Instance one: In a recent Minneapoliscast podcast, we discussed the demise of No Depression’s print magazine. Soon after Kyle Matteson and Steve McPherson attended SXSW. Who should attend Reveille Magazine‘s day party but Peter Blackstock, co-editor of No Depression. Peter actually discussed listening to the podcast w/ Kyle. I had to review it to make sure I didn’t say anything asinine.

Instance two: I mentioned drop.io the other day here. Who should comment on the post but someone directly involved with the company.

Instance three: I made a few off-hand comments at MinneWebCon via Twitter. Who responded to me directly? One of the organizers of the event.

Instance four: I wrote about APML here earlier this week. Who added the post to his ma.gnolia links? Chris Saad, one of the founders of apml.org.

We’re no longer sequestered in our rooms in the cold glow of a CRT. We’re talking and exchanging ideas. How you doin?Similar Posts:

• Careful Where You Point That Thing
• MinneWebCon 2008
• APML
• Access to Free Music and Emotional Connections
• Value of the Written Word

It was really a good event for those of us in Minneapolis who are interested in current and emerging web technology. The interesting this to me is how much Twitter added to the experience for those of us participating.

If you weren’t monitoring things on Twitter, you really missed out on an ongoing conversation. The most obvious observation is that there was a general air of excitement about the event and a lot of people were merely expressing that sentiment in real time. That had one benefit: I was able to get a sense of what was happening in sessions that I was not attending. At least once it influenced my decision to bail out of one session in favor of another.

The second, perhaps more valuable thing about Twitter at the event was a stream of continuous feedback. We were not 30 seconds into the conference before someone was commenting on the @klayon‘s introduction. Tracking “#minnewebcon” from my cell phone was like having an ear to the wall. The best part about that? The organizers of the event responded directly to me about a couple of comments I made. They were paying attention and that’s important.

There will be more formal methods for providing feedback in the next few days, but if you want to troubleshoot the problems in real-time and address them, Twitter is your friend.Similar Posts:

• MinneWebCon 2008
• Will Twitter Get Benched?
• Careful Where You Point That Thing
• MinneWebCon 2009
• I Was There

This poses a new challenge for recording artists. That is: How do you establish an emotional connection with your fans when there is no delayed gratification?

In the past I had been a very brand loyal consumer with regard to music. There were a handful of bands I enjoyed intensely and I focused on buying their entire catalog and researching their various influences. Now when I go back and listen to some of those same records, I realize that some of them are not as good as others. That seems like an obvious observation, but thirteen years ago, I would have had a hard time admitting that anything by Son Volt, for instance, was bad–or even less-than fantastic. Now for me, some of those releases are a little inconsistent.

I think part of the reason that has changed for me is that I have lots of music to sort through every month. I buy it get it from friends, music blogs, the library and occasionally a local artist will send a CD to me for Minneapoliscast for review. Sorting through all of that music has forced me to change how I listen to music now. Now I’m much less loyal, but listen to a much wider variety of artists with a more acute ear. If I’m presented with a bunch of new music to check out, I generally put it in an iTunes playlist and listen to it at work. Then I proceed with my day and wait for something there to catch my attention. If I take the time to look up from what I’m doing and look to see who it is, I know I’ve got myself a winner.

The point is that recording artists have to be clever in a market like this when it comes to establishing the kind of emotional connection that will turn listeners into fans. Fans who will follow them and maybe, reserve judgment on occasion. Just like I used to do in high school and college.

So how do you do it?

1. Touring
   Minneapolis is one of the few cities where a good band can find gratification without touring. Notice I said gratification, not compensation. Compensation requires touring and even then you’re going to have to do it for a long time before you make more than gas money.
2. Social Media
   Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, you name it. Blog it. Podcast it. Twitter it. Then respond. If someone makes a comment on your blog. Respond to them. Then you’ve got a friend. Friends come to shows and buy your stuff. There has never been a better time for independent artists to establish a fanbase this way.
3. Give up on CDs. Sell t-shirts.
   CDs are a losing game. Know that going in. T-shirts and other merchandise are better money-makers. Think of your CD like a razor. Give it a way or sell it for cheap. A lot of those folks will come to your shows or buy t-shirts and your margins are better there anyway.

Other ideas?Similar Posts:

• Access to Free Music and Emotional Connections
• Radiohead’s Chicken & Egg Marketing Conundrum
• Busy Spring
• How to Become a Hacker
• Value of the Written Word

Twitter is cool, but some of the more advanced mobile features are like little command line commands. Technology people are cool with that and early adopters are willing to learn it, but what about a 14-yr old? Bringing those services to those consumers is going to require a big improvement in the UI and probably take a lot more bandwidth.

A phone or computer is still a relatively crude device when you consider the number of steps it takes to accomplish a task. After a while it feels natural, but for a lot of day-to-day things, it could be a lot simpler. We’re just not there yet. We’ll get there. Apple took a step in the right direction with the iPhone when they totally disregarded all current phone interfaces. Even that is only the beginning.Similar Posts:

• Transparency
• Amazon.com Announces TextBuyIt
• Go Mobile Young Man!
• Comcast using Twitter to Respond to Consumer Complaints
• One Site

In the mid nineties when what we know as the web was overtaking the Gopher procotol and computers were entering homes and lifestyles everywhere, there was some talk about the dehumanizing effect of the personal computer. Baby Boomers were worried that the kids would spend too much time isolated in front of the computer screen. That notion seems so quaint now.Similar Posts:

• Go Mobile Young Man!
• WordPress’ Auto Update Is OK, But The Command Line Is Faster
• Transparency
• Amazon.com Announces TextBuyIt
• Using Social Networking Sites for Research

Do you see the value now?Similar Posts:

• Comcast using Twitter to Respond to Consumer Complaints
• Comcast Woes
• Media Queries for High Pixel-density Devices
• Careful Where You Point That Thing
• Transparency

Failings: There’s no compelling reason for most people to use it, and many existing services — ranging from AIM to FriendFeed to social networks — have overlapping functionality. And how is it supposed to make money?

That’s the $10,000 question isn’t it? (Pun intended.) Where’s the money in it?

When I was a senior in high school (in 1988), a teacher once told me that in the near future information would be the key factor in success and power. It sounded good, but I didn’t quite get what he was talking about at the time. Now look at us. Google is the case and point for what he was talking about.

The information contained in Twitter is not as voluminous as what Google has to offer, but it’s immediate. I know within seconds if someone is tweeting about something I’m tracking on Twitter. Seconds. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out a potential use for that information. And the last I checked, Twitter was still the most popular of the micromedia sites out there. I think it could go somewhere. You?Similar Posts:

• Will Twitter Get Benched?
• MinneWebCon 2008
• Access to Free Music and Emotional Connections
• How Do You Explain Twitter?
• Will Apple & Google One Day Be Perceived Like Microsoft Is Now?

Amazon TextBuyIt, which launched late Tuesday, lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that’s “Amazon” on the keypad) from anywhere their cell phones work – including from inside physical stores.

If Amazon stocks matching items, the service returns two results at a time. Shoppers can immediately buy one of the first two the selections by texting back the number “1″ or “2,” or they can ask for more by texting the letter “M.”

Paypal announced a similar service last year. Paypal offers more possibilities for independent retailers whereas Amazon’s service is a direct challenge to big box retailers. The only thing the two have in common is leveraging mobile phone technology. Therein lies the key. Terms like Web 3.0 will quickly become obsolete as mobile technology continues to emerge. What we’re going to see is a combination of traditional internet technology combined with mobile technology. What we consider “Web” is quickly moving beyond fiber optics and phone lines and is combining with wireless internet and cellular. Phones are cheap in comparison to computers. Their mobility makes communication even more instantaneous in an era where a story is old seconds after it first appears.

I never fully realized the appeal of this instantaneous communication until this year’s SXSW Interactive conference. I was following someone from Minnesota who was there and witnessed the takeover of a panel that was facilitated by backchannels created in Twitter and Meebo. I didn’t get a detailed account, but sitting in my office in Minneapolis, I was privy to something very interesting occurring in Austin, TX. I’ll be very surprised if I don’t read about it in Wired next month.

Last month I saw Matt Dickman speak and in part of his presentation, he covered the timing of information released about the 35W bridge collapse. It turns out that word got out via Twitter before traditional media had a chance to start reporting on it.

Two days ago, @chuckumentary reported on an oil spill via Twitter as it happened. The whole phenomenon has exciting implications for consumers, marketers, citizen journalists and friends. The connections no longer require us to be tethered to a computer. If you haven’t tried it, you have no idea how appealing that is.Similar Posts:

• Amazon.com Announces TextBuyIt
• Transparency
• Go Mobile Young Man!
• Google’s AppEngine
• MinneWebCon 2008

Where I work, we’re doing a study where we monitor a group of participants for 4 years. They come to the clinic every 4 weeks to have their blood drawn and fill out a survey. We also monitor their symptoms. It’s a study on mononucleosis. None of these participants have been exposed yet. We’re waiting to see when they are exposed. We want to see how sick they get and what the risk factors are.

Now every 2 weeks I send them a reminder to log in to our website and report any symptoms they may be having at the time. (It’s a simple little homebrewed application I developed. Thank you very much.) The process is fairly painless and once you’ve done it once, you can generally complete it in under a minute.

What if we used Twitter (or a Twitter-like tool) to do the same thing? Study participants follow a department profile. Once every two weeks a tweet goes out that says, “Have a sore throat? Fatigue? Swollen or Tender glands? Reply ‘d @truetone yes’”. We’d reach participants wherever they are instantly. No waiting until they are tethered to a computer.

In this case, the immediacy is not all that necessary. But I’m sure there is research out there where it could be beneficial. Doing marketing research? What better way to instantaneously compile data? What better way to instantaneously disseminate data? See where I’m headed?

There’s a lot of talk in marketing about engaging consumers. What if we frame research in marketing terms? I know of at least one department at The Big U that already does mass mailings. Let’s bring that into the 21st century. I’m just saying, with a little imagination, we can take advantage of some really fun, cutting edge technology. It may be more than just novel. It may be important.Similar Posts:

• Using Social Networking Sites for Research
• An Unexpected Problem with CakePHP and Email Elements
• My Private Summer of Coding
• I Was There
• Baseline Theme Version 1.1

Today it sent another message to all of those who had the nerve to ignore the original request. I can only guess that it will probably do so at least one more time before the invite “expires”. I logged in today and could find no way to stop it or delete the invitations.

Sorry to all my friends who I’ve inadvertently spammed. That was not my intent. I’m going to be much more careful where I point my betas from now on. Lesson learned.Similar Posts:

• Be Careful With Your Betas
• Google’s AppEngine
• I Was There
• WordPress’ Auto Update Is OK, But The Command Line Is Faster
• Upgraded to WordPress 2.5