http://bit.ly/bxeUZ6

http://davidondemand.com/

As most of you know, I love Twitter.

And one of the reasons I do is that it's a virtual New York CIty. I am
in touch with amazing people from all over the world, and I don't even
know them. It's like a subway ride we're all taking together.

Anyway, one of my recent tweets took a lovely journey half way round
the world and I thought I'd share it with you.

It starts off in London. I follow the editor in chief of The Next Web
called Zee M. Kane, with the lovely twitter name of @zee.

He shared a video that was posted on March 26, 2007 by a retired
school teacher with the YouTube channel name of burstingsquidoo. The
video was an interview of Steve Jobs where he quotes Picasso as
saying "good artists copy, great artists steal".

That reminded me of @faris' blog called TIGS--which stands for Talent
Imitates, Genius Steals.

So from my office in LA, I retweeeted Zee's tweet from London to Faris in NYC.

He picked it up and put it on his blog http://bit.ly/bFMokD (Subscribe
to it...you'll be a lot smarter if you do!)

From NYC, it was picked up by numerous international blogs in Germany
and England.

But funnily enough, it was retweeted by @timsgreenhalgh in Brighton, UK.

Now it just so happens that iCrossing has an office in the UK,in
Brighton as a matter of fact. So i reached out to Tim and asked him if
he knew @amayfield the VP of Social Media from our office there. And
of course, yes, he knew him well.

And now we're all friends on Twitter and I feel like we just had a
wonderful subway ride together.

cheers.

Although this article (http://bit.ly/4IRvTy) has a sensationalist subhead, there is only one line in the article that relates to that statement. I quote "our research shows that even more than Twitter, people are using social network status updates -- mostly Facebook -- for these same sorts of connections."

This is a theme I've been exploring for a couple of months now. Here's my original post from Nov. 11: Is Facebook the inevitable social portal? http://tinyurl.com/yjgv9pp

Put simply, Twitter is going to go away. It's easy to figure out how to use it, but most folks can't figure out why to use it. Having been on twitter for almost two years, I love it but I notice the adoption rate over that time, despite Ashton Kutscher, is nothing compared to the rise in Facebook users. People get Facebook..it's about friends. Twitter is about business.

I have no doubt that Facebook will absorb all of Twitter's functionality soon; they just incorporated the retweet feature. And doubtless, everyone on Twitter already has a Facebook page. In fact, one person I follow, Matt Singly (@mattsingley) who has 32,000 followers on Twitter, posts to both Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.

That is the future.

We will tire of maintaining multiple tools. When I can port my fellow Tweeters to Facebook, and maintain those connections there, I will do so, I just hope I'll be able to retain the conversations and friends I've met on Twitter, because they represent a very diverse amalgam of brilliant, educated, humorous people and and I will miss them if they go away completely.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1909386
Thanks Jackie.

http://bit.ly/vIUoN
Thanks Adrienne.

Facebook gets 260 billion (that's right BILLION) pageviews a month

http://bit.ly/4GrfZw 

December always brings year-end reviews and prognostications for the future, and it seems this year everyone is writing about the rise of social media, highlighting what's good and what's bad. And one threat that seems to be universally touted is the intimacy experienced through this digital interaction is replacing or undermining real face-to-face personal relationships. As a fairly regular social media user, I do not agree, but I don't plan to extol the benefits of social media in this post. Rather I'd like to provide evidence that social media is not replacing real social interaction, but rather exists nicely along side it, and in fact, even enhances it. And I have proof.

1) The attendance at museums, especially evidenced by this week in NYC, is certainly not declining. The lines at the MOMA to see Tim Burton's drawings and at the Met to to view Samurai Art were staggering. In freezing temperatures, people stood outside for over an hour just to mingle with thousands of others and view two dimensional non digital images. I saw the same lines at the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Granted it's the holiday week but still people are not staying home. Impressive. No social media required.

2) Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, holiday travel is always the lead story on the news as in "more people travel on this day than any other." And why? Because going home to family for the holidays is wonderful, and cannot be replaced by skype, twitter or facebook. But you can share those moments with family that could not be there if so inclined.

3) This holiday season the Kindle was the most gifted Amazon product ever. And while this may not directly relate to being social, it proves people still want to be engaged with long form communication and richly woven stories longer than 140 characters, and not just watch YouTube videos or comment on Facebook posts. Hooray.

4) And last but not least, I find I'm actually able to stay in touch with more people than ever, people who's email addresses have changed, or who have moved and neglected to send out their new phone number. And I think we've all reconnected with folks from our past --like our old boyfriend from that summer long ago --that we might otherwise have lost touch with.

All of this is simply proof that social media is not replacing the real thing, but I think keeping us closer. So on this eve of a new decade, I wish everyone a wonderful very social new year.

This new theory, from Kevin Kelly at The Technium,  holds that "a creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson,
performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans
to make a living."

This is the direct result of the paradigm that content wants to be free. Creators of content are no longer supported by large corporations with PR and Sales machines to back up the product launch. So artists, musicians and writers will need to fill that gap themselves..and will need to play dual roles, first as the creator, then as the promoter. These are distinctly different skill sets, not necessarily inherent in an artist's repertoire, but they sure as hell better be, going forward.

My artist husband Campbell Laird (http://www.campbelllairdstudio.com/#/home/) has actually managed to do just this. Through his own paid advertisements and collector "fan" base whom he contacts through newsletters, and now Facebook and Twitter, he has removed the gallery from the financial equation and has over 1000 True Fans.

The benefits are numerous..control over his career and direct contact with his collectors.

But his "work" has doubled, to include promotion, outreach and of course all finance issues.

He has managed to juggle these very diverse skills but it is not easy. And although it sounds like fun to have all this power, it is certainly not for the faint of heart.

But one thing's for sure, it wasn't even possible 10 years ago, so carpe diem!

http://bit.ly/cHNwc

http://bit.ly/86sDM0