I am lacking many things at this point of my life, but time is not one of them. How does an unemployed recent grad spend her days, probably doing the same as other unemployed people. I email resumes, and if I am lucky some of those will garner a phone interview, or even an in person interview.
During the rest of the day I read about SEO, local news, and everything in between. Just like employed people when I need a break I go to Facebook or Twitter. I have become adept at finding all the FREE things to do around LA – movies, art openings, hair cuts (low cost). It is difficult at times for someone used to working to be unemployed, but as long as I have the time I try to learn as much as possible and interact with friends online and offline.
Let me start by thanking each of you that read, share and comment on my blogs. The feedback, both positive and negative, serves as inspiration and encouragement for me. It make me strive to work that much harder to keep the readers I already have as well as gain more.
I’d also like to say that this will be my last post for a while. It’s not that I’m getting burnt out or anything, but in the VERY near future, I plan to be doing this for a living…and that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Okay, now that all of that is out of the way, the usual disclaimers apply. This is my blog and I like it that way, these are the things my mind tells me to say. My thoughts into words for others to enjoy, and the method of expression I choose to employ. Hope you enjoy and agree, and if not, I hope there’s still love from you to me. Got it? Good…let’s go!
I was once a single mom. And as any single parent can and will tell you, it’s one of the most rewarding jobs in the world. You get to watch your child (or children) grow, learn and mature and find their place in the world. They give you memories that will last a lifetime.
BUT…it’s also one of the hardest. You and you alone are totally responsible for the welfare and well being of your offspring. You have to take care of them when they’re sick, handle all the E.R. and school visits, and participate in the parent/teacher conferences and extracurricular activities as well. You are responsible for keeping them safe and protected. You have to make sure they have child care for sick days, weather delays and cancelled sitters and closed daycares. You have to use YOUR personal, vacation or sick time for their sick and injured days. You buy the clothes, shoes and toys and you have to keep their hair done or cut. Yeah every now and then a grandparent, sibling, godparent or friend might step in for a relief mission, but when it all comes down to it…IT’S ON YOU!!!
And to a certain extent, that is to be expected.
BUT…
Are those same things to be expected once you’re married? I have many married friends who are basically still single parents. I get messages and emails weekly about this issue, guys.
One parent does everything for the child(ren). They do all the laundry, keep up with the homework and projects, the do all the grocery shopping, cook, clean and bathe the kids, too.
Now I understand that there are special situations. In some cases, one spouse may travel for work or be deployed. And, of course, there are those that are stay-at-home moms or dads.
But for “normal” households, was this what was signed up for and expected?
In most households, IT TAKES 2 PARENTS to handle it all. Cooking, laundry, cleaning, discipline and quality time takes patience, time, energy and money. And it is NOT fair for all of that to fall on one parent.
Are you using crowd conversion properly on Facebook?
It’s all about having Fan Pages.
It’s kind of funny, because when you speak of somebody being a “fan”, it’s really a polite way to say they are a FANATIC about something.
You know—like for NASCAR, Britney Spears, or chocolate!
And when somebody is a fan, they will do almost
ANYTHING for the object of their admiration–
including spreading the word like proverbial
wildfire about anything related to
their “fanship”.
When you take this basic premise and attach
it to your business—well, the results are
nothing short of phenomenal.
So the bottom line is, you should definitely
be utilizing a Facebook Fan Page if you want
to enjoy traffic generation beyond your wildest
dreams.
Crowd Conversion is an incredibly easy step-by-step system that
levels the playing field so ANYBODY can profit from Facebook—without
a “Guru List”, spam robots, or expensive PPC–in just 30-minutes a day.
They’ve figured out SO many ways to monetize Facebook that are cutting
edge new, and super effective.
That means right now you can leverage the heck out of your
presence on Facebook. No holds barred but you MUST go about
this the right way or risk being banned, shunned, and shut out.
It’s all about having Fan Pages. So the bottom line is, you should
definitely be utilizing a Facebook Fan Page if you want to enjoy traffic
generation beyond your wildest dreams.
Crowd Conversion will allow anyone to tap into the goldmine of Facebook
with just 30-minutes a day of effort.
*drive traffic to your facebook pages
*Get your fans so engaged that they will drive traffic to your site too
*How to convert your fans into paying customers
Interesting Facts about Facebook:
Interesting Facts about Facebook:
According to a recent survey 67% of people consult an online social
media site before they buy anything. This means that word of mouth
advertising is essential if you want you business to thrive in the
future.
Thee are over 1.5 billion active users on the internet today and
20% of those user are on FaceBook. Facebook is the largest
social media platform on the planet!
Want to figure out a way to use Facebook as the ultimate marketing machine, with tactics that are like a blog on steroids when it comes to traffic generation—and as it works it goes viral for even MORE great results.
Then you should be Using Crowd Conversions Properly on Facebook! Crowd Conversion Crowd Conversion
I recently wrote the following article, but did not have the chance to publish it, until today! I sent it last week to Dan, the editor of EmptyEasel.com, and he chose to publish it today. So here it is also on my blog. Make sure you visit EmptyEasel.com as it is an endless resource for artists, a must on your blog reads. And you can read this article also over there…
As artists in the 21st century, many of us are reading about and trying our best to jump on the social networking wagon. We maintain Facebook and mySpace fan pages, we try to twitter smartly and effectively to enlarge our electronic shoeprint, and we post our paintings anywhere we can.
But are we all following the same pattern, where only few will really be successful?
Lately I’ve found a couple of different examples on how to use our beloved, but sometime feared (!), social networks. Perhaps some of you have already heard these stories, but I find them quite intriguing and would love to share them with more people.
My first example is the Twitter 140 , a group of international artists that connected and met on Twitter, and then decided to organize group shows in the real world.
In their own words:
“Our mission is to write a proposal, submit our plan to art venues, and create an exhibition that can travel the world! We have already done this and have had our first show in Flagstaff, Arizona. We are still looking for more exhibition venues!”
And from a blog post by one of the group’s members, Deborah T. Colter:
“The show was the brainchild of Sheree Rensel whom I met through the twitter network. She has worked tirelessly to pull together this eclectic group of artists for this exciting and unique exhibition. Ms. Rensel states, ‘We have organized a diverse and unique group of artists whose work reflects technology and the use of Twitter. Twitter messages have to be 140 characters or less. Therefore, all works in our show are 140 square inches or less. The same with each artist’s statement and bio. All contain 140 characters or less.’”
In this case, the twitting and connecting didn’t stay in the virtual world of Twitter’s servers, but materialized into a real world show, with a unique theme—the Twitter theme—a new theme that could never have been used before the Twitter era!
My second example is from the very talented portrait artist, Matt Held, who started the Facebook meme, “I’ll have my Facebook portrait painted by Matt Held.”
The idea is very simple:
Send Matt your Facebook profile picture, and if he feels its intriguing enough, he will paint your portrait. He has many beautiful examples in his website and blog , and of course his Facebook page , but this one is probably my favorite!
What I find so appealing about Mr. Held’s idea is that the networking through Facebook is not just networking, but also the source of his material and subject matter. And the viral nature of social network is increasing his client base and subject matter at the same time.
As an artist, I would love to join (or start) such an initiative. . . wouldn’t you?
Think about it. How could a little creativity combined with social networking create opportunities for your own art?
Hey, tell us a little information about yourself. Who are you and where are you from.
The owner Ibrahima Diallo (30) is originally from Guinea West Africa living in Zurich since 1998. Married since 2001 to Nina Diallo (26), having a little son of 3.
What is life like up in Switzerland, as far as music, fashion, and popular culture.
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland, people traveling to Zurich to visit clubs, fashion shows, art exhibitions, etc. Hip-Hop, Electro, House and at the time all mixed, that’s what people looking for….of course fashion is very important It’s a way to express the way of life and clubbing means comparing outfits with the others…even you are not up to that, it does happen automatically…Once a style or trend is discovered, everybody is following it…As store owners we would describe the Swiss people reserved and not very open to break the style with a new trend. It takes very long to make trends be understood over here. Of course people do watch MTV but the most clips are very late in…so compared with our fam in Brooklyn, etc we can say if it is something hot in the states it takes almost a year to call it hot over here….they are not ready to understand it before….
The American market has still a big influence in music and fashion….
Zurich isn’t the biggest place, so we have a few customers like DJ’s, artists, and open-minded people, they appreciate to have something unique, something new, something special, so that’s where we are trying to be focused….
Tell us a little about Diallo The Store and the people involved.
Diallo The Store is a family-run business since 2005, located in the centre of the city…10 minutes from the Zurich main station -15 minutes from the Zurich airport. We are open Monday – Saturday. My husband and I do job sharing; everything is in our own strategy, management, etc. We work with the city and train 4 young boys to get diplomas as assistants. They work and go to school, which is really fun and gives them a lot of experience. They are between the ages of 15 and 20 years old…so we are total 6 people….
What kind of brands does Diallo The Store carry?
As a family business we are not able to have the mass but something for the mass. So we do care about having brands, trends, and styles which you won’t find in Zurich or Switzerland. For example, we are the official RMC Account: www.rmcjeans.co.uk. We do just have 1-3 pieces and the next stuff is coming in…so we are not a fix…this is the hole style what should be always a step forward to the Swiss market……we love to work with national or international upcoming brands is easy to make them understand the Swiss market and our philosophy….all we guarantee is originality and quality….so Diallo The Store is about a unique selection of style and at the end of brands.
What are some of your favourite brands out right now?
It’s all about the mix; people love the Kanye West, Pharrell Williams N.E.R.D. style…colourful, crazy, and not to baggy.
What new upcoming events or releases are you currently working on?
We will stay loyal to our strategy, even it takes longer to sell something but if you have sold something the customer will be coming back!
Sharing minds, and being open to projects…we once had a fashion show in a club. We would love to do that again in the future. The rest is word-of-mouth propaganda talking with people wearing the stuff on the streets….and keep going on!
What would you say are the most difficult aspects or being in your line of work?
To make people moving for something new and unique! To make people wear something which is not the norm to the masses! To make people understand the stuff you got!
The fashion and music worlds are often tied together…What music artists out right now are grabbing your attention?
The most showed love comes from the States and France, because they understand what we got! The rest are national DJ’s, national artists…like Stress, Afura, etc…club owners, producers – people who are not shy to watch over the boundary! Check our Facebook friends!
En realidad lo que quería era un pretexto para volver a postear algo. Lo que pasa es que ya ni tiempo tengo de ponerle atención al blog, y como platicaba en la Twittlag que se llevó a cabo ayer, el Twitter, al menos a mí, me hace prescindir en ocasiones de este espacio. Uno vacía ideas o postea imágenes que en otras circunstancias, bien podría publicar aquí.
Pero en fin, espero poder postear con más frecuencia porque lo más importante es que no deja de gustarme el blogging y los miles de dólares que me deja mensualmente, pero más que nada no dejo de tenerle ese cariño padre-hijo a Creación Automática que lo ha mantenido vivo hasta ahora.
Por cierto, espero que pronto se reporte Gogo que hace un buen rato que no se nada de ella.
While checking out an updated version of the Microsoft-developed Facebook application for Xbox Live, I had a chance to ask the company about how (or if) Xbox Live Silver users will have access to either social network. Unfortunately, it’s not good news if you aren’t a paying member.
According to Microsoft, Xbox Live Silver member will only have access to Facebook and Twitter during the “Gold Weekends” that the company rolls out every once and a while. The weekends are designed to encourage Silver members to experience Xbox Live multiplayer and pay to become a Gold member. It is only these periods Silver users will be able to check out Facebook and Twitter.
Sorry, Silver users. There is still no release date for Facebook on Xbox 360.
I was facebook-ing; most of the notifications I got are from applications. There is this particular application called “God wants YOU to know…”
Whenever I clicked on that particular information, it always come out what I’ve been contemplating the entire day. How should I live my life with my “friends”. There was this chinese proverbs: “yi ke bei wan yao, zhong ri pao wen ding.” [i think thats how I should say it?? correct me if I'm wrong] Which means “Once bitten by a mosquito, the whole day your afraid of Mosquitoes” literally meaning that once you’ve trusted someone, your afraid to trust again. I’m having that feeling since yesterday.
I once trusted them, once relay to them, and had fun with them. But that feeling was gone. They enjoyed the party, laughed, though I was out of place. I think it’s because, they we’re talking a lot in Arabic. [of course i understand, but nothing can come out arabic-ish from my mouth so I did feel out of place]
Back to the facebook applications. My message for today is:
On this day of your life, Angelina, we believe God wants you to know … that you can’t rid the world of sorrow, but you can choose to live in joy. — Sorrow is with us not because we are bad at stopping it, but simply because it’s part of being human. What matters is not whether good or bad things happen – both will, but your relationship to them. Just think back over the last 24 hours, – what had you taken hard that you could have taken lightly?
This message uplifted my spirits the most. I can never understand my own feelings not until I sit back and think, aiyo I should just ignore that feelings and just remember the good times…or maybe not that…. just remember the most important real friends moment we shared within the past 2 years. Sam, Omer, Ming-chan, Mike, Iny, Yi Mei, Zamer, Nizar, Kristine, Hakim… And many more… which I really don’t fail to acknowledge the meaning of real friendship and trust.
Can a company that doesn’t have a revenue stream possibly be worth $10 billion? That’s the question that a group of investors are answering with an unequivocal “yes” in the form of $100 million in cold cash. There is skepticism over the wheeling and dealing, though, and more than a few flashes of dot-com deja vu.
After much speculation, Twitter CEO Evan Williams confirmed on the microblogging site’s own blog that it has closed a “significant” round of funding. Williams didn’t cite the dollar amount, but it has been widely reported that six investors are prepared to pump close to US$100 million into the company, giving it a $1 billion valuation.
An evaluation of $1 billion for Twitter might be too low, suggested Scott Testa, a business professor at Cabrini College, considering the site’s popularity and traffic, which comScore places at close to 60 million visitors a month.
“The pricing is justified, based on the latest round of financing closed by Facebook and other networking properties,” Testa argued.
Furthermore, this generation of tech investment is different from 10 years ago, because the funding comes from institutional sources.
“You don’t see the funny money being thrown around like we did in the 1990s,” noted Testa.
“Be conscious that truth overcomes wisdom since his aroma is the beauty of the spirit that appeases, calms and solves everything as if you would take clear and pure water in a glass. You will be satiated of all thirst and the supreme experience stays. Since the truth has a name that few persons can repeat and this is unconditional Love.” ~Oscar Basurto
I am seating here thinking that it has been a long time since I wrote a blog. I mean one of those blogs, I was used to write before I was born on Facebook or Real Estate. I used to write about anything that had touched me emotionally. I used to share my poetry and to just be myself. The truth is that I used to write to an online audience who was very far from my every day physical world.
When I became a Realtor and when Facebook appeared in my life, I realized that friends there were not just strangers that I was meeting online, they were friends, they were family, including my own kids, friends of friends, Real Estate business partners, clients, online friends that were really connecting with me, etc. I became virtually public to all of them. My first reaction was to stop writing blogs that were too deep in emotions or too intense.
Why don’t you want to show your poetry or share it?
Because they are just full of emotions and sometimes makes people vulnerable or sad, and I don’t think is good for me to show that part of myself.
Why to hide a part of you? It is your form of expression, it is art, and those who love you will love you just as you are.
I knew France’s words made sense. I had always known and thought about that, but it was only on that moment, and through her words, that I realized that the only part missing in my authenticity was that. I had kept my friends, and family, co-workers or anyone in my physical world, away from my writings .
I frequently asked myself why did I do that, but it was only that evening, that I was finally able to answer the question and move on to a greater part of my self development.
I accept everyone in my life, and I can only see wonderful things in people, not that I am naive but I chose to see the beauty in everyone rather than the weakness or the wrongs they can have ….but I was my worst enemy, I treated and judged myself like I would never do to a friend or stranger. Why would I be so harsh on myself, why would I not accept someone just because she likes poetry and expresses herself that way?
We are human beings and we all have emotions, we all express on different ways, we accept others the way they are, but I didn’t fully accept myself -until that day. France’s words helped me finding the best in me, as a person in my personal life and as a person in my professional life too, and I feel lucky and thankful for that.
The lesson learned here, and that I want to share, is that only when you are true to yourself and you are not afraid to show yourself just as you are, you can reach that level of authenticity that is so important to function in this life. Being authentic means giving the best of yourself to others, and is through that authenticity that one can be the most sincere and creative and as a result of this, the most productive and truly serve and love others.
We only need to accept ourselves to feel and be accepted by others. We all seek recognition in one way or other, and we can only be recognized if we are the true ‘us’ to ourselves and to others. Be authentic, that’s the best gift you can give to yourself and to others!
The Belfast Telegraph petition campaign to pressure politicians into a compromise on the use of academic selection tests for grammar schools has taken on a new twist. The newspaper has established a Facebook site.
Interestingly there are no sign-ups from the AQE or Catholic Consortium leaders but many members of the Belfast Telegraph staff including the education correspondent Kathryn Torney have backed their own petition. So is Ms Torney for or agianst academic selection?
fotografie: Tine Lemaitre ( grote kuis in den boulevard )
Wegens reorganisatie van het privaat gedeelte boven den boulevard, waar wij ook ons optrekje hebben, nemen wij iets langer vakantie dan eerder beloofd…
Je staminee Boulevard verlengt zijn vakantieplan ! Gedurende gans de maand september én nu ook de eerste week van oktober 2009 zijn we enkel open op vrijdag, zaterdag én zondag!
Opgeruimd staat netjes!!
Vanaf 12 oktober 2009 terug fullhouse: open op vrijdag, zaterdag, zondag, maandag én dinsdag . Woensdag én donderdag altijd gesloten.
I was reading the school paper, and perused a commentary on how students on campus use language in this age of information. As an English major, I approve.
The author, as I recall, blamed the breakdown of intelligent communication on the text messaging language as it creeps into the spoken. Many people do. I’m not sure I don’t. In fact, I was surprised at myself when I first read the article, because at first I found myself rolling my eyes. I don’t appreciate the careless use of language. Using text speak in actual speech is always ridiculous–unless used satirically. Or maybe even just used humorously. But I must admit, sometimes I have at least thought “WTF” when watching/hearing something so utterly stupid that I can’t spare the mental time to think the whole phrase–and, hey, it’s not really cursing. And there are plenty of words invented by the internet* that I genuinely appreciate. Sheeple. Kerfluffle. Angsting.
Perhaps it’s careless to use new words, when a careful enough revision of my own writing or thoughts might be able get the same feeling across using ‘traditional’ English. But then again, as the Facebook “Flair” button says “English: A language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages, and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary,”** which I’m quite sure is stolen from someone who does not get nearly enough credit…but when you say something that awesome on the internet you tend to lose your fame for it very quickly. Anyway, when English doesn’t have the perfect one, it tends to fill the vacuum with something new or borrowed (and sometimes blue, I’m sure). Thus I justify my internet speak.
So when I first read the article, I thought: well, really, why not use text speak in casual conversation? I’d greatly appreciate if you do so out of my hearing, but if your group understands the language, you may as well. So long as your formal communications–to someone outside of your social circle, or in written communications other than texts or possibly tweets. And if you have any acquaintances (or especially coworkers/bosses) as Facebook friends, don’t use text speak in status updates. Nonetheless, I do feel it has a place.
Then again, pretty much as soon as I found myself making the argument above, I realized–the problem is people don’t seem to be able to distinguish when it might be appropriate and when it definitely isn’t.
I remember, in high school, I read two ‘paragraphs,’ each written by a one person attending detention. Okay, so I couldn’t have been expecting much, but still, these would have been written in an academic context, not to mention that it was displayed on the whiteboard. Each, though, were equally terrible. You’d think they’d never learned how to write…which I suspect they did, as they had that ‘valley-girl’ handwriting, one even adorned with hearts.
And, despite the fact that I am now in my third senior semester at college, each of my professors, after the first essay assignment, still have to go over the most basic tenets of writing. For instance: spelling. When I first started college and heard this lecture, I was horrified. It was like, really people? this is college. The fact that it was a community college makes now difference. Now at least I’ve gotten used to it, though I am still saddened. While I’d like to think that people ought to be able to adjust their language based on the situation….apparently, no.
I don’t know how to solve this. I refuse to submit to writing text speak in my essays or talk to my mom that way–she doesn’t even use the computer, much less would have any idea what I’m talking about (although she is rather proficient at reading my mind when I’m particularly incoherent.) You know what I think? I think that we should just disallow those people who can’t tell the difference to participate in any meaningful communication, because they aren’t capable of doing so anyway. First amendment be damned.
*Okay, so the internet itself didn’t actually develop the language, but it’s such a facilitator, it seems to make the spread rather faster and more creative. I likes it.
**Possibly James Nicholl, actually: “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” Apparently he’s mostly an Internet personality, as opposed to being famous offline, which I find rather appropriate.
Ce mois-ci y’a plein de gens qui sont morts. Enfin, des gens qu’on connait, genre Sim, Swayze ou Philip des 2Be3. Comme on dit dans le Roi Lyon, c’est le cycle de la vie. Au fur et à mesure qu’on continue à errer, pauvres organismes carbonés que nous sommes, les chances que des célébrités de notre époque passent l’arme à gauche augmente. C’est juste mathématique. Alors on en parle entre potes, en soirées. A tiens truc est mouru. Pas cool, cancer du colon de la prostate. Peut-être même qu’on osera une petite blague de mauvais goût post-mortem, pour oublier que crever, fondamentalement, c’est bien de la merde comme concept. Le problème, c’est que depuis quelques mois, tout le monde a un Facebook ou un Twitter. Et à chaque personnalité qui casse sa pipe, tout le monde se sent obligé de donner son avis sur la question, ou de faire la meilleure blague possible.
Pire qu’un virus Zombie cette névrose collective. Qu’on s’exprime face à la mort de Michael Jackson, individu au panthéon de la musique du siècle dernier, okay. Que chacun y aille de sa blague minable genre “condoléances aux 2be2″, “Partir un jour” je trouve ça méga glauque. La philo et les blagues de comptoir devraient rester au fond des pubs, pas vous sauter à la gueule sur l’Internet. J’ose même pas imaginer l’entourage des personnes concernées si elles jetaient un œil sur le débit de conneries débitées sur le fameux web social ces derniers temps. Comme s’il s’agissait d’une expérience mystique, la quasi-totalité de ma friend list sur Facebook et Twitter y va de son petit commentaire. Même ceux pour qui la mort d’untel ne procure aucune émotion tiennent à exprimer le fait qu’ils s’en foutent. On touche ici à un des maux qui me prend le plus la tronche au monde. Le fait que les gens, la masse, le troupeau, a besoin d’avoir un avis, peu importe lequel, sur la question. Et surtout, de le faire savoir.
Quand Maïa a balancé le premier extrait de son dernier roman sur le net, on a vu fleurir des pauvres types bien décidés à faire un commentaire composé en trois parties, une analyse de texte de trente lignes sur un simple bout de livre, mis là pour divertir. Je peux aussi repenser aux clients des agences de pub, terrifiés à l’idée d’admettre qu’ils ont besoin de quelqu’un pour penser leurs campagnes de communication qu’ils exigent des modifs absurdes, histoire de se prouver qu’ils ne sont pas inutiles, qu’ils existent et comptent. Tout ceci m’inspire un mépris accompagné d’une pointe dé dégoût au cas par cas. L’humilité passe peut être aussi par ça, admettre que parfois, on n’est pas en mesure de produire un avis suffisamment intelligent/original/pertinent et se la fermer. Bourdieu a dit pas mal de conneries, mais pas lorsqu’il a démontré que tous les avis ne se valent pas. C’est peut-être vieux jeu, à l’heure de Facebook et de Twitter, d’espérer des gens un peu de dignité, de se contenter de raconter leur vie au lieu de commenter la mort des autres.
Après je n’en veux pas aux fans ou aux personnes réellement touchées (s’il y’en a), de manifester une émotion. Parce qu’une émotion, c’est l’exact inverse d’un commentaire creux, c’est du sens. Ce qui me fait penser qu’il faudra que je développe dans une vraie note le sens que je donne à mon Twitter, qui serait peut-être un peu plus réfléchi que ce qu’on pourrait croire.
Facebook merupakan sebuah website jaringan sosial dimana pengguna dapat bergabung dalam komunitas seperti kota, kerja, sekolah, dan daerah untuk melakukan koneksi dan berinteraksi dengan orang lain. Orang juga dapat menambahkan teman-teman mereka, mengirim pesan, dan memperbarui profil pribadi agar orang lain dapat melihat tentang dirinya. Facebook didirikan oleh Mark Zuckerberg, seorang lulusan Harvard dan mantan murid Ardsley High School diluncurankan pertama kali pada 4 februari dan awalnya hanya untuk siswa Harvard College. Dalam dua bulan selanjutnya, keanggotaannya diperluas ke sekolah lain di wilayah Boston (Boston College, Boston University, MIT, Tufts), Rochester, Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, dan semua sekolah yang termasuk dalam Ivy League. Banyak perguruan tinggi lain yang selanjutnya ditambahkan berturut-turut dalam kurun waktu satu tahun setelah peluncurannya. Akhirnya, orang-orang yang memiliki alamat email universitas (seperti,edu,ac.uk) dari seluruh dunia dapat juga bergabung dengan situs ini. Selanjutnya Facebook dikembangkan pula jaringan untuk sekolah-sekolah tingkat atas dan beberapa perusahaan besar. Sejak 11 September 2006, orang dengan dengan alamat email apa pun dapat mendaftar di Facebook. Pengguna dapat memilih untuk bergabung dengan satu atau lebih jaringan yang tersedia, seperti berdasarkan sekolah tingkat atas, tempat kerja, atau wilayah geografis. Facebook menemui masalah dalam beberapa tahun terakhir seperti pemblokiran pada negara Suriah, Iran dan beberapa tempat kerja agar para pekerja tidak menyalahgunakan waktu kerjanya untuk membuka Facebook. Dan masalah tentang tuduhan bahwa Zuckerber mencuri kode program dari teman-temanya untuk membuat Facebook. Facebook juga pernah ditawar oleh yahoo senilai $ 1 miliar dan kemudian oleh seorang anggota dewan Facebook, menunjukkan bahwa Facebook internal valuation adalah sekitar $ 8 miliar berdasarkan proyeksi pendapatan sebesar $ 1 miliar pada tahun 2015. Peringkat Facebook saat saya tulis artikel ini menempati urutan ke 6 situs yang paling banyak di akses di indonesia dan urutan ke 5 untuk seluruh dunia. Photobucket *Kantor Facebook Berikut data mengenai facebook: Founded : Cambridge, Massachusetts(February 4, 2004) Headquarters : Palo Alto, CaliforniaDublin, Ireland (international headquarters for Europe, Africa, Middle East) Key people : Mark Zuckerberg (Founder and CEO), Dustin Moskovitz (Co-founder), Sheryl Sandberg (COO), Matt Cohler (VP of Product Management), ChrisHughes (Co-founder) Revenue : 300 million USD (2008 est.) Net income : 47.4 million USD (2007 est.) Employees : 700 (November 2008) Website : facebook.com Type of site : Social network service Advertising : Banner ads, Referral marketing Registration : Required Available in : Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (American),English (British), English (Pirate), Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, (bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish (Castilian), Swedish, Thai, Turkish,Vietnamese, Welsh
Imagine my surprise this morning when I checked Twitter saw a tweet directed to me from @RogersHelps:
@purplelara Hi, I’m with the RogersHelps team. We try to assist customers online. Is there something I can help with? ^mm
Obviously, given the length of my posts below, being succinct isn’t one of my strong suits, so I wasn’t entirely sure how to reply in under 140 characters, so I directed her back to my blog. In the meantime, she (^mm is apparently their rep, Miranda) followed me on Twitter so we could DM each other and sent this message:
@purplelara Can you DM the # associated with your account? I’d like to try and help. ^mm
I DM’d my account number and e-care order number and received another message:
@purplelara Thanks for the info. I’m looking into this for you. ^mm
Now this is very interesting. In all the (lengthy) email correspondence I had with Rogers, they repeatedly told me Twitter was not an acceptable means of communicating with them – and I tried to make clear to them how misguided I think that is.
And yet, the quickest, most helpful communication I’ve had from Rogers in the last month or so was via Twitter.
It appears that Rogers does in fact monitor their Twitter activity and has a team in place to follow up on tweets from frustrated customers – a quick look at their the @RogersHelps Twitter page shows the majority of their tweets are directed to other Twitter users who have mentioned Rogers.
Encouraging. Somewhat. I had been tweeting about Rogers for a few days before I heard from them, but in their defense (I’m not trying to be unfair here), I mentioned the @RogersWireless account and not @RogersHelps. In my defense, I had no idea the @RogersHelps account existed. I searched for RogersWireless in Twitter and assumed @RogersWireless a main Rogers Twitter presence, but it seems I was wrong.
So, while I applaud Rogers for having a team monitoring Twitter and addressing customers through that medium, I’ll remain critical of their of their commitment to new ways to connect with their customers until they actually make their Twitter presence known to their customers AND their own customer service reps.
Nowhere on Rogers.com (that I could find, and again, if it’s not accessible, it’s not effective) is there any mention that “RogersHelps” customers on Twitter. Searching “Rogers Twitter” on Google won’t find it for you, and their very own customer service reps not only seem unaware of it, they actively discouraged me from using Twitter as a means to contact them, telling me “we are not allowed to visit Face book [sic] and Twitter while we are at work.”
So, is Twitter an effective way to communicate with businesses? Miranda forwarded my concerns (whether she tracked down my emails or simply forwarded the contents of my tweets and blog link, I’m not sure) to someone in the office of the President of Rogers Wireless, who called me tonight.
The story is not over yet, but I have now spoken to a live human being who had all my information at hand, who promised to call be back and (get this) GAVE ME HIS DIRECT LINE.
Hopefully I’ll be able to write the end of this story tomorrow. In the meantime, thank you Miranda.
[Content originally posted for Overdrive Interactive]
This past week, Facebook was ranked one of America’s most trusted companies, blew past the 300 million mark in total users, and hinted at the release of voice chat powered by Boston-based Vivox. Google increased its ever-growing hold on the web with its acquisition of reCAPTCHA, whose technology they can utilize to help with large text-scanning projects such as Google Books. The company also released Google Public Sector, which offers tools and best practices for public sector collaboration. Following up on the sale of the popular VoIP and chat service Skype comes a lawsuit by the founder’s who are suing eBay for copyright infringement of a core peer-to-peer technology found in the program. Finally, Bing continues to skyrocket in popularity among other search engine services.
Facebook to Launch Voice Chat – On its way to implementing a video chat service within its platform, Facebook will be rolling out a voice chat feature during the next couple weeks. The technology for the service is being offered by Vivox, a Boston-based company that has created voice chat applications for virtual worlds. Voice chat will work seamlessly within the Facebook framework, and support everything from one-on-one chats to group discussions.
Facebook Tops 300 Million User Mark – In a blog post on Tuesday, Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that not only was the service now in the green, but that it also had recently passed the 300 million user mark. The growth of Facebook has actually be accelerating, as it took only 5 months to reach this milestone, compared to the 8 months it took to make it from 100 to 200 million users.
Facebook In Top 10 of Most Trusted US Companies – Facebook is now ranked as one of the ten most trusted companies for privacy in the US. The study was conducted by TRUSTe and the Ponemon Institute, and consisted of a two-stage survey which focused on the “privacy policies and practices of leading consumer brands.”
Google Takes Over reCAPTCHA – Google continues to gain power over the web with its recent acquisition of reCAPTCHA, whose technology is used to power many of the captcha security boxes to make sure the user is in fact a human, and not a robot or spammer. Google will use this technology to power large scale scanning projects such as Google Books.
Google Public Sector Launched – The US Government, after recently declaring that it will be making use of many of Google’s cloud-based products to streamline operations, now has apps specifically designed to work with the public sector. The page is more of a directory and information site for government agencies and organizations, and will help these entities to coordinate more effectively.
eBay Sued For More Than $75 Million Per Day – eBay, who recently sold Skype a few weeks ago to a group of private investors, is now being sued by the software’s creators for copyright infringement. The main focus of this lawsuit is around a core piece of peer-to-peer technology that Skype uses and which Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have been attempting to reclaim since early March.
Bing Currently Fastest Growing Search Engine – Microsoft continues to make strides with its new search engine, with official data coming from Nielson MegaView Search that Bing has a month-over-month growth rate of about a little over 22%. Compare this with the second largest growth rate of 2.9%, and it becomes apparent that Bing is quickly on its way up the popularity scale when it comes to search engines.
Things are truly looking good for Facebook these days. Now that the service is finally making money, albeit only $2 per person, and will soon be implementing video and voice chat features, it seems as if this social networking giant is on an unstoppable course to dominating the social market. The fact that Facebook is also one of the most trusted companies in the US will do well to solidify the service’s future growth, and should be a source of great concern for competitors such as Twitter, of which Facebook has recently launched a full-scale assault upon. Does Facebook have the momentum and power to ultimately become the only social networking service worth using?
Meanwhile, Google continues on its never-ending domination of the web with the acquisition of reCAPTCHA. The technology and service is featured on over 100,000 sites worldwide, and in addition to providing increased security for Google’s services, will more importantly allow the company to improve their books and newspaper scanning process. This will undoubtedly give Google Books and Google News Archive Search a significant competitive edge. The release of Google Public Sector shows that not even the US Government can escape Google’s reach. Not that they were trying very hard in the first place however, with Apps.gov already featuring a whole suite of Google cloud-based applications. Is Google becoming too much of an influence in the web market?
eBay thought they had seen the last of the Skype debacle, however Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the original creators, have other plans for the online-auction giant. It seems that the core peer-to-peer technology featured in Skype was copyrighted to Mr. Friis and, as every download of the program is seen as a copyright infringement, the founders are seeking a mere $75 million dollars per day in damages. Most likely this amount will be reduced significantly once the investigation is underway, however other online companies should make note of this situation. With the proliferation of ideas and technology becoming more readily available in the online world, lawsuits have become more plentiful as the claimed creators seek to defend their ideas, or make a quick buck.
Bing continues to show impressive growth when compared to other popular search engines. Though still far behind in total searches, the service is quickly closing the gap. More recently, the growth has been due to a large-scale advertising campaign launched by Microsoft. The fusion of Twitter and Bing search results (bingtweets.com) and the recently launched visual search have also helped to ratchet up popularity of the still relatively new search service.
This will guide you through the process of having Facebook update Twitter with your FB status.
For the purpose of discussion we’ll refer to the account you actually use as “YourAccount”. A secondary account must be used which we’ll refer to as “SecondAccount”.
First, create a new FB profile – or – use a friend’s (This is SecondAccount)
Login to the SecondAccount and make sure you are friends with YourAccount.
Go to http://www.facebook.com/notes.php
This should bring up a page that shows notes from all of SecondAccount’s friends. Toward the bottom right you’ll see “Subscribe to these notes” and a link that says “My Friend’s Notes” – click that!
An RSS page comes up displaying all of the most recent notes from all of SecondAccount’s friends. The address link will look similar to this:
Now you will have the RSS feed for the most recent status updates from all of SecondAccount’s friends. Copy this link to a new window so you don’t lose it!
Next we need to filter this down to just the one friend (YourAccount) – this is especially needed if you’re using a friend’s account as “SecondAccount”. While still logged in as SecondAccount:
Go to: http://www.facebook.com/friends/
On the right hand side of the page, about half way down is a series of links. The first one listed should be “Friends” – click this to display a list of all SecondAccount’s friends.
Next, at the top of that list will be a link to “Create New List”. Create a new list – name it whatever you want (“YourName Status” works well) and add only YourAccount to the list.
Once the list has been created, select the list name [YourName Status] back on the right hand side menu. (You might need to refresh the page)
You should see YourAccount’s name come up in the list to the right. (If it comes up but is blank, continue anyway, it seems to show it right away sometimes and other times it takes a bit)
What we’re looking for is the list’s ID number. You’ll find this listed at the end of the address bar. It should look something like this:
If you open this link you should now see an RSS feed with a single entry: the latest status entry from YourAccount.
Now you’ll need to get a TwitterFeed account. Follow the registration process and create a new feed. Name the feed whatever you like and enter your new RSS link. I change the Post Content options to “Description Only” and have it update every 30 minutes instead of the default hour.
When I first started this game, it was 5 XPs and 20 coins every time I helped one. Today, for some reason I have yet to determine, it was 5 COINS and 1 XP. I don’t know if this is something specific to Level 29 or if this is just the new going rate for assisting neighbors.
It’s hard to get something for so long and then to suddenly have that revoked. At first I thought it was a glitch, but then I started paying attention to the streaming information after I’d rake someone’s leaves or scare off their pesky crows. Yep. 1 XP. That’s it. ONE LOUSEY XP! I don’t know why, but I know I don’t like it. I guess it’s a sign of the poor economy. Even the jobs on Farmville are being affected. It sucks just as much on my virtual farm as it does in real life. I hope it’s a temporary reduction in pay. Otherwise, it’s going to take me forever to get up to Level 30.
Once you’ve made a commitment to social media, there are a host of daily chores required to maintain a steady presence. Chris Brogan offers 19 daily tasks that extend across various platforms. On Twitter, they include following 10 new people and re-tweeting 7 posts. Next, check birthdays on Facebook and reply to wall comments. Provide a recommendation on LinkedIn and reply to comments on your blog. Read more
When I first heard of an online reputation management expert, I laughed. Now I understand the need for safeguarding one’s online reputation. If a stranger were to read your blog, Facebook page, Twitter posts or view your LinkedIn connections, what 30 second impression would they form about you?
While it may have seemed like a good idea at the time to post about your lack of motivation days and months on end or your failure to complete those projects you had planned, a potential employer or possible date might find this cause to form less than a positive impression about you.
People are looking and forming judgments. Many HR professionals screen applicants by doing a quick Google search before even calling them to schedule an interview. A 2008 survey by Execunet found that 86% of recruiters use search engines to find out more about job applicants. Even more alarming and not all that shocking, 44% said they didn’t hire someone based upon what they found out online. A popular dating service, It’s Just Lunch found 63% of singles Googled someone before they went out on a first date.
It’s smart really. Who can blame companies for doing some type of check? Fewer still would fault the single person before taking the risk of meeting someone for that first date?
The internet is two things: it is permanent and no one polices it. So what do you do if you haven’t always been mindful of the things you’ve posted? Do a search on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn- as well as a Google search to see what’s been written about you and those with names similar to your own. Some have termed this Ecosurfing. Next, clean up your online profile by deleting objectionable content and ask friends to do the same. Make sure to check your privacy settings on all the social media sites you use.
In the future, be cautious when posting anything online. You may find that you simply need to reduce your exposure—don’t rant online. Anything you do online lasts forever and you never know who is reading.
Do people actually mean what they say anymore? Or has social networking proved that words, not actions, or just enough to get by?
A million different things have been plaguing my mind lately, never resting, constantly zooming in and out of my mind at every hour of the day. I found that one question in particular has been a reoccurring theme within my daily anxieties that persist to manifest themselves into some compulsive cleaning, impulsive exercise, and mini melt downs. Although the house has been spotless, not to mention my car, driveway, closet (among many other things, the thought still continued to poke around in my conscious.
It happened when I woke up one morning, browsing through Facebook, eating my self made concoction of cinnamon oatmeal and Nutella, that I finally realized were this annoying thought/ feeling was coming from…words without any action or meaning.
You have done it, we all have done it at some point in our lives, agreed to something or suggested something to someone that we knew we would never follow through with. Being both the giver and receiver of future actions never to be completed, I have come to realize that this has become increasingly acceptable…and even forgivable, especially if the talked about action is communicated through Networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and even sometimes e-mail. For example, when a friend you have not spoken with for a while messages you on Facebook or MySpace asking you “why haven’t we hung out for so long? Let’s do lunch sometime next week.” And you, having no idea what your work or school schedule will be like next week as well; still agree to it, realizing that even though your words agree to action, you are more than likely not going honor the commitment you just made.
So why did you agree to this in the first place, when you knew that it probably was not going to happen? That is exactly my question. Where did backing up your words with genuine integrity disappear to? Is it the fact that social networking sites are so casual that no one really takes things seriously on them? Or is it the fact that it is way easier to be a flake, since you are not communicating with this person face to face? Either way the issue still remains, can you really trust the words your friends are typing to you on these sites, or should you only take them at face value?
Have networking sites condoned a society where action-less words and empty promises are forgivable? Have we become a society of flakes?
It lets you update your Facebook or Twitter status separately, or both together. I don’t like my accounts because I’ve had problems getting it to work sometimes, and, mainly because I don’t always want to post the same thing to both Twitter and Facebook. But, if I do, now with TwitFace, I can just check both boxes..and done.
Anyway, download it and check it out. It helps support my development!
Allow me to introduce myself. I am Jessica de la Davies-writer, director, woman, pie maker, and some people call me a bitch.
I cannot think of myself as a writer in the traditional sense – oh, and for the record-I don’t speak in the third person. In my opinion, speaking in the third person is stupid and self serving. I’m not a narrator – I’m just a human being being human named Jessica de la Davies. I’m a human who just happens to thrive on writing and directing. Becoming famous is something that I neither want or work for. To be famous in that “Hollywood I’m So Fabulous” way, which in my opinion is leaning toward ego masturbation, has never appealed to my odd sense or sensibilities. I get off on writing – isn’t the getting off part enough? I’ve enjoyed writing and directing for the better part of my short time on The Blue Ball – and I seem to have arrived at a ridiculously soothing rhythmic beat to my writing . I get off on interacting with other humans, so that’s why I’ve chosen this EVIL networking site to connect with as many humans as I possibly can before I disappear forever into my space. MySpace is an incredible tool-it would serve me better if I didn’t abuse Myspace so much. If I was more respectful, I could actually used Myspace it to it’s fullest potential. I’m on facebook too but think it’s secretly run by Big Brother Corporations who are terrified if people with their own ideas (like me) actually reached the masses-hence the facebook 5000 person limit. Nevertheless I am on facebook too-just search my name. I’m off topic now, anyway- I get off on abusing this particular system as a way to spread intriguing ideas, tempting thoughts and authentic feelings to other ridiculous humans in an attempt to achieve Nirvana (okay I’m full of shit here). Writing unusual rambling pieces and interesting stories is always an activity that can often be confused with the dreaded FREE THINKING MIND that Big Brother Corporations fear. How dare we use our own minds to achieve a FREE THINKING world when Big Brother Corporations has our world set up to exploit human drones and utter mindlessness.
I wrote a novel. Its main character is quite unique and my novel should serve to entertain those who actually use book reading to satisfy their minds’ cravings for human authenticity. The novel of quirky ridiculousness is a story about a family that is so real that it couldn’t have really happened-but it did. For the past three months, this novel has been floating through The Publishing Establishment-an agent/publishing house system of: I’m not sure this represents us as an agency (I thought they stated that they were looking for something different?); onto: Umm, we would like to return your novel to you but it’s temporarily misplaced and: other Big Brother Corporation bullshit. I am on the verge of self publishing, but something in my mind makes me desire the “credibility” that Big Brother Corporation agents/publishing houses offer. I guess I am thinking like a ridiculous drone and maybe on the verge of actually becoming everything I hate! Maybe I should run for Congress or something?
I’m always directing something interesting. I just finished directing The Student CD Project and Cinderella. Next, I have planned an odd reality film that will surely be completely ignored by Big Brother Corporations in the Hollywood establishment, but embraced in the INDY world of film making. I receive a ridiculous amount of mail each day and I’ll try my best to respond to you. I do so get off on communicating with all sorts of odd artistic types, free thinking people I have never met and just plain social odd balls-like me. I am in awe that I live in this- the information age-this LIMITED period in our history that has opened doors allowing us to communicate with thousands and thousands of people across The Blue Ball-communicating what we really think-not what Big Brother tells us to think. I am grateful for this ridiculous time of open communication-I’m sure it won’t last.
Oh, and to those of you who think women shouldn’t speak their minds or believe that woman have to play nice. I say -FUCK limits.
I am not going to limit what I write about because it might make “someone else” uncomfortable-because “someone else” doesn’t have to fucking read it. This is for you. My words aren’t meant to reach the ALL – my intention is to inspire you to think for yourself and feel any reaction you want to feel. Any reaction that my writing gives to you means that I’ve accomplished something with my meager time on The Blue Ball. Anyway, none of that crap I just mentioned really matters . . . because the bottom line is: WRITING and CREATING ART.
Embrace it and try to understand OR hate it and close your mind . . . it doesn’t matter as long as I know that I have tried to use our limited time during this information age and this Myspace opportunity to talk directly to you-no Big Brother controls.
Oh yeah . . . I am totally full of shit half the time! You can decide for yourself which half is which-as you are not a mindless drone-but you already knew that didn’t you?
Thanks For Playing Along,
jESSICA De La dAVIES, Ph.D.
Writer/Director/PieMaker Join me at Twitter.com/delaDavies
You can now follow NewZbie on Facebook. Avid readers of the NewzBie blog can now also get the latest posts and updates by becoming a Facebook fan.
Be partof the multimedia experiment:
BECOME A FACEBOOK FAN
FOLLOW THE NEWZBIE BLOG ON FACEBOOK
Some upcoming posts include: the Skype Copyright case, the passing of the Three Strikes Anti-Piracy Bill in France, ISP filtering in Australia and an overdue update on the Section 92A redraft proposal in New Zealand.
Yes, it’s finally happened. Facebook has finally gone through with the Website reassignment surgery. It’s like how a transsexual person finally, after years of deliberation, might actually change his or her genitalia—it’s the physical solidification and manifestation of a lifetime of questioning and doubting and secret longing, the final step into the Real You. Only instead of Theresa turning into Tim, Facebook has pretty much turned into little more than a souped-up Twitter.
Though I wonder whether Twitter would be considered the equivalent of a penis or a vagina? Whatever. Here’s my tag for the developers:
From 2003 up to mid-2009, Philippines is the Top 1 user of Friendster(I guess). But today, Facebook is now the number one visited site here in the Philippines. Based on my observation, Filipinos found out that Facebook is more entertaining than Friendster because it has applications you can enjoy like Quizes, Games and more. And Facebook is having their own chat service, you can beep your online friends by navigating the Chat Menu on the site. And you can also tag a friend on your photos. You can make your own quiz and developed your own game(if you know how to make). Yes, Facebook invades my mind. I can’t imagine how Facebook did it. Lol. But it’s true! I am now addicted to Facebook. You can visit Facebook at www.facebook.com
During his interview with Surveillance News yesterday, UK Pirate Party leader Andrew Robinson was chuffed to have recently pipped Labour’s attempts to, ah, get down with the kids. Earlier this week, the PPUK Facebook group overtook the Labour Party, with 6691 members compared to 6356 for Labour. Admittedly, if you take the number of group members and add that to fanpage members (two slightly different things), Labour’s total is in fact still ahead of PPUK. Still – despite its limited manifesto (”a blessing and a curse”, according to Robinson), PPUK has garnered support and national press coverage on its stance on copyright in a matter of months. Whether its Facebook fans are old enough to vote is another question.
It isn’t entirely surprising that a niche group campaigning for privacy, filesharing and freedom of speech should be popular amongst the younger demographic. But perhaps the mainstream political parties ought to be concerned they cannot connect in the same way. SN has compiled statistics to show what the political landscape might look like if Facebook fans/group members were votes. SN wonders what Labour’s digital wunderkind Tom Watson (443 fans) would have to say?
Clicking the image will take you to Many Eyes where you can view and interact with the treemap. It compares PPUK to all UK parties represented in the House of Commons or at the European level. Adjust ’size’ to show Facebook fans, current number of MP’s or current number of MEP’s. Many Eyes is in beta and may take a couple of tries to display.
Mi ingenio (o falta de ingenio, que conozco mis limitaciones) es mío, no de Jack Dorsey, el creador de Twitter adicto a Starfucks, esa empresa que bajo apariencia buenrollista financia el terrorismo del Likud contra Palestina.
Los nuevos “TOS” (condiciones de uso) no tienen desperdicio. Como casi nadie se los va a leer, que ya sabemos cómo está el percal, traduzco tres o cuatro perlas:
Das derecho a que Twitter pueda usar, copiar y distribuir lo que tuiteas de forma mundial, por cualquier medio existente o por descubrir, sin exclusividad, sin derechos de autor y con posibilidad de subrogar ese contenido a terceros (esto no es copyleft, señores, esto es un atraco a mano armada, a la gente se le paga por pensar ese tipo de frases que se usan para vender: se llaman copys. Y tienen que comer y pagar el alquiler).
“Dejamos la puerta abierta a la publicidad”. ¿Cómo, dónde, cuándo? Eso no lo dicen. Ya hay bastante porno barato camuflado. No quiero que el “tweet” de un amigo camufle publicidad sin nuestro permiso.
El contenido de tu cuenta de Twitter puede ser transferido al gobierno de EE.UU. o de cualquier otro país para su uso y almacenamiento. ¡Aaaaaaaaah! ¡Acabáramos, twitteo para la CIA!
Se te puede aplicar la jurisdicción norteamericana por lo que twitteas…
Vamos, que lo de menos es la publicidad, es que las condiciones son sencillamente leoninas. Con Twitter, a día de hoy, vendes tu alma al diablo.
Como mi objetivo con Twitter no era convertirme en la reina de la popularidad, me paso definitivamente a FriendFeed, que tiene las mismas opciones que Twitter: permite compartir con tus amigos enlaces, fotos, vídeos, entradas de blogs, RSS… No deja de ser un agregador de aplicaciones con mensajería instantánea.
No es el primer caso de quejas contra las políticas de privacidad de las redes sociales. Facebook ya ha tenido más de una. Pero las cosas no cambian haciendo como si nada. Si quieres que Twitter cambie, deja de usarlo. Ya verás cómo se replantean su política de privacidad. Mientras tenga RSS, listas de correo, mail, delicious y demás, puedo seguir estando perfectamente informada.
¿Mi Twitter? Que nadie lo busque. Lo he cerrado (por cierto, es la única red social que no te pide la contraseña ni que rellenes un captcha para cerrarla: basta con pulsar en “delete my account”).
I’m sure you have all heard of the Marshmallow Temptation test, if not – you need to watch this video. Such simplicity and innocence – withholding temptation in order to reach total bliss of two marshmallows! Oh to be a kid again!
Looking back at this, I think “what’s 5 minutes!” Then I think about how dependent we have all become on constantly being connected to the world around us. Blackberry. iPhone. Facebook. Twitter. What’s not to love – right!? Email and Internet go down – my world gets turned upside down and I find myself searching for tasks to do that don’t involve a network connection (enter books and print publications)!
But even as “grownups,” don’t we all have marshmallows that we are just tempted to gobble up? I HAVE to have that shirt now. Forget the possibility of it going on sale. I HAVE to share this secret. Forget if it’s a surprise! Twitter. You betcha I have to check it. Where does it stop?
CEO reveals plans for “untethered Guitar Hero,” facebook integration, emotionally resonant animation, and taking “all the fun out of making video games.”
During a 45-minute presentation today at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference in San Francisco, Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick covered a substantial amount of ground. For one, the executive explained how he expects Activision games–specifically Guitar Hero–to bypass consoles altogether. The executive also showed off animation technology he hailed as the future of storytelling in games, pegged the next generation of consoles as being two years out or more, and explained openly why he wants a company culture infused with skepticism, pessimism, and fear.
On the Guitar Hero topic, Kotick told analysts and investors about some potentially big changes in store for the rhythm franchise. When asked about a Guitar Hero game that didn’t need a console to operate, Kotick bluntly appraised its benefits.
“I think what the untethered Guitar Hero does is equal the playing field a little more and give you some leverage with first parties when it comes to downloadable content and the business model,” Kotick said.
The executive also told attendees to “expect many of our products to be playable independent of a console,” specifically saying he’d been impressed with media hub functionalities shown by 1080p TVs that let users stream content from their PCs. He also suggested a day in not-too-distant future where players’ Facebook profiles will be integrated into Guitar Hero, letting them make songs to share with friends, post high scores or favorite songs on their profile page, and so on.
While games like Guitar Hero have proven popular for the tactile experience of their peripherals, Kotick said Activision is also working to push the envelop in emotional game experiences. He showed the audience a clip of Call of Duty: World at War, saying his friends in the movie industry all react by pointing out how unreal the mouth movement looks. The executive said game makers just haven’t reached a point yet where the mouth movement and facial animation of game characters is good enough to establish a compelling emotional attachment from the player.
To remedy that, Kotick noted a realtime rendering and mouth movement technology Activision has been working on. He showed a clip of the technology, saying it could could represent nothing less than a transformation of the medium. While Kotick said the technology wouldn’t surface until the next generation of games, he did say it would be ready before the next generation of hardware.
Kotick added that publishers don’t take advantage of the full capabilities of today’s hardware, and said it might be some time before the next generation arrives. Typically, console makers give publishing partners about two years’ notice when it plans to introduce new hardware, Kotick said. But so far, the console makers haven’t given him specs or white papers on new hardware, nor have they consulted him on design decisions, leading him to believe their current priority is instead to reduce the cost of each system.
When he wasn’t promoting the company’s games or technology, Kotick was celebrating its laser-like focus on the bottom line. He pointed to changes he implemented in the past as being particularly beneficial, such as designing the employee incentive program so it, “really rewards profit and nothing else.”
“You have studio heads who five years ago didn’t know the difference between a balance sheet and a bed sheet who are now arguing allocations in our CFO’s office pretty regularly,” Kotick said.
He later added, “We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.”
If that sounds like it would create a corporate culture that isn’t all sunshine and hugs, then it’s “mission accomplished” for Kotick. The executive said that he has tried to instill into the company culture “skepticism, pessimism, and fear” of the global economic downturn, adding, “We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression.”
hello guys.. whew it’s almost 8 am and i haven’t got any sleep!! why is that…? well…
I am really addicted to Farmville!!
bagi kalian yang punya facebook.. pasti pada tau dong kalo di dalem facebook itu aplikasinya bejibun, mulai dari music, quiz, sampe game.. naah akhir – akhir ini gue lagi demen banget main sama yang namanya farmville!!
Apaan sih farmville? farmville itu sebuah game dimana kita bisa bikin dan mengelola lahan dan pertanian kita sendiri… kita bisa menanam sayur – sayuran, pohon buah, pelihara binatang.. gitu deh
naah yang asiknya gue rasa di farmville tuh kita bener – bener diberi kebebasan untuk mengatur lahan kita, jadinya bagi yang punya kemampuan dalam desain ruang dan lingkungan, ini game bisa menjadi sangat menyenangkan… unfortunately i think i don’t really have that kind of knack
well sebenernya gue pengen main farmville pertama kali cuman iseng aja, trus tiba – tiba temen – temen gue yang lain main juga.. ehh rupanya salah satu calon gebetan pun juga pemain rutin!! jadinya gue pengen bertekad untuk mengalahkan mereka semua!! hahahahaha!!
iya, gue ngerti ini cuman game.. tapi kalo jadi yang terbaik pasti ada kebanggaan tersendiri dong?? paling enggak lu bisa menyombongkan sesuatu.. hehehe… tapi cuman sombong main – main aja loh!! gilee aja sombong beneran, gue mah bukan siapa – siapa!!
One of the biggest stories in social media this week was Facebook’s plan to roll out @Mentions in status updates over the next few weeks. This is another update from Facebook that appears to be a page from the Twitter playbook of success. Nevertheless it will be very interesting to see how Facebook users adopt this new feature.
I have talked with many Facebook users that are not Twitter users. They seemed to be a little confused on exactly what the @Mention allows you to do and how it will benefit them. Will many Facebook users even care about this update? Let’s not forget how users have reacted in the past anytime Facebook makes a change. While this update will be nothing as drastic as a new design, the initial reaction to Facebook changes have historically been negative. At first glance, the same group of people who think Twitter is for stalkers are likely to think now Facebook is even further supporting Twitter’s stalker habits. Now not only can I tell you that I am have coffee with someone else – I can link directly to his/her profile from my status update.
My guess is that it will take awhile for native Facebook users to being adopting this new functionality. But once people within your network begin to use @Mentions as a part of their status updates on a regular basis, their friends will likely follow. The hope is that this will allow Facebook users to continue to connect to others within their network to share more meaningful information. Let’s see if this holds true.
I do think this will go a long way in helping the business brands on Facebook. It is now going to be much easier to share that you are going to eat @(restaurant) and link directly to their fan page. This will also encourage more incentives to be offered for customers as sharing becomes easier. I will continue to update my blog as this is rolled out to analyze the trends.
But in the meantime, what is your take on it?
Below is the breakdown on exactly how it will work from Facebook engineer Tom Occhino:
Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you’ll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you’ve added your tags.
Friends you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your post. They also will have the option to remove tags of themselves from your posts. We hope that tagging your status updates and others posts from the Publisher will enable you to share in a more meaningful and engaging way, and connect with even more people. We’re rolling this feature out over the course of the next few weeks, so you may not see the new feature just yet.
Misuse and misinterpretation of the term “spam” is now so blatant, one has to wonder if Big Media might not be behind it. But we in “Little Media” are aware of the abuse, and it can’t last much longer.
If you publish a blog, own a website, or participate in various social media sites, chances are you’ve been accused of “spamming” at one time or another. You’re probably seriously angry about it. Well, so am I.
Besides the (ongoing) campaign of pure annoyance coming from my darling Twitter Stalker Agatha-Anne and her buddies (see Slaughtering Your Pet Hamster, http://tiny.cc/f7iV7 ), I’ve been subjected to two accusations of “spamming” this past summer, one truly silly and inconsequential, one more serious in its implications.
First, the purely silly one. Several weeks ago, a young woman I’ll call Janette sent me an invitation to connect on Linked In, where I have a fabulous high-quality network of over 1400. Because she was a member of an organization I belong to and trust, I said Yes.
But the first time I sent one of my standard To-My-Network mailings with links to a couple of my stories, Janette wrote me what can only be called a hateful, malicious note, along the lines of “How dare you pollute my mailbox with your vile publications, You Evil Spammer You?”
Huh? You’re in my Network. You asked to be in my Network. I’m a publisher and writer. Do you expect me to send my Network pictures of bunnies or needlework instructions? Moreover, if one does not wish to click on a link in a letter, the obvious solution is not to click on a link in a letter.
And Linked In has a handy little feature called “Remove This Person from Your Network.” This handy little feature allows you to “Remove (Any) Person from Your Network,” for any reason whatsoever, quietly and efficiently, without having to write them letters and insult them.
I immediately took Janette out of my Network, after replying to her charming missive by telling her about the handy Remove-This-Person feature, thinking perhaps she honestly did not know about it.
As the teens say, As If . . . Over the next few days, I got five or six additional charming little notes from Janette, escalating in venom, going on about “You sent me Spam. Your stories are Spam. I hate your stories. My father hates your stories. My third cousin hates your stories. My goldfish hates your stories. My goldfish will not eat Spam. Spam, spam, spam, spam, and spam.”
OK, Janette. You’re just another Flamer, playing Kiddie games and trying to make people unhappy, because making people unhappy is “fun.” We’ll treat the general subject of Flaming in the next article in the series. But in the context of this story, you are silly and inconsequential, and I am now going to ignore you.
Except to say that as someone with a large Linked In network and a growing one on Twitter, every day I receive maybe a hundred mailings of various kinds from people with whom I’m connected. I like some of these mailings. I don’t like some others. Several fall into the category of articles and other publications. Some are newsletters. Others are new product or service announcements or out-and-out advertisements.
I click on the ones I want to read. I archive the ones I don’t want to read. I send a return message of Thanks, if it looks like I am expected to do so. I am never annoyed or upset receiving these mailings, because I allowed these connections to come into my Network, meaning they are cordial on-line acquaintances, and I want to hear about what they’re up to.
If at some point I find a connection annoying or upsetting, not to mention downright rude – remember Palance? – I remove him/her/it from my connections list, and that is that. This is what nice people do. This is what sane people do.
You’re Not Foie Gras, But You Sure Squawk Like Geese
Which brings us to the second incident this summer, a far more serious one, which goes to the very heart of the misuse of the term “spam” and demonstrates why we should all be concerned about it.
I honestly don’t know – nor particularly care – what Mz. Janette’s political leanings are. But I do know, from several people who are acquainted with him, that a young man I’ll call Chaz is a committed Leftist Democrat. He’s also the appointed manager of a large group for computer professionals at Linked In. I joined this Group because I’m an Internet publisher, but also because I’ve been seeking some interesting Boomer IT people as interviewees for my Baby Boomers-The Angriest Generation series. (See http://tiny.cc/h4nyu )
As you undoubtedly know by now, Angriest Generation is already popular among Boomers, Centrists, and Republicans, but decidedly unpopular among a vocal cadre of mostly young people on the Far Left. Primarily, they dislike this series because I’m among the few to have called them out for spewing anti-Boomer propaganda.
Chaz refused to allow stories from Angriest Generation to make it into his Group’s News feed, even though this particular Group’s feed is generally a dozen pages long and includes many utterly hideous stories from the likes of shady SEO purveyors in Bangladesh and Taiwan.
The first time he deleted one of my stories from his feed, I complained to the Group’s owner and Customer Service. It was reinstated. The second time he did it, I complained again. Reinstated again.
But the third time he did it, Chaz decided to escalate the quarrel and reported me for “spamming” his News feed. I cannot tell you how shocked I was that he would stoop so low. I could have escalated this little tiff in turn and transformed it into a first-class vendetta. But I decided I was tired of Chaz’s shenanigans and simply left the Group.
I want you to ponder this incident for a couple of reasons. First of all, as in the case of a Network of connections above, a bona fide member of a social networking Group should always – that is always – have the right to post blogs or other publications of which he/she is the author or publisher without any restrictions whatsoever – except, perhaps, if they’re pornographic or in some other way universally offensive.
If you don’t want someone in your Group in the first place, by all means, you have the right to refuse them membership. But once they’re in the Group, a manager can’t arbitrarily refuse their right to post articles they’ve written, just because he doesn’t happen to like their subject matter or agree with their political bent.
Chaz’s behavior is offensive to other Group members, too. Is his Membership a gaggle of geese, who have to be protected from being force-fed material they might not like to read, turning their livers into a certain French delicacy? Most adults are capable of deciding for themselves what they want to read and clicking on it. Or deciding they don’t want to read it and not clicking on it. Personally, I have no interest in reading anything from the shady Bengali and Taiwanese SEO purveyors. Or for that matter the New York Times.
Hookers and Con Artists – Good! Bloggers – Evil!
But far worse than Chaz’s battle to shelter his Membership from exposure to us dread Republicans and others he considers politically incorrect is his daring to label our articles as “spam.”
This takes us to the heart of the matter: Publications are not “spam.” Never ever, ever, and ever.
In fact, nobody really thought of labeling any publication as “spam” up to a few months ago, as it became more and more apparent that Big Media was being forced to relinquish its absolute domination of the Internet to hordes of upstart bloggers and websites keen on garnering their own “eyeballs” and audiences, taking them away from the Official – in their own minds – Gatekeepers of the US Media.
The term “spam” was originally – and quite clearly – meant to apply to annoying, repetitive, and unsolicited Internet-based advertising – solicitations that want to persuade you to part with your money. “Here’s a Hot Stock Tip” is usually spam, as are “Buy Foreclosed Houses,” “Get 10,000 Twitter Followers,” and even “Eat at Joe’s Diner,” although I have nothing in particular against Joe.
But someone posting a link to their article, blog, free newsletter, or website, without desiring that you pay them any money to do so, is in no way “spamming.” They are offering information and attempting to build an audience, the same way the Wall Street Journal or CNN or Oprah.com is, when they post and disseminate their latest articles.
Oh, but those are “professionals,” you argue, while bloggers are in a different category. If you think that, I suggest you are reading the wrong blogs. There are many thousands of former or current high-volume print journalists who have their own blogs now. If you’re unfamiliar with my background, I have over 3,000 print articles to my credit over the past 30-odd years. Now I’m in the so-called Blogosphere, working to develop and increase an audience of my own. I like it, and so do many others.
But I also strongly defend the right of newer and less experienced writers and website owners to try to build a readership of their own through the exact same means more established media outlets, including a handful of now-institutionalized Big Blogs, do.
If the New York Times can aggressively post its stories on numerous Linked In Group News feeds, so can Carolyn’s style blog or Arthur’s blog on economics. If the Huffington Post can get staffers and friends to retweet pieces repeatedly on Twitter, so can Charlie’s senior care publication or Nancy’s small business-oriented website.
And if Mashable can strive for blogroll and pingback links from other blogs, John the orthopedist, Patty the homeschooling expert, and Lou who writes about horses can use these tactics, too.
Without fear of being called “spammers.”
Proof positive that the abuse and misuse of the term “spam” applied to Little Media has been calculated is the fact that the mostly young, mostly Far Left-leaning Twitterers and others who’ve been doing the complaining have completely neglected to make complaints about all the real no-doubt-about-it spammers in our midst.
There’s nary a mention of the various get-rich-quick marketing schemes touted constantly by the Trump Network and others. No complaints about barkers for tooth whiteners, gourmet coffee, organic pet food, or Cars Seized from Drug Dealers. Nor even the offensive-to-many pleas to buy male enhancement products or patronize Ladies of the Night.
But Jim or Jane may be harried and harassed by a battalion of “concerned youth,” if they dare to try to publicize their Right-of-Center political articles. “Spam, spam, spam,” some Kiddies now wail – but I don’t think they can get away with it much longer.
For one thing, the social media sites are becoming very wary of Kiddies with chips on their shoulders, since they’ve now been implicated in the Twitter and Facebook Denial-of-Service attacks and the Word Press worm scare in Europe and Asia.
For another, if social sites were persuaded to adopt the “Spam-means-non-Left-Little-Media” theories of MoveOn.Org and their ilk, it’s only a (short) matter of time before they’d start getting hit with some serious and costly lawsuits.
More intriguing, though, is whether any part of Big Media – maybe rogue PR outfits who believe they’re working on media clients’ behalf – are encouraging these youthful legions of “You’re Spamming” accusers or otherwise conspiring to get Little Media’s audience-building efforts unjustly labeled as “spam.”
Was just cruising Hypebot on a Sunday and realized TweetDeck made an update where you can update and monitor mypsace, facebook, and twitter all in the same place/time. Services like this are becoming common as it’s a major pain to login and logout out of multiple sites. We all know myspace is pretty much dead, but as an artist, it’s still somewhere people find out about music because you don’t have to login to listen. Facebook is still relevant and is becoming more musician friendly as time goes. Twitter seems to keep gaining momentum and it becomes fun when you actually start using it, so we’ll see how far this ride goes.
The point is that any service that makes things easier while still allowing you to effectively engage your various communities is fantastic. Time is limited and on top of interacting with fans and online promotion, you have to make music, play shows, work/school, and have some kinda personal life too. Take advantage of TweetDeck. It’s a great free tool. Available for the Iphone if you’re a fellow iphone nerd like myself.
While you’re at it, follow us on twitter. http://twitter.com/newrockstarbook
Download The NewRockStarPhilosophy eBook. It’s FREE!
Even giant bananas love The Spectrum (p.s. it's me).
My name is Ren LaForme and I am currently the senior managing editor for The Spectrum, the only independent student publication at UB.
Writing for The Spectrum changed my life. Two years ago I was a C-average psychology major with no plan for the future. Now, I’m still a C-average psychology major, but I have ambitions, experience and a thorough understanding of AP style.
Now that I hold a position of influence at The Spectrum, I am working with my peers towards improving the paper. We are currently in the midst of a complete layout overhaul and we are shifting our focus to adapt to new technology. For instance, this year we created a new Web site with Facebook account integration and we instituted a Twitter account.
I encourage all students who are interested in journalism to give The Spectrum a whirl. You can join by signing up for ENG 396 section SPC or by visiting our office at 132 Student Union.
The Spectrum has been serving the UB community for 59 years. Did you know that Tom Toles, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist from the Washington Post, is a Spectrum alumnus? Or that Ben Cady, managing editor at The Spectrum from 2004-05, is Governor David Paterson’s speechwriter?
I can guarantee that if you join The Spectrum, you will leave with a more thorough understanding of the journalism field, a deeper insight into the University at Buffalo community and some fun stories.
I’ll share some of those stories with you next time…
The best part about being single are those days when you unexpectedly meet a potential (potential eligible man that is). It feels like it hardly ever happens to me or rather, happens so sporadically that it feels like a rare occurrence. Last time I met a “potential” was about two months ago and sadly nothing came of it.
But I love the feeling of having a great conversation with someone with lots of laughing and smiling. Unfortunately, I find it hard to predict whether these conversations will be followed up by actual pursuit by the “potential.” I suspect this one might not pan out either because I was an idiot and ended up leaving early from the event. I did sweetly tell him to “facebook me!” as I ran out the door so I will keep you all posted about that.
I think of them as Facebook brain freezes: Every so often, when I’m on the site, I just get overwhelmed by the quantity of features it offers and can’t figure out how to do something simple such as post a photo. They’re a temporary condition, but a frustrating one. Which is why I’m intrigued by Facebook Lite, the new stripped-down-to-the-essentials alternative interface the company launched yesterday.
Originally meant for emerging nations such as India where broadband isn’t a given, Facebook Lite is also being rolled out in the U.S. Here’s my home page in Lite mode:
And here it is in heavy standard form:
Facebook Lite does away with third-party apps and a number of inessential fripperies in favor of a more streamlined look. As far as I can tell, it also doesn’t include chat, which is one reason why I haven’t made up my mind whether I’ll use it much. But I really like the idea of an alternative, simpler interface for a feature-rich application, and I hope other purveyors of services and software crib it.
For eons, developers have talked about how 80 percent of users rely on only 20 percent of a typical application’s features. In response, they’ve sometimes come up with simpler versions of well-known apps–Microsoft Works and Photoshop Elements being two examples. Most of these products haven’t been all that good or all that successful–Elements is an impressive exception–and I think part of the problem is that most folks are convinced they’ll eventually need the 80-percent-of-features they aren’t currently using.
Facebook Lite, however, isn’t something different from Facebook; it’s Facebook with a different skin. You can graduate from Lite to full-fledged Facebook without losing anything, or jump back and forth between the two versions at will.
What if Microsoft Works was not a dumbed-down edition of Microsoft Office but rather a different view of Office? (Works’ other selling point besides simplicity has been its low price; maybe you’d have to pay to unlock the full Office interface.) FriendFeed (now owned by Facebook) is notoriously complex; the current version’s a lot easier to use, but it could still benefit from a Lite view. Every time I try to learn Adobe Flash, I get overwhelmed and put it off; a Lite view would help
Call Lite versions training wheels if you must, but there are instances in which I wouldn’t be ashamed to use them–especially if I knew nobody was watching…
Perlu ker facebook (selepas ini dipanggil Fb) ni?…. kalau skarang ni,saper2 yang tak kenal Fb ni bole digelar buta IT (org cakap, bukan aku)….. tapi bagi aku, ia ade pro & cons… terpulang kpd individu yg menggunakan aplikasi ni dalam kehidupan seharian… tak salah ape?
Cuma kengkadang tu bole ketagihan gak… mana taknyer, kalau stiap masa nak update profile yg ntahapentah…sampaikan nak masuk bilik kecik pun nak update…hahaha
Aku pun pakai gak… cuma kengkadang tu lebih kepada silent reader jer… (konon). Bagus aper?… pasal bole tau update member2… rapatkan hubungan (bagi yg belum atau baru berhubung)…. tambah network… main game (aku ler).
So..setiap aper yang ade kat dunia siber ni, memang ade baik dan buruknyer… paham2 sendiri ler mcm mana nak pilih yang terbaik utk diri sendiri…
Sape2 nak add aku (kalau kenal) bole view aku kat sini…
Thank God tomorrow is Friday because today was one of those days that I would like to permanently erase from my mind!
I own a small business in Austin and to be quite honest things have been bumpy lately. We focus on helping other businesses achieve their branding/recognition/marketing goals. Sounds all great that I get to own a business, work from home, make my own rules, blah, blah, blah but when economic shit hits the fan (like it did in Sept. 08) marketing is the first part of the budget to get cut. Don’t get me started on what that makes ZERO business sense but it’s just the way it is. To put it lightly, my business has suffered tremendously. I know, I need some cheese with my wine!
Anywho, so there I was today sitting at my desk basically having a pity party for one when I checked my facebook feed. A friend of mine posted in her facebook status “ran on a treadmill today!!! for the first time in 2 years!” Let me tell you why this is such an amazing feat…. Two years ago my friend was minding her own business walking down the street in Manhattan when out of nowhere a car jumped the curb and crashed directly into her. When they rushed her to Bellevue Hospital they realized that her right leg from the calf down was mangled. We went on vacation together this summer and her mother was telling the story of the night the accident happened. She told us that as she was getting on the plane from Austin to NYC, my friends boyfriend called and said they want to amputate her leg…Mom said all she could remember saying was don’t you dare let them do that , I’m on my way. To make a long story short, six or so surgeries later they have managed to put her leg back together which is amazing because they never thought she would walk again. Well, today she ran! The irony of the story is that my friend was a model- her first 12 page spread came out in InStyle while she was in the hospital.
The point is that if my friend can not only walk but run after Dr.’s told her it was not going to happen, then I can sure as hell quit feeling sorry for myself. I can make it through being tired, cranky, hungry, and anything else life throws at me!
