Howard Rheingold’s tips on making value out of Twitter

clipped from www.smartmobs.com Tuning and Feeding: My best practices for getting the most out of Twitter by Howard Rheingold I think successful use of Twitter means knowing how to tune the network of people you follow, and how to feed the network of people who follow you. You have to tune who you follow. I mix friends who I know IRL and whose whereabouts and doings interest me, people who are amusing , people who are knowledgeable about a field that interests me , people who regularly produce URLs that prove useful , extraordinary educators When it comes to feeding my network, that comes down to putting out the right mixture of personal tweets , informational tidbits , self promotion , socializing, and answering questions. It’s particularly important to respond to people I also try to be a little entertaining once in a while you have to spend some time tuning and feeding if Twitter is going to be more than an idle amusement to you and your followers (and idle amusement is a perfectly legit use of the medium).

The cult of the amateur ?

clipped from www.kurzweilai.net clipped from www.kurzweilai.net Revenge of the Experts Newsweek, Mar. 6, 2008 The individual user has been king on the Internet, but the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward edited information vetted by professionals. Cases in point: Google’s Knol, a Wikipedia-like Web site produced by “authoritative” sources; BigThink.com, a “YouTube for ideas,” with polished video interviews with public intellectuals; and Mahalo, which replaces Google’s popularity-based page rankings with results that the start-up says are based on quality and vetted by real people. Read Original Article>>

Bored with Facebook ?

Is the increasing usage of Facebook in the workplace a sign that the network is more and more used for career-oriented purposes or just a sign that people are also bored…with their job ?

clipped from www.smartmobs.com Is Facebook Doomed? Always-On Panopticon…or Cooperation Amplifier Robert Scoble just wrote a post that says his Facebook usage has been going down and he asks Is Facebook doomed? On the other hand, I did some research of my own using comScore MyMetrix and was able to see that Facebook and MySpace usage is down for home usage and at universities, but NOT AT WORK – Facebook Traffic is leveling off, at other Social Networks too – are people losing interest? But like I said over at The Analytics Guru – Usage of Facebook and MySpace is sharply UP at work! This comes from my own data pull right out of comScore: comScore Trend Report – 1 year – usage of MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn at WORK So while overall usage is down – as reported in the US and UK (according to comScore) the use of Social Networks is UP, according to comScore – for use in your carrier.

Is the increasing usage of Facebook in the workplace a sign that the network is more and more used for career-oriented purposes or just a sign that people are also bored…with their job ?

Future of Web 2.0: disconnected and on your desktop (followed)

clipped from mashable.com Zoho Writer made its tools available offline through Google Gears a few months back, but the offline capabilities were limited to read-only functions. Now both view and edit options are available for Zoho Offline, through Google Gears. So you’ll need to first download Google Gears if you don’t already have it. From there, you’ll be able to access your documents offline. Zoho Writer Gets Offline Editing

BCG opens (parts of ?) its knowledge base to Web users

Via Sam Rose’s Social Synergy weblog.

clipped from www.bcg.com Search Our Database Use the search tool below to explore the breadth of BCG’s knowledge. BCG published its first Perspective in 1964. Many have come to represent significant milestones in the firm’s intellectual history. Our clients continue to ask for a number of them, including The Rule of Three and Four, due to the timeless nature of the insight they provide. A collection of key BCG Perspectives on Strategy is also available.

GoogleWorld ?

clipped from arstechnica.com Google testing “My World” for launch later this year Rumors of Google’s plans to create a virtual world that rivals that of Second Life have popped up once again over the weekend. The company could now be collaborating with Arizona State University to test the 3D social network, which may be tied into Google’s current applications of Google Earth and Google Maps. To us, it seems that a virtual world is natural progression of Google Earth and its 3D representations of… well, the Earth. Users could create avatars, like those in Second Life. But the purpose wouldn’t be to rival Second Life and all of its fantasy, sex, and moneymaking schemes. Google Earth CTO Michael Jones insisted (first comment after the post) in January that Google Earth would always remain true to the real world and not dive into the type of fantasy world that Second Life has become. Therefore, Google’s implementation would be more like “First Life,” but in virtual form.

Draft of a resource center for Cooperatics

Just a quick note on this Monday morning to share with you that I have just started a resource center to describe and discuss cooperation-related books, studies, web sites, etc. This page is open to suggestions and comments.