Iraq is Gone

Two interesting shorts on Iraq.

From Baghdad to San Jose. Haitham Jasim and his wife, Jamila Ghanm, arrived in San Jose from Iraq in July. This is their story.

The second one is called Iraq is gone.

iPhone & Verizon and PINK & ???

I still don't have an iPhone despite peer pressure to buy regardless whether it meets my needs. In Silicon Valley, where you're surrounded by early adopter geeks, peer pressure takes on a new meaning.

Nearly everyone I know who has one has issues of connectivity and dropped calls, a deal breaker in my world. I want a phone that does what cell phones are primarily designed for - to connect to person A and stay connected. Sure, a contact manager in the background is critical too, but do I really need photos, video, music and everything else under the sun to drain my battery so that when I do need to be on a conference call, I can't?

I've been waiting for Apple to entice me with something other than no choice - AT&T or bust. Writes InfoWeek this week about possible other plans: "Fresh off the talk that Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless and Apple are getting hot and heavy about bringing out a CDMA iPhone, the Wall Street Journal is reporting Big V is talking with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to create an iPhone rival."

Microsoft's project "Pink" is apparently working on a mobile device that will give Apple a run for its money. He writes and I agree, "the problem I have with any potential deal is that Microsoft's bag is software, not hardware. I know the software giant spent hundreds of billions to acquire the Sidekick-maker Danger last year, but I'm not convinced they have the goods to create an iPhone killer. Additionally, Microsoft's forays into consumer hardware have a checkered past - even the successful X-Box 360 was quite possibly the worst-built mass market piece of consumer electronics in history."

It's unbelieveable that Verizon passed on the original iPhone "because they couldn't put their stamp on the device," and now, they're losing countless customers to AT&T despite the weaker network. In the cumbersome bureaucratic world of cell phones and carriers, we continue to have less choice than many other industries. C'mon, move things forward. Give us choices and stop locking us into a world we're continuously frustrated with.

Social Networks Popular Even if Not Tied to Bottom Line

NewCommForum is in motion at the San Francisco Marriott this week and several industry pals and social media gurus are speaking on the latest industry trends around social media innovation, online community management and development, social media program management, metrics and a growing issue for companies and individuals alike: online reputation management.

And of course you can't seem to go anywhere in social media circles lately without the topic of crowdsourcing being discussed.

Why People Love Social Networks from Paul Gillin (also a speaker) this week ties into why social networks are so popular regardless of whether they make sense or not for their business.

He writes about content related to an individual's personal data within a social network and why how the value extends into something much greater. Over time, "activities and relationships are captured in their profiles and the more they contribute, the more valuable they are to the community and the more their personal status grows."

He also points to the utility component, which was one of the things Spock was demonstrating early on when they launched their people search engine. While primarily a people search engine, you could actually build a community around your profile which could in fact replace your contact manager or database over time. I can imagine numerous other online solutions where communities could not only form but could turn into contact managers as well.

Some social networks make it easier to track people's news or their relationships with others than others. LinkedIn, Classmates, MySpace and Facebook are great examples as are sites like FriendFeed that pull all your means for communicating to those networks together in one central place. I now see short glimpses of people's lives from several schools I attended over the years when keeping in touch directly would simply take too much time.

Features are evolving in real time everywhere a community is evolving. What I'd love to see is the ability to tag what becomes more important to you so you can continue to follow and track someone's progress, but pull your VIP/close friends and family list to the top so you're faced with much less white noise, particularly useful for people you follow on Twitter and Facebook.

Great Fashion Week Shot

Such a cool shot from Fashion Week 2009. Credit: Studiolit

South Africans Vote

South Africans voted for party and president yesterday, and though the ANC is going to maintain its 15-year hold on power in SA post-apartheid, it is unclear whether the party will gain a 2/3 majority necessary to change the constitution.  It will also take at least a few days to determine whether the results indicate shifts that may lead to significant change in the 2014 elections and beyond.

There was hope among the many unhappy with the ANC that a breakaway party, Congress of the People (COPE), would offer a strong alternative.  Infighting and poor leadership extinguished that, but there is reason to believe that demographic changes are substantive and point to the future.

More when results are in, but in the meantime there may be stories that report the continuation of one-party rule and highlight the compromised nature of Jacob Zuma, corruption and rape charges and tribalism.  There is truth to this, but the country is only 15 years removed from totalitarian rule, and alternatives are slow to emerge to the ANC, which is still rightfully seen as the deliverer from the wilderness.

Blogwell's Upcoming Event on Corporate Social Media

BlogWell's upcoming event in New York on April 29, 2009 will feature eight great case studies in corporate social media, including Nokia, General Electric, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Turner Broadcasting System, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Tyson Foods, and Johnson & Johnson.

As a reader, you can save 10% by using the following code when you register: THANKSRENEE.

Discussions include measuring ROI, managing teams, legal issues, BtoB, working with agencies, and creating great content.

Attendees include: McDonald's, United Airlines, Time Warner, UPS, VH1, ConAgra, Audi, Molson, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Chevron, Trane, NBC, Barnes & Noble, Wells Fargo, Nestle Purina, Campbell Soup, DuPont, MetLife, Hertz, Walmart, Coach, SAP, American Express, Allstate, Casio, Progressive, Graco, Scholastic, General Mills, ExpressJet, NHL, IBM, and more.

Talk Show Tips

Out this week, TalkShowTips uncovers 72 Secret Master Host Techniques.

More than a book, Susan Bratton has compiled a culmination of learning from five years of podcasting, hundreds of interviews and more than a dozen years of public speaking, emceeing and moderating panels. Anyone who does interviews would be interested in learning more about this new system: bloggers, vidcasters, podcasters, radio and TV hosts or interviewers.

It contains a eBook with all the techniques and teachings, a worksheet for sending a guest invitation, a script for talking to a publicist or assistant to book a guest, a Mad-Lib's style worksheet to cement the format and flow of your show, ton's of in interview tricks and techniques, a strategy called, The Grid, that helps you get ready for a show efficiently.

Kitchen 4B: Get Your Appetite Ready

The New York Times Magazine cooking videos, formerly known as ‘Tiny Kitchen,’ are back under a new name: New Kitchen 4B.

They will be posting two webisodes a month. Jill Santopietro's latest webisode featured a caramelized onion, fig, bacon and Gorgonzola pizza. Stay tuned. Kitchen 4B also now airs on the New York Times channel on JetBlue.

Ashton Kutcher On Air Soon: Will Twitter's Servers Handle the Impact?

I can't seem to go anywhere over the past couple of days where they're not talking about Ashton Kutcher's love fest with Twitter and his moving ahead in the popularity contest.....yes, he even has more followers than CNN.

So, they're going to have him on air to talk about it and those of us who use Twitter will never be able to get on again because the servers will finally come to a halt. Egads, its been slower than molasses over the last week and that was before the Ashton buzz.

Ismail Khaldi New Diplomat Mideast Advisor

Just announced, Avigdor Lieberman is appointing Ismail Khaldi as new diplomat Mideast advisor on regional issues.

Ismail, known as Ish to friends, was part of our Israel journey last April when we traveled and blogged our way through the country. He was the first Bedouin to join Israel's Foreign Service and will be leaving his post as deputy consul in San Francisco for this new assignment.

His appointment is said to stem from Lieberman's' desire to appoint someone familiar with the complexities of the region who is also fluent in Arabic.

I had an opportunity to visit Ish' Bedouin village in upper Galilee, which apparently has no electricity or running water, but that was not my experience. An interview done on-site with his father; an interesting tale.

Other appointments in the Foreign Ministry include Hagit Ben-Yaakov as Lieberman's European advisor, Zeev Gur-Aryeh as his Russia and former USSR bloc advisor and Omer Caspi as his US advisor; all of whom will report to Naor Gilon, Lieberman's chief of staff.