I think we all know what Boo's profile goal is: Cuteness.

Over the weekend, I had dinner and drinks with a friend from college, whom i have not seen in a few years. While hanging out, I soon found out that she [knowingly] decided to delete all existing profiles and abstain from facebook, twitter, and social media.

Soon after learning this about my friend, I proceeded to think of follow up questions on the matter, and potential reasoning. Maybe she is too busy? Perhaps it was the Facebook privacy scare of 2010 or even the ”delete your facebook account day?” Or it could be resentment from when the activity feed was originally created?

Well, as myself and the group found out – its because she believes that it’s fake.

Essentially, her opinion of the matter is that it’s a game/race to show only the best side of one’s self, and linked this to her thoughts (disclaimer: she works at an elementary school as a guidance counselor) that it is a cause for depression in many young people.

I believe that maybe she quit prematurely, or was not connecting with people in the right online communities or groups – sure, you find people who only showcase some glamourous life (like celebs, etc), but that is only a segment of the overall population. On Facebook, you see status updates, stories, links to blog posts that tell stories across the spectrum of emotion, I think it just takes that extra effort to look beyond clicking through an album of photos from a vacation in Paris to interacting with the content and the person.

Facebook Messages

Regardless of your thoughts on the Facebook messages platform, we all want an invite to test it out!!

To request an invite, visit Facebook’s Messages Page and click on request.

When I watched this trailer for the “twitter movie” I almost fell off my chair in my cube.

Hope you have a similar response.

and now for the social network trailer..

Now You Can Buy that Bag... On the Go.

I grew up wearing a uniform.

So, as a girl, your only way to showcase your personality was through your purse and your shoes, and at my school, it was all about the bag.

Many went for the true americana styles of Coach or Dooney, and of course there was the occasional Euro entry (which were harder to find because they were not available at the local mall).

Thank God for the Internet.

Now, if you want to make a decision on which bag to buy to go with your uniform, or to buy for a holiday gift, you can shop online catalogs, ask for opinions on twitter, and use interactive gift finders from your favorite retailer/brand (like Coach’s cool Facebook app), and find out what people are saying on Facebook.

Or, you can even buy a bag on a mobile site, as Dooney launched their mobile site today. So, if you see “that girl” with the perfect bag, you can buy it on the spot. [I’m loving the canvas bags,  db sport duck print & leather bags).

Another way to kill time while waiting in line…

I get this question a lot. At work, at home, at the bar… wherever.What the F**K is social media, anyway?

Watch my friends, and learn.

Couldn’t agree more. Love this presentation!!!

Do it. http://twitter.com/amedmunds

Continuing along with my current theme of managing your digital identity (or multiple identities if that’s more your style), I’ve realized that not everyone is aware that things could, well, be a little bit easier with the introduction of the right tools.

Consider the following situations and my proposed answers (comment if you have something to add that I forgot!)…

Situation #1: You work at a company that has a need to automate some of your backend efforts on twitter. Say you have an RSS feed, but don’t always have time to post new items.

Answer: Tie in your RSS feed with Twitter, so when a new item is posted, things “auto-tweet.” HootSuite does this in an easy-to-use and configure web interface that also allows you to set timetables for posting (gotta love auto-tweeting…)

Situation #2: You run a pod/lifecast called millennious podcasting and you could really use a way to manage both accounts, as you work a full-time job during the week and don’t always have that special “tweeting” time.

Answer: Updating from “web” all the time is a #twitterupdatefail. Legit. Check out one of the multiple desktop clients where you can tie in multiple accounts. Seesmic Desktop is a top one (cross-platform and ties in facebook too, with unlimited accounts), Nambu, Tweet Deck,

Situation #3: Facebook. Twitter. You want to update twitter status more often than your facebook status, but sometimes you want to update both simultaneously. (You’re just choosy and that’s ok!)

Answer: Selective Twitter updates via Facebook. Install this app on your facebook account, and a simple #fb at the END of your tweets will update your facebook status. easy enough, right?

Situation #4: You have multiple people updating a single twitter account and you need a way to manage it all. (aka tweeting for two or more, hehe)

Answer: Co-Tweet seems to be the app of choice for corporations (and from the screen shots it looks awesome), as it allows you to manage multiple authors in a single account (nobody likes duplication of efforts.) This article from Mashable gives a large list of alternative options.

**note: no one should be going to a third party site to shorten urls, upload photos… these are features available in tools listed above!!!! DONT SETTLE!

With the go-live of the facebook vanity urls when the clock struck midnight (no, I did not turn back into a pumpkin..) the rush to claim one’s digital real estate by the 200,000 people in 3 minutes truly makes even the most skeptical person believe that social media is making more than just a digital impact.

Therefore.. one issue we are all faced with is “How do I link people to all of my accounts!?!”, so I’ve put together a small list of how you (yes, you!) can share your list of social media outlets (the more the merrier) with everyone on the interwebs.

**Note.. before registering for any sort of social media service.. check out the digital real estate scene with a site like knowem, which will search for a username amongst 120+ social media sites… save yourself some time, eh?

Custom Icon Graphics:  If you’re interested in the custom icon set (like the pretty hearts I have on my page), you can download a set of graphical icons and link to them as you see fit. See this site for high quality options.

LifeStream:

Friendfeed is one (more mainstream) outlet that allows you to link all of your accounts together, but it has limitations on the number of services you can add to your “feed.” But, it does showcase what’s you’ve been up to on one page.

Link Aggregators/Social Profiles: 

DandyID – which allows you to add 320+ (who knew there were so many?) social media apps to your name. But.. it takes the whole thing one step further and verifies these accounts… so that people know it’s really you (and we like that). You can also embed the code into your blog, add a facebook app, email signature or just your normal javascript widget. thats just dandy ;)

Google Profile is another social profile, except it’s from the makers of your favorite search engine- Google. Basically it’s another piece of online “real estate” that shows up when someone googles your name… but it’s something that you can control (i.e. you can link to twitter accounts, give some background information on yourself, etc.)

Retaggr has a pretty little widget that is pretty flexible- many “flavors” are offered, based on the medium through which you are communicating. They are also interactive, as some of your social media content – blog posts, recent photos, tweets, can be displayed in the widget.

Yes, Virginia- there is more to social media than twitter.

I’ve heard a lot of complaining lately about twitter and status updates, but, one thing to think about (and I’ve mentioned this before) is the power of the aggregate data.

What if… you could track disease trends via twitter? Look no further. Sick City has arrived.

A project launched by way of DIYCity, SickCity pulls your updates from Twitter (and soon Facebook) for any mentions of disease in a city and then compiles the information into their web interface.

It then ranks the top “sickest” cities (1. NYC, 2. London, 3. San Francisc) and alllows you additional visibility into the data if you are looking for it (# mentions, usernames, etc.)

NYC wins the “sickest city” top spot – and you can track the number of people who twittered different sicknesses on a given day or time period (like how 8 people mentioned food poisoning on April 13th compared to 6 on April 10th). For more details, you can even click on the user name to see the context of the post-

Look forward to the next update, where updated will be mapped on a Google Map- so you can really see where the outbreaks are. Also, the site mentions that “we have also been contacted by a public health group who wants to correlate our findings with public records on diseases in cities.” [Via DIY City].

Remove 10 Friends and Get a Whopper?

There’s tons of content out there- we’re hit up in every direction with status updates via Facebook, what people are doing via Twitter, where people are from britekite, what people are thinking about from their blogs.

A new trend is “de-friending” (removing people from your facebook friends list) and “un-following” (removing ‘friends’ from twitter.

It’s a way to filter out the noise, a way to get back to reading what you really want to- but, of course, people defriend for different reasons – maybe you’re trying to get over a breakup and would prefer not to see what your ex did over the weekend, or maybe you forgot who that person is that friended you, anyway.

Regardless of the reason, it’s becoming a trend- especially as people who were originally skeptical of social networking sites are starting to join.

The New York Times describes a Burger King promotion, “Whopper Sacrifice,” that gave a free Whopper to those who defriended 10 people- AND BK send each of these people an email (normally you don’t get an email when someone defriends you) as it was a side app you had to “install” on your account. It’s one of the most creative (and what a buzz it created!) marketing promotions I’ve seen in a long time.

Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell (great book), wrote earlier this year that ’09 would be

“Defriending becomes the hot new trend, driven by overwhelming rivers of newsfeeds. The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis. Facebook apps will emulate Twitter Grader, allowing you to prioritize your friends based on their overall social ranking — and prune safely to ensure the highest quality friends.”

Although you feel a little guilty about it sometimes, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being picky on who you “listen” to.