Sociosophy

Jennifer Van Grove, Social Media Strategist – http://www.jennifervangrove.com/

Sociosophy: What was the reason you started to blog?

Jenn: “The interesting thing is that when I first started blogging, I really didn’t know what a blog was supposed to entail and I wasn’t aware of LiveJournal, Wordpress, or Blogger – just MySpace. But in mid 2005, I was in search of a creative outlet, and very actively using MySpace, so I checked out their blog module and saw it as an opportunity to express myself to a small audience of friends. In the early days, I focused on writing about my constant struggles with men and life, and tried to interject humor into the equation for comic relief. This type of writing was a natural extension of my education and creative and moody disposition. Feeling liberated by the privacy that MySpace afforded, I wrote with a honest transparency that made me fall in love with blogging and appreciate it as an art form.”

“Four years later I’m still blogging, albeit outside of MySpace, and on everything related to social media and web/tech news. I’ve never relinquished my appreciation of blogging as a vehicle for self-expression (I have a few personal blogs), though I’m a little more conscious that more people are starting to become aware of the overly personal stuff I’ve been known to share.” (more…)

Curious Raven -  http://curiousraven.squarespace.com/

Sociosophy:  “What was the reason you started to blog? What keeps you going?”

Robert Rice:  “I needed an outlet for my opinion or a method to give my voice a forum. Sometimes it is hard being an entrepreneur on the east coast, and missing out on a lot of social events and activities that happen in the West. The blog is one of the channels I have to get exposure, passively seek and connect with like-minded people, and rant about things that bug me.”

Rice is nothing short of brilliant, and when it comes to technology… Well, let’s just say he was into technology before technology was this bubbly pretty universe we all know as Vista and OS/X. He’s been working in and around virtual reality, internet gaming, and virtual simulation for (over) 17 years. (more…)

Welcome to the first annual Sociosophy.com Blogger Week. This Blogger Week will feature influential, dedicated bloggers that I feel bring talent and insight into the Internet. I’ve scoured the Interwebs far and wide (well, from coast-to-coast) to bring you, what I think, will be a handy group of individuals that will fill in some gaps on your list of blogs to read.

I’d love for this week to share the “best of the best”, but I’d also like to make sure I point out bloggers that aren’t regarded as “the best”, rather, bloggers that are really great writers, story tellers, entertainers, quality contributors to the Internet, and more importantly, people that get it. Authors in their own right that report their passions, express their thoughts, and chase the stories that they feel are important enough to share with us little RSS readers every day. These are the people that make the Internet an awesome playground of information overload and sharing.

Some say blogging is dead. I say “grrrr!” to those people that can’t take blogs seriously enough to appreciate the hard work and energy that goes into them. Blogging to me is what the press was like a hundred years ago when people were paying attention to their community and reporting on it with fact and opinion. It’s journalism and editorial in it’s purest form. Rah!

So without further delay, I give you Blogger Week 2009.

Ok, let’s pretend for a moment that I know what a Social Network is, and how Social Media can be great for business.

Step 1 – Build a network of people. You can do this by meeting people at a party, throwing a party, sharing thoughts or ideas online, engaging in conversation… aka: being social. Step 2 – Repeat. Step 3 – Go to Step 2… and so on.

Now, building a social network takes time and energy, but every person-connection made is a valuable one when made through the right means, and when interacted with accordingly.

When mixing Social Networks with Brands, either personal or professional, the same rules apply. Meaningful communication is a two way street in a social network. Twitter is definitely no exception. (more…)

Just when you thought Ping.fm, HelloTxt and god knows whatever other “multi-site” updater applications were out there were enough for you to dabble and annoy your followers with, along comes Trigga.me, yet another avenue to update to multiple services at once! But… this one comes with Groups.

[insert "ooo's" and "aaah's" here]

I’m not all that impressed, just yet. The number of services is limited, the interface for selecting a service is a drop down box – which tells me there won’t be more than 12 services listed regardless, and if there are, I already hate it. Sorry UX people,  drop down boxes that aren’t loaded with states shouldn’t really have more than a dozen options… Got to think of a better way to handle that situation.

(more…)