Well I’m not 100% sure if it’s in the same tier as beer when it comes to the hierarchy of needs, but being on Alltop.com is pretty effing bad ass. And check this out - I’m listed twice on Alltop.com. Once under life.alltop.com and once under twitterati.alltop.com (apparently my irreverent drunk tweets are amusing to some)! What can I say? (In reality I stole Guy Kawasaki’s Glock from him and demanded the listing, but it’s the results that count, right??) Alltop.com is a virtual magazine rack, where you can choose from a huge variety of topics and get a quick scan of the content from each source by just hovering over your interest. So go check out Alltop.com now!

In any case, Guy quickly got up into a crane stance and deftly kicked the gun from my hands and pointed it back at me. He told me I better put up some Alltop.com badges!! While I cannot hold a candle to the badges created by the Bloggess, I was nevertheless inspired.

Eat your heart out Guy!

Ok, fellow peeps, tweeps, lurkers and whoever else out there on da Interwebz - April 3, 2008 is officially Good People Day!

I could not possibly compile a list of all the awesome people out there in my life and my new and quickly growing social media friends on Twitter and other networks, since it would crash Firefox from taking up terabytes of memory! Gary Vaynerchuk, the most awesome host of Wine Library TV, came up with the idea for Good People Day (see the video below calling us to action!). It’s all about spreading the love and positive karma. For me, this includes all my tweeps and fellow twitterati, all my fantastic social network friends, and many nameless people that hang out in the numerous IRC channels and lend help to those like me who often cry out for it when we can’t get something to work. Gary is truly a role model for this spirit of helping and generosity. He literally answers hundreds of emails and tweets a day to people he doesn’t even know who ask about wine. Just the other day I was asking him advice via a tweet about a certain 1997 Merryvale Profile and whether I should drink or cellar it. His direct message to me within minutes, “DRINK IT.” This is at 10:41pm his time on a Saturday night! How much love is that? And he doesn’t know me from Adam other than as a fellow twitterati (though you certainly don’t have to be a top twitterati to get a quick response from him!).

So I’m sending out much love and positive karma to all those who save my bacon and otherwise lend a helping hand, and to those who follow me on twitter, read my blog or have any interest in what I have to say. This goes to all my close friends, family and total strangers (whom I hope to meet someday at a tweetup or meet up or camp)! Try not to complain or be negative and extend the golden rule to the maximum to everyone you interact with, on line or off. I vote we make April 3 Good People Day every year!

PASS IT ON and keep showing the love!

The guys at Common Craft have done it again. Trying to explain to people what twitter is is pointless. They look at me like I’m growing two heads. I’ll admit, when I first heard about it, I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. Now, however, things are different. Very different. I’m a non-stop twittering machine! I find it serves a social purpose and a business purpose. It helps you develop the brand that is you, and keeps friends posted on what is going on in your life. Likewise, it allows you keep up with others whom you may find interesting. You may be following someone with which you share interests, or someone who’s an expert in a field of interest. Perhaps you want to follow an up to the minute news source or a presidential candidate. It also can notify followers of updates to your blog as well as update your blog with your tweets (twitter messages are called tweets) in real time (see Nanoblog in the right column). Enough of my piss poor explanation - on with the video!

Business Week has re-released its original story about the importance of Social Media (i.e., blogs). This time, many of the predictions and facts are annotated with updated information snippets. It is certainly an interesting re-read to see how far we’ve come!

So, my Dad asks me, “What the hell is a blog anyway?” I found this great video, courtesy of Common Craft, explaining blogs in plain English. If you don’t see the video below, you can view it directly at http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs.