Target tosses my salad request

I like writing about larger non-local businesses on The Daily City if I can do it in my own voice and the story is interesting to me. So a few weeks ago I found these salads at the new-ish SoDo Super Target that were almost high-end, but priced cheap. I wrote up a post and emailed Target to see if I could shoot some video inside their store about the salads. They said no. See below.

SpeakMediaBlog.com video: Truly horrible

Of no help to anyone.
I think this video is crap. She doesn't tell you HOW to "do" a "social media campaign." Instead she lists off tools and tells you that it takes a long time. Um. How is that helpful? And why do this in video form? How does video enhance the content? It doesn't. She should have taken her pre-written post she's reading from her computer screen, slapped it on her blog, and moved onto her next link list post.

Yuck.

Creativitity Episode 29: State Blog Club

Episode 29 Show Notes:
(7-22-08) Is McDonald's trying to do Chik-Fil-A in cities where Chik-Fil-A hasn't arrived yet? Man posts ideas on his blog. Florida Blog Union. Trucks are a**holes of the world. Episode-29.MP3

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Podcast Episode 24: Blog Design and Purpose

Show Notes: (MP3) 1. Blogger giving advice on blog design says "Know the purpose of your blog." He says purpose of his blog is to share info, but it's really to get work. 2. I describe how Mindcomet.com's blog came into existence and describe the early days of their wiki. (Mindcomet is a former employer of mine and the former President is now Pres/CEO if IZEA and PayPerPost)

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Loren Feldman doesnt suck

Loren Feldman made this great video saying most people are average and most bloggers produce unoriginal content. I became aware of this recently. I am one of those people. I now won't publish links to stuff, but provide some sort of value. And the only value I can provide in this format (a blog) is my opinions, observations and ideas. That's it.

Toad Stool Comment Fun

Steve Rubel twittered a link to this blog post.

It listed ten things the writer "hate"-ed about Twitter. The first one thing:I WISH I had the ability to temporarily turn certain people off. Especially people who feel the need to live-tweet an especially boring commute to the office or conference or concert or something else I am not interesting in learning about in 5 minute intervals.

I read the whole list and post and the comments he received, but was struck most by that first thing and left this comment:

I don't think you're following the right people. The only people I follow are people I can learn something from. The ones who post links to their blog posts, links to posts and articles on other sites. Steverubel is great. Also scobleizer. These people usually aren't craping around telling you what they ate. They're telling you a new service they've discovered, new meme, etc. Twitter, for me, is a learning tool. Just sharing my two cents. And by the way, it was Steve Rubel who linked to you (via twitter of course) in case you didn't know. Thanks.

I thought nothing about leaving the comment. I hear this complaint often, and wanted to share my experience with Twitter.

He wrote a new post about the huge amount of traffic (or twaffic?) he got from Steve Rubel...and my comment!

Among the many comments I received, there was one that got me to thinking. One of Rubel's minions, while chastising me for having non-utilitarian Twitter friends, mentioned that he only links to people who provide him with great insights via their useful links.

And that lead me to wonder if the ultimate path of Twitter is to be a place where we learn from experts, rather than share with friends. I mean at some level it makes sense: Twitter, by virtue of its non-reciprocal Follower/Following paradigm, could allow us to follow people we deemed experts and leaders. Which could be anyone from Steve Rubel to Steve Jobs to Steve Nash.

They'd send out links, wise thoughts and whatnot, for their followers to absorb on a daily basis. Heck, we could even monetize it and charge a fee for their wisdom. I've suggested that using a celeb's tweets from a relevant event would be a good marketing use of Twitter, so why not take it to the next level?

First off, I am happy to be called a "minion" if it means I am learning. Second, this writer assumes my friends are knowledgable about the topics I am interested in. They are not. My friends are actors and have no clue about twitter, no matter how much I tried to get them into it. They also have no knowledge of the topics Rubel, Scoble, Laporte, etc, twitter/blog/write about. Yes, I have a few tech-ish friends, but they don't share their knowledge on twitter. They talk about football and new beer. So for me, I use twitter to learn from people who are knowledgeable in the topics I care about.

Trophies make you live in the past

Photo Credit: "goodbye, trophies" by strph

Ooh I found another goodie from DailySpeculations.com. The last line is thrilling:

Polaroid's announcement last month that they will stop making film is a timely reminder that the world moves on and that those who want to survive must move with it. All that's left now is the usual bit of nostalgic kicking and screaming.

This reminds me of one of the habits of International Master Bob Wade, OBE, who is still playing tournament chess in his late 80s. He makes a point of not keeping trophies, saying it would make him live in the past.

Wow. Makes me want to take all my clippings and programs from past shows, put them through a shredder and go on an audition.

Starbucks vs McDonalds

A McDonalds in Tempe, Arizona I visited 3-22-08
Do not use photos without written permission. All rights reserved.

I found this post questioning the value of the Starbucks' employee 3-hour mandatory training video viewing session awhile back:

"how many of them knew before the training that the pledge they put their signatures next to has been part of the culture since about the dawn of Starbucks time? Furthermore, how many Starbucks customers have forgotten about this promise over the years?"

I also found this gem of a comment on this blog:

"Whatever the relative merits or demerits of the individual loci, the Starbucks habituee will not 'descend' to the perceived downmarket of McD's, which is a brand-association drummed into our consciousness by millions of ad messages over decades. The food may be better, the prices definitively so, at McD's, but the smart set will not cotton to the overbright, plastic-dominated perceived lower-ranking environment of kid-friendly McD's.

The escalation of prices for a simple beverage to unheard-of stratospheres is one thing that has, to date, ensured the rarefied perception of Starbuck's as being compatible with the upward-striving status-jumper.

So unless McD's radically alters its branding, the trendoids will find it distasteful to step lively in those swinging doors, even if their coffee tastes more acidic and sets them back more by a factor of twice or thrice the McD's coffee." -Marion Dreyfus

I have a friend who is a Barista and I want her to (a) read his post and (b) give her thoughts. I am emailing her the link and will post her thoughts if she decides to participate. I think her viewpoint will be interesting.

For me, I LOVE the second quote. A brand that has "aspire" built into it's identity attracts people who want to be what the brand says it is. People who are poor want to be rich, and Starbucks looks rich. Those same people the writer says, won't go to McDonalds because it doesn't make them feel like they are rich.

What the writer does not say is that there are people who are (a) rich and don't care where they get their coffee and (b) poor who stop their aspirations and start making the switch to the inexpensive. Also, McDonalds could give the same in-store cues Starbucks gives (mood lghting, nice furniture, good quality product) and bring the aspirerers to their side.

VIDEO: Perez Hilton as a brand

Watch the video by CNBC about Perez Hilton. Could the model he created be taken local? I run a blog called OrlandoArtsBlog.com. Right now, I report cool events I think are worth being aware of. But what more could this blog do besides spreading the same press releases everyone else in town is spreading? How could blogging generate real interest from every day people about the projects of the creative class in Orlando? I don't know, but I am willing to try new things to see what sticks and what fails.

Especially because I have a potential advertiser coming on board.

Secrets will be revealed soon enough!

Knoxville Blog Network and BlogNetNews

I had dinner last night with a friend from Knoxville, TN. During dinner, she told me about the Knoxville Blog Network, a product of Knoxville News Sentinel and BlogNetNews.com. The local Knoxville newspaper provides this service and gives readers of their website local blogger content. Here's how they describe themselves:

You've seen aggregators before. Knoxville Blog Network jumps a generation ahead. We're not interested in reprinting your posts and we don't have an ideological ax to grind. We are going to use your feeds and the feeds of top bloggers from your online community to create new content and information that will organize this slice of the Internet making it work better for bloggers and their readers.

Our launch version offers these features:

1. The day's top news based solely on what news stories Knoxville bloggers are linking to: no matter what mainstream news source they're in.
2. A micro search engine that will only search the Knoxville blogosphere.
3. A quick guide to the hottest blog comment sections in Knoxville.

I think it's a great idea.

Episode 2: Veronica Belmont

(40:00) Veronica Belmont. The Kindle. iPod Touch. Cadbury eggs are now Cadbury ornaments. Christmas. How I leanred to volunteer better. A benefit that began with a blog post.



Mentioned:
-Veronica Belmont
-Buzz Out Loud Podcast
-Kindle
-Robert Scoble
-Ipod Touch
-Cadbury Ornaments

Download:
(Creativitity_Show_2.mp3)

Mike Arrington blogging thoughts

I found some neat thoughts on blogging on crunchnotes.com I wanted to think about:

"We (TechCrunch) got big by writing about things we care passionately about and linking early and often to good stuff out there on the web, particularly other blogs.

Having a passion is pure. "Linking early and often" is a blogging growth strategy. I guess you need both.

"...Ask yourself if you are writing because you want attention, or because you love to write. The ones with passion tend to last over the long haul.

I still have Creativitity here because I keep finding cool stuff to write about. I am passionate about everything I write about here.

"Try creating something instead of just tearing others down."

I am in total agreement with this. Anyone can complain, not many solve the problem.

"I also noticed Dave is using TinyURL to link to blogs that he doesn’t like, obviously to avoid giving them any kind of link juice."

This is just SO unfriendly...and creative. I never thought of using Tinyurl for anything other than Twitter links.

Content is nothing without response

(screenshot of my email inbox)

This is what I like to see. Interaction! I put stuff out there online and people respond. This makes me happy. Thank you!

Justin.tv

A creative guy named Justin started a company with three of his friends called Justin.tv. The company will broadcast live video feeds of people, what I'm calling "live video blogging." For now, he's filming his own life 24/7 on the site. Here's his own description of the company and site:

"I am broadcasting live video of my life 24/7 to the internet. I started Justin.tv because I thought it would awesome for people to see what it was like to be Justin.

I convinced three of my friends (Emmett, Michael, and Kyle) to join me out in San Francisco. Now, we're starting a company to make broadcasting live video on the web easy.

You can embed the live feed into your own site or watch it on his site which blows my mind.

Here's what Techcrunch said about it:

"The long term goal of the project is to create an affordable live mobile video platform they can use to recruit other live bloggers. They already have plans to loan out the technology to a group tracking the Iowa local caucuses and have also set their sights on tracking some musicians."

Idea
I love the idea of video blogging, but the way my set-up is, I have to film it, return home, edit it, wait for it's shrinkage into net-size files, then wait while it uploads. Right now I am signed up with Hipcast.com which allows me to make audio posts on the road and have them automatically post to an rss feed. What if I could do the same with video?

Idea
I'll be in San Francisco in June performing Improv Cabaret at the San Fran Improv Festival. I wonder if I could get him/pay him to film my show and have it streaming live. So cool.

Source: Buzz Out Loud Podcast