Social Networking Archives - Random Thoughts from a Renaissance Woman

Hey, friends (and acquaintances), and all those dealing with Hurricane Sandy right now. How’s it going? Yes, I know, it’s a bit uneasy out there right now. Please be safe, and know that the rest of the world is ready to help if you need us, even if we can only offer positive thoughts right now.

I send out a giant virtual hug with comforting thoughts of kittens (or your preferred cute, cuddly animal), chocolate and rainbows!

To those of us not directly affected by Sandy, remember, chances are someone you know will be dealing with this in some way, and in a major way, at that. You can text REDCROSS to 90999 to pledge your help now (it’s applied to your phone bill). Check up on friends and loved ones, or have them do so when they can (by social media, text, or whatever is at the ready). We may need to be patient, but let’s lend a hand, because if we were in their situation, we’d appreciate the thoughts and support, too. 🙂

This is no small storm that people are going to be forgetting anytime soon, so while this may all sound cheesy and simplistic, I’m trying to get my thoughts across as best I can given the situation.

We are here for you, guys! Take care!

–With Love from the West Coast, and the Rest of the World.

So, I’m really hesitant to jump on all the social media bandwagons; granted, I was an early adopter of some passing fads – for example, before MySpace and Facebook, there was SixDegrees.com; remember it? Way ahead of its time, started to catch on, but ultimately fizzled, unfortunately (social media just hadn’t quite been born yet; this was in the late 90’s). Anyway, I’ve tried various ones over the years (very helpful when you’re a part of a reunion committee and trying to round up old classmates), given up on others; you can only be in so many places at once, so why not choose the meaningful ones with the most, well, “Klout?”

Fast forward (zooooooooooooooom): Last night, upon seeing a Facebook friend posting about Klout, which I’d heard of, but didn’t see any reason to jump on the bandwagon before (it’s still in Beta – but look at how long Gmail was in Beta, uh-huh), I finally decided to check it out. Basically, it links you and all your social networks, apps and services (the major ones, at least) to build up clout (how you influence people in your social circles and beyond), and it might not be for everyone, but it seems to be building up steam. I started linking up my accounts (well, the ones I still use; they have the option to link Last.fm, but I haven’t used that in YEARS, since I was still active on MySpace, around 2006-07), and hey, I’m doing better than average – as of today, a respectable score of 39! (Edit: Since they’ve updated their scoring system, it’s now a quite impressive 64!) Klout’s site says on average, people land at about 20 (100 being the highest you can reach, for super-mega influencers and celebs, such as Lady Gaga; the higher your Klout score, the harder it is to actually push that number higher). Granted, a lot of my social sharing is done strictly with friends, colleagues and acquaintances, so they can’t exactly pull out all my social dirt without asking. 😉

Anyone else reading this using the site? Why not check me out? Give me a hat tip (+K) as an expert on Mathnet while you’re at it; that seems to be my Internet Claim to Fame (although I need to work on updating that influence). It’s free, and you might be surprised how powerful, or potentially powerful you are among your friends. Hey, we’re in this life together, after all! 😀

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