social Networks