Seth's Blog: The power of a tiny picture (how to improve your social network brand)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/the-power-of-a-tiny-picture-how-to-improve-your-social-network-brand.html

If it's important enough for you to spend your time finding and connecting with new people online, it's important enough to get the first impression right. If you use any online social network tool, the single most important first impression you make is with the 3600 to 5000 pixels you get for your tiny picture. In the social group I run, part of my job is to pick the featured members. As a result, I spend a lot of time looking at little pictures. Here's one person's take on the things you can do to avoid wrecking that first impression:

your social network face is important

Show support for democracy in Iran add green overlay to your Twitter avatar with 1-click - http://helpiranelection.com/ [from http://twitter.com/EdwardRobins/statuses/2238952589]

Green overlay over twitter

create icons to show support for causes on Twitter

twibbon.com is the easiest way to promote awareness of your cause on twitter. Create a twibbon in 3 easy steps and soon all your supporters will be proudly wearing their twibbons on their twitter profile images. Simply describe your cause and upload a twibbon image and we will do the rest.

madmen avatar maker

Lovely little bit of viral marketing

JoJo風の顔を作れる

Adverteren via de avatars van twitter gebruikers.

Become an Avatizer if you want to create and publish your own overlays and run your own campaign– no installation or coding needed. Just create an Avatizer account, upload your transparent image and off you go!

a twibbon, but different, in name

Avartize.com gives you, the Twitter user, the option to easily pimp your profile picture, also known as your avatar. Set your state to “busy,” tell your friends you’re on fire — or let everybody know you are out taking in that special event. At Avartize.com, you also have the option to create your own overlays, so people can pimp their avatar with your artwork! Do you organize events? Let visitors utilize your overlays. Supporting a good cause? Show it by making your avatar purple, totally free! One click and it’s done. No installation or coding needed. Just create an Avatize.com account, upload your transparent image, and off you go!

線上製作你的似顏繪

Create a face in just minutes

mit. Create a face in just minutes, and share it on your blog or Facebook

Crear cara online face rostro

If you think virtual worlds are a passing fad, look at the figures. Almost all of the 39% growth came from children. Girls used to grow up with their dolls; now they are growing up with their avatars. This goes largely unreported because the users don't read newspapers, but as Kzero reports, poptropica.com – aimed at five- to 10-year-olds – has 76 million registered users. If you move up to 10- to 15-year-olds, users rival the populations of countries – led by Habbo (135 million), Neopets (54 million), Star Dolls (34 million) and Club Penguin (28 million). It starts tailing off among 15- to 25-year-olds – apart from Poptropica (35 million) – but it underlines the likelihood that as youngsters get older they will be looking for more sophisticated outlets and for ways to link existing social networks such as Facebook or MySpace to more immersive virtual worlds.

If you think virtual worlds are a passing fad, look at the figures. Almost all of the 39% growth came from children. Girls used to grow up with their dolls; now they are growing up with their avatars.

growing up with avatars instead of dolls

Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it's a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films like it give us the opportunity to answer the question: What do white people fantasize about when they fantasize about racial identity?

about Avatar, District 9, & Dune

A story that revisits the same old tropes of colonization. Whites still get to be leaders of the natives - just in a kinder, gentler way

Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it's about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy. Spoilers...

Sure, Avatar goes a little bit beyond the basic colonizing story. We are told in no uncertain terms that it's wrong to colonize the lands of native people. Our hero chooses to join the Na'vi rather than abide the racist culture of his own people. But it is nevertheless a story that revisits the same old tropes of colonization. Whites still get to be leaders of the natives - just in a kinder, gentler way than they would have in an old Flash Gordon flick or in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels.

"When whites fantasize about becoming other races, it's only fun if they can blithely ignore the fundamental experience of being an oppressed racial group."

Like Dances with Wolves, Last Samurai, and even Dune, tis a story about white guilt.

io9?

"Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it's about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy. Spoilers... Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it's a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films like it give us the opportunity to answer the question: What do white people fantasize about when they fantasize about racial identity?"

Toddles Lightworker is in here, hated the "mission" paradigm, looking a NZVS ( Virtual School -== distance learning ) but what ever taht means it is not the same as Virtual Environments or Virtual Reality

13 up

Good!

Support IE6 Must Die, add a #twibbon to your avatar now! - http://twibbon.com/join/IE6-Must-Die [from http://twitter.com/majorymiranda/statuses/2795362257]

Support IE6 Must Die, add a #twibbon to your avatar now! - http://twibbon.com/join/IE6-Must-Die [from http://twitter.com/rasp1/statuses/2724345516]

Support IE6 Must Die, add a #twibbon to your avatar now! - http://twibbon.com/join/IE6-Must-Die [from http://twitter.com/enochs08/statuses/2757034634]

Support IE6 Must Die and add an overlay to your avatar! Twibbon.com is the easiest way to promote awareness of your cause on twitter. Start something today!

Support IE6 Must Die, add a #twibbon to your avatar now! - http://twibbon.com/join/IE6-Must-Die [from http://twitter.com/leandrotrocado/statuses/3179510272]

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