3 thoughts for the week of March 1, 2010 (state of the net, regulating social networking & a rival)

One of the reasons we love Twitter is the the random, wonderful stuff that gets beamed our way. Recently, there has been a string of things of gets the synapses firing.

1. @JohnONolan sent out a little gem of a Newsweek article called “Why the Internet will Fail”  from 1995. Think back to 1995. Email hadn’t yet fully permeated businesses. Encyclopedias were still cited on term papers. AOL was a big deal and Internet Explorer 1.0 was released. Fast forward to today. @Design_Innovate put out a tweet to a video called “The State of the Internet.” (@mashable also featured the video) 247 Billion emails sent per day. 234 Million websites. And 4.25 million people follow every word Aston Kutcher puts out on Twitter. That contrast is startling. Just think on it for a moment. Yes, you can say it, Wowww.
2. @chrisbrogan (social media heavyweight) sent out a link to an article with the title “Company Forces Employee to Delete LinkedIn Profile”  The article tells that FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc) has ruled that communications on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can be classified as official communications and subject to supervisory requirements. In a world where the lines between our personal lives and business lives are becoming more blurred, this sets a precedent that will be important to follow. Many other regulated industries could implement similar policies. How might this affect you? When building a personal brand and having a vast social network are being touted as necessary for building your career, we have to be more and more conscious of what we say in what once were personal spaces.
3. And lastly some shameless self promotion. Did you hear we’re working with Rival Films again? (They are on Twitter too – @rivalfilms) That’s right, you might remember the work we did together for “The Battle of Comm Ave”. One of our favorite projects so far. Well, we’ve teamed up with the team at Rival to create the design and branding for this years “Official Film of the NCAA Frozen Four”. We’re really excited about the project, and so far it’s coming along great. At this point we’re actually finishing up the artwork and getting approvals. So, sports fans keep an eye out for this year’s Official Film of the NCAA Frozen Four! It’s sure to be an exciting tournament and exciting film.

If you’d like to learn more about the project, check out the press release! And don’t forget to become a fan of Rival Films and 3thought while you’re at it.