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Yes We Can! The Fed Website goes 2.0

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Interacting through social media (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and others) is quickly becoming an integral part of business (large, small and entrepreneurial) promotion online. Through Twitter interaction with your followers, you can keep them updated with your goings on and more. Faceboook provides a platform for deeper interaction when you start using their posted items, groups and (fan) pages features.

So with a new age of promotion among us, is it any wonder that Barak Obama’s administration would lead the way for government to find a beter way of keeping us informed allowing for simple feedback?

Taking a cue from the updated WhiteHouse.gov Web site, the federal government has gone Web 2.0 with is own site.

“Using these Web 2.0 tools is a huge opportunity for government to be transparent and save valuable tax dollars,” said Beverly Godwin, director of USA.gov, in a statement. “Tools such as RSS feeds and gadgets allow the public to directly access content from the original source, no matter which Web site they’re on. It reduces duplication across government, because an agency creates content once and makes it available for reuse by others.”

By using social media, and by this I mean truthful and honest interaction witth your existing and potential customer/client base, you create familiarity which breeds trust.

Tags: Barak Obama, Facebook, government, RSS feeds, social media, Twitter, USA.gov, Web 2.0, WhiteHouse.gov, YouTube
Posted in Facebook, Twitter, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

Online Video a Must for Internet Marketing

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

News Flash! This just in!

As I have been saying online video is so important. We’ve all heard of YouTube. Most of us have watched movies online. Video is quickly becoming the most important marketing weapon in your arsenal!

While video is important, guess what will happen when everyone is using video… Only the great, well produced videos will get noticed.

Hollywood, CA. — July 1 – Online video is becoming an important part of Internet marketing and is driving word of mouth. A recent study by eMarketer revealed that ‘recommendations from other consumers’ is the most trusted form of advertising online and according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 57% of internet users have watched videos online – and most of them share what they find with others.

The most recent figures for US internet users is just over 150 million, so some 85 million Americans are watching online videos and sharing them with their friends and connections. These findings show that video on your website is no longer just something nice to have – it’s a must.

Although one might think that the audience for online video is very young, and they are watching silly videos made by their friends, in fact content such as product information and travel destinations are much more popular with every age group.

And 62% of online video viewers prefer professionally produced content.

“Companies are beginning to realize that one of the best ways to reach people today is with a well-made video distributed online. It’s no longer just something nice to have – it has become a must.” says AC Christiansen, Executive Producer of Seven Pictures Film & Video Production, an award-winning video production house that has made high-end corporate videos, commercials and PSAs for more than twenty years.

“Your video needs to have excellent content that people would want to share. And although it has become possible for anyone and everyone to make a video and upload it to YouTube, these surveys show that for best results online video should be shot and edited by a professional.”

To meet this new demand for online video Seven Pictures has added a new line of professional video products. “Technically speaking, these short online videos require fewer resources, making a professional digital video very affordable – and very effective,” says Christiansen.

For maximum online exposure and search engine visibility, videos should be syndicated and distributed to social media sites, such as Google, YouTube and Revver.

Part of this new product line is content development, script writing, RSS Feed syndication (so the video gets found by the search engines and is automatically included on sites like iTunes) and video submission and distribution to the top 30 video sharing sites.

To get a pro to do this for you, go here: http://www.SevenPictures.com

Here’s the alternative: Make professional looking video yourself by learning tips from the pros. Film School by Phone

Tags: content development, digital video, eMarketer, Google, Online Video, Revver, RSS Feed syndication, script writing, social media, YouTube
Posted in Internet Marketing, Web 2.0, You Tube | No Comments »

Ning and the Art of the Viral Spiral

Friday, May 30th, 2008

There is a great article in the new Fast Company Magazine all about the do it yourself social network “”Ning”.

The article begins by letting us in on a little secret:

Here’s something you probably don’t know about the Internet: Simply by designing your product the right way, you can build a billion-dollar business from scratch. No advertising or marketing budget, no need for a sales force, and venture capitalists will kill for the chance to throw money at you.

The secret is what’s called a “viral expansion loop,” a concept little known outside of Silicon Valley (go ahead, Google it — you won’t find much). It’s a type of engineering alchemy that, done right, almost guarantees a self-replicating, borglike growth: One user becomes two, then four, eight, to a million and beyond. It’s not unlike taking a penny and doubling it daily for 30 days. By the end of a week, you’d have 64 cents; within two weeks, $81.92; by day 30, about $5.4 million.

Yeah we all remember that little game, “I’ll give you $1 Million today or one single penny and double everyday for a month, which would you rather have?

Me? I’ll take the “Viral expansion loop” – but I want to call it the “Viral Spiral”.

This article goes on to explain how the viral loops (spirals) work as an accelerant for internet businesses – take Google, PayPal, YouTube, eBay, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flickr as good examples.

So where does Ning fit in?

Well they use this concept on steroids! What they’ve got going is a “double viral loop”.

Only Ning, Andreessen declares, benefits from a “double viral loop,” which spreads two ways, because every network creator is a user and any user can become a network creator. Say someone sets up an Angelina Jolie net with 10 members, which grows as each person draws in others. Then an adoption site breaks off, a Jon Voight hate group rises up, and a Brad Pitt love club forms. Meanwhile, a Lara Croft nostalgia net launches, spawning a legion of soft-core cyberporn spin-offs. Soon you have 2, 3, 10 networks — all expanding simultaneously. Meanwhile, the original group is attracting even more users. Ning swells like a river fed from an ever-growing number of tributaries.

You can read the rest of the article here

Tags: Digg, double viral loop, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, Gina Bianchini, Google, Innovation, LinkedIn, Marc Andreessen, MySpace, Ning, open social, PayPal, social network, Technology, Twitter, viral expansion loop, viral spiral, YouTube
Posted in Facebook, Google, Internet Marketing, Internet Video, Social Bookmarking, Social Networking, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0, Web Design | No Comments »

The fate of Brightcove

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

By far Youtube outweighs the competition when it comes to user generated video content on the web. I use Youtube as a video protion device but I used Brightcove.tv to host the videos that I used on my sites. Why? I felt that the player looked nicer and the video looked better. Now brightcove has annnounced that they are pulling the plug on user uploads. On November 27th I received the following email:
Dear Brightcove.TV member,

Beginning December 18, 2007, we plan to end support of direct consumer uploads to Brightcove.TV. As a result, you will not be able to upload new videos to Brightcove.TV after December 17, 2007. But videos you have already uploaded to Brightcove.TV will remain available on the site and through your Brightcove.TV channel. Videos you have embedded in other sites and blogs will also continue to play.

The good news is that if you create a business account, you will still be able to upload video to Brightcove.com and have those videos appear on Brightcove.tv. That is good news. With the Brightcove pro service (I use a free version) you can create a great video player to use on your site (see: Tiffany Miller Mosaics as an example).

When asked by Tech Crunch’s,Erick Schonfeld, Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire why he decided to throw in the towel on Brightcove.TV. His response:

We are not throwing in the towel on Brightcove.TV, we are eliminating its use as an end-user sharing service. Note that the vast majority of programming on Brightcove.TV are professional channels published by media businesses that use our overall platform for their websites and syndication. It will continue to operate as a content showcase of pro publishers using the Brightcove Platform.

He he goes on in this blog post that the eight million monthly unique visitors to Brightcove.TV (as reported by comScore) is “dwarfed by the adoption of our Internet TV platform by media businesses around the world.” He counts 4,000 such media publishers, who collectively attract “over 120 million uniques visitors per month across thousands of websites.” Brightcove.TV was always a sideshow.

Even though Brightcove.TV will continue to operate and showcase videos from Brightcove’s partners, it will no longer accept videos from consumers. I am tempted to put it in the deadpool, but will refrain for now. If it disappears completely, or arises Zombie-like in the future, we will let you know.

Usually, I upload my videos o any and every site I can. I will continue to watch Brightcove to see how this develops.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Internet Video, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Web 2.0 style web design is not a fad

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

Drop shadows were all the rage in the early 90s print world and have now extended into the web space to become a staple in the Web 2.0 style. . . So says this great article on Metafluence.

Now there are quite a few new design conventions available to web designers in this new 2.0 era.

Gradients, 45° angled lines, glossy buttons, wet floor reflections, and bright colors are all traits common to the Web 2.0.

This article posed a lot of good questions and I believe that they are worth asking. With all the slick new tools available for designers I look forward to a brand new era of design.

Colors are brighter, button have become glossy and the new Web 2.0 sites are not show about using strong colors.

Like the Metafluence article states, I too believe that Apple was really the trendsetter in the aesthetic journey that we see in Web 2.0. Come on. . . Ever since Apple’s aqua interface hit the scene, web asthetic has never been the same.

Read the whole article here

Posted in Web 2.0, Web Design | No Comments »

1st OpenSocial App Gets Hacked Within 45 Minutes of Going Live!

Sunday, November 4th, 2007

Part of me loves a renegade until they hack into my servers and create an email bomb. . . bastards.

Just ran across this great blog: Tech Crunch and a great article written by Michael Arrington

Today there is a story about a developer who goes by the alias “theharmonyguy” and describes himself as “just an amateur” who evidently hacked into the RockYou OpenSocial application on Plaxo called emote.

At this stage I think it is pretty good to discover vulnerability in these apps. Better now than later!

I really like the idea of OpenSocial. I think the cross platform ability of these apps to perform is a pretty nifty idea. This gets me thinking. . . Google didn’t conceive of this idea after losing a bid against Microsoft to acquire a bit of Facebook, methinks. . . Maybe they just forced up the price increasing the (pre) value of Maka Maka. . .

Ah. . . I deviate. . . Oh yes, OpenSocial hackers. . .

Read the story from Tech Crunch here

Posted in Google, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Web 2.0: new internet, new etiquette . . . new law?

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Copyright and privacy infringement may be taking place on an unprecedented scale, but that doesn’t mean existing laws are irrelevant

From “podcast” to “poke”, “wiki” to “weblog”, the internet generation has a language all of its own. But since web guru Tim O’Reilly popularised the phrase “Web 2.0″ in 2004, even those who never considered themselves internet-literate have worked the new technology into their daily lives. Facebook, the social networking phenomenon, dominates water cooler conversations everywhere, having gained a staggering 42 million users since its worldwide launch in 2006. YouTube, which was founded as recently as 2005, attracts some 100 million page views a day.

Thus begins a great article in the London Times on the 23rd (October). The numbers are astonishing, yes, but the question still remains, “How do we utilize the possibilities of Web 2.0 for business?

Facebook, which I call a grown up MySpace is pretty cool. Yet it still isn’t easy to reach your target audience, or is it. Creativity is the name of the game. Facebook apps (a product of the web 2.0 consciousness) are beacons of hope in the sometimes confusing new world of web 2.0. Yeah, even though the term was invented in ‘04, no one knew what the hell it meant until yesterday (or so it seems). With the ability to use these mini applications built just for faceboook to do things like show rss feeds of your blogs right on your profile page, connecting with a chosen demographic just got a little easier. No blatent selling, unlike the old MySpace, but be honest and deliver compelling content and suddenly Facebook becomes a great lead generating tool.

To be continued. . .

Posted in Facebook, Web 2.0 | No Comments »