TED – Robzie.com

Welcome to the Social Gnome’s Hoard, a collection of this week’s most interesting finds from the Social Gnome’s internet travels.

Week of April 23, 2012:

I was presented a very interesting article by @captain_jake on whether Facebook (and subsequent other social networks) are making us lonely. Although the article brought up many interesting points, there were still questions about its generalizations.Then a full fledged rebuttal article came out, also make interesting points. A good read on both accounts to get you thinking about what all this “social” is doing to our real relationships. If you have time for a great video, Sherry Turkle gave a TED talk about the same topic, Connected, but alone? “The illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. ” Wow.

What would you think of the possibility to get some Ivy League education without ever leaving your home or studying for the SATs? Well, The Faculty Project will allow you to do just that. This article from a couple months ago tells how professors from prestigious universities will be able to upload lecture notes, which will be downloadable free of charge to anyone with an internet connection. The internet. Providing quality information. Who knew?

For a good laugh, here is a list of The 21 Worst Things In the World, courtesy of Buzzfeed. I can’t help but agree with some of them, especially the demon spawn of Satan that is #14. Why? Why does something like that exist? In our homes?

Wildcat! Wildcat! is an up and coming band that a friend of mine, @rudyc, turned me on to. They currently have two songs up on Soundcloud. I really look forward to hearing more from them. If they can get an album together this year, they certainly have the type of sound that is doing well right now with bands like Foster the People and The Naked and Famous. They also have a great video on YouTube for Mr. Quiche. Just weird enough.

Klout announced that it will be starting something called Brand Squads, which will recognize top influencers for brands, rather than just industries and topics. Many people immediately dismissed it, asking whether brands should even care. I know Klout score doesn’t amount to a whole lot to many people, but I like this idea of focusing on the influencers. This has the potential to really recognize brand advocacy, and although Klout score doesn’t mean much in the marketing metrics world, this could be huge for companies really trying to drive a force of support for their brand. As of now, only Red Bull is doing this (I’m not exactly their target market, so I think I’ll hang around, leaning up against the wall until something more relevant comes my way.) This has potential to get people excited about Klout. It also has the potential to completely flop if Klout doesn’t get more brands moving wit this initiative.

And finally, I have a blog post up on Starr Hall’s website (she is a columnist for Entrepreneur.com, national speaker on social media, author and restaurant owner. In other words, she’s amazing.) I talk about a feature on LinkedIn called Projects. I don’t see many people using it, but it is a fantastic way to create connections with other LinkedIn users while showing off things you’ve worked on.