DISQUS

Great post, Corvida. I was all ready to say, "Wait, my mom and dad are bloggers and use RSS feeds daily!" Then I read:

I can guarantee that over 50% don’t have family members or real life friends that use these services, and for those that do, it’s because you probably badgered them into it.

Having gone through the badgering process with them, it's clear to me that the barrier to entry for the 50-60 crowd is less technological and more about perceived value.

Typing was once a skill one would put on his/her resume. Now, it is a basic requirement to participate online. The same is true for social media and it's corresponding tech, such as RSS feeds. Before my mother knew how awesome it is to socialize with people online, she was resistant to the tech. After she started connecting with people, she quickly learned basic HTML/CSS and stays connected with her friends on Blog Catalog and MyBlogLog. Her tech education was driven by the desire for more and more meaningful connections with other people online. Now she doesn't think about the tech much at all. Mostly we talk about socializing issues, like etiquette.

I do think intuitive UIs are important for mass adoption. Lower tech barriers might encourage people to explore on more of a whim, which fuels their further interest. I think the biggest reason most of the mainstream isn't here yet has more to do with the belief there is something worthwhile for them to push them through learning the tech. I see the tech skills they need to develop as no more demanding than the skill of typing, which was once done only by trained typing professionals.

Great post, Chris! As a recent Gmail convert I appreciate benefiting from the lessons you've already learned. ;)

Woohoo! The Roxy is back online!

I love me a new media douchebag that fixes his Feedburner chicklet. >:)

This post was right on target for me. A client recently hired me for an online marketing project. They had a list of links they wanted to have a presence on. It turns out the majority required content. Most of them were sites like Digg, so they didn't just need content, they needed compelling content. So what began with a request for link building to attract traffic, turned into a content production workflow.

Fuck yeah! Nice work. ;)

So....what you are saying is that Portland rules, right? A little hip hop production for the rest of the country coming out of P-town...

When are you playing in Portland? ;)

That was a nice frickin' job on those Mario characters!

What?! Seriously?

Hells jeah! I can't wait for this show tonight either!

Hi Scottie! Welcome to the blog that rox. Get it, rox?

I'll never make that joke again...

One of my favorite features in YouTube is the ability to respond with video. I look forward to dropping video comments with this widget.

I saw people from Brazil on here saying YouTube is not blocked their country.

I'm sharing this with my boss. You've scored me some brownie points for helping prove our new direction to not be an ad agency is the right move.

Perhaps now that services like this one are forming, we can start the discussion for standardizing analytics data. Perhaps setting an XML standard that can be parsed by stat programs. In the meantime, Widgetbox looks pretty useful for SMO reporting.

Andy, you rock for putting this together. I've only recently started rep tracking, and this is a great in-depth guide.

I believe Google is reporting keywords, not keyphrases. So, it may be that Paris Hilton as a phrase has more searches than Bebo, but Bebo appears in more keyphrases overall.

I was wondering when MySpace would offer bands the ability to sell their tracks online.

There are so many faceless cowards spreading their hate on every video they can that I don't care if the comments are moderated, err, I mean censored. In fact, I've started to refer to mean YouTubers as TubeDicks.

That sucks. I personally think vlogging on venues like YouTube are an important part of creating understanding between countries.

Hells jeah! Ninja band-aids!