Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0, Tesla, maker, and more...
In my recent post about tagging people on Facebook there was a robust discussion that occurred that was largely not related to the post but was actually centered around the Livefyre comment system itself. In this video I explain how and why that occurred and how you can use the system to bring more readers to your blog.
This is a new monthly feature on my podcast where I will be interviewing “interviewers” in this case Gov2.0 Podcast host Adriel Hampton. Adriel is a passionate advocate for harnessing emerging technologies to make government more effective, collaborative and transparent. He is an early Gov 2.0 adopter and co-founded the popular public interest podcast Gov 2.0 Radio. In addition to producing the weekly show, Adriel is a community leader at GovLoop.com, the social network for government, and group manager for the LinkedIn Gov 2.0 group and its more than 4,500 members. Since 2005, Adriel has worked as an investigator for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, and he began his career as an editor, designer and writer for several San Francisco Bay Area daily newspapers. In 2009, he ran a grassroots campaign for U.S. Congress.
What can you expect by listening to this podcast?:
Regarding his 2009 campaign for Congress
“I got more Twitter followers than I got votes.“
Defining Gov 2.0
“Basically Gov 2.0 is the use of Web 2.0 tools and principles in government.“
On the disconnect between government and citizens
“We are the government, it doesn’t matter if you work for government or are a tax payer, or an immigrant to the country. Everybody makes up a democratic governance structure.“
On Twitter @adrielhampton
His blog adrielhampton.com
Listeners, who should I interview next?
This week I had the opportunity to chat with some very cool people about my favorite social networking site Amplify.com. I have done several podcasts and lots of posts about Amplify, but after kicking the idea around with my friend Shonali Burke, the panel began to take shape. The panelists were:
Shonali Burke – my main co-conspirator in this effort, past podcast guest and all around awesome Marketing and PR genius. Also blogging at Waxingunlyrical.com and shonali.amplify.com or @shonali.
Tinu Abayomi-Paul – a new media veteran regularly sharing her traffic tips at freetraffictip.com and asktinu.amplify.com or @tinu.
Alex Schleber – my biggest influencer of #curation efforts, also savvy and prolific. Definite power user of #amplify. Also find him at businessmindhacks.com or Curation FTW his amplog or @alexschleber.
Eric Goldstein – the discussion would not be complete without the CEO of Amplify. Eric joined us for the last 20 minutes or so answering questions and sharing his insights. He’s participated in several interviews. You can find Eric on egoldstein.amplify.com or @egoldstein.
The community at large – there were tons of great Amplify users present in the chat, many of them are listed here. I regret that I could not have managed more people on the panel. This could have been a panel of 30-40 people that are great trusted sources on Amplify. Many (but not nearly all of them) are listed at “Why sources are more valuable than followers“.
What can you expect by listening to this podcast?:
“Amplify is what Google Buzz should have been.” – Tinu Abayomi-Paul
“The structure of Amplify does create some of that intimacy, it’s not just happenstance and it’s not just that the community is still relatively small.” – Alex Schleber
“(On Amplify being a great time saver) – The clipping function which is to me is the core of it and is so beautiful about it and the way that it clips and presents the posts particularly when you post them to Facebook is remarkable.” – Shonali Burke
“(On being willing to change priorities) – The internet is incredibly fluid and one thing we try to do as a company is try to remain as fluid as possible.” – Eric Goldstein
Self quote (I know, strange quoting myself):
“(On the Amplify team) – When you deal with people that treat you right and give a crap, it makes it really easy to be an advocate.” – Joe Hackman
Listeners, how would you have responded to the questions? Are there any features that you would have suggested to the Amplify team?
You may have recently heard how Twitter, Facebook and Buzz factor into Bing and Google search results. I was somewhat concerned when I read that article. I was concerned because I think it will encourage spammers and SEO games with twitter and further clog up an already difficult to manage stream of information. I wrote about your sources being much more important than your followers earlier this year but it is becoming even more critical today and that is why I am revisiting this issue. Here are some key points to consider:
Remember the Honda motorcycle jingle (maybe you don’t but that’s alright, you didn’t grow up with that 2 wheel culture?):
Follow the leader, he’s on a Honda.
Your vote of confidence and good name could really make the difference between someone that respects you following or not following an unscrupulous user. In fact it is one of the things I’ve weighed in my decisions on whether or not to follow someone. Take this example, I clicked to find a random Twitter user, for this example let’s pretend that @katyzack just followed me:
As you can see in this initial view of Katy’s profile I note that several trusted sources of mine are already following her. This scores some kudo/follow back points, but note when I click through to see who the 10+ others were I saw this trio in the list:
This is indeed good news for Katy, a couple of my #infosec sources follow her and my pal Gini Dietrich as well. I wouldn’t even think twice about following Katy now. This is an example of an obvious credible user but imagine if one of these folks that I respect followed another user with shall we say less than admirable selfish intentions? This is in fact the point I am trying to make:
Your good name could encourage me to follow someone I probably shouldn’t
According to the article I cited earlier the authority of a user is impacted by the number of followers they have (Bing) and both Bing and Google calculate the authority of all Twitter users. My argument here is simpler:
Follow a Spammer and you are improving their SEO
Sources are becoming more and more crucial, you want to pass along democratic SEO happiness to quality folks but certainly don’t want to help saturate the Twitter Firehouse. With benefit of this information are you going to reconsider your Twitter policy? There is one heck of a post and comment thread about Twitter policies on Spinsucks. I’d imagine these recent developments could re-start that debate? What do you think?
Earlier this week you might have read my post about why it might be time to create your own URL shortener. Today I am responding to several reader comments and providing a detailed video on how to do it. If you are looking to create your own URL shortening service you may want to watch both of the videos in this post, this video is simply a test drive of the URL shortening service interface. I suggest you watch this one and decide if it is worth the trouble, or if you’re already convinced just skip it and view the second video below.
If the service passed muster and has the features you need, you will want to make sure you meet some pre-requisite items:
Now that you’ve covered the checklist and without further ado, the goods:
I would love to hear if you completed this process yourself, let me know how it worked out. If you still need help feel free to post your questions in the comments below.
