Tag Archives: facebook

Growing up with the Real Time Internet

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
7

Yesterday I had the honor of putting together a panel of my peers to talk about how we use the web! Our panel was titled “Growing up with the Real-time Internet” and it consisted of myself, Corvida Raven, Kelly Sutton, and Lauren Litwinka.

The video is embedded below. Please watch it and comment. I would love to continue the conversation that was started at #140conf.

For a good part of the beginning of the video, the camera guy didn’t realize I was on the panel, and I guess thought I was just the moderator. So he cut me out of the shot. But he figures it out half way through.

I AM A GEEK

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
Reply

Just thought I would share this video with you all. It was put together by a group of people calling themselves THE SOCIETY FOR GEEK ADVANCEMENT

THE SOCIETY FOR GEEK ADVANCEMENT was founded upon the principles that we should all embrace our inner and outer geek and have fun while doing it. As individuals who love learning, innovating and believe in possibility as well as change, the second step of responsibility is to “be the geek that keeps on giving”. As a member of SGA, we work together as a global community to provide the tools and help others realize their true potential too!

“I AM A GEEK!” is a collaborative video project bringing together some of the biggest creators, personalities and web celebs taking on the online world.

“I AM A GEEK”, like all geeky side projects, started out as a tongue and cheek video we spent way too much time on and were going to simply throw out to the wild wild interwebs. But as more people came on board, the question of using “social media for social good” seemed to become more relevant. With Twitter and other social networking sites like Facebook blowing up by the second, it’s not only possible to get noticed and create “social capital”, but to use that for a greater good. Individuals now have the opportunity to be heard and bring awareness and attention to causes like they never had before.

After watching, “I AM A GEEK!”, we hope you are entertained, laugh a little or a lot.

We also encourage everyone to “be the geek that keeps on giving”. We’ve connected with a Room to Read, a great charity started by former Microsoft exec, John Wood, which builds libraries and schools for children in developing countries. You can give in many ways- by RT, blogging and passing on this Geek Advancement message to others, buying an “I AM A GEEK” t-shirt with proceeds going to Room to Read and/or by donating what you can now.

And if you would like to be a part of a user generated edition of this video there are instructions here

Twitter IS NOT the Same As Facebook Status Updates

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
9

Ok, first thing’s first: I hardly EVER do FULL re-blogs on randomsarah.com but when I came across this post by David Spinks, I HAD to re-blog. I get asked this questions SOOO many times, and he breaks it down really well. Give credit where credit is due! So thank you David for this great post!

This post is directed at YOU my Facebook friends! Twitter is NOT the same as Facebook Status Updates!

Isn’t Twitter just like Facebook updates? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this misconception. I think this issue can be attributed to the Twitter homepage’s question “What are you doing?“ This was always the main purpose of Facebook updates, to let your friends now what you’re doing. While this may be an aspect of how people use twitter, it is a small one. Twitter is used for much more which isn’t exactly explained on the homepage.

Facebook has recently remodeled their homepage, making it very similar to Twitter in that users are encouraged to post links, share content and it asks the question “What’s on your mind?“ While some might say that NOW facebook updates and twitter updates are essentially the same, there are still a few very big differences. (note: I’m not saying one is better than the other, rather that they serve different purposes) Here are 5 of the major differences…

1) Focus

Facebook now offers many of the same functions that twitter does. The difference is that Twitter focuses on these functions while Facebook’s live feed is only one of it’s many functions. While this may make facebook a more “well rounded” service, the great amount of functionality options create a a lot of clutter on the site, taking focus away from the feed. When you’re on twitter, you’re there for one reason.

2) Audience

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two services is who reads your updates. On facebook, the only people reading your updates are the people that you are friends with, meaning you both approved the friendship. When you post a message on twitter you are talking to the world. Unless you keep your tweets private (an uncommon practice on twitter) anyone can search twitter and find your tweets. Additionally, the people who receive your tweets in their homepage feed are anyone who’s interested enough to follow you, whether or not you follow them back. This allows you to connect with anyone, not just who you already know.

3) Conversation

On the facebook feed, the conversation around an update comes in the form of comments that are listed under the update. This greatly limits the amount of conversation you can have because it does not encourage the person who posted the original update to partake in the conversation any further. Also, on twitter, if someone replies to an update, the conversation stays relevant because people continue to read about it. On facebook, once the original update moves down the feed, so does the conversation. Both facebook and twitter provide a private message option; facebook uses a direct messaging system and provides a private chat window while twitter only provides the direct message.

4) Retweets

Twitter makes it much easier for valuable content to go viral than facebook. Someone can always post the link again but this is not as easy, or effective as twitter’s retweet. To add on to the audience issue, when you post a link on facebook, only your friends can find it. On twitter if you post a link, anyone can find it and share it with their followers using retweets.

5) Searchability

You can search the content on twitter. If you’re looking for posted links or any other content, just go to search.twitter.com and search keywords. There is no way to search the facebook feed. You either have to just keep scrolling, or remember who posted the update and check their feed.

So…in conclusion

The facebook feed and twitter may seem very similar in concept, however they are very different in purpose. Still not convinced? Here’s a very general comparison…

Facebook is a great way to see what your friends are doing. Twitter is a great way to see what the world is doing (friends included).

Making different content for different platforms

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
6

I have decided to start making separate videos for my tumblr account and hopefully foster a community over there that is separate from my random sarah community. Maybe they will both end up being the same…we will see.

I am trying to focus on my different communities across the social web and embrace the fact that they are different. In the spirit of this, I have un-linked my twitter feed from my facebook status updates so that I can try to focus on the facebook community as something that is separate from my twitter community.

Whats it all about

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
2

Some of you may know that for the last few months I have been working on my podcast called What’s it all About. In late December I partnered with Ambush TV, the company that is producing Gary Vaynerchuk‘s new show Obsessed, with Samantha Ettus, and we started the process of re-launching a show.

You may remember when What’s it all about first premiered. It was back in September during Web 2.0 week in NYC. The first episode we did was explaining twitter, and it got quite a bit of attention. I was surprised at how people responded to a show that I put together in my bedroom with my iMac, but the response was good. At one point the show was featured in iTunes “New and Notable” category.

It was very exciting. However I soon came to realize that I wanted to do more with the show and I did what I never should have done and that’s doubt myself. I realized that I couldn’t put out the kind of quality show all by myself, without funding, from my bedroom. (I probably could have if I really tried, but I doubted myself and I didn’t try) I only made two episodes of the show before I got discouraged with technical difficulties and no one to help me fix them.

So I started to look for a way to make the kind of show I wanted. Ambush TV came to my rescue! My friend Tim Kres-Spatz was starting Ambush TV with his friend Mark and I thought it was the perfect solution.

Ambush.tv creates original video content based on the passions of fresh faces from across the internet. We transform great ideas into high value, high definition productions of broadcast television quality.

Ambush TV has a studio space not to far from where I live, and they had the equipment to help give me great production quality for the show. I still needed some help with the techinical side of things. I wrote the show and hosted the show, but my editing skills were never that great (I was using iMovie) and I had a vision for the website for the show that I could not exicute on my own. So I brought in my friend Rob Blatt. He is an award winning producer and has been a podcast guy for years. Rob is now co-producing the show with me, he edits the show, and he did all the design on the blog. He took what I had in my head and helped make it real and for that I am very thankful!

The show is still in the developement stages but we want to develop it with all of you. We want to hear from you about what you would like us to cover on the show. We want your feedback, and anything you could do to tell people about the show would be greatly appreciated.

The other day I was watching that first episode and I realized that in September when originally launched the show I had less than 300 followers on twitter. (These days it’s close to 1,400) it made me realize how far I have already come and I have this great community to thank.

Well here is the first episode of the show for your viewing pleasure.