DISQUS

I've been following this practice for quite some time. As you said, it's not a popularity contest, and it's senseless to just throw out a string of names. I will use more than one name in a #followfriday tweet if I identify them as belonging to a category, ie. nonprofit bloggers.

Twitter and Facebook status updates and notes move so fast that it's difficult to keep up with what friends/followers are doing. Periodically scan your list and look for people you haven't interacted with in a while. Send them a Facebook message or write on their Wall to say hello. Give them a shoutout on Twitter or send a DM to let them know you are thinking about them. The same principle works on other social networks as well because (as I always say), "It's not about the technology, it's about the people."

Figures that Barnes would have trouble enjoying a simple, "lowbrow" pleasure like fried food. Perhaps the title "social columnist" is an attempt to get away from the stereotype of the snooty society gossip columnist, which is a more accurate description of him, in my opinion. Anyway, thanks for the shout-out. I'm glad to know I'm representing Austin well in the social category.

Great advice. A few months ago I took a Saturday afternoon and completely organized by Delicious bookmarks -- time well spent. Like you, I sometimes get carried away and add too many tags to something I'm bookmarking. When choosing tags I ask myself the question, "If I wanted to find this article again, what word would I be likely to search on?"

Since you can't have spaces in a tag, I combine certain words to make a tag, i.e., socialmedia. But for others that might not be so common, I join them with a + sign, i.e., crisis+comms. The main thing is to be consistent once you have decided on a tag. Delicious has an autofill feature that makes for easy tagging. Just type the first couple of letters and a list of tags you've already created pops up.

Todd, I'm so honored to be on your list--many thanks for including me and for your friendship. It was great to get to meet you this year.

Just to set the record straight, I'm not one of the leaders of BlogHer, although I've been privileged to speak at BlogHer Business and BlogHer in Second Life.

Happy New Year, friend!

Great list, Chris. You introduced me to a couple I didn't already know. One addition I would make: Beth Harte's blog, The Harte of Marketing. (on Twitter as @BethHarte) She's someone to watch in '09.

Connie Reece - Austin, TX
@conniereece

<abbr>Connie Reece’s last blog post..Twitter: Lessons from Mumbai</abbr>

Chris, I just tried to give through the Chip-In widget but got an error. Will try again in a few minutes--just wanted to give you a heads-up to check it on your end as well. So glad to hear about the family who got the toys you and the kids bought. What a great story.

Great advice. Here's another tip. Announce to your followers that you will be live-tweeting an event and that if they're not interested in the topic, they can put you on "snooze" temporarily so their Twitter stream won't be flooded by your live tweets. See http://twittersnooze.com allows you to "mute" a person from 1 to 30 days without unfollowing them.

In addition to the Twitter search for #mumbai, I created an Advanced Search that shows tweets originating from a 15-km radius of Mumbai, written in English, and using the #mumbai hashtag. I created a feed from this search: http://tinyurl.com/5ct3nv

Also, I'm using a new app created by @BrooksBennett called Tweetchat. It's like a chat room for a particular hashtag. Use the URL http://tweetchat.com/room/mumbai and log in to Twitter. The "room" shows all tweets with #mumbai hashtag. The page auto-refreshes, and you can also post an update from the tweetchat room and the app automatically appends the hashtag for you.

Very excited to see this joint venture on the way newspapers are adopting social media. Great opportunity to do some "best practices" writing here.

Chris, I <3 you. But you already know that. :-)

Thanks for this. I'm sure it will be helpful.

\o/ <---- me cheering for Nanna J!!! Awesome accomplishment. (And I agree with all the comments about what a great picture this is.)

I'm replying from an industry meeting of association executives where I came as a sponsor. Everybody is fascinated by what I do and eager to learn but don't know where to start. This is research for me - to develop programs for different industries. I decided to jump out of the echo chamber back in the summer & very glad I did.

Really like this, Chris. Great idea, great site -- love the Dad-o-Matic blog design. The logo reminds me of my dad, actually. He was an auctioneer who ran several wholesale auto auctions. When I was three, I could name every car on the road; of course, there were a lot fewer models back them.

Best wishes for success with the new site.

Nicely said, Mike. I've always been impressed with the way that you, as a single dad, have managed to put your family ahead of your career. And how come you didn't tell me Chris was working on this cool site? Now I have to go explore. :-)

Thanks for the mention of Frozen Pea Fund. I read the Clive Thompson piece and bookmarked it. The phenomenon may be mere "ambient awareness" but it can lead to genuine community. And like offline communities, members of online communities celebrate and grieve together.

Glad you joined the Social Media Club! Our Austin group has been going strong since we launched early last year, and it's been a very rewarding community. I've learned a lot, made friends and found clients.

Awesome cover shot -- no wonder they featured your work! Congratulations, Chaz. Well done.

Awesome recap! That was a huge amount of material to go through and pull out some of the main points. Thanks for including links to those resources. I still have so much to learn about Second Life, but I look forward to sharing that knowledge with others.

Connie Reeces last blog post..When women blog, it’s fashion?

Wayne, the only time anyone ever sees the custom CSS page is when they click on a person's profile -- probably when they are deciding whether to add them. I thought GJ's Fail Whale background was hilarious. The animated gators are an eyesore (in my opinion) and if I didn't already know the person, would probably not add them. So maybe the backgrounds provide a service by giving a glimpse inside a user's mind.

What hurt MySpace was not the cluttered backgrounds, but the spam friend requests. Now they're beginning to hurt Twitter. It's become more of a broadcast channel than a place for conversation. BTW, I unfollowed your plurks after one week because they were so frequent they overwhelmed my timeline and were not producing conversations that held my attention.

Steven, thanks for writing about this story. The only thing I would disagree with is that I don't know anyone who has the naive, utopian attitude you ascribe to those of us working in social media. People are people, online and offline, Web 1.0 or 9.0 -- you'll find good and bad apples.

I decided to donate $10 in order to see where the PayPal account for LillyAnn was going. Had we been able to verify the need, I would have given much more and would have spread the word. But, as you know, we could not even find out the name of the hospital she was supposed to be in. I immediately began speaking out, as did a few others.

Unfortunately some people are embarrassed or afraid and keep quiet. That lets the evildoers win.

Another excellent post! I didn't know that we could be fans of each other and still not be friends. Now, of course, I have to go check and see if I thought to add you as friend and if not, do it immediately. Thanks for the good info.

Congratulations, Scott. Ford could not have made a better choice!

I agree with your point that it's not which provider (Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku, etc.) it's microblogging/presence apps themselves that are here to stay. Twitter has the market lead if they don't blow it. I use both Twitter and Plurk regularly, like them both for different reasons, but most of the people I want to stay in touch with are still on Twitter. It's the people that matter to me, not the technology.