I am a big fan of Google’s Gmail.  It has lots to like.  First I like that it’s in the cloud.  I have my e-mail on any device from any place.  Light weight but full of features.  Sure the call tags labels but they work the same.  Labels work like Apple’s smart mailboxes.  I can label a message and it will appear under each label, but I only have one copy of the message.  I can aggregate all of my e-mail address into one inbox and with a couple of rules every thing is labeled and filed.

The thing I like best about Gmail turns out to also be my biggest source of frustration, e-mail threading.  Gmail will thread messages and responses together to give you a conversation.  This is great, the entire conversation is collected together both messages received and sent.  Only one flaw…the subject has to remain consistent.

If you are like me and most of the people you know are still stuck in the inefficient medium of e-mail for communication then you may notice that, for some reason, subjects begin to evolve over time.  Take this image of three different subjects for the same conversation from my inbox.

I auto label based on who I receive the messages from so the get one set of labels based on who I received it from and those labels will aggregate as a conversation grows.  But notice that these three messages are really the same conversation, but for some reason the subjects take on a life of their own.

It would be nice to have some way of merging conversations together within Gmail.  As far as I can tell, this just isn’t possible.  Google, add this to your list.

I have to admit I have been using Facebook less and less.  I am not sure I could put my finger on exactly why I don’t use it as much as I did in the past although the constant bombardment to use different applications that my friends have installed is a big reason.  I had made a post a while back called “Facebook Notes” and stumbled upon a new batch of notes that would be a great follow-up.

This is a list of ten things you didn’t know about Facebook posted by Guy Kawasaki a few days ago that I found interesting and I am just now getting back to them.

Here is his list:

1. You can syndicate your blog.
2. You can post images and set your status via your cell phone.
3. You can post “Polls,” or “Surveys” to different demographics.
4. You can track available demographics directly in Facebook.
5. You can track your friends’ statuses via RSS.
6. You can post Flash and HTML directly in your brand’s Facebook Page.
7. The largest demographic on Facebook is the 25 and older group.
8. Through a Facebook Page, you can track the traffic of a brand’s Profile.
9. You can tag anyone in a posted note, video, or photo.
10. Give others an easy-to-remember link to your Facebook Profile.

Guy does a great job of expounding on each of these points.

I have to say I am not certain that number 10 belongs in this list but I do see the benefit, but I wonder if you don’t already have that within Facebook itself.

Social Times just published an article today titled, “The 4 P’s of Social Media“  It does such a great job of distilling social media down that I thought it was worth echoing here.

1. Presence
2. Personality
3. Patience
4. People

Seems easy enough.  But so many marketers just don’t understand these four things.  If you can’t get these four things right, you stand to have a social media campaign failure on your hands.

Presence - Anthony LaFauce, the author of the Social Times post, made this profound statement “Presence is more than just being on social media, you need to have an actual presence in social media.”  This means you can’t view this as a banner or PPC campaign.  You have to have a real presence.  It takes time, care, and feeding to make a successful social media campaign.  You can’t pay your insertion fee and forget about it while it runs.  You need to be engaged.

Personality - This one is simple.  You have to believe in your companies product.  You are an evangelist for the company.  If your attitude is artificial, like one of those guys in an infomercial, no one will believe you.  You will sound like a shady used car salesman.

Patience - I would go so far as to use the term Perseverance.  Community building is not a project, but an extension of your company.  A community is not built overnight, it takes time and lots of care.   If you aren’t dedicated to building a community from the start, then don’t waste your time and money.  You need to be in it for the long haul.

People - Basically this point is just building on the rest.  Engagement of real people can only happen from a real person.  Putting up a message board and then never posting to it yourself is not going to build a community that you want.  You need to be involved, honestly and passionately.  You might want to read about Participation Inequality to help you understand the type of people that get involved in a community.

I encourage everyone to read the article on the Social Times site for more perspective.