Tom Altman’s Wedia Conversation

OK - this will prove to anyone out there that I am in fact a tue geek, nerd, freak - all of the above.

But a guy (Dino Nuhagic) has come up with a tool to help you strip all the “bloat” out of Vista.   The product/site/tool is called vLite and can take the latest operating system from Microsoft and make it a little more friendly.

Windows Vista from Microsoft takes a lot of resources, we all know that. vLite provides you with an easy removal of the unwanted components in order to make Vista run faster and to your liking.

This tool doesn’t use any kind of hacking, all files and registry entries are protected as they would be if you install the unedited version only with the changes you select.

It configures the installation directly before the installation, meaning you’ll have to remake the ISO and reinstall it. This method is much cleaner, not to mention easier and more logical than doing it after installation on every reinstall.

Take a look - I’m going to download it and see what  I can break!

“Company Creates Online Cell Phone Directory“

Some cell phone users are angry over a company’s decision to create a cell phone number directory.

Millions of people own cell phones and several cell phone owners said they would like to keep their numbers private.

“We use our cell phones for everything. The school principal will call and everything. It’s just a little bit more convenient,” said cell phone user Brad Hakala.

I wonder if people felt this way when the first telemarketers started? It seems like a hard thing to justify when people are paying by the minute for the airtime.

Twitter is cool…so Jason and I are experimenting with an idea called SuperTweets.

We put together a simple site which uses a feed from Twitter (aggregated by TweetScan) and displays the results. Please stop by and take a look and see if your post is up - just add @supertweets to your Twitter post.

The concept was used by Politweets to track political coverage and we thought it would be an interesting way to analyze the game and commercials in real time.

Microblogging continues to prove an interesting medium and we hope this is a worthy example too!

Jeff Tippett had a post at SMT asking his network if they used soical media for business use:

I sent this question out to 30 or so fans of mine in Stumble Upon. The results were mixed and truly speak of where I believe social media currently is in business applications. Here are the results:
…
1. Most people that I surveyed are using social media sites merely for personal reasons.
…
2. A few are starting to ask how their “fun” experience on social sites could translate into business.
…
3. A minority have discovered ways of using social media in their businesses.

How do you use social media?

Found a post over at ReaDwriteWeb called “Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption and How You Can Respond“

Steve Outing wrote a very good article at Editor and Publisher on Friday about the need for cultural change inside the newpapers around the US (found via the wonderful CyberJournalist.net). That article got me thinking that people in many different industries probably hear many of the same objections to new, social media and online tools. (”It takes too much time, conversations online are insipid” etc.)

This is a great “howto” post at Denis McDonald’s blog called “How To Develop a Business-Aligned Social Media & Social Networking Strategy“

The process described here is a structured one. A general structure and flow of work is proposed with the end goal being support for development of an organization-wide plan for employing social media and social networking in support of defined corporate goals. The intended audience for this document is middle and upper management within mid- to large-size organizations.

This is a good post from over at TheCusomerCollective called “Understanding the power of customer lifecycle“

I quite like the idea of identifying “switch points” when a customer is likely to switch to another product/brand or is ready to move to a product in the higher tier. The key question to me though is the ability of companies to identify such “customer states” or “behaviour states”. Marketing needs to quickly start learning that art of using customer information, drill down and observe these changes in customer patterns and take appropriate action.

But my favorite part comes at the end.

Don’t purge that consumer from your database or program if they don’t respond; don’t purge them if they don’t buy. Look deeper and see if a lifestage is influencing their involvement with your brand. That’s the essence of marketing!

This to me is key…we have to UNDERSTAND why the customer is doing what they are doing.

It looks like the love stops at 17:

1. Personal Branding.
2. Get Feedback.
3. Hire People.
4. Direct traffic.
5. Read News.
6. Make New Friends.
7. Network for benefits.
8. Use it as a ToDo list.
9. Business Management.
10. Notify Your Customers.
11. Take Notes.
12. Event Updates.
13. Find Prospects.
14. Provide Live coverage.
15. Time Management and Analysis.
16. Set Up Meetings.
17. Acquire Votes

Checking out all of these - there is some pretty interesting stuff…nice post!

Not sure if you caught the dancing elves…but they were a big hit over the holidays.

Ah, the promise of online advertising: An age in which companies will finally be held accountable to their customers. But are their customers accountable to anyone? Consider this: 26 million people created 123 million dancing elves for OfficeMax and passed them on to their friends.

This was a interesting post I found at contentious.com the other day about a concept Amy calls “Tweetups“

A few days ago, it occurred to me that it might be nice if there was an online tool or service that would facilitate local “tweetups” (informal, spontaneous gatherings of local Twitter users). Right now, tweetups start when one person in a town or city proposes one — like: “How about a Tweetup at The Cup in downtown Boulder this afternoon, 2pm?”

This is a great way to find people near you and put together a quick unconference of sorts…cool.