DISQUS

Mark: actually studying human behavior tells me you're wrong. People do want to talk with other owners of cars and other products before buying them and, once they bought them, a lot of them want to join a community so they can get more value out of the products that they bought. I'm already looking to join a group of Prius owners who are hacking their cars to do various things. At the Dream Machines show people demonstrated how they added more batteries to their cars to let them plug in their cars, which let them go even further on a gallon of gas.

Gray: you obviously are not a careful reader of what I wrote. I know how to use FTP. I'm trying to make the point that normal people don't know what FTP is anymore so asking them to "upload" files, and then not help them do that, makes a process overly complex in today's world. It's your attitude that turns mainstreet businesses off of this whole business in the first place. It's arrogant to demand that ANYONE know how to do this stuff.

Jeff: you can comment on the bar at the bottom of the screen and Google is working on other features that will ship soon, from what I'm hearing.

Angusb: there I disagree. I don't mind complexity if it's explained. Yes, it would be better to be very simple. This is why Twitter is winning in the marketplace. But there are some things that just can't be simplified down to that level. There you should assume you need to hold someone's hand and explain to them how to thrive in a complex world.

Everything is easy to do once you know the tools exist and how to use them. I disagree with you. For most people around the world the Internet is now the web or whatever shows up inside their browsers. Heck, for a billion people the Internet is only SMS. Sad but true.

Derik: the thing is, if I showed you how to do it you'd kick yourself when you see how easy it is. But, yeah, if you don't know how it works inside you won't know where to copy and paste the code into. I can see that would be quite daunting. Stay tuned, cause that's what we're working on helping with over on building43.com.

Wordpress isn't, but I thought the code in the template was. Anyway, I understood it enough to know I should leave the server-side code alone. :-)

Just testing to make sure my comments work here.

The neat thing about design is you can choose a new theme with the click of a mouse. Today I turned on a different one that will get a different argument going.

Prokofy: I totally disagree. There's constructive criticism, but then there's being a jerk. I choose not to listen to jerks or hang around them. So, the block is needed.

Chirag: I wasn't able to get Rocky there with our HD cameras, sorry. This was done live, so the quality will not be as good as if I film it for high quality.

Ross: yes, but you haven't seen it yet. It will be revealed for first time in public today.

Matt: no, I didn't see that, I will watch that tomorrow. frederic: thanks for letting me know about everyblock.com. That is most cool!

Greg: this one went OK, but I have a cracked tooth so the next one won't be so pleasant (we needed to reschedule fixing that).

Linda: I hear you. But if the business right next door to Facebook (literally) isn't getting it, there's a long way before most businesses around the world get it.

Keep up the good fight. It's worth it. Let me know how it's going.

Agreed. Brogan rocks. But he focuses a bit too much on social media. Most businesses don't even do the fundamental stuff well (most businesses' sites really suck, just like the two I gave above). If you don't understand the fundamentals, how are you going to get into Twitter or Facebook? http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Does Junoon "need" a Web presence? Well, that depends. Do they want to be found on Google? Do they want geeks to be able to reserve a table via OpenTable? Do they want reviews on Yelp? Do they want to find new clientelle that doesn't know about them today? Do they serve Silicon Valley's best people?

If they do, they need to cater to people who use the web.

Personally, yes they do.

Now that we got there, what could we do to make their business even more successful?

Here's an example of a TechBlogger looking out for new things that'll help business: http://mashable.com/2009/02/09/qapacity/ But note that it's on a blog that covers new shiny objects/services. I wonder if there's someone who focuses all their efforts on business?

Bruce: for a travel biz I can think of a whole lot of ways to improve engagement with your business.

There are different constituencies who are looking to travel. I'm very close to planning a vacation for me and my family. Maryam's pregnant, and we have a two-year-old. So we're looking for a certain kind of information. Do you have a community of people who match us who've been to Hawaii that we can talk with? Why not?

I'm sure there are lots of other kinds of constituencies, too. Arrington from TechCrunch just was in Hawaii. He's a single guy with a hectic lifestyle. I'm sure other people would love to talk with a community of people like Arrington who've been there and know the best things to do.

All of these require putting a community onto your website and putting real people there.

Oh, and you live there. You're the expert. Do you have a blog where you tell us every day something cool about Hawaii? Where is it?

Bruce: what kind of business?

My first questions when asked that are always "what are your goals?" "What story are you trying to tell?"

Just trying to get the comments all to show up on one page.

No, it's what I do for fun!

Dare: why isn't Microsoft involved here? Seems this would be a good way to get back into the search game.

Pedro: I've moved a lot of my Internet behaviors over to http://www.friendfeed.com/scobleizer/likes -- see you there. That's what is catching my eye at the moment.

Eber: I'd like that feature.

Ian: I already told you how to get "best of Scoble." Use friendfeed and hide everything of mine that doesn't have at least one like on it. More on that tomorrow. I don't blog much of anything I'm learning on friendfeed, by the way. You really are missing too much by not being there and watching what I'm doing or liking.