There is just no theme to this weekend’s roundup so I won’t even try to make one up. All cool stuff though …

• The whole free iPad for Social Profit Formula thing that I’ve been promoting for awhile is GO! Explanation, etc. can be found in the video embedded here:

  
  

• Wanna do something good – in just a few minutes? As per this Tweet, Hack @bing to help @tferriss get birthday present. $3 free here – http://ping.fm/lmCpP – Spend here – http://ow.ly/2fPDV

• YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0 is officially open for business. Check out the very cool Facebook Fan Page we’ve got to facilitate the sales process.

• I’m trying my first Twitter content – you can see in in action in the annotations for this video at the one minute mark. Is your chance to win some cool iPhone (3gs or 4) stuff.

Have a great weekend. Don’t spend all of it online

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Ready for some hard realities?

In prepping for the live Podcast Secrets presentation tonight (the topic – OffCasting – getting people off of you content and into your marketing funnel), I realized I had some killer numbers of what’s happening/working RIGHT NOW to share with my students because of my Social Profit Formula (AFF) campaigning that I wrote about earlier on this Blog and at PaulRecommends.com.

I thought I’d share them with you as well.

The metric I’m currently tracking is clicks to opt-ins (i.e., what percentage of people who click over to Don’s campaigns opt-in for more information). As the course hasn’t gone on sale yet, this is the only thing I can track at this point (if you’d like to know the final results of clicks to buys, because, yes, I’m tracking those as well, comment below accordingly).

• Social Media Links Conversion – 7.6%. That’s right, it takes more than 100 clicks from social media to get 8 people to opt-in.
• Website Links Conversion – 25.8%. I get 25 opt-ins for those 100 clicks at the previous blog post. That’s more than 3 times the results.
• Email Newsletter Links Conversion – 29.3%. In my weekly “Heads Up Tuesday” email I mentioned Don’s program as a link worth clicking (there were 5 other links in the newsletter). Did almost 4% better on that random mailing than on the Web clicks.
• Direct Email Links Conversion – 39.3%. The direct email piece on Don’s product saw nearly 40 optins per 100 clicks – around 5 times the rate of the social media clicks.

The numbers should speak for themselves but a little examination is in order. Yes, this is the only thing I’m tracking and the final results might surprise me still but plane and simple, if I want to see action, I want to send emails.

So what does this mean to Don’s Social Profit Formula and social media marketing in general? Well, I certainly hope you take 2 things from it 1) Social Media doesn’t replace anything well – the results are terrible for marketers when compared to other models and 2) what you need more than the latest version is Tweetdeck or the perfect iPad Twitter client is a model for how to use Social Media to bring people into the fold that does, in fact, work better.

Truth be told, a good amount of my list comes from social media efforts. I introduce myself in Twitter, Facebook, and the rest and when we are ready to take our relationship to the next level – I ask for an email address. It works wonders for both of us.

But regardless of what you strategy is – and who you pick to be your guru, have a strategy that works and can be backed up with real numbers. The real money is in folding Social Media into what you’re already doing.

Thoughts?

Well the big promotion/event in the Internet Marketing Space this week seems to be Don Crowther’s Social Profit Formula (aff). His second video in the traditional “4 videos of free content before the sale” covers a model for video online that I will certainly be examining myself (it’s all about using YouTube to bring people into your funnel versus the traditional model of making YouTube your funnel).

With that said and done, here are a few social media / social video / YouTube links worth examining:

• I attended VidCon 2010 last weekend (a massive event for YouTube fans and content makers) and had a great time. I listed a few things I learned during the event over at the YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0 blog. It’s a good read. Speaking of YouTube Secret Weapon 2.0, we’re going to be making a very cool Facebook play for this one. Check out what we’re doing with http://www.facebook.com/youtubesecretweapon. Isn’t it great when you can bring all of these things together?
• Speaking of YouTube Secret Weapon and Don’s Social Profit Formula launch, check out this video I got to more than 1000 views highlighting the Buy Social Profit Formula and get a Free iPad campaign I’m playing with. I’ll embed it below as well:
  
• I tried another approach to the whole free iPad with Social Profit Formula using my iPhone as camera. I think the iPhone did an impressive job but this video was a lot more work and far less effective than the first one. I’d love your thoughts. Embedded below as well:
  

I couldn’t more excited about YouTube video than I am right now. I think Don’s program is not only going to prove how exciting this business is – but train a lot of people to do really exciting things with it. I’m thrilled that YouTube Secret Weapon is there as well for people who really want to target into this valuable media partner/tool/etc.

Would love your thoughts on the Social Profit Formula if you have any …

As I’ve chewed on / had a few days to think about the Hulu Plus announcement, I am both amazed at what a bad idea it is, on some many levels. I guessed I’ve moved from questions to lethargy. I tweeted yesterday that I thought Hulu was trying to make an omelet without breaking eggs on this one and was failing miserably. Still feel that way.

Here are a few other thoughts from people smarter than me (although I’d love to hear from Boxee or Roku right now):

• NewTeeVee suggests that this isn’t an issue of cable killing at all – and that it’s an issue of the “killing” DVD television series runs. We can do better than that.
• VideoNuze thinks the big problem is that people are both paying for content and ads. Whereas yes, this is annoying – isn’t that what people currently do with cable subscriptions? And, don’t cable subscriptions at least come with cable channels? Just in case you missed it, Hulu Plus is a broadcast television play only – no cable content allowed.
• Finally, the LA Times is commenting on the crazy amount of 1 start ratings the app is getting in the IOS App Store. It’s a people’s protest of sorts, I guess.
• Updated: Had to add the fact that Blockbuster is getting delisted. Insert token those who don’t change line here.

There is also a lot of talk online about how you have to pay for the higher level of access to the PS3 or Xbox versions while paying for the access but I’m pretty sure the zillion or so Xbox users watching Netflix on their gold accounts have gotten over that pretty quickly.

I’m frustrated because it is a very very very weak attempt at bridging the gap, almost so weak that one might ask if it was designed to fail. I’ve said from the beginning that I think Hulu was designed to fail since day one and although the Hulu Plus announcement did surprise me, I can’t help but wonder if I’m still right.

What do you think?

Update #1: Just found out / realized that the Hulu Plus stuff is “broadcast only” – meaning you won’t see any cable content on there. Yes, stuff like Burn Notice and Caprica ain’t gonna happen, even with commercials. Yes, the CEO seems scared that people might think this is a cable killer.

Update #2: Boxee ain’t the only one not on the list. No Android or Google TV either. No Roku. Silly.

I’ve been saying for a long time that I never thought a “paid/premium” version of Hulu was in the cards. Somebody somewhere has smelled some coffee (they woke up too) and I’m quite intrigued. Here’s some reporting from Engadget with a little more insight than the Hulu press release.

For the record, I have no problem paying $9.95 – even with commercials – it’s far less than any cable bill out there and (at this point) has less commercials than any cable bill out there. I’ve applied for beta accounts and am waiting to hear back.

I installed this bad boy on both my iPhone and iPad. Now I’m really glad that I have unlimited 3g on both of them. The demo stuff looks great over 3g – better quality than either Netflix or ABC (on the iPad at least).

But, I have questions:

• Where is CBS? Nothing from them is in the lineup and we hear rumors of them going all HTML5 on us this fall. Will they be the ones to go totally free?
• What about Boxee? The lie that “content providers wanted it removed” is about as plausible as (insert BP caring joke here). How come they weren’t listed as a means to get Hulu Plus? They’re on other boxes. What gives?
• How many commercials on plus? We know the industry is moving to more than one. Will “Plus” go with it?
• Why Xbox in 2011? Don’t really need commentary about this one.
• Why no Zune or Windows 7 phone options? Did Remond upset someone at Hulu?
• Will it “take?” Right now the commentary I’m reading says folk don’t want to pay $10 for this thing.

What about you, will you pay for Hulu Plus?

Do you have answers to any of my questions?

Do you have any questions of your own?

We’re about half way through Podcast Secrets 3.0. It’s been a lot of fun and we’ve learned a lot in the process.

One of the big things we’ve done differently this year is move from audio only training to a weekly hour of streaming video for the members. It’s a new model for me in terms of content delivery and I think, conceptually, that I like this process. I’ll be doing more of it in the future. It’s a good thing to be able to rally your crowds before you send 5 hours of content their way.

I chose the uStream Watershed platform to deliver this stuff for a number of reasons. The biggest two issues were that I love the functionality uStream gave on the free side – and I loved even more the Producer app on the free side. Price was fine with my profit margins so I went ahead with a name I trusted.

Imagine how much more one would get when one pays for it …

Uh, no …

In short, no Producer with uStream Watershed and a bunch of the interactive functions you get with the paid version is not included in this release.

Yes, with free you get more functionality.

What it does, it does fine, but it’s just kinda silly that it doesn’t do more.

I’m ready to pay you more money Ustream and I’m ready to recommend that others do the same but before I pay for services, could you at least move the services to the level of what you’re already giving away for free?

I mean, it does work, works great – I’d just like to do more.

Will you let me, Ustream?

I know freemium is still a really cool model in the valley but the part of freemium that too many forget is that, when all is said and done, you do eventually have to charge somebody at some point.

I hope my readers won’t make the same mistake.

I figured out something very cool today that works on my current iPhone 3GS and my Pogoplug.

As you can see in this video, I’ve got my iPhone running IOS 4 streaming music from home using my Pogoplug. Yes, I know we can do that with Pandora, but sometimes I like listening to my own music.

What’s even cooler (watch until the end of the video), the music controls in IOS 4 – which you normally use to control the iPod player – can control the music on your Pogoplug.

P.s., you can also stream (in the background) on an iPad without having to switch to IO 4. Yes, you can’t use the player buttons but it still works great. Article on that over at PaulsiPad.com.

P.p.s., I wrote this article on 6/23/2010. On that day, Woot was having a sale on a Pogoplug device that made the thing only $20. If you can get in on that deal, do so.

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Several of you have asked why I left Verizon FIOS. Isn’t fiber to your house the greatest thing since sliced bread?

Well, in short, FIOS left me. You can read the article here. Service has gone down tremendously and there is really nobody to call about it. What a mess.

Last Friday, after waiting in line 45 minutes at the local Verizon store to be told that they not only can’t help me cancel FIOS, but aren’t even really sure where to send me (yes, they said the Kiosk at the local mall “might work.”) I decided to send out a Tweet asking how to cancel.

That was over 72 hours ago.

They just tweeted back … “Is there anything we can do to help you out?”

You see, not only did they take three days to respond, but … it’s obvious they didn’t even read the Tweet.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – “You need to train in Customer Service 101 before you train in New Media 202.”

Why does this have to be so hard?

I have to admit the following – I spent the morning putting off the errands I needed to run because I knew the IOS update was coming. Yes, I’m that kinda geek. P.s., running errands with Pandora streaming in the background the whole time – priceless.

So, the new version of the iPhone OS is live. ARS has a great comprehensive review and RWW has a great piece on what runs on the different phones.

As fate would have it, I spent a great deal of time playing with this bad boy while in line at the AT&T store (on a billing matter). Kind of surreal, the whole process. Favorite moment was organizing my apps into folders while overhearing the AT&T sales dude explain that the new phones had “some folder thing in them.” … But I digress.

Here are the big deals for me.

Multitasking. Yes, I understand that this is only as good as the apps that support it, but even as a simple task switcher, this is really nice and elegant. As mentioned, running errands with Pandora streaming in the background is fun but the speed at which I now go back and forth between programs is awesome. And, there are a few more apps that I think make much more sense with this option. A world where Evernote, Simplenote and Skype are all there for me and are all running is an awesome world indeed. If/when 1Password is running, boooyaaahhh!

Folders. I have lots of apps. If you’ve read things this far, you do too. It’s nice to have them in folders that make sense. Minor in the functionality sense but pretty major for me in focus and organization.

Mail. Running a few different accounts through the same interface is extremely powerful. I probably will be redoing my mail strategy based on what I have now at my fingertips. Of course, it really becomes cool when my iPad is at IOS4, but that’s another post all together.

GPS in Multitasking. I don’t use GPS much on the iPhone because the single tasking stuff was just plain annoying. Folks would always call at the key times I needed to make the right turn at the right place. I can’t tell you that this changes much as I don’t know for sure, but I see that phone give me directions a lot more now …

Do you have it yet? What do you think?

This weekend is Father’s Day … Next Thursday I stand in line to get my new iPhone 4 and then get on a plane for San Diego to present at a Traffic Geyser event. I fly home Friday night for the big Festival of Balloons in my neck of the woods. Fun.

Time for a weekend edition of fun:

• The Big App Show is just fun. It’s hard to explain, so I’m just going to encourage you iPhone types to give it a download (yes, it’s free).
• So, Adam Curry (maker of the Big App Show above) offered Howard Stern a Podcasting job. Not a big fan of Howard, but imagine what that would do for this space.
• Finally, I just have to do this.

Having fun yet?