The crowd is buzzing and ready to rock at RE Barcamp DC!

Posted via web from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

@BradInman @RhondaPorter @PhxREguy @doverbey & @ResPres are dropping social media knowledge of the folks at RE Blogworld.

Great people on this panel. Good sign of things to come today!

Posted via web from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0002.mov (7320 KB)

Just got to Blog World. I’m interested to see how it goes in year 2, and Hal and Bill share their expectations as first-timers.

Posted via web from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

Posted via web from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

Posted via web from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

I love books. I always have. In fact, one of my ultimate dreams is to either build a library, or have one named after me at some point. I love libraries, too.

I was an English major in college, so I’ve read a lot of literature, and now I read a lot of non-fiction and business books. I always try to have a good book around to read. That is one of the reasons that I love the Kindle app for the iPhone. It means that I always have a little library in my pocket. I’ve read a lot of good books lately, most of them on the Kindle app.

There is one major drawback to the Kindle app, though. I discovered it when I mentioned to my Facebook friends that I was reading “Trust Agents,” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Someone asked me, “can I borrow the book when you are finished with it?” Well, of course I wanted to share the book with my friends. Problem is, I can’t share books on the Kindle. Well, I guess I could, but it would mean loaning my iPhone to someone until they were done with it, and that won’t work.

So, I went out a bought a physical copy of the book, so that I could share it with friends. Then I thought, “how could I share the book with even more people, people who might want to read it, but who wouldn’t know to ask me for it?” That’s when it hit me– donate the book to the library. Duh.

By donating the book to the library, anyone can find it and read it, return it, and then anyone else can do the same thing; and the local library gets a current book without having to dip into their very limited acquisition budget– everybody wins.

So, that’s exactly what I did. I took “Trust Agents” to the Fluvanna County Library, and made a donation. Oh, and I made a video about my experience, too:

I can guarantee that I’ll be doing this with more books. My wife, Kari, will tell you all about the giant tubs of books taking up space in our shed because there is limited shelf space in our house. I would encourage anyone reading this to consider taking a trip to your local library and donating the great books that you have already read. The library will appreciate it, and so will the community of folks who visit the library.

ps-  ”Trust Agents” is a fabulous book.  In the future, I’ll be discussing some of the lessons I have learned from the book.  In the meantime, you can buy it on Amazon, if you want.  Or, you could always see if they have it at your local library; if not, I know a library that does.

Heartbeat by Lilzebra  
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heartbeat.mp3 (330 KB)

The purpose of this post is two-fold:  First, I wanted to give everyone an update on @LilZebra. Second, I wanted to see how Posterous handles audio files. 

So, first things first–  @LilZebra is doing very well.  He/she resides just below Kari's belly-button apparently, and is quite content swimming around and tweeting and such.  Kari is doing very well, also.  We won't found out if @LilZebra is a boy or girl until September 11th, when we have a 3-D ultrasound.  That is going to be very cool.  At this last visit, though, we did get to hear the heartbeat of @LilZebra.  So, if you want, you can take a listen to it. 

I really wanted to share the ultrasound pics from our visit last month, but they weren't good enough to really make out anything when I uploaded them to the computer.  I guess you'll all just have to wait for the 3-D ones, which should be very cool. 

Thanks to everyone who has given us well-wishes and encouragement.  One thing is for sure, @LilZebra is going to be one very well-loved little person.  For that, we are eternally greatful.

Posted via email from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

Posted via web from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

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IMG_0277.MOV (3401 KB)

Please forgive typos, this was sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Daniel Rothamel’s posterous

I’ve lived in the Charlottesville area for 20 years now.  During that entire 20 years, NBC29 has always been my go-to source for local news.  This is due in large part to the fact that NBC29 was the ONLY choice for local news until fairly recently.  With the addition of stations at the Newsplex, things changed.

I still watched NBC29, though.  Hey, habits are tough to break.  Especially those built over a decades.

The mere addition of three new stations wasn’t really enough to change the way I got my local television news.  On top of that, now that I have DishNetwork, I really don’t watch the local channels that much at all. Add to that the fact that network television is pretty much horrendous, with the exception of sports broadcasts, and you have the perfect recipe for me to completely ignore the local news outlets.

What has changed, however, is the way in which I get news and information, generally.  It’s not that I don’t want the local news and information, it’s just that I get all my news and information differently than I did five or even three years ago.  I don’t read a hard copy of any newspaper, but I read a heck of a lot of news through the various iPhone apps I have, or on the Internet when I am at the computer.  I use twitter a lot more to see what local folks are up to, and they tend to break a lot of stories for me.  I also follow a lot of local people of Facebook, and the same holds true there, too.

That is why when I discovered that CBS19 had a Facebook page, I was interested enough to become a fan.  Boy, am I glad that I did.  CBS19 does a wonderful job of posting not only the stories that they have during their broadcasts, but also additional information, polls, and more feature/behind the scenes type stuff that is interesting.

The best part about it is that I don’t have to be home at 6:00 and 11:00 to get the news, and I can find it while I am catching up with what my friends are doing on Facebook.  The fan page allows me to discover and connect with other people in the Charlottesville Area.  All of this means that the CBS19 Facebook page is not only convenient, easy to use, and informative, but it also helps me meet new people and expand my network.  Very cool.

If you want to become a fan of the CBS19 Facebook page, just go to http://facebook.com/Newsplex.  You can also find CBS19 on Twitter, and even on YouTube.

Kudos to CBS19 for being willing to take on the challenges that traditional media outlets face in this new media world.  I hope they continue.

And who knows, they may even get me to change the channel. . .