Joe Hackman

Joe Hackman

Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0, Tesla, maker, and more...

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Interview of Eric Goldstein CEO/Founder of Clipmarks/Amplify (Podcast)

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I had the opportunity to interview Internet entrepreneur Eric Goldstein founder/CEO of Clipmarks.com and Amplify.com. Eric is not your traditional technology innovator; his entrée into this industry is the result of his appreciation for conversation. While growing up in Long Island Eric’s family would often have discussions around the dinner table where he would learn and appreciate the value of different opinions and ideas. Ultimately this led Eric to pursue a career in Law.

About 10 years ago the foundations of Clipmarks.com were originating in Eric’s mind. By 2004 the site was launched and evolved to be a community that he is very fond of to this day. There was one small problem with Clipmarks from the internet entrepreneur side of things, the model was not scalable. Eric was forced to make decisions that would provide insight into his character. Despite the suggestion of at least one potential investor Eric opted to keep the Clipmarks community alive and create a new scalable site – Amplify.com.

The emphasis on conversation is still the driving force but the new site has scalability in its DNA. Amplify was officially launched in 2009 without much fanfare. Eric realized that if a site was to succeed it had to be viral, so there was no hype, no pre-launch party, no balloons, advertising or marketing push. The site was officially launched by about a half dozen employees and family members. Amplify has since proven that it can grow organically and viral with the number of posts and users growing substantially month over month. As of the interview there were approximately 800 posts per day on the Amplify.com website.

When we talked about the priorities of the site evolution, Eric mentioned that the feed portion of the site will be undergoing an overhaul. It will not come as a surprise that the overhaul is intended to further improve the quality of the conversation. After the overhaul is completed it is likely that support for pushing the content you create on amplify.com to other blog sites such as WordPress or Blogger. Presently you can choose (via checkbox) to push your content to:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Friendfeed
  • Tumblr
  • Posterous
  • Plurk
  • Diigo
  • Delicious
  • Clipmarks

When the blog integration is complete it will allow most users to rely solely upon Amplify.com to generate their content. This will really be quite an achievement.

I will be following Amplify.com very closely both as a user and a fan of their technology and conversational approach. For me 2010 is the year of the conversation, and that extends from Social Media, Family, Work, Blogtalkradio, and face to face meet-ups. While we were wrapping up the show Eric and I agreed that we would explore having another conversation down the road perhaps where some of the users of the site will call in and interact.

Listen to the entire Interview

3 Surprise Benefits of Amplify.com

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I was posting to a discussion about Amplify being a “better Posterous” and decided I would share it here on my blog also for the people who follow my blog. I basically moved from “living” on Facebook and Twitter to Amplify this week. I still access Facebook and Twitter in fact in ways the move has enhanced my experience. Here is the post, there is a link after to the original thread if you want to see what others have said.

Wow great discussion! The hook for me that exceeded Facebook, Twitter, etc. was the fact that there is a GREAT community interaction and the site is absolutely unique in what it can do right now. Of course over time I am sure the team here (and elsewhere) will work to innovate and disrupt but I hope that amplify will continue to build on the strength of the conversation portion. Prior to making Amplify my home, I bounced between Facebook and Twitter. For me this was a really simple shift because I can still selectively engage those audiences but also just casually share the stuff that I read throughout the day.

There are some special things about Amplify for me that I had not anticipated at all, and would have stuck around anyway:

1. I made some great Quality friends quickly (the site attracts energetic, kind, supportive and savvy people).
2. I had a big increase in my mentions and interaction on Twitter. (Go figure!)
3. It encouraged me to use a couple of other sites a little more (sites I was basically passively updating already via ping.fm) Friendfeed, Posterous.

In summary Amplify is a site were individuals of all skill levels can effectively communicate without being forced into a closed system (like Facebook). In my view it has the most important aspects of Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed right now. It will also truly “amplify” the effectiveness of your message, ideas and experience.

A bit long winded and worthy of a blog entry on my site, let the ctrl+a, ctrl+c begin! <EOM>

See this entire discussion.

With an Abundance of tools my Internet use evolves (podcast)

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Today while exchanging some tweets with @simbeckhampson I recognized that my social media and web footprint has evolved over time and in the process different tools have been useful for different things:

  1. Facebook is where most of my real life friends are. I also find it more personal interaction wise.
  2. I get news from Twitter, share news and interesting info. More informal interaction wise.
  3. Blogtalkradio has opened up a nice niche for conversations with interesting people.
  4. Cinchcast – I love to call in and get ideas out while driving then I share it later.
  5. Youtube – I am big on screencasts and moving towards more personal messages (videos of me mixed in)
  6. Amplify – I am making new friends, sharing more what I am reading more and selectively share to FB, Twitter, etc.

These aren’t all the tools I use, for me the key is really the data that comes in via Email. I need to re-evaluate my use of Google Reader and RSS also for incoming information. Here is the podcast that was inspired by my conversations with Paul: