Monthly Archives: July 2008

Randy Pausch – An Inspiration to All

Jul 30

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I’m sure some of you caught the ABC Special last night featuring an interview between Diane Sawyer and Professor Randy Pausch. As most know, Randy was a 46-year-old father of three who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Randy passed away on July 25th, but touched millions through a speech at Carnegie Mellon entitled “The Last Lecture – Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” 

It’s an incredibly inspiring lecture and the Special last night provided America with an in-depth look into Randy’s life and his optimistic approach to every aspect of living. How does it all tie in with the focus of this blog?

A quick search around online will let you see the crucial role social media played in building community and conversation around such an inspiring human being. Over 5 million people have viewed the Lecture on YouTube at the link above and left over 5,700 comments. In addition, over 4,100 members joined this “Randy Pausch is my Hero” facebook group, leaving over 500 wall posts. A quick search through the blogoshpere unveils thousands of posts about Randy and his impact upon others.

The point being that these tools helped slingshot a monumental speech from the confines of a lecture hall to millions upon millions, reminding us all of what’s most important in life. The speed at which online communities formed and discussions followed is mindblowing and we have social media tools to thank for making us all feel a touch closer to Randy. 

If you haven’t taken the time to watch Randy’s lecture, please do.

Cheers,

Scott

Posted in Facebook, Social Media, YouTube

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Flickr Adds Moving Pictures

Jul 27

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I disappeared offline last week to head off to Glacier National Park (yes, I may have developed a tic from being unwired five days straight). Upon my return, it occurred to me that Flickr played a huge role in planning and researching my trip. With its huge user base, you can pretty much dig up photos on any location (precisely the reason I decided to stop by this beach in Sandpoint, ID on my way to Glacier). 

I’ve always had a great appreciation for the site, its simple functionality and clean interface. It’s an invaluable resource for any traveler or photography buff. The site has now stepped up and incorporated video into its services. In April of this year, TechCrunch announced Flickr’s launch of Flickr Video. One might be quick to assume that Flickr Video will struggle with the video behemoth YouTube dominating the bandwidth, but kudos to the Flickr team for setting up some key parameters around their video service. 

First, Flickr does require that you are a “pro member” in order to upload videos (cost is $25/year and this removes the cap on photo uploads as well) but the videos can be viewed by anyone. Second, videos are currently limited to 90 seconds and 150 MB in size. In addition, videos can be made either public or private and the overall player design and playback functionality are fantastic.

Just as Twitter has quickly pounced on the world of micro-blogging, I can see where Flickr Video has the potential to build its own space around micro-video. I anticipate that the video feature will serve as a great compliment to Flickr and be especially useful for travelers looking for a quick, interactive piece to hear a personal review or gather more insight about an event or location.

It may just be time to follow Lee’s advice and pick up a Flip Phone to add to my tools of travel documentation. I’ve always had a keen interest in shooting photos and video so it only makes sense that I’ll likely be spending even more time clicking around Flickr to discover my next travel destination. 

-Scott

Posted in Flickr, Twitter, Video, YouTube

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Resources to Target Bloggers

Jul 16

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You’ve got a target audience in mind. You know bloggers are important to this audience and to the topic, issue, product or company you’re trying to market. So, HOW exactly do you find the right bloggers to connect with? 

Time and time again you hear about bloggers complaining about PR people pitching completely irrelevant topics. No excuse.

There are a ton of resources and tools out there created for the sole purpose of conducting blog searches that make it easy to find the appropriate people to connect with on any given issue.

I’ve found that utilizing a combination of the following five resources has generated the best results for my purposes. 

*Note, these resources are useful for general search scenarios. If your target audience is specific to Mom Bloggers, I would recommend digging deeper and starting a search over at blogher, Chicago Mom’s Blog or a similar outlet.

Google Blog Search – #1 in my book. Quick, simple, very comprehensive. Go Google. 

Technorati – I’ve always had mixed opinions about Technorati. According to the site, they are “Currently tracking 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.” Can’t argue that. It may be slow at times but still a solid resource to check out.

Blogscope – I recently started using this site and was quite impressed by the thorough results. The one downfall is that it limits search results to 50 returns but you apparently just need to write the research team to get further access.

Blogger – Tagged profile items are great for digging up those with similar interests, locations, etc. 

BlogCatalog – I’ve always enjoyed this community, very clean and easy to use.

So, what’s your favorite blog search platform?

-Scott

Posted in Blogs

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