It wasn't easy, but Matt Giarratano and I wrote our first article on iMedia Connection about the 6 principles for success in one's digital career. To summarize, we've been searching for the keys to success ever since we started in this industry. Our endeavors led us to 6 principles that were discovered from our conversations with mentors that have already found success in the digital space. The principles include:
1. Passion
2. Value
3. Intellectual Mastery
4. Fearlessness
5. Relationships
6. Dedication
The key finding, besides identifying these 6 principles, was that in order to be truly successful, you need to adopt these principles as a way of life. Professional success does not equal happiness without personal success. Adopting these 6 principles as a way of life is essential to achieving the success we all strive for.
If you have 2 minutes, you should read the article:
Over the last 6 months, I've been working with a Silicon Valley start-up called Wowd. I'm happy to announce that they're announcing their public launch today at Web 2.0 in San Francisco. Here's a review of what they do and why it matters:
Wowd is a real-time search engine for discovering what's popular on the web right now.
Like other real-time search engines, Wowd delivers information seconds after it appears on the web. Unlike others, Wowd covers the entire web – any publically available page, from any web site, anywhere, can potentially be included in the Wowd index.
Like reference search engines, Wowd performs indexing and ranking of search results… but it does so in a way that takes into account pages preferred by real users. Wowd does not use crawlers that mindlessly follow links, filling an index with material that real people would never look at. Wowd finds and ranks information according to the preferences and interests of real humans.
Members of the Wowd user community, the "Wowd Crowd", determine web page popularity. Traditional search ranking methods are based on how pages link to each other, and this approach has been thoroughly gamed by web site publishers seeking search engine optimization. People are much better at finding good web pages and avoiding bad ones than computer programs will ever be. So Wowd taps into this human judgment and gives higher ranking to the pages people choose to visit.
Wowd users nominate public pages for inclusion in the index just by visiting them. When a Wowd Crowd member visits a public web page, it is automatically nominated, and the page is immediately added to the index. No explicit voting or manual voting is required.
The Wowd Crowd is surfing the web twenty-four hours a day, automatically nominating new public web pages for inclusion in the index. A new page is made available to all Wowd Crowd members just seconds after only one of them finds it. Thus, Wowd provides a real-time index that spans the entire scope of the human-readable public web.
Wowd delivers search results that real people find interesting. Wowd achieves both comprehensive coverage of the entire web and real-time performance through an innovative, distributed cloud architecture.
Other real-time search engines achieve timeliness at the expense of comprehensiveness. These services typically index just a handful of sites. In contrast, Wowd delivers real-time results from the entire web, including all social media sites, all news sites, all blog sites... in fact, all public sites can be included in the Wowd index, provided they are nominated by a member of the Wowd Crowd.
Wowd delivers popular and timely information in three ways: (1) a real-time Wowd Hot List of popular web pages that updates live before your eyes; (2) ability to search for specific items and sort results according to popularity or freshness; (3) ability search your own previously visited pages, making it extremely easy to find those pages again.
Wowd is a real-time search engine that helps you discover what's popular on the web right now. Wowd's unique approach is to run as a web browser application, eliminating the need to share personal information with centralized servers. Wowd protects your privacy. Wowd does not collect personally identifiable information and does not share your search history or browsing history with anyone, including Wowd, Inc.
In summary, Wowd is a great way to find out what real people are talking about, right now, on the web.
Friend and colleague, Brad Berens, wrote this intriguing blog post and letter to Jeff Bezos of Amazon. I think it's safe to say that Amazon is the king of affiliate marketing, but even Amazon can't track every recommendations because they don't all come through in-bound links. Couldn't creating a tip jar be the way that Amazon attempts to show their gratitude for the recommendations that they cannot track. I think it would help make the digital exchange more personable and shed some positive light on Amazon and their willingness to facilitate this common expression of gratitude. What do you think???
Whether you're an active Google user or not, no one can doubt that Google is on pace to take over the world. Their infiltration of online and offline business is scaling beyond imagination. The continuous innovation that comes out of Google is worth of praise. faberNovel does just that in this amazing presentation reviewing "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Google." The presentation talks about where they started, where they're going, how they've gotten to where they are now and how they are going to continue to be a leader of innovative ideas. I'll let Google and faberNovel's presentation speak for itself......
For those of you who haven't seen this awesome video that's been circling the web for the last couple weeks, you should check it out. ACDC may be old, but they are still awesome....
If losing a presidential election was not enough, John McCain's Facebook friend count is also sinking like the stock market. This dramatic abandonment could be for a number of reasons:
1. People don't like to be associated with losers 2. People don't like to be friends with old creepy guys on Facebook 3. McCain couldn't figure out social media so he just paid Facebook to pad his stats until the election was over 4. People really just don't like him
For those of you who still don't see the value of social media check these Facebook stats out. Let's use McCain as an example of when keepin it real goes wrong....
Preliminary data shows an increase of more than 20% in activity on the site on election day vs. last Tuesday (measured by page views).
More than 5.44 million people clicked the “I voted” button on Facebook to tell their friends they voted.
McCain: 625k supporters on Facebook
Obama: 2.5 million supporters - the most popular page on Facebook (no. 2 is Michael Phelps with 1.6 million)
Since 9/5 McCain has added more than 330k fans and Obama has added more than 750k fans.
On Facebook, Obama added more than 18k supporters Sunday night, more than 25k Monday night, and added more than 40k supporters on election day. That is the largest single day of growth we have on record.
McCain lost about 300 Facebook supporters on election day.
Total election-related virtual gifts given: more than 2 million
Shortly after midnight on Nov 4, about 1 million people used the Causes application to simultaneously set their Facebook status with a unified message to remind their friends to vote. This kicked off one of the largest online rallies in history, with currently over 1.5 million people participating and growing quickly. So far, 4.5 million status messages have been posted. It can be seen at www.causes.com/election.
In October, we partnered with Rock the Vote to register more than 50k.
In the days leading up to Nov. 4, we were averaging about 200k wall posts per day related to the election. On election day, wall posts mentioning Obama surged to more than 1.1 million and those mentioning McCain went to 280k. There were more than 2 million total wall posts related to the election on election day.
We also launched an election day event to remind and motivate people to vote. In just two weeks more than 2.4 million people have RSVP’d that they’re coming
For the first time in 8 years I felt something that every American should always feel. For the first time I felt pride, hope and faith that our country is in a better place. Despite the incredible difficulties that are upon us, I feel confident that our leaders will steer us in a better direction. Growing up, I watched videos of Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln preach the American Dream. Last night, I watched Barack Obama deliver an acceptance speech that made me believe in the very same values and dreams. It is my great pleasure to paint my blog with these touching words of hope and prosperity...
The traditional Dojo is a formal training or gathering place for students of a martial arts style to conduct training, examinations and other related encounters. It is a Japanese term which literally means "Place of the Way."
The goal of The Digital Dojo is to uphold the same values of a traditional Dojo and implement them towards the world of digital marketing. The advertising industry is always changing and forcing companies to continually innovate and become better. The Digital Dojo will examine the industry and provide insights into trends, best practices and creative ideas. The Digital Dojo will become a training ground for the art and mastery of digital marketing in today's age.
