Facebook Places, Foursquare, & @GoMiso: The Future of #Checkins

I tried using Facebook Places today, and was met with nothing but epic failure on my Motorola Droid. I can only assume it had more to do with a crappy GPS than the actual application. But oh yeah, if you guys didn't know ... Facebook announced its venture into LBSM (location based social media) yesterday. Here's the official TNTML social commentary on social media ... aka the real time chat on my uh, Facebook wall.

Can I just say, this is just the greatest thing since sliced bread. Literally ... sliced bread ...

yeah baby, cut me like that ... uh huhhhh!!!!

Alrite, sim simma ... for reals ... I've been using FourSquare for about the last year or so, and people still think I'm nuts. Hence why I even emailed Foursquare back in January with my idea for an experiment I could conduct to establish value. The nerd community is fairly divided. A lot of peeps I know dig Foursquare and are heavily addicted to checkins, and the others refuse to join because they never leave their house. Totally kosher either way, I don't care how anyone chooses to lead their life, as long as they're happy ... but let's at least give people options.

Stories have been buzzing all day that, Facebook Places is going to be a Foursquare killer ... and I could not disagree more. No really - given, as long as Naveen and Dennis honestly don't mess up royally on a business management level (ala Brad Greenspan post myspace LiveVideo venture *cough cough*), the public's diehard love for Foursquare I think will only add value to location based social media as a whole.

Facebook has a built in base of 500 million users. I mean crazy, crazy, crazy ... yet, people still never understood WHY they needed to checkin places. That whole stalker thing still freaked people out. This will IMMEDIATELY establish value in the public's brain of why they think its cool to checkin. Because whether or not you want to, your friends will still be able to check you in, unless of course you opt out - but again, I really do not believe the majority of people will.

I'll let mashable break down Facebook Places for you. I personally have yet to use it, although yes - I was checked in by a fellow TNTML nerd while I was at the Dodgers game tonight. I can't speak to my personal experience for it, but HOLY CRAPPPPPPP!!! I am so excited about where this is going!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the actual post.

This appeared on my wall.

Don't leave your house a lot, but still dig the desire to checkin? Don't worry, try @gomiso. I just met with their CEO a few months back, who is just all shades of awesome applesauce ... and now baby is their time to shine. For reals ... their app just became available on the Droid, and I totally downloaded it this morning. It's awesome. Easy to use, and really, really, really, cool!!! However, again - we need more. Foursquare is great because of the tips AND badges. Yes, @gomiso does have badges which are pretty and all - but the tips are the total tipping point for me. That time that I was at Urth Cafe, and wanted help deciding between an Americano or a latte, and I read the tip of how awesome their foam was, it just about made my nerdy little life. For reals, it made my life. I love being a nerd!!!!!!

Anywho, given the current trend, I think there's only about 3 months before checkins becomes mainstream for entertainment, web based or otherwise. We're going to start to get a feel for checkins via Facebook Places, and again - I think it is only going to add that much more of a value to Foursquare and @gomiso ... but @gomiso really need to step up their game. One thing I LOVEEEE is that anytime I checkin on @gomiso, someone, somewhere will tweet me and tell me some tidbit about something I am watching.

See, today ... @adamreisinger commented about watching the movie 21.

All the buttons on the elevator were set to awesome on that one, and boy oh boy, I dug it. That will add value to my entertainment, and will get me to want to checkin more. Again, if Marky Mark and his funky bunch are going to introduce it, I think it's fab oh fab that services like @gomiso can really add value to people's experiences even if they don't leave the house. Everyone is going to have that urge to checkin and engage ... so give the people want they want, and keep them coming back by ADDING VAALLUUUEEEEEE!!!!! #Bah! I just get so darn excited. Thanks for listening!

Download @gomiso everyone!!!! Now its available on the droid and iphone - so you have no excuse.

#nerdsunite

#SocialMedia: Making voice calls irrelevant?

I'm so deeply fascinated by where all of this "social media stuff" is going, and what it means for standard operation procedures of communication.

Think about it, back in the day dudes were all, can I get yo number? I totally wanna like take you out on a date. Now, that feels so archaic to me. Do you know when the last time was that I actually used my phone for a voice call? Seriously, I am the queen of texting, and using my phone solely for livestreaming and appeasing my addiction to location based social media.

I HATE HATE HATE talking on the phone. Texting is just so sweet and to the point. On skype? EVEN BETTER!!!! I love, love, love, me some video chat! I don't really care about "catching up" with people. Call me slightly socially awkward, but if I want to know something about you - I will look at your Facebook page. If I want to see where you've been, I can look at my Foursquare feed. Sitting on the phone with you for an hour talking about the weather and your dog Mitten who slammed his paw in the slider the other day - does nothing for me. I ALREADY READ ABOUT IT ON FACEBOOK!!!!!!!!!! I'm a totally straight shooter - and I talk to hundreds if not thousands of people all day every day in some capacity across all the workable elements of social media. Our brains are just so stimulated when we converse online. I see an avatar, or video feed ... I can have 10 open windows at the same time, and links to videos or relevant information for whatever we're talking about. How the heck can a phone call compete with that!?!?

SOO!!! I guess my bottom line here is that the world is changing. You can say it's becoming slightly less personal, but I like to think of it as getting realer. I didn't really care about the shit you were telling me before - I just had to agree and do make that whole sound where you could tell I was nodding my head and listening to you, when I was really doing laundry. I don't hide my multi-tasking online. I really am that interested in getting to know you, just on my time, and in ways that I choose to receive said information.

If you really do want to talk to me, I'm totally all eyes, just not ears.

Skype ID: JenFriel

Twitter: @JenFriel

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jenfriel

FourSquare: www.Foursquare.com/user/jenfriel

... and by posting this, I've totally taken the fun out of you looking for it. #SCORE!! =)

Coming Soon: #Google The movie

Yeah ... no big surprise here that Google is doing a movie. Shocking how these studio peeps are just bending over backwards for making movies about these online adventures. Pfffttt!! You'd think that ANYONE could totally get a movie deal these days. There's even this stupid nerdy chick that got a deal for an experiment she was conducting ... and pffttt!! If SHE can get one ... waaiittt a minnutteeee!!!!!

Anywho, read read!

Per Deadline EXCLUSIVE: The founders of Facebook aren't the only game-changing geeks poised to have their story told on a movie screen. Michael London's Groundswell Productions has teamed with producer John Morris to acquire movie rights to the Ken Auletta book Googled: The End of the World As We Know it. They will use the book as the blueprint for a feature film that tells the story of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and the fast rise of the juggernaut web business that made them billionaires.

The book was published last fall by Penguin. Auletta, the media columnist for The New Yorker, chronicled a business that grew into a search engine-driven octopus whose $20 billion in ad revenue last year was more than the major broadcast networks combined. CEO Eric Schmidt predicted to Auletta that Google will become the world's first $100 billion media company.

While the Facebook founder story being told in the upcoming David Fincher-directed The Social Network revolves around a group of Harvard pals who squabbled in success, the Google narrative plays out differently. Google was formed by the duo while they were Stanford Ph.D students who had ideas on how to make a better search engine. They founded Google on principles like "You can make money without doing evil" and "You can be serious without a suit." London said the movie will focus on how they tried to hang onto their idealism as Google became a global phenomenon. The challenge for London and Morris is to find a handle on a success story that makes for compelling screen drama.

"It's about these two young guys who created a company that changed the world, and how the world in turn changed them," London told me. "The heart of the movie is their wonderful edict, don't be evil. At a certain point in the evolution of a company so big and powerful, there are a million challenges to that mandate. Can you stay true to principles like that as you become as rich and powerful as that company has become? The intention is to be sympathetic to Sergey and Larry, and hopefully the film will be as interesting as the company they created."

ICM's Ron Bernstein brokered the book deal with Groundswell's London and Morris, a hi-tech industry investor and film producer. London and Morris will fund development together. Groundswell is in post production on the Tom McCarthy-directed Win Win, and next releases the Andrew Jarecki-directed All Good Things with Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella starring. Morris produced the Showtime Boris Yeltsin pic Spinning Boris.

And btw, they're nerds not geeks. Nerds are a product of a genetic predisposition. Geeks are raised. #NuffSaid

Bruce Wayne Won't Go Hungry Tonight

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @maniacalmorgan

Holy tacos, Batman!This just in... we have amateur footage of Batman robbing a Taco Bell. Why on earth the billionaire, Bruce Wayne, would need to rob the innocent gentlemen in the video of their tacos, we may never know. Not to mention he's supposed to be the good guy. Well, one thing is for sure, Bruce Wayne won't go hungry tonight!

Thank you Blastr for the video!

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Brilliant Marketing: #LastExorcism goes viral

I hate the expression gone viral. Especially when its spoken by the people that actually made said video. It feels too meh. The people declare when something has gone viral, not the studio. BUUUTTTTTTT this is actually pretty friggen smart!! Kudos @EliRoth and co!!!

Bloody Disgusting reader 'Dre Skull' just tipped us off to a new viral marketing campaign taking the web by storm. It looks as if Lionsgate has tapped into Chatroulette with hopes of freaking out bored teens hoping to stumble across some nudity. Instead, a lucky few will bare witness to one of the following creepy ass clips that tease The Last Exorcism. Thumbs up to Lionsgate for coming up with a great (seriously, this is brilliant) new way of spreading the word! In theaters August 27, after a career spent helping the devout through prayer and trickery, Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) invites a film crew to document his final fraudulent days as an exorcist. Soon his faith is truly tested when a desperate plea from the father of a possessed girl (Ashley Bell) brings him face to face with the devil himself.

The Last Exorcism is in theaters 8/27