The growth of the mobile web has spawned a raft of new publishing opportunities. 

Rather one book that everyone reads the future would appear to be appear to point towards a personalized version of the book for each reader.

The big question is “will the future book be an app or a cloud based subscription style service”? 

Graphically a digital comic platform has chosen “both-and” rather than “either-or”.

“With our focus on HTML5, storytelling, collaboration and sharing that you can be done anywhere online or mobile, Graphicly’s full vision is becoming a reality,” said Baldwin. “over the past year, we have met a lot of awesome fans, creators and stories, and they have no place to truly interact online. This release is the first move towards allowing all that awesome to connect in one place.”

With the battle over the definition of the cloud raging between the major Web giants, Graphicly has sided with both approaches – building dedicated apps and even being featured at Google IO for its Chrome Web app, but now moving into the full Web, backed by HTML 5. This sets them up nicely for reaching any mobile or desktop device its users want to leverage to read content. In fact, they promise in a release today to help bring author content to Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, or “any platform they choose”.

Full story via Louis Gray

http://blog.louisgray.com/2011/06/graphicly-expands-website-with-html5.html

(via Instapaper)

As many voice concerns about Facebook’s face recognition strategy Tim O’Reilly thinks it might be the best way to open up a technology that will be used whether we like it or not.

Face recognition is here to stay. My question is whether to pretend that it doesn’t exist, and leave its use to government agencies, repressive regimes, marketing data mining firms, insurance companies, and other monolithic entities, or whether to come to grips with it as a society by making it commonplace and useful, figuring out the downsides, and regulating those downsides.

Full story here::

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/06/facebook-face-recognition.html

(via Instapaper)

If your Facebook friends were responsible for your TV programming would it be an improvement on the current schedule? 

You might not have long to find out if Mark Zuckerberg has his way. Speaking at the recent eG8 techology forum in Paris, the Facebook CEO said that TV, music and books being media experiences, stating that

I hope we can play a part in enabling those new companies to get built, and companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social.

More at Lost Remote

What do you think is it time TV got a real shake up? Is Facebook the platform to do it?

“Found at FacebookFlow
http://facebookflow.com/7-tips-content-shared-facebook/

We are all still adjusting to a world where everyone with an internet connection is a media outlet. Social Media is bring a raft of changes to the way we communicate and do business.

There are great rewards for businesses that embrace Social Media and do it well. There are also a few train wrecks from companies who have seen opportunity and jumped without developing a sound strategy and policy.

Last year Manpower released a study into how companies across the globe were using Social Media called Social Networks vs. Management Harness the Power of Social Media. The report found that only 31% of Australian companies (which is slightly better than the global figure of 25%) had instituted a Social Media policy for employees. Brain Solis shares some handy tips for getting started with a Social Media Policy for your business.

The Top 25 Best Practices for Drafting Policies and Guidelines

1. Define a voice and persona representative of the brand’s purpose, mission, and characteristics
2. People expect to interact with people, be personable, consistent, and helpful  
3. Keep things conversational as it applies to portraying and reinforcing the personality and value of your brand and the brand you represent 
4. Add value to each engagement — contribute to the stature and legacy of the brand  
5. Respect those whom you’re engaging and also respect the forum in which you participate  
6. Ensure that you honor copyrights and practice and promote fair use of applicable content  
7. Protect confidential and proprietary information  
8. Business accounts are no place to share personal views unless they reinforce the brand values and are done according to the guidelines and code of conduct  
9. Be transparent and be human yes, but also do so based on true value propositions and solutions  
10. Represent what you should represent and do not overstep your bounds without prior approval  
11. Know and operate within the boundaries defined, doing so protects you, the company, and the people with whom you’re hoping to connect 
12. Know when to walk away. Don’t engage trolls or fall into conversational traps  
13. Stay on message, on point and on track with the goals of your role and its impact to the real world business in which you contribute 
14. Don’t trash competition, spotlight points of differentiation and value  
15. Apologize where applicable and according to the established code of conduct. Seek approval by legal or management where such action is not pre-defined 
16. Take accountability for your actions and offer no excuses 
17. Know whom you’re taking to and what they’re seeking 
18. Disclose relationships, representation, affiliation and intentions  
19. Refer open issues or questions to those most qualified to answer 
20. Practice self-restraint, some things are not worth sharing  
21. Empower qualified spokespersons to offer solutions and resolutions  
22. Seek the approval of customers and partners before spotlighting their case studies  
23. Take the time to interpret the context of a situation before jumping in with a response  
24. What you share can and will be used against you – The internet as a long memory
25. When in doubt, ask for guidance 

 Via Brain Solis http://www.briansolis.com/2011/03/the-rules-of-social-media-engagement/

If you need assistance developing a Social Media Strategy or Employee Policy for your business contact us at Byron New Media to find out how we can help.

I have a thing for Infographics, I’m working on a couple myself. In the early days of learning Social Media I discovered David Armano via his Logic + Emotion blog. David has a passion and a talent for creating great infographics. David’s influence has grown over the years and he is now the SVP at Edelman Digital. David is still sharing great infographics and although he probably has a lot more support in creating these images, I see his analysis and creativity in this graphic.

Many bloggers and content producers have notices in recent years that commenting directly on there site has dropped away. With many people choosing to share or add commentary via Facebook and other Social Media channels. 

This has made it more difficult to build a conversation and a community around your content. While at the same time it has increased the percentage of visitors wanting to comment and share.

Recent changes by Facebook to their Comment Plugin bring together the best of both worlds. Allowing easy Facebook Commenting but also making that conversation more visible next to your content.

Below is an extract from a Search Engine Land story on the New Facebook Comments.

>> If a site owner implement the Facebook Comments Box widget underneath content on a site, visitors who are already logged into Facebook can comment without having to log in again. The new comments box also supports some third-party log-ins. Additionally, if someone who comments keeps the “send to Facebook” box checked, their comment — along with a link to the original content — will appear on their Wall and in their friends’ News Feeds.

Image courtesy Facebook

The unique part of the offering, which differentiates it from other comment provides like Disqus, is what happens if someone sees the comment on their Facebook News Feed, and comments further. The new comment appears both on the wall and on the widget on the original site.

“Discussion threads stay synced across Facebook and on the Comments Box on your site regardless of where the comment was made,” Facebook wrote in a post on its developers blog. “Users will also receive a notification whenever another user replies to their comment. Clicking on the notification will take the user back to the web page where the comment originated, driving more traffic back to your site.”

Web site owners who have a Facebook Page for their sites can comment on a site’s content while logged in as the Page administrator. Then, Facebook users who’ve “Liked” the Page will be able to see that comment, and a link to the original content, in their News Feeds and on the Page’s Wall — ideally sparking more discussion.

The new Comment Box is also designed to use social signals — similar to what Facebook uses in its News Feed — to surface the most relevant comments to the top. Facebook has also added more moderation possibilities, allowing admins to adjust the visibility of comments, ban users and blacklist words.

Image courtesy Facebook

Anticipating concerns about the ownership of comments — in case site owners who adopt the new system decide in the future to abandon it — sites can pull the comments posted on their sites via an enhanced Facebook API.

In the last few days, Facebook has also made changes to its Like button to add more visibility and control for site owners.

For the full article visit 

http://searchengineland.com/comments-made-on-facebook-to-appear-on-sites-66455