more +

Social Media Digest #3

Apple Begins Fixing App Store Approval Process Via Mashable.

Expect Caffeine (Google’s new and improved search engine) After December Via Matt Cutts (an engineer at Google).

Painting with Flickr Via Matthew Hurst (Data Analyst extraordinaire). Teaser: “Cartogrammar has an interesting post describing using photographs tied to locations to interpolate average colours in a map. By positioning the pictures in space and analyzing them for colour distribution, then taking a function of the colours of pictures in the same area, some quality of the location as a function of photographs, emerges…”

The Digital Economy’s Coming Subprime Crisis (And What You Can Learn From It) Via Harvard Business Blog.

Three Masquerades of Metrics Via Social Abacus.

-Posted by Christina D.

11.11.09

more +

We Are Local Authors

Meredith Adams-Smart holds a BA in English from Kalamazoo College and like nearly everyone she knows with the same degree from that fine institution, she works for a non-profit. While she had hoped her current role as an assistant to the director of a Jewish Community Center would yield some fine office fashions reminiscent of “Mad Men” she alas has had to find other outlets to express her love of clothing…

Full Bio Here. Location: Chicago

Christina Dennaoui is an American rapper, digital strategy maniac and all-around tweed clad bad-ass. Only she, with her old man prowess, can make wearing tweed blazers and driving loafers nothing short of miraculous. Her old man swagger, coupled with unnecessary intellectualism and a penchant for kitsch and serial commas, made her a hit at all of the graduate student parties she attended while at the University of Chicago…

Full Bio Here Location: Chicago

Rachel Berkowitz is a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago in the departments of Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature. When I’m not reading or writing about dead Germans, I work on my elaborately cultivated quirky intellectual persona by watching movies, moving in circles and scoping out scenes. I also like to hype the chosen people…

Full Bio Here Location: Chicago

Emma Rogers is the product of Portland, Oregon’s rain and a current student at the University of San Francisco, studying Art History and Arts Management with a side of Independent Cinema. I am a food & fashion culture enthusiast. My favorite place to meditate, in San Francisco, is by the jelly fish tanks in the Academy of Sciences. Also, I am currently trying to conquer all of Japantown’s restaurants, in San Francisco, in hopes of finding the best ramen.

Full Bio Here. Location: San Francisco

Rita Rogers grew up on a houseboat in the majestically musical town of Portland, Oregon. She currently resides in Seattle where she is working towards her M.A. of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington, pulling espresso, riding the bus, and giving into the umbrella…

Full Bio Here Location: Seattle

Lauren Campbell is a recent Chicago transplant to Boston, having just embarked on an exciting three years of law school. She studied the reintegration of Berlin post-Reunification (in part via media), which subsequently led to landing a research analyst position studying the use of media in corporate communications, primarily as a tool for creating and sustaining brand positioning…

Full Bio Here Location: Boston

11.09.09

more +

The ‘5 on Social’ Questions:

‘5 on Social’ are guerrilla style interviews with random people in random cities about social media and their social media practices. The authors of We Are Local will ask the following five questions of their interview subjects. Subjects cannot have the questions explained to them, only repeated. They may only ask ‘Yes or No’ questions of the We Are Local author interviewing them.

1. Please define social media.

2. Do you participate in social media? If so, how often?

3. Does social media affect your decision making process when deciding your social activities (e.g., where to go eat, what to do, what brands to buy, etc)? If so, how?

4. How do you determine if the content you’re reading on a website is legitimate? (i.e., is it ‘fact or crap’?)

5. How do you determine if the content on a website is written by an authority or expert?

11.08.09

more +

About We Are Local

WHAT:

“We Are Local” combines hyper-local blogging with critical inquiry to explore what impact social media actually has on people’s lives. A number of “social media experts” claim that social media impacts people’s decisions on everything from what to wear to what to brand to buy. Although this may be true for some people, We Are Local doesn’t believe this is the case across the board. The “We Are Local” Project focuses on how social media does or does not help us answer the following questions: What to do Tonight? Where to Eat? What’s Happening? Here, the authors of WAL are going to write about our various (local) experiences in using social media to answer these simple questions and share insights about the conclusions we came to, our experiences and our sources. Social Media is certainly relevant for some people but is it relevant to everyone?

WHO:

Christina had an idea and she asked her friends to help. Then they asked their friends. But WAL is not exclusive. If you’re interested in participating in the project, email christina here or send general inquiries about the project here.

The theme used for this website is Paul Giacherio’s “Museum Theme” which has been modified for SEO purposes.

11.08.09