A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak on the phone with John Saddington, AKA Mr. Human3rror. It was odd, though hardly coincidental, that he had gotten in touch with me only a day after I had spoken to my fiancee about feeling the need to get in touch with him.

Though neither John nor I knew what it was that we needed to speak about, we made certain that there was time set aside for that call because it was destined to be important.

God works that way, sometimes. Continue reading »

I once counted how many blogs I’ve “started” in my lifetime and it was something ludicrous and somewhat embarrassing. Thankfully, I can’t remember (and perhaps it really doesn’t matter).

As you already know, we’ve recently launched 3 new blogs in the 8BIT Network and trust us when we say that we’re not done yet. All of them have been doing fantastic so far (per our metrics and goals) and we can probably say with a little bit of confidence that we have an idea of how to start a new blog off right.

We’re no experts though, but here are 5 tips for starting a new blog from someone who’s done it a lot:

Continue reading »

We’ve all had that “moment.” You know what I’m talking about; where a more “famous” person on the internet drops you a retweet or re-blogs some of your content or makes note of your existence. A sudden rush of awesomesauce rolls through your mind and pink butterflies start appearing on your desktop and ideas of internet-stardom creep into your soul.

Or maybe that was just me.

Keeping it all in perspective is a struggle we all must deal with; it’s far too easy to become famous on the internet and the “value” of it is just as close to zero as it is in the real world. And yes, there’s little we can do at times.

But, the significant difference between us, as followers of Christ, and the rest of the world is what we do with our platform; creating amazing value for other people and making the world a better place should be at the top of the line.

How have you reacted or responded to internet fame?

Many of us know Chris Brogan and his accomplishments as well as the authority that he brings to the social media landscape. His new book Trust Agents (affiliate link) is acclaimed already being named a Top 10 from Amazon.

What’s fascinating is that he could probably build a “church” better than most of us. If we we’re to take out the spiritual-side of things, Chris has got it in the bag. And to a certain degree, he’s even said it himself.

It’s because Chris has managed to discover what his true gifts are and then has also managed to use them effectively to move people strategically. He understand how an effective platform can be wisely executed and how to manage and leverage people’s passions. He’s a genius at rallying people together physically (just Google “Podcamp” to learn more) and making the gathering’s not about him but them.

I’ve never started a church and God knows that I’d be terrible at it. But, if I were to start one, if I felt lead and called to do that, I’d probably borrow just as much (and perhaps a bit more in some areas) from Chris than from a lot of spiritual leaders today.

Just being honest.

[Image from Chris Garrison]

Above is probably one of the best and most fair presentations of some of the basic elements underlying Google’s new Wave Platform for email and real time communication.

I’ve been a bit hesitant to blog about it. Instead, I wanted to hear what the rest of the world was weighing in on it before I made a jump into the shark-infested waters of early-blah-blah-blah’ing of a new tech.

Here are my thoughts…

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This is somewhat of a rant more than anything so read at your own leisure (or caution) and with some earmuffs.

The last 24 (or so) hours have been relatively sleepless as I’ve been experimenting with JS-Kit’s new ECHO commenting system. Although it started out so well it quickly has burned down in flaming glory of fail.

The installation was probably the best part about the entire experience, which is pretty sad. If you want to hear about my experience you may continue, otherwise, go read something better.

Here’s what went wrong:

Continue reading »

I’m experimenting with JS-Kit’s new commenting system ECHO. I’m going to be doing some tests to see what it’s all about, so if you see some weirdness well now you know.

I’ve also purchased the “Pro” edition ($12/year) to see how that rolls as well.

Since I’ve got “a lot of comments” on this blog it requires that I get them to do some of the importing of past comments.

Let me know your thoughts as well!

Ah, it’s like a real digi-battle!

As Disqus announces some vast improvements to their commenting platform, IntenseDebate answers with Retweet capabilities built right in…!

Looks sweet and is definitely a huge win for ID commenting system. The Retweet is the new awesome-sauce of the internet.

Like I said, I love competition.

Really? Really?

Can Disqus, the unique commenting system (that I apparently don’t think too highly of because I don’t use it here) is touting that their v3 is going to have real-time functionality…!

Ouch! My heart…! IntenseDebate, where is your answer…? Check out the video:

One thing is for sure… I love competition.

Facebook is making me rethink a lot about how the Church needs to engage the world wide web; in fact, it’s really challenging some very foundational paradigms about strategy, tools, and platforms that I have.

And that’s a good thing.

I have spoken explicitly about how a tool is not a strategy and I still stand there strong. Facebook, at the end of the day, is still a platform and tool in the much larger and global webs space, and yet as it grows larger and is used by more and more people the edges will begin to bleed.

But in terms of search and relevancy of return on information, Facebook is becoming more and more like Google and is challenging the behemoth for utility. You see, the best tool in terms of those aformentioned items is the one that gets the best (and most relevant) information the fastest and as more and more people are hanging out in Facebook the more data is going to be stored there and the more search is going to become highlighted.

If this is the case then more and more time needs to be spent cultivating a strategy of engagement that includes Facebook as a foundational “search” tool, just like we all think about our search ranking through Google and organic returns.

This article in Wired is spot-on with some of the tensions and it’s definitely worth a very good read; in fact, I highly recommend you read it because it helps establish the framework of thinking that’ll be critical in your future (or current) efforts in the online ministry space.

A quote from it:

For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google’s algorithms—rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg’s vision, users will query this “social graph” to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire—rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search.

It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where Google is now.

Yes, it’s very, very true.

What are your thoughts?

[Image from Robert, Facebook Logo added by ChurchCrunch]