Posted by The Blogging Desk on Tue, Aug 31, 2010
Microsoft:
The Outlook Social Connector connects Microsoft Outlook 2010 to your business and personal social networks. Within Outlook, you can stay up to date on the status and activities of your contacts, whether they are from your organization’s network, or from social networking sites on the Internet.
Frightening.
This new Outlook connector can work inside of the People pane so you can track updates, share messages, and comments. You can even track multiple social networks. At work. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy having my Facebook feed covered in farming and gun purchasing updates. What’s that, you can now check-in like Foursquare on Facebook? Even better, please check in all the time, friends!
I imagine such a tool would get locked down pretty quick, possibly immediately. Facebook and other site are generally blocked right off the bat at companies, so I’d be curious to know just how useful this Connector would really be. One can only pray for a Farmville Outlook Connector.
Posted by Matt Kolowski on Mon, Oct 26, 2009
Wait sorry, they also signed a deal w/ Facebook. Still nothing? Me neither.
On October 21, Microsoft announced that it had formed a non-exclusive partnership with both Twitter and Facebook, to include live status updates of searched topics into its results. Microsoft will be using a certain algorithm to determine how to show tweets by relevancy. My guess is whichever includes: "OMG Windows 7 is MZING LOLZ RT!".
I don't know about you, but when I search for the nutritional value of a small ice-coffee from Wawa, the last thing I want to see is some doofus posting a picture of himself pouring an iced coffee AT Wawa. Or, some tween remarking: "LMAO I need a coffee, SOOO TIREDZ". Get out of my Bing results, jerks.
Though, truth be told, when I saw a bunch of people talking about a balloon in my Twitter (which is awesome, BTW), I instantly went through the trending topics to see what everyone was blabbling about. And it only took me seconds to be instantly made aware of what was happening. I'm certainly not going to close my Twitter app, and fire up Bing Mobile to see why there is a boy flying across the US in a flying saucer. That's precisely what the hordes of intelligent people I follow are for.
That and telling me what they're eating for breakfast that day. Lord knows I can't LIVE without knowing that.
(It was eggs.)
Posted by Andrew Neumann on Thu, Oct 15, 2009
Windows 7 operating system? Check. High speed DSL connection? Check. Twitter account? Check. Facebook account? Check. Shovel, rake and a very, very tolerant attitude?? Whaaaaat?
I have always prided myself on being a person who is very tolerant of what others choose to believe in or how they occupy their spare time. I am all for getting the latest and the greatest, regardless of potential first generation ‘Bugs'. So it goes without saying, that in a world flooded by social media outlets like Facebook or Twitter, that I should shrug my shoulders and think nothing of an unusual application surfacing...until now. Consider this my official notification that I am drawing a line in the sand, getting on my soap box and speaking my mind (what little of it I have left) about an absolute abomination . . .drum roll please. . . FarmVille.
For those who may not be aware, and realizing that I am blogging, and my target audience is more than likely going to be in tune to the technical saviness of the world, Farmville is an application that allows users to grow their own farms by planting seeds, planting trees, buying farm animals, and harvesting crops. Awesome! Fun for the whole family! A complete and total waste of time. At the risk of sounding like someone stuck in a rut (no farming pun intended) I cannot see what the appeal of this application is. If it is the excitement of gardening you desire, here's an idea pick up a shovel and start digging. . in the actual dirt (you know that brown stuff) . . . cut loose the IT strings that bind you and get the heck outdoors! I assure you that you will feel better about yourself and the actual greenery you plant and harvest, more so than sowing row after row of blueberries amongst your palm trees and pink cows and then selling them off for a gaggle of geese and a few magic pumpkin seeds. Biting into a carrot that you harvested from your garden?? Priceless. Mindlessly planting, harvesting and selling off your crops on your 21" flat screen? You must be joking. Reaping the nutritious rewards from doing something that you may not have thought you were any good at will far outweigh the rewards of selling that chocolate milk that came from the brown cow in your virtual pasture.
Posted by Salvatore DeRose, Jr. on Thu, Oct 08, 2009
Apparently Facebook does. Hmmmm. Facebook cares about my happiness....what?!? Apparently if you write keywords in your posts, like "happy" and "awesome", it will increase the happiness scale, and negative words like "tragic" and "sad" will bring the scale down. The information will then show what dates are the happiest of the year and which are the saddest.
Really? This is one of the stupidest things I have heard about lately. There is probably a whole team of people at Facebook on this project, and why? Will it bring world peace? Does it really matter if I know how happy the Facebook community is on a whole? Will that make my day happier even though I spilled coffee on my pants on my way into work and I fell down the stairs on my way to lunch...I doubt it.
Posted by Salvatore DeRose, Jr. on Tue, Sep 08, 2009
Do you really still have a Facebook profile? Even after your little brother and your mom created one? Let's face it; Facebook is not what it used to be. Have you gone through your "friends" list recently? I bet there are at least 500 people on it that you do not know or talk to. What is the point? In the beginning, it was a great way to keep in touch with old college friends or coworkers who you did not get to see that often. It was fun to share pictures in a place where everyone had a profile and could be tagged. But today, Facebook has morphed into a commercialized and corporate version of what it once was. Sure you set your profile and photo albums to only be viewed by "friends" but are they really your friends?
Previously, one of my coworkers wrote a blog about social networks, and how they have been used to terminate or suspend people from their jobs. The major issue is, however, do you offend coworkers, managers, and bosses by not accepting them as a friend, or do you make them a friend, and let them see all the comments your high school buddies post on your wall along with all of the old tagged pictures of you from college parties?
This "social networking tool" is wasting hours of your life that you will never get back and drawing you further from your actual friends. According to a study conducted at Duke University, in 1985, people had one third more friends than they did in 2004 due to social networking sites. Now, twitter has become extremely popular and Facebook has seen an immense increase in the amount of new profiles being created. Instead of being creepy and looking at pictures of your old friends to find out what is going on in their lives, pick up the phone and call them.
Just admit it; Facebook has gotten to be just as bad as MySpace with the random pokes and messages coming from people you do not actually know. Also, with the addition of all the pointless status updates, gifts, and applications like Mafia Wars, SuperPoke, We're Related, and Bumper Stickers, Facebook is becoming more and more of an annoyance. Join the new movement and delete your profile... oh wait technically you can't. Facebook's Terms of Service (TOS) Agreement states that "you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content." Although you thought you had a profile on Facebook, Facebook really has a profile of you on their website. But that is a blog for another time.
Here is a really funny video about the annoying parts of Facebook:
Julian Smith - 25 Things I Hate About Facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVA047JAQsk
Posted by Liz Pagnotti on Fri, Jul 17, 2009
So I received an email yesterday from our Marketing department asking me to become a fan of our
company on Facebook. I have to ask myself....is this a good idea?
A while back I remember a blog that was written by a fellow co-worker, Dan Burnheimer, about being fired over MySpace or Facebook postings and I ask myself...should a company invite their employees to associate themselves to the company on a social networking site? This opens up a whole bag of worms of what people do in their personal time having an impact on their professional environment.
If I have a page where there are pictures/comments that are "not business-like" and I have no mention of where I work or what I do, then there is no impact on the company. If I associate my page to my company - and don't get me wrong... I know why they would want to do this...name recognition and getting the company name out there, and then I AM accountable for what is on my page and what my friends post on my page as well. Is that a chance I want to take?
Posted by Austin Herrera on Tue, Jul 14, 2009
So if you haven't been sitting in a cave for the past decade or so - you understand the power of a quality website. But it's 2009, and there are still so many companies that aren't harnessing the power of blogs and social media. For those small and midsized businesses out there who think it's stupid and a waste of time - you are wrong!
First off, blogs are a powerful way to constantly create new content - which search engines love! They have these things called web crawlers, and guess what - if you aren't publishing new content - they come back less and less. This means less pages are getting indexed by the search engine and people who could actually use your services can't find you because your site is 23 million results away from the top spot in search engines.
It couldn't get easier than putting together a blog every day - if you have a few employees you can have tons of fresh new content. If you are a one-person-business - write about your experiences day in and day out. Believe it or not - people read them!
So how do people come out and find the content you put out EVERYDAY (yes, you should add at least a blog EVERY DAY - or at least every work day)? Well that is where the power of social media comes in. You have friends right? Well I hope you do at least. You write something really cool about the newest (fill in the blank here) and you post it to Facebook, Linked-In, or Twitter. Now at least your friends know about it. If they find it interesting they can repost it for you on their page and so on. Then you have all of the social media sites for the big world out there that doesn't know you. So what you do is you go out to Digg, Redditt, StumbleUpon, and any other blog submission site and they go out and read it. Now you have real traffic - all reading your content! And guess what - they will click through your website to see if there is anything else of value to them - so next time I write I will address that but for now - START BLOGGING and GET SIGNED UP FOR SOCIAL MEDIA SITES!
So you still don't believe the power of the blog? Check out our site's statistics. We went from practically none in the beginning of the year to this month we will break 1,000 NEW viewers - all because of blogs.
Posted by Christopher Lyons on Thu, Jul 02, 2009
About two weeks ago, after being tangled in a lengthy love affair with the ever popular social networking site Facebook, I grew tired of the service (what can I say, the apps and requests that pollute my page really started to get out of hand). So just like any other social networking junkie would, I went out and found myself a new mistress, Twitter. After being against the idea of "tweeting" for quite some time, I gave in - and much to my disbelief, it's pretty cool.
Over the first few days, to be honest, it was rough. I wasn't even sure what I was supposed to do on the darn thing. I watched the "How To Use Twitter" video , which wasn't all that helpful, and then decided to make the best out of it. I started following my friends (only the close ones, Larry David and PDiddy - me and Puff go way back) and then I started to grow a small following.
What really started to spark my interest in Twitter though, was my coworker, Liz. If you didn't already see it, last week she wrote a pretty interesting blog discussing the idea that Twitter is for more than just socializing. I read her blog while at work that day, and was massively impressed. Upon my arrival home that night, things got even more interesting. While talking to a friend of mine, I found out that wanna-be celebrity scumbag, Perez Hilton, got punched in the face by someone associated with the Black Eyed Peas. That's pretty cool to begin with, but what I found out next was even cooler. Perez, after taking what was probably a much deserved pop to the face, sent a string of tweets out to his followers saying that he was being "assaulted" and needed the police. Like all good sheep should, people began calling 911 for him. In fact, there were so many people calling that the Toronto 911 phone lines became tied up!
It's really interesting to see the effect that social networking is having on our everyday lives. We are completely entangled with it. As terrible as it is that some idiot had his followers tie up 911 lines while there were other emergencies that most likely warranted more attention; it's amazing to know that something like tying up the Toronto 911 lines over a social networking site is even possible.
Before I wrap things up, I wanted to mention something else I've been reading about Twitter lately (that's far more notable than Perez), Iran. Over the past couple of weeks, Iran has been going through something along the lines of a revolution over their recent election crisis. Twitter has been playing a major role in the on goings over there. The mainstream media has been banned from the cities, and with so much violence and chaos amongst the land, the Iranians have been using Twitter to spread news of what's going on. Twitter has become so important in this crisis, that when it was scheduled to go down for maintenance during peak Iran hours, the U.S. Government asked that it hold off and let the flow of information continue.
I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty cool to see the transition that these social networking sites are going through, and how they are becoming prevalent and important tools all across the world.
Posted by Liz Pagnotti on Tue, Jun 23, 2009
Ever receive poor customer service at a retailer or over the phone when calling about a charge on your credit card? Or who hasn't argued with the phone or cable company? The statistics say that for each great customer service experience you have you tell 1-2 friends and for each bad experience you tell 9-10 people. Well, sites like Facebook and Twitter are changing those statistics as we speak.
If I go into a retailer and have a bad experience, my 150 friends on Facebook will know this before I even get out the door, not to mention the numerous people following me on Twitter.
As a business owner these days, there are many more worries about customer service than 10 years ago....heck, even 5 years ago. Many companies now have employees assigned to resolve people's complaints that are posted Twitter.
So I have a complaint about my telephone service and after spending 20 minutes on the phone with no resolution, I Twitter my frustration. Next thing I know, a customer service rep from the phone company Twitters me back and offers to set me up with a person who can resolve my issue. I am now a satisfied customer and didn't have to make numerous calls to the phone company only to press "1" for English, over and over again.
Posted by Christopher Lyons on Fri, May 15, 2009
The news headlines lately are littered with stories of employees being terminated or suspended for posting pictures or blog articles. I understand if a person posts from "company equipment or on company time", that is unacceptable. When an employee is at work, it is not their time anymore; the employer is paying them for their time and attention, to be applied to the tasks that are needed to be done. But sometimes employees are being fired and terminated when doing so from home, on their time and from their own equipment.
I personally find it disturbing that an employee's personal life can be brought into the workplace and be made a determining factor on whether that person has the ability to perform the function to which they were hired. Example:
A highly skilled, highly trained biologist is responsible for splitting atoms to help find a cure for cancer. That's what they were hired for and that's what they are paid to do. That person performs their job with great success. They are responsible and careful at their job. At home, that individual enjoys posting articles and pictures on his or her social networking site that define who they are and what their interests are. These views may be acceptable to some and unacceptable to others. If that person posts their opinion about the president or a fun picture from vacation on THEIR site; who has the authority or the right to JUDGE what is right and wrong? Of course, an employer has the right at any time to terminate an employee, as does an employee have the right to terminate the employment. I understand all of this, my question and my fear comes from...what is next? Will Employers want to interview my friends, relatives, past girlfriends, past college drinking buddies, High School principal, Elementary school teachers...to try to find out what kind of person I was 10,15, 20...25 years ago? Does that have any relevance on whether I can split an atom today? If a person posts an opinion about the world's economy, or the trades their favorite sports team made in the offseason, does that matter to performing the job they were hired for and are paid to perform, and do well? Or is this an outlet for employees to cut fat from the workforce without paying unemployment wages, or is it personal office politics, where a supervisor or Manager may find an employee unlike themselves in personality. Maybe that leader wants to bring in a friend who is out of work and unemployed? Maybe the employee mistakenly ate that manager's tuna salad four months earlier, and the grudge is still there.
I know what you are saying, if the pictures are of inappropriate content, then it is justified, and I agree. We all have an idea of what is just downright inappropriate. I will never defend that content, in fact I would hope for Police intervention if it was illegal. But I may find your pictures of your last vacation, when your cousin was drunk, passed out in vomit in extremely poor taste, but is that actually grounds for termination?
I hope the people who are making these decisions do not have any skeletons in their closet, no regrettable nights from College, no issues from childhood, no dark secrets. I am sure they do, and the hidden problems are the ones that scare me the most, because you never know if your neighbor or co-worker is a serial killer, or anything for that matter.
I have an idea; How about not going to that site, not looking into an employee's "personal window". Also, How about employed people don't post any articles, and don't post any pictures, of any kind. How about the whole internet just stop being public? How about the internet be as boring as the Encyclepedia Brittanica? Just the facts (Who's facts)? Sounds like a not-so-free society if we go any further.
Isn't this what makes America what it is?