SOMEWHAT FRANK

88Slide For A Daily Trivia Challenge

88Slide is a video blog  or vlog produced daily by Rock Creek Park Productions which uses a sixty second format to convey a trivia question. Views can call or text message the answer to the daily trivia question and be entered to win a prize, usually a ten dollar gift certificate to one of a handful of locations.

At first glance 88Slide draws immediate comparisons to RocketBoom which is hosted by the talented Amanda Congdon. Amanda Congdon recently spoke at the 2006 Syndicate NY conference shown here. However, the 88Slide cast is hosted by Racheal (shown to the left) and uses a shorter format to target one specific trivia question a day. The trivia questions keep you on your toes but sometimes challenge the average viewer. I would highly recommend checking out 88Slide, especially if you are a RocketBoom fan and have a love for trivia or are just looking for a daily challege. Not to mention you could win!

Be sure to check out the 88Slide Behind the Scenes blog for additional details related to the production of 88Slide and good luck playing along.

Attention Discussion At Syndicate

Attention has a number of different definitions and meanings based on its context. In the online world attention could be defined as tracking browser click stream behavior, user RSS behavior and group behavior and collaborative filtering (also see Attention.xml movement by Steve Gillmor). In the context of the Syndicate NY conference, Craig Barnes, CEO of Attensa, and Seth Goldstein, founder and CEO of Root, covered two attention perspectives.

Attensa is using and leveraging attention information to help with business needs. It just rolled out a predictive ranking system for RSS content which is based on behavior, manual overrides and other people in the network. Attensa believes attention is a constant stream that continues to get richer. Craig explained that Attensa believes attention is a living stream and the key to solving information overload. Craig Barnes stated:

“Attention is for the user.”

Craig went on to say:

“RSS overload is going to dwarf the email problem.”

Attensa is combating the problem by using something called attention streams. Attention steams allow users to rank what is in important them so that the most important items can bubble to the top.

Seth Goldstein explained a number of Root’s attention offerings geared towards online users.  Root allows you to monitor or track your own online usage since they believe you should own your data. Root has a product called Root Vault which is a place for storing click stream data. Root Vault is like WebTrends for you or more simply a history of where a user is going on the web. Root Vault also allows the ability to share your history with other friends which can be looked at as a discovery tool without ever having to tag a thing. It is strictly peer-to-peer.

Root is working on something called Kibits which is a client to allow members of the Root community that have been flagged as friends to see what other friends are accessing real-time  online. Roots could be used to trade user data in the form of a lead - which is crystallized attention.  Additional Root Vault could be used to monitor employees as part of a business policy enforcement tool or watchdogging childrens usage of MySpace.

“People are giving their information out to companies with no idea what is happening to their data.”

So in a perfect world, the attention movement could pay online users for their attention.

For additional information on attention check out AttentionTrust.org which is a non-profit that is dedicated to promoting the basic rights of attention owners offers an open toolkit to develop attention based products and services.

For additional Syndicate info check out: Syndicate Conference

Syndicate Structured Blogging Discussion

Structured blogging a standard format for organizing blog information which was highlighted previously on Somewhat Frank was discussed at Syndicate NY. A panel was constructed to discuss the topic which included:

Jen Consalvo - Director at AOL
Eli Chapman - Co-founder of Mediatronica
Chad Dickerson - Director at Yahoo
Gus Spathis - CEO of PubSub.

Gus highlighted Incredibooks.com which is a great example of structured blogging in action. Incredibooks.com uses structured blogging plug-ins to create great looking posts with meta-data to better format the posts. Since Incredibooks.com offers book reviews structured blogging has offered an easy way to enter the appropriate information to best describe a book (i.e. Author, Rating, Title, ISBN, Editor, Publication Year, etc.). Presently, there are a number for formats for blog posts which include:

• Reviews
• Events
• Lists
• Media Journal Articles
• People & Groups

Structured blogging could be leveraged to create specialized aggregators. Gus noted that Edgeio is a strong supporter of the structured blogging movement. Media RSS created by Yahoo uses structured blogging. Apple has also uses structured blogging for iTunes.

Chad Dickerson talked about microformats by highlighting implementations by Yahoo. Chad pointed to Yahoo Tech and Upcoming.org which is using the microformats. Additionally, Creative Commons search is part of the Yahoo search functionality and uses similar technology to retrieve just Creative Commons content.

For more information on structured blogging check out: http://www.structuredblogging.org

For additional Syndicate info check out: Syndicate Conference

Steve Gillmor Talks At Syndicate

Steve Gillmor, of the Gillmor Gang podcast and contributing editor at ZDNet, spoke about the blurring line between a publisher, customer and developer.

“Anyone with a connection and electricity can be a publisher.”

Steve said that, the users are in charge. Steve spoke about his long and successful career as a journalist in the technology space. Steve notified that audience that he is moving his blog off of ZDNet to his own WordPress blog which can be found at: http://GestureLab.com/inforouter

RSS is the Tivo of the web. It has disrupted the infrastructure of the web. It is on demand and up to the users/readers/consumers to watch or read what they want. How do you get noticed in this sea of information? How do we get the attention of readers? Steve points to an open pool of data which could be compared to other data out there from other services that have been collection personal click information for years. It is based on the idea that your meta-data has value and should not be stolen or give to the Yahoo's and Google's of the world for free for a desktop application software.

Steve talked about RSS aggregators and his use of Rojo, a company I reviewed favorably on TechCrunch. He highlighted Techmeme, Findory and a few other aggregators. Steve said:

“I assume that you think that I am nuts.”

Steve thinks we are in a post-search time. He went on to say that he uses search more for spell-check. I actually do the same thing so I can see his perspective. Steve talked about how the power to become “a somebody” is undeniable at your fingertips. Steve pointed to Mike Arrington of TechCrunch as a prime example as Mike has build a huge following in just under a year.

Steve talked about the creation blogs in companies that are of Attention.xml which is a click stream recorder to measure what you look at. Who, what and when are recorded from your browser when using a click stream recorder. Steve called Google the biggest attention farm as they produce software to collect information on the behavior of its users. The point of attention is to be able to allow users to collect their own click and behavior information to then be able to do whatever you want with it. That way you are not giving the information away for free to Google or Yahoo or others. Steve Rubel futher explains Attention.xml here.

Summary
Internet users should be able to own their click or meta-data and be able to choose where they want to provide it. This could even be a profitable endeavor for Internet users as personal meta-data has value.

For additional Syndicate info check out: Syndicate Conference

Amanda Congdon RocketBoom Keynote

Amanda Congdon, co-founder and anchor of RocketBoom, gave the closing keynote today (May 16, 2006) at Syndicate NY which consisted of several videos of RocketBoom.

What does syndication mean anymore? Amanda admitted that she does not actually know what it means and she mentioned that a Gilmore Gang podcast she was on recently helped her find her find the meaning. She admitted that syndication has changed and it is now all about aggregation. The playing field has been leveled.

Content is king.

It all about content and if the content is good it will bubble to the top and I agree. Amanda was excited about the fact that video blogging is its own industry and you can create your our success path. You don’t need to be signed by a film or production company. We all can be producers and the good content producers will bubble to the top (democratization of content). She went on to say:

“The video blog is a completely new medium with a more casual more direct tone.”

Amanda talked about the value of video blogs on niche topics and the potential rich advertising and the overall business models. She stated that RocketBoom is going after niche ads particularly video ads as post roll ads. Also RocketBoom may offer some premium products on a subscription basis.

Small is the new big. Everyone has several jobs and nimble which makes it easier to move faster. It helps to ensure that the work is a direct reflection of the original vision. Amanda gets excited about the fact that RocketBoom a company so small an nimble has such an international reach. 

Amanda also helped promote podcasting in general by plugging Podcast Ready a company that helps ease the use and adoption of podcasts with more than just an iPod through its online services and software. Interestingly, Podcast Ready offers a browser tool button that allows you to click on it from any web site and the software will help find the podcast feed associated with the site.

Summary
Amanda Congdon offered an interesting, quirky video filled keynote on RocketBoom and video blogging emphasizing a few ideas that I already subscribe to. Producers can now keep there integrity as artists and as human beings and ultimately be successful and content is king.

For additional Syndicate info check out: Syndicate Conference

Technorati Beefs Up Rep Tracking

Technorati, blog search engine, has added yet another interesting feature today by rolling out additional reputation tracking features under the Blog Finder search. The new feature is a mashup of Technorati metadata, recent posts, authority statistics (based on links) and Alexa traffic information. To access the new feature visit the Blog Finder tab and put in a web address. Here is the profile for Somewhat Frank. Steve Rubel is calling them blog baseball cards.

Tagging and Taxonomy Chat At Syndicate

David Weinberger, co-author of Cluetrain Manifesto and currently a fellow at Harvard Berman Center, discussed tagging and taxonomy. He is currently working on a book that is due out in May 2007 which deals with organizing ideas and the affect it has on our culture, primarily knowledge. He drew the analogy that sorting information is like sorting your laundry (something I hate doing) but a good analogy.

What is a tag? David defined tags as metadata in ordinary language applied by users or readers of the information. He said that tags that are used by the author of content are really just keywords. I don’t know if I agree with that statement entirely.

Why is tagging all the sudden such a hot issue? David said that the applications have caught up and added tags to create a social aspect to online applications. He cited del.icio.us, Flickr and others. David thinks that tagging is a great way to organize and sort digital photos. David also talked about batch tagging processes face recognition application like Riya to help make the tagging process easier.

Will newspapers be affected by this? David pointed out that we already replaced newspapers editorial control since we are reading the news through digg, reddit or other means. So over time we could start subscribing to people instead of websites and David thinks it is somewhere in the near future.

Is there such thing as tagging glut? No, away to many tags actually can be very useful in presenting clustering. Flickr actually does a really good job of this already. David also touched on folksonomy pointing to eBay as one of the most well known folksonomy. Folksonomy or bottom up taxonomy, is created by looking at what people are tagging to create a taxonomy. eBay buckets to display items and you must conform to the buckets that eBay chooses. David also pointed out that "old school" taxonomy is very one dimensional while tagging is multi-dimensional since you can tag a piece of content with multiple tags thus better describing content.

Flickr appears to have impeccable timing as it just has come out of beta and gone to gamma. Check out the new design above. I like it. There is more information on Flickr Gamma on the Flickr blog.

Building A Brand Through Podcasting

The keynote panel discussed their successful podcasts with Audrey Reed-Granger from Whirlpool, Gretchen Vogelzang and Paige Heninger from MommyCast and Scott Sigler from SNP.

Ever hear of MommyCast? It is a niche podcast by Gretchen Vogelizang and Paige Heninger about being a mom and cover just about anything they can think of. You can see the Alexa traffic for MommyCast below which may not be an accurate representation of its overall reach but a good indicator of traffic to the site. MommyCast is considered a success yet the traffic does not appear to be very large. I would love to find out the number of actual podcast subscribers to MommyCast.

The audience was interested in finding out how the MommyCast locked down its sponsors. It sounds like Gretchen’s husband has some business-savvy and helped get the sponsorships via a media kit but overall MommyCast has not really gone out seeking sponsorships. Wow, that is pretty lucky.

Gretchen thinks that people are drawn to podcasting because it is so real. It is not scripted as much as mainstream media. Also she mentioned it is tough to follow a script and noted that the audience is so smart so keeping it real is important.

How can you get people to come back to a website via information on the podcast? Scott Sigler of SNP, mentioned that “old school radio” tactics apply and suggested whitepapers and other information that is referred to on a podcast could help drive traffic back to a website.

How do you esure your podcast is found? The panel thought that word of mouth, iTunes and a number of other directories. I wonder how much traffic is being sent to them via Podzinger, the podcast search engine.

What is the best podcast length?  The general consensus was 25 to 30 minutes but shorter formats are also very approachable.

Why don’t more people get into podcasting? I think it is a time commitment that people might not want to get into however if you have a passion for life and want to share it with others I would say get a microphone. There is not a better time to get into podcasting.

Jeff Jarvis Unkeynote

Jeff Jarvis kicked the Syndicate NYC conference off in non-traditional fashion which his unkeynote address. Rick Klau of FeedBurner was in the audience and did a great job noting some of the questions that were asked during the Q & A  keynote session. Matt Terenzio was blogging the keynote and noted the rainy New York day. Also Josh Hallett has a couple of photos from the talk.

Finally In The Big Apple For Syndicate NYC

After a three hour flight delay I landed at La Guardia Airport in New York for Syndicate NYC presented by IDG which starts Tuesday (May 16, 2006). I am excited to be in New York City which is a city I have not frequently visited.

On the plane I listened to a Gilmore Gang three part Syndicate preview podcast as a refresher of the event and its headliners which include Jeff Jarvis, Rich Elderman and Amanda Congdon. In listening to the cast it sounds like Jeff Jarvis is planning on playing Oprah and going with an Unkeynote approach. Being recently RocketBoom’ed by for a piece I wrote about Online Mapping for TechCrunch, I am especially interested to see what, fellow Northwestern grad, Amanda Congdon of the video blog RocketBoom has to say in her keynote on the future of video blogging.

I just hope the East coast version of Syndicate stacks up to Syndicate SF in early December 2005. I will be sure to be blogging the highlights from the conference on Somewhat Frank. For additional updates be sure to check out the Syndicate blog.

It's Tough To Argue With Free Skype Calls

Skype, voice over IP and instant messaging software company, is now free. I should restate that that, Skype has always been free to download to chat and make Skype-to-Skype calls but now it is free to call out to any US or Canada phone number. Wow, this is a big deal.

I just recently started to use Skype a few weeks ago and actually purchased a $10 credit to make outbound calls. Now you do not need credits to call US and Canada calls or Skype-to-Skype call.  I think it is a solid competitive move by Skype as Vonage prepares to IPO. it might make me re-think the usage of Vonage at all. In case you are unfamiliar, Vonage is a subscription-based voice over IP or VOIP phone service. It is tough to argue with free.

Old Media Can Be Successful Blogging Too

Mark Cuban wrote a piece recently pointing out the differences between blogging and traditional media calling blogging personal. I would have to agree since blogging does add a personal touch. He goes on to compare and contrast blogging vs. traditional media calling traiditional media "corporate" and about "making money." Mark goes on to relate blogging to being anti-establishment and in many cases the voice of the people while traditional media is driven by a stock price thus has its focus in wrong place to be successful blogging. He even goes on to say:

"...blogging on traditional media websites will find it difficult to be successful."

This is a fair assessment but I am a little more optimistic. I think that traditional media can be successful blogging too. It may be more difficult since traditional media is older and set in its editorial ways however once it breaks free and lets personality rein it can be successful too. I would look to some of BusinessWeek's blogs, like Blogspotting, and WashingtonPost.com's Post Remix as a couple examples of traditional media blogging success. I would urge you to also read Jeff Jarvis's perspective on traditional media learning new tricks on BuzzMachine.

Posticky For The Post-it Note Crazed

Posticky, a web 2.0 startup based out of Palo Alto, California, offers web based sticky notes available anywhere, anytime. Posticky is simple virtual repository for your to-do's in the form of the post-it note. Upon creating an account you can post and arrange virtual post-it notes within your browser. You can also set reminders to be sent to you via email or by text message to you cell phone. One other notable feature is the ability to send notes to your Posticky account via email or via your cell phone. The cell phone feature assigns each user a unique email address to send text message to-do's for "on the go" functionality. Below is a screen-shot of my recently created Posticky account - you can see I have set up three quick post-it reminders.

Overall, I was pleased with what Posticky offers, I just wish I would have known about Posticky a few weeks ago prior to writing a review on simple to-do lists for TechCrunch.

TechCrunch Goes Green!

TechCrunch, the site which tracks the web 2.0 movement, has launched a redesign which incorporates a new color scheme focused on green. Previously, TechCrunch uses a more subdued color scheme of gray and black. The new design offer some additional sponsorship advertising spots which are great exposure for any web 2.0 company.

I like the new design. It allows for wider screen-shots in articles and also is unique for its usage of money hulk power green. For more information or to advertise with TechCrunch check out Mike Arrington's latest post on CrunchNotes.

MyHeritage: Do You Look Like A Celebrity?

MyHeritage, an Israel-based company, recently launched to provide online face recognition software to the masses. MyHeritage’s vision is to make it easier for people around the world to use the power of the Internet to discover their heritage and strengthen their bonds with family and friends. So you can upload all your family photos and MyHeritage will try and link you to others via face recognition technology. It sounds like technology similar to the photo search, Riya.

Interestingly, MyHeritage has a feature that matches facial characteristics with a celebrity face. I uploaded a photo and received below are the closes matches. Which do you think is a closer match Joshua Jackson or Elvis Presley?

Do You Look Like A Celebrity? Upload your own photo and find the celebrity in you!