What better pictures to post on the 4th of July than ones of a good ole, red-blooded Corvette. My buddies in the GM PR department loaned me one to drive for a week after we connected on Twitter—yet another frequently overlooked of tweeting!
This guy shows up at my house with the keys for a 2009 Corvette.
I had never driven a Corvette before, and it’s not what you would call subtle. But then again, it’s not designed to be subtle.
Question: How can you follow so many people?
Answer: I don’t read the timelines of all the people that I follow. Instead, I only deal with @s, Directs, and tweets that contain “guykawasaki” and “alltop.” I am not reading everything everyone I follow tweets, but I answer almost every @ and Direct.
Question: Then why do you follow everyone?
Answer: I follow everyone for two reasons: first, common courtesy; second, so that anyone can send a Direct to me. I like Direct messages because they are so much more efficient than email.
Question: Why do you use @GuyKawasaki and @GuysReplies?
Answer: I created @Guysreplies in order to reply to @s that all my followers do not need to see. For example, when people tweet, “@guykawasaki I loved Reality Check,” I don’t want to burden everyone with my thank-you @ reply. Also, people publicly attack me as a kind of “tweet bait” to get more followers. Because @GuysReplies has few followers, this scheme won’t work, and I can still appear to be “engaged” with the losers.
Question: Why do you repeat your tweets?
Answer: I repeat a handful of my tweets because I don’t assume that all my followers are reading me 24 x 7 x 365. This is the same reason that ESPN and CNN repeat the same news stories (without updates, simply identical reports) throughout the day.
Question: What Twitter applications do you use?
Answer: I’m on a constant hunt for the ultimate Twitter applications. Right now, I use TweetDeck on my Macintosh and TweetFlip and Tweetie on my iPhone.
My ghosts and I also use Objective Marketer to post tweets that contain links. This site enables us to create marketing campaigns and then schedule, frame, and track tweets. Disclosure: I am an advisor to Objective.
Finally, I use TwitterHawk to thank people who have shared Alltop pages with their followers. This site enables me to search for the string “pretty good stuff about” and automatically send a tweet.
Question: How long do you spend on Twitter every day?
Answer: Asking me this is like asking Tiger Woods how much time he spends playing golf: “It’s what I do.” If I’m on the computer, I’m on Twitter, and I’m on the computer eight hours per day. When I’m not on the computer, I use TweetFlip or Tweetie to mark tweets as “favorites” that I handle later using TweetDeck.
These are the sites and applications that I used in today’s San Diego Venture Group speech about using social media as a marketing tool.
Continue reading "Sites Used at San Diego Venture Group Speech" »
We’ve enabled people to access and repurpose the website and blog feeds that we’ve curated at Alltop:
Widget. Create a widget of any Alltop site by going here. Then you can deploy these widgets in your blogs. These widgets display the five most popular stories from the respective topic. This is a great way to add fresh content to your website or blog with very little work. To see a list of “all the topics” that may be relevant, go here.
RSS feed. Grab the RSS feed of any Alltop topic by clicking on the RSS symbol in your browser’s navigation area. Then you can use a feed reader to read all the posts from that Alltop topic. You can also build your own widgets from our RSS feed.
Continue reading "How to Use Alltop to Add Content to Your Website, Blog, and Feed Reader" »
I take a lot of close-up pictures of very important things.
Old iPhone.
New iPhone.
Old iPhone.
New iPhone.
Old iPhone. And this is not any spam. This is spam from Montreal, so it’s French-Canadian spam!
New iPhone.
To get total iPhone news coverage, click here.
On Friday, May 29, 2009, fourteen bloggers and “distinguished visitors” served a twenty-four hour tour of duty on the USS Nimitz. The following 140 or so pictures and videos document this visit. This is a very long blog posts as blog posts go, and I know there are ways to create slideshows or other forms of clickable displays. I’ve done it this way for three reasons:
A carrier is a very complex beast, and we saw a lot of stuff.
Clicking through slideshows is a pain in the butt for readers and putting s on pictures is a pain in the butt for me.
Most importantly, sailors on the Nimitz are making huge sacrifices and risking their lives—the least you can do is scroll.
The USS Nimitz is an aircraft carrier. It’s named after Chester Nimitz (Nimitz signed the US/Japan surrender terms that at the end of World War II). The Nimitz has a crew of approximately 3,000 men and women. When an air wing is deployed on it, the total number of personnel becomes 5,000. It is part of Carrier Strike Group 11.
The Nimitz was commissioned on May 3, 1975. She is 1,115 feet long and 252 wide. Her displacement is 97,000 tons. Her flight deck covers an area of approximately 4.5 acres. She has two nuclear power plants and is capable of speeds exceeding thirty knots.
My buddies at Audi loaned me a Q7 TDI (turbo diesel injected) for a few months. This is the first diesel that Audi has brought to the United States since the 1980s. It’s a fifty-state car. One of it’s most compelling features is that it looks mean, not like the typical boxy SUVs.
The Q7 is approximately nine inches longer than the BMW X5 and Porsche Cayenne.
The Q7 has low-profile tires for a SUV. Who goes offroad anyway?
Sorry, Audi: a stone jumped up and chipped the windshield.
Where I live, diesel is cheaper than gas, and a car theoretically goes 25% further per gallon of diesel compared to gas. Sounds like a deal to me. Finding a diesel station isn’t too hard, but you do need to plan ahead.
Over the course of the few months that I had the Q7, my mileage was approximately 19-19 miles per gallon. I do 75% stop-and-go around town driving. Audi sponsored a long-distance drive for journalists, and they achieved approximately 25 miles per gallon.
This is the Q7s. engine. It has a 3.0 liter displacement. It puts out 221 hp and 406 lb-ft torque. The Q7 goes 0-60 mph in 8.5 seconds.
If you’re old enough to remember when diesels were slow, noisy, and stinky, you’re an empty-nester, so you don’t need a seven-passenger vehicle. If you’re not old enough to remember this, don’t sweat it. In any case, other than having to use a different pump at the gas station, you’ll hardly notice any difference if you buy a diesel vehicle these days.
(If you don’t need a seven-page vehicle, you should check out the Audi A3 TDI which apparently gets 40 miles per gallon in the real world. Check out this review.)
I have to say that cupholders aren’t a strongpoint of the car, but I don’t drink coffee, so I didn’t care.
On the first try, the Q7 linked with my iPhone, and I was able to access my address book and the database of recent calls.
The circled area lights up when a car is in the blindspot on the left side. If you turn on your lane-change signal, and there’s a car in the way, a yellow light flashes.
This is a video of showing how the front speakers pop out of the dash when you start the Q7. I don’t know if it sounds any better, but it’s sure cool.
If you like looking at the sky, you’ll love the Q7’s sunroof.
It has a two-piece sun visor system that shields your eyes from the front and the side.
It easily passes the “can it our carry hockey gear?” test. Carrying bags and three players is no problem.
I think the switch to close the hatch is on the wrong side of the car. The driver always walks to the left to get into his or her seat, but the switch is on the right side of the hatch.
If you need to drive two very tall people, you can put down the second row of seats. This provides ample legroom for basketball players.
If you put down the second and third row of seats, there’s really a lot of room. I should have tested it with a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, but I never buy plywood, so I don’t care.
The third row works for kids, but only tiny adults.
To get into the third row of seats, you enter from the behind the front passenger seat.
Or, you can use the patent-pending “Kawasaki run-and-jump/enter from the back” plan.
I had to give the Q7 back a week ago, and my entire family misses it. Most interestingly, my teenage boys liked it more than the Audi R8 that I had for a week. Even my wife told me to buy one (prices start at $50900). Other vehicles can have these “modern” features, but I don’t own a real “modern” vehicle. This is a list of what I miss the most:
Cool design. Coolness is in the eyes of the beholder, and I think the Q7 is the best looking vehicle that can carry seven people.
Diesel engine. Diesel is the new hybrid. It’s simpler than hybrid technology, and it doesn’t require the creation and disposal of batteries.
Smart-key system. Not having to put the key in the door or ignition is so convenient. The Q7 detects the presence of its key and unlocks the door. Then you can press a button to start it.
Bluetooth integration with my iPhone. I’ve never owned a car with Bluetooth. It’s so great to just get in a vehivle and be able to make and receive calls through the vehicle’s sound system
Lane-change warning. I loved having the added safety of the vehicle warning you not to switch lanes.
Backup camera. With lots of kids and their stuff around the driveway, this was very useful and reassuring.
If you’re looking for a vehicle that can carry seven people, gets good mileage, and looks cool, the Q7 TDI is something to consider.
If you’re an Audi fan, you’ll love this aggregation of Audi websites and blogs.
At Photography.alltop, all the top photography websites and blogs are in one place. The selection includes sites that review equipment as well as offer tips. It’s Alltop’s second most popular topic. Check it out by clicking here. There’s no easier way to stay on top of photography.
I interviewed Matt May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing
More on elegance and design at Design.alltop.
On a recent trip to Kansas City, I took a tour of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Organized league structure occurred in 1920 with the formation of the Negro National League in Kansas City.
This is the first display area of the museum. You’re separated from the “field” in order for you to experience segregation. It’s only after you go through most of the museum that you earn your right to go on the field.
This is a statue of the founder of the league, Andrew “Rube” Foster.
The exhibit shows a timeline of league’s history. The leagues’ events are documented in the upper portion while other historical events are listed below to give you a sense of what else was happening.
In 1927 there was a tour in Japan. Note the difference in size of the players.
This is a picture of the first female player in the league.
Hank Aaron got his start in the league.
This is Satchel Paige’s shotgun. Apparently, he loved to hunt.
This is a recreation of a barber shop because of the important role barber shops played in the black community.
Jackie Robinson is the third player from the left in the bottom row. He too got started in the league.
There are several cases of balls signed by celebrities. I offered to sign one as Jackie Chan, but the museum declined.
Michelle Obama signed this ball.
The field contains bronze statues of the most famous players at the positions they played.
Bob Kendrick, director of the marketing of the museum, Satchel Paige’ statue, and me. Bob was very kind to give me the tour of the museum and educate me about this fascinating part of American history. If you go to Kansas City, don’t miss the museum.
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