Yesterday I kicked off the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) in Vegas conference with a keynote discussing social media and my somewhat obsession with the shiny new objects of the Web. I shared my thoughts, antidotes and social media stories in hopes to help both explain and motivate the crowd into taking action. I also mentioned a number of products that I like to use and refer to as "shiny objects of the Web."
After barely sleeping at all last night due to the Vegas oxygen rich air and just sheer excitement about the speaking event I was pretty pumped up and tried to wake up the crowd with a number of little ditties including singing Wheels on the Bus go round and round, sharing some fun stories and having everyone scream OPRAH at the top of their lungs! It was a BLAST! Below is some instant feedback I got via Twitter from one of the attendees.
Be sure to check out the video (below) for clips from the address. Finally, you might find the extensive list of "shiny objects" in the lower portion of this post to be extremely useful. Bookmark it, share it or print it out and put it on the refrigerator or make it into a paper airplane but most importantly have fun while doing it. Social media is life.
Social Media & My Somewhat Obsession With Shiny Objects from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.
Shiny Objects for Communications
AOL Mail - You've Got Mail! It's an iconic phrase and AOL Mail still has a lot to offer via Web mail including corporate and collegiate hosted solutions
Gmail - For email that allows away messages and recently added Gmail Video Chat
Other Inbox - an email inbox for your other email
Skype - VoIP calling and messaging over your computer for a lot less than a standard phone
AIM Instant Messenger - For instant messaging using AIM client and within Gmail
AwayFind - Enables people to connect with me quickly via a form that sends a message to my mobile device
Facebook - This social utility offers an opportunity to communicate with some of my friends and family
Bebo - A social networking site that focuses more on entertainment and having fun
Twitter - This microblogging platform is great for communicating to a larger group of friends like a broadcast instant message both online or via text message
DropCard - Helps manage your contacts and sends text message enabled business cards
Shiny Objects for Videos
TubeMogul - For easy distribution of my video podcast videos onto as many platforms as possible in only a few simple steps
Viddler - A video platform I use which offers a slick video player with inline comments,
Blip.tv - A video platform that offers a way to create a video podcast feed and distribute videos
Vimeo - A video platform that offers a very crisp picture and even HD quality videos online
YouTube - For online videos shorter than 10 minutes but by far the biggest video player
12seconds.tv - A niche video site devoted to 12 second videos
Seesmic - Threaded conversation-based video streams
Flixwagon & Qik - Mobile video application offers streaming video to the Web
UStream, BlogTV & Mogulus - Both offer streaming video from your laptop to the Web
Hulu - For watching movies and TV shows on my computer (usually hooked to a TV screen)
Shiny Objects for Blogging & Community
Typepad - A hosted blog platform - SOMEWHAT FRANK, is powered by Typepad
WordPress - An open source blog platform - the TECH cocktail site is powered by WordPress
Tumblr - A microblogging platform - I use it for sharing links, photos, videos, etc
Sweetcron - A microblog platform like Tumblr you can host yourself
Ning - Create your own community site with relative ease including blogs, forums, videos, photos and more
KickApps - Offers a more developer oriented social networking/community in a box product
BrightKite - A mobile blogging lifestream of photos, notes and posting your location to connect with others around you
Shiny Objects for Storage
Evernote - A digital dropbox with a desktop, Web and mobile component
Syncplicity - Software that syncs all your stuff from various computers into one place
Drop.io - An online storage locker for anything without the need of an account to set it up
Remember the Milk - Enables me to create to-do lists that can be pulled into Gmail or accessed on the iPhone with a pro account
Shiny Objects for Content Discovery
Mixx - Social news site that users contribute content on a long tail variety of topics
Digg - Social news site that users contribute and vote on the content of a the perfect news homepage
Delicious - Social bookmarking
StumbleUpon - Content discovery by stumbling upon new things
Shareaholic - A consolidated sharing extension for Firefox
Shiny Objects for Content
Twitter Search - formerly a startup called Summize
Google Alerts - Alerts for monitoring the Web
Filtrbox - New more sophisticated alerts product for monitoring the Web
Lijit - Blog search engine which offers search analytics
Shiny Objects for Social Lifestream
SocialThing - Aggregates all your profile updates and your friends into one lifestream
FriendFeed - Creates a conversation around your lifestream
MyBlogLog - Creates a community and lifestream around your blog community contacts
Shiny Objects for Travel
Tripit - Organizes and shares your travel plans like a personalized travel agent
Dopplr - Share your travels online with others
TravelFli - Helps you to maximize your frequent traveler program rewards (still in private beta)
Shiny Objects for RSS
FeedHub - Creates a personalized feed list based on your reading habits
AideRSS - Ranks items in a feed by popularity
PostRank - Provides integrated tools to enable you to customize your RSS subscriptions
Alltop - An online magazine rack of RSS feeds
Shiny Objects for Money & Finance
Quicken Online - Simple online money management site
Mint - Money management suite looking to help to save you some money
Geezeo - Money management suite looking to help you manage your money better
TipJoy - Send anyone a tip or money over Twitter or online
SmartyPig - Looking to help you put money away with a "smart" and social savings plan application
BillShrink - Free personalized advice for how to save money
Shiny Objects for the iPhone (find them in iTunes App Store)
Shazam - Finds music by listening to a tune
CameraBag - Fun “lomo-like” photography application
Yelp - Reviews are now ready for on the go
BrightKite - On the go mobile microblogging based on your geographic location
Urbanspoon - Offers a fun “Shake” feature which helps find new places to dine
AP Mobile News - The best news app I have seen as it offers a way to watch videos, email and text stories and read news while on the go
Pandora - Personalized music streamed to your iPhone
AOL Radio - Listen to radio stations from outside your local area anytime
AIM - Easy to use on the go instant messaging
Facebook - A must have for any Facebook user
