My Mom's on gChat!

There are a few things I won’t stand for in my digital life.

1) Letting family members continue to use certain e-mail services (AOL, mostly.)

2) Excessive use of CAPS LOCK (aka shouting – this must be explained to parents)

3) Misuse of Electronics Equipment (i.e. my sister’s run in with her PowerBook that left me in tears. Lets just say it was dirty, missing keys, couldn’t close, dented.)

Consequently, I believe it’s important to “hook up” your fam with the good stuff. My Mom (see photo on life) has been on gmail and gChat since I received my first set of invites, and has been a loyal user of Gmail ever since.

There’s something to be said (a certain sense of pride, so to speak) when your parents have that “coveted” geek domain — it’s like the new zip code everyone should be living in.

Plus, can it get any better than chatting with your parents on gChat? What about showing your parents how animated hearts that start out with standard characters like “<” and “3″ but when put together, the Google magic wand transforms them into a pink-filled shape that we all know and love.

You know it’s good when your Mom asks you if there are any other good emoticons on gChat – like over Thanksgiving when she asked if an animated Turkey is available.

I thought she might be up for Twitter next, but I think she wants a new phone first. I’m going to work on my influencing skills, because I think the internet would be a better place if my mom was a more active contributor of content.

For more crazy things parents say online, you can always read Shit My Dad Says (@shitmydadsays) and Crazy Things Parents Say for additional fun.

<3

Have you signed your parents up for gmail or other services? Do you talk to your parents on gChat, skype, or twitter?

Oh Yea. Webmaster.

I was working on a blog for business the other day, and a co-worker asked, “Alana, who is the webmaster?”

He couldn’t see (or hear me) but I immediately started to crack up. Webmaster is one term that I haven’t heard in a long time- and a term that I have never used to refer to myself (although maybe I should?)

It’s funny to think of how certain terminologies used to be mainstream and how, given technology’s evolution, they become a lot less… cool.

Take “Webmaster.” Hey you, master of the web.. maybe 10 years ago a lot of people didn’t know how to use the web, but today a few of us might. Is anyone really a “webmaster” anymore? It sounds like something straight out of d&d.

Clickfire’s SEO blog agrees with me on this topic when he writes:

With the advent of 3G and smartphones, the webmaster is no longer the mysterious guy behind a desktop or in an air-conditioned datacenter pulling switches. He’s at the coffee shop.

Blog software is another factor. The fact that anyone can get a WordPress or Blogger weblog up and running in minutes with a really nice looking pre-made theme makes coding and maintenance less of an issue. Most bloggers probably don’t think of themselves as “webmasters.”

Personally, I don’t consider myself a webmaster. The only thing that holds me back is Google’s Webmaster tools. If google refers to them in that way, maybe it’s still cool/ok/semi-normal?

STILL– the term reminds me of the old school web 1.0 websites with the page counter at the bottom, a little animated gif with a spinning envelope that reads “e-mail the webmaster.”

creepy.

For July, I decided to put together a few of my top “crushes” out there on the ‘net.

1. Pete Cashmore. Mashable CEO

Maybe it’s the accent. Maybe it’s the fact that he started mashable.com (of which I am a fan).

For a fun video tribute to Pete, check of ValleyWag’s video where some photos are set to “I’m too Sexy.” truth.

If men of the scottish type, well, aren’t your type, check out this list of tech’s most eligible bachelors for a few additional options.

2. Google Voice.

After finally receiving an invitation to the awesomeness, life-changing mobile voice application that is Google Voice, let’s just say I have a major web app crush on it.

I’m just not sure lanesberry (my blackberry)is a fan. But my new google voice number has my name in it… #notfail

3. Fail Blog Videos

Once you watch one you really just can’t stop.

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.

For all of you passive-aggressives out there… it does happen that sometimes people ask you something (at work, at home, on campus) that could be answered with a simple Google query.

One way to easily solve this issue is by using Let Me Google That For You (LMGTFY.com), a site whos about page says ” This is for all those people that find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than google it for themselves.”

Lifehacker writes, “tutorial search engine for those whose assistance is constantly needed by the technologically impaired or those clueless friends you have who are just too lazy to search for answers themselves.” love it.

All you have to do is enter in your search criteria in the box, click “google search” and then the tool generates a link for you to “share”- it will even create a tinyurl alias for you if you want- which is perfect because then the person you are sending the link to will have no idea you are semi making fun of them

What I’m loving is the live page- where you can see what people are googling… anything from “first class mail prices,” “.net,” “nra headquarters,” “scanner,” and more.

Think back to this morning. What have you entered into that simplified one-line text box on Google’s homepage in the past few hours?

Today I’ve googled:

• Mobile Maximo Solutions
• IMLP Blog (to check how far up it arrives in results)
• Millennials Photos (don’t ask- for a side project at work)
• Syracuse University Homecoming Court (to see who succeeds me as queen)
• Syracuse University Diversity Business Summit & Career Fair (I might be attending!)

Either way you look at it, tracking and analyzing search trends on Google is an interesting way to see what we’re up to out there. People Google personal things, medical conditions, interests, definitions, urls, photos… you name it.

Check out Google Cloud if you’re interesting in seeing what people are searching, Google Hot Trends,  Google Checkout Trends, or  Yahoo Buzz for what’s hot out there in cyberspace right now. Or even use Google Insights for more advanced features- like comparisons across time or locations.

But what about those who have additional insight and access to what we’re searching and when we’re searching for it? It’s powerful marketing information- not only directly from the source (me and you) but the research opportunities relating to this data is truly remarkable.

A friend of mine sent me an msnbc article focusing on Bill Tancer, head of Research for HitWise, a company that provides insight into internet usage (searches, etc.)

In the article, Mr. Tancer made some very interesting suggestions into changes of searches relating to pornography:

[Bill Tancer] said surfing for porn had dropped to about 10 percent of searches from 20 percent a decade ago, and the hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites.

“As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased,” said Tancer, indicated that the 18-24 year old age group particularly was searching less for porn.

“My theory is that young users spend so much time on social networks that they don’t have time to look at adult sites.”

Bill also agrees that the amount of false/inaccurate on the web is something that we need to work on:

“With the explosion of this type of false information on the Internet I think we will see someone come forward and develop a new type of software that can filter for the most accurate information,” he said.

I’ll end with some of Bill’s best work…

Some of his findings are great trivia, such as the fact that elbows, belly button lint and ceiling fans are on the list of people’s top fears alongside social intimacy and rejection.

Thanks bill, I know I feel a lot better knowing that this incredible research power has truly remarkable findings