Last week I dissected a blogger outreach pitch email line-by-line in A detailed analysis of a perfect blogger pitchas a way of proving that no matter how brief and conversational one of Abraham Harrison‘s blogger pitches may appear at first blush, the effortlessness takes a lot of work and the time of three senior agents. Today I plan to go through, line by line, a site we create to support all of our blogger outreach campaigns. You can call it a Social Media News Release (SMNR) or a microsite, a resource site, or a fact sheet. To those of you who are in communications, you’ll recognize the structural similarity between it and a traditional news release or press release.

To the right, you’ll see, scrolling down most of this article, a full-length screen capture of the SMNR we produced for a launch campaign that we did for the first iPad tablet-only daily newspaper, The Daily. I am using this SMNR because we’re particularly proud of it, and you can explore it In Real Life (IRL) over at thedaily-newsrelease.com.

As I am sure you will notice right away, this SMNR — and all of our SMNRs — is a flat-file, traditional Web page. You’ll also notice that it scrolls and scrolls and scrolls.

No, we didn’t do this because we’re not good coders and don’t understand database-backed web applications like WordPress or Drupal. I have been developing Web applications since they were Perl CGI scripts, into PHP, then into Python-based Zope, and even Ruby on Rails.

We’re building our SMNRs on flat-file, scrollable, single-page Web pages because of human nature: people tend to click away from where we want them to be. We want them to be on-topic, on-target, and really considering the act of blogging on behalf of our clients. In this case, The Daily.

We use old-fashioned HTML standbys such as HTML anchors, allowing us to link within the same page. We don’t want people to miss anything and we don’t want people to get lost in a maze of pages.

We also use flat-file HTML on an Linux-variant Apache install because we tend to reach out to thousands of bloggers at a time — upwards of 8,000 — and we don’t want a database-backed website to get bogged down by a potentially heavy, all-at-once stampede of traffic. Flat-file pages tend to serve faster and more reliably because they’re generally much less resource-intensive.

What we did for The Daily, section by section

Let me go through the SMNR we created for The Daily, section by section, so that I can explain. Long story short:

If we can’t get someone we send an email-based blogger pitch to to post something within five-minutes of opening our email, then we’ve lost him. If it isn’t as easy as pie and as clear as crystal, then we might get nothing. If it looks like it’ll take six minutes instead of five, we’re lucky if we get a tweet or a post to a Facebook Wall. More about that later.

The banner

The banner is simply a quick, attractive “splash.” It’s always above the fold and needs to convey, in a single glance, what’s up and why we didn’t, in fact, waste the blogger’s time. The banner is useless but essential. It allows the client to clearly, as though in summary or abstract, convey the entire message of the campaign both visually and textually. Carefully selected choice slogans, logos, screen shots, and photos go in the banner. However, since it isn’t really possible to “steal” anything from the banner, all the content found in the banner should be replicated somewhere else deeper in the SMNR.

The banner may just seem like bling or flair but it’s is really the single opportunity the PR professional or publicist has to sink the hook, to build the resonance and excitement and to activate the passion required to encourage bloggers to spend their valuable time and finite energy on doing something for me and my clients for free.

One caveat, however, is to make sure the banner isn’t too tall that it blocks out the QuickLinks, below, or seems just like an advert or splash page instead of what it is, a multimedia press release rife with important, objective blog fodder.

The QuickLinks

OK, that’s rather hard to see, so I will make it a bit larger below so that you can see what I am talking about.

That’s better. Well, the QuickLink row is essential because it might be the only interactive part of the SMNR that’s above the fold for some viewers, especially those who are still running 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 screens. (Don’t roll your eyes about the small screen size — there are still millions of folks worldwide who are running small monitors, large font sizes, and also dial-up modems, not your big 2560 x 1440 resolution, double-screened 27″ LCD computer displays. You should work with and understand everyone and design to your lowest common-technology denominator.

So, the QuickLinks are a short-cut to what the blogger wants. These links don’t go anywhere off-page, but, rather, just link down to somewhere much further down on the single page.

And like I said, if we don’t do everything to make it as easy as possible to allow the blogger to search, discover, collect, and report on what we’re pitching, then we’re risking losing them.

The video introduction and the social network sharing

This is a two-parter. Obviously, the commercial that goes with the introduction of the then newly launched iPad-only daily news site, The Daily, is the main thing we wanted to promote. A no-brainer.

More importantly is what I circled in red, the “Share This” embed with the easy-to-share-to-Twitter-Facebook-Yahoo!-Etc. buttons. We never used to add this to our Social Media News Releases. Why? Well, we were afraid that if we did, bloggers would share on social media and social network and with either their Facebook or Twitter friends and followers instead of posting it on their blogs.

The truth is, the SMNR is all about making everything as easy for the blogger as they need it to be. Folks who feel the need to feed the maw of their always-hungry 24/7/365 blog, will always blog (and often then tweet and Facebook their post), and the folks who are interested enough but don’t have the time or interest in the topic or promotion or don’t feel like their blog is the right place for the news we’re pitching won’t blog no matter how much we may well disagree.

So, popping that little “Share This” array of buttons has quadrupled the number of earned media mentions that we get from folks who wouldn’t have blogged our stuff, our news, our clients, anyway — they are just interested enough to throw us a bone and share the Daily with their followers and friends.

The news

The news section is the most important part of the SMNR. Because there’s lots of great stuff to steal. Consider our Social Media News Releases to be one-page versions of Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book — which is to say that once we have appealed to a blogger enough that she has opened our email, read our pitch, maybe emailed us, clicked through to the SMNR, scrolled past the banner, the QuickLinks, and ignored the Share This buttons, we want the blogger to have to do as little additional work as humanly possible.

We also post as many photos, illustrations, screen shots, and logos as we can into each SMNR, inline, so that a blogger can easily copy-and-paste each image into the blog post and not need to download and then upload. We act as the host, happy to sponsor the image hosting to the SMNR. As many of these as we can because we never know which one resonates with each blogger.

So, we pre-link all the items in the bullet-list with text links to the daily. We link the phrase The Daily any and every time it comes up in the list. This will appall SEO gurus who think I am an ignoramus who doesn’t know Search. I am an expert in search and my SMNRs are not Google-bait, they’re blogger-bait. We actually do not want our SMNRs to start competing with our clients’ sites — and they used to — but if we mess up all the delicate Google balance, then hopefully our SMNRs will not show up in the top-ten on Google, which is often quite challenging since most sites are absolutely terrible.

Actually, recently, we have had clients who have wanted to optimize their SMNR for search, but then you put the onus of linking, textually, on the shoulders of the bloggers, many of whom are not experts in search or HTML. So, we make sure that almost every single link has one linked textual on The Daily, just to make sure that every potential news item that a blogger might want to copy-and-paste onto his blog includes a link.

We never know what the blogger will or won’t steal, we don’t know how much or how little the blogger will copy, paste, then blockquote into their blog. Some bloggers go full-text, blockquoted, and then wrap the copy that we wrote in a bit of introduction and a parting shot into a blog-post sandwich where the copy, exactly as we wrote it, is the meat.

OK, you may have noticed that the page is pretty long. It requires quite a lot of scrolling, right? Well, remember how brief, concise, and minimal the blogger email pitch was? Well, the pitch might be laser-focused but the SMNR is everything but the kitchen sink. As many diverse and random and seemingly extraneous content and assets as we can find and collect we put into the SMNRs.

Those of you who have ever spoken to me about this before might want to jump ahead. I have an analogy for you. If you think of the Sunday paper and all those coupons, think of our email blogger pitch as a coupon for a big-screen TV at hhgregg.

If we can get that person who’s browsing the Sunday Post to cut out the coupon — already a huge task, to say nothing of even buying a paper, reading the paper, and braving the coupon section — and then pocket the coupon, get in the car, and drive to the store, once that guy gets to the store, he’s generally committed to doing something. While we’re pitching the TV, we’re just happy if that consumer ends up spending an equal sum on something — anything — else, just so long as it’s with hhgregg.

Same thing with an SMNR. The email pitch is the coupon selling a particular thing — the launch of the iPad app — and the SMNR is the big box store offering loads of other things, including bios, and other content. In the case of the Daily SMNR, a blogger may well come in to look at the offer to download and use the iPad app or to share the video with the readers of her blog but may report, instead, on Daily Editor in Chief, Jesse Angelo, who left the New York Post for a position with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

To me, it really doesn’t matter what news from the SMNR the blogger reports, it just matter that the blogger takes time out of her busy, busy, day to spend some time writing about our clients, for free. We really always remember that we’re not entitled to anybody’s time, especially if we’re not paying for it. No matter what, every mention is a gracious courtesy.

Multimedia elements and the essential embed code

I always tell everybody that only 1% of all bloggers have media, communications, or public relations experience. Full stop. Even fewer of them are HTML gurus. Nothing can be assumed. I am not recommending pablum. I am not saying that we have to dumb down for the bloggers, it’s just that they speak a different language from ours in PR. We don’t share lingua francas. So, we always go out of our way to make sure everything is as simple and self-explanatory as possible without ever insulting the blogger.

In the above case, we always make sure that embed codes are included whenever any video is included — if we ever want to see it embedded inline in a blog post. We had an embed code in the first video at the top of the SMNR but it was deleted by the client. Even if our blogger knows how to find the embed code himself, we really don’t want him to leave the site to go hunt it down over at YouTube, as I explained earlier. We don’t want people to ever click away.

So, we include all embed code at a height and width that is optimal for most blogs, in this case 480 pixels wide. If the blogger is sophisticated enough to want a 853 x 480 video, he can go get that, we’re just making it as easy as possible to make the entire process take less than five minutes from the opening of the email to the clicking on Publish.

Social media and tags

The “Share This” buttons at the top of the SMNR are promotional. They don’t reference the client-owned Social Media properties. It is essential to make sure that we offer up everything and anything to the blogger’s consideration.

Finally, to make it as easy as humanly possible for everyone, we include a string of comma-separated topical keywords that each blogger can easily copy-and-paste into the “post tags” portion of your blogging platform.

Yes, I know. this SMNR has everything including the kitchen sink. Not true. It gets worse. If you explore the SMNR for Habitat for Humanity’s World Habitat Day the SMNR we did for the US Olympic Committee we made for the Winter Olympics in Canada, or one of the SMNRs for the Fresh Air Fund, you’ll see that there are all sort of other things such as banners with embed codes and additional videos and all sorts of other assets — really the kitchen sink, in many cases.

Favicon, header title, and meta description

One last thing that I want to discuss before we end this helluva long post is about fit and finish. Too often “single use” sites like this just don’t get the love they deserve. Make sure you take some time to create a nice “Favicon” aka favorites icon, shortcut icon, website icon, URL icon and bookmark icon. Also, please take the time required to create a strong and descriptive Metatag Title and Description tag as well.

<title>Introducing The Daily - Facts and Resources</title>
<meta name="description" content="The Daily facts and resources page. Introducing The Daily The first digital daily news publication built from scratch for the iPad by some of the best in the business to bring you information that's smart, attractive, and entertaining.">
<meta name="keywords" content="the daily facts, the daily resources, the daily facts and resources, the daily, thedaily.com, rupert murdoch, news corp, apple, mac, ipad, ipod, iphone, iphone 3g, iphone 3gs, iphone 4, steve jobs, macbook, macintosh, mackbook air, ipod nano, new iphone, ipod touch, apps, ipad apps, iphone apps, mac rumors, ipad reviews, apple technology, apple news, ipad news, iphone news, tech, technology, geek, geek news, gadgets, new gadgets, new technology">

Why? Why is it even worth the extra time to go back into the engine room and tool with the Meta Data? Well, the HTML Title tag directly contributes to what people see when they either bookmark your page, what they see in a browser tab, or what they see in the Title Bar. Easy-peasy. A real no-brainer. Also, despite what anyone at SEOMoz thinks, meta tags are still important and here’s why:

You’ll notice that all the text in the search result that comes up when your search serves up thedaily-newsrelease.com as a result is content that Google didn’t so much have to find or scrap; rather, it simply serves up the text directly from the Title we wrote and also the Meta Description we also wrote in the form of the search result headline and description.

I hope the previous 2,500 words have done a pretty good job of explaining why we at Abraham Harrison insist on producing a proper, well-produced, well-branded Social Media News Release (SMNR) — both philosophically, practically, and psychologically.

And because I really don’t know everything, please feel free to comment, contribute, share, and ask any questions you may well still have about the process, the evolution, and any technical details you might be unclear about or I have failed to cover. Thank you for your amazing attention span! Via Marketing Conversation via Biznology via Socialmedia.biz.

Related articles

• The Social Media News Release explained in detail (socialmedia.biz)
• Inside a Social Media News Release (biznology.com)
• How to write an irresistible blogger pitch email (chrisabraham.com)
• Why Using the Social Media News Release is a Big Mistake (hubspot.com)
• Authentic Internet inbound marketing the way God intended (chrisabraham.com)
• Detailed analysis of the perfect blogger pitch (socialmedia.biz)
• The art of writing the perfect blogger pitch (biznology.com)
• Study Shows Social Media Releases Are Less Effective Than Traditional Press Releases (hubspot.com)
• Online newsroooms should go social (econsultancy.com)
• Flipboard, Smaller and Smarter, Launches on iPhone (prnewswire.com)
• Inbound marketing the way nature intended (socialmedia.biz)

Abraham Harrison LLC’s client, The Daily, just launched it’s cool new iPad application today!

The Daily is a first-of-its-kind daily national news publication built exclusively as an application for tablet computing. It provides readers the engaging experience of a magazine combined with the immediacy of the web and the need-to-know content of a newspaper, all while elevating user experience beyond the printed word. The Daily is a subscription-based news product, published 365 days a year, at the cost of $0.99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. For more information on The Daily go to: www.thedaily.com.

The FAQ covers a lot of the details that you might be wondering about:

What is The Daily?
The first digital news publication with original content created every day exclusively for the iPad®. Built from scratch by a team of top journalists and designers, The Daily covers the world: breaking news, sports, pop culture, entertainment, apps, games, technology, opinion, celebrity gossip and more.
The Daily has the depth and quality of a magazine but is delivered daily like a newspaper and updated in real-time like the web. Great stories, photos, video, audio and graphics come alive the more you touch, swipe, tap and explore. The customized sports section allows you to follow your favorite teams’ scores, pictures and headlines — even players’ tweets.

How often does it publish?
There is a new edition of The Daily early every morning — 365 days a year. The Daily can update with breaking news stories throughout the day, and many articles pull in data from the web at large, so that stories have elements that live in real time.

How much does it cost?
The Daily is absolutely free for 2 weeks. Then it’s just 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. If you’re interested in the math, that’s around 14 cents or 11 cents a day, respectively — far less than any traditional newspaper that we’ve seen. And every day’s issue has the amount of content you might expect from a monthly magazine, many of which cost $2.99-$5.99 for a single issue. The Daily is currently available exclusively on the App Store. If you already have an iTunes account you don’t even need to pull out your credit card.

How do I download the latest issue every day?
Just open The Daily app on your iPad when it’s connected to the Internet via WiFi or 3G. The latest issue will start downloading automatically. You can begin reading almost immediately. No need to wait for the whole issue to download; it will continue in the background as you read.

Do I need to be connected to the Internet to read The Daily ?
Once you’ve downloaded the day’s issue, there is no need to be connected. All the articles, text and photos will be there; you only need a live connection to stream videos that you’ll find throughout the issue, to pull in the live feeds attached to some articles, and to comment and share. The long and short of it is, there’s plenty to read and do in The Daily when you’re on the subway or otherwise out of range. Being connected makes it better.

Why the iPad?
The Daily was created to take advantage of everything tablet computing can do. Without the legacy of print or even a destination web site, we can focus exclusively on a great tablet computing experience. The iPad offers an incredible reading experience, and being the first of its kind also means there is an existing reader base that can take advantage of The Daily. In the coming months we’ll announce The Daily’s availability on Android tablets, and we’ll also be considering other platforms as people adopt them.

What about sharing with friends that don’t have iPads?
While The Daily lives on the iPad, web-friendly versions of most of its articles can be easily shared via Facebook, Twitter and email. Hit the ‘share’ button at the top right of the app to try it. While the full tablet experience is unavoidably lost in translation, the text, photos and video aren’t — and quite often that’s enough to share articles conversationally with friends and colleagues.
You can also find some of our content on our blog, http://blog.thedaily.com. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and Vimeo for updates and more.

You can also follow The Daily on all the normal social media sites:

Via Marketing Conversation

One thing that I am not is touchy about the fact that I love what I love. And I love Moleskine notebooks.  And I love manual typewriters, especially the Hermes 3000, and I love quite a lot of other like-minded stuff.  Well, Moleskine notebooks are #122 in the list of Stuff While People Like. Sad but true.

This particular type of notebook is very expensive and was quite popular with writers and artists in the olden days.  Needless to say, these are two properties that are highly coveted in the white community.   In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to know that white people like anything that old writers and artists liked:  typewriters, journals, suicide, heroin, and trains are just a few examples.

Let’s see what else I like that white people like — the bold ones I feel especially strong about:

• #122 Moleskine Notebooks
• #120 Taking a Year Off
• #119 Sea Salt
• #115 Promising to Learn a New Language
• #108 Appearing to Enjoy Classical Music
• #107 Self Aware Hip Hop References
• #106 Facebook
• #99 Grammar
• #98 The Ivy League
• #92 Book Deals
• #90 Dinner Parties
• #88 Having Gay Friends
• #81 Graduate School
  
• #80 The Idea of Soccer
• #79 Modern Furniture
• #78 Multilingual Children
• #77 Musical Comedy
• #73 Gentrification
• #72 Study Abroad
• #70 Difficult Breakups
• #61 Bicycles
• #58 Japan
• #57 Juno
• #56 Lawyers
• #55 Apologies
• #54 Kitchen Gadgets
• #53 Dogs
• #52 Sarah Silverman
• #51 Living by the Water
• #50 Irony
• #49 Vintage
• #48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
• #47 Arts Degrees
• #46 The Sunday New York Times
• #45 Asian Fusion Food
• #44 Public Radio
• #43 Plays
• #42 Sushi
• #39 Netflix
• #38 Arrested Development
• #37 Renovations
• #36 Breakfast Places
• #35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
• #34 Architecture
• #25 David Sedaris
• #24 Wine
• #23 Microbreweries
• #21 Writers Workshops
• #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
• #19 Traveling
• #18 Awareness
• #16 Gifted Children
• #14 Having Black Friends
• #13 Tea
• #8 Barack Obama
• #7 Diversity
• #6 Organic Food
• #5 Farmer’s Markets
• #3 Film Festivals
• #2 Religions their parents don’t belong to
• #1 Coffee

Holy fuck, I am pretty darn white!

One of my goals in life is to be on Boing Boing, so in many ways my dreams are coming true every day in so many ways in the form of getting a guest blog post on Boing Boing Gadgets about the ultimate gadget, my hand-made, bespoke, Randall Model 1 knife — many thanks to my buddy John Brownlee for inviting me over and for not only considering my knife a gadget but fancying it worthy of bbG:

Knife Porn: Four years waiting and one month with the Randall Model 1 Fighting Knife Posted by John Brownlee

Guest Review by Chris Abraham

After four years, I finally received my bespoke, hand-made, Randall Model 1 “All-Purpose Fighting Knife.” Unstead of tearing right into the box, I paused and filmed a nine-minute unboxing video and took some photos of the knife — knife porn.

There are two iconic fighting knives known the world over for their service in World War II. The British Sykes-Fairbairn dagger and the American style of fighting knife, inspired both by the Bowie and the American hunting knife. There was one knife, above all other, that I coveted… coveted not just because it was considered “the best” by all of the knife magazines I bought but also because it was associated with doing hard service during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. That knife was the Randall Model #1.

Because I wanted a Randall that was as authentic to the knives that have served our military since WWII, I ordered the Randall with a carbon blade, since it predates stainless steel. There are some challenges associated with owning and using a carbon steel knife, be it in the kitchen or in the field.

First, they can — and do — rust. Since rust is normal with daily use out in the field, don’t freak out if it happens to you. A little sandpaper should do the trick if the rusting isn’t too bad.

Second, even if you spend the time and attention required to make sure your knife remains dry and sealed under a light coating of oil, there is still the issue of discoloration. Unlike stainless, carbon steel reacts with the things it touches. The acids and oils of the leather sheath could discolor the blade. Cutting meat will discolor the blade, too.

The instructions also suggest that cutting meat with the carbon blade results in discoloration, so you’re pretty much screwed unless you don’t use your Randall at all. Luckily, that’s not true. Go ahead and use it, if you’re not a strict collector — it was meant to be man-handled. Like I said above, all of the discoloration can be easily polished out of your knife. Working carbon knives always end up looking a little like they were made of silver because of the way silver tarnishes.

When I received the knife, the blade was coated with a light oil. The instructions recommend keeping the blade dry and lubricated with WD-40. After I posted the unboxing video on YouTube, someone commented that I should be really careful with the carbon steel blade and not store the knife in the leather scabbard but rather keep the blade (but not the handle) wrapped in an oil cloth.

And how does it feel? Perfectly-balanced. It’s right where it’s supposed to be: the shiny brass hilt rests the handle right on your forefinger, as it should.

There is an after-market for Randall knives if you’re unwilling to wait for 4-years for one like I did. I checked out A.G. Russell, a popular knife store, and I found the Randall Model 1 for $600. Instant gratification for Randalls generally starts at $600 for a brand new knife of someone else’s design, usually with a micarta or stag handle, and quickly tops out at thousands for a specialty, rare, or vintage knife. If you want a knife made by Bo Randall himself, it will cost: older Randall knives are worth five to fifteen times their value.

These are collectors knives, that’s for sure. If you explore the catalog, you’ll get a feel how extensively you can pimp your knife. I ordered mine plain vanilla “traditional” with the pressed-leather handle, 7″ blade, and Duralumin butt cap. Some options I could have requested were a longer or shorter blade in stainless steel. There’s an assortment of brass hilt shapes and sizes along with a myriad of handle types, including bone, tusk, horn, micarta (a mixture of layered linen and resin), or just about anything else that could be shoehorned onto the full tang.

I don’t know if I like the big and bulky sharpening stone pocket on the front of the sheath since I don’t plan on being far enough in the wilderness to not be able to come home to sharpen the knife. I did a little research and you can get just about anything you want from Randall, including getting the sheath without the stone pouch, although a replacement sheath from Randall costs almost two-hundred dollars, nearly the cost of the knife itself. If my Google searches are true, you can even get sheaths in other leathers and colors, including ostrich, alligator, and zebra. All I need to know is the length of the blade, which is a very standard and popular 7″ (8″ is also very popular).

The man behind Randall Made Knives, W.D. Bo Randall, started making hand-forged knives as a hobby back in 1937 and started selling them in the years leading up to World War II. A reporter wrote a story about Bo during the early years of the war and there was so much demand for his fighting knife, now known as the Model 1, that Bo became a full-time knife-maker. According the website, Bo Randall hand-crafted each knife no matter how much demand or the temptation to mass-produce. Throughout WWII, the knives became legendary. Ronald Reagan carried a Randall Model 1 knife.

And, if you ever have a chance to buy a used Randall on the cheap, don’t reject a knife just because it’s rusted or the sheath is rotted. Some oil, a fine grit emery cloth or steel wool, a little polish, and you’re good to go. These knives were made for duty so there isn’t a lot you can do to “kill” the knife. And, if the knife looks a little far gone, don’t worry, you can probably find a knife-maker in your area who can fix it up by reshaping the blade and restoring the bits and pieces. If you want to restore your Randall in style, to this day you can buy replacement sheaths from the company, made to order. Additionally, you can send your Randall home to Orlando, Florida, where it was born, they can do a lovely job restoring it.

Why did I buy a knife like this? Well, that’s an odd thing, and the reason dates back over 24 years to when I was a strapping teen. When I was in high school, during the mid- to late-80s, I was a teenage commando. I went to an all-boys Catholic school in Hawaii called Saint Louis School and we had an JROTC program that I joined because it was either that, PE, or band (shudder). After joining JROTC I joined the Ranger club. On the surface the Rangers were a bunch of boys who did calisthenics and ran around campus and were entitled to wear black berets and bloused jump boots on the days every member of JROTC was required to skulk around school in Class-A Army uniforms. Still, that wasn’t all the Rangers did. We also spent weekends playing the part of Opposition Forces (OPFOR) for Hawaii’s National Guard and Army Reserve. As part of all that, we were issued camouflaged fatigues (BDUs), ALICE packs, web gear, and M-16s. Yes, real M-16s with real banana clips and real brass casings filled with real smokeless gunpowder, but without bullets with a blank-firing adaptor.

I was motivated and dedicated. I became obsessed with everything military. I bought copies of SOF and shopped at Army surplus stores. We all prized authentic gear and many of us bought Vietnam-era slash-pocket OD fatigues and Ka-Bar knives. I was obsessed with knives and started a collection.

That was 1984. I didn’t end up ordering my own Randall until twenty-years later while I was supposed to be working for Pete Snyder at New Media Strategies during the Summer of 2004. I put down $50 as a down payment, clicked “order” and then obsessed about it for nearly five years! I paid off the balance of $264.00 about a year ago. It was supposed to be delivered in June but I received a letter letting me know that delivery had been delayed until October.

Why does a knife take four-years? One of the reasons my order, #57224, order date September 2004, took so long is because I ordered my knife in a time of war. Randall Made Knives is a purveyor of hunting knives during peacetime; however, during a time of war, most of their capacity is spent on providing for our troops. According to their FAQ, “spare time and space is devoted to filling military knife orders for our active military customers. I think that’s fair, since the Model 1 was a military knife from the very beginning.

It was finally ready for delivery while I was in Berlin so I had the knife FedExed to my mom’s house in Arlington, Virginia, and counted the days until I returned home for Christmas. I arrived on Christmas eve but kept it in my pants until Christmas day, when I took this unboxing video and these photos.

After four years, the knife more than lives up to my expectations, especially since there were a couple of cool surprises that I didn’t know about, including red, white, and blue patriotic spacers between the hilt and the pressed-leather handle and between the handle and the Duralumin butt cap — I’ll photograph it with my Nokia N95 camera phone. To be frank, I have been waiting for this Randall Model #1 for twenty-four-years, since I fell in love with this perfect thing back when I was a Freshman in high school.

Worth the wait? Yes! Any hype associated with the entire experience? No, I don’t think so at all. It couldn’t be better-crafted or more beautiful. I am no longer a knife collector — or an anything collector — so the only two remaining knives in my collection is a Cold Steel Tanto I got back in 1983 and this Randall Model 1.

Randall Made Knife Unboxing Porn

Randall Knife Unboxing Pics [Flickr]

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When not waiting four years for a knife to be hand crafted for him, drunkenly stumbling away with me from a disreputable Berlin pub, or being one of the sweetest and smartest guys it is my pleasure to know, Chris Abraham runs a crackerjack conversational marketing firm, Abraham Harrison. This technically makes him a scumbag, but I love him anyway.

Nokia N97, originally uploaded by Robert Scoble.

Robert Scoble started a bit-storm when he got his hands on the Nokia N97 even before I have scored myself an N96. I love love love my Nokia N95 8GB and use it as my 5mp camera, my QIK video camera, and my official podcast-listening device. I wake up this morning and there are a million articles about the Nokia N97 all over the place: Robert Scoble, Gizmodo, Engadget, SlashGear, MobileCrunch, GSMArena, Atmaspheric Endeavors, UnwiredView, Mobile.ie, PhoneMag, Laptop Mag, Geeky Gadgets, Mobile Tech Addicts, GadgetHeat, The S60 Blog, Inside View, Scoble’s Flickr, Teche Blog, Mobile Fun, CNet UK, Phones Review, The Serious Games Blog, TechLime, SlashPhone

I was just farting around Boing Boing Gadgets, enjoying the fine work over there, post amusement over seeing my business partner become immortal in a Boing Boing post and referred to as “a globe-trotting alpha male who spends winters rubbing elbows with bikini models down in Mauretius and summers either indulging in sport in Berlin or piloting yachts around Cape Horn.” Well, I started reading comments and there were some funny ones, and then an obvious comment spam about the Motorola Krave. Then, the wolves circled and the entire comment thread started mocking the shiller. Ultimately, Joel Johnson wrote the following awesome blog post, entitled, Motorola, could you please tell your viral marketer to get out of our comments?

Motorola, could you please tell your viral marketer to get out of our comments?

In John’s post about Steve Jobs’ purported tantrum, a commenter “MGOODE08″ made this remark:

I’m so glad my boss isn’t like that! I’m working with Motorola right now, and became a huge fan of the Krave (motorola.com/krave). I especially like the full touch screen display and html web browser. It’s awesome!

On the 14th, he made this comment:

Oh man this looks awesome! I hope they release a version for the Krave by Motorola. Ever since I started working with Motorola I have became a huge fan of the phone (motorola.com/krave). With a full list of features, like a full touch screen, I can’t stop obsessing over it.

“M Goode” loves this phone so much that he posted this at GigaOm:

This is a very good idea. I think it could be applied to any phones with a similar format. Ever since I started working with Motorola I have become a huge fan of the Krave. It has some of the same features, and I think a built in micropayment system would be great. It’s a fairly new phone, so if you haven’t seen it yet it’s online at motorola.com/krave. I wonder if they will jump on the bandwagon when/if a micropayment system is implemented.

When he’s not on tech sites, though, “M Goode” loves to relax with a good game:

I wish this game would get released for a mobile gaming platform, especially the Krave. I have been a fan of this franchise since it’s first release, and would love to have it on a cell phone, especially the krave. Ever since I started working with Motorola, I have become a huge fan of the krave. Has anyone else seen it?(motorola.com/krave) It’s so loaded with features, most important of which is the full touch screen layout. It’s DEFINITELY worth checking out.

He’s also really into the indie gaming scene:

I can’t wait to see this on a mobile phone platform! it would be so cool to see ti on a Krave! Has anyone else seen it? (motorola.com/krave) It’s a flip phone with a touch screen, 2 MP camera, full html browser and bluetooth functionality. Definitely worth checking out.

But uh oh! He might be considering switching from a Krave to the new Nokia:

My favorite phone right now is the Krave by Motorola. I became a huge fan of the Krave once I started working with Motorola. You can check out the full spec list online at motorola.com/krave. It’s definitely strong competition with it’s full touch screen

(He is also apparently working for Cirque Du Soleil, but we’ll let them pass for the moment because I love acrobats.)

“Follow the money,” they say, but in this case we don’t have to, because all we have to do is follow the link. Motorola, if you could be so kind as to tell your viral marketer to fuck right off we’d sure appreciate it. Perhaps you could spend the money instead on making your phones something that people actually want to buy.

P.S., I love our readers. Check out the replies they immediately started making:

I’m so glad my boss isn’t like that! I’m working for Burger King right now, and became a huge fan of the Mushroom and Swiss Steakhouse Burger. I especially like the cheese and mushrooms. It’s awesome!

I’m so glad my boss isn’t like that! I’m working for a pimp on the corner of wellwood and barrington and became a huge fan of Allie and her turrid backstroke technique. I especially like the pop and rock. It’s awesome!

I’m so glad my boss isn’t like that! I’m working with Cryptozoologia right now, and became a huge fan of the Trepanasaurus (Cryptozoologia.com/ Trepanasaurus). I especially like the way that, after the dinosaur-anteater hybrid rips off the top of a person’s head with its sharp teeth, it can suck out its victim’s brain with its nose. It’s awesome!

Image via CrunchBase

John Brownlee of Boing Boing Gadgets cracks me up. He is one the reasons why have so much fun in Berlin. I just got off the phone with him and he dropped that he blogged about my business partner, Mark Harrison.

A private moment with Steve Jobs by John Brownlee

My friend Mark Harrison is an intriguing sort: a globe-trotting alpha male who spends winters rubbing elbows with bikini models down in Mauretius and summers either indulging in sport in Berlin or piloting yachts around Cape Horn. He’s also got some fantastic stories about his run-ins with various eccentric business tycoons. One of those tycoons is Steve Jobs.

According to Mark, the year was 2000, and the company he worked for had set up a meeting with Jobs. Their pitch was simple: while Apple at that time owned the educational market up until the end of grade school, they completely lost all of their users by the time high school started, where computer labs became dominated by PCs. Their proposition was simple: team up with Apple and leverage their presence in thousands of schools to expand Apple’s educational market share.

From the very second he sat down with them, Jobs seemed agitated. The second his ass hit the chair, Jobs began rocking back and forth autistically. But as Mark’s colleagues made blunt and undeniable appraisals of Apple’s presence in high school computer labs, the rocking dramatically increased, then exploded… along with Jobs.

A purpling shade of apoplectic, Jobs launched to his feet, flecking the table with spittle. “You’re shit! Your company’s shit! It’s nothing compared to mine!” he screamed, an outstretched finger jutting accusingly up and down. Eventually, his fury was spent, and the situation was defused by some politically expedient cooing noises.

Still, it’s all just so Jobs, isn’t it? Ever since I heard the anecdote, I can’t help but think of Jobs that way. Turgid with rage and quivering in front of a PC or DAP or mobile phone, spraying its display with spittle: “You’re shit! SHIT! DO YOU HEAR ME? Your operating system’s nothing compared to mine.”

Mark used to be a big cheese for Primedia in New York at the turn of the century but I had never heard this story. Please read and laugh. The funny thing is that back in the day, Mark and I were big proponents of Apple and their Apple for the Teacher and Apple for the School program. We were inspired by the Apple Evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, and both wondered why Apple kept on dropping the ball and ceeding market share to Microsoft. Well, after reading this post you will see that is was probably hubris.

Related articles

• Steve Job Passed On (it-sideways.com)
• Steve Jobs is dead (ireaderreview.com)
• Steve Jobs has Passed Away (geektyrant.com)
• Steve Jobs Has Passed Away (1955-2011) | ZeroHedge (tomhuff.wordpress.com)
• Steve Jobs Has Died (923now.radio.com)
• Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011 (macstories.net)
• R.i.p. Steve Jobs (jesssmartsmiley.wordpress.com)
• Steve Jobs Has Passed Away (dlisted.com)
• Apple: Company Co-Founder Steve Jobs Has Died (annem040359.wordpress.com)
• Apple Honors Steve Jobs (suburbanmen.com)

Thanks to Xeni Jardin and John Brownlee over at Boing Boing and Boing Boing Gadgets for giving a shout out to my client and worthy cause, Fresh Air Fund, as they come into a crunch in their need to place 200 kids who are still lacking host families for August, Give low-income city kids a chance to experience rural reality!

Give low-income city kids a chance to experience rural reality.

Posted by Xeni Jardin, July 16, 2008 11:46 PM | permalink

Our John Brownlee, over at Boing Boing Gadgets, tells the mothership about a project close to his heart:

There’s an organization called the Fresh Air Fund, which has been around since 1877.Their charter is basically to arrange to send low-income New York City kids out of the city for the summer to get a breath of fresh air and experience the country: free summer vacations for kids who might never have left the city in their lives.

There’s a website detailing their organization and what they need from host families here: freshair.smnr.us.

Image: “Fresh Air campers visit the model farm, one of the highlights of Sharpe Reservation in Fishkill, NY where The Fresh Air Fund has five camps.”

posted in: Environment ,  Make a Difference

Via Marketing Conversation and Boing Boing

So, I have been trying to update my resume and keep it up-to-date. Let me know if there are any embarrassing errors, oversights, or mistakes.

MISSION

My passion is to use my experience and expertise in online community outreach and advocacy to promote and protect client online brands using my years of blogging, SEO, PR, marketing, and CGM professional experience.

PROFILE

I am an expert in online outreach, advocacy and marketing with over 10 years of online experience. My experience focuses on web strategy, including SEO strategy, technology strategy, and online marketing strategy. My skills include:

- Analyst: business intelligence, analysis and synthesis, futurist, case studies, industry predictions
- Blogger: online outreach, advocacy, conversation, and messaging, blogger relations
- Technologist: expertise in community technologies, blogs, wikis, message boards
- Salesman: entrepreneurial nature with a very strong business network and personal relationships
- Marketer: Over three years of online buzz marketing, online buzz marketing, and online word-of-mouth marketing
- Producer: experience in designing and developing hardware and software solutions
- Strategist: design, develop, and implement web strategies and marketing plans to reach online consumers and
- Promoter: online brand promotion, virals, organic SEO (search engine optimization), and paid advertising (SEM)
- Protector: online brand protection, defensive SEO, online crisis response, and online brand management
- Teacher: Blogging instructor, guest lecturer, and online teacher since 1996

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Independent Web Strategies Consultant — 8/2006-Present
- On-site training, briefing, and client pitching as online buzz marketing and SEO expert
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert, focusing on both brand promotion and protection in search
- Online Buzz Marketing, Online Word-of-Mouth Marketing, and Online Viral Marketing expert
- Consulting and guiding PR and Marketing firms in their creation of Online Marketing practices
- Web Strategy document commissioned by Diversion Media for Travelistic launch
- Web Strategy document commissioned by Friendster
- Word of Mouth campaign commissioned by HostNuke for EggDisk file storage service
- Online buzz marketing proposal commissioned by Red Bricks Media for their client use

Senior RSS Consultant, Hinchcliffe & Company — 1/2007-Present
- RSS strategy, development, and deployment for fortune 500 financial company
- Web widget and gadget research, development and deployment for Google Personalized Homepage
- Case studies of Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google, Dodgeball, Helio, Revver, Vox, You Tube, digg, Second Life

Consultant, Internet Analyst, Comteg — 12/2006-Present
- Research and analysis of web2.0 business and technology landscape
- Business intelligence and analysis of web2.0 business strategies
- Case studies of Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google, Dodgeball, Helio, Revver, Vox, You Tube, digg, Second Life
- Analysis and synthesis of Google’s overall and future strategy
- web2.0 and the long tail analysis and case studies

Consultant, Blog Production and Strategy, BoldMouth — 8/2006-11/2006
- Blog strategy and planning for high-traffic, high-profile blog relaunch
- Customized Moveable Type installation on CentOS dedicated server
- Transition from TypePad to newest Movable Type 3.31 install
- Monetization of blog, including BlogAds and Google AdSense placement
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of blog

Senior Account Supervisor, Online Advocacy, Edelman — 5/2006-8/2006
- Client contact for Wal-Mart’s innovative blog outreach campaign, including prospecting and messaging
- Spearheaded Working Families for Wal-Mart blog, newsletter, and activation list
- Developed online word of mouth outreach for Taylor Hicks webcast from Wal-Mart shareholder’s meeting
- Co-produced Exposing the Paid Critics blog for Working Families for Wal-Mart
- Co-produced successful online advocacy proposals to GE, Nissan, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and Wal-Mart Realty
- Designed and developed opt-in membership Email and messaging campaigns

Technology Strategist, New Media Strategies, Inc. — 9/2003-5/2006
- Developed online word-of-mouth marketing strategy and tactics used on Usenet, message boards, social networks, and blogs
- Developed online advocacy and outreach campaigns for clients’ products, services, and message
- Produced internal and client protective and promotional SEO campaigns and search strategy to highlight positive online conversation and suppress negative conversation on popular search engines
- Developed in-house expertise on blogging, new media, podcasting, technology, citizen journalism, and CGM, including training, teaching, and the development of blogging and online marketing strategy
- Developed, deployed, and launched client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts, including Club TomTom, New Media Sense, Extreme Mortman, and others.
- Managed online advertising campaigns using Yahoo and Google contextual ads
- Client service work included Sci-Fi Channel (Mad Mad House, Tripping the Rift, Battlestar Galactica), Buena Vista (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), TomTom, Paramount Pictures, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Disney, Reebok, EA (UXO, Sim-City Online), RCA (American Idol CD), and NBC (Revelations), etc . . .

Director of Sales, eResources, LLC — 9/2002-9/2003
- Managed sales force and new business for the ITonDemand™ and the eResources Content Management System products

Senior Web Developer, National Legal Aid & Defender Association — 2/2002 – 9/2002
- Developed Web applications and content management system (CMS) developer using Zope, Python, and MySQL

Managing Director, beehive North America — 7/2000-2/2002
- President, co-owner, and co-founder of beehive North America, the North American office of Berlin-based beehive elektronische medien GmbH
- Sold and marketed software Zope application development training and services
- Clients included College of Exploration, The Nature Conservancy, and Space Telescope Science, and Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD)

Online Community Builder, Caucus Systems, Inc. — 7/1999-6/2000
- Online community, online conference, and online event facilitator and host
- Linux/Unix system administrator (LAMP SA)

Senior Information Engineer, FCBS — 12/1997-7/1999
- On-site consultant for US Department of Treasury Chief Information Office (CIO)
- Core duties included HTML, scripting (Perl, SSI), programming, graphic design, management, development, and deployment of the CIO Intranet and public website

Teacher, Education for the Arts (EFA), KRESA — 11/1996-6/1998
- High school teacher of the first fully accredited virtual online high school creative writing course for Kalamazoo, MI, Public Schools arts magnet program

Software Engineer, Proxicom, Inc. (Proxima in 1996) — 1/1996-8/1996
- Internet web application developer for the seminal web application company
Technical and Customer Support, Picture Network International (PNI) — 7/1993-8/1995
- Help desk for Industry’s second dial-up online stock photo agency
- Start-up funded and supported by SRA and Tribune Media Company

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Blogging Instructor, The Writer’s Center — 2/2006-Present

Blogger, Because the Medium is the Message — 1999-Present

Stock Photographer, Pacific Stock — 1990-Present

Stock Photographer, Corbis — 1990-2004

Guest Lecturer on Public Affairs Blogging, SIPA, Columbia University — 10/15/1005

Emergent Technologies Advisor, Communications Advisory Board, Urban Institute

Participant Member, Moderator and Speaker, Renaissance Weekends, Renaissance Institute

Partner of Counsel, Haft, Harrison & Wolfson, Inc.

Associate, Howard Rheingold Associates

Founder and Organizer, DC Zope Python User Group (ZPUG)

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The George Washington University, Washington, DC
- BA, American Literature, Minor Creative Writing, 1993

University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, HI
- Intensive course work, French, 1992

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
- Junior year abroad, English and American Studies (EAS), 1990-1991