What I miss About the Old Facebook

Recently I've seen many blog posts, news articles, and videos about Facebook enraging people with their recent privacy changes. This is situation is a catch 22 because this free networking tool has to somehow make money. Their solution is to offer marketers profile information of a Facebook user to help with their future marketing plans. Although this was a very round about way of explaining the situation, the main thing to gain from this issue is as a Facebook user your privacy you worked to hard to keep within your network is obsolete.

Because of this recent issue, I've decided to look back and list the things I miss that have since been changed about Facebook.

What I miss About the Old Facebook:

• When I originally registered for an account with my college address the only people who could see my updates, wall, profile, and posts were my college friends.
• When I decided to extend my network those people that I friend-ed were able to see what I was doing, post on my wall, and share photos with me.
• The ability to drag and drop things in my profile, customize it any way that I wanted, and not have everything tabulated. Applications are now lost on me.
  
• The assurance that posting a photo album on my profile was only seen by my friends, I didn't have to go through the settings feature of the album so just my friends could see the album.
• The opportunity to chat with a friend and not have to worry whether or not someone else could read everything I privately chatted about.
  
• The option to go onto someone's profile and see what they were up to and not be told 24/7 what that person is up to in a stream that sometimes doesn't make sense who I'm friends with or not.
  
• The lack of creepy ads. I'm sorry but I'm sick of you knowing everything about me and suggesting that I should take a Yoga class with people I don't know.
• And last but not least, my personal freedom to do what I want on Facebook without getting a recommendation or suggestion. If I want to talk to someone I will, I don't need a suggestion of who I should talk to.

To conclude, please give me my information back and my social freedom to connect with who I want and do what I want. I'm happy to pay you $1 so you don't share my information.

Tell me what are some things you miss about the Old Facebook? If they went back to the way they were would you keep your profile?

FTD FAIL

Dear FTD,

I greatly appreciate your lack of customer service or support. Please know that you have lost a customer and gained bad word of mouth. Enjoy....

Thanks,
Alexis

* Please see email below from FTD sent at 5:49pm the Saturday before Mother's day when I ordered the flowers on Wednesday. Also please note that they didn't even bother to call.

PPS. Here are all the other People who are not happy with you today, on Mother's day. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=FTD+mother%27s

custserv@ftd.com to me

show details 5:49 PM (22 hours ago)

Please accept our sincere apologies. Despite our best efforts, due to exceptionally high seasonal demand with
our member florists, we regret we were unable to fill your order as requested.

We very much appreciate your business and would like to offer you $10 dollars off your existing order to be delivered on or before Monday, May 10th.

We truly understand how important each order is to our customers, and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please reply to let us know if you would like to cancel your order, or have it delivered on or before Monday, May 10th.

Aimee Baldassaro
VP Customer Care

Email us via this link:
http://www.ftd.com/custserv/email.epl?type=email&AID=orderinquiries&nextpage=orderinquiries

Call us:
1-800-SEND-FTD (1-800-736-3383)
(Toll-free in the U.S. and Canada)

1-630-719-7756
(Outside the U.S. and Canada)

Shop with us:
www.ftd.com

Podcasts I Enjoy

Since my Blog is about Random stuff I thought today I would like to write about what podcasts I enjoy on my way into work and driving home from work.

My 8 Favorite Podcasts:

1. The 404 on CNET This podcast is witty, funny, and geeky. My 3 favorite things.


2. Buzz Out Loud on CNET For a more serious look at everything tech in the news. And some laughs...


3. This Week in Tech They do find some news that everyone is not talking about. And this podcast runs longer.


4. Gadgettes Podcast Fun, pretty, bad, & cute Gadgets.


5. This Week in Google Love hearing what is new in Google and what Google has to say about their new products.


6. PodRunner Intervals Gets your heart rate going for a good work out. And it's Free! Woot!


7. NPR: Technology Podcast A very concise to the point podcast.


8. Diggnation Used to be at the top of my list. The problem is they do the podcast too late so the top Digg's are way too old now. Good for laughs.

Don't agree? What are your favorite podcasts? I'm always looking for new ones to enjoy!

Using Vlingo?? Speak fast!

Last week I saw a post on Mashable that the Vlingo iPhone App will now allow you to eMail & SMS. For a fee, of course.

Let me back up just a little bit. In December I started a new job. With the new job came an an entirely new commute. Driving to work... While working at my previous job I commuted to work via train and bus. This was great because it allowed me to listen to podcasts, catch up on my emails, etc. My new commute consists of driving 30-60 minutes (depending on traffic) each way. As you may know, using an iPhone while driving doesn't facilitate easy texting, emailing, etc. Nor is it safe. :)

So when I saw Mashable's post about email and text via voice I was wicked excited. Hastily I purchased the app to give it a try. Here are my findings.

Best Way to Use the App

• Speak fast


• Annunciate your words


• Use it often


• Have a sense of humor

^{*Regarding the last point, I found it very entertaining in the begining when it was making up words for me. I said some pretty funny stuff.}

The Drawbacks

• You can't speak to text in SMS. You have to do it in the Vlingo App then copy your text and paste into your SMS App.


• Same goes for email. (So it doesn't help the ability to do this while driving)


• Punctuation. I know I'm bad at it but forget writing a formal business email on here.

In conclusion, this app is not safe to use while driving. There are to many button's to press to do anything and you might drive off the side of the road with the entertaining phrases they come up with.
One recommendation I do have, is that they integrate it into email and SMS so if you are in your email client you can click a Vlingo button and it will allow you to speak to text right there.

10 Public Transportation Etiquette Tips

This is the time of year when it’s cold, you have to wear many layers, and then cram yourself onto a hot bus or train. To make your commute, more pleasurable please remember these ten tips.

1. Your bags don’t need a seat.

Honestly if you pick up your bag and put it under your feet more people will have seats. Wouldn’t you hate getting on the train/bus that is overly crowded and come to find out there was a seat available but someone decided to use it for their bag!

2. Use your inside voice.

I know it’s really hard to wait to call your friend and tell them how great things are in your life. So if you are going to talk on your cell phone, please use your inside voice, you don’t have to shout.

3. Throw Away Your Trash!

Your mother doesn’t live on public transportation and won’t walk after you to pick your mess. There are lots of trash cans every five feet when you got off the train. Pick up your trash, take it with you, and throw it away.

4. Turn down your music.

Honestly I don’t care what you are listening to, nor do I care how loud your really cool MP3 player can go. Turn it down!

5. Bad Mood?

Don’t let it show. If you do, you might end up ruining someone else’s day.

6. Wait for others to get off the train before you get on. Get off the train to let other people exit.

Enough said.

7. Smile!

It could possibly cause a domino effect and make someone else’s day better.

8. Men and women, chivalry isn’t dead.

If you see an elderly person or a pregnant woman standing, give up your seat. If you see someone have a problem getting a stroller onto a bus, help them.

9. Try soap.

It works and it’s cheap.

10. Have a cold? Bring tissues and sneeze or cough into the tissue.

And then throw it away.

If you have any tips you would like to add please comment below, I would love to hear them.

Social Media Hotel of New York City

Close to 1 month ago, I reached out to my friends on Twitter, asking them if they could recommend a hotel bar in New York City near Grand Central to host a tweetup. Not even 20 minutes later I received a reply telling me to contact The Roger Smith Hotel at @RShotel. Because this hotel had a Twitter handle I was able to do some research them on search.twitter.com before contacting them. I found out that the bar had great drinks and a lot of people have enjoyed staying at the hotel. So I reached out to them, got an immediate response, and booked the tweetup pretty much all through twitter.

Since I needed to stay near Grand Central overnight I said, what the "hay", let me try out this hotel. I made the right decision.

Not only was my room inexpensive but guest services was really friendly booking over the phone. When I arrived at the hotel I was happy to find that parking was only $35 a night, score #1. Score #2 were the 2 computer monitors on each side of the check-in desk allowing people to check their email or do anything else that they need to do, such as check in for a flight. When I got to my room I was blown away with the size! The room was like an apartment, I had a bed, a couch, a desk, coffee table, dresser, and of course a good sized bed. The air conditioning was on and pumping full speed, if you have been to NYC in the summer you would know how appreciated this is. And the biggest bestest (that is right I said bestest) score of all #4, was free wi-fi! Oh yeah all I had to do was turn my laptop and hop on the internet. No logging in, typing in my room #, and receiving an internet charge of $19.99 for 24 hours of access. Yes it is sad that I appreciate free wifi but if you have traveled as much as I have this past year, you would think it's pretty awesome too!

Score #5 was walking into the bathroom, finding I forgot my toothpaste, and seeing it right in the complimentary toiletries basket. I was fully prepared and ready to go for the tweetup that night. Oh yeah and the bathroom was clean, with robes in the closet.

If you find yourself bored in the room, which is hard to do in NYC, they have a huge list of DVDs that you can select from and ask them to bring to your room. That in my book is very convenient. And if you feel like staying in for the night, the drinks at the bar were magnificent. The bartender wowed me with a Roasted Onion and Garlic Bloody Marry and was very gracious in keeping me company while I waited for the rest of the attendees for the Tweetup to arrive. At the end of the night I slept really well with no noisy hotel neighbors. That was definetly score #6!

In conclusion, I will definetly be staying at the Roger Smith Hotel the next time I'm in New York City.

2 Great Events in One Week

Ever since Boston Tweetup was created, I have found my calendar filling up really fast. Some people might not enjoy a full calendar but I really love it. Although I don't go to every event that I find or throw into my calendar, I try my hardest to attend them all. To tell you truth I don't know how Joseline Mane (@JoselinMane) and Rachel Levy (@BostonMarketer), creators of Boston Tweetup, are able to attend all the events!

Last week I attended 2 well hosted events, Mass Innovations Nights and a panel on Integrating Social Media Across the Big Brand hosted by Social Media Club Boston and Hill Holiday. Although they were two different types of events they had one thing in common, good networking.

Mass Innovation Night is held once a month at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation in Waltham, MA. This location is easy to access coming from Cambridge and there is inexpensive parking. MassInno night gives Massachusetts-based innovators the opportunity to showcase their products. The innovators this month were, AllFocus, Blitz Innovations, Inc., Clickhealth, IBM/Lotus, Hubunity, Mixandmeet, Nexiwave, Pixily, and WherePhone. These companies innovations were all very different from a social network available for school communities by Hubnity to a phone conversation transcription service by Nexiwave. One innovation that blew my mind was Clickhealth. This company provides cell phones to doctors in 3rd world countries allowing them to take photos of infections or conditions that they are unable to diagnose, upload the photo and information to a message board, where doctors who have Internet access and resources can provide consultation. Having been to an orphanage in South Africa, I have seen first hand the limited resources that doctors in these countries have, and I can see how this will be useful to them. I have a few questions for the company, I'm hoping to speak them shortly to do a longer blog post about this great idea. Check back here soon for it!


The night after Mass Innovation Night, the Social Media Club of Boston organized a panel on Integrating Social Media Across the Big Brand hosted by Hill Holiday. There were 5 panelists: Terry Lozoff – President, Street Attack, Ken Peters – Vice President, Text 100 Public Relations, Vicki Rellas – CMO, Mom Central, Mike Spataro – Vice President, Client Strategy & Channel Partners – Visible Technologies, and Sean Corcoran - Analyst, Forrester Research. The night started off with networking, presentations by the panelists, pre-written questions, and questions from the audience. A few takeaways from the panelists were, "mistakes in social media with big brands are really public and costly, this needs to be understood" and "to understand social you need everyone involved." "Are brands better off working with companies who specialize in social media marketing or with integrated agencies that have social media capabilities?" was a really good pre-written question, asked by panel moderator by Mike Proulx, Vice President, Interactive for Hill Holliday. The best panelist comment of the night was, "Social media is A1 sauce not the steak. It's a supplement not a substitute."

If you missed these events, don't worry, you can attend new ones, next month thanks to Social Media Club Boston and Mass Innovation Nights. Looking for other upcoming events? Check out the often updated calendar by Boston Tweetup.