Blogging

In the old days, email signatures pretty much just mirrored business card information: name, company, title, phone, fax (gotta love that 80’s technology still hanging on!) and email address. For most people, that’s still the only information their email signature provides.

A growing number of Web 2.0-savvy executives, however, are breaking out of the old mold and creatively integrating social networking into their email sign-off. After all, the two purposes of an email signature are to tell the recipient a little about yourself (e.g., your title, company and location) and to give them different ways to contact you. Social networking sites are simply an extension of those two functions, giving other people more information about yourself and additional ways to interact.

Based on my informal research, here are the most popular social media elements people are adding to their Web 2.0 email signatures:

Twitter page, LinkedIn profile and blog link: these are the most popular social networking elements, used in about half of Web 2.0 signatures.

Skype ID and Facebook page: these are used in a quarter of the signatures I looked at.

YouTube, StumbleUpon, Technorati and Second Life: about 20% of Web 2.0 email signatures include buttons for StumbleUpon or “add this blog to my favorites” on Technorati, links to a company’s online videos, and/or the sender’s Second Life name.

Social media email signatures can also include elements like AIM name, Digg page, Sphinn profile and Ning group.

Here are a few notable examples of Web 2.0 email signatures (used with permission):

Jon Rognerud- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>
An author and SEO expert, Jon’s email signature includes:
follow me at http://twitter.com/jonrognerud
reply on the web at http://twitter.com/direct_messages/create/jonrognerud
send me a direct message from your phone or IM: D JONROGNERUD your message here.

(BTW, Jon has really got the reputation management thing nailed, as a Google search on his name quickly reveals.)

Christina L. Greene
Christina, an interactive PR pro with The Advance Guard, had the first email signature I’d ever seen that included her Second Life name. She also includes her Skype ID.

David Loshin’s Online Business Card (http://www.davidloshin.info/)
In addition to company name, address, email, phone, fax and mobile numbers, David’s Web 2.0 email signature includes:
Web Address www.knowledge-integrity.com
Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/61/4A9
AIM dataquality1
Business Intelligence Network Channel http://www.b-eye-network.com/channels/index.php?filter_channel=1148
DataFlux Community of Experts http://www.dataflux.com/Blog/
Techtarget Ask The Expert http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/expert/KnowledgebaseBio/0,289623,sid91_cid1118971,00.html

Dr. Richard D. Hackathorn
The email signature of the president of Bolder Technology, Inc. includes all of the usual information plus his Second Life name, Skype ID, blog and LinkedIn profile button.

giovanni gallucci (yes, his name is lowercase in his actual email signature)
viewzi evangelist
o: 214.580.20** | m: 469.682.69**
search: viewzi.com
blog: viewziblog.com
video: viewzi.tv
facebook: *****
linkedin: linkedin.com/in/ggallucci
twitter: twitter.com/giovanni

Included in the email signature of a contact from London-based search engine marketing agency Accuracast is:
Digg: http://digg.com/users/accuracast
Twitter: http://twitter.com/accuracast
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/AccuraCast
Ning: http://accuracast.ning.com/

Brian Critchfield
Brian, the “Chief Navel Gazer” at Navel Marketing, enhances his email signature with his Skype ID and LinkedIn profile.

Terra Andersen
Entrepreneur and Internet Business Consultant

+ Subscribe To b4b!

Matthew Balthazor
This Senior Marketing Manager at TechWeb added his Twitter link and Facebook profile to a standard email signature.

But the best Web 2.0 / social media email signature I’ve seen so far belongs to…Guy Kawasaki. Here it is, with just a few bits of personal information stripped out:

Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki
Nononina, Inc.
360 Bryant Street, Suite 100
Palo Alto, CA 94301
http://alltop.com/

• ****@alltop.com (best way to get in touch)
• 650-838-08** office (you’ll never get me here)
• 650-387-92** cell (Spinvox will convert voicemail to email so I don’t have to listen to people ramble)
• 650-853-2416 fax (what’s a fax?)

• http://twitter.com/guykawasaki (if you have no life)
• http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ (if you want to see why I have no life)
• http://holykaw.com/ (if you want to see how I have fun in my life)

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Read more from the original source:
The Social Media Email Signature

A book written by an economist, that attempts to use economic theories to explain pretty much everything in life, probably sounds more like a cure for insomnia—perhaps even masochism—than a page-turner. But in The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World, author Tim Harford, writer of the Undercover Economist column for the Financial Times, pulls off a truly amazing feat, making economics not merely interesting, but fascinating.

Just to make sure he’s got your attention, Harford begins his book with discursions on the economic rationales underlying teen sex, Mexican prostitutes, and the world of professional poker. In this last topic, Harford introduces us to Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, a doctoral student at UCLA who used John von Neumann’s game theory to become one of the top professional poker players in the world:

“By the late 1990s Ferguson was one of the most recognizable sights in poker, earning the nickname `Jesus’ as he hid his face behind a long beard and hair that cascaded over his shoulders, buttressed by wraparound mirror shades and a big cowboy hat. He never spoke during play, trying to remove any sign of human emotion; he didn’t pay much attention to other players’ nervous tics either. He drew his information only from the cards, like a computer—or like von Neumann himself.”

After these first few sections, Harford gets more serious, but no less engrossing. He addresses a wide range of topics, demonstrating in each case how rational economic theories explain seemingly irrational human behavior: nuclear war, cigarette smoking, our choice of snacks, speed dating, marriage, divorce, and why young women are often attracted to older men (and vice versa, though economics seems superfluous in that case).

He devotes significant space in the book to the problem of racism, particularly in relation to blacks in America, showing that while racism is reprehensible, it is also, unfortunately, rational. The contention is that blacks, as a group, have under-invested in their own education and skills development, believing that white racism prevented them from getting a fair shot at economic opportunities. In response, employers (of many colors, not only white) have preemptively denied opportunities to blacks. The result is a tragic downward spiral.

The problem is vexing. Obviously, blacks have faced significant discrimination in America, unfairly and in many cases maliciously. On the other hand, the problem can’t be reduced to “white people don’t like people with dark skin.” Look at southeast Asians as an example of a group that has had a very different experience in America (and elsewhere), that of a virtuous upward spiral. While an employer may invite Mary in for interview before Latoya, Krishna may very well get the interview before Mary. Sterotypes can be unfairly positive as well as negative.

The solution, therefore, is going to require changes in behavior, and beliefs, on the part of both blacks and whites. Not an easy task, but possible.

Along the way, Harford explains why your office, dysfunctional though it likely seems, is perfectly rational: with a relatively small number of exceptions (sales, windshield replacement, pole vaulting), most professions are either hard to measure, or easy to measure but nevertheless difficult to compensate on that basis: “In most jobs, there are more than two variables at play and some are very hard to pin down. For those jobs, managers need a more holistic, all-encompassing measure of performance.” This leads to a discussion of “tournament theory”—paying employers based on their performance relative to each other, as in a tennis tournament. The trick to applying tournament theory to employee pay, of course, is to make sure bonuses incent employees to do great work, not merely to undermine and backstab each other.

While Harford’s book is very, very good, it does have three minor weaknesses. First, the author approvingly and at length quotes from Freakonomics, a book which had an unfortunate tendency to extrapolate from the specific to the general among other logical fallacies. John Lott’s Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t, though lesser known, is a far superior work.

Second, while Harford does an outstanding job of demonstrating how various economic theories can be used to explain particular decision processes or types of behavior, he ignores the possibility of other causes. In other words, while he does a fine job of showing how A causes B, he fails to even acknowledge that C, D or Z might provide a much better explanation. On various topics, religious faith, patriotism, family ties, environmental concerns or a one of a host of other factors may be more important that economics, but Harford simply ignores that possibility. A very strong case can be made, for example, that Brits would be better off economically with the Tories in charge, yet the majority don’t vote that way.

Finally, Harford at times ignores his own conclusions. After demonstrating convincingly that human prosperity is directly correlated with two factors—freedom and innovation—he expresses concern over pseudo-problems like global warming. If he believes his own research, and he should, he would realize that global warming cannot be a problem. When the incentives to change behavior become significant enough, people will change them. And even if the most dire theories of global warming are accurate, and human burning of hydrocarbon fuels is a significant cause, then only the innovation of free economic actors—not the regulation preferred by those on the left—can ultimately solve the problem.

These quibbles aside, The Logic of Life is a fascinating and enlightening book that deserves a wide audience.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Read more from the original source:
Book Review: The Logic of Life

Personal organizer PageOnce has a great iPhone application that I think many will find to be incredibly useful. Like its desktop sibling, PageOnce for iPhone is a feed aggregator the likes of Netvibes or MyYahoo. The only difference is that you’re feeding it account information for utilities and services to get a quick overall view of your various balances and spending activity.

I’ve been using the application for the past few days, and have come to rely on it almost exclusively to keep track of bank accounts, mobile phone usage, and my Netflix queue. In fact, it’s currently the only way to track your Netflix account short of visiting Netflix.com or another Web-based queue manager in Safari (although this is coming soon), but will do far more if you’re willing to spend the time plugging in all your accounts.

PageOnce for the iPhone keeps each feed in its own container and opens it up like a nice large pop-up that can be scrolled through and dismissed with a quick touch on the screen. You can see all types of accounts that have been up through PageOnce on the Web. Missing, however, is a way to add new accounts from your phone. This will hopefully make it in later editions.

Privacy nuts should be a little wary of putting this much of their personal login information in the cloud, but the good news is the application can be set to forget your password every time you exit, keeping it safe if your phone is lost or stolen. Also, as mentioned in previous coverage, PageOnce uses bank-level security to keep accounts from being hacked.

Below is a demo of PageOnce for the iPhone and iPod Touch in action.

Read more:
PageOnce iPhone app organizes your bills, life

The concept of virtual tradeshows has been around since at least 2001. The appeal, to both exhibitors and attendees, is obvious. No travel costs. No lost productive time due to travel. No limit on the number of employees you can use to staff your booth or “send to the show.” No need to limit the duration of the show to just a few days. No geographical boundaries (assuming you have a way to staff the odd hours). No environmental concerns. No panic because your booth staff flew to Chicago—but your booth ended up in Atlanta.

Yet in practice, uptake has been very slow. This is partly for cultural reasons (can I buy you a virtual drink?) but also because the technology has never quite delivered a user experience that’s a viable substitute for physical presence. Now, the folks at ON24 believe they may have changed that. Their new Virtual Show platform combines the company’s expertise in webcasting with rich graphics to create a compelling visual environment with useful tools for presenting information and qualifying online “booth visitors.” It’s almost like Second Life for trade shows.

Virtual Show is targeted at both individual companies and show organizers/event planners, including trade publications. On the individual company side, the platform could appeal to any company that’s large enough to already host its own user group type events, but may be even more attractive to companies who are right on the edge of that—large enough to have a sizable base of engaged users, but not quite large enough to justify the expense of a live event. An online forum could be used in place of a live event for companies at this stage, while enabling firms that already host a live annual event to add supplemental online conferences throughout the year. Companies could also spread out the cost by selling virtual booth space to channel or technology partners.

The platform may have even more value for publishers. It enables them to offer advertisers a much richer and more interactive way to reach subscribers than the usual mix of enewsletter sponsorships, banner ads and white paper syndication. For aggressive publishers willing to get a jump on this, it also provides differentiation in a highly competitive online advertising market.

Virtual visitors to an event can:

• network with peers at the show, exhibitors and sponsors (through online chat);
• get documents (beyond the normal limited tradeshow marketing collateral, since the booth rep can now provide any document from within their organization);
• view a presentation (similar to a webinar) and ask questions;
• chat with a booth rep;
• have content recommended to you via ON24’s patent-pending Smart Booth technology;
• engage in group discussion and interact with people; and
• upload a cool avatar.

Depending on the number of booths and degree of customization, pricing generally ranges from $20,000-$50,000 per event. For a large enterprise hosting its own user group or other forum, that’s competitive with the cost of a live event—and again, with no travel costs or travel-related lost productivity. Publishers should be able to provide advertisers with attractive pricing for an online presence that goes well beyond the standard webcast.

Other recent coverage of ON24 and Virtual Show:

ON24 Announces Virtual Venue Platform from Worlds In Motion

UP Media, ON24 partner for virtual trade show from DMNews

ON24 Enters Virtual Event Space with New Solution; Adds Flash to Webcasts from DemandGen

ON24 Aims to Turn Desktops into Conference Halls with Virtual Show from Streamingmedia.com

Kill the Business Trip from Forbes

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The rest is here:
ON24 Launches Virtual Tradeshow Platform with Real Potential

A good blog post is in essence a question; purposefully opinionated, or better yet, outright wrong. It demands interaction.

The blogger’s job is to provide the question, provoke debate, and invite the community at large to pool its immense knowledge and take the conversation further (which characteristic distinguishes the blogger from the journalist). The conversation is the reason why we prefer blogs. If it weren’t for the dialog between writer and reader, we may as well just pick up a newspaper or listen to the damn radio.

This is how it was always supposed to be. But typically, either this does conversation not really happen at all, or else it is so slow and disjointed as to suck the life out of the whole process. Blogging platforms and the blogosphere as a whole have failed miserably at enabling effective conversation.

But it would appear that the landscape changing, and that the evolution of conversation is changing the nature of blogging itself. To demonstrate this, we look at a particular, regular post by Robert Scoble, and look at how the conversation now shifts from one forum to another (and more importantly, why). This will demonstrate how the blogosphere is becoming less about the blog, and more about the conversation. Which trend has wide-ranging implications, and points the way for future Web communication both in the Blogosphere and beyond.

More here:
Transforming Blogs Into Conversations: Scoble, Silverlight and FriendFeed