I use Social Media everyday and it is at the center of all I do both professionally as well as socially. I think all of the various tools that surround us allow us to reach and connect with people in ways that we had never really anticipated. In previous post you will see that I talk a lot about how tools such as Facebook allow you to talk and listen to all of your connections/friends in both an active and passive mode. These connections are all centered around the fact that you have a connection to the poeple that you are monitoring. You have a connection to them, either you work with them, went to school with them, or they are a friend or family member.
But there is much more to just an interactions then you could have imagined. I recently saw a presentation from Ted.com (http://ww.ted.com) that showed how one person has created a program to pull together emotions and feeling from blogs out on the web. He pulled this information into a program that they showed the view of all of these various emotions to allow you to watch and see what the web is feeling at a certain time. The presentation is a very powerful tool to see how blogs, one of the first social media tools allows people to share their feelings with others, and how by grouping that information you can see how the general community is feeling.
In looking at this presentation you can see why blogs are such a powerful tool. I kind of use this blogs as both a sounding board for ideas, thoughts or just rant about things that have happened throughout the day. Blogs are changing the way that people get their daily news and information, and are quickly becoming the main source of news for some people. This project is a step in the direction of allowing us to gain the thoughts and emotions of a community based on their direct interactions with their communities, in an unobtrusive approach.
I thought the idea of pulling together various emotions from people through their blogs was an amazing project. The whole idea of social media is a connection with people, and this allows you to gain a larger view of how people are feeling with the ability to then dig deeper and eventually connect to the users blog.
Once you have viewed the presentation above take a look at the actual site and play around the tool for a bit it is very impressive. The site is located at WeFeelFine (http://www.wefeelfine.org/)
So why do you blog or use Twitter? Is it because you want your voice to be heard? Do you have a message you want people to hear? Do you view it as a form of therapy? Tell me why you blog, and leave me a link to your blog.
Be Well
Frank
