Social Media Wiz

The Business of Social Media

Seeking Phoenix Arizona Based Marketers

I give up I’m putting out an ad. I just can’t seem to meet the right kind of people. I’m tired of waiting around for the perfect one to just magically appear. So, here it goes. I want to meet you the Phoenix Arizona based marketing enthusiast. In particular the new media enthusiast/trail blazer! You know who you are. You live on Twitter and Facebook. You have a blog (maybe even more than two). You may even have a podcast. You are very well connected on LinkedIn (with real live connections) and you may also even have a presence on Second Life. And this may even be just half of what you do on social sites.

Most importantly though, whatever your level of engagement, you have a demonstrated interest in seeing social media used to generate real results for live business. Meaning, you’re a social media practitioner interested in helping business use social media to increase sales!

If this is you, I want to network with you. I want to share ideas, bounce concepts, tips/tricks off each other and professionally network on a range of issues covering a wide array of industries. Are you interested? Lets get started.

So, if you’re one of these people follow me on Twitter (twitter.com/shailesh) and DM me.You can also leave a comment below and I’ll follow up with you.

Looking forward to connecting.

I will admit I should probably start attending some of the local social media club events.

photo credit: thinkpublic

Highest Priced Domain Names

So how much do you think SocialMediaWiz.com is worth? Not enough is my answer. But here is a list of the top valued domain names:

Hat/tip: CARPE DIEM, Professor Mark J. Perry’s Blog for Economics and Finance

Brian Williams of NBC News Has a Point

I saw a news story on Ad Age today where Brian Williams of NBC news had made fun of new media. The news report said he was speaking at a recent Ad Council Public Service Awards ceremony. In his opening remarks he lampooned the digital geek-speak that so often ignores the realities of traditional media. I was upset just reading the one paragraph news report! I can get a bit hypersensitive when old media barons mock or downplay new media.

My initial reaction was to think of Brian Williams as just another horse and buggy owner bemoaning the arrival of automobiles. I wanted to send Brian an email to tell him that I didn’t know a single person in my immediate circle of friends who had watched a NBC News broadcast in the past two years! Instead most of them read blogs, listen to podcasts and are heavy social networkers - despite this they’re very well informed on the news of the day!

However, I watched the video and contrary to my assumptions he actually makes fun of the “over-geekyness” of technology early adopters and had some very interesting things to say. It’s a very funny take on how over enthusiastic we new media folks can get. I think he makes a valid point and I do agree that new media hype can sometimes create nonsensical “innovations.”

The video does not have an embed feature. Clicking on the image above will take you to the video.

Watch the video and come back here to tell me what you think!

Finding Your Way

Nokia recently published findings from a global survey on use of maps, navigation tools and such. The results are pretty interesting (and at times very surprising). Here is a snapshot:

The art of getting lost
More people get lost in London than anywhere else in the world, followed closely by Paris, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Beijing, making these the top five ‘lost cities’ on the planet.

Country specifics
The survey also revealed some other country-specific navigation peculiarities, such as one in ten Spaniards consider a sense of direction matures with age, like fine wine; or one in ten Russians ask for directions as an excuse to flirt.

Some sad truths
Did you know that 30 percent of people blame their partners for getting lost, either because they were fighting or shouting directions at them?

A sense of direction

• 93% of the world get lost regularly
• An average person wastes 13 minutes when lost
• Germany is the country with the world’s best sense of direction, with a third (34%) of people claiming to have never lost their way
• One in five (18%) people believe a sense of direction is genetic

Digital navigation overtakes traditional maps

• One in ten (8%) people admit they can’t read a map
• One in ten women (11%) are unable to read a traditional map, twice the number of men (5%)
• More than a quarter (26%) of people surveyed rely on online and mobile navigation tools to find their way around
• Germany is the country with the highest reliance on satellite navigation (48%)

Keeping up to date with the ever changing landscape

• When approached by strangers asking for directions, many people use iconic landmarks (18%) such as statues, churches and bridges as recognizable ‘breadcrumbs’ to a destination
• People in Britain prefer to use local pubs to signpost directions to others (18%)
• The Chinese typically use skyscrapers to give directions (10%)
• Over a third (38%) of the world rely on other people for directions to get from A to B
• Almost one in two people (43%) admit to giving the wrong directions on purpose

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

photo credit: riptheskull

HTTP Errors in Art

You know those http page errors you get when you try to access a webpage or folder incorrectly? I’m talking about those errors that say things like “404 Not Found” or “400 Bad Request”. Well I found a Flickr photo set of an artist who has put these errors into art form. It’s pretty clever and enjoyable. Here are a few of my favorites:

408 Request Timeout

photo credit: Ape Lad

406 Not Acceptable

photo credit: Ape Lad

404 Not Found

photo credit: Ape Lad

The full 16 image set is available on Flickr.

Once you see them all, let me know which ones you like.

Fellow Twitteraties - Agree or Disagree?

Discuss your thoughts below.

E=MC^2 Finally Proven Right

This has nothing to do with social media or interactive marketing, but I wanted to post it for the betterment of our intellect. Plus I majored in Physics in college - while no genius - I’ve always been intrigued by modern Physics and its accomplishments. And today is a great day for Physics.

Believe or not, the famous Einstein equation,  E=mc^2 has always been a hypothesis - until today. Now 103 years after its formulation we have proof that mass is indeed energy. Check out the full story of this announcement:

PARIS (AFP) – It’s taken more than a century, but Einstein’s celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.

A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France’s Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world’s mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.

The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

Hope you’re as giddy as I am.

Finally!!! Themes for Google Mail

No more blah with Gmail. You can finally get rid of that boring blue - light blue theme on your Gmail. Until now GMail has oozed engineer all over when it comes to its designs. From the log-in screen to the layout, it screamed “made by engineers for engineers.” Now I have nothing against engineers, I have worked with a lot of them in the past and am a Physics major. My main complaint with Gmail is that it was “Booooooooooring.” Well today we have news that you can now add themes to your GMail layout. Here are samples: I’m looking forward to customizing my eMail as soon as I have time. Google’s blog has the details on how you can get started.

Social Media Quote of the Day

“We now have indisputable proof that online marketing, YouTube and Twitter and all that it encompasses is meaningful and has arrived,” said Gene Grabowski, chair of the crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic Communications. “We are seeing real consequences to a mistake. If [social networks] didn’t matter, you wouldn’t see this type of reaction from J&J or consumers.”

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