What's in a name?

Are you LinkedIn? No?

Well if you Care2, Gather up your stuff and come on over to myspace to see what’s up; we’ll chat over dinner. I promise you it will be del.icio.us!

Ok, so maybe the only thing I know how to make is mac & cheese in the microwave but I’m sure together we can StumbleUpon something else. Wiki! Wait, what’s that mean?

It’s, like, slang dude. You Digg? Whatever, I’m just Twitter-ing on about nothing, trying to get a Ryze out of you. But since you’re here, I’ve got a book I want to loan you; I Reddit, and I think you’ll love it too.

Books. You remember books right? No, not that kind of book.

Who names these social networking sites anyways? I guess they’re catchy and all, but really? Bebo? Xanga? And, more importantly, what is with the complete disregard for spelling and punctuation when choosing a name? What are we teaching our children?

Maybe that’s just my English Literature background coming back to haunt me. But I have to wonder, would a social networking site by any other name still be as connected?

What do you think? You’ve been Tagged, so you’re it!

Can I get a Hi5 for that one?

Brand Who?

One of the most popular topics in all of my classes is branding.

Personal branding, that is.

My instructors encourage us to develop our own personal brand, something we can use to "sell" ourselves at a job interview. They call it "Brand You" and we're supposedly putting it out there each and every time we participate in social media.

My struggle is this: if I don't even know what my personal brand is in real life, how can I know what brand I'm leaving behind in the virtual world?

When a company decides on a brand, presumably they do some research. What is their target audience? How do they want to appear to that audience? What's the best way to reach them?

So for me, it breaks down like this: what is my target audience? (potential employers) How do I want to appear to that audience? (smart, reliable, etc.) What's the best way to reach them? (good question. If I had the answer to that, I probably wouldn't be writing this entry)

Some of my classmates are on Twitter (all the time, but that's another post). They're putting their personal brand out there via status updates, reaching potential employers and clients alike. For me, that just doesn't seem like the way I want to get my brand out there.

And just what is that brand?

When I figure it out, I'll let you know...

This is no (your mom) joke.

Well, the day has finally arrived.

My mom has facebook.

I thought that since we had come this far and she had yet to figure out how to sign up, I was free and clear. I thought wrong. Despite my many refusals to help her, she has figured it out all on her own.

And is now adding my friends.

Since I have yet to accept her request, she hasn't seen my profile. It's locked down, and not because of its content; I just don't feel the need to allow just any random stranger access to my information and photos.

So why haven't I accepted her request? It's simple: my mother doesn't need to be privy to every detail of my life. When I go home for the weekend, I would like to give her the highlights and have it be brand new information, not something she read on her mini-feed days ago.

Some of you may feel this is being a little harsh to the woman who brought me into this world. But what can I say? I just don't feel the need to fully bring her into my world. Maybe it's because I don't think of her as being up to speed on everything technology related (my parents still believe my hotmail account is taking up space on their personal computer, and tell me to delete my emails to make it run faster. Seriously.)

To all my facebook friends: if you receive a request from my mom, please, whatever you do - do not confirm.