So last night, as I was twittering while reading a book, watching tv and returning phone calls/text messaging I wondered if 10 years from now, there may be cyber-rehab for all of us who are superconnected *allthetime* and addicted to it.

Naturally, I threw this theory out to my twitter peeps and not surprisingly, a few people thought they'd be ready for cyber-deprogramming group. My pal Connie Reece quickly sent a tweet alerting me I'm a candidate for Socnet Rehab.

Now, while Socnet Rehab may be a clever spoof, I really suspect that cyber-rehab isn't far away. Many of us *are* addicted to our communication tools, as crazy as that may sound. Withdrawal from social media communities can result in depression, anxiety and yes, in severe cases, even panic! Even more telling, as more and more entrepreneurs make money via social media and online/mobile platforms, they have more money to spend on access points to their addiction. They also have money to pay for costly rehab programs.

My question is, what do you think the gateway drug is for us cyber/tech-addicts? Was it e-mail? Text Messaging? Will we have to swear off mobile phones (please God, no).

I hope we can get a group rate somewhere. And they'd better have a hand surgeon on-hand. I don't know about the rest of you, but my carpal tunnel is getting worse; I'm going to need surgery upon check in.

I'm excited to be a part of a new community movement online, that started in Twitter. Last week, two of my Twitter friends, Connie Reece and Laura Fitton, started tweeting about PEA-vatars. The next thing I knew, I looked at my Twitter page and it was populating with Twitter friends who also featured avatars with peas. I learned that the PEA-vatars were being adopted for fellow Twitterer and bloggerSusan Reynolds, whom had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Susan had changed her avatar to a photo of a package of frozen peas and explained that the meaning behind the image was that she used a bag of frozen peas on her sore breast after several biopsies. To show my support for this member of our Twitter community, I quickly jumped aboard and created my own PEAvatar.

Not even a week has passed and peas abound in Twitter avatars. Connie Reece and Laura Fitton and a few others no doubt, even created a "PEAple" Twitter account, which they are asking members of the community to "follow" and they use to share news about Susan and the PEA-movement. On December 21st, The Frozen Pea Fund will go live, and anyone will be able to donate money via this site to help raise money for breast cancer research.

I'm excited to be a part of this real-life, positive social media movement. I think this is great example of how a global community can connect to support each other for no reason other than helping someone who needs support.

I'll keep you posted on our progress but I hope you'll join in and participate!

Give PEAs a chance:)

I've noticed a trend among the most popular social networks/communities online that is disconcerting to me; I'm calling it the McDonaldization of social media. Platforms and communities that I have used and participated in because of their different services over the last few years, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Plaxo have moved away from their initial core services and become everything to everyone. What's even stranger about this trend, is that somewhere during this evolution, they morphed into each other, becoming this MyFaceLinkedPlaxo that I can no longer tell apart.

I don't know if this is a case of a Silicon Valley Meetup gone wrong or if one designer had a great year winning business from all the top communities, but everything is looking the same to me anymore, right down to the common denominator of blue and white templates.

Even worse, this blurring of the product/service line confuses me on the products. I no longer know which community does what, best anymore. When you do everything, can you really distinguish yourself as doing any one thing well?

It's almost as if social media has become the beast that we ran from: mass media. We left mass media because they weren't speaking to "me," they were speaking to everyone about everything. Think of The New York Times "All the news that's fit to print," versus our online news moguls like Digg that started as just tech news. Now, McDonalized social media properties are all offering the same fast food social media products, with different marketing campaigns and Madison Avenue taglines assigned.

"Plaxo keeps you in-touch and up-to date!"
"Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you."
"LinkedIn: Relationships Matter"
"MySpace: A place for friends"

Sounds a lot like: "Burger King: Have it Your Way" or "McDonalds: I'm Lovin'It," doesn't it?

I worry that just one year after Time Magazine Named "You" as person of the year, social networks have forgotten about us.

I also worry that we are ignoring history and the valuable lesson of hubris. It's only been a few years since we were misled and misinformed by MSM's Jayson Blair, leading even more people to cynically defect from MSM media and seek truth by reading more news sources online. Yet, here we are just a few years later, watching Mark Zuckerberg similarly trip up in his own hubris, in what seems to me, his abandonment of his Brand's core audience and product because of greed.

Is social media becoming the new "corporate america"? Worse, are we allowing them to become this? Like sheep, will we simply graze, nod and follow? What's the alternative to a social media world that sells out? Where do we go next? Or, are do we have a chance to save social media and not make the mistakes of msm? I'd love to hear other thoughts on this.

I attended the Cultural & Heritage Tourism Alliance conference held in Seattle about a week and a half ago. Seattle is a favorite destination of mine, and visiting during the holiday season did not disappoint. They do wonderful job lighting up the city.

I was there to speak about Philly and how we are using social media to connect with travelers, but I really felt like I was schooled by some other smart session leaders.

In the morning, we heard from Glenn Kelman, President & CEO of Redfin, who was a breath of fresh air. This guy is the CEO of a healthily growing business, but he hasn't lost site of what's important: his site's users. He knows which users are cult-like in their devotion to the site and periodically reaches out to them directly and personally, via email, shares things like new features they are thinking about adding and asks for those loyalists feedback. And he LISTENS to their feedback. That's engagement.

Cari Guittard, Executive Director, Business for Diplomatic Action, talked a tough topic, "The State of America's Reputation and How it Affects Tourism." I applaud her for starting by acknowledging Zakaria's recent Newsweek story titled "America The Unwelcoming." If you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you to do so. It is an alarm bell sounding for all Americans and our economy, which is largely reliant nationwide on tourism dollars. The basis of the story is built around the Commerce Department finding that "the United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined in the midst of a global tourism boom." This, as the dollar drops against many foreign currencies.

She showed us Discover America Partnership, which is a site targeting businesses and individuals, seeking to connect with them in a big enough way that inspires them to act as positive WOM ambassadors for the US when they travel. I like the idea, the execution underwhelmed me. I felt like the red-white-and-blue of it all was too establishment to win over someone like me, who travels abroad and doesn't politically align with the Bush Administration. Design-wise, I think the header graphic wastes too much of the page and looks like a McDonald's commercial (an image that I would think we'd want to get away from overseas).

They did much better on their "consumer" site, world citizens guide. I like the design, the animation and the content here. Do click on the "100 People" tab - absolutely brilliant educational application. Simple, easy to comprehend and to me, thought provoking about "my" world vs the global world we all share. I can see why they won a Webby. To win another Webby, I think they should refresh this site with a area for a community. A place for people to converse, speak, listen and learn. Or, if they aren't equipped/ready to build their own community, join a pre-exisiting social networking community that will better connect them with "connected" citizens; be present and participate in a NUMBER of those communities. We're already there, so rather than working relentlessly to convert us, come JOIN us. Get in the conversation. Sure, those traditional media hits are great for some people; but many of us employ the internet as our default news source. We're missing your 60 Minutes hits, unless it's recapped on Gawker or you post it on Viddler.

Revolution isn't just occuring overseas. We are in the midst of a global social revolution. The world has changed, whether we like it or not. So marketers (yes, even you, USA), either get up to speed and join the new world or let it pass you by, but understand, the global social revolution is in full swing and there's no turning back now.

Well, I did it. I finally did it. I deactivated Facebook.

I have been angry with Facebook for a while now. I was angry when they started publishing our feeds; I didn't need all my friends seeing a 2am scribble on another friend's wall. I was angry when they abandoned their core audience and their brand equity by opening the community to everyone and their grandmother.

And then came the widgets. Jesssssuuuuuuuuuuuussssssssss. The first pirate invite was cute. The next 250? Not so much. And the vampire bites? Never cute, never fun. Just. SUPER. Annoying.

And then they decided to split things up: individuals here, bands and brands there. OK. But did you need to delete the pages of Brands that were already in-community WITH NO WARNING, OVERNIGHT, after you made the announcement, Facebook? That's like breaking up with someone you live with and not giving them a chance to pack up - just throwing their shit out the window and on the street!

And then came Beacon. With this, it's almost hard to believe that Facebook started out as an Ivy League community, although I'm Jesuit educated and we believe we're smarter than Ivy anyway, so I guess it shouldn't be that surprising that a bunch of Harvard kids could eff up marketing so hugely in this day and age. Rather than even tiptoe in the stupidity of their "opt-out" answer, I defer to Chris Heuer's excellent post on that topic.

So, I tip my hat to my friend Colin, with whom I've bitched, lamented and threatened to do this for many, many months, but whom beat me to the punch to it earlier today and I bid adieu to my Facebook friends. You can find me on Twitter, here, MySpace, LinkedIn, Plaxo and many other places but you will no longer find me on Facebook.

Good riddance and AMEN.

Whew!It's been a while since I've posted. I had a spate of bad luck. First my laptop mysteriously died, then I lost my wallet while running around trying to get my laptop repaired. Two days later, I tore my miniscus in my knee.

My laptop is semi-repaired thanks to a colleague in my work web department who patiently sat with it, ran checks, updated it, removed and reinstalled programs. However, I have to call out Dell Customer Service, who, perhaps *because* of Jeff Jarvis's loud voice about his experience with them, have been OUTSTANDING in response to me. The customer service rep was patient with me (and I'll admit, I was cranky and frustrated with him) and has called me everyday for 10 days to check on the machine and see how it is working. I would definitely recommend Dell to anyone looking for a new machine.

My latest social media indulgence has been Firebrand. This is an exciting platform for Madison Avenue. It's a home and community for great commercials. I love it! We were all tired of commercials on TV because it was oversaturation. We were drowning in them, ergo, the fast adoption of DVR. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a place for advertising, especially spots done artfully. Firebrand is that place. I love the idea of giving consumers a CHOICE to view ads rather than force feeding us where we are captive. I have a feeling consumers will embrace this less disruptive advertising.

For now, here's one of my favorite spots of recent years:

A great literary voice and technophobe, Norman Mailer, passed away today. He lived a full life, so kudos to him. I imagine him, an alleged anti-feminist, being schooled by Dorothy Parker at round table somewhere in the sky.

I love this quote: "Mailer built and nurtured an image over the years as pugnacious, street-wise and high-living. He drank, fought, smoked pot, married six times and stabbed his second wife, almost fatally, during a drunken party."

Well done, Norman.

I'm at the First Person Arts Festival demonstrating a blog post.

Further to my point about Facebook in yesterday's post, this video sums up how I'm feeling about the social network (hat tip, Mark):



And check it out, I'm in the Metro today! The story is about a workshop I am leading this Saturday as part of First Person Arts Festival. Please come! It's going to be fun and I can use the hecklers;)

Happy Election Day. Here's cool and helpful voting Tool that someone twittered to me recently. The company behind it appears to be non-partisan and agenda free. One can hope...
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I had an interesting discussion today with some colleagues about web 2.0 and web 3.0. I know everyone loathes the term, but it's here, so let's get over it for the sake of discussion.

I stand with Team 2.0, meaning, I don't think 3.0 should even be uttered because 2.0 isn't even flushed out or saturated yet. To quote my friend Josh Hallett, "I've been waiting for four years to get to the second version of my social media discussion."

I tend to think it's media pushing for 3.0 here - and I don't just mean traditional media. I mean CGM too. A nice tidy term to coin and bandy about - it's not just attributable and viral, it's wikiable too.

And sure, I've heard the predictions. "Web 3.0 is semantic web." It's "smart web" or "smart search." The internet becomes your personal "database." It's the Internet moving ahead to suggest to us, based on our past participation, which chess piece to play in interactive games or suggesting topics for blog entries based on an analytic algorithm of the news stories we clicked on, that we spent the most time reading, what we posted to our del.icio.us, related blogs we read and commented on, etc.

Perhaps, after all of this participation, web 3.0 means there is finally a payoff coming? Sounds like web 3.0 is simply the ultimate in lazyweb.

If that's the case, I welcome 3.0. Lately, I find that I'm over many of these online communities I've been involved with for years. I mean, does anyone even remember Friendster? I haven't killed my account there because it's my only link to the friends I had in 2002 or 2003. Whenever it was. When I see a MySpace alert in my mailbox, I sometimes groan because it's usually a friend request from some wannabe gangsta rapper or weeping singer-songwriter. And Facebook, the place where I used to volley cheeky comments back-and-forth on my personal friends' "walls" is now populated by everyone I know, including business contacts. Many of whom are now sending me "vampire bites" and "virtual happy hour cocktails." Huh?

Our social world has become an open book, one for everyone to read and participate in all across the globe. Instead of embracing this endless frontier, I find myself retreating from the boundless universe. I find that I prefer communities like LinkedIn, which are function more than form. Or Twitter, where I can lock my account and only converse with people I agree to "follow."

So tell me, what about all of you? Where do you stand on all of this? Are you in a 3.0 world? Are you loving your social networks? Or, are you growing weary of overparticipation? LMK.

Thanks to Kami for pointing me to her post about the how the Red Cross is using social media to communicate with victims, donors, etc. about the California wildfires. I just added their Twitter account to my list of people to follow and I added their news widget to the righthand sidebar of my page (see it over there?).

Kami's post details how you can donate via text from your phone, one of my favorite features of technology. Smile, dial and donate.

I'm trying to think back in time to pinpoint exactly when journalism became mean. Because the-magazine-who-will-not-be-named-on-my-blog is promoting a mean-spirited survey about Philly.

I guess I'm ugly. Oh well.

I just love this post by Todd Defren about the Social Media Release. Go go and read that and remember, social media isn't just about having all these neat tools in our toolbox (although 1-click publishing is nice!. For marketers and for PR people especially, it's an opportunity for us to get back to what our professions started out doing - relating directly to the public where they live and breathe. All those places online and off. Sure, it's a lot of work, but here's the thing some of you might not know - it's fun too;)

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Originally uploaded by uwishunuflickr

This one is for the Phillies. Why do I think we are on the cusp of a regional explosion of babies named Chase, Cole, Shane, Aaron, Ryan/Howard and Brett?

Ok, September has gotten away from me on my blog. If you want to follow me, you are better off following me on Twitter. It's my lazyweb platform of choice.

I've been so busy, working on things like this live webcast of Bono and DATA receiving the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia tonight (webcast will be reposted tomorrow morning on LibertyMedal.org), that I haven't even recapped yet!

Now I'm really gonna be in trouble, because I'm down here at BlogOrlando, and I still don't have time for a proper update. Come to my session at 1:15PM tomorrow at Rollins College. If you wanted to learn something about new/social media and didn't know how or who to ask, come to BlogOrlando. It's a free event and smart folks who know this stuff AND can speak in plain English, are here and leading a whole day of discussions. Come ready to talk, because this is an "unconference," and not some stuffy line up of powerpoint presentations.

This isn't your grandfather's technology seminar;) See you tomorrow.

The Band's Back Together! Tonight was the kick off party for Podcamp Philly hosted by the awesome dudes at interactive design firm P'unk Ave. Viddler's Community Evangelist, Colin was on a roll tonight. I think he made me laugh for almost 2hours straight.

I left the party early to try and get some rest. I need to be at Podcamp by 8am tomorrow and it's a full day of sessions, a night of parties with the band, and another day of sessions on Sunday. No rest for the web 2.0-weary!
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In other news, check out this clip of Cate Blanchett playing Bob Dylan. Wow. I have to give it up to her, I bought her as a man and as Dylan. Can't wait to see the film!

Now here's a great story illustrating how social media can quickly take a bad situation and make it worse by exposing it to a massive, global audience, and how someone then LEVERAGED social media to come back on top - bigger than ever.

During the recent Miss Teen USA pagent, Miss Carolina made a huge gaff on-air. Yes, it was nationally broadcast, but as we know, TV audiences are dwindling, so it's once and done, right? Enter youtube. By Monday, the clip had so much traction, it was even picked up by Gawker Media sports site Deadspin.com. The video on Deadspin alone generated almost 25,000 views. On Youtube, nearly 8 million people have viewed the clip. And those are just two of the many websites who posted the clip. In a matter of a days, a bad interview got much much worse.

Now this is where Miss Carolina (or her management team) proved she's not as simple-minded as she sounded. Instead of allowing herself to be the butt of blog jokes and late night show banter and fade into oblivion, she joined forces with a credible and visible third party, People.com, and poked fun at herself, virally.

Suddenly, she's laughing with everyone.

One of the most important things to remember when responding online via social media is to have a sense of humor. It's important to understand the tone online: irreverent, cheeky, snarky and quirky. While I rarely recommend a snarky tone for a response online, because it has to be done right and can read as defensive in a response, I do recommend being playful and picking a safe channel to host a response, both of which, Miss Carolina did. Well done.

One last note, I acknowledge that not every crisis or gaff is appropriate to respond to via social media and humor. Of exception would be incidents like product recalls of serious consequence to consumers, like the recent toy recall, a pharma crisis or a pending litigation.

**Thanks to Jeremy Pepper for tweeting the the link to the People.com video.

I'm on vacation! The weather is dismal.

Nevermind that, please subscribe to the new Philly Social Media Calendar. After BlogPhiladelphia, many of us in the local community realized that we had been segmented by our individual networking groups and we wanted continue the momentum of meeting as a larger community. Ergo, the birth of this calendar. Many thanks to my partner in Social Media Club Philly, Steph Fox, who created this tool.

Who's excited?!?! Mememememe!!!

I'm going to BlogOrlando! Have you registered yet? Well, what the heck are you waiting for???

Knowing Josh Hallett, it's going to be filled with great sessions, smart people and chock full of learnings. Oh, did I mention I'll be leading a session? Yep. I'll be leading a conversation about using social media to market tourism.

I'll be there, Sept 27-29! Hope to see you, too.

Go Philly! We're the second Bloggiest city in the nation! We rule!

Here's a real life of example of why it's important for Corporations/Brands/Service businesses to hire PR experts who live and breathe social media.

Last October, I bought the Verizon Wireless PC Card. I had just moved from out of state and even though I made arrangements a few weeks prior to moving, the local cable provider scheduled my hook-up for their earliest available date, about 2 weeks after my relocation. I was prepared to suck up a TV-less life, but no Internet access for 2-weeks???? Not an option. So I decided to try the PC Card.

Verizon Wireless offered the card with a 10-day free trial. The deal was that if I didn't like the product and returned it within 10 days, I would be fully refunded. Sounded great.

Unfortunately, the card wasn't compatible with my laptop. I returned it within the 10 day timespan, the store stamped my receipt as returned, I didn't have a second thought about it.

Until 6 or 7 months later when the calls started on my cell. I was getting calls from credit agencies, which I ignored, thinking it was a mistake. I've had mix ups before because of a duplicate name. I assumed it was an error.

Then my parents called me. They were getting calls at their home, a residence I haven't resided at for 15 years. Now I was annoyed.

I called the debt collector to find out what this was about. After an hour long conversation, we realized that it was a mistake. He had me call Verizon. I spent another 45 minutes on the phone with Verizon. They saw the error in their system and told me it was corrected. They said the credit agencies would be alerted. I called back the credit agency and relayed the information.

For the next two months, this cycle was repeated. Two different agencies continued to harrass me via cell phone. I would call Verizon and they would tell me the error was corrected in their system and the agencies were alerted.

Today, I lost it. I spoke with the credit agency at the end of last week! At that time, I called them yet again, explained that the debt was erroneous and Verizon had cleared the account and alerted the agency. Two separate agencies called me twice this morning. Then I checked my credit report and saw that my score was still low, showing this false claim. I grew irate.

I called Verizon and I demanded action. This time they told me that the paperwork had been sent to the collection agencies on June 27th, so the account should be deleted any day now. The rep explained that it took a week or so after the notice was sent for it to show in the collection agency system. "July 27th?" I repeated several times to him. "Yes" he confirmed over and over. I started to laugh. "Today is AUGUST 8TH. IT'S BEEN ALMOST 6 WEEKS SINCE THIS LETTER WAS SENT. WHEN IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN?"

There was plenty more to this conversation, but we don't need to get into it. That's not the important part here. This isn't Dell Hell.

What happened next is that I was royally ticked and I wanted to tell someone, so I started to Twitter about my war with Verizon. I even went so far to say that I was so angry, I was going to digitally record the calls with Verizon customer service and start posting the mp3's of the stagnant, frustrating conversations online for my readers to listen to. Then I said I was going to pitch the whole terrible story to consumer reporters on TV.

Here's where it gets interesting.

You see, Verizon Wireless, while ticking me off, had the foresight to hire a smart PR team. Immediately after my twitters, I was directly contacted by Jeremy Pepper, one of the smartest blogger/social media professionals in the business. First he asked me what happened and then he empathized with my experience and noted that if this round of calls didn't resolve the problem (it sounded like it will - finally!), he'd be happy to lend help from his side. I was impressed. If Verizon Wireless hadn't aligned with Jeremy Pepper (Disclosure: we've met via industry conferences) and if he hadn't be visible to me as a blogger and someone to follow online...if he hadn't been paying attention on Twitter, I would have launched a debilitating campaign against the company and it may have been too late for him to manage it.

It's not enough in this day and age of citizen journalism and microblogging to have a online monitoring program. Marketers need to acknowledge that the model has changed and the consumer now has a greater share of voice than ever before. Broadband and mobile have enabled huge groups of global consumers to speak to each other like never before. For marketers who don't have the time or the desire to handle this massive communication task internally, this means finding PR partners who live and breathe in this world to handle it for you.

Although my experience with Verizon has been frustrating, I will continue to be their mobile customer, not just because I think their mobile coverage is the best but also because they've invested in a PR team who "gets it" and "engaged me."

My new friend Chris Conley is the good kinda crazy. Last weekend he blogged for 24 hours for charity. I was one of the people he interviewed to create all of that content. We talked about social media here.

Scott McNulty on Blogging from Blogphiladelphia!

While on my way home from work on Friday night, doing my usual routine of texting, checking emails and hitting refresh on my browser to update Twitter - all on my PDA - I suddenly stopped and looked around me. I looked at my PDA and then I asked myself, what did I used to do before I had a mobile device?

It's not that long that I've been part of the connected generation. I was one of those people who refused to join the cell revolution and was the last person you knew to have a cell phone; the only reason that I finally did get a cell phone was because I worked for a wireless handset manufacturer/marketer. I went wireless in 2001.

So what did I do, before mobile? I realized that I was more aware of my surroundings before mobile. I people watched. I paid attention to where I was walking. I looked up and around me. I looked into people's faces. I looked into store windows.

I don't do much of that anymore. I walk and text. I stand and text. I twitter in taxi's.

Once I realized that, it dawned on me that I am a walking target for crime because of my addiction to technology. I could easily be mugged and never see my attacker. If I passed a business being robbed, I may not be able to provide any information. I'm not paying attention.

Then I wondered about the link between crime and technology. Are there statistics or studies showing a rise in crime and its direct correlation to victims using technology at the time of the attack? I know I'm not the only person out there preoccupied with my devices. Are we at danger because of our constant usage of devices?

Is this a trend for our future? What do you think?

I'm ready to talk about BlogPhiladelphia. The unconference was all that I had hoped for and then some. Were there things that I would do differently next year, given the opportunity to organize a year two event? Absolutely. Key learnings are to be expected with any event.

The success of BlogPhiladelphia should be attributed to the people who participated. I still can't believe that 270 pre-registered and we had to turn people away. Even better, I am thrilled that more than 250 people showed up. The biggest measurement of success in my mind, is the community that was forged at the event. All of these people who knew "of" each other - or didn't - had the opportunity to meet in person and collaborate, share and learn. That was the real goal of BlogPhiladelphia. Sure, as an employee of GPTMC, I hope that you fall in love with Philadelphia and this region that I love and promote, and I hope that the community embraces our social media tools and content, like uwishunu.comand Sound About Philly. However, as a fellow geek, I hoped that people would connect and exchange ideas and ideally, make contacts that lead to more work or improve their business services with new knowledge.

Selfishly, the unconference was also an opportunity for me to catch up with and learn more from people who have been teaching me for years: Josh Hallett, Dave Parmet and Howard Greenstein. It was a chance for me to reconnect with some really smart people I've met along my path: Alicia Dorset, Dina Kaplan, Whitney Hoffman and Doug Bellenger. It was also a chance for me to learn more about topics that interested me from experts in those areas, like: Dave Coustan, Scott McNulty, Lisa Marshall, Chris O'Donnell, Valerie Maltoni,Tony Guido and Don Bain. Many thanks also to our diverse panelists: Neal Stewart, Caroline Marks, Vince Veneziani, Emily King and the infamousA.J. Daulerio. A fist-pumping "yeaaaaah" to city blogger and friend Joey Sweeney, who rocked the panel with his moderation, and with his awesome Philebrity team, hosted the perfect wrap party.

And that brings me to BlogPhiladelphia's not-so-secret ingredient, the man whose blog couldn't be more aptly named, Alex Hillman of Dangerously Awesome. For as much as the blog world can be filled with snark and feud after feud, the geek world is filled with talented people who are rapidly propelling forward and making industry names for themselves globally with their innovation and yet not getting caught up in the ego that consumes so many. Alex Hillman is one of those people and if you know Alex personally, you're nodding your head right now while reading this. Accolades and rewards (personal and financial) are truly deserving to this smart, gifted, helpful and energetic guy. We connected early in the planning stages of BlogPhilly (thanks, Brian Oberkirk !!) and Alex made the mistake of offering his FREE help with anything I need to make this unconference happen. He was experienced in the world of Barcamps, fresh off the high of SXSW and newly committed to staying in Philly versus moving to SF and joining the well-established (tech) establishment. Alex's passion re-ignited my passion for a project that I was dedicated to but now planning with limited resources that at times seemed overwhelming to accomplish in the less than 3 months we had to organize. Alex didn't just bring ideas (like the open-grid, which was awesome) but he was a tangible resource for me; he was a team member and then a partner.

And then there are all of the new friends I met BECAUSE of BlogPhilly: Roz, the P'unk Ave guys, Philly Tipguys, Marisa, John Bilotta and his bro Vince, David Speers, the insane and brilliant dudes at Viddler who are totally going to bury YouTubeWho? and more!
I could go on forever about the people who pitched in and helped with organizing - maybe that will be a part II to my wrap up?

I hope I touched on all of the core participants in BlogPhilly, if I haven't, I apologize.

Thank you to everyone who attended for making BlogPhiladelphia truly one of the highlights of my life both personally and professionally. The social media community in Philly and beyond is a remarkable community of talented and good people and I am proud to count myself as one of you. Thank you.

I'm on a blogging break. Blogphiladelphia took the blogger right out of me.

Not to mention, it's just so much easier to twitter than blog.

But I will be back. Until then, look at the "tooned" annie that stan at Toonamation created! What a talent and program this guys has - and he can "toon" entire videos. And this isn't that mac program - it's patented and more So, as someone at BlogPhilly pointed out, we could have him "toon" the spiderman movie so we can watch it the way we *wanted* to see it. I can't wait to work on a project with Toonamation!



(Are the bags under my eyes really that bad? I think I was just very, very tired;p)

Wow, the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. BlogPhiladelphia was a blur for me but I'm pleased with the outcome. Our session leaders were all excellent and the participation by attendees impressed me. The social media world has come such a long way since I entered the circuit a few years ago; marketers and citizen journalists are just so *smart* anymore. That's what really impressed me about BlogPhiladelphia. The last few social media "conferences" I attended in 2006 in NYC bored me. The speakers rattled off "tips" that were basics and even outdated. Often, I knew more then them but didn't have the opportunity to contribute.

At BlogPhiladelphia, the session leaders were smart and the participants were just as smart. It was stimulating just to be among the conversations.

More to come soon, but now, I have to head to the Wrap Party (Thanks Philebrity!)

Yet another reason why, David Pogue is one of my top 5 favorite reporters.

Ha. I lovelovelove Chris Pirillo's20 Reasons I'm not getting an iPhone today. Granted, I'm not an Apple disciple, but I don't get the hype for the iPhone. Maybe I'm too much of a mobile phone techie to buy in? Maybe it's my displeasure with my video iPod? In my opinion, the only thing great about the iPod is 1)the streamlined aesthetic and 2)the memory. Beyond that, I don't love the product. I hatehatehate the click-wheel. I'm on my third unit (under warrenty, thankfully!) because of unit malfunctions. Apple customer service has been the worst of my life and that's coming from someone who formerly repped a wireless handset manufacturer that required me to switch carriers to activate and test large numbers of new phones for at least two years; I've probably had more than the average person's experience with customer service AND I've worked with just about every carrier in the US. I would NEVER give up my Verizon service.

I guess the other issue is that I don't have a landline. I doubt I ever will again. And I live alone. I can't risk my phone dying or malfunctioning and have to mail it in for a replacement. I don't have that luxury.

It's funny, because I'm a mobile phone junkie. I upgrade ALL the time. I have so many friends in the mobile industry that they may send me a review unit to play with or I'll just see one that looks interesting and upgrade on my own. My friends & family accuse me of having a new wireless unit every two weeks and sometimes they are right.

However, while I admire the design of the iPhone from afar, I have to say, it's unlikely I'd purchase one now with AT&T service. Their coverage blows.

But I'm sure many people out there will snap them up and love that status it gives me. Me, I'd rather have the function and service;)

Someone pass the codeine - I just gave birth. The labor involved may set a new world record, but we did it for YOU.

Now hurry up and register, if you haven't already. Just one week left to sign up!

All this talk about the iPhone, enough already! Sometimes I get frustrated with the consumerism element of social media. We in America and the western world continually scramble to buy the next big "thing," but what happens to all of those old-next-big-things as we continually upgrade?? I saw a Twitter today with an awesome link to a blog that recycles the old Merlin Calculator into an MP3 player. How AWESOME is that?!? Man, I always wanted that Merlin, but I went to Catholic school and we weren't allowed to use calculators. We even had to SHOW OUR WORK in math - even in the high grades and more advanced math. I'm still convinced that if I hadn't been DEPRIVED (no bitterness here, folks) of the Merlin I would be a much better math person today.

In other, equally, exciting news, BlogOrlando registration is live! Wooohooo! I can't wait! Hurry up and register everyone, it's going to be AWESOME!

Enough with the Facebook talk already! Many of my social media friends are now leaping on the site since the all-ages floodgates opened and I can't understand the wonderment. The best thing about Facebook was that it was a private community. Now it's MySpace. Think of this way - remember how hanging out in the student center at college was cool because parents and younger brothers and sisters weren't there? It was you, Joe and Jane College, and the university community. Your peers in a (somewhat) gated and therefore (somewhat) safe community. Now imagine if your lounge in the student center invited the senior citizens center and the PTA and the teen leagues to come and use the lounge.

That sucks. The novelty shall wear off, I suppose.
*~*
You know what I need? I need my Moto Q to 1)Charge when it's connected to a PC and 2)Have better battery life. Love the product, hate the battery life. It's almost as bad as my video iPod. Grrrr.

Ok, I can't really update right now because I am obsessively hacking my Windows PDA device into an iPhone. That's right. You heard me. My existing Windows unit is going to function much like the iPhone, but not at the iPhone price.

You can download the hacking software right here. Have I mentioned how much I love hackers? Because I do. Mostly white hat hackers because I do believe in using your superpowers for good.

Apparently, I pressed a hot button when I commented on Mediapost's story last week deconstructing the "new" Facebook. Max Kalehoff took my comment to his personal blog and opined that while he doesn't think that Facebook is "over," he wonders what Facebook will do to retain their loyal base. Lynda Radosevich wonders the same thing. Don Park doesn't have any answers either.

Facebook is in a tricky spot and I'm very interested to see how they navigate this expansion. They cornered a hot market for advertisers with college and then high school kids, and I can understand the temptation they must have to compete with goliath, MySpace. I can also understand that it must suck to have your core userbase turnover annually and have to continually rebuild.

That said, Facebook sits on a dangerous sinkhole. Expansion brings bigger numbers to increase traffic/google juice and consquently increase ad rates, but may repel that core demo that makes them so appealing to the very same advertisers.

I'll be watching closely.
*~*
Last, here's an overdue personal plug. Check out the podcast IncPlace whom were nice enough to have me on their podcast

I love that right after I publish a bot post, AIM adds 3 awesome bots to their client.
*~*
Hey, anyone out there an expert on widgets? Building them, where to find new plug-in's, different applications for them, etc? We need a widget guru to speak at BlogPhiladelphia. Give me a shout and if you have any demo's I can see - even better!

So I'm sitting here at home, doing more work (but at home it's so much more pleasant, isn't it?), when I started to look at my AIM buddy list. I have a whole section there for Bots

I realized I haven't used any of my bots in ages and was curious to see if they were still active, so I clicked on the SmarterChild bot. I remember when it came out in 2000 or 2001 and I thought it was so novel. I used it for two months and then forgot about it. I played a few rounds of hangman and then wondered to myself, is the novelty and functionality of bots over?

Has social media like myspace and event sites and small business domains become so prevalent and accessible and that we no longer need Bots for quick searches or answers?

Let me know what you think.

~*~
One more thing: tres cool pic here. You click and drag your mouse up and down and will find yourself Alice in a virtual wonderland;)

BREAKING NEWS! More than a year of tinkering with skype and my headset/mic, I finally figured it out! So you can call me at AnnieHeckenberger from now on.

Infortunately, only on my laptop at the moment. I need to download it on my work PC.

As a social media "specialist," I spend a lot of time looking at a wide variety of web sites. As a former PR media expert (and forever a media junky at heart), I spend an even larger amount of time on MSM and CGM news sites. Like a lot of people my age (and younger...and older, too, I bet!) the internet is my default news source.

Here's where I think the news media are going wrong online. Too many bells and whistles. Yes, give me digital video on your site. Do not try to make your site into myspace. I don't need another hub. I don't need to social network on a news site. I just want the news. I want it in real time, I want links to wire stories, I want celebrity gossip, I may want to leave a comment but I don't want to stay and do a mashup. I don't want to shop on my news site. I don't want to auction something off there. And frankly, should news entities be offering services like this that are actually news makers? God knows there are enough Ebay stories out there about crazy items for sale - how ethical is it for news entities to now offer services that may *become* news? Selling local artists or designers' wears and also reviewing them? Who will now fairly report consumer interest stories? Will it be citizen journalists crashing the party and now conducting embarrassing investigations on mainstream media personalities?

Sounds fishy to me.

Maybe I'm old fashioned. Maybe this is what the next generation wants from news entities? But the way I see it, citizen journalism gained audience and credibility as traditional media took a beating for unethical practices like airing VNR's without disclosure that the news segment was a PR tool, paid spokespeople shilling on news and morning shows and more and more reporters like the infamous Jayson Blair who fabricated sources and filed fiction.

Shouldn't traditional media be more carefully drawing the line rather than help blur it?

Great holiday weekend. I was able to restrain myself from opening my laptop and working - although I cheated and checked twitter nonstop (and a few emails) via my PDA. I'm officially addicted to twitter, which is an embarrassment because I personally trashed the service a few months ago on this very blog. I'm actually thinking about stopping my dodgeball, which isn't that big of a deal since I still subscribe to my NYC version and basically use it now to track my friends in NYC and reminisce about my former life. I wasn't able to get anyone in Philly hooked on Dodgeball - still haven't quite figured out why. This town certainly has the nightlife and the bar crowd.

Before I fled town on Thursday night for the shore, I popped into Junto , a local web/tech networking group, and spoke with the group about BlogPhiladelphia. It was a great opportunity to meet all the cool people whose blogs and twitters I read and respond to daily and to explain the "unconference." Some people were misled by the title "BlogPhiladelphia" and thought it was just a blogging event - I'll be sure to correct that on the site when I start blogging on the home page this week. We'll be covering all aspects of social media - new platforms, mobile applications, virtual communities and more. Definitely not just blogging.

I also met a lot of small business owners in the tech sector, like the guys at P'unk Ave who have the raddest office space in town that I've seen. Talk about being right in the middle of the action! In fact, now that I think of it, I think I'm going to ask Geoff if he'll host a mini-soiree there during the unconference. It's just too great of a spot! Nothing like blogging something first to pressure someone into agreement....muuuuwwwwwahahahaha;)

That's it for now. Back to work tomorrow.

What the flippin' heck happened to my comments feature?!? Dang inter-nets.

Not a great day for Apple, according to my contact John Biggs over at CrunchGear.

I've worked with Ryan Block, the blogger who broke the story, a number of times and he has always reported fairly. I may not have been in love with his review of my clients, but it's always been fair. And the guy busts a move everyday to cover a million and one tech briefings and then file them all immediately.

Clearly, there's a new case study coming about all of this, documenting the very real power of email and social media for Corporate America today. I just hope whomever writes it comes to BlogPhiladelphia to present it.

Ryan, I already you sent the invite to you, but SERIOUSLY, you have to come speak.

I have so much to tell you guys! First, I have to thank Jack Dorsey at Twitter for featuring BlogPhiladelphia's Twitter group on Twitter's homepage! And if you don't believe me, look at the photo that Alex flickr'ed. My phone has been BLOWING up with Twitters and I have to take back my previous position on Twitter - it's been a life saver on keeping interested "unconference" attendees up to date on updates for the unconference while we develop the website.

In other news, uwishunu just launched the first webisode of the new original vlog series "Cheap Dates". Check it out!

IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!



BlogPhiladelphia is here!

I haven't updated regularly lately because I am working on something that will be announced on here this week. Stay tuned for exciting news that will involve each and every one of you readers!

Know what this Dodgeball story says to me? Google just made a huge mistake.

Well, MySpace announced today that they are getting into the community-edited news business like Digg. I guess it's a smart move for MySpace, it integrates Fox's news division with their MySpace property and lends a fresh new feature to MySpace.

However with all of these community-edited news sites allowing the news audience to decide the top stories of the day, comes an enormous responsibility for us to read an enormous amount of news. Without the news media as our "gatekeeper" so to speak, we have no filter but a real-time climate of nonstop news to sift thru from a growing number of sources. I have to wonder when we, the audience, will tire of of this huge responsibility?

I also suspect that what will happen is that it will become a small group of news' devotee's (with a lot of time on their hands) who will control what rises to the top of sites like Digg and as marketers catch on, their outsourced hired-voting guns will control community-edited news sites just as PR began to infiltrate broadcast and print in the 90's.

And then we will all probably become fed up and go back to the model of traditional media as gatekeeper.

As the World Turns....

I remember after the September 11th attacks, after the dust settled in Manhattan (for the most part), the steaming rubble still smoking and we were fairly certain that 6 remaining friends and classmates that I knew who were still missing were not going to be found alive, I would receive prayer vigil emails and powerpoints in my email from people or associates who didn't know that I had lost friends. Those emails would infuriate me.

Tragedy and senseless loss of life can spark a fury in people who are trying to process the events and grieve. You want to get angry, because you are angry, and something as simple as a prayer vigil sent with good intentions can trigger an explosion. It can ignite a mourner because the mourner is already frustrated and the person they want to punish, isn't around to face punishment. They are forever robbed of that. Their grief is compounded in its' public status: captured on TV and in stills or audio from now until forever. The deaths of their loved ones, something that should be so private, is public. They will forever be reminded of their loss by history.

With that acknowledgment, I'm going to embed a video here that was created to honor the victims of the VA Tech Shooter. If you are someone who is directly affected by this event, note that it is a tribute and not something you may want to watch right now. (I recommend skipping thru the upfront news images and just viewing the slides of schools showing support)

I'm embedding the video for two reasons: 1)Because I'm impressed by how quickly students of other schools who are users of social media like Facebook responded to the tragedy and stepped up the plate using social media tools to show VA Tech students, victims and their families that the rest of the university world stands behind them with love and support regardless of sporting and academic competitions; and 2) because I want to join that support network.

I'm a hokie now too.

Wow. Applications for social media evolve as needed. This evolution can sometimes provide an enormous service; in this case, I wish they had never been needed.

I am a terrible, slug of an individual. My Blogher pal, Lori, was true to her word and sent me a MAGNO! orginal, lickety-split after we met in NYC two weeks ago. I ripped open the envelope and put the beautiful stone necklace on right away at work. I took a shot of it, which I didn't particularly care for, and before I had a chance to apply some makeup, fix my hair and stage a real photo shoot, I was called into a meeting.

Here I am, two weeks later, still haven't taken another photo. So here it is. Don't look at ME, silly, look at my Magno, baby.



It's a Magno and it's all mine! Get your own!

There's just so much wrong with this that I think it may make it....right?



I'm going to go wash myself off with Belle & Sebastian now.

This is the entry where I diss Twitter. All I've heard lately is "Twitter." I think that word is becoming the new "podcast."

I've been trying Twitter for a few months and I was one of those people who used it at SXSW. I hear that SXSW is where Twitter "exploded" and I'm here to dispel the Twitter myth.

For those of you not in the know, Twitter is the latest social media darling. Essentially, it's a platform that allows people to send short messages, often text messages, to people they add to their Twitter list as friends or people to "follow." So you can receive a message online or via text, every time your friend decides to get a cup of coffee or go to the bathroom. I read someone somewhere called it the Seinfeld of 2.0, the interactive tool about nothing, and I couldn't agree more.

I've been using dodgeball for years. Dodgeball is a useful mobile social network. I add my friends online and then I can text the whole lot of them from location to location just by sending a short code with the venue name to Dodgeball. My friends all receive the message at once, detailing what bar or restaurant I am at, with the address of the place. If I want to send just a line or two of text, I can send that by starting the text to dodgeball with an exclamation point. Simple.

What's better about Dodgeball, beyond their massive database of public venues in most major cities, is that I can add my friends by email or phone (like twitter), or I can just search for them on dodgeball and ask to add them. Twitter has no search. I can't find my friends who are on there - I have to do all the work.

Moreover, I have no idea how other people whom I've never met are adding me or "following" me. I know that I clicked "ok" for them to do so, but how did they FIND me? Why did they select me? I assume they spotted my pic on the SXSW group. Now I have some people - who never even WENT to SXSW - sending me texts about going out for ice cream in some other state. That kills me. They were in the SXSW group but never went. Subscribe to my blog if you want to know what was happening at SXSW, not my twitter where I was asking where the next showcase was.

I know much of the fascination for Twitter is that it's leading toward the next evolution in blogging: the move away from today's "posts" and toward quick hits of information distributed more frequently. If you thought blogs were the People magazines to traditional media's New Yorker, wait until you see the next generation - a cross between zingers and texts. Maybe we should call them Zexts?

But for now, Twitter just ain't all that. Next.

I also want to remind everyone in the Philly area that Monday, March 26th is the first meeting for Social Media Club Philly!

Social Media Club - Philadelphia

So I'm here! Hello fellow, Blogher bloggers!

Day 1 was great, thank you, Lisa Magno for welcoming me to the table and for the necklace you are sending me. (How's that for bribery - I blogged it - now she has to do it!) My other tablemate was pretty much unstoppable in working the room yesterday. Ladies: consider yourself warned...;)

Yesterday, I had a chance to connect with Dina Kaplan with Blip.tv. If you aren't familiar with blip, check it out. We've recently been using it to host and share our video content on uwishunu and the quality is remarkably better than other video sharing sites. Dina also shared with me some shortcuts they have if you have an account on blip - that will automatically send/post the video to your site when it's uploaded to blip and will also add to your Del.icio.us and your flickr accounts (and other social media sites) with tags.

It's Day 2 and I'm at the measurement track now, with my other new table friend, Alicia, who is pretty much a blogging svengali, with a rockstar look to boot.

I'll be sure to log in later and share more from Blogher!

Tomorrow I'll be in Austin! Yipppppeeeeeeee-Ki-Yay!

MOVE TO PHILLY/PHILEBRITY PARTY @ SXSW (PHILLY JAWN) 3/17

SECOND ANNUAL SHOWCASE OF PHILLY MUSIC IN AUSTIN, TX
Saturday March 17 @ Cream Vintage In Austin, TX

FREE TO ALL. NO BADGES OR RSVPS NEEDED.

For the second year in a row, Philebrity.com and Move To Philly have teamed up to curate a showcase of Philly bands, emcees, and DJs. It's called Philly Jawn taken from the neighborhood slang "jawn" which can be, in various circumstances, taken to mean any given proper or improper noun - and you better stand clear, because this is one landmark bill.

On Saturday, March 17, our showcase will highlight some of the best and brightest new acts Philly has to offer in the heart of downtown Austin. Along with our presenting sponsor Uwishunu.com. The Philly Jawn is also brought to you in part by Yaris, Toyota?s fuel efficient, sub compact car. And now, the lineup:

12:00 - 12:30 PM - DJ (Philebrity)
12:30 - 1:00 - Adam Arcuragi
1:00 - 1:20 - DJ (John Redden)
1:20 - 1:50 - Illinois
1:50 - 2:20 - Nouveau Riche
2:20- 2:50 - Pattern is Movement
2:50 - 3:20 - The Teeth
3:20 - 3:50 - Relay
3:50 - 4:20 - The Asteroid #4
4:20 - 4:50 - Plastic Little
4:50 - 5:20 - The War on Drugs
5:20 - 5:50 - The Capitol Years
6:00 - 6:30 - The A-Sides
6:30 - ? -

Sorry I'll be missing all my blogger friends at SXSW. Extend your trips and stay for the Philly Jawn! Here's some of the Philly talent you'll see LIVE at our day party on March 17th in Austin:

Where has the month gone!? I've been crazy busy with work and touring my new hometown. I've been working on this - so if any of you will be at SXSW, please come by our jawn and say hi. It's a day party on March 17th at Cream Vintage. We'll share our yummy Philly delights like authentic Philly pretzels with you.

Beyond that, I've just been checking out cool new mobile technologies like Socialight. More to come...

One of the greatest things to evolve out of the Internet, the global adoption of broadband and more widespread adoption of Internet capable machines by households around the world is the widespread access to a huge number of artists and new music.

For a long time, we were force fed the music that big labels and corporate radio spooned out to us. Corporate rock. Same songs played over and over until they were hits. Napster came along and changed everything. Sure, it wasn't right to steal music without paying artists, but it sure was nice to be able to listen to indie bands who were labeless and on shareware.

Napster died and digital music sites like The Hype Machine were born. I've bought more CD's in one year, because of the exposure Hype Machine gave me, than I may have bought in 3 years of listening to corporate radio. And because of blogs like The Hype Machine, bands like, Clap Your Hands were able to sell hundreds of thousands of discs without the backing of a label. Internet Radio and Satellite radio came out and rocked new music as well. Power to the people!

And of course, video kills the radio star in 2.0. Here's a clip of one of my new favorite artists, Amanda Blank, as she rocks NYC with rising stars Spankrock. And of course, both are Philly artists, yo. (NSFW)

Oh God, it's so goooooood. Sit back in your chair, tip your head back and play Black Mirror, the first single off of the Arcade Fire's new album.

I want to be buried with this album.

Yay to my friend Maura and public radio; two great tastes that taste great together.(That's her at the bottom, being interviewed for the Superbowl/Prince segment)

And this guy has been in the room with way too many dead people in the last 10 months to not be a person of interest.

Here's a great site that someone at work just shared with me and now I'll share with you: vidmeter. Vidmeter aggregates views and rankings of the most popular videos on the top video sharing sites and showcases the most popular videos online in one place. Smart idea and a great place for marketers to get a feel for what's striking a cord virally among internet video users.

Tuesday afternoon I choo-choo'ed up to NYC to catch up with like-minded peeps at the New York Social Media Club meeting. There was a good showing and it was fun to chat up folks like Aaron Urhmacher from Text 100 and Christian Averill from NGT/Fleishman-Hillard.

It was a large group, so it was hard to get into more in-depth exchange on everything that everyone else is working on and exploring. I didn't stay for the shorter groups, so maybe that was more individual-specific. One thing that was mentioned was twitter. I'm not going to lie, I don't exactly understand twitter, but I joined, so maybe I'll figure it out. Hey Twitter folks, how about adding a "how it works" section?

My last note is that I've been following what the TV show "The L Word" is doing online. I thought it was genius at the beginning of this season when the show launched a paper chart that one of the characters had created in the first season of the show as a social network for lesbians. That application can be found here. I have to say, I'm disappointed with the application. I really thought that it would become a MySpace for that niche market, but it doesn't seem to be active at all.

Another L Word related item: one of their actresses, Janina Gavankar, is the new online sensation Ms Dewey. It's a really fun directory, but I can't figure out who's funding it and I hope they are going to update her soundbites soon. I've only been using it for two weeks and the soundbites are already old.

I have seen the future and apparently, it's name is now Joost. I'm one of the lucky Beta testers of what was formerly code named "The Venice Project" and is now named "Joost." I can't say much about it because I'm bound to a confidentiality agreement, I'll just basically reiterate what Wired says in their piece today.

This platform is flippin' amazing! I've been sitting at my desk just going ape over it. They warned us that this was going to blow youtube out of the water, but I can't believe what I'm seeing. It's just so SMART. Not just the architecture behind the platform, which I'm not technical enough to figure out, but the features they added - Instant Message, News Tickers, Rating systems that are like picture-in-picture P2P tools...it's so SMART. They thought of everything I want to do as a multitasking entertainment geek.

I'd better stop now before I say something I shouldn't. Just wait. Joost is going to change everything.

PS - Here's a screen grab of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Making of the Video." Look at that resolution. Live TV! No more waiting to download from iTunes. Wooohooo.

This new campaign, Letitout.com by Kleenex, caught my eye. The core concept is very much like the widely covered campaign I worked on last year for my Secret client.

The point of difference, is that Kleenex is applying a similar concept in a very different way, and I have to say, I think they've done a great job with it. I wonder who their agencies are? I saw an ad spot on TV for it and because it is a unique and modern approach for a tissue brand that certainly doesn't have a brand awareness problem, I went to the website to check out their execution.

They don't have much submitted content yet, I'll be interested to watch and see if consumers do participate. The one thing they may have overlooked is providing incentive for the consumer to participate. I didn't see that.

Also, savvy is their involvement of a Blogher blogger as the editor for their blog. Looks like that may be a rotating post, but it sure is smart to involve a broad and respected community of bloggers like Blogher.

Creating and fostering an emotional bond for the consumer via Kleenex and in a way that their product *can't* get lost in the story - they're telling you to let it out! And use a Kleenex when you do so!

Well Done, Kleenex. Nice to see a corporate entity execute well online for once.

I really try not to talk about politics outside of my close friends and family and certainly not here, where my focus is on social media and it's nonstop evolution.

That said, I saw this photo today of President Bush shedding a tear at the funeral for a medaled soldier and it not only resonated personally for me, it also slightly eased my mind to see during these uncertain times. I worry that it's easier for us in urban areas and in the Northeast to push the war out of our minds. Most soldiers come from suburban areas in the South and the West. It's easy for us who don't see our neighbors and friends going back and forth to bases and assignments in uniform, to get caught up in novel news like that of the iPhone or Avatar the movie.

The PR professional in me recognizes that maybe that photo was staged, like others during Bush's administration, and to be fair, other modern Presidencies. It wouldn't be the first time. However, on the heels of the President announcing that we need more troops and the Pentagon dissing the active duty time limit, it's a grave time for the young men and women of America.

One my strongest disagreements with the President is his absence from Dover. The policy of banning media from covering the arrival home of those killed in action and the complete absence of the President from saluting those incoming, infuriates me.

I'm glad to see the grave consequences of this war resonating with the President. As a voter, I've always perceived him as insular and removed from the consequences of his decisions as President.

Maybe he had dirt in his eye, I don't know. But that tear was the first reassuring thing I've seen come from the man.

Above all else, I hope we find a way to initiate peace among countries, faiths and people soon.

Ahhh, and now it's Disney's turn on the hotseat. I guess they should review the story of David and Goliath. When will corporations learn to engage and communicate with the consumer, rather than continue to make this mistake?

And last, because everyone who knows me knows that I've been talking relentlessly about Mobile as THE Future for consumer tech for years now, we have iPhone. Everyone's asking me what I think about iPhone. I think the same thing that I think about most Apple products. It looks sexy, it'll be first to market, I probably won't love it. My like for the iPod was solely for the storage capes, otherwise, I'm cold on Apple products. I like their design but I'm not down with their elitist attitude. Buy my product and BTW, you have to use my other product? Screw that.

I guess my question for Apple will be, when my iPhone battery dies, do I have to buy a whole new phone?

And here's real expert (Disclosure: She's also a personal friend, but I swear we have never discussed this!) who also isn't waiting for an iPhone with baited breath:

Leave it to a Philly girl to best the popular Andy Samberg/Justin Timberlake "In a Box" video with a female response. I'm right behind Philebrity with my fist pumping Big up's to the 2-1-5!

Here's what's going on:

1. It's 2007. Woo woo.
2. I have no voice. Laryngitis. Not much fun.
3. Saw Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah before New Years. Good Show. Disappointed The Cold War Kids didn't open for this show; it was a local benefit and not part of the current tour.
4. This is my new musical obsession.
5. New Bright Eyes album comes out April 10th. Mark your calendars, hipsters.
6. I'm thinking about getting a new phone. Even though the thought pains me. Time to go back to the crackberry.