Many have blogged and twittered and videoblogged and webinared how to work with twitter. Some of the more egregious “click my junk”ers even charge users for the “inside information”.

I advise clients on strategies in integrating digital and social tools within their marketing architecture and inside the enterprise. Finding, implementing and using tools like blogging, twitter, video, wiki, etc is what I do. In the last 24 hours I have had 2 conversations around guidelines for working with Twitter (and a big thanks to @Micah on twitter and http://learntoduck.com/ and who got me thinking about this). How to jump in, use it, not abuse it, get something out of it and connect with people. This isn’t a post about getting to 25,000 users (I only have 1000+) or making money with Twitter, or how Social Media saved my . Here are some tips I give clients about Twitter, and getting in the right way.

1. Be human. Have a real person behind the @name – even if it is a brand, you need someone there, a real person and preferably someone in the org and not the agency (ghost twittering isn’t authentic). BestBuy’s developer group has Keith Burtis, @Comcastcares, etc. are all real people. They talk about real stuff. Sure, sometimes it is more corporate, but its nice to see the human behind the curtain.

2. Listening, listening, listening – whats the point of having this live, 24/7 stream of distributed consciousness/conversation and dozens, hundreds, or thousands of followers if you dont bother to listen to the users when they mention you, your product, your brand, your category you are leaving money on the table. Pandora does a great job of listening, so does JetBlue (who responded to me via DM after an incident at the gate for one of their flights). Start with Summize or take a big-boy step up to use search in tweetdeck or go nuts with Radian6 or one of their competitors and really start paying attention.

3. Attention is a currency. Following back is a gesture. Retweets are a powerful way to say to your followers “I dig this” and to the person you are retweeting “I dig you”.

4. 50-50 rule, Pay-It_Forward, etc . Do you want fail at twitter? Talk about yourself all the time. Me, Me, Me, is Boring Boring, Boring. Spend half as many of your tweets on your followers and the people you follow as you do yourself. Spend the time to show you are listening by paying into the shoutout economy - celebrate what your users are doing, congratulate them for a job well done, or send your condolences when their dog dies. You can do this publicly w/ an @ or privately with a DM. If one of your followers says something interesting, profound, funny or worthwhile, RT (retweet it). Add value and then your followers won’t mind checking out your new blog post, or youtube video, or “hey guys can you take my poll”. My friends don’t ask me to “click their junk”

5. Consider following back other real people. Someday your ratio might matter

6. If you can’t commit to twitter its OK. Don’t force it. Don’t make the intern run the twitter feed. Don’t agonize over every tweet. If you are the agency, don’t drop this on the client as the next big thing without helping them understand it. Walk them through it, have them open their own personal twitter accounts. Even better, get their internal team on Yammer to use microsharing INSIDE the org first.

7. Make your tweets inherently “retweetable”. Brevity is the sole of wit and kindof a requirement when you only have 140 characters. Take advantage of a URL shortener, there are a bunch (and some are built into tweetdeck and the twtiiter architecture itself uses tinyurl). Supposedly bit.ly has an interesting measurement capability if you want to see the reach of a tweeted URL – i need to look into it

8. Auto DM is generally bad. Especially if you have a “click my junk” in your autoDM. When you go on a blind date, do you start with a “free e-book offer”?

9. Fill out your whole profile. Make a background image with your URLs (linkedin, facebook, website, blog, etc.). Make sure your main URL is part of your profile so it is clickable.

10. You can leverage twitter if you build trust. @skydiver is on there a lot with urgent HARO requests, because he has paid it forward. Macheist recently did a giveaway for Devonthink software. You can ask your followers questions and they will respond – see #2 above

11. Rinse, repeat, make mistakes, learn from them, get better and don’t give up.

How much does one of those opportunities cost? It can’t be cheap to put up a billboard in an airport, right? That same amount would fund a social media project for an entire year, and you’d have clickable metrics for the effort. Wouldn’t that be a better return?

Did Chris remember the name of the company sponsoring the phone/laptop charging station (Samsung)? The Advertising worked (and got the fringe benefit of promotion on Chris’ blog)

Did Chris remember those Vending Machines in the airport (Apple and Best Buy)?? The Advertising worked (” fringe benefit” comment again).

Did Chris remember the 2 billboards before the Hudson News stand? How about the 2 page spread in the middle of this month’s WIRED? The 12 commercials that ran between when you sat down at Fox Sports Bar and when you got up?

Little Guy In The Subway With A Bag of $

The two examples he used (Samsung charging stations and the Apple or Best Buy vending machines) worked because they either provided immediate value (needing to juice up, a HUGE problem in most airports, or chargers, iPods, etc.) or potential future value. They fit within his/yours/my context. If my mom was travelling at the same time, she wouldnt notice who sponsored the power, because she doesnt travel with devices that need power. She might notice the Apple vending machines because they are novel/unique to her, but 5 years from now she will ignore them because they will be commonplace.

Billboards are a “shotgun” approach (with a ton of metrics behind it). The hope is, the right person happens to walk by who happens to have that product or service as part of their context (along with Direct Marketing phone, email, URL to let them find out more AND to let the marketer see effectiveness) or the creative in the ad connects with the user (for a brand campaign – the iconic APPLE ads are a great example of this). In the case of Brand ads, the marketer is paying for impressions (and they pay through the nose – those boards aren’t cheap). In the case of ads with some kind of direct component, the ROI can be (to a certain extent) measured. There are impressions and clickthrough rates to measure against. Is it personal? Nope.

Here is the thing: this stuff, these traditional techniques (print, radio, tv, out-of-home, ad banners, PR, etc.) aren’t going away. Sure, more of the budget is going to digital, but not all of it. There are more of them (less digitally savvy or complete luddites) than there are of us (people reading this, living this, sharing this thing of ours). Marketers still think of us in terms of CONSUMERS and demographics. The reason the old school isn’t going away, the reason we don’t have the advertising apocalypse is because of one thing – IT STILL WORKS.

While we keep saying Social Media is no longer an experiment, we need to keep the marketer’s context in mind. The CMO wants to be innovative, and the brand manager wants to change the world, but both have numbers (leads, impressions, brand value, etc.) that they have to meet to be successful, to grow their brand, get their bonus or in some cases keep their job (the avg lifespan of a CMO is currently something like 22 months). No one ever got fired for doing yet another Direct Mail campaign (where a 1% response rate is considered successful), billboard or tv/radio spot – they are part of the marketing mix. Even ad banners get clickthroughs and they are the “ritz crackers” (low value, not tasty or very effective) of digital advertising.

Small, growing and new brands can go all-in on Digital and Social because they need an edge, and the edge is reach and cost and hopefully shortcut the need for brand recognition and jump right to a relationship. P&G knows it needs Social and is working towards it for the long term (the same thing they did with radio and TV). Ford and GM know they need it, but have to work harder to connect emotionally and with passion (two things that are kinda requirements). If all you do is SELL SELL SELL, its kinda hard to “start a conversation” – you have to invest a lot (time, money, humility) to get respect and to get people to listen. That investment is happening now.

As the Social Media side of Digital grows and matures (and we get more news like the Dell metrics) it can make the case to take a bigger piece of the marketing pie. Digital is no longer sitting at the kids table when it comes to the Agency-Client relationship. Digital is getting more and more budget because it is effective and less expensive and has greater, time-agnostic reach. Sure, we might start shooting commercials for Hulu (or whatever replaces it) and we may see more immersive and experiential and integrated efforts in the future, but the Old School isn’t going away. An ad agency I interviewed a few months ago WILL NOT HIRE an account, strategist or creative without digital in the portfolio or CV. Its becoming that important.

But Social can be the “red thread” that ties the traditional and the digital together, make them more connected, connecting, relevant and responsive. Social (listening, outreach, participatory) can start changing the marketing mindset from campaign to commitment. But that is going to take time.

In 10 years we will have Marketers (CMOs and Brand Managers) who have grown up with Digital in their toolbox from the beginning. Thats when things will start getting weird (in a good way).

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Like it? Hate it? Leave a comment below

This is another LONG video (1 hr), but there is a really great discussion here.

Chris asks

What’s next? What do you think marketers on the web need to know more about? What do you think are the services that the new generation of marketing firms have to have, now that traditional marketing isn’t always getting the job done?

In the old days, clients would choose an agency because:
1. they had great creative – “we want the guy who did the Apple commercials”

2. their ability/experience with a market segment – “gosh, they did great work for Pepsi, that experience can be used for our new energy drink”

3. The size of their network, strength of their media planning and buying – “i want the guy who knows the guy who got the placement on that hit ABC show before it was a hit AND can get my daughter tickets to the MTV Upfront party!”

New Media Marketing companies have to keep a number of chainsaws in the air:

1. Context – belief and experience in Social Media and the cred/rep/war stories/and results to go with it – just because you build websites doesnt mean you “get” blogging or twitter or any other parts of the medium. Authority isn’t popularity. Telling stories that sound suspiciously like press releases = EPIC FAIL

2. Strategic Thinking & Integration – need to see the forest from the trees and the big picture for the Brand, product, business and space in both the communication space AND the other things a client is doing. A big part of working with clients is seeing the whole map and selling through the idea that Social Media can work in lots of places outside of just the blog or wiki… having an understanding (not controlling or running, but keeping an eye on the radar and ears open) of the big picture can improve the results/performance/relationships you are building, over time. In the same way that you need to have a high degree of empathy for the users, you also need to keep in touch with the other teams – otherwise social media is a campaign and not an effort (and this is as important for clients as it is for the agencies). Long term I see PR and Marketing coming more closely together BECAUSE of Social Media and its ability to connect more deeply with users.

3. Specialization – Would I hire a New Media Marketing Co. to help me connect with Moms and Mommybloggers and the people in their spheres of attention if they only work with the Digg/Slashdot/Gamer crowd??? Just because you “get” social media in general and for one community doesn’t mean you are effective with every community/tribe/family/affinity group/audience. New Media Marketing companies need to differentiate themselves by investing and embedding themselves in these spaces, commit themselves to being a good neighbor and making their day-to-day as user-centric as the conversations they are having on behalf of their clients. That deep understanding of a community doesn’t happen during a 2-week discovery phase – you need to live it. Small, focused, real and intimate. There is a big difference between being a strategic partner (which any large or small agency wants) and being a production shop (who the hell wants to work in a blog mill?)

4. Transformation – We aren’t replacing anything – we are growing something new. While traditional marketing is becoming less effective, that doesn’t mean it is going away any time soon or a major client will suddenly drop its TV budget for videoblogging or wikis – these people have targets, and numbers and share points to reach in order to get their bonus. Clients will still use agencies and as in the 90s, they will add social media to their overall communications mix the same way they added digital media. SOcial Media efforts, as effectiveness and ROI continue to be proven will become more and more prevalent and get more and more share of budget.

5. Flexibility - basically a keen eye on the landscape and trends and the ability to translate that into value for their clients. IWOOT (I Want One Of Those) is a problem regardless of sector or industry and a large role these New Media Marketing companies must take is that of teacher/sherpa – this is a new, scary world for them, challenging for us and downright boring for digital natives.

Energy (marketing) can’t be destroyed, it just changes form – and we collectively need to make sure our intentions (that this is something different) don’t get co-opted by business as usual.

Dig it here - http://www.chrisbrogan.com/starting-a-social-media-strategy/

Some killer points:

Begin with the End in Mind – Strategy isn’t the goal. It’s the path you plan to take to get there. So, let’s put some goals out, and then talk through how to build a strategy to reach them.

Are you ready to handle negativity? Platforms like blogs and videos allow for negative comments, and some company cultures aren’t ready to engage with those opinions.

Attention: learn how to build awareness and encourage relationships with the media you’re making.

As someone who has done this a couple of times, for big and small companies, it is hard to imagine any one way to do it. There is a huge palette to work from, with tons of options and features ranging from the simple to the complex. But tools and platforms and media types (video, text, audio) aren’t a strategy. You have to start with the basics:
Who are we trying to reach (Users – first and always)
Why are we trying to reach them (purpose for this – and it can’t be to create shareholder value or trick people into a CRM loop)
What are we trying to start (conversation, ideation, feedback loop, etc.)
Where are we trying to reach them (go to the users, where they live, in context, with strong respect for them and their space)

After the goals are set, you need to have principles, reasons why you are doing what you are doing. If you don’t set the bar for yourself, transparently and openly, the users will think you are scamming them (their shields are up whether you like it or not – get used to it). Principles aren’t just something to put on a deck slide, they are one of your checklists that live with whatever you are doing. Some principles from previous projects –
1. We aren’t selling anything
2. We are telling the stories of the people and history of this company
3. If it feels like a press release – DELETE it
4. We will take crap from some users, this is not a drill
5. It’s about them. Their needs, their conversations… we are a host, a guide, a facilitator… we dont own them but they can PWN us
6. The users have more ideas than any team can come up with in 5 years… work with them to set the editorial calendar (better yet – throw out the editorial calendar)

Some additional thoughts:

Listening has to be 50% of the initiative, otherwise it is a monologue not a dialog. But it has to be ACTIVE LISTENING. I once had a client who described the web, and specifically the social digital ecosystem as the greatest listening post for a brand in history. He was 1% right. If you listen and dont react/act/respond/show you are paying attention you are only getting 1% of the value.

Keep the User/Audience at the center of the strategy at all times. Dont let marketing/pr/IT/the front office/the consultant/the agency ANYONE with an agenda change that. Its the difference between talking AT someone and talking WITH them.

Outreach Outreach Outreach… a company/nonprofit/personal brand/whatever doesnt exist in a vacuum – no man is an island, and neither is your brand. You need to celebrate the people, ideas and stories outside of your four walls – even if they disagree with you sometimes. Do it because it is important. Do it because you want the users to see the things that you think are cool, do it because sending a link is a form of currency that actually MEANS something (your attention + your audience’s attention = value). Do it because you can answer or correct the record in real time.

Less is More, until you need MORE – Start small, be humble, ask questions, challenge the users. Do little things savagely well… and then build up on the strategy. Keep a backlog of all the things you want to do, but you dont have to do them all at once and you can get some things wrong – users will forgive you.

Comcast buys Plaxo (I couldn’t think of two worse companies in the word who so deserve each other)

Conde Nast/WIRED buys Ars Technica

OK… the spending spree has begun

And it has taught me so much:

• Editorial is not an afterthought
• Trust is earned
• “Are we done yet” is not professional
• Google Adwords, Google Adsense are magic (and Dave McClure is sooooo right)
• There isn’t enough time in the day
• Going to the US Open with a friend is more fun than watching it on TV
• Pretty much going anywhere is better than watching TV
• You have to be pretty hardcore to compare the NY Yankees to the Republican Party
• Writing the perfect doc or deck is impossible
• There is never enough time, there never will be enough time
• I will be going to Gnomedex as long as Chris and Ponzi invite us
• MadMen is the best show on television

More to come… couple of launches in the next couple months, interesting project for some of my friends, some travel, helping a couple of clients

Gold Rush in Cyberspace, a cover story written by Vic Sussman and Kenan Pollack in 1995 for US News and World Report, is one of the first big-media stories I read about the internet and how it would change everything. It is one of a few sources that convinced me to get into the game.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/951113/archive_033371_print.htm

Some gems:

To many, this is the dawn of a radical new commercial era in which a single medium combines elements that used to be conveyed separately: text, voice, video, graphics. Countless firms will be transformed in the process, including publishing, banking, retailing and deliverers of health care, insurance and legal services. Predicts the newsletter ComputerLetter: “The Web will become the transparent fluid in which all of our personal, corporate and public data are miraculously suspended.”

Understand the medium. Conducting business on the Web, a phenomenon with no parallel in communications history, will demand new strategies in advertising and marketing. Unlike broadcasting and print, which are one-to-many entities with a passive audience, the Internet is a many-to-many medium in which everyone with a computer and modem is a potential publisher. Web surfers, for example, tend to be self-directed. They typically have little patience for “brochureware,” advertisements that are thrown up like so many billboards.

http://www.ringblender.com/blender.html

This site allows fans of the band to take pre-selected tracks and samples and make their own ringtones, share them with friends and download to their phones.

DIY? Check.
Band that values its fans? Check.
Simple, well-done execution? Check.

Gnomedex aims to be a tech zeitgeist – where today’s ideas and thinkers come together – although the direction of our conference may change in the following years. The conference industry certainly has affronted us several challenges, since we refuse to play the games that other conferences do. Gnomedex is still largely a labour of love (though also a small part of our business model).

http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/07/11/gnomedex-is-happening/

Well one clear way is to just ’subscribe’ to someone and then find out what they’re doing – wherever they are. This can only be done across vendor’s offerings – so it’s a great use case for open standards.

For a while now I have been a snob of social networks. “I get it, I get it” – I would join, check out early features, and not really invest in the community while trying to get a quick read on the SN. Understanding the theory without being invested. Recently, thanks to having to do the research, friends (like HH) inviting me left and right and some really exciting things happening in the SN space (like Marc’s PeopleAggregator, Facebook opening up, researching SNs in different cultures) I have been getting more invested different worlds, seeing what they have to offer, learning and experiencing (badges to come).

The biggest frustration I have is having to make a new profile from scratch in each of these places. Because, really, my hobbies are the same if I am in facebook or myspace. I might not put my entire employment history in Facebook, but if I did, why would I want to key it or copy/paste it 2x from LinkedIn???? What happens when these data sources become out of synch (like my employment histories or hobbies between social networks)?

The truth Marc has been sharing is simple – open it up (platforms), be free, listen to the customer (radical idea), and anticipate what they want (’cause they dont know it – yet), let them share (on your network and others). I used to think my blog was this center of the social universe for me – and it could become that… we just arent there yet.

We dont have one circle of friends. We don’t have one interest. We dont have only one favorite food. We dont have one email address. We dont only like one musician or singer or group. We dont like only one kind of movie or tv show or magazine. People like choice. They like options. They don’t always make a choice – and that is a choice in itself. They want to engage on their terms in the places and spaces of their choice.

The more you hold them down, lock them out, and box them in the easier it will be for them to invest (time, effort, ideas, creativity) in someone elses platform that is open.

Dave says…

From Marc’s blog:
http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2007/06/subscribing-to-people

the first post I find dives into another aggregator/platform Ziki

http://thew0rd.com/2007/06/25/zikicom-releases-v2-of-their-digital-identity-management-suite/

these guys should check out the conversation Doc is leading in VRM
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/vrm/

For the first 3.5 years, it was Jim and I working about 10 hours a week each, with the company earning many millions of dollars per year.

Then 2 things changed, and we realized we had to change with them:

1) Startup economics improved, making it harder to keep good people
2) The Online Advertising Market improved, making free competitors a reality

Organic growth. Community based. Growth. Fun

I love print. I love magazines that commit and pay for long articles and long fiction. The web rewards neither approach. It’s a packeted medium, a surf medium. Short bursts are the way to go. The web isn’t a replacement medium — it’s *another” medium.

(my bold)

From his blog

Turns out Digg may have banned a user for posting a hack.

Jay Adelson of Digg posts the reason here.

Best story title so far:

I’m thinking of a number… it’s not my credit score

Live by the community, get pwned by teh community

Thanks to Somwhat Frank for the pointer.

Link to the article here

The Web Celeb 25

1. Jessica Lee Rose
2. Perez Hilton
3. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
4. Matt Drudge
5. Seth Godin
6. Jeff Jarvis
7. Glenn Reynolds
8. Amanda Congdon
9. Robert Scoble
10. Michael Arrington
11. Hosea Frank
12. Jimmy Wales
13. Harry Knowles
14. Frank Warren
15. Cory Doctorow
16. Xeni Jardin
17. Leo Laporte
18. Merlin Mann
19. John H. Hinderaker
20. Charles Johnson
21. Kevin Sites
22. Mark Lisanti
23. Jason Calacanis
24. Om Malik
25. Violet Blue

I have not written anything on this blog in over a month. It bothers me not to write for such long periods of time, since I know that my influence expands and contracts based on on how often I post. Relationships require frequency of contact to flourish, whether they be personal or business oriented; and the relationship between me as the author and you as the reader is no different.

Rosedale and other executives say they fully expect there eventually to be multiple virtual worlds that use Linden’s code, or that at least are interoperable with Second Life, so avatars can pass from one world to another. Says Rosedale: “Say IBM builds its own intranet version with our code that’s somewhat different from Second Life. But it’s probably not that different. A user may say ‘Wow, this virtual thing IBM’s built is pretty cool. Now I want to go the mainland.’ And we have another customer.”

Sounds like the kinda thing Marc Canter would dig.

Open source, open standards, open ID, and now… OPEN WORLDS. Taking SL out of one set of servers, distributing it, making a community of second lives – furries in one (or 100), builders in another (or 1000), designers in another,  regular folks running through all – different social mores, codes of conduct, experiences, platforms…

Article here.

http://www.getdemocracy.com/articles/future_of_video.php Nicholas Reville

Putting viewers at the center means giving everyone who wants to watch video a homebase where they can access videos from any hosting service or website. For miscellaneous videos, like the ones that have made YouTube so popular, this means a search engine that gives results from any service and let’s you watch what you find without jumping around from site to site.

For more serious videos– stuff that’s produced by known creators on a regular basis (like a daily or weekly show)– the best homebase is an RSS aggregator. The can be a desktop application (like the one we make) or a web-based aggregator. The important thing is that viewers can pull together video from anywhere on the web.

A. I am a huge fan of the Democracy player and the team behind it. It is almost exactly what I am looking for from a media aggregator (includes bittorrent-y goodness!) – channels, rss feeds, bittorrent integration.

B.  RSS has been a game-changer in the social media space for a while now (driving content syndication, blogging, podcasting and videoblogging), and it is still in the early part of the adoption curve (but podcasting and video blogging are the kinds of things that have been increasing adoption recently). If we accept the idea of giving the users what they want on their terms (their chosen device, their favorite medium, timeshifting, placeshifting, etc) then RSS is the magic bullet. It not only meets the needs but it exceeds the needs. It requires users to do little more than discover and attach the feed to their aggregator – a not-to-insurmountable learning curve. For publishers it means being more open with their content (in this case video) and letting the work out there.
C. Broadband is more accessible now than every before. It is getting cheaper. We have more choices.

The best part of this article (and I can’t believe it took a month for me to find it:

Promoting your RSS feeds is counter-intuitive: why would you encourage users to leave your website? You should, because small services can’t and won’t beat YouTube and Google and MySpace at the web game. Those companies are too big, too well funded, and have hired too many talented people that will continue to improve their service. You are better off getting your viewers to subscribe to your content while you have them. In this way, video RSS lets hosting services innovate to attract publishers.

Now this was written before the YouTube purchase, but it is even more relevant now. Asa follow up, Mike Hudack at Blip.tv wrote a response to Nick’s post where, with a few execeptions, he is almost completely on the same page.

It’s incumbent upon the Internet community to prevent any one corporate interest or collection of like-minded corporate interests from controlling independent Internet video. Independent Internet video should be outside the control of the FCC and the giant media conglomerates of the world. The artists and the viewers should be making the decisions. That means that artists and viewers should embrace open standards, distributed technology and open platforms. We’ve done our best to make blip.tv the best choice for those who want Internet video to be open and free. Hopefully Nicholas agrees, and I’m really looking forward to working together with Nicholas, the Participatory Culture Foundation and the Web at large to make sure that we stay at the cutting edge of open media.

And then Mark chimes in (far more eloquently than I – especially ’cause I left out the media copy-pasting that is needed to take this to the next level – arrggghhhh) . It’s funny because this is just the sort of thing Ze Frank does with his intros, Jaffe does with his Across the Sound podcast (which is frakkin awesome) – the idea of consumers becoming producers… not just listening to podcast, but sending in an audio file as viewer mail, or sending a little snippet of home made video for the introduction

Something that’s missing in Google’s repertoire of information searching tools. It’s something between Technorati, Google News, and Google itself. Think of it as the old-girlfriend query tool. Let’s say I used to date a woman named Tammy. From time to time I wonder what’s up with her. So I do a search, and find the same old links. I want to find all the new stuff. I don’t just want to search blogs, so it’s not what Technorati does. I don’t just care if she makes the news, so it isn’t what Google News does. For extra credit, I’d like it to come in RSS format so I can teach my aggregator to do this for me automatically.

BTW, once we get this feature, I predict the same kind of backlash that came when Facebook added rich RSS support. All of a sudden lurkers will have a new advantage, and the lurkees might not be happy about it.

I agree that it does touch the creepymeter for lurkers (although some folks who live in digital and celebrate it might not mind at all). But Dave hits the nail on the head with both the usage and the fact that it is missing from the market.

What I want is the unholy mashup of google/googlenews/technorati for corporations, governments (local, national, international), non-profits, etc.

I want an RSS feed for  JetBlue (a former client, and my all-time favorite airline). And I want to see all of the news stories (thanks googlenews), blog postings (technorati/icerocket/whoever is next) and new content found by the googlebots about JetBlue. It becomes a clipping service on crack – a lot like what PubSub was offering (although only RSS) before their demise.

Transparency is good for companies. Transparency is good for governments. Transparency is good for non-profits/NGOs/Organizations, etc. It may not be so great for individuals who want more privacy. What Dave is describing is the ability to look/watch/catch up with someone – its the root of something cool. I want to keep an eye on the people/groups/structures who affect our lives (governments), our well-being (HMOs, Hospitals), our finances (companies we invest in, the IRS, the Federal Reserve). If I trusted them all, they could put out their RSS feeds and I would watch.
It applies to pretty much any niche (woodworking, democratic politics, people, NY Yankees, Classic Chevys, Gourmets, Real Estate, etc.).

I love my aggregator because it pulls from the affinity groups/communities (blogs, news organizations) that interest me. Take Dave’s idea a step further, and give me a web/blog/news aggregator that pulls all of the video and audio clips that fit my criteria (let’s say, a local election):

• a soundbyte from the radio
• a clip from cnn
• a video blogger who does an interview about the candidate
• blog posts from folks who live or work on the campaign

Put it in RSS and it plays through my video aggregator as a channel (WHoooooooHOoooo Democracy Player).

We are becoming the editors (blogs), radio personalities (podcasting), video stars (video blogging) and network programmers (RSS, Aggregators, The Democracy Player).

This is Fun.

Disclaimer: I am looking for a job as CTO or Chief Scientist at a professional publisher that wants to make a strong transition to the new environment. So here I practice what I preach, I’m floating ideas in advance of using them.

-Dave Winer 

Wonder if he ever thought of going back to WIRED. Especially now that the magazine and WiredNews are one group again.

I left my voice recorder and my camera at home (sitting on the desk where I would remember to bring them) so here is a brief play-by-play:

Professor Lessig is smarter than me. WAAAAAY smarter. Geometrically smarter. And he gives good deck.
Chris Anderson wrote a pretty engaging book that is keeping people talking

Synchronization is a large part of why our media sphere, content and media diet are what they are

Does the increased access cause an increase in volume of media? Are there more books being written now (think it is a 2/3 increase from 10 years ago) because there are more ways to get access to the books – more bookstore chain stores, more wall marts, Amazon and Barnes and Noble online?

In the 50’s a huge % of people watched I Love Lucy. Now the best rated show on TV has a fraction of that audience

Anderson thinks Net Neutrality wont happen because the telecoms arent that competent

One of Lessig’s previous appearances inspired a member of the audience. He went to Law School (not sure if that is a good thing).

It wasn’t really a smackdown.

Best question of the night (and paraphrasing due to too little sleep and not enough RAM):

If you write a blog about the topic of the book and spend the time and conversations and listening and engaging the audience, is having the book printed the ultimate form of DRM?

Lawrence Lessig has the greates powerpoint decks.

Hopefully Toby will throw me some of the photos from the event.

Power Laws and the Long Tail are interesting, but the conversation (pro and con) are all-the-more interesting.

Audience member asks if long tail will be the cayalyst for micropayments? (ed. note =UUUGGGHHH the concept has been tried and failed – please kill it) – Anderson feels the micropayment in this case is ATTENTION – we are paying attention, giving our attention and our time, participating or lurking in the conversation is a payoff in and of itself.

A fun evening was had by all – unfortunately I had to go to the office (4 days in a row) to finish some work

good times man, good times.

Got the chance to hang out this evening with the crowd for the first meeting of the NYC chapter of the Social Media Club (whose tagline is “if you get it, share it”). Chris Heuer (founder of BrainJams, Media Literacy advocate and Bloggercon/Gnomedex attendee) and Howard Greenstein (ex-member of the WWWAC, NYNMA, and all-around evangelist of the NYC Media scene pre-bubble) led the discussion.

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I showed up late, but got to participate in the discussion of podcasting (”the term podcasting is the biggest thing holding back podcasting”) and a short discussion about microformats as well as XPRL (XML Press Release microcontent format).

All in all, it was a fun event (even though I showed up late). Some of the usual suspects showed up (HI Steve and Annette), and the discussion was fun, if not a little short (will not be showing up late again). It was a lot like one of Isabel’s dinners – not as intimate, but some great conversation with cool people.

I am really looking forward to the next meeting.

I am digging into Second Life more and more and found the link above today (thanks PSFK!). This team has put together a magazine for and about SL business. The topics are neat, the layout is pretty good and they even have advertisers.

THe most interesting thing about the story is this:

You have the potential to reach for your dreams. The team of SL Business Magazine is proof of that. I am deployed in a war zone with the US Army in Afghanistan. I can escape the shattered terrain and death outside my mud and plaster building when I create an exciting and beautiful world full of friendships inside Second Life. It also allows our Creative Director in China to provide you with the stunning designs found in this issue. Our Editor in Canada can easily meet with our Copy Editor and Sales Manager in the United States. We have contributors from locations such as Australia, Germany, Japan and other global locations. So the point here is the obvious! And that is the idea behind our motto: Reaching. Connecting.

This is actually really well done. I cant wait to see issue 2