If you've been reading my last few messages, I've been discussing my migration and move to my new blog. I may turn off the comments from this blog too --I don't have time to manage the majority of spam comments that come in.


Also, if you're linking to me in your blogrolls (or came from someone that was) ask them to please update the URL to web-strategist.comI REALLY appreciate it.

Thanks so much for stopping by --don't worry, I'm still chatting up a storm about Web Strategy, Social Media, and the changes it has on our world.

I have permanently moved over there, so please do come and visit!

If you're seeing this message in your feedreader --you need to update your feed please. My new feed is here on Feedburner

No, I haven't fallen off the blogosphere, I've actually moved the secret vault of web strategy to a new bank...Here's some examples of what's been going on:

• Amanda quit Rocketboom, so is the Brand Equity of Rocketboom –Amanda or Andy?
  
  
• Did you know that Angry Customers Use Web to Shame Firms using Blogs andVideos??? You don't say...
  
  
• YouTube Conversations –Video to Video (V2V) watch Daniella's response to me --clever.
  
  
• What are the attributes of a killer photo? Web Strategy: Selecting Photos for Web Advertising.
  
  
• A bit of bragging: Migration to new blog success –little loss in Traffic.
  
  
• Is TechMeme for Wasps? or is truely a Representative Democracy.
  
  
• Doing some homework regarding Social Networking Analysis.
  

We've moved the party ! But it's hard to have a real event with out you! I want you to join while I'm migrating over to my new blog.

When you get to the party, tell the bouncer you're with me --he'll let you in --don't cop any 'tude, or he won't let you in.

Just so you know what you're missing, hjere's some of the highlights of what's going on inside the party...

• A really angry web nerd for a large web company in San Jose calls me/you Noobs, check out: Irate Software Engineer says it should be called Noobcasting –Challenging this new Web Movement
  
  
• I've uploaded my first YouTube video --I was at Stern Grove in SF.
  
  
• Jeremy Zawodny has a "Therapy Session" at Gnomedex --I've responded to some of the complaints.
  
  
• Did you know my tire blew out? I've uploaded some pics and tell the story --it ties back to web strategy of course.
  
  
• Robert Scoble left a comment on my blog --I gave light to his self question and answer style of writing. Maybe he was bored, as he recently got banned from Second Life.
  
  
• There's more, much much more, but you'll have to swing by at the new blog.

In a few weeks, I'll probally stop posting here --so I really want you to join me at the new party!

As you know, I'm migrating slowly to a new blog over on my own domain at web-strategist.com

Please update your bookmarks (favorites folders)

Since I've been using feedburner to push out my feed, I just cut over my feed on feedburner, so you won't have to update a thing, I just got over the feedburner feed to pull from the new blog on Web Strategist.

No action required for you, but please update your blogrolls, favorites, and sticknotes that I'm moving --hopefully you'll come with me --thanks

I'll be posting on here a few more weeks before making the complete cut.

Oh wow, this has really turned into a real freaking feces storm, I saw that PayPerPost and Opinmind are starting to get compared.

Well as fate would have it, I know both CEOs of PayPerPost and OpinMind, and have provided them with reccomendations on my new blog here.

By the way, this is a link to my NEW blog --as I've mentioned before, I'm slowly migrating over here in the next few weeks. They look the same, and that's intentional.

Feel free to leave me feedback --I really appreciate it.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be moving to new Domain --don't worry the feed will stay intact and improvments to come!
Yes, it's true, I'm packing up my bags and am moving to a new domain. I've decided to move on to Wordpress (although I really like Blogger and it's simple and easy to use features) I've purchased another domain that's tied to my focus area.

I've started a new blog at Web-Strategist.com --I'll be growing out my blogging there, as well have some other interesting sections --you'll hear more about that soon.

For the next few weeks, I'll be publishing on both of these sites to make the migration smooth (When possible try to change the water a little bit at a time in the fishtank) I don't want to lose my beloved audience --you.

I'll be cutting over the feed, so you won't have to update your feedreader, if anyone has any specific suggestions on how to smoothly migrate, please let me know. (Is there any way to merge my Technorati rankings of both domains?)

I'm thankful for the couple hundred of you who visit me daily --I'm migrating to offer even bigger and better things for you as I grow.

I'll certainly miss my Google page rank, (I come up high for searches on "Jeremiah" and "Web Strategy") and Technorati rank (I moved up very quickly to 7k range in just 9mos) I'm sure I can do it again --if not faster now that I've learned.

Give me Feedback on my new blog
As such, I'd love to get your feedback on my upcoming beta blog, you can check it out here and leave some thoughts and suggestions. (Hopefully this also proves my preaching on the voice of the users and customers come first)

I met Ted at the Frost and Sullivan Internet Strategies Symposium a few months ago, he's a creative and fun guy, we even recorded a well received podcast on Business Blogging together. Heck, we're even hosting a Blogger dinner in Boston together in a few weeks. I like Ted, he's got a lot of good things going for him.

Hopefully he won't take it personally, as I tend to agree with Business Week's assumption that Mindcomet is attributing to Polluting the Blogosphere. You see, Ted is launching the Pay Per Cost program --their site says the following:

"You've been writing about Web sites, products, services and companies you love for years and you have yet to benefit from all the sales and traffic you have helped generate. That's about to change. With PayPerPost™ advertisers are willing to pay you to post on topics. Search through a list of topics, make a blog posting, get your content approved, and get paid. It's that simple."

If you don't fully disclose your affiliations when talking about a product, you run the risk of reducing credibility to providing truthful reviews about products or services to customers. And that's wrong --very wrong.

The beauty of the blogosphere is that free speech, spirit, and ideas can flow. I always knew that Marketers would figure out how to get involved, the risk however is corrupting the purity.

Ted, please make sure that reviews provide full disclosure, and I'm more likely to support your program.

Full Disclosure: Just to prove a point in the spirit of transpareny and being 'naked', Ted told me about this article, and encouraged me to blog about it with no pay --Obviously, I don't fully agree, this is my honest and open opinion --ahh that feels better.

Edit:

• I sent this to Mike at Techcrunch, and they link here.
• Ted has responded to my post.
• And a bunch of others have on Techmeme --omg.
• Shel Israel (a great bbq artist) chimes in --Ted responds in the comments.
• 24 hours later, it's still raging on techmeme. -July1st

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

The Exodus Alumni party that was held last night at the Hulikau in Palo Alto is being covered, blogged, with pictures to it from here.

Oh, and I'll be slowly migrating to this new blog over the coming weeks, please leave some feedback if you've any suggestions.

Media is really going to the masses --anyone can journalist with a blog, anyone can be a photographer with a 350$ Sony Cam and now anyone can be an award winning movie director/editor/producer.

Jumpcut can let anyone take control by

If creating a movie or a slideshow and publishing it to the web seems like a challenge, we think you'll find that jumpcut makes it easy and fun. If you've been wondering what to do with the video you shoot with your snazzy new camera (or your phone), jumpcut is the perfect place for you to be creative. If video isn't your thing just yet and you just want to make cool slideshows with your pictures, jumpcut is still the best place. -Jumpcut site

I saw both Marc and Nick last week at Supernova and Bloggercon. Now you can see how Nick's mashed up Marc's vidoe

See Valleywag's rendition of Cantor's People Mover App --oh Nick, you're a riot, where do you get this stuff.

After watching ValleyNick's piece you and edit it to your own flavor --try the remix option.

Andrew Martin of New Marketing has checked out my notes from Supernova regarding the conversation between Kevin and Jonathan Scwartz.

This article about John believing that global conversations using web tools is a competitive advantage. Notice I wrote this whole post without saying the "B" word.

My colleague David sent me this link to OPA's study and its Ball State's work.


"A Day in the Life: An Ethnographic Study of Media Consumption" --please access the powerpoint presentation.


Key points:

• Slide 20: focuses on web
• "The Web Has Taken a Strong Position Among the Major Media"
• Slide 21: The Web Shows Fewer Age and Gender Differences Than Traditional Media
• The Web Joins TV and Radio in Achieving Significant Reach in All Major Dayparts
• Tv is primarily accessed during evenings
  
• The Web Is the Second Leading Medium For all of the Age/Gender Groups Reached at Home
• The Web Is the Leading Medium For All Of the Age/Gender Groups Reached at Work
• Slide 29: The Web is the Essential Complement to a Magazine Based Plan That Must Also Reach A Number of Key Targets, Example: Young Parents
• Slide 34: The Web Dominant tend to be in higher retail spending groups
• the Web’s position dominant has been created in only 10 years (I've been heavily involved since 1999)

The OPA has some other research available --check it. Some of these stats I've seen before, It's important to remember that while web may be taking leadership as the primary medium now --this will change, and a new medium will evolve --maybe wireless devices, maybe devices that enable eTelepathy (I'm not kidding).

Owen Mack launches the CoBrandit videos --interviews from WOMBAT Womma conference in Orlando. The CGM site also discusses this --I like Owen's tips here with NewComm.

Check out the WOMMA Videoblogs by Owen Mack
Interviews with Robert Scoble, Ryan Berger, Gary Stein & Julian Aldridge and others. Check out their archives here. Womma has even posted about it on their blog.

It's great to see more video blogging --I attended the Vloggercon a few weeks ago --I've been a podcaster for a while, and plan to get into Videoblogging by end of year, if not sooner.

Having started my web career in IT, I know the grueling pains that Information Technology folks go through --most of them time they're never thanked and the business owners often get the praise.

Now that I'm in Web Marketing Career (still 100% web geek) I see the values of both business and tech --I stradle both sides. A few months ago respected and noted IT proffessional Dr. Dennis McDonald and I wrote a White Paper (PDF) discussing how IT departments can adapt to the Web 2.0 concepts. (Edit: see Dennis's thoughts on this topic)

A few days ago, Zdnet published this article titled Corporate America wakes up to Web 2.0. In summary, enterprise corporate IT is JUST starting to see the light, of what Dennis and I we're preaching nearly half a year ago. Here's how the article kicks off:

"Big companies have for years installed industrial-strength content management systems in the hope of sparking collaboration among workers. There was just one problem: People didn't use them." -Martin LaMonica, ZDnet

I'm currently working on my fourth Enterprise Intranet and I've used several different CMS systems: Microsoft CMS (twice), Microsoft Sharepoint, Stellent, Plumbtree, Interwoven Teamsite --and a flurry of homegrown systems. By far, and waaay far, the best and easiest to use CMS system is this blog software by blogger --yup, and it's free.

These future Intranets will be bottom up and organic, the new big is small. Some companies are deploying wikis and blogs --individuals can create this organic 'garden' with little rules set in place as the collective will help guide and self correct the growing body of knowledge.

Key Subject matter gurus will be given blogs where they can spurt out their 'official' knowledge or just rhetoric --individuals and groups will publish their weekly status reports on their blog for all to see. Topics will cross link and mash --collaboration to create new ideas from the masses will take form and materialize as one large group becomes one mind.

Of course, not everyone will agree --some will fight, some will argue and that's ok (in fact encouraged, damnit! isn't that how innovation can just surface to the top?) as long as it's in the spirit of productive collaboration. Fantasy, unrealistic? Companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Sun, and Yahoo, are already doing this --who's next? (oh last thing --these software tools are cheap if not free)

Related Links:

• Intranet Blogging on the Rise
• Investment Banker users wiki for Intranet
• Wiki the Intranet
• Intranet Wiki Case Study
• Jot Spot's intranet solution
• RSS the Intranet
• Is RSS the new Intranet Protocol?
• Even Facebook goes Corporate!
• Intranet 2.0: Dashboard and Webservices
• Transforming your intranet
• Intranet 2.0: Collaboration, Self-Publishing And Tools Mash-up New Driving Forces
• Intranet 2.0: Blog Networks, Social Bookmarking, Mash-Ups And Wikis

Involved in Internet Advertsing? Don't walk blind, get resources to guide you.

A recent study by Nielson/Norman group has done a study that show many are blinded by internet ad banners.

Internet Advertisting won't go away, so check out what industry analytst James Gardner from Adverlicio.us has done. He's built an online advertisting rating site --it's an archive and he rates and tags ads as good and bad --if you're in that business, it's worth checking out.

I also signalled for Steve to attend from Adrants, he's a Boston native as well. Steve writes a daily column of Marketing and Advertisting news --he's got the practical experience to back it up.

I often check out Mediapost --sometimes they send me newsletters (typically the news is a day or two later than when it hits the blogosphere) but that's ok, because it's often confirmation of the rumormill.

I've invited both James and Steve to the upcoming Boston Blogger Dinner. Ted and his team have created a cool looking banner for the blogger dinner at Internet Marketing Voodoo

Edit: Do take a look at Federated Media as well (link via James Gross). Leave a comment if you can suggest others --I'm sure there's tons.

Intersting Reads

• I've added Blue Anvil's Color Theory and Emily Chang's Design 2.0: Minimalism,
  Transparency, and You to my ongoing list of Design, Font, Color, and Logo 2.0.
  
  
• Did you know the average tech salary is up 31% since a year ago --the average salary is 85k in Silicon Valley reports ZDnet.
  
  
• I'm intersted in hearing Senator John Edwards keynote presentation at Gnomedex on technology --apparently he's a supporter of blogging and podcasting, I would fully believe that if he actual were a personal blogger or podcaster. His site has a 'diaries' section, and even has a support site for bloggers. I was just talking about how Nokia has catered to bloggers recently.
  
  
• Video: Jason Fried from 37 Signals says to think small (Seth Godin would agree). He also says that meetings are waste of time --do you think face time is a waste of time? Sometimes communication happens in non-verbal ways, not just by text. Jason only has a few folks in his company (under 7) and their really engineers, developers and designers, does this apply to the rest of us?
  
  
• View Scoble's house in Seattle --it's up for sale. They just bought a place in Half Moon Bay.
  
  
• Enoch Choi and I met at bloggercon, he's a medical blogger --pretty neat.
  
  
• From this top ten list, I was able to find this piece onf the ten best designed blogs. They've even a list of the 10 innovative web 2.0 applications from last year in 2005.
  
  
• Is RSS the new intranet protocol? In this video the Sharepoint team discuss how blogs, wikis, and RSS will be used in their upcoming Sharepoing 2007 release.
  
  
• Just for kicks, Julio sent me this link to Yo Gabba Gabba, an upcoming kids show, they've got a few silly videos --this all from the design master Paul Frank. Warning Warning! the theme song to YoGabbaGabba is infectious. (yes, and that's Biz Markie)
  

Scoble is challenging Peter on Podcasting being an efficient vs inefficient medium. Some discussion on techmeme as well. I believe that podcasting is an ambient medium enabling listeners to perform other primary duties while consuming audio content. Typical podcasts consumers will consume audio content on a mobile MP3 device, or direct from a browser --both consumption styles enable users to multitask more of my thoughts about Podcasting as an Ambient Medium --details here.

Sometimes I play podcasts while driving, or while getting ready in the morning, or while going for a walk, It's rare I devote all of my energy to listening to podcasting. Podcasts allow me to be efficient, as to consume content in an ambient medium, while doing a primary activity. I'm a podcaster too --check out the PodcastRoundtable, or view some of my favorite podcasts I've participated on.

Edit: I like Mario's take on it --very thorough

Roland was sitting behind me at the Bloggercon4 conference last Friday, after I cruised the photos in flickr, I asked about the Nokia phone that was used in taking my pic. The quality is not bad.

Nokia is catering to the blogger and mobile bloggers, podcasters and has created this microsite Nokia's Blogger Relation Program. It reads:

Welcome to the Nokia Nseries N91 Blogger Relations Blog site. Here you will find blogger and media information that you can repurpose and utilize in your blog postings about the N91.

The homepage is using a Blog platform, and they're pulling in customer testimonials such as from Adam Curry. Check out ZDnet's review on the phone and mention of the Blogger Relation Program. There's even a blogger support page --they're really catering to the segment.

Web Strategy: (This is really a Marketing Strategy)

• Create a program that caters to the connectors and amplifiers
• Bloggers tend to be "Sneezers", they spread word fast, convince others and are advocates and detractors
• Create a resource site so it's easy for them to connect and build a relationship.
• Give them tools to spread the word, images, snippets, etc they can add to their blogs or podcasts promoting your product
• Reward them --give them access to new products, discounts, they're becoming your sales force.
• Listen to them, engage them in your product lifecycle from design to development
• Consider creating a Community Marketing strategy, and empower the community around your company and products.
  

Now, if Nokia could figure out how to make a website that's a little less on the Design Experience and more on the content, they'd be in a better situation --this site gave me a headache -- I quit pretty quickly, I don't want to have to learn the UI.

Anyone else have any examples of companies that have blogger relation programs?

Another example of how the web is changing how we communicate, interact, and now how we choose to remember each other. No longer are the days of printing a record of your high school experience, getting your "keep in touch" autographs and parting ways until the 10 year reunion.

Students now maintain these networks and continue to communicate throughout college, their first jobs, marriage, kids, grandkids and beyond. MySpace generation preserves memories online, from MSNBC reports that:

"John Shin refuses to buy a copy of his high school yearbook. Instead, he’s turning to the Internet to preserve and share memories of his sophomore year."

Students rely on MySpace to preserve their mememories. Somewhere in the middle we're starting to see other services are starting to appear such as myYearbook, the young founders tell their story. Students can put their class schedules online, share notes, put stuff in their virtual locker, vote for folks and even leave 'signatures' in each others yearbooks.

"It all started during Spring Break 2005, flipping through a yearbook in my room and realizing it sucked. This is 2005 - why the hell is anyone buying yearbooks anymore?..."

"...It could reinvent real life. It could make real life better. Making it easier to meet the people you see every day. Making it easier to approach the cute girl in a different class."

The next generation will take their social networks with them. I've been talking about the MySpace generation hitting the workforce and the impacts that will have --it's going to continue and be a significant change how companies will need to reach, communicate, and grow with their audience --it's a two-way transaction. We can see this shift occur as MySpace and SimplyHired (a job aggregating site) start to partner and offer job listings for MySpace users.

The web continues to impact the former way of printing static paper records that are now evolvig to living, dynamic two-way relationships.

Tonight my wife took me to see a comedy skit called Asian Bird Flu over the Cuckoo's nest in San Francisco produced by the Asian American Theatre Company. It was an asian american themed show that bounced off stereotypes, made fun of asians and other cultures, and was a pretty good time. I've even posted a few pics that I took from flickr --she's posting quite a few great shots here.


My wife and my sisters looked at me, in surprise, we were all shocked to hear that a blogger was getting recognized in a non-tech event such as this. Min Jung works at abazab, I think we first met at Hotel Utah blogger dinner (I think she was surprised by my roving podcasting style I'm known for) I saw her at Vloggercon a few weekends ago --and she'll be at Webvisions where I'll be a panelist on Social Media and Community Marketing.

Way to go MJK! The geekgirls are everywhere --and bloggers are becoming more and more known and accepted.

Click to view Video Interview of me and Josh

Josh Kinberg from Fireant & Jen Myronuk from Storyfield interview me at the Supernova Conference. I just got out of the Video Session, where I discuss that 'traditional' media companies in the television and movie industry will need to release control of their media in order to reach the masses.

The web is going to be the platform of choice for consuming Video --the web and the TV will marry and give birth to a new child.

Media companies that want to survive will have to let go:

1) Let go by releasing rights so their media programs will be spread virally though social networks (blogs, forums, social sites, etc)

2) Let go and harness Peer to Peer networks. It will be difficult for a single company to transmit these rich and heavy media files --use a strategy to depend on the network of users transmitting the content.

3) Let go of content control: Users will mash, mix, rehash and alter media into new forms --the companies that let go and encourage this will have the greatest exposure.

Bloggercon and Supernova are very different experiences the crowd, energy, topics, and interaction --were nearly opposite --and that's ok. These are different conferences for different purposes.

I did both in one day --here's my observations

Thoughts on Supernova
I attended Supernova on Thursday and much of Friday Morning, as there was a steap price of admission, it gave the ability to hire some of the best speakers in the industry, and be at a great location (the Palace hotel in SF) aside from the wifi issues throughout the conference. The crowd reminded me of business folks, a few educators, and an occasional ninja. (Ask a Ninja Site)The conference was very 'top down' where a presenter or panel would speak from the stage. The audience had the opportunity to ask a few questions. Great presenters, great information, and great venue. View my Flickr set on Supernova or check out Valleywag's summary to learn more. Pretend you went to Supernova





Thoughts on Bloggercon
Bloggercon smelled like Geek (kinda like Vloggercon did) both literarly as well as figuratively. The focus of bloggercon was to put the people in charge in an active way --everyone had a chance to grab the mic and voice their opinion --very grassroots. I like Nick's observation that "involving the "audience" in the conversation results in far more interesting and unpredictable event". Vendors were not discouraged from pitching products, in fact Dave Winer yelled at folks that kept on pursuing conversations with vendors in the room about their industry. The venue was smaller, there was no cost, so it gave the chance for 'regular' folks to jump in and participate. View my flickr set on bloggercon or Check out Valleywag's summary to learn more: Pretend you went to Bloggercon


Two wildly different tech conferences in one day --what a contrast, one of the best days in my conference experiences.

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

I boo boo'd --and must apologize publicly.

Yesterday at Bloggercon, I discussed in Chris Pirillo's session about User's Taking charge by being part of the development process. I discussed how I collected feedback about Flickr, and sent it to the product teams. In public I voiced that I'd not heard anything back, that was actually incorrect, the person I sent it to responded to me.


The individual on the flickr team who I sent it to to did respond to me --however it was unclear if our recomcendations will be implemented. Do I sound demanding? Sort of, I'm passionate about product that I love and promote. (Kind of why I continue to advocate Flickr and have encouraged many of my friends and family to use Flickr)

Just to set the record straight: I did receive a response, and I did not state the event correctly. What I should have said was the following:

"I collected user feedback and presented recommendations to the product team, although they've acknowledged receipt of my recommendations, it's not clear if they will be considered"

I just want my/our reccomendations to be implemented for a service that I pay for --I guess I'm pretty vocal about products I'm passionate about. Upon further communications, the Flickr team is way understaffed to accommodate all feature requests, and they've already assembed much feedback in their forums. I'll continue to be a Flickr user and will continue to advocate products I'm passionate about (providing something better doesn't come around) I just want my voice and recommendations to be heard and action taken.

I'm making a public apology, and adding the finite detail needed --Hopefully any harm is quickly undone and we can move forward by building a bettter product both with developers and customers together. Sorry Flickr Team --Jeremiah

I'm sitting right next to Kevin Marks; he's broadcasting a live video --if you watch carefully you'll see me (and sometimes I hold the camera)

Live Streaming Video

I'm getting a real kick out of this --people are really cutting lose --jokes, real conversations, a few lot of swear words.

I'm sitting on the ground floor at Cnet in San Francisco --live at Bloggercon IV.

Chris Pirillo Causes Sleepless Nights for Developers , as he's a loud consumer that excercises his writes as a consumer, customer and blogger. When something is wrong --he'll voice it. Dave is inviting people to listen in --even if you're not here!

Chris is leading the discussion at Bloggercon about Users in Charge, he's scripted a few notes in advance --the discussion is really around 'customers taking charge'. He's super vocal about problems that he finds --believeing the customers are in charge.


He's certainly on the cluetrain soapbox --users and customers are in charge. His first question was "What are you passionate about?" One response was, I don't like it when companies take my data and suck it into their black hole. Openness and trust is important.

I had to jump in voice my thoughts (Doc Searls took notes of my thoughts and others)--I recently gave a review of Flickr with some other users --(some of them power users and advocates) and I've yet to hear from the Flickr team to take these need into consideration. I also expressed (on the side of flickr and other companies) that maybe bloggers are outliers --the vocal few with passionate needs --ya know the stuff Jakob was talking about *ahem* yeah call me a flip flopper ;)

I wasn't the best student in High School or College --too much of a free thinker I guess.

I'm trying to make up for it now by taking notes of interesting conferences for the whole world to read.

Nick at Valleywag offers that you can Pretend you went to Bloggercon.


I've moved to Bloggercon down the street, and Martin Mckeay has forced me to sit in the front row --Doc Searls and Dave Winer are 3 feet from me --I'm getting smarter and geekier every second! Pictures are already being uploaded. Dan Farber, Scott Beale and I defected from Supernova --it's a different vibe here for sure.

--Look ma! Eye can rite gud now!

Left: Tantek (bearing his superhero logo --you can't see the cape to well) of Technorati and Andy Baio, upcoming.org. More pics here.

Sometimes we only give credit to the huge social sites that have millions of users like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, and Flickr --let's take a look at a small but robust web application called Upcoming.

I've been exchanging messages online with Andy Baio the founder and creator of Upcoming.org, and event management and social media tool. I've been starting to rely on Upcoming as it's the tool to find out where others are heading to which events --it's an event aggregator of sorts. We met yesterday, funny thing is, I didn't recognize him at first, (as I don't think he looks like his profile picture). Upcoming is useful for headcount, centralizing attendee lists, and can have a large listing of venues. It's easy to use, piggybacks off my Yahoo ID, (Since it was acquried by Yahoo) and has a bevy of search features, profiles, and comments.

Evite is somewhat ok for closed events --it lacks the ability to easily invite others for open and public events (or at least I don't percieve it that way). Upcoming 2.0 is quite the open social model --much in the lines of the web 2.0 movement. Meetup.com is focused on regular events that meet, perhaps on a monthly schedule --much different than Upcoming's quick fast and one off events. I've used it with ease to coordinate blogger dinners --such as this one in SF and Boston. I do think that upcoming.org is Evite 2.0

Supernova pulled off the Conference inside a Secondlife conference for our worldwide guests that could not attend in person. A video was played inside of Secondlife, that demonstrated the mixture and mash of virtual worlds with real worlds.

Listen to my podcast with Robert Scoble and Chris Salazar reviewing Second life --I predict that Secondlife will replace Webex.

Edit: I reccomend that web developers and designers consider learning how to develop in Secondlife --you can pull in RSS, Video, create objects, vehicles etc. It's really an interactive multimedia platform.

See the pics here:

• Video in Second Life,
  
• Here, here, and here.

My Flickr Pics are up for Supernova Day 1

Shel's had the great idea to host another blogger dinner, this time in Boston on Wed July 12th. Ted Murphy chose the place; Fire and Ice an Improv Grill (Mongolian BBQ), fun and yum --Red Sox Fan David Berkowitz will be there as well (last time he and Shel were together they got violent). I've invited Miss Ginevra to attend --maybe she'll bring some of her pals from Six Apart --heck, maybe they'll pay for dinner? (In all reality, I probally owe her dinner for her excellent customer support she's provided my company )


Also, Shel writes in Scoble, Arrington and Blog Traffic:


My response: "I hate people --all of them. die die die."

Frank is sitting right in front of me --thanks for the picture.

I'm sitting in Supernova, and Usama Fayyad from Yahoo and his colleague have just announced that Yahoo (ie Flickr) will provide auto tags to photos based upon contextual metadata from photos. They did a demo --but I don't think it worked...

They suggested that the photos will get autotags by looking at a mobile phone's location, context, your calendar (reading into your personal data) and eventually have some artificial intelligence.

I stepped up to the mic and asked if they are planning on doing any OCR or going to do any facial or image recognition --they didn't give me too much feedback.

Speaking of Flickr, Photobucket leads in photo sharing apps. Some are surprised that flickr is low on the list --I'm not it's an advanced tool for advanced users. That's why I say it's athe Mercedes over the econo-apps out there. Get over it guys, serious!

Edit: Dan Farber Reports from ZDnet

Pic of John Schwartz, CEO of Sun from Frank

I'm here to learn, and I'll pass on the knowledge to you:

I'm at Supernova, sitting in the fourth row, on the aisle --I'll have some great shots of the panelists and speakers. Some others are already posting pictures here. It's been a while since I've been to a large structured conference (Syndication in Dec?) most of the events I attend are free, or I speak at smaller conferences --this one is full blown. (edit: The wifi here is spotty reports Valleywag)

The crowd here at Supernova is much different than the blogger vlogger geek events I sometimes attend, probably because of the price of this conference --it's really intended for those with deep pockets, or in my case a corporate enrichment pool that I can draw from.

As always, I'll be taking detailed notes and findings from the conference to share with you all, and to serve as a reference point in my professional career and for my employer.



Observations:

• It's Romantic in here...because it's dark in here, I think Kevin Warbach is trying to get Romantic with the crowd, or the Palace is running low on power. ;)
  
• Kevin says it's a 'conversation of conversations' huh?

The internet is in a supernova --it's exploding. Kevin warned the room to be respectuful of bandwidth. Some of the videos will be streamed into Second Life. There is a Supernova lounge where you can hang out virtually and watch the videos. Kevin showed a video from Ask as Ninja made a guess video, for "SuperNinja Conference (movie)" this was clearly in response to the Bloggercon conference --great comeback. A cool guy next to me Adam Broitman is playing Second life at the conference--he's attending a virtual conference at a conference.

Johnathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun.

• "100% of companies are looking to IT, as they did a hundred years ago to electricity"
• "Search is a commodity"
• "Particicipatory Media"
• More Nokia camera phones than actual cameras made by traditional camera manufactures --prolific as everyone can participate.
• Sun puts consumer reviews of prodcuts, he'd rather they critisize the product in front of them, rather than behind them.
• Kevin asks "should CEOs blog?"
• John, refers to ceos 5 years ago not getting email, the job of every leader is to communitcate the vision of the company, to all audiences. Blogs are very efficient mechanisims to communicate. CEOs make fewer and fewer decisions every year, the developers are making decisions, and they don't use NYTimes or WSJ. They're using digg.
• Kevin asks "Scoble suggests it's good that Bill Gates doesn't blog"
• John suggests that it's ok for CEOs to blog, and he's not the most popular blogger, there are 1000s of blogs, specific java audiences may prefer developer blogs.
• How many OS are you carrying with you? Your watch, camera, phone, PC.

Craig Newmark, Founder of Craig's List and Customer Service Rep

• Craigslist is one of the 10 most popular websites on the internet
• Focus on serving the community
• Doesn't like the term UGC
• Says his site is a 'flea market' not just to buy, but also to talk to others
• Turn the control as much as possible over to the people that use it.
• People are trustworthy percentage wise, help out the good guys, and they'll take control
• He prefers the title Customer Services Rep
• Democracy is the worst kind of government but better than the rest
• Craigslist is in the center of changing the way newspapers are doing business.

Panel: Power to the people
Mena Trott, Six Apart | Craig Newmark, Craigslist | Saul Klein, Skype | Tina Sharkey, AOL | Gil Penchina, Wikia.

What do you do to reach out to the community

• Craig: we dont do much, rely on word of mouth, build communities
• Saul: Bring voice to the web. Groups are organizing skypecasts (group voip) around events that happen, such as on tv, or political.

What's the importance of users?

• Tina: center of everything, AOL just provides the context, the users create the conversation.
• Mena: Most of the product are build by users, many of the current employees were heavy users previously.
• Craig: Prefers the term 'People' over 'Users'

Scale of Communmities:

• Mena: It's ok to have small converations as well as larger groups
• Tina: Many people don't like to be in larger communities, they want the small focused experiences.
• Tina: Each person has their own community
• Gil: Prefers the larger scale of community, wants the larger common
• Craig: Provide a platform and allow emergent behavior to occur.
• Mena: many folks don't realize they're reading blogs

Will you introduce Voice (voip) into your apps?

• Craig: nice to have, maybe later, as limited resources
• Tina: AOL will launch a 'phone' later this fall
• Mena: Not a big podcasting fan, she likes to Skim content via text. People are adding little audio or video snippets.
• Saul: Synchronus vs Asynchronus
• Craig: Markets are Conversations (from cluetrain), "get out of the way, people are pretty good at things"

Reffering to Nick Carr's post on Democracy, it's really more structured than free

• Saul: We're more like a participotory democracy, issues are escalated up the hieaarchy. Anyone can go in an edit and delete pages --if you get enough good people, you can police the bad people, small communities that get involved in the media.
• Mena: Has noticed difference cycles and patterns. Some of her friends are getting tired of blogging, as they're getting tired of the noise.
• Tina, deploys reputation management, that's important (think ebay profile and raplife)

Question from Mark Stahl: "Most people are not good?"
he brings up examples of spaming phishing, spamming, prostitution on craiglist, sex chat on AOL. Refers to the story of a stolen sidekick.

• Saul: Backs up that his experience at ebay that most people are good
• Tina: Tries to build a platform for the community. Tries to put the tools of the users --and let them self regulate. Serve the good people.
• Saul: Analogy of gardens that users are building, sometimes users weed, sometimes the gardener does it.

What about massive noise from all the CGM?

• Answer: people will find trusted networks and word will be passed on through there.
• Frank's done a great job covering the panel

Panel: Innovation in Established Corporations
Linda Sanford, IBM | Sean Park, DrKW | Kim Polese, Spike Garden

Abstract: "The same forces driving consumer Internet innovation have consequences for large, established organizations, whether corporate or governmental. How can these organizations take advantage of collaborative tools, mobility, open source, ubiquitous connectivity, real-time interactivity, rich media, and other developments, rather than being left behind?"

• Kim: The lines between user customer and employee begin to blur. A new type of company is emerging to aggregate data, (like technorati)
• Sean: Change is difficult for cross generational management
• Sean: Could use some better names than 'wiki'. Great time shifted collaboration tool.
• Linda: IBM has an island on second life already. There's been an explosion of people building online communities
• For effective innovation, encourage failures
• Good coverage by Mark at 3point3 on Linda's presentation on virtual communities

Yahoo
Usama Fayyad (Yahoo!)

• 12 terabytes of data are collected each day and growing
• Yahoo has a better daily reach larger than the super bowl
• Search, Community, Personalization, Value of Keyword power!
• If you expose a brand ad a week before on Yahoo users are 139% more likley to click on algoritmic and sponsored links
• 249% more likely to clcik on sponsored search clicks
• Driving 91% more activity on a site
• They demonstrate contextual pictures, by taking a photo from the mobile phone. It will be uploaded to flickr, and contextual information can be approved. It will suggest some tags based upon the context
• Flickr will suggest some tags.

Panel: More than just a game
[Moderator: Dan Hunter (The Wharton School), Amy Jo Kim (Shufflebrain), Doug Failor (Joint Futures Lab, DOD), Charles Moore (Reuters), Michael Zyda (USC Gamepipe Lab), Philip Rosedale (Linden Lab)]

• hardware devices are being created that can read emotion, and video games will respond.
• This can be applied to the workplace as well.
• Second life, showing it as non-entertain ment features
• Teachers can stream video in second life. This high school teacher built a planterium to teach his students to learn about astronomy --cool.
• Interscope created a listneing loft for "Regina Specter" you can listen to her album there, as well as see her pictures
• The department of defense, is playing video games in order to learn how to apply video games to combat arts.

Bonus Fun

• Overheard at the Supernova Backchannel
• A joke
• Questions not asked at Supernova --Valleywag

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

Left: Robert Scoble, pic by Laughing Squid

I won't be at Supernova until tommorow (Thur and Fri) however I see some of Laughing Squid's photos already going up. Check out his flickr slideshow.

There will even be second life events that you can attend that are related to Supernova. Check out Kevin's blog the founder of Supernova. The official event blog is here.

You'll be impressed (or not) with the lineup of speakers --learn about the Bloggercon, which purposely conflicts with Supernova and is free.

There are other pics to the sold out conference being put up by others. I'll be blogging and taking pics live tommorow. I'm seeing some posts from Frank, and his pics.

Thanks to Andy (Who's website is disabled) for this article that interviews usability guru Jakob Nielsen: "For Web-Design Expert, Ease of Use And Clarity Are Essential for Firms "

Andy told me to tell you all that he agrees with everything Jakob said and wrote --well, I've got some different thoughts.

Help us to settle the debate.

Summary:

• Jakob thinks RSS is a bad term --I tend to agree, it's still emerging so give it time. 'Syndication' or 'Newsfeeds' would be better terms (Although not all feeds will be 'news')
  
  
• Jakob believes in customer newsletters rather than RSS. The answer lies by likely using both --but first understanding your audience needs and preferences. It's pretty cheap to offer RSS, and it can be integrated within the Newsletter. RSS (when done right) can offer far more real time contextual information that a Newsletter may not.
  
  
• He suggests that blogs cannot tend not to meet the needs of Newsletters --I disagree. The strength of a blog is that it can have an active dialogue that can help your news get out in a converational way --in fact it could even enable the conversation to travel farther in this by word of mouth
  
  
• Jakob says bloggers (and those who read blogs) are fanatics. I agree --but everyone is fanatic about something --and there in lies the communites that will join and alighn around those passions. Oh, and there are about 40 million fanatics and growing.
  
  

I certainly give him credit for his offering to the web industry --but it seems like he's not really getting the social media movement. So what do you think?

Edit: Andy Beal offers some suggestions.

I'm keeping track of trends of my industry (web) and am always looking for usage numbers.

Saw this report showing the increase in adult users on the web from The Center of Media Research.

Adults Online Grows From 9% in '95 To 77%

Here's a few of the highlights:

• Harris Interactive calculates that 77 percent of U.S. adults are now online
• More young than older people, and more affluent than low-income people, are online
  
• Eight percent of those online are now age 65 or over (compared to 16% of all adults who are 65 or over)
  
• 39 percent of those online (compared to 47% of all adults) did not go to college
  
• 14 percent have incomes of less than $25,000 (compared to 19% of all adults)
  

Also, I reccomend reading the report from Cnet that Web is the Primary Medium at Work, and the Second Medium at home.

Left: Clint's cumulative record of all referrals "Sneezers"

Clint Ivy, a Web Analytics professional that works for a very famous Mouse, has been tracking and analyzing his web traffic. Not too different than what Avinash has been doing as well. A Sneezer is one that is 'infectious' and passes on messages in this complex word of mouth network we call the blogosphere.

• At first, Clint thought I was a major contributor to his blog --as far as referrals go. He coined the term Sneezer at that point
• You can see the cumulative record of all referrals into his post by time --interesting graph.
• As it ends up however, I'm really only 1.7% of his overall incoming traffic.
  

Funny parody post regarding If websites were remote controls.

This sorta reminds me of this cartoon from Ok Cancel (a great site for UX/UI pros)

They've got some clever cartoons such as this one on Yahoo vs Google vs Lycos vs Ask Jeeves vs MSN.

I think we've all seen this joke (or a variation of it) for a remote control for a woman's better half.

I was in LA this last weekend for Father's day --my dad told a joke that I've been telling everyone.

• My Father: "Jeremiah, did you know your mother is my manager?"
• Jeremiah: "Oh yeah? how's that"
• My Father: "She's a Man-nagger" (edit: added extra 'n' thanks dad)
  
• All: "*groan*"
  

Heh --I think he may only be allowed to get away with a joke like that on Father's day.

Left: Click to see Social Computing Image

Mark sent me this very interesting social media diagram of all the tools available. Good Grape appears to be on the cluetrain/hughtrain (maybe they know Stormhoek wines?) and links to this diagram. It appears it was created by Forrestor.

I don't agree that Open Source belongs on this diagram (or if it does it should be on the bottom with a notation) as it's not true 'social software' in the fact that anyone can access and use it. Those who use and develop are a specific niche vs the common geek users (who can use much of the other tools)

Diagram is not complete...

• It should also have Web 1.0 Forums and chat rooms. These started back with AOL in the mid 90s --it's still Social Computing.
  
  
• VOIP, embedded Flash audio recorders, and multi use tools like Skypecast or Waxxi (add video to this soon --webcams and mobile phones)
  
  
• Cell phones and Text Messaging --often are tied to browser or WAP.
  
  
• Lastly, the diagram should have Video Games, and Massive Multiplayer Games (MMORPG) check out the podcast review I did with Chris and Scoble about Second Life.

In any case, Doug a colleague of mine printed it out and posted in on my cube wall for me --it's certainly going to be a reference point for weeks to come.

I'm looking forward to the panel I'll be on with Brian, Kit, and Dan that will relate to this: "Let Go, Jump In: Community Marketing Strategies for Empowered Customers"

I've often thought about trusting my blog to a trusted friend to manage my comments, and even post pre-written drafts by me when I'm on vacation. Why? because I have an ego (like most bloggers) and don't want to lose my beloved audience. I know I'm not really that important, so I probally will not blog when on vacation.

Some folks (perhaps proffesional bloggers) can rely on Blogsitters --a term I learned from Andy Couch today. Blogsitters are proffesional bloggers that will temporarily blog on your behalf while you're gone

Ego Addict suggests that many blog packages will offer a way to blog on timer, but for some bloggers that's not relevent enough to many conversations. Blogs are often conversations -putting them on timer may not be effective enough. It may make blogsitter to create a service that no only lets you hire a blogger but also allows you to submit text, so individuals can hire you as a blogger. To be succesful, a temp blogger will have to know your subject material, but passionate about it, emmulate the voice.

This breaks all the rules when it comes to authenticity or transparency --which are part of the foundation blocks of business blogging. Interesting concept, but I think I'll pass.

Left: San Francisco State University

As social media creeps into the mainstream education process, students connect, communicate in real time, and share knowledge in a collaborative nature. Chris Salazar, a student at Santa Clara University (and known as the 'intern blogger") asks College students prefer wikipedia, but is it ok?
He poses this question, not just as a student or user of Wikipedia, but also in light of recent policy changes by Wikipedia to tighten down who can author and edit and contribute --Wikipedia is no longer a free for all collective.


I question if students should be using Wikipedia (which is really the consensus of the crowd and the last editor) for performing research --there's no way to confirm all the written knowledge is fact.

I've often discussed that the MySpace Generation is entering the workplace --they are sharing and collaborating and will take their networks with them. It's assumed they're sharing now so how else are papers in college and school written? BBC reports that students are copying from each other --and sometimes not aware this is unethical:



Too funny, The "Google Generation" I'm glad my Generation (Gen X) is not known for a search engine, I kinda like the fact we've got no particular distinction at all.

Two major Social Media and Blogging conferences are happening later in SF this week --being a local resident I'll take BART in. I'll be blogging and taking a lot of pictures

Supernova: Formal Top Down Conference --Expensive
Nick at Vallewag (Nick, are those sponsored ads a recent addition? ) gives some great execuses for not going to Supernova, I'll be at Supernova Thursday and Friday. On Friday, I'll probally attend bloggercon, and meetup with some friends. (if they can get off work --ahem) The lineup of speakers at Supernova is incredible.

Bloggercon "Unconference": Casual Bottom Up Conference --Free
This is a grassroots, participants take charge, the audience owns the stage event. The lineup of participants at Bloggercon is incredible --it's one big 'forum' where everyone gets to chime in. Learn more about Bloggercon. Bloggers like Mario and Les, (and any other bloggers) should try to go, but I can't guarantee they'll get in.

I'll be attending both --there will be some parties and events over the weekend that I may attend as well.