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How to find and be alerted to great deals online
February 23rd, 2010
I hate to get screwed over on a deal. I feel like a complete sucker when I do. Most often it happens when I’m traveling. I purchase a trinket with some local artisan, and then four storefronts later I see the same item for half the price. It’s happened to all of us for one simple reason, we simply don’t understand the market. The more you know the value of goods, the less you get snowed. Luckily there’s a whole new market for Web-based and mobile apps that alert us to great deals and let us know whether or not we truly are getting a great deal.
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Personal productivity tips I actually use every day
January 26th, 2010
Lifehacking, personal productivity, there is an endless slew of advice and information, much of which isn’t applicable to you. While all of this personal productivity information is interesting, it’s not always applicable. I have to admit that I sometimes offer productivity tips that I don’t adhere to myself.
So that’s why I decided to write an article about personal productivity tips I use on a daily basis. My interest in this subject piqued when I heard entrepreneur Stephen Jagger describe how he has moved many of his company’s business operations to the cloud using cheap to free Web 2.0 applications. What made his story so interesting is it wasn’t just “advice,” he was actually using these tools regularly for his business.
So I’ve decided to do the same. I’m going to walk through every element of how I’ve improved the efficiency of my work process, personal branding, and media consumption. It’s far from perfect. I can still be highly distracted and I’m always looking for new productivity tips. If there are any that you can recommend, I’m always up for updating my regimen.
Tools and tips I use for everyday productivity
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Cranky Geeks asks, “Are we living in a Googleopoly?”
January 14th, 2010
Yesterday, on Cranky Geeks, John C. Dvorak and co-host Sebastian Rupley, argued with myself and Cade Metz, U.S. editor of The Register. We complained about Google claiming that it’s going to pull its operations out of China, me getting uninvited to a press party, and my favorite, sex robots! Watch the 30 minute show.
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The cool and not-so-cool of LeWeb
December 10th, 2009
This week I traveled to Paris with a consortium of fellow bloggers, the Traveling Geeks. We’ve been meeting with tech companies and French entrepreneurs all week. The tour ended with attendance at LeWeb, a two day tech conference produced by tech entrepreneur and Seesmic founder, Loic Le Meur. Here’s my summary of the best and the worst of the event, plus I included some other stuff experienced from the Traveling Geeks tour and Paris in general. For a summary, make sure you watch my end of day show reports from LeWeb (day 1, day 2) and my other end of day report from the Traveling Geeks tour.
Cool – Accordions, Accordions, Accordions – There are plenty of street performers in Paris. Most of them are carrying accordions. On my first day I saw four sets of performers hop onto a train car, play a few tunes, and jump off. On one train a duo jumped on with an accordion and a stand up bass. My favorite was the karaoke accordionist that would also take a mic for a solo himself to sing “Just a Gigolo”.
Not-so-cool – The first day, the conference wasn’t about real-time web – The theme of LeWeb was heavily advertised as being about real-time web. That didn’t seem to be the case with most of the companies demoing, and except for a presence of Twitter and Facebook, and some mentions, there was no major discussion about real-time web on the main stage. After day one we all started asking ourselves, “Where’s the discussion about the real-time web?”
Cool – On the second day, finally the real-time web – If you were interested in the real-time web you could have completely skipped the first day of LeWeb and just come on the second day. Obviously everyone was eager for the real-time discussion because the deep discussion room in the back of the hall was packed for the event’s eventual real-time web agenda. I was very eager to learn more since I just published an analyst report this week on the subject (“Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web” 20-page PDF). The presentations and conversations on real-time were truly excellent, beginning with some great actionable advice from Jeremiah Owyang. On the main stage, Queen Rania of Jordan, who has become an Internet celebrity, spoke about the real-time web, specifically making a call out to the audience to use the real-time web as activism to change the world.
Cool/Not-so-cool – Moderators not agreeing with the topic – Andrew Keen, Author of Cult of the Amateur, led the panel entitled “Content vs. Conversation: The Debate over Real-Time Search.” His attitude towards his panelists from TweetMeme, Netvibes, Collecta, and OneRiot was pretty much “Why the hell do we need real-time search?” While I think it’s a good idea for a moderator to create some controversy (see article: “More Schmooze, Less Snooze: How to Deliver the Most Talked About Conference Session” 6-page PDF), Keen didn’t seem to be too savvy on the real-time search market and he didn’t let go on his opinion. There is a ton of value of real-time search (see business models section in my real-time search report), and until the end of the discussion he kept saying “Why would someone want real-time search?” He was constantly putting the panelists on the defensive.
C0ol – Double-sided name badges – One of the most irritating conference annoyances is name badge flip. Wear a lanyard with a name badge and inevitably it will twist around hiding your name. I must be a master because I think it’s more often than not for me. LeWeb is the first conference I’ve been to where they smartly printed your name on both sides of the badge. Brilliant.
Cool – Our former President is wrong. The French are unbelievably nice – This entire week has been fantastic and the Traveling Geeks have been treated unbelievably well. Everyone. From the people who invited us to any random Parisian I ran into, I’m very impressed with how nice and welcoming everyone has been. Thanks.
Cool – The French speak English – It’s been a while since I’ve been to France and I was amazed at how many people speak English. LeWeb is a conference in Paris, but it’s completely in English. The all-English conference is an obvious incentive to draw people from 40+ countries, most notably the U.S., to the conference.
Not-so-cool – I don’t speak French – I’m a pathetic single language learner. Most people in Europe know at least two languages. And most of them have learned English for lazy clowns like me that haven’t bothered to learn another language.
Cool? – Non-stop photo and video recording of the Traveling Geeks – I think this is cool, or just unbelievably dorky so it’s become cool again. For the Traveling Geeks’ first dinner in Paris everyone was taking pictures the moment we sat down at the table. There were probably 500 photos published from that dinner. And that’s continued throughout the trip. Guilty myself, here’s a video I shot of all the geeks on the Metro with all their digital image recording equipment. For more, here are all the photos taken by the Traveling Geeks crew (full screen).
Not-so-cool – LeWeb is overhyped – Back in San Francisco, I had heard so much about how fantastic and wonderful LeWeb is. I had a lot of hope for this conference, and was overall disappointed mostly because of the hype. The number of demo stations of new companies was anemic and didn’t represent real-time web as I had hoped. While there were heavy hitters on the main stage, they weren’t revealing. But that’s always the case. The bigger your presenters at your show, the bigger the hype. But the bigger they are, the less they’ll talk openly. Often that has to do with working at a public company. But I think the issue is millionaires stay millionaires by not telling their secrets to a group of more than a thousand strangers. There were a few exceptions.
Cool – Credit card scanning on your mobile device – Jack Dorsey of Twitter demoed his new project, Square, a small box that connects to your mobile device’s audio out port and allows you to scan your credit card allowing for quick and easy credit card transactions via mobile devices. While cool, and can work on a huge number of devices, is it really practical? Are people really going to carry around this little black box wherever they go? I think the next step will be to embed this credit card reader in new mobile devices.
Cool - Tim Ferriss on “How to Create a Following for $10K or Less” – One of my major complaints about most of the main stage presentations was the lack of actionable advice or telling the audience something we didn’t already know. I’ve seen Tim Ferriss present before and read his blog and he always delivers on great actionable advice. This was an updated presentation of one I had seen at WordCamp in San Francisco. One tip is to simply focus on the blogosphere and key people in the blogosphere and look for the long haul. Begin by reading Kevin Kelly’s article “1,000 True Fans.”, said Ferriss.
Not-so-cool – Who didn’t pay to go on the main stage? – It appears about half of everyone who appeared on the main stage (panelists possibly excluded) paid in some manner to be there. It could be more. It’s obvious because so many sponsors were on the main stage. None of these seemingly paid appearances were disclosed. I’ve been to plenty of conferences where there were paid presentations. Many disclose that information in the printed programs with the note, “Sponsored presentation.” For a community that keeps talking about the need for “authenticity” online, I think it would be nice if there was some authentic disclosure as to who did and didn’t pay to be on stage.
UPDATE: Loic Le Meur responded and emphatically denied this claim. Saying that none of the people on stage paid to be there. See comments below for more.
Not-so-cool – LeWeb is an old boys’ network – I was thinking this and then I heard it repeated by a few of my colleagues. Loic gets many of the same people to present, interview, and moderate, such as Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington. Since they’re friendly off stage, their on stage presentation has this sense of being an old boys’ network. It’s not the most welcoming feeling for the people in the audience. People were definitely unnerved by it.
Not-so-cool – Chris Pirillo is the Rush Limbaugh of the Web 2.0 community – Rush Limbaugh, a conservative syndicated radio host, became popular because he’s a credible voice that confirms people’s existing beliefs. This is exactly how I felt about Chris Pirillo’s presentation about community. Better known as preaching to the choir, my sentiment was evidenced by the number of tweets that echoed “I agree with him” rather than “I learned something.” Here’s an edited sample of tweets to prove my point: My favourite quote of the day :-), Brilliant!!, i love it!!, Chris Pirillo is right, I’m loving Chris Pirillo’s presentation, The Reverend Chris Pirillo is wrapping up. He actually made be blurt out jesus christ, and Halle-freakin-lujah. One other tweeter saw what I was seeing: Chris Pirillo is Great speecher but only brought self-evident ideas.
I had a conversation with Chris about this last night and I simply said to him that I think he could do better. He has done better. He knows how to educate an audience as a former host of TechTV’s “Call for Help” and in previous presentations. I noted his vision six years ago that RSS would be the Holy Grail. He was right. That’s what I wanted to see at LeWeb and he didn’t deliver. He told us what we already knew which was we need to stop focusing on the tools and think about the importance of community. He didn’t think the audience knew that. The general populace yes, but the LeWeb audience? They know. Pirillo just led a revival to confirm their beliefs.
Cool - A scannable and identifiable model of Paris – Forget Google Streets, through a project called Terra Numerica by a research group called CiTu, they’ve completely scanned and identified elements all around the city of Paris. This information is now in a database that’s been used by developers to create fly-throughs, simulate a flood’s effect on the city, and test security cameras around the city. Watch a video of the fly-through and my interview with Maurice Benayoun, Artistic Director of CiTu. This was during our Traveling Geeks tour, not LeWeb.
Not-so-cool – Europeans’ fear of failure – While we were visiting the startup incubators I heard multiple times that there’s a European culture of fear of failure. This is quite unlike in the U.S. where failing is a learning experience. In the U.S. we’ve actually got a conference entitled FailCon where we learn from each others’ failures. For some, failure is a badge of honor. I remember talking to one entrepreneur who proudly told me about his seven failed startups.
Not-so-cool – Robert Scoble’s outburst at the French entrepreneurs – Well known blogger Robert Scoble joined the Traveling Geeks briefly for one event prior to LeWeb. At this series of presentations by French entrepreneurs, Scoble sat down and immediately wanted to know everyone’s Twitter address. They didn’t have any and instead of just accepting that fact and listening to their presentations, he started yelling and swearing at them telling them they must get on Twitter. He argued that it’s the only way he can promote them to his 100K+ followers. Ubergizmo blogger, Eliane Fiolet, asked Robert, “Could you say that a little nicer?” Scoble responded, “No.” His childish and rude response created a pall over the room and the rest of the Traveling Geeks were very unnerved by his behavior, as it spoke badly for our group. I should note that Robert is a really nice guy and it’s not normal for him to behave like this.
Extremely cool – The Traveling Geeks – I only knew a few of the Traveling Geeks before I went on the trip and I was really impressed by the entire group. Everyone was incredibly friendly, nice, and welcoming. I want to say an enormous thanks though to the lead organizer of the event, Renee Blodgett, and also to Sky Schuyler, and Eliane Fiolet for all their work. I look forward to being on another trip with them in the future. Here’s a silly animated video of us, plus a video of Geeks on a Train, and make sure you check out the thousands of photos (full screen) taken on the trip.
Some of my other coverage of the event.
- Dating tech service Wuiper offers a fun way for people to meet
- Touchable movable video
- How Dell handles customer service and sales through social media
- Parrot’s new Wi-Fi Picture Frame and Wireless Speakers
- Dick Tracy Watch from LG/Orange
- Pearltrees: Bookmarking Program for Organization Lovers
Creative Commons photo attributions Olivier Ezratty, Robert Scoble, Chris Heuer, Matthew Buckland, Rodrigo Sepulveda, and Blogowski.
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What can you do with a scannable and identifiable model of Paris?
December 8th, 2009
At Silicon Sentier, a startup collective in Paris, I interviewed Maurice Benayoun, Artistic Director of CiTu a research lab for artistic projects. One such project, Terra Numerica, is an easily digestible and programmable scan and index of the city of Paris for which others can use the data to develop applications. City planning and management examples include:
- Walk through Paris virtually like you would in the real world.
- Paris had a flood in 1910 and it’s feared that it’s going to happen again within the next ten years. Simulate the flood and see what the effects of such a disaster would have on the city.
- Virtually raise and lower buildings. See what views would be like.
- Since the database knows where all the cameras are all over the city, you can play a game where you run through the city avoiding security cameras. I asked Benayoun, “Couldn’t this tool be used by criminals?” Watch the video for his response.
I was very interested in Benayoun’s presentation because the city of San Francisco has been doing things similarly with DataSF, which is a series of open city information databases that developers can utilize to create useful applications. Examples include San Francisco Crimespotting and EveryBlock for monitoring city services block by block.
Terra Numerica is a more unified project of one giant powerful database with easily identifiable and programmable information. The database was created through three scan levels: video drive throughs (Microsoft Bing maps), laser scans, and flyover scans. Through all this scanning they can draw a 3D map of the city but more importantly they can also identifying objects (e.g. doors and security cameras) that become part of a very usable database. Check out this very cool video demo.
Benayoun said the goal is to create commercial ventures from all of CiTu’s projects, including Terra Numerica. Their next in line project is Terra Dynamica where they plan to identify and track everything that moves within a city (e.g buses, cars, and people).
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Free report “Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web”
December 7th, 2009
Call it good or bad timing, but I just happen to finish a report on real-time search on the day that Google announced its rollout of its integrated real-time search results within its general search results. While I had to do some last minute edits, the report is done and I’m making it available to everyone for free. It’s entitled “Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web.” You can download the PDF, or view it right now on Scribd.
I’m giving the report away for free. All I ask in return is some feedback. Positive, negative, but whatever it is, please make it constructive. I’m eagerly learning as much as I can about this subject. This is an area that I think is going to grow like crazy, and we’re only looking at a thumbnail’s worth of what is yet to come.
Here are some highlights from the report.
- Real-time search could steal away as much as $40 billion from traditional search. Google and Microsoft’s announcement to incorporate real-time search results is a good first step to prevent losses.
- The definition of real-time search is far more varied than the definition of traditional search. You’ll see more variations in what is considered a real-time search engine.
- All real-time search engines are far from equal. The major reason is they don’t index the same content.
- Real-time search engines that only index Twitter are missing up to 90 percent of the real-time web.
- One exciting new aspect of real-time search is the creation of real-time programming that will be complimentary and competitive with traditional programming (e.g. TV, radio, print, and online).
Enjoy and let me know what you think. David
December 10th, 2009 CORRECTION: The article mentioned that real-time search engine Wowd required a plugin for its use. That is not true. Current report is updated to reflect that it’s not required.
Real-time Search and Discovery of the Social Web
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Putting banner ads out to pasture
November 15th, 2009
Here are some interesting statistics for you.
- Number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32% of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009.
- 8% of Internet users account for 85% of all ad clicks.
(Source: comScore)
- Almost half (48%) of Twitter users who saw a brand’s name mentioned would go on to use a search engine to investigate further.
- 34% have used a search engine to find information on a product/service/brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site.
(Source: Performics and ROI Research. Summary article.)
- In the 15+ years I’ve been online, I have never consciously clicked on a banner ad.
- In the 15+ years I’ve been online, I have never consciously clicked on a Google ad.
- In the 15+ years I’ve been online, I have responded to recommendations, articles, and advice I see from friends via email and on social networks.
(Source: me, and possibly you.)
Note to all brands that only advertise with banner ads. You will NEVER reach someone like me who ignores and never clicks on a banner ad.
If it’s true that display advertising is decreasing and has horrible reach, and that people use social media to effectively learn more about brands, then why do brands still spend so much money in search engine marketing and display advertising?
Answering my own question, I believe the reason is because SEM and display advertising is a known quantity and easy to purchase. And while the response may be poor, it may be far more costly trying to tackle the unknown beast that is social media.
I believe brands are finally starting to come around and realize that standard display advertising is a waste of money and effort. Over the past two weeks I was reporting at the ad:tech conference in NYC and The CMO Club Summit in San Francisco. And for both conferences, the subject of brands in social media was the buzz all over the floor and repeated in probably every single session. Those companies that were afraid to get into social media are no longer fearful. Their concern now is how to engage in social media effectively.
While I think it’s time to put an end to all banner ads, it’s not the end of the ad network. Ad networks are extremely valuable as they have relationships and placement in key media outlets that brands and advertisers want to be. While social media may be difficult for some, it’s easy to buy access to the network. But instead of putting a static non-relevant advertisement in that rectangular space, why not bring in an RSS feed of some content from your company blog or some other relevant timely information. With timeliness and relevancy, you’re sure to get more attention and click-through than a simple banner ad. Banner ads are a dead communications medium. It’s time for us to put them out of their misery.
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Can’t cope with Facebook changes?
October 27th, 2009
How are you coping with Facebook’s changes? Do you freak out every time they move an option to a new location? Notice that whenever there’s a change with Facebook or other popular application that initially everyone gets upset about it, and then days later they completely forget about it. Well, it appears that’s what’s happening yet once again. Funny, I had this conversation on WABC Radio exactly seven months ago. People just can’t deal with change.
I chatted about Facebook changes, Facebook etiquette, and real-time search on The Curtis Sliwa Show on WABC Radio. Stream below or download the MP3 (Time: 14:10).
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Facebook, Google, and the future of real-time search
August 12th, 2009
Last night on WABC Radio, Curtis Sliwa and I discussed the wife of Twitter’s CEO, Evan Williams, tweeting her labor, and the new announcements around real-time search:
- Facebook made its announcement about real-time search for all its users.
- Facebook buys Friendfeed which has real-time search.
- Google announces Google Caffeine which is really just an improved search with faster indexing, or so Google claims.
Listen or download our five minute conversation about the issues.
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14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media
August 4th, 2009
This article is part of a road show presentation series I did in Toronto for Intertainment Media, owners of Itibiti Systems.
Social media is far from prescriptive, that’s why I sought out stories of people who succeeded in creating their own industry voice using social media. The result of my research is this article, “14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media” (view on docstoc, download PDF). Check out the summary below, read the article, and/or watch an audio slidecast of the live presentation I did in Toronto. Let me know what you think. Do you have any stories of your own to tell?
Summary
Get inspired to capitalize on social media for your business with these successful tales of building industry voice.
- Ride current hot news and cultural memes: Mobile gaming company capitalizes on the Bernie Madoff scandal by launching a “create your own Ponzi scheme” game.
- Build your own memes: An unexpected Internet entrepreneur starts a new celebrity tracking trend.
- Connect an existing brand or talent to your brand: From complete nobodies to big product brands, more and more companies are using celebrities and entertainment to connect audiences to their brands.
- Focus on content, not social media: An unbridled focus on content and not gaming social media technologies is what made Alec Saunders a thought leader in Voice 2.0 communications.
- Use your own product to tell your story: Alec Saunders demonstrated Calliflower, his company’s free conference calling application, by hosting a daily roundtable podcast in which anyone could participate.
- Manage your industry’s community: An SEO entrepreneur launches his city’s professional networking community. With no revenue model, the connections and recognition have built invaluable goodwill with potential and existing customers.
- The community is the best help desk: Intuit is helping customers find answers quickly by building social networking capabilities right into its applications.
- Take care of your best resource, super users: Like Tom Sawyer did with painting the white picket fence, Boxee turned the arduous task into manning a booth at CES into something customers competed to do.
- Convert potential buyers into a word-of-mouth advertising network: Unknown book author becomes a New York Times best-selling author by podcasting his book for free.
- Feed everybody’s needs all along the sales cycle: In order to sell a new product, Microsoft engages with decision makers, and tries not to fall short of satisfying everyone.
- Own a word: With laser-like intensity and determination, The RFP Database focuses its energies on owning one word and succeeds.
- Customer’s perception of what they get must be greater than what they give: General Mills’ Yoplait Kids asks customers if they’re willing to trade personal information for a coupon.
- Own more real estate: NBC extends its reach to every screen, but also uses itiBiti to get prime placement on the user’s desktop.
- Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing: If everyone follows the same advice, social media becomes very crowded. Sometimes, as Harry McCracken of Technologizer discovered, it’s best to do the opposite.
What’s wrong with your current solution or why haven’t you chosen one yet: Most companies haven’t made the leap into social media because they’re either still trying to uncover social media’s ROI or they lack the necessary structural change in company communications.
14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media –
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