getting wired is freedom!

It’s impressive to observe how things change the last few weeks.
It’s completely interesting to know that everything goes fast; everything goes transparent because there is someone pushes to that direction, everything changes because it can.

What we live is, what means interaction on internet, what means social media, what means spreading information changes and takes a road which is out of classic rules. People and organizations had the control over news lose it now; politicians don’t know anymore what to do and how to do it about controlling things, new information channels get public, people share knowledge, images, video and everything goes faster, easier, safer, freer.

People have to get wired if they want to be free; to do things without reporting to someone had the control.
Freedom is to get everything, to choose what you like to know, to follow people who have something to say, it means something and is important to you, to be followed by people you are interested in.
The most amazing in the whole story is that we have the right to choose anymore; to choose how to be expressed and how to express ourselves. We don’t need approvals; we don’t need someone’s kick to do something, to step forward.

It’s great that everyone has a brand, we are no longer anybody, not a mess but we have a brand to work on it, to promote it. People judge us for what we have to say, what we can share, the most important is to share, not to keep things under protection.
Closed areas, teams, places, ideas, locked ideas, locked packages just die, shared things, creatively shared things get alive, get stronger. Things which get wired get global.
My opinion, your opinion isn’t any longer just an ocean’s drop but something valuable, something which pushes things forward.

Our days get creative because they push us to be creative, productive. What we can what we are able to share, willing to share, want to give, spread out there, doesn’t have to be perfect, doesn’t have to be artistic.
Sharing and spreading is the perfection. People who share things gain respect, people who give without threatening with punishments or rapping for using something, gain respect, step forward.

The most important is to give, to make things get wired, to travel fast, everywhere, without restrictions but with creativity.
It’s in our hands how to manage our personal brand, how to build the brand make us known out there.

/ga

Facebook, my personal point of view

I have to admit that Facebook for me was almost an addiction. I was many ours per day in, trying applications, adding old friends, getting in touch with new ones and feel like I had discovered again America.

Now, after almost a year being around and after having almost 1000 contacts I feel that the rush is behind me. No time for playing with applications, to add contacts isn't the most important thing, it's still interesting to find people you have centuries to meet them but I start feeling that the magic is no longer around.

Of course I am still impressed by the fact that we make public and we "share" with anyone things which before we kept them for us. People love publicity and Facebook provides tons of them. It's easy to make people feel jealous or to admire you if you travel all the time around, or if you are a party animal and you upload all the time photos from the clubs and parties you have joined. We love to make others feel good be close to us, to share their life with us. Facebook gives us the chance to be someone among strangers. And, we love that!

Facebook gives me a false sense of contact. The vast majority on my Facebook friends I really want to hear from. I love seeing their pics and their updates and learning what they are getting on with in life. It’s just that I don’t really talk to them. it's just we are in different places, different lives, way of life, different phases. So, being around in Fb, is like being around in real life.

At the end of day, Fb isn't what it was for me in the beginning, just a huge playground full of people I didn't or I did know... Let's say that now is a common point for me and people living in different glances.

/ga

Social Media Predictions For 2009

Community and collaboration are wonderful things.

Fourteen great minds on social media have shared thoughts on what 2009 may have in store for us. Here's some of what they're thinking:

* "Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology - it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful." - David Armano
* "You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way." - Rohit Bhargava
* "Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation." - Pete Blackshaw
* "Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn't come the way people thought it would." - Chris Brogan
* "The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media." - Todd Defren
* "There's a lot of fixing that needs to be done." - Jason Falls
* "Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball." - Ann Handley
* "We're going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate 'commitment'." - Joseph Jaffe
* "The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis." - Charlene Li
* "After a pre-qualifying wrestling match..." - Ben McConnell
* "These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them." - Scott Monty
* "The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies." - Jeremiah Owyang
* "Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return." - Andy Sernovitz
* "Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter." - Greg Verdino

Everyone's thoughts have been assembled in this PDF. You can also read the document in-line below.

how eveyrthing gets wired...

World of mouth, talks, rumors, socializing, networking, communities, on the go, on demand, spreading news, get connected, wired, feeding with news, information, new media, social media....

/ga

feed my day with news...

The last days through meetings, talks and of course some brainstorming moments with people I really respect and I give base on their opinion I have realized that the most important in modern news industry is the way you handle on real time news.

The most important isn't to get the news anymore, but how you give people access to it. Everyone can provide raw information to audience but sometimes not everyone can have access to that raw information.

So it is really important not only to have the information but also to spread it, in any kind of format, file, channel anyone can possible get it!

/ga

working with "old" and new media

Reading Sophia's article about new and old media I can only say that for sure we get into new times. Times where everyone has to find the best way to take advantage of what new media can offer to old media and of course new media to learn from years of experience and avoid, the users of them, the same mistakes.
New media can't replace what we have in our mind as a traditional information of source but for sure they can walk ahead together. As society, we need both, we have to use both, we have to advise both. Besides the more sources we have about what is going out there the better it is. The most amazing fact is that we can choose the source anymore, we can choose from where we get the information, the comments, the analysis!
We become from passive receivers, active participants.
We can share what we think, what we see, what we know in seconds with other people, with audience around the world but even we want or we like we can't be valuable commenter, analyst.
We don't have to wait old media to bring us close to what is happening but we can read or get the latest information almost in real time and then waiting old media having the professionals to explain them to analyze them.

The last years is true that old media were confused about what they have to do first; to send the information, to share the facts or to analyze them. It seems that nowadays things get clear. New Media become the fast media, the real time media, the interactive information source and Old Media keep the professional role to analyze, comment in more professional way. Of course both sides and areas can be mixed but both sides turn to know where they have to focus!

More and more Things drive us to moment that we choose from where we get the information, we share the information, we spread news and we exchange knowledge without the old media filtering!

/ga

Twitter, more important than traditional media to inform people

The last days Athens go through a really huge and serious demonstrations, disasters and of course battles between anarchists and police.
Athens Center now is almost completely destroyed. One interesting thing among others was how impressive was the fact that Twitter, this micro blogging miracle won the race to inform people.
Everyone using a mobile or his computer became a front line correspondent.
But as in all things, it’s more probable to grasp the idea of something if you participate in it, rather than judging as an observer
Lines of what is happening in real team in city's streets were arriving every second to subject #griots. People through twitter were giving what was happening on the streets, where to go, how to protect each other.

Twitter delivers anymore the news faster than media!

Had it been only for status updates, I’d still consider it silly, but it turned out that Twitter evolved into the so-called micro-blogging platform which has potential and momentum.
Messages are instant, short (hence easier to read), spread around all followers immediately, it allows personal communication and it’s accessible on-the-go from virtually anywhere on Earth there’s cell signal. If you provide useful content, people follow you and get informed; you can evangelize and promote your stuff and services; you can get the news first.
Get the news first? Write the News First! Send the news first! Be around, comment what is going on around!There’s no “breaking news” sessions in Twitter, that’s only in TV.

Through Twitter all the news are breaking!

But the latest tragic incidents in India, showcase (in a very sad way) that the microblogging platform is not only a news source, but the news come faster than traditional media.
People knew more about what is going in Athens or in Mumbai some weeks ago, or things about American elections through Twitter. And they got more information, or real time, in raw format... without any kind of editing from any kind editors.
Traditionally, the power of information was a privilege of the media, so when people begin to claim back some part of it, it sure is not a small thing.
De-centralizing the news sources and spreading it to individuals around the globe could potentially harm long-standing balances in society. People-casting is radically different from news media, yet quite powerful.
The strange thing with people is that there are too many of us and almost totally uncoordinated, yet from within this soup of (mostly useless) information, patterns begin to emerge and it’s not at all improbable for a small piece of information to cause a “hurricane” in a worldwide scale. It’s chaotic, and it can’t be controlled.
I’m pretty sure more and more power will come to the hands of individuals and if the media don’t jump on this wagon they’ll probably regret it.

Media lose their power to break the news, to make people feel surprise.

But perhaps the most thrilling aspect of this interconnected information chaos is how it can be (ab)used to deliberately inject information into the network.
At the same time newspapers or other more traditional media followed news flow through twitter where the information got up first!
Twitter is here to stay and get used from more and more and more people and not only geeks like me or others out there! Twitter is an amazing way to bring people closer, inform them faster, share information faster, opinions, ideas, fight in style but always in short and speedy mode!

/ga