Video inspired by this post on Facebook today and this post on Google Plus

The credits are first come, first served. How to get them is in the video – good luck!

1) The RSSRay site: Part One and Part Two

2) On iTunes

If you ever needed a clear example of how fast social media evolves, note that on the Wednesday we recorded the show, Twitter was still feeding Google the full firehose. Two days later, Twitter pulled the firehose access to immediate tweet indexing by allowing the Google deal to expire, meaning that Google search results for tweets are now just as useless as, well, Twitter searches for tweets or Bing searches for… well, anything.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal for Twitter to kill the access (I’m betting in either  bid for more money from Google’s deep pockets or as a preemptive strike against the very slick Google +), if Twitter’s own search worked well. But it really doesn’t, and hasn’t for some time.  It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out, especially in light of some of out other favorite tools, like Twellow, also revamping themselves to be less useful lately.

While YouTube is moving away from the user generated content and organic discovery that made it so interesting (as is Cisco, with its closing of the Flip cam division that we discussed earlier this week), and that made it the powerhouse it is today in favor of commercial, channeled content paid for by corporations and syndicates, Apple, Netflix and Google are thinking far ahead of branded channels and embracing the user.  Apple in particular is rumored to be building a video based model designed to compete with both YouTube and Google’s Google TV efforts [full article in Forbes].

One key comment in the article, that Agencies want curated channels, stands out for me. Agencies may want it, but users are crying out on social sites for a la carte TV and web video where THEY are in charge of what they watch, and where it is truly affordable, not some outdated Nielsen rating system or brand.  Because of this, I think users will continue to flock to solutions that let them choose their own content, and that whatever company can pull it off well, and make it easy for them (as opposed to the high learning curve involved in creating your own a la carte television and video experience as it stands now with tools like Boxee and others) will win.  This makes me excited to see Apple jumping into this arena – they are well known for making fabulous user interfaces and focusing on usable design – the geek in me can’t wait to see what they do with TV once they leave behind the idea of Apple TV, etc as a “hobby”.

With Netflix adding in a user generated component, the user could have some exciting choices coming up. Netflix has a bit more clunky interface than Apple and as yet no way to divide your account into family members so your ratings and recently viewed don’t get contaminated with other people’s tastes, but it has the advantage of currently being integrated into more places like PlayStation 3, etc.  This could bring some interesting options to the table for the content generators that are willing to create semi branded content as opposed to full on content channels.

As someone with one foot in marketing, I know why brands want their own branded channels, but as a user as well, I think that is taking the easy way out.  I’d be much more intrigued to see the brands that find a way to conquer the market with great content without having to hold the users hostage to one channel to do it.  What is your favorite brand creating video successfully without holding users hostage to a branded channel right now? Can you think of any?

Why pick on Facebook when companies like Google have similar issues? Because Facebook’s mangling of user privacy is quite intentional, happens frequently, affects even those who don’t really ‘live’ online like some of us do; whereas for Google it is more a side effect of the services they offer than a purposeful business model, I think, and one that has a severe downside for them in a variety of ways. Think back to the Buzz launch recently and the issues and outcry that caused for Google. Because it isn’t their business model, but a side effect, they were quite quick to remedy the issue.

Facebook’s launch of what I’m thinking of as the ‘ubiquitous like’ puts user apathy, lack of internet education and the need for awareness front and center for me. Why user apathy? Think about it: how many of the internet users you know are proactive about checking their privacy settings on all platforms weekly, and again with every new change like the ubiquitous like, and diligent about reading those long, boring TOS (Terms of Service) and EULA (End User License Agreement) pages regularly (or heck, even just when signing on the first time)? Not many, right?

A lack of education and awareness about common internet practices, best practices and being proactive about your own basic online safety comes into play also. So many companies and educational institutions still don’t have even a basic social media education, much less any sort of social media or online guidelines for their employees and students. It’s appalling, and it’s creating and/or reinforcing a gullible, overly trusting generation of users who can’t figure out how to protect themselves, or worse, don’t see a need to.

Not knowing how much this apathy and lack of knowledge and awareness can affect you in terms of privacy and safety is the greatest cost on the internet right now for the end user. Each time you interact blindly online, it has a potential consequence, of varying degrees of import, no matter where you are. This is no different from real life interactions, but for some reason, people have trouble making the mental leap that there is no more great divide between online and offline life anymore. There is no separation of personal and professional, and things you share actually go a variety of places and programs to be sifted, studied, archived, stored, and used.

You might wonder why someone who has a strong social media component to my job would advocate for caution. That’s just it, I’m advocating for caution and awareness, not silence or lack of sharing! The engagement you find online has many more positives than negatives, but just like anything you do, inherent risks that you can take time to minimize.

On Foursquare? I am. I love Foursquare. Don’t check in a location alone. Simple common sense. Don’t leave your home unattended if you have ever checked in there and then go on a trip (though I’d recommend against home check ins anyway for safety reasons). Again, common sense. On Twitter? Having a public Twitter fight? Talking about your drug use? Crowing about cheating the tax man? Talking about how you evade your collection agent? All of that is indexed by Google and out there for all to see (and now also by the Library of Congress). Again, this is all common sense. On Facebook? I bet you haven’t checked your privacy setting in eons. Go to this post by GigaOm and check (and change) them right now. You may be shocked at what Facebook is tracking, all because apathy makes people not go back and make sure their privacy settings haven’t changed on a fairly frequent basis.

There are hundreds of social networks out there and they all have some benefit to users and to companies and organizations. the positives FAR outweigh the negatives – many of my business collaborators and close friends are those I’ve met online through three years on Twitter and time spent cultivating relationships on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. But don’t be stupid about it, folks – just like in real life, look both ways before you cross the street, don’t take candy from strangers, etc. You learned everything you need to know to be safe online in kindergarten, I promise, you just need to be proactive about your own safety and privacy.

Why adaptive media? Because in the end the platforms and applications are just tools, and they are adaptive. They require the user to adapt to a more inclusive set of societal rules, to get back into a communication mode instead of a sales or quota mode, to relearn how to be human even in promotion or business, more. They also adapt constantly, changing almost daily. Some live in a niche (Twitter), some fall out of fashion (MySpace) or lose funding or close for other reasons (TipJoy), some grow exponentially for a while only to begin to fade away (Friendster), some seem to eat the rest of the tools alive (Google), but in the end – they are only tools.

If you call it what it is and work on changing the midset behind the use of the tools, it’s easier to create an atmosphere where you can ride out the volatile nature of the social web and find growth no matter what happens to the tools you use to do it. The social mindset isn’t going anywhere, but it will become a more connected way of living and doing business that will outlast whatever tools you use to do it. Adapt in this age of adaptive media, and don’t trip yourself up by attaching yourself so firmly to one tool you can’t float if it sinks.

Some of the tools I use to manage my business are tools I also use to manage and monitor my social media and online life as well. You’ll see those on both the “social media toolbox” list and the “CEO on the go toolbox” list. Also, it’s notable that several of the tools on both lists have had significant upgrades in recent months that make them even more integrated, collaborative with other tools, and useful.

As a refresher, my social media toolbox post highlighted: Evernote, Shareaholic (FireFox, Safari), Ping.fm, Ubiquity/FireFox, TweetDeck, TextExpander, Quicksilver, Google stuff, my HTC Mogul PDA and my MacBook. Expect an updated post on my social media tools to drop here or elsewhere soon, as some of those have been adjusted with passing time. You’ll notice that Evernote makes an appearance on both lists, and with good reason – the company introduced some nice on-the-go integrations recently.

So how do I run my business on the fly? It’s important for me to have as much data as possible accessible from anywhere. This means that I use a lot of web based solutions. Until they make a 1TB USB Flash thumb drive (and consider this an official “would someone PLEASE make one?” request), I can’t fit all of my data into any lightweight portable form to take with me. If you are a CEO with a MacBook Air or a netbook, this is doubly true for you – you have even less storage and need computing from the cloud solutions even more.

Equipment

My most essential tools are my MacBook and my HTC Mogul PDA. All of the tools I use for my business are accessible at least in basic form from both (some of the mobile sites leave something to be desired, but I find this true of many mobile sites). Along with that, I carry the chargers with me, which takes up valuable space in my League of Awesomeness laptop bag. Since power is key and cords are bulky, I am researching adding one of these to my arsenal. I also keep my iPod on me with a backup of my presentations, in case something horrible happens to the laptop – color me paranoid, but you never know.

Services

Evernote

Yes, Evernote is on both lists. It is a powerful, flexible way to annotate and track your life and business. I talked about the desktop and web plug in features in the last post. What makes it even more effective are the way it integrates these features into your mobile life. Evernote on my phone lets me keep track of anything I’m doing. I can handwrite a note using Ink Note; I can record a meeting, sing a song I’m writing, speak a poem or story idea I have or give myself a quick voice reminder using Audio Note; I can take a picture of anything and record it with the Photo Note feature; I can even send myself files and text notes. Evernote upped the game recently for this heavy Twitter user by allowing me to link my Twitter account to my Evernote account. By then following @myEV on Twitter, I can DM myself notes and reminders and links to add to my Evernote storage as well. With tagged search and other features, all of my notes are easy to find and ready for me to come back to the next time I load up the desktop app or go to the web site. I can even share the notes with people working on a project with me.

Freshbooks

I can not say enough nice things about FreshBooks. They recently won a Webware 100 award, and with good reason. This accounting solution is lightweight, easy to learn, easy to use and flexible enough to incorporate several other on-the-go tools to make it easier to track time, expenses, calls and more. I love that I can create estimates and invoices for my clients that include action items, allowing them to link to the live estimate or invoice and make change requests, accept the terms, pay online and more. It’s very convenient on both sides. Not only that, the customer who has an ongoing project can log in and track time spent on their project, see progress reports and more. It handles staff that work for you as well as clients, and now it is going social – allowing freelancers and subcontractors to link to projects as well, creating a network of people I work and collaborate with. I use this every day, either via the web client, the time tracking widget for my MacBook, my phone (using other services to text in time tracked, expense, or calls made) and more. An ideal accounting solution for the small to medium business that integrates with applications like Xpenser, SkyDeck, etc and exports compatible file types to other accounting software as well.

Xpenser

This little tool let’s me send a tweet, an email, an IM or an SMS from my phone to track expenses. It tracks mileage, meals, time on a project, and more. All you have to do is link it to FreshBooks using the FreshBooks API and it sends all of these expenses to FreshBooks to be associated with a client and project. It also offers a full slate of reports and other features to make it a good stand alone solution for export to desktop accounting programs.

SkyDeck

Another tool that integrates with FreshBooks, allowing me to sync my calls from my cell phone into my FreshBooks account and associate them with a client or project for billing time. It also has some pretty nifty other features, like being able to make a text or call right from the application, see who you call most, get reports to your email on your cell phone usage and even get nudged if you used to talk to someone and don’t call them as much anymore. There is a social aspect to SkyDeck, as it lets you connect with your friends who also use it, a nice touch.

Kall8

The Magnitude Media 800 number is run through a company called Kall8. It costs very little money to run the line, and comes with some nice features. A favorite is call block per number – you can log into the web site and block a number if you get put on a fax machine auto dial list or a telemarketer gets around the National DNC list somehow. This is very handy. Since it is web based, you can forward your calls anywhere you are, receive web based faxes (and send them), get voicemail and more.

YouMail

You may be thinking I spend a lot of time using call management solutions. I do. The less time I spend on the phone, the more work I get done, so I have several options for filtering calls. In addition to Kall8, I use YouMail. YouMail gives me the Caller ID of every caller, shows me when a friend is calling, but most importantly for this woman who hates to waste time checking voice mail, it transcribes my voice mail to text messages for me. Fantastic feature, and a total time saver.

PockeTwit

This Twitter client from Google Code is wonderful. It gives you an attractive, iPhone-like Twitter experience complete with avatars and a full feature set (as well as interacting with other services, like identi.ca, etc) for your WinMo Touch phone. The fact that I can use features like favorite, retweet and more while on the go is invaluable for me, as a heavy Twitter user.

QIK

This live streaming video solution for my phone lets me grab events and interviews on the fly and share them immediately without needing a ton of expensive equipment.

Contxts

Contxts give you Paperless Business Cards. Text geechee_girl to short code 50500 and you’ll see what I mean and why these are so handy.

Google Docs

I use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office when traveling, as it lets me access my work from anywhere. At the home office I use iWork instead of Office, which imports and exports Google and Microsoft compatible formats.

Small Notepad and a Pen

Trust me, even with a phone and laptop on you, there will always be an occasion to use the old fashioned pen and paper when you are traveling. Your IMAP Gmail may hang up or fail, you may need to write notes larger than a business card back, your battery may run out of juice – stuff happens. Be prepared.

And there you have it, the tools that let me run two businesses (Uptown Uncorked, Social Mic), plan events like SMBNH and PodCamp NH, advise companies and write for my freelance writing clients while I’m on the go. What’s in your toolbox for business or for social media?

Disclosure: some links in this blog will be affiliate links

The Twit Pitch

If you were on Twitter last year, you know that Stowe Boyd from /Message coined the term Twit Pitch and launched the idea of elevator pitches now being too long. This concept of having a Twitter-ready elevator pitch for your business is solid. As Search.Twitter becomes the search tool of choice for many, with semantic searches of your trusted network frequently supplanting even the mighty Google, now is the time to figure out how to fit everything you offer into 140 characters (or less, to take advantage of the powerful retweet, or RT network).

It sounds daunting, but I assure you it can be done. Once you have your Twit Pitch tweet formulated, go ahead and tweet it out. Even if you aren’t looking for staff, investors or customers, it can’t hurt to get your message out there. Then click the date stamp on it to open the tweet in its own window. Bookmark that page. Save it, and use it whenever you need to answer the question “What is it you or your company does, exactly?” via Twitter.

The Twitter Resumé

For individuals seeking work in this web world we live in, having a Twitter resumé is essential. It is searchable, succinct and a powerful way to convey how you can help businesses looking to hire via online tools. Stuart C Foster took this advice to heart today in response to my suggestion that a Twitter resumé would be easier for me to pass on to my network. He promptly provided a Twitter resumé that was powerful, and short enough for me to immediately share with my network (see the RT here).

My own Twitter resumé can be found on my bio page. It is a more literal interpretation, covering the major points found in my CV. However yours looks, make sure you take the extra time to whittle it down to its sharpest, most functional form.

Hashtags For Jobs

Hashtags have become a key tool to job seekers and companies looking to hire, as well as networks of people who use hashtags to direct their networks to jobs they come across but may not be interested in themselves. If you are a job seeker, adding the job related hashtags as they come up to your Search.Twitter arsenal is key to locating the best opportunities out there, as determined by your trusted network. You can add such hashtags as #jobangels, #RTJobs, #jobseekers, and more now, and keep you eyes peeled – more crop up daily.

If you are truly a social media whiz, you can not only make your Twitter resumé short enough to RT, you can hashtag it so you can see who forwards it on for you, or to fine tune it to a specific job. For example, a PHP whiz might end their Twitter resumé with #php to come up in searches about the topic. Keep in mind that you aren’t just showing up on Twitter with hashtags – Google indexes Twitter also, so you show up in Google searches for your keyword (hashtag) as well.

Happy hunting!

POSTPONED Continuing the focus on hyper local learning and real time reaching out, we are starting Lunch and Learn sessions on some of the topics we get asked about the most. The first of these is on April 18th at Rick’s Pond View (no walk ins, EventBrite signup or email me if you need to pay cash at the door), and is a class on how to keep your kids safe online. (Hashtag #KIDSAFENH)

Also in the hyper local category is the next Social Media Breakfast NH on April 17th (no walk ins, EventBrite signup only). University of New Hampshire (UNH) has generously offered to sponsor this event. This, the third Social Media Breakfast NH, is all about education and social media. We will have two speakers, and then instead of a third speaker we’ll do an open Q&A that will allow the educators present to pick our brains and learn from us in real time. (Hashtag #SMBNH)

Another upcoming event is the next podcast: Topics on Fire, Episode 15: Inbound/Viral Marketing. That will be on TalkShoe next Sunday 4/19 at 10:00PM EDT. You can follow the call here to get a reminder when it will start sent to your email inbox. (Hashtag #TOF)Last Topics on Fire Episode was on Music and Social Media. Have a listen:

There are more classes in the lunch and learn series coming, and more events planned. Stay tuned as we keep finding ways to share knowledge with you and foster connections.

Like it or not, the iPhone boasts the best platform and App store for mobile social media and networking.  A couple worthy mentions should go to Google’s G1, and maybe even Samsung for its latest batch of TouchWiz-equipped handsets.  

Working from that assumption, I’d point out that iPhone sales have soared recently, even considering the fact that AT&T, a carrier not known for its shining quality, is the only service that can claim the iPhone.  The mass adoption of the iPhone coupled with the success of the Apps store is making the iPhone the best platform for real mobile social networking to occur.

As I’ve said so many times before, there’s quite a ways to go before we reach true mobile social networking.  But, if you believe as I do that the iPhone will most likely be the platform to boast true mobile social networking, you’ll have to agree that a couple of updates announced yesterday certainly go a good way towards brining true mobile social networking closer.

First up: push notifications.  The iPhone (and iPod Touch) will now automatically receive application updates even if the app in question is not running.  You might be thinking, “Well, gee, why didn’t they already have that?”  A very good question.  

Now that apps can receive updates automatically (that is, without a user having to open each individual application, such as Mail, Twitterfon, Loopt, Facebook, MySpace, etc.), users will be alerted of updates to their different social accounts real-time.  Being aware is a huge tenet of social networking, and having your apps note updates displayed as they come in without having to update each app individually will help users streamline their online social activity.  

Second: maps access inside other apps, and turn-by-turn directions.  I consider both of these to be big steps towards advancing mobile social networking.  Loopt, perhaps the best mobile social networking aggregator app out there, allows users’ locations to be visible to other Loopt users on a map.  What better way to help users connect with each other on-the-go than to provide mapped, turn-by-turn directions to activities or your friends?

Let’s say you’re in the city.  Your friend updates her status on Facebook, raving about this band that’s about to play live in a venue across town from you.  You aren’t familiar with the quickest way to get there, so you open Loopt and use your current location and your friend’s location to generate turn-by-turn, GPS-rendered directions, which get you there before the second opening band comes on.

I can’t say as to whether the Loopt team has any designs on integrating the functionality I just described, but my point is the technology is there, and it is now possible.  Talk about a very real way to bridge your online social presence with your real world social life.  THAT is what mobile social networking is about.  

Third: data tethering.  Yes, that sounds quite lame in comparison to what I’ve detailed above, right?  Though I’m all about having everything you need in the palm of your hand, the fact is we just aren’t there yet.  Failing those advancements, there’s not much better than whipping out your Macbook wherever you are at and doing some surfing or social networking when you’re out of WiFi range.

 If mobile social networking still isn’t quite realized (and I’d say that it certainly isn’t), then why not use your familiar and powerful, computer-based social networking tools wherever you’re at by tethering your iPhone’s data to your laptop?  It’s social networking made mobile, is it not?  A bit cumbersome, but it fits the description.  

There you have it: three updates to the iPhone that will further the cause of mobile social networking.  

P.S. – If you weren’t aware, Loopt isn’t just limited to the iPhone…it’s available on the G1 and Blackberrys, just to name a couple prominent handsets.