For those of you who are fans of Twitter and NASCAR, the NASCAR Tweetup was built for you (aka Ultimate Race Day). It is at Whiskey River this weekend and is free, go RSVP right now. Not convinced? Read on…

Twitter and NASCAR are not the most natural of friends at first glance, but if nothing else, they are two of the fastest forms of entertainment. Sporting events all over the country are embracing Twitter. In the past month in North Carolina alone, we have seen our NHL, NBA, and PGA event all embrace Twitter in big ways. It is great to see, but the real money in Charlotte sports is racing. Don’t worry, there is plenty of racing folks finally embracing the microblogging format, even the (still under construction) NASCAR Hall of Fame is sending out tweets.

We are in the middle of Speed Week in Charlotte (actually two weeks long), which means a few hundred thousand race fans are in town embracing their love of all things stock car. They shut down Uptown Charlotte for a few days for a street festival called Speed Street. See Speed Street/Twitter giveaway.

Now I am not sure how many people on Twitter are NASCAR fans or vice versa. But this weekend, the first NASCAR Tweetup is happening at Dale Jr’s very Whishkey River Bar. I am not a huge race fan, but I would not miss the opportunity to network at such a unique get together. The event is being put together by Stephanie Agresta, who also cofounded TechSet, a social media and technology event series.

Come out and enjoy the NASCAR Tweetup, meet some cool people, and embrace your inner Race Fan.

Struggling newspaper budgets continue to reach for as many new ideas as possible. Today an old idea was echoed, once again, by NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch…

Rupert Murdoch announced that he plans to fix the current newspaper business model by charging for access to News Corporation’s newspaper web sites (via RWW)

This got me thinking and I posed this question on Twitter: “If all the newspapers in the country got together and made a pact to start charging for online content, what would happen?”

Newspapers should explore this question carefully. The closer they consider who would thrive in the absence of all their free online content, the clearer picture they will have of their future.

What Would They See in This Future?

• Much more outside media being embedded on their websites (shocking I know)
  
• Brand Mascots thriving (see Colonel Tribune)
  
• The growing importance of a reporter’s personal brand (see Rick Sanchez at CNN)
  
• Content aggregation from the community (see Visit My Baltimore)
• Greater investment in hardware and software
  

What Say Twitter?

As the newest ecosystem within the marketing world, Social Media is a collection of many different types of animals fighting to survive and thrive. Software developers, advertising agencies, and public relations firms alike are all doing very cool things within this evolving space. Defining what a Social Media company is can go in many directions. This list takes a broader look at all the companies that define social media, each leveraging the power of people in unique ways.

Buddy Media – App Builder (Facebook apps FedEx Package and Ad Battle), buyer of other top FB apps, and creator of their own ad network.

Crayon - Joseph Jaffe and a slick list of clients

Crispin Porter + Bogusk – The Burger King Subservient Chicken and Whopper Sacrifice. Also doing some cool things with American Express OPEN.

CrossTech Media – Chris Brogan, Justin Levy, and the Inbound Marketing Summit – enough said.

Hubspot - They own the “inbound marketing” title. They are their best case study with HubSpot.tv and a collection of free marketing tools like Twitter Grader and Facebook Grader

Ignite – They stepped into the social media sphere early and they operate out of the tech and research heavy North Carolina triangle, giving them unique access to the right resources, ideas, and people that matter. They also have a pretty glowing client list that continues to grow.

IZEA - Creators of blog monetizing sites PayPerPost and Social Spark, and recent blog app Cloud Shout, an open source, social network in your sidebar.  They are run by Rock Startup man Ted Murphy and have a blogger advisory board of rock stars.

Radian6 - Good people with one of, if not the best social media tracking and analysis software technologies.

Ripple6 – Their unique technology solutions include custom analytics, publishing platforms, and social networks. Combine with that the old media muscle behind them in Gannet and you get a small innovative company with big resources.

Six Apart – Maker of MovableType and Typepad, access to blog powerhouses like Gawker, the Huffington Post, and Boing Boing, and they recently aquired Apperceptive, a New York social media agency, and now defunct micro-blogging platform Pownce.

Undercurrent - The agency behind the creation and execution of the Ford Fiesta Movement campaign, Undercurrent has some pretty kick ass young talent and is doing some cool things. I also like that they are thoughtful enough to not define themselves as a “social media” company, instead describing themselves as a digital “think tank”.

Wordpress – Look beyond the fact that they are the top blogging and content management software. Wordpress’ purchases of smaller social tools, open source commitment, and investment in what should be one of the best social networking platforms in BuddyPress, makes them an important player within the social media industry.

Thanks to all those who added in their two cents to help put together this list.

Who would you add?

As Social Media continues to evolve and grow, it is gathering epic amounts of information. Extracting value from that information is becoming easier. I gain a lot of value from the time I invest into social media. Typically this value comes in small pieces – a great conversation here, a business tip there, an answer to a nagging question, etc. But it is nice to step back and look at the broader volume of knowledge being exchanged within social media.

You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

Or in simpler terms, we are so involved in the small details, the status updates and photo tagging, that sometimes we don’t stop and see the larger picture. Social denotes people interacting with people, passing along information they care about. Search within this social web can supply us with more timely, relevant information and from many perspectives. This is shifting what we assign value to online and therefore the way we gather information. Search engines should recognize this wealth of information within social networks and build tools to capitalize on it.

Simple Path through a Crowded Wood

Some of the information out there, floating from person to person,  is pretty trivial. Researching what all the people on Twitter ate for breakfast for instance might not help you learn much, but it is data nonetheless. Anyone to dive into these conversations, happening all around us, and get some very cool information in return.

As an example, let us say you are looking for a job. Beyond job searching on LinkedIn, you should be searching on Twitter. This specific search shows you every mention of the phrase “they are hiring”, “they’re hiring”, and “new job opening”. I counted about a dozen real hiring opportunities from that one search within the last 24 hours. And that was without much thought or planning. Put a little research and creativity into it and you could get even more relevant results.

First to Market

Twitter’s speed makes it the front line of information in times of crisis and for major news stories. It can bring you first hand accounts of a plane crash, presidential acceptance speech, or terrorist attack. These information sources are unfiltered, personal, and agile. Google cannot compete in these situations.

Watching the trending topics on Twitter Search is one easy way to get a sense of the speed and volume that we are talking about. And Twitter is tiny compared to the bigger networks. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Myspace have all adopted status updates and tagging of some sort. Tagging and status updates can create a lot of information. The tools to search and digest this information is growing. The functionality of Twitter search will expand to other social networks and technologies.

More Relevance

The speed and access to information that social media allows can put you in touch with experts in many fields. You can get advice from multiple experts on everything from nutrition to real estate to SEO within minutes. Normal search engines can provide similar results, perhaps not as quickly, but maybe with more details. But, social searching can too. Your sources may point you to top online resources in less time than it would take for you to discern for yourself.

Also adding to social search’s relevance is the fact that you may have already built up a connection or trust with the source of the information. If so, the information you gain is even more valuable to you personally.

Most Discussed not Most Linked To

Using  links as votes is a large part of most search engines’ algorithms. Google has wisely started gathering user information by allowing users to personalize these search results. One of the next steps is being able to search through the “most discussed” results of a query, not just the one with more links.  Sites like TweetMeme are already sorting out links that are forwarded the most. Other sites return search results across multiple social networks. Being able to search these results, a database of socially screened resources, presents some cool opportunties.

Any search engine that is not paying attention to the potential and growth of searching within social networks will begin to lose their value.

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Charlotte, NC Social Media events coming in 2009

• BarCamp Charlotte (http://barcampcharlotte.com) January 23-24th – The first big event of 2009 will be BarCamp Charlotte. BarCamp is a user generated conference, find out more here. They are using a Google Group for some of the planning of the event and they just recently jumped onto Twitter, with their website coming soon.
• Social Fresh Social Media Conference Late August – As the first Social Media Conference in Charlotte, Social Fresh aims to bring big name speakers, already to include NPR Social Media Director Andy Carvin, big attendance, and a wide variety of quality content focused on how Social Media is changing the world. We are also playing with allowing everyone to vote on who the speakers are outside of the keynote speakers.

If you are interested in staying in the loop on the 3 events above, please let me know by filling out the below form:

[Form for this post has been removed]

• Better Tweetups – Of course we hope the Twitter Meetups continue to grow in size and quality, but we also plan to build on the every-other-Friday success of #BtynBiz, holding more regular University Tweetups and quarterly City Wide Tweetups Uptwon.
• Possible PodCamp – This is in the brainstorming stage. If interested, let @Charlotte_SEO know.
• Startup Weekends – There are a few people talking about getting together early in the Spring and trying to kick off some entrepenureal projects over a weekend or two. If you are interested, attend the next Tweetup and ask around.
• What Happened In 2008? – Be sure to check out the year in review for what happened in 2008.

Anything else happening on the 2009 Social Media Calendar? Enlighten me in the comments section.

• Guy Kawasaki Event – Network Solutions put on a great event in Uptown Charlotte, by bringing the Apple Evangelist and Entrepenuer, Guy Kawasaki, to speak free for 100 people. @93octane helped put together a post event dinner/Tweetup that is still impacting some of the attendees today. (Me pretending I know what I am talking about with Guy)
• Tweetups Take Over – Southend, University, Lake Norman, Uptown Charlotte,  or #BtynBiz (Ballantyne Business Lunch Meetups every other Wednesday) – Twitter Meetups have solidified themselves as the sounding board, planning meetings, and brainstorming sessions for Charlotte’s Social Media community as a whole. There are usually 3 to 4 a month now, if not more. Some cool photos of past Tweetups (thanks to @93octane).
• SEO Meetup Group – Meetup.com is allowing people all over the world to come together in an organic online organization. One of the best examples of this in Charlotte is the SEO Meetup Group who has seen increasing attendance and group members. They have started to step up their events with regional speakers, panels, and a broad Social Media agenda of content. Many of their recent events have been webcast live as well.
• Social Media Club Charlotte – The genesis our very own local Social Media Club took place a couple months ago. We have had 2 official meetings/events so far. The Ning site we set up is gathering members fast and quickly becoming a hub for Social Media events across town.
• Charlotte Jelly – Trying desperately to drag Charlotte into the coworking space trend is tough, but Catalyst 704 has had a couple initial successes so far and hopes to step things up in 2009.
• Pecha Kucha #1 – This unique, fly-by-presentation event is just one of many that is producing “group content” in a social atmosphere around Charlotte. I was not able to attend, but I heard it was very successful and entertaining.
• Charlotte WordCamp – As one of the first events of it’s kind in content and scope, WordCamp gained over 120 attendees and showed how hungry Charlotte’s online community is for more events and conferences. The event was a great success with support of the Charlotte Observer, Realty.com, HostGator, and of course most of the marketing was word of mouth through Twitter.
• Kirtsy Meetup – The founders of the Female Digg (I hope they don’t hate that name) got together with the some of the more social of Charlotte’s Social Media crew.
• Drive By Consulting Meetup – While small in size, the content and concept of this meetup was very cool.
• PBRDrinkOff Tweetup -  Thanks to @93octane or reminding me of one of the most successful Tweetups of the year. I believe #PBRDrinkOff was the first late night Tweetup and most attended Tweetup in Charlotte. Some photos of the event.

• See the 2009 Event Preview – There are a lot of cool events in the works for 2009.

Got something to add that I forgot or want to correct something I badly screwed up? Leave a comment and I will add your details.

My first Youtube appearance was more painless than I expected. The interview was done by Ad2 Tampa (young advertising club in Tampa) at a national advertising conference I attended, as President of Ad2 Charlotte, this past summer. It was a great event and pretty fun to be interviewed for their AdCast show.

Newspapers have indeed grown too fat and comfortable with their corner of the media spectrum. Few would deny this. The species that can evolve and adopt will survive, with many changes to their DNA. Publications are moving pretty damn fast at the moment to try and mend their ways. Many magazines and newspapers are teaming up with each other, sharing newsrooms and staff where possible, trimming all employee ranks, bringing in user content, and empowering journalists to be their own full fledged media outlets (writer, photographer, editor, producer in one).

Any individual can now rise up from no where and become their own media empire today. The speed, efficiency, and simplicity of the tools that allow this will only increase. Every media outlet needs to be  more mobile, versatile, and eager to evolve.

Much of the print media is in global disaster mode. The resources are dwindling and they are trying to figure out which mutations will allow them to survive. The true dinosaurs will die out.  Those best able to adapt to today’s evolving media will survive. No word yet on how many are really Dinosaurs.

Keep an eye our for more of my design and projects to be featured soon.