A friend of mine is, let’s say, challenged when it comes to anything computer or Internet related. If I throw any terms at her like wiki, podcast, RSS feed or social bookmarking, she looks at me like I have two heads. Now, thanks to Commoncraft.com there’s help for anyone struggling to understand these concepts.

Commoncraft.com produces short videos that can be found on YouTube. They take complex concepts and break them down into simple explanations. This husband and wife production company develops clever videos that creatively explain a robust subject in plain terms so the average person can easily understand. 

I recently found one of their videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o when doing research on Twitter. Each of their productions is fun with graphics that include a whiteboard and paper cutouts. The first one I saw made me laugh out loud it was so different and interesting the way it was put together. And, the best thing about it was that I really understood what I hadn’t been able to before. 

Besides Internet concepts, they also cover other topics like: New Light Bulbs, California School Finance and the H&R Block Tango. They even have some in languages other than English. 

So the next time my friend is befuddled with something computer related, I’m sending her to the URL for a Common Craft video. That is, once I explain to her what a URL is. Hmm… is there a Common Craft video for that?

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The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper, reports they’ll be forced to sell unless 200 non-union employees accept a buyout.  Publisher George E. Arwady described the paper as being “on life support.”

NJ.com stated in their report of the announcement;

The offer comes at a time when the newspaper industry is reeling from plunging advertising revenues linked to a troubled economy and the growth of online media.

Other troubled businesses and industries you’ll want to keep an eye on (and the New Media forces causing their woes).

• Newspapers
  Blogs, Forums, Communities, Niche Portals
• Travel Agents
  Online travel sites like Travelocity.com
• Yellow Pages
  Google.com / Online Search
• Map Makers
  MapQuest.com, Maps.Google.com
• Encyclopedias
  Wikipedia.com
• Music/CD Stores
  MP3s and online stores like iTunes.com
• Libraries
  The Internet at large
• Movie Theaters
  NetFlix.com
• The Recording Industry
  MP3s and File Sharing
• Broadcast Video Channels MTV / VH1
  YouTube.com
• Photo Film Development
  Digital cameras / flickr.com
• Aerial Photography
  Satellites and Earth.Google.com
• Radio Stations (as we currently know them)
  iPods/Zunes and iTunes.com
• Small generic book stores (boutique/niche shops have a chance)
  Amazon.com, Borders.com, BN.com

Maybe it’s time to short some stocks.

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I procrastinated — ACK!. Although I started the planning almost a year ago, I didn’t put the date of PodCamp Boston 3 on my calendar. Realizing that it was coming up soon, this afternoon my business partner Richard and my lead developer Howard and I looked it up and found out that tomorrow/today (Wednesday, July 16th) is the last day to register and the event is this coming weekend. The thing is that I’m committed to several other personal obligations and although I tried (really tried) to justify getting out of most of them, I couldn’t. I - AM - BUMMIN’!

OK, so what does this say about the event?! It’s going to be a DOOZIE! If you have the opportunity to sign up and you’re available to hang out in Cambridge, MA with some of the world’s leading social media gurus, do it now!

If you make it there, tell Richard and Howard to take lots of notes … I’ll read them later through my tear stained eyes. WAH!

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At the 2008 WidgetWeb Expo, I think all but just a few of the two dozen+ presenters felt compelled to give an explanation of what a widget is. Considering the audience was one of the most motivated group of widget developers/users/consumers on the planet, I thought this more than a bit odd. After a little bit of thought, however, I came to the conclusion that the explanations were clarifications of their own particular view … that the concept is far from clear and that there is no consensus on what exactly a widget is.

There are start page widgets, web widgets, social network widgets and even desktop widgets. They can be simple or complex. They can be coded in a myriad of programming languages.

Sooo, I decided to come up with my own metaphor for describing what a widget is to the average layperson. Here goes …

Let me start the metaphor by having you think of your business as a home-based business out in the suburbs. The house itself is your web presence. Got it?

OK, now think about how MOST businesses conduct marketing. They build billboards, they post flyers, they send postcards to people, they publish yellowpage ads, etc. All of these tactics are performed with the intent of motivating people (located elsewhere) to come to your place of business (your house - your web site). Getting people to get off their duffs to come see your wares is no small feat — especially on the web.

Now, consider the nearby small town or city. In our metaphor, these are social networks (MySpace, FaceBook, etc.). This is where all of the warm bodies are located. All of those people are milling about, doing their day-to-day tasks. Are they ripe to get an in-your-face advertising pitch? NO WAY! How about your well crafted billboard advertisement. Doesn’t work. It is, indeed, a marketing case of “water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” Tens of millions of consumers that are aggressively insulating themselves from marketing messages.
The way I see it, you have four options;

ONE — Build a new city. If you control the city and can get people to occupy it, you’ll have a ready and waiting group of people who might be consumers of your goods and services. But what a monstrous task that is!… building your own social network is NO small feat!

TWO — Continue marketing your services the old fashioned way. The tried and true marketing strategies of days-gone-by require no extra learning curve on your part but they still work … kinda.

THREE — Learn about the New Rules of Marketing and PR. Now we’re talking. Best use of the web and technology to make direct contact with the consumer.

But, there’s another way. Back to our metaphor …Â

FOUR — Pack up some (or all) of your business into a cart, take it into the city and park it on a street corner. Surrounded by millions of consumers, you’re sure to land sales you never would have made by waiting patiently back at your house. Are you ready? …. the cart is a widget!Â

Through widgets, consumers are exposed to your company (content, products, services, etc.) without having to leave the social networks, communities, blogs, web pages or even their own desktop. The cart … uhhh, I mean widget, provides the content conveniently and immediately. The widget makes it easy for them to spread the word about you virally to all of their friends, and the connections you make are facilitated by the networks and communities where the widget is placed.

The next logical question for you is, “what kind of widget can I make for my business?”  Good question … give me a call if you’d like to chat about that (888-825-3300)

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It happens. You spend time and money to go to a great event and then, when you return, the real world smacks you square in the middle of the forehead and you let your ‘follow up’ slide.

It’s been three days since I returned from the WidgetWeb Expo and I’m just now getting around to doing a post. How sad … considering how fabulous the event was! Here’s a recap of just some of the highlights;

• Event launched by Ivan Pope, founder of the Expo and CEO of Snipperoo.
• Keynote by Hooman Radfar, CEO of ClearSpring — Predicted that one possibility of the future of FaceBook is that their value will not be in the FB network itself, but they’ll become the largest (de facto) social graph aggregator. His advice is to “Think Big and Act Small”, meaning developers need to keep a big view of the widget life cycle, make widgets fast, think cross channel and have a data driven focus on the end user.
• Ivan Pope further explained his thoughts about the development of a long-term Widget strategy… and how widgets are at the intersection of social networks and marketing.
• Carnett Williams, with Sprout Builder, outlined what he terms “Web 3.0 - The era of Self Promotion”. One great tip from his presentation was you must constantly stoke the marketing/promotional fire… that virality is not a given.
• Lawrence Coburn, Owner of SexyWidget and RateItAll, Talked in great depth about cross-domain functionality.
• Chad Catacchio, Marketing Director of ZoomProspector gave an overview of “Standards for Widgets” and his ideas of cloud sourcing the process of creating widget development standards.
• Michael Leis with Emerge Digital tells us “frequency is the thing.” Other themes were “the KISS principle” and “Brand as a Platform.”
• Anthony Zito with MediaForge demonstrated some great examples of the right and wrong ways of widget implementation that lead to end-user engagement.
• Fred Wilson, CEO of Union Square Ventures, kicked off the second day with his Keynote speech. Drawing the biggest laugh from the entire event, Fred described how he demarcates the Millennial generation as, “the generation where they had a computer before they had sex.” Too funny, and too true!
• Chris Thorpe, formerly with MindCandy and currently off doing his own thing at Jaggeree, gave a fabulous presentation of the development side of the picture; including analytics/metrics, coding issues, programming language issues and scalability.
• Josh Burnhoff, VP at Forrester and co-Author of Groundswell (yes, it’s on my “must read” list), presented a “Business case for Widgets” and tied many of the ideas from the book to the world of widgets. (That’s Josh pictured with me … clearly, I’m not a stalker or serial killer … inside joke)
• Patrick Sexton with SEOish.com talked in detail about spreading widgets on a budget and a dozen other widget ideas surrounding search engine optimization.
• Fraser Kelton with Adaptive Blue gave a great equilibrium model that balances “Value for the Publisher” with “Value for the Browser” and “Ease of Replication.” Without this balance, your widget is more likely to fail.
• Jeff Nolan with News Gator talked about engagement drivers and how the value to the audience can be dramatically increased through the use of widgets.
• Jodi McDermott (ClearSpring) and Albert Lai (Kontagent) gave a well balanced presentation on the issues of metrics and viral analytics.
• Finally, Marcia Kadanoff, VP of Marketing at MuseStorm presented a “mistakes to avoid” list, emphasizing the importance of cross platform compatibility.

Because there were two channels, I was only able to attend half the sessions. I guess next year I’ll have to bring my alter ego.

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I’m sitting in an outdoor terrace of a quaint little Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn, NY. While anxiously waiting for the of start tomorrow’s WidgetWeb Expo I’m relegated to connecting with the ‘outside world’ via my iPhone. What strikes me most, in the moment, is how NYC is really an amazing slice of the ‘real’ world … so rich in cultural diversity. What a shame it would have been to take a seat inside the restaurant and miss out on the people watching. This, in a way is like social media. If we sit alone, immersed in our own little lives, never looking outward, we’ll miss out on connecting with an entire world, even if it’s just connecting by observation.

Forgive me if I seem melancholic … I’m missing my boys on this Father’s Day.

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It’s hard to blame a news organization formed in 1846 for being a little out of touch with what’s going on with social communication. BUT, when Irene Keselman, AP’s Intellectual Property Governance Coordinator, sent a “Digital Media Copyright Act” take down notice to the Drudge Retort on Wednesday, it should have been predictable what the blogoshpere’s reaction would be. Swift, severe and negative.

AP claimed that the Drudge Retort violated the definition of fair use because “…taking the headline and lead of a story without a proper license to be an infringement of its copyrights, and additionally constitutes ‘hot news’ misappropriation.”

That may be technically true, but consider;

• Only small snippets of text were used — between 33 and 79 words. Not the entire article by a long stretch
• Five of the six supposed violations used a different headline than the original article
• The articles contained links back to the original AP article

If THIS is a violation of fair use, then I think the entire blogosphere is guilty of infringement and should be severely punished … OR, we should change the definition.

Here’s a GREAT post by TechDirt on the whole sordid affair:

AP Goes After Bloggers For Posting Article Headlines And Snippets
from the you’re-going-to-lose,-badly dept
Last fall, the Associated Press claimed that it was ready to change to face the new internet world — and that meant not just being a gatekeeper, but joining in the conversation. As we noted at the time, though, AP execs said all that, only to immediately follow that up with plans that looked like it was trying to become a new type of gatekeeper. [Read full article …]

Important: Note that I used their full headline, full sub-headline and the first couple of sentences. My bet is TechDirt will NOT be sending me a DMCA take down notice because of my skirting of “fair use” of their content. In fact, I bet they actually appreciate that I’ve given them three inbound links to their article.

I would personally leave it up to the legal beagles to hash out the exact definition of “fair use”. HOWEVER, if the AP is going to survive in a global communication environment, they need to know when they’re biting the hand that feeds them. (And, I’m NOT talking about their pitch to sell content licenses to bloggers.)

What do YOU think? Is AP within their rights? Is this move intelligent?

Follow up to AP:  If you’re listening, your “clue” can be found in the new book Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Burnoff

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