Stayin Alive

Yet another adventure into the great internetopia has led our Social Media class to Viral Videoland, a place where anything is possible. 

Anyone can create a sufficiently edited video and post to the web with a little knowledge and a a lot of creativity (and even the creativity part is flexible). 

With these powers, I too have created a video. The internet is rife with user-creator tools that will help even the most inept internet user create something that any and everybody will want to see. I used Sprout Builder to create my video, but the choices are limitless. Unfortunately, a lot of the sites are still in beta and things are constantly evolving on the site so it might be hard to stay consistent. Sift through the bad to get to the good.

While sitting in my room, listening to my re-mastered Bee Gees vinyl, I realized that people are fighting to stay alive each day. This could be made easier if sexually active individuals would get tested and get tested often. Tests are affordable, easy, and results are possible within 2-3 days.

You can find out more at www.tx.tstd.org

Stay Alive. Get Tested.

Oprah and Acai Berries and Facebook...Oh My!

What do Oprah, Acai berry producers, and Facebook all have in common?

They all want me to lose weight, and now!

For the last two months or so, Facebook has been on my case to scarf down this infamous berry while reading how the queen of daytime television keeps her yo-yo diets fresh and new.

I refreshed my browser 9 times in a row and I counted 7 ads that concerned weight loss in some form or fashion.

I'm all for an aggressive marketing campaign, but this is ridiculous...aaaaand mildly offensive.

I'm not FAT facebook, I'm big-boned, but thanks for pointing it out. Geez!

Lee LeFever says "Zombies Don't Dance!"

Not sure how to handle zombies this Halloween? The Common Craft Show will explain zombies to you: in Plain English. 

Zombies are not the only life lesson host Lee LeFever is willing to share with you. In Dr. Weisgerber's PR and Social Media class, LeFever's YouTube channel is put to good use. 

In three minutes or less, Lee LeFever is able to explain the many intricacies of the web with carefully but simply illustrated paper people. 

In his own words, LeFever discusses the work he and his wife Sachi do. 

 "Our videos are short, simple and focused on making complex ideas easy to understand. We use a whiteboard-and-paper format we call Paperworks that is designed to cut out the noise and stick to what matters," LeFever says on his website. 

From RSS Feeds to Podcasting, and Wikis to Twittering...Lee and Sachi LeFever make sure no one gets left behind in this digital age. 

So thank you ,LeFevers, for making the internet 'plain english'. (My mother also wants me to thank you. She is an avid watcher since I introduced her at the beginning of the year.)

You can check out the Common Craft show on YouTube or on their website.

I leave you with a guide to zombies per the LeFevers: 

Blogger Blues

I think I might be bad at this whole blogging thing.

According Technorati, there are over 112.8 million blogs. 112.8 million!!!! I am just one blog in a sea of blogtastic blogging blogospheres. That is incredibly intimidating.

Not only is it intimidating, but also time consuming. Blog readers are a demanding bunch. They want what you have to write, and they want it now and they want it often. Blog readers thrive off instant gratification. This forces the blogger to become an ever-vigilant partaker of the webworld. That can be exhausting.

The responbibilites of a blogger are so much more than expected. I don't know how some people do it, but I need them to teach me.

Paul Bradshaw's "Five Stages of a Blogger's Life" accurately depict what can happen to the ill-prepared blogger.

Blogs can be an amazing resource -- both personally and professionally. I would like to say that it has become an asset to me. I'm sure it will at one point, but I know I was not cut out to be a blog writer. A blog writer cannot spend 2 days writing one entry. A blog writer cannot write 2 entries every 2 weeks. I'm working hard on these and many other things blog writers cannot do, but its a slow process.

I have to thank Dr. Weisgerber for her link to Bradshaw's page. It's nice to know I'm not the only one realizing blogging is not as easy as it looks.

So fellow blog writers and readers, this post is a disclaimer: bare with me. I'm taking baby steps, but hopefully one day I can take off running with this whole blog thing.