One of the parts of the Facebook “highlighted” story listings that I haven’t liked is having to scroll through all of them to find the newest stories posted. Sure, Facebook does a pretty nice job trying to figure out the stories I would like to read most, but I still like to know what’s the newest coming down the pike.

Now they finally give you the option to switch them around. Whereas the highlighted stories were always on top of your stream, now you can choose either to keep it that way or to place the newest stories at the top.

For me, it may just depend on the day so I’ll probably be switching back and forth quite a bit. Thanks, Facebook, for the choice!

As you know, Timmyjohnboy.com has a Facebook page.  That means you can “like” us on Facebook, receive updates in your news stream and interact and comment on posts and stuff.  Well, Facebook has come out with a much needed upgrade (read the announcement for yourself).  Let’s go through a few of them, and perhaps you’ll see why I’m a bit excited about it.

First, I am excited that I can now be notified when someone comments on a post.  Why in the world Facebook hasn’t had that earlier I’ll never know.  It’s pretty annoying having to scour my Facebook page every so often just to see if there’s any kind of interaction.  

Next, I can now comment on other pages using my Facebook page instead of my regular Facebook account.  Why does that matter?  It just helps spread the word about my Facebook page, that’s all.  If you’re into blogging, you know one task that every blogger ought to be into is interacting on other blogs linking back to your own.  There’s community interaction there because you’re identifying yourself with your blog.  Now I can identify myself on Facebook pages with my Facebook page.

Finally there is the new row of photos along the top, similar to the new profile design makeover everyone else received.  I have yet to modify my photos there and am not sure quite yet as to what I will be doing with the space, but I’m sure it will be something cool.

Anyway, what do you think of the changes to Facebook pages?

I couldn’t believe it when I caught a glimpse of the newspaper article.  Apparently the Utica Police Department has entered into the age of new media.  They’re all hooked up with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and they’re actually using them to their advantage!

You see, they are trying to connect with the community where they’re already at.  The question is, how are they leveraging their social media presence?  I’d like to take a look at what they’re doing and hopefully answer that question.

Facebook

Looking at the City of Utica, NY Police Department’s Facebook page, I see postings about incidents that they need help finding out information.  They’re posting pictures and videos hoping someone sees them and can remember something to help them in their investigations.  Facebook is a good place because it is easy to post stuff like that and people can easily leave comments or even cal the phone number being listed.

Beyond having the ability to contact the Utica PD, users can comment on the postings, sharing thoughts and opinions.

This turns out to give the police department several positives.  First, they have a method to reach out to many people to find much needed information on cases they’re trying to solve.  Also, they are more intimately connecting with the community by giving them a forum to express themselves.

YouTube

The Utica Police Department is using YouTube to post footage of crimes they are looking for information on.  Seems like an obvious use, right?  The question one may ask is why they’d need YouTube if they could just upload video to Facebook?  As it turns out, once they upload the videos to YouTube, they embed them on Facebook anyhow.  I think doing it this way can enable them to reach communities on Facebook and YouTube.  A kind of cross-pollination.

Twitter

Since they are new on YouTube and Twitter, their Twitter following is still quite small.  What they are doing on Twitter is posting updates for the other two sites.  This way, if you are more of a Twitter user, you can keep up with what’s going on and you’ll be notified of pictures posted on Facebook and videos on YouTube.  I am not sure of how popular Twitter is in Utica, but I suppose the police department will find out soon.

So there you have it.  The Utica Police Department has a social media strategy.  It’s currently fairly new but it’s encouraging to see a police station entering into the social media realm and try to connect with those they are serving.

Instead of being busily invested in writing a post tonight I decided to work on a project I’ve been putting off for some time: finishing the fan page for Timmyjohnboy.com and adding a few Facebook related WordPress plugins to connect the two. Finally, the implementation is complete (I hope it won’t need too much tweaking)! Let me go into the details of the relationship between the blog and Facebook.

I finally created a Facebook fan page

There are some differences between Facebook profiles and Facebook fan pages that I wanted to take advantage of.  For instance, the only times I really post links to blog posts on my Facebook profile is when I think my friends there may be interested (or in need of) the topic written about.  You see, most of my friends on Facebook are personal friends and family, not really a niche audience.  Now with a fan page, anyone on Facebook can “like” or follow it and I can post any blog-related updates there I want to.

If you “like” the fan page, updates to the Timmyjohnboy.com fan page will show up in your news stream.  For many people this is the ideal way to keep up with a blog.  I hope it helps.  Feel free to check out the fan page.  Soon I will also add a link in the sidebar.

You can now easily “like” individual posts

This “like” thing is still a bit weird to me but it is what it is.  When you “like” an article on Timmyjohnboy.com, you are affectively sharing it with your friends on Facebook.  This is cool in a few cool ways.  First, if an article is particularly interesting to you, or you think it will be to your friends, it is a mad simple way to share it.  Secondly, sharing my writing with your Facebook friends helps spread the word about this site and all of it’s delicious wonderful goodness (overboard?).  You will find the “like” buttons at the beginning and end of each post.

Timmyjohnboy.com updates are automatically posted on the Facebook fan page

I’m not meaning to duplicate what I said in the first point but add to it.  If you decide to “like” Timmyjohnboy.com’s fan page, you will receive the updates in your news feed (I know I know, I said that already, bear with me).  This is noteworthy because it actually took a bit of work to make it happen.  You’d think Facebook would make it easy, like, just add an RSS feed someplace while setting up a fan page, but, alas, Facebook has decided to conspire with everything else in life to teach me patience.  I finally ran into the Wordbooker plugin and hopefully it works out well.

Consider this an announcement post and “like” it to share the announcement with your friends.  Realize that the fan page is new so there isn’t much there yet but there will be.  Oh, and don’t forget to check out the fan page and “like” it.

Disclaimer: I know the conclusion I come to in this article is a subject that many people disagree on.  I also understand that many of my own readers may vehemently disagree with me on the issue.  Believe it or not, I’m OK with that.  I’m even OK if you want to discuss it in the comments.  All I ask is that you keep it civil, on subject, and absent of vulgarity.  Actually, these are good rules to follow if you want your comments accepted anywhere on this site.

I am not a parent nor do I pretend to be an expert on the subject of parenting. I do however know a bit about computers, the Internet and yes even Facebook.  You have to realize that there are real dangers in the online world and what I have seen first hand is a lack of understanding these dangers on the part of quite a few youngsters and perhaps even their parents.

What I would like to share with you in this post are several safety blunders I have personally seen children and teens make on Facebook.

1.  Young people are being irresponsible about who they choose as friends.

Do me a favor and ask a teen if they know all of the people who happen to be their friends on Facebook.  I’ve asked a few and almost every one of them gave me the same answer.  If you know anything about staying safe online, you know you ought to know your friends in social networks.  Many young people don’t see the danger of not following this rule of thumb and often befriend people they don’t know, whether they are friends of friends or total strangers altogether.  That’s danger one: befriending strangers.

There is also the danger of befriending bad friends. OK, let me have it.  ”My kids would never make bad friends.”  Or “My kids should have the freedom to make their own choices.”  I’ve heard them both.  I am of the belief that while they are under your roof and you are responsible for their actions, you’d better be concerned about who your kids are hanging out with.  As they are growing you need to be INTIMATELY involved in directing them in their choices.  Oh, and yes, your kids do make mistakes.  Just so you know

2.  Young people are being irresponsible with personal information.

I constantly see young people sharing personal information on Facebook.  I can’t tell you how many cell phone numbers I’ve seen pass by my stream of updates.  I’ve even seen addresses shared, right there as a public status update.  This, especially coupled with the first mistake on this list, could have all kinds of dangerous implications.

By the way, they’re not only sharing their own personal information, but other people’s too.  Sounds weird but I’ve seen it.

The rule here is, even if you are careful with who you choose to befriend, you must also share information as if the whole world can see it.  This means being extremely cautious as to what personal information you share.

3.  Young people are being irresponsible in how they communicate.

Have you taught your children how to communicate with others?  Good.  Take a look at how they interact with other people online for the whole world to see.  What kind of language do they use (including those acronyms)?  Are they abusive with their online speech?  Are they being abused by others?  Who are they talking about behind the back?  If you aren’t concerned, you ought to be.

You might be saying to yourself, “But I am one of their friends on there so I can see what they are saying.”  Don’t be fooled.  Facebook has given users so much flexibility in how they share information.  They can actually set an update so that certain people can be blocked from seeing it.  This means that you can see everything that is said except these messages.

My point is simple.

While you are responsible for your children, you need to be more involved in their online lives.  As difficult as it may turn out to be, this means you need full access to their Facebook accounts.  You should have a relationship where they know you have access and that it is because you love them.

It is with this conclusion that many people will probably argue. “Shouldn’t you trust your own kids?”  Well, yes and no.  You need to be responsible for them.  ”Don’t my kids have the right to their privacy?”  Not while you are responsible for their actions.  It’s your job to keep them safe from harm and to train them up into the adults of the future.  Feel free to give them the freedom of a Facebook account but only if you are ready to take responsibility for them.

That’s my take on the subject.  What say you?

I love blogging and I love my readers.  It seems the more I get into it, the more I enjoy interacting with new and interesting people who are interested in similar topics as I am.  I like when someone has something to say in the comments of one of my posts.  I don’t even mind if they’d rather comment via Twitter or Facebook, as long as they are interested enough in my writing that they step out and engage in the conversation.

Yes, that is one of the purposes of blogging, conversation.  Conversation and community.  I have a target audience I am attempting to reach here on Timmyjohnboy.com and when I hear from readers I know there is some kind of connection being made.

All that being said, one of my goals is to engage more local readers.  Of course I love the rest of y’all.  I find it interesting and gratifying that people from as far as Australia and South Korea have stopped by.  Even those across the states have added much to the community here.  Oh, and yes there are even those of you who have been my friends since before Timmyjohnboy.com, whether you be from college or elsewhere you are all loved.  Just one of my goals is to reach locals, too.

I asked an expert in the area of social media and online engagement (Chris Brogan) in a recent Twitter chat how I can better reach a local audience and he had good advice.  He said to go from offline to online or physical to digital.  To tell the truth, I forget exactly how he said it, but the gist was to start with fliers and business cards, etc. directing towards the online interaction.  That’s some good advice if you ask me.

Is this something I have achieved quite yet?  Not really but I will begin soon to act on what I’ve been taught.  It does bring something interesting to mind though.  This age is funny because reaching people right now can be tricky.  We have the digital age and all of the improvements of the Internet and web 2.0 and social media but if you think every single person on earth is caught up to today’s technology you’ve got your head screwed on wrong.  That was mean.  I’m sorry.

My point is that in communicating, marketing and even ministry outreach, we are challenged to meet people where they are.  It seems there are categories of people in my life that prefer being communicated with in different ways.  For instance, some prefer email, some a phone call, some face to face, and still some prefer Facebook or even Twitter.  The same goes with business communication and even advertising.  Are you looking for a job?  You now have to research how the company doing the hiring prefers to communicate.  You almost need to master a plethora of communication mediums.

The topic even recently came up when Facebook came out with yet another announcement.  They’re cooking up another messaging system.  They say that young people want something quicker than email to communicate with.  Quicker than email?  I’m not sure what to think about it other than this world will never stop morphing until it comes to an end.

What should we do then?  Become masters of communicating on many levels with many mediums.  If you need an advertising agency, you’ll need one versed in the art of mixed media.  Or you can do what I’m planning on doing and do some guerrilla marketing of your own.

More about my plans?

I am learning as I am going but a few things I am pondering attempting are:

• Finding (or writing more) pillar articles that would make good tip sheets that I can post around as fliers (or even swag such as T’s or mousepads, but they cost $).
• Developing relationships with some local business people. There’s a computer guy or two in the area that I am getting to know better and I am finding ways that we can help each other.  I’ll see where else I can reach out in the local business community.
• Developing relationships with local people in general. As people I know realize that I even have a blog (and come to terms with what a blog is) and they come to me for tech-related issues, I develop a sort of local “authority” in my niche.  Along the same lines, I’ve considered hosting some free blogging or computer classes in the local library.
• Entering the local media scene. I’m still working on my strategy here.  I’m pondering attempting to get an article or two published in local papers to get the word out about my blog.

All of this to become a local authority and a “turn to” guy.  We’ll see how it goes.  Anyone with any tips could be a help to me  Share in the comments!

As you may know, I’ve written about HootSuite before, mainly during my staff-days over at MakeUseOf.com. HootSuite is one of those tools I decided to write about not just because it is so helpful, but also because I had come to use and love it myself. It is a personal favorite and I had personal experience with it.  Many of the articles I’ve written on HootSuite are linked to when I mentioned HootSuite’s blog linking to a few of them.

Why do I love HootSuite so much?  You may be able to tell by reading some of my articles on MUO, but I’ll freshen up your memory for you (because I’m such a nice guy):

1. It’s web based. his is very important for me because I highly dislike installing bunches of programs on my computer.  I also like access in the same or similar manner on any computer I find myself sitting at.  Web based tools allow this and HootSuite is a web based tool.
2. It’s as full-fledged as desktop twitter clients. With HootSuite you can do pretty much anything the desktop clients can do.
3. I can share content (and other media) on several social networks at once. I typically share content and such on Twitter and Facebook, the two main social networks I engage in.  My Twitter feed contains mostly tech-related stuff and Facebook more broad topics, but when content overlaps both, I love being able to just use HootSuites awesome Hootlet to share on both simultaneously.
4. It’s mad easy to schedule future Tweets and updates.
5. I love the little owl character they’ve got going on. He’s the cutest thing since sliced bread (um, did that work?)

And the list goes on.

Recently, as you might know if you’ve been a regular reader (it’s easier to be one if you subscribe to my newsletter), I recent’y got myself a shiny new Android phone, an HTC Evo to be exact.  So one of the first apps I installed was the HootSuite Android app.  ”Robots need love too” as the annoying song in the background to their promo video goes:

Here’s a few screenshots from the Android app:

As you can see in the above screen shots, the streams are well organized, the home feed is easy to manage, sharing is a snap and so is scheduling.  The only option I am currently waiting on is the ability to post to both my Twitter feed AND Facebook profile simultaneously.  Until then, I suppose I can get by.

Oh, and as you can see from the picture at the top of this article, HootSuite sent me one of their HootKits with stickers and other swag.  I used one of them to spiffy up my phone a bit.  Thanks again, HootSuite!

As I was researching for another article (How To Automatically Insert Photo Captions When You Upload To Facebook) I came across a really cool application that makes uploading photos and videos to Facebook really easy. It’s called Bloom (their Facebook presence) and I think you’ll like it.

As I said before, Bloom makes uploading photos and videos to Facebook really easy but it does more. You can also use it to download photos and albums of your friends and view their photos in a whole new way. Let me introduce you to the basics.

Once you download the program, install it, and run it, you’ll be asked to allow access to your Facebook account (how can it upload photos to it without allowing it to?). Once you are signed in, you are ready for the good stuff. It will download your photos and albums including your friends photos and albums. This will allow you to browse everything.

Uploading is as easy as dragging and dropping. The easiest way is to click the “Create Album” button and drag and drop a folder of photos into the appropriate place in the program window.

Then fill in the fields off to the right. Name the album, state the location where the photos were taken (if applicable), give a short description of the album, set the privacy settings, and finally write a caption for each photo. When you’re finished, click the “upload photos” button.

The cool part is that the album, including the photo captions, will automatically be set up in your Facebook account. Bloom makes the whole uploading process simple.

The other cool part about using Bloom is that you can download and view all of your friends’ photos in one place. Just click the “friends” button along the top, choose a friend in the left sidebar which should now be available, and double click on an album of theirs.

This should allow you to view the photos in that album. Double-clinking on one of the photos should open a viewer letting you easily browse through the photos, even letting you view them full screen.

From this viewer you are also capable of downloading the photos and even tagging people in them for Facebook (which the program will update for you).

OK, so you can save your friends’ photos from within Facebook by right-clicking, that is true. I just like how Bloom just makes it simpler and puts all of these features together into one program.

So in other words Bloom brings some of the aspects of Facebook to your desktop as a desktop application. This desktop application is cross platform meaning it can run in quite a few different operating systems including Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris. This is possible because it runs on Java (check out the system requirements page for more details).

Now I know there are other tools out there that help in the use of Facebook, in particularly in the photo department. Please share with us whether or not you use a desktop application to help you manage photos for Facebook and what that program might be.

A Guest Post by Brett Barner of GodlySheep.com and @Godlysheep about Trillian Astra.

Instant Messaging (IM) clients are a dime-a-dozen nowadays. Though IMing seems so ’90s, it is still useful today. The big issue with IM clients is that unless you and all of your friends get together and decide universally what IM service you all want to use, you’re stuck having 4 different accounts. That, and you’re still using the screen name you came up with in high school (CreedFan4Eva) because you don’t want to take the time and effort to create and tell your friends of your new, more adult, screen name. This isn’t a problem for all your high school chums, but if you meet someone new, you cringe giving it out. That’s where Trillian Astra steps in, and then organizes even more.

Instant Messaging:

The founding function of Trillian Astra is its IM feature. It is it’s own IM network, but also supports other IM networks in case you venture away from just AIM. Here’s a list of the IM networks Trillian supports in addition to it’s own network: AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MySpace IM, Windows Live, and Yahoo!. Not only can you have multiple clients open at once, you can also have multiple screen names under the same client open at the same time. This comes in handy if you have different screen names for different reasons. (i.e. personal & professional). You can also set all your status as “Away”, “Invisible”, “Offline”, or “Online” with the click of one button. (or you can set them individually)

Trillian also offers video/audio support and file transfers. It supports Skype, which you can add as one of your services as well. You can use Skype as an IM service as well as a video and audio client. The downside of using Skype with Trillian is the amount of system resources it requires to run Skype alongside of Trillian. Trillian manages Skype, but if you’re concerned about processor speeds, Skype eats up a lot of your RAM, even when it’s just sitting there.

Email:

If you set up an AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live, or Yahoo! in Trillian, you will get the option of setting up the email notifier that is associated with those accounts. If you have another kind of email service, POP3 and IMAP. A small notification window will pop up in the bottom, right-hand corner of your screen to notify you of your incoming messages. Click on the link, and Trillian will whisk you away to the new message through your browser.

Social Networks:

If you’re hip to Facebook or Twitter, Trillian Astra’s got you covered. With Facebook, Trillian will notify you of people’s status changes, and profile updates. If you or a friend’s wall has been written on, it’ll let you know. If you receive a Facebook email, it’ll notify you of that as well. My favorite part of Trillian’s Facebook tool is that it also notifies you of your friend’s birthdays. This has helped me out since Facebook moved the birthday portion down on its homepage.

Trillian’s Twitter tool gives you up to you news feed of who you are following, direct messages, and you can tweet directly from the contact list with TinyURL support. Trillian also supports multiple Twitter accounts.

Trillian is typically running in my system tray and helps keep me up to date with it’s great, OS X Growlish, notifications. You can even have multiple accounts with Trillian. For example, my wife and I have our own accounts with saved personal settings. There are a lot more other features as well, with widgets and different skin settings.

Trillian Astra is free with the option of a pro version. Trillian is only available for Windows right now, but is close in development for Mac and iPhone users. There is also a web version that doesn’t require a download.

Screenshots:

Visit: Trillian.im

Tonight I finally was able to test a new web app by the name of Wetoku.com.  Wetoku.com is in the process of making video interviewing amazingly simple for the everyday blogger (like myself!).  They are still in private beta but I asked them nice and they gave me an invite!

In the video you’ll find myself (the interviewer) and a long time geek-friend of mine Abelardo (the interviewee) talking about various topics.  You’ll also notice that my volume is way too low which I believe is my fault but bear with me and turn up the volume.  AND I noticed that the timing is off.  Other than that, let me know what you think of the interview, the discussion AND the technical quality, in the comments.

Some of the topics discussed:

1. Safety on the Internet (specifically for kids)
2. WordPress and other blogging stuff
3. Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, and hosted possibilities such as Drupal and BuddyPress)
4. Data backup (blog and otherwise)
5. Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari (some more than others)
6. AND my blog design and a new css option

I believe the chat went well.  It usually does with a good friend, right?  There are a few options I’d like to see added to Wetoku like some editing abilites and the like, but all in all the service is a great idea!  Will I use it more?  Definitely!

Thanks, Abelardo, for the time and the chat!