Dvir Reznik | The (old) Blog

Archive Page 90

The 4 p.m break

Published May 20, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: comedy, heroes, madtv, parody, youtube

You nay know the feeling, especially if you’re working until late in the evening…
4 p.m is always a barrier, between the active lunch and the less active afternoon… when people are starting to leave and you have some time to read emails/browse the web/reed feeds/watch videos (circle your choice). I read that YouTube have some 100m videos watched each day. 100m, each day. That’s a lot. and that the average user is staying for 16-17 min on the site, meaning he’s watching several videos, not just one.

In one of those random visits I had to YouTube I came across this funny Heroes parody, from MADtv. Apparently Madtv (like SNL) produce parodies as part of the show, and you can find other videos in the related section at YouTube. So, for my 4 p.m break, and yours, I give you Heroes parody. ENJOY!

Here’s the link..

Viral Marketing 101 from Warner Bros

Published May 20, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: batman, marketing, viral, warnerbros

Taking advantage of the current user-created content era isn’t easy, but if you know how to make this world work for you – you’re home free.

Warner Bros are promoting the next Batman movie, dubbed ‘The Dark Knight‘.
With all the latest buzz relating SpiderMan 3, the people over at Warner needed to do something different, that would create a new buzz, and would bring many Batman fans to spread out the word. They first build a site, with only a poster of the movie.

If you clicked the image, you came to another site, again, with only 1 graphic.

Pronet Advertising already posted about it, and I won’t repeat stuff that I read at colleagues, so you can read the rest of the viral marketing lesson at their blog.

Web 2.0 for Big Blue (aka ‘the Enterprise’)

Published May 15, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: collaboration, ibm, lotus connections, sametime, web20

I attended a semi education today, held by IBM’s GTU, part of their quarterly relationship events with the developers community. The education was titled ‘Web 2.0 for the Enterprise‘, and featured a lecture by David Boloker (Strategy CTO, Emerging Internet Technology, IBM SW Group) and a live demo by Vova Soroka (Senior Manager, Collaboration Technologies, IBM Haifa Research Labs).
David talked a bit about Web 2.0 technologies, especially the implications for the enterprise and how IBM is putting it to use, using the recently announced Lotus Connections. I’ve heard David in the past, at a recent Lotus event 3-4 months ago, and his insights are always current and up-to-date.
The second half of the education was a live demo by Vova Soroka. Vova and his team followed-up on David’s introduction to web 2.0 technologies (ajax, rss, web-services, mushups, wikis, etc) and took the audience through IBM’s web 2.0 tools:

Fringe (enhanced employee directory)
Connections (a shared, browser-based workspace)
SameTime SONAR plug-in (IBM internal IM with a ‘popularity’ plug-in that analyzes your interactions and scores your buddy list)
and a new QEDWiki platform, that’s available for download at IBM’s alphaWorks site.

I’m not a developer, so I won’t get into the technical details of each tool, but I will say that it has been an eye opener for me. I consider myself an early adopter, and like to test beta versions of different internal IBM softwares, but the possibilities of web 2.0 for the enterprise are endless. Especially if you’re working at IBM… 😉

You can see a video of Rod Smith from IBM, on ‘Mushing up Business Value with Web 2.0’, from the recent Web 2.0 Expo, held this April in San Francisco. You can access some of the sessions’ material over at the presentations archive.
Also, a 9 minute demo of QEDWiki:

Can’t see the video? click here.

Conan visits Intel HQ in Santa Clara

Published May 14, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: conan, intel, late night, obrien, video, visit

Many of you probably seen Late Night with Conan O’brien, broadcasting from San Francisco 2 weeks ago. The shows were pretty awesome, with front-line, SF own guests, like Dana Carvey, George Lucas, Robin Williams and many more…
I heard that Conan visited Intel HQ, as Intel sponsored his week’s visit to the city, but all videos were removed shortly after uploaded, by an “invisible hand“, due to copyright issues.. But, the power of the web/people demonstrated its force once again (after the recent Digg fiasco), and NBC uploaded an 8 minute video of the visit.

Here it is, Conan’s visit to Intel HQ in Santa Clara. click here if you can’t see the video.

Putting Web 2.0 to use, courtesy of the NBA and YouTube

Published May 13, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: cavaliers, finals, nba, nets, web20, youtube

Web 2.0 concept isn’t new, and I’m sure all of you are familiar with some of the technologies relating with that term. The question is not whether or not you’re familiar with it, but rather are you using it, how and why. And that’s the greatness of a new technology – it’s hard to appreciate it, until you actually use it.

For those not into basketball, the 2007 NBA Playoffs are on, at the semi-finals stage of each coast (east/west). Although we have 4-5 sports channels in Israel, the number of games available are very slim, about 1-3 per week. As a hugh basketball fan, and a player on the weekends, it’s something I won’t miss, no matter the time. I can watch basketball all night, in fact, basketball is the only thing that I would consider setting a clock for (say 4a.m.), and actually getting up. Yesterday I saw the Nets-Cavaliers game #3, which started at midnight (local time) until 2:30 a.m. At 4 a.m the Spurs-Suns game #4 started, but it was too much for me, although that game was also aired.
Thank god for YouTube and the NBA.

The NBA have opened up a user on YouTube, and during these difficult times of many highlights they upload some content to YouTube. That isn’t taken for granted. NBA Video is a new feature at NBA.com, that allows fans to watch complete games, but they still decided to upload some content, especially Top 10 and game previews.

This is how I put Web 2.0 to use. Personal use. And my appreciation to NBA and YouTube for collaborating to the benefit of the fans just increased. And that’s what it’s all about.