From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

We all knew this was coming. The 8-18 year-old generation is tomorrow’s business leaders. This generation will be 100% connected when they hit the workforce because it’s been a normal way of life all of their lives.

A national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that … today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

How does this compare to your digital life? The technology is here today to retrieve, and have pushed to you, any type or massive amount of information you could imagine. Whether you want to or not, the means to make you more efficient is here in our laptops, smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. Are you taking full advantage of the digital revolution?

Photo credit: waxmerchant

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Dandy Life by Collective Soul.

Sit back, relax, grab your cup o joe and let’s talk about RSS feeds readers and how they can benefit you each day. Of great interest should be the way today’s feeds readers allow you to get all the interesting information that you care about in a very time efficient manner. And best of all, RSS readers do not require you to be a techie!

Benefits of using an RSS reader:

1. Aggregates all information that I’m interested in into one location.
2. Can read information from blogs, websites, news sources, forums, etc. in one location.
3. Accessible from mobile devices.
4. Resides in the Internet cloud so is accessible from anywhere that I am. If you have a web browser, you can access your feeds / articles.
5. Can quickly and easily share each article with family, friends or business partners via email within the reader application.
6. Can tag each article for later search.
7. Is an immense time saver for retrieving information or news from the Internet. You can scan through many article headlines very quickly.
8. You don’t have to remember URLs or web addresses for favorite information.
9. The reader automatically checks for new information so you don’t have to visit each website.

Two RSS feeds to get you started:

1. http://feeds.feedburner.com/blog_keithparnell_com
2. http://feeds.feedburner.com/jasegroup_com_blog

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view the video.

Related Information:
http://www.bloglines.com
http://coffeewiththeceo.com
http://reader.google.com
http://keithparnell.com
http://www.newsgator.com
http://www.rojo.com

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Red Light by Jonny Lang.

Finally, hot off the presses, great news! The Keith Parnell | Coffee with the CEO iPhone App is available in Apple’s App Store. Download the new app here.

Why would you want this app? From one place on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you can get the most current blog posts from my blog, tweets from Twitter, and videos from YouTube. Too cool.

Many thanks to the team at MotherApp for building my iPhone App!

Keith Parnell iPhone App Press Release:

About this Blog:

Keith is the Founder & CEO of JASE Group, a marketing and new media agency based in Norfolk, VA.

Keith is Co-Founder & CLO of NeedLocalHelp.com, an Internet start-up that specializes in local business services, local small business advertising, and providing the most comprehensive local search directories across the United States.

Keith is also Co-Founder and Co-Principal of New Media Conventions.

Keith is a speaker, writer and blogger at keithparnell.com. He frequently performs interactive talks and how-to sessions for companies, non-profit organizations, conferences and seminars. He is a knowledgeable and passionate speaker on a variety of topics including new media, online marketing, social media, inbound marketing strategies, brand management solutions, and successful advertising techniques.

Technology, marketing and social media are among Keith’s daily passions. He has a vast presence and personal network in the social media world with c. 25,000 followers and subscribers from his blogs, Twitter, JASEzone, Facebook, LinkedIn and FriendFeed networks.

Keith is a member of the Entrepreneurs Forum of Hampton Roads, the Hampton Roads Internet Marketing & Technology Group, the Williamsburg / Peninsula Internet Marketing Group, and the Virginia Opera Guild. Keith video blogs at CoffeeWithTheCEO.com.

About MotherApp BlogEngine:

MotherApp BlogEngine converts your blogs and tweets to a native iPhone app. It extends your reach to the mobile medium and provides a dedicated space for your audience to engage. MotherApp BlogEngine also generates additional stream of income through embedded advertisement. Visit http://www.motherapp.com/en/blogger/ for information and sign up for MotherApp BlogEngine.

About MotherApp:

We are the industry-leading provider of cross platform mobile applications. Our patent-pending MotherApp Engine turns one HTML source code into native apps on multiple mobile platforms, including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian. We improve time-to-market, while reducing development and support costs. Our customers today include world-class banks, carriers, financial press, retail, radio stations, tourism boards and ad agencies worldwide. For more details and press enquires, please visit: http://www.motherapp.com.

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Hard Times by Ray Charles.

I stumbled across this really cool interview Robert Scoble (Rackspace Hosting) did with Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group, formerly of Forrester Research) and Ray Wang (Altimeter Group, formerly of Forrester Research). I can’t remember the last time I didn’t stray from a 27 minute video. These guys are fascinating and definitely forward-thinkers that you should follow.

My takeaways from the video:

“Sometime real-time is not fast enough.” - Jeremiah Owyang

Translation: We must think about what will happen tomorrow and predict moves, changes, issues, and trends.

“B2B and B2C is dead.” - Ray Wang

Translation: Because of the ‘best of breed’ concept between on-premise information storage and cloud computing, the fundamentals of relationships are changing.

The Social CRM Space is becoming evermore dominant. Mapping out your social graph is what companies are doing today in preparation for tomorrow. Facebook wants to become an identity company, not a social network. Their vision is that wherever you go on the web, your Facebook friends go with you.

“I put that [RSS Reader] away. Most of my traffic is coming from Twitter.” - Jeremiah Owyang

Translation: We cannot afford to not have real-time data today.

iPhone vs. BlackBerry vs. Android - “Definitely iPhone because its platform is easier to build on.” - Ray Wang

Translation: A lot of developers will be able to build on the iPhone platform much easier than any other. Simple for the developer means power and more technology for the consumer and enterprise user.

Special Note: This may be the first time any comment has intrigued me about the iPhone. Being a BlackBerry evangelist (!), I’ve always contended that BlackBerry will be tops for a long time. I’m interested now in the iPhone purely because it could solve some of the limitations I have now with mobile technology.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to I Still Believe by Norman Brown.

Alright, my BlackBerry friends, where’s my business card reader app for my BlackBerry?!

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I’m at this month’s Internet Marketing & Technology meeting in Chesapeake. The speakers are discussing the advantages of both the iPhone and the Blackberry line.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Several new laws have gone into effect beginning today, July 1, 2009. Of them is making it illegal for drivers to text or email while behind the wheel. The fine for such an offense: $20. Yikes. Who is that going to deter?

List of new laws in Virginia*:

• Ban reading or sending text messages or e-mails while driving.
• Allow voters to wear political T-shirts, buttons or other apparel to the polls.
• Prohibit stores from selling novelty cigarette lighters to those under 18.
• Require localities that collect guns as part of buyback programs to attempt to sell them to licensed dealers before destroying them.
• Allow courts to suspend the driver’s licenses of teens who miss 10 consecutive days of school.
• Impose a 10 percent tax on pay-per-view movies in Virginia hotel rooms, with the money divided evenly between the general fund and a pool of money that provides incentives for filmmakers to shoot movies in Virginia.
• Bar public access to a statewide database of Virginians with permits to carry concealed handguns. The public still could get information on concealed carry permit holders at each circuit court.
• Bar payday lenders from offering different types of loans in an effort to get around tough new restrictions placed on the short-term, high-interest loans.

* Source: WVEC.com

Kyle at BlackBerry Cool has published his list of top 5 BlackBerry social networks. I’ve reposted them below.

What do you think? Are there others that you like?

What about your favorite social networks for iPhone?

BBMNation

BBMNation is a social network that, like most BlackBerry social networks, uses PINs to connect users. Designed by a night club promoter named Steven Ojo and his partner Alex Trumpower, the site launched about a year ago. The site is incredibly bare bones, and has a graphical style reminiscent of web 1.0. On the bright side, its users seem to be attractive college students, possibly associated with Steven Ojo’s night club background.

You can register for BBMNation here.

Magmic Social

Magmic Social aims to connect its BlackBerry and mobile gamers with one another in order to create a better overall mobile gaming experience. The site does this by connecting users, creating high scores, developing personalized avatars and promoting a more interactive community.

Magmic Social is in my opinion, the most unique of all the BlackBerry social networks. The reason is that is focuses on the one aspect of BlackBerry that gets the least news coverage: games. I’m hard pressed to find a blog that focuses on BlackBerry games specifically, which is interesting considering it’s such an up-and-coming market.

Go see Magmic Social for yourself here.

BlackBerryUnderground

BBUnderground is a social network that has a comprehensive vision. The site is a social network that could be described as somewhere between Facebook and MySpace. BBU is seeking to capture the BlackBerry space and be a one-stop-shop for news, opinion, software, accessories and networking. Each member can add music, video’s, photo’s, blogs and discussions, as well as start events, and create and participate in the bbu forums. As a social network, I really commend the idea of being a resource for the community that has a monetization plan. Far too many social networks are lacking a business plan.

Check out BlackBerry Underground here.

BlackBerry Ave.

This site has a look and feel that is very similar to BBMNation. As a direct competitor with many of the other social networks for BlackBerry, this site uses file transfers to make it unique. The site allows users to upload 1000 MB of files to share with other BlackBerry users. This could meant that the site gets a good following of media freaks.

Find some friends on BBMNation here.

PinSwapMe

PinSwapMe has a lot of what you would expect in a BB social networking site. I would say it’s direct competitor in BBUnderground, in that it wants to be a one-stop-shop. I like that PinSwapMe provides a wide range of things to do on the site. It’s important for every social network to have a reason to visit on a daily basis.

Take a look at PinSwapMe here.

Seth Sutel, an AP Business Writer wrote a great end-user article that Yahoo! News published on the topic of RSS feeds. He explains, RSS which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” is a kind of computer code that allows you to “subscribe” to various Web sites.

The nice thing about RSS feeds is that they are so simple to subscribe that anyone can use them to stay on top of their favorite topic. RSS feeds are available from millions of sources on millions of topics such as sports, technology, financial, business, marketing and personal just to name a few.

Among the many RSS feed readers (news readers) are Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Google Reader (which I use and recommend), NewsGator and Bloglines. Many of these feed readers are also available for your BlackBerry, iPhone and other popular smartphones.

The RSS feed for this blog can be found here.

The Email delivery signup form for this blog can be found here.

That’s a strong statement. Here it is again, all forms of media will be intangible in 5 years.

That was Steve Rubel’s prediction in the December 1st edition of Advertising Age (print magazine). Steve wagers that, “by January 2014 almost all forms of tangible media will be either in sharp decline or completely extinct in the U.S.”

Tangible media = newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software, video games, etc.

He asks that we consider these points:

• The success of Amazon Kindle.
• Random House is making 15k books available online.
• Microsoft’s Xbox is open to user-generated games available online for download.
• Apple setting the tone through its iTunes store with downloadable iPhone and iPod Touch games.
• Netflix offering play-on-demand movies over the Internet.
• Christian Science Monitor closed its print copy and made all content available online regularly.

All forms of media will be intangible in 5 years? Steve makes some good points but not sure I can get behind this. Consider the Pew Research stats we published earlier this week that 35% of surveyed adults still get their news from newspapers. Those same adults are readers of books, readers of Time magazine and Sports Illustrated.

I agree the majority of media and communications are moving online. But not all and completely. Not in 5 years.

Back to Steve’s main point, what does this mean for advertising? It means that online marketing and ad firms like JASE are becoming more popular and in-demand. The expertise is substantially different than owned by conventional ad firms.

Social media and its extremities like gaming, reading and movies online are the focal points of the future and you’ll need a partner firm like JASE to ensure your stability and growth.

Oh my. Nicole is going to freak when she reads this!
The Food Network has launched a mobile version of their website custom tailored for smartphones such as BlackBerry and iPhone.

The new site offers visitors seasonal recipes, holiday recipes and videos for mobile viewing. Theres also a search box that allows search for specific recipes.

Can you imagine bumping in to someone on the floor at Harris Teeter because instead of looking where they’re going they are searching the Food Network on their smartphone for a special Bolognese sauce for a dinner party this weekend?!

Test it. Try it out - mobile.foodnetwork.com. Someone at home will thank you for not forgetting the stone-ground mustard.