Are You In Generation Jones? Do You Blog?

Do you belong to Generation Jones, or the so-called Lost Generation? Do you still consider yourself a baby boomer? Does blogging come easier to you?

Generation Jones (the long-lost generation between the Boomers and Xers, born 1954-1965.
Read what Wikipedia has to say:

American social commentator Jonathan Pontell defined this generation and coined the term naming it. Generation Jones has been referred to as a heretofore lost generation between the Baby boomers and Generation X, since prior to the popularization of Pontell’s theory, its members were included with either the Boomers or X’ers.

The name “Generation Jones” has several connotations, including: a large anonymous generation, and a “Keeping up with the Joneses” competitiveness borne from this generation’s populous birth years. The connotation, however, which is perhaps best known stems from the slang word “jones” or “jonesing”, which means a yearning or craving. Jonesers were the people who as teens in the 1970’s made this slang word popular, but beyond this historical claim, many believe the concept of jonesing is among this generation’s key collective personality traits. Jonesers were given huge expectations as children in the optimistic 1960’s, and then confronted with a different reality as they came of age in the pessimistic 1970’s, leaving them with a certain unrequited, jonesing quality.

In demographic terms, Generation Jones was part of the baby boom which ended in the early 1960s. However, the events stereotypically associated with generational discussion of Boomers, including protests over civil rights and the Vietnam war and the emergence of rock music took place while the members of Generation Jones were still children or early teenagers. This is the situation described by Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious, who said that he had missed the Summer of Love because he was too busy playing with his Action Man. Thus the early life experience of this group was more similar, in many respects, to that commonly imputed to Generation X. Generation Jones is thus associated with such pop icons such as Pong, the “Walkman”, Rubik’s Cube and MTV.

This age group became politically active in the United States during the Presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan, who was extremely popular among people of this age group. “The turn toward the Republicans was based very much on how the young felt about Ronald Reagan’s performance in office,” said Helmut Norpoth, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In the 2008 election, surveys found that fans of classic rock music, popular during this period, tended to favor the Republicans.

Generation Jones has been the recipient of extensive media attention. It has been written about in hundreds of newspapers and magazines and discussed frequently on TV and radio shows. Pontell appears regularly on TV networks such as CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC, discussing the cultural, political, and economic implications of this generation’s emergence.

In the business world, Generation Jones has become a part of the strategic planning of many companies and industries, particularly in the context of targeting Jonesers through marketing efforts. Numerous industries have created new products and brands to specifically target Jonesers, like the radio industry, which has created “GenJones” radio formats.

Politically, Generation Jones has emerged as a crucial voting segment in Western elections. In the U.S. 2006 Midterm and 2004 Presidential elections, and the 2005 U.K. elections, Generation Jones’ electoral role was widely described as pivotal by the media and political pollsters. In the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, Generation Jones was again seen as a key electoral segment, partly because of its large size as almost a third of all voters, and because of the high degree to which its members were swing voters during the election cycle. Influential journalists like Clarence Page and Peter Fenn] singled out Generation Jones voters as crucial in the final weeks of the campaign.

The election to President of Barack Obama, born in 1961, focused more attention on Generation Jones. Many influential journalists, publications, and experts pointed out that Obama is a member of Generation Jones, including Jonathan Alter (Newsweek),[David Brooks (The New York Times), and Karen Tumulty (Time Magazine

Well, I gues the next question is do you mind being called a baby boomer too?

Twitter Countdown-How Many Blogging Boomers Are On Twitter?

A fellow blogging boomer of mine debated on the number of baby boomers that might be on Twitter. He said 300,000 or is it only 3,000? Many of us may not tell our age. But if you are a blogging boomer on Twitter please share your Twitter Id as a comment in this post. We will keep a count and post the numbers as they come in. Oops. almost forgot, leave the url to your blog also. (Don’t worry if it is porn or a scatter site it WILL NOT be posted for others to click on)

The countdown begins now

PS if you are wondering about the art work it is by boomer hubby Ray Horner jr.

He is not on Twitter yet, but will be …

Really Basic Videos Just Posted

There is a site called Rosie’s Blog Class that I use for anyone to visit after they have gotten coaching from me or I have conducted a blogging class. It may be very basic for those of you on WordPress.org. However, I find that starting folks out on WordPress.com as practice, hobby or quick start for community blogging can be close to awesome.

So, visit when you can or send others because I plan to explode it with  step by step information. Of course, the version will change more than we change and update our WordPress.org blogs but that is a great place to learn new versions when they come out.

So visit the lasted videos just posted.

Who Else Wants To Add Their Blog To Google’s Blogsearch Engine?

Google’s blog search engine is one of the first things I suggest that new bloggers consider when researching their blog focus. It is also a great place to have fun looking at the blogs that focus on your passions. But did you know you could SUBMIT YOUR BLOG for others to see when they search on relevant keywords?

Just go to Google Blogsearch’s Ping service so you can be on the road to getting your blog indexed in the blogsearch s powerful search engine.

PS The site is still in Beta phrase  and that just means they are still working the bugs out and adding good stuff.

If you do it please let me know.

Blog Platforms May Be Different But is The Message The Same?

When was the last time you went to Google’s blogsearch engine and just observe the varied blog platforms? Each one is different and can have more or less functionality. Yet, sometimes that does not seem to matter when you are just gleaning the impact of the message.

I just did a post looking at the 10 blogs by baby boomer women which made you feel good to be a baby boomer woman. While composing the post I realized the different blog platforms. Yet, my focus was on the category I had chosen.

For example, if the site ends in  .blogspot.com then it is a site hosted by Blogger.com. If it is .wordpress.com, it is hosted by WordPress.com.

You can dissect each one for good and bad structure, etc, but the bottom line is always, to me, the MESSAGE.

So, regardless of the platform you have chosen be sure that the message is understood by your audience. Does that make sense?

Before You Update Your WordPress.org Blog

A new version of WordPress is coming out. However before you update consider checking to see if your theme, host and plugins are going to work with the new version. Here is an excellent post about that issue.

If you are not the person doing the update then be sure to share this with your support staff. (Although, they probably know this already.)

Twitter Article in Wall Street Journal

Here is an article about Twitter that was in the Wall Street Journal Today.

Birds of a Feather Twitter Together

Social-Networking Service Connects Followers, Not Friends, on PCs and Mobile Phones

·         By KATHERINE BOEHRET

Columnist's name
 
If you’ve heard of Twitter but don’t exactly know what it is or how it works, you’re in good company. In the past two months a bunch of my friends, ranging in age from early 20s to late 30s, have asked me about Twitter — or Tweeter, as one person accidentally called it.
To clear things up, I’ve put together a basic Twitter guide that explains how to use it, Twitter lingo, privacy options, mobile applications that can be used with the service and problems that it has. Let’s get started.
Screen shot of Twitter
Twitter limits social-networking updates to 140 characters or less. The service is surprisingly useful, but leaves room for improvement.
hat is it? In short, Twitter is a free social-networking tool that keeps people connected with one another and with sources of information. Twitter users submit updates about whatever they’re currently doing, and these updates cannot exceed 140 text-based characters.
Lingo: Twitter is the name of the service. The term twittering describes the activity of updating a Twitter account. A tweet is an individual Twitter update. Twitterers are people who use the service.
Followers, not Friends: Social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace use the term “friend” to refer to people who are connected with one another, but Twitterers can simply follow one another’s messages by finding a person’s username and selecting a “Follow” option. This alerts the person that you’re following them, and they can reciprocally choose to follow you, or not.
Why use it? While some people primarily use Twitter to post updates about their activities or comments on the news, I use the service more as a follower, allowing me to see quick snippets of news as it occurs. Most tweets are written by real people, while others, such as updates from news organizations that you’ve selected, are automatically generated. Many tweets include the addresses of Web sites with relevant articles that tell readers more on a topic.
Where is it? Twitter works on your Web browser at Twitter.com, where user updates appear in a simple list form as they are submitted. After you’ve signed up and started following other people, those people’s updates, or tweets, will appear when you log onto Twitter.com using a username and password.
Twitter also works on mobile phones, where the 140-character limit allows messages to be sent and received via SMS text messaging. Tweets can also be sent and received via email. Users with smartphones like BlackBerrys or iPhones can use one of the many popular mobile applications for accessing Twitter, which offer much richer options than simple SMS does; I’ll get into these later.
Privacy: Unlike other social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter isn’t focused on holding and sharing personal information about its members. Indeed, the service operates with a majority (80%, according to the company) of users opting to keep their updates public, that is, follow-able by anyone, without permission. This openness encourages people to follow one another or to see who others are already following, and then follow the same people.
However, users can opt to protect their updates, meaning they must grant permission for others to follow them. If you’d like to sign up for Twitter, but aren’t comfortable putting your first and/or last name on the site, you don’t have to; instead, just tell others your username.
Twitter Page Personalization: Each user has a Twitter page showing all of his or her updates, or tweets. (Mine is twitter.com/kabster728, and you can follow me.) This page also shows the number of people a user follows, how many people follow her and how many total updates she has posted.
Twitterers can customize their Twitter page by uploading a photo to be used as the background. The icon representing each user can also be personalized, and this is important because it appears beside that person’s tweets on Twitter.com, where followers recognize and appreciate its familiarity. Some people, including me, use pictures of themselves as their icons, while others use random shots.
Apps/Clients: Twitter works on any browser, and will also work on a mobile browser. If you have a mobile device like the BlackBerry or iPhone, you can jazz up the experience by downloading a third-party app like TwitterFon, TwitterBerry, Tweetie or Twitteriffic. Twittervision, another mobile app, plots points on maps to show where tweets originated. Desktop clients also abound, including Twhirl and TweetDeck. Twitterfeed will set your blog to automatically post content to Twitter.
@Replies, Direct Messages: Each tweet that appears in your Twitter feed can be replied to using a shortcut arrow that appears beside the tweet, and these responses to tweets are called @Replies. So if JoeSchmo tweets to say he saw the new James Bond movie and hated it, you can reply to this with a tweet of your own that says, “@JoeSchmo I still adore Daniel Craig.” These @Replies appear for everyone to see, and must start with @ plus the username of whomever you’re responding to.
Direct Messages differ from @Replies because they can be sent only between people who are following one another. These messages aren’t posted publicly. They appear on your Twitter.com page in a right-side section labeled Direct Messages and will also be sent to your mobile device if you have one registered with Twitter.
Favorites: If you read a tweet that you really like, you can save it as a favorite by selecting a small star beside the tweet, thus adding it to a Favorites section on your homepage. Anyone can see anyone else’s Favorites, regardless of whether or not they’re following one another.
Problems: Twitter’s bare-bones approach gets to the point quickly, display ing tweets in a simple, quick-read format. But the site is lacking in many areas. It used to enable searching for people on Twitter, but that capability is currently down. Now, to search for friends on Twitter, you must upload your email contacts from a Web-based mail service. The company says it plans to have people-search working again by the end of the year. Meanwhile, search.twitter.com enables keyword or location searches.
Twitter lacks the ability to sort tweets according to what the user wants. If I just want to see tweets from real people and not those that are automatically generated, I’m out of luck. Same goes if I want to keep certain friends’ tweets in a prominent place on my homepage; Twitter has no way of doing this.
Twitter users aren’t notified when someone responds to their tweet with an @Reply. I recently happened to look at @Replies on my Twitter homepage and found three from people who follow me (I don’t follow them).
If you’re adding a Web address to a tweet and the characters in the URL take up too much space, Twitter will automatically use TinyURL behind the scenes to shrink your long link into a shorter one when you post your tweet. But this works only if you have enough remaining characters in your tweet to fit the long20version of your link. A built-in TinyURL converter on the page would help immensely.
Twitter says it’s working to make @Replies more effective. It also says it plans to do more with filtering and sorting, so that the Twitter interface is more useful. In the meantime, Twitter does a good job of giving people simplified news about others and the world around them. If you’re often in a rush, Twitter can be a great resource for fast information.
—Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

 

__._,_.___