Social Networking Sites
Facebook Places Launch!
Aug 19th

Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Places last night! Think GPS location sharing, similar to Foursquare and Gowalla.
Facebook Places is a new product that allows users to share where they are, find out where their friends are, and discover interesting places nearby. Facebook Places also allows businesses to establish Places (physical store locations) on Facebook and then encourage guests to share where they are by “checking in” to their Place. Check-in stories can generate powerful, organic impressions in friends’ News Feeds, extending your brand’s reach to many potential new customers.
Got multiple retail locations? Facebook plans to develop a solution for brands with multiple Places (store locations), that will allow the main brand Page to “adopt” all of their Places.
What can you do with Places now? Start to create and claim your Places. Facebook Places is available to all Facebook users in the United States with the latest version of the Facebook for iPhone Application or any HTML5-enabled mobile device via touch.facebook.com.
This is a very exciting development and just another way Facebook is dominating the social space.
Damn Fail Whale
Jun 16th
Ahhh. The Twitter Fail Whale, now that picture instantly raises my anxiety level. I was an early Twitter adopter as a Public Relations Professional and the first hundred or so Fail Whales I received weren’t a big deal. I would smile at the silly image and do something else. I’d cruise Facebook and wait a few hours until the tweets had stopped overwhelming the little birdies.
Here I am 1.5 years later as a Social Media Manager, swearing every time I see those damn birds carrying a whale. Put down the f*c**n whale and get my tweets up! I have sH*t do here guys.
Seriously? This one image makes me want to throw something, I just spent 5 minutes putting together the perfect 140 charater tweet with enough room left for re-tweeting!!! and now my tweet is gone and I am too pissed off to re-write it. Not to mention I had to shorten the url myself! Does the whale need all those birds? Can’t one be auto shortening my links?
Yes I know, there are plenty of Tweetme’s and Tweetdecks I can be using that seamlessly swim past these pathetic whales complete with url shorteners, but admit it, there are times when you have to go Twitter. Tweetdeck likes to freeze on me and make annoying spinning noises, so I often prefer to use Twitter for some simple tweeting and DM’s.
Sometimes its good to stick to the basics. I get a bit of nostalgia logging onto Twitter, but I am not sure I can handle anymore Fail Whales. I wonder if my doctor will prescribe me Xanax on the grounds of social media platform rejection by silly images?
Oh and if you know how to turn the Tweetdeck pop-up spinning noise making box off please save me.
