I was inspired by Gregarious' post on the pervasiveness of streams. Streams to me represent another step towards the end of top-down broadcast and the beginning of a confluence of information and communication exchange patterns that function multi-dimensionally. At this point, anyone who is active with social platforms and social tools has streams of information revolving around them. Streams are pervasive, (as Gregarious points out) in that they persist in cyberspace long after we take the actions that add to our streams.

I recently lead a round table discussion on viral content. There was much banter about what makes content go viral, how it can be encouraged and what the results are when it does take off. We were lucky enough to have Gregg Spiridellis, CEO of JibJab with us. He shared some of the experiences he has had in launching and creating a successful company with several viral success stories.

Guest post that I wrote for Mashable, see the entire post here: http://mashable.com/2008/05/22/social-media-marketing-primer/

Before “Will It Blend,” Blendtec was a faceless company that manufactured blenders; their consumer grade blenders run around $400. The Will It Blend story begins shortly after George began working for the company. He was walking around the factory and stumbled upon Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson. Dickson was testing the new bearings in a blender by blending a 2 X4. The company’s employees went on with their work unphased, apparently the practice of “extreme blending” was a regular occurrence there at the factory.