Any offering like BusinessCard2 requires critical mass to be effective. The more that people adopt and use this free service, the more powerful it becomes. As Lief has accelerated the number of people using the service, he and his team won’t be satisified until it becomes the primary way people encapsulate their value propositions and is a one-stop-shop for contact info, marketing of products and services, and even more portable on the web than it is today.

For competitive purposes Lief keeps intentionally quiet on disclosures of the exact reasons for this acquisition, but I suspect the customer base was one reason (that critical mass imperative is why) but undoubtedly there was other value not readily apparent that makes this a smart move for Workface.

The press release is after the jump. Congrats Lief and team!

Workface buys card.ly

MINNEAPOLIS (September 1, 2010) – Workface Inc. completed its purchase of card.ly from Massachusetts based Harkness Labs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition will help Minneapolis-based Workface bring its technology to a larger user base.

Card.ly was launched in 2009 by serial entrepreneur Dan Blake, who also created the wildly popular video chat service, HYPERLINK “http://tinychat.com” Tinychat. “Card.ly is a great service and it has tens of thousands of incredible users,” said Blake. “With the success of Tinychat we haven’t put more work into card.ly, but I thought it was important to find a good home for the service because I’m fully behind the need for an Internet business card.”

In 2007 Workface released BusinessCard2®, a rich interactive business card for the Internet. The company has been operating BusinessCard2 as an ongoing concern ever since. “Even in this challenging economy, we have been blessed to find opportunity and growth with BusinessCard2,” said Larson. “Our mission is to digitally interface business people with customers in a way that preserves the human condition and card.ly allows us to further that mission.”

At this time card.ly users will be unaffected, but Workface plans to integrate card.ly into BusinessCard2 in the months to come. “We’re very excited to bring these two services and visionary users together into a single, larger offering,” said Larson. “The result will be the leading network of interactive, web-enabled business cards on the Internet today.”

###

About Workface Inc.
Workface Inc. was founded in 2006 with the vision of humanizing the Internet and powering localized and relevant 1:1 real-time engagement. The company’s Workface® platform is customer engagement software that enables businesses to empower their sales and service force to digitally engage directly with customers on their corporate and third-party websites, search engines and mobile, in real-time. More information: http://workfaceinc.com.

About BusinessCard2
BusinessCard2 is a self-marketing tool designed to empower business people to create, promote, and broadcast their unique persona throughout the Internet. It is an open business tool that features improved identity-level search engine optimization, the ability to share business cards on select websites and social media, uploading of more than forty different file types, and engagement through messaging and live chat. More information: http://card2.com.

Contact:

Lief Larson, CEO Dan Blake
Workface Inc. Harkness Labs.
larson (at) workface.com and dan (at) harknesslabs.com

Phone: 612-310-5051
http://lieflarson.businesscard2.com

Workface Acquires Card.ly is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

A fake Skype call highly unlikely to ever occur

In a time when cybersecurity has become the new battleground among nations and calls for enhanced national defense online are accelerating, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is trumpeting the use of a technology for communications that has an unknown security model and seems at odds with the usual Republican focus on national security.

An article by Jeremy Herb in the StarTribune this morning caught my eye, “Bachmann pushes Congress to embrace Skype.” It outlines the reasons why Rep. Michele Bachmann is calling for the use of the free Skype program on Congressional networks—so she and others can talk directly with their constituents or hold “virtual town halls”—but its use is banned in the House of Representatives.

The article quotes a University of Minnesota computer science professor, Joseph Konstan, who says this about the fundamental reason a peer-to-peer program like Skype is problematic and why it would be banned: ”The reason people worry about using tools like these is they are inherently insecure. The design of Skype is something that hasn’t been carefully scrutinized, and so it may very well be there are bugs in there.”

Sure there could be bugs, but the biggest reason installing Skype on Capitol computer networks is a huge problem is because of that unknown security model of Skype. It is not possible to know much about the security of Skype since their code is proprietary and is not open to peer review or close examination of potential security holes.

As a fan of Skype and someone who has used it daily for several years, I evangelize its use constantly. That said, I wouldn’t want my government to embrace it without some very close scrunity and safeguards and I’m puzzled why Rep. Bachmann would now be banging-the-drum for Congress to adopt Skype. Here’s why doing so isn’t wise.

Lawmakers are questioning the Department of Homeland Security’s readiness for cybersecurity attacks and according to this article in NetworkWorld, “Reported attacks on U.S. agencies increased by 400% from 2006 to 2009, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and committee chairman. “Whether the military or intelligence-gathering operations of foreign nations; domestic or international terrorist groups; lone-wolf, hate-driven individuals; common criminals, or thrill-seeking hackers, those attempting to infiltrate and exploit this country’s computer networks are both numerous and determined,” he said.”

The need for enhanced cybersecurity leadership has been pointed out by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). This agency is adamant that the government doesn’t have a prioritized national cybersecurity research and development agenda. In a report released on July 7th (PDF), the concern is that government officials don’t have the ability to track all active and completed cybersecurity programs and much of a process to share key information between government and industry.

Quite simply, it is unknown whether it would be “safe” to load Skype on Capitol computer networks or not and when lawmakers are calling for coordinated and orchestrated approaches to cybersecurity and the GAO says we’re not ready as a nation, Skype red flags like these are highly troubling (from Wikipedia):

• “Skype incorporates some features which tend to hide its traffic, but it is not specifically designed to thwart traffic analysis and therefore does not provide anonymous communication. Some researchers have been able to watermark the traffic so that it is identifiable even after passing through an anonymizing network.” (PDF)

• “Skype uses a proprietary Internet telephony (VoIP) network based on peer-to-peer architecture. The protocol has not been made publicly available by Skype and official applications using the protocol are closed-source.“

• “Skype is a secure communication; encryption cannot be disabled, and is invisible to the user. Skype reportedly uses non-proprietary, widely trusted encryption techniques: RSA for key negotiation and the Advanced Encryption Standard to encrypt conversations. Skype provides an uncontrolled registration system for users with no proof of identity. Instead, a free choice of nicknames permits users to use the system without revealing their identity to other users. It is trivial to set up an account using any name; the displayed caller’s name is no guarantee of authenticity. A third party paper analyzing the security and methodology of Skype was presented at Black Hat Europe 2006. It analyzed Skype and found a number of security issues with the current security model. (see, “Silver Needle in the Skype” PDF).”

Unless this call by Rep. Bachmann is a veiled attempt to ask for the use of an insecure Skype use but is really all about drawing attention to an to-be-alleged cybersecurity leadership issue that can be leveraged in the upcoming elections, perhaps the U.S. Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, can sit down with her over a cup of coffee and educate her on the reasons why cybersecurity is in our national interest and Skype is a bad idea.

Congresswoman Calls for Skype Use? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

What pray tell is the purpose of Social Media Day? The folks at Mashable are glad you asked. It’s “A day that honors the technological and societal advancements that have allowed us to have a dialogue, to connect and to engage not only the creators of media, but perhaps more importantly, one another.”

Um…yeah. Allow me to translate; It’s a day to get your butt up from behind the monitor, your nose out of your smartphone, relax you thumbs and meet the people you tweet, poke and follow face to face.  A day to put the social in social media. Oh, and there’s booze and munchies. Of course, Mashable’s Pete Cashmore embellishes it a bit more in his welcome video. (Really…the video was meant to be played at gatherings around the world. Kinda creepy…) Perhaps he has a desire for this to be much more of a “revolution”. No matter, the intent is to get you out and about.

The local Minneapolis meet up was superbly organized by our friend and social media maestro, Mykl Roventine. Mykl is responsible for, or part of, everything social media from Social Media Breakfast, to Unsummit, to Tech Karaoke and beyond. When Mashable sent out the word to have a Minneapolis Meetup, Mykl stepped up and secured Chino Latino in Uptown, gathered up some sponsors (SMBMSP and Sterling Cross Media) and rallied the troops. Mykl tells the story in the video below.  (Forgive the sound quality..I guess the EVO 4G won’t replace my Flip cam, at least not without some sort of outboard mic.)

At 6:30pm some 50 of the 70+ who signed up began to congregate, the drink flowed and the tasty appetizers were savored. Much of the Twin Cities’ Social Media actives were in attendance and some new faces were spotted and welcomed. It was a great time. Of course, those of us who dig the social “media” are never really far from it as everyone checked-in, tweeted and posted photos throughout the evening. Yep, there was a tweet wall. However, well…there was just very little discussion of this “revolution” of which Mashable was speaking. It was just plain social.

Perhaps it’s because we, here in the Land o’ 10,000 lakes, already get the whole social part. While the concept of Social Media Day is all well and good, there are any number of meet-ups, tweet-ups, happy hours and  breakfasts of which you can attend during any given month in and around the Twin Cities. It makes me feel kind of sad for those in other cities who must look to, or be prompted by, Mashable to get together in “real life”. While no specific date for another gathering has been past down from the social media mount, you’re encouraged to once again step away from the warm glow of the screen and meet and greet your friends and followers in person at a location of your choosing. Oh…and don’t forget to check in on Foursquare.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqjwUlIFk0E

How Many Social Media Day Cards Did You Get? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Kahuna Kawentzmann w/tune, “Late Bird” from podsafe Music Alley.
Modified image based on the James Bond 007 knockoff from the 1960s, the Matt Helm movies series starring Dean Martin.

Links discussed during the show:

• Stillwater company Nibipedia led by Troy Peterson
• Internet Broadcasting, the departure of their CEO, David Lebow, partner Mashery
• Mentioned by Tom Bergerding: Polyvore
• Graeme mentioned Involver
• MOJO MN; Minnebar
• Visi Open House Friday, May 21st
• Open source alternative to Facebook, Diaspora. Just a concept, as of this writing they’ve raised $143k and have over 4k supporter/donators!
• Facebook controversy links:
  • OpenBook
  • New York Times stories compiled here
  • Excellent essay by social media researcher Danah Boyd (now w/Microsoft)
  • The case for staying with Facebook
• Fix your Facebook privacy settings or delete your account altogether
• FASCINATING infographic by a developer with the Visual Communication Lab at IBM Research Center for Social Software. The views expressed on it are his own, and do not reflect those of IBM (and read his disclaimers below the graph) BUT make sure you click on the years on the right in succession from 2005 until 2010 so you can visualize the erosion of privacy on Facebook since 2005. If your reaction is not “Holy Sh*t!” I’ll be surprised.

Minnov8 Gang 79: The Facebookers is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

It’s called “Izzy’s Flavor Up!” and it essentially allows customers to subscribe to their favorite ice cream flavors. Current flavors are updated every three minutes on its “flavor grid” web page.

With web site design and technology assistance from Bloomington MN-based The Nerdery (aka Sierra Bravo), Rogers MN-based RFID firm AbeTech, and CA-based tech vendor Phoenix Technologies, Izzy’s Ice Cream is now tagging all its 90+ flavors of ice cream in-store with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.  Each flavor’s tub is tagged with a unique code that’s automatically scanned when placed in the dipping cabinet.

What it means for an ice cream lover is nothing less than nirvana. Customers can now know, with absolute certainty anytime around the clock, which flavors are available in-store. When new flavors are removed from or added to the dipping cabinet, Izzy’s web site, Facebook and Twitter pages will automatically be updated, alerting fans to the latest changes. Customers can sign up for email alerts for their favorite flavors – so they’ll always know when their favorite Hot Brown Sugar, Soy Peanut Butter, or Peace Coffee ice cream is available. My buddy Al Maruggi told me today that Izzy’s has the best coconut ice cream in the Twin Cities, too, as he licked a sample thereof.

We also learned that SMS or text updates are on the way, if you’d rather get your alerts that way.  In-store customers can see the technology in action via a large-screen monitor that shows which flavors are now being scooped.

“Our customers are extremely passionate about their favorite flavors of Izzy’s ice cream,” said Jeff Sommers, Izzy’s owner, in a statement. “Their enthusiasm, while motivating me to continue creating delicious flavors, can also prove to be a customer service issue. Before today, our customers had no way of knowing if their favorite flavors were going to be available when they walked through the door.  This system solves that problem and makes it easier for our customers to enjoy their favorite flavors.”  The title of a video that Izzy’s crack PR firm put up on YouTube says it all: “How to Subscribe to Ice Cream.”

The nameplates for each flavor in the store have RFID chips built in, which are then read by antennae anchored in the dipping cabinet. The inventory is automatically updated simply through the act of an employee changing flavors in the dipping cabinet. That act triggers an inventory update, which in turn publishes the current flavors to multiple channels: the in-store screen, Izzy’s website, its Twitter and Facebook pages, and it’s automated emails to subscribers of individual flavors.

Izzy’s isn’t just a retail business. It has a catering business as well, and a wholesale business that has signed up several upscale grocery stores and restaurants throughout the Twin Cities that now offer its products — Kowalski’s, just to name one chain.

Regarding its latest new wrinkle, “This is undoubtedly one of the first uses of RFID as a customer service application,” said the company’s statement.  Izzy’s has a history of embracing new technology, having installed solar panels in 2005.  Owner Jeff Sommers also showed attendees at his media briefing today an innovative new cleaning system he has implemented in Izzy’s kitchen called “Zap Water,” which is an amazingly more environmentally friendly way to maintain a germ-free, allergen-free environment.

Izzy’s gets my vote as a true Minnesota innovator!  Now, excuse me, I’m jumping onto their web site to check if my favorite flavor is still available tonight….

Web Innovation Is Everywhere in Minnesota – Even In an Ice Cream Shop! is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

…and if you are in business, any kind of organization or in education, if you can’t see how this is already affecting you (and will affect you going forward) send me an email and we’ll talk!  ;-)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

via Crowdspring

The Social Media Revolution is Affecting All of MN is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Kris Layon with keynoter Doc Searls from the 2009 MinneWebCon Photo credit: Peter Fleck (@pfhyper) from his Flickr account

What most of don’t get to do before making a decision to attend an event that costs money is to understand the vision, depth and texture that lies behind a conference. Knowing this helps to determine the level of the sessions, their quality and whether it’s worth your investment of both time and money.

MinneWebCon, the full-day, three-track, conference for Web professionals, is directed by Kristofer Layon and I had a chance to talk with Kris today about the upcoming event, some background behind it, who it’s targeted towards and other sorts of deeper meaning stuff most of us don’t have a chance to discover in advance.

After hearing this podcast and visiting the MinneWebCon website, I’m confident you’ll immediately signup for this conference. Hope to see you there!

Direct Links:

+ MinneWebCon website w/keynote speakers
+ Schedule and Session Details
+ MinneWebCon social media: Twitter; Facebook

MinneWebCon: An interview with its director, Kris Layon is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Fear not, oh noble marketer. The folks at Uptown (Minneapolis) marketing firm Hello Viking have spawned Curation Station to provide you with a bucket to help you bail the endless deluge of web content into smaller pools. (Minnov8 colleague Tim Elliot gave me a peek at the private beta.)

As you might know, collecting the flood of online information isn’t the problem. News readers, RSS feeds, email newsletters, blog subscriptions, and bookmarking services all help you see every drop of data coming from your favorite online tributaries. The issue has always been separating the clean water from the black or grey water. (Those who have ever spent anytime emptying the water tanks of an RV know what I mean.)

According to it’s creators, “Social media have forever changed the way that brands connect with customers. In a non-stop trail of Tweets, blogs, Facebook pages, YouTube videos and Flickr sites, customers discuss products and services.” They say, “Curation Station was created by marketers for marketers to harness these conversations and share participants’ best insights and experiences.”

Through a very simple dashboard, any number of feeds can be added.  “Users can start by adding RSS and OPML feeds or alerts from external websites such as Google News. They also use integrated Twitter, Flickr and YouTube search tools. But inputs to Curation Station can be from any online source – web pages, news articles, blog posts, videos, photos” – via their bookmarklet tool.

Once inside the Curation Station dashboard a simple click of an item can channel it to a “playlist” or back to the online ocean from whence it came. Once you’ve vetted the content it can be distributed through a custom widget that’s designed by you in a live WYSIWYG tool. This widget can be plunked down in a website or blog. You can display one curated playlist or many, it’s up to you. This makes you the tamer of floods and sharer of all that is relevant…at least as you see it.

This isn’t the first time a Minnesota company has attacked this aggregation with curation. Garrick Van Buren continues to address it with his Cullect application, now on hiatus. The big dogs are no stranger to trying to tame this beast either. Google has, through it’s popular reader, and Yahoo has through their Pipes offering. I myself continue to bang my head against a wall trying to get Pipes to produce a virtual curated stream that really delivers what I need.

What I like so much about Curation Station is it’s ability to let me apply a trusted human opinion, my own, to all of my feeds. The simple one click curation of a bunch of feeds might take a few minutes, a few times each day, but the result really is more of a reflection of the curator. The handy custom widget output is also very appealing and a slick way to deliver your curated masterpiece.

What I don’t like is  the cost of this really slick system of flood control. After a walk-through of Curation Station I was all, “This kicks butt, sign me up!” When I found out that the cost started at $500 per month, I was all, “Maybe I need to take another crack at that Pipes feed.”

It’s apparent that the price structure for Curation Station is more tailored to the large marketing firms and businesses, certainly ones larger than mine. These firms are perhaps more financially able to dedicate resources as well as being in more of a position to monetize the result of this curation.

Perhaps in the not too distant future Curation Station can deliver a more cost effective solution for the more thrifty class of web whisperers. Also, one has to give these folks credit for rising above the business of “free” that has so crippled the ‘business’ social media.

One last thing, though I’ve opted for the water analogy here, the Curation Station folks are positioning the application by comparing it to a radio station. “Just like DJ’s curate music, Curation Station allows marketers and brands to easily organize social content into different playlists.” As a longtime ‘radio guy’ I’ll give you playlists (and the handy alliteration for the Casey Kasem like headline)…but that’s about as far as the radio analogy goes as I can see.

Curation Station…Sweeping the Nation? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

From Matt Novak's PaleoFuture blog (click on image to see Matt's post)

If you, like I, follow the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) Twitter feed (@MNHS) then you might already have stumbled across an interesting lecture which may also have led you to a delightful St. Paul blog.

Stumble indeed.

It was pure happenstance that I came across a compelling MNHS lecture called, “History of Hip: Yesterday’s Tomorrow” and features historian Brian Horrigan and blogger Matt Novak (the guy with that cool St. Paul blog called “Paleo-Future“). In it they highlighted some of their favorite trends in science fiction of the past while they shared their own thoughts about the future of this genre.

With only three lectures posted (on a WordPress blog in a new category called Minnesota History Lectures), the innovative thing is that MNHS, like many historical societies around the country, are exposing more of their content and compelling attractions digitally and online. Most of the MNHS efforts succeed — like my favorites Family Search and the great images of Minnesota digitized and available through the Collections — but I must admit feeling a profound sense of disappointment that this particular lecture was delivered in video as a 320 x 240 window in M4V format. Perfect for an iPod or iPhone, but unacceptable for how I usually watch long-form video (through my Mac mini on my HDTV).

I downloaded the 513MB file and watched it on my iPhone and now wish I’d known about the lecture in advance (it was that good) and also so I could scrub through it and see portions of it again. There is some great content in it and in particular some of the retro future videos Matt shows in his portion of the lecture in the second half are really fun.

The challenges MNHS faces delivering long lectures of this type (and doing so affordably) isn’t lost on someone like me who has analyzed the economics of video. But so many of us now are streaming video over our computers or connecting our Roku (or next month the Boxee Box) to our HDTV’s, the stepping up of the qualitative delivery of video is an imperative and, I believe, will be “table stakes” to be in the game of delivering long form video content going forward.

All that said, I so appreciate the efforts of MNHS and that more and more of the content they hold is available online. I’d heartily recommend you head over to their site and check out what’s going on there and this lecture in specific and, by the way, Matt Novak is launching a magazine in April, you can help him raise the initial dough by donating, and this retro future magazine ought to be a fun one!

Visions of Tomorrow, Yesterday is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Here’s your chance.

Patrick Tedjamulia, one of the founders of a non-profit in Utah called the International Mentoring Network Organization (IMNO.org) reached out to me about a “Mentorship Auction” they’re holding and their Get in Their Shoes Campaign to promote it (thanks to Doug Pollei for the connection). Thinking a post about it might be a bit of a stretch for Minnov8′s mission focused on internet and web innovation in our state, I reached out to Patrick by email and tossed the ball in his court to give me a call so we could kick it around.

Tedjamulia is a brand manager at General Mills and he grabbed a few minutes to launch a call to me this morning. As we talked I quickly realized that yes, this sort of thing would definitely be of interest to the Minnov8 readership!

The first auction is currently running and is a 1-on-1 mentoring opportunity with one of my favorite authors Daniel Pink, the NY Times Best Selling author of “A Whole New Mind”, and “Drive”. Daniel’s auction ends Feb. 11th so there is still time for you to bid. The winning bidder will get a thirty-minute phone conversation (mentorship) with Daniel Pink.

Today, Feb. 8th, the next auction is opening and will be a mentoring opportunity with Caterina Fake, the co-founder of Flickr and now Hunch. Coming up are auctions posted for mentoring opportunities with the following individuals:

• Fernando Aguirre, CEO and Chairman of Chiquita brands: Feb 15- 24
• Lawler Kang, author of Passion at Work: Feb 22-Mar.3
• Dave Logan, author of Tribal Leadership and The Three Laws of Performance: Mar. 1 – 10
• Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of Free!: Mar. 8-17
• Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group and co-author of Groundswell: Mar. 15-24
• Stephan Roche, CEO of Kapitall: Mar. 22 – 31
• Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, author of The Culture Code: Mar. 29 – Apr. 7
• Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor, FORTUNE and author of Talent is Overrated: Apr. 5 - 14
• Robbie Vitrano, CEO of Trumpet Group: Apr. 12 – 21
• Jeff Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak: Apr. 19 – 28
• Jeffrey Veen, web design and development guru and co-founder of Adaptive Path: Apr. 26 – May. 5
• Aaron Magness, Director of Brand Marketing, Zappos: May 3 – 12
• Rafe Furst, entrepreneur, investor and business leader: May 10 – 19
• Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures: May 17 – 26
• …and more.

Proceeds from the campaign will go directly to the International Mentoring Network Organization (www.imno.org), a 501c3 non-profit organization aimed at making professional mentoring available to everyone and truly founders of what they term the “Open Source Mentoring Movement”. Also, stop by their site to listen to some recorded calls to get a sense of what these sorts of mentorship opportunities are like.

Don’t miss the chance to be mentored by Daniel Pink, Guy Kawasaki, and many others and bid today at Get in Their Shoes.

Get in Their Shoes: 1:1 Interviews for You is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

As we’ve talked about on past Minnov8 podcasts and as I pointed out in a post on my own blog, these guides are nothing new in the broadcast world, but seem to have a few bloggers and online marketers a bit twitchy. How do you feel about them?

It was good to have the chance to talk with Ms. Engle and get a very clear explanation of the guides straight from the source. Thanks to Ernest for allowing me to join in.

Be sure and keep Ernest’s blog and podcast on your radar. He is a great local and national resource and offers plenty of great info on IP law on a regular basis.

The FTC Talks Guides is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

It’s unlikely that Apple will name the rumored tablet being announced tomorrow the “iJulio”, but it’s about the only name that hasn’t been floated up as a possibility! There is so much anticipation about what it will be — even though the McGraw-Hill CEO sticking his foot in his mouth and chewing soundly pretty much confirmed the tablet is a reality this afternoon — it will be fun to observe the announcement.

But alas, none of us will see it in real time. Unless, of course, you write for a news daily that sends you to the Apple event!

Julio Ojeda-Zapata is the Pioneer Press’ consumer-tech reporter and he will be live tweeting and posting photos which you’ll see on this page (http://minnov8.com/tablet/) throughout tomorrow’s event beginning at 12pm CST on Wednesday, January 27th.

As you probably already know, Julio writes a Tech Test Drive column about gadgets, apps and social media (among other things). He is the author of Twitter Means Business, one of the first books about Twitter.

He is also a sometime co-host of the Minnov8 Gang podcast (and will join us this Saturday to discuss this Apple event in more detail) and focuses his commentary on tech trends. See his Posterous geekstream. Contact him by e-mail or on  Twitter.

Will the Apple Tablet be called the “iJulio”? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

I actually picked up the “who and how much” news tip on this story at the Social Media Club workshop Friday morning at Best Buy, from a deep-throat source I shall not name… :-)  And I decided to post it after we recorded our latest Minnov8 Gang podcast yesterday — in which, among other things, I chatted about this news with our guest, George Reese, CTO of enStratus, which shares offices with Alvenda.  (And Alvenda also uses enStratus’ cloud computing management tools.)  You may recall that Alvenda won the 2009 MN Cup business plan competition this past September — which was no small feat with more than 1100 entries.  The firm was only founded in 2008, and had announced initial funding in December 2008 (see its news page), from private investors it did not identify.  Two of its three founders hail, respectively, from retail powerhouses Retek (acquired by Oracle) and Target.com

What really launched Alvenda’s fortunes was the news this past summer that “social commerce” was coming to Facebook by way of  1-800-Flowers setting up the first online store there — with Alvenda’s technology behind it. Coverage of that development ensued on TechCrunch and in BusinessWeek, the Financial Times (registration required), and elsewhere, giving Alvenda quite a sudden high profile, the likes of which a Minnesota startup hasn’t seen in some time.  And that buzz certainly boosted the firm’s chances in the MN Cup judging that followed soon after.

Here’s a backgrounder page on Alvenda, which includes this quote from Wade Gerten, CEO, which I think captures the essence of what this breakout Minnesota startup is all about:

“We believe the majority of future online sales will happen offsite. Customers will be able to shop with brands wherever they happen to be whether they’re on YouTube, a favorite blogger Web site, or in Facebook. With innovative merchants like 1-800-Flowers, Alvenda is moving commerce forward to these touch points and is generating remarkable sales results.”

But the aforementioned flower store on Facebook is just the beginning of putting “shops next-door to the conversation,” as BusinessWeek so aptly puts it.  The FT.com story cited above, from August 2009, said at the time that “at least 20 more such storefronts will appear on Facebook in the next two months,” quoting Alvenda’s Gerten. The story said Gerten claimed contracts at the time to develop eight such storefronts, and that, since the 1-800-Flowers application launched, Alvenda had secured 12 more.  So, you can understand why there’s a flurry of activity at the firm these days.  FT.com quoted Gerten as saying the contracts were with “very large general merchandise retailers, and very large electronics retailers.”

Oh, I wonder whom that might include…

Alvenda Bags $5 Million in VC is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

I admit it, I listen to commercial radio quite a bit…yes, even Top 40. I know this is hard for many to admit. There is this pressure that if you don’t listen to NPR all the time you’re some how less of a person. I have my public radio favorites and still love to dig for new and more independent music, but I like hearing the “hits”. It’s the way I was brought up. Whether they be current or more from my formative years, I listen to rock, alternative, country and pop stations and the “hit” music they play. Besides, with a pre-teen and teen in the house and car it’s pretty much a given that I’ll be hearing my fair share of Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift.
It’s for that reason that I noted and was impressed with how one of Minneapolis’ local shows was using interactive and social media tools. What was also impressive was how they were integrating it into their on-air presentation. They often noted that more and sometimes exclusive content could be had online…a practice all too often avoided by stations and personalities.

As I have commented here on RemainComm, commercial radio as a whole has  been slow in adopting and investing in the new forms of media that allow the growth of relationships with their listeners. OK, some just plain suck at it. KDWB’s Dave Ryan Show is an exception. Dave and his cast have done some interesting things and I had a chance to chat with him about his interactive pursuits.

For better or for worse, Dave still looks at interactive as “free marketing”. For the radio business the price tag of free is the main appeal of social media. Dave noted, “You’re crazy if you’re not taking advantage of everything you can to reach your audience.” But to Dave’s credit he goes on to say, “Yeah, you want more listeners but you really do care…about the listeners and the content. It’s like having a booth at the State Fair.” A practice all Twin Cities stations take part in, whether it makes sense as a marketing tool or not. Dave also notes that what they do online is “an extension but it also keeps us relevant. It helps let the audience know that you have your fingers in all the cool stuff.” (More on his use of social media to listen further down the page.) Here’s a look at what they are doing. Some of it is obvious, some not, and some of it shows great foresight.

Of course The Dave Ryan Show has a website that provides you with all the basics. There’s the bio section, the links to Dave’s Dirt (his daily entertainment report), photos, news, the always vital “Listen Live” link and more. But let’s look at some of the more interactive endeavors:

Twitter:  Unlike many stations and personality Twitter streams who just promote the station, a contest, or a feature, Dave correctly uses it to share his personal side. Dave tells me his foray into to Twitter was not without it’s challenges. He quite often makes observations and jokes and a comment he made about Fibromyalgia early on caused quite a dust-up, followed by an apology from the show.  Even prompting a Youtube video rant. “I think a lot more about what I tweet now.” says Dave.  Follow Dave at @DaveRyanKDWB and you’ll see a fair amount of station business  but also plenty of pics of the kids and what he’s up to outside of his radio world.

Youtube: Check out the Dave Ryan Show Youtube channel and you’ll see a fair amount of interviews, stunts and events. You’ll also see some content produced specifically for the channel like “Dave’s Office”, a send up of the popular “The Office”. There’s also plenty of content provided by Dave’s cast of characters…like a rather disturbing 25 seconds of Crisco using Shake Weights (Think body fat in motion.) that’s been viewed over 70,000 times. Original content is a great way to not only drive people to the site but to provide them with exclusive content they can’t get on the morning show. I’ve always been a fan of this. Sure you can post your podcast of the radio show, but if you really want to find and attract the non-radio audience nothing beats original web exclusive content.

Facebook: The Dave Ryan Show Facebook page has nearly 11,000 fans and is a natural extension of he site with plenty of photos and links that features many of the same things the site does. Dave also has a personal Facebook page under his real name. In fact, that page has actually been discovered by KDWB fans because of photo tagging (and Dave’s lack of use of privacy settings. It makes one wonder if the use of an “on-air” name is effective as a way to achieve anonymity in real life is all that effective these days.)

MySpace: “We have one but I don’t think we’ve updated it in along time. I don’t think anybody uses MySpace much anymore.” They only have 60 friends so I can’t disagree with Dave much on this, though while MySpace is probably not as high a priority, if you have anything to do with music, it’s still kind of relevant.

Photosharing: “We don’t use a specific photo site. We use the photo page on our site.” Clear Channel has established a strong photosharing tool allowing for slideshows and sets so it makes sense to use the tools provided though establishing a Flickr account might get them out into yet another community.

SMS/Text Messaging: “We get more text messages than anything.” according to Dave. We use a service through the corporation and it really is the way our audience talks to each other.” I’ve heard everything from polling, to requests, to general comments reference on the air so Dave and KDWB are doing a great job in using their SMS channel, shortcode-KDWB1 (53921), and keywords .

XBox 360 Live: OK, this one impressed the heck out of me and I think is really forward thinking. According to Dave, “I was playing XBox with my son and I thought we should be a part of this. We decided to set up a ‘party, and invite listeners to play Call of Duty-Modern Warfare. Though we don’t really cater to a young male audience, it was something we wanted to be part of.” Bravo! By the way, Dave himself doesn’t have a gamertag yet, “I know, I need to get one. I really do.”

As you can see Dave and company have taken a very hands on approach with social and interactive tools. They have worked hard and actually added more time to their day to provide unique and relatively compelling content to their audience.

As I’ve noted in the past, radio has always excelled at talking and the Dave Ryan Show is no exception. However, there needs to be time spent on listening, something that Dave has yet to really do. “I’ll answer Facebook messages and emails but we don’t’ really do anything more than that.”

On a side note, this is where not only radio but business in general needs to spend more time. In fact, this is where we should all begin. Yes, radio can possibly get away with just using this channel to push content because they are ‘show biz’ after all, but pulling can lead to so much more. (Needless to say I’ll be turning Dave on to the many ways he can listen in the future.)

I’m sure that there are other stations and personalities using on line tools and channels to interact with their audience but I’m really impressed with what Dave is doing and, most importantly how they are integrating it into their on air presentation.

——–

By the way, while I’m talking Twin Cities radio…a new format was launched at 96.3 last week. and, as of this writing, their website is…um…not reflective of forward thinking. (Update: 7 days after debuting on-air, the station website is now up.)  Like any new business or venture, there is a huge amount of planning that goes into a launch or relaunch. Online presence is mandatory and should be part of the plan…from day one. “This site is under construction.” is so 90′s.  Might I suggest a link to the Facebook page and an online stream?…I’m just sayin’.

Dave Does Digital: A Morning Show and Social Media is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Graeme Thickins and Tim Elliott sat down with Steve for coffee the morning after he arrived back in Minneapolis for a holiday family visit.  What ensued was a 30-minute+ discussion on a whole raft of topics related to Steve’s new role, the Windows 7 rollout, hints of future plans, other MS initiatives we asked Steve to weigh in on (though of course he couldn’t speak officially for the company), and Steve’s personal experiences in making his big career move.

Show notes:

• Steve Bendt’s social media coordinates: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Steve’s personal blog
• truCAST from Visible Technologies
• Radian6
• Crimson Hexagon
• Windows 7 House Party
• Hosting Your Party video
• House Party parody video
• The social conversation aggregator for Windows 7
• Microsoft Looking Glass post at TechCrunch

Listen to, or download, the interview with Steve Bendt

Steve Bendt Interview: A Chat About Windows 7 Social Media and Life at Microsoft is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

As part of said quest I called the folks at Best Buy to check on the health and/or success of Twelpforce.

For the sake of transparency I count many at Best Buy as friends. That said, my first of impression of the name of this initiative and it’s marketing campaign around the Twelpforce didn’t rank high on my cool-o-meter. To me social media is all about one-to-one contact and I didn’t necessarily think a TV add depicting a stadium of Blue Shirts (Best Buy employees) yelling out answers as the best way to showcase a concept and effort that is so darned positive and forward thinking…just sayin’.

I was curious and anxious to have the conversation. John Bernier, a Social Media Manager at Best Buy, and the one overseeing the Twelpforce initiative was happy to spend some time talking about it. This in itself is a good sign that a level of success is being attained.  

For those of you not familiar with Twelpforce, the concept is quite simple…enlist a legion of customer service representatives from the ranks of Best Buy’s employees to respond to questions and concerns about Best Buy products and services that arise in the Twitter stream. Twelpforce, as John noted is a “tool to talk with as well as talk to” the Best Buy customer or potential customer. He goes on to say that it’s in keeping with the overall focus of the Best Buy to deliver “dream support.” Whatever that means. Ultimately, of course one has to assume that the goal is to increase business and customer loyalty.

John outlined a bit of history as well as some numbers to demonstrate where Twelpforce is today. After three months (the “hard launch” with marketing via TV started on July 19th, 2009.) the original size of the Twelpforce has grown from 400 members (Best Buy and Geek Squad reps) to 2,200. They have responded to over 13,000 very public questions, concerns, and opinions. @twelpforce counts over 10,000 followers (13,404 followers and 2,059 following as of this writing), with about a 50/50 split between addressing actual break/fix issues and opinions. “We have made people realize that a year ago there was one voice (of Best Buy), and now they know that there are thousands of voices.”

So, how are they measuring the response to Twelpforce as they seek to deliver a tool that provides value for Best Buy? John noted, as do so many when you start talking metrics, “There is nothing that we can buy into that measures success.” This facilitated the need to build their own dashboard to at least assemble measurable pieces of the puzzle. That dashboard of course includes monitoring the number of followers but goes beyond that. The volume, or the pace and number of questions, now numbering between 100 and 125 per day according to John, the number of active Best Buy reps per week, the number of new reps, keyword sentiment, retweets and “follow Friday” posts are also monitored. Other tools include Twitter StreamGraphs and TweetStats (many are pictured) that will “Create a way for the business team to see trends.”

So how are those thousands of voices answering those questions? When Twelpforce rolled out and I made a point of following the questions and answers, I noted that many answers were of the “Stop into our store and we can help you with that.” type answers. John deftly answered that he couldn’t say how “many” answers there were like that, he did note that “Some answers will require a store visit.” He also noted that “the 140 character format of Twitter doesn’t always allow for a complete answer.” In fact, Twelpforce has developed some logical extensions to better respond without asking the customer to come to a store. “We’ll link to the Best Buy Forum to facilitate a more extensive answer and we’ll also link to a brand page and sometimes other info sources (like Engadget). We are the facilitator.” moving people form channel to channel. According to John, “You know what we know as fast as we know it.”

So, just who is answering these questions and concerns? What does it take for a Blue Shirt or Geek to be part of the TwelpForce? Are there restrictions or criteria to become a more audible voice of Best Buy? According to John, “There’s no real restrictions.” The fact that those that want to be part of the ‘force’ are employees means “they have been vetted by HR. We provide some training as well as a wiki that helps TwelpForce members best provide service.” He goes on to say, “We expect to be very good, not perfect.” at addressing customer needs. “There will be varying degrees of success.”

Moving forward John highlighted where TwelpForce will be going. In the short-term there will be more engagement, especially over the holiday season and much of that will be driven by another round of TV advertising. In the longer term the hope will be to move it beyond just Twitter. “We’d like it to be platform agnostic.” Of course when I asked how that might impact the name TwelpForce it was pretty obvious that it was a topic of much discussion at Best Buy. (FelpForce on Facebook? YelpForce for YouTube?) John also hopes to use initiatives like this to accelerate the adoption of social media by both employees and customers. “It’s provides us with the ability to prove ourselves every day. It’s not a campaign, it’s a commitment.” says John.

So can this be considered a social media success story? One that might rival that maternal pain reliever or pizza purveyor dust up? Without having an associated video it’s probably not as sexy, but anything that enables the conversation between brand and customer, as this clearly has, must be considered a success. John adds, “We’ve been able to meet our customers at the crossroads of need and time…Being there when and where they need us.”  I’d say that qualifies…

Social Media Success: How About a Little Twelp? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

As someone engaged in PR, marketing and product management, Lisa has impressed the Gang with her knowledge and passion for the shift in social and human communication at the heart of the social media phenomena, so we actively sought her out when we discovered she was heading out to Blogworld and asked if she’d be willing to recap it for Minnov8 upon her return. Our hope? To get a fresh viewpoint from a Minnesotan directly in the demographic sweet spot for social media and in full-scale seek mode learning all she can about all of its moving parts. The result? Exactly that (and much more) from a woman with the confidence and intelligence to soak it all in, make the connections shaping her opinions, fully engage with the Blogworld speakers, thought leaders as well as key attendees at this event (plus we got to interview her before she becomes famous).

We also discovered something about Ms. Grimm and gambling. Did she help the economy of Las Vegas and the consumer confidence of gaming industry personnel?

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch and Phil Wilson (Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins were not available midday on a weekday).

Show Notes:

+ Blogworld

+ Chris Brogan and his book

+ Jay Rosen

+ Perhaps this is one reason why Ms. Grimm has the opinion she does about gambling.

Minnov8 Gang #56: Talking Blogworld with Lisa Grimm is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Libraries used to be places to go solely to find information and knowledge in containers called “books” that were comprised of “atoms” and organized by Melvil Dewey’s cool Decimal System, but increasingly library systems are morphing in to places to get connected online where patrons can find their information and knowledge in “bits” while interacting with the library in an increasingly virtual and — most intriguingly in today’s participation culture — in an online and interactively social way.

The Gang had a chance to invite Meg Canada on the podcast to talk about the 21st century library, what our biggest Minnesota library system is doing (and what she’s driving within it) to embrace new realities that are internet-centric and deliver a surprising array of services you may not know even exist. Meg has long impressed us with how much she “gets it” with respect to new media and social technologies, but have been quite delighted to see how much of her energy is invested in the social and internet community in Minnesota and the role she plays in nurturing it along with good humor and an eagerness to serve others.

Meg is a senior librarian for Web Services and Training at Hennepin County Library and currently coordinates public training and social media efforts for the library. She volunteers helping with the Unsummit, recently presented at MinneWebCon, and is a regular contributor to Social Media Breakfast. Had we known beforehand that she also sings regularly with the Twin Cities chapter of TechKaraoke, we would’ve had her croak out an Etta James tune or something. We’ll get her on another podcast soon and have her sing.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Opening & closing music is “38 Special” by Charlie Musselwhite (iTunes link) from Music Alley, purveyor of podsafe tunes.

Discussed during the show:

+ Wired article, “YouTube’s Bandwidth Bill Is Zero. Welcome to the New Net”

+ Libraries & Broadband by Ann Treacy on the Blandin on Broadband blog

+ Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) on Twitter

+ Hennepin County Library (HCL) and their services; Bookspace, a social site for HCL book lovers; eBooks and downloadable audio books and videos; and a remarkably easy to use, searchable database of all events and classes in the HCL system; HCL on Twitter.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast 55: The Connected & Social Library is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Vendors like Apple and Google recognize that the cloud is central to the mobile experience. Without the ability to access ones data, sync to the desktop, laptop netbook (and soon, a tablet?) with our mobile smartphones whether we’re stationary or mobile, our digital life is fraught with nothing but frustration.

The center of the action in communication and being social surrounds mobile devices as does an increasing amount of our consumption of music, video, news and information (and if you head in to a typical retail outlet selling CD’s or DVD’s, you’ll notice a continual downtrending of floor space devoted to merchandising them because, quite frankly, sales in these categories continue to drop in bricks and mortar stores). With smartphones sporting GPS and applications that allow providers (and the marketers who work for them) to have a HUGE amount of data about usage, consumption, social, demographic and location patterns, if you were Best Buy with only stores and a website with typically limited connection to customers, what would you do?

Get in the game, of course. To that end, Best Buy has announced mIQ, a free, cloud-based service with 1GB of storage that you can sign up and use with smartphones (except the iPhone…go figure). What is mIQ?

mIQ from Best Buy Mobile helps users sync their contacts, text messages, calendar events, calls, photos, videos, and internet favorites from their mobile phones to their private web-based mIQ account. Once in sync, the user can backup and interact with their information, share their experiences with friends and social sites, discover the top solutions available for their phones, and restore their content when moving from one phone to the next.

The four key areas they pitch are: Backup your phone; Access and interact on the web; Share your experiences; Restore your phone content; which are very Apple MobileMe-like (except for Apple’s nifty Find-my-iPhone feature).

Developed by Dashwire, a privately held company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA who says about themselves, “The company is backed by investors who built the wireless and technology industries at McCaw Cellular, Western Wireless, Voicestream, Nextel, China Unicom, and Microsoft; and by Best Buy Capital.”

No question this beta mIQ offering has been in development for some time and Best Buy management is planning for the continual shift away from people buying media and interacting by walking in to a store and, instead, to interact online via a smartphone or other mobile device. Having a cloud-based service is table stakes for a retailer like Best Buy to even get in the game…let alone win it.

Want to sign up and give it a whirl? You can make a request by doing so here and submitting your email.

mIQ: Best Buy’s Cloud-based Sync & Backup is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

For those of you who attended yesterday’s MIMA Summit ’09, you might agree that one highlight was the presentation by Ford’s Scott Monty. To whet your appetite for the other videos at Gaspedal, here is the presentation given by Mr. Monty in August at the event covered by the Minnov8 team.

Blogwell Minneapolis Videos & Presos Now Available is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.