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You could keep the smart kids in school - or...
2008-06-09 03:57:00
Give the motivated and bright kids the tools and resources to learn about entrepreneurship - how to identify market demand, how to create a product, how to build a team, how to bootstrap how to sell and negiotiate distribution deals, how to manage finances how to raise money and pitch to investors how to manage not being young enough to... (setup companies, be directors, bank accounts, file tax's) how to avoid getting screwed by adults The 13 year old entrepreneur (only in silicon valley right)   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qhJrdizQw 8   Kids as productive members of society... Shock horror (remember it wasnt intill the industrial revolution that we held teens in holding pens untill they were 18)   I smell a WebTV series "Entrepreneurship for kids" :)   Anyone motivated by this? (I remember how boring high school was...)
More About: School , Smart

How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips)
2008-06-09 03:53:00
Jason Calacanis on How to Save Money Running a Startup
More About: Save Money , Tips

The dilemma of choice: The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors
2008-06-09 03:50:00
Great article on the Dilemma of Choice at the New York Times
More About: Doors

Australian Tech Industry Event Calendar
2008-06-06 06:02:00
There are so many events going on for the IT/Digital/Web/Startup community its hard to keep track.   Mick Liubinskas from Pollenizer has put together a Shared Google Calendar of everything going on!   Thanks mick!   http://www.pollenizer.com/ozitcal/
More About: Event , Industry , Tech , Australian

How to choose a Social Media Agency
2008-06-05 01:09:00
There has been much discussion within the fast growing social media engagement / online PR space about how to be effective and actually deliver great results. So we put together a hit list of selection criteria for engaging a Social Media or Online PR agency.1. Do they walk the talk?Does your social media agency actively engage is social media themselves? For example you could look and see if they are active participants in social networks (FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace), Social News (Digg, Reddit, NewsVine), Social Bookmarking (Del.icio.us, furl) and Social Micro Communities (Twitter, Pownce etc).2. Can they demonstrate measurable success from past Social Media Marketing campaigns?Just like web marketing, social media marketing and online pr is 100% measurable and trackable. As a result any quality social media agency should be able to clearly demonstrate measurable success for their past clients as well as show you campaigns that are in action today.3. Are they engaging in User Gen...
More About: Agency , Choose

Raising funds for your Web 2 Startup in Australia
2008-06-04 16:30:00
The 2 Web Crew Podcast #27 - Funds Drought? - Listen to the Podcast Join Duncan Riley, Bronwen Clune, Cameron Reilly, Richard Giles and Mick Liubinskas as they dissect the recent article in the Australia n Financial Review written by Renai LeMay about Aussie web 2.0 startups.
More About: Startup

Always Offer Blog RSS Updates via E-Mail - Adsense Blog Numbers Prove the I
2008-06-04 02:14:00
If you are a blog owner, always provide an option for readers to subscribe to your blog content using RSS-to-email services like the ones offered by Feedburner, FeedBlitz or R-Mail .Why ? Because a huge population on the web still don't know what to do with that orange XML icon on your blog and even if they do, they find a traditional email newsletter more convenient than managing a feedreader.And this is true even for techie blogs where a good percentage of users already have an idea about RSS. Take for example the Google Adsense blog - they have some 1,500 subscribers on Blog lines but more than 10,000 readers have chosen to receive new content via email newsletters (powered by Google Groups). Now these numbers from Google just underline the fact that email subscriptions can sometimes be more important than RSS feeds. And when we look at our feed stats, the email subscribers constitute a healthy 30% of our entire subscriber base who get an email every weekday at 2 PM IST contai...
More About: Updates , E-Mail

World?s first Live Holographic Video Conference (Cisco TelePresence Hologra
2008-06-04 00:52:00
Watch the video at http://www.musion.co.uk/Cisco _TelePresenc e.html
More About: Video , World , Live , Conference

70% of readers believe the garbage in surveys. Really. (Trevor Cook)
2008-06-02 09:12:00
Today's media contain a bonanza of survey stories, that ever-popular staple of the public relations tool box. Surveys are great PR because, as well as generating media coverage, they give third-party endorsement to an organisation's key messages.BankWest wins today's prize for the most successful PR effort with its very serious sounding "BankWest Key Worker Housing Affordability report". BankWest retail chief executive Ian Corfield got some fabulous coverage across radio and television including a segment on the Channel Nine Today show that bordered on a shameless promotion of BankWest products. The BankWest survey may not tell us anything particularly new but it is formulated in a very media-friendly way. Housing affordability is a red hot issue and focusing on respected people like nurses and firemen makes it seem almost like a serious policy paper. Added to this, the story lends itself easily to state-specific coverage, always popular with editors.We don'...
More About: Readers , Garbage , Cook

Beware the pr industry - online, people smell the fake
2008-06-02 08:22:00
Just reading a blog post by Nick Hodge from Microsoft called "The Role of New PR""How do organisations communicate both internally and externally in a PR-spin weary world? Organisation can and must use social networks to engage stakeholders. Not using than use "fake names" or "brand names", No astroturfing nor sockpuppeting. Just as people use online networks to connect with their friends, organisations can use social networks to make connections. People connect with other people. One role of the new PR is to hire/foster real employees to act on behalf of the organisation online. Do not outsource this important role. My suggestion is to find a star in the internal sales team, customer service team. An individual who is already online out of hours, who also understands the foibles of your organisation. Empower your new ambassadors with the freedom to connect, act honestly, and tell the truth. Provide tools to permit them to right the wrongs that all organisations do...
More About: Industry , Online , Fake , Smell

How to Fight Negative Consumer Generated Buzz
2008-06-02 07:09:00
Viral marketing, user-generated content, online buzz: over the past few years, these terms have been representative of a new way of marketing to consumers that takes advantage of the current popularity of the social web. This new technique involves companies encouraging its customers to create content of their own in order to generate interest in the company's brand. Unfortunately, one of the potential side effects of this strategy is the potential for negative buzz. Despite this fact, a surprisingly low percentage of marketers are monitoring for negative responses. Users Make User Generated Content, But Few Marketers Monitor It A Jupiter Research report on this subject analyzes the risks of negative buzz. The report is entitled "When Good Social Marketing Goes Bad," but it should be noted that most people use the term "social marketing" to apply to campaigns that mean to bring about social change. The Jupiter report, however, uses the term more casuall...
More About: Consumer , Buzz , Fight , Negative

Like.com?s Creepy, But Effective, Facebook Ads
2008-06-01 16:10:00
Is a picture worth a thousand clicks? You've heard of contextual ads triggered by keywords on a Web page. Now, get ready for contextual ads triggered by images on the page. Visual-shopping search engine Like.com is running ads on Facebook that appear to match objects in profile photos. Notice the ad by Like.com in the lower left for aviator sunglasses in the screen shot shown here, sent to us by TechCrunch reader Luke Bearden? Yup, those look eerily similar to the aviator sunglasses Bearden is wearing in his Facebook photo. Well, at least we know that Like.com's technology works. But is it effective targeting? Bearden thought the ad was "creepy." And, um, he obviously already owns a pair of aviator sunglasses. He also obviously likes them enough to feature himself wearing a pair on his Facebook page. And maybe he lost those beloved glasses or they broke since the photo was taken. So I'd say the ad is both effective and creepy. Would you click on it? Source: TechCrunch
More About: Effective , Creepy

Selling japanese whale meat to Australians
2008-06-01 14:35:00
My mate from WebManage told me about this fictional marketing campaign that 2 Sydney Advertising Agencies did to see if they could effectively sell ice to eskimos :)Can you sell japanese whale meat to australians? Find out below"Gruen Transfer, the ABC show on advertising hosted by Wil Anderson, includes a pitch from two Australian advertising agencies. The first episode, on May 28, had Jack Watts Currie and DDB Sydney working on a hypothetical brief: Convince the Japanese whaling industry that your ad will sell whale meat to Aussies as the perfect thing to throw on a barbecue."Apparantly the #2nd vid by DDB won narrowly on the panel on Wednesday night and is leading comfortably in the online pollYay for whale meat!Source: Duncans TV Ad Land
More About: Fun , Selling , Meat , Whale

How digital media, social networks and hyperconnectivity is changing now (V
2008-06-01 14:27:00
Mark Pesce, Technology Futurist speaks about the Digital Media Revolution at the SAGEM conference, April 2008.Part 1Part 2
More About: Social , Social Networks , Networks , Changing

MobRules - WebDirectionsSouth 2007 (Video)
2008-06-01 07:42:00
A fantastic presentation from Mark Pesce on Mob Rules on how self-empowered self-organisation of networks of humans empowered by pervasive always on technologies will subvert any hierarchy that exists today... Also very funny :)
More About: Video

Websites 'suck' today because of the 'hippo'
2008-05-26 17:46:00
These comments by Avinash Kaushik, Google's analytics guru, are true for many corporate websites. He "thinks one of the reasons why so many websites 'suck' today is because of the hippo - as in the 'highest paid person's opinion.'And, yes, you're likely a hippo - a successful advertising executive, CMO or brand manager, pulling in a six-figure income, often found pontificating about what does and doesn't work online. You use tried-and-true metrics such as unique visitors and click-through rates to decide on the best design for your landing page or what content is best suited on your product site. "[Source: AdAge]In my experience it is often the least qualified person in the building who gets to decide the design and functionality for the company website.This is a a fascinating phenomenon. In many other industries people actually take notice of their domain knowledge specialists. You don't find people telling the bridge engineers to move this pillar over 3 metres to suit a p...
More About: Today , Websites , Suck

How Twitter and Hyperconnectivity will change the future of business (Mark
2008-05-26 17:41:00
How Twitter and Hyperconnectivity will change the future of business (Mark Pesce at AURemix08 Conference)When Mark Pesce talks about the power of social connection and technology it all makes sense. Here he's giving the keynote at AuRemix 08 and talking about the real power of of the internet and social networking. He is also sounding a call to action for those of us in business to use the technology to connect with each other in more authentic ways. The life of a cube dweller is not a good one, disconnected from real life in so many ways. But with this ability to use the power of hyperconnection we can become more than the sum of our parts. Worth listening to the whole thing ...Thanks Aide-Memoire (Kate Carruthers) for the Source
More About: Business , Future , Change , The Future

TED: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world
2008-05-25 14:57:00
TED: 6 ways mushrooms can save the worldEntrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets - seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords.The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas.There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet. "Once you?ve heard 'renaissance mycologist' Paul Stamets talk about mushrooms, you'll never look at the world -- not to mention your backyard -- in the same way again." Linda Baker, Salon.com
More About: World , Mushrooms , The World , Save , Save the World

Can we domesticate germs?
2008-05-25 14:14:00
Evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald drags us into the sewer to discuss germs. Why are some more harmful than others? How could we make the harmful ones benign?View the Video - Can we domesticate Germs ?

Easy way to reset your sleep cycle: Stop eating
2008-05-25 13:23:00
Not eating for 16 hours can help people quickly reset their sleep-wake cycle, according to a study from the Harvard Medical School. This discovery can drastically improve a person's ability to cope with jet lag or adjust to working late shifts. Scientists have long known that our circadian rhythm is regulated by our exposure to light. Now they have found a second "food" clock that takes over when we are hungry.  This mechanism probably evolved to make sure mammals don't go to sleep when they are starving. http://parentingsquad.com/easy-way-to-res et-your-sleep-cycle-stop-eating
More About: Cycle , Stop , Sleep , Easy , Easy Way

Video Lectures - Watch video and learn!
2008-05-25 13:23:00
A great website with heaps of video lectures.   http://videolectures.net
More About: Video , Watch , Lectures , Learn

Money as Debt
2008-05-25 13:20:00
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt " tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created.I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system."It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford

Twitter's unique traffic doubles between february and april 2008
2008-05-24 15:27:00
Twitter is going bizerk! Unique traffic has doubled between Feb and April 2008 !
More About: Traffic , February

Why Facebook isnt Google - Jason Calacanis
2008-05-24 11:55:00
"Social networking is second only to chat rooms as the worst place to advertise. The content there from your friends and your family is more compelling than any advertisement. Google has the greatest advertising in media history ? search advertising. When you type a word into the box, we know what you're looking for. When you're on Facebook , we know you're looking to meet a girl or talk to your friends. It's a terrible platform for advertising. The holy grail of e-commerce forever has been that people are going to buy something online because their friends did, or that everybody here is into skiing so we're going to sell a bunch of skiing stuff. It hasn't happened. Plus, e-commerce is a low-margin business. It's nowhere near search inventory."Source: Valleywag
More About: Jason Calacanis , Jason

Podcasting Guides
2008-05-21 00:53:00
Hey there thanks for checking out the Shifted Podcasting Page for CeBit attendee'sYou canDownload PowerPoint SlideShow (Coming soon)Download Audio from eMarketing Expo (Coming soon)Links from the PresentationMicrophones - Logitech USB Recording Skype - HotRecorderRecord Telephone Calls - Gcast.comAudio Editing Software - AudacityList of Podcast Directories for Submission - MasterNewMediaWe will continue to update this resource, please leave a comment if you have any questions.Or you can signup to the newsletter on the right hand side menu!Thanks :)
More About: Guides

Why Twitter Matters
2008-05-21 00:40:00
It's easy to laugh at nonsense on Twitter , the microblogging rage. "My nose is leaking," writes someone called Zapples, "so imma go to sleep now.?" But I've heard lots of similar drivel (and even produced some myself) on the phone?an important technology if there ever was one. The key question today isn't what's dumb on Twitter, but instead how a service with bite-size messages topping out at 140 characters can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary. Here's why I'm looking. In the last few months, the traffic on Twitter has exploded, growing far beyond its circles of bleeding-edge tech enthusiasts and hard-core social networkers. Businesses such as H&R Block are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the May 12 China earthquake within minutes.) Loads of new appli...
More About: Matters

Podcast Directory List
2008-05-20 01:02:00
Podcast Directory List Here are some top podcast directories : Podcasting News' Podcast Directory is the largest user-built directory of podcasts. Podcast Alley, one of the most popular podcasting sites, has a large podcast directory. Odeo.com - directory and podcast service iPodder.org is an established, very large podcast directory. PodcastPickle - the only podcast directory with a pickle mascot! The site features a content rating system based on the familiar movie system, G, PG, R, etc. Digital Podcast PodcastDirectory.com - from Penguin Radio A Podcast Directory is available at Podcast.net. iPodderX iTunes - Apple's proprietary (non-web) directory drives a huge amount of traffic to many podcasts Yahoo - has a podcast search and tag-based index Here's a list of additional directories to add your podcast to, or to search for podcasts : All Podcasts - minimal directory AmigoFish Audio Weblogs has a list of the 100 Last Podcasts AudioFeeds.org - focuses on "M...
More About: Podcast

How _not_ to go viral
2008-05-19 14:05:00
Courtesy of Seth Godin - here's a bunch of reasons some businesses/ideas/campaigns dont go Viral :It's embarrassing to talk about. That's why VD screening, no matter how well done, rarely turns into a viral [ahem] success. There's no easy way to bring it up. This is similar to number 1, but involves opportunity. It's easy to bring up, "hey, where'd you get that ring tone?" because the ring tone just interrupted everyone. It's a lot harder to bring up the fact that you just got a massage.It might not feel cutting edge enough for your crowd. So, it's not the thing that's embarrassing, it's the fact they you just found out about it. Don't bring up your brand new Tivo with your friends from MIT. They'll sneer at you.On a related front, it might feel too popular to profitably sneeze about. Sometimes bloggers hesitate to post on a popular source or topic because they worry they'll seem lazy. You might like the exclusivity. If yo...

Most Popular Websites Online (April 2007)
2008-05-19 06:14:00
According to Alexa these are the most popular websites online (ini order of Traffic):YahooGoogleYouTube Windows LiveMSNMySpaceWikipediaFacebookBloggerYah oo JapanOrkutRapidShareBaiduMicrosoft.comGoo gle IndiaGoogle Germany QQ.comEbayHi5Google FranceAOLMail.RUsina.com.cnPhotoBucket
More About: April , Websites , Popular , Online

Spellr.us Launches: Check Your Site For Spelling Erors
2008-05-16 01:46:00
Spellr.us monitors webpages by running site-wide spell checks at regular intervals. Results are presented as snapshots of pages, with errors highlighted in bright boxes (a mouse-over displays suggested corrections). Members can also choose to have errors sent to them in RSS feeds - a feature that will be especially handy for large sites that make frequent posts. Besides the visual snapshots, Spellr.us can list misspelled words according to their frequency across the site. This means that words like TechCrunch or Flickr, which are commonly used but aren't in the dictionary (yet), can be quickly found and added to a custom dictionary.Thanks TechCrunch
More About: Site , Check , Spelling