The Absence of Presence and the Presence of Absence
October 21, 2009 :: Joe LoongThe Washington Post last week had an article looking at several Facebook refuseniks (people who’ve taken a stand against joining Facebook or similar online social networks), and investigating their reasons for (and consequences of) non-participation.
This, by itself, is only slightly interesting; as with any technology — dishwashers, automobiles, air conditioning, telephones, TV, cell phones — [...]
Online Networks and the 7-Year Friend Itch
October 9, 2009 :: Joe LoongSometimes, I’ll review the list of my friends and followers on a social networking platform and find myself staring at a name and and asking, “Who are you?”
This isn’t in an existential, “Can one ever truly know someone?” kind of way — I’m literally thinking, “Who the heck are you and I how do I [...]
Social Media Policies: Trick or Treat?
October 2, 2009 :: Joe LoongUnfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend Tuesday’s Grow Smart Biz Conference, but by all accounts (and there are a lot of them) and my own dipping in and out of the live stream, it was a great success, so congratulations to the entire team and all the particpants and attendees.
Since I couldn’t monitor the entire [...]
Known Unknowns: Location, Location, Location
September 25, 2009 :: Joe LoongThis past weekend, I was suckered by some friends into joining an impromptu bar crawl (hey, twist my arm, ow, okay) in Ye Olde Reston Towne Centre (it’s an upscale-ish, mixed use “don’t-call-it-a-mall” in the outer DC suburbs of northern Virginia).
Coincidentally, I’ve been getting more active trying out Foursquare, a location-based mobile social network — [...]
Everything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You
September 24, 2009 :: Joe LoongIt should hardly need repeating at this point: When you post stuff to the Internet, people will see it, and quite possibly use it in ways that you don’t intend. And yet, either people keep finding new ways to make the same mistakes, or other people keep finding ways to use that information.
Two recent cases [...]
Smart Working – Building a Stellar Online Community
September 18, 2009 :: Steve FisherBuilding the Small Business community here at Network Solutions is something we work hard on every day. We use tools like this blog and our other blogs (Grow Smart Business, Women Grow Business) to connect with various parts of our community. We also use tools like Twitter and good old fashioned email to reach out [...]
Marketers Killed the Internet as a Medium for Introverts
September 14, 2009 :: Joe LoongRecently, I’ve seen Myers-Briggs Personality Type badges floating around on Facebook and other social Web sites. I haven’t retaken the test in a long time, but I used to be an INTJ (basically, an introvert), and I have no reason to think that’s changed in any meaningful way.
It did, however, get me thinking about how [...]
Gnomedex Recap – Day 2 – The awesome TED-like experience continues
September 1, 2009 :: Steve FisherThis year’s Gnomedex in Seattle was the ninth in its history and my fourth. I am continually blown away by the people in the crowd and on stage who provide a TED-like experience for a fraction of the price and no pretension (no invite only BS).
Chris Pirillo is the creator of Gnomedex and is know [...]
Social Gaming as Social Grooming: Mafia Wars and my High School Reunion
August 27, 2009 :: Joe LoongTwo independent events have sort of collided for me on Facebook, resulting in something that’s sort of interesting, sort of annoying, and sort of disturbing.
The first event is that I started playing Mafia Wars this month (my excuse that I’m merely doing it to evaluate online gaming mechanics and explore ways to use them to [...]
Mafia Wars, Gaming and Getting People to Do Stuff
August 4, 2009 :: Joe LoongUp until this point, I’ve avoided Mafia Wars, which I’d previously known as “that multiplayer game on Facebook with all the annoying status updates.” However, since I’m trying to look at ways that we can use social gaming to help influence and change offline behaviors (especially in the areas of disaster / personal preparedness), I [...]
