Happy New Year Everyone!

It’s still approximately 2.5 hrs till 2007 where I am, but celebratory feelings all around anyway!

Hey mom! I’m on the Z-list!

Useful as hell meme. And god knows I don’t get enough traffic (it’s a month-old blog, I need to set my standards lower).

Wiki search engine?

I’ve read the article.

I’ve read a blog.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Another competing search engine? AOL Search, the next engine after MSN in market share… doesn’t have a whole lot of push and pull compared to giants like Google and Yahoo. Then again, it’s the road less traveled that sometimes gets the good stuff. People (like me) are shaking their heads at it… but that’s probably because it’s the news break that’s still got me in shock.

Then there’s the name — Wikiasari — no, wait, that’s a code name. It doesn’t roll off the tongue as easy as Google or Yahoo. But it has an interesting etymology. Hawaiian word for quick, ‘wiki,’ + Japanese word for rummaging search, ‘asari.’ But is that really the visual you want? People RUMMAGING? It sounds to me that they don’t know what they’re looking for.

What does Wikiasari have to offer? The human touch. No longer just robot spiders.  Open source tech plus human intelligence and discretion. Like Google with a touch of DMOZ.

We’ll see. Two years, they say.

Blog evangelist revisited

Either an evangelist or a nut. I’ve created another blog. With a focus. Less whimsical than my first, less professional and focused than this one.

If you have an idea, go for it — you never know where it might lead.

Current tally: 3 on wordpress, 1 on vox, 1 on blogger, and a personal one.

[edit: I believe the real test comes when we see in a couple of months whether or not I can maintain three blogs at once. The last three listed are understood as 'not updated regularly, as in at least once a week'.]

Customer service

Another one from Seth.  And the state of discontent of service.

I’m fully aware of. Somehow, somewhere, all of our jobs are connected to service. Whether it be through tuxedo rental (a dubious first paid job), writing lab proctor, or a marketer. We’re all providing a service. And someone, somewhere is our customer. Put those together, and we have customer service.

All the tech support jokes? Customer service. They’re like lawyer jokes, they’re all true.

I think the real reason people blow up customer service complaints so much is because we’ve all provided service at some point in our lives — and being so good at it that we blow all those bad stereotypes out of the water — and it kills us to recieve crappy service in return. Kills us. Where is that holiday cheer, people?

Seth Godin

I bought Small is the New Big for myself for Christmas not too long ago. I was really good about not reading it till yesterday.

And I am hooked.

There are just so many fabulous ideas, concepts, great writing (not too long). I’m nowhere close to done yet (I stopped somewhere around Clowns and Cliff…somethings).

I want that. I mean, the power to influence and inspire. Not absolute power… but it’d be nice to be recognized among a Scoble or a Seth. A Corinne…

Not yet, not now. Eventually.

It’s all just a matter of those ideas getting out.

UmbriaConnect: Marketers to Bloggers

Umbria announces new service to help marketers identify bloggers that relate best to their target audience.

It’s about damn time!

[I had other commentary here, but it was around this time a few days ago that my internet went out.]

A great example of Word of Mouth

Forgive me for sounding crass.

But I have been wracking my brain for a good example of internet marketing, social media, anything that I can say I have been a part of… something that hasn’t been pulled from someone else’s blog, or something the NY Times has done a feature piece on.

If you’re an 18-30 something year old on MySpace — you have to have come across the phenomenon known as Mr. Girth. I’m sorry, I mean Mr. Girth. Whether it be the brand or the man, this larger than life entity — this movement — is possibly the greatest example of word of mouth marketing I have ever seen.

PayperPost is bad, mmkay?

Engtech’s post title includes the word ‘illegal’ — but nothing is set in stone yet. It’s just bad.

Sites and services like reviewme.com aren’t as bad because you’re required to acknowledge your relationship with the sponsor.

 FTC has made a ruling on schemes (like PayPerPost) where bloggers get paid to review products without having to disclose the agreement. Quote: “such marketing could be deceptive if consumers were more likely to trust the product’s endorser “based on their assumed independence from the marketer.”

For more information see here and here.

James Kim found deceased.

His body was found less than a mile from where his wife and two kids waited for help to arrive. – from TechMeme

He was a senior CNET editor who had been missing for 11 days in the Oregon wilderness after Thanksgiving.   He was covering digital audio who also co-hosted a weekly video podcast for the Crave gadgets blog (click here for his official CNET profile).

I had been following the story via Scobleizer.

My thoughts go out to his wife, kids, and the rest of his family.