Everyone knows that the announcement of Hulu as the name for the NBC/News Corp video outlet, an outlet devoted to the TV and movie content from those two media companies, and NBC Universal's decision to pull their TV episodes from iTunes at the end of December are completely related, right?
Just want to make sure.
Clay Parker Jones has a write-up of last Friday's Likemind meetup of bloggers and online folk - about six of us altogether - who spent the better part of an hour chatting about blogging and such.
Meeting people in person whom I had either A) only conversed with online or B) never heard of before but who share a common interest is tremendously gratifying. "Friending" someone on a social network or linking them from a blog is fine and good but it's so much better to put a face with the name and be exposed to an actual, non-hyperlinked conversation.
Not only do these people bring great stories (Mark was hit by a stingray, Hemel told us what the New York Likemind events are like) but talking to them reminds me that tone of voice is so important in telling a story. When I meet someone in person I read their blog differently cause I have a sense of how they speak, something that adds value to their site.
Here's hoping this is the first of many Likemind-organized meetups here in Chicago.
And the Bears are playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday. That's why I wore this today. Even the Picasso (located in the Honorable Richard J. Daley Plaza) got in on Bears Fever.
I received an inquiry from Strumpette, who apparently is having a malfunction with the GPS device she's implanted in the rest of the PR community, asking - and I quote - "Hey, where the hell’s Biro?"
After pulling my Star Destroyer out of the asteroid field (it helps in sending a clear transmission) Tom responded by saying, "Unlike some other notable PR people-cum-bloggers, I actually do client work and presentations."
A plea for sanity: Can we please discontinue the use of "frienemy"? Sweet crikey - if I hear this one more time I assure you it will end badly.
[via MWWer Clayton]
While taking a survey just now I came across this question and honestly didn't know how to answer it.
I don't use the internet any amount of times per day. I'm always on the internet. Always. I guess if I were to count the number of times each day I opened a new internet connection I would answer "2" but that's a bit misleading. The first time is at roughly 7:30 in the morning, a "usage instant" that lasts just about non-stop until 4:30 in the afternoon. Then in the evening I log on for an hour or so. So that's technically twice, with one of those sessions lasting about nine hours.
So do I choose "Daily," which seems like a more all-encompassing answer, or "Several times daily" because that's more technically accurate?
Attention fellow Chicago bloggers! A couple of guys are putting together a Chicago version of the Coffee Mornings meet-ups popularized by Russell Davies. Here's the details, via Exit Creative:
Where: Intelligentsia Millennium Park, 53 East Randolph Street, Chicago
When: 8:00 AM, Friday, November 17
Who: Anyone. Ad/blog folk will attend for sure, but others are more than welcome!
Flickr claims it helped make a baby. What has your Web 2.0 service done for the world?
Wednesday night I had the distinct pleasure to meet up with some of the best and brightest in the blogging community. Some are native Chicagoans and others were in town for a Ragen Communications conference. Despite the fact that the original location I had chosen, which was just down the street from the hotel many of them were staying at, wound up being closed we found an alternate location. It was a lot of fun to sit around a table with a stuffed pizza and geek out with others who are on the forefront of the new media landscape. It's always nice to meet some of the people who I have gotten to know virtually via blog comments, links and emails. Kevin Dugan, Robert Scoble, David Armano; Jeremiah Owyang, Jeffrey Treem, Joe Thornley and others came in and out over the course of a couple hours. As Jeremiah says in his write-up of the get together, you could tell this was a solid bunch of guys because there was far more money left by those of us who had to duck out early than was needed for the check. It's also exposed me to a bunch of new blogs to subscribe to in order to follow what these guys are talking about. Absolutely a great time.
A bunch of goofy characters get together for a good cause, to promote net neutrality.
[via Adrants]
If you find yourself just not having enough blogs or RSS feeds to read, both Mack Collier at BMA and David Armano at Logic+Emotion have round-ups of highlights from existing blogs or pointers to new blogs that have launched. Get your RSS readers ready and carve out a few more minutes in your day to keep up with these great outside-the-mainstream voices.
On Wednesday night, our friends at photo-sharing site Flickr are having some storage issues, and the site's been down for a bit. Instead of going dark, they've got a blog entry in place detailing what is going on, and have set up a nifty contest (click image) to give you something to do to soothe your addiction while this is happening.
*Gasp!* An online company suggested people do something in the real world? Yep, and set up a contest that will cost them - well, sans the advertising click-throughs that they're not getting - about $24.95, the value of a Flickr Pro account.
This isn't the be-all, end-all for any company facing an issue like this, but based on the early returns from the people tracking back to Flickr's blog, I'd say that the photo addicts enthusiasts that frequent the pages there are pleased.
WAY back in 2004, Microsoft's Bill Gates stated that spam would "be solved" by 2006. Well, It's 2006, and while my inbox(es) have done a much better job of sorting (it's not perfect by any means) spam from real mail, have we "solved" the spam problem by filtering at the user level? I'd say not.
The screenshot to the right is the left sidebar of my gmail account, which houses a good portion of my blog-related email, and the number next to the "Spam" title is the number of spam threads (note that some of those spams have two, three, four or more messages of the same type from the same sender) that I have received since 12:00am Eastern time Sunday, May 28. Solved? I think not. One executive, Jan Hruska, former CEO of Sophos, told ZDNet Asia's Vivian Yeo a few weeks back that even two years from now we won't see the end of spam, the way things are going.
I don't know about you, but howabout we all cut the pronouncements and come up with something that works? That isn't to say that people are sitting around on their hands, but when statistics by one group are showing 71% of all email sent being spam during the first quarter of 2006, something's not right, is it? Especially when that was up four percentage points from the end of 2006.
In what will surely be the hit of the year when it comes to autographed merchandise, you, too, can get your hands on one Size Large PepperRubel t-shirt, signed by both Steve Rubel and Jeremy Pepper. Head on over to the eBay auction, which has just opened up with a low, low price of $20.00.
Well, it's Friday, so I'm going to take the opportunity to be a little silly this morning, and provide to you something that I can't imagine how I missed. Then again, knowing the volume of content and ease of production these days, it probably shouldn't be too surprising, because no matter how many RSS feeds you attempt to follow every day, you can't see everything. And here I was thinking I could create Web-omniscience.
In any case, make sure and drop by this video over on YouTube, featuring one installment of the Ask A Ninja series, which lets a ninja answer your questions, in nifty online video, served up by RSS and such. This particular episode has the ninja telling you what a podcast is. Irina would be proud.
When life gives you lemons, don't fret about it and start suing. Make some lemonade, and go elsewhere.
Jeffrey Treem is looking to have folks venture Inside the Cubicle this week with his amusing Final Four contest for the bloggerati. Okay, maybe not the bloggerati that those of you addicted to lists are thinking right now, but the rest of it. In any case, if you're interested, go drop in and share your Final Four in his comments or to him via email, and let the games begin.
In other news, big props to my alma mater, Monmouth University, for dropping the three-bomb on Hampton last night, just in time to make it to Friday's game against 'Nova. I'm optimistic, but I'm realistic. In any case, go Hawks!