Interwebers

With this being the last week of regular work at Microsoft for ‘ol Bill, I’ve been coming across a lot of fantastic articles that highlight how great of a human being Bill actually is. It seems the passion he used to build Microsoft into a stage for Ballmer and his big bowl of crazy one of history’s most influential corporate behemoths is being redirected towards giving all but 1% of his own money to charity.”  Here’s to hoping this becomes the new “cool thing to do” by obnoxiously rich people. 

Here’s a more professional take: http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/20/technology/gates_after_microsoft.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

and another:

http://gizmodo.com/5019597/giz-explains-how-the-bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-will-save-the-world

Something I’m finding really helpful with work productivity is to have one browser dedicated for work and one dedicated for surfing. That damn command+t can be too irresistible when you have a bunch of fun links on your bookmark bar. 

When you have one browser dedicated to your breaks and one dedicated for work, it’s a lot harder to get knocked off track. Plus you know when you have your “fun” browser open, you’re allowed to be relaxing - if only for a minute. But when the other browser is open, it’s go time. 

Nothing I need to add to this. Just watch…

A friend sent me the link to this video earlier tonight:

It’s a fun video. Very well made, unique, different, has a cute girl, and the song is catchy. But there’s more to this video than pure entertainment. 

I’ll use another band as an example.

Ever hear of the Arctic Monkeys? They released their first fully “marketed” single back in 2005. A week before they released said single, they were selling out shows with tickets at 100 pounds a pop. The audience sang along to every word of every song. Songs they had yet to release.

A week after releasing their full length 2006 album, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,” it had sold more than 360,000 copies and was outselling the rest of the UK top 20 chart…combined. Several likened their indefinable impact to another local name; The Beatles. 

So what?

The Arctic Monkeys built their fan base on the internet - namely MySpace. They established a sort of mass following by offering free listens to their songs before they ever released a single album. They put their stuff out for the world to hear and viral marketing took care of the rest. To date, their MySpace page has 9,254,159 total plays and over 100,000 friends.

“I guess all the music industry will probably think ‘how can we emulate that or what can we do?’ said AM lead singer, Jarvis Cocker. “I think there’s nothing they can do about it because it’s something that has happened naturally, there’s no way to apply spin doctorism to it.”

The Again and Again video is, intentional or not, following in the AM’s footsteps. I don’t know if the video’s director was officially hired by the band or if he did it for fun, but it has over 800,000 views on YouTube in less than a month. That’s over twice as many views as the song’s official video posted a year and four months ago. 

So what’s to be gained? If you watched the video through, you see it end with the computer’s user going into the iTunes store and purchasing the song. 

And you know what? That’s what I did. So did my friend who originally sent me the video’s link.

I bought the song because I like it. And I would probably never have heard it if it wasn’t for that cool video on YouTube. So cool that Person A sent it to Person B to C to D to my friend and finally to me. 

People pass the video off to their friends because of its unique flavor. When this happens enough, over and over again, it spreads uncontrollably. The lack of spin and “push” style marketing allows the video to be passed from one person to another genuinely. I watched it because my friend said I should see it. I trust his judgement. I wouldn’t have been as quick to watch it if it was, say, on the MySpace homepage.   

The internet is viral marketing at its very, very best. Use it right, and the dividends are huge.

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Links:

Arctic Monkeys on Myspace.

A very serious subject and these guys claim to have some “insider” information about the future of the internet. 

Original post: 2012: The Year The Internet Ends

At 1:15 am on a Saturday night, tired and ready to go to bed, this story put a smile on my face…

The Mars Phoenix Lander is twittering. Ok, not really. It’s busy digging up red rock and all that cool stuff. But someone at NASA is twittering on its behalf. The Phoenix Lander is using Twitter, err, NASA is using Twitter to post quick updates/pics from the Lander. As of last count, over 12,000 are following the Lander’s tweets. The cute narrative adopted by the “lander” gives it a jovial touch.

This is just an awesome, awesome example of what Twitter has to offer its community. A great way to spread the message about something as extradorinaiy as planet exploration. 

Very cool stuff.

Here’s the original story: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/05/twittering-from.html

Follow the Phoenix Lander: http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

An SEO music video. Yes, you heard that right.

Down on the Server Farm, The Economist

A quasi-technical look into the plans of an ever growing internet.