Of the many entrepreneurs I met at BlogWorld last year, one that definitely stood out was Chris Ducker. A genuinely funny dude in his own right, here’s an interview he did with me there for his Virtual Business Lifestyle blog. Among other things, we discuss the importance of social media in building a personal brand, why you must stand out from the crowd from the get-go, the difference of being part of a niche and “owning” it, and whether web video is the future of
Ever since the tragic events last week in Japan, I’ve read a ton of blog posts and tweets from companies who are “donating” to the rescue/rebuilding efforts there. In no way would I ever scoff at the notion of charity, but almost every single one of these glorified PR releases has a social media-enabled “condition” to pledge. For every “like” on our Facebook page will we donate… All of our proceeds the next week from our iOS app… If we get over 1000 tweets of the message we will… Go fuck yourselves. This is so unbelievably disgusting, it defies every bone in my body not to fly to each and every office of these companies and kick someone in the nuts. Well, what if you
Many bloggers have started to veer away from the ad-based monetization model. Good choice, unless you’re looking for a very steep uphill battle for enough eyeballs to even just pay your cell phone bill. So, in the search for income, now many are are producing their own products or pitching their “consulting” services. I put that word in quotes for a reason. Why? Because I have no fucking clue why I’d want to hire 95% of these people for any reason whatsoever. And it’s their own damn fault. It’s not that they’re offering something totally outside of my needs like fish tank setups or nude cow milking. It’s that they haven’t given me a single solitary reason whatsoever why
When you see the term “social media” written in the mainstream press as this awe-inspiring, ground-breaking, radical shift in the connected human consciousness (their buzzwords, not mine) – do you roll your eyes and sigh apathetically? When you hear a marketing rockstar ninja expert use the word engage about 84 times in a 7 minute interview, do you vomit in your mouth just a little bit? When you wake up in the morning to find 163 new blog posts, 326 Facebook updates, 831 incoming tweets (not including the redundant aggregation of each individual one on 74 other social platforms) – do you smell a pungent odor emanating from this landfill? Do you get the sense that social media is
The tech space has been up in arms over Facebook’s seeming disregard for user privacy, yet are we making much ado about nothing? Before you jump on the Facebook-bashing bandwagon, ask yourself these three questions: 1. Is anyone forcing you to be on Facebook? Probably not. Then stop using it. 2. Do you share anything on Facebook you feel is too private? Then stop doing that. 3. Who the hell is looking at your Facebook profile anyways? Not many, if anyone. Sure, I’m not a big fan of leaving personal details out to be exploited by unscrupulous third parties… but with the exception of Facebook using info to custom tailor relevant advertising to you, who exactly are you really
Breaking News: Social media guru expert speaks heresy about popular 3rd party Twitter app! That’s right, folks. I’m going to be the one person truly brave enough. I’ll point out something that has irked us social media types for quite some time, but too many are afraid to open their mouths. I’ve heard the grumblings long enough, so I’ll take the bullet for the team. TweetDeck sucks! Don’t you all feel so much better now? Now, to all the non-believers clutching to your prehistoric ideologies circa August 2009, feel free to flame me in the comment section. I can take the heat. But before you stone me to death like a Salem witch, I will make these concessions: Yes, I think
