It’s all in the little orange button in this pic (click to see bigger):

I’ve tried it live. You click the button, throw a search term into the box, and pow, out comes video options from multiple platforms, including YouTube, Blip, etc, etc. Tons. Want a photo? They’re integrated with Flickr. ( Not sure how it handles Creative Commons issues, now that I think about it, but that’s fixable, if not already on board). I think more photo integrations come next.

So, imagine this: you’re writing your blog post, decide you want a recent video of Obama talking about economic issues. Search, select, click embed, and pow. All done inline. I think it’s cool. Oh, and if you want to record video on the fly, there’s an inline tool that lets you do that, too. No jumping off the page. Just works right there, on site.

I saw this quote from Anil Dash from SixApart in the Press Release:

“Bloggers in our Movable Type community have consistently told us that their readers respond to posts with relevant videos and photos, so we’re always looking for ways to make rich media easier to find and share” said Six Apart’s Anil Dash. “Magnify Publisher makes that process extremely easy, providing an integrated application that lets bloggers discover, share or even create multimedia content right from within the familiar Movable Type interface.”

Friends of mine, like Justin and Eric from GimpTV really swear by Movable Type as a publishing platform, and because they’re video guys, maybe this works out even better for them. Me? I’m a WordPress user, and Steve Rosenbaum told me they’re pretty much ready to go with the same tool for WordPress, so I’m looking forward to getting that up and running on my site.

Nothing specific is up on the site yet, or I missed it, but hey, swing by Magnify.net and look for yourself. Say hi to Steve for me.

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ALSO, I’m hosting a breakfast briefing at the show about Social Media, so it’s your chance to hang out and talk social media (that’s on the morning of the 22nd at the Rock Financial Showplace).

Finally, I’d love to take part in a Tweetup on either Tuesday night (the 20th) or Wednesday night (the 21st). If you’re local, pick the place (somewhere not so fancy, where we can get a beverage or 2, where we can hear each other a little), and let us know. And tweet the hell out of it.

So who’s in? If you’re coming to the event, just click the links above, register, and you can pick your badge up at the show. If you’re doing the tweetup, cool. Just make sure you keep watching Twitter.

See you in Rock City.

Screen caps made with Skitch

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• I count on Twitter for group answers. A LOT. For instance, I needed to know who from the social media scene was in Detroit. I ended up using LinkedIn, but I know that means I missed a bunch of folks.
• I count on Twitter as a way to express quick, random thoughts, or to mention references to cultural items to which I know people will respond. (For instance, I like tweeting parts of song lyrics, because it’s fun when people pick the song up as a reply).
• I use Twitter to promote other people. While I was dark, I got no less than 14 requests to promote fundraising causes, and 12 general promotion requests.
• I use Twitter to promote myself, my blog, things I’m doing.

A day without Twitter didn’t give me more time to write. It gave me fewer distractions, but I don’t sit around and LABOR on Twitter when I write something. Often times, I can just jot something from my mobile in between meetings, or I pop the window open, reply to a few folks, and then go back to my work. Meaning, I don’t find Twitter to be a time suck to me.

I’m wondering if I should try my “a day without” on other services, like email, or my BlackBerry.

Have you tried things like this? What would you lose if you didn’t have Twitter?

Photo Credit, Zed.Cat

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I’m a little behind commenting on this, but I really have to publicly thank you Chris for letting me tackle this with you.

As everyone has already acknowledged, the wealth of information you’ve managed to put out in the past year is not only valuable, it’s inspiring. The content you put out is thoughtful, thorough, and always a step ahead. You successfully balance honesty with analysis, humor with opinion, and quality with quantity.

Even though I was a frequent reader of this blog prior to the assignment, it wasn’t until I spent hours trying to archive your posts, knee deep in links and trackbacks that I really grasped the magic you have going on here.

On average, you blogged more than 50 posts a month, sometimes updating as frequently as 3 or 4 times a day. In addition to your content, you also managed to develop an impressive readership - a community of dynamic, creative, and articulate individuals who all do what you preach: think, participate, and communicate. Did you know that out of the 528 posts I read through, the average post had at least 13 comments? Only 6% of your posts had 0 and these entries were audio based posts via Utterz or some other service where comments were posted externally.

I haven’t told you this yet, but I actually printed out the 22 page excel sheet I generated listing every single blogpost on here. Not only is it a visual reference I look at when I want to quickly find a post, it is a daily reminder of lessons I learned from you and this site:

1. Be passionate. Social media is constantly evolving and folks move fast in this world. It’s exhausting trying to keep up, but only those who really love it can.

2. Be a sponge. Read and learn from anything and everyone and constantly seek out new sources of information and opinion. Ask questions.

3. Be a creator of quality content. Whether its blogging, vlogging, podcasting, programming, etc. producing content is key. It’s one thing to observe and talk about social media. It’s another thing to actually make it, live it, breath it.

4. Be a person. Yeah chrisbrogan.com is IMO the #1 source for all things social media, but it’s also a great resource for how to be a listener and well-rounded human being. There are some great posts about family, friends, and balancing work/play and professional/personal time. We all have to unplug sometimes.

5. Participate online and offline. It’s not enough to develop surface connections with people via urls, friend requests, and email. Make the effort to meet someone face to face and converse in real time.

There’s more I can add to this list, but these are really the big picture ideas that are embedded in my head after reading your blog.

To any aspiring rockstars looking to stay afloat in social media waters, this site is the golden life preserver.

Thanks again Chris.

-Alexa

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As the aggregation space heats up, I’m excited that Drew, Adam, and the rest of the team are coming up with interesting new ideas at ReadBurner, and I wish them well.

What do you think? And who’s going to come out with smart filtering first?

Screen caps made with Skitch

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Social media is a pulse-driven network of fast. The problem becomes learning how to sort and synthesize what’s important instead of just reading everything that comes along. Are you learning?

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.

Photo credit, la cola di mi perro

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In social media, the tools aren’t the same thing as reaching a goal. If you’re a marketer looking to use these tools, then make the first goal to learn how the community moves, listen to its ebbs and flows, and then make the next goal to try starting conversations. But don’t stop there. What’s the real goal? What’s your real target? Growing sales? Building leads? Engaging more people in your nonprofit cause?

I have been doing this exercise for days in different forms, but not with this language in mind. Think about this in Trump’s words. If you’re seeking to hit a target, is the goal to use a dart or an arrow or a bullet, or is it to improve your accuracy, or is it simply to hit the bullseye? The answer is C, even though A and B are part of the equation. Make sense?

I’m thinking long and hard on which social media tools do what for my own business goals, and how this will impact what I advise people to do next. Do the tools have impact? Definitely. See the Financial Aid Podcast and Wine Library TV for two small business examples. See Direct2Dell for another example. See tons more examples in between.

But the chatter, the conversation for conversation’s sake? It’s fine and I don’t begrudge people using the tools for social conversation (enhanced beyond standard email). And yet, I’m assessing which parts do the most for me. What about you?

Here’s an Amazon link to the book:

Photo credit by uuuhyeah

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Kirtsy is a site where women point out the cool stuff. Is that simple enough? There’s obviously a lot more at play here, but after looking around the site, I think you’ll figure it out pretty quickly, as well, and so I won’t dig in too deeply.

What I will say, however, is that Kirtsy has some neat features (the mix of editing and voting, for one), a nice design, and has a lot to offer women looking for information on a whole host of subjects, including family, design, travel, mind and body, and more.

Give Kirtsy a look-see, and let me know what you think-see.

Screen caps made with Skitch

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To that end, I’ve collected some links to the posts that I think might be helpful to you. Peruse these at your leisure. I’ve grouped them a bit for you. Feel free to pick and choose the topics that matter to you. I hope this proves helpful. If it does, please consider blogging a link to this post, and/or feel free to pass it on to any who might want more of this type of information.

There’s a lot here. Feel free to bookmark it for later. (And if you want even more to read, sign up for my free newsletter, which is even MORE original content.)

Thanks!

Community Development

• Understanding Community Development Strategies
• Ways to Disrupt a Community
• Why Do Community Development
• Should Your Small Business Use Community Tools
• The Long Tail of Community
• If Communitites Are Just Marketing Pools
• The Magic of Including People
• Meeting People at Events
• The Community Play
• The Community Ecosystem
• How Blogs Improve Customer Service and Product Development

Social Networks

• Three Things LinkedIN Does Better than Facebook
• How I Use Facebook
• Things To Do on Facebook
• Facebook - Let Me See My Friends
• Fix Your Facebook Profile Now
• Facebook and the Social Graph - Who Benefits
• Five Things to Do on LInkedIN
• Considering Social Etiquette
• Social Networks are Your Local Pub
• Why Join Another Social Network
• Marketers in a Social Network World
• Real Live Human Social Networking
• Social in Real Space vs. Social Networking
• Making Social Networks Work
• Improve Your Social Network
• The Importance of a Human Social Network
• Three Untapped Values of Social Networks
• Five Things to Do at a Social Networking Meetup

Social Media

• Social Media Starter Pack
• A Basic Social Media Strategy
• My Social Media Toolkit
• A Sample Social Media Toolkit
• Participation- The Key to Social Media
• Social Media - Talk is Cheap for Businesses
• How Big Companies could Use Social Media
• Social Media Inside the Firewall
• Social Media Power Secret - Listening
• Small Businesses And Social Media
• Social Media is a Set Not a Part
• Social Media for Your Career
• Help Someone Understand Social Media
• Social Media as Personal Power
• Snake Oil in Social Media
• Using Social Media to Meet People
• Social Media Starter Moves for Entertainers
• Social Media Starter Moves for Real Estate
• Social Media Starter Moves for Freelancers

Twitter

• How I Use Twitter
• Deeper Twitter - Tuning Twitter for Value
• Newbies Guide to Twitter
• Twitter as Directors Commentary
• Twitter as an Advisory Board

Personal Branding

• The Power of Personal Leadership
• Slicing Time in a Face to Face Environment
• Brand Stories
• Some Quick Branding Tips for Individuals
• The foundations of Your Power
• Personal Scalability
• Personal Branding and Social Media
• Passion Drives Personal Brand
• Elements of a Personal Brand
• Challenges of Social Media Types in the Workplace
• The Value of Networks
• Scaling Yourself

Making Media

• Why Create Personal Media
• Whats Your Social Media Strategy
• Media Makers Next Steps
• Blogging Advice for the Next Level
• Expand Your Audience
• The Future of Microcontent and Hperlocal Media
• Why Bother Blogging Podcasting and Using Social Networks
• Consider Your Media-as-Business Strategy
• Marketing Media Means Moments That Matter
• Using Social Sharing to Extend Your Message
• Performance and Your Audience - Blogging Tips
• Advice for Traditional and Local News Media
• Tagging and Metadata and Why Bother
• A Sunday Newspaper Strategy for Traditional Companies
• Promoting Your Media
• The Power of Links
• 20 Blogging Projects for You
• Succeeding in Independent Online Media
• Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today
• Keeping the Blogging Fires Burning
• 100 Blog topics I hope YOU Write
• 100 PodCamp Topics for You to Cover

I’m writing new stuff all the time at [chrisbrogan.com]. If you’re reading this for the first time, please consider subscribing for free. If you’re a subscriber, don’t forget to get the completely-different content published at least twice a month in my newsletter. And thanks for your attention and time.

Special thanks to Alexa Scordato for compiling this data on my behalf. It was a lot of work. Thanks!

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Early Adopters: Advertising, PR and Marketing

First to market with actual paying jobs in social media are public relations and marketing firms. Why? Because if you squint your eyes, the tools are the same thing: a means for communicating professionally. Is that wrong? I don’t think so, provided we don’t lose ground with regards to how these new tools re-humanize technology-assisted communication.

Using social media for “viral” advertising is popular, but mostly because it’s low-cost, low-barrier technology that permits folks to get a message across through different channels. Will that last? I can’t see why we’d go back to $100,000 spots, when we can create the media and distribute it for free, especially where the world is shifting to those free methods, too.

Business Users

I’m not sure what department an internal corporate social media practitioner would fall into. Project management makes sense, because inside the firewall, these tools facilitate collaboration, status messages, data sharing, and other uses that would work well for facilitating projects. Product management and R&D might adopt the tools as well, but there probably wouldn’t be a pre-defined role for someone who simply knows how to use the tools.

Comparing the Two Most Likely Businesses

On one side, we have obvious jobs: PR, marketing, advertising. On the other, we have a potential role for daring companies, or a more likely future of an adoption of the tools by several people after receiving training from a more expert user. So, there are two options.

Which makes more sense? On one side, you have a mountain of communications companies hoping to adapt quickly. On the other side, you have businesses who aren’t as motivated to change their internal processes. But will there be a point where businesses take back their external arms for outreach to their customers? In a world where companies talk directly to their customers, the media, and prospects, will the business of communications go in-house?

Not Necessarily a Primary Business

We’re all jumping up and down and excited about social media and what these tools can do for us. WHAT, exactly, do these tools do for us that translates into a business directly? My answer: for lots of people, they don’t.

Looking for a career in social media would be like seeking a career in email. Instead, use these skills to cultivate another ability of yours. If you’re a salesperson, use social media tools to build leads, understand need, get the word out about your products. If you’re a nonprofit professional, you’ve already figured this out, and use these tools to aid in awareness, fundraising, communication, and more.

Instead of focusing on how these tools will become a career, focus on how you can equip others with these tools. THAT, I believe, is the business, in the short term. But even that will be the short term.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? What’s your take?

Photo credit, Greg Westfall

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.

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