Toluu : Andy DeSoto

Andy DeSoto

Internet and social media technologies for humans

A couple dozen Pownce users logged in to their favorite service yesterday to behold a message no social media devotee can bear to read: “Pownce will be shutting down on Dec 15, 2008,” highlighted in bright gold. As Lead Developer Leah Culver writes on the Pownce Community Blog,

We have some very big news today at Pownce. We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart, the company behind such great blogging software as Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. We’re bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all.

Needless to say, despite this good news for Leah, Mike Malone, and others (read the Inquisitr for commentary on the business end of things), it’s a shame to see the service go. I myself am a so-called “Featured User” on the site and have spent many hours meeting and interacting with over 1,000 friends and followers– 1,000 connections which wi

Social media basics provide necessary spiceNovember 2

Here at andydesoto.com, I often like to discuss how social media can be integrated with the “real world;” that is, how a body of content and discussion online can be brought into more day-to-day tasks that are accessible to those outside of the self-referential social media circles. People are quick to write off even the basics of social media– photos, videos, audio, and more– despite the fact that carefully-implemented social media, when utilized properly, can really spice up interactivity and dicussion offline, too.

Videos are worth a thousand pictures

Thanks to the advent of digital cameras with video modes, affordable, easy-to-use video cameras, and services that can transmogrify stills into video footage, video is more accessible than it ever has been. Still, it goes underutilized. Out of the many individuals I know, there’s only a mere handful that I’d call video content creators. Video’s impact can be so incredibly meaningful, however. Just the other day, I took a few minutes to record

Squeezing social media-driven news into a college campusSeptember 19

I‘ve been a little more preoccupied than normal over the last week or so preparing for the next big step in the evolution of my small campus podcast, The William & Mary Powwow. I started the show about a year ago mainly to see if I was capable of producing it, and I’m happy to say that since then it’s grown into a small success.

Trying to fit a new media-oriented news source into an already oversaturated campus, though, has been a bit of a challenge. Over the last few days, I’ve been asking myself, “How do I provide a unique experience to a wide audience while remaining relevant?” I’ll share some of my answers today.

New media setbacks

First of all, due to the relative recency of new media technology, starting an alternative campus news source necessitates butting heads with preexisting heritage media networks. Campus newspapers started over 50 years ago have both the reputation and manpower to succeed even regardless of content, to an extent. New productions are not as lucky. The road

The social tug of warSeptember 17

We call it “social media,” but what’s so social about it? Sometimes a distinction that should be obvious is difficult to make, and sometimes it’s even contradictory. Consider the phrase ‘online social networking’ for a moment. What comes to mind? If you’re anything like me, you envision someone sitting at their computer late at night, writing on someone’s Facebook wall, replying to a Tweet, or commenting on a top story on Digg.

But what’s so social about this? Not much, if you’re honest with yourself. Even though this is hardly a groundbreaking realization, it’s still important; no matter how often this topic has been covered, if we haven’t found a solution, we must continue to discuss it: the unfortunate truth is that online social media pulls us away from being truly social, and in this game of tug of war, the only loser is often ourselves.

Sacrifices of being social

Maintaining networks and relationships online is impossible without turning attention away from the real world experience. Consider the brief anecdote of me composing this blog post, for instance. In order to write this article, I’ve got to sit down, indoors, with my desktop PC and spen

Thanks for reading!September 9

I was just about to settle in for the evening and launch a session of Spore when I caught blogger Louis Gray’s tweet: he’d just finished highlighting five bloggers in a monthly series he’s ran since March of this year. This month, I’m absolutely thrilled to be on his list! I’ve been secretly hoping to make it one of these months, I’ll be honest, but expected to have to slave away for another six months at least before earning the privilege.

Whether I deserve it or not may still be up for debate, but if you’re new to andydesoto.com, I’d like to extend my warmest welcome. I started writing here about six months ago as a bit of a personal branding project and blog, but as I realized that 99% of my posts were on the social media and Internet technologies I so adore, I knew I had to devote the site to these topics.

Here at andydesoto.com, I focus on three things:

covering interesting or