Instagram: accounts that are inspiring, interesting or simply fun

Here is a list of active and inspiring Instagram accounts 

- https://www.instagram.com/tealswanofficial/

- https://www.instagram.com/paoesco8ar/

- https://www.instagram.com/loopydavestuff/

- https://www.instagram.com/rickandmorty/

- https://www.instagram.com/dtiysgallery/

- https://www.instagram.com/artgerm/

- https://www.instagram.com/rin_city/

let's call this list the 2021 cool influencers starter pack

more will follow

tsu.co the future of social media?

Like i wrote previously - I would never joined facebook ; but recently I've been invited to tsu.co and I created an account at https://www.tsu.co/alashazam

Account creation is easy 

The good thing is you can change everything if you made a mistake
first name, lastname, even the url (what tsu call "username") can be changed.

After the account is created, you will have to acknowledge the analytics page (with a warning against spam) - and the bank page (with a warning against abuse)
what you can do on tsu - is post images (they are protected against copy - but not against screen capture obviously)
post texts, currently you can't post video - but you can put youtube links. Then you can share what other people are posting, comment and like their posts.
You can send messages, you can use hashtags, or mention someone in a post using @ and their username.

All that is the ABC of social media - facebook, ello, diaspora, tumblr are doing the same.

Now where tsu.co is a big game changer is that he rewards users to post, and stay on the site by sharing the advertising money with their users.

Game Changer

The question is then raised -why isn't tsu.co not draining all social media users ?- and the answer is probably because not many people are aware of informed about tsu.co

For people addicted to social media - being paid to post, share, like and interact with friend is like a dream come true.
but I guess, for other people the resistance to switch to tsu.co is simply because their friends are not there but stays on mainly facebook.

Money, money, money

Back in October 2014 - for the early adopters money was pretty good - making 0.10$ on the first day wasn't uncommon - now it is more like 0.01$  - but as all passive income, the amount isn't important - what is important is the regularity of the flow.
Many people are just starting to understand the potential - but since everyone is collecting small sums donation to charities are possible, donation between users too - and in the future maybe paying artists for services or commission.

Time will tell how tsu.co will evolve, I hope it will attract many celebrities, writers, artists, musicians, freelance (content creator) and will allow them to gain visibility and money.
It has potential to attract people from fiverr, or other low income freelance services, and even from from paypal (when the money to be transferred doesn't exceed 100$) - Letting other social media like facebook for family or close friends interaction.

Fundamentally what is the benefit of having 1 millions likes or followers if a celebrity on facebook doesn't make any money out of it?

Some facebook power-users have found that putting a gofund.me link is a lucrative way to earn money - as a rule of thumb, for every genuine 10,000 likes a page can make a sell.

Maybe this sell come from poster print, etsy shop, zazzle links or donation - on tsu.co all this merchandising is possible but with the addition of redistributed advertising money as a regular income.

Now as for tsu.co power user you can check the "discover user section" and you will undoubtedly see the real King of Morocco - that sets a precedent.

If you are looking for an invitation link - here's mine I'd be glad to be your parent
https://www.tsu.co/alashazam

Why I will never join facebook

Be a part of a "tribe"

facebook isn't the first social group that ever existed - before facebook was bolt.com (or recently orkut.com), or even now many other underdogs like hi5.com, Netlog, Tagged, Bebo co-exist, even with the previous leader of the pack which is unable to regain popularity myspace.com...

Social group website, works more or less the same way ... you create an account, you post photos, videos, links and interact with "your tribe" - be it your close family, your co-workers, or simply people that are sharing more or less the same hobbies.

Now being successful as a social group is not easy - you have to provide an attractive website, with ease of use, you have to be aware that some people will post things that are not "politically correct" or might even be illegal (in some way - like links to download of mp3 or 'bootleg' movies etc ...).

And even in many instance, the most annoying of all, porn - the all invasive porn that will find the way into any sort of network to spread.

That's the reason you will have this 'report button' - and that link will suddenly disappear, and sometime users account...

Now for the social group provider, the only thing that really count (at the beginning) is to spread like wildfire, so the first case of "porn invasion" or abuse from users will be ignored. Because the step after acquiring a large user base, is the step where user get trapped with this particular website.

Enter the Trap

After your friends, co-workers, etc ... are trapped, then basically this website will become the way you will interact with them by chat, or messages left on their timeline, the problem is that on this platform - you are under surveillance, under scrutiny of marketers, business poll, advertisers, and psychologists that are trying to manipulate, control, and brain-wash people.

And at some stage, you will have to make this choice to stay in because the interaction with your "tribe" is more important - or you will just figure out, that enough is enough and wasting your time in being part of an experiment to turn you into a lab rat, is definitely going too far.

The tactics they're is using to give the impression that it constantly grows - is that you can't ever delete your facebook account, it will stay there "deactivated" ... ready for you to reactivate it (because they know you will be back anyway).

At first (like in any abusive relationship), the partner is showing all his "attractive" side, and wants you to be part of what looks like an interesting and passionate symbiotic relationship - and as soon as you are part of it, it decides (without your accord) that well, some things should be different, and then it starts doing thing in secret, and you will feel more and more like you have been duped, you have been foolish to even start dating this asshole, but it's too late ... now he has all your stuffs, and the more you wait the harder it will get.

And that's the reason you will never find me on facebook.

Image Credit :
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2019.html
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2017.html

Additional Credit :
http://www.moreofit.com/similar-to/www.hi5.com/Top_10_Sites_Like_Hi5/

An offer you couldn't refuse

Interviews are welcome

I feel like it would be beneficial to open my blog to other people and allow them to have a place to post about their services or hobbies.

If you are an artist, freelance, cosplayer, linux developer, aspirant designer, comics writer, reiki master, spiritual healer, clairvoyant etc ... and be interested to post an interview on my blog. Here are the questions template I would use - send the completed interview to my email address

Questions

These would be the questions (feel free to modify them, as you like)

1. Can you give a short bio ?
2. What got you into "your field of expertise" ?
3. What are the required qualities of a "person in your field of expertise" ?
4. What are your visions of "your field of expertise" for the next years ?
5. What do you wish "your field of expertise" would be in the future ?

Please then add any of your links you'd like to share

Example of an interview with Katybear - found here.

P.S : As the editor I keep the right to decline posting or review part of the interview - or to discontinue this service anytime.

The service is free but donation are welcome.
See static page for more details http://alashazam.blogspot.com/p/open-for-interview.html

Brutal capitalism

Starting your own business

Many people nowadays are deciding to make the step, and start their own business, it's in the air ... The days of being an employee for life in a company is over, now people have to change career at least every 2 to 4 years.
And the prospect of having a boss in a corporations that lead a race to the bottom (term devised by Seth Godin) isn't a daily motivation.

But what are the alternatives?

The first thing obviously is to do a bit of soul searching, and understand what makes you unique and then to launch a career as an entrepreneur.
Of course we hear a lot about freelance writer, internet expert, web-designer, or virtual call-center agent, life coach, private tutor and any sort of consultant. 

But at the end of the day ... all these people are discovering that they just have switched their employee's seat for an even tougher job - where this time they have to be the employee, the decision-maker, do all the administrative tasks, and more every-day... because of aggressive deadlines, difficult customers, or a bad payment.
They find the hard way the not so glamorous side of having a business of their own, which offer many challenges like the need to build a network of customers, and build up trust with them, and all that takes time... time when the competitors starting now are making huge discount to enter the market.

So after a while, things can get ... challenging.

And that's because the economy has entered a new phase, a new revolution - and is accelerating the movement, I call this "Brutal Capitalism" and things are getting weirder and weirder ; when you start to realize that jobs like "webcam model" are basically starting to appear as viable business model or an attractive solution for young girls.

Because confronted with the choice of uninteresting jobs paid with minimal wages, they happily turning themselves into sex workers.



This is my rant for the day. Maybe "Brutal Capitalism" isn't hard enough .. "Hell Capitalism" could be more suitable.

Microblogging platform review

What is this, and why does it exist?

Microblogging or tumblelog is that (relatively) new trendy type of social website (social .. yes, but not quite like facebook) where you have this never ending stream of pictures, video, quotes, or texts - where you can reblog, like or share and add new content.

For the "content creator" it's way faster than writing long articles on the "traditional" platform like blogger.com or wordpress.com and microblogging serves the purpose of having a hand on the pulse of the internet, much like twitter but with more emphasis on pictures and videos. That's why you can also find #hashtags on tumbleblog. And the reblogging is an even faster way to share content that will snowball and could actually in matter of hours spread all over the interwebs.

For the "surfer" - the fun part about microblogging is that selection of blog you select and will follow and which will merge with the current stream of informations and give you that unique personalized content you will be scrolling endlessly everyday - a very important tool in the procrastinator arsenal.

While facebook is for connecting with friends, and family - tumbleblog are more like a way to connect with like minded people, writers, cosplayers, freelances, comics artists, comedians, spiritual teacher etc ...

Some examples, okay ...

The most famous platform is (probably) tumblr.com - so famous in fact, that it has this "aura" of pillar of the internet (along with 4chan, reddit, twitter and facebook).

But it's not the only one, there's soup.io  quite popular in central Europe, Germany and Austria.

There's also diaspora which is a platform that from the beginning has a priority on privacy and respect for the user (for those who don't trust facebook or google+)

In my experience every of these platform had a quite difficult time in their beginning  - when users were constantly having errors and couldn't post because of server's errors and whatnot.

NB : The first time I discovered the tumbleblog concept was with the now defunct meme.yahoo.com  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Meme for more details) - it seems like they had a different strategy in mind because later they bought tumblr.com

Which is like usual saying something on the quality of the platform - the importance, isn't in the technology or the ease of use, but really in the number of people connecting, using and interacting with it. For people that don't know what I'm talking about they should look for the rise and fall of myspace.com.

You don't need a job, you need to find your life purpose

Trends

After many people voluntarily quit their 9 to 5 job, to start a freelance gig, or try themselves into copywriting, or network marketing .. the latest buzz is to find your true life purpose and share your enthusiasm with your "tribe".

The magic recipe

Now thanks to internet, everybody can start the following success recipe :
Find your true life purpose, then find your "niche", and then Build an audience
- Open a youtube channel
- Create a facebook page
- Collect emails - engage with your fans
- Offer a product on your website (ebook pdf, mp3, advices, skype session etc ...)
- Create a passive income
- Starting to influence others

Example of successful people

Elliott Hulse (founder of the non-job campaign) specialized in body building

Mark Manson (writer of the Book "models")

Teal Scott (Spiritual "New Age" Guide)

They all followed the same successful spiral described above

Numbers

Let see some numbers (as of October, 8th 2013)

Elliott Hulse 171,567 likes (http://www.facebook.com/elliotthulse)

http://www.youtube.com/user/strengthcamp 582,958 subscribers / 979 videos

Products : Around 15 books, and coaching sessions

Started 5-6 years ago

Mark Manson 20,171 likes (http://www.facebook.com/Markmansonnet)

http://www.youtube.com/user/postmasculine 958 subscribers / 12 videos

Products : 3 books, and courses

Started 3-4 years ago

claims that he as 300,000 Monthly Readers From 168 Countries

Teal Scott 68,197 likes (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Teal-Scott-The-Spiritual-Catalyst-Fan-Page)

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSpiritualCatalyst 57,567 subscribers / 117 videos

Products : 1 book, and workshops

Started 2 years ago

Conclusion

Find your life purpose (your mission, your bliss, your voice ... whatever you want to call it) should be the top priority of anyone.

Then start a webpage, a website and hustle until you make it, up to at least 10,000 contacts

and then offer products tailored for your audience.