Google Finds 1 Trillion Unique URLs and Growing

On July 25, 2008 Google announced it had identified 1 Trillion Unique URLs. Here is the link to the press release "We Knew The Web Was Big."

Thomas L. Friedman - MIT Milestone Celebration, Keynote Address

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and​ How It Can Renew America.

He is a brilliant speaker and thinker and a person I always enjoy listening too.

A Portal to Media Literacy

Prof. Michael Wesch presents his social media anthropology learning process. A major part of his presentation focuses on his insights into engaging students to learn. He also discusses how fast the social media ecosystem is evolving and that there is no true legacy, as most companies in this space are young, starting after the year 2000. He also discusses the ramifications of students not being just consumers of information but also creators. This alone will continue to have a major impact on how students learn in the future.

I love his quote "we are all dumb in this space - teachers and student alike." I believe this is true. We are still in the infancy of social media and we are all explorers.

Another insight on this great video: the power of social media, not only impacts the classroom, but could also be used in companies with employees working on innovation, ideation, development, marketing and other business projects.

Google Advertising Strategy Developed on the Back of a Napkin

This is a very compelling way to think about the consumer, understand the environment and ecosystem and develop a visual way to explain the strategy and business model. Tim Armstrong, Google Advertising Executive, explains his methodology and advertising strategy.

Will Twitter Survive?

I would like to open by saying I certainly hope so. I have found it a valuable tool for me to network with other social media and interactive marketing professionals. However, again today, its performance was extremely poor and it appeared to shutdown during the middle of the day -- UGH!!! Not much else to say but that if things do not improve, the future does not look bright for this rising star.

Social Media in Plain English

A very good explanation of social media. I like the CommonCraft approach to explaining complex concepts like social media in easy-to-understand, short videos. This one is very nice and more can be found on YouTube or at their website.

Twitter, friendfeed and Digg

I wish Twitter had higher performance and uptime. It is often sluggish and even Twhirl has to stopping accessing it for 5 minutes, or longer, at a time to allow it to catch up. I continue to find incredible people and publishers to follow including: Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine, New York Times, etc.... So, I am finding more value in the service every day. I just hope they can make it work better and figure out a way to make money on it, because without revenue, investment will eventually dwindle.

I have been using friendfeed a lot more lately. I finally figured out the value and have been linking my favorite services to my friendfeed profile. Like NetVibes is for my blog and publisher feeds, I like the way friendfeed has become an aggregation point for my favorite social media feeds. It also performs very well.

Finally, I have been using Digg more and more. I am finding some great articles on the internet and when I am reading some of my favorite magazines and news sources. I like that I can keep track of these articles on Digg, see what others are finding valuable or interesting, and go back to find articles I want to forward to others.

University of Georgia CONNECT Conference

I have been asked to speak at the University of Georgia CONNECT Public Relations and Social Media Conference September 20, 2008. I have Paull Young of Converseon to thank for connecting me with Karen Russell at the University of Georgia. As much as I enjoy speaking on interactive marketing and social media, I really enjoy hearing what others are doing. What has worked well for them, what they experimented with, and, of course, what to avoid. I am also looking forward to engaging with both the professors and students. New insights and new learnings are always welcome.

Sam Decker - BazaarVoice - Customer Oxygen

This is a right-to-the-point discussion on the impact of customer reviews and ratings to the operations of a company. Once customer reviews and ratings are occuring the culture of the company will begin to change and eventually feed off of those insights down to the operational level.

How to Be a Social Media Change Agent/Provocateur

Very good, in depth interview with Josh Bernoff of Forrester on how to be a successful change agent implementing Social Media strategies at your business.