A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy

Thanks to Hugh McLeod for pointing this out:

Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy: “This is a lightly edited version of the keynote I gave on Social Software at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference in Santa Clara on April 24, 2003

Good morning, everybody. I want to talk this morning about social software …there’s a surprise. I want to talk about a pattern I’ve seen over and over again in social software that supports large and long-lived groups. And that pattern is the pattern described in the title of this talk: ‘A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy.’ “

Something to think about as we trounce forward through the murky and undrained swamp of large scale social technologies (especially as marketers)…

YouTube and Google Account Linkage

Of course YouTube is owned by Google (and continually pwnd by narcissistic 16 year olds judging from the comments) so it makes sense that your Google Account (the one used to login to GMail, GCal, Google Docs, etc) should include YouTube.

But I saw this for the first time this evening when visiting YouTube…

YouTubeGoogleLink.jpg

Did I miss something? Isn’t that new?

And if you’re bored, go watch my awesome Kindle videos onmy YouTube channel. I freaking love that thing.

What Is a Social Media Marketer?

I’m still dubious of the term “social media” (or marketer for that matter), but here’s an interesting piece with a variety of voices from Tamar Weinberg…

The Definition of Social Media Marketing: How to Find the Best Social Media Consultant » techipedia | tamar weinberg: “With many individuals finding great success with social media (and as an aside, a basic understanding of search engine optimization), they immediately consider themselves social media marketers and consultants (as well as seasoned SEOs) and offer to sell their promotional services. What skills, though, do successful social media marketers have that put these individuals above the average (or addicted) social media user, and better yet, above the traditional marketer? I asked several social media consultants, bloggers, marketers, search engine optimizers, and social media addicts about what they considered to be essential skills and characteristics of the most efficient and results-driven social media consultants. In the many paragraphs that follow, learn from many of the experts and hear what they consider success when using social media to engage with consumers about products and services.”

Redesign

So, I’ve spruced the place up a bit.

I’m going to be posting here more regularly about religion, history, politics and marketing.

Thoughts?

FriendFeed Profiles

Sam Harrelson - FriendFeed.jpg

Want to use your Twitter profile on your FriendFeed page (here’s mine above)?

Here’s how…

FriendFeed Profile – Userscripts.org: “Adds a user profile section on FF user pages. Version 0.1 retrieves Twitter bio if available.”

Pretty nifty.

25 Kwippy Invites

I’ve got 25 invites to Kwippy, which is a Twitter-esque service.

How is Kwippy different from Twitter? You can find out more at their blog here. I don’t think it’s a “Twitter Killer” but I’m willing to give anything a chance at this point. Clearly, there’s a need for a Twitter-like service that has constant uptime and widespread adoption. Whoever figures out those two variables will be the next web giant.

If you’d like to get an invite, send me an email, direct tweet or leave a comment here.

New Podcast: 15 Minutes Lessons by NYFalcon and Loxly

New affiliate marketing podcast that is off to a great start:

Podcast: 15 Minutes Lessons by NYFalcon: “Making money online is easy once you have a plan. Nyfalcon can help with that as he has already made all the mistakes first. Listen to learn about topics like affiliate marketing and making money with contextual advertising”

Hope they keep it up!

Disqus API Plugin Update

For people like Scott Jangro that are fans of the Disqus API plugin (instead of the Javascript one that has all the fancy features), there’s an update according to Disqus’ Daniel Ha (Disqus being the commenting platform used here and on numerous other sites):

twitter: danielha: If you use the API version of the Disqus WP plugin, we’ve released an interim version with a few updates. Get it here http://snurl.com/2tkt5

I’d love to see the API plugin become as full featured as the Javascript plugin and would probably make the switch if/when that happens. Until then, I’m sticking with the features.