The Wolf Howls Still. The Three Wolf T-shirt mentioned in our last Everyman continues to instruct and inspire. This Murketing post title nails it. Supremely bad T-shirt acquires narrative, meaning; becomes top-seller. Did someone say “social media?” The Washington Post also explores The Wolf in It’s Made of 100% Cotton; Its Sales are 99% Ironic.
My Excellent Cable Modem Adventure. I’m going to take a chance and share the story of my cable modem replacement. I tweeted last Thursday morning something to the effect, “It must be Thursday, cause my Comcast broadband is sucking.” Soon @ComcastBill tweeted back, @daveburkevt, can I help? I DM’d him my account phone number as instructed and @ComcastBill had a tech check the line. @ComcastBill followed-up not long afterward telling me I needed to upgrade my modem. It was the original modem Adelphia installed 5 years ago, after all, so I concurred and bought a new one the next morning. Now everything is jake and I’m almost a “Comcast Cares” believer. I’ll have to admit that the phone call to Comcast to register the new modem was a completely pleasant experience, and I was NOT looking forward to it. Twitter interaction is one thing, a phone call to Comcast Support is another. For Everyman Reference, here’s a good Mashable post on using Twitter for customer service. Scanning the section headings will suffice, though interesting discussion here as well.
The Next Media Company. Bullet points to ponder from Chris Brogan on characteristics of the next media company. First four bullets are, “Stories are points in time, but won’t end at publication.” “Curators and editors rule, and creators aren’t necessarily on staff.” “Media cannot stick to one form.” “Everything must be portable and mobile-ready.” And sixteen more.
Ben & Jerry foretold eBay’s demise. Important reminder on what’s truly important in TechCrunch’s How Facebook, MySpace and YouTube Killed eBay. Several graphs and 243 comments would seem to reinforce the importance of this report. To me it’s a single line that transcends eBay and the Internet itself, “the real and simple reason for eBay’s demise is that it’s no longer fun.” Bingo! Thus, together, as enlightened citizens of the virtual Country of Vermont, let us proclaim, as Ben & Jerry have taught us, “If it’s not fun, why do it?”
Singularity Salvation. A brief history of the Singularity from the New York Times. Discussions of the “utopian future” and “the less sanguine camp” of technologists, along with a link to a documentary coming from Kurzweil’s Singularity Institute, Transcendent Man. Spend 2:59 to check it out. And on the subject of possible Singularity scenarios, check out this trailer for Sleep Dealer. It received very limited released in April, so you might not have seen it. We certainly never saw it in Vermont. The trailer has a few interesting images of the future that are worth watching.
For the bloggers in the room left standing. Great title in The Blog is Only Partly Dead, discussing the stages of blogging, listing the types of blogs that have died and why. All I know is that at least half of the bloggers in my OPML have completely stopped blogging, and they did so before Twitter or Facebook hit the scene. I won’t go deep into my theory on why developers stop blogging, but it has to do with the misconceived security of a salary, 40 hour work weeks, and The Man sucking out the joy that once was.
Digital Agency, Schmigital Agency. Great anecdote from Do You Really Need Your Digital Agency? “The client had a relatively simple request for the digital agency who ran his website. He wanted to post a video to his site, but the website guys said they couldn't. In other words, the agency told the client that it wasn’t possible to do what he wanted to do with his site. So he solved the problem himself by creating a page on Facebook and posted the video in less than 5 minutes." “The question for digital agencies and the people who work at them is…what do you offer your clients that they can’t do themselves with 15 minutes and a Wi-Fi connection?” Good list of what your “digital agency” should be doing for you.
Dreaming of Murphy in Color. I dreamed of my dog Murphy the other night. I knew he was dead in the dream, so the scene had a real Pet Sematary vibe to it, and I understood its allure. Still it was good to see him again. I miss my best buddy.
Good pie charts are food for thought. Two pie charts demonstrating the gap between how people and companies succeed and how people think people and companies succeed. (Hint: Hard work and discipline win over talent.)
Other People’s Refrigerators. Speaking of pie, I was conversing with our nutty cleaning lady this morning while she was cleaning our refrigerator, as I was waiting for my coffee to brew. Our cleaning gal is the tops, but it’s weird to think that someone cleans your fridge. If you really want Refrigerator Weirdness, check out this page of other people’s refrigerators in You Are What You Eat.