Is Social Networking/Media for Entertainers?

clipped from www.chrisbrogan.com Social Media Starter Moves for Entertainers For Entertainers Musicians and comics know that MySpace is a viable place to meet new audiences, build community, and promote your performances. Dane Cook made a good chunk of his career’s launch off MySpace’s mechanisms. Facebook isn’t as effective for performers, but I know that more folks are coming over to try it out. Twitter? It’s not exactly teeming with celebrities, but savvy folks like Grace are trying it out, so we’ll see how that turns out. My advice? Do this social media yourself. Don’t use an assistant. Communicate two-way. Just blurting out your calendar isn’t going to win you friends. Be just as much about other people as you are yourself. Give us peeks behind the scenes. Share a little something. Don’t get lost in all this stuff, as your real product is your performances.

The music industry is at it again

clipped from www.techcrunch.com Music Tax Details From Source: “Pay Us Not To Sue You” Michael Arrington But a source with knowledge of the project clarified a number of points for. Those details, combined with the vague outline provided by Griffin, show a scheme that is very similar to classic criminal protection rackets. Here’s What They’re Really Planning: Pay Us Not To Sue You Why will ISP’s agree to this? Mainly to avoid liability. The core of the plan is a covenant not to sue anyone who pays the fee. Griffin touched on this in the article, saying ISPs will want to “discharge their risk” around file sharing that occurs over their networks. And while the government wouldn’t be directly involved, the willingness of law enforcement agencies and the judicial system to enforce civil and criminal copyright infringement laws is the stick by which Griffin will convince ISPs to jump on board. It’s government endorsed extortion, nothing more and nothing less.

A look at Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act

clipped from www.csmonitor.com How much will it cost to fix the climate? The numbers vary. Even when experts look at the same data, they can come to vastly different conclusions. By Brad Knickerbocker The proposed Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008, sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I) of Connecticut and John Warner (R) of Va., would cap the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming and establish a market-based trading program for companies to meet the cap – a so-called cap-and-trade system. The goal is to lower emissions 63 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2050. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued its economic analysis of the bill. Not surprisingly, supporters and opponents each found things in it to bolster their arguments. Congressional Quarterly quotes Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) of California, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, as saying: "Americans will pay significantly more at the pump, in their homes, and in many cases, with their jobs."

The economy & climate change

clipped from www.treehugger.com Yale Professor Democratizes Climate-Action Cost Models by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03.28.08 With climate change likely to be an important issue for independent voters in the coming US Presidential elections, we are glad to see that Robert Repetto, an economics professor at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, has created a website where the several available macro-economic impact models are compared and major 'assumptions' tested. Professor Repetto offers a bottom line: “As Congress prepares to debate new legislation to address the threat of climate change, opponents claim that the costs of adopting the leading proposals would be ruinous to the U.S. economy,” he said. “The world’s leading economists who have studied the issue say that’s wrong. And you can find out for yourself.” He has done something marvelous and new with his website design, some aspects of which might easily escape our first attention.

Setting up your service online

clipped from www.chrisbrogan.com Social Media Starter Moves for Freelancers Opportunities for entrepreneurial spirits, freelancers, and consultants are on the rise. A weaker economy (as we’re experiencing in the US right now) is one reason, but another is the flexibility such employees offer companies who might not have the resources (or want the overhead) related to taking on full time staff for certain roles. And yet, with our attention forever dividing, how can you rise above the fray and be not only seen but selected for the opportunities you seek? Here are some thoughts on the matter. Ads, Sidebars, and Widgets Kill random widgets. To simplify, tidy the hell out of your blog so that it looks clean and professional-ish (you can have fun, and be engaging, but consider your buying audience). Look for useless widgets. Your “phases of the moon” graphic slows down your blog and diffuses your intent. Enable comments and make it as easy as possible.

Second Life Book Discussion

clipped from www.sl-educationblog.org Second Life for Dummies Event on Thursday! Abracadabra – March 20, 2008 – SLED and SLRL’s own Sarah “Intellagirl Tully” Robbins and Mark “Typewriter Tackleberry” Bell, authors of Wiley’s Second Life For Dummies, answer audience questions in Second Life on March 27, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. SLT/PDT.  Along with primary seating at The Magicians Colonnade at Abracadabra <http://slurl.com/secondlife/Abracadabra/201/90/31>, there’s balcony seating in the neighboring sim, Seifert Surface’s xyz.  The event will be conducted in text chat.

Oh! So that's OpenId

Yung Chin explains OpenId.

clipped from www.problogger.net Staying on the cutting edge: OpenID for bloggers The following post on OpenID was submitted by Yung Chin from YC’s Ramblings What it does your visitors enter their comment and their blog address your blog server connects to their blog server their own blog server checks that it’s really them (by login) their blog server confirms this to your blog server their comment gets a confirmed link back to their own blog Credibility By now you may be wondering how relevant the whole OpenID thing is. If its support in Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal, and MovableType (in that interview by Darren, Anil Dash puts it among their top ten features!) isn’t convincing enough, recent coverage at eg. News.com, BBC News, and ITBusinessEdge will tell you that all the biggest players in the web services space are on top of it, including Yahoo, Google, and AOL. What’s best is that the OpenID foundation is a non-profit that ensures the technology is freely available to anyone - including you.

Coping skills for the blogger

clipped from www.problogger.net How to Deal with Blog Hecklers The following post on dealing with blog hecklers was submitted by Jonathan Fields. Try to get to the underlying intent of the commenter. The genuine thrasher. These folks often look to provoke a fight and seek an active response as fuel to escalate the fight. They’re less interested in a genuine conversation or debate and more interested in just venting, proving dominance and ranting. The PR thrasher. One big giveaway here would be to check out the heckler’s blog, then search on them, especially the link text they used in your comments and see if they are using this same tactic in other more highly-trafficked blogs. The debater. The difference between debaters and thrashers is a genuine desire to discuss an issue with a stronger emphasis on intelligent conversation and, if possible, resolution. It’s not about the fight, it’s not about abusing or disempowering anyone…it’s about the conversation.

Selling an Achievable Dream

clipped from www.doshdosh.com Ideals and Promises: Selling an Achievable Dream to Your Target Market The philosophy behind much advertising is based on the old observation that every man is really two men — the man he is and the man he wants to be. - William Feather For a website to be a success, it should empower its users by aligning itself clearly with a specific ideal or as I have mentioned before, a collective vision. An ideal that you can aspire to and the promise that it’ll get you there. Sometimes that alone is alluring enough to build reader loyalty. When many competitors offer the same ideal and promise, it becomes a matter of emphasis and execution. How well are you emphasizing your ideals and promises? How well are you fulfilling them in your actual site, service or product? Are you branding yourself through the right networks and connections? Are you associating your brand with right images/personalities/events? Do you know what your audience is thinking about your site?

Social Media Success

Brian Clark offers a plan for social media success.

clipped from www.copyblogger.com Agile Content Development: The Ready, Fire, Aim, Reload Strategy for Social Media Success by Brian Clark Every Company is a Media Company While it’s true that anyone with social media skills can become a successful new media owner or producer, it’s existing small businesses that need a mind shift. Rather than starting a blog to promote your business, you should be creating new media assets that transform your business into something bigger. Here are some questions for those pursuing a business blogging strategy: How do we create a media platform that has independent value to visitors? How can that platform grow our existing business model? How can that platform create diverse revenue streams? When advertising gives way to authoritative content, and that content tends to be found on web sites that offer independent value, the answer is clear. Successful companies of any stripe must view themselves as media companies in order to effectively market online.

Explanation of Free Market

clipped from www.chaosscenario.com How the Free Market Works Imagine that you walk into a coffee shop and tell the barista that you want a large cup of cappuccino. "I will agree to give you a title and deed to this coffee," the barista tells you, "and you can use it however you wish. But this is not a charity. You will have to work for it." If both of you find the terms acceptable, you would walk away with the coffee, and the barista would place the $5 bill in the cash register. In that way, price plays a very important role in a free market. At its core, it is characterized by the following attributes: The owner is free to set his own prices and terms, and You are free to accept or reject those prices and terms.

Blog Advertising Networks?

clipped from www.whatsnextblog.com Mainstream Publishers Forming Blog Advertising Networks - But Still Misunderstanding Blogs By B.L. Ochman Mainstream media is in a major hurry to start selling ads on blogs. I was part of the Washington Post/Newsweek network (a total bomb) and have recently been asked to join the Forbes Business and Financial Blog network. I hope Forbes learns from Washington Post/Newsweek's blog advertising mistakes. The secret sauce NBC ran some absolutely horrible ads on this and other high-profile blogs earlier this year. The clickthru rates stunk, and I'm willing to bet their agency turned around and said "blog advertising doesn't work." And that's true, it doesn't, unless you understand social media, social objects, and blog readers. But blogs are not traditional media. There is no ideal measurement vehicle for blog traffic right now. One needs to combine and average the stats provided by Google, Urchin, Feedburner, Technorati, Site Meter and others to get a true picture.

Help A Reporter Out

clipped from www.mpdailyfix.com Good Karma: Peter Shankman's 'Help a Reporter' I’ve been interested in the growth of Peter’s group for two reasons: From the writer’s perspective, it offers an instant and diverse network of people ready and willing to populate all kinds of assignments. As a reporter often stuck for uncovering real-life examples of stories I was developing, I assure you it’s a bit of a gift to have a vast pool of willing individuals to tap. It definitely beats relying on family and friends (and their friends) to dramatize a story. It’s a real-time example of how the connectivity of social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and blogs can be used to grow and feed an organization, with incredible speed. Facebook caps group emails at 1,200 people. Once you hit that number, you can no longer email the members of your group, thereby defeating the purpose of the group itself. Could this kind of thing have evolved without social media and the connectivity it offers?

Where is Customer Service?

clipped from www.mpdailyfix.com Customer Service: Losing Its Touch? A terrific article was published in a recent issue of CRM Daily magazine. In “Poor Customer Service Paralyzing U.S. Companies,” customer service consultant Bobbi Paine stated, “Businesses are losing business they can’t afford to lose. . .as a result, poor customer service is paralyzing American companies.”The findings of a 2007 Harris Poll reported a full 80% of respondents indicated they would never do business with a company with which they have experienced a negative customer service experience. . .that number up from 68% the year before! Don’t business managers understand that these bad experiences are shared with family, friends and Internet connections loudly and often, to their detriment? Product and service companies need a real wake-up call here: it’s make or break time for organizations.

Daniel Pink's new book

clipped from www.conversationagent.com Career Advice from a Comic Book? Meet Johnny Bunko I just received my copy of Dan Pink's new book (thank you, Dan), The Adventures of Johnny Bunko - The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, and I am already writing about it. Dan and I corresponded about manga at the time he went to Japan months ago. The impact of a comic book that teaches lessons applicable to business did not hit me until now that I have the book in my hands. Bunko is an office jockey at Boggs Corp., a bumbling Everyman trapped in a job he loathes, wondering how he got there. Enter a supernatural career adviser, Diana, who emerges from Bunko's chopsticks late one soulless night at the office. She is sarcastic, tough, and wise and reveals to Johnny the six essential lessons for thriving in the new world or work. Readers will be asked to send in photos of the Johnny Bunkos in their offices, suggestions for the seventh lesson, and narration to accompany drawings.

Taming the Inbox is possible

clipped from www.chrisbrogan.com How I Tamed My Inbox You’ll Need An archive folder (in Gmail, this is a button. On other systems, you need somewhere to store stuff, in case you need to search for details later). A calendaring software. I use Google Calendar. A project tracking software. I use Things for Mac. You could use anything lets you group projects into contexts. A file folder structure (online at least, and maybe mirrored in the real world - hat tip to my hero,Get it Done Guy, for this). Two processes: sorting when mail comes in, and reviewing your projects regularly. Processing incoming mail. Using the Calendar. Project Structure. Consistent Review. Process step 1- If it’s not a “right away” answer, sort it into a project area. I’m calling “project areas” out by context. In Getting Things Done, David Allen uses physical context, like @computer, @phone, @mall. In my case, I’ve used the following project contexts: Family/Home Commitments Projects Blogging Personal Research

A silly little video...serious big message

clipped from www.treehugger.com Dude, Gcycle your batteries

Personality Assessment

clipped from wiseuncleben.com Review: The Owner’s Manual for Personality at Work The Owner’s Manual for Personality at Work Have you ever wondered if you have the right personality to be an entrepreneur? Is there even an ideal personality for an entrepreneur? If you watch business-themed reality television, you might conclude that an over-sized ego is the only requirement, but research shows that certain personality traits increase the likelihood of success as an entrepreneur. In the final chapters of this section, the advice becomes much more practical. The authors cover “Human Resource Optimization” which includes deciding whether to develop a missing trait, compensate for it or determine the gap is too large to address. The authors advocate a strengths management approach that aligns people with their natural gifts and personality type. (See Marcus Buckingham’s work or the book:  StrengthsFinder 2.0.)

Friend Lists on Facebook

On December 7, 2007 Vicki Davis posted at TechLearning "11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven"
http://snipurl.com/2224z [www_techlearning_com]

It looks like Facebook listened.

clipped from www.techcrunch.com Facebook To Launch New Privacy Controls; Confirms Chat Is Coming Michael Arrington Facebook announced new privacy controls at a press event at their downtown Palo Alto headquarters today, and also demoed their new chat application - called Facebook Chat - that has been rumored since last week. Our real time notes and pictures from the event are here. New Privacy Controls The new privacy controls, which will launch on Wednesday morning, allow users to do more with Friend Lists. Users can now set specific privacy controls for different friend groups, said Naomi Gleit, a Facebook product manager. Users can create a friend grouping for co-workers, for example, and share different profile information, updates and other information such as photo albums with that group. Users can put friends into multiple groups.

VoIP for Web Apps

clipped from www.techcrunch.com BroadSoft Going Up Against Ribbit with VoIP Platform for Web Apps Mark Hendrickson Tomorrow BroadSoft, a VoIP software provider for telecom companies that’s been around since 1998, will officially announce a platform for integrating voice into web applications. The company’s new offering, BroadSoft Xtended, will enable developers to add voice capabilities to their applications and then showcase these applications in a centralized directory called the Xtended Marketplace. Ribbit, which late last year debuted its own platform for integrating voice into web apps; the company even went so far as to call itself “Silicon Valley’s First Phone Company.” The idea of integrating VoIP into web apps, of course, is not restricted to these two companies: Jangl, Jaxtr, and TringMe all let you add simple call buttons to your website, for example. These aren’t exactly platforms, however - for another one of these, you’d have to look at something like MyVox or BT’s CallFlow