Mahalo Thing…
I was looking at the Mahalo Vlog Idol contest this morning, the finalist they have, and had some interesting thoughts revolving around what factors could go into finding the best winner for this thing… Granted I only started to check out Mahalo this morning as well, as to get a feel for what this site is all about… needless to say, it’s a great concept, and useful site. It’s no wonder they rock.
- Personality - A good host will have a great real-life personality. This will remove the need to “train” an “actress” as a host. If someone has a horrible personality that will come through no matter how fake they are, unless they’re a well trained actress, in which case - you can get awesome results most of the time regardless - example: Nicole Kidman.
- Appearance - On screen and off screen appearance is important when you’re the public face of awesome. Looks aren’t everything, but this is video-based media, in LA no less… Which means… Looks are almost everything. Therefore, model-type physical standards should apply (sort of): 5′9″ give or take a few inches, in-shape, well taken care of hair, clear skin, and nice teeth.
- Communication - Does the person have the ability to listen, guide an interview, and work with whoever is on the camera with them? This is when a natural positive personality comes into play, having the ability to forget the camera is there, aside from addressing your audience, in order to hold awesome conversations will give you Barbara Walters results - minus her melodramatic bullshit and boring. As in, you’ll get natural conversation from people on camera as a result.
- History - Is the person already established in the industry somehow? If so, how? Is this appearance socially acceptable? Chances are if the person was attached to some good causes, that’s a bonus. If the person is known for showing her boobies online, that’s a huge negative mark, regardless of how much we like boobies.
There’s one that may be “seen” as important, and really isn’t. Geek-credibility/Social network presence:
- Subject matters - Anyone with the drive to learn can interview fellow geeks and nerds, all it takes is - review your subjects before hand, and maybe have a consultant handy for geek-coaching, and chances are if there’s too much knowledge about a topic - there will be too many assumptions given, making for bad content flow.
- Out of the box thinking - I’ve seen time and time again when non-geeks ask some of the most awesome questions out of lack of insight. This creates great content, and drives geek people to get more into what they’re up to, keeping their assumptions at bay.
- Broader viewer-base - If non-geeks can associate with the host, they’ll be more likely to watch. If the content is geek, geeks will watch too - the host just has to be savvy and intelligent. Hell she could be a Biologist for all we care, just make sure she’s not some bubbly idiot.
- Social Arena - Some social interaction is a bonus, but awareness and willingness to partake is more better. Someone who isn’t branded online already would more easily be associated with Mahalo if they didn’t have a previously establish reader-base online… Granted having a blog isn’t all that bad, depending on what it is. The real magic begins when the new host can become an active blogger, create a fresh online presence, and really gets into the social scene after the new gig. This allows everyone to see the person grow online, and adds a new level of interest for those of you that like “reality” television.
It’s an interesting publicity stunt they’re pulling off though. Using Twitter, their site, and the social arena to perform an open casting call to fill some big shoes (Veronica Belmont). So hats off to them, and good luck in the decision process. I guess it’s down to the wire, and there are a handful of talented people left. I’m still looking over the contestants, and don’t really have a favorite… then again, I’m not much into these “Idol” type things.
Blogosphere Tango
There seem to be more aggregating sites than social sites these days, LifeStream.fm, Tabber, FriendFeed, MyBlogLog, SocialThing… nice, aye? I have an account at every site I review on Sociosophy, and I can’t review something without at least giving it a whirl… hence all of these accounts on multiple sites that do pretty much the same thing.
I’ve found that I do prefer FriendFeed to track what I follow, and have been using AlertThingy for a few days to stay on top of stuff, and love it. But usage versus display? FriendFeed isn’t all that attractive look at, and though it promotes interaction via “Likes” and “Comments”, it’s not the source of the post, and to me… is a launching pad to get to the real data. I would much rather have comments/interaction to occur on the blogs and social sites that sourced the data, rather than in my aggregated stream.
Anyhow, I’m on Twitter, del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed (aggregator), Jaiku (micro-blog aggregator), MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Pownce, Technorati, YouTube - which received my live stream from Qik… which notifies Pownce and Twitter that I’m streaming o_O, and Upcoming… oh and I have a Tumblog, which is fed into FriendFeed, MyBlogLog, and right up there in the upper right.
The funny thing about all this is - I only update my blogs (like this one) and Twitter directly from the site. Digg and del.icio.us are only interfaced from sites I go to. StumbleUpon and Tumblr are only interfaced with from the Firefox plug-ins I have for them, so input is pretty simple, and the output is available via a number of mediums, depending on reader preference - which is allowing to reach and interact with the reader-base without being annoying - I think.
Sometimes I venture to HelloTxt when I want to be “spammy” with something, but at the end of the day - … regardless of how many networks I’m a part of, unless you’re a part of those same networks and being a spam canon yourself, I’m not really spamming… I’m just having stuff show up where I’ve been… Strangely enough, thanks to Sociosophy, I’ve been to about 95 sites so far, and have accounts on all of them. (Google “nrek” you’ll see the ones I touch the most, I think). The trick is to not have the perpetual RSS updates encircle one another. This can be tricky, considering aggregate sites, and some social applications allow cross posting, which could easily be used to trigger triggers of triggers. If that’s the case, than you’re just being a noisy douche that will end up being silenced regardless.
Point being: Aggregating sites are handy for features like the two pages I’ve recently added/updated; and keep me paying attention to all the neat shit I love about the social arena. Some applications are handy for adding things to multiple places at once, but that’s only good if you’re not cross-referencing those feeds and you’re not doing it for EVERYTHING you post. Finally - actually paying attention to stuff you’re a part of is important! Unless you’re running a blog that signs up for everything you review… in which case, you’ll end up like me - everywhere, and actively ignoring sites.
Funny thing is - this post was actually started to mention - “Hey, I just updated blog with awesome! New Tumblr and LifeStream pages added for your pleasure”… then it turned into this. Whee!!!
*Image from: http://datamining.typepad.com/gallery/blog-map-gallery.html
Houston? WTF (AlertThingy vs. Twhirl)
Ok… we, meaning me in this case, have a problem. I’m not really into jumping on the buzz and getting a scoop on a “story”, for me? That’s short-lived love for writing, yuck, but what’s going on today with the battle of the AIR apps is a little… well, crap.
I commented yesterday that via an imaginary friend on FriendFeed I was following my “with others” feed on Twitter within AlertThingy. I ended up deciding I didn’t really much like that, so I killed my imaginary friend “Others”… he died quickly and painlessly. Now I’m here with version 1.2 of AlertThingy that allows me to Tweet from it… Ok, this is handy, cause I can just use Twitter as I always have: receive notifications I track on my phone, tweet when I find something useful or random to share, and reply to others when I’m replied to - this method keeps Twitter from being constantly paid attention to, and keeps my day going smooth as butter.
Twhirl… “We’re now compatible with FriendFeed” in version 0.7.9 - I think… Awesome. Now when I want to crack out on Twitter I can close AlertThingy, crack open Twhirl, and have both in one window just going awesome! o_O Not the case? Two windows… I hate making assumptions about things before using them.
Anyway, I can see the awesome in having two windows (one for Twitter, one for FriendFeed) in Twhirl, as an option maybe… but otherwise, it’s the same as having AlertThingy open… Now I have to have them all open to examine which one I think is going to be more intuitive for me to simply “use” without thinking about it, a funny paradox in and of itself. Sucks.
Both apps have good points and bad. Twhirl wasn’t made for FriendFeed, and it sort of shows: requiring users to select search to search, the lookup feature is … well, unnecessary, really, and I can’t Tweet from this window, so I need to open the other if I want to share something, which would release the Twitter bug while I’m trying a minor distraction for myself for a few seconds via a Twitter post. (That sells me on AlertThingy)
AlertThingy on the other hand only shows me tweets from people on my FriendFeed, rightfully so. Yes, I could resurrect “Others” from the dead, but then I’m just reading tweets all day in AlertThingy… bastards! So here’s what I get to do now, I guess, keep’m both - f**k it.
Buy a home?
Tony Balsamo (@tonybalsamo) got me thinking a little this morning about something I normally ignore… the housing market. In San Diego - real estate is about as topical as the weather. It’s consistently only one of two things, perfect or not so perfect. Right now, the market is pretty much doing about as not-so-perfect as you can expect when it comes to real estate - and not just in San Diego.
Before I go into why I wouldn’t buy a house if my life depended on it, check out these little bits that I found out - paraphrased:
- When the market was on the up, mortgage offices allowed/encouraged consumers to lie about their income or employment status via the power of omission or outright bs’ing.
- These dishonest lenders pretty much set the national market up to tank, but hey - it’s not really their money they’re lending, it’s their parent bank’s money - as long as the commissions are paid… what’s really the problem?
- Artificial inflation is something that happens when people get greedy. Problem is when the inflation game begins, it’s like starting musical chairs, and every quarter that goes by, fewer and fewer chairs are left for people to sit on when the music stops.
- Interest only loans. The market was so hot, people were planning on turning and burning their investments in such a short amount of time, and they had such faith in this artificial inflation, that they went in for the short term gain… precisely what real estate isn’t. Greedy consumers + greedy lenders = a wrecked global economy.
- This is just the stuff I paid attention to… it gets uglier, but I’m in this industry sort of, and would rather not like to think of it as a dishonest game too much more than I already do.
The Wreckage
Here’s how this works. Consumer talks to Mortgage Guy, Mortgage Guy gives Consumer money from Bank A, Bank A is child to Big Bank B. Big Bank B is left holding the result of greed, and let’s face it, Big Bank B is the most greedy of all… So Big Bank B sets up a series of buckets that allow Foreign Entity A and Foreign Entity B to purchase these grubby greed loans: they’re insured, they’re backed by some rating, and they stink like utter garbage. When the loans are defaulted on after the housing market crashes and burns, you have yourself Foreign Entities holding a whole lot of defaulted nothing and they’re… for lack of a better term fucked. Let’s hear it for a global economy (applause).
Foreclosures
Want to know what the consumer facing fallout looks like? Do me a favor, if you’re in San Diego. Drive through Eastlake, drive through Otay Ranch… and have a look at it. There’s an upside to foreclosures. San Diego County Sherriffs are stocking up on staff so they can cover the amount of administered evictions they need to oversee… so if you need a job, they’re probably hiring.
Why won’t I Buy? - Factors in order of importance:
- Trust: I can’t trust the market or the lender, especially in times of desperation. The few that are still afloat, in my mind, are going to really be trying extra hard to get me to sign - but at what price? This might seem like I’m simply not educated about what happens in a lending office, or when talking to an agent, but … um… it’s (on average) over $500,000 we’re talking about here, I’m going with my gut when we’re talking that kind of scratch - sorry.
- HOA: Where I want to live, HOA fee’s can be well above $500 a month, in fact (since I’ve asked) some are $850 a month. Granted these are in high rises, and in downtown San Diego, but… $850? a month?! I’d rather pay my barely more than that rent, save my cash and invest in something else…
- Opportunity: If I were to take $500,000 and put it towards … something else - say a web-based company with a focus on market analysis based on user traffic that sells a product that promotes targeted marketing campaigns based on these analytics… I’d be more willing to bet on that working for an awesome long term gain, more than a house.
- Residual costs: As a renter, which is what I’m happy to be, I don’t pay HOA, sewer, garbage, or property taxes. I don’t have to worry about buying new appliances, remodeling to maintain value, appraising my quarters, or even commit to living to one place for 5 years.
Pretty much, the market, from a renter’s point of view, is a place that can’t be trusted, tainted with greed and/or despriration. The people in it deal in lots of money that isn’t theirs, and there are far too many chefs trying to put their fingers in the pie… The pie being my wallet, which is currently not empty… mainly because I didn’t buy in the boom, and won’t during this trough.
The trough won’t end for at least 2 to 3 more years either, by the way. By then, logging companies, schools, retail locations, and almost every corner of the global economy will have been touched adversely by the effects of omission by consumers and artificial inflation by the market.