The Science of Listening

University of Washington: Foster School of Business - Digital Marketing Measurement for Entrepreneurs

2010-04-23T15:38:00.001-07:00

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University of Washington: Foster School of Business - Digital Marketing Measurement for Entrepreneurs

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I'm back...

2009-06-03T20:23:00.001-07:00

Sorry for going silent for so long, it's been a crazy month..

After a tough rugby season hear in the Pacific Northwest. And the Quake had what is definitely the most successful season we've had since our inception. We have never been better, We finally and handily beat one of our fiercest competitors the Eugene RFC. in what must have been a humbling experience for them. All of this lead up to hosting our Biennial rugby tournament Magnitude XV, which was broadcast live on the rugby website heavensgame .com in our first ever live blog event (recap here).

After three concussions, broken collar bone, busted ribs, knees, and two broken ankles, the Redmond fire department definitely had a greater awareness and respect for what has become to be know as the largest Gay rugby tournament in North America.

As if coaching and organizing the tournament wasn't enough I recently have merged Arete Analytics w/ Spring Creek Group a boutique Social Media Marketing agency here in the northwest. However I think we will have to stop referring to ourselves as "boutique" since we now have over 20 FTE working exclusively on social media, which makes us one of if not the largest social media agency on the west coast.

Now that I'm moving into a full time role of Principal at SCG, I'm looking for some help. So if you know of anyone interested in a full time opportunity as a social media metrician please send them my way.

thanks,

Social Media Spending to Outpace Email in 2012

2009-05-04T23:05:00.001-07:00

According to Forrester's latest forecast of interactive marketing spend, display, search, email, mobile and social media are to reach nearly $55 billion in spending by 2014. No big shocker there, anyone paying attention could see this groundswell coming. Also expected or, not a big deal, is the forecast that print and direct mail will lose the most ground to interactive. What is interesting is that Forrester is predicting that social media will grow in spending from $700 million this year to $3 billion in 5 years, and is expected to catch up to email spending of $1.6 billion in 2012.

Walk Like A Man! - New Gay Rugby Movie is Out on DVD!

2009-04-30T18:23:00.001-07:00

Walk Like a Man: Blood, Sweat and Queers

A documentary that follows two top gay rugby teams in their quest for The Bingham Cup is out on DVD.

Narrated by former rugby champion, openly gay Ian Roberts, Walk like a man looks at the defending champions San Francisco Fog and the upstart Sydney Convicts as they prepare to do battle in New York. Individuals from each team talk about everything from coming out to preparing for the tournament.

Read more here.

The Facebook Open Stream API - Welcome to the future of marketing!

2009-04-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

Today Facebook announced changes to its API that allow developers to access user information from Facebook.

Until today Facebook member data was off limits but now, like Twitter, Digg and flickr, social media monitoring tools like Radin6, techrigy, and buzzmetrics have access to user submitted data.

So why now, why is Facebook doing this and what does it mean for us digital marketers. Well, facebook has been struggling to monetize it's content for a while. so opening up this API is a first step for facebbok as now just like twitter, new desktop applications could be developed to send updates, do searches, or share other video/audio content. The thinking is that Facebook could potentially set a fee for business level API requests, while consumers get a lower level of service for free. This would be someting like 100 or so free API calls per/day/hour etc.

For digital marketers today could be the first day of the rest of your lives!

Want to know what your customer are really feeling and saying and interacting with your brand, then just use radina6 or techrigy to find, cluster, and analyse the key conversations and communication streams that triggers the quantifiable actions that lead a consumer to buy your product or service. On facebook, consumer have been rantinga ndraving about brands for a while now, so all that market research you've been paying for from focus groups is now free, or nearly free.

So, what r u waiting for? Dig in!

BTW - Did I "call this one" or what?

Uncomfortable truth about why social media ROI is so hard

2009-04-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Why Social Media ROI is so hard.

1. social media engagement is voluntary, you cant use any kind of leverage on it or it will break.

2. social media's nature demands a certain amount of grace that advertisers and marketers generally lack i.e. (people don’t like to be treated as targets, nor do they like to be shouted at)

3. Marketers are generally egocentric, anal and impatient...so, they measure individual or organizational success from an outside-in perspective rather than an inside-out perspective. (outside-in = what do we get from the other/user/consumer/target, whereas inside-out = what value are we bringing to the table, what are we providing to the other/user/consumer/guest).

A better method for measuring return on investment should take it's cues from what every career focused marketer goes through at some point in their life.

See, marketing is full of Type-A personalities, and at some point in every type-a's life they come home to their family and realize that that can't manage a significant other, family, or friends, like a business. At that point they stop trying to get results on their own egocentric timeline and they begin investing in deepening a daily relationship w/ individuals or groups that are important to them. Over time they begin to give up control of certain conversations, but gain immense value from the participation and inclusion that begins to envelop them as they move deeper into the fold.

At that point the ROI, when looked at in hindsight and holistically, is obvious.

However, my gut tells me that most marketers are deathly afraid of relinqueshing control and at some point, many simply stop listening and would rather end a relationship than change their own behaviors.

Feel free to discuss, debate, or rip me a new one...

The Future of Social Media Monitoring - "More Creepiness"

2009-04-16T04:32:00.001-07:00

Web 3.0 may be all about automating data mining of web content, just like blogs automated publishing of web pages. Eventually the web will make everything online open, were moving in that direction and while we are moving slowly the rate of new technologies being built on open platforms is increasing. This could mean that soon closed platforms like facebook will move toward more and more openness. That could be as easy as allowing people to open their facebook feeds, with some sharing conditions.

Once that happens, it wont be long before some of the most popular Facebook user start sharing their data w/ social media monitoring services. Yep, at some point it just makes sense for a Radian6 or Buzzlogic or tns to pay a facebook member who's network is a mile wide and 1/2 mile deep to open their feed.

I say bring it on, set technology free and if you don't like it, then get out of the way.

To see what RRW has to say on this topic click here.

The end of the scientific method.

2009-04-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

The scientific method has served as the catalyst for much of human knowledge for the last 400+ years, however, ...the scientific method is a way of knowing, but it has been based on how humans know. Once we add a new kind of intelligence, as described by futurist Kevin Kelly, into this method, it will have to know differently. At that point, according to Kelly, everything changes.

Kelly say's 'It is hard to imagine anything that would "change everything" as much as a cheap, powerful, ubiquitous artificial intelligence — the kind of synthetic mind that learns and improves itself.' his vision is not of some super-human mind, oddly enough to Kelly, 'the greatest benefit of an artificial intelligence would come from a mind that thought differently than humans...' Plus, it would be free, yep free the currency of the new millenium.

I for one am hoping it arrives soon, or at least in my lifetime...and if it could come at the same time as my own personal Jet Pack too that would be hell-suhweet!

Thought Orgasm of the day - If you are not in real time, you're dead.

2009-04-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

If you are not in real time, you're dead. Swarms need real-time communication. Living systems don't have the luxury of waiting overnight to process an incoming signal. If they had to sleep on it, they could die in their sleep. With few exceptions, nature reacts in real time. With few exceptions, business must increasingly react in real time. High transaction costs once prohibited the instantaneous completion of thousands of tiny transactions; they were piled up instead and processed in cost-effective batches. But no longer. Why should a phone company get paid only once a month when you use the phone every day? Instead it will eventually bill for every call as the call happens, in real time. The flow of crackers off grocery shelves will be known by the cracker factory in real time. The weather in California will be instantly felt in the assembly lines of Ohio. Of course, not all information should flow everywhere; only the meaningful should be transmitted. But in the network economy only signals in real time (or close to it) are truly meaningful. Examine the speed of knowledge in your system. How can it be brought closer to real time? If this requires the cooperation of subcontractors, distant partners, and far-flung customers, so much the better. - Kevin Kelly (Embrace the swarm)

Tweenbots - Robot/People art

2009-04-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

From the artist...In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots. Mission 1: Get from the Northeast to the Southwest Corner of Washington Square Park / time: 42 minutes / number of people who intervened: 29

Amazon F's up! - LGBT books, censored on it's website

2009-04-12T11:10:00.001-07:00

Amazon, shame on you, you are better than this. Last night after spending the day w/ my family I got on twitter to see what was trending and heard about this post from gizmodo. Gizmodo Stas from Quantcast From gizmodo: "Hey look! Amazon has a new book sales policy. The policy, instated today, spontaneously transformed many books about LGBT issues into "adult" titles, and therefore no longer includes them in the "Best Sellers" lists/rankings." Ok, so I can understand a glitch and how sometimes disparate teams in a large ecommerce company dont talk to each other well, I'll give you that. However, as a pioneer on consumer media you have to be better at handeling crisis especially when it affects the liberty of your customer base. As of this morning this gizmodo post had 154 comments, by 105 unique commenters. Gizmodo's reach is huge, 3.6 million US and 6million worldwide and the influencer list that follows this blog extends that reach to nearning every corner of the tech web. Amazon you may have just alienated a huge portion of your user base. Just last night my wife and I were talking about some books we wanted to buy and how it's going to be a pain in the ass not to be able to buy w/ 1 click anymore. We decided to start shopping more at half-price books since we go there anyway and powels online as we like that store in portland...See, that's how fast things happen. After one post on gizmodo you lost us. the decision was made in 10 minutes simply by me reading a blog post. You will have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get us back, ball is in your court. Xav, Erica, Kai and Jackson

For serious?

2009-04-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

Here's some other amazing things that happen on twitter

CLASSIC WILL FERREL

2009-04-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

MORE TIME WASTING MATERIAL

LOOK OUT FOR HYPOTHERMIA

2009-04-10T16:59:00.001-07:00

Lok out for hypothermiagreat free widgetsWidgetbox

WWW.THREEBRAIN.COM

Don't Buy Media, Earn It

2009-04-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson has seen the future, and it's in "earned," not paid, media, which has big implications for marketers, agencies and, of course, the media itself.

- Don't Buy Media, Earn It, nuff said!

Someone start a Rally! - Tell the Carriers...We're not gonna take it!

2009-04-10T08:27:00.001-07:00

I'm tired of waiting for the future, allways have been. I've been one of those guys chanting HELL YA everytime someone brings up that "where is my JET PACK" conversation. Technology is amazing and yet I want more more more. However what i dont care for at all is wireless carriers telling me about how soon the future will be here and describing ubiquitous internet access anywhere in the world in their palm of my hand. Reality here in the US of A is nowhere near this, and I'm tired of lagging behind Japan and Europe in terms of wireless technology. According to Skype's government affairs director, Christopher Libertelli, the future of the mobile internet is pretty much closed, not Open as we would believe. Not only that, but according to Ryan Singel who Interviewd Libertelli for this interview in wired magazine: "Consumers and regulators would not stand for a DSL provider refusing to let a customer use an Apple laptop or stopping them from visiting YouTube or using low-cost calling services like Rebtel or Gizmo Project. But expectations aren't the same when it comes to mobile phones, in part because the carriers have almost always been in control of the devices, bundling them with service plans. As a result, carriers have the motive and opportunity to add only the apps they like and hobble features they can't control, such as WiFi chips. Someone start a rally, I'm tired of carriers running the show and keeping us users from using devices not sold by them or banning apps from my phone. I'm ready to make some signs and get my March on!

The ROI of Social media is zero

2009-04-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

ok, so maybe it isn’t zero, but this article by Augustine Fou is a great synopsis of the current struggle advertisiers are having w/ applying a traditional measurement and evaluation model toward looking at social media. So What's the ROI of Marketing in Social Realms?

According to Fou, it's higher than traditional advertising because:
Some social actions drive new revenues at no cost to the advertiser.
No media costs are required to blast the ad out at people who don't want it in the first place.
Social actions archived online provide lasting and ongoing value to future seekers of information at no extra cost to advertisers.
There's a potential for amplification while traditional ads are over once they air.

Some good ideas to think about and apply to your current media plan...

Listening to right now: Umphreys McGee at the Rams Head (04/04/09)

2009-04-07T15:00:00.001-07:00

7 Reasons Facebook Could Dominate Your Social Media Strategy

2009-04-07T10:57:00.001-07:00

Nice post from Jason Baer about how to use facebook as your social media home base. I agree with his thesis that..."It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, your customers are on Facebook. Now rocketing past 200 million members (making it the 6th largest country in the world if it were a nation), Facebook offers online reach previously available only in Google and Yahoo flavors." 7 Reasons Facebook Could Dominate Your Social Media Strategy

Reach: One of the great axioms of marketing is “Fish Where the Fish Are.” Increasingly, fish of all shapes and sizes are on Facebook.
Clarity of Purpose: Facebook enables brands to interact with their fans via wall, discussions, events, photos, videos, etc. without a bunch of other corporate content getting in the way.
Analytics: Facebook provides substantial data on the affinity and demographics of your fans. In comparison to Web analytics, Facebook provides a much better sense of who your audience is in real life.
Ease of Use: Facebook pages can be established and maintained by everyone in your company that is not Amish. No fancy programming skills required.
Promotion: When consumers become fans of your company, that fact is shared with their friends via the real-time update component of Facebook. No public announcement is made when somebody visits your Web site.
Personal: The fact that Facebook users have to be real people (unlike MySpace and Twitter, no fakes allowed) and have to be authenticated before use, consumers can’t hide behind anonymous usernames. Plus, because the vast majority of Facebook members use authentic profile pictures, the “relationships” between consumer and brand have an out in the open characteristic that isn’t available on most Web sites.
Cost: Free. Totally free. Web developers, insert shudder

Zeus Jones/Sierra Bravo - PhizzPop Design Challenge at SXSW.

2009-04-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

Smart very very smart.

Beach Rugby! - Awe Yeah!

2009-04-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

Ok seattle ruggers lets figure out a way to get this organized for summer on Alki Beach!

b-rugby lignano

TACKLE beach rugby rules:

1. The playing area must have the following measurements: Length: 31 meters (tolerance +/- 1 m) including In-goal (3 meters each)Breadth: 25 meters (tolerance +/- 1 m). 2. The teams are made up of 5 in-field players, 7 replacements are admitted and interchangeable at times during the match without any need to call for the referee’s permission, although only during a standstill. In this event, players may enter the field a single time approx. 1 meter from the enclosure in a central position, although they may exit from whatever position. As soon as the referee becomes aware that a team has more than 5 players on the field, he may disallow any action that has taken place in the meantime, unless the opponent team have gained an advantage (Ex. 1: a try is scored and the defending team has 6 players on the field: the score stands. Ex. 2: a try is scored and the attacking team has 6 players on the field: the goal is disallowed). 3. Only the recognized captain may report to the referee to ask for explanations or flag serious infringements such as the opponents having 6 players on the field. The try is worth one point and there are no goals after a try. 4. The ball used in the game shall be a no. 4 type. 5. It is not allowed to kick the ball. 6. Line-out and scrimmage are eliminated and play is reassumed by a free kick. 7. When the player carrying the ball is caught by the opponent, he must release the ball within 2 seconds from the halt by passing it over or leaving it to anybody’s disposal, unless he/she runs forward by at least 3 meters within the 2 seconds. In case this law is not observed, his/her team will lose possession of the ball. 8. After scoring a try, the ball will be free-kicked from the middle of the field by the team suffering the try, quickly if the ball has been brought to the In-goal without any forward passes; otherwise, they will have to wait until the opponents have taken their positions. 9. The distance from the ball for penalty kicks or kick-off shall be 5 meters. If this distance is not observed, the referee will ascribe a further 5-meter penalty to the player. 10. A match consists of two halves of 5 minutes each with a 3 minutes’ interval. 11. In case a match ends in a draw, an additional limitless period will be played under the sudden-death rule, i.e. the fist scoring team is the winner. 12. In case some teams rank with the same score during qualification rounds, the team with the highest number of tries will qualify (regardless of their type); in case parity should persist, the type of tries will count; if again parity persists, the youngest team (obtained by summing up the players’ years of birth and then dividing them by 12) will win. 13. The players shall wear tear-resisting jerseys and NOT T-SHIRTS with the players’ numbers or names on the back; the jerseys will be homologated at the beginning of the Championship by a Technical Commission formed by the Championship Manager and/or L.I.B.R. representative and a referee. The homologation process will be repeated for each Championship even though the jerseys have been previously deemed appropriate. 14. For any omitted rules, please see the LAWS of F.I.R. ORGANIC LAWS 1. All players must have a union membership card. They must hand in a copy or photocopy of their card and of the game-sheet showing the name of their Club or – in case they are members of other Clubs – the authorisation from their own Club. Players must also present their identity cards and a proof of membership to a Club. Players coming from foreign Clubs, if not having the card, may also make a written statement specifying their status. 2. Players’ identities and the validity of their cards will be confirmed by a F.I.R. referee, who will take each player’s card, valid identity card and Union game-sheet before the Championship starts and keep them for the whole duration of it. They will be given back to their owners at the end of the Championship upon referee’s permission. 3. During the game, players may suffer the following penalties: - admonition by yellow card with temporary 2 minutes’ expulsion, resuming play behind the opponents’ In-goal; - permanent expulsion; - disqualification over the next matches of the same set. N.B. Penalties will be established by the match referee and notified by him/her to the controlling Board, which will notify them in turn to the player’s Club. Any claims from Clubs while the set of matches is taking place shall be addressed to the Board in writing on the Club’s headed paper and be replied to within an hour from forwarding. Replies are decided and final. 4. IN CASE A PLAYER IS DISQUALIFIED, HE/SHE CANNOT BE REPLACED EITHER DURING THE GAME OR AMONG THE TEAM FOR THE WHOLE DURATION OF THE SET OF MATCHES. 5. For serious reasons, suspension may be extended to the whole Championship upon decision of the LEGA ITALIANA BEACH RUGBY and notified to the referee who will inform F.I.R.. This latter may then decide to extend it to the Winter Championship. 6. For serious reasons, a team may be forbidden to participate in the whole Italian Beach Rugby Championship upon decision of the Organisation Committee of the LEGA ITALIANA BEACH RUGBY. It is the duty of L.I.B.R. Disciplinary Committee to notify the various penalties to adopt for players and teams to local organisers. For any omitted rules, please see F.I.R. ORGANIC LAWS.

Is real-time search the real wild west?

2009-04-03T13:05:00.001-07:00

Search 3.0 = The relevance of what's on a page (document text analysis or search1.0) + what surrounds that page like conversations as they relate to your personal network or search2.0) + (Realtime content or search3.0) The web is shifting again, this time it's shifting on a new time axis. a few years ago, blogging was a harbinger of this time shift, but blogging is still the HTML-driven 1.0 web. The Semantic web is coming fast and that will really be web2.0 technology as applied to search, but when these two ideas combine w/ the finesse of twitter then BAM! web3.0 search, and apparently Twitter would not even sell itself to google for 1BIllion. Is real-time is the real wild west?

The ROI Metrics that can help make PR agencies relevant again.

2009-03-19T20:59:00.001-07:00

Are PR agencies still relevant? This is the question that Brian Solis posed to a panel of Social media fans and practitioners at this years SXSW interactive festival or should I say spectacle. "Agencies have competition from places they never saw coming - interactive agencies, community management companies." said Solis, who has been on the cutting edge of new media PR for the last 10 years or so. According to this Social Media Today post, the Institute for Public Relations completed an analysis (available here) of the increasing impact of social and other new media on public relations. The results of the study suggest blogs and social media are improving PR as a discipline. According to the study:

92% of those surveyed think blogs and social media influence news coverage in the traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio and television)
76 percent say the reverse also is true.
88% say that blogs and social media have made communications more instantaneous because they force organizations to respond more quickly to criticism.

Most new media strategists and practitioners have been saying that the future of PR is participation for a while now, I agree, however PR agencies are still struggling with defining the day-to day tactics of integrating emerging media technologies into their business strategy. In my practice as a web analyst I have found the biggest issue with many of my clients is defining the metrics by which to measure social media or building what I call an OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Metrics). I recommend PR professionals build an OGSM for their specific clients at the beginning of every engagement or project. Here are some of the focus areas and Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Metrics that are applicable to PR directly:

Buzz monitoring

Objective - "Listening"
Goal - On topic monitoring of UGC
Strategy - Ad-hoc topic specific keyword reporting and analysis
Metric(s) - Audience participation and engagement metrics around velocity

Number of posts
posting frequency
frequency of comments, etc

Online Crisis management

Objective - "Influence Public Opinion"
Goal(s) - Join the conversation for the purpose of correcting the brand/organization's inaccurate or mistaken communications.
Strategy(s) - Monitor UGC in realtime as events happen, track sentiment and engage influentials in a purpose driven conversation. Communicate with authenticity and transparency
Metrics - Audience participation and Engagement metrics around Content and Relevency

Retweets, recommendations
comments, pass alongs
video reviews, podcasts, etc

Company blogs monitoring/policing

Objective - "Manage internal messaging"
Goal(s) - monitor internal conversations for the purpose of keeping the organization on message.
Strategy(s) - Monitor rss feeds using a negative keyword list. Proactively post on-message topics to internal sites and community managers to acheive "No Drama Obama" style messaging consistency.
Metrics - Audience participation and Engagement metrics around Content and Relevency

tweets,forum posts, blog posts
comments, pass alongs
Posts labeled as "leaks"

Blogger/Influencer relations

Objective - "Engage influential bloggers"
Goal(s) - Develop authentic relationships with top influentials in an a given industry.
Strategy(s) - Identify top influentials list and monitor on topic posts using topic specific dashboards. Develop engagement triggers and "key topic" filters that engagement leads can use as "conversation starters"
Metrics - Audience participation and Engagement metrics around Content and Relevancy

tweets,forum posts, blog posts
comments, pass alongs
conversation and engagement indeces

Try these out and see what happens.

Seattle PI's 180,000 word eulogy.

2009-03-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

According to the 2009 PEW project "State of the News Media Report", Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers like the Seattle PI have turned off the lights on print and are now trying to figure out how to eek out a living as an online only paper. Still others are in bankruptcy or have lost almost all their value in recent months. Is it really the end times for Newspapers?

Whatever happens with the PI it's bound to be entertaining and other dailies considering making the all-digital shift should pay attention to what happens here in Seattle. To find out check out the full report that is if your down for reading a 180,000 word eulogy.

The real bat mobile

2009-03-16T08:31:00.001-07:00

Safety teams at Kennedy Space Center say a small black bat perched on space shuttle Discovery's orange external tank poses no risk to tonight's launch. If said bat is still on the shuttle when it launches it will no doubt go down in in the guiness book of world records as the fastest bat on earth. Read the full story

Why BI professionals should pay attention to Social Media

2009-03-13T16:58:00.001-07:00

At the end of the day every good marketer knows that BI drives CRM and great customer experiences. Companies/Brands who are charged w/ maintaining an accurate measure of the perceptions of their brand and customer experiences now have tools that provide real-time data. Social media is overflowing with expressive qualitative data that builds upon itself daily to show trends that are a) emerging, b) declining, c) established and d) fixed in time .

Until recently these brands had to rely on surveys, focus groups, and sales reports to get qualitative data. Now social media has made conversations quantifiable and this is changing CRM.

So who's doing it well?

So How can BI help?

Social Media Monitoring today is focused on the Quant side of things and this means tracking frequency, velocity and basic demographics. However, some new technologies like Techrigy SM2 are beginning to provide BI friendly insight into the qualitative side of social media using text analytics.

New tools like Techrigy SM2 allows BI Analysts to extract text data from large volumes of social media data quickly and inexpensively, The SM2 tool is built as a social media data warehouse and has the deepest data set available, monitoring almost every form of UGC and its corollary activity in 240 countries and 11 languages. SM2 will allow brands to “buy” as much or as little data as they like, without being locked in to a static set of monthly “keywords”.

When compared to traditional market research, the cost is similar but often lower and unlike questionnaires which are glorified "best guesses", text analytics is a very ordered and structured method for bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative data of the same data set.

BI Analysts who want to empower CRM to meet the rising tide of customer expectations should demo the Techrigy Freemium tool today.

My Interview with heavensgame.com on Coaching the Seattle Quake

2009-03-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to chat w/ the editor of heavensgame.com today and provide some insight to the guys "down under" as to what it's like coaching a gay rugby team here in Seattle. Heavensgame.com is a niche rugby site that covers the world of rugby union in real-time. Jeremy Beynon, Director of www.heavensgame.com, followed me on twitter and over the past couple days we established a relationship. Jeremy was interested in how gay rugby fit in w/ the Pacific Northwest Rugby Football Union. Australia is obviously no stranger to rugby, and has had high profile gay ruggers, like Ian Roberts, achieve significant fame in the world of rugby. Sydney also has one of tough rugby club, The Sydney Convicts, I played against them in Bingham Cup 2006 and remember rattling a few brain cells when going head to head w/ their fullback in our match w/ them on day two of that tourney. Anyhow, Jeremy and I chatted about rugby and gay sports and how the quake is basically doing some of the most cutting edge studies in applied cultural anthropology around sexual orientation within tribes of athletes. Our conversation lead to this interview. Thanks Jeremy, good on ya and glad ta know ya. X

Social media now more popular than email

2009-03-11T08:31:00.001-07:00

A recent Nielsen report shows that blogs and social networking sites captured more user time than email.

For teens/tweens/millinials - what ever you want to call this group using email to communicate and stay in touch is soo old school. I asked one teen recently about how he used email to stay in touch with his friends and he said" why use email when i can use facebook?" for teens email is going the way of the watch, see a watch only does one thing, it just tells time. Why wear a watch when you can use your phone to tell the time and it also connect to the web and makes calls? (lol, bff) instead of email!

Facebook just jumped the shark...good for them!

2009-03-10T08:29:00.001-07:00

Why "jumping the shark" -- or having a blowhard journalist yell that one has -- is basically the best thing that can happen to a startup. Blowhard journalist: Mark McKinnon, The Daily Beast Date: February 27, 2009 "This week in Washington D.C., Twitter jumped the shark when, to great fanfare, members of the mainstream-media elite announced they had been baptized and would from now on be holding forth from Twitterdom, and then members of Congress Twittered President Obama’s speech. This from Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas): “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren't going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour." Since then: After growing 752% in 2008, Twitter grew another 33% in February. Read the full story here.

How Benjamin Button got his face

2009-03-09T17:04:00.001-07:00

Wolfram Alpha?

2009-03-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

Almost everone in our culture today knows what Google is. It's a system for finding things that we collectively publish. Wolfram Alpha is a new computational engine we will all soon be able to access via the web that will answer questions about what we collectively know. It's simply amazing and you can read about it here.

Worldbuilder - I want It!

2009-03-05T18:47:00.001-08:00

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Save the Bankers

2009-03-05T09:01:00.001-08:00

Mobile Users Want Widgets

2009-03-05T07:54:00.001-08:00

Inconsistent widget labeling, poor organization of mobile widget environments discourages users from finding useful widgets for mobile. According to Strategy Analytics, homescreen shortcuts, ‘help’ files, and step-by-step tutorials when a user first sets up their mobile device would drive higher adoption of widgets and mobile internet use in general.

Slow Jammin the News

2009-03-03T15:21:00.001-08:00

Old Man John Stewart on Twitter

2009-03-03T15:04:00.001-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Blackberry Shoots Apple

2009-02-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Join the Army and Get Laid

2009-02-26T11:48:00.001-08:00

Girl 1: Would you take us for a ride on your BMW?
BMW-driver: Even to the end of the world!
Soldier: Hey, i'd like to down some vodka, girls!
Girl 1: Just a second!
Girl 2: Where do you live?
Soldier: Right here- daytime at work, and at night in the clubs!
Girl 1: Which work???
Soldier: Contract of course!
Blonde girl: Contract?? Marriage contract or what?
Girl 3: Army contract, silly!
BMW driver: Hey, don't you wanna ride on my car?
Girls: Forget it, take yourself for a ride!
Narrator: It's about time for new heroes! with contract based service in ukrainian armed forces!"

10 rules for getting social media right

2009-02-26T11:08:00.001-08:00

Ten Golden Rules

1. Integrated digital marketing: Think webspace, not website Extend content and messaging beyond the brand website to where your customers spend their time.

2. Attitude: Adapt to the culture of your environment Remember your brand is only one guest among millions and nobody is in control – shift the marketing team’s mindset from traditional advertising towards a PR approach to build discussion.

3. Creating content: Create what your customers really want Uncover their digital behaviour and only then start building content, profiles or tools – invest time upfront in the research and strategy rather than racing into the build, and build only what they want.

4. Tearable: Make it easy Make your content tearable from your own sites and social media so consumers can use it.

5. TV: Stretch your advertising further Launch TV commercials online before broadcast, giving your best customers the inside track by letting them see it before their friends – extends frequency of TV ads and builds discussion.

6. Listen: Listen to your customers Use smart analytics to listen intensively to what’s being said about your brands: monitor key blogs, social networks, RSS feed and let the findings shape management decision-making - discover the conversation but only take part when you have a clear strategy.

7. Track: Quantify the effect Apply the same analytics so you can track the effects of your social media marketing, quantifying the reach, engagement and attitudes of customers and influencers.

8. Risk: Reduce risk by roleplaying Think through the weaknesses in your strategies and anticipate the response to them before launch, involving stakeholders from across the organization.

9. Blogging: A blog is for life and not just for Christmas Build corporate blogs with authenticity and engagement, using them for thought leadership in your industry rather than press releases – pilot internally and focus on how the content can be sustained so it will be engaging in months to come.

10. Educate: Empower your team to make the right choices Remember that while social media remain relatively new to marketers, teams with good experience in traditional channels may lack the skills to develop ideas, manage their agencies or assess strategies in social media – social media marketing training increases their effectiveness, reduces risk and helps tight budgets stretch further.

Here Comes The BOOOM! -

2009-02-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

Montage!

Black History Month...Good Ol Midwest Style

2009-02-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

Gotta love the midwest...I can kid because I grew up there and know what it's like. Still that doesnt excuse this kind of advertising. It's so blatently racist you simply have to laugh.

:-)

Social networking tops mobile search queries

2009-02-17T07:29:00.001-08:00

According to Openwave.com, Social networking is now the number one area of interest among mobile web users.

Data based on the firm's Mobile Analytics product results indicate that Facebook and MySpace are the two top mobile search terms on both Google and Yahoo oneSearch, and "social networking" was also the top category among search terms.

Social media is like ice cream...

2009-02-10T19:30:00.001-08:00

I love the folks at common craft, This is one of the best examples of explaining social that i have seen yet.

Also, I especially love their explanation of zombies, just the other day I saw this guy waiting for the bus on capital hill, and felt those hairs on the back of my neck raise up when i stopped my car at a light and he looked my way, and I thought to my self, man, somethings not right with that guy, what if that guy's a zombie what would i do? Then i remembered the advice from common craft, you have to cut of the heads. Luckily for all involved the light turned green and I was out of there but i sure was glad that i knew what to do just in case... here is the clip in case you need a zombie refresher...

The Top 100 Most Social Brands of 2008

2009-02-05T07:32:00.001-08:00

Re-posted from Agencyspy.

1. iPhone

2. CNN

3. Apple

4. Disney

5. Xbox

6. Starbucks

7. iPod

8. MTV

9. Sony

10. Dell

11. Microsoft

12. Ford

13. Nintendo

14. Target

15. PlayStation

16. Mac

17. Turner

18. Hewlett-Packard

19. Fox News

20. BlackBerry

21. ABC

22. Coke

23. LG

24. Best Buy

25. Honda

26. eBay

27. Sharp

28. Lincoln

29. NBA

30. Pepsi

31. General Motors

32. McDonaldâ€™s

33. General Electric

34. Walmart

35. NFL

36. Mercedes

37. BMW

38. Samsung

39. Nike

40. Subway

41. Dodge

42. Pandora

43. CBS

44. Mercury

45. NBC

46. Disneyland

47. last.fm

48. Toyota

49. Cadillac

50. Chevy

51. Jeep

52. Netflix

53. Nascar

54. Suzuki

55. Red Bull

56. Wendyâ€™s

57. Burger King

58. Volkswagen

59. REI

60. Nissan

61. T-Mobile

62. Verizon

63. Macy's

64. AT&T

65. Guess

66. Victoriaâ€™s Secret

67. Walt Disney World

68. Audi

69. TBS

70. Cartoon Network

71. IKEA

72. SEGA

73. Kia

74. Porsche

75. Fox

76. Intel

77. IBM

78. VH1

79. MLB

80. Cisco

81. Oracle

82. Saturn

83. Sprite

84. Subaru

85. Adidas

86. BP

87. AMC

88. Chili's

89. The Gap

90. Capital One

91. Hyatt

92. Costco

93. KFC

94. Adult Swim

95. Jet Blue

96. Taco Bell

97. Converse

98. Sirius

99. Puma

100. Sears

This guy is a SUPER GENIUS

2009-02-04T14:12:00.001-08:00

Small amounts of data... "The same everyday frequencies that run garage door openers and TV remote controls will be multiplied by the millions to carry the dumb messages of connected objects. The glory of these connected crumbs is that they don't need to be individually sophisticated. They don't need speech recognition, artificial intelligence, or fancy expert systems. Instead, the network economy relies on the dumb power of bits linked together into a swarm." - Kevin Kelly

Gartner gives BI a High 5

2009-02-02T10:24:00.001-08:00

In 2009, collaborative decision-making will emerge as a new product category that combines social software with BI platform capabilities.

According to a recent Gartner BI survey, 71 percent of respondents think that improving decision-making is the top driver for BI investments. What Gartner means is that we, as business professionals, seek advice from our professional peers when making business decisions.

Here's an example: When making a decision about how much to invest in marketing a new product, users can tag what consumers say is important to them (as Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs) when purchasing that product. The attributions are saved for future sales of that product. The BI platform could then send alerts to the business user if and when a given KPI no longer supports existing decisions or processes.

Will 2009 be the year that web analytics and BI actually stop holding up the wall and get down and shake their respective money makers?

R feed analytics the next big thang?

2009-01-27T12:37:00.001-08:00

Check out, PostRank its the brand new hotness. Give it any RSS feed and the service will give you a filtered feed of just the most commented on, linked to, saved and Dugg posts from that feed. use it to find the latest or wierdest or cheekiest news on the web.

T - 60 days and counting

2009-01-27T11:47:00.001-08:00

Actually 57 days till Erica, Kai and I leave to spend 7 days in paradise.
....Deaming....

Survey: Marketing Execs, Not Other Departments, Should Be in Charge of Monitoring Customers' Conversations

2009-01-26T10:55:00.001-08:00

A survey of 400 executives found some interesting stats:

56% said they don't track or propagate positive word-of-mouth
59% don't compensate employees based on improvements in customer loyalty or satisfaction
30% rated their companies highly in their ability to handle or resolve customer complaints
16% said they are regularly monitoring their brands online.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-26T07:28:00.001-08:00

Quantifying our feelings today - USA 16% more proud than normal - see for yourself!

2009-01-17T12:30:00.001-08:00

Quantifying the country's emotions today of all days may seem like an impossiblity but I'll give it a shot. According to the numbers below from wefeelfine.org the country is 16% more proud than average. Most of the people in our country today are feeling "better", "proud" and "right" about their lives. As of 3:32 PST Specifically 128,155 people are feeling better, 76,610 people are feeling "good" and 40,683 people are feeling "right" about the world. Hooray for us, Hooray for America, Hooray for feeling like its ok to feel again!

More Obama Photos from today

2009-01-17T07:26:00.001-08:00

Scenes from the Washington Mall

2009-01-16T11:10:00.001-08:00

half of the planet has a mobile phone

2009-01-15T07:34:00.001-08:00

eMarketer shows us, that depending on who you talk to "mobile subscription penetration will... reach anywhere from 3.3 billion to 5.6 in 2013."

Imagine a post print NYT

2009-01-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

Imagine there's no heaven... er, ugh, um, ok sorry.

I saw this peice in the Atlantic monthly and thought some bits of it worth posting here.

Can America’s paper of record survive the death of newsprint? Can journalism?
"...what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?"

"Forced to make a Web-based strategy profitable, a reconstructed Web site could start mixing original reportage with Times-endorsed reporting from other outlets with straight-up aggregation. The remaining reporters—now reporters-cum-bloggers, in many cases—could use their considerable savvy to mix their own reporting with that of others, giving us a more integrative, real-time view of the world unencumbered by the inefficiencies of the traditional journalistic form. Times readers might actually end up getting more exposure than they currently do to reporting resources scattered around the globe, and to areas and issues that are difficult to cover in a general-interest publication."

Hmmm, will the NYT go the way of non-profits?

Twitter or Facebook?

2009-01-12T11:20:00.001-08:00

Online Surveys & Market Research

According to Steve Thornton, one of the most pressing dilemmas of the digital world today is "Twitter or Facebook?" He has some interesting points to share:

Twitter Pros

Easy to navigate and update, link to and promote anything
Reach far beyond your inner circle of friends
One feed pools all users; anyone can follow anyone else unless blocked
Pure communication tool, rapid responsiveness
You don’t have to be logged in to get updates; you can just use an RSS reader
Very interactive, extensible messaging platform with open APIs
Many other applications being developed (Twitterific, Summize, Twhirl, etc.)
Potential SMS text messaging revenue from wireless networks (although Twitter states they are not currently getting any cut)
Potential future advertising and/or enterprise subscription-based revenue streams
With its “thin” overhead, Twitter is probably more scalable than Facebook, giving it a cost advantage

Twitter Cons

Limited functionality; find people, send brief messages, direct replies
Limited to 140 characters per update
Not all people find it immediately useful
Over-emphasis on follower counts
Easily abused for spam and increasing the noise level
Relatively smaller installed user base
As yet no readily apparent monetization strategy

Facebook Pros

Application mashup; find people, make connections, email, instant messaging, image/video sharing, etc.
Most people can quickly grasp the value of connecting with friends, family and established contacts; some people report they use Facebook instead of email and IM
More emphasis on deep connections with others vs. who has the most connections “True Friends” feature increases your transparency to selected connections; almost like having private and public profiles
Huge, rapidly growing installed user base
Inherit stickiness, third party applications, “gift giving” and personal data collection make Facebook a powerful advertising platform

Facebook Cons

More difficult to navigate and update
Requires investment of time to realize sustained benefit
Opt in model requires a user to allow others to connect
Less immediate responses; unless you stay logged on continually
Overhead of mashup and “thick” applications could limit scalability, bloat cost structure

my chile pepper site mentioned as example of word of mouth marketing

2009-01-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

A recent example of effective word of mouth marketing is the publication of Charlie Stratton’s October 6, 2008 letter to the editor in the State Journal Register. His creative and compelling letter in recommendation of Darn Hot Pepper’s Habanero Honey Spread. more...

TV Converter Program Runs Out of Funding - so make your own HD antenna

2009-01-06T08:36:00.001-08:00

Give the government something to manage and they will manage to mess it up!

According to the Washington Post, the government's billion-dollar program to help people prepare for the transition to digital television has run out of money, potentially leaving millions of viewers without coupons to buy converter boxes they need to keep their analog TV sets working after the switch.

The science of inner peace

2009-01-04T08:50:00.001-08:00

SharpBrains has an interesting interview with neuroscientist Andrew Newberg who discusses his ongoing research into the brain science of meditation. Scientists are delving into some pretty cool topics, for example:

does meditation help manage stress and improve memory?
How do breathing and meditation contribute to health and wellness?
are religion and spirituality different brain processes?

Will mobile phones save human language diversity?

2009-01-03T08:19:00.000-08:00

According to the wall street journal, companies that develop predictive text say they have created cellphone software for fewer than 80 of the world's 6,912 languages..." according to the article, "linguists fear half the world’s languages will disappear in the near future, thinks at least 200 languages have enough speakers to justify development of cellphone text systems..."

Getting to an actionable top influencer metric on twitter

2009-01-02T00:48:00.001-08:00

Nick Arnett has found some pretty cool trends on twitter. He has posted an "up-to-date list of URLs are are frequently cited on Twitter, among the pages and people that my scraper has explored. (Look down a few posts to see how it is somewhat intelligently exploring.) The list shows how many URL variations are being used (an indicator of how many people independently decide to tweet about the page) and how many people have included a URL in their tweets in the last few days".

What I’d like to see or try and figure out is a way to track and trend top 50 cited “daily top unique url’s by member” could this be a good way to get at a top influencer metric for twitter?

First tech tool tip of 2009

2009-01-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

profile your target markets social technology profile Forrester has a tool for classifying a groups level of involvement in social technologies. they recommend using this to "determine what kind of relationship you want to build with [your target audience], based on what they are ready for". fun stuff

Which college degrees pay the best?

2009-01-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

Philosophy ties Math for the biggest jump - up 103.5% Hoooray, for us philosophy grads!

The five stages of twitter acceptance

2009-01-01T11:02:00.000-08:00

The Events in Gaza - Allvoices.com

2009-01-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

Citizen journalism is kewl, way kewl. It's not new but is on its way to reaching critical mass. Just look at your local newsstand to see the crap that makes it into print, Its all gossip and ad rags. Real journalism is happen in real time and that means online, why wait for print when you can get it on your igoogle page in rss. Citizen journalism means all of us can start to playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating with the intention to 'provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information to a world citizenry. Example: Goto The Events in Gaza, - to see citizen journalists contribute via their cell phones. Super kewl schtuff

Changing the world one photo at a time

2008-12-31T15:53:00.001-08:00

In his latest book, called What Matters, David Cohen takes a look at the essential issues of our time. He and some of the greatest photographers of our time, tell us storie about the things they are deeply passionate about.

Mobile social to do's for 2009

2008-12-30T22:10:00.000-08:00

I saw a list of 2009 hot mobile social sites that almost made me act like one of the lonely island boys, and J**z in my pants... Now while I wont have time to dig deep in all of these here's my top 3 for 2009.

mig33 the first global mobile community, with 9 million+ global users
ZYB Social Phonebook which provides new ways of staying in touch with the people you really care about and enables mobile users to back-up service for their mobile contact and calendar info with special and unique social networking tools.
Buzzd a location based city guide on mobile, providing real-time information for bars, clubs and restaurants on your mobile device.

hellz yeah!

New Years Resoultion for web analysts

2008-12-30T02:03:00.001-08:00

Its time for 2009 resolutions and here's my reco for web analysts

Get a better understanding of Social Media ROI

Most web analytsts think about measurement all day long, but due to time constraits of being swamped w/ reporting they tend to forget to include social media and PR in the measurement schema. These are going to be two major components of all digital customer acquisition strategies for your clients/boss in 2009. So start with the basics, and measured both traffic and conversions using any number of new free tools like techrigy, google trends, quantcast, not to mention whatever basic web analytics package you are using. start thinking about measureing everything you can in these 4 quadrants. controlled onsite behaviors and actions, controlled offsite behaviors and actions, uncontrolled onsite behaviors and actions, uncontrolled offsite behaviors, actions and conversations. Start here and see where it takes you and have fun in 2009.

Israel's Attack on Gaza Strip - Graphic Photos

2008-12-29T11:52:00.001-08:00

In its attempt to avoid civilian casualties, Israel claims to have sent out thousands of cell-phone messages to Gaza, urging residents to leave homes where weapons may be stored.
Despite this, 350 are dead to date and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says there is no end in site.

Deacon Blues - todays favorite on blip.fm

2008-12-24T01:02:00.001-08:00

The Dirty Dozen

2008-12-22T07:37:00.001-08:00

12 ways porn has changed the internet

1. Online Payment Systems
Spam
Streaming Content
Malware
Live Chat
Pop-Ups, Pop-Unders, Mousetrapping
Broadband
Browser Hijacking
Traffic optimization
Domain-Name Hijacking
3G Mobile Services
Paris Hilton

Luxury Mobile Campaign

2008-12-18T07:33:00.001-08:00

Simplicity is often best.
Get the right message to the right people at the right time. This is what mobile social is all about. Learn about the Stella McCartney Mobile Campaign here.

I wish i had thought of this

2008-12-17T19:48:00.001-08:00

Time to start running again...

2008-12-16T16:04:00.000-08:00

Found this link the other day just when I was getting down about my knee healing slow after ACL surgury. 3:07 still kicks ass for first time marathon any way you slice it, now just need to motivate to get started on running again after taking 6 months off. Decided to use my iphone to start making some regular training habits again. gonna see what Apps are out there for managing my time and productivity. So far clock app is pretty sweet I've already set up alarms for getting up at 6:30 am to exercise and prepare for my day. more to come on this topic...

2009 Technology Predictions

2008-12-16T01:21:00.001-08:00

CMS Watch puts together 2009 Technology Predictions
I found this one to be spot on. 11. Mobile and multimedia web analytics become key requirements...and disrupters The web analytics marketplace is dividing between, on the one hand, free (and largely free-standing) services from Google, Yahoo!, and soon Microsoft, versus higher-end and (sometimes overly) feature-rich offerings from the likes of WebTrends and Omniture. However, neither set of vendors has good answers to what 2009 will see as increasingly must-have requirements: analyzing mobile and multimedia activity. A bevy of smaller vendors -- many of them regional and national, with loose ties to different wireless providers -- are bursting on to the scene with very (very) new and experimental analytics approaches for these hard problems. The growing number of customers who care about measuring mobile access and multimedia use will likely have to invest in multiple analytics tools...

Razorfish files patent for social media tracking tag

2008-12-13T08:04:00.001-08:00

Razorfish files Patent to measure Social Media. Razorfish created an "Incrementing Action Tag" that is able to identify and track social media, identify how far removed actions are from the original source of the social media, and identify key influencers of users of social media... Sounds good and if they can do this w/o PII it could be huge for advertisers, brands and even consumers.

Best ringtone ever

2008-12-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

by audiko.net — ringtones.

Social media club in Seattle

2008-12-09T17:50:00.001-08:00

Thursday @ 6:00 - join the launch of the Seattle social media club: http://twurl.nl/qx3jnd

Mobile Social Networking Usage on the Rise

2008-12-06T03:27:00.001-08:00

itsmy.com, is a community brand in mobile Internet and runs off-portal and operator independent with more than 2.5 million mobile users. I pulled out some interesting data points from a recent survey...

average user is surfing 160 mobile Internet pages per day.
Heavy users can log in up to 10 times a day with an online time of up to 2.5 hours
99 percent of all respondents have personal content on their mobile phones
Almost 12 percent of the itsmy.com community members are still in bed when they check their personal messages for the first time.

Online Video Benchmarks and Metrics

2008-12-05T00:52:00.000-08:00

Video Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009 MarketingSherpa's first-ever Video Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2009 is out. Attitudes toward video are changing, video getting abigger share of the ad market and consumers are more willing to sit though longer ads as long as they are in proportion to the amount of video content provided. Interesting exec summary...check it out.

Social media more important during a recession!

2008-12-03T08:33:00.001-08:00

Mobile CRM?

2008-12-01T11:10:00.001-08:00

Getting the mobile channel to where enabling CRM Relevant Products/Services through accessing applications or web sites a.k.a. mobile CRM is as seamless from desktops is akin to taking young children on a long ride who then inevitably ask: "are we there yet?"...

Should Microsoft Make Its Own Phone?

2008-11-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

Can Microsoft build an iPhone? Probably not. But it doesn't have to build an iPhone yet. It just has to build something better than the phones that currently run Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and lesser phones. Which can't be be that hard, especially with the help of Danger, the mobile platform company Microsoft bought earlier this year... Read about the Microsoft phone rumor here.

Should Obama ditch youtube?

2008-11-24T12:31:00.000-08:00

President-elect Barack Obama has now posted his second weekly address to YouTube, and it has already gotten more than 411,000 views. Some say the government needs to step up and host its own videos as it is flat out wrong to have YouTube foot the bandwidth bill for Obama's messages to the people.... Read what Cnet has to say on this here.

New free website evaluator tool

2008-11-21T04:18:00.001-08:00

Bartlett Communications Launches Free Website Evaluation Tool for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses The eValuator uses a scoring system to grade a website based on 15 different indicators, such as Google PageRank, Alexa TrafficRank, technical errors, marketing components, and analytics. Chek it out: http://www.bartlettcommunications.com/evaluator/

Citysearch gets a makeover

2008-11-20T04:49:00.001-08:00

The online restaurant guide's first redesign in six years comes amid heightened competition...

According to Crains New York, Internet conglomerate IAC has given Citysearch.com a facelift. Plus, Citysearch will expand to cover more than 75,000 cities in the U.S.

According to Jay Herratti, “Consumers told us what they wanted and where we needed to improve...,The trend is to go hyper-local and embrace social networks and mobile.” Hmm how is this any different than the value prop they had when they launched the current version of the site 6 years ago?

I believe the strategy then was to "focus on local and create community."

Mmm...mmm...mmm

2008-11-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

Pickled Pequins in a Pancake Syrup Dispenser Had to pass this one along, from the Houston Press... Thanks to Johne and Nate for correcting my recipe. I heated a cup of white vinegar in a pan with a teaspoon of Kosher salt and a clove of garlic and poured ...

Anti-prop 8 rally in Seattle yesterday

2008-11-16T06:28:00.001-08:00

This was the first protest rally in which I have participated, my son on the other hand had his first birthday and first protest march on the same weekend.

Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

2008-11-15T08:27:00.001-08:00

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Web Analytics will rescue social networking ad revenue

2008-11-15T07:30:00.001-08:00

Social Networking Sites Face a Revenue Reckoning, New Report Finds According to Marketwatch, "Large online retailers are likely to lead the way in using in-depth Web analytics to form a common methodology for evaluating how much money ads on social networking sites can bring through direct sales, brand recognition, or market intelligence..."

Join the impact!

2008-11-13T22:39:00.000-08:00

Prop 8 Rally (Against) This Saturday November 15th. Let's work together to promote love and equality. Find the rally location nearest you by clicking on your state or country! Find your Rally location

Obama Vows To Wipe Out Llamas

2008-11-11T19:20:00.000-08:00

A suprizing re-start of the mobile ad revolution

2008-11-11T07:39:00.001-08:00

Obama Campaign Signals Start of Mobile Ad Revolution Better analytics are needed for advertisers to accurately measure the reach and effectiveness of their mobile ad campaigns. However, Obama used technology in ways that advertisers and politicians never have...to mobilize his campaign through innovative integration of communications and marketing...

Making Choices

2008-11-11T03:04:00.001-08:00

"Making choices that are wise, not just economically efficient, means making choices that are consistent with our deepest values." - Thomas W. Malone, The Future of Work. I Saw the quote above today and It reminded me of a book i need to pick up and reread. CROSSPOINTS: A Novel of Choice, by Alexandra York is one of those books I am drawn back to again and again. In this, her first fiction novel, York teaches her audience about how we should make responsible choices. Her thesis is that we should use reason and real emotion and be guided by a specific and life-affirming ideology that is intensely humanistic.now if I can just carve out some time.

Circuit City files for bankruptcy

2008-11-10T03:00:00.001-08:00

Circuit City files for bankruptcy Circuit City Stores Inc, the No. 2 U.S. consumer electronics retailer, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday just a few weeks before the start of the key holiday shopping season, becoming the largest retailer to file under Chapter 11 this year.

Genetic Mutation and a Potential Cure for AIDS?

2008-11-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

From WSJ: The startling case of an AIDS patient who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia is stirring new hope that gene-therapy strategies on the far edges of AIDS research might someday cure the disease.

The patient, a 42-year-old American living in Berlin, is still recovering from his leukemia therapy, but he appears to have won his battle with AIDS. Doctors have not been able to detect the virus in his blood for more than 600 days, despite his having ceased all conventional AIDS medication. Normally when a patient stops taking AIDS drugs, the virus stampedes through the body within weeks, or days.

The breakthrough appears to be that Dr. [Gero] Hütter, a soft-spoken hematologist who isn’t an AIDS specialist, deliberately replaced the patient’s bone marrow cells with those from a donor who has a naturally occurring genetic mutation that renders his cells immune to almost all strains of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Apple Now #2 in Worldwide Smartphone Sales

2008-11-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

Apple is now the world’s number-two smartphone manufacturer, according to a new Canalys study, which confirms that Apple’s popular iPhone device outsold Research In Motion’s entire BlackBerry franchise in the third quarter of this year...

Seattle now official "City of Music", kinda

2008-11-08T11:06:00.001-08:00

After years and years of groundswell and being known for the likes of Quincy jones, Jimmy Hendrix and Nirvana, Seattle has now made it official. During a celebration recently at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, mayor Greg Nickels, helped launch Seattle City of Music, a citywide initiative that aims to “enhance music as an economic, educational and recreational force in meeting the needs of the city, and to build Seattle's role in music nationally and internationally..."

King County Voting Results

2008-11-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

General Election - KING COUNTY Unofficial Cumulative - November 4, 2008 Ballots Cast/Registered Voters: 733879 / 1108128 66.23% Poll Precincts Counted/Total Poll 2526 / 2526 100.00% Governor

Christine Gregoire Prefers Democratic Party 465561 64.47%
Dino Rossi Prefers G.O.P. Party 254780 35.28%
Write-in 1835 0.25%

Lieutenant Governor

Brad Owen Prefers Democratic Party 451769 67.95%
Marcia McCraw Prefers Republican Party 212078 31.90%
Write-in 982 0.15%

Secretary of State

Sam Reed Prefers Republican Party 343654 51.86%
Jason Osgood Prefers Democratic Party 318314 48.04%
Write-in 653 0.10%

State Treasurer

Allan Martin Prefers Republican Party 266751 40.87%
Jim McIntire Prefers Democratic Party 385428 59.05%
Write-in 540 0.08%

State Auditor

Brian Sonntag Prefers Democratic Party 483158 74.10%
J. Richard (Dick) McEntee Prefers Republican Party 168451 25.83%
Write-in 458 0.07%

Attorney General

Rob McKenna Prefers Republican Party 360135 53.52%
John Ladenburg Prefers Democratic Party 312332 46.42%
Write-in 376 0.06%

Commissioner of Public Lands

Peter J. Goldmark Prefers Democratic Party 406294 61.85%
Doug Sutherland Prefers Republican Party 250216 38.09%
Write-in 423 0.06%