Socialmedialand

Archive for the ‘Socialmedialand Updates’ Category

I haven’t written in a while.

I know that.

But I’ve been doing some soul searching in the meantime. I really love my job, and I love what I do – but it just doesn’t seem like I have the drive to get home from work and put together a cohesive blog post anymore. All of my passion and all of my drive is going into my work and there’s not enough left over to maintain this blog. At the same time, so many other people out there are doing a fantastic job covering this industry and I don’t feel like I’ve been offering anything here that’s not already being done.

That being said, I DO love to share the things I learn and offer my particular opinion on them. Often that opinion exceeds 140 characters. So, I’ve decided to switch over to Posterous.

In case you’re not familiar with Posterous, it’s billed as “the simplest blogging platform to date” and I would describe it as a cross between a full fledged blog, and Twitter. By using a suite of email addresses you can send updates to Posterous that will then  update your Facebook, Twitter, Blog, YouTube, Flickr, or any combination of those things.

My plan is to use my Posterous feed for a wide varity of things I’m interested in and send those updates to Facebook, Twitter or here to Socialmedialand, depending on the type of content. Doing it that way will allow me to share an article, write a paragraph about my thoughts on it, and post to Twitter and here, without feeling like I need to develop an entire blog post.

You heard right, Socialmedialand is not closing – I think I’ve built up some great content here and a sizeable repository of resources (if you haven’t checked out the resource pages, I sincerely recommend it) so I want to keep it going, but just use it in a different way. Most of what you’ll see from now on will be short format posts summarizing other information I’ve found and offering my insight to what it means. If that’s not something you’re interested in, feel free to unsubscribe, I won’t be hurt (too much.) If you think that sounds great- click that orange subscribe button on the sidebar.

Socialmedialand has been under construction the last few weeks and I wanted to give you an idea of what new things are in store for you:

- The resources section: There’s a new page up there on the menu bar called “Resources.” Check it out. I provide you with tools you can use on your own adventure through Socialmedialand. Some of the things I find are so cool they need their own dedicated post – other things might just get added to one of the toolboxes I have included under resources. It’s my place to collect new things and your place to find new things, so check back often.

- The superficial side: You’ve probably noticed the new design, hopefully it’s a little cleaner and easier to read/use. Personally I’m a little bit in love with the customized subscribe, follow, and chat icons on the sidebar. Haven’t seen them yet? Look over there > (and hey, if you want to click on one who am I to stop you?)

Those are the two major updates you’ll see around here. Take a second to explore- oh and if you come back often you might just get a visit from a trickster up in the header…

_{*Photo credit: bucklava (Flickr)}

I want to apologize for my recent abscence here at SocialMediaLand - I didn’t have a laptop at SXSWi (which rocked by the way), then I spent an extended vacation in Texas and when I returned home I found that AT&T had dropped the ball causing my blog server to go down for several days.

But all of that is behind me now and I’m excited to get rolling on the list of blog topics I’ve been carting around with me in my little moleskin notebook for the past two+ weeks.

You’re probably pretty excited as well, so with no further ado…

Photo Credit: MollyPop (Flickr)

You may have noticed that my blog has taken a new name, Socialmedialand, and a new URL – socialmedialand.net. It’s an exciting day!

For the last 6 months or so I’ve been mainly focused on getting started and filling in some content but now that SXSW is coming up I wanted to polish some of the rough edges to get it ready.

While I was thinking about my personal brand in terms of the name of this blog, the direction I’d like it to take and what my niche is here it lead me to think a lot about the term “social media.”

What is “social media”?

I’ve read a few people’s blogs and heard some great arguments regarding the term “social media” and whether or not it’s descriptive of what we do in this industry. Here are my two cents:

One of the concerns regarding the term “social media” is that it’s too narrow. That it will be outdated in a few years and like the “Railroad Companies” that eventually had to rebrand into “Transportation Companies” we’ll find ourselves boxed in by our names. I don’t really agree with this. I think the narrow definition is only in the way individuals tend to associate “social media” with certain things – not the definition itself.

So here’s my definition:

 So-cial [soh-shuhl] Me-di-a [mee-dee-uh]: refers to any technology, space, network, or type of media that facilitates communication, sharing, learning, or other social activities.

By this definition, social media isn’t just Facebook and Twitter; it can be mobile applications; it can be email and IM; it can be things we haven’t even come up with yet – anything that uses a medium of some sort to promote or support any type of social activity.

How does this relate?

Using my working definition of social media I think it’s the appropriate name for the topic that I wish to discuss in this space. This blog, Socialmedialand, and the Alice in Wonderland theme will speak to the way that, like Alice,  we’ve found ourselves in a totally new world that is accelerating and changing at a pace unparalleled in human history. That means that the rules aren’t clearly defined and, like I did above, we’re free to make them up, change them, mold them and evolve them as we see fit. The things I write here will be the explorations of social media including thoughts on what the rules are (or aren’t), ideas on how to shape it and use it, examples of things that have gone right or wrong and more (got to leave room to evolve right?)

If that sounds good to you, click on the subscribe button over there on the sidebar.