Here’s the Agency.com “viral” video that’s getting alot of attention. See my earlier post here (I didn’t know how to embed a YouTube video then).
Here is how you post a YouTube video using WordPress. All it takes is cut and paste!
Each YouTube video has a URL address. The URL for the one above is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8eV6OuC8Oo
To embed the video all you need to do this is enclose the URL address with [youtube=]. Just put the URL address after the equals sign. An ease factor of 1(smile).
The genious of YouTube is they let you post their videos on your blog. You’ll also notice that at the end of the video there is “share” option. This is how viral marketing works – whether it be positive or negative based.
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.
Well, SPAM is reaching the the land of blogs! The benefits of blogging far outweigh the pain of spamming but it’s a fact that new bloggers should know. I’ve had SPAM comments posted on my blog. This has been happening over the past few weeks and WordPress allows me to report SPAM.
So here’s the good news! WordPress is doing a great job capturing SPAM comments. To date, for my blog, it has on record 208 SPAM comments. In most cases this has been done automatically. There were four SPAM comments posted (that WordPress missed). In this case, I can report the comments as SPAM and I believe WordPress then records the IP address of the source of the comment as a SPAM producer.
A couple of things for us newbie bloggers! WordPress allows you to track your blog traffic statistics. It tells you how many unique visitors you’ve had, what search terms were used that resulted in someone going to your blog and what sites referred people to you. Pretty cool!
For example, Mack Collier mentioned my blog (among others) in this post on Beyond Madison Avenue’s blog. The reason I know this is WordPress has a referrers section on its Blog Stats page. It tells me that people clicked links from this referring blog to get to mine.
The result?
Well, while the visitor who was referred will judge whether my blog is of value and worth their time, I received a pretty good “endorsement” from a popular blog in Marketing and Advertising.
I also, have the opportunity to reach out to Mack to thank him for the post and to perhaps keep in touch on matters of mutual interest.
I’ve asked Mack how he heard about my blog as I’m interested to know this.
[UPDATE AUG 28: Mack found my blog by searching Technorati (a blog search engine/directory) using the search term "marketing"]
And the experimenting continues!
This photo of a hawk was posted using an Image Toolbar extension for Firefox. Instead of saving photos to my local hard drive, I can use this option to simply copy photos from other sites and move them to my blog.
This makes it simpler in that my local HD doesn’t get cluttered with images and it minimizes steps/clicks. It’s all about simplicity and ease of use. WordPress allows for you to move the image anywhere in the post. In this case I’ve put this picture of a hawk on the right hand side.
I then sized the image within WordPress’ post editor so that the image is proportionately displayed.
WordPress, the blogging service I use, provides me with an update on my blogs activity. Here’s an inside look for you to see what information it collects and reports. Pretty cool. Click here to see what I mean.
This is the primary interface or dashboard that shows you what the most popular blogs are and what activity is taking place within your blog (on the right hand side). I’ll provide you with more inside looks as the days go by.
A Firefox extension called Performancing offers bloggers a publishing tool interface. This is my first deep dive lab experiment where I’ll become an expert at a specific web2.0 app or service. My philosophy is that a great tool is easy and valuable to use immediately. No manuals, no errors, intuitive and immediate impact and value.
Use Case #1 – Post another Blogger’s post
I have used Performancing to post a published blog entry. In this case it is my last post so you can do a direct comparison to a post done within my blog (wordpress) and then done with Performancing. See below.
This picture has been added to my blog to demonstrate to a friend and colleague how easy it is to add pictures to a blog. It’s real easy and shows the true power of web 2.0 applications as a means to communicate globally and have some fun doing so!
While at a customer “Box Event” (my team puts these on and they consist of a 45 minute interactive session followed by taking in a Blue Jay’s game in a Box Suite) on Thursday, I wanted to show my blog to an associate. I gave it a try on my BlackBerry. I’ve found in the past that it is a hit and miss when it comes to sites presenting properly on a BB screen. In fact the Roger’s site, which is book marked on my Rogers BB, isn’t optimized for mobile device viewing. However, my blog, which uses the Word Press platform displayed perfectly! Good Stuff.
The debate continues. Joe Clark has an alternative view. Here’s his comments from Chicken Test.
Joe Clark Says: July 22nd, 2006 at 11:30 am I think you all need to understand what a public meeting is. It’ll get recorded and reported if people feel like it. Do not say anything at a public meeting you would not want reprinted on the front page of the New York Times or read back to you on the witness stand. There’s nothing for Eli to negotiate or wrap his head around; he just needs to accept reality. No “implicit understanding” is required; you shoud all explicitly understand that what you say at a public meeting can be and will be reported.
My response to Joe’s comments:
While the meeting was public it doesn’t mean you have the right and license to video tape without informed consent. The content producer could be sharing confidential information, intellectual property and copyright subject matter. There will be varying opinions on this but in the case of the presenters they are the publishers of content. They have a right to know that they will be videotaped ahead of time. They should decide to what extent they want their content recorded and published. Check out the Creative Commons discussion boards as this debate has occurred before and the general sense was that the presenters had copyright rights.
UPDATE: July 22
Kudo’s to the author of The Chicken Test! My contribution to the debate has been added to his blog. Perhaps this helps in the record, publish and promote debate regarding DemoCamp content. See the authors comment below. All comments are left as is and barring getting caught in a blog SPAM trap are automatically posted.
ORIGINAL POST: July 20
A very interesting debate is shaping up regarding the recording of a recent case study presentation at CaseCamp in Toronto. The debate can be read on The Chicken Test blog so I won’t repeat the details. I guess what confuses me a bit is the apparent lack of judgement of this person and what appears to be a double standard. (To his credit, he has apologized, sort of, in a recent post. I’m not too keen on his using the word “heard” instead of “listened”. Minor/Major distinction?)
So back to the lack of judgement and double standard “accusation”.
Lack of Judgement
Good marketers (business professionals in general) respect their profession and their peers. When they share information there is a tacit agreement in place that one should be respectiveful of the sensitivity of what is being shared and to act accordingly.
Good marketers seek to build relationships in their industry and with each other.
Good marketers ask their customers if they can reference them in any form of communications and sharing of the experience they have had together.
Just a few reasons!
Double Standard
The Chicken Test blog has an editorial policy which is wrapped up in a quote of someone I’ve never heard of (excuse my ignorance if this person is highly respected), this “policy” is as follows:
Because I value your thoughtful opinions, I encourage you to add a comment to this discussion. Don’t be offended if I edit your comments for clarity or to keep out questionable matters, however, and I may even delete off-topic comments. – WR Johnson
I humbly suggest that the folks who were videotaped covertly should be offended because they weren’t asked, didn’t have the opportunity to explain their point of view. This blogger chooses what he wants on his blog when it comes to others but others can’t choose to freely express themselves on his until he’s decided!
Below is my comment on his blog that is “under review’. Enjoy the read and I’ll keep you posted as to whether The Chicken Test “approves” it. =)
MY COMMENT POSTED ON THE CHICKEN TEST BLOG:
Chris Herbert Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. July 20th, 2006 at 3:29 am
MY COMMENT:
This is a very healthy and interesting exchange! We are all human and this case we are learning what is the better way to communicate and extend the nCamp physical experience to the web. I guess a good starting point is to ask everyone, perhaps a poll on CaseCamp, to what extent to [do] the values of social media (open source, sharing, collaborating etc.) apply in a [private]setting like nCamp? I don’t know but clearly setting guidelines from the beginning is ideal and communicating them consistently and often. Look at the bottom of this page and you’ll see that my post will be reviewed, edited and maybe deleted if the blog owner decides. Shouldn’t the same approach be used for nCamps?
Recommendation:
Apologize and come clean
Practice what you preach
You will be forgiven if you learn and share the experience for others
Use this as a Case Study at the next CaseCamp
Tell people on your blog who you are. I’m Chris Herbert and you can reach me via email
Posted by cherbert15 
Posted by cherbert15 
Posted by cherbert15 
And the experimenting continues!
