sherylsteinberg.com

Opportunity Rings Book Launch/Author Q&A

Indigo Books, Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West (at Bay Street), Toronto

Thursday, April 30, 2009, 7:00 p.m.

Get ready for an evening of fun and frolic as we launch Opportunity Rings – the new novel about sex, singlehood and smartphones.

I will be doing a reading, Q&A, and bantering back and forth with CP24’s resident guru of geek Andy Walker during a “He Said/She Said” look at Twitter and other techie trends.

Mark your calendar and bring/buy a book for signing!

Hope to see you there!

Have you heard about the new Twitter?

It’s called Flutter.

Postings are dubbed flaps, not tweets.

Messages contain up to 26 characters (like the alphabet), not 140.

Automatically condenses long tweets into short flaps (time saver!)

You can even get FlutterEyes, special glasses which secretly scroll flaps inside the lenses like tickertape.

For real? Not exactly (not yet anyway!) But this mockumentary by SlateV.com is fun social commentary on social media just the same.

Flutter: The new Twitter

Just got a copy of my finished book from Key Porter’s warehouse — which means it’s starting to ship to bookstores across Canada and will be on bookshelves within the next two weeks! We’re just finalizing details for the official OPPORTUNITY RINGS launch event. Stay tuned for updates!

The folks at Rocketboom are on the money with this comical clip. “Is discardia the new discardage?” ….good one! So what do you think about Twitter? Love it or hate it?

Twitter Newscast

I can’t help but watch When Harry Met Sally whenever it’s on TV despite the fact I’ve seen it hundreds of times. (I’m the same way with writer Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle.) Anyhow… remember when Harry hits on Sally after just meeting her, even though he’s dating her friend Amanda?

Harry: What? Can’t a man say a woman is attractive without it being a come-on? All right, all right. Let’s just say, just for the sake of argument, that it was a come-on. What do you want me to do about it? I take it back, OK? I take it back.

Sally: You can’t take it back.

Harry: Why not?

Sally: Because it’s already out there.

Harry: Oh jeez. What are we supposed to do? Call the cops? It’s already out there!

Sally’s right: It is already out there! But saying something you want to take back is nothing next to emailing it (If it’s really juicy, your note might end up being forwarded around the world.). So think before you press ‘send’ – or if you want a few seconds grace, Google’s Gmail apparently has a new ‘Undo Send’ feature that holds an email for five seconds, just in case you change your mind or send something in error. Happy emailing!

This is the question: If you’re considering buying a new laptop or TV, should you snap it up in the next two weeks to avoid paying a recycling fee?

Okay, back up. Another question: Did you even know that Ontario will be charging up to $13.44 extra per device come April 1^st? (No fooling…and I suspect other governments will follow suit if they don’t already have fees like these in place.)

Back to the original question, I have to say I’m torn. I’m all for helping the environment and recycling electronics responsibly. But in these uncertain economic times, I’m also all about saving money.  

So what’s a gal to do? Do you follow your social consciousness or your ever-thinning wallet? Or, do you just wait for a really huge blow-out sale this spring and hit two birds with one stone? Decisions, decisions. 

Find out more about the fees at  www.ontarioelectronicstewardship.ca/stewards/fees.html. 

I couldn’t believe it when I saw the official message pop up on my screen yesterday. I got a warning from Facebook. Me! Of all people: law-abiding, typical-first-born-child, never-got-a-single-speeding-ticket-in-my-life me! Needless to say, I was a tad taken aback by my virtual hand-slapping.

Not so much because Facebook was pointing its finger and threatening suspension of my account (though it did sting a bit). But mainly because I’m still not 100% sure what I did wrong. I mean, it’s not as if the warning spelled it out.

Nope, I got a laundry list, a multiple-choice-scenario of potential offenses. The closest possible answer had to do with promoting a business or event incorrectly. But here’s the thing: I was using my personal account to send messages to people I know (but don’t have their current emails) about my new Facebook Author site.

But alas, kind reader, I’ve learned my lesson. (Well not really, I’m still in the dark but you catch my drift, right?) The Facebook police laid down the law so I will just have to reform my alleged criminal ways.

In the meantime, please tell everyone you know (without breaking any Facebook rules of course) to join my Author site at: www.facebook.com/pages/Sheryl-Steinberg/57946635107?ref=ts.  Many thanks…Sheryl : )

“With a tweet-tweet here and a tweet-tweet there…” Old MacDonald has nothing on today’s social networking farm. And I’m not even counting Facebook.

Everywhere I look, these days, there’s Twitter. Best described as a broadcast text-message utility that tells your “followers” (sounds a little Davidian cultish to me…) what you’re doing in 140 characters or less, it’s all the rage. On the news. In my freelance writers’ group. Heck, Congressmen were even “tweeting” (as in using Twitter to sing like a bird and blab) while listening (let’s give them the benefit of the doubt…) to President Obama’s address on Capitol Hill last week.

Hey, I’m not bashing Twitter (Congressmen maybe). Au contraire. I just hopped on the bandwagon myself (I’ve already got two followers!) But I won’t be tweeting about what I’m having for lunch. Or what pedi-polish I’ve chosen. Or anything else about me that, quite frankly, is so inconsequential, tweeting about it would be a waste of technology and your time.

My guess is I’ll tweet along quick book updates and good articles worth reading (maybe even some that I’m writing!). And hopefully, I’ll add some value to my lucky two followers, or do I dare say three? (Hint, hint. Follow me at https://twitter.com/EricaSwift.)