I’m going to twitter you in the facebook!

Ok… so I guess I have to admit that I have gone a teeny bit overboard with this whole social networking thing. The truth is, I just can’t stop. In fact,as I type this very post, B (who mistakenly thinks we’re having a conversation about her day) is telling me that I spend too much time in front of my computer.

She hasn’t realized yet that I’m quite adept at multitasking and a well placed “uhuh” or “no way!” or “oh no she didn’t” can sustain a conversation for 10-15 minutes easy. [ouch ... she just caught me]

Anyway, lately I’ve been obsessed with a) writing this blog and b) trying to seamlessly link it to twitter AND facebook. What a second, did you just ask yourself “what presence on twitter and facebook?” Uh oh, might mean that you too are obsessed, or well on your way…

Let me cut to the chase, if you look on the right-hand sidebar of this page you’ll notice some new treats, two for facebook users, and one for twitterers. (incidentally, if the company was called twitterer, would their users be called twittererers?)

Sorry I digress … Lets start on the top and work our way down. Below the “Topics” pulldown menu you should notice a new area called “Community.” That is where I will focus today. First and foremost, you can now login to RookiePops through your facebook account – if you have one. Its easy, just click the image below the text that says “Login with Facebook” It should looks like this:

If you don’t see that graphic, you may want to try using a different web browser. I personally prefer Mozilla Firefox over Internet Explorer but that’s just me. If you still can’t see it, just drop me an email and i’ll see if its something on my end or if i can help u figure it out. My email is RookiePops [at] gmail

If you can see the graphic, great! Click it and it should open pop open a window that asks you to login to facebook. It should look something like this:

Once you’ve logged in, it should refresh the RookiePops screen and you should be able to see your Facebook profile picture.  If you don’t, and you still see the “connect with facebook” logo from before, try refreshing the page a couple of times. Once you are properly logged in, you’ll see that you can update your facebook status from right there. You should also note that you can click on “Edit Profile” and change the way your Facebook profile looks on Rookie Pops. You can easily invite your friends from facebook by clicking on the link that says “Invite.” There’s plenty more but I think you’ll enjoy discovering some of it on your own.

Now if you scroll down you should see another facebook area that says “RookiePops.com on Facebook.” That, is a link to the RookiePops fanpage on Facebook. You can click “Become a Fan” if you aren’t already and it will add you as a fanto the page within Facebook. If you haven’t already logged into Facebook, you be prompted in another popup window to log into facebook.  There you can update a Wall with status messages, links, videos, pictures, whatever you want… just please use your better judgment. I reserve the right to yank anything I deem questionable (wow, i’m starting to sound like a parent already)

Enough about Facebook already! Ok, ok. I’ll move on to Twitter.

Click the “Follow me on twitter” link on the sidebar and it will take you to the RookiePops presence on Twitter. From there you can “follow” me which means you’ll get my “Tweets” which are basically short 140-character long text messages. They are definitely random although one way or the other they are related to RookiePops – especially considering that they are being written by me and I can’t seem to talk about anything else these days.

Finally, for those of you who were afraid to visit the twitter page, I brought twitter to you. Below the follow me on twitter image is a section that starts with “overheard on twitter.” There you can scroll through any “Tweets” that contain key phrases that I am searching twitter for in realtime: “RookiePops” (that couldn’t have been a surprise), “Father to be”, “First time dad”, and “first time father.” Let me know if you think of any other cool phrases I should be tracking.

Those phrases all pretty much describe me. You’d be surprised at how many other twitterers I’m meeting that are: in, or have recently been in, my boat.Which brings me to why I’m so obsessed with social networking these days. I’ve been using twitter and facebook for years now, but never before have I been so excited about a topic/project/concept/job as I am about being a new father. Facebook and twitter make it easy for me to get instant advice, feedback, and support from thousands (literally thousands) of people that are rookie or veteran parents. Even though I have never met, and will likely never meet any of them in the traditional sense, there is a connection. An undeniable connection and I think this world can stand more connections. I’d write more about this but its 8am on Saturday morning and I’ve already been up all night… told you I was obsessed.

Update:
Someone recently asked me to explain to them exactly what twitter was and what all the hype about social networking was about. I came across these videos which do a pretty good job of explaining both concepts in plain english. Hope they help:

and here’s the one on Social Networking in general: