My original title of this post was going to be “Disagreeing with Julia Morgenstern.” Then I figured, why give her the SEO juice? No, seriously, I figured the above title would be more beneficial to what I wanted to say today. Yesterday morning, after hitting the gym at 6am and getting my ass kicked in a lifting session with my devil trainer from Hell, I was home and in the shower by 7:15am, listening to 1010 WINS radio. They were promoting their series of Small Business Breakfasts, where they claim to help small businesses do the things they believe small businesses need help with. This time, they were talking about social media. (Of course they were. Because it’s a day [...]

My post the other day about how to help the paranoid boss understand social media was met with a lot of good comments and discussion. But I realized that I left out one very important boss scenario: The boss who says: Our Industry Doesn’t Have Any Reason to be in Social Media. Sometimes, we’re (meaning us, those in our industry) are so used to promoting new ways of communication, that we forget that there are industries outside of communications, marketing, advertising, and social media. And that’s where the above line comes from – bosses thinking “Oh, we have nothing to do with that, our audiences aren’t there.” And I’ve heard from several companies in the past few days who have [...]

Have you seen something like this floating through your social media data stream recently? “Who wants to sponsor me to go to Overrated Conference 2011?” “I need a sponsor for my blog. Anyone?” “Who wants to send me to ABC for the WXY meetup?” Just look around. They’re everywhere. Seems that everyone with any social media presence, no matter now small, has glommed onto the “Sponsor me!” bandwagon. Unfortunately, 99.9% of those requests won’t ever get looked at, let alone acted on. Why? It’s simple, really. You want to be sponsored? You better damn well be sponsorable. What does that mean? What do you mean “I’d better be sponsorable? That’s not even a real word, Peter!” It’s a real word, [...]

On the First Day of Social Christmas, my followers gave to me, a Klout score of Eighty-Three. On the Second Day of Social Christmas, my followers gave to me, two Macbook Airs, and a Klout Score of Eighty-Three. On the Third of Social Christmas, my followers gave to me, three HARO emails, two Macbook Airs, and a Klout Score of Eighty-Three. On the Fourth Day of Social Christmas, my followers gave to me, four Pete Cashmore Tweets (sigh), three HARO emails, two Macbook Airs, and a Klout Score of Eighty-Three. On the Fifth Day of Social Christmas, my followers gave to me, FIVE… ANGRY… BIRDS!! Four Pete Cashmore Tweets (sigh), three HARO emails, two Macbook Airs, and a Klout Score [...]

Remember my post back in August about how it’s time to say goodbye to free WI-Fi in coffeehouses, in airports, etc? I have never been more sure of something in my life – Today, I’ll prove it. I’m on the 6:20am Amtrak from NYC to Boston right now. For a brief moment, I switched off my Sprint EVO 4G, and am using Amtrak’s free WiFi to prove a point. I also installed a little Add-on to Firefox (I usually use Chrome, I switched to Firefox for this experiment,) called Firesheep. If you haven’t heard of Firesheep, prepare to be really, really frightened. I’m not a true tech geek, so please forgive me if I don’t totally speak Geek. Essentially, FireSheep [...]