Metro Times Blowout 2010 Recap

Once again i visited my favorite music festival. The Metro Times Blowout. For those of you who are not aware of what the Blowout is, its an music festival in Hamtramack Michigan the features an all local (Detroit) lineup.  Once again I took video  of all the groups I saw over three days of the festival.  I hope you enjoy the video

Here is a list of groups featured in the video.

Mister

Fawn

Car Jack

SelfSays

Lettercamp

Bars of Gold

Child Bite

Silver Ghost

Lightning Love

What I have learned 1 year in Social Media

Friday November 7, 2008 was the first Detroit Social Media event I ever attended. Before that I had used Social Media tools like Digg, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. But before this event I didn’t realize the sense of community that Social Media brought to the MetroDetroit area. My original intentions of going to the tweet up was to network with people in the Interactive Media field hoping to further my knowledge in Interactive media and to find a new job. What I actually received from this event were a group of great friends and sense belonging in a community. Since then I have attended multiple tweet ups, Social Media Club Detroit events, Tweet Tea, Tech Karaoke, Start Up Weekend, Podcamp, Module and other events. With all these experiences, I want to share with you a few things that I have learned in my 1+ year in the Detroit Social Media Community.

1. All of us are not Internet nerds. Contrary to belief, not everybody who is a part of the Detroit Social Media community are all Internet nerds. I have met a wide array of people who just enjoy the community. I met have musicians, writers, lawyers, doctors, and engineers through Social Media.
2. We don’t speak nerd. Even though I am fluent in nerd, I never had to use it at any Social Media event. Very few of my conversations at a tweet up or any other event is about Social Media. I had discussion about sports, music, movies, and politics. I connected with the first people I met at my very first tweet up talking about the being Filipino with my friend Henry, and discussing movies and music Shauna, Chris and Brian.
3. If you want attention bring a 40 oz. At a Biznet Tweet Up I brought a 40 oz, it was most cost effective adult beverage I could think of. Ever since then I have consistently brought a 40 oz to every to Biznet Tweet Up. You might ask why this is important? It’s because I was consistent. I learned that you have to be consistent in this community. You can get away by making a big impact at the first two or three events you attended and then live off the notoriety you received from those events. You need to be consistent online and offline to make a true impact.
4. Be yourself. This is probably the most important thing I have learned. Don’t worry about trying to impress people, being the funniest or most interesting person in the room. Just relax and be yourself.
5. We all care about the community. Everybody in the Detroit Social Media community is very passionate about it and the city of Detroit. We are constantly thinking about how to make our community and city better with Social Media. Whether its bringing a group together to do some volunteer work or having discussion on how to transform Detroit from a Manufacturing city to a Tech City. Everybody in the Social Media community deeply care about Detroit and the little community that we have built together.

Fall Heartbreak

As an avid football fan fall is one of my favorite times of the year.  In the fall my weekend is consumed with College football (Saturday) and NFL (Sunday).  On some lucky weeks the weekend starts early with a Thursday night game.   There is nothing greater than hanging out in the parking lot outside the stadium a few hours before the game with a few of your friends tossing around the football, pregaming (drinking adult beverages), and discussing how your favorite team will perform that day.  After the tailgate there is the excitement and energy that accompanies the game.  After the game you go out with some friends to either celebrate a win or have heated debates on how you could have won.

As an avid football fan I have the unfortunate luck to be a fan of the two worst football teams in the last 8 years. These two teams are the Detroit Lions and the EMU Eagles. I know that many people share the pain of being a Lions fan, but very few people share the pain of being an Eagles fan.  Every Saturday I watch my Eagles loose another game, and Sunday the process is repeated with my beloved Lions.  Neither team has had a winning season in the last 8 years.  The Eagles haven’t had a winning season in 10 + seasons (the Eagles last winning season was in 1995) and the Lions haven’t had a winning season since 2000.

As bad as these teams have performed in the past, it looks like there is hope in the future.  Both the Lions and the Eagles have hired new coaches who are determined to turn their teams around.  I am very excited to see what the future holds for both of the teams.

Do you think you have it worse than me as a football fan?  I would love to hear about it.

There’s Theater in Michigan?

I thought you guys might be bored with my weekly rambles.  So here is  guest blog post from my friend Matt Gwynn.    Matt is what people call a triple threat, Actor, Bill Cosby impersonator, and avid MSU Spartan fan.  Matt is a local actor who  recently stared in in Bleeding Red at the Purple Rose Theater.  I hope you guys like is entry!!

Matt in Bleeding Red

I was talking with an acquaintance of mine who is in a band in the Detroit area. I mentioned to him in passing that I thought his band had an edge in the market because they “Do not suck.” He then proceed to laundry list some other Detroit bands that were “fantastic” but lacked exposure to really get the radio play. Some names he mentioned I recognized and liked as well. Most names he mentioned I recognized and knew to be, well, pretty awful.

This is entirely subjective, of course. If I think a band is bad, does than mean that they couldn’t be a commercial success? No. But when about a thousand people think that way, the writing is on the wall. Not every band is a hard luck case. Some just suck. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say must just don’t sound good.

I have been thinking a lot about that conversation as it pertains to others parts of the Metro Detroit art scene. We have a cavalcade of organizations that, right now, are being hit hard with the economic downturn. All are affected, but some more than most. I am a gainfully employed actor in the area and can certainly say that some theaters are right on the brink. I can also say that these same theaters are some of the ones we should push over.

I am not talking about the ones who have had to cancel a show or cut some people. Everyone has had to do that. I am talking about the ones who can’t keep their doors open. There are a handful across the state that come to mind.

While it may be a detriment to have fewer theaters to be employing actors like myself, the quality of the art will be lifted. It is not coincidence that these theaters with severe money problems are the same ones that have grossly mismanaged their situations and continue to churn out a craptastic product. Few exceptions exist. Their actions do not inspire me to help them out in any way. After all, what are you paying for?

Trust me, the void caused by losing these places would be filled quickly. We have too many talented people in this state to leave an audience without a show. Four great companies have opened the doors in my area through the last 6 years and are flourishing. It’s not the star power, or the ads, or even the location that has made them successful. It is the caliber of work they produce. No wonder people want to shoot movies here (that and the huge tax break).

This is not an attack on any particular theatre and, chances are, you’re thinking of a different theatre than I am. Like I said, this is subjective. Unless thousands of people vote with their wallet and use this time to let the comatose theatres rest in peace. Then it’s a movement that will ultimately make the theatre community stronger. Now that would be something I’d go see.

What would you give up for a month

A few months ago I asked these same questions on Twitter, but I failed to #hashtag my question and everybody’s answers.  So this time I decided to make it official and make a polldaddy poll out of it.  Now I can properly track and share the results of these questions with everybody. The Polls will be open until 23:59 EST August 30th. I will hopefully have the results posted on Monday August 31st by 19:00 EST. Thanks for voting!

The Results!!

I know I am little late with these put here are the results on my What would you give up for a month polls.

These polls were done completely out of fun and the were very unscientific. So please do read that much into them! If you have any conclusion or thought regarding the results, please leave a comment!

Facebook & MySpace Deals Side by Side

So I was going to write about the Facebook and Myspace deals separately.   But then I realized that I would 3 blog post in a row about  company mergers (I also wrote about the Microsoft/Yahoo deal) . So I decided to kill two birds with ones stone and write about both the Facebook and MySpace deals in one blog post.

A lot of people are not quite familiar  what FriendFeed is, and why Facebook wanted to acquire this little known Social Media  application.  FriendFeed  is a  aggregator service were you can feed all your Social Media applications into.  It is one stop shop to see what your friends have been doing on the web (great for internet stalking), and it updates in real time.   I have my FriendFeed account linked to my  Amazon, Blog, Brighkite,  digg, Flickr, Linkedin, Pandora, Stumbleupon,  Twitter, Vimeo, and YouTube accounts.   Now that sounds like a lot, but  users can feed up to 58 different services in their FriendFeed account.  With the ability to aggregate all these services FriendFeed  will be the perfect partner for Facebook Connect.  FriendFeed also  has something Facebook has been chasing after for a  very long time,  REAL TIME SEARCH.   The greatest thing Facebook acquire when buying FriendFeed is  its talent.  The people  behind FriendFeed are former Google employees who developed Gmail and Google Maps.  Who  knows  what next great thing  these guys  will think up in the future.

iLike…. MySpace…… I am going to be honest I really didn’t know too much about iLike when I found out MySpace purchased them.  What I did know is, iLike was one of the first third party applications released on Facebook, and it gave Facebook’s users the ability to share their thoughts about music and concerts, post their favorite songs on their profile, and even purchase songs and concert tickets .  After reading up a little more on iLike I understand why MySpace purchased them.  MySpace is trying to go back to its roots.  When MySpace first started, it was the place to discover new music.  Everybody from your favorite local band to Brintey Spears had a MySpace page were they  share their music with their fans.  MySpace even tried to start a record label out of this popularity.  Since MySpace has lost the battle as Social Networking king to Facebook.  MySpace is now trying  reposition itself as a niche social networking  site to musicians and music lovers.   I do see one big problem with iLike.  iLike’s popularity lies within Facebook.  How will MySpace convince iLike’s Facebook user to come back to MySpace?  I guess we will just have to wait and see.

The two companies are going in two different  directions with their recent acquisitions.  I wonder if these recent moves will help both Facebook and MySpace stay relevant, and avoid the path that  Friendster went a few years ago?   For Facebook I say yes.  The FriendFeed acquisition will help Facebook  be a major player in the Real Time Search Wars.  For MySpace, I am still undecided.  I think MySpace took a step in the right direction, I just wonder if it is enough?

What are your thoughts?  I would love to know!

MicroHoo

I know I am a little late with this blog post, but I needed a little time to fully think about all the implications of the Microsoft/Yahoo deal.   Unlike Microsoft’s previous attempts to buy Yahoo, Microsoft agreed to have a Search partnership for the next 10 years with Yahoo.

After looking over the deal multiple times Microsoft has to thank Yahoo’s former CEO Jerry Yang for this deal.  When Microsoft originally offered to buy Yahoo in 2008 for $47.5 billion, Yang was very adamant in not selling to Microsoft, citing that Yahoo was worth much more than the offer.  Now a little more than 1 year later Microsoft ended up getting what they wanted; Yahoo’s search technology, and for considerably less on what they offered in 2008.

So what will come out of this partnership?   How will it affect the future of Search?   Will it help to innovate search or slow it down?  What does the deal mean for the everyday Internet user?  How does Google feel about the deal?

With this partnership Microsoft will roughly have 28% of the market share in paid search.  That means an increase in competition on MSN AdCenter.  So we can say goodbye to the good ole days when MSN AdCenter was a cheaper solution to Google AdWords.  PPC Advertisers will be forced to bid more on keywords to compete with all the new advertisers.  I am waiting to see if the increase competition will have an effect on AdCenter’s high conversion rate.  I guess we will know the answer in the first quarter of next year.

The competition won’t only effect PPC   advertisers; it will also affect SEOs who will start optimizing their pages for Bing.   Unfortunately this increased competition will include all the spammers, which will dilute Bing’s search engine results page (SERP).  It will take time to refine their algorithm in order to shift out all the spammers, and to clean up their SERP.   Will this initial attack from the spammers drive away users? We don’t know?

What will happen to all of Yahoo’s other properties?  Yahoo Directory is one of the major directories on the Internet right now.  Will a link from it still be valuable? Will we loose Yahoo Link Data, one of the largest providers of link info in SEO?  What about one of my favorite Social Bookmarking site Delicious?  Will it dissolve when the deal is finalized?

I guess will we have to just wait and see what will truly come out of this deal.

5 Things About Me.

I have been writing my blog for about 7 months now and I have noticed I haven’t really given any insight on  who I am.   I know that most of you know the basics about me, I Muay Thai Kickbox, I like SEO,  I enjoy Detroit Sports, and I am active in the Detroit Social Media community.  With this blog post I am going to give all of you  a better idea on who I am.

1. I come from a big family. I am the youngest of 6 children.  I have 4 sisters and a brother.  3 of my siblings have families of their own.  In my immediate family there is  17 of us. But my large family doesn’t stop there.  I have a total of 33 cousins (first), raging from 52 to 22 years in age.




2. I am an adrenaline junkie.  I love taking risk and trying something new, I guess that’s why I like Muay Thai.  Some of the crazy stuff I have done is skydiving, bungee jumping, and shark diving.  I have done some of these things multiple times. The next adventure I want to take is the  Gathering of the Pack.




3. I am trying my hardest to be “Green”.   This summer I bought a rain barrel to conserve on my water usuage.  I mostly use the rain water I collect to water the plants in my yard.  To combat Vampire Power, all the power strips in my house are smart power strips. All the showers except for one, have high efficiency shower heads. And of course  I have replaced the majority of the light bulbs in my house with fluorescent light bulbs.




4. I love to cook, but I hate cleaning up afterwards.   So sometimes I will avoid cooking if I have to clean up afterwards.  My favorite thing to cooks is bbq.  I make my own  spice rub and bbq sauce.  Currently I have been very interested in Filipino food.  I always ask my mom on how she makes my favorite Filipino dish, pancit.   I currently have the Food Network and my friend’s Talitha cooking column bookmarked in my browser.  Whenever I get a new recipe I always look for a way to improve it or personalize it to make it my own.




5. I love playing music.  Just like any other Asian child when I turned 5 I was given the choice of playing either the piano or violin.  For some weird reason I chose both.  As I got older I started taking on more instruments like the  bass and the guitar.   Currently I am trying to teach myself how to play the Didgerido.  Sadly  I have lost a lot of my skills as a musician, but that has never stopped me from playing music.

I hope this post shed a little light on who I am. If you want to know more feel free to ask me!

Googolopoly

This week   the Internet giant Google   announce that it was releasing an operating system (OS).  With this latest venture Google will have their hands in a lot of aspects of everyday life.  In the ancient days of the early 2000’s, Google was a simple search engine, now Google has the G1 and Google chrome and soon to release Google Os.   With all these products, and more sure to come, Google is starting to sound like a monopoly.

Now we have seen this happen before with Microsoft just a few years ago.  In 1998 Microsoft was accused of bundling its services (mostly Internet Explorer) to its operating system.   This gave Microsoft an unfair advantage over other browsers like Opera and Netscape Navigator, which you had to either download (back before everybody had high speed connections) or purchase in a store.

With Google coming out with its own OS, could they get into the same trouble as Microsoft did?  Even though Google has already released Chrome, there is no doubt in my mind that they will bundle Chrome with other Google services to their operating system.   The only difference between Google and Microsoft is the availability of browsers today.  With high-speed Internet everywhere we are able to download a new browser in a few minutes.

Another factor to also think about is Google’s ability to retrieve even more information about our Internet usage.  All this information will help Google develop a better algorithm to improve its search in both organic and paid results, but to me its sounds a little bit Big Brotherish.

What are you thoughts on this subject.  I would love to know?

Welcome to the new world of Copy & Paste Navigation

Copy and Paste Navigation?  Some of you are probably scratching your head and wondering what this blog post is all about.   Let me delightfully explain.  In June Google dropped a medium size bomb shell on the SEO community.   Google decided to change the rules on nofollow tags (well they changed the rules a year ago, and decided to wait a year to tell us.)

For those of you  who don’t know what nofollow tags are, let me give you a little history lesson about them.  Nofollow was first launched in January 2005. The tag was described as a tool for web site owners to identify  untrusted links, like blog comments or paid links.  When the search engines would crawl your  page a nofollow tag would let them know to disregard and to not follow  a certain link.

By 2007, a few SEOs  realized that the you could use the nofollow tag in an SEO strategy called “PageRank sculpting”.   In PageRank sculpting an SEO would add the nofollow tag to a certain links to prevent PageRank from accessing those pages, giving the links without the nofollow tag with a little extra juice to rank higher in PageRank.  Essentially these higher ranking links would help your organic rank in the SERPs.

For example, lets say PageRank is a candy store and the links are dollars.  At the PageRank Candy store you are only allowed to spend $10  (links).  If you had 10 links then you would have $10 to spend.  Now if you  decide to  put nofollow tags on five of your links, this would make these links worthless, but would make your 5 remaining link  worth double ($2).  So now with you have five  $2 dollar links which you  can spend at the  PageRank Candy store.

Sometime in 2008 Google  decided to change the rules.  According to Matt Cutts  adding a nofollow tag to a link didn’t really do anything to affect PageRank.  At first, Google made subtle changes to how they counted  nofollow tags in hope that people might notice,  but they didn’t.  So Google made more drastic changes on how they  counted nofollow tags, but still people did not notice.

After that history lesson you are probably wondering  what this has to do with  Copy and Paste Navigation.  With nofollow tags loosing their value in SEO, many SEOs will  try  to limit the number of links they will use on a page.  So instead of diluting  a page with links,  you might  start seeing web pages with  the  actual web address in the copy alongside with some anchor tags.   Many SEOs will also turn off links to old pages were the link and page carries very little value to them.

I remember in the old days when meta tags carry a lot of value in the search engine’s algorithm.  When the search engines decided that they were worth very little value to them, people didn’t stop using them, they just decided not to focus on them  like they used to.  With the change of rules in nofollow tags, “Page Sculpting” and other linking strategies will not disappear, they just won’t be as important as they used to be in a SEO strategy.   As  Matt Cutts  tweeted ; “Hey, did you hear our lastest inside tip? Make relevant content ;)”