We’re taking a closer at several personal “life stream” platforms, in a effort to discover which offers the best options and features, based on my own set of criteria.

I explained the problem that spawned this little experiment in a previous post on my personal blog, but I’ll sum it up again here briefly. As an online marketer, photographer, “micro-blogger,” and multi-media hobbyist, I’m quite active on the web. I contribute to about 7 blogs regularly, two of those self-hosted, but still a visit to my existing personal blog doesn’t serve as evidence of that activity at all. And since I’ve chosen a Wordpress.com hosted site for JordanBehan.com, it doesn’t allow for Javascript widgets or auto-posts from the likes of Flickr or Twitter to reflect that activity.

And so my quest has been to find a “life feed” site of sorts, that will be an accurate representation of the rest of my web activity mixed in with my infrequent personal blog posts. Hence, we dissect the features available from Tumblr.com, Soup.io, OnSugar.com and StoryTlr. I’ve experimented with all four (and many more I assure you) and pitted these against one another in a “Battle Royale-esque” cage match. Let’s size up our challengers:

Tumblr

The Tale of the Tape: Popular among Valley elite types, I had high hopes for Tumblr when I first signed up. An app with this much web cred certainly enters this battle as a heavy favorite.

The Blob by Blow: With the ability to display feeds from a number of sources and services, custom CSS and custom domain options, Tumblr comes out swinging and delivers on everything it promises.

The Decision: Without the ability to create on-site pages or menu navigation of any kind, Tumblr simply doesn’t promise enough, and does not emerge as the victor in our little mano-y-mano. My Tumblog remains live, but unless Tumblr starts rolling our features like Wal Mart rolls back prices, it’s not long for this world.

Soup.io

The Tale of the Tape: Soup enters this battle as one of two underdogs, but the little app from Austria punches way above its weight. Soup has all the functionality of Tumblr with a different (and after a short adjustment period, decidedly better) user interface (UI) for posting items and site layout/design. Offering free custom CSS and free domain mapping, Soup is a serious contender, especially for the price.

The Blow by Blow: For starters, I should mention that moments after joining Soup (and Twittering about it), I had received personal messages from the founder, and both the Soup account and Soup founder Christopher Clay were following me on Twitter. Big bonus points there. But while Soup offers the ability to write a site description with html (effectively letting me hack together a site menu) its lack of pages and real menu options still limit its potential to be our overall winner.

The Decision: I had early excitement about Soup, and had been using it for a cute little romantic project I built for my wife at Nubnoo.com. For this purpose; themed feeds based on search criteria, Soup is an ace. Alas, while I still have my personal Soup feed live and I hold a great deal of sentiment for it, it too comes up short in this project packed with pugilistic puns.

OnSugar.com

The Tale of the Tape: As more of a personal blog platform, and less of a “life stream” service, OnSugar is a bit out of place on this list. Still, I wanted to have a look at its features and offerings. After all, a new blog platform? Well it must be better, right?

The Blob by Blow: OnSugar is easy to use, looks great and does most everything that a personal blogger would want it to do. Except unfortunately for the aforementioned auto-posting from feeds, etc. OnSugar founder Bob Sugar replied to me on Twitter when I talked about this pending post, so he too deserves some credit for the personal touch.

The Decision: Sadly, OnSugar is a mere also-ran in this particular battle, as it doesn’t meet the basic criteria of the contest in question. Still, if you’re looking for a great free blog platform as an alternative to Wordpress.com and the like, it’s worth a look.

StoryTlr.com

The Tale of the Tape: It’s built by just two dudes, one in in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. How good could it be? From their About page: “eschnou is our PHP Wizard and alardw the CSS Ninja.” The homepage presents a compelling set of solutions, so this little tool edges its way into our contest as a huge underdog.

The Blow by Blow: Storytlr displays content in two ways: As a “Lifestream” or as “Stories,” which are determined by a start and end date, and comprised of all items from your feed published during that time. As an example, I made a “story” of my trip to Korea last year. While it does not offer me pages or top of page menu navigation, it does offer a detailed “widgetized” sidebar that is satisfactory. Additionally, Storytlr lets you export any of your feeds as a .csv with one click, which is a neat little option for end users wanting to create a simple backup of their publishings.

The Decision: Since a winner must be declared in this tete-a-tete, it’s time to call it. The Champion, by decision, is none other than this surprisingly useful little tool called Storytlr. It offered more functionality, a great UI and the right set of options to almost completely solve my personal site dilemma. No surprise either, when you consider that a certian French blogging visionary seeded the idea in their heads:

From the Storytlr “About” page: A few months ago we saw this video from Loic Lemeur who was asking about a way to help him build ‘the centralized me’. We liked the idea because it sounded like reinventing the good old ‘personal page’, realizing that a blog can only capture one angle of what we did online. More over, we felt that this page had to be personal, and not yet another profile page locked in a social network, and plastered with company branding.

The Conclusion: I’ve ably documented some of the strengths and weaknesses of many of the above contenders, and as the dust settles I’m left with a decision: stick with Wordpress and continue with a mostly inactive site, or switch completely to Storytlr, and instead show a noisy feed of Twitters, pics and sundry blog posts. If I am to do the latter, I have a few feature requests for the two Euro whiz kids in question:

1. The ability to create pages, and have them displayed in the top menu navigation below the header.
2. The links to “My 2.0 Life” are great, but they should (have the option of a) link to the profiles in question, not just the feeds.
3. Let me change the names of the Headlines, Tabs, etc. (ie. “Lifestream” = Jordan’s Stuff, “My 2.0 Life” = Anything but “My 2.0 Life”)

If I start to see some of these developing, I’d be happy to pay for the service, fellas.
That concludes this little webby rope-a-dope for now. I’m glad I went through the exercise for a number of reasons, but feel as though it is anything but complete. I hope that you will offer your suggestions and ideas in the comments. I’ll update you on any new findings or game-changing feature releases from these competitors and others in the space.

There’s been an excellent discussion over at Joe Thornley’s blog about the Canadian Institute Conference on Social Media.

Joe Thornley

I felt compelled to add my two cents for the record, and figured I might as well repost my comments from “Mainstream Media Challenges Social Media” here:

I’m ready to declare a winner.

Me.

Why am I coming out ahead? Because I wasn’t at the CndInst Conference. I wasn’t even paying attention to all the chatter on Twitter at the time. But when I got on the bus this morning, one of Joe’s tweets pointed me to this discussion, and a few hours later here it is, still awaiting my comment. And what a lively and valid discussion it is.

All this MSM vs. social media nonsense is silly. Let’s everyone get over ourselves and move on. Neither are going away soon, and there is still plenty of potential for both if we stop thinking of them as enemies.

“Journalists” have their processes, ethics and oversight, but media companies still have their bias too. As a consumer of information, I’m always making my own decisions about whether to trust the source, regardless of the media in question. Along the way, I’ve come to trust and respect many a blogger and journalist alike, and lost faith in many as well. The important thing is that now I have plenty of choice, and plenty of avenues to express my opinion as well. And I do. When I do, I understand that I leave myself open to being challenged, and as a responsible “social media guy,” I invite that debate.

Joe, you were obviously well within your rights to challenge Mr. Basen’s statements, and the two of you are to be commended for airing it all out here. The fact that such discussion has occurred should serve as proof that you are indeed onto something with this whole idea of social media.

Speaking directly to journalists: We understand that your competitive advantage is your ethical code, your research and your accurately cited sources. People respect what you do, and some still even consume your information through the traditional channels. For your own good though, you’d do well to open your eyes to the way information is currently exchanged, and focus your considerable professionalism and influence to join (and dominate!) that space while you still can. Railing against it will only bring your untimely demise.

I think its time we stopped all the name calling and started talking about ways we can work together. While my heart doesn’t bleed for any of the large media companies (read: monopolies) in Canada (save perhaps for our publicly funded CBC), I wish for their sake that their business don’t continue to circle the drain. I hold out hope that we can break new ground on a media environment in Canada that encourages and embraces a two-way discussion. Maybe the “alternative media” group forming in Vancouver is a step toward this end?

Update/Signs of the times? :: I should have pointed to these items in the original text, but two things happened today that are anything but trivial in the evolution of media. The Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy, and Pulitzer prizes will now be available to online journalists too.

Please Note: This item is cross-posted from the Strutta blog (my day job). I felt that it was relevant enough to post here as well, as it documents some of the process of launching and marketing a software product, from my perspective.

Last night we received a question from a Strutta user via the contact form. He asked, "When are we going to be not beta? Why is there beta anyway?"

As soon as I read it, I knew that this was the kind of question that warranted its own blog post, so we can define "beta" from our perspective, and shed a bit of light on the process of launching a software product like Strutta.

The short answer is, we have beta so we can launch a product, let folks start using it and start getting their feedback- even though we know that the product can already be made better.

When we launched Strutta back in April, we worked some long days and nights to ensure that when we put the site live, all of the available features had been tested and were working correctly. As soon as we had pushed the site live (okay, perhaps after a few hours of much needed rest) we started fixing known issues and working on the features we couldn’t wait to add.

From the standpoint of our entire team, the most important thing we were waiting to know was how the site would be used, how many people interacted with it, and what kind of feedback we received.

If you’ve been following our blog, you know that a few months back we shifted our development strategy in a big way in response to some of that feedback. We noticed several patterns forming at once: User interaction was low while page views were high, and people kept asking us if they could use our software on /their/ site. An idea, as they say, was born.

We’ve already told the story about the changes happening to Strutta.com, so let’s skip ahead for now and address it later in the post by listing a few items that you can expect from the new version of Strutta. In the meantime, I think the process that we took to launch our product is worth taking a closer look at.

From the Alpha to the Omega

When we first got started developing the product that would become Strutta, we had dozens of meetings to discuss game play, rules, site usability and features. We employed no fewer than three third party web and game designers to consult with the build, and our own development process and meetings helped shape the product and feature-set that we called our "Alpha."

The day that we finished our Alpha release was the day we celebrated, toasted our work and shaved the beards that much of our staff had grown. But within hours of that micro-celebration, we were already inviting in an initial test group of users to see what we had created. In this case, we physically invited a number of our friends in the Vancouver tech community to our office to come and evaluate what we had built. They may be our friends, but they didn’t hold back with the questions and feedback, and we were listening. Based on their reactions, we got back to work tweaking the site and building out vital features, and before long we were ready for a public beta.

Beta Means We Care

Now, let’s be honest. "Beta" is an overused term in the web space, and it’s fair to say that it’s the software equivalent of a sign that reads "Please be patient during our renovations. Sorry for the inconvenience." Not that we mean to make excuses for a less-than-perfect product, but there is certainly a benefit to releasing a product to market and start getting feedback sooner rather than later. In our case, that was especially true, as the feedback we received led us to the point we are at now. That’s why I like to think that the little "Beta" tag you see on so many sites means "We care about your feedback. Keep it coming."

This seems like a good time to mention some of the features that are part of this new version of Strutta, and add a few notes about the changes to our launch plan this time around.

For our impending "re-launch," we’ve done things a bit
differently. Rather than publish a "mostly ready" product and adjust the
feedback after the fact, we teamed up with a number of launch partners,
asked them how they’d like their contests operated, and made sure that
the development of our core product was aligned with their wants and
needs. Feedback will still be a vital part of the process though, and
that’s why it will be ongoing, and made public for all to see.

New Strutta Features:

• The ability to host a contest at your own domain, or on a free "microsite," such as YourContest.Strutta.com or CoolContest.YourDomain.com.
• Options to run contests with UGC (user generated content), popular vote or judged.
• Prizes! Since companies will have access to completely customized sites powered by Strutta, they’ll be creating some great contests with some great prizes; for voters and media creators alike.
• A "Get Satisfaction" feedback widget that publicly tracks all of your feedback and our responses to it.

There are a number of ways to bring a software product from the idea stage to launch, and even though the word beta itself might be overused (often out of context), offering your product to select members of the public for early feedback is one idea that should never go away.

(This item is cross-posted from the Strutta blog)

In case you hadn’t already heard, this week Motrin (the pain medication) released a new commercial. Days later they had already pulled it and issued a public apology.

Before we go into too much detail, let’s start by watching the video in question, and then we’ll try to figure out what all the fuss is about:

After the release of the commercial, the online buzz started. "Mommy bloggers" the internet over were incensed with the ad, and demanded a public apology. Twitter was, as they say atwitter, with requests for boycotts and plenty of other commentary on the matter. One letter, from the President of Babywearing International Inc (a non-profit promoting the benefits of wearing your baby) reads:

We are deeply troubled by this campaign for the following reasons:

- It disparages babywearing mothers by portraying them as victims of a painful fashion trend;

- It falsely states that baby carriers "put a ton of strain" on the wearer’s back, neck, and shoulders;

- It falsely implies that mothers who wear their babies "cry more" than those who don’t;

- It portrays the research-proven benefits of babywearing as rumor or speculation subject to doubt;

- It disparagingly implies that babywearing mothers look "tired and crazy;" and

-
It was timed to run during International Babywearing Week, November
12-18, 2008, when nonprofit babywearing groups all over the world are
celebrating babywearing, and thousands of volunteers are working to
publicize the benefits of babywearing and to encourage the practice of
babywearing.

Just as we are working to create community support
for this beneficial practice so that no parent will ever again be
harassed or ridiculed for babywearing, McNeil is perpetuating an image
of babywearing parents as silly people who make irrational choices to
be in fashion. Your "mom-alogue" could hardly be more ill-timed,
off-base, or damaging to babywearing parents or to parents who have yet
to reap the benefits of babywearing.

That should help clear up why moms responded so passionately, but the real question is, "What was Motrin thinking?"

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a dad who occasionally finds himself wearing just such a carrier, or maybe it’s just the marketer in me, but I have to side with the baby wearers on this one. If Motrin had meant to target moms with their ad, then they had to have known it would be a dismal failure. The ad drips with sarcasm and flippancy, and offers very little in the way of empathy for moms at all.

A common response to the mommy blogger backlash has been to dismiss their response as hyper-sensitive, and I’m sure there are bloggers out there that fit that stereotype. But here’s a newsflash: every parent I’ve met is sensitive in one way or another about their child-rearing practices, so a room full of ad agency-types should have known they should tread lightly around such a touchy subject.

There’s been plenty of discussion about it here in the office as well. James has already published his thoughts on the Adhack blog, linking to spoof vids that have already found their way to the web. Since he has already said what i intended to, I’ll just reference him:

Perhaps Motrin will commission their next ad from their customers.
They’ve proven able to create compelling ads. They’ve proven passionate
about the products. They’ve proven they can connect and direct
attention.

So, instead of guessing what they want, why not work with them and let them say what they want?

Now that sounds like it provides some pain relief.

Well said. I would go even further and say that since Motrin’s brand has suffered such a huge blow, that they have no choice but to reconnect with that most influential demographic as quickly as possible, and only a sincere effort to listen will heal the wounds.

Marketers, remember first and foremost that your customers now have a voice too, and you should never speak about them as if they’re not listening. Instead, engage them at every opportunity and adapt to their feedback. Not just in a reactive way just when things go bad, but all the time. Their stories are more powerful than the ones written by your agency anyhow.

*Update: Over at the day job blog where this is cross-posted, Darren asked for some clarification, and the discussion went as follows:

On November 20th, 2008 Darren says:

I’m curious: do you think the mommy (and daddy, if you like) blogosphere’s reaction was appropriate and mature? That is, was the response appropriate to Motrin’s misstep? I recognize that the ad’s tone might be perceived as flippant, but does it really deserve the awesome rage it inspired? That’s what I find most odd–the righteous offense that so many people seemed to be taking. After all, let’s keep things in perspective. At worst, it’s a slightly offensive ad for headache pills.

On November 20th, 2008 Darren says:

And, sorry, one more thing: the final paragraph of that letter is a bit laughable. Is there really a national crisis of parents being “harassed or ridiculed for babywearing”?

On November 20th, 2008 Jordan Behan says:

I’m not really the type to light a torch and join the lynch mob, and it would be silly for me to defend the outspoken opinions and suggestions of everyone that has jumped aboard the Motrin hate machine. But to answer your question, I recognize that some responses were anything but mature or constructive. I have yet to experience any harassment or ridicule firsthand (good thing it’s fashionble, heh) so perhaps Babywearing International is stretching a little far to make their case in using the word crisis.

In truth, I’m more baffled as a marketer than I am offended as a parent. I’m floored that this one got past the multitude of layers of process between conception to creation of the ad. That no parent ever stepped in and suggested that maybe the ad should be addressed TO moms who may have back pain, and not just talk about them like they’re not in the room. I mean they really, truly should have seen this coming.

And maybe Motrin and their (likely former) ad agency doesn’t deserve to have such vitriol spewed at them, but I am glad they’ve been exposed to this learning experience. This ad and the subsequent fallout are like a metaphor for the changes in media and marketing. Stop making the mistake of talking at (or worse, about) your market, and start listening to them. It might not be too late for Motrin to take a page out of Dell’s book and turn their reputation around, but it’s going to take a bit more than just pulling the ad and a canned response in the form of a press release.

In case you’re wondering, yes I have always wanted to utter those words, and thanks to my fellow Age of Conversation 2 authors, I’ve been able to make that boast twice in the past two years.

“Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t they Get It?” was published just a few days ago, and is now for sale at Lulu.com. Authored by 237 bloggers and edited by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan, this year’s version is bigger and better, so get to buying one. 100% of the proceeds of the book go to Variety, a Children’s Charity.

That bears repeating: 237 volunteer authors submitted chapters to two volunteer managing editors, and along with a volunteer cover designer and the collective army of our marketing prowess, a book is born. Every cent from book sales (save for a commission paid to Lulu.com who do the printing) goes to Variety. It’s for the kids, so click the huge image below and do the right thing now. They make great holiday gifts! Heck, order last year’s too!

So who are these esteemed fellow authors, who have been so giving of their time and knowledge for such a worthy cause? They are none other than:

Adam Crowe, Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob Carlton, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Bradley Spitzer, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Clay Parker Jones, Chris Brown, Colin McKay, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Cord Silverstein, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Goldstein, Dan Schawbel, Dana VanDen Heuvel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Darryl Patterson, Dave Davison, Dave Origano, David Armano, David Bausola, David Berkowitz, David Brazeal, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Emily Reed, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, G. Kofi Annan, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Graham Hill, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, J.C. Hutchins, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeremy Middleton, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, Joe Talbott, John Herrington, John Jantsch, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Flowers, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kris Hoet, Krishna De, Kristin Gorski, Laura Fitton, Laurence Helene Borei, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Barnes-Johnston, Louise Mangan, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Marcus Brown, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Mark McSpadden, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Hawkins, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Monica Wright, Nathan Gilliatt, Nathan Snell, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul Marobella, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Beeker Northam, Rob Mortimer, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Cribbett, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tiffany Kenyon, Tim Brunelle, Tim Buesing, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Longhurst, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

Seriously, if you’re still reading this and you haven’t ordered a copy, you need to think again about the kids, and get over there and order one (or a few) now.

Another year, and another Barcamp has come and gone.

This year saw the Saturday main event move to several venues on Granville Island, with the opening reception Friday night at Workspace. The island setting was magical, especially for the troopers who set out on an afternoon photowalk following Saturday’s festivities. The photos are simply brilliant.

On Saturday morning, Joe Solomon and myself organized a session entitled “Marketers for a Cause,” in which we intended to use social media tools to make a direct impact in just 30 min. We were successful too, as the group of about 60 in attendance grouped off to support three causes; Kevan from Union Gospel Mission familiarized his group with the charity’s mission, the lovely Megan Cole rallied some of the troops for Hands Up for Africa, and Joe, myself and Stewart Marshall started a Kiva.org “lending team” for Vancouver Barcampers, and we’ve already started loaning funds to charities in the third world. I had hoped that this quick session would leave everyone with a feeling of having made a big difference in a very short time, and although time was tight, I’d say it was a success.

As one of the volunteers organizers of Barcamp, the day of the event can get pretty busy, and it’s easy to lose focus on the impact the event has. For me, one of the highlights of the weekend wasn’t a particular session at all, or even the well-attended reception (I do love a tasty free beer) but it was meeting cool people like Gregg Scott, whose enthusiasm all weekend served as a constant reminder of why we work so hard to bring it all together. People love the ad hoc nature of Barcamp, and at $20 for the weekend (includes a t-shirt!) you really can’t go wrong.

My sister came along this year, her first Barcamp experience. Here she is with a few comments about the weekend. After that, you can watch my Barcamp reception walk-through in the same player:

Once again, another successful volunteer-run event in the best tech city on the planet.

imgs: False Creek by John Bollwitt, Marketers for a Cause by me, and Myself with Gregg by Penmachine.

Just took a peek at elections.twitter.com and my mind has been sufficiently blown.

It’s a very cool real-time way to watch reactions to all things related to the current presidential election in the US. At the top of the page, they feature Obama and McCain’s most recent tweets, and I thought the two of them side-by-side was quite telling, at least in terms of their use of technology.

Barack’s invites you to watch him live via Ustream at a rally in Reno, NV. McCains? A link to his most recent tv campaign. It should be noted that McCain’s new ad (a smear job against Obama) makes no mention at all of McCain’s site. So, the Republicans are using Twitter to drive traffic to their tv ads, and not using tv ads to drive traffic to the web.

Does that seem backwards to anyone else?

All those months ago, we took some time out of our whirlwind SXSW tour to sit down and talk about our experience in the Studio SX “fishbowl” set. Big thanks to Dave Olson and the crew of Raincity Studios for organizing and hosting.

As part of an agreement between the HSBC Celebration of Light and Strutta, yours truly was the official videographer for the event. Every year, the best fireworks teams in the world compete for bragging rights in what is the world’s biggest offshore fireworks competition.

I have already shot the first two evenings of action, and I look forward to doing en even better job with the remaining two nights. We’ve created a game on Strutta where folks can cast their votes for their favourite, and I uploaded both the Team Canada and USA performances to Vimeo, so that y’all can watch them in higher quality. (See the embedded versions of both below)

Quick technical note: The original footage was shot in high definition, then reduced to 960 x 540, as they will ultimately be mastered to DVD (720 x 480).

What is the marketing lesson here?

How this deal came about is quite simple, and no money changed hands. I asked if they had a “social media sponsor” ( and after the pregnant pause on the other end of the line, I tried “videographer” instead) and when they said they didn’t, we set about coming up with a mutually beneficial agreement. Now, I can reap the benefits of the cross promotion, and land a lot more eyeballs on our site by hosting the highlight videos. All because I asked. These days, there are a number of events, happenings and causes that could benefit from your knowledge in the use of social media and the web. Positioning yourself as the official source of promotions and “media” sponsorship can be very good for your own promotion, and possibly even lead to consulting work in the field.

I have to confess, I borrowed this idea from my friend Rebecca Bollwitt, aka Miss 604, who has been the de facto “social media sponsor” and liveblogger of a number of popular Vancouver events, tech related and otherwise. To say that this strategy has been good for promoting her would be something of an understatement, to be sure. Now that she and her husband have launched their own consultancy, Sixty4Media, that promotion will be paying dividends.

But that concludes today’s lesson; now let’s watch some fireworks! If you want to vote on your faves, you may do so in the Strutta game: HSBC Celebration of Light 2008.

Team Canada - August 23 2008 from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

Team USA - August 26, 2008 from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

*image of Team Canada fireworks by the incomparable Rob Masefield. View his whole (breathtaking!) photo set here, and if you want a tutorial on shooting fireworks with a DSLR camera, Rob offers one here.

Last week I received an email from the gents at MWW group reminding me that the Nikon “Picture This” blogger outreach program was coming to a close, and it was time for me to decide what I preferred to do with the camera. Read my previous post about my involvement from a year ago.

Before I get into what I decided, I wanted to say a few words about the campaign itself- I know that I was chosen because of my interest and support of campaigns just like this one, but it is rare when outreach campaigns of this nature get everything right. In my opinion, the fine folks (especially Chris Thilk and Tom Biro, my contacts during the campaign) of MWW handled it expertly; with a policy of full disclosure and no expectations from participants. From my post a year ago:

The trial period is six months, after which the camera can be purchased (at a discount, with the funds going to charity), sent back or kept for an additional six months.

There is no obligation or even expectation to blog about it, the only rule being that if we choose to, we must disclose that we are part of the program.

Kudos to you for what has to be considered a success- I’d be interested to know how many of the 46 participating bloggers chose to keep the cameras after the fact. View a Flickr Group of photos taken by those 46 bloggers.

And now back to the camera itself. My choices:

• Send back the camera, to be donated to charity.
• Buy the camera for $500, with the cash being donated to charity.

I chose the latter option, and I have no lack of reasons why. Although I was only just getting back into digital SLR photography when I was selected for the program, it took no time for me to decide that I preferred the D80 over my existing Olympus. I took the camera on several photowalks with fellow photogs (learning tons in the process) and had it with me for several tech events over the past year. And when it came to the birth of my son this Spring, I borrowed a 50mm fixed prime lens from Vincent Janelle to get the best possible shots of my little guy during his first few moments of life. The camera came through- the shots are amazing.

There’s a lot to love about the D80. The plastic body, although a mark of more affordable SLRs, helps keep the unit light enough that taking it hiking, boating or to the peak of Whistler Mountain on my snowboard isn’t out of the question. The kit lens (an 18-135mm workhorse) that came with it is extremely versatile and produces terrific shots. Still, it leaves me longing for plenty of other lenses. With the D80, I know I have a solid body that will be with me for some time, so I can confidently start collecting new glass. Plus, the D80’s infrared abilities mean that I can use a remote control with it. My brother-in-law bought me such a device, making family (self) portraits a cinch.

While my knowledge of existing DSLR cameras is limited to my experience within these past two years, I quickly justified the purchase of the D80 (at the reduced “editorial rate”) by using one simple metric: the D80 has made me fall in love with taking pictures again. I keep the manual next to the toilet in my bathroom, and every day I spend a few minutes learning news ways to control light for better and better shots of our son, our neighborhood and our family.

Thanks again to Nikon and MWW Group for introducing me to a great camera, and for conducting a brilliant blogger outreach campaign; one that may have been called into question by a few jealous bloggers, but can’t be faulted for the professionalism and transparency with which it was conducted.

*Photo of me with D80 by Ianiv Schweber*