Jim Carlson dot Net

To manage my social media feeds, I had been using Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck requires installation on your computer, unlike HootSuite or Seesmic which are online applications.

Tweetdeck served me well, however, I began to grow tired of what seemed like daily software updates for either Tweetdeck or Adobe AIR (which is required to run Tweetdeck). One other drawback was that you had to install Tweetdeck on any machine you used in order to access the service.

At the encouragement of several of my social media friends, I checked out both HootSuite and Seesmic. Both of these services are internet based so there is no need to download and maintain software. You can login from any computer with internet access and manage your social media world.

Although HootSuite was a bit tricky to configure, it easily outpaced Seesmic in functionality. To me, it was the clear winner. As an internet marketing strategist, I monitor and maintain multiple social media feeds for myself (music, marketing, personal) and my clients. HootSuite allows users to manage Facebook Profiles and Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, PingFM, WordPress and Foursquare.

Antother cool feature is that you can schedule updates. Want to update your Twitter feed at midnight? No problem — enter your update, schedule it and go to bed. HootSuite takes care of it for you. To be fair, I’m still exploring the HootSuite possibilities.

I’m sure there was some notice, but I missed it. HootSuite is in the process of transitioning from a free service to a paid service. There will still be a free offering, but you will only be able to maintain five feeds. Infortunately, I’ve added and configured over 15 feeds.

So now I have a decision to make. Do I pay $5.99 a month for this service, do I scale it down, do I return to Tweetdeck? Do I find another free service?

I fully understand that the development team at HootSuite have a product that has value. What I’m concerned with is I simply didn’t know that they would be eliminating functionality of the ‘free’ service. Had I known, I may not have even tested the product. Now that I have put considerable time and effort into setting it up,  I really don’t want to start over.

HootSuite is not the first ‘free’ service to become premium. How do you feel when this happens? Any HootSuite users out there? How does this impact you?

Somewhere in 2008, I along with a handful of friends joined Plurk. Essentially, Plurk is very similar to Twitter in that each message or link, can be up to 140 text characters in length.

What set Plurk apart was threaded conversations. If I Plurked, your response would be added below my Plurk, and a conversation thread would be born. This made keeping track of what was going on very easy — no hashtags, no @ replies, etc. If a conversation bores you, you can ‘mute’ it and stop receiving updates.

To incentivise people to use Plurk, an added feature (or pain) was added: Karma. The more you used the platform, the more Karma points you earned — which opened up icons and other functionality. The issue I had with Karma is if you lived ‘offline’ for a bit, you’d lose functionality — which seemed like punishment.

I, like many of my peers, eventually spent more time on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I let my Plurk account become inactive. Despite Plurk’s better technology (in my opinion), Twitter simply had more of my friends, more information, better business practicality and more community support (external apps). Think Beta vs VHS.

So why am I even writing about Plurk? Yesterday I received a Plurk invite on my Facebook wall. One of my friends Tweeted about it. There seems to be some resurgence going on here. I logged in today. Guess what? Many of my friends are still active. Silently, Plurk lives on. It was nice to see that this platform, and my friends (many who I do not have contact with on other social networks) are sill Plurking away.

The cool thing about Plurk is that it is not mainstream. My coworkers aren’t on Plurk (yet). Plurkers are social, but not in the business of using Plurk as a broadcast platform. There is less spam and more conversation. I hope that the recent buzz around Plurk brings attention to the platform, but I’m also hoping that the platform doesn’t lose its cool vibe.

I really don’t have the time to maintain ‘yet another social media platform’, don’t care about Karma, but I’m going to check in more often. If you are a Plurker, friend me up at: plurk.com/jimcarlson

Do you Plurk? Did you Plurk? What are your thoughts?

Reference: Plurk Wiki

Editors Note: You can view the complete series of Facebook articles on this site by viewing the Facebook Category.

As many of you are aware, Facebook recently allowed profile users to create custom URL’s. Instead of a series of numbers, a profile URL is as simple as www.facebook.com/jimcarlson.

Unfortunately, Facebook Pages needed 1,000 fans to qualify for a custom URL, which left a lot of smaller businesses, bands and organizations in the dark.

But there is good news, according to information posted on the Facebook Help Pages, all Pages with at least 100 fans will be eligible for custom URL’s on Sunday, June 28, 2009.

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Facebook Band Pages, Musicians and Social Media Networks and Surviving a Recession as a Musician.

The original Facebook Pages (for bands, businesses and non-profits) had completely different functionality and visual layout from the personal profile pages.

The layout differences were startling. While personal profiles were dynamic (with status updates, friend feeds, applications), the Pages had a boxy, almost web 1.0 layout. There was no interaction on the pages, they served as a glorified Facebook ‘business card’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editors note: Other articles in this series:Updated Facebook Band and Business Pages, Musicians and Social Media Networks and Surviving a Recession as a Musician.

In my last post on Musicians and Social Media Networks, I discussed the basics of social media networks that help musicians communicate and promote their music. I have a MySpace band page, and as I discussed in the post mentioned above, managing social media networks can be a challenge, but may be worth the effort.

Needless to say, when Facebook announced Band Pages, I wasn’t the first to jump on bandwagon. However, after reading an article on New Muisc Strategies: What websites should I be on? (part 3), I took another look.

To set up a Facebook Band Page, you must already have (or create) a Facebook account. Once you are in your account, you can create ‘pages’ using the Page Manager application link in the left hand navigation. Read the rest of this entry »