Facebook to let users create personal groups

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced groups will be coming to facebook this week. He stated that this will be designed to help "the biggest problem in social networking". With this people will be able to make groups for co-workers, family, friends etc with that specific interest they want to discuss "updates" about. People claimed that they would like to post about their interests but feel that they are annoying their facebook friends who aren't interested in that thing they are talking about. With this new "grouping" people will be able to share information with people who are specifically interested in that one thing. Even though facebook already has something that create subsets of their friends, they claimed that only 5 percent of people use this. They want something that more than 5 percent of people will use. Along with this will come other updates as well like "download your information." This is where you can zip everything you've done on the site.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/10/06/facebook.event/index.html?hpt=T2

Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign goes Viral

Have any of you noticed a rather alarming number of women updating their statuses starting with, "I like it..." and ending with questionable places? Facebook spread memes throughout the site to promote breast cancer awareness. Women everywhere are updating about where they like to put their purses. The idea is to get people confused and asking questions.

Mashable blogged about the viral campaign, and said the reason it became so popular so quickly was because it does have a sexual connotation. Those "out of the loop" begin asking questions to the facebookers themselves or "googling" the question to understand what is going on.

I think it is a funny idea. Facebook's goal was to confuse women (and men) enough that they begin to ask questions. We can't believe that that many women would write and update about their favorite "places," so we begin to ask questions.

Twitter Launches Promoted Tweets

Twitter is making there version of Facebook's recommendations and sponsors. Twitter already has "Who to Follow" based on who you are already following. Now if you are following a certain brand or company you might have a 'promoted' twitter handle appear in that "Who to Follow" box. Twitter officially launched the promoted tweets today but they are still in the "testing phase" so only a few companies will have their accounts promoted.

It doesn't specify how the "handful of companies" will be chosen. PR practitioners will have to keep watch on how they can get their company as a "promoted tweet" or suggestion to possible costumers.

Personally I don't mind the suggestions to follow a certain company. It doesn't seems as in your face as Facebook's application does.

Here's the article on Mashable

CONNECT: ACL

This weekend is the Austin City Limits Music Festival; ACL made an application (iPhone and Android) for those going to the festival to manage their weekend fun. The app lets festival participants create a custom schedule and keep facebook and twitter updated as the weekend progresses. There is also ACL radio which allows artists to share their bios and music. For those that are not familiar with the layout of the event a map is included with the free app.

The best part about the app is that is comes with a "lighter" for all the rockers out there!

http://www.aclfestival.com/acl-news/2010-iphone-android-app/

LinkedIn's New Feature

LinkedIn is helping those who have graduated from college find a job. It is launching Career Explorer, the new job-finding feature that will be out soon to 60 US universities. With this new feature students can surf through various career paths based on school, level of education and dream industry. These are the different purposes one can use it for:

• To map out career paths. Said career paths are tailored based on your work interests and take the paths of established professionals into account. You can also create and save a bunch of different paths.
• Find connections. This is what LinkedIn specializes in, so it seems a natural addition.
• Learn about your desired job. The site will give you stats like average age of folks with the position you want, as well as geographic distribution.
• Find job openings and recommend people in your network to hit up for help.
• Suggest companies to follow. This functionality was introduced in April, but will likely be very key for recent grads looking to see when positions open up.
• find story here

FB and Twitter: The New Face of TX Campaigns

As the Nov. elections approach, it has become obvious that the candidates have been working to reach voters through their social networks to the fullest potential. Both candidates, Perry and White, have been keeping up with their Facebook and Twitter accounts to deliver their messages to the Texas audience.

Although the two cadidates have been using focusing on different social media platforms (White with Facebook and Perry with Twitter), both feel that they have made a stronger personal connection with their voters by having "real" conversation.

But will the use of social media bring more people (especially young people) to the polls on voting day? And who has been more effective in their social media campaign to governor? I guess, we'll see on Nov. 3.

For more: Virtual Capitol

The Sanctity of Music

Over the years the Internet, and social media, have made life easier. By just the click of a mouse you can find just about anything. However, are certain things becoming too easy? Titus Thomson, a bite blogger, seems to think that social media is changing the music industry. In his blog he goes on the explain that social media completely changed the popularity of his brother's band. Nowadays anyone can make tracks in the comfort of their own home and use any, and all, forms of social media to get buzz generated. From Facebook to personal Web sites, the Internet has made talent scouts job basically obsolete.

This was extremely interesting to me. I love music, but it makes me think how much longer will music stay timeless if it's something everyone can do. While it's awesome that musicians have a new outlet to make themselves heard, what about those who shouldn't be heard? Soon it wont be such a big deal to make it to the "Big Time" when all you have to do is turn on your computer and click "upload".