The Spin Within

Walk into a conference with hundreds or even thousands of potential business connections, and you might feel like the lost fish in the rather gigantic pond.  A couple of days filled with different presentations does not allow network opportunities with everyone and there is a potential loss to be suffered from that. Unsocial, a free new app for iPhone, Android, and soon Blackberry, is a “FourSquare meets LinkedIn, with a touch of match.com on the side.” It takes away those overwhelming network opportunities and determines quick contacts for you. The social butterflies of who to sit next … Continue Reading

Chris Brogan published Myths of the Modern Age and I couldn’t agree more with his listing of common, but faulty, thinking that has crept into our lives. A theme that runs through the list is that to be successful in this modern time, we have to be on-call, always-connected, and wear our sleep deprived nature like a badge of courage, even as we invest more hours with our Google Readers trying to “keep up”.

Whoever sold the American … Continue Reading

FourSquare's "Get Yourself Tested" Badge

While the results of an STD test are generally confidential, the decision to get such a check-up can now be more public. I seriously wonder how many people will choose to take advantage of this new FourSquare “check in” offer, but it’s garnering quite a bit of attention from the media.

According to Yahoo News, FourSquare, the social network that allows members to broadcast their location and activities, has joined … Continue Reading

The folks at Facebook had been teasing the idea of competing with Foursquare for awhile and now it has been confirmed. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Places, a geo-location plug-in for his social network, is part of the version 3.2 update to the Facebook for iPhone app available now (Well, not really as I can’t use the service now, but Facebook assures me I will be able to soon). What’s different about Places is the idea that you can actually tag your friends if they’re with … Continue Reading

Fast food restaurants have social networking pages, but 4Food takes it to a w(hole) other level. 4Food is the first socially networked fast food eatery with a mission to revolutionize the restaurant and “to bring fast food that’s fresh, delicious, and nutritious to all ages, lifestyles, incomes and ethnicities.”

Here’s the deal: Customers log into 4food.com to construct their ideal burger. Starting with 4food’s donut-shaped signature patty, they can construct their burger any way they like it using 25 ethnically diverse Veggiescoop centers to create their meal. … Continue Reading

I just don’t know exactly how I feel about this. Matt Van Horn, business developer for social media site Digg, proposed to his girlfriend last weekend and, naturally for someone involved in social media, he posted the proposal news to Twitter. And Foursquare. And Qik. And Facebook? I’ll let Matt explain how he set it up:
“So I had @hutchins hiding with me behind the rock with his iPhone live streaming the proposal and he also had a camera taking photos. I had … Continue Reading

Relationships are challenging. But navigating relationships in the new era of social media brings with it a whole new set of challenges (and now a whole new host of web sites.)

In the past few days, I’ve had two friends change their relationship status on Facebook to announce a new relationship that has been going on for less than a month.  One of the relationships has already ended (and I hear is now back on again.)  I’ve got my fingers crossed for the second one.

So, it shouldn’t have surprised me … Continue Reading

You can buy the T-shirt HERE.

As Foursquare gains traction in the realm of social media, experts and amateurs alike continue to speculate about the future of the location-based social networking app. Foursquare has already defeated “Check-in” rival Gowalla, but this is only a minor victory when considering the bigger picture. Can Foursquare continue to evolve and increase its popularity or is this simply a social networking fad yet to run its course? Here at JZMcBride and Associates we have our differing opinions regarding Foursquare, but I will save those for … Continue Reading

Man, every shiny coin has an ugly other side.

The latest pimple comes courtesy of PleaseRobMe.com, which sends a cautionary note to users of Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp and others who alert the world to their whereabouts. Turns out that all this look-at-me-know social media, while keeping disparate groups of people connected, also provides a map and time line for cat burglars, villains and the like. In other words, it is telling them where people are not.

The site warns: The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it … Continue Reading