Financial Crisis for Dummies

I didn’t make this and don’t know who did. It was sent to me via e-mail (thanks Mel) and I thought it was the best description thus far of what’s happening. WARNING: Some crass language in this presentation. Totally appropriate given the circumstances. Best viewed in slideshow mode.

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A Vast PC Conspiracy? Or Coincidence? Microsoft Ad Campaign Takes Out My Mac.

I went to the new site that supports Microsoft’s “I’m a PC Campaign.”

It crashed my Mac.  Twice.

Why Microsoft’s Ad Creative is Effective

1.  It doesn’t give the haters anything to dispute – except that they hate the ad.  No claims of security, stability, etc.

2.  For every ad impression they buy, they get one for free from the blogosphere and people talking about. These ads are not cheap but they are gaining efficiency through this buzz.

3.  Most importantly, it is getting people to really work at what they might be driving at.  People are making all sorts of leaps to connect the dots.  It is an ad about nothing but everyone assumes they will one day say something or do something.  What?

The danger is that they don’t deliver.  But until that happens, a lot of people will be trying to map what they know and think they know about Microsoft with where the ad campaign is headed.  And, as of this moment, the second ad (which is 1 day old) has 317,000 streams on YouTube.

Why is a Comedian the Only One Doing this?

It seems everyone is too busy picking sides. Before you say Stewart has chosen a side with this segment, I will say he has done the same to the Dems…

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Does Twitter Scale? And I don’t mean technically.

Much has been made about Twitter’s fairly frequent outages.  The loyal and rapidly growing group of power users, tire kickers, and everyone in between tested the architecture severely.  The general consensus seems to be that Twitter has gotten this under control.  I think it now has another challenge pertaining to scale.  Does the growth of Twitter remove the utility from the microblogging platform?

Here’s what has got me thinking about this.

I’m by no means a power user of Twitter (for those interested here is my twitter stream.)  But I enjoy following a handful of friends, co-workers, and people I respect in the industry.  Most of the people using Twitter seem to be in my industry or a fan of it so it has been a useful tool for that.  I try to add content when I have something to say and the time to say it and I’ve enjoyed it.  So far, everything is good.

The issue at hand surfaced when I connected my twitter feed to my Facebook status.  I did this because I rely on FaceBook to stay marginally connected with a lot of people I love but don’t speak with all that often – former co-workers, college friends, and recently long lost high school and extended family members.

As more people I know use the platform, my ability to provide good content from me diminishes.  I once would tweek or update my status on Facebook with a link to an article my industry friends would enjoy and I would provide quality content to people who were connected with me.  I now do a link like that and my industry connections might find it useful but my cousin in Minneapolis would find this (probably) to be all noise and no signal.

I truly value Facebook and have found it to be a great way to stay connected to people you care about AND people that are important professionally (whereas LinkedIn has always been strictly about business for me.)  But as my friend list and follower lists grow and become more diverse, my ability to use these tools effectively diminishes.

So I ask you, my loyal reader (thanks Mom,)  what do you think?  Am I just old fashioned in my belief that I should create content for a specific audience?  Is this just another brick falling down from the wall that separates personal and professional worlds?  Does the power of Twitter diminish as it moves from a tool of the “digerati” to a more mainstream collection of users?

US Open Tickets – Almost like being there!

Do you pay $100 for a ticket and watch TV

or this?