If you’re longing for a digital networking space that lets you easily videoconference with 10 people while everyone watches (and chats about) the same YouTube clip, then put Google Plus (hangouts) at the top of your “to explore” list.

If you’re longing for a digital networking space that integrates functional email, real cloud-based documents, an attractive photo gallery … and lets you eavesdrop on conversations like Twitter does (no reciprocity required in setting up circles) … then put Google Plus at the top of your “to explore” list.

And if you long for a digital networking space that will allow you to easily and simultaneously communicate with people inside and outside of the space … then you must put Google Plus at the top of your “to explore” list.

In October 2009, Google launched Wave. The current launch, Google’s third foray into “social”, is nothing like Wave, except for the clamor to “let me in!”

With Google+, things work. The interface is clean, light, inviting. Engineers have anticipated how we might use existing shorthand (from Twitter and Facebook), such as replying in a comment thread by putting @ in front of someone’s name. They turn that @ into a + automagically and the name becomes a link to the person’s Google profile page.

Sharing Google Plus Posts : Limited Posts Are Limited

And the iteration — response to feedback — is stellar.

After the Financial Times noted Thursday that restricted posts (posts to a circle, not made “public”) could be shared outside your circle, thus negating the privacy implied in circles, Google engineers tweaked the interface. If an author doesn’t manually restrict the sharing of a post, Google Plus will gently remind anyone sharing that the post wasn’t made public. And next week, no limited post (one shared only with a circle) will have “public share” as an option.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a typo in a Facebook status update or comment. No edit option except the hammer that is the delete key. But with Google Plus not only can you fix that typo but you can also style the type (bold, italic)! I call that a #killerfeature.

Have you tried putting Facebook friends in lists? If you haven’t, let me simply say that it’s laborious. Painful. With Google Plus, it’s a simple drag-and-drop. Hiring that original Apple Macintosh designer was a stroke of brilliance!
By making it easy to segment our network into circles that mirror the non-computing (analog) world, Google has made it easier for us to customize our messages. But will we be any better at that than network TV? It’s easier to craft a message than anyone can see than it is to craft multiple messages or tell only a few members of our network. Will enough of us embrace the tool to keep the project from turning into Wave? I hope so.

Circles also make it easier for us to filter incoming messages. More people read than create content, so this functionality is a very good thing. And Google+ is so much easier to use than Facebook! (The timeline/stream reminds me of FriendFeed.) When you read something you like, you click the +1 button (Google’s answer to “like”).

It is a generally accepted theorem that the real-time web is here to stay; it is a natural evolution from the early days of the telegraph, a tool that dramatically increased the speed of global communication. More people — probably using phones — will be added to the roster of Internet consumers and creators; this means more content, more noise. So the recommendations of our friends and trusted networks will become more important as we navigate an overflowing information space; what is scarce today is time and attention, not information. As Kirkpatrick writes:

Anything that can increase the percentage of social software users who are actively curating dynamic, topical sources is a net win for the web and for the people who use it.

Sharing is a human thing. It does not have a straightforward put-a-set-of-rules in a virtual box technological solution. Google’s algorithms (rules) have successfully help plumb the depths of computer hard drives. But we want to know what our friends think! Is this third attempt (Buzz was number two) a charm? I think the answer is yes. +1!

Looking Back To Look Forward

On Monday, I shared the classic EPIC2015 with my undergraduate new media class. We discussed which companies had been less or more influential than this 2004 vision and how the vision missed mobile and YouTube.

2006. Google combines all of its services into the Google Grid, a universal platform that provides a functionally limitless amount of disk space and bandwidth to store and share media of all kinds. Each user selects her own level of privacy. She can store her content securely on the Google Grid or publish it for all to see. It has never been easier for people to make their lives part of the media landscape.

2007. Microsoft responds to Google’s mounting challenge with Newsbotster, a social news network and participatory journalism platform. Newsbotster ranks and sorts news based on what each user’s friends and colleagues are reading, and viewing and it allows everyone to comment on what they see.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerburg launched Facebook, which more closely matches the description of the fictional Google Grid’s ease of use than anything the search giant has launched. Facebook has also enticed its customer base to make private decisions public — showing us content (but not yet ranking it, no Digg-like feature yet)  that our friends are reading (Facebook integration) — and Facebook makes it very easy for “everyone to comment on what they see.”

Strike outs here for both Google and Microsoft.

One of the core ideas of the Google+ project — our desire to share information selectively — was also at the heart of the imaginary Google Grid. And it answers one of the criticisms of Facebook. Steven Levy (@stevenjayl) has a great background on the project, code-named Emerald Sea, at Wired:

Emerald Sea is not a Facebook killer, Gundotra told me. In fact, he added, somewhat puckishly, “people are barely tolerant of the Facebook they have,” citing a consumer satisfaction study that rated it barely higher than the IRS. Instead, he says, the transformation will offer people a better Google.

Nonetheless, it was impossible to deny that “+1” (as it was then called) offered some of features closely associated with Facebook. The overall difference is that Google would try to leverage its assets to do certain things more effectively than Facebook, and attempt other things that Facebook can’t pull off yet.

“The internet is nothing but software fabric that connects the interactions of human beings,” Gundotra said. “Every piece of software is going to transformed by this primacy of people and this shift.” Gundotra said that to date identifying people has been “the most epic failure of Google…. Because we were focusing on organizing the world’s information, the search company failed to do the most important search of all.”

Me, I’m looking forward to Sparks, which is designed to track my interests and recommend content that it thinks I will like. This bot/AI/whatever-you-want-to-call-it — if it can learn as fast as SPAM algorithms (give me more of this and less of that, you know, like Zite) — could be the deal-maker for information junkies (which includes journalists, politicos, marketing folks …. and a host of others):

Sparks delivers a feed of highly contagious content from across the Internet. On any topic you want, in over 40 languages. Simply add your interests, and you’ll always have something to watch, read and share—with just the right circle of friends:

What do you think? Has the train left the station or can Google catch up? Which behemoth do you trust with your data: Google or Facebook?

Watch EPIC2015 and Google+ :

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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My frustration centers around Foursquare’s inability to know where I am, even after repeated refresh. My suggestion includes better integration with the iPhone’s phone. (I know, what a concept, huh?)

Where Am I?

It happens more times than I can count. I don’t know if the  ”problem” is AT&T, the iPhone or Foursquare. And frankly, I don’t care whose “fault” it is — I’m writing as a frustrated consumer, a consumer who is inclined to soldier through frustrations like this due to the nature of my job. Casual consumers are going to bail, which hurts adoption stats.

Refresh Doesn’t

I’m running errands. I check in one location, hop in the truck and drive to the next location on the errand list. But when I try to check-in, Foursquare still has me at the prior location …. even when it’s miles away!

Like everyone else (I guess), I “swipe down” to force the app to refresh. Only, too often, it doesn’t. The app remains fixed at the prior location.

Refresh not working … I force a search by hitting the spacebar once in the text field. Still no go.

If I’m feeling stubborn (I’m going to make it work, dammit!), then I type in the name of the venue. In this case, it was Trader Joe’s. I’d just driven more than a mile from Fred Meyer (probably five minutes), where I had experienced the same problem when I tried to check in there.

So I type in Trader Joe’s and tap search.

Foursquare “forgets” that I am in Lynnwood. Rather than show me the Trader Joe’s that is my “favorite” — the Trader Joe’s where I am periodically the mayor — Foursquare leads off with Trader Joe’s on Capitol Hill, which is 15 miles away. I have never checked in at this venue. Ever. In fact, I have never checked in to any of the five TJs that show up on the first search screen.

Foursquare devs: this is broken behavior.

How Foursquare Should Work

Let’s say this problem is AT&T’s fault. Or Apple’s. (This FAQ — focusing on Android, not iPhone — makes it sound like a combo of OS and network provider.)

First, if the app isn’t getting new GPS data, tell me that. Feedback. It’s one of the most critical parts of interaction design. The Foursquare app has none. [Note: the interface now has a little crown appear in the lower right corner when Foursquare is accessing the network and thus is temporarily "frozen."]

Second, if I try to force the app to figure out where am I by typing in the name of a venue, why not assume that I’m still in the general area, especially if I have a favorite with the same name as the venue I’ve typed in the search field? You’ve got that data. As an alternative, let me check in by going to my history and saying “This is where I am right now.”

Integration With Telephony

I want to be able to one-click (sorry Amazon) call a venue from inside Foursquare.

In other words, when I want to place an order for take-out (or call to figure out business hours), I want to be able to open Foursquare and (1) easily find the venue; (2) have the description include the phone number; and (3) have that phone number “click to call.”

Foursquare could be about more than “where I am right now.” It could also be “where I’m going next.”

Why not use the iPhone’s address book?

First, mine is a mix of people and work. Second, when I’m out-and-about, the app that is generally open is Foursquare. Third, I think of Foursquare as an app about places where I do business.

Why not use Yelp?

Because its search is worse than Foursquare’s and because I don’t use it enough for it to “know” my regular haunts. And I think of Yelp first as a review site; it’s where I go when I want to learn about a new place.

Why not use Safari/Google?

This is my fall-back, and Google does a better job of figuring out where I am and what I might be asking about than Foursquare does. But guess which app has the more detailed about my habits?

Fixing Bad Entries

I really wish I knew what it would take to be a trusted Foursquare person, someone who could fix mis-labeled venues. Like Trader Joe’s. It is not a Wine Bar!

Then there’s the problem of duplicate entries for the same venue.

Misspellings.

Bad addresses.

I’m volunteering, Foursquare. Use the crowd.

About Today’s Announcement

In making the feature upgrade, Foursquare positioned the app as a direct competitor to Yelp.

First, the most logical head-to-head competition comes with photos:

Tips with photos changes everything. See dishes before ordering them, figure out if a venue looks fun, or easily identify a hard-to-find spot. More info = better exploration.

Notice the choice of business? Restaurants, a key player (and PITA) in the local ad business because so many restaurants are one-offs.

I already use Foursquare tips as a form of mini-reviews. It’s logical, especially since American eat out a lot. (In 2008, Americans spent $575 billion on food away from home compared with $597 billion on food at home.)

Second, developers are assuming we are glued to our friends lives in what I think is an unrealistic manner:

[G]etting a last-minute comment reminding you to order the best dish saves your meal.

Are Foursquare folks really going to be monitoring the app like this? Remember, Twitter quickly morphed from “I’m eating lunch” to “here’s something important about WikiLeaks” … I’m not convinced that this is a reasonable use case (even if it is positioning Foursquare as a Yelp alternative). Maybe, if the universe of “friends” is kept small. (Right now I have almost as many friend requests as I have friends — 138 to 144. I’ve tried to keep Foursquare constrained to people I really know. I have had friend requests from complete strangers in London, for crissakes!)

Finally, there’s a teeny swipe at Facebook:

You can visit your history page on foursquare.com to see all the places you’ve been, with photos and comments preserved.

No need to beat the dead horse that is Facebook’s unwieldy UI and it’s opaque archives. This is the advantage of a single-purpose application, the special tool versus Swiss Army knife (also known as “kitchen sink”) approach to software development.

Yes, these things are interesting, especially the photos. But basic issues with functionality are far more important if the application is going to cross the chasm and reach mainstream adoption.

Default, as usual for “social” apps, is to share with the world. Here’s how to change that.

Get To Settings Options

In the iPhone app, tap your personal icon (lower right corner), which will take you to this screen; then tap the settings icon (upper right corner) for the account settings menu.

Ping Settings

From the account settings menu, select “Pings.” Default is “yes” for friend’s check-ins (“current city”) and when friends comment on your check-in comments. Adjust to fit your preferences. I probably should have friends check-ins “on” given how few of my friends actually live in Lynnwood (my normal “current city”). But when I’m downtown …. no, the potential for floodgates is too great.

Photo Settings

From the account settings menu, select “Photo Settings.” The default will save, in your regular photo library, any photos taken inside Foursquare. I always want a copy of pix that I take and am annoyed at apps that do not do this by default. So I’m a fan of this default setting!

Related Posts

• April 10, 2010 -- Checking in and Cashing out on Location-Based Social Networks (2)
• November 29, 2009 -- Foursquare, the next big social media thing? (19)

Online marketing buzz words include “social” and “engagement.” Let’s set “social” aside for another day.

What does it look like when a customer is “engaged” with a brand, with a web site, with Twitter or Facebook? Who are “engaged” customers and why are they important to an organization? Why might their web site visits be more valuable — in the traditional, monetary sense of the word — than less “engaged” customers?

What the heck does it mean to be engaged?

Searching Forrester’s database for the word “engagement,” I found 2373 results; 26 were published in October alone. Since 2006, the Advertising Research Foundation has an Engagement Council, which directs engagement-focused research. Here’s their definition:

Turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.

This definition is, ummm, squishy. It’s not unlike this one: beauty, qualities that give pleasure to the senses. Or even obscenity: I’ll know it when I see it.

Back Story
In 2008, two researchers – Joseph Carrabis and Eric T. Peterson – tried to quantify online “engagement” by developing a definition and mathematical measurement (pdf):

Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly defined set of goals.

Σ(Ci +Di +Ri +Li +Bi +Fi +Ii)

Visitor Engagement is a function of the number of clicks (Ci), the visit duration (Di), the rate at which the visitor returns to the site over time (Ri), their overall loyalty to the site (Li), their measured awareness of the brand (Bi), their willingness to directly contribute feedback (Fi) and the likelihood that they will engage in specific activities on the site designed to increase awareness and create a lasting impression (Ii).

Today’s Story
NiemanLab brings us the story of Philly.com, which has modified the above equation in an effort to measure engagement with a news media website. Here are the characteristics — categories — that they believe shape “engagement”:

C_i — Click Index: visits must have at least 6 pageviews, not counting photo galleries

D_i — Duration Index: visits must have spend a minimum of 5 minutes on the site

R_i — Recency Index: visits that return daily

L_i — Loyalty Index: visits that either are registered at the site or visit it at least three times a week

B_i — Brand Index: visits that come directly to the site by either bookmark or directly typing www.philly.com or come through search engines with keywords like “philly.com” or “inquirer”

I_i — Interaction Index: visits that interact with the site via commenting, forums, etc.

P_i — Participation Index: visits that participate on the site via sharing, uploading pics, stories, videos, etc.

What have they learned in the two months that they have employed this analytical framework?

• Click Index: in a recent measurement, 17.9 percent of 3.9 million total visits featured a visitor clicking through to at least six pages.
• Loyalty Index: this engagement metric is inversely related to site page views (“new visitors are, by definition, not loyal ones”).
• Overall engagement: In September, “sports page visits were 46.6 percent engaged, while news page visits were only 34.4 percent engaged.”
• Referrers matter: “Only 20.34 percent of visits that come through Google are engaged visits. In comparison, 33.64 percent of visits that come via Facebook are engaged.”

What Philly.com is doing is trying to understand the different types of customers visiting their site, which should help them develop navigation paths, think about story assignments and negotiate for additional advertising revenue. However, it is a long-term project, not a short-term one. And at least one online news site manager thinks it is too complicated:

While the equation might provide interesting feedback to editors, [Sonia Meisenheimer, digital marketing strategist for the St. Petersburg Times’ tampabay.com] said she thought the results it produced were too complicated. In a competitive market, businesses want to compare different web outlets on apples-to-apples factors like total audience and local audiences. She said tampabay.com would measure engagement in a much simpler way, focusing on registration numbers and their brand index, or how many people come to the site through a bookmark or by searching for terms like “St. Pete Times” or “tampabay.com.”

Internally, she said the most important number for tampabay.com is simply revenue per unique visitor. “My question to philly.com is: how does this help you make more money? Because I don’t see that in the equation.”

I’d argue that in a competitive market like this one, the more you know about your customers, the better.

Most of the data upon which this engagement index is based are easily available from web server logs. Whether or not you combine the data into an index or look at each metric individually, they are all critical to understanding why people visit your web site and what they do once they get there. Plus, they help you identify where you should be focusing your own marketing efforts.

At the end of the day, these  two statistical tools don’t define “engagement” although they do provide a rubric for measuring it. Because business tends to “get what it measures” choosing what to measure is equally as important as implementing a formal system of measurement. How, then, might these tools help us figure out what it means to be engaged and identify exactly what bits of that engagement are valuable?

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1. Beth Kanter (@kanter) brings her energy and expertise to the global non-profit sector; she is co-author of The Networked Nonprofit. Read her blog to gain insights into how nonprofits are using digital technologies or to pick up tips that transcend economic sectors. The most practical blog in this list. Daily. Sample posts:
   • Tips for Remote Presenting – October 2010
   • Social Media Use By Foundation Leaders – September 2010
   • What’s The ROI of Online Voting and Fundraising Contests? – May 2010
2. danah boyd (@zephoria) is a social media researcher at Microsoft and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center. Her blog is provocative and useful for links to research and talks; very low volume. Sample posts:
   • “Pep Rally” – A Truly Exogenous Trending Topic On Twitter – October 2010
   • Regulating The Use of Social Media Data – August 2010
   • Skin Whitening, Tanning and Vaseline’s Controversial Facebook Ad Campaign – July 2010
3. Howard Rheingold (@hrheingold) thinks about 21st century literacies and the evolving mediascape. SmartMobs (based on Howard’s book of the same name) is a group blog that explores the themes raised in the book, focusing on mobile communication, pervasive computing, wireless networks, collective action. Global; medium-volume. Sample posts:
   • Can A Mob Study With Integrity? – September 2010
   • Citizen Reporting In Kenya Via SMS And Twitter – August 2010
   • Do You Believe The Long-Tail Exists Online? – April 2010
4. Kevin Kelly is our modern day Vannevar Bush; his latest book is What Technology Wants. The essays that he wrote at TheTechnium while working on that book are a treasure, and he is still publishing in this space. There is CoolTools (self-descriptive, daily) which is now also being published at BoingBoing. Recently added: New Rules for the New Economy. Eye-opening; low volume except for CoolTools. Sample posts:
   • It Takes A Village To Make A Mall. Community Precedes Commerce – October 2010
   • Your Money: The Missing Manual – October 2010
   • A New Way of Reading – August 2010
5. Laurie Racine, Diana Rhoten and Phoenix M. Wang founded Startl to explore the future of learning. Education is a critical part of our infrastructure; what is the role of digital technology in its evolution? Daily. Sample posts:
   • iPad Sales Reaching 45 Million in 2011; Impact on Education? – October 2010
   • Are We Preparing Students For The Future Or The Past? – July 2010
   • The Kahn Academy – One Man Teaching The World For Free – May 2010
6. Michael Geist (@MichaelGeist) is a Canadian law professor who studies Internet and e-commerce law. He is a leading analyst and critic of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Read Geist for a non-US perspective on digital law. Daily. Sample posts:
   • CBC Bans Use of Creative Commons Music On Podcasts – October 2010
   • How IP Enforcement Can Be Used To Suppress Dissent – September 2010
   • The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting The Pieces Together – November 2009
7. Umair Haque (@umairh) writes about global business, competition and the economy for Harvard Business Review; he is director of the Havas Media Lab. Thoughtful; low volume. Sample posts:
   • The Institutional Innovation Manifesto – September 2010
   • Apple’s Real Achilles Heel – July 2010
   • Network Strategy and the Anti-Defense – August 2009

Who would you add to this list?

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Moreover, the BBC wants to “double outbound links from 10m to 20m a month by 2013.” Links are, according to this BBC document, a “well suit[ed] unique selling point for BBC News.”

The guidance document includes important tips for anyone who is writing online:

I’d argue that the BBC is also asking its journalists to think of themselves as curators, although the word does not appear in the document. For example, journalists should “avoid archive news stories that don’t add value.” Instead, they should feature “best available content, not just latest news stories.”

The Guardian published the BBC document. British journalist Paul Bradshaw calls it a “good set of guidance.”

Earlier this year, Bradshaw detailed arguments about linking to scientific journals, arguing that it made sense to link to an abstract (not the journal homepage), even if the article was behind a paywall, because an abstract is “very useful” and “[provides] more context than a journal homepage.” He railed against a “broadcast mentality” and argued that “[t]he minority of users who can access those papers can actually be key contributors to a collaborative journalism process. If you let them.”

Given the Nicholas Carr “links can interfere with reading” arguments (and rebuttals) from earlier this year, the BBC guidance document is refreshing, if incredibly late-to-the-party.

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It was straightforward to change my Facebook filter to grab those emails, but the easier course of action was to change the group notification from the defaults to “no email.” Notifications still show in the FB interface.

My initial reaction, after poking around the site, was along the lines of “damnation!” That’s because I have tried to segment my use of Facebook and LinkedIn, with FB being for people I know and/or work with and LinkedIn — and Twitter — being for professional networking. In other words, I’ll connect with someone on LinkedIn or Twitter if we are both writers or educators, even if I haven’t met the person directly. But on FB, I’ve tried to keep the connections more “real” (FSDOR).

The new Facebook groups, if adopted for professional networking, could shatter that barrier. I do not like that. Nevertheless, in the spirit of experimentation I set about doing what Robert had suggested, which was inviting key people from my network. I did this unthinkingly — ie, I didn’t warn them. I did to them what Robert did to me. Then I read this, from Danny Sullivan, which he included as a “by the way” but which I think is incredibly important:

If a friend adds you to a group, and you remove your self from that group, that [friend] can’t add you back to that or ANY group in the future.

In other words, not only can you not change your mind about the value of a group, if you disagree with your friend once, that’s it. Kaput. Fini.

At that point I did the equivalent of a mass apology. I changed my FB status:

To my friends I added to Scoble’s Group: Please consider it an opportunity to be a guinea pig! Use the “Edit Notifications” button on the groups page to turn OFF email notifications! And Danny Sullivan has a warning: if you opt out of the group, then I can NEVER invite you to another group. Well, as long as “Never” is in Facebook.

Next, I tried editing a document with one of the group members. Lame. You have to sign your name!

Then I thought: is this Facebook’s response to Wave? An attempt to replace email and discussion groups and wikis and other collaboration tools? [I thought Wave was not-ready-for-prime-time when introduced but that it had great potential for small, task-oriented groups. I was sorry to see Google pull the plug. Thanks to Chris Pirillo, I use TypeWithMe.com a lot, which is kinda Wave-light.]

I’ve subsequently read thoughtful analyses of Facebook’s New Groups. (Will it be like New Coke?) These objections are predictable, but that doesn’t make them any less valid:

• Automatic add versus opt-in. This is the most egregious feature of Facebook Groups. Someone should not be able to add me to a group without my agreeing to be a member. Laura Fitton said it best on Twitter: “Did Facebook simply “forget” 15 years of email list best practices? ie, email lists should be opt in, not opt out?”
• A friend of my friend may not be my friend. In other words, the fact that “anyone can add a friend to the group” may be unwieldy for lots of reasons; and reportedly there is no way to change this. Irene Koehler explains the downsides, which is why this structure will not used for groups that need to truly be closed, even if everyone is on FB.
• You can’t delete a post. Or edit it after it goes live. The second complaint is one I’ve had for-ever, but to not be able to delete, when it’s possible to delete a wall post?

I disagree with those who claim this is a replacement for Twitter. You don’t see people’s status updates in groups and group updates don’t go on your personal wall. They don’t go on the public web, either, if the group is private. There’s no easy way to search groups (think back to the last time you tried to find anything on Facebook using FB search). No way to read groups other than through FB interface. No way to post except through FB interface. Ugh.

Nor do I think this is a viable replacement for email lists. It’s worse than web-based discussion boards: messages aren’t collapsed, you can’t sort by date or person. For group discussion, give me mailing lists + gmail. I’m not a huge fan of Google Groups or LinkedIn Groups.

I’m waiting to see the use case for which this tool was designed. Family discussions. Maybe.

I understand the desire to have tools be where friends and coworkers and family already are. But I resist being assimilated and reject the potential, what I think of as Zuck’s goal, which is for there to be only one place and one way to communicate with all those folks. It’s events like this one that underscore for me the fact that I use Facebook not because I want to but because I have to.

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• Social Connectedness: how many people had more than one social media profile (according to the website, these are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn)
• Social Friendliness and Reach: the average number of connections per person across major social networks
• Social Activity is based entirely on Twitter stats: number of tweets, number of followers, and number of people followed

What’s not clear is how NetProspex clumped jobs together.

For example, there is an “IT” job but also a Chief Information Officer. (These two distinctions were lumped into one for the winner, marketing.) What is an “IT” job? It’s not technical support, which had its own category. Later in the report it is defined as “IT directors/managers.” By reading the website, I can further refine this as “people who recommend and buy products” in this sector, otherwise known as “prospects.” So calling these categories “jobs” is also misleading; we’re really talking about senior managers.

According to the NetProspex data, Google leads the pack as far as employees, classified as a B2B prospects, who use Twitter. It’s not clear how important having a Twitter account is versus having a lot of followers; the algorithm used to make the determination is not explained. [This is not to the time to explain why number of followers or number followed are not good measures of success on Twitter.] Nor is there any reference to total employees; I’ve added that in parens where it was easily found.

1. Google  (21,805, Mountain View)
2. The Walt Disney Co. (144,000, Burbank)
3. Live Nation, Inc. (4,300, Beverly Hills)
4. Amazon.com, Inc. (28,300, Seattle)
5. Adobe (8,660, San Jose)
6. Dell Inc. (94,300, Texas)
7. Brinker International (100,400, Dallas)
8. Juniper Networks Inc. (7,732, Sunnyvale)
9. Best Buy Co., Inc. (180,000, Minnesota)
10. Computer Associates
11. Cisco Systems (70,700, San Jose)
12. Intel Corporation (80,400, Santa Clara)
13. Yum Brands Inc. (49,000, Louisville)
14. Sun Microsystems Inc. (GoogleFinance, UK)
15. eBay Inc. (16,400, San Jose)
16. Intuit Inc. (7,700, Mountain View)
17. Iron Mountain Incorporated (10,500, Boston)
18. EMC Corporation (43,200, Massachusetts)
19. Microsoft Corporation (89,000, Redmond)
20. Motorola Inc. (53,000, Illinois)

What do these organizations have in common? California and technology! Two are food-related; two are entertainment; one is retail — but technology; 13 are headquartered in California (+Sun, which used to be headquartered there).  Technology managers and executives using technology to network? Let’s chant in unison:  ”doh!”

It’s hard to reconcile this chart with one that says New York City wins the “most business people who tweet” contest. The measurements are the same: number of tweets, number followed, number of followers. According to this measurement, the top five are New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC., Sacramento, and Phoenix. And remember: it’s not “business people” per se it’s “B2B prospects.”

Are you a prospect? Go check out the database.

Checking my own name makes the claim of database verification … questionable:

NetProspex Search Results For Kathy Gill

First, the HTML Writers Guild board position was a volunteer slot … in the 1990s. So it’s not possible that this contact could have been verified in January 2010. I suppose it’s possible that there is another Kathy Gill on the board; however, the Guild doesn’t list members.

Second, I haven’t written for About.com since March 2009 … and even then I had no power to recommend or authorize business purchases.

Third, a Portland-based Kathy Gill, who is a B2B prospect based on her senior position with an agency, isn’t on the list!

Of course, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to actually fix one’s profile, not that I want to be a marketing target.

Summary: Grains of salt needed.

:: UWTwitterBook permalink : Follow Us On Twitter!

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Why use a filter application?

Before the digital era, a photographer’s choice of camera and film had nearly as much artistic impact as the subject matter. Rediscover the fading, tinting, blurring, chemical processing techniques, and “happy accidents” which gave film photos life.

There are lots of reviews of CameraBag for the iPhone ($1.99): MacWorld (n.d.), NYTimes (2009), PCMag (2008) TechCrunch (2008). This review is of the Mac desktop (v1.5) app which retails for $19.00 (free demo). Note: licenses are operating-system independent and will work on both Mac and PC. This is a civilized approach to licensing.

Using CameraBag Desktop

To get started, drag an image onto the application icon; I have the app in my dock. Or double-click the application icon, then either select “open” and navigate to your photo or drag the image file onto the icon or workspace. If the image orientation is wrong, use the “left” or “right” buttons.

CameraBag Workspace

Stock filters live in a row beneath the image view. A tiny preview hints at how each filter modifies your image. To use a stock filter, simply click its icon; CameraBag will instantly show you the change . Choose from various cropping options (including “none”). I cropped this image using the “cinema” preset. Choose your border; there are preset borders for each filter as well as “none.”

But this is only the beginning! CameraBag desktop allows you to combine filters. You can also achieve subtle changes with the “Reprocess” button, which toggles on and off; default is off. Interface quibble: this button should be located near the Multi-filter button because it is a creative action, not a functional one.

• To combine filters, select the “Multi-filter” option. Experiment! The order in which the filters are applied will change the final output, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically.
• If you develop a combination that you might want to re-use, be sure to save it. Select “More” and Save Filter. These filters will be accessible under the “Custom” menu. (CameraBag Desktop comes preinstalled with some custom filters.)
• If you don’t like an effect, just click “original” and you’ll revert to the basic image.

A Multi-Filter Example: ColorCross -> Silver -> Mono

Filter Order Matters! Mono -> Silver -> ColorCross

One Click Of "Reprocess" Completely Changes Image Appearance

It’s really that easy!

Once you have achieved the effect you’re looking for, decide on the export size. Smaller will be friendlier to your visitors; larger is important if you want to print an image. Then click “save as.” CameraBag will warn you if you are trying to “save as” using the same file name; it will not let you easily overwrite your original photo. A nice implementation of error prevention!

CameraBag Desktop Gallery

I have created a gallery of some pre-installed filters in action as well as a custom filter (Slate) downloaded from the CameraBag filters page. These are variations on an image of the Seattle skyline shot with my iPhone 4 on Saturday 18 September 2010. Check Out The Gallery!

CameraBag Desktop How-To On YouTube

Click here to view the embedded video.

Try It Now!

CameraBag has a try-before-you buy option. Play with the application for 15 days for free. However, saving is disabled, and images contain a watermark. I’ve used the application for several images on my 365 project, which is into its fifth week.

Five-star rating!

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