1. Real time polling for new tweets
   
2. Logical tie-ins to Twitter (send to Twitter, links back to messages, etc.)
   
3. RSS subscriptions
   
4. Good up-time (not hard to do compared to Twitter itself)
   

Summize scores an A+ for all of these options. The RSS subscription option is crucial to me and is an easy way to start listening to the conversations around you, your brand, your company and competitors. Here is a video walk through so you know what Summize is capable of.

In this installment, I take a look at AJAX. This is a huge Web2.0 buzzword that you hear all the time, but do you really know what it means? It's actually quite straight forward from a marketing point of view.

AJAX Stands for Asynchronous JAvasript and XML. As a marketer you don't need to know about Javascript, which is a programming language, nor do you really need to know about XML, which is a data storage standard. The Asynchronous part is what is interesting. This allows web pages to behave in a more dynamic, application-like manner. Google's Reader, Mail and Documents all work with AJAX to make them work more fluidly for the end user. Data is transmitted and stored via XML behind the scenes to enable this process to happen.

Built on the company's Silverlight (it's basically another version of Flash and could be the downfall of this product) platform, Tafiti allows users to search in an interactive, visual environment. The motion is fluid and rich and should appeal to anybody who is tired of the stark white look of Google or the overly crushed look of Yahoo. This universal search tool incorporates images, RSS, news and books into one search with a visual toggle between them. The option that allows you to drag results to a pile for later reference is a very cool idea. (Makes me wonder if/when Apple would partner with Google to do something like this.)

Here is a bit more info from the Blogger-social.com site:

The opportunity to meetâactually meet!âall your friends and colleagues through 3 (amazing!) events, as well as time for you to form your own meetups.

We are planning on:

• A mixer on Friday night (think 7p â 1a)
  
• An event on Saturday afternoon (think 12p â 3p)
  
• And one special event on Saturday evening (7p â until dawn)
  

Friday night and Saturday afternoon events will be casual and Saturday evening will be a bit dressy. Sunday is all free time, giving you extra time to design your own meetups.

Leave audio comments at +1 (206) 350-2186 or drop me an email at mattdickman@gmail.com

• Skype, the popular VoIP service owned by eBay, suffered a major outage yesterday. The outage even coincided with a dip in eBay's stock price. Connection? Oddly I heard about this from Twitter then blogs then Skype in that order with about 10 hours between the Tweet and Skype's response.
  
• If you're thinking about buying a new iPod, hold off says Engadget. I would agree with this.
  
• Bebo is the king of social networks in the UK. Keep an eye out for an Inside//Out post on Bebo next week.
  
• It's my bill in a box. It seems AT&T is sending physical paper bills that detail all of the text messages their customers send and receive. This has resulted in many forests being chopped down as iJustine found out.

I was able to talk with Scott and John on my phone, but could see and hear them in the widget. So very, very cool. I hope you like episode one and please bear with me as audio editing is really new to me. These podcasts will never go over 26 minutes in length (the average commute time in the US) so you can download, consume and start implementing in short order.

Any feedback or comments would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy!

Leave audio comments at +1 (206) 350-2186 or drop me an email at mattdickman@gmail.com

How can you listen? There are three ways:

1. Download the MP3 file for episode 1
2. Subscribe to the Techno//Marketer podcast on iTunes
3. Subscribe using another podcatcher using my podcast RSS feed here

Episode guide:

"Fresh, filtered and focused content for new marketers"

0m28s Welcome to episode 1

1m12s Overview of my goals for the podcast

1m50s Intro to interview with Scott Beck, Director of Marketing for Harley-Davidson motorcycles

5m30s Interview with Scott Beck and John Campbell of Harley Davidson

18m55s Interview wrap-up

22m15s Kudos to Todd Andrlik's Power150 for its partnership with AdAge

Notable items:

• Sean Scott at Carmichael Lynch
  
• Harley-Davidson
  
• Download the widget to your iGoogle page
  
• Special kudos to the Carmichael Lynch creative team of Linda Birkenstock and Mike Haeg
  
• Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes

Here are my questions/issues with this. While I think this is a good idea in theory it has inherent downfalls, not the least of which is the fact that banner ads are not very effective and these particular ads could pose a security risk, or a perception thereof, for consumers. I've learned to tune ads out no matter what site I am on and a lot of other people have as well.

The Good:

• Capture impulse buys on complementary sites
  
• Let people see your top sellers before coming to your site
  

The Bad:

• Banner ads are mostly irrelevant for consumers
  
• Banners are interruption based (which is hopefully on its way out)
  
• People block banners out of their consciousness when surfing with a goal in mind
  
• There is a lack of trust (phishing and other scams)
  
• Also there is a lack of perceived security (no matter how secure it is)
  
• No way to identify authenticity of the offer or the host
  

How much better would the same advertiser money be spent to reach out to influential brand evangelists and/or bloggers? Why not join in the conversation instead of trying to interrupt it?

Overall, I think people still have some trust issues with e-commerce in general that need to be overcome before something like this has a real chance of making an impact. I'd be interested to hear from the company behind it on how they plan on reassuring people that their information is safe.

What do you think? Would you ever submit your credit card info through a banner?

Technorati Tags:
marketing, advertising, interactive marketing, trends, ecommerce

This has interesting implications for marketers. Where traditionally SEO and SEM practives have mattered, they're made irrelevant on Mahalo. Mahalo's guides choose the best content from the web no matter if they're Google rank is high or not. The guides create search engine result pages (SERPs) which act as landing pages for each search term. The SERPs are flexible and can adapt to their subject.

While Mahalo is not the first people filtered search engine (Yahoo did this first), the SERPs are new and they may well be the first to create this feature (although it looks a lot like About.com result pages to me). Nevertheless, with Calacanis behind the project pushing it forward and getting press, it may well take off. Some people want guides to filter their information for them and this is a great service for those people.

Personally I would love to see hooks into networks like del.icio.us or Digg to pull in related items since those are people filtered as well. I'd expect to see more and more engines like this that are powered by people in the future. It surely makes people doing SEO/SEM to look at the quality of their content vs. quality of their optimization.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Search, SEM, Google, trends, social media, Techno//Marketer, Matt Dickman, Mahalo, Jason Calacanis, Inside//Out

• Not overly impressive at this point, but shows strong potential as a communications platform
  
• Not a Twitter-killer until mobile hooks are put into place
  
• Easy to put contacts into groups to streamline communication
  
• Reliability will improve as the product goes into beta and then launches
  
• Nice use of Adobe's AIR framework to make install easy and application response good
  
• Enhanced messaging makes communicating easily
  

I'll follow Pownce as it moves into beta (mostly stable, minimum active development) to see how it unfolds. Look for new communications tools to emerge along this line in the next 6 months as more people try to invent the killer app.

If you know of a site or service you'd like to see me review let me know by email or in the comments here.

Technorati Tags:
innovation, interactive marketing, Twitter, Web2.0, Techno//Marketer, Matt Dickman, Pownce, alpha, Adobe AIR, Kevin Rose

Undoubtedly by now you've heard (or read) about the issues that Bud.tv has faced. From low audience numbers to the CEO claiming the site would "probably fade", it hasn't been an easy road for Budweiser.

If you need to know the way the average American consumer is going, just head to your local retailer. I often go for a stroll through Target or Best Buy to see what companies are stocking to give access to the mainstream. On one such stroll through Best Buy I came across the Flip video camera. Check it out.

As I stated in the video, this is truly revolutionary. The camera is at a reasonable price point, it completely idiot proof and allows video to be up online in a couple of clicks. The camera is light and super portable plus is runs on AA batteries so it can go for the full 30 minute recording time. People can download the video, delete it from the device and keep on going.

The move of video from a luxury to a commodity has a huge impact on marketers. Here are a couple of scenarios:

Be aware of it.

Encourage it. Since you know people will be producing video content, why not encourage it? Have video contests, ask them to create short films or reply to videos you produce with their own video feedback. Take the flatness of a blog and enrich it with video.

Enable it. These cameras are cheap. Could you allow people to win one in a contest or provide them from a sponsor for X number of people. They're lightweight and ready to shoot right out of the box. Could you arm citizen journalists with this technology? Could you arm your kids, employees or students? What amazing content could be created using video that cannot be translated with the same passion in any other format?

The possibilities are endless. How will you respond to this knowledge? How could you enable your advocates to use video? What other situations do you have where video content would enhance your connection with your customers and their connection with you? Let me hear your ideas!

[Update: Thanks to Phil Gerbyshak for prompting me to post a link to buy one of these. Here it is on Amazon]

Technorati Tags:
marketing, video, interactive marketing, user generated content, trends, YouTube, Techno//Marketer, Matt Dickman

Twitter, the often maligned service that lets people tell their friends what they're doing at the moment, gets a bad wrap. Journalists join the service, send through a couple of updates, scan the timeline for a couple seconds and write a misinformed piece on why Twitter is sophomoric.

The truth is that we have to look to the core of Twitter to get the full scope of why this matters to marketers. There has been a lot written about this so far, so I thought I would show you in video.

Some key takeaways:

• Communicate one-to-many or one-to-one
  
• Publish to and receive updates from multiple mediums
  
• Social eavesdropping/trendspotting
  
• Twitter is real time
  

When it comes down to it, Twitter and services like it are personal. It's real-time. It's the pulse of the internet. I've found more breaking news on Twitter than in any other online source period. You get a first person account of what industry leaders like CC Chapman (twitter), David Armano (twitter), Joseph Jaffe (twitter), Robert Scoble (twitter), Drew McLellan (twitter), Steve Rubel (twitter), Greg Verdino (twitter), Mario Sundar (twitter) and Paul McEnany (twitter) are doing right now. You can't get that level of access anyplace else.

Could you shorten the queue in customer service? If your customers aren't always in front of a computer when they need your help it may allow you to be more responsive across other options. What could you do with real time customer feedback? Scary huh? This technology is powerful in the hands of the right marketers.

Want to know what I am doing right now? Click here to see my Twitter page.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, interactive marketing, user generated content, social marketing, mobile, Twitter, technology, Techno//Marketer, Matt Dickman, web2.0formarketers

Here is an example I pulled up for the apartment building I lived in when I was interning with Mattel Toys in NYC. You can see the level of detail, while not high-resolution, gives you a first impression. You can read the words on the awning and see people within the shot.

Now, imagine if you knew when the cameras were coming by. You could have a welcome committee like Google has at their campus? What about creating games like a scavenger hunt using the maps? If you're running outdoor campaigns, can people see them through this experience?

• The iPhone launches at 6pm tonight at Apple and at&t stores nationwide. It will be interesting to see if they sell out or if the stores are just busy. By my calculations the phone plus one year of service is around $1500. People have been camped out for days to get the first couple units. To tell you the truth, I would be out there too, but I have Verizon.
  
• Greg Verdino has a great piece about loving your haters. Jason Calacanis proved this strategy successful the other day on his Calacanis Cast show when he invited four SEO critics and Jason stole the show.
  
• MySpace launched its MySpaceTV site and pretty much copied YouTube verbatim. Why mess with a good thing eh?
  
• Speaking of YouTube, traffic to the site is 50% greater than any other video site according to HitWise. I wonder if CBS still thinks going on their own is a good idea?
  
• CK has a great post on trust. How to lose it and how to win it.
  
• Google will now allow you to alter your driving directions through Google Maps. You can drag the routes to avoid construction and get where you're going with greater ease.

• Mentos has an interesting new site featuring their intern Trevor. Think Subservient Chicken in human form and real time.
  
• Buzz follows Kevin Rose (of Digg) wherever he goes in whatever he does. Marion Sundar covers his new venture Pownce combines IM, file transfer and Twitter-like presence and group push functionality. It's in limited beta so anybody with an invite to spare shoot it over.
  
• Dell has released some pretty new colors on their Inspiron laptops. Drew McLellan has a nice post about what happens when a product shifts categories. I do think, however, putting new colors on the same old hardware running MS Vista isn't a real shift. Apple was a radical shift because it combined the OS with the design.
  
• TMobile is creating cellular phones that can work on WiFi networks.
  
• Jeremiah Owyang at PodTech shares a brilliant idea from his trip to Singapore. A company provides a camera and printer for customers to take a picture. They're encouraged to take one home and leave one for their wall. It's become a tourist attraction and business driver.
  
• I attended a great virtual branding event at crayon's Second Life HQ the other day. I thought it was a great way to liven up what would be a mediocre phone conference. It allowed for the personal interactions that we take for granted about attending in real life.
  
• Flickr photos are now being indexed in Yahoo's search engine. This is a big boost for Yahoo.
  
• New DIY Twitter network service Frengo launches. This could be a big trend for branded uses of the technology.
  
• Apple quietly passed Amazon.com to become the third largest music retailer. This plus the iPhone are really giving Apple some momentum to try bigger, better things. Look out Best Buy and WalMart.
  
• Facebook's new open platform has put some fear into other networks including professional network LinkedIn. They've announced the plan to open up in a similar way.
  
• 
  

Top 10 Technorati Searches

1. youtube
   
2. noelia
   
3. iphone
   
4. ron paul
   
5. myspace
   
6. facebook
   
7. video de noelia
   
8. video noelia
   
9. descargar
   
10. paris hilton
    

Top Five Web2.0 Movers of the Week (using Alexa data)

1. Plaxo
   
2. Bolt
   
3. Geni
   
4. Vimeo
   
5. Stickam
   

Top Ten Marketing Blogs from Viral Garden - No changes this week

1. Seth's Blog
   
2. Creating Passionate Users
   
3. Gaping Void
   
4. Duct Tape Marketing
   
5. Logic + Emotion
   
6. Diva Marketing (Go Toby!)
   
7. What's Next
   
8. Daily Fix
   
9. Converstations
   
10. Drew's Marketing Minute
    

Top Ten Marketing Blogs from Todd And - New to Buzz Friday

1. Seth Godin
   
2. Copyblogger
   
3. Micro Persuasion
   
4. tompeters!
   
5. Adrants
   
6. Pronet Advertising
   
7. SEOMoz Blog
   
8. Online Marketing Blog
   
9. Duct Tape Marketing
   
10. Marketing Pilgrim
    

Top 5 "Viral" Videos This Week

1. Dramatic chipmunk
   
2. Mika Brzezinski rips Paris Hilton
   
3. My iPhone Diary
   
4. Microsoft Surface Parody
   
5. Paul sings opera
   

• One week until iPhone drops. Prepare for the madness and get in line now.
  
• YouTube will launch on the iPhone. Like to see their data plan rates before I get too excited about this one.
  
• Yahoo had a leadership change this week as they keep falling further behind Google. Will it help?
  
• I love this post from Seth Godin. He shifts our thinking of most people about blogging. What if you had just one post, but refined it until you were the expert on your subject?
  
• Microsoft is paying attention to social media. A Zune fan got two tattoos promoting the device and MS is having him out to Redmond to meet the Zune team. Nice job MS.

  
  

• Pier 1 is dropping e-commerce from its site to turn it into a corporate marketing piece. WHAT?! They were doing around $18.9 million, but managed to lose money. Sounds like bad implementation to me.
  
• Steve Rubel has a great piece about the future of PR. It's participating, not pitching.
  
• Mark Goren has a great post about what we make. The video he uses is a must see if you are or know of a teacher of anything.
  
• Cool things always happen in London. Here are a couple of shopping examples. Ralph Lauren has a touch-sensitive window and the music group The Chemical Brothers took over a storefront to promote a new album.
  
• More Yahoo rumors in the wake of the CEO switch. Will they buy Bebo? Somebody will and the other major viable option seems to be cost-prohibitive.
  
• Want to know how big YouTube is getting? They're about to pass the BBC in visits in the UK. That's huge!
  
• crayon is hosting a virtual branding summit in Second Life. Check out this post if you are interested.
  
• Person-to-person lending is taking off as the user base of sites like MySpace and Facebook grow. Prosper and Lending Club are getting investment dollars and having some success.
  
• Vodaphone created a media roadblock the other day in the UK as it took over web, cable, satellite and terrestrial channels to run their ad. That had to cost a pretty penny.
  
• Patrick at Lonely Marketer has a great look at what analytics you should be looking at and why. This is a great post as it clarifies what you need to know.
  
• Ning lets you embed a social network in another social network. There is lots of potential here and you can expect to see this happen more and more.
  

Quick look at iPhone blog buzz

iPhone has taken over the buzz from most other mobile devices. Here is a graph tracking blog mentions between iPhone, Razr and Blackberry.

Top 10 Technorati Searches

1. youtube
   
2. ron paul
   
3. myspace
   
4. noelia
   
5. dailymotion
   
6. bebo
   
7. iphone
   
8. paris hilton
   
9. facebook
   
10. videos
    

Top Five Web2.0 Movers of the Week (using Alexa data)

1. Kaboodle
   
2. Fotolia
   
3. Wikia
   
4. Snap
   
5. CrazyEgg
   

Top Ten Marketing Blogs from Viral Garden - No changes this week

1. Seth's Blog
   
2. Creating Passionate Users
   
3. Gaping Void
   
4. Logic + Emotion
   
5. Duct Tape Marketing
   
6. Daily Fix
   
7. Converstations
   
8. Drew's Marketing Minute
   
9. The Viral Garden
   
10. Jaffe Juice
    

Top Ten Marketing Blogs from Todd And - New to Buzz Friday

1. Seth Godin
   
2. tompeters!
   
3. Micro Persuasion
   
4. Online Marketing Blog
   
5. Adrants
   
6. Pronet Advertising
   
7. SEOMoz Blog
   
8. Duct Tape Marketing
   
9. Marketing Pilgrim
   
10. adgoodness
    

Top 5 "Viral" Videos This Week

1. Paul singing opera
   
2. Prometeus - the media revolution
   
3. Britain's got talent - Conny
   
4. Microsoft surface parody
   
5. Dramatic look
   

• Apple iPhone comes out next week and demand is expected to be high. If you're looking for one, you better be ready to camp out.
  
• Apple also had their WWDC conference this week where Jobs gave a keynote. Most notably out of that came Apple's Safari for the PC. Exploits ensued, but I sense a need for the browser for iPhone integration. We'll see. 1 million people have already downloaded it.
  
• Second Life's voice integration is expected soon where people can chat with each other through micropohones. This will greatly enhance the level of interactivity.
  
• Boston launched a SMS crime stoppers hotline. People can send a message to their shortcode from their phones when 911 is too hard to dial. Good idea though.
  
• Google was going to hold a competing social get together for eBay merchants during eBay's big conference to try to lure people to Google's Checkout. eBay threatened to pull all of their keyword advertising on Google and the event was cancelled. Ah the strongarm.
  
• Flickr in the news twice. They launched the service in seven languages first. Second they have had more complaints of photo censorship. Read more about that here.
  
• Looking for tips on public speaking? See this marvelous post by Guy Kawasaki for some hints.
  
• Jason Calacanis' Mahalo human-powered search engine launched Greenhouse. The service offers to pay people to find and submit content.
  
• YouTube has a new look in beta that offers new layouts and larger video windows. Google account integration coming soon too.
• Do you ever think you feel your phone vibrate and it's not ringing? It's called phantom ring syndrome and it's real.
  
• Bebo is integrating iTunes into accounts so you can go to a band's site and buy on the spot. Look for a LOT more of this to come soon.
  
• Another move toward Google Office. Gmail now offers integrated PowerPoint viewing.
  
• Can blogging work as a marketing tool? Heck yes it can. Just ask Lewis Green.
  
• Mack Collier covers Sony's launch of their Playstation blog.
  
• Branding Wire has launched. Check out their first branding challenge here.
  
• Google blogger Matt Cutts responds to Privacy International's claims that Google isn't doing enought to keep information private.
  
• If you disagreed with Seth Godin, would you say something? I hope you would. Check out Drew's blog for a great discussion about this. I think too many people use Seth and Guy as traffic building tools tracking back to them with irrelevant mentions and links. Discussion about an idea is good, but tracking back to every post is just dumb.
  

Top 10 Technorati Searches

1. authority
   
2. ron paul
   
3. education
   
4. myspace
   
5. bicycling
   
6. bebo
   
7. youtube
   
8. flickr
   
9. angelina jolie
   
10. dell
    

Top Five Web2.0 Movers of the Week (using Alexa data)

1. Bolt
   
2. Ning
   
3. Kaboodle
   
4. Zaadz
   
5. Plaxo
   

Top Ten Marketing Blogs from Viral Garden

1. Seth's Blog
   
2. Creating Passionate Users
   
3. Gaping Void
   
4. Logic + Emotion
   
5. Duct Tape Marketing
   
6. Daily Fix
   
7. Converstations
   
8. Drew's Marketing Minute
   
9. The Viral Garden
   
10. Jaffe Juice
    

Top 5 "Viral" Videos This Week

1. Sarkozy au G8
   
2. Paul singing opera **Please watch this clip**
   
3. Britain's got talent - Conny
   
4. Paris in Jail: The music video
   
5. Japanese TV Tetris game
   

Technorati Tags:
trends, buzz, buzzfriday, matt dickman, Techno//Marketer