This Scoble-Podtech video is a great example of an obvious and excellent use for mobile learning.

”I thought this was an interesting service: they teach Spanish speaking people how to speak English through the use of some unique video games that work on any cell phones. Larry Upton, principal at Edioma, shows me the service.”

A coworker and I attended another downtown Seattle Lunch 2.o with an insightful informal discussion with Portent Interactive and Widemile. Hats off to Josh Maher for organizing this tech synergy and tasty food.

Portent Interactive, who helps organizations “realize exponential growth using the Internet”, presented an interesting Time of Conversion vs. Conversion Rate research study based on 10 sites over a one-year period, including 7 e-commerce and 3 non-e-commerce. Based on their data, direct to site, organic search, and pay per click have the highest generated revenue with less conversion time. Surprisingly, their data indicates that video, social networks and corporate blogs have the longest conversion time, with lower revenue. I wonder how a similar study would compare in the next coming years as the social network adoption rate increases (i.e. Facebook) and video delivery continues to improve.

Widemile, who “optimizes conversion rates with multivariate testing, presenting a case study of the Weather Channel Interactive. Their initial goal was to improve conversion (of the landing page) by 30% and the actual increase was by 225%. The incorporation of Flash significantly outperformed any static counterpart. It sounds like their testing methodology is solid and they know what to do with the numbers to move forward.

Radiohead announces that they will release their new album, In Rainbows, exclusively as a DRM-free MP3 download from inrainbows.com on October 10, 2007. Besides NOT distributing promotional copies, they are giving the consumer the ability to pay whatever they want for the downloads, including FREE.

This is a very interesting move on Radiohead’s part. The recording industry has long been struggling with reality of IF/WHY/HOW to update their business model. The book Wikinomics says “Smart companies are encouraging, rather than fighting, the heaving growth of massive online communities…” The record industry can still thrive, it just needs to adapt and modify its business model to embrace the social evolutionary embrace of technology.

There will be no advances, promotional copies, digital streams, media sites, etc. of RADIOHEAD’s In Rainbows.

Everyone in the world will be getting the music at the same time: Oct. 10. That includes us. We don’t have anything to play anyone in the nine days until the record is available. Everyone at nasty has put his or her order in and just to clarify: you are not being asked to pay for a promo (as some have inquired). you can pay nothing or as much or as little as you want.

There will be no promotional copies of the discbox either, as each discbox is being made to order. Sorry.

Radiohead announces that they will release their new album, In Rainbows, exclusively as a DRM-free MP3 download from inrainbows.com on October 10, 2007. Besides NOT distributing promotional copies, they are giving the consumer the ability to pay whatever they want for the downloads, including FREE.

This is a very interesting move on Radiohead’s part. The recording industry has long been struggling with reality of IF/WHY/HOW to update their business model. The book Wikinomics says “Smart companies are encouraging, rather than fighting, the heaving growth of massive online communities…” The record industry can still thrive, it just needs to adapt and modify its business model to embrace the social evolutionary embrace of technology.

There will be no advances, promotional copies, digital streams, media sites, etc. of RADIOHEAD’s In Rainbows.

Everyone in the world will be getting the music at the same time: Oct. 10. That includes us. We don’t have anything to play anyone in the nine days until the record is available. Everyone at nasty has put his or her order in and just to clarify: you are not being asked to pay for a promo (as some have inquired). you can pay nothing or as much or as little as you want.

There will be no promotional copies of the discbox either, as each discbox is being made to order. Sorry.

Found a new social network (Change.org) focused on social activism on JETSET. After reading Convergence Culture and being awakened to this growing trend, I am noticing more networks like this popping up, which is cool not only from a web trends perspective, but also from a “hey, we need to take care of the world we all live in” perspective. Business and entertainment is not the only outlet and use for the web. People are using web social participation for what hits home in their worlds. It is not only about participating in a virtual world, and instead participating the real world to set things in action. As we know, the need drives the tool.

Today as citizens of the world, we face a daunting array of social and environmental problems ranging from health care and civil rights to global warming and economic inequality. For each of these issues, whether local or global in scope, there are millions of people who care passionately about working toward a solution but have no way of connecting with each other to advance a common goal.

Change.org aims to transform social activism by serving as the central platform that connects likeminded people, whatever their interests, and enables them to exchange information, share ideas, and collectively act to address the issues they care about.