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Archive for May, 2009

Social Media Sites for Everyone

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Now that we’ve looked at some social networking sites/communities specifically for writers and readers, let’s take a step back and look at some of the most popular “standard” communities and sites. Here’s where you can meet up with people who aren’t necessarily in your word niche.

Possibly my favorite current site is Stumble Upon. You download a toolbar to your browser and indicate your areas of interest (art, literature, sports, games, etc.), and then simply click the icon to be taken to a site that falls into one of those categories. Don’t like it? Click again. I’ve found amazing information that way. You can also rate sites that you find so that others can stumble upon them, too.
Okay, can’t have a list without the requisite reference to MySpace, the first and still most famous of social networking sites. It provides blogs, instant messaging, updates on friends, and forums. It’s being used in a lot of interesting ways—through the use of multimedia, for example, bands can get their music out to the world. There’s a lot of noise there but it remains a rich and interesting environment.
And right behind MySpace (though not necessarily in popularity) is Facebook, which started as a way to connect with classmates and is now a place to connect with the world. From the website: “Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.”
Don’t have time to put together a website? Put together a “lens” instead at Squidoo! Find information, share information on a myriad of topics through the overview pages it calls lenses.
AOL’s Bebo is a general social networking site that offers a “social inbox” (organizes your web-based email and adds media recommendations), a “lifestream platform” (updates from your friends in other social networking communities), and a “lifestory” (that “provides you with an interactive display of life events in chronological order in an intuitive and easy to use timeline. Lifestories are made up photos, videos, stories and special events that you want to record or schedule”).
Second Life is a visual community — in many way, a second life. It’s a hard landing (you need to create an avatar, clothe him/her/it, learn to get around, etc.) but well worth the effort. I co-authored one of the chapters in Wiley’s second edition of the Official Guide to Second Life so obviously am very much at home there. Think video games without the game part.
Google’s Orkut is accessible with a Google account and, while it seems to be another general social networking site, does not offer the promised demographics (or at least that link is broken) and shows testimonials only from those who have used it for romantic connections. However, your mileage may vary: give it a try!
Twitter is the site that has the news media all a-twitter; it restricts messages to short bursts or “tweets.” Takes a while to get to really understand its uses, but a lot of people swear by it. Find me there at JCez.

Specialized Sites

A couple of specialized sites that are worth a look if they apply to you:

The PLAN Institute’s Tyze is a site providing personal communities for caregivers of chronically and/or terminally ill individuals.
Match.com is the grande dame of dating/relationship sites and offers something for everyone: gay matches, Jewish matches, African American matches, senior matches. To my mind it’s the best of such sites as it operates without the hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda of some of the online dating communities.
Care 2 is a cause-related community site: healthy green living, human rights, and snimal welfare.

Is that it? Hardly: I’ve just begun to scratch the surface here. But these are some communities you might want to explore if you’re new to social networking. The idea, of course, is to really try them out—a quick tour of the “about” page won’t tell you much, but getting to know people in each of these places will.
Want more? Here are a few you can check out:

YouTube — Just about any video you’d care to see (or create!) is here
flickr — A place for your pictures online
metacafe.com — despite its name, not a Sartrian place for philosophical discourse, but rather videos and music
technorati — a search engine for the blogosphere
blogcatalog.com — find a blog
propeller.com — yet another AOL site
kaboodle.com — “shopping is more fun with friends”
i-am-bored.com — sites to explore when you are — wait for it — bored
reddit.com — what’s new online
slashdot.org — news for nerds, a very smart and often funny community
blinklist.com — a way to save and share website addresses
smallbusinessbrief.com — Internet marketing and business news

And these are just a sampling of what is out there. New communities are forming daily, old ones morphing … the only thing you can say with any certainty about the Internet is that it’s constantly changing. But don’t be intimidated by the numbers; you don’t have to participate in everything! It’s like Real Life: find a place you like to hang out with people whose company you enjoy and go for it.

Mostly, have fun. That is, after all, what it’s supposed to be about. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Posted in Internet, Social Media, Words | No Comments »

Social Media for Readers and Writers

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

So let’s start our tour of social media with my favorite group of people—people who read and people who write! With some exceptional help from some of my colleagues at LinkedIn (a social network site you’ll find mentioned here), I’ve put together a list of social media sites you might want to check out. They’re not in any particular order, so don’t bother looking for one; perhaps you can see it as an example of the random nature of the Net!

Remember as you browse the first rule of social media: there’s no one-size-fits-all here. Some of these sites may interest you; many of them will not. And that’s as it should be, because you don’t want to spend all of your time online! Explore the sites at your leisure, see which ones seem to work for you, try them out. If you don’t like one site, move on.

And if you find more to add to the list, drop me an email at jcezanne@customline.com and let me know!

Literature Map: Gnooks is a self-adapting community system based on the gnod engine. Discover new writers you will like, travel the map. of literature and discuss your favorite books and authors.
Book Glutton: Read books online with other people—suggest books, discuss books, see who’s reading what. Sign on as a glutton and take the video tour!
Library Thing: So if you feel a need to catalogue your personal library online, Library Thing is the place for you. You can do it here, and then connect with others whose libraries you like. Note that there’s a fee once you pass 200 books.
Good Reads: Another book cataloguing site. Also offer some great lists and trivia. (As I write this, Twilight is simultaneously on the “best books ever” and “worst books ever” lists, so it’s even-handed!)
Author’s Den: From the site: “While some of the other sites focus on readers, here’s one that focuses on authors as well. From the site: “The largest most vibrant free online literary community of authors and readers! Visited by 1,400,000+ readers/mo.” It claims that authors “willreach many readers” and that readers
can “discover, interact, get personal, buy and read!”
Red Room says that it’s “where the writers are,” and explains, “Red Room provides authors and members with free, easy-to-use, elegant online homes. It’s a place for the literary community to promote their work, express themselves, and connect with their favorite authors.”
Swap Tree is a book- (and music-, DVD-, and video-game-) swapping community. Have a book you want to trade for another? This is the place for you!
We Read: Ger personalized recommendations for books, share your recommendations with others. Includes discussion forums.
Write Lit“aims to bring writers and readers together from all parts of the globe. It seeks to help the writer — technical, commercial, and literary — earn a living, and find audiences for his work. Furthermore, it aims to provide a venue for readers to share their passion for the written word.”
Authonomy: This is a community sponsored by HarperCollins UK that “invites unpublished and self published authors to post their manuscripts for visitors to read online. Authors create their own personal page on the site to host their project – and must make at least 10,000 words available for the public to read. Visitors to authonomy can comment on these submissions – and can personally recommend their favourites to the community. authonomy counts the number of recommendations each book receives, and uses it to rank the books on the site. It also spots which visitors consistently recommend the best books – and uses that info to rank the most influential trend spotters.”
Writers’ News/Writing Magazine: This is a singularly useful site, a clearinghouse for a number of different activities: competitions, classes, book discussions, forums, links … it’s all here.
Bookworm: a blog that celebrates books and reading with lovely enthusiastic reviews by the author, Lubya Kably.
Media Bistro: Though not strictly an author/reader sort of site, Media Bistro is a community that can be useful to writers looking to improve skills, get jobs, and connect with other media professionals. They have local chapters throughout the United States that offer get-togethers in person.
Book Marketing Network, part of the whole Ning family of social networks, describes itself as being “for book authors, self-publishers, book publishers, publicists, marketers, and others involved in writing, publishing, and marketing books.” Includes, in true social media style, something for everyone—photos, videos, discussion boards, events, and blogs.
The Book Place, also a Ning community, features a blog, podcasts, reviews, and discussion.
Writers Digest: the online community associated with the grande dame of aspiring writers’ magazines, Writers Digest , the site offers some social networking but mostly supports the magazine. Online subscriptions are available.
Gaia Community: once you join the community you’ll have access to the books section. Very useful if you’re interested in spirituality and healing topics.

In addition to the list above, there is a Facebook application called Visual Bookshelf that you can access from inside Facebook. It’s another community that shares reading lists and reviews.

So that’s it for now! I’ll update this list periodically, as community life on the Net is always changing, always growing … but this should get you started. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Posted in About Writing, Books, Creativity, Doing the Right Thing, Fiction, Getting Published, Reading, SMM, Social Media Marketing, The Writing Life, Tools, Words | No Comments »