Blasterous.com is Hyper-Local and Private, Part 1

Posted: August 23rd, 2010 | Author: Steve | Filed under: social media | Tags: android, blasterous, blasterous.com, cigars, Collective, communications, facebook, foursquare, geolocation, hyper-local, iphone, local, location based | View Comments

While social media has generally been a force for good in our lives, especially for those getting the word out about sustainability, there has also been a downside: information overload. Sites like MySpace and Facebook try to be everything to everyone, and, in the process, leave us overwhelmed with a mountain of work to sift through that which is meaningful and relevant from that which is, well, frankly, meaningless drivel.

In order to keep control over our content, who sees it and when, we are left with complicated privacy settings, and the unhappy task of dividing our “friends” into categories which may not fit all cases.

Blasterous.com founder and CEO Tim Reeth hopes to change all that, at least as far as managing the communications you have with your genuine network of friends, family and neighbors.  To him, that means providing users better controls over organizing their connections into custom lists, which are 100% private, to those people in the list.

For example, I recently created a Blasterous list called “Sergeant Steve’s Cigar Pals,” and invited all my cigar buddies to it.  In this list, we talk about our favorite cigars, and share what’s going on with our cigar brands and cigar smoking, both local and world-wide.  Because Blasterous is so location centric, when we’re “blasting” about cigar lounges in another city, members local to that city will know exactly where we are talking about. With Blasterous Place pages, members can also find detailed info about the location, or link the location to a blast.

Currently in Beta, Blasterous, is a hyper-location-based social platform, available on the web or on the go; currently with an app for iPhone, and Android.  Users can share local and time sensitive information in the form of a “blast”; which, unlike Twitter’s 140, are 240 characters in length, can have up to 5 images per blast and contain hyperlinks.  Additionally, those with permission to view a blast are able to add their comments, thereby generating a stream of dialog.  What makes Blasterous truly unique, is that users have the choice whether to share blasts publicly, via their geographic location (“geos”), privately, via custom lists, or both.

10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media

Posted: May 12th, 2009 | Author: Steve | Filed under: Technology, social media | Tags: ecomonday, linkedin, max gladwell, social media, twitter | View Comments

Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.

Editor’s note: This is the first guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.