Happy New Year everyone - I hope that the next 12 months lead you even closer to whatever it is that you want.

For me, it will be a continuation of a simplification process.

As we no longer use credit cards at all, we’ve pretty much gone to a cash-and-carry lifestyle (that’s helped out a bunch - impulse purchases aren’t really all that satisfying anyhow).

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets - somehow (as if I don’t know how ;^) over the last few years I’ve ended up with several digital cameras, about 5 mp3 players, 2 laptop computers and 4 desktop machines - I’m still on the quest to find a single machine and OS which I can use on a daily basis.

As many of you already know, my desk contains 3 machines - a Windows XP machine, a MacBook Pro and another machine running some flavor of Linux (currently, Kubuntu 8.10). I have yet to find a single platform which allows me to do everything that I need - they all get “close” but there are still things missing from one platform to the next. I’ll continue the search…

MP3 players -of all of them (iRiver, Creative Zen Xtra 30GB, 8GB iPod Touch, iPod 30GB video) I prefer the Zen Xtra - I’m not really sure why, it has the largest physical size - perhaps it it reminiscent of my first Game Boy device (which I played for-evah!). For the rest of them, well - I added all of my CD’s to the Zune yesterday - but today I find myself copying that music library over to the Zen - I’ll need to get rid of the others (wife and kids first, sorry! ;^)

Electricity - we’ve been using less and have also been replacing each light bulb in the house with the twistie compact fluorescents. Our electric bill was $44 less in December than it was in November and we used almost 500kW less power. Our goal would be to use less than 8kW on a daily basis. Part of our reduction was to elimate our use of a second freezer which we kept in the garage.

MobaTalk - Dozens of iterations past, I have the system framed in and now it’s a matter of completing the coding and getting it released. Ever forward!

How’s your 2009 starting out so far? There are only 350 days left until 2010 - get crackin’! ;^)

I received the following in an email, and of course, I never “forward to 10 people” so here it is for all 48,000 of you who read this blog.

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip.

You  don’t have to actually answer the  questions.

Just read it straight through, and you’ll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the  world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy  winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America  pageant.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or  Pulitzer  Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners  for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series  winners.

How  did you  do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.

These are no second-rate achievers.

They are the best in their fields, but the applause dies…Awards tarnish…Achievements are forgotten.

Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz.

See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson:

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards.

They simply are the ones who care the most.

About one week ago, when I was thinking about social media and what it might one day become, the word Destiny popped into my head. I scurried on over to GoDaddy.com to check on available domain names using Destiny as part of the word. Behold, SocialDestiny.com was (and still is) available.

Ok, so the domain name is available, but what’s in a name?

There certainly needed to be some substance in a site with a name such as that, but what would it be?

For the last week, I’ve thought about it on and off, trying to frame in exactly what it could be.

I’ve had a few different ideas, but mostly they circled around a central thought of being some type of portal.

Perhaps, in a quirky way, SocialDestiny could actually be a “starting point” for people looking for news, tips, events, and anything centered around the whole social media scene.

It’s all up to you

Sad but true. The only thing that I really have to offer you at this point is the opportunity to chime in here in the comments section. Oh, and the nifty site logo (feel free to grab it if you want it.  Merry Christmas.)

Thanks to @TechGuyTom for inviting me in to talk about MobaTalk and for letting me share my vision and passion.

Congratulations on your first three episodes of the LifeInTheTubes video podcast show and best wishes for all future episodes.

I look forward to returning for a follow-up interview after MobaTalk Beta launches.

Thanks again,

Michael

Using Twitter Hashtags effectively requires just a little knowledge.
Here are a few tips and some insight as to why people use #hashtags.

The Basics

• What is a hashtag?

The # symbol, is usually referred to as the pound symbol, however it is also called the “Hash” symbol. A hashtag therefore is any word, phrase, or series of letters and numbers which is preceeded by a #.

A hashtag is merely a keyword, and it is denoted on Twitter like this: #hashtaghere

• Why are hashtags important?

The importance of Hashtags only comes into play when people are searching for what others are saying about a particular subject or event. I’ll show you a portion of two screenshots to illustrate the difference.

I went to http://search.twitter.com (formerly known as Summize.com) and searched for “hashtag” and then “#hashtag”. Here are the results.

Searching for the word Hashtag

Searching for the specific #hashtag

Search Results

As you can hopefully see, the use of the # symbol in the search has yielded different results.

In the first image are the results for people who where just using the word “hashtag” in their tweet, and the second image is the results for people specifically talking about the #hashtag.

Hashtags play a pretty signicant role when people are attending events, conferences, or meetups.

Using search.twitter.com during such events, and searching for the proper #hashtag, allows people to keep up with what people are saying. It also lets you discover new Twitterers who might be talking about the same thing.

Choosing the Hashtag

You might be wondering how you’ll know which word to use as the hashtag. Generally, a word or phrase is just agreed upon ahead of time by a few people and then everyone adopts it. It’s not a perfect system, but it works rather well.

–
This blog post was written by Michael Bailey. Michael became interested in Social Media in the Summer of 2005 and has devoted thousands of hours towards the development of the MobaTalk Conversation Studio. He believes that the Context of Conversational data is quickly lost on the web using the currently available tools.