My blog post this week is fairly short and helps with giving more background information about my previous post.
It is a article on the social media news site, Mashable.com
The article appeared in their How To section which are nice and easy explanations on how some of these new technologies can be used by different audience groups.
This one in particular is called, HOW TO: Make Your Small Business Geolocation-ready.
Enjoy
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Location aware services
Smartphones have become very popular in the last few years. They have come so far that even college students have Smartphones that have both internet and GPS on them. This combination opens up a whole new ballgame for social media in small communities.
In my next blog post I will be looking exactly on how these might benefit those small communities. In this blog post I will be looking at several different services that are out there when it comes to location awareness and check-ins.
1) Foursquare
It works with the iPhone, Blackberry's, and Android phones. It lets you sign in to specific location and compete for what it calls becoming the "Mayor" of a place. It also lets you add tips for friends and a ToDo list.
As of late, yelp also lets you sign into places, before it was a service that would show reviews of restaurants, bars, and other locations based on your location. Yelp works on any phone with internet capabilities. It also has a separate app for the iPhone, Blackberry's, Android phones, and the Palm Pre.
3) Google Latitude
Google Latitude shows you were you and your friends are at any time. It can be used on any phone with internet. It currently doesn't support check-in's.
4) Loopt
Loopt started out in the same way Google Latitude did, but has since added check-in's. It has an app for iPhone, Blackberry's and Android.
In my next blog post I will be looking exactly on how these might benefit those small communities. In this blog post I will be looking at several different services that are out there when it comes to location awareness and check-ins.
1) Foursquare
It works with the iPhone, Blackberry's, and Android phones. It lets you sign in to specific location and compete for what it calls becoming the "Mayor" of a place. It also lets you add tips for friends and a ToDo list.2) Yelp
3) Google Latitude
4) Loopt
Loopt started out in the same way Google Latitude did, but has since added check-in's. It has an app for iPhone, Blackberry's and Android.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Super Bowl
My next tweet is not about social media in small communities, no, this one is going to be a little bit bigger. I do believe that I can go off topic on my own blog.
Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday and the game was awesome, but the commercials sucked! However, there was one commercial that I believe would not have worked if it wasn't for social media. Twice during the game they showed Barney Stinson, a character on the CBS sitcom How I met your mother. Barney was pretending to be at the game holding up a sign that spelled out a sentence using the letters CBS. On the bottom there was a number to call, not a 555 number, but a real number.
Now, the first time the commercial came by I didn't have time to check the number. The second time I tried to remember it but I guess 10 digits is too much in those few seconds. I ended up going onto twitter and searching for Barney Stinson and found several people talking about the advertisement and about the number. Sure enough, the number was even listed in some of the tweets.
Had it not been for social media I would have never know that number, mostly because we have a short attention span, and I would have never bothered searching for it a day later when more traditional media outlets would possible discuss the advertisement.
Social media, you did it again!
Ps. Who dat!
Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday and the game was awesome, but the commercials sucked! However, there was one commercial that I believe would not have worked if it wasn't for social media. Twice during the game they showed Barney Stinson, a character on the CBS sitcom How I met your mother. Barney was pretending to be at the game holding up a sign that spelled out a sentence using the letters CBS. On the bottom there was a number to call, not a 555 number, but a real number.
Now, the first time the commercial came by I didn't have time to check the number. The second time I tried to remember it but I guess 10 digits is too much in those few seconds. I ended up going onto twitter and searching for Barney Stinson and found several people talking about the advertisement and about the number. Sure enough, the number was even listed in some of the tweets.
Had it not been for social media I would have never know that number, mostly because we have a short attention span, and I would have never bothered searching for it a day later when more traditional media outlets would possible discuss the advertisement.
Social media, you did it again!
Ps. Who dat!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Power Outage
This morning, at around 8:30 am, the power went out in Maryville. Luckily, cell phone towers are hardly ever affected by such problems.
The first thing I did was to grab my iPhone and check both Twitter and Facebook. I noticed that two other people had already posted to Facebook that their power was out as well. It indicated to me that it was not just the Northwest Missouri State University campus that was without power, but also the rest of Maryville, or at least, certain areas in Maryville.
I noticed that on twitter none of the news agencies had reported on the outage yet, a very common occurrence. It also shows the power of social media when it comes to timely information. I decided to notify KQ2 in St. Joseph and a few minutes later my post was retweeted to far larger audience than I would be able to reach myself.
Some funny side notes, thanks to this power outage and thanks to social media I now also know way more than I ever wanted to on what people were doing this morning.
The first thing I did was to grab my iPhone and check both Twitter and Facebook. I noticed that two other people had already posted to Facebook that their power was out as well. It indicated to me that it was not just the Northwest Missouri State University campus that was without power, but also the rest of Maryville, or at least, certain areas in Maryville.
I noticed that on twitter none of the news agencies had reported on the outage yet, a very common occurrence. It also shows the power of social media when it comes to timely information. I decided to notify KQ2 in St. Joseph and a few minutes later my post was retweeted to far larger audience than I would be able to reach myself.
Some funny side notes, thanks to this power outage and thanks to social media I now also know way more than I ever wanted to on what people were doing this morning.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Twitter in the morning
One of the first things I do in the morning is check Twitter on my iPhone. Why you ask? Because it's the one place where I can truly get all the important news in a flash. I get both the national news headlines, the international news headlines, but most important, the local news headlines and even the weather.
To give you an example, this morning when I woke up I read about the several sporting events that had taken place the night before.
I also received an update that it is going to be foggy in St. Joe, and even though I won't be driving to St. Joe myself, I have other people in my life who have to on a daily basis who I can update with this information by retweeting. The beauty of the post below is that it includes one of Twitters most powerful features, you can include links to pictures. Sure, what is thick fog? But by clicking on the picture I can actually see how thick the fog is.
And my third major news update came from St. Joe News. Apparently a couple slid of the road and there is an update on the situation. Thanks to Twitter I now don't have to keep checking the website every five minutes to see if there is an update.
Now, I know that there is other ways of getting information from the internet in an easy form, but to me Twitter is the first service that actually lets you do this in a fast and convenient way. Instead of checking multiple sites, or reading long RSS feeds, I know exactly what's going on in my area through 140 character updates.
If you are more curious about what Twitter is, check this Twitter guide book on Mashable.com:
http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/
To give you an example, this morning when I woke up I read about the several sporting events that had taken place the night before.
NodawayNews
MHS Wrestling beat Sabetha, 51-21, and Falls City, 45-36
I also received an update that it is going to be foggy in St. Joe, and even though I won't be driving to St. Joe myself, I have other people in my life who have to on a daily basis who I can update with this information by retweeting. The beauty of the post below is that it includes one of Twitters most powerful features, you can include links to pictures. Sure, what is thick fog? But by clicking on the picture I can actually see how thick the fog is.
kq2
RT @mikebracciano: Fog around St. Joseph thick fog to the south... http://yfrog.com/4anj4aj
And my third major news update came from St. Joe News. Apparently a couple slid of the road and there is an update on the situation. Thanks to Twitter I now don't have to keep checking the website every five minutes to see if there is an update.
stjoenews
News Update: Couple taken to hospital after sliding off the road http://bit.ly/8QUXpG
Now, I know that there is other ways of getting information from the internet in an easy form, but to me Twitter is the first service that actually lets you do this in a fast and convenient way. Instead of checking multiple sites, or reading long RSS feeds, I know exactly what's going on in my area through 140 character updates.
If you are more curious about what Twitter is, check this Twitter guide book on Mashable.com:
http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
How small is small?
On this blog I will be posting about the latest trends in Social Media and how they can benefit small communities. Small is a relative term and I therefor feel I should explain better what I mean by small. I live in the northwest corner of Missouri and I will use this location often as a reference during my post. In the northwest corner Missouri I will mostly be focusing on two cities.
I'm looking forward to blogging about this topic and I hope you all are as well!
- The first one is Maryville, with a population of a little over 10,000 and on top of that about 5,000 students.
- The second one is Saint Joseph, with a population of a little under 80,000
I'm looking forward to blogging about this topic and I hope you all are as well!
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