For those of you who do not know what Vark is, let me explain. It is a website where you can ask and answer questions! When you create you Vark account it asks what your areas of expertise and interests are. After that you are free to go ahead and ask or answer any questions.

What happens on Vark is that when you ask a question, it fields your question to someone who considers themselves to have knowledge in the area. For example: If I asked a question about a rule in lacrosse, it would send the question to people who said they know a lot about sports.

I have only answered one question on Vark so far, and it was about what is a good date activity to do in Omaha. I rattled off many stereotypical ideas about the Old Market and such, but then I also threw in a few other ideas since the person asking didn’t describe what kind of date it would be.

I am anxious to answer more questions on Vark very soon, but I also enjoy getting my questions answered. I feel like people put a lot of effort into their replies so it is always worth taking the time to ask. It is definitely a website to check out.

Like I said before, this year is the first time I have really dappled in the art of Craigslist, and let me just say I was completely sucked in. Now when I type in “www.cr” into my address bar Craigslist.com automatically comes up and not Creighton.edu . This would not be odd for some people, but I feel that as a Creighton student, this is just proof of my Craigslist obsession.

I started looking at Craigslist to find a house to live in for next year. My friends and I started searching around October because we heard that many people usually find their houses around December. Well I looked every day at houses. And as usual plans changed quickly. We went from potentially having six girls in the house, to having four. Then we found a possible fifth roommate…three different times. Finally around February we decided to have four girls and to seriously begin looking for houses. I visited Craigslist multiple times a day to see if there were any new listings. My future roommates and I called many homeowners, went on various tours of houses and finally found a house we loved right before Spring Break in March.

Of course now that we found a great house, there was no need to Craigslist any more right? Wrong! I am still as obsessed as ever. I have applied for three different part-time jobs I came across on Craigslist, searched the “Free” section for furniture that we could use in our house when we move in, and even bought a few things off of the website! Now we are looking for someone to sublease our house during the summer, and I immediately started searching Craigslist. My roommates are a little freaked out by this, but my brother has found multiple roommates of his on Craigslist. It is such an amazing tool!

So the next time you are looking for a place to live, a job, or even a couch, be sure to check out Craigslist and see what you can find!

Most importantly I think though is that she posts pictures of pets on the Humane Society Facebook account and their Twitter page. She posts pictures and information about the animals in hopes of getting them adopted. I think this is awesome. I try to Re-Tweet when I see animal information has been posted. I would love to help give these animals a forever home!

I think one of the most important things Elizabeth talked about was what to do when something goes wrong in your social media endeavors. She said it is just best to be open and honest with your followers and fans and be clear with them about the situation. She said honesty is the most important thing, and you just have to hope for the best that your fans will be supportive when you need to deliver bad news.

I think it was interesting to hear Elizabeth speak compared to our last speaker, Danny Schreiber. Danny jumped into Twitter because he was extremely interested in it, while Elizabeth had to teach herself about Twitter to keep the Humane Society in the social media game.

Something that did really bother me about our visit to the Nebraska Humane society was when Elizabeth told us how overpopulated their cat house gets in the summer. She talked about how there is a front room and a back room for cats. The front room holds the cats that are up for adoption. The back room is for the cats who are “on deck”. When a cat from the front room gets adopted, a cat from the back room gets to move up. But apparently these two rooms fill up extremely quickly, and when that happens they have to put cats into foster homes. But once those fill up as well, they begin euthanizing cats. This horrified me. In my hometown we have a strictly no kill shelter. So now I am determined to help the Nebraska Humane Society find homes for all the cats so they do not have to resort to putting the felines down. I am going to retweet about the cats every time new cat information gets posted. You should help too but adopting a furry friend (or two) today! And then be sure to Tweet about it!

To start your game you should first find at least one friend to play against. It would be kind of creepy to get on Chat Roulette by yourself anyway, right? I convinced my friend Amy to play against me. We decided to play fairly early in the middle of the week to cut down on our chances of seeing creeps. Once you have a friend or two to play with go to www.chatroulettebingo.com and pick out a card! To make playing easier, especially if you are playing with more than two players, you should probably print out the cards and then share a computer to make sure there is no cheating! Also, be sure that everyone playing has a different card! To view other cards hit the refresh button on your computer. Amy and I decided to hand select our cards so we could have a good round. Once you have your cards and you have your computer positioned at a flattering angle, you are ready to get started!

Log on to chatroulette.com and begin your game. At first Amy and I played just how you are supposed to. We looked for things on our squares to mark off and then “nexted” people as quickly as possible. It didn’t take long until I got a bingo!

We decided to play another round because it was pretty fun. We used cards that were a little more challenging this time. It wasn’t long before we got stuck. It was unbelievably hard to find cats, party hats, masks, instruments and stuffed animals. We then started asking people things like “Do you have a cat?” or “Do you have an instrument near you?” Surprisingly when we did find someone with an instrument, he proudly pulled out a ….recorder. Whatever, it still worked! Amy ended up winning the second game but then we decided to see if we could go for a blackout on either of our cards. People were beginning to think we were really weird so we started holding up a sign that said Chatroulettebingo.com or telling them what we were doing as soon as we connected to them. We got quite a few people to visit the website and once they knew what we were doing, they seemed a lot more eager to help. A few of them started playing too! We never reached a blackout on either of our cards, but we did come pretty close. What a ridiculously fun game!

Overall my first Chat Roulette experience went pretty well! I had a few favorite moments that didn’t directly involve playing the bingo game. I liked it when I sneezed right as we connected with someone and he said “Bless you!” We also found a really talented teenaged boy who was juggling and he was fun to watch. I also enjoyed people’s reactions when we told them we were in Nebraska. Most people cracked up when they read that. One boy freaked out and got really excited because he is going to play football at UNK next year.

So the next time you and your friends have some free time on your hands, you should definitely check out Chat Roulette Bingo!

That was before Danny Schreiber came and spoke to our Social Media class. He told us all about the company he works for called Silicon Prairie News. He spoke to us about getting to where he is today and all the crazy things he did to get his name out there and learn more about Social Media.

According to their website Silicon Prairie News is a blog and event producer founded in Omaha, Nebraska in July 2008. In September 2009, it expanded its primary coverage to include Des Moines, Iowa. Their website also mentions that on SiliconPrairieNews.com, you’ll find interviews with entrepreneurs and creatives, reports on startups and established companies and event announcements. The website is awesome and is definitely something you should check out . You can follow Silicon Prairie News on Twitter @SiliconPrairie.

I found all of Danny’s stories really entertaining and I am definitely already a fan of Silicon Prairie News, but I do not see myself being an entrepreneur. It sounds really interesting, but it would not be right for me. However, I really hope there are a lot more people out there like Danny who are from my generation and have great ideas that they can follow through with. I can’t wait to see what comes next in the world of Social Media.

Normally I am an excellent traveller. My parents are from the same town in southern Indiana, so my entire extended family lives in that area. I have never spent a Christmas at my house in Nebraska because we always travel to Indiana to celebrate the holidays with our family. When we lived in North Carolina the trip was 12 hours of driving time. From Nebraska the trip means about 10 hours on the road. Needless to say, all of those hours on the road a few times a year have made me a phenomenal traveler.

Growing up my brother and I always played games in the car. My favorite was the license plate game. I still remember the time we got 49 of the 50 states! We also had multiple other car games such as car bingo, I-Spy, and the ABC sign game.

Even though I loved playing these car games, most of our time in the car involved reading. Before every big car trip my mom would take my brother and me to the library and we would pick out literally as many books as we could carry. I would have stacks so high that I would use my chin to help balance the books. This way for the trip we had a large bag full of books to occupy us. Most of the time we read all the books in our own bag, and most of each other’s books by the time the trip was over. Sure we loved using our Game Boys in the car, and I got a traveling TV with a VHS player in it for Christmas one year, but we never gave up reading. Even going to Indiana for Christmas this year my brother and I sat in the back seat of the car, side by side with our noses in our books. A 19-year-old and a 23-year-old reading for entertainment. How often do you see that?

Packing for St. Louis the first thing I threw in my backpack was a Stephen King book I haven’t gotten a chance to read yet. I was ready to crack open the book on the bus when a movie started up in the DVD player and I just couldn’t miss out on watching D2: The Mighty Ducks. By the time the movie was over it was a little after midnight and most people wanted to sleep. Not wanting to bother them with being the only person on the bus to have their seat light on, I refrained from reading my book again. I dug out my iPod instead.

Then I began to look around the bus. I realized almost everyone had some sort of technological entertainment. Many people were using their iPods. Others were watching movies on portable DVD players, and some were working on their laptops. Oodles of people, myself included, had their phones out. With today’s smart-phones they were probably even catching up on Facebook or Tweeting about the bus ride. I thought I spied one girl reading a book when I realized it was actually a Kindle.

I feel as though something is very wrong with this. Why can’t a bus full of college students go for a seven hour car ride without having to have entertainment dished out to them? Is there anything wrong with talking to the people around you, and not stuffing your ear buds in the moment you sit down? Since when did reading for entertainment become unusual?

I know I am guilty of falling into the technology trap as well, and I won’t able to resist if there are some more awesome movies picked out for the ride home. But I am going to try to read my book during my ride home and hopefully have some meaningful conversations with the people sitting around me and not the ones who are texting me.

Now if only I could get the guy in front of me to refrain from leaning his chair back on the trip home, and I would be set!

FourSquare encourages you to “check in” when you visit places in your city. You tell FourSquare what city you are in and then you update them every time you go somewhere. You get points based on where you go and you earn badges for doing different things. You can earn badges for all kinds of things such as: visiting the gym often, visiting the same venue multiple times, or even checking in after 3 a.m. on a school night!

Most importantly when you are the person who has checked in the most often at a venue, you become the “mayor” of that place. The more mayorships you have, the better! Some places like bars or coffee shops, such as, offer free drinks to the person who is the mayor of their business. How cool is that?

I decided to get in on the FourSquare craze too. I knew my older brother used it and I thought it seemed pretty cool. It really is not a big deal in Omaha yet but that makes it even more fun because it seems to be growing pretty fast. I will be a FourSquare guru by the time the social media trend really takes over Omaha.

I highly urge you to begin using FourSquare as well but let me caution you, there are times when you should not update FourSquare. Do not update FourSquare if you know nobody is home at your house. Checking in on FourSquare tells others that you are not at home. This could be an invitation for someone to go to your house and steal all your possessions. Check out this website to find out how many people are waiting to be robbed! Also if you are a celebrity and complain about paparazzi always following you, please do not use FourSquare. Kate Gosselin, this means you!

Although Facebook really is a pain in the neck sometimes, we never stop to think about where we would be without it. I love to receive letters in the mail, and I enjoy writing them and sending them to my friends. But none of my friends enjoy it as much as I do nor does anyone really have time for it. Therefore getting a wallpost or a Facebook message from one of my friends who I don’t see daily can easily brighten my day. It is not as good as a handwritten letter in the mail, but it is something!

Also how well would most college students stay in touch with people from home if it were not for Facebook? My best friends from high school and I have a thread going in a Facebook message that reached over 5000 messages at the beginning of this semester. Whenever something funny or exciting happens to us we tell each other! The thread is basically a timeline of our college lives.

When we think about Facebook we really think about using it to stay connected to our friends. When we think about reconnecting with people we often think about our parents’ generation using Facebook and not our own. At least that is the way I thought about it. During Christmas break I went home and pulled out my elementary school yearbooks. I am from a town of 13,000 meaning that there is only one high school in my town. Because of this, most of the people I went to elementary school with, I also graduated with. I was laughing at how all of my classmates looked at such a young age when I ran across a name that I did not recognize right away. Then a flood of memories hit me. It was one of the kids that I was good friends with in Kindergarten through second grade. We always sat near each other in class because our last names both started with “P” and we would always pretend to be Power Rangers with a few other kids at recess. After remembering all the great childhood times we had together, I did what any normal 19-year-old girl would do. I looked him up on Facebook.

It was not hard to find him. We had two mutual friends already! I sent him a friend request. Within the next day he had accepted me as a friend. He sent me an inbox message right away that said “Hey did we go to school together?” He remembered!

I messaged him back and told him how surprised I was that he recognized my name right away because I did not think he would remember me. I then asked the obligatory questions such as “How do you like your school?” and “What is your major?”. He sent me another message back saying “Of course I remember you! Your favorite animals were elephants. I know that because I never could remember how to spell the word.”

That blew my socks off. I was so impressed with his memory. We have been chatting back and forth ever since then, bringing up things we remember from our early elementary days. He says things that will jog my memory and he has often told me that I have mentioned stuff he hasn’t thought about in years. I don’t believe we will become best friends and I certainly don’t expect to be playing Power Rangers on a playground with him any time in the near future. But I am thankful for the chance to reconnect and catch up with him.

Thank you Facebook

My parents were absolutely tickled about this blog. Because my parents were high school sweethearts and their high school wasn’t huge, my mom knew everyone who was posting on the blog too. They said it was equal to my brother and I using Facebook because they were using it to connect with people from high school. Every night my parents would sit on the computer together and read stories people told from high school and discussions people would have about their old teachers. My parents never posted on the blog but they enjoyed “lurking” every night. They would always update us at the dinner table about what someone else had posted. They found out many things about their classmates and their high school shenanigans through the blog. They found out shocking stories about people like their class valedictorian and even the librarian!

Eventually my dad decided to post on the blog. My dad just posted his name and a link to a fan page of a country music star who shares the same name as him. Within hours the blog had exploded in posts. People were asking my dad if that was really him. They were asking each other if it was really him They even asked if he could bring his guitar to the class reunion. None of my dad’s close friends were on the blog at the time so he did not need to worry about his secret being spoiled. One lady finally called my mom’s mom and asked if her son-in-law was a country music star. People on the blog still talk about the prank that my dad pulled. My dad says that he never claimed to be a music star, he just thought other people would enjoy the music!

It has been nearly four years since my parent’s favorite blog was first started. They still love logging on and reading just as much as they did the first time. They now know what is going on in the lives of their classmates and talk to people they never would have without the blog.

Needless to say I do not think technology and social media is pulling people apart. It is bringing them closer together. Sure screen time might cut down a little on face-to-face time but in the long run it seems that without screen time people would know very little about people outside of who they see daily. Pew Internet gave their executive summary and came to the same conclusion.

I know technology has helped me stay totally connected to people from home and people I have met on trips etc. What is your opinion?

I think this 10 step plan seems pretty fool-proof for any company looking to get ahead in the business. As much as we think everyone is on Twitter and Facebook these days, really not as many companies are that you would think. In order to reach out to fans and audiences all over the world it seems pretty necessary for everyone to jump on the Social Media boat as quickly as possible. Those who do not may see sales drowning.

I think one of the most important steps is Step 5: Turning words into action. I think it is important to remember when creating these ideas to help the local bookstore that we remember that this isn’t just a class project. We are looking to boost sales in an actual store in Omaha and not just a made up company for the class. When we come up with these ideas we need to make sure that they are actually can be done to both the employees and the budget of the bookstore.

I think all companies to need to check out Solis’s 10 Step Plan and start creating their own. I think they would end up pleasantly surprised about how much it would benefit them.