Showing posts with label web 2.0. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web 2.0. Show all posts

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook's Benevolent Dictator

Mark Zuckerberg is Facebook's Benevolent Dictator who says the social network is 176 million or the sixth largest nation in the World. Electing to preserve member privacy was him being nice. Suppose he didn't do it?

Friday, February 13, 2009

Julia Allison and Gawker's Obsession With The Online Star

Julia Allison's exploits are regularly covered by the online publications Gawker and Valleywag, who complain that she wants attention, then give her the attention in the process. Why? She's a great example of self-promotion.



I wrote about Allison a while back in this tongue-in-cheek take on her search for White Guys at tech parties. In the age of Obama I think she got the hint and started paying attention to men of color too, a good thing. But why is Gawker so taken with her?

Regardless of the reason, Allison is clearly an Internet star and a model of how to cheaply build buzz using online resources available to anyone. Heck, I'm taking notes from Julia.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Socialtext offering laid-off networks for free - Susan Mernit's Blog

Socialtext News - Susan Mernit's Blog: “As we all know, alumni networks frm opast companies ate great ways to get jobs, Ross Mayfield's Socialtext is going to be right there helping those folks out.

Ross writes: "Today, Socialtext is meeting this latent need with a free Corporate Social Network offer for the 2009 Recession. Any former employee and HR director of a company that reduced its workforce by 5% or more in the last year can create a private Corporate Social Network for free by applying here. Please note that this offer does not include free ”

-- Nice find Susan!!! I just wonder, considering the digital divide, how many companies will actually make the leap.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Valleywag's Owen Thomas On Yahoo's Collapse

Valleywag, Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag: “Everything takes forever at Yahoo, the once high-flying, now famously sluggish Internet giant. Today's layoffs of 1,500 employees have been expected for months. And yet the strange thing is so many Yahoos seem unprepared”

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Robert Scoble On China's New Disruptive Manufacturing Techniques

I am a frequent reader of Robert Scoble's blog "Scobleizer" and it's seldom without a great tip or observation.  While Robert's political views may be more to the "slight-right" on mine, it's no matter for he always has his finger on the New Media and Tech pulse.  Moreover, he's always ready with great advise, as he gave in my TechCrunch party video, which is long, but worth another look if you have 41 minutes to spare:












In this case, it's Tech.


In his  blog , Scoble discusses the new developments in Manufacturing Tech, and the work of a man named Liam Casey, who's the founder of PCH.   To avoid stealing thunder from Scoble, I'll report that it means you can go to a website and special order a car or computer, rather than the "one-car-fits-all" approach we have today.


That's of no surprise to me.  It's a direction the industrialized World has been on path toward this kind of development every since Dr. McCoy put in a card and out came instant hot chicken soup in a bowl on the Enterprise, and that was in the '60s.


But what's interesting is the kind of businesses that Scoble says we should be in:



"Now, get over your fears, because there are tons of new jobs in this new world, too, you just need to see how this changes everything and then take advantage of the new opportunities. Where are the high value bits in this whole process?
Not the manufacturing.
The real value and profit is in two places: R&D and coming up with new businesses and new ideas. Take, for instance, the Chumby which was designed at a Tim O’Reilly Foocamp and who’s company still has less than a handful of people. Chumby is the new post disruptive business model. Want a job? This is how to do it. Hang out at Foocamp. Come up with an interesting business. Get funding. Go see PCH. Profit! Well, yes, there are a few details involved there.
Other jobs that’ll open up? Anything involved in building brands. Marketing, PR, blogging/Twittering/FriendFeeding, building web experiences, videos, going to conferences to show off new products to audiences, etc."

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Obama Will Reach Out To The "Other 46 Percent" - Reacting To Brian Solis

I just read Brian Solis otherwise well-considered blog post entitled "Barack Obama, The Social Web, and the Future of User-Generated Governance", and I have to totally disagree with his central idea that because of Senator Obama's huge win -- a landslide in the electoral college -- that the "losing side" of the coin of the election will not be reached. 
I take issue with this for two reasons: the failing economy and the need for government aide will cauuse a good portion of "the other 46 percent" to pay attention to President Obama.

I remind Brian and others that the reason Barack Obama won the 2008 election is 1) the failing economy, and 2) the fact that the Republicans' expressed reliance on "the free market" (the adherence to the belief in the existence of such which I take for intellectual laziness because it's a reason to do nothing), as well as 3) market failure is in part what helped Obama "over the top". (Solis is right about the other aspect components of Obama's victory.)

But my assertion is that the economy's continued deterioration will cause even Obama's detractors to look to hear and see what he's going to do about it. Our economy is tanking. Citicorp is set to lay of 9,000 people. Google's feeling the crunch. American Express wants a cut of the Bailout money.

We're in trouble. The "free market" is too sick to get us out of it, and it's actually under the influence of a confluence of international government actions. Everyone in America is waiting for us to act, and those who didn't support President-Elect Obama will watch on television and discover YouTube to see what he does.

Enter Barack Obama.



Saturday, November 15, 2008

How Blogging Is Like An Election Campaign - A Set of Tips 1. You need a story

I saw what is an interesting take on Blogging and how it's like an election campaign, and since we just experienced and participated in one, I thought it was appropriate.  I found it at Problogger and it's by "Trish" of "Ideas for Women."

I disagree that a Blogger should take a break, not that Bloggers should not, but one has to make sure there's a constant churn of information -- posts -- daily.  I read somewhere -- I think here at Technorati -- that the most successful blogs had between four and 30 posts a day.  That's work. 

Here's an excerpt:

I followed this year’s U.S. presidential election pretty closely on T.V. and also volunteered for one of the candidates. Over I time I began to notice some parallels between running a successful campaign and a successful blog.

I don’t plan to ever run for president - but I would like to have a more successful blog. I would also like to share what I learned and hope that it will be helpful to other bloggers.



1. You need a story

Both of the presidential candidates and their running mates had a story. John McCain was a P.O.W., Sarah Palin, a hockey mom. Joe Biden was from Scranton, Pennsylvania and stuttered as kid. Barack Obama’s story is that he is the “son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas”.

The details of the stories don’t really matter. What matters is how they /framed/ their story - their story had to be everyone else’s story - a story people could relate to.