Author Archives: admin

CTIA 2008 with Social Media Sizzle

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In less than a week, CTIA 2008 kicks off in Las Vegas. The conference is self-proclaimed as the largest wireless conference in the world. Some might argue that “the conference formally known as 3GSM” is bigger. I’m not sure. What I can say for sure is that the big boys from the wireless industry are getting together in the desert, and this uptight overly formalized event needs a big dose of Social Media.

CTIA is an organization primarily representing the America’s carriers by a bevy of lobbyists and lawyers. It isn’t the free wheeling environment of SXSW, and certainly not the event where social media practitioners preach to the converted. All of which I believe makes it the idea event to go all out with social media and indy production. So, next week in Las Vegas Bena Roberts, founder and chief editor of the awesome blog GoMo News and I, as the newly appointed US Editor for GoMo will bring a compelling social media experience to the conference.

We kick off with an invitation only party Sunday night, March 30th at the Hard Rock Cafe to unveil our mobile video broadcast studio. An RV brightly marked will cruise up to the Las Vegas Conference Center and pick up our interviewees who will be whisked away from the saturated towers serving the CC. We’ll set up to stream from the RV and go live with a variety of pioneering people and innovative companies along side the big brands that fuel mobile content and services.

Watch GoMo News for all the up to date information on where and how to watch the broadcasts. The Sprint EDVO Rev. A network with it’s 1.8MB upload capability will provide the bandwidth we need and a couple of Nokia N95s will be the video capture devices. How are we using N95s on a CDMA network? I’ll reveal that during the week. In addition, Flixwagon is a sponsor of GoMo News on Wheels! and will be used as the service to stream from the device, store the videos and alert Twitterfollowers or Flixwagon fans that a new video is LIVE.

The interviews and product demos are designed to be informative and conversational. Our audience will be invited to join in with their own questions through chat during the broadcast. We want to encourage respectful participation and exchange. Ask your own questions, and I’ll pass along as many as I can. As a preview, Tuesday, April 1st between 9:15 and 9:30 AM I’m interviewing Louis Libin, who serves as Chairman, Political Conventions Communications Committee. The Committee is responsible for coordinating all the wireless users for the Democratic and Republican Presidentials Conventions and events surrounding the conventions. The users include the broadcasters, Law Enforcement, the organizing committees and others.

We start March 30th approximately 9PM Mountain Daylight Time, MDT, (GMT -7). See you there.

We are grateful to GoMo News on Wheels! sponsors: Flixwagon, mPulse, MCN, and Smaato. And to the GoMo News Blender sponsor JumpTap.

Traveling to SF Again

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Off to the city once again.  I’ll be in SF until this weekend, and am open to meeting up with mobilists, startups with mobile product(s) and social media types.  You know who you are.  Drop me a email, txt or leave an comment here.

Also, looking for recommendations on getting video from the N95 to the web – preferably over Wi-Fi.  What are you using?

I’ll have another announcement in the next day or so.  Watch this space, or my twitter home /mojosd.

Carnival of the Mobilists #108

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The first Carnival of the Mobilists of 2008 is up at Mobile Point View.  The year begins with a very robust Carnival with many contributed articles offering a strong starting point for what will – no doubt – be another landmark 12 months for the mobile industry.

Enjoy the reading and watch for the CoM here on February 4th, 2008.

Happy New Year!

Sam Sethi – ScamtonesTM

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A triple pack of ScamtonesTM for the final day of LeWeb. If you are enjoying these, please toss $1, 1 euro, 1 pound sterling per ScamtoneTM into the donation account for Marc Orchant. Of course, more is always welcomed. Thank you.

I removed the donate button because it wasn’t working as coded. Please go to this post and click the donate button there. Sorry for the extra step and we’ll sort this out over the next day.

 

 

 

 

Sam Sethi Shuts Down Blognation

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Sam Sethi has thrown in the towel. There’s no place to take Blognation given the reality of zero funding and mounting debt. No bills were paid and the train wreck has run over Sethi. He announced today that he will not continue and steps down from Blognation.

The tally of debt is daunting. The developers of the site are owed $60K USD. The debt to, at least, 3 bloggers tops $20K with one owed $35K USD not including travel expenses. These figures are just the beginning.

Tristan Louis who owns the Blognation domain name may try to relaunch the site under a different corporation that will be free from all debts incurred by Blognation, Ltd.

Turn out the lights; the party’s over.

The irony of timing must be pointed out. Dennis Howlett observed that LeWeb and Sam Sethi controversy must be intertwined. For the Blognation Staff, LeWeb was to be our first team gathering – a chance to meet, a brainstorming session and a face-to-face social event – all courtesy of Blognation Ltd. As LeWeb shuts down today, so does Blognation.

Sam Sethi – ScamtonesTM

Published by:

A triple pack of ScamtonesTM for the final day of LeWeb. If you are enjoying these, please toss $1, 1 euro, 1 pound sterling per ScamtoneTM into the donation account for Marc Orchant. Of course, more is always welcomed. Thank you.

I removed the donate button because it wasn’t working as coded. Please go to this post and click the donate button there. Sorry for the extra step and we’ll sort this out over the next day.

Sam Sethi Shuts Down Blognation

Published by:

Sam Sethi has thrown in the towel. There’s no place to take Blognation given the reality of zero funding and mounting debt. No bills were paid and the train wreck has run over Sethi. He announced today that he will not continue and steps down from Blognation.

The tally of debt is daunting. The developers of the site are owed $60K USD. The debt to, at least, 3 bloggers tops $20K with one owed $35K USD not including travel expenses. These figures are just the beginning.

Tristan Louis who owns the Blognation domain name may try to relaunch the site under a different corporation that will be free from all debts incurred by Blognation, Ltd.

Turn out the lights; the party’s over.

The irony of timing must be pointed out. Dennis Howlett observed that LeWeb and Sam Sethi controversy must be intertwined. For the Blognation Staff, LeWeb was to be our first team gathering – a chance to meet, a brainstorming session and a face-to-face social event – all courtesy of Blognation Ltd. As LeWeb shuts down today, so does Blognation.

Sam Sethi – ScamtonesTM

Published by:

A triple pack of ScamtonesTM for the final day of LeWeb. If you are enjoying these, please toss $1, 1 euro, 1 pound sterling per ScamtoneTM into the donation account for Marc Orchant. Of course, more is always welcomed. Thank you.

I removed the donate button because it wasn’t working as coded. Please go to this post and click the donate button there. Sorry for the extra step and we’ll sort this out over the next day.

 

Sam Sethi Shuts Down Blognation

Published by:

Sam Sethi has thrown in the towel. There’s no place to take Blognation given the reality of zero funding and mounting debt. No bills were paid and the train wreck has run over Sethi. He announced today that he will not continue and steps down from Blognation.

The tally of debt is daunting. The developers of the site are owed $60K USD. The debt to, at least, 3 bloggers tops $20K with one owed $35K USD not including travel expenses. These figures are just the beginning.

Tristan Louis who owns the Blognation domain name may try to relaunch the site under a different corporation that will be free from all debts incurred by Blognation, Ltd.

Turn out the lights; the party’s over.

The irony of timing must be pointed out. Dennis Howlett observed that LeWeb and Sam Sethi controversy must be intertwined. For the Blognation Staff, LeWeb was to be our first team gathering – a chance to meet, a brainstorming session and a face-to-face social event – all courtesy of Blognation Ltd. As LeWeb shuts down today, so does Blognation.

Sam Sethi – Blognation Funding Web of Lies

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One would need a secret agent decoder ring to untangle the web of lies Scam Sethi has spun across the blogosphere this week. I suppose the most pervasive lie he continues to perpetrate is Blognation’s funding status and what he told his editors. According to his update on Blognation, Sethi falsely claims the following.

I explained we were in the process of raising funding and that we were already in discussions with several Angel and VC’s as far back as July. Each editor was aware they would be paid in full, back dated from when they joined upon closure of the funding. I also said I expected to have closed it at the end September if not sooner.

In addition, a commenter pointed out that the About page at Blognation in FAQs clearly states that,“Blognation is backed by undisclosed venture capital by vendor advertising and through affiliate advertising.”

Also compare his statements this week with those in his own words to a prospective Blognation editor.

So what we’re offering everybody is a base salary, a percentage of the ad revenue based on how much traffic….  So the way the ad revenue works, the more people generate page impressions the more ad revenue we generate and you get a percentage of that revenue.

Pretty simple model really.  And then we offer stock options.  And we do that for everybody. And that just makes life useful.  Because as we said, there’s no point – bloggers make no money and if they make no money their not interested.

 

Sam compounds his twisted accounts of Blognation’s funding status by assuring Jemima Kiss of The Guardian that funding is imminent.

He gave me the name of the investor and said money is due to come through on December 10th.

“Anyone raising money knows that it takes time, and it can be a horrible business. It has taken four months to grow this idea to a brand. Every editor has a contract and has the right to sue me, but there are nine editors on the backchannel that are aware of what is happening with the funding.

Let me state the obvious and point out that today is December 11th and there’s been no word from Sethi on the checks he’s written or electronic transfers completed to his beleaguered editors.

Sethi does get one part of his quote to Jemima correct. All of those who joined Blognation have contracts and have the right to sue him.