LinkedIn Acquires SlideShare

It has just been announced that LinkedIn is going to be acquiring SlideShare for the price of $119 million, quite a nice profit for the founders and initial investors. It is being hailed around the web as an excellent outcome for both companies.

SlideShare fits quite nicely with LinkedIn. It has been compared to a YouTube for slideshow presentations, and the company boasts over 9 million slideshows. In a similar vein, LinkedIn has been compared to a Facebook for professionals. The parallels are definitely present and the two seem to compliment each other nicely.

SlideShare allows users to upload and share slideshow presentations. Especially as more people are becoming interested in taking their LinkedIn profiles to the next level, presentations are a logical inclusion. People can use these slideshow to showcase their creative talents, speak personally with their profile viewers, and demonstrate their qualifications.

Adeptly using LinkedIn means finding ways to make yourself stand out from the crowd and connecting with those who view your profile. Presentations allow people to show a great deal of their personality (all business? Wisecraker?) and viewers will be able to feel as though they are getting to know the person.

I agree strongly that this is a positive move for both companies. LinkedIn will be able to help grow the participation with SlideShare, and SlideShare will greatly enhance the profiles of LinkedIn users. A true win-win.

Interactive Movies, Yay or Nay?

Did you ever read ‘choose your own ending books’ as a kid? I remember them being such a hit in elementary school. Readers could read the beginning of a story, and then when the character comes to a critical decision, you can choose which one they should make and continue with the plot along that line.

Now it seems some are working on taking that interactive storytelling viral with social media. 'Shaun of the Dead' director Edgar White is one of the creators of an online platform that begins telling stories but lets the viewers determine the paths the stories take.

This would definitely be a cool experience. A chance to let creative juices flow and keep the audience engaged with the characters. I am sure that if the idea picks up the online community it unites could be extremely interesting group of people, a combination of artists, writers, and social media lovers.

I love twists in movies, though. There is nothing as exciting in my mind as learning three quarters of the way through a story that things are nothing as they seemed. This would be a very hard aspect to capture if the audience has such influence over the plot. Really, this system could only really work on certain types of movies. Not to mention it can be kind of hard to sit back, relax, and enjoy some popcorn while watching a movie if you are helping design the direction it is going.

I believe the idea could really catch on. Social media has helped create a culture where people enjoy instant interaction, feedback, and creative control. What do you think? Would you enjoy participating in a movie like this or do you prefer having the plots more decided for you, and you can sit back and enjoy?

Chernobyl Diaries - Too Sensitive or Too Much?

I recently stumbled upon a debate concerning the upcoming movie Chernobyl Diaries. Apparently there are some who believe that the horror film makes light of the tragedy that took place twenty six years ago this month. Others, however, scoffed and said this was just another case of political correctness gone array, and people were too sensitive.

Now I have not seen the movie in question, nor do I plan to (not a horror film buff in this household), but the debate got me thinking.

I am friends with a large number of Ukrainian immigrants and have heard numerous personal stories about that awful day. People told me about being evacuated from the capital of Kiev down the shore, or were sent into the countryside. Apparently the river used to cool the reactors continued to run through the site of the meltdown and was turned into beer further downstream, because no one really knew what was going on at first. Thanks to the Soviet government, we still have no idea how many people died that day, and how many died as an immediate result of radiation exposure. There are some estimates, however, that point to one million cancer related deaths in the years that followed.

Radiation, dirty bombs, and nuclear warfare have been the subjects of many movies over the years, and in the eyes of many, this is just one more. I am not a particularly politically correct person, though that is a discussion for another day, but I find myself agreeing more with the side arguing against the film.

Yes, Hollywood has made movies about tragedies in the U.S. There have been plots based on radiation testing zones here, or real serial killers, but this was not a small tragedy. Would people be ok with a horror movie based around the ghosts of the Oklahoma City bombing? Or the World Trade Center? People were upset with the rapid response of Hollywood to 9/11, but even those movies were meant as a memorial to the victims. You cannot say the same thing about Chernobyl Diaries.

Why is this movie ok? Prypiat and the surrounding areas are still abandoned. Chernobyl is still a tragedy that affects the lives of people in the former USSR. Is it just that it didn’t happen here?

I like to think that social media has made the world smaller. That we can now reach out and talk in real time to people on the other side of the world. With this maybe we treat world tragedies as our own tragedies, and can be a bit more creative with movie plots than just ripping off headlines.

I am still open to discussion on this - what do you think about movies spoofing off tragedies like this? Too sensitive or too much?

My Love/Hate Relationship with Twitter

It took me forever to get on Twitter. I confess that the platform really didn’t appeal to me for the longest time. Really? A constant stream of conversation that I am expected to just jump into? It sounded like an introvert’s worst nightmare. Yet here I am today, with a Twitter handle (its @Jess_Bursh by the way J ). So how did that happen, and how should introverts approach Twitter? What benefits are there to Twitter?

When getting started on Twitter the platform guides your through selecting various organizations and people you would like to follow. I picked out major corporations that dealt with issues I was interested in. As time has gone on and I have gotten more comfortable I have begun to follow more individual people who have similar interests or may be interested in social media. You may notice that my network is very small, and while I would like to grow, I find taking things slowly helps me to acclimate.

One of the biggest benefits I have found has been up to the minute news briefs. When I log on, I can catch the latest world news, money news, social media news, and what is ‘hot’ right now with very little searching. This can be extremely helpful! Also as I follow media outlets that interest me, I have an automatic filter on receiving news that I find intriguing.

I have also met a couple people on Twitter! Whether for business purposes or on strictly social bases, Twitter allows you to start conversations and connect with people in real time, everywhere. Using hashtags (#) and subjects helps you find people interested in the same things as you.

Finally, when I have articles published, there is no publicity tool quite like Twitter. It helps you draw your connections attention to a media outlet they might not read with as much frequency, and take note of your writing. People who read the article can instantly connect with you if they have follow up questions, or perhaps would want you to write something for them.

Twitter is fast and busy, definitely, and so it can seem overwhelming. By not pressuring yourself to have a 10,000+ network and using it to slowly connect and expand your present connections, however, the platform offers some major advantages to those who know how to use it.

Facebook and the IPO

For quite a while now it seems as though news keeps broadcasting information about the upcoming Facebook IPO, what it means for the company, will it be delayed, ect, and ect.

First off, for those who might not be stock savvy, what is an IPO?

Well, right now Facebook as a whole is owned by a small group of people. An IPO means that the Facebook owners are going divide up the company into shares, and sell a portion of them to the public (making many of those original owners quite wealthy). The price they will sell at is determined confidentially in discussions between the heads of the company and a few large banks/brokerage firms who will try to quantify how much the company is worth now, and what it will be worth in the future. Once the shares are open to the public, they will be bought and sold like any other stock.

Facebook will then have these stocks as a kind of currency. If they wanted revenue to improve the platform, they could sell more shares (until they run out, that is). They could also use shares to hypothetically buy another company. In the distant future, if Facebook ever decided that the stocks were trading below their true value, they could potentially buy the stocks back up again.

How will the Facebook IPO do? No one really knows. There is certainly a great deal of hype surrounding it, and it is seen as one of the most significant IPOs in recent history. On the other hand, other media platforms such as LinkedIn and Zynga have already done an IPO, and stock performance has been mixed. Only time will tell.

One this is for sure, and that is social media is here to stay. Facebook has led the charge and continues to innovate and update, and many people do have high hopes about what will happen.

LinkedIn, Privacy, and Being an Introvert

I recently wrote an article on Social Media Sun on LinkedIn and privacy, and after rereading it, I started thinking about what this might mean for introverts.

Personally, I have trouble ‘putting myself out there’. I was always rather shy in school, and as an adult, I do great in small groups, but in large groups I clam up. Networking events overwhelm me. It is very tempting to keep myself hidden.

So what does this mean when it comes to privacy? It means I got a little tingly when I clicked the liberal settings on my profile, even though I logically new the benefits, and knew there wasn’t really anything new I was revealing. How are introverts supposed to get over this fear?

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For me, introversion means thinking that few people are going to care what I have to say or what I have done. It is much easier to never come out than to come out and face criticism. But without risking criticism, we really sell ourselves short. Introverts in general tend to think things over very thoroughly before acting, and are often very conscientious. We have a great deal to offer the business world in whatever field we may be.

Think of it this way. Networking on LinkedIn is in many ways easier for introverts that networking in person. When you message someone new, you have plenty of time to think over what you want to say and how you want to say it. You have the opportunity to network on your own terms, and not worry about having your mind go blank or stammering.

Be confident in your skills and think about what you have to offer people, and remember that on LinkedIn, most of what you are sharing the internet already knows, you are just consolidating it. Allow other people to review your profile and see the value you have!