David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Participating in Digital Community, or Lots of Links to David

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I’ve been doing some thinking about all the different digital communities I participate in on the web, so I thought I’d create a list of them. It’s not a short list.

Things I use the most:

Video stuff:

  • My videoblog
  • blip.tv (I store all my videos at blip – they rock)
  • YouTube (sometimes I post video here too)
  • justin.tv (experimenting with this – they call it “lifecasting” – but in web years I’m an oldie, so it’s really just a new, easy-to-use webcam service)

Podcasting services (mainly experiments):

  • utterz (easy-to-use mobile service – done from my cell phone)
  • talkshoe (used mainly for the LITA election podcasts – not sure what to do with it now)

Music stuff (you can find me singing and musiking in a few different places):

  • last.fm (newest stuff goes here)
  • SoundClick (first place I put music – and it’s still around!)
  • SoundClick for my 80’s college band (we so rocked)
  • PureVolume (I have 4 songs here – not really doing anything with it)

Other things I toy with:

  • Pownce (just friend people who friend me here – really nothing else since I’m good with twitter)
  • Plaxo (link to people who link to me, not much else)
  • LinkedIn (mainly link to people who link to me)
  • Skype (davidleeking on skype)
  • Second Life (Daweed Quatro in Second Life)
  • MySpace (recently been actively used with some college friends who have just “discovered the web” 🙂 )
  • LibraryThing (I go on LibraryThing binges once in awhile…)

Seeing this list, some of you will have different reactions. Some of you might think “Dang, David – that’s WAY TOO MANY things to sign up for!” while others of you are probably thinking “slacker – get with the program!”

Either way, I’ll say this – if you want to fully understand how the emerging web works, you have to experience it. You have to sign up, friend people (the more the merrier), and PARTICIPATE. There’s no other way to really understand what’s going on and how you might use it personally or for your organization. Reading about it won’t give you a full grasp – it’s like reading about going to a major league ballgame vs. actually going to one – two very different experiences.

Closing Question – is there anything you use frequently that’s NOT on this list? What do you like about it? Something on this list you don’t use? Why?

Not Using Swift for Computers in Libraries

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The Computers in Libraries conference (an awesome conference, by the way) is experimenting with Swift, an “online community platform for conferences.” That’s great! It’s always fun to see a cool conference experiment with fun tools.

However, I’m opting out. Why? Read the Terms of Service document (found via Jessamyn’s post). There’s some language there that I don’t agree with. Let me demonstrate:

  • “By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part), transmit, and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.”
  • Me – I’m not giving my photos, tweets, and blog posts to a company that wants an “irrivocable, perpetual… license to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate… for any purpose…” Nope. IT’S MY CONTENT.
  • It continues: “You further agree that you will not use the Site to … promote or generate revenue for any business or commercial purposes unless authorized by Company”
  • Me – Ummm… I have this speaking and writing business. And my free content promotes ME, which DOES end up generating revenue. So nope. Can’t do it. For example, I’m writing a book for InfoToday. I’m also promoting my library…
  • A little more: “Except for your own User Content, you may not and will not upload or republish Site Content on any Internet, Intranet or Extranet site or incorporate the information in any other database or compilation, and any other use of the Site Content is strictly prohibited.”
  • Me – if I had signed up for the service, I couldn’t have republished parts of this ToS to complain. Nope, sorry.

Furthermore – does anyone remember this post from awhile back (and the comments attached)? Here’s what I said about it then… and I still feel that way.

But even without all that, I simply don’t see the need for it. Anyone who wants to can subscribe to my Facebook account, my twitter, flickr, and blog feeds, and my videoblog. They can find anything related to the conference via tags in each of these services plus Technorati. And aggregate it (except for Facebook) in one place (their feed reader of choice). So what does this service give me that I’m lacking? Anyone?

Finally, the ToS says: “If You do not agree with these Terms of Use, please do not use the Otter Group Site.” I don’t, and I won’t.

SXSWi2008, Day 3: Social Networking and your Brand

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Coolness – they’re taking questions during the presentation using twitter – twitter.com/snayb4sxsw – great use of twitter!

panelists:
Paul Boag, Jina Bolton, Mark Norman Francis, Steve Ganz, Steve Smith

Defining social networking
it’s something we’ve done forever – even before the web

ways to use personal brand
not just logos and letterhead
your brand is simply the promise of an experience

ways to use personal brand:
Boag – his company used his personal brand to push some stuff out, because he was already well known in the field

Names
some brand themselves by their personal name – some have to use different names/personas to stand out from the crowd (Steve Smith talking here)

[me talking – that’s why I use my middle name – it helps differentiate me from the millions of other David Kings out there]

Then you have to be consistent – always use that name

Tips & Tricks:

Pics – use a consistent avatar/icon/thumbnail pic, too.

Commenting – can affect your brand. Some people leave rude comments… you can be polite…. this type of thing can leave good or bad impressions of you.

SOme people give up when they don’t immediately become internet famous – you have to be consistent, and keep keep it going – it’s lots of work.

Represent your self as who you are – be yourself.

Keep your attitude the same as if you were speaking to someone face to face

when it’s a personal brand, you have to watch what you do – don’t necessarily want “I’m wasted” in the same place where potential clients are watching/reading…

stuff can get taken out of context – be careful what you twitter…

Tools:
twitter is used much (the linkdin guy said this)
Paul (a podcaster) says Podcasting!
Campfire, email, IMs, private chatrooms
Bolton – twitter, IM, etc are NOT social networks – they enable social networking – nice differentiation

How do we deal with all these pieces out there?
Reserving your name – dangerous to not get your name in that social space – you want to grab it up before someone else does.

Is it a detriment to get it and then not use it? Not necessarily

The Real World
How do you keep in touch? Email feels too formal. Paul uses Twitter and flickr – you can sort of follow their lives without interrupting their lives so much – and then when you meet up with them again, you have something to talk about

Paul takes business cards he gets at conferences, puts them in his contacts list, and finds a pic online to associate it with – helps him put a name and a face together

Lots of the panelists mentioned flickr as a great way to know the person, know their lives

Balance between private and public stuff
be aware
use the privacy controls if needed
bring out personality, who you are rather than specifics…
you have control of what you put out online

SXSWi2008, Day 2: Mark Zuckerberg Keynote

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aside – I was in the overflow room, and was dosing off… so not too many notes. The more interesting thing would have been to be in the big room – apparently there was lots of booing, hooting, and hollering over the interview (mainly the interviewer’s fault, from all the tweets I’ve read). More news about that here (and many other places).

My poor notes:

– Facebook’s goal is to help people connect and communicate more effectively

– They are big in Columbia – people are using Facebook to plan revolts in their country – Mark never expected that to happen!

– Facebook’s goal: The world has lots of problems… Facebook is building a platform on which to solve these problems.

– They don’t focus on the money – honestly, mark sounded like a web developer/programmer who had a great idea and went with it.

ProBlogger on Inviting Participation

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The ProBlogger blog has a great post on how to invite participation in your blog. Here are some bullet points from the article:

  • Reveal what you don’t know – admitting you don’t know something makes you seem real
  • Ask a Question – ideas: tie it to the thing you don’t know, or ask for experiences or examples
  • Run a poll – allows readers to participate in an anonymous way
  • Invite a response – call your readers to action (write a post of their own, enter a competition, etc)
  • Create a space for interaction – create a forum

Go read the post – lots of good stuff there!