'Texter' by Amber Mac. An Awesome Dexter mashup.

I'm recently a huge Dexter fan and also a looong time fan of AmberMac, the host of Net @ Night, Command N, TWiT broadcater and friend of Podfather Leo Laporte and much more.

Ambers a real media pop culture fan too, and so for her recent book launch she decided to make a pastich of the Dexter show's opening sequence by sending it up in her own style called 'Texter'. Find out more about the book and Amber here: http://www.ambermac.com/

Lost? Never seen Dexter? Yer homework is here:

Posted by Stephen Scott
          

What Would Google Do By Jeff Jarvis. Fab book!

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I've listened to his podcast with Leo Laporte every week for a year, but finally got round to listening to this book by Jeff Jarvis. Really enjoyed it.

As much as about the change in the Internet and our thinking as it is about Google, Jeff makes excellent points about they way work, and how it isn't working for some companies. (The title of another good book!)

And from that stand point shows they way Google have been handling these aspects of work or life. Say what you will about Google, they have transformed our world, and have done it generally on the whole more transparently than any other organisation.

Millions of dollars are paid to blogs and sites for ads, YouTube Partnerships and more. All being shared where fat cats like Microsoft in the past would, and did keep the lot.

It's no love affair, as Jeff points out the flaws and issues where Google have stumbled, but who doesn't?

Insightful, interesting and the book read by the author which is really enjoyable with Jeff's sense of humour chiming in. Great fun, and one I put off for too long.

Buy What Would Google Do? By Jeff Jarvis now

Posted by Stephen Scott
          

'People often want innovation, but also proof that it works'...

via 5by5.tv

A great quote above from web veteran Jeffery Zeldman, who along with Whitney Hess, discuss (amongst others things) user experience & web design. The quote is so typical of the challenges we face online in meeting often unreachable goals...

This really is an excellently articulated video which covers issues I face every day, so to me this is just gold! The statement from Whitney that:

 

"The (web) sites that win awards are the ones that are used the least".

 

So, so true, and as these two web heads discuss, it's all about the user. (Duh!) However, often we nursemaid and become a psychologist in your role these days on web sites with clients and employers as you deal with all these variety of issues, trying to improve the users experience but can easily get stuck trying to please everyone.

The earlier part of the video focuses on a little heavy twitter lust for my liking (enough already!) but overall a highly recommended listen from great speakers. Click through to the site to download the video or mp3.

Posted by Stephen Scott
          

Bringing back core principles and values...

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...which for many of us never went away. However for many others, the core pursuit of money, and 'more' (listen to the lyrics) as a whole objective, has led to most of our world losing a grip on these important aspects. To be specific, were talking namely customer service and having generally accepted good values.

Quite often these are long forgotten in many areas, yet I notice are now creeping back on to the agenda more often as businesses suddenly wake up to this thing called 'social media', and become suddenly very aware of these very small, barely known web sites such as a thing called facebook and YouTube to name a few tiny web sites...


Sarcasm aside, Gary Vaynerchuk is a strong advocate for customer service and good values and recently joined the 'podfather' Leo Laporte and 'Geekess' Amber MacArthur on the net@nite podcast. One topic discussed, which is a core thread through all of Gary's work, is his love for customer service, and how he appreciates and uses these interactions he has with his customers, across all his work. It's refreshing stuff as there just isn't enough focus on this, and yet for most of us in business, it should be #1 on our list!

A great interview and refreshing stuff as usual, when either of these three people are involved. Click the post title to get hold of the stream/mp3 or format that suits you best.

Posted by Stephen Scott
          

Podcasts (Are full of TWiT's)

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Podcasts (or Netcasts to avoid Apple lawyers) are basically just online radio but delivered as mp3's. Podcasts cover every topic it seems, and are a great way to get info you want, on the go, and on your phone or mp3 device. I consume about 1.5 Gb of them a week and its easy to see why when they cover the topics your interested in. One person who makes up for at least 70% of the amount I download, is arguably the godfather of podcasting, one Leo Laporte.


Leo's This Week In Tech (TWiT) podcast and his massive network of shows he produces cover mainly, but not always, the web and tech news. Now in to my fifth year of listening to Leo for the best part of a day a week, I have primarily him (and fellow TWiT's) to thank for much of the research, information and knowledge I've gathered over the years. One of the finest shows recently covered Apple, Google, Microsoft and the state of the internet as well as future likely strategic direction it's heading in, was the excellent 'Mould Happens' (number 206) linked to from this posts title.


If you have an ounce of web geek in you, then feed your brain on something good, fun, realistic and intelligent. Before you know it you'll have this guy, and all his shows filling your head on a weekly basis. "Screw you!" Leo, your the best ; )


Click here or the title to listen to TWiT 206. (image via Leo Laportes Flickr)
Posted by Stephen Scott