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.

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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, Twitter, Posterous, Social Mediasphere TV, Blog World Expo Radio, Blog World Expo, Business Blogging, Evangelism

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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, Jim Turner

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I 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!

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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, Wordcamp Miami, Speaking, Social Mediasphere Radio

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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, Wordcamp Miami, FOWA ‘09, Future of Web Apps, i-Lighter, Blog Talk Radio, Blog World Expo, Blogging, Social Mediasphere, Blog World Expo Radio

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I 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]

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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.

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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.

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, Pownce. 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

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The other night I had a special and impromptu radio show talking about social media and what has become known as the  the Motrin video debacle.

During the discussion and roundtable of experts,  we talked about the idea that Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of Motrin, and more specifically, McNeil Consumer Healthcare the company that is heading up any campaigns, was not listening and did not respond to the situation in a quick manner.  That perhaps they had an opportunity to jump on this before it got to the heights it did and they could have done something more.  The response, and apology and the aftermath is a different post altogether.

In that discussion one of my guests, Jessica Gottlieb, mentioned that the company is big enough to have a team dedicated to listening to what is being said about them online.  I debated that this was not the reality of the situation. Even the largest of companies have no idea what is being said on a regular basis and they in fact have nothing in place to help them with this idea.  This also made me think of a scene from one of my favorite movies:

President: We didn’t see this thing coming?

 
Dan: Well, our object collision budget’s a million dollars. That allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and beg’n your pardon sir, but it’s a big-ass sky. ~ Armageddon (1998/I)

The line in the movie refers to the fact that a big asteroid the size of Texas was about to hit the earth.  The President of the United States wanted to know why we were surprised by this fact.

I thought about the Motrin incident with the Mommy Bloggers and the Internet in the same fashion.  Turns out the YouTube Video referred to was released to the website in September and didn’t really get known until a month later.  They were completely caught unaware.  The video went viral over a weekend, and I am sure that the folks that are in charge of the campaign were all home for their weekend off and had no idea what was coming.  The Internet doesn’t take weekends off. Monday morning, I can picture the CEO standing in a boardroom with the same conversation as above.  The department head responding the same way, “we are sorry but we don’t spend much time or money on this kind of thing.”

I recently attended,  as a representative of the IBNMA,  the Blogwell event put on by the Blog Council in San Jose a few weeks ago and I was introduced to this very idea by Debbie Curtis-Magley, at United Parcel Service.  Debbie is the whole department for their social media campaign as it relates to their online management or brand reputation management and quipped about having difficulty tracking the entire Internet, and knowing that their are quite a few people writing online about “sit-ups” and “chin-ups.”  She has her work cut out for her because like above, “it’s a big ass Internet”.

There are quite a few companies out their that do help companies with their online brand and reputation management and they have proprietary applications that they use to accomplish their task.  They specialize in making sure you are alerted to what is being said about you, your company, or about that crazy YouTube video you put up on your website that set off a wildfire response in the blogosphere.  They can also be there when something good happens.  Normally however, and most unfortunately, the good stuff does not get quite the play as the bad stuff.  What is being said about you and your company?  Are you listening?  It is after all a very big ass Internet.

I would challenge the people I mentioned above to leave a comment if you are monitoring the Internet.  Did you read this post or see it come across your screen?  Debbie, did you pick it up?  Jessica, can you leave a comment here in more than a day or two? How about my own folks at the IBNMA?

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It’s not exactly “Live From Las Vegas”, okay it is actually recorded from Las Vegas, but you can get a listen in on an interview that was done of me while I was out at Blog World and New Media Expo in Las Vegas last weekend. I intend to post some other thoughts on the experience, but wanted to give props to the folks at Blog Talk Radio and especially Mr. Daily who did the interview.

Listen to the show.

Feel free to get over to Blog Talk Radio and listen to some of the pre-show interviews I have done with Rick Calvert as well. We will be doing post show interviews of some of the sponsors, speakers and exhibitors as well so stay tuned and we will be providing a lineup of people we intend to talk to and interview about their experience in Las Vegas.

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Technorati has been an icon of the blogosphere since Dave Sifry began the company to track blogs and provide bloggers with statistics and search.  It was the first thing people downloaded to their blogs, and the first part of setting up a blog.  They seem to have lost that celebrity status.  There are so many companies that have been cracking away at that Technorati keystone that it appears they may crumble.  I have been waiting to hear some news from the Technorati camp and it appears that news is bubbling up as reported by TechCrunch.

When I talked with Richard Jalinchandra in Las Vegas at the Blog World Expo in November, he mentioned then that Technorati was in for some changes and that he wanted to lead the company back to its glory days.  He couldn’t talk then about what he was doing but it seems that the cool stuff I expected and the things the head of marketing, Aaron Krane,  talked about on my Social Mediapshere radio show would make them a shining star again.  I didnt expect them to enter the advertising arena.

Tris an I questioned them on why they were not indexing search results past six months and it looks like they may be rethinking that with adding an advertising component to their search.  Arrington states:

Technorati will certainly be competing head to head with FM, although sources say they’ll focus on the long tail of the market as well (FM only takes larger sites). The network will be a self-serve exchange for bloggers (and other publishers) as well as advertisers. Ad units will include both display and text ads, and will allow units to be charged on both a CPM and CPC basis. (emphasis added)

I was hoping that Technorati would be adding some features that would be more than just another way for bloggers to add a revenue component to their blogs.  I want to see them return to an application I would run to five times a day because they offered a way to see stats and a something that was cool to experience as I did back in the day.

This is part of the reason I have hooked my wagon to the folks at Lijit*.  I certainly see that they have ideas to make their “wijit” something that is a first add-on to a blog.  I am not sensing that Technorati has that coolness factor in mind.  I certainly understand that after raising $20M in funding you might want to start thinking of making money and perhaps they will change the way they run their business and we have only seen the beginning of their new glory days.  It appears Richard is doing his job of CEO and is running the company in the best interest of those investors, but I for one want to see them do some things they used to do, only better.  Don’t make it about the page views make it about the blogger and a company that every blogger loves to use.

[photo via Brian Solis]

*Lijit is a client and I do some evangelism for them.

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I have been thinking about the comment left on my post about Blog Talk Radio and their attempt at monetizing their application.  Then I read today over at HipMojo the article about why companies that are basing themselves on ad revenue will fail.  It helped me formulate my own opinion about how companies in the tech world are struggling with making money.  It is a dance that seems hard to learn.

The game plan seems to be along these syllogistic lines.

• Come up with an application that fills a need.
• Develop the application.
• Launch it and see if it scales, get user feedback and adjust its use accordingly.
• Begin to build your user base until you reach some determined tipping point number. (This is probably the most difficult step in the overall business plan.)

These are the initial outlines I have seen.  During this period you may have an angel investment or a small first round to get to the tipping point number.  The next step is where it gets tricky.  Now that we are at our initial goal, how do we make it profitable?

Companies have built the trust and admiration of their users by providing a great application that is free and useful.  The users are making it an integral part of their lives.  The company has developed and gathered this large community.  They must leverage that into real money.  As I see it, they have but two choices, advertise or begin charging for the service they once before gave away for free.  A blend of these two would be a third choice.

Advertisers want eyeballs and reach.  The users are what they seek, and the more the better.  It’s all about the page views and the numbers generated from people.  Fewer users, the less they pay for your real estate.  Increasing page views and users increases revenue.  This is a hard fact as CEO’s try to guide the company to profitability.  If an application has 100,000 users it is worth more to an advertiser than 10,000 users.  Companies sell to advertisers and tell them, “We have 100,000 users at X amount of page views.”  The media buyers line up for those numbers.  Problem is, companies such as Blog Talk Radio have to sell based on those numbers, but then they must get the customer or users to get behind the plan. If they ask the users permission perhaps they only have 50,000 of the 100,000 users that will allow ads.  Now their property is worth 50% less to advertisers, and they don’t make money at that level.

Their second choice.  They begin charging the users for using the service.  Or as I indicated above the third choice, charging those that elect not to have advertising on the application a premium. The third choice allowing both opt in and opt out income.  This is risky as you may chase off users that were really sold on the application that was free, but not so warm to paying a fee for the service, or having advertisements show up on a usually clean page. 

It’s a chess match played by advertisers and CEO’s and ultimately users.  How can they all be happy?  I’m not sure that is entirely possible but their must be a compromise somewhere.  Companies are struggling to be profitable, advertisers are cutting their spend to increase their return on their own investment, and meanwhile, the user holds the power of being part of the community and whether the user wants to sell their eyeballs.

I have been touting 2008 as “The Year of The User.”  Companies have been building their user base.  The power the users hold with their attention and their eyeballs and presence make the other parties to the dance want to court them.  I’m not sure the answer, but I think ultimately it will raise the cost of advertising, and may force a new metric not based upon the number of eyeballs and page views.  Who flinches first has not been determined.

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I am a really big fan of Blog Talk Radio and have met Alan Levy, John Havens, Lisa Padilla, their newest addition, Kris Smith, and have spoken to others in their organization.  They are a bunch of great people.  They have a super application that is easy to use, is free for its users, and overall they have allowed me to have a radio/podcast show where I otherwise would not have had the ability or technology.  I can use something I am familiar with using, my computer and my phone.  I have done numerous shows on Social Mediasphere Radio and on Blog World Expo Radio and have praised them at every step.

This is why it will be difficult for me to shell out some harsh criticism now.  It is more than a small matter to me.  The have moved to their next level of “monetization” of their application.  After all, companies must make money and this is new territory still and companies are working hard to figure ways to get into the black.  I know first hand of companies that are making this a priority for 2008.  There has yet to be a surefire way for people to do this besides the obvious, advertising.  Blog Talk Radio is no different.

I received this email from Frank Neill, Director of Advertising, today that indicates that they are moving into this next phase of monetizing their application.

Dear Host,

Thank you for being such an important part of  BlogTalkRadio. BlogTalkRadio just recently passed 52,000 shows since we launched the company in the fall of 2006. We have created a community of thousands of hosts and millions of listeners. And, through the RevShare program, we are all in this together!

Obviously I am not the only one that loves the program and their system.

In January 2008, we launched a RevShare program where our hosts have an opportunity to participate in the revenues earned from advertisers. If you have not yet joined our RevShare program, you can do so by completing the RevShare form located at [link omitted].

I am always happy to earn money from my efforts and if a company is using my content and my participation to earn that revenue, I think it is actually only fair that they offer me a piece of the pie.  But this is where the email turns south for me.

RevShare hosts will earn 35% of all revenue for advertising from their shows, and they can earn 50% of revenue from their sponsors that they bring to BlogTalkRadio. With our RevShare program in place, participating hosts will earn money for downloads and page impressions they generate. Keep in mind that BlogTalkRadio will serve ads on your show even if you have not opted in to the RevShare program. [emphasis added]

Big scratching noise across the LP for that last sentence.  If I’m to understand that paragraph, I can opt in to be paid for my content on Blog Talk Radio and they cay earn money and I can earn money, but if I don’t opt in to the rev share, they are going to put ads on my content whether I like it or not.  Huh?  What if I don’t endorse the product that is being advertised on my content?  Perhaps I have a religious, political, or moral reasons I don’t want to have a certain company using my content for their gain.  The tone behind it is one that is difficult to swallow as well.  “We’ll do it whether you like it or not.”  I know that was not the company intent.  A conversation with John Havens confirms it was in no way the company’s position.

The email goes on to say how they will be paying out for the revenue earned, and then talks about some ads already in place for “Run In Network” ads that run on all shows.  Examples given are “LifeLock, AccuQuote, Rosetta Stone and Internet Speedway.”

What if I don’t want Internet Speedway showing up on my content.  What happens if I am a direct competitor of theirs?  I have no control over their being splashed across my Social Mediasphere show?  I don’t endorse or approve of their business, but I am now forced to accept that forced endorsement?

To me as a business owner it is unacceptable.  Would I pay for ads not to appear on my shows or would I pay for a “pro” account” to control my own ads?  I probably would given the benefits I am receiving, but to put an add on my show that I do not endorse or don’t want is madness.  John made mention that this may be an offering that will later be put into place.  Yes, growing pains are just that, painful.

I have spoken to John Havens at Blog Talk Radio for comment about this and as always he is the very professional and asked that I speak directly to Frank Neill the advertising director. I will certainly post a follow up to that conversation.  I’m also about to scour the terms of service as it may reveal something I have missed.  I guess I don’t often rant about things here so this is new ground for me, but I guess I should ask, “Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?”  How about suggestions for the team at Blog Talk Radio?

UPDATE:  If anyone had any doubts about how cool the team is at BTR, check out their response from Frank Neill in the comments here.  I also want to reprimand myself for forgetting to change the title here after I spoke the first time to John Havens.  I changed the content but forgot the title.  I wont change it now but I think more appropriate title should be more like “Blog Talk Radio Enters Monetization and Learns How Hard It Can Be To Make A Buck.”  My hat is off to them as they give away the cow and try to sell the milk to their users.  I think a new post is now forming as well.  Are we too used to getting things for free?

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As I finished up the three part video series that Robert Scoble produced, I had to chuckle somewhat at what appeared to be the beginning of a battle not too unlike the recent movie 300 regarding the Xerxes battle with King Leonidas. I have been reading the responses throughout the blogosphere and I have a feeling the arrows being sent in his direction will virtually blot out the sun.  As in the movie, I’m sure Robert would reply with the fact that he will just have to fight in the shade.

Why is he so outnumbered in this battle?  He is taking on the almighty dollar, and the master of all things monetary, Google.  I have not had an opportunity to re-watch the videos and take notes, but I wrote a few things down as Robert uncovered his revelation of the death of Google.  What it seems he was getting at was the destruction of paid search.  This of course is the core of Google and how they became King Xerxes, eating up and devouring everything in their path to the search world domination. He preaches of a land of milk and honey that we would all consider “organic search”.  The perfect results of each query, without the “noise” of spam or paid search. 

His champions in the fight seem to be Techmeme, Facebook and Mahalo.  These three fighting side by side may be the answer to his call, but unlikely to be the final answer to the new age of search. 

Techmeme is difficult to understand somewhat as it relates to the search world, but I do tend to get my news in the tech industry from this site.  I do trust its results but don’t always find that it is all-inclusive of the things I might find important.  I have to go outside the realm of Techmeme to get more in depth of what I’m looking for in information.

Facebook is still to young  and too untested for me to really put mush stock in it as a search tool, but we did discuss Facebook at length in our show today.

Mahalo?  This seems to me to be a little too controlled by the man behind the mask in Jason Calacanis.  He discussed the idea of bias at Gnomedex, but until I can filter out the human filter side of things, I really don’t want to have 100 people dictating what I can find on search.  It will take a while for this application to really show promise, but it might be one of the better ways to eliminate the paid search noise discussed by Robert in his video.  The only thing I don’t have an answer to is when will Jason Calacanis throw the switch and create his own noise?

I have some reservations about Human whisper and the Computer noise, but I think we are early in the war.  I like the idea of mashing the above models together for the perfect search tool.  At this point I’ll stand behind Robert and fight the spammers, the sploggers, and the noise he identifies.  Where I don’t stand is next to him when he lumps the likes of Danny Sullivan and the rest of the SEO world into the spam world.  I think there is room for the technology types to help shape the tool he discusses.

Sphere It