Friday’s Video Views

Meet Yammer’s, I Mean Geni’s David Sacks

When I saw last year that David Sacks would present at Steve Itzler’s BDI Conference in New York, I signed on just to say hello. It wasn’t so much for the attention Sacks has received for inventing Yammer, i.e., “Twitter for Business” (behind the firewall, as much as it was for Geni. For those not familiar with Sacks’s other successful social platform, in essence it’s a crowd-sourced family tree, with your family crowd members uploading all the content. Think of all those photos and VHS tapes gathering dust in drawers and boxes. So glad to see Tech Crunch TV interviewed him recently during which he said “Yammer Wasn’t a Pivot and I Still Love Geni.” I do too! (via Sarah Lacy)

Read Write Enterprise Tools

Not to discount Yammer, the folks at Read Write Enterprise (RWW for Business) conducted an MOS in which they asked: What Can You Do With Enterprise 2.0 Tools Today That You Couldn’t Do A Year Ago?

Gawker Ups the Ante

No longer content with being just a blog, Gawker founder Nick Denton decided to reinvent the flagship site on which his blog network has been built. Lots of attention to this one including a thoughtful piece by New York Times “Bits” editor Nick Bilton who captured some quotes from Denton via IM: “Mr. Denton said over instant messaging that his primary motivation is “reader satisfaction and making the most [of] our best stories.” He believes that more important stories, which otherwise can quickly disappear into a chronological ether with the older blog format, will instead be highlighted for the duration of the news cycle.”

I told Nick (via email) his piece reminded me of my work helping The New York Times announce the newspaper’s foray into color…but not exactly. Here’s a video clip from Lifehacker that lays out the new Gawker.

Foursquare’s Gift to You

Without Dennis Crowley and his Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, what would those of us chronicling and curating the digital, local, mobile, PR, social and marketing revolutions write about? Here’s a clip via WSJ in which Mr. Selvadurai discusses Foursquare’s holiday strategy (i.e., Gap) and why 4sq’s singular mobile focus may give it a leg up on others. Anecdotally, I have yet to find a cultural or commercial establishment in the NY metro area that is not already on Foursquare’s radar.

TWIG

Head of Google’s (anti) spam team Matt Cutts visits with the always upbeat Leo Laporte, Gina Trapani and Jeff Jarvis of “This Week in Google.” One topic: that much buzzed-about New York Times piece featuring that sleezy e-tailer who elicited so many negative online reviews, it actually augmented his Google juice (and SEO).

Skateistan

As Pres. Obama makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan today, master curator Guy Kawasaki and his Alltop site surprised me with this video of skateboarders in that war-ravaged country. (via Good.is)


SKATEISTAN: TO LIVE AND SKATE KABUL from Diesel New Voices on Vimeo.