The Paisano®
Renaissance 2.0

Hey, I don’t know how this started but somehow the people have spoken and they want me to run for office!

I am indeed humbled Pai!

Here’s news coverage of what happened and this incredible online grass roots campaign that’s taken off!

There you sit staring at the blank computer screen
A palette of Pure white so clean and so pristine

You’re a digital painter with a canvas of bits and bytes.
On the web with a browser is how a blogger writes.

Deep in thought you ponder, “What shall I say this day?”
Your mind begins to wonder, “How many hits will I get today?”

Will you blog about something you like and shower it with praise?
Or will you go on a rant and start a flame war and watch it blaze?

There’s a razor thin line between something that people will Digg,
and something that will get you lamb-basted like a roasted pig.

You’re never quite sure what will make people feel compelled to stumble,
Nor ever understand what really makes the commenting trolls grumble.

How many times can you compare a new startup to twitter?
How many Adobe Air apps can there be that look like snitter?

You think you’ll lose your lunch if you see yet another music site.
Blip.fm, Last.fm, ILike, YouLike, weLove, it makes you want to bite!

If you hear one more service say they will be just like YouTube you’ll surely hurl.
Your stomach turns even more as you watch your screen get flooded on twhirl.

Just when you start to feel a little bit better, someone sends a facebook App.
That’s when you think you’re going to lose it and could possibly even snap.

You try to get back to writing your post and focus on the subject matter.
Slowly, though, you hear a voice whispering “You’re getting fatter and fatter”

You know you need to get some exercise and some fresh air.
But there are several deadlines past due so you don’t even dare.

Then some pseudo borderline friend tries to inflict you with some social media guilt.
“Why haven’t you replied to any of my message?” and your self-esteem starts to wilt.

You fear looking in a mirror because you know that you will look very pale.
You shake your head and secretly pine for the simple days of “You’ve Got Mail”.

®Paisano 10/7/2008

Yammer just launched and the best way to describe it is like this: It’s yet another twitter clone but with a twist. It’s your own private twitter service for your company, organization or family. The key is that everyone’s email address must have the same domain. For example, John@Company.com can join the same yammer network as Sally@Company.com. It will not work with yahoo, gmail or Hotmail accounts so don’t even try it.

So, if you have your own domain name with an email address linked to it then you can start your own private twitter network. If you don’t have one, you could register one for as little as $6.99 a year and then create email addresses for everyone that wants to be a member of this exclusive network. The key is that these new email addresses will only be email forwarding accounts that redirect any emails sent to that address to the real address that the user wants it to go to. It’s a sneaky and inexpensive way to get everyone in the same private twitter network. You can add cousins, aunts, uncles, even family friends. Just create an email forwarding account and they can join yammer.

This is a good solution for other groups, not just companies or families. Organizations such as churches, sports fantasy leagues, recreational sports groups and so on can all take advantage of this now.

Just an idea I had.

Yes, I’m a big fan of Google Chrome already. I still love FireFox and have an occasional tryst with Flock and sometimes give Internet Explorer a booty call (always leaving me feeling dirty and filled with regret vowing never AGAIN!).

Here’s the complete I.T. Happens Series.

Much to my surprise, Google Chrome is actually an excellent browser! I’ll admit that I did not want to like this browser because I only recently fell in love with Firefox thanks to its excellent 3.0 release. I even have a love-hate relationship with Flock for crying out loud. I’ve been totally heartbroken by Microsoft’s horrific Internet Explorer 8 Beta releases to the point where I’ve given up on them. I still contend that they should totally scrap ie and build a whole new browser like Google has down but do it with their own SilverLight and called it SilverSurfer.

For an excellent review including a screencast checkout Rizzn’s post on Mashable. Here’s the complete 30 plus page comic book about Google Chrome. Here’s the Open Source project called Chromium.

My only gripe with Google Chrome is the logo. It kept bugging me because it reminded me of something but I just couldn’t remember what it was. Then I remembered. It looks a lot like the Simon Says game! See for yourself.

I got tagged again. This time by Daniele Rossi whom I thought was a friend and paisan! Hmph. Just kidding. I don’t mind. It doesn’t seem to require as much work or input as some others so why not? So, here goes nothing.

Six random things about Pai?

1. Even though I’m a big computer geek, I love nature and the great outdoors. I especially love gazing at the tops of trees as they sway in the breeze. I blame John Travolta from the movie Phenomenon.

2. I’m a big time sports fan and a big sports trivia buff. I’ve won countless bar bets and big time prizes from sports radio call in shows. By the way, my on-air name is Paisano. I call 790 the zone AM on a regular basis.

3. I love writing all kinds of things. Fiction, non-fiction. Shortstories, poems, novels, screenplays, proverbs, etc.

4. Despite being a big macho Italian man I’m rather light on my feet as a dancer. I LOVE dancing and even enjoy watching those dance shows. My favorite being So You Think You Can Dance. Ssshhh!

5.  Really into cooking and enjoy learning new things from the Food Network! Love Rachel Ray and Giada! Anthony Bordane too!

6. Believe it or not, I love meeting new people more than finding cool new websites! GASP!

Here are the rules:

Okay, for those of you tagged, here (apparently) are the rules, as I was given:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

I will annoy, er I mean tag the following peeps:

MouseWords

HelenMosher

Chris Hebert

Cheryl Smith

Merlene

Jill Foster

In my latest piece for Mashable, “20+ Tools to Make Any Email Inbox More Social”, I shared ways you can enhance your email experience whether it’s Outlook, GMail, Thunderbird or Apple Mail. Some of the tools were covered in one of my posts about Outlook but most of them were new which made writing it interesting. It really is amazing how much you can do these days with your email client no matter which one it is.

I stumbled across this photo of Isaac Asimov, one my favorite authors of all-time and supposedly his first computer, Radio Shack’s TRS-80.
I don’t know how true all of this was but it’s such an interesting photo that I had to share it.

It’s important to note that Asimov was one of the most prolific writers in history.  However, can one assume that the very same technology that he wrote about actually helped him write faster and thus increase his body of work? If we are believe this ad then Isaac apparently ditched his trusty underwood typewriter for this new age machine which was released circa 1977. He was approximately 57 at that time and would go on to write for another 15 years until his passing in 1992 at age 72. He’s attributed to writing and/or editing over 500 books and some 9,000 letters! How many did he complete after getting introduced to the word processor and computer is anybody’s guess at this point.

Still, it makes you wonder how many more works we would all be blessed with if other great writers had the technology we take so much for granted these days. Of course, that’s assuming that technology actually does in fact increase a writer’s production volume. Some would argue that technology not only has impacted the quantity of writing but also the quality of writing thanks to grammar and spell checkers and all of the auto-insertion and auto-correction features available in word processors.

In any event, no matter what the real deal was behind this brilliant piece of marketing, I like the idea that Isaac Asimov, the man behind the I, Robot series actually used technology to create his masterpieces.

Note: Just for grins, here’s a clip from the major motion picture adaptation of Asimov’s "I, Robot" starring Will Smith.

I was tagged by Chris Brogan to contribute a post about best practices for social media marketing in response to Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation. Since I mostly blog about technology I will share my take on this question from that perspective. How does someone from a tech point of view look at social media marketing?

Pai’s best practice for social media marketing involving technology:

1. Be Honest: It sounds simple but it isn’t when it comes to social media. It can be like high school with some of the cliquish things that go on with some circles. Too many people are afraid to be totally honest about things in fear of not being liked by an A-lister (GASP!). I learned that everyone, including those rare mutants known as A-listers appreciates and respect honesty above everything else. I apply the same practice to my reviews of technology and startups.

2. Be Respectful: Always remember that behind all of this technology and all these cool tools are real live human beings. Too often we lose sight of that fact and say things that truly hurt people’s feelings. We need to remember to respect everyone’s dignity no matter how much we disagree with them or what they’ve said or done.

As far as sharing someone else’s work regarding this topic I am pleased to share an excellent post from Jackie Peters  called “Caught in the Echo Chambers”. It still has me thinking deeply about things. It’s so well-written and thought out. Take your time and read it carefully. Great stuff.

I will tag the following who I know will have great tips to share!

Tojosan who’s a master in socializing no matter what the platform online or offline. He also puts his money where he mouth is (huh?). For example, for a great cause (mail our military promotion) he offered to shave his head if they reached a certain donation level. Needless to say, his new name is TojoSANSHair (yea, I coined that one for him).

Purplecar is a writer who also loves social media and uses the tools. Everyone loves Christine and she will have some insightful secrets for sure.

I just discovered that hashtags have been dead since July 10, 2008 and hardly anyone even noticed it. I accidentally stumbled across the corpse when I tried to visit some of the recent hot hashtags that many people on twitter have been meticulously using such as #Gnomedex and #DNC08. At first, I thought they were down because there was just too much traffic. Then it kept failing days later. I decided to investigate further and wound up on their blog which explained what was happening.

In short, Twitter is the murderer. They made some major changes that impacted the way hashtags and many other third party services worked, in this case totally broke the connection and rendered hashtagging DOA. So the fine folks at DowntownCartel contacted Evan Williams and his twitter gang and politely asked if they could get an XMPP feed once again so they could fix hashtags once again for twitter’s members. They were told “sure thing, no problem” but here it is over a month later and still nothing. I contacted the hashtag crew and all they would say is that they are still waiting on Twitter and plan to resurrect hashtags once again as soon as they are given what they need from Twitter.

I understand that Twitter has many major problems to fix and hashtags are low on their priority list. However, from what I understand, enabling an XMPP feed is not that big a deal. Why wouldn’t they do this? It’s in Twitter’s best interest to allow people to use hashtags. It’s a tool that more and more members are using for big events especially.
This data would be useful and actually fun with the new features that hashtags have added like aggregated media which pulls images, videos, links and blog posts related to the hashtag into the same page with all of the tweets with that hashtag.

What Can We Do About it?
I’m writing this with the hope that it might get some attention and ultimately make its way to Evan Williams and his team at twitter. Maybe they’ll realize just how much their members want and need hashtags again and provide what’s needed in order to get this fixed once and for all. Let’s all let them know how much we want hashtags to come back from the dead. Tell Twitter how much you want hashtags back by posting your request on their GetSatisfaction feedback page. If enough of us speak up then they have to listen.

Note: Here’s a primer I did on twitter groups and hashtags