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December 28, 2012
by admin
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Five Types of Images I Wish Would Get Out of My Pinterest Stream Forever

We all have our quirks and annoyances. For example, even the words “raw chicken” makes me shudder.

Pinterest is beautiful and wonderful to look at, and waste an afternoon pinning and reading, but every once in awhile, one of these images comes up on my Pinterest feed, and I feel like I might lose my lunch.

Maybe I’m just a weirdo, but I bet we all have our own Pinterest hates.

Here are mine.

1. Raw food, especially raw meat. I don’t like to look at it when preparing, much less on Pinterest. Maybe because I’m a sometimes vegan, but the site of raw meat revolts me, especially raw chicken.

2. I once read an article for bloggers/marketers/content creators that said to create long images because people were more likely to click on the content. I wish I could stab that author in the eye. Long images in my Pinterest stream drive me bonkers. So distracting.

3. The image says it all. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a picture and gotten so excited, only to click over to the pin and realize the link was dead/pointed to Google images/linked to the homepage of a blog and I couldn’t find the information I was so excited about.

4. The fat shaming/woman hating “motivational posts” that offer such profound wisdom as “nothing is as good as skinny tastes.” Seriously, I worry about y’all. Pinterest is going to give you an eating disorder.

5. The image of the most amazing cupcakes/baked good/craft that promises I too can make them. So easy even a child could do it the pin promises. Only no one outside of a professional baker could get close to making something that resembles the image. I’ve determined that the snowman cookies, cookie monster cupcakes and Elmo cupcakes are plants, and that somewhere on the Interwebz, a clever baker is laughing at us all, knowing our cupcakes will never, ever even resemble Elmo.

Do you agree with my five types of images that I could live without seeing on Pinterest again? Do you have any to add? Comment below!

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September 28, 2012
by admin
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Yes, Fair Use and Copyright Apply Even If It’s For a Good Cause

Probably a million posts exist about fair use, copyright and social media. I hope by now you know: If you didn’t create it, you can’t use it. Of course, there are fair use exceptions, but those don’t allow much wiggle room. Something that I’ve seen quite a bit is that it’s okay to life a picture, steal parts of a blog post or otherwise use someone’s work because it’s to support a good cause. That’s just not true. It’s ever bit as illegal, and immoral. Pushing aside the fact that it’s illegal, I’ll talk below about why it’s wrong to lift something because you believe it’s helping your cause.

What Is Fair Use and Copyright?

A quick refresher in case this is the first time you’re stumbling on something about fair use and copyright on the Internet. You can’t use some one’s work, even if you credit it. You can of course quote sections of the work. How much? Well, that’s not a straight forward answer, and where fair use comes to play.

Fair use is the notion that you can use someone’s work. It’s a defense to copyright infringement. You can read all about it on the Wikipedia section about fair use.

Note, using something for an educational nonprofit purpose is part of a potential fair use defense, but it doesn’t mean that it is always okay to lift something for a nonprofit. It means that your defense might hold up better if you aren’t making money, but and this is a huge but, you must meet the other fair use standards and a judge must agree with you. That’s a big difference.

I’ve summed up fair use here and left out a big chunk, if you have ever found yourself using the phrase “fair use” to argue your use of something, please take lots of time to read about it. Most of the time I see people use that phrase, they’re wrong.

It’s Morally Wrong to Use Other’s Work for Your Cause

I always feel so bad when someone lifts my work or a friend’s work in their cause work and then throws a fit when called out. They flip the tables and play the victim, acting like the original copyright holder is a jerk for not letting them use it for a good cause. It’s so wrong to do that. You shouldn’t be using work that you aren’t legally allowed to period. You especially shouldn’t feel entitled to use that work to support the cause.

The person that created that work spent hours, and if it’s for a cause probably isn’t profiting from it, but it fits into THEIR branding. They deserve control over where and how it’s used. It’s possible if you wrote to ask, they wouldn’t mind you using it. I let people use my materials all the time when they ask if I get a sense of when and where they will be, and if they attribute.

While we’re on it, attribution isn’t just to get attention or a pat on the back for creating something. It’s important people can track down the sources of information.

You might think you’re both on the same side of a cause and should work together, but what if you have slightly different view points and the original author doesn’t agree with everything you say? Her work shouldn’t be lifted.

It’s devastating to see your work stolen.

Examples of Doing Bad By Doing Good

Taking a picture or graphic from someone else and changing it. Even if you add text to it, even one line, you’re breaking the law and you’re doing something bad. If you email and get permission, different story, but just because you add something to a graphic, doesn’t mean that it’s okay to use. Yes, even if it’s all for the same cause.
Assuming you’re entitled to use part of a blog post because you have good intentions. Nope, still not right.
Copying and pasting a status from a nonprofit on Facebook word-for-word with out attributing. You can quote the nonprofit, but do say where you found the words.

I know the Internet has created a way to quickly publish, without editors or anyone looking over our shoulders. I’m glad that I worked in newspaper and went to journalism school so that I learned some of this stuff. I know not all of us did.

This entire post can be summed up in one sentence. You cannot take someone’s words, pictures of graphics and use them for your cause. It’s not only illegal, it’s rude.

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September 2, 2012
by admin
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Dear Facebook: Please Never Add a Dislike Button

Since Facebook first launched the “like” button, there’s been a call from users to add a dislike button. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so much much ugly online, but I’ve always thought it was a horrible idea.

I don’t think Facebook plans on adding a dislike button and really don’t see it happening, but turns out some of those apps you see for “dislike” buttons seem to be real. At one point, they were spam, but seems that some of them do add some sort of dislike option for users.

Earlier this month, I wrote two posts about being a Buddhist babyloss mom. It wasn’t something easy to write or open up about. It’s taken me almost three years to open up about it honestly, so I hit the “Publish” button with baited breath.

The response was great! Non-Buddhists appreciated that I was respectful in my posts, and others had questions. I learned that friends were Buddhist or had Buddhist leanings that I never knew about.

Then I logged onto my Facebook page where there was a notification on the posts from others section that someone had “disliked” my post about being Buddhist.

How can you dislike someone else’s religion, especially if they write a respectful post that explicitly mentions that you aren’t trying to convert people and that you appreciate everyone’s views? It stung. It’s been a few days so I’m over it, but after seeing the app again on a friend’s wall, I thought I’d come here to my writing blog to plead with Facebook to never officially add that feature.

Because cyber bullying sucks and is real. Given the opportunity to be negative, while people will be. I can see people being bratty and rude like in the situation I described above and clicking “dislike” on posts that are personal.

Can you imagine if someone “dislikes” a picture of your newborn? Or hits dislike when you write a status update about meeting up with a mutual friend? Burn! That would hurt.

I know it sounds nice. Sometimes you won’t to show your friend you read her status update, but hitting like under the post might just be inappropriate. So if you can dislike that someone’s great aunt fell and broke their hip or that someone had a bad day, that seems good in theory. However, the button will be abused, because that’s just how people are online.

So from this user, please Facebook, don’t add a dislike button!

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August 16, 2012
by admin
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Google Adds Social Media Streams to Top of Search: Takeaways for Causes, Marketers and Writers

My Google search this morning looked a little different. I don’t know how long the changes have been in place, but I just noticed them this afternoon.

For over a year, Internet marketers and online writers have been hearing that social media is becoming more important to SEO (search engine optimization). Reportedly, Google has been taking ques from social media to give posts higher search rankings. I’m not a SEO guru. I know some for my work, and did work for Google for a little while.

Today, social seems to play an even larger role.

Google is including social media tabs right above the ads slot. Also to the right, a Google Plus result popped up.

Click on those social media tabs and social results appear. Notably, Facebook is absent from the Google social media tab. Google and Facebook are competitors.

For me this is great news, I’m an active social media user. I’m going to look the search results and try to control what appears. For example, on the Twitter tab, under a search for Cora’s story, lots of irrelevant information popped up. This tells me I need to start tweeting more with the words “Cora’s Story” included if I want for my tweet to show up.

If I want people to find me when they search for something like “pulse ox,” the simple screening for newborns I advocate for, I should think about starting a Flickr stream or Google Plus page.

With the prominent placement of Google Plus, it’s definitely time to start using that service if you want people to find you. Again, not a guru, and I’m going to read up on all of this as the afternoon to see what others are taking away.

But, if you’re an online writer, internet marketer or just someone that wants your information found, time to take this information and start thinking about how the search engines are reading social media, and using it to your advantage.

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July 19, 2012
by admin
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A Case Study in How Not to Do Blogger Outreach

After being a blogger since 08ish, the past year has brought a change for me, I’ve been on the other side doing blogger relations. I’m still consider myself more of a blogger than a PR/blogger outreach person. I felt the need to throw that out there before getting to something completely mind boggling I’ve witnessed this week.

A few weeks ago, a blogger posted in a bloggers Facebook group with a link to an interest form for anyone that wanted to hear from a company. Not many details were given, but it was definitely stated that it would be a paid opportunity to install a widget on a page. I decided to fill out the form even though chances were slim to none that I’d want something like that on my main blog, Cora’s Story. I was curious, and you never know.

I heard back from someone at the company, Ubokia.

Dear Kristine,

My name is Conner (Redacted), and I am an associate at Ubokia. (Redacted) has informed me that you are interested in working with us.

Ubokia is a social online marketplace. There is great freedom in how Ubokia can be used. We allow people to post either what they would like to sell or what they would like to buy. However, our focus is in allowing people to place specific ‘want’ ads and have the sellers compete for their business. One of our most recent developments is an embedded marketplace for blog owners with all the functionality ofUbokia. I would love to open a discussion detailing the pros of embedding Ubokia and whether we can create a mutually beneficial partnership. Let me know the best time and best method to contact you.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Conner

I’d forgotten filling out the interest form, so I checked out the site and decided I would try a call with them, after all I have a bazillion blogs and perhaps it would work on one of them.

I replied that I looked forward to speaking and gave my phone number, still with the understanding that this was *truly* a company looking to legitimatelly work with bloggers.

And then the bait and switch, I get this email.

Kristine,

First, let me give you some information about Ubokia. We are trying to spread the word about our website. The idea is to create a more satisfying buying experience on the internet. There are so many ways in which the current e-commerce market model lets us down. For one, the seller has all the power. Current internet shoppers are forced to search for the product they want through internet. This can be very time-consuming and is usually at the expense of valuable free-time. Internet shoppers are faced with the choice of settling for what is convenient to save time or to waste precious free-time doing an exhaustive search to find the best possible solution. Instead, at Ubokia, we have the buyer place what they want and the sellers come to them. This way, the buyer can spend their free time doing as they wish because the seller will send them an email describing their item. The other pitfall that people run into on the internet is not knowing whether the person they are doing business with is reliable or safe. So, Ubokia has tools in place to ensure not just the best buying experience, but also one that is safe and reliable. This starts with allowing users from eBay to import all of their user feedback from that site. Also, we allow for user feedback on the Ubokia website. One of the greatest assets to ensure safety and reliability is the synthesis of social networking with the marketplace. OnUbokia, users are able to create groups that can be open or private. These groups allow for a smaller number of users to interact, where the likelihood of an unknown or sketchy seller decreases dramatically. Lastly, Ubokia has a unique verification algorithm that continues to ensure the safety of both the buyer and the seller.

Recently, we have rolled out our iFrame widget. With this, we are hoping to start mutually beneficial partnerships with bloggers. We are hoping to get more people to hear about, know about, and useUbokia. We are hoping to do this by having bloggers embed the iFrame into their website. This benefits the blogger because now you, as the blogger, can drive your traffic to safe, secure marketplace, that is unique to the blog as the users will be comprised of blog followers. Since the iFrame is embedded in the site, the traffic never actually leaves your blog site. Also, it creates another page on your blog, thus allowing for more space that could potentially be used for advertising. Furthermore, embedding our widget creates a social group on our website that is visible to all Ubokia users. At this group site,Ubokia users will be exposed to your site.

I hope this information was useful. Please let me know if you have any further questions, or if you would like to proceed with embedding the iFrame

Conner

Oh, yes, that sounds so mutually beneficial. I’d love to promote your company, for free. All for traffic I’m not sure I’m going to get. And, oh yes, thanks for blowing off the phone call with me and turning it into this.

I was totally turned off and archived the emails and moved on.

Then, in the same group that I first saw the sign up, threads started popping up from bloggers. It was so odd. Their offers were all over the place, $1000 to one blogger, $35 a month to another and $10,000 to another. Okay, you might be thinking, not so odd the bloggers were at different levels. However, I think we were all within a reasonable gauge of each other numbers wise. They tried the bait and switch on a few others, too, trying to get bloggers to promote them for free.

It was all sounding so strange, but not post worthy yet.

Then I started reading updates from my friend Emily, she was negotiating with them, and was willing to offer quite a fair rate.

After several emails back and forth (and trust me, Emily is always uber nice and professional), she gets this, from Connor as well:

“I would also like to mention that the market decides the fair value of something. For example, Honda cars are priced at $20,000 because that is what people are willing to pay, not because Honda set the price there arbitrarily. According to you, there are sites out there that will make a marketplace for your site, which is the exact same service we offer, and by your own admission, those websites will make you a marketplace for free. So, by your own admission, the market value for embedding a marketplace on your site is free because that is what the other vendors are willing to pay you for it. We are actually offering you money, which is more than the actual market value.”

So now hundreds of bloggers have not only sworn off working with you, but I bet they aren’t going to use your services either.

And, I guarantee, Ubokia will not see returns from their “free” placements.

Lesson learned: When it comes to blogger outreach, don’t try to cheapskate your way onto blogs, in the long run, it will almost always cost you much more than paying bloggers a fair rate.

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