Honestly I can’t believe it took four years for the technology to catch up to our imaginations but thanks to at&t and it’s massive buckets of FAIL, we’re still not where we COULD be with this phone. As a side note, I guess I just don’t understand why if we’re supposed to be the world’s leader in technology that we are so behind on little things like cellphone technology. But I digress…

Apple Store with black curtains up!

With regards to the new iPhone, one thing Steve Jobs finally got me to do that I haven’t done since Halo 2 was to fight the mob and wait in line on release day to get this in my hands. Maybe it was the crazy marketing hype. Maybe it was the sexy form factor. Maybe it was the fact that this was the phone I imagined I’d have from the first time I could start imagining a cellphone without a keyboard. Whatever it may be… Apple managed to get me out of bed at 3 in the morning. Go visit a mall at 4:30. Break the law by sneaking inside the mall, hiding in the bathroom for a good 20 minutes to avoid the security guards. (Seriously WTF is wrong with me?) Get into an argument with the said security guard about where the line was forming after starting the line in front of the Apple store. Threatened to be arrested by the APD for trespassing; twice! Then being escorted outside where I ended up behind 50+ people who were waiting in one line – and then being told our line wasn’t the official line so I got bumped again to 450+ in the “official” merged line. All this just for a phone that I basically already have in the form of 3GS?

Now that I’ve typed this – it DOES sound crazy.

The line at Lenox mall

An Apple employee's crowd control shoes

So 3+ hours of waiting later, I finally got my phone from Apple and finished the process luckily before the west coast stores opened. I did not want any type of delays from more at&t FAILS and I think I dodged a few bullets last night. So was the prize worth it? HELL YES!

Click to see the full size pic.

The marketing hyped “retina display” (a.k.a. print quality dpi) really does look great and is noticeable between the two iPhones. On the right, you’ll notice the “slide to unlock” text shows up much more like e-ink than the version on the left. The pictures are also a lot more vivid on the iPhone 4. More pixels = more colors per inch, and less ambient light protruding through. While I wouldn’t say the old phone is less clear, it just looks a bit more washed out in comparison.

The improved camera with flash is also a welcome bonus. While it will never replace my Canon DSLR, having that LED flash now opens up so many more opportunities for me to leave the Canon at home during social gatherings. Also, now that I can push out HD video, maybe I’ll get into more of that in addition to photography. (I still can’t get used to the idea of filming a video w/ a DSLR.)

As for the other 100+ modifications that were added in the hardware and the new iOS4, it will take me awhile to figure it all out to see if I even recognize them all. As fanboi as it sounds, I do love carrying this Apple branded tri-corder around. Assuming the phone companies will stop fighting for the laziest network ever award once the exclusivity with at&t is over, I’m excited to see how fast things will improve in the years to come as networks push for more features instead of less. For now, I’m just happy to have one of modern day’s gold brick in my possession.

“Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.” -Frank Tyger

“Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing” -Ward

Imagine what you can do. Do what you can imagine.

“If you work hard in your job, you’ll earn a living. If you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” -Anonymous

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there!” – Will Rogers

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. – Robert Frost

German Chancellor Willy Brandt once said, “If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying from you, dann müssen Sie in meiner Sprache sprechen.”

“I am nobody. Nobody is perfect. Therefore I am perfect.”

“Whether you think you can, or you can’t; you’re right.”

“Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” ~H. Jackson Browne

“Stay informed, not arrogant.”

“Don’t sweat the petty things, don’t pet the sweaty things.”

“Sell to the classes, live with the masses.
Sell to the masses, live with the classes.”

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Churchill

“Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”

“Opportunity is all around us and always will be. Where there is freedom, there is opportunity. Where there is difficulty, there is opportunity.”

“If you don’t drive your business, you’ll be driven out of business.” – Malcolm Forbes

“One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.” – La Rouchfoucauld

“If you fail to plan, you should plan to fail.”

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

“the reason people talk behind your back is because you’re ahead of them…”

What are some of your favorite quotes?

With Twitter’s new @anywhere platform, this is no longer the case! The bonus?! @anywhere only takes a couple of minutes to setup on your website or blog and it’s easy!

Step 1:

Go to Twitter’s developer center – more specifically, the @anywhere page: http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere

Step 2:

Fill out information about your website or blog that you would like to setup @anywhere for.

Step 3:

Copy and paste some JavaScript into the header of the blog page. (Place it in between the head tags.

Viola! That’s it, you’re done! You can check out the results by hovering over my Twitter name @wei_yang.

After obsessively playing with both FourSquare and Gowalla’s updated apps this past week at the SXSWi conference, it is pretty clear FourSquare wins at being the best geo-based, social app of the two and here’s why:

The Social Aspect

Gowalla is great at helping me find venues and using beautiful stamps to help me keep track of places I have been. Unfortunately even in its latest revision, it lacks a usable search for (possibly) missing venues and it doesn’t make it easy to find your friends. As of this writing, the friends list is buried beneath new friend requests and the list is not sorted or limited by distance – this means if you have a long list of friends who were not at SXSW but in other parts of the world, it would be hard to isolate the focus to just those that are near you.

On the flip side, FourSquare did an AMAZING job of helping me discover hot (trending) spots and where my local friends were this past week. Coming from Atlanta where it’s hard to get a swarm badge or even a “player please” badge if you are a guy, I found myself loving the FourSquare experience at SXSWi. For the first time I was actually using FourSquare like it was meant to be used, seeing where my friends are, when a party actually picks up and more importantly, when and where the party moves in real-time if the group is bar (or hotel) hopping. With FourSquare, it’s now unnecessary to make calls in loud clubs or text multiple friends to try and coordinate a disjointed group.

Geo-Location and Businesses

With regards to promoting local businesses and encouraging patronage, both FourSquare and Gowalla are testing great ideas for promoting specials, coupons, hidden items and trips. While finding hidden items and redeeming them on Gowalla can be great for one-off promotions or if you are a virtual pack rat, seeing nearby specials even if you’re not checked in at the promotional venue on FourSquare just feels more inviting.

For example, prior to the conference, Gowalla announced their party list was overflowing and to be guaranteed entry, one must find the Tiki Room Wristband virtual item. I was not one of the lucky Gowalla users who found it thus I did not even try to go to their party.

The Fun Factor!

One of the first thing I noticed was that while Gowalla and FourSquare both have SXSW specific badges, FourSquare’s badges had a bigger set of night-life related achievements. Even the pages themselves differ in highlighting personal achievements vs. the mob’s achievements. I guess I should start off by thanking @dens and @mari18 for not creating an “if your friend jump off the bridge” badge cause as a FourSquare groupie, I probably would have done stupid things during questionable hours on the Congress Rd. bridge just to try and earn the badge. Sounds dumb right?

At SXSWi I found myself pushing the limit and getting out of my comfort zone on several occasions just to earn new badges on FourSquare. Do I like BBQ and tacos? Yes. Would I normally eat it 3 plus times in one week? Probably not if FourSquare hadn’t made it a game. On the fun side, in the pursuit of unlocking the achievements, I did discover amazing breakfast and Korean BBQ tacos and the awesomeness of the Karaoke RV in town – and I’m not even a karaoke fan!

While Gowalla certainly does not have a shortage of trips and activities in the Austin area, the lack of social convergence within the app just didn’t do it for me. The trips within Gowalla are mostly self-rewarding and unfortunately resemble a bucket-list of things to see while in Austin vs. a set of activities to be performed. As beautiful as Gowalla is, their pins just don’t communicate the fun as well as the colorful badges of FourSquare. If I was visiting Austin for other reasons, it may have been cool to check out the moonlight towers or the stairs of doom but during SXSW, those achievements just take me away from the partying crowd.

Why FourSquare Wins

As much as I like both services, I found myself leaning towards the more useful service as the conference and parties progressed. By the latter half of the interactive conference, I found myself relying exclusively on FourSquare to plan my social calendar and using Gowalla only if I stepped in a new venue that I wanted to check off on my digital passport. While I’m sure both apps will iterate with more changes in the weeks to come, I definitely made a better use of my time in Austin with the help of the FourSquare app.

Although it is still unclear which service will ultimately come out on top in the overall category, FourSquare clearly was the sociable winner this past week. Not only did it help bring together my group of friends with ease at SXSWi, it did for many groups I’ve talked to as well. For those that prefer Gowalla’s virtual items and stamps, I’d be interested to know if personal trophies/checklists outweigh the social friend-finder aspect for you. Just because the check-ins equal in number doesn’t necessarily mean they are both good at bringing crowds together. Then again, we don’t all play these games for the same reasons but that’s why competition and uniqueness is good.

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the Air.

But the other four Balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.

How?

Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.

Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.

Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless.

Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.

Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. It is this fragile thread that binds us to each together.

Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find time. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings!

Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.

Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.

Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.

Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way…

By: Bryan Dyson

As entrepreneurs, we are often caught up in our own tunnel of success. Having outsiders play devil’s advocate, passing knowledge or simply reminding you of common sense can often save you valuable time and pointless tangents. Also, if you are not a programmer/designer – chances are someone you know is and their higher standards will force you to do better than the half-assed attempt you hacked yourself at 3am.

If you’re currently working 60 to 160 hours a week on your NEXT BIG THING, take a moment to go find a group of people you trust and get their opinion on where you are. See if they understand your value proposition, your UI, your marketing materials, etc. If your startup doesn’t pass the most basic of smell tests – chances are you are letting your emotions drive this thing and it’s leading you down the path of the dark side.

Our last major discovery was that ugly text-ads actually garner many more clicks and a much better CTR than the image/text ad combo – almost 100% better in fact. However, after our latest website redesign, it seems like what we had learned was reset. So back to square one again…

Two months ago, our agency introduced us to YieldBuild and said because we ADORE testing, it was something we should look into. I must admit, while the scientist in me was intrigued, the service looked shady. Unfortunately, scouring the webmaster forums did not reveal much information – at least not many positive ones. My main concern was I did not want our ad accounts banned as a result of using this service and I was reassured by the agency that no permanent damage would be done. So while we were reluctant… we moved forward.

So far so good.

We’ve been working with YieldBuild for the past two months and I am proud to say that our tests have yielded positive results. We are seeing about a 30-50% lift in daily revenue and the results have been pretty consistent. What I like about the service is that they mix new colors and ad sizes into existing placements with combinations I had not previously thought of. While some of the placements may not make visual sense, I can’t deny its results. Below are the colors they are currently testing for me on EasyAutoSales.com – it certainly contains a lot more variety than my two original palette choices.

In addition to Google AdSense, YieldBuild also works with ValueClick, Chitika, Yahoo! and Advertising.com. However, if these ancillary networks did not work for you before, it seems like no amount of magic algorithms will change that. Your mileage may vary – and if they do, PLEASE let us know below.

Overall, we are very happy with this service. At the time of our usage, it’s still free to use though I have no idea what their future plans are. If you run ads on your website, I would definitely recommend you give them a shot to see if they can boost your bottom line.

Unfortunately, I found out S3 buckets cannot be deleted when there are files inside it. Also, if you have a few hundred thousand files in a bucket, trying to list those files will crash most if not all UI based S3 tools that have a limit of listing only 1,000 files at one time.

I tried accessing the buckets using Bucket Explorer, S3Hub, S3Fox, and even some command line tools but all of them crashed while trying to retrieve the files. That was certainly NOT good news. After doing some more digging, I found a script called S3Nuke – and this ladies and gentlemen, is the magic broom that can help sweep away the waste.

With the help from a friend, we setup S3Nuke and ran 50 concurrent threads to clear out the unused bucket. It took about 3-4 hours on a wifi connection to list and delete roughly 3 million files – yeah, that number was a surprise to us as well. Considering other methods would have probably taken days or weeks if they worked without crashing, S3Nuke did an AMAZING job.

Although S3 is really cheap and it’s one of the best options out there for cloud storage, every little bit does add up over time. Amazon makes its money from holding onto these files and they certainly have no plans to make it easy for you to delete them. Whether you use S3 for remote backup or for your e-commerce site, make sure you keep your usage in check so you don’t end up paying the stupid tax. (Like we did)

5. Pay for Quality

Like most web based startups with no connections or money, we originally started out by outsourcing our idea to developers far far away. In 2009, we added a few features and we decided to invest in local talent and pay for quality instead of revisiting old headaches. While our wallets certainly did not enjoy the experience, it was refreshing to get things done right the first time and ahead of schedule. If time is of the essence and you know your service will sell – investing in quality is one of the best things you can do to move things (and morale) forward.

4. Get Out There!

The amount of events in Atlanta catering to developers, social media and startups is getting ridiculous! (Be careful what you wish for, right?) Unfortunately this means one cannot make it to every event if one is to actually be productive. However, the few times I did make it out to contribute to the community or to be social have always paid off. If you’re working on your next big idea, make sure you get out there and talk to people – it will end up saving you a LOT of time. Whether they have connections they can introduce you to to speed things up or they’ll offer a perspective that will shut you down, either way, it’s worth the trip.

3. Embrace Uncomfortable

EasyAutoSales hummed along for over a year before we saw our first major change in objectives. We didn’t get smarter. We didn’t get a lucky break. All that really happened was that I ran out of money. Once the runway ended and we got on our credit cards’ shit list, it was basically fly or fail. Since I do this gig full-time, we basically had hours or days to fix what wasn’t working and it was through a number of these iterations we soon realized that our original dream of offering a free service was simply not going to cut it.

For those of you who are struggling with getting your idea off the ground, I highly recommend you try eating your own dog food. Until you hit rock bottom and are forced to be creative, you simply won’t think outside of the box and do what’s necessary to make things work. I know it sounds scary but I’m pretty sure that’s the point.

2. Screen Your Candidates, Vet Your Hires

I think one of my biggest takeaways from 2009 is that I really need to get a better grasp on the qualities of a great entrepreneur, and bring them onboard. Hiring people from successful exits is almost a no-brainer but unless your idea is TRULY amazing, those stars are hard to grab. One of the things I’m seeing locally is that startups tend to hire young and they tend to work on it part-time for a really, really long time. What we really should be doing is finding experienced entrepreneurs with money and connections and make them join our team. While having mentors is decent, I don’t think they’re sufficient. Offering advice is easy… but rarely do they produce results. Convincing your would-be mentors to eat your dog food and make it better will produce a lot more genuine effort and hopefully positive results.

1. TRUST Your Gut

My biggest takeaway from 2009 is to simply trust yourself. When you have to wear many hats at the same time, you don’t have time to weigh pros/cons for every decision – sometimes you just have to trust your common sense, do it, and see what happens.

In my case, I’ve known for a long while that some members of my team were just not startup material and having them around would do more harm than good. Whether they joined for the wrong reason or were simply not ready for the lifestyle, my gut was telling me that I really need to just let them go if we wanted to move forward. Due to existing relationships, what was originally a problem I could have nipped in the bud, turned out to be a 8 month babysitting exercise that ultimately, negatively affected various aspects of our service. In the end, I did get what I wanted and if anything, we’re more efficient now with less people than we were with more bodies. My only regret was not trusting my gut and making those executive calls earlier on – it’s surely a mistake I won’t be repeating in 2010.

What were some of your biggest lessons learned from 2009? Please DO share them below.

With that said, we simply have not found a purpose for tracking, reporting and sharing all of this great data after two years of direct measurement. Ultimately the data can be useful for media buyers but to be honest, I don’t think media buyers are using this information when they are contacting us. Furthermore, with AdSense doing so well in terms of its eCPM’s in the automotive vertical, I have not yet found an ad network or direct buyer who has used this information and tell me they can pay me a better rate by doing a better job of targeting our users.

As much as I love pretty graphs, there’s simply no reason for Quantcast to be here.

Here are some issues we’re seeing.

• We want to track and provide accurate stats but our competitors do not. Therefore, the best way to compare apples to apples is to simply stop tracking so we can all be on the same page/lie.
• Having all the data available publicly is great – but if your stats aren’t up to par, you may be terminating a lot of opportunities you didn’t even know existed. If you aren’t broadcasting your stats, potential advertisers may at least drop you a line to ask for them.
• Quantcast reports on your sub-domains separately. If you’re not an advanced user, your development environment URL may sometimes get broadcasted into the wild without your knowledge. That’s just bad…
• With Google now rumored to add site speed into its algorithm to determine who they favor in search results, Quantcast becomes an unnecessary ping. Though slightly less accurate, ultimately you can still get the same set of demographics and related sites data even if you aren’t “quantified.” I already have Google Analytics for internal tracking so why do I really need Quantcasts’ version?

So with that, we have now jumped off the Quantcast direct measurement train. While I love analytics and firmly believe you cannot make good calls without diving deep into the stats – Quantcast has always been more for the outsiders than our internal team. Perhaps all of this will work out one day when everyone decides to share… in the meantime, we are closing the doors on our buffet of stats.

However, did Apple do developers (and themselves) a favor by omitting the camera for this launch? Possibly… here are some thoughts:

1. The iPad launched with iTunes, the App Store, and a new iBooks store – all for the purpose of selling media to the general public.
2. Many publishers are eager to get on this train and many feel confident they can begin charging for content now that users will be consuming on this mobile device.
3. By making the iPad’s price low enough for the general public and the UI simple to understand, Apple may hope to attract a new target market; older people with disposable income who like to read print newspapers, books and print magazines.
4. Adding a camera or two would have increased the cost of production – and having the camera would have distracted users from opening their wallets and buying electronic media.
5. By omitting the camera, Apple may push some of the gadget geeks who already own iPhones and iPod Touches towards version 2 of the iPad. In the meantime, new iPad owners and users new to Apple products would need to stock up on new paid apps instead of syncing already paid for apps from their other Apple mobile devices. All great news for the bottom line!

Ultimately, the iPad is meant to be a secondary family device with its primary purpose used for consuming paid media. With no multi-tasking or a camera to distract users from video conferencing, taking pictures or making short movies; users are only left with the option to browse the stores and to buy stuff from them. (This is a page out of Zynga/Farmville’s business plan: design something lackluster so that users can fix/patch the problem by adding money to make it more interesting.)

While the hardware may be a disappointment for many of the Mac fanbois and gadget geeks, iPhone/iPad developers may certainly benefit by selling more apps and making more money. Perhaps once Jobs can prove that a marketplace within the walled garden is better than its competitors, it will open up other features to promote new types of apps.

What do you think? As a developer, does the new iPad make you more eager to want to tap into this market?

Like many things on my plate, this blog is a work in progress. However, I felt that change was necessary in order to communicate all the things I’ve learned in the last two years in start-up life and otherwise.

If you’re still looking to get the dirt of a struggling start-up, no worries, a lot of that unfiltered, raw content will still be here. In fact, I’m hoping to do a post really soon about some of the biggest lessons learned in 2009 – I just hope it’s done in Q1 of 2010!

More to come…

Last week I hosted Ignition Alley’s first Lunch and Learn for Atlanta web-masters. While there are some skeptics of websites winning with advertising, the truth is many people are doing it and they’re making a decent living running commerce sites and serving ads against topics you care enough to search for.

With Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs no longer holding meetings, the Webmasters’ Lunch and Learn is what I hope would be the first in a series of workshops dedicated to tackling specific problems that many in the area are facing with their various ventures. After all, Ignition Alley has a VERY nice conference room and for the most part it sits unused.

After speaking with a number of local web-masters many of whom have different focuses but ultimately the same goal, I decided that optimizing for revenue would be a great start to get some of the more successful web masters together. The most valuable thing I got out of the day was the ability to compare notes and gauge if I’m operating efficiently. Luckily I was in the ballpark.

I must confess, I hosted the event in hopes of finding an alternative that would make AdSense less relevant for me – unfortunately that was not my takeaway. However, our discussions did ping a number of relevant subjects including: ad testing, traffic building, various optimization tools and a long list of worthless networks that web masters in general should just ignore.

With 20 weekdays in a month, I’m hoping more Lunch and Learn sessions will pop up at the Alley. It would be nice to see advanced discussions on various topics such as e-commerce, shopping funnel, analytics, web design, SEO, SEM, social media, site speed optimization, etc.

What are some of the issues you would like to compared notes on or see tackled?

If you are a start-up in the Southeast seeking funding, co-founders, recognition or just want to launch your new service, you should apply to present at this event. The hardest part of the application is selling your vision with 4 slides and a 3 minute video – but if you can’t do that, the idea is probably too complicated anyway.

This year the keynote speaker will be Bo Peabody, co-founder of Village Ventures and previous co-founder of Tripod.com. Bo also wrote a book, Lucky Or Smart?: Fifty Pages for the First-Time Entrepreneur, that details his experiences as an entrepreneur.

Robert Scoble will also be attending Startup Riot to provide some coverage of the event.

Oh, did you know that the crowd favorite of the day will also win at least $1,000 in cash prizes? Pretty cool huh?

If you are doing a start-up or would like to see what up and coming entrepreneurs are up to in the Southeast, make sure you sign up for this event!

1. Create a blog or service-website catered to a niche
2. Make it free so you can build users
3. Setup some ads and affiliate programs
4. ???
5. PROFIT!

If your current venture relies on ad revenue as its primary source of income and you are actually doing well, we would like to hear from you! I am getting a group of webmasters together in the very near future to share some best practices from our personal experiences. Amongst the topics we will try to cover:

• Best ways to get more traffic. (SEO, articles, etc.)
• Does SEM make sense for us.
• Ways to optimize our ads on the site for better performance.
• Affiliate programs that work
• Alternative ad networks that work
• Tips on selling ads directly or through a service.

If you are interested, please leave a comment below or ping me on Twitter.

An experienced, entrepreneurial plumber who starts their own business probably only thinks about the 100% commission they get to keep vs. the 20 or 30% they make from working for someone else. What they fail to realize is that to be their own boss, they also need to be a great marketer, great accountant and to keep a cool head with very little sleep. To be honest, sometimes I wonder if the 70 or 80% tax on your income is a fair price for that safety net and to know you don’t have to worry about anything else besides what you’re great at.

TechDrawl recently posted a great video interview with two of Atlanta’s entrepreneurs. While we may all start a little differently and for different reasons, the lessons we all learn from failure are surprisingly very similar. If you like the video below, make sure you check out the TechDrawl blog for more similar content.

Sink or Swim – Josh Watts & Loren Norman from Producer Celia Dyer-TechDrawl.

For those of you who read this blog and have no idea what BackNoise is, it’s basically a service that hosts localized chat channels that allow participants to pass notes and share ideas – similar to the paper notes we used to pass back in middle school and high school during class.  Although the website states you can create conversations on the fly to talk about TV shows, meetings and class, I’ve only seen this mole pop up during Atlanta social media conferences and events.

In my experience, BackNoise for the most part have been used for snark (evil) and it has been labeled as the “dark side” of discussions at IgniteATL and created disruptions such as group/room level rick-rolling at Startup Riot 2009.  More recently, at New Media Atlanta which I did not attend, it sparked this post by Stacy Williams who stated that BackNoise comments can be toxic and ruin an otherwise well planned event.

While I commend Stacy on her blog post calling out BackNoise, and Keith McGreggor’s willingness to patch the service based on user feedback, I can’t help but feel that something just feels wrong here in how the two sides are addressing the situation.

Social Media has always been about giving people the power to challenge traditional ways of broadcast messaging. As we are all learning, just because Joe Wilson calls the President a liar, it doesn’t mean Joe Smoe from elsewhere can’t quickly look up real facts about the issue, make a blog post to challenge the statement and make that post popular through Digg or other social sharing services.  Knowing you have the power and the ability to speak up in a world of 6 billion people is a good thing – it stops us from accepting whatever is presented to us without ever challenging it. This is how science started… but I digress.

I don’t claim to know Keith’s original intentions with BackNoise but with the inability to search for channels, the ability to stay anonymous, and a name like BackNoise; one can only assume that this service was meant for the “cool kids” who have learned about this underground chat room through previous interactions.  The problem with BackNoise is not that it needs more features or more filtering. In fact, I’m sure one of the most hated features for its regular users is the buzzkill feature.  The problem with BackNoise is that it should have never been publicly broadcasted to let everyone know of its existence because the service is not meant for everyone.

For those in the social media scene who goes to or have been to almost every event that is hosted in the Atlanta area, BackNoise allows for many of our ID’s to come out and play and speak what we’re thinking internally.  While it’s important to network and reestablish old contacts, let’s face it, many of the conferences here repeat the same subjects with little or no new information – at least not for the people who make regular appearances at these social events.

If you work for a large corporate company and they paid for your attendance to NMATL, then BackNoise is not for you. Go sign up for Twitter, follow the hashtag and start marking useful tweets as favorites for a later followup.  If you’re learning new ideas and want to apply it to your job, BackNoise is not for you. Again, you can start following people on Twitter and make notes who you want to network with and build up those relationships.  On the other hand, if you’ve already heard the same schpeel over and over and need to pass the time because you paid for an event but don’t want to sleep through it, then BackNoise may be for you; and that IS who BackNoise is for.  Yes, more often than not the commends are mean, lewd and disrespectful but on BackNoise, we’re all friends here.

Paul Freet said it best when he made the comment

“…in my experience, the quantity and tastelessness of the Backnoise is indirectly related to the quality of the speaker/presentation. Want a better reception? Don’t bore your audience.”

I too have found this to be the case.  For those of us who have been to a few meetings on similar topics, we can easily spot a great presentation with information we need to digest.  If you’re teaching us something new, the regulars will pay attention and minimize the snark.  If we don’t learn anything new, don’t blame us for drifting into something more interesting.

From Linda Farley who made the comment…

“Although I am immersed in technology, I do not believe most people can listen and learn well while texting, tweeting, surfing, doing email, etc.

Too bad these negative audience members actually chose to pay to have an opportunity to attack others.”

I agree with you 100%!  Maybe kids these days can multi-task by doing homework, listening to music while texting and playing video games, but most of us can’t.  When I’m reading BackNoise or Twitter, I’m not paying attention to the speaker as much as I should but there’s a reason for that – I probably already know what’s being covered.  However, please know that many of us who attend these events (repeatedly) are trying to show support for the community, not to make it worse.

Finally, Carol Flammer made this comment in her reply to Stacy’s blog post.

“Backnoise was definitely a bit unnerving for me as a speaker. And, I’m sure I will mispronounce Kayne’s name again!!! I don’t know why, but when I see it is writing I always mispronounce it! It looks like Cane or Cayenne to me. Besides that, anyone who knows me knows I’m not much for the bling bling of the stars, I just don’t keep up with actors, singers, sports figures, etc.

Backnoise did an excellent job of demonstrating my point about the 2% who will NEVER be happy no matter what you do. These unhappy Joes can take charge of or ruin your reputation.”

First off, I will admit that I too called Kanye “Cayenne” as recent as the VMA’s.  As a person who apparently also has a hard-to-sound-out one-syllable name (WEI), and have had Starbucks spell my name in 20 different ways except the correct one (i.e. whey, wade, wayne, way, wee, wii, walt, wie, wang and so on…), I should have known better.  Thankfully with a few jokingly jabs from my wife and a constant reminder of the mistake, my pronunciation of Kanye has been corrected.  However, back to the above comment, I don’t see how your poor excuse and unwillingness to fix your problem is any worse than whatever was said on BackNoise.

As a minority who moved to the states from another country, I’ve already had to learn your ENTIRE language on top of our own.  While our names may not be Bill, Michael or Mary, they are meaningful and beautiful in our native language and I’m pretty sure my parents spent time picking out the perfect name to maintain what is our culture.  It really disgusts me when people try to sell me stuff or ask for help when they don’t even have the courtesy to get my name right.  For Kanye’s outburst, he apparently has a problem/demon large enough to warrant rehab.  What’s your excuse for the above?  Laziness?  To claim ignorance cause you’re not into “bling bling” or keep up with “singers or athletes” is simply not acceptable – had I been at NMATL, I probably would have joined the mob in highlighting the error.  As a public speaker, if you’re going to address anyone by name, you should take the 10 seconds to learn their name and get it right.  What would we think of President Obama if he’s constantly “axe-ing” the country for support instead of “asking” us for support? It’s pretty much the same thing.

So yes, BackNoise may be crude and brutally honest but sometimes that is necessary.  Sure, there will be nonconstructive comments at times… but beyond the useless comments, there are usually some diamonds in the ruff.  There have been many times I wish people would tell me the brutal truth whether anonymously or in my face.  If it’s more truthful being anonymous, I’ll gladly take it in that format (provided you know what it is that we’re trying to do). Atlanta can be way too nice hiding behind its polite and proper ways. However, if BackNoise is what’s needed to get the dirrrrrty south out in the open, I welcome the brutal honesty and frankly don’t think anything about it should be changed.

As confident, well-spoken speakers, you should not have to fear any criticisms.  Public feedback whether useful, tasteful, or otherwise will only increase with time when services like Twitter and BackNoise make it easy to do so.  If nothing else, take a page from celebrities and keep a healthy attitude when reading your own reviews (or don’t read them at all).

• Leaderboard banners can have great click-through rates or terrible ones depending on where the placement is. In version 2, we placed the banner within the main content area and received great CTR’s. In the current version, it is blended in with the background and placed outside the main content area (visually); the CTR’s are terrible.
• 160×600 banners perform better than 120×600 banners.
• However, ads isn’t the only story. Improved visual design does bring a number of positive changes including more page views per session and longer session times.
• Unfortunately this could potentially mean good content is competing directly against good ad CTR. The cure may be to focus on selling CPM ads instead of CPA or CPC ads.