As I just wrote, we live in an era where having a voice is much easier than it used to be.  Getting published is actually quite simple if you’re willing to work for it.  In fact, I’m living proof.  Just 3 years ago I was working a 9-5 job as my sole source of income as a programmer for a major health company, doing nothing but that.  I was a nobody.  No one knew me.  In very short time I was approached by my 3 publishers, amassed thousands of readers on this blog, and many more on Twitter and Facebook, and built a reputation for myself.  I truly believe this is something anyone can do.   Here’s what I did (this is still tough to write, as I still don’t believe I’m anywhere near my potential – to me, I’m still a nobody):

I Started a Blog

I actually did this a long time before I wrote my first book with HappyAbout.  I was trying to build an open source pseudo blogging/CMS platform, which actually powered this blog at one point.  In a sense, the goal was to eventually create a social network, something we tried to do at a previous job I was at and never completed.  This was before Facebook or Twitter or even Digg or anything like it.  In a sense, it was the next dimension of a GeoCities, or FreeServers.com (where I worked on the founding team doing Support in 1999).

I noticed a few friends blogging at the time to share tricks they had used to fix coding problems, or ways they got their various computer problems working.  I knew I had done a few things that I needed to write down for memory and others to benefit, so I started using the blog to share these things.  Soon that turned into me just sharing thoughts to what was mostly a non-existent audience, but I didn’t care – I was doing it for myself mostly.

Then I really started subscribing to other bloggers, especially around Utah and elsewhere.  I think Google Reader probably played a big role in this.  I subscribed to Phil Windley, and Janet Meiners (NewspaperGrl), Jason Alba, Phil Burns, Thom Allen, and others.  Utah actually had a bustling tech blogging scene back then (many of those I mention are still active bloggers and great blogs to follow).  As these guys blogged, it inspired me to join their conversation and post my own thoughts on the topics they were writing about.  I’d link to theirs, and others’ articles, and my links would appear in their trackbacks and they would notice.

I began to make a name for myself by just sharing what I knew, and writing about it.  There is no better way to share knowledge and show others you have that knowledge than through a blog.  This blog eventually grew and grew as I did this, eventually getting recognition by sites like TechMeme, featured on TechCrunch, mentions on Mashable, and many others (I keep a log of coverage for my record at http://www.delicious.com/jessestay/coverage).  I say this not to brag, but to show you that by simply posting a blog, and sharing your knowledge, while at the same time truly participating in the conversation in the blogosphere (aka “the memes”), you’ll grow your blog as well and quickly gain a voice.

Now when I write, people listen – in some ways, it doesn’t matter if I have a publisher, and that gets more and more possible the more my audience grows.

I Became a Pioneer

It wasn’t until the launch of Facebook Platform at the very first F8 that I really started making a name for myself.  I decided at that point my idea for a Social Network wasn’t needed any more because now I could just build niche ideas on top of Facebook.  Facebook grew, and grew, and grew, and I was with them from day one, building apps for their platform.  I saw this niche, and I saw the value in it, so I took it and ran.  I became an expert in that niche and made it mine.  Not just that, but I stuck to it. (Interesting note – I’ve actually been building on Facebook Platform longer than many Facebook employees have.)  That eventually branched out and I took on Social Media and APIs in general, and now I’m even embracing much of the world of Marketing as we know it (even though I’m technically just a Developer by trade).  I learned everything I could about this stuff, and actually applied it, creating application after application both on my own and for others to prove myself in this area.  It was partly from this that SocialToo was born.

In many ways I was inventing an industry.  I was with many others, but because I took it on early I was still one of the few “pioneers”.  Becoming a Pioneer is so important.  If everyone else is doing it, and you’re not the first, you’re not going to be recognized.  You’ve got to pick a skill, perhaps find a new movement of many, and jump on that one.  Even if you are one of many, if you’re one of the many firsts, you can now be taken seriously.  I suggest taking it even further and finding a niche amongst those firsts (mine was the brand of “Social Media Developer” rather than just “Social Media Expert”) and embracing that.

How do you pick the right niche to be a “pioneer”?  I think more than anything it has to feel right to you – make sure you have a clear vision of the future of that industry.  For me I saw a new, social world where social was tightly integrated into every piece of the web.  I saw a Building Block Web, where social pieces were tightly coupled together in an experience the user wasn’t even aware the social elements existed.  I saw the power of bringing power to developers.  I also followed bloggers, like Paul Allen and Robert Scoble, who really caught onto this vision (although I admit I met Scoble later in the game).  Note that this niche also solved some of my own needs, which also contributed to my desire to learn more about it, and I discovered along the way how powerful this stuff actually was.  Vision is key.

You’ve got to figure this out yourself, and perhaps that’s the hardest part.  If I were you I’d be looking in the mobile space, and at what companies like Kynetx are doing, though. (and at a minimum, more than anything, consider and understand the concepts and visions these companies have)  Read my article on the Future with no login button for my own personal vision, but you have to come up with your own.

I Promoted the Need, and Networked Like Crazy

Once I had discovered a need and tried to establish my skills surrounding that need, I began blogging about it.  I realized this was a new market, and one that had the potential to be very powerful.  It was one with very few blog posts on the topic, yet.  I began to write posts making it known that I knew Facebook, and in particular Facebook development.  I was actually at one point the number one search result on Google for “Facebook Developer” because of this.  That wasn’t on accident.

I became one of the only people on LinkedIn with “Facebook Developer” in my title, and soon I began getting calls asking for help in this emerging industry.  I made it easy for people to find me by publishing my e-mail address and even my phone number on my blog and working to make it as easy as possible for people to contact me on LinkedIn.

More than anything though, it was this blog that made a name for myself.  Well, this, and following other bloggers through Google Reader at the time.  I started to learn of local “Blogger Dinners” here in the Salt Lake City area where local bloggers were getting together to just meet and network.  I decided to attend one or two, and it was there I met who would soon become my co-author on my first book, Jason Alba.  Jason had previously written, “I’m on LinkedIn–Now What???” and I had followed him on his blog.  I can’t remember exactly how (I think it was a Seth Godin talk, ironically), but he had heard I was the local “Facebook guy”, and was looking to do a book similar to his first on Facebook.

He had already established a relationship with his publisher through his first book, and approached me, asking me to help him with his second book, giving me half of his royalties in the process.  We went forward with the book.  At that point because I had established a reputation, and was already a published author, that lead to O’Reilly contacting me (through my good friend, Joseph Scott), and now I’m writing my third book with Wiley in a Dummies series.

Networking is so critical – it is truly who you know that matters.  It has been through Social Media and networking that I met Jason and that lead to my first book.  It was through meeting a need of Guy Kawasaki’s and Chris Pirillo’s that lead to creating the first script on SocialToo and I feel I can now call them good friends.  It was through answering a FriendFeed post that I met Robert Scoble and I can now call him a good friend.  That meeting lead to me meeting my great friend Louis Gray.  We’re all normal people, and it’s social media that makes us normal.  It’s through this technology – Twitter, Facebook, and especially blogs, that we’re able to connect with people we were never able to meet before.  Embrace that!

I Believed in Myself!

More than anything, I think it was when I realized I could actually do this stuff, that I started to do it.  There is something to be said for the law of attraction – be it faith, God-driven, or Universal laws, it’s real.  When you truly believe you can accomplish something, it will happen.  I grew up not believing this.  I grew up thinking I’d never write a book.  I grew up thinking I’d never start my own business.  I grew up thinking I was a nobody.

It wasn’t until I caught a glimpse that this was possible that I started to think I was truly capable of anything.  And it was when that happened that I started seeing incredible success as a result, and I’m still seeing that to this day.  Anyone can accomplish what I’ve done – I’m the little guy.  I’m a nobody, but I can be anybody I want to.

I hope this blog post doesn’t come off as a “I’m better than you” story to anyone – it was intended to be the exact opposite.  You see, Social Media and the web as we know it today makes it possible for any of us to gain a voice.  The Book Publisher, the Sports Conference, the Music Label, or even the VC or major Tech Blog are all much less relevant than they used to be.  Your potential is greater than it ever has been, and while you can still use these tools as launching platforms, you get to own the process along the way.  Anyone can do this, and I think we need to break away from “the man” at least a little bit to have full flexibility in doing so.  This is why you see Seth Godin leaving his publishers.  This is why you see BYU leaving its Conference.  This is why you see many musicians leaving their labels.

The little guy is much more relevant than he used to be.  Social Media is about empowering and bringing a voice to the individual.  Embrace that.  Accept it.  You too can have a voice.

FBML’s dead. I’m saying it right here (and yes, I wrote the book).  Facebook recently announced that they are moving away from FBML and more towards iFrame-based applications and Social Plugins for integration on your website and internal Facebook.com hosted applications.  Does this mean the Static FBML app is going away?  What will you be able to do in order to customize your Facebook presence both on and off Facebook with these newly announced changes?

On October 26 from 2:30pm to 3:30pm Pacific I’m going to be speaking at Mike Stelzner and Social Media Examiner‘s Facebook Success Summit.  The Summit is packed with superstars in the Facebook world such as InsideFacebook’s Justin Smith, Mari Smith, “the Pied Piper of Facebook”, ProBlogger‘s Darren Rowse, Brian Solis, author of “Engage”, Paul Dunay and others including major Brand managers for brands like Intel, Cisco, and Xbox (too bad we’re not on a panel – would be a good discussion).  All the speakers have real world experience making people very successful using Facebook as a major tool in their arsenal.

My topic is going to be “From Fishers to Farmers – Bringing Your Brand to Your Customers Using Social Technologies”.  I’ll be covering all the tools you need to both “Fish where the fish are”, and then bring those customers back to your brand by building “Your Farm” on your own turf.  We’ll discuss Social Plugins, custom tabs, and maybe even geek out a little with some new and interesting stuff you can do on your own website and on Facebook itself to integrate actual technology to empower you as a marketer.

I’m excited to present in October – judging on previous events by Social Media Examiner this will likely prove to be one of the highlights in Social Media-related conferences for you to attend.  I hope you can add this to your calendar and at a minimum come see me talk about some of the most important things you can do as a marketer, spoken by a true Geek who understands this stuff.  Check with the company you work for – it’s all virtual so there aren’t any travel or hotel costs to worry about.  It’s very worth your company’s time and money to send you to this.

You can sign up here, or on the link on the right of this blog.  I do get a commission on anybody who signs up through this site (I’m not getting paid for the conference), so please use these links and send others through here if you can.  Can’t wait to see you there!

Here’s a great video by Michael Stelzner, founder of the Conference, introducing the Conference:

There is such a thing as too much Social Media.  I’m talking about the art of ignoring.  We see accounts such as @comcastcares and @richardatdell and various other accounts on Twitter that do an excellent job at handling customer support and actually gaining, as well as retaining customers as a result, all while maintaining a great PR front for the company.  Such media arms require a fine art that includes customer support, PR, a little technical support, and often a little power to make decisions at the executive level.  When you create a customer support channel on Twitter you are, in essence, exposing yourself, and your customers, to the world when it comes to support.  This is a very delicate line to cross. Some times it means you have to ignore certain irate customers to maintain that brand image.  Today, the @XboxSupport team, to me, showed me how not to manage a customer support channel on Twitter.  In fact, they’ve convinced me to leave Microsoft altogether.  Let me share why.

A few days ago on Twitter I mentioned my frustration (note that TweetBoard didn’t archive that entire conversation for some reason, so some of my responses are missing), after my 4th Xbox 360 received its red ring of death, and after taking it through the Microsoft diagnosis tool, it would soon become the 4th Xbox 360 I owned to be replaced by Microsoft under my extended warranty.  4 units!  (I should note, in full disclosure, that one of those is a separate unit that my brother now owns after I replaced it once, so it would be one unit replaced once, and another replaced 3 times)  I paid full price for the unit, and full price for the extended warranty.

I loved my Xbox 360.  I was okay going through the replacement process a couple times.  It was, as I’ve said here before, my entertainment center more than anything.  No other unit, in conjunction with the Windows 7 machine that I own, can allow me to stream and record live TV in as efficient, cheap, and as powerful and flexible a manner as my Xbox 360.  Not only that but I get great games like Halo, and my kids get great family games like Viva Pinata and others that go with it.  I was getting excited for the Kinect product which had been lauded for years as the next generation controller.

Yet at some point having to replace your console over and over again for similar problems, it starts to nag on you.  It especially nags on me as all my friends are starting to buy the PS3 and are trying to convince me to switch after years of defense of the Xbox 360 by myself.  So I complained on Twitter. Sure enough, the first tweets that come in are from friends of mine, asking me if it’s time I let the 360 go.  Some mentioning the return rates of the PS3 are extremely low.

Tempting.

But after someone pointing them to me, in swoops @XboxSupport on Twitter, suggesting, without my asking, that I try out their diagnosis tool online that I’ve tried a million times.  I told them I wasn’t interested, in fact suggesting the only thing that could make me feel better would be a refund or one of the new Xbox 360s that is supposed to have these Red Ring of Death issues fixed, and they proceeded to argue with me.  It got to the point that I was suggesting that the Wii wasn’t giving me these issues and they were in essence saying that the Xbox produced more heat (yes, that’s the problem) which is why it was breaking and the others weren’t (duh).  In all the messaging I got from them, the message that came through to me was that I was wrong, and they were right.  All this in their public stream for all their followers to see, without me originally asking for their help.  You can see part of the conversation here (again note that a lot of it is missing):

They finally stopped the conversation and we both went on our separate ways.  In fact, I was starting to calm down a bit and was actually considering just buying the new Xbox 360 after I replaced this one and perhaps sold it on Ebay or something (or maybe just destroyed it on Youtube for everyone to see).  It was at the same time MG Siegler, of TechCrunch, was mentioning problems he was having with Xbox Live making him want to kill his Xbox 360 as well.  I pointed him to the @XboxSupport conversation I had earlier, and evidently someone else at @XboxSupport caught wind of that too.

When I woke up this morning, in swooped @XboxSupport again, thinking they could save the day, but this time the 3 tweets I received from them were accusing me of not cooperating, again, in front of all their 35,000 followers.  The latest message being, “We do understand your frustration, but for us to provide the best support possible we do need some customer cooperation”.  This after I had done all they asked in my previous conversation with them.  After that they started saying they had done all they could do “if my console was out of standard warranty”.  Again, i was wrong, they were right.  Even though I had the extended warranty they were assuming I didn’t have.  All in their public stream, to their 35,000 followers.  I then suggested they stop arguing and leave it alone, and then they proceeded to defend why they engaged customers on Twitter. 12 Tweets to their 35,000 followers later, they stopped.  At this point my entire Replies column was filled with arguments from @XboxSupport (and one person telling me the PS3 was superior):

My Replies column full of Tweets, in my perception, telling me I’m wrong

When is enough, enough?  I think when the customer tells you they don’t want to hear from you any more that should definitely tell you to just let it go.  Especially when you’re representing one of the biggest brands on the planet, and potentially damaging or hurting that customer’s reputation in front of all the other people following your brand.  When approaching customer support in a public environment, the rules change.  You absolutely cannot give any hint that your customers are ever wrong. Take it to DM.  Take it to e-mail if you want to do that.  Encourage immediately for those customers to e-mail you or call you when it comes to that.  Assumptions can never be made, because you can be held liable.

Instead, I got to tell my 26,000 followers, and now a blog post that will go out to more, how frustrated I was with Microsoft, over and over again with them only fueling my fire each and every time.  The Twitter XboxSupport account has told me, to their 35,000 followers, that I’m wrong, over and over again.  It’s lose-lose, and nobody wins.

Again, I’m wrong, even though that’s not what they were informing me considering they know I already knew.

Now I’m forced to stick to my decision.  I’ll be selling my replaced Xbox 360 on Ebay, and using the money to purchase a PS3.  Or maybe I’ll save the money and just stick with the Wii I currently own.  Microsoft has convinced me with their continual pressing that I’ll always be wrong in their opinion and because of that I can’t stick with them.  Therefore I won’t buy an Xbox 360 again.  Not only that but their other followers also see that.  Also, as a result, that Xbox 360 was the only reason I was still on Windows 7 – my Windows 7 machine was my media center, and Windows Media Center powered my entire Xbox 360-controlled media experience.  Now I don’t need that any more either.  Unfortunately in a world of interconnected devices, killing one device causes a ripple effect to the others.  All this very possibly could have been stopped by a single support person keeping their mouth shut and letting bygones be bygones.

There is a time when Social Media can be too much.  It’s important you train those representing your company on Twitter and elsewhere to realize this.  Customer Support is no longer just a support role any more.  It’s a PR role as well.  There are legal repercussions.  There are reputation repercussions.  There is much more to this position.

It’s important, as you’re approaching your customer support approach to social media that you have a way to get to the bottom of the situation as quick as possible, and preferably in private.  You should recognize the problem, contact the person individually, and determine if in the end they can ever be right.  If that’s not the case, it’s a moot point to try and convince them otherwise.  The customer is always right.  They should especially be right in public.  To this customer, unfortunately in Microsoft’s public perception, I’ll always be wrong, and that will never be deleted.  That’s just bad support, and the exact opposite of what a social media campaign should produce.  There’s an art of ignoring, and at least Microsoft’s XboxSupport team has proved to me they don’t get that art.  Goodbye Microsoft.  I hope you can sway me back.

So, who’s got a good deal on a PS3?

The Social Web is full of Nomads.  We try out a service, set up camp, and constantly move from place to place as we discover new and better places to settle down our social presence.  I’m no stranger to this myself.  I’ve given up my share of services in the past, and I am far from loyal to any one service.  IMO, making yourself loyal to any one service brings bias, keeps you from discovering and truly learning about other services, and prevents you from benefiting the most from tools that could actually benefit you.  It’s for that reason you have, and can expect to see me constantly move from service to service as you read my content here on this blog.  What I like now may not be what I like later.  I even quit Twitter and Buzz for short periods of time.  I think there’s courtesy however when you do this – I’ve done this both the wrong and right way on various services I’ve joined and left.  Here is the right way to leave a service:

If you chose to no longer use a service, disassociate your accounts. It’s that easy. If you’re no longer going to invest time in a service, the polite thing to do is remove ways they can comment on your posts, interact with you, etc. so as no one has the false impression that you’re listening.  No need to slam the door on the way out, no need to continue talking trash about the service.  Just leave it alone, remove your presence, and everyone will continue to remember you in the way you were.

It’s also important to not remove data you previously put there.  Many have important conversations, referential points that they may like to refer back to later.  Deleting your previous content removes history that was there in the first place.  If none of your content is written for history, make that clear in your Bio so others know before they participate in your conversations.

I’m getting tired of seeing people leave services myself and others may still be using and love, leaving us thinking they are still listening, and that we can still create conversations with them.  If you’re importing your content, it tells those following you they can discuss that content with you.  If you’re not willing to listen, don’t put content there.  So on services like FriendFeed and Facebook, turn on notifications if you’re importing your content there.  If not, disassociate your accounts.  If you’re leaving Buzz, delete your Google Profile (your content is not deleted when you do that, FYI, as I learned from experience).  If you’re leaving Twitter, it might be worth turning off any automated services you’re using to post content there and post a polite message saying where they can find you.

There’s nothing wrong with leaving a service.  What is wrong is allowing others to have the perception you are listening when you aren’t.

This post was inspired by Brian Sullivan on FriendFeed

I love Twitter for its variety.  In many ways it’s a lot like my favorite programming language Perl, whose mantra is “There is more than one way to do it.”  Some people choose the messy, spaghetti code way, while others choose nicely formatted, object-oriented way, even taking it to the extent of protecting it further with libraries like Moose.  On the web I can do basic, old-style CGI, or take it as far as a full MVC structured framework using Catalyst (if you don’t know anything about what these are that’s okay – just know that they’re good, and well structured).  Perl has both a good and bad reputation because of this, and I like it that way.  I like it the same way I like Twitter – there’s more than one way to do it.

That’s why I get so bugged when I see so many people trying to tell me how to write my Twitter stream.  Some say I have to have multiple accounts to organize the data.  Others say I can’t run ads and my content can’t be promotional in any way.  Funny thing is most of those people are promoting something of their own, whether they admit it or not. Personally that doesn’t matter to me.

What matters to me is that I can use Twitter the way I want to.  I can write everything in one stream if I want to, or I can run ads if I want to (which actually, I just signed up for ad.ly yesterday to see what it was all about – no one has purchased anything yet though so no worries there, if there ever were any in the first place).  I can be profane if I like (but generally I prefer not to, just like real life).  I can even retweet the way I like to.  The cool thing about Social Media is we all have our own purposes and our own ways of doing things and when we do such we use the best tools for the job.  The great thing about Twitter is that it allows us to do such.  I use Twitter the way I use Perl, however I want to and what works for me – and I get criticized in the same manner.  There will always be a critic of the way you use Social Media, just like there is always a critic of how I write Perl.

And I’m okay with that.

The fact of the matter is I’m interesting because I’m ME.  Hopefully you follow me because of that.  If I advertise it’s going to because that’s something I think will help pay for me to be me, and it will always be some sort of reflection of myself.  If I don’t advertise it’s because I don’t think that’s necessary.  If I separate my content into multiple accounts it’s because I want you to find out different bits of information about me in different ways.  If I keep it all in one stream that’s because I think that’s the best way of learning who I am.  If I retweet it’s for my own reasons, not anyone else’s.

I think we get way too caught up in what we think is the best way that works for us, and thinking others should do the same.  What works for me will not always work for you or the next guy.  What works for Chris Pirillo or what works for Chris Brogan will not always work for Robert Scoble or Leo Laporte or someone else.  We are all unique, and that’s what makes Social Media a beautiful thing.  Social Media is all about how you receive, not about how other people give.  Receive well, and you will give much.  Social Media is all about ME. And you. And him. And her. It’s about connecting Individuals, which individuals are not the same.

And if you don’t like that concept, I’m okay if you unfollow me.  After all, there’s always more than one way to do it.

A few weeks back I mentioned here that I was giving myself a whole week without a single check of my Google Reader feeds in order to see how reliant I had become on RSS, and where I could shift my priorities in order to become more productive. It’s a technique I tried last year with Twitter, and I think proves effective with anything you want to gain a new perspective on. I mentioned I was going to report after my hiatus, and I admit I have been slacking, considering it’s now almost a month later. The time has been good on me though, as I’ve been able to learn how to adapt after my hiatus, and have found several things that have worked for me.

What I Learned

Going without RSS was insightful.  I learned what was really important to me, what I may be able to do without, and what I would miss without RSS.  First of all, the things I learned that were most important:

• Blogs I write on – it’s important for me to know what my co-authors were writing so I can stay up to date, as well as promote the content of the blogs I write for.
• Family – I follow several of my family members who blog. Knowing what they, and close friends write about is important to me, and saves me the need for the dreaded family newsletter we used to have to pass around.
• Guilty Pleasures – okay, perhaps these could go within the “do without” column, but let’s face it – we all have a few blogs we read that are just enjoyable to read.  They keep us sane, and give us balance to our days.

Believe it or not, that’s about it.  To help explain why, let’s go with what I can do without:

• Most tech blogs – lets face it, I can now pull most of my favorite blogs from sites like FriendFeed and Twitter.  Better yet, FriendFeed, Facebook and Twitter work better for “media snacking” because I can filter results by number of people talking about each topic.  I can also hold a conversation with a large group of people on each topic, and help promote the blog I’m reading much more than I can in a Reader.  Believe it or not (and I learned this from my friend, Jeremiah Owyang), I can get most major news by just checking FriendFeed or Facebook or Twitter.  I have yet to miss anything I regretted losing.
• Sharing – Google Reader (my preferred RSS Reader), and most RSS reader tools out there are very outdated in the way they let you share the feeds you read.  I would much rather share something on FriendFeed, where I can re-post out to Twitter, post an image with the feed, or encourage much more conversation, real-time, with a very large audience.  I can’t do that effectively with Google Reader.
• Mundane news – I noticed after my week was over that I was subscribed to a lot of just dumb news that really was unimportant to me.  It was cool for that “one special article” the authors would some times write, but I found many of those were also sharing on FriendFeed or Facebook, and I could get my news there instead.  In addition, there were many news sources that would just repeat news from other sources, making many of my feeds redundant.
• Shares from many of my friends – A lot of the shares I was getting on Google Reader I was also getting on Twitter and FriendFeed, and I was also already subscribed to the blog they were sharing.  I hid most of those sharers from view, and instead added them to my “Favorites” filter list on FriendFeed.  Now I still get all their shares, and can freely discuss, real-time with them and others rather than fracturing the conversation.  If you want to share stuff with me, make sure I see it on FriendFeed.

Of course, there were several things I found I couldn’t ever leave.  RSS is not, nor will it ever be completely unnecessary, although I can very easily see myself being proven wrong in the “never” category there as well.  I found several things I just missed, and still can’t think of a perfect way to solve.  Those include the following:

• Blog mentions of my company, name, or brand – the infamous “ego search”, as it’s called, is very important to brands and learning what others are saying about you.  It’s how you can get eavesdrop, know where you stand, and perhaps step in where necessary.  Notice I said “blog” though.  Through FriendFeed, now in the Beta you can set up your own “ego filters” and save them in the right-hand sidebar.  Any mention of your name in the comments and posts will appear in your filters.  On Twitter, you can always use http://search.twitter.com, or a separate column in TweetDeck or PeopleBrowsr, or as I’m currently doing, set up a custom search in CoTweet for your brand name and track it that way.  No RSS needed.
• Comment tracking – on any post I do for LouisGray.com, there is no way via Disqus for me to track just the comments from the posts that I wrote.  Therefore, I subscribe to each post’s RSS comments that I write, and any new comments come into my feed reader.  I do this with many blogs that don’t provide a way other than RSS for me to track all the comments.
• Wiki, forum, and other site tracking – one strategy I use to get the latest data is to track the “recent changes” on MediaWiki installs.  This is available via RSS, and any change will be sent to your RSS reader.  In addition, forums do the same thing.  For forums, being replaced more and more by microblogs, it will be interesting to see how necessary this becomes, but it’s necessary for the moment.  Now, I’m curious who creates the first real-time Wiki (send your royalties my way).

RSS is not dead.  It’s just losing its value.  As the web gets more and more real-time, we are less and less having the need to have data pushed to us via RSS – we can go get what we want, when we want it, from any point in time.  We can now, through filters and real-time data, retrieve much of the data we want to get, in an environment amongst peers.  Google Reader itself is old – it’s slow to adapt, and I just can’t see it keeping up with sites such as FriendFeed, Facebook, or Twitter.

If you want me to read your stuff, I still subscribe to some RSS feeds, but if you want to guarantee I see your stuff, subscribe to me via FriendFeed and get my attention there. Your site, in order to continue in the future will need to be part of the real-time web and those that don’t keep up will be left in the past.  You can follow me on FriendFeed at http://friendfeed.com/jessestay (check out http://beta.friendfeed.com/jessestay for a true realtime experience!), or on Facebook at http://jessestay.socialtoo.com.  I can’t wait to read your stuff there!  You can read all the content I write across all the blogs I write for, real-time, in the custom FriendFeed room I created at http://friendfeed.com/jesse-stay – either subscribe to the room in FriendFeed, or you can add it to your RSS Reader!  Of course, as always, for the old-fashioned out there you can always subscribe to this blog at http://staynalive.com/feed.

Are there any other things you can see a need to use RSS for?  What other techniques have you begun using to adapt to the real-time web?

Coming out of High School I had a dream, like many Mormon boys of my age, to have good grades and get accepted to Brigham Young University. It was the “Notre Dame” of the Mormon faith, and having sat through many BYU football games with my family cheering them on and getting the nudge from my Dad I felt I was destined that I too would go there some day. I was very disappointed after High School when, while my 3.5 GPA was decent and I excelled in extra-curricular activities, it wasn’t decent enough for the school of my dreams and I would never graduate from there. I went on to follow the dot-com boom and bust, and get my degree late, graduating Summa Cum-Laude at Strayer University (take that BYU!). Even today, I’m still a very strong BYU football fan, and longed for that dream of the “BYU Experience”.

Today, my dream came true, and I was able to finally participate in the school I grew up so dearly loving. I guess you could say it was my “Rudy” moment. I’ve spoken many places recently but this was truly a highlight. Today I had the opportunity to Guest-Lecture an Intro to PR class at BYU. Despite having some issues getting YouTube to load on the BYU network (I’m told it’s not due to censorship, but rather strain on the network – yeah right), the lecture went extremely well! I compared the likes of Professor Harold Hill in “The Music Man” and that small town of River City he was selling to to Social Media, and used his lessons learned to share some of how Social Media should be used. My slides are below and if you ever want to see it in person I’d love to present it for your group or organization! For those in the class that are now readers, thank you to all of you and Dr. MacFarlane for the great opportunity you gave me!

I want to meet you. I’m no TechCrunch, nor am I aspiring to be, but I really do enjoy meeting my readers in person. I’ll never forget the day I met Daniel Ha and Jason Yan at Disqus Headquarters with Robert Scoble and them mentioning that they were readers of my blog – I was blown away!. I think it’s really fun to meet my readers and discover why you think my content is so interesting.

There are several events coming up that I wanted to make you aware of. Some more personal than others. I really wish they were in more diverse places – if you or your organization are interested in having me speak please don’t hesitate to ask! Here is what I have planned thus far:

Today, February 16 – Interview with Krishna De on BlogTalk Radio. You can tune in and listen to her interview me about SocialToo, Facebook, and whatever else comes up. You can call in on the show’s number at +1 347 633 9467 or listen live on the web at 11am MST.

Omniture Summit – While I won’t be speaking (maybe next year?), I’m looking forward to attendance at Omniture’s annual Summit this week. It starts Tuesday and ends Thursday. Look for me and say hi if you’re visiting!

Social Media Club, Salt Lake City Panel – I’ll be on a panel this Thursday, February 19 with Rachael Herrscher of TodaysMama, Sara Brueck Nichols of Operation Kids, and Anthony Power of Recipe31. The basic topic is, you guessed it, Social Media.

Bebo B.E.S.T. Contest Awards Night – While I won’t be there in person, I had the privilege of judging the Bebo B.E.S.T. developers contest with Dave McClure and Frank Gruber, in which the winners will be announced this Wednesday, February 18, in a special awards ceremony in San Francisco. I’m looking forward to seeing the winners.

Nevada Interactive Media Summit 2009 Keynote – This is a highlight for me which I’m really looking forward to. On Saturday, March 7, I’ll be flying out to Reno, NV to keynote at the Nevada Interactive Media Summit. I’m excited to meet everyone attending at the summit, some very new to Social Media and looking to find ways to better integrate Social Media into their organizations. I’m looking forward to sharing some inspirational successes and failures in the realm of Social Media and how the organizations attending can improve their use of Social Media through Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and more. Come say hi to me!

PhotoCamp, Utah – Saturday, March 14 I’ll be presenting at PhotoCamp, Utah, where I agreed to speak about promoting photography through Social Media. I’ve always said if I were a photographer I’d get on Facebook and start tagging those in the photos I took. There are other techniques that I think would improve any Photography business that I will share.

Dr. Larry McFarland’s PR Class at Brigham Young University – On Thursday, March 19 I’ll be guest presenting for a PR class at Brigham Young University, speaking to Dr. McFarland’s first year PR students about Social Media. I’m sure what I share will be very different from what they’re used to hearing, but very valuable!

Utah Medical Marketing Association – On Wednesday, March 25, I’ll be speaking with Josh Carr, of Sprout Marketing, on Social Media, targeting the BioMedical fields. This will be an interesting topic, and I may need to do my research to hit the right audience considering my medical background is limited, but I’m really looking forward to it. Social Media is Social Media, regardless! This is a very interesting area, and maybe I’ll try to pull in some of my learnings from UnitedHealth Group when I speak.

As you can see, I have an extremely busy schedule ahead of me in the next month. I’m really looking forward to it, and if I can schedule you or your business in for a quick hour or two (or 4) of consulting I would love to see what I can do to help! My consulting sessions are jam-packed, and well worth the time. E-mail me if you’d like to meet some time, or please, just stop by and say hi next time you see me!

SocialToo.com has been a huge success for me so far. Just this last month we have gone from just less than 1,000 users to over 7,000 users, and that number shows no sign of slowing down. We’re starting to monetize the site, via one-time purchases of various services, advertising, and will be adding some premium features very soon. I’m slowly actually starting to monetize a service based on Social Media, and thus far, I’m proving it’s going to work.

However, I’ve just about exhausted my resources financially to continue supporting this on just my own savings alone, and have decided it’s time to find something full or part-time that can supplement SocialToo. I am also looking for financing and investment as an alternate source of income, but in tough economic times I have to put my eggs in multiple baskets to ensure something works out.

So, here’s what I have to offer. If you’re looking for a RockStar Facebook, OpenSocial, Twitter, YouTube, or you name the Social Media platform developer to take your app to the next level, I’m your man. I have a very strong software development background which you can see on my LinkedIn profile. I have written two books on Facebook, one on Facebook Development and FBML for O’Reilly (see those in the upper-right of the blog), and one on Facebook professional growth and marketing. I speak and teach others regularly on the subjects of Facebook, Twitter, Social Media, and related topics. I have a good following on multiple networks and a great platform to build your brand as an employee or consultant for your company. Any such relationship would be announced in full disclosure here and any other place it makes sense to mention the relationship. In addition, I am an entrepreneur at heart, which means I have passion in the products I help build. I love seeing these things grow to become successes!

I can develop software – I wrote SocialToo.com from the ground up, by myself (with thanks to some great advisors). I can market Social Media. I am learning to monetize Social Media. I have a successful business, and have helped businesses based on Social Media become successes. So, if you or your company are looking for someone with my skills, let’s talk. We can talk full time relationships, consulting relationships, temporary relationships. I’d love to help you out. Oh, and international is definitely an option – I speak fluent Thai, some Spanish, and even some Indonesian and am no stranger to learning new languages and cultures!

At the same time, if you know anyone looking for a good investment that will make money in the near future please forward them my way. In either scenario, SocialToo will continue to grow, will continue to be a focus (while if I work full time for you it will be a side-focus), and you can continue to expect to see the same growth you always have as we move forward. At the same time, I’m a hungry entrepreneur.

You can read my LinkedIn profile at http://linkedin.com/in/facebook

My contact info is in the upper-right of this blog.

Please Re-Tweet

Photo courtesy the talented Brian Solis

Are you addicted to Twitter? Janet Meiners Thaeler (@Newspapergrl) thinks I am. Guy Kawasaki has a great SocialToo survey asking the question. Janet even gave me an award for it! (and I sincerely appreciate it – I love awards!) I’m not so sure I’m addicted though. Even though I do have near 10,000 updates on Twitter and am active on the service, I think I use FriendFeed much more, and in a much shorter time frame I have near half that in likes and comments on FriendFeed. I think I also use Facebook more – I wrote two books on it after all.

Twitter is a tool, and I use the best tool for the job. This is part of why I left Twitter a few months ago – Twitter wasn’t doing what I wanted it to. When I realized I wasn’t going to get better from other services I came back. Twitter is where I post my thoughts and share things that I can’t post to this blog or elsewhere. This status propagates my Facebook status (through the Twitter App on Facebook), as well as FriendFeed, where more people comment, and I can have more personal, lengthy conversations in those places. Twitter is a tool I use to meet new people, to share thoughts, and build relationships, just like I do on FriendFeed and Facebook.

Could I leave Twitter? You bet. If another service with a much larger network, and just as many opportunities comes along with an actual revenue model and something I could rely on to not delete my followers or data, I’d leave in a minute. It’s part of the reason I have a close eye on FriendFeed, and have built an early hold there to build a strong network. I see potential there. I’m not addicted – I use the best tool for the job. I’m building a network everywhere I go.

The honorable Chris Brogan (if I may call him so) enlightened me back at BlogWorld. He was joking around at the time, and I can’t even remember our conversation that led to it, but his comments were something to the effect of “Listen, TechDork, technology doesn’t solve problems! Humans do!” Oh how right he is. How do you define Social Media? Social Media is about the technologies we use to enable real-life relationships. Emphasis on real-life. If a service isn’t doing that for you in the most effective way, or if you can’t do it with just one service – be prepared to leave. We can’t afford to be addicted to these services. I know I’m not.

Janet had a great idea though. What awards would you offer your Twitter friends? Janet and Larry Weaver have come up with “Social Media Awards” you can create for your friends. Share yours below.