Social Media Unites to Feed The Hungry With #HoHoTO

Image by Matthew Burpee via Flickr

In 2008 some twitter friends decided to do something about people who couldn’t afford to eat. Through social media connections HoHoTO was created, and was a big success.

HoHoTO is a big party held each year in december to raise money and collect food donations for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank so people who can’t afford a Christmas (or any other holiday) dinner, can have one. Each year millions of people go to the Daily Bread Food Bank and HoHoTO is a great way for you to help out… and attend a great holiday party.

So get tweeting, blogging and networking, donate if you can, or find some other way to help out. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #HoHoTO. Lets make the world suck a little less.

Social Media I Just Don’t Get

On the Internet today there are countless types of social media. There’s twitter (my favorite), facebook, google+, YouTube, news site commenting and of course, blogging. I have tried all of the above. All but one I have been able to use properly and do relatively well in. That one is blogging.

Blogging is the one form of social media I have just never managed to get the hang of. I write and write but get about a month or two in to it and then just stop. Don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because all the others don’t require much thought or time. Twitter is only 140 characters which is a thought with perhaps a picture or link. Blogging on the other hand requires more than a couple of seconds thought. It needs an idea and then you have to expand on it slightly. Then add a picture and links.

I guess I’m just a bit too fast paced for blogging but I’ll try my best. Let’s do this.

Stuff For Twitter People

Tomorrow (june 20th) is the tenth Tweetgasm, a monthly tweetup for twitter people of toronto. It takes place at the gladstone hotel usually in the melody bar at 7:30. This month the theme is “Pretty In Pink” which means that if you are wearing pink you get in free. If not you have to pay a $5 cover.

Here are some pictures from a previous Tweetgasm

Tweeting

 

A performance by @misslatejuly

Dancing

The always present DJ's

Thats just a taste of some of the things that go on at tweetgasm. You should all consider dropping by this month or maybe another time. Theres a facebook event here or follow @photojunkie who organizes it and will give you more information

Cutting the Fat out of Social Networking

There is just too much social networking going on today. It all started with e-mail many, many years ago (seems just like yesterday) and then expanded into MySpace and now there are hundreds of sites devoted to social networking of some kind. There’s basic social networking like Twitter, check-in based sites like Foursquare, music sharing from Ping and blip.fm and photo sharing form Flickr. Anything you want to share with friends or total strangers, theres a site for it.

Of course how could I forget the one site at the top of the big pile of sites. Facebook. Facebook is every one of these sites combined into one. It started a lot like MySpace and then just started adding features until it reached where it is today. But has it gone too far? With Facebook you can share your thoughts, pictures, videos, what you’re watching on TV, what games you’re playing. There are thousands of web applications that are built into Facebook that do everything from tell your fortune to tell you which character you are most like from your favourite show. And now. You can tell people where you are and who you are with.

Thats quite a lot for one site isn’t it. Oh, did I mention there is a movie about Facebook? Thats right. Its called The Social Network and it is about the creation of Facebook. It really should be called Facebook: The Movie.

All this is becoming too much for me. It seems that every time I log into Facebook something has changed. Wether it’s a button has been moved or the whole layout has been changed (remember “old Facebook vs. new Facebook” and everyone preferred old Facebook). I don’t mind a change once in a while but it has reached a point where they are changing so often that they don’t even tell you that they have changed something. I remember when if someone did anything that somehow involved you on Facebook there was a section at the side that had every possible notification right there. Then they split them up so friend notifications were in one place and “likes” or “comments” were in another place and then photo notifications were in another place. I can’t even find notifications from applications any more (I’m not complaining. I hated getting Farmville requests as much as everyone else).

The problem is that it’s not simple any more. This is the main reason I use Twitter (I hear you all groaning). It is simple. I send a tweet thats 140 characters and thats it. I can send messages to people and I can still post photos and read what everyone else is doing. Thats all I need. I am fed up of people liking pages that are things they say they do which they are mostly lying about anyways, or things they should be doing instead of “liking” them on Facebook (“I think about you even when I don’t call you”. Just call him so I don’t have to read about it) or big posts about your achievements on Farmville of Mafia Wars.

If Facebook was just statuses, wall posts, messages, and photos like it used to be then I would be quite happy but there is just too much for me to keep up with.

Unfortunately like most of you, I am addicted to Facebook (although not as much as some people. You know who you are) and will continue to use it until most people stop using it and switch to Twitter.

Twitter in 140 Words

I was going to try and do this in 140 characters like a true tweet but is is quite difficult. Maybe sometime in the future I will figure it out. Anyways. If you were looking at someones twitter feed or perhaps the live global feed (everyone on twitter) this is what you would see.

Crap, Crap, Crap, Crap, Crap, friends, Girls who think they have a chance of getting a message from Justin Beiber, a couple more friends, Crap, Crap, Crap, people you kinda know from that thing you went to and you’re only just following them to be nice, celebrities, people pretending to be fictional wives of celebrities (I’m talking to you @MrsStephenFry and @MrsEddieIzzard), Crap, Crap, stephen fry, Crap, Crap, Crap, old politicians who are trying to communicate with the “technological generation” but are really just embarrassing themselves and should stop, more crap, retweets of people you don’t follow and really have no intention of following and make you wonder why you are seeing this because the new retweet format shows their profile pic instead of showing who retweeted it, spam bots, more stephen fry (cause everyone follows him), and me.

And some of that crap really is crap.

Foursquare for People Who Don’t Go Anywhere

There was a review of an App for the iphone during an episode of App Judgement called GetGlue. Some of you might know that I use this and some might not.  GetGlue is a lot like Foursquare but instead of checking in to places that you are at, you check in to things you are doing. This is mostly movie, music, games, and TV shows but there are also books and almost any other topics you can think of.

Here is the episode of App Judgement explaining GetGlue,

You should at least try it. If you do, add me, I’m WillPenman

The Great Twitter Cock-up

Twitter crashed slightly today. Aparently everyone’s account was showing 0 follovers and 0 following. It was a general technology cock-up. There have been lots of tweets about it. Mark Hoppus (@markhoppus) said,

People freak out more when twitter crashes than the stock market. Next up: Senate Hearings on the Great Crash of 2010.

I have to agree with him on this.  Social networking has taken over our lives to this extent and we are all enslaved by it so much that people have freaked out more because of twitter crashing. But the best tweet relating to this was by Deadmau5 (@deadmau5) who said,

i blame Justin Bieber for the twitter fuckup. seriously. id break my own website too if he was spammed all over it