Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Due to a number of factors, a great number of people (friends, supporters, participants) cannot make it this weekend to San Luis Obispo. But we still expect a very good group, so we have decided to hold a big meetup in town and postpone the formal event for early 2011 when more people can make it.

Come join the Latino2 speakers and organizers and Central Coast leaders to discuss the formal launch of LATISM 2012 and help us plan the Spring event.

Lunch is on us at the Native Lounge in San Luis Obispo — a truly unique dining experience — and the conversation will be good. We’ll meet at 2PM and stay as late as we have a crowd.

I’d like to personally thank everyone who has been so supportive of the Latino2 conference and the LATISM 2012 Initiative. I look forward to meeting with you at the tweetup and discussing how we can build this into a bigger event.

Tweet-up information

Native Lounge – San Luis Obispo
1023 Chorro Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-3222

Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010 – from 2pm to 4pm (or later, as long as we have a crowd)

Lunch is on us!

Sincerely,

Latino2 producers and LATISM,
Jose Huitron @josehuitron
Giovanni Rodriguez @giorodriguez
Jesse Luna @jesseluna

Photo Credit: rx_kamakshi on Flickr – License

Google recently closed off Facebook’s access to import Gmail contacts. Google felt that if Facebook was able to import its Gmail contacts that Google should be able to import from Facebook. Since that wasn’t going to happen, Google pulled the plug on its Facebook integration.

To counter this Google move, Facebook added instructions to its site on how to do a workaround.

This is what I did:

1. Noticed the “Find More Friends” section on my Facebook profile

2. Clicked on the “Find Friends” button.

3. Facebook brings up a mini window which churns then redirects me to a “Find Your Friends” page which has instructions on how to download my Gmail contacts then re-upload them to be processed. SNEAKY!

This is the Find Your Friends page view:

It will be interesting to see if Facebook experiences a dip in new users after the Google move despite Facebooks workaround. What do you think, will it have an effect on Facebook numbers?

Photo credit: Ludovico Cera on Flickr – license

Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) is proud to announce San Luis Obispo as the second stop on the Latino2 California Tour.

Come join us on December 4, 2010, at the Cal Poly Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo. California’s Central Coast is the birth place of “La Causa”, the Latino civil rights movement. The conference will focus on the theme “Community and Collaboration in Central California: Then and Now.”

• REGISTER for the Latino2 conference (FREE)
• Tune into Latino2 conference details on the official site

Getting Excited?

The video below is a compilation from the first Tour stop in Los Angeles. Many thanks to Gina Ruiz (@ginaruiz on Twitter) and Deldelp Medina (@deldelp) for sharing pictures and videos!

Picture credit: lastorset on Flickr

This is the news article that prompted the creation of this poll:

LAUSD to use fingerprint scans for school lunches

This issue is of interest to me for several reasons:

• I used to work for a company that sold fingerprint recognition components
• I taught for eight years
• And, I’m fascinated by the overlap of technology and culture

Like this poll? Share it and feel free to discuss in the Comments section.

Photo Credit: lobstar28 on Flickr – License

Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) is the largest organization of Social Media Professionals of Hispanic Origin. LATISM announced the finalists (see below) for the first annual LATISM California Awards.

The winners will be selected by an online vote, which begins September 9, 2010 at 6PM Pacific Time and ends Friday, September 17th, 6PM Pacific Time.

The award winners will be announced at the Latino 2 Conference in Los Angeles on September 18, 2010.

>>Your vote is your voice – VOTE NOW

>>Register for the Latino 2.0 Conference in Los Angeles (Sept. 18th, 2010)

This is an extraordinary group of people, companies, non-profits and agencies. We look forward to honoring all the finalists in L.A. on September 18th as we kick off an event series aimed at engaging the best minds in Latino communications throughout the entire state.

- Giovanni Rodriguez, vice chair of events and programs for LATISM and co-producer of Latino2

I’m proud to have been nominated for the Best CA Latino Blogger category. – Jesse Luna

LATISM Annual California Award Finalists for 2010

Best CA Latino Blogger
Angel Magaña
Brian Solis
Jesse Luna (jesseluna.com)
Jose Huitron
Jose Villa

Best CA Latina Blogger
Ana L. Flores
Irene Martinez-Audet
Jennifer Vides
Monique Frausto
Nancy Marmolejo

Best CA Latino Tweep
Angel Magaña
Brian Solis
Jorge Amaro
Jose Huitron
Jose Villa

Best CA Latina Tweep
Irene Martinez-Audet
Jennifer Vides
Laura Gomez
Liz Cerezo
Saray Hill

Best Latino(a) Social Network Leader in CA
Ana Lydia Ochoa
Antonio Altamirano
Brian Solis
Monique Frausto
Nancy Marmolejo

Best Company Using Social Media to Reach Latinos in CA
Apple
Kaiser Permanente
La Opinión
LatinEyes.tv
Microsoft

Best CA Not-for-Profit Using Social Media to Engage Latinos
Brave New Foundation
Comunidad Para Baja California
Compton United Soccer Club
Hispanic Scholarship Fund
National Council for La Raza (NCLR)

Best CA Interactive Agency Using Social Media to Reach Latinos
Acento
Axis
Mediatrope
Sensis Agency
Zuno Studios

Best CA Advertising Agency Using Social Media to Reach Latinos
alPunto Advertising
McCann Worldgroup
Sensis Agency
vrtccom
Viva Visibility

Best CA PR Agency Using Social Media to Reach Latinos
Axis
Edelman Digital
Dialogo PR
RLPR
VPE Public Relations

I was pleased to finally receive the “Suggestions For You” feature since I’ve been hearing about it all week. My initial impressions were:

1. Dang, I thought I was following some of those people already
2. Um, I recently unfollowed some of those folks
3. I don’t engage much with some of the referral sources
4. There are a lot of celebrities on this list
5. These are real people, not feeds

Let’s look at these impressions individually and I’ll share some suggestions that will help Twitter’s suggestion algorithm.

1) Already following these people

No really, I thought I was already following some of the people that showed up. Is it possible people have been getting “disconnected” over the past few days? I saw the same reaction from others in my Twitter timeline. If Twitter “caught” the oversight then they did something right.

2) I recently unfollowed some of the suggested users

It happens. We unfollow people for one reason or another. Maybe they don’t engage with you, they say something that irks you, or you’re tired of following a particular celebrity. Many of the people who I had already followed and unfollowed were celebrities. I’ve already been to the show, I don’t need to go back.

Algorithm Improvement: De-prioritize accounts that one has already followed and unfollowed and especially those that have been blocked.

3) Don’t engage much with “Followed By” followers

Each Suggested User has several bits of information associated with her account – Name, Twitter handle, location, bio, and Followed By. All suggested users have two or more accounts in the “Followed By” field and I assume these are my main “connections” to the suggested user. But many of the people that appeared in the “Followed By” field where people who I don’t engage with on a consistent basis.

Algorithm Improvement: Follow Klout’s lead and make suggestions based on key connectors. Klout analyzes a user’s statistical influence and also lists users that are influential. These influencers should be the top “connectors” used in the Suggested User formula.

4) Lots of celebrities

This is where the asymmetrical nature of Twitter is a drawback to making equitable connections on the social graph. By asymmetrical, I mean that one can follow an account but the account doesn’t need to follow back. In contrast, Facebook requires people to follow each other to be “Friends” so that relationship is symmetrical. Extremely asymmetrical “nodes” in a network cause a warping in the fabric of the graph. If a celebrity (that doesn’t follow me or only a few others) suggests another celebrity that they follow then that’s a low probability match.

Algorithm Improvement:Turn down the volume on celebrity suggestions. These accounts will be easy to spot by the ratio of followers to people being followed.

5) These are real people

Every person on the Who to Follow list appear to be engaged Twitter users, not just piped in “feeds” from other social networking tools. Twitter got this right.

I follow 7,740 people on Twitter and am followed by 8,157 accounts and have new followers every day. I don’t use auto-followback tools so I have to manually go through my email messages and “vet” followers. Unless the account is extremely relevant to my interests, I don’t follow feed accounts. (This also means I’m way behind in reviewing new followers.) By filtering out feed-only accounts, this tremendously increases the chances of my following them. Good job Twitter.

Review

Twitter still has some work to do on making the Suggestions more relevant. I made suggestions but also gave Twitter kudos on some things it is doing right. This is much better than the old Suggested Users celebfest hyper-monetization list it had before.

What do you think? Did you see any other obvious algorithm improvements? What was your overall impression of the Suggestions For You feature?

Related Post:
TechCrunch – Twitter’s Social Graph Is About To Get Pumped Up. “Who To Follow” Is Social Steroids