Is Second Life right for you?

Still asking your self if second life is the place for you?It is often asked why do I want to act like someone that looks fake and participate in a fake world? The is simplest of answers is because the complexity of the programing feels as close to real as you can on a computer. As we progress with in our quest to learn about this online space we stopped to take the time to make our avat

ars look like they belong in second life.

We really got a feel for how detailed you can make your avatar. While editing our avatars we started with the face and fou

nd that there are more than sixty setting to edit the face alone. Moving on to the

hair about twenty five setting to adjust from color to style. This complexity is there for the whole body, and what is ev

en more astonishing it’s free!!! Just imagine what you can do with the services you pay for. This level of realism is only incre

ased when you add in the your real voice. Most avatars on

Second Life are controlled by people who are hooked up to microphones. When you approach someone in second life it is much like having a real conversation. If you are still asking your self if Second Life is for you check back for more updates.

Facebook Events - A great way to get the word out

Over my brief experience using Facebook I have encountered many applications. Games like Mafia wars, and applications like watergun fights are pretty popular with the crowd I keep up with, but one of my favorite applications has to do with events. Down in the bottom left corner of your Facebook homepage is a little icon of a calendar page. By clicking this icon you can start the process of creating an event. Events can be anything from a child's birthday party to a scheduled lecture in a class that you attend (as may of you can attest). I think that the events icon is important because it is a very easy way to get the word out to people about something. For businesses this could be particularly powerful. Businesses who have a large following of people as group members could send notification of sales, links to special coupons, or value added information on products and services. Since events are so easy to create and share they can make advertising something very easy. The events function also allows you to keep an RSVP list of people who have confirmed that they will attend the event.

So the next time you want to get the word out about something, consider using Facebook .

Final Thoughts on our LinkedIn Project from Pam and Alex

From Pam: Watching the video presentation about LinkedIn in class a few weeks back I would like to share a few observations regarding my interaction with this site. One of the main goals of the site as demonstrated in the video was to connect business people with others that might be of assistance to you. In particular this might be a consultant or service provider. I think this would be a great benefit to a company but I do not see that the site is being used for this purpose very often. Perhaps this is due to the economic times we currently are experiencing as most people are asking for you to recommend them as a part of their job search, not to obtain customers for a business or service that they already provide. I have not seen any “real” business to business development occurring. With that said, most companies have a policy regarding job recommendations and who is authorized to make them. “Friends” on LinkedIn regularly ask for recommendations and I wonder if people are considering their company polices, how or where these recommendations might be used. I even had someone write an entire posting that they wanted me to do on their behalf. This was no less than 200 words. The immediate problem for me was that while everything in the recommendation that he wrote might have been accurate it had nothing to do with the way I personally interacted with him. Needless to say, I pointed out that I was not the appropriate person to make a recommendation for him or at least the one that he wrote. While I could say certain things they would need to be limited to the interaction that we actually had. I have not heard from him since. I thought that the “Groups” area of the site would be helpful to me as well. And to some degree it has been. My biggest disappointment is that while I can be a part of a group and make postings, my posts always fall below the administrator of the group. This might put current information below the administrator posts. In particular if they are posting a lot. Your post is emailed to everyone in the group so if they look at it when it hits their email then they would be aware of it. However, this now seems like double duty…email and the LinkedIn Group. It feels as though you are pretty much in the group to “hear” what the administrator has to offer and very little back and forth occurs between the members. I feel this site will continue to grow and evolve but do not find it incredibly useful to me at this point. With that said, I have not dedicated enough time to find the real value in it for me and may be moved to a different opinion as time goes on.
From Alex: My LinkedIn experience was positive. I had the account for a while and did nothing with it. Because of this project I am active in LinkedIn and my resume is updated. I have used it as a social site. I found some old business contemporaries and high school chums. I am building a base of potential employment referrals through groups and have even found things that my company is doing on LinkedIn. While I have participated in a few group discussions I have not initiated a discussion so I haven’t encountered the problem that Pam did. I was reluctant to ask for a recommendation but someone who I know sent an unsolicited recommendation to me. Of course I reciprocated because I have recommended Michael in the past, even before LinkedIn. My biggest mistake was accepting someone who I probably should not have added to my group. While his resume is exceptional and he has a long list of contacts, this person has a reputation for being a jerk. I am not sure that I want him as part of my group. I still spend an hour or two a week on LinkedIn. I intend to spend another few hours one day soon refining my resume, putting more into groups and making contacts. I have a contact from Florida who is a therapist/motivational speaker and I have a contact here in COS who does business seminars. I plan on getting them together to see if they can do business together, with an expectation that if they do, I’ll get a commission for setting them up. Even if I never make a buck, this was a fun experience!

Twitter V. Facebook Part 2

I still have been lured into Facebook over Twitter. I am not new to social media, and I still have yet to discover the gold behind Twitter. It's use for marketing capabilities are limited to the early adopters, as many laggers may not even know what this technology is. It limits the way you can express yourself by limiting characters, and makes it hard to see if anyone cares about what you are saying. Facebook is incredibly easy, and more personable. Although in response to competition, they have been making annoying changes as of late, bugging you to add more friends, or "reconnect". The pros of Twitter- emotionnless Tweets to all your twits. Facebook- a socially "acceptable" waste of time. They both win in their own right on this post. I feel myself not caring anymore...which may mean I feel the next big thing coming on......

Twitter the New Myspace for Music?

Purpose

For my social media project I made myself a Twitter account. I had heard alot about Twitter but was not sure who the target market of this social media's purpose was, or how it had differentiated itself from the masses of other social media sites. The people I choose to follow were primarily musicians. I purposely choose some little-known internet based bands and some of the more popular mainstream groups. I wanted to see if these groups of musicians had figured out how to monetize themselves through Twitter.

What I Found

Unfortunately it seems like the little internet based bands were the only musicians that knew how to use Twitter. 3Oh!3, a Colorado based band I followed seemed to use the site the best of any of my followees. They sent tweets of new single releases and let all their fans know which cities they would be in next. Some of the other internet based bands seemed to use Twitter more to communicate with fans on a personal level. Kina Grannis would tweet questions for fans or report on what she did during the weekend. Interesting if you are a fan, but fairly useless. The biggest disappointment was with the bigger musicians on Twitter. Lady Gaga has tons of post, most of them irrelevant. Other big bands I followed made a Twitter account but haven't actually sent any tweets.

My suggestion to these big bands are "Stay where you know, Don't Delete Your Myspace Profile." It's the sad and unfortunate truth.

Lesson Learned

My first lesson learned was I did not have a clue how to work with my Twitter account. I managed to stumble through and find a few of the bands like I liked. A problem I ran into was that some bands, Paramore for example, have at least ten possible Paramore accounts that were set up. It was impossible to tell who was really Paramore. Another problem was the lack of users. Of the thirty or so bands I searched for there were maybe 12 I could find. Ironically when I was listening to the radio Sean Paul was being interviewed and asked if he had a Twitter account yet. He didn't really seem to know what it was but said he would have his publicist look it up. Finding followers was another problem. For the longest time I was steady at six followers. It wasn't until I fell back onto the old tried-and-true approach of emailing my twitter account to classmates that I finally ended up with 17 followers. I am not sure I will keep my account after this class.

Amanda and Rachel~Social Media Project

Hey Y'all, Amanda Clark and I have collaborated together to join Twitter! We are hoping to learn the in's and out's that Twitter has to offer! We would love for you to follow us, so please do! You can find us at http://twitter.com/AmandaandRachel !!! Tweet us up! Thanks.

Andre and Carrie - Social Media

Hello everyone! Andre and I have started a twitter page at http://twitter.com/AndreandCarrie. Please follow us!! We would love to get your opinions on all things UCCS. Our first question? What do you think is the BEST thing about UCCS? I personally think that the professors are amazing. They are always available, always willing to answer questions. They are a tremendous resource and you can learn so much from them if you take the time to ask! What do you think?