Last night at the bar I had the pleasure of talking to some agency guys. Conversations like these are refreshing, maybe because of the beer and cheese fries, or maybe the content, but these conversations almost always end in some insight.

Banter about digital soon led to Jonathan Harris and then on to web habits. The big insight is that try fascination on the web is a result of coincidence.

Physical example: looking in the encyclopedia and seeing the word NEXT to what you were searching for.

Digital Example: del.icio.us - looking up a bookmark and seeing a users other bookmarks.

The profound unique moment here is that searching on Google leads to the result. The above leads to your result PLUS a little extra you wouldn’t ave known before. So how do we embrace this idea and take it a step farther and making it more accessible and useful?

Matt had an interesting interview with the Yahoo! guys the other day. He talked about WordPress 2.5 and some development concepts and thoughts about all of Wordpress and Automattic products.

A TREND BARRELING IN on us like a tsunami, picking up momentum and all the waters in its path is the race to be free. Increasingly more web applications (software run on the Internet) are transitioning to free tools for the average user. Silicon Valley is the hot bed for ambitious technology startups all pumping the mantra “to be free is to get rich off advertisers.” These ambitious visionaries are pouring millions of venture monies into creating feature-rich accessible software to turn around and give away for free. They are reinventing the software industry and advertisers love every second of it.

The drive to be free is motivated by the notion of universally accessible knowledge, an ideal kicked into high gear by Google and its ambitious goal of making all information globally accessible. The race to be free’s momentum comes from grey haired software companies trying to keep pace with the youthful valley startups. They scramble to understand this phenomena and think of any possible alternative to the fearsome free. There is no price slashing when free is in the equation and the stark realization that free is worth a whole lot of cash is beginning to set in with everyone.

The dollars in this business are swiftly changing hands as ad revenue from free software is outmatching that of licensing fees for costly applications. As software developers are opening their products freely to the pubic and subsidizing their revenue from advertising they are realizing that the advertising is not subsidizing their revenue, it is doubling or even tripling it.

For advertisers this is one more avenue, one more cluster of eyes for ads. They are welcoming the need for advertisements from developers and the acceptance of ads from users. As this trend evolves advertisers are being given richer more creative media to place advertisements. Diverse products such as Pandora or Google Docs calls on advertisers to be creative and understand how to successfully place ads in software packages, nothing like any challenge they have faced before.

As this trend continues to move forward we will begin to see advertisements in unsuspecting places, perhaps in a dropdown menu or a toolbar. But as a result users will be given free feature-rich applications, developers will be given mounds of cash from advertisers, and advertisers will be given fresh eyes in a new environment.

IT’S LIKE THE KID ON THE PLAYGROUND that everybody wants to be like. Facebook not only has a loyal following, it has a slew of copycats. And these copycatters are showing Facebook the way, unknowingly helping it grow and setting the tone for the online playgrounds that are social networks and shaping Facebook into a mature, intelligent and significant piece of technology.

New social networks are emerging like a hailstorm pounding on us from the Internet clouds above. Inevitably these infant networks are not holding suit to Facebook forcing them to recede unnoticed into the night, but not without leaving their stench for the Facebook dogs to pick up. Driving these hopeful many is the notion of innovative new features to attract users. Twitter integration, Mobil tracking, powerful personal publishing, video orgies and media connectivity to name a few are the basis of these hopefuls whose names disappear but ideas live on.

Operating happily with over 41 million users Facebook is able to sit back and watch the ideas unfold online. The current trend is to start a social network. Get an innovative idea, find a software engineer and some venture capital and get to work. It worked great for Facebook, but it is stops there. The trend has now switched gears to all of the above plus failure and the adoption of your idea by Facebook. Continuing on this path Facebook will develop more and more useful, feature rich applications and its user count will continue to grow, making it even more impossible for the success of a young imitator to find its place in the playground.

While Facebook unveils newly adopted features advertisers will be given new opportunities to reach their audience. Already Facebook’s stunning mobile interface has attracted innovative advertising tactics on mobile devices and this trend will continue to grow as features continue to emerge. Similar to the phenomena happening with free web applications, advertisers will be required to be nimble and innovative as they experiment and struggle to understand how to successfully deploy a message on Facebook.

I discovered today the the University of Oregon Libraries uses WordPress. Take a look at this page. Pretty cool.

Being interesting, funny, pertinent and/or useful isn’t easy. Doing it face to face in conversation isn’t easy but even more troublesome through a blog. We pride ourselves on the “I have a blog” statement but are cloaked in shame at the idea, wait reality, that nobody participates in it. A blog that nobody interacts with is masturbation. It makes us publishers feel great, but it doesn’t achieve anything. There are no other parties sharing our satisfaction by debating, arguing, agreeing or commenting on our words. Even worse are the observers of our masturbation. Those who come by to watch but refuse to join in.

That being said blogging is much like dating in that we put ourselves out there, we solicit our words to the world in hope that somebody will be attracted enough to them to respond. But hundreds of thousands of blogs remain in the singles end of the pool. Somehow the masses of the world are too shy to come say hello and we have exhausted our resources in trying to attract them. All we have now is a dwindling will to keep speaking our words and the false notion that in the end it is for ourselves anyway - which we all know is a joke. Well however noble that may be, it is still masturbation and the catholic Internet G-ds are frowning on you.

“If you build it they will come” is not true in this arena, we have built yet they still are nowhere around. So all I can offer is pride in masturbation. Know that it is better then the only alternative… abstinence. Keep hope that somebody will say anything someday. Enjoy the satisfaction of a content harvester republishing your post and getting a ping back in your comments, because that’s all you have. Just know that one of these days that lucky someone will come along and say hello.

The Barak Obama video I shared has gone from 50,00 views yesterday to over 1 million views today - I DID see that coming. I didn’t see the content of the over 6 thousand comments coming though. Civil political debate has erupted on YouTube about not the video but the larger politics of our current presidential hopefuls. It it inspiring that the political forum can be taken even YouTube.

Take a minute and read some comments - its worth it!

I have been wanting to publish something about US politics but cant quite figure out what I have to say about it, of course in regards to the Internet. So as a cop out I will spread this video that I first saw on Professor Deborah Morrison’s blog. Whether you support Barak Obama or Clinton, or any other candidate, it is a good video to watch. Pass it on, we love viral!

In my senior year at the University of Oregon I have been wearing a few different hats in the advertising department where I am earning my degree. I am a “digital consultant” to different groups in and out of the school. I am the “Interactive Producer/Planner” in other facets. On my own I am a Web Application Developer. I have come to learn quickly that there is little room for your head when wearing all these different hats.

A professor and adviser of mine gives me many of these titles, helping me to define my place and where I fit in professionally. This is frustratingly terrific. It helps me realize my skills, but cripples me in refining individual ones. Not saying that any of this is bad, but when you don’t quite know what you do and other keep naming you other things, you better be ready to tackle them all.

Along with the work I do for various groups I have started my own project and set a very ambitious deadline of late February (I don’t want to divulge the exact date, it might give the project away). This project is the next in my series that started with PackMapr. PackMapr went so well and was so well received that I figured I was on to something and aught to try it again. This project is exponentially more complicated, sophisticated, usable and hopefully impressive.

With all this how does one manage their time? I started thinking about this when a friend looking over my shoulder as I was writing PHP asked how I learned it. I responded “you want to learn PHP?” she said “No, I want to know how YOU learned to do that.” I smirkingly responded “Well, lose some friends, find a lock for your door, buy a comfy chair for your desk and start reading. Open your computer and surf and read and read and surf.” She seemed unimpressed. But that mere conversation lead me to discover that my learning process has taught me an invaluable lesson in time management. Sit down and do it.

I cant procrastinate on any project or that project inevitably dies. Either because it doesn’t get done or is done poorly due to a lack of time. So my advise to my colleagues, and everyone else out there. Find that motivation and just sit down and do it. Because of my work ethic I take no pity on those pulling all nighters and scrambling at the last minute. These lessons in life always seem to come without cause or reason, that gives them the most effect.