HuffPo’s BS Best Facebook List

Today the Huffington Post did another useless list that categories people that should be “subscribed to” because their Facebook pages are so OMG AWESOME!

So go look at it – no seriously go look.  Can we please, universally agree, that in order to qualify for a decent Facebook page you have to have 1. upgraded to the Facebook Timeline, 2.  have publicly viewed content available, and 3. have a cover photo?  If you don’t have your shit together enough to even be actually managing your Facebook page then you’re undeserving of being on a top 50 list.  Also can we also say that shameless self promotion of Huffington Post writers is also a little humiliating?  I mean come on, I really love Amanda Terkel and she’s deserving but – it’s all just an attempt to generate content to get a bigger audience for the writers and promote their content on HuffPo for bigger readerships and higher ad dollars.

Evidence these recommendations are BS?  First of all Laurin Manning as number 37?  Come on.  She’s far better than half of the people listed above her.  Also, I think a qualification is that you have to actually share something that matters on Facebook at least once a day to qualify as being a valued.  I’m looking at you Bill Frist.

Want to know the best thing about them suggesting you subscribe to Bill Schneider’s feed is?  They might have done a screen cap – of his non-upgraded Facebook Timeline – but they neglected to also show you the rest of the page which features an AWESOME spam photo that has been on his account since April 29th.  Lookin classy Bill!!  Maybe hire a young person to teach you how to run the FaceSpace, eh?

Bill Schneider

I’ll bet Ed Gillespie has a lot of amazing incredible intelligent insights and opinions about politics and policy – ya know for the people who are on his side of the isle.  Thing is… you’re not gonna find them on his Facebook page.  Wanna know why?  Because Ed Gellespie hasn’t posted anything public on his Facebook Timeline since… well… I don’t know because after clicking “more” about 12 times I got bored and quit.  So you want to have an intelligent political conversation with Ed over something he was quoted saying or something he wrote? Try approaching him in a bar instead.

Ed Gillespie

These are just a few of the 50 people who are are a waste of your time.  Thanks so much Huffington Post for taking time to write about how AWESOME these people are instead of giving the spot to people who actually use Facebook the way it should be used.   I can’t wait to see who’s the best Twitter accounts.  Ten bucks they say it’s Brian Williams.  Because OMG his tweets are AWESOME!

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1995 Called: They Want their Website Back

Bad website no cookieEvery day I get a question about website design, new media consulting firms, and social media integration into your website or new media outreach.  Some of the most basic questions like “what should I do” or “how much should I pay” all comes down to what you want to get and what your goals and aims are.

Thus I’ve put together a handy list of mistakes and suggestions as well as the typical questions and how to answer them.

1.  Highly customizable websites don’t mean they’re good websites.

Many firms want to charge you very little to do proprietary websites under the guise of it being 100% about YOU and stand out have that design firm create it from scratch for you.

Here’s why this is bad:

  • You ultimately have no control over your own website after it’s designed
  • Customized websites are BAD for SEO
  • You can’t update your own content without your consultant
  • You can’t create additional pages, posts, information, or content that brings people back to your page without your designer or consultant

Let me also expand on this idea of something standing out and being 100% you.  Having a website that is all about you is what websites were for in the 1990’s.  Web 2.0 deign and outreach is more about simple, easy, uncomplicated design that has information that is engaging.

Read more below the click……

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Pinterest is Famous!

Well what do you know… it seems the ladies not only like Pinterest … they trust posts on Pinterest too

According to BlogHer’s annual study on women and social media, when asked whether they trusted different social media sources, 81 percent of women representing the general U.S. population said they trusted blogs and Pinterest, while 67 percent said they trusted Facebook and 73 percent said they trusted Twitter. (The questions were asked of those who indicated that they used each of the social media services.)

We’ve heard for the last several months that women like Pinterest – that the majority of users are ladies. According to my good friend Beth Becker who has become the unofficial Pinterest expert the site is used primarily women in the midwest and southeast. (Actually Beth mentioned this in passing not at the link but… still read the above link)

Interestingly, Pinterest is also becoming more powerful than the Twitter when it comes to referral traffic:

A new study by online sharing tool Shareaholic has found that Pinterest now drives more referral traffic than Twitter.

Check out this graph – it’s even bigger than Google+. Eeek! Embarrassing!

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Pinterest Experiment leads to Addiction

After an un-conference on net tools for activism and campaigns, I decided to embark on the Pinterest Experiment. While I have indeed created the political pin board – I have also created a design/architecture pin board that has now enabled me to geek out to an extreme. For those late nights and early mornings when I am stumbling the “architecture” category, I now have an opportunity to pin up my favorites and easily refer back to them, share them with my fellow addicts, and collect them for my other addiction, designing modern houses on the Sims.

Will this be my downfall? I think perhaps.

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An Experiment: Pinterest as Activism

During an interesting day with @Ravenb @cksieloff @banditelli and then @melissaryan while participating at #Roots12 we began a conversation about Pinterest. Pinterest, if you didn’t know, is a site similar to a pinbaord where users can upload or tag a photo that are all placed on the “online pinboard.” Many use it for design or fashion and predominantly the demographic of users is female. Consequently, the online community views the website as a girly BS site – except it’s kind of become a thing, leaving many male online folk to scratch their head with this girly site. In a great piece How to stop being a pinterest sexist we learned

Whether or not Pinterest is a site “for women,” women make up 70%–80% of its user base and 97% of its fans on Facebook. That’s just the current reality. Meanwhile, men still do a majority of the tech blogging…and most of the men in the tech blogging world missed the boat on Pinterest. They didn’t get it, they thought it was “just for women,” and they dismissed it.

Until recently, that is. Now that Pinterest is The Next Big Thing, everyone’s scrambling to catch up. Except so many of the articles being written about Pinterest now — especially (but not exclusively) those written by and for men — are still off-point, and sometimes? Just plain offensive.

So… my mission, and yes I have chosen to accept it, is to figure out how we can use Pinterest as an online organizing tool. So…. here’s my Pinterest …. Thus far I’ve preloaded it with all sorts of political whatnot focusing specifically on cute things and women’s issues. I put cute things on because… well… I like cute things. We’ll see how it works out. Here we go.

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