A few weekends ago, I attended the fourth annual SoCon unconference centered around social media at Kennesaw State University. Last year’s SoCon was the first Atlanta tech event that I went to; it was great to see some familiar faces that I met at SoCon09, as well as others who I’ve been in touch with since then.

Just as last year, the event kicked off Friday night with a networking dinner at the Cumberland Maggiano’s. Different tables were set up around the room for various topics, such as video, B2B, Twitter, et al. I sat at the entrepreneurship table hosted by Appcelerator CEO Jeff Haynie, who moved from Atlanta to the Valley a few years ago. During these discussions, I had a great chance to meet Travis Allen, a fellow young entrepreneur, as well as reconnect with Sanjay Parekh, Richard LeBer, and Jennifer Bonnett.

Flickr: leighauerbach

The event continued the next morning at KSU’s Social Sciences building, where a continental breakfast was a great opportunity to continue the networking from the previous night. After about an hour, Leonard Witt began the official conference by introducing the first keynote speaker, Carol Kruse, Vice President of Interactive Marketing at Coca-Cola. Kruse created the MyCokeRewards program, and also is a part of the company’s Facebook fan page initiative. The talk started with an explanation that Coke prefers for the consumers to lead the company’s social media campaign, leading to Kruse’s mantra: “Fans first”. She revealed that the page is moderated out of necessity, but that only around .8% of content is required to be taken down. However, any posts which may be negatively directed towards Coke remain. Also fascinating was the fact that any employee who wishes to be a part of the company’s social media marketing can undergo basic training and be let loose.

Flickr: leighauerbach

Dan Siroker of the Obama campaign then took the stage as the next speaker, explaining the huge impact that web marketing had on the President’s election and fundraising strategies. John McCain was able to raise $201M total through combined social media outreach and traditional publicizing, while Obama’s team (with the input and guidance of Siroker), raised over $500M solely through the Internet. Multivariant testing played a large role in this monetary gap; Siroker showed how a button entitled “Learn More” paired with a family-oriented image achieved the highest conversion rate, competing against tens of other combinations. The importance of taking advantage of circumstances was also stressed, as the campaign was able to raise roughly $10M simply through the sending of an impromptu email.

We then breaked for lunch, heading over to KSU’s newly-built student cafeteria. I caught back up with Travis and had the chance to meet Christina Stallings, a new media/tradeshow enthusiast. Lunch conversation varied from basic introduction of everyone to psuedo-representation (fake profiles)  in the virtual world.

After lunch, I attended two breakouts, the first being by Newell Rubbermaid’s Bert DuMars about implementing a community around an online brand. He talked about the marketing associated with Sharpie, and stressed the fact that community is a great resource and should be genuine, but shouldn’t be grouped to direct content towards one individual.

The next session I attended was by Chris Turner, Kimberly Turner, and Scott Lockhart of Regator, a blog aggregator sorting through and helping publicize the world’s best posts. They talked about their experiences in bootstrapping a startup, explaining what individuals would need to have in order to successfully launch:

1. A good idea.
2. Money.
3. A technical founder.
4. Commitment.
5. A polished product.
6. The ability to generate hype.

And their slides were hilarious.

I always leave conferences like this feeling energized and motivated to continue doing what I do. The sense of community here in Atlanta really is incredible, and the ability to connect with like-minded individuals is something I’m thankful to be able to do. Can’t wait for SoCon11.

RSS is a huge part of my daily routine. One of the first things I do when I wake up is check my feeds, and I’m also perpetually connected via Gazette on my iPhone.

When I first saw a post on TechCrunch claiming that RSS is dead because of Twitter, I was surprised that people would come to this conclusion so quickly. Twitter’s an incredible tool for networking, but I don’t think that it’s ready, at least yet, to become a standard for content distribution. The collective nature of feeds outweighs the random, stream-type nature of Twitter, not to mention the fact that RSS is a protocol, while Twitter’s a central entity. People can deploy RSS wherever and whenever they please regardless of the existence and reliability of Twitter. What happens when we get a fail whale? Does everybody’s news distribution just stop?

Twitter’s great. Don’t get me wrong. And if you’d like to stop using RSS, that’s totally up to you. But I’ll keep my Google Reader account for now.

eBay is a great platform for online auctions.

Popular VoIP service Skype is currently a subsidiary of eBay , the result of a $1.3 billion deal that went down a few years ago. Now, eBay is looking to say goodbye to Skype and send them off as an individual entity. If you want the facts and details, Ars Technica has a great writeup ; I won’t reiterate the same content here.

I couldn’t be happier to hear this news. Especially with the rumors surrounding the possible acquisition of Twitter by Google, it seems that the major players are running the risk of becoming a bit too powerful. As I said in a recent tweet:

I really hope Google doesn’t acquire Twitter. I’d love to see more growth, not “Google Tweets”. Google doesn’t need to own everything.

Unfortunately, Skype won’t go straight back to the founders; they’ll do an IPO in 2010. It’d be nice if Skype’s founders could continue the vision of innovation that started the company, but if that’s not possible, at least someone else with ambition to move forward will be able to pick up where Zennström and Friis left off.

Skype will become an individual entity.

Nonetheless, this is a step in the right direction. eBay’s a great platform for online auctions, but the relevance to VoIP (and content rating, for that matter) is a stretch. The Skype-powered buyer/seller communication system never really took off, and it’s been a strained relationship at best.

But why did Skype sell to eBay to begin with? Is our main goal to work hard, to put our heart and soul into a product, then just sell out? It can’t be all about the money. You have to love what you do and have the desire to stick with it. Sure, success is relative. To some people, giving up control in exchange for a chunk of cash is acceptable. I also realize that every venture isn’t going to be the investment of the century, and that you do need to have some type of exit strategy should the need arise. But Skype’s business model is largely profitable, and has the potential to thrive as an independent company. I’d like to see more specialization, improvement, and growth, not companies acquiring others simply for the sake of equity and ownership.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

boxee is an incredible media center application.

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a fair amount of discussion surrounding the situation between media center application boxee and video streaming service Hulu. When boxee first disclosed that Hulu’s “content providers” requested to be removed from boxee, I was disappointed from a viewer’s standpoint, although I can understand both sides. The networks backing Hulu do still depend on a demand for cable, and as boxee has gained popularity, there’s been a number of movements suggesting that people ditch their cable service.

But it’s still relatively easy to view Hulu on the big screen. Just connect a computer to an HDTV, open up Hulu in a browser, and enter full screen. boxee merely simplifies that process by a few steps – and what’s to say that boxee will always be used in a home theater context? Plus, Hulu is also accessible in another media center application, Plex. If the content providers are so concerned about Hulu’s usage, why have they not targeted Plex?

Hulu's return to boxee.

A couple days ago, boxee announced that Hulu would return via RSS feeds. Soon after that announcement, Hulu proceeded to block access and display a “Content Unavailable” message. It’s shaping out to be a back-and-forth effort between the two – Hulu status notifications are now integrated in boxee, and the team has opened a new Twitter account, @ishuluonboxee.

I’m definitely pulling for boxee on this one. I admire their dedication to the user; they’re not just backing down in fear of a lawsuit.

Avner, you guys rock. Keep doing what you’re doing, and best of luck.

One of my desktop wallpapers is centered around a quote from Jeffrey Zeldman: “To Hell With Bad Browsers”. I couldn’t agree more; a good browser is the first line of defense against a negative online experience. In the past year, we’ve been faced with a number of browsers to validate – Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and a few others like Lunascape and Flock.

Notice that I didn’t include Internet Explorer in that list.

Browser Benchmarks

Upon Tuesday’s beta release of Safari 4, I was excited to see what Apple had to bring to the table. On the performance side, I couldn’t be happier with the result. It was benchmarked by CNET, and was found to be the the top performer against Minefield, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer. Like its predecessor, it also passed Acid3 testing. I could really feel the speed difference when browsing – there was virtually no wait time to load a page, even over WiFi. Doesn’t get much better than that.

The aesthetics are nice, but I don't see myself using Top Sites too often.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the UI changes, though. From your average end-user’s perspective, Top Sites and Cover Flow does accomplish its aim: a simple, graphical representation of web activity. But as a power user, I’m all about functionality. I don’t really need to see a 3-D panorama of the sites I visit most; I know what sites do it for me. Although, looking at Apple’s Safari page does make me consider reverting my opinion, because, yes – it does look cool.

But the two biggest issues with the UI lie in tabs and the address bar.

Tabs on Top isn’t an awful concept, but the implementation is somewhat lacking. The furthermost left tab doesn’t blend well with the rest of the window and looks very rough. Note that Apple does not show this left tab on their site.

Not an overly clean look.

I’d also like to see the return of the classic “address/loading bar in one”. While Apple’s angle might be that Safari doesn’t have a long enough loading time to justify a progress indicator, Cupertino can’t control every individual’s connection, and therefore the experience will differ.

The good news is that there’s some fixes for those of us who want to tweak the settings a bit. For Mac OS X, you can install a ZIP from this site and configure features directly from Safari’s application menu. On Windows, just open up com.apple.Safari.plist (located in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Apple Computer\Preferences), and change the YES or NO located next to these strings:

DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop

DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign

DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest

DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList

DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites

DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle

DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView

Despite a few quirks, I was quite pleased with Safari 4. Keep in mind that this is still a beta, and that revisions are forthcoming.  I’ll be interested to see the final release; hopefully the small things that hold it back from perfection will be resolved.

Last weekend marked the third annual SoCon, a social media unconference in Atlanta, GA. I’ve been blogging and tweeting for roughly a year, but have never been to a meetup-type event before.

Maggiano’s

SoCon09 kicked off with a networking dinner at the Cumberland Mall Maggiano’s. For the first half-hour or so, we just hung out and talked to everyone in the private room. I had an awesome time meeting some awesome people, including Jeff Garbers, Dougal Campbell, Adam Wexler, Tyra Mitchell, Erik Turner, and Eli Wendkos. Later in the evening, everyone split into tables based on different topics (Video, Podcasting, Entrepreneurship, Twitter, etc.). I sat at the Twitter table, which was led by Tessa Horehled of Drive a Faster Car. Everyone seemed really into the discussion; subjects included marketing via Twitter, favorite clients, how to get started, and the like. This was the first time that I’ve actually met fellow tweeters, and it was exhilarating to be around individuals who knew what at-replies, DMs, and third-party services were.

The next day, the conversation continued with a breakfast at Kennesaw State University. Around 8:30, we headed to the auditorium for Leonard Witt’s opening remarks, in which he was presented with a $1.5 million grant from Ruth Ann Harnisch via video conference. As AEJMC explains,

The gift, one of the largest ever offered to a citizen journalism scholar, is pledged by the Harnisch Foundation to the Kennesaw State University Foundation. It will help Witt “seek new business models so that high quality, ethically sound journalism continues to have a role in our democratic society.”

Next up was a presentation by Andrew Wilson of Atlanta.net about our niche in the social media universe. There were definitely some good slides, although some amount of control was lost. The discussion kept steering more towards ATL in general, incorporating less and less about social media as the mic was passed between contributors.

The unconference continued with Jeff Haynie, CEO of Appcelerator, Inc., explaining his experiences from Silicon Valley. The main points of the talk included:

1. Location matters.
2. Hire the best, fire the rest.
3. Measure and test.
4. Cash is king.
5. Take care of your community.
6. Think Global, Act Local.
7. Have a backup plan.
8. Build your network.
9. Your idea sucks. Make it happen.

My personal favorite out of all these was #9, “Your idea sucks.” It stated that no matter how many cool ideas you have, they’re only ideas, unless you can execute them and show people how cool they actually are. Very true.

Chris Carfi

Chris Carfi of Cerado, Inc. stepped up after Jeff, and began the keynote presentation about flashmarkets. He described these as markets moving away from vendors and becoming more customer-based. I especially liked the fact that his slides were very visual, and simply helped guide the conversation instead of containing it. Best quote of his talk: “A consumer is not a gullet that eats products and craps cash.”

We then breaked for a light lunch of sandwiches and chips at KSU’s student center. I sat with a few people that I had met the night before, and was also introduced to some new faces. On the way out, I saw something quite intriguing: an ink vending machine in the lobby, an idea that’s right up there with the iPod vending machines.

After lunch, I attended two breakout sessions - What it Takes to be a Winning Technology Entrepreneur, moderated by Jeff Haynie, and Online Etiquette: How to Balance Your Personal and Professional Image Online, moderated by Amber Rhea.

What it Takes to be a Winning Technology Entrepreneur emphasized the importance of location even more. Jeff compared Atlanta and Silicon Valley, saying that you could be huge in Atlanta, yet merely a speck in the Valley. Here, you could settle down with a nice house and a few boats, while there’s real motivation to continue your career in Silicon Valley. This further substantiated my rough plans to eventually end up out there.

Breakout signups

Online Etiquette: How to Balance Your Personal and Professional Image Online was a topic I was particularly interested in, as I’ve been migrating profiles and usernames over the past month in an effort to unify myself both online and offline. The discussion wavered between management of profiles and the appropriateness of what’s said in a business context.  Many people here had “dual lives” online, including Thomas Strickland, who was tweeting for both himself and UPS. He preferred to keep his personal and professional profiles completely separate – being himself on his personal Twitter, and being “UPS Support Guy #4″ on his business one. Others were seeking answers about what level of separation would work for them, if they chose to separate at all.

SoCon was a blast, no doubt. I gained lots of followers on Twitter that day, and #socon09 was the #1 hashtag for a few hours. In other words: THIS WAS BIG. So big that it warrants the overly annoying use of capital letters.

Can’t wait to do it all again next year.