douglas | Kris Smith has read these articles about "douglas" | www.croncast.com Kris Smith http://www.croncast.com/keyg/douglas This is the keyword feed for "douglas" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php en-us Copyright for these items belong to their original publishers. No Croncast, Kris, Betsy, Comedy, Parenting, Funny, Palegroove, Croncast, eBay, Goodwill This is the keyword feed for "douglas" from my read items in Google Reader. This is the keyword feed for "douglas" from my read items in Google Reader. http://www.croncast.com/images/croncast_itunes.jpg douglas | Kris Smith has read these articles about "douglas" | www.croncast.com http://www.croncast.com/keyg/douglas This is the keyword feed for "douglas" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php Croncast - Kris and Betsy Smith info@palegroove.com http://www.croncast.com Palegroove Webby Connect NYC Branded Content http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/11/webby-connect-nyc-branded-content/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

IMG_0479The first panel up at Webby Connect today was to address branded comedy content and its production. My original intention was to have my wife attend since she's the funny one in our civil arrangement. I'm glad that I didn't!

I'm glad not because I could have learned what comedy gold is but that the panel literally had nothing to do with comedy. They spoke my language about distribution, production, creatives, agencies and building out campaigns for brands. This would have killed my wife and I in turn would have turned into her comedy gold in her next act.

On the panel were Jennifer Kavanagh from Oxygen Channel, Douglas Scott from Ogilvy and Steve Wax (@campfiresteve) from Campire. The moderator for this session was Gillian Reagan from The New York Observer. I will spare you the titles, but just know that these people are at the top of their game and industries.

Gillian asked the panel questions that had a comedy focus in them but they were taken by the panelists and shaped to match their experiences with production of branded content for clients. This isn't a bad thing, believe me. They were able to riff off of each other and share information about their processes.

Some of the most useful information about how to create these campaigns came from Douglas Scott. He broke Ogilvy's process down at a high level and touched on the life-cycle of that production and on through distribution. He highly recommended to have the brand involved in the creative process from the beginning of a project.

If you're a creative you can stop gnashing your teeth. He made sure to point out that working with the client before hand to understand the process and the iterative nature of developing content. The goal of this is to create a more authentic product that would make the brand not feel propped up or think that the content was poorly written due to too much or too little brand exposure.

Steve Wax addressed this issue after being asked about creative freedom and it brands get in the way. He simply stated that for a boutique agency like Campfire there isn't a real need to continually bend to a brand since they are project based. Unlike agencies which are tied to the brand as matter of record and have built massive budgets around multiple campaigns.

Later in the panel Douglass Scott addressed his experience with CMO's that are new to the digital and branded content space. Here's the take away from this three minute lesson:

  • Teach them the language of the writing room scripts, dailies, etc.
  • Show them examples of what has been successful
  • Madison Avenue, Creatives and Hollywood are being driven together by economic realities and to continue high quality content production they need to work together

This was a jumping off point for the moderator to ask about mobile. Jennifer from Oxygen put this into perspective by giving out the percentage increase in mobile traffic over last year, up 500%. She reiterated that now is the time to begin figuring out how to produce for mobile to get the most out of it for brands.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Webby Connect NYC Branded Content is a post from: TechStartups.com



Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,



Tags: content branded panel brand production ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

IMG_0479The first panel up at Webby Connect today was to address branded comedy content and its production. My original intention was to have my wife attend since she's the funny one in our civil arrangement. I'm glad that I didn't!

I'm glad not because I could have learned what comedy gold is but that the panel literally had nothing to do with comedy. They spoke my language about distribution, production, creatives, agencies and building out campaigns for brands. This would have killed my wife and I in turn would have turned into her comedy gold in her next act.

On the panel were Jennifer Kavanagh from Oxygen Channel, Douglas Scott from Ogilvy and Steve Wax (@campfiresteve) from Campire. The moderator for this session was Gillian Reagan from The New York Observer. I will spare you the titles, but just know that these people are at the top of their game and industries.

Gillian asked the panel questions that had a comedy focus in them but they were taken by the panelists and shaped to match their experiences with production of branded content for clients. This isn't a bad thing, believe me. They were able to riff off of each other and share information about their processes.

Some of the most useful information about how to create these campaigns came from Douglas Scott. He broke Ogilvy's process down at a high level and touched on the life-cycle of that production and on through distribution. He highly recommended to have the brand involved in the creative process from the beginning of a project.

If you're a creative you can stop gnashing your teeth. He made sure to point out that working with the client before hand to understand the process and the iterative nature of developing content. The goal of this is to create a more authentic product that would make the brand not feel propped up or think that the content was poorly written due to too much or too little brand exposure.

Steve Wax addressed this issue after being asked about creative freedom and it brands get in the way. He simply stated that for a boutique agency like Campfire there isn't a real need to continually bend to a brand since they are project based. Unlike agencies which are tied to the brand as matter of record and have built massive budgets around multiple campaigns.

Later in the panel Douglass Scott addressed his experience with CMO's that are new to the digital and branded content space. Here's the take away from this three minute lesson:

  • Teach them the language of the writing room scripts, dailies, etc.
  • Show them examples of what has been successful
  • Madison Avenue, Creatives and Hollywood are being driven together by economic realities and to continue high quality content production they need to work together

This was a jumping off point for the moderator to ask about mobile. Jennifer from Oxygen put this into perspective by giving out the percentage increase in mobile traffic over last year, up 500%. She reiterated that now is the time to begin figuring out how to produce for mobile to get the most out of it for brands.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Webby Connect NYC Branded Content is a post from: TechStartups.com



Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,



Tags: content branded panel brand production ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:30:54 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5751 Douglas Rushkoff's Open Source Economy: A ReadWriteWeb Interview http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/UXqV37107LA/douglas-rushkoffs-open-source-economy.php Shared item rushkoffbiopicmed.jpgDouglas Rushkoff author, speaker, and teacher is a man on a mission. As a step towards getting "people to see the software-like code lying underneath how they interact," his latest book, Life, Inc., explores the nature of money, our economic system, and how a corporate mindset has shaped who we are as people in modern society.

As a media theorist who's written about some of the most influential ideas of the digital age, Rushkoff is second to none. In Life Inc., he describes not just corporations, but how we all can change to an "open source economy" that favors decentralized value creation over banking and central currency. We spoke with to ask more about what this new economy would look like and how the Web is involved.

Sponsor

How The Web Broke The Economy

ReadWriteWeb: I was particularly struck by how you position the Web as a way for individuals to create things of value for each other, as the door to an open source economy. Can you describe what exactly an open source economy would look like, and what role software and the Web have to play in that?

Douglas Rushkoff: This program written central banking and corporatist monopolies was created to favor people who had money and wanted to make money without creating value. Technology broke the monopoly centralized banking had on centralized value creation by allowing people to develop things at low cost. The gift economy that really the real Internet was built on is anathema to the GNP.

RWW: Will enterprise software the same trend? What role is there for business-to-business transactions in the decentralized economy you've laid out?

R: When I'm at the supermarket, every once in a while the cash register crashes and they restart it and they see Windows. I get the feeling that the manager and the cashier and everyone in there thinks that this shouldn't be running Windows. They're thinking, oh my god, they're using amateur-level software. You want to think that these are proprietary perfect registers.
RUSHKOFF_LifeIncCOVER.jpg
My feeling is that businesses and the IT of business are going to want a higher order of quality. They are going to proprietary super-pro enterprise OS's. I feel business is going to want something like the business-only IBM computer, and I think that's not a bad thing.

Localized Currencies & Technology

RWW: You tell a fascinating story about investing in a local restaurant called Comfort, where you created "comfort dollars" that gave him cheaper capital and your community more food. Do you see that kind of special currencies as being viable for technology investment? Can the Internet be used for localized currency?

R: I certainly hope so. The great thing about software is that you don't need a bank because that's where all kind of bizarreness and corruption happen. But you do see every transaction; software is just really really good for that. You can see how money if flowing, how transactions are flowing. The problem with our economy is that when speculators ore extracting currency, money comes first. In a distributed system money is the result of transactions.

The main thing standing in the way of it is that people don't believe its possible. It's not they cant do it its that they can;t see it. It's like when you show someone Linux for the first time.

A New, Collaborative Mindset

RWW: In the book, you make a connection between the Renaissance, with both social change and the art and science that focused on the ideal of a single master painter or scientist, and the individualistic mindset that allows modern capitalism to function. Do you see social networks and collaborative software has having a comparable effect on our mindset?

R: Renaissances tend to reverse whatever the last one created. This one is towards decent partner collaboration and the sharing of value. So for sure, and we're going to get different kinds of discoveries. I think that the computer may be the most central thing to making all of this happen.

A Word for Developers & Entrepreneurs

RWW: What message would you give to people who are going to be building the software to run this open source economy?

Rushkoff: My biggest message to them is this...There's this prevalent notion is that the reason you get involved is that you create a business that you then sell. I would argue that is not the path to greatest fulfillment, I would contend that it's not the path to the great technology. The less you borrow, the less you will be required to grow, and the closer you can stay you can stay to those growth metrics that are more appropriately scaled.

Life, Inc. is in bookstores now. If you're seeking a primer on the book and Rushkoff's conception of what corporatism means, be sure to watch the short Life, Inc. The Movie below

Discuss



Tags: economy software money business rushkoff ]]>rushkoffbiopicmed.jpgDouglas Rushkoff author, speaker, and teacher is a man on a mission. As a step towards getting "people to see the software-like code lying underneath how they interact," his latest book, Life, Inc., explores the nature of money, our economic system, and how a corporate mindset has shaped who we are as people in modern society.

As a media theorist who's written about some of the most influential ideas of the digital age, Rushkoff is second to none. In Life Inc., he describes not just corporations, but how we all can change to an "open source economy" that favors decentralized value creation over banking and central currency. We spoke with to ask more about what this new economy would look like and how the Web is involved.

Sponsor

How The Web Broke The Economy

ReadWriteWeb: I was particularly struck by how you position the Web as a way for individuals to create things of value for each other, as the door to an open source economy. Can you describe what exactly an open source economy would look like, and what role software and the Web have to play in that?

Douglas Rushkoff: This program written central banking and corporatist monopolies was created to favor people who had money and wanted to make money without creating value. Technology broke the monopoly centralized banking had on centralized value creation by allowing people to develop things at low cost. The gift economy that really the real Internet was built on is anathema to the GNP.

RWW: Will enterprise software the same trend? What role is there for business-to-business transactions in the decentralized economy you've laid out?

R: When I'm at the supermarket, every once in a while the cash register crashes and they restart it and they see Windows. I get the feeling that the manager and the cashier and everyone in there thinks that this shouldn't be running Windows. They're thinking, oh my god, they're using amateur-level software. You want to think that these are proprietary perfect registers.
RUSHKOFF_LifeIncCOVER.jpg
My feeling is that businesses and the IT of business are going to want a higher order of quality. They are going to proprietary super-pro enterprise OS's. I feel business is going to want something like the business-only IBM computer, and I think that's not a bad thing.

Localized Currencies & Technology

RWW: You tell a fascinating story about investing in a local restaurant called Comfort, where you created "comfort dollars" that gave him cheaper capital and your community more food. Do you see that kind of special currencies as being viable for technology investment? Can the Internet be used for localized currency?

R: I certainly hope so. The great thing about software is that you don't need a bank because that's where all kind of bizarreness and corruption happen. But you do see every transaction; software is just really really good for that. You can see how money if flowing, how transactions are flowing. The problem with our economy is that when speculators ore extracting currency, money comes first. In a distributed system money is the result of transactions.

The main thing standing in the way of it is that people don't believe its possible. It's not they cant do it its that they can;t see it. It's like when you show someone Linux for the first time.

A New, Collaborative Mindset

RWW: In the book, you make a connection between the Renaissance, with both social change and the art and science that focused on the ideal of a single master painter or scientist, and the individualistic mindset that allows modern capitalism to function. Do you see social networks and collaborative software has having a comparable effect on our mindset?

R: Renaissances tend to reverse whatever the last one created. This one is towards decent partner collaboration and the sharing of value. So for sure, and we're going to get different kinds of discoveries. I think that the computer may be the most central thing to making all of this happen.

A Word for Developers & Entrepreneurs

RWW: What message would you give to people who are going to be building the software to run this open source economy?

Rushkoff: My biggest message to them is this...There's this prevalent notion is that the reason you get involved is that you create a business that you then sell. I would argue that is not the path to greatest fulfillment, I would contend that it's not the path to the great technology. The less you borrow, the less you will be required to grow, and the closer you can stay you can stay to those growth metrics that are more appropriately scaled.

Life, Inc. is in bookstores now. If you're seeking a primer on the book and Rushkoff's conception of what corporatism means, be sure to watch the short Life, Inc. The Movie below

Discuss



Tags: economy software money business rushkoff ]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:15:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5210 HarperCollins Pays Big Advance For A Book Of ... Tweets http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pcorg/~3/547368661/ Shared item Shared by Rick Klau
Skip the middleman and just publish @scottsimpson. Either that or just do a deal with favrd.com.

Yet another person is figuring out how to make decent money off Twitter that isn't CEO Evan Williams: HarperCollins has commissioned former Valleywag editor Nick Douglas to collect and edit Twitter Wit, a book of ... well, witty tweets. According to Valleywag, Douglas is getting a "five-figure sum" for the book, which is slated for release this fall; Douglas and HarperCollins editor Kate Hamill set up a submission site that automates the collection of the tweets (from anywhere and everywhere) and gets each user's permission to republish. Given Twitter's seemingly unstoppable surge in popularityJohn Battelle compared its search potential to YouTube's, and NBC's Nightline dedicated a segment to it last night (via MediaMemo)who knows, it just might fly off the shelves. Anyone else care to wager?

Related

Promo:
Our streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. Click here to download.



Tags: twitter harpercollins book tweets douglas ]]>Shared by Rick Klau
Skip the middleman and just publish @scottsimpson. Either that or just do a deal with favrd.com.

Yet another person is figuring out how to make decent money off Twitter that isn't CEO Evan Williams: HarperCollins has commissioned former Valleywag editor Nick Douglas to collect and edit Twitter Wit, a book of ... well, witty tweets. According to Valleywag, Douglas is getting a "five-figure sum" for the book, which is slated for release this fall; Douglas and HarperCollins editor Kate Hamill set up a submission site that automates the collection of the tweets (from anywhere and everywhere) and gets each user's permission to republish. Given Twitter's seemingly unstoppable surge in popularityJohn Battelle compared its search potential to YouTube's, and NBC's Nightline dedicated a segment to it last night (via MediaMemo)who knows, it just might fly off the shelves. Anyone else care to wager?

Related

Promo:
Our streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. Click here to download.



Tags: twitter harpercollins book tweets douglas ]]> Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:53:44 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4900 Silicon Valley's Top 50 Web Influencers http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/social_media/~3/360077086/silicon-valleys.html Shared item I've been in Aspen all week so missed this announcement from a couple of days ago:

NowPublic announces Silicon Valley "MostPublic Index"
Identifies the Web's 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley

NowPublic, the world's largest participatory news network, today announced its second MostPublic Index, identifying the 50 most influential individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco.

The MostPublic Index is a detailed (and transparent) barometer of whose voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channelsTwitter, Facebook, Flick, YouTube and the liketransform how media is created and spread. Last week, NowPublic identified and announced the 50 MostPublic influencers in New York.

NowPublic's formula gauges influence and publicness across four categories:

  • Online Visibility
  • Presence on User-Generated Content and Social Networking Sites
  • Interactivity and Accessibility
  • The R Factor: Presence on Microblogging Platforms (Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.)

NowPublic examined statistics in each of these categories from Alexa, Compete, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Quantcast, Technorati, YouTube and various other blogs and sites, to create a list of Silicon Valley's leading influencers. It then narrowed the list to 50 by analyzing and documenting individuals' presence and popularity in each of these channels, applying a weighted scoring system, determined by the strength of specific traits held in each online community. A detailed account of the scoring system can be viewed here.

Here is NowPublic's list of the MostPublic individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco:

1. Robert Scoble
2. Michael Arrington
3. Jack Dorsey
4. Biz Stone
5. Matt Cutts
6. Pete Cashmore
7. Dave Winer
8. Guy Kawasaki
9. Loc Le Meur
10. Kevin Rose
11. Merlin Mann
12. Stowe Boyd
13. Jeff Atwood
14. Jeremiah Owyang
15. Veronica Belmont
16. Kara Swisher
17. Scott Beale
18. Marc Andreessen
19. Ryan Block
20. David Sifry
21. Emily Chang
22. Om Malik
23. Timothy Ferriss
24. Nick Douglas
25. John Battelle
26. David Cohn
27. Louis Gray
28. Tom Foremski
29. Tim O'Reilly
30. Ariel Waldman
31. Matt Mullenweg
32. Dean Takahashi
33. Philip Kaplan
34. JD Lasica
35. Sarah Lacy
36. Brian Solis
37. Charlene Li
38. Rafe Needleman
39. Dan Farber
40. Howard Rheingold
41. David McClure
42. Margaret Mason
43. Jason Goldman
44. Leah Culver
45. Chris Shipley
46. Jackson West
47. Liz Gannes
48. Owen Thomas
49. Adeo Ressi
50. Max Levchin

Color ValleyWag unimpressed.

Lists are fun, of course. But I'm decidedly not one of the 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley. This is more an indication of popularity on social media networks, and even there I'm not so sure.



Tags: silicon valley nowpublic mostpublic influential ]]>I've been in Aspen all week so missed this announcement from a couple of days ago:

NowPublic announces Silicon Valley "MostPublic Index"
Identifies the Web's 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley

NowPublic, the world's largest participatory news network, today announced its second MostPublic Index, identifying the 50 most influential individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco.

The MostPublic Index is a detailed (and transparent) barometer of whose voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channelsTwitter, Facebook, Flick, YouTube and the liketransform how media is created and spread. Last week, NowPublic identified and announced the 50 MostPublic influencers in New York.

NowPublic's formula gauges influence and publicness across four categories:

  • Online Visibility
  • Presence on User-Generated Content and Social Networking Sites
  • Interactivity and Accessibility
  • The R Factor: Presence on Microblogging Platforms (Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.)

NowPublic examined statistics in each of these categories from Alexa, Compete, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Quantcast, Technorati, YouTube and various other blogs and sites, to create a list of Silicon Valley's leading influencers. It then narrowed the list to 50 by analyzing and documenting individuals' presence and popularity in each of these channels, applying a weighted scoring system, determined by the strength of specific traits held in each online community. A detailed account of the scoring system can be viewed here.

Here is NowPublic's list of the MostPublic individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco:

1. Robert Scoble
2. Michael Arrington
3. Jack Dorsey
4. Biz Stone
5. Matt Cutts
6. Pete Cashmore
7. Dave Winer
8. Guy Kawasaki
9. Loc Le Meur
10. Kevin Rose
11. Merlin Mann
12. Stowe Boyd
13. Jeff Atwood
14. Jeremiah Owyang
15. Veronica Belmont
16. Kara Swisher
17. Scott Beale
18. Marc Andreessen
19. Ryan Block
20. David Sifry
21. Emily Chang
22. Om Malik
23. Timothy Ferriss
24. Nick Douglas
25. John Battelle
26. David Cohn
27. Louis Gray
28. Tom Foremski
29. Tim O'Reilly
30. Ariel Waldman
31. Matt Mullenweg
32. Dean Takahashi
33. Philip Kaplan
34. JD Lasica
35. Sarah Lacy
36. Brian Solis
37. Charlene Li
38. Rafe Needleman
39. Dan Farber
40. Howard Rheingold
41. David McClure
42. Margaret Mason
43. Jason Goldman
44. Leah Culver
45. Chris Shipley
46. Jackson West
47. Liz Gannes
48. Owen Thomas
49. Adeo Ressi
50. Max Levchin

Color ValleyWag unimpressed.

Lists are fun, of course. But I'm decidedly not one of the 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley. This is more an indication of popularity on social media networks, and even there I'm not so sure.



Tags: silicon valley nowpublic mostpublic influential ]]> Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:52:37 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4302 Silicon Valley's Top 50 Web Influencers http://www.socialmedia.biz/2008/08/silicon-valleys.html Shared item

I've been in Aspen all week so missed this announcement from a couple of days ago:

NowPublic announces Silicon Valley "MostPublic Index"
Identifies the Web's 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley

NowPublic, the world's largest participatory news network, today announced its second MostPublic Index, identifying the 50 most influential individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco.

The MostPublic Index is a detailed (and transparent) barometer of whose voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels???Twitter, Facebook, Flick, YouTube and the like???transform how media is created and spread. Last week, NowPublic identified and announced the 50 MostPublic influencers in New York.

NowPublic???s formula gauges influence and ???publicness??? across four categories:

  • Online Visibility
  • Presence on User-Generated Content and Social Networking Sites
  • Interactivity and Accessibility
  • The ???R??? Factor: Presence on Microblogging Platforms (Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.)

NowPublic examined statistics in each of these categories from Alexa, Compete, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Quantcast, Technorati, YouTube and various other blogs and sites, to create a list of Silicon Valley???s leading influencers. It then narrowed the list to 50 by analyzing and documenting individuals??? presence and popularity in each of these channels, applying a weighted scoring system, determined by the strength of specific traits held in each online community. A detailed account of the scoring system can be viewed here.

Here is NowPublic's list of the MostPublic individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco:

1. Robert Scoble
2. Michael Arrington
3. Jack Dorsey
4. Biz Stone
5. Matt Cutts
6. Pete Cashmore
7. Dave Winer
8. Guy Kawasaki
9. Lo??c Le Meur
10. Kevin Rose
11. Merlin Mann
12. Stowe Boyd
13. Jeff Atwood
14. Jeremiah Owyang
15. Veronica Belmont
16. Kara Swisher
17. Scott Beale
18. Marc Andreessen
19. Ryan Block
20. David Sifry
21. Emily Chang
22. Om Malik
23. Timothy Ferriss
24. Nick Douglas
25. John Battelle
26. David Cohn
27. Louis Gray
28. Tom Foremski
29. Tim O'Reilly
30. Ariel Waldman
31. Matt Mullenweg
32. Dean Takahashi
33. Philip Kaplan
34. JD Lasica
35. Sarah Lacy
36. Brian Solis
37. Charlene Li
38. Rafe Needleman
39. Dan Farber
40. Howard Rheingold
41. David McClure
42. Margaret Mason
43. Jason Goldman
44. Leah Culver
45. Chris Shipley
46. Jackson West
47. Liz Gannes
48. Owen Thomas
49. Adeo Ressi
50. Max Levchin

Color ValleyWag unimpressed.

Lists are fun, of course. But I'm decidedly not one of the 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley. This is more an indication of popularity on social media networks, and even there I'm not so sure.



Tags: valley silicon nowpublic mostpublic list ]]>

I've been in Aspen all week so missed this announcement from a couple of days ago:

NowPublic announces Silicon Valley "MostPublic Index"
Identifies the Web's 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley

NowPublic, the world's largest participatory news network, today announced its second MostPublic Index, identifying the 50 most influential individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco.

The MostPublic Index is a detailed (and transparent) barometer of whose voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels???Twitter, Facebook, Flick, YouTube and the like???transform how media is created and spread. Last week, NowPublic identified and announced the 50 MostPublic influencers in New York.

NowPublic???s formula gauges influence and ???publicness??? across four categories:

  • Online Visibility
  • Presence on User-Generated Content and Social Networking Sites
  • Interactivity and Accessibility
  • The ???R??? Factor: Presence on Microblogging Platforms (Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.)

NowPublic examined statistics in each of these categories from Alexa, Compete, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Quantcast, Technorati, YouTube and various other blogs and sites, to create a list of Silicon Valley???s leading influencers. It then narrowed the list to 50 by analyzing and documenting individuals??? presence and popularity in each of these channels, applying a weighted scoring system, determined by the strength of specific traits held in each online community. A detailed account of the scoring system can be viewed here.

Here is NowPublic's list of the MostPublic individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco:

1. Robert Scoble
2. Michael Arrington
3. Jack Dorsey
4. Biz Stone
5. Matt Cutts
6. Pete Cashmore
7. Dave Winer
8. Guy Kawasaki
9. Lo??c Le Meur
10. Kevin Rose
11. Merlin Mann
12. Stowe Boyd
13. Jeff Atwood
14. Jeremiah Owyang
15. Veronica Belmont
16. Kara Swisher
17. Scott Beale
18. Marc Andreessen
19. Ryan Block
20. David Sifry
21. Emily Chang
22. Om Malik
23. Timothy Ferriss
24. Nick Douglas
25. John Battelle
26. David Cohn
27. Louis Gray
28. Tom Foremski
29. Tim O'Reilly
30. Ariel Waldman
31. Matt Mullenweg
32. Dean Takahashi
33. Philip Kaplan
34. JD Lasica
35. Sarah Lacy
36. Brian Solis
37. Charlene Li
38. Rafe Needleman
39. Dan Farber
40. Howard Rheingold
41. David McClure
42. Margaret Mason
43. Jason Goldman
44. Leah Culver
45. Chris Shipley
46. Jackson West
47. Liz Gannes
48. Owen Thomas
49. Adeo Ressi
50. Max Levchin

Color ValleyWag unimpressed.

Lists are fun, of course. But I'm decidedly not one of the 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley. This is more an indication of popularity on social media networks, and even there I'm not so sure.



Tags: valley silicon nowpublic mostpublic list ]]> Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:38:19 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4290 A Severe Case of Nostalgia http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK7NO8ZP3W63TN Shared item Shared by Mike
sweet. Hitchiker's Guide is out for the Kindle!
I clearly remember the sunny, spring, seventh-grade afternoon when I asked to be excused from class in order to check out a new library book. Thinking back on the event with the devious mind developed in subsequent years, this seems like it would have been an awfully easy way to ditch class. As it was, my then-guileless self proceeded happily to the dark, windowless expanse in the center of my junior high school.

My school, in its love affair with outdated technology, had not yet installed a computerized book inventorying system. Instead, we had a dilapidated series of drawers containing our card catalogue. Card catalogues are not, inherently, a problematic system. They do, however, lose much of their usefulness when they are not updated in seven or eight years. Even then, the actual organization and alphabetization of books in our library left something to be desired. As a result, a student looking for a specific title was likely to be either disappointed or completely disoriented. The best book-finding technique, then, was to pick a random nook in the library and walk along the rows until something caught your eye. You people nowadays are so lucky with your fancy "Kindle Store" and your "word searches."

Anyhow, this particular day I was pacing up and down the north-west wall of the library when something blackish with neon pink writing caught my eye. Deciding that such flamboyance was likely to yield something interesting, I pulled the title from the shelf. Splayed across the front were the words The Restaurant At the End of the Universe. Also on the cover were some words stating that this was written by a man named Douglas Adams and that is was a sequel to something called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This was pretty irrelevant in my mind (as the chances of finding a specific book were still hindered by the above problems), so I chuckled at the text on the back cover, checked it out and returned to class.

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard reading a book before or since. There's something about Adams's quirky writing style that distracts you while something comedic sneaks up and clubs you in the back of the head. I had to read the entire trilogy, which meant I had to use the actual library. After reading the original book and Life, the Universe and Everything, I discovered that the trilogy actually had been expanded to five books, which was strangely fitting, and I read the last two, as well.

You might be wondering what brought this subject to mind. Well, in doing a bit of (end of) Spring cleaning the other week, I came across my copy of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (no, it's not the original library book!). Sitting down and reading through the chapters again, I considered how interesting and clever the book was, even for the fourth or fifth time. It made me wonder how Douglas Adams, ever the fan of technology, would consider the Kindle. Would he like it? Would he want his work on it? Would he draw comparisons (as I did) between it and The Guide? Personally, I like to think he would have. --Logan


Tags: book library kindle universe adams ]]>Shared by Mike
sweet. Hitchiker's Guide is out for the Kindle!
I clearly remember the sunny, spring, seventh-grade afternoon when I asked to be excused from class in order to check out a new library book. Thinking back on the event with the devious mind developed in subsequent years, this seems like it would have been an awfully easy way to ditch class. As it was, my then-guileless self proceeded happily to the dark, windowless expanse in the center of my junior high school.

My school, in its love affair with outdated technology, had not yet installed a computerized book inventorying system. Instead, we had a dilapidated series of drawers containing our card catalogue. Card catalogues are not, inherently, a problematic system. They do, however, lose much of their usefulness when they are not updated in seven or eight years. Even then, the actual organization and alphabetization of books in our library left something to be desired. As a result, a student looking for a specific title was likely to be either disappointed or completely disoriented. The best book-finding technique, then, was to pick a random nook in the library and walk along the rows until something caught your eye. You people nowadays are so lucky with your fancy "Kindle Store" and your "word searches."

Anyhow, this particular day I was pacing up and down the north-west wall of the library when something blackish with neon pink writing caught my eye. Deciding that such flamboyance was likely to yield something interesting, I pulled the title from the shelf. Splayed across the front were the words The Restaurant At the End of the Universe. Also on the cover were some words stating that this was written by a man named Douglas Adams and that is was a sequel to something called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This was pretty irrelevant in my mind (as the chances of finding a specific book were still hindered by the above problems), so I chuckled at the text on the back cover, checked it out and returned to class.

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard reading a book before or since. There's something about Adams's quirky writing style that distracts you while something comedic sneaks up and clubs you in the back of the head. I had to read the entire trilogy, which meant I had to use the actual library. After reading the original book and Life, the Universe and Everything, I discovered that the trilogy actually had been expanded to five books, which was strangely fitting, and I read the last two, as well.

You might be wondering what brought this subject to mind. Well, in doing a bit of (end of) Spring cleaning the other week, I came across my copy of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (no, it's not the original library book!). Sitting down and reading through the chapters again, I considered how interesting and clever the book was, even for the fourth or fifth time. It made me wonder how Douglas Adams, ever the fan of technology, would consider the Kindle. Would he like it? Would he want his work on it? Would he draw comparisons (as I did) between it and The Guide? Personally, I like to think he would have. --Logan


Tags: book library kindle universe adams ]]> Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:45:13 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4202 Old Media Industries At Different Stages Of The Grieving Process http://techdirt.com/articles/20080518/0633371155.shtml Shared item One of the interesting people I met at last week's Princeton workshop was Douglas Dixon, who points out that almost all 20th-century media companies are going through the five stages of grief, but different media industries are going through the stages at different rates. Back in 2006, we noted that the music recording industry was still in the denial stage. Now, Dixon says that it seems to be "stuck cycling between Anger, Bargaining, and Depression -- as it still lashes out by suing its own customers, and grabs on to each next new copy protection scheme while simultaneously going DRM-free in other venues." And indeed, as we pointed out a couple of weeks ago, Hollywood is still firmly in the denial phase, insisting that effective DRM is just around the corner.

In contrast, the news business has been responding pretty well of late to the disruptive technologies of the Internet. The newspaper folks at last week's conference seemed to accept that print was a dying business, and many of them declared their committed to making the painful changes necessary to stay competitive. As we've noted before, they've been dropping their paywalls and aggressively experimenting with new media. It remains to be seen if they'll be able to change fast enough to avoid large losses in readership, but at least they've begun moving decisively in the right direction. In contrast, the recording industry has been taking three steps back for every two steps forward, while Hollywood is still doing little more than shooting itself in the foot.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the lowest-bandwidth industry -- news reporting, which is largely text-based -- is showing the most flexibility, while the most bandwidth-intensive industry -- Hollywood -- still has its head in the sand. News organizations have faced serious competition from the Internet since the birth of the Web in the mid-1990s. Internet bandwidth was not sufficient to conveniently transfer music until the late 1990s. And there wasn't enough bandwidth to transmit movie files until recently. Arguably most peoples' connections still aren't fast enough to transmit high-def video. So news organizations have been facing serious competition for almost fifteen years, the recording industry for about a decade, and Hollywood for less than five. Industries that have been facing competition the longest are making the most serious changes.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.



Permalink | Comments | Email This Story



Tags: industry hollywood bandwidth news media ]]>One of the interesting people I met at last week's Princeton workshop was Douglas Dixon, who points out that almost all 20th-century media companies are going through the five stages of grief, but different media industries are going through the stages at different rates. Back in 2006, we noted that the music recording industry was still in the denial stage. Now, Dixon says that it seems to be "stuck cycling between Anger, Bargaining, and Depression -- as it still lashes out by suing its own customers, and grabs on to each next new copy protection scheme while simultaneously going DRM-free in other venues." And indeed, as we pointed out a couple of weeks ago, Hollywood is still firmly in the denial phase, insisting that effective DRM is just around the corner.

In contrast, the news business has been responding pretty well of late to the disruptive technologies of the Internet. The newspaper folks at last week's conference seemed to accept that print was a dying business, and many of them declared their committed to making the painful changes necessary to stay competitive. As we've noted before, they've been dropping their paywalls and aggressively experimenting with new media. It remains to be seen if they'll be able to change fast enough to avoid large losses in readership, but at least they've begun moving decisively in the right direction. In contrast, the recording industry has been taking three steps back for every two steps forward, while Hollywood is still doing little more than shooting itself in the foot.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the lowest-bandwidth industry -- news reporting, which is largely text-based -- is showing the most flexibility, while the most bandwidth-intensive industry -- Hollywood -- still has its head in the sand. News organizations have faced serious competition from the Internet since the birth of the Web in the mid-1990s. Internet bandwidth was not sufficient to conveniently transfer music until the late 1990s. And there wasn't enough bandwidth to transmit movie files until recently. Arguably most peoples' connections still aren't fast enough to transmit high-def video. So news organizations have been facing serious competition for almost fifteen years, the recording industry for about a decade, and Hollywood for less than five. Industries that have been facing competition the longest are making the most serious changes.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.



Permalink | Comments | Email This Story



Tags: industry hollywood bandwidth news media ]]> Tue, 20 May 2008 23:53:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4047 Super Distribution Leaves the Gate with Cockpit http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1TimStreet/~3/218329660/super-distribution-leaves-gate-with.html Shared item


The Double Emmy -nominated Douglas Cheney, Chris Hampel, Chris McCaleb and Ryan Wise, better known as the Big Fantastic Boys (to me) who brought us the dark online thrillers Sam Has 7 Friends and Prom Queen have "shacked-up" with former UTA Agent Brent Weinstein's 60 Frames to launch a new comedy titled Cockpit.

The story starts with First Officer John Pinneke's first day on the job. He meets his fellow employees including Flight Attendant Dan Wishbone who swears he's not gay.

It's a web series about the employees of Mile High Airlines and "what really goes on behind that cockpit door." It's very Reno 911.

The first episode doesn't really work for me maybe because the it doesn't deliver on the expectation/promise that the above thumbnail Key Art gave me when I first saw it but these are very talented guys so I've subscribed and I'm going to give them a few episodes to hook me like they did with Sam and Prom Queen.

Beyond the fact that they have partnered with 60Frames Entertainment - (the newly-formed digital media financing and syndication company, has officially debuted its programming with seven new original online series) - run by Big Fantastic's old UTA Agent, is the fact that they are using a new super distribution deal with leading online video sites including Bebo, Blip.tv, Break.com Dailymotion, Heavy.com, iTunes, MySpace, Veoh Networks, Vuze, and on YouTubeTM at http://www.youtube.com/60frames. (Revver is missing?????)

According to their press release, "60Frames content will also be syndicated through Joost by February 1, 2008. This distribution network collectively reaches nearly 90% of all online video traffic. As of today, consumers can also access 60Frames content by logging onto www.60frames.com."

Weinstein stated: The idea behind 60Frames was to create a set of financial, creative, marketing and distribution resources that professional artists could use to bring exciting new projects to life in an environment that provides artists meaningful profit participation, ownership, and control of their IP. We're very excited about our initial offerings and future projects which we believe will expand, in terms of genre and form-factor, the notion of what works' online. By partnering with the leading online sites, we are giving artists' content the widest possible exposure while maximizing revenue opportunities.

Okay that's all well and good and it will be interesting to see how it all works but if you look at what is working right now this is a 180.

The Ninja Boys are keeping their new content just on their own site and using tradition page view advertising to monetize.

Cockpit is only one of seven new shows for 60 Frames and according to NewTeeVee
"each partner will sell its own ads for now, 60Frames will eventually sell sponsorships through Spot Runner, which incubated the company with UTA."

I'm really interested to see how this works out. I'm excited about what Brent is doing with 60 Frames and think his timing couldn't be any better with the writer's strike going on right now and of course I always love to see the Big Fantastic Boys break new ground.

Tags: frames online cockpit first content ]]>


The Double Emmy -nominated Douglas Cheney, Chris Hampel, Chris McCaleb and Ryan Wise, better known as the Big Fantastic Boys (to me) who brought us the dark online thrillers Sam Has 7 Friends and Prom Queen have "shacked-up" with former UTA Agent Brent Weinstein's 60 Frames to launch a new comedy titled Cockpit.

The story starts with First Officer John Pinneke's first day on the job. He meets his fellow employees including Flight Attendant Dan Wishbone who swears he's not gay.

It's a web series about the employees of Mile High Airlines and "what really goes on behind that cockpit door." It's very Reno 911.

The first episode doesn't really work for me maybe because the it doesn't deliver on the expectation/promise that the above thumbnail Key Art gave me when I first saw it but these are very talented guys so I've subscribed and I'm going to give them a few episodes to hook me like they did with Sam and Prom Queen.

Beyond the fact that they have partnered with 60Frames Entertainment - (the newly-formed digital media financing and syndication company, has officially debuted its programming with seven new original online series) - run by Big Fantastic's old UTA Agent, is the fact that they are using a new super distribution deal with leading online video sites including Bebo, Blip.tv, Break.com Dailymotion, Heavy.com, iTunes, MySpace, Veoh Networks, Vuze, and on YouTubeTM at http://www.youtube.com/60frames. (Revver is missing?????)

According to their press release, "60Frames content will also be syndicated through Joost by February 1, 2008. This distribution network collectively reaches nearly 90% of all online video traffic. As of today, consumers can also access 60Frames content by logging onto www.60frames.com."

Weinstein stated: The idea behind 60Frames was to create a set of financial, creative, marketing and distribution resources that professional artists could use to bring exciting new projects to life in an environment that provides artists meaningful profit participation, ownership, and control of their IP. We're very excited about our initial offerings and future projects which we believe will expand, in terms of genre and form-factor, the notion of what works' online. By partnering with the leading online sites, we are giving artists' content the widest possible exposure while maximizing revenue opportunities.

Okay that's all well and good and it will be interesting to see how it all works but if you look at what is working right now this is a 180.

The Ninja Boys are keeping their new content just on their own site and using tradition page view advertising to monetize.

Cockpit is only one of seven new shows for 60 Frames and according to NewTeeVee
"each partner will sell its own ads for now, 60Frames will eventually sell sponsorships through Spot Runner, which incubated the company with UTA."

I'm really interested to see how this works out. I'm excited about what Brent is doing with 60 Frames and think his timing couldn't be any better with the writer's strike going on right now and of course I always love to see the Big Fantastic Boys break new ground.

Tags: frames online cockpit first content ]]> Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:46:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3135 Plastic Gets Drastic http://feeds.portfolio.com/~r/portfolio/top5/~3/214434111/Capital-One-Warns-on-Profits Shared item Credit problems are spreading beyond mortgages to the heart of consumer spending.

Capital One Financial has warned that its earnings in 2007 will fall well short of its previous forecast because many of its credit card and auto loan customers were late with their payments at the end of the year.

The nation's biggest independent credit card company says that it now expects to report a profit of $3.97 per share for 2007, down from an earlier estimate of about $5. The company also said that it would set aside $1.9 billion to cover losses on credit cards and auto loans, including a sharply higher "allowance build" of $650 million in anticipation of charge-offs over the next 12 months.

"The allowance build reflects fourth-quarter delinquencies in the company's national consumer lending businesses (disclosed in an 8-K filing dated January 10, 2008), continued deterioration in the approximately $700 million Held for Investment portfolio of home equity lines of credit originated by GreenPoint Mortgage, and expectations for a weaker U.S. economy in 2008, as evidenced in recently released economic indicators," Capital One said in a statement.

Douglas A. McIntyre reports on the 24/7 Wall St. blog, "There was some hope that the consumer might dodge the problems that had infected a portion of the mortgage market. People who could afford to pay their home loans might just be able to cover the costs of their cars and daily borrowing as well. But consumers have nothing but lint in their pockets now."

Capital One is also taking an $80 million provision for legal reserves.

"It's another bank in the negative credit-market slipstream," Howard Wheeldon, a senior strategist at London-based brokerage BGC Partners, told Bloomberg News. "The outlook for bad loans remains grim."

Related Links
Summer's Swoon Is Back
Not So Fast...
The Buck Stops Where?



Tags: credit million loans company capital ]]>Credit problems are spreading beyond mortgages to the heart of consumer spending.

Capital One Financial has warned that its earnings in 2007 will fall well short of its previous forecast because many of its credit card and auto loan customers were late with their payments at the end of the year.

The nation's biggest independent credit card company says that it now expects to report a profit of $3.97 per share for 2007, down from an earlier estimate of about $5. The company also said that it would set aside $1.9 billion to cover losses on credit cards and auto loans, including a sharply higher "allowance build" of $650 million in anticipation of charge-offs over the next 12 months.

"The allowance build reflects fourth-quarter delinquencies in the company's national consumer lending businesses (disclosed in an 8-K filing dated January 10, 2008), continued deterioration in the approximately $700 million Held for Investment portfolio of home equity lines of credit originated by GreenPoint Mortgage, and expectations for a weaker U.S. economy in 2008, as evidenced in recently released economic indicators," Capital One said in a statement.

Douglas A. McIntyre reports on the 24/7 Wall St. blog, "There was some hope that the consumer might dodge the problems that had infected a portion of the mortgage market. People who could afford to pay their home loans might just be able to cover the costs of their cars and daily borrowing as well. But consumers have nothing but lint in their pockets now."

Capital One is also taking an $80 million provision for legal reserves.

"It's another bank in the negative credit-market slipstream," Howard Wheeldon, a senior strategist at London-based brokerage BGC Partners, told Bloomberg News. "The outlook for bad loans remains grim."

Related Links
Summer's Swoon Is Back
Not So Fast...
The Buck Stops Where?



Tags: credit million loans company capital ]]> Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:30:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,2881 International Day of the Ninja http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1TimStreet/~3/195351488/international-day-of-ninja.html Shared item

The very first episode of Ask A Ninja was posted in late 2005 on a blogspot blog for Beatbox Giant. The first question was Matt's questions about when and where ninjas get their uniforms. (I wonder who Matt is? Maybe the bass player for the band that does the theme some but I never asked the Ninja)

In the Question #1: The Ninja-Mart Store episode the Ninja didn't even have a real Ninja uniform because the shows creators Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine couldn't afford one. They shot the show with a broken camera, a good mic and launched with a catchy theme song "I Am Ninja", by the German band The Neu Tickles. Two years later it is the International Day of the Ninja and Kent and Douglas are grossing $100,000 per month in advertising revenues.

That's right $100k per month for a guy dressed in a Ninja suit standing in front of a wall yelling answers to a question that one of their viewers asked via email. But keep in mind their videos do get millions of views.

At the risk of being killed by the Ninja I'm going to give you a little bit of the story on how it all came together.

Kent and Douglas met in an Improvisational acting class in the Los Angeles area. From there they started creating an animated show about Ninjas living in Orange County, California. As they got further and further into developing the show for another production company they realized that animation was really, really hard to pull off so they were ready to throw in the towel and call it quits but Douglas wouldn't let it die. Douglas started asking Kent questions about video production and internet videos and how they could do something - anything - on the cheap. After spending some time watching other popular videos on YouTube they came up with Ask A Ninja.

I first met Kent in the Spring of 2006 at Vloggercon. We were on a panel together about creating characters and I got slammed by the crowd. They hated me but loved the Ninja. At that time Kent and I were both amazed by what Andrew Baron and what he was doing with Rocketboom but then came the big break up. Andrew and Amanda from Rocketbook had a big public falling out.

Later in the Summer I met Douglas for the first time when Kent and I were on another panel together at Comic-con and Kent and Douglas were making changes fast.

At that point because of the big Rocketboom breakup Kent and Douglas realized that no one in this online video space knew what they were doing when it came to monetizing online video. So Kent and Douglas decided they would figure it out for themselves and to do that they knew they would need money, which they borrowed from their family.

They were using Revver to host their videos and Podtrac to get advertisers and both services worked but just not on a big enough scale to make enough money to live on and pay back the money they had borrowed.

The Ninja boys also had a few great little things happen. They were asked by NPR to do a movie review for Pirates of the Caribbean and the Ninja was asked to be the judge of the Yahoo Talent Show. Both events gave Ask A Ninja more visibility and more video views.

Along the way Kent and Douglas picked up UTA as an agent and signed with a high profile Manager and high powered entertainment attorney.

Once they had those pieces in place they started talking with an online video podcasting company, Podtech about taking over advertising for the Ask A Ninja videos but at about the same time they also met with a very smart man by the name of John Battelle from an online advertising agency called Federated Media to talk about handling the advertising inventory for both their website and their videos.


Now keep in mind that Federated Media had never monetized online video before but John Battelle put together a very detailed and well thought out plan of how Federated Media would bring money to the Ask A Ninja Brand and Kent and Douglas liked the man and they liked his plan.

UTA brokered the deal with Federated, it took a few months to get things up and running but now my best guess is that the Ninja boys are taking home around 30-40K each per month and in the scheme of things they are just getting started.

Best of all Kent and Douglas are still nice guys, they are now dept free AND they still own Ask A Ninja. Now that's something worth creating a special day to celebrate.



Tags: ninja kent douglas videos video ]]>

The very first episode of Ask A Ninja was posted in late 2005 on a blogspot blog for Beatbox Giant. The first question was Matt's questions about when and where ninjas get their uniforms. (I wonder who Matt is? Maybe the bass player for the band that does the theme some but I never asked the Ninja)

In the Question #1: The Ninja-Mart Store episode the Ninja didn't even have a real Ninja uniform because the shows creators Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine couldn't afford one. They shot the show with a broken camera, a good mic and launched with a catchy theme song "I Am Ninja", by the German band The Neu Tickles. Two years later it is the International Day of the Ninja and Kent and Douglas are grossing $100,000 per month in advertising revenues.

That's right $100k per month for a guy dressed in a Ninja suit standing in front of a wall yelling answers to a question that one of their viewers asked via email. But keep in mind their videos do get millions of views.

At the risk of being killed by the Ninja I'm going to give you a little bit of the story on how it all came together.

Kent and Douglas met in an Improvisational acting class in the Los Angeles area. From there they started creating an animated show about Ninjas living in Orange County, California. As they got further and further into developing the show for another production company they realized that animation was really, really hard to pull off so they were ready to throw in the towel and call it quits but Douglas wouldn't let it die. Douglas started asking Kent questions about video production and internet videos and how they could do something - anything - on the cheap. After spending some time watching other popular videos on YouTube they came up with Ask A Ninja.

I first met Kent in the Spring of 2006 at Vloggercon. We were on a panel together about creating characters and I got slammed by the crowd. They hated me but loved the Ninja. At that time Kent and I were both amazed by what Andrew Baron and what he was doing with Rocketboom but then came the big break up. Andrew and Amanda from Rocketbook had a big public falling out.

Later in the Summer I met Douglas for the first time when Kent and I were on another panel together at Comic-con and Kent and Douglas were making changes fast.

At that point because of the big Rocketboom breakup Kent and Douglas realized that no one in this online video space knew what they were doing when it came to monetizing online video. So Kent and Douglas decided they would figure it out for themselves and to do that they knew they would need money, which they borrowed from their family.

They were using Revver to host their videos and Podtrac to get advertisers and both services worked but just not on a big enough scale to make enough money to live on and pay back the money they had borrowed.

The Ninja boys also had a few great little things happen. They were asked by NPR to do a movie review for Pirates of the Caribbean and the Ninja was asked to be the judge of the Yahoo Talent Show. Both events gave Ask A Ninja more visibility and more video views.

Along the way Kent and Douglas picked up UTA as an agent and signed with a high profile Manager and high powered entertainment attorney.

Once they had those pieces in place they started talking with an online video podcasting company, Podtech about taking over advertising for the Ask A Ninja videos but at about the same time they also met with a very smart man by the name of John Battelle from an online advertising agency called Federated Media to talk about handling the advertising inventory for both their website and their videos.


Now keep in mind that Federated Media had never monetized online video before but John Battelle put together a very detailed and well thought out plan of how Federated Media would bring money to the Ask A Ninja Brand and Kent and Douglas liked the man and they liked his plan.

UTA brokered the deal with Federated, it took a few months to get things up and running but now my best guess is that the Ninja boys are taking home around 30-40K each per month and in the scheme of things they are just getting started.

Best of all Kent and Douglas are still nice guys, they are now dept free AND they still own Ask A Ninja. Now that's something worth creating a special day to celebrate.



Tags: ninja kent douglas videos video ]]> Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:11:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1761 Friends vs Fans http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/1TimStreet/~3/194526365/friends-vs-fans.html Shared item

How can you have over 1000 Friends? If you did, how often would you talk to each and every one of your friends? How often would you see them? Send them a gift? Have dinner with them? What makes someone your friend vs a fan?

I think a little common sense goes a long way here but beyond that think about your brand vs you. Are you your brand or is your brand your brand and you are you?

If you are building a brand online your online "Friends" need to be treated as fans and feel free to get as many of them as possible. If you are building relationships to help grow your brand be careful about mixing your fans and your friends. It can come back to hurt you.

I hate it when someone I know in real life sends me a SPAM email about their project. "It feels very disingenuous and makes me want to "unfriend" them. I'm sure there are things that I've done and continue to do that rub people the wrong way as well but that's not going to stop me from talking about this.

Last night Chris Brogan (who I really enjoy hanging out with and drinking beers with at new media events - especially cause he's the one usually buying) twittered (or tweeted as some of you like to say) that he had posted over 10,000 times on Twitter. That got me thinking about how many of his postings were of any interest to me. The answer was very few and I removed Chris from my list of people that I follow on Twitter. Eric Rice then Twittered that he had Chris beat by a few hundred posts. I then thought about removing Eric but I realized that some of Eric's posts are informative to me because Eric likes to mix things up and create controversy. Eric also interacts with others way more than Chris. From what I see, Chris is usually Twitter Out" not "Twitter back and forth".

This morning I saw Susan Bratton twittered that she "just crested 1,000 FaceBook friends" and that prompted me to write this post.

Ask A Ninja is a Brand, and serves as a good case study for this. Associated with Ask A Ninja is Digital Filmaker, Beatbox Giant and the shows creators Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine.

On Ning, they have their official Fan Page, with 4802 members (at the time of this posting)on Facebook they have a Ask A Ninja Page and Kent has a page and I don't know if Douglas has a page.

They have kept their fans separate from their friends.

Now comes the gray area. Sometimes as a content creator you will have fans within the Internet video community that want to be friends with you. This makes things very confusing. I think the best way to approach this is to set some standards for yourself and think about what works best for you. Don't just click the "accept" button thinking the more friends you have the more money you will make because in the real world, the more "friends" you have the more you will dilute your relationships. However online the more "fans" you have the more money you have the potential to make.

All that said I'm sure Chris Brogan will still buy me beers because he's that nice of guy but my point here isn't really to ridicule anyone it's to have us all focus on the real power of the social networks and how we can best use them to grow our brands and monetize Internet Video not just have the most posts.

Remember, "Fame without fortune turns you into Joey Buttafocco." and you can't pay your rent with Twitter posts.

I think Chris Pirillo explains the "friends thing" pretty well in the above video and he also talks about how sites not sharing revenue "cheeses" him off.


Lower your head, watch your step and enjoy the rest of your day on the Internet.

Tags: friends chris brand fans think ]]>

How can you have over 1000 Friends? If you did, how often would you talk to each and every one of your friends? How often would you see them? Send them a gift? Have dinner with them? What makes someone your friend vs a fan?

I think a little common sense goes a long way here but beyond that think about your brand vs you. Are you your brand or is your brand your brand and you are you?

If you are building a brand online your online "Friends" need to be treated as fans and feel free to get as many of them as possible. If you are building relationships to help grow your brand be careful about mixing your fans and your friends. It can come back to hurt you.

I hate it when someone I know in real life sends me a SPAM email about their project. "It feels very disingenuous and makes me want to "unfriend" them. I'm sure there are things that I've done and continue to do that rub people the wrong way as well but that's not going to stop me from talking about this.

Last night Chris Brogan (who I really enjoy hanging out with and drinking beers with at new media events - especially cause he's the one usually buying) twittered (or tweeted as some of you like to say) that he had posted over 10,000 times on Twitter. That got me thinking about how many of his postings were of any interest to me. The answer was very few and I removed Chris from my list of people that I follow on Twitter. Eric Rice then Twittered that he had Chris beat by a few hundred posts. I then thought about removing Eric but I realized that some of Eric's posts are informative to me because Eric likes to mix things up and create controversy. Eric also interacts with others way more than Chris. From what I see, Chris is usually Twitter Out" not "Twitter back and forth".

This morning I saw Susan Bratton twittered that she "just crested 1,000 FaceBook friends" and that prompted me to write this post.

Ask A Ninja is a Brand, and serves as a good case study for this. Associated with Ask A Ninja is Digital Filmaker, Beatbox Giant and the shows creators Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine.

On Ning, they have their official Fan Page, with 4802 members (at the time of this posting)on Facebook they have a Ask A Ninja Page and Kent has a page and I don't know if Douglas has a page.

They have kept their fans separate from their friends.

Now comes the gray area. Sometimes as a content creator you will have fans within the Internet video community that want to be friends with you. This makes things very confusing. I think the best way to approach this is to set some standards for yourself and think about what works best for you. Don't just click the "accept" button thinking the more friends you have the more money you will make because in the real world, the more "friends" you have the more you will dilute your relationships. However online the more "fans" you have the more money you have the potential to make.

All that said I'm sure Chris Brogan will still buy me beers because he's that nice of guy but my point here isn't really to ridicule anyone it's to have us all focus on the real power of the social networks and how we can best use them to grow our brands and monetize Internet Video not just have the most posts.

Remember, "Fame without fortune turns you into Joey Buttafocco." and you can't pay your rent with Twitter posts.

I think Chris Pirillo explains the "friends thing" pretty well in the above video and he also talks about how sites not sharing revenue "cheeses" him off.


Lower your head, watch your step and enjoy the rest of your day on the Internet.

Tags: friends chris brand fans think ]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:36:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1727 Blue Beanies Pop Up Around the Web Today in Support of Standards http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/190784965/blue_beanies_pop_up.php Shared item Today has been declared Blue Beanie Day, an only slightly tongue in cheek day for supporters of web standards to show their solidarity with the cause. Originating in the mind of Douglas Vos, founder of Facebook's Designing With Web Standards Group, the day uses a blue hat as its symbol in honor of Jeffrey Zeldman, author of the landmark book Designing with Web Standards. Zeldman wears a blue beanie on the cover of the book.

You might see blue hats on the heads of your friends' Twitter avatars, if you work in an office perhaps someone there is geeky enough to be wearing a blue beanie (maybe you should ask them about it) and there's a Flickr group dedicated to blue beanie photos (the most recent 20 of which are playing on the right).

Web standards are something we write about a lot here at ReadWriteWeb. Most people think of the W3C standards for CSS and HTML when the phrase is used. Belgian web design rock star Veerle Pieters has a good post today explaining her personal relationship to web standards and Blue Beanie day.

There are new standards being developed all the time, though. Old and new standards work together. That's the theory anyway, I'd like to see some informed discussion on Blue Beanie Day about the Google-led OpenSocial. To what degree does it build on and to what degree does it seek to replace existing standards?

Why Are Standards Interesting?

Whether it's a new or old standard, the idea is the same: standardization creates a playing field that supports innovation by making scalability possible. Standardization makes life easier for users and for developers, enabling a higher level of abstraction because a common foundation has been established and there's no reason to reinvent the wheel with every new website. That's how I explain it, how do you?

If this is a topic of interest to you, check out the new site at DataPortability.org. It's an early gathering of thought leaders concerning standards for data portability.



Tags: standards blue web beanie day ]]>Today has been declared Blue Beanie Day, an only slightly tongue in cheek day for supporters of web standards to show their solidarity with the cause. Originating in the mind of Douglas Vos, founder of Facebook's Designing With Web Standards Group, the day uses a blue hat as its symbol in honor of Jeffrey Zeldman, author of the landmark book Designing with Web Standards. Zeldman wears a blue beanie on the cover of the book.

You might see blue hats on the heads of your friends' Twitter avatars, if you work in an office perhaps someone there is geeky enough to be wearing a blue beanie (maybe you should ask them about it) and there's a Flickr group dedicated to blue beanie photos (the most recent 20 of which are playing on the right).

Web standards are something we write about a lot here at ReadWriteWeb. Most people think of the W3C standards for CSS and HTML when the phrase is used. Belgian web design rock star Veerle Pieters has a good post today explaining her personal relationship to web standards and Blue Beanie day.

There are new standards being developed all the time, though. Old and new standards work together. That's the theory anyway, I'd like to see some informed discussion on Blue Beanie Day about the Google-led OpenSocial. To what degree does it build on and to what degree does it seek to replace existing standards?

Why Are Standards Interesting?

Whether it's a new or old standard, the idea is the same: standardization creates a playing field that supports innovation by making scalability possible. Standardization makes life easier for users and for developers, enabling a higher level of abstraction because a common foundation has been established and there's no reason to reinvent the wheel with every new website. That's how I explain it, how do you?

If this is a topic of interest to you, check out the new site at DataPortability.org. It's an early gathering of thought leaders concerning standards for data portability.



Tags: standards blue web beanie day ]]> Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:22:08 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1497