Connected Conversations

This presentation by the founder of RockYou has (almost) everything you need to know about viral marketing. A tour de force if you want to understand this kind of stuff.

1. technology facebook, society, videos

…but the message is the same.” Weird and oddly catchy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8[/youtube]

3. et cetera society, videos

Here’s a provocative video. It received a warm reception at e-thePeople and nice discussion. Here’s how I described it on etp:

Where do you find the time to participate in e-thepeople? Clay Shirky suggests that e-thepeople, wikipedia and other participatory media find the time by tapping into the cognitive surplus, the 200 billion hours Americans spend watching TV each year in the US alone. He claims that people choose participation over consumption, when given the chance. What do you think:

Is participatory media a revolution or just a fad? Is your time on e-thepeople valuable or a waste of time?

Watch it here:

1. technology academia, society, videos

My neighbor asked me: “The polls show that McCain is now tied with Obama - could Obama really lose this election?”

No. Obama cannot lose the election.

Why? Two reasons. First, I believe the polls overstate McCain support because of how they estimate likely voters. They are greatly undercounting the new voters that will vote for Obama and they are overcounting the demoralized republican turnout. (For example, new voter registration greatly favors democrats.) Second, even these flawed polls will turn around once ads like this start airing:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfngOsvmA0[/youtube]

Yeah, Republicans will not likely be very enthusiastic this fall. I think Obama has an insurmountable 10 point lead in the popular vote that will result in a Reaganesque electoral victory.

GOBama!

Uncategorized Election 08, Obama, polling, videos

Jawed Karim, a co-founder of YouTube and current Stanford student, gave an excellent talk about the lessons of youtube. (The talk is from 2006, but I just watched it today for the first time.) If you have ADD, skip to a little past 40 minutes and you can catch some video of despair after they launched but before youtube caught fire.

My takeaways:

1. Make something complex but useful into something easy
2. Mix enabling technologies and great user interface design to be successful
3. Marketing is hard, so lots of things fail before they succeed
- email to friends didn’t work
- craigslist postings didn’t work
- giving an ipod nano everyday helped a little bit at the start
4. In my opinion, embeding videos into other people sites was the key to youtube’s success. Then, video producers finally had a real incentive to host their videos at youtube
5. Virality is driven by a very low percentage of superhits
6. Hence, scale is important for continuous growth
7. I disagree with Jawed that the community features on youtube were/are critical to its success. Rather, they leverage myspace’s community features to get the word out

Anyway, check it out for yourself.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nssfmTo7SZg[/youtube]

1. technology lessons learned, videos

A nice video demonstrating the physics of a rugby pass. Note that unlike football where a forward pass is determined by the field, rugby’s definition of a forward pass is based on the relative motion of the passer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgMlDy2jP9s[/youtube]

Uncategorized sports, videos

A great concept, very well executed. If you watch this video (called “Dancing”) for the next 4 1/2 minutes, you will be happier than you were before. Enjoy!

PS Notice the impressive new high quality video offered by youtube!

3. et cetera society, videos

‘Nuff said. Check it out:

Ball Girl Makes Incredible Catch

3. et cetera sports, videos

Oh, boy! Social networking continues to be white hot. I like these VCs, but they do seem a tad cocky in this video. David Sze says that “when they look back, they will say this is one of the cheapest things that those investors ever did.” Cheapest things–really? I hope, for your sake, David, you are wrong about that statement. The video is fun to watch:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fcr9yooraM&eurl[/youtube]

I think David Cowan gets it closer to truth. He says “Compared to most startups, LinkedIn’s valuation is very high. But compared to what we think LinkedIn’s future valuations will be, it’s a bargain.”

I wonder about this deal. LinkedIn is a good site. My friend who is a VC uses it for research on new industries, but not sourcing deals. So, it adds value for him but it isn’t essential. I conducted an experiment when recruiting a hire at e-thePeople by launching campaigns on LinkedIn, Facebook and a targeted job board. I got a couple of warm leads from LinkedIn, so it was probably worth a couple of hundred dollars for my listing, but we hired someone sourced from the targeted job board.

I think that my experience is a cautionary tale for LinkedIn: death by paper cuts. They are certainly the market leader across, but if they are #2 in each of little niche, they may not be the most effective medium.

1. technology reviews, society, videos

We’ve just completed another successful deliberative poll this past weekend. This time, I did not have to travel to a far away place; the poll was in my own county, San Mateo, CA. The topic: housing. I do however see a parallel with the EU poll. In the EU, the deliberators had to consider what expansion would mean to Turkey and the Ukraine even though people from those countries weren’t invited. In the San Mateo poll, residents were asked to consider how housing policy affects commuters from the Central Valley, SF and SJ.

Here is a 2 minute news piece on the poll, uploaded by a participant of our poll. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=txwJ2GFtTYE[/youtube]

Uncategorized academia, polling, society, videos

As an Obama supporter, I was disappointed that Barack did not seal the deal yesterday. I have been reflecting on the delegate stalemate and the PR loss, and I have a few thoughts.

1) Identity politics: Obama has made massive progress in demonstrating that equality for all is a powerful message for whites and blacks. I am surprised that he wasn’t able to carry that message to the Hispanic communities in Texas. I dislike Clinton’s direct approach at appealing to women, and I don’t think it is working well with younger women. I much prefer Obama’s President for all Americans message and policies.

2) Generational warfare: Clinton is for old people and Obama is for young people. The candidates appeals are *not* personality-based but policy-based . Clinton wants to mandate that young people pay more money into health care in order to pay for more benefits for older people. Obama wants to lower health care costs–which may very well end up in less health care services for old people. Again, I think Obama has to devise a message of equality for all and policies that support it. But the worst is this aweful “experience” debate. It’s really just a thinly veiled ageist argument that anyone born after the baby boom can’t be President. Hasn’t 8 years of Bush/Cheney proven that ‘adult’ supervision isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be?

3) Tired solutions vs Fresh Solutions: Hillary I think has a slight advantage framing the election as solutions vs. rhetoric. For awhile, I favor a direct defensive maneuver by Obama: publishing policy papers, holding smaller events, etc. But now I think that is wrong. Obama has plans that are just as detailed as Clinton. It is really a battle of “tired solutions” versus “fresh solutions.” I mean she is just re-treading past political battles, whereas Obama wants to move us forward.

Well, that’s it for now. If you want more great Obama commentary, check out Marc Andreseen’s excellent endorsement of Barack Obama.

2. politics Clinton, Election 08, lessons learned, Obama, videos

Jack Nicholson has made this short video ad for Hillary. It’s pretty good: it draws on short clips from some of his best movies to help raise Hillary’s issues:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsweXFpfa28[/youtube]

But Hillary’s video still doesn’t hold a candle to Huckabee’s classic spot from a month or so ago. I think the difference: Huckabee demonstrates a sense of humor by describing Chuck Norris, whereas Clinton’s own messages are purely serious. To be fair, I suppose they had different goals with their videos. Huckabee’s video is a tour de force and a truly funny 30 seconds of entertainment. Enjoy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8[/youtube]

I suppose Obama could counter Hillary’s ad with a clip from the Shining: “All work and no play makes Hillary a dull girl. Red rum! Red rum!”

Uncategorized Clinton, Election 08, society, videos

I had overheard people talking about using Nintendo’s ‘Wii’ game controllers with their computer, but I had never seen it used before. This grad student at Carnegie Mellon is up to some really cool stuff, and it looks like something I might be able to do with home DVR. He has three projects that I might install in my own home: a “Minority Report”-style controller for the TV; an immersive scene (just for fun); and a digital whiteboard. All of these project can be done for under $100. He provides all the software for free. I just might have to give it a try here at home…

Here’s the stunning example from the head tracking video. Skip to 2:35 if you just want see the results without the explanation:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw[/youtube]

1. technology videos

This twenty minute lecture is a tour-de-force. It is a flashy example of data visualization, but more importantly, it provides important insights about global poverty. Worth your time (after the over-the-top intro), in my opinion.

1. technology, 2. politics my favs, society, videos