Gmail Themes Make Me Smile

Gmail themes are here and they are GREAT.

Last night my roommates told me about their gmail themes and now I am happy to announce that I finally got them too! What took them so long to pass this fab. feature to me!?

Although they are seriously distracting, I am anxiously waiting for more themes to be published.

Thank you GMAIL, for making me smile --
any excuse for my email to be pink is a GREAT THING.

And yes, I have chosen the Cherry Blossom theme.

* to those who don't have themes yet.. just be patient. This is well worth it!

Are more people jumping into the Social Media Boat? Are these tools becoming mainstream?

So, lets face it.

It is almost November, and I've had a lot of time to think... It has been two months and I'm still unemployed. But, I'm not discouraged, and instead, I just (jokingly) refer to myself as a housewife - A housewife who is 22, runs errands, decorates her apartment, reads blogs, plays online and on facebook... A LOT.

I know that I love the digital space. I know that I love SMM. So, what do I have to say? What have I been thinking about? What trends have I seen from those around me?

Everyone is finally jumping in!

Remember last year, when people thought I was crazy for being on Twitter? When they didn't even realize that Perez was a blog? Well, I'm happy to say that life is really changing..

Everyday I have more and more friends on Twitter. And I don't mean fake friends that I have never met. I mean real friends. Friends that I have real FB pictures with. My friend and peers are finally not only just registering with the site, but really, truly, using it. Of course, we all know that a lot of businesses are on Twitter, and it truly is exciting and engaging for me as an active consumer. But, what is more important than shopping (especially in this economy)?? My friends! I love knowing about my friend's whereabout, thoughts and cool links!

I am guilty.

I am guilty of responding to facebook status updates. It's fun. It's geeky. And let's face it, if were gonna stalk, let's be honest about it! So yes, I still love facebook, and I don't think its going anywhere. My friends on FB are really using their status updates. Hourly! Sure, everyone freaked out when they made the new facebook, but no one I know has boycotted! Instead, my friends (yes, my real friends) are attacking and using facebook like never before.

Speaking of "like never before," my friends are also blogging and it is very exciting.

One of my good friends, Ryan, has been blogging for a few months about his experience abroad in China. He uploads pictures and continues to share his experiences exploring, eating and enjoying his time abroad. I love when a new post from ShangHais and Lows, his very clever title, shows up in my RSS feed. Also, I know that Ryan's family and friends (especially his mother!) are obsessed with his blog, and perhaps his new blog is inspiring these people to think twice about this new medium.

So, recent grads / college students, are we using social media to stay in touch with friends, make new ones, or for professional reasons?

I think that we are really taking the leap into the digital landscape like never before!

Lets keep it up!

Girls and gaming: Would you rather race a car or watch a fashion week fashion show?

Sure, when I was a little girl I played with Barbies. Then I got older and like my brother, discovered the world of video games. I played Sonic when we had our Sega, and then I seriously played Mario tennis when we got N64. And I was good!

And then I outgrew video games.

For me, computer games became the new video games, and a game where I could create plays that came to life, control people or families, and build roller coasters became games I played. And then I kind of outgrew these games and instead spent my time on AOL and then AIM and then I got older and became obsessed with social applications ie facebook (of course).

But this post isn't about facebook.. shocking, I know... It's actually about games. More specifically it's about iPhone applications.

As I have already said, I am NOT a gamer.
I like fashion.
and I like technology.
I would consider myself kind of a chic geek.
So, I downloaded the Style.com iPhone application, and I have to confess: I'm kind of in love.

This application is fabulous! While sitting on the train, or in the doctor's office I was able to watch some beautiful fashion shows and read some very cool posts from the Style.com site. Personally, I would rather watch a Fashion Week fashion show then play some boring, addictive game.

Now, I'll be honest... I really did try out the games!
On my way into the city, I had about an hour to kill, and decided why not go a little crazy and download some games.
I downloaded the iDoodle and Anaconda applications.
I figured these two applications would be a fun throwback to my beloved microsoft paint program and the nokia snake game that I loved.

But, after a few minutes I was not that impressed. Thankfully, I have plenty of other ways to entertain myself with my phone. Playing unimpressive, trivial games really didn't do it for me! Maybe there will be more girly games in the future for us divas to play on our iPhones, but for now, I'll have to stick to the applications I've got!

I know that Chanel already has an iPhone application. And yes, I have already downloaded it. Will this be a trend? Will more fashion forward brands expand their horizons to reach more of their consumers via their phones? Not a bad idea....

So girls.. Am I alone? Who else would rather peruse the latest fashion than play a game?

Summer 2008: A look back through social media... Thank You Twitter & facebook

Inevitably, as we begin this labor day weekend, one question comes to mind...

Has another summer passed us by already!?

The answer is YES!

My summer (another wonderful summer) has come and gone in an instant...

But, I did something very special for the summer of 2008... or what I will now call...

Summer 2008: 2.0.

This summer, as I traveled around the country, I thought it would be a very cool thing to blog what I was doing. I decided to tweet and facebook my summer by updating where I was and uploading photos. * see picture below.

Although it was certainly challenging to find time to do this... You have to imagine & realize that we were constantly traveling from place to place... (and part of the challenge was having enough cell service in the middle of the desert or while white water rafting .. thank you AT&T )

But, rest assured, I managed to update quite a few times with my whereabouts thank you my beloved iphone! But, I already went on a rant on my obsession, so let me continue for a minute.

As I often struggled to update my whereabouts and watch my 29 campers, I often would think... Is this really worth it? Who am I really doing this for? Sure, my friends got a kick out of following me and stalking my every move. My friend and PR gal @lexandthecity shamelessly stalked me and commented on my whereabouts.

But, when push comes to shove, (gasp!) I DID IT FOR ME!

For as long as I have been blogging and reading blogs, I have been a huge fan of Chris Brogan. Every time I meet him, he is the most encouraging and down to earth guy out there! I recently read a post he wrote about personal branding and how important it can be.

When I think about it, all of my tweeting and facebooking over the summer contributed to my personal online branding. All of my connectivity lets you, the reader or stalker or friend, know a little bit more about me. I like to think that my branding isn't just extra noise, but instead meaningful and interesting...

I must admit, it was pretty cool to update my whereabouts, especially now when I look back and can see where I was and what I was doing. But the funniest part about this is that I wasn't the only person to do this. My kids were also updating their facebooks telling their friends (and anyone who would listen) where they were and what an amazing summer we were all having! Coincidence? I think not... It just goes to show you how incorporated into our lives these tools are.

Summer 2008: Can we really survive without internet or cell service?

Hello World...

Fret not, I am back... for good.

I bet you thought that I forgot all about you! Well, my little blog, you are incorrect!

This summer was unbelievable. I spent the last 9 weeks as a counselor at my camp in Pennsylvania. But this was no ordinary summer spent in the mountains. With my 29 campers, I spent four weeks traveling across our beautiful country.

As I traveled from PA to California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Colorado, I had a lot of time to think ... just not exactly time to write.

This post is all about connectedness.

Hey Blogosphere:
Ever wonder what its like to not check your email every hour? What about not checking your mail everyday?
Ever wonder what its like to not use a computer for 2 weeks?
How about sleeping in a tent?

I remember listening to a PodCamp Boston lecture last fall, where the speaker suggested that we only check our email twice a day. He said that everyone's addiction to clicking that reload button killed our productivity. At that time, my class and I chatted about how unbelievable this idea was! Was this guy seriously only checking his email 3 times a day and surviving to talk about it!?!

This summer... that lecture became my life.
and I had major withdrawl.

At camp, I was busy. Running around, hanging out with my kids, lucky to check my email for 10 minutes every 2 days. YES, seriously... only 10 minutes every few days. oh and no cell service... did I mention that?

However, I was so wrapped up in my world @ camp that I hardly realized what I was missing back out in the real world. With no time to even sit down and realize how disconnected I was, I didn't realize that I hadn't read the NYT and didn't know about the changed facebook.

Then I left for my trip and everything changed.

ENTER IPHONE.
CUE HEAVENLY MUSIC.

My life changed exactly one week after the launch of the new iphone. If you have seen this blog at all, then you will realize that I am slightly obsessed with my computer, the iphone and musicals. For one year, I have rather impatiently waited for the announcement and launch of the most amazing gadget to ever hit my hands.

and lets just say... its hardly left my hands in these 6 weeks.

Having the phone on my trip was incredible. Not only was I able to reconnect to my friends and family, but as far as I am concerned, having this phone just made my life as a counselor easy.

We needed a restaurant ... iphone to the rescue.
We needed a movie theater... iphone to the rescue.
We needed pinkberry... iphone to the rescue...
(clearly I was traveling with 15 year old girls...)

Looking back, it seems almost ridiculous how much I relied on this device to connect me. But, today... its just normal (for me and my generation).

What I learned is that there is a great divide between my generation, the generations directly below and above me. Let me explain:

The Youngins: My 15 yr olds are beyond. Beyond what you ask? Beyond everything? These are kids who have been video chatting for years. Girls who, at age 15, have blackberrys and can hardly sit through a movie without texting and BBM'ing...it is sad... but true!
MARKETERS, PAY ATTENTION HERE: these kids are impressionable, smart and willing to spend!

Although the girls (and boys) weren't allowed to have cell phones on the trip (and none of them did) they (BRACE YOURSELF) weren't dying without them. This is the amazing part. Sure they missed them... but they adjusted to life without a cell phone. And somehow, they survived...

The older counselors who were also on the trip ... we're talking late 20's... thought that I was crazy because of how connected I was. Although I had my phone, and could text and sometimes browse the internet, still felt relatively unconnected. I wasn't at my maximum connectedness.

Now, trust me when I say, I understand that I am not normal.

The average girl my age isn't so into electronics and certainly isn't as tech savvy as I am. But, chances are... she texts just as much as I do. Most likely, she is attached to her phone in some way.. even my most un-techie friends are obsessed.

So how did we get like this?
I don't have time to delve any deeper...

But this summer I learned that we can (sometimes) survive without being connected 24/7.

Totally blogalicious? Are college students reading blogs?

This semester I completed a research project for my COM research class. My group project was centered around one main question:
Are College Students Reading Blogs?

The answer, my friends, is very simple.
And scary.
NO.

Out of the 105 students we surveyed, only 27 said that they read blogs!

We surveyed 25 students at BU's student center and the results we found were very interesting.

• significantly more males were reading blogs. (64%)
• it seems like female students can't actually identify what sites are blogs..."is like Perez Hilton a blog?"
• NO ONE (we surveyed) read more then 10 blogs! (SERIOUSLY!)
• While 74% of respondents spent 10-30 hours on the internet a week, 75% of respondents spent less than 5 hours a week reading blogs.
• Word Of Mouth is an incredibly powerful medium in college circles

These statistics really surprised me. Sure our sample was made up of students from the different colleges at BU. But it really seems that college students either don't want to, or don't have time to emerge themselves in the blogosphere. Although it doesn't surprise me that there aren't students from the health sciences school represented in our survey, I would think that more students from our College of Communication were reading blogs.

My question is how are communications students gonna keep up today's fast paced media landscape?

Sure, I do know some students that keep blogs. But these students are RARE! Most people who know me as a blogger think I'm slightly crazy. Blogs, seriously Danielle?

It's true!

Don't get me started on what they think of Twitter. I explained twitter to my interactive marketing class and people thought that I was nuts!


Should more colleges push students to be active online? Should they introduce students to different social media sites? Should it be integrated into everyone's education?

Are you a college students who reads blogs? What do your friends think?

Social Networking Goes Shopping @ Wetseal.

Have you read this?

Wetseal has started an online community.

In the spirit of Cher Horowitz from Clueless... AS IF!



How hilarious... now we can go and create, share and buy our favorite wet seal outfits!

What a great way to get all the Miley fans out there to spend some time online & spending money.

How GOOGLE and APPLE saved my life... this week

There is less then one month till graduation.
ONE MONTH.

How and when did that happen ?

Everyone I speak to asks me the same question.. " Can you believe it's your last semester already?"

I always answer this question the same way... "I know, it's absolutely crazy... time is flying."

The truth is.. TIME IS FLYING.
EXCEPT WHEN I GOT A BIG PUSH BACKWARDS LAST WEEK.

This past weekend I was in florida for my grandma's birthday and my computer crashed. Specifically, my hard drive failed... MACBOOK users: beware! This IS an epidemic.

God forbid my life should be easy, right?
But this catastrophe was not a complete disaster for a few reasons: aside from my external drive - Mainly I have been saved by GOOGLE & APPLE.



*this is the story of the past 2 weeks of my life and how I have been putting my computer, semester and life back together. piece by piece. document by document.

1. Thank god for Google. Well, google and the fact that my piece of sh*t printer doesn't work. Let me preface this with the fact that for the last YEAR I have had to basically email myself every document that I wanted to print... SO ALL MY WORK IS ONLINE.. very interesting...

With all this talk of earth day and a Steve Rubel's paperless office and the macbook air, this week I really valued having all of my documents online because surprise surprise, all my stuff was easy to find.

In all honesty, I never thought of all my stuff being on gmail/googledocs as something I did for a purpose or something that would ever help me.. I believe that this move was simply evolution. No one said to me, "Danielle, use googledocs... or email EVERYTHING to yourself." I just did it, because it was natural and because it was easy... ANOTHER PERK TO BEING A DIGITAL NATIVE?

In the old days (as my father always reminds me) we (he) was afraid to keep important documents, calendars and emails online because he was afraid of servers crashing and loosing everything. Today, as our technology continues to pave the way for keeping local and network copies of our documents, it seems that this fear will soon be erased. Just as we looked at floppy disks as crucial revolutionary devices, maybe soon our harddrive, as we know it today, will be a clunky waste of space since everything will be online?

Just a thought.

Google isnt the only thing that saved me during this recent episode.
THANK YOU APPLE.

What I have learned throughout my history as an Apple customer is that when apple is good, they're REALLY REALLY good!

Say what you want about their culture, their brand, their products: I don't care.
In my opinion Apple's fabulous in store customer service amazes me. over and over.

Sure, first I got an idiot to help me... which really rather annoyed me. But the MAC Genius that handled my computer was AMAZING.

These people know what they are talking about and that makes me happy and VERY IMPRESSED.

They loaded my computer with Leopard, which I had been holding out for. I am getting used to spaces and all the other cute new programs. Yes, I am the loser who took the guided tour and then watched it again with my dad when I showed him the cool new features, which he thought were great.. (like father like daughter)

My story ends here: But my suggestion is to mess around on the APPLE MUSEUM WEBSITE. A very cool site to play... even though it kinda stops around 2004 or 2006 ... but for a cool girl like me, its a fun resource.

Bloggers: What are you listening to? How are you feeling?

For my Mass Communication Research class, my final project is focused on college-age student's blog readership habits.
My group has started doing a lot of research and the results we are finding are startling and scary. (but more on that later)

However, what we have quickly learned is that our generation used to blog before they even knew what blogging was.
cue the music please: ENTER LIVEJOURNAL



Live journal was this great tool that many high school and middle school students were using (circa 2002!) to stay connected to friends and update them on cool things going on. Not only did it serve as a micro community, where you could connect to your friends, and see what other people were doing, but for a melo-dramatic HS student (as so many are) it was an awesome place just to vent.

My friend and I were talking about livejournal the other day and she reminded me of a cool feature called "Current Mood Current Music?"

At first we laughed at this idea because seriously, Is there anything more childish than listing your mood on a blog? Like how much more punk'ed out, melodramatic could this idea be? But then we thought about the idea of sharing your feelings. Sure we share ideas and feelings on our blogs today, but LJ gives us a a medium to spread an EXACT message.

What I remember being obsessed with was the music choices.
I loved starting posts with the following musical-theater-obsessed album art: some popular shows and rare geeky gems.



Sure, this might seem childish.. but its kind of a cute idea...
Oh and what I'm listening to / watching right now: ( I guess I've sort of grown up!)