On Facebook

My Facebook page is the road journal and traveling side of Observations from the Road Less Traveled. Add me here, and you’ll get travel links, as well as my own updates, stories, and photos from the road. Share your experiences, questions, links, and travel stories.
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On Twitter

Don’t forget that you can also communicate with me on the road less traveled by following and adding me to your Twitter friends group. Love twitter! An endless source of fun, info, and resources.
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The latest update to the iPhone Facebook application has taken my social media communicating to yet another level of virtual freedom, location flexibility, and addiction. As a rabid iPhone user and lover, I thoroughly enjoy my “computer” in my pocket. I often cannot express to the typical non-user how deeply integrative and enjoyable owning an iPhone is.

One of the perks of the iPhone is the incredible diversity of product and functionality that comes to the iPhone experience through the App Store. There are few components of my desktop world that I can’t transfer to my iPhone experience because of the App Store– many with better results. As they say, “there is an app for nearly everything!” I blog, bank, tweet multiple accounts, read, play, listen, travel, Trikke, process sales, network, and organize all with the help of iPhone applications. A few of my favorites, I’ve linked here.

Based on the quality of the typical social media application, I found the older Facebook application left a bit to be desired. I missed many updates, had trouble updating my own status, keeping up with friends, and other missed perks that led me have to put the phone down and use the desktop version.

Now with the current update and a touch of the keypad-like icon in the upper left corner of the app, my iPhone Facebook experience is nearly seamless. Click this tab and the desktop version is virtually in your hands (see pic). Some great changes:

Yes, I’m in trouble! Of course there are a few things not added to this update, but I’m sure they are in line for the next. I’d like to be to be able to access and choose applications. Also, because I have a personal account and a business account, I would like to be able to toggle between the two without logging out, similar to how I manage multiple accounts on the iPhone Twitterific application. Overall though, this is a great update that continues to make my IPhone an indispensible part of my excellent e-life.

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Great photo taken by my daughter-Sierra Dennis

Visually the site was crisp and informative, but the pieces of information were sectioned off in too many areas around the page– moving, calling, and requiring the reader to do exactly what I had burnt myself out from doing- taking in too much at one time. Because all of the pieces of the blog were visually available at once, I too suffered from overload. I found myself overwhelmed and pressured to write for each section in each moment so that it all looked fresh all the time. This took much from my organic promise of observations from the road less traveled. Instead of coming across life and observing it, I began seeking observations simply to produce for a category. We all know that when we try to accomplish 10 things, we likely fail at even getting one done and so it was for me. Not at all the principle of my life or blog!

So now my thoughts, experiences, and observations will be placed one post at a time in a more organic but regular format. This contributes to the more personal feel that I wanted from the beginning. All of the categories and ideas remain, but you will be able to experience them singularly with me through my words without that unnecessary visual overload. To grab inspiration and info from categories and grouped ideas, just look to the sidebar and find, “I’m blogging on.” You can also organically click on a keyword under “Hot Topics” for a list of posts that consider that subject matter.

You’ll also note a conscious request by me for you to share the blog through social media. There are share buttons after each post. Please feel free to show your support of a post by sharing it on Facebook and Digg. Digg is a great way to push posts into the broader net world, so give it a try. If you have a twitter account, feel free to click the green retweet buttons on at the top of each post and automatically tweet my work. As always, please feel free to comment and post your views on post topics!

~Spencer Hope

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