Mutt Media | Daily Bone 9.9.09 An old favorite: The Machine is Us/ing Us. Take a look at the (r)evolution of web 2.0

The Machine is Us/ing Us

No doubt some of my readers are familiar with this video, but even if you’ve seen it before, it’s great to watch.

Take 5 minutes out of your day and learn about the (r)evolution of web 2.0.

Let me know what you think. I never get tired of it!

Mutt Media | the Daily Bone 9.7.09 uSocial services to "buy" your Facebook friends

Mutt Media disusses stealth marketing using uSocial

Usocial was just launched but has already caused a stir. Facebook is claiming that uSocial violates its Terms of Service which prohibit users from sharing their passwords with a third party. What does this mean? A user can have their account taken down if an allegation such as this is proven. Mr. Hill has stated publicly that not only is this unlikely, but that

“Unless they actually say anything, unless they make it known to Facebook or Twitter that they’ve actually bought my services, there’s absolutely nothing they (Facebook or Twitter) can do.”…In the end the thing is that I’m not actually ever doing anything against the terms of service — it’s the actual users who purchases my services (who is),” he said.

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 9.2.09 US Open cautions players against reckless Tweeting

US Open Officials say no to Twitter

Serena & Venus Williams each have one. So do Andy Murray and Andy Roddick. I am speaking today of Twitter and the warning from US Open officials about reckless tweeting by the players.

Ostensibly, their concern is the dissemination of “inside” information from the Courts and it’s effect on the game and illegal wagering. Judging from recent tweets from the players (click on their names above to go right to their Twitter page), this doesn’t seem to be a real issue.

Serena is busy plugging her new book, Venus is exciting about ringing the closing bell on the stock exchange and Federer keeps us plugged in on some pretty mundane goings-on such as checking his email and going to sleep. Roddick seems to enjoy his tweets and really engages. Here, he comments on the US Open “No Tweet” rule (10:28 PM Aug 28th from web):

i definitely respect the rule about inside info and on court, but u would seriously have to be a moron to send “inside info” through a tweet

But the US Open is actually being pretty proactive, given the online climate and the lack of forethought that is rampant in our online behavior. I know I sound preachy, but I cannot stress this enough, especially to my younger readers…be mindful of what you post online! At least make some small effort to think a little down the road. Do you want that angry post “out there” in perpetuity? I’ve seen the t-shirts that admonish, “Don’t drink & text”, which I think is both hilarious and great advice. The same rules apply to your photos and to your Tweets.

One of my Facebook “friends” recently made a really angry post about a family member that made everyone who read it really uncomfortable because there were clearly serious issues that needed to be discussed “offline” and not aired on the wall for all to see.

Open season on your life and every whim? Think before you press those keys and hit the “post” button.

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 9.1.09 Special Announcement: "Beyond Facebook" article in Woodbury Magazine Fall '09 issue is now out

Mutt Media featured as Contributor in Fall 2009 issue of Woodbury Magazine. Check out article on page 84 "Beyond Facebook - Your primer for understanding the changing language on the World Wide Web"

I am so excited to announce the publication of Woodbury Magazine‘s Fall 2009 issue. Not only is this a publication that I personally support for all of their fundraising for wonderful causes (Autism, Breast Cancer), great parenting advice, fashion tips, buzz on hot new restaurants and vacation spots but now I have just one more reason to feel the love….the issue hitting stands now (I already grabbed mine at Country Carpets this afternoon) features yours truly as a Contributor!

Here’s me sharing:

Join in supporting the magazine’s fight against Breatst Cancer by attending their annual Cocktails for the Cure Event in October at Posh @ the Garden City Hotel. I go every year and it’s a wonderful night. Click here for more info.

Follow Woodbury Magazine on Twitter. Just click as I’ve provided the link.

The column I wrote talks all about social networking, your online image, privacy concerns on the internet and much more. All things that I discuss here every day but also full of current data and useful how-to’s for your web-based exploration.

I urge you to pick up your complimentary copy if you live locally and check it out!! I will be posting a downloadable pdf version shortly for my readers outside of the Long Island area. I also designed a brand new ad for Schlessinger Eye & Face that appears on page 33.

Today was also a big day as I sent out the first Mutt Media Newsletter via an email blast. If you did not receive it, that means you haven’t yet signed up and registered on my site. So go do that right now!!

If you’d like a copy of the email sent, just drop me a line and I will forward. Contact me at info@muttmedia.net.

Happy September

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 8.31.09 Tweetlater changes name to Social Oomph

Tweetlater changes name to SocialOomph -service remain the same!

One tool that I find really useful in managing my Twitter account is located on a site I’ve talked about before (previously) called Tweetlater.com. (check out my blog entry from Positano on 7.3.09).

Tweetlater.com (now called now called Social Oomph [socialoomph.com]) is a service I use for myself and Mutt Media Clients that provides statistics and automation of your Twitter account, while still enabling you to keep it personal. You can use this free service to track and vet your potential followers and you can set up automated personal responses to push at the appropriate time. Other great features? You can set your account to automatically follow anyone you approve to follow you, or you can not follow, block or even report an potential follower as spam – all at a time you find convenient. All you have to do is login and go to manage your account(s). You can maintain and manage several and instead of getting inundated with notifications, you can set aside time as desired to go through and vet.

It’s a great service that you can administer yourself and it’s also a service we provide to our clients at no additional charge if we already have you on our roster. Send us an email or post your questions right here.

Social O

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 8.22.09 Interesting article on the "Debate" over Media Studies Programs. Did you know there was one?

Article Reprint discusses Media Studies in Education

The following is an article I came across that I found of interest.

This article discusses an ongoing debate as to the validity of Media Studies in University environments. As someone who is currently immersed in a course of Media Studies at the New School (NYC), I can assure you that my classes are not only engaging, but deal in the most current, relevant and revolutionary of subject matter and instruction. My curriculum is focused on balancing the history and evolution of Media and it’s various theorists and theories as well as a great infusion of the most cutting edge advances in the industries that have grown from those.

Of course, teaching institutions vary greatly but my program has been around a long while and the courses are taught by learned professionals in their fields.

Enjoy and as always, your comments are welcome! Thanks to Social Media Mind on Twitter for leading me to this….

In defence of media studies

How do we judge if a subject is easy or difficult? Condemnation of media studies reflects a fundamental confusion about its aims

David Buckingham
Saturday August 22 2009
guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/22/media-studies

It’s unfortunate for teachers and students that the exam results always come out in the midsummer silly season. It seems to guarantee a flurry of tiresome political rhetoric, in which their hard work, and the realities of contemporary education, are entirely ignored.

This summer’s great education debate has seen frequent mention of media studies ? a subject that is now a byword for dumbing down. Media studies, we are told, is one of those soft options now being offered to the deluded students of our state schools; while the privately educated elite are being stretched by real, hard subjects like physics and maths. Admissions tutors at a few elite universities apparently look down on such soft options. And shadow education secretary Michael Gove has even proposed that schools be allocated more points in the league tables for hard subjects than easy ones.

If anything is a symptom of dumbing down, it is the willingness of politicians and pundits to pronounce on things they know nothing about. But why would they bother to find out? It is so much more convenient for them to represent media studies as just a matter of ignorant chavs sitting around watching telly.

Much of the discussion of media studies reflects a fundamental confusion about its aims. On the one hand, it is chided for being not vocational enough: after all, media studies GCSE isn’t going to get you a job in the BBC. Yet on the other, it is condemned for not being academic enough: it is, quite hilariously, a Mickey Mouse subject.

But how might these arguments apply to other subjects? Do we judge the value of English degrees on whether they equip students to become professional literary critics? In fact, the employment rate of media studies graduates is higher than in most other humanities and social science subjects; and most of them are getting jobs in media-related professions, however precarious they may be.

The charge of being insufficiently academic is one that media studies students ? who routinely struggle with the complexities of social and cultural theory ? would find quite ridiculous. The academic study of the media dates back more than 80 years, and there is a vast body of scholarship on the sociological, psychological, cultural and economic dimensions of the media.

Indeed, there are many academics researching and teaching about the media at Oxford and Cambridge, and at most leading “old” universities. Meanwhile, competition for places on media studies degrees is intense, with required grades often much higher than for other subjects.

How do we judge whether a subject is easy or difficult? Is art difficult? For some it is as easy as breathing, but for others it is something they will always struggle to master. For some, maths must seem like a soft option, while for others it will forever remain a closed book.

The suspicion of media studies is very similar to that which greeted sociology in the 1960s, or English literature in the 1920s. Then, the suggestion that young people might study books in their native language rather than just in ancient Greek and Latin was little short of scandalous.

Now, the idea that young people might study the media of modern communication seems equally scandalous. Newspapers have been around for more than 250 years, the cinema for more than 100 and television for more than 60. Perish the thought that schools should recognise, and interrogate, their existence.

This suspicion is fuelled by some who work in the media, but who seem to regard what they do as somehow unworthy of serious critical attention. Or perhaps they find such attention threatening?

By all means let’s have a serious debate about how we teach media studies, and what it can achieve. But that debate needs to be based on more than ignorance and narrow-minded prejudices about modern culture.

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2009
Registered in England and Wales No. 908396
Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 7.23.09 Facebook usernames can now be changed!

Remember several weeks ago when I blogged about the addition of a new feature on Facebook and urged you all to claim your unique user name?

There were screams of caution during this process as Facebook warned you to choose your name wisely and carefully, as you would be stuck with it forever.

Well, forever is sooner than we all thought. You are now able to change your facebook username if you did not choose wisely and carefully. This is great news if you selected that you find unbearable and cannot live with. The not-so-great news is that there is, as time goes on, less and less of a selection to choose from.

Tip: Pick a name that you don’t have to spell out for everyone, that is easy to remember and that reflects you or your business in some way and above all, will stand the test of time.

Caution: Facebook now claims that you will only be able to change your name once. I wouldn’t bet on that seeing as they reversed this policy so quickly after the launch of this new program, but in the interest of full disclosure, I thought I should mention it.

MySpace, in case you use it, also has this feature. It really does make it easy to have people who are looking find you.

So go forth and claim your (new) URL Just login to your account. Go to settings, then your account and click on change next to where it says “User Name”

You can find us at

facebook.com/muttmedia

myspace.com/muttmediany

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 7.15.09 Will Blog for Food: How the unemployed are spending their time off

Another Tip from Mutt Media NY

I’ve said it before but it bears mentioning over and over again. Need attention? For anything? A charity, pet project, shameless self-promotion? BLOG!!

Yet again – this time this past Monday in the NY Post in the @work section, there appeared an article about how blogging has become THE thing for out-of-work people of all ages, shapes and sizes. I began blogging when I founded Mutt Media and I haven’t been able to shut up since. I find there’s plenty of things that I find compelling, interesting or just that warrant a comment or two and so, I write.

This wasn’t always so. Yes, I was an English major in college and writing has always come easy to me. Much easier than taking a conventional exam, I will admit but as a student I found writing to be a chore, a necessary evil. Now that it is no longer a so-called “requirement”, I submit to it voluntarily.

As a business tool, it can be invaluable. If you have good content, people will tune in and read – always a plus if your Blog is an appendage of your website. But it is more than that. In today’s climate of employee hiring, there is an abundance of competition for work. Prospective employers are using the search engines to find anything about their applicants. I personally know some who have found Facebook profiles and passed on calling the applicant for an interview.

As I said Bloggers come in all shapes and sizes. Here are some funny titles. I cannot vouch for the content but the names are catchy. Pinkslipsarethenewblack.com, yourunemployeddaughter.com, livingwithmyparents.com, whatssofunnyaboutunemployment.wordpress.com and unemployeddad.com just to name a few.

Moral of the story? Carefully craft your message and get it out there. Blog well and blog often. It works.

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 7.14.09 Mac vs. PC & Vista security

Here’s a great video posted on YOUTUBE that totally brings home the point of yesterday’s blog topic.

I love these Mac vs. PC commercials….they make me giggle.

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 7.13.09 Google & Apple: Share-Share. Is that fair?

So, forgive me if I bore you with some of last weeks’ news, but I’ve been on holiday and not in touch. There are some things in the news that I would’ve blogged about in Real Time but sometimes vacation trumps work, and that’s a good thing, right?

So, first off, our friends at Google, in the midst of executing their plan for world domination and data-collection, have announced they will be releasing their own Operating System called Chrome. At first blush, I am excited about this, for a couple of reasons.

Google does seem to get it right. Their services are useful and free – two features I always find pleasing. I like anything that works and doesn’t stress me out, as I am a simple girl. Their analytics and other applications function well and play nice with my MacBook. Life is good. Yay Apple & Google.

My husband is engaged in a brutal war at the moment with his new laptop that is running Windows Vista, an operating system that doesn’t play well with others. He needs to run a certain software for his business and Vista just won’t cooperate. Updates, tech support, patches and lots of nonsensical work-arounds have kept my husband up at night and his staff has logged hours trying to trouble shoot for him to no avail. He’s had to wipe out the hard drive and reinstall programs, download updates that in the end, set his efforts back and just yesterday, his laptop shot off a really low blow: just crapped out. During one of the mind-bending downloads and installs, during step 3 of 3, the screen goes dark but for 3 lines that read, “Running Step 3 of 3. 0% complete. Do not shut down your computer.” And so he waited and waited. Still 0% complete 45 minutes later but the graphics are moving like something is happening. But nothing does.

I used to work off of a Windows PC. You don’t realize how much of a nightmare it is until you switch to a Mac. I swear ONCE YOU GO MAC YOU NEVER GO BACK. (Knock on wood) My Mac & I do not have to battle resistant, mutating viruses, updates go off without a hitch and all of my programs load like butter. Going on 2 years together and so far, it’s a match made in compuer heaven.

So, my point? Let’s take a look behind the scenes to see why my Mac (Apple) and Google apps work so well together. The common denominator here could be that they share a CEO named Eric Schmidt and another Board Member name Arthur D. Levinson, the CEO of Genentech.

Is this a conflict? Does this fly in the face of anti-trust laws, which are in place to safeguard against possible collusion between companies (and world domination).

An article in the Global edition of the New York Times from last Friday by Brad Stone speculates that the “Chrome Operating System is likely to create more questions for regulators”. Yep, this alliance is already on the radar of the Federal Trade Commission with the investigation going on for the last several months.

Under section 8 of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act specific limits are placed on the sharing of information between companies by common board members.

In the case of Schmidt and Levinson, both claim to recuse themselves during portions of the Board Meetings when the discussions turn to tricky topics.

Where is the overlap? Well, Apple makes the IPhone and Google has the Android Software (see YouTube video for info on Android and the “G Phone” below), Apple has ITunes and then there’s YouTube, Apple has the Safari Browser and now here’s Google with Chrome.

In the end, the FTC will decide whether these relationships are problematic. It all comes down to what percentage of the overall business is affected.

I don’t care. I just love my MacBook and my Google. Can’t we all just get along? (hello Microsoft!)

Then maybe my poor husband will get some sleep.