My favorite links of the week from the best Social Media and Tech blogs and websites:

• Pushing A Hashtag Really Isn’t Going to Work Without Some Preexisting Love and Trust
• Facebook’s IPO: Who Got Rich
• Five Handy Things You Can Do with Google’s New Knowledge Graph Search [Google Search]
• As For Auto Posts…I Take It Back. Almost.
• 10 Things Facebook Should Spend Its IPO Money On
• 9 Ways to Improve the Signal to Noise Ratio on Twitter ~ via Brian Solis
• How to “get” social media? via John Haydon
• The online population boom [infographic]
• Google Knowledge Graph Brings Smarter Semantic Results to Your Google Searches [Video]
• WordPress gets an [unofficial] built-in app store for plugins and themes
• Anyone can use the new Bing now. Here’s how to get it
• The Fallacy of Information Overload – via Brian Solis PR 2.0

These and other social media and tech links are at http://delicious.com/joespake/socialmedia

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WordPress founder visits Memphis

WordPress powers over 16% of the web, including this blog.  WordPress founding developer, Matt Mullenweg is in Memphis this week for the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Contest.  He and part of his development team stopped by Launchpad at Launch Memphis on Tuesday, 5/15/2012 for some Q and A.

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Ned Ludd Lives!

Once in a while the term Luddite enters the conversation. We who presume ourselves to be on the cutting edge all things social and techie are occasionally floored by a remark or observation from a Luddite – or neo-luddite, or as I referred to them in a 2010 post, Luddite 2.0, a term coined my friend and deep thinker, Bill Wendel.  I have worked hard  since I wrote that post to avoid the Luddite mantle, and I can hold my own with most of the Gen-X, Y, Z or whatever Gen folks I encounter, because, as Brian Solis points out  Generation-C transcends age.  And that C is about being Connected.

TechCamp Memphis (5/12/2010) featured some of the area’s best minds in  social media, internet marketing and strategy, and an array of developer specialties.  I will admit that the developer stuff is way beyond me, but a big part of being Generation- C is having a good handle on just how much you want to be connected.     One attendee told me that her co-workers are not only not “connected”, but they don’t do very well un-connected either. “Most of them don’t know how to create a folder in Windows to put their files into.”  I wondered later if she was talking about electronic files or paper files.  I see that type of thing in my business a lot: “No, I don’t have a scanner; I’ll just bring you the contract.”  These are probably the same folks who fear the internet because someone might grab their private information; who find it easier to say NO to social media, Google, and in some cases email, rather than looking into how those things could possibly enhance their lives and make lots of things easier for them.  Having adopted the use of the telephone, they still carry pagers. Luddites 2.0.

Remember studying Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in Sociology 101?  Look at how closely the upper 2 levels (and possibly 3) of the pyramid reflect what most of us are accomplishing, in a large part, online today through being connected.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

I am not saying that’s good or bad, but think about it.  Once you are there can you go back?  Can you give up that connection?  Do you see a day when technology will evolve to the point that you will draw a line in the sand and say, “I’m a Luddite now.”?

-Images via http://en.wikipedia.org

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Subscribe to this blog via email

Sometimes you just don’t have time to go looking for the latest post from your favorite blogs.  If you are using an RSS reader, and you are like me, you probably have hundreds of posts to wade through to get to what you really want to read right then.  I haven’t been a big advocate of blog mail subscriptions in the past, but one of the features of WordPress’ Jetpack Plugin lets readers easily subscribe via email.

Get new posts instantaneously in your email box by subscribing in the right column

So, “big deal,” you might say, “I have always been able to subscribe to blogs by email.  Yes but major handlers of  post subscriptions  like Feedburner usually only email post once a day, so by the time you get them they are old news – already made the rounds on Twitter, Facebook and the RSS readers.  A WordPress subscription (see illustration above and widget in the far right column of this page) emails you instantaneously every  time the blog posts.

So if you enjoy the Joe Spake Weblog posts, subscribe by email in the right column.

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My favorite links of the week from the best Social Media and Tech blogs and websites:

• Watch Out, Google: Bing Nabs 30% of Search Market [STUDY]
• Avoid Poor Rankings by Creating Valuable Content
• One False Move and You Could Lose Your Facebook Page!
  A good read for those who have never taken the time to read Facebook’s TOS. Yes, Facebook can and will delete your page if you don’t follow the rules.
• How to Prevent Social Media Fatigue
• Bing & Facebook Declare War on Google with Social Search
• Is Digital Waste Dragging You Down? [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Just too many goodies online to keep up with!
• New ‘Facebook Terms and Policies Hub’ Answers Your Policy Questions
• Bill Clinton Speaks on the Power of Wireless Innovation
• Bing search engine gets major overhaul
• Why You Should Watch and Record Video in 720p Instead of 1080i [Video]
• Blog Commenting to Get Attention – Don’t be clueless.
• Is Your Small Business Being Social Enough? ~via Socialnomics
• Google is rolling out Hangouts on Air to all users worldwide

These and other social media and tech links are at http://delicious.com/joespake/socialmedia

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How to find out if someone is following you back on Twitter

I was trying to determine if one of my colleagues was following me back on Twitter and ran across Doesfollow.com.  Doesfollow offers a very simple interface that allows you to add Twitter handles to answer the question: Does _______ follow _____ ?

You just enter the twitter handles to get results like this:

There’s also a “funny” option for humorous and sarcastic responses.  This simple tool could be very helpful if you are looking into any Twitter user’s connections.

I have gotten over Lady Gaga not following me back.  The President, @barackobama, does.

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If you like Flickr for archiving your photos and for exploring the work of other photographers, both amateur and professional, AND if you love Pinterest, here’s some good news.  Flickr has added a share button to share directly to Pinterest, and the deal struck between the company retains attribution for photos pinned.  AG Beat sums it up in this post.

If you aren’t familiar with sharing images from Flickr, here’s a short how to screencast:

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My favorite links of the week from the best Social Media and Tech blogs and websites:

• 20 reasons to switch to Google+ [infographic] via Guy Kawasaki
• How to Use Google+ Hangouts for Your Business
• How to Use Facebook Ads: An Introduction
• The Value of Opinion On Social Media
• Reining in Google is good for us
  Is it? Why should Google be penalized and punished for its innovation and cutting edge technology?
• #OnlyOnTwitter: Our collective past
  via the Twitter Blog
• More new stuff from Flickr
• Field Guide to Electronic Signatures
• Pinterest and Flickr Make Photo Attribution Easier
• How to Fix All of Your Biggest YouTube Annoyances: Hide Comments, Turn Off Autoplay, and More [YouTube]
• A Week With Internet Explorer: Not the Browser You’ve Always Despised [Internet Explorer]
  I am not a big fan of IE, especially since I have to upgrade my version of windows to be able to upgrade my version of IE.
• Facebook’s new ‘life-saving’ feature: Share that you’re an organ donor on your Timeline
• How marketers are using social media marketing successfully [infographic]
• How To Explain Facebook (and Its IPO) in 150 Seconds [VIDEO]
• Rumor: Digg to be acquired by The Washington Post
  Monday – from the rumor mill
• How to Maximize Your Facebook Engagement – via mashable
• Disconnects in the distracted-driving blame game – USATODAY.com

These and other social media and tech links are at http://delicious.com/joespake/socialmedia

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What is TechCamp?

TechCamp Memphis the bi-annual Memphis tech, social & online marketing conference. Spring ’12 TechCamp will be held May 12, 2012 in the Bornblum Library at Southwest Tennessee Community College (Macon Campus). Doors open at 7:30 am, with the conference running 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

The Spring ’12 TechCamp has 3 tracks: Developers, Content Creators & Curators, and Online Marketing. Session topics can be found HERE. Click on titles for descriptions of sessions.

How do I register?

Registration is through Eventbrite there may still be a few discount tokens available. Use “joe” for the coupon/discount code, while it lasts.  You can also register at the door.

I will be presenting

Not that it’s any huge deal, but I will be participating on a panel with Liz Jostes and Beth Sanders on Social Media Strategy.  I will also be prepared to do a short Introduction to Google Plus.  You may have noticed that I am advocating (maybe even evangelizing) Google Plus.  I figure when prominent social media folks like Brogan, Scoble and Kawasaki are strong proponents, Google + deserves a closer look.

Networking

I have been to a lot of  ”camps”, and I can guarantee you 2 things: 1) You will learn things that will improve your business, your knowledge, or just make you a better person; and 2) You will benefit from NETWORKING with everyone who interests you.  There are no elitists at TechCamp, so feel free to approach anyone, discuss your ideas,  and get to know them better.

See you there!

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Screenshot of DiggDigg bar from Mashable

Here’s a new mantra – to the tune of  Beyoncé’s Single Ladies: If you liked it, then you shoulda put a +1 on it.

The Mashable post, Growing up Google: How Cloud Computing is Changing a Generation is all about Google.  as you can see from its DiggDigg bar at the left,  it got 131 Facebook Likes, over 1,500 tweets, 291 LinkedIn shares, and 433 Stumbleupon shares; yet this post about Google got only 9  Google  +1 s.

I am perplexed that readers make the mouse click effort to share to other platforms, yet neglect the +1 button.  Many of  us Google proponents would rather have the +1 as a show of appreciation than the FB Like.  It’s just one little  mouse click. Why not give it a try right now:

New functionality of the +1 button now allows for a direct share to your Google Plus feed, if you have one, with just one more click.  Believe it or not, lots of folks are using Google Plus regularly,and Google is looking at where those +1′s are going.  So don’t be stingy with your +1 love.

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