When Should Politics Mix With Technology?
Approved by the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority at its quarterly meeting today, the funds will stimulate job creation, new product commercialization, and support technology innovation. The authority also supports a wide range of technology initiatives through the four regional Ben Franklin Technology Partners, which identify and support promising ventures with technical assistance and capital.
Yes funding technology is the best time for politics to get involved....That's all I have to say, click the link:
1 out of 2 ways to get on Digg's Top Page
Seth's Blog: 12 proven ways to get your post to the top of digg
You know, there are a ton of tactics that you can use to increase readership. Plenty of blogs will tell you what they are.
My step-dad gave me a very profound lesson when I was a kid. He lit a cigarette, gave it to me and taught me how to hold it. He showed me how to roll my tongue out the way so it won't get burnt and how to "puff"...Then he took the cigarette and said never to smoke, and I haven't...
Seth Godin kinda said the same thing this weekend when he wrote how to get on Digg's better side. Is it beneficial traffic wise? Sure! Does it help your writing(typing?) technique? No. Most well written blogs fall by the wayside on Digg.
How about Techmeme? This member's only club is doing better. I do see "new" faces occasionally but the problem there is that the top blogs produce so much tech content, everyone else is relegated to the "related" section.
How about Yahoo Buzz? Ha! If you blog about celebrities and babies of celebrities...So it looks like your best choice would be Digg if that's what you're into.
Ok, so you wrote a deep probing post about the interaction between xmpp, linux and python(it could happen!) and besides submitting to the regular places, you feel the need to tell the world. First thing you need to do is re-read your article and find the most exciting part. Make that your title(make sure you put the word"linux"in it).Go to www.digg.com and click submit.Next, write a short desription that'll make them salivate. Then choose the closest subject that matches your creation (Linux would be best). After that show you're human, click the "yes it's original" button and there you have it! Note this will also work for Linux lovin' www.slashdot.com ....
Social Media Gives The Dark Knight a Push
The Dark Knight Gets Serious about Social Media Marketing : StraightUpSearch
Like a viral plague of fear spread over Gotham City, Batman has taken over the internet with the use of effective social media marketing tactics. And the tactics have worked. According to CNN.com, "The Dark Knight" took in $155.34 million in it's first weekend, beating out "Spider Man 3" for best opening weekend ever at the box office. That's a lot of cash, created by a lot of buzz.
Thankfully the movie was good enough to talk about, I know one person who saw it twice in one night. I don't think the advertisements directly did it, I believe giving us a platform to discuss, is what put it over the edge. Good use of social tools finally. This isn't the first time, it's just seems to be the most successful attempt so far.
Comcast Say Hello To Your New Daddy
WiMAX in Emerging Markets: Operator Lessons in Strategy and Technology - MarketWatch
WiMAX in Emerging Markets: Operator Lessons in Strategy and Technology
Looks like Comcast better hire more lobbyists. Wimax is getting a strong foothold on countries worldwide. It will only be a matter of time before mighty Comcast will have to give us a choice for the internet. Oh of course we have DSL and Wifi as an option now, but they aren't really the best choice. DSL is unbelievably annoying with each company having their own set of install rules. Wifi is a joke city-wise and those who do have it can't use it on a busy day with car stereo and cellphone activity outside.The complaint with cable internet is that the price rises without warning. Well, who's there to stop them or give real competition? That's right, WiMAX...It's Cable internet bashing time...
Loving this little park
T-Mobile
Do i still need ping.fm now that i have identi.ca
T-Mobile
Don't think so...
Philly Spotlight On: Rob Diana
This is new series I'm starting called Philly Spotlight. I have more in line but I wanted to start off with a bang first!
Here it is Jason Calacanis Style!:
On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Anthony Farrior
> Who you are:
Rob Diana, Regular Geek and developer of YackTrack.com
> What's your day job (it can be vague if you want to be safe)
Software Engineer at an ecommerce company.
> How long have you been in Philly:
I have lived in the area my whole life (36 yrs now). Born and raised
in the Delaware County, but
I spent a lot of time at both of my grandparents in South Philly.
> What's the name of your Blog and what is it about?
RegularGeek.com is a technical blog. Sometimes I go totally geeky and
explain a site's API,
other times there are some career-oriented posts. The middle seems to
be hovering around
social media mostly.
> Do you own a company?
Not yet ;)
> How do you use Social Media?
Well, Mixx has the community and social news. StumbleUpon is good for
general recommendations
or even just trolling around looking for something interesting.
Twitter is a good way to find people and
send a quick note. FriendFeed is my addiction though. Tons of
information and fantastic conversation.
I don't like "using" social media as much as being a part of it.
> Where do you think Social media is going?
Niche social media is slowly going to take over, but it will take a
while. FriendFeed has changed my
perspective a bit though. I am not sure if it would really catch on in
the mainstream, but the
amount of information and conversation is amazing. I do not think we
will see much from sites
like Digg, mixx, reddit, etc. There is only so much room for non-niche
sites, and Yahoo Buzz
has too many possible users for a general site to go huge.
> Are you an Eagles Fan?
No, I am not a fan. Diehard, devotee, nutjob, psycho and other related
labels fit better :)
Facebook Keynote Now!
Thanx @kessler for the heads up. I wonder if Mark mentions the new look and the reason why it looks like Friend Feed...Naw he probably won't. Click on the above link:
Sarah Lacy Gets It
SarahLacy.com: Maybe Blogging Is Just a Loss-Leader?
If you look at SarahLacy.com as a business, the blog isn’t a profit center. It’s my low cost personal PR, lead generation, networking, advertising all rolled in one.
Yes I read Sarah Lacy's blog. No she doesn't just promote her book. Thankfully she's a real tech reporter with great content. She hit the nail on the head today with the excerpt above. Blogging is at it's best when it's used to promote what you really do. I had a podcast that I did every friday discussing the tech work I did during the week. It went well for a while until I realized my low numbers was because the audience I wanted to help never heard of a "Podcast". My music related podcast was a hit on Itunes (Hiphop Bizness) but I wanted to separate myself from that field...
Anyway, if you are a coder, start a blog. Build Websites? Blog about it. Internet company owner? Yes, blog it! Free or cheap promotion is the Web 2.0 way to go. Getting to know your customers this way will give you a direct channel to their needs and wants. Sarah gets it, do you?
Pulling The Lever On Social Media
My mom used to tell me a story of how when she was a little girl, she was sent to get water. Now she's from North Carolina and at that time sinks inside the house was a luxury. So she sat her bucket down and pulled the lever on the water pump. After a couple of pulls, it goes up and down by itself and fills up the bucket. So she's watching the lever and decides to jump on it for a horsey ride. Well, she does this for a little bit until she slips and the lever in an upswing pops her in the chin. I can't remember if it knocks her out or not but she learned something valuable that day: Don't play with the lever!
I'm not sure people are getting the point in Social Media. I asked Alejandro Reyes( www.successfool.com ) about Robert Scoble and on live video he said he didn't want to talk about him, curious... You would think Scoble is the perfect model to follow for Internet marketing: Be yourself 100% percent of the time. Gain a following and direct them to cool stuff you find interesting...Ohhh no profit making, hmph. Well I'm not too sure about that. After gaining the loyalty of so many tech hungry people, pulling the lever to get something out of it shouldn't be devious in my opinion. This was touched on before once he put ads on his blog. The question not answered though is how can we use these social media tools properly?
I'm certainly not an expert in this space but (wait for it..) I do have some ideas.
1) Use your Followers to work for a company promoting new tech things:
Ok that's not new since that's what Scoble is currently doing...
2) Start your own company working (for profit) with potential developers and test their products with your audience:
I guess this is the rub, since I feel your hard work to get a following, should allow you to be compensated for it in some way.
DIGG+GOOGLE A Rumor Too Big to Ignore
Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For “Around $200 Million”
Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source.
I was trying to eat my pasta and watch Successfooltv, but this is huge! Google is trying to add Digg to it's news network? Cool! They've been after a good social site for the longest(sorry orkut). Maybe this will work...
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/22/google-in-final-negotiations-to-acq...
Hurricane Dolly? Where Did She Come From?
Newborn Hurricane Dolly is rumbling at a decent marathoner’s pace toward the Mexico-United States border. The slow speed, according to the National Hurricane Center, means the storm — whether it hits the coast as a hurricane or something less potent — could produce torrential rains.
Wow, Did it just appear? I'm usually up on storms and Dolly took me by surprise. I hope Texas is ready, It looks Huge! Did you hear about her earlier?
Vista Is Running Backwards Fast
SanDisk says Vista isn't tweaked for solid-state drives - The Tech Report
"As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid state disk,"
Of course Hard disk drives will be around for a little while longer, but I still feel MSFT is still missing the boat here. With every other Company making smaller and smaller portable pc's, what will they do when/if everyone switches to SSD? Granted the only big advatage to Solid State Drives are their durability right now. Soon though as we see with SDHC technology, more memory will be available in smaller spaces. To have Bloated Vista on anything besides a desktop would be a waste of time right now. I hope they figure it out before it's too late, XP isn't the latest and greatest, it just the only safe choice presently...
Testing Posty
Posty simplifies your microblogging. All you have to do is writing the message and clicking a button. Posty will automatically deliver your message to the services you selected.
Thanx to Louis Gray for showcasing Posty this weekend. It's cool because it offers a one screen click to see all of your micro-blogging accounts. It's uncool because I can't resize it or see every thing on one screen and THEN choose to separate the views. It's frustrating because I was the main one crying for twitter and friendfeed desktop apps... Maybe I should learn how to code to better appreciate what's in front of me.
Hospital helicopter
T-Mobile
West philly horizon
T-Mobile
10 Digital Business tactics
If ‘digital’ is agenda number 13 on the CEO
job list, or if senior management thinks social media is NEVER for our clients,
it’s time to change your job!
That's the hook for this article on digital business tactics. It made me think about old media and how they use old tools to measure new products. One good example of someone getting it? Lorne Michaels testing Jimmy Fallon's talkshow skills online before he does the real thing next year...Here's the link:
Hey, This Tastes Flammable!
"Some liquid flavor components are flammable at sub-zero temperatures; when encapsulated with Freshzone(TM) technology, the same flavor components are durable up to 200(degrees)F (93(degrees)C)."
Makes you think twice before you drop a cold soda huh? It's good to be reminded what's in our food every once in a while. I know some who stopped giving there kids red "fruit drink". The theory is if the stuff stains cups and teeth that bad, how good can it be in your body? Of course they forget that the stomach is full of ACID breaking down things for the body. Reading the above shows staining the inside of our kids should be the least of our worries...
Don't Eat the Peppers,wait Maybe Eat the Peppers...
Salmonella found in Mexican-grown jalapenos - Infectious diseases- msnbc.com
"U.S. government inspectors have found the same salmonella strain responsible for a food-poisoning outbreak in the U.S. in a Mexican-grown jalapeno pepper in a Texas plant, prompting a new warning for consumers to avoid eating fresh jalapenos."
The rest of the article says it might not be the peppers that caused the salmonella outbreak. This is odd since the title says "Samonella found in Mexican-grown Jalapenos"!!! Could this be just a way to tell us it's okay to buy tomatoes again? Our American farms have taken a huge loss this year with the gas and tomato crisis, maybe this is big media's way of spinning it for the farmers. Wow I guess Dvorak was right...
Coming Soon to a Airport Near You
"Millimeter wave is currently in use at Los Angeles (LAX), John F.
Kennedy (JFK) in New York, Baltimore-Washington, Denver, Albuquerque,
Ronald Reagan Washington, Detroit, Dallas/Fort Worth and Phoenix
Sky-Harbor airports."
Our mother's reminder to wear clean underclothes won't work here. This new technology as shown on the Today Show is being deployed to more and more airports. Since these cameras amazingly give the power kids have wanted for decades, how stringent will training be? Looking at nude customers all day can be traumatizing for some. Will there be a burnout period for the employees? Srsly, I'm all for technology and security but I can see this giving Amtrak a big boost in it's train transportation numbers. I still can't believe the X-ray glasses on the back of comics aren't going to make us "glow" with embarrassment though, is this a good idea?....
Plurk!
T-Mobile
Does www.plurk.com still exist? Let's check the site...Yeah it's still there. Soooo, I haven't been there since I signed up. Micro-bogging is very much alive with so many programs co-existing together. Honestly www.friendfeed.com was cool but quiet until www.twitter.com came back. I dropped twitter for a while thinking it wasn't needed, but articles are still popping up about the value of twitter in a business space. Is Twitter paying these guys to say that?*Checking Email* Do you think twittering still matters? Will PLURK last? Let me know...
Asus Eee: causing too much attention
T-Mobile
I'm going to start recording people's reactions to this thing.
Ubuntu on the Asus Eee 701
"Ubuntu Eee is Ubuntu customized for the Asus Eee. Smaller fonts, working wireless adaptor..."
For some reason Ubuntu always works. I'm installing it now and it's 69% percent done. It's about 3:49am EST and I'm tired but I had to do some research before I did it. Besides,I borked the original operating system trying to "tweak" it. So far so good! I'll keep you posted...
BlogHer, Like Flies To Honey
Women's tech conference draws Macy's, not Google | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com
"Here at the BlogHer 2008 conference, nearly 3,000 female bloggers are surrounded by the very mainstream-brand advertisers that the Internet media industry has clamored to attract for the last 10 years. It takes just a few moments to notice the stark difference in marketing pitches."
Well we've been wondering what would tip the online ad scales. Apparently the male dominated side of tech has been very unappealing to the major brands and the stats show it (see above). Then enters a Tech event for women bloggers and others related to technology. Now major consumer companies are tripping over themselves to advertise for BLOGHER.
I wounder if this is the leverage needed to make other online things go mainstream. Friendfeed and Twitter has a small percentage of women partipants. Could it be as they continue to grow in numbers and validate Web 2.0 more, the quicker it becomes mainstream? Interesting thought. If we go by marketing, most ads are aimed toward women and kids. Hmmmm...
