Whether by design or sheer luck, updating my profile was incredibly easy… because everything I needed was already in my completed LinkedIn profile. I was able to pull dates and copy/paste descriptions straight from LinkedIn, saving a tremendous amount of time. My profile was done in about one-third the time I had set aside for the project – time I used instead to fill in some holes I discovered on LinkedIn. I then transferred the information to Plaxo.

Join my network

Plaxo profile complete, it was time to find people. I took a cursory look at my recommendations (”People you might know”) but realized that until I had built at least a small network, I was unlikely to get many good hits. So I did something I swore never to do: I allowed Plaxo to pull information from another network.

Like most social networking sites, Plaxo offered a tempting shortcut to finding friends: tapping into an existing wellspring of information. In this case, my options were limited. There were the sites I don’t use (Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL) and the account I wouldn’t use (my personal Hotmail account). My attempt to follow LinkedIn’s directions were a miserable failure. There was one candidate for success, however: Facebook.

Double exposure

I studied the text carefully and confirmed that yes it would only bother people in my Facebook network who were already registered Plaxo users. I clicked the button to access my Facebook account, and noticed an immediate change in my Plaxo view: a photo appeared in my profile. Plaxo had co-opted my Facebook image – an Xbox Live avatar – for my professional profile. Panicked, I immediately went to update my photo… and found several photos of my child. In my Plaxo profile. That I had not uploaded to Plaxo.

Apparently, when I tied my Facebook account to Plaxo, it took the liberty of pulling my various friends-and-family-only photo folders and added them to the “Photos” tab of my profile. While there was nothing incriminating (keep your Facebook clean, folks), I don’t want strangers to have access to family photos – even if they are just my child drinking hot chocolate at Starbucks.

All images were in folders, just as they appeared in Facebook. Fortunately, Plaxo allowed me to delete entire folders, saving me a lot of time. If I had to delete each image individually, odds are the only thing I would have deleted was my Plaxo account itself.

After I finished cleaning out my personal photos and updating my profile pic, I reviewed ALL sections of my profile to ensure no other stray Facebook goodies had moved over. It appears contacts and photos were the extent of the damage.

Contact Us

Satisfied with my damage control, I moved on to the final section: Websites and Personal Info. Opening the Websites section results in an icon explosion – add your Facebook! Share your Amazon Wish List! Tell the world your twitter name! (Just one? I have two, but had to choose…). Not to mention Facebook, YouTube, Last.fm, MySpace, LiveJournal, Tumblr… and that’s just a very, very small fraction. If you’ve ever shared content online, odds are you can share it with your Plaxo network. (Or everyone. Or just Friends. Or just Family. It’s up to you.)

I chose a few resources, reviewed my restrictions and unleashed my profile on the world. All this took about an hour, during which time I received numerous mails in the background. I finally went to catch up and discovered I had four new Plaxo and two LinkedIn requests/friends.

Every single one was from Facebook.

This week represents the motherload of all Twitter cycles, as the Twitterati descend upon San Diego Comicon (SDCC). There is a long and glorious cross-over between technophiles and comics/sci-fi/fantasy fans–and SDCC is their harmonic convergence. (It’s so much more than a “nerd prom.”)

The obligatory marketing tool for this year’s SDCC is Twitter itself. Every major media outlet has set up either a general Twitter account for “reporting” or individual accounts for reporters… in many cases, both. Through cross-promotion through traditional media (house ads in magazines), online (”follow us on Twitter” announcements on Websites and stories) and Twitter itself, everyone is attempting to get your attention.

I follow several of them normally, and this week, I’m getting spammed with SDCC coverage. I appreciate the effort, but a vague tweet and link will not get my attention. (The Ausiello Files actually tweeted “I just had a really interesting interview with…” and a link. You had to click to find out who it was.) While this may seem cute and intriguing, I found it cloying. I’m already reading hundreds of tweets. Give me a reason why I should click yours.

What I find far more interesting is the artists themselves. Actors, comic artists, writers, and others all can be found on Twitter, discussing their experiences and providing tips on where to find them. (Heroes alum Brea Grant mentioned she was going to return to a booth unannounced for additional signings after numerous Twitter followers failed to see her during a scheduled signing.) Many artists also share goofy personal photos from the floor that won’t show up in People.

HBO, Showtime, SyFy, and other SDCC-friendly networks are trying out a similiar approach this year, setting up show-specific Twitter accounts for shows represented at the con, including True Blood and Dexter. The accounts focus purely on giving fans insider info about the shows. Show-related panels are announced early enough that fans have a shot at getting to the right hall and scoring a seat. Personal appearances, including some “surprise” appearances at partner booths, are also slip-streamed. It’s a small thing, but it means a lot to fans. And for those who couldn’t get there, videos and other tidbits are posted and linked in a timely fashion.

This fan focus shows an awareness of what comicon truly is and isn’t. Yes, it’s a major promotion opportunity for the production companies, comic artists, actors, and so on. But it is also the world’s largest celebration of all things geek, which certainly includes Twitter.

Well, this year, anyway.

TweetDeck for iPhone

Back in April, I deconstructed what I thought was wrong with TweetDeck. Now I only do this sort of exercise with products I think show real potential. I did the same on BusyGamerNews.com for the Nintendo Wii user interface and twice for the Xbox 360 (but never got around to the PS3).

I critique because I care.

It appears that someone at TweetDeck is listening. But they have their own ideas too. And it’s hard to tell whether it’s getting better or I’m just getting used to the ever-growing array of columns that stretch off the right side of my screen.

The big news is that TweetDeck is now available for iPhone. And it’s free. The column metaphor actually seems to work well with a touch screen where you can swipe to quickly flip columns. I currently trade off between TwitterFon (slightly old version since people dissed the latest update) and Twinkle (nice for community tweets though Seattle lately has been overrun by overly dramatic teens and tweens with iPod Touchs who feel the need to text for attention every 12 seconds or so!). I’ve also toyed with Twitterific but so far it hasn’t stuck.

TweetDeck for iPhone looks promising, though it is a little crash prone (not unusual with first gen iPhone apps). What might keep me coming back is this: Sync with my desktop TweetDeck. The way this works is that you either use the iPhone app or the newest PC version of TweetDeck to create a TweetDeck account (yes, another password to remember). You then login to the other version and it offers to sync your columns – to a point. The iPhone version doesn’t support Facebook (at least not yet) so that’s not carried over from your desktop. Nor are any secondary accounts you add. You have to manually add these in both places. And sync’ing doesn’t seem to work from the iPhone back to the desktop, though I could be wrong. I’m still testing this.

Wait, did you catch that? Multiple Twitter accounts are now supported – on both versions! Other new desktop app features include unlimited columns, trends for any column, reply all, YFrog support, spam reporting and smart filtering. Supposedly there’s a conversation window, which sounds great - but I couldn’t find it.

Still, all in all, TweekDeck continues to show promise. Just when I was about to go fishing for alternatives.

There are thousands of plug-ins to choose from, so from time to time I’ll call out the ones I have found indispensible or at least highly valuable, plus the occasional one I’ll suggest with reservations (and helpful tips to save you the trouble we had implementing it). Here are some of my favorites so far:

WPtouch iPhone Theme. I found this theme when browsing a friend’s blog and immediately installed it for our own. It greatly speeds up load times and improves readability for iPhone visitors, who have the option to turn it off if they prefer your default view. The way this makes your site look like an iPhone app is pretty compelling (see picture at right).

Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button. If you write something worth sharing, you want it to be as easy as possible for your site visitors to do just that. You can select which social networking/sharing mechanisms are displayed by default. Hovering over the Share or E-mail This Post link opens up the full list, which is constantly expanding (see icons and link at bottom of this post).

WP to Twitter. This highly configurable plug-in automatically tweets your blog posts. We use this only for new posts, so any updates/edits do not result in an unwelcome Twitter flood. URLs are automatically shortened using the Cli.gs service, though we had some problems until we created and entered a Cli.gs API key.

Simple Tags. If you don’t want to spend a lot of time adding tags (aka keywords) to your posts, this plug-in can help, although it can be tricky to get working. First, you have to add at least one tag to a post before it will function at all (you’ll get a “Javascript must be enabled” message but that’s probably not your problem). The autotagging feature only pulls tags you have entered previously and applies them, where relevant, to existing posts. Once it’s up and working, use tag suggestions to find common keywords in your articles and apply them quickly. After you have a decent set of local tags, the auto-tag feature can help you quickly generate tags for older posts that don’t have them.

Have you had different (better, worse?) experiences with these plug-ins? Have a favorite plug-in that nobody loves but you? Let us know!

Facebook on Xbox 360

Normally I wouldn’t post gaming news to this site (that’s what BusyGamerNews.com is for) but the news flash that Facebook and Twitter are going to launch on Xbox 360 consoles this fall should interest everyone who works in social media and community.

The game is about to change (again). It’s one thing to tweet and post status updates from a mobile phone. Typically, you’re out in the world tapping in texts about your work, meals and entertainment. Usually with bleached out twitpics of food that hopefully tastes better than it looks. We’re all used to that.

Now, expect a lot more gaming chatter. Once this feature launches as part of a long overdue Xbox 360 dashboard update, people will post pictures and achievements from their games. Trash talk will go a lot wider. And scheduling for group play of games and other activities, such as movie watching via Netflix Instant Queue parties (also launching soon), will compete with tweetups and Facebook events for your attention.

If you make your living in social media and don’t play games, now is the time to start.

UPDATE: Nintendo announced that its portable, the Nintendo DSi, will be getting Facebook integration this summer. But it will be limited to uploading images taken with the DSi’s camera. So the only impact here will be an influx of crappy low-res pictures, many with special effects such as stamps applied using the DSi’s primitive photo editing tools. Still, more evidence that social media is going to become more gamer-centric.

Bruno (Sacha) sells his movie

How do you solve a problem like the “Bruno” movie? You let life imitate art. Sacha Baron Cohen pulled off one of the year’s great publicity stunts Sunday at the MTV Movie Awards, in the clip viewed round the world. Susan Boyle who? Between Sunday night and Monday, it was all about the backless chaps and Eminem’s outrage—at least until the target audience discovered E3 had started.

The actual event was not all that shocking for the venue. Howard Stern also ascended in backless chaps from the rafters way back in 1992 to promote Fartman, a movie he never got around to making. Older viewers may also recall Eminem’s 2002 MTV Movie Awards showing, in which he made homophobic comments about singer/producer Moby and attacked Triumph the Insult Dog, essentially throttling a puppet.

Over the top aerial stunts? Homophobic reaction? Mock(?) outrage? In short, we’ve seen this show before. And yet, it worked. Within 20 minutes of the moment airing live on the East Coast, blogs (including mainstream entertainment sites) were buzzing about the confrontation. #Bruno and #Eminem began trending heavily on Twitter. And everyone tried to add the clip to their Facebook.

As the day progressed, bloggers studied the video like it was the Zapruder film. Everyone agreed that Baron Cohen’s descent was carefully planned and rehearsed. But why didn’t Eminem move? There was plenty of time for him (or anyone in that section) to get out of the way, but they all stayed frozen in their seat. Conclusion: He was in on the joke.

By late Monday morning, the Internet had decided, and “sources” had confirmed, that the rapper knew Bruno would be descending into his lap. He just didn’t know it would dressed like a fallen angel from the West Hollywood Victoria’s Secret. We all know the rapper is a homophobe—remember Moby? And the “Bruno” persona is all about bringing out the worst in homophobes for laughs. Match, point, game over.

At least, that’s what the social networkers decided for a couple hours. By late day, yet more insiders (my money is on people from the Universal Studios, MTV and possibly Eminem camps) had leaked that the entire thing had been planned, and everyone knew everything. Yes, even that. The audience had been mass punk’d.

E3, perhaps the only event on the planet save Comicon that could have pushed this out of the Internet zeitgeist, took over the early afternoon. By late afternoon, Bruno and Eminem were overtaken by Left 4 Dead 2, Xbox 360 Facebook integration and other news from the event. By the time you read this, it will be old news.

And it’s almost exactly 24 hours since the whole thing began.

So what did we learn?

1. You can still reach a mass audience in today’s splintered entertainment world. Between 500+ cable networks, Internet radio, iTunes, Hulu and the gazillion social networking sites, it has become almost impossible to reach everyone. The stunt may have been in bad taste and NSFW, but you can bet it was passed around heavily today.

2.Traditional marketing doesn’t always rule. Bruno, a comedy, is set for a July release in the U.S. If this was say, a Judd Apatow release, you would have seen the trailer approximately 10,502 times by now. Yet until just a few weeks ago, Bruno’s only real exposure was a Red Band (restricted) trailer on MySpace. Even with a regular trailer in theaters, you’re unlikely to encounter it with the same painful frequency as say, “Land of the Lost.” The clip of “Bruno” landing face first in Eminem’s lap is likely to stay with you a lot longer than the sleestaks, however.

3.Your target audience doesn’t have to be watching for you to reach them. You don’t have to be a Disney-level marketer to figure out that the squealing young girls who sent Twilighters to the stage time and again are NOT the target audience for either Bruno or Eminem. Nor are they old enough to enjoy either one without an adult to buy the ticket or album. It doesn’t matter. All it takes are a few high-profile blogs and tweeters to describe what happened, often with colorful descriptions of Baron Cohen’s outfit, to get the Internet abuzz. You may not have seen the New Moon cast, but by now, you’ve seen Bruno’s full moon.

As the stunt fades into the distance, the question becomes, “who won?” Well, let’s examine the not-so-scientific evidence:

• Baron Cohen and distributor Universal Pictures will have to wait until July to see if the movie enjoys any bounce, or if people are so over Bruno by then. (Universal expects a small opening followed by long legs, similar to Baron Cohen’s Borat film.)
• Eminem was nowhere to be found on the iTunes top 100s the day after, but his fans might be more likely to buy a physical CD than go to iTunes. Or perhaps they just want to discuss his behavior—his musical performance does not appear to be the topic of conversation. Which leaves…
• MTV, which managed to squeak a buzz-worthy moment out of an overall lackluster, and often dull, show. By cracking down early and often on illicit video postings, MTV controlled where you could go to find the video. I found plenty of places where I could view it other than MTV.com—but the official videos were clearly imprinted and credited to MTV. The network is also no doubt counting on a bounce for future showings. Eminem’s attempt to beat down Triumph the Insult Dog gave a nice bounce for repeat viewings—but that was before the Internet became a television set.

So hats (pants?) off to a marketing trick that managed to be both smart and stupid at the same time. I for one can’t wait to see Bruno.

This led me down the path of webmastering for awhile before I settled in at Microsoft, where I paired my love of creating content with developing technology-based solutions. There I actually wrote and helped launch the first HTML newsletter on Microsoft.com and quickly became the go-to person for e-newsletters.

Since then, I’ve become passionate about community, and newsletters are still a great tool for this. Your e-mail content shouldn’t just be a blast out to customers with a call to action (though this is important too). The best e-mail newsletters draw members in and make them feel part of the community of people who interact with your site or product.

When I was at HealthTalk, one of my first tasks was to overhaul electronic communications. Up until then, newsletters had been sporadic and focused just on getting members to sign up for webcasts. Alas, many of the networks became dormant for months at a time, so my job was to develop a format that engaged members regardless of how often they had new programs available to them.

My solution, ultimately, was to begin drawing these members in with questions and topics and then sharing back their answers, as you can see in this example from the Rheumatoid Arthritis network :

HealthTalk newsletter

These stories really grabbed readers and made them want to be a part of the network, even during periods when there wasn’t much other new content for them. I also lobbied the producers and business development folks I worked with to develop new sources of content, and eventually convinced the company’s founder to pilot a blog despite a fair amount of internal resistance. The blog was so successful that shortly after I left, they launched phase 2 of my proposal and added member advocate blogs to each of the active networks.

For the Big Fish Games Atlantis gaming community, my focus was a little different. There already existed a real-time chat engine in all of the online games, and I managed a team of remote moderators who interacted daily with players to facilitate fun and resolve problems. I replaced the ad-only “newsletter” with a longer, content-heavy publication and launched the 5 Questions column to profile a different Big Fish Games employee each month. The goal was to open a window into how the people at the company were actively working to improve the community and provide hints and, where possible, announcements of upcoming games and features.

This just happens to be the one where I was the subject:

Big Fish Games online community newsletter

In a future post I’ll tackle headline copywriting, a task I performed daily for several years and have some helpful insights to share.

So we have relaunched this site as a blog where we can tell you some of what we’re up to and share the unique insights we’ve uncovered to help you navigate the stormy waters of Web 2.0 and beyond.