The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) took place recently, and the nascent gadget freaks in us await January’s unveiling of shiny new toys as though it were Christmas proper. Everyone wants in on the act.

Even Google and Apple unveiled or are unveiling new products this month, and though the true identity of Apple’s product won’t be known until it’s announced Jan. 27, everyone seems to think they know what it is.

While we’ve been telling people for a long time to go ahead and grab the Twitter username you want before someone else does, it seems that Twitter will soon begin releasing usernames that seem to have been abandoned.

If they delete and release these usernames all at once, expect there to be an absolutely insane landgrab, like when Facebook suddenly allowed custom usernames and URLs.

Unfortunately, when it comes to usernames, you can’t always get what you want. But if you try canonical URLs, you’ll get what you need – an easy way to tell your audience how to find your social presence.

Elizabeth Cawein, Matthew Crawford Trisler, Eric Mathews, and Dave Barger

Eric Mathews stopped by our office to drop some knowledge on us about how two Mercury Technology Labs startups – Marks Menus and Into Outdoors – are leveraging social technologies to achieve their goals and provide functionality.

Eric notes that if Memphis wants to maintain a vibrant entrepreneurial community, then what’s going on in that community needs the city’s attention.

The Memphis Flyer gets that – and “20 Under 30,” the cover story of their latest issue, takes that idea to the general public. The story focuses on 20 of the most influential Memphians, most of whom bring attention to how great it can be to live here – and at least two of them are local social luminaries.

Stephen Hackett made the list – not for his “#gojgo” campaign, like Matthew says in the podcast (he hadn’t seen the paper yet, just the list of who was on it) – but for a post on his blog, Fork Bombr, about how if we want Memphis to be a better place, we need to take responsibility for making it so.

And there’s @ILoveMemphis herself, Kerry Crawford Trisler, married to our own Matthew Crawford Trisler (whose heart beats faster at just the sound of her name). Her efforts on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the I Love Memphis Blog have earned her not just a spot on the Flyer’s list, but the cover.

Congratulations to everyone on the list – that’s a big honor, and you all deserve it!

Please join us tomorrow – Friday – for the Core Conversation podcast. This time around we’ll be talking about Creative Commons, Copyright/Copyleft issues, and promoting music online with the Creative Commons Foundation and Eric Maskol, who wrote our crazy-catchy theme music.

Do take some time between 11:30 and 12:30 to join us. You can call in to the Core Conversation at 646-721-9429.

As for the Social Expedition Podcast we’ve been talking about all this time, you can Download it here, listen in the player at the bottom of this post, or click the iTunes logo to subscribe.

Today we’re talking about snow days – Elizabeth apparently got out of school for rain once.

"Snow Elvis Statue" by mrbrent62 on Flickr

We’re also talking about something you might do during your day off – the Facebook’s Community Council – helping to police for offensive content on Facebook through crowdsourcing.

You might also want to drink something warm, like coffee – and Google’s new Caffeine search engine algorithm may or may not be released, but it’s certainly going to affect the way social activity reflects in your search engine rankings.

But what’s kind of lame about snow days is that they make it difficult to get out and mingle with friends – say, at tweetups like the one we had Tuesday at South of Beale, welcoming Jeremiah Owyang to Memphis for a brief stay, or to our Social Expedition Breakfasts, like the one Wednesday, where Eric Mathews presented.

Rather than drive to events like that in snowy weather, it might be safer to just call a good friend. Thom Rigsby, for example, joined us on the phone from Huntsville, Ala., where he lives and works as a blogger and social media strategist.

We talked with him about the importance of getting out and meeting people in meatspace, and what he thinks 2010 will bring to the social sphere.

Don’t forget that the Core Conversation call-in podcast will start back up on Friday – We’ll be talking about the rise of the Mobile Web.

You can download the podcast, listen by clicking the player below, or subscribe in iTunes by clicking on the logo below.

Eric Mathews, co-founder of Mercury Technology Labs and LaunchMemphis, introduced the Expeditionaries to what he called the new digital divide. Currently we use the term to refer to the haves and have-nots of basic web access; the “new” digital divide would refer to the split between the haves and have-nots in the social media realm. The tweeters and the non-tweeters, the Facebookers and, well, surely there’s someone out there who’s not on Facebook.

An even closer look at the divide reveals more distinctions in levels of access or activity, Mathews said, with smart phone users landing at the high end of the spectrum, non-users at the opposite end and levels of involvement in between, from the person who is always attached to social media to the person who uses social tools occasionally through other web platforms. That idea — the integration of social elements in non-social web presences — is what Mathews called “social light.” The concept, alongside location-based services and niche social networks, is where Mathews predicts the money-making will be for web entrepreneurs in the immediate future.

To illustrate the point, Mathews introduced the group to four Memphis-area start-ups: Mark’s Menus, Into Outdoors, Xtrant and NRange. Each company is using one of the tools he mentioned, whether light social, LBS or niche networks, and the results are measurable and impressive. Into Outdoors, a niche network for hunters and anglers, is just peeking out of beta and already has more than 1,200 fans on Facebook and six advertisers who want to get on board, site unseen.

Another of the start-ups, Xtrant, is a social network for the enterprise, a topic that was explored further during the core conversations following Mathew’s presentation, along with WordPress and Facebook in 2010. If you’re interested in learning more about start-ups and technology/entrepreneurship in Memphis, check out Mathews’ Mercury Tech Coffee, happening every Monday at 7:30 a.m. at Republic Coffee.

You can also hear more from Mathews later this month when he’ll be appearing on the Expedition podcast (in the meantime be sure to check out this week’s episode featuring Thom Rigsby — you can find it here later today). In other podcasting news, our first Core Conversation of the year happens tomorrow, so join us at 11:30 a.m. to talk about the mobile web in 2010. You can listen here or call and weigh in at  (646) 721-9429.

And don’t forget to check out our Wave to find or post helpful links and continue on conversations you started at a breakfast or tweet-up. For now, just search “Social Expedition” in Wave or contact @SMExpedition on Twitter for an invitation — we’re working on a way to make it more easily accessible to all interested Expeditionaries soon!