Socially Speaking

There are a few things brewing at Waxxi. One of them, we can talk about here. Others will have to wait, just a while longer.

While we’ll continue our typical 30+ minute interactive podcasts with very interesting people, we’ll also begin a shorter version, called the Sweet Spot. The idea is micro-consumption: an interesting snapshot of cool, smart people which you can read, listen to, or watch in five minutes (or so).

We’ll be announcing a lineup soon, but here we’ll let you in on one of our first guests: Twitter co-founder, and genius , Biz Stone. Have a question for Biz? Simply leave a comment here, DM me on Twitter here, or message me on Facebook here (guest suggestions may also be submitted in the same manner).

Thanks!

Yesterday, the Mashable Team posted an outstanding compilation — sort of an ‘everything you wanted to know about podcasting, and more’ list. Included are such categories as:

- Podcast Creation Guides (such as iLounge’s Beginner’s Guide to Podcast Creation)
- Podcast Advertising (like Podbridge)
- Video Podcasting (a la blip.tv)
- Mobile Podcasting (see Yodio)
- Podcast to Text (try CastingWords)
- Podcast Directories (such as Yahoo! Podcasts)

Waxxi was named in the Live Podcasting category, as such:

Audio shows streamed live, mainly with notable technologists. Once recorded, the live shows are available as podcasts.

Mashable has been doing a bang-up job with other compilation posts, such as Craigslist Alternatives, the 7 Most Disruptive VoIP Services, and Mini-Blogging: 8 Pownce Rivals Compared.

This was a great discussion. You can listen to, and download, it here. Bonus: a few other places where Seth is popping up.

Another great question (not to mention, answer) from the ‘cast with Seth:

“Does Yahoo! have a chance?”

Well, wait a second. Yahoo! makes millions and millions of dollars every day. They have more register users, I think, than just about any other site in the world. And, they deliver huge amounts of information on finance and everything else. Millions and millions of people have Yahoo! mail.

If someone wanted to hand me the keys to Yahoo!, I’d be happy to show up. They’re not doomed, by any stretch of the imagination.

The real question, I think, should be: what’s Yahoo!’s next Dip, and how do they get through it? Is Yahoo! on a dead end in which they’re going to keep cranking out money but not become a superstar in something new. Or, are there Dips that the people at Yahoo! could focus on and put their huge resources behind, and push through. Or, is it a better strategy for them to do forty things, and hope that one of them pops?

And, based on what I’ve said so far today … the way you win on the Internet and everywhere else is to find an area that people are going to choose to talk about, overwhelm it, push through the Dip and then erect a barrier behind you – what I call the Valley of Death – so it’s harder for the Microsofts and the Googles to catch up with you.

Transcribed from last week’s Waxxi ‘Cast with Seth Godin:

“What was your biggest Dip?”

I’ve had lots and lots of Dips, which is really lucky for me.

There are plenty of people I went to business school with who have been on a dead end ever since. There are plenty of people who I worked with at my first job, who have been at a dead end ever since.What I have tried to do is seek out Dip after Dip.

Now, there have been a few times when I’ve quit in the Dip and regretted it. There have been a few times when I almost quit in the Dip, and managed to just squeak through. Just before I sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo in 1998, the good news is the day before we sold, we were profitable which was very unusual in those days. The bad news is that in the six weeks before we sold, there were three occasions where we almost missed payroll. We were within an hour of not having the money in the bank to pay our employees.

And it would have been really easy in those days to give up. To look around at the well-funded companies that had raised twenty or forty or eighty million dollars. We had raised four. To look at the companies in California that were getting great deals and hook-ups because of who they knew, and we were in New York and knew no one.

It would have been easy in the pressure of the moment to say, “Well, we gave it a good try. Let’s go home.” I’m really glad we stuck that Dip out.

Originally blogged over at The Long Blonde Tail.

Today was an exceptional experience: we had the chance to really riff with Seth Godin for about an hour. I have to say, this was one of my favorite Waxxi ‘casts to date, simply because people seemed to have so much fun (moderator and guest included!).

We talked about working with Hugh, The Dips of Google, StumbleUpon, Squidoo, Yoyodyne, Oprah, Microsoft, Ask.com, Yahoo!, the book publishing industry, and much more. The ‘cast will be live shortly, and we’ll have some transcripts of the conversation here as well.

If you haven’t yet done so, take an evening or a few hours on a weekend day – and read The Dip (a New York Times bestseller, just this week). Then, buy five (or more) copies, and give them away to people you know. The message, and lessons, are relevant to just about everyone.

Thanks again to Seth, and to everyone who participated!

On May 10th, Seth Godin’s The Dip hit #1 on CEO READ.

If you have an entrepreneurial bone in your body, or if you have embarked on a new project (/job/company/career/etc.) lately, we strongly recommend this quick, yet incredibly well-rounded and insightful, read.

Plenty of others seem to like it, too.

PS – don’t forget this date: June 6, 2007 – when you’ll have the chance to pick Seth’s brain.

 

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2123/18449062

This is an incredibly exciting announcement for us: legendary marketeer, writer and speaker Seth Godin will be Waxxi’s next guest. If you’ve never seen him speak, either live or on video, we strongly recommend taking a look at him in action, here at the Googleplex.

Seth’s blogging, books, and speeches have helped transform businesses and organizations by challenging people (CXOs, students, workers, leaders in government and academia, and so on) to think differently, and then do something about it — like going to the edges and being (truly) remarkable.

If you haven’t yet become addicted to reading it, his is one of the most highly regarded business blogs in the world. He’s the man behind Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus – and now, The Dip.

As the title states, The Dip is A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick). We’ll have more coverage on The Dip in future posts, but for now we’d recommend checking out the book’s blog.

On June 6, 2007 at 1:30pm ET, you’ll have the chance to talk to Seth directly (via phone) and/or ask him a question (via IM in the chat room). Here are the details:

WHAT: Waxxi ‘Cast with Seth Godin
WHEN: Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 1:30-2:30pm EDT

HOW: Register here. But hurry! As always, it’s free but spaces are limited.

Bonus read: Guy Kawasaki’s 10 Questions with Seth about The Dip.

From the Logo Design Blog:

Logos are one of the most creative elements of graphic art. These creative logos have a tendency to not only provide brands with essential recognition, but also ensure its success.

In order to recognize the creativity behind these artistic visual identities, we at LogoBlog, have listed some of the best creative logos (though it’s not a ranking) in a random way. We hope that you will appreciate these creative logos as much as we do.

This is an impressive list, one on which we’re very proud to be present. Some of the very best in ‘artistic visual identities’ are represented: Firefox, Nike, Apple, Target, FedEx, IBM, Calvin Klein, as well as 2.0ers like Rollyo, Flickr, Campfire and gabbr.com See the whole list, here.

(While you’re there, there are some good posts on the importance of logos to the branding process, and what constitutes a highly successful logo.)

We have our partners-in-design to thank: the incredibly talented Inflatable3. I’ve worked with them for years now and would trust them with anything I do, or became involved with. Plus, they’re are a bunch of really great guys.

Trivia: after selecting this particular logo mockup out of many, it still wasn’t in final form (as it never is). This is what our logo looked like, before the final version:

During the Jimmy Wales ‘cast, some of the fundamental questions involved his new project, Wikia, the future of human-powered search, and competing with Google. Some fantastic content awaits you in the podcast, which will be up on Waxxi very soon.

Can you tell us more about Wikia?

Basically, Wikia is my new project. We are building thousands of Wiki communities in parallel. The way that we like to describe it is that Wikipedia is the encyclopedia, and Wikia is the rest of the library and the magazine racks. So, it’s a totally new organization completely separate from Wikipedia, and growing really quickly. [We’re] spending a lot of energy in trying to improve the software and make it easier to use, to try to push this whole free culture revolution out to the next wave of participants.

How will human powered search work?

So, the search project is one of the projects of Wikia, and basically what we’re looking at is everything is open source software – all free software. We want to publish all the algorithms; we want to bring some transparency into the search business.

There are a lot of people who are trying to do human powered search, or trying to do new algorithmic search, but I don’t know of anybody who’s really trying to make a radical commitment to being open and transparent in the sense of free software. So, that’s basically what our goal is.

How it’s actually going to work? Well, that’s yet to be determined. I mean, we’re still in the open design stages. It’s not the kind of thing where we labor for twelve months in stealth mode, then build it all out and announce it in a flurry. It’s a project to build a search engine, so anyone can participate and we’re discussing and debating how to go about it.

How do you plan to successfully compete with Google? A question via chat, from the incredibly participative Rick Myers:

Um…I have no idea! I mean, I think the real answer is, if you believe as I do: that quality search is becoming a commodity. So, if you take a look at the results from Yahoo!, look at the search results from Google, from Ask – they’re really quite similar in many respects, and that’s been increasingly so in the last couple of years. And then you look at some of the stuff that’s been going on in the open source world, around search engines. I think we’re in striking distance of having good quality search in a free software package.

If that’s true, then it’s really a matter of just having the servers and people that manage them, and then you can really compete. If that’s true, then competition is not about having the most money and the most rocket scientists. It’s about having open transparency: search results people can trust because they can understand how things are ranked and sorted.

So that’s basically the approach we’re taking. I don’t normally think much in terms of competition, I think more in terms of finding something cool and fun to do, and doing it.

We had another great interactive experience at yesterday’s Waxxi ‘cast. Jimmy Wales, as you might expect, was a fascinating guest. We’re truly grateful that he took the time to join us, and share his thoughts and ideas on Wikipedia, Wikia, search, culture, the web, Google, and more.

It was interesting to see the level of interaction via IM vs. phone. This was the first Waxxi ‘cast where most all of the questions came in via chat or private IM vs. the phone (just two callers who ‘raised their hand’ to ask a quesion, one of whom we couldn’t hear because his headset’s mic was muted – woops!). Since most of the participants were true power-users/early adopters, IM is simply more natural a communications method than the phone.

We had a great showing of NYC’s ‘next generation of digital movers and shakers’ – otherwise known as nextNYers. One of them, David Evans of Civil Netizen, says of Waxxi:

If basic podcasting is like standing, then Waxxi’s interactive podcasts are like flying…

He also blogged about his experience yesterday:

The chat was moderated by Tracy Sheridan of Waxxi, who performed the job masterfully like a great conductor, bridging the worlds of phone callers, online chatters, studio guests, and staff into a fluid experience for both Jimmy and the guests. The event was reminscent of a good talk show where the host and guest interact with both a live studio audience as well as with phone in callers.
…

I’ve never felt so drawn in to an interactive online event like I was today. For an hour, I felt like I wasn’t even sitting at my desk, but rather as a part of a live studio audience. Suddenly, listening to TWiT on the train ride home just doesn’t sound as exciting as it used to…

Wow. We’re absolutely blushing! Thanks to David, to our guest Jimmy Wales, and each person who participated. We had a lot of fun. Till next time!