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You may have thought that the headline should read “Social Media Changes Minds” because of all the 
wonderful things that social media adds to our lives (I’ll let you determine what wonderful things it does for you). But across the pond there’s concern that social media is actually changing the brains of young users. Of course, this story wouldn’t be any fun if it was simply saying that the kids are getting smarter and smarter because of endless hours in front of a screen while forming ‘relationships’ (more on this one later). Au contraire! Apparently the brains of young folks are, in effect, being rewired by these kinds of interactions and this rewiring is not a positive thing.
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Win Copies of Leo Babauta’s “The Power of Less”
posted on February 23, 2009
<Oprah Voice> It’s book contest time! </Oprah>
OK, so here’s the deal. You’ve read Tim Ferriss’ “The 4-Hour Workweek” right? Great book. Inspiring stuff–and certainly makes you want to live Ferriss’ life, right?
But, it also misses the opportunity to precisely explain how you can get your workweek down to, heck, 30 hours–let alone 4! Well, that’s where Leo Babauta’s “Power of Less, The: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life” comes in!
It’s a surprisingly quick read, but is packed full of actionable advice for de-cluttering your life, focusing on your priorities, and getting more out of business and life. Heck, even Tim Ferriss’ praise adorns the book’s cover.
A Great Example of Hosting the Conversation When Under Attack
posted on February 23, 2009
Listen to me speak about online reputation management long enough and you’ll hear me talk about the importance of "hosting the conversation" when under attack.
Here’s a great example of that, courtesy of Last.fm which found itself the victim of a "vicious and completely false rumour." The music service tried what many companies try:
I denied it vehemently on the Techcrunch article, as did several other Last.fm staffers. We denied it in the Last.fm forums, on twitter, via email – basically we denied it to anyone that would listen, and now we’re denying it on our blog.
And, the "denying it on our blog" part is the best way to host the conversation. Instead of playing rumor "whack a mole" Last.fm’s blog post hit Techmeme, achieved 1177+ Diggs, dozens of comments, and positioned itself as the official response to the allegations.
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Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management
posted on February 23, 2009
By Michael Gray
Search engine reputation management (SERM) is a growing discipline under the larger umbrella of search engine optimization (SEO). If you deal with client services, and you don’t already have at least one reputation management client, chances are you will in the very near future. The more tools or options you have at your disposal for this type of project, the easier the task will be. In this article I’m going to look at one of those tools; directories.
I Tweet, Therefore I Am
posted on February 23, 2009
Deep inside the confines of the Beal household, my wife and I often debate what motivates us–and others–to share so much of our private lives on Twitter.
We discuss the notion of being significant with each Tweet, and often joke about those that seem to Tweet as if their very life depended on submitting 140 characters every 5 minutes (sounds like an episode of LOST!).
After reading the Times Online, it seems that there’s some scientific foundation to our light-hearted conversations:
The clinical psychologist Oliver James has his reservations. “Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.”
Discovering the Rest of the Internet Iceberg
posted on February 23, 2009
Did you know that the visible portion of an iceberg only represents about 20% of its actual size? Beneath 
the water surface lies the other 80%. Imagine if the captain of the Titanic had that tidbit of information. Well the Internet is similar in many ways. The amount of the entire scope of the Internet that is still inaccessible to the engines and their crawlers is quite amazing. Even as Google indexed it one trillionth (with a T) web address last summer it appears as if there is so much more out there.
A New York Times article introduces this concept like this:
Beyond those trillion pages lies an even vaster Web of hidden data: financial information, shopping catalogs, flight schedules, medical research and all kinds of other material stored in databases that remain largely invisible to search engines.
Yahoo Changes On the Way
posted on February 23, 2009
Carol Bartz continues to shake up Yahoo! just 6 weeks into the role of CEO. The 
WSJ reports that this week could hold the announcement of significant managerial changes that will result in a more top down management style. The impact will be significant for sure especially since the organization is still trying to implement the changes made by Susan Decker and Jerry Yang (remember him?) last year.
At least Yahoo keeps things interesting. As I read the article and saw the changes that are being talked about (remember there has been no official announcement) I was a bit amazed at what wasn’t being done at the company presently.
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