Tag Archives: social networks

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Social Network Stuff: Foursquare and Swarm

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So how many of you kind readers are using Foursquare on your Smart Phone? I’ve been a fan of this little application for a few years now and for those new to the idea, it very simply lets you “check in” to the spot you are at and potentially connect with friends who are doing the same thing at said spot or nearby.

Logo - Foursquare Swarm

For me this has been fun at the shows especially and what I liked about it was the ability to let it go to Facebook or Twitter at my own choice as opposed to checking in on Facebook and having the whole world of my “Friends” see my activity when I might not really want that to be the case. I’ve chosen to not really govern my time by Facebook’s rules so I enjoy the side things that let me skate the periphery of using it whenever possible. Anyway, so not long ago when I launched Foursquare to check in at Duke’s (a place I go to quite a bit depending on the shows), I was instructed to download something called “Swarm” which was going to be how we checked in from now on. I did it.

Once logged into Foursquare and aiming to check in it would launch Swarm and bring up the screen to let people know where you are and what you were up to. The screen looked alright to me as it had the means to snap a photograph and then share it over to Facebook or Twitter but the downside was it continually crashes on me. Let’s add to the fact that now you need two applications on your device to do part of one thing and part of the other thing and that makes no sense. These days, application space is more demanding and if I don’t need it on my devices then I don’t want it. I surely don’t want something as slow and unpredictable as this Swarm has been.

What do you readers think? Have you been using it at all? I am hating it.

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PiercingKen Is Yelping In The Crowd!!!

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Since I have been having a lot of discussions about my enjoyment of food in Foodspotting.com lately and lining out how I felt that it helps a larger demographic find meals that they are looking around for, I decided to share with my readers the knowledge that I am also one of those “Yelpers” that you hear about every now and again. There is a chance that you already knew this from reading my series of Social Networking narratives that I keep over on PiercingMetal Musings, but if you don’t I promise not to hold it against you. One of these topics was about Yelp!

To recap what Yelp! is all about, its a website and a kind of Social Networking area that lets you as a consumer line out the benefits or detriments about a restaurant, bar, or shop. Yes thanks to Yelp! you as the common man or woman have the larger voice and can share it with the world. Be aware that there are a ton of people listening but this does come with some rules. For instance, just being able to do this does not mean you should be super critical about every little detail. I recommend that the new user to Yelp! focus on the winning points of establishments that they like to help send their friends and fans of that kind of spot to it. Bring the positives out and reward the great places. If they rule, then shout it out on the rooftops. I’ve seen people try to destroy places for the slightest infraction and that is just stupid. If a clerk made you wait for five minutes don’t crap on a place. If you were sitting at a bar for thirty minutes without receiving a drink inquiry, then I might say you have a reason to complain. Much like I try to do with my music review reporting, I stress the positive and relate any negativity about something I have with a balanced reason on why this is an issue. You will see that a couple of my Yelp! reviews have updates to them and these were done to raise a brow of concern about something that I no longer felt was right about the experience and that more people needed to know about.
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PiercingKen & Social Networking: Foodspotting

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I’m taking a page out of my PiercingMetal Musings Blog once again to share with my readers the news about my noodling around on a particular social network. I did this with Instagram a couple of months ago because not only was the ID the same as this here website, but the overall use of something like Instagram would be more for the kinds of things that you read about here on PiercingKen.com anyway. The same applies to this one which is the dining-centric network known as “Foodspotting”. You might be thinking that it relates to food and you would be correct in that assumption. Foodspotting is cited as being a “visual food guide” and as I had mentioned in my Musings site posting about this, seems to be something that works well with those folks who are using Foursquare and Yelp! a lot in their adventuring.



I met some of the people involved in this service when I was at the Comic Con back in 2011 and it sounded kind of cool and was surely a little more interesting than some of the stuff that we find ourselves telling friends on Facebook and Twitter at every given second. With Foodspotting you can not only recommend places to eat to your friends and the network at large, but you can also take a photograph of your order and post it while at the same time offering up some information about it. For instance, I recently visited a bar/restaurant called Interstate Food & Liquor and I LOVED it. I was there with Skeleton Pete on the night we were hitting the Lez Zeppelin show and their menu was outstanding. With that being the case, I took a snap of my burger and our appetizer and loaded it up onto the Foodspotting site with a couple of words about it. My hope was to spin up extra interest in the offerings because it was so damned good. I plan to be doing this a lot more often as I find an interesting place worth speaking about. I can be found on the site via my real name of Ken Pierce or via the PiercingKen Twitter as I didn’t use the pen name of PiercingKen for this one as my actual ID. Closer friends can just add me via my Facebook Page which the service lets you check to see who you might know.

After losing two places that I really liked to stop into for a bite to eat, I hope that my using this kind of social network will help keep business coming in to the new haunts that I find and like. I am getting really tired of losing places like Acme Restaurant and Nice Guy Eddies that is for sure.

Should you wish to delve into the whole gamut of the Social Networking overviews and how I apply their use as a music journalist in today’s ever changing realm, just click HERE to bring up the list over on the PiercingMetal Musings Blog. Topical comments are always welcome from people who have some awesome thoughts to bring to the table, especially if they are doing similar adventures and can compare notes.

UPDATE: May 2, 2018 – I’m updating this post to share the news about the ending of Foodspotting. Back in 2013, the company was acquired in full by OpenTable and at the time of this sale, company founder Alexa Andrzejewski maintained that the purchase would not find the resource going away but here we are some years later and that has indeed happened. My post about Foodspottings end can be reader HERE if you’d like to check it out. I am going to miss this one because it was fun to load up the images into and it drove my non-Foodie friends bonkers.

Official Website: http://www.foodspotting.com/

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PiercingKen & Social Networking: Instagram

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If you have been paying attention to my PiercingMetal Musings Blog and its continuing run of narratives on the various Social Networking mediums, you probably thought that you clicked into one of them by mistake since I copied the title premise for use over here on the PiercingKen Blog. You’ll have to forgive me this little bit of Internet sleight of hand and know that I only did this to let you readers know that I am using the Photo Networking application called “Instagram”.

instagram, instagram logo, social media logos

I’m kind of excited because this application while used by so many iPhone users around me, has only been available to the Droid smartphone users for about two weeks. I installed it on my Droid “Incredible” but really need to get used to it before my upgrade time comes. I will be getting a new phone in a little over a month since my plan allows me to do that every two years. I’m leaning on the Droid RAZR Maxx and am NOT switching to an iPhone like many suggest that I do. Sorry. With that being the case, my Instagram account is “PiercingKen” just like this here blog but I don’t yet see a way to paste a direct URL link to my account so that interested parties may come and follow me. Hopefully the name will suffice and those who wish to keep up in that realm will have a little initiative and search me. My plan is to use this to showcase an image or two that will eventually be used in blogs and that lets those readers see them first. How exciting is that? I know right, it’s really super exciting. Well. At least to me so I do hope you will come along especially if you like what we are doing here on the side blog. It’s goal is always to entertain.

instagram, piercingken instagram

If you should want to enjoy the whole gamut of those Social Networking overviews and how I apply their use as a music journalist in today’s ever changing realm, just click HERE to bring up the list over on the PiercingMetal Musings Blog. Topical comments are always welcome on stuff like that especially if you are doing some similar adventuring.

UPDATE 8/13/2012: I discovered a way to find my Instagram and if you have any interest in what I am doing with that little side of the Internet you can easily click Follow from there. It seemed to work for me when I selected my friends account so have at it. I will try to keep you entertained and visually interested.

PiercingKen on Instagram = HERE

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PiercingKen Now Has An Official Google+ Page

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Last month I mentioned that I had created an Official Facebook Page for PiercingKen.com and now it’s time to let you know that there is a new and hopefully exciting Google+ Page as well for that side of the social networking fence. You already know that we have been using Twitter for the blog since its launch day and if you don’t, well, please allow me to add to the mix that we have a Twitter account connected to this blog’s activity as well. Nowadays it appears that one needs a strong presence on the vital Social Networks to keep the visibility going and since I’ve found some success with them over on the PiercingMetal.com site I figured let me tend to the PiercingKen.com house in similar fashion.

Click This Image for our Google+ Page

Now about our Google+. This is apparently the up and coming hotness but many writers, photographers and fans of the Social Nets are not yet sold on it. I don’t blame them because its moving too slowly in a time when things are getting to be almost instantaneous. I do like having an additional location for the blog sites postings but nothing is automatic for me at the point of this narrative. If I want a post to be on our Google+ Page I need to paste it in there for you. There are worse things that can happen.
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