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Motrin Faces Twitter Headache Over New Video Campaign

2008-11-16T20:10:04Z

Whenever I counsel clients about the use of social media, I always advise they speak to their target audience and figure out what messaging (and channel) would appeal to them.

I’m not sure if the manufacturer of Motrin followed that advice, but judging by the enormous backlash the company is facing over it’s new Motrin “Mom-Alogue” video, I suspect they didn’t speak to a single mother (at least, they didn’t speak to any that use Twitter).

Taking a look at the negative Twitter conversations surrounding #motrinmom demonstrates that Motrin is, in just a few short hours, facing a huge reputation disaster–initiated by the very audience Motrin hoped to target, “Mama Bloggers.”

Just look how fast this online reputation crisis came to a boil:

Now, it’s possible that there are many mothers that find the ad to be fun and light-hearted, but they’re the vocal minority–heavily out-voiced by those that took offense at the video.

What should Motrin do now? Perhaps follow my 3 steps for apologizing: be sincere, be transparent, and be consistent. Motrin needs to quickly apologize–before this reaches the mainstream media–and then do some damage control–perhaps find the most vocal detractors and bring them on board to quickly story-board an alternative video.

What can the rest of us learn from this? Never assume you know your target audience. Never assume that just because you’ve created something “viral” that the sentiment will always be positive. And, always build your social media campaign with some input from those who represent ALL your target audience.

(Thanks to NextInstinct for the tip)

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free!

The Alphabet

2008-11-16T14:00:07Z

Graph by Joe

Twitter as Dinner Conversation: A Guide to Using Replies

2008-11-16T13:03:02Z

In this post Chuck Westbrook (follow him @cwestbrook) looks uses the analogy of Dinner Conversation to explain the basics of different types of communication on Twitter. Image by Thomas Hawk

Twitter is a lot like a dinner with a large group of friends at a big table in a busy restaurant. Everyone is chatting, there’s a lot being said, and if you’re not focused on a particular conversation, it sounds downright noisy. So just like a large group setting in real life, there are some conventions about how people tune in to listen and the most effective ways to be sociable.

Whispering: The Direct Message

Sending a direct message is like quietly chatting with the person next to you at the table. In group settings, we instinctively do this by leaning in closer when what we’re talking about is something that doesn’t really mesh with the conversation at large.

On Twitter, you should lean in with a direct message when the discussion is private or if it just won’t be of interest to others within earshot. This helps keep the noise to a minimum.

Talking Normally: An @ Reply to Begin the Tweet

Tweets that start with an @ reply are like overheard parts of a ongoing conversation at the table, bits of dialogue spoken in a normal speaking voice. In noisy conversations, we typically focus our attention and tune out these snippets when we’re not involved, and on Twitter, people do the same thing.

These Tweets will be overheard by some, but many people will just gloss over them, assuming that you are already engaged in a separate conversation. In fact, many people have set up their accounts so that they don’t even see messages that start with an @ reply unless they are directed to them specifically in an effort to reduce the noise level.

Beginning a message with an @ reply means that it will go unnoticed by many, but it’s a friendly way to talk with an individual while leaving open the possibility of someone overhearing you and joining in.

Telling Everyone: An @ Reply Inside of the Tweet

An @ reply anywhere other than the start of your message, on the other hand, is the equivalent of speaking up to share something interesting about that person with the entire group at the table. At social gatherings, we do this when someone nearby says something funny or if we hear news that needs to be passed along, for example.

People pay more attention to these because by following you they have indicated an interest in what you decide to share, so that makes it relevant to them. Use this option when you want to point your followers to something or someone they will find interesting or to promote something or someone. All of your followers will see it, and the person to which you are sending the @ reply will get far more attention as a result.

Good Manners

By keeping in mind the dynamics of a dinner conversation, it becomes easier to decide when and how to use each type of response on Twitter. Continuing with that analogy, what sort of bad tweeting manners have you witnessed? By contrast, who do you know that’s mastered these nuances to become a Twitter socialite?

Post from: TwiTip Twitter Tips

Twitter as Dinner Conversation: A Guide to Using Replies

The Right Numbers

2008-11-16T07:43:14Z

How many people do we really need in our circle? Dunbar says 150. Mitch says it’s time for intimacy 2.0. Kevin Kelly wants 1000 true fans.

Marketing is about reaching a number. Send 41,000 brochures and we’ll get 41 sales. Reach millions of views, and you’re successful like Fred.

Which of my numbers matter? My twitter follower count? My RSS subscribers? The number of monthly pageviews?

I’m grateful for all of those, but they aren’t what drive me.

From a business perspective, # of clients is a number. Revenue. Prospects to a lesser extent.
From a personal perspective, # of times I remember to reach out to the people I love.
From a family perspective, # of hours spent giving my family undivided attention.
From the community perspective, # of others I can help grow.

But let’s get back to the question of volume. Does it matter? Yes, in some cases. I sure want the book I’m writing with Julien Smith to sell 50,000 copies. It’d be great if it does.

Does it matter at a conference? Not to me. I’d much rather the right 300 than a massive 2,000. And my sponsors and exhibitors and attendees want that, too.

What are the right numbers for you? Which ones are you measuring? Which ones do you think really matter? And are those three the same?

Photo credit, Darren_CK

I'll miss you, Mr. Monk!

2008-11-15T21:19:49Z

Shared by Rob
bummer Monk will be ending next season

Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Programming, OpEd, Cancellations, Reality-Free

It's been a gift ... and a curse. But the brilliant, obsessive-compulsive detective known as Mr. Monk will be solving his last crime at the end of the eighth season next summer. With ratings still high on the USA Network, he's going out at the top of his game.

Monk is one of those shows that struck a chord with viewers, because we saw a little of ourselves in the phobic detective played brilliantly by Tony Shalhoub. Ok, so maybe we don't all iron our shoelaces and avoid doorknobs like ... well, like the plague. But like Monk, we've all got issues.

And like Monk, some of us have trouble getting out of our own way. For him, that meant losing his detective job with the San Francisco Police Department.

Continue reading I'll miss you, Mr. Monk!

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[video] Survivorman - Behind the Scenes

2008-11-13T14:57:00Z

"Les Stroud puts himself in the position of the stranded tourist in the unforgiving of the Amazon, the Kalahari Desert, and the Alaskan tundra. With nothing but his camera equipment and a few rudimentary tools, he'll show you what it takes to survive." -- iTunes Store

Download for Free!

Episode Summary
Local interviews, camera techniques and scouting uncover the reality of shooting 7 days alone in the wilderness around the world.

the fine print: Downloads posted on the Free iTunes Downloads blog are usually free for ~1 week. After that, you'll have to pay for them.

Barack Obama plans to post weekly YouTube address

2008-11-14T20:00:00Z

Filed under: Internet, Video, Social Software

For years, the president of the United States has delivered a weekly radio address to the nation. President-elect Barack Obama plans to be the first to videotape that weekly address and post it on YouTube.

The move shouldn't come as a huge surprise. The Obama campaign used new media tools like Twitter, YouTube, and text messaging as a key part of its effort over the past two years. But it's a bit silly to point out that Obama will be the first president to use YouTube in this way, as Obama's transition team is trying to do. The video sharing site didn't exist when President George W. Bush was running for office. So all it really means is that President Bush didn't use YouTube.

While Obama won't be sworn in as president until January, he has started to deliver the weekly Democratic Party radio address, which will also be videotaped and uploaded to YouTube and to Change.gov.

[via Mashable]

Barack Obama plans to post weekly YouTube address originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Swiss Chocolate Knife

2008-11-13T18:37:49Z

This delectable Swiss Chocolate Knife is made of the finest Swiss chocolate, and is filled with hazelnut praline. With its featured Victorinox Swiss Army logo, this fine confection is modeled after the Swiss Army Spartan multitool. LINK

Clemson interviews Lane Kiffen

2008-11-13T13:57:29Z

On the heels of reports that the Clemson Tigers have already interviewed Oklahoma DC Brent Venables, comes this little nugget buried in a story about interim head coach Dabo Swinney:

Last Friday, [Athletics director Terry Don] Phillips interviewed fired Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin in Detroit, a source close to Kiffin confirmed Wednesday.

So Kiffen, Venables, and Swinney are all in the mix at Clemson. AD Terry Don Phillips is personally conducting interviews - at least with those who are considered top candidates.

What say you, Tiger Nation? Does Lane Kiffen do anything for ya?

HT: Jeff @ Inside Charm City

View the original post or comment on Clemson interviews Lane Kiffen...

Longest Place Names

2008-11-13T13:25:42Z

“Can’t we just go to Å¹?” may be the cry of tourists visiting some of these locations with the longest place names in the world.

The north island of New Zealand is home to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapiki- maungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.

Generally called Taumata, the Maori name for this 305m high hill in it’s full form can be translated as The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one, though there are a number of other forms with different meanings.

In Wales we find the the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

Often shortened to Llanfair PG, the name was invented in the 1860s as a means to attract tourists and can be translated as St Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave. Wikipedia has a helpful guide to pronunciation should you wish to visit.

Massachusetts is home to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaug.

More commonly called Webster Lake, the name comes from the native Nipmuck language and means fishing place at the boundary, though again there are other forms with different meanings.

While the above are all names with a single word, the Guinness World Record for longest official name gives the title to the city of Bangkok: Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.

This translates as The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukam. More info at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Shea Marshall and Dave Lartigue.

Å is the shortest place name in the world, with quite a number of locations in Scandinavia using that name. ↩

Locations: Massachusetts, New Zealand, Thailand, Wales / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Weirdness

View in Google Earth

Are RSS Subscribers Worthwhile if they Don’t Visit Your Blog?

2008-11-13T14:04:28Z

“Why do bloggers put so much focus upon growing RSS subscriber numbers to their blog if most of them only ever read your content in Feed Readers and don’t visit your blog?”

This question (or variations of it) hit my inbox 3 times in 24 hours from different people so I thought I’d tackle it as a post instead of individual replies.

Let me start by saying that this problem can be frustrating. You see your RSS subscriber number growing by your actual visitor numbers remain steady - as do your comment numbers. It can actually feel like you’re wasting your time - I remember myself feeling kinda like this guy when I first noticed this happening to me:

Image by Sybren Stüvel

However all is not lost.

There are a number of points that I’d like to make in responding to this question about RSS subscribers not visiting a blog. I hope that they give those facing this problem a little hope, encouragement and also a few ways forward.

1. A subscriber that never visits is better than a one off visitor who never returns

I had one blogger recently tell me that he’d removed the option to subscribe to his blog via RSS from his blog because he didn’t want to ‘give away’ his content. He wanted people who read his content to ‘pay’ him by visiting his blog (and earning him money from his advertising) and he saw RSS subscribers as ‘freeloaders’.

My response to him was that I’d rather have a subscriber who rarely visits my actual blog than a one off visitors who never returns because they have no way of keeping in touch.

While a subscriber might not actually visit your blog they are a powerful connection to have. My reasons for this will hopefully become evident in the points that follow.

2. Every post you put in front of a subscriber is an opportunity to reinforce your brand.

RSS subscribers are opting in to receive your content. When they hit ’subscribe’ they are putting themselves inside your sphere of influence and are asking you to teach, inspire and communicate with them.

Each time you hit publish on a post and a subscriber sees something that you’ve written you have the potential to deepen the relationship, trust and influence that you have with your subscriber. While this might not have an immediate pay off in terms of advertising revenue - it can have a long term ‘pay off’.

3. RSS subscribers are Influencers

RSS is used by a smallish percentage of the population (around 11% at latest reports).

While the percentage may be smallish - I have a suspicion that they are a reasonably tech savvy and influential bunch of people. I’m guessing here - but I suspect that those who use RSS are also likely to have blogs themselves, they’re more likely to be into social networking, messaging and bookmarking tools.

This makes RSS readers a potentially very influential audience - capable of spreading news of your posts and blog throughout the web very quickly.

4. Making the Mind shift from Traffic to Influence

When I started blogging one of the main indicators that I looked at when measuring the success of my blog was traffic. If I had a day with lots of visitors I was happier than if I did not have anyone visit my blog.

While traffic is still important to me - I’ve noticed lately that I’m checking my visitor stats less than I used to. These days I’m increasingly interested in ‘influence’.

I don’t mind so much if someone reads my content on my blog, in an RSS reader or in some other tool - what matters to me is that people are reading it, that in doing so they interact with me, that they are drawn into some sort of ‘relationship’ or ‘community’ around the content.

My reason for this is that I’m finding that while traffic can be monetized directly - influence is actually a more powerful (and potentially profitable) thing. Let me explain more in my next point.

5. Influence can Lead to Profits

More and more bloggers are discovering that while direct income earners like advertising are great - that there’s also incredible potential for bloggers to earn an income through other more indirect income sources. Making money ‘because’ of a blog rather than directly ‘from’ a blog is possible in may ways including consulting, writing books, running training and workshops, selling products, landing other paid writing gigs, speaking at conferences etc.

The more people that you have some kind of influence with the increased chances of being able to monetize that influence in one of these indirect methods.

A subscriber might not be visiting your blog each day but if you provide great content on a daily basis to them you can bet that the day they decide that they need to hire a consultant on your topic that they’ll come knocking on your door.

6. Other Monetization Models for RSS

Indirect income is not the only possibility for RSS. There is also RSS advertising - this industry is still in its infancy and while isn’t hugely profitable using tools like AdSense I’m hearing bloggers reporting that it’s a growing income source for them.

The other great opportunity for income from RSS subscribers is affiliate programs. This taps into point #5 above - when you have ‘influence’ or trust established with readers an affiliate program can be very profitable.

7. The challenge of drawing subscribers into your blog

Just because someone subscribes to your blog does not mean that they’ll never visit it. In fact RSS subscribers can be among your most regular visitors to your blog if you draw them into actually visiting it.

I won’t go into a lot of techniques for this in this post but using techniques like asking questions, running polls, interlinking posts, writing ‘best of’ lists and more techniques can draw subscribers into visiting your blog on a daily basis.

Read more detailed tips on getting RSS readers visiting your blog.

Tags: , Blog Promotion, RSS, RSS Subscribers, Visitor Numbers

10 Most Unique Lakes of our World

2008-11-13T00:00:00Z

From the sixteen Plitvice Lakes interconnected by waterfalls, to the most polluted spot on earth: Lake Karachay.

Sometimes old-school technology prevails in a digital world

2008-11-12T15:41:11Z

A few weeks ago, I lost my driver's license. But since I often misplace things, I wasn't sure if I had actually lost it or just couldn't find it. And since I still had a valid driver's license with my old address on it, I didn't rush to order a new one.

What I didn't know until today was that somebody found it. Since it has my name and address on it, the person who found it could have easily Googled me to find a variety of ways to reach me, like my work phone or e-mail, or my Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn page.

But that's not what they did. They simply dropped the license in a mail box and it eventually made its way to me. I picked it up at the downtown post office this morning and had to pay the $1.89 in postage it took to get to me, but it's was worth it.

The lady at the post office said that if you find a driver's license, dropping it in a mailbox is your best bet for returning it to its owner. That way you don't have to pay any postage or track down their phone number to arrange a meetup. I never knew this, but it shows that despite all the ways we have to find information about people we've never met, sometimes a low-tech method like dropping it in the mailbox is best.

P.S. If the person that found my license is reading this, thank you!

Too good to be true (the overnight millionaire scam)

2008-11-13T09:53:00Z

You probably don't need to read this, but I bet you know people who do. Please feel free to repost or forward:

Times are tough, and many say they are going to be tougher. That makes some people more focused, it turns others desperate.

You may be tempted at some point to try to make a million dollars. To do it without a lot of effort or skill or risk. Using a system, some shortcut perhaps, or mortgaging something you already own.

There are countless infomercials and programs and systems that promise to help you do this. There are financial instruments and investments and documents you can sign that promise similar relief from financial stress.

Resist.

There are four ways to make a million dollars. Luck. Patient effort. Skill. Risk.

(Five if you count inheritance, and six if you count starting with two million dollars).

Conspicuously missing from this list are effortless 1-2-3 systems that involve buying an expensive book or series of tapes. Also missing are complicated tax shelters or other 'proven' systems. The harder someone tries to sell you this solution, the more certain you should be that it is a scam. If no skill or effort is required, then why doesn't the promoter just hire a bunch of people at minimum wage and keep the profits?

There are literally a million ways to make a good living online, ten million ways to start and thrive with your own business offline. But all of these require effort, and none of them are likely to make you a million dollars.

Short version of my opinion: If someone offers to sell you the secret system, don't buy it. If you need to invest in a system before you use it, walk away. If you are promised big returns with no risk and little effort, you know the person is lying to you. Every time.

How would you market your company if you had no money?

2008-11-12T20:11:32Z

Someone made the remark to me the other day that CASH is king for businesses in this economy. I don’t disagree with that, but I do think your CUSTOMERS are the ultimate rulers of your company’s destiny during a down economy.

Do you connect with your customers on a deep emotional level? Do you really, really treat them as if they are a dear friend? Have you joined their lives, their passions?

Are you able to have a real dialog with them, so you can listen and adapt to what they need NOW?

Or are you still pushing products and services AT them, hoping they will buy?

I’ve talked about how now is a great time to be a bank on this blog before, but it bears repeating. Some strong, courageous bank will see this as a great time to go beyond playing lip service to “relationships” and jump in to help people re-adjust to our changing financial world. People who never gave a crap about keeping their personal finances in order or didn’t pay much attention are suddenly a bit more interested as credit companies and banks start acting more cautious. I have heard some pretty passionate conversations on that topic lately. So, if I was a bank, I would start listening, engaging and looking for the conversations I could authentically join and support.

Okay. If I didn’t have any money to market, I’d find a way to have to join, connect and support the passion conversations my dearest customers are having. That takes hard work for sure, but it creates relationships that endure even the toughest of times.

How about you?

TV 101: How Friends caused the current financial crisis (OR: Say it ain't so, Joe the Actor)

2008-11-12T19:06:00Z

Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free

If you haven't heard, the country is in a recession and things are getting bad. I spend every afternoon watching CNBC and weeping. My father, who deals in real estate, calls me every night just to scream and babble incoherently. My wife splits her time between loading up the Model T to head out west Californee-way and burning our quarterly financial statements for warmth.

We're on an economic roller coaster right now, and I don't mean a reputable roller coaster like at Six Flags. We're talking one of those death-trap coasters that even the carnies won't ride. The depressing thing is that the whole bag of crap we're in right now just seemed to come out of nowhere, like the last season of Roseanne. How did we get here? Why is this all happening now?

You might be tempted to blame the usual suspects: the president, the congress, the Stone-Cutters. But you'd be wrong. The real culprit behind this whole problems is Friends.

Continue reading TV 101: How Friends caused the current financial crisis (OR: Say it ain't so, Joe the Actor)

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New Way to Smuggle Data: Inside a Hollow Nickel

2008-11-11T17:49:00Z

Ever need to hide or smuggle gigabytes of data? No? Well, this is pretty cool anyway. A company that specializes in hollow spy coins -- actual currency machine-hollowed to create a secret compartment inside -- points out that MICRO SD CARDS FIT INSIDE THEIR SPY COINS, including nickels, pennies and quarters. Just don't spend it. (props to Coolest Gadgets)

30 Different Uses for RSS

2008-11-11T00:00:14Z

By Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed)

I'm making an effort to become less reliant on visiting websites for the data I need. Spending a majority of my time in Google Reader, I decided RSS could help me accomplish this task. I no longer have to visit Yahoo to read my horoscopes or sports scores. I now track my Ebay auctions from Google Reader. These are some of the ways I started to recently use and rediscover RSS.

This post touches on 30 different ways RSS can be used.

1) Tabbloid is a "hatchling" project that comes to us from Hewlett-Packard. It's a very simple and useful utility that turns your RSS feeds into a personal magazine via PDF format. You can generate your PDF files on the website, or have them emailed to you.

2) Track deals for hotel and airline fares at Expedia,Travelocity,Orbitz and Kayak.

3) iTunes music store RSS generator allows you to set up notifications based on your genre for new releases, top songs, top albums, featured albums and exclusives.

4) Track your favorite sports team news and game scores at Yahoo Sports. Basketball | Baseball | NFL | Hockey

5) Simpletracking.com lets you view the latest tracking information from all the major US shipping carriers. No need to go directly to the carrier's website anymore. Get notified when your package tracking information has changed directly from your feed reader.

6) Create customized news feeds and track specific keywords. You can get a feed for any search you do on Google News. First do any search on Google News, then simply use the Atom or RSS link on the left-hand side of your search results page to generate the feed. Here is what my FriendFeed Google news feed looks like.

7) Track your favorite online comics strips. Tapestry Comics maintains an RSS directory of comic strip feeds. Dilbert, xkcd and several hundred more feeds can be found here.

8) Create customized Ebay auction search feeds. Keep track of Ebay auctions with ease.

9) Set up custom feeds for job searches using the Indeed job search engine. As with Google News, the process is the same. RSS job feeds are automatically generated on the search results pages.

10) Get real time reports about current traffic incidents in your area. Traffic.com delivers RSS feeds of traffic information for most major U.S. cities.

11) Be notified of severe weather warnings and advisories for the United States, issued by the National Weather Service.

12) Get notified of the latest movie and dvd releases courtesy of Movies.com.

13) Get notified of current airport delay courtesy of Flightstats.com.

14) Listen to the President of the United States radio addresses.

15) Get the latest NASA news articles and press releases.

16) Read your Daily Horoscopes.

17) Send RSS feeds to Twitter using TwitterFeed.TwitterFeed is a simple utility that will check an RSS feed for updates and send them to Twitter accordingly.

18) Get notified of RSS feed updates via SMS messages sent to your phone.

19) Convert RSS feeds to audio recordings. You can also subscribe to them as podcasts via iTunes, and download your recordings as an mp3 file.

20) View the latest public pictures being uploaded to Flickr. You can also generate custom RSS feeds based on a multitude of parameters detailed here.

21) Generate custom Picasa RSS feeds for your family pictures. You can also generate feeds from public pictures. All search result pages will generate an RSS feed for that keyword. Here is one I set up for "Dogs."

22) View the real time public Twitter time line. You can also get your Twitter account time line by going to your Twitter profile page. Scroll to the bottom right of your profile page and you will see an RSS link located there.

23) Keep track of your recently played Last.fm tracks. Replace mfruchter with your Last.fm user name. ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/mfruchter/recenttracks.rss

24) Keep track of what you and your friends are bookmarking. If you wanted to find out what Louis Gray has bookmarked recently, you could go to his FriendFeed or Delicious url. Better yet you could check your Google Reader. To find yours or a specific Delicious user's RSS feed, simply goto their Delicious profile page and scroll to the bottom right of the page where you will see an RSS icon. You can also generate custom RSS for specific keywords/tags. All tag search result pages will have a corresponding RSS feed option. Here is one I set up to track of all recent public bookmarks tagged "twitter."

25) Watch the most viewed YouTube videos of the day. You can also customize this to your liking based on this criteria.

26) Keep track of new products on Amazon.com. Never miss when new items become available. You can generate an RSS feed for just about any product category Amazon has to offer.

27) Try an RSS feed matching service to find new feeds based on your interests. One that comes to mind is Toluu. Toluu allows you to upload your existing OPML file to their service, they in-turn will match you to new feeds and members who share similar preferences in feeds.

28) View all of your publicly shared RSS items on one web page. This is a great built in feature of Google Reader. Any item you star or share is automatically saved on a public html page that Google generates for you. Here is what my shared page looks like. To see the public page containing your shared items, click the "Shared items" link in your Google Reader. You'll see a list of everything you've chosen to share, along with a link to the page where they are displayed.

29) Use Google Reader as a new tool for microblogging. With the ability to “share” or “share with note" option in Google Reader, you can leave comments and invite conversation on posts you publicly share. Aggregate Google Shared items into a site like FriendFriend, so others can voice their thoughts as well.

30) Get the best of FriendFeed without ever going to the actual site. FriendFeed generates RSS feeds for almost every user function of the site. You can view your mainfeed as well as your, comments and like feeds in Google Reader. Have you created any topical lists? You can get RSS feeds for your lists too. I have found this function particularly useful as I can now track my "social media whales" list in RSS. Often I spend more time in Google Reader then I do on FriendFeed. RSS gives me a backup and safety net, so nothing goes under the radar.

Read more by Mike Fruchter at MichaelFruchter.com.

More: louisgray.com | RSS | FriendFeed | E-mail | Cell: 408 646.2759

Living in the wild takes toll on TV's "Survivorman"

2008-11-10T19:01:16Z

Shared by Rob
It's a bummer but I can't say I don't blame him. Les rocks!

Les Stroud, better known as TV adventurer "Survivorman," [is] tired of it all and ending his popular series about living in the wild.

"It takes a lot out of me as I really do what I do for real, with no camera crew, no nights in hotels like others do, and it takes a toll on my body," Stroud told Reuters.

"You can only do seven days surviving without food a certain number of times a year. I'm pleased with what I have done, I've been copied around the world, but 25 times I've not eaten anything for a week while sleeping on rocks. I need to move on."

"I have not had to be rescued yet but there was one situation in Labrador where we had bad weather and we all had to be shipped out to safety," said Stroud.

"I did get chased out of the jungle by a jaguar once and I had one situation in the Kalahari Desert where it came close to calling in my rescue crew as I got close to having heat stroke. It was 61 degrees Celsius. (142 degrees Fahrenheit)

"But probably my most scared was being in lion territory in Africa. That was a scary place to be."

Jeff Probst goes behind the scenes of Survivor Gabon's opening sequence and production

2008-11-09T01:22:13Z

In Gabon, Probst also filmed footage, and the first two videos are now online. (Still to come, apparently)

The first shows how they shot the cold open, the segment before the credits that takes 24 hours to film and was filmed a five-hour helicopter ride away from base camp..It’s pretty spectacular.

The second video aggregates a bunch of different behind-the-scenes moments, including wildlife expert Josh showing off an African Rock Python, the crew playing gin rummy, a practical joke played on a Dream Team member, hidden mics and cameras, leeches, toilets, and radio communication between producers about an elephant approaching a camera camp.