Social Media Club Seattle – Summer Nights Rock!

Last night I hung out with some of the most active individuals in the “new PR” industry of social media, if you can call it an industry. Some are self-declared gurus, others “hireable” (read: unemployed), and many are just dipping their toe in the waters of “social media” for the first time. We heard from Rob Glaser, CEO of Real Networks, about their new media player, Real Player SP. I’m not a big fan of Real Networks, considering the amount of theft they accomplished in the name of the law with Microsoft (and subsequent destruction of wealth) during their anti-trust proceedings in 1998. So I admit, I heckled a bit.

It didn’t help that Rob alluded to examples that revealed he hadn’t really come out of his cave since the election, including his abysmally low number of tweets (but he has a DAY JOB!), reference to played out Sarah Palin jokes, and a YouTube video of a dog attacking itself that was at the height of its popularity over a year ago. It was clear to me that he hadn’t be properly prepped for this audience of neophiles, who snub anything that isn’t hyper-recent (like – TODAY!)

On a more serious note it did also make me wonder if Real is also living in the past, well behind trends such as the iPhone, which arguably boasts the same features as their new media player AND the fantastic distribution model of the iTunes store.  Since content distribution is the name of the game, and we had to sit and watch as the Youtube video uploaded to the phone via USB cable, I couldn’t help but feel like this was missing the mark with too many steps for the user to carry out.

Seattle 2.0 TV Gals & iPhones Unite!

I love this photo by Randy Stewart (@stewtopia) of me with Shauna Causey of Seattle 2.0 TV

Shauna experiemented with a new Ustream channel – her own! – and broadcasted a lot of event live from http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ShaunaCausey

You Can’t Fight the Tako Truk

It was a hard sell for me, since my feet were hurting enormously by the time they kicked us out of the Lake Union Cafe.  We did end up driving the 10 blocks to Tako Truk (@takotruk), which is a trendy little spot hosted outside of 14 Carrot on Eastlake.  Rumor has it the man running this covert operation was previously an employee of Tom Douglas, and the gourmet tacos (3 for $5) attested to that!