People who know me personally also know my enthusiasm when it comes to bizarre niche history knowledge. History is hardly a hot topic across the web. History (as well as my other favorite topic politics) traditionally has not got a reputation for being extremely digestable…or even entertaining.

This has changed a lot lately. More and more people with a very distinct taste in niche history topics popped up recently and created impressive, inspiring and sometimes just very interesting places for people like me (and potentially you). Most of the people driving the following links are not just very entertaining but extremely knowledgeable in their specific niche.

Even though I follow so many inspiring history nerds I would just like to highlight a couple of sources that I regularly use and that I find absolutely remarkable. Of course this cannot even come close to a comprehensive list. But I am always happy to learn about entertaining, smart historical online sources that I haven’t heard of. Just leave a comment underneath this article (please).

Four great blogs on history

Of course I have to start up any list of my favorite history sources with Retronaut. The blog is a steady stream of quality historical content – sometimes random but always smart and interesting. Its focus definitely lies on the last 200 years, primarily snippets from the lifes of ordinary people as well as celebrities.

Retro Future has a slightly different approach to history. Its founder Matt Novak has launched a platform that exclusively features future visions from the past – a history that never was. Paleo Future is now part of the Smithsonian family of blogs. And Matt has additionally started to feed a very interesting Youtube channel around the same topic.

Letters of Note again follows a completely different route to explain and feature historical events. The site collects and displays some of the most remarkable and – at the same time – least known letters of famous people. It is simply a delight to find out that even Abraham Lincoln had very worldly problems when he recommended his bankrupt step-brother: “You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nail,” for somebody who will give you money for it.” Touché Mister Lincoln.

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Read the rest of A Collection. Links for Your Inner History Nerd. (404 words)

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Post tags: Blogging, Creativity, Facebook, history, Links, pinterest, Twitter, World

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‘It slipped into parody late last year with the hypothetical app, Jotly, which allowed you to “rate everything” from the ice cubes in your drink to the fire hydrant you saw on the street. The fake promo video perfectly nailed everything about the herd mentality among startups. Its creator told me to watch for “the color blue, rounded corners, SoLoMo [SocialLocalMobile], ratings, points, free iPads, ridiculous name (complete with random adverbing via ‘ly’), overpromising, private beta, giant buttons, ‘friction-less’ sign up, no clear purpose, and of course a promo video.”

And then, the hilarious parody ate itself and my tears of laughter turned to sadness when the people behind the joke actually released Jotly as a real, live app.’

Here is the original video. Isn’t it ironic? Revolutions always eat their own children. Did anyone say google Glass?

Jotly, the Ultimate App for Sharing Everything with Everyone (Psych!)

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Post tags: Experimental, Facebook, Future, Ideas, People, Prediction, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Tech, Tools, Trends, Truth, World

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That of course is wrong. Specifically if you take a look at the rarely talked about opportunities of intertwining the worlds of search and social.

A while ago I had the pleasure to get to know Tom Smith, founder of Trendstream, the company behind the GlobalWebIndex and the great Wave studies conducted on behalf of McCann.

Tom’s following presentation, given at the International Search Summit in Munich, discusses the idea of what he describes as the ‘Googopoly’, where Google has risen to control most of what we see and do online.

Even though I doubt the relevance of google Plus I found Tom’s key takeaway extremely smart: It is not just about google+. It is about how google cements its position with a multitude of tools like Chrome, Android and many others in order to enforce search thinking into anything that’s social nowadays.

Great presentation. Thanks to We are Social for the link…

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Read the rest of Googopoly. The Future of Search and Social. (19 words)

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Post tags: Facebook, google, google plus, Insights, People, Prediction, Presentation, Report, Reports, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Study, trendstream, World

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Post tags: Advertising, Facebook, Funny, Media, Social Networks, Truth

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Read more at http://ghen.sl/yz6v84

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Post tags: chart, Facebook, Social Networks, Strategy, World

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A Social Media Management System (SMMS) is a software tool that uses business rules and approved employees and partners to manage multiple social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This system contains features such as governance, workflow, intelligence, and integration capabilities across the enterprise. The success of these tools is dependent upon a business-led strategy, defined processes, trained staff, and ability to measure efforts.

SMMS are there to reduce the complexity of large real time social media platforms. And there are many, many different vendors on the market. From Hootsuite to BuddyMedia, from Wildfire to Spredfast, no two vendors are alike and there is no one-fit-for-all SMMS-solution. Altimeter’s new “Strategy to Manage Social Media Proliferation” serves as a great overview over the SMMS-scene and offers metrics to support the choice for specific vendors based on the social objectives of your organisation.

If you have ever tried to give your customer a founded recommendation on which SMMS to choose you will know how important the following report is. In a market as cluttered and dynamic as this we need more top-level reports like the following one instead of infographics on Mashable.

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Read the rest of Social Media Management Software. Check Out Altimeter’s New Buyer’s Guide. (33 words)

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Post tags: Altimeter, altimetergroup, Business, Facebook, Presentation, Reports, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Tech, Tools, we are social

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I started my own little exploration through my ‘new’ Facebook privacy settings (No 2 is only relevant for you if you have the new FB profile, No 1 is not).

Frictionless sharing – from ‘Public by default’ to ‘Private does not exist anymore’

So whoever talks about privacy – he usually belongs either to the school ‘Full Privacy by default’ or ‘Public by default’. Jeff Jarvis for example does not get tired to explain how crucial it is that we build our world by virtually defining, tagging, constructing objects and interactions. And that is why we need to be Public by default. In other words: We sign out if we do not want to transmit stuff instead of i.e. signing in to getting public with certain status updates.

But: Believing in a free web society in which everyone collaboratively constructs a virtual world is as realistic as believing in free globalized markets: it is a fiction that is constantly corrupted by the interest of a few. And Facebook has just presented some of their concepts for our brave new world – a world in which you can not sign out of being Public anymore. Simply because it is too complicated.

Unfortunately Facebook makes it almost impossible to sign out of the new ‘frictionless sharing‘. Example: I have 314 apps installed (Yes, 314 – as I said, I am an online marketing guy).

All of these apps do certain things. Maybe I have signed up to Nike+ on Facebook, or Slideshare, or twitter…there are many reasons why I may have installed one of them a while ago. And yes, I have approved most of them to pull certain data: my birthday, my profile pic, or other information from my profile.

But I did approve anything like ‘Yes, dear third party software – you can now post in my name’. But exactly this is a new setting in your Facebook profile since last week. And it is pre-approved by default.

Sharing the songs I listen to may be annoying to one or the other. But Facebook has just allowed 314 applications to post in my name whatever these pieces of software want to share.

There must be a button to turn this function off for all of them at once, right?

Nope.

Facebook allows to disapprove this propery. But you cannot disapprove this function for all 314 apps at once. Facebook forces you to click through all 314 apps individually to remove this.

eWeek claims that this is no problem. Because you can easily change the settings for what your friends see

Facebook pointed out that people who subscribe to its social applications will have complete control over whether they’re info is shared or not.

That is to say, the automatic sharing is on by default in the social apps, but Facebook allows users to control whether their app stories are seen by their friends at all times.

This is like walking around with a black box that constantly documents and transfers your data while its manufacturer asks you not to worry as it does not tell any of your friends.It is  not a proper response to the basic problem. The problem is not just what my friends see or what I actively share with the world. The problem is that currently 314 Facebook applications are allowed to document my life and per default are allowed to act in my name. What the F, Facebook?

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Read the rest of The New Facebook. A Morning with my updated Privacy Settings. (243 words)

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Post tags: Facebook, People, Philosophy, privacy, Social Networks, World

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No longer do apps prompt you just to “like” something on Facebook. Instead, you’ll share that you “hiked a trail” or “rode your bike” or “kissed a girl” (and liked it). Any action can be shared via Facebook, and the only limit is the imagination of developers.

The second addition is the new permissions screen for giving apps access to your Facebook account. It’s more robust and explains exactly what an app will be sharing with it. The result is that the prompt will only appear once. Once you accept, the app can share exactly what you’re doing to your Facebook wall as you’re doing it. (Ben Parr on Mashable)

Oh…did we mention that Spotify for example forces all new users to login via Facebook? In other words, will there be any choice at all? And where will it stop? Are we accepting sensors in a year that share our location once we enter a club or shop? I am 100% sure you can turn such an application into a great CRM program.

From my perspective the key privacy problem does not lie in Facebook’s blurry analytics approach or the thesis that Facebook tries to track me even though I am offline. As my colleague Allan Chang pointed out, google is doing this for years while Intel has integrated unique Processor IDs in every PC since 1999.

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Read the rest of Facebook and I. Or: Doubt Creeps in. (461 words)

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Post tags: Facebook, Philosophy, Politics, Truth, World

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Hacking Facebook to set up Timeline is a rather simple. Techcrunch has published a handy DIY guide this morning. But only I am currently able to see my timeline right now.

What it does is really to replace my profile with a nice, interactive biography on one page. The Timeline stops everytime Facebook identifies important steps in my life. My sister’s birth certainly was one of these events (even though at that point I didn’t necessarily agree). And I am invited to upload baby photos of her. Cheesy and nice.

Timeline is a new, pretty cool metaphor that really adds a new perspective to Facebook. Facebook as a lifelong diary – well actually…a living diary. Long term not just super-today.

But there is much more that I find interesting.

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Read the rest of This Morning’s Hot Shit. The new Facebook Features. (246 words)

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Post tags: Facebook, Semantic Web, social network, Social Networks, Timeline

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This is not just the place I come from. At the same time it is one of the richest tech-cultural repositories for blogging about digital media that I can imagine.

After living in the Netherlands for 15 months now I perceive Germany a bit like the Gallic village from Asterix and Obelix – the famous French cartoon series (that unfortunately only Europeans know). One village against the Roman Empire. Or – as in the case of Germany – one state against the rest of the web.

It’s hard to keep track of all my conversations with clients or colleagues in which we talked about a Global solution for a digital project before someone said ‘and we need a separate solution for Germany’. When talking about Digital Marketing my country of origin is something like the annoying cry baby or the nagging girl friend that is a pain for everyone but that nevertheless requires your full attention. Germany’s Tech-Idiosyncracy coupled with a privacy paranoia makes it happen.

So about two weeks ago it started again. ‘Germany vs. Facebook: Like Button Declared Illegal, Sites Threatened With Fine‘ said the headline of this article. And Mashable found out the Facebook Like is already banned in Germany.

That is of course crap. It is bad tabloid-style journalism.

Fact 1: Germany did not ban Facebook likes
Dear Journalists from Mashable and Silicon Filter: Believe it or not, States consist of institutions. Sometimes many institutions. And quite often far too many institutions (this is the German case). But just because one representative in one instution in a rather small district of Germany THINKS Facebook does not act legally does NOT mean this is the case. In fact it may even be illegal. Especially as Mister Teichert’s claims – if legally correct – would actually legally end the use of almost any type of web service in Germany. Key claim: ‘By using the Facebook service traffic and content data are transferred into the USA and a qualified feedback is sent back to the website owner concerning the web page usage, the so called web analytics.’

Yes, that’s ridiculous. But that’s not the key problem.

Fact 2: This is nothing compared to what’s happening in the EU right now

Directive 95/46/EC aka European Union Data Protection Directive – this does not sound like the stuff that the ordinary Digital Marketer really wants to learn more about. But in fact it will change an awful lot. Since May 25^th all member states of the European Union are expected to enact this new privacy directive, which requires businesses to get explicit permission to track pretty much any type of online user behavior.

This in fact means Marketers have to ask for permission for pretty much any type of digital insight gathering. Cookies? Ask for permission. google Analytics? Well…let’s see….oh, this is getting really complicated. And if you want to check out what a seamless user experience of the future might soon look like you can download the Privacy compliant WordPress Plugin here. Click the Demo button to see the drama unfold.

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Read the rest of More German Angst? Thoughts on Facebook, Privacy and Germany. (762 words)

© Gerald for davaidavai.com, 2011. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, Germany, Politics, privacy, Society

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