Successful Blog

Cool Tool: screenr – Screencasting How to Add Text to Your Twitter Background

by

Screencasting Fast and Easy

screenr_logo

Screencasting is recording actions on the screen with narration. It’s a great way to show people how.

What it says it does: allow screencasting without software.
How well it does that: screenr is easy and intuitive.

  1. Size the capture screen to the website you want to discuss.
  2. Click the record button and record.
  3. Pause if you want.
  4. Then wait, a few minutes for it to process.

Embed the screencast in your eCourse, download the video as MP4, upload it to your You-Tube channel, and watch it on your iPhone! Send it to Twitter. Post it on your blog.

It’s free and great to use.

How to Add Text to Your Twitter Background

For fun, I made this screencast of how to add text to your Twitter Background. It was mostly to test the tool.

Here’s the link to the screenr version.

Lots of ways to share information with people using screenr and your expertise.

I make connections . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Buy the ebook and find out the secret.

How To Announce Your New Blog Post In Your Twitter?

by

This is a how-to post.  I’ll keep this post simple.

Background

I think I am a lazy person actually.  Whenever I write a blog post, I know that the next thing I must do is to tweet about it in my Twitter account so that I can let my followers know.  Such a task can be leveraged to the computer to help us do it since it is just telling our twitter followers about our new blog post.

Requirements

  1. You must be using a WordPress platform.
  2. You must be an administrator in order to configure this properly.
  3. It is ok if you are using the free wordpress.com platform, or if you have installed wordpress in your own domain name.

Let’s get it started!

Step 1: You will need to download “Twitter tools“.

Step 2: Unzip the contents of the entire folder “twitter-tools” and upload into your wp-content/plugins/ directory. (You’ll need to know how to use FTP)

Step 3: Go to the Plugins page in your WordPress Administration area and click ‘Activate’ for Twitter Tools.

Step 4: Go to the Twitter Tools Options page (Options > Twitter Tools) to set your Twitter account information and preferences as shown in the screenshot below.

twitter-tools-1

This is my way of tweeting automatically after adding my new post.  What other methods have you used?

This post was written by Charles. He has been an Internet reviewer since June 2007.  He pours his passion for Internet marketing and Internet branding into his Twitter account actively at @charleslau,

Can bing Help Me Decide?

by


What Is This bing Thing?

bing arrived on my radar with an email that said …

In August, Bing shopping and cashback will offer significantly higher rebates from hundreds of retailers to help consumers save on essential back-to-school items. Below please find a press release that highlights the survey [and] information on Bing shopping’s upcoming back-to-school promotion. Also, watch for more information about the promotion on the Bing cashback Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cashback .

I accepted an invitation to talk with Melissa Powell, Senior Product Manager, bing, about the recent research and the the new “decision” engine.

How Does bing Help My Decisions?

binglogo

The first thing Melissa said was, “The search interface hasn’t kept up with the explosion of content.” In response to that situation Microsoft wanted to cater to what people are doing online and where they are searching for it.

bing has identified four verticals as important: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business. For example, in travel bing has several interactive tools to help travelers. They include …

  • Price Predictor uses Farecast technology to predict whether the price of a flight is going up or down and offers a “Buy Now” or “Wait” recommendation with a confidence level and expected price increase or decrease over the next seven days.
  • Rate Indicator analyzes historical rate data to determine whether the current price is a good deal.
  • Travel Deals features up-to-the-minute flight and hotel deals for nearly 40 cities around the world and why particular flights are considered deals.

Melissa underscored the bing quest by stating …

Bing helps you make better decisions faster, especially in the key areas of shopping, travel, health and local. One of my favorite features is Bing shopping, which helps you search, shop and save in a snap. With back-to-school just around the corner, you can save on millions of products from hundreds of the nation’s top retailers. Starting August 10 and for a limited time, we’ll offer as much as double the normal cash back from select retailers to help families save on their back-to-school essentials.

Research Before I Decide …

You can’t miss the beautiful design of the homepage the changes daily and becoming a member of bing has perks — open a bing cashback account, get bing news alerts, add bing map collections, and gain full access to the bing Webmaster Center and the bing Developer Center.

I signed up. Well, I started to, but I don’t have an MSN Live address and I’m not sure I want another id … as pretty as bing is, I decided more research was in order.

So I used bing to check bing versus google.
You can check and compare here …

I compared the cost of living between Chicago and Salt Lake City. I think Google got closer to what I might want to know.

Some folks say bing maybe offering information to sway my decision … I tried to find more examples of bias and wasn’t successful. Some folks are more clever than I.

Decide or Decide to Buy? …

From the first hello “every bing” has been about buying. The introductory email pointed to a back-to-school shoppers survey. I learned that:

  • 56% of shoppers won’t be buying Back-to-School supplies online
  • 75% will trade down to get more value for price

At the sign up screen, I was greeted with

bingcashback

and when I hesitated to complete that step … I was received an email reminding me of the opportunity to get cash back on my purchases. It read,

Hello,
Welcome to Bing, the search that pays you back!

What I hear is not “decide,” but “decide to buy.”

Can bing Help Me Decide?

A small sign upper right on the bing home page reads:

Live Search is evolving. Tour Bing …

Can bing help me decide?

I keep remembering my mom saying “if everyone jumped off the bridge …” As Judy Shapiro said,

Maybe I am just too independently minded (and not the primary target), but I resist the notion that Microsoft technology will decide anything for me. What I really want is technology to give me the information I need to make the decision I want.

Have you tried bing? What did you find?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

What Is Twitter?

by

The LANGUAGE of SOCIAL MEDIA

Words have a deep effect on
how we interpret and interact with the world.
The words we use and how we define them
reveal our interests, concerns, and values.
This series explores the words of social media.

2034452099_634a614e91_large-twitter-bird

Twitter

Twitter.com — it’s a phenomenon. Each person is limited to talking in 140 characters, but quickly we find that we can say almost anything. It has become the world’s largest networking room without walls, a room in which people can tune in or tune out the short statements of millions of Tweeple who write every minute of every day what they’re thinking about.

People on twitter share their lives, share their business, share their incidental thoughts, broadcast noise and whisper secrets that are overheard in a public timeline. Dramas take place friends are made. Deals are done and undone. Humanity is on stage.

It’s the comfort of the hive mind.

Here’s how some folks define a Twitter …

@mincedmedia: “Group text messaging with your friends and fans. ”
@sizzler_chetan: “microblogging and social networking tool…”
@maxineappleby: “therapy”
@mcb927: “Twitter is defined by the ‘small world’ networks using it.–an abbreviated WWW (txt length) w/ self-propogating hubs & nodes.”
@Brainmaker: “The pia mater. You know.”
@DrKathleenYoung: “free association?”
@spin: “Turn-based chat for those not skillful enough for real-time chat ;)”
@ajinnashville “Twitter is that friend in the room that doesn’t mind just sitting there and listen to you ramble…but that also doesn’t mind telling you ur full of crap when you’re finished blabbing (in a positive way, of course) :)”
@Infinite_Ray “I see twitter as a utility to meet people and have conversation before actually meeting in person, and for business leads & rel.”
@charnellpugsley “Engagement. Relationship builder. Real-time connecting.”
@sizzler_chetan “A place where you can update your status, promote your stuff, read news in the fastest way and enjoy networking.”
@jnswanson “what people used to say passing in the hallway. Only the hallway’s huge.”
@joetorma
“Twitter is what now was before it was then”
@hummingbird604 Definitely. I call on my twitter friends to help me and comfort me (as I often do the same)
@PAWeissenstein Also to share articles, points of view and opinions (mine and others) with people. The penultimate soapbox!

What is twitter?

For more information see:
Princeton WorNet
Wiktionary
Wikidpedia
edigorami

SEE ALSO:
What Is Social Media?
What Is Social Networking?
What IS a Social Community?
What Is Online Social Media Conversation?
What Is a Blog?

What Is Twitter?
Got more to add? C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

What Is a Blog?

by

The LANGUAGE of SOCIAL MEDIA

Words have a deep effect on
how we interpret and interact with the world.
The words we use and how we define them
reveal our interests, concerns, and values.
This series explores the words of social media.

 

 

social media conversation

A blog, or weblog, is a certain type of website that includes regular entries of text, graphics, or video, commonly organized by date in reverse chronological order. To blog means to add content to such a site. Blogs are considered non-traditional publication media or participatory journalism, because of the user-generated nature of the content. Bloggers often write blogs that are read by other bloggers who comment on their blogs.

Blogs are different from traditional websites in that the software allows for content to be added and updated easily and frequently by someone with the experience it might take to send an email.

Blogs are, by definition, on the Internet. They help form the weblike and socially networked structure of information through comments, blogrolls, linkbacks, and backlinks. The linking of one blog to another to cite articles or recommend a good blogger has become both part of the human culture bloggers share and part of the algorithm used by search engines to determine quality content in this user-generated content venue.

Originally blogs were thought of as online journals in that the entries or blog posts added to form a growing collection. The subjects blogs cover — personal thoughts, business advice, political commentary, news, science, education, crafts — are as varied as the people who write them. Wikipedia says this about the types of blogs:

There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.:

  • Personal blogs
    The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. …
  • Corporate blogs
    A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs.
  • By genre
    Some blogs focus on a particular subject … Two common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog feaurting [sic] discussions especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.
  • By media type
    A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).

As blogging software becomes more versatile and complex, possibly only certain truth one can rely on is that every blog is a website, but not every website is a blog.

Here’s how some folks define a blog …

@Crubalo : “It’s a platform for sharing info, knowledge and experiences with others. ”
@auburnelle : “Using Common Craft: http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs .” [see link]
@gassho : “bright liquid oogling goo … crowdsourcing this ain’t :).”
@AdamKingStudio “An open, yet personal platform for sharing, informing, and interacting.”
@donovantalk : “One thing a blog can be is a series of (300-400 word) mini-editorials. It can also be a rolling river of links and posts.”
@DaveMurr : “B – Begining a community, L – Letting the conversation happen, O – leaving the welcome sign On, G – Giving more than you take.”
@carole_hicks: “An online diary. Random thoughts. A place to pour out your heart and reveal yourself. A place to promote others.”
@MindofZ: “There are so many kinds. A blog is someone showing the world who they are. Or a part of themselves anyway.”
@TimboReid “Online sharing = A Blog.”
@DavePollard “blog (1): diary/journal chronicling its author’s stories, thoughts, or learnings, available for others to ‘subscribe’ to. blog (2): social s/w tool that enables blogging but can also be used to ‘publish’ e-newsletters, or as online learning tool etc.”

How do you define a blog?

For more information see:
Princeton WorNet
Wiktionary
Wikidpedia
gender It

SEE ALSO:
What Is Social Media?
What Is Social Networking?
What IS a Social Community?
What Is Online Social Media Conversation?

What Is a Blog?

Got more to add? C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

What Is a Social Media Friend?

by

The LANGUAGE of SOCIAL MEDIA

Words have a deep effect on
how we interpret and interact with the world.
The words we use and how we define them
reveal our interests, concerns, and values.
This series explores the words of social media.

social media friend

Traditionally friend denotes a co-operative relationship that includes supportive action usually based in knowledge, respect, loyalty, and some availability in times of stress or crisis. Friendship can grow from participating in common activities, spending time in common work or study spaces, and usually involves discovering common values. A friend protects and looks out for a friend. Honesty and some degree of intimacy are hallmarks of friendship.

In any situation, the quality of “friend” depends on the reason for connecting, the situation, the longevity of the existing relationship, and the sophistication of the people in the relationship.

Linking up on a social networking site is is often called “friending,” as in Liz wants to be your friend. Those we connect with instantly become our “friends” in that network database. These can be non-personal friends, such as when two countries enter into an agreement for political purposes and international relations. Connections made to extend a network’s reach might be seen in this light.

Relationships online also rise to the level of personal friendship. The values of the social web — authenticity, honesty, transparency of purpose, and trust — make it natural for like-minded people to become friends in a real sense. Many people in social media overlook the term and hold friend to a higher meaning than a non-personal connection.

A growing number of meetings in person has added to this complex situation. In a simple, nonscientific social survey Twitter users answered this question this way. We seem to be drawn to meeting those we friend online.

What percent of all your friends are online friends only
— you’ve never met in person?

less than 20% 28 responses(43.75%)
20-40% 7 responses (10.94%)
40-60% 11 responses (17.19%)
60-80% 9 responses (14.06%)
more than 80% 9 responses (14.06%)

A totally equal distribution would be 20% in each response section.
In this 64 person group, it seems that once we cross the middle we quickly continue converting online friends into people we know in person.

Here’s how some folks define their online social media friends.

@deeped: “that X-factor in conversations – that makes you feels comfortable and interested”
@johnprew: “Perhaps its’ one who you’ve never met face to face but share your souls in what you share online and enjoy the mutual exchange.”
@sra_nelson: “I’ll usually just say they are my real friends I haven’t met in person yet.”
@debrasnider “Just as IRL, someone interesting who tells you the truth, listens to you, supports you & for whom you gladly do the same.”
@miraclady: “I have not met 90% of my commentors on my blog -less on Twitter. Still, there is such a connection. We know each other.”
@timbursch ” I think the tough part is trust. Trust that this person is who they say they are…”
@workhappynow: ” I define a friend in social media as someone who will offer help when I struggle. If he is a fair weather friend then he is cut.”

For more information see:
Princeton WorNet
Wiktionary
Friend / Friendship
Non-personal friendships
Etymology and definition of the term “community”
Friendship Network
Non-personal friendships

SEE ALSO:
What Is Social Media?
What Is Social Networking?
What IS a Social Community?

Got more to add? C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!