social – Bri Alys, LLC

Social Bucket List

Published on June 2016June 2016 by BriAlys

“Most people only travel a few times a year 😞, but we talk 👭 and read 📚 and dream 💤 about it all the time 🙋🏽. We realized that every dinner, 🍝 Instagram feed 📷 and glossy mag 📰 is full of inspiration💡, but it all tends to be lost 👀 in space 🚀 when we finally stand there at the airport. ✈️”

Soo very true! Now there’s an app, Soon, that helps you keep track of all the cool places you want see or things you want to try or do! Think of it as your personal social bucket list, stored right on your phone (iOS only). You can add books, movies, restaurants and more!

Learn more by watching Soon in action below. Happy Sooning (?) !

quote mashable, picture and video techcrunch

The Ultimate Entertainment Package

Published on May 2016May 2016 by BriAlys

Today I’m reviewing my ultimate entertainment package – a list of my must have services to keep you going while you wait, when you’re in between tasks or just when you need something to do! There are a lot of things I could have added, one-offs like TED Talks, but this list includes only things I do on a very regularly bases. In no particular order:

Instagram – THE best place to view (pretty) pictures. I mostly follow people who buy/display pretty things: handbags, shoes, jewelry, other accounts that post funny videos and travel-related things. I’m not on it to gain followers or friends. I also don’t care about likes.

Twitter – My goto for trending topics. At any given moment I can see the top 10 things the country/world is talking about. I also regularly use it when I’m watching shows/sporting events to see what other people are saying about the topic.

Spotify – Must have music streaming service. The music industry is becoming more and more fragmented everyday. From Beyonce (Tidal) to Drake (Apple Music), Chance the Rapper (Apple Music), Kanye (Tidal) and others – artists are striking deals that make their music available solely on one music service and not the others. But be patient grasshoppers, eventually their music will be available on your preferred music streaming service (usually ~2 weeks later) and you’ll be able to freely partake without spending more $. Until then, there’s always YouTube and VEVO. BTW: Mondays are for DiscoverWeekly and always Spotify while you shower.

Netflix – THE best movie streaming service. House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and MANY more. There’s not much more to say other than it’s awesome. (I also have access to Amazon Prime Video; but that’s only an added bonus of my Prime membership).

Overcast – This one is fairly new for me; but, I’m loving it! It’s the very best way to listen to podcasts on your iPhone. So far I’m into: The Read, Keepin it 1600 and Watching Thrones. I’m sure I’ll add others over time. Listen while you cook, clean, work or commute!

HBO – I love HBO. OMG, I can’t tell you how many great shows, (original) series and documentaries they have. Game of Thrones, Real Time with Bill Mahr, Silicon Valley, …. I could go on and on! In the past few days I’ve even been thinking about buying some stock. 🤑

Feedly – I’ve told you about this one before. It’s basically a news aggregator of things I like to read. Instead of having multiple sites (Lifehacker, The Every Girl, Mashable, etc.) flood your inbox with emails everyday, you can subscribe to their articles/posts and read them using the Feedly app – on/at your own time. Feedly creates of a pull situation – I have to physically go retrieve items when I want to read them – vs. a push situation where you are automatically notified/sent updates. Now, I do like the push approach for music i.e. when artists I follow release a new album, just not for news.

I know some of you may be thinking Snapchat, Periscope and Facebook are missing but honestly I’m just not into those that much. I do use them, just not on a regular basis. Also chat services like GroupMe and What’s App are not on my list. Yes, I have accounts with those an the apps are on my phone; but, I honestly don’t use them that much and I’m NOT a fan of group texts. I also sometimes will check Pinterest and We Heart It but those have also worn off over time… do what works for you!

So, here’s the thing: all of the services on my list are super convenient, easy to access and very affordable. Feedly, Overcast, Instagram and Twitter are free and you can get Spotify, Netflix and HBO for about $10-$15/month each – $35/month gets you all in. I’d never have cable if my husband didn’t pay for it. Actually the extent of my relationship with Comcast would be internet service (that is, until Google Fiber comes to town). Happy Entertaining!!!

My Home Screen = Most Important Screen

IBM goes Email

Published on November 2014 by BriAlys

IBM is making the leap into the (not-so) wonderful world of email. I’ve told you before about my own email annoyances in the workplace. One thing I didn’t mention is that typically when I get an email with multiple people copied on it, I spend about 3 clicks per person trying to find out who they are, what their role is and who they report to. This is all very important stuff to know before you Reply!

Verse from IBM – is a new email like Gmail from Google and iCloud from Apple. Verse is aiming to solve the problem I describe above and more! Even if you don’t plan to use it right away, go ahead and sign up here to notified when you can reserve your preferred username. Using email services of the past (i.e. AOL, Hotmail) is a sure way to date yourself – sorry mom and hubby 🙂

digital p’s and q’s

Published on February 2014February 2014 by BriAlys

Do you know the “rules” of social media? Everyone of us posts and retweets, what we believe to be the fabulous happenings/events/things in our life. Some photos are our own and sometimes they belong to others. Our friends at W Magazine remind us that there are rules, to which we should all oblige. Fashion designer Jason Wu describes how things have changed:

Then… Admirers used to approach him with a bashful “Hi, you don’t know me, but I love your work” and request a photo together, which he’d always oblige.

Now… These days, however, many of them simply hold a smart phone in front of his face, take a shot, and move on—without saying a word.

Do you think that’s rude? Are you guilty?? Next time you decide to post that fabulous pic, use the tips below to help you mind your digital p’s and q’s.

Don’t Flood the Feed: Unless you run a food blog, do you really need to post a picture of EVERY meal you eat? #diversify
Don’t Leave Evidence: If you visit your “friend’s” city without telling her, why make it obvious? You’ve seen those “you didn’t take me with you” responses. Or then again, maybe you don’t care!
Do Honor the Hashtag: It’s the best way to say thank-you or to get your picture noticed! Hashtags are cute, except when you use a thousand – then it kind of looks desperate…
Don’t Beg for Retweets: It’s your page and it shows your personality. If you need someone else to validate what you’ve posted, why post it in the first place?
Don’t Engage Haters: Really? The back and forth? #ChileBye Kill them with kindness! If that doesn’t work there’s always this neat little functionality called #block and #delete.
Don’t Oversnap Your Welcome: Is there really a need to share ALL 100 photos of the Eifel tower you took on your recent trip? Pick the best one and share it! And please not the blurry one…
Don’t Forage for Followers: I can explain this one very quickly. You know that follow button on my account, the account I setup? Well… I control it. #choice
Don’t Hold a Grudge: Not invited? Get over it. Have your own dinner party and invite whoever you want!

Why You Should Heart It

Published on January 2014 by BriAlys

Teens are paving the way in Social Media: They flocked to Instagram and we followed. Then they went to Snapchat and that became the big thing. Now you have yet another picture-driven social media platform to catch up on, We♥It. (think Pinterest).

Even though I absolutely LOV*E Pinterest (see Commandment #2) , I’ve been playing around with We♥It for a couple of days. Since the best way to show differences is by contrast, I used this list of most-searched terms in 2013 and executed the same searches on both platforms using my iPad mini. The series of images below compares search results from the main screen only: Pinterest on the left, We♥It on the right. Notice any trends that favor We♥It? No words, 2) More images, 3) Collections (“boards” people have made with this tag), 4) Hearters (other people who have liked the tag).

The We♥It site is just more fun, more hip. Right on the main page it says: Believe, Feel, Love, Be, Create, Inspire. Doesn’t that just make you feel amazing? I must admit at times I’ve felt as though I’ve reached the end of Pinterest; but, on We♥It’s site, I feel like there is endless scrolling (maybe because I’m newer to this app.. Time to update my Commandments!). What’s even better is that it shows you top tags and you can see what’s trending yesterday or last week!

Happy Hearting!♥

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Then… Admirers used to approach him with a bashful “Hi, you don’t know me, but I love your work” and request a photo together, which he’d always oblige.

Now… These days, however, many of them simply hold a smart phone in front of his face, take a shot, and move on—without saying a word.

Do you think that’s rude? Are you guilty?? Next time you decide to post that fabulous pic, use the tips below to help you mind your digital p’s and q’s.

Don’t Flood the Feed: Unless you run a food blog, do you really need to post a picture of EVERY meal you eat? #diversify

Don’t Leave Evidence: If you visit your “friend’s” city without telling her, why make it obvious? You’ve seen those “you didn’t take me with you” responses. Or then again, maybe you don’t care!

Do Honor the Hashtag: It’s the best way to say thank-you or to get your picture noticed! Hashtags are cute, except when you use a thousand – then it kind of looks desperate…

Don’t Beg for Retweets: It’s your page and it shows your personality. If you need someone else to validate what you’ve posted, why post it in the first place?

Don’t Engage Haters: Really? The back and forth? #ChileBye Kill them with kindness! If that doesn’t work there’s always this neat little functionality called #block and #delete.

Don’t Oversnap Your Welcome: Is there really a need to share ALL 100 photos of the Eifel tower you took on your recent trip? Pick the best one and share it! And please not the blurry one…

Don’t Forage for Followers: I can explain this one very quickly. You know that follow button on my account, the account I setup? Well… I control it. #choice

Don’t Hold a Grudge: Not invited? Get over it. Have your own dinner party and invite whoever you want!

Teens are paving the way in Social Media: They flocked to Instagram and we followed. Then they went to Snapchat and that became the big thing. Now you have yet another picture-driven social media platform to catch up on, We♥It. (think Pinterest).

Happy Hearting!♥