DISQUS

My mom was fanatical about Kabhi Kabhi & Silsila back in the day. As little kids we heard those songs in our house - it seemed every day. Sometimes I'll hear one of these songs in a restaurant and will literally freeze - thinking about my mom! :-) What to say about Amitabh Bachchan the heros of these movies?????? I personally think Amitabh Bacchan is the best actor ever - in any category, across any country. One little fact, my sister is named after his wife - since my dear mother also loved them both in Abimaan! :-)

Congrats.

D and E seem like the best fit - I like D. For no other reason but the fact it looks like my glasses and appears to be lighter. I don't like heavy glasses.

Enjoy the conference. Looking forward to the responses you get and the questions people ask!

As the reiging champ of creating boring powerpoint slides - I specialize in them - I must say I really enjoyed your view here. The problem is it takes so much time getting it right - that it almost feels like you should be focusing on the content. I think it helps to do the design only after you're done with the content part.

Scott,

The perception seems to be that social media is cheap with no real cost. Which can be true in the sense that it costs nothing to set up a Twitter account. However, as you correctly point out the labor cost is where the investment comes in. I know there is a chart floating around on Flickr which gives an approximate estimate of how much time one needs to spend to have a good Social presence and to receive the results you desire. In some cases you're looking at upwards of 20 hours/week!

Jason,

Hope your presentation went well. I just got done doing a similar presentation here in Phoenix. I used three case studies to make the point of what a good social media strategy looks like. I'd be interested in sharing some of the case studies. I'll email you my ideas and see what you think.

Fantastic post. The issue is also with the fact that companies seem to understand the "media" part but not the "social" part. People talk to people,interact with people. No one wants to have a conversation with a PR peice - for the same reason people don't like 800 numbers with 10 options!

I think it's completely fair that someone who doesn't blog give bloggers some constructive criticism. While I will refrain from saying anything until I read the book - if I do that is - I do tire of the folks who say "today's media would hammer never allow us to produce another Lincoln" or something of that sort. First of all I go back to Harry Truman's comment "if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen". Second of all if you demonstrate competence, straightforwardness and a sincere desire to be a public servant - I just can't imagine how any blogger could ever derail your plans. Seriously.

Thanks for this information. I'll be using it for sure. For one thing Flickr has become too "corporate" - I can't get a response back from them on any questions I ask and it's counterproductive in my mind that they don't allow photo contests. YouTube wants you to go at it like crazy and Flickr is snotty about it - I don't get it.

So, for the clients I'm working with who want to do photo contests Photrade will be my recommendation.

Wordpress is a fantastic solution for any blogger - for the reasons you outline above. It has traditionally struggled on the "user friendly" part - and Typepad has been hammering them on it, but with the improvements they've made recently Wordpress is defiantly better.

I like Wordpress for reasons #4 and #5 above. The vibrant user community makes it easy to solve problems on your own if you have some basic knowledge of HTML and PHP (like myself) and the unlimited customization feature means you can make any changes you'd like and not have to rely on template limitations etc. You can be you on Wordpress.

Congratulations guys. I am a regular reader - mostly on an aggregator - but I love your content.

Here's to many more 100 days!

This is a great plug in. It works well on my site. Not to be picky, but the graphics need to be improved a bit. Looks kind of clunky in my opinion. Functionally, it's fantastic.

This could work for some but not all. I think "mortgage as commodity" is the wrong mindset. I get anyonomys calls from people who just want a rate quote. I ask a few questions and let them know the rate. I never hear back. I don' t ask for them names or their intentions. Honestly, I don't win rate quotes. I have a borrower who is at a 5.75% ARM that doesn't adjust for 4 more years. He's always asking for rates - sends me the Bankrate averge ever few weeks - as his benchmark. First of all he has no equity in his house - second of all what good does it to do refinance a mortgage for 0.125% less of a rate... not in his case at least. So, anyways, bottom line is I don't see this as something that will increase my business - becuase these are not my customers. Maybe for some it will work wonders.