The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,800 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 10 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 15 posts. There were 41 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 22mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was July 20th with 53 views. The most popular post that day was Gen Y Spaces – The New Office For Cloud Corporations.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were stumbleupon.com, linkedin.com, facebook.com, twitter.com, and askshane.org.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for apps, mobile apps, social media applications, boring presentation, and ebooks.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Gen Y Spaces – The New Office For Cloud Corporations July 2010
1 Like on WordPress.com,

Start-Up 2.0: Fastest Way to Launch a Web Project (under $10K) June 2009
10 comments

6 Incredible Free Services To Quickly Know When People Discuss Your Company Online July 2010

Release Your Next Album As An App July 2010
2 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

Come See Ethos3′s Scott Schwertly Present at E|SPACES July 2010

One of the largest changes in the world of books has been the invention of eReaders. These new eReader devices, such as the Amazon Kindle (or even iPad), allow users to download thousands of books into a handheld, easy on the eyes, reading device that can be taken anywhere. So now it’s really possible to carry your whole library to the coffee shop and read anything from your collection or just download the newest New York Times bestseller over the coffee shop wireless. A shocking statistic came out recently where Amazon, one of the largest sellers of books on the planet, declared that more ebooks were sold than regular books. That’s a pretty fundamental shift.

A further development comes in the form of E-Books or “enriched” books. This carries the same concept as a book viewed on an eReader but with additional interactive media included. This media could be interviews with the author, videos and sound effects, or even switching to an audio version when having to drive somewhere. Consider a book on WWII including actual news reels from the War before each chapter. Or a fictional story based in a far off land with sound effects of a great battle taking place. Or maybe a woman screaming during an intense part of a thriller! The possibilities are literally endless.

This does pose the question of where the traditional book form is headed. Will new technologies become a supplement to paper books and become the dominant distribution method? Will the ink-and-paper book always be a part of our lives or are we seeing the end of something that has been around for centuries? There are some sad elements in this change as few can argue the enjoyment of reading from the actual paper version. The smell of the paper and ink, the feel of the pages on your fingers, the beauty and quiet comfort of a room full of stocked bookshelves. One must also consider the element of digital piracy if the book industry moves towards being e-based. Remember that thing we used to call the Album?

Benefits though allow for many more opportunities for author’s to tell their story through different technologies. Many authors are already delving into the digital realm with incredible interactive websites and social media elements to help readers learn about, experience, and discuss the paper versions of books. A good example of this is an author I’m currently working with on his new book launch. Mark Laxer’s debut novel, The Monkey Bible, is complete with a multi-media website including links to social networks, an accompanying musical score on CD included with each book, and even an iPhone app called iRude that works to solve one of the characters from the novel’s hatred on public cell phone use.  Mark has done an incredible job exploring many new media avenues to help tell his novel’s unique take on creationism vs evolution.

GOOGLE JUICE – Nashville Writers Meet-Up Presentation August 2 2010

Gary Vaynerchuk’s CRUSH IT! Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion. I have to say that I love Gary’s moxy. If your not familiar with Gary, you may have heard of him as the internet wine guy. He sells wine at the Wine Library and tells us all about wine through his extensive knowledge and amazing personality on his video blog Wine Library TV. I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a quick read with some solid advice. I guess to sum it up quickly: It’s the story of Gary’s life and how he used his passion for wine and business along with the new tools of the internet to build one of the most powerful brands seen online today. CRUSH IT! had a good mix of basic life advice combined with descriptions of the actual online tools that Gary enjoys using. It’s nice to see a book that doesn’t just give you 50,000ft overview but digs down into the tools and numbers so that anyone can do it.

A few items I especially enjoyed:

Gary’s three rules from page 2:

1) Love Your Family

2) Work Superhard

3) Live Your Passion

I also liked Gary’s description of how to “convert my call-to-action buttons into brand building opportunities” on page 74.

My favorite section had to be all of Chapter 11: Start Monetizing. Gary has some great ideas on how to solve one of the biggest issues of the web, actually monetizing the brand you’ve built so you can support yourself and family. I guess my biggest ‘listening moment’ was Gary telling me to BE PATIENT and keep working hard. Thanks Gary for that advice, that helps get me through the slow times.

So if you are having trouble getting up in the morning, I’m guessing you probably aren’t living your passion right now. Well now is as good of a time as any to start because of the new power and reach of the internet. Let Gary show you how by picking up a copy of CRUSH IT!

As you have probably guessed…my office is my house.

I live on a quiet street just down from Music Row in Nashville Tennessee. From my house I can walk to three coffee shops, two grocery stores, the library, two major colleges, and a multitude of restaurants and bars.

I can honestly say that I love my office!

I know that I’m not completely unique. I’ve recently seen a trend from my friends and contacts all making the move towards working from home. And why not! What is the point of spending so much time and energy to wake up earlier, dress up, force down some breakfast, commute (blah!), only to arrive at a location where you are going to do the same stuff you could have done from home – get on your computer! Now obviously this isn’t appropriate for jobs where you physically have to be there – such as manual labor. But if you are putting in all that effort just to put yourself in another physical location to do the same thing you can do from your house, to me that’s a waste. It’s a waste of your time and a waste of resources (gas, energy, traffic, pollution, office electricity, space, public services, etc). Why are we still convinced that we need to put everyone together in a single space on a daily basis in order to get work done? Is it just for the meetings? I hope not!

Technology has increased to the point today that whole offices can hopefully start to fade away. I think this would make for a happier and more productive work force as everyone can work comfortably from their favorite environment – whether from their home, sitting at the park, or even traveling the world. Companies could basically have a whole workforce that is free roaming, based anywhere.  We can call these companies the “cloud-corporations.” My company MusikPitch is a cloud corporation.

There will be times however when these cloud-based corporations will need to rally the troops to a central location to collaborate. Or maybe the mobile professional needs a space in a certain city to get some work done with all the office necessities. This is where the Gen Y Space will come in handy. The Gen Y Space  is a new type of office that’s built just for the next generation of workers and cloud-corporations. These workers will be wired and mobile but they will need places to meet specifically designed for business. These spaces will vary in design and services but most will have the basic necessities to include a business address, copy/printers, desks and collaborating areas, meeting and presentation rooms, coffee machines, and of course wireless internet access.

Nashville has two of these Gen Y type spaces already: CoLab Nashville and E|SPACES.

CoLab was opened last year by Kailey Hussey and is located on the first floor of The Wachovia Plaza, at 230 4th Avenue N. suite 105 between Church and Union.  CoLab is a great location right in downtown Nashville for those needing office space or meeting rooms and especially for those looking to collaborate on a project together. Our recent Nashville 2.0 meeting, “All You Need To Know About SEO” was held at CoLab and was a great success! Thanks again to Kailey and CoLab Nashville for hosting us!!

E|SPACES just opened recently and is located at 4322 Harding Pike, Suite 417, just above Sweet Cece’s frozen custard in Belle Meade. I was recently given a chance to tour E|SPACES and was highly impressed by the design and office features available (for example, the small tables which double as dry-erase boards – very fun). E|SPACES is another great place in Nashville to consider for a personal office, presentation space, or when you need a group brainstorming session. We are excited to be having the next Nashville 2.0 meeting, “Presentation Revolution: How to Build, Design, and Deliver Epic Presentations” at E|SPACES on July 27th. This would be a good opportunity for you to see the amazing design of E|SPACES for yourself and also learn all about delivering powerful presentations from Scott Schwertly. You can see all the info about this event here.

So as the world evolves due to technology, I’m happy to see Nashville is riding the wave into the future by making space available for Gen Y workers like myself running or working for the increasing number of cloud corporations. I look forward to seeing you at one of these spaces at the next Nashville 2.0 meeting!

The Web 2.0 phenomenon is all about the conversation happening online. People are talking out there and you can listen! Some companies still fear this! They are terrified that if they begin to engage in social media (Twitter / Facebook / Blogging / etc) that someone will say something bad about them. Well let me tell you, people are going to talk about your company whether you like it or not, you might as well be there to help the conversation along in a positive way! So let’s talk about how you can quickly hear what people are saying online about your company (or any subject you are interested in) which gives you the chance to respond if desired.

1) Google Alerts! This is the big dog! You should have Google alerts ready to alert you anytime someone mentions your company’s name. It’s super easy to set up. Just go to Google.com/alerts

 You can type in whatever terms you would like to track in the ‘search terms’ box. Remember to use quotes if you want to only be alerted to a specific phrase. More on that below.

Next, select the type of search. I usually just go with everything but you can limit your search to  just blogs or just video sites.

The next option is to choose how often you receive your alerts. For my company name, MusikPitch, I want alerts “as-it-happens” so I can immediately know when my company is being discussed. For other subjects I track, such as “need a songwriter,” I get alerts only once-a-day. I have to specify “need a songwriter” within quotations or my alerts will contain all the results using those three words even if they aren’t in order. You can always test your alerts as they are so easy to create and edit. Use the most basic ones first and if you are getting overwhelmed, get more specific.

I also usually set my alerts to the max of 50 per email. My terms are so specific that I rarely get close to this number. I’m guessing for weekly results emails (as opposed to per-day or as-it-happens) this limit may be more important. If you are getting more than 50 results per search then your company name is either Justin Bieber or your terms aren’t specific enough.

The final selection is to receive the alerts via email (which is how I like to get my results) or via your RSS reader. More on RSS readers below.

Search Twitter - This was the original Twitter search engine that was later incorporated into the Twitter website itself. You can type in your company’s name and see who is talking about you on Twitter.

I’ve typed in MusikPitch in the example. I can see my most recent tweet and also a tweet from a Japaneese blogger talking about MusikPitch. I have the option to translate this tweet which I did earlier. You can also select the orange RSS feed button to feed results directly into your reader.

TweetDeck – Going to Search.Twitter.com all the time or checking your reader all the time may be a pain for some. It would be better to just be alerted right away but Google alerts doesn’t cover tweets that well. You could use a service called Twilert, which feeds tweet searches into your email just like Google Alerts. If you want a really fast option though, check out TweetDeck. TweetDeck is desktop software (you have to download and install it on your computer) but it is free! It is also pretty amazing stuff! You can type in your company’s name as a search term and TweetDeck will alert you with a little chirp everytime someone mentions your company. I’ve noticed TweetDeck gives me faster results than Google Alerts because as soon as someone tweets something about MusikPitch, I see a little chirpbox pop-up to alert me. TweetDeck can monitor multiple types of accounts, each in a different column. To the right is my MusikPitch search column. I also have colmuns for my Facebook newsfeed, LinkedIn newsfeed, my Twitter account, and a bunch of search terms I like to monitor on Twitter such as “need custom music.”

HootSuite is similar to TweetDeck but I don’t use it. I find that people are either TweetDeck people or HootSuite people. There are arguments back and forth about which one is better. I know how to use TweetDeck though so I stick with that one – although HootSuite sends me emails and seems to be adding some pretty cool new options. I may have to check it out soon.

RSS Readers are great ways to get lots of information in an easy to read format. There are many RSS readers out there to choose from but I just stick with my Google Reader. I’m already using so many Google products and it’s nice when everything works well together.

As I mentioned above, many of the alert systems can generate feeds directly into your reader, giving you a simple place to see all the conversations about your company occuring online. I have SO MANY feeds though because I enjoy many subjects talked about on many different blogs, I may miss mentions of my company if they are only going into my reader. I’d rather have them go into my email where I know I won’t miss them. And I like to see them right away so I use TweetDeck as well.

Don’t think you are limited to just tracking mentions of your company name though. These services allow you to track any mentions of anything. So you should probably add your full name to some of these alerts as well. You should also add any keywords that you are targeting or are interested in learning more about. For example, you notice I track mentions of “need a songwriter” online so I can engage in conversations with people who need a songwriter. If I see that they may benefit from using MusikPitch, I will mention it. I also like to learn as much as possible and keep tabs on music supervisors. So I have some alerts set up for that term which keeps me up-to-date on what’s happening in the music supervisor world. There is so much information and conversation being added to the web daily and these systems will help you filter out just what is important to you. You should get started by setting up your alerts today!

Did I miss anything? Is there a service that you are having success using? Let us know in the comments….

You know the information is important but it’s just not catching your attention. It’s just not interesting!

Or maybe you’ve been on the other end – trying to present your information to a group but you can see they just aren’t getting it!

Presentations have become the hallmark of business these days. Right up there with emails and Excel sheets. Do presentations have to be this painful though?

If you’ve ever seen Scott Schwertly present then you know the answer to that question. A resounding NO!

I had a chance to see Scott present a few months ago and can definitely say it was one of the most amazing presentation I’ve ever seen. Scott could make a monthly accounting brief seem like you just walked out of James Cameron’s newest 3-D epic!

Scott founded the Nashville based company Ethos3, an internationally renown and award-winning presentation design and training company. Basically – they teach people how to make their presentations just plain AWESOME.

We are happy to announce that Scott will be giving his presentation titled, “Presentation Revolution: How to Build, Design, and Deliver Epic Presentations” for the Nashville 2.0 meet-up group.

We are also excited to announce that E|SPACES, a new Nashville based office space for people on-the-go, will be hosting the presentation. I had a chance to visit E|SPACES and was blown away by the design. You need to go there to experience it yourself and here is your chance.

As always, the presentation will be free to attend so bring yourself and your friends and let Scott dazzle you with his storytelling skills inside the incredibly designed E|SPACES!

RSVP HERE: http://www.meetup.com/Nashville-Tech/calendar/14077899/

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A new company has launched that may provide a simple solution in the creation of these apps – at least in creating an iPhone app (other platforms coming soon). SoundAround just opened out of private Beta in June and makes it easy for any band or artists to build and launch their own iPhone application. You can check out the video below to explore all the options available in the application:

(or watch in HD on Vimeo)

I had a chance to chat with Steve Klein (one of SoundAround‘s co-founders) about some upcoming additions to the application.

“We’ll be integrating Artist Data to automatically import show data, giving the option to send Push Notifications (already implemented) based on location – e.g. only to New York area or only to LA area, trying to partner with services like Fanbridge to integrate the bands existing email list and hopefully setting up some sort of “trade your email for a free mp3″ system.”

I’m very excited about services like these that make it easier for bands to communicate with fans on the platforms the fans are using most. Although you can’t sell the apps created from SoundAround, it’s only a matter of time before this company or others make this possible. Selling an app for each album release may be a new way to help bands “make real money” again. Take out the label from the equation and the indie band could sell an “album-app”  and keep 70% profits (minus Apple’s fee of 30% and the SoundAround fee of course).

What do you think?

UPDATE: Google just launched a new service that would allow anyone (programmer or not) to create an app for the Android phones. You can check out the full story here: App Inventor for Android Launched

I don’t know, just an idea. What do you think?

Below are a few services that you can use to let people filter the news you receive for you (and I’m not talking about the producers at Fox News and CNN or the editors of the New York Times and USA Today).

Twitter: Twitter is probably one of the easiest ways to filter the news you receive. Just start an account and begin to follow people who tweet links to information that you enjoy. Need to find people to follow? Try using the Twitter search box or Twellow.com. You can also check out what’s trending on Twitter in the right column or get a weekly trending summary from Mashable.com.

Google Buzz: Google Reader has been my go-to service to gather all my daily information. It works by allowing me to pull in multiple sources of information (blogs, news, video subscriptions – anything that has an RSS feed) into a personalized reader. I have to admit though that recently it has become too much as I have added too many feeds. I will be reducing my feeds soon but there is another solution. When you like an article in your Google Reader, take a look at who else likes it. If you notice the same person liking articles that you like, follow them and articles they like will appear in your Buzz. Do this a few times with different people and you now have human readers filtering your reader by selecting the top articles and sending them into your Buzz folder.

Social Bookmarking Services: There are too many of these to name but some of the top services include Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious. You can create accounts with these services and choose the types of subjects that interest you. As people scour the web they will tag articles or websites they find favorable using these services. The more tags an article or story gets, the more chance it will end up on your front page. You can follow or friend people within these services that tend to tag news that you enjoy. You can also create an RSS feed from these services to feed top stories directly into your Reader.

Facebook: Facebook’s news feed, much like Twitter, lists the status updates of your friends. Your friends may find news on the web they enjoy and share it on their Facebook page – therefore going into your feed. Theory here being that if these people are actually your friends, you are probably interested in what they are posting (although this may not always be the case). You can also ‘Like’ Facebook pages that are built around companies or other items of interest. If you like a company’s page, its news will start to feed into your news feed. Facebook has also given websites the ability to add the ‘Like’ functionality button. Want to check-out what everyone is liking using Facebook? Try ItsTrending.

Google Alerts: Set up a Google alert on your favorite subjects and let Google search the web for the top stories. Google sends you a summary email either once a day, once a week, or as stories are found, depending on how you set it up. Although this isn’t really a human filter, it’s still a good way to stay on top of news concerning a certain subject.