Salesforce.com Buys Radian6

The social media fishbowl is buzzing today with the news that Salesforce.com bought Radian6 for a large chunk of change. It's a shame that a Canadian suitor didn't step in, but it's nice to see a company north of the border do very well in this space. Hats off to the team, well done.

Reminds me of the time way back in 2008 when I put CEO Marcel LeBrun to the test. A pretty speedy reply considering he was speaking at a Third Tuesday Toronto event that night. Kudos!

You Will Fail, Loser!

A large percentage of tweets/blog posts are of the kind, "5 Reasons Why Your Blog Will Fail," or "10 Mistakes In Your Sales Pitch," etc. Pretty disheartening, right?

I always check who the author is of such finality. My blog is not the most-read prose in the world, but it's nice to think that some people have got good advice from it, or learned something. I make a few bucks off Google ads, big deal. It's not updated every day, granted, but I'm trying to rectify that. It makes me happy to write it.

Have I failed? F**k no!

I don't believe any blog really "fails."I don't aspire to be a Chris Brogan or Danny Brown, both doing great work in their respective areas of choosing ... I aspire to write what I want, when I want and take it as it comes. No pressure.

Sometimes the less advice you read, the better you get.

I'm A Twelebrity, Tweet Me Outta Here!

I saw a very horrible word used the other day: twelebrity. Twitter + "celebrity" I am assuming. It sounds like a kid talking. Horrible.

And Three Months Later

So, Mark Evans guilted me into writing a new blog post today. Three months is a long time to let it slide, so here we are. This blog is not dead; I just like to think that quality is always better than quantity ... but do plan to be more frequent now. I love writing, and this is a great outlet for my thoughts and inspiration.

One thing I'd like to bring up is whether we are in another Web 2.0 bubble that is about to go pop. I don't use Foursquare (preferring Facebook Places) or Quora (preferring Google, my own research and friends' advice) but know that people seem to love those services ... and of course ... financial analysts and anyone else out there who value them in the $billions.

But, I always say something's only worth what someone else pays for it, so tend not to read too much into "Twitter is worth this," or "Facebook is worth that," etc. It's just all stocks, bonds, paper, investments, VC cash, angel funds and so on.

I REALLY want to see someone create a start-up, make it huge, sell it four years later for $2 billion and say, "OK, that's it, made my money, I'm off to sail my yacht around the world, good luck everyone, bye!"

What keeps them going? I assume when you make a million, then you want to make 10 million. Got that? OK -- let's try for a billion. At that point the money is kinda meaningless, it's more of a challenge to see how far you can go. Where will Google end up? Maybe they will have their own Internet one day.

I read around 80 good, solid blogs every day. It's useful to know what is happening in the social media world, for me and other people I help from time to time. I use my Twitter feed like an instant news feed. I don't care who/how many people follow me ... I get value from reading other people's tweets. I'm an information junkie with a knack for finding out certain information behind certain things. It's not hard: research and cross-referencing information is key.

Remember, as a journalist, don't trust one source alone!