I remember reading John Dvorak in my dad's copies of PC Magazine... or was it PC Monthly...   PC somethingerother.   We got our first computer back when I was in the third grade... in 1987.  It was an IBM PS/2.

And now, he has managed to become the Web 2.0 version of Encino Man...   analyzing web services using the same guidelines that helped me, my dad, and our 20MB harddrive out almost 20 years ago.

First he rips on tagging, and now he's here to explain to us how YouTube became popular.   So let's just run down some of his points:

"Google video, in fact, looks a lot like YouTube, but never achieved this growth despite getting a big head start."

Really?  Hmm... I seem to remember YouTube being around for most of 2005.  Google Video, however, not so much.  It was actually YouTube who had the head start.  Also, is it me, or does Google Video look nothing like YouTube.  Yes, it has sortable videos, but... Where are my friends?  What about my own profile page? 

"What's not so apparent, unless you actually have tried to use the various video sharing sites, is that nobody -- and I mean nobody -- made it easy until YouTube."

Actually, Vimeo made it pretty easy to share video long before YouTube did.  They had about a 6-9 month head start actually.  He continues on the ease-of use bandwagon:

"It's amazing that the YouTube formula for success is simply ease-of-use and convenience. A shocker, huh?"

"I'm hoping that the founders of YouTube Chad Hurley and Steve Chen realize that they may be subtle geniuses insofar as ease-of-use is concerned."

That would make sense if YouTube's userbase was my dad, who needs a really clean and simple UI to get the most out of web services.  But, this is the MySpace generation.  These are the kids who grew up teaching their dads (or moms, of course) how to work the VCR...  when they were eight.  They are net native and ease of use has never stopped them from using MySpace.  Is MySpace easy to use?  Its a UI disaster, but it doesn't matter, because there's joy and satisfaction in getting into the guts of your page and making it work...  and why do they want to make it work?

Because its social!  And I can do what I want with it.

Social and flexible is the reason why MySpace works.  It doesn't have to look pretty... it just has to do what I want and help me connect to others. 

From early on, YouTube focused on getting users to take their videos off of the YouTube site and pass them around, encoded in Flash.  YouTube jumped in the Flash bandwagon early...that was key.  Embed codes were prominently displayed and when each video stopped, you were prompted with opportunities to share.  It was all about the viral features.  Sure, it had to work, but viral/social/portable trumps easy UI in this day and age. 

In the same way, Photobucket has rocketed to the top of the photosharing market in a similar fashion.  Flickr could do anything Photobucket did, but embed codes are a few clicks away whereas on Photobucket, they're right smack under every photo everywhere you see them.    That's very social.  Is Photobucket easy to use?  Umm.. actually... not really.  Its UI isn't as simple, as, let's say, Ofoto or Snapfish, but this generation does not want easy UI... they don't care.  They click everywhere until they find what they want. 

YouTube videos have at times been slow, choppy, etc. but when you give people what they want and tie them together in a social network, it often takes long to shake them for reasons of performance.   

So, the next time Marketwatch or a big tech magazine wants to write an article about why YouTube works... perhaps they should just ask a 15 year old.

I just heard that Ed Wahesh will now be running Fordham's peer education/support programs out of Student Activities.  I graduated with Ed in 2001.  He was always very dedicated to the school and I'm glad to see him back at FU after a hiatus at Scranton.  Welcome back to the big show, Ed.

I woke up like it was Christmas Day, excitedly springing out of bed to see what kind of journalistic present Kitchen Claus had left for me to open online.  While there's no picture online (maybe they didn't come out well... I haven't seen the print addition yet...) the article is a very high level overview of blogs as a career tool... and I think that writing it must have tipped the author off that this whole topic is quite difficult to squeeze into a single column.  There are literally hundreds of things that need to be explored on this issue, such as the problems that were highlighted when people start blogging about their jobs, to the potential for people to start treating blogs like an online professional journal for self promotion as I have discussed before.  The bottom line is that there will be a career blog book the same way the B&N career section is filled with "Best Sites for Job Hunters" and "Using the Internet to Find a Job" books.  The question is: Will someone let me be the first one to write it?

Here's the article.

My thanks to Patricia Kitchen for giving me the opportunity to share some of my experience with Newsday readers.

As a side note, it was very cool to be quoted in the same article as Typepad's mom, Mena Trott.

So Mike Oliver posted on my post on MeVertising, and made a good comment on it, so now I'm reposting something from his repost... 

"A brand is now only as influential as its consumers."

Brilliant.

I finished 3rd out of 80+ kayaks that competed in our annual race yesterday.  Here are some pics.  I also have video of the presentation, too:

Not having my own kayak, I had to secure one of the DTBH deck boats early in the morning.

This is after already finished... I paddled back a little to make sure the rest of the kayakers were safe by the pier.  Looks like some of them went under.

When we were done, we had a BBQ up by 72nd street, which meant we all had to park somewhere. 

Curbed, the NYC real estate, etc blog posted an ethical question about some renter who wanted to get away with not paying his broker fee to a careless real estate agent.  Responses were requested and I submitted mine on the side of ethics and just treating people well overall.  It got posted.. wooo!   So, if you're a real estate agent, now you know I'm an ethical guy and the kind of guy you want to send listings of apartments for sale with reasonable maintainence south of 59th Street around 400k.  One bedrooms only, please.

Link: Curbed: The Curbed Ethicist (Part I): Pay The Guy Already.

Real estate brokers provide little else besides the knowledge of an open apartment, which he did here. Sure, he very haphazardly involved himself in the process, and you could probably get away with not paying him, but its not as if he didn’t do his job. You wouldn’t have known about the listing if he didn’t post it, and in my mind, he deserves payment for that... Trust me, screw people over and it will come back to haunt you. What you should do is pay him the fee, but explain to him that you didn’t have to and point out to him the err of his ways. Maybe he’s new and he’ll be so indebted, that in a few years when you move, he’ll find you a sweet deal.

Un-f-ing believable.

Link: Real Lawyers :: Have Blogs : Lawyer blogs stream the best CLE to lawyers.

Lawyers are blogging about the article!  Its always worthwhile to make nice with lawyers... those are people you don't want on your bad side.  :)    Kevin the blogging lawyer echoes the growing awareness that blogs are quickly becoming an indespensible career tool.  (I found this by searching for my name in Technorati.)

I'll be down at the Downtown Boathouse tonight from 5- close, which is usally around 7:30ish.   It a great way to end your week if you're on the West Side.

Greenday live from Giants Stadium, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Wooooooo



"I hope you had the time of your life..."

Hang tight... I'm having some issues with the discussion group.  The little box doesn't work.  "Reply" does work, though.

I didn't post too much this weekend, and I definitely have a backlog of things I'd like to post about in my head.  Hopefully, this week will be a slower week in terms of my after work activities and I'll be able to catch up.

My weekend was spent, as you can probably guess, mostly kayaking at the Downtown Boathouse.  Anyone who made it out had fantastic weather, aside from the occasional forboding storm cloud, but none of the threats came to post and 95% of the weekend was pretty sunfilled.  The Downtown Boathouse was a little quieter than last year, perhaps because the water hasn't quite warmed up yet and people aren't quite sure its summer yet.  Another week or two and I'm sure we'll be in full swing.  I got some great pictures in at the Boathouse as well as on the Circle Line Monday night, which I went to with my friend Joy who used to work at GM.  Speaking of Joy, that's the name we're going with for the family dog.  So, here's a little collection of my kayaking photos, NYC shots from the Circle Line and pictures of Joy (the dog).

Chillin' in a kayak on the beach, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Beautiful weather!

I'm cabbin' it home.

When I first met with Oddcast, and even before that, I was starting to get the sense that the idea that "markets were conversations" was being taken further.  Lines were being blurred.  Blogging and other user generated media brought the brands down from the ivory towers to the people, even if they came kicking and screaming.  They were ours.

When the brands woke up from being dazed, it seemed that they began to like us... to want to get closer to us.  They wanted to be in our networks, to be friends with us.

At first, I started calling this phenomenon "Brand Association."  The things I buy wanted to be closer to me. 

Then I realized that, even more than that, they wanted to be me, and me to be them...   and to a large extent, I am them.  I don't drink, so when I'm out at bars, I'm Sprite guy.  Its become a running joke, but ask any of my friends who they think of when they see a Sprite, its probably me.  I am a Mustang and Jamba Juice, and Macy's, too.   When I bring these brands with me online through Flickr pics of the car or moblogging from Jamba Juice, what it really is is "Brand Expression."  I am self identifying with a number of brands.  I have a relationship with brands that I am committing a part of myself to.

Henry Jenkins covers this phenomenon in his new book and new blog:

"I wanted to suggest the various ways that people are trying to attach value to emotion in the new media economy...the ways that product placements sought to connect the emotions associate with entertainment onto products embedded within that story.

Some aspects of what I am calling affective economics are deeply embedded in current advertising practice, referred to by the various terms Bogost identifies ("lifestyle marketing," "associative advertising," "relationship marketing," etc.) ...

I am convinced that this shift represents the best means we have of getting media producers to reassess their relationship to their consumers and that seems to be key to the long term viability of participatory culture...companies...will have an economic interest in opening themselves up to greater participation from their consumers...."

Some aspects of this, as Henry points out, are not totally new.  We've always had lifestyle marketing... but something about this new trend... this new closeness, where brands are opening up and becoming vulnerable to form a stronger tie to consumers... it all seems a bit different.

When I was at USV, digital media and marketing stuff generally went into my VC & Technology category, but I think I'm in a new playing field now...  and so I'm going to start categorizing it accordingly.

But none of the terms out there are quite as direct as I'd like... so I've come up with something that says exactly what I feel this is...  MeVertising.  Its a blurring between my own identity, brand association, ad consumption, expression, etc.   

Its buying the Nike t-shirt.  In that scenario, who is advertising what?

• Is Nike advertising on me, literally?
• Am I advertising that I subscribe to the Nike lifestyle, whatever that is?
• Am I advertising that I am a sophisticated t-shirt buyer?

And I don't even want to go into what that does to the economics of the whole thing...

So, over the course of the future of this blog, I will be doing a lot of MeVertising posting, tagging things MeVertising in del.icio.us and Technorati.  Feel free to do the same and join me in the exploration.            

"What number?" "I dunno...   What are my choices?" "One, one and a half, or two." "Let's go for two."

I just got this in my findmypath@gmail.com mailbox...

Dear Charlie,

             We read the profile of you in Sunday’s “Newsday” and thought your knowledge, experience, and success with blogging as a networking and career building tool would make a great basis for a Learning Annex course.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

If you don't know what the Learning Annex is, you obviously don't walk around the city much, because their little booklets with classes for people to take are everywhere.  Ok, so I'm definately going to do that, AND it could also help me with the book thing, because they have "How to Get Published" talks all the time, so I'm sure they know literary agents.

I may have mentioned this before, but the ultimate irony of all this is that its turning out that what is "going to be big" is the blog itself.

First, the MTA cries poverty, telling us they're deep in the red and need to hike the fares.  Then, it turns out they were keeping two sets of books, so they actually have a big SURPLUS. 

Now they're striking??

Link: New York Daily News - Home - City war plan for transit walkout.

City war plan for transit walkout

BY MICHAEL SAUL and PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Commuters stream into city April 7, 1980, during last strike.
Workers rail for big raises

The city has begun preparing for a possible transit strike that would leave millions of New Yorkers stranded in the middle of the holiday season, the Daily News has learned.

If the MTA strikes, they're going to cripple the city during the important holiday shopping season, causing a lot of economic distress for hundreds of thousands of other workers.  Lots of babysitters, eldarly caregivers, etc. won't be able to make it to work either.  Its just very selfish, especially when you consider how much better the average transit worker's salary and benefits are then a lot of the other people in this city. 

Perhaps busboys, dishcleaners, and newsstand workers should go on strike...  the working poor with jobs nobody else wants.  But as for transit workers, they can strike without pay for as long as they want, for all I care, and I hope they get fined amounts equalling the economic hardship they cause the rest of the city.  In the meantime, I'm happy to bike to work.  Ridiculous.

Fordham's first game at Roosevelt Island's Copobianco Field felt like practice...   Actually, it was practice, because the ABA Stingers didn't show--not a one of them.  That means Fordham was able to post their first win of the season, which, of course, isn't the way this hungry team wants to win.

"This sucks.  I wanted to play," manager Charlie O'Donnell, known for his eloquence, told reporters after the game.

The nightcap didn't prove as successful, however.  It turns out that, unlike the first game, 90% of success isn't just showing up.  It turns out you have to hit and field, too--two little areas that Fordham has been struggling with as of late.  Monday's struggles resulted, unfortunately for this expansion franchise, in a 17-2 drubbing.

AIG took advantage of the cozy Copo confines early, scoring five in the first and six in the second--all off rookie starter and Jay Buhner impersonator Jason Gianetti.

Teammates tried to comfort Gianetti after his performance and the following exchange took place in the clubhouse:

"That ball wouldn't have been out of a lot of parks."

"Name one."

"Yellowstone."

Patti Dickerson took over in the fourth, providing one of the lone bright spots in the game.  Patti turned in a solid mop-up effort and will be likely to start the team's next game.

Fordham's only two runs came late in the game.  Kevin Rodricks lashed a double to left, tearing the stiches off the ball (which is amazing considering the Clincher softballs don't actually have stiches).  Charlie O'Donnell, coming off a shoe string catch in center the inning before, then followed up with a monster, albeit lonely, blast to the concrete in right center.  That would be it for the Fordham offence though.  Rumors have it that the team is considering letting go hitting coach Amanda Hickey. 

There were a couple of other bright spots for Fordham.  Ryan St. Germain threw out a runner at home from right field--the other end of which featured a nifty tag from catcher Nicole Horsford.  Chrissy Guerrero turned in a solid defensive effort at second base as well.

There were no photos from the game, however, due to the illness of team photographer and emerging offensive star Anntoinette Mirsberger.  She should be off the DL by the next game, marking a return to the photographic documentation of the team's hijinks and shananagans.

With last night's rainout which will probably not get made up because my Fordham alumni softball team is out of it, the third of my three softball teams' seasons came to an end.

Sunday morning, my fastpitch men's team, the Warthogs, got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs after a 16-11 season.   Two and out...   and we basically gave the games away... didn't want it enough.  Very disappointing end to a good season.  Here's a hit to right  from the game.  I don't wear #21 on this team because someone else had it when I joined, so I just picked an utterly ridiculous number.

Wednesday night, my Zog team, Waiting for Turiansky, which crawled its way into the playoffs going 5-6-1, lost to the 11-1 Pubstars, after winning our first playoff game.  We were winning for one inning after I led off the game with a home run to right center.  I seriously have no idea why anyone plays on the left side of the field when I get up.  I have no ability to pull the ball in any form of this sport whatsoever.   Then it was 3-1 them...  3-2, 6-2, 6-3...    so in the 5th and it was 6-3 and I really felt good about the fact that we stayed in it as long as we did.  One big inning could do it.  Unfortunately, the wrong team had the big inning.  We lost 13-4.  Still, good season and we're excited to be playing again in the fall season.

As for my Fordham team... well... we're just not very good.  We went 3-9.  Oh well.  Perhaps we'll draft well in the offseason.  If you're a Fordham grad, and you can play shortstop or firstbase in particular, and can hit drop me a line.

So, the totals, including playoffs...    55 games...  25-29-1.   Eh.   Room for improvement.