Image via Wikipedia

I’ve had the honor of being one of the judges for the selection of the design for the official Facebook Page of Latvia. I have narrowed it down to my favorite three designs/concepts/submissions. Take a look and please vote for your favorite. I’d like to see how my favorite stands up to the opinion of others.

Also, please leave comments on what you like and dislike. I’ll relay this to the rest of the judges, so that the final design can be as good as possible. (fyi, these are in no particular order.)

Submission #1: Latvia: Politics, Culture, Business, Pop

Submission #2: If you like Latvia, Latvia likes you

Submission #3: Celebrate Latvia

Most businesses have a fan page, a twitter account and a website, but they are confused on how to use each service and where to post their content.

An explanation that I think fits: Look at Facebook/Twitter (and any other service) as property that you rent, you have control of it, but if the landlord wants to make changes or upgrades you dont have much control over what he does. Where as your website should be looked at as property that you own, you have final say over what happens in and around it. This is why everything should first be on your website and why you should use other services to drive traffic to your site.

I’ll post more detailed strategies in the upcoming posts. I hope this will get you thinking about your site and where you are posting your content.

Create on your site – Share on others – Drive back to your site.

(Image via smemon87)

Can you work without having your computer and the files that are on it? Do you need to drag your laptop with you to get work done?

I have actually never worried about it too much, I have always brought my laptop with me. But my laptop is not working and I am logged in on a desktop that has absolutely nothing of mine on it. I thought that my day will be a complete waste but I was pleasantly surprised on how much of my life is stored in the cloud. Within 10 minutes I was able to have access to everything that I need. This now makes me think that a netbook or the next generation Macbook Air might do everything that I need.

I have broken this down to see how it all worked out. I had to download few apps and extensions, other than that everything was available just by logging in.

Email and Calendar

Gmail – I don’t think I need to explain this. Log in and all you email is there. The same as on your home desktop or your personal laptop.

Calendar – Same as gmail, really one and the same.

Documents:

Google Documents: Once again this is available just by logging into your gmail account. Over the past year I’ve switched most of my documents and collaborations here. The best part is that you don’t need to send drafts back and forth. You can give access to the others and everyone can edit from one place. If you don’t use or haven’t tried it, you should.

Communication:

GoogleVoice – Love the service. Check out the video below.

Skype: Call and chat with family and friends internationally.

Browser:

Google Chrome: Sync with my account. Imports all bookmarks and bookmarklets. They don’t import the extensions, but I’m sure that will come soon. I had to download few that I use.

Files and Storage

Dropbox – Syncing of files across different computers or access everything from their website. This can be your backup to your files as well a great place to keep all the files and documents that you need anywhere you go. I also back everything on my computer with another service.. I know it’s an overkill but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

What is Dropbox?

Access to Passwords:

1Password:  I use 1Password, I think it’s the best thing out there. Now that they have an android app my life is mush easier, before this I could not get into my accounts when  I was away from my computer. (Every password is different on each site that I use. And anyone who knows me knows that means I am SOL if I don’t have this app with me.)

Social Media Management:

Tweetdeck: My de facto social media management app, I use it on my phone and on my computer. It is not as seamless as the Hootsuite web based site, but for some reason I like using it better. I guess it’s just my personal preference.

Hootsuite: I’d say it’s the best option for web based social media management, you log in and everything is the way you left it.

Music:

Pandora, Grooveshark, Last.FM: I use all these sites, with Pandora and Grooveshark getting 95% of my attention. I think I will cut out Last.FM totally. I use Pandora when I want to hear random songs and don’t care exactly what I listen to. On Grooveshark I can be more specific with what songs I want to listen to.

Not saying that the sites listed above are the best, just the ones I know about and like. Would love to hear anything that I could add to this list to make it better. Thanks!

Main Photo by Lost in the RP

I can say your restaurant sucks, your shop smells and your wife is fat. It’s all right, because I’m anonymous.

Get it?  Anonymous or trolls as many like to call them have been an issue since the first forum was created.

Facebook and Twitter profiles should be required to comment. I want to know who you are. I want to engage in a conversation with you. Whether you agree or disagree with what I have said.

Let yourself be discovered… engage with people… be part of a community

Don’t be invisible just because you can.

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/

They are encouraging people to get out and be social. A major issue with Facebook, Myspace and other social networks was the fact that you created something online and it almost encouraged you to isolate yourself.

April 16th was the 1st Annual Foursquare Day. Foursquare is an app that encourages users to go out and explore our towns and cities. Online and offline worlds are starting to blend together.

Photo Credit: wordcat57

• foursquare
• gowalla
• loopt
• whrrl
• MyTown

The Lowdown: In 2009 you saw Twitter explode onto the mainstream audience. In 2010 you will see either Foursquare or Gowalla take the clear lead in the “Location war” There is a third option, Google or Facebook could get into the war and destroy both of these services. (More on this later)

Why they Matter: They allow businesses and individuals to connect via their physical location.

• A business can set criteria that gives discounts to people who check-in and share to their friends where they are.You check into a bar in New York City. You get a notification that there is a happy hour at a bar acrossthestreet. The only reason you know about this is because you checked in at your original location.
  • Ability to discover new places.
  • Loyalty programs.
• An individual can see where their friends have gone to find new places. They can also meet up with a friend if they happen to be close by.
  • People love to tell others that a certain place is their spot, there is no better way of claiming a location than becoming a mayor. Everyone instantly knows you are the most loyal customer.

Why You Should Care: You already ask your friends advise about restaurants, movies, and shopping. Now you are able to actually see where they have eaten or gone shopping. In many cases they leave a comment to let people know how their experience was. This makes for a seamless way of finding out about cool new places.

What Service Should You Use: There really are only two that matter. So try out foursquare and gowalla and see which one you like better. My favorite is foursquare.

Nice breakdown provided by Mashable. The link is at the bottom of the post.

Much Needed:

• An app that will let me update all geo-location services at one time.
• More businesses on board.
• More people using the services.
• More Cowbell.

Apocalypse: There is a scenario where all of these start ups become irrelevant overnight. If Google and Facebook release features that incorporate it into their sizeable user bases.

• Google has stepped into the game with Buzz. The only problem is that it kind of sucks. There are privacy issues, does not have a stand alone app (Still not great). Multiple steps to check into places. There are more issues, but I think you get the idea. They did not make this into something that is ready to take down any of these start ups. They seem to love being “Always in Beta”
• Facebook has not done this but if past actions are any indication they will copy foursquare and have the exact functionality.
  • History Lesson: When twitter became hot, Facebook was quick to add their own “stream” that looked and acted exactly like twitter. Don’t be surprised to see the same thing happen. They also bought friendfeed, which was a more advanced twitter that no one used.

Update: April 16th will be interantional Foursquare Day

• The idea came from NateBW, an entrepreneur in Tampa
• More info below:
  • Read #4sqday FAQ here:
    http://ow.ly/1s6Y4
  • Join the FB event:
    http://ow.ly/1rS5C
  • Add your local events here:
    http://foursquareday.wikispaces.com/
• Hope to see you on Foursquare soon!

Please leave me feedback and let me know how wrong I am on any of my points.

Related Links: http://mashable.com/2009/12/25/foursquare-gowalla/

Did the AP buy the rights to the photo? No, they did not buy the rights.

Did you sell it to someone else? No, I actually copyrighted the photo and control the rights to them. Anyone interested in using the photo needs to have my permission.

How do you feel about the unlicensed use of the photo? It is what it is. I posted it on a public site to my 170 followers. I did not send it to CNN or FOX. I am satisfied with how everything has unfolded.  A lot of good has come of this event and I can’t get mad at something that I have no control over. When I took the photo my priority was rescuing the passengers of the plane and not selling the rights to one of the news organizations.

Lessons for citizen journalist? What would you change about the current structure of distribution?

Firstly, anyone at anytime can be a citizen journalist. You can’t prepare for it. You can only get lucky enough that you know what to do in an emergency situation. That may mean spreading the news or just being able to help the distressed people. Prepartion is the key here, as one of my favorite quotes states:

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Seneca

If you’re a journalist, I recommend being on top of all the new tech apps. Ot at least know how to do the basic things like tweet, send an email with a photo, etc… You should not try to figure it out on the spot. A quote from Professor Sree Sreenivasant perfectly states it:

“When a plane lands in the Hudson, it’s too late to figure out Twitter” – Prof. Sree Sreenivasan (@sreenet)

The Future?

One thing that I would like to see is the protection of photos in services like TwitPic, YFrog, TweetPhoto, and others. If they implement some type of distribution avenue it could make sense in events of significance. News organization would know where to look for their info and the photographers would be compensated for their material.

I don’t like what iReport and others are doing. They are getting people to send their property to them and they get nothing back, at best a credit when they show it on air. I think this is putting professional photographers out of jobs and devaluing the craft of photography.

Does the business model work?

The downfall of citizen powered services like Scoopt  was the fact that the likely hood of someone choosing that one particular service was very low. However, majority of photos are being uploaded to about 4 photo sharing sites. If they would work out a way to distribute note worthy photos it would help citizen journalists monetize their top shots and give incentives to professional to use these sites.

I know that there is a fine line between locking photos up and having them totally open. If a middle ground can be established then we could really see a lot of value. I think that is a major obstacle but one that can be solved.

I don’t know if the numbers make sense. But after speaking to a few journalism students at Columbia. They expressed interested in a service that would be geo-location enabled and provide them with photos of small and large events that they could report on. Journalists want access to as much information as possible.

I hope this answers some questions. If you have any more, leave a comment or email me and I will get back to you.

My informal talk at Columbia Journalism School:

Related Articles:

• Can Citizen Photo Agency Demotix Succeed Where Scoopt Failed? http://ow.ly/1gdHL
• Twitter Can Be Vital In Covering Breaking News — A Non-Journalist Teaches Us How: http://ow.ly/1lgvp