By Alex ShapiroThis has been a fun week of whuffie for us all. Our lively discussions about Tara Hunt's book have been picked up and tossed around by a number of other bloggers and sites this week, thus enacting the very concepts of social capital and relationship-building we've been typing about. Full circle! If any of us makes a new professional (and remunerative!) contact that came from someone clicking on the link in our by-line here, well, fess up and let folks know. It's pretty exciting to … [Read more...]

By Brian Sacawa I have a website. I have a blog. I tweet. I have also been spotted on delicious, Flickr, and MySpace. So I think it's pretty obvious which side of the "whuffie" argument I come down on, and I have a theory about non-adopters. I think the anti-whuffies fall into two categories: the 'scaredy cats' and the 'resisters'. 'Scaredy cats' refuse to engage with this technology not because they're frightened of technology--quite the contrary, many of them use technology to make their … [Read more...]

By Molly Sheridan In the good timing department, Anne Midgette weighs in on the classical music community's applications of technology in this morning's WaPo. The sad thing is that neither of these camps seems to have a very sophisticated idea of what "new technology" actually is. In classical music, new technology generally means either the use of video projections during performance or anything related to the Internet. The problem is that people on both sides of the argument -- those in favor … [Read more...]

By Matthew GuerrieriAm I the only one that finds it funny/odd that so many Web 2.0 terms sound like they should be characters on a kids' TV show? Whuffie, Twitter, Flickr, Wiki, Bebo, Plurk, Yelp--I feel like I'm naming the Lost Boys. And I think it points to something about Internet interactivity: the services are, at least initially and sometimes exclusively, driven more by the gee-whiz novelty of the technology rather than filling an actual need. Reading The Whuffie Factor, I similarly sensed … [Read more...]

By Molly Sheridan Embracing the chaos of community means letting go of the need to plan everything and the fantasy that you can control any given situation. Instead of building up plans and structure, you should be building flexibility and environmental awareness into your campaigns. You need to be hyperaware of your surroundings and be able to tap into opportunities as they arise and that you never could have predicted.--Tara Hunt, The Wuffie Factor What's the biggest secret you have? Often … [Read more...]

By Marc WeidenbaumThe non-fiction book we're yapping about, The Whuffie Factor, takes its key word, "whuffie," from a science fiction novel by Cory Doctorow. That book was Doctorow's first published novel, and it feels very much like a first novel, especially a first sci-fi novel. The book is titled Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and it's jam-packed with seriously cool ideas, follows a fairly simple plot with relatively off-the-rack characters, and comes to a close that's all too quick and … [Read more...]

By Molly SheridanAs happens sometimes when traveling via Amtrak, I had a frustrating experience at the ticket window last Monday. Several things Tara Hunt outlines in The Wuffie Factor triggered ideas I wanted to apply to the arts, but I was so inspired by her discussion of harnessing the power of user feedback to improve pretty much everything, I decided to try out my newly gained knowledge and email Amtrak's customer service. How would this effect everyone's whuffie? Well, let's see how it … [Read more...]

This week at the suggestion of composer Alex Shapiro, the Blogger Book Club takes on The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business by Tara Hunt. Thanks, Alex! I hope it will really open up the chance to think and talk about how music and the related industries we each have contact with are embracing technology and social networking for better and worse. Every time Hunt wrote "business" I mentally substituted "cultural institution" and, whether I agreed with her or … [Read more...]