One By One Media Gets A New Look

Do you remember when you were a kid and you got those brand new pair of tennis shoes?  I remember when I got my first pair of Chuck Taylor Converse.  They were not too unlike the ones pictured here, but mine were white.  I remember so vividly the fact that I thought I could run much faster and jump much higher with those brand new shoes.  I know now it was probably psychological, except for the fact that they didn’t have duct tape holding the toe part of the shoe on my foot.  They were also quite a bit different than getting those hand-me-down shoes, but I digress.

Those of you that have been following along here over the last 5 years know that from time to time we tend to make some sweeping changes to our look and feel of the web site and blog (terms I believe are synonymous).  This is the latest look and feel that we have made and I believe I can now blog better, write better, speak better and everything else has been taken up a notch.  Like that kid that could run faster and jump higher, I feel invigorated.  We will continue to always be testing new widgets and plugins and every tool out there, but for now it is clean and tidy here and I love it that way.

I have Debbie Lawrence of Lagniappe Marketing to thank for the new look and feel.  She is amazing and allowed me to participate in what she calls the “Sausage Making” process of watching the new design come together.  We are using Brian Gardner’s template and I recommend all of his work as he has some great themes to work with and to make your own designs.  In fact, Debbie was the designer and coder and all-around sausage making queen for the site over at the Modern Media Man Summit which is another of my latest projects.  That site is also a Studio Press theme.  Thank you Debbie!

I expect things to pick up here a little since I have this new running faster and jumping higher ability.  Take a look around and tell us your thoughts.

You can also see that we have added to the home page our sites at Bloggers For Hire and at Social Mediasphere TV.  We will be picking up the pace there as well so feel free to grab those feeds too.

One By One Media Has HART

I woke up Thursday morning and had Haiti on my mind.  As I fed the kids their breakfast and started getting ready for my day, I saw on the news picture of children suffering in the damage of the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.  My heart shattered and I wanted to do something.  I felt helpless watching as families were destroyed, mothers and fathers were dead and children and others had no homes, no food and no water.  I had to do something.  I couldn’t stand by and watch more of the devastation without a way I felt I could lend a hand.

I had no way to provide monetary support.  I am not Bill Gates and my meager bank account was not enough.  I needed a better way to help.  What did I have that would be valuable enough to help those victims I was seeing?  I could think of only one thing, the help of many.  I know social media is powerful and I have seen how it works with other causes.  Not to discount the other causes and their value, but this is going to be seen as the single most devastating tragedy of our time.  I need to make it count and I needed to do it soon.

I reached out to a few friends I knew would help me and people I knew could.  I talked first to Chris Noble of Cause Media Group and his latest project at WhatGives.com.  After I gave him my 3 minute pitch, he said, “I’m in Jim.”  I know I can count on him to give his all and it was no surprise at his reaction but nonetheless appreciated.

I next reached my new friend Chris Murch of WS Radio. I met Chris at BlogWorld & New media Expo and we launched Blog World Expo Radio in Vegas at that event.   I was not sure whether Chris would be comfortable with my idea, but he quickly laid that issue to rest when he said “We can make that happen.”

The result? Haitian Assistance Relief Telethon

I wanted to make an impact that meant more than my $5 donation or even a $500 amount.  I wanted to go big and prove what I already know, you get a community together behind something and good will come of it.

You can watch along with Ustream as well as listening to it live.  We are using the hashtag of #HART in all of our Tweets and you can follow along there as well.

I would love to ask you for your support as we try to make an impact of the lives of those suffering in Haiti. If I can only help one child it will be enough, but showing a impoverished nation of children that we care about their pain and hurt and we want to comfort them might make a difference.

Preaching From The Social Media Pulpit

I have been preaching about blogging for a long time.  I have been an evangelist and telling companies that they had to blog more they had to have a place for people to "join the conversation" and making it possible for them to connect with their customers.  Like some of the preachers of the past, I am my own worst sinner apparently.  I was reminded by people in my company that I am the worst person in the world to tell companies that they are not blogging enough or that they are not doing it right.

I am preaching from the pulpit so to speak and I am preaching to the choir perhaps, but I need to update more often here.  I am trying to get more and more content on here and those that are slinging arrows at me the most may be asked to also contribute now and then to what we are doing at One By One Media and Bloggers For Hire.  I am also on Twitter quite a bit, and I am trying out Posterous, and I am about to start Social Mediasphere TV again.  Of course, you can always come and hear what we are doing at our new radio show at Blog World Expo Radio.

Now that BlogWorld & New Media Expo is over for 2009 I have a few minutes I can breathe, and I will be using that time to try to be more involved here rather than out on the road or on the phone trying to convert the latest in small medium or large business to jumping into the social media pool.  I guess I am like that life guard that actually never swims!

Photo via LeMonde1

Tags: One By One Media, Bloggers For Hire, , , Social Mediasphere TV, Blog World Expo Radio, , ,

Social Media and the Child of Television

I have always been a child of television.  I was born at the height of when television broke on to the scene as the next big thing, and I was doused with it’s essence from day one.  To that end I have some things that are a part of my DNA I believe that makes me drawn to it like a moth to flame.  That lure is now spilling over to my job here at One By One Media.  I have taken One By One Media to the television.  In my own mind anyway.  I am feeling like Johnny Carson these days doing his thing.

I started Social Mediasphere TV as more of an experiment than anything.  I was already doing the Blog Talk Radio show for Social Mediasphere and then the show sort of transmogrified into what it is now.  I can speak into a camera much easier than I can actually write.  I can speak and it does not set off the spelling alarm.  I can look into the camera and know that I am talking to people. I don’t get that same feeling with the blog. It could just be that I am a child of television and it helps my ADD and other problems associated with growing up with Gilligan’s Island.   I am not certain it will continue on its current path but for now stay tuned.

Tags: Social Mediasphere TV,

Social Mediasphere TV Launched

smtv-logo1-300x177I have recently launched Social Mediasphere TV and added it to my list of blogs including this one and including Bloggers For Hire in the long list of blogs I contribute to and provide.  Social Mediasphere TV is an extension of the radio I was doing on Blog Talk Radio.  You can still go over and take a look at my archives at that location and I may still continue my on location live radio using that service as it seems to be a very simple solution to the technical issues related to live radio.

I will be doing my show continuing here forward on Tuesdays at 5:00 p.m. PST and 8:00 p.m. EST.  We will be discussing all things Social Media and as always we will have special guests, commentary and even you as listener can call in and ask questions make your own comments or just be a guest yourself.  I am still working through all of the issues with using the applications of the trade, but I have been given some good advice and help from many friends that are cheering me on to make this new project a success.  See you all on Tuesdays!

Barcamp Miami A Hit No Matter What was Thrown At Me

Miami Vice, CSI Miami, these are the things that I refer to when someone talks about the location.  I look back to what I have seen on television. Today as I sat on the front steps of a location in Coconut Grove, Florida, (I was told I couldn’t call it Maimi) I had visions of those times looking at blue water, people in shorts and beautiful weather.

I was trying to live stream a radio show using blog talk radio while attending barcamp.  If the show itself was archived and turned into an mp3, you might be able to listen on the sidebar.  If not who can tell.  I had a great time down here at Barcamp Miami and Wordcamp Miami.  The wifi and the Internet? It did not have such a great time. This is becming all to familiar a complain I hear in the world of tech conferences. You have hundreds of Internet users all converging on a single space and they have no way to handle the crowd.  I am not going to beat that dead horse.  Suffice it to say many curves were thrown at the organizers, yet they seemed to still make it a hit.

I do want to talk about how great the weather was, how wonderful the attendance was and how great I was at speaking.  Okay, the last part is not necessarily true but I keep getting better at talking what I love to say the least.  The weather and the company was great. 

You get that many people in a room that all love blogging chances are the person at the front talking about blogging is going to be cheered.  This was the case with all the sessions i saw.  Everyone loved what was discussed.  So much information and so little time were some fo the commentsI heard, and others still said they too would love to give information they had learned to the group.  This is the perfect excample of why barcamps are so well received by attendees.

Sitting on the front of the location on the sidewalk talking into the microphone was very fun and not something I had done before.  I hope to get a chance to do the same tomorrow.  I am going to post some of the pictures of where I was sitting and of course it will not give the full expereince of sitting on the porch on a sunny Sunday afternoon watching the day go by and taling about what I love, but imagine it and you can hear the birds and feel the sun on your face.

Tags: Barcamp Maimi, , , Social Mediasphere Radio

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One By One Media Heading South For The Winter

Perhaps that is not as much of a migration as it is a business trip for me.  I am headed to Miami tomorrow to speak at Wordcamp Miami and attend BarCamp Miami and Future of Web Apps ’09.

I will be speaking at Wordcamp Miami as I did in Las Vegas on "Blogging for A Living", it is a presentation that I have given a number of times and therefore I wont have to prepare more than my usual, but more importantly, and perhaps more fun I will be doing a live radio show from BarCamp Miami courtesy of my client i-Lighter. 

You can follow along and be a part of things as well.  My show Social Mediasphere via Blog Talk Radio will have the live coverage of the event.  This is my first try at doing a live radio show, although I have been on Blog Talk Radio live while I was at Blog World Expo last year.

I’ll be interviewing attendees, speakers and whoever might happen by the table.  I have been sent some podcasting equipment and I will be hopefully not embarrassing myself with my non-technical skills.  You can join in on the fun.  I want to have as many people participate as possible.

After the fun on Sunday at Barcamp Miami, I’ll be attending the fun at FOWA ’09 or the Future of Web Apps.  This event has some real dynamite personalities that are speaking at the event and hopefully I will get a few of them to stop by and be a part of the live radio show as well.  This show will be done on Blog World Expo Radio via the Blog Talk application as well so I would really enjoy it if you participated.  I will be live blogging the event as I can via the Blog World Expo Blog so stay tuned.

Tags: Barcamp Miami, , FOWA ’09, Future of Web Apps, i-Lighter, , , , Social Mediasphere, Blog World Expo Radio

Blogging Networks Feeling The Economic Pain

headache.jpgI have been following the story of Pajamas Media and the closing of their ad network operations as of April 1. This is not earth shattering news as we see the boom days of blog earnings begin to buckle under the economy and crash on the rocks caused by the storm. We have seen other networks close and cut back and have similar problems. As companies cut back on their ad spends it stands to reason that these forms of revenue will dry up or become scarce. i think this is not going to end any time soon.

One of the reasons ad networks were so powerful before was because they could leverage large page views and could funnel the eyeballs into one place better than companies looking to buy up ad space on single blogs. That trend has changed now as properties that have large followings have figured out how to leverage and negotiate their own advertising deals cutting out the middle man. The smaller single manned blogs are also more flexible and don’t need quite the investment to turn a profit. We are seeing a definite shift in the blogosphere and that shift will continue to transmogrify into a new model that is hopefully better.

I intend to discuss this further on my radio show on Tuesday. I want to have a few or the blogging experts weigh in on this as well as discuss my ideas further. Join me on Tuesday at 5 p.m. PST as I discuss ad revenue and blog networks further.

[Headache photo via pvera]

Identi.ca Not Twitter But Still Alive

I have been giving a lot of my blog real estate to Twitter recently as it seems to be the darling of all of the micromediasphere (yes, I love that term and bought the URL just because. Did you click through?). I have also been interested in what is going on with other alternatives. Competition is good, but what is that competition? I had been wondering that when I received an email today from Identi.ca

On avergage I get more than 100 new emails every day from new followers on Twitter. I lose may followers and gain many, and recently my average followers increases about 30 per day. The email from Identi.ca was from a new follower. I rare occasion in my inbox. I headed over to Identi.ca and saw some changes. The site itself is newly designed from what I remember, yes it has been that long since I was there, and it indicated on the landing page itself that they have undergone a “massive upgrade” on January 23 and it warns to watch for “new features”. I’m curious to follow along with what this might entail as I would love to see someone push Twitter a little to get them to make themselves better. I am not sure if there are third party things being developed like my beloved Tweetdeck, or other applications to make things cooler, but I will keep up with what is happening. I am also watching what is going on with Plurk and Jaiku, but they are also a memory for me with Twitter growing into the powerhouse it is in the micromediasphere. We have already seen Pownce shuttered (for the time being although I have a theory about that one).

Perhaps I can contact Identi.ca and ask them to be on Social Mediasphere Radio since I don’t have a clue what tonight’s show will be on or what guests I might have. I was going to click through to the Identi.ca blog but alas it could not be easily found. Stay tuned?

UPDATE:  I am now doing my radio show this evening on the alternatives to Twitter.


The State of The Micromediasphere

One of the things I used to love about Technorati was when Dave Sifry would come out with his State of the Blogosphere address to all of us bloggers.  It sort of gave us a pie in the sky look at the number of blogs and what was happening on the back end of the blogosphere.  Those of us that consider ourselves old timers in the arena could sit back and watch as things began to unfold and we could talk about the good old days.  Technorati recently did another State of the Blogosphere that was released at Blog World Expo and CEO Richard Jalichandra was instrumental in getting the word out.

twitterlogo Now there has been a new sphere of influence in new media, and I have been labeling it the micromediasphere.  I know that others in my industry like Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting who refers to it as “microsharing“, and others are calling it something else like microblogging, but for the most part we are all talking about the likes of Twitter, Jaiku, Plurk, Yammer and up to an including today, powncelogoPownce. As of this writing, the folks at Pownce have given their 2 week notice that they are no longer going to be in the game.  I know that is a shame for some as they were one company that was well liked by developers and someone that was pushing the others applications to not suck.

I’ll be talking about the State of the Micromediasphere tomorrow on my radio show over at Blog Talk Radio.  My show The Social Mediasphere looks into hot topics like these and this is shaping up to be one of those topics.  I am hoping to get some guests on the show that can also talk about the State of the Micromediasphere.  I am inviting all to participate and give us your opinion and see what we can come up with and how things are looking for the future.

UPDATE:  This email just received today from the Pownce people:

We are sad to announce that Pownce is shutting down on December 15, 2008. As of today, Pownce will no longer be accepting new users or new pro accounts.

To help with your transition, we have built an export tool so you can save your content. You can find the export tool at Settings > Export.

Please export your content by December 15, 2008, as the site will not be accessible after this date.

Please visit our new home to find out more:
http://www.sixapart.com/pownce

Our thanks go out to everyone who contributed to the Pownce community,

The Pownce Crew