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Net users are becoming their own reputation managers

With everyone becoming a producer in the YouTube age, self-branding ("The Brand Called You") has evolved from a fancy to a necessity.

Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame have shrunk to 5 seconds of microfame, and in the contained public arena of social networks, amateur paparazzi--thanks to the viral nature of social media--have the power to grant celebrity status. That, in a nutshell, is the thesis of Clive Thompson's poignant piece for Wired on the rise of "microcelebrities."

As Facebook walls make personal communications open to the rest of your trusted network, even your … Read more

Trends 2008: Will 3D printing finally go mainstream?

Everyone wants to be a designer. That's the value proposition of JuJups.com, a new online service claiming it will allow consumers to design their own personalized and customized 3D content. 3D printing, as the underlying technology is called, is a form of rapid prototyping that builds up three-dimensional objects by "printing" successive layers of materials (polymer, cells, sugar, etc.) on top of each other.

As a recent Wired story points out, 3D-printing technology has been around for a while, mostly used by professional design firms and design-intensive businesses such as automakers, handset makers, and aerospace companies. … Read more

The one thing (question) for a better world

In fin d'ann?e mood, saving the world is en vogue -- and asking the "one thing" question obviously, too.

Inspired by Leonardo DiCaprio's gloom and doom documentary "The 11th Hour," OnEarth magazine asked a panel of leading scientists and activists to "move beyond bleak diagnoses and offer concrete proposals for a sustainable future:"

"Which one thing would you do to save the world?"

You can view it on YouTube or read a transcript of the entire conversation here.

In a similar vein, but slightly modifying OnEarth's impetus (and … Read more

An exceptional year for Alfresco

It's hard to talk about the rising success of open source without at least mentioning Alfresco, given the successes of this past year. Given that I work for Alfresco, I try to keep references to Alfresco isolated and only part of larger discussions of open source. But there has been so much momentum and traction lately that today I can't help myself. Indeed, CMSwire went so far as to write:

Every week, it seems, there's a big announcement from Alfresco....The [company] has...some kind of magical app-building framework which enables them to rattle off integrated products at lightning speed.

The latest of these [Red Hat + Alfresco collaboration] is not quite as sexy, on the face of it, as the Facebook hookup. But in terms of its implications for the collaboration portal industry, i.e. for Microsoft, it could prove to be the killer app which takes Alfresco into the big time.

In the last quarter alone, Alfresco racked up the following:

Alfresco registered 400% sales growth over an already very robust fiscal year 2006;… Read more

Study predicts rise of 'circular entertainment'

A new study from Nokia predicts that by 2012, a quarter of all entertainment will be created, edited, and shared within peer groups rather than being generated by traditional media.

Jointly conducted with the trend research firm The Future Laboratory, Nokia's study asked trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles. The company also used information gathered from its 900 million customers as well as views of leading industry analysts.

"From our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call 'circular.' The … Read more

Conversation 2.0: Social marketing and you

Here's a link to a presentation I gave last week. Forgive me for the "conversation 2.0" moniker but it's a catchy way to pinpoint what's happening right now in the world of marketing. Marketers and brands have always had conversations, but at a much slower pace and mediated by professional parties. That's no longer the case. Conversation 2.0, that is, the Web 2.0-enabled conversation, shifts places and times; it is ubiquitous and doesn't pause--it is, in all senses of the meaning, a "never ending conversation."

Thus, "social … Read more

Open sourcing the mobile web with Goo...err, Volantis

There's been a flurry of excitement about open source in the mobile world in the past few weeks, what with Google's Open Handset Alliance and its associated Android software platform. In all the hype (some deserved, some not), people seem to have forgotten one Very Big Problem in mobile:

There is a huge array of different hardware and software specifications.

Google's Android solves the software specification problem (at least, for those phones that end up using it), but it does nothing to resolve the wider compatibility problem for mobile developers. Developing for the Android platform may make sense five years from now, but it's a losing (market) proposition until it gains widespread adoption.

Which is why Volantis' decision to open source its framework is such a positive thing for the mobile world:… Read more

Is HoneyShed the end of the future of online advertising?

Call it branded entertainment, advertising-as-content, or just brand-vertising: obviously inspired by TBS' veryfunnyads.com, which according to MediaPost claims more than 73 million views since launching last year, brands and advertisers are teaming up to push the envelope of online advertising even further. Recent example: Publicis Groupe, Droga5, and Digitas have joined forces to quietly launch what they had already announced in May this year--a site dubbed HoneyShed on which advertisers can air brand-specific programming. Clips can be shared by viewers via e-mail or embedded on blogs and other sites. HoneyShed also offers instant e-commerce: "I want it." … Read more

Dashwire: Manage your cell phone on the Web

It takes a second to realize that what you see on Dashwire.com's cool gray interface is content from your mobile phone. That's probably because you're not used to reading it so easily.

There on Dashwire's spacious Internet dashboard are your photos and videos, contacts, bookmarks, and SMS and call history laid out in movable AJAX tiles. There are ringtones you can click on the Web to play on your phone, and text messages you can reply to with your keyboard, and which are tagged with your identifying phone number so your friends know who sent … Read more

How to build a business in Hobbit Land - the Silverstripe example

I recently spoke with Sigurd Magnusson, the intrepid chief marketing officer for Silverstripe, a New Zealand-based, open-source content management company. Silverstripe is a programming framework similar to Ruby on Rails, but for PHP5, allowing developers to quickly write website features using modern programming practices that are gaining popularity through Ruby and Python but not often used yet with PHP.

In a large crowd of open-source web publishing tools/content management systems, Silverstripe prides itself on an innovative and intuitive editing interface (and a prime slot in Google's Summer of Code last summer). It's also a finalist in Packtpub's CMS awards.

Silverstripe has an uphill battle, however, due to its location. New Zealand, home to hobbits and beautiful landscapes, is not the center of the software industry. Or any industry. It's simply not cost effective to hire a direct sales force in a country as spread out as New Zealand is, which leads to open source:… Read more