Sunday Cookbook Giveaway Happening over at Culinary Cellar
Being an avid cookbook collector, I was surprised and delighted to discover The Culinary Cellar blog. And while Debbie has a cookbook giveaway contest every Monday, today there are two great Sunday giveaways: Culinary Arts Institute, Cooking with Beer and Pam Brandon’s cookbook from the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. If you want to enter the contest, head over to today’s Culinary Cellar post for the details.
What Do You Do With Bay Leaves
Came across this today in the NYT and it is too good not to share: What Do You Do With Bay Leaves. It is notable not so much for the blog post, as for the comments, which not only bring forth some great ideas for bay leaves, but also illustrate the true beauty of blogging at its best–the conversation that ensues.
Flirting with Foursquare
When something starts popping up often in conversations, as Foursquare has lately, I’m usually compelled to find out what it’s all about. So on a recent weekend in NYC I went hardcore into Foursquare–apparently even they thought so, I received an “overshare” badge my third day. I started at the airport and proceeded to “check in” everywhere I went. Wait, let me back up and explain, for those of you unfamiliar with Foursquare (and I say this kindly, as I came late to this particular party myself–I am not an early adoptor for social networking tools, although I’m most enthusiastic and delve in deep when I finally arrive).
Foursquare is a free app you load onto your mobile device, whatever you use (I’m an iPhone), and then check in via your mobile at locations you visit as you travel throughout your day. Checking in involves going to the app, which then locates you via GPS and pulls up a variety of places where you might actually be. If your exact place is not there, you can feed in the name and address. Your whereabouts is then publicized to people you have friended on Foursquare. You can also broadcast your Foursquare check-ins to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. When you check in to a place it also brings up any tips previous visitors might have left. You can add your own tips, or tips can also be added later if you’re not in the mood. I can tell you I loved The Violet (a cocktail) at Park Avenue Spring, and definitely think it’s worth a try, but I wasn’t about to add a tip at the time; I was too busy savoring both cocktail and time with friends.
Foursquare, at first glimpse, appeared to be an app for the social segment that is single, out socializing and looking to get together–college students and less settled 20- and 30-somethings. High schoolers tend not to use it, and I wasn’t sure if I was trekking around town with a toddler in tow that I would be inclined to whip out my phone and check in to locations. What would I care about collecting badges and points for my travels? And would it matter where my friends were–I’m at an age where I’m not bar hopping and heading to after parties. But then I had my aha moments–I checked in to Central Park early in the morning and received a pop up message about a health related business nearby to assess my nutritional needs. Later in the day, I checked in at a café and up popped a note telling me that if I went to a nearby sporting goods store and checked in I would receive a 20% discount on my purchase. Suddenly I could see myself with a child, checking into Toy’s R Us and getting a coupon. Or running errands by myself, stopping at a restaurant and appreciating the tip that a certain dish was either very good or a total waste of time. Oh the possibilities…especially when you are in a place that you don’t live. It was a Foursquare tip that prompted me to try the truffle and cheese pizza at Accademia di Vino, a place I’d never been before, and it was delicious!
The problem at this point in time is that Foursquare is still a bit of a social game. I found very few tips given that I was in a major city. I also found that several people might check in to the same place and give it either a wrong address or use a slightly different spelling of the name. For example, Accademia di Vino becomes “Acadamia de Vino” for most people and that is where the tips reside. Only one person has checked in to Accademia under its correct spelling. When the wrong spelling came up, I confess to proliferating the use of the misspelled place check-in because I did not feel like entering the correct spelling and address–I was meeting a friend and just wanted to get inside. If you’ve got a business, get your listing on there and give yourself the edge of people checking into the exact place. All you have to do is start an account and add your place. If Accademia di Vino ever puts out a special, those of us checking into Acadamia de Vino are going to miss it! Closer to my home in Syracuse, I am the only person to have a tip under Gentile’s Restaurant, (which has no check ins because I apparently left a tip there via the web before I started using the Foursquare app), everyone else is checking in over at Gentiles.
When more people begin leaving tips and businesses begin to fully utilize Foursquare’s marketing potential, it will really hit its stride. For me, now that I’m home, I’m going to use it to remind my local friends of some of the great places in Syracuse by checking in as I meander around. Of course, I only have a handful of Foursquare friends, so it will actually be my Twitter feed that does the broadcasting for now. But if local businesses get on board and use Foursquare for marketing, I’m betting I’ll build some community. And I would like to know which of my friends is at the Regional Market on Saturdays so I can look for them. NOTE:Kelly N, if you are reading this please join Foursquare and check in at the market 
. Oh, and by the way, it’s on Foursquare as the CNY Regional Market, and there are already a few tips.
Social Media: A Passing Fad?
I came across this video, most appropriately, via social media–Twitter. I have a thing for statistics because numbers often impact me in ways words cannot. I think that if you are in the “wondering” phase of social media (although chances are if you’re reading this, you are past that), or if you need something persuasive for your marketing director, this might be just the ticket. It’s quick (practically an elevator pitch if you are in a very tall building) and to the point.
If the video captures you, check out the Socialnomics site; there’s plenty of useful entries that go way beyond stats.
Facebook, a look under the hood…
Facebook continues its evolution and to keep up, here are some useful online resources I rely on: All Facebook and The Facebook Blog.
All Facebook, billing itself as “the unofficial Facebook resource,” offers information about what’s current in Facebook, social media professional events and a job board, but for me this site’s real value is in the data it provides. There are page stats, where you can get a quick snapshot of the most popular, least popular and fastest growing pages, as well as numbers for daily and weekly growth, number of fans and a search feature. App stats is the place to check out what apps are popular on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, as well as the fastest growing and worst apps. Another tool is the list of Facebook Connect sites, which gives usage and ratings. It’s your own little FB marketing research department .
The Facebook Blog is your information resource from the inside. There are some cool things going on at Facebook, and this is where you will hear about them first. For instance, and this one is particularly interesting for those of you in higher ed, Facebook recently launched Facebook Fellows to support Ph.D. students, stating that they are the ones “who can help solve some of the biggest challenges facing the social web and Internet technology.”
The new Community Pages are also interesting and have some real potential. And I can never have too much information about how to configure my connections so that not everyone who friends me sees the same “face.” I’m pretty certain my professional connections don’t care as much about the cute pictures of my dog as my friends do. And I know, because I have been told, that many of my purely social connections have no interest in my geekier discoveries, which delight my campus colleagues. Of course, I initially came to the Facebook Blog because with the seemingly ever present updates, I was often at a loss for how to find something or how to do something in the new configuration and the Blog is a quick rescue–if you’re having a problem, chances are someone has already asked about it on the blog.
As social media hits the mainstream, it’s good see the data and analytics developing, as well as the capacities for sharing. I’m sure there are other go-to sites for FB, please share if you have one.
2 Great Aggregators
Simplicity and usefulness are my criteria for sticking with anything and Alltop and Lazyfeed are two aggregators that have stickiness.
Co-founded by Guy Kawasaki, whose blog is a plethora of easy-to-digest info, Alltop puts a range of topics in one place for easy perusal. Describing itself as a “magazine rack,” you browse by topics including: work, health, culture, tech, people. Clicking on the topic breaks it down further into specific areas. Not sure what you’re interested in? Check out Hot Topics. Additions are highlighted in New Topics. Personalize it using MyAlltop for the news you follow regularly. Constantly updated, I noticed iPad was among the hot topics as soon it was news, offering all the iPad info out there in one spot.
Lazyfeed is my other go-to aggregator. Lazyfeed offers real-time updates on your chosen topics as content is added to web. You customize the feed monitor by inputing search terms. “Treadmill” mode highlights updates and moves topics updating since your last read to the top of your view. Your choice of topics is limited only by what’s out there. When I was preparing to go to Dubai I added things as specific as “DubaiFinance.” If I need info for a press release or a background report at work, I can pull the range from broad to specific. Currently at Syracuse University Project Advance (SUPA) we’ve got a grant to offer a graduate course in economics to NY State teachers free of charge. So one of my topics is “EconomicsEducation.”
The beauty of both these aggregators is their simplicity. Each took less than five minutes for me to customize to my preferences. They are set to open when I launch my browser, and their design makes it easy for me to scan so I am up-to-date with minimal effort. In a world of ever increasing information, organizational tools like these make the difference between overload and synthesis.
Dubai Diaries–The Festival of Literature
I had the good fortune to be in Dubai during the 2nd annual Festival of Literature and it was one of the highlights of my trip. I wasn’t able to report first-hand–I was disappointed to discover that my beloved iPhone could not access Dubai’s 3G network, but that is another, less joyous, story–so I’ll share a bit about it here. My first morning in Dubai I headed over to Festival City where I was able to to get tickets to see a few of the sessions. Fortunately for me they didn’t require people to buy into the whole event if you could only attend a session here and there.
Low and behold, one of my favorite authors was going to be speaking that very night, Marjane Satrapi. In fact, it was while listening to Marjane speak that I decided to revive my long neglected blog. Marjane is most well-known for her book (which became a film, too) Persepolis, although she’s written several others, most of which I felt compelled to purchase right then and there, in spite of my limited suitcase space. Marjane said that the reason she wrote Persepolis was because she found herself telling the same stories over and over again, to different people. I realized that I often find myself sharing information about things over and over again, too (although my “shares” not nearly as profound as Marjane’s experience growing up in Iran, to be sure). So here I am. Telling you about the Festival of Literature. Why? Because I was blown away by this annual event and I think it is well worth a visit. A venue in the UAE produces a very different mix of people, both authors and audience members, than it would elsewhere in the world. It was great to see the mix of cultures united over a mutual love of books. I found myself sitting and chatting with students from the UK and France, an Emerati woman who grew up in Dubai and a British expat who had been living in Dubai for several years. On the whole, it was such a gratifying experience I’m trying to figure out how to get back there next year.
In addition Marjane’s books, I picked up several other titles including The Other Hand (Chris Cleave); The Sand Fish (Maha Gargash) and Married to a Bedouin (Marguerite van Geldermalsen). The last title captured my attention because it was about a woman from New Zealand who marries a Bedouin and sets up house in a cave in Jordan. From the Fair I headed to Magrudy’s, Dubai’s answer to Barnes and Noble and a sponsor, and when all was said and done, I figure the discovery of the Festival added about 20 lbs to my luggage. But it’s also helped me prolong the experience. I have enough reading to hold me over until next year .
Speaking of next year–see what’s on tap for 2011 here: Check out what’s on tap for 2011 here: http://www.ameinfo.com/226681.html
