I’ve been on the fence about doing a post about this particular medium in the online realm because like some of the others we have briefly discussed, it is NOT a social network per se. What Klout amounts to is a kind of gauge as to what ones social media standings are based on a number of criteria that gets pooled all together from interactions on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and all the rest of them.

According to what I have read about Klout, it ranks you on a 1-100 scale and I imagine that the closer you are to 100 means the more influential in Klout you are perceived to be in terms of online influence. The account I created was set up by using my Official Twitter for PiercingMetal.com because while a personal profile might have been nice, I decided to do one for the brand identity to see how it was reaching the world around it. At the time of this posting, I appear to rank a “57″ Klout Score which I guess is not all that influential across its system. To be honest I am not all that concerned about that since it does not affect the way that I do things on the website and blogs that I compose for you all. The tally itself has been one of the main concerns that people have with this medium as many feel that it is not truly representative to ones true social networking impact. Who knows. To me this stuff is all subjective anyway but still fun to see how it all presents itself. Check it out…..

PiercingMetal on Klout – HERE

It’s interesting to learn how they compile one’s Klout score and you can learn all about that via their Wikipedia entry which I have added to this posting. Some hold their findings with a bit of a question about the overall validity of them and I cannot blame them because even I found a couple of things that didn’t make sense being a part of my numeric gauge. When our friends or colleagues join in on Klout and see us they can rate us as either an influencer of their own stuff or not. I do admit to being a little flattered when I see that someone I know rates me as being of influence in a particular area, but let me not get misty eyed here. One thing that did surprise me was several accounts that list under my profile as being my own influencers. Now to be honest I only have about an handful of people that influence me in Media and in the social networking side and I do not recall marking many of those listed as being influential to me. If they are automatically making me view certain profiles as influential to my own workings then I am suspect of this. Maybe this stuff will mean a lot more to you but for me its only something to give a glance to every now and again. I did update my profile to reflect my business Linked In and the Official Facebook Page for the website so let’s see if they have any impact on the current score.

What are your own thoughts on this kind of process? Do you think its valid or a bunch of hooey?

Official Wikipedia Entry = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klout

Alright, now this next one is not as much of a Social Network as it is a means to put up a signpost that will show off how people can network with you socially. Does that make any sense? I found this one while clicking around in Foodspotting and was reading the profile page of one of my contacts. I was directed to this medium and thought it to be very interesting, depending on just how much you actually want to put out there. Since I have a few different interests and spaces online that direct you to my adventures in music reporting or photography, I felt that I should examine it a little deeper.

With this being in mind I did a test run of this resource with an account for myself and used my real name as opposed to the pen name of Piercing Ken or my PiercingMetal brand identity and listed my WordPress Blogs for PiercingMetal, my site Twitter and Instagram accounts first. You have a score of options to choose from and right off the bat for me there is stuff in those networks that I want people to find and hopefully enjoy the most. I opted to NOT add my personal Facebook Page and instead chose to add the two Official Facebook Pages that I maintain for each of my websites. Like many friends of mine, I am becoming a lot more strict on who I want accessing my personal happenings but if it is the media stuff that you enjoy then by all means hit up our official pages. You appear to be able to add a Google+ account along with a Tumblr and while I have these I essentially repeat many postings that you see on Facebook in those mediums. There are Last FM and Reverbnation accounts for the website, but each are used sparingly. Check out the graphic below to see the menu. Pardon the grayed out ones, this is from my profile and hence the ones I am using.

When I compiled my apps I was surprised to learn of two new Social Networks that I had not yet explored but they really don’t seem like ones I will tinker with anyway in all honesty. I am speaking of both Smarterer and Trippy and since I didn’t see how I would employ them as a media person you shall NOT be seeing overviews in this little set of observations any time soon. They had something related to food and drink called “Forkly” but I am a die hard Foodspotting dude now and shall stick by them. This looked exactly the same as far as interface went. Since I run the main PiercingMetal.com and PiercingKen.com websites I used the option to add the two links so perhaps if you have any number of domains under your command that you should do the same thing for good measure. They offer the ability to find ones friends but this is where I ran into an issue. I clicked “Find Your Friends” and while it worked on finding a couple of my Twitter connections, it took forever and then failed on my attempts to import the contacts on both Gmail.com and AOL.com. There is also a means to use your Yahoo.com email but I do not use that account at this point in my life. Its a redirect for me like Hotmail.com is. I didn’t get an error message – it just failed on me. So much for that. I guess anyone who searches for my name on this can find me with little incident or just CLICK THIS since they are right here already

So what made me add this to our little rundown of Social Networking sites and the like? Well, considering this resource amounts to a signpost of what you have going on in the online world, I felt that it helps you reach new people that might be of like mind or reconnect with friends who might be out there as well. Depending on what you want to share you can post it on this page and let yourself be found. You can even toss in a brief bio to cover all the bases. They seem to have the chance to get some business cards with this information on them but I already have a ton of cards with my branding already and I don’t post any of my social networks on them since it is secondary to what I am doing out there. You might feel different and that is alright with me. The link below brings you to the service so give it a whirl and if you add us to your favorites we hope that you click our links and find out more about what we are doing. Have fun.

Official Website: http://about.me/

This news might surprise you but “Yes, there is now one more Social Network to learn about”.  Oh come on, did you not think that this was going to happen?   I hate to alarm you but while the world currently finds itself entrenched in Facebook and Twitter, these networks are going to keep coming at us and vying for our attention.  So now let’s welcome to the fold a new networking site called “Staree”.  I first learned about Staree from the fine folks at Blog World Expo (which is now going by the name “New Media Expo” in case you have not heard) and like all new launches you needed to “apply” or “request” an invite to sign up.  After I tooled around the screens and saw that I could list my Official PiercingMetal Twitter and also make mention of the various other networks where you could find the brand I pressed “submit request” and waited to see what would happen.

Since this is new and only at the “invite” time of its existence there is not a lot of playing around that I could actually do since I don’t have anyone connected to me, nor did I see a means to find ones existing friends by searching via an email address. I copied the screen for my profile for your examination and found a couple of interesting items on it that I was not able to find any more information about. Take a look at the image and know you can make it larger by clicking on it.

Did you see the part on the side that showcases a dollar value? That is apparently one of the aspects of this network as it said on one of the screens I found that you can “take pictures and earn money”. Believe me I am always game for making a little side scratch since PiercingMetal.com does NOT pay its bills by reaching into the money tree branches. If the images they pay you for somehow become the exclusive property of Staree then this doesn’t interest me at all, since my images are mine and no one else’s. The first post I did was to show my “Official Photo” that Skeleton Pete took for me about a year ago as a test sample. I wanted to post some text and do a little introduction to say who I was and the like but it seems at this point the only options are to post a photo or a video. Visually this first struck me as very similar to Tumblr and I would have hoped that we would find the means to RSS some posted content into our own streams in Staree as we once were able to do in Tumblr but that did not appear to be the case.

I’ll keep experimenting and you readers are welcome to find my profile via this LINK but do be aware that the best place to keep up with the website is via the Facebook Fan Page and the Official Twitter because they are used quite a bit to tie all of our adventures together. Even though Facebook made some serious changes to the reach of its fan pages unless you paid, you can still be in the loop if you check back with it on a regular basis. Should I learn anything else that is cool about Staree I will append that information into the narrative for your indulgence.

UPDATE 5/3/2013: I’ve never found any positive use for the website brand via Staree and decided to cancel my account this evening. The interesting thing was that there was NO means for me to login and go to account settings and choose this option on my own. Instead I had to search around on their Facebook to hopefully find someone who had inquired about the same procedure. This exploration found me learning that a ticket needed to be drafted to their support desk who would address it in the order it was received. Wow. Talk about effective. Goodbye Staree, you appear pointless to me.

Continuing along in my little series of narratives that briefly discuss the Social Networking mediums of the day I get to a site/service that I actually first learned about at the NY Comic Con back in 2011. Perhaps you recall one of the photos that referenced them if you have a very focused and attentive eye and if you do not, this is called Foodspotting. So what is it and why am I even discussing it on my Metal Sites blog you might be asking.

Foodspotting (which I think is one word) is what they are calling a “visual food guide” and of course “there’s an App for that”. The premise is kind of cool and appealed to me quite a bit since I like to go and meet friends at various bars or restaurants before hitting the Metal shows that we are all attending. Sometimes you find an amazing place to hang and start to call it home, and such practices led me to do my other series of narratives in my “PiercingMetal Pregaming” series. New readers might not know about this one unless they are digging deep into the blog, but they were done to discuss the various places my friends and I would convene before shows for food and drink. I’ve not done one of them in awhile and will likely create any of the new ones in my personal blog since I discuss food much more often over there; but I digress let’s get back to Foodspotting. The site works with the idea of our not only recommending a place to go and eat but also a particular dish that you or a friend might have ordered. Let’s say I ordered a burger at Smith’s Bar and wanted to share my thoughts on it with anyone who follows me. I can snap a photo with my phone and then upload it to the site and line out some comments about the order itself. Was it good, was it crappy, did it leave me wanting more or just left me cold? Whatever it was you can say it here. That’s pretty cool right? I think so, since the best way to find awesome things is through our friends in many cases.

From there you can like other peoples posted images or say that you want to try it yourself and if it was helpful. To me this was almost like dissecting the sites of Foursquare and Yelp! a little more. Foursquare tells our friends where we are, while Yelp! lets us analyze the larger experience and now Foodspotting let’s you get down to the finer details. Whew, that’s a lot of work to go have a good time isn’t it? At the time of my posting this narrative, I have not really dove into it as a user but I plan to going forward. Friends and interested parties who might be reading this post can find me by searching my real name of Ken Pierce. At the end of the day the question remains as to is this really a Social Network or not, and part of me says yes it is because what is more social than sitting down for a meal or a drink with ones friends. It’s certainly a lot more social than telling people you did it on Facebook right? Let’s run with that model okay? Do check it out and happy dining. I look forward to your input on some great places that I should investigate during my own adventures in our fair metropolis.

Official Website: http://www.foodspotting.com/

Now this one was a little more up my alley because it dealt with the direct sharing of music that was currently on your mind and plays with how you would normally tell your friends about it so they could indulge in the song or band as well. Welcome to the newest Social Networking medium that they call “This Is My Jam” and I have to thank our stalwart colleague Skeleton Pete for directing me to it. Yes there are a lot of ways to share music out there thanks to the likes of Facebook and Twitter among others but this one seemed a little more unique so I decided to play around with it. Once you are at the site you can either create your account by signing in with Facebook, Twitter or starting from scratch with your email address. I decided to sign in with my Official PiercingMetal Twitter account of @piercingmetal since I am trying to use that particular medium a lot more as a journalist these days. It’s pretty straight forward and I think that it took me about five minutes to get underway.

Once I created my account I selected my first official “jam” and decided that “Quantum Symphony” by the band Unexpect would be my first choice in this experiment. You essentially search for the tune that you want to broadcast and then post a brief thought about it and make it your jam. Good fun and more especially so if it helps a band that really needs the attention and a wider audience base. This jam will stay in place for one week and then you are asked to submit another choice and so on. You can accrue followers and friends much like the other social networks that are out there. When I dug around the settings a little more I discovered that you could also connect your Facebook and Last FM account to it and as you already know I did mine with Twitter. I opted to only add my Last FM to the mix because the Facebook profile it selected was not my Official PiercingMetal Facebook page and was instead my personal profile. I’m really trying to wean off using the personal page for my Metal adventuring as much as possible lately since that is nice to have as a space to breathe every now and again outside of all the thunderous stuff that I find myself doing.

Please check out this newness and by all means search for me using “PiercingMetal”, I should be easy enough to locate. Let’s all help out some extraordinary musical talents together.

Official Website: http://www.thisismyjam.com

If you have an iPhone you have no doubt already heard about and have been using the application known as “Instagram”. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that almost everyone I know must have an iPhone because I am constantly seeing their captured visuals on their Facebook pages and Twitter posts. So what is Instagram and why am I adding it to this little series of narratives you might ask? Well, let’s get down to it shall we.

Launched to the public as a free application in October 2010, Instagram is a photographic application that makes use of your Smartphones camera and let’s you change images around a little bit in terms of their design and shading to make them even more appealing or interesting. You can even add captions to them that your friends/followers can read or comment back on. Similar to the Facebook Liking system, there is a little heart that you can click to approve an image. Sadly, at this point in time when I post this for you, its only something that the iPhone users seem to have to their advantage in their application arsenal. Mind you I can take photos with my Droid Incredible device and then share with my Twitter and Facebook as well, but the tinkering that people can do in Instagram adds a new level of coolness to doing this kind of thing and that is what is driving more and more people to download it. Those who want to play around can get it via the iTunes Store.

Now to the reason I added this to my little Social Networking narratives. The answer to that is very simple. With so many people networking and sharing information via the two giant Facebook and Twitter mediums, the use of Instagram has created a sort of photo social networking. I’ve not been able to really experiment by being a Droid user, but I have looked at friends phones and their accounts with them to see how they are chiming in on celebrity account photos or following people of note or friends that they find more interesting than some others. The following and commenting on and sharing of these images makes it a bit of a Social Network of its own to me but on a slightly different level. It’s pretty cool as long as people keep using this for good and not to do anyone harm. I will add that I do not know offhand if Instagram will work on the new iPad’s that are coming out in March so if any readers get one and can play around perhaps let us know in the comments section of this posting.

UPDATE 4/3/2012: I am happy to be able to share this news with you readers and Android device users because today anyone with a Droid phone will be able to download and use Instagram. For me this is a kind of technological birthday present for the website because tomorrow is the anniversary of PiercingMetal’s launch. I downloaded it and can be found under the user name of “PiercingKen”. I might create a more music scene focused ID like PiercingMetal and this way can share exclusive finds that relate to my journalism and photo adventures. For now though I will use this ID and dabble about to see what I can learn. Follow me if you want.

PiercingKen on Instagram = HERE

UPDATE 4/12/2012: Wow, Facebook has purchased Instagram. Will this be good or bad? You decide. I am on the fence about it.

UPDATE 9/15/2012: I’m heading out to see Nightwish and Kamelot in New York City this evening and since its a big event for Metal I decided that I would act upon my months ago comment about potentially creating an Instagram account purely for PiercingMetal.com adventures in music and media. My readers already know that I take a lot of photos so this makes sense and lets me instantly get some more cool ideas out before I sit down and write the articles and blogs up. I think that it will be a lot of fun so please come and follow that account via the link below.

PiercingMetal on Instagram = HERE/

Official Website: http://www.instagram.com
Official Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram

I first heard about Pinterest thanks to the postings over on the Blog World & New Media Expo Facebook page that I am a fan of. This mention intrigued me since they often point out things that are very helpful to resources like my own and columns such as this that try to explain the good and bad of such things. That being said, my next Social Networking examination would be “Pinterest”. It appears to be a combination of the word “pin” and “interest”. Clever.

Pinterest is labelled as an online pin board where you can keep reference to things that interest you the most. After I managed to get my account activated (you had to request an invite during the early stages like Google+ before being approved) I figured I would use the service to broadcast several friends websites as my test subjects and hence send more friends over to my friend SkeletonPete, the Beehive Hairdresser and even my own PiercingKen site but there didn’t appear to be a clear way to do this kind of thing. Instead I was able to add several of my existing Facebook friends and choose to “Follow Them” much like is done in Twitter. Once they find a pinner who they have interest in, I will see it, and the same applies for things that I enjoy being broadcast to them. Sadly this did not have any immediate value for the things I was doing on PiercingMetal.com because there did not see to be an easily discoverable “music” category. There was Art, Photography, Cooking, and Tourism, so I followed a bunch of people for good measure. I did add the websites that I mentioned a little earlier but who knows if they will find any additional readers for me.

I understand that this is a new thing so perhaps it has some kinks to work out, but at the end of the day I just had far too many other things keeping my interest so I will not be playing around on Pinterest all that much. Maybe it is what you are looking for and if so, that is awesome.

Official Website: https://pinterest.com/

Have you Yelped yet?

I know, I know, what on Earth are you talking about this time Ken? Well here is the scoop about Yelp as I continue to offer up my thoughts about the various Social Networks and how we apply their use in the role of Music Journalist and Photographer for the PiercingMetal Command HQ. Yelp is a reviews website and Social Network that lets you post your thoughts about restaurants, stores and numerous other things. You are able to rate across a five star scale and then offer up your objective views about the space. For example, let’s assume you visit a fast food restaurant and it takes you thirty minutes to get an order in when there is no one on the line. Clearly this is something that other Yelpers could benefit in learning about. Oh yes, the reviewer community are called Yelpers. Pretty clever right?

I’ve been using this a little more religiously over the past year and really try to be as on point as possible. If I have only tried the hamburger at a place I cannot speak to the rest of their cuisine, but I stress that this is all I had. If I had companions with me who had other fare that I sampled I mention this, or line out their own comments for better Yelper understanding. It’s very important to be honest with what you write and not have an agenda over one place against another. Questionable reviews can get flagged by the other Yelpers in the community and sometimes the profile or email address gets banned for improper practices. Keep that stuff in mind when you begin typing. To see my existing reviews and profile just click the logo below as that will bring you right over there. I add to my Yelp account when the moment and the experience motivates me to do so. At this point in time there are a few dozen reviews and surely more to come since I have been trying some new places as well as re-visiting some favorites.

One quick note about my profile. While I often speak about the places and spaces that I adventure into for the sake of my musical scribe life, it is a personal profile at the end of the day. With that in mind when it comes to adding people to the list of friends in the network I am pretty locked into only adding those folks who I actually know or do business with as a member of the media. It’s nothing personal and can be thought of as keeping certain groups in certain circles like one does with the Google+ stuff. One of the things that I like most about this network is that you can follow the Yelpers that you find of some interest and still leave them compliments, messages and the like. Someone actually contacted me about a restaurant once and remembered seeing me at a Metal show. I was more than happy to help them along.

The premise has expanded to more than just restaurants and bars and now features shops, scenic places and more. I’ve never had to add a new place but I think that you can do that if you need to. Each Yelp review also offers the means to answer additional questions that will benefit the community so please always try to answer them since its very helpful. If there is free Wi-Fi let them know, if there is only street parking get the word out and if you need to wear a tuxedo and tails – You get the picture – Just be honest and objective as that makes you more valuable to the whole process. Yelpers who continually add items and grow popular became Elite members and hence are respected a lot more. The way I use this as a writing adventurer is that I speak about the places I am hitting before or after a concert or event and even discussing the venue of the show itself when its possible to give a few tips to the fans who might want to know more about the place.

This kind of Social Network was one of the key reasons that I began my series of Concert Pre-Gaming narratives some months ago. I offer up some candid images from those hangs and a little more fun details and memories. Check those out when time allows via THIS LINK.

Learn more about Yelp by clicking their official Wikipedia entry HERE.

Should you have any interest in seeing the places that I have Yelped, please check me out via the badge link below. You can click “Follow This Reviewer” if you like and then you will be in the loop a little more.

Recent reviews by Ken P.

What's this?

I guess I can blame my friend Rys for making me aware of this particular little home on the web but I mean that in an entirely good way of course as she is only looking to keep me in the loop of things she learns about via her online adventures. Now as readers of the PiercingMetal Musings blog have been aware already, I’ve been giving some light examination to the various Social Networking sites that are available and had lined out how they were being used by either PiercingMetal.com as a resource or myself as a single individual. This was originally a lengthy blog posting and started to need to many edits for my liking and was eventually dissected into specific pieces that focused on each branding we happened upon. That being said we are now at the recently discovered “Friendburst”.

Friendburst is listed as a “place for sharing” and apparently one is limited to only fifty “50″ friends on said network based on its aim at connecting you with those you already know in life or really communicate with. I signed onto the service to see what it was all about and of course listed my websites and twitter feed in my profile but I really didn’t find anyone that I knew using it. Mind you I have had the account for months already before adding this little posting to the batch of the others. Clearly Facebook has become the dominating force of nature out there and this new Friendburst resource is little more than where Friendster and MySpace were years ago. I deleted my Friendster account at the beginning of the summer when drastic changes to its format made it useless to me, and MySpace is just there in terms of my account.

While not meaning to point a finger at or scorn those who might be enjoying Friendburst despite my reservations it was definitely not for someone like me who is seeking to widen their circles exponentially or have their enterprise and work shared across numerous mediums. There is no apparent way to scan an email address to see if friends are in the network and I will say right off the bat that searching for friends one by one is a tedious process that no one will do. It’s quite possible that my account on Friendburst will not last the year but you are welcome to give it a whirl by clicking the logo above. It shall take you to the main screen of the network and you can peruse it at your leisure. There is no page for PiercingMetal.com on Friendburst either so stick with our Facebook or Twitter feed if you are looking for us at all.

It’s without question that Google is one of the main innovators of “stuff to enjoy” and work with when it comes to the world wide web, and I have loved checking out each and every one of them since I first got my email “invite” to start a free Gmail.com account.  At the time I as a diehard AOL user (which is America Online for those no longer familiar with the abbreviation) and its since that first account setup it has become my primary personal address. Over the years they’ve given us Google Earth, Google Docs and even Google Buzz; the latter of which was briefly discussed on our Social Networking narratives. That brings us to the newest announcement of Google + which is designed to help you “share” what you are most interested in with your friends and the online world around you.

This project is in its very beginning stages and I signed up as one of the numerous beta testing public but I am guessing we are closer to its being made available to a wider audience today than when I first did this a couple of weeks ago. The premise appeals to me since its about sharing that which you love with those who might find you during some Google searches. I view it as being very helpful to the articles on PiercingMetal.com as well since the more that this work is shared around peoples circles of friends, then the greater impact the viewpoints have in guiding you to something that was thought to be outstanding or to steer clear of something determined to be dreadful.  My guess is that Google is aiming its sights on the stuff that Facebook is doing and that is good, a little competition keeps things interesting in this ever-changing online realm.

I have experimented on how it works by doing some searches for things I regularly enjoy or have written on my own and felt the largest sampling of the public would appreciate.  When you get your list in a Google screen and are in the “+” program, you see a little “plus 1″ icon that is greyed out.  If you want to speak up for this particular item you just click the icon and it shows that you gave this a plus one.  It’s kind of like giving something a thumbs up or in direct example “Liking” something on Facebook.  The critical difference seems to be that it’s going to be available across the entire Googlesphere as opposed to being only viewed in Facebook as something people dig.  My hope is that it works out in the fashion that they expect it to because it has some promise and might bring things a wider level of attention.  There are so many things online that it sometimes becomes difficult to find them and this could make a difference.  If you click the logo above you will see that I did a Google search for some PiercingMetal.com things and if you are signed up for the “Plus 1″ project we welcome you giving it a whirl on some of those items.  When you scroll over the shaded out icon it suggests for you to “Recommend This Item”.  Then I encourage you to support the other stuff you are most passionate about so the world at large knows that they need to pay more attention to it.  If you like it, “Plus 1″ it.  You would be doing some good for all of it.

The Social Networking aspect of Google Plus does take a little getting used to.  When you check it out you will see a number of Circles and these allot Family, Friends, Acquaintances and Following.  So essentially you can be Following a website profile like PiercingMetal.com to see what they are up to and place those who you know in Acquaintances as opposed to friends.  In similar fashion to Facebook, there is a Stream that shows you the latest news from the people who you have added to the Circles on your profile.  Since I am a music journalist I have created two additional Circles with one being restricted to the talented people I am proud to call friends and the Media Contacts that I have made over the years.  Since some of these Media Contacts are now actually friends in my regular day, I have included them in my Friends Circle.  Confused yet?  Don’t be because it all makes a little sense when you look at it like this.  Let’s say you had a new job interview and you want people to know about it.  You can share this post with the Friends and Family but not the Media Contacts or Acquaintances circles.  I have always hated how people who barely know me get to “like” or add comments to things I post on my personal Facebook but deleting people on the network now seems to cause a whole new world of crap.  Who has time for dealing with that.  What I would really love to do is connect my “Buzz” account to this profile as opposed to my primary personal one but since I did post the site Facebook and Twitter so at least people can find those links and keep up with the adventures in Media in the same fashion.

I created a profile for PiercingMetal.com on Google + using the email that I had to use for the official YouTube.com channel, so fans or supporters of the site are encouraged to “Follow Us” (as they would in Twitter) via this PROFILE LINK or the email address of “piercingmetalnyc@gmail.com”.  On the same note, new Media Contacts and talent are welcome to add us to their Circles in the hope of working in tandem with each other.  This is still new so it has a lot of things to work out but I will admit it has a very clean feel.  There is also an Android app that you can download for your Smartphone or non-Apple tablet device.

Learn more of the finer details about Google + via its Wikipedia entry HERE.

UPDATE 11/7/2011: Google+ has been growing as a Social Networking tool since I originally wrote up this narrative back in July and today I discovered that the option for creating what is referred to as a “Branded Page” was available. For those in need of a reference this is similar to the Facebook Fan Page for PiercingMetal in terms of connecting ones branded identity to the general public. I welcome all followers to this page and hope to somehow make it as vital to my sites efforts as the Facebook Page has become. Perhaps we can feed our Official PiercingMetal Twitter account into the statuses of our Google + official page. That would save some work.