Last night I hung out with some of the most active individuals in the “new PR” industry of social media, if you can call it an industry. Some are self-declared gurus, others “hireable” (read: unemployed), and many are just dipping their toe in the waters of “social media” for the first time. We heard from Rob Glaser, CEO of Real Networks, about their new media player, Real Player SP. I’m not a big fan of Real Networks, considering the amount of theft they accomplished in the name of the law with Microsoft (and subsequent destruction of wealth) during their anti-trust proceedings in 1998. So I admit, I heckled a bit.

It didn’t help that Rob alluded to examples that revealed he hadn’t really come out of his cave since the election, including his abysmally low number of tweets (but he has a DAY JOB!), reference to played out Sarah Palin jokes, and a YouTube video of a dog attacking itself that was at the height of its popularity over a year ago. It was clear to me that he hadn’t be properly prepped for this audience of neophiles, who snub anything that isn’t hyper-recent (like – TODAY!)

On a more serious note it did also make me wonder if Real is also living in the past, well behind trends such as the iPhone, which arguably boasts the same features as their new media player AND the fantastic distribution model of the iTunes store.  Since content distribution is the name of the game, and we had to sit and watch as the Youtube video uploaded to the phone via USB cable, I couldn’t help but feel like this was missing the mark with too many steps for the user to carry out.

Seattle 2.0 TV Gals & iPhones Unite!

I love this photo by Randy Stewart (@stewtopia) of me with Shauna Causey of Seattle 2.0 TV

Shauna experiemented with a new Ustream channel – her own! – and broadcasted a lot of event live from http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ShaunaCausey

You Can’t Fight the Tako Truk

It was a hard sell for me, since my feet were hurting enormously by the time they kicked us out of the Lake Union Cafe.  We did end up driving the 10 blocks to Tako Truk (@takotruk), which is a trendy little spot hosted outside of 14 Carrot on Eastlake.  Rumor has it the man running this covert operation was previously an employee of Tom Douglas, and the gourmet tacos (3 for $5) attested to that!

Today I had the distinct pleasure of dining with a dozen other active Twitter users from the Seattle area as we tried out the new lunch menu of El Gaucho Bellevue, which opened last November for Taste & Tweet.  The event is an ongoing social media marketing experiment to raise brand awareness for the restaurants involved.  We had a lot of fun and I ended up know about half the people there, including one woman who was the nurse at my high school and has since reinveted herself!

The highlight of the event was taking a tour through the kitchen, hosted by GM David Sherling.  I was able to capture the experience on video using Qik on my iPhone.  Check it out!

You think your problem is bad, but mine is even worse… at the rate you’re all going the number of wedding presents I am going to need is growing exponentially!!!

Thanks xkcd for the laugh.

My friend Brian is probably one of the funniest people I know, both on camera and off. In this video, he does an excellent job of showing us how to practice in flight safety on Alaska Airlines. Make sure to watch through the 2 minute mark, and see his excellent improvisation of the Alaska Airlines Visa sign-up. Love the wonderfully funemployed at Seattle SM Profiles for providing this video!!!