www.ryankuder.com

I’m blogging with StarWarsCrawl.com.  From now on…

(If for some reason you don’t see the embedded video, it’s here)

P.S. I know it’s too big, but I don’t know how to shrink it. The Force is not with me.

It’s no big secret that I got laid off from Yahoo not too long ago. Last week, CNN sent a crew over to do a piece on how social networking can play a role in job transitions. They chronicled my last day at Yahoo and we talked about what the event has done for me.

In short, it’s been fantastic. I’ve met a ton of new people, and have had some really great opportunities presented to me because of it. The one thing that’s stood out above all others however is how communities come together to help each other out.

Last week, Gary Vaynerchuck posted a great video on what makes a community. He answers the question, “How many people do you need to have to have a community?” His answer may surprise you…ONE! You plus someone else is a community. And it’s amazing to see how these communities form and support each other, both online and off. Thanks in part to all of you, I am more opportunistic about what happens next than I ever was when I was “employed.”

So what happens next? I thought I was going to do some consulting, but along the way, I met a fellow Twitterer, Jonathan, who had a similar vision of community online as I did. Not surprisingly, I met him through Twitter when he started following me after I got laid off. We’re working on an idea that will make it easier for neighbors to find and share information about their neighborhoods. There’s not a lot that we can say now, but we’re all in and working hard to bring a great new product to market that will hopefully bring a lot of value to a lot of people. You’ll hear more soon. I promise.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who started following me on Twitter today as a result of the CNN video.  It’s nice to meet you!  I’m looking forward to being part of your community.

There’s been some discussion recently on visions for social media. John Furrier’s somewhat satirical take is here. Fred Wilson gives his take here. Fred’s vision for social media is “every single human being posting their thoughts and experiences in any number of ways to the Internet.” Fred expected that some would say that’s a ridiculous notion, and his prediction is borne out in a few of the comments, but there is quite a bit of agreement there. However, I’d go a step farther and say that if we look really long term–much longer than the 2-4 year horizon that we use to evaluate new ventures–like 100-200 years, there’s a case to be made that Fred’s vision does not go far enough.

Back in college I was captivated by the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who was also trained as a paleontologist and geologist. We studied Teilhard in a course called The Theology of Evolution taught by Fr. Thomas King. One of the concepts Teilhard talks about is the Omega Point–the maximum attainable level of complexity and consciousness to which the universe seems to be evolving. Over simplified, his theory is that the universe is evolving towards the final realization of God.

Teilhard observes several phases that the universe has gone through on a path to the Omega Point. The first being the development of inanimate matter, or the geosphere. The second is the development of organic life, or the biosphere. And lastly the development of increasing levels of consciousness, or the noosphere.

According to Teilhard, we are constantly evolving towards a greater collective consciousness. As a result this increasing integration of consciousness brings us closer to the Omega Point. As we see the evolution of social media, or really shared consciousness, are we living in the evolving noosphere?

Think about language evolving to pictograms to written language to printed books to the internet to email to IM to Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed. Each of these “evolutionary” steps make our collective consciousness more and more integrated. There was a time when if I did not know something, then it simply wasn’t knowable to me. However, I now have a vast collective consciousness available from friends, strangers, Scoble, and Google. As a result, each of us is able to experience a higher consciousness than we were ever able to experience in the past.

We see with each new innovation an integration that had previously been impossible. Within our networks, we know what each other are doing, thinking and even where we are physically. As storage gets smaller and cheaper and processing power gets faster and cheaper and discovery tools become more accurate and relevant and it gets easier and easier to create and share content, it is not out of the realm of thinking to postulate that over time, all of the world’s knowledge will be shared by everyone and instantly accessible to anyone. And if the entire sphere of human knowledge is shared by all, have we overcome the physical separation that defines us as individual humans? And if so, is this the realization of the Omega Point? And if so, is FriendFeed currently the most tangible manifestation of the noosphere?

I’m not a theologian, nor do I play one on TV. But I do believe that there’s a pattern in evolution and it’s more than just random physical mutations (although the random mutations may be the path to that pattern). We see it in the evolution of technology and the ways that we choose to use that technology. I find it interesting to look at what is happening in the social web from the viewpoint of Teilhard and wonder what he would have thought about our new collective consciousness. Our current observations of how our consciousness is becoming more and more collective were eerily predicted by Teilhard decades before the invention of the internet.

Weezer posted their newest video, Pork and Beans, yesterday on YouTube. It’s got 1.4 MILLION views already. How’d it go viral so quick? It features everyone’s favorite viral video stars. Here’s Weezer:

UPDATE:  In the 20 minutes since I posted this, they’ve picked up another 106,000 views.

I’m tremendously excited to introduce my FIRST EVER guest blogger, Kathleen Lisson. I wrote somewhat tongue in cheek the other day how it had been nine days since I posted. And if you blog, you know how weak that is (my excuse: I’m starting a company…been kinda busy). Anyways, Kathleen offered me a few tips on how to keep up on my content. Her advice was so good, I suggested a guest post and she obliged. Note to Self: Try to keep up this time…

by Kathleen Lisson, CSW

Out of the millions and millions of blogs on the Internet, it is always a treat to find a Seth Godin or Brian Clark, a blogger that makes you think about life and your career in a new and remarkable way. Unfortunately, for every Copyblogger.com, there are a million blogs started with the best of intentions by bloggers who just didn’t have enough water in their camelbacks to finish the hike.

How can you make sure your blog will still be inspiring your readers in five years? For me, the mark of a quality blog is regularly updated content that provides consistent value to your readers. Here are my five tips for publishing a quality blog.

1. Ask Yourself Some Tough Questions – Part One

What is your blog’s message? Nail down, in one or two sentences, your blog’s purpose and audience. I write a blog on wine and food pairing. My blog’s purpose is to offer information on wine and food pairing to an audience of wine drinkers that are interested in creating delicious wine and food pairings at restaurants and in their own kitchens.

Knowing your audience is as essential to blogging as it is to public speaking. To solidify your mental picture of your blog readers and their interests and needs, brainstorm 25 blog posts. Write down the post’s title, what information you will share, and what the reader will learn.

2. Ask Yourself Some Tough Questions – Part Two

Why are you writing a blog? I am a Certified Specialist of Wine. My blog reinforces my expert status to potential clients (students) and is a tool for communicating with and educating current students. Having a clear reason for writing a blog will help you stay motivated when the initial excitement of blogging wears off. What does your blog do for you or your career?

3. Set up Streams of ‘Bloggable’ Information

Once you decide on a topic, collect information resources. Use these resources to brainstorm ideas for blog posts. Here are some options:

Read magazines and other publications that report on your blog’s subject matter. I subscribe to Wine Spectator. Other resources include Food and Wine magazine, Saveur magazine, and Epicurious.

Read website forums. Gary Vaynerchuk has built a top notch community of wine lovers at Wine Library TV. If you are lucky enough to have a forum dedicated to your blog’s topic, fellow forum members are a wonderful source of inspiration and a sounding board for future blog posts.

Guy Kawasaki has put up a great website, Alltop, which aggregates dozens of blog feeds by topic. Each Alltop site displays the headlines of the latest stories from dozens of sites and blogs. A quick scan of alltop.com tells me what all my fellow <a href=”http://wine.alltop.com”>wine bloggers</a> are talking about.

4. Write Those 25 Blog Posts

I update my blog twice a week, every week. I don’t update daily because I use Feedburner to give my readers the option of receiving my blog “newsletter-style” via email, but I produce the same amount of content as a ‘daily’ blog.

I can offer my readers a regularly updated blog because I have at least ten articles in reserve at all times. I took the time to flesh out my initial 25 blog post topics over Christmas vacation last year, and supplement those posts with newer posts that I write based on my ‘bloggable’ information streams. A trick that I heave learned as a teacher is to end each lesson with questions for the students designed to get them to work with the information I have presented. I bring this practice into my blog writing. For instance, if I am writing a blog post reviewing 25 matches for red wine and appetizers, I would ask “What match will you try first?” “What match is the most unusual to you?” “What red wine and appetizer pairing would you add to the list?” or “Will you add one of these matches to the appetizer list at your next party?”

When my ‘reserve’ of blog posts runs low, I schedule an hour to brainstorm, search the Internet and write new blog posts.

5. Leverage Your Friends

Make friends with fellow bloggers in your issue area and invite them to write guest posts on your blog. This post is a result of a Twitter conversation between Ryan and I. Bloggers are always happy to help, as the additional exposure brings more traffic to their blogs.

Get inspired by a fellow blogger’s idea and write a post providing your insights with a link to their blog post. For instance, I blogged about fellow wine blogger Erika Strum’s food and wine pairing for Roasted Lamb with Charmoula earlier this year.

The mark of a quality blog is a steady stream of content that provides consistent value to your readers. Following these tips will get you on your way to writing a regularly updated blog that provides insight and inspiration for your customers.

• What is your blog’s purpose and audience?
• How easy was it to think of your 25 sample posts?
• How many magazines do you read that relate to your blog’s content?
• Is your blog listed on Alltop.com? Would you like to see it listed on Alltop.com?
• Which friend / fellow blogger will you ask to write a guest post?

Kathleen Lisson is a Certified Specialist of Wine and a wine instructor in Albany, NY. She peak bags in the Adirondacks in her spare time. Her wine and food pairing blog is at http://kathleenlisson.blogspot.com

Paul Bragiel from Meetro posted a detailed post-mortem on the demise of Meetro.  Meetro is, er…was, a location service that would figure out where you are and introduce you to people nearby.  Brightkite is currently working in this space and seems to have some momentum among early adopters.  Meetro started in Chicago and worked on expanding from there, but they ran into problems getting new communities started.

This is one of the inherent challenges of Local.  Growing a community is hard work, with local community services you’re not just growing one community, you’re growing hundreds or thousands of communities and each needs to be nurtured to grow.  It’s part of the reason that nobody had some out as a clear winner in the space.  This is a tough nut to crack.

But the reasons for the death of Meetro are not what I found interesting.  What I found interesting was Paul posting about it.  It’s the first public post-mortem I’ve seen from a company founder on why they failed.  TechCrunch has it’s deadpool, a few years back Pud had F*d Company (now dead ironically), and there are countless commenters across the web opining on why the idea sucked in the first place and was doomed from the start, but we rarely (ever?) see the companies founders come out and publish their analysis of why they failed.  Paul has given us some invaluable lessons about community, about local, and about how to manage a company that should be read by every entrepreneur.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and all that…

I casually mentioned this morning that it’s been nine days since I blogged.  My friend Mike suggested that I blog about it.

Here ya go, Mike.  Any more brilliant ideas for posts?

Last night my wife and I got into a debate. We heard Aerosmith’s cover of Come Together which we both agreed was better than the Beatle’s original. So we started talking about other covers that were better than the original. I threw out UB40s cover of Red Red Wine. She insisted that Neil Diamond covered UB40 (which is odd because she’s like a musical encyclopedia). What to do? Ask Twitter. It didn’t take long to confirm that UB40 was, in fact, the cover band. Since it seemed like a good theme, I asked people to help put together a list of covers that were better than the originals, and here’s what the social web said:

@FullQuieting: Comfortably Numb by Copper Box, Baby’s Got Back by Jonathan Coultan.
@sickrubick: Gin and Juice by The Gourds, Hendrix’s take on All Along the Watchtower.
@danlarsen’s wife: Urge Overkill’s cover of Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon.
@danlarsen: I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow (srsly, Dan?). Also Pearl Jam, Last Kiss.
@maxgladwell: Anything Jerry and The Dead covered from Bob Dylan. He also says that technically, “Georgia on My Mind” by Ray Charles was a cover.
@edubya: Obidah Parker covered Hey Ya. She also suggested B****’s Ain’t S*** by Ben Folds, but this is a family blog, so we’ll bleep that out.
@aaronh: Aaron brought his a-game calling out No Scrubs by Blink182, Oops I Did it Again by Travis, and Imperial March by No Doubt, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, Don’t Know What to Do w/Myself by White Stripes, seconded All Along the Watchtower by Hendrix, and The Sign by Mountain Goats.  Apparently, Aaron listens to a lot of obscure bands.
@aaronh and @danlarsen independently called out Dynamite Hack’s cover of Boyz in the Hood, which I have to admit was pretty good.

But the call of the night was @andresmax who nominated Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door by Guns ‘n’ Roses. Anything by G’n'R Rocks.

If you love covers, check out the Coverville Podcast recommended by @FullQuieting. There’s some good stuff there. As of now, I’m officially a subscriber.

This list is no where even close to exhaustive. There are tons of cover songs out there that you might think are better than the original. What are they?

If you haven’t heard of ChaCha, they are a human powered search engine focusing on mobile.  To use ChaCha, you enter your question and a human (allegedly) ChaCha guide goes out and searches for the answer for you. The guides are paid a few bucks an hour and work from home.  They used to be a web based human powered search engine, but a cottage industry sprang up of people who asked inane questions to mess with the guides.  TechCrunch LOVES ChaCha.

Recently, ChaCha started taking requests via Twitter.  You just send a question to @ChaCha and a few seconds later, an answer automagically shows up in your Twitter stream with a link to the “source website,” or where the guide found your answer.  Sometimes this works…sometimes hilarity ensues.  So without further ado, here’s today’s @ChaCha hilarity…

It all started when @AustinNealeigh asked, “When are they raising the national minimum wage?

And @ChaCha replied: “@AustinNealeigh answer: Raising the minimum wage now will hurt businesses which will harm the economy. Thanks for using ChaCha.”

And along with their answer, they sent a link to HumanEvents.com who has been “leading the conservative movement since 1944.”  This answer was sent by James W., who claims to be a french translator.  Notice that James didn’t answer the question.  The article is an opinion piece about why raising minimum wage is bad.

I found this funny and a bit odd that ChaCha was taking a political position on minimum wage, so I told people about it, as I’m prone to do.  And since I started my tweet with “@ChaCha,” they replied to my non-question, as they are prone to do.  Beth, who specializes in body piercing and anxiety symptoms among other things, sent me this personal reply:

@ryankuder answer: This is true. http://chacha.com/u/euzunpxn

And to back up her assertion that raising the minimum wage will hurt businesses which will in turn hurt the economy, she sends me a link to a Baltimore Sun blog post about…wait for it…Obama blowing his nose.  Well done, ChaCha!  Bravo!  Nice work!  Really, there’s not a lot more I can add to this.  ChaCha just wins.

And in case you were curious, on July 24, 2008 the federal minimum wage will increase from $5.85 to $6.55.

Here’s a hilarious cartoon about the funniest of all topics…social networking. I mean, just the words “social networking” make you crack up, right? Or is that just me? Whatever. Anyways, have a great weekend. BTW, Friendster is my favorite (in the cartoon…not IRL).