See http://getbusycommittee.com/store, one of the options to get half the album for free is to tweet it (using a custom awe.sm tracking link :-) ). FWIW, CultureJam offers a very robust awe.sm-powered tweet for download product. </shameless plug>

Quick note that the http://getb.us/y/ domain used for awe.sm tracking was found using http://domai.nr, our favorite tool for finding cool domain names :-)

United is cheaper than JetBlue DEN-> JFK?!

These guys put on an amazing live show! Here's some video I shot of them at the Echo in April: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30kO8fyLheM&fm...

The TechCrunch post you cite was inspired by John Borthwick's very interesting essay on how Google's approach to content filtering breaks in the realm of what he calls the 'Now Web.' Like you say above: "Google’s PageRank, while valueable in sorting out the reputation and tossing the hucksters, is no good when applied to real-time news which is too fresh to build up a linkmap."

In the (relatively) static web, the network nodes are pages and the endorsement actions are the links between them which are effectively permanent as well as public, and thus crawlable. In the Now Web, the network nodes are people and the endorsements are ephemeral share actions, the majority of which are not public or crawlable (i.e. email, IM, Facebook -- what I call the 'Deep Now Web'). And so, authority also takes on a different form from the aggregate view that PageRank provides to the personal measure of how much influence an individual has with her social network on a particular topic at a given moment.

I agree that we need to have a means of systematically capturing the newly important metadata of share actions and that it needs to be done at the point of sharing (see Jeff Jonas). But, I believe the more easily adopted (and thus ultimately more useful) taxonomy will be one of contextual metadata (i.e. who/what/when/where/why/how) rather than the more personal folksonomy/tagging approach you suggest.

Excellent post. But while I agree with everything you wrote, I think you may have gotten carried away with a little rhetorical hyperbole :-) As Julian says, all media is (and always has been) by definition social.

I think the blurring exemplified by the CNN/Facebook and newspaper/TwitPic examples is that of the legacy (and artificial, I might add) line between "conventional" or "mainstream" media and "new" media. However, I think this is more a matter of new media maturing to a point where it can deal meaningfully in the currency of conventional media (i.e. eyeballs). When you think about the fact that Facebook now has >50M US users, that CNN is partnering with them doesn't really sound all that revolutionary.

IMHO, the more concrete distinction that will continue to remain for a while is that between passive and participatory media. While passive media (e.g. feature films, broadcast tv) is generally associated with "conventional media" companies and participatory media (e.g. blogs, youtube videos) is generally associated with "new media" companies, it is a matter of correlation not causation. "Conventional media" companies will continue to explore participatory media as "new media" companies will foray into passive media (e.g. MySpace's "Quarterlife" and "Roommates").

I fully agree with you that the intersection of the best of passive media (e.g. production value) and participatory media (e.g. community) holds immense promise of which the CNN/Facebook integration is only a preview. But for the foreseeable future, I believe quality content will continue to be produced at both ends of the spectrum.

Congrats bro! I know how hard you fought the good fight, and how difficult it is to finally let go of all the great things you and your awesome team were able to accomplish despite all the artificial hurdles you so politely apologized for.

I'm excited to see what crazy ideas you let loose over at Nokia. And, thanks for the shout-out (and especially for keeping me out of the PPT section ;-) ).

Playing hard to get also seems to work.

On day 3 of TC50, I ended up talking to a VC who was so wary of being pitched that he was hiding his badge. He asked what I did, and I told him that I was working on an early stage start-up. So when I politely returned the question and he replied that he was a VC specializing in early stage start-ups, I could see him bracing himself for the pitch.

But, I just kept the conversation going and didn't mention anything further about what I was working on. When we parted ways a few minutes later, he offered me his card unsolicited.

I'm totally gonna tap that ass! ;-)