The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has an idea that seems to verge quite close to being an act of suppressing freedom of speech with a new $300 “business privilege license” that all bloggers in Philadelphia will be charged if they want to keep writing online. 

All local Philadelphia bloggers will have to pay for the privilege license regardless of whether or not they make any money from their blogs.  Even if a person writes a blog as a hobby, just for fun, or for a personal creative outlet — they’ll have to cough up the $300 to keep blogging.

The online buzz about Philadelphia’s new “business privilege license” is calling it a violation of free speech citing the fact that only people who can afford to pay the $300 license fee will have the ability to express their thoughts on the heretofore free-flow of online information and conversation on the social web that was born of user-generated content and citizen journalism.

MSNBC.com republished an article by Teresa Masterson of NBCPhiladelphia.com, where Masterson makes the following keen observations:

“Blogger Marilyn Bess, whose Ms. Philly Organic Blog has made her a whopping $50 over the past few years, went to the city’s tax amnesty program to explain that she makes pennies on her hobby. They told her to hire an accountant, she told the City Paper. In an economy where jobs are sparse and people try to make ends meet with part-time jobs, taxing the independent, scrappy freelancers and bloggers seems counterproductive. But the emptying of bloggers’ wallets may not be the worst result of these taxes. With the city’s charge being more than what most bloggers make, their voices could be silenced, as the extra expense is enough to discourage many from even having a blog.”

The story even made the news as you can see in the video below:

What do you think?  How can bloggers fight similar tactics from spreading to other cities?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

The upcoming “affordable” Amazon Kindle includes Wi-Fi access (not 3G)  to download books and more, and it costs just $139.  The upcoming $189 Amazon Kindle includes free 3G access to download books and more.

That’s quite a price difference from the original Kindle as well as Apple’s hot (and pricey) iPad product.  It’s also $10 cheaper than the more competitive Nook ereader from Barnes & Noble.

The $139 and $189 Amazon Kindle devices were only announced recently for pre-orders, but there is already a backlog due to high demand (although Amazon has been known to manufacture backlogs in the past, so it’s impossible to predict what the real pre-order volume looks like) with shipping on new devices now delayed.  New orders will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis as new Amazon Kindles become available for shipping.

Sounds like the more affordable Amazon Kindles are already a success.

However, marketing experts are predicting that the Amazon Kindle and other ereaders won’t reach the masses until the price tag drops below $100.  We’ll have to wait and see how the actual sales volume numbers shake out for the more affordable Amazon Kindle devices, but I think the $100 estimate is probably accurate in terms of predicting when ereaders will be purchased in multiple quantities per household across a broad consumer audience.

What do you think?  Do you own an Amazon Kindle, an iPad, Nook or another ereader device?  Leave a comment and tell us what made you decide to buy (or not buy) a particular ereader.

By the way, all blogs syndicated through Newstex are automatically available on Amazon Kindle!  If you’re a Newstex publisher, you can follow the link to get your free Amazon Kindle badge.

Last month, YouTube announced it now supports original video resolution from 360p all the way up to 4K.  That means even videos shot in sizes intended to be displayed on 25-foot screens can be uploaded to YouTube.

This was an exciting announcement in terms of what could be coming for online video in the future.  However, many people are wondering how far away that future actually is.  Today, practically no one can view 4k videos over standard broadband connections, and it’s fairly safe to say that the vast majority of people around the world don’t have 25-foot screens to view them on.

This has been a hot topic across the Web over the past few weeks.  Other people have been quick to point out that the ability to upload 4k video isn’t that exciting given the fact that YouTube only just recently (a few weeks after the 4k announcement) boosted the length of videos that can be uploaded to YouTube to 15 minutes.

Regardless of these limitations, it’s still interesting to ponder what might be coming for online video in 5 or 10 years.  I think it’s safe to say that it won’t look the same as it does today.  The demand is too high and new technology to enable better viewing is constantly launching.

It’s doubtful that the first use of the 4k upload ability in YouTube will find favor with the broad YouTube publishing audience, but I’m sure there is a niche out there that will find a use for it.  Or perhaps there is already a specific publisher or organization who has their eyes on the feature and might even get special privileges to increase the 15-minute upload limit.  Of course, I’m just speculating.

What do you think the new 4k feature means for online video publishing and viewing in the short-term? Long-term?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

You can check out some of the videos uploaded in 4k format in this YouTube 4k playlist.

Image: YouTube.com

In a recent article from The New York Times, author and New York Times contributor Peggy Orenstein reflected on the world today, which operates very much under what she calls a new version of a famous quote, “I tweet, therefore I am.”

Peggy, who admits she has become a Twitter-addict only recently, writes:

“I am trying to gain some perspective on the perpetual performer’s self-consciousness.  That involves trying to sort out the line between person and persona, the public and private self.”

The point she is trying to make is one that previous generations didn’t have to think about.  With the social web at our fingertips and the lines of communication more accessible than ever, where is the line between private and public when it comes to individual’s lives.  We use Twitter, Facebook, and tools of the social web to interact with global audiences, but are we truly putting ourselves out there or crafting ‘versions’ of ourselves for that audience?

Peggy’s thoughts support my belief, and the belief of many marketers and branding professionals, that the social web enables us to create personal brands.  Those personal brands might not be exact replicas of your personal life, but depending on your goals and reasons for participating on the social web, your online persona might need to be quite different from your personal self.

Each person publishes content on the social web for his or her own reasons.  That’s one of the things that makes the social web so open.  People have more access to information than ever and the world will never be the same.  There is something for everyone, and therefore, the social web clutters the Internet making it more difficult to find the content that is meaningful to you.  Fortunately, there are tools and services that help people find the content, conversations, and people that are meaningful to them (such as Newstex, which helps people find authoritative content).

So is there a difference between real-life person and online persona?  I think there is more than one answer to that question.  For some people, there might not be a difference at all.  For others, the difference might be subtle.  However, for many, that difference is probably quite great, and as long as you’re not lying, that’s okay.

After all, we have to keep something to ourselves, right?  Unless you’re on Jersey Shore.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: etherbrian.org

The Grateful Dead are one of the most successful bands in history, but they didn’t achieve their level of fame and fortune the traditional way.  Instead, they followed a path that enabled their fans to truly experience the band, share it, and develop relationships with it.

The Grateful Dead are one of the best examples of a cult brand and a true relationship brand in existence.  I often refer to the Grateful Dead in my own marketing and branding books and presentations, so I was particularly excited when I heard about a new book that was released for pre-order today called Marketing Lesson from the Grateful Dead.

David Meerman Scott (Newstex advisor and former marketing consultant) and Brian Halligan wear the label of Deadhead with pride, and their new book, Marketing Lessons for the Grateful Dead, not only offers a great education in marketing from one of the more unique examples you’re likely to come across, but it’s also filled with photographs and illustrations that add a great element of visual appeal to the book.  As Brian explains in the official press release:

“The Grateful Dead can be considered one giant case study in doing social media marketing right,” says Halligan, HubSpot CEO and co-­author of Inbound Marketing.  “Not only did they pioneer the freemium business model by allowing concert attendees to tape the show, but also encouraged their fans to build a community, and kept them informed via their newsletters.”

The book teaches readers how to:

• Rethink traditional industry assumptions
• Turn customers into evangelists
• Bypass accepted channels and go direct
• Build a huge loyal following

David’s blog, WebInkNow.com, is syndicated through Newstex.  You can follow the link to read his blog post about Marketing Lessons for the Grateful Dead.  You can also visit the book’s Facebook page.

Can you guess my favorite Dead song?

“Well, I ain’t always right but I’ve never been wrong, seldom turns out the way it does in a song.  Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

Flowtown created an extremely cool blog post with a graphic that showed the “most-shared” news sites as well as how those sites are shared, who the biggest influencers of those sites are via Twitter, and what stories they’re sharing.  You can follow the link to view the complete graphic, which Flowtown developed using data from Backtype.com.

I think that one of the most interesting things the Flowtown graphic reveals is that 4 of the top 10 most shared sites on the Internet are new media publishers (i.e., blogs, some of which are syndicated by Newstex) while 6 are traditional news websites.

The top 10 most shared sites (blogs are in bold) according to the Flowtown and Backtype report are:

1. Mashable.com
2. NYTimes.com
3. News.BBC.co.uk
4. HuffingtonPost.com
5. Guardian.co.uk
6. TechCrunch.com
7. CNN.com
8. Online.WSJ.com
9. Gizmodo.com
10. Telegraph.co.uk

Another interesting aspect of the graphic tells us that by far, the most online sharing is done via Twitter.  For example, Mashable.com content was shared as follows (per the data provided by Backtype):

• Twitter: 6,105,957
• Digg Comments: 34,681
• FriendFeed Shares: 4,890
• Reddit Comments: 3,521
• Hacker News Comments: 1,661

It would have been interesting to see Facebook sharing included in this graphic, and the timeframe and audience researched to collect the data wasn’t included in the blog post, but it’s very interesting nonetheless.

Who could have predicted 5 or 10 years ago that new media publishers would become some of the most engaging, shareworthy websites.  The term ‘blog’ has morphed from personal online diary to Authoritative Content publisher in many instances.  Newstex publisher partners demonstrate that with the authoritative content they publish everyday.  We’re not surprised by the Flowtown and Backtype findings displayed in this graphic at all.  Are you?

Image: Flowtown.com

As a follow-up to my post last week that talked about comScore’s May 2010 report about online video stats, I want to talk a bit about online video news viewing statistics.

According to the comScore report, online video news and information clips consumption in the United States has more than doubled (up 104%) from May 2009 when 277 million news videos and information clips were viewed online to 565 million online news videos viewed in May 2010.

Another interesting statistic from the comScore report tells us that online news and information videos are watched by a larger percentage of the U.S. video population than the prior year.  In May 2010, 34.2% of the U.S. online population watched news and information clip videos online, which is up from 31.6% in 2009.

It’s important to point out that overall online video consumption is still on the rise, but online news and information clip viewing still has some catching up to do.  For example, in May 2010, online news and information clips made up just 0.7% of the total minutes of online video viewed by the U.S. Internet population, and the total number of news and information clips viewed is just 1.7% of all videos watched online in that month.  Of course, one can confidently assume that these numbers will continue to grow for news-related non-news online video consumption as news providers learn how best to connect with the online audience.

The Associated Press is churning out video content quickly with approximately 45 videos published and distributed online per day (via Beet.TV).  The strategy of quantity seems to be working for the Associated Press with online video views for the organization’s YouTube Channel up from 77 million views in January 2009 to 430 million views today.  The Associated Press already has a reputation for providing authoritative content as well as a broad reach, so it’s not surprising that the organization’s strategy of publishing lots and lots of video content is working.

However, as online video consumption continues to grow, it’s highly likely that news organizations (large and small) will have to find ways to differentiate their content from their competitors.  It’s likely that several broad-based news organizations will stay on top with other niche video news and information publishers snatching up market share across the web.

What do you think about the future of online video news?  Do you watch news and information clips online yet?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng

If there was any doubt that the traditional print media industry is in trouble, new statistics from Nielsen paint a very clear picture of that trouble (via BrandWeek).

Let’s put it this way — without companies buying advertising space in print publications, those publications are going to have a very hard time staying in business.

Check out the stats from the Nielsen research below.  In 2009:

• Real estate brokers cut print advertising by 36%
• Financial brokerage services cut print advertising by 35%
• Hotels and resorts cut print advertising by 31%
• Automobile insurance companies cut print advertising by 26%
• Auto and light truck dealerships cut print advertising by 23%

How do those numbers compare to overall advertising spending in 2009?  Check out those stats from Nielsen below:

• Overall ad spending dropped by 9%
• National magazine ad spending dropped by 19.3%
• Newspaper ad spending dropped by 13.7%

So where were those advertising budgets (or what was left to them after the recession) spent in 2009?  Two words: (more…)

Do you miss the tap, tap, tapping of an old-fashioned typewriter?  Want to turn your iPad into one?  Now you can with the USB Typewriter!

For around $500, you can relive the good old days when you had to push down really hard on each key, pull the “return” bar, and use white-out if you made a mistake.

Okay, perhaps it’s not that realistic, but you get the point.

If you don’t have an extra $500 lying around for your customized keyboard, never fear!  The do-it-yourself kit is just $75.

You can see the USB Typewriter for Apple’s iPad in action in the video below.

It’s hard to believe it was only a few decades ago that everyone was still using typewriters!  The USB Typewriter can help you get nostalgic or it could be a fun gift for the right person.

What do you think?  Do you miss old-fashioned typewriters?

I remember getting my finger stuck between the keys on a manual typewriter when I was a kid.  That hurt.

In an attempt to integrate CBSNews.com and the CBS News show hosted by Katie Couric, CBSNews.com and its on-air companion have launched a new segment where CBS News is answering viewer questions in a new way (as reported by MediaPost).

CBS Nightly News viewers and CBSNews.com visitors have been asked to submit their questions via Twitter and Facebook, which are answered on CBS Nightly News by CBS correspondents around the globe.  Check it out in the video below.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

In a time when news organizations and traditional publishers are struggling to monetize their Web presences and remain relevant in a world dominated by real-time conversations happening across the social Web, CBS is making an effort to merge its authoritative news properties with the popular tools of social media.

It’s an interesting effort by CBS.  Will it work, or are the online and television news audiences so disparate that this type of integration won’t make a difference?  Only time will tell.

What do you think?