Enjoy!

I’ve also been invited to begin blogging at The Blog Herald, where you’ll see me several times a week with news and featured posts - along with the weekly BH podcast.

Here’s a look at my initial feature piece on the idiocy of Shel Israel and the humor of Loren Feldman:

I’ve read Naked Conversations, the book by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel that talks about the power of blogging for individuals, businesses, and communities. I’ve even used their examples with clients - a few of which are mentioned in their book.

I walked away from the book thinking that both of these guys totally “got” the blogging and social media thing. My online experiences with both of them on and off over the years confirmed this - at least until I began watching Global Neighborhoods, Shel’s new show on Scoble’s new gig at Fastcompany.tv.

We’ve posted edition 2007.4 of The Blog Herald Podcast over at The Blog Herald wherein we discuss the 6th anniversary of September 11th, 2001.

I’ve been featured in “Blogger Cribs”, a new profile series, over at Connected Internet:

What mobile(s) do you own? Why did you choose that model?

• 4GB iPhone
• Treo 700wx

I like both of these for different reasons - the iPhone is the best converged device that I’ve ever seen. The Treo is the best overall business focused mobile device. I carry both…

Read the rest here.

Time, Inc. has killed off their Business 2.0 Magazine, the icon of the connected Web 2.0 enabled business, reports the New York Times:

As we wrote in July, executives at Time Inc. were weighing whether to shutter the seven-year old business/technology publication as the magazine’s ad pages precipitously dropped this year. After our article boosted public support for the publication – followers started a support group on Facebook – Time bosses gave the publication a two month-long reprieve during which it weighed offers from Fast Company publisher Mansueto Ventures, and others, to buy the brand and its 623,000-name circulation list.

I’ve read Business 2.0 for most of it’s 7 year lifespan. Generally, it was a decent read on up-and-coming business ideas and individuals.. but sometimes it simply failed to hit the mark.

As we had reported earlier this week, NBC Universal has ditched Apple’s iTunes & iTunes store platform for parts unknown.

Until now.

NBC has opted to sign with Amazon, a relatively unknown player in the digital media distribution world. The choice imposes even more Digital Rights Management restrictions than those imposed by Apple’s FairPlay system:

With a market cap of $34 billion, Amazon isn’t exactly the smallest company in the world. But they are certainly smaller than Apple when it comes to power and influence in the downloadable entertainment scene. In this way, Amazon might be an ideal partner for NBC, given the latter’s concern for control over show pricing and DRM. Yet, when shows start appearing early next week, they’ll be debuting to a download marketplace that sees less activity than Apple’s iTunes Store.

Personally, I think they’re frakked…

Smashing Magazine is giving away 40+ design & development books for free to its readers in celebration of their 1st anniversary. The selection of the books was outlined by the magazine’s staff thusly:

Professionalism is built upon knowledge and experience. To become or remain professional, you permanently need to improve your design and programming skills, be aware of new approaches and now how other designers and developer achieve both beautiful and effective designs. And to improve your design and programming skills all the time you need bulletproof sources to learn properly and to learn from masters who have a profound understanding of the field they’re working in. Renowned books from well-known designers, developers, artists and authors might be just the right thing - serving as the inspiration or helping you to stay in touch with popular techniques in your field.

As I covered in the Blog Herald Podcast earlier this weekend, NBC and Apple have found themselves in a battle royale over NBC’s participation in iTunes.

In short, NBC Universal has ‘frakked itself’ to use a term from their hit show Battlestar Galactica. Apple has called their bluff and informed NBC that they will no longer carry any new material from this fall’s lineup of television shows.

Now I find all of this personally disappointing because I’m a huge Battlestar fan - but I’m not really sure that NBC knows that it’s doing. The mobile video war has been fought for now - and the combination of iPods with iTunes have won that battle. NBC is involved in the new Hulu content distribution system - but that’s proprietary and doesn’t sync with the iPod as far as I can tell.

What’s NBC thinking?

DoshDosh featured an article earlier this week on Ashley, a teenager & high school dropout from Detroit, who is making $70,000 a month selling MySpace layouts on her website WhateverLife:

Ashley is evidence of the meritocracy on the Internet that allows even companies run by neophyte entrepreneurs to compete, regardless of funding, location, size, or experience–and she’s a reminder that ingenuity is ageless.

She has taken in more than $1 million, thanks to a now-familiar Web-friendly business model. Her MySpace page layouts are available for the bargain price of…nothing. They’re free for the taking. Her only significant source of revenue so far is advertising.

You can read the original FastCompany feature article as well.

While I’ve always admired the 9rules logo and their overall design - it seems like the leaf has permeated the Web 2.0 design world. Smashing Magazine has a look at the trend of leafy logos from around the Web 2.0 world.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with using a leaf as a part of a logo - 9rules I believe was one of the first.. but what’s with the trend of using the leaf on all of these other logos?

One would think that someone could come up with a unique idea…