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France. Lebanon. Iraq. Facebook.

Not many of you are going to like what I have to say, but I will say it. I am not here to argue or debate this, but welcome and acknowledge your points of difference, comments and opinions. Know from the outset I am reading them but will no longer engage.

Over the weekend we were all horrified to the attacks across the world by terrorists. Awful stuff. We all agree. Then something weird happened. Facebook activated their safety feature for Paris (only). They produced an overlay French flag (only) to allow people to update their profile pics. Western cities across the globe (mostly) started flying French flags lighting up their monuments in the tricolours of the French flag and news stations around the world dedicated 24 hour cycles of the attacks in Paris (mostly). Now here is where it got interesting. There was an outpouring of anger across the planet as to why western media or peoples were not dedicating monuments, news time, social media real estate to all countries outside of France. And to be frank, rightly so. I am 100% in agreement with a lot of this commentary. We are all in agreement that ALL terrorist attacks are equally horrifying.

Somehow from this – everyone started arguing, fighting and debating one another.

Mourning and grief are such deeply personal emotions, that it is from my perspective, very difficult to understand how two or more people would feel the exact same thing. Collectively we are sad, but your sadness is not the same as mine. It never will be. Some people’s sadness is reflective of their connection to the emotional event itself – over the weekend a lot more people felt more connected to Paris vs. anywhere in the Middle East because it is a place they have been / lived / experienced as opposed to countries like Syria or Lebanon of which all we know is what we hear on the news or through word of mouth. For me personally, someone with who’s family is a Christian minority deep within Iraq (Assyrian), I personally don’t know the Middle East – having lived in Australia – and western society all my life. Does that mean I feel any less for them or more for Parisians? No. If there was a Lebanese or Iraqi flag overlay would I put it on my profile? Absolutely.

Facebook took a step that I thought was interesting. They activated the ‘safety check’ feature for people in Paris, during the time of the terrorist attacks. Why was this not activated in the Middle East anywhere? Why choose a western society over others many asked? In Facebook’s defence, this feature has only ever been used for natural disasters. France was the first time it was used outside of a natural disaster. Facebook has recognised this and will now be using it for incidents outside natural disasters. But I guess that answers why. It was a first.

Facebook then took another interesting step of allowing people to update their profile pictures with an overlay of the French flag colours. Many people quickly adopted. As this happened, many others opposed. In one instance a well known blogger started calling readers ‘selective racists’ for adopting the French flag overlay. Others started calling for Facebook to build the Lebanese flag. Then the Syrian flag. Then the Kenyan flag. As mentioned, I am in agreement here – I think this was a mistake on Facebook’s behalf to build only one flag. It’s all or none here.

People didn’t have the option to choose anything more than the French flag, but the condemnation and judgement still came from others. Why not just let people be? Why not, allow people in a time of horror – feel as though they can connect globally with something, anything to help them process their own personal grief.

Recently Facebook added the LGBTIQ rainbow pride flag as an overlay and tens of millions around the world changed their profile. Yet, thinking like the above – we should have all been up in arms about overlaying the Trans* flag instead of the pride flag – as members of the Trans* community are many times worse off than LGB’s, as are middle-eastern people relative to Parisians when it comes to terrorism. Trans* people suffer higher suicide rates, higher unemployment, higher discrimination, higher violence, higher drug addictions – don’t get me wrong, I am in no way making comparisons of the LGBTIQ community with terrorists and the suffering they bring to many – rather just stating that when Facebook created their pride flag overlay – all those condemning Facebook for the French flag should have been beating their chest for the Trans* community. But we didn’t see that happen with the masses.

Coming back to the issue of terrorism. Let’s look at some data. For the period 2003 – 2015, here are the numbers of deceased due to terrorism related incidents (not counting the wounded):

France – 161+ deceased

Lebanon – 267 deceased

Iraq – 166,291 deceased

Note – I am not pitching these awful events against each other – each and everyone of these events is horrific, despicable and deplorable as any act of terrorism. There are many others, but I am highlighting these three in particular because for all those condemning others on Facebook for the Facebook French flag overlay not being a Lebanese flag, it sounds rather hypocritical that you would not choose to fight for the Iraqi flag instead. France is to Lebanon what Lebanon is to Iraq.

Someone asked me what I was doing about all of it myself yesterday, because I was calling people out on calling others ‘racists’. Many think pieces revolved around how we choose to concentrate on western societies and not others, yet for all the feelpinions none actually offered any solutions of links to how people could help.

Why not share articles of heroes from Lebanon like this man, who sacrificed himself to save many others?

Why not make your complaints about the safety feature directly to Facebook? They need this feedback to grow their products and tools

Why not hire a Facebook app developer or use an online tool to generate the flag of your choice, as I started to see people do?

Why not speak to your local member about your countries involvement in wars and economics with other nations?

Why not donate directly to charities to help civilians caught in these horrors? (France charities; Lebanon charities; Iraq charities; Syria charities to name a few)

The object of terrorism is to cause terror. Planes flying into buildings; bombs detonated in busy marketplace; mass shooting; missiles bringing passenger aircraft down; beheadings – the list goes on – we are terrified.

But we are not losing this war because of that. We are losing this war because ISIS and other terrorists now know how to divide us amongst each other. We reject refugees, our young men are detached from our societies so much they join the jihad and once friendly nations are on the brink of war with each other over this.At a time when we should all be united – we are fighting over Facebook profile pictures.

If only we could all see the world that Carl Sagan saw.

davidvkimball

And I mean that in more ways than one.

Not only is the percentage of internet browsing growing among mobile users, but websites themselves are optimizing their site’s layout to resemble more of a mobile app rather than the traditional website.

Facebook and LinkedIn, for example, now use a...

emergentfutures

cosmicrami

Your pattern of behaviour on Twitter can be defined by a simple “genotype” and used to predict your future behaviour, say network researchers.

buzzfeed

This makes my insides hurt. (via)

Three simple steps to stop social media broadcasters

Lately, my social media feeds have been flooded with lots of debates, discussions and images related to people’s personal views. I know what you are thinking – “Well duh?” But lately it has been a little extra than normal. Why? I can only pin it down to one reason – Australia’s oncoming and early called federal election.

The country is at fever pitch with opinions being shared and discussed online. Friends are battling friends, weak connections are aligning and supporting strong ties, establishing new relationships and people are picking fights where once they would have just turned away.

One of my friends, Josh, made a comment on Twitter recently that his feeds have become the political battlegrounds of his connections. The distressing views expressed in his rolling timeline collection of status updates, is revealing the true skeletons in the closet.

This is expected with the rise of social platforms giving people a pedestal to broadcast from. People want to express their frustrations and tribulations. People want to scream their ideas and examples from the rooftops. People want to be heard, and pick debates to get their points across.

And why shouldn’t they? After all, it is their wall. Their own digital real estate that they are contributing too.

What I told Josh, the same as I tell all my friends, clients and anyone who listens – you are in control of what you want to see in your feeds. There is no point complaining about it, when it can all end with a few clicks (see options below).

I like to always give the AM Radio analogy. You’re driving along. You have the radio on listening to AM talkback radio. You hear a topic by the host you find annoying and a stream of public calls, you find offensive. Do you shout at the radio to change the topic? Do you call into the radio station telling them you don’t appreciate it? No.

You choose to tune in. It is your choice to tune out. Change the channel or play a CD. You are responsible for your own social platforms, as you are for your own radio stations.

Here’s how you can do it:

Hide / Mute – Hide status updates on Facebook, or mute hashtags and users.

Block – If someone annoys you, block them. Most platforms allow this.

Delete – If they really annoy you, delete the connection from social media.

All of the above are self-managed strategies. If, as adults, we cannot understand how to use these – instead of throwing our toys out of the pram, kicking and screaming every time someone uses social media in the way they choose, then what hope do we have at all?

I say it’s time to face the facts and the reality – social media is a voice, a broadcasting channel and a microphone for many people and the topics they are passionate about. If you don’t like it – simply switch to another channel or stop listening.

As always, Share+ Enjoy.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami Google+: Rami Mandow LinkedIn: Rami Mandow Tumblr: CosmicRami Pinterest: Rami Mandow Instagram: @CosmicRami Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

futurescope

Disposable Drones Will Collect Data by Surfing Along with Hurricanes

From IEEE:

Hurricanes are generally things that robots, humans, and everything else try to avoid. It’s hard to study something, though, if you’re constantly getting out of its way. There are some aircraft that are specifically designed for hurricane study, but they’re big and expensive, and since they’re stuffed full of humans, they can’t do anything particularly risky. Such dangerous tasks are best left to robots, like this chubby little guy [$250] from the University of Florida. […]

[read more] [UFL]

cosmicrami

Excellent usage of robotics to gather natural disaster data

Will Video Kill The Photo Sharing Star On Social Media?

This morning, photo sharing platform Instagram, confirmed rumours that it has now made available video functionality with the inclusion of placing filters over footage. The 130 million member strong platform, which was purchased by Facebook for USD $1 billion, has responded to Twitter’s own growing short-length video sharing platform Vine. When Instagram was launched back in October 2010 social media was going through a mini revolution, with photo sharing sites being the ‘hot topic’ at the time. Now, with the new video functionality amongst Instagram and Vine, is the next step in evolution going to be the video explosion across social platforms? And how are businesses going to benefit from this?

There are some very small differences between the two major short-length video sharing platforms. The videos shared on Vine run for 6 seconds maximum, whilst Instagram runs for 15 seconds. Instagram also provides users with the ability to place a filter on the video. Both platforms allow stop-start filming.

Now with Facebook (Instagram) and Twitter (Vine) both utilising short-length videos, will other platforms also follow suit? Path the personal social network would benefit from it greatly, as some blogs will too (video functionality exists in blogs now). Google+, which already utilises GIFs and rich media, would also be wise to follow and offer its own indexed short-length video features, possibly as a spin-off on the YouTube App.

Businesses can certainly take advantage of the new functions, with short video promotions and adverts, engaging emotive content or even simple customer testimonials to name just a few ideas.

Of course with new functions, comes new risk. Most online platforms have to go through the ‘porn-test’ when first starting up, and video is the best medium for this. Vine went through it to. But beyond this, there is also risk to youth safety when it comes to online predatory behaviour, or toxic behaviour such as bullying – with video adding a whole new dimension. For businesses, the key risks are what people are now saying about your business using this video functionality? Did someone find a fly in their soup at your restaurant? Are members of your team harassing someone? Has someone had such bad service that they brag about it? All these risks can be delivered much more powerfully and virally - on video.

The new video features on social platforms will evolve with people developing mashup tools, researchers using them for social monitoring, activists using them to film their causes and the general public using them to share local news to a global audience.

So will video kill the photo sharing star? Not likely. People will still love sharing photos, but short-length videos will become more mainstream, especially as wearable technology like Google Glass becomes more available. Fast adopting businesses will place themselves in the lead by not only developing campaigns utilising these videos, but also place processes around monitoring and protecting their online reputation. Remember if a picture tells a thousand words, a video tells a million.

Have you used Vine or Instagram video as part of your business campaigns? If so, share the link below in the comments field, would love to see them! As always, Share+ Enjoy.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami Google+: Rami Mandow LinkedIn: Rami Mandow Tumblr: CosmicRami Pinterest: Rami Mandow Instagram: @CosmicRami Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

Is Innovation Slowly Dying In Social Media?

Yes.

And no.

Well, it’s not that simple.

Surely, we can all agree that after the mid-2000’s launch of most of the major social platforms we use today, we are well past the uphill drive when it comes to innovation. Today’s announcement of Facebook introducing hashtags is just that – these companies are almost at the point of saturation when it comes to innovation, so all they can do is now start to replicate functionality from competing sites. Or purchase functionality through billion-dollar acquisition deals.

The platforms, in my opinion, are starting to level out as they reach the top of their apex.

However, this ‘flatness’ in innovation I can only, and fairly, limit to functionality based within the social platforms.

Others areas of innovation are growing rapidly in the tech world, driving business in civilian, military and commercial industries.

Take for example the rise in drones and their usage for both military operations and commercial requirements (Dominos is testing drone delivery).

The rise in robotics, in health and safety (such as robots that help map fires) to Robots making up part of your home cleaning team (such as the iRobot pool cleaner) is also another area where innovation seems to be rapidly advancing.

Even more so is innovation that is starting to become a hot topic now – wearable technology, such as Google Glass or the rumoured Apple Smartwatch.

Let’s also not forget the big buzz out there at the moment, 3D printing ….. which basically speaks for itself when it comes to innovation.

And then of course, there is the Internet of Things, which is the next natural step of evolution of the way we will all eventually use the web.

So where are the social media platforms in all of this technology revolution? Hopefully busy innovating ways to incorporate some of the above technology into their services. Apps, once destined for smartphones in the mobile-net revolution, will now need to be tailored for wearable technology like Google Glass. Streamlined connections that link social platforms directly to the internet of things, should be another area that social platforms should be developing – imagine being able to purchase products through social platforms that can be printed on your own 3D printer. This future is not too far from now.

However in all of this, it has been an observation over the last year or two that nothing that comes from any of the social media platforms has had the WOW factor attached to it.

Maybe innovation saturation point has been reached?

As always, Share+ Enjoy.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami Google+: Rami Mandow LinkedIn: Rami Mandow Tumblr: CosmicRami Pinterest: Rami Mandow Instagram: @CosmicRami Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

tomemrich

12 Technologies That Are Improving at Insane Speeds

Business Insider published this graphic as part of an article they did summarizing the McKinsey report which featured disruptive technologies that are impacting the global economy.

Benefits of Google+ for business

I’m going to go out on a limb here. I actually like Google+. There, I said it. It’s out there and I can’t ever take it back. For me the platform provides a rich media outlet where images are not static, they are dynamic. Videos are linked very easily to YouTube. The ability for community managers to administer multiple pages from the one account. Hangouts working better than Skype these days. It simply ticks all the boxes for me. But as I said, this is a personal choice.

The question is – should businesses be using Google+?

The answer – yes if you have the time (or an internal / external community manager)

Benefits of Google+ for business

Growing Platform – Whilst Google+ does not have the popularity of Facebook, it does have a fast growing member base. As at April 2012 Google+ had 170 million active users and expected to attract about 400 million users by the end of this year. (Source)

Development – Google+ is a young social network, and still has opportunity to roll out functionality / services that will benefit business. Being tied into the world’s most powerful search engine, these opportunities may place early adopters with an advantage.

Indexing – Google+ posts and a Google+ business page is going to be found by people using Google a lot faster and easier, after all when in Rome, erm – Google.

Functions – Google+ has given us lots of great functionality for business use. Hangouts for video conferencing, linking dynamic media such as animated GIFs, Images that are indexed into search, circles which helps your business segment your stakeholders and the +1 button that is now all over the web.

Customer Service – you can use Google+ to help provide customer services via video conferencing (hangouts) or online social conversation. Creating circles for your High Net Worth clients and your new prospects helps you provide the correct level of service to each of these stakeholders separately.

Community – Google+ is mostly made up of a male population with a high number of software developers and college students. There is opportunity here to tap into these two markets for your business directly

Overall I have been using Google+ since it first came out, and found that just by sharing content from my site, links back to my site and social media posts my PageRank has increased by a factor of two. And I have never paid a single cent for SEO.

I truly believe that Google+ is underrated and should be explored more by SMBs as a useful tool that you will grow to love. The key here is to keep using it, and interacting. Put the effort into Google+ and you will reap the rewards.

As always, Share+ Enjoy.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami Google+: Rami Mandow LinkedIn: Rami Mandow Tumblr: CosmicRami Pinterest: Rami Mandow Instagram: @CosmicRami Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

cosmicvillage-blog

Remember the good ol’ days where business owners would invest X amount of dollars in a campaign, then measure its success by taking X away from the sales that campaign generated?

Well, those days have now past us, and are as old as Henry Ford’s product approach. We now live in a world, where...

Social Influence is in your tribe, not Klout.

Many social media users have been joining sites such as Klout and Kred to distinguish their social media influence. But what exactly is social media influence? What is implied by the term influence when dealing with online relationships?

Social media influence involves at the very minimum two parties: The influencer and the person being influenced. As the relationship of trust in content, trust in personality and trust in credibility build over time, the person being influenced grows more attune with the influencer. The result is that content delivered by the influencer is then shared with the network of the person who is being influenced.

This further builds the engagement and interaction within the relationship and fortifies trust. The key here is the content, as it is the source of all credibility. If there is no content, then influence is merely an empty shell. There are numerous people on my social media streams who continually provide +K’s to their colleagues and tweet the +K’s they have received about Klout! And yet, not a single blog has ever been written by these people. Others claim to be ‘social media gurus’ and yet there is no content that they generate – simply a barrage of mashable retweets. Where I ask, is the influence in this?

Social media users have access to numerous ‘Social Influence’ ranking sites – which help quantify and measure a person’s influence among their network. These sites are: Klout, Kred, PostRank, Twentyfeet, PeerIndex, Empire Avenue, Sprout Social, Crowdbooster, Twylah, My Web Career and Appinions. Clearly, there is no shortage of measuring one’s online social ego.

Many times I have mentioned to my clients and online friends that these sites are great to gauge some level of feedback, but should also be taken with a grain of salt. These are not the be all and end all of where you rank in the social media food chain nor should they be used to make bolstering statements about your ‘guru-ness’ in social.

The real social influence on business (and in social media) comes from your tribe. Your network of people who find your content influential enough to read, comment, argue, share and promote for you. These can be both strong and weak ties in the world of social, but these guys are the people who take the time understand the bigger picture of what you are trying to achieve, and agree with your model holistically enough to understand that their input (into your content) and output (shared with their network) has a resourceful value to the greater goal you are aiming for.

One such company that has captured this model, and successfully built a platform to implement it is Social Chorus. A cloud based software, Social Chorus allows members to directly measure the result of their influencers through brand advocacy, ROI and scale that is big enough to capture the whole downstream flow into the net.

What Social Chorus do that is so right is that they have developed the pro-active step of recruiting your influencer network (opt-in) and reduced the chaos and confusion that comes with manual outreach programs. Personally, I don’t work for Social Chorus, but have reviewed their product and had the pleasure of having Skype conversations with members of their team who have helped me understand a much more meaningful value of social influence over other platforms.

To give you an example of how I implemented this new knowledge into a foundation I developed recently, we used our social influence and tribe to influence the public about the premier of the powerful documentary BULLY. Once again, the key here is the content – the film itself. We tapped into our niche audience (we are an anti-bullying foundation) but used our influential members within our tribe (celebrities, key twitter persons, passionate sharers) to help distribute the message that we were screening the film. The result – we sold out. Twice.

So my tip for social media influence is not to simply use services such as Klout because you want to have clout within social media, but really find the people who your content, messages and branding works for – engage with them and build the relationship from a weak tie to a strong tie. Soon enough, these guys will become your most powerful distribution network. However, never lose sight or respect as to why they continue to help spread your content – and continually feed them with what it is they love – your content which they connected with in the first place.

Then, feel free to give them a +K as a simple thank you gesture for their efforts. Or even better, become an person who is influenced by their content and reward them for their topics that you helped share with the world. Circle of Life complete.

Social Media + Mobile Highlights: Sensis E-Business Report 2012

Sensis have issued the 2012 e-business report, and it’s full of interesting trends in the social and mobile spaces. CosmicVillage has been following these reports over the last 5 years which have reflected the increase in Social and Mobile activity in SME (Small-Medium Enterprises). Five years is not a very long time for the amount of change SMEs have had to endure, but this is the pace of technological change – and as such it’s adapt or suffer for most SMEs.

Below are a few highlights from the report with a commentary (the full report link is placed at the end).

SMB Social Media Presence

All SMEs showed a 9% increase in having a social media presence, with Facebook being the primary social networking site of choice.

Impact of Social Media

Many businesses fear using Social Media and with the recent ruling that Facebook pages can now become legal minefields, I have heard many businesses question using social media. However, the Sensis report shows that there is 50% likelihood of positive or zero impact vs. a 2% chance of negative impact.

Advertising in Social + Mobile

SMEs are now dedicating a portion of their advertising budgets to Social Media and Mobile, with almost 1/5 of advertising budget dedicated to Social Media.

Digital Strategies

SMEs are now incorporating both Social Media and Mobile into their digital media strategies. Not surprisingly, Mobile remains higher than Social Media as was the case in 2011. This may be due to SMEs recognising the shift from web to mobile based services and the development of apps.

Apps

SMEs are still reluctant to develop applications for their business, even though they recognise the importance of Mobile. This was a rather surprising result and could be due to the high cost of application development and lack of knowledge from a SMEs perspective. Apple of course dominated the application market, however another surprise was the low rate of tablet applications being developed.

Internet Access Preference

The report indicates a growing trend that Australians are now accessing the internet through their mobile devices with over 55% of respondents affirming this.

Mobile Usage by Age

The majority of all respondents across all age demographics are now using mobile phones to access the internet, reflecting that we have now definitely moved into the mobile web and use it as a form of keeping connected at work, home and whilst out.

Social Network Usage by Age

Social networks are now also being accessed by all age groups with obvious results for Gen Y and under demographics, but also a large and growing portion of 50+ Social Networking users.

Frequency of using Social Networks

Two thirds of all respondents surveyed admitted to using Social Networks more than once per day, and 59% responding with at least once per day, indicating that we use our social networks to communicate and keep up with the latest news from our circles.

For the full report click HERE.

As always, please share + enjoy!

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami Google+: Rami Mandow LinkedIn: Rami Mandow Tumblr: CosmicRami Pinterest: Rami Mandow Instagram: @CosmicRami Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

From Cash To Mobile: How Our Payment Methods Are Changing

This week an agreement between international coffee giant Starbucks and mobile payment facility square was announced with what technology analysts are saying will be the start of a ‘seismic shift’ away from cash.

Square is a mobile payment service which allows users to facilitate transactions using their mobile phones, either by utilising the app or by attaching a square reader to the phone itself.

The deal with Starbucks is significant because Starbucks is a huge international player, and opens the door for Square Inc. to expand into international markets. This has the potential to revolutionise the way we make our payments and could kick-start international growth for mobile payment facilities.

It’s interesting to look back and see how our payments systems have evolved with our technology.

Before the digital revolution, cash was always king, being accepted everywhere around the world as forms of currency. The introduction of credit cards then changed things with the need to carry cash reducing as a simple small piece of plastic meant that we could sign or swipe for our goods and services.

Next came the e-commerce / web shop facility and consumers simply could shop from the comfort of their own home for products that could be accessed from anywhere in the world.

Now we are seeing the next step in payment evolution. As the social media and mobile revolution drives us into using our mobile smart devices and away from the familiar desktops, businesses around the world are catching up with consumers and tapping into the mobile market for point-of-sale revenue capture. With ever less effort, businesses are allowing their customers to streamline this payment method that is both convenient and self-service reliant, which in turn increases efficiency and trust from the customers perspective.

Social media is also starting to emerge as a payment facility, with current social networks integrating their platforms with financial institutions. Once such example is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Kaching payment facility which allows registered users to pay their Facebook friends by linking their bank account to their Facebook account.

Even our phones themselves, with the assistance of applications, are slowing turning into our wallets replacing credit and debit cards. One such example is Google Wallet.

As new technology, such as Social TV, begins to gain momentum – mobile payment facilitation will become as normal as online transactions across many industries. Businesses who embrace this technology as early adopters will more than likely stand ahead of their competitors whom lag behind, just as we saw occur with early and late adopting businesses when it came to social media.

Consumers – are you comfortable using mobile payment systems?

Businesses – will you embrace this new technology early, or wait for it to become more established?

As always, please share + enjoy!

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami Google+: Rami Mandow LinkedIn: Rami Mandow Tumblr: CosmicRami Pinterest: Rami Mandow Instagram: @CosmicRami Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

PATH Upgrade Makes Mobile More Social!

At the beginning of 2012, I wrote about a new mobile social networking site called Path. Since then Path has grown in user numbers significantly, with a majority of my network of friends alone jumping onto the app.

The beauty behind Path not only resides within is multiple platform features and functionality (it’s a music player/store; it’s a phone camera with filters; it enables check-in and tagging; it can push updates through to other social networks) but also that Path is becoming what the new representation of personal social networking will look like – a more niche and limited network of connected friends and a social network based purely on a mobile platform.

These two factors are very important as we start to see a decline in growth in web based social networks (excluding micro-blogging sites) and a trend towards more visually stimulated content through mobile platforms (e.g. Instagram, Pinterest, Viddy).

Path has recently released their latest update, version 2.5 with a few new features:

Personal Content – Path users currently have the ability to share what music they are listening to, and now will also have the ability to share what books they are reading and what movies they are watching. The books we read, and films we watch are rather personal choices which in turn helps drive that core personal social networking within the platform as our connections engage with these content drivers. Book data is pulled from iBooks whilst Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster integrate into our movie selections.

Personal Engagement – To help users keep the network active, Path has introduced a couple of new features to ensure your community self-polices users who have become stagnant. With a new ‘nudge’ feature, similar to the Facebook poke, users can now remind people in their networks that they should come back to Path and share content on the network. User’s friend lists now provide details of when each connection was last on Path, but then also go on further to allow each user to send a ‘quick update’ request to the people in their networks by requesting to: (i) Take a photo (ii) Provide location; and (iii) request their current status.

Additional Filters – Path’s Instagram like photo filters have now also been upgraded with four additional features to allow users to capture their ‘moments’ and share this with their networks. The new functions available are Glow, Depth, Zoom and Cropping of images.

Overall, Path is simply heading in the right direction of ensure its customers are provided with necessary tools to make social networking more personal, and more efficient using smartphones.

How often do you use Path? Religiously or hardly ever?

As always, please share + enjoy!

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami Google+: Rami Mandow LinkedIn: Rami Mandow Tumblr: CosmicRami Pinterest: Rami Mandow Instagram: @CosmicRami Website: www.cosmicvillage.net

Kaliido (formerly Gay Mecca) Review

I am a lover of technology. Especially when it comes to Social Technology. I am also a lover of watching technology connect people for the purpose that it does: Relationships, Activities, Food, Revolutions, Networking the list simply goes on.

Originally from a financial / analytical background I now dwell in Social Media circles enjoying the professionalism that has emerged in this industry over the last few years. Rapid change is something that I am use to, and to stay ahead – we must always be connected to our technology. You may not want to agree with me, but we are very reliant on the technology that surrounds us to keep up with our connections (How many times do you check your phone during dinner or your favourite show?)

I am also a gay male (partnered) who is interested in networking professionally with other LGBTIQ business owners.

And here is where Kaliido comes into the equation.

I’ve had the privilege of being one of the first people to review Kaliido and introduce it to you and the world. The name was recently changed from Gay Mecca to be more suitable and inclusive. I like the name Kaliido … it’s a great way to think of this platform – like a kalideoscope – one that you look into and lots of colours are present all working together to form beautiful fractal shapes.

Kaliido is an online space where gay men can interact and engage with each other (plans for both Lesbian and Transgender are being briefed already). No, this is not Grindr. There is no sex facilitated on the site. Nor is this Facebook, LinkedIn or E-Harmony. This is simply a platform where gay men can interact, engage and build meaningful relationships.

Like most features of a Social Network – users have the same functions they would in their everyday social networking, the wheel here has not been reinvented. The ability to ‘like’ and ‘comment’, the ability to play music and answer polls, the ability to join groups or create events, and of course the ability to upload and share photo and video content. However, the unique angle that Kaliido is coming from is that it is all there for Gay Males.

In my preliminary review, I thought to myself that there was no way that this platform would not become another Gaydar or Grindr. But it’s not. The platform rules stipulate that there is to be no nudity or exchange of nude images. Not even shirtless ones. And why would you want to? Surely the gay community deserves one home on the web (or mobile web) that is not going to be another pick up site.

Then I thought, what’s the point of this platform – after all, it’s just another Social Network I have to maintain. This is true. But how many social networks are solely dedicated to the niche I fall under in my local community? Gay Professional Male living in Surry Hills, looking for like-minded business owners and entrepreneurs to network, build business relations and collaborate on future projects. Not your typical Grindr ‘about me’ bio.

That’s not to say that romance is dead. Digital is the new nightclub, and we’re all going in there to hang out every night. So there’s nothing wrong with meeting new people (safely) online. Kaliido’s approach to this is based around who you are, and who you might be compatible with. Shared interests, activities and even using ‘personality matching’ to help you match with other guys who are into the same things you are – as I said, meaningful relationships. Then you simply take it offline and let it flourish in any way you like (ok, now you can have the sex).

Currently being rolled out on the Ning Platform as a social website to gather community interaction, Kaliido will soon be rolled into its own platform as it expands beyond Social to Professional and Personal (still not sex involved!).

My favourite feature of Kaliido is that it is an open source platform for developers. As the world rapidly advances into the mobile realm, apps are the new tools that help us collate and stream the info that we need and want. Imagine building an app for your business that will be available to be targeted directly at demographics such as Male, 18-24, Gay, Surry Hills, University Education, Digital Savvy, Rock-climber …. niche markets are focused with laser accuracy and targeted advertising blossoms more ROI for your business. And that’s just one way of looking at it!

Kaliido’s future plans include building a social commerce platform of engagement based around your likes, wants and needs. Not around what advertisers send your way. You control what you see, without the hoops that other platforms make you jump through. Your information is in a closed private network and not used as a commodity that Kaliido sells to business, like, erm …. That book.

So as a male who loves social technology, a self-declared hyper-connected gay living in Sydney – Kaliido gives me a new look at how I can reconnected with my community, without the pressures of sex and dating and allows me to tap into a very affluent market of which any business owner would be silly to miss.

I know there are many of you out there who can relate. Join the pilgrimage. See you on Kaliido!

Please Share + Enjoy,

Rami Mandow

CEO – CosmicVillage.net Chairman – The Community Brave Foundation

Disclosure – After writing this post I have been offered and accepted the role of Chief Operating Officer at Kaliido. This post however is being released under my independent profile, before Kaliido is launched.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

Tumblr: CosmicRami

Review: community engine Platform

There has always been a bit of a gap between Social Media & Selling through Social Media. Too many in the industry, to do both together is somewhat a bit of a taboo. But as Social Networks grow and flourish with users (Customers), businesses must learn to adapt to this market and have the ability to be able to not only use these platforms as a form of communication, but to monetize them.

Many people will read the above paragraph and think, “Social Media is not for sales” and simply not read on. However, we are fast entering a phase of Social Media where Social Commerce will become just as important as the media itself. Look around, we are already moving into a world where Mobile Wallets are being used, Social Media data is used for targeted advertising and big players like Amazon, Facebook and Google have implemented their own commerce facilities.

Recently, I was invited (and happily accepted) to participate in the beta release of a new Social Commerce Platform, called community engine.

What struck me first about this platform was the beauty of all being about me. If I wanted to follow a business, I would see its offers and notices. This has a deep connection with consumers such as myself, because frankly, I tune out to all the white noise online and only watch, listen, see, read and engage with the content that is relevant to me.

Coming from the world of Social Media & operating a Social Media company, I have used many platforms in my day to day activities. My phone has 32 Social Media related apps that I use at least once per day for both business and pleasure. But community engine seems to link all the pieces of the puzzle together in a perfect symphony that appeals to every one of my Social Media Receptors as a Consumer and a small business owner.

For the small business side – I am able to create my own piece of real estate on community engine and explain everything about my business. Surely this feature is available on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ but it is only on community engine that you are able to integrate this with a sense of Community amongst other businesses in your network. Be that current stakeholders or new invitees!

In fact you can build a community from scratch around your business, by creating the space and sending out invites. There is no intrusive ‘adding to a group’ feature like Facebook, or the constant begging of people to follow your business profile like that on LinkedIn. A simple email is delivered to the recipient and if it is in line with their interest, they accept and become part of your Community.

Think that none of your customers will want to visit yet another Social Platform? Here is where community engine has made it very simple. Import your existing mailing lists / database into community engine and the invite is sent automatically to them. Such simplicity derives such beauty in the connections we need to make but struggle to find the time to do so in our daily activities.

community engine is not like a Facebook page where you can leave a post and your fans have to visit the page or see the post in the active news feed to interact with. No. community engine offers a real-time communication network with your community, your members through the usage of the noticeboard and newswire.

The newswire behaves like a status feed of all your connections recommendations and posts – be that news, a special offer or a notice. The left hand column provides a chronological history of real social qualitative data that your network has communicated – this ticks the first box because it reduces the white noise of everything else you really do not want to read about. The right hand column still gently reminds us that we are part of a network of businesses that have products / services we are interested in – deals, offers and promotions in an easy to digest presentation.

The Noticeboard, which behaves much like a Pinterest exploration tab, gives the user an overall easy to scan view of all the output the communities they follow have shared on community engine. This helps me as a time limited business owner to review visually the right information I need to make that engagement possible. No fluff, no time wasting.

To make this platform even more social, each business can claim their own business (most are already preloaded for you) and use the platform to customise their profiles, message, receive feedback and obtain recommendations from customers, in addition to the general social media buttons we have grown custom too (‘Like’ & ‘Recommend’). This completes the circle of Social Interaction between business and Customer. A direct social channel to help all forms of communication is now open through the community engine Platform.

And if you think all this has nothing to do with Social Commerce – community engine once again integrates the perfect facilitation of transactions between business and customer. The platform contains an online payment facility driving the customer to purchase from the business (through community engine) with the click of a few buttons. In the past many companies have struggled to obtain a merchant facility that can help drive this revenue back from the digital platforms into the ledger books. In fact attempting to obtain a merchant facility can prove to be bigger than Ben Hur these days. But the community engine platform has just revolutionised this with one quick step that when linked to offers and promotions. These purchases are based on offers directly created by the business and not based around the terms of a deals conglomerate (e.g. expiry date, limitations) with the intent on making a quick dollar.

Sure these might be a special offer, but as they are not created to be sold on mass, they won’t create a negative experience. If a business has a special deal to place, it places it directly, and within a 1 week turnaround time, Community Engine facilitates a smooth payment transition between business & customers. Goodbye Groupon. Hello respectful Social Commerce.

Thus there are many features that businesses can use on the community engine platform that help make life for business owners, in one word, simple. Yes as a business owner, it’s my favourite word to hear on a daily basis too.

As a consumer, I can tell you that these features are so in line with what I want. I don’t want to be harassed by business in any way, shape or form. This includes my Social Media newsfeeds being flooded with constant invaluable information or selling from companies. I don’t want to have to go through a middle man such as the Daily Deals companies where I may or may not receive the end product with ridiculous clauses and restrictions. I don’t want to have to scroll through a never ending feed of jargon that doesn’t apply to me.

I simply want to glance over the things I’m interested in, have special offers capture my attention, communicate with the communities I’m interested in (on my own terms) and use Social Media in my own way. After all, this is also my piece of digital real estate. I am your customer, but I am not just another statistic on your social metrics.

Speaking as a Social Media professional and as an everyday customer, community engine offers an extraordinary experience that feels respectful of my needs and wants. It has bridged the gap between Social Media, Social Commerce and the customer in a way that allows Social Media to be used as a selling tool without having to do the selling.

Most importantly for me, it opens up the doors to small business owners around the country to a new tool that allows them to harness the power of Social Media to something more than a communication channel. And teaches our customers that they are the biggest influencers and assets our businesses will always have.

Simple.

As always, Share + Enjoy.

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