Momentum of the Muse

The verdict is in – I am a big fan of StumbleUpon!

The Cons:

• You can lose a LOT of time stumbling around. You can really fall down the rabbit hole. I kept clicking Stumble after Stumble after Stumble – lo and behold – FOUR hours had passed, and it was 4 a.m. Just call me Alice in StumbleLand.
• The Facebook app is ridiculous. You should be able to add it without having to invite every single friend on your list. I know that list needs cleaning, and I hate being one of those people who sends a weird random invite to some social thing they could care less about, especially since they met me one time. Probably after I had two martinis, became their best friend, and exclaimed repeatedly that “We should totally do something!” I’ll digress just in case there is a way out of this, but I couldn’t find it.
• You sometimes hit a lot of garbage before you hit the gold. The Original Fart Fact website? Shudder …

The Pros:

• When you’re locked for ideas, inspiration can be found. I ran into some neat sites, that got my brain out of it’s slump. I kept my word processor and my mind open to ideas, jotted them down, and got a whole whack of new material to work with.
• User based, user verified. It’s like the Zagat ratings, although I trust the Zagat ratings more than a stumble. But, sometimes google will get you to a result that nobody would give a thumbs up to. You get a result that makes your face go thumbs down in terms of being totally useless. So, as stumbler, you give it that hearty thumbs down it deserves and move on to greener fields.
• Get traffic to your blog or sites. By making friends with fellow stumblers, they can stumble your posts, you stumble theirs. You give me a hot stone massage and pedicure, I teach you how to make origami – that old saying and deal. Social media is all the rage, so I figured I’d focus on some speed of implementation, try these sites out. A healthy mix of a couple social media outlets is a great way to make new contacts, learn from them, teach them, mingle and mix to share all things good.

So, if you decide to try out stumbleupon, or you’re already on it, feel free to friend me here.

If you have any other pros, cons or thoughts, please feel free to share in the comments.

I recently joined twitter. A little late coming, too. I mean, come on, Britney Spears is already on the damn thing.

Here are some posts to check out if you’re new, curious, or already tweeting away:

• 21 Irresistibly Irresponsible Ways to Tweet With Greater Confidence

• If Twitter is So Great Why Don’t I Get It? 10 Tips for Twitter Beginners

• Trick or Tweet. Top 10 Ways Twitter is Like Halloween

And Darren Rowse from problogger recently started a new blog.

TwiTip focuses on all that is twitter. It only has a few posts up so far, but they are all useful for beginners.

I had decided to try out twitter after reading countless articles about how necessary it is to incorporate social media into your online scope. Others were saying how they used it to leverage their blogs and gained a big readership. So far, I’m not too sure about that, but I have met a few characters and discovered a couple of hilarious blogs. The people on twitter are very helpful, and give advice, answers most of the questions that I tweet.

If you are on twitter or decide to join, please feel free to follow me!

What is everyone else’s experience with, or opinion of twitter?

With blogging, facebook, twitter and other social media sites, the professional and the personal start to merge.

They’re pretty much the water cooler of the internet. I notice bloggers writing post upon post about using social media to leverage your blog or site. They say social media can be a full-time job, and then tout how distracting they can be, but also how important. I’m shocked at how much traffic they get from these sites. Others use it for research, to communicate with like-minded individuals, who are in the same industry, to make business contacts. Some use it for fun; to be social – hence the social media title. I would like to think you could use it for whatever you wanted, simultaneously.

However, I’ve had others disagree with me, saying;

Twitter adds no value to anyone’s life. It’s just a big waste of time. I use it to promote myself professionally, and that’s it.

Now, I have a number of questions on this subject, and if anyone wants to indulge me by answering them, I would be delighted.

Questions ensue…

• Where do you draw the line? What is too personal? In my friends opinion, anything that is not work-related is rather pointless. He maintains this for blogging, and twitter. However, my argument lies in the fact that blogging is a personal medium. That personal, human aspect that can be delivered via impersonal internet is what captures attention. But, again, where is that line?
• Branding yourself as a freelancer, is it necessary to be professional=serious? My favorite bloggers are not at all serious. If all of the sudden, they wrote that “I absolutely must purchase this product!” I would click the link right away. They have that power, and yet I suspect if they wielded it, it would be to sell something utterly ridiculous. Can it be a part of a person’s profession to be un-serious?
• Can you create a clear line of division between the personal and the professional online? Or do you use life experiences to illustrate your points, to drive them home?

I guess it all comes down to personal preference.

But I am very curious to know. Do you feel you have a clean line of division between your professional persona, and your personal one? Or are they one and the same?