New media expert, columnist and web personality Julia Allison, 29, will write a new, weekly column for Tribune Media Services (TMS), which plans to make it available to its newspaper and digital media customers beginning March 1, 2011. Each week, Allison’s “Social Studies” will offer readers her unique experience and take on electronic communication and its impact on our relationships and our lives.

Known as the cover girl for the popular August 2008 issue of Wired magazine on the secrets of her successful online/social media self-promotion, Allison may be best known for her columns in amNew York and Time Out New York, and most recently, her national television appearances alongside Justin Timberlake and Peyton Manning as Sony Corporation’s spokesperson for their VAIO® laptop, as well as hundreds of television appearances on networks NBC, CNN, VH1, Fox and MTV. She has also published articles in publications such as Newsweek, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post and Cosmopolitan.

“Julia has been a columnist, TV show host and emerging-media expert for the last six years,” said Mary Elson, TMS managing editor. “We’re pleased to combine these talents in our first effort to cover social media and its impact on our culture. Julia is a bright, smart writer with a sense of humor and an ever-growing following as a talent, speaker and personality in the social media and digital worlds. She attracts attention and followers and will enliven debate as communications technology continues to evolve.”
 
“I fell in love with social media when I taught myself HTML and created my own website as a freshman in college. There isn’t a single area in our lives–socially, politically, economically–that hasn’t been touched by the digital revolution,” said Allison. “I’ve seen both the highs and lows, and spoken publicly about my experiences at companies, universities and conferences around the world. As a columnist, I’m now interested in helping readers make sense of this ‘brave new digital domain.’”

Allison will not be at a loss for topics to cover in this space. She’ll touch on the issues and unknowns many people have in making their exploration into the world of Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn on their iPad, desktop, laptop and smartphone. Some of her preliminary topics include: the dangers of multiple online personalities, netiquette of the web, babies who tweet, cyberbullying and why everyone’s life seems so “perfect” on Facebook.

An article in MarketWatch said that she is “one of the most media-savvy twentysomethings in New York,” and Unilever’s Chief Marketing Officer Simon Clift described her as “a lesson for a $50-billion-plus behemoth like Unilever.”

Her 750-word column “Social Studies,” a study of the digital world and our place in it, will be offered through TMS to newspapers and electronic outlets in North America and abroad. You can follow Julia Allison and her column on Twitter @SocialStudies and www.SocialStudiescolumn.com.