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by: Anne Haynes

I received my brightkite t-shirt today from Zazzle.com. I took a picture - because a picture speaks a thousand words!

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The process of buying my shirt is interesting, so here it goes:

BigGuy: Brad and littleguy: Brad from bigguylittleguy.com (bigguy: @boffman and littleguy: @belpers) took a road trip to Brightkite in Colorado and they shared their trip on Brightkite. The first thing I noticed was the picture that was taken outside the Brightkite headquarters. There was Brad and Brad smiling for the camera with their thumbs up! Then came the Brightkite stickers! Oh man once I saw the stickers I had to have one. But wouldn’t a t-shirt be better? I posted a comment asking about a t-shirt. In minutes @brady (one of the founders of Brightkite) sent a message pointing me to Zazzle.com to buy a Brightkite t-shirt. I was done with my purchase in 2 minutes and my shirt arrived within a few days!

I spoke on the phone with littleguy tonight and he told me that Brightkite is about to open up the flood gates for everyone to join Brightkite. So, no need to ask me for an invite any more, everyone will have free access.

I’m looking forward to Brightkite opening up an advertising network because the already localized service it’s perfect for targeting specific geo markets. A little birdy and not twitter, also mentioned a video feature coming soon! I’m so excited and to think, just last week, I was talking about a Brightkite video feature being a natural extension of the already stellar service. Looks like I’m going to need to buck-up for additional memory on my cell phone now!

Think globally and act locally with Brightkite!

by: Anne Haynes

I just spent the morning on LisaNova’s YouTube and she is one funny girl! On Fridays I’ve been making a habit of finding the funny stuff on the internet. I was watching my FriendFeed and this video showed up on TechCrunch “The Rise and Fall of Twitter”. Enjoy, a good Friday Laugh!

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Last.fm just flicked the switch - and poof new design. I’m having a hard time having myBloglog recognize my last.fm account….more to come later.

by: Anne Haynes

Tonight I was thinking about an experience today on BrightKite, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook could hurt or help a marriage. I’m a somewhat new user to this type of communication and because it so fun, you learn through trial and error. Let’s face it- if you’re using iGoogle and gadgets it’s like a party behind your computer. You can think about these applications as a play ground for the ADD in you. These are the places where you receive quick fast and filtered industry information before anyone has time to blog about the latest news. You can comment on FriendFeed and reverse feed into Twitter. Bottom-line the days of keeping “in-touch” with people through email are going to become an experience of the past.

How to save a marriage using BrightKite, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook? I’ve turned on a few Kansas City, BBQ loving people, onto the using the four social media applications in conjunction together. And as my friends join, we figure out the ramifications of playing feisty online. Today, there was a conversation with @belpers on twitter when we joked about jealousy of friends. I’m an SEO Queen and while in my industry you can never know everything, when my following friend started making friends with another SEOers, I did get sensitive. Belpers aka BigGuyLittleGuy twittered his fear that his wife and teenage child would see his twitters about “girlfriend” and “jealousy”. Ahhhhhaaahaaahahahah! At first I was worried, but then I knew belpers and his character of being a loving husband, so there were no worries. But there could be situations when using these applications that it could be harmful to a marriage. Oh and let’s face it Christy Brinkley’s marriage issues are plastered all over the TV right now who needs more bad stuff.

Then in the middle of my evening belpers checks-in on BrightKite.com – I have a Brightkite invite if you need one send me a note. You can see through BrightKite, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook that he’s at the gym, then gas station and so on….!!!!!! It hit me that couples having issues with trust and jealousy could use these friendly tools to validate where they are at any given time of the day or night. Is trust a characteristic of a good marriage? Is jealousy a sign of a bad marriage? Can your Facebook profile help you when checking into your spouse? Well that’s up to you and how you use Brightkite, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook.

I love emerging technologies and I feel blessed to be associated with so many “A” players in the industry. Thanks for your includes and friendship!

by: Anne Haynes

In the past couple of months I’ve been playing around with Twitter.com and while this service was offered to me back in January 2008, I dismissed it as being lame. Why would anyone want to know what I’m doing right now? What value does knowing I’m drinking a latte at Scooters add to anyone’s day? Then one day I made “time” for Twitter! And it looks like Amazon has made 15 million dollars worth of time for Twitter. With this said, what does Twitter offer? Why would Amazon invest in a micro blogging service? Let’s discuss….

Product Ratings: real-time – Imagine if you purchased a mountain bike on Amazon and while you were riding your bike through the woods you loved it so much you sent a message from your cell phone. Yes, twitter allows you to send messages via your cell to a custom twitter email address. Now this review or rating you give via your cell phone syncs with Amazon and boom – you get the picture.

Product Photos: real-time – Imagine if you’re on that new bike and you decide to take a self portrait with your new bike – the one you purchased from Amazon (and the third party merchant). Well, now you have a following. While product ratings are great, personal pictures and events with a product are more interesting. Potential buyers need pictures and video on the internet today!

Product Chat: real-time – Imagine if you could talk to someone who’s purchased the bike right before you’re about to add your bike to the shopping cart? OK now it’s a different business model!

I remember back in 1995 when I was trying to be a chat room monitor for ZDNet. While I was never approved as a monitor on ZDNet, I did my duty monitoring an internet radio station’s video conferencing broadcasts using CU-SeeMe. And what I learned was there are “some” freaks on the internet! Mind you it was 1995 and I was one of the first women using CU-SeeMe and at this time – one of the first women on the internet and wow it was fun! I want to do another post about CU-SeeMe!!

Bottom-line, if Amazon is thinking of using real-time chat for products reviews, they need damage control! For the manufactures that create the products sold online, this should feel like a wake-up call. If manufactures aren’t listening to their buyers/customers this information should be a reason to install a blog and listen – track and monitor what the consumer really wants from their manufacturing plants. The best way to know what consumers/clients want is to listen and the best way to listen is to have a blog! Don’t worry enterprise manufactures, you have control over comments.

If you want to leave a comment, send me an email – I’m overloaded with blog spam and updating my own database and site – it takes time. Email me now!

by: Anne Haynes

In the last 2 months I’ve educated myself on social media tools and ways to make these tools work for you instead of sucking time out of your daily grind. I remember when I finally left myspace and went to facebook. It was early 2008 and while the glittery profiles brought me into Myspace and the music kept me logging into my profile, the industry news was drawing me to rekindle my facebook connection.

The facebook experience was overwhelming. It didn’t take long for me to hate facebook. The login alone gave me anxiety; too much to do and not enough understanding of what I was doing. Then the usability and data overload issues happened; friends requests, add application requests, announcements, etc. Facebook seemed like a big waste of time to me. But then I decided to soak; sit back, study, understand and analyze the facebook experience. It’s taken me a few months to get my facebook groove on, but it’s been well worth the time.

Today I read a segment in this months CREATIVITY Magazine (twitter:creativitymag) Refacing Facebook. In April of this year facebook announced a redesign targeting late spring, but the overwhelming feedback from the development community pushed the facebook redesign out. So with this said, more speculation on what will make a new facebook friendly is still out.

In the CREATIVITY Magazine article DL Byron, Principal, Textura Design mentions the lack of facebook integration within his other online presences/accounts. He specifically states flickr and YouTube. You know its times like these that DL Byron is wishing print production was just a little faster to the newsstands than technology is to social media. While he may have been referencing facebook as a technology entity, the facebook friendfeed application does this now. It’s clear in my consulting business and within the industry that the elite are onto these slick social media integration tools and it’s just a matter of time until these tools are second nature to everyone.

I’m just happy about my igoogle:

Let’s review:
I have the BeTwittered Google gadget on the left of my login page because well I read left to right and this concept is the same with dashboards. I have digg in the middle to keep me up on the hot topics on the internet. And finally, my favorite social media application: friendfeed on my right. What I find amusing is to see my twitters show up in friendfeed.

Now, let’s circle around to facebook:
In my facebook, I’ve added the friendfeed application and now all my friends can see my activity on the web.

It’s always tough to speak out about the social media industry especially when the topic is technology. Just when you say something doesn’t exist, the developers update the code and poof within seconds it exists.

For those of you wanting a dropbox invite, I just received a few more. If you need a BrightKite invite, shoot me a message.

by: Anne Haynes
You Know You’re a FriendFeed Poser When….

You find peoples names and do a Google search to figure out more about the person - then you add them.

You add people you don’t know.

Make comments in other peoples discussions, like they know you.

You find the latest, breaking news from someone else’s blog feed and then you blog about the same topic.

You start using old services you’ve lost interest in to be able to add more icons next to your name.

You create a room and no one joins your room.

You introduce FriendFeed and Twitter to your clients and make them use the services to communicate with you so you don’t feel alone.

You find yourself following someone you don’t know and liking things they like.

You “like” things you don’t read because you want to increase your “weekly” and “all time” numbers.

When everything is said and done, you’re not pretending you’re just following a bunch of people you don’t know. Then you realize - they don’t know all the people their following either. If you’re a FriendFeed user, will you please add me to your friends so I don’t feel like such a poser :)

I’ve been working with a client getting her iGoogle up and running with her blog site, Twitter, and FriendFeed. What I’ve noticed is that Facebook just appears when it wants too appear in FriendFeed. There must be a lag time of some sort - or I’m doing something wrong….

by: Anne Haynes

Google is launching Connect Friends services to enhancement websites with social networking features. Ingrid Michaelson, an independent musician, will be the first to test out the super search engine’s service.

In the Washington Post today, Peter Whoriskey touches on one of my biggest beefs with social media and networking; registration, userids and passwords, importing friends. In a previous post I touched on the social media industry and why there needs to be more integration.

I’ve been spending a good amount of time in FaceBook these days; petting my dog Rex, sending Slide/YouTube videos and cleaning up requests. I don’t know about you, but my experience in FaceBook feels like a messy house that never gets clean no matter how much time you spend cleaning. I keep deleting or hiding invitations, threads and post, but I never feel like my FaceBook page is presentable. It also feels like a big can of SPAM! If you need points to play games in your FaceBook applications, you can sign-up for BlockBuster.com and receive 2500 points to train, feed and pet your dog Rex. FaceBook is so busy with activities and SPAM that you couldn’t make a decent widget or gadget out of FaceBook. I am seeing a ton of marketing efforts within FaceBook and I’m guilty of marketing products on my FaceBook Page see my flickr photo of thecandleshop.net’s special occasion scented candle.

Let’s think about this Google Connect Friends service a little more…. Google Connect works with any website on the internet. No need to use an open source CMS system to build a social network, you can just add a snippet of code to an existing page on your website and instantly, users that are on your website can interact with each other real-time. Is it going to be like Second Life hits the web; pick a look, change your back ground and dance on cnn.com? Or is Google Connect Friends going to be more generic? I don’t know, but it’s going to be fun to watch the beta. Whatever Google Connect does, I hope it comes in a gadget format. I like to interact with my web services; Twitter, Google Talk and Digg using my iGoogle.