May 16, 2008
I just spoke at the Social Rockstar Workshop at Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C. about Social Media & Blogging. It was a great conversation and thank you to everyone that attended. I have uploaded to docstoc the online document sharing site for anyone that would like to take a look at the presentation.
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May 15, 2008
If you are down in Atlanta, Georgia today and tomorrow you might want to swing into the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair which is taking place. The worlds best young scientists, including many Georgia students will all be on hand showing off their technology and engineering masterpieces. Check out the video below for a quick preview.
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May 11, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending May 11, 2008.
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April 27, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending April 27, 2008.
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April 15, 2008
My first day working at AOL back in the fall of 2006 I had the pleasure of having lunch with Tony Conrad as he was visiting to start working with the AOL. Since then, Sphere which I covered previously when it launched in May 2006, worked with both AOL News and myAOL Mgnet Recommendations. It is a pleasure to see that AOL has finally acquired Sphere for an undisclosed amount.
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April 10, 2008
AOL as they have just relaunched Switched as the hub for the newly created AOL Technology Network. The network will bring together content from Engadget, Switched, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), Download Squad, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD to form the second largest technology news publisher online.
The network will helps to combine all the great technology blogs offered by AOL and Weblogs, Inc which was acquired by AOL in 2005 and should make for a compelling advertising offering for Platform-A, AOL's advertising conglomerate.
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April 2, 2008
Taking a page out the Netflix and Amazon playbook, outbrain, a New York-based startup, officially launched yesterday to offer a ratings and recommendations widget for content. With outbrain bloggers, news, media, magazines, rss readers and other publishers/aggregators can add a rating and personalized content recommendation widget to their blogs and sites easily and free.
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March 27, 2008
Looking for free licensed content to be able to use on your own blog or website? Voxant Newsroom looks to help by distributing and promoting content from licensed content sources for free. Voxant offers publishers a place to find and embed licensed video, text, and photos from over two hundred news sources from a variety of providers. Voxant places advertising in the its embeddable content to monetize the content making it possible to keep the content available for free to users.
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March 27, 2008
If you are in the Washington, D.C. area, mark your calendars for BlogPotomac, a one day event aimed at providing advanced marketing insights beyond the average social media 101. BlogPotomac will be held on Friday, June 13, 2008 at the State Theater in Falls Church, Virginia. BlogPotomac seeks to provide a local “un-conference” on best marketing practices for the social media community in the D.C. metro area.
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March 23, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending March 23, 2008.
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March 22, 2008
I was walking down the street in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month and was intrigued by a storefront symbol. I looked into the storefront windows and my eyes were met with colorful graffiti-like artwork, handmade toys and lots of tees. I had bumped into JoyEngine.
JoyEngine is a brand created by the boutique design firm cypher13 and offers a place for artists and designers to unite and share their work. The JoyEngine store doubles as an art gallery for local artists and toymakers. JoyEngine also has its own line of apparel. At JoyEngine, cypher13 promotes and sells artwork created by the cypher13 team, other local artists, and provides access to ultra-limited designer art toys, offers apparel by independent designers, and supplies the local street art scene with spraypaint, paint markers, and other art supplies. Online JoyEngine offers an blogging community for designers and artists where they can exchange ideas and showcase their work. They also offers some cool artist desktop backgrounds for download.
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March 19, 2008
Microblogging has made it easy to share but with a number of services available one can get overloaded with options making it difficult to keep them all updating the time. Rather than have to stick to one service you can post to a number of services at one time with the help of Ping.fm. Other services like socialthing! and HelloTxt offer similar functionality but I thought it was worth mentioning yet another service as we all look for the ultimate one stop shop for managing all our microblogging needs at once.
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March 18, 2008
CBS Television stations today announced the launch of the CBS Local Ad Network as it looks to get into the advertising distribution game by connecting with local bloggers and social media Web sites.
At first glance, I thought CBS was looking to incorporate blogs and other social media content into the local CBS news sites but after reading on that is not the case at all, it turns out CBS is just leveraging bloggers looking to generate some revenue on their blog or social media content. Network participants can place what CBS is calling a widget (with a huge skyscraper ad unit) on their sites and in return receive a rev-share. Nothing new here. It might be the right program for bloggers or social media content producers looking for a way to monetize and not sell ads though I have no idea what the rev-share looks like and it would be worth a look before jumping in and giving CBS ad impressions.
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March 16, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending March 16, 2008.
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March 9, 2008
Last night at SXSW in Austin, Texas I waited in line for about an hour to get into the 16 Bit event at Scoot Inn. After nearly getting to the front door, I ran into Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV. Gary was fed up of waiting in line and jumped out and proposed we head to our hotel and drink some wine he brought in. I thought it was a super idea. So I jumped on a pedicab with Kristen Nicole from Mashable and Brian Solis from Bub.blicio.us. What happened next was epic...
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February 28, 2008
If you are a motorcycle or political enthusiast than listen up because you are going to like this. LOUD3R, a network for niche enthusiast offerings, has launched a couple of different aggregation sites. FAST3R the motorcycle site and VOT3R the political site are pulled together by leveraging a semantic publishing engine used in combination with natural language processing and human intelligence the engine selects and publishes the best and most interesting content to the network. Users can also contribute content and comments to the site.
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February 27, 2008
Looking to explore and find a few new blogs on the Web? Blogged is blog directory launched earlier this week to aid discovery and exploration of the blogosphere. Blogged is self-funded by founders Kenneth Yeh and Gladys Kong and is powered by readers and also employs a full-time editorial staff to maintain the integrity of the directory.
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February 26, 2008
BricaBox, the NY-based structured content platform I previously reviewed, publicly launched today to enable anyone to create access and create these rich content experiences with ease. Funded sole by its founders BricaBox has been refered to a "wiki" on steroids (don't tell MLB or Congress) or "WordPress for structured content" as it offers a way for publishers tools to better display listings and such. It should also be noted that BricaBox offers social capabilities to enable community and sharing features which are sometimes confused with those of Ning or other social networking platform options.
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February 25, 2008
I got word this morning that TheMarker, Israel’s prominent business magazine and Haaretz, one of Israel’s largest newspapers, featured SOMEWHAT FRANK in a spread titled "The Blogs That Every Israeli Startup Should Know."
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January 26, 2008
Now is Gone so you had better get ready to embrace a new media. I previously chatted with Brian Solis about, Now Is Gone, a book he helped Geoff Livingston author. I sat on a panel discussing social media with Geoff at the New New Internet conference this past November, when he announced his book. So I was happy to finally be able to chat with him about it.
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January 24, 2008
Microblogging platforms have been springing up like crazy these days as bloggers look for easier and shorter form ways to quickly express themselves online. Lifestreaming to these platforms also become more prevalent as an aggregation of online activities. I am a big fan of microblogging platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, and Soup.io. They offer a light but powerful platform for self-expression. But there is not a one size fits all solution for every blogger. Chyrp (found deceptively at chyrp.net) offers an open source blogging platform that is more of a medium weight blogging solution.
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January 7, 2008
Somewhat Frank Editor's Note: I am pleased to mention that my recent Somewhat Frank health 2.0 roundup article has made its way onto the Read/Write Web Network by appearing today on the fabulous Alt Search Engine blog. In case you are new to the blogosphere, Read/Write Web, Read/Write Talk, last100 and Alt Search Engines make-up the RWW Network and have been contributing excellent content to the masses everyday for years. I am a big fan of the RWW Network and I am honored to be a special guest contributor. Thanks to Charles Knight & Richard MacManus for showcasing some Somewhat Frank content.
Give the article a read here on Alt Search Engines.
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January 7, 2008
Lifestreaming has made great strides in the past year as Justin.TV strapped a camera on his head. Robert Scoble, Sarah Meyers and a number of others including myself have participated in one way or another in the lifestreaming video movement leveraging tools like UStream.TV, Mogulus and Blog.TV.
With CES taking place in Las Vegas this week and the unfortunate fact that I was unable to attend (due to my day job) I am going to take full advantage of my friends lifestreaming videos to get the feel of the conference. There is a new tool called Qik that might make lifestreaming even easier than before. Qik is an alpha product that has sprung onto the scene to enable users to stream live video directly from their mobile phone.
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December 23, 2007
Are you familiar with the ultimate Web 2.0 directory online Go2Web20.net? I sat down from my parents home in Chicagoland to chat with Orli Yakuel from her home in Israel. She recently left AOL where she acted as a Web 2.0 analyst and is now in search for the “dream job.”
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December 8, 2007
I got a chance to sit down with Future Works and Bub.blico.us founder and PR 2.0 blogger Brian Solis to chat about the book Now Is Gone that he assisted Geoff Livingston in writing. The book is a good primer for anyone that is thinking about the new media landscape from big companies to entrepreneurs.
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December 3, 2007
There are a number of women involved in the technology industry, an industry which is made up of predominately men. I want to point out a few women in technology movements.
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December 2, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending December 1, 2007.
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December 1, 2007
I got a chance to chat with Greg "The Trend Junkie" Cangialosi today regarding his new book "The Business of Podcasting Book." The book is a great guide for any corporate executive or other party interested in better understanding podcasting. Greg and I leveraged BlogTV, a split screen webcam video platform I previously highlighted on Somewhat Frank, to chat about a number of topics related to social media from discussing our podcasting pal Gary Vaynerchuk who has been changing the wine world to a quick getting started with podcasting step-by-step.
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November 22, 2007
Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for all we have. This includes indulging in eating way too much food and watching football with family members. Needless to say there are lots of ways to get into the Turkey Day spirit. Last year, I showed just how to or how not to deep fry a turkey. Today I am going to list a number of other how to's, lists, recipes and videos to get you ready for some TURKEY!
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November 16, 2007
I co-hosted a sixth TECH cocktail in Chicago last night and co-host Eric Olson and I had a blast doing it. With 500 plus attendees at John Barleycorn in Wrigleyville there was so much energy and love in the room it was an amazing feeling. I got to see many familiar and many new faces as we continue to try and build a better and more tightly connected community in Chicago.
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November 7, 2007
Microblogging platforms are more plentiful than ever with sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku among others. However there are so many blogging platforms it is inconvenient to post to them all. So in steps hellotxt to lend a helping hand. hellotxt enables users to aggregate microblogging services and insert messages on all main microblogging services simultaneously.
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November 4, 2007
How can you engage your client community via blogs and social media? Last Thursday, I spoke on a panel at The New New Internet Conference to discuss this very question. The panel consisted of Gary Vaynerchuk video blogger at Wine Library TV and Director of Operations at Wine Library, Geoff Livingston blogger at The BuzzBin and author of Now Is Gone and Rohit Bhargava blogger at Influential Marketing and author Personality Not Included and myself blogger at Somewhat Frank, co-founder of TECH cocktail a community-building event startup and product manager of myAOL. If you want to find out about social media you best watch the video and learn about blogging, engaging social media and hustle 2.0!
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September 26, 2007
This has truly been an action packed 2007 web/tech conference season thus far. I previously listed a number of conferences to attend in 2007 but as of late a number of new ones have popped up. I wanted to highlight few additional conferences as they are approaching fast and you might want to get your tickets booked now. You will find me speaking at these three conference...hope to see you there.
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September 24, 2007
coComment, a Geneva, Switzerland based startup, first surfaced in early 2006 as a way to track all of your blogosphere conversations and in its initial form as just side project experiment. coComment is back and this time they are a serious company looking to help organize, track, share and fuel conversations online. coComment has launched version 2 which offers a number of commenting options and most noticeably is a lot more social.
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September 23, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 23, 2007.
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September 17, 2007
TechCrunch40, the 2007 TechCrunch launching pad conference, is upon us and you can keep up with the event just updated techcrunch40.com website. The site offers fully-featured hub for TechCrunch40, which starts this morning and continues through Tuesday evening. It will offer details about the 40 presenting companies (as they launch), the 100 demo pit companies and speaker details. The site will upload video clips of each set of presentations. The site also has Flickr photos can view photos of the conference and messages about the event via Twitter.
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September 16, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 16, 2007.
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August 31, 2007
BlogDay is here again. BlogDay is the one day celebration of the blogosphere created by Nir Ofir also of BlogTV fame. BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On BlogDay bloggers highlight or recommend five other blogs to their blog visitors aiding the discovery of new blogs on the Web.
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August 19, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending August 19, 2007.
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August 17, 2007
What's buzzing on the web? Wouldn't it be nice to know? Using a a combination of techniques which include sophisticated algorithms, click tracking and human editors BuzzFeed, a NY-based startup, is place to find out what is buzzing on the Web.
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August 12, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending August 12, 2007.
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August 8, 2007
Spigit launched into beta in mid-July to offer up a startup simulation game to help entrepreneurs showcase new ideas and innovations and in the process connect with a network of professionals. Spigit seems to have blended a multiply player online simulation game with a social network while aimed at creating a new company. Spigit can act as a testing ground for new ideas by helping to predict if they will succeed or fail with less invested.
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August 5, 2007
Photo of the Week: Barry Bonds hit home run 755 last night in a game vs. San Diego tying Hank Aaron for most career home runs in Major League history. John Feeley was in attendance and captured history with his zoom lens in this shot (shown above). Somewhat Frank Weekly...
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August 4, 2007
Add Somewhat Frank Weekly Video to your page As I highlighted earlier this week, Gary Vaynerchuk of the popular wine video podcast Wine Library TV made an appearance on the NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien television program this week. In case you missed watching it on Wednesday evening you...
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July 31, 2007
Gary Vaynerchuk, the host of WineLibrary.com's video blog Wine Library TV is a pretty entertaining guy. I got a chance to see Gary's energy in action a few months back when he both demo'ed and sponsored at TECH cocktail DC 1. Gary's love for wine and charismatic personality has created...
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July 25, 2007
In case you missed it, San Francisco had a power outage today that was caused by an explosion downtown. The fire from the explosion knocked out electricity and several big siteswhich included Netflix, Craigslist, Typepad, Vox and LiveJournal - all were down for several hours. Somewhat Frank is powered by...