MTV TJ

MTV is just hired their first Twitter Jockey (TJ). Gabi Gregg is is 23-year-old founder of a fashion blog called Young, Fat and Fabulous; she was selected by viewers across the U.S. to Tweet on MTV's behalf.

In my opinion, this marks a huge step in the world of taking social media as a viable source of communication. Back in 2000, I became one of the first Internet Jocks (IJs) at ClevelandHits.com and it signified to me that the Internet was now a viable source of communication. Twitter has been slowly rising from the shadows of Facebook as the social media communication of choice because it's just more public.

What do you think of the recent MTV TJ revolution?

http://tj.mtv.com/

Top 10 Social Media Blogs 2010

Recently, The Social Media Examiner debuted as a free online magazine dedicated solely to social media. As part of their first edition, the social media magazine broke down the top 10 social media blogs of 2010.

1. Chris Brogan
2. Social Media Explorer
3. Mashable
4. Convince & Convert
5. Altitude
6. CopyBlogger
7. Brand Builder
8. Diva Marketing
9. Kikolani
10. Future Buzz

Did your favorite make it?

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-10-social-media-blogs-of-2010/

Facebook Account Deleted?

The other day a friend on Facebook had their account totally deleted. He was actively using his account and had hundred of friends. There have been reports that your FB account can get randomly deleted, but this is usually done on SPAM activity. He discovered the reason for deletion is most likely due to not cleaning out your inbox of messages or sending out too many friend requests. They do not give specific details of why his profile was deleted but they did make one thing clear that the decision is final and you can not appeal.

Have you ever had your Facebook account deleted? What was the reason you were given?

Get On Four Square

Social media is getting old? Are you on Four Square? Now social media is using the geo-targeting ability on your mobile devices to take the experience to the next level. Find out in your city what your friends think are the best restaurants, bars and concert venues for example. Recent reports say that Four Square is on pace to compete with Google and Facebook.

The website says, “Four square and seven years ago, we didn't even know what a mobile phone was yet alone using them to find one another. Four Square is an app on your phone that gives you and your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points and unlock badges for discovering new things.”

Last week Four Square announced location layers which is the ability to bring the app into your everyday life. Now when you are walking along the Four Square app will alert you of the best places in your vicinity.

Four Square is talking about the places you love and bringing them to life.
http://foursquare.com/

P.S. Worried about having to manage another social networking account? Four Square gives the ability to connect Facebook.

Tripit

OK, all you world travelers, I have been following you on Tripit! If you are not using this social media travel tool, then consider signing-up. I've had this post sitting in draft mode for a while and I finally decided to publish it. The bottom line is that I have been using Tripit and it does a great job consolidating your itinerary easily in one place. If you are a frequent traveler, you should consider using Tripit. I personally do not have it connected to my social networks, I prefer to manually update my whereabouts.

Tripit will:

• Build your itinerary from airline, hotel, and other email confirmations
• Organize all in once place – plans to share and access
• Share your travels – connect to Twitter, LinkedIn, etc…

http://www.tripit.com/

Sproutie Social Network Search

Sproutie lets you search recent tweets, videos, images, news stories and blog entries. For example, I typed in “Lebron James” got recent information from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, News and Blogs. If you are looking for a comprehensive social media search engine, then you need to try Sproutie.

http://www.sproutie.com

8 Tips To Protect Your Facebook Profile

PC Magazine recently released eight tips to protect your Facebook profile.

1. Know Your Terms
2. Set Controls for Your Updates
3. Hide Your Facebook Profile from Google
4. Disable Facebooks “Instant Personalization”.
5. Prevent People from Tagging You in Photos
6. Set Privacy for Every Album
7. Hide Your Contact Info
8. Delete Facebook Apps

Read the complete article
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363178,00.asp

Diaspora: New Wave of Social

Are you ready for the future of social media? Diaspora is breaking the chains of traditional social media by moving users information from being stored on their servers to their own home computers.

Privacy is an issue on Facebook because all your comments, pictures and status updates live on their servers. At a single switch all your information could be sold to the highest bidder. Remember why Napster was originally shut-down? The music download website hosted all the mp3s so Napster was legally responsible for all the illegal downloads. Soon after music file sharing networks like Bear Share and Kazaa took a different approach by just creating software that enables users to share files across a network from their home computers. The responsibility was no longer with the big company but with the individual. Now Diaspora is taking the same concept and applying it to social networking.

Now all your pictures, comments and status updates will live on your own machine with Diaspora. If you are concerned of privacy issues on social media, the Diaspora will be a personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network. Started as a college project, recently this project received a significant grant to make it happen. Slated to launch this August, sign-up below to be the first on the block to be notified of Diaspora's launch.

http://joindiaspora.com/

Listorious Gets Twitter Answers

Have burning question and need an answer from an expert? Why not let Twitter do the walking? Listorious lets you send interview questions and get answers from thousands of experts on Twitter.

Listorious is a super connector to Twitter giving you the ability to search answers and get answers to your questions. Discover topics on activism, art, business, celebrities, charity, children, climate, education, entertainment, environment, food, health, media, music, news, politics, progressive science, socialmedia, sports, technology, travel, twitter and writers.

http://listorious.com/

Raising An Internet Saavy Child

Adam Rosenberg (adam@cdt.org), New Media Manager for the Center for Democracy & Technology recently wrote this guest post on Wired. He stressed a few tips he instilled in his children once they reached the age to surf the web. I found these strong relevant tips even in this world of Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare.

Tips To Instill In Children When Online:
1. Never talk to strangers online.
2. Treat your e-mail address like any other piece of property.
3. Read every form you fill out during sign-up, including the privacy policy.
4. Do not give out personal information without permission.
5. Talk to each other about internet usage and whom they talk to.

Read more:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/