Disclosure: I’ve been working - in a small way - on this wonderful event with Livingston Communications for Network Solutions. ooVoo (a crayon client) is the video platform of choice for this event.

The Solutions Stars Video Conference is happening October 29th at 1pm. A number of social media luminaries (listed below) - the kind that you usually pay a couple thousand to see - have participated in this incredible event.

The format: Videos will be uploaded one at a time, one after the other and will focus on the following nine areas:

• Building Web Presence
• The Social Opportunity
• Start with Listening
• Strategy Drives Outreach
• You Need Social Networks
• To Blog or Not to Blog
• Visibility Through Search
• Rising Above the Noise
• Time Demands

And when Network Solutions says “stars” they mean it. Take a quick look of the participants:

• Tim Ferriss, Best Selling Author of Four Hour Work Week
• Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder, All-Top
• Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
• Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger
• Chris Brogan, Vice President of Strategy, CrossTech Media
• Rohit Bhargava, Author of Personality Not Included
• Wendy Piersall, CEO of Sparkplugging.com
• Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger, Dell
• Brian Solis, Author of PR 2.0, CEO of FutureWorks (FutureWorks)
• Steve Hall, Publisher and Editor of Ad Rants
• Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company
• Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog
• Toby Bloomberg, CEO, Bloomberg Marketing
• Lee Odden, CEO of TopRankMarketing.com
• Jason Billingsly, Co-Founder ElasticPath
• Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo! Developer Network
• Brett Tabke, CEO of WebMaster World
• David Alston, Vice President of Marketing, Radian6
• Jason Falls, Blogger, Social Media Explorer
• Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Specialist
• Jennifer Openshaw, president of WeSeed.com
• Matt Dickman, Vice President, Digital Marketing, Fleishman-Hillard
• David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media and Client Strategy, 360i
• Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.TV
• Becky McCray, Author, SmallBizSurvival.com
• Warren Whitlock, Book Marketing Strategist, BestSellerAuthors.com
• Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware
• Lorelle VanFossen, Author, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging
• Dave Taylor, Head Strategic Marketing Director, Intuitive Systems
• Paul Chaney, President of International Blogging and New Media Association
• Linda Bustos, Blogger, ElasticPath
• Jay Berkowitz, Author , Podcaster, and Keynote Speaker, Ten Golden Rules

One of the things I love about this event is that it’s such a cool format - with budgets getting cut and time at a premium, you’re able to experience the best part of an A-level conference without the headache of air travel and seeing all of those people you don’t like anyway.

(Not you. I totally can’t wait to see you again.)

The other cool thing - you can participate! There’s a live chat room, where you can talk amongst yourselves, as well as the ability to ask real-time questions of Now is Gone’s Geoff Livingston and Network Solutions Shashi Bellamkonda.

And of course you have the option to share what’s going on to your social networks and also track this event on Twitter by the #solutionsstars hashtag (What’s a hashtag?).

Also - Please visit the “Solutions Stars Video Conference” event pages on Facebook and Upcoming:

• www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=33854706886
• upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1200021

So - please come, experience (and participate in!) this event on October 29th at 1pm - I’ll see you there!

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I’ve been following Yongfook since I wrote about 8apps on Setting Contexts. Unfortunately, 8apps is gone (would be GREAT to see someone buy that and run with it…) and Yongfook has moved on - he’s the guy behind Sweetcron, a self-hosted Lifestreaming solution.

Sweetcron is a simple (10 minutes install) solution with an already active community - it’s Google Group is very active, with members helping each other and discussions about developing themes, plug-ins and more.

I initially had an issue installing on one of my other hosts (it seems that a database prefix was the issue) and my subsequent install on a new DreamHost account went smoothly. It really did take only a couple of minutes to do and I like the results (www.nycjane.com).

Self-hosted Lifestreaming solution

There have been a few issues with feeds (Brightkite) and someone else’s avatar is showing on my Twitter feed - but I’m confident that’s just tweaking. I also installed Disqus for comments and a WuFoo contact form (as recommended). Both of these last 2 additions were made easy by searching through the Sweetcron Google Group. They had really specific instructions - and all seem really helpful!

Sweetcron (along with some new Open Source microblog platforms) is something to keep an eye on - especially as we inch one step closer to Enterprise adoption of these conversational marketing tools.

Other examples of Sweetcron installations:
* Yongfook
* Sean Percival’s Hurricane Gustav Aggregator
* Mine
* Sean Percival’s TechCrunch50 Aggregator
* Roycifer.com

Please add others in the comments!

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I was going to be on this panel (until I took a certain job...).

The crayon Panel at Podcamp Boston moderated by Greg Verdino, with Doug Haslam, Phillip Robertson and Adam Broitman!

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There’s a bit of unrest among the Twitter natives. The service is up and it’s down and…it is what it is.

What it is to me - I’ve been using Twitter for almost 2 years, and as I’ve said I’ve been on long enough to fall in love and out of love and back in love with it. Now 2x over. I also wrote a response to a Brian Solis post about how disappointed I was in their handling of certain seeming violations in their Terms of Service. Then I felt guilt about piling on without knowing both sides of the story.

Twitter was - almost - the first (anyone remember Dodgeball?) and despite scaling issues have done it better than anyone else. Jaiku is pretty much done (Is Google the place where Web 2.0 apps go to die? Jaiku? Delicious? Dodgeball?) with no movement since the acquisition. But now there are new option seemingly every day, Plurk, identi.ca and Posterous among them. FriendFeed is a big favorite among early adopters, with the opportunity to have longer conversations and comments for each of you and your friends items.

There are also push services, like Ping.fm and BlogIt, which can push status updates and blog posts to a number of services at the same time. Personally, I feel weird about that. I have many “friends” across the different services and it feels like I’m spamming them instead of concentrating on delivering unique content. My issues, not yours

Twitter (and Facebook) is where the my conversations are and where I’ve met people who have become personally important to me. There are talented people, who I’ll never meet, who I look at their Twitter pages each day. I’ve had job interviews and opportunities because of Twitter and have met a ton of smart people who I now count as friends (or collegues). I check in to FriendFeed, I look at the other services I’m on - but those are appointment check-ins, not integrated into my daily workflow.

In fact - I still can’t get excited about Plurk - and I know plenty of people who are. I just can’t get past the interface (again, my issue!) and the whole karma point system makes no sense to me. Many of my connections love it and I plan on checking in every once in a while - it’s just not for me. On the other hand, I’m enjoying Posterous and the simplicity of emailing all of my updates, pictures, etc. It’s easy and fast.

Do the Twitter down times disturb me? More of a gentle to general state of annoyance. Do I wish they would set their business model? Uh, yeah (I’m sure they can’t wait to do that too). But I love the service and the team - both of which have changed the daily way I communicate with the world. And have brought me opportunities and people in my life that I would have never had before Twitter.

(And BTW - it’s still FREE!).

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I think Laurie Anderson once said that when she lived in Chicago “I always felt like I was an hour behind New York.”

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(First - full disclosure - ooVoo is a client of crayon).

This week I’m involved in a pretty amazing event - My ooVoo Day Political (MODP). ooVoo is a video communications platform that allows up to 6 people to chat simultaneously. A couple of months ago, the social media community got together for a charity event - My ooVoo Day - where all the proceeds went to charity. It was quite a success. This time around, My ooVoo Day is about politics.

This is a really incredible Election Year, with many people participating for the first time. For the first time, after years of talking about it, we’re seeing young people registering and becoming really active. My ooVoo day Political is about taking all of those conversations from all different issues and platforms and giving them a forum. All ages, all opinions, all parties invites - respect all the way around.

My ooVoo Day Political started on Monday (Video will be up shortly and I’ll link to it) and will continue through August 4th. We’ve had a lot of spirited conversation and I’ve had a lot of fun watching people use  and fall in love with technology that they might not have used before. So grab your webcam and head over to My ooVoo Day Political, look at the different hosts and sign-up for a session or two.

Just another way of participating in the political process!

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I am a huge Joss Whelan - Buffy - Serenity fan - he’s imaginative, fun and I love the way he writes his female characters. This is a man who likes women. So I was exceptionally bummed when a studio passed on his Wonder Woman script.

Then out of the writer’s strike came “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Blog“, with Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day. How does that not sound like a great time?

From http://doctorhorrible.net/

“Dr Horrible” is not a a new TV show or movie. It’s a streaming event, with the first Act starting today (7.15), Act II on 7.17 and Act III on 7.19. The free airings are only available until the 20th and then it’s the looonng wait (hopefuly not) to the DVD release.

Let’s talk social.

Of course this isn’t some indie production with no marketing budget relying on Word of Mouth to drum up interest. This is a guy with a devoted fanbase that will follow him anywhere and to any medium. So instead of the large, mega-ad campaign - they relied on that fanbase to spread the news:

• The Official Site
• Facebook Official
• Myspace Official
• Myspace Fan
• Twitter Official
• Capt. Hammer Comic
• Wikipedia Entry
• Dr Horrible on IMDB

Additional interviews and information is housed at Dr. Horrible.net.

So run, not walk to DrHorrible.com or buy the “season’s pass’ on iTunes - 7,926 Facebook , MySpace, etc. users can’t all be wrong…

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There are blogs that are a addictive must-read - clusterflock is one of those for me. This just came across my reader - and I think it’s an different social take. And an unexpected smile.

Postcrossing’s idea is simple - send a postcard, get a postcard from someone picked at random around the world. It’s kind of link getting a bunch of surprises by mail (remember - actual mail? In your mailbox? That’s not a bill or junk?).

How does it work? (from the website)

• request an address from the website
• mail the postcard to the address
• wait to receive a postcard
• register the received postcard in the system

Go to the website to read more on the specifics.

This reminds me of messages in bottle and having pen-pals in grammer school - nostalgia and poloroids.

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With all of the up and down (time) of Twitter, many people are looking at alternatives for their microblogging platform of choice. Tonight I noticed (ironically through Twitter) a number of my friends trying out Plurk.

My Plurk Page

Plurk has a very visual timeline that also tracks the comments in real time (the unread comments show up in your browser tab in FireFox). Right now, there’s no way to differentiate comments to your plurks or your friends without actually clicking on the “Show all” link.

They also track interaction by awarding karma points (from the website):

“Every plurker has his/her own karma value. It is recalculated every day and falls within these intervals:

• 0.00 to 21.00: You are in the state of creation
• 21.00 to 41.00: You are in the state of maintenance
• 41.00 to 61.00: You are enlightened
• 61.00 to 81.00: You are so close to Plurk Nirvana
• 81.00 to 100.00: You have reached Plurk Nirvana!

Your karma score is directly influenced by your and your friends Plurk activity. The more active you are, the more points you’ll get. Using various features of Plurk such as instant messaging or uploading a profile image will also help.

Invite your real friends to boost your karma!”

It’s weird that you can’t fill out your profile with a description (250 characters) without reaching 40 karma points.

There are growing pains - I’ve already gotten a couple of database errors and I was unable to use any of the “Find a Friend” tools. But there are a couple of things I like - the “Alert” feature makes it easy to see who friends you (or accepted your requests) and there’s a group feature - “Cliques” - which has always been a missing Twitter feature for me.

It’s fun to try out, but the true test is how easily it folds into my workflow. I do like that Plurk is supported by Profilactic (which feeds my Lifestream page) and a number of people that I follow are already trying it out. As the service (and my use of it) grows, I’ll post my updated impressions.

Please feel free to friend me on Plurk.

UPDATE: Interesting Reading:

Plurk: Our Philosophy in a Walnut Shell

Sean Percival - Plurk: Timeline Based Microblogging

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