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Twitter Activity Streams: Good Idea or Privacy Concern?

by Brian Groce on November 10, 2011

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

If you’ve logged into Twitter in the past few days you may have noticed some changes, most notably the addition of the new Twitter Activity Stream.

At first glance my thought was, “Cool, I can see who the people I follow have followed and can more easily follow new people”.  In addition, I can see what tweets the people that I’m following have favorited, which is also another great way to keep tabs on potentially relevant information.

But as I thought more about this I began to wonder if this was such a good idea.  Do the benefits outweigh the potential downfalls, specifically in regards to privacy.

One reason I prefer Twitter over Facebook is the fact that it takes a little more effort to stalk someone (yes, stalkers are a concern of mine, especially for my children…thank you newscasters!).  Sure, I can go through individual’s timeline’s, check their public lists, view their favorite tweets and see who they’re following & who is following them, but now I don’t have to. I have the activity stream!

For my own personal and business Twitter accounts I don’t have an issue with the Twitter activity stream, but then again, I’m pretty cautious and intentional with what I post.  But many people that I know are not and that concerns me.

My proposal would be for Twitter to have an option for people to opt out of their activity being shown (beyond having a completely private Twitter account).  And the default of this option should be to turn it off unless someone specifically turns it on for their account.

What do you think?

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Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 5

by Brian Groce on March 28, 2011

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Here’s Volume 5 in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

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Making Sure Facebook Fan Page Fans See Your Updates

by Brian Groce on February 14, 2011

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

Yesterday we wrote Fixing The Facebook News Feed which focused on the end user. But what can anyone who is using a Facebook Fan Page for marketing purposes do about this to ensure that your Facebook Fan Page fans are seeing your Facebook Fan Page updates?

As you may already know, when it comes to the constant layout & functionality changes at Facebook, you, as a marketer, are at their mercy as to what you can and cannot do.  With this most recent change your best course of action is to contact each individual Facebook Fan Page fan and educate them on the change as far as what it means to them and how they can make adjustments.

You probably do not have the contact information for all of your Facebook Fan Page fans, but luckily Facebook offers a way in which you can send them messages through Facebook.

Here’s how you send a message to all of your Facebook Fan Page fans, or to a segment of them if you so choose.

1) While on your Facebook Fan Page, click on the Edit Page button in the top corner.

2) Click on the Marketing link and then click on the Send an Update link. (If you’re logged in as your Facebook Fan Page you willl be prompted to send the update as yourself.)

3) Compose a message to your Facebook Fan Page fans to let them know about the changes to Facebook and let them know how to fix this.

At this point your Facebook Fan Page fans will be sent the message and will be able to make the necessary adjustments in their Facebook account.

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Fixing The Facebook News Feed

by Brian Groce on February 13, 2011

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

If you’re like me you may have logged into Facebook and noticed that your “Most Recent” Facebook News Feed was suddenly missing a lot of updates from your friends & the Facebook Fan Pages that you’re a fan of.  It seems that in their recent roll out of changes, Facebook decided that by default you only want to see updates from the friends & Facebook Fan Pages that you interact with the most.

I don’t know about you, but that is not what I want.  If there are people I don’t want to see updates from I can either not be friends with them or I can hide them.  For Facebook Fan Pages, I would not opt into a Facebook Fan Page if I did not want to see their updates. But sticking by their M.O., Facebook has decided that is indeed what everyone wants.

Never fear, there’s a way to fix that.

1) From your home page at facebook.com, click on the Most Recent arrow link to bring up your options.

2) Click on Edit Options to bring up the Edit Your News Feed Settings screen.

3) In the “Show posts from” drop down check the “All of your friends and pages” options and then click on the Save button.

Now you’ll start seeing updates from your friends and Facebook Fan Pages again.

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Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 4

by Brian Groce on January 9, 2011

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Here’s Volume 4 in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

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DROID X by Motorola Review

by Brian Groce on November 27, 2010

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

The DROID X by Motorola is clearly a sports car among the current smart phones on the market. Lets take a quick tour.

Platform

The DROID X currently runs the Android 2.1 platform which is very well done & continually improving.

Touchscreen

I’ve always been a little wary of touchscreen phones for two reasons.

1) I have big hands and fat fingers which make it a little difficult to be accurate when typing.  Much to my surprise, with the generous 4.3-in. screen, this hasn’t been too bad.  And once I got the hang of the Predictive Text (Swype) feature it has really been pretty easy to use.

2) It drives me crazy when anyone touches a TV or computer screen. To remedy this pet peeve I highly recommend carrying around a micro fiber cloth to clean off the oil on the screen.

Voice Quality

The voice quality of the DROID X is decent but I’d personally recommend getting a Bluetooth® headset to go along with it.

Battery Life

As with most portable electronics, battery life is a major concern.  Having used the DROID X with Twitter, Gmail & Facebook constantly running in the background with the default screen brightness, the 480 minutes of continuous use is a little generous if you’re looking for active use.  To help improve battery life I highly recommend an app such as the free Advanced Task Killer.

Still Camera

The still camera is 8 MP and has a very decent auto focus feature. Compared to other phones on the market right now I really don’t know what else you can ask for.

Video Camera

The video camera is an amazing HD 720p (1280x720p resolution) camera with 3 built in microphones.  Having shot a few test videos with it I’d personally rather use this instead of toting around something like a Flip.  The only other things I could really want would be 1080p with an external mic option, but this is a phone so I really have no complaints.

Apps, apps & more apps

Packing 24 GB of storage out of the box with the possibility of expanding to 40 GB you should have plenty of room for any of the numerous apps available in the Android Market in addition to the pre-installed applications.

Of the pre-installed applications, Google Maps™ Navigation is an excellent GPS application which will get you where you need to go. You can actually speak your destination to it, using the excellent speech to text feature of the Android platform,  and be on your way. And if your destination is on Google’s Street View, it will show up on the screen when you arrive.

For social media I highly recommend choosing a Twitter app & the Facebook app.  For Twitter there are numerous app options, so give a few a whirl and see what you like.  My personal favorite is Seesmic.  And if you use WordPress I highly recommend installing the WordPress app.

For games there are also numerous options.  Everyone will want to install Angry Birds and then take a look through the other game options in the Android Market.  There are plenty of excellent free games to keep you busy.

Bottom Line

I highly recommend the DROID X.  Of the smart phones currently on the market, the DROID X does just about anything you can throw at it. But I would probably buy a second battery to go along with it.

Technical Specifications

  • Network: Verizon 3G
  • Platform: Android 2.1
  • Battery: Up to 480 minutes continuous, up to 220 hours standby, 1540 mAh Li Ion
  • Memory:  up 8 GB on board, 16 GB removable microSD pre-installed (supports up to 32 GB microSD)
  • Display Size: 4.3-in.; WVGA (480 x 854)
  • Weight: 155 grams
  • Size (H x W x D): 65.5 x 127.5 x 9.9 mm
  • Camera: 8 MP, Digital Zoom, Flash, Auto Focus, Cropping, Rotating, Geo Tagging
  • Video Camera: HD 720p quality (1280x720p resolution) up to 24 fps capture; up to 30 fps playback, 3 microphone technology
  • Media: Android Media Player, Video & Audio (AAC, H.263, H.264, MP3, MPEG-4, WAV, eAAC+, WMA v10, MIDI, AAC+)
  • WIFI: 802.11 n
  • 3G Mobile Hotspot: Be a mobile hot spot for up to 5 other devices
  • Connector Type: Micro USB, HDMI® Micro Connector Cable
  • Data Transmission Rate: USB 2.0 (High Speed)
  • Other: Bluetooth®, SMS, MMS, Predictive Text (Swype), Speakerphone

Preinstalled Applications

  • Google Apps
    • Gmail™
    • Google Calendar™
    • Google Contact Sync™
    • Google Latitude™
    • Google Maps Street View
    • Google Maps™
    • Google Maps™ Navigation
    • Google Quick Search Box™
    • Google Talk™
    • Google™ Search By Voice
    • Youtube™
  • Email: Corporate Sync, Google Mail, Push Email, WebKit
  • Web Browser: Android HTML Webkit, Adobe® Flash® Player
  • Other: Calculator, Calendar, Clock, Wallpaper, Ringtones (AAC, AAC+, eAAC, eAAC+, MP3, OGG)

Disclosure: The DROID X by Motorola was provided for review by Verizon Wireless.

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Dot.column: What makes a video go viral?

by Brian Groce on November 24, 2010

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

The latest Dot.column question in Metromix Indianapolis is:

What makes a video go viral?

Other than getting the right people to find and share a video, the video needs to give people a good reason to share it. Is it entertaining? Is it funny? Is it shocking? Does it speak to viewers in some other way? If you can answer “yes” to any of those questions, then you’re part of the way there.

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Dot.column: What do you think about Facebook e-mail?

by Brian Groce on November 19, 2010

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

The latest Dot.column question in Metromix Indianapolis is:

What do you think about Facebook e-mail?

While it sounds like a neat idea that melds existing electronic messaging technologies together, there are still many questions to be answered. For me personally the three biggies are privacy (will my information be exposed to 3rd parties), functionality (will it do what I want & need it to do) and any user interfaces (will it be easy to navigate & efficient to use on various platforms).

What Is Metromix Indianapolis’ Dot.column?

 
Via the first Dot.column:

We’re going straight to the experts to scrape their brains on everything techy, social networky, online-y and anything else you’re dying to know. Have a question for them? E-mail us at indianapolis@metromix.com. Wanna talk about it on Twitter? Follow #Dotcolumn

Since I am on the panel I thought it would be good to post my reposes here as well, so that is what I’ll do as they are published. Note that in some issues responses have to be cut due to space, and if that happens to be the case, you can still read my response here.  And feel free to chime in and/or ask any follow up questions.

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Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 3

by Brian Groce on September 22, 2010

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Here’s Volume 3 in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

  1. Facebook to Change How You Process Friend Requests by Jennifer Van Grove
  2. Foursquare Launching New Must-Have Button for Websites by Marshall Kirkpatrick
  3. Get rid of Those Annoying Farmville Requests with new Social Network About “What Matters to You” by Lauren Dugan
  4. How to gracefully promote yourself online by Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich, Special to CNN
  5. Is Twitter for Business Even Worth the Trouble by Jay Baer
  6. Six Reasons Why I’m Not On Facebook, By Wired UK’s Editor by David Rowan, Wired UK
  7. SocialSmack Gives You Props for Talking Smack About Brands by Ben Parr
  8. The Cross-Generation Workforce by Andy McLoughlin, Forbes
  9. The New Twitter Is an Attack on All Desktop Apps by Jennifer Van Grove
  10. To Schedule Tweets Or Not by Chris Brogan

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

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Dilbert: Social Media Marketing Manager

by Brian Groce on September 14, 2010

in Brian's Work,Watershed Studio

Dilbert.com

Dilbert never ceases to amaze me at how spot-on the strip is.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve talked to people who work in “the real world” and they say things like:

  • “We have a company website…but it’s blocked during business hours.”
  • “We have a Facebook Fan Page/Group/Etc…but we don’t have access to Facebook.”
  • “We have a Twitter account…but we can’t access Twitter at work.”
  • “No, I don’t read business related blogs…that’s against company policy.”

And the list could go on and on.

In this day and age the companies who are embracing the technological changes are going to be the ones to prevail.  The rest will eventually be left behind and forgotten about. That is what we believe. That is what we adhere to. And that is what we preach at our Indy Media School classes.

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