And we’re here… where are we exactly?

Hello HDL’ers (Hard Drive Lifers)… long time no see.

Where have I been for almost a year-and-a-half?

Well, obviously neglecting this blog.

Let’s catch you up to speed, in quick bullet-point form , what’s been happening with my life:

• I’m still living feet from the Long Island Sound on the Connecticut shore. Tonight, a foot of snow is falling outside my window. Snowmaggedon is here — the second time in 3 weeks. What else do you expect from a Long Island winter?
• My generation of my family is now having children. My brother (3.5 yrs. my younger) and his wife had a son in July, and is dominating the “cuteness” arms race in our family. Let’s face it, you can’t out-cute a baby in a lion cub outfit. You just can’t!
• My turn comes in 3-5 weeks, as my wife and I have a daughter on the way in mid-February. God, please don’t let it snow like this then. There aren’t enough maternity sleighs to go around.

My role as a website editor and online community leader has morphed in the year and a half since I last posted. I am now managing more than 125 social media channels for the company I work for, and have more than 20 million Facebook fans and Twitter followers combined on those channels. Plus, I already have two Mashable Awards and a W3 Silver Award on the trophy shelf for campaigns we’ve run in 2010. And a partridge in a pear tree … who tweets as well!

What’s interesting … my love for social media that started on this blog back in Lancaster, Pa. as the Lancaster New Era’s first online journalist has now blossomed into my full-time career. I can’t get enough news and insight on Facebook, Twitter, and the whole social media marketing world as a whole.

While I started this blog to be a journalist’s observation of how the Internet and pop culture connect in daily life, I’m so far immersed in Internet culture now, it’s impossible to comment from an unbiased vantage point.

Also, my blog brand’s icon, Hard Drive Life, is almost obsolete. Seriously, who has a hard drive anymore? Almost every gadget uses flash memory drives to store data, and the whirring sound of hard drives have become scarcer.

Just looking around my apartment, I have 9 physical hard drives still in operation … 3 of which that could be classified as near-breakdown, making “death rattle” noises. And those are my backup drives!

So it’s time to re-commit the blog. I’m keeping the name HARD DRIVE LIFE (because, frankly, I own the URL … and the great Robert Scoble once proclaimed my blog to have “a great name” worthy of sponsorship. Still waiting for that call, Western Digital!!), but am now going to focus more on social media and pop culture.

Social Media is the future of society. It’s how will we will keep in touch with our family and friends, share our unique moments and life experiences,  and get information on our favorite brands and entertainment.

So here begins my renewed attempt to make heads or tails of the social media world, from my little corner of it. I hope you enjoy the ride.