Slideshows: Meet Henry and Shift Happens

In Guy Kawasaki's interesting post today about how he launched his new website, Trumors, he mentioned that he had seen a great slideshow presentation called, Meet Henry. I went to see it, and I liked it, too.

When I went to see the "Meet Henry" slide show at Slideshare.com, I clicked on a tab called, "Favorites," and discovered that Guy had a slideshow about the post he made today about Trumors. Currently, there are two slides at the end of the presentation that are out of order but I am sure Guy will correct that soon.

And then I watched an AMAZING slideshow called, Shift Happens. It is about the demographics of the world and the SPEED of change and technological growth.

Affiliate Marketing

I just skimmed an article titled, Affliate Marketing: Hire One Employee and Get Hundreds, by Janet Meiners who has a blog called, The Newspaper Girl. It looked like it could be an interesting article. I don't know much about affiliate marketing.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5 Conference

Here is a link to a video interview of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at the All Things Digital Conference on May 30, 2006.

Google Gears churn towards Microsoft

The search giant--which has evolved into an advertising company and now an "apps" provider--released software late on Wednesday called Google Gears at its first official Developer Day held in 10 cities worldwide. Gears is a browser extension that will enable people to access their Web applications when they are offline. It works on all major browse



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Kevorkian release nears after 8 years

For nearly a decade, Dr. Jack Kevorkian waged a defiant campaign to help other people kill themselves. The retired pathologist left bodies at hospital emergency rooms and motels and videotaped a death that was broadcast on CBS' "60 Minutes." His actions prompted battles over assisted suicide in many states. But as he prepares to leave prison June 1...



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Google, Salesforce.com Discuss Alliance - Forbes.com

Google and Salesforce are looking to team up to provide some stiff competition for Microsoft. Today, by the way, Saleforce.com is holding a free, standing-room-only event that I wish I could have attended. Guy Kawasaki is one of the featured speakers.



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Amazon.com to launch digital music store

Online retailer Amazon.com on Wednesday said it plans to launch a digital music store later this year featuring songs without copy protection restrictions.



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Steve Jobs of Apple

Here is a picture of Steve Jobs (left) with Bill Gates and the Wiki bio of Jobs including four interesting excerpts from the bio:

Steve Jobs was given up for adoption:

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco[1] to American Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian Abdulfattah John Jandali, a graduate student who later became a political science professor.[9] One week after birth, Jobs was put up for adoption by his unmarried mother, who was also in graduate school. He was adopted by Paul and Clara (née Hagopian) Jobs of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California.[10] They gave him the name Steven Paul Jobs. His biological parents later married and gave birth to Jobs' sister, the novelist Mona Simpson, whom Jobs did not meet until they were adults. The marriage of his biological parents ended in divorce years later. Jobs dislikes hearing the "adoptive parents" appellation applied to Paul and Clara Jobs and refers to them as his only parents.

Jobs works at Apple for an annual salary of US$1:

[3] and this earned him a listing in Guinness World Records as the "Lowest Paid Chief Executive Officer." As such, Jobs is well compensated for his efforts at Apple despite the nominal one-dollar salary. This approach reduces his personal tax liability because, under current U.S. tax law, salary income is taxed at a significantly higher rate (currently up to 35%) than the capital gains tax (currently a maximum of 15%) applied to profits arising from the sale of stock grants. Obtaining remuneration through stock instead of salary is a common extrinsic rewarding technique which ties management performance to financial benefits. Furthermore, it acts as a tax minimization strategy.

Steve Jobs is now Disney's largest shareholder:

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. Once the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of the company's stock.[30] Jobs' holdings in Disney far exceeds those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who holds about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner included the soured Pixar relationship and accelerated his ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger.

Steve Jobs is the father of four children:

Jobs married Laurene Powell, nine years his junior, on March 18, 1991 and has had three children with her.[10] He also had a daughter named Lisa Brennan-Jobs with Chris-Ann Brennan, whom he did not marry. Lisa (born May 17, 1978) is a journalist who wrote for The Harvard Crimson.

Robert Iger, CEO of Disney

Here is a picture of Disney's CEO, Robert Iger.

And here is the Wiki bio on Robert Iger and Disney's bio of him.

Iger had been the number two man at Disney until Michael Eisner, then CEO, was forced out of Disneyin March of 2005. A year later is when the Pixar merger occurred. Here is an excerpt from the Wiki bio of Iger:

Pixar merger
On January 24, 2006, in a move that would have been inconceivable a year earlier, Disney announced it would acquire Pixar for US $7.4 billion in an all-stock transaction. The merger installed animator John Lasseter as Chief Creative Officer of the Disney/Pixar animation studios and Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering, the division that designs theme park attractions. It also made Steve Jobs Disney's top shareholder with 7% of outstanding shares and gave him a new seat on Disney's board of directors.

Why Disney is going to school.

I just read an article titled, Why Disney is going to school. Disney is getting into the online education biz with various articles that will appeal to moms. On the site I found something I had been looking for: pages devoted online resources for kids titled Your Favorite Sites for "Early learning."

Disney will, of course, have consumer friendly advertising on their site, including ads for Sony (and lite tech articles for moms, who do much of the buying for the family). Another nice link is Disneyplayhouse.com. It's a good site for young kids. However, I haven't checked to see what they have for older children (ages 7 or 8 and above).

Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of Linked In

Earlier today, I listened to a podcast from Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series. It was an interview of Reid Hoffman, the CEO and co-founder of the business social networking site, LinkedIn.com.

Then, I read an article, titled, Five Questions for Reid Hoffman, on a blog called GigaOm which began:

"Reid Hoffman is a busy guy. Along with being the full-time CEO of LinkedIn, he’s an active angel investor, and has participated in the financing of over 50 companies. Since his time at PayPal, Hoffman has culled a classy list of angel investments: Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, Ironport Systems, Last.fm, Nanosolar, Ning, Six Apart, Socialtext, Tagged, Technorati, Tiny Pictures, Wikia, and more."

I also read an interesting July 2006 article by CNNMoney.com titled: The 50 Who Matter Now. Reid Hoffman ranked 22 on their list. Then, I read 2004 interview of Reid that discussed the 4.7 million in VC funding LinkedIn received and how they were using it to grow LinkedIn quickly. And finally, I read the bio on him that Wikipedia provided. It was interesting to me that Reid was born on August 5, 1967...so he turns 40 this year. He's done a lot in his 40 years.

Craigslist's Ongoing Success Story

CEO Jim Buckmaster has an unusual business approach for the successful classified ads site: Keep it simple and don't try to maximize revenue. Jim Buckmaster seems like a man of principle.

In the January 2007 picture in this post, CEO Jim Buckmaster is on the left and Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, is on the right.



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The Poverty Business

Some businesses are preying on the poor by charging exorbitant credit interest rates (including those earning less than $30,000 a year). The higher your income, the less you pay in credit interest. The upshot is that the poor find themselves mired in debt.


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Google scary now? Personal Health Records, sponsored by Google, next

Google Scary Now? Personal Health Records, Sponsored by Google, NextI found this article interesting. The healthcare industry is going to be a huge growth industry.



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test to joyful biz

this is a test

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Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check out new cars at Yahoo! Autos.

Amazon mum on EC2 and S3 spending

Amazon mum on EC2, S3 spending by ZDNet's Larry Dignan -- While Amazon delivered a blow-out quarter it remains quiet about detailing how much it is spending on the fast-growing EC2 and S3 Web services. On the first quarter earnings conference call, Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck tried to pin down Amazon (AMZN) executives on the capital spending issue for 2007, but CEO Jeff Bezos didn't [...]
***

I just glanced at his Wikipedia bio. It was interesting to read, among other things, that his mother gave birth to him while she was still a teenager.

Then I read an interesting August 2004 article from Fast Company titled: Inside the mind of Jeff Bezos.

By the way, I noted in an earlier post that Jeff Bezos is also funding a company called Blue Origin to build vehicles for space travel.

Ego: Remember me!

Here is another story from Seth Godin's blog. This story points out that customers like to be remembered. Here is an excerpt:

"If I come back to your website and you know my name, why not plaster it across the page? If I come to your fancy restaurant for dinner, why not ask me about some of my preferences on the phone and laser print a menu that highlights some of my faves. Or better yet, the waiter (with help from a computer) should remember that I loved the cucumber soup and maybe he can let me know the chef will make it again if I'd like. If I'm visiting your insurance brokerage for a meeting, how about a little welcome sign on the cube, or my favorite seltzer on ice?
Amazon has raised the bar. Invasion of privacy? Creepy? I think it has become an expectation. People like to be recognized, respected and trusted."

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Seth's Blog: The brand formula

This is an article that discusses a couple of ideas on branding. Here is an excerpt:

Fedex is a powerful brand because you always get what you expect, and the relief you get from their consistency is high.

AT&T is a weak brand because you almost never get what you expect, because they do so many different things and because the value of what they create has little emotional resonance (it sure used to though, when they did one thing, they did it perfectly and they were the only ones who could connect you).

The dangers of brand ubiquity are then obvious. When your brand is lots of things (like AOL became) then the expectations were all over the place and the emotional resonance started to fade. If the predictability of your brand starts to erode its emotional power (a restaurant that becomes boring) then you need to become predictable in your joyous unpredictability!

If you want to grow a valuable brand, my advice is to keep awareness close to zero among the people you're not ready for yet, and build the most predictable, emotional experience you can among those that care about you.


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Test

I am checking to see if the bookmark button shows up in my individual posts.

Animated Crying Mouse

This is a test to see if today I can upload the Crying Mouse animated graphic. It did upload. Yeah!

Languishing Tree Fellow

Yesterday, I had a problem uploading pictures but today I was able to. But now the darn text isn't wrapping properly.

The old Digg button

I am also adding the html code for the old Digg button.

Adding a new Digg Button

This is a test. I am adding the code to enable readers to Digg my posts or post to Del.icio.us.



Save This Page

Web 2.0: Demand Strains Amazon Web Services

Amazon.com's online computing and data storage service is so popular that the company must scale back the beta program.

This is an interesting article. I had never heard of Amazon's Web Services (click to read the article to learn more).

Another thing that was interesting to learn is that similar to Richard Bransons's Virgin Galactic, Jeff Bezos (of Amazon) is funding a company called Blue Origin to build vehicles for space travel. Here is an interesting excerpt:

"Bezos noted that Blue Origin, a company he funded to build vehicles that would cut the cost of travel to outer space, used S3 (part of Amazon's web services) in January to handle an unexpected huge spike in demand for access to its Web page. When Blue Origin added video to its site, popular sites like Slashdot.org linked to it, and traffic exploded from almost nothing to more than 3.5 million visitors in a day, he said."

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AOL in the Health Biz

The other day, I listened to a iinnovate podcast interview of Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel and then another Business Week podcast about new directions that Intel was taking. Both podcasts discussed that Intel was moving into the health arena which, with a growing senior population around the world, is forcast to be a very important market.

So it was interesting it see in the The New York Times article this morning, AOL Founder Hopes to Build New Giant Among a Bevy of Health Care Web Sites, that Steve Case is also taking a big stake in the online healthcare industry with an online website called RevolutionHealth.com. The article is interesting because it discusses his competitors such as WebMD.com, NIH.gov, from the National Institutes of Health; Yahoo Health; Mayoclinic.com; and About.com Health, which is owned by The New York Times Company. Google, too, jumping into the frey with searches for medical conditions.

The article also mentions some of the private investors who are bankrolling this venture, which include among others, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. There is also a discussion about the enormous amount of money that drug companies are spending on advertising on and offline. Here is an excerpt about this:

"Martin J. Wygod, the chairman of WebMD Health, said the pharmaceutical companies were spending about $455 million on marketing to patients and doctors online this year. But that is only about 3.5 percent of the $13 billion the drug industry spends on advertising, he said."

Google makes offline ad headway

Since Google is going to impact all businesses, I have been interested in following it. This is an interesting article about Google's forays into traditional print and radio advertsing. Here is one little excerpt:

Google announced that it signed a multi-year agreement with Clear Channel that allows the search giant to sell a "a guaranteed portion of 30-second advertising inventory available on more than 675 of Clear Channel's AM/FM stations."

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First emailed post!

This is a test. I am emailing this post!

Joy

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From blog to book - News - ZDNet

This is an A ZDNet.com video on the blog-to-book application developed by Blurb.com. I have only given the site a brief glance so far, but it does seem to be an interesting concept. I don't know what the costs are.

In the ZDNet.com video about the company, one of the things Blurb.com suggests is making a travel book of your trip or vacation to have as a nice family keepsake.

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Apple sells 100 millionth iPod!

Last night I told my son-in-law about podcasts. "How's Apple going to make money from them?" He asked.

"By sellling iPods!" I said.

This morning, I spotted an article in PC World's Techlog that pretty well backs up that idea...ha. Here is an excerpt:

Back in January, 2004, Apple released a press statement trumpeting the fact that it had sold over two million iPods. Neat. A year later, it bragged that it had sold ten million of 'em. Even more impressive. And today, it's telling the world that it's sold a hundred million iPods since the first one appeared a bit over five years ago, which it says makes its iconic little gadgets the fastest-growing music players in history.

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Business Week Podcast: Valley Boys

Today, I decided to experiment with inserting a link for a Business Week podcast called, Valley Boys: the new brat pack of Silicon Valley. These are the guys behind a lot of the Web 2.0 social media sites.

I wasn't able to embed this podcast into this post as I did with the YouTubes video of Marissa Mayer in the prior post. Therefore, when you click on the blue Valley Boys' hyperlink (above), it will open up iTunes on your computer where you can then click on the Valley Boys podcast. In order to hear this podcast, you will need to either have iTunes on your computer or download it free to your computer.

Marissa Mayer from Google

I am checking to see if I can imbed a YouTube video clip of champion innovator, Marissa Mayer from Google speaking at Stanford, into this post:

Who's doing the most blogging? Japan!

I read an interesting post titled, Wait, how many blogs Again? by Jeniffer Laycock. She wrote that David Sifry released Technorati's latest "State of the Blogosphere" report today.

She summarized the study and one of the things I found most eye-opening were that stat's regarding the # 1, 2 and other blogging languages. Japan is #1!

Here is PART a the handy summary that David Sirfry included at the end of his post of the study:

There are:
70 million weblogs
About 120,000 new weblogs each day, or...
1.4 new blogs every second
3000-7000 new splogs (fake, or spam blogs) created every day
Peak of 11,000 splogs per day last December
1.5 million posts per day, or...
17 posts per second
Growing from 35 to 75 million blogs took 320 days
22 blogs among the top 100 blogs among the top 100 sources linked to in Q4 2006 - up from 12 in the prior quarter
Japanese the #1 blogging language at 37%
English second at 33%
Chinese third at 8%
Italian fourth at 3%
Farsi a newcomer in the top 10 at 1%
English the most even in postings around-the-clock
Tracking 230 million posts with tags or categories
35% of all February 2007 posts used tags
2.5 million blogs posted at least one tagged post in February

How to Use English Punctuation Correctly

Are you looking to write a great paper for one of your classes? Maybe you need to submit a polished, impeccable proposal to your boss? It can help to know the proper ways to use punctuation. Here is a helpful list of the most common punctuation and their uses. This list is more useful than your 6th grade English class.



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Beating Oprah at the book club game

LibraryThing's founder, Tim Spalding's creation, is quietly achieving cult status among bookworms around the world, creating a network with one of the highest IQs in cyberspace. Less than two years after it opened its doors to the public, LibraryThing's users have listed, tagged, or recommended more than 10 million works...



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Does Google SEO success 'suck'?

A ZDNet.com Blog. I found this story interesting for two reasons. One point they made was that they did not want to be totally dependent on Search Engine Optimization. Instead, they wanted to make their brand stronger. Also, their idea of having local, community-edited sites might have application to our automotive repair information business, ADMS/MPC Publishing.



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Shared items from Google Reader

For the moment, I have added a new feature to my blog: My Shared Items from Google Reader. I will see how it works on my blog. I am also looking at Newsgator as an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeder just to see if there is a difference in storing info I want to keep.

There is so much to learn!

Podcast.com the home of podcasting

A website to help podcasters find more listeners, to help listeners find more podcasts and to help people start podcasting.



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Test Digg Post

This is the coolest blog posting ever!!

Amanda Congdon starring as herself

This is an interesting (300 seconds) Forbes.com video interview of a highly successful woman blogger who is building an online empire. However, I was not able to find the unique URL for this video so when you click on the link "read more," it will take you to the section of Forbes.com that features video content. If you scroll down on the page and click on web celebrities, you will find Amanda Congdon's video interview.



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The Sound Of Silence - Forbes.com

Having trouble managing your business? Maybe you talk too much.

This is an interesting book review of In the Sphere of Silence, by Vijay Eswaran, chief executive of the Qi Group, a Hong Kong conglomerate. In the book, he discusses how he orders his day for success. His 9-year-old, $700 million (sales) company has interests ranging from e-commerce to ecotourism and interactive marketing.



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The Most Effective Corporate Web Sites - Forbes.com

Americans took the early lead, but Europeans are leapfrogging ahead. ..."The rest of the corporate world needs to keep on its electronic toes."



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DailyCandy Goes Shopping for a Sugar Daddy -- New York Magazine

The story of how DailyCandy was started and that it is now selling for $100 million. This is a very interesting an informative article about a number of successful websites, why they are successful, what they sold for, and who bought them!



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Email Marketing

There is a lot of valuable FREE information on sites that offer professional email marketing programs. One site is called Constant Contact.

Joy and Dukie at the beach!

The week my daughter's dog, Dukie, came down for a visit, we did some of our best business brainstorming while walking along the beautiful Del Mar beach. This day was gorgeous and sunny!

Baby Einstein Success

Recently, my friend Marcia and I were discussing the success of the Baby Einstein products.

Marica and her family own a company that sells an an incredible video/DVD art curriculum program called Arts Attack, to school districts around the country. Their company also has a home school division.

We discussed Baby Einstein's success and today I found an article titled, "The Baby Einstein Sensation," on a blog called Small Business Tycoon.

So many great blogs, so little time!

A great blog that I discovered when I went to the "Best on the Web" blog directory was the CEO's Bloggers Club: the international club of CEO bloggers.

"Best of the Web" and other Blog Directories

A blog directory that I like is the Best of the Web blog directory.

After I have more content on my blog, I will list it with several blog directories. I Googled "Blog directories" and it brought up a lot of blog directory websites. One of them is called Blogarama.

Google, of course, also has a blog search.

Learning my way around

Today, I spent the live long day learning more about podcasts. I am subscribing mainly to business podcasts on iTunes...with an emphasis on internet marketing. I have learned how to subscribe to various podcasts but a problem I have is that I can't figure out how to delete old podcasts from my iPod...even after I have deleted the podcast from my computer. Tomorrow, I will ask Garrett, my tech-savvy son, how to do that.