Summer Blogging
The Buzz Bin
Summer is the time for school vacation, family road trips, camping, the great outdoors...not exactly activities conducive to blogging. Larissa Fair has some great tips to help you beat the summer blogging blues. She recommends upping your usage of less time-consuming social media sites (like microblogging), and writing shorter posts. Also, it doesn't hurt to start a meme. Short, sweet, and fun. "Start a meme. Participate in a meme. These are fun and easy posts that get people involved, don't take a lot of brain power, and create lots and lots of link love. Keep up with links posts (if that's your kind of thing) and provide short posts with commentary on what other people are writing about. Anything to keep your mind, blog, and readers going."

LinkedIn Made Easy
Communication Overtones
Common Craft has become one of my favorite participants in social media. Their videos are often funny, always educational, and even when they make my head spin a bit (the social media - ice cream analogy didn't really do it for me), they usually help spread a greater understand about just what it is we do. Kami Huyse posts their latest, explaining the wonders of LinkedIn. "For all of you out there that wonder how in the world LinkedIn can help you, this is a great video.  It is especially pertinent for small business owners.  But it can also be a leg up for those looking for a job or providing a service. It was produiced by Common Craft for LinkedIn and lays out the power of a network."

Ads as Content
Brand Flakes for Breakfast
Seth McFarlane has always been pretty savvy with his decidedly young audience, but his latest move may be one his best. As Darryl Ohrt reports, the creator of the popular series "Family Guy" has agreed to create comedic cartoon spots to be run online only. And only in Google Ad sense. "In the first program and ads of their type, Google will distribute the content (via Google video, inside ads) to sites that fit the demographic for which MacFarlane's show would like to be distributed to. Genius."

Let's Go to the Mall
Chris Brogan
This week, Steve Rubel compared social media and networking sites to renting property. Chris Brogan takes this idea a bit farther, noting that with each social media enthusaist spreading their brand across several sites, we are almost creating social media strip malls. "Sure, there are different stores, but they're just places full of stuff. You can get a haircut, buy a cheap Chinese buffet, mail a letter, and take a karate lesson in any given cluster of strip malls. The same names start to pop up. So, in Steve Rubel's tenants and owners analogy, I liken a lot of us who are taking up space on these various social networks as some kind of strip mall tenants. Think about it."