Ben Barren - Confessions of a Mad Man » “DON DRAPER OR DICK WHITMAN I AIN’T. I WASN’T A MADISON AVENUE AD MAN IN 1963, BUT GOOGLE™ AND FLICKR™ DID DELETE MY BLOG AND PHOTOS IN 2008 SO WHY NOT DOCUMENT MY LIFESTREAM HERE; HIRED GUN / ENTREPRENEUR :)”

July 4, 2009 – 11:53 am

blustery saturday demons blogging

It’s Saturday morning and I’m happily lazing pre papers n caffeine pre a Rye V Rosebud game, not doing the pilgrimage to the ‘G for Dees V Eagles Jim Stynes Cancer Support match - which given Eagles cant play on the road - the Dees may actually win today, but it really doesnt work to drive all the way there and back. Just wanna chill - and watch Rye fraternity battle their lower-brow neighbour. Although it would be nice to have one of the new season Visvim jackets to wear in the cold weather. Just gonna be linking’ere as I need commercial caffeine…..

“Yeah, let’s try this whole crowdsourcing, user-generated content thing! Sounds like people really go for it.” - in how not to crowdsource on Techvibes. While Anil prefers “hard data to support social observations” when he takes on The Free Movement.

So there’s $100M venture capital that has gone into iPhone Apps via VentureBeat + The Crunchpad’s getting crunchier via BizJournals.com : “We’re going to make some really big announcements,” said Arrington, who predicted a prototype would be ready for unveiling by the end of July. “We’re full on. These prototypes are real.”

“You just bought a nice site by the lake and need a nice house to built?” : So u’ve made your million or 10/30/100m, solds yer blog network + Newton 2.0 Hardware Flip, well time to buy a Laeke House which Arch Daily cover in forensic meets art detail. I was going to link to my fave but they all kick A$$. Maybe this one, but I wouldnt mind having my own golf course setting. Then I do like the water.

May as well pickup the double bubble barney rubble hubba bubba still 997 new evolution 911 on Autoblog- Time for a new 998 model there Porsche.

Only problem with having a lakehouse would be the entertaining - Eric + Pam “And Pam? Those were great pumps.” could come over anytime; Samantha + Lindsay not so much.

Maybe Michael Bay + Megan Fox could come over and make dinnerparty argument. That’d be swell via Slash Film. While in Michael’s films Megan only actualizes relative to her potential at “seven percent. On the new one [Transformers 2], I tried. But unless you’re a seasoned veteran, working with Michael Bay is not about an acting experience.”

OK I’m getting caffeine withdrawal so I better nickup to cafe in this blustry weather + get my Saturday papers / large latte fix pre The Local Game. Go Dees - Rye and Melbourne - do it for Jimmy Stynes !

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July 2, 2009 – 8:41 pm

The Technology Sometimes, it doesn’t a work.

If there is one benefit of employment other than rent a crowd friends, centrally located offices, a suggested social life, long list of can-do acquaintances, and importantly a transfer of substantial funds at the same time every 14/28/31 days : It’s that they provide or should The Technology. Or Just Say No in Less than 60 Seconds like RSS/Glue VC Mogul Brad Feld.

Michael Wolff, the 1.0 legendary deconstructer + protagonist in Vanity Fair on Politico : “For two generations—since Watergate, let us say—politics has been about opposing Washington. The true modern American ideology was to believe that the federal government, if not evil, was grossly ineffective and pathetically out of touch. Practicing politics, or writing about it, was a job not for the best and brightest but for the narrow-minded and obtuse. Even Washington reporters, once the zenith of the trade, became stodgy relics. Washington was not even the center of power—finance, media, and technology had much more immediate effects on people’s lives than government did. A whole language grew up to characterize the oddness, and the emotional limitations, of the Beltway-centric: “wonks” or, their own, self-loathing favorite, “political junkies” or, that most merciless characterization of Washington, “Hollywood for the ugly.” Even cable television, with its left and right divide, was not interested in politics per se, or in Washington, but in the clash of opposing sides.”

True Blood this week really kicked into gear - The Vampires have Sookie, and a competitor via Scene Source : “Bill, Eric and the rest of the vampires are caught off-guard when a creature savagely attacks Sookie. A shy Hoyt finds himself attracted to Jessica as she makes her first visit to Merlotte’s. Sarah and Steve try to boost the confidence in Jason in his calling. Meanwhile, Sam considers moving to new scenery, and Tara is shocked by the revelry at Maryann’s latest bacchanal.”

So whether it’s a Laptop that works; Mobile with unlimited usage; A company car with petrol, insurance, crash repairs and late vintage low kilometres lack of style - the thing that does suck about not doing The Devil Deal (or doing a similar transactional version consulting) is The Technology isn’t just provided. Nor can u just hand back that Blackberry when u drop it in The Toilet : Ocean or just leave your laptop at some sponsor benefacted Internet Advertising Drinx.

If not Bing it’s Bling via VentureBeat : “Bling Nation has come up with a way to introduce pay-by-cellphone transactions in the U.S. for the purchase of physical goods at stores. That, in turn, has enabled the company to raise $8 million in funding, which is being announced today. Investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Meck and Camp Ventures. The hope is to disrupt the inefficient $60 billion credit card purchasing industry.”

Some prequel Vintage Kenlu.net Nike’s for ya or some totally Factory413_Blog modern Supras (grey wool Cubans or white leather Thunders please!)

“Hello Mr IT : I Need some True Blood Type:O / a replacement Laptop / Blackberry” are not exactly words u utter. Rather how the fk could I have destroyed my 3rd Apple Keyboard within the last year and why did my Blackberry Curve go AWOL a day before the Iphone 3GS came out and the last keyboard died. Not to mention the primary iMac 24″ iMac sitting in the boot of the car needing to be repaired but not getting round to dropping it off at The CompNow Service Centre for fear of sticker shock servicing.

Weeds new season is getting fun and I think Scott Rafer is totally right : “I spent from 1992 to 2006 presuming VC-backed startups were the business I was in, and I worked towards understanding that system. After all that time, two things happened to radically change my outlook.

I finally figured out that one should only raise VC if one is already rich,
I also figured out that being boring and late has better risk|reward characteristics than being sexy and early, and
Cloud computing arrived, making VC deal terms economic only as growth capital for Internet startups, leaving the early-stage field clear to angels (and bootstrapping)…”

Nurse Jackie is kicking along very nice - Like a female updated House with a bit of Dexter thrown in. John Hartigan of News Ltd is well um, not understanding the value of linkage in the new economy. Um lets put that Google Genie back in the bottle, not via Mumbrella : “How many journalists in this room have written a story recently that was original, exclusive, highly relevant and genuinely useful to your audience? I’m not saying there haven’t been stories like this. But, there have been too few.”

I enjoy a bit of Saving Grace minus the God/Avenging Angel conversations. But maybe Mr Hartigan might want to listen to Mr Fred Wilson who far more gets the aggregator linking to specialists with some curation + opinion underpinning the audience orientation AKA the future of the newspaper business : “If I was starting The Village Voice today, I would not print anything. I would not hire a ton of writers. I would build a website and a mobile app (or two or three). I would hire a Publisher and a few salespeople. I would hire an editor and a few journalists. And then I’d go out and find every blog, twitter, facebook, flickr, youtube, and other social media feed out there that is related to downtown NYC and I would pull it all into an aggregation system where my editor and journalists could cull through the posts coming in, curate them, and then publish them. I’d do a bit of original reporting on the big stories but most of what I’d do would be smart curation, with a voice, and an opinion.. At Huffington Post, I believe the formula is create 20% of the content and link to the rest. I think you could make this model work with a 50/50 creation/aggregation model but it would have to be the right locale, the right journalists, and the right advertising market.”

Mumbrella is trying to be nice to Hartigans outdated views on newspapers vs blogs : “I hope and believe that newspapers survive these strange days. But the comments from Campbell Reid and Harto suggest that News Ltd is currently looking the wrong way. Fortunately, there are many within News Ltd who are engaged with social media and excited about the opportunities it offers. I sincerely hope they get heard in the boardroom.”

A Post Hedi Slimane Kris Van Assche Talent Street Styling on Fashion Week Euro Trains : “Dear Shaded Viewers, I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed when Kris Van Assche’s Argentinian Boys wanted to have a photo with me when we ran into them on the metro. Sonny and I were leaving Kris’s show on our way to preview Kim Jones’ collection for Dunhill.”

Did I mention I did pay $69 today and got the new Apple Wired Mini Sized no Numeric Pad (or annoyingly no page up or page down) I’d camerapic the Apple ‘Keyboard’ box with my Lumix Leica lens but that fell thru my Diesels at Federation Square or I’d twitpic the compact keyboard via handset but the email on my blackberry is down and I’m typing this on Generation One PowerPC iMac. So occasionally I just ponder the daily and annual price of my soul and think back on the 15 work laptops I went thru in the 90’s. “Mr IT… I need some new technology*….”

If Newspapers had half a clue they would have launched Gdgt.com - Instead they prefer to cry and ask for grants / rip off their advertisers / make speeches / plan their retirements / milk the rivers of gold before they make their sea change. They certainly arent trying to do what two of the black amex tech bloggers circa 2004/5 Engadget/Gizmodo are doing : “Well, for starters it’s the gadget site we’ve always wanted. We both love devices and spend an insane amount of time playing with them, writing about them, talking about them, and thinking about them. We’ve waited for years for somebody to make a gadget site we could go hang out at all day – when no one did it, we just decided to do it ourselves and make sure that it went beyond everything else out there.. While the core concepts that drive the site — gadgets and community – will always stay the same, what we’re most excited about is the fact that we can use gdgt as the foundation for building tons of new features and tools for the gadget world.”

* MacBook Pro 13″, Canon G10 compact camera, iPhone 3GS or Blackberry Curve 2.0 or Palm Pre, Apple 24″ Monitor, Western Digital WD HD TV Media Player with 500G MyPassport Silver Ext.HDD - would be a start.

Hung is a kewl new HBO show that is paired with True Blood if u have a Green Card, about a gym teacher who starts to trick to pay for his burntout house + gothic emo children. Anyway the pilot was fun as would Scoble vs Arrington be in the Real Time Conference debate via Scobleizer where they will “have a discussion about what he sees as a frightening trend: that mobs are being formed faster and with more “real” participants now thanks to real time technologies, in particular FriendFeed. Me? I see that there’s a good part in crowd behavior. I’ve seen charities raise tons of money because of crowds very quickly. News distribution is changing pretty radically thanks to crowd behavior. I noticed that I started watching more TV because the crowd would talk about interesting shows (this weekend, for instance, I saw tons of people talking about the BET Awards). But there is a downside to mobs. People do get hurt and lives are getting threatened. So, we’ll try to come up with some suggestions for FriendFeed to see if we can find some way to help curtail mobs.”

Wings + Horns is on my list of one of those brands (above grey jacket please) which I’d buy if I A. Worked Hard B. Sold Out C. Made It (D. $106M Lotto Not ! I swear Melbourne and probably all of Australia went crazy with this tenth of a billion AUD$ win which was split 50/50 between 2 non-Vic parties. Via HRCollective : “Wings+Horns has one of my favorite collections this fall. Not that many ‘fashion journalist’ can get too excited about the flat front chinos, wool M2-K Military jackets for classic Wings+Horns zip/button flannels, but it would be hard to find so many high quality, easy to wear, great looking products from another brand. The collection is fairly small, but feels really well put together and quite cohesive. With additions like the mackinaw style wool vest, the chambray quilted field jacket and the leather arm varsity jacket, there is definitely enough to set it apart from the market. Being all designed and made in Vancouver, Canada of course brings a special feeling for us, as we are proud to have a brand that is pushing forward while representing our North Western aesthetic.”

Visvim Dissertation for ya from FreshnessMag.com. Still really want some Visvim Black Suede FBT’s. Damn Japanese design… and its small sizes and high prices! “Those who are fortunate enough to see Visvim’s lookbook in person knows that each is call a “dissertation” – a handsomely bound, hard cover book instead of the usual fare. You will not find any insufficiency in it, instead gorgeous and extensive articles in both English and Japanese. Because just as the title suggested, to Visvim’s Creative Director Hiroki Nakamura, each season’s collection is a tried and true process of experiences and education. And much like a dissertation for a doctoral degree, each collection is base Nakamura-san’s thesis and inspiration, as well as the procedures of design and production. Now, that process is finally available for public viewing as the label’s official website, visvim.tv, came online today.”

My Future is so Bright I have to Wear Kris Van Assche by Oliver Peoples in Ivory Shadez. Or as Brad Feld says : “One of the keys to this is to “say no in less than 60 seconds.” Given that my email address is easily discernable, I get a lot of random inbound “we are looking for money” and “do you want to have coffee” emails. These are easy to say no to, but I also get a lot of not-random “we are looking for money” (e.g. sent from someone I know) and “do you want to have coffee” (e.g. sent from someone I know or recommended by someone I know) emails. And it escalates in relevance from there (and morphs into all forms, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, meeting, run, …) Somewhere between 1% and 10% of these fit my a/b/c criteria above. I can figure this out from the first interaction at least 50% of the time and my first email response is (hopefully a polite) version of “no” that usually consumes a total of less than 30 seconds from beginning to end. Another 25% of the time I need a little more information and request it via mail. This has the side effect of eliminating another chunk of interactions since the person on the receiving end never bothers to respond. For those that do respond, I can usually figure out from the response whether or not I want to spend more time or not; if not, I’m still probably under 60 seconds for saying “no”.”

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June 26, 2009 – 2:22 pm

A Friday Occupied with TK Societys, Kanye4Luis, Thunder$ + 2nd Coming of Be’Jesus.

So it’s a Friday in Australia which is heralded by the second rising of the be’Jesus phone. He will rise again John said or was it Jesus of himself - I couldnt be bothered reading Wikipedia and googling it just ends up with Nutter Religious Right American website spam : Either way, Jesus’ rising happened quickly - One week or so eh ? So he’d be pretty happy with the be’Jesus 3GS phone : The Device with the S moniker for Speed.

It’s good to see Omar getting some work in Nigeria for a billionaire but personally, I’m for the first time interested in the be’Jesus device because of the longer battery life, 3 megapixels with flash zoom and video recording, enhanced virtual keyboard, and general roadtests which show it much improved over the old setup. (Yes alot because of the 3.0 O/S but the core processor certainly gives it a bump in the same way a new Porsche will always be faster than the last one)

But when it comes to underdog not yet available device I’m curious about- that being the Palm Pre : I’m really salivating over the keyboard, UI and aim to sync and centralise your web identity that the ex-Ipod Palm Pre team are going after. But the 32gig iphone 3GS is a pretty damn good meal of fish and wine. If ur gonna rise from the dead and walk on water.. it’s a pretty good device.

It all seems Godly in that on the same day - I have been without Blackberry email for 36 hours (cant even twitpic my Supra TK Society Patent Greys which arrived in under 10 days from the always awesome and impressive Karmaloop.com - complete with 20% off voucher, which even with the premium UPS air-shipping the kicks - which u cant buy from what ive found in Victoria - for around $160AUD shipped.. which is $135 cheaper than Laced in Brisbane which are selling them. Also bonus that I’ve found my perfect Supra size - 10.5 / 44.5 : as generally Supra is sold in full sizes.. and previously I’ve gone 45 - which u can tell is very very close.. but these TKs fit a treat : Supras are just so damn comfortable.. compared to other kicks I’ve had, and there has been a few let me tell U!)

Just to rub it in.. the contract/ownership of blackberry ends Tuesday and I’ve faxed a form in that took 3 phone calls over the last month and 2 hours later with Optus… so hopefully I’m not gonna have to go Crackberry cold turkey Tuesday. Fact is logging into 4 different email accounts via a desktop computer and a web browser with corresponding 4 tabs open.. doesn’t excite me at all. Actually it sux; It’s made me realise how 90% of email creation and 95% of email viewing I now do via Blackberry. Everything other than proposals, attachments for documents created. Telcos in Australia really need to learn their C-Words. And use the C-Word Agency ! Who knew there were so many Constructive C-Words !

That’s why the Pre is enticing.. and also on Cnet video head2head tests it won probably more speed tests against the incumbent Iphone and new 3GS.. not that I think it’s Nirvana.. fact is iphone is now getting into killa territory and only openness of Android may be a chance to compete. Altho Palm are saying there can be 5 healthy players in the smartphone market : “there’s room for three to five players to win in this space. We don’t have to beat each other to prosper.” (my guess : Rim/Blackberry, Apple/Iphone, Palm/Pre-Web_O/S, Google-Android/HTC etc, Nokia/N97 : I cant see going away so bad luck Motorola.. your devices now suckage haz badleee)

So quick end of week word on the Ultra Powerful but awesomely made Occupation, a British BBC 3 part accomplishment about a group of British soldiers who do a Tour of Duty in Basra Iraq. I read about it via Guardian and saw the video stream come up.. and while yes it’s serious, yes it’s about war. Wow - I’m still thinking about it a few days later: Lots of cross generational; Cross culture and class tension. The shots of Iraq are stunning (please dont tell me its not shot there), the plot doesn’t holdback without it turning into a blood bath (there arent any actual “war scenes” as such…)

This is exactly what Australian Film and Television makers should be creating, whether it’s about Iraq or Afghanistan. The story was so much more interesting not being from an American point of view… So check it out… Highly recommended. It also reminds me to watch the Claudia Karvan #Saved telemovie which I grabbed a month ago but hadnt got around to about an Asylum Seeker-Social Worker Love Triangle.

Seems like Sam Worthington should finally be in a bonafide huge hit (#Terminator salvation unfortunately sucked) with the James Cameron Avatar 3D flick via IO9 : “The first of the scenes shown introduced Sam Worthington’s crippled former marine Jake Sully being briefed on the deadliness of the N’avi by commanding officer Stephen Lang. The second scene showed Worthington, Joel Moore and Sigourney Weaver’s Dr. Grace Augustine discussing how the Avatar technology works while standing over either inactive avatars or subdued Na’vi (Reports differ), before the next scene shows Worthington and Moore’s characters inhabit their half-human, half-Na’vi avatars for the first time, something Marketsaw raved about: They look NOTHING like the drawing you’ve seen. They’re living creatures with blue skin, bigger yellow eyes than humans with tails. The avatars even look like their human connectors. You will NOT believe the detail. [I]t took my breath away. I thought—just like you guys—that I’ve seen it all with Gollum, or The Hulk, but Cameron has done it again.“

So Tommy AKA Dennis Leary is drinking again in Rescue Me.. it is a funny show that one… dysfunctional fire fighter central.. He is one Inglourious Basterd ! Interview with Harvey : “Those stories are all untrue. There’s no fucking way. Here, read my lips: That is nuts. Please don’t even write that, it’s insanity. There’s not even a question of that. Whatever you’re reading, it’s like some insane blogger… There’s no truth to any of this. He’s not gonna cut. What he’s doing is just reorganizing some scenes. I mean, the guy had six weeks to cut his movie [for Cannes]; most guys take six months. Most guys take a year. When I worked with Martin [Scorsese], we’d do eighteen months in post-production. Quentin Tarantino cuts a movie in six weeks? Come on, there’s shit on that cutting-room floor that’ll blow your brains out. I was telling Quentin the opposite—”You should put that shit back in the movie.” There’s scenes with Brad Pitt and the Basterds, and I’m praying he puts that shit back in, ‘cause it’s un-fucking-believably great. Listen—this movie will be between two hours and twenty minutes and two hours and twenty-seven minutes. I don’t think it’s going to be shorter—it’s just a question of rearranging. I know he’s putting footage back into the movie. I know he’s got some cool shit that he didn’t get time to address.”

Good sale going on at Caliroots.com - 39-49 euro subtle high hoodies/tracktops/jackets by Adidas Originals, Nike’s high end secret equivalent line, Crooks and Castles etc - They also have those beautiful retro hightops below in red or blue with white.

I hope the Diesel Thanaz 8TS go on sale from the $300USD price. Usually jeans that divide punters (on Honest Forum they r referred to by some H8Rs as the Jizz jeans…) Personally I love the aqua blue and beige paint drops on the tapered dark blue/black thanaz jeans..

So u can pay $1k USD retail (they will probably end up being twice as much to secure a pair if the Air Yeezy phenomenon occurs) for Kanye West Luis Vuitton line (check the photoshoot highsnobiety did source for pics below); “Having worked recently with Nike on the Air Yeezy, the LV collection is the second major sneaker project by Kanye West. Take a step back and think about what is happening here - we see collaborations all the time with boutiques, brands, artists and other creative fields. How many times can the colors and the materials on the same shoe silhouette be changed and still look new and different from the hundreds of releases we see every year? Kanye West got to design his very own silhouettes in both cases, probably the most impressive part about these projects.”

Which really is a nice enough shoe in the tonal one colour versions (im sure the Luis Vuitton finish will mean up close they r vnice) but $1K. or u can get the new Supra Thunders in Black or Blue Suede or White cracked Leather for $68 retail - which u can get a 20% off Karmaloop voucher.. so u r talking $56 plus shipping. Sneaker market is crazy…

Interesting Pizza Hut Social Media Case Study where they intend to give away free pizza to those that follower them on Twitter via Mashable.

Unfortunately a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous and CBS’ TV Everywhere could work, if it didnt try to be in denial that Bit Torrent existed. (not to mention soon most P2p the users will be anonymous) : “I think you can make an assumption that to the extent that authentication represents an additional way for CBS as a broadcaster to get paid, I think that’s very interesting.” - and worked on partnering with ISP’s - which meant that once u paid your ISP the $100 a month, u got access to hundreds of gig of TV/Movies.. but a step in the right direction, with a big dependency on “Authentication” technology working.. Would be nice if Aussie TV networks, would do something online in the new Hulu/Boxee/TV Everywhere space…

I guess Ch9 did just announce they would be streaming the Today show live.. via Mumbrella, well why not apply that thinking to The Ashes - it would be great to have a live videostream (that was not content metered ie outside monthly isp gigage bundled)provided by ninemsn. CBS are trying to talk the talk about live sports streaming.. but whether they will really walk the walk : ““ March Madness is a good example of authentication,” Smith said, without directly answering the question. “It’s the same number of ads but just different ads. It is the broadcast television model brought on line. It’s kind of a case study. We’re getting opener and opener.””

More on TV Everywhere’ere. I dont think The Chaser boys will be Everywhere anytime soon nor driving an Ed Hardy AMG modded Merc anyday soon. They had their konads chopped after going aftetr the Make a Wish crew… and now their material has gone vanilla blah. Ratings in freefall, soon they’ll be reading Seven Nights like Saturday for ideas.

Personally I’ll take the Porsche Panamera 4door turbo… schweet ride. The first road tests are coming out.. reading The Car Magazine in the newsagency today (saving $12.50 as I invested $9.99 in the BRW Rich 200, for research and motivation - they were salivating over the Porsche.. esp as it is going to really rattle the non performance S Class Mercs and 5 + 7 Series BMW’s - as well as its direct M Class + AMG germans plus the Maserati 4 door. At least they’re not fighting like the Tesla “founders” who r going to court over their “titles” and right to founding rights.

As my blackberry doesnt work ATM emailwise I cant send a pic of my new Supra TK Kicks with Terry Kennedy himself pictured with an unreleased Navy Blue with Black pair. Mine are patent grey and they rock.. go perfectly with the All Silver Leather Supra NS Skytops. Such comfortable kicks.. $136USD retail minus 20% Karmaloop.com code.. $110USD plus shipping or $600-$900USD for Air Yeezy’s or $1kUSD plus markup for Luis Vuitton Kanyes…. I’ll take the TK Society please. Oh OK I already did…. hehe

OK Social Media Brief has come in, I need to go earn my benjamins…

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June 24, 2009 – 5:35 pm

Ones + Zeroes : Yes/No - The Game Theory of Hump Day.

Say Yes You Devil Worshipping V Sucking Cli3*…&/Vampire! So both True Blood Season 2 + Weeds got past their boring pilots + are starting to krank. But it’s not TV I’m reflecting on, but continuing with The System + Game Theory riffing. Just as Geeks will say the world consists of 0 (Zeroes) + 1’s (Ones) : The Business Development/Sales equivalent of 0+1’s is Yes + No’s - that determine our fate.

Now the key to Yes + Nos is to be juggling enough Potential Balls, that with a certain Percentage Yes, and a certain Percentage No, that u will get an acceptable Threshold of Yes. Leading to good things in yer life : Altho be careful what u wish4 + all dat.

Now, the numbers playa will make enough calls : do enough meetings : send out a certain number of proposals : which leads to a percentage that close : immediately : in a fortnight : month : quarter : bi-annual : year : never. Gawd knows I’ve modelled enough internet businesses in all stages of the life cycle - From concept honeymoon hockeystick delusional : To geez this cost a bit more than I though and revenue isnt as high as I expected : To I’m hurting now we gotta make that hard yes (Go) :no (No Go)

Like most people the grey maybe isn’t as good as Lancing the Boil: Just rip off the bandaid using an actioned based Yes or constructive No.

When ur selling early stage tech, u often have to spend alot of time and attention on less prospects, which u hope will pay off by having a higher chance than normal of closing a smaller number than normal of prospects.

Miss at La Playa on how to rip your jeans without paying Balmain Prices

Only prob with this model is get a few grey maybe’s and decisive nos and ur suddenly swimming against momentum. And momentum becomes it’s own power and force. Just as one yes often leads to another as the risk is minimised, and having a few allows more to be charged of the next.

One no is more likely to lead to the second and third. And then who wants to go out with damaged goods. It’s all circular. If u want to fall sucker to perception and momentum.

One basic equation in the Yes/No of Sales is You Need to have a good product to sell. And be good at sales. No good being good at sales, but having a crap product. Then u will have more customers, who inevitably be unhappy. Better to have a good product but be bad at sales, then let word of mouth filter.

Like a footballer that needs to put in the pre-season, have the discipline to do the tasks necessary to succeed, then (if a forward) u have to keep presenting.

And then u just have to believe it will happen if u keep doing it.

Yes : sure sounds good.

The Yourblog Tee Men's T-shirts By Seventh Letter $22.95 at Karmaloop.com - Perfect for that Web 2.0 Conference. OK Im off to the treadmill.. discipline... routine n'all that !

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June 22, 2009 – 3:00 pm

The System Predicts 1-Point Winner: The Rock Dogs AKA Satans RocknRoll Demons get up, now2 Diversify the Game Theory

I may have blogged late last week that my day job is supercharging Google Reader as an Enterprise Social Media (Almost) Real Time Brand Tracking, Fair Use UGC Content Syndicating, Hands-On Conversational Marketing Freemium Tool, but The appeared Flippant post about The System, has gained far more interest. And as predicted The System predicted The Winner. Rock Dogs AKA Satans RocknRoll Demons won by One Point !

Source : Rosewal on Flickr with a gr8 set of Community Cup pix. Click thru to view.

Now The Community Cup one year on at Junction Oval, one year off, held at Elsternwick Park yesterday, may have required once Caulfield Grammarian + Point Leo surfer Rupert Betheras to add some zing to the Rockdawgs midfield, and get across the line by the smallest of margins.

But The System already knew this, just as it did that Optus would charge for iPhone 3GS tethering + Daniel Faraday was assured his #Lost mother would kill him in a time shifted determinist inevitability. BTW: I’m grokkin the potentially juicy telemovie in the Rene Rivkin/Gordon Wood/Caroline Byrne 3way murder/coverup/almost got away with it elevator pitch / green lit / in development picture. However : The System had to rebooted from the past after learning that The Wire has only just been picked up by Channel 9 for showing of the Last Season - S5, on the network. That’s some corrupt data aiiight.

Reboots n’all, with The System up and running, I’m thinking of diversifying the Game Theory into other arenas; Maybe Commodore 64 vs iPhone 3GS ? Or possibly the ending of films… Watching a good quality cam version last night, of the heavily estrogen targeted counterpart of testosterone The Hangover’s cinemaplexes’romcom’friendly’ flick The Proposal, SPOILERS AHEAD : twasn’t hard to pick the sequence of boy gets told by grrl; who then gets untold; then boy gets grrl - all expectedly ends happily after 99 minutes apart from for the Immigration Officer.

Even with The System, u will still probably have to interact with people to some degree. It’s not Perfect, yet! And u may as well look good if ur working The System. Say u krazily have to be at a meeting in The City by 9am on a Monday… or any weekday.. Try Gucci. Or Armani or the bit more street; John Richmond. Maybe Balmain. Possibly Burberry will do it for you. Me I just need my Supra TK Society in Patent Grey to arrive any moment/day now. Just like these, Please Mr.Postman !

Source for this + below from da'awesome The Bad Seed, Melbourne Graffiti Pool Flickr.

Now I don’t want The System to end up in the wrong hands; Burton’s Alice in Wonderland looks beautiful but could be a scary place. Ditto True Blood episode 2 tonite! Tho imagine all the good it could do if harnessed.. As Umair says in his latest post in Harvard Business Review;

“… Here’s what you’re up against: the new economics of organization.

You command and control. The opposition self-organizes.

Your advantage is force. The opposition’s is resilience.

You had a strategy - to maintain power. The opposition has a purpose - to change the world.

You divide and conquer. The opposition links and unifies.

You wield thin power - violence. The opposition wields thick power - belief.

If one voice can change a room - then it can change the world.

What does that really mean?

There is nothing more asymmetrical than an ideal. In the right hands, an ideal is a weapon more potent than any club, gun, or bomb. It can turn a two nerdy computer science PhDs at Stanford into corporate titans. It can turn an unknown junior senator into the President of the United States.

And it can, just maybe, turn an inconsequential 140 character messaging service into a tool that helps revolutionize a state.

The opposition has many ideals: liberty, equality, justice, hope.

Where are yours? That’s the dilemma you face…”

Elwoodite Thomas Dot Org Captured the Community Cup Pom Pom Grrls Perfectly. There was definitely a high(er) VB Drinking : PomPom Action happening... but the crowd loved it!

Posted by Ben Barren on | Filed under Australia, Sport | Comments Comments

June 21, 2009 – 10:45 am

Finding Z at the Community Cup

So I’ve determined the way to get Yeezy fk off rich isn’t via the endless execution better than the next bloke or lass of the most amazing new new thing - It’s via mathematics slash econometrics, not : How about just call it good ol damn punting, Tuppence Moran SP Bookie style. Except with a System; The System. Dont Believe ? See today I’ll go to my 3rd footy match in 3 days - The Community Cup at Elsternwick Park, and The System can predict the winner.

2009 Community Cup : “The Community Cup is back in town! On Sunday the 21st June, the Espy Rockdogs and the RRR/PBS Megahertz will go against each other vying for the 2009 Community Cup. It’ll cost $5 to get in, and the day is kid and dog friendly if you promise to keep it on a leash (the dog, not the kidlet). No BYO or glass allowed though. There’ll be bands from 11am - Cosmic Psychos, Kram, Doll Squad, Jordie Lane and Scared Weird Little Guys. Bounce is at 2:30pm.”

In order to properly enter the cells into the rows and columns of excel to generate the powerpoint graph going up we need X and Y. The System has cracked the X + Y needed to find Z. Ok enough crypticity : I need to go get a cawfee on way to Elwood, and U need to move onto the next item in google reader.

Let The System be unveiled; I dont believe in Customer Lock in, or charging some large fee for nothing each month. So I’ll give u the formula now. Make Your Own System. And let The Systems run off together and make little Systi’. First we need the data points and assumptions so u know I aint making this stuff up playa.

Data Points

Friday Night : Melbourne Demons Lose to Another Team Friday Night at Telstra/Colonial Dome/Stadium… dont call it Eti…..y…… h…..aaa……..d

Saturday : Rye Demons Beat Hastings in a close match at Rye……

Sunday : Some Rockstars play Radio Station hipsters at Elsternwick park.. found out about via Kingsta and The Royals !

So as time passes (from Friday to Sunday) the quality of the Teams (X) gets worse while the chance of the Red and Blue winning increases. So with The System, the worse a team is the more chance they have of winning. But the other team still needs to be worse! So as long as the football teams today are worse than the teams yesterday, My Team should win.

Only problem is I dont think there are any Demon teams playing today : That’s alright we’ll improvise - Well The Rockstars should be satanic.. so lets accord them the Demons label… and they should beat the Radio Station, based on The System. OK I’m outtee… it’s a really bad System I know, still working out The Kinks.

Fabienne: Whose motorcycle is this?
Butch: It’s a chopper, baby.
Fabienne: Whose chopper is this?
Butch: It’s Zed’s.
Fabienne: Who’s Zed?
Butch: Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.

Posted by Ben Barren on | Filed under Australia, blogging | Comments Comments

June 19, 2009 – 10:53 am

automagic blogging, rorschach tested, hard earned thirst’d, tuppence friday full of #weeds #trueblood + #spooks

The next startup I do is going to automate blogging; It will automatically construct + autopublish witty, sarcastic droll bullets at the world, then compress them into a selfdestructing after 140 characters tweet. All of which is short for I’m off to Melbourne for meetings, Telstra Dome Dees V Bombers tonite.. and corresponding fun. Suffice to say US programming is starting to resume : With #Weeds #TrueBlood series returns, and #NurseJackie the new Dexter meets House starring Edie Falco. I’m also almost 4 seasons of #Spooks down which is always fun.

The iPhone 3GS really does have a nice spec now, altho the Pre in this CNet real world test wins a few and is so much smaller, with a keyboard. Still the 3GS with more speed, longer battery life, 3 megapixels with zoom, video recording etc - Even I’m starting 2doubt keyboard benefits.

If I got an Iphone 3GS, I’d have to have a Netbook to do email on the go. The Toshiba Mini NB-205 is the new class leader, but I still love the just upgraded (a little only but still every bit counts) Linux newbiezed webcentric O/S of the HP 110 Mini Mi_edition + at $280 outright, amazing. (about $440 when u slightly spec it up)

Will definitely not be driving tonight… dont know the tricks at Telstra Dome parking.. and I’d like to enjoy a beer - “the best cold beer….” may not be Vic tonight : Can u believe they are dropping “A Hard Earned Thirst” from their tagline via B + T : “We have to honour the base of VB drinkers, but at the same time we have to widen the lens. We have to seed a point of view and personality so we become enticing for a new generation. If you are a tradie, you don’t think yourself as blue collar anymore, you think of yourself as an entrepreneur. The landscape has changed and VB need to reflect that change….”

Not sure which part of Telstra Dome will be in tonite.. lose my MCC Long Room Safety Blanket with a Schooner and the perfect view on the wing. It seems I’m not alone in C-Listers wanting to go B-List via NYTImes on Twitter (linked off scripting.com) : “Kathleen Hessert, whose company, Sports Media Challenge, advises athletes on how to extend their popularity online, says that cracking the suggested user list could become an important goal for some of her clients. Not for clients like Shaquille O’Neal or Peyton Manning, but for the B-list celebrities, like, say, the solid basketball player Troy Murphy of the Indiana Pacers, who uses Twitter to share his concern for the environment. (She said that she would like Twitter to put placement up to a vote that would genuinely represent potential public interest.) “They are making celebrities by choosing who to follow,” she said. “What their system is for picking people, I am foggy about — and they want it to be mysterious, I’m thinking.”

Get TrueBlood S2E1 via the links : “The citizens of Bon Temps are worried another murderer is on the loose as a body is discovered at Merlotte’s. Meanwhile, Sookie is irked at the presence of Jessica, a teen protege of Bill’s, and his role in a death in the Stackhouse family. Jason prays for a way to pay to attend a retreat with an anti-vampire group.”

FX turning Elmore Leonard novel into a TV Show : “Produced by Sony and written by Graham Yost (”Boomtown,” “Band of Brothers”), the proposed series stars Timothy Olyphant (”Live Free or Die Hard”) as Raylan Givens, a character who’s also appeared in the Leonard novels “Pronto” and “Riding the Rap.” Leonard serves as an executive producer on this pilot. After an incident in Miami, Givens, a U.S. marshal, gets transferred to Harlan County, Ky., where he grew up. In the pilot, Givens and his team, including characters invented by Yost and not featured in Leonard’s story, face off against a white supremacist played by guest star Walton Goggins (Shane from “The Shield”).”

Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze could be interesting via Slashfilm : “Amazon are now taking pre-orders for The Wild Things, Dave Eggers‘ novel “based loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay cowritten with Spike Jonze“. The hardback is set to street in October, just ahead of the Where the Wild Things Are movie. Jonze’ film must be one of my most anticipated pictures of the year, and to think… well, to think how close we were to losing it for a while.”

Some people, not Nancy, are a bit unhappy and need some therapy hehe : Your Publication Could Suck as Bad as Techcrunch.

First new ep of #Weeds sucked.. but the 2nd ep kicked it.. Similarly first True Blood return ep was a bit non extreme… but will quickly kick into gear now we know characters.

Nurse Jackie is alot of fun tho.. and I dont like Hospital shows other than House.. so if u like House and Dexter get Nurse Jackie.

Tuppence got shot : Who according to the media was either the Kingpin with millions of dollars who got wacked via sister in law.. or he knew nothing and was the only Moran who wasn’t a criminal. I’m guessing the former, at least in fiction… and Underbelly #4. How did fn Underbelly become a Sydney franchise ? All that happens in Sydney is home and away coke tweekers hang at Kings Cross stripclubs with bikies, and get psychosis after staying up for 3 days and call special forces… in Melbourne your family wacks u while having a coffee and u dont see it coming.

I like the Aaron Rose DC mid chukkas but prefer the Black with red lacing than olive : I’m also keen to see Crowd Eye ship, the realtime twitter centric search engine + charting solution - Mashable have more on it.

Loving #Spooks, but will Mad Men move from New York to Los Angeles ? via Rollingstone kewl interview with show creator Matthew Weiner - “Whenever you talk about Tarot cards and psychics, you sound like a nut, but I use Tarot cards as a kind of Rorschach test for my life. I do believe in fate and I do believe in coincidence and I find that when something’s on my mind creatively, it tends to explode all over my life. So when I got this reading that said, “You are trying to be strong, but the truth is, you are pushing everyone away,” I looked at the cards and I said, This is me, but this is also Don — it’s a lot of men. Then there’s that moment afterward when Don goes into the ocean and is baptized. I put that George Jones song in there, “A Cup of Loneliness,” which is really an evangelical song about finding Jesus through the pain in your life. It felt very much like Don, who comes from this rural poverty. I’m not part of that evangelical tradition, but I really identify with it. I think everyone wants a second chance and sometimes you have to go to the bottom to get it.”

OK I better go, need to pack, shower etc for Melbourne.. the amount of time it takes to get ones possessions needed to go to Melbourne overnight…

Hopefully I’ll get my Patent Grey Supra TK Society from Karmaloop.com next week or soon after.. I’m not impatient..

Timebooth.com : “The new Breitling Airwolf Raven watch accommodates a Breitling calibre 78 SuperQuartz movement. The movement is certified by COSC. The chronograph features 1/100 of a second accuracy. The movement also provides the functions of an alarm clock, countdown, GMT with independent alarm and end of battery life indicator. The new Airwolf Raven watch also features a digital perpetual calendar. The watch is housed by a steel case water resistance up to 5 bars. The case measures 43.5 mm in diameter and is equipped with anti-reflection sapphire crystal on both sides. The dial is available in three variants: Volcano Black, Stratus Silver or Tungsten Gray. The Airwolf Raven watch is coupled with Ocean Racer or Diver Pro bracelets or goes together with a Barenia leather or crocodile leather straps.”

Posted by Ben Barren on | Filed under blogging | Comments Comments

June 15, 2009 – 4:04 pm

Why Google Reader is My Preferred Enterprise Social Media Optimization Eco_System.

I don’t disagree it’s scary that the google cloud owns so many parts of our digital assets and identity. If anything it’s lucky google hasn’t been (yet) a winner takes all victor in social media other than in amateur video via YouTube. Now $6B later, if it was able to pickup Twitter and Facebook that may well change. But that’s not what my post is about. I’m interested in one of Google’s less sexy assets, that has a small internal team but market leadership, and a potential business platform in the making; Google Reader.

Businesswise too, I’m spending a majority of my time repurposing Google Reader, and it’s related ecosystems of Google + Third Party created plugins, to enable an always up, always indexing Social Media Eco-System, that enables monitoring, syndication and conversational marketing for clients. Fact is, rather than go down the bespoke pathway, I’d rather focus on the glue, the filtering, and the actual hands-on work involved in the messy distributed, decentralised, global nature of social media. And get Google’s continual updates, as well as the venture funded startups developing around the feed based platform.

While it is very sexy to be a iPhone and to a degree a Facebook developer.. esp as the former has a way for the creator to make money.. and the latter has 200m+ members : Google Reader is the #1 RSS Reader (See Matt Cutts feed reader market share just as an example).. and it’s also part of the long term enterprise cloud that includes Google Docs, Adsense, Feedburner, Wave, and so on. I reckon Google Reader as part of a business platform for social media could be fascinating.

And there are very few businesses other than Feedly.com + Postrank.com taking advantage of it. Not that little competition is a bad thing. But the more developers, the stronger a platform, the better the economics.

The approach that seems to be working and some of the tools I’ve been combining that works well built on top of Google Reader (and some of the gaps I’d love google and its network of 3rd party developers to plug):

1. Set-Up a New Google Reader for each New Client or (vertical, niche, segment, industry, target market demographic etc) of investigation :

* Benefit : Each client has their own private log-in Social Media System + dashboard

* Required Fix : It would be great if the premium Google Docs/Business solution had a Parent/Child(ren) version of Google Reader. So like active twitter companies that might have 30 twitter accounts running… and use a 3rd party app that allows simultaneous login/dashboard to the 30 twitter accounts… it would be a dream if I had a Master Google Reader account that aggregated and dashboarded the various child accounts. It would have the wiki like Rules around what users could log into which pages/accounts etc with what authority. At moment what happens is I need to login and out of different google reader accounts.. And google only allows your computer to have one google account open at once.. so if u have gmail open, it needs to be same email username for google reader. Doh. If I could run 100 Google Reader accounts into one master account, I would have an awesome/powerful Social Media content syndication tool, as I could partition the different sources of content I’ve subscribed to, and then create various rules as to where it ended up.

2. Plugin Viral Analytics Package (Postrank Google Reader AKA AideRSS plugin) : That ranks every entry to google reader out of 10 for viral buzz, popularity, most dugg, being linkedto, etc

* Benefit : When monitoring for clients what sources, commentators, individuals, URLs matter : And what issues relevant to their brand are popping up.. PostRank is an invaluable tool. Without it, I would have raw filtered content, that is largely boolean matches, and RSS feeds.. but I wouldnt have an idea of what is getting really buzz / high reach in the blogosphere.

* Required Fix : Not that many, Postrank is a great weapon.. I hope they keep upgrading and upgrading it.. they have something none of the typical Social media monitoring systems offer - Viral analytics in near realtime at an entry/post level. However u still have that classic social media issue where it still takes a certain amount of time for an entry to get recognisable links, scores etc. So there is a slight delay.. but I’ve found within a couple hours it hits the spot : more than enough for nearly all clients. It would be better if the sorting worked better. You can currently sort into 4 or so levels of Virality : Average, Good, Great etc. The google reader postrank plugin seems buggy in doing this which is annoying. It would be great if I could have a set of spliced feeds by my google reader categories/tags : So that I could syndicate to intelligence clients or syndicate to CMS a subset of the most viral content by type of content (eg from flickr, youtube, twitter, blogs etc) or by client company, product or brand name : Or a combination eg Most Viral Tweets by Company Brand X… possibly with another level of categorisation such as Location - most popular content (eg tweets) for brand x (eg coca cola) in location x eg victoria.

3. Maximise the presentation of the data and take advantage of different filtering, conversational marketing and analytics tools for Google Reader. Feedly.com is doing some great work around extending Google Reader. While their focus is more consumer, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to apply their solution to Enterprise Social Media Systems. I’m already doing it for starters, hehe.

* Benefit : Feedly represents Google Reader content in a more sexy magazine type format. While this may sound superficial it helps make the tool be used more by clients - both direct and agency. The way Feedly automatically grabs relevant YouTube videos, twitter messages and Flickr photosets in itself is valuable. Feedly is also much more than presentation. Over time it identifies popular/high influence sources, in this case social media commentators that u r tracking for client in Google Reader. As ultimately clients are marketers, understanding who the industry gatekeepers are that are making influential noise about a client, that is very valuable. Feedly also is excellent in so far as it integrates back into google reader (so if u share an item within feedly it still becomes part of your aggregate google reader manicured feed which u can use for syndication +/or a snapshot of important filtered posts for client to read_use) Feedly also plugs direct into twitter and friendfeed so for active conversational marketers, u can jump into conversation asap.

* Required Fix : I hope Feedly go more enterprise and really delve into analytics (they dont yet integrate Postrank from what I understand) - As well as identifying virality at the post level, if they could track over time the most influential social media commentators for the client/account : That would be very valuable. They could establish an Influence Index, that tracked the Social Media Noise made by each of the Google Reader feeds/sources. Relatedly they could graph over time the influence of each of the sources, and allow a drilling into which posts/tweets/videos/links are driving the influence trend. Again, Google Reader has a basic trends tab - which identifies useful daily data such as average number of entries for Top 40 sources - but u cant yet export this data with one click or present it in a sexy Google Finance/Trends type way. Maybe Feedly can do this… or someone… or a combination of hackers, developers, clients, agencies.. and product geeks such as myself.

4. Google itself is starting to provide more output options and widgets for Google Reader, which can be applied as Desktop Social Media Monitoring and Action Tools. But there needs to be more serious choices around the opening up of Google Reader accounts via feeds.

* Benefit : So at moment, Google reader allows the registered user to click “share” or “share + annotate” any of the entries. These shares in aggregate become a public atom feed. This is very useful as previously mentioned, it becomes a manicured aggregate set of entries which can be published to a webpage, pulled into a CMS, or delivered to client as a tailored monitoring list. (esp with accompanying PostRank score out of 10 for each entry) Further these items have a schema based on the categories which you establish in the Google Reader account. With some additional work, a developer can then slice n dice the feed according to client requirements eg Twitter entries only (assuming Twitter is a category) Or YouTube Only.. or Brand X eg Coca Cola only entries etc

* Required Fix : Unfortunately, Google Reader like Google.com search doesnt have a Twitter Search or FriendFeed advanced search and feed creation capability - where the user can specify a set of Boolean criteria from an advanced search criteria and create a feed as a result. This is so annoying. You can search a google reader account. But you cannot create a feed based on this search thus making it pretty much useless. You cannot specify recency, relevance, keywords, content types, categories, or handpick entries to create feeds from these combination of entries.

Let’s say client wants to take any matched entries from the last month of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and publish those on a specific page on their website. Then on another page they want to publish under fair use of course, all the entries about another Cannes Festival Film : Coppola’s Tetro. Or Alan Ball’s True Blood Season 2 HBO vampires show which starts today.. lets say I need to generate a feed from my google reader just of the True Blood content…

I cant do this with Google Reader out of the box : And unfortunately there is too much hacking to achieve it. With some basic advanced search and feed creation features - same as Friendfeed Advanced Search (setup by ex-googlers no less) - then suddenly Google Reader really becomes a powerful CMS syndication tool… as well as a monitoring one.. I can setup a range of different rules/criteria and destinations for the matched results.. to a whole range of users across an organisation.. but at moment, I cant do this.. so either Google Reader team dose it, or one of its developers like Feedly.. or a Friendfeed starts thinking like this and extends its scope.. Dave Winer mentioned awhile back that Friendfeed could differentiate itself from Twitter and Facebook by being a more CMS like product.. I totally agree with that : Kind of like what Zemanta are doing for blogging and Navify are for Wikipedia value added content.

5. My final bolded benefit and required fix for building on top of Google Reader Social Media Eco-Systems is the absolute brilliance and non deadness of the Really Simple Syndication format. What Dave Winer created here is so awesome, but people who say RSS is dead are just plain stoopid, as it’s like saying water is dead because they prefer the taste of Coca-Cola. With each Google Reader able to take up to about 4k feeds (based on my personal RSS reader maxing out at 4k feeds and asking me to delete some to be able to add new ones) - 4k sources is more than enough per client.

And even compared to 18 months ago, there is now (even for an Australian based client in one industry segment) an absolute wealth of valuable social media content; I can grab blog feeds + search feeds, Flickr has geographic tagged + vanilla photos by feeds, YouTube has a near infinite level of feeds that can be drilled down to keyword and Client product/brands; Twitter has heavy advanced search filters that create feeds, including geographic parameters which helps for brands outside the US that may have the same names; Facebook is finally starting to open up public feeds; Friendfeed has useful influentials; And increasingly feeds can be added which analyse the analytics - What is being linked to; What is being retweeter’d; And so on. All of this thx2 Dave Winer and the handy RSS format. This is a fundamentally different approach than the Nielsen’s and large social media monitoring systems.

* Benefit : Google Reader is a feed based system. So the system becomes more valuable as more content is in an RSS format. For nearly all social media, their content is RSS Ready : Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Blogs. Where the next level of revolution will come is when Facebook becomes open and it’s content is made available via RSS when the member opts-in to have it exported out. Given Facebook looks more like Twitter meets Friendfeed and sucks social media in - It’s inevitable that users are allowed to syndicate their content out. This will make a Google Reader Social Media EcoSystem approach even more valuable.

* Required Fix : Hopefully the Zuckerberg monster will open up sooner rather than later to feeds. And that there will be analytics feeds which become available which traverse, index and filter the Facebook cloud into a Postrank like Mean Girls popularity test. Given Facebook is about real people, and real people live and act within a one hour drive of home… there will also be alot of local marketing opportunities that this creates in social media. Especially when tied into other local social media like parts of twitter and flickr, which already index very well in Google Reader.

Having 5 or 6 times setup the above Google Reader Eco-System(s), I’m becoming fairly fast and efficient at optimising these solutions for clients. I’m constantly looking for and testing new plugins + solutions. In the last fortnight Google released it’s Google Reader Gadget as part of the Google Desktop solution. There are some very interesting tie-ins here that I’ve been testing.. I’m also interested in building some of the above glue to connecting tissue with developers who have an interest in this; The Google Reader centric Social Media EcoSystem may not be as sexy as developing for IPhone or Facebook, but the competition is far less, and the combination of Google enterprise products means long term there seems to be a substantial opportunity in the intelligence, monitoring, syndication and conversational marketing of such a platform.

Personally I find the possible products that could be built around this Platform for Social Media Optimization could be fascinating and quite differentiated from the Nielsen’s + Buzz’Metrics_Numbers_etc_Solutions : Many of which do a kickass job. What I need though is a hands on tool that actually helps me extract info I can action. Too many tools in the space display a graph, and a fake brand value impression… but dont say : Here are the 5 most influential social media commentators for your client, and here are their contact details.

Not to mention with social media splintering… the way to deal with YouTube, Twitter, Blogs, Flickr etc is different (in terms of analytics monitored, the way each content type is presented etc… but the beauty of RSS is it’s a solidifying element.. and with Google Reader alot of the heavy boring work - that you dont want to build or maintain Google does.. then when u plugin tools like Feedly and Postrank.. as well as Google’s Desktop and Reader Gadget.. u can concentrate on ensuring The Universe of what is being monitored is comprehensive/up2date.. and then focus on the filtering algorithms, the slicing and dicing… the scoring and identification of social media commentators.. as well as the hands on of contacting these people, writing a tailored email.. calling them up… meeting them.. with the money saved on the back end and bespoke solutions.. or the exhorbitant monthly licensing fees for nonactionable graphs.. u can spend money on sexy client unique algorithms +/or real life relationship building…

Cant Wait to get My Supra TK Society Patent Grey, photos via PrimitiveShoes.com - Click to visit and drool.

That said.. if u dont want to do anything but u want the above done.. well that’s my sales pitch.I’m keen to spend the majority of my time working on the above projects so I can get some economies of scale and become a specialist in Social Media Optimization. Rather than work for 5 clients on 5 different projects. I’d rather work on 5 clients doing projects across the same value chain, even if some are social media intelligence, others interested in syndicating parts of the blogosphere under fair use, and others in acquiring customers, and getting traffic via social networks. The type of commitment setting up such a system entails that I personally work on is :

* Typically setting up a Full Blown Social Media EcoSystem via Google Reader and plugins is (up to) 5 days work.

* Then ongoing for keeping feed sources and plugins up to date, with additions and deletions, plus normal customer queries is half a day a week.

* If there u also want the monitoring for client names, products, brands, competitors, trends etc : that usually adds another half day per week. To get hands on, where monitoring is only the starting point and there is a new website, product/brand launch.. and the aim is to convert clicks, traffic and sales etc - add another half day a week : If you get the drift.

Still add that up at a very cost effective much lower than agency/consultant hourly/daily rate (with volume/longer term time discounts) it’s far more cost effective, and much more value creation than the standard Social Media Buzz Monitoring by the TV ratings or Bespoke software systems. Namely because by using open source, free, and freemium software (most of which is free, none of which costs more than $100 per month) - there is a whole technology/software/licensing cost line item that doesnt exist.

If u get my drift. redbarren at gmail dot com if u want to ping me… Always happy to prepare a tailored real demo for real prospects.. so u can compare the apples and oranges….