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I’m Not Dead: Social Broadcasting and Existential Status

Earlier this month, there was a (false) rumor going around about actor Patrick Swayze dying. It apparently originated from a radio station and zipped around on social media platforms, most visibly on Twitter.
Swayze’s people responded relatively quickly, but as we’ve seen again and again, rebuttals, corrections and debunkings have a harder time making the rounds. [...]

Winning Clients in a Wired World – A Grow Smart Business Interview with Kip Gregory

Kip Gregory, founder of the Gregory Group is a consultant, speaker and author of the book “Winning Clients in a Wired World”. He is one of the country’s leading authorities on using computers and the Web to create time-saving, money-making, franchise-building systems. His bio says that he “specializes in coaching financial services professionals and companies [...]

What’s the Shelf-Life of Social Media as a Standalone Expertise?

The week, the people who are usually abuzz about social media stuff were abuzz about the Gray Lady, the New York Times, appointing Jennifer Preston as their first social media editor.
Upholding the grand tradition of new media titles not being particularly clear, there was a lot of speculation as to what the Times saw as [...]

Twitter and the Oprah Effect

Recently, you probably caught wind of the Twitter “phenomenon” that seemed to culminate with the race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN Breaking News to a million followers. Ashton won.
It hit its hype peak when Ev Williams appeared on Oprah to discuss the service with Aston on via Skype. Oprah was using Twitter live and is [...]

What “American Idol” can teach us about crowdsourcing

If you’ve been living under a rock over the past few days, you may not have known that a new American Idol was crowned. But we’re not here to debate whether the right contestant won. Rather, the focus is on the example this show has on the power of crowdsourcing. Just what is crowdsourcing? According to [...]

Which Is More Effective For You: Twitter or Facebook?

The following entry is a personal look at the relative effectiveness of Twitter vs. Facebook in getting responses from people — specifically, answers to questions. It’s based completely on anecdotal observation, and as such, solely applies to my own situation, and my own unique friend / follower makeup. So it’s probably completely worthless for anyone [...]

Joe Pulizzi – Everyone is a Publisher today

Some Content with Your Social Media? – Preso at Speakerbox
View more presentations from Joe Pulizzi.

I was glad that  Elizabeth Shea of SpeakerBox invited me to their event on May 13th featuring Joe Pulizzi of  Junta 42 (@juntajoe ) co-author of “Get Content. Get Customers.” Joe spoke about the new trends in marketing where content plays [...]

Is There Personal Branding in the Afterlife? Thinking About Online Memorials

Hoping everyone had a great Memorial Day holiday. While the purpose of Memorial Day is to commemorate the service of the men and women who have given their lives in the service of their country, I’m using it as jumping off point to think more philosophically about online memorials in general, and specifically, how our [...]

Start of Summer Sale: 50% Off Web Hosting

This is a shameless self promotion, but with an offer this good, we can’t help but post it to the blog!
Between Tuesday, May 26th, and Tuesday, June 2nd, you can get Network Solutions web hosting for 50% off. That’s right, five-zero. Packages start at only $4.98 per month with an annual purchase.
You’ll still get a [...]

Zannel offers an adventure with every upload.

Several weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a public advisory committee meeting for a new startup here in the San Francisco area. The startup is called Zannel and focuses on aggregating photos and videos you take through your mobile device and displaying them in a central repository online – similar to Twitpic, but [...]