H2H – using Performancing to post YouTube video

Ease factor: 1(smile)

Performancing beats Windows Live Writer for this H2H task.

H2H – using Windows Live Writer to post YouTube video

Here’s my attempt to post a YouTube video while working in Windows Live Writer. Here goes:

Well, it didn’t work. The reason? When using Windows Live Writer the URL to the video becomes HYPERLINKED. This results in WordPress displaying a blank (see above). What Live Writer needs to do is strip the hyperlink from the URL code so that WordPress can embed the video.

This begs the question. Does Performancing (see H2H posts)allow for YouTube video posting? Let’s find out.
Ease factor: 4(Grrr)

Lordy, lordy almost hitting 40!

Here’s a screenshot of my blog stats (a cool feature WordPress offers bloggers) which shows you the huge amount of folks that are viewing my blog! =)

Hey this is fun and to the 37 or 38 of you who invest your precious time to view my blog thank you very much. I hope to break forty some day but I’m in no hurry. Ironically, over the past few days my blog has moved up the Technorati rankings. I went from a ranking of 640,000 ish to 540,000 ish! Woh, I may take down WordPress’ servers yet.

For those of you interesting in how I posted this screenshot it’s pretty simple. I used FastStone Editor (yup, it’s free for home users) took a snapshot and then copied and pasted right into this post using Windows Live Writer. Simole and easy.

Things continue to get cool!

This post covers two things:

1) I used Windows Live Writer to make this post. I simple left clicked on the picture from another blog and dragged it into Windows Live Writer and voila!

2) Flickr, a popular photo file saving and sharing site now enables you post pictures so they have a geographical context. I can think of a few examples that this could work. One, is if you are on a cross country trip (Maybe my Real Life “Can You Hear Me Now” campaign, see previous post) a Verizon consumer would post their picture where they received a clear signal. Alternatively, the consumer that slammed Verizon could have pictures of Verizon customers not receiving a signal! This could be “anti across the nation” tour!

Other options:real estate agents to post their listings;band members posting pics while on tour; families posting their cross the nation holiday pics; companies posting their locations… the options are endless.

H2H Tally for Windows Live Writer vs. Performancing

Task #1: Post photo and text. Winner: Windows Live Writer.

Why: Easy, fast and allowed category tagging within Editor.

Head to Head (H2H) task comparison

This is an H2H between Performancing and Windows Live Writer.

Task Comparison #1-Post a photo on right hand side of post and add comments.

This post uses: Performancing.

Start time: 10:14pm

Finish time: Stopped trying at 10:17pm

Ease factor: 4(Grrrrr!)

I intended to post the same picture of Herbert Lake below but was unable to. Peformancing failed this task test.

Head to Head (H2H) task comparison

This is an H2H between Performancing and Windows Live Writer.

Task Comparison #1-Post a photo on right hand side of post and add comments.

This post uses: Windows Live Writer.

Start time: 10:06pm

Finish time: 10:09pm

Ease factor: 1 (Smile)

This photo is of Herbert lake which is in British Columbia.

Performancing vs. Windows Live Writer

I’m going to conduct a like for like task comparison using two blog publishing interfaces being tested in my Web2.0 Lab. Think of it as a head to head “battle.

Please bear in mind that my blog is more of a casual endeavor and I am no means conducting extensive product analysis and comparisons. However, it is important to realize that web2.0 adoption by us all is dependent on simple, fun and easy to use services and applications.

People don’t have time to conduct formal assessments. They want to click a button or two and voila, presto a post is made!

I’ll keep you “posted” as to how this Head to Head comparison goes.

Web 2.0 and the SMB "Long Tail"

The chart below, from Frank Gen’s blog (he’s from IDC), superimposes key datapoints to illustrate the importance of Small to Medium size companies when it comes to employment, GDP contribution and how much $ they spend on IT. IT, when deployed properly must make a company more competitive, more responsive, more customer centric and more profitable.

The Long Tail aspect shows that the number of businesses in the SMB market is vast, distinct and traditionally doesn’t spend as much as larger companies on IT. Most IT service and solution companies see this as unattractive. They are wrong!

The key is to provide SMB’s with access to affordable services that allow customization. New IT service and solution companies need to review there business models, offerings and cost of doing business and adapt…..or die.  Using web2.0 tools and approaches to streamline selling costs while building an online community would compliment SaaS (Software as a Service) and provide remote collaboration in the areas of solution design and service deployments. Telephony, Network managment, CRM and other software and Portals are just a few areas where I see opportunity.