An Explanation For All My Facebook Friends :)

So I thought I would provide a quick explanation to all my Facebook friends who might not be able to understand my constantly changing status What you may or may not know is that most of my status changes come from my Twitter account and I am not actually logged into Facebook when you receive my status update. In fact, I am usually updating Twitter from my iPhone as I wait for an appointment or am riding the metro.

Twitter is, or was, a lot different than Facebook. That was until recently. Most of us Twitter users attribute the latest Facebook changes to them trying to emulate Twitter. Anyway, for me, Facebook has been a way to find old friends and catch up. Twitter, on the other hand, has been about making new friends and having dialogs about common interests. It is easier to learn a little bit about someone on Twitter before you decide to follow their ‘Tweets’. A feature that I feel is missing on Facebook. There you often need a little more info in order to discern whether that is the ‘John Smith’ that you actually went to high school with.

Many are confused as to what Twitter actually is. To be honest, so was I three months ago. The best way I know how to describe it is a big open pool of thousands of constantly flowing text messages. Now you can sit and read all those Tweets (140 character messages) but I would personally go crazy. What most people do is pick the people that you want to ‘Follow’ and only read those messages. It is real easy to ‘follow’ and ‘unfollow’ as you weed through those you want to interact with.

The main issue I wanted to clarify is why the Facebook status updates look the way they do when they come from Twitter users. What you actually see is what is called a ‘Tweet’ by Twitter users. I know, I know, I didn’t make up these names. They have a bird on their logo. Because they are limited to 140 characters, Twitter users have come up with a code of their own. Some, to be honest, are hard to decipher. Here are a few clues to help you out:

RT stands for ‘retweet’. This is like forwarding a message that you find interesting, funny, etc. to your set of friends. Another way this is done is by using ‘via’ and that tells you who sent the message first.

# is used to denote a hashtag. This is a way to enable you to search for tweets related to a certain subject like #coffee. By putting #coffee in the twitter search engine you can see what a lot of people are sharing on the subject.

@ is another symbol that you will see often. It is placed behind someones user name, like @Crosscultural (which is me), to reply to some comment that they just made. It also makes it easier to see who is sharing your comments with others.

The last thing I wanted to mention is why certain links look funny or suspicious. This is because of the 140 character limit set for each tweet. There are now many ways to shorten the length to the link you want to share.

More than you wanted to know, I am sure Much longer post than I meant it to be. Hopefully this helps you understand why my status updates look so weird. Let me know if you have any questions.

Is BIGGER Really Better? – (Mega Stores)

There is a question I have been asking myself for a long time. Is bigger really better? I know there are pluses and minuses to each situation, but let’s think about the big picture when answering this question. Let’s take shopping, for example. I am the king when it comes to looking for the best deal. For a while there, I loved the super stores. Being able to find everything I needed in one place was great, and getting it at a discount price was just icing on the cake; not to mention time saved. But what price did I really pay?

I didn’t realize at the time that the mega stores were putting all the little Mom and Pop neighborhood stores out of business. What had we robbed ourselves of? I had no idea until I lived overseas and experienced all the corner stores and markets. We robbed ourselves of those community connections. We rob ourselves of the convenience of just running next door to get some fresh bread AND the relationship with that person who made it. And for what? Yes, we saved a few dollars every week on groceries; but how much did we spend on the gas to get there. Not to mention the total time spent during that shopping adventure because these stores are rarely within walking distance.

Typically, Americans walk into their garage and get into their cars without stepping foot outside. The button is hit and from our bubble, with our tunes blaring, we commute undisturbed from our home to the mega store. Here, we grab a cart with our ear phones on and wander the store without interacting with anybody (unless we have a question, in which case you can never find someone who works there to answer). We check out with minimal communication because there is a long line behind you. We can even ‘self check out’ now and only deal with a machine if we want to. Say you need gas, in today’s world that still does not require any human contact. Then we just reverse the trip in our bubble. Arriving safely home with no need to leave again for another week.

This is both sad and dangerous when you think about the commission given to each one of us who believe. Never-mind what this does to our waist line. The funny thing is that a lot of those people made that trip with a cell phone connected to their ears talking to somebody who is at home and desperate for someone to communicate with. Then, when we get home, we run to the computer to Twitter and Facebook our friends

What has the world come to? Is bigger really better? I think it is time to bring back the community concept wherever you find yourself. Challenge yourself concerning where you commute to. Maybe you need to move there, or find a replacement for what you are commuting to near by. Make some neighborhood friends (because we all know that you probably don’t know many of them). Take a walk around your community, you might be surprised at what you find! Somebody may be making the best bread in town just around the corner. By stopping in regularly, you might make a great friend. A friend who might hear the good news for the first time… from you!

Just a thought, what are yours? I would love to hear your opinion.

Merging Twitter, Facebook And WordPress

So I need some advice from you Twitter, Facebook and WordPress users. I am trying to find the best way to merge the three so they work for me instead of the reverse. I have been successful in getting Twitter to update my Facebook status. Who does that and what do you think about it?

Notes, on Facebook, now imports my WordPress blog posts. Who does that and what do you think? Can someone on Facebook comment on my Notes version of my blog and it sync back to WordPress? Why do people rarely comment on WordPress? I know that my posts right now aren’t earth shattering as I am just getting started, but I can tell people are looking but not commenting. How do you have your comments set up?

I just found the WordPress app for Facebook. Does anyone use this? Would you recommend it? How do you use it?

Anyway, please utilize the comment box below to make any suggestions about how to merge the three. Random comments about the look and function of my blog would be greatly appreciated.