DISQUS

Okay. First, thanks for the birthday plant. I'm sure Maryam bought it:-)
2)Correct. We've forgotten about the main street businesses. But the ones I am doing sites for can't understand social until they first get on the web. I do them free sites on Wordpress.com if I think they will have the guts to get involved in them at all, or on Weebly if they just want a first generation brochure. The idea of a yogurt store in Phoenix creating a social site or a Facebook page would be funnier if you lived in Phoenix.
3) I've learned Wordpress.com in and out, and I now see what its limits are. I will be moving over to .org as soon as I can figure out how.

I actually like this one. It's pretty simple and has some color

Why don't you switch to Wordpress.org and then you can put all your widgets on? Karoli taught me to use Thesis, a very minimalist theme from WP.org that lets you use all kinds of stuff and customize your little heart out. I'm trying to do that, but maintain my old look and feel, which matches Stealthmode's which is on Typepad.

That's funny. I just wrote the same thing on your last post. Google sucks at social. They will kill Twitter by freezing it while they attempt to integrate it.

What are you doing up? That's the firt question. Second question: -- bigger. Won't Google let Twitter die if they acquire it, like they've done with many other products? Usually the keep something for about a year without taking in new users while they integrate it, and then they re-launch it. While I guess that was okay with Writely (aka Google docs) and Grand Central, it killed off some of their other more social acquisitions. Social acquisitions can't stand still.

And I just read that FB is running out of money and could be bought by Microsoft. It's like PacMan, this tech world of yours:-)

And as you know, I support you in everything you do or want to do!

I like Twhirl, because the windows are separate and I can open and close them separately (yes, I know you can alter the columns on Tweetdeck, but it doesn't seems as intuitive to me). I manage 3 Twitter accounts, Friendfeed, and Seesmic with them. I couldn't do that with Tweetdeck or I'd have elevent columns running across the screen of an Air :-) With Twhirl, I can make the windows transparent, or use Spaces: I just find it more malleable. This is not, however, a diss of Tweetdeck. I see its uses.

For the past five years I have been inserting a picture of my signature, a .jpg, on every document I sign. The only time it's a problem is when someone sends me a form in .pdf, like a W-9, in which case I sign one form and save it and send the same copy to everyone else.

There is a thin line between "getting the word out," "online marketing," and "spam." One person's online marketing may be another person's spam, and that's the problem with Facebook. But it's the problem with every social networking site as we figure out how to re-live our lives in this new era of transparency.

Even if you are careful to offer only useful information to people who have opted to be your "friend," it's easy to violate the unwritten conventions. It's worse if you follow back the people who follow you on Twitter, or friend people on Facebook. I like to meet new people online, so I am always having the problem of inadvertantly friending a spammer whom I later have to block or delete.

This new world is going to be tricky for journalists, who want to do a better job by making themselves available to sources, or who want a personal life in addition to their professional life. It is also going to be tricky for incubators like me, who communicate things their companies are doing for a variety of reasons. In my other role, advocate for social change, it's also tricky. And It will certainly be tricky for PR people, and for internet marketers.

We are in an age of transition, and the rules are hard to know and even harder to follow. Although those of us who were early into social media keep advising people to listen before they jump in, so they can at least sense what the boundaries are, people on various platforms (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube) are always violating conventions they didn't know existed.

I love Rob's idea. But my comment is really that we need to "put away childish things." Not all innovation takes VC money, and indeed VC money should be only for expansion capital. We can finance a million startups by 1) pooling our own funds 2)bootstrapping 3)Working for equity on the side. The question is "what comes next," after they've started, and that involves fixing the public markets so there's an exit strategy for a VC.

What you have said is great for bloggers, but probably not for the general public looking for a job. For them, I'd suggest going to events. Spend your last nickel meeting people. Volunteer for nonprofits, and do great work there so the board members will recommend you. I've been "laid off" read "in business for myself" for all my adult life, and that's how you build a brand. People have to KNOW who and where you are, and not everyone's a good writer.

Thinking in curves (not linear) reflects how most of the world lived until the 18th century "Age of Enlightenment." Curves reflect the cycles of the world. Never mind, this is too heavy for a Saturday:-)

I have followed this philosophy for years, investing $1-5k in software development, either developers, either as equity or as convertible debt. Stealthmode also does the consulting. But I never thought it was worthy of publicity. It was just a way to facilitate things. Should I be sending out a press release about those small amounts of money?

That was quite a pile on this afternoon. I agree with both sides, however. You should blog more, although of course that's not your job, and it's Mike's. But you ARE a good and thoughtful blogger. You should also continue to learn from Friendfeed and Twitter.

Most important...you should find balance in your life:-) Happy New Year to you and your wonderful family.

I invited a bunch of people to Friendfeed yesterday from Twitter and got a lot of pushback. Most people who don't do this for a living can only concentrate on one service. Keep blogging.

I don't think that's funny. I've been living like that for several years:-) You are my filter.

I downloaded Brightkite a long time ago and decided it was too much trouble to check in everywhere, and too public (even for me) to list my home address. So I'm just a sporadic user.

Fabulous. This is the conversation we need to be having -- one about collaboration. Steve Gillmor has been talking about the power of microcommunities, but very few people understand this power (yet), including myself. I do know that my voice is heard more than ever before, and that I have gotten to "know" people I never thought I would now. The use of this, up until now, has been random to me. A personal brand, and then what? A bigger personal brand?

Or a movement that has the power to change a country! Would anyone question the ROI of social media to the Obama election?

This is what I'd like you to talk about at the Conference.

Guess what, folks. Obama IS for innovation. Fairness and innovation are not mutually exclusive. Obama, like McCain, knows damn well we have no way out of our current situation as a country than innovation. look for him to throw big bucks at scientific research, health care innovation, alternative energy, and education.

And if Silicon Valley wants to be what it always has been, it will stay on the innovation path and get some of those dollars.

I'm impressed by what Microsoft is doing by way of evangelism; they are really reaching out to the developers with their new tools. I think, because they are big, they can probably run pretty close to the front of the parade from the rear, but I think they will have some pretty tough competitors to elbow out of the way when they get there. Because those, competitors too, are moving forward, and the front is a moving target.

That being said, at least they are going to keep their installed base happy, although for how long can we call it an "installed" base?

I've been following PracticeFusion since it first announced its partnership with Google, because I spent some time trying to convince doctors to deploy EHRs. However, only 17% of doctors' offices have them. And the reason for that is not cost, it is effort.

Most doctors who have switched over to EHRs think it doesn't save them time, and sometimes makes them slower. In addition, getting all the records online isn't easy. PracticeFusion went after the big deals, so it could get large groups of docs online at once. I'd be curious how many of the docs are actually USING the application day to day.

I love you, Robert. By the current definition of American, I'm not one either. Divorces, affairs, paying for a teen-aged foster child's abortion, and willingness to pay taxes for things like education and health care for others...they all disqualify me. Those narrow definitions are what get us into trouble.

Let's not get into the cap-and-trade issue here, but "getting your emissions covered" by a sponsor is participating in a new version of the big lie. Emissions are pretty much a zero sum game, and you can't just cover them up by planting a few trees.

Stop being a fearmonger. It's not the end of a world, it's the bottom of a fierce cycle compounded by 24-hour news and an election coming. Everyone notices everything in real time, and the President yelled "fire" in the crowded theatre, which caused the stock market to plunge. The stock market is just the stock market. It's not the economy, and it's certainly not the end all and be all of life.

Now if I were told I had a serious illness, I might be fearful. But over MONEY???? Future money? Paper losses?

Get your priorities straight.