Stories

Kin Lane

Flash Mobs

Was just reading a cool post about Flash Mobs on Ignite Media. Very cool concept.Is it social media?Is it art?Is it protest?Ignite Media defines a flash mob as:You gather a group of people (through text messages, Facebook groups, emails, whatever) and ask them to come to a particular place at a particu...
Kin Lane

Youtube Releases New API

Youtube finally has reworked their API to allow for uploading of videos. This was a huge problem in integrating YouTube in Social Media Campaigns.Here are some of the things you can do with the YouTube Data API now:Create a web front end to let people view videos about specific topics. Create a desktop application or plugin that pla...
Kin Lane

Youtube Approach to their New API

I wrote earlier about Youtube's new API. I am really happy they updated it. It has several features that I feel are key to using their platform.However in thinking more about it and reading other posts about it I realize their approach and openness is the real gem. Youtube understands the basic 2.0 concept that user activity should not have to occur on your site. This is a very tough concept for some players to understand.Key player still think that the...
Kin Lane

Wordpress Installation and Hosting on the Cloud

Just got a request to install Wordpress blog for a client that will potentially receive a large amount of traffic.So I opted to use the Mosso.com Cloud Hosting Platform by Rackspace. Took me less than 10 minutes to setup the site, install, and configure the Wordpress blog.In my Mosso.com admin interface and added a new web site, chose to use PHP 5 as core technology and chose mysql as the database.Once setup and created a MySQL database....
Kin Lane

RSS Tracking and Analytics Using Feedburner

I have bee spending the week finding many types of RSS feeds for different purposes. I am building large lists of them under different topics and tracking the source of these feeds. I am noticing about 1 in 10 feeds are using Feedburner or any type of tracking for it. Though I am happier at the amount of quality data available via RSS it concerns me that people who have employed RSS do not understand the the value of tracking their RSS consumption and usage. <...
Kin Lane

Chris Anderson of Wired and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch

Was just watching and enjoying a show of Charlie Rose that had Chris Anderson of Wired and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.Chris was very informative and I'll have to watch again.Michael Arrington was impressive. He covered tech as social issues in a way that kept me listening.<...
Kin Lane

Alltop...Guys Latest...

Was just checking out Guy Kawasaki's latest project Alltop.The site layout instantly sucked me in.Couldn't get past the grey bar layer at first. Actually after i got over it....it forced me to really focus on the content.....interesting approach.The sites that are already in my sights within the categories I care about were nothing new. However the introduction to a few new catego...
Kin Lane

Location Tracking Using Yahoo's New Fire Eagle

I was checking out Yahoo's new release, Fire Eagle. It is a secure and stylish way to share your location with sites and services online while giving you control over your data and privacy. Applications and users can respond to your location and help you to discover more about the world around you in real time.It has an API allowing applications to be developed that will allow you to interact online based upon your location. This could b...
Kin Lane

Google Launches a Contacts Data API

I have been getting happier with the contact management tools available in Gmail...and some of the integration with other Google Applications.I would like to see more social networking and social graph management tools, like their recent social graph api release.Now Google has added another simple, yet powerful tool to their API arsenal. A common contact list has helped power applications like Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Calendar, and with the launch of the
Kin Lane

Why We Give More Weight to Facebook Application Development Over MySpace

I was just reading MySpace Developer Platform: Jim Benedetto, MySpace on Jeremiah Owyang's blog. He is at the Social Graph Conference in San Diego. I wish I was there. Anyways he was posting a bunch of information about the MySpace development platform and it really shows an impressive approach on their part in reaching out to the developers community.
Kin Lane

Marketing Using Facebook

Was just reading Facebook Marketing Opportunities over at Digital Podcast. I am currently playing around with several strategies for marketing our companies products on Facebook. His statement about 8 ways to market on Facebook really stood out, and I have seen reciprocated on several other core marketing blogs: ...
Kin Lane

Browser Add Ons

I am pretty addicted to to Firefox Browser Add-Ons. I have many of them to the point of add-on overload.I use them for adding items to my Google Notebook, Amazon S3, CoComment, and much more.I syndicate and share to many social networks, social bookmarking, and other sharing sites.I do all this through Firefox. So recently I have been using Firefox for a primary business function which requires a cookie. So I need to use Internet Explorer for my personal...
Kin Lane

White Label Social Networking for a Mobile Platform

I have been playing with Ning a lot lately and really pushing it to see its potential for a rapid social network deployment.It is very powerful and gives you a huge amount control over setting up a social network.Now I heard about a new white label social networking platform for mobile and handhelds. It is called iamota impact. It allows you to:Quickly and easily create and launch...
Kin Lane

Finally Got Google Sites aka. Jotspot Reborn

Google finally launched the reborn Jotspot as Google sites. It is slick and elegant and acts as I thought it would as a Google App.It seamlessly integrates with other Google Apps. However it seems to be only launched for Google Apps? Which is continuing the confusion about the separation between my Google Apps for My Domain and my FREE primary Google Account which I use heavily. In addition it isn't available in my current Google Apps for my domain. I ha...
Kin Lane

Crowsourcing and the Future of Project Resources

In every company I work for we deal with resource shortages all over the place, either due to budgetary constraints or lack of skilled talent in the area.Either way many projects suffer and take a lot of time. I was reading a post from TED today on new crowdsourcing site Kluster. Its another new attempt at harnessing the power of the crowd and putting it to use to create a better solution to a problem.
Kin Lane

Words of Wisdom on a Successful Facebook Business Profile

I was reading a post on BernaiseSource called Putting a Face on Social Networks: Corporate Facebook Pages. It is another chapter in the ongoing discussion of whether to build your own social network or participate in existing social networks where your users already exist.This post focuses primarily on deploying of a business social network profile on Facebook. There are 3 company success stor...
Kin Lane

Find a Voice for Blog by Catablogging

Was readng a post on CopyBlogger about Catablogging. What is catablogging you ask? Do we really need new terminology for the way you blog?A catablog is basically a blog that is designed to mix content and commerce in a very deliberate fashion. It's looking to attract people who are interested in buying things, but who are also interested in immersing themselves in the lifestyle...
Kin Lane

Communication and Professionalism

I am reviewing about 8 resumes that were submitted for a social media marketing consultant. I made sure that when the resumes came in I responded to each letting them know I received and were reviewing. Once I reviewed them all and was in the process of presenting them to the client I emailed each one personally and let them know where I was in the process.One of the applicants emailed me saying how he appreciated the communication. Made me think some more...
Kin Lane

A Social Media Case Study at Lego

Was just watching a great video on Jeremiah Owyang's blog about a Social Media Case Study from Jake McKee who used to work at Lego.It was very interesting to see how entrenched and distance from customers a company can be. Also how resistant to change a company can be when it comes to opening up to new ideas, change and ultimately their customers.Of course Lego is a very l...
Kin Lane

Podcasting Using Your Phone

I was just playing with Cinch which is a new voice to RSS service. It allows you to call a number and it records a podcast for you. It is more focused, but similar to the voice translation service Jott that I have been using.It gives you an RSS feed of the calls you make which you can easily blend into a Feedburner tracking RSS feed.There is no li...
Kin Lane

Google Talk Chatback Website Widget

I was just playing with the new Google Talk Chatback Widget. It allows you to allow anonymous chats from your web page for your customers and site visitors. I was just researching using this last week for a client who was asking for it and didn't much care for the Boldchat they were using.It is a great FREE or low cost web site chat and support module. Just yet another innovative use for t...
Kin Lane

Bebo Social Networking for Social Media Marketing

Been doing some work on various Bebo Social Network Profiles as part of a social media marketing campaign. Since I am spending some time here I thought I would share some thoughts and strategy.First off Bebo is a very European focused social network. There are a lot of US users, but definitely heavy on the European market.I got setup and have my profile all filled out from my social media profile content platform. Wish I had some d...
Kin Lane

Custom Amazon EC2 Research and Development

We are now offering custom Amazon EC2 Research and Development services. If you are in need of custom EC2 instance deployment, feel free to contact us.Timothy Meredith and I will be pioneering several custom deployments for clients and figured we'd offer these services to all other interested parties.Pretty much any type of EC2 deployment on the Linux platform is where we are focused. Some examples are:Web ServerDatabase Server...
Kin Lane

Amazon EC2 Custom Deployment

Had a meetup with a fellow developer friend of mine. He has been programming for years, but in the last 3-4 years become a real linux distribution and deployment expert. He works primarily on developing very specialized linux installs for specific purposes such as mail server, spam filtering, specialized web applications, and very focused utility solutions.We are going to be working together to offer extremely specialized linux EC2 installations.I have really got exc...
Kin Lane

Pay Per Action and Involvement

Starting to see some ad networks and ad models moving beyond traditional views or clicks. Videoegg launched a new pay per engagement video model.Advertisers pay only on an "engagement" basis or when a user rolls over the ad and the advertisers full screen is displayed.It is a first for this type of true engagement model and really focuses your advertising.