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Animoto allows you to create a professional looking video out of still pictures, in a hurry. From the time I signed up to the time I emailed my wife the completed video took 20 minutes tops. That’s including the initial signup process and playing around time.

The coolest feature of the application is that it allows you to easily integrate music into the video and automagically “shapes” the video based on the beats of the song! The one downside is that their music library is fairly limited but you can upload your own music.

You can also share the video via tweets, Facebooking it, or embedding it into your site/blog.

I made the video below to entertain my wife but thought I’d share so you can get an example of a final product.

I recently had “the Twitter talk” with the CEO of a high tech B2B company. His one main question was, “Will Twitter help us make money?”

My response was that B2B companies should not look to Twitter as a way to sell widgets, but to view it as a trade show.

At a trade show:

1. Conversations and actions are focused on building relationships
2. Outcomes are evaluated on a long-term basis, not a quick hit
3. Strong partnerships are the greatest financial reward. In the CEO’s business, a new vendor can mean millions in sales per year
4. It’s a great place to share the company’s brand and personality
5. To get the most out of a show, you have to engage participants or you will get lost in the crowd

So there is a reward at the end of the Twitter rainbow for B2B companies. But it takes time, work, and a decent strategy.

Oh, and don’t forget the swag.

I spent the morning at a Starbucks in Cerritos, California, busily working on a proposal. After an hour I took a break, snapped a few pictures of my surroundings then tried to shoot off a 12seconds.tv video update via my iPhone.

But the update didn’t work. I tried again. No love.

So I posted a message via Twitter,

“Trying to send 12seconds.tv update from my iPhone but no workee.”-@jesseluna

I paused, then refreshed my Twitter iPhone application and there were two responses from folks at 12seconds.tv, including one from Sol Lipman, the 12seconds.tv co-founder. Two more responses came in seconds later.

Is your business or organization prepared to compete with customer service on demand? Sol’s is.

Here’s my 12seconds.tv post, third time was a charm:

[iPhone] Productivity paradise? on 12seconds.tv

This is a true story but the audio is a parody.

Listen to the TwitNews “details”:

[audio:http://www.jpluna.com/wordpress/audio/police_exam.mp3]

ABC News Story Link:
Suspect jailed after applying to be cop

With Thanksgiving rolling around and Black Friday shopping ads all over the place, I wondered if my Twitter buddies were more likely to be buying things online and from their networks. So I asked one question:

Would you be *more likely* to buy goods or services from someone in your online social network?

I immediately received several replies and confirmations of having taken the poll. “Yes!” “Absolutely” were the first replies and those were similar to the results as a whole. With 47 people polled, over 80% of respondents indicated that they would be more likely to buy from their online networks.

More Likely to Buy?

[Click the chart to enlarge.]

More likely to buy from your SocNet?

It will be interesting to see larger samples of data on this question after the holiday seasons. I expect offline companies will be surprised at the number of dollars that are funneled through online shopping.

What does this poll mean to you?

SendChanclazo Banner

Originally uploaded by jesseluna

I had a lot of fun creating this banner. Intended to be silly/funny, it features me getting smacked in the head by a shoe and has bright colors. The color combinations have a Mexican/loteria/cartoonish feel to it.

The application already has 74 downloads and it’s only been on Facebook for three days and I just barely submitted it to the Application Directory today.

What can you do to spice up something that is usually very ordinary to help stand out?

Facebook application:

http://apps.facebook.com/chanc_sydltcb/