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DNC08 - President Bill Clinton endores Barack Obama

“People have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power” - Bill Clinton

Tonight President Clinton called on us to remember that he was accused of the same inexperience in 1992.

Let’s make this happen.

Conferences: Inbound Marketing Summit

Want to learn more about using marketing to grow your business? Enter the Inbound Marketing Summit!

On September 8th, you can do just that with speakers like David Meerman Scott, Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Chris Penn and Greg Verdino.  It’s a line up that you don’t want to miss in Cambridge, MA.

Hubspot, the nifty little service that helps you turn inbound links into customers and more by optimizing your marketing.  They’ve set up a conference of some of the smartest marketers I know to help.

Here’s the deal.  They have just 40 tickets left, so you want to hurry to get registered.  Hubspot has been pretty awesome and given chelpixie.com a discount code to pass on to my readers that will get you $100 off the price of the conference.  Just use code ‘8MCP1‘ when you register.

And shoot me an email, let me know you’ll be there  cause I’d love to meet you!

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Closing the Box: Pandora’s Woes

Pandora faces closing the lid on it’s popular streaming radio service after the CRB, earlier this year, tripled the fees due to SoundExchange. Each time a streaming service plays a song they have to pay a small fee to Soundexchange. Soundexchange is deeply associated with the RIAA, who continuously acts like the bully on the playground. Making all the rules and taking your lunch money to boot.

Now the strain of those triple fees has hit internet stream radio and popular service Pandora is getting punched in the stomach enough times that it just might fall over soon. This weekend, the Washington Post reported that Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora Radio stated “We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision”.

I support 100% that artists make money from being played ANYWHERE. I know musicians who are struggling to keep up in the daily grind. I also know that there are a few who have passed along their music to Pandora so that new fans can be reached. I’ve also discovered new music over at Pandora and would hate to see them close their doors. I don’t think that anyone in internet radio objects to paying fees for playing songs, but suddenly requiring internet radio to pay 3x the fees that the did for streaming is unbelievable. Yet, it’s done.

Oh, and your regular AM and FM stations? They aren’t getting hit with the same outrageous fees. SoundExchange and RIAA are acting unfairly because they are scared of what internet radio is doing for independent artists at the same time being damn greedy with what shouldn’t primarily go to them, but to the artists that they “represent”.  A lot of the time that money doesn’t reach the artist because Soundexchange “can’t find them“.

The only slim hope for Pandora lies with Rep. Howard L. Berman of California and his negotiations with Soundexchange and webcasters to come to an agreement on fees lower than those handed down last year.

The Washington Post also got a quote from Mike Huppe, general counsel for SoundExchange, “Our artists and copyright owners deserve to be fairly compensated for the blood and sweat that forms the core product of these businesses.” However, musicians only receive approximately $0.56 for a 10 song album.

Mr. Huppe, if you’re so concerned with the “blood and sweat” that goes into music creation, then maybe stop worrying about YOUR bottom line and support services who support musicians fairly.

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Got Gmail?

Gmail login pageImage via Wikipedia

While everyone loses their collective minds because Gmail is down, one wonders if all the tweets about it is going to break Twitter again.

It’s making me reanalyze the way I’ve been doing business with Google products the last 2 years.  Sure it’s got shiny keyboard shortcuts and you can take it everywhere, but what good does that do me when I use it for EVERYTHING and have no backup in place.  All of my mail filters into my Gmail account, from clients to Podcamp, from friends and family.

Not to mention when I first started using Google products I was a little concerned about them having access to everything I do within my business.

I have access to the files I’ve downloaded and thankfully keep my notes in Evernote (the best damn web app since gmail, hands down), but what to do.

What’s your backup solution?  What will be after this shortage?  Are you rethinking Google too?

Oh and Google?  Massive FAIL!

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Best Twitter line ever.

The funniest, kinda snarky but all in good fun, hands down BEST review of Podcamp Boston 3 I’ve read.

And I quote:

32. No matter how good the alternatives are, Twitter is too sticky to go away (any time soon). They could drop the whale on a bus full of children, then bake their parents into meat-pies and people will still use Twitter over anything else.

There are so MANY more gems there too. Check it out!

Kevin Kennedy-Spaien so rocks.

Summertime Blues (Okay, not really.)

I was up for some lighthearted weekend fun when I remembered this meme that Sarah tagged me for a while back pre-Podamp Boston.

4 things you like about summer

  1. Beach, waves, sun.
  2. Flip flops!
  3. Eating ice cream without freezing.
  4. Thunderstorms.

4 of your favorite vacation destinations

  1. A friend’s house in Philly.
  2. I loved my day trip to York Beach in Maine and want to go back there.
  3. Cape Fear, NC
  4. Seattle, believe it or not.

4 of your favorite summer foods

  1. Fried green tomatoes.  (Yes, really.)
  2. BBQ, though you can get it year round I really like this in the summer.
  3. Banana Popsicles
  4. Strawberries

(No, Sarah I don’t think margaritas count as food.)

4 concerts not to miss

  1. Keith Urban
  2. Jack Johnson
  3. Dave Matthews Band
  4. John Mayer

(I’m not including Kenny because I saw both him and Keith and preferred Keith’s “Stupid Boy”.)

4 things to avoid during the summer

  1. Jellyfish
  2. Disneyland (just Disneyland not DisneyWorld)
  3. Sand. In your eyes.
  4. Looking like a lobster.
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Podcamp Boston 3 - Success! Thanks to you!

This past weekend Podcamp Boston 3 rocked the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School. Thank all of you who attended, those who lent a helping hand, and those who taught others.  Thank you to our sponsors who believe in what we do enough to put forth the pledge to help us put on this conference, that includes each of the attendees.

Photos credit to C.C. Chapman.

I want to mention I had the privilege of working with the best team: Chris Penn, Chris Brogan, Sooz, Steve Sherlock, Doug Haslam and Whitney Hoffman.

Huge thanks to Andrew Jankowich for helping out at the reg desk Saturday.

We had an 80% attendance rate, much better than last year’s 50%. 370 people total attended.  Hopefully they learned a lot, met their goals of learning and sharing, and it will allow them to grow and DO in the next year.

Many times throughout the weekend, Chris Penn mentioned “do”.  Doing.  Achieving, reaching out and finding ways to make your real life community (no, not only your social media community) a better place. That maybe, by making your corner of the world a little better that will start something remarkable.  If I reach out to help my community and you reach out to help your community and others follow in our footsteps who knows what changes that will affect.  We’re seeing the beginning of that with Obama’s campaign.  We want change, question is are we each willing to do our part to make it happen.

We have the tools.  We have the power.

Did you meet your goals for learning?  What will you do in the next year to make a difference?

AUTHOR





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