The Social Path

Photoshop on the iPhone: A pro and a casual user weigh in.

When Adobe recently announced it was launching a Photoshop iPhone app — a free one, at that — millions of photo enthusiasts were both excited and skeptical. So we decided to put this hot new toy through the ringer with a two-part review.

First, we turn to Adweek Photo Editor Manuela Oprea, a woman who clearly knows her way around a camera. Then you'll get the skinny from me, Kammie Avant, Luckie's social media planner and run-of-the-mill, 20-something iPhone addict.

Manuela Oprea
Adweek Photo Editor

I hesitated before deciding to download the new Photoshop Mobile App. No, it wasn't the price; the app is free. Instead, I thought about the limited memory I have left on my 8GB iPhone and wondered if I really needed the app or if I would use it.

As a photographer, I use Photoshop on a daily basis, and I'm always astonished by the program's capabilities. So I was skeptical of the "mini-me" Mobile version and assumed that it would be clumsy or gimmicky.

To my surprise, I found the Photoshop Mobile App easy to use and useful. The basic functions, like cropping and exposure, came in handy, especially after snapping a photo on a overcast day. I also had fun with the sketch filter, though I could do without the jarring rainbow effects.

Overall, I was enjoying the experience and didn't regret the download until I tried to register, a process that's supposed to help you share the photos you've edited on your iPhone. After multiple attempts to create a Photoshop.com account and two different error messages, my frustration built up and I gave up. The App is still on my phone, for the time being.

Manuela's before-and-after shots from the Photoshop app:

    

After the jump, we get down to the details with my take:

Nine social media Halloween costume ideas.

Struggling for a Halloween costume idea? Want to impress your friends with your subtle social media smarts? Sure, anyone can be a Facebook profile or YouTube video, but where's the innovation in that?

As a public service, The Social Path would like to offer a few ideas for your consideration:

1. Fail Whale

Step 1. Find a giant, smiling whale suit.

Step 2. Using durable wire, attach small fake birds over your head.

Step 3: Every time you walk into a party, turn out the lights.
 

2. The Social Media Demographic

Step 1: Be a female between the ages of 25-35.

Step 2: Confound the experts by only hanging out with people you already knew.
 

3. Naymz

Step 1: Spend all night telling strangers that they have unread messages in their inbox.

Step 2: Don’t get anywhere near me unless you want a punch in the neck.

4. Radian6  

Step 1: Keep a careful tally of how many people are at the party.

Step 2: Get paid handsomely and adored for your skill.

Step 3: Enjoy listening to dozens of others complain, “Hey wait, I can count too! Why aren’t you paying me?!”

5. Orkut

Step 1: Get asked repeatedly “who are you again?”

Step 2: Remind them that you work for Google.

Step 3: Stop wasting your time and just tell everyone you’re huge in Brazil.

6. News Blogger

Step 1: Walk around showing people today’s newspaper and ranting your opinions on it.

Step 2: Spend the rest of your time talking about how newspapers are boring, worthless and dying.
 

7. Social Media Expert

Step 1: Talk nonstop about how many friends you have and offer tips on how YOU TOO can have so many friends.

Step 2: Sit around wondering why no one wants to talk to you.
 

8. MySpace

Step 1: Wear a revealing but heavily BeDazzled outfit.

Step 2: Frustrate the popular kids by playing music better than anyone else.

Step 3: Occasionally set off fireworks in people’s faces and scream Linkin Park lyrics out of nowhere.
 

9. LinkedIn

Step 1: Dress like your dad.

Step 2: Act like your dad.

Of course, if you try any of these, please be sure to send us the photos. We would really, really love to hear how it goes.

Photo credits: Thomas van Ardenne and Cayusa on Flickr.

Why is blogging such a boys club?

If you spend any time looking at social media demographics, there’s one stat you see over and over: women dominate the space. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter — all are more popular with women than men.

So it was a bit jarring this week to see that 67% of bloggers are male, according to the newest installment of the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report.

Admittedly, this isn’t a new stat. In least year’s report, Technorati’s survey put the male blogger ratio at 66%. But compared to the other mainstream social media activities, it seems bizarrely guy-heavy.

What’s the deal? Why is blogging a boys club at a time when women are such a powerful force in creating social media content? I posed the question to some of the marketing industry’s top female bloggers. Check out their responses after the jump:

Remembering Woodie Long, 1942-2009.

To me, one of the most rewarding aspects of social media is its ability to shine a light on the often-overlooked corners of our world. In this vein, one of the projects I'm most proud of is the series of YouTube videos we created to feature Alabama's incredible artists and musicians.

Not to play favorites, but the person I always think of from that time is folk artist Woodie Long, who I'm sad to report died yesterday after a lengthy illness. He was 66.

After years as a house painter, Woodie accidentally discovered his ability relatively late in life while playing with his wife's art supplies. It's estimated he sold more than 10,000 paintings, often to celebrities ranging from Tommy Lee Jones to Bryant Gumbel.

Woodie might have been one of the most charming people I ever met. He had an innocent spirit but a strong confidence in his untrained talent. He also had an invaluable resource in his supportive wife, Dot, without whom he never could have had the freedom to devote his life to painting. My heart goes out to Dot and the rest of Woodie's family in this tough time.

In his memory, I've posted a few of our interview clips at the top and bottom of this post from The Year of Alabama Arts, in which Woodie was one of the state's featured artists (he split his time between southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle). I hope these clips at least give you a sense of what a fascinating person we all lost yesterday.

By the numbers: A look at the modern mom.

 We wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who came out to Luckie's Marketing to the Modern Mom seminar on Thursday at the Virginia Samford Theatre. We've gotten great feedback, especially about our speakers.

In the coming days, we'll be featuring some of the insights that came out of the event, and we wanted to start with our own David Stutts, VP and Director of Brand Planning here at Luckie. David got the event rolling by presenting data that explained how the three current generations of mothers — Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y — use the internet differently and how it is shaping their parenting.

Here's a look:

Understanding the Modern Mom

View more documents from David Stutts.

Some other highlights of Marketing to the Modern Mom:

• Lindsay Lebresco, former social media manager of Graco Baby Products now with digital agency Converseon, explained how Graco became a leader in corporate social media with the simple philosophy of "We're parents too."

• Our panel of tell-all mom bloggers — Lotus Carroll, Anissa Mayhew and Mishelle Lane — gave a biting but constructive perspective on the many (often flawed) ways businesses are reaching out to bloggers.

• The day ended with a casual discussion of small-business strategies, featuring Alabama Baby & Child Publisher Cecelia Pearson, Jennifer West from the McWane Science Center and Lucas Pepke from the Virginia Samford Theatre. It was a great way to cap off the event, with lots of conversation between the panel and business representatives in the audience.

Throughout the day, the conversation was dynamic and productive, and we really have to thank our great presenters and guests for joining us to see how businesses can find a comfortable space at the intersection of social media and motherhood.

New FTC rules for bloggers will be as unenforced as they are unneccesary.

There’s been lots of buzz this week about the Federal Trade Commission’s first-ever guidelines for bloggers — specifically those who endorse products.

Today, the FTC is clarifying that it won’t actually fine bloggers who fail to disclose whether they were compensated for coverage. (Though the business being written about could still be on the hook.) The announcement is good news for millions of Americans who write posts online, but it also raises the question: “What’s the point of all this?”

Here’s how FTC Assitant Director Richard Cleland explained the situation to the PRNewser blog:

"We have never brought a case against a consumer endorser and we've never brought a case against somebody simply for failure to disclose a material connection. Where we have brought cases, there are other issues involved, not only failing to disclose a material connection but also making other misrepresentations about a product, a serious product like a health product or something like that…

“If people think that the FTC is going to issue them a citation for $11,000 because they failed to disclose that they got a free box of Pampers, that's not true. That's not going to happen today, not ever."

So essentially, the FTC has implemented a sweeping new interpretation of the Federal Trade Act, one that theoretically regulates how any consumer can discuss a product or service that was given to them by a company.

Then they make the definition of paid coverage so vague and byzantine that you’ll likely never even know if the rules apply to you. Here’s a telling excerpt about free samples:

“For example, a blogger could receive merchandise from a marketer with a request to review it, but with no compensation paid other than the value of the product itself. In this situation, whether or not any positive statement the blogger posts would be deemed an ‘endorsement’ within the meaning of the Guides would depend on, among other things, the value of that product, and on whether the blogger routinely receives such requests.”

I know that legal interpretations have to remain flexible, but come on. If I’m sending a blogger a free box of snacks for a client, how will either of us know whether this 81-page set of guidelines applies to either of us? The only safe route for the blogger would be to write nothing or write something negative. Fantastic.

Couple this confusion with the fact that the FTC apparently won’t enforce these rules 99.9% of the time, and you have to wonder if this is anything except an overly broad limitation on a blogger's voice.

Don’t get me wrong. There are major parts of the new guidelines that I support with great vigor. The crackdown on blatantly deceptive ads with disclaimers like “results not typical” is long overdue.

And yes, blog readers deserve transparency. But bloggers also deserve privacy in their finances, and they shouldn’t feel compelled to disclose every aspect of their paying relationships with companies. People who clamor for such details are usually doing so out of nosiness or good-old-fashioned jealousy.

I’ve worked with bloggers on both paid and unpaid projects, and I’ve always encouraged them to be open with readers. But how they manage their personal level of transparency is up to them. I think it would be offensive for me to tell them what to say on their blogs, much less for the government to do so.

To recap, the new FTC rules — at least in respect to bloggers who might want to connect with businesses — are intimidating, tremendously broad, nearly impossible to interpret and designed to go unenforced.

The intent is commendable, but the reality is a document that spends most of its time listing exceptions. Why? Because in this case, exceptions are actually the rule. Poorly disclosed or potentially misleading blog posts are simply not a major problem in the lives of American consumers. This is somewhat like passing a sprawling regulation on aluminum ladders just because Jackie Chan occasionally uses them as a weapon.

At a time when companies should be applauded for dealing directly with consumers and treating them with the same VIP status long accorded to journalists and celebrities, these guidelines are a baffling new obstacle and a back-handed attack on our First Amendment guarantee that “the Congress will make no law abridging the freedom of speech.”

Today's photo credit: AlbinoFlea on Flickr.