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If it isn’t bad enough that the economy is in disaray, or that gas prices are skyrocketing, or that natural disasters are constantly knocking at our back door, now I HAVE BEEN BANNED ON DIGG!

I have been a member of the Digg community for over a year and just in the last few months have really tried to boost my presence and utilize Digg as the great social media tool that it is. A good friend suggested I use the Greasemonkey Script to help in Digging my “friends” submissions. Sure, it made for faster and more convenient digging; but then, Digg changed their minds about allowing their users to use this kind of tool……

“A few folks have been discussing the use of scripts on Digg recently, so I wanted to jump into the conversations that happened this weekend. Scripts/bots place additional load on Digg servers (slowing things down for everyone), so using them is a Terms of Use violation that will result in losing access to your Digg account. We are currently looking deeper into recent script activity.”

As of today, there have been about 500-600 accounts banned from Digg and those that have e-mailed their apologies to Digg Support are being turned away with more than a slap on the hand………

“The account has been banned permanently, and will not be reinstated. Because we must be vigilant in protecting against activities that compromise the Digg community, this decision is final and irreversible.”

Wow! That’s harsh. My question is, why no warning, like if you are spamming? Why no e-mail letting us know of the changes to the terms of service so that we might have the opportunity to adjust to their rules? This type of behavior is just going to frustrate Diggers even more, because not only are accounts now banned but many have lost a lot of their friends.

How am I handling my particular execution? I’m hurt, offended and angry but be that as it may, it won’t bring my account back, so I guess I’ll just settle on being an example to all Diggers and say “Don’t use Scripts!”

Social Media Time Vs. Family Time

Social media sites, for those that already consume them, take up a great deal of our day. I don’t mean this in any negative light: it’s just a matter of fact.

So, once you really become a strong member of a community, it’s your duty to keep up that commitment. Then, the next new new thing comes along. Take Plurk for instance - you can actually lose karma by not participating! Microblogging brings the social media time management conundrum to a whole other leve, as it is something that you feel compelled to keep pace with not just from day to day but minute to minute! Whether social media is your work, play, or both, they really can take up a huge amount of work, family, and sleep time. This raises a powerful question…

Where does family time fit in?

Thankfully, I have a large family. It’s important to keep balance in your life, or you can really burn out quickly. I’ve seen far too many driven people that have driven straight up the wrong tree.

Here are 5 tips to help you come back to earth:

1. Be a ninja, social media style.

Tools like ping.fm will allow you to quickly make your mark and let you say what you have to say, when you need more time for your kid’s baseball game than to sit there watching the Twitter public timeline.

2. Get your family involved.

Kids can wear Mixx hats, can’t they?

And no, that doesn’t mean that you need to make them wear social news site hats It means that since you’re at the cutting room floor of world news all day long, you can relate some amazing, breaking, shocking, or just plain odd news that happened to your family at dinnertime. Just don’t overdo it.

3. Avoid burnout at all costs.

Social media burnout ain’t pretty. I’ve seen some take a break and recover, while still others just never come back. And not coming back is just such a shame, considering the time and effort that some people put into the game. Exercise, take walks, sit by a river, knit a sweater, hug your kids - remember what is important in life. We aren’t here to live to work; we should be working to live! I’m a social media dad, and my family is counting on me. Burnout is not an option.

4. Let go of some control, get time back.

So let’s say you are a blogger. Guess what? Lots of people are as well! If you are a solo blogger and you are always feeling the pressure to produce, this may burn you out just like any other social network. Learn to relinquish some of the “perfection” in your own blogging and allow some guest bloggers in. It’s a real win-win: the guest blogger gets a new audience to get their name out, and your family gets you back! Once you have this abundance mentality, you’ll be in much better shape for the future.

5. Learn time management.

If you don’t have some concept of what time management is and you work in social media, you’re toast. Maybe not today, but soon. I’m not suggesting that you need to ascribe to the Getting Things Done (GTD) mentality, just that you should be careful in your time commitments, especially social media ones. Social media has a habit of growing on you and taking up more time than you expect. So, it may be worth just setting aside specific times of the day for social media and staying off it, dare I say for other times. The late Randy Pausch gave a great talk about time management and has some tips here.

Brian Wallace is a social media consultant - get it touch with him on his blog, or follow him on Twitter and Plurk.

As of July 3, 2008 the Genocide Intervention Network estimates that more than 200,000 civilians have died due to violence, malnutrition, and disease and a further 2.2 million people have been displaced within Sudan and an additional 250,000 refugees have crossed the border into Chad.

What does this have to do with social media? Bloggers from all over the United States have realized that this horrifying situation has gone on for too long and are now taking action. My dear blogging friend Mark Hayward made a committment not too long ago and is spearheading the Train For Humanity project………

While serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, Mark Hayward spent his last night in the village listening to the horrific screams of the young woman on the left dying from the effects of cerebral malaria because the proper medication was not available.

That evening he made a promise to himself that one day he’d give back to the world by starting a humanitarian organization.

Years later, Mark was out running, and thought of the successful campaigns like Team in Training (Leukemia & Lymphoma Society) and Joints in Motion (Arthritis Foundation) that have raised funds and awareness for their health-based organizations by utilizing everyday athletes and their training.

Mark thought, “Why hasn’t anybody used a similar model of endurance athlete training to assist with humanitarian fundraising and awareness?” and the seeds for Train for Humanity were planted.

The concept is simple: getting fit + social media + blogging = social good

Mark is so right! By using the web, social media, and blogging in tandem with everyday athletes in training, Train for Humanity is set to support those organizations that help prevent suffering and alleviate the pain of children, orphans, and refugees who have been displaced due to genocide or internal strife and war within their country.

How can you help? For starters, you can sponsor a TFH athlete. You may recognize the names Leo Babuta and Dan Clements. Both are big time bloggers and along with Mark Hayward are trying to raise $50,000.

If a donation is something that you just can’t do right now then consider spreading the word about this organization through a blog post, Plurk post, Twitter post or some other viral social media tool. TFH has even made a sample post that you can use to make it easy for you to communicate the tragedy that is taking place in other parts of our world and how we can help.

You can financially support Mark, Dan and Leo here.

I’m doing my part, what are you doing?

iThryv was pitched as a banking site for kids. Like the game Spore, you start out small and things get more complex as you grow. When you’re younger expenses are tracked with big, colorful graphs. Later in life it gets more complex to include things like car and college payments, all the way to budgeting and savings.

Hangout.net is yet another virtual world. Kids can design their own virtual pad and adorn it and themselves with real-life products. These items reside in their online home, and all link back to online stores that sell them.

Blah Girls, in the words of its celebrity founder Ashton Kutcher, is a “dynamic, interactive, celebrity pop culture environment” played out through the eyes of three fictional characters. It centers on a Web video player with the three stereotypical children literally blahing about the latest celebrity gossip. Intermixed are asides the likes of Family Guy.

Tweegee is a virtual world that mixes e-mail, personal organization, and Flash gaming. It centers on an anime-like avatar that users build part by part. Likewise they can use a similar building tool to make their own hosted site that comes ready-made with templates based on what the kids are interested.

It sounds like TechCrunch50 is off to a great start with new and innovative sites being presented and obviously kids under 18 are no exception when it comes to a target audience. By tapping in to the content that a younger crowd commands, these companies will be able to generate advertising dollars that an already saturated, interactive, adult, market may not be able to offer.

In all honesty though, do we really need another celebrity gossip site? And one for young girls? Come on, Ashton, use those wonderful parenting skills that I read about all the time in People magazine and realize there is already enough gossip going on in school, do we need another website for that?

First Images of Google Chrome

Chrome Eliminates Google’s Middleman Problems

Inside Chrome: The Secret Project To Crush IE and Remake the Web

Google Chrome, Google’s Browser Project

Why Did Google Abandon Firefox?

The list goes on and on with reviews, comparisons and much analysis. In a nutshell, the brains over at Google have built, not just another browser, but a more modern platform for web pages and applications……

“we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.”

Sounds good doesn’t it? Or is it just a bunch of rhetoric? I think the real question lies in how it compares to IE and Firefox. Eli, over at Search Engine Land, has a great post that outlines 10 key features that differentiate Google’s Chrome from Firefox and IE…….

“Chrome is actually very different from those two browsers, and significantly different from nearly everything else on the market.”

The engineers at Google realized that modern day web browsing is about applications and rich media, so they built Chrome from the ground up and were able to implement tools that other browsers just don’t have. Which brings us to what I think to be the biggest single difference in these three browsers; and that is, how fast Chrome is designed to run. From multi-threading to JavaScript Virtual Machines, Chrome is geared to blow Firefox and IE out of the water when it comes to speed, and Kevin, over at Lifehacker, performed a speed test to determine which browser is fastest that you simply must see!

All in all, Google is hoping Chrome will make the web an even better place but that is totally up to you. Check it out and let us know what you think.

“This incident has made the sports officials realize that web usage by athletes may pose a serious problem and should be addressed properly since it can damage the image of a team and a university - not only of the athlete in question.”

The fact that this incident occured while these two young men were already enrolled in a four year school is one thing, but what concerns me about today’s youth is the careless attitude of high schoolers that will soon be looking for college opportunities and may be turned down due to their lack of discretion on their online profiles……..

“Usage of internet, including social networking websites, is becoming a serious issue for athletic departments across the US.”

What it boils down to is brand management. Institutions are realizing that the profile of any employee, representative, and/or student, may pose the threat of damaging their reputation so they are taking precautions to prevent that from occurring. For example:

“Chicago’s Loyola University has barred its athletes from having profiles on social networking sites completely.”

It goes without saying that social networking sites are a great way to connect to others when used appropriately. But the schools, the teams and your child really do have a “rep to protect” so teach them how to use these tools for their benefit and not their disappointment.

“Sammy Brown looked out at me. He saw me digging happily. ‘Good for you Duke’, Sammy cried. ‘I knew you’d do it, if you tried.’ So I dug further. I dug faster. I dug and dug to please my master.”

The story goes on to say the Duke got quite carried away with his digging. So carried away, in fact, that he was labeled a Digg Spammer. He began to “shout for friends” all the time to digg. He stole a top digger’s icon for extra diggs and began leaving threatening comments to those that would not Digg his shouts.

There are many reasons the Digg Community may perceive Duke and others, a social media spammer and Greg, over at 10E20, has a great checklist that everyone should consider when determining whether or not you are seen as the positive social media maven you think you are.

So ask yourself this, do your actions depict you as a nuisance like Duke, or are you keeping your digging under control? After all……..

“Digg is about community participation, NOT about forceful promotion. So take some of these spammier tactics into consideration and help keep the community (and your account) clean.”

“Using a Web camera or a cell-phone video camera, people record themselves doing anything–watching a football game at a bar, telling jokes, buying new shoes, playing with their child–and can upload it immediately to the Web, where others who subscribe to their videos get the update.”

Evidently, this free, easy, fun way of staying in touch with others is borrowing from the concepts of other microblogging sites such as Twitter and Plurk to tap into the successful microblogging niche. 12 Seconds founder Sol Lipman says;

“I think video as a medium is significantly more engaging than text,” Lipman notes. “If I’m at the bar with my friends, I want to show us having fun at the bar, not just text it.”

12 Seconds launched their “alpha” version of video microblogging on July 24th and invitations were accepted fast and furiously with over 7000 video uploads in a few days. Their plans for the future include more invitations and eventually offering software that will allow outside programmers to build applications using its technology. Sound familiar?

I like the idea of video microblogging, I really do, but my question is this, are people really going to watch video after video of those they are following?  I follow a lot of people on Twitter and Plurk and for the life of me, I can’t imagine having the time to watch their 12 second videos.

So, I requested an invite and have set up my account over at 12 Seconds. I tested it out and recorded a couple of videos. Unfortunately, my recordings left a little to be desired. Besides the fact that the sound was not a match to my mouth, it also sounded like I had a bad lisp. According to Hot Hardware, improvements are still taking place, which is a good thing because 12 Seconds has some work to do before any sign of viral activity takes place.

The site does have all the right ingredients to be a winner, however it will take a trip to Glamour Shots for me to really make the most of it and consider posting it to my blog. What do you think? Is 12 Seconds the next Twitter?

“How do you have time to be involved in social media?”

I don’t think that I’ve ever conducted a social media and business seminar without being asked that question. Perhaps the question arises because our lives are so busy that adding another task seems overwhelming. But to me, it’s like being asked, “How do you have time to eat?” I take time to eat because it’s important to me. I value food! Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I feel the constant pressure of time constraints: I’m a single dad of 3 active kids, and I have an advancing career that demands a lot of my time. Spare time just isn’t part of my life’s equation.

Then why do I remain so active in social media? I pursue the social media realm because it adds value to my life. With the schedule I keep I have to constantly examine the ROI. But that determination isn’t limited to social media. I ask this question to any involvement with my life. What’s my return? Does it add value? Is the payback for the time that I contribute worth the investment? I can buy a lot of things in life. But I cannot, of course, buy time. Social media allows me to interact with friends, to contribute to the lives of others, and to gain knowledge—all three as I have the opportunity.

We all need social interaction in some form. For many of my single friends that do not have kids this type of interaction is often found by going out for socialization. With my commitment to care for my kids I don’t have the ability to go out as much as some of my friends. But with social media, I can virtually go out and hang with my friends whenever I have a few minutes. Sometimes after a busy weekend with the kids I crave adult conversation. But with the kids nestled in their beds I can’t just pop down to my local pub for a beer with my buds. But I can log into Twitter or Plurk and instantly jump into conversations.

I love to contribute. Three years ago I reinvented myself and left my lifelong career. Within that career much of my focus was on contributing to the lives of others. That career matched my personal passions. Although I’m in a new career that I love, enjoy, and wouldn’t trade for anything, I still have a need to give part of me to others. Social media provides a great outlet for me to help others.

I greatly enjoy attending conferences designed to increase my knowledge base. That’s why my RSS reader is so valuable to me. With RSS readers, I can continue to gather knowledge and increase my core competencies from the comfort of my favorite living room chair–or even while snuggling under the covers if that’s what I chose to do. Sure, there can be a significant noise to signal ratio. But I control the amount of noise that I allow into my world. For example, I chose not to subscribe to any of the blogs I read VIA email. Everything comes to my RSS reader. When I’m ready and have the time I peruse the topics, select the ones of interest, and read if they continue to be of interest. I love being active in Plurk and Twitter. I have the freedom to jump in the conversation when I want or opt to remain out of the conversation if time doesn’t allow.

Activity in social media may seem like another add on to a life that’s already marginalized. For me, however, it’s the way I now live my life. And it’s creating a life of value to me. What about you? How is social media affecting your life? Does it seem like another task or are you finding rewards from your involvement? What benefits are you gleaning from social media? Let’s continue the discussion…

Follow Jeff on Twitter here

Jason Kincaid, from TechCrunch had an opportunity to meet Daniel at their August Capital event last week and Jason reports that Daniel is a “bright kid” that seems to know everyone…….

“a quick glance at his Twitter account shows he gets around too, with recent visits to Twitter, Apple, and the TechCrunch ranch - all without a drivers’ license.”

Teens In Tech is a community for teenagers interested in producing and sharing new media content in a safe environment. The site launched Monday, August 4th, with a very limited private alpha, but they have plans to expand to a public beta by the end of the year.

Daniel is striving to make his site different from say….. “other” sites geared towards teens, by making it super easy for teens to get started posting content. Teens In Tech offers a simple, 3-step, sign-up process that will give its users a sub domain, Wordpress blog and limited storage. They will also have access to the Teens In Tech forum that will allow them to ask questions.

I will be really interested to see how this community develops. There is no doubt that teens today have the smarts to pull something off like this but without proper supervision, (as with anything having to do with teenagers) it could turn into a community with major hormonal imbalances. Luckily, with folks like Robert Scoble on the advisory board, some parental guidance will still be available.