Just in time for the holiday season, Zynga has released a real life Words With Friends board game. A physical board game.

Isn't the real life version of Words With Friends the classic and long-existing game Scrabble?

According to Hasbro's website:

The hot social word game just got more social! For the first time ever, you can play WORDS WITH FRIENDS in person with your favorite wordies. Use the tiles to build words on the gameboard and rack up the points while you challenge your friends in person.

For the first time ever? Like I said, isn't this just Scrabble?

I love social media (and social gaming) but let's not let WWF think it was in any way, shape, or form, original  But your friends and family Scrabble--the ORIGINAL--this holiday season!

Everyone has that one "friend" on the internet that is overly open. Your feed is always flooded with their daily thoughts, pictures, and live updating on their every waking moment. Has social media made people share too much? Are we a society that is moving towards being too social?


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I'm sorry I've been a little all over the place lately and a little absent from writing. But I have really exciting news that might smooth everything over...


Well not yet, technically, but I'm well on my way. To chronicle the adventure that is homeownership, I have started a blog to talk about it and ask/get advice. Ultimately, I'm trying to create a resource for young, single women (like myself) to use as a guide to buying and owning their own home. There's no reason to wait to be in a serious relationship or get married. The time is now! It's a buyers market! And there is nothing more empowering than taking charge of your life and make something for yourself!

So please join me in this insane journey:

As the holiday season commences and Black Friday game plans are being put together, present budgeting can be a valuable tool.

How many times do find something you want to buy but you stand there thinking about what else you've already bought for this person? How many times do you realize you've really overspent on a particular person? How many times have you forgotten about presents you purchased and lose them somewhere in your house and never give them to a person? So much valuable time and money wasted!

Last year I downloaded Christmas Gifts List Free for my iPhone and it was the perfect solutions for all of my shopping, planning, and budgeting needs for the season!

Once you've downloaded the app, start off by adding people to your list of present recievers and setting a budget for that individual.

Once you've done that, go into that person(s) section and start adding items and their cost to your shopping guide.

Once you've purchased an item for that person, check it off in the list and the app will recalculate how much you have spent and what is left of your budget for that person.

On the apps homescreen, it keeps a running tally of all the people you are shopping for this season and how much you are spending/have spent on each and everyone one of them. Once you've finished shopping for a person just place a check mark next to their name.

Apparently last year I really under-budgeted!

You can even have a secure log in password for the app to keep your pesky loved ones from snooping around and ruining the surprise!
Christmas Gifts List Free can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store for iPhones, iPods, and iPads.




DISCLAIMER: All the screencaps shown here are based on last year's Christmas shopping plus a little creative altering as examples. To those people shown here, don't get all excited... I hardly done any shopping!

Here's what happened in the world this week:

• Facebook Testing "Page Only" News Feed View - FB has been testing the special News Feed view over the last few weeks and plans to start rolling it out to all users on Wednesday. It’s a ‘Pages only’ view of your news feed makes it even easier for people to keep up with the Pages they care about most.
• Facebook’s New Job Board Puts LinkedIn on Notice - Watch out, LinkedIn. Facebook launched a new Social Jobs app on Wednesday in partnership with the Department of Labor and several leading career websites.
• Gmail Now Lets You Search for Emails by Size and More - Gmail has unveiled new ways to make searching for messages “faster and easier,” the service announced Wednesday.
• Pinterest Launches Business Pages - Now your business or brand can have an official business profile on Pinterest. Get pinning, people!
• Facebook Rolls Out Share Button on Mobile Site - All I have to say is, FINALLY! I'm thinking this is definitely going to increase the amount of mobile social sharing even more!

And some fun stuff from some fellow bloggers:

• A Seller Speaks: The Secrets Of Buying Fake Twitter Followers By Lauren Dugan
• How Disney Creates Magic through Social Media by Harrison Kratz

Finally, the day all of us digital marketers have been waiting for... business accounts for Pinterest!

In the beginning of this guide, Pinterest is quoted as saying this about business pages,

"Thousands of businesses have become a part of our community, giving great ideas, content, and inspiration to people on Pinterest. Whether it’s Anthropologie sharing awesome clothes, Whole Foods sharing tasty recipes, the Smithsonian sharing fascinating collections, or Amazon making products easy to pin, many of us have been inspired on Pinterest by businesses."

... and I couldn't agree more. I've said it before (and a million other times) visual media is the future of social media and brands need to take all the steps to ensure they are keeping up with trends like Pinterest.

If you're interested in taking your business to the next level of social media marketing, I recommend this step-by-step guide to Pinterest for Businesses by HubSpot. It's a free online download!

More from HubSpot:

• 55 Brands Rocking Social Media with Visual Content

Although broadcasted live on Election Day 2012, this episode of Social Media Meltdown did not cover election news and updates. Instead we had an even better idea! We analyzed some of the social media strategies in this year’s political race and gave some pointers on how social media can and should be used by political movers and shakers.


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