Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 6.29.09 Some interesting data (or so we think!!)

Mutt Media brings you some research….

disclaimer…these figures are taken from a 3rd party site (alexa.com).

I’ve compiled some data I thought was interesting. Here you’ll find the top 10 social networking sites (according to Alexa.com) as of mid-month. As you would expect, Facebook, MySpace & Twitter round out the top 3 but there are some others on this list you may have never given a glance or heard of.

Please bear in mind that these are domestic figures so they do not account for overseas data, which is also available. If you haven’t heard of some of these, go check them out and let me know what you think.

Mutt Media's Daily Bone | 6.24.09 More Craigslist Crime News

Here’s a good one. Some bonehead (excuse the pun) placed an ad on Craigslist asking if anyone needed some “420 help”. Do any of YOU know what this even means? If I didn’t read about his arrest, I would think he’s a math tutor for the SAT’s.

Turns out that is not the case. 420 is a term used for POT – you know, the kind people smoke, not the kind you cook in. 420 alludes to the time during the day back in the ’70s when kids in a California High School would get together and smoke. Anyway, police responded to Christopher Gray’s ad and bought a bag for $45 before they busted him. I guess if criminals were really smart they would do something else for a living.

But the big Craigslist story today is that of music composer Joseph Brooks. That name may not ring a bell to you, but his most popular song might. He’s the guy who wrote “You light up my life” – a song that was at the top of the charts forever back in 1977 and for which Brooks won an Oscar. Here’s a 71 year old man who has been running ads on Craigslist (and other “talent” sites) luring young girls to his apartment with the help of his assistant.

These ads would say Brooks was looking for the next big thing, a new face, preferably aged 18-22 to make into a star. His assistant, named Shawni Lucier would screen the girls and even make travel arrangements, with the thought being that if the victim was traveling, they’d be less inclined to put up a fight because they were too exhausted. All of the assaults occured between 2005-2008 but someone from 1970 also had a claim that was deemed beyond the statute of limitations.

Once he had them, he would tell them that the project he was involved in called for them to play a prostitute. He then asked them to drink and take off their clothing and then attack.

Now Brooks is facing over 80 counts of rape, sexual assault and other charges. Lucier is scheduled to turn herself in next week, when she will face 9 counts of criminal solicitation.

Stay tuned….to get the full story from the Chicago Tribune, click here.

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Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 6.16.09 Fade to Black – No more analog TV

This past Friday marked the first official day of the switch over from analog tv to digital. With an estimated 1 million people now left unprepared for the switch, this means they will be left without tv service.

Unless you live under a rock, I don’t see how these million have missed all of the print, television and other advertising that has gone on notifying us to the pending switch. The switch was supposed to become official back in February but was delayed. The FTC did a “soft test” just last month and found at that time that over 3 million homes were unprepared, which means those televisions would’ve gone “dark” had the change happened then.

There are a couple of ways around this. You can purchase a new TV or obtain a converter box that will switch your analog signal to digital, enabling you to receive your picture instead of “snow”.

My guess is that if you are reading this Blog, this problem will not affect you. You have a computer and you read a Blog? Then it stands to reason that you probably don’t have an analog television set. However, as a public service, here’s the link to help those who do. Pass it along to your grandmother or better yet, print out the FAQ page and hand it to her.

A footnote: The latest reports indicate that the switch went far better than planned, with only around 300,000 calls to the FCC on Saturday – a significant increase over their normal volume, but far less than expected. Many of these calls came from New York but that’s really no surprise when you consider the volume of people that live here and the amount of televisions we have.

Mutt Media | the Daily Bone 6.10.09 Do some Twitter Citizens yield too much power?

A few weeks ago, Twitter made an announcement that they were becoming involved in a proposed new reality TV series that centered around the micro-blogging platform.

The premise of the show was people using Twitter to track down celebrities. For anyone not familiar, there are many celebrities who use the site – and quite often I might add.

These include Rainn Wilson (The Office), Demi & Ashton (please don’t ask, “Demi & Ashton who?”), Kim Kardashian, John Mayer and the list goes on and on. Some have well over a million followers, so it’s fair to say they can have a huge influence. And they use their accounts to tweet often. Well, someone, possibly a publicist – may be tweeting on their behalf (even though I think that’s a big no-no).

Anyway, back to my point. Ashton & Demi were not on board with the reality TV concept. How can you blame them when you look at the proposed premise of the show? Celebrity stalkers via Twitter? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Twitter backed off the reality TV concept – for now. But here’s another concept…the very population that helped to put Twitter on the map and bring it mainstream would/should/will be alienated should such a project come to fruition. So here’s a case of the tail wagging the dog

Does this give the celebrity population the right to dictate the business model that the Twitter “executives” envision for their company? I am torn between feeling that celebrities (who, incidentally have shrewdly embraced this technology as a free modality to aid in their self-promotion [not that there's anything wrong with that]) are feeling that this is a one way street.

Just log on and check out one of these celebrities. Millions of followers but some not following many themselves. That is to say, they are very interested in talking at – but not really listening to – their fans. This does not go for all of them.

But I forgive Rainn for not following me back. He makes me laugh with every one of his tweets.

Oh, and follow MM on Twitter to hear from me at all hours of the day

Here’s a great clip from Larry King’s show. He interviews Kutcher and Sean Combs, who says here that you Tweet because you have something to say. Agreed.

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 6.9.09 A lonely fish contemplates joining Facebook.

Here’s a comic strip I found in my travels. Really cute. My prediction is this fish will become addicted, soon after will need a support group then will go back to life in the fishbowl. Any thoughts? Email me at feedback@muttmedia.net

Enjoy

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 6.8.09 How much is too much on Facebook?

Over the weekend I read about a woman who was murdered back in March named Caroline Wimmer. Ms. Wimmer was unfortunately strangled with the cord of a hair dryer in her home on Staten Island. One of the EMT’s who responded to the call was a retired NYPD Detective named Mark Musarella.

Musarella, according to the accounts I’ve read, had a stellar record while serving on the NYPD, logging a few downright heroic deeds such as saving a man from a burning car and helping to rescue a mother and daughter who had fallen from a boat that had capsized (NY POST Friday, June 5, 2009).

Musarella is claiming that the posting to Facebook was accidental and that the photo inadvertantly got uploaded with several others.

The question remains, why would an Emergency Medical Technician take a photo with his cell phone while performing his duties? Why would he need or want this image for personal use? Beside being pretty macabre, I believe this is a breach of ethics. The upload to Facebook notwithstanding this is something that he should probably be disciplined for on a professional level. According the story in the Post, while the photo was on his account for only “Friends” to see (his account is set to “private”), one viewer took offense to it and called the hospital that Musarella worked for (Richmond University Hospital). The hospital fired him and he is now facing charges – he is charged with official misconduct and faces up to a year in prision.

I think about the victim of this terrible crime and the family that she leaves behind. Ravi Batra, the attorney for Wimmer’s family believes that prosecuting Musarella will, “keep society civil”.

Good luck.

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 6.3.09 LEET-Like Spelling Bee by Mike Luckovich

Leek-like Spelling Bee by Mike Luckovich

I thought this was a cute cartoon that appeared in one of my morning papers last week by Mike Luckovich.

Normally Luckovich does politically-bent cartoons (go to the link if you’d like to see more of his work) but I thought this was one worthy of a post for Mutt Media & the Daily Bone.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember my post from May 7, 2009 where I gave a brief overview of LEET (1337), the shorthand “language” that our kids are adopting in their day-to-day online communications.

This shorthand is sometimes hard to decipher and my concern is that – in a sense it is slowly edging-out our English language. My kids (daughter especially, who is, incidentally, the younger of the two) has become an expert in paring down her words into these little snippets in order to get her messages (txt, email and the like) deployed more quickly. She routinely will answer “IDK” when asked a question….this is worrisome!!

Do you know what “IDK” means? If not, then just answer “IDK” (that was a hint).

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 6.1.09: Iran & the Facebook ban

Over Memorial Day Weekend I read in my favorite newspaper (as well as other news outlets) that the Iranian government has blocked its citizens from using the Facebook service. Critics of this move attributed it to the upcoming June elections.

Candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has used Facebook heavily in the past to mobilize young voters for his benefit, much like Obama did with his presidential campaign.

Here’s a video posted on You Tube that tells the story in short…forgive the ad at the end..sometimes these things cannot be helped.

No sooner did I begin drafting this blog then did Iran’s government lift the ban. From all I’ve read, this seems to be a pretty common practice; sites are routinely banned both in Iran as well as other extremely Muslim countries and in China too. When a website’s content runs in contradiction to the fundamental religious philosophies of a nation, these bans are commonplace.

Let’s feel thankful that we live in a country that allows and encourages free speech and opposing views.

Comments? Share ‘em!

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 5.29.09 Top 10 Tips for marketing yourself online. Tip #9: Get them talking!

Mutt Media Tip #9

Another Tip from Mutt Media NY

9. While you do want to be stringent about monitoring your social networking sites for undesirable photos and questionable alliances, we should never forget what they are for – networking! By all means, use your contacts. Ask them to post a link about you. Your audience will increase exponentially (see earlier post and the viral networking Faberge illustration).

Provide your friends with a link to your Blog (you should set this up asap as we discussed earlier this month – see Tip #4). There are several sites that are really user-friendly including WordPress and Blogger that make it very easy for you to set this up.

Make sure your posts are relevant and blog often. If people find you interesting, they will come back and voila! You can amass a following and get viral marketing to work for you. Remember, fresh and interesting content is the most important thing! And what’s more interesting than you?

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 5.19.09 Top 10 Tips for marketing yourself online. Tip #5: Subscribe to News Feeds (RSS)!

Another Tip from Mutt Media NY

5. Subscribe to RSS feeds in your professional field. This will keep you on top of the latest trends, articles and expose you to contacts you didn’t have before.

This is a free service that brings the entire web to your personal computer. Instead of searching out your favorite blogs and news feeds, they will be fed directly into your Reader Account and at your fingertips when you need them. You will be surprised how many people are out there sharing ideas, bartering and feeding off of the World Wide Web of creativity.

You will find an option to subscribe to an RSS feed on virtually all Blogs that you visit. Now that I’ve brought this up, you will notice and look for them even more, right?

A short primer on RSS or, as they are often called, Web Feeds.

RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a technology that enables web browsers to read content as text. What does this mean for the blogger? Well, that his content will be more easily picked up by search engines and easier to find by the rest of us.

How is an RSS Feed useful? Well, I’ll use myself as an example….My interests (to name a few) are online media, fashion, gardening, and movies. In the online world, lots of people are blogging, but let’s say I’ve found a few that give me great insights and information written in a style that I like. Rather than having to visit each site individually and hope they’ve posted something new, I can subscribe to their feed and whenever they provide new content, it will be delivered straight to my Reader. This way, I can, at my leisure, pop in and read without having to go on a labor-intensive search mission. You can subscribe to as many news feeds as you like; they are only limited by how much news you’d like to get. Gone are the days of bookmarking! All posts will be sent to you within moments.

Think of your News Feed as getting information delivered right to your front door (like a newspaper), only the great thing is that it only contains the news you have expressed an interest in reading! You can log into many of these from any computer so you never have to be completely out of touch, even on vacation. If this option sounds good to you, you’ll want to look for a web-based news feed. Just a few are Google Reader, News Gator and Bloglines.

There are many utilities out there to deliver your news feed right to your computor, too. Some are NetNewsWire (for Mac users), and SharpReader.

So, go forth and subscribe. You can start with Mutt Media! Just click on the tab at the top of this page that says “RSS” after you select and set up your newsreader.

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved