If you think Web 2.0 is fun, I think you will love to know what the next iteration is bringing in. Rather than calling it Web 3.0, it’s being called the “Read/Write” Web.

The web is growing up!

In fact, I’ve heard a term recently that I think accurately describes the changes: “World Live Web” (vs. World Wide Web)

What kinds of stuff will you learn here? For starters, basics of social media, what it is, what it isn’t. We’ll describe the most popular sites like Facebook & Linkedin and how business authors, speakers and entrepreneurs can best leverage their efforts and expand their influence.

We’ll also have a conversation around new media like blogs, podcasting, RSS and why I think blogs are “the new basic black dress” for women, and maybe the “new swiss army knife” for you gentlemen (or maybe I should say “hunter-gatherers?? )

Anyway, looking forward to sharing my jaunts around the web with you. Take a walk on the wild side with me!

In fact, it was SO good, I am posting the video here for you to watch – it’s called “The Gratitude Dance” and it’s created by some guys called The Grati-Dudes.

I decided I am going to use it as my “comment” calling card for the next few comments I make on my travels around Facebook, Twitter, and the Ning communities I belong to.

There are at least 3 benefits that will come from this:

1.  I set myself apart from the “masses”

2.  The Grati-Dudes will get more plays of their video

3.  It will make people laugh out loud and that’s good for the soul and good for the planet because we’re all connected

4. Bonus insight: It will create a connection between me and the Grati-Dudes…I’ll let them know what I’m doing after I do it.

Here’s the video – Enjoy, get ready to Laugh Out Loud and DO the Gratitude Dance:

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After we got off the phone, I did some internet intel (my fav thing to do) in search of other bloggers to see if they were giving their blogs funerals, too. The search was so fruitful, that I decided to do a round-up and post…so here goes, the best of what I found follows:
Jack Humphrey
Blogging is Dead, According to Wired.com

Paul Boutin, WIRED contributor, wrote “Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.“ -”Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004” …

Matthew Ingram (Funny tombstone on this post)
Blogs are so over, Wired magazine says

Blogs are so 2004. They’re dead now, says Paul Boutin (who also writes for Valleywag) in a piece he wrote for Wired magazine. Here’s his argument (such as it is) in a nutshell:. “The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy …

Andrew Lewin didn’t want to get left out so he blogged…I thought that was funny
The reports of blogging’s death …

I imagine that the blogosphere is going to be awash with responses to Wired’s controversial piece about how blogging is dead. I didn’t want to get left out, so here’s mine! The Wired article “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So …

Wired’s Paul Boutin joins the “blogs are dead” bandwagon

And I have to disagree completely. Blogging is far from dead—blogging is thriving. According to Paul, the reasons you should skip the blogosphere are, roughly: There are too many other blogs Writing more than 140 characters is too much …

Esther Says Blogs aren’t dead, they’re just resting…
Wired Proclaims Blogs “Dead”: “They’re Just Resting,” Bloggers Claim

I mean, if Wired says blogs are over, what am I still doing here? I wonder what I can do with all the time I used to spend blogging…maybe I should get certified as a yoga instructor or try to devote my time to protesting stuff. …

Key word here is “experience”.

In the new Network Economy and increasingly networked, always-on world we live in, it’s not enough to think that you can join a social network and take, take, take before you give. You really have to step up your game. In other words – Commodities are out, Dynamic Value is in. (ask Marshall Thurber – he rocks the DyVal concept in his Success Secrets for the 21st Century seminar)

I’m seeing the same old marketing tactics slapped on a “new” Face(book) page and it was getting really tiring. It’s what triggered my post here on Facebook Fatigue.

Examples are better than precepts, so here’s a few from my email inbox (it’s kinda like The Twilight Zone – same emails, different day, week…)

• A friend sent me a “Buy my social media marketing “system” link being sold by a person I’ve never heard of before, and as much as I read about this topic daily, researching what’s working and what’s not, that’s saying something. Gotta hand it to him though, he’s got one helluva sales letter, complete with “social proof” his “system” is the one to get (don’t get me started about the “S” word – first, I’m a systems-thinker, and second, systems, the real ones – the ones that good ol’ W. Edward Deming taught – are hard to come by. There are about 4 bonafide systems marketers I know online who actually know what a system is, maybe 5 if I count myself and I don’t market myself as a systems marketing person…yet)
• The ubiquitous free teleseminar offered by the latest person trying to catch up and jump on the social media bandwagon cuz they are on the “late freight” (oops, 70′s lingo slip – I’m dating myself again . And on the line are the same people over and over and over…(like The Neverending Story or Twilight Zone). Now, I love free teleseminars as much as the next life-long learner, and even paid ones. Just not ones that look like they might be the sames ones I just saw or maybe even listened in on the other day (week).
• You are cordially invited to my event in Australia or New Zealand…or Kansas or the U.K. Facebook makes you join a network geographically – I guess people don’t know that I’m in Sunny Southern California and not likely to fly 20 hours to get to your event. (even if it is the first, last, only time it’s happening). Or even better – attend your YTB Travel Business Opportunity Meeting– isn’t everyone on the planet a YTB Travel Agent by now?

But keeping hope alive…(note: as a general rule hope is NOT a strategy for business) I revived my own interest when I inspired myself – I turned my dis-interest into a question…

“What IS a better way? How can you turn what you know, your expertise, that special thing that people pay you for – into an experience that creates curiosity, attracts interest, and generates desire to engage and connect?” which then has the opportunity to turn into profit for your business, provided you aren’t a one trick pony.

As luck would have it…when opportunity meets preparedness – I am fortunate to have a live “social media” lab – my expert colleagues and clients. (“Hahaha!” she rubs hands together and cackles diabolically as the palm trees wave outside her window in Sunny Southern California)

So without furthur suspense, I’ll introduce you.

Here is the first of the three expert women entrepreneurs I’m working with to turn her expertise into ideas for social media experiences that lead to business…I’ll blog the others later this week. This turned into a really long post…sorry, you’ll probably thank me for it soon.

Michelle Price’s Social Media Lab Experiment #1: Face Reading for Facebook

Lynn Scheurell is arguably one of the most *interesting* women entrepreneurs I know (inside joke, Lynn and I both share the same meaning for *interesting*).

She has “the gift” of intuition that she has chosen to use to help entrepreneurs who are more creative and soul-driven vs. the other kind we won’t talk about here (you know, greedy, mercenary and soooo last millenium). And we don’t call her the “Woo-Woo Guru” for nothing. Seriously, she has some really cool tools to help get you unstuck and moving your energy for business. Even if you don’t believe there is a Secret Behind The Secret. Behind THAT Secret is Lynn.

Take the ancient art of face reading. The first time I ever met her, we sat in a Starbucks for hours and she read my face, eyes, ears, nose, read my Tarot, read my energy and it was just so much fun. And had real value because the information she gave me was all right on target. I used it to launch a new direction for my business and it’s paid off, literally.

She even told me that this little notch/bump I have had on the top of my right ear ever since I can remember, came from a traumatic event that happened when I was TWO. Funnily enough, I immediately thought about the fact that my baby brother was born at that time and I stopped getting to be the youngest…(I have a brother who is 6 years older). It put me in the middle instead and you know what that means – the peacemaker and fairly invisible – except, I was still the only girl so that helped a bit .

So remembering that experience, when we were chatting on the phone about how she could be leveraging social networking (she was resisting to say the least) to find more soul-driven entrepreneurs to join her tribe, when conversation turned to Facebook, this huge light went off in my head… “Lynn, FACEbook, FACE reading – get it???”

Nowhere on earth will you find more faces to read than on social networks, and Facebook being the popular kid on the block right now…hmmm.

Plus, I’ve seen some faces only a mother could love on there, and it’s amazing how many sane business people will put up ridiculously cheesy pics and think they pass muster. For a minute we laughed at what she could do with that.

Still, how to execute and make the experience real for people? That’s where I come in with MY web 2.0 social media toolbox – there are so many delicious ways you can combine and layer web 2.0 in combination with your social networking to transform your expertise into an experience. YouTube, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, YouTube Box for Facebook (is your head spinning yet? ).

In this case, video is the obvious choice! Plus, video is really hot online now too…

Yes. Facebook and YouTube + online video distribution to increase Googleability – our 1-2-3 knockout combo for this idea.

Anyway, we quickly came up with a 10 step plan for how someone could vicariously experience Lynn’s face reading and what it can tell you, that can help you accelerate your business, the first 3 are below:

1. Lynn finds 3 friendly faces to read – clients who already say “yes”.
2. Also pick out some high-profile faces to read
3. Fire up her web-cam and get to reading those faces. Short 3-5 minute clips.
(4-10 not included – made the post way too long – maybe I’ll share in another post later after results are in)

11. THEN, perhaps you might want to get a longer more in-depth face reading of your own – 60 minutes of pure focus on your beautiful unique mug, instead of only 3-5.

Will it work? I don’t know, you’ll have to be the judge and tell us. It’s working already to get curiosity and attract interest from some pretty good influencers.

Here’s the Intro to Face Reading she recorded, to explain what it is and why it’s invaluable:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3UbIiTLcFA[/youtube]

Here’s my Face Reading on Facebook, watch it, then go befriend Lynn on Facebook, tell her I sent you, and see if she picks your face next!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_zOW6XKKc[/youtube]

Update: At the time of this posting, it’s only been 3 days and she’s already been profiled over on Entrepreneur.com by someone in the network – our mutual colleague Michelle Anton (who just got active on Facebook and saw what Lynn was up to without either of us saying anything to her at all!) was intrigued enough to want to interview her about it – you can read that here:

Face Reading Is Busting Loose on Facebook

Cone, Inc. presented findings of an online survey done in September, 2008 of 1,092 adults (525 men and 567 women 18 or older) that showed 60 percent of them use social media web sites.

Of the 60 percent of social media users, 93 percent believe companies should have a presence in social media, while a huge 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact.

A whopping 56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media  environment.

Wow. And get this…this is coming from hard to reach consumers in the online space like men, younger users (ages 18-34) and the wealthiest households (income over $75,000+).

All the more reason I say “connectivity is the new currency(tm)”.

Read more here:

Cone Finds That Americans Expect Companies to Have a Presence in Social Media

Who are these wealthy consumers? They average 287k in income and have a net worth of 2.1Million, according to the Luxury Institute.  (and for the more skeptical among you, these survey results are weighted to match demographic and net worth profiles of the same audience according to the latest Federal Reserve survey of consumer finances.)

As overachievers, being connected is natural for them, their participation increased 5 times, to 49%,  they average membership in 2.8 (can we just say 3? How do you participate in .8??) networks, and have about 110 connections.

• 16% MySpace (really? how interesting – that site drives me nuts with it’s busy-ness and blaring musical profiles
• 13% Linkedin (per LI, a large percentage of CEOs visit daily)
• 11% Facebook (one of my favorites, it’s very interesting to see what my creative friends are up to – however, please stop inviting me to events in Australia, I’m NOT coming, but feel free to visit me when you are in Sunny San Diego, CA)

Most rapid acceleration is in the over 55 crowd (you know what they say about us boomers, we refuse to grow up LOL!)

For the rest of the story and links, go here:

Six in 10 Wealthy Consumers Online Use Social Networks – MarketingVOX

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