I would have a heart attack if my desk looked liked this. But I’m pretty sure the desk in my brain does.

As a digital media nerd, I have no problem managing a billion different accounts on the Internet.  From social networking sites to bank accounts, I’ve accumulated about 30-40 different logins from the past 5 years.  I’m definitely not a pack rat by any means, but I’m starting to feel like I have too much junk in my (digital) trunk.

Just like my spring cleaning thought process, I tried to justify the need for my online “memberships”.  I tried to comprehend my new pack rat status by slicing and dicing the facts.  Why is it that I am able to throw away material items that I don’t need, but I don’t mind hoarding digital goods?

There’s the obvious tangible factor:  We cannot physically hold digital items such as photos, videos, documents, spreadsheets, and logins.  It is easy for these items to accumulate quickly and massively because they don’t take up any physical space.  Yet, they still take up digital space, and eventually we find ourselves upgrading our USBs, memory cards, and hard drives faster than are dogs age.  The rate at which we build up digital baggage is becoming faster by day, and soon enough terabytes will no longer be cool for school.

This leads me to entertain the idea that maybe we are all pack rats deep down inside, and that the digital revolution has forced us to become self aware about the importance of prioritizing and organizing the things we own.  Or maybe I’m just alone and wallowing in self pity that my digital noise is growing into a bigger beast than I thought I could handle.

The truth is I’m not a slob, but I’m not obsessively compulsive about a little chaos either.  I do appreciate order with my digital items, though.  I like to keep my digital photos organized in an external hard drive, sorted by folders, by year, by month, and by occasion.  I keep a neat playlist for all my mp3 files, so that I can easily access music depending on my mood or the company I am with.

If I am neither a slob nor freakishly neat, why is all this digital noise getting to the best of me?  Either way, I’m starting my spring cleaning a bit early this year, and I’m going to focus on all my intangible digital things first.

Do my skinny jeans still fit? (Do I really need a login to all those brain sucking entertainment sites that I relied on during my procrastinating college days?)

Is it necessary that I own my own a Hallmark membership card? (How many different online accounts do I need to manage my air and hotel mileage points?)

Why is it that I own five different colors of the same shirt? (Why do I need three different sites to access music?)

As I am thinking about different ways to organize, I start reverting back to my old habit of rationalizing the need to doing things.  I convince myself that as long as the digital junk in my trunk are full of good things, then it really can’t be all that bad.

But when is enough… enough?  Isn’t there a saying that says too much of a good thing is a bad thing?

Our mothers always told us to keep everything in moderation.  So I took a stab at my laundry list of digital membership accounts and started prioritizing.

1. Organize by work, personal, and academic (if applicable) websites using favorite folders in your Internet browser.  Each folder shouldn’t contain more than 10 different websites, unless they absolutely do not have other folders to belong to.
2. Combine memberships that accumulate points.  Most online travel websites have a list of partners they share miles and points with.  Choose one or two memberships you would like to stay loyal with based on frequency of use and diversity of partnerships.  If you can’t trim, then use Points.com to transfer your earnings.
3. Browse all the entertainment sites you want, but keep loyalty to a minimum.  Don’t limit yourself from the freedom of Internet browsing, but keeping frequently visited sites to a minimum (about 3-10) will take digital baggage off your shoulders.

It’s a start.  I don’t know if my Martha Stewart approach will help reduce the digital noise in my life, but organizing never hurt nobody.  If you find a better solution, by all means, share the wealth.  I think that one day, there will be a break through digital phenomenon that could help us face this more easily, similar to how RSS feeds made syndication almost effortless to use.  Until then, I suppose I’ll rely on the old school trial and error approach.

I know I’m not alone.  Bring on the noise, but personally I need to start keeping my digital noise from growing exponentially before I start seeking permanent digital asylum.

As the Jackson 5 once sang: Tweet, Tweet, Tweet-Tweet

This week, I started using Twitter after almost a year long hiatus with a few attempts in between.  And now, I’m absolutely hooked.

During my first class in the MCDM program, my professor encouraged us to play around with Twitter.  As a long time social networking site user and a web 2.0 advocate, I’d self proclaimed myself as an early adopter to new tools and gadgets.

Boy, was I wrong.

It was difficult for me to understand why I would feel the need to update my exact whereabouts practically every minute of the day, especially when I already had a tool that worked just perfectly fine.  I had been tailoring my Facebook updates to express my two cents to a closed group of social networks.  Besides, status updates become more fun when you have an audience reading your daily rants and thoughts and commenting back with stamps of approval or comic relief.

Then, I discovered that Twitter is quite different than a just fancy version of Facebook status updates.

After two years since my Twitter introduction, I am finally jumping on the Twitter phenomenon.  I don’t know how long it will last, but for now, I’m seeing the bigger picture that is social media.  Social media is an online tool to help build relationships.  Whether you are representing a business or yourself, you are walking on a two way street.

Many people rely on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with other people.  They utilize features on these sites such as status updates and news feeds to build personal and professional relationships.  But these sites are limited to people connections.  They provide a two way street for people like us who choose to be connected.

Alternatively, Twitter also provides a two way street, but it includes a connection between businesses and people.  You choose to be connected, but it is not necessarily a connection validated by both parties.  Anyone or any business with a Twitter account can instantly follow a user.

Witnessing the powerful effect of social media tools, businesses are often scratching their heads to come up with the latest and greatest way to “communicate” with their customers.  They have experimented with blogs and uploads, but they can be timely and take up a lot of resources.  Twitter is starting to break ground as a social media tool that connects businesses to consumers in a different way.  It is different than blogs, articles, and Facebook fan pages, because Twitter is the real time transparency that consumers demand in their sub conscience.  Marketers need to embrace the truth in that social media is not directly tied to ROI.  It’s about building brand equity through critical mass.  It is a long term strategy and not a shortcut to immediate monetary return.  In my opinion, social media is best used as a complementary marketing tool, just as many brand oriented marketing campaigns support direct response advertising.  Just my two cents.

Personally, Twitter is like using a 2.0 version of RSS feeds, because you’re not only receiving updates (“tweets”) but you are also contributing at the same time.  It’s a conversation.  It’s a two way street.

I started to follow news sites such as MSNBC, CNN, and New York Times on Twitter.  That lead to following companies that I take interest with.  Which eventually lead to following social groups like our MCDM program and the upcoming Super Bowl.  Then, slowly (but surely) I broke out of my Twitter cocoon.  I realized that, for me, Twitter is an optimal social network to update the world about my daily rants on digital media.  It’s the first social networking site that I am not afraid of partaking in public (with no privacy features), because it is an environment where I want the world to hear what I have to say.  Facebook wasn’t a great atmosphere for this for me.  Twice, I tried linking my Twitter to FB status updates, and it hasn’t been a hit.  But who knows, this could change as the way we interact with our online audience continues to evolve.

This so-called revelation of mine isn’t to say Twitter is the new grand solution for everything.  Nor am I definite that Twitter has a promising future.  But when a website is not monetizing and receives non-solicited bids up to $250M, you have to tilt your head and wonder what the hype is all about.

I still consider myself an early adopter for the most part, but I think it takes a couple of tries to make any new tool stick.  Every effort can be a hit or miss when it comes to social media tools, such as networking sites, user generated content, and applications.

So haters, beware.  I learned my lesson the hard way.  Fad or no fad, you just may be missing out on the next big thing, because with social media, everything is inevitable.  Give Twitter the benefit of doubt.

Another great article on embracing Twitter
Check out your Twitterholic Ranking!
TweetDeck: A very useful Twitter application
Follow me on Twitter

On another note, this is a really good movie. Proof that Joaquin & Reese have talent, really.

Who doesn’t love Johnny Cash?
More importantly, who doesn’t love QuickTime?

The movie, ‘Walk the Line’ has an official website to promote their DVDs. As you enter the site, QuickTime is immediately integrated into the homepage using various clips from the movie. I enjoy this particular feature because it is visually appealing–and websites that promote media such as movies, televison shows, and concerts are best delivered with smooth, uninterrupted, and flashy streaming media rather than extremely detailed text. If I could change one feature, I would not use an unlimited loop for the background video– it’s efficient to catch the user’s initial attention, but it becomes distracting after one or two loops.

Quicktime was probably the most attractive video format for ’Walk the Line’ because it allows seemless execution of streaming media on their website while integrating flash. Most websites with a sole purpose to promote film (movie premiere, television shows, major networks) use QuickTime because it takes little time to buffer and the streaming time is seemless to the end user. It allows websites to deliver their message in creative form–while incorporating a simple and inclusive message to the audience.

I’m a fan of QuickTime. It’s no wonder why many in the digital media, music, and film industry prefer it too.