Using the cloud is not as complicated as it sounds

One thing that you can count on in the online world is the use of buzzwords and buzz phrases, which are nothing more than a kind of shorthand to explain a subject or a concept in just a few words. When used by people who both have a common understanding of what those words and phrases mean, it enhances communication. When only one side in a conversation understands the concept, or worse, if no one understands the concept and someone is just spewing hype, then real communication may be difficult.

One area where this has taken off in recent months is in the area of cloud computing. While definitions vary, one way to think of cloud computing is as follows. In the early days of personal computers, all your programs had to be in that computer, so if you wanted 10 computers with the same capability, that you had to have 10 sets of identical computer programs. With cloud computing, that capability is in some remote computer or remote computer network, and those 10 computers are sharing that capability.

Want another example? If you use Gmail or one of the other online email services, you are using cloud computing. You can log into your email account from any computer with a browser and an online connection. While Google is known for offering Gmail, Blogger, and other cloud-based services to the public, companies like Zoho offer business related services in the same way, allowing simultaneous access to the same resource, for example a database, from multiple locations around the world. Zoho Support is a service that comes with their cloud offerings, with the amount of support depending on the kind of service and the number of users in an account.

With cloud computing, the key things to remember if you are considering using any cloud service are the following:

• Cloud computing is not a mysterious subject, and you are likely using it even now.
• Cloud computing could be used to perform most functions traditionally performed on an individual computer or on private networks.
• If someone is using cloud computing type buzzwords to convince you to spend your money, treat that person like a seller of used cars and do your own independent research before you reach any agreement.

Twitter’s Efficacy in Aiding Social Transformation

I talked last week about how Twitter makes life on the Internet easier. You can customize your allegiance to certain products, celebrities, and even people in your real-life, carbon-based social network. This week I’ll be a little more specific and talk about how Twitter makes social transformation, big and small, easier than ever before. In this article I’ll focus on how Twitter makes it easier to be funny and how in turn humor can lead to social change.

Twitter is easily translatable into the language of irony: brief, content heavy statements meant for immediate impact and in some cases prolonged relevance. For example, a particularly cogent tweet could, in another context, be a powerful bit of dialogue in a movie, comedy or otherwise. If you’re a stand up, you no longer have to “grind it out” on the underground circuit for years hoping that the big break will come your way.

There are a thousand potential George Carlin’s and Bill Cosby’s out there waiting to be heard who may not have ready access to a comedy club where they can test out material. Twitter in this case serves as the intermediary that open mics and road gigs used to be by necessity. Used effectively, one can acquire a sizable fan base through consistent activity on Twitter and other sites like it, as well through a process of shrewd and comprehensive personal branding.

I say this because it is also much easier to cultivate an audience of like-minded people than ever before. We don’t live in an age where artistic viability is judged solely on how broadly appealing one is, whether that’s in their comedy, or any art form they choose to practice. That is not to say of course that we should prevent someone from becoming the next John Lennon or James Brown, inspiring people with a timeless message while rocking super hard at the same time, but someone who is trying to make their way in the artistic or pop-cultural game no longer has to look to these monoliths as the only way to make a living and be influential.

Indeed, part of the revolutionary part of Twitter is that everyone can get up and reach an audience almost immediately. As they develop, they develop as a collective instead of in isolation. Being on Twitter, or any other active social networking site, is like the 21st century version of being at a speakeasy, coffee shop, or a hip socialist bookstore in the not-yet-gentrified part of town. You can make a tangible difference on the world without leaving your bedroom.

In short, the action required for social change can take many forms, big and small. With Twitter, and the Internet as a whole, relevant information is effectively organized and instantly accessible to all curious parties. That, combined with the human desire to connect to others, and humor’s power in not only easing social tension but also in speaking truth to power, make Twitter an ideal climate for cultivating both widespread civil disobedience and cathartic, brain-cleansing laughter in equal measure.

- Alex Curtis

Why Twitter makes life on the Internet easier

It goes without saying that the Internet is an invaluable resource, and Twitter is one of the most influential Internet companies (along with meta-brands like Google and Facebook) that are defining how we all relate to one another on this vastly interconnected global network. Twitter is one of these companies. It’s been at the epicenter of major political uprisings for more than two years now (Arab Spring and other movements), and rivals both YouTube and Facebook as the number one source for cultural content on the web.

That being said, Twitter is not without its faults. One issue is how hard it can be for someone to navigate their list of followers and people they follow, what groups they are a part of, what they’re friends are doing, etc. This can lead to a lot of anxiety, and as a 20-something trying to navigate myself through this crazy world, I’m not an exception.

Here are a couple reasons why you should embrace Twitter and not fear it.

It makes contacting people easier

• Communication is brief (140 characters or less).
• It forces you to come up with something quickly, if not concisely.
• Twitter is compatible with essentially all other social apps.

It broadens your social network

• On your Twitter stream, what your friends say can be directly followed by what your favorite artist, humanitarian cause, or blog has to say about their day or upcoming events.
• It’s very easy to connect from one article to another.

You can appeal to different parts of your audience

• Everybody relates to the Internet differently.
• Those who do not like long articles may appreciate brief synopses, short jokes, poetry, aphorisms, etc.
• Those who do not like its brevity will appreciate the rapid generation of new content.
• It’s easy to adjust your friend network without fear of repercussions (most twitter accounts are public and thus viewable to anyone on the internet).

This is just a rough outline of why Twitter is such a good resource. I’ll get into a more specific analysis in my next article, where I discuss Twitter’s efficacy in aiding social transformation. But for now, if you have a Twitter account and you’re wondering how to make more use of it I would suggest doing at least one of these things.

If you have a cause you’re passionate about, follow it online and read through what they have to say. Odds are you’ll learn something you didn’t know before. After all, isn’t that what the Internet is all about?

- Alex Curtis

Bad Online Habits

Being informed is important. The Internet is widely used and journalism is spread throughout the information superhighway. There are a dozen different ways to get your content and stay engaged with current events and important social issues. This is all very fine and good. A bad habit that I can still see though is the almost dogmatic adherence to specific news organizations/journals/political blogs, etc.

The same bad habits that apply to traditional news consumption (sticking to one particular news outlet let MSNBC or Fox News) apply to the proliferation of content options on the Web. No matter how many facts are really out there, people are going to remain uninformed, to a degree.

,p>Multitasking as we all know can be distracting. This is another habit so ubiquitous that it is taken for granted as part of the 'new age' of Internet culture. For example, listening to an entire musical artist's discography while writing a paper due the next day and chatting with friends about the upcoming weekend's events can be seen as a normal evening's workload. This is surprising, even to me as someone who practices against these habits but so frequently falls into them. This is indicative of a lot of things, about the Internet and it's users, but what I see most clearly in it is a proliferation of the instant access and incredible speed at which the Internet can provide whatever anyone on it--or in it, around it--is looking for. A problem that comes up with this though, is that there is there is so much that I want and no way to choose.

Using Twitter to follow the NFL

The NFL is by far the most popular, and profitable, professional sports league in the US (except, perhaps the NCAA, but that is a discussion for a completely different venue), and because it is both popular and profitable, it can do two things with every kind of mass media, force competing media outlets to bid for the right to carry the games, and limit access to their products.

The most sought after product is their live games. If you happen to have a favorite team in your local media market, catching all the games on radio or television is easy since just about every game will be broadcast in the local market. However, if your favorite team is outside of the local market, you may only have a few opportunities to see or hear them on free broadcast media.

Of course, you can always pay for the privilege of watching them play by paying for premium cable channels like ESPN and NFL Network on cable, or for even more high priced options like NFL Sunday Ticket or NFL Red Zone.

Best smartphone option - Twitter plus sports.yahoo.com
However, if you are desperate, cheap, or broke, there are a few free options you can try that will give you at least some of the flavor of a live broadcast. If all you have is your smartphone, go to Twitter just before kickoff and find the hashtag that will work best for your team. Usually the team nickname is the easiest to use, and is much better than the city name. For example, if you are a Dallas fan, #cowboys probably works best, and #dallascowboys may also do it for you.

If you are a stats freak, you can bounce between Twitter and Yahoo, specifically sports.yahoo.com. They post updated stats from all the live games, though your Twitter stream will probably be updated more quickly than Yahoo.

On a laptop or desktop? Look for an online radio station too
Most teams have a live radio broadcast of their games that you may be able to catch online. The team's web site typically has a list of the radio stations that carry the game live. Most radio stations have online audio streaming, though some may block the stream for NFL broadcasts, especially stations in larger cities. You will often have better luck with stations in smaller towns far away from big cities. Just keep trying stations until you find one that works.

You probably only want to try this option on a laptop or desktop for several reasons. The biggest one is convenience. On a regular sized display, you can probably open two or three windows at once, or at least toggle back and forth between windows or tabs, as you check Twitter and Yahoo while listening to the radio station. Also, the radio stations typically have popups for their streaming options, and many smartphone browsers just can't handle that.

The crash of Asiana flight 214 and the Don Lemon Test

As many of you know, in addition to writing about SEO and social media, I've had a long career in aerospace, including time as a flight test engineer in the US Air Force, and a safety engineer at Boeing. Early in my professional career, I had the experience of having some of my research work in a study I coauthored featured in the New York Times newspaper on November 1, 1991.

The next day, I had the experience of seeing the findings of the research twisted for a cheap laugh on Saturday Night Live. That led to my first lesson in the power of the media when it comes to aviation safety. It also led me to the concept of the New York Times Test.

The New York Times Test
As I described in a 2009 post on this site, The New York Times is a major new media publication that has influence on other news outlets and on society at large. Based on this first experience with being featured in the newspaper, I came up with the "New York Times Test."

The test is a simple one, you can pass the test if you can answer the following question with a resounding yes. If your words or your deeds end up being featured in the New York Times, could you deal with it? Specifically, could you deal with the kind of scrutiny that happens when your family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, and millions of total strangers suddenly take a keen interest in your work?

Would you be prepared to handle criticism, whether it was deserved or not, whether it was honest and fair or mean-spirited and destructive? Did I mention emotional responses like ridicule and jealousy? Also, don't forget about maybe being lampooned on national television.

The New York Times Test doesn't have to involve the New York Times. Any major and influential media outlet will do if the result is a significant amount of follow-on attention. I can say for certain that I've taken the test twice, the first in 1991, and the second after the ditching of the US Airways A320 in 2009. On that occasion, USA Today provided me with a New York Times Test. A page on the AirSafe.com site discussed the history of intentional ditchings involving large jet airliners, and information from that site was prominently featured in a USA Today article, which it turn generated significant attention and online traffic for AirSafe.com.

The crash of Asiana flight 214
Earlier this month, a different airline accident led to a completely different kind of media experience, one that deserved to have its own name. On Saturday 6 July 2013, Asiana flight 214, a Boeing 777, crashed while attempting to land in San Francisco. This crash, which killed three passengers, was noteworthy and newsworthy for several reasons. Among those reasons were the fact that it was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 777, it was the first fatal US crash of a large jetliner in almost 12 years, and the crash occurred in a major US media market in broad daylight.

Normally this kind of plane crash results in nonstop coverage by all the major cable news outlets, and when this happens I typically receive multiple media requests for comments or interviews within minutes of a crash. I didn't find out about the crash until about 90 minutes after it happened, and checking my phone, I was quite surprised to see that no one in the media had made any calls or sent any emails or text messages since the crash. I suspected that it was due to the crash happening in the middle of a long weekend.

On a four-day weekend the media is on holiday
Because the July 4th holiday fell on a Thursday, the following weekend became a four-day weekend for many in the US, including apparently many in the media. After I found out about the crash, I spent the next half hour reaching out to many of the media contacts in my phone, and it took a while before I got any responses. As it would turn out, the four-day weekend and lack of available on-air experts gave me an opportunity to get on the air, something I had done numerous times in the past, and if the past were any guide, I'd might even have a few minutes of air time on a major cable or broadcast network. I was right about the opportunity, but was completely wrong about the magnitude of that opportunity.

Face to face with the anchor
My typical on-air appearance on a national network show is from a remote studio far from the network's headquarters. In my case, I had a call from CNN, and since I was in New York and CNN is headquartered in Atlanta, I expected this to be the case. I figured I'd be in and out in 30 minutes or less and get maybe two minutes of air time. When I showed up, I was first told the anchor was Don Lemon, and I wanted to know where I'd be doing the remote shot. Then I was told that Don wasn't in Atlanta, he was in New York, and I'd be at the desk with him.

Hearing this, I thought I'd get maybe five minutes of air time before I'd be asked to leave and have some other on-air expert would take over. Five minutes turned to fifteen, and fifteen turned to thirty, and it was clear to me that there were no other experts coming to the studio. Six hours later, I finally left the studio, having had a completely new experience, and a new test named for Don Lemon

The Don Lemon Test
The Don Lemon Test has three elements. The first part is that it is a New York Times Test, a situation where your words or deeds are on on display through a very high profile media outlet. When it comes to major plane crashes, few are higher than live hours-long coverage of a major disaster by CNN. The second part is being live for an extended period of time, which means one has to not only prepare a few relevant comments ahead of time for a few minutes on the air, but to come up with such comments on very short notice, and to do so many times not over a period of minutes but over a period of several hours.

Because of the amount of time I was in the studio, most of which was spent waiting patiently for the action to move in my direction, I was doing something I don't normally do, which is to check email and the web on the set. Normally I cut off my phone to keep from having what I thought was a silenced phone surprise me by ringing at just the wrong time. However, I didn't have that option. I needed to keep up with constantly evolving information about the crash to help me anticipate what issues I may have had to respond to on the air. I could only do so because the last element of this test was in place.

The third element of a Don Lemon Test is that you have to be in the presence of a truly professional communicator like Don Lemon, someone who can deftly present breaking and tragic news to a world audience, while at the same doing so in the presence of someone whom he had never met and who was also not a professional journalist.

My job for those several hours was to remain in a of state of high focus so I could perform the role of an on-air expert and actually say the appropriate things when called upon. That job wA at times stressful, but it was inconsequential compared to what Don Lemon and his crew were dealing with during my six hour stay, and I commend them for a job well done.

It's not about Don Lemon
The Don Lemon Test isn't about Don Lemon, but about the situation. You can pass the test if you can answer the following question: Are you both willing and able, with the help of a team of media professionals, to have your words and deeds scrutinized by a national or even global audience, and do so in a way that will be beneficial to the audience? If the answers is yes, then you pass the test. Having done so once, I would recommend that if you have the opportunity, do plenty of preparation before taking the test, and be ready to deal with the unexpected once the test begins.

Using Google Trends to choose your words

Anyone who has online content know that being found by search engines is the key to generating traffic and building an audience. However, having good results for a few key words is not enough. You have to use other words as well that are related and that are commonly used by your potential audience.

The following example is for the fear of flying content on AirSafe.com. The site already scores very highly for the phrase. However, other related aviation terms related words and phrases like "turbulence" and "plane crash" get much more traffic, as the following output from Google Trends suggest.

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Comparing the terms "plane crash," "turbulence," and "fear of flying"

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One way AirSafe.com takes advantage of this is to put links to the fear of flying content on pages related to turbulence and plane crashes. Another thing that is done is that these highly used search terms are also included in the fear of flying content on the site.

Taking this idea a bit further, fear of flying is related to psychological terms like "anxiety" and "panic." As the following chart shows, the terms "anxiety" and "panic" are used far more frequently than "fear of flying."

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Comparing the terms "plane crash," "anxiety," and "panic"

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As you can see, "anxiety" and "panic" are much more popular search terms than "fear of flying." Based on this kind of data, it would make sense to review text content on AirSafe.com related to fear of flying to include key words associated with the psychological aspects of fear of flying, words that someone may use when looking for insights into their reaction to the flying experience.