The World at Large is Transitioning to the New Digg?

If you are active on Digg.com you receive a steady stream of email notifications telling you that people are now following your account, because they are “interested in what you are up to on Digg!” or some such. Well as if that steady stream of “fan following” wasn’t enough… it’s apparently started coming from the NEW Digg as well.

In recent days ‘power users’ have noticed that their in-boxes are filling up with a new stream of fan notifications. It would seem that Digg, which last I heard had given out invitations to about 10,000 people to the new Digg, has significantly expanded that to include the online public at large? Heck if I know in truth. All these “new Digg fan emails” do tell me several things though.

1.) Teh NEW DIGG is COMING!

OK enough drama… but the thing IS coming. This means that we’re definitely moving deeper into a transitional phase into the functional start of the new site. Does that mean it’s coming this weekend? Probably not. But Read more…

My 89-Year-Old Grandma Loves Playing Solitaire on iPad

So when my mother first bought an Apple IIc back in the day, one of the main things that we got it for, aside from me being able to play King’s Quest II or whatever, was that my Dad could learn how to use the mouse and keyboard better. My Dad had been a security guard and a bookie so the last thing he ever bothered learning was how to use a mouse. Turns out that solitaire did the trick. He got pretty decent on a computer by using the mouse to click on the right cards..

It was perhaps even better for my Nana on the iPad today. She’d never seen one of these fandangled things before but within about 10 minutes she had most of the movements all figured out and was enjoying the game. She already knew how to play solitaire IRL — it was just a matter of picking up the movements on the screen. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed watching her, at the age of 89, pick up this popular new technology.

How to Start Your Publisher Profile on the New Digg

“Diggers don’t die we multiply.” - Neal Rodriguez

I’ve been getting a lot of requests from people on what they should do to get started with a publisher account on the new version of Digg. I’m really not interested in saying too much myself - since it can all be said relatively easily by my man Neal Rodriguez. He has his own special brand of dropping knowledge in the social media scene. Very few people can mix Lindsey Lohan’s panties and 2012 destruction into a soliloquy on Digg.com. Here’s what he has to say about how to start your own publisher account.

Twitter140: They Drew a Cartoon of Me

My trip to New York City to speak at the Twitter140 Conference in June, 2009 was one of the most fun experiences I have had in my years of working in social media. I had recently started my job at Village Voice Media at the time, and was sent to represent the company in the Big Apple. What would I talk about? The effect Twitter was having on newspapers and journalism at the time. There was a lot to consider and to say.

This already looked like a bit of a pressure-cooker, but the excitement mounted when I learned who I would be speaking on a panel with; Etan Horowitz, tech writer at the Orlando Sentinel, Patrick LaForge, the Director of the Copy Desks at the New York Times and Peter A. McKay, a writer at the Wall Street Journal. To top it all off, we would be moderated by Eric Schonfeld, the co-editor at TechCrunch. Here we are represented in cartoon form. That’s right, cartoon form.

This artist Jonny Goldstein had a great idea. He would encapsulate what was discussed by each panelist, on each panel, throughout the conference, through cartoons. I had never been a cartoon character before so I was pretty thrilled afterward. His Flickr Photostream shows dozens of other panels and what speakers talked about.

So the morning of the conference, my buddy Alexia Tsotsis and I talked about what I would say, grabbed breakfast and got pumped for the panel. She was so inspirational and helpful. Once the panel started, the other speakers and I talked about how we managed our respective Twitter followings, how news crews had begun to use Twitter and other ways the social media service had changed journalism. It went great and I felt I held my own with the panelists. Here’s the video.

I have to say I was happy to have my own cheering section, lead by the aforementioned Alexia. By the way, my favorite panel at the Twitter140 conference that time around was the fiery argument between NBC news anchor Ann Curry and a CNN producer about foreign news coverage among the networks, and how Twitter was hurting or helping that. This controversy centered chiefly around CNN usage of Twitter with regard to the Iranian election protests at the time. I was impressed because Curry’s knowledge and understanding of Twitter was extensive. She was also very nice when I talked to her after.

Why Some of the Best Facebook Status Updates Don’t Even Include a Link

People who operate company Facebook fan pages are always looking for ways to grow their communities and increase interaction with followers on the site. It’s plainly obvious, just by looking at analytics, that fan pages have become hubs for building interest in news organizations. It takes an arsenal of methods for growing that interest. Perhaps the greatest weapon in the arsenal are tweets that don’t include links back to your site.

Counter intuitive you say? Aw c’mon. See the forest for the trees. So many people who run fan pages include links back to their site on every update, and it grates on the nerves frankly. I know where your site is. I’ve become a fan for pete’s sake. You don’t need to spit it at me several times a day. Here’s an example of why you don’t need a link back from my friends at OC Weekly.

This is among the best status updates you can do to improve community. 11 ‘Likes’ in 6 minutes. Not bad. Why did it work so well?
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Tweets that Don’t Suck: The Axiomatic Tweet

An axiom is a declarative statement about reality. Merriam Webster calls it a “an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth.” There’s something about these things that makes them among the best tweets. I guess I just enjoy reading insightful statements by people. Honestly, when I see someone write axiomatic tweets, that causes me to consider following them instantly. Today’s tweet that does not suck is an example of that.
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3 Bosses Who “Get” Social Media

The following post first appeared on the site Focus.com at this link. It’s a great site and I am going to be an ongoing contributor.

In all the years I have been involved with news organizations, whether they be radio, TV or print, most of my bosses haven’t been very internet savvy. In recent years though that has begun to change. Now the people in charge of newsrooms are starting to become web literate. The influx of Facebook and Twitter has caused old school journalists to move online, and see the possibilities for their company sites, as well as the advertising on said sites.

It goes without saying that some “get it” when it comes to social media more than others. Some just have no clue, and I’m not going to talk about them here, because I would prefer to focus on where we’re going, instead of where we’ve been (at least for this post). Here are three types of bosses who know where we are going, and are adjusting their old media jobs to fit the times.

The Youngin’

She’s young… maybe 31 or 32. She could perhaps run her publication’s social media strategy herself if she didn’t already run the newsroom. She likes playing video games in her spare time. She knows what makes a story shareable on the web. She spends time on FARK and understands the humor that it takes to get one of the site’s admins to put her content on the front page. She spends time looking at the front page of Digg. When she submits something to Digg, there are people who actually digg her content because they recognize her as having dugg their content. She’s a member of several social networks in fact. She’s just as likely to tweet something as she is to update her Facebook page (or that of her news organization).
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Wow, they only have 42 of ‘em? (pic)

I’m sitting at home fiddling around on teh internets, when suddenly, outta nowhere, I lose my internet connectivity. What the hell is van #42? Paranoia set in pretty quickly.

Turns out there was a bad accident on the expressway in front of my house. 3 cars banged up bad. Van #42 was here as part of the 2-hour investigation. Once it left, my connectivity issues were long gone. The paranoia always seems to linger in this brain of mine though.

Live Diggnation! Oh How Meta.

My whole life is about META. I worked at TV stations so long that at times I felt more interested in TV station culture and life than I was with the actual delivering of the information. The latest gossip about where a reporter or news director had just gotten a new job always enthralled me. When I worked a radio station for five years, I became just as fascinated by that dying media culture as I was by the act of anchoring news broadcasts each afternoon. (That’s actually the job I miss most. Too bad the pay was shite.) Anyway, now that my life is steeped in social media, there’s nothing I love more than a huge Web site celebrating just how popular and cool it is. So it was with my first ever live Diggnation show/performance in San Francisco last Saturday night.

One would think that after spending years of my life on the social media site Digg, I would have made it to at least one Kevin Rose/Alex Albrecht on-stage booze-fest. Alas, no. I’ve never been to even one Digg meet-up. Amazingly for me, I was surprised at how much fun I had, and how fanboy-y I am. I am sad that there may not be any more of these come the end of the year, because Rose is starting a new show. Read more…

Pics from Bay Area Digg Meet-Up 1-15-10

I never thought I would actually have the chance to meet the great digger Tal Siach. He’s Israeli, and since he’s on the other side of the Earth, that means I’m never going to get to meet him right? Not so. He visited the States over the last week for the Consumer Electronics show in Vegas. Then he went to Southern California to visit another friend Jason Lankow briefly. After that, he came up to San Francisco, where he and several other diggers hung out for an impromptu social media meet-up.

We met at Medjool’s, a club in San Francisco’s Mission District. We socialized, shot the shit and hung out on their roof. It was good meeting Tal, who turns out to be one of the nicest guys around. I also hear that his web site Walyou is having a lot of success. I am very happy for him! Much thanks to Sharon, a.k.a. SunGoddess808, for the group picture she took!
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