I want to inform the entire ThoseinMedia community that as of  yesterday (6/30/2010), I am no longer involved in day to day business activities with ThoseinMedia.com, this is due to my contractual obligation to my employer regarding my non-competition agreement. This is a very bittersweet moment for me as I feel strongly that ThoseinMedia is on the cusp of creating more value for our members and partners. That said, it is a decision I made, and business must go on. But I don’t send you this message as a notice of the demise of what has been wrought, but rather of some really exciting news for the future.

Phase II of our beta is set to launch next week, which will include a rebranding for the site, some of you may have seen the sneak peaks of the logo I sent out or maybe you are noticing our badge has changed. In addition to our new logo and branding we will be rolling our a new classifieds section. This is a major upgrade, and will allow members to post not only jobs, but also events, press release, resumes, and more, and will serve as a conduit through you can promote yourself, your business, or your programs.

The next phase of development will deal largely with increasing usability for editorial content, and we plan on offering certain contests for the best articles of the month, so stay tuned. ThoseinMedia’s goal is to be the top source for news, opinion, and information for the several media segments across the globe, and we want to do this by featuring what has given us our greatest strength, you. In other words, we envision a largely user driven content provided my media experts from across the globe and across the media spectrum; ThoseinMedia is nothing without those in media.

This is why, as I take leave of my official responsibilities, that want to urge you to begin your blog now and when you have something interesting to share, make an entry. The executive team will be adding more ways to feature this content in the coming weeks and months.

Speaking of which, you should know who to contact moving forward. Soon we will have a more official contact form, but for now the main persons who you should reach out to for information are: Anne Willen, for general inquires and customer service; Lars Hilse, for channel partnerships and sales; and Tiffany West, for marketing and public relations.

I want to thank each and everyone of you for making the ThoseinMedia community such a smashing success, I have taken great pride in what role I played in setting the stage for our community. But as I take leave of the business, I will not take leave of ThoseinMedia, I will still be a very active member, and hope to contribute articles and otherwise be engaged. I am very ardent about what we have wrought together and I’m excited to take on my new role as a super-user.

So this is not farewell, this is hello!

Here’s a sneak peak at ThoseinMedia’s new logo that will be officially revealed in the forthcoming next phase launch which will also include a much more classifieds section including jobs, events, press release, business opportunities, services offered, and member resumes.  These items should heighten utility of the site for ThoseinMedia members and be a prelude to the launch of our more full featured editorial sections to keep members up on news and trends in the wide world of media. We are excited to roll out the new logo and branding and are thankful to Isiah Sevenly for his hard work and putting up with numerous revision decisions before we were ready to take to market. Oh, please leave a comment, how do you like the new logo?

I am a jailbreaker, there I said it; confession is the first step to recovery right? I dreamt of something like the iPhone way back in the days of the Palm Pilot, and though the Palm products finally combined the PDA and phone capabilities, nothing really moved me until the iPhone made the stage. I was transfixed with excitement at the prospect of getting one, and I was indeed a fairly early adopter, there was only one problem, I have been with T-Mobile since the days when it was Voicestream and have been very happy with my service. Thus did I begin my journey into the seedy world of jailbreakers, meeting clandestinely in coffee houses and dank basements where “specialists” would crack the UNIX shell and first free my phone from the ATT monopoly but also some other limitations put in place by Apple, and then update the phone from time to time.

Sounds like the perfect solution right? Well my rebel without an updating option came at a high price, first one’s warranty is voided when you walk on this wild side, you are precluded from, at least in my opinion, one of the best features of Apple products; excellent service after the sale, and as I alluded to, you are precluded from the automatic software/firmware updates through iTunes, thus sending one back into the black-market underworld of jailbreak hackers. What’s more, things don’t work that well, certain apps simply cease to operate and other become clunky, the phone sometimes stops working properly, including communication disruptions, and touchscreen issues.

Anyone who knows me understands that I’m not the most patient of people (it’s an inherited/learned trait), I basically want what I want when I want it, so having to repeatedly press the screen to get something to launch isn’t really a good scenario for me. Additionally, I’ve been stuck with the old 1G technology while everyone else around me have the latest additions; not cool. The final straw was the fact that I can not get my work email, calendar etc. because for security reasons, my employer will not connect with jail-broken phones. So I’m on the high-dive, ready to plunge into the world of unlimited data on ATT as soon as the new iPhone is released, right?

Well of course not, I finally accept the collusive monopoly between Apple and ATT in a very Confucian way, and what do I hear? That unlimited data from ATT will end on June 7th 2010! This is the Friday before, so seeking a workaround solution (still thinking in that jailbreaker mindset), I conclude that I will run up to ATT on Saturday grab the cheapest internet enabled phone, lock in my unlimited plan and wait for the new iPhone to which I could transfer my grandfathered plan; smart right? Well maybe, but the execs at ATT are even smarter, the unlimited plans which are indeed grandfathered for the old-timers do not apply to the new iPhone, meaning that eventually everyone who wants to update their phones will lose their unlimited package; bum deal.

This was all confirmed with an ATT employee I spoke with by phone. Well I suppose I will take the plunge anyway, I’m tired of being frustrated, I want service, ease of updates, and I want the new technology (not sure if I am excited about getting my work email though.) I had a conversation with a colleague in the internet start-up space here in Seattle, and he was mentioning that tethering was not available for the iPad and was thus thinking of going to Android. First, this is not true, tethering is available you guessed it, for a $20/month fee; not exactly fair given the fact that data has already been purchased and this is an “access” fee, but it dances to the same music of what I have been iterating above.

In the end, 2GB is a lot of data, and at $25, it approaches T-mobile’s unlimited data package price, and maybe, just maybe, this will rectify some of the challenges with data issues that ATT customers have been experiencing. I don’t like the slippery slope down the nickle and dime road, I also think that competition would have been the best way to solve data and choice issues, Europe with their anti-cartel laws are doing fine with multiple carriers (I thought we had similar laws here in the U.S.) I mentioned Confucius because he tells us to accept what we can’t change, but Maya Angelou had a similar sentiment, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” Thus I shall soon embark on a new journey, farewell T-mobile, hello ATT. Oh, does anyone need a 1G iPhone?

ThoseinMedia will be working closely with BrightTALK to present the Content Marketing Summit on January 20th. A distinguished lineup of industry experts will be presenting a series of webcasts covering best practices and strategies in managing content to avoid information overload, developing a content strategy that will make an impact to attract and retain more customers, tracking content ROI and more. http://www.brighttalk.com/summit/contentmarketing

WHEN: Wednesday, January 20, 2009, attend live online throughout the day or afterward on-demand

TOPICS AND PRESENTERS:
Content Delivery in Customer Self Help Theaters
Lars Hilse, Web Strategist, Speaker, Social Media Expert, Entrepreneur

Tracking Content ROI
Carolyn McKibbin, Director of Content Services & Byron White, CEO of ideaLaunch.com

Why Publishing is the Future of Marketing
Joe Pulizzi, co-author of Get Content Get Customers and founder of Junta42

Case Study: From Whitepaper to Webcast – Extending Your Content
David Pitta, Evangelist at BrightTALK

Now, Everyone is a Publisher! Are You Ready For The Change?
Scott Abel, Content Management Strategist & Author of www.TheContentWrangler.com

Content as a Conversation: Read your Buyers’ Digital Body Language
Steven Woods, CTO of Eloqua

Managing Content to Avoid Information Overload
Naylor Gray, Director of Global Marketing at Frost & Sullivan

7 Tips for Creating Content That’s so Good It Has to Be Shared!
John Bottom, Head of Content at Base One

Review the schedule and register to attend any or all of the free summit webcasts on our home page or here.

Audience:
 You will be able to attend any or all of the webcasts in this complimentary summit, submit real-time questions to presenters, and vote in audience polls. If you are unable to attend the webcasts live, you can also view them afterward on-demand.

Take your professional development to the next level and learn from top book authors, academics and other experts on what’s new, innovative and cutting edge in our vibrant industry.

In partnership with AuthorsGlobe.com, ThoseinMedia is presenting a series of Online Executive Education sessions with thought leaders in Media, Marketing and beyond.

Through the Online Executive Education program, we not only empower your growth, but empower the growth of the next generation of media professionals. Proceeds support “More than Words“, an innovative non-profit and youth-run online bookstore that empowers at-risk teenagers.

Here are our first two programs from experts from Harvard University & MIT. More information to come and registration will open soon:

1. Thu Feb 4th 12-1p EST – David Weinberger (Harvard) – ClueTrain Manifesto (National Bestseller recently re-released last year on in 10th anniversary)

2. Tue Feb 16th 12 – 1p EST – Andrew McAfee (MIT) – Enterprise 2.0

At the behest of Antonio Faillace, a ThoseinMedia member and CEO and Founder of AuthorsGlobe.com, I attended a virtual masterclass on his site featuring Brian Halligan, author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs and CEO of Hubspot.com, an internet marketing company. AuthorsGlobe’s Twitter account states it’s purpose as, “Virtual MasterClasses with thought leading authors in partnership with top professional organizations,” and I think that pretty much sums it up, it’s a great platform for engaging authors of note. The system is pretty straight forward, Antonio recommends that you test your connection prior to the day of the event and I do as well because there is a plugin that must be installed before you are ready to go, and the test also checks your connection speed and a few other variables. The day of the event, you are encouraged to login 10 minutes before the event; again, I recommend this too because I experienced a slight lag in the  login process. The good news is that I used my Mac, and give the appropriate time, you should have no problems signing in. The format was simple, Brian Halligan gave his presentation, and though we were not using two-way voice communication, it felt very interactive due to a series of surveys that were taken real time, to which the author could respond. In the end, there was a Q & A session afforded by a chat feature, and in fact, participants could posit their questions prior to the end of the presentation, and the moderator would drive the Q & A with the author.  The only complaint that I would offer is that there was a a bit of a fuzzy connection with the author, and in some cases, some feedback, though the moderator came through crystal clear, but I do attribute this more to the as yet fully reliable VOIP technology than any error on AuthorsGlobe part.

Getting to the topic, Brian had some very common sense yet practical advise as to how to drive traffic to one’s site and market businesses traditional and interactive. He also suggested using HubSpot’s grading tools found at grader.com to test the effectiveness of your site, twitter account, and more. ThoseinMedia.com scored a 79 out of 100, which I thought was amazing given the fact that we are in alpha, it also gave me ideas on how to improve, so I will definitely be going back from time to time to see how the changes I’ve made has affected the score, and of course will do the same once our beta is launched.  All in all, both the event and the technology were a success from my vantage point, I encourage you to investigate Authorsglobe as well as Brian Halligan’s book, as they are both a value-add.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The video below is to introduce you to the media retreat that ThoseinMedia is planning for August of 2010, it was recorded with one pass only and intended to give you a brief overview of what we have planned, our goal is to get the industry out of the conference halls and hotel lobbies, not to mention stuffy attire, and have a meet in a state of nature with a very flattened hierarchical structure (i.e. none). We will be presenting a survey to all of ThoseinMedia soon, but do get introduced by this video and give us comments below, we really want to hear from you!

Dave Cynkin, co-founder of Blogworld has graciously offered a 20% discount to all ThoseinMedia Group Members for the BlogWorld & New Media Expo, which will be held in Las Vegas Oct. 15-17. Just follow the image link and use the Discount Code: TIM20. Dave’s message to the group follows.

World’s Largest Social Media Conference, BlogWorld & New Media Expo, is coming to Las Vegas Oct. 15-17.

ThoseinMedia Group Members can register online at http://www.blogworldexpo.com and Save 20% off any pass with this Discount Code: TIM20

Be sure to visit the LinkedIn BlogWorld event page and click “Attending”:

http://events.linkedin.com/BlogWorld-Expo/pub/84334

Here’s the BlogWorld & New Media Expo site with all details and registration:

http://www.blogworldexpo.com/

Check out the incredible Conference Schedule, with more than 90 sessions and 280 presenters:

http://blogworldexpo09.sched.org/

Take a peek at the Keynote Presenters list:

• Guy Kawasaki – Co-Founder, alltop.com, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures, author of “The Art of the Start”, “Reality Check”

• Chris Brogan – President, New Marketing Labs, Co-Author of “Trust Agents”

• Kara Swisher – Co-Executive Editor, allthingsD.com, author of author of “aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web”

• Leo Laporte – Radio Show host, Host and Producer of leading podcasts including This Week in Tech, The Daily Giz Wiz

• Scott Monty – Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company

• Kevin Pollak – Actor, Comedian, Twitter user, Host of internet TV show: Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show

• Laura Fitton – Founder of Pistachio Consulting and onefory.com

• Jeremiah Owyang – Altimeter Group – Partner, Emerging Technology Strategy Consultant

• Ted Murphy – CEO, IZEA

• Wendy Piersall – CEO, Sparkplugging

• Richard Jalichandra – CEO, Technorati

• Brian Solis – Founder of FutureWorks PR and New Media Agency, author of PR2.0 blog, bub.blicio.us and author of “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations”

• Jay Rosen – NYU Journalism Professor, author of “Press Think” blog, Advisory Board Member, Wikipedia, author of “What Are Jornalists For”

• Hugh Hewitt – Radio talk show host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show” on Salem Radio Network, Law Professor, author of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World”

• Don Lemon – CNN Newsroom Anchor

• Joanna Drake Earl – COO of Current TV

• Chad Vader (Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan) – Youtube star with 25 million episode downloads

• Celebrity guest presenters, soon to be announced, stay tuned….

The conference is bigger and better than ever for 2009…and if you haven’t already met your fellow LinkedIn friends face-to-face, this is a perfect opportunity to meet up for great networking. Come join us!

Be sure to check out Jason Falls’ post on Social Media Explorer:
“10 More Reasons You Should Come To Blog World”

Hope to meet you in Vegas at BlogWorld & New Media Expo!

Best Regards,

Dave Cynkin
Co-Founder, CMO, Sleep Deprivationist and Thrill Seeker – BlogWorld & New Media Expo

It was August 1995 in the sweltering heat of Texas when the Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas received a call from CNN asking for graduate students that wanted to spend the weekend working for them to cover Ross Perot’s United We Stand America Convention, I immediately accepted as it was a great opportunity and honor to work the event, and hey, it was $100 per day! The convention was an interesting one in which luminaries from both parties and neither were given voice to speak to that elusive independent vote; this spoke to me because as a student of social science, we were trained to look beyond ideology, so I am in fact, non-partisan, and always hoping that when the one ideology makes it to power, the items on their agenda that I agree with get traction, while the less savory ones fall by the wayside (this has not happened much as of late). My “agnostic” approach to politics has surely fired up my ideologue friends and acquaintances on both sides of the aisle.

At any rate, the lot of us were given different roles, some worked the teleprompter, and some had other certain assignments; mine was mainly in driving CNN employees from the airport and hotels to the convention center. In the course of that job I either met or was in close proximity to the classic lineup of CNN, including Bernie Shaw, David Broder, Larry King, Joie Chen, George Stephanopoulos (who was still working for Clinton), and of course Robert Novak. All politics aside, Mr. Novak was a really genuine and approachable guy; I remember catching him in the men’s room, where he was shaving with a straight edge razor, and  I made the comment, “doing it old school”  and I don’t think he caught the meaning (straight edge versus electric) and he answered, “Don’t want to pull a Nixon”, referring to when Nixon came to the debate with Kennedy sick and unshaven, an event that has often been pointed out as a factor that led up to Nixon’s loosing. Novak carried on a brief conversation with no noticeable sense of entitlement; he came across very genuine, and it was a pleasure to have had that brief moment to share with him.

So then, farewell Robert, and may you be remembered.

I’ll have to say that I was honored to play a role, however small, in bringing, Kumbh Mela, Songs of the River to reality. Songs was the culmination of a multi-media trek organized by KMP2001 to explore, experience, and record a glimpse of the happenings that took place at the Maha Kumbh Mela, or “Great Festival of the Urn” in 2001. I was to go, but however strong my impulse was, it was overcome by  an incredible sense of claustrophobia which I had picked up at that Rolling Stones concert in 1989, and since the Mela was one of the few human gatherings that could be seen from space, I had a feeling this would make the Stones shindig look like birthday with Elmo. Nevertheless, the footage compiled was breathtaking, and my friend’s ability to tell a compelling story, and his knack for making human connections made this the story of the Mela. Mr. Uddin, with whom I go way back, has a magical ability to convert a stranger into a friend in the span of minutes; he was thus able to gain access to events that even the BBC was not able to film, like the private event sponsored by Pilot Baba and attended by the Dalai Lama. He was also able to attract other such luminaries such as Sir Mark Tully and Dr. Andrew Weil.

Filmmaker: Nadeem Uddin

My interest in the topic was very much a sociological one, it is, for me, extremely exciting that in the crush of modernity, that a time-honored tradition might endure in our modern world. Yes the Babas have cell phones, wrist watches, and even websites, but in the end, the story is one that could have been told more than a thousand years ago. In a world filled with media and entertainment that is cast from an all too familiar mold, it is incredibly refreshing to see something that diverges from the plot-line. Nadeem now lives in Goa with his wife and daughter, and is already fast at work on the next installment of the series of films started with Songs. If you are interested in learning more about the festival, the documentary, or the filmmaker, click HERE.