(tricked ya… that’s not a real video… it’s just a picture

I’m always on the lookout for awesome new tools and ways to save me time and give my customers a better user experience.

As you know… video is pretty much a must nowadays and if you’re not using video you’re going to be left in the dust.

Anyhow, as I type this… we’re in a little “launch” over at the real estate investing site where we’re going to be teaching our readers over the next couple weeks how to get private money for their real estate deals.

Long story short… we’re using video heavily in this series and I was pulling my hair out trying to find an easy and cheap way to get video up on the site… other than posting it to the masses of video sharing sites.

Nothing wrong with using Youtube, Viddler, etc. to host the video… but I’d rather have full control over the video and make sure there’s no chance the reader can click on the video and be taken to the Youtube site and diverted to someone elses videos.

My Easy Flash Video Solution

I was watching a few internet marketing product launches recently and did a bit of investigative work to see what they were using for their flash video.  Some were simply using the JW FLV Player and streaming from Amazon S3 (if you’re not streaming your videos from S3 and you’re getting any traffic at all… you should seriously start doing it… cheap as heck and great servers.  By cheap I mean… I only paid .15 cents last month… ya) … but I got frustrated at the whole thing after 30 minutes of toying around with it and trying to get it hooked up to my .flv file.

Then, I kept seeing this “ezs3” thing coming up in the code for some of the big guys (Ryan Deiss and others) and decided to check it out.

Basically, what this “ezs3″ thing is is a service that makes it easy as heck to put flash video on your site hosted through Amazon S3.  Here’s a video I put up today using this service… looks extremely sharp and loads very fast.  And… you can customize the look of the player pretty much any way you want very very easily.

The Benefits Of EZS3

Yes, at the JW FLV Player site there is a free tool that will build the script that you can embed into your website.  I was actually going to go that way but I’m not a huge techie so it took me way too long and I got confused about half way into the process when I was trying to link the video script to the actual .flv video file hosted on Amazon S3.

So, I signed up for a free trial over at EZS3 (it’s 14 days free, then $20 after that a month… a bargain IMHO) and tested it out.

Here’s What I Did:

• Uploaded my .flv video file to Amazon S3 easily through the free S3 Firefox add on in my browser.  Took about 3 minutes.
• Got in my EZS3 account and hooked it up to my Amazon S3 account.  Took 45 seconds.
• Created a player, customized it, and got the script to paste on my web page.  Took 2 minutes (probably actually way less… but I was toying with some of the links).
• Pasted the code in my html file… and uploaded it to the net.

The whole process took me about 6-7 minutes… if I were to do it now I could probably get a video from the raw .flv file to the net in a nice flash video format in under 3 minutes using EZS3.

And… that video I showed you before is the result of that first try with their service.  I’m sold… and will for sure renew my membership at the end of my 14 day free trial.

Check Out EZS3… But Don’t Take My Review For Gospel…

Try it yourself…

If you’re already using Amazon S3 to stream your videos from this solution is way the heck easy for you to implement… and it may just save you a ton of time and money in the process because it’s only $20 a month and its easy as heck to use.

Here’s a few other cool things about EZS3 that I like a ton:

• Has great stats to show how many times the video (or any other file you use with this) has been viewed.
• You can pretty much fully customize the look, size, functionality, etc. of the video player… very flexible.
• Can use this service to easily display other files too… like pdf’s, other video file types, camtasia studio projects, etc.
• Can change the video display unit on the fly… even after you’ve already published the script to the web page.  It all runs on Javascript so you can make changes after you publish the video to the net, right in the EZS3 membership panel and the changes take place immediately.

Anyhow, I know this post looks kind of like an infomercial or a big ol’ product review… I didn’t mean for it to be like that… I really did just find out about this service today and am now sold on it for my own biz.

Check it out… get the free 14 day trial… let me know what you think!

For those of you who market affiliate products online… and have had any type of success… you know how awesome it is to hit those milestones you set for yourself.

• First you hope to make just that first dollar...

• Next you look for making just $100 a day…

• Then you hope that someday you’ll actually start to make real money and make $1,000 in a day…

• Then that $1,000 hour is the next goal…

I can tell you from first hand experience… setting and hitting your goals for affiliate marketing is a great feeling… even if you’re only making enough to pay your cell phone bill every month.

Here’s How I Have Hit My Affiliate Marketing Goals…

I didn’t even know what the heck affiliate marketing was until a little over a year ago.  Ya, I knew people made a crap load of money doing it… but I didn’t know where to start.

Anyhow, fast forward to today (a little over a year later) and I’m starting to make it look like I know what I’m doing a little bit (I’m definitely not big time… but things are heading in the right direction).

Here’s my affiliate marketing timeline:

• Made my first dollar using Adsense on my real estate investing tips website:I think it took me weeks and weeks to make that first dollar… but I made it and got my first Google Adsense check about 4 months later (ya… it took me that long to build up to $100).
• Saw that Adsense wasn’t going to make me rich (at least the way I was using it) so I started to look into affiliate products in mid ‘07:I made my first affiliate sale of Mark Joyners Simpleology in the summer of ‘07.  Simpleology was something that I was personally using and really felt it was worthy of sharing with other people.  The commission from each sale is $24.95.
• I noticed Simpleology starting to make a few bucks a month (like $75-$100) so I knew there were other products out there I could share with my readers at The REI Brain:Rather than making just $25 a sale… I wanted to make more per sale so I started searching for higher dollar products that I felt were great products at a great value.  So, I joined a few affiliate programs that had great products and began to send out emails to my email list… and write blog posts on the subjects.  A really cool thing that I soon found out was that people are willing to send you their product for free just so you can review it… even products that are selling for more than $1,000… free.  Pretty cool huh?  Anyhow, I made my first “higher dollar” commission in the fall of ‘07… it was a $148 commission on a $297 at home study course.That was my first $100 day (and I didn’t have another for several months).
• In early 2008 I just knew there was more out there to be had… and that making $100 in a day was only the tip of the iceberg:So, I started looking for new niches and products for my websites that I could try to rank really well in the search engines… and create recurring revenue.  I actually stumbled on a niche from an email I received from one of my readers at The REI Brain.com.  Long story short, I began reviewing property management software and started to hit $100 days more consistently… and even hit my first $500 weekend (profit… not revenues) in the spring of 2008.   Pretty cool I thought.  Work maybe 2-3 hours a week on these projects and turn that into the low 4 figures a month.
• Now, come up to a month or two ago when things really started to get consistent:Sales were coming daily, adsense earnings were well over $100 a month (really, I know that’s not a whole lot), and I had began to do CPA (cost per action) affiliate programs with Hydra Networks (and some others), promote more than 50 affiliate products, drive traffic with PPC (pay per click), use social media a lot more, and write content almost daily.In March of ‘08 I hit my first $2,000 month for profits from affiliate products.

Then I hit a big affiliate marketing goal of mine…

For quite a while I’ve had a goal to make $1,000 in affiliate profits in 1 day.  Ya, sounds like it’s pretty tough… and for some reason I had been making it actually a lot harder than it really was.

Yesterday (8/13) I finally hit my first $1,000 day (actually, I almost hit that in just 1 hour… and did hit it in just 2 hours yesterday morning) in affiliate profits.

Actually… let me rephrase…

I hit my first $1,596.70 day in affiliate PROFITS.  Not in sales… in affiliate profits (and it cost me absolutely ZERO in advertising costs… all through SEO, social media, and my blog readership).

Since it’s all the craze nowadays to post screenshots (even though a ton of them are fake and photoshopped)… above is a quick screenshot of the 1shoppingcart affiliate reporting area for this particular affiliate account that I promoted yesterday… which is where most of my sales came from.

Once again, I know… this is peanuts compared to what a lot of other affiliates are making online right now… but this kind of income can really add up and change someones lifestyle.

What would an instant $1,596.70 in 1 day (that you didn’t otherwise have) do for you?  It would be pretty cool huh?  And this $1,596.70 is for one day… it doesn’t include the profits from the rest of the month.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t make this much everyday… this was because of a small launch that was going on that I promoted to my real estate blog and real estate investing newsletter readers… and some sales from other affiliate products that day.  But, I’m confident that things will be at that level pretty soon once I systematize my online business a bit better… and get into the swing of things with my new VA (virtual assistant).

The “secret” to making thousands a day online…

I know, that heading sounds pretty hypey… doesn’t it?  It sounds like some late night infomercial trying to pitch you a $39.97 product that is tied to a $97 a month “forced continuity” product.

Well… this advice is free and is something that it has taken me over a year to figure out (and I’m still trying to figure it out).

1. There is no “secret” to making money online... follow a simple formula, systematize it, and don’t give up.
2. Be real, honest, informative, and provide a huge amount of value to your prospects… that’s the ONLY WAY you’ll make it online.  If you look at everything in the “how will I benefit” mindset… you’ll lose out on a lot of money and opportunities.  Take the “how can I benefit my customer/prospect/reader more today”… “what true value can I provide my prospect today?”.  I can promise you that your results will be 1000x times better when you take the focus off of how you’ll make money… but rather on how you can help your prospect benefit.
3. Find something that you enjoy to do and build something around that first… This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but start by focusing on a topic you are passionate about and really enjoy.  You’ll be able to stick with it longer.  I chose real estate investing because I am a real estate investor and love it… then I figured out how to provide a huge amount of value to my readers and separate myself from the competition.
4. Success won’t happen overnight… maybe not even in 6 months or a year…  If you want to build something really worthwhile it won’t happen overnight.  It took me over a year before my first website started to produce an income that a person can live off of (but, I’m pouring a lot of the profits back into the site and hiring Virtual Assistants to take the load off of me).  I’m not saying that you can’t build something more quickly… actually you should be able to if you become educated and take action a bit more quickly than I did… but too many people think it’ll happen quickly… then they give up too easily and never see their true potential.Find a niche, committ to it for at least 6 months… and spend at least 2 hours on your business EVERYDAY for the 6 months.  (I only spend about 2 hours a week now… but starting out it was a ton of work because I didn’t know the shortcuts I know now).
5. Network with people and DON’T be afraid to invest... Networking is huge.  95% of my current successes came after I went to Rich Schefren’s (yep, that’s an affiliate link event in Orlando earlier this year.  I got to know some really cool people… many of them who are way more successful than I am… and have stayed in contact with them to this day.  Huge… huge… huge.Also, up until March of this year I was almost afraid to really invest in myself.  The only education I bought up until March was a $50 ebook from an unnamed “guru” (which turned out to be a pile of crap).  I probably feel the same way you do… but I felt that if I bought anything I would be one of those guys who is an info product junkie and never takes action… I didn’t want to be that guy.So, I put in some hard work… won a trip to Orlando to go to Rich’s event in March (I still had to pony up about $700 for airfare and hotel… so it wasn’t free by any means)… and invested in myself and changed my outlook on my business.  After that event I’ve slowly started to outsource a lot more things that I was banging my head against the wall to complete myself… and the money started to come in a lot more frequently (in bigger amounts).

What are your online goals?

So, that’s my “cliffnotes” story of my affiliate marketing venture over the last year.

I hit my first $1,000 day (actually over $1,500… and did most of it in just under 2 hours)… am systematizing my business more… and can’t wait to see what happens the rest of this year and into 2009.

Whether you’re a newbie online still working to make that first $10… or you’re already making thousands a month… what are your next goals for your online business?

I’d love to hear them and help ya out if I can in any way.

Chat soon,

- Trevor

While I was doing a bit of research and trying to analyze why some sites are ranking high for very competitive search terms…

… I ran across a site that is currently ranking #1 in Goolge for the search term "Cheap Viagra " .

While digging through some of their inbound links I quickly found that a very popular tech website is actually helping them rank #1 because the link spammers pushing this site up to the top slipped a link into one of the Techcrunch web pages.

The Techcrunch post dates back to the summer of 2006… and this link spam was made in early 2007 and blatantly includes 2 links back to their website. (the bottom comment).

(t looks like comments are closed on that post now (as far as I can tell)… but I wonder why Techcrunch hasn’t taken it down yet.  It’s probably that they get so many comments on posts they might not manually moderate comments anymore… but instead use spam filters to do the bulk of the work (this is just a guess though… )

Anyhow, this is a good lesson to put the term "viagra" in your Askimet spam filter.

So… technically… without knowing it … Techcrunch has helped this site get to the top of a huge money term and I’m sure rake in thousands of sales each and every day (Clarification… Techcrunch isn’t raking in thousands from this, the Viagra site owner is).

Just to be clear, I don’t write this post to implicate Techcrunch on anything or insinuate that they even know about this comment on their site… I’m positive they probably don’t have a clue the comment is even on their site.  It just goes to show that ANY website can let spam comments slip through… and we all need to be sure to monitor the comments we approve to keep our company image and professionalism intact.  You never know if a comment like this could turn off prospect reading your website… and cost you real dollars.

Is blog commenting still working for SEO?

Yep… sure is…

Just ask the comment spammers behind the "Cheap Viagra" Google leaders.  Pretty much every inbound link I found going to their site is from comment spam… but not in a way that is blatant URL stuffed generic spam that we all see in our Askimet spam folders everyday.

It seems that a lot of the comments left on blogs from this URL do somewhat reference the post and/or the blog writers name… so they aren’t overtly spammy.  So, I guess you can call this spamming with a personal touch .

Seems to work (but I wouldn’t be able to tell you from first hand experience .

Image via Wikipedia

I’m sure you’ve seen the videos of this guy named Matt Harding doing his crazy "gumby-like" dance all around the world in front of well known monuments and landmarks in pretty much every country known to man.

If not… you really NEED to check the videos out for yourself… they are simple… but you’ll instantly see why millions of people have viewed the videos over the past couple years.  Actually… his most recent video (check it out below) was uploaded into Youtube on June 20th (3 days ago) and already has almost 2 million views… wow!

Anyhow, Matt did it again and just put out his most recent "Dancing Video " with a bunch of new locations… but he put a different twist on this dancing video.

What twist?… you say…

A new dance? NOPE… the same crazy (or stupid… ) dance as before.

A new sponsor? NOPE… Stride sponsored this one too.

The twist that Matt put on this most recent Where the Hell Is Matt "Dancing Video" is a twist of humanity.  Rather than Matt dancing alone… in every stop around the world Matt had big groups of people from that country joining in on the dance enjoying themselves each and every second.

Here’s the most recent video if you haven’t already watched it:

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo .

Dissecting The Video… Why Does It Work So Well?

Making a viral video isn’t an easy task… but new viral videos are created virtually everyday… usually by people who didn’t intend it to go viral… and didn’t expect to attempt to make a profit from it.  That’s part of what makes a video viral… it has to be genuine… remarkable… relevant… and pull on one or more of the psychological triggers that compel us to be drawn toward certain things.

If you’ve watched Matt’s other videos you can see that they all are similar and play on the same wants/desires/ and core identities of human beings.

What’s The Hook?

Just like in advertising and direct response marketing Matt’s "Dancing" videos didn’t become a big hit because they were dull, overused, and uncompelling.  The videos worked because they had a "hook" that worked so well with people that people could identify with the video and the message that it sent.

In Matt’s first videos there were a few hooks that drew people in:

• People desire to live life to the fullest … even though 90% of everyone alive isn’t living the life they truly want to live.  Traveling the world is a dream that many people have deep down in their core because they know that life has more to offer than what they’ve seen and experienced so far.
• Matt’s Story …  Without the story behind the story these videos probably wouldn’t have had the affect and reach that they did.  People identify with stories better than facts… and like to relate what we’re seeing to the story behind what we’re seeing… it becomes more real and genuine when we can peer behind the curtain a bit.  Matt worked his ass off for a few years and one day realized that this isn’t what life is all about.  There’s no way we were created to slave away in cubicles for 40-80 hours a week and be forced to start living our lives when we retire.  So… quit his job… packed up… and spent the next year and a half traveling the word.  Really… who the heck wouldn’t want to do that?  I’d venture to say that almost everyone deep down in their core wants to do that… whether you think you do or not.
• Going against the grain … Matt could have made that trip and did what every other tourist does… take a few pictures or a video of himself standing in front of cool stuff in each country.  But, that wouldn’t have gotten even 1,000 views on Youtube probably.  Instead, Matt does this crazy "dance" in front of recognizable places around the world… and completely melds the "usual" (the locations) with the "unusual" (the dance)…

In Matt’s newest video (the one on this page)… it plays on the same "hooks"… but Matt knew that a 3rd trip around the world doing the same thing wouldn’t get much legs on the internet.  So, he added in the element of getting locals to join in on the dance… truly making it a joining of nationalities across all language barriers.

The added hook of humanity has so far helped this newest video to go viral again.

So, Let’s Break Down The Triggers and Success Elements

Any marketing promotion, advertising campaign, or video has to tug at one or more of our psychological triggers.

I think that the Where the Hell Is Matt video series play on the EXACT same triggers as Tim Ferriss’s book "4 Hour Work Week ".

We all…

• Hate to work a 9-5 job and know there is more out there
• Have an ultimate dream to travel the world and/or experience things beyond our little cocoon when we "retire" (in actuality… we’d all rather do all of that now… but have a mixed up view on what life ‘is supposed’ to be like)
• Are vulnerable and like to see that others are vulnerable and imperfect like we are (Matt’s dance… he could have said, "I’m not going to put this on the internet… people will laugh at me"… but he didn’t… and people admire that)
• Realize by watching the video that we CAN experience the same thing Matt did if we truly want to… all we have to do is step out of our comfort zones and make the decision

With Matt’s latest "Where The Hell Is Matt" Dancing video it’s so successful because it of course grabs at our desires to "live life and see new things", brings the unexpected (the crazy dance in front of well known locations worldwide), and now brings a touch of humanity that we can all relate to.

The idea of filming yourself in front of places around the world, putting music to the video, and putting it on Youtube isn’t anything new.  It’s been done before… and didn’t go viral… not even close.

However, a great marketing principle is to take two things that we all know and like… but that are usually unrelated… and combine them into one.  Often this synergy makes the difference.  Matt joined travel and uninhibited dancing… and it was a hit.

Another recent video that went viral that simply joined two things that we all know and like… was the "Wii Fit Girl " video.   This video joined the craze that the new Wii Fit launch caused… and combined it with the voyeuristic look at a hot girl in her underwear using the Wii Fit.  This video has got almost 5 million views in the last 30 days.

All In All…

Okay… I’m rambling a bit now (I tend to do that sometimes … so I’ll leave you with this.

There is no hard and fast system that guarantees a video will go viral.  All you can do is study the videos that have gone viral, pinpoint why they are appealing, and start to make a list of things.  Over time you’ll see that all viral videos play on our own psychological triggers and usually combine 2 or more of those triggers into a "new" thing we’ve never seen before.

So, here it is:

• Come up with a new idea that no one has ever explored before (difficult), or
• Put a new twist on an "old" idea with a fresh new perspective
• Keep your video usually under 5 minutes
• Capitolize on a "craze" or trend
• Go after 2 or more psychological triggers

Good luck in creating your next viral video and you’ve gotta hand it to Matt for following his dream and putting a new twist on his success to keep legs under it at least for the rest of the summer.

UPDATE: Amazon was back up when I published this post… for a minute or two… now it’s back down.  Keep the $30,864.20 A MINUTE counting.

If you haven’t already seen it already… the Amazon.com website is down today for a while (I’m not sure how long).

For a company this big who relies so heavily on their website… this is a big deal.

How Big of A Deal?

• 2nd Quarter 2008 Projected Revenues for Amazon = $4 Billion
• That’s $44,444,444 a Day
• $1,851,851 an Hour
• $30,864.20 a Minute
• $514.40 a Second

How Long Was Amazon.com Down?

It is tough to tell how long Amazon.com was down for… but for all of those people who say that Twitter isn’t good for anything… I did a search at Summize.com to see when the Twitter stream started chatting about it (which is usually pretty close to real time nowadays).

Here’s what I found:

I ran this search on Summize.com at about 12:10 pm PST… not more than 5 minutes after Amazon.com came back online… which means that Amazon.com was down for right around 2 hours (can’t get it exact right now). When I ran this search, there were more than 600 mentions of the Amazon.com downtime (likely way more now).

So, if Amazon.com was down for about 2 hours, this flub might have cost them $3,703,702 in lost revenues (according to my rough social media ninja computing skills … and a ton of semi-negative chatter on the internet. Amazon could actually have used social media to turn this around and lesson the impact.

So Here It Is…

This post has a few lessons:

1. How important uptime is for ecommerce websites (pretty obvious) and how important a backup plan is in cases like these
2. How useful the social media is in fact finding and getting real-time news that companies and the rest of us can use to jump on trends. Look at Twitter… Twitter is more and more becoming a first line as far as breaking news comes… why aren’t all journalists on Twitter again?
3. Throughout all of this… Amazon.com didn’t come out and comfort their customers at all. Not even a message on the error page, no spokesperson on Twitter telling people what was going on, NOTHING. Big and small companies everywhere need to embrace the social media if they want to keep ahead of the crap talking curve online… get out there when the internet starts chatting… be a voice of comfort for your customers.

Hmmm…

I was doing a bit of research today and submitted to "get on" a newsletter about Writing White Papers from a very reputable guy… and best selling author.

When…

I came across this interesting (and compelling??) Captcha phrase hosted by the icebase server… which I’ve known to be from Cooleremail (could be other email providers on that domain, but not that I know of).

Here ya go.

Well… lol, the picture speaks for itself.

I actually chuckled when I saw it and really had no problem with it at all. But, what about the site visitors who stumble on a captcha phrase that says "orgasm "… and they have to physically type in "orgasm" to get to the next page??

To me, that could be a place where potential new newsletter readers jump off because they are either offended or think they were forwarded to some kind of x rated site.

It’s all about user experience … and to me, for the professional market that this guy’s website serves… this could damage his image in some peoples eyes.

Once again, I had no problem with it and thought it was funny enough to pass along… but I can guarantee you that there are some people that this could offend and "turn off" (like my play on word there?) to the site’s services.

Just something to think about.

But, the question does need to be asked:

What does happen when I press the button?

I’m in the tech scene as far as figuring out how to use technology for better and more effective marketing goes… I’m not much of a "techie" when it comes to digging into code to figure things out.

I like to know a bit about the technology I’m working with whenever I use it for marketing purposes… simply for the reason that when you know something and how it works… you might be able to take it to another level with just a few changes or additions that you wouldn’t have thought about if you didn’t know how the thing worked in the first place.

Anyhow, today I was doing a bit of research on flash video because I want to start using branded flash players on my own sites… and on the sites of my clients so we can provide a better user experience for our viewers and to get a few more capabilities out of the video that simply posting on Youtube /Revver /Viddler , etc. don’t let me do.

Well, I came across the next evolution in online video…

AND IT’S COMPLETELY AMAZING!

This technology is truly crazy as heck… and my head is spinning with ways to use it for marketing purposes (once it gets a bit more mainstream… and less expensive!).

Interactive 360 Immersive Full Motion Video

Check out the video below of this stuff. Once the video starts and loads… you can use your mouse to move around the video (360 degrees spherical) while the video is IN MOTION. That means you can look around… but also up, down, diagonal… any direction just like you are IN the video.

This is big time "Immersive video" that gives a whole new meaning to "user experience". This technology is by the same guys who created the Google Street View technology.

There are a bunch of other videos like these that are amazing. Check ‘em out and let me know your thoughts on how this technology will change the online video game for marketing and user experience.

Good morning on this beautiful holiday!

Yep… that’s right… HOLIDAY. What holiday you say?

Well… today is National “Good People Day” 2008… as appointed by Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the net’s truly Good People (for real… great guy and as genuine and passionate about life as it gets!). I met Gary in Orlando in February and spent 4 hours chatting business and life w/ him and a few other entrepreneurs one night… a guy that I’d love to have a beer with any day of the week.

Anyhow, while Gary is one of the “Good People” out there… I’m sure a ton of other people will take it upon themselves to appoint Gary V. “Mr. Good Dude of the Day”… so I’m gonna pick someone else to focus on today.

It’s kinda funny... but the person I’m self-appointing as “Good Person of the Day” is a guy that most people probably wouldn’t think of first when you think of a good guy. I guess it’s because of his aggressive (but soooooo passionate) personality… or it could be that he is a sore loser (aren’t we all though… really??) … or that he simply so damn honest… people either love or hate this guy.

Guessed who it is yet?

Here’s a few more clues:

• He’s an internet millionaire (might be billionaire… not sure… let me know
• Get’s fined big bucks all of the time for voicing his opinion to the “zebras”
• His last name is like the best cigars in the world (bare w/ me here… I’m stretching far here)

Okay… this is just getting corny.

My Good Person highlight is for Mark Cuban… Mr. Maverick himself.

Seriously, Cuban is a dude who people either love… or people totally hate with a passion. And, to me… that’s the sign of someone who has opinions… voices them… and is generally a really honest guy.

Seriously, think about it… if someone is doesn’t polarize people… they probably aren’t being honest with people (or themselves) all of the time. No one can appeal to everyone… and if they are… you better take a hard look at them to see where they are fudging a bit so they can not tweak some people the wrong way.

Polarization is a good thing… and in Mark Cuban definitely polarizes people because he has opinions and isn’t afraid to be honest and state his opinions.

I came across a video of a speech he did at BlogWorld… and really you can see that at his core he is a “Good Person”. He’s honest (whether you like it or not), does the right thing, and doesn’t take the easy way out.

Check out the video… it’s pretty long… but a great listen.

So, what does it mean to be a “Good Person”… to me anyway?

To me… the definition of a good person is a pretty simple thing.

• They do the right thing
• Speak from THEIR core and don’t sell out for anything
• Like to have a good time in life and business
• They like cool people… but aren’t afraid to call out people who are being idiots
• Work to help other people anyway they can

Sure, there’s a ton more that goes into being a “good person”… but those points are ones that explain good ol’ Mr. Cuban pretty well.

Like I said earlier... you might think I’m an absolute idiot for thinking Mark Cuban is one of the good guys… I’ve never met him so I couldn’t tell you for sure what he is like behind the scenes.

But, the main reason I chose him as a good dude is his honesty, his passion, how he speaks from his core, and how he goes after everything he does 143% (yep… I said it… 143%).

So, check out the video above… check out his blog… and let me know who you think is a good person. I’d love to hear from ya!

If you haven’t seen the hoopla in the past couple weeks about the Twitter color wars… it’s pretty entertaining stuff. As of today, I’m officially on the @VeryGreenTeam.

If you’re not a “twitter-head” as Mashable put it… you probably have no clue what I’m talking about… and to tell you the truth you probably really don’t care either.

What’s the whole Twitter color war thing anyway??

Well… really don’t know yet. From the looks of it… it’s being really pushed by top guys like Gary Vaynerchuk, Ze Frank, and some other dudes big time in social media.

Basically, there are a whole bunch of teams named after different colors (verygreenteam, red, green, yellow, blue, orange, pink, gold, off-white, plaid, fuscia, clear, white, purple, stripe and puce (thanks Mashable for this rundown on the teams!) ZeFrank linked up a new webpage that looks like it’ll be dedicated to the whole Color Wars 2008 thing… this is crazy!! But I like it!!

I got to thinking about this whole color war thing and it goes way beyond just some crazy (and kinda stupid) games on Twitter.

This whole thing is showing in real time how Twitter and other social media can be used to control crowds and build excitement.

Crazy stuff when you think about it…

This is Crowd Control 2.0.

This is cool stuff… but at least so far it’s the good guys using the Twitter crowd for good (i.e. Gary V’s @santagaryvee thing that is basically free Woot… awesome way to further build his brand!)

I know… no one is being controlled… and no one is against their own will (sometimes I think I am though because I’m so addicted to Twitter and Web 2.0)…

… but, think about it like a big ol’ wave at a professional baseball stadium. When crowds are involved… and some outgoing people get creative and want to have some fun… it gets contagious and crowds can be told basically what to do (up to a certain point

Before Web 2.0 (and really… apps like Twitter and Facebook) an online version of the wave (I’m talking real time here… not forwarded emails and stuff) was pretty much impossible because of the time lag and non-interactivity of the crowds.

Now… this whole colorwars thing is showing how crowds of people can interact in real time in creative ways like online roshambo… and if we wanted to… we could create some type of “wave” competition to see which team can (in real time) keep the wave going the longest (I have a few ideas on how we can do this from the technical side).

Wow… more and more the offline world is being replicated by the online world.

Can you imagine the possibilities for companies and brands (big and small) to start grassroots viral competitions like this on these new social media sites to drive traffic and subliminally build their brand at the same time??

Wow!

Ya, it would take some sneaky thinking to get it so it didn’t appear to be coming from a commercial entity… but I can definitely see the possibilities… my mind is spinning right now.

How do you participate in the Twitter Color Wars?

I’ll tell you what. There is only one team in my opinion… the @verygreenteam is the only way to go.

Why?

Green is a pretty cool color. Money is green, trees are green, golf courses are green (at least they should be!), and Gary V. and ZeFrank are leading the charge on the green team.

I met up w/ Gary V. in Orlando in February and chatted w/ him for a while about biz and life (with some other cool people)… he’s an awesome guy and knows his stuff when it comes to building a brand and using social media to spread his good word.

Anyhow, I wrote this post for two reasons… to let ya’ all know about the Twitter ColorWars (for fun)… and to show you how little games like these are real time experiments in Crowd Control 2.0… bringing real time interaction on traditionally offline activities… online.

This is only the start… and us little guys are the ones who will pioneer the advances on the web… while the big guys will continue to be the late adapters.

So… head over and follow me on Twitter… pick your team… and join in on the war!