The Facebook Era Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff

The Facebook Era Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff by Clara Shih.

Clara Shih works for salesforce.com, she also designs widgets for business that are used on Facebook.  Her background is both technical and sales focused.  She is of course advertising her book on Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/thefacebookera




The author describes how there is increasing convergence between social networks and business networks.  Companies are using sites like Twitter and Linkedin to manage their interactions with their customers.  Recently Apple announced that they were creating a new network called Ping for iTunes which connects its customers with music and musicians.  This is an example of the interconnecction.  http://techpinger.com/2010/09/apple-announces-itunes-10-with-ping-music-social-network/ 



Clara Shih  has specific chapters on marketing, recruiting, customer service, innovation (this surprised me), sales, and networking.  She introduces the book with how social networks came into existence.  It is a step by step overview of the development from mainframes  to computers to the internet to social networking.  I especially like her description of the "social graph"-- the map of how people are connected to each other on the internet.




This book does not have a bibliography at the end.  What it does have is numerous computer screen captures depicting different activities on social networking sites as well as many urls for websites.  It is quite visual with charts, graphs, and lists.  There is an index at the back of thebook.




The best part of this book was the concepts it introduced; the social graph, the convergence of social networking and business networking, and the sense of innovation available to people who are willing to try new things with social networks. I niticed after I finished reading it, that they just came out with a new second edition on July 31, 2010.

Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver

Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver.

David Silver is a venture capitalist and an author of over 30 books on business. This book varies between being a strategy guide to start an online community and a stream of ideas for starting a variety of online businesses. The book describes online communities as being both on the internet and on mobile phones.

I found the sections on how to start an internet company quiet interesting. He was focusing on social networks like myspace.com and twitter. Social networks are described as being successful because of the ability to generate mobs of people and focus on user generated content. David Silver describes them as requiring very little capital to create.

He argues for a different strategy in creating communities. His view is that it is important to be part of the crowd, not appear to have a lot of money, ask for tips, try to encourage people to provide content for you, and create services which people will pay for.

Part of the strategy he is describing is appearing to be in opposition to large media companies. For example if you are selling ebooks, you might tell people why you don't like paper books, or if you are selling music downloads, suggest why compact discs are obsolete. Being persuasive and generating controversy, even lawsuits will generate even more interest in your sites as well as money.

Where the book did not do well with me was the constant stream of ideas which he proposed. It is easy to generate ideas but it is much harder to show how to execute on them. David Silver talked about everything from online legal arbitration societies to social sites on how to reinvent the American car. This was distracting. The sections on strategy and implementation were much better than the suggestions for new businesses.

I liked his ideas on how to create an online business strategy. It very much describes how to think like a social networking business person. The book was written in 2007 and seems to have been right on target for 2010. If you can get past the constant stream of suggestions for new businesses this book is worth reading.

Daily Thoughts 7/27/2010 ( Broadband, sribd, social networking )

Europa-Briefmarke, Kinderbücher,Ausgabepreis: 55 Cent

Daily Thoughts 7/27/2010 

This is a link to the presentations from the Library Workers Skillshare. I did not get to go to it because I was working that night http://sites.google.com/site/libraryworkersskillshare/   Some of it is quite interesting.  I created a Google Profile for example.  http://www.google.com/profiles .  It is very basic.  I am still shy of putting up images of my face on the web.  Maybe it is a personal thing.




On the train to work, I finished reading Design and Launch an Online Social Networking Business In A Week.  It provides an outline of what you would need to do to start a social media business.  I would say it is a very bare bones outline and there is still a lot missing from the book.  It is a starting point for someone interested in making a social media business.  I found it to be a little bit too simple.




Publishers Weekly has an excellent article on Scribd and HTML 5 http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20100726/43942-betting-the-house-on-html5.html




I put together a display of books on New Media this morning with a banner and some flyers for our Digital Media Catalog.  Hopefully people will take the books.  The display that seems to be going most quickly is books on cooking and drinks.




I have been reading up on the National Broadband Plan.  They are going to have a number of grants that go with this plan aimed at libraries.  Their specific purpose is to introduce digital technology into libraries.  This means there may be a chance to get devices like the Ipad, Kindle, MP3 players, digital cameras, as well as training for digital technology.

Daily Thoughts 6/1/2010

A portrait of Thomas James (1572/73 – 1629), the first Librarian at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, Attributed to Gilbert Jackson (fl. 1622–1640) From Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 6/1/2010

I'm back to work today. I distributed some of the books and publishing catalogs which Igot from Book Expo as well as some recommendation lists for titles. I also checked the displays to make sure they were in order and updated the books in the current events display. I ordered some free marketing material from Playaway as well. We are discussing budgets a bit. I also printed some flyers for my two programs this month, the graphic novels club and the poetry club.

I have a couple review journals to read, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. I also have to do some weeding later today.

My boxes from Book Expo America came in. I unpacked them and distributed to different places, childrens, young adult, and adult department. I am looking at a bookmark for Steven Moore's book, The Novel an alternative history Beginnings to 1600 and an advanced reading copy of a teen book which has a few comic book sections in it, Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin.

There is a nice pamphlet by Romance Writers of America called Romance Writers of America Presents A Quick Guide to the Romance Genre for Readers' Advisory Librarian, A Collaborative Effort by John Charles, Shelley Mosley, and Kristin Ramsdell.

We keep a patron requests sheet at the reference desk for titles which we don't have. This may we had six pages of title requests. It is growing steadily. Hopefully, we will be able to add a web form to make patron requests.

Seth Godin's book Linchpin came in for me to read.

Presentation and Representation, Symbol and Name.

I am on Facebook, Linkedin, New York Librarians Meetup, ALA (American Library Association) Connect under my own name. I use Facebook to connect with authors, colleagues, and friends. Some of the authors I try and connect with are Ellen Datlow, John Ordover, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jeff Vandermeer, Gail Carriger, and Tobias Buckell. On Linkedin, I connect with colleagues and people who are associated with the book trade. I also am a member of numerous groups on Linkedin including American Library Association, Book Publishing Professionals, Books and Writers, Comic Book Business for Creators and Creations, Ebooks Ebook Readers Digital Books and Digital Content Publishing (This group is excellent, it has over 6100 members.), Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MOCCA) which is a museum in Manhattan which is mainly an exhibit space, New York Librarians Meetup, and Tools of Change for Publishing. I use New York Librarians Meetup to go to library tours and understand library advocacy in the area around New York. I am a member of ALA Connect which is the American Library Association social network. I have mainly used this to take online classes. It has been excellent bulletin board and chat forum for the class, Collection Development and Management. I plan on taking Readers Advisory 101 in June. I am sure that they will use ALA Connect for their chat session and online message board. I use my name directly in these networks.

For my blog, I use the name Book Calendar as well as my twitter account. I do not think of these the same way as professional networks. I also use Book Calendar on Bookblogs on Ning, Blogcatalog, and Fuelmyblog. Maybe, I am stretched out too far. I feel there is a dichotomy between professional spaces and online social networks. It made me a little uncomfortable when I was at the Book Bloggers Convention. I even received a comment that it seemed a bit dangerous to blog as a librarian. Some people find it a bit outrageous. I think part of it has to do with acceptance of technology. There are a number of questions that are raised. Where is it important to be a symbol? Where is it important to be a name? I am thinking this over right now.

There are spaces where the line blurs between the personal and the professional. Going to author tours, book signings, library tours, reviewing books, librarian socials, networking meetings, and even gallery openings where there are lots of people in the book profession blurs the line between the professional and the personal. This can be a little bit uncomfortable. I felt a bit disconcerted at the Book Bloggers Convention because of this. Where do you stand?

Trust Agents Using The Web To Build Influence , Improve Reputation, and Build Trust by Chris Brogan

Trust Agents Using The Web To Build Influence , Improve Reputation, and Build Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Chris Brogan is a master communicator using the web. He runs one of the top marketing blogs at http://www.chrisbrogan.com . His main focus is showing people how to build a following in social media using openness and trust. He is also the founder of Podcamp which is a conference on podcasting. Julien Smith is a web analyst.

The ideas in this book are actionable. Every chapter gives suggestion on how to improve your use of social media. I have already used two of the suggestions; make sure you follow less people than are following you on twitter and try to make all the sections about yourself on blogs consistent and professional.

His aim is to teach you how to use social media like blogs, twitter, facebook, and linked in to create a network. This is supposed to help you eliminate the need for resumes and cut back on using business cards.

In addition to the social media tools Chris Brogan and Julien Smith suggest philosophical and strategic outlooks for looking at business. These include looking at work as a game, jumping the gates to create new opportunities, life hacking, leverage, and digital nativism. These strategies are the strategies of the most successful producers of web content and marketing.

There is a message that marketing and communications are becoming more personal. Customer service is described as being public relations. Marketing is about being open and listening to people. Networking is about helping others achieve their goals by pulling them up.

The book is a tool to change your perspective and improve your ability to network on the web. It is the mindset of the native producer of digital content. The ideas are different and interesting. There is a lot that can be used directly from this book to succeed in building your own extensive network of contacts.

Daily Thoughts 12/1/2009

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-54231] Maugham, W. Somerset--(William Somerset),--1874-1965. The Razor's Edge is a great novel.

Daily Thoughts 12/1/2009

I am back from vacation today. I returned my book and checked out a bunch of items, Me 2.0 by Dan Schwabel which is about building a personal network online, Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel, Trust Agents by Chris Brogan (Chris Brogan spoke last year at Tools of Change for Publishing), Diving Into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Halo Evolution, Essential Tales of the Halo Universe ( Tobias Buckell has a story in this book.)

There are a few books which I was interested in but didn't take, Vladimir Nabokov, The Original of Laura (this is Nabokov's manuscript for his final work, it is on notecards and unfinished. Vladimir Nabokov did not want it published, but his son published it anyway after his death.) The other book which I'll probably read later is Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Sometimes, there are just too many books.

I had various things to do including updating the displays and catching up on my reading. I still have quite a bit to do. I read some of Booklist and Publishers Weekly. I also finished putting in my orders for the month of November. Tomorrow, I have to work on the display stands for the "New Arrivals" section.

On the way home, I read some of Me 2.0, Build A Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success. The book is on personal branding. The book comes across as a bit narcissistic. Still, it has quite a bit that seems useful to say about how to market yourself as a person. There is a lot for people just entering the job market. It makes the claim that people need to have more than a resume and recommendations to succeed.

Social Software In Libraries Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online by Meredith G. Farkas

Social Software In Libraries Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online by Meredith G. Farkas

This book is on using social software in libraries. It covers all the major different types of software; blogs, RSS, Wikis, online communities, social networking, social bookmarking, synchronious online referece (instant messaging and VOIP -- voice over internet protocol), mobile technology, podcasting, screencasting and vodcasting, and gaming.

Every chapter contains numerous examples of how these technologies are used in libraries. At the end of the book, there is a list of all the websites listed in the book organized by chapter. There are many of them and all of them seem to have been thoroughly vetted.

The language in this book is easily understandable and the majority of the tools being described are free or very low cost. Some of them inlude; blogspot, wordpress, meebo, flickr, facebook, and Second Life. There are many computer screen captures printed throughout the text. These usually display a specific website. I found this to be visually satisfying. In addition, there are single page librarian guest spots describing how they use a specific piece of technology in their library.

The most useful website which I found in the book was http://www.librarysuccess.org a best practices wiki. I really had not looked at many wikis before this. I intend to read through it thoroughly.

The book covers most of the basic technologies. Some of the technology seems to be a little advanced for me. I am not sure that we are ready to set up a full scale online community for our library, create a wiki, or do extensive screencasting yet.

The book was written in 2007 so it seems to be fairly up to date. It did not include Twitter in the social networking tools, and did not include music games like Guitar Hero in the gaming section.

At the back of the book, there is an extensive bibliography and index. The last chapters are on choosing the right social software for your library and keeping up with the changing world of social software. The author, Meredith G. Farkas has a companion website, http://sociallibraries.com for the book.

O'Reilly Tools of Change For Publishing (Part 2)

I just found this image interesting and did not know what to make of it.

O'Reilly Tools of Change For Publishing (Part 2)

The second part of the conference I attended was a talk by Francois Gossieaux called Building Community Around Content The Tribalization of Business. The title of the conference session reminded me of Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe. Cory Doctorow was at the session sitting not far from me which was rather interesting and in a way perplexing.

This session was about getting people involved in content. It was essentially about creating community online. We were told to break up into different groups, five groups of publishers, one group of magazine publishers, and one group of other people. I guess I am an other person belonging to a unique tribe. The group I was with was very interesting, there was a writer from Galleycat, a person from Writer's Mama, an Australian writer, a newspaper person from the Boston Globe, someone from Moody's Analytics, R.R. Bowker, and a Technology Editor from School Library Journal.

The session was about monetizing communities, but I don't think I really learned much about making money from online communities. The focus was that you should focus on the social aspects of community and the money would follow.

Francois Gossieaux delivered a variety of maxims in his French accent. It had a pleasant ring to it. The more content you have the more users you will have. The more users you will have the more content you will have. The better you match content and members together, the more users you will get. If it is easy to do more transactions you will get more people. Get people seems to be the mantra of the day.

Of course because this was a business oriented session everything had to be broken down into numbers. You should have metrics to check how many people are using your site, how many people are viewing your site, and where they are coming from. I use Sitemeter on my blog to do this.

The numbers also showed people were not spending much money on blogs. 58% of companies spent less than $50,000 per year on their blogs. I spend nothing on building this site except my time. Still this was rather surprising.

For the majority of companies, they have 34% (a single parti-timer) or 17% 1 person working on a blog. This means 51% of companies only have one person working on their blog. Not too promising if you are seeking a job as a blogger. I am not.

There were wonderful promises about what would happen if you started a blog for your business. I did not find it that fascinating. I did find the idea that 50% of people want to be able to use their cell phone to find information interesting. I am not that fond of cell phones, however the Iphone looks intriguing because of Brightkite and the Stanza reader software. The prospect of tiny text is intriguing.

More than anything they reminded us that content is what matters, not technology. "Content Is King!" A beautiful site does not matter that much either. Having gripping content and interesting people is what people want when they visit a social networking site.

We spent some time discussing online communities in our group. I learned of a bunch of different social networking sites for literature, Authonomy, Arxiv, litminds, booksprouts and others. This was pretty interesting. I find literature social networking sites very interesting.

The most interesting reminder I got was from Cory Doctorow, social networks grow and die. There is a life cycle for social networks. Of course I am in denial and this blog will be immortal. If your site dies as a small independent site it is gone forever. However, if you are part of a giant site like blogspot, facebook, or blogcatalog, you can just start it over and try again.

The session was interesting and informative. I got to perplex one of my favorite writers so it must have been good. Cory Doctorow makes me think.

Daily Thoughts

Advertisement for the New York literary journal, "The Bookman", April 1896.

Daily Thoughts

I got invited to another social networking group. It looks rather small right now, but it will grow.
http://www.themacrocosm.com/profile/BookCalendar I rather like the simple design.

Miscellaneous Thougts (A Bit Scattered).

Artist in His Studio1630-32 Oil on Panel Colnaghi, London.

Daily Thoughts

Sometimes you think of things that are not quite in your domain of expertise. I noticed that the supermarket is now renting DVDs with a company called DVD Xpress. It mostly sells very trashy movies, but sometimes these are a way to find what people want to watch. I picked up a brochure to bring to work. They have been asking us to find more popular material.

There is also a listing of bestselling dvds and rentals on Video Business. http://www.videobusiness.com/ . Sometimes you just notice these things as part of surfing the web.

I watched part of The Ultimate Avengers, The Movie an animated movie based on the Marvel comic book, The Ultimates. It was quite fun. I especially liked them finding Captain America frozen in ice. It is fairly simple and straightforward with many of the classic heros, Thor, Ironman, Captain America, The Black Widow. I liked that Nick Fury, Agent of Shield is black in this story. It adds a nice touch.

There is a short piece about the history of the Avengers as an extra. Kurt Busiek is one of the people interviewed. In addition, there is a second film, The Ultimate Avengers: Rise of the Panther which looks quite interesting. You watch the film and think, this is more about the interactions of the heros with each other than the villains. The villains seem to be the generic evil enemy of the month.

This morning I went to see my doctor again. I lost another three pounds. I wasn't expecting it. I still am doing the Yoga RX exercises, but I didn't do too well with my diet during Thanksgiving. The pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie got me. I have to watch myself for the holidays. No sweets.

I am honestly feeling a bit distracted. Billy The Blogging Poet just quit doing blogging. He is going to do a new green enterprise, a recycling franchise. It looks kind of interesting. I wonder if he is going to focus at all on recycling books and cardboard. He was part of the Metaxu Literary Cafe. I think I lost a decent part of my readership when Metaxu Cafe closed. http://recyclebills.squarespace.com/recycleblog/

I found something interesting while wandering the internet. It is called mibook. At first it looks like an ebook reader, but when I got to the site, I found something very different than a standard ebook reader. http://www.mibook.com/ This is a specialty focus ebook type device. The sample focuses on cooking, gardening, and home renovation. In effect it is a how to book device focusing on a specific niche.

I feel like today is a day where I am picking up bits and pieces from all over the internet. Sometimes I do that when I am blogging.

I did not read a book at the laundromat today. I did not read anything. I watched a film and watched some television at the laundromat. Maybe, I needed a break from reading books.

All commercial content except for the books and dvds which I post from Amazon and the Powells.com search box has been removed. I also removed some links from my link exchange. I did this to make this blog more focused as well as indicate it is not a particularly commercial blog. Project Wonderful is no more, so are a few other things. Some of the services I used were not providing adequate results for the amount of time I put into them.

I did not even realize that I didn't have some widgets which I used regularly. I just put in my Fuel My Blog Widget. I generally prefer widgets that are somewhat interactive. Twitter is interactive (it is a microblogging platform), Fuelmyblog is interactive (it has a forum and thumbnail directory), Blogcatalog is a community (it has a forum, directory, thumbshot guide, and many other features. These three are what I am focusing on. More than three is too much.

I am not that fond of Technorati, Stumbleupon, and Entrecard. These are focused on building traffic, not interacting with people. It is like being in a horse race with other people to get the most people to visit. They often take a lot of time, with not much depth.

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

This book is about measuring people. It visits the companies and individuals that are creating the mathematics to measure and track people. IBM is seeking to track all of its 50,000 workers using complex social networking software. The company, Umbria, has created software to track blogs. Casinos are trying to find cheats in the least intrusive way possible.

The Numerati tells the story of how you are a statistic which can be broken down into a category then tracked using mathematical algorithms. These algorithms see if you are a productive white collar worker, what you buy, how you vote, and what you write in your blog.

In addition, these numbers can become intrusive and be used to determine if you are terrorist or criminal, what your medical problems are, and who you might fall in love with. As they say, the only way to really insure your privacy is to not put it online or over a cell phone.

You have value as a mathematical commodity to many people. You get a supermarket discount card so the retailer can track what you buy filling up your cart with your weekly groceries. You receive a constant stream of junk mail based on what you buy online or over the phone. I regularly receive mailers from Haband because I buy from them online.

People exist in what is called the, "attention economy". Your attention has value. You might even pay money to a search engine optimization company to make your blog more visible on the web so more people will pay attention to it. I constantly ping my blog to make sure places like Technorati and Google know it has been updated.

What you do at work and on the web are monitored. There are now thousands of security cameras everywhere; in supermarkets, at the job, and on street. The government and private industry is both protecting and surveilling you. It has become an age of ubiquitous tracking.

This surveillance can be beneficial as well as harmful. In healthcare, it can monitor alzheimers patients, and check for future health problems. As things improve, you might live in a house with built in circuitry that checks your physical condition constantly.

I found this book insightful. It reminded me that I need to keep some control over where I spend my money and who I give my information to. I don't take surveys over the phone. Often, I will make purchases with cash. One of the reasons I often use the library is the records of what I read and watch are purged regularly. Library records can be supinaed. Making choices of how you are recorded is paramount in an attention economy.

I enjoyed reading this book. There is very little complex math in it. It also maintains a very neutral tone and does not sensationalize the subject. This makes the writing very accessible.

Twitter A Form of Microblogging.

Twitter A Form of Microblogging.

I have been using Twitter for several months. I find it easy to use and quite enjoyable to do. It is a form of microblogging where you post very short 140 word long posts to groups of users. The fun is in the types of posts which you can find and read. The posts are on an incredibly variety of subjects. They also can include links to various websites.

Because the posts are very short it does not take long to do them. You can do one or two posts a day very easily with only a few minutes spent on each post. Because the posts are short, you can even post serially during a day. For example, when Fantagraphics books was at New York Comic Con, they posted a 140 word twitter post every hour. It was entertaining reading their brief updates.

Also, twitter can be used with text messaging devices and on laptops. This means you can receive twitter posts from the most unlikely places. People are often twittering at protests recording short messages about what is happening blow by blow. The Republican party has even picked it up as a tool to protest Nancy Pelosi.
http://www.236.com/news/2008/08/13/faq_house_republicans_twitter_8279.php

I find it kind of amusing. It is a very creative tool if used appropriately. I am currently using it to promote my blog. I am part of a group which discusses twitter on blogcatalog, a social networking site. People are constantly trying to think up new ways to use it.
http://www.blogcatalog.com/group/twitter

Some of the main ways which I use it are:

1) Write short form poetry-- twitterkus. (haiku)
2) Quotes by famous people.
3) Announce which book I am currently reading.
4) Place links to my blog posts.
5) Place links to what I think are entertaining websites.
6) Place links to free ebooks.
7) Make simple statements about what I am currently doing.
8) Announce where I am going. I made a post about New York Anime Festival.

My twitter address is http://twitter.com/bookcalendar

There are a lot of very interesting people using twitter. I initially searched for people who were interested in publishing, books, and comic books and followed them. Then they began to follow my statements slowly. I really don't know the people. I am doing this to generate interest in my blog more than anything else.

There are a lot of different groups on Twitter. I am especially interested in publishing oriented people who use twitter. Some of the publishers following me on twitter are UMinnPress, GemstonePublishing, Little Brown, Orbit Books, Bantam Spectra, Echelon Press, Living Waters, Ambrosia Publishing, Septagon Studios, Island Press, oupblog (oxford university press blog), Cisco Press, Impetus Press, Publishing Talk, biffhumble/ Red Flag Publishing, Permuted Press, BeTheMedia, and Peachpit.

I am always looking for more people to join me in my endeavors...

Entrecard. Good Afternoon

Entrecard

As you know, I am not satisfied with Entrecard. I want my account deleted. With this kind of policy, I am not sure that I will get my account deleted unless I am very pushy.

You cannot delete your own account, but you can request deletion. To do this, first ensure you are signed into the account you wish to delete. Now go to the Feedback form on the Dashboard and write a message saying that you would like to delete your account. We will reply to you and confirm that you really want to delete your account.

Deleted accounts will lose all of their credits, all ads will be cancelled, and your site will no longer be in our system. Please do not request account deletion unless you are absolutely certain that it's what you want to do.

Ah, now I did it. I cancelled all the advertisements on my Entrecard dashboard, then sent my remaining 405 credits to the Thin Red Line. Now my account should be zeroed out.

Good Afternoon

Once again, I spent most of my day looking up social science books for purchase. This includes investing and military books. I found a book which looked quite interesting. As you know if you read my blog regularly, I am very interested in green investing. I placed Green Investing on hold by Jack Ulrich. Thomas Friedman has a new book that looks quite interesting. I think it will be a bestseller Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Why We Need A Green Revolution and How it Will Renew America. I believe strongly in green investing.

I also spent some time weeding the social sciences section. The two activities tend to go together. Hopefully, when I am done the sections I am assigned will have a much better, easier to use collection.

This morning, I spent more time reading on the train. According to the book Groundswell, it gives an estimate of $283,000 is spent by a large company for a blog, and there is a $393,000 annual return for the money spent. This is according to the Fastlane blog. I really don't know if I believe this. There are a lot of very interesting statistics in this book.

Morning Thoughts

Interior view of the Jones & Co bookselling premises in Finsbury Square, London.

Morning Thoughts

I have started reading Groundswell Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. So far, it is quite interesting. The book is very concrete. It gives many real life examples of what can happen on the internet.

This morning I was looking at bookstores listed on Wikipedia. There is an interesting short description of the history of the Strand founded by Fred Bass in 1922 on Wikipedia.

Anyways, I am also thinking of my endless internal debate on whether or not to take the Bookselling Institute at the next Book Expo America in 2009 on how to open a retail bookstore. I know that I have no intention of opening a traditional retail bookstore. It is not a profession that rewards one well financially. Being a small bookstore or comic shop owner pays even less than being a librarian. It would probably be an enjoyable lifestyle if you did not get eaten by either the chain bookstores or the very large independent booksellers.

In some ways, I am frighteningly bad at business. I have an entrepreneurial streak. I rather liked working part time at a small bookstore and trading in comic books I found at flea markets and garage sales. I really enjoy this kind of thing. But, alas it is not a paying career. I also like investing in the stock market. A lot of the small bookstores have died in New York because of competition from the internet and the chain bookstores. Actually, this is not quite true, Strand Books ate many of the local chains and small bookstores.

I have looked and pondered on the idea of opening an online bookstore. You actually get more money from a physical bookstore of the same size as an online bookstore. Online bookstores work with economies of scale. You can sell a lot more books online on a website than you can in a physical store, unless your store is gigantic like Powell's or The Strand.

I have thought about how you would combine social networking with books. There could be some very interesting combinations. There are already some like Shelfari and Librarything. I really don't have the connections for this kind of thing right now. I would have to come up with a very interesting and unique combination of services built around collaborative tools.

Right now, I am just amusing myself with these kind of ideas. I had mentioned that I would be interested in working with an attempt at a total media site like Contentville which didn't do too well. Maybe, someone will figure out how to do it right.

Anyways, I am meandering along. If I was truly over the top, I could change this into a social networking site for a small fee. Something like Ning would allow me to do this.
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ning . I am sure there are already a variety of social networking sites on books. I could point and click my way to a social networking site in a few days if I really wanted. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/24/9-ways-to-build-your-own-social-network/

Right now, I am just meandering along.

I am still having problems with Entrecard. I still cannot log into Entrecard from my home computer. I have talked to them for three weeks and gotten a completely unsatisfactory response. The technician who helped me kept on giving me suggestions I had already done. Then when I told him I already did it, he tried to tell me that I should try what I had already done in a different way. It definitely makes me want to try a different service.

I can log in elsewhere with no problem. I think what is happening is that when I log in, I get the message you need to go to the login page. So I have to be logged in to log in.

I removed my widget. It was taking up too much time anyways.

Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

This book is about the new world of shared digital information production. It has a lot of spin and hype in the writing, but at the same time it reveals many new ideas. The book is quite entertaining to read and well written. It has a nice exuberant feeling to the writing which is clearly tech evangelist oriented.

With wikis, blogs, and other mass forms of internet communications we have become the producers of a large slice of our own media. Large chunks of the publishing world have been freed up from direct corporate control and formed it communities of production. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can start creating their own content. This has extended beyond computers to include peripheral devices tethered to computers like camcorders, iphones, and similar things. The book does not talk a lot about this a lot, however.

Suddenly content can be shared in various spaces like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. I belong to all four of these spaces. More importantly, the content is syndicated and connected together with advertising like Technorati, Entrecard, and other services. Everyone participating in a sense becomes a producer of content.

This has not just extended into the public spaces like blogs and wikis, but has also moved into corporations and universities. This is not as visible to most social networking users. The book covers the use of collaborative technologies in corporations and universities. Things like open source software, patent and idea sharing networks like yet2.com and Innocentive, and modular open source style manufacturing are discussed. It even discusses MITs fab lab which is a modular home manufacturing center.

The book points out we have in a very real sense become the designers of our own products and the producers of our own media. People don't wait to have new features put into their Lego sets they send in custom designs to the factories, or hack new features into their Xboxes. When a news story comes on television it is often the result of someone catching it on camcorder or writing about it on a blog. Sometimes this is better than what the television shows produce.

Welcome to the new world of Wikinomics or massive collaboration. Those who produce the best content win. According to the book, it takes seven skilled people to build a world class content site. This can be done anywhere in the world where people have the skills and the internet connection. The internet runs in an "Always On" mode. (I am not an always on kind of person.) Step in and get ready to face obsolescence in a flash. This world is merciless, full of hype, and offers no guarantees.

Wikinomics is deep and complex. However, it fails to point out that some of the ideas in this book are flawed. For example, in touting the Boeing 787 Dreamliners, they don't acknowledge that for a while there were production problems for the plane. They had not gotten their open source form of sourcing parts together that well.

Also, I found the section on Geek Squad to be an extreme example of hype. I would not buy a computer from Best Buy and saying that Geek Squad are the best possible technicians seems overblown. Having a technician drive up in a black and white volkswagon beetle is not that impressive. Having them fix my computer is.

I also can understand the desire for IBM and Red Hat Linux to push open source for people. For the non-technically minded linux is incredibly complex and not that well documented. IBM clearly makes it fortune from providing consulting services and customizing linux services which can cost a fortune. The initial up front costs can be cheaper, but the customization and technical support requires people who have excellent computer skills.

Despite this if you want to know a bit of history on Wikipedia, or other collaborative projects this book will give the basics as well as many interesting facts. For example, Wikipedia has exactly five full time employees. The site is almost entirely run by volunteers.

The book is great if you want to learn about how business is using collaborative tools. It even includes the hype to go with it. There is a profusion of ideas; ideagoras, peering, wikis, prosuming, Wikipedia, open source, and so much more. In addition to this profusion of ideas, it does include how Wikis and collaborative tools may have an effect on your workplace. A lot of the material is focused on things which are currently happening, not theory.

Thoughts for Today

I have been reading more of The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. This book would be quite a hard book to review. The reason is that he is taking real events and history and changing it into fiction with a magical realist style. Not only is he reimagining historical events and people and recounting them, he is also adding in elements of the strange like magic tricks, philosophy, mysticism, humor, and language tricks.

The book contains an extensive four page bibliography of historical citations. Many of these cover witchcraft, the Osman's, Renaissance Florence, Machiavelli, Botticelli, the relations between the Medici, and the Mughals and many other arcane subjects.

In addition to works in print, he cites several websites. Some of these are on Akbar, the great Mughal king. For example there is a site on Persian literature in translation, http://persian.packhum.org/persian and the Gardens of the Mughal Empire http://www.mughalgardens.org/html/music01.html

This provides for a truly incredible reading experience, unlike anything else which I have ever read. I have not seen such an extensive bibliography in most fiction works.

I have learned a few things about social networking sites. One of these is that social networking requires a tremendous amount of bandwidth which is often not supported by the companies just starting out. I have seen outages and overloads at all the social networking sites I have used. All of them. As these social networks expand, they need to constantly increase the amount of bandwidth and memory which they are using.

Technorati has had trouble supporting favorites, Twitter has run into too many people, Blogcatalog has run into excessive amounts of people on their servers. The latest trouble has been with Entrecard, one of their servers blew and there was a fire. http://forums.theplanet.com/index.php?showtopic=90185 . I do not blame anyone for this. Social networking is much more data intensive than most people imagine.

If you are going to join and use social networking, join three networks and expect two to be working at any given time. Reliability seems to be highly random. A lot of these services are new and will be experimenting with their computing needs.

On another note, I played around with Shelfari a little bit more today. I added a few children's books The Butter Battle Book, Where the Wild Things Are, and Peter Rabbit to my shelf. I also posted a few comments in the groups.

I finally removed Technorati from my blog. I added Twitter instead. I don't know if it is just a flight of fancy. I was not happy with Technorati's function.

Thoughts For The Day

Reading room at the Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA).

I can imagine sitting here drinking a cup of tea, maybe with a candle on the table and reading a book. I've never been here but the picture is mildly inspirational. I am in a whimsical mood and am not quite sure what to say today.

I am sitting in my local library right now. I have a copy of One Foot In The Grave by Jeaniene Frost in front of me, which I had seen from the Avon Romance blog. It has an imprint on the side which reads Avon Paranormal Romance. I am going to take this home to read.

I also have a business inspiration book called The One Minute Entrepreneur by Ken Blanchard, Don Hutson, and Ethan Willis. It is in the same grain as the bestselling book, The One Minute Manager. I feel like I might have a Who Moved My Cheese moment and be inspired in a business sense. There is a whole class of business books that are inspirational and create a positive attitude but have very little practical business application. The classic book in positive thinking is The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. It has spawned an endless series of copies.

I'll probably look around some more today in the library after I run out of time to sit at the computer. I haven't looked closely at the graphic novels yet.

While I was browsing through the new books, I of course saw a movie book, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Rollins. It looks kind of ridiculous. This is one of those instances where I will wait for the movie to come out on dvd, rather than reading the book spinoff.

Today has been a rather slow day. Earlier, I went downtown and took the bus. Parking is hard to find there. On the way in, I read more of The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel by Salman Rushdie. I have not read anything quite like his style. It is quite unique and quite irreverent. The book is full of tricks, insults, and philosophical musings.

I picked up a few shirts and got some Chinese food to bring home, steamed chicken with rice. It comes with some cabbage and a kind of light soy sauce.

I also walked to the library. Now, I am here sitting in front of the computer writing something which you can read. I posted a message on twitter about sitting in the library. There is something novel about doing social networking in a public place. I don't have a laptop with wireless.

I wonder what it would be like to wander around with wifi and do social networking applications while sitting in small cafe drinking coffee. I know there must be a few people doing that right now who are reading this blog. Make a comment if you want.

I actually like writing these random thoughts. It is kind of relaxing. My time will be up soon. I was sitting next to some teenagers for a moment who were playing with myspace. One person had 11 pages of myspace contacts, over 200 contacts. It was kind of astounding.

Thoughts for The Day.

Stan Lee's Soapbox. This is from playcole. The voice is Stan Lee's. It is kind of interesting to listen to.


I spent a little bit of time looking through the Comic Values Annual 2007. I like to look through the price guides before I visit a comic book stores. The prices are often not what I am looking for. The titles are what I am looking for. I make a list of titles I have not read or seen so I can look at them when I visit the shop.

For example, when I next visit a comic book shop, I will probably take a look at Aliens, Earth War, Usagi Yojimbo (one of my favorite comics), Cosmic Heros, Prince Valiant Monthly, and Spirit The Origin Years.

There are so many different comics which the Comics Value Annual reminded me about. Some of my favorite comic artists are Richard Corben, who created Den from Heavy Metal, Vaughn Bode creator of Junkwaffel, Alan Moore creator of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Stan Sakai creator of Usagi Yojimbo, The Brothers Hernandez creators of Love and Rockets, and Larry Gonick creator of the Cartoon History of the Universe. All of them had comics listed in the Comics Values Annual.

Also, I found some of the newer science fiction titles that are still affordable, Alien Worlds from 1982, Alien Encoutners printed between 1985-1987.

It was fun looking at the Comics Value Annual to see if there was anything which I might be interested in looking at. They even had a few humorous titles which I like Milk and Cheese, and Reid Fleming World's Toughest Milkman.

It was a nice day out so I didn't spend my whole day inside. I took a walk earlier for several blocks to stretch out my legs and also went to the produce market to buy some watermelon.

I went for another walk. It was a very nice day out. There was a parade through the neighborhood by the Catholic Church, today is Corpus Christi a day celebrated by the Italians in the neighborhood. It was a bit surprising to see a police car slowly wending through the neighborhood in front of the procession to clear the streets. I also saw one of the tiny little smart cars zipping through the neighborhood with a bald guy driving behind the wheel.

Tomorrow we will have the big parade on the main thoroughfare. The mayor was here on the last Memorial Day parade. It is kind of interesting watching the marching bands.

I spent a little bit of time fooling around with social networking. I am playing around with Twitter today. I am currently following six people on my twitter account. This is my account: http://www.twitter.com/bookcalendar . Apparently there is a search engine which searches members on twitter and adds a bunch of functionality to twitter, http://www.twhirl.org/ . I don't like having to download programs to my desktop so I am taking a pass. Sometimes, people go overboard with these things. A few minutes ago, I looked at a website called The Wall Tweet Journal, a blog about twitter. Apparently someone is turning on and off their lights using twitter... http://www.walltweetjournal.com/

Social Networking Tinkering

I spent a little bit of time tinkering with social networking materials. I went to the http://www.addthis.com site and added a button to share my posts and share my blog with the various social networking sites.

I also joined Twitter. I am not quite sure why I did this, but it seemed interesting, but fairly ineffective. I also tinkered with the different functions on blogcatalog so Facebook was a recognized function of my blogcatalog listings. This is mostly fooling around with different functions. It is very easy to waste a lot of time doing these various things.

Now, I am a little more networked into the social sites. It should be interesting to see if it makes any difference in total blog traffic.

Thoughts For Today

This morning we went to the mall for Mother's Day. It was actually very nice. You walk around the outside and sit on the benches. I got a chance to go into the Gamestop for a few minutes. Libraries have been buying games for Nintendo lately. We have a few of them, not too many. One of the libraries not far from where I work ran a Halo tournament as part of their young adult programming. It was a complete surprise.

I took a look at some of the games. Most of the games were too high powered for my computer. I really should upgrade my machine to a new model. I am being grouchy. New computers cost money and I don't like spending money. Plus a lot of the places which offer telecommute work on the side don't want you to have Vista, they have problems managing it. There was not a whole lot which I think I would get even for my own use. I think there is some value in the Sims, Guitar Hero II, Dance Dance Revolution, and even the game Civilization IV.

I am not sure about most of the other games. I have heard that if you play video games you get good fine motor skills. It is supposed to help surgeons. However, like most librarians I am a little bit conservative and I can't really think of why or how video games would fit in a library. I am curious on hearing other peoples views on this.

After going to Gamestop, the Bodyshop, and a few other places to wander around and look at things, we stopped by Boston Market and got some chicken. It was not too bad. There is something oddly satisfying about looking at things in little packages, even if you don't buy them.

Then we went to Barnes & Noble. We never buy anything. I did look around to see if there was anything I wanted to request for my branch. When I got home, using my internet connection, I tried to place holds for Space Vulture by Gary K. Wolf, Time Spike by Eric Flint, and Reaper's Gale by Steven Erickson. My library had none of these books. However, my library system did have The New Weird edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, and The Algebraist by Iain Banks. I also took a look at a few books on blogging which my library does not have Problogger's Secrets to Blogging Your Way To A Six Figure Income by Darren Weiss, and Increase Your Web Traffic In A Weekend by Jeffrey Lee Ford, Jr.. An awful lot of books that are already in bookstores are not in libraries.

I also took a look at the graphic novels section. There was not anything which I hadn't seen at the New York Comic Con already. I think Barnes & Nobles does a better job with manga than they do with graphic novels. They had a huge manga section.

I am seeing an interesting trend in romance where there are now a lot of vampire romances being written now. I almost want to read Mark of the Vampire Queen by Joe Hill. It is in the romance section. Unfortunately, it is not in my library yet.

It was nice to get out of the house and go to the open air mall and walk around. I don't like closed in air conditioned malls. They make me feel boxed in and they are often too cold.

Afterwards we made a short trip to the supermarket to get some groceries. Now, I am sitting at the computer writing my thoughts for today.

I am relaxing a bit my feet are sore. I have been walking a bit too much lately.

I took a look at Library Journal today. They have a short article called "The Parallel Information Universe." I must belong to this, I certainly read enough science fiction and fantasy. Maybe one day, I'll wake up trapped inside a Myspace page. No, but seriously they have an article on Myspace, Facebook, and Second Life.

It is the Second Life thing which got me. I actually have never used Second Life or the Sims. I admit it, I have tried some online games, but not the Sims or Second Life. Apparently, some public libraries have set up library services in Second Life. This sounds kind of over the top. I wonder if I should sign up for an account in Second Life so I can see what it is about.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6551184.html

The next dreaded step of course is providing services for ipods and other digital media devices like cell phones and blackberries in public libraries. They actually had a section on that at the Westchester Library Association conference.

I call it information soup, because you throw a hundred different things into a pot, ebooks, blackberries, wifi, laptops, blogs, myspage, facebook, magazines, traditional books, cell phones, ipods, dvds, videos, databases, internet access, cd-roms, playaways, copy machines, scanners, projectors, and a million other devices and you boil it up with a confused staff and you hope it will turn out to be something that the visiting library patrons will like and be happy with.