Ten secret killer apps to download now that are guaranteed to make your sources go viral

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 30: People watch a...
Ten best secret mobile killer what?

You know, you don’t have to read articles like this. They aren’t about you or your device or what you should really be doing right now.

Moreover, they won’t guarantee your content will go viral either. Also, so what if your content “goes viral?” Lots of people will see it and maybe that’s good. Or maybe it isn’t good.

Or maybe it doesn’t even matter. Think of the last cool “viral” thing you did or saw? Did it influence you to do something? Did it influence anyone you know to do something? And “do something” I mean more than “share” it or “like” it. I mean, “did it have a meaningful impact on your life?”

Stop reading articles like this. Instead, read things that are helpful for you. Or better yet, stop reading stuff like this and instead go out and meet with people or talk with people. That way you’ll have a better foundation for making content that is good. Content that helps your business and helps your readers.

And it won’t matter whether it goes viral or not.

I encourage you to read Matthew’s post “On Reading.”

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Personal Location

Personal Location
The location of one individual using a locative media system.
Personal location can be gathered, mapped and given meaning by various parts of a locative media system.
The increasing capabilities for gathering personal location are vigorously discussed in mobile technology and privacy fields
Personal location can be used to compare with geofences and proximity to filter data in a locative media system.

Three views of a secret: Social

Word of Mouth (Jaco Pastorius album)

As the shine of social media dulls ever so slightly and we begin to examine it just a little more closely, there are ways of considering and using the tools that go deeper than “10 tips for Facebook” or “Best practices of Twitter.”

There are strategic considerations, sociological considerations, marketing considerations. Here are three articles that examine aspects and approaches to social media that I think you’ll find relevant, thoughtful and useful. Continue reading “Three views of a secret: Social”

Everything that can be measured, will be.

Pomegranate Fruits.
Everything that can be measured, will be.

I was introduced to the concept that “everything that can be digital, will be” in  Nicholas Negroponte‘s 1995 book Being Digital.

While a read of that book today will be humorous for the pantheon of companies that self-immolated in the big dot com blowout of the early naughts, the concepts introduced have pretty much all held.

Lately, I’ve been mulling over a corollary to “everything that can be digital, will be” that is making itself apparent: Everything that can be measured, will be. As human interactions become increasingly digital, there are–by default–data points being generated on all of our interactions.

Social technologies are accelerating the availability of data and the kinds of data available to measure.

Continue reading “Everything that can be measured, will be.”

Print vs digital is the wrong question

Old Hay Wagon
Image by Marion Doss via Flickr

I was recently asked for some simple practical tips that business owners could take to “strike an effective balance between print and digital.” I think that’s the wrong question.

The real issue is how will organizations thrive in a changing environment. Here’s is how I responded: Continue reading “Print vs digital is the wrong question”

Burlington VT Web Analytics Wednesday: SEO Edition

Jonathan Page at the 2006 Cyclocross National ...
Image via Wikipedia

Aba and Jonathan from Dealer are going to be presenting at this month’s Web Analytics Wednesday. The topic is: “Up and to [the Right SEO Tactics]”

  • 6:30 hangout begins
  • 7:00 Aba and Jonathan present
  • Followed by more geeking out

Hosted here at Thoughtfaucet located in the Howard Space Center at 4 Howard Street Studio i3 Burlington VT. See you there!

[contact-form 10 “BTV Digirati”]

 

How To: Use the Twitter Favorites Button

THE BSA GOLD STAR. CLASSIC CAFE-RACER.
Image by ronsaunders47 via Flickr
One of the least used features of Twitter is the “Favorites” button. Here are some reasons I’ve heard for why it doesn’t get used:

  • Twitter favorites duplicate a bookmark function
  • Twitter favorites displace the many tools for reading later
  • Twitter favorites becomes a mishmash of random stuff that becomes a chore to wade through
  • Twitter favorites become yet another in-box and no one needs more of those

Add to all of that the fact that all of the other features of Twitter are way more engaging because they involve real people doing and saying things in real time. Favorites becomes a sort of icebox where tweets go to become forgotten.

But here’s something I do that you can do too. Continue reading “How To: Use the Twitter Favorites Button”

URL

URL
Universal Resource Locator
The address of a web page
The URL is one of the ways that a search engine determines what a page is about. The format of a URL involves forward slashes [/] which mirror a hierarchical directory tree. This is a relic from the days when web pages were static documents in nested folders. Search engines use this hierarchy, along with other factors, to determine what topics the page is related to on a given website.

Social media in the large, international organization

Level crossing With red and green lights to gu...
Image via Wikipedia

While presenting at Global Strategic Management Institute’s Boston Social Media Strategy Summit I had the chance to see Stefan Heeke from Siemens Corp present on their use of social media.

Below you will find my notes in mindmap format and a text outline of the mindmap itself. Continue reading “Social media in the large, international organization”