Traveling Outside the Country: Notify Your Credit Card Company

You know how it's a pain in the neck, and embarrassing when you go to make a credit card transaction and you get rejected at the counter?

Well, that can happen if you leave the country, or even your state, and neglects to inform your credit card company that you won't be shopping in your home area.


Image courtesy: NFL Extra Points

So, before you take that trip, notify your credit card company where you are traveling to, and the dates of your travel.

[Video] Romney's Way

Lightt: Grab 10 seconds of time in a burst of pictures and share

This is going to be fun to try.



It’s easy to capture and share what’s happening around you with Lightt. With one tap, you grab 10 seconds of time in a burst of pictures. We call this a “highlight.” Your highlights upload instantly and connect in a seamless stream of beautiful moving pictures. Watch your highlights, and the highlights shared by your friends, play back faster than life, like the speed of your memory.

Lightt:
http://lightt.com

On iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lightt/id545803363

Robert Scoble interviewed the team:
https://plus.google.com/+Scobleizer/posts/fzFJVGPmWGH

Update:

I've started using the app and it's fun.

Here's one from tonight on the subway.

Tweets from last night: Presidential debate 10/16/12

Welcome To Canton High School - Lip Dub on Vimeo

Welcome To Canton High School - Lip Dub on Vimeo, a photo by stevegarfield on Flickr.

This guy is cool.

vimeo.com/51366716

Distant Witness: Social Media, the Arab Spring and a Journalism Revolution. A new book by Andy Carvin.

Distant Witness


My friend Andy Carvin's book has a title, a cover design, and Facebook page.

Next up pre-order info. ;-)

Congratulations.

More:




Cuny Journalism Press:

The CUNY Journalism Press is the academic publishing imprint of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Part of the City University of New York, the CUNY Journalism Press publishes both traditional print books and e-books about journalists and journalism. We welcome inquiries about our books and our authors, and we welcome proposals for future books from prospective authors.

Start the presses by Jeff Jarvis:

I’m thrilled to announce that the first book to be published is by none other than @acarvin, aka Andy Carvin, the man who tweeted the Arab Spring and showed us all a new way to think of journalism and how it must add value to the flow of information the net now enables. Distant Witness: Social Media, the Arab Spring and a Journalism Revolution, will be released later this year (and available for pre-order soon). I recommend the book to you all. I’ve had the privilege to read it — and write its foreword.

Here's an interview I did with Andy Carvin on SteveGarfield.tv 2/17/11 discussing Egypt.

Pivot Conference Live Stream #pivotcon

Image:

Pivot Conference Live Stream powered by Watchitoo looks great full screen.

Pivot Conference Home Page.

Also check out the Mass Relevance Pivot Companion Experience. This page lets you looks at all the Tweets, Images, Hastags, Statistics from #pivotcon.

Mobile photography tools like iPhone and Instagram usher in new era of photography

Richard Koci Hernandez looks at whether mobile photography has made us more reliant on tools than on our eyes.

via [ CC Chapman ]


Instagram Image: Huge Fall leaf!

Felix Baumgartner - Amazing jump and live stream from outer space!

Web Video - Audience development is equally as important as great content.

Every web video producer has to read this interview Peter Kafka did with YouTube's Robert Kyncl - YouTube Channel Guide Robert Kyncl Talks About What’s Working, What Isn’t (Q&A):

Now that you’re a year into this, what have you learned?
Lesson one: Audience development is equally as important as great content. By creating fantastic content, and spending zero time on audience development, you are certain that you will not succeed on YouTube. You have to focus on audience development as much as you focus on creating content.

But you knew that already, right? Everyone who pitched you last year had to explain how they going to market and distribute their stuff, without your help.
We knew it. But we couldn’t tell with a great certainty. Now we know.
I’m talking about sustained success. Everybody can have a viral success. You find something unique, that can happen. But what we want is for people to repeat things over and over and build great brands. And for that, you need to work with audience development.

There’s a function with every TV channel, which is called a programmer, and they have great expertise in prime time flow, and late night flow, and they figure out the best way to optimize channel viewership. And then they also have marketing people. What audience development on YouTube means is really taking the marketing function from the TV channel, plus the programming function from the TV channel, and combining them into a job called audience development.

Who’s supposed to do that? The content creator or YouTube?
The content creator. That’s why I’m saying it’s similar to what happens with TV channels. Where you have programmers who schedule, and figure out prime time flow. As things go more and more on-demand, and less linear, the prime time flow expertise is less needed. You have to learn how you program in an on-demand world, which is a much different skill set.

We always knew that audience development was hard, but it's so important.

Web video is much more than producing a quality video, that evokes an emotion, and leads to being shared.

You have to think about attracting and building an audience.

More than that, today's web audience, isn't them, it's us.


Image: SteveGarfield.tv

Last year I experimented with using Google+ Hangouts on SteveGarfield.tv at The Pulse Network. My goal was to try to figure out how to easily make the 'people formerly known as the audience' a part of the show. It really worked great and lead to my show being the #2 most watched live show, behind Chris Brogan's Kitchen Table Talks.


Image: The Road to #SXSW

This experience lead to the development my show, The Road to #SXSW, which live streamed a Google+ Hangout, and had smart and funny people talking about how to prepare for SXSW.


Image: Huffington Post Live using Google Hangouts

I think we are on to something. Huffington Post Live and Shira Lazar's What's Trending are doing a super job bringing in a Live audience via Google Plus hangouts.

I'm looking forward to seeing where I can experiment next in this fast changing environment.

What are your thoughts on what's happening?

Boston Athletic Association Half Marathon

#2 and #4 Boston Half Marathon@ Jamaica Pond instagr.am/p/Qe2uviBCg5/

— Steve Garfield (@stevegarfield) October 7, 2012

#41 #42 Boston Half Marathon Women Leaderstwitvid.com/O3549

— Steve Garfield (@stevegarfield) October 7, 2012

Boston Athletic Association Half Marathon:

Always something to look forward to is the beautiful 13.1-mile B.A.A. Half Marathon course. The rolling, out-and-back route runs along the Emerald Necklace park system, beginning and ending at White Stadium in Boston’s Franklin Park. Proceeding out of Franklin Park, over the Monsignor William Casey Overpass, and past the Arnold Arboretum and Jamaica Pond, runners return and re-enter Franklin Park, looping around animal enclosures in the Franklin Park Zoo before finishing on the track in White Stadium. Here is a course map and video overview

[Photo] This is why we are going to Niagara Falls on Vacation

Image: Cassidy Quinn Brettler at Niagara Falls

Researching things to do.

Found a few good things here: Niagara Parks.

Have you been?

[Video] Why Obama Now

by Simpsons / Family Guy animator Lucas Gray

also here: http://whyobamanow.org

via For everyone who wants Obama to be more animated…

Jamaica Plain Panorama Shot with iPhone 5

Jamaica Plain Panorama, a photo by stevegarfield on Flickr.

Shot with iPhone 5 and I didn't keep the arrow on the line. I'm a rule breaker.

Image: Cropped Panorama for Instagram.

Young Hollywood Network - How They Mastered YouTube

Young Hollywood Network - YouTube, a photo by stevegarfield on Flickr.

This is a great article about the YouTube audience and how to build a successful YouTube channel: How to Build “Entertainment Tonight” For YouTube: Young Hollywood Learns On the Job

"We’re encouraging talent to talk directly to the camera, and break the fourth wall. And we’re finding YouTube likes that, too."

Want to learn how to put video on the web, check out my book, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets.

Thing X is coming soon! - Sign up process: Step By Step Guide

Here's how you create compelling content that is surprising, creative and shareable.

I saw this on twitter from Baratunde:

Goodbye, old life. I am Thing X now. thingx.com #thingx thingx.tv

— Baratunde (@baratunde) October 6, 2012

So I clicked through to Thing X.

Then I watched the video.

It's Crazy. Sci-Fi. NSFW. Gross. Alien. Funny.


Image: Thing X Welcome Page

After watching I clicked through to join.

Here's the registration page:



It's crazy too. In a good way.

After pressing submit you get this:



Of course they want your email. They also ask for some other optional information. It's fun.

After submitting the form you get an email back.



Love the registration confirmation email.

It's a good indication that this is going to be fun.

Clicking through to confirm gets you to a confirmation page with a How to Personalize Your Personalized Thank You Video:


Image: How to Personalize Your Personalized Thank You Video

Brilliant.

I love how they are making fun of every web site signup process ever.

You'll have to join Thing X yourself to see the video.

I'm not going to give everything away. ;-)

Oh yeah, one more thing, if you click to share via email, this is what you see:



My friend DJ Waldow is going to love seeing how they do this on boarding process. I just attended his session on Email marketing at the Marketing Profs B2B Forum, and he showed us how email marketing is integrated into EVERYTHING. Now I'm noticing it more. ;-)

He wrote this book:

MarketingProfs B2B Forum Photos 10/5/12

MarketingProfs B2B Forum Photos 10/4/12

ShoutRoulette mentioned by Baratunde Thurston.

I'll be at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum

Thanks to Marketing Profs, I'll be attending the B2B Forum in Boston today and tomorrow.

If you are there, say hi.



Looking forward to the Bartunde Thurston keynote.



Here's his great book, How to Be Black

Top Google+ users containing "boston" [1 - 20] Google+ trends and statistics

Testing out *GPlusData with a search for BOSTON.

[Video] PSY-Gangnam Style (RaOn acoustic cover) 강남스타일 어쿠스틱

Gangnam Style Acoustic Cover by Ra-On @ Berkeley

Duet: Jaydee Min, Elle Kim
Guitar: Michael Jun
Arranged by: Seungjun Lee



Lyrics:

Oppa is Gangnam style
Gangnam style

A girl who is warm and humanle during the day
A classy girl who know how to enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee
A girl whose heart gets hotter when night comes
A girl with that kind of twist

I'm a guy
A guy who is as warm as you during the day
A guy who one-shots his coffee before it even cools down
A guy whose heart bursts when night comes
That kind of guy

Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey
Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey

Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style

Eh- Sexy Lady, Oppa is Gangnam style
Eh- Sexy Lady oh oh oh oh

A girl who looks quiet but plays when she plays
A girl who puts her hair down when the right time comes
A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all
A sensable girl like that

I'm a guy
A guy who seems calm but plays when he plays
A guy who goes completely crazy when the right time comes
A guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscles
That kind of guy

Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey
Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey

Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style

Eh- Sexy Lady, Oppa is Gangnam style
Eh- Sexy Lady oh oh oh oh

On top of the running man is the flying man, baby baby
I'm a man who knows a thing or two
On top of the running man is the flying man, baby baby
I'm a man who knows a thing or two
On top of the running man is the flying man, baby baby
I'm a man who knows a thing or two

You know what I'm saying
Oppa is Gangnam style

Eh- Sexy Lady, Oppa is Gangnam style
Eh- Sexy Lady oh oh oh oh

I found this over on the Viral Video eXchange - http://vvx.io/.

It's a stock market for viral videos. It's all built by Dave Ganley, who emailed me to tell me about it.

He says:

Players play with a fake currency called voins so it's all free. What's interesting is how good it is for early discovery of the best viral content.

Worked for me on this video since it was on the front page and I'd never seen it before.

I like this video because it inspired me to share and made me smile.

[Revised] JetBlue presents - Election Protection 2012

Love this campaign by jetBlue: Jet Blue Election Protection

It's fun. They have a great video.

When you go to the site, you get to see their travel destinations, smart.

And, at the end, you get to see a true presidential preference poll [If people don't game the system].

The only part that tripped me up was the voting. Can we get some names on the ballot?

What is this, Florida? ;-)

[Revised] JetBlue presents - Election Protection 2012, a photo by stevegarfield on Flickr.

Help me out choosing Donkey vs Elephant!

www.jetblueelectionprotection.com

I would have put the candidates pictures in here, but If you have to go with the Donkey and Elephant, add their NAMES.

No one keeps track of these mascots.

10 Types of Content We All Crave

Scott Monty writes about creating great content in, A New Twist on Content.

Scott says:

Over the last 100 days, Kraft Food's Oreo brand has been sharing a steady stream of some of the most creative and engaging content I've ever seen.

This tweet wouldn’t be possible without, well... #dailytwist twitter.com/Oreo/status/22…

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) July 16, 2012

Click through to read the whole post.

Towards the end he includes this guide, from Infinigraph, of 10 Types of Content We All Crave:

- Content that tells a story
- Content that inspires us to action
- Content that challenges our assumptions
- Content that makes us laugh or smile
- Content that confirms our assumptions
- Content that has unexpected twists
- Content that reveals secrets
- Content where David defeats Goliath
- Content that reminds us that we matter
- Content that reminds us that dreams can come true

Great things to think about.

Official Twitter hashtag for the presidential debates is #debates

Image: Official Twitter hashtag - #debates

I was wondering what the hashtag is going to be for the presidential debates, so I took a look around and saw that @huffingtonpost senior editor Craig Kanalley had tweeted out that it's going to be #debates. He referenced two people, @marksluckie and @AdamS.

Official Twitter hashtag for the presidential debates is #debates per @marksluckie @adams

— Craig Kanalley (@ckanal) October 2, 2012

So I looked them up to see why they were the deciders of the presidential debate hashtag.

They work at twitter. ;-)


Image: Mark S. Luckie Twitter Profile

@ngjennings Yep #debates is the official hashtag cc: @gov @bcoyne @adams

— Mark S. Luckie (@marksluckie) October 2, 2012

Image: Adam Sharpe Twitter Profile

@yahoonews @140elect @gov @adams @sheigh Yup. #debates is the primary one we and CPD will be tracking

— Adam Sharp (@AdamS) September 29, 2012

Follow the #debates hashtag on twitter.

Update:

Twitter is curating the best tweets on a #debates page.

via [ HuffPo ]

[Video] Mitt Romney Style (Gangnam Style Parody)

[Video] Mitt Romney Style (Gangnam Style Parody)

CollegeHumor’s Favorite Funny Videos

OMG!

Follow #TheVoice Teams on Twitter

The Voice is doing a great job with social media this season. I just saw on The Voice tumblr page that you can follow each of the teams on twitter.



FOLLOW all of #TeamAdam’s artists on Twitter!



FOLLOW all of #TeamBlake’s artist on Twitter!



FOLLOW all of #TeamCeeLo’s artists on Twitter!



FOLLOW all of #TeamXtina’s artists on Twitter!

The show is also on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.

The artists seem to be very active on twitter. I had a conversation with one contestant today.

@stevegarfield @youtube So glad you like it.More originals to come out soon!!

— Celica Westbrook (@CelicaWestbrook) October 2, 2012

[Video] Ian's Letter: "Dear Mr. President"

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Ian.

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada and I am ten years old. I really hope that I can meet you someday because I would like to shake your hand and thank you for bringing my dad home from Iraq.

My dad served two tours in Iraq. His time away was really hard for me.
This is a note that my dad sent me: "My dearest Ian, son, I miss you so much..."

I had trouble sleeping sometimes because I was so worried about him.

He gave me his dog tags before he left and I kept them with me all the time so that I can feel close to him.

Because you ended the Iraq war I have my dad back safe.

Now I get to spend birthdays and holidays with my dad. And we can do all the things I have missed out on while he was away.

I look up to you both and I want to be just like you.

Thank you, Ian

Image: President Obama's Challenge Coin

Dragon Dictate 2.5.2 is not supported on Mac OS X 10.8.

Dragon Dictate 2.5.2 is not supported on Mac OS X 10.8., a photo by stevegarfield on Flickr.

I get this message when I run Dragon Dictate on my Mac:

Dragon Dictate 2.5.2 is not supported on Mac OS X 10.8. Using Dragon Dictate 2.5.2 with 10.8 may result in limited and incomplete functionality.

Do you want to continue?

More Info:
www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/dragon-for-mac/...

Dragon Dictate 2.5 Customers

With the release of Dragon Dictate 2.5.1 in August, customers can effectively use the latest release of Dragon Dictate with OS X Lion. Some customers of version 2.5 may experience occasional crashes, so it's important to install Dictate 2.5.1 (a free update) for the best user experience. If you are not automatically prompted to download this update when opening Dictate, check for updates by going to the Dictate menu and choosing "Check for updates."

Getting mixed messages here.

The pop up screen says it's not supported, but the web site says that I can effectively use it.

What has been your experience using Dragon Dictate 2.5.2 on Mac OS X 10.8?

My experience with it is pretty, pretty good:

Test.

Hey everybody this is Steve Garfield from Steve Garfield.com and I am testing Dragon Dictate.

Even though it says it is not supported I seem to be getting pretty good performance.

[Video] Daym Drops Reviews 5 Guys, Songifyed.

Daym Drops Reviews 5 Guys, Songifyed.

Note: Cee Lo Green is not in the video.

Bing Maps is Wrong: New York Marriott Marquis New York, NY

New York Marriott Marquis
1535 Broadway New York, NY 10036

www.bing.com/local/details.aspx?lid=YN618x10740942

It's not is East Rockaway

Update:

I submitted the correct location to bing.



Update:

I saw a bing TV commercial that said in blind search tests people preferred bing. So I tried it. First search, see above, provided the wrong result. Back to Google!

Google gets it right.



Google Search: New York Marriott Marquis