Temporarily Closed

Due to other writing commitments (and the ongoing workload of a contractor), 'Best of Both Worlds' will be closing 'till further notice and there'll be no updates for a while. Alas (in the RL absence of time-travel or cloning) there's only so many hours in the day. If you'd like to stay up-to-date on what I'm up to and what I'm reading, watching, walking and enjoying, please follow me on Twitter at @nikhewitt.

I will be still writing monthly on the Conversify Blog, as well as the blogs and articles I write for customers and periodicals, plus maintaining all my other social media channels.

So, for now at least...

"One day I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine. Goodbye..."

Boo-yar.

Epic App Fail

Okay, perhaps not my best picture, but really, and this is the 2nd (and most looky-likey) attempt...

...this is Coke Zero's new 'Facial Profiler', designed to find a facial match on Facebook. After you connect your Facebook account with it, the app scans your photos (or you can use a webcam pic) then use fancy facial recognition software to match your face against others in the database.

Nice idea, and the interface is great, but seriously, are they on drugs? I'd have settled for anyone with a beard. Epic, epic, epic fail.

The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

If this doesn't virally trend to the top of YouTube I'll eat my own liver.

So True

'Chap-Hop History' by Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer

30 years of Hip Hop history, in 5 minutes, featuring Mr.B (The Gentleman Rhymer) and his banjolele. Check out his tour dates on MySpace.

Which reminds me, must renew my subscription to The Chap...

Clicking for Charity

Okay, this is a blatant plug for something I'm working on, but it's cool and well deserves some serious attention.

I've mentioned in the past, I work for Conversify.net now, who in turn are doing the regional set-up for the social media channels of an unusually cool financial product called Kasasa. Anyway, as per the Kasasa blog, "...starting today, you can pick your favorite Kasasa slam poetry spots from the following five videos, and your vote will be matched by $1 to help support these causes. Simply click on the links below that correspond with each video, head over to Facebook, watch the spot, then if you like it, click the "Like" link under the video and leave a comment if you're so inclined..." The link to the blog, with more info, is here.

The Facebook video list is here, check out anything starting in the word 'VOTE'.

Please give them a click if you can, each click is $1 for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Stand Up to Cancer and the American Humane Association. All they want is your opinion, and you can help raise $999 for some damn good causes.

"You won't even have to leave your chair" ;-)

Derbyshire Social Media Cafe

Just for info (and check out Social Media Cafe for further details), this Wednesday is the first Derby & Derbyshire Social Media Cafe at The Quad in Derby between 2 and 5.

See you there if you can make it. Twitter tag is #smcderby.

There WILL be cake, and the coffee in The Quad is pretty good.

Regarding Blogging...

...oh yeah, I remember now, I have a blog.

Pity it demands more than a daily witticism in 140 characters or a link or two. I wonder if it's writers block, apathy, or just evolution that's keep

ing me away? It seems like everything I'd want to post here can be summed up in a update on Facebook or a pic sent to Twitpics. I've never been a journalist at heart.

It's not like nothing interesting is going on.

Work with Conversify is still going strong, and the world of social media is throwing up fresh challenges for us daily. Meeting toy soldiers, coffee pirates and costume geeks at Steampunk convivials and Regency dances, and a plethora of real-world social events are keeping our weekends occupied as they invariably are at this time in the season.

The pets are still foolish and a money-pit of calamity. There's new apps to play with, and a fresh crop of TV to watch ranging from Dexter to Supernatural. SL ticks on, with the sim fully rented and the role-play moving forward (as time allows) and with the new copy write rules looming ever nearer (and me with a tonne of rebranding to do on over 200 textures). Aliza and I are still doing the Yank & Limey podcasts, as time and travel allows.

Somehow though, none of it seems worth blogging about. A little voice at the back of my head keeps telling me I should concentrate on doing rather than pontificating. Surely I'd just be repeating what I'm saying on other channels? Is it too trite to say "blogging feels so 2006"?

So, for want of this thing dying, I'll be using it as a hub for a bit. Posting pics, videos, and quick comments. Intermittently, obviously. Please bear with things until I can just turn this into my Friendfeed or something ;-)

Dirk & Steele Author at Athena Isle, SL.

Marjorie M Liu, the New York Times bestselling author of the paranormal romance series 'Dirk & Steele', is coming to meet her fans and friends in Second Life.

She will be joining us on Athena Isle [SLURL], the virtual island and community for creativity and women's work in Second Life, on Tuesday the 4th of August from 11:00am PST (SLT) to 12:00pm PST. Liu will be speaking about her new book The Fire King, and in preparation for her first Second Life appearance she's gathered questions from fans through social media sites including Twitter, Facebook and several blogs. The intimate text chat event will take place inside a gothic castle in a roundtable format, providing fans with a 'close encounter' with the author.

The event is a joint effort between Endeavor Creative, the awesome folks work with at Conversify, and Athena Isle Women, a group for women in SL. Conversify sponsors live events on Athena Isle in Second Life to showcase women authors as well as their virtual world and social media work. It was founded by my good friends Aliza Sherman and Monique Elwell to bring smart, sensible and affordable social media plans and execution to companies and organizations (and keeps me as their token UK bloke and pet Socail Media Stratagist/Project Manager).

Endeavor Creative is an Anchorage, Alaska-based consultancy run by another friend of mine, Taughnee Stone, specializing in blogs and social media and regularly work closely with Marjorie.

Free Fire King tshirts will be given to all who go on the 4th, and a full transcript of the event will be available on the Athena Isle Women blog later in the week.

Have You Claimed Your FB Fan Page URL?

Just about everyone (and their dog) has claimed a vanity URL’s for their Facebook presence.

Last month, FB allowed users to grab custom URL’s for their own profile pages. For instance, you can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/nikhewitt and the good lady wife at Facebook.com/sparklyjem. Cool.

FB URL's used to be a right old hodge-podge and this is much better for branding, business cards, and generally professionalises your presence. Seriously, if you've been living under a stone and haven’t yet grabbed your custom URL, head to Facebook.com/Username and get to it, stat!.

Now, if you’re an admin for a Fan Page, you can grab custom URL’s for those too. Head to Facebook.com/Username as before and follow the "set a username for your pages" link, as per Facebook.com/doyoukasasa for one of our clients, etc. Here you can check no ones run off with your brand name already and grab those keyword friendly URL's. I thought this was a given, but, turns out a lot of folks don't know about the Fan Page bit. Only one small caviet, to make sure you're serious I guess, is the group MUST have over 100 members. Don't miss out on this, theres only 1 chance to grab the name your after.

Go do this, now :-)

Changing My Twitter Name (without losing followers)

I started on Twitter with a couple of friends the week it came out of Beta, and we had no idea just how big this would get a few years down the line. Back then I happily hid behind the nom de plume of 'Lactose the Intollerent' so that I could voice my opinion while being a part of a large news organization and with out the fear of repecussions. Times, however, have changed.

Now I work in social media and, frankly, my name is my brand. Hindesight is a marvelous thing, and it's unlikely back then we'd have gone for the names we did if we'd have know what Twitter was to become. Consequently I've decided to risk changing my username to my real name, and take close stock of the consequences.

Here is how I changed my Twitter name (hopefully) without losing any followers.

First, I checked my name was available. Important one this... ...bingo, all was clear.

Second, I made the name change. You can change your Twitter name at any time on the ’settings’ page at Twitter.com. Piece of cake. Bob's ya uncle. Yada, yada.

Third, I create a new account with my old Twitter name. I added a pic, chanced the background, added a URL to the new @nikhewitt twitter account, and posted a single tweet telling folks my name had changed. I also had to change the graphic on my background which, luckily, I'd saved as a PSD when I did it.

Forth, I let folks know through my old account, now @nikhewitt, that the name had changed but they needed to do nothing about it. I just did this for 'belt and braces' really, so they don't see something they don't recognise popping up in their stream.

Fifth, I ran around quickly changing the resorces I know used the old name/RSS stream, like the widget on the blog, FriendFeed, a few Ning sites, any links I could think of, PodBean etc. I'm sure there's a few stragglers, but I'll pick them up when I notice them and there's nothing important. Disco.

Including writing this post, the whole thing probably took about an hour.

Doing it this way I won’t lose any of my followers (touch wood) and they’ll all see the name change as their Twitter clients refresh. I did, however, miss a couple of @replys direcly after the switch. Most Twitter apps won’t update existing tweets with a new name until they are restarted, it seems. As a result a couple of @replys went to the old account. This was literally just for 20 minutes though, but if you're doing this yourself be sure to monitor your old account for a bit so you can catch missed replies and update your follower of the name change.

Painless.

New Podcast on Microblogging

Just for your info, our informal semi-weekly 'Yank & Limey' podcast is live at Podbean.

This week, a tiny bit late and in a change from the scheduled chat on Virtual Worlds, @alizasherman and I talk microblogging, applications we use to smooth the social media process, tweeting etiquette, and twitter journalism.

There's a good chance we'll be doing the Virtual Worlds cast later this week.

Yank and Limey is also available on iTunes.