Archive for the “technology” Category

Preparing to leave San Francisco’s foggy embrace, I’m thinking about the work week ahead and which of the many open threads to needle first. One thing that came up last week was a twitter message from someone at Social Actions Labs, inviting me to test out their new DonorsChoose WordPress plugin on Firstgiving’s blog.

It didn’t seem quite right to use Firstgiving’s blog for this, but I was happy to try it out here on the ‘duck.  After all, I’ve blogged about DonorsChoose before.  So I signed up and downloaded the plugin.  The first time out I got an immediate failure due to a PHP version mismatch, but the team soon corrected that.  I installed the plugin easily.  But when I looked at the blog, I immediately went back and disabled it.  Apparently, I had a different idea of what a DonorsChoose plugin would do.

I sent off a note to the Social Actions Labs guy, who sent a nice note back a few days later. The gist of my issue with the plugin is that it added to every post a list of three DonorsChoose projects that might be related to the content of the post, hence “possibly related classroom projects.”  While there was a way to disable to plugin on selected posts, I felt that imposing itself on every post automatically was way too invasive.  I had been assuming that I could insert DonorsChoose projects either in the sidebar or in selected posts on an opt-in basis.  Only a handful of limeduck posts have anything to do with schools or charity.  Opting out of a couple hundred posts by hand was not what I had in mind.

Social Actions acknowledges that this is an early effort and in the spirit of open and agile programming, it will doubtless be improved over time.  And as much as I love WordPress, I have to hope for the sake of Social Actions and DonorsChoose that future versions of the plugin are compatible with Blogger and other platforms.  I guess they hadn’t figured out all the user types just yet.  On the other hand, several blogs have already adopted the plugin more or less as is:

• www.amysampleward.org
• www.maxschoolbus.com
• www.cogdogblog.com
• www.beyond-school.org
• www.newcritics.com

So it can’t be all bad.  I hope Social Actions Labs makes it even better and even more blogs adopt it.  I’m here for future testing.  Here are some DonorsChoose projects that aren’t mined from this text but are still interesting to me, and I hope to you, too.  Check them out, help make a difference.

Help the Henry L Higginson Elem School in Roxbury, MA get a digital camera ($285 needed)

Help the Thomas Edison Middle School in Brighton, MA buy books ($1,010 needed)

Help the Camp Curtain School in Harrisburg, PA get globes and maps ($567 needed)

These projects are linked to topics of interest to this blog, but not actually to the text of this post.  Food for thought.

If you haven’t been following Tangyslice’s inane quest for social media greatness, I don’t know what social media rock you haven’t been living under. I’ve been following along with morbid fascination as an otherwise reasonable guy tries to join 100 social media or social networking sites in just 30 days. At first I rode along as a training buddy, but as the month draws to a close and Tangy looks like he’s just going to make it, I’m happy to take second place and retain just a bit more social media dignity. So here, for the last time, are a baker’s baker’s dozen more social media sites in the limeduck library, bringing the total to sixty-something.

1. All Consuming - Twitter asks, “what are you doing right now?”, All Consuming asks, “what are you consuming right now?” Bonus points for a top-level navigation item called “gestalt.”
2. Beautiful Society - A site where you can tell the world about your favorite stuff. Wow.
3. Blinklist - Sort of social bookmarking. You can make lists. Online. W00t.
4. Book Crossing - Prof. P turned me on to this years ago and I still check it once in a while. You leave your unwanted books around and use this site to alert people to their location. Watch as your books wander the world.
5. Dopplr - Tell people where you’re going and when. So you can meet up with them. So other people can rob your house. At least they use openID for login.
6. Free Government - An experiment in democracy. They want to elect a representative who will vote according to the polls taken on this site. A politician who follows polls, that’s new.
7. Friendster - The original social stalking site.
8. Kirtsy - “the place to find and/or link to anything and everything on the Web that you’d like to share.” See blinklist.
9. Lijit - “What if your readers could search you and everything you’ve created for answers they’d trust?” Maybe they’d use goojle.
10. Lime.com - “Healthy living with a twist.” Maybe I should have joined as just “duck.” I look forward to picking up this domain name at the bankruptcy auction.
11. limewire - I have absolutely no idea what this site is all about. See comment from Cintatdo
12. Ma.gnolia - “Discover, share and discuss the best of the web.” Pretty, but bo.ring.
13. Mashable - If you believe you are more than the sum of your microdrivel, this site could prove you wrong. YAA(wn)
14. Meetup - See also going.com and getafirstlife. Go out and meet some actual people. Could actually be useful if you’re willing to leave the house.
15. Mixx - “your link to the web content that really matters.” Funny, if you just move your hands a bit over on the keyboard, it spells, Digg.
16. Skyrock - “Free people network.” Might be French.
17. Zeer - Since you are what you eat, Zeer tells you what other people on Zeer think you are. Personal message from site hostess is a bonus. A far cry from All Consuming, and not just in the alphabet.

Congratulations to Tangyslice, I concede this winner’s curse.

One time, at podcamp, somebody stood up and talked about how her business - an art gallery - had invited local art bloggers over one night for a gallery tour and general chat, and about how this had been a wildly successful PR and community-building exercise. If any gallerists are reading, I suggest you take note. And if any expensive restaurants or clothing stores would like to try this, please do get in touch with me right away.

Yesterday, I got just such an invitation from one of my favorite institutions, WBUR-FM, an NPR station that is more or less permanently tuned on my home and car radios. The good people of WBUR have had the foresight to invest in new media initiatives, including the excellent blog, The ConverStation, ably helmed by Ken George, to which I referred earlier.

Ken invited local bloggers and social media types through facebook, twitter, and maybe even personal invitations, and despite biblical weather, about 15-20 people showed up for a tour of the station, networking, chatting and eventually, eating and drinking. See the WBUR socials flickr group for some not very incriminating photos.

What the heck is that, you ask? It’s a beautiful wooden sound baffle, on the wall of the engineering room next to one of the air studios at BUR. Reminds me of old type-sorting cases. I totally want one. You can see it with more context in the background of some of the flickr pics. Each box is few inches across and has a different depth, turning it into an acoustic black hole, especially at the lower frequencies. Bass checks in, but it doesn’t check out.

Unfortunately, this might be a metaphor for the future of public radio in a digital, on-demand world. Here are some thoughts from the free-wheeling discussion after the tour. I’m sure a lot more was batted around at the bar after, but I had to cut out early for dinner.

Everybody agreed that we all love NPR programming, and eveybody agreed that we all hate pledge time. Some even hate underwriting announcements, and they’re about as painless as ads can be. I learned that NPR underwriting messages cannot include any call to action or any mention of competition or offers. Sadly, this helps confirm why as a marketer, I consider underwriting to be a donation that makes the executives feel good, not a marketing program that drives business.

So what does a roomful of smart social media types say about this? Some suggested that they’d be happy to pay for an ad-free (no underwriting, no pledge driving) audio stream or podcast on a subscription basis. I’ll leave the logistics of pay per podcast - and what to put in the stream gaps left by excluding the pledge drives - to the techies. This hints at the basic problem the old commercial (or pledge) system has: you can’t fast-forward TV or radio, but you sure can fast-forward a podcast. Actually, with TiVo and the like, you can fast-forward TV, and I think there’s something similar for radio.

The next idea that circulated was wondering if people would pay for individual programs by subscription, or individual episodes on demand. This led to discussion of whether public radio looks at how much pledge money comes in from different shows (they do) and whether the pledge-per-show model might let some shows float themselves and others that can’t pay their bills just dry up and die.

I opined that the very premise of public radio was that some kinds of programming could not support themselves in the market, but had such redeeming qualities that it was in the national interest to subsidize them. The elitist and paternalistic nature of public radio is at odds with the both tough-love capitalism and the populism (Diggocracy?) of the internets. Ouch. I guess we really are all batch of quiche-eating prius drivers.

I bet that lots of public radio shows could be commercially viable: Car Talk, Prairie Home Companion, and even This American Life come to mind. (Not all examples are WBUR shows, and NPR syndication is a bit piece of the puzzle here that I’m going to skip for brevity) But what about the stuff that they are essentially subsidizing, Con Salsa, RadioLab, and most of the news? On the one hand, the low, low price of internet distribution could put some of those shows back in the black if they could avoid sharing the big fixed costs of terrestrial radio production and distribution. But on the other hand, dropping those shows from the air would likely make them even even less able to raise money, especially if the station cut them off from a share of the pledge pie.

I’m usually all about free marketeering, but for the small slice of my taxes that goes to support cultural stuff, I’m pretty happy to subsidize and then to pay again on top of that. I hope Ken and the WBUR crew can find their way in this brave new world.

Speaking of free and not so free markets, if you have any disposable income left after tithing to public radio, you might look into the latest in expensive wooden radios, the Tivoli Audio NetWorks internet radio, available in cherry, walnut and wenge, pictured below. (Wikipedia says its endangered, Tivoli says sustainably harvested, go figure)

You may recall that I have a thing for wooden radios, and I periodically check in on what’s new in tree-based audio products. I’ve been critical of Tivoli for getting things painfully almost right in the past, and I think this is another one of those. But the release to market of a $600 internet-only (FM radio costs you an additional $50) audio device has got to mean something to the discussion above. Tivoli is pitching hard on the angle that you don’t need a computer to use this thing to listen to hundreds of radio stations from all around the world, you just need an internet connection. If there’s a place where lots of people have high-speed internet but no computer, I must have missed it. Maybe they just mean you could put this radio in a room where you don’t have a computer, like your bathroom. If you need a $600 internet radio in your bathroom, you need more fiber in your diet.

I haven’t seen or heard or touched this device, but I’m going to tell you what I think anyway since I’ve seen and heard and touched many other Tivoli products.

It’s gorgeous - from the waist down. The geometry of the box and the speaker and their colors and materials look great. I love the wenge especially. I recognize that it probably needs a digital display, but couldn’t they come up with something less ugly? I would think that a color screen wouldn’t be hard to pull off at this price point. And maybe you don’t need those two rivets on the display frame? Ick. The credit-card remote looks like it has those awful blister buttons, too. There’s a button or knob on the top of the unit that might - just might - approach the joy of the geared-down knob on the Model One, but sadly, I doubt it.

It’s expensive - I’ve mentioned this a few times and I’m still a bit in shock. For $600 you get a mono internet radio. Other internet radios cost half that. If you already have a computer, you can get speakers for even less. And you have to add $50 more for FM and another $100 for a second speaker for stereo sound. I can’t tell if the second speaker is connected by cable or wireless. Conspicuously absent, an ipod dock. Clearly, this is a premium product, so I say, just take the whole kaboodle up to $800 or $1000 and don’t nickel and dime your premium customers.

It probably sounds great - I really don’t know, but the reviewers seem to like it, and it has some spiffy buffering technology that might reduce the chop of a lousy internet stream. The wooden case bodes well, too.

It’ll be interesting to see how this product goes for Tivoli. If they’re right, there are some people willing to pony up big bucks to get good looks and good sound with internet radio. If they’re wrong, the XM-Sirius monster might eat their lunch, or the internet radio generation will just pass them by. That would be a shame, I think the world needs more and better wooden cases for its electronics.

At the end of his Podcamp Boston presentation on distributed microblogging this Sunday, Joe Cascio declared, “that’s where I ran out of Schlitz.” The phrase caught on and was swiftly tweeted and favorited, and I wonder if it’s not a good summation of the weekend’s events and maybe even of the state of social media.

Don’t get me wrong. Podcamp was a fantastic weekend. Excellent networking, fun people, a great, open collaborative and supportive atmosphere, free parking, free wifi, quality presentations and presenters. Kudos to the organizers and sponsors and attendees. I am seriously looking forward to future podcamps. But…

The Schlitz was good. The Schlitz was cheap, sometimes even free. We drank a lot of it and caught a pretty good buzz. We made lots of cool new friends under its lubricating influence. But now what?

There’s growing evidence that we have a social media bubble. Heck, it made the cover of the MIT Tech review. When your cool online New Way To Be gets called bubbly by the Tech Review - in print, no less - it’s time to ask yourself the tough questions. People are building businesses around Twitter, but Twitter doesn’t have its own revenue model yet.

I’m no retrograder here, I don’t question that most examples of most forms of marketing have been sucking the fumes from their empty Schlitz cans for ages. Even the cuddly darlings of search marketing are overbid to absurdity. So my point is not to hide and hate and fear the social media revolution and try to return to simpler times, but to ask, is there really any there there? And if not, how can we make some?

If I could answer that, I wouldn’t be blogging from a Starbucks, I’ll tell you that. So instead of answers, here are five more questions and issues prodded by podcamp and the discussions I had there.

1. Personal branding, privacy and publicity

During CC Chapman’s packed session, “building your brand through passion and community,” the discussion quickly turned to online privacy, widely described as illusory. A wise audience member piped up, “Most of us are here to get known, not to get unknown.” Amen, brother. As long as you have some idea of what you’re getting into, you can make smart choices. For most folks, being stalked is not that likely because they’re just not that famous.

Another podcamper was a little too quick to confide in me that the #1 google result for her name was about her “boobies.” I don’t think she helped her case by removing the photo, which was apparently not nearly as scandalous as the text left behind suggested. If you clicked that link, you deserve to be Rickrolled, but that’s the best I could do. If you want to work in online PR, you’ve got to be able to use the online chatter about your bits to your advantage. Don’t apologize if you haven’t actually done anything wrong, it makes you look twice as guilty.

The conference was packed with digital recording devices and people wearing nametags. Not a recipe for stealth if you told your spouse that you were somewhere else that weekend. Some photographers asked permission and some didn’t. Lots of good questions there about who owns those images and sounds. If you took my picture - probably because you thought my shirt was the coolest or dumbest one you saw all day - please tag it “limeduck” that’s all my personal brand asks.

2. Pecha Kucha vs Battledecks

These two items were on the agenda a couple of times, but I never managed to catch up with them. I’m not even really sure they happened at all. But they make an instructive pair.

Pecha Kucha is a poetry-slam style event where you bring a 20-slide presentation which is advanced every 20 seconds automatically. You present to it and get rated by the crowd.

Battledecks is PPT-backed improv. You go on stage and present a set of slides you’ve never seen before.

Hyper-prepared presentation, or surrealist improvisation - which would you rather do, and which should be a required part of business education?

3. What’s up with Moo cards?

Heck, what’s up with business cards of any kind in this digital age? I’ll rant later about what I think of Moo minicards. More broadly, what goes on a business card and what doesn’t? Website, blog, facebook, myspace, email address, twitter handle, skype name, phone number, latitude and longitude, t-shirt size, maybe even something about what you do? I just wrote @limeduck on some nice cardstock or Japanese paper.

4. Two takes on TangySlice

Speaking of social media overload, I told some people about my friend TangySlice and his “quest for social media greatness” wherein he intends to sign up for 100 social sites in 30 days. He’s almost there, and I think he will achieve his goal, but check out this gamut of reactions:

• [blink] [blink] Why?
• Well, if he wants to waste his time, better him than me.
• A hundred sites? Bah, I have at least 150 already!

Which type are you? Which type was more common at podcamp? Discuss. Then donate to TangySlice’s fundraising page. You can donate a dollar per site in your social media portfolio. It’s for a good cause.

5. Fuck the skeptics

There’s a real risk of groupthink at these events. Where were the doubters and curmudgeons? The people who showed a slide titled “what the f**k is social media” didn’t go too far enough, and when I asked them about the doubters, they said “fuck the skeptics!” To be fair, they were kidding, but I still want more and better dissent. It keeps us thinking. It keeps us honest.

Quack you later.

I coined myself a new handle this weekend when despite all the good stuff scheduled to go on, I just couldn’t get myself out of bed on time: failduck.  Just part of getting older, I suppose.

You can see failduck in action by going to http://www.limeduck.com/this-page-doesn’t-exist. Yes, I know. That’s not exactly what I’d call “action” either.  Yes, I need better duck clip-art, too.

I would invite other ducky bloggers to use this if they so desire, but I think I’m on thin enough intellectual property ice here as it is.