ThoseinMedia

A corporate exec sees a “viral video” on the Web, thinks it’s great, and then commands an underling to conjure some of that viral video stuff. Sounds about right, doesn’t it? This was a scenario brought up by David Weinberger, co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” during an online “MasterClass” presented by AuthorsGlobe and ThoseinMedia.com on Feb. 4.

Weinberger’s response? What is being asked is nothing short of: “Make something that is an act of genius.” “That’s not even a reasonable request,” he says. In other words, these are phenomena that happen rather than phenomena that are created. A little understanding of this would go a long way to stop the thinking that one can snap his or her fingers and make a viral message appear.

This was one of the points that struck me during Weinberger’s online presentation and Q&A. (Weinberger is a senior researcher at Harvard, and blogs at www.johotheblog.com; find out more about the book at www.cluetrain.com.) My impression of the forum was very favorable, and I’ll look forward to the next event in this series. Rather than give away the whole talk — hey, sign up next time! — here are a couple of other points Weinberger made:

The “amazing thing” about Twitter [...]

Folks who pass along links from the Web certainly don’t all fall into the same category. Depending upon your friends, you might get a wide or narrow selection of media that people think is worth consuming. You might even delete pretty much every mail from certain relatives who you can’t politely ask to stop. But in [...]

This is a good idea for your website – and for the climate!

The use of the internet today is estimated to cause more carbon emissions than airfreight! This is due to the high energy consumption from servers behind websites and computers, monitors etc. at visitors.

When electricity is consumed, carbon (CO2) is emitted. This is because [...]

In the previous article Vol.19 – What is Ideal Web 2.0 Social Journalism / Journalist? ideal journalism and journalist was discussed.  The topic of this article is how news media as the organization (and employer of journalists) need to change to survive in web 2.0 online world.

1. What does news media need to know to succeed [...]

Osaka – Sunday, February 7, 2010

Nikkei, specialized in economy/business and politics, reported on February 5 that Toyota decided to perform recall its hybrid vehicle of Prius in the U.S. and Japan totaling 270,000 cars due to brake problem.  Toyota will soon officially report to MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) of Japan and [...]

Here’s how fast technology changes: A week ago I was typing up a draft on my BlackBerry before e-mailing it to myself and posting it. Now I’m typing this post directly into the just-released Wordpress 1.0 for BlackBerry (download it over the air). It’s like they felt my pain. WordPress is such a pervasive platform [...]