Kwout: a nice tool for sharing web content, and quoting

Lorraine at Rostant Advertising in Trinidad send me the link to an interesting Web 2.0 tool called Kwout. They provide tools that allow you to take a snapshot of any piece on any webpage - mostly for quoting purposes I would think -, make a widget out of it, and re-use the quote, intact will all links etc, on your own page - pretty cool, even though the image quality could be better.  Talk about Sharism!

Below is a snippet from one of my favorite essays called 'Better than Free' by Kevin Kelly, and from a blog post by me that is based on the same concepts... check it out.

MediaFuturist: Edge: BETTER THAN FREE By Kevin Kelly via kwout

The Technium: Better Than Free via kwout

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• Challenging the Content Industries: The Culture of Sharing (blip.tv)

This is how I blog now... Going Micro.

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Twitter

“Apple looks towards digital media sharing during iPhone calls http://ow.ly/dKJS Yep, that's the holy grail. It's ALL about SHARING. Getit.”

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Singapore Leads the Way with Nokia’s Free Music Download Service

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"Ideally, the music industry should be working... more... - Gerd Leonhard

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“SlideShare >> Mobileyouth's Slideshows http://ow.ly/dKAC Lots of interesting slideshows here - Youth, Marketing, Asia... **”

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@gleonhard - Twitter Search

RT @gleonhard: Nice picture of apple's evolution_2009.jpg (JPEG Image, 3500x2815 pixels) http://ow.ly/dJJt via http://tinyurl.com/lrzspr

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@gleonhard - Twitter Search

RT @gleonhard Nice picture of apple's evolution_2009.jpg (JPEG Image, 3500x2815 pixels) http://ow.ly/dJJt via http://tinyurl.com/lrzspr

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@gleonhard - Twitter Search

Nice picture of apple's evolution_2009.jpg (JPEG Image, 3500x2815 pixels) http://ow.ly/dJJt (via @gleonhard) cool overzicht van Apple

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RT @gleonhard Broadband & Broadcasters: The Future is one-to-one and many-to-many http://twitpic.com/76uai more at http://tinyurl.com/ppdhau

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“Nice picture of apple's evolution_2009.jpg (JPEG Image, 3500x2815 pixels) http://ow.ly/dJJt via http://tinyurl.com/lrzspr”

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Kevin Roberts at Zeitgeist Europe 2007

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Audioboo - yet another way to Podcast and share thoughts - now via the iPhone

Audioboo is a pretty cool new app that allows you to record something on your iPhone and then upload it to  your page on Audioboo.com, as well as syndicate it via widgets - as it says, it's an iPhone blogging app. Interesting?  Check out my first 'Boo' below.

Sponsored Conversations - yes, no, maybe?

I have run across the sponsored conversations concept via Josh Bernoff and via Techdirt's Mike Masnick before (see Techdirt's sponsored conversation example here), and found it very interesting yet a little hard to align with a more 'seriously independent' blogging approach. I am not sure that I would personally want to engage in having my blog or my tweets sponsored by someone that wants to reach my readers or 'followers' (and yes... there have been offers), but I still like the concept and will investigate it further.  It seems like there is a nice package to be made with good old Word of Mouth, web-native Word of Mouse, and Sponsored Conversation - or what do you think?

Podcast of my Authors@Google speech in San Francisco: The End of Control and the Future of Content

MP3 file is here
Details are here.  Some snippets: Bottom Lines: The fight for Control was a fight for Distribution. The flight for Attention is a fight for Trust. The beneficiaries of Control were Monopolies. The beneficiaries of Trust are those that Collaborate. Advertising 2.0: Information becomes Conversation.  Interruption becomes Engagement. Annoyance becomes Entertainment. 'This is an Ad' becomes 'This is Content'.  The Sharing Economy Logic: Sharing...the Output (i.e. publish, re-mix, co-create, life-stream...) the Input  (i.e. remuneration in cash, attention, reputation...) ... the Thruput (i.e. usage data, meta content, attention trails >> New Data Economics)

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• Mobile Content Futures: a narrated slideshow (video). From EGOsystem to ECOsystem. (mediafuturist.com)

All my short blog posts will now move to Twitter. If you get my blog feed be sure to subscribe to my Twitter RSS feed, too

Image by photopia / HiMY SYeD via Flickr

I used to blog short stuff all the time - usually a link to a great story or resource somewhere else, and maybe add a few comments. That was then, and this is now: this kind of activity has now almost completely moved to my Twitter account (main) (others: Futurefeed &  DailyWisdoms), because it makes a lot more sense there. Blog posts will be a bit less but more substantial and more carefully crafted - as they should be, imho.

So, if you are already subscribing to this blog's RSS feed but have not been sucked into the Twitter universe quite yet - and don't really want to (yes, I know you people are still out there!) - please be sure to also subscribe to my Twitter RSS feed, as well as my Friendfeed RSS, that way you can be sure you keep getting all the goodies, regardless of what you use. Both of those RSS feeds can still be read even if you are not logged-in to either of them. Hope that helps?

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• More ways of following me (should you care to) - ambient awareness vs ADD;) (mediafuturist.com)

Music Blog Zeitgeist of 2008: best 50 songs & albums picked by bloggers (via The Hype Machine)

Music Blog Zeitgeist of 2008 / The Hype Machine - this is the future of music programming (at least, one of them).  I did mention this before... here ;)

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Best of 2008 Blog Posts and Essays now available for reading on your iPhone (via Instapaper)

Along with the free iPhone version of my 2007 Music 2.0 book, my new Lulu-powered eBook "Best of 2008 Blog Posts & Essays" is now available to read on the iPhone, as well (yes, for free), using the very cool Instapaper iPhone reading app - and it works offline, too. Follow the instructions below, or add the Instapaper "Read Later" bookmark for this html page. I am still working on page breaks etc, so it's not very pretty yet - but if any of you can make a nicer-looking html file from the original PDF... please ping me!

This is what you need to do to read the free book on your iPhone (perfect for those long, offline airplane trips!):

1. Download the Instapaper app to your iPhone (or iTunes), via the app store or via the Instapaper site. Note that there is a free version and a paid version ($ 9.99 USD, which is well worth it because of the cool tilt scrolling!), but both work very well
2. Install the app, sign up / register, go to the Best of 2008 Book html page, and mark it 'ADD' or 'Read Later" via the Instapaper.com page or the bookmarklet. It will now save the file and sync it with your iPhone the next time you open the Instapaper app and update it.

Enjoy!

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Cool: get my blog posts as PDFs, via Tabbloid

Via  a Twitter connection (@MrTrick) and the new Springwise newsletter I was recently alerted to a cool new service by HP called Tabbloid. It is very simple and simply useful: just plug an RSS feed into Tapploid and Tabbloid will send you a nice-looking PDF with the latest blog postings via email, automatically. If you have trouble catching up with all those RSS feeds, this seems like a good alternative. I have tried it and it works nicely. So, take my RSS feed, paste it into Tabbloid, enter you email, and you're all set. Cool idea by HP!

Blogs and the Purchasing Decision (via eMarketer)

Some helpful intel Blogs and the Purchasing Decision - eMarketer.

“For a portion of Web users, blogs rival search as a navigation tool, which has really interesting implications for advertisers,” said Rob Crumpler, CEO of BuzzLogic, in a statement. “Blogs are becoming trusted guides, steering users who are seeking very specific information to places of interest online.”

Twitter has officially arrived at the Center of Pop Culture, Britney Spears now twittering and sharing content on new 'bloggy' site, and Ning Community, too!

Techcrunch reports on Britney's new site (which feels very 'bloggy' and seems to focus on getting the users involved rather than just displaying static information) and her new Twitter account, aptly titled TheRealBritney. Surely this is a sign that Twitter has now officially 'arrived' - and any artist and / or content creator will ignore micro-blogging at their own perril. Guess what: now you have to provide more and more free content to pull people in before you can ask for their money. But there is plenty of so-called 'monetization' at the other end!

To me, Twitter is another important manifestation of the rapid rise of the broadband + mobile - driven Sharing & Participation Culture (* see more of my writings on that subject, here) that is quickly taking over from the broadcast-to-you-the-passive-consumer culture that was largely dominated by traditional television. I am not a Britney fan (as you may have guessed) but I do like the way her team is clearly emphasizing interactivity, user engagement and free content throughout most of what I see here (e.g. the Friend Britney Button) - good stuff!

Her Circusvip page (linked via the same button) is even more interactive - nice one. This page is apparantly build on the Ning platform which I have been busy telling many artists, managers and bands about - the perfect white label offering for building your own social network, quickly. In fact, I kind of like the Ning / CircusVIP site better than Britney's main site - and the 15335 people that have already signed up there seem to agree I guess. Engage, participate, share, have conversations - that clearly is the Future of Marketing. Yes, soon... blogs will become record labels. And major labels will become....? (you tell me)

How Twitter Can Help (via NYTimes.com)

Good column here: How Twitter Can Help at Work - Shifting Careers Blog - NYTimes.com.

"Like blogging, Twitter lets you write messages that other people can read. Unlike blogging, Twitter limits your messages to 140 characters. (The previous two sentences absorbed exactly 140 characters.) Readers can choose to receive your Twitter updates (sometimes called “tweets”) on their phones, via IM, RSS or on the Web. The brevity, combined with the variety of delivery systems, make Twitter a powerful medium. Here are five ways to harness it..." 

If you have missed my previous posts about twitter... go here

Power Bloggers Tie up with The New York Times - we will see a lot more collaborations like this

This is a significant development: the NYT is starting to really get it:  Beet.tv has the original post:  "GigaOM, VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb will be part of expanded technology coverage at the NYTimes.com, the paper announced today.  The announcement is part of a redesign of business pages along with a major increase in coverage in a number of sectors including "green" tech and economic issues. The redesigned page goes live today..."

If cats could blog

From The Joy of Tech - great stuff

Reminder for iPhone users and other mobile readers: try my new mobile versions (and QR code, too)

I have been using my mobile devices (iPhone, Nokia E61, Nokia Internet Tablet etc) a lot, lately, and really like it when bloggers offer mobile versions of their sites - it just makes it so much easier to scroll and read the posts or columns without that having to always zoom back and forth with 2 fingers (particularly if one is driving... ehem...). So I decided to set up a mobile version of this blog, as well, here - and it looks decent I think. Another hot tip for actually reading longer stuff is Instapaper, a great add-on to your iPhone that allows offline reading of webpages - very useful.