ZuDfunck

SpringTime in ZuDfunck's Crib

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ZuDfunck's Perfect Twitter App: A Unibody MacBook

So I just downloaded A Twitter Client on my MacBook
And then it occurred to me
I don't need this Sh#t
My MacBook is my Twitter client!

Maybe folks who have big time work machines
With all the applications firing need a little cubby
That they can say is for Twitter

I am not so confined I have a 2.4 GHz MacBook
Devoted to the Twitter thang
Mostly a Firefox browser with some 8 tabs
Holding stuff I found from my RSS reader
Waiting an appropriate time to throw up from
My Hootsuite interface
Then monitor with my Twazzup search set to @ZuDfunck
As well as the Twitter homepage on another Tab.

Am I wrong or isn't that the perfect Twitter App?

So folks stop trying to sell me on the perfect Twitter App
For the Mac
The Mac is The Perfect Twitter App!

I would relish your comments
As I feel that is All
Unless you have something to say!

How Do You Use Twitter?

A digital Artist
Ultimately that's what I am
Text, Video, Audio
It's all been done by ZuD.

I think it's seasonal
Whether he'll Vlog - Podcast - or Blog
A whim - No more or less.

The weather was severe in Michigan this past Winter
Forced the boy indoors
Said what of your pursuit ZuD?
The lens will freeze.

Bump into a dude we know
Straight out asked
What do you know about Twitter
How do you use it?

I use it to deliver my posts from my blog
Oh that's a SIn
That's not using it right!

So I want to do it right - Right?
And I've been trying to do it right
Since he asked me
How do you use Twitter?

ZuDfunck Migrates To Twitter

Hear Ye!, Hear Ye!, Hear Ye!

The micro blogging reality that is Twitter has taken out another Blogger!
We can no longer deny the death of Blogging
Under that stress and dismal fact
We are forced to move our operations
Lock Stock and Barrel
Great film! Actually:
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
To a more stringently structured location.
But man on man it is jumping!
There are followers galore
ReTweets by the Dozens
If you don't know what I am saying
Then you don't know what is Happening
Why am I writing this way
I am practicing my Micro Speak
This is how they Write
Little bursts of Text
Tweets of Wisdom
Blurbs of Text
Tweets

Good lord
Who thought ZuD would end up at Twitter
Not me
I thought we could Survive
But the Tide is Changing
And go with It
We Will
Tweet
Tweet
ZuD is a Twit
@ZuDfunck

ZuDfunck Contemplates Migrating Operations To Twitter

Seriously considering migrating our operations to Micro Blog service Twitter

Although we have disparaged it in the past as a walled garden and gathering spot for time wasting, mind numbing mediocrity, we have gotten accustomed to its unique qualities and feel it is time for ZuD to make the leap full time.

I wouldn't do anything with out letting you guys know first, so let me know what you think in the comment section below or tweet me up at @ZuDfunck

Vote on Facebook's Redesign

So TechCrunch ran this post. How can we vote on whether we like TechCrunch?

Facebook Poll: 94% Of Users Don’t Like Redesign

by Michael Arrington

A Facebook application is polling users on the the new site layout . So far, just over 5% of the nearly 800,000 respondents give it a thumbs up. The rest go the other way.

Users can also leave comments with their thoughts. Recent user comments include “Missing so many features I used to adore. I am saddened,” “Please change it back to the way it was,” and “I hate it and if it doesn’t change I will only check it once in awhile.” Ah, the fickle user.

Until January users and advertisers could create polls directly within Facebook, and the company used them extensively at the Davos World Economic Forum. It would be great it they brought that feature back directly.

Nielsen Measures Twitter Demographics

So Nielsen measures everything? What would we do without these measurements?

Twitter’s Tweet Smell Of Success

Michelle McGiboney, Nielsen Online

Twitter.com continues to grow in popularity and importance in both the consumer and corporate worlds. No longer just a platform for friends to stay connected in real time, it has evolved into an important component of brand marketing. Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month.  Zimbio and Facebook followed, growing 240 percent and 228 percent, respectively.

Fastest Growing Member Community Destinations in February 2009

RANK	Site	Feb 08	Feb 09	% growth
1	Twitter.com	475,000	7,038,000	1382%
2	Zimbio	809,000	2,752,000	240%
3	Facebook	20,043,000	65,704,000	228%
4	Multiply	821,000	2,394,000	192%
5	Wikia	1,381,000	3,758,000	172%
source: Nielsen NetView, 2/09, U.S., Home and Work

Twitter Most Popular Among Working Adults

Twitterers (a.k.a. Tweeters) are not primarily teens or college students as you might expect. In fact, in February the largest age group on Twitter was 35-49; with nearly 3 million unique visitors, comprising almost 42 percent of the site’s audience. We found that the majority of people visit Twitter.com while at work, with 62 percent of the combo unique audience accessing the site from work only versus 35 percent that accessed it from home only.

Unique Visitors to Twitter.com by Age Demographic

Age Group	Unique Audience	Composition %
2-17	250,000	3.6
18 - 24	**	**
25 - 34	1,379,000	19.6
35 - 49	2,935,000	41.7
55+	1,165,000	16.6
65+	477,000	6.8
source: Nielsen NetView, 2/09, U.S., Home and Work **These demographics have insufficient sample sizes

Twitter On The Move

PC Web usage of Twitter.com doesn’t tell the whole story. The ability to twitter via a mobile phone-whether through the mobile Web or via text messages-is a driving factor in the social network’s success. In January, 735,000 unique visitors accessed the Twitter Web site through their mobile phones. The average unique visitor went to Twitter.com 14 times during the month and spent an average of seven minutes on the site.

Finally, text messaging offers a third platform for consumers and businesses alike to take part in the twitter craze. In the last quarter of 2008, 812,000 unique users sent or received Twitter text messages from AT&T or Verizon cell phones. There was an average of nearly 240 tweets per person for the quarter.

It will be interesting to watch the evolution of Twitter as it continues to gain momentum. In an unstable economy, it might prove to be an economical and important part of an employer’s marketing strategy that helps to keep consumers aware of and connected to their brand.

Twitter Rolls Out Premium Accounts

I am going to be an Eagle:

Williams stressed that free accounts will still be available to all users, and that only those wanting more services would pay.   Premium accounts will come in four tiers: Sparrow, Dove, Owl and Eagle.

The details of the accounts are as follows:

• Sparrow ($5/month) – Users get 145 character limit, 5 extra random followers.

• Dove ($15/month) – Users get 160 character limit, 25 extra random followers, 1 random celebrity follower, auto-spell check, "Fail Whale" T-shirt.

• Owl ($50/month) – Users get 250 character limit, 100 extra random followers, 2 random celebrity followers, 30 minutes on recommended list, auto-spell check, "Fail Whale" hoodie.

• Eagle ($250/month) – Users get 500 character limit, 1000 extra random followers, 3 celebrity followers of their choice, 5 hours on recommended list each month, Twitter Concierge for Tweeting while user is asleep or busy (and more), auto-spell check, "Fail Whale" tuxedo, custom "Fail Whale" page when service is down.

continued

Jon Stewart's Assertions 'Unfair and Absurd' says NBC Boss Jeff Zucker

I know there are a lot of Fanboys of Jon Stewart on Twitter and Facebook but it's time to get back to reality. CNBC did not contribute to our economic tsunami.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker fired back at comedian Jon Stewart on Wednesday, saying it was "unfair" and "absurd" for the funnyman to criticize CNBC and question its coverage of financial news.

"Everybody wants to find a scapegoat. That's human nature," Zucker said during a keynote address at a media industry conference. "But to suggest that the business media or CNBC was responsible for what is going on now is absurd."

"Just because someone who mocks authority says something doesn't make it so," Zucker said, describing the comedian's comments as "completely out of line."

Zucker's comments are the latest salvo in a war of words with Stewart, who hosts the mock news program "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on the Comedy Central cable television network owned by

Viacom Inc.

Stewart has blasted CNBC's reporting of the financial market meltdown, saying the channel was too cozy with corporate chiefs and key government officials.

The comedian has lobbed particularly harsh criticism at CNBC commentator Jim Cramer, and last week invited him for an appearance on the comedy show, where he hammered the guest for his coverage of Wall Street.

"Listen, you knew what the banks were doing, yet were touting it for months and months," Stewart said during his March 12 show. "The entire network was. Now to pretend that this was some sort of crazy, once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that nobody could have seen coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst."

Zucker, speaking at the

McGraw-Hill

Media Summit in New York on Wednesday, said that CNBC's reporters and commentators had done a "terrific" job and the network remained a "go-to" place for financial news.

"It's unfair to CNBC and to the business media in general," Zucker said. "I don't think you can blame what happened here on the business media."  continued

Milwaukee Bucks Charlie Villanueva @CV31 Tweets During Halftime

Timeout Coach I gotta update my Twitter:

It might be the next big thing in online social networking, but Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles isn't a big fan of Twitter.

At least not when one of his players is posting from the Bucks' locker room during halftime of a critical game.

Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva got a talking-to from Skiles after the coach learned Villanueva posted a message to his Twitter feed -- a "tweet" -- from his mobile phone during halftime of Sunday's home victory over the Boston Celtics.

"We made a point to Charlie and the team that it's nothing we ever want to happen again," Skiles said after practice Tuesday. "You know, [we] don't want to blow it out of proportion. But anything that gives the impression that we're not serious and focused at all times is not the correct way we want to go about our business."

Using the screen name "CV31" -- Villanueva's initials and jersey number -- Villanueva posted the following message during halftime Sunday:

"In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up."

And he did. Villanueva finished with a team-high 19 points as the Bucks, who are trying desperately to hold on to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, beat the Celtics 86-77.

Villanueva said Tuesday that he didn't think the post was a big deal at the time but now understands that posting to a Web site at halftime can create the impression he isn't focused on the game.

Continued

My Name Is ZuDfunck, And I'm A Followholic

That's Right! Followholic, Obsessed with followers to the neglect of everything else. My goal at the beginning of the day is to see who followed during the night and then how can I get more to follow me today.
Twitter is cool but the side effects are monstorous: If you have a tendency to become obssesed about things, Boy are you in the wrong place!
So on this St Patricks Day 2009 take a long hard look at what your doing with Twitter.

Elliott Kosmicki is the founder of GoodPlum.com, a productivity and personal development blog for home business owners. You can also follow Elliott on TwitterTwitter reviews.

It’s an illness. It’s a disease that attacks the brain, affecting the response of your fingers on the keyboard and mouse. “Stop clicking,” you say to yourself as another follow button has turned into a green-checked following icon.

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem: you’re a followholic and you can’t stay away from a Twitter user’s follow button. (Say it out loud: My name is ______, and I’m a followholic.)

You each have your reasons for becoming a followholic. Maybe your parents didn’t pay enough attention to you, so you’re reaching out to strange Tweeple on the Internet. Perhaps it’s genetic… If your father was a followholic, your twice as likely to become one as an adult. The facts* are cruel, but true.

*The facts I speak of are not actual facts, but made up for this article.

I would venture to say that most followholics started with the feeling of need. The need to get more followers, then turn to a reliance on the reciprocal-follow… However, this causes the people on each end of the follow to become followholics for separate reasons: Need and sympathy.

---

Following because of need

---

Like MySpaceMySpace reviews a few years ago, people have become attached to the number of followers they have. They see someone with 12,000 followers and all of a sudden their 150 followers seems worthless. Their focus changes from networking and learning about their audience to a raw desire to gain as many followers as humanly possible.

In reality, the number of followers you have should simply reflect the quality of what you give. If you’re following 1,000 people, and have somehow got 800 of those people to follow you back, it doesn’t really mean that much. But if 800 people have come across you on their own and started following you, while you’re only following the 80 people you care about - that says something about your value. It says that people follow you because you’re valuable, not because you’ve started following them first.

You don’t NEED to follow every profile you come across - you only need to follow the people who you find interesting and valuable to your everyday life. Follow them if you would talk to them in real life.

---

Following because of sympathy

---

“Aw, that’s so sweet… this guy I never heard of who has no description filled out, no website, and only 4 tweets started following me… I’ll follow him back, poor guy!”

Reciprocal-following is, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous time wasters. Whether you follow back manually or through auto-following - if you spend a lot of time with a Twitter app open during the day, you’re clogging your screen and brain with information from people you really don’t care to see. Not only that, but you’re preventing yourself from building a relationship with your followers. How are you supposed to engage 12,000 people adequately? There’s no room for you in conversation if you’ve diluted yourself like that.

There is no need to feel sympathetic to people on Twitter. Follow them back if you find them interesting and valuable to your everyday life. Follow them back if you would talk to them in real life.

There seems to be a pattern emerging…

---

Have guidelines about who you will follow

---

I follow people based on the idea that if I had to slide a quarter into their Twitter page in order to activate the Follow button - would I still follow them? If I’m following you, it’s because I would pay for your updates. Either you do something interesting, you seem helpful to others, I know you in some way - or would like to know you.

If you’re following 10,000 people, would you have paid $2,500 for the privilege of having to sort through that many Tweets every day? Somehow I doubt it. I mostly doubt it because it’s impossible to do. There is no way you’re paying attention to the people you care about if you’ve clicked “Follow” on every profile you’ve ever seen on Twitter.

Do you have guidelines for yourself about who you’ll follow? If not, feel free to take mine: You’ll only follow people you’d be willing to pay to follow.

---

Recovering from followholism:

---

Admit you have a problem: If you can’t pay attention to the amount of people you’re following in a manner you would want someone to pay attention to you, you’re a followholic. Admit it, realize that it’s killing your productivity and value, then take steps to overcome it.

Clean your contacts: If you’re following only people you’re interested in - you’ll never have to do this step. But if you’re like most people on Twitter - you’ve fallen down a slippery slope and need to recover. Start by getting rid of the riff-raff.

Use Twitter Karma to clean your contact list once. This is a simple tool that shows people you follow, and who follows you back. This is your chance to stop following the people you simply clicked “Follow” to try and get them to follow you back, but they never did.

Manage incoming followers: First, turn off auto-follow in whatever program you’re using to do it. There is no possible way that anyone legitimately wants to follow back everyone who follows them. This isn’t up for discussion.

Once that’s complete, try a tool like Tweepler. Tweepler allows you to see all the people you haven’t sorted through yet. You’ll see their bio, website, and more - all from a single screen. I’d be totally lost without this. The first time you load it up, it may take you a while to sort everyone out, but once you’ve done it - you can probably come back once per week and it’ll be a more manageable list.

Run Twitoria every so often. This site allows you to instantly see anyone you are following who is “inactive.” I run this every month or so - because it’s natural to come upon someone you find interesting, but then that person just never uses Twitter again. Since that’s the case, I choose to unfollow them (and get my money back) - thus keeping my list more manageable.

Remember - you’re only going to follow people who you find interesting and valuable to your everyday life! Follow them if you would talk to them in real life.

Continued

Your Online Presence Circumvents Reinventing Yourself

When you've documented everything online, how do you rediscover yourself as someone different, as you go through life? This young lady asks that Profound Question:

Online social networks are so new that it’s impossible to know their long-term impact. There’s some evidence that college students have mixed feelings about being guinea pigs for the faux-friendship age. One student interviewed for a study of why and how college students use Facebook, which was published last year in The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, admitted that being privy to the personal details of “friends” who she had not seen in years made her uncomfortable. “Someone from earlier in her life had broken up with a boyfriend,” an author of the article, Sandra L. Calvert, a professor and chairwoman of the psychology department at Georgetown University, told me. “She felt she knew all these intimate details about this person, yet they hadn’t actually been in touch for five years.” On the other hand, a study published in 2007 in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication suggested that hanging onto old friends via Facebook may alleviate feelings of isolation for students whose transition to campus life had proved rocky. Evidently they took comfort in knowing that “Dylan is drinking Peets.”

That may well be, but something is drowned in that virtual coffee cup — an opportunity for insight, for growth through loneliness. Perhaps my nieces will find a new way to establish distance from their former selves, to clear space for introspection and transformation. Perhaps they will evolve through judicious deleting and updating of profile information, through the constant awareness of their public face. Maybe the Greek chorus of preschool buddies will be more anchor than albatross, giving them strength to take risks or to stick out tough times. It could be that my generation was the anomalous one, that Facebook marks a return to the time when people remained embedded in their communities for life, with connections that ran deep, peers who reined them in if they strayed too far from the norm, parents who expected them to live at home until marriage (adult children are already reclaiming their childhood rooms in droves). More likely, though, the very thing that attracts us oldsters to Facebook — the lure of auld lang syne — will be its undoing. Kids, who will inevitably want to drive a stake into the heart of former lives, may simply abandon the service (remember Friendster?) and find something new: something still unformed, yet to be invented — much like themselves. Full Article

Peggy Orenstein, a contributing writer, is the author of the memoir “Waiting for Daisy.”

'Cute As Hell' Social Networking for Your Cat or Dog

Has Scruffy or Tabby been bugging you, I guess whimpering or meowing is more appropriate, to get into social networking? They see you spending every waking minute doing it and the fact that pets imitate their owners, Hell, they want In! So be a good pet owner and sign 'em up to Cute As Hell. And if your family doesn't commit you, you can network together forever!

Pet-related social networks aren’t exactly scarce, but Cute as Hell is interesting because it takes several tried and true viral concepts and integrates them into the network. It can probably best be described as a cross between Cute Overload, Hot or Not (for pets) and MySpaceMySpace reviews. Two features that make this so are the so called cuteness rating and the Thunderdome. The former lets visitors rate pets by their cuteness, while the latter is a tournament where pets can compete for the title of the cutest pet.

The advantage of this approach is the fact that the site can be fun even if you’re not part of the social network; you can merely browse it for cute animals. Considering the popularity of sites like Cute Overload, it might bring in a significant number of visitors. It also engages users to participate in the site more, instead of just maintaining their pet’s profile and adding friends.

HatTip Mashable

Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse

In the relationships I have had, I was the Geek/Nerd, so I have nothing to add to this. Knowing my audience, there have got to be some folks who can relate:

10 Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse

By Matt Blum Wired.com

Everyone has annoying habits, and a sizable part of every successful marriage is learning to live with those things each other does that annoy you. I think it's safe to say, too, that geeks have some habits that we think are awesome, but that non-geeks find a little...less awesome.

Now my wife is a geek, but she's not as much of a geek as I am, so I asked her for some help putting together a list of ten things geeks do that annoy their spouses. She was perhaps a little too enthusiastic about helping out, but here are the results:

1. Punning - I remember when I was young, and thought that I must be the only geek (well, possibly nerd at that point) who loved to pun. Then I went to my first science fiction convention, and quickly learned that not only was I wrong, but that there were plenty of far worse offenders than I. That gave me something to aspire to, of course, which I did for a while. Since college, I've scaled back on the relentless punning I used to practice, but I'm sure I'll never quit completely.

2. Using "frak," or Klingon, or both, instead of regular swear words - Yes, this is a marvelous way to avoid accidentally using real, English swear words in front of the kids. I suspect that's one of the reasons it can be annoying to others, though: it's like a loophole in the no-swearing-in-front-of-the-kids rule. I caught my wife using "frak" the other day, now that she's gotten into Battlestar Galactica, too (yes, just as it's about to end), but she claims to have done that just to make me smile and says is still annoys her when I do it. Still, I figure she'd be more annoyed by my using real swear words, so I think I'll stick with it.

3. Weird or over-the-top ways of celebrating mainstream holidays - Geeks rarely do anything by halves, as anyone who's ever been to a costume contest at a major sci-fi convention can attest. So if we want to celebrate something we're likely to go all-out. This can mean going to great lengths with Halloween decorations, or, as I've done several times, making tentative plans to serve rabbit for Easter dinner and venison for Christmas dinner (yes, I know, reindeer are caribou, but it's close enough). No, I've never carried through on these threats plans, but when the kids are old enough not to be upset by the joke I might just. I do insist on playing Tom Lehrer's Christmas Carol at least once each December.

4. Dissecting movies - Geeks, in my experience (and myself included), have a habit of picking movies apart, particularly just after watching them. We will discuss everything from the special effects to the minutiae of costume and prop design, but what gives us the most pleasure is identifying plot holes (no matter how small), anachronisms, and goofs in general, and, in adaptations, picking apart the cuts and modifications. For some reason, this tends to annoy non-geeks who, I guess, don't enjoy the process.

5. Wearing obscurely geeky T-shirts to "normal" places - Every geek has at least a few of these; don't try to deny it. We love them, because we get the jokes and we know that only other geeks will get them, too. Unfortunately, they can make our less geeky significant others feel a bit conspicuous when out with us—or maybe they feel the geekiness will rub off on them, I'm not quite sure. Still, I feel that if I have to occasionally let my daughter wear a Hello Kitty shirt out of the house, I can wear my shirts from ThinkGeek.

Continued

iPod Touch Bursts Into Flames While in Kids Pocket

As we turn our attention to things non-twitter we see this unfortunate kid who had an iPod Touch burst into flame. We are skeptical, but hey, we all got to get along.

The mother of a kid living in Cincinnati, Ohio is suing Apple and 10 unnamed retail employees from the Apple Store in Kenwood over an iPod touch that allegedly exploded in the child's pocket. According to the complaint filed yesterday in the Southern District of Ohio, the plaintiff had the "iTouch" (as the lawsuit refers to it) in his pocket during school when the unfortunate accident happened, resulting in hospital bills and other monetary losses thanks to the disintegration of the iPod touch and, well, the kid's clothes.

As the story goes, the iPod touch was sitting in the "off" position when it unexpectedly popped and caused the kid to feel a burning sensation. At that time, he stood up and noticed that his pants were, in fact, on fire. "Plaintiff A.V. immediately ran to the bathroom and took off his burning pants with the assistance of a friend," reads the complaint. "On said date and at said time, the Apple iTouch had burned through Plaintiff A.V.'s pants pocket and melted through his nylon/spandex underwear, burning his leg."

<!--Nerd alert -->

Upon learning these facts, much of the staff here at Ars took an inordinate amount of time out of our busy day to discuss whether this was a reasonable possibility. The lowest melting point of nylon is approximately 374 degrees Fahrenheit—a temperature that an iPod touch could not reasonably reach without you noticing beforehand (that's hotter than the temperature it takes to fry an egg, by the way). However, because the lawsuit claims there was fire involved, all bets have to be off. Fire is most definitely hot enough to melt nylon, and if there was an explosion to cause the "pop," then there may not have been a way for the kid to notice the heat beforehand.

<!-- End nerd alert -->

Source

My GPS Told Me To Do It

I have a GPS unit embedded in my brain so I don't need one. For those who use them check this out:

The distress call came in to Sgt. Christopher Buckley late one night: Two motorists and their families had followed their Global Positioning System devices off the main road near Windham, Vt., onto a snowmobile trail. Though the road became narrower and the snow deeper, the two men kept driving.

"Then they ran out of road, and they sunk in the snow," Buckley, of the Vermont State Police, says of the February incident.

It's not the first time drivers have blindly followed their GPS units, Buckley says. He's assisted on three rescues since January, and others in his division have logged at least three other instances in which people drove over snowbanks onto unplowed roads and got stuck.

One Fort Drum, N.Y., soldier drove his car over a snowbank and sank so deeply onto a trail that police needed a snow tractor to haul him out, Buckley says.

"I ask them why and they say, 'That's what my GPS told me to do,' " says Buckley, who late last month issued a news release pleading with drivers to trust their common sense over their navigation devices.

Twitter's Suggested Users List Bidding Starts At $250K

This just gets better, in follow up to previous post, this dude puts a price tag on it!

How Much Is A Suggested Slot On Twitter Worth? Jason Calacanis Offers $250,000.

When newbies sign up to Twitter now, they are presented with a list of 100 suggested users to start following. Simply being on that list can boost your followers well above 100,000. Several people and organizations on the list (such as Al Gore, Lance Armstrong, Kevin Rose, the New York Times, and CNN) now have more than 250,000 followers each. Many of the most popular Twitter users are on the list, including TechCrunch (we have 214,465 followers). It is insane.

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who is no Twitter slouch himself with 61,266 hard-earned followers, thinks that being one of the top 20 on the suggested list will be worth as much as a Superbowl ad within five years. He is offering Twitter $250,000 to lock in a spot on the suggested list for two years, or $120,000 for one year. I emailed Calacanis (who is our partner in putting on the TechCrunch 50 conference) and he confirms the offer is dead serious. In fact, he contacted Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams last week about it, and is lobbying investor Fred Wilson. Calacanis writes:

I believe that in five years the top 20 recommend slots will be worth $1m a year each–super bowl commercial level in fact.

. . . this is 100% dead serious. I’m thinking of sending the check today anyway…. if it sits on their desk they might just cash it.

He wants to lock in the price now because he thinks it is a great marketing opportunity. It is not unusual for people on the suggested list to gain 10,000 new followers every day. That comes to 3.6 million a year, and even if half unsubscribe, that is still a direct channel to more than a million potential customers. Those are customers who feel a connection with you because of the personal nature of Twitter messages.

If other companies feel the same way, sellingthese slots could be a lucrative side business for Twitter. At $120,000 a pop, 20 slots would generate $2.4 million in revenues the first year. There are already brands on the suggested list, such as JetBlue, Zappos, Whole Foods, and Dell Outlet. Why not make them pay? To avoid spamming, Calacanis suggests a simple rule:

people who buy the slot will lose it if they abuse it. they are limited to 10 tweets per day and they can’t spam the list. if I suck folks unsubscribe. if i spam (i.e. go above 10 tweets per day) they knock me, jetblue or Zappos out of top 20.

I think Calacanis just can’t stand the fact that he is no longer one of the top Twitter users and wants to buy his way back to the top. Dave Winer argues that the suggested list is a bad idea in general. But maybe Calacanis is onto something. How much do you think a top-20 Twitter slot will go for in one year?

Source

It's The End of The Blog As We Know It

And I am not sure what it will become, but with all the micro blogging going on it surely won't be like it was. This dude has some powerful words that I snippet here but encourage you to read the whole article:

Blogging is entrenched in the mainstream. Indeed, consumers, businesses, content publishers, and media channels are embracing blogs as a way of engaging existing and reaching new readers to build an ecosystem around relevant conversations. It’s the convergence of dialog and journalism, creating a new generation of interconnectedness between publisher and community.

So why do I believe that blog authority is losing its authority?

It goes back to the definition of authority. Links from blogs are no longer the only measurable game in town. Potentially valuable linkbacks are increasingly shared in micro communities and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed and they are detouring attention and time away from formal blog responses.

As the social Web and new services continue the migration and permeation into everything we do online, attention is not scalable. Many refer to this dilemma as attention scarcity or continuous partial attention (CPA) - an increasingly thinning state of focus. It’s affecting how and what we consume, when, and more importantly, how we react, participate and share. That something is forever vying for our attention and relentlessly pushing us to do more with less driven by the omnipresent fear of potentially missing what’s next.

We are learning to publish and react to content in “Twitter time” and I’d argue that many of us are spending less time blogging, commenting directly on blogs, or writing blogs in response to blog sources because of our active participation in micro communities.

With the popularity and pervasiveness of microblogging (a.k.a. micromedia) and activity streams and timelines, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and the like are competing for your attention and building a community around the statusphere - the state of publishing, reading, responding to, and sharing micro-sized updates.

This new genre of rapid-fire interaction is further distributing the proverbial conversation and is evolving online interaction beyond the host site through syndication to other relevant networks and communities.

In most cases attention for commenters at the source post are competing against the commenters within other communities. Those who might typically respond with a formal blog post may now choose to respond with a tweet or a status update.

Attention is engaged at the point of introduction, and for many of us, we’re presented with worthwhile content outside of our RSS readers or favorite bookmarks. Relevant and noteworthy updates are now curated by our peers and trusted or respected contacts in disparate communities that change based on our daily click paths.

Retweets (RT) and favorites in Twitter, Likes and comments in FriendFeed and Facebook, posting shortened links that connect friends and followers back to the source post, have changed our behavior and empowered our role in defining the evolution of the connectivity and dissemination of information.

Now, we have the ability to instantly interact with, respond, or promote blog content away from the source blog, but that shouldn’t make the original post any less valuable. In fact, while blog authority isn’t capitalizing on these new sources for linkbacks, link authority is still affected, no matter the source, and helps increase the visibility and weight of the host blog in search engines.

The immediacy of publishing, sparking dialog, and receiving responses only reinforces this behavior. And, it encourages participation without having to write a blog post tracking back to the originator of each discussion. So, posts are missing out on a trove of valuable linklove from other blogs that would otherwise have contributed to their authority.

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Taser Launches Axon, A Headcam For Cops: Don't Tape Me, Bro!

Holy Gadget! This will be the future for anyone who deals with the public, Doctors, Teachers, Border Patrol, you name it! Man I could swear I've seen this in some movie awhile back:

Don't Tape Me, Bro! Taser Launches Headcam for Cops

Officers: Are you sick and tired of excessive force lawsuits? Well cheer up. Taser has a plan to give your police department its own CYA reality TV show.

The less-lethal weapons company has launched a wearable computer, called Axon, that will let cops record every minute of their day and upload it to a secure website. From there, they can share their favorite memories with friends, family, and jurors.

"Our Axon and Evidence.com technology will be a lifeline to protect truth," says Steve Tuttle, the vice president of communications for Taser.

For years, cops around the world have been accused of being a little too eager to reach out and stun someone. For example, a Denver Post report found that 90 percent of the subjects tased by the police department there were unarmed. Most times, the weapon was used to "force people to obey orders, to shortcut physical confrontations and, in several cases, to avoid having to run after a suspect." In Sarasota, officers recently tased a naked senior. In Wales, cops even zapped a bunch of sheep.

Not long ago, the less-lethal weapons company started offering a camera accessory that sits on the bottom of its people-zappers, but those devices could only record the drama that takes place once the weapon is drawn and the safety is off -- so it could miss some of the most important moments.

The new camera is head-mounted, so it will record everything the user lays his eyes on. Each headset plugs into a Linux-powered computer that looks curiously similar to a PlayStation Portable, which has an LCD screen so that officers can watch instant replays of their favorite tackles and shakedowns.

When the day is done, just plug the recorder into the Synapse docking station, and all of the evidence will be automatically uploaded to Taser's pair of data warehouses via a 128-bit encrypted connection. Well, most of it, anyway. According to the Axon brochure, the system features a "One-Touch 'Privacy Mode'" which "temporarily suspends recording." In other words, cops can still work the streets -- without being caught on tape.

Images courtesy of Taser.

Newspapers Demise: Because No One Buys

The only time I bought a paper in the past six months were the post election day newspapers I thought would make a good collectors item. Apparently I am not alone.

Behind the Incredibly Shrinking Media

Newspapers should focus on the needs of readers and become part of their routine. If they do this correctly, success should follow

By Paul Armstrong

In chronicling the media's contractions through @themediaisdying at Twitter, I've described these efforts as akin to watching Titanic and The Perfect Storm as if they were one movie. Ironically, it takes roughly 90 minutes each day to post and bear witness to the unprecedented implosion of the publishing industry. In doing this, two questions occur to me regularly: "How far through this movie are we?" and "Who's captaining this ship?"

Given the 1,600 layoffs newspaper publisher McClatchy (MNI) announced on Mar. 9 and the recent flurry of newspaper "deaths," mass firings, and additional uncertainty, from San Francisco to Philly, San Antonio to Denver and Milwaukee, it is clear that local papers are facing their demise. And when you realize that some of these papers have been around for more than a century, surviving multiple wars and economic upheavals, you know quickly that the current period is more than the economic crisis and loss of advertising confidence: Something is deeply "wrong" at the core.

In true Web 2.0 (crowdsourcing) style, I asked the 12,000-plus @themediaisdying network members to opine on the most influential reason for the current radical decline. Many of the usual suspects turned up: the Internet, technology, delayed reaction to change, fixed costs…the list goes on. All those continue to have an impact, of course, but they aren't, in my opinion, the fundamental reason.

It's Our Fault. We're Not Buying

If we're looking to affix blame, we should look no farther than to ourselves. At the most basic, we stopped "buying" it. Newer generations never grew up depending on newspapers—they'd consider it anachronistic to write the local paper a check for a subscription. At the same time, the "old media" still do not grasp the technological and sociological changes associated with this generational independence. There is a huge miscommunication between creator and consumer in terms of value propositions. Nothing has gone "wrong," per se, it is simply a changed balance of power. Creator and consumer are no longer tied to the other. The unchallenged power shift of the classified advertising section becoming Craigslist, Google (GOOG), et al., is a fascinating example of this. Publishers of a medium that is outdated by the time it hits the curb failed to act when these new entrants satisfied the consumer and stole the franchise.

Continued