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

an open letter to my latest follower

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @MikeDelic          

dear @adultsexygifts,    

not that i have anything against sex dolls, i actually have one, of a sort anyway.  i call it my hand, and it works fine thank you very much.  what i'd really like to know is, who is the marketing genius that came up with your twitter strategy?  is it one of the dolls?  i mean seriously you must be under the impression that sex dolls sell themselves.  i am sorry to inform you that this is an erroneous assumption.  cockrings may sell themselves, and buttplugs, and maybe doubledongs, but sex dolls do not.  if you want to sell more sex dolls you are going to have to be a little more creative, and even then, you wont get any business from me.  i already own a bunch of weird sexy shit including an impressively large collection of scrotum clamps and a one terabyte external hard drive full of the finest pornography that germany and japan have ever produced.  but i dont want to be one of those creepy people who gets a lifesized sex doll.  if i really wanted to make love to a woman made of plastic that badly i would just move to los angeles.

not that i'm not curious.  i mean, i have always wondered how realistic they felt, and tho i'd heard some testimony back when i used to listen to howard stern i understand that such judgments are highly subjective and that beauty is in the eye (or whathaveyou) of the beholder, moreso in this case than in the case of certain other things, like double rainbows, which everyone loves and can work themselves into orgasms over with relative ease.  and i am willing to admit that as effective as my current sexdoll/hand is i sometimes yearn for something more, although i dont think that one of your sexdolls is the thing for me.  on the one hand i'm guessing that they dont talk, and that seems cool, but on the other hand they probably cant make sandwiches either, which is most definitely uncool.  now, judging by the complete lack of creativity in your tweets i am guessing that you lack the requisite ingenuity to make a sex doll that can make me a sandwich.  that is a shame.  tho i guess if it could do that it would be more like a robot than a doll.  a sex robot i could maybe go for.  tho a sandwich-making robot would be even better.  come to think of it i dont even really care about the sex.  a robot that could make sandwiches and go to the store and get me coffee and cigarettes, that is what i really want in life.  where can i get one of those?

yours truly, @mikedelic

p.s. i hope you get gored by a rampaging elephant with aids on its tusks.  xo

12 Reasons I get Unfollowed

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Mikedelic

1. simple miscommunications ("--please dont proposition me it's creepy"   "--i didnt ask you to marry me i just said i wanted to finger you")

2. making insulting tweets at new followers who are clearly just marketing something and have no real interest in my awesome tweets ("dear new follower, @toysonline -- thank you for follwing me.  i hope you get aids and catch on fire.")

3. fallings out between friends because of honesty ("--not that i'm saying you're shallow, but only tweeting about 4square and what you are currently eating is really annoying and you should up your game a little for the good of the team kthx")

4. sharing politically charged links with people whose politics differ radically from mine. 

5. death threats

6. hatin on popular stuff that i hate ("i hope justin bieber has her period on stage and everyone makes fun of her and then they dump pig blood on her at homecoming (cont.)..."   "...(cont.) but that she lacks the telekinetic powers necessary to take violent revenge upon her antagonists")

7. scaring off chicks who at first think i am quirky but then think i am creepy ("-- thank you for following me, we are best friends now.  maybe this seems a little forward, but someday i will meet you in real life and finger you.")
 
8. making fun of the world cup ("i hope soccer gets aids and catches on fire")

9. goatserolling

10. making referential jokes that are offensive to people who are not familiar with stuff that almost everybody else seems to know about and be riffing on ("i will respond to your tweet about the yummy noms you had for snacksies, but you will blow me first.")

11. using the same jokes/imagery too much ("i hope you get aids from being fingered and catch on fire")

12. tweeting too much

~~lessons i have learned~~

1. dont talk to chicks about fingering them until you are right about to do it
2. justin bieber is actually a boy
3. a lot of stupid people like dumb soccer


Click here to check out Mike's YouTube

#True Story: Marketers are born ... not raised

When I was 13, we went on a family vacation to Vegas. (That was pre the "What Happens in Vegas" marketing campaign, when they tried making Vegas family friendly. Marketing #FAIL) ... and wouldn't you know, Ray Charles walked into the elevator my brother and I were in!!!!!!

The four of us (Ray had a guy assisting him ...) rode the elevator for what felt like the longest 5 seconds of my life. My brother and I were frantically trying to place this iconic human being, but we kept falling short of his name. I piped up and said simply OMG - el senor Charles the consummate gentleman turned his head in a counterclockwise motion and said "How ya doin?!"

He proceeded to get off on the 3rd floor ... and my brother and I ran screaming into our parents room. We were so ecstatic - we finally figured out who he was!?!?! We shouted out Mom, Dad - we were just in an elevator with "the guy from the Pepsi commercials."

OY!!!! ...Very true, very nerdy story ... HA!!!

Here's to hoping your big Pepsi in the sky is never warm, Mr. Charles!!!

A Permission Slip to be Unapologetically Awesome

I'm an artist. This is my platform. Doesn't get much nerdier eh?

SOO, I want to try something. I've gone through a HUGE personal change, and since it's working for me - I want to see if it will work for you.

First, a little background ... up until a year ago, I was a terribly unhappy person. I don't even like the word unhappy, I was more like a robot. I always had a smile on my face, and was this little bundle of energy - however it was more of a regurgitation of information and stories; things I leased in life that temporarily defined my experiences but didn't define who I was. I actually had no idea who I was. I wanted desperately for someone to tell me that. I thought, well - I'm 24 ... right about now, I should be married with kids and that whole shabang. After all, thats what the people in movies do ... they're never wrong! So, I set myself up in a weird series of relationships with some not so very nice people in the hopes of them telling me who I was. YEAHHHHHH ... what a joke. I wasn't waiting for a ring, I was waiting for a life. I always had a lot going on, and a lot of really really really awesome things to be proud of. However, I was somewhere out to lunch. I didn't take ownership of a single thing. It was just something I did, because I didn't know what else I was supposed to do. 

This site managed to change everything for me. I did this. I created the concept, coded it, marketed it, promoted it. I eat, sleep, and breathe this site. Thinking of ways to expand, listening to people, finding out what is working and what isn't ...I took all the changes in things that I wanted to see and made it happen. Of COURSE I would not be here if it weren't for you all, however - I really just don't care. I would still be doing my thing if you weren't, and that is AWESOME!! I am unapologetically AWESOME, and FUCK that feels GREAT!!!

I JUST DONT CARE, and that is SOOOO FREEING!!!!!!!!! I would be doing this if not a single person came to visit this site - so that must mean that this is something deeply ingrained in my true essence and core, not just who I think I need to be. I don't sit there and say, my, my, my, today I guess I'll have to find something to post. I just DO IT because I FEEL IT! I am FEELING things I've never felt before. I'm feeling alive, happy, joyous, at peace. Don't get me wrong, I am still neurotic and potentially psychotic ... but again, I Just. Don't. Care.

I don't care what label you place on me - because I am a nerd through and through. Being nerdy to me is more than just some weird social excuse for being slightly odd, it is the ultimate permission slip to the greatest field trip in life. I get to see things, do things, talk to people, and relate to them on levels I could never otherwise comprehend. What is our common denominator? We're all NERDS!!!! I LOVEEEE reading all the emails, and posts I receive from you all expressing your passions in the nerdy realm - wow, they're just SO out there!!! AND HOW FABULOUS!!!! People have just been waiting for someone to say this is okay, this is cool - I know I was!!!!!! Had social media not come around, I don't know where I'd be. I've learned SOO much about people, and had such a great psychological shift in my own awareness and my own perceptions of life and being; it's incredible. I just am! I never have to debate my nerdiness to someone, they just know. So just BE!!! You already have all the answers inside of you to every question you could possibly ask yourself. We aren't afraid of failing in life, we are afraid of having TOO much power, being TOO successful, having TOO much .. SCREW IT! Focus on one drop of water filling the jug at a time, and buckle up. You're never given more than you can handle and I know through and through that the nerds of this world are about to dominate. Stop letting other people define you and your worth. You be you, and I'll be me ... now let's be AWESOME!

Here ... print this article out. Write yourself a permission slip for being awesome today. Use this as a get out of whatever card, and take this as an excuse to start living the life you always imagined.

To Whom It May Concern,

Please excuse ____________________ from _____________________ today. They are a vital component in world domination and their presence is being requested at the table of life.

If you have any questions, please email me at JenFriel@TalkNerdyToMeLover.com however, I probably won't get back to you right away, because I'm out living life and being awesome right along with them.

Thanks. 

Sincerely,

Jen Friel aka That Nerdy Chick

There's your permission slip ... now go be unapologetically awesome.