(DIGITAL x BRAND)/TRANSLATE

"A Coffee table book about Coffee tables"

This will be the last Blog I write and this Blog will be about writing Blogs. Guys, frankly, I don't have time to write a blog, I don't have time to read them, either.  Where do people find the time, anyway?  I’m just not that important to write one. I'm not the smartest guy in room. I'm a good salesman and I bring with me really, really smart people. I'm a smart businessman and can manage these really, really smart people and turn a good quarterly profit as a result. I make presentations, close the sale and take clients out for drinks and dinner. I take the heat when we run into client problems and give them all the credit when a project is successful. (Which is 99.9% of the time) I really enjoy what I do, at work and at play. That’s it. That's my life. Not really worth writing about. 

There are some very sharp and smart bloggers that I do admire however. There is a list below with links. If you can write better than these guys then write away and Blog your ass off but be smart about it and have something to say that’s worth somebody’s time.

Here are some pointers:

There are millions of Blogs online, but many never get read. One reason: blog overload makes it hard to find the good stuff. Google launched blogsearch.google.com and is a great indexing tool that points to the latest buzz on any keyword or topic. Google's effort, while useful, is not unique. Here are three other ways to navigate the blogosphere. --By a guy named Jeremy Caplan

HOW TO BE A BLOGGER New tools make it easier than ever. Here's a guide to publishing and publicizing your blog:

Beginner's Kit Blogger is the easiest software to use, promising a free blog within 5 min. After quick registration, use any Web browser to write or add links and even photos. Other easy and free options: LiveJournal, Yahoo! 360 and Friendster.

Spreading the Word Start small--e-mail your address to friends. Remember blogging's golden rule: Link unto others so they will link unto you. The more links you get from other sites, the higher your blog will rank in search results.

Beyond the Basics To make your blog stand out visually, step beyond Blogger's 30 simple templates to more advanced tools like Movable Type or WordPress. Both require some technical expertise but give you greater flexibility.

Six Tips from the Pros 1. Pick a specific topic and stick to it. 2. Keep your design simple and your posts concise. 3. Let links and photos speak for themselves. 4. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. 5. Post often--frequent updates keep people coming back for more. 6. Check facts.

Technorati.com Long the best blog-search option on the Web, Technorati indexes by topic, allowing you to find, say, just those blogs that rant about cats. It also lists the most popular terms people are blogging about and features a nice Top 100 list.

Blogdigger.com Want to know what your neighbors are blogging about? Type in a search term, city and state, and Blogdigger lets you see how many blogs within a 5- or 100-mile radius are writing on that topic. Try it out for tracking nearby buzz.

Icerocket.com This is a good resource for looking up blogs on a particular topic, such as Hurricane Katrina, or for searching for blog entries by a certain author or within a specified time period. Another snazzy feature lets you seek out cell-phone snapshots by subject.

TOP 5 BLOGS Technorati's greatest-hits list ranks blogs by the number of sites linking to them. Here are the ones with the most links:

• Del.icio.us calls itself a "social bookmarks manager." It offers a dizzying collection of cool links but no commentary. • Boingboing.net is a general-interest site featuring everything from tech how-to’s to Supreme Court reporting. • Engadget.com runs daily updates on nifty new devices. Hunting for the next iPod-like phenomenon? Look here first. • Dailykos.com posts left-leaning political analysis from a variety of commentators. •Instapundit.com is a Tennessee law professor's right-leaning take on key political issues

My favorite Blogs:

1.    Logic + Emotion - http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/

2.    Russel Davies - http://russelldavies.typepad.com/

3.    "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" - http://www.fightthebull.com/blog/

4.    "Eggs, Bacon, Chips & Beans" - http://russelldavies.typepad.com/eggbaconchipsandbeans/

5.    Seth Godin - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

6.    Jaffe Juice - http://feeds.feedburner.com/jaffejuice

7.    Cool Hunting – http://www.coolhunting.com/

8.    NussbaumOnDesign -http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/index.html

9.    Beyond Madison Avenue - http://www.beyondmadisonavenue.com/

10. Wired – http://blog.wired.com/

11. Adverlab – http://adverlab.blogspot.com/

12. BrandAutopsy - http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/

13. Gaping Void - http://www.gapingvoid.com/

14. Hello_World - http://missinglink.typepad.com/hello_world/

15. Mark Cuban - http://www.blogmaverick.com/

16. SpringWise - http://www.springwise.com/

17. PSFK - http://www.psfk.com

18. Adliterate by Richard Huntington - http://www.adliterate.com/

19. http://servantofchaos.typepad.com/

20. http://conversationagent.typepad.com/

21. http://blog.creativethink.com/

22. Experience Planner by Scott Weisbrod - http://www.scottweisbrod.com/index.php/

23. http://www.micropersuasion.com

24. http://www.toprankblog.com

25. http://www.pronetadvertising.com

26. Where's The Sausage - http://wheresthesausage.typepad.com/

27. Branding Strategy Insider - http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/

28. http://www.ck-blog.com/

29. http://powrightbetweentheeyes.typepad.com/

30. Church of the Consumer - http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/blog/

31. Modern Life is Rubbish - http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/

32. radical Trust - http://www.radicaltrust.ca

Goodbye to Blogging. I wont miss you…

“Flash loading bars” – use em or lose em.

Can we all agree that "flash loading" bars that serve no purpose other than to delay the user’s time and experience and should be banned! Folks, 3- 5 seconds is an eternity in the Digital Space – don’t waste it. I am constantly shocked, as I was this morning, at so called Creative Agencies like the one below http://www.noble.net/, who tout a Digital Brand practice but are still using plain old, boring, time consuming “flash loaders.”   

 

 

I don’t understand why Interactive Creative Directors can’t see this? Brands have the chance to engage a customer in the first 3-5 seconds – It’s their first impression, its focused and can be very compelling - I say, use em or lose em!

Preloaders can be built with the basic versions of flash in a variety of ways:

1.    Graphic loader

2.    Basic animation loader

3.    Complete animating loader

4.    Progress loader

5.    Partial preloader

6.    Forcing the percent loader to play

7.    Forcing the keyframed loader to play

8.    Technical loader

9.    External image loader

Here are some examples of what you can do from our friends at GMG: Click below and view the demos of various examples for NASA.

http://www.gmg.com.au/sharing/flash-tutorials/intermediate-flash-loaders/

How Kodak changed its business model, culture and profits in 3 minutes and 37 seconds, well sort of.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=khZsuhGiNSs

Kodak originally produced this as an internal video for employees in 2007 but quickly made its way to the internet to become one of the most shared videos on You Tube. I am inspired by how old companies with old analog models have adapted and turned themselves around to prosper in the digital age.The problem with us “Digital Thinkers” are that we revel in the demise of anything analog and look for case studies and examples of old company models that were crushed as a result of the digital tech of the last 15 years. We do this to make our Digital lifestyle seem more important to those who don’t get it. Well, I have news for all us, more people "get it" than we think.

While at the Executives Club of Chicago luncheon last week and tech conference, I heard CEO Antonio Perez of Kodak speak. Great speaker in every way. My first thought before the luncheon was, what a great brand Kodak was only to lay in ruin like Dresden in WWII after being plummeted by Digital camera firebombs.  Boy was I wrong. Yes, they reduced their employees from 70,000 employees to 30,000 and they watched they're most valuable IP, Film, diminish in sales to a fraction of what it was. (Don’t feel too bad, Film cost Kodak less than .06 a roll and they sell it for $6.00) Then he played this Video and set me straight.

Kodak reported in January, a fourth-quarter profit of $215 million, a big increase from a year earlier. The results at Kodak, which is wrapping up a four-year digital makeover, were helped by a 15 percent increase in digital sales and a jump-start in the inkjet printer market.

That make-over is due to Perez outlining what he saw as the challenges to the industry and Kodak’s answers to those challenges. Foremost, he led format integration among the digital still industry cameras and printers. That includes better integration of digital image software formats so that consumers are not frustrated and share images with the same ease that text is shared now.

Perez also wanted to get consumers to change the way they think of photos and their function as a memory catalyst. He believes the images should do most of the remembering for you by using meta-data attached to files to enable digital images to be self –organizing. Perez outlined Kodak’s future as the leader in consumer image storage systems by mentioning the idea for a “smart database that could detect and automatically sort by all meta-data pieces including subject, date, place, and format.” He sees this being achieved through incorporating software of facial recognition, GPS tracking, calendar, and semantic understanding that learns from users how to easily manipulate collections by various relationships. Gone are the days when you have to stare at the background in an old photo and try to guess if that was your trip to the beach in Maine or Cape Cod. With a GPS stamp attached to every photo you take, captured digital images would automatically be sorted by location, even if the consumer cannot tell the database what that location is.

Kodaks next challenge will be in Hollywood as five film studios have formally announced their signing of agreements with the nation's top theater chains to fund the rollout of thousands of digital projection systems. Kodak currently supplies all the film used in Hollywood and theaters!  As theaters are just beginning the lurching, slow transition from film projectors to digital, Perez is trying to make sure it gets a part of the business.

Perez cleverly quoted George Eastman who originally said of his first consumer Kodak camera, “You press the button, we’ll do the rest.” “But in the digital space,” Perez added.

Congrats to Kodak, I remain humbled.

 

 

Who is Twitter/Blogger, Jon Ostrower and why does he matter.

I was trying to explain to a Psychotherapist last night at a party, the next gen of Internet user and how brands, companies and actions will be shared seamlessly and without effort to drive ideas, sales and revenues. She didnt get it, so we ended up arguing about "The Sopranos" instead and how Dr. Melfi nailed the part of Tony's Therapist and, how I thought, Tony should have "Nailed" the Therapist instead but never did! She also argued that the finale was a metaphor for life. It wasnt a metaphor, the finale just plain sucked and yup...it was a boring conversation of last resort. Lets move on. 

The point is, that the now generation of Internet users have an expectation of transparency that's greater than anything we've known. Journalistic tools of the 21st Century like Twitter and Blogging, a mainstay of political campaigns, are reshaping how brands, companies, news and even psychotherapy will increasingly have more impact on how we choose to think and act in the future. Jon Ostrower is proof.

Blogger gets off ground with 787

Political junkie broke news about Dreamliner delays

By Julie Johnsson | Chicago Tribune reporter

October 19, 2008

Blogger Jon Ostrower started out with little more than a battered Dell laptop and a goal of detailing the creation of a groundbreaking airplane, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

Ostrower had neither aerospace nor journalism training. But in little more than 18 months, the 24-year-old has significantly altered how aerospace is covered, a world in which work is cloaked in secrecy.

Writing late at night from his Boston living room, he emerged as the go-to source of information about the world's first jetliner made from superhardened plastics, breaking stories of its production woes at a Seattle-area factory.

"This guy's track record is almost in a class by itself," said Richard Aboulafia, who is among the many aviation analysts who read Ostrower closely.

Using media such as Twitter, he broadcast photos and commentary in real time from the plane's assembly lines, to Boeing's consternation. He also scored some of his biggest scoops by enlisting Boeing's workers to correct misinformation in his blog, known as FlightBlogger. They did so at the risk of losing their jobs.

Among Netizens, this is a version of open sourcing, where a blogger calls on a community of readers to contribute facts and correct errors, to the greater good of all readers.

"Even mistakes are OK if you correct them quickly," said media guru Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine .com, a blog devoted to the media industry.

Initially, Chicago-based Boeing Co. was reluctant to answer questions from Ostrower. The aerospace giant has a policy of not responding to leaked proprietary information, and it didn't want to give legitimacy to reports that weren't always fully accurate, said Boeing spokesman John Dern.

Ironically, Ostrower in mid-2007 was building a following among 787 assembly-line workers by imploring readers to help make his reports as accurate as possible.

So when Ostrower wrote that the first Dreamliner's electrical systems would be turned on within a matter of days in August 2007, as scheduled, Boeing workers quickly set him straight.

"Not going to happen that soon, and I'm on the factory floor," wrote the first person to reply. Another tipster reported that 500 of 600 tasks remained to be completed before power-on, the first sign of glitches that eventually would put the plane 18 months behind schedule.

With more digging, Ostrower broke the news that Boeing's efforts to coordinate assembly of the plane with parts shipped into Washington from over the globe had gone awry. Among the snafus were parts shortages and software glitches. In fact, the first plane's power wouldn't be turned on until June.

With each revelation, Ostrower's audience grew. Starting with a readership of only 315 its first full month, FlightBlogger since has attracted more than 1.7 million readers. His standing with Boeing grew as well. He is now afforded the same access as other journalists.

"It is all about relationships and trust and accuracy and fairness," said Dern. "In the beginning with Jon, it was tough that way. But we have gotten through that."

Ostrower, a political junkie who graduated from George Washington University in 2006, saw the evolution of the 787 as similar to a political campaign. Both were long grinds whose outcomes hinged on small, sometimes irrelevant-seeming details.

He decided to mimic a political campaign's non-stop coverage when he first started blogging about Boeing. As a scheduler for Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Ostrower spent his days diplomatically saying "no" to the thousands of invitations the governor receives in a year, said former co-worker Jacqueline Barton.

To relax, Ostrower spent evenings scouring the Internet for details of the 787, which was about to move off the drawing boards and onto assembly lines. Airplanes under development are as rare as comet sightings; they come along once every decade, and their every detail is pored over, imagined and discussed as they come into sharper focus.

Ostrower, who majored in political communications, had been captivated by the 787 since stepping off a plane at the start of a post-graduation tour of Africa. He spotted the futuristic jet in an ad for Ethiopian Airways.

"They were using this airplane to bring themselves into the 21st Century," Ostrower said.

Ostrower wrote his first posting on March 21, 2007. During his first full month online, he attracted 315 visitors. The next month, there were nearly 66,000 readers.

Two things were making his name: He had uncovered details about the first sections of the Dreamliner, built by suppliers, that were winding their way to Everett, Wash., where they would be snapped together to form the first plane. And he was starting to talk with 787 production workers.

Ostrower connected with people who might otherwise have shunned reporters because of his sincerity and his eagerness to learn, said Aboulafia, aerospace analyst with Teal Group, a Virginia-based market research and consulting firm. "He is also an extremely nice guy. That makes it easy for people to talk to him."

Still, Boeing wouldn't respond to his queries. When the new plane made its official debut during an extravaganza hosted by Tom Brokawon July 8, 2007, Ostrower was in attendance, traveling to Everett with money he raised by appealing to his readers.

Boeing declined to give him press credentials. But a reader gave him a ticket intended for Boeing workers and their families, which gave him an important leg up in reporting on the craft.

While the mainstream media raced off to meet deadlines, Ostrower spent nearly two hours closely examining the striking blue-and-white jet and came away feeling the plane wasn't complete.

Shortly after returning to Boston, he received an e-mail confirming his suspicion: The plane was little more than an empty shell, good enough to fool attendees at the rollout.

Ostrower eventually pieced together how Boeing had pulled off the event: To have a plane to show, Boeing had allowed suppliers to ship sections without wiring and other innards installed.

Following up on his erroneous "power on" report, Ostrower began to realize that Boeing's engineers faced a bewildering challenge: finding and installing missing components while sorting out a welter of paperwork required to meet federal documentation standards.

For the first time, Ostrower began to approach the unfolding story like a journalist. He checked and rechecked snippets of information, eventually drawing from people he trusted a picture of how production had broken down.

He posted a lengthy narrative of his findings on Sept. 4, 2007. A day later, Boeing officials, in a conference call with reporters, verified much of his report. Ostrower's first full-length article would be nominated for a journalism award.

However, at a point when he should have been basking in his success, Ostrower decided to shut down his Internet venture. Blogging until 3 a.m. had taken a toll on his day job. He took a two-month hiatus, determined to get serious about a career in politics, Instead, he wound up talking about a job with trade publisher Flight International.

For his interview, he showed up with a Power Point presentation peppered with never-before-seen photos of the 787, then strictly off limits to reporters.

"It looked like he had crawled inside the production line," recalled Stephen Trimble, Americas managing editor for Flight International.

Although Ostrower had no formal journalism training, Trimble quickly hired him to become the magazine's first blogger. His initial assignment: the Dubai Air Show.

He was bewildered at first.

"What do I do? The people I talk to are on the plane line. Those people aren't here," Ostrower remembers thinking.

But Ostrower quickly settled in. Gradually, his relations with Boeing also began to thaw. By May, Boeing invited him to media-only events, including a tour of the 787 assembly line as well as supply-partner factories.

But when Ostrower used Twitter to send live dispatches from the floor of a Dreamliner supplier in Charleston, S.C., his new status with Boeing was nearly undermined.

"Boeing perceived that as a live broadcast," he said. "They don't allow that."

Within a day, Boeing and Ostrower's magazine established ground rules covering his Twitter dispatches, called "tweets."

Of Boeing, Trimble said, "They've come a long way. So have we."

Ostrower remains an unabashed fan of the Dreamliner, which analysts think won't take to the air before early 2009.

"I don't know where this goes from here," Ostrower said. "I hope to see it fly. I'll be standing by the runway and sobbing like a baby."

Tech and Politics - Viral Marketing Obama

Nuff said...

 

Blogs and social networks are now part of our daily lives.

In Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere report, the company observed that blogging is becoming mainstream, leading the way for an Active Blogosphere - defined as the ecosystem of interconnected communities of bloggers and readers at the convergence of journalism and conversation. I’d also add that as the Active Blogosphere further permeates our daily information consumption and distribution processes, that the Social Web equally becomes pervasive. But, it’s so much more than an Active SocialMediaSphere. As networks become densely populated and new communities arise and thrive, we're experiencing a fundamental shift in content creation, distribution, and consumption, thus creating an Active and Participatory Media society that is inspiring and seeding a more literate and enlightened generation.

Blogs and social networks are now part of our daily lives.

* comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)
- Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
- Facebook: 41.0 million | MySpace 75.1 million
- Total internet audience 188.9 million

* eMarketer (May 2008)
- 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users)
- 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)

* Universal McCann (March 2008)
- 184 million WW have started a blog | 26.4 US
- 346 million WW read blogs | 60.3 US
- 77% of active Internet users read blogs

The biggest robbery in the history is taking place. Read this message from Michael Moore

MichaelMoore.com

Mike's Letter

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php

Monday, September 29th, 2008
The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning ...a message from Michael Moore

Friends,

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:

"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."

Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.

The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.

And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.

Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?

It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.

This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!

I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something -- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately:

1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.

2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).

3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.

When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Having read further the details of this bailout bill, you need to know you are being lied to. They talk about how they will prevent golden parachutes. It says NOTHING about what these executives and fat cats will make in SALARY. According to Rep. Brad Sherman of California, these top managers will continue to receive million-dollar-a-month paychecks under this new bill. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. Foreign banks and investors will be allowed to receive billion-dollar handouts. A large chunk of this $700 billion is going to be given directly to Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. There is NO guarantee of ever seeing that money again.

P.P.S. From talking to people I know in DC, they say the reason so many Dems are behind this is because Wall Street this weekend put a gun to their heads and said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we'll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of your middle class constituents. The Dems are scared they may make good on their threat. But this is not the time to back down or act like the typical Democrat we have witnessed for the last eight years. The Dems handed a stolen election over to Bush. The Dems gave Bush the votes he needed to invade a sovereign country. Once they took over Congress in 2007, they refused to pull the plug on the war. And now they have been cowered into being accomplices in the crime of the century. You have to call them now and say "NO!" If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done when President Obama is in the White House. THESE DEMOCRATS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS THE BACKBONE WE GIVE THEM. CALL CONGRESS NOW.

Dedicated Podcast Audience Up 300%

Dedicated Podcast Audience Up 300%

Aug 29th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Featured Story, Podcasting, Podcasting Research, Podcasting Statistics

Podcasting continues to grow by leaps and bounds, with the total audience for podcasts increasing by 58% in under two years, according to research by the Pew Internet Project.

The dedicated podcast audience - those that download podcasts every day - has gone up 300% in the same time, from 1% of those surveyed to 3%.

The survey promises to provide ammo for podcasters and critics alike. While the number of dedicated podcast fans is up 300%, the technology’s steady adoption rate is closer to something like RSS’s, rather than the rocket-fast adoption of something like YouTube, which has a much lower barrier to entry.

Pew also found that men continue to be more likely than women to download podcasts:

• 22% of online men have downloaded a podcast
• 16% of online women have downloaded a podcast

Men and women are equally likely (3%) to download podcasts on a typical day.

Age differences are more defined with regard to podcast downloading than they were in 2006 when all age groups, except for those 65 and older, were almost equally likely to download podcasts. Now, the dividing line is around the age of 50, with internet users under 50 years old significantly more likely than older users to download podcasts. Fully 23% of those under 50 say they have ever downloaded a podcast and 4% downloaded one yesterday, compared with 13% and 1% of their older counterparts. Since 2006, younger generations have more fully embraced the technology, their percentages nearly doubling since 2006.

Pew also found a strong correlation between broadband access and podcast use:

Internet users with broadband and premium broadband access at home are significantly more likely than the average internet user to have ever downloaded a podcast, with twice as many premium home broadband users being daily podcast users.

Viral Marketing a white paper on Viral Marketing!

This is a paper on "Viral Marketing" and was written by Ralph F. Wilson and virally distributed by me... and worth distributing, virally by you..great read!

The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing

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In a few short generations, a virus population can explode.

Viral Marketing Defined

What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as "word-of-mouth," "creating a buzz," "leveraging the media," "network marketing." But on the Internet, for better or worse, it's called "viral marketing." While others smarter than I have attempted to rename it, to somehow domesticate and tame it, I won't try. The term "viral marketing" has stuck.

The Classic Hotmail.com Example

The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:

1. Give away free e-mail addresses and services,
2. Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com" and,
3. Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates,
4. Who see the message,
5. Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
6. Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.

Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly.

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy

Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But below are the six basic elements you hope to include in your strategy. A viral marketing strategy need not contain ALL these elements, but the more elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. An effective viral marketing strategy:

1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others' resources

Let's examine at each of these elements briefly.

1. Gives away valuable products or services

"Free" is the most powerful word in a marketer's vocabulary. Most viral marketing programs give away valuable products or services to attract attention. Free e-mail services, free information, free "cool" buttons, free software programs that perform powerful functions but not as much as you get in the "pro" version. Wilson's Second Law of Web Marketing is "The Law of Giving and Selling" (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htm). "Cheap" or "inexpensive" may generate a wave of interest, but "free" will usually do it much faster. Viral marketers practice delayed gratification. They may not profit today, or tomorrow, but if they can generate a groundswell of interest from something free, they know they will profit "soon and for the rest of their lives" (with apologies to "Casablanca"). Patience, my friends. Free attracts eyeballs. Eyeballs then see other desirable things that you are selling, and, presto! you earn money. Eyeballs bring valuable e-mail addresses, advertising revenue, and e-commerce sales opportunities. Give away something, sell something.

2. Provides for effortless transfer to others

Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they're easy to transmit. The medium that carries your marketing message must be easy to transfer and replicate: e-mail, website, graphic, software download. Viral marketing works famously on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better. The classic is: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com." The message is compelling, compressed, and copied at the bottom of every free e-mail message.

3. Scales easily from small to very large

To spread like wildfire the transmission method must be rapidly scalable from small to very large. The weakness of the Hotmail model is that a free e-mail service requires its own mailservers to transmit the message. If the strategy is wildly successful, mailservers must be added very quickly or the rapid growth will bog down and die. If the virus multiplies only to kill the host before spreading, nothing is accomplished. So long as you have planned ahead of time how you can add mailservers rapidly you're okay. You must build in scalability to your viral model.

4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors

Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. What proliferated "Netscape Now" buttons in the early days of the Web? The desire to be cool. Greed drives people. So does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages. Design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, and you have a winner.

5. Utilizes existing communication networks

Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. A person's broader network may consist of scores, hundreds, or thousands of people, depending upon her position in society. A waitress, for example, may communicate regularly with hundreds of customers in a given week. Network marketers have long understood the power of these human networks, both the strong, close networks as well as the weaker networked relationships. People on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion.

6. Takes advantage of others' resources

The most creative viral marketing plans use others' resources to get the word out. Affiliate programs, for example, place text or graphic links on others' websites. Authors who give away free articles, seek to position their articles on others' webpages. A news release can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of readers. Now someone else's newsprint or webpage is relaying your marketing message. Someone else's resources are depleted rather than your own.

Put into practice

Viral Marketing by Russell Goldsmith The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing by George Silverman

I grant permission for every reader to reproduce on your website the article you are now reading -- "The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing" (see http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles-clean.htm for an HTML version you can copy). But copy this article ONLY, without any alteration whatsoever. Include the copyright statement, too, please. If you have a marketing or small business website, it'll provide great content and help your visitors learn important strategies. (NOTE: I am giving permission to host on your website this article AND NO OTHERS. Reprinting or hosting my articles without express written permission is illegal, immoral, and a violation of my copyright.)

When I first offered this to my readers in February 2000, many took me up on it. Six months later a received a phone call:

"I want to speak to the King of Viral Marketing!"

"Well, I'm not the King," I demurred. "I wrote an article about viral marketing a few months ago, but that's all."

"I've searched all over the Internet about viral marketing," he said, "and your name keeps showing up. You must be the King!."

It worked! Even five years later this webpage is ranked #1 for "viral marketing."

To one degree or another, all successful viral marketing strategies use most of the six principles outlined above. In the next article in this series, "Viral Marketing Techniques the Typical Business Website Can Deploy Now" (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-deploy.htm), we'll move from theory to practice. But first learn these six foundational principles of viral marketing. Master them and wealth will flow your direction.

"Copyright © 2000, 2007, Ralph F. Wilson, E-Mail Marketing and Online Marketing editor, Web Marketing Today. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reprint this article on your website without alteration if you include this copyright statement and leave the hyperlinks live and in place."

The Jawbone - my new tech jones, this is cool

So I was checking out Engadget this morning, as I usually do, when I came across the new and improved Jawbone 2. If you listen to tech podcasts you've probably already heard about it. They played this great advertisement on the popular Revsion 3 video Diggnation. This might not be the most exciting video that I could have embedded, but the technology and science behind this bluetooth headset is pretty neat.

Bottomline: It has an unwanted sound canceling capability that is pretty impressive. I'm buying it.

I heard Leo Laporte chatting about this on his Tech Guy show. He thought the concept was pretty cool, but "could not have sympathy for someone trying to use the phone while driving a convertible." I had to laugh, because while I realize this is ridiculous I couldn't help but wonder how the Jawbone would perform in such a situation. I own a old Mercedes and I could use a device like this to cancel out some of the road noise created by the ever congested Kennedy Expressway while playing loud music with my sunroof open. I guess.

To summarize, the Jawbone is a good Bluetooth ear piece for folks who live in loud cities, like me and like Chicago, drive in cars with music on and make sales calls or have loud friends in bars that talk too much! One last thing, Yes Bluetooths have crossed over to Jewelry.I like it