Gilbert Arena, the 27 year old NBA star and prolific blogger Agent Zero closed his blog down. Reportedly so that he can focus on his game, as recently reported in the New York Time post.
I could be wrong, but the athlete who scored over 60 points against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers doesn’t seem to be lacking in performance ability due to his online performance.
Last Friday he and the Wizards were each fined $25,000 because Arena had not been speaking with the news media.
To put it in his own words, “I’ve loved the game the same as before I got hurt to now. That’s why I just want to play it instead of just doing interviews every day about nothing.”
Seems more like a sad end for such a talented and colorful online persona and professional athlete who knew he could excel at both, and well.
A friend’s e-card made me aware of Diwali, also known as Tihar in Nepal. Then a featured WordPress post got me to explore this festival in celebration of “light over darkness“.
Having learned about Diwali I find it a beautiful celebration to share in with those across the globe and who recognize it here in the US. Many places in India are half way around the world, 12 hours ahead in time zones. Obama kind of brings the world all the more closer with his public participation in celebration of this festival.
When I was growing up, I actively participated in the activities of those in my community. I played dreidel or dradle between Chanukah and Christmas in school, built a backyard Sukkoth with best friend Andy for Yom Kippur, and celebrated more than a dozen Bat and Bar Mitzvahs.
The result was a deep appreciation and closer relationship in community with others- not apart from them.
Sharing Online
Online communities hold the same richness diversity and opportunities in connecting with others across the globe or in your own back yard.
How we openly seek, invite and include friends, family, classmates, clients, colleagues and others can better define our personal brand as rich exchange networks.
Building Your Community
How do you participate with those from other cultures, nations, and beliefs? Leave your comment.
The Whitehouse posted its official video on President Obama’s recognition and celebration of Diwali this week.
Google search dominates US and global markets. Bing drops. Yahoo Search falls too.
A recent Mashable post on search market share that shows Google dominating both the US and global markets.
According to Experian Hitwise, Google increased its market share up 1% from from 70.24% to 71.08% in the US. Microsoft’s Bing however struggles to maintain growth, dropping 5% in the US from 9.48% to 8.96% for September 2009.
Even more remarkable, Net Applications’ Market Share Report shows Google above 80% market share globally. See their report and graph here.
Google gains ground even over the second largest shareholder, Yahoo Search, drops 3% to 16.38% in US market share. Clearly the search engine giant, Google offers online consumers more with its algorithmic results.
What’s Your Analysis?
What is your favorite or most effective search engine? Comment here.
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Amos White is a Social Media Marketing Evangelist and public speaker.
Follow Amos on Twitter @Mos42
Google changed its logo to celebrate the invention of the barcode today on the 57th anniversary of the barcode patent.
Originally designed for the railroad industry to label car, it wasn’t until the early 1970’s that the barcode was introduced commercially in the supermarket industry to automate checkout systems and introduce a cost reduction in the labeling of supermarket products.
Google uses its logo as a form of visual communication, to create conversations across the web. In changing its famous and highly recognizable logo, Google leads inquiring minds to discover noteworthy items, historic dates and points of interest via key words on its search page.
See previous posts about Google logo changes on Ghandi and on Samuel Morse and the intervention of the telegraph here.
Brand Influence
One of the most influential uses of brand changing or remixing is the image of Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.
A photo taken by a journalist during the campaign was artistically adapted and made into a poster to express. The effect of Obama’s highly recognizable image (brand) being changed to convey a message proved overwhelmingly powerful; probably the single most indelible image of the President. The artist, Shepard Fairey, was instantly catapulted into to fame with the image seen round the world and shared widely on the internet.
Barcode as Art
See an ABC News Story on artist Scott Blake who remixes art using barcodes.
Conversational Marketing or Artistic Interest?
When have you modified your brand to create conversations or influence others?
Brian Solis’s recent analysis of the 20 Top Social Media sites reveals interesting statistics on who is using these social media sites.
Most notably is more than the presence of women, but their clear dominance throughout the socialsphere.
In 16 of 20 top social media sites, women equaled or dominated men in number of users.
Women dominated in the top 2 social media sites, Facebook (57% women, 70.27M users) and MySpace(64% women, 70.25M users)
In interpreting the data, Solis challenges marketers and PR specialists is to participate as community managers, in contrast to the standard modus opendi of top down, one-to-many marketing.
The key lesson for marketers is a choice to participates as a social member in these sites to discover and mine the richness and network complexities.
Each network possesses a vibrant culture and ecosystem that is powered by context and connected by influential social graphs.
Inclusion begins with consistent demonstration of trustworthiness via presence, sharing, support and contributory content of value.
Google changed its logo to celebrate the invention of the barcode today on the 57th anniversary of the barcode patent.
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