Cisco ... Isn't this what Twitter does?

The Human Network: Hollywood


Saw this commercial and the first thing I thought of was.. hey Cisco bought Twitter cool!! I wonder how many people fall for this stuff...

Social Media on the Rise for 08 Election?

Digg - Digg The Candidates



Really interesting stuff today via Digg...not sure how long it has been up and running but I really like the social implications and I think can be a good measurement tool for Gen X - Y.

Seems like Obama and Paul have wide reaching base ... lets see how it pans out over the next month or so. Especially after seeing today latest Reuters/Zogby Poll.

Can Google Juice get Obama Elected?

Google Public Policy Blog: Candidates at Google: Barack Obama

Interesting stuff today.. wondering if this interesting and quite proactive plan will get the tech community and more importantly Google to back Sen. Obama. I was very intrigued about his "transparency" comment regarding the government and opening up to America... It seems like this kind of came out of left field. It will be very interesting to see how the next month or so shapes up.


"I’ll put government data online in universally accessible formats. I’ll let citizens track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts. I’ll let you participate in government forums, ask questions in real time, offer suggestions that will be reviewed before decisions are made, and let you comment on legislation before it is signed. And to ensure that every government agency is meeting 21st century standards, I’ll appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer."

Get Satisfaction... For Real!

A couple of moths ago I heard about this company called "Get Satisfaction" basically a help desk on Steroids.. I mean this in a good way.. If your company is about transparency and really want to engage w/ your customers in a fresh and empowering way this is your solution.

I posted a question to the "Management Team at Me.dium.com" regarding the site relevancy that you see when surfing. Withing 4 hours I got a response and now they have actually made changes brought on by the conversation..


The site itself is really slick and clean to use.. It looks like Major companies are jumping on board as well. I think we will be setting up a profile for yOparts as well.

Is Twitter blowing up?

I have to admit I have been on sort of a Web 2.0 hiatus for the past 4.5 months since launching our new site. In the last week or so I have been inspired by much of the exciting news in this space as well as in Mobile scene too.

So I decided to start using my Twitter account again..now when I say use what I mean is post. I utilize Twitter in a data streaming way and love it. I get updates from Techmeme, Jason Calacanis , Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land, and of course one cannot live w/ out live Redsox casts via Twitter.

Today I read a great article over on Steve Spalding's blog on "How to use Twitter" in which he listed some great applications like....

ServerMojo - Monitors your web server and will send you update notifications via Twitter.

Remember the Milk for Twitter- Remember the Milk (rtm) is a popular GTD web application. By adding the rtm Twitter member as a friend you can send commands to your account via the Twitter interface. This is particularly useful if you are using Twitter by SMS when you are out and about and you only have your mobile phone and no Internet access.

SugarStats - If you are diabetic then check out SugarStats. This site allows you to monitor your sugar levels and gives you all sorts of graphs and charts. Plus you can send in your data via Twitter.

Twitter by Voice = Jott.com send a Twitter update by speaking into your phone--your voice gets
converted to text and sent out to all your followers.

Foamee.com is a fun IOU system built on Twitter that helps you
track who you owe beers to (and vice versa). All you have to do is
follow the account "ioubeer" and then send it @replies. So, say
you owe me a beer for helping you change a flat tire, this is what
you'd send to Twitter:

@ioubeer @biz for helping me change that flat tire

Then, your IOU will show up on the front page at foamee.com.

I also came across Guy Kawasaki's post regarding his Twitter app that feeds his Truemors site.. really slick if I say so myself..


I wonder how developers will leverage some of these apps via Open Social and Facebook Api's...hmmmmmm there are so many facets of Twitter.. there are business applications, social and now even health and safety values being equated too it...

I actually wrote about Twitter being used in an Emergency situations after the tragic events at Virginia Tech last spring. But it looks like Twitter really has scaled in this capacity during the recent natural disasters in California.

I just see Twitter creating so much value lately? Is it just me or has it been this robust for awhile now?

Hypocriacy brought me out of retirement

Awhile back a set a Google alert for Blendah. Well today it payed off big time... In my inbox came this little tid-bit from from someone that wants to make $10k off this idea but calls me out for squatting on Yelp...hmmm do you smell something here? I do ...The irony of the whole situation is that Twitter has a policy of turning over Trademarked names to their rightful owners.

Maybe this is what I needed to get back in the game.. things have been a little hectic since launching our new "Wholesale Autoparts Club" w/ a splash of Web 2.0

clipped from blogs.claritycon.com From the 10K Monkey Idea Lab: Yelp + Twitter = Yelpitter Anyway regarding Yelp / Twitter. I was thinking about my old school IRC days in college and chatbots. I think there could be two fun ways to use Twitter and Yelp together and incorporate some chatbot functionality.. Yelp Review via Twitter What I think would be cool is to have a new Twitter user, let's call it Yelp. 1 When reviewing a restaurant, you would just add Yelp as a Twitter friend and direct message them the name of the restaurant. Yelp/Twitter would auto respond back to ask what you thought of the restaurant. You can then respond back to Yelp/Twitter with the review and it's added to Yelp. 1It appears someone has squatted on the Yelp twitter name. Has Twitter squatting become the newest form of cybersquatting? Thanks for trying to ruin Twitter Tom@blendah.com

Ebay sticks to it's gun's for a whole 16 days

A couple of weeks ago I posted on the big "Cat fight" between Google and Ebay regarding Google Checkout Event thrown Guerrilla Style at Ebay Live in Boston...

Well Ebay pulled all their ads off of US Google sites.. but today while surfing I found this Google syndication link... I wonder how much their traffic suffered to do a 180% so quickly??????

I have also posted a Compete.com Daily Vector Graph.. very interesting..

clipped from www.honda-tech.com civais Offline 455 posts [100%] Austin TX 2-3-2004 « Re: (civais) « » 12:15 PM 8/18/2005 Reply Edit bump Austin Weekly Meet, http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1246841 88 CRX HF 98 CIVIC clipped from gmodules.com

Mahalo should be Aloha for Hello and Goodbye ...

Let me start out by stating that I am a huge Jason Calacanis fan... I follow him on Twitter and take great interest in his candor and the way that he leverages PR.

When I first saw Mahalo.. I thought jeez is this really all he is introducing?? basically Cha Cha meets Wikipedia .. so I wasn't overwhelmed w/ the angle of going after the Fat part of the Tail.. it seems to me that the way to truly utilize a combination of People / Machine search is to target micro- niche's ... this became more evident when I searched for "Honda Civic" after listening to Jason's Podcast w/ SEO critics today on Mahalo being that I am a long time Honda enthusiast and directly involved in the Aftermarket industry. My impressions of the search results were that it was a totally "mailed in" .... I wonder how many more are?? Now let me preface I think that they Mahalo is on the right track w/ it's Greenhouse Program..

"Honda Civic Message Boards and Blogs

• Autoblog: Honda Civic Search
• HondaCivicForum.com
• Engadget.com: Honda Civic Search
• Technorati: Honda Civic Tags

courtesy of Mahalo.com

hmmm autoblog - no biased there (cough cough) if you search "Honda Civic" you get 8 not so great posts.. more like press releases ...

HondaCivicForum.com - is an ok board.. but did the guide just simply search for "Honda Civic Forum" on google and walla you guessed it HondaCivicForum.com .... Honda-Tech.com would have been a much better choice in my opinion.. you be the judge 240,000 members vs 22,000 ..

Engadget.com ????????????????? What relevance does that have.. oh wait (Weblogs Inc) .. I see pattern here

Technorati Link... great idea but did the guide look at these results????



I could go on and on about the results on that page.. but the results speak for themselves...people want valuable info not the same old same old...

Jason this is you reputation on the line and with results like this.. I'm not sure you will gain loyal users.. but you are a sly one.. and I think that you are actually banking on that "Google Juice" when someone actually types "Honda Civic" into Google and the Honda Civic Mahalo page scores high on SERP i.e exactly how Wikipedia does...

But I thought the point was to provide the best possible results :(


p.s. I would have left feedback but I was only limited too 500 characters

Check out the tail on that one...

Saw this post today.. and thought I would check out Ilike.com .. I had never heard of it and I'm not a Facebook user as well.. so I was blown away when I saw their traffic graph .. May 24th was the day they launched their Facebook App... Wow is all I can say..

The team at Facebook is hedging that their site will now be the Social Network Mecca.. and with the way that they have postioned themselves in bringing value unrivaled by any other network to it's users.. in my opinion will catapult it to the top... bubye Myspace ..

clipped from www.techcrunch.com The Long Tail Is Getting Fatter Three separate news stories involving numbers this week caught my eye. iLike announced it has now has 6 million registered users and is now adding 300,000 new users a day. Apple’s Safari browser for Windows has now had 1 million downloads. Finally SpaceTime, a 3D browser we reviewed June 5 passed the 100,000 download mark.

Ebay the bully or Scared of Google....

The Blogosphere is abuzz w/ the today's action by Ebay to pull all it's advertsing on Google's US properties due to Google's light hearted attempt at making a point of Ebay's policy of not allowing Google Checkout as a viable option for Ebay users...then Google call's off there party...

That got me thinking...why would Ebay really do this..it has to be something more.. Could it be when Google was outbid by Ebay for StumbleUpon...then Google released a similar feature for Google toolbar owners that gives personalized search results too...

I think that Ebay might actually be a little ascared of little ole Google Checkout.. the often mocked Google payment system... I believe it is actually gaining ground at a very fast pace.. it seems like every time I do a google search lately it is laden w/ Google Checkout sponsored adwords for advertisers.. plus it seems like it has really gained traction in the long tail of e-commerce sites..never mind the top retailers that have made the switch like BlueNile.com and Buy.com with 0% processing fees..

It will be interesting to see how this pans out and to watch the traffic rankings to see if Ebay see's a dramatic decline in traffic and revenue.

clipped from valleywag.com Ha. After a report that Ebay was boycotting Google's text ads, the search engine has decided to cancel a party to woo stores on the online auction site. Google planned to hold the cocktail party tomorrow night in the fringes of Ebay's Live event for its biggest sellers. Mountain View, which plays on online shops' disgruntlement with Ebay's monopoly charges, had entitled the invitation, provocatively, "let freedom ring." Ebay's Meg Whitman must have blasted her Google counterpart on the hotline. Freedom for Ebay's imprisoned retailers, who are being lured by lower fees on Google's credit-card payment service, may yet ring. But not just yet. WED JUN 13 2007 BY NICK DENTON AT 6:18 pm 244 views

Nice Job West Warwick!! cmon NH get in the game

Seems like Wind Power is really taking off lately and it is being done on the local government level..which is the way for a grassroots effort to really make an impact. What if every town used it's natural resources to supply it's own power? What a concept...

clipped from www.zwire.com WW considers plan to use wind power WEST WARWICK - A New Hampshire company wants to introduce a new era of wind technology to the United States and it wants to showcase that technology here in West Warwick. Representatives from Portsmouth Power Corporation made a presentation to the town council and town residents last night to introduce the principles of the project. The company would like to build three module power towers on Arctic Hill. The company is proposing putting one tower near the tennis courts and two towers at the rear of the baseball field behind the high school. The company would donate the tower closest to the school to the town and would own the other two.

Google Antitrust? Microsoft just payed $6 billion for a competitor?

When Double Click agreed to sell to Google last month some of the big guys namely Microsoft got all worked up and started raising questions of Google's strength in the advertising market... Fast forward 3 weeks and MS bus aQuantive for $6 billion???

It's Funny how Google gets picked on sometimes..online advertising is a fraction of the whole advertising industry..but yet they are always singled out?

But yet the FTC is opening up a antitrust investigation against Google...I just don't get it..

The thing is that most of their competitors are failing to realize or are just afraid to admit is that people (us minions) like using Google because it makes our lives easier

clipped from www.nytimes.com Technology Google Deal Said to Bring U.S. Scrutiny The Federal Trade Commission has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s planned $3.1 billion purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick, an industry executive briefed on the agency’s plans said yesterday.

Got My Ocean am I cool?

Well I finally took the plunge this week and purchased my first cell phone in 5 years!! .. It was a peaceful 5 years but w/ the new business launching imminently (hopefully) .. I needed a device that allowed me to stay connected all the time..

Our new startup is a Social Commerce play..so I wanted a device that I could essentially handle all IM's/Tweets/emails/sms/pics/ etc etc.. Of course my first inclination was to wait for the Iphone .. but as my initial buzz wore off over the hype and started looking more and more at the features and service.. it became clear that it was overvalued... Two of the biggest reasons for not going w/ the Iphone was price ($499-$599) and the slower Cingular network coverage..

With the Helio in my area of New England it piggybacks off of the Sprint 3G network...I also like the "all in" features of unlimited text/sms/data/myspace (uggh) /buddy beacon, gmaps etc.. for a reasonable price. I choose the $100/month option which is unlimited text/sms/ web browsing etc. and unlimited nights and weekends.. and 1500 daytime mins. (They do have an all you can eat plan for $135/mnth)

Things are working great so far.. some minor bugs but nothing earth shattering (Weak battery life so far but I am trying a possible solution to remedy the problem) ... My first impressions are that is smaller than it looks online.. and the browsing is pretty intuitive. The Search from any box is pretty awesome as well.. Camera works really well.. and I had no problems setting up My Google apps Gmail. I'm not a huge music and video fan but service worked flawlessly when I tried it....I think this phone has a chance at making Helio a name in mobile industry... I will keep you informed w/ any updates..


My friends know that I can't go many posts without somehow bringing up a Twitter thought.. and I just couldn't let them down.. :) Here is my thought.. If the Ocean really takes off... I think that Helio should buy Twitter and combine it w/ their Buddy Beacon GPS tracking system.. Helio has embraced web 2.0 w/ partnerships w/ Myspace and BoingBoing...


p.s. Here is a link for $100 off coupon for using amex.. yes $195 and free bluetooth!

Web 2.0 Awards or Web 2.0 Garbage ?

Interesting read here.. lots of great sites and a bunch that I have not visited before ...even better.. Seems like SEOmoz has good coverage of a multitude of categories.. I did find some of the winners of some categories like Philanthropy a bit off... where's the Kiva love??? I have always heard how some of the awards are done in not so democratic fashion but this one seems pretty legit.. check it out... My favorite Web 2.0 e -commerce solution Shopify won deservingly so..

I must admit I can't wait for the guys at Uncov to let loose on some of their favorite 2.0 sites.. like Wufoo a winner.. or Meebo.. :)

P.S Rafe Needleman of CNET's Webware blog is also putting together what he calls ‘the first user-generated Web 2.0 awards’

It's about time Apple ..

Seems like Apple is finally getting it... Steve Jobs hasn't been as clear w/ his message over the last 6 months but w/ the eminent death of DRM.. Rentals and Subscriptions should really help Apple gain long term customer loyalty and more importantly gain significant traction in the mainstream. This kind of service allows the user to have more control over their content and the tipping point for Apple is that they have platforms (Ipod / Iphone / Apple Tv etc ) that users can watch or listen to anywhere... I know that I would gladly give Apple the $$$$$ I waste on Comcast every month...

clipped from www.appleinsider.com Apple hints at video rentals through iTunes Apple Inc. strayed from making any material announcements during its shareholders meeting on Thursday, but did hint that it will offer video rentals through iTunes at some point in the future. "Timing of this is difficult to determine, but we would expect [iTunes video rentals] sometime in 2008," said PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster, who attended the shareholder gathering in Apple's hometown of Cupertino, Calif.

Google Come to the Live Free or Die State !!

A couple of weeks ago I was reading Danny Sullivan's piece on Google coming to Oklahoma... and I couldn't help but think of why not NH?? We have a very business friendly tax structure for business's .. we are very close to allot of main hubs i.e Boston/NY and Google really hasn't setup shop in the New England area.

So that got me thinking if Google where to come to NH where would be a viable option... The first place I thought of was Berlin. Katie Delahaye president of KD Paine and Partners recently made the move up to Berlin... There are two reasons why I think that Berlin would be a prime candidate for future move..first Berlin is a former Paper Mill Town that was decimated by overseas competition leaving the town in a very unenviable position...The town of Berlin has taken a proactive approach in attracting new ideas to jump start this proud resllient town..

The Second reason I think that Berlin would be a good fit..is the energy infrastructure in place .. NH has recently made a much progress in becoming more energy independent and Environmentally responsible.. NH just recently passed a renewable portfolio standard.

In that area of the state Wind Resources are very strong as pictured here ... Berlin has also embraced Wind Power as discussed in this NH Public Radio article. There is also a plentiful source of Hydro power in that area w/ many rivers...

Ok so Google the perennial do-gooders for the free world could not only build an eco-friendly Data Center that would breathe life back into a community that welcomes such a move but it makes sense business wise.. We have a Governor in office that is very popular and is business friendly as well..

Let me know if I am crazy....

Another Reason Politics and Religion Don't Mix

For the record I am a Christian..and I am an American as well.. and it really bothers me that as a Christian we can't make up our own minds on subjects (individually) .. This is a classic example of Hypocrisy .. where is the outrage by the church about the death penalty? And does the Catholic Church have any moral ground to stand on after all of the sexual abuse that has taken place for decades?? Or that fact that some Evangelical leaders seem to always set themselves up for failure... i.e Ted Haggard / or the empty promises of the President to Evangelicals almost 8 years ago for his faith based initiative program that never materialized ..

The Main goal for Christians is to Love one another and to grow closer to God by developing a relationship through him.. it's really simple and somehow we forget it time after time...

clipped from www.reuters.com Pope warns Catholic politicians who back abortion ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Wednesday warned Catholic politicians they risked excommunication from the Church and should not receive communion if they support abortion. It was the first time that the Pope, speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him on a trip to Brazil, dealt in depth with a controversial topic that has come up in many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy. The Pope was asked whether he supported Mexican Church leaders threatening to excommunicate leftist parliamentarians who last month voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City. "Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed by Canon (church) law which says that the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ," he said.

New Housing Trend.. Green Friendly and Economically Friendly

Saw this article the other day.. and I have been totally consumed by the possibilities of cheap/safe and readlly available option for home owners..

Typically these containers sit and collect dust on our docks.. they can be picked up for $2000 for a 40" container.

This seems like a perfect fit for projects like Habitat for Humanity and urban driven initiatives..and they can look good too... and I think cool designs could be easily developed w/ tools like this guy did w/ Google Sketch Up.

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com Shipping containers find new life as homes Inexpensive and abundant, they’re turning into affordable housing ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - This takes a little inside- and a whole lot of outside-the-box thinking. What looks like and lives like a house is actually a shipping container.

Who says Contextual is better

Found this today while surfing... read the sentence highlighted in red. I will take my Google targeted adwords anyday over this.

Twitter should have thought of this ???

As you may or may not know.. I am a "Twitter" Fan.. I love the bridge that it builds to maintain relationships over most forms of communications in easy and unobtrusive manner. Twitter should also be praised for their openness towards outside developers that has made a significant impact on the service itself.. So why no "White Label"????

I have reviewed quite a few of Evan Williams interviews and he hasn't really let on about a possible business model for Twitter..In one article in Business 2.0 he talks about Corporate accounts but I have yet to see any implementation on that end...I think that they should offer "White Label" services.. I for one would def. pay for a branded version of Twitter's features for our startup..

Companies like Reddit and Ning seem to thrive on these kinds of b2b services...


It seems with such an influx of new services out there that these companies would look to form partnerships that would help both parties grow...

Anyways my .02

clipped from blogs.zdnet.com +2 4 votes Worthwhile? Facebook has added a number of enhancements to its 'status' functionality which include features which are strikingly similar to the micro-blogging service, Twitter. According to the official blog, Facebook now: displays a user's friends' three most recent updates on the home page has a dedicated page to display all your friends' updates at once has an RSS feed aggregating all of a user's friends' updates offers the ability to subscribe to a friend's updates via SMS offers the ability for a user to update their status by sending an SMS to Facebook starting with the "@" character

Could Web 2.0 have helped?

Today I worked from home ... and couldn't help but helplessly watch the tragic events today at Virginia Tech ... As I was watching the reporting there were so many different versions of what was going.. whether it was the mass email that went out to the student body around 9am .. but as one student said that most students don't check their email that early..to all of the word of mouth news that was being reported.. I wonder if a tool like Twitter was being used for the school as kind of like an "Amber" alert .. where the students would subscribe to the school and the school would push pertinent info to students via email / sms / cell / web etc... Twitter was hailed as great tool at SXSW .. which is a large event w/ allot of people using it in the most effective way.. using this for a school or organzation seems like a easy way to contact mass amounts of people quickly.

It breaks my heart to know those kids where in their classrooms completely vulnerable to todays actions w/ little or no advanced warning.

Instead of placing blame on anybody.. I think that the conversation should be on how can we "minimize" events like this in the future..

My thoughts and Prayers go out to all that were affected today..

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com MORE COVERAGE • Video: ‘He shot our teacher’ • Video: Gunshots ring out • Timeline: How it unfolded • Officials react to tragedy • Were you a witness? • School shootings: 10 myths