So check it out, below is the Hulu Walkthrough to give you an idea of what the site is like.

Over the past couple of weeks, it is pretty likely that you have seen the news of the FAA fining Southwest Airlines because the company flew airplanes early last year which had missed mandatory inspections. You can read the news at a variety of sources, but what I think is really rather impressive is how Southwest has harnessed the power of social media to really position itself in a manner that allows it to broadcast its message easily and directly to its customers.

Why haven’t we seen a huge internet uprising against Southwest’s inspection fumble? Because Southwest has launched its own PR battle before any misinformation even had a chance to permeate the web. They have done this by having one of the best corporate social media engagement plans I have ever seen. In case you have not seen it, check out the Southwest corporate blog called Nuts About Southwest and take a look at the content they are posting. Simply having a blog is not really anything special: many companies have a corporate ‘blog’ and some of them really do a pretty good job creating either a team blog or a CEO blog, etc.

But Southwest’s is just beyond the basics. Plain and simply, their blog is everything a blog should be and this is what they are doing to harness their community as a source of feedback and as a mass media outlet:

Structure:

• Design: It is simple, clean and uncluttered. They have a large graphic at the top to tie the blog name “Nuts about Southwest” back to the in-flight experience with a bag of peanuts. Their logo is present, but not obtrusively so. The only thing I dislike about the header is that they use two font sizes in the title, but that is just because I am a bit of a typography nerd. But overall, they only have seven modules in their sidebar which makes the site appear very inviting and simple.

• Digestability: Their posts are reasonable length and have consistent formatting and text colors.

• Memorability: Easy, accessible URL. The site for this blog is http://www.blogsouthwest.com/ I really do not know if there is a simpler URL to remember for a blog by Southwest, and that makes it really easy for people who may not use RSS readers to navigate to the site and spread the word to friends.

Portability:

• Syndication: This site is super accessible for anywhere. In the sidebar, there are two buttons for subscribing to either the RSS or ATOM feeds for the site which are simple, straight-forward, and easy to find.

• Sharability: At the bottom of every post is the ShareThis button, allowing you to email any post or share it via any of 17 different social sites from Digg to Live Spaces. This is very important because I hate having to use an external tool to send content from a site. The easier it is for visitors to spread your content, the more likely they are to do it.

• Simplicity: User-friendly post URLs. Each post has a unique URL and many sites will have it be some obscure string of alphanumerics, but this blog uses %date%title format for creating individual URLs which are relatively easy to read and makes it easy for people to see the title of the post wherever they see the URL.

Content:

• Variety: This is a team blog which brings Southwest employees from all over the company to the table in order to open a dialog.

• Timeliness: There was a post on the Southwest blog explaining the airline’s commitment to safety on the same day the story of the FAA fines broke. Immediate response and accurate information are key in making bog content relevant. Since the news about the fines, their blog has had multiple updates with various peaces of information relating to their safety policies, actions taken regarding the inspection mishap, and linking to the CEO’s media appearances.

• Relevance: They are not blogging about high-level financial data, the intricacies of in-flight navigation equipment or promoting themselves as the best airline in the world. Instead they are focusing on things that the average flyer might find interesting and helpful. It provides some insight to behind-the-scenes aspects of the company and surely some of the posts are part of a broad public-image campaign, but each of them is succinct, well-written, and impacts consumers in some way.

Engagement:

• Openness: Southwest has left the comments open on the blog and encourages people to leave their thoughts and feedback. This is really pretty amazing for a big company that they trust their community member enough to allow them to freely express themselves on a branded site, unfettered. This is a vital part of developing an actual sense of openess with a corporate blog. Google has a great blog, but their comments are closed so despite having the most widely read corporate blog in the world, they have no on-site community to back it up.

• Responsiveness: It would not do much good to open up reader comments and let everyone run rampant unless you actually plan to read them and engage the community. In many blog posts, representatives from Southwest post responses to questions, comments and concerns. Without this kind of company response, visitors would never even bother to comment becasue they would know it to be a futile effort.

• Transparency: It is made very clear when Southwest representatives post in the comments by placing their job titles in the signature of the comment. This is one of the most important parts of community involvement: if it were discovered or suspected that staffers were posing as members of the blog’s community, the backlash would be irreparable. If you have to lie to your community, then it is time for a re-evaluation of your entire operation.

• Acknowledgment: Southwest has recognized that they do not blog in a void and they depend on other sites for a symbiotic trade of traffic. As such, they have included a “Link Luv” blogroll which links not only to other travel sites, but even the blogs from other airlines. Nothing says self-confidence by making it easy for people to look at your competitors’ web properties; you have to be pretty confident that they will come back.

These are just general characteristics that I feel take a corporate blog from a press release posting board to a truly engaging dialog with a community. What are some other examples of great corporate blogs, their attributes, or other general features I’ve left off?

Over the next week or so, I’ll also take a closer look at how Southwest is using a wide approach to social media by deploying in other mediums including YouTube, twitter and facebook. Any other suggestions?

Over the past few days there has been a flurry of blog posts, twitter discussions, and real-world conversations regarding the fact that Scoble got suspended from Facebook from running a scraping script on all his Facebook friends’ contact information in order to export their data to Plaxo. Right now, I don’t really want to get into the debate of who owns my contact info and the privacy implications of other people exporting my data but I do think this whole thing has raised the question of “What exactly am I getting myself into when I login to Facebook?”. Well, I’m certain that less than 1% of Facebook users have ever actually read the Facebook Terms of Use (aka Terms of Service…so from here on out I will just call it the TOS) so it might be worth a look just to see what we are all missing. I am not a lawyer, law student, or any other variation of legal professional so I may be off on a few things or I might have missed a major point that should be discussed. If that is the case, please let me know and I will add/correct as necessary.

You can view the TOS from any page in Facebook by clicking on the “Terms” link in the bank of site links at the bottom:

So when you click on the link you are taken to the Terms page and as of this writing, the last revision was made on November 15, 2007 (after the launch of Pages and the Social Ads/Beacon fiasco). Then begins the legal mumbo-jumbo…paragraph-by-paragraph, this is what we are looking at:

Like I said, it was updated back in mid-November and this intro just describes what Facebook is (they call themselves a social ‘utility’) and how you will know when the TOS changes. You agree to abide by these terms any time you login to Facebook, use the mobile version of the site, or use the “Share” link either from your browser toolbar or a link in any post online. Also, Facebook can change the TOS at any time and it is your responsibility to check back periodically to see if any changes have been made. If you keep using Facebook after those changes take effect, you silently agree to them. If you don’t agree, don’t use the site.

This just means that the TOS is important so you better pay attention (notice the boldface and all caps typing…very attention-grabbing).

To use Facebook, you have to be at least 13. Also, if you are between the ages of 13 and 18, you need to be enrolled in high school or college, if you are in that age range but are not enrolled in school, you are not an authorized Facebook user. (That is what we call “bad”) And again, by using the site, you are affirming that you meet the age requirements and that you agree to the TOS.

When you use Facebook, you agree to provide true and accurate information about yourself on all registration forms and to promptly update that info if it ever changes. Also, you are responsible for keeping your login information secure and because of that, you are responsible for anything that is done on the site using your account, even if your friend happens to be be using your computer/account when making bomb threats or stalking 13 year olds. So the moral of the story is: keep that stuff secret.

Everything you see on Facebook, from layout to text to graphics is the property of Facebook. You cannot use or reproduce any of it in any form without the written consent of Facebook. (Which I guess means that the screenshots I’m using are not kosher…) The only part of the site that this does not apply to is the content that you upload or provide to the site, you are free to do whatever you want with that. You can download stuff from the site if it is for personal use without intention to reproduce or publish as long as you keep all the copyright information intact. So essentially, you can copy anything you want from Facebook as long as it never ever leaves your computer and as long as no one but you ever sees it. However, you can’t use any robots or automated data extraction methods to do so. If you use Facebook in any way other than what is described in the TOS, you are going to get kicked off. And if that unauthorized use violates any laws or copyright ownership…well, you had better get a lawyer.

Facebook owns the trademarks for pretty much everything you can think of that might be related to Facebook from names to designs to scripts, so don’t use them to make money. And if you use any name that is kind of like Facebook or you make a site that might be easily confused as Facebook, you had better lawyer up. The next section is pretty important and quite long, so I’m going to break it up just a bit:

The intro to this section says that everything on Facebook (except the advertising options available) are for personal, non-commercial use so you cannot run a business of facebook…but I’m sure they aren’t going to get too upset if you are making side cash with their Marketplace. Also, it says that you are agreeing not to upload or share anything on Facebook that will infringe on the copyrights of any other entity or that will be considered libelous. Other things you are not allowed to do:

1 ) Use other people’s contact info to send them spam.
2 ) Do anything in Facebook (or to Facebook) that might overburden or disable the site.
3 ) Use any sort of automated program to use any service on the site or collect user information. (This is what got Scoble in trouble)
4 ) Upload or share any content that Facebook might deem to be harmful, abusive, harassing, obscene, invasive of privacy, ethnically/racially disparaging, or otherwise objectionable.

5 ) Put any videos on Facebook other than ones that have you or your friends in them, or videos that you created.
6 ) Register for multiple Facebook accounts, impersonate anyone else via a fake Facebook account, or lie about your age, etc.
7 ) Spam anyone else on Facebook
8 ) Publicly share the contact or personal information of anyone else on Facebook.
9 ) Ask any minors for personal information or ask anyone else for their password or other personal information in order to make money from them or to break the law.

10 ) Upload or Share any viruses or code to Facebook that will screw anything up on the site or for other people.
11 ) Intimidate or harass other people
12 ) Put anything of Facebook that would break the law or encourage or provide instructions for anyone else to break the law. You also cannot violate anyone else’s rights or create any kind of liability for anyone else.
13 ) Use or try to use any one else’s Facebook account unless Facebook tells you you can.
14 ) Put anything on Facebook that Facebook doesn’t like or that makes it so other users cannot enjoy the site…or anything that means Facebook might get in trouble.

Anything you put on Facebook or do on the site is your responsibility and you are not allowed to put anything on the site that you do not own the rights to or at least have permission to put up. Facebook has the right to patrol the site and delete whatever it wants, whenever it pleases for any reason whatsoever with no exceptions. If you want backup copies of anything you have on Facebook, that is your responsibility.

Facebook can make copies of whatever you put on the site and in fact anytime you put anything on the site, you are giving Facebook authorization to reproduce, display, translate, and distribute it in any manner it wants for whatever reason it pleases. The good news is, that you are authorized to remove your content from the site whenever you want and when you do so, you revoke Facebook’s right to do anything with your content. However, they will keep an archived version of it…they just cannot do anything with it. And even though they have the right to do pretty much whatever they want with your content, they do not own it: you retain full ownership and all intellectual property and proprietary rights.

Facebook does not charge for any of its mobile services, however your carrier’s normal data and messaging rates will apply when you use Facebook Mobile. You should check with your carrier about rates and also about any kinds of restrictions they might have on what kind of content you can download/access. By using Facebook Mobile, you are agreeing that they can contact you about Facebook by whatever mobile means necessary, and also that they may monitor some information about your mobile usage.

Again, you cannot put anything on Facebook that violates another entity’s copyright and if you do and Facebook finds out about it, they will remove or block that content. If you do this repeatedly, they will disable your account. If you think your copyright has been infringed on the site, let Facebook know and they will go Ctl+Alt+Del those punks.

Because of the DMCA, Facebook will give you the boot if you repeatedly violate other people’s copyright. Or if you just do it once. Basically, it is whatever Facebook feels like doing, so if you like using the site, I would suggest not violating copyright.

During your use of Facebook, you might get sent or you might come across links to other sites that are not owned or sanctioned by Facebook. You are going to these sites at your own risk and Facebook is not responsible for the content of those sites or any consequences that might arise from your accessing those sites. This also applies to applications: they are independently developed so Facebook is not responsible for their content or actions, you install them at your own risk.

When you use the Share feature of Facebook, via the browser toolbar, you agree that the content you are sharing meets the terms and conditions in this TOS and you also recognize that Facebook is not responsible at all for the content of the site or link being shared.

Other sites can put links on their pages that allow Facebook users to share content (similar to the one that you see included at the bottom of my posts) and when they do that, they are agreeing to this TOS.

When they put that Share link on their page, that site agrees to use Facebook-sanctioned designs, or if they want to make it a text link, it has to say “Facebook” somewhere. If Facebook wants to, it can revoke a site’s right to include a Share link on their site.

When an external site has a Share link, the content that would be shared by it cannot violate the Facebook TOS in any way and that includes content that Facebook might deem vulgar, harassing, obscene, etc. Also by hosting a Share link, the external site agrees to protect Facebook from any legal action or costs arising from any user’s use of that Share link.

By placing a Share link on a site, that site is granting Facebook the right to reproduce and share anything on that specific site.

When you buy or sell anything on the Facebook Marketplace, you do so at your own risk and Facebook is not responsible for anything that happens or doesn’t happen as a result of the sale. Each party is responsible for all interactions, payment, and exchange of goods/services. The only time Facebook is involved is if you are buying something from Facebook (gifts, advertisements, etc).

Facebook has an API platform that allows developers to create applications for users and those developers are subject to a whole other set of Terms and Guidelines that I won’t go over here. Facebook can change the guidelines for developers at anytime, but it is not responsible for their products or applications: you use any application at your own risk.

When you install an application, you are also agreeing to another TOS and each application might require you to agree to a TOS for that specific application. Individual application TOS have not been reviewed or approved by Facebook, so again everything you do related to applications is at your own risk.

When you or your friends use an application, some of your personal information might be shared across Facebook, so you should make sure you manage your overall privacy settings, the settings for each application, and the Facebook Privacy Policy. Facebook has taken every step they can to restrict developers from misusing your personal data, they cannot monitor everything so you should know that some of your actions in applications, etc might show up in your mini-feed and your friends’ News Feeds.

Facebook Pages are only intended for commercial, political, and charitable purposes and you may not set up a Facebook Page on behalf of anyone or posing as anyone else unless you are authorized to do so. This includes fan clubs or pages intended to support or criticize a person or entity; that is why there are Facebook groups. Facebook does not pre-screen Pages and does not guarantee that any Page was actually created by the person or company it represents. Because of this, Facebook is not responsible for anything on these Pages or for the consequences of any of your actions on them, including financial transactions or the fate of your personal data if you provide it to the Page. Also, Pages have their own TOS.

Anytime you buy anything from Facebook (ads, gifts, etc) you are agreeing to the Terms of Sale which Facebook can change whenever they want so always check them out before you buy anything.

You are a big boy/girl, so play nice with the other users on the site. Facebook has the right to monitor disputes between people, but they do not have to do that.

By using Facebook, you grant them the right to internally use your information within the US and you also agree to the Privacy Policy.

This section is mostly review of the previous sections: Facebook is not responsible or liable for any content provided via the Share feature or by any application. They provide guidelines for user conduct, but they are not responsible for what other people put up on the site including offensive or obscene material. Also, Facebook is not responsible for user conduct either online or offline.

Sometimes, Facebook might be down for maintenance and if that is the case, Facebook is not responsible for any problems that might arise from its downtime. Facebook is also not responsible or liable if some sort of electronic device you have is damaged as a result of accessing the site for any reason. Also, the site is not responsible for any damages, including injury or death, that might result from anyone’s use of the site or any features of applications that might be affiliated with Facebook or from any interaction between users either online or offline.

When you use Facebook or any service it provides, you are using them “as-is” with no warranty or any other kind of guarantee. Facebook does not guarantee the validity or accuracy of any information provided on the site by other users or by applications or other 3rd parties. Also, Facebook is not liable at all if you download anything that infects your computer with a virus or causes any other kind of damages.

Facebook can change whatever it wants whenever it wants on the site without telling anyone beforehand. Also, if any company or copyright is mentioned anywhere within Facebook, that is not an endorsement, sponsorship, or any other kind of affiliation with that company.

Facebook adn its employees are not responsible or liable to you for any kind of damages to anything that might come about as a result of your use of Facebook or any applications. If for some reason there is some kind of damage to you that the company is liable for, the only restitution you are entitled to is any sort of membership or service fees you have paid, not to exceed $1000. (USD) If you have not paid any fees, you are entitled injunctive relief only and you are not entitled to any sort of financial settlement from Facebook regardless of the cause of the damages.

Facebook can delete everything you have ever done or put on Facebook and/or kick you off the site or any platform application at any time for any reason with no warning and with no course for appeal. When a user has died, Facebook will leave that person’s account active for a period of time to allow for memorialization and remembrance; they don’t have to do this though, it is at their discretion.

When you use Facebook you agree that you will abide by the laws of the state of Deleware and that should any dispute arise from use of the site, it is those laws that will be govern the resolution. However, if for some reason you have a dispute with Facebook (the company itself) you agree to prosecute them only in the state and federal courts of California even if it is inconvenient for you.

Unless otherwise stated, you agree that any disputes arising from your use of the site will be handled via binding arbitration unless one party infringes on the other’s copyright or trade secrets or the dispute is the result of a third party agreement in the Facebook Marketplace.

All arbitration will be handled by the American Arbitration Association and will be dealt with as per its rules and procedures. The decision reached in this arbitration will be binding and final.

There is a 3 year statute of limitations on any complaint to be filed against Facebook…so if you have damages but wait more than 3 years to file a complaint, you are out of luck.

Again, Facebook and its employees and subsidiaries are not responsible or liable for any compensatory payments or suits that arise from damages or complaints that you may have that fall into the purview of this TOS. notice this is like the 3,214th time this is included…so you pretty much know that no matter what happens on Facebook, you are not getting any money from anyone.

Anything you provide to Facebook via your use of the site or through feedback or suggestions is non-confidential and is the property of Facebook and it retains all intellectual property and proprietary rights to anything that comes about as a result of your ideas, without having to compensate you for them.

Anything in this TOS that says “for example”, “including” or any other phrase like that means that it is without limitation and extends to just about anything Facebook wants it to.

This TOS and any other TOS included on Facebook (such as those for the Marketplace and Platform Applications) make up an entire agreement between you and Facebook regarding your use of the site and services. If the TOS says Facebook can do something and they do not do it, that does not mean they are waiving any rights it just means they are exercising an option available to the company. If any part of this TOS is deemed unlawful of void, the rest of the TOS will remain in full effect.

• The Behance Network is an interesting online hub for the wide variety of designers and other artistic creators out there. It allows you to upload designs for your own portfolio and get feedback from the community and also has job listings and a collaborative tips section that encompasses everything from print to digital to web design. I am not a designer but I spend quite a bit of time around a few of them so I have started to appreciate design work a lot more than I used to and I think this site is really pretty cool for stumbling upon a variety of designs that are very well done. I cannot speak to the benefits of the job listings or the tips sections as I am not in the industry, but it seems to me that they are very well laid out and easy to navigate. if you are not in the industry, check out the site and just peruse the galleries for some really cool designs! Or if you are a designer, try out their portfolio features and let me know what you think!

• A few weeks ago, I was cruising the internet and I stumbled upon an ABC News site called i-Caught that is a place for everyday people to upload their own media for possible inclusion in ABC stories. It is essentially the same model as every other video sharing site out there except this is targeted specifically towards developing news and relevant information. I have not been able to figure out yet what level of censorship they have, but I’m sure that the site is moderated to some extent. There is a page called TalkBack that allows users to submit questions and content to specific ABC programs for contribution or comment. I think this site is a pretty good idea from the MSM as it tries to adapt to the YouTube era. However, I do wish they had spent a bit more time of designing the site…it is very nice that the ads are limited and all focus is on the video content but check out the i-Caught logo. It looks exactly like what you see on sites that make fun of Web 2.0 logos, like this logo generator or this page of hilarious mock logos. Other than that, this site is a pretty cool idea…there are others out there too, like this one from MSNBC, but I think ABC has the best handle on how to harness the community. In fact, if you look at the actual URL for their site, it is http://ugv.abcnews.go.com/ I’m guessing the “ugv” at the beginning means User-Generated Video…kudos to ABC on slowly starting to figure out the world of social media.

• I am a big fan of the band The Spill Canvas and a few weeks ago I went to their website to buy their latest album (see RIAA, just because I download albums I would never buy anyway doesn’t mean that I don’t ever send my wallet over to the band I like!). Anyhow, I was poking around the site and found a really cool page promoting their album which happens to be called “No Really, I’m Fine.” Well on this page, there is a a bar that asks “How are You?” and when you enter in your response, it will display it to other site visitors as “No Really, I’m yourresponse”. (see screenshot to understand a bit better) While this does not really have off-site impact, I think it is an awesome way to get fans engaged in the site. It is a page out of the twitter playbook that asks “What are you doing?” but it tailors perfectly with the band’s site.

• AbbyMe is an awesome site that allows you to send audio messages to people’s phones by typing in whatever text you would like them to hear. The computer voice is actually pretty good and you can enter in more than one number at a time so if you need to send a quick message to lots of people it makes it very easy to do. Of course, I’m sure the most common application is for prank calls (4 of my coworkers and I just finished up a 30 minutes funny phone call round of sending each other very inappropriate messages…all in good fun, of course!) but it could have some really good real-world uses as it gets fine tuned. If they develop a mobile version of it, it could be used to send audio text messages, etc. Definitely a fun site to play around with that someday might develop into something super useful!

I’ll have more time to review it for real (thus this being a ‘beta’ review) after Thanksgiving…I’m headed to the Arctic Circle (aka Minnesota) tomorrow morning to visit some relatives and then I’ll be in Kansas City next weekend for the big football game! Go Mizzou!

Then, in late October, NBC also decided to cancel its YouTube channel which was created back in June 2006 for its short clips…but all anyone ever watched was SNL shorts/skits. With that channel, NBC had made YouTube legit in the marketplace and helped lock up the Google acquisition, not to mention it gave NBC street-cred (web-cred?) with online content users (aka everyone under 35). In lieu of it’s YouTube channel, NBC revamped its websites for content: the streaming full episodes are awesome quality (though I wish I didn’t have to switch back to full screen after every commercial break) but if you want a case study for disaster, check out the SNL video page.

Over the past 30 minutes or so, I have browsed the user comments on the site and have seen two positive ones that were about a clip being funny. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of negative comments ranging from the mundane opinions to extreme rants which reminds me of the Wal-Mart vs. Target facebook model discussion Jeremiah had going some weeks ago on his site (and facebook group): Wal-Mart had thousands of negative comments on their facebook group and the hits just kept coming. This is exactly what is happening to NBC on its own site. Some of my favorite comments:

“This site is worthless….now if the clips we want to see aren’t available on this site we cannot see them anywhere. You guys suck.”

“I just want to watch the Lazy Sunday video. It’s fine if you don’t want it on Youtube, but then at least make it accessible somewhere else!”

“IM GOING TO YOUTUBEEEE”

“This site is a joke. Guess what? It’s 2007…YouTube is your friend…viral marketing is good.You think that by controlling the content and then bombarding people with advertising that nobody wants to see is the answer…bad move. $100 bucks says your back on YouTube in a month after this fails miserably.Hire a 4th grader to run your online marketing.”

“your website is a good reflection of where your sho is going.”

“My hatred is palpable for this failure of a website.”

“Even the time is wrong.”

“you know things are f’d up when the ads don’t even work.”

“The fact that every clip starts with an ad proves that you guys suck!”

These are a pretty good cross-section of the comments on the site as of this morning. Let me tell you, I am no web developer, but I think I could build a better video distribution site on my own site (via Wordpress). There is no catalog of clips of guide to finding your favorite videos, no way to embed videos on other sites, and when the player does work, they have included front-end advertisements! Didn’t YouTube find the perfect solution to front-end ads, since no one watches them anyway? Oh wait…NBC left YouTube…bummer. NBC has built a widget that you can embed in your website which will display content that NBC will change and update each week. Wait…NBC controls the content? On my site? Hmmm…yeah that’s not going to work for me. Although even if you could control it, good luck finding anything worth displaying: the new site doesn’t have the most recent ‘Digital Shorts’ that have been hugely popular: Lazy Sunday, Iran so Far, and Dick in a Box. The only reason those have been so popular is because they went viral while hosted on YouTube! But good luck finding them anywhere now.

The only good thing I can say about this site is that NBC isn’t moderating the comments. At least they are leaving it open to criticism, which I’m sure is causing quite a few bruised egos around their offices. NBC is completely missing the point on viral marketing and social media: companies no longer control information. Users control everything from what gets watched to how it gets watched. They are really going to have to step up the game on this new site if they want any kind of sizable online presence…and Hulu had better rock…and open up for business sometime very soon.

Tips for NBC:

1) Go back to YouTube…or if our ego is damaged, just rebuild your webiste into a YouTube clone so we can browse, embed, and view whatever content we want.
2) Fire Jeff Zucker…old people only look at immediate, tangible ROI…they don’t understand online community development
3) Scrap Hulu. The name means everything from ‘butt’, ‘cease’, or ‘desist’, depending on what language you are using.
4) Stop whining about iTunes prices. They haven’t nailed down market dominance in the video world yet, but it is only a matter of time and you are going to want to be on board for that. Ever heard of Steve Jobs? He takes no prisoners and once he controls the market, good luck getting into it ever again. Don’t be the Zune of the video market.
5) Heroes is a winner. So is 30 Rock..and I hear some people like Scrubs, too. Run with the good ones, leave the riffraff like Bionic Woman for CBS.

UPDATE: (9:30 pm 11/4/07) TechCrunch just posted a clip of an hilarious iPhone commercial spoof done on Saturday Night Live, but the clip is embedded from YouTube…I wonder how long that will survive before it gets yanked from YouTube only to disappear into the realm of “clips-you-will-never-see-again-because-we-are-afraid-of-the-internets”…

As one insightful TechCrunch reader posted: NBC hates Apple. NBC hates YouTube.

Brad Jashinsky

November 4th, 2007 at 8:16 pm

This post is so great in so many ways. As others have mentioned, you have an obviously hacked iPhone clearly displayed on NBC (Apple’s enemy). At the same time, I just watched the clip not on TV, but on YouTube (NBC’s enemy). Probably the most surprising is that this was actually funny, and yet was allowed on Saturday Night Live.

(via TechCrunch 11/4/07)

UPDATE: (11:50 pm 11/4/07) Now you see it, now you don’t!  The SNL clip is now down from YouTube, and thus TechCrunch as well…judging by user comments, it came down sometime between 8:15 and 9:30 pm (CST).  So now anyone who will read that article over the next few days or weeks will wonder what exactly it was about since they can’t see the clip.  I wonder how many thousands of potential viewers NBC is missing out on just from this one post…

This is a screenshot of the old site design I tracked down via Google Image Search:

And this is my screenshot of the new design that I think has launched sometime this afternoon

I love the new site design which has also carried over into the facebook application and a bit into the default user pages…kudos to Twitter for getting dressed up for the adult table! The new design makes the site looks sophisticated while still looking fun and easy…it’s about time! Whats is up next? Finally a desktop client developed by twitter?

UPDATE: (11/1 9:35am)  Okay, so apparently I forgot that yesterday was Halloween.  The dark background on Twitter was a holiday change, not a permanent one: the site is back to blue today…although, I will say that I like the black a lot better!  The new homepage design is still in place and I still think it is a huge step forward in making the site more apt for public consumption.  I also really like how the reviews at the bottom of the page are designed like tweets!

• Natuba is a social aggregation site that you can build using your updates to YouTube, Twitter, LiveJournal, Blogger, Wordpress, flickr, MySpace, TypePad, Live Spaces, and Photobucket. It provides you an admin page to add your services and customize your page which then provides a one-stop shop for your ‘lifestream’ updates. This is really a pretty cool, easy-to-use site for those who want to aggregate their information from multiple services. However, there are a couple of drawbacks including the lack of facebook integration and lack of support for self-hosted sites (Wordpress, etc). In their defense, you can add any custom RSS feed (including that of a self-hosted site), but it just isn’t quite the same… Anyhow, this is a very straightforward service that is great for a basic lifestream source, with very easy service integration. Check out my test page here.

• Clearspring.com is a site where you can create your own web-based widgets for embedding in your blog, website, profile, etc. The site gives you the option of creating a Flash, web site, or image widget and does a good job of walking you through the process of constructing your widget. I haven’t actually created a full widget, but from my experience of just poking through the process, it seems to be the easiest site I’ve found for creating your own widgets without relying on other developers.

• Twitterment is a really cool site that allows you to compare subject popularity in Twitter updates. It is very similar to Google Trends, except it only includes the frequency of keywords used in worldwide Twitter updates. It also shows a short zeitgeist that displays the up-and-coming terms as well as the declining terms. An example for comparing ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’ shows a basic graph showing hourly and daily summaries. A pretty cool site to briefly check out trends on Twitter; still in beta, so definitely some room to grow. (Follow me on Twitter here)

• Twittervision provides a worldwide map that displays Twitter updates from around the world (obviously, not every single update is shown, just a steady stream of them). This is available in a Google Maps frame, or as a 3D view based in Google Earth (requires Flash 9). I recommend the 3D view option (located in the upper left corner). Also, this site has a facebook application for embedding this advanced Twitter map into your facebook profile; a pretty cool tool if you like to follow all sorts of Twitterers. (Follow me on Twitter here)

• A new facebook application that is pretty astounding is Socialistics, a statistical analysis app that provides really cool graphs and tag clouds based on a variety of variables within your friend’s network. You can get a cloud based on 5 different factors: Popularity, Proximity, Cities, Birth Year, and Relationships and you can view graphs based on 13 variables ranging from Current Location to Number of Wall Posts. This is the most advanced social graph statistical engine I’ve seen yet, and definitely the cleanest interface, as well. There are also a few features still in development, including the creation of study groups and supgroups. All-in-all, this app is the best way I’ve found to analyze your social graph, especially if you have a lot of friends with varying data…now if only facebook would add application support to its groups, this type of tool could be used to do amazing things for tweaking group content or offerings based on detailed demographic data. Get the Socialistics application here.

• This last addition is technically not a web-based tool, but rather an Easter Egg found inside Google Earth. If you zoom into the US and hit CTRL+ALT+A for Windows or Command+Opt+A on a Mac, a window will pop up giving you an option to fly either an F16 or an SR22 prop plane and a multitude of international airports to launch from! It takes some time to get used to the controls and get the hang of it, but this is probably the coolest hidden feature I’ve ever encountered on a program, because it allows you to fly through Google Earth terrain, 3D buildings, etc. Thanks to Mashable for the heads-up!