MostlyLisa.com | Photography tips & iPhoneography inspiration

Ok, so you know how last week I said that I was spending way too much time joining, profiling, friending, surfing and searching for lost passwords on the plethora of buzzing social nets on the www? And how I was gonna start to take control of my iLife by chucking out the social nets I didn’t think were useful/cool/interesting/informative and committing my time to more useful pursuits?

Yeah. Well. After one week I have been about thiiiis successful:

AKA: Not. So. Much.

(Aside: Remember how Xander used to say that all the time? Sometimes I miss the Scoobies so much it hurts).

I guess it’s my rebellious nature, but after making that “resolution”, the temptation for joining new social nets was even greater. And my delight in breaking the rules, resulted in the following:

Stumbleupon
Mashable
9 rules

So far the thing that’s annoyed me the most is that Mashable, StumbleUpon, and Digg are all incompatible with Safari? What gives? I had to download Firefox again just to complete my profile. This does not bode well for these nets as I am a Safari only user. And although I love the beautifully designed FF logo and the ease of the delicious plug-in I’m just feel more, well, “me” when I use Safari. And let’s not downplay the importance of feeling comfortable with your browser. I mean if you can’t be yourself with your browser, then how can you really be legit with your IM client?

I also got avatar friendly with the following blogging communities:

Twenty Something Bloggers
BlogCatalog
Bloglog

If you have any valid reasons for me to dump any of these or the nets on my sidebar i.e. Jaiku totally blows OR Pownce artificially inseminated me with evil alien spawn OR my ex-boyfriend stalked me on Facebook (all true by the way… mostly).

**Please help me. I have a problem. Perhaps someone should intervene and take temporary legal control over my social net affairs and assets.

I cannot tell you how giddy I am right now. I have been through the ringer trying to embed videos, create photo galleries, post videos, make buttons, side bar video thumbnails … It’s always a hassle, especially since I’m not a whizz at flash. I used Widgetbox.com for quite a few JS widgets for my revver videos, 2.0 mashups on my old blogspot blog. And since moving to WordPress, I’ve relied on the plethora of WP plug-ins. But more often than not, they don’t work, or do what I want them to do. I’ve always wanted a really clean, simple, and functional image gallery. And the Flicker Albums plug-in ain’t cutting it.

But at 2am this eve, Techcrunch brought Sprout: The Online WYSIWYG Editor for Flash into my world. I’ve been playing with it for about 30 minutes and it is dead easy to use, especially if you have a PS background. You can create a video album, audio player or a music playlist, and a image slideshow in seconds that the lovely Sprout coding monkey will publish to most social net sites i.e., Facebook, Myspace, blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, page flakes, etc.

To test the new site, I made my first “Sprout”: An image slideshow of some shots I took at my first Wedding shoot. It took me less than 15 mins to create and customize my sprout. All I had to do was import my flickr photos and Sprout did the rest. There are controllers at the bottom for pause/play and fwd/back. I was also able to add a hyperlink to my flicker album at the bottom. (Takes a few seconds to load)

The other day I met up with an old friend from my Blades of Glory days who asked, “When did you get so geeky with all that stuff on the internet?” (he’s not so technologically inclined). “You used to be so… organic,” he continued. I’m not entirely sure what he meant by “organic”… i blended well with shrubbery… i smelled a bit like dirt… i was tasty, good for you, and wasn’t sprayed in loads of pesticides???

Whatever he meant, I’ll admit that I’ve gotten pretty intensely geeky with social nets over the last few years. My very first experience was with MySpace in 2004. I lasted one month. During that month, I received over 100 creepy messages from internet suitors and Sir Spam-a-Lot. That, and the design aesthetic alone, was enough to turn me off MySpace permanently. But having a small taste of an internet community started an insatiable hunger in me to connect and be heard.

After finishing graduate school, I had a wee bit of a “Post-University-WTF-do-I-do-with-My-Life-Now?!?” Crisis. I literally ran screaming from my MA defense all the way down the west coast to Anaheim, California, through the Disneyland gates, to Futureland and up the steps to Space Mountain, then across the park to Splash Mountain, then finally settled during Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (Peter Pan was closed. Lame.)

This was the beginning of my “Return-to-Childhood-Shirk-All-Adult-Responsibilities” phase. So far it’s lasted 4 years. I may push it through 2008, just for good luck.

So after uni ended, I moved from Victoria to the big city of Vancouver to find work and I was lonely and needed a creative outlet so I started my first blog “they mostly come out at night… mostly @blogspot in November 2006. The community was immense, but I am a bit of an elitist snob so I moved to WordPress shortly thereafter. And it was in one of these blogging commuities, that I read about the Facebook phenomenon.

I was most reluctant to join Facebook and put it off for quite some time. It’s reputation as an American college dating site really turned me off. But one day I joined, and ever since I’ve been moaning about it. For every good experience there seem to be 10 bad ones. The wasted time looking at crappy, poorly lit, drunken self-portraits kills me, yet I can’t seem to part with the random delight of connecting with some really cool people.

Which brings me to my beloved Twitter. On June 20, 2007, I began my journey with Twitter. I started out slow, twittering to myself in the wee hours. And then within a month, I got literally obsessed with tweeting my every move and @tweeting everyone elses’. ‘What are you doing?’ became ‘What are you wearing, eating, drinking, listening to, thinking about?’ and most importantly ‘What techno iGadget are you lusting after?’ It was brilliant. it changed my everyday mundane existence into a bright and shiny one that I could share with glittering iFriends. And they are so beautiful.

And that’s how it started. And from there it all went pear-shaped. I lost control and the beast started controlling me. I was literally signing up to a new social net everyday. I’d create a profile, surf for a bit, add a few friends, then I’d lose my password, get locked out, and forget about it all by the next morning when more fresh, crispy bacn arrived in my inbox.

I’m at the point now where I can’t keep track of it all and I’m finding myself aimlessly wandering the 2.0 www for hours without a single recollection of what I’m doing, what I just did, and the kicker, why?

So over the next couple months I’m gonna start chucking the 2.0 losers and committing to the 2.0 winners.

Here’s the list I’ll be dealing with:
Twitter
Flickr
Lastfm
Facebook
Revver
Pownce
Virb
Vimeo
Digg
Jaiku
MyBlogLog
del.icio.us
Technorati
StumbleUpon

I know there are more, but I’ve already forgotten what they were. Anyway, this post is too long. I’m boring myself. I’d rather hear what you have to say. So lemme know what your favourite 2.0 nets are and what you love and hate about them. Much Love.

Hizzah Hizzah. Thanks to Jonathan, and all the uber l33t people at Revver for creating this much needed plug-in for Revver and WP users.

Publish, manage, and track your video content all without ever leaving your own website, and even allow your subscribers to submit their own video responses to your posts! It’s your own interactive video portal, made simple with Revver and WordPress.

I totally digg this new plug-in. I will ftp this up to my new site (what? you have a new site??? oh yes, my new super sweet blag is nearing completion and will be up and running in the next few weeks. excited??? i sure am. i’m ready to move to the big leagues of blogging!)

So. Very. Extremely. A bit too much actually. People are actually concerned about me. I know I probably shouldn’t join another social net, but I get caught up in the moment. It’s such a rush. The joining. The setting up. The customizing. The friending. The snooping around. I’ll admit it. I get Zissou *crazy eyes* every time i jack into a new net of uber nerds. FYI. Matrix references are so 1.0.

Some 2.0s i’m currently digging.

Lastfm

I was slow to jump on this bandwagon. But I joined today and I am totally loving it. It’s like Pandora (which is now unaccessible to people outside of the US) + a social net of music lovers. Sharing, listening and talking about music is one of my favourite things and getting introduced to new wikkid music is the best thing ever.

The lastfm OSX App is pretty sweet. I love reading the bios of my fav artists, looking at their album art, and getting cool music recommendations.

Pownce

Though i still have been utilizing Pownce to it’s full awesomeness. This theme has made me want to. Love this Theme.

Gleamd is all about sheading light on cool people. You can vote for people to make them uber cool or learn about new cool people that you might not have known about. It’s all kinda inspiring!

Twitter. Lovable Twitter.

I love twitter. Some people (ahem… Tom) don’t get twitter. But after joining over 10 different social nets, twitter remains the ultimate champion. I can’t get enough of the my Twitter iFriends’ updates. They are my personal digg guide to the uber cool on the www. Somehow, they always seem to get to the latest and greatest news before anyone else. they are pretty much online all day and night which makes me feel more “normal” and less c-c-crazy and ob.sess.d.

And now a special high five to my beloved Twitter iFriends!

Here are some of my all time favourite Tweets. (I keep them for sentimental reasons).

Dmitry – Paid $70 for a new card because bank said the old one had been compromised. Biz idea: a bank that “compromises” cards and asks for reissue.

Vladimir – taking a meal in Russian Ministry of Emergencies. Bean soup+plov+salade=49 rubles (~$1.9), how do you like it?:)

Nik Amazed at how much BS some people will talk on Twitter to seem “cool” to people they will never meet. It’s just pathetic.

Nathan – Is there a way to turn down the pitch on Amber MacArthur?

Merlin – They should make a Bluetooth earpiece that squirts cologne and yells at waitresses for you. I’d call it “Le Douchebagoir™.”

oh Merlin! I am still laughing. There are so many more… but i’m totally dunzo. Dunzo. And I am shooting a campaign for Reflections eyewear. As the model. I know. A little role reversal never hurt anyone… or did it? Should be defo cool to work with uber photog Darryl Humphrey.

Later Peeps.