TechCrunch’s M.G. Siegler had an interesting post looking at the online Web service that he pays to use (Pandora, Tweetie, Flickr), and those he’d pay to use if needed (Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, GMail, Digg, YouTube and Instapaper).
What a novel concept; actually paying for online tools that you find useful and valuable. At a time when […]

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What exactly is Web 3.0? This buzzword has lately been used to describe the evolution of the Web in the context of human interaction. The so called “semantic Web” refers to the third-generation Internet’s potential to automatically and intelligently interpret the data accessed by a given user, thereby making the continuous flow of information increasingly relevant.

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Renny Gleeson made a three-minute appearance (see the video below) at TED in February that captured one of the biggest challenges facing the digerati.
What Gleeson thrust into the spotlight is the “culture of availability” - the concept that mobile technology is making us available nearly all the time. This availability creates the expectation that […]

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Earlier this week, I did a post looking at how it’s fundamental for online businesses to have a product/service that people want to purchase - as opposed to building something popular that people aren’t willing to buy. I cited companies such as Freshbooks, Rypple and Sysomos.
What I’m curious about is other online companies that are […]

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One of the things I’ve noticed over the past four months as a consulting has been how social media is regarded by some companies an economic salvation.
There’s this belief that social media and the way the tools can leverage online marketing, communications and sales efforts has the power to magically attract more customers and drive […]

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Gear6 today released Web Cache in an effort to commercialize the Internet’s predominant (de facto, for Linux) distributed caching protocol, memcached. Every Top 20 web site not owned by Microsoft uses memcached (Facebook has almost 1,000 servers dedicated to its memcached tier) and 50-60 percent of all Alexa-ranked Top 10,000 sites use it to some […]

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Let’s face it, the IPO market is dead.
But an exception to the rule could be Skype, which eBay plans to spin off through an IPO during the first half of 2010.
Granted, a year is a long time and there’s no certainty the economic climate will be any better than it is today. But Skype has […]

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With mesh ‘09 coming to a conclusion, it’s been great to get some sleep, play some hockey, spend time with family and reflect on the mesh that was.
Here are some of my personal highlights:
- The keynote by Jessica Jackley was inspiring. As important, she is one of the nicest and most enthusiastic people that I’ve […]

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Some random thoughts and observations from the first morning of mesh:
1. Mike Masnick is one of the smartest and most insightful people when it comes to what’s happening with the digital economy. He also shows more slides - 487 - than any other presenter I’ve seen.
2. Jessica Jackley, who founded Kiva.org, is an inspiring […]

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Since we started mesh in 2006, content can always been king.
Behind the scenes, we spend hours exploring ideas for keynotes, panels and workshops. We have animated discussions, healthy arguments, good-natured banter and lots of laughs. It’s a process that takes time because we want mesh to feature issues and trends that are current, relevant and […]

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With less than four weeks to go before meshU and mesh, we’ve published the schedule for meshU. We’re really excited about the speakers coming to offer their insight and thoughts about design, development and management.
Tickets for meshU are selling briskly, and you can register here.

Technorati Tags: mesh, meshU

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Last week, Bell Canada delighted and subsequently enraged the blogosphere and Twitterrati by bringing Twitter via SMS back to Canada, and then telling people it was going to charge them 15 cents a Tweet for the privilege.
It was a public relations and social media disaster that forced Bell to quickly backtrack.
In hindsight, the most […]

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As we gear up for the mesh conference in six weeks, I would be remiss if I didn’t also cast the spotlight on meshU.
Launched last year, meshU takes place the day (April 6) before mesh at the MaRS Collaboration Centre. It consists of small workshops focused on the design, development and management markets.
We created […]

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I’ll be heading back down to Waterloo on Feb. 25 to speak at StartupCamp Waterloo.
I’m always impressed to see how much activity is happening in Waterloo - aside from the ever-growing Research in Motion empire! In addition to speaking, I’ll also be offering a fabulous door prize - a ticket to meshU.
The demos […]

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Since launching ME Consulting last month, I’ve been reading and talking a lot about social media, and the impact it’s having on how businesses communicate, market and sell their products and services.
There are a few things that have been particularly striking. One is there’s a tremendous amount of talk and enthusiasm about social media. It’s […]

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I was asked by Red Wire to give a presentation at their first Wired Wednesday event. I talked about social media, the tools that are being used, and how it’s being successfully implemented. If you’d like to contact me about speaking, here’s more information.

Technorati Tags: wired wednesday, red wire, social media

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Over the past few years, it has been fascinating to see how a growing number of people have started to live extremely public and transparent lives.
Through blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and other social media tools, we publicly and openly talk about our families, friends, jobs, finances, interests, likes, dislikes, travel plans, dreams and aspirations. […]

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You look away for a second, and almost miss a weekend Techmeme bitch-a-thon; this one involving whether Facebook is going to kill Twitter, or Twitter is going to kill Facebook, or whether Friendfeed is going to kill both of them, or visa versa.
Confused? Don’t worry, it’s simply the blogosphere trying to fill some weekend hours […]

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Fred Wilson had a blog post recently talking about business models, and how that operating costs are as important as revenue.
As part of his argument, Fred cited some of Union Square’s portfolio companies, and how few employees they employ. This included Twitter, which has 20 people on the payroll.
Now, if you take 20 people and […]

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One of the downsides of the Web 2.0 and the proliferation of no-risk betas is the amount of digital debris left scattered around.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably signed up for dozens of betas that sound interesting but soon lose their appeal. So, you quickly move to the next thing, or go back to […]

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There’s a good article in today’s Globe & Mail about Toronto’s vibrant high-tech community, and how there are so many people engaged in innovation, new ideas and new solutions.
The article puts the spotlight on what I consider to be the strength of Toronto’s high-tech sector - an abundance of optimism, enthusiasm, energy and the belief […]

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Now that ME Consulting is solidly up and running, I wanted to provide an update on what’s been happening.
The great news is business is good. I’m working with some really great people on a variety of interesting projects. Not surprisingly, a lot of the work that I’n doing involves social media. A lot of companies […]

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If you’re a social media enthusiast, chances are you’re on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and perhaps a few others.
In some respects, all of these services are ways to receive direct messages from people - on top of your e-mail account.
Over the course of a day, you might receive messages from a variety of sources. This […]

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Not surprisingly, venture capital activity in the fourth-quarter plummeted as uncertain economic conditions forced many investors to step a major step back.
But what does it mean for the start-up ecosystem? Does less money necessarily suggest the start-up landscape is going to be barren with thousands of would-be entrepreneurs scurrying for the safety of corporate cubicles […]

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Okay, I’m not suggesting that the buffet of free online services is going to disappear any time soon but there’s no doubt that being able charge people to use a service is becoming more of a necessary strategic issue for many companies.
Even Google - the King of Free - is starting to encourage people to […]

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Chris Brogan recently wrote a post on whether social media could save a small business.
It was a post that rattled around in my head until earlier this week when I went to a small restaurant near my house called Vinny’s Panini. Vinny is a nice guy who probably makes the best - and biggest - […]

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Deloitte unveiled its technology, media and telecom predictions for 2009, and something that jumped out was how enterprise social networks (aka Facebook for the Fortune 500) are going to see more traction.
It’s an interesting proposition given how enthusiastically people have embraced social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, et al. The question is whether social […]

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With the economic sputtering and everyone engaged in belt-tightening, it’s interesting to see a growing number of online giants start to purge their services portfolio.
Google kicked things off by turfing Dodgeball, Google Notes and Jaiku, while Lycos has announced it will close Tripod and Lycos Mail as it moves to “discontinue all unprofitable services”.
This is […]

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A tool that’s all the rage these days within the social networking world is the friend recommendation widget.
Be it Facebook, LinkedIn and, most recently, Twitter, friend recommendation engines are front as centre as social networks try to get people entrenched by encouraging people to build larger personal networks. I guess the idea is the bigger […]

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One lesson that I’ve learned from my brief, but exciting, career as a consultant is working from home is a myth.
Sure, there are times when can throw on some sweats and work from the comfort of your home office. But what I’ve discovered so far is that consulting involves a lot of face-to-face meetings. After […]

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Given the current economic landscape, there are plenty of “Web 2.0″ companies struggling to stick around. Many of them are slashing costs in an effort to make their financing last as long as possible.
Many of these companies have business models built on the premise of offering a free service, and generating revenue from advertising. If […]

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It’s hard to believe mesh is only three months away - April 7/8 to be exact. We’re really excited to announce two of our keynotes: serial entrepreneur and Mahalo.com founder Jason Calacanis will deliver our business keynote, while Jessica Jackley Flannery, who co-founded Kiva.org, an innovative micro-lending service, will be giving our society keynote.
It goes […]

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A post by Mashable on tools to track personal or corporate reputations got me thinking that 2009 could be the year when a growing number of people and companies start paying more attention to what’s being said about them online.
With the proliferation of social networks, micro-blogging, blogs and other social media tools, our digital fingerprints […]

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As someone fascinated by the groaning buffet of Web 2.0 selections, it should not come as a surprise that I love betas.
If something sounds even slightly interesting, I’ll happily sign up. After all, the only cost is time and the risk of having update e-mails appear in your inbox for several months until you unsubscribe.
But […]

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Earlier this week, Sean Carton had an interesting post looking at how Twitter has “only” 200,000 active users and 1% of its “addicts” account for 34% of total traffic.
That got me thinking about how many popular services such as Digg, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are fueled by a very small group of engaged users. This […]

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If you’ve wondered how Michael Arrington became one of Silicon Valley’s biggest stars over the past few years, Elias Bizannes breaks it out down in an extensive post.
TechCrunch has thrived for a number of reasons, including being at the right place at the right time. Arrington and TechCrunch emerged at a time when the online […]

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Traditional media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have begun to use some of the tools of social media — blogs, Facebook pages, even Twitter accounts. But they seem a lot less eager to adopt some of social media’s core principles, including a commitment to the two-way nature of the […]

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On Twitter this morning, someone asked about the Cluetrain Manifesto. (I had to look at Wikipedia to remember what the main points were). The Internet will change every business.  “The authors assert that the Internet is unlike the ordinary media used in mass marketing as it enables people to have “human to human” conversations, which have the potential to transform traditional business practices radically.”  We see that happening in quite a few verticals. It has changed the newspaper, music, entertainment, retail shopping, and telecom industries. It will likely change even more.

“The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery.”  Certainly, this quote applies to 3 Detroit CEO’s.

Tags: cluetrain, internet

Related Entries
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• NebuAd and Phorm - Dec 03, 2008
• Internet Will be Full by 2012 - Nov 24, 2008
• Frontier Adds a Cap - Nov 03, 2008
• Bandwidth isn’t free - Sep 28, 2008
• Politics on the Internet - Sep 28, 2008
• Hotspot Revenue - Aug 24, 2008
• What’s Next for AOL? - Aug 04, 2008
• Broadband Corruption? - Jul 15, 2008
• ISP throttling and DPI - Jun 16, 2008

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Tags: cluetrain, internet,

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This may be off-topic but with the number of folks that are getting the pink slip, I figured I would list a bunch of sites for job seekers.

• Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs.
• Meta search sites like Indeed.com and SimplyHired.
• Your local newspapers.
• Your local work force board.
• Craigslist.
• Recruiters like CIBER, Kforce or Robert Half.
• Mashable, TechCrunch, GigaOm have job listings as do many of your new media website properties in your industry. 
• TheLadders is pay for play. 
• LinkedIn 
• Dice.com for IT jobs and TelecomCareers.
• Jobster

Then there are Web 2.0 sites that Venture Beat and Fast Company wrote about that are turning the job search around (maybe):

• Blue Chip Expert
• NotchUp
• Jobfox
• H3.com
• trovix

Be aware that some folks don’t think much of these sites.  And I am sure that there are more places to look, but I figured this would give you a start.

While job hunting, don’t forget to keep networking and keep your hand in things either by donating your time to a non-profit or grabbing some projects or contract work.  (Look here for project or contract work:  Guru.com, rent-a-coder, eLance, DoMyStuff, Agents of Value, AssistU, iFreelance)

Tags: job seeker, job sites, linkedin, web 2.0

Related Entries
• IT Folks Chatting About Communications - Dec 09, 2008
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• More Communications Apps - Jun 27, 2008
• LinkedIn Groups - Jun 20, 2008
• Job Hunting - Jun 16, 2008
• The IT Oil Effect - May 28, 2008
• IP - no the other IP - Apr 07, 2008

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Tags: job seeker, job sites, web 2.0, linkedin,

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What makes life so interesting are the twists and turns that take you in new and unexpected directions.
I find myself poised for my next adventure as I move on from PlanetEye where I had an amazing opportunity to immerse myself in the fast-growing world of social media.
I’m excited about the role and potential of social […]

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Fact: Google has killed the concept of a “beta”.
When Google leaves high-profile services in beta for months and even years, beta becomes something else other than a short trial period in which users are encouraged to provide feedback so a product/service can be improved before it’s officially released.
Fact: Flock should have single-handedly killed the concept […]

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Telecom has some of the most crowded and confused markets. Dial-Up, broadband, cellular, VoIP, POTS. T1 - all kind of flat. Not a lot of Differentiation. It’s filled with “I’ll save you 10%”. The battle cry of the telecom sales dude. It’s no wonder there are price wars — what else do you have to go on?

Now, there is another battle field. A subset of VoIP. The mobile VoIP app. (Like SO many folks want to use VoIP on their cell phone.)  i2, Raketu, Vyke, Skype,  iSkoot, Nimbuzz, mig33, Truphone and so many more. In fact, so many, I can’t keep track. EQO just died. And Fring is laying off 20% of its staff. TalkPlus died. Tpad (who?) and Nimbuzz just hooked up.  VOX hooked up with UTGI for mobile VoIP.

Can they all survive?  What size do they need to reach? Is it a matter of users like Skype (or mig33 with 9M users)? Or today is monetization important?

Even in VoIP, is 900 customers and 28,365 seats significant?

Tags: mobile, voip

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  Sep 12, 2008
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  Sep 02, 2008
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  Aug 27, 2008
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  Aug 26, 2008

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Admittedly, we’ll all far too fascinated with how Twitter is going to make money, which is understandable given its popularity and the current economic landscape.
That said, part of the fun in trying to figure out when and how Twitter is going to pull in cash is how CEO Evan Williams is playing a great game […]

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Of all the Twitter-related services to be launched - and there are literally hundreds of them - the amount of buzz about Mr. Tweet has been particularly impressive.
It’s not surprising given Mr. Tweet is all about helping you find new people to follow on Twitter - something Twitter doesn’t do at all. And while there […]

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Since mesh was started three years ago, we’ve been focused on being more organized - not always an easy thing when you have five people involved who have other things on their plates such as day jobs and families.
So, we’re excited to take a major organizational step forward by putting tickets for the mesh […]

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Jerry Yang’s ride as Yahoo CEO was short but, sadly, not so sweet as he’s finally been pushed aside.
The sad truth is Yang should never have succeeded Terry Semel as CEO in the first place. He’s a nice guy, clearly very smart and a die-hard Yahoo-ian but he doesn’t/didn’t have the experience to be the […]

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Bandwidth caps have more to do with preserving TV revenues than network management business. Yes, there are issues of last mile and node congestion for both telco and cableco networks. It is also a function of the band-aid approach that these companies take. instead of one huge upgrade (like say Verizon with FiOS), there have been baby step fixes.

It’s also about preserving revenue. If you switch from watching Broadcast TV to just downloading Netflix and Amazon, how do the TV Providers make money from VOD (video-on-demand)? If you are watching shows via Joost and Hulu (and the coming network to replace Showtime), how does the big upgrade get paid for? The duopoly is preserving its content revenue - plain and simple.

Personally, the FTC should be investigating false advertising by the carriers - both on cellular data and broadband. In many cases, it is sold as Unlimited, but isn’t. That’s false advertising.

This will present an interesting challenge as people will switch. The duopoly is doing everything it can to compete on price and not value. Neither company is trying to court customer loyalty.

The ripple effect on this may be to stymie Internet business growth. Software and Application companies (SAAS, ASP), Web 2.0, and entertainment companies will find it hard to maintain customers and grow revenyue under a bandwidth cap.

I wonder how AT&T’s partner, Apple, who makes the Apple TV and owns iTunes, feels about a cap, which will eventually flatten its revenues.

Not for nothing but these companies can’t bill correctly anyway. There are certain to be many folks billed for overages where there are none. An even bigger erosion of customer satisfaction is coming.I guess we forget about Customer Acquisition costs and the lifetime value of a customer.

Tags: cableco, caps, telco

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• FISA Compromise Bill -
  Jun 23, 2008
• The Billion $ Big Deal -
  Jun 20, 2008

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For all the talk about privacy and security, it seems that a lot of people are downright sloppy when it comes to who they provide personal information.
A couple of prime examples this week where large numbers of unsuspecting or naive happily handed over their usernames and passwords to a third-party simply because the service looked […]

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There are lots of ways to launch a beta but SocialMinder (no link love for you!) illustrated how NOT to do it yesterday.
At first blush, SocialMinder looks like an interesting service as a way to manage your LinkedIn and GMail contacts. After getting an invite from a friend who bubbled enthusiastically about it, it seemed […]

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After thinking about it for a couple of months and dabbling with some other ideas, I recently launched a new blog, Twitterrati, focused on Twitter and microblogging.
Given I had dismissed Twitter has inane about a year ago, it’s not what I expected would happen.
So, what changed? For one, I started using Twitter, and discovered […]

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