TypePad this week rolled out a new commenting platform that can be integrated into virtually any blog. They also added profiles. I have incorporated both here. This now brings threaded discussions to the blog and also - if you're registered with TypePad - the ability to reply by email. This will allow me to respond to your comments more frequently than I have in the past.

• 15 Tips for Writing Effective Email | ThinkSimpleNow.com
  (tags: Email writing Tips)
• Yahoo! Glue - all you need, all in one place.
  Great to see Yahoo innovating - "Get great images, videos, articles, and more all on one page."
  (tags: yahoo aggregation Search)
• 13 Ways Social Media Can Improve Your Career | davefleet.com
  (tags: Web2.0 socialmedia careers)
• Good blogging is simple: Write good posts (and be thankful) » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
  (tags: blogs writing Tips)
• The Flack: PR Week's NEXT Conference
  Summary of Wednesday's conference
  (tags: PRWeek events PR Trends blego)
• End Of An Era: Boston's Out Of Town News To Shutter - InformationWeek
  Newsstands are starting to shutting down because of online readership. Maybe I should revise my 2014 bet.
  (tags: Trends print Magazines Newspapers media Journalism mediagreen)
• HOW TO: Market to Bloggers According to Timothy Ferriss
  Best advice ever - and common sense. The message for PR people, increasingly, is be seen and build relationships. This is something we do really really well. However, it also helped Tim that he uses the same tools we do.
  (tags: PR socialmedia Marketing Blogs timferriss)
• Case Study: Ford’s Approach to Social Media | Altitude Branding
  Great interview with Scott Monty. Don't miss the part at the end about how Ford measures.
  (tags: CaseStudies ROI socialmedia PR marketing autos Ford)
• Setup Firefox To Use Minimal Screen Estate
  I love posts like these that help me do more with less. It's why I read blogs. Great tips for netbook lovers.
  (tags: Firefox netbooks simplicity Tips)
• Do You Ever Do Any Real Work?
  Fred Wilson on the ROI of blogging.
  (tags: Marketing blog ROI Measurement)

If you haven't seen it, Darren Rowse has a great new blog about Twitter called TwiTip. This week he and his followers interviewed me about how I started using the service, how I Tweet today and what companies who want to engage on Twitter should do. I won't steal his thunder, but want to share an excerpt here on a potential business model and where Twitter will be in five years time ...

If you were on the management of Twitter how would you monetize Twitter? (or would you) - question from @sachendra

It seems to me that Twitter is sitting on cash. It just needs to unlock the value. One way is through insights. I bet marketers would pay for advanced insights on what people are saying/doing. The other is through contextual search. Twitter should do a deal with Google or Yahoo to put pay-per-click ads on all the permalink tweet pages and then share the revs with users. The other idea is to monetize search.twitter.com, also with contextual ads. I think the only reason they’re delaying this is to make sure they don’t alienate their community. That’s the biggest risk they face.

Is Twitter just a passing fad or will it still exist in 5 years? How do you see Twitter evolving? - question from @AnitaBruzzese and @justcreative

I have been a participant and observer of online communities since 1988 - that’s 20 years. There’s no community where I am spending time today that was not born in the last five years. If I think back to what I used over the years it spans from Compuserve to AOL to GeoCities to Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed today. No community has ever had staying power. TIme will tell if Twitter can break the trend. I don’t see a moat there yet.

Further, they’re at risk at becoming just infrastructure as people interface with the site through all of the other ports, most notably, apps, Facebook and Friendfeed. I hope I am wrong. Five years may not be a timeframe long enoughf for change.

• Being Peter Kim: A List of Social Media Marketing Examples
  The most useful page on the web - and continually updated too.
  (tags: CaseStudies socialmedia PR marketing Web2.0 Advertising)
• LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
  "Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today"
  (tags: Google images Search Magazines history)
• Report: Millennials Will Route Around IT Departments - ReadWriteWeb
  Fascinating study: "older Millennials still spend around 9.5 hours a week writing and receiving work-related emails, younger Millennials in the workforce only spend about 7.7 hours on email"
  (tags: millennials culture Trends socialsoftware SocialNetworking workplace Email Web2.0 geny)

Image Credit: HP 2133 Mini-Note PC

Over the last few weeks I have been curiously studying the rise of netbooks - which could become this year's breakout category. As of this writing, six of the top ten laptops on Amazon's bestseller list are netbooks.

Since February I have been a dedicated Macbook Air user. I love the weight of the machine but have issues, particularly with the loud fan and heat. A chronic craver of all things new and shiny, I have been resitsting the emotional pull of netbooks, but I still may get one anyway. Hugh's account of the Dell Mini 9 didn't help. So far, I am resisting. (Note: Edelman, my employer, represents HP - a netbook manufacturer.)

When I can, I increasingly try to look at these technology trends in a more detached way without emotion and with greater reasoning. I am wondering if the netbook truly is a breakout category that's here to stay or something that's a stopgap. Is the category going to stick or is it just that smartphones are unsuitable for certain tasks and traditional notebooks are now serving the role desktops once did? Or is it that rising use of web applications reducing our day-to-day needs for a powerful computer? Further, then there's the recession. Why buy a laptop when you can get 90% of what you need from a $500 netbook and keep your old computer running a few more years?

Ultimately, what holds me back from jumping into the netbook fray is the size of the keyboard and screen. Jeff Atwood calls netbooks portable web browsers. However, I fear that the limited resolution may give rise to an entire new class of web sites much like the iPhone did when it launched last year.

What's your view of the netbook craze? Have you jumped in? Weigh in with a comment.

• Conversation Agent: Why Start a Blog and 25 Tips to Make it Work
  (tags: Blogs tips)
• Poll: In the US when will tangible media become extinct?
  "Never, you're crazy Steve" is winning.
  (tags: anotherview media Trends)
• Will All Media Go Digital By 2014? | Six Pixels of Separation - Mitch Joel
  Fair point: "We all drink from the same water cooler, and it's important to not fall into the, 'I haven't bought a magazine in two years... so everyone else will stop too,' line of thinking."
  (tags: media Trends anotherview)
• Mashable: The Death of Tangible Media is a Little Murky
  I am going to start linking to people who have another point of view on the topics I have covered. Here's one from Mark.
  (tags: Trends media anotherview)
• Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know - Telegraph
  (tags: obama politics barackobama)
• Creativity: Twyla Tharp on Creativity, Failure, and Money
  "Being creative for the sake of admiration and recognition is different than being creative simply because you want to make something"
  (tags: creativity failure twylatharp inspiration success)
• Malcolm Gladwell asks is there such a thing as pure genius? | Books | The Guardian
  Another book to add to my list.
  (tags: books deliberatepractice excellence talent Ideas)
• Blog Content Influences Consumer Buying Behavior - Search Engine Watch (SEW)
  "50% of blog readers say they find blogs useful for purchase information"
  (tags: blogs stats Marketing SocialNetworking Search)

• Majority of Kids Are Computer Savvy
  "An overwhelming majority (89%) of all kids age 6-11 in the US spend at least some time doing online activities"
  (tags: kids stats)
• Survey: Online Marketers Say Digital Spending To Fall 10% To 20% In 2009 - Advertising Age
  "the industry's confusion over measurement is preventing marketers from accurately forecasting the market"
  (tags: Advertising Stats 2009)

Rolfe Schewe sent me a heads-up on Twitter tonight that Google Profiles now has added photo streaming. All you need to do is point Google toward Picasa, Flickr or any other photo sharing service that supports feeds and it will pull in your public photos. Here's my profile. (Also, if you haven't verified your Google Profile as I have below you might want to follow these instructions.)

Google keeps adding features to these profiles. Recently, they made them searchable. This is clearly a not-so-stealth social networking site being built right before our eyes. But I am wondering if they will turn this into a lifestreaming site that competes with Friendfeed. Keep an eye on this space.

I want to make a bet with you today. By January 2014 I will wager that in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. I am not just talking about print, but all tangible forms of media - newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games.

Don't believe me? Consider the following news items, all of which broke in the last month ...

• Microsoft (an Edelman client) yesterday opened up a store to sell all of its software online for immediate download (November 13)
• Apple is selling record numbers of downloadable games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This is attracting publishers because the lack of physical media is better economically for both consumers and video game creators (November 12)
• Oprah sparked a deluge of traffic when she endorsed the Amazon Kindle as the next big thing (November 3)
• Lots of alternatives are emerging for ebooks including the iPhone (November 3)
  
• Microsoft is set to open up the XBox 360 to user-generated games on November 19, all of which will only be available via download - there will be no DVDs (October 30)
• Netlfix is making its catalogue available over the Internet and on set-top boxes like the XBox 360 and soon TiVo (October 30)
• The Christian Science Monitor said it is folding its daily print edition in favor of moving it online (October 28)

Finally, if you need further proof, when was the last time you bought a CD? Exactly. For me it was back in 2003. I haven't purchased a newspaper in at least two years and the number of people who I see toting them on my morning train have declined too. I canceled my last print subscription this month and I am now living 100% "media green." Also I recently signed up for Safari Books Online and I am liking it a lot, though it's pricey and their iPhone client needs a lot of work.

We're moving fast toward becoming a society that consumes media entirely in digital format. Part of it is environmental, but a lot of it is because of broadband and connected devices. Now of course it will take a long long time for this to become a global phenomenon. But in the US at least, the pace has picked up a lot just in the last few months. Further, with the very green-aware millennials set to become the dominant demographic in the US by 2010 I would expect you will see even more of this.

So what do you think? Participate in the poll below. (Feed readers will need to click through)