Tag Archives: web 2.0

A different kind of networking

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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I have been in the tech/social media community for about a year now, and I have met a ton of great people in our space, but I feel as if I am not doing enough. At some point you keep meeting the same people and none of it really leads anywhere. I have attended a lot of conferences, and been a part of lots of larger networking events. I have met some great people and more importantly some great new friends.

However, I would like to start networking on a smaller level. I love talking about social media and tech, and I always seem to be full of random ideas and references relating to media. So if you are in the NYC area and have any interest in meeting up with me in any capacity let me know. Even if you want to just get together and bounce ideas around, or if you are interested in getting into blogging or podcasting, I would love to meet you!

I am also looking for a company in need of a brand ambassador to attend SXSW, so if your company, or anyone you know, fits that bill I would really like to talk to you. I would love to work at your booth or do videos for your company.

The best way to reach me is to email me at: sarah.k.cooley [at] gmail [dot] com or contact me on twitter

A few things to note:

I am also available to talk via video conference if you are not in the area.

I am available for consulting at a small capacity.

I look forward to meeting more people and expanding my view of this world we call the social web.

What makes it 2.0?

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
Reply

This is a re-blog of a post I wrote for New York Tech Scene which just officially launched today. It’s a community blogging project that I have been trying to get off the ground for a while. Check it out!

I became compelled to write this post after seeing a twitter update from @naterkane.

I started to ask myself the same question. It seems like everything that I do, create, or attend seems to have 2.0 slapped on the end of it. Why is this? Why do we seem to have this fascination with this term? I decided to check the @replies to see what other people’s thoughts on the subject were. I found one from Jonathan Vanasco that was very interesting.

While I think it was a little harsh, he had a point. Adding 2.0 is you trying to say something about your event, product, etc; that you can’t seem to put into other terms. I myself have fallen victim to this trap. When it came time to title my video show I titled it “What’s it all about: Web 2.0″. While I don’t think that my offense is that bad because I am using the full term “Web 2.0″ I tend to have a problem with people slapping 2.0 on everything, especially in places where it makes no sense.

2.0 alone seems to refer to some kind of upgrade. There was version 1 and now there is version 2. It made sense and it was a system that worked until the O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004 where the term web 2.0 is credited for being coined. But now the term 2.0 seems to describe a group of people that are in the Web 2.0 community, and anything that they do, even when not tech related at all must have 2.0 on it.

At some point I guess we all excepted it as the norm, until someone comes along and questions it. But to end this on a light note, in my search I noticed a comment on Gary Vaynerchuk’s HUGE announcement today.

Fairwell Pownce

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
1

Pownce

Today, Dec 15 is the final day that Pownce lives! Many started using Pownce after Kevin Rose talked about it on diggnation. We formed a bond, we crashed Y! Live servers, we created a yearbook!

It was one of the best communities I have ever been a part of. Everyone was so nice and Pownce was the first community to add me as a featured user! To have Leah Culver email you because she likes the content you are putting up on Pownce and ask you if she can make you a featured user, well it just made me feel like I was doing something right.

So we will all miss you Pownce, nothing will take your place.

Generation Wh-Y Does it Matter?

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
46

Yesterday I attended Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle. With only a total of 50 people in attendance, SMJ08 quickly became the #1 trending topic on twitter. It was amazing to be in a room full of such influential people in our industry. Chris Brogan, Jeremy Epstein, Leslie Poston, Howard Greenstein, Dean Landsman, Jeffrey Sass, Nelly Yusupova, Brett Petersel, Oz Sultan, Steve Lubetkin, Jonathan Yarmis, Ben Grossman, Jamie Thompson, and Justin Oberman were the discussion leaders who talked about many different topics.

However one thing I noticed was that the term “Gen-Y” or “Millennials” came up a lot. This term of course refers to my generation, people who were born between 1982–2001. They are sometimes described as an “overachieving, over scheduled” generation. Many people will also sub-define this generation into the “MTV-generation” born from 1985-1990.

One of the reasons that these terms are used so much in social media is because of all the stats associated with this generation.

  • 97% own a computer
  • 97% have downloaded music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
  • 94% own a cell phone
  • 76% use instant messaging and social networking sites
  • 75% of college students have a Facebook profile and most of them check it daily.
  • 60% own some type of portable music and/or video device such as an iPod
  • 49% regularly download music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
  • 34% use websites as their primary source of news
  • 28% author a blog and 44% read blogs
  • 15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week
  • 8% have confessed to having an online gaming addiction at some point in their life

While I am sure all of this is true, I feel that as an industry we really need to stop categorizing our users into stereotypes. I am not a big person on terms and studies so the idea of categorizing all people born from one year to another as having the same habits, behaviors, etc, really upset me. Of course this is my personal belief and I’m am sure someone can argue the other side just as well, but I for one am so tired of hearing the “don’t put up drunk pictures on facebook” speech. (we know already, we aren’t stupid…well some of us are)

When I first started making videos and blogging a lot of my friends seemed worried. “What happens when you want to find a job, your employers are going to see this!” I answered, “I SURE HOPE SO!” What I do online speaks for me, but it speaks in a good way! I know that I have managed my digital life well and in a way that will only work to my advantage when I am being interviewed for a job.

I think in social media we should try and consider everything on a user-to-user basis, while you might not think that someone who is 50 wants to twitter, they might! What surprised me the most about all the talk of Gen-Yers yesterday was that I know so few people my age who are anxious to try new digital tools. The masses are happy with facebook and myspace! (I have no idea why) But maybe we should start to figure out a new term for people who use the tools that we use, cause I don’t think it has anything to do with age!

Yesterday one of the presenters was saying how he always says he is the oldest guy in social media and then he made a joke about how he still remembers his CompuServe ID. HELLO….I STILL REMEMBER MY COMPUSERVE ID! I have been using the internet for just as long, heck I still remember DOS prompts! We need to stop talking about age and start talking about the level of the user! Age is just a number.

That’s just my 2 cents!