The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Musicians – This Is How You Create A Great Looking Facebook Page
- Staying Credulous: On Not Letting Being 40 Get In The Way
- When Social Media Becomes The Message: The Gulf Oil Spill And @BPGlobalPR
- Decoding Microsoft’s Fantastic Passive-Agressive Numbers Post
- FCC Endorses Skype, Tweets That People Should Use It
- First Impressions: Viliv N5 Ultra Mini Mobile PC
| Musicians – This Is How You Create A Great Looking Facebook Page Posted: 27 Jun 2010 04:30 AM PDT Like most of you, I too LIKE Facebook, and ever since my last TechCrunch post (How to Build Engaging One-of-Kind Facebook Fan Pages), I’ve been exploring and trying to find new ways to improve the creation process of a Page. This time, I’d like to focus on a how-to for the musicians among you. If you are one of the talented musicians on Facebook, this simple guide should be of great use to you. First things first, you need to register for a SoundCloud account. That’s actually a good thing, regardless of the Page, because SoundCloud is one of the best quality music services available today. It’s an easy to use service with an elegant layout that allows you to upload your original music and lets you play the files according to the quality of your upload. If you question the site’s potential, think again, because artists like MC Hammer, Moby and many more are already using it. The reason you will need to upload your songs to SoundCloud, besides the benefits outside of your fan page, is the fact that the service that I’m about to introduce to you, connects via SoundCloud and allows you to seamlessly upload all your music from SoundCloud to your Facebook page.
RootMusic will probably be the service that changes the way Facebook looks when it comes to music (depending on how many people they can attract in the long run, of course). Yes, it’s sort of like putting a MySpace page on Facebook, but, it’s a badly needed feature, and not exactly one we have known and have been familiar with many years on either site. When you sign up at RootMusic, you can choose the free lane, which gives you the ability to customize your page with their simple editor, and also allow your fans to listen to your music while they browse through your photos, videos, and tour dates. The paid version will give you a much richer editor, the ability to add a unique banner in order to grab your fans’ attention and a tool box for adding custom background images. And, for the very reasonable price of $1.99/month, you might want to consider the paid version – but again, that might depend on how fast you want attention for your music page to grow. Assuming you want to start with the free option – choose it, and you’ll get a screen where you can fill in some information about yourself or your band: Name, Location, Bio, Contact and site information etcetera. You’ll see that RootMusic has already pulled your existing photos straight from your Facebook page (so make sure you have some photos already in there). Next, you can upload some videos from YouTube or Vimeo, again, all very easily: all you need is the video URL and you’re good to go. As I mentioned above, you’ll be able to connect all of your SoundCloud music to your Facebook page. The service generates a playlist of your music and displays it over a very nicely done player that visitors can easily use without the need to sign up or log into any service. You are also able to upload music from your computer to the SoundCloud music platform. Please note that SoundCloud is a community exclusively for original musicians. I don’t recommend that you upload music there if you don’t have any legal right to do so. The purpose of the site is to offer musicians a chance to be have their tunes discovered and shared and for others to explore new music. Add shows/gigs – RootMusic makes it extremely easy for you to add a show date. Everything is customizable, all you need to add are the details of the event (when-where-who) and the price. You can even add a link to where your fans can buy the tickets online. To me, this demonstrates that RootMusic really focused on what artists really need. RootMusic also lets you stream your wall posts and your fans’ posts. You can choose to filter them and show just only your content. Additionally, you can stream your tweets as well as content from a blog or any other site that you choose. Lastly – Export this all operation to your Page. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/bandpage on Facebook, click the “add to my page” button on the left sidebar (as demonstrated in the screenshot below), and choose which page you want to add it to. Now, go to your page, and click on the last tab, the one with the arrow sign (might be under the + sign in some pages) to see the RootMusic tab. Click on it, and drag it somewhere after the ‘Info’ tab. What you might also want to do, is to go to your Page, click on the Wall tab and then click on the options link (under the text box to the right). It will change to a ‘Settings’ button, click on that one too. A View Settings will open – now just go to: Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else – and choose the ‘BandPage’ tab. This will make sure that anyone who lands on your page before clicking on the ‘Like’ button, will see the beautiful page that you just made, first. Though RootMusic is one of the most interesting services I’ve seen in a while, especially because people are increasingly trying to get the most out of their Facebook pages, I still think there is at least one thing that might be confusing for individual artists – the tab name. I don’t know if it’s a technical issue, but RootMusic should let artists customize their tabs instead of forcing them all to exist under the generic BandPage tab. If you can’t let users choose a tab name, go with something that fits both bands and individual artists (Music Page may sound broad, but it makes more sense). Not everyone is going to automatically know what lives inside the “BandPage” tab. Another feature that surprisingly isn’t here but is sort of an obvious one (at least to me) is a connection between Facebook events and the artist/band’s own events – it seems only logical to me to use a very well known and oft-used feature like this one and tie it in. Even if only as an addition to the ‘Add show’ feature. Either way, the results will be truly amazing (see example). I almost feel bad that I’m not a musician – I wish I could make such a cool page. To be honest though, just seeing a service such as RootMusic gives me hope of seeing more innovative things on Facebook. If they do it for the music space, then someone can surely create a fan page editing service for just about … well, anything. Then we wouldn’t have to work so hard in order to create our own pages, and we would have so many more options to choose from.      
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| Staying Credulous: On Not Letting Being 40 Get In The Way Posted: 27 Jun 2010 01:46 AM PDT
But one thing I am very aware of is my growing skepticism of some of the crazy startup ideas I see. Five years ago when I started TechCrunch I still had real enthusiasm for any entrepreneur trying to build a company. I know from experience that starting companies is psychologically hard, even in the U.S. There are always lots of critics to tear you down. Sometimes all an entrepreneur needs is a few credulous people willing to say that they have a chance. That gives them the psychological boost they need to fight on for another day. I have always been that guy, looking for the positive in any startup situation. Even if you fail you’ve just had the best on the job training possible. Paul Graham says it best: “So, paradoxically, if you’re too inexperienced to start a startup, what you should do is start one. That’s a way more efficient cure for inexperience than a normal job. In fact, getting a normal job may actually make you less able to start a startup, by turning you into a tame animal who thinks he needs an office to work in and a product manager to tell him what software to write.” There is some evidence that the most successful entrepreneurs are 40 or older. I don’t believe that. Or rather, it may be that statistically a startup founded by someone over 40 will be more likely to “win” financially than one started by a 20 year old. But nearly everything that is really disruptive is created by someone too young to know that they never had a chance of winning. So they blindly charge ahead, and they win. The companies that shape our culture – Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, etc. – are almost always started in a dorm room. These are the companies that matter in the long run. It’s so easy to look at a startup and think of the ten startups before that tried to solve the same problem and failed. In fact, most startups look sort of dumb in the really early stages, mostly because if they were so obviously going to win then someone would have likely jumped in already. Like I said, you have to stay credulous to believe. The wisdom that comes with experience seems like such a valuable asset to have. You have advice that people should listen to, you think, as you smirk condescendingly at the kid with the big idea and no clue what terrible obstacles stand between her and success. I sometimes feel that skepticism creeping into my thinking when I look at a new idea being presented by an eager and innocent young entrepreneur. It’s a relatively recent thing, and I want to stamp it out like a cancer. There’s no room in my world for that kind of nonsense. Who am I to tell someone that they can’t change the world? I say fight on. And if you fail I’ll give you a solid fist bump and tell you to get back on the horse, or whatever the saying is, and try again. Because you’re going to get it right, whether it’s this startup or another one. So please call me on it if you see me starting to act my age. I don’t mind being 40 at all – life definitely gets better as you get older and you figure out what’s really important. But I want to look at startups with the same eager and innocent anticipation that I did when I was 25. Even when I’m 80.      
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| When Social Media Becomes The Message: The Gulf Oil Spill And @BPGlobalPR Posted: 26 Jun 2010 09:43 PM PDT Nearly everyone has something to say about BP’s oil spill, and from a public relations perspective, the company is floundering. Both its stock price and brand value have taken a deepwater dive, and it is struggling to make its own voice heard. When you Google “BP PR” or “BP public relations,” the top organic result is @BPGlobalPR, a parody account on Twitter with more than 175,000 followers. In contrast, BP’s official account, @BP_America, has only 15,000 followers. The satirical @BPGlobalPR is dominating the online conversation. It is an object lesson in how social media can shape and control a company’s message during a crisis. The fake account has gone viral for its scathing impersonations of the company with tweets like:
Some people think it is real. BP initially wanted to shut down the sardonic account, but Twitter’s policy allows for parody accounts, so long as they don’t mislead or deceive. BP demanded the impostor rewrite his bio, and he did, but not without commentary: “We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 52 days.” It’s since reverted to the original “This page exists to get BP’s message and mission statement out into the twitterverse!” While BP tried assuaging public anger with a video featuring CEO Tony Hayward apologizing into the camera and promising “we’ll make this right,” it was mostly seen as a failed public relations stunt. It was probably a good idea for Hayward to try to address the public directly, but his presentation felt forced. The video itself was highly produced and likely expensive, as were the TV commercial slots in which it aired. Meanwhile, anybody can start a Twitter account. Companies can no longer rely on buying media time to spread their message though well-produced commercials, especially when the disaster your company is responsible for is ongoing. It doesn’t help when more candid comments like Hayward’s “I’d like my life back” cast doubt on the polished message’s sincerity. Someone on Twitter or elsewhere on the Web will find ways to challenge the message, as @BPGlobalPR is doing. Even mainstream news organizations that are watched by non-tweeters have reported the buzz around the satire account. Of course, BP’s attempts to bolster its image go well beyond TV spots. BP also bought paid search terms on several search engines to promote their official site. All of these PR efforts, totalling $50 million by some estimates, are predictable moves to stay engaged in the social media services where BP is being most criticized. The company is using many tools, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube to spread their message. Satire aside, independent groups have set up their own sites, like BP Complaints, which chronicles oil spill news and activism. The problem isn’t a lack of involvement, it’s a lack of credibility. No amount of PR can help it at this point until it stops the leak and starts cleaning up the ocean. But while BP struggles to find its story, others are telling it for them.      
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| Decoding Microsoft’s Fantastic Passive-Agressive Numbers Post Posted: 26 Jun 2010 01:20 PM PDT
That said, I wish Shaw would just come out and say what he really means, rather than literally letting the numbers speak for themselves. Sure, most major company executives will never directly call out their rivals in such a public forum. But as we’ve seen recently with things like Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Thought On Flash, speaking more directly about an issue can rally your base. (And, to be clear, Jobs wasn’t as straightforward and frank as he could have been either.) But again, most execs will only be passive-aggressively confrontational. So let’s decode what Shaw really means with his numbers:
What he really means: While our rivals are getting all the hype in the press, and people keep blogging about us “dying”, we’re selling 7 copies of our OS every second. Keep this number in mind when you read the next group of stats.
What he really means: Remember that 150 million number? Yeah, the iPad can suck it. And about the iPad and netbooks killing the PC — I have 355 million reasons why that’s not happening anytime soon. Did I mention we’ve sold 150 million licenses for those PCs?
What he really means: And if netbooks do kill the PC, we’re set there too. Chrome OS? That’s vaporware so far. Come talk to me when they have one tenth of our 96% share. Or any share, for that matter.
What he really means: Google and Salesforce get all the cloud hype, but look what we’ve done in a short amount of time. And and all those stats you read about Google making inroads in school with their cloud office stuff? We’re the ones gettin lucky in Kentucky.
What he really means: Netflix is great, people love them and we love them too (CEO Reed Hastings is our favorite Board member) — but we’re bigger. Sure, these are two totally different things, but who cares? And while everyone is busy talking about the death of newspapers, we’re actually bigger than they are — combined. Again, that doesn’t really mean anything, but still: bigger.
What he really means: Office dying? Yeah…
What he really means: We took a risk jumping into a business dominated by one player and have grabbed a lot of people over to our side. Sure, what we were doing before wasn’t working, but this is proof we can pivot. Percentages, schmurcentages: 21.4 million. One year.
What he really means: Remember when everyone was saying Linux was going to take over the market? They’re going the wrong way.
What he really means: iPhone this, iPhone that — shut up. That phone has a small percentage of the overall market. Why don’t you yap about Nokia?At least they’re big time. I don’t even have anything to say here about Microsoft, just shut up about the iPhone already.
What he really means: Salesforce talks more shit about us than anyone. With all that shit-talking, you’d think they were kicking our ass, right? Not exactly. It took us much less time to build up a massive user base doing what they do. Benioff is obsessed with us, but we’re not losing any sleep over him.
What he really means: Gmail? Oh, that online email service with half the users that we have? Yeah, I think I’ve heard of that. We have more Live Messenger users than they have email users. And here’s a Yahoo stat too just so you don’t think I only care about comparing us to Google.
What he really means: Sure, Apple passed us in market cap. That means nothing. You know what matters? Making money. You know what matter even more than that? The money you can keep. Income. Apple and Google are doing great — we have more income than they do combined. That’s not 5 years ago, that’s not 10 years ago. That’s right now. And you know how everyone is bashing our CEO, saying that he has to go? Look at the numbers when he started versus where we are now. Yep, he’s more than doubled revenue. Other companies can only dream of being so “stagnant.”      
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| FCC Endorses Skype, Tweets That People Should Use It Posted: 26 Jun 2010 12:37 PM PDT Skype continues to get lots of love from random sources. Last week Google was dropping Skype into translations about free calling, although they later said it was an error. But there’s no question about this endorsement of Skype by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. They suggest people use VoIP providers like Skype when traveling to avoid heavy mobile fees: “Use VoIP, like @skype, to avoid excess international charges on your cell phone bill. For more http://bit.ly/bDXABN #FCCworldtravel” In the linked blog post the FCC also spreads the love around a little, adding links to Fring and Truephone. Appropriate? Nope. But why stop there? We think the FCC should give people handy tips on free news services to avoid those outrageous print media subscription fees as well. And heck, we’re even a U.S. company paying U.S. taxes. How about a Twitter message from the FCC that endorses TechCrunch? /sarcasm      
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| First Impressions: Viliv N5 Ultra Mini Mobile PC Posted: 26 Jun 2010 10:15 AM PDT  Viliv is at it again. This time around the Korean manufacturer is going after the clamshell market with the N5. The self-described Ultra Mini Mobile PC is really just that -- a truly mobile PC. This form factor isn't exactly new as I just looked at the main competitor, the UMID mbook bz, just a few months back so I'm actually curious if the N5 brings anything novel to the niche market. I've only had the handheld for a few hours now so what follows are simply my first impressions. I'll post a full review once I put some serious time in with the device. These type of devices sometimes take a while to appreciate and understand so it's not exactly fair to judge its potential right out of the box. Anywho, click through for a few pros, cons, and pics -- including comparisons against the mbook bz.
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Now, go to 
I turned 40 in March. I didn’t think of it much, and I don’t plan on buying a convertible sports car or otherwise engaging in a mid life crisis. These age milestones just aren’t as meaningful for most men as they are for some women. Besides, I still have the maturity level of an average teenager.
Yesterday, Microsoft communications head 
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