Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

Journal

Why MeeID Is Your New Online ID

New web app MeeID is still in Beta, but already it?s becoming popular with social media aficionado?s everywhere (me included).

Simply put, MeeID gives you 10 lines of text to link to, as well as a picture of yourself, to give you a short and sweet online ID. Your text can link to your homepage, Facebook, Twitter – basically, anywhere that has a URL about you.

The potential is obvious – businesses could use it to highlight different sales or offers in an all-in-one option, or people could use it to link to their portfolio or online resume. Or set up multiple MeeID’s – one for business, one for personal use, one for wish lists – the list of possibilities are almost endless.

The user interface is still a little clunky when setting up your pages, and explaining the favourites could be better, but overall MeeID is a funky little app that should find a place in social media bookmarks everywhere.

Check out MeeID for yourself.

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McCain versus Obama, Twitter-style

Although watching the US Presidential Election debates live is often entertaining as well as frustrating (when will politicians ever answer direct questions?), one thing that?s been even more entertaining is the comments made on social media site Twitter.

Allowing instantaneous feedback on answers given to questions, Twitter?s comment box often proves far more liberating and insightful than the main event. Which got me thinking – wouldn?t it be more interesting if the real debates were limited to the 140 characters of the Twitter conversation box?

Senators McCain and Obama, how will you deal with the Iraq situation? The American public is growing disenchanted with the continued deployment of troops there, with no end in sight. Your strategy?

JM: Well, my friends, first I?d like to say that Senator Obama doesn?t know what it’s like to be in a warzone. My days as a pilot in Vietnam wer

BO: We have to get everyone around the table and talk. We need to show the US is their friend and we need to show it now and work from there.

The financial crisis is hitting everyone. What are your solutions to getting the country out of the mire and back on track?

JM: Well, my friends, it?s simple economics. My hero Ronald Reagan – or was it Truman – once said that to be a country that can offer more than

BO: We have to stop giving tax breaks to the CEO?s and bring the big spenders back into line. Stop the shopping to forget mentality.

The environment is a big problem – how will you deal with the problems we are causing our planet?

JM: Can I just go back to my point about Senator Obama not having any war zone experience? You see, my friends, when a man that doesn?t have an

BO: We need to look at incentives to get the brains of our country looking at alternative fuel sources and work with other countries on this.

How would you deal with the healthcare issue? Is it not a right to offer healthcare free, or at the very least affordable for all?

JM: You know, my good friend John Wayne once told me that being a cowboy wasn?t easy. Let me tell you, my friends, that as a maverick I know o

BO: Of course it?s a right. We’ll offer help to companies offering proper medical care to employees and go after unethical insurance companies.

Finally, if you win the election, what will be your first mandate for the American people?

JM: You know, the election is a marathon, not a race. And you know what else, my friends? When Senator Obama?s lack of war experience comes to

BO: I would make it my Government?s duty to make America the country it once was, and can be again. A country to be proud of. Thank you.

Okay, so it will never happen – but is the truncated version any different from the full-on one each week?

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Blog Action Day October 15 2008 – Make Your Voice Heard

On October 15 2008, Blog Action Day is taking place. Whether you write a business blog or a personal blog for fun or any other niche topic, you have a wonderful opportunity to make your voice heard on world poverty.

Blog Action Day 2007 saw over 20,000 bloggers talk about the environment – Blog Action Day 2008 will discuss poverty.

From the type of world poverty that we?ve all seen on the news to the lesser known poverty in our own backyards, Blog Action Day 2008 will bring thousands of diverse bloggers together to offer one voice.

To have your voice heard, head over to the Blog Action Day website and register your blog today. One person can make a difference.


Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

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Is Social Media Already Over?

In a nutshell, no – social media is not already over. It is, however, most definitely over-saturated.

Look at the bottom of this post – you’ll see the nice little Share/Save icon, as well as footer options to share this post with your friends on Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Stumbleupon and Delicious (and please do feel free to forward this on – always appreciated!) 🙂

Hover your mouse over the Share/Save icon and it opens up a whole host of other social media sites where you can submit this post to, should you so desire. Go one step further and click on the small downward arrow near the bottom of the Share/Save list. This offers even more social media sites to share this post with – well over 100, in fact.

This is too much (and a reminder to myself to edit the amount of Share This options). Who in their right mind would join 100+ social media sites? I think I may be on about 10 or so and even that feels a little too much, although I do use each end every one of the sites I’m on.

Mention social media and it’s pretty much guaranteed that these names will come out: Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Technorati, Mixx and Reddit. Yahoo Buzz is becoming more popular while newcomers to the scene like BackType and MeeID are starting to build up a nice head of steam.

But what about the others that make up this 100+ list? Have you heard of Pusha, or Gravee, or Yoolink? How about Twiddla or Taggly? Apart from having names that George Lucas might use in his next movie, the abundance of these social media sites are what’s causing people to be wary about stepping into the social media pool in the first place.

Look back through the ages and it’s clear that the most successful products or services were the ones with the fewest choices – VHS or Betamax video tape, Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo, cable or satellite TV and so on.

While there’s no doubting that social media offers a wonderful opportunity to truly open up the world to everyone for the first time ever, it’s also apparent that there needs to be a reining in of the services available. Yes, choice is great but not at the expense of scaring everybody away through confusion.

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The True Meaning of Social Media

So, social media. It can be pretty confusing, right? After all, one person tells you one thing about it while another person tells you the complete opposite not 5 minutes later. And then the day after, you have someone else telling you it’s something in-between the previous two explanations! No wonder social media is so confusing. So what does it mean?

To be honest, social media is exactly what you want it to be. You want it to be a way of finding cool and interesting websites that you would never have found before? Sign up to Stumbleupon. You want to know what blogs are popular? Get yourself a Technorati account. History of all the comments you’ve ever left? Backtype. And the list goes on.

For me, however, the true meaning of social media can be found in the way that people who would normally be business competitors offer support, knowledge and different expertise to those who need it.

I’ll give you an example. On my Twitter account, I’m probably connected to around 40 or so people from the PR and copywriting industry, whether it’s through me following them or them following me (or both, even). Now, in the “normal” business world, they would be competitors so you’d think the last thing we would want to do is help the other out.

Yet instead, Twitter sees any request for help or advice answered almost immediately, and often with information that would offer a distinct advantage if kept private. Now to me, that’s social media at its finest.

Yes, we’re all in business and we all want to succeed, but gone is the “at all costs” attitude of the last decade and beyond. With the Internet opening up a whole new world of commerce and potential customers, there really is enough to go round for everyone. And people are realizing that.

Not only that, but people are also encouraging others to succeed and offering up the tools with which to push for that success. You can’t get much more of a truer meaning of social than that, media or otherwise. Perhaps we should get the leaders of the world into social media? After all, they could use all the help they can get.