Blogging Is Flirting

I often talk about social media using real world human interaction as a metaphor, so this kind of makes sense.

Blogging is just people, flirting is just attention, and no person anywhere dislikes attention. I’m not talking about asking your reader out on a date. I’m talking about rewarding them for engaging with your words - with you. The trick with blogging, of course, is that you’ve got to flirt with everyone at once, the old and the new, without being insincere. No one likes a player…but everyone loves a flirt.

Here's the full post: The Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge Method, Or, Blogging Is Flirting

Future of Media video

I is sponzorin ur runz

LOLcat, originally uploaded by deliciousmedia.

I updated my sponsorship page with LOLpenguins, but wanted to save my LOLcat mascot somewhere. So here he is.

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Training Photo

Uploaded from N95 via Shozu

More running, this time with satellites

Another long run last weekend. 16 miles in 2 hours 49 mins.

Only this time I tracked it with Nokia's Sportstracker application that uses the built in GPS on the N95 to measure distance, speed, time, etc.

This is all good. Sportstracker is a free mobile app and an online service which logs your runs, and allows you to look up other peoples routes. Much like Nike+ or Mapmyrun.com (I've been using the latter).

However whilst the phone allows me to export to GPX and KML, the website does not provide the tools to embed the resulting map into my blog, so I have to link to it instead.

Whilst this is a bit lame, it is probably my only complaint about the service. The only other thing missing from the website is a volume of users, the community areas of the site seem a bit empty - probably because no one thinks about Nokia when they think of personal fitness.

Forest fires and matches

James Cooper reports from a talk given by Duncan 'the tipping point is toast' Watts:

"Another good analogy was that it makes no difference what sort of match one uses to start a forest fire - if the conditions are right it will spread. It's crazy to spend lots of money on trying to find the perfect match if it's been raining or there has recently been a fire."

Influence equals marketing value

Charlene Li:

"Today’s advertising models don’t work on social networking sites – that’s because simply targeting better on profile or social graph details is still the same old media model of CPM and CPC pricing. What’s missing is marketing value based on how valuable I am in the context of my influence."

Excerpt from Charlene's interesting post on the future of social networks

I ran 12.5 miles today

Not quite half the distance I have to run in April.

Internet media has become social media

Clay Shirky, (via John Dodds): "What do businesses need to know: Businesses need to know that the old simplicities of dealing with their customers are disappearing, because customers are now able to coordinate their actions in groups......Now, thanks to social media, customers are part of active groups, groups that form and dissolve quickly in response to people's interests or needs -- most messages in this media flow within social groups, rather than from businesses to individuals."

Your brand website is less relevant than ever before

Great post from The Viral Garden on why companies should monitor what consumers are saying about them.

The conversation (still) carries on....

I especially like the Alexa graph that shows the difference in traffic between the site where Jennifer Laycock posted about Panera Bread, and the Panera bread website:

10 Reasons Business Should be Embracing Social Media

Slightly cheesy, but worthwhile rembering, from 'The Engaging Brand': 10 Reasons Business Should be Embracing Social Media

David Lynch on iPhone

“It’s such a sadness when you think you’ve seen a film in on your fucking telephone.”

Re: Mikontalo Lights preview

Here Comes Another Bubble - The Richter Scales

A few Good Creative Men

Information R/evolution

Thanks to Robin for pointing this out on Brand Republic (login required). Perfect video if you ever need to explain what tags are for.

The Zune, Widgetised

According to the New York Times, Microsoft

"is creating a social-networking site, Zune Social, to encourage the sharing of samples of songs online, even for fans who do not own a Zune player. Members of the network will also be able to use a small application on their computers to display which songs they have been listening to, and that information can be posted on certain Web sites outside the network or sent by e-mail to friends."

A bit like any number of existing web-based music applications, then.

Think About It

Hyundai USA have launched a new website, http://www.thinkaboutit.com/, which is simple, elegant and thought provoking. I like it.

Facebook: shifting mobile internet demographics?

From the Independent

...the rapidly growing popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook is having a knock-on effect in the mobile sector. A spokesman for T-Mobile said six months ago the top 20 sites accessed on its network were predominantly news or adult pages and most of its users were males over 40. Yet today the most popular sites are social networking pages, triggering a demographic shift in its user base toward 20- to 30-year olds.

Do you Facebook from your mobile?