Six Degrees of Social Media

Today I spent my day at the SocialMediaClub HQ working on the official announcement for the working group dedicated to developing a new, social media aware standard for press releases.

This is exciting stuff and I really believe that this is the sign of many new things to come that will (and already is) fundementally changing the PR industry and its targets.

Some of the most influential, smart, and visionary people are already on board, including:
Chris Heuer, Social Media Club and Brainjams
Tom Foremski, SiliconValleyWatcher
Mark Nowlan, PR Newswire
Laura Sturaitis, BusinessWire
Todd Defren, Shift Communications and PR Squared
Jen McClure, Society for New Communications Research
Jason Baptiste, TheWeblogWire
Todd Van Hoosear, Topaz Partners

Stay tuned...the release will drop next week and we're looking for additional innovators.

Since we're on the subject, Lee Odden over at TopRank Online Marketing Blog, published a great post, "Resources for New Media and Social Media PR." It's a great post thats serves as a highly qualified hub for learning, sharing and elevating SMPR.



Per Odden, "There’s a growing amount of buzz about social media lately, but specifically of interest is social media press releases. As we fold the new media press release, press room and media relations tactics into our PR strategy, I’ve been monitoring a number of resources on the topic of new media PR and the hRelease or social media release and offer some of those links here."

Tags: hrelease, Social Media, socialmediaclub, Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher, Howard Greenstein, Chris Heuer, Brian Solis, brainjams, futureworks, PR2.0, Jennifer McCluer SNCR, todd defren, shift, pr-squared, Todd Van Hoosear, topaz partners, Jason Baptiste, theweblogwire, Laura Sturaitis, businesswire, microformat, businesswire, prnewswire , lee odden

YouSendIt - IGetIt - An easy way to send large files online

Last month at STIRR, I was introduced to YouSendIt, “the leader in file delivery.” It’s an interesting service that allows anyone to send large files, securely, to contacts through email, bypassing any filters or limits set in place by admins on other side of the firewall.

For a couple of years, I’ve used a similar service from Dropload – basically, when I needed to send files in excess of 5-10MB.

According to Dropload’s site, it is a place for you to drop your files off and have them picked up by someone else at a later time. Recipients you specify are sent an email with instructions on how to download the file.

In my opinion both services work extremely well and are helpful in ensuring that large files make it, intact, to their intended recipients. The difference is the level of perception, branding, and professionalism you wish to portray.

Per the YouSendIt site, “The company was founded in 2003 to solve a simple problem - we needed to get big files to other folks reliably, without email limits, firewall constraints, esoteric FTP or ‘briefcase’ contortions. And we wanted it to be simpler than email, yet as secure and dependable as FedEx and such are in the real world.”


Photo Credit: Angie Chang

YouSendIt allows you to send up to 1GB files at a time. The site also promises that your data will stay secure: “Your data goes to who you want it to and nobody else. No risk of having data end up in the wrong hands.”

For example, today I was working with PRNewswire, and I needed to prepare a series of folders consisting of high-resolution digital images weighing-in at about 10MB each. I decided to give YouSendIt a try, and within minutes, the files were received…in tact.

The company offers a variety of packages for personal and business users.

YouSendIt Lite
Your own Inbox
Sent files history
Address book
100 downloads per file
$Free

YouSendIt Plus
No ads on your pages
Track downloads
3-day email support
200 downloads per fileSend files up to 2 GB
$4.99/month

YouSendIt Business Plus
Display your brand on file deliveries
Request files from clients through your own branded Dropbox
No ads
Track downloads for 30 days
2-day email support
Send files up to 2 GB
Files available for 14 days
500 downloads per file
$29.99/month

YouSendIt BusinessDisplay
No ads
Track downloads for 30 days
2-day email support
Send files up to 2 GB
Files available for 14 days
400 downloads per file
$19.99/month

At the end of the day, I was impressed with YouSendIt’s straight-forward and dependable service. I will still use Dropload for sending personal files (out of loyalty) and for business, I will continue to use YouSendIt. Either way, my files will arrive securely and on-time, which at the end of the day, is all that matters. Oh and for those of you who want to make some cool “YouSendIt” paper airplanes….follow the jump for the company’s set of instructions.

Digg This!

Tags: dropload, yousendit, business, angie chang, web2.0, web 2.0, stirr, prnewswire

TechCrunch Hits 100k

I wrote that headline and realized that readers could interpret it as either monthly revenue or subscribers. Well, according to Feedburner, TechCrunch hit 100k readers right on the money - literally. And, take a look at Technorati's numbers...Techcrunch, Rank: 8 (43,393 links from 12,110 blogs).

While the number may read 100k, I believe that TechCrunch has had a much bigger impact than Feedburner or Technorati numbers can represent here.

Let's not talk about the accuracy or relevance of Web 2.0, or whether or not TechCrunch is losing its edge, or how much the CrunchNetwork brings in on a monthly basis, or whether or not TechCrunch UK or CrunchGear were good business ideas...it's all irrelevant at the moment. Afterall, 800 people clawed their way into TechCrunch7 and many, many more tried. Take a look at the flickr stream and its obvious that this crowd is enthusiastic, renewed, and inspired. The question is, whether or not it will ultimately invigorate the Silicon Valley economy. Oh, just a side note, it's annoying and somewhat tacky when you delete your older photos and re-upload them so that they'll always be close to the front when searching...you know who you are!

Regardless of opinions or skeptic observations, it's representative of a movement. People ARE ready to celebrate tech, the web, marketing, and networking. Hell bring Industry Standard back and let's get some rooftop parties going!

When Mike announced the milestone on CrunchNotes, A couple of the comments, other than, "congrats" were interesting and also enlightening:

Richard OCallaghan, August 29th, 2006
Congrats Mike!
Out of curiousity, What sort of rate is your readership increasing at?
Richard

Mike, August 29th, 2006
Thanks Richard. It was doubling every three months for the first year. For that trend to continue, though, we’d have to add another 50k subscribers by the end of September, which isn’t going to happen.

Dave Winer, August 29th, 2006
Sorry, I chose my words poorly. I was asking a question, curious to know how they (Feedburner) calculate that number. Clearly the number of hits they’re getting for your feed must be going up, and perhaps the number of unique IP addresses is going up too. Do they count all the readers at Microsoft as 1 subscriber? Just curious to know what the method is.
I congratulate you a lot Mike, as you noted there are lots of positive mentions of TechCrunch in the archive of my weblog. I didn’t mean it in a negative way.

The last comment lead to Winer's blog and a series of discussions around this topic to find the answer.

• Mark Fletcher writes that Bloglines reports the number of subscribers each time it requests the feed.
• Lorenzo Viscanti: "Feedburner's count is just an approximation."
• Feedburner: "Subscribers is an approximate measure of the number of individuals currently subscribed to your feed."

The explanations continue here.

Digg this!

Tags: michael arrington, techcrunch, crunchnotes, scripting, dave winer, mark fletcher, lorenzo viscanti, feedburner, web2.0, web 2.0, parties, rooftop, industry standard, bubble, bubble 2.0, flickr, technorati, silicon valley

WifiTastic - Look Out Fon and the rest of you Fon'eros!

With all of the hype and buzz around free WiFi and big investments in companies trying to bring free connectivity to a neighborood near you, including venture-funded Fon, Google's new service for Mountain View residents and employees and Wireless Silicon Valley...one company is taking a different approach. They are making Wifi earn money for you!

Founded by David Sidrane and Rob Harding, WifiTastic officially introduced its public BETA program recently. Unlike the others, WifiTastic enables any broadband subscriber to create a revenue generating hotspot, providing high speed, wireless internet access to users ofWiFi-ready laptops, PCs, Macs, and PDAs. In a sense, it's a one stop shop package to seamlessly resell shared access to the Web.

By setting up a commercial hotspot (within minutes), owners can earn moneyby charging people in the vicinity of their wireless router to connect for a fixed hourly, daily or monthly fee. WifiTastic handles the billing andreturns 60% of the proceeds directly to the hotspot owner.

The service is compatible with the Linksys WRT54G router.Users can simply purchase a pre-configured router or update their existing Linksys router by downloading and installing a free firmware update from the company.

"WifiTastic is the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to set up a secure, reliable commercial WiFi hotspot," said David Sidrane, Co-Founder of WifiTastic. "Instead of providing advertising-supported WiFi access, we're letting any broadband users earn money by securely sharing their high speed access. Whether it's with neighbors at home or work, or offering Internet in their café, bar, or hotel, WifiTastic, for the first time, makes it practical for anyone to operate a WiFi hotspot."

As part of the beta promotion, the Linksys WRT54GL router is availabledirectly from WifiTastic for free. The BETA program is expected to last through May 2006. BETA testers can register now at www.WifiTastic.com.

Now there are discussions as to whether or not "reselling" broadband acess is permitted by ISPs. Honestly, the legalities of it are going to be on a case by case basis. You'll have to read your contract if you feel obligated to bother. In my opinion, I think this is a very interesting approach. It comes at a time when free WiFi is a value-added, something used to lure customers and keep them coming back. But in residential and high traffice locales, not driven by the ability to access the Web, it makes sense.

Digg this!

Tags: fon, wifitastic, wifi, hotspot, linksys, beta, wireless, wireless silicon valley, silicon valley, google, mountain view, joint venture, Silicon Valley Network, vc, venture+captial, david sidrane, rob harding, smartphonecentral, hobbyist software

Amanda Congdon is Popurl'ar Again

(c) Amanda Congdon

I stopped by Amanda's place over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised to read her latest post.

According to Congdon, "I'm SOOOOOOOOOOO Popurl!!!! Wow!! My popurls collaboration is getting quite the attention."

And according to the Popurl blog, "pop goes the url again! I’m announcing the cooperation with amanda congdon. launching in september she will remix the best urls from popurls every weekday in her own little box right on popurls."

Cool.

Amanda then continued in her blog, "Never did I imagine my fun little side project born Friday morning and blogged about Friday evening would find its way to scobleizer."

Indeed, it showed up on Scobleizer and let's just say that he didn't have the most supportive position on the topic. According to Scoble, "On the other hand this demonstrates how NOT to do PR on your blog. That’s a TOTAL opportunity lost. It demonstrates that maybe even hip, new startups, should hire a company that understands how to communicate with the word-of-mouth network properly."

For the record, we're available to help those in need in the future. ;)

He wasn't finished yet though, "Update: That’s just lame for both parties. If Amanda had announced a video project that’d be one thing. But this really is lame on all sides."

And if that wasn't enough, it continued to take a series of interesting turns here:

Thomas posted this comment to Scoble's blog, "Hi Robert, To clarify this: popurls is no company or startup but just an aggregator of popular websites - amanda will post a daily collection of interesting links on popurls, that’s it - nothing more."

Why would Thomas take away from any potential thunder here?

Scoble replied to Thomas, "That’s really lame on both PopURLs and Amanda’s part. She should have made sure that the first news we heard about her was a video show. People are forgetting who she is. Every day she waits she loses more value — the mainstream press won’t pay attention to this story anymore, they’ve already moved on."

Ouch.

And then there was the painfully accurate comment from anonymous, "Silly me, I thought marketing was about drawing new users."

And back on Amanda's blog, "Endeavor's publicity team will be handling that with a press release and I will announce personally with a video, of course!"

OK...OK.

A couple of things here...
Why Thomas decided to downplay it, and continue to play tit-for-tat with Scoble, I'm not sure. Obviously it was exciting enough for both Popurl and Amanda to announce it separately and therefore could have been more strategically released with the right tools, targets, and timing.

In my opinion, this indeed is an opportunity that wasn't handled in the most effective manner. Regardless of the goals or intentions, Amanda has the blogosphere by the heart strings and we're all hoping that she lands somewhere incredible. I disagree with Scoble that the world has moved on. In fact, I would counter that any bit of news from her carries a lot of weight - at least for now, which is why this should have been announced with a bit more strategic and targeted PR.

A press release is a start...but, let's package the story and get it out to the key bloggers, and even targeted media, for a joint roll-out (regardless of how big or small this is.) There's no reaon why this wouldn't be interesting to a lot of Amanda's fans and web-savvy folks out there.

Digg this!

Tags: Amanda Congdon, Popurl, pophub, scobleizer, robert scoble, rocketboom, PR, endeavor, public relations, press release, futureworks, digg, reddit, del.icio.us, tags,

This just in: Rocketboom Gets a New Map

Well today, after much fanfare, ok not really, Rocketboom 2.0 introduced its new "map" and a not- so-flattering hair style for Joanne Colan (sorry Joanne). After spending all of two seconds on the subject, they moved on to discuss Pluto and jumped to an on-the-scene report that captured the landmark vote that stripped it of its planetary status. For the record, Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet, which now makes Mercury the smallest planet in our galaxy.

The most interesting thing that came out of this episode was the fact that millions will have to spent on revising anything and everything relating to Pluto. Truth is, it's a whole new way for these companies to spike sales growth for years to come. What will cost millions to fix will earn more in return.

Riveting.

Tags: rocketboom, joanne colan, Pluto, mercury

New Media Release NMRCast #6

I joined Chris Heuer and Shel Holtz for the latest edition of the NMRCast (New Media Release) for Shel's award-winning For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast.

NMRCast #6 - Business Wire Joins the Group is available online here.

Content summary: Just a brief update about the status of the working group, Chris’s efforts to attend the XPRL working group meeting in London, and Business Wire’s involvement.

Participants: Chris Heuer, Brian Solis, Shel Holtz.

In This Edition:
New Media Release wiki
Google Groups mailing list for New Media Release discussion (please join!)

History: The series was inspired by Tom Foremski's original post, Die Press Release, Die Die Die, where he tells the PR industry that things cannot go along as they are . . . business as usual while mainstream media goes to hell in a hand basket. Foremski has even offered advice on how to create a better press release:

• Provide a brief description of what the announcement is, but leave the spin to the journalists. The journalists are going to go with their own spin on the story anyway, so why bother? Keep it straightforward rather than spintastic.
• Provide a brief description of what the announcement is, but leave the spin to the journalists. The journalists are going to go with their own spin on the story anyway, so why bother?
• Keep it straightforward rather than spintastic.
• Provide a page of quotes from the CEO or other C-level execs.
• Provide a page of quotes from customers, if applicable.
• Provide a page of quotes from analysts, if applicable.\Provide financial information in many different formats.
• Provide many links inside the press release copy, and also provide a whole page of relevant links to other news stories or reference sources.
• And tag everything so that I can pre-assemble my stories.

Tags: NMR, social media club, shel holtz, chris heuer, tom foremski, FIR, silicon valley watcher, SES, search engine strategies, hrelease, san jose new media, new PR, futureworks, pr2.0, pr 2.0, pr, public relations, press release, brian solis, podcast, SEO digitalpr onlinepr, businesswire, prnewswire, marketwire, prweb

You're Invited - Women 2.0 Party Today

Come join the women from Women 2.0 for a summer’s-end pool party co-hosted with the boys at Meetro. This is an event for Women 2.0 enthusiasts interested in business, technology, and entrepreneurship - who want to hang out, chat about their ideas, and meet new people while getting some sunshine and drinks!


Photo credit: miss_rogue

Host: Women 2.0 & Meetro
Location: Women 2.0 Clubhouse w/ Pool 235 Bernardo Street, Sunnyvale, CA View Map
When: Saturday, August 26, 1:00pm
Phone: (510) 710-8336
Cost: $5 per person (this includes food, alcohol, cool people, a pool, festivities, entertainment, etc.).

Wine will be generously provided by Four Vines.

Sign up at Evite.

Tags: women 2.0, meetro, women2.0, fourvines, four vines

Dead 2.0 Runs Killer Article - Should VCs fund bloggers’ wet dreams?

Skeptic over at Dead "Twenty" - inside joke- ran an impressive post today regarding the ideas, benefits, and consequences of blogs taking VC funding.

I'll run a few excerpts, but make sure to jump over there and read the full article.

He starts by asking, "So the question is, can bloggers successfully build businesses that are worth funding?" Then continues, "An even better question is: why raise the money?"

His post explores the market as well as high profile funded and private blogs.

The article features insight from Om Malik, Paul Kedrosky, and some guy named Brian Solis.

Tags: dead2.0, web2.0, skeptic, VC, venture capital, om malik, gigaom, paul kedrosky, michael arrington, techcrunch, blogs, bloggers, web 2.0, dead 2.0, brian solis

Reaching the Blogosphere Part Duex – working with enthusiasts to attract customers

My article...Part 2 of who-knows-how-many in a series to help up-and-coming PR professionals (and those verterans who are wondering when the hell blogs became part of the PR mix) just ran on Forward Moving.

"Blogger relations is an important addition to a PR program because enthusiast bloggers within a given community/market can strongly influence consumer behavior. According to Technorati, it is tracking more than 51.5 million blogs, of which, many are speaking to and advising your customers on their next move."

Forward's mission: To provide a comprehensive, ever-evolving, online springboard for students and young professionals in PR.

Who they are: Forward is the collaborative effort of a team composed of students, faculty and professionals from around the globe from varying levels and areas of expertise. (More about the regular contributors.)

Please take a moment to keep this article in the spotlight for a bit at NewPR - thank you.

Tags: Forward Moving, blogger relations, blogs, pr, public relations, pr2.0, pr 2.0, futureworks, brian solis

Lifebits, the Future of Personal Content Sharing?

A friend of mine let me know about his latest venture. Alex Limberis is the CEO of a new Silicon Valley startup, Lifebits.

Lifebits is a personal content sharing service that makes it easier for the average consumer to capture, catalog and share their digital memories.

Alex and company are genuinly excited about this service and it will formally launch within the next couple of months. Lifebits aims to solve real problems for real consumer that capture a lot of life events and then struggle to store, share, and catalog them in a sensible way.

Alex Limberis stated, "Lifebits was created to solve the problems my family and I had, and I suspect that your family has as well. The ultimate goal here is to make this simple enough for the non techie to greatly enrich the family sharing experience."

Lifebits is accepting volunteers for those of you interested in participating in the beta testing process, . They hope to be running within the next 4 to 6 weeks, just in time for Christmas.

Your will need one of the following devices to fully participate in the program:
1) Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone with Digital Camera (MPX220) for example
2) Windows Mobiel 2003 Pocket PC phone edition with Digital Camera
3) Windows Mobil 2005 Pocket PC phone edition with Digital Camera
4) Cingular 2125 Smartphone 2005
5) Cingular 8125 PDA phone
6) Other smartphone such as the OD2 QTEK, Imat PDA2K etc will work
7) Symbian Java based S60

Sign up at www.lifebits.com

Oh by the way, they're hiring....send an email to jobs@lifebits.com

Tags: lifebits, alex limberis, photo sharing, web 2.0, web2.0, photography, digital cameras, digicams

China Opens Halfway House for Internet Addicts

Reuters ran an interesting story this morning. Mainland China opened its first halfway house for Internet addicts, which offers teenagers counseling, books -- and the use of computers????

The shelter can hold four minors for one-night stays, which is intended to provide a sanctuary between them and their parents.

Since online gaming has exploded in China over the years, an estimated 14 million people have jumped in to feverishly accelerate the growth. Even with a halfway house, it's simply no match to curb the growth.

Amid growing concern that more and more young people are getting hooked, China has issued a raft of regulations aimed at curbing excessive game playing at Internet cafes and heavily fining owners that admit minors.

The Shanghai shelter, modeled on one already in operation Hong Kong, took in the first three guests on Monday, including Chen Jiafeng -- a 17-year-old who is "fed up with the depressive atmosphere" of his family.

In May, the parents of a 13-year-old boy who killed himself after playing a computer game for 36 hours sued the game's Chinese distributor.

According to the article, China has issued a raft of regulations aimed at decreasing excessive game playing at Internet cafes by heavily fining owners that admit minors.

Perhaps there's a reason that these kids are looking to get out of their homes and escape by spending hours/days online. Halfway houses might wind up providing more family counseling services than providing steps to alleviate online addiction. In the first few instances, counselors have already stepped in to help parents communicate better with their children.

Tags: Internet, china, halfway house, shanghai, online, addicts

Travelers Take Flight to World Wikia - a Free, Editable Travel Directory

Gil Penchina of Wikia just gave me a heads up on their latest announcement.

Travellers and contributors to its recently launched World Wikia project have already compiled over 1,000 original articles in less than one month.

For those unfamiliar with the launch, World Wikia is a free, fully editable worldwide guide of places to go and things to do.

The home page for World Wikia greats visitors, "Welcome to World Wikia a free travel directory that you can edit." It continues, "Add information, create new pages, and share experiences about the city where you live or the countries where you've travelled."

Enthusiastic travellers have created Travel Guides for more than 50 separate locations, including Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Singapore and Portland, Oregon, among many others.



The site now includes approximately 100 local-authored City Wikis. The City Wikis help visitors and other residents by providing common and lesser-known facts about that isn't necessarily available on travel and city-focused communities. To date, City Wikis have been created for Keene, New Hampshire, Ottawa, Ontario, South Korea, Chicago, Illinois and many more locations.

With Wikia, groups can share information, news, stories, media and opinions that fall outside the scope of an encyclopedia. Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley launched Wikia in 2004 to provide community-based wikis inspired by the model of Wikipedia -- the free, open source encyclopedia founded by Jimmy Wales.

Bookmark - Del.icio.us Digg Furl It Spurl RawSugar Simpy Shadows Blink It My Web

Technorati Tags: world, travel, lodging, wiki, city, wikipedia, wikia, world wikia, city names, jimmy wales

Web 2.0 Bullsh**t Generator

Alright, while we're at it...guess who holds the number one spot on Blogpulse? Nope, not TechCrunch, it's the The Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator™ brought to you by Emptybottle.org.

According to the homepage, "The web is getting hot and sweaty again, and the dollars are flying almost as fast as the bullshit."

That statement couldn't be more accurate. As someone working in PR and writting for this site, you have no idea how many of these verbs, adjectives, and market disruptors I hear on a daily basis.

This site playfully encourages marketing and business professionals to utilize this service for developing business plans and to devise bullshit-compliant products and services with the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator.

So I gave it a few whirls and here's what it returned:

• create A-list network effects
• share rss-capable widgets
• create embedded ecologies
• aggregate peer-to-peer networking
• syndicate citizen-media networking
• design rss-capable tagclouds
• tag long-tail networking
• integrate standards-compliant web services

Sound familiar?

There's also a link to help name your new Web 2.0 site with Andrew Woolridge's Web 2.0 Company Name Generator.

According to the site, "Web Two Point Oh helps you create the next million dollar idea with a pre-created, VC-friendly Web 2.0 company."

First up...

Your company name:
Rieetix

Your company product:
ad-supported shopping via browser toolbar

and again...

Your company name:
Blinodirati

Your company product:
tag-based search engine via flash

Either way, expect to see a lot more of these "generatrs" (note: intentional removal of the letter "o" to be 2.0 compliant" as the Web 2.0 phenomenon, errr, bubble, continues to inflate. In the meantime, don't be surprised if you see at least of these companies present at O'Reilly's next web conference or written about on Skeptic's site, Dead 2.0.

Side note from Valleywag: We're upping the August Capital ante. Whoever gets onstage at John Battelle and O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 event with a fake startup wins a free year of Valleyschwag.

Although it seems that one may have already infiltrated one of the hottest "valley" parties. Give me a D, give me a C, Give me an O...well you get the picture, GoooooooooOOOOO dcongo. It will make more sense when you click the links ;)

Tags: bullshitr, web2.0, web 2.0, dead2.0, dead 2.0, valleyschwag, valleywag, emptybottle.org, andrew woolridge, generator, blogpulse, bubble2.0, bubble 2.0, bullshit, dcongo

Web 2.0 Logo Creatr Climbs to #15 on BlogPulse

This is a hiliarious and painfully accurate parody of the unique world of Web 2.0 logos...although we're missing lime green here. The Web 2.0 Logo Creatr by Alex P. has created a small frenzy on the web and managed to climb to # 15 on the latest BlogPulse analysis report.

When asked why he created this site (by himself in a mock interview), Alex P. responded with, "This is meant to be a parody of Web 2.0 Logos. While they are pretty cool, they are all kinda the same. It was created as a joke, not a serious logo maker. But feel free to use it to make a logo."



A couple of months ago I wrote a short piece that linked to a series of Web 2.0 logo compilations on flickr, Web 2.0 from a Designer's Perspective. Wow, notice the striking resemblence? It just fits right in the mix doesn't it?

Tags: Web 2.0, logo, PR 2.0, web2.0, pr2.0, creatr, blogpulse, flickr

Laughing Squid - The Valleywag / TechCrunch Peace Accord

photo credit: Scott Beale

Thank you to Scott Beale of Laughing Squid for the TechCrunch7 reference earlier...

From Laughing Squid: "Monkey Notions has made an excellent video about the Valleywag / TechCrunch Peace Accord using my photo of the now famous, less-than-enthusiastic handshake between Nick Douglas of Valleywag and Michael Arrington at the TechCrunch 7 Party."

Quoting Brian Solis on Flickr:
TechCrunch7 Party $100,000
Open Bar $50,000
Picture of Mike and Nick shaking hands, Priceless…

Tags: nick douglas, valleywag, techcrunch, techcrunch7, laughing squid, scott beale

Frank Quattrone - The Rise, The Fall, The Rise 2.0?

Photo credit: AP via SFGate

Finally, some closure is this case which has spanned years, two separate trials and millions of tax-payer dollars...

According to the Associated Press, former investment banker Frank Quattrone reached a deal today that eliminates the need for third trial and more importantly, allows his criminal case to be dismissed. Also, NASD - back in June - dismissed all charges against Quattrone.

You may remember the details of the case, but if not, Quattrone joined Credit Suisse First Boston in 1998 to runs the technology investment banking group from a Palo Alto office. By May 2, 2000 NASD, an industry regulator, launched an investigation concerning IPO stock deals. In Dec 2000, the famous email was sent in which Quattrone endorsed and forwarded a colleague's note that urged employees to ``clean up those files.''

The pact would end a three-year effort by the government to prosecute a man who earned $100 million in a single year as he commanded his firm's technology portfolio at the height of dot-com mania.

Judge George B. Daniels approved a one-year deferred prosecution agreement, calling for the charges to be dismissed if Quattrone stays out of trouble for one year. The judge signed off on the deal during a brief hearing in which Quattrone smiled as the agreement was approved.

It seems as though Mr. Quattrone is finally back in business...just in time for the next bubble aka bubble 2.0. One analyst estimates his current personal value at $1 billion.

Tags: frank quattrone, web 2.0, bubble, bubble 2.0 b w

NMRCast #5 - On Air with "For Immediate Release" Regarding New Press Release Template

Last week I joined Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, and Tom Foremeski for the latest edition of the NMR (New Media Release) for Shel Holtz's popular For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast.

The NMRCast #5: "The Content Episode," is available online here.

In This Edition:
New Media Release wiki
Free Josh Wolf wiki
XPRL working group website
Google Groups mailing list for New Media Release discussion (please join!)

Content summary:Participants: Chris Heuer, Tom Foremski, Brian Solis, Shel Holtz. The discussion covered the possible integration of XPRL aand the hRelease format; the results of a Social Media Club meeting on Wednesday night where the new-media release was addressed; the development of a working group; and the announcement of a case study contest.

History: The series was inspired by Tom Foremski's original post, Die Press Release, Die Die Die, where he tells the PR industry that things cannot go along as they are . . . business as usual while mainstream media goes to hell in a hand basket. Foremski has even offered advice on how to create a better press release:

• Provide a brief description of what the announcement is, but leave the spin to the journalists. The journalists are going to go with their own spin on the story anyway, so why bother? Keep it straightforward rather than spintastic.
• Provide a page of quotes from the CEO or other C-level execs.
• Provide a page of quotes from customers, if applicable.
• Provide a page of quotes from analysts, if applicable.
• Provide financial information in many different formats.
• Provide many links inside the press release copy, and also provide a whole page of relevant links to other news stories or reference sources.
• And tag everything so that I can pre-assemble my stories.

Tags: NMR, social media club, shel holtz, chris heuer, tom foremski, FIR, silicon valley watcher, SES, search engine strategies, hrelease, san jose new media, new PR, futureworks, pr2.0, pr 2.0, pr, public relations, press release, brian solis, podcast, SEO digitalpr onlinepr, businesswire, prnewswire, marketwire, prweb

Enterprise 2.0 Continued - Cogenz

Niall Cook, Founder and Chairman of Cogenz Ltd, commented on the last reference to Enterprise 2.0 companies to let me know about what he's working on over at Cogenz.

Cogenz is a social bookmarking service for the enterprise, designed to help companies harness the collective intelligence of their employees. It's similar to ConnectBeam, although they are focused on providing a much more simple user experience for those who want to start using it inside their businesses.

According to Niall, "One of Cogenz’s advantages is its support for flexible email subscriptions. If you can subscribe to a page via RSS, you can subscribe to it via email as well. Users can configure each email subscription to be instantaneous (on update), daily, or weekly. From the user’s perspective, adding and managing subscriptions is simple and straight-forward."

Another benefit from using an enterprise bookmarking tool such as Cogenz (as opposed to del.icio.us or other publicly available tools) is the ability to locate expertise within an organization. In large organizations in particular, finding someone who knows about a specific topic can be extremely difficult. Subscribing companies get their own “silo” that only its users can access.

According to Anu Gupta's BETA review, "Cogenz allows companies to have a private version of del.icio.us and not worry about installing and maintaining scuttle or similar."

I've signed up for a BETA account and will report back once I've had an opportunity to get my hands dirty.

For more information please visit, http://blog.cogenz.com .

If you have a new site, service or product you'd like for me to consider, please email me at PR2point0@gmail.com

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Tags: cogenz, tags, social, bookmarks, delicious, social bookmarking, enterprise 2.0, office 2.0, connectbeam

TechCrunch 7 - Web 2.0 Party of the Summer

Photo Credit: Scott Beale, Laughing Squid

Unfortunately I had to miss what turned out to be an amazing party. I had to sneak-in one last camping getaway with the family before the end of summer. Laurence (Lo) Toney, VP Marketplace Operations, art.com, attended TechCrunch 7 and was gracious enough to provide us with his wrap-up report.


Lo Toney, Guest Blogger, PR2.0


It was labeled the Web 2.0 party of the summer – Michael Arrington's TechCrunch party or TechCrunch 7 for those counting. This time the partygoers did not cozy up in Mike's Atherton abode. Instead, David Hornick of August Capital played co-host to Silicon Valley's movers and shakers, as the event was hosted at August's Sand Hill Road offices.

TechCrunch parties have a reputation for attracting a crowd and are typically a must-attend event for the digirati. This time it went to another level with over 700 attendees, who were fortunate enough to RSVP on the wiki before it locked up, receive a personal invitation from Mike, buy tickets on eBay, or guess the winning bid for the tickets sold on eBay.


Registration line

I arrived at August at about 7.20p and the party was already in full gear with most of the parking spaces full and a line to register. Once inside, I ran into Mike and Gil Penchina, ex-eBayer and currently CEO of Wikia, on the terrace. Gil kidded Mike by telling him that next time he should use Wikia if he needs a place for people to RSVP. I knew that I was in the right place when I ran into Oliver Muoto, co-founfer of vFlyer, who was a fixture in the Web 1.0 days. I began to wonder if we really are in Bubble 2.0, but the feeling quickly went away after a quick scan of the food being served, which did not include shrimp. [Please note that shrimp are not an indicator of a top in the market, but they did accompany the market top in 2000.]


Jessica Guynn from the SF Cronicle

The mood was jovial as all attendees chatted under the Silicon Valley sky as the sun set in the distance. There was so much networking going on that many of the partygoers mentioned that they were burned out from marathon networking. I spent time meeting new people as well as catching up with old friends. I spent time chatting with Auren Hoffman, CEO of RapLeaf, who brought me up to speed with the latest developments with his company. For those who have not used RapLeaf, I think that it is one of the most interesting companies addressing the issue of reputation. As a former eBay employee, I always thought about the potential for feedback outside the four walls of eBay, and RapLeaf is leading the charge on the market opportunity for portable feedback across commerce and community.


Jessica Hardwick, CEO of SwapThing, on left with Mital Poddar head of Marketing

I had the opportunity to meet Prosper Nwankpa, co-founder of xuqa.com. For those who might remember, xuqa.com originally launched as another competitor to MySpace, but after xuqa.com received an investment from BV Capital the company recently re-launched with a contest theme. People can now compete for cash prizes based on their popularity and become Xuqalebrities. The contest approach appears to be working, and the founders were accompanied by two of the top models from the most recent contest. The next contest is for the best bands in the xuqa community – it seems like this is going to be a popular theme moving forward.


The legendary Guy Kawasaki from garage ventures

Later in the evening, I also met the founder and CEO of SwapThing, Jessica Hardwick and her Head of Marketing, Mital Poddar. I enjoyed talking with them and learning about their company. Similar to zinafish, SwapThing is all about trading things with others in their community. It seems to be working based on the stats that Jessica rattled off to me. The most interesting stat was the fact that only 16% of the items are traded for like items. It seems that this is an area that will grow over time as we begin to view items as temporary possessions that can be sold on eBay or craigslist with the proceeds used to buy the latest and greatest, or traded on sites like SwapThing for something from a totally different category.


Auren Hoffman, CEO of RapLeaf, on left with Laurence "Lo" Toney

It was also nice to catch up with my friends from Kaboodle. While I was with eBay, I created a deal with Kaboodle to create a partnership for the eBay community called MyCollectibles, which allows people to show off the items that they are passionate about. Kaboodle is the leading company in the so-called social shopping space and is doing some very exciting things to change the way that commerce happens.

Man of the moment, Mike Arrington from TechCrunch on left with Gil Penchina from Wikia

There were so many people at the party that I cannot even do the list justice, so I will simply provide a laundry list of everyone that I caught up with and noticed.

Other people that I caught up with include:
David Ulevitch the CEO of OpenDNS
Peter Shin of Mobissimo
Guy Kawasaki of garage ventures
Alan Gunshor, CEO of catzilla
Matt Marshall of siliconbeat.com
Justin Smith of sitepen
Jessica Guynn of the SF Chronicle
Alex Welch, CEO of Photobucket
Alix Holder and Brian Dixon of profilelinker
Steven Lurie, VP Business Development with Browster
Joanne Wan of STIRR – she gets my vote
Marc Canter, CEO of People Aggregator

Other notable attendees included:
Kevin Rose, CEO of digg
Ron Conway, legendary angel investor
Robert Scoble from PodTech
Nick Douglas of Valleywag


Marshall Kirkpatrick with Xuga models, Photo Credit: blinkx

Speaking of Nick Douglas, he was able to sneak into the party, even though Mike said Nick was not invited. Someone even took a picture of Mike shaking hands with Nick – perhaps the friendly feud is over? Time will tell…Nick also promised $200 to anyone that streaked through the party. Apparently, it did happen as some guy streaked earlier during the event – glad I missed that one.


Mike and Nick Douglas, Photo credit: Scott Beale, Laughing Squid

Thanks Mike and David – looking forward to the next one. For more images from Techcrunch, visit my flickr stream or the group stream.

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Laurence Toney is the VP Marketplace Operations with art.com. He is responsible for the operations and execution of online initiatives to bridge the world of emerging artists with the world's art consumers. Before art.com, Laurence was the Director and General Manager of eBay's Collectibles Business Unit (CBU). Please click here for his complete biography.

Tags: techcrunch, Michael Arrington, techcrunch7, digg, Kevin Rose, Nick Douglas, Valleywag, Robert Scoble, PodTech, Ron Conway, STIRR, Joanne Wan, Photobucket, Guy Kawasaki, VC, August Capital, Venture Capital, kaboodle, swapthing, scott beale, laughing squid, bubble 2.0, mobissimo, browster, siliconbeat, catzilla, garage ventures, opendns, angel, marshall kirkpatrick, profilelinker, meetro, people aggregator, vflyer, wikia, rapleaf, xuga, ebay, sitepen, hotfromsiliconvalley, vic podcaster, Kathy Rittweger, blinkx, Jessica Guynn, gil penchina, marc canter, art.com, Laurence toney, brian solis, futureworks,