Here is where I serenade you and offer up a BIG giveaway

Last week, I was given the opportunity to host a Wrapped in Goodness party courtesy of Lean Pockets, which means I was sent a HUGE ass box stocked with Snuggies for my guests, a questions party game, coupons for free boxes of Lean Pockets’ new Culinary Creations, and $100 for additional food and wine. (That was my disclosure part). What ensued was 12 goodnesses wrapped in a party… And yes, I did really make all my guests pose with their chosen number of snacks while I sang probably the crappiest version ever of The 12 Days of Christmas, using a YouTube karaoke video. Oh the laughter! Sometimes I wonder if my life is real.

What I’m giving YOU, lovely friends and readers for suffering through my high pitched craziness is a chance to win an entire YEAR’S supply (183 coupons) of Lean Pockets. Heyo! All you have to do is leave a comment here telling me your favorite Christmas song (Here’s hoping it’s my awesome rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas). For an extra entry, you can head over to the LP Facebook page and like it, and let me know here. AND, if you Tweet about it, tag me @jeannabarrett and use the hashtag #goodnessparty & #giveaway, and I’ll throw an extra entry in there. I’ll choose the winners at random by Friday at 5 p.m. and announce by Monday! Good luck!

Currently Feeling: Tired from staying up till 2:30am to knock out that video. Once I get my mind on something, I can’t stop.
Currently Anticipating: Girl Power Hour’s Cocktail Holiday party on Thursday!
Currently Loving: That I can wear yoga clothes to work every day. Love my job.

Facebook’s world DOMINATION

Image courtesy of Rob Cottingham

Last week, while I was out in Miami and attempting as all hell to “unplug,” which included me disabling e-mail on my work phone and shutting off my personal phone, (I kept my iPhone to check in everywhere on Whrrl still, duh), Facebook held their F8 developers conference and announced what a lot of people are calling “their attempt at World Internet domination.

See what that is? I go out of town for four days, and suddenly Facebook is dominating the Internet.

You can’t win. Take a minute off, and the entire Internet is flipped around. Monday I was out sick – and come to find out that everyone was up in a roar over the arrest of the Gizmodo blog author who released secrets of the top secret iPhone 4, (which I’m SUPER stoked finally has a flash – it’s about time, Apple).

You blink, and the whole world is changed in three minutes. And then people wonder why I get separation anxiety from my phone. I tell yah, sometimes I feel like it’s a giant rat race, and wonder how I’m EVER going to keep up. Something I’ve noticed while working very closely in the tech industry these past eight months is that there’s an inherent need to always be more, more, more. Bigger, better, faster – more features, better features, improved interface – changing, changing, changing. I guess everyone’s looking for that magic potion that’s going to get more users. Or DOMINATE.

Me, personally, I just want to mute the people who complain every time their Facebook photo shows up on the right side of their profile instead of the left and suddenly there are 100 Tweets and Facebook status updates that say, “WHERE did they put my PROFILE photo. I am NOT happy Facebook! ”

I get it. We’re all a little wary of change. Of not being comfortable, and not knowing something inside and out. So, I wasn’t too surprised to see all the upheaval with Facebook’s “attempt to dominate” after their F8 announcements. Immediately I wanted to understand what was going to change…mostly because flipping around my privacy settings every couple months means I have to relearn everything, which is the most important detail of every Facebook upgrade.

My overall reaction? EFFING COOL. I can now “like” everything all over the web, and share that information back to my profile, allowing it all to become more viral. And their Social Graph connects what my friends think to websites I use regularly. I think it’s pretty kick ass that when I listen to Pandora now, it tells me “Your friend Blankity Blank likes this band.” DOUBLE EFFING COOL WITH A CHERRY ON TOP. (I’m easily won over).

Of course, if I want to be dark and twisty I’d say, “NOT COOL Facebook. You’re making me Like all this stuff I already like. I’m NOT happy.”

(You can learn all about Facebook’s new changes with this Handy Facebook to English Translator and can download a sweet plug-in to add the “Like” button to your WordPress blog too).

Currently Feeling: A little bit of a homebody this week. Miami and food poisoning plum tuckered me out!
Currently Anticipating: Checking out Haute Yoga on Queen Anne with neighborhood girls tomorrow.
Currently Bummed: That my new, pink Asus Eee PC died after THREE weeks. Three weeks I tell you! I can pick a new one out, but it was the very last pink model out there. Now they’re discontinued.

A tag cloud of everything I’ve written thus far

Today I ran across a neat site – Wordle - which creates a tag cloud from any sort of text or Web site you choose. I came across it while reading an article a co-worker sent me on a word cloud analysis of Obama’s inaugural speech vs. Bush. (Yes, I’m this nerdy).

Anyway, my immediate reaction was to want to know what words would pop up most in my little homespun blog here. So, I took all the text in ALL 500+ blogs I’ve written since 2006 (582 pages in Word – that could be considered a novel, couldn’t it?!), subtracted common phrases such as “posted by 20-Something” and “Currently Anticipating/Feeling”, and I got this:

Could be an interesting point about how much our generation is said to use the word, “like.” I thought there’d be a whole lot more alcohol and sex related words, but what do I know?

Currently Feeling: A little wore out.
Currently Anticipating: Possible Michael Jackson vs. Prince party at Nectar tomorrow night?
Currently Wishing: I had voodoo powers.

Ladies and Gents, I do believe we might have just officially entered the WEB 3.0 era…

I’m probably going to geek out a lot about Social Media lately cause it’s what I’ve been spending most of my time researching.

So, I’ve been exploring Twitter a bit more, even though I’ve been using it on the blog for awhile now. I’ve graduated to searching for things people are talking about, or even better–clicking on the “Nifty Queries” links on the Twitter Search page.

This led me to Ubiquity, which was launched yesterday.

And wow. Oh my gosh wow. Please watch the video all the way through. I do believe how we use the Internet will be completely transformed very shortly.

Mmm Mmm, I Love Me Some Social Media

I freakin’ love any Presidential hopeful who is involved in social media to this degree:

Hi, [20-Something].

Barack Obama (BarackObama) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Barack Obama’s profile here:

http://twitter.com/BarackObama

Best,
Twitter

I read a number of articles on how Obama has a Twitter page and regularly updates it, so I decided to follow good ole’ Obama and the above is the e-mail I received back. It’s slightly intoxicating to feel like you could be this close to having a President hear your voice, even if they are just “tweets,” and I’m one of 64K+ that he’s following.

Oh, and I freakin’ love any job that lets me get this close to Social Media, which I’ve become increasingly more and more obsessed with. I’ve been finding and researching this Social Media stuff (hence learning of Obama’s Twitter page) all week for a presentation I’m giving next Tuesday. Looks like I’ll be heading all Social Media Initiatives for [insert my company name here]‘s North American markets in 2009 – from the grassroots level up. If that’s not a good resume builder, I don’t know what is.

Onward and upward to that dream job!

Currently Feeling: Ready for the weekend!
Currently Anticipating: Getting caught up since I don’t have too many pressing plans for the weekend.
Currently Wishing: I could see results RIGHT. AWAY.

New Financial Genius: Mint.com

Thanks to the insider knowledge in my email in-box every day via Daily Candy, I was recently introduced to a new Web site (still in Beta form) called Mint.com

No, not a breathfreshener, herb or condition. This “mint” refers to money… And the Web site is created to personally track all of your accounts (bank and credit cards, loans coming soon) and spending habits. Lurv it! The best feature is by far how it categorizes your purchases as they come in (gas, coffee shops, shopping, groceries, restaurants), tracks your monthly spending in a pie chart and then creates monthly budgets for you, based on your spending. Each month you can track your budget, how close you are and how much you go over it:

You can also track on one page the money in your bank account, how much money you have left on your credit cards and how much you owe. It then tells you the state of your financial health:

Obviously, my financial health could use a little work. I’ve decided that while I’m now in my (GASP!) late 20s, it’s high time I started tracking my spending habits—immediately. As of now, they ridiculously sway in the direction of too much dining out and too many bar tabs. Go figure.

The site really is great, but if it could only magically pay my bills and put more money in my bank account, then THAT would be genius.

Oh money… can’t live with it; can’t live without it. Or, is that men?

Currently Feeling: SOOOO unproductive and bored.
Currently Anticipating: Checking out a new bar and solo artist in lower Queen Anne with a few of my girls tonight.
Currently Dreading: The next three weeks without phone contact.