Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

More people think about the next phase

I wanted to point you to Trevor Cook's questions about the his next phase of blogging.

I think the topic is ripe for conversation.

We'll start here a week from Monday.

Alphabet Images

I have had this sitting in my 'to-post' bin.

Virginia Beach teacher Leslie Law had her students photograph the alphabet as they saw it in their surroundings. I love the combination of learning and creativity.

Film Blog

Zach Braff of Scrubs fame is writing a blog to promote his new movie Garden State. He wrote it, directed it and stars in it with Natalie Portman.

I think the entertainment industry could benefit greatly from using blogs to promote projects. There is always a built in set of people who are passionate about a project. It could be because of the love of the actors, the director, the original writer of the material, etc. The key is to have the person producing the passion be the one who is blogging. Consider Zach's blog. He is getting between 60 and 300 comments on each entry. People want him to succeed.

[link courtesy of David at Dial.Log, photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures]

Now everybody knows

The Wall Street Journal has an article about wikis today. You get a little history, quotes from Ross Mayfield and Clay Shirky, and a plug for the Wikipedia.

For me, this is the first time that I am out in front of something like this. The article is well-written, but it didn't give me anything new.

Has anyone written about other cool things people are doing with wikis?

Good Things

7 Good Things RSS is Good For...

[via Scoble Linkblog]

Trump Math

The WSJ reports today that reality show use to be the cheap way to program a network. That is changing quickly.

Before Donald Trump agreed to tape a second season of his hit reality show "The Apprentice," he says he told NBC he'd need a few things. More creative control would be nice, and perhaps flashier living quarters for the contestants. And how about a personal publicist?

Then Mr. Trump took out his calculator. NBC paid him about $50,000 an episode the first season. But with his show winning huge ratings, Mr. Trump wanted a fat raise. He heard the six actors on the hit comedy "Friends" each took home about $1.5 million an episode so, as the sole star of "The Apprentice," he figured he should get $9 million per show. Still, his program ran an hour and "Friends" just 30 minutes. Mr. Trump bumped the figure to $18 million. "That seemed fair," he says in an interview. "I'm not being totally facetious."

I think the lesson here is know what you are worth.

What A Surprise

I missed this last week, but The Sci-Fi Channel officially stepped forward and said the The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan was a hoax.

It seems AP picked up the story using the press releases that Sci-Fi was putting out about the supposed tension between Shyamalan and the network. Sci-Fi's new parent NBC stepped in. "This marketing strategy is not consistent with our policy at NBC," NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said on Sunday. "We would never intend to offend the public or the press and value our relationship with both." I can't find the show referenced anywhere on the website now.

As I said, the special was great. For it to truly work, there has to be some ambiguity has to whether or not it is true.

[thanks to Radio Nexus for the link]

More questions...

Suw Charman has a new blog at Corante called Strange Attractor. You may know her from her blog Chocolate and Vodka. She says:

In this blog, I want to understand the processes and functions that create these strange attractors, these swirly folded patterns. What makes for a successful blog? How do we counter high churn rates and rapid abandonment? And how do we implement blogs in business in a way that engages users and brings most benefits? [link]

More people asking questions...

Starting to talk

Babs responds to some of my blogging questions from yesterday.

Wiki

I just like posting a reminder every once in awhile about the bizblog directory wiki. We have just over 80 people now listed. If you are looking for some new reading, check it out. If you are blogging about your business or business in general, add yourself to the list.

Details, Details

I am back from the West Coast and BlogOn. People have been asking if it was worth the trip. At this point, I could go either way. The conference really was about tools and people who invest in companies who make tools. I had heard most of the stories that the panels told. I felt it was a vendor conference more than a user conference.

On the other side, I met great people. I know that it the reason people go to conferences. It is for the conversations over lunch and in the hallways. It was great to finally meet Robert, Heath, and Steve in person. I also met Hylton.

The conference got me thinking about blogging from a user/reader perspective. Seth hits on one of the first thing I thought of - Are blogs backwards? His new project ChangeThis has a blog called Read and Pass . It confused me at first because it didn't match the view in my reader. Then I realized it was in chronological order. As Seth says, it is a much better way to tell a story.

I have been thinking about other questions too. What words are the best words to link to in an entry? How often do you really need to write and has RSS changed that? What sorts of entries generate the most comments and conversation? How can bloggers better welcome readers?

I would love to get together with people who are interested and talk this kind of stuff. There should be a conference for passionate bloggers. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. I think money and money would make it hard to get all the people in one place. So, we'll try another experiment here at A Penny For...

During the week of August 9th, I am post a series of questions and invite everyone to chime in. My goal would be to generate a first pass on a Writer's Guide to Blogging. There has been a lot of great stuff written on how to create a successful blog. I guess I want to go one level down and get into some of the mechanics and nuances.

If you have similar questions, pass them on. If you think this has all been done before, point me there. Otherwise, I hope you'll join the conversation in two weeks.

I am off

I wanted to thank everyone for the SF hotel suggestions.

I ended up going with the Serrano Hotel. Ben and Jackie wrote about it back in September and gave it a big thumbs up. I can only hope for the upgrade they got.

I am certain there will be stories to tell. I plan to blog about the conference and share my impressions. This is my first tech conference, so it will be interesting...

Bloggers read blogs

21% of blog readers are bloggers.

{via Scoble's Linkblog]

Need help

I am heading to BlogOn in Berkeley. I am staying over the weekend and I need a suggestion for a good downtown SF hotel. It will only be for Saturday night.

Giving Bad Advice

I guess I gave some bad advice pointing everyone to the 12 step program for Macs. Braised Lambchop has a detailed rebuttal.

Update: I seemed to have mixed up my meat types. Della's site is Braised Lambchop.

[smiling]

Another convert...

Brilliant

I watched The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan tonight. I thought it would run an hour, but it went three hours and I watched the whole thing. It was outstanding. It was done in a Blair Witch style documentary format.

As the story goes...some folks are hired by Sci-Fi to do a documentary for his film The Village. It goes wrong from the start when they start asking questions not on the approved list. When they are shut out, they start searching for answers in other places. That is when it gets interesting.

Rather than doing a 30 minute puff special, Shyamalan creates this wonderful myth around himself. It uses material from past movies. It uses his website where documenters go to find information. They capture some amazing footage of regular people as they ask them if they believe in the supernatural. It even has Johnny Depp as the actor who passed on the lead role in Signs. You don't what it real and what isn't. And that it was M. Night wants.

It is brilliant at building his brand. It gives his fans exactly what they want. It asks more questions than it answers. If you get a chance, watch it!

Interesting Posts

Here is a bunch of posts I ran across this weekend that I thought were interesting:

• I like the ESPN's idea of author-specific RSS feeds [via Micro Persuasion]
• PR Opinions has a good list of articles from Global PR Week 1.0
• Be sure to also catch interviews with Robert Scoble and Seth Godin
• 12 Things to Improve Your Mac's Performance
• David Wolfe of Ageless Marketing has had two great posts in the last week. You MUST go read Beware of Factoids about Boomers and Corporate America's Demographic Blind Spot .

Why you do you (corporate) blog?

Here are my answers' to John Cass' Corporate Blogging Survey.

1. Why do you blog for your company?

   I have been doing A Penny For... for about a year and I like blogging. I pitched a project to Jack (Covert) at 800CEOREAD about starting a blog about business books. He liked the idea, so we went and did it.
   



2. What goals did you set for the blog?

   Our first goal was to generate traffic for 800CEOREAD. We wanted to have 1000 a day reading the site. In three months, we are pretty close to meeting that goal. Our second goal was to become the best single source for information about business books. We do that through a combination of aggregated content and original material. Again, I think we are close to reaching that goal. Our third goal was to provide a PR medium for authors. We write reviews, invite authors to host the blog, run excerpts, etc. We do alot of that now and have more planned for the future. Our fourth goal is to sell more books.
   That is a long-term goal.



3. How do you think your blog fits into your company's communications strategy?

   We think it builds both sides of our business. On one side, we build our brand as business book experts with readers. Readers of our blog are spending 2 to 7 minutes with our brand every day. That is pretty compelling. On the other side, we build relationships with authors.
   



4. Tell me about the publishing mechanics of your blog. How often do you publish? How do you decide what to publish? Any special publishing techniques?

   We publish on working days and put up between 2 and 10 posts a day. Our content is based on what we see in business media, what we see people reading (from their blogs), and what new books come across our desks.
   



5. Who writes the blog? Who contributes to the blog on a regular basis?

   I am the primary writer. Jack probably contributes the second most material. After that, we have volunteer reviewers like John, Diego, Rich, Cathy, and Evelyn. We have authors like Tom and Susan.
   



6. Have you achieved your original communications goals?

   Not yet. I think we are 30% to 50% of the way there.
   



7. Were there any any unexpected communications or learning consequences as a result of publishing your blog?

   I feel a little more pressure on the 800CEOREAD blog versus on A Penny For... I think it is really important to maintain a steady stream of new content on the corporate blog. Keeping it fresh and interesting can be a challenge. I don't think personal blogs have the same pressure. It is much more "write when you want to".
   



8. How have you built better relationships with customers?

   It is still early, but we think so. We know we have added new customers because of it.



9. Macromedia, Microsoft and other companies are encouraging more of their employees to blog. How do all of these different voices together affect the direction of a company?

   
   I don't think they do. Blogging allows you to see more of the goings-on, but blogging doesn't in itself change the strategy of the company. Maybe others can provide proof the other way.
   

Burdens of a Book Blogger

This could be me someday.

Day 2 of the BBBT

Just wanted to make sure you have been over to The Entrepreneurial Mind to see what Jeff and Tom have to say today.

Not all happiness at Global PR Week

I posted my quick thought on Corporate Blogging yesterday. It was nothing earth shattering, but a quick summary of what I we are doing at 800CEOREAD.

Today I read this post from Elizabeth Albrycht. It is titled Lessons Learned: Day 2. She decides to chide participants for everything from writing about their businesses (was this called PR Week?) to spelling and grammer mistakes. She is also concerned about people talking negative about PR people (hello? transparency).

When the idea came together for PR Week, I thought it was a great idea. I am all for pulling groups of bloggers together and having great conversations (BBBT, Brand Week). Then, the emails started. I was getting 10-20 emails a day talking about what is the official name going to be and what graphic are we going to use and what software would be best and...it goes on. Luckily, the discussion was moved to a Yahoo! Group and I got a summary everyday. I realize that when you pull together a big project like this that you need to have communication. There was so much communication that I stopped listening. I just wanted to participate.

I was lucky enough to get an email from the organizers with the info I need to participate or else I probably would have skipped it.

My problem is with the process, not the content. Please go check out the discussion going on. Evelyn has some great stuff (especially here). Check out the Corporate Blogging Survey by John Cass. And how can you resist a "PR is Dead" post during PR Week...sorry Global PR Blog Week 1.0 (I don't want to violate another rule).

BBBT 4 Launches

Today is the start of the 4th Business Blog Book Tour. We are excited to have Tom Ehrenfeld and his book Startup Garden.

Here is the schedule:

Here is the schedule:

• July 14th - re:invention
• July 15th - The Entrepreneurial Mind
• July 16th- Small Business Blog
• July 19th - Small Business Trends
• July 20th - Wantrepreneur
• July 21st - Duct Tape Marketing
• July 22nd - 800-CEO-READ

Enjoy!

Global PR Week

Global PR Week is going strong. There is tons of great conversation going on. Today's topic is Corporate Blogging.

Here is my contribution.

Go check it out.

I, Robot Blitz

The way it looks it will be impossible to avoid hearing about I, Robot this week. They are having a mega-advertisement on Fox tonight. MTV was doing an I, Robot themed 10 Spot last night. I was even flipping through the channels and saw the boys at Orange County Choppers talking to Will Smith about making a I, Robot chopper.

The marketing people for the movie have gotten very creative for the release of the film, but I don't think the novelty of the approach is going to any more people to see it. I think it was going to be a big movie anyway.

Yahoo buys Oddpost

I am a big fan of Oddpost. They have a great product. I think they are a great example of how you can create a personality for your company. I was disappointed when I moved to the Mac world and couldn't bring them with me (I didn't want to use IE).

Well, Yahoo took notice and bought them. I guess I didn't realize their popularity. I didn't hear alot of people talking about them in the blogosphere.

Congratulations Iain and Ethan!

Sci-Fi 2

I hope you won't permanantly stop reading this blog, because of this second post about science fiction. There is just so much going on there that I thought it was worth another entry.

I,Robot is opening next weekend. WSJ confirmed my fears on Friday saying:

Readers familiar with Issac Asimov's collection of short stories under the "I, Robot" title may be surprised to discover that the movie of the same name, which stars Will Smith and open next Friday, bears comparatively little resemblance to the science-fiction writer's tales...

Tom Rothman, chairman of Fox, concedes that "Asimov purists" may take exception to what they see on the scrren but fans of the science-fiction writer, he predicts, "will be very happy because we are faithful to the essence of [Asimov's] ideas"

[shaking head]

Star Trek: Enterprise is going into a fourth season. The ratings have never shored up for the series. I have only ever watched one or two episodes. It is reported that Paramount cut the episode price ($1.7MM to $0.8MM) and UPN signed on. It is moving to Fridays. TV Guide reported on this a couple weeks ago and made two good pointa: Paramount needs the fourth season to go into syndication and they probably consider producing more content for Trekkies more important than the initial loss they'll take.

Stargate:SG1 started its eighth season on Friday on The Sci-Fi Channel. I could never get into this series either. Ratings put the audience at 2.8 million for each new episode. So, someone is watching. They have also created a second series called Stargate:Atlantis. It premieres next week.

Finally, Battlestar Galactica is returning as a weekly series starting in January 2005. The mini-series that ran in December was very popular and a test to see what the reception would be like. I watched it and thought it was really good. It was a great mix of old and new elements of the story.

All of this is old news to sci-fi zealots. I ran across most of this in the last week. I hope it is news to some of you and maybe even of interest.

Bored

There isn't alot that I have run across recently that is very exciting. That is why things have slowed down a bit here.

CBS Sunday Morning reported this morning that blogosphere is a part of the Oxford English Dictionary. That's the best I could muster.

I think it is a matter of the season. Things slow down this time of year. My wife's plant has been shutdown for the last two weeks. Lots of vacations. Maybe things will pick up this week.

We do have the new BBBT starting Wednesday. Global PR Week starts tomorrow. As always, there is a new Carnival of the Capitalists.

Still bored...

Maybe not

The WSJ article about blogging is now unavailable.

I guess they don't get it.

Thanks Trudy catching that and leaving a comment.

WSJ on Blogging

Thomas Weber is filling in for Walt Mossberg on the WSJ Personal Technology Column. Today Weber wrote a column on blogs and RSS readers. The two interesting things for me are:

1. The story is available to everyone. Cool. Maybe WSJ is starting to get it
2. Weber listed a series of blogs at the end of the article, but no business blogs. How is this possible? (The email is already sent).

Boo!

Michael has one post up at his new blog Spooky Action.

You need to go check it out.

He covers alot of ground in that one post. I hope he has more to say.

Book Tour Stops

I am planning the fifth Business Blog Book Tour now. It will take place in late August or early September. I am looking for a few new stops for this one. Leave a comment or drop me a note if you are interested.

Sci-fi Movies and a blog

I also like sci-fi alot. I am not a "dress-up in Klingon, go to conventions" kind of fan, but I have seen every episode of ST:NG at least five times. I am excited about the rebirth of two sci-fi brands.

Firefly was a short-lived series that ran on Friday nights on Fox. I think they aired 11 episodes before canceling the series. When the show came out on DVD, it sold something like 175,000 copies. I also saw a blurb (TV Guide?) that it is one of the most in-demand disc(s) at Netflix. That got people's attention and Universal is producing a full-length movie called Serenity. Better yet, they have a blog.

The other property coming back to life is Farscape. I guess they found some money to put the project together and The Sci-Fi Channel bought it. It will be a mini-series will be called Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. No blog for this one yet.

I love music

I really do. I have 100s of CDs sitting on the shelf in our study. iTunes says I have 4.3 days worth. And still, I am always looking for new stuff to listen to. I think there is some good music that makes it to the radio, but it is destroyed by overplay. More and more I have been trying to find good indie music (that only I can destroy by overlistening).

I am finding a number of great companies that serve this market.

I am a big fan of Paste Music. They are a distributor, a record label, and a magazine publisher. They pull you in with great sampler CDs. I dropped $60 there last month on some really good music. My purchases included The Subdudes' new album, this sampler, that sampler, this other sampler and a subscription to Paste Magazine (you a sampler disc in every issue). You are seeing a theme?

The second site to check out is Fresh Track Music. They offer a $3/month, download all you want service.

The final site was highlighted in B2.0 this month. It is called Insound.

I think I am going to start posting a favorite track each week. It may be a link to iTunes. It may be a link to Amazon or Paste. We'll see.

This is so cool

You just have to try it.

[via shannonsays]

Let the winning begin

iTunes songs sold: 95,264,511

Blog Marketing

Steve Rubel had breakfast with Nick Denton and he has three great takeaways about the way Nick does business:

1. Pick a Great Name
2. Use Blogs to Get Traffic
3. Focus on Men

[via Scoble's Linkblog]

Countdown to 100 Million

Apple is holding a contest to celebrate selling 100 Million Songs at iTunes.

When the number of songs downloaded from Apple’s iTunes Music Store crosses 95 million, Apple will begin the countdown to 100 million songs by giving away 50 special 20GB iPods—one to the purchaser of each 100,000th song downloaded between 95 million and 100 million songs. In addition, the person who downloads the 100 millionth song will receive a 17-inch PowerBook, a 40GB iPod, a gift certificate for 10,000 iTunes songs to create the ultimate music library for the iPod and the opportunity to create a Celebrity Playlist to be published on the iTunes Music Store.

Current song count is 94,823,835.

I just want to say I will be doing my part.

Business Blog Book Tour #4

I am proud to announce the next book for Business Blog Book Tour.

We will be featuring The Startup Garden by Tom Ehrenfeld. Prior BBBT participant Barry Moltz put me on to the book. I think it is a great all purpose guide for new business owners.

The tour start July 14th and runs for a week. For this tour, I have pulled together blogs specializing in writing about small business. Here is the schedule:

Here is the schedule:

• July 14th - re:invention
• July 15th - The Entrepreneurial Mind
• July 16th- Small Business Blog
• July 19th - Small Business Trends
• July 20th - Wantrepreneur
• July 21st - Duct Tape Marketing
• July 22nd - 800-CEO-READ

I'll get you some more details after the July 4th holiday.