Ulanism

Comcast installed a SMC 8014 modem (link to manual) for my business internet. My default admin login is http://10.1.10.1. the default username/password is cusadmin/highspeed.

Comcast offers a free wireless router for Internet customers.

Comcast Wireless Router

California Is A Place – Stories from the Golden State.

Without a doubt, the best website I have found all year. Wow!

I found some of these 30 cheat sheets to be helpful. Enjoy.

I just received this newsletter from Twitter. This is an example of a why newsletters are a bad idea from the most part.

1) I never opted in.
2) It is not clear from the header information who is sending it (ie: it could be spam!)
3) There is nothing in here that I really want to read about – it is all company focused “We celebrated with a little dance party.” Who cares?!?!?
4) there is no “Call To Action”. What do you want me to >>DO<< with this important information?

In short, it makes me leery of more things from Twitter. I know THEY think this information is totally cool and everyone should want to read it... but I am their client and I do not think any of it is worth my time. I guess it fits with the whole Twitter concept of sending out information for folks to consume or dump as they see fit.

On the plus side, it did come across as a personal email from Biz - which is the only reason I even opened it to begin with. They also make it easy to unsubscribe (which I did). And, probably most importantly, it was all real food and no sizzle (ie: no graphics).

The main issue I am bringing up is how you communicate with your clients. If too many of your clients see your newsletter in a negative light, you may harm your brand more than you strengthen it. Your clients view their time as valuable. Treat it with respect and your clients will reward you.

From: “Biz Stone (@Biz)”
Subject: Twitter Newsletter 2010 – Edition #1
To: ulan@yvod.com
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 01:05:07 +0000 (UTC)

Hi there,

In the early days of Twitter, I used to send out short updates just to keep everyone in the loop since so much was happening. It’s been a while, but you signed up for short, monthly updates from Twitter so we thought it was time to start sharing more information. We’ve had quite a year. If you haven’t visited in a while, we’d like to invite you to come have a look at http://twitter.com — we’ve been busy!

Growing Up
In the course of a year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500% and our team has grown 500%. Recently, we hired our 140th employee! His name is Aaron and he’s an engineer focused on building internal tools to help promote productivity, communication, and support within our company. We celebrated with a little dance party.

Features of Note
Some features of note that we released over the course of a year include the ability to create lists, quickly spread information with a retweet button, and an easier way to activate your mobile phone to work with Twitter over SMS. We also built a new mobile web site that looks and works much better on smart phones.

Feeling Inspired
By working together during critical times when others needed help, sharing important information that otherwise might not make the news, and inventing new and interesting ways to use Twitter, you’ve shown us that Twitter is more than a triumph of technology — it is a triumph of humanity. Projects like Fledgling and Hope140 were inspired by you.

Chirp!
While there may only be 140 full-time employees working at the Twitter offices, there are thousands of dedicated platform developers who have now created more than 70,000 registered Twitter applications creating variety and utility for all of us. We’ll be gathering this spring at Chirp, our first ever official Twitter developer conference.

Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder (@Biz)
Twitter, Inc.

PS: This was sent to ulan@yvod.com for the account @ulan. If you’d rather not receive newsletters from Twitter, you can unsubscribe immediately. For questions, please visit us at Twitter Support.

Newsletters are bulk emails with graphics. I have been sending people over to Mail Chimp when they want to create newsletters. So far everyone is happy with that. Or, if they are not happy, they have not come back to give me a superior alternative.

Truth be told, I am not a big fan of newsletters. I get a few and universally view them as spam. Yes, they do provide information to me that I like, and yes, I have opted to receive each one. (I unsubscribe to those I don’t want. It is extremely important that all newsletters make it easy to unsubscribe!) That being said, I still do not like them. I much prefer a personal email. Newsletters add fluff and sizzle when what I want is real food (content).

I am not saying newsletters do not have a place. All I am saying is that I, personally, do not like them. As such (and to the detriment of me billing more consulting hours), I do not advocate that clients use them. For most clients, sending a periodic email is superior. I recommend that people set up an email ‘group’ and send an email to the group when they have something to say. The more personal and relevant the better.

Apple, Eddie Bauer, etc. all have large marketing departments and newsletters make sense for them. Smaller businesses do themselves a disservice when then flood their contacts with company-focused data. Every time we communicate with our clients… it should be relevant and helpful to our clients. We should only use email/newsletters to inform our audience of events they will find interesting.

I just found this absolutely excellent video standards tutorial. wonderful stuff. It is well written and easy to understand.

What are your thoughts on using Quicktime video in our blog posts instead of Flash?

Your blog website can display and handle both Quicktime and Flash.

Quicktime (QT) is part of the H.264 video compression standard. QT is the industry standard – everyone (except Adobe and Microsoft) is moving towards it. This standard is developed by hundreds of parties and is legally required to stay open.

Pro QT
1) QT uses open standards
2) QT displays much higher quality video
3) QT podcasts can be listed on the iTunes Music store
4) QT can be repurposed (transferred and watched on the iPhone/iPod/etc)
5) QT works on slower computers
6) QT has few viruses (on Windows)

Pro Flash
1) Flash files are smaller
2) Flash allows for the creation of ‘cool’ websites

YVOD is an Open Source advocate. We try to work only with technology solutions that are open for all to review. Flash is closed and wraps all video content in a proprietary container making your content much harder to redistribute. YVOD tries to get your content in front of as many eyeballs as possible. As such, we highly recommend you stay away from Flash if at all possible.

“Ok” I am convinced NOT to add the google feature to my site. Thanks for taking a look and sharing your point of view.

Not sure what you mean by… “Clicking on your icon I see that you have Activities and have joined a single site. Not bad info to give out…”

I hope that I am not your most lame client….

You are not my most lame client. You inspire me to write =)

Actually, I was rather embarrassed that you found a cool Google feature that I did not know about!!!

However, looking at the Google Friends Connect functionality, it does not look like it is geared toward increasing your professional reach. Instead, it looks like it is a way to show how “cool” you are because you have so many people following you. While this may, in fact, be a neat marketing plug, having 50 folks following you is not going to impress me. Having 20,000 will. How long will that take? And do you REALLY want 20,000 friends ;)

I have 82 friends on Facebook and it makes my skin crawl :{ I avoid loging in because someone is always saying something that I really “should” read (if I do not want to insult them). I can not imagine doing this for a business site. If my blog had 82 people following me, I do not think that would be an impressive number (not when YVOD hosts 300+ websites and consults with well over 300+ additional folks).

In short: “feeds” are supposed to make it easier for folks to get information from your site. Feedburner sends an email to everyone who is subscribed so they do not need to “visit” your site to get your latest posts. I imagine Google Friends Connect does the same thing (especially since the own Feedburner now). That being said, Feedburner shows up on your site as a single field with a “Subscribe” button next to it. Google Friends… well, it sure makes Google stand out.

PS: If you click around on your friends site, each one of the Google Friends Connect has an icon. Find yours and click on it. You will see a bit of info about you. Do you want that given out on your friends site? Not sure. But more importantly, does your >>FRIEND<< want that info given?

What if your friend helps Democrats get elected but you are a Republican lobbyist? Does your friend really want that info on his site? Does he want to be known as palling around with the opposition? What if you are his only friend? You could imagine how the trust between him and his clients could be broken. Maybe he is just a front for the Republicans…

My only point is, Google is in charge of what info gets on your site. That is, in my opine, never a good thing. Sometimes it is worth it (if you are raking in ad revenue), but try not to give someone else total rights over any part of your website.

I am stunned at the quality of this product. A few things that stand out for me:

1) The depth of field

I love that the background is present but not in focus. This makes you feel like you are in the White House with him – not in a staged studio. Backdrops should imply where you are without being loud and distracting. Your eye is led to focus on what is important, President Obama, while still presenting enough visual data to keep you interested. Backdrops are meant to entice you deeper into the video and this out-of-focus background accomplishes the task nicely.

2) The staging

The background is formal yet comfortable. You see an empty chair next to a small round table all of which is in front of a fireplace and obscured by a corner. The chair is facing towards the corner hinting that another chair is hidden by the flag. Two people (you and the President) could be sitting together working out the details of government. The room is big enough to hold many while still allowing for an intimate chat. And of course there are the ever-present symbols of patriotism – our flags.

3) The lighting

The lighting contributes to the focus on President Obama’s face. The lighting is darker with an almost fireplace orange glow on the chair. The wall behind the President is lighter but still quite soft. The Presidents face is brighter on the left yet there is no shadow on the right. All of this contrast helps to bring the focus forward on the words he is delivering. It is almost like a cartoon where the only thing moving are the lips. There are no distractions.

4) The sound

I really like how President Obama has been recorded. His voice is extremely present yet it has depth. I feel like his is speaking in a room that matches the size of the video (instead of in a flat post-processed studio). There is the hint of an echo. His highs are just below clipping and the lows do not sound muddy. While the audio is not completely natural, the processing does not seem overdone or jarring.

5) Captions

YEAH!!! I simply love this feature!!! It is great to see them use it.

6) HD option

Everything shot should be high definition. It is great that YouTube has enabled videos to use it (along with captions).

7) Downloadable MP4 podcast

YES!!! All media should have the ability to be used on any compatible device. In addition to downloading video, they should also allow (straight from YouTube) audio-only downloading. But hey, I am happy they are finally allowing straight video downloads instead of forcing folks to steal the Flash file and convert it. YouTube should enable this by default for all videos.

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Given who made this and the fact that government is traditionally clueless when it comes to marketing and branding issues, I find this to be just about the best podcast I have ever seen. I will work hard to emulate this result in the assets I produce. I find it amazing that the Obama Team has been able to produce something of this quality so quickly after taking office. These guys really do get the power of the internet.

The next 4 years are going to be full of surprises. My task is to help others take advantage of the good changes. This is an example of a good one.