The Celebrity Doppelganger Week meme started in late January (the actual origin is still up for debate) prompting several thousand Facebook users to change their profile pictures to someone famous (actor, athlete, musician, cartoon character, Muppet) whom they have been told they look like. Sure it’s fun to see who your Facebook friends think they resemble, but there’s a tiny problem with this doppelganger craze: it infringes upon Facebook’s Terms of Service (TOS), sort of.

*Jump Down to see 360 PSG’s employee Doppelgangers.

According to Facebook’s policy, users are responsible for the material that they upload to their accounts. If they do not own the rights to the celebrity photos and/or artwork that they publish then technically they’re violating the terms of service.

Of course the argument of fair use could be made since no one participating in the doppelganger meme is trying to make money, but it does raise some interesting questions when pondering just how strict the Facebook TOS are. Where does Facebook start policing its accounts to preserve the rights of the photographers and artists who snapped those celebrity photos?

What is Fair Use?

According to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation):

In essence, fair use is a limitation on the exclusive rights of copyright holders. The Copyright Act gives copyright holders the exclusive right to reproduce works for a limited time period. Fair use is a limitation on this right. A use which is considered “fair” does not infringe copyright, even if it involves one of the exclusive rights of copyright holders. Fair use allows consumers to make a copy of part or all of a copyrighted work, even where the copyright holder has not given permission or objects to your use of the work.

Facebook protects its users and artists by removing any harmful content from profiles upon request from copyright holders. In other words, unless Mark Arnold (Mick McAllister from Teen Wolf) takes serious offense to John Morton (Assistant Homeland Security Secretary for Immigration & Customs Enforcement) putting him back on the pop culture map with a Facebook shout out, I don’t think anyone has anything to worry about posting a celebrity photo to their Facebook profile.

Like most internet memes the Doppelganger fad will fade with the emergence of a new trend. Regardless, it’s fun to see how Facebook handles, or ignores, the issue of copyright as they arise.

To keep up with the craze, I asked some coworkers to send me photos of their celebrity doppelgangers. Here are some of the best ones:

Bryan (Bruce Lee)

Nick (Benny from The Sandlot)

Mike (Mr. Potato Head)

Creative Team:

Jeremy (Charlie Korsmo, "the kid from Hook")

Matt (The Fonz)

Martin (Harrison Ford)

Dan (singer Phil Stacey)

Programmers:

Ian (Chris Kattan)

Eric (Geico Caveman)

The Head Hanchos:

Jay (the yellow guy from The Wiggles)

Kristen (Monica Lewinsky)

Ben (Freddie Prinze Jr.)

Joel (John Hodgman, "The PC Guy")

Matt W. (Beaker)

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1. Expand Your Network

First and foremost, Twitter helps expand your network by creating deeper relationships online.  It’s a no-brainer: the more followers you have, the more people there are who know about your business.  Every Tweet becomes a mini viral marketing campaign.  You also have something to learn through Twitter.  Search for others offering useful tips and services pertinent to your own business.  Every time one of the people you follow Tweets, you potentially have something valuable to gain.

2. Build Credibility

Twitter is a great way to inform your followers of upcoming seminars, workshops, or training sessions.  Add “more info” links to your Tweets to help drive more traffic back to your website.  In fact, now you can even link your Twitter account to your Power Point presentation to automatically send Tweets during your seminars.  You can also encourage participation from your followers by offering them a chance to respond during a presentation via Twitter on their mobile device.

3. Coordinate Promotions and Deals

Offer your followers incentives to keep following you.  Coupons, discounts, samples, exclusive sneak previews, and other promotions are a great way to reward your current followers and entice potential new followers.  By offering specials and exclusive deals, you are encouraging your followers to interact by visiting your website for more information or possibly consider upgrading their current service or product.  As a result, if your visitors respond positively to your deals, there is a good chance that they will help spread the word about your business or organization with reTweets.

4. Avoid Redundancies, Build Loyalty

As always, staying as active on the web as possible is crucial to creating a strong following on any network.  The more you Tweet, the more you market your company.  However, you do want to avoid redundancies.  Don’t promote the same event several times daily for three months leading up to the event.  Give your followers fresh content and they will view you as a valuable online resource.

Share your expertise.  Involve yourself in conversations to gain recognition and then convert those discussions into sales, contacts, or even employment opportunities.  Once you have a reputation as an “expert” you have the potential to gain more followers and create a loyalty with your current followers.

5. Look for Leads

Use Twitter as a way to gather information about your customers.  The more you learn about your followers, the easier it will be to know their needs and decide how you can help them.  Offer your knowledge on topics related to your industry and send that traffic back to your website.

Twitter isn’t about selling products, but rather a tool used to interact with others seeking useful information on the web.  Even use feedback Tweets about your business offered by your followers to help you improve processes.
Do you use Twitter for your business or organization?  Sound interesting but feel you don’t have the time or resources for Twitter?  Contact 360 PSG to find out how we can help streamline your social networking process with our new Social Media Plugged-In Package.

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No one is really “the boss” on the internet, though your ISP (Internet Service Provider) has a say in your content, or at least the speed in which you see it.  As of now ISPs have “principles” that they are supposed to adhere to but still have the ability to selectively block content and regulate the speed of your service.  So would government regulation of the internet, in order to stop this “meddling,” be good or bad for the average user?

What does internet neutrality really mean for you?

In a recent article, USA Today reported that the FCC is proposing the following “guidelines” for net neutrality:

• No blocking. ISPs would not be allowed to block any online content, including features, apps and other Web-based innovations that develop in the future (spam, viruses and the like excluded).

• No favoritism. ISPs would not be allowed to give preferential treatment to their own content. And no price-gouging of customers who don’t want to buy their stuff.

• No discrimination. That means an ISP can’t slow down, speed up or otherwise discriminate among online traffic. They’d have to treat a start-up just as they treat Google and themselves.

• Wireless, too. Net neutrality would apply to all broadband platforms, including wireless.

• Full disclosure. To keep online traffic flowing smoothly, an ISP might be allowed to slow down some transmissions – say, e-mail – but it would have to say so publicly.

Could net neutrality become a reality anytime soon?

President Obama made a promise on the campaign trail in 2007 that if elected president he would back net neutrality.  Whether or not he was just trying to appeal to the MTV generation or not is yet to be seen however the net neutrality debate is starting to gain some momentum.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is the big cheese of Obama’s technology policy and believes that net neutrality is “critical to the long-term success of the Internet” arguing that the plan would protect millions of consumers.  He contends that no government action would be dangerous for consumers.

“Doing nothing would impose its own form of unacceptable cost,” he said. “It would deprive innovators and investors of confidence that the free and open Internet we depend on today will still be here tomorrow.”

If it’s not broken, why fix it?

The internet is supposed to be an open forum for creativity and information sharing.  It has been around for over 40 years, so why the sudden influx of neutrality proponents?

Not everyone is for net neutrality though.  Some feel that government would be overstepping its bounds by regulating the internet and site First Amendment infringement in such actions.

In her report entitled “Net Neutrality:  A Further Take on the Debate,” Barbara Esbin, Senior Fellow of The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a think tank devoted to the study of the digital revolution, opposes net neutrality.

Esbin argues that a strong reasoning as to why net neutrality has abruptly taken center stage has not been provided and questions the logic of why after 40 years of indifference toward ISPs regulating data, the government has decided to step in.  She is also critical of the validity of the government’s abrupt concern about the data that ISPs control.

“We now suddenly cannot trust broadband network operators to discriminate in the handling of Internet traffic in socially beneficial ways, so we must outlaw their ability to do so at all.”

Esbin also argues that with the high traffic numbers on the web, it is highly unlikely that ISPs are monitoring and censoring information on an individual basis thus government regulation of service would be frivolous.

The government on the other hand wants to ensure that if any regulation of information were to occur, it be done out in the open.

The debate will surely rage on in the coming months.  Everyone should have a say.  What do you think about net neutrality?  Post your comments below.

Click here to read the full report on Esbin’s arguments.

Click here to read the full USA Today article.

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Probably our favorite part of the new office space is the opportunity to add some creative decorations to our work space; creative space to inspire creative people. Hopefully our new workspace will inspire and help us circumvent creative block altogether.

Over a couple of weekends this month I’ve crafted a Styrofoam deer head and some colorful Space Invaders.

Both decorations were inspired by expensive hipster wall art and executed with homemade precision using an Exacto knife, a few sheets of foam board, and some neon scrapbook cardstock from Michael’s at a fraction of the cost. (The decorations retail online for $49 and $39 respectively).

First I printed out some patterns found doing a Google image search.

Next, I traced the patterns onto some foam board and cut them out with an Exacto knife.

Finally, I retraced the cutout Space Invaders onto some neon-color scrapbook paper, cut out the shapes, and used spray adhesive to give them some color.

In addition to spreading out within the new workspace, all of our departments are now in proximity meaning our sales team is all in one office, Matt and Joel have their own offices (as previously mentioned), the programmers have their own room, and creative and programming team leaders Ben and Jason are back together sharing the office where they started a few years ago.

In addition to the new space, we also added another designer to the 360 PSG design team. Martin Bielicki joined the team adding extensive Flash experience and a background in photography. He designed the Flash piece for the new Frightworld site, which has been getting an exorbitant amount of hits since going live.

Now we just have to figure out how to hang this giant dry erase board…

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360 PSG is spreading its wings with new office space, expanding to the space next door to our current location in the First Amherst building.

The expanded office space helps accommodate our growing staff and makes room for new hires in the future. There will be a reception area, a more spacious conference room, Matt and Joel will have private offices, and there’s even talk of a new lamp for Ben’s office…

If all goes smoothly, we should be in our new office space by early October, which has 360 employees buzzing. I asked my coworkers what excites them most about moving into the new office space:

Jason Ortiz:

Nothing is more exciting about have the company expand and grow into a new larger space and me getting to move back to where it all started… back to my old windowless corner across from Ben in the original 360 development room… simply awesome.

Jill Hobbs:

It will be nice for the designers especially. We’ll now have a larger space we can decorate and create an inspiring and creative environment. I’m really looking forward to it!

Ben Shepard:

I’m not even changing rooms, desk or desk position.

Matt Whelan:

I’m excited that I won’t have to listen to Joel … CONSTANTLY!!!

Joel Colombo:

I am excited to have a brand new welcome lobby/reception area and much bigger conference space.
Oh yeah… the new private office is pretty great too… hopefully it will stop Matt from bothering me all day.

Matt Wetter:

I’m excited that this is visual proof that our company is growing. And hopefully we will have some color in this place now.

Check back for updates on 360 PSG office renovations including photographs of progress and eventually our brand new office space.

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In early July I heard a story on NPR that posed the question: “Can you be friends with your mom on Facebook?”  When I heard that story on the radio I laughed, but I immediately started the debate in my head: if one of my parents joined Facebook would I befriend them?  I thought, I’m 27 years old and I have nothing to hide from my parents so yes, I would add my parents as Facebook friends if they ever joined.  Less than a month later my sister sent me a friend suggestion for my father.

There’s a website devoted to children whose parents have joined Facebook.

I only reviewed the site for a moment, but it seemed to be comprised of screenshots of status updates and comments from kids poking fun at their parents for taking quizzes or leaving flirtatious messages on their spouse’s wall.  It was less of a support group for kids whose doting parents had joined Facebook to check up on them while they are away at college and more of a place to vent about the moral frustrations of not being able to deny their mom or dad’s friend request.

Over the course of the last three months my dad has joined Twitter and Facebook and most recently joined the ranks of the iPhone elite.  He currently has two apps on his iPhone, one of them is Twitterific.

I asked my dad why he Tweets and why he finally decided to join Facebook.  To understand his answer, I should probably preface it with a little background on my father.  He’s the Associate Director of Facilities for Maintenance at St. Bonaventure University.  Most recently he participated in a campus-wide safety drill.

“I wasn’t real interested in Facebook until this spring when we had our emergency preparedness drill. I ended up in the middle of the response command center (they actually moved inside and took over my building). (My boss) was at the operations command center across campus.”

In the fall of 2008, St. Bonaventure ran an emergency preparedness drill to ensure the safety of students, staff, and faculty members in case of a campus-wide emergency in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings and other college campus emergencies.

“Throughout years of emergency preparedness I have had a strong opinion that communicating in this current era and with this generation required some non-traditional concepts. That was my first reaction after Virginia Tech. At SBU they would have sent an emergency notice board on the e-mail system. I thought, WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE PEOPLE POTENTAILLY AFFECTED AT SBU WOULD GET THAT MESSEAGE?  We have since done some things differently. On drill day, (a staff member) was able to produce a photo from Facebook and forward it to my PC for law enforcement officials to view.  We were making things up as we went along and were at that point forced to think ‘outside the box,’ thus, my interest in Facebook.”

My sister and I both have iPhones, and since our father told us that he was thinking about getting a new phone last fall we’ve been pushing him toward getting an iPhone as well.  The emergency preparedness helped solidify his decision.

“That is also why I wanted a smart phone- and particularly an iPhone, to have access to all of these communication vehicles from anywhere.”

I’ll take credit for his Twitterdom though.  I was the first person who I knew to adopt Twitter (I’m not bragging, it just wasn’t in my friends’ vocabulary until I talked them into joining).

“Twitter is more of a curiosity. But I want to be familiar- again if I want to use it or if it ever became an emergency communication pathway. Nobody is going to follow me, and I don’t have much to say until I have followers. I just have random thoughts that I like to express. And I like to have my finger on the pulse even though I am old.”

The truth is I didn’t cringe when my father joined Facebook, I smiled.  He actually uses technology for something useful/work related, where as I am seeking only to reap the social rewards.  Using Facebook for work hasn’t stopped him from having fun with it though.  He’s uploaded vacation pictures and a photo of his enormous cat.   Who knows maybe he’ll even talk my mom into joining?

Don’t be discouraged next time you hear someone talking about Facebook or Twitter.  When you have a few minutes do some research for yourself and find out which social network is right for you to join.  If my dad can do it, so can you.  Just remember, you’re never too old to Tweet.

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Consider your website to be wallpaper, it will fade over time.   If you already operate on the Fission Web System then you really have no excuse to have a stinky website.  But how do you know if your site stinks?

Is your content stale?

Freshening up your content is not only good for search engines, it keeps reader satisfaction high.  The idea is to keep readers engaged and give them relevant information.  If you’ve had the same content on your website for a year or two, then you’re not offering visitors anything new.

Updating your website’s content can be easy.  Add company news and industry news with the Fission News Manager.  Have your products changed?  Update product descriptions.  Post special events that you have coming up in the event manager and add links on your homepage.  Do you have an FAQ page?   Stay on top of help topics.  Help your visitors and update your content at the same time.

The Fission Web System’s easy-to-use content management system makes it easy update your site’s content in the WYSIWYG editor.  Change your headlines, update keywords, and change your pictures and title tags.

Is your press manager old news?

Newspapers are distributed daily; news shows every morning and evening; and news websites are updated constantly.  We understand that you’re not a news organization and staying on top of industry news can be a daunting task.  However, letting your clients know that your company is still a vital participant in your industry is important.  Any time you have a company event, win an award, or reach a milestone (even small ones), why not write a short press release?

Fission’s press manager makes it easy to create news articles and publish them on a news page or create a news module to show up on specific pages as an RSS feed of your own company news.

Missing Images?

Did someone from your office delete your images?  Were your images linked from another website, maybe your old site, and the site no longer exists?

Missing images will make your website look empty and broken.  Upload new images to your image manager and give them titles and descriptions so search engines can reference them.  Fission’s image manager is user friendly.  You can upload and edit photos right in the CMS.

Broken links?

Does your site have link rot?  Over time your links can become broken or irrelevant, but it might not always be your fault.  If a site that you link to allows its domain to expire, your link could point to a page that no longer relates to your content or possibly no longer exists.

Point your visitors in the right direction, double check your links to make sure they point to the correct content.

Is your web design outdated?

If your site is between two and three years old then it’s time to start thinking about a redesign.

With Fission’s framework you can keep all of your SEO and content and just swap out your old design.  Think of a redesign as a new suit or a new dress.  Your old one is worn out, it has a few holes, the stitching is coming apart, and it’s faded.  Add a new website design to your Fission framework and wow your audience.

Your web designer bailed?

Did your web designer start creating your site and then bail on you halfway through the project?  A lot of free lancers will leave in the middle of the project or drop the ball because of lack of experience and discipline.  Just because your web designer isn’t accountable, doesn’t mean that you should get stuck with half the product.  It’s time to find a reliable company who can fix your problems and help you take your site to the next level.

360 PSG employs full-time experienced graphic designers who are focused on delivering professional websites that are effective marketing tools.  With your brand image at the forefront of the project, 360 PSG’s graphic designers create functional websites that convey your message clearly and allow visitors to navigate

Not showing up in Google?

Search engine optimization is constantly changing.  Have you checked your keyword density, page titles, page headings, and keywords?  Just like visitors, search engines like to see new content, so make your site more visible to them.

In the Fission CMS, you have the power to control all of the elements mentioned above.  Plus, 360 PSG offers comprehensive search engine optimization analysis packages that go more in depth than your standard SEO.

Not sure what stinks?

Fill out the website stinks form here and let 360 PSG’s web design experts tell you why your site stinks.

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I’m standing in the middle of the Delaware Park golf course staring at a red garbage truck parked under an elm tree.  I had just walked the length of two par three fairways, holes 12 and 13, and then most of the par four 14, and I was lost.

Welcome to the 2009 JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge: 10,000 participants, 3.5 miles around Delaware Park; where half the fun’s just getting there!

Part One: Getting There

Traffic was supposed to be horrendous; 10,000 Corporate Challengers all going to Delaware Park at rush hour on Thursday with Thursday in the Square going on less than 5 miles away.  Oh Gar!  Luckily the Scajaqueda and the 190 were clear and I made it to Parkside Ave. from the 360 PSG Amherst headquarters in almost no time.  I pulled up a side street and then down another.  Most houses had “Do Not Stand” signs taped to garbage cans at the end of their driveways.  Parking was scarce.  Lucky for me, a Ford Focus was pulling out of a spot as I came to a stop sign.  I swung my car around, parallel parked, and began my trek toward the park.

Call #1:

As I was leaving my car, I called Joel to ask him where he, Matt, and Ben were.  He said, “You’ll see some tents set up, just start heading toward them.”

Unfortunately, when I reached the park it was a tent jungle, and I was looking for our small group of 360 PSG corporate challengers; one of the groups without a tent.  It would be almost impossible to spot them.

I stopped short of the tents.  Let’s try this again I thought.

Call #2:

“Where are you guys?” I had to ask Joel again.

He told me, “Somewhere in the middle.”

I tried to use a landmark to figure it out.  “If I’m facing the wall of Porta Johns are you to the left or the right of that?”

“Kind of in the middle, in the back.”

“Okay, I’ll find you,” I said and hung up.

I was never going to find them.

All around me other corporate challengers were sending up hotdog flavored smoke signals to their coworkers, throwing Frisbees and footballs; I’m sifting through the crowd trying to pick out two guys wearing red shirts.  News flash: Believe it or not, much to my chagrin, we don’t have a monopoly on the red t-shirt industry.  Weird.

Under an elm tree to my left a bunch of red shirts were taking a group photo.  My spirits were lifted momentarily while I considered the potential photo bombing opportunities that would surely arise in such a large crowd.  I walked a little further until I could see the end of tent row.

This is ridiculous, I thought.  Find a landmark.

I stopped “in the middle” behind the tent village and looked out into Delaware Park.  That’s when I saw the red garbage truck parked in the grass under the shade of a huge elm.  I called Joel again.

Call #3:

“Hey, where are you?” He answered his phone.

“Okay, can you see the red garbage truck parked in the middle of the park?”

“Yeah, we can see that.”

“Where are you in relation to that?”

As I’m asking him, I turned and saw Matt carrying a manila envelope.

“Wait, nevermind I see Matt.  I’ll just follow him.”

I turned around to follow Matt and noticed that Joel, Ben, and Jen (Ben’s wife) were all sitting in a circle of green fold-out chairs no more than 20 feet from me.

Part Two: The “Race”

I started at the 9-minute mile mark with Ben, Jen, and Joel.  Matt had gone up to take a place at the 7-minute mile marker.  He warned us that if you start anywhere behind the 10-minute line you’re forced to walk for the first five minutes while the crowd filters out, and Matt wanted to run.

Mayor Byron Brown was on a stage just past the 6-minute mile starting line.  I could barely hear him start the race, but as I stood on my toes overlooking the crowd, the herd of runners started to go.  It was like the wave pool at Cedar Point.  It started at the front.  Heads started to bounce and like the road was a suspension bridge the bouncing worked its way back to me; before I knew it my feet were moving and I was one of the pack.

And then we ran.  Some walked, some actually RAN, and some, like me, jogged.  We went West down Amherst Street, turned South on Delaware Ave., ran around the statue at Gates Circle, and then back up to Middlesex Road, where we cut across to Meadow Road until we hit the finish on Ring Road back in Delaware Park.

A mustachioed gentleman handed me a bottle of water after I crossed the finish line.  40 minutes and 22 seconds.  On the road back to the tents there were tables with boxes full of fruits and snacks for runners to refuel.

Tent city was a ghost town.  Two thirds of the runners were still on the course.  Finding our spot behind the tents wasn’t difficult after the race.  I headed toward the red garbage truck until I saw our green chairs.

I was the first one back, so I sat down and stretched out.  I drank my bottle of water and enjoyed the warm afternoon sun as it sunk behind the park trees over the race course.  Soon Matt appeared eating a cookie.  Ben and Jen followed, and finally Joel.  Ian and his girlfriend Jess appeared from the sea of tents.

Ben and Matt grilled hot dogs on a small propane grill.  We joked about our struggles to make it through the three miles; Matt and Joel inevitably talked business and networked; and Ben took a pretty good ribbing from pretty much everyone for forgetting his Frisbee in his car.

Luckily, the tent next to us offered us their Frisbee.  Ben, Ian, Jess, and I played catch until almost dark.  Tents started to come down and the crowd dissipated.  We folded up our green chairs, put the leftover hot dogs back in the cooler, and parted ways.

“See you at work tomorrow.”

I walked back past the red garbage truck, across the 14th and 13th fairways toward Parkside Ave. and got to the basketball courts before I stopped.

I panicked for a moment as I thought, “Where’d I park my car?”

My stats:

I finished the 3.5 mile course with a time of 40 minutes and 22 seconds; two chocolate chip cookies, two bottles of water, two hot dogs, one bag of Troyer Farms Cheese Puffs, and one banana.  Not great.  Not terrible.  And I’d say it was a little refreshing if I didn’t feel like I was going to barf up a lung afterward.  Overall good first Corporate Challenge.

Update:

Matt’s Stats:  38 minutes, 2 seconds (a wall of people prevented me finishing under the 38 minute mark), 4 Beers (2 Before the Race and 2 After), 2 Water Bottles, 4 Chocolate Chip Cookies, 1 Bag of Pretzels, 1 Bag of Chips, 4 Hot Dogs, 1 Banana, 1 Apple, 1 Orange.

Feelings after the Race: Hurting …

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In an effort to engage new clients, 360 PSG built a vertical market in November 2008 geared toward limousine and transport companies in need of websites.  Fission Transport was launched to promote packages ranging from simple sites to fully customized websites.

As part of the Fission Transport site, 360 PSG graphic designers built a demo site for Luxury Limo Co., a fictitious transport company, to showcase Fission web features like customizable modules, event calendar, testimonial manager, photo gallery, customizable content pages, and a basic “reserve your ride” contact form.

On March 21, 2009 360 PSG received a completed contact form reserving a stretch baby Bentley limo for Friday May 8, 2009.  The customer searched for “stretch Bentley limo” and found our site, which was ranked 6th and 7th on AOL and Google search engines respectively as of March 21st.

How was this possible?

We launched a demo site for a vertical market with basic content population and zero search optimization efforts; but the built-in search engine optimization tools of the Fission Web System got the site crawled by search engines and even garnered a limousine reservation.

The answer is simple: the power of the Fission Web System.

Every Fission website has powerful search engine optimization tools built in, which is why Luxury Limo Co. was able to reach the first page of search results on two major search engines.

Not only was our demo site extremely easy to find, but our “Call to Action” on the site was so effective that a customer actually booked a limousine ride with us.

So the point of this isn’t to boast that we tricked a customer into believing that we were a real limousine company, but rather to demonstrate the potential your website could possess if it operated on the Fission Web System.

Update: Since the first request for a limousine ride, we have received TWO more reservations for limo rides.

The Fission Web System continues to bring business to Luxury Limo Co. even though the company doesn’t exist, so just imagine what Fission could do for your site if we just put five minutes of actual dedicated SEO service in place.

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Developed in Switzerland, Poken is a USB drive shaped like a little person (three-eyed alien, panda bear, a firey skeleton, or a bee are available) with a silver hand attached to its side.  When you hold the hand against another person’s Poken, giving them a high four, your device glows green telling you that you have successfully exchanged virtual business cards between the two devices.

Your Poken can store up to 64 contacts at any one time, and it will glow red if a connection was not made, in which case you just try again.
At home, your Poken’s hand detaches from the body and plugs into your computer’s USB drive.  Through encrypted coding it transfers all of your new friend’s social network information into your Poken account where you can manage all of your contacts and your own information.

***In case you’ve only read this far and had to stop to immediately purchase a Poken for you and all of your friends or coworkers (hint, hint, Joel, you can buy them in twelve packs…) then I have good news: You don’t need to start an online account before using your Poken.  Of course you can set it up while you wait for your device to arrive in the mail, which you should have plenty of time to do because Pokens aren’t sold in the US yet.

Getting an account is painless and it takes about four minutes to complete the form.  But don’t drag your feet.  Be aware that you need to activate your account before your friends can add you to their network otherwise an “unregistered” message is displayed on their profile when they plug you into their computers and they’ll probably delete you.

When you create your “business card,” add information for up to 25 social networks from Badoo or Bahu to more stream-lined networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Orkut.  Upload a single picture, add as much contact information as you want friends to see like phone number, address, email, blogs, organizations, or birthday, and you’re on your way.

You can also set up different identities for yourself where you can group your new Poken friends as you add them giving contacts only the information that you want to see.

“Business card?  What is this, 2008?”

Poken means no more typing names and numbers in your cell phone or scribbling on cocktail napkins at parties.

Let me give you an example:

You’re at a party and you start talking to Tim Wilson whom you find out shares your love for collecting laserdiscs.

Before Poken:

Tim gives you his business card and tells you that he has a great Facebook laserdisc discussion group where rare discs are bartered for regularly.  You go home and search for “Tim Wilson” on Facebook ready to start trading movies with other cinephiles, but you find over 500 search results for his name.  Now you’re stuck sifting through every Tim Wilson on the planet.  Once you find him, you have to send him a friend request and cross your fingers that he checks his Facebook regularly before you can join his world-class laserdisc fan club.  No fun.

Since Poken:

You meet Tim Wilson at a party and talk about collecting laserdiscs.  You both have a Poken, you connect them, and when you get home all of his social networks are at your disposal.  Before you know it, you’re finally able to watch Jenny Lewis and Fred Savage in The Wizard on laserdisc thanks to your new friend Tim Wilson and his awesome Facebook group.

The Ups and Downs of Poken Strangers

Of course, like any piece of technology, there’s a downside.  If you are on Facebook and you Poken someone who is only on Orkut and Hyves then one of you needs to join one of the others’ networks.  On the upside, you might discover a new social network that you love in the process.

Another strike against the Poken is that it runs on battery power.  According to the official site www.doyoupoken.com, your Poken battery will last approximately six (6) months.  The more you use it though, the shorter your battery will last.  When inserted in your computer, your Poken will blink telling you that it’s hungry for more batteries.  Never fear, the battery is a Lithium CR1632, which I found for as cheap as $1.66 on Amazon.com.  You can remove your old battery and install the new one with a flathead screwdriver in a matter of seconds.

Security is not an issue.  When you set up your account, you enter your username and password for each social network that you use.  The information is only entered once used only to authenticate each account for your Poken.

If you ever lose your Poken, mark it “Lost” on your online account.  You can even send a message to the person who finds your Poken to display if they plug it into their computer.  By default, each time you plug the device into your USB port, you are prompted to enter your password anyway, ensuring security.  No one else ever has access to your information.  Plus, you don’t store personal information on your Poken.  It’s all stored on the website where you interact with new friends.

I’m sold on the idea, but do I really need another device to carry around with me?

By now you have enough grocery store key fobs and iPods and cell phones to carry around.  Why do you need another thing to lug around?  Pokens come with a clip that you can hook onto your keys, briefcase, backpack or belt loop.  It’s much faster than digging a business card out of your crusty wallet and your online identity is more comprehensive than a piece of cardboard with your name and phone number on it.

Poken hasn’t exactly caught on in the United States yet though NPR reported that Pokens were present at this year’s South by Southwest Festival (SXSW).  Until everyone is carrying these around, Poken friends will be scarce but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get one.  The technology will probably move to cell phones very soon, but that will require everyone to buy a brand new $200 phone to use it.  Why not spend $16 for a Poken and start socializing now?

Drink the Kool Aid.  Get a Poken and you’ll be throwing more high fives (well, fours) than David Puddy.

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