NowSourcing

[Special guest post for Friday fun from none other than my daughter. No, really.]

Everyone thinks their dad is weird. But I, on the other hand, know my dad is totally crazy. He does this thing called “Social Media” or whatever. I can’t even count the times that he’s tried to explain it to me. Don’t get me wrong, I mean my dad is amazingly cool. All the ridiculously hilarious (and usually meaningless) videos on YouTube that have come out within the last 30 seconds, he knows about and feels necessary to show me and tell me about it.

Back to this Social Media (or whatever) I’ve started to understand. Started. It’s a bit hard to grasp at first, that’s why I’m stuck writing about how I absolutely know nothing about anything, I mean writing about what my dad does and how he knows everything about everything. So all the time, I hear my dad talking about this thing called “Plurk” and “Mixx” and “Digg” and whenever he brings these things up, I suggest making a parody of them called “Crapp“. But that never really works out.

Basically what I know about his job is that he talks to a lot of people all over the world, makes websites cool and popular (relatively speaking) and gets paid for it. Seriously. I suppose their might be more to it, but with my youthful ignorance, I see this job as a cakewalk!

And so, one day, I decided I wanted to help…boy was that a good idea. Right now he’s clickin’ and clackin’ around on his laptop, no doubt reading over my shoulder in the office. And I’m just silently frustrated, wondering why my dad couldn’t have a scuba diving equipment store, or drive a boat or at least own NASA. But, no, he does the boring job. Which really isn’t so boring once you think about it.

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What do you call it when you get 20 Plurkers together on one thread, all discussing the same subject in detail for an hour or so?

Why it’s a Plurkshop, of course.

The number of Plurkers can vary, I’ve seen Plurkshops that had around 5 people doing most of the talking, and others with 40 or 50 people, all discussing the same subject.

Plurkshops can be on any subject, we’ve had discussions on blogs, CSS, marketing, social media, security, second life, and more. To date there have been 13 Plurkshops; the 14th, coming up this Tuesday, August 12, will be discussing the benefits and challenges of switching your blog to WordPress.

Because you have so many people, all typing at once, Plurkshops can get more than a little confusing. To me it feels like a big family dinner, where everyone starts off talking about the same subject, and then the conversation branches out, with Aunt Bertha and Grandpa Fred talking about one part, while Mom is talking to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Tim about something else, and Dad is shouting to Cousin George (whom everyone, except Cousin George, knows is a little hard of hearing) trying to catch him up on the original topic.

If you’ve ever watched While You Were Sleeping, the dinner table scene is a great example of a Plurkshop.

Yet in spite of, or perhaps because of, all the different conversational threads, Plurkshops end up being very educational. It is especially enlightening to read the summaries afterward because there are almost always threads of discussion that I missed while the Plurkshop was going on.

Paul Chaney, who writes Conversational Media Marketing, donated Plurkshops.com so that we would have a place to gather all the Plurkshop information. It is a great place to read summaries of past Plurkshops or to see what’s coming up soon.

Back when I first started using Plurk, someone asked if I could see a business use for it. My answer then was that I couldn’t, it seemed more of a fun site. Now, my answer would be yes, Plurk has definite business potential.

In fact, plurkshops.com and the link to an actual plurkshop are the first things I show someone who has a business when I’m telling them about Plurk. It has the benefit of not depending on as many variables as statistics from my own Plurk usage, and shows that Plurk can be used for more than just saying “Good morning” or talking about what to eat today.

Teeg is a Social Media Explorer who has been exploring the social part of the web since 1996, when she first discovered chat rooms. She details her exploration of various social media sites on her blog, SU Comments. She is also the author of the 10 Minute Guide to Plurk, a five part series that answers questions other Plurkers had when they were getting started.

If you too got fed up with the whale carrying birds, then you must have turned you attention and free time to another micro-blogging platform. First came Jaiku, then Pownce, after which people started turning to Twitter. When the whale failed ashore, we turned our attention to Plurk. Not a new player has come into the scene by the name of Identi.ca.

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The Internet is a great medium for a number of different activities. You can get your news, conduct business, or stay in contact with friends and family. Two of the most popular uses in today’s society are music and social networking. There are a number of great websites that perform one or both of these tasks. The following websites are the ones that I believe, offer the most unique features, have the biggest audience, or mix both aspects together most effectively:

5. Myspace

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Myspace is more than just a place to upload photos, blog, or communicate. It has offered many musicians another way to reach their fans. Musicians can offer fans the opportunity to stream or downloads their music. Musicians and fans also get the chance to interact through comments, messages and bulletins. Many bands got their start on Myspace, the best example of that may be Panic at the Disco. Myspace is great because of the access fans get to their favorite bands. Getting a message from a band to let you know about an upcoming show or downloading a free single from an artist is reason enough to put up with the other hassles that come with Myspace. Myspace is a great place for up and coming bands because it is extremely easy to creature your own profile and post your music and get it out to the masses!

4. PureVolume

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PureVolume is similar to Myspace music pages but is different in the fact that the entire website is set up for artist to promote their bands. It music before anything else and it a great place to find new acts with minimal distractions. It charts the most popular artists and songs so users can know what’s been popular that day and maybe hear about the next big act. PureVolume also is not as cluttered with ads like most of the other websites on this list so it makes it much more aesthetically pleasing. PureVolume is an extremely easy website to navigate and use.

3. Pandora

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Many sites have been trying to make Internet radio the next big thing. However, the website that does it the best is Pandora. The best thing about Pandora is that it takes what you already like and finds similar acts. Users give songs a thumbs up or thumbs down rating, which is taken into account in future song selections. Pandora also offers users the ability to purchase the song they are listening to through Amazon.com or iTunes. Recently MSN radio has dropped support for Pandora and users have had to decide whether to continue using the service for free with advertisements or pay a fee and enjoy ad free usage. Either way it is still worth the price to enjoy music you already love and possibly find a new love.

2. iLike

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Facebook has taken over Myspace’s reign as social networking site of choice. However one thing that the new giant in networking was missing was a music component. Facebook signed up with iLike. iLike has made equaled Myspace in features and practicality. Like Myspace iLike displays artist info, allows user to stream or download songs, and gives fans the opportunity to connect with their favorite musicians, however iLike has one feature Myspace is missing, iLike is partnered with ticket master and allows users to directly buy tickets from iLike. iLike, even though it is extremely similar to Myspace music, is better because it offers all the same features as Myspace music but has a great feature in that it is linked to ticket master and has a larger audience because it is on Facebook.

1. Last.fm:

Last.fm is a great music social networking site because it truly brings music and socializing together. It helps you find friends based on musical tastes and helps you find new music through your friends. Its hard to tell whether its more of a website for socializing or a musical haven. A great indicator of compatibility between friends is music, so why not make it one of the first factors when meeting new people. Last.fm is the best because it makes music the first part of your social networking experience and can link people with similar tastes as well as help you find new acts.

Honorable Motion: Ruckus

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College kids love music and Ruckus is the only music social networking site that is focused just on one market, the college market. Ruckus is available free of charge to anyone with a valid college e-mail address. A fee of $8.99 is required for alumni and faculty to use the service. Ruckus’ musical catalog is available for any college student to download for free. There are some drawbacks to Ruckus: it is only offered in windows format so Mac and Linux users are left in the dark, also the songs downloaded cannot be burned onto discs or copied into another file or program (sorry iPod and other MP3 users), the Ruckus catalog is considerably smaller than other rivals such as iTunes and file names are inconsistently named, some are in all caps others use underscores for spaces. If you are in college and who mainly listens to music on their computer, Ruckus is the way to go. Ruckus fails to make the cut because it does not focus on networking which would be a great idea since so many college kids use it and because it is only available for windows users.