I’M RELUCTANT TO ADMIT THIS, but it’s true: I love to hang out in Facebook nowadays. I’m normally inactive on social networking sites, and I’ve quitted social networks when many strangers tried to add me as friends. However, I enjoy using Facebook and I’m fascinated by it for at least seven reasons:
Business. When Facebook crossed the 100 million member mark last year, I began to explore and experiment with its features (wall, notes, links, photos, tagging, videos, events, groups, pages, etc.) and numerous third-party apps, with the intention of teaching them during my Web 2.0 workshops at NTU’s Center for Continuing Education.
As Mari Simith of WhyFacebook.com put it, it’s a great place for promoting business: “Meet your peers. Find business contacts. Instant gate opener. Build relationships. Raise visibility. Develop your personal brand. Target your niche. Get rapid top Google placement. Place targeted ads. No cost marketing.” (See also: Tom Lindstrom’s Myspace Marketing Tips.)
THIS MORNING, I’M LAUNCHING the Asia Social Media Directory — a strictly non-partisan and non-competitive wiki-based (and so community-managed) directory. This directory has been modeled after Rambling Librarian’s Singapore Social Media Directory AND enhanced with a Frappr map, a Recent Readers log and more concise writeups. (More interesting widgets coming up soon.)
Asia Social Media Directory is “non-competitive” in the sense that all Singaporean bloggers and social media activists are still encouraged to add relevant info on their sites on the Singapore Social Media Directory. However all, including those from Singapore, are welcome to join the Asia Social Media Directory Frappr map:
THIS IS A REACTABLE, a multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Looks futuristic, tactile and based on physics laws. (Thanks to Chris Sessums’ post on this.)
According to the designers, this instrument is intended to be:
collaborative: several performers (locally or remotely)
intuitive: zero manual, zero instructions
sonically challenging and interesting
learnable and masterable, even by children
suitable for novice and advanced electronic music (i.e. installations and concerts)
