2009 was a great year for entrepreneurs according to several recently release reports from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The number of Startup businesses created even surpassing the technology boom of 1999. Talisa Chang joins Mario to discuss why this is happening now. She’s talent associate with Solvate, a startup that matches freelance talent with small businesses for projects.
air date: August 31, 2010
5 minutes, 20 slides, a room full of people, what would you say? If you think you have a pretty good answer, you’re in luck because that’s the basic idea behind Ignite, a rapid-fire speaker series. The next Ignite Baltimore is taking place September 30 at the Walters Art Museum. Mike Sublesky, co-founder of OtherInBox.com, a former US Navy cryptologic officer, and an organizer of Ignite Baltimore joins the show.
air date: August 17, 2010
Brian Moore, a previous guest on the Digital Cafe, is newly single. He’s also crowdsourcing his dating life at DatingBrian.com. Mario and Brian discuss stepping outside of your comfort zone on this edition of the Digital Cafe.
air date: August 10, 2010
Digital downloads of books now outsell hardcover versions at a rate of about 1.8 eBooks for every hardcover sold. Amazon opened in July of 1995 and has the largest selection of books worldwide. They’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, whereas they’ve only been selling electronic “eBook” version of books for about 2 years and 9 months.
air date: August 3, 2010
12 Essential Tips for Success in Social Media – BuzzLogic BuzzLogic is a digital media company with a data-driven ad platform built to optimize advertising across the largest pool of trusted blog content on the web. We combine proprietary conversational analytics with industry-leading audience targeting data to maximize performance – and provide contextual insight to boost results.
The Social Media Playbook – 360i Marketing used to be different – a lot different. Today, brands are faced with a myriad of opportunities for reaching customers online; and, while the social landscape can be daunting, it holds a world of opportunities for connecting with consumers in deeper and more meaningful ways.
The goals of the Playbook are to:
Oh My God What Happened and What Should I Do? – Innovative Thunder This book helps traditional advertising and marketing people master the step into the digital era, providing tools to create campaigns that reach the people of today. It was not written by a CMO giving expensive seminars and presenting big theories with no solutions, but by a creative team dealing with and living the changes in media every day.
The Science of Retweets – Dan Zarrella a 22 page report full of scientifically proven ways to get more retweets from Hubspot viral marketing scientist and author of the Social Media Marketing Book.
Nimble – Razorfish It’s aimed at content producers that are moving from traditional media distribution to digital, and finding themselves facing new challenges. Most magazines, newspapers, TV shows, etc. have a website at this point, but it doesn’t mean that they’re making the most of the digital experiences that they’re creating for their audience. The report looks at three major areas of interest to content companies – how they attact and retain their audience, how they deliver content across new channels, platforms, and devices, and how they remain profitable in the new digital economy…
The report discusses the types of structure that can set content free, and how this approach will change the role of the editor, the way content companies make money, the way they deliver content, and the way they attract an audience. It also includes information about emerging technologies and tools that can help digital content publishers move into this nimble world.
If you have an iPad, I recommend using the killer combination of DropBox and GoodReader to read these PDFs. Dropbox lets you automatically sync files from your computer to the cloud to be accessed through the website or on your iPad, iPhone, or Android smartphone. Good Reader (iPad and iPhone only) functions as a really slick document reader.
For comprehensive reading, I recommend the following books about social media community management and marketing:
Engage! By Brian Solis
Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
The New Community Rules: Marketing On The Social Web by Tamar Weinberg
Trust Agent by Chris Brogran
Let us know what you recommend in the comments section.
Artscape is the largest free arts festival in the country with over 350,000 attendees, featuring fashion designers, photography, concerts, crafts, and performing arts. Add robots and tech to that list. Heather Sarkissian, CEO of mp3Car, a Baltimore mobile computing company, co-founder of B-More Smart, a social entrepreneurship group, and co-organizer of the first annual Betascape joins Mario.
air date: June 22, 2010
What’s going on with all these comic, sci-fi, and fantasy movies that have been coming out every year. Take a look at this summer’s list of Hollywood films: Kick-Ass, Iron Man 2, Twilight, Scott Pilgrim, Tron: Legacy, and The Green Hornet… they’re all rooted in well, nerdy culture. They also tend to do well. Over 75% of the highest grossing films in history have been released within the past decade. Judy Berman, an editor of culture guide Flavorpill and pop culture critic joins to talk about the decade of geek movies.
air date: June 8, 2010
Mario discusses the trend behind location-based services with Josh Williams, CEO of Gowalla. What are we learning about ourselves, others, and the world around us with these tools? For another perspective on location-based services, listen to Mario’s Digital Cafe segment with Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare.
air date: July 27, 2010
Should I spell it “internet” or “Internet”? What do I need to know about SEO as a writer? Chris Barr, Senior Editorial Director at Yahoo and former founding Editor-in-Chief at CNET joins us to talk about writing for the web. He recently helped put together The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, And Creating Content For The Digital World.
air date: July 7, 2010
It is only a matter of time – months rather than years – before the music business establishment completely folds. (It will be) no great loss to the world. – Thom Yorke, singer of Radiohead
We’ve learned a lot from Radiohead’s digital experiment, but is Thom right? Maura Johnston joins us to dig a little deeper into this statement. She’s a music journalist who has written for such publications as the Village Voice, The Awl, Blender, and was formerly editor of the Idolator.
air date: June 29, 2010
