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Engaged, Connected and Grateful...

We are engaged in a time where we're sitting back, relaxing, and reflecting on the year almost past.  A time shared with those close to us.  A time for giving thanks to much we are grateful for.

Alex Hawkinson contributed to Social Media Today with a rather fitting post on his reasons for being thankful for Social Media.  And naturally this got me thinking on why I may be thankful for Social Media too.  I choose to refer to Social Media as Engaged or Connected Media rather because that's exactly what it is - Engaging and Connecting.

Engaged Media brings people together.  Engaged Media gives us the opportunity to (re)connect with relevant and significant others (individuals, groups, cultures, brands, consumers, even countries) that may share or invest in similar interests.

So what else can be we thank Engaged Media for, other than:

• providing a platform for connecting
• abilities to establish meaningful, relevant relationships
• establishing conversations directly with brands and businesses, whether they like it not
• reshaping traditional media

In addition to the above, I am also grateful to Engaged Media for*:

• granting people and communities the opportunity to become content creators in their own right (although quality assessment and regulation is another issue all together) and being able to create a voice that has the potential to be heard, e.g. blogs, mash-ups, video and audio, and ebooks
• providing networks and a means to share content over bounders, boundaries and through brick-walls, and breaking down any barriers to communication that previously existed in hindering these attempts to send these message out, e.g. blogs (such as Wordpress, Typepad, LiveJournal and Blogger), social networking services (such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, FriendFeed), video sharing (such as YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Hulu, and Ustream), photo sharing (such as Flickr, Picasa, Panoramio, Snapfish, and Shutterfly), location-based and geo-social networking services (such as Brightkite, Foursquare, Google Maps), microblogging and life-streams (such as Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr, Plurk, Jaiku), and social bookmarking and search (such as Newsvine, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Technorati, Afrigator, Diigo, Digg, and Muti)
• reshaping how people, businesses and brands connect, communicate, interact, and collaborate together making our global community local, e.g. real-time communication and collaboration (such as wikis, Wikipedia, Skype and Google Wave), Enterprise 2.0 collaboration (such as Microsoft SharePoint, Socialtext, Oracle Beehive, and Lotus Connections), community-based reviews (such as Yelp and Top Ten Reviews), web-based community group and social network creation (such as Big Tent, Ning and Google Groups), virtual worlds (such as Second Life, Kaneva and Active Worlds), and MMORPGs (such as World of Warcraft, Perfect World and Evony)

There are so many other reasons that can be highlighted to why Engaged Media is such a great tool - not too mention the impact and enrichment it brings to our daily lives. 

What would be some of your contributing reasons to be thankful for Engaged Media?

*Examples used are by no means exhaustive

(Image Source: Flickr)

Rob testifying the "Spam Blues" on Ustream

It's amaging and cynical Japanese political live show.

Mac20Q Podcast 68 Andy McCaskey of Slashdot Review

Andy has been podcasting for some time and so we had a great chat about the Mac and Podcasting. Andy is responsible for SDR News which is SlashDot Review. SDR News is a Daily Monday to Friday Technology Podcast with Tech News Highlights from Slashdot, Digg and Reddit. It is a 12 to 14 minute podcast.

Here are a couple of examples of the news from SDRNews

DVR is TV's New BFF | Electronic Frontier Foundation
IT snake oil: Six tech cure-alls that went bunk
TV Finds That a Mortal Foe, the DVR, Is Really a Best Friend - NYTimes.com

He also has CMS Weekly in which he talks about Joomla, Drupal, Alfresco and Wordpress for example.

He actually started podcasting with a Dell computer and a gamer mic, he has a long relationship with the Mac though and as we know the Mac is the best way to go for making podcasts. He edits audio with a few different audio applications including ProTools, he like the encoder to mp3 in that one, find out more in the podcast. The Heil PR40 takes a bow again, it is a very popular mic for the podcasters.He tells me that he still has the packaging for nearly all of the Apple Products he has ever bought.

Andy is getting more interested in making videos now, visiting tech trade show, to interview people, strangely he is using the iSight camera to record them and then send them straight out with UStream video.

He tells me about he favourite applications on the Mac, things like CamTwist, AmadeusPro, Pro Tools, Audacity even?? Andy, like me struggles a bit with Automator, we both think it is a great concept though. Just need a problem to solve with Automator.

Social Media Categories

When you start working with Social Media Marketing you need to measure it somehow. All sites and statistics need a place or category. It just makes it easier to find or gather together. Danny Sullivan (Guru) made his categorization on his blog. Here hare his subcategories of Social Media • Social News Sites • Social Bookmarking Sites • Social Networking • Social Knowledge • Social Sharing National Geographic’s subcategories of Social Media are quite similar • Social News Sites Digg Reddit Twitter Slashdot Jaiku • Social Bookmarking Sites StumbleUpon Diigo Delicious Meneame.net Propeller.com • Social Networking Facebook MySpace Orkut Care2 • Social Knowledge Wikipedia Yahoo Answers Squidoo Ask Metafilter • Social Media Sharing YouTube Flickr Tumblr DevianArt Recently I made my own categorization of Social Media and it looks like this. • Social Aggregators/Pushers Ping.fm Friendfeed Hello.txt Popurls Posterous Utterli Disqus • Social Bookmarking/Link sharing Diigo Delicious StumbleUpon Mister Wong Yahoo! Bookmarks • Social Collaboration Acrobat Skype • Social Experience Reporting Flixter Digg Reddit Yelp • Social Location Blogloc Fire Eagle IRL Connect Loki Plazes Tripit • Social Media News Chirps Jaiku Koornk Plurk Twitter Wordpress Blogger Xanga • Social Media Sharing 23 72 Photos Bebo.com Blip.tv Buzznet Drop.io Dropshots Fliggo Moblog Twitpic Viddler.com YouTube Zoomin • Social Live Broadcast Ustream Bambuser I will continue to work on my categories and post changes after evaluation. You can also look at the well known “The Coversation Prism” categorys Image address http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2735401175_fcdcd0da03.jpg?v=0 Brians blog http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism/

Reflecting on the Rob Michael/ Damian Erskine Ustream Clinic

This past week, I had the great fortune to be able to share my Ustream Show with bass player extraordinaire Damian Erskine. 

Rancho Cucamonga Ca streaming at Casa de Escobedo

Rancho Cucamonga Ca: Streaming at my parents: Casa Escobedo http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rancho-cucamonga-ca Getting them to try SoyRizo too!

How to Set Up a Live UStream

I read this great article about how to create your own personal Ustream. You have seen the shows from the likes of OchoCinco or Warren Sapp or perhaps the more recent Bill Cosby. But it is infectious! So for those who want to set up a stream for any variety of reasons here is how you do it.

Click here for the read. (Brace yourself. Its a long but great read) via Shermanlive

140 | The Twitter Conference on USTREAM

Ustream’s Mobile Video Broadcasting Comes To Android