7/13/2009The PKS June 2009 Beta release was a new milestone release to PKS. There have been significant feature improvements made to navigation, presentation and discoverability. Find all the detail on the PKS CodePlex site. View Podcast 
11/16/2008 Podcasting Kit for SharePoint® (PKS) is an accelerator for social media, using podcasting and social networks to deliver the next generation knowledge management solution to Microsoft customers. Built on top of Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007, Silverlight 2 and Expression 2, PKS delivers an integrated experience with a wide variety of devices including PC, Zune™, Windows Mobile phones and other podcast capable devices.
PKS October Release Key Features: · Silverlight 2 RTW Support · Integration with Office Communicator for Presence · Improved user control of podcast filtering and sorting · See the full feature list on CodePlex Links: CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/pks
PKS TwitterGroup: http://www.twitter.com/podcastingkit
Demo Site: Coming Soon Disclosure: My new role is the Product Manger for PKS with a core focus on expanding the podcasting platform with an emphasis on blending social computing with next generation knowledge management. I will be working on the roadmap and feature sets over the next several months, discussions and drafts will be hosted to CodePlex. 11/14/2008Yes, I know this is a shameless plug, but it's great to see Microsoft offer a single online destination to discover, learn, try, download and buy products from across the entire portfolio. 
Announcing the Microsoft Store – the first online store where you can purchase the full selection of Microsoft products directly from the source. Go to www.MicrosoftStore.com and find the largest selection of Microsoft software, devices and hardware. There are lots of reasons to visit the store: · Immediate software download option with the largest download catalog of Microsoft titles · Simple and secure purchase – all at your fingertips · Most up-to-date selection of and information on your favorite Microsoft products including Xbox, Zune, Office, Windows and much more www.MicrosoftStore.com 11/3/2008I'm planning to start a weekly vidcast over the next several weeks focused on reviewing the latest Social Network Services (SNS). My goal is to produce and publish one vidcast a week. I'm planning to focus on the new and emerging services that aim to provide innovation and enhance an individuals interaction with brands, peers and traditional off-line interactions.  I will aim to measure; the originality of the idea (innovation), integration with the existing socialscape, platform UX / UI and most importantly sustainability. Some of my first ideas: - Diigo.com - Social bookmaking meets social browsing & knowledge sharing
- DOPPLR - Links travel to your social networks
- TweepleTwak.com - Manage your Twitter network (where are my followers.?)
- Boxee.tv - HD Streaming TV meets community and more.
- Fonolo.com - Puts an end to frustrating phone trees.
``````````````````````````````````````````````` Looking for all other ideas of new social networking services that you think would be interesting to review as well as feedback as what you would find interesting in a 3-5 minute weekly vidcast. Please comment below or email me at ideas[at]e-winters.com 9/11/2008Yammer creates an interesting dilemma for social computing within corporations. The largest benefit of Yammer is that it allows companies to create securer internal environments in there drive to adopt Enterprise 2.0 Applications. Any user with a company email address can create / join essentially a secure Twitter network. The obvious benefit being, a private sandbox for information sharing with less risk of divulging "inside" information.  Also Yammer seems to be the first Micro-blogging platform to have an actual business model. In order for companies to customize Yammer's look and feel, set additional security parameters and select a corporate administrator companies must upgrade to the pay model at a cost of one dollar per user per month. The overall feature set of Yammer seems to have been tailored to companies, including at launch having desktop, iPhone and Blackberry platform support. Also it has incorporated user organization information and richer profile information, but this may ultimately give corporate enterprise HR heartburn. The real dilemma as I see it is that as companies push to become more connected with their customers and partners this creates a barrier to information sharing and prevents transparency. As an active user of Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms I find a huge amount of information, idea sharing and ultimately insight comes from outside the corporate walls helping to yield customer and user driven design and communications. While I certainly see and appreciate the value created by a "secure" version of Twitter, what would have been more powerful is a mesh style of network allowing users to manage multiple secure and public networks from within the same message steam and application. Twitter obviously missed the boat, it will be interesting to see there answer to Yammer. Hopefully sites like Ping.fm we help the bridge the posting problem while the aggregated stream problem is solved. 8/19/2008First ensure that you have an active Google Analytics or adCenter web analytics account. I would suggest even if you have already have an account, you setup profiles for each SharePoint site you will be tracking on the same domain. For example separate profiles for www.domain.com, blog.domain.com, and web.domain.com. Sample Google Analytics Tag: <script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXXX-3");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script> Installing the Page Tag On the page that you want to tag, edit the page and add a Content Editor Web Part. Select Modify Shared Web Part, then using the Source Editor past in the page tag. Next ensure you name the web part for example "Google Analytics Web Part" and under layout check the hidden box. Select OK and publish page. <Process completed for tracking a single page> Create Page Tag Web Part Select the Web Part you just created and choose export, it will save the web part as a *.dwp file. Next import the web part, you will then be able to add the web part to each page you wish to tag via the Web Part Gallery. 
Site Wide Page Tags Edit your master pages and embed the Page Tag Web Part onto the page. Suggest you use a separate zone. Additional Notes I have tested this with Google Analytics, and think it's a safe assumption that Web Trends, Omniture and other script based web analytics tools will function the same way, but additional testing is certainly needed. Alternative Approach It's possible to edit the pages you wish to tag using SharePoint designer, inserting the tag directly into the code, but this is not recommended as it will break the link the the Master Page as soon as the tracking code is inserted. 8/17/2008I discovered this Podcast (Radio Program + Blog) a few weeks ago and have become absolutely addicted.  Nora Young hosts weekly conversations (interviews) on how technology, with an emphasis on the social technologies are impacting nearly every facet of our lives. Her guests provide thought provoking insights into topics varying from "Micro Celebs" and their online brands to how social networking / media are morphing the way we think about location.
Can't wait for the new shows to begin next month. Blog - Spark | CBC Radio Twitter - SparkCBC  Podcast RSS Feed
8/15/2008Great resource complied by Chris Brogan. Make sure you check out the comments for even more eBooks. My favorite so far is: Social Web Analytics by Philip Sheldrake Thanks again for taking the time to compile the list. Happy Reading! 20 Free eBooks About Social Media | chrisbrogan.com 7/15/2008 Coming soon to an Xbox 360 near you, users will be able to stream movie rentals from Netflix continue to play and browse personal media (video and pictures) from across ones home network, listen to music from Zune's subscription based service and last but certainly not least game from the comfort of ones living room.
In a deal announced at E3 Media and Business Summit this week, beginning in the fall Netflix subscribers will be able to stream movies directly from Netflix to their TV's via the Xbox 360. This deal is equally important to both Microsoft and Netflix. Netflix has been testing streaming movies and TV shows for the past 18 months and until the recent announcement of the Roku streaming set top box users were forced to watch the streaming movies via their laptops or desktops. This deal now gives Netflix expanded reach to stream directly to the TV (presumably in HD, if supported) as well as continued support for Roku and its primary by mail business. For Microsoft this represents a substantial opportunity to continue to substantiate the Xbox as a true digital living room experience. Between the Netflix announcement, Media Center Capabilities, and Zune integration this is a winning combination for the Xbox. Netflix will replace Xbox's current movie download and rental offering on the Xbox today. Looking forward to the fall release. Maybe next Microsoft will support movie rentals from Netflix on the Zune.  In what seems to be the never ending race to reinvent the micro-blogging platform, with services such as Twtter, Plurk, Brightkite, and Identi just to name a few. Ping.fm has found a niche and developed a solid innovation.
As a result of the rapid expansion of platforms providing support for micro-blogging, status updates and short messages, the market has become amazingly fragmented. Users are often forced to visit several sites, posting similar messages to ensure they are able to connect with their ever increasingly complex personal networks. Ping.fm offers users an easy way to update all their networks with a single click or select just a single network. The user interface for both the mobile and web sites are refreshingly simple, with one purpose in mind, allowing users a simple time saving way to update their networks. I also find it highly refreshing that Ping has made concerted efforts to drive feature expansion focused on its core offering such as custom triggers, automatic URL shortening and expanding the number of sites users can post updates to rather than tying to utilize the feed information to create its own micro-blogging platform. This is demonstrated by the fact that Ping only stores (or at least makes them visible) a users past 25 messages. Whether you are using one or multiple social networking platforms Ping will simplify your social networking experience. |
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Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.
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