Technology
Foursquare Goes to College
100 cities strong since their last roll out, Foursquare seems to be gaining some traction across the country. 
Everyone is making their predictions about whether Foursquare is the next Twitter [including me].
I have been using Foursquare for months now in other cities. When it hit my hometown of Charlotte a couple weeks back, I was surprised how many people jumped on. I had 150 friend requests the day after Charlotte was opened.
UNC Charlotte, my alma mater, only took about a week to see the potential of Foursquare on their campus. Last week they became the first University in the country to offer promotions through Foursquare across their campus.
Foursquare Goes to College
I interviewed Brian Baute, IT Director for Business Services at UNC Charlotte, about what their goals are for using Foursquare campus wide.
According to Foursquare, the only other campuses using their promotions are Columbia, who has one promotion running for their campus movie theater, and Harvard who is developing something campus wide.
College students are an interesting niche for testing Foursquare. While they love their smart phones and Facebook, they are not in tune with much else in the social space.
However, Foursquare is similar to Facebook in the fact that it let’s you see up to the second information about your friends. Foursquare is simple in that respect. I can see college students, who are always looking for the next party, latching on to the “where is everybody at” aspect of Foursquare pretty easily.
Do Backchannels Know No Boundaries?
Allie Sullivan (@ashevilleallie) is an online marketing and advertising specialist, formerly from the non-profit industry. She is a do-gooder, connector, and trying to make a difference in the world.
The Ugly Was Brought!
On Friday I was very excited to attend New Media Atlanta. Thursday evening I was fortunate to go to the speaker dinner and meet several of the presenters, the co-founders, and those who worked behind the scenes. The one thing that each player had in common is that they were all pumped about being part of the very first New Media Atlanta! I was excited too!
At the start of New Media Atlanta, after the opening comments by conference founders Matt Fagioli and Brad Nix, Jeff Turner took the stage for his presentation on Social Media Is Here To Stay. It was 10 a.m., the conference was just kicking off, and Jeff brought attention to the conversations that were going on through BackNoise. BackNoise claims …
“BackNoise lets you create conversations on the fly, in meetings, watching TV, during class, on the train, anywhere and anytime. Talk about what you want, when you want, where you want, and how you want.”
BackNoise is a channel that allows people to express themselves, anonymously or known, in a real-time online conversation. What started out on BackNoise that day as speaker feedback and comments that people were tired or thirsty, quickly spiraled downhill to what I believe, people who brought out their “ugly.”
Photo via @BeeRealty
There are certain people in this world that have the disco balls to say pretty much about anything. Chris Brogan was the main speaker at New Media Atlanta and embraced BackNoise by presenting with the backchannel behind him. There were some interesting comments such as his fly was down and that the more he cursed, the more an anonymous BackNoise user wanted to kiss him. Funny, right? Brogan has the disco balls though. Everyone in conference attendance was waiting for the moment that he took the stage. They know him, or have heard of him, and respect his reputation.
What about a speaker that isn’t as well known and adored? Does this mean that it’s okay to send a BackNoise comment that encourages the audience to cough two times if you don’t like their presentation? What about stretch if you don’t like the next one? Believe it or not, that’s what happened!
I’m sorry, but to attend a conference and revert back to middle-school mentality is pathetic. If I knew who started these behaviors on BackNoise that day, I would call you out publicly, but alas, you were anonymous. I have no problem with people suggesting that the content presented was weak, or that you’re bored or tired but at some point, grow the heck up!
If you are bored, say why. If you were a speaker and getting bashed, wouldn’t you want to know why?
I don’t think trying to get people to cough is going to help someone learn where and how they can improve. I also don’t think that by creating fear for future speakers is going to make any speaker become better at it!
We encourage people in the online space to be real and transparent, pay-it-forward, not to be a social media douche bag, etc. Why do these understood rules of common decency fly out the window when you don’t actually have to be accountable for your words and actions? They shouldn’t.
When users on the backchannel complained about it being too dark, the lights were turned on. When comments suggested that we needed a break, a break was given.
It is very clear that New Media Atlanta was paying attention to what attendees were saying and constructive criticism was able to bring about positive change. I like that. This also means that speakers were able to see what was said about them. Comments that attacked speakers on a personal level more so than the content that they were delivering, well, I tend to like that less.
Backchannels Are Here To Stay
There is no doubt in my mind that people will continue to use backchannels. After attending New Media Atlanta, it is only my hope that people will choose to use them in a more constructive way. We all like to laugh and feel part of a group, which is what platforms such as BackNoise allows, but where do you draw the line?
I admit that I looked at the backchannel conversations that took place at the conference. I admit that some comments made me laugh. There is something extremely intriguing about watching a stream of thoughts from people that don’t have to identify themselves for speaking what a lot of us might be thinking … but crossing the line of professionalism to middle-school bully is something that can be avoided.
Think about your words. Thumper said, “If you can’t say something nice … don’t say nothing at all.” Backchannels give us the room to dismiss that message and also the accountability of our words. Would you participate on a backchannel? If so, where would you draw the line?
Google Sidewiki Mailed Me Poetry
Google Sidewiki launched today. And they sent me a little poetry that fits pretty nicely with the goal of the project.
What do you think?
Music: Coal War – Joshua James http://wxpn.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-morning-download-92409-joshua-james.html
How I Filter The Noise, Wayne Sutton
Wayne Sutton is an entrepreneur, strategist, and producer who blogs at SocialWayne.com. He is also co-founder of OurHashtag, a community and technology event company.
Some describe noise as irrelevant content in reference to a subject matter when looking at data in a particular channel. Noise can be spam. Noise can be repeat content from the echo-chamber of the world wide web. Either way, filtering the noise should be on everyone’s mind today as we’re evolving from the static web to the conversational web to the real-time in your face web.
As someone who loves technology, gadgets and information, the real-time web is a geeks’ dreamland, but it’s also a huge time waster if you don’t have filters setup. Not only do you need filters to manage information gathering and filtering information online, but you also need self control. There are plenty of tools available, but it’s how well you manage those tools to filter the noise. Below are a few of the tools that I use.
RSS Reader
To manage my RSS feeds, I use Google Reader, just like Jason and Taylor. I’m currently subscribed to over 1600 feeds, each categorized into groups by topic. Some of my groups include Wordpress, Social Media, business, mac news and mobile. My RSS feeds list continues to grow, therefore having them categorized is very important. Inside of Google Reader I have a personal star rule. I star items that I want to read later and share items that I think others will find interesting. In other words, RSS feeds are not dead, and are very important to the social web.
Social Bookmarks
For social bookmarks, I use Diigo to bookmark blog posts that I may not be subscribed to, and save them to content-based groups. I have set up groups for topics like wordpress plugins and wordpress premium themes for blog posts pertaining to each.
Real-time
Gmail Filters
Filtering day to day activities involves constant email management with filters I’ve created in Gmail, which need to be constantly updated. Filtering emails and setting time slots to read emails daily and weekly can increase productivity so you’re not always checking your inbox. The same rules apply to a select list of blogs that I’ve created where I “try” to read and comment on daily.
Brand Reputation
When dealing with clients and brand reputation, businesses can filter the noise depending on the customer base and engagement level. Tools like filtrbox, trendrr, blogpulse trackur and tons more can do a lot of work for you if setup and use them correctly.
Needless to say, filtering the noise is about being organized and having the right tools in place and accessible. Therefore my iPhone is always nearby, able to access almost the same content when I’m mobile. 
Then the challenge becomes filtering your time after you have filtered the noise. New web apps and tools are created daily, such as lazyfeed, to constantly push and gather information in front of us and filter that information will become more important as we continue to use the web as a learning and communication platform…. Good luck.
How I Filter The Noise, Hermione Way
Hermione Way (@HermioneWay) is an entrepreneur and journalist, She is founder of newspepper.com and techfluff.tv and was named as on of The Spectator’s Stars of Tomorrow.
Netvibes
Every morning the first thing I do is open my Netvibes account. This pulls all the stories from my favorite news sites (BBC, Mashable, Wired, TechCrunch, Telegraph, TheNextWeb). Not only does it pull in these news sites but it also pulls in my Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. The reason why i choose Netvibes over Google Reader is because of the layout format. It shows me all the sites in mini format, on one page just like a newspaper. It enables me to check all my news without having to leave the site.
Tweetdeck
As more and more people are becoming their own news outlets, Tweetdeck enables me to follow the streams of people i deem bring me important informative news about my industry. For example i follow Mike Butcher, iJusine and Robert Scoble’s Twitter feed to see what they are up to, who they are meeting and any links they share.
Twitter hashtags
Twitter search enables me to search for a topic or subject of interest eg. #iranelection Twitter search produces real time search results for the searched topics which enables me to find out what people are thinking/talking about right now on a topic.
