The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for June, 2009

After taking a hiatus and reading a couple of different authors, I was glad to jump back into a Janet Evanovich book. Her writing is smooth and she makes it easy to embrace a character.

Not many writers would be able to talk about exploding rodents and make you feel like you were right there when it happened and make you feel like you should check to make sure there’s not squirrel hair on you. Weird, yes, but true.

I liked the family aspect of this book, and all of the Plum books. I am pretty close with my family and I like the fact that Stephanie’s family is pretty tight knit. Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur is by far my favorite character still. She comes in moderation, but never fails to please.

All of the Plum books have had crazies, but the side bars in this book were VERY crazy. A guy who makes and sells stuffed, exploding rodents and a guy who steals goods off the dead to make money.

The main thriller from this story really didn’t do it for me. SPOILER ALERT! QUIT READING IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS BOOK!

At first, I thought Dickie disappearing was a great story. Stephanie would have to decide if she would help find her ex, but when she’s blamed for his murder, she doesn’t have an option.  But when you find out Dickie isn’t really dead, the plot doesn’t thicken anymore. The scheme his co-workers had going on was pretty schiesty, but I felt there was still too much of the book left to know Dickie wasn’t dead.

Now his co-workers and the firebombs, well I love explosives (I don’t use and or play and or want explosives, but I like watching movies with rocket launchers) and this aspect was cool, minus the people who got burnt in the process.

In the end, I enjoyed the writing of the book, just not what was written. I gave it 2 bookmarks.

1. When I follow people I Twitter, I am picky. I used to follow everyone, but now I like to see what they’re about before I follow them. And I like to follow people that like the same things as me. I am not good with stocks/bonds and a lot of techie stuff, so I’d like to see what they’re about before I add them. So, a way to do that: Twellow. It’s a Yellow Pages for Twitter. If breaks down users by category. Anything from movies and music to journalists to daughters. I try not to search for people to follow unless I don’t have anything to do, but next time I have down time, I’ll check this site out to find new friends with the same interests as me.

2. Twinfluence shows you your influence on Twitter. It shows a lot of things I don’t understand It breaks down your first and second order networks (your followers then all of their followers). It also breaks down your velocity, social capital and centralization. If you like the technical side of analyzing your followers, check out the site and you’ll be able to understand more than I can explain!

3. If you want to know if people are talking about you on Twitter, check out TweetBeep. The site allows you to put in your name, your product or you blog (and more) and whenever it’s mentioned, you’ll receive a message. I take it this is one of the sites that people use to get new followers. One time I put I was having anxiety and within 10 minutes I had 10 people follow me that had user names with “anxiety” in it!

4. Since I’ve added one to every post, I have to add a background site. Doctor Twitterwell help you spruce up your site. Most of the backgrounds here are themed. They have patterned ones, but they also have celebrity, tv, and political backgrounds.

5. Twitter is a great tool. It is great for personal use, but also for businesses. In the news room, it is a tremendous help. I found out that Jodie Meeks was staying in the NBA Draft when Coach Cal Tweeted it.  But it’s also good for other businesses and now there’s a E-book out about why Twitter is good for Churches. Twitter for Churches describes the site as “a *helpful, easy* and *practical guide* to reaching the right people with the right message – for free.”

ENJOY!

If you use Twitter, I hope you are liking these posts. These are all sites that I think can be useful in some way, shape or form. And if you do enjoy this, you’re in luck. After this, there will be at least 3 more, but I’ll keep searching for more Twitter Sites to update you with.

1. I’ve done one “decor” site for each post I’ve done about Twitter, might as well stick with the theme. Twitter Galleryreminds me a lot of the sites for Myspace backgrounds. They have anything from swirls and stripes to Wall-E. I like this site because if you want to make your background something popular, there’s a good chance you can find it here.

2. If you’re a news junkie like me, you may fall in love with this next site. If you don’t like the news or news people, just go to number 3. Muckrack.comis a site that is a compilation of journalists on Twitter. Anyone from Ann Curry to writers at Sports Illustrated are part of this site. It takes all of their Tweets and puts them on this page. I tried to add myself, but never heard back. Guess I don’t have a big enough name “yet”. One of these days, they’ll be begging me to be a member. No but really, the site is really cool. It tells you which journalists Tweet the most, which ones are the most newsworthy, which ones are the most witty and you can check out the Tweeters by where they work.  I just found this: At the top of the page, it has a list of links, celebrities, musicians etc. Click on the link you want to check out and there’s a compilation page for each of those categories. NICE!

3. Do you want to see who the top dogs are on Twitter? Then check out Tracking Twitter. The site shows you which “media, entertainment and consumer product feeds”.  They are broken down by followers, show you their latest Tweet and what their user name is.

4. Need help on Twitter? Check out TwiTip. This is a Twitter Help Guide in the form of a blog. If you need help with anything pertaining to Twitter, this is the place to find it. It’s a site that is updated once a day, so if you’re like me and want to know EVERYTHING as it happens, you can check it out daily, or check it out weekly and read the updates one week at a time.

5. Sometimes links on Twitter can be overwhelming. I personally check to see how many times a person posts links before I add them. If they’re posting links more than telling me what they’re eating for breakfast, I won’t follow them. But, there are times when I want to see some links, so to find the most popular ones, I go to TweetMeme. Very cool. You can check out which ones are most popular. It’s based on how many times the link has been Tweeted. Or you can watch the live feed as the links come down. If you want to see links for a certain topic, it also breaks those down for you. If you want to check out links, I highly recommend this site! It sucks you in though, so make sure you give yourself a time limit or you’ll be there all day

Enjoy loves!

Hope you enjoyed by first set of links and will try these ones out as well.

1. Twibes is a site that lets you make your own Twitter groups. There are groups from photography (which is the most popular) to Timing Momentum Stocks (one of the newest). You can search for a certain keyword, check out the most popular and newest or search by topic. Maybe I should make one for WV Tweeters. Let me know if you’d join!

2. On the 6/19 sites, I put a link to some cool backgrounds. But if those didn’t do it for you, maybe Free Twitter Designwill spark your creative side. This site lets you design your own background. I always like these sites and use a similar one for my Myspace background. I don’t like to have ones that everyone can use.  You start with 6 platform pages then can build, change colors, add pictures, text or shapes. You pretty much have free reign. If you use this, send me a link to your page so I can check out your background!

3. Poll Daddy is cool site if you want to get input. Yes, I know you can just ask people on Twitter, but if you have a multiple choice question, just stick it on there with the link. To test it, I made one “When people add blog posts to Tweets, do you read them?” I had 1 yes vote, o no votes and 2 sometimes votes. Now one thing I did notice about this was a couple of people responded back to me on Twitter. I’m not sure if they were the same ones to fill out the poll, but I would suggest after asking your question in your Tweet, also say “Please take my poll.”

4. Do you have witty Tweets that you want to share with the world? Well, on Twitter Wityou can. You use your Twitter name and password and have a couple of options. You can give them the option to go through all of your Tweets and share the ones they like or you can go through and choose the ones you like. Once you’ve found one you want to share, click on the time and date you added it, it will pop up in a new window with a number in the address bar, copy and paste the number and voila – your wit is now on the web …again! Still working on this site. Not sure if it only shows mine or if I can find other people’s wit.

5. Do you want Twitter to be more accessible when you pull up the Internet? Then you should download the Twitter Toolbar.This isn’t one I have tried yet because when you open new tabs on Internet Explorer, it shows you the top 6 sites you visit… and of course Twitter is on there just one click away. But if you want to make Twitter one click away, try downloading this. It also allows you to update your status directly from the toolbar and do searches on Twitter, Twellow Pages and Twictionary. If I keep having those stupid security pop ups, I may have to try it!

So we all know I’m part of Facebook, Myspace, Twitter etc. But another social media site I’m part of it LinkedIn.

I’ve not spent as much time on LinkedIn as I have on the other sites. It is more of a social network site for the business world.  I became part of it before I finished college and think that if I wouldn’t have had a job waiting for me, I would have spent more time on it.

It is an online resume of sorts. On your profile, you can put your work experience, strengths and weaknesses (or however you want to word those).

At WSAZ there are 8 people (maybe more) that are on LinkedIn. I mean you know about your co-workers, but it’s fun to see their resumes and work experience.

I’m friends with a lot of college buddies on Facebook, but I like also being connected with them on here. If I would ever need to job search in the future, I can check out where they are working and do some networking through them. That’s not using is it?

I did a job search for “journalism” and it automatically pulled up jobs in my area. None with WSAZ, but there are a few with WOWK… argh the competitor

So, if you want to take your networking to the next level or if you’re looking for a job, I recommend LinkedIn. And now that I’ve been playing around on it today, I think I’m going to work on my profile and search for some more colleagues!