Daniel Greene

Tag: social media

  • Changing the ways I use social media

    I have a feeling the latter half of the last decade is going to be remembered for how we rushed into social media: Flickr! YouTube! Twitter! Facebook! Foursquare! I know I rushed in— sometimes like a fool. In some ways, I’m glad I did; in other ways, I’m already looking back on the 2000s with the same disbelief as I’ve felt about other fads I can’t believe I followed.However, I’m not down on social media; I guess you could say I’m “down with it.” I’m just making some changes to the way I use it. Here they are:

    Flickr

    I once said I felt chained to Flickr. Well, I certainly don’t feel that way anymore. Coincidentally, I also haven’t had a photo in Explore in over a year. What I have realized, although I suspected it before, is that Explore is really just a popularity contest. It has nothing to do with the quality of your photos (though it may have something to do with the quality of your photos); it’s really generated by how many times you comment and fave other Flickrites’ photos and therefore how many people comment and fave your photos– and how quickly. If you don’t spend much time on Flickr looking at other people’s photos and commenting and faving them, others are not likely to spend much time reciprocating. I know that the photos I take now are just as good as the ones I used to take–if not better–but all I do anymore is post a photo or set of photos, and when I have time force myself to comment and fave other people’s photos so as to do unto others as I would have others do unto me. If I add photos to a group, I will view some other photos in that group and comment and fave the ones I like. If I admin a group, I will look through the group and thank a few members for sharing certain photos. I’m not disingenuous– I only comment, fave, and thank if I really like the photos, but I must admit it often feels like an obligation, because I barely have enough time to share photos on Flickr anymore much less look at others. My conscience tells me, though, that if everyone who posted photos to Flickr never looked at anyone else’s, Flickr would be all artists and no appreciators. Yet even that’s not entirely true, because there are plenty of “lurking” Flickr members and plenty of nonmembers who view Flickr photos— they don’t produce; they just consume.Once in a while, a friend of mine on Facebook will post some photos to Flickr, I will see the link to those photos, and I will go and have a look. Sometimes this is just to be reciprocal, but usually it’s because I’m genuinely interested in the photos. If I’m really not interested, I don’t look. Also, I almost never post photos to Flickr “friends only” or “friends and family only” because all my friends and family are on Facebook now, which leads me to the next social media channel…

    Facebook

    I’ve said before that, for me, Flickr was for photographers and Facebook was for friends. In the past year, this has become slightly less true. I still love the way Flickr puts geotagged photos on the map and shows the keywords you assign your photos as searchable tags, but I’ve become less interested in EXIF data, since by now I know what ISO, aperture, and shutter speed are required to make certain photos. And Facebook now shows photos in high resolution, which makes the quality of the images just about as good as the viewing quality on Flickr. I also have more photographer friends on Facebook now who have expanded their artistic photo sharing from Flickr to Facebook, especially when they have Facebook Pages.

    Facebook Pages

    As you may remember, I resisted Facebook Pages for a while until I decided to get a Facebook Page of my own. Several photographers I know also have Facebook Pages, and I “Like” their Pages so I can see the photographs they’re sharing and how they use their Pages to promote their work. Facebook also just upgraded Pages so that Page owners can browse Facebook with their Page accounts and Like or Comment other Page owners’ content, which is another way not only to reciprocate but promote your own work by leaving your mark on others. I just tried this out for the first time last night right after they came out with it, and it seems like a good feature, though I do not plan to abuse it. I think a little social networking and namedropping is okay, but too much of that is just spamming, and I am no spammer. Not that I would call it spam, but one thing that has led me to Unlike certain people’s and organizations’ Pages is when they add so much content so often that it floods my News Feed. A recording artist I Liked posted updates every few minutes sometimes, saying things like, “I just mopped my kitchen floor in roller skates!” It got obnoxious. I visited the Page to Unlike it and I noticed one of the fans had commented, “Stop clogging my news feed with updates every five minutes!” There are other organizational Pages that seem to make it a point to update at least once a day just to stay relevant even though all they have to say is, “It’s cold here today, but the flowers are still in bloom. Come out and see the Garden!”– along with photos and stories that take up too much space in my News Feed. When that happens, I tend to Unlike that organization’s Page but follow them on Twitter instead, where they can only write 140 characters. Speaking of Twitter…

    Twitter

    As I’ve said before, I don’t care how many followers I have or how many tweets I post. I might post a few times a week, once a day, or a few times a day during special events. I also don’t follow nearly as many people as I used to. When I first signed up, I invited friends to join Twitter, and some of them joined but only used it a few times and stopped. I stopped following them because there was nothing to follow. I also stopped following people who posted too often, especially when they weren’t really my friends but just people I met once at Tweetups. As of this writing, I only follow 15 people and 11 organizations– though I might follow a couple more organizations I just Unliked on Facebook.

    Foursquare

    Bah. I don’t need to tell the world where I am just to earn badges or become a “Mayor.” I don’t use Foursquare anymore; I use Facebook Places now, and only to update my friends when I’m at special places for special occasions. Besides, Facebook just introduced Deals, so if I really want to play the customer loyalty game I’ll try it. I don’t know, though– I like to check in to tell friends of my adventures, not to advertise for businesses.

    YouTube

    Not much change there, really, except that I changed my channel from azsingersigner to danieljamesgreene. :-)Have you changed the ways you use social media? I would love to hear how.

  • Finally selling my stuff on eBay

    I’ve had a bunch of things hanging around for a while that I’ve been meaning to sell. They’re great things; it’s just that I’ve replaced them with even greater things, such the Nexus One I ordered the first day they were available to replace the G1 I had stood in line for an hour before the T-Mobile store opened the first day the G1 was available.

    Speaking of the G1, I’m selling it on eBay, in case you’re interested. Here’s the link:
    T-Mobile G1 (Unlocked) with extra cool accessories

    I’m daniel.greene on eBay, so check out my stuff!

  • ASL Intro to my new YouTube channel DanielJamesGreene

    A quick ASL introduction to my new channel named after my full name: danieljamesgreene. I used to be azsingersigner, but I decided to transition to a new channel with a username that would be more long-lasting than something that begins with the abbreviation for a state. If you liked my other channel with the videos of singing, ASL signing, closed-captioning, cute pet videos, discussions of linguistics and other commentary, then please move over here to danieljamesgreene and subscribe to my new channel. Thanks for watching, and I look forward to seeing more and more of you. Until then…! 🙂

    P.S. Our new dog’s name is Zoey. Ain’t she sweet?

  • danielgreene is I and I is danieljamesgreene

    I’ve made it a point to secure the usernames danielgreene and danieljamesgreene wherever I can so that I can give people easy URLs to find me on the Web. It would be nicer if I had the same username on all social networks, as Alexandra Samuel does (she can say, “Find me as awsamuel on … Twitter, De.li.cio.us, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Google, and YouTube), but djgreene is usually not available. In fact, narrowing my usernames down to danielgreene and danieljamesgreene involved several feats of account and profile management. Here’s how I did it.

    The YouTube Story

    Here’s a pair of cross-referenced videos I put on my old and new YouTube accounts as an “I’m moving” subscriber retention campaign, or what I guess some people might call a rebranding campaign.

    This one tells people I’m moving from azsingersigner to danieljamesgreene:

    And this one welcomes people to danieljamesgreene and tells them I’ve moved from azsingersigner:

    azsingersigner on YouTube now has a brother channel at danieljamesgreene on YouTube. I’ll keep azsingersigner because I’ve had it for four years and have received many views, comments, video responses, subscriptions, favorites, on my videos there. It wouldn’t be right to scrub all that. I’ll just start uploading all my new stuff to danieljamesgreene, and make sure all my old subscribers know to subscribe to my new channel. In case you’re wondering why I didn’t get the username danielgreene on YouTube, it’s because that username was secured by someone in Belgium a month after I joined, and nothing has been done with the account since. Oh well. My husband’s name, andysmithers, was also secured around the same time by someone in the United Kingdom, and nothing has been done with that account either. Username squatting, anyone?

    My Usernames on Other Social Networks

    The Facebook Story

    Although it might seem strange that Daniel Greene is danieljamesgreene and Daniel James Greene is danielgreene, there’s a method to the madness. When I first secured my username on June 13, 2009, within the first minute they were available, I picked the name I’d always used. I had barely considered getting a Page, and even if I had a Page, I wouldn’t have been able to secure a username on June 13, 2009 unless I had 1,000 fans by May 31, 2009. When I finally decided to get a Page a few weeks ago, I named it Daniel Greene, which I’ve always gone by professionally. Ironically, I couldn’t secure danielgreene as the username because I had already taken it for my personal profile. So I took the next best thing: danieljamesgreene– my full name including my middle name. But, oops! Now my username for my Page was different from my display name for my Page, and my display name for my profile and Page were the same. It turns out you cannot change your Facebook Page name, but you can change your Facebook profile name. So I changed my Facebook profile display name to Daniel James Greene. Now it’s easier for people to tell the difference between updates from my personal and public accounts. At the same time, I can do the kind of “this is that and that is this” cross-branding that associates one brand with another.

    Name Branding

    I’m a bit loath to talk about my names as brands, but–let’s face it–they are. Everybody’s name is, in some way, their brand. One of the reasons I’ve always used my name as my brand is that I do too many things to brand what I do with a company name. As Daniel Greene, I work as an interpreter for the deaf (sign language interpreter and oral transliterator), interpreter trainer, performing artist, writer, Web author, blogger, vlogger, photographer, and more. I do too many different things to limit myself to a blog or YouTube channel about one thing, and it would be too time consuming to maintain separate media channels for all my various vocations.

    Using the Middle Name

    Daniel James Greene is my full name. There aren’t as many Daniel James Greenes in the world as there are Daniel Greenes, so someday I might have to use my full name as my professional name. For instance, if I joined SAG and there were already a SAG member named Daniel Greene, I would have to join as Daniel James Greene. Likewise, if there are other authors or scholarly writers that use the my first and last name, I might want to use my full name. I plan to go on using the name Daniel Greene as long as I can, but I will use Daniel James Greene when I have to.

    Integrity

    So that’s the story of my usernames danielgreene and danieljamesgreene. I got them so that I could use my first-last and first-middle-last names for social and professional discoverability and recognition. I like to be able to find the people that matter to me, whether as friends or public figures; in return, I like to help people to find me. I also value integrity and consistency, and I believe in having as consistent an identity as possible. Integrity, to me, is doing what I say I’m going to do and being who I say I am. I believe integrity is also about integrating the various aspects of yourself into one. I’m not interested in using the Internet to take on imaginary personas; I just like being me here, and I prefer to do that with as few names as possible and let people know that both names refer to me.

    P.S. I also secured the domain name danieljamesgreene.com and set the URL to resolve to danielgreene.com.

  • Offline conversations about online conversations

    Share photos on twitter with Twitpic

    Sometimes I want to talk with people in person about how we talk with people on the Internet. I know I can get very “meta”– I mean, look at my website, where I sometimes blog about blogging—but I think it’s very important that we take some time to talk about how we’re talking. When I say “blogging” and “talking” I’m talking about any kind of media that you share with people on the Internet. Whatever you put out there, you are in effect “talking” to people. When you write comments, fave or “Like” something, rate something, etc., you’re talking to people. You produce and consume enough of these social media (photos, videos, stories, updates, links, comments, etc.), and you’re talking with people. But you’re not talking with them in real life, and you’re not even talking with them in real time. The communication is abstracted and asynchronous.

    This evening, I went out with my husband Andy to a local brewery for something called #evfn, or East Valley Friday Night. As the description says, “Some folks calls it a tweetup. I calls it an #evfn. Remember the agenda: no agenda. Have fun. Meet people. Party on!” I’ve been to several of these, well, I calls ’em Tweetups, and sometimes they can get pretty meta about social media. How do we share updates? Photos? Videos? Personal stuff? Work stuff? What kinds of relationships are made, bettered, or broken online? How do we bring those online relationships offline and vice versa? I love talking about that kind of stuff. In fact, no matter what I’m doing at the moment, I have an intense need to talk about it with others who are doing the same thing and are willing to talk it all out.

    “Remember the agenda: no agenda.” I can accept that. I know that some of these people work in social media and Internet industries, so they might be tired of talking about their work. I understand that. People need loosely structured milieux where they can just relax, mingle, and–in the words of Auntie Mame–“Circulate, Patrick, circulate.” And sometimes, sometimes, to “circulate” is just what I want to do. But other times I want a rap group– a structured, moderated discussion. That’s what I wanted tonight.

    I did get a bit of what I wanted. When I first got there, we sat around a table and talked about various things including employment, health care, spousal benefits, and how unfair it is that I have to pay a “Domestic Partnership Offset Tax” to keep Andy on my health care plan. We all talked for a while at that one table, and somehow the conversation got around to social media, though I don’t remember whether I steered it in that direction or not. People talked a bit about whether they feed their updates to Facebook from Twitter, whether they share personal updates on Facebook or keep it acceptable for business associates, whether to have a separate Twitter account for protected tweets, etc.

    Then I brought up my dilemma about the photo I asked the waiter to take of us (shown above). I said, “Nowadays I could post every bit of media I create to so many channels that I sit there with something for a few minutes thinking, ‘should I post it to my Facebook personal profile, my Facebook Page, Flickr, Twitpic…??’” One person gave an answer in the form of, “This is what you do…” and I felt like it was a move to lay the question to rest. Then more people showed up and the conversation got dropped. I tried to pick it up again and the person who had answered before gave me a card and wrote on it “Read [with three underlines] convinceandconvert.com Jay Baer.” That was the end of the conversation. I felt shut down. I really can’t complain, though. I was probably “holding them hostage” on a topic they no longer wanted to talk about. I was probably the one who was out of order, trying to create an agenda when there was no agenda.

    I get that people want the freedom to talk about whatever they want to talk about with whoever they want to talk about it with. I have no problem with it. What I do have a problem with is that I read and read and read but I don’t get a chance talk and talk and talk.

    I need a forum for discussion– a structured, moderated, real life, real time conversation about social media. I need to listen to people’s personal experiences with social media and I need to talk about mine. I don’t want the conversation to be about how to “drive traffic” and “target markets” and “strengthen your brand.” I just want to sit around with people who create and share a lot of stuff on the Internet not because they want to make money but just because they want to share. The question for me is: how do we share things with other people. I don’t think that reading another article or attending a social media lecture or listening to a panel discussion is going to satisfy me. I want a rap group with an agenda. Anybody know of one?

    [P.S. I spent two hours working on this post last night until my husband literally whined (it’s our thing, we mimic our dogs) for me to come to bed at 11. I thought I clicked “Publish” but I actually clicked “Save Draft” which is just as well because I lay in bed worried about what I had written and whether it would hurt anyone’s feelings or hurt my standing with the group. I just kept replaying the post over and over in my head while Adam Young’s voice singing Alaska played over and over in my head. Tormented, I am. This morning, I woke up early and could not get back to sleep. Again with the blog post and song tormenting me. So I got up to look at this blog post and realized I hadn’t published it. Great! Gives me more time to make it right. Now I’m sitting here on the sofa with my laptop over my legs and our dog Buxley swatting my arm with his paw to get my attention. And now it’s an hour-and-a-half later and I think I might just be ready to publish this thing whether it’s perfect or not and whether or not it ruffles any feathers.]

    As I was saying, anybody know of a real life, real time rap group about social media? What ways do you find to have meaningful and satisfying conversations with people who are doing what you are doing and learning to do it well? Can you give me an example of how one of these conversations changed you and made your life easier?