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Mark Zuckerberg from videochat announcement on livestream

Today we got to watch Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg talk about a new feature in Facebook called Video Calling. Although it looks like a great feature, I (like a lot of others in the chat) were a little set back on the delivery of this announcement. Mark Zuckerberg ain’t no Steve Jobs. Even though he doesn’t need to be, how can he improve his delivery?

I personally went through this growing pain (and still do). It’s how you give a speech to a crowd without boring them half to death. It’s about talking to a group without them mocking your words.

Then I saw a video that gave me an epiphany – This was Admiral James Stockdale – the vice-presidential candidate for Ross Perot in 1992. It was against Al Gore and Dan Quayle – and his speech made Dan Quayle look good (full video of vice president debate on C-SPAN).

 ”Who am I? Why am I here?” Stockdale begins.”I’m not a politician – everyone knows that. So don’t expect me to use the language of the Washington insider. 37 years in the Navy, only one of them up there in Washington. Now, I’m an academic. The centerpiece of my life was the Vietnam war. “

At this point, he said this clearly and succinctly. He got a good praise from the crowd. However, he continued:

“I know things about the Vietnam war – better than anybody in the world… I know SOME things about the vietnam war better than anybody in the world. I know how governments….  how… how american governments… can be…. {puts on glasses} can be courageous and how they can be coward…”

He continues on, stumbling on what he had to say. It wasn’t the best 2 minutes and really hurt in the Perot election. His voice stuttered and his posture was atrocious – using the podium as a leaning post. Fidgeting with his pen. The rest of the debate basically went downhill from there.

I learned a little about speaking watching this. I started watching other videos with eagle eyes, trying to get ideas on how to speak and keep a group captivated.

Zuckerberg’s Announcement – Skype Video Calling

Video Calling

It was a pretty big announcement, although Google+ did overshadow with their “Hangout” feature. If you are chatting with a friend and want to talk to them, start the video. A great little feature, especially if you need to get more information and typing wasn’t going to cut it.

Mark Zuckerberg, though, was not putting his best foot forward. Although he didn’t stumble like Admirable Stockdale, he did show a lot of flaw with his delivery.

Zuckerberg in 150 Umms or less

At first I counted 116. But when I went back, within the first 15 minutes Zuckerberg was on stage, he said “Umm” or “Uhh” 148 times.  Another 15-20 umms came out when he was passing the mic to Peter, Phillip and Tony Bates (CEO of Skype). The only times he didn’t say Umm was when he could talk without distraction. If he mentioned a name, had to flip through pages or looked back at the screens, an “Umm” was going to come out.

Slow Down – You Speak too fast

When he didn’t say “Umm”, Zuckerberg was a freight train that was running a bit late. Maybe it was too much Gatorade and not enough regular water.

Gatorade is for those running a marathon. Drinking more water than Gatorade has been noted to help you, especially if you have anxiety to things like speaking in front of crowds. I say it that way, because I don’t want to completely discount the effects of Gatorade. But once again, if I was speaking, I would choose to drink room temperature water up to an hour before getting on stage.

Cold Hard Fact: Most of us are constantly dehydrated.

1/3 of americans are not only dehydrated, but mistake thirst for hunger. The Mayo Clinic suggests Eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day.

Zuckerberg can Deliver a Good Story…

This was the only story he gave in his speech. It showed the human side and he delivered it well. Here is what he said:

“Over the next coming weeks and months we have a lot of fun stuff to roll out,” Zuckerberg stars with. “I was walking around the block – I have this neighbor (70 or 80 years old) he is always doing work in his yard  in the morning. I walked by this morning and he’s like ‘I heard you guys are launching something on the radio’. Yeah – it’s gonna be a good day. ‘I hope it’s video chat. I really want to chat with my grandson…’ Alright. Tune in.”

Zuckerberg’s Announcement Overall – Video Calling in Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg and Skype CEO Tony Bates

The feature is pretty straightforward – If you are chatting and want to talk face-to-face, you now can do that in Facebook. It’s one of many new features rolling out in the upcoming months. Zuckerberg talked about how Moore’s Law can be applied to Social Networking (with charts to prove that).

Suggestions to help in Speaking

1. If Mark Zuckerberg looks forward, there is no issues. He should have some type of screen facing him with the presentation. He shouldn’t have to look behind him.
2. I was not sure if he had a fully written speech or bullet points. He might want to try a fully written speech on a teleprompter for events like this (where thousands are watching)
3. Being hands free is always the best. Limited distractions so you can focus on your words.
4. Coaching – The only way to get rid of the nasty habits is having a coach sit down with you and say “Get the ‘UMM’ out!”
5. Drink room temperature water. Not a ton – you don’t want to have to pee halfway through.
6. Practice with a metronome

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www.thegeeksmack.com – This week’s episode of Geek Smack! Happy post- 4th of July all. Hope you had your share of burgers and blowin stuff up. It’s been a thin weekend of news because everyone has been salivating over a new Social Network. Still, we have a full show of Smack for you, so here it is. Do you like the new format? Take my small survey and let me know!

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Day in Tech History – 5 Tech Things You Should Know – The OTT – Geekazine Special Media Feed

Geek Smack! Tech News:

Obama is NOT Dead
-Twitter account hacked. Twitter is a great place for information, but a news event like this will hit everywhere if true.
Verizon Dropping Unlimited
- Beware of the unlimited plan. There is no such thing anymore.
Mobile Payments to Triple by 2015
- No wonder – we are moving to a mobile lifestyle.
Nap Time on Wifi Could Save Battery Life
- Duke University student asks why can’t the wifi “Take a nap” to save battery life?
Skype 5.2 for Mac Arrives
- Video conferencing for Mac users!
RUMOR: Apple Ships Lion ‘Gold Master’
NEW SEGMENT – Geek Smack! Dubbed
Apple Orders 15 million iPhone 5s
- Expected to have A5 Dual core chips and a 8 MP camera.
Toshiba Glasses Free 3D laptop
- $2100 for this powerful notebook.
Cisco Supplies Snooping Gear for China
-500,000 cameras will go into Congquing, China
Phone Data to Analyze Traffic Shutdown
- Your tracking data put to good use.
The First Person to live 150 years is Alive Now
For some reason, I missed this article. It’s a great read – we are getting older with better care. There is expected to be one person in the world that will live to the age of 150.

QOTW: Will you be exodusing to Google+?

Geek Smack! Geek News:

Music Geeks: FaderFox LV3 Live Controller
- A great little controller for tracks. Completely programmable. £250
Green: T-shirt Charges through Ambient Sound
- Speakers turn sound 80db or higher into energy. A rock concert could charge your phone
Dr. Who: TARDIS Soap Gets You Clean
- TARDIS soap is only $16.50
Camera: Frankesteintax: 1917 Kodak Camera on DLSR
- Great Steampunk project
Gamer: Cheap Video Games for Summer Drought
- RNR Mongoose makes some recommendations as to what video games to play again.
Hygene: Darth Hairdryer
- Feel Darth Vader’s breath as your hair gets dry.
Eco: Get a Species Named After You
- For $2,500 you can get a species named after you. Could there be a “Geekazine” species in the future?
Apple: Get the Prototype iPhone 4
- When we checked, the ebay auction was taken down.

Geek Smack! Topic of the Week: Google+ and Facebook Battle

Google+ launches, Yet Mark Zuckerberg is on the top of the most followed list to Google+. Could it be because he has 4 profiles? Michael Jackson has a profile. The limited beta is still in effect at this point and so far so good. Some people are ready to exodus Facebook, but there is one issue – Google+ is still in beta. How soon will it be before it turns into Facebook?

Facebook Wars? Facbook blocks Google+ Exporter tool – That is not a surprise. It’s someone else’s personal data. As long as Facebook doesn’t block any import tool to my pictures, video and posts.

The Geek Smack! is under a Creative Commons no-deriv license

Google+

There are a lot of people that snapped up the Google+ invite when they had the chance. It’s right now mostly made up of Tech-savvy and Social Mediates.  Since it’s introduction last week, there has been a lot of Buzz about it (no, not Google Buzz) – Some have even made the statement that they are moving to Google+ from Facebook. That may not be the best move right now and we’ll talk about why.

The Google+ Project

Google+ was created to compete with Facebook. Who are you and what are you doing with audio, pictures and video. Google+ is (right now) a social network. People sharing items back and forth with others, people commenting and giving a “+1” (compared to the Facebook Like button).

Google+ big difference is how you catalog your friends. You can put them into circles, from the 4 categories they give you (Family, Friends, Acquaintances and Following) or from circles you make. So being organized can be important if you need to send items out to people you know.

Google Sparks

Tom Anderson (MySpace creator) and even Mark Zuckerberg have been seen on this social network. In fact, Zuckerberg is the top followed on the 100 most popular on Google+. Who would have seen that?

Four main features are on the site at this time. +1 (which we talked about already), the ability to Bold, Italicize and strikethrough words with special tagging (*Bold*, _Italic_ and -Strikethrough- ). The Spark feature lets you find news and information of interest (Could this replace the RSS reader?).

The biggest out of the four, though, is the Hangout feature. You can start a hangout and invite friends to come in. There, up to 10 friends can video-chat. You can talk back and forth, share a YouTube video or maybe create an audience for you shows?

The site is pretty bare otherwise. It’s really comparable to a luxury car with the stereo, but no air conditioner or power locks. Eventually, we will see many new features. When the API goes public, you can certainly expect a lot more activity.

What Google+ will be doing to GMail, other Google properties

google top bar

The biggest bump in this whole thing is the +1 button. You can already put that on your websites, but you will also be able to see it in other properties around Google. If you “Like” it, then +1. But it’s not like, because that could be a legal issue…

All Google properties are getting changes. The search page already saw a change. The top line turned into a black bar overnight.

Gmail is expected to get revamps next week. What will happen to Google Buzz? What will happen to Orkut - their other Social Network software? Google Wave has been put to bed, but the site is still active.

The move from Facebook to Google+

ihavemoved

Already people are starting to make their feelings known. There is an image that people are making as their Facebook profile (img 2). It is telling people that they are heading to Google+. Goodbye friends, goodbye pictures, goodbye to the events and pages that you made. Goodbye to the groups that you took many hours to create and put people into. Goodbye Angry Birds, Farmville, What people say about you and the many other applications that plague you everyday.

But really, is this move a smart one – especially if you delete your profile on Facebook? Continue reading “Drawing Lines in the Sand: Google+ is Not Facebook. At Least Not Just YET…” »

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I was on the Morning Tech Show with Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee. We talk about Rob’s Nissan Leaf (coming soon), New RSS elements and iTunes Ping. News dealt with Nokia and the switch from Symbian to Windows 7. We talk about Seedbox, a cloud service for Bittorrents. AOL buys Huffington Post – What that meant to unpaid bloggers.

After a small hangup with Skype, we continue on with Wael Ghonim – the Google Exec that was a key in Egypt politics. Google on the new VP8 and the lawsuit on the new codec being open source. Mark Zuckerberg announces that citizen journalism is more socialized.

Last leg we discussed about Verizon iPhone in Fargo, ND. Apple is getting gaming to Apple TV. Google is doing Wedding Planning. SXSW BitTorrent and final thoughts.

facebook

Today, Mark Zuckerberg announced an expansion of their messaging service. It’s not here to replace email, but to enhance it. However, with opportunity that no one will get any more spam and usability will be easier simply because it’s within Facebook, would you really want to keep your other email account?

I personally have more than one email address. That is part of my role. I figure that this will just be another extension to mail collection.

Great.

The more functionality that gets added, the more people will use it. If there are no privacy issues attached, then expect the masses to gravitate away from their hotmail, yahoo, and gmail accounts.

Even businesses might move to the service.

Now before you discount that statement: I remember when Gmail started business services and the same thing was said. Now there are companies that ditched their Exchange servers for a Gmail apps account.

The only thing I am interested is the ability to save my email for personal archive purposes.

In the meantime, you might not get the full functionality of facebook email right away – unless you know someone that gives you an invite. Still, I know if my mother can get email in Facebook, she’ll finally ditch the free service that puts malware and ad popups on her computer.