You used to have to gain access through some kind of gatekeeper if you wanted to get your message out.

Now, in the connected age, we all have a soapbox that follows us around all day and all night. It looks like a smartphone.

At any moment, if my thought is compelling enough, I can reach thousands or millions of people within a matter of hours.

Never in the history of man has this kind of broadcasting power been available to the masses. A strong voice could rise from anywhere.

Where there used to be maniacs in basements who talked to themselves, now the walls of the basement have collapsed and their is a global audience awaiting the right message.

It’s not an every time thing, but the more often your thoughts are compelling or unique or hilarious, the more your audience will grow.

That goes for brands, for politicians, for regular individuals. The power is truly at our fingertips and will soon be on our faces. If you have a strong enough message, you can put a dent in the universe. Not in six months. Not after getting complicated approvals or paying your dues, but in a matter of hours.

This is how we will accelerate our future and where the future leaders of the connected age will spring from anywhere. Not only Stanford, not only certain companies.  We will see more bedroom to boardroom Cinderella stories. 

Home your voice. It’s what keeps you different, and what will win you an audience beyond your wildest dreams.

TUMBLR IS THE LOVE CHILD OF PUBLIC ACCESS, MTV AND AL GORE.
 

ANYONE CAN GET A SHOW NOW.
 

AND IT’S CREATING ALTERNATIVE CULTURE FASTER THAN THE INTERNET CAN KEEP UP WITH.
 

FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE HAVE TRIED TO DRAW NEAT CIRCLES AROUND THE WEB.
 

BUT TUMBLR IS OFF SCRIBBLING IN THE CORNER WITH CRAYONS AND SNIFFING GLUE.
 

TUMBLR IS WHERE TODAY’S POP ARTISTS HANG OUT.
 

NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THEM YET, BUT THEY ARE BREEDING AND GROWING IN NUMBERS.
 

THEY ARE CREATING INCESTUAL SPAWNS OF EACH OTHER.
 

THEY ARE PHOTOCOPYING THEIR BACKSIDES.
 

AND THEY DON’T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOU THINK.
 

THEY ARE INVENTING CULTURE AND CHANGING THE WORLD
 

BUT THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT.
 

YOU CANNOT DRAW AN ORDERLY CIRCLE AROUND THEM.
 

MARKETERS CANNOT EVEN DIP THEIR TOES INTO THESE WATERS.
 

TUMBLR’S GUARDIAN PIRANAS WILL CHEW YOUR MEDDLING ADVERTISING HANDS DOWN TO THE BONE.
 

RESPECT THEM. GIVE THEM SPACE. AND JUST ENJOY WHAT THEY SPAWN.

My car is my driver.

I’m just the DJ.

I’m riding shotgun.

In this sofa on wheels.

I wish it could fly.

But I guess that’s a few years out.

Wait, where is this thing taking me.

My iPod has wheels now.

I’m riding around.

I’m mindlessly tweeting while it drives me.

I miss being responsible.

That is a lie.

I look at the other passengers.

Texting, eating, drinking while their car drives.

My car is never drunk.

I’m wasted.

I texted that.

Red light, green light.

Red fish, blue fish.

Changing lanes.

Search engine on wheels.

Meta crawling the interstates.

Geo-tagging fast food joints.

Liking the malls.

Door to door service.

I never know where my car goes while I’m inside.

In 2012, I had a pretty good year in social media. 

I’m trying to collect the entire visual Internet. At least the part of it that I really like. My goal is to find every single image I like, in every category I’m interested in. I don’t want anything to escape my grasp.

With my sports photos, I’m picky. There are sports photos that get pumped out after every game. They fill up news sites 24/7. I don’t pin many of those. I’m only interested in finding the most artful and unusual sports photos I can find.

That goes with all of my boards. Pinterest is my personal museum of visual things from the Internet that I love. I don’t want ANYTHING subpar to be in my museum. When you come to my museum, I want you to know that the things you see were carefully thought about and chosen by me. I don’t feel that with most Pinterest profiles I visit. I see a lot of crappy images that I find it hard to believe someone actually likes. I think most people pin what they think other people expect them to pin. That’s boring. That leads to death. That leads to no one caring. If you’re going to collect subpar images, do that on your own hard drive.

Pinterest should be the best of the best. Not about quantity or chasing popular tags. Chase what you like. That’s when Pinterest or Tumblr or anything else becomes interesting. Be you. Pin you.

People are missing the true innovation behind Google’s Project Glass. The innovation is not the fact that technology will become wearable. It doesn’t matter that the form factor is a pair of glasses. The problem Google’s goggles is solving is one of smoothness. Right now, we need to proactively seek out information. When we get an email, we can be notified, but we still need to reach into our pockets to pull out our smart phones. By creating top of mind technology that is more integrated with how we behave, we will be able to get information more seamlessly than we do now. Not that it is an incredible hassle to pull a phone out of a pocket, but Google Glass and other wearable pieces of tech offer us an advancement of letting us know the information we want to know, exactly when we want to know it. It’s a delivery device. It is a fraction of a percentage more convenient. I think the strength of Google’s glasses will come from it’s ability to tether us between our other devices and become a seamless delivery system of the information we care about. Personally, I’m not a fan of the glasses form factor. I would find that too distracting. I’ll opt for the technology when Apple puts it out as a watch.

2) Andrew “Oyl” Miller Viral Strategist

If you think you need to be an early adopter to be one of the world’s most popular pinners, guess again. Dissatisfied with his meager 250 followers, Miller, a Tokyo-based copyeditor, cracked the code to gain 25,000 fans—in just three days.

Miller didn’t stop there. Just a few months later, he’s sitting on 1,000,000 followers and counting, making him one of the 50 most-followed people in the world. The best part? Miller says anyone can do what he did.

“I think you have to be willing to be obsessed and really dive into some kind of niche,” Miller told us in August. “And I’m sure at this point, there are some huge opportunities to own some untapped subject matter, like I did with sports. But I think if you approach any subject with a degree of artistry, looking for the unusual point of view, and keeping your pin choices surprising, that you will also be able to find success.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Kobe Bryant, the prolific NBA scorer and long time social media critic has now blown the floodgates open. Kobe has joined Twitter.

After spending most of his career critical of players who embraced social media, he has now blossomed into somewhat of a digital darling. It all started during the Olympics when he joined Facebook and shared insights and moments from inside the Olympic village. His presence on Facebook was well-received. He raked in thousands of likes and started to gain millions of followers.

I’m guessing he decided to join since his rival to the NBA spotlight, LeBron James has been putting up huge social media numbers the past few years. I’m sure Kobe’s competitive instincts kicked in and he suddenly wanted to dominate another statistical arena.

Kobe (or Kobe’s people) is great at social media. Everything feels like it is coming from Kobe’s voice. He gets a little preachy sometimes talking about greatness and being competitive, but that is exactly what I expect he actually sounds like. LeBron’s social media voice is good too. He comes off as a joker who loves basketball. That is true to his image. A lot of athletes, particularly European football stars seem to have their agents or managers at the helm of their accounts. They seem very PR driven and come across as mainly marketing and not giving people deeper access to these stars.

It’s a great trend when the best players in a sport genuinely take to social media. Sure they have their marketing alterior motives of wanting their shoes to sell. But if they are being genuine with their voice and using social media to give fans more access, everyone wins.

Welcome to cyberspace Kobe. Great to have you.