Word of mouth is casual, yet the active sharing of brand – positive or negative experience with a good or service. Virality is causal, yet the passive compound effect of interconnections being maxed out.

Word of mouth doesn’t scale. Virality does.

Read the rest of a great article about the difference between word of mouth and virality from Andrew Weissman’s blog.

A night shot from the archives. Look for more photography to come

Water and storage in one bottle!

What we saw today was the spark. The explosion will continue for twenty years. We will all feel the warmth.

What we saw today was the beginning of two-decades of mobile domination by Apple. What Microsoft and Windows was to the desktop, Apple and Touch will be to mobile.

And while mobile platforms have been around for a while, they never really gained passionate traction. Palm sorta had it for a while. Windows Mobile has been getting better. RIM is the current choice for business email on the go.

But just like there were a lot of players in the portable music space, there were no clear leaders. Until Apple came to town.

The same thing is happening today in the mobile space. Palm, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian. They’ve been players, but no one has broken out big. No one has managed to grab both the business and consumer markets like Windows did on the desktop. Until Apple came to town. At least that’s my prediction.

Apple has the superior product, the big momentum, the cool, the lust, the business hooks, the consumer hooks, the customer experience, the interface, the design (interface and industrial), the smooth development environment, the vision.

And, maybe the secret key to it all, they have the commercial platform that makes it possible for a developer to actually sell, distribute, and update their software with the flip of a switch. And don’t forget the customer experience revolution — buying and it-just-works installation of iPhone software will be as one-click easy as buying music from the iTunes store. It’s all wrapped into one beautiful package. A package that only Apple can deliver.

This is brand new big shit. It all started today.

Via 37signals.

While I don’t quite agree with the 20 year part, I do feel like this is going to up the competition bar for a lot of other companies. With this SDK (Software Development Kit- Lets people make their own programs) release, Apple is now in the Business Enterprise market and will put even heavier competition on Blackberries. It dosn’t stop there though, Apple could now be a direct competitor for mobile gaming platforms. I feel like they could very easily turn into the wii of mobile gaming. Apple has a piece of hardware that has touchscreen, accelerometer, camera, microphone, stereo sound, hardware video acceleration, vibration and a keyboard – not much that you couldn’t make with that.

I’m very excited to see where this goes. And my regrets of going to the iPhone from my Blackberry Curve vanished back when they added IMAP e-mail support.

As of late I’ve been busy. Very busy. The Photobooth Company has really been taking off, and I’m confident I can expand this into something really great. It has been far more work than I ever imagined. I even came into it with the idea that since it was just a weekend thing it would be cake to keep up with everything. I was wrong. Between figuring out taxes, keeping track of costs, developing a better booth, slowly building a website, researching how to go about bringing on extra help… It’s turned into way more of just a “weekend gig”. Which I think is good.

I’m also getting to the point where I’m starting to expand away from just doing weddings. I’ve got some really great ideas that can help nightclubs reach the prized myspace and facebook demographic. I’ll probably expand more on that idea in a later post, but I’m pretty excited about it.

It’s also a little funny to see people who thought a photobooth business was a weird idea that would never really turn into a full fledged serious company, start to realize I might have a pretty legit thing going after all.

Oh! And I recently jumped out of a plane in Hawaii… that was pretty fun.

Not to fear though! Just hop over to my new Photobooth Company website.. I’ve got a blog going over there as well. Might not be as outlandish at times as this blog, but I just don’t have much free time lately.

Maybe I’ll just set up cross posting.. maybe not…

Either way check out the other site and add it to your feed if that’s that sorta thing you’re into.

And I promise that the above picture will be the last or close to last picture of a cat posted on this site.

Also really into the new Jay-Z CD American Gangster….

Evidently Verizon has a little problem with their new FIOS service. They seem to burn down a majority of the houses they install it in.

Not that I want my house burned down.. but I can’t wait until this comes to my area. Plus by then they should be able to get it installed with maybe just minimal smoke damage.

Brought out the booth to Kelly’s going away party on Thursday night… needless to say it was a pretty big hit! I’ve got another gig lined up tomorrow night as well. Some kinda hair expo thing. Not really sure, but it should be pretty fun regardless!

Having a party? Getting Married?!
You should probably rent a Photo Booth!

A Vision Of Students Today

20/20 Report on “Stupid in America”

It turned out amazing though! With the help of a bunch of great friends I managed to book well over the 5 rentals I’d hoped to get at the expo. Construction on the new version of the booth continued up until the morning of the expo as we fitted a flash unit into the booth right at the event!

The response to the booth was amazing, I had no idea that people would love it so much! Some of the really great quotes from the day were: “I want one of these [photobooths] more than I want flowers at my wedding” “Everyone is always looking for the next hot thing for weddings, and this Photobooth is it!”

The thing that sold them the quickest, aside from the fun of the actual book was the guest books. I had two out as examples and I think they were the selling point for most of the people. They loved the idea that they would have this great book full of pictures of their guests, in a unique format.

There was another Photobooth set up at the expo from Uptown Photobooths, while I love what they are doing, I didn’t quite understand why they came since they are from Minnesota. They are just starting up just as we are, so I would think they would want to focus on one area, then work to expand. But hey, I’m not one to tell them how to run their business.

Lessons learned at the expo:

-Battery powered flash for the lighting sucks. Flash would shut off after 30 seconds or so and the first picture in the strips would be black since the flash didn’t fire.

-Bottles of water are good to have handy, you mouth gets dry fast when you are talking so much.

-A 12′ roll of carpet will just barely fit into a Dodge Caravan.

-This whole idea is going TONS better than I’d ever planned. Just don’t want to get too big too fast.

Thanks again to everyone that helped out at the Expo I couldn’t have done it without you guys!

Here are some more pictures!

Finished booth with the new sides and corners that my Dad was nice enough to build for me!

Detail view of the edges, Just need to get a frame around the screen now.

There were 3 fashion shows, and I gave away free booth rentals for each one!

The Cottage for lunch and beer after tear down at the expo (which took less than 30 min!)

The Real World must be a truly depressing place to live. It’s apparently a realm where new ideas, unfamiliar approaches, and foreign concepts always lose. I’m told that the only thing that works in The Real World is what its inhabitants already know and already do. No matter how flawed or inefficient that way may be.

People who live there are said to be living Real Life. An existence filled with pessimism, despair, and every shade of pitch black imaginable. Yet strangely, these people living Real Lives seem not to be interested in getting out. They are not looking for a change of scenery of the dreary Real World.

Instead, they’re actually trying to recruit! In arguments everywhere, they’re trying to convince those of a sunnier demeanor that they must convert to Real Life or perish. That resisting the Real World is futile. This call persists even in the face of contrary experiences. Tales of people who actually did things differently and still lived to see the sun rise in the morning.

Please don’t be fooled, there’s nothing even remotely attractive about The Real World. It’s a bleak mirage suitable only as a place of communion for those who have lost all hope.

I’m not even going to say anything else about that post. I’d just ruin something about it. So if you read it once, read it again. Via SvN