Naked Conversation Madness::Just Get Out & Blog
So I went to a the 5th Techcrunch Meetup which was the Launch Party for the book “Naked Conversations” (by Robert Scoble & Shel Israel). It’s about how companies have changed their relationships with their customers through blogging. Robert started a *behind the scenes* show about Microsoft called Channel 9. The whole story has been great and inspiring I big company, who is trying to become more open.
I met Robert & Shel who were really cool down to earth guys, as Dossy was able to give me a good excuse. And was able to ask each of them two questions. Instead of re-inventing the wheel I decided to ask each of them the same questions. I will summarize (which can lead to intepretation) their answers, for their exact words, I’d check out the podcast:).
1.Who is one person/position you’d like to see start blogging?
Shel: Anyone who is in a position and able to (I like his all hands on deck approach)
Robert: George W. Bush (and I was hoping Fidel Castro)
2. At AOL, there are a number of employees who are on the cusp of blogging, what would tip or encouragement do you have to say for them to get them to start?
Shel: Just start blogging 
Robert: Start reading blogs, and seeing if you are interested in leaving comments; if not, perhaps blogging is not your bag.
Thank you Robert & Shel for your time.
…Will be getting the podcast out soon (hopefully it will turn out okay. Warning:it’s a bit rough) …You can check it out on iTunes: Search for AOL Mountain View, which is behind the scenes look at our crazy campus .
New Yahoo Design Library
Man Yahoo is just solid. The other day they released a Design Pattern Library that has a blog component to it. It seems like a bottom – top approach has been the theme for the Web 2.0 and Yahoo is trying to include itself into that culture. Let me explain. From what I hear Yahoo created it’s standards by first seeing what all their products are using and even created incentives for people to submit the design patterns. This is the first way they included themselves. Instead of creating a body of standards and disseminating, they looked at what was already been done and built on that. I’d like to think that, internally, the products appreciated that. The second thing that Yahoo did was to create a blog…verry Web 2.0, but what’s nice is now they have opened up the floor to the public and anyone. I am glad to see Yahoo becoming Web 2.0 in their actions. To me they have always been very clean in their design that gave it a bit of a rigid feel, lacking an experience or a *ghettoness* to it, but if they can pull this conversation off and build a community around it, the rigid feel is only one minor detail.
Bubble vs. Boom
Is 2006 really what the .com Boom should have been in 1999? It would be interesting to think if we never had a 1999 boom and bust…I bet money would be flowing a little freer. On the one hand it’s smart for VCs to wait until the market is proven. On the other hand, VC funding may be exactly what is needed to get the product/startup to a revenue generating state…
Asian Backstreet Boys:: Fantastic Video!
This video was sent to a listserv that I’m on. It’s a fantastic spoof of the Back Street Boys by two Chinese students in Guangzhou Arts Institute. “Their spoof music videos have been selected by Motorola China to promote mobile phones”.
What amazes me about all this is the amount of participation from the masses to create and broadcast to a wide audience. This not a new concept, but for me I’m wondering if this is a step towards also breaking down stereotypes. Let me explain….
In the past, when I have seen Asian Males portrayed in American Media, they are mostly seen as effeminate and awkward. When people laughed at stereotypes (e.g. Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles), I was always hard-pressed to laugh with them because I knew people were laughing at them.
When William Hung came along with his rendition of Ricky Martin’s “She Bang’s”, it was the laughing stock of America because people were laughing more *at* him. And of course this has happened whenever Chinese/Asians have tried to take American pop culture and seriously imitate or make it their own. Most people have just laughed at their efforts. But, here is the first time that I have seen Chinese folk deliberately making fun of American Culture and turning it on it’s head.
This citizen journalism stuff ain’t so bad … Especially when underrepresented minorities (in the media) can take back their image/identity and make fun of the perpetrators of those stereotypes.
More info on the Asian Backstreet Boys can be found here:
Asian Backstreet Boys
Blogging
This site is awesome!!!
Testing Flock
Flock announced it’s 0.5 preview browser release. I’m just playing with it. so far it feels like moz on roids….i do like the integration into my blog on blogger, but word is still out about the ui experience of it….it feels a *little* disaggregated.
Fanciest Time Out Chair I’ve Seen
Man kids have it so easy these days! It even rocks. I can’t believe it.
New 99 Cent Store
Went to the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, and thought this was a funny sign. I didn’t know inflatiion of the 99 Cent Store has added $12. Man I need a raise.
Flickr
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
Chinglesh
One of the things that I love when visiting China is their novel use of the English Language. This is a picture that my friend took when he was over there. This was at an HP Site in China. The last time I was there (1997), there were a lot of these. It’s amazing how things can be syntactically correct when strung together never makes a lot of sense, or is not very nice . Ah language…so many nuances…that’s why humans love it so much!
