Did Edith Wharton foresee social media and its implications? Of course Marshall McLuhan did. And what about Einstein?

Surely when Shakespeare wrote, “We are advertis’d by our loving friends,” he was explaining that a social networking strategy based on true friendships, or at least their online equivalent, will lead to a more rewarding experience.

To read what Marshall McLuhan, Edith Wharton and others had to say about social media, please check out my August Talent Zoo column, Famous Dead People Weigh In On Social Media.

Tags: Shakespeare, McLuhan, Wharton, Einstein, social media

Tweets are short at 140 characters, but a Twitter avatar must visually represent a user in just 2304 pixels. Choosing the right avatar can affect the way people see you online.

Here are some of the most popular avatar types and what they say about the user:

Standard head shot: Head and shoulders, framed squarely, professional in appearance, though perhaps a little formal. You’ve established a good balance between being serious and frivolous. You’re “normal,” whatever that means. You’re in demand as a friend and as an employee and you’ve never been thrown out of anywhere. You’re taken seriously. You don’t have a hidden agenda and you’re not trying to be ironic. You probably listen to the Eagles.

Jaunty angle: Variation on the head shot with the torso and/or head at something near 45 degrees, bisecting the picture. You don’t follow the crowd. When others zig, you zag. There’s plenty of irony in your repertoire. You wink at people, and sometimes point at the same time. If you’re old enough, you’re upset that Zima is no longer sold.

Political dissident: Generally based on the previous avatar types, but modified to show support for a person, political cause, etc. Currently, the most popular of these is the green avatar to show support for free elections in Iran. Other variations demonstrate support for political candidates. If you’re a liberal, you have a green avatar and tweet from TweetDeck on your iPhone while driving your Prius. If you’re a conservative, you’ve probably changed your avatar to show your affiliation with TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter), even though you find grassroots political activism a little confusing.

Logo: A little impersonal but also a nice way to show affiliation with a brand. You represent the company 24/7, even when you’re blipping Lil Wayne at two in the morning or calling someone a social media douchebag. It’s all about the authenticity, baby.

Animal lover: Usually a picture of a cat or dog, but squirrels also seem to be popular. You’re all over the lolcats thing, and not afraid to tweet, “My cat just crawled across my keyboard. LOL!”

Life of the party: A person standing on their head, wearing a goofy hat, making a face or otherwise hamming it up. I really have to give these people credit. This is a breakout thing to do. What is it the young people say? You go!

Celebrity stalker: A photo of a well known figure, whether used deceptively, in parody, or merely to show one’s admiration for an actor, singer, politician, etc. It’s like Halloween 365 days a year. You’re Barrack Obama, Britney Spears or Rick Astley. (Rick Astley? People do crazy things.) I guess it’s all in good fun, but would you want someone using your picture and claiming they were you? It’s kind of creepy.

Brown box special: The tacky default Twitter avatar, indicating a new user, or a spammer, or both, or someone who is too private to post an avatar, or maybe too lazy. You have some deep issues, either manifested in sociopathic dishonesty or a paralytic unwillingness to commit.

Good ol’ days: Featuring the owner’s high school yearbook picture, baby picture or other reminder of a bygone era. You believe in good old fashioned values, like those espoused on Scooby Doo or Baywatch. You’re pissed at what’s going on this country and wish things were they way they were when you were a kid. (I’m with you on that.)

Cartoon: There are many variations on this one. Sometimes it’s an actual South Park character, other times it bears some resemblance to the user but is stylized to look like a South Park character. Anime/manga characters are popular too. This avatar identifies someone who is both a fan of Twitter and cartoons or comic books, which is a double threat if you get my drift.

I know there are more avatar types, like the family picture, or the beach at sunset, but how many people and their avatars can I offend in one post? If you have any favorites, please add them below with a comment. And go ahead and critique my avatar. (I can take it.)

Tags: Twitter, avatars

In response to the madness of Twitter Follow Friday, I’m going to try something new that I call my “Fab Five to Follow Post.” Instead of tweeting dozens of random Twitter IDs with no context or explanation, I’ve decided to pick five of my favorite Twitter people and explain why I follow them, and why you might want to as well.

Vruz is my good friend Horacio from Uruguay. As with most of my favorite people on Twitter, our friendship is based on mutual respect. Vruz is one of those people who is super smart on any internet or technology related subject. When I was writing my book, he not only reviewed design concepts for the cover, but made a couple of his own to show me what he had in mind! He’s always supportive, to an extreme. Vruz is an example of what makes Twitter amazing: You’ll meet people from different walks of life, half way around the world, that you would never have met IRL. Check out his exemplary Tumble Log aka Tumblr blog, United Colors of Vruz. Vruz had a green avatar before anyone else on Twitter.

I’m not sure how I met Michelle Naranjo, MissMotorMouth. She’s one of the auto industry’s best observers and bloggers. She’s an online marketing pro, not one of the “make $3 million a day” kind but the hard working kind who knows SEO, e-commerce, content management, etc. She’s also a good friend with a huge heart and an awesome sense of humor. She blogs for Carsala and check her out at MissMotorMouth.com.

Cristinellaa is, well, a post modern punk princess. She’s an actress, singer, rabble rouser and fan of dueling piano bars. She is a master of biting satire in 140 characters.

Mediaphyter is Jennifer Leggio, internet security queen (we have lots of queens, princesses and other royalty here), ZDNet blogger, hockey fan and 100% social business professional. Jennifer was kind enough to invite me to write a guest post for ZDNet which ended up being on my mostly widely read online pieces. And I’ve heard Jennifer sing karaoke.

Last but not least is jackassletters, aka Christopher L. Jorgensen. Christopher’s web site “showcases the letters he writes to luminaries and companies with their responses.” The letters and responses are a riot. There is little that is funnier on the web. Christopher is also a really smart marketer and all around decent guy. And he once said I was one of the few marketers on Twitter that had any integrity. (See how smart he is?)

So there you have my Fab Five. I figure I ought to let people know a little bit about folks before I recommend a follow.

This morning, looking at what the Santa Cruz Sentinel is doing on FriendFeed, it occurred to me that I might be looking at the newspaper of the future, here today.

FriendFeed gives the Sentinel all of the functionality a Web 2.0 enabled newsroom needs. The paper (how’s that for a term describing an online news outlet?) can quickly post a steady stream of news items and photos. Readers can just as easily comment on an item, share it, or give it a StumbleUpon-style “Like” aka, a thumbs-up.

There are icons allowing readers to easily sign up for any of several RSS feeds the paper offers. The purpose of each of these is not readily apparent, but by hovering over any one of them you can see the URL, which tells you what the feed is for.

On FriendFeed, more than anywhere else it seems, real discussions happen via the comments function. Many newspapers have added commenting to their online versions, but in general this hasn’t generated discussion. It will be interesting to see whether there are any discussions on the Sentinel’s FriendFeed stream.

Another feature of FriendFeed is the ability to search all of a particular user’s stream, so there’s a built-in tool for searching all of the Sentinel’s posts. Right now the Sentinel posts only headlines. Could full text be next?

I’m surprised there are not other services on the Sentinel’s FriendFeed page, but perhaps this is because it’s a new endeavor, or the Sentinel wants to keep things simple. I’d like to see, for example, all of the paper’s photos posted to Flickr, although copyright issues might prevent this.

Congratulations to the Santa Cruz Sentinel for having the vision to try something on the bleeding edge of social media. I really like having this kind of online version of my hometown newspaper (I live not too far from Santa Cruz) and I wish the Sentinel great success with this.

Tags: Santa Cruz Sentinel, Social Media Newsroom, FriendFeed, newspaper of the future

3.ly, aka Threely, is a fairly new entrant in the URL shortening game, and so far, I really like it. The most obvious benefit is that Threely makes shorter URLs, 15 characters vs. 18 characters from is.gd, which I believe was the previous title holder for shortest URL shortener. Two characters is a big deal, particularly if you’re angling for Twitter RTs.

But getting beyond the obsession with brevity, Threely also has a great user interface. It is one of the simplest URL shorteners and allows instant custom URL generation with one click.

The screen shot above shows some of the many features of Threely. You can post a Threely URL to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon or Del.icio.us. You can also create “custom” aka vanity URLs with an easily remembered word or words, but of course this can begin to defeat the purpose of the shortened URL. There’s a hit counter option like that offered (automatically in some cases) by a number of other shorteners like Cli.gs.

Finally, Threely offers the ability to insert any of a handful of Twitter symbols, such as a heart, star, check mark or umbrella, for “labeling” URLs. I don’t fully understand this feature. There might be some kind of secret Twitter Illuminati that I don’t know about that uses these symbols in some nefarious way, or maybe they’re just for fun.

Threely says user accounts are on the way, which I think is a must have. I use Cli.gs and I can easily recall any of the shortened URLs I’ve made. It’s easy to lose a URL with Threely.

Tags: URL shorteners, Threely, shortest, is.gd, cli.gs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us