Historic Interviews With The Founders Of Social Media, By Lon Safko

Jack Herrick, Founder of WikiHow

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Jack Herrick, Founder of WikiHow. Jack discusses his passion for creating the world’s largest on-line how-to manual. This consummate entrepreneur shares his moment of inspiration which lead to WikiHowIn this 26 minute interview Jack talks about how his Wiki was created, how it is edited, and how it is maintained by passionate volunteers, viewers, and contributors. Jack shares some awesome insights on how he built WikiHow to more than 40,000 “How-To” articles and how he plans to grow WikiHow from there.

Vint Cerf , “Father Of The Internet” & Futurist - WIRED interview with Vint Cerf

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with “The Father Of The Internet” or as Vint corrected me, one of many developers who created the Internet. In this podcast Vint discusses many of his insights on how the internet was created, his views on the affect of social media on the Internet, and where he thinks the Internet will be in the future.In this 29 minute interview Vint shares his enthusiasm for how far the Internet has come from their original governmental project, his support of “standardization”, and he cautions us about Internet misuses. Take a few moments to hear about how Vint is currently working on taking “The World Web Web” and making it “Interplanetary” through a collaboration with NASA. Hear how it all started from an original American Pioneer in his own words. After hearing this exciting interview, you will have a whole new perspective on “Cerfing” The Web.

Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter

In this historic interview Lon Safko speaks with Biz Stone the Cofounder of Twitter where Biz describes Twitter as more than just a microblogging tool, but as a general communication utility. Biz tells us how people are using Twitter for everything from “What are you doing?” to immediate disaster reports, from “Where is there gas in Atlanta” to a TV producer’s immediate feedback on a new television pilot.In this 31 minute interview Biz describes how Dell has made $500,000 using Twitter last year and how other companies such as Comcast, Whole Foods, and even NASA is using Twitter to make science more accessible. Biz talks about how in an emergency when all of the cell providers go down, Twitter’s SMS technology allows your “tweets” to still go through. Biz explains the immediacy of Twitter in that during the recent earthquake in L.A., more than 3,600 tweets went out within the first minute, while it took A.P. more than 9 minutes to send out their wire. Biz also explains how Twitter is being used in the presidential candidate debates, and that reliability is their 100% focus.

Stephanie Bryant, “Videoblogging For Dummies”Listen to historic interview interview with Lon Safko and Stephanie Cottrell Bryant the author of “Videoblogging For Dummies,” published by John Wiley & Sons.Stephanie shares her insights into the world of videoblogging and her passion for getting it right in this 24 minute interview.

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Scott Clough, Avid On-Line Gamer, Scott Clough

In this podcast Lon Safko speaks with Scott Clough about on-line gaming and community building. Scott shares his insights about how on-line gaming or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) has grew from the simple board game to the P.C. to on-line with more than 10 million players in one game alone.In this 32 minute interview Scott explains how role play, collaboration, teamwork, strategy, and ultimate success of a quest can be exciting and habit forming. Scott explains “cheats”, “hacks”, exploits” “griefers” and how they affect the game and the community. Scott further tell us about “farming” or “harvesting” gold and swords, the “casual” versus the “hard-core” player, why on-line gaming builds such a huge faithful following of gamer community and why businesses should watch the $1 billion+ multi-million player industry.

Robert Scoble, Famous Blogger, Scobleizer, & Author - Fast Company, Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Robert Scoble the Famous Microsoft Blogger, The Scobleizer, and the author of “Naked Conversations” published by John Wiley & Sons in the airport on his way to Berlin, Germany. Robert discusses the importance of “content”, sincerity, and the different ways to communicate with your target audience.In this 16 minute interview Robert emphasizes the importance of “listening” to your customers, prospects, and other potential readers of your blog, audio podcast, and video blogs. Robert shares some amazing insights and some personal stories of a few of the incredible people he has interviewed over the past several years, including presidential candidates, congressmen, and even Bill Gates. (Oh yeah, Robert even Scobilized me!)

Leah Culver,Co-Founder, PownceIn this historic Lon Safko speaks with Leah Culver, Co-Founder of Pownce about what Pownce is and how people from around the world are using Pownce from everything from marriage proposals to how to make bacon. Leah shares her thoughts on how Pownce can be used to send real time messages, links, music, photos, events, and even file up to 100mb.In this 20 minute interview Leah describes how there is no character limit to the amount of text you can send in a message with Pownce and how companies are using Pownce to communicate internally and are sending files between members of their design, marketing, P.R., and sales teams.  Leah also tells us that as a programmer for Pownce, she uses Pownce internally herself.  Leah describes how Pownce will import your photos and other information from your other social media web sites such as MySpace and FaceBook and Pownce is ready to announce how when you take a picture with your iPhone and send it to a friend, the exact location of that picture is automatically sent as well.  This way your friends know where you are at all times.December 1, 2008: We are sad to announce that Pownce is shutting down on December 15, 2008. As of today, Pownce will no longer be accepting new users or new pro accounts.

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Kevin Marks, Technology Advocate, Google for OpenSocial

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Kevin Marks, Technology Advocate for Google who is working on the international multi-corporation project, OpenSocial. Kevin discusses the purpose of OpenSocial and how it is going to change the way “trusted networks”, work.In this 41 minute interview, Kevin talks about how competing companies from around the world came together to cooperate in creating a standard on how personal profiles, data bases, and trusted networks will begin sharing information while protecting the 350 million users from repetition and password fraud.” This interview is longer than most, but it is filled with incredible insights on how the Open Social Project is going to change the world and how we interact with it on-line.

Kyle Ford, Director, Product Marketing, for Ning

In this historic interview Lon Safko speaks with Kyle Ford the Director, Product Marketing for Ning. Kyle describes how easy and cost effective to set up your own MySpace / FaceBook social network. Kyle shares some insights into how Ning works to allow a drag and drop interface so anyone can create their own site, even his grandmother. Kyle explains the “Freemium” business model and how inexpensive it is to brand your own social network site and how Google Open Social is implemented in NingIn this 29 minute interview Kyle tells us about how individuals are using Ning and even Fortune 500 Companies are having incredible success with their own network. Kyle tells us how Saturn Car Company, Fuji Film, WD 40 are just a few of the nearly ½ million Ning social networks.

Angela Courtin, SVP Marketing Entertainment & Content for MySpace

In this historic interview Lon Safko speaks with Angela Courtin, SVP Marketing Entertainment & Content for MySpace. Angela discusses MySpace is different things to different people, over 70 million people in the U.S. and 120 million people worldwide.In this 16 minute interview Angela clarifies the misconception about MySpace being just for teenagers. Angela tell us that 85% of MySpace Users are over the age of 18 and that 40% of all moms on-line, are on MySpace. Angela talks about how MySpace and Disney teeamed up to Launch High School Musical 3 and enganged more than 4,000 schools and had an opening day box office of over $40million. She also shares how small businesses are benefiting from MySpace MyAds and where one small business increased their revenues by 200%!