Social Network Newbie Guides for my friends

People I talk to daily seem amazed at the social networking craze and have a genuine interest in getting started but don't have a clue where to start. Here are some links that are specifically geared to newbies and provide a great overview of these services and how to get started using them.




Facebook

Twitter

Flickr

Google Reader

Flock

Measuring Social Media Value

As I am doing free association research today on social media, I decided to share this presentation from a recent conference in Houston. I'm a nuts and bolt sort of guy so I always want to know "so what?". Steve gives some good rationale on why social media is important and what the near future impact could look like.

Social Metrics - The Search for ROI in Social Media

From: gotsocialmedia, 2 weeks ago

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Social Media Metrics by Steve Latham of Spur Digital


SlideShare Link

ASTD Upcoming Events

I love this Sprout application!
Momma never told me flash could be this way.

My First SPROUT

Computing in the Clouds

Amazon is now offering it's EC2 web services as reported in this Wired article. This is an amazing development as my friend Burke Allen tells me. It brings the cost of deploying an infinite number of server instances down to a ridiculous cost and you only pay for what you use.

Combine this with the predefined open source stacks provided by Bitnami and complex application installations of Wordpress, Moodle, and Drupal suddenly become childs play.

Introduction to the Social Graph API

Google has released a new Social Graph API that will make using social networks easier and make your network more portable. It's more portable because you can care your connections with you from one network to another without starting all over again.

Online Photo Sharing in Plain English

Here is another excellent video from Common Craft...this time explaining in simple terms the benefits and process for using photo sharing sites like Flickr. I use both Flickr and Picasa Web and probably should use them more.

Got Social Media?

This is a conference I need to go to.

Ed Schipul of Tendenci , a content management software company will be there.

Ed is a funny guy and prolific twitter poster.

Got Social Media? Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:00 am CT - 7:00 pm CT
Houston , TX

Got Social Media?
A Conference About Communication

It’s predicted that by 2012 Social Media/Community Marketing Budgets will outweight Traditional Marketing Budgets - and I’m not the least bit surprised. If you are currently working in Marketing, PR, Advertising, or Journalism - chances are you’re already feeling the effects of Social Media. And whether you're a small business or giant corporation you know that harnessing the power of Word of Mouth Marketing and Social Media will help increase your bottom line.

Join leaders from the Social Media and Technology space as they share with you how to engage your users, customers, and clients.

Social Networking in Plain English

As promised, here is the second video post of the day.

I do want to say that using youtube and Blogger, linking them together and simply clicking "share" on the youtube site make this so easy

I will likely do a lot more of this. I like sharing stuff on a blog but I just have too many projects to always sit down and compose a long thoughtful, meaningful post.

I basically do the same thing with the "items I'm reading" and "delicious" links on this page. I just click "share" from Google Reader or delicious and they magically appear on the blog, so as I am learning, I am actually blogging as well.

In fact, most of this blog page is setup up to be useful to someone without me spending just a whole lot of effort. Check it out!

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Time to post a couple more of Lee Lefever's famous "Plain English" videos. I can't tell you many times I have directed friends and colleagues to learn about complex technologies using these simplified videos. Knowing what I do about instructional design, these videos are a stroke of genius.