Independent Analysis: AI, SaaS, and Revenue Growth Strategy

Aaron Brazell @technosailor has a review of the new version of Word Press 2.5 on his post  http://technosailor.com/2008/03/18/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-wordpress-25/ . The version is not ready for mainstream yet and the official release date is yet to be announced. After reading Aaron's post here are the 3 things that i am excited about: a) Image Flash Uploader - I like to use a lot of images in my blog posts b) TinyMCE support for the visual editor. c) TimeStamp functionality overhaul   Thanks Aaron for  a great summary.

Once again my path crossed with Guy Kawasaki.   We met at Charlotte for the Small Business networking event Sponsored by Network Solutions. Once again it gave me an opportunity to meet some extremely smart people part of the Blogger/Twitter crowd in Charlotte.  The event was at the Sonoma Restaurant in Downtown Charlotte.  We also had John Lassiter (Charlotte City Council) and Steve Partridge (Charlotte Chamber Of Commerce) join us for this event. A very engaged crowd and asked a lot of questions to Guy. The  Charlotte Bloggers and Twitterati  did a great job covering the event and here are the links to their posts: @rosebreezy   Social Carolina Blog , Brazen Careerist , Riveting Rosie @budesigns For a creative Slide Show @ pseudojoe http://acquaintedstrangers.blogspot.com/2008/03/observations-on-guy-kawasaki-in.html @93octane who live blogged the event on Twitter and I extracted his Twitter Stream here http://www.shashi.name/2008/03/93-...

  Lyell is a awesome guy, he started the initiative for a post event tweetup and also live blogged the Guy Kawasaki talk at the Network Solutions Small Business Networking event in Charlotte. On his Twitter profile Lyell describes himself as "DH, ebusiness consultant, metal-head, mba, dad, NOLA expat in CLT. (not in order of importance)" Here is an extract from Lyell's Twitter Stream about the event #guykawasaki - the key is the start and the end. Decide you want to MAKE MEANING, and don't let the BOZOS grind you down. 07:03 PM March 25, 2008 #guykawasaki no 11 - but he picked his family over $$$ YAY (applause) 06:57 PM March 25, 2008 #guykawasaki no 11 - bozosity conservatively lost Guy about $2 billion 06:57 PM March 25, 2008 #guykawasaki no 11 - omg guy is joking on the japanese-americen WWII internment camp racist issue!!!! ROFL 06:56 PM March 25, 2008 #guykawasaki no 11 - another bozo? guy turns down the opportunity to interview for t...

Guy Kawasaki's Alltop.com has several categories of web sites "like a magazine rack". SInce I did not see a "deals" category , here is my suggestion for a deals.alltop.com category. http://www.SlickDeals.net | http://feeds.feedburner.com/SlickdealsnetFP http://www.fatwallet.com/ | http://www.fatwallet.com/rssfeed.php?c=18&deals=50 http://www.edealinfo.com/ | http://www.edealinfo.com/rss.shtml http://www.dealcatcher.com/ | http://rss.dealcatcher.com/rss.xml http://bensbargains.net/ | http://bensbargains.net/rss.xml/0 http://www.couponmom.com/ | sorry no Rss feed (created from Page2RSS http://page2rss.com/rss/eea26c31e49cbf20bb681c29d16050f6 ) update: from Marina Martin : http://www.retailmenot.com/ | http://page2rss.com/page?url=www.retailmenot.com/ I am sure there are 100's of other coupon sites if you know of any please let me know through the comments and I will add theem to this list and acknowledge you in thus post.Even if Guy does not accep...

I first met Rohit at the launch of Vox and we continued to meet usually at conferences where he was always on a panel and I was asking questions from the audience :). I am happy that the big day has come for him and I am proud of a fellow blogger from the DC area achieving his dream. here is a link to a preview of his book www.personalitynotincluded.com/introduction.pdf As part of the launch he took a unique approach by asking Bloggers for questions which I mentioned in my previous post . Here is my Personality Not Included launch interview with Rohit Bhargava a) The new media is so new, is this the right time for a book? Are the results and methods still evolving? I think it's actually the perfect time for a book like this, because my theory goes far beyond just social media. I think that social media (or new media) is certainly evolving and companies are trying to figure out the best ways to measure it, but when it comes to the benefits of having a real personality ... the...

We live in the DC area but strangly got the opportunity to chat for a long time at SXSW. Rohit was talking about new ideas for the launch of his book "Personality Not Included". In his post on " Influential Marketing Blog " Rohit is pitching a new way to promote his book. Here is what he says: My idea is simple: if you send me five questions that you want to know about the book or personality, I'll write you a response on Friday that you can publish on your blog. Let's call these virtual interviews (ie - interviews by email). You choose whether to post the interview on your blog or not after you get my responses, but I am essentially offering for ANY BLOGGER to send me interview questions and I will respond with answers that are NOT cut and pasted, but specific to your questions. I will send all my responses to you on Friday in the order that I get your questions, and I will link to all the posted interviews on Friday. On Monday, I'll be running a compet...

This is a quick post before going to bed. I am going to answer the question on how to follow twitter folk who are in your local area. Method 1 : Search Twitter using the name of the place as the search term. Not totally perfect but usable ( Example:  http://twitter.com/tw/search/users?q=new+york) Method 2 : Use tweetscan.com to search for the place name. Method 3 : Twitterlocal.net This is awesome. It lets you look at Tweets from within a few miles of a zip code and you can use the Twitter Local Client ot subscribe to the RSS feed. Here is feed for DC ( 50 miles of zip code 20171)  http://www.twitterlocal.net/rss/20171/50 . Method 4 : Take a look at all the people DCtwits is following . Method 5 : Ask Newmediajim or Susan Reynolds who know everyone :)

I have been following Guy Kawasaki 's blog for over 3 years now . . On Guy's blog the first post I read was the 10-20-30 rule of PowerPoint . I was thrilled that Guy was doing a Small Business Networking event at 3 cities sponsored by Network Solutions and I got a chance to go to Miami and meet him. We met at the Sonesta Bay Front Hotel in Coconut Grove Florida and he readily agreed to be interviewed on video. The interview is posted at the SolutionsArePower website . Guy is a nice guy to meet and would respect even his enemies ( my take :) ). He talks very well and gets along well with people. His talk in Miami to Small Business was great. After the event we had dinner together with several Miami Twitterati and we had a good time laughing. I have been exchanging Tweets with Guy over his new venture Alltop.com . At the outset Alltop started to seem like a gigantic directory of websites to me. Then slowly I began to see the focus on categories and the participation of ever...

Becky MC Cray has a great story being a small town entrepreneur and writing about small business and rural issues, based on her own success and failures. In this interview on SolutionsArePower.com she talks about how she started her blog and her mission in helping other small business. Go to the entire post to see the video, or click here . read more | digg story

I was thrilled to be in Miami for work. I was there for the Network Solutions sponsored Small Business Event where Guy Kawasaki was speaking. It was great to meet Guy in real life after having seen him and known him online. I interviewed Guy Kawasaki and he was a genuine guy with no airs about him. The interview is posted on the Solutions are Power Blog . Alex De Carvalho @alexdc was live tweeting Guy Kawasaki's talk and here are some of the highlights. "every entrepreneur comes in with a great work of art" D: innovation's Deep; I: intelligent products; C: complete experience; E: Elegance; E: great products create strong emotions" If u're in software, change ur service often + experiment much" Also, "niche your product and make it the best in that niche" Ask your customers *why* they're buying your product; this is not the same as asking non-users why they're not customers" Don't let successful 'bozos' get you down ...

Podcamp DC April 19-20, 2008 is a free conference to learn about new media tools like podcasts, videocasts, blogs, Second Life, Facebook, and YouTube. Interested Learn more at http://www.podcampdc.org

SXSW: Connie Reece & Shashi Bellamkonda Originally uploaded by shashiBellamkonda You don' t have to actually meet Connie Reece to experience her helpfulness. Connie and me have been Twitter friends and no visit to Austin would be complete for me without meeting her. Even though I had not made any prior arrangements for a meeting I am glad she made some time for me and we had dinner at the Rio Grande. To me it was like meeting a long lost friend and I really appreciate the time she gave me. We talked about Social Media and the FrozenPeaFund.com. I wish I had been able to stay the next day for the Social Media Conversation

SXSW : Shashi Bellamkonda & Kami Huyse Originally uploaded by shashiBellamkonda I would have loved to have spent more time with Kami Huyse http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/ . I owe her because when she was in the DC area a few months ago , she had come with Geoff Livingston to Network Solutions and generally chatted about Social Media and had helped reinforce what I had been saying. That visit helped me tremendously in moving to that position. At a conference there is only so much time so I hope to see her when she visits DC next and spend more time.

SXSW: Becky McCRay & Michelle Riggins Originally uploaded by shashiBellamkonda This was one lunch that I had planned in advance so that I don't miss meeting Becky McCray , Michelle Riggins and Adam Darowski. Becky McCray is a Small Business Evangelist at http://www.smallbizsurvival.com and Michelle is Marketing Honcho at http://www.batchblue.com . One definite result of the lunch was that we convinced Michelle to get her own Twitter id @mriggen. We also had the company of Adam Darowski User Experience Designer for BatchBlue, LLC. http://batchblue.com . I had met Michelle in New York a few weeks ago . She has created a great bluepaper on how Small Business can use Social Media. She and Pamela O' hara gave us their tips on how small business can use Social media here http://www.shashi.name/2008/02/how-small-business-can-use-social-media.html I continued the conversation with Becky after lunch and i have a video interview that I will post soon at http://www.solutionsa...

Network Solutions Social Media Swami meets Sim from Utterz Originally uploaded by shashiBellamkonda I have been using http://www.utterz.com for sometime. I am amazed at the speed at which Simeon Margolis answers emails about Utterz. I ran into him at SXSW and the first thing I did was to Utter first about the meeting and then shake hands next :). Great guy and he went to Boston College which he calls " College of Entrepreneurs" . Is it too late for me to enroll. My mission is to make Small business use utterz to be more successful.

I was under the impression that there were no other Social Media Swami's around. I was first tipped off that there were other Swami's by Rohit Bhargava during lunch at SXSW. Then it happened. I was in the Blog Haus at SXSW when I met Jackie Huba - Chief Swomi of www.theswom.org. it was brilliant to have a play on the acronym for Society for Word of Mouth. We had some mutual friends who had told Jackie that we should meet and I am happy we finally met. I have joined the Society for Word of Mouth SWOM's purpose, then, is two-fold: to be a free social network for the true believers of word of mouth (or the merely curious), and to be a premium educational resource for making word of mouth fundamental to the DNA of any organization. For the second part of the mission, we'll be introducing webinars, educational materials and training opportunities in the weeks ahead. Plus, we'll have in-person events. Fun events! I have been meaning to blog about the definition of the ti...

I am attending the SOBCon 08 in Chicago May 2-4 2008 . The event is "Part seminar, part conference, part deep networking event" . Network Solutions is participating in the event and I will be there with a few of my colleagues. Tojosan has a blog pos t that describes all the perks of attending: SOBCon, one of the premiere blogging conferences, is adding a lot of perks to registrants. If you were worried about getting a little something extra, then worry no more. “Thanks to our sponsors you’ll also receive: * a copy of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett * 60 attendees will get free design and SEO consults from Network Solutions experts. * a $99 lifetime hosting offer from THC * a pro account at E-Junkie * a free subscription to Blogger & Podcaster Magazine and a chance to join their new USA Today guide * a professional video interview on you and your biz for BlogTV sponsor...

I have met a lot of online friends off line and the experience has been energizing. The DC metro area has a lot of social media activity. I setup a poll to kind of get a idea of how many of my social media friends have met their online friends offline. 55 people answered the poll 85% said Yes 14.5% said No The No answers were from people in Northern CA, NJ, TN, IN and NJ. What do you think of the results ?

Day 2 of the conference I decide to skip meeting anyone for Breakfast. Breakfast meetings are good only if you stay close to the convention center and don't have a late night). Scott Stead gave me a ride to town as I was staying with family 15 miles from Downtown. On the way to the Austin Convention center we pick up Jonny Goldstein and Gerry T. I also get introduced to kristen crusius aka @kroosh . The International Hostel in Austin seems a cool place with a lake view, gardens etc. On the way I saw rowing teams practicing on the lake. The first Twitter message is from Kim Haynes (@khaynes) of Bull Dog Solutions who is listening to the panel "Creating Findable Rich Media Content" .( SXSW podcast here )It takes me a while to find Room A . Luckily Kim has given me precise directions to her seat and so even if the room is dark I find her and we talk in whispers. Peter Cole on the panel is interesting , he is the Creative dev director for AQKA and I want to look for him...

Logistics: a) Don't take a heavy bag with you. If you have 3 cameras and a laptop ( Like I did) make sure you go to your hotel room or car to drop off the stuff before you go for a party. b) Wear Comfortable shoes . The convention center is huge and you may have to walk miles c) Follow @GerryTShow (Warning: Please click on this link after the kids are in bed) on Twitter but not in Downtown Austin. I may have followed him at least 4 miles in the opposite direction trying to find the Frog party. Take a cab. d) Don't attempt to attend all the sessions. If they are back to back in different rooms then you have to be faster than a high school kid. e) @jonnygoldstein ( Jonny's Partay) @scottstead ( Scottstead.com ) are good people to hang out with. f) You may not like your detractor's opinion online but at a conference you are there to schmooze and have a good time. Events :- Knowledge v/s networking Remember you will usually get a good wrap up of the sessions . it may be ...

I have been following SXSW with interest and wanted to attend one day.Last year I heard podcasts from SXSW that talked about Twitter and everyone seemed to be having such good fun and raucous. I never imagined that life would change so much in this one year and I would be part of SXSW as an attendee. I was not the typical attendee, My wife had sent a chaperone with me - my 2.5 year old son Before you imagine that he was hanging around in the Austin Convention Center hallways or watching me drink at the parties let me tell you that my wife's sister lives in Austin and has 2 kids. So while I attended SXSW The kids had a great time on their own. I would say the SXSW experience started on 7th March in BWI where I met Rana June . Since the weather in Dallas was bad the previous day it upset the travel plans of a lot of people including Rana. Over Twitter I heard that Christina Warren aka film_girl had to share a rental car from Dallas to Austin with some fellow SXSWers as American had...