Rest in peace, Randy Pausch
I was saddened today by the news that professor Randy Pausch had finally lost his battle with pancreatic cancer this Friday, July 25th 2008.
Professor Pausch (Computer science, Carnegie Mellon University) became an internet sensation when after learning about his illness and being told he had between 3 and 6 months to live, he delivered a speech in 2007 entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”.
A sneaky trick to “go viral”
Back in 1999, before all the rage about “online video” existed, the most popular thing people would share were pictures. Some of these photos and illustrations were the very first real-world examples of “going viral”.
Then, in late 2000, a computer programmer and part-time DJ from Kansas called Jeffrey Ray Roberts took all the photos, modified them to fit his latest music creation and turned them into the single most watched flash file ever created: “All Your Base Are Belong To Us”.
By leveraging the existing popularity of the photos, he was able to promote his music to the world. And unknowingly sparked an internet and pop-culture phenomenon that lasted for years.
Uber-profitable memberships
“Attrition” is the most feared word among membership site owners. After all, the only way to keep a membership site alive is by billing customers month after month. If your members leave after just one or two months, you have no business. Period.
Most membership site owners fight attrition on a regular basis. But there are a few members-only websites out there that not only have zero attrition… but they also have a line of customers waiting and begging to be let in. They are uber-profitable.
Andy Jenkins has released a must-hear podcast that explains exactly how (and why) StomperNet is able to stay in business even when they charge nearly $1,000 per month to EACH member. This stuff is quite simply, too dangerous to miss!
5 Hot video sites you didn’t know
Whenever someone mentions “online video”, most people think about YouTube immediately (that’s the power of brand positioning at work). But there is an entire universe out there in the wild web just begging to be discovered. Here are 5 relatively unknown, but still very hot, Web 2.0 video sites.
Take the time to visit them and explore their potential. And if you happen to know another cool video website that readers of this blog should know about about, please post about it in the comments. It will be much appreciated. 
The machine is us/ing us
One of the most frequent questions new internet marketers ask is “What is web 2.0?”. And it is something that very few people actually know how to answer (due to the HUGE amount of concepts, ideas and trends that Web 2.0 encompasses).
One of the best answers so far comes from Michael Wesch in the form of a video titled “The machine is us/ing us”. In this video, Michael “talks” about the ethnography of Web 2.0, and the importance of tagging all your shared content effectively. Brilliant video work too!
3 Tips for better text in video
As online video becomes more and more popular, the gap between pro’s and amateurs keeps getting wider. And even when internet users are fairly used to the average low-quality of a YouTube video, they also know how to spot (and prefer) a good looking video when they see one.
The fact is that in video we DO “judge the book by its cover”. It happens because our eyes (and brains) have been trained well with all those years of watching TV. So even when most people are not experts at video creation, they are experts at judging the quality of the videos they watch.
One of the most obvious tell-tales of an amateur video is the way that text is handled on the screen. So today, I’ll be sharing with you 3 easy-to-follow tips to make your video productions stand out from the pack:
