Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

December 29, 2009

We Make Love and Creative Commons

Okay, these are real buttons, but web buttons look similar

Okay, these are real buttons, but web buttons look similar

We’ve all seen the cute little CC buttons all over the nooks and crannies of the World Wide Web. We’ve seen them on Flickr, blogs and Obama’s campaign website. You might have even seen them beyond the screen, on a CD cover or a movie.

But what the hell are the Creative Commons, exactly?

Just about the most brilliant idea on earth. Let me explain…

Creative Commons is a set of copyleft (as opposed to copyright) licenses for creative works such as movies, music, images, essays, research papers, and of course, websites. Using copyleft, an author may, through a copyleft licensing scheme, give every person who receives a copy of their work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute the work as long as any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same copyleft licensing scheme. Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright – all rights reserved – and the public domain – no rights reserved. The content creator and you can decide whether you want your publicly published images to be remixed, sold, shared, credited, locked up in a drawer, or none of the latter.

[read full article >>]

December 16, 2009

The Potion Recipe Behind a Ridiculously Addictive Game!

Mario Bros Bowser

Mario Bros Bowser

Ever since the days of Pitfall and Centipede on Atari’s gaming system, it has been fascinating for me to understand what is so compelling about games. What is it about games that invites us and seduces us to divorce our realities and immerse ourselves in an alternate reality and invest into what appears to be a total waste of time.

What exactly about a game that makes it so compelling? What is it about World of Warcraft that would make a kid spend 5 years playing it? To explore those ideas and more, a little background in game theory would be helpful.

There are many ingredients to a great and compelling game, you might be fascinated by the graphics or the story but that wouldn’t be the reason that will keep on bringing you back to a game. To be a successful game you need to exhibit several qualities.

A. Challenge

Every game needs to posit a challenge to its player, that would be the main reason why they are playing this game in specific. There are 3 types of challenges.

[read full article >>]

December 1, 2009

50 Top Noise-Free Twitter Tips in Social Media, Marketing, SEO & Design! Part 5

Wouldn’t it be just great if you could find the most useful tweets and links about the hottest most interesting topics online, all in one place? Wouldn’t it be just convenient if you could link that valuable information to the tweeple who posted it so you can have continuous access to his/her tweets by following him/her accordingly?

Below you will find our fifth specialized well researched list of 50 Top Twitter Tips and Links divided into 5 distinctive categories: 1) Social Media & Technology, 2) Marketing & Advertising, 3) Design, 4) SEO, 5) Motivational & More.

[read full article >>]

November 30, 2009

Top 10 Social Media Golden Posts: Rules, Tips & Know-How’s!

At Thoughtpick, we don’t claim to be social media gurus – because… don’t get me started! However, we place a great deal of our time and effort researching and analyzing the most up-to-date and informative news, reviews and advice to bring to you a better, more beneficial social media experience.

Therefore, in this post, I am compiling for you our top 10 social media golden posts, with a brief summary on each, in order to make it easier for you to locate, read and further gain deeper insights from our experience in this field.

1. 10 Social Media Campaigns that Rock! Learn How to do the Same!

The Social Media Basket!

The Social Media Basket!

This post seeks to provide you with answers for the following questions: What defines an exemplary social media campaign? What are the elements necessary to capture consumers’ attention and bring about interest and participation in any given social media campaign? How can we measure the success of a social media campaign?

2. 10 Social Media Campaigns that Failed! Avoid their mistakes!

Contrary to the aforementioned post, this post tries to define a failed social media campaign as well as the factors and elements that drive a social media campaign to its doom in addition to listing the lessons learned from failed campaigns.

[read full article >>]

Filed under: Research-Based Topics, Tips and How To’s — Tags: , , , , , , — Beirut @ 4:49 pm

November 19, 2009

Android, Gizmo5 & adMob: The Scary Thought of Google As My Mobile Operator

The Google Leviathan has been on the move lately, engulfing several smaller fish on the internet. The latest “victim” being Gizmo5 a VoIP service a la Skype.

Google Voice, your next phone company

Google Voice

Google Voice

Gizmo5 coupled with Google Voice has the prospect of being a very seductive concoction. Users will sign up to Google Voice and get a phone number that will forward all their calls to all their other numbers. It will also provide them with free conference calling and free voice mail to email services among many others. The service will also offer them ultra-cheap outgoing calls. If Google adds support for SMS and MMS, it will allow the customer to completely circumvent the mobile operators per minute tariff and, in general, it might do to mobile operators what the mobile did to the land line.

Now Google seems to have delinquently tried to steer the regulators away from branding Google Voice as a replacement for landlines, since you will still need a phone number to direct all those calls to. So does that mean Google will be the next AT&T?

[read full article >>]

November 5, 2009

5 Ways for Using Social Media to Bring about World Change!

“Make it a rule… never to lie down at night without being able to say, “I have made one human being at least a little wiser, a little happier or a little better this day.” – Charles Kingsley.

As beautiful as this quote is in meaning, sadly, regardless of how hard we try and due to our heavily loaded, work burdened and responsibility strained lifestyles, we always find ourselves lacking in the “giving” and “charity” departments.

"Unity" by Sonia Jimenez

"Unity" by Sonia Jimenez

However, it goes without saying that when there is a will, there is a way and social media might just be the solution to our time deprived schedules, especially when it comes to dedicating time to causes whether they be charity related or otherwise.

Therefore, the questions that need to be asked at this stage are the following: Is social media sufficient for bringing about change worldwide? Which social media channels and tools are actively involved in promoting causes? And how do we make the best of these in the little time we have within our daily routine?

The Power of Social Media Lies Within its Viral Element

Whether we are trying to bring an end racism, promote environmental awareness, protect children’s rights or achieve any other cause, I tremendously believe in the power that social media possesses in its ability to make things happen simply because social media is very viral!

Depending on the platform you choose to subscribe to and use, I bet there is always a way to get your cause related message across to your audience way faster than any news channel or regular billboard campaign!

The key is the geographically dispersed multi-cultural educated and intellectual audience and the ability to build trust and attract them to listen and even play a role in making a change.

5 Fast, Simple & Efficient Ways for Using Social Media to Bring about World Change:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead.

  1. Make use of the Power of Tweets: Twitter is a popular social media channels with millions of users spread world wide. Make your tweets count! A few cause related tweets daily posted by each of us can make a difference: at least we feel united at some level! Example: #haleighcummings Support Awareness • Pls RT • 3 Missing Children • add a #twibbon to your avatar now! – http://bit.ly/2KzCdm [read full article >>]

October 26, 2009

User Manual: What to Expect When Using Social Media?

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations”. Elliott Larson

Expectations are – simply put – the building blocks and the breaking points of everything in life.

Expectations Only Lead to Disappointment!

Expectations Only Lead to Disappointment!

Whether in the way we conduct our personal lives or business wise, expectations usually have the power to strengthen or hinder efforts and in turn influence any outcomes either positively or negatively.

Hundreds, no, thousands of books and articles were published about various subjects pertaining to expectations all around us. The main reason for these publications is to prepare individuals for what they might face in certain situations or during specific events or cases and how to deal with them accordingly.


Social Media Expectations: The good, the bad & the ugly!

Preconceptions about a certain concept, person, place and so on have the ability to cause confusion. This is because the human mind conditions itself to a certain way of dealing with things based on prior expectations. Thus, if the expectations are not met, the mind usually refuses to change its perceptions and whatever is at play might lose its credibility and attractiveness element.

Therefore, I thought I would prepare a list, divided into 3 categories: the good, the bad and the ugly. The main purpose of this list is pointing out everything one must expect to encounter through his/her use of social media channels, tools and platforms.

[read full article >>]

October 14, 2009

50 Top Noise-Free Twitter Tips in Social Media, Marketing, SEO & Design! Part 4

Wouldn’t it be just great if you could find the most useful tweets and links about the hottest most interesting topics online, all in one place? Wouldn’t it be just convenient if you could link that valuable information to the tweeple who posted it so you can have continuous access to his/her tweets by following him/her accordingly?

Below you will find our fourth specialized well researched list of 50 Top Twitter Tips and Links divided into 5 distinctive categories: 1) Social Media & Technology, 2) Marketing & Advertising, 3) Design, 4) SEO, 5) Motivational & More.

1. Social Media & Technology Tips & Links:

An RT for John Lusher

An RT for John Lusher

Bonus (funny video): @sarahamam: Social Media Addicts Association Meeting – http://bit.ly/18Eyv3

[read full article >>]

September 30, 2009

5 Feel Good Things You Can Do on the Web!

Wonder if others feel the same way? If you go back in your memory for about 10 years ago you would remember the world was a much kinder place. People seemed to see each other more – poking and chatting on Facebook don’t count. More importantly, you would always find people helping each other out.

Kindness Campaign

Kindness Campaign

Not to sound like my parents, and to control the amount of selective memory enhancements that I apply, I hit the web looking for examples of how kindness changed with the advent of the web. One of the first things I came by was a wonderful talk (embedded at the end of this post) that was both inspiring and amusing. From there, I kept on looking for how the web helped to make the world a better place – one person at time.

My findings give the impression that, if anything, the internet enabled many acts of kindness to occur. According to some, the whole internet could collapse if it weren’t for those acts of kindness. So here are some places on the net where kindness is alive, well and plentiful!

1. Free Rice

Feel good about yourself and have fun at the same time. This website will make donations of rice in partnership with the WFP for every word you guess correctly. Not much can be said about this site other than it’s all around awesome. [link to Free Rice]

Free Rice

Free Rice

[read full article >>]

September 29, 2009

TechCrunch vs. Mashable Review – Part 2: Alexa, Quantcast & Content Comparison

If I were to ask you: Where do you usually go when looking to read web focused news and social media related stories and tips? The answer would probably be one of three: Mashable, TechCrunch or both!

In our first TechCrunch vs. Mashable review post, we compared and contrasted TechCrunch and Mashable in terms of general stats, interface & reviews. Here in part 2, we will be comparing these two sites in terms of Alexa and Quantcast stats and quality and type of content.

Google Trends: Mashable vs Techcrunch

Google Trends: Mashable vs TechCrunch

Mashable vs. TechCrunch on Alexa:

Through a short Alexa search, we were able to deduce the following differences between the two hard-headed opponents: Mashable & TechCrunch. Take a look:

With only a month’s head start for TechCrunch in 2005, it is undeniable that the competition is, and has been, overwhelming for our two “weblogs”!

Alexa’s TechCrunch.com’s traffic rank is 549, while Mashable.com’s traffic rank is 557 worldwide. According to Alexa’s ranking, TechCrunch and Mashable rank 212 and 218 accordingly in the US.

[read full article >>]

Older Posts »