Joseph called me.  It was about advertising space.  That in itself isn’t strange as I get several requests a month for my various websites but I did find his voice out of the ordinary.

After listening to the Google Voice message, I called him back to simply say, “Hey!  You sound like a 12 year old boy!”.  Turns out he is 12 years old!  After talking with his mom to get permission (I require this whenever I talk with young people interested in technology who are under the age of 18), I asked Joseph what his goals were in doing videos on YouTube about technology and listened.

He told me he: wants to be just like Soldierknowsbest and WilsonTech1 when he grows up.

YouTube’s Hottest Channel

While you probably visit YouTube via the homepage or a link you find on your favorite social network, there are channels which divide up the video content and YouTube’s extremely popular Science and Technology channel contains the following YouTube folks I’m going to introduce…

Bio: SoldierKnowsBest

Mark, known online as SoliderKnowsBest, is a YouTube veteran has hundreds of thousands of subscribers and his average video gets 40,000+ views and several videos having over 1 million views including  The iPad: First Look and The iPad: What Apple doesn’t want u to know.

Check out the newest video which already has 15, 557 views after 14 hours, Unboxing: Verizon 4G Mobile Hotspot (Samsung)

Bio: WilsonTech1

Wrapping humor and technology around education and news stories, Lamarr, known online as WilsonTech1, has 40,000+ subscribers who return several times a week to catch up on the latest with him like Justin Bieber DIES! and Google Android: Buying CRAP!

Ok!  Enough geeking out on awesome tech videos and back to the story.

12 Years Old And Ready To Rock Tech!

He loves having people get excited about new stuff. He wants more subscribers and would love to go to CES next year.  Now I’m not one to burst someone’s dream bubble and don’t think  age excludes anyone from success.  Just look at Tavi Gevison who started a fashion blog at the age of 11 and now flies around the world to fashion shows and advises top designers on hot trends (Thanks Afrobella!).   Joseph explained how he’s been mowing a lot of lawns to buy the technology he reviews. Take a look at his iPad unboxing (which he won in a raffle by purchasing 50 raffle tickets!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmptqjlG58

Strategy

How can Joseph reach these goals?

Not by advertisements I told him. You need solid content people find valuable and interesting. For subscribers, I learned at the YouTube Partner event you need to create content on a regular basic and develop a relationship with your audience. Joseph said the cutest thing as we were talking:

“I feel like when I’m watching Soldierknowsbest, he’s right here in my living room.”

EXACTLY! I told him. You need to create real and authentic moments with your audience.  Anyone can recite facts about a piece of hardware.  It’s your job to bring the technology alive and inject your personality.  People like Soldierknowsbest and Chris Pirillo do just that and they have loyal and active subscribers on YouTube.  Ok, I create those experiences too but not so hard core on the tech gadgets!

Now how to get traffic? Instead of focusing on numbers, focus on content quality and think strategically about why people are on YouTube watching videos in the first place.   Focus on moving people’s emotional barometers.  I asked him if he remembered when the iPhone 4 came out and everyone was upset about the antenna issue?  Well, the first videos out on the antenna problem had big hits but so did this guy’s video who made a song called, “The iPhone Antenna Song” to the tune of more than 1 million views.

I also advised Joseph to:

• Get a domain name
• Start with a simple blog site with WordPress
• Embed his videos and explain what people are watching

While not all YouTube rockstars do this, many do (including me!) and it’s a great way to engage and build your community, build traffic and get that SEO Google juice flowing!

Joseph told me his next plan on YouTube is to do a series reviewing different cases for the iPhone.  It’s a great start and can create a good schedule for subscribers of when they can expect the next video plus cases under $25 are much more within the budget of a 12 year old than high-end tech gadgets costing several hundred dollars :0

How did young Joseph find me?  Soldierknowsbest has my YouTube channel listed on his YouTube page.  Similar to my friendships and alliances on Twitter, I’m beginning to build the same sort of connections on YouTube and Flickr.

Next Steps

What I’d like to start thinking about is a way to help young kids like Joseph get a good start online promoting their passion with the right tools. Now I’m thinking about organizing something like a bootcamp series with some YouTube heavyweights!  I met WilsonTech1 at Gnomedex last year and have chatted with SoliderKnowsBest online so I’ll certainly be reaching out to them *smile*

Something like, “Become A YouTube Rockstar” Bootcamp for youth including:

• Your message
• Strategy
• Channel setup
• Logos and Avatars
• Equipment selection
• Upload schedule
• Editing Video
• SEO and Keywords
• Community building
• Contests and Sponsors
• YouTube Partner Program
• Your Traffic Analytics
• Pay It Forward Mentoring

Update: WilsonTech1 has left a comment saying he will co-mentor Joseph with me.  w00t!

I decided to do a blog post instead of a long email back to Joseph based on Scott Hanselman’s post, Do they deserve the gift of your keystrokes?, because this way I will be helping countless other people including Joseph vs a single email to a single person.

You’ll also notice that Joseph is Brown.  As are SoldierKnowsBest, WilsonTech1 and myself.  This touched me to realize the younger generation is watching what we’re doing; we’re role models and it’s important to not only consider the content we put out on social networks but to think about how to give back.

He said to me,

“I just need some help getting started.  An adult who’s been on YouTube for a while.  Someone to help baby me.”

I told him the word was, “mentoring” and at that point, I knew I had to write this post *smile*

On a related note, I’m speaking next week at a virtual summit to help new entrepreneurs get off on the right foot called 100 Urban Entrepreneurs.  It’s being hosted by The Cash Flow which is a nonprofit organization with the tagline “Business Essentials for Urban Entrepreneurs”.

You Can Help

Joseph has about 200 subscribers on his YouTube channel. Subscribe to support him in his dreams!

Want to help with this idea and turn it into something real?   Contact me

Would you like help brainstorming ideas on how to drive more traffic to the content you share online?  Check out the technology training I offer at Freshworkshops

and one more video, Htc Hd2 vs iphone 4, by MrTechBeast (12 year old Joseph) which leads me to believe he’s well on his way to becoming the next YouTube rockstar in tech!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B77KhGWmt4

Ok, it’s 2011 and Zuckerberg was somehow named Time’s person of the year. I suppose I’ll open my Facebook profile back up *sigh*

After months of having my profile locked down in support of Jason Calacanis’ Facebook privacy rampage, I am opening things back up.

Just tweeted that Facebook claims over 100 million photos are uploaded and tagged every day.

My Facebook Profile is open, are you peeking?

I now have everything public which brings me back to full transparency, my preferred mode of transportation on the Internet.  Everything from my family, photos I’m tagged in, my birthday (which incidentally is February 4th) and more can now be culled from my Facebook profile.  *sigh*

Blocked Facebook Apps

Now to not be duly annoyed “if” I happen to start checking Facebook on a regular basis, I am still retaining my list of blocked apps which include, yes, Farmville:

Are you not able to deactivate your Facebook account?

I tried this link but got a fake error about a Facebook developer account  http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php

We’re not alone!

Dont’ think you can ask Facebook for help.  I found several threads in the “Facebook Help Center”.  One person described being “trapped” by Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php#!/help/?question=553438

http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php#!/help/?question=554711

Update 5/31/2010: Check to see if you have any Facebook developer apps active http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2345053339

The Developer application lets you manage the applications you build using Facebook Platform. Edit your application settings, submit your application

You probably don’t have any developer apps listed. Almost no one does!

You may want to consider deleting your account this summer. https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

That’s right, you can’t even leave Facebook when you want to says my friend Dave Hall (@skwashd) on Twitter:

It seems I’m not the only one who cannot deactivate a Facebook account!  As I began following the steps outlined by Jason Calacanis to remove the ability for people to interact with my Facebook account (or become a Facebook Ghost as Jason describes it) , I got this strange, cryptic error message.

Cannot deactivate developer account

Unable to deactivate your account because you are the only developer of a Platform application. Please either delete the application or assign a new owner before deactivating your account.

What? I’ve never developed a Facebook application in my life! People are leaving comments on this post saying they can’t deactivate their accounts either.

• Why would a social media network block you from leaving?
• Would the status look so bad to advertisers that they would question Facebook’s business model?

I saw Richard Stallman speak a few weeks ago at Wordcamp San Francisco and he asked us to consider the values of the software we use. I am and Facebook isn’t what I want; closed network, selling my information (indirectly) and discretly exposing people’s lives.

I’m not ready to delete my Facebook account just yet.  Are you?
Did you backup your Facebook photos and goodies using Backupify?
Wonder if Facebook will come clean on this “error” message.

Following Jason Calacanis’ call to action, I am deactivating my Facebook account tonight (with plans to delete it later on).

So far:

• I’ve made most of my information private, including photos
• I’ve run a backup using backupify
• I have just visited to deactivate my Facebook account facebook.com/deactivate.php Deactivate puts your account into a dormant state but your data isn’t erased.

I am pasting part of Jason’s post below. You can read the entire thing at
calacanis.com/2010/05/21/im-deleting-my-facebook-page-today/

====================
If you’re going to join me (and folks like Leo Laporte and Peter
Rojas) in leaving Facebook, please consider recording yourself doing
so. Post that video to YouTube saying “I deleted/deactivated my
Facebook page!”

As we’ve discussed, there are better services for you to use from
companies you can trust.

I suggest doing one of three things below with your Facebook account
*after* you back it up.

[ Note: Before taking these steps, I suggest downloading your photos
manually and/or trying Backupify's beta Facebook backup service--which
is free. www.backupify.com. I'm an angel investor in this amazing
company.]

1. Just stop using Facebook: Don’t log in, don’t republish your tweets
to Facebook and don’t update your status. Turn off all your photos.
This is a basic step that will also get you a lot time back for the
rest of your life. Try NOT logging into Facebook for three days and
see how much better your life is–I’m sure it will be! Take your
“Facebook time” and use it to actually ask a friend or family member
how they are doing. Take the dog or your kids (or yourself!) for a
walk.

The fact is, Facebook sends only a dozen folks to a link when I post
it. Compare that to hundreds to thousands of people clicking through
on Twitter (on a CTR basis Twitter is 10-20x Facebook!). Also, the
content on Twitter it typically valuable to me. The content on
Facebook tends to be “I’m playing this game” or someone “liking”
something inane. Get off Facebook and do something more productive.
Nothing important happens on Facebook–nothing.

2. Deactivate your account: This renders your account dormant, but you
can still log in at any time and “wake it up” again. Bear in mind,
your information is still stored on Facebook. They still have your
data. Having said that, there is no harm in trying this either…
Deactivate for the rest of the month and see what June 1st feels like
after you wean yourself off the Facebook crack. Just two or three
clicks and you can do it: www.facebook.com/deactivate.php

I’ve received a lot of questions from my previous blog post on converting and editing an iPhone voice memo.

How do I get the mp3 option to show up?

Watch and Learn

Yes, it’s true. You can convert the .m4a files to .mp3.

Go to your preferences in iTunes to change your import options.

General Tab and “Import Settings”

Change encoder choice to MP3

Then right click the file to convert it and you now have an mp3 version of your iPhone voice memo which you can edit in Audacity!

Folks,

Looks like many Gmail users (including Google Apps users) are having trouble accessing their email.  The workaround again is to connect via IMAP through a desktop client like Thunderbird, Apple Mail or Outlook.

You can check status updates on Gmail over at Google’s AppStatus page http://status.google.com

9:29 AM

We’re aware of a problem with Google Mail affecting a small subset of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Mail, but we’ve provided a workaround below. We will provide an update by September 24, 2009 10:29:00 AM UTC-5 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

You can access Gmail via IMAP

Unfortunately for Google, this downtime is not making them look good.  They had another outage in early September just after they finished their, “Going Google” nationwide billboard campaign.  There was another outage in late winter and one last fall.

I still think using Google Apps for domain email is a good bet because their downtime has been small compared to most small businesses who do email internally.  I wonder if this outage is only affecting the users of the free Gmail service and the Standard version of Google Apps (also free).  The premier version of Google Apps guarantees 99.9% email uptime.  This will cost you $50 per year per user in your organization and comes with additional space, expanded support from Google and some features not available in the Standard version.

Want that shiny new iPhone software update on your iPhone?

Would you be willing to give all your passwords away to get it?


That’s what you risk by downloading iPhone firmware from unknown sources.

Just a reminder it’s never a good idea to download applications and games from P2P filesharing websites because they are often put out there to “lure” people into downloading them so they can actually collect your personal information.

I don’t see any reason why hackers would not do the same with iPhone firmware. They could easily insert a keystroke recorder and tiny FTP server that would upload your passwords from the iPhone.

MobileStudio is an iPhone application that boasts a built in FTP server

or just get MobileSpy which can record AND TRANSMIT the following information from your iPhone without you knowing:

• Incoming and Outgoing phone calls are logged and timestamped
• Your GPS location is reported every 30 minutes
• Every website URL you enter is captured
• All your SMS messages are captured

MobileSpy makes it sound very easy to remotely monitor someone’s iPhone

After the software is setup on your phone it will record an array of phone activities and then silently upload the data to your private Mobile Spy account using the Internet. When you want to view results, simply login to the Online Control Panel from any computer and enter your username and password to proceed.

This is the same reason why you don’t want to download “Free Microsoft Office” from a P2P file sharing site.  The .iso or .zip file you download may contain additional applications you don’t know about.  The iPhone Dev team warns about this too:

Please do not put links to custom IPSWs in your comments, because the software in them is copyrighted by Apple.  The Dev Team motto has always been “patch, don’t pirate!”.

and

We do not check these links or archives and we accept no responsibility with regard to the validity of the files, or with other content these links provide or with the content that is on the linked site.

So if you’re waiting to jailbreak your iPhone to OS 3.1, I suggest you find a friend with a Mac and have them burn a copy of their .ipsw file vs downloading one you find on Rapidshare or Megaupload.

Imagine waking up to find all your social media accounts with horrible things on them, your gmail account inaccessible and your bank account cleaned out.

Photo credit: by extraverage™

Here’s my process for taking Voice Memo recordings off my iPhone and editing them before I post them the the internet.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujz5E2y-S6I[/youtube]

How I edit Voice Memos after MP3 conversion

1. In iTunes, select the voice memo you want to edit
2. Go to “Advanced” and select “Create MP3 Version”
3. Right click on the newly created file to view the file location
4. Copy the file into Audacity for editing

The audio recording quality of the iPhone 3G S has been beyond wonderful and enables me to capture my public speaking events quickly and easily. I just hit “record” and put my iPhone on the speaking table. This time, I asked the other speakers if it was okay first as I want to respect people’s choices. I then email them once I finish uploading and we all benefit from having working samples!

Not sure how to get the MP3 option to show up in iTunes?

I’ve made a video for you!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWyVMRwXf-k[/youtube]

Instructions can be found on the new blog post showing how to change your iTunes settings to allow new imports and conversions to happen in mp3 format

I mentioned on Twitter that I was renewing my Flickr Pro account. @breon decided to share how he just moved all his photos from Flickr to Picasa…BUT

I immediately replied:

1. SEO Google Juice

105,990 impressions in 1 year from Flickr. That’s right. My images have been seen, shared, embedded, linked to and favorited over 100,000 times in 1 year. Because I upload my photos to Flickr, one of my images appeared on the LA Times Blog and the Consumerist. Another was used in a museum exhibit on democracy. Flickr allows it’s images to be indexed by Google, Google Images and Yahoo which extends the reach of your photos well beyond the Flickr.com website. All you need to do is properly tag and describe your photos for them to grow wings. You can include URL links in the description as well and I do that often to link my screenshots back to blog posts I write.

2. Community

Flickr is more than just a space to store your photos. You can find friends using the service, invite family to photo sets you create and connect with people who share the same interests as you. One group I belong to, Computer Nerd Cats, is a collection of photos where cats are laying on keyboards, snoozing on monitors, playing with mice and causing general “cute overload” near technology. I enjoy looking at the photos, have added several of my own and feel a sense of belonging.

3. Licensing

Flickr is truly a place for sharing. They are the #1 place to go if you are looking for interesting photos for your blog. When people create any sort of media, it automatically is copyrighted by default. If others want to use what you’ve created, they need your permission. If you ever do consulting work where you create something like technical documentation or photos, a contract is usually involved and explains who owns the resulting work. Back to Flickr. Flickr makes it easy to “share” your photos and give people the right to use your photos in a way where you get credit for the images and they can use them on their websites. This is known as Creative Commons. There are several types of CC licensing and you can read to find out which option fits you. I usually choose, “Attribution with non-commercial”

4. Search

Flickr allows you to search by keywords or tags. It can sort results by “most relevant” or “most interesting”. They just added functionality which shows you on the right side additional information from the search results about the photographers, what groups the photos belong to, the associated tags and the location of the photos (geo tagging).

5. Sharing

I come across stories, links, ideas and events in Flickr that take me to another place; for a few moments, I’m able to step into someone else’s shoes in India, walk the streets of London and climb a mountain without losing my breath.   Flickr is like stepping into a candy store of imagery goodness.  None of this would be possible without others feeling the need to share their experiences about food, buildings, exotic places, plants, people smiling, classic cars, technology conferences, clothing, and nature.

Summary

The free version of Flickr is great but if you plan to do some serious blogging or want to host your photos online for easy sharing, a Pro account at $25 a year is worth it. I ask all my blogging clients to sign up for a Pro account so they have access to the additional features and upload bandwidth.

Upcoming training

Found this post helpful?

I taught a class, “Captivate Your Readers With Beautiful High Quality Photos” this fall which shows you how to:

• Gain access to beautiful photos
• Engage your readers
• Make your blog “sticky”
• Drive more traffic to your website

Photo credit: Moon over Belgium

I have mentioned FEBE the Firefox Environment Backup Extension several times on this blog as an awesome and easy tool for making complete backups of your Firefox bookmarks, extensions and browsing history. Chuck has a new version out so hence, a new video!

Download FEBE from Mozilla.org
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux4ceUz3eSk[/youtube]