What problem can’t be solved with social media these days?

Our neighborhood was having trouble communicating, working together, and behaving like a true community, so we turned to Ning.com to help us improve that.

Using Ning it took only minutes to create a full-featured social network complete with groups, discussion forums, an event calendar, blogs, and photo sharing. After a few tweaks, neighbors were invited and The Longpoint Commons was born.

I’ve been working with online communities for years, and Ning has always impressed me with how easy it is for people to use. It seems like everyone who signs up immediately begins to write blog posts, join groups, or just build out their profile. A volunteer brigade, neighborhood crime watch group, and resident meetups appeared right away. It’s clear that social media makes it easier for busy, family-oriented suburbanites to connect. It really does take a village, and technology can make the village really hum.

I still have not read Chris Anderson‘s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, most likely because it is still sitting in my Amazon cart. The book examines the economy of free, and how it is evolving in today’s market. Whenever he speaks on this topic, as I saw him do at SXSW, he always gets grilled about why the book itself is not free (pssst, it is if you want to read it online). It’s not free because Chris needs to feed his family, who are apparently eating really well – Check out the price increase for “Free” that awaited me when I logged in today:

And yes, I’ll probably still buy the book!

No matter where you’re at, or how you bat, you gotta love when history goes down like that. Congratulations to President Barack Obama.

It’s been four months since Coop and I arranged his Dr. Seuss books by spectrum. We’re not sure why we do these things. Probably just to hang out together for a few extra minutes. Or maybe we’re just Seussian savants?

The other day I noticed that the books had undergone a reordering over the last few weeks. Some books have jumped across the shelf, while whole groups remain intact. What does this all mean? *** gender bias? – the pink books are  untouched ***

Here are the pics – what do you see? More analysis after the jump.

February 2008:

June 2008:

(more…)

This weekend I made another quick video with animoto.com – this time, with photos from my friend Dave’s wedding in Callicoon Center, NY (see Flickr photos here). I certainly dig the results, and can’t wait to see where they take this product (it’s still in beta). Wherever it goes, it sure is fun to play with (and certainly beats tools like Slide). Enjoy!

Congrats to Dave and Bree on the arrival of Ellis!

Well, we made it through another one.  Here are a couple shots from today’s excursion downtown.

The East Tower:

The Customs House:

I just finished two small viral marketing, spare time projects…

WhereIsClem.com is a user-generated site featuring stories about Clem the traveling gnome. This Clemson garden gnome really gets around, as photos have already been posted from Toronto and NYC. Rumor has it the site will officially launch at the October 6th home game against Virginia Tech. So if you get a shot of Clem, be sure to register and share with other Tiger fans.

ILoveMeebee.com was part of a massive disinformation campaign culminating with the release of an employee intranet. The site allows visitors to register and share stories about meebee. It had good traffic, but little participation.

If you’d like to check out the blogging I’m doing for my company, head on over to BlogBaud.com and check it out. It’s all about nonprofits, technology, and business. Enjoy!

Have a joyous, creative holiday everyone.

Alas, my fibula is broken after a 50-50 to fakie went awry the other day at the skatepark. I probably won’t post much this month as I have cut out non-essential netivity. We should all be out pressing leaves and drinking cider anyway. Enjoy!