Mona's Posterous

#MyHashtagsBringAllTheBoysToTheYarrrrrrrrrrd

Curling Explained [biggest infograph ever]

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Curling has fascinated me for years. Sad how it took the explosion of social media for curling to finally get on people's radars. It's high up on the ridic factor like under water ironing.

What makes people want to go into curling anyway? Do they just wake up one morning and say: Oh. Well I feel like becoming an Olympic Curling Athlete! Or maybe they get recruited by curling coaches while sweeping snow on the street? Oh wait. Snow is shoveled.

My imagination. It won't stop. (STFU brain!)
ht: @imabonehead

6 Reasons Why You Should Read Engage by Brian Solis #smartersocmed

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Brian Solis' book is out and instead of just megaphoning "GO BUY HIS BOOK!" I'll give you six reasons why we should...well, GO BUY HIS BOOK! 
  1. Brian is thorough and shares invaluable information. His posts normally answers the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why) and takes it a step further by telling us how. Two posts that illustrates that: "The Science of ReTweets on Twitter." -- in which he breaks down the art of ReTweets (with pretty graphs) and how we (company, individual, or brand) can achieve virality. "The 10 Stages of Social Media Integration in Business." where, well, it is just as the title reads. ;)
  2. Beyond the conversational aspects of social media, Brian teaches us other stuff -- for a lack of a better term. Like how to optimize our social content -- or in plain English, how our social media efforts can be rewarded by search engines (Google.) "Social Media Optimization: SMO is the New SEO – Part 2" is a good beginner piece I recommend to everyone. 
  3. So what's the difference between SMO and SEO? Well, there you go. Reason number three we should read that post and his book. Thing about the Internet is, things are constantly changing and we must keep learning.  
  4. He recommends resources, backed with data -- personally, I am partial to recommendations with analysis conducted by Dan Zarrella* i.e. "The Top 100 Twitter Publishing Tools and Services."
  5. Brian also writes pieces that a lot of people in social media don't take the time to think about (or even care about.) One of my favorites is "The Information of Divide: The Socialization of News." where we -- everyone who participates in any social media service -- should read and consider. And not because I've been harping about it forever.
  6. The final reason is for the name droppers. Brian guest posts for Mashable OMG!!!!!!1111 (Mashable is the ultimate collaborative social media resource out there -- just in case.) 

...ok, so reason number six is kinda sarcastic. But if digital / interactive / social media marketing is your business, this book is highly recommended. Clearly. So what're you waiting for, you can buy the book by clicking on any of the logos below:

Sorry Brian -- totally stole the code from this post! :)

*Dan Zarrella is a social media scientist who writes some pretty rockin' posts. Like this one. Actually, I haven't read a junky post from him to date. That he shares. For free. FREE. Can't believe it's free. 

How Google’s Algorithm Indexes Real-Time Tweets #thegoog

[...] real-time search, eagerly awaited since Page opined some months ago that Google should be scanning the entire Web every second. When someone queries a subject of current interest, among the 10 blue links Google now puts a “latest results” box: a scrolling set of just-produced posts from news sources, blogs, or tweets. Once again, Google uses signals to ensure that only the most relevant tweets find their way into the real-time stream. “We look at what’s retweeted, how many people follow the person, and whether the tweet is organic or a bot,” Singhal says. “We know how to do this, because we’ve been doing it for a decade.”
Excerpt via Wired Mag's phenomenal piece: "How Google's Algorithm Rules the Web."


Also, check out this neat graph of Google's key algo advances:

 

Way to Cheapen Your Brand, @Cartier

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Ok. Tiffany & Co., Coach, or Louis Vuitton, I understand -- those brands were cheapened long ago with outlets, dramatic price drops, etc., but Cartier? CARTIER? If I paid full price for this watch and saw it available online for 25% off, I'd ask for my money back.

Snooty? Hell to the nay. Any item I spend the equivalent to my annual rent, better be a timeless purchase (no pun intended.)

Ugh. Way to cheapen your brand, Cartier.

Petition to make 10 ^ 27th power called "Hella"bytes. #word

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"Point your little browser toward The Official Petition to Establish ‘Hella-’ as the SI Prefix for 10^27 if you want your storage space in 50 years to be measured in hellabytes and the universe’s weight in hellagrams.

[...]

A hellasecond would be about a two and a half million times the age of our galaxy. So really, there’s no danger of people who don’t like hella having to say it all the time. Come on people, let’s do this."

via the ever so wonderful Oz (@ozsultan)