What's with the plurking and all that?

In a June 2008 article, Darren Rowse put the Plurk karma (Read: credibility) bit under the microscope in "Top 10 Plurk Users Statistics - What’s the Karma Algorithm". This he does by pulling in some figures into a profile of a "typical" top plurker. That seems like a pretty neat way of helping us make sense of what makes plurk more interesting than twitter. Still, for purposes of online reputation management, it's nice to know that the data set indicates activity in the short term as the long term.

Yet something tells me the system can be easily "gamed". Perhaps one question is, "Will gaming the system be good or bad?" A quick answer could be "It depends." As to which variables the answer correlates is something I'm still trying to figure out.

E-commerce is incomplete

... without a payment mechanism.

And that can happen when there is an exchange of value, typically involving some form of currency or anything that is "capable of pecuniary estimation". We can talk about private capital or social capital, but the latter is best left to another discussion.

So just to focus on private capital, perhaps one example will do. Disclosure: I have more experience with another payment mechanism for personal business. At the enterprise level, the following "About Us" narration of services that YESpayments - The Payment Processing Professionals offers -- especially in Manila, might just be worth considering.

A little Googling led me to this cached edition:

"About YESPayments™ YESpayments™ is an Internet credit card payment gateway. It accepts credit card transactions from sponsored merchants over the Internet and processes them through Acquiring Banks in Hong Kong and the Philippines. YESpayments™, handles the technical interface, provides risk management information and daily reconciliation. YESpayments™ has been in operation since December 2000. Technology and Security To protect card details as they are sent over the Internet data is encrypted using the Industry standard known as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). YESpayments™ uses 128bit SSL, the highest commercially available encryption. YESpayments.com has been independently audited and assessed by a risk management company to ensure compliance with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). In addition, each month, YESpayments™ is “probed” for weaknesses by an independent security company to ensure the highest protection against intrusion."

Now for a more updated version that I freely edit.

YESpayments is designed for organizations that are serious about conducting business on the Internet. Incidentally, it has been processing Internet payments since 2003 in the Philippines, which makes 2008 YES IT Corp's 15th year in the Philippines. Here's one bit of information on what gives real value in any business -- people. "YesPayment offers 24/7 personal support in the Philippines."

Hoping they keep it up.

Creative Commons and Business Models

Here's a documentary about Creative Commons licensing in the publishing industry. Could perhaps also solve IP issues in the academe?

As I've always maintained, "Share whatever is commonplace, make money off what's esoteric ... unless you want to do charity work."

via Cory Doctorow.

Why teach about Social Media?

Take it from Howard Rheingold: "Human agencies are important here." (or something to that effect.)

More here.

99% male & 94 % female teeners play video games

That's according to a recent survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Make your conclusion. It cuts both ways.

Still this arstechnica article says "kids are alright: gamers are adjusted and civic-minded".

Online Show and Tell

For those of us too scared to step up and make a real-time face-to-face pitch, flowgram just be what what we need. You don't want to waste your bright ideas, do you?

Should we live under a rock?

In a Scientific American article/blog titled How I Stole Someone's Identity, Herbert H. Thompson writes a how-to about an experiment in identity theft. Perhaps someone could turn this into a cautionary tale?

More related SciAm articles here and here.

I like

Photo credit: polytropia on flickr.com

Here it is in action:



Thanks to John Brownlee.

And here's a sample soundcloud music mix. BTW It's called a Korg DS-10 synthesizer.

Phil Kotler, Al Ries, Ned Roberto: Where's the intersection?

And that should include Ardy Roberto.

This post demonstrates how marketing gurus can get get some good attention even if they don't advertise on TV. Then again, perhaps this post should be titled: Ned and Ardy Roberto releases marketing business solutions book.

Which reminds me to share some 2005-vintage Marketing nuggets from the top-of-mind Guru himself: Phil Kotler.

Here's a snippet from an interview:

Question: TV advertising seems to be losing its effectiveness. What are alternative ways to get attention?

Kotler: The average American is exposed to several hundred ad messages a day and is trying to tune out. TV advertising is losing its effectiveness because of growing advertising clutter, the increasing number of channels, the availability of zapping mechanisms, and reduced watching of television by certain groups. The result is that marketers must consider other methods of getting consumer attentions.

Here are a number of possibilities:

• Sponsorships. Companies have put their names on stadiums, on whole teams and on individual athletes in order to gain exposure.
  
• Mentions on talk shows. During his evening show, David Letterman sent a camera crew out to buy Snickers candy bars and ended up talking about it on three subsequent shows, including when Mars sent a whole van of Snickers to feed the audience.
• Product placement. In the movie Die Another Day, James Bond drove an Aston Martin, used a Sony cell phone and prominently featured an Omega wristwatch. Products are also mentioned in novels—in fact, Bulgari commissioned a whole mystery novel to be written called The Bulgari Connection.
• Street-level promotions. Companies have hired actors and actresses to walk in busy areas and ask passersby to take a snapshot of them using their new camera phone. Hopefully the picture takers are impressed and tell others about the new camera phone.
• Celebrity endorsements. Michael Jordon's endorsements gave a boost to Nike shows, McDonald's, Hanes underwear, and Rayovac batteries. Ex-Senator Bob Dole's surprising endorsement of Viagra put Viagra on the nation's mind.
• Body advertising. College kids agreed to paste Dunkin' Donuts logos on their foreheads during an NCAA basketball tournament."

Care to add to that? I'm thinking along the lines of assailing other senses. Imagine if you can smell "aromatic advertisement".

Don LaFontaine, 68, RIP

Angels in heaven must be enjoying his all too familiar deep baritone voice .

Here's a link to a recent interview with the "Trailer King".

Why do I get the feeling I'm a magpie?

Last night, I got wind of the launch of Google's browser.  Next, I  received  a quick heads up from Graham Glass on the merits of using it.

Then found  Techcrunch's  Don Reisinger's  glowing  review:

"Google announced Chrome yesterday and the company has already offered Windows XP and Vista owners the opportunity to try it out. And although I've only been able to use it for just a little while, Google Chrome is not only one of the fastest browsers I've ever used, it's easily one of the best.

The Google Chrome install was quick and easy. In a matter of seconds (literally), I downloaded the application from the company's site and installed it on my PC. Once up, Chrome asked to import the data from Firefox and I was off." 

 Guess what I did?