Palm Pre to Sync with iTunes?

I was just reading Matt Rosoff's Digital Noise blog over at cnet about the Palm Pre possibly working with iTunes:
Palm's music strategy: Use iTunes.

Pretty interesting strategy and I would be curious if it took off if other handset makers or mobile OS developers would consider following suit. Although I think that Matt's comment that Apple might squash these plans might be more likely than normal.

And for those who don't stay on top of the wild world of smartphone news, here's a short video demo of the Palm Pre

Interesting Safeway Generic Soda Branding

World Wide Tribe

A friend and alumni of my MBA program shared this on Facebook. It's a TED presentation from this past February by Seth Godin. His main point is that "the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so." Check it out:



Purchase Seth's books on ALL for Books and help raise money for Adele's Literacy Library!

Twondering about Twitter

So I've been playing with Twitter since starting my EDGE project with Adele's Literacy Library. So far my teammate has had more success with the account that he set up specifically for the store. But we're still trying to grow a following, and specifically a following that can help us mobilize action to get traffic moving to the ALL for Books webstore and in turn both increase donations of books and Amazon referral commissions which of course both benefit Adele's organization.

I still haven't quite figured out exactly how Twitter works or what the magic potion is to increasing your followers and in turn their help in evangelizing for you in the Twittersphere about your organization and what you are doing. Sure I've read a number of "Twitter Advice" pieces Moonlight Creative had a pretty good one earlier in April. But still, I'm (t)wondering if maybe Twitter, like many Internet (both "Web 1.0" and "Web 2.0") phenoms gets more credit for it's small amounts of success stories because it's simply new (or at least you'd think so from the mainstream media attention in the last couple of months) and since the late 90's (or further back if you count the people who never bought Amazon, Google, Apple or Microsoft stock before they became the powerhouses they are) people don't want to miss out on the "next big thing."

I'd be interested to hear what other people think. Meanwhile, enjoy a funny clip about said media frenzy, courtesy of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Twitter Frenzy
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Saving the best for last...

I've had a lot of great experiences since starting business school in the fall of 2007. Meeting a great group of new friends/colleagues, working on challenging and interesting projects/assignments, and moving my career path forward have all been some of the highlights of the last year and a half.

But it wasn't until this quarter, my final quarter of business school, that I think I've found my favorite project yet.

I am taking a class called EDGE which focuses on ways that businesses can use social media and web 2.0 tools to help innovate and compete in a global market. Our professor started a unique partnership with Amazon.com last year, allowing student groups to set up, promote, and run Amazon WebStores. The goal would also be to generate revenues from the Amazon WebStore "commission" system which could be donated to a charity of our choice. So when my group started talking about this project we thought - why not take this model to the next level?

We found a great charity called Adele's Literacy Library. Not only is the focus of this organization fantastic (helping people of all ages learn to read and feel empowered through the joys of reading), but it is the vision of a 13-year-old girl, Adele Ann Taylor, who started the organization last year. We figured, why not start a WebStore that not only generated money for our charity - but actually helped the charity deliver on it's objective. In Adele's Literacy Library's case, we allow people to purchase new books to send to Adele so she can in turn donate them to schools and other organizations in need.

Not only has this project been exciting, but it has been amazing to work with a young person with such compassion and vision. And in economic times like these, it's great to see people as young as Adele showing us that the next generation understands the power and positivity of social responsibility and community action.

So please check out our store - http://allforbooks.amazonwebstore.com - and let us know what you think!

More to come soon!