Foto: Chris Heuer

Social + Cash was the theme of the sixth edition of Swedish social media conference held last week by Annika Lidne, CEO of Disruptive Media. She has been organizing social media conferences in Sweden since 2007, attracting international guests and keynote speakers like Chris Heuer, Brian Solis, Stowe Boyd, Steve Rubel, Natasha Friis Saxberg, Henriette Weber, Jyri Engeström, Neville Hobson, and Peter Parkes. (See videos from all six conferenses and read Brian’s thoughts on his previous visit).

The one day conference has from the start been streamed live free of charge, having twice as many simultanious online viewers as the 200 attendees on site. The conversations on the live video chat and on Twitter have become the natural ingredient and trademark of the conference.

To quote the keynote speaker Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club:

“I really love Sweden and a big part of it is the experience I have at Annika’s conferences. There is just a different energy there, you can tell she really gets it, and wants to help others understand why this media is disruptive, too.”

Swedish State Of The Internet

A few figures from the state of the Internet in Sweden might be interesting to put the conference in context. 62% of the population of 9,3 M uses the Internet on daily bases, and according to recent report, the number of sold Iphones “in the home of Sony Ericsson” reaches up to 500 000. 5 % of the people blog, 27% read blogs, nearly 40% have a Facebook account, and Sweden is holding the 19th place on the list of unique Twitter users in the world. Sweden also holds the top position in the Nordics with highest number of blogs among listed corporations (17,9% Nov -08), thus higher than among Fortune 500 companies (15.8% Dec -09).

There’re also good efforts being made to identify and measure corporate social media, particularly Twitter, usage in Sweden.

So, how does the social capital that individuals and brands earn by engaging on the social web convert to ROI, return on investment? Does it, and if so, can it be measured?

Chris Heuer opened up the conference by urging us to move the lence of focus to delivering the promise of social media by changing from management to leadership, as by finding new success stories like clubs on Sunset Strip instead of the good old Dell story. Since free is not free, it costs time, money and attention, and the time being our most valuable resource, there should be a balance between what one gives and takes. Chris warned us from being selfish cookie monsters. Everybody needs to get paid, as one can’t live of Whuffie alone. He also talked about consious capitalism, where in the light of social media transparency, only individuals and companies who want to do good and make good products, without exploitative profit plans, will survive, thus profiting from social media. Watch the entire keynote and presentation on Slideshare.

The day offered many good examples of ROI, e.g. how an author, by releasing her book for free on the Pirate Bay, instead made money through donations, or how by engaging influential fashion bloggers in a transparent and trustworthy way with help of Bloglovin’ (Browser based blog reader with 96% female users and 5,5 M visits/month), Modcloth sold out clothes within 24 hours, or how the satisfied bank customers are the ones doing all the selling by discussing and commenting on the CEO’s blog. (All presentations in Swedish.)

To my liking, the day also highlighted the importance of ambassadors, how there simply is no universal social media strategy to be implemented, and how creating relationships and trust takes as long time online as it takes offline.

Catch up the whole conference in English and in just 53 min! with key takeaways summed up directly from stage by Chris Heuer, Annika Lidne and myself, moderated by Joakim Nyström, host of the Sweet Sunday Web Crunch, Swedish weekly live podcast show with everything Internet.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

words and pictures by Brian Solis

Gnomedex is over and since we’re about to fly through several incredible events including Office 2.0, DEMOfall, and TechCrunch50, I thought it would be a good idea to commemorate my incredible experience in Seattle.

Gnomedex is by far one of my favorite stops on the networking circuit as it levels the playing field and creates a truly equal forum for sharing our experiences while learning from those of others. It’s like a TED for geeks. And, it’s not just the valuable lessons and insight that we learn in those action-packed two days, it’s the relationships that you build and carry forward with you that mean everything. If you have never attended, then block out the time and start saving for Gnomedex 2009.

I walked away with so many wonderful memories and new ideas. From Danny Sullivan’s talk on Search Life Meets Real Life and Beth Kanter’s motivating stories on Using Social Media for Good Causes to Francine Hardaway’s fantastic and lively discussion with Mark Bao on Generation Y and Kris Krug’s fun and helpful talk on photography tips (it was great to finally meet him!). The conversations that took place in the hallways as well as the even receptions were also equally significant.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Chris Pirillo at the opening reception holding one of the many HP notebooks given away

Brian Solis, Drew Olanoff of Strands, and Sarah Lacy live on GnomedexTV

Tara Hunt

Larry Halff of Ma.gnolia

Danny Sullivan

Mark Bao

Francine Hardaway

Ponzi and Chris Pirillo

Beth Kanter

Sarah Lacy, Tara Hunt, Olivia Hine, Francine Hardaway

Londa Quisling of Iterasi

Ryan Stewart

Ranvir Gujral of Bluewhale Labs

Duncan Riley

Liz Strauss

Geoff Livingston

Robert Scoble

Dave Mathews

Jeremy Wright of B5 Media

Sara Czyzewicz of DandyID

Maryam Scoble and Danielle Morrill

Marshall Kirkpatrick

Liz Strauss and Alex Williams

Brian Solis and Jeremy Wright

The crew at the Edgewater Hotel

For more pictures of Gnomedex, please visit my album on flickr.

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words and pictures by Brian Solis

1,100 people.

1 place

1 more milestone in the evolution of the Social Economy.

The third annual TechCrunch August Capital party is to the Palo Alto Web 2 community what the running of the bulls is to Pamplona. People flew in from all over the world to be there and it was nothing short of incredible, valuable, and overwhelming. So many fascinating, trend setting, and visionary people mingled freely and genuinely as if for one small moment in time, everyone was equal.

Thank you TechCrunch and August Capital for hosting a memorable and important event.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Cathy Brooks and Stephanie Agresta

Eric Eldon and Chamillionaire

Sarah Lacy, Tariq Krim, and Brooke Hammerling

iLick the iPhone

Daniel Brusilovsky

Valerie Cunningham, Matt Marshall of VentureBeat and Adeo Ressi of TheFunded.com

Michael Arrington

Shira Lazar

Chamillionaire, Randi Zuckerberg, Jeff Lange, Michael Teng

Wired Cover Girl Julia Allison and @Miguel23

Miiko Mentz of FWStudios shoots a video for TechCrunch’s Elevator Pitch

Deb Schultz and Christopher Carfi

Michael Arrington

Laurie Anne Lassek, Gregarious Greg Narain, Christine Herron

Alison McNeill of bub.blicio.us

Dave Morin of Facebook and Peter Pham

Jason Nazar of Docstoc and Shira Lazar of NBC

AJ Vaynerchuk

David Sifry and Sarah Lacy

Cyan Banister of Zivity

Greg Narain and Deb Schultz

Tantek Celik

Alex Ho, MC Hammer, Brian Solis, Chamillionaire, Jeff Lange

Miiko Mentz

MC Hammer of DanceJam

The after party at the Four Seasons – Justin Kan and Nick Gonzales of Social Media

The after party at the Four Seasons – Alex Ho, Shira Lazar, Tariq Krim

The after party at the Four Seasons

Please visit my albums on flickr for more pictures from TechCrunch August Capital 3 and the After Party.

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by Brian Solis

Guy Kawasaki continues to expand his Alltop empire with the addition of Frienderati, an aggregated activity dashboard of the top 100 names and their Friendfeed updates. Similar to Alltop’s Twitterati list, which was designed to help people discover important and active voices on Twitter, Frienderati helps those new to FriendFeed shortcut to the most popular and/or insightful contributors.

Thank you Guy for including me in the list.

Yuval Atzmon over at User21 also created a FriendFeed list. Dubbed the FriendFeed Top 250, it features a list of the most followed personalities on FriendFeed. Yuval is tracking the most discoverable users based on activity and subscribers. His most recent list is based on June 2008 numbers. Thank you Yuval for including me in your list.

The full Frienderati list is included below…I’m working on the HTML to include The Top 250 shortly.

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The Alltop Frienderati by Guy Kawasaki

Aaron Brazell – Lead Editor at Technosailor
Adam Ostrow – Editor-In-Chief at Mashable
Aliza Sherman – Author, Producer, Blogger
Allen Stern – Editor of CenterNetworks
Amber Mac – New Media Journalist
Andrew Chen – Entrepreneur
Andy Beard – Niche Marketing
Annie Boccio – Founder of Pixel Currents
Becky McCray – Small Town Entrepreneur
Ben Metcalfe – Social Media, Web2.0 Consultant
Beth Kanter – Social Media Consultant to Non-Profits
Brian Solis – Publisher bub.blicio.us
Burt Lum – Digital Ronin
Cathryn Hrudicka – Chief Imagination Officer
Cathy Brooks – Genetically Engineered Communicator
Chris Brogan – Social Media Expert
Chris Pirillo – Founder of L0ckergn0me
Christine Lu – Founder of the China Business Network
Corvida – Mass Media Student of SheGeeks.net
Dan Farber – Vice President at CNET Networks
Dave Winer – Entrepreneur, Software Developer, Social Media Expert
David Sifry – Founder Technorati
Don MacAskill – CEO of SmugMug
Emily Chang – Award-winning Web Designer, Technology Strategist
Eric Eldon – Reporter with VentureBeat
Eric Rice – New Media Producer, Writer
Erick Schonfeld – Co-Editor, TechCrunch
Erin Kotecki Vest – Queen of Spain, BlogHer, Huffington Post
Francine Hardaway – Entrepreneur, Mentor, Investor
Fred Wilson – VENTURE CAPITALIST
Frederic Lardinois- PhD student, Web2.0 Writer
Gabe Rivera – Creator of Techmeme
Ginger Makela – Social Media Specialist
Guy Kawasaki – Author, Speaker, Online Magazine Editor of Alltop
Jason Kaneshiro – Writer at Webomatica
Jeff Jarvis – Writer, Consultant for New Media
Jeremiah Owyang – Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research
Jeremy Zawodny – Craigslist
Josh Quittner – Time Magazine’s Editor at Large
Justine Ezarik – New Media Connoisseur
Karen Padham Taylor – Product Manager at Google
Kathy Johnson – PR, Analysis, Results
Kent Newsom – Proprietor of Newsome.org
Kevin Rose – Founder of Digg
Kristen Nicole – Lead Writer for Mashable
Laura Fitton – Social Media Expert, Consultant
Leah Culver – Founder, Developer of Pownce
Leo Laporte – Author, Tech Broadcaster of TWiT Live
Loic Le Meur – Entrepreneur, Founder of Seesmic
Louis Gray – Corporate Technology Marketer
Maggie Fox – CEO of Social Media Group
Maki – Sole Writer of DOSHDOSH
Mari Smith – Relationship Marketing Consultant
Maria Reyes-McDavis – Social Media Diva
Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins – Associate Editor of Mashable
Mark Krynsky – Lifestream
Marshall Kirkpatrick – Lead Blogger at ReadWriteWeb
MG Siegler – Reporter at VentureBeat
Muhammad Saleem – Social Media Marketing Consultant
Nicole Simon – European New Media Specialist
Niniane – Google’s Engineer Manager
Paul Kedrosky – Investor, Writer, Entrepreneur
Pete Cashmore – Mashable
Philipp Lenssen – Google Blogoscoped
Rafe Needleman – Editor of Webware
Rebecca Briggs – Helping the World Heal from the Inside Out
Richard MacManus – Editor and publisher of ReadWriteWeb
Rob Diana – Regular Geek
Robert Scoble – Tech Evangelist
Roxanne Darling – Technology Trainer, Speaker
Ryan Ozawa – Father, Husband, and Web Geek
Sarah Lacy – Author
Sarah Perez – Blogger at ReadWriteWeb and Channel 10
Scott Beale – Publisher, Editor of Laughing Squid
Shannon Seery Gude – Geek Marketer
Stephanie Booth – Social Media Consultant
Steve Rubel – Digital Marketer
Steven Hodson – WinExtra
Susan Bratton – Podcast Publisher
Susan Reynolds – New Media Consultant
Tamar Weinberg – Lifehacker and Mashable
Tara Hunt – Online Marketing Professional
Thomas Hawk – CEO Zooomr Inc.
Tom Foremski – Founder Silicon Valley Watcher
Tony Hung – Blogger
Tris Hussey – Training Manager b5Media
Veronica Belmont- Host of Tekzilla on Rev3 and Qore on PSN
Wendy Piersall – CEO and Founder of Sparkplug
Alex de Carvalho – Social Media Consultant

words and pictures by Brian Solis

Tiffany Weller

The day after our successful TechSet event at the Luxe in Bel-Air, I was one of the lucky ones who attended the highly regarded Southern California tech event, Twiistup.

Hats off to Mike and Stephanie Macadaan. Twiistup4 was not only a resounding success, it raised the bar for tech events in general. Twiistup played host to an immersive experience that effectively materialized online social networks and virtual worlds into the real world.

Held at the posh VIceroy Hotel in Santa Monica, Twiistup created its own shangri la, where for just a few hours, we were able to completely lose ourselves in the conversations and ensuing friendships that will extend the well beyond the evening. Even though we were poolside, we were catapulted into a glamorous and elegant isolated island that seemed worlds away form the daily routine.

Cabanas were redesigned as themed destinations complete with Hookah Pipes, beds, lounges, and more accoutrements than I could possibly remember. And, the pool became a social stage covered in a see-through acrylic platform, which hosted some of the cooler conversations and shenanigans throughout the course of the evening.

I also wanted to take a moment to say congratulations to Twiistup’s Showoffs.Out of over a hundred applications to demo, the following companies introduced their products and services to the Twiistup crowd:

Bigstage
BookRenter
Compulsion
LOUD3R
Minggl
Musicshake
Phonevite
Seethroo
Strutta
Tools to Life
Twiddla

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, and some of them tell more than that!

Heather Meeker

Jennifer Stavros

Sean Percival

Brooks Bayne in bed with HeavyBagMedia

Brian Solis with Twiistup host, Mike Macadaan

Robert Scoble

Karen Hartline

Krystle McEachron and Em. Marc Salsberry

Shira Lazar and Brian Solis

Stephanie Agresta and Stephanie Macadaan

Before: Heather Lipner meets Pickle Man

After: Pickle Man and Heather Lipner “kick” and make-up

Desdemona Bandinin and Tameka Kee

Karen Hartline and Erica O’Grady

Before

After

Jackie Peters and Valerie Cunningham

Dave Mathews

Natalie Lent and Wm. Marc Salsberry

Melodi Cowan

Stephanie Agresta and Tim Street of FrenchMaidTv

Steve Wiebe plays Donkey Kong

Michael Liskin

Brian Solis and Pete Cashmore

Shira Lazar and Pickle Man

Sloane Berrent and Dhalia of Rubicon

Kevin Winston and Amanda Coolong

Michael J. Lambie

Siobhan O’Neill, ?, Sloane Berrent, Nicol Jordan (with Fun Dip)

Francisco Dao

Alexandra Mokh

For more pictures from Twiistup4, please visit my album on Flickr.

UPDATE: Francisco Dao discusses Twiistup and the Southern California tech economy at Fast Company Buzz.

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