Episode 27: Summize Was on the Wrong Coast
July 15, 2008
With today’s announcement of the acquisition of Summize by Twitter, Geoff and I lamented the loss of an east coast technology company. More importantly, Summize was a DC Tech startup (but strangely, no one knew about them being here until today).
With Thursday nights Twin Tech Party, celebrating the social media scene AND the veteran technology community fostered by the Northern Virginia Technology Council, we wanted to make sure the Summize Twitter guys knew about it and hope they can make it. I personally would love to congratulate them.
To be clear, let no one say that you can’t start a company in D.C., that you can’t get funded in D.C. and that you can’t have a successful exit in D.C. These guys didn’t sit around drinking beer with us in classic cliché DC social media parties. They quietly went about building their [very young] business, forging strong partnerships and made a very quick, and lucrative (maybe) exit.
Aaron also ranted about everyone shooting Guy Kawasaki over Frienderati on Alltop. The “a-list” is listening, but people bitch nonetheless. Guess it makes them feel important and powerful. However, as a testament to the fact that Guy does listen, as if he hasn’t proven it before, people like Shey are now listed. For the record, the better way to handle complaints would have been to email Guy asking to be listed. He’s good like that. ;-)
Episode 24: Social Media 101 Breakdown
June 28, 2008
The show started late because of Geoff!
Geoff and Aaron broke down the morning’s social media 101 event, at which Geoff keynoted and appeared on three panels, but Aaron was stone-walled.
Aaron remarked there were a lot of hot girls at the event., but both Geoff and Aaron quickly bailed on what could have been DC’s Sexy Geek Girls episode.
Aaron ragged on Matt from R2Design, while Geoff made cheap excuses for him. But then they talked about how Geoff got cut off on the mobile question, one of Geoff’s areas of domain expertise.
Geoff went into his white paper. Then they ragged on the widget answer. A great chat about the future of mobile and social continued.
Then they discussed how Facebook is the world’s most trafficked social network. Most of this traffic comes on the mobile phone.
Lauren Vargas called in briefly. Later she wins a present.
Then Geoff and Aaron had some good natured fun at Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuk’s behalf. Aaron discussed the great tie between Scoble and politics that occurred.
Aaron was particularly impressed with the accessibility of politicians on Twitter. We discussed if it was bettering democracy. Then we discussed astroturfing and blaming the intern.
Qui Diaz interrupted Aaron to ask if he had her cell # programmed. Aaron got defensive.
A give away ensured. Discussion of Scoble event continued. Geoff broadcasted he wasn’t going to show. And then the show ended early.
Episode 22: fbOpen, Fred Wilson and
June 4, 2008
Aaron is in Orlando at the Siemens PLM User Conference. Fortunately, he didn’t have to go to Disney World.
Aaron and Geoff kick off the show discussing Fred Wilson’s “grand view” of social media. His approach is very short sighted and shallow. Aaron makes the point that Twitter is funded by Fred and the strategic long-term view that Fred has makes perfect sense for a company like Twitter that obviously hasn’t planned ahead for their growth.
Next we move into fbOpen, the open sourcing of much of Facebook’s platform to challenge OpenSocial. It’s unclear if anyone is going to sign on to use this thing. I’m concerned that by opening this, the already deluged market of Facebook apps will become worse.
Geoff and I are going to be at the Vocus Users Conference on Thursday, June 5 talking to a bunch of PR folks. We are both really iffy about this conference and the demographic that is attending. Do PR folks really care about us? Heh, Geoff thinks not.
Brian Solis and Geoff are doing a Now is Gone book signing at the Arlington Barnes & Noble Thursday night as well. Then they will be book signing in NYC on Saturday and Steph Agresta is throwing a party. :)
Geoff is under attack for auctioning his time off for charity on eBay. Nice. Stupid PR flack.
Episode #3: Cloverfield Sucked
January 22, 2008
- Banning obnoxious people from the show
- Feb 5 1 hour show with Scoble (unconfirmed yet)
- Cloverfield
- Aaron: The movie had no plot
- Aaron: J.J. Abrams offered no solution to the “shallow social media-ite” underlying message
- Geoff: The movie was a poor bait and switch vis a vis social media, viral marketing, etc
- Aaron: Social media was taken advantage of
- Aaron: Cloverfield mad $40M the first weekend, I don’t think it will make more than $10M in the second weeekend
- BlogPotomac
- Aaron: Seems like most DC social media events (big ones) are angled at communications professionals. Would love to see average user stuff.
- Geoff: Great speakers such as Frank Gruber, Kami Huyse, Maggie Fox, Jeremy Pepper, etc
- Geoff: We’re banning Powerpoint
- Kami (Caller): What does the average person need to know about ethics and social media
- Aaron: Ethics surround “Pay Per Post” type money making schemes, plagiarism, etc
- Friday, June 13, 2008, State Theatre, Falls Church, VA
- Silly Valley: Steve Rubel
- Aaron: Points out Macworld Keynote leak gaffe as well as the Superbowl “NYG against NE is a better ratings matchup than Favre and Tom Brady” gaffe
- Geoff: He said everybody is blogging about the same things as they wrote in 2005. This from a guy who doesn’t read any PR bloggers.
- Aaron: Steve has not been the same since the Edelman/Wal Mart scandal
- Geoff: You’re only as good as your last post
- DC Networking and Community. How mature is it? How effective is it for social media?
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