Protected: SMR
July 10, 2008
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FriendFeed vs. Twitter - Is That Really The Point?
July 8, 2008
Man what a day!!! Over the past 12 hours i’ve read a dozen posts on “Twitter vs Friendfeed” and “Everyone is leaving Twitter” blah blah blah.
FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends.
It’s interesting cause a lot of people have been chatting about Friendfeed over the last week. Michael Arrington from Techcrunch wrote about it, iJustine who is the Internet wrote about it, TechTicker wrote about it, & several other posts & “influencers” in the Social Media world have talked about it. Jeremiah Owyang who is a Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research also wrote about that actually inspired me to write this post & do the Video below (more about his post below).
Techcrunch talks about how much more interesting the conversations are on FriendFeed vs Twitter (which to me are a HUGE part of Social Media), iJustine is talking about “who will go mainstream first - Twitter or Friendfeed” and “asks does it really matter”, and a few others are chiming in.
Check out my thoughts on this 8 Minute video on FriendFeed:
Its very interesting because with Social Media, things change so fast so you can’t focus on the “Social Technologies” but focus on the “Social Touch” side of things, the people, the conversations, the relationships, then figure out which technologies would best fit you.
There’s so many technologies out there and guess what, you don’t have to be on all of them to succeed in Social Media Marketing. I promise.
Listen, I LOVE Twitter, it’s really helped my business & I’ve made some tremendous advancements in my business just become of the little tool. This is NOT about who’s better. Twitter sure has been having some issues over the last few weeks & some of the functionality has been taken away for periods of time, etc. That’s inconvenient for the folks that spend 8 hours a day on Twitter. LOL
Not only is FriendFeed a GREAT solution for when Twitter is down, I think the concept and what FriendFeed is up to is pretty outstanding. They just “get it.”
So back to Jeremiah’s post about the “Herding Behavior on FriendFeed.” A couple more folks who are at Forrester (Charlene Lie & Josh Bernoff) wrote a book called “Groundswell - Winning in a transformed by social technologies” that talks about what Jeremiah referred today in his post. He talked about the Social “Technographics” which is a tool to allow people in business to examine and then create strategies based on the groundswell tendencies of any group of people.
The Social Technographics ladder represents a group of consumers more involved in the groundswell than the previous steps. Take a look at the image below:
Jeremiah says that…“aaside from aggregating content (you can see all my tweets, flickr, digg, upcoming, blogs on one stream) you yourself can be a creator, critic, collector, joiner, or spectator.”
It’s too soon to see who will go mainstream first, and if FriendFeed will do what Facebook did to Myspace, or predict any of those type of things, the one thing that is for sure is that FriendFeed’s concept is RIGHT ON. I think this is where social media is going as having all these tools, sites, etc in one place makes it easier to:
- be more productive (not having to login to 20 different sites)
- monitor you or your brand
- research & staying ahead of the pulse
Who’s to say that Twitter or FriendFeed won’t go under tomorrow, that’s irrelevant, the point is that FriendFeed is onto something with their concept and if the influencers are attracted to it, there’s definitely something to say about it.
Over the next week or so I’m going to be playing with it & will write about my thoughts about it.
What are YOUR thoughts about FriendFeed so far?
Please make sure to also leave your FriendFeed URL.
I’ll start http://FriendFeed.com/successfool
You’ll also wanna make sure to add my good buddy Maria Reyes-McDavis the WebSuccessDiva here: http://friendfeed.com/websuccessdiva
Stay Hungry - Stay Foolish
Alejandro Reyes
Image source, Forrester and FriendFeed, screenshot taken by me
Happy 4th of July from Successfool
July 4, 2008
Hey there folks, just wanted to wish all of you a very Happy 4th of July! Today is Sarah & mines 3rd anniversary so it should be a fun weekend as we’re spending today with my family then going to the San Francisco Bay Area tomorrow.
Have a GREAT day with your family & friends and definitely be safe.
God Bless!
Alejandro Reyes
Social Marketing Rockstars Winners Announced…PLUS BONUS…
June 19, 2008
Hey there folks! I have (2 BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THOSE THAT DIDN’T WIN)
First off I wanna say thanks so much for all those who entered into the contest. This was a very tough decision for me to make but I obviously had to choose 3. Because it was so hard for me I ended up choosing a total of 5 people to give the free seats to.
Here are the winners:
Ari Pietarinen
Deon Gordon
JoLynn Braley
Joselin Mane
Diane from PlatinumParenting.com
Here’s a quick video with with 2 HUGE ANNOUNCEMENTS for those that DID NOT a free seat. You can also look below the video for these 2 announcements.
For those that didn’t win a free seat, I’m going to do a couple things for you that I think you’ll appreciate!
1. I’m going to give those that entered into the competition 3 free months of the Successfool.com Premiere Membership that is launching in Sept/Oct.
What’s included in the Premiere Membership:
- Private Interviews I’m not making public
- Private Videos on tips, and some of the new technologies in Social Media
- Private Masterminds that you’ll be able to listen in on as my friends and I discuss where this industry is going
- Private Webinars that only Premiere members are going to have access to
2. I’m going to DROP THE PRICE of the Social Marketing Rockstars program from $497 to $349 for a LIMITED TIME ONLY. ALSO, there’s 2 spots left for the First Movers Advantage which includes:
- You’re going to get a 30 min private phone consultation that we will record on whatever topic you would like and you get Master Resale Rights to that recording
- Private Mastermind for the 8 weeks: 10 Lucky folks are going to spend an hour a week with me as we discuss the latest strategies & Social Media technologies (this call will include some of the top marketeting friends I have) - Priceless
- LIFETIME Access to Successfool.com’s Premiere Membership (Launches in September) Over $200 a year Value
- Free Successfool.com T-Shirt (coming in August/September) $15 Value
- A Free Ticket to the Illuminate Conference (First EVER Christian Internet Marketers Event) $397 Value
- A free more unannounced Bonuses (These are too hot to share now)
Thanks so much for those that participated in this contest. Everyone is a winner here at Successfool.
I appreciate all of you and look forward to building relationships with each of you.
Stay Hungry - Stay Foolish
Alejandro Reyes
Are You Ahead Of The Pulse?
May 26, 2008
Gary Vaynerchuk Lesson 2: “Getting Ahead of the Pulse”
Last week we talked about the “Hoopla Factor” and how you’ve gotta find that thing that separates you from the rest of the world. That God-given talent that makes YOU who you are.
The 2nd thing that Gary talked about is “Getting Ahead of the Pulse.”
“Reading trends is Death City, USA”
In Internet Business, if you just focus on reading trends, searching for the next best keyword, you’re going to have the same results you currently have. Some of you might get lucky, but the true key to making things happen is to get ahead of the curve & be innovative.
Bill Gates calls it the “First Movers Advantage.” Whoever is first wins. Take a look at him and “Windows.” Take a look at what Steve Jobs did in the Music industry AND in the Cell Phone industry. They were the first to put something out that was extremely innovative and ahead of its time.
Gary was one of the first if not the first Wine retail company to have a website back in 1997. When everyone was enjoying the “fruity” California wine’s, and saw an obvious “segue in pallets” as he calls it, and moved to where wine was more fruiy…Australia & Spain.
He understood these things and was able to get ahead of the pulse because he talked to every customer, he read all the emails that he received every day and was literally in the trenches. If you’re able to get ahead of the pulse in your industry or your niche, you’re able to know what’s coming next. If you know what’s coming next and people see that, it will be only a matter of time before you start to rise up in your community as the leader & authority on the subject.
So what next how do you get ahead of the pluse? Here’s a few places you can start:
1. Twitter: Start connecting with people and becoming aware of what the “conversation” is & you’ll start to see things
2. Facebook: Find out what people are talking about most? Find how who’s on the “Top Friends” section of people’s profile.
3. Forums: Don’t waste too much time here, maybe once a week. Find out what people are selling, what the issues & problems are within your industry
4. Turn the TV On: Watch the Hills…just kidding. What are people talking about in the world today? What are Baby Boomers up to? How’s people handling the current state of America.
Interact with people, be engaging, provide value to them, listen to them, be very aware, and soon you’ll find yourself picking up on things.
I’m working on something that NO ONE is really talking about yet. You got a glimpse of it when I was interviewed by Social Marketing Expert Michelle Macphearson last thursday night when I talked about “Influencing the Social Networking Sites”
Get out there and start touching people, kissing babies, mingling and just have crazy awareness of what’s going on. Good luck!
Random Day Off
May 20, 2008
Today I decided I’m going to take a Random Day Off.
Gonna hang with my new baby and have a nice dinner with my wife.
Look for the Gary Vaynerchuk Post tomorrow entintled “You Gotta Find Your Hoopla Factor.”
Looking forward to connecting with ya soon!
Going Big Like Gary Vaynerchuk
May 19, 2008
When I decided that I was going to be profiling Famous Entrepreneurs on Successfool I didn’t know initially who I wanted to profile first. Now keep in mind, these are people I consider famous entrepreneurs either because they’ve been very a successful entrepreneur in the past, are one now, or are an up and coming famous entrepreneur.
The week I was thinking of who I wanted to profile first, I watched an episode of the “Big Idea” with Donny Deutsch and I saw someone that I had been following on Twitter for a long time named Gary Vaynerchuk. What he shared in those 8 - 9 minutes where pretty awesome. The reason I chose Gary to be first is because everything he said on that show that night is relevant to what entrepreneurs need to be very aware of.
Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrayTV has helped take his family business from $4 Million to $50 Million in just a few short years. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, GQ, and Time, and has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Ellen, Nightline, and Mad Money with Jim Cramer.
Over the next few days I’m going to share with you the 5 things that you can start implementing RIGHT now in your business and start seeing some results. Here’s a couple questions in the meantime.
What do YOU love about what Gary’s doing?
What’s the ONE question you would as Gary Vaynerchuk?
First 30 Days of Successfool - Successfool Stats
May 4, 2008
Here’s a quick video about my thoughts on the first 30 days of Successfool.com. In this video, I’m to be giving 3 Tips that you can apply today to start driving more traffic to your business that I’m not going to be sharing in this post.
Here’s a some interesting stats for month 1:
Unique Visitors:
4,014 - Averaged 133 uniques a day
Alexa Rank:
330,807
(before April 1st was over 800k)
Top Referring Sites:
1. Stumble Upon
2. Twitter (only started using Twitter in the 2nd week of April)
3. Wikpedia
Top Referring Friend Site:
Alice Seba (thanks Alice!!)
Most Popular Post:
1. What is Twitter?
2. The Most Important Day of My Life
Most Popular Interview:
David Wilkinson (we really found out that he’s REAL )
Top Commentators:
Jason Stanley Marshall
Tony Smith
Most Commented Post:
The Most Important Day of My Life
Favorite Tweets:
http://twitter.com/JPmicek/statuses/790455632
http://twitter.com/Ed_Dale/statuses/793751483
Most Diggs:
http://digg.com/business_finance/The_Most_Important_Day_Of_My_Life
I wanna thank those that help me out in month one of Successfool, you know who you are, and you ROCK!!
Will YOU be on next month’s stats?
The Most Important Day Of My Life
April 24, 2008
(Pictures Below)
LIVE SHOW TONIGHT - At 8pm pst I will be going LIVE tonight on http://SuccessfoolTV.com sharing the play by play experience we just encountered. Invite your friends & watch!
Hey there family and friends! It’s Thursday morning and I’m sitting here in the hospital watching my beautiful wife our beautiful daugther Sadie Loren Reyes sleep (my Mother-in-law Stella and Sister in-law Ashley are sleeping as well).
If you didn’t already hear, Sadie Loren Reyes was born yesterday at 6:24pm. This birth experience and the events leading up to it has definitely changed my life forever.
First off, I gotta say this and if you never read this blog again because of it, carry on…
Alright, here we go: You have got to be out of your mind not to believe there’s a God.
Having been through this experience, it has completely opened my mind up to WHO God is and WHY he loves us so much! Now this is not going to be some post about me telling you what’s right or wrong, or some guy in a mohawk preaching to you and if it feels that way…lighten up, relax your neck a little bit, and get over it.
So here’s how our daughter came into the world.
April 22nd, 2008
2:30pm - Dr. Rosellini informs us that Sarah is 3 centimeters dilated. Sarah calls her Mom to get on the next flight to make sure she’s here just in case anything happens.
11:00pm Sarah and I pick up my Mother in-law Stella from the airport.
April 23rd, 2008
2:00am - My wife Sarah wakes up as she’s starting to feel some contractions. She waits a little bit to wake up Stella and the contractions continued.
3:00am - Sarah wakes me up as I’m in the other room with my best friend Cj who was staying the night. You folks have to understand that up until this point, I still don’t feel like I’m going to be a Dad and that’s this is all real.
We started getting ready to go to the hospital as the contractions kept coming every 4 - 5 minutes.
5:30am - We arrive to the hospital and they tell us that my wife is 5 centimeters so they decide to admit us. I’m thinking…”this is going to happen today…OMG!”
We call my Sister in-law Ashley who goes to college out in the Bay Area (or as some folks call it “Yay Area”) so that she can figure out a way to get out here as she doesn’t have a car.
Sarah’s contractions continue and my wife handles them like a champion.
She dilates to 6 centimeters and the contractions start to get stronger.
9:00am Dr. Yiakis tells us that the baby is probably going to be close to 9 lbs!!! Not only that but my wife’s pelvis is very narrow as well. So Sarah decides it might be a good idea to have an epidural. So Dr. Hiyashi aka Dr. Rockstar comes in and sticks this 47 foot needle in my wife’s back as I put my hands on her shoulders. I decide to take a peek at the needle in her back and I passed out to the floor….just kidding…hahaha!
Sarah was feeling really good and I was extremely proud because she was doing really well.
1:00pm - Dr. Yiakis decides we gotta give Sarah Pitossin (or as Kathy aka the Best Nurse in the World calls it “Vitamin P”) as she stopped contracting.
4:00pm - Sarah starts to push and is doing a great job. She pushes for 2 hours, but unfortunately Dr. Yiakis tells my wife that she’s not going to be able to fit through birth canal.
6:00pm - They take my wife away from me to the room where they’ll be performing a C-Section. Stella and I put on scrubs and prepare to go into the room to be with Sarah during this surgery.
There’s about 5-10 minutes of time when they prepare Sarah and I was a mess. There was ABSOLUTELY nothing I can do for my wife at this moment. I was completely helpless. This is where I go back to folks not believing there’s a “God.” You see I was completely helpless.
All I could do was pray. As soon as I started to pray, I felt calm, I knew that there was “something” that was going to take care of my wife and my baby. I had faith that God’s hand was going to be there at every moment! I just don’t know what I would do personally in situations where I feel helpless? What do you do?
So they call us into the surgery room. We go in there my baby is about to be born. My wife is laying down and all that I can do is just sit there with her, pray for her, and know that the doctors would do their jobs.
6:24pm - I hear, “here she comes” and push one of the doctors out of the way to try and see my daughter. Someone ends up saying “don’t touch the doctor” so I move back trying to see Sadie.
I look at my daughter and she is SOOOOO beautiful!!! I cannot believe it. I finally feel like I’m a Dad! I cut her umbilical cord (which was pretty cool) and they take her to get weighed. Backing up, you gotta understand we all were guessing how much she weighed. I guessed 8.3 and I was right. Sadie Loren Reyes weight 8 pounds and 3 ounces and was 20.25 inches long. I got a big girl!
They finished the surgery, made sure my wife and baby was okay, and I was completely relieved.
There’s more to talk about as I’m going to probably be doing a Live Broadcast TONIGHT about this and take any questions you guys might have. I really wanted to share this one thing on my heart though…
For the first time ever, I really understand WHO God is and WHY He loves us so much! When I first held Sadie in my arms, I made a promise to myself and God:
That I will always love her no matter what she does
That I will always protect her
That I will always provide for her
That I will never ever leave her
That I will always love her mother
That I would even DIE for her!
I’ve never realized how much God loved me until I held Sadie into my arms.
He will always love us - no matter how ignorant we can become
He will always protect us - even though we might live in fear
He will always provide for us - even though sometimes it might get tight
He will never leave us nor forsake us
He not only loves me but also loves and takes care of my friends and family
He literally DIED for for you and for me
This has been the most important day of my life. My wedding was completely incredible and I love my wife dearly, but this experience has changed my life and thought process forever.
I’ll share more later on, but just had to update y’all on this life changing experience.
I love you Sarah - I love you Sadie!
Here’s my princess!
BABY UPDATE: A QUICK ONE
April 23, 2008
If you didn’t already know, my wife and I are having a baby very soon…so soon that I think we’re having one right now.
I haven’t posted much as I’ve made sure to spend as much time as possible with my wife before we bring the baby into this world.
We’re headed to the hospital now & I’m extremely stoked!
Keep us in your prayers that everything goes fine!
Thanks so much and God bless!
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