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 | 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 | The Daily Bone 6.26.09 MySpace lays off 700+ employees!

MySpace recently announced plans for cuts and closings company-wide including 300 jobs oversees, 420 US-based positions and 4 overseas offices, ultimately leaving them with just over 1100 worldwide employees and overseas offices in London, Berlin & Sydney. MySpace is a subsidiary of News Corp, which also owns the NY Post and Fox Broadcasting. Following is an excerpt taken from the Huffington Post.

“The move, the latest cost-cutting effort at the site, comes less than two months after the unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. hired former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta, 39, as its new chief executive.

It also comes a day after data from tracking firm comScore show Facebook has caught up with MySpace in monthly U.S. visitors for the first time.

“Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” Van Natta said in a statement.

The cuts amount to about 420 people, bringing the total number of MySpace’s U.S. staff to 1,000. As of May, Facebook had about 850 employees worldwide, the vast majority in the United States.

MySpace’s user base has stagnated at about 125 million worldwide users, while Facebook said its usage has doubled to more than 200 million in less than a year.

Until now, MySpace still had the edge among U.S. users. But numbers from comScore show that in May, MySpace and Facebook both had about 70 million users apiece in the United States.

MySpace generates more revenue, according to Internet research firm eMarketer; it estimates that MySpace generated about $605 million in global advertising revenue last year, compared with $250 million for Facebook. MySpace’s revenue is expected to shrink next year while Facebook’s is seen as growing.”

It seems as though sometimes we need a little “push” to trim the fat…in life and in business. For a long time, Myspace was the only social networking game in town and really dominated the market. However as the above excerpt shows, this is no longer the case.

I say that competition is good. Good for business, good for the consumer. What do you think?

Mutt Media’s Extra Bone 6.16.09 Twitter going dark today at 11AM for One Hour!

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Twitter users will be without their favorite platform today for a bit as Twitter is going dark for an hour at 11AM (NY Time) for some scheduled maintenance. Click here to get more info.

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 | Daily Bone 5.27.09 Using Social Media sites for your job search

Another Mutt Media Tip

Another Tip from Mutt Media NY

Ok….so this was not an original one of our Top 10 Tips but it well could’ve and probably should have been.

Considering the extent to which social media and micro blogging can reach, these mediums can and should be used to let your network of contacts know that you are in the market for work and what you can offer.

Remember that you can be exposed to not only your contacts, but to your contacts’ contacts too, depending upon their account settings. Like a virus, word will spread that you are available for employment or internship. I may not be looking to hire, but think of it like the old Faberge Organic Shampoo (with pure wheat germ oil ‘n honey!) commercials….(yes, I am dating myself) where the girl was so enamored of her shampoo that she told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on and so on…..take a look if you’d like a stroll down memory lane.

This is a great example of viral marketing in it’s most basic form and the principle can be applied online to your job search efforts. Visibility is key and as you know – once it’s out there, it’s out there. So go ahead, post your unemployed “status” on Facebook or Tweet away to your heart’s content. It can only help.

Oh, and provide an online link to your resume that will contain your contact information…you never know whose virtual desktop it will land on!

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Mutt Media | Daily Bone 5.21.09 Meet Your Long-Lost Aunt Ida

Google's Logo on 5.20.09

We interrupt our 10 Tips series to talk for a minute about some other kind of technological miracle…fossil exhumation, identification and authentication.

I find it no less than amazing that scientists have released information about man’s oldest descendants – primates. Apparently, about 500 million years ago, primates split off into 2 branches – Lemurs and Apes. The Lemurs were not a pretty species, but Modern Man evolved from it’s cousin – the Ape.

I will spare everyone a lesson on Darwinism and commentary about evolution but I have a picture in my head of Magilla Gorilla with a Blackberry and a laptop…and I’m thinking how archaic the movie The Planet Of the Apes seems now, with absolutely no reference to cell phones or any of the technology we’ve been enjoying and developing over the last 20 years.

I smell remake!

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 5.12.09 Health Information Managment – Invasion of privacy or career opportunity? The answer is, well…both.

The government has long been pushing for the computerization of patient health care records in a centralized system. Like anything that is government-mandated, our tendency is to question how this will affect us and our privacy.

We, as Americans are acutely aware when we feel our rights are being violated in any way, shape or form. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution allows us to pose these questions and challenge when we feel the need.

But that’s someone else’s blog topic. Today, I’d like to talk about the growth opportunities that you may find when you look under the hood of this seemingly “Big Brother-esque” move toward the globalization of our personal health care informaton.

Doctors have already begun using EMR (Electronic Medical Records) software as the government’s efforts become more of a glaring reality. Pretty soon all physicians will be required to comply and will even be entitled to receive monetary incentives for their timely compliance.

What does this mean for us as patients? Well, more cohesive and comprehensive communication between all of our providers. I know from my many years as Practice Administrator in a medical practice that sometimes patients can be forgetful about informing their physicians or omit certain facts when providing their health history. Something as simple as taking a baby aspirin every day can have real relevance if you need to book a surgery, but not everyone may think of this as being on a “medication” when asked to provide this informaton during a pre-operative visit.

One of the advantages of an electronic healthcare system that can be accessed by all of our health care providers is that they will all be working from the same information pool. Ideally, we wouldn’t have to carry our films (x-rays, MRI results etc) from visit to visit; nor would we have to “request” that our medical records be mailed from office to office.

Efficiency, going “green” and seamless healthcare aside, EMR is also paving the way for new job opportunities where they haven’t existed. So, although change can be difficult, it always brings growth and, if you’re optimistic, opportunity. Our healthcare records should never be released without our explicit consent. That goes without say, but I think the cynic in all of us has to wonder if confidenitality will trump governement and their need to know.

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Mutt Media NY | Daily Bone 5.8.09 Taking Social Networking to a new level. What's on your mind?

I woke up this morning and had my tea, looked through the newspapers and began to check my online accounts – same routine as usual. Mixed in with the typical status updates was a glaring remark from a teenager who is one of my “friends” on Facebook who proclaimed, “_____________(insert name) just found out his dad is moving out”. This was followed by a barrage of comments from other friends telling this teen how sorry they are to hear this sad news.

I am dumbfounded…by this news, by the manner in which it was delivered and by the public responses to such a personal upset in his life. Clearly he needed to talk this out and this just happened to be his communication tool of choice, but what does this say about our evolving society and how our children cope?

Unfortunately, separation and divorce have become almost commonplace. But status updates on such a personal level seem disturbing to me and are shedding light on a trend. Never has the question, “What’s on your mind?” felt so loaded as it does for me today.

Mutt Media discusses taking Facebook Status Updates to a whole new level

On a personal level, this is upsetting, but in this situation in particular, I know the family will be ok…they are all good people. It furthers my thinking on this subject though. Don’t know how many reading this read the book or saw the movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You” but Drew Barrymore delivers one of the most funny and telling dialogue in the film when she tells her friend that she is (and I am paraphrasing) “exhausted” from chasing the different modalities of messaging.

We can video chat, instant message, BBM, text, leave a voicemail, use a pager (very retro, it seems), tweet, report our status and the list goes on. We can communicate instantly without ever really connecting and to take it one step further, people are really doing a lot of their living – totally online.

I personally feel lucky to have grown up in a different time while still being an active participant in this constantly-evolving technological boom we find ourselves in the midst of. There is an expanding gap for our children but they don’t even feel it because that’s all they know. I already find myself sounding like my parents when I tell my kids “when I was your age, we didn’t even have cell phones” in response to my daughter’s request to upgrade to a Blackberry. She tells me she needs it and that a bunch of her friends have one. She’s 11. I feel like I’m living in upside-down world but then again, I am the most guilty enabler. After all, wasn’t it me that text her to come down and set the table?

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved