Spectacular Speakers

If you've ever listened to John Byrne's podcasts or checked out a video on BusinessWeek.com, you'll know that he's bullish about the potential of social media for print publications.

With over 2000 videos on the site covering topics from investing to twice-daily market reports, the executive editor of BusinessWeek has immersed himself in the collaboration of journalism and the web, keeping readers engaged and informed about breaking news in real time.

Last year, three distinctive features were launched on Businessweek.com to bring readers into a larger conversation. In Your Face publishes the most substantive comments left by readers with photos of the contributors, Dialogue with Readers highlights conversations between readers and editors, and What's Your Story Idea allows readers to pitch the subjects they think should be covered. And it's no surprise that the Jack and Suzy Welch podcast has been a hit.

In a NY 360 interview, Byrne says that he considers the web a more a utility than a medium:

Q: Tell me what the challenges have been for you bringing print to the online world and merging those two worlds.

A: I am utterly transformed by the experience. I love the medium, in fact I don't even consider it a medium. I consider it much like a utility like electricity because it's print, it's radio, it's TV and it's more than that because of the interactive elements and the social media that you can provide online.

At the upcoming Mediabistro Circus, Byrne will discuss social media and how he got his reporters to use Twitter. BusinessWeek is one of the strongest brands on the micro-blogging site.

After the jump, check out the full NY 360 interview video with Byrne:

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I first met Keith Ferrazzi at TED, when he asked me to join 5 people I didn't know for lunch. I'd just finished reading Never Eat Alone, his bestselling book about the power of connections, and was excited to see his method in action.

It was a low key gathering at a deli during the conference lunch break - everyone paid for their own food, we sat at a small corner table with paper plates & plastic forks. And while Keith knew everyone (or knew enough to invite us), no one else knew one another. My lunchmates included Keith, Lawrence Bender, Theresa Brown , an investment banker, and a VP from P&G. An interesting mix of people who otherwise may not have met, and an unexpected opportunity to make memorable connections.

In programming Circus this year, I thought Keith would be an inspiring and timely speaker, considering the economic climate and state of the media business. And though meeting people is a primary reason to attend a conference, it's not always easy to do. On June 3, Keith will show Circus attendees how important it is to connect, and how simple it can be.

Here's a sample:

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First, a crowd-sourcing cheat-sheet:

1) You know what crowd-sourcing is even if you don't think you do. Wikipedia is a classic example of crowd-sourcing, "the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialized few."

2) Jeff Howe literally wrote the book on Crowd-sourcing, based on a 2006 article he wrote for Wired.

Now you're ready for advanced crowd-sourcing:

Jeff recently gave a talk at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab, said, "Think of the book as a DVD and this talk as the bonus features. Specifically, the director's commentary." Check out the video below.

And to hear Jeff talk about social media and social change, come to Mediabistro Circus 2009.

Jeff Howe on the role of incentives in crowdsourcing from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

Gary Vaynerchuk made headlines in The New York Times recently. In a business section interview, Gary discussed how Twitter trumps direct mail and a $100 video camera is all you need to get started. Here's what Gary said about how to work the internet even if you don't have the calm charisma of Barak Obama or the maniacal energy of a wine salesman from Jersey.

Q. You and the president have very distinctive, outgoing personalities. Suppose a business owner is shy, terrified of speaking into a camera?
A. I got very lucky in the DNA lottery, but content is king. The introvert can write a blog, offering expertise and making a personal connection with the customer. Charisma or an over-the-top personality wouldn't mean anything in the wine business if I didn't know a zinfandel from a Chardonnay.

Though he recently delivered the "unofficial keynote" at SxSW, Gary says he turns down 90% of the requests he gets to speak or consult. But you can hear him at Circus 2009.

According to Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired and recently announced Mediabistro Circus Keynote Speaker, zero will be our hero. He thinks the future will be one of free music, free air travel, free online services, free everything. And if we're lucky, free love. It's like Woodstock, but with less hallucinogenics.

Anderson, who is releasing a book in 2009, tentatively titled "FREE," gives us a sneak peak of what we're in for with his recent Wired article, "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business."

Cue excerpt that speaks volumes:

"The huge psychological gap between "almost zero" and "zero" is why micropayments failed. It's why Google doesn't show up on your credit card. It's why modern Web companies don't charge their users anything. And it's why Yahoo gives away disk drive space. The question of infinite storage was not if but when. The winners made their stuff free first."

The word "free" always gets our ears burning, so we're all very excited to see what Mr. Anderson has to say at Mediabistro Circus. And you should too.

You can check out the full Mediabistro Circus session schedule here.

While some of us hold down the fort in frigid Soho as we put the finishing touches on our Circus website, our founder, Laurel, is busy working the air-conditioned room at TED in lovely Monterey. For the time being, she's traded in the usual media party suspects for the likes of Al Gore, Isaac Mizrahi, Amy Tan, and Dave Eggers.

Rumor has it that right this very minute Laurel's unleashing her considerable charms (and a feather-boa lasso) on a couple of TEDsters as our final Mediabistro Circus presenters.

Stay tuned. This is going to be good.

Not to sound like a complete nerd, but the force is with Jim Daly, literally. Daly, one of the speakers at Mediabistro Circus, is editor-in-chief of Edutopia, the core of The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Yes, that George Lucas. Cue lightsaber sound effect.

Edutopia is dedicated to promoting innovation in K-12 education. They publish a variety of media in the pursuit of this cause,
including online video, books, and a magazine.

Magazines, specifically digital ones, will be the focus of
Jim's visit to Mediabistro Circus. He'll be talking about the transition from print to digital format. Edutopia magazine, as one might guess, is offered in digital format as well as paper (coincidentally, the digital version is powered by nxtbook media, one of the sponsors for Mediabistro Circus).

Additionally, Daly will also be part of a pre-conference web
cast, "Paper to Pixels" on March 20^th. We'll do our best at that time to extract any Indiana Jones spoilers he may have overheard around the water cooler in San Francisco.

When most of us notice the inordinate amount of crap on television these days, the limits of our dissatisfaction usually stop at water cooler grumblings, or perhaps the occasional angry letter for the truly scorned. Lucky for us, Jim Louderback took things a bit further.

Louderback, one of our stellar speakers at Mediabistro Circus, is CEO of Revision 3, the "Broadcast Network for the Internet Generation," dedicated to all the things cool people love: tech, comedy, music, comic books, and more. Jim, where have you been all our lives?

While it's incredibly easy these days to get lost in the scores of hit-and-miss user-generated content sites, the San Francisco based Revision 3 produces all completely original content, including Diggnation, a (very funny) show dedicated to, you guessed it, analyzing the week's most popular stories on Digg.com. We love this show, primarily because we had been wasting half our work days on Digg. Now Revision 3 does all the leg work for us.

Louderback will be speaking about online video, and what it's like running a cool-as-hell Internet broadcast network.

You know someone is destined to be part of the geek ethos when part of their childhood history involves building electronics in their garage. Like Gates and Jobs, Robert Scoble, one of our Mediabistro Circus speakers, was bitten by the tech bug at an early age, soldering motherboards with his dad, and helping to build Apple IIs with mom. Talk about your typical American family.

Scoble has certainly graduated from the garage, becoming one of the most recognizable names on the web, and something of a geek celebrity, complete with public spats with old flames. He's considered one the foremost authorities on blogging, and his own blog, Scobleizer, is a must read for any fellow technophile. He recently joined Fast Company to spearhead their online video operations, aptly named Fast Company TV.

If you're a fan of The Scobe, you've no doubt noticed one or two pictures of him around the blogosphere, sans shirt. Obviously, a physique such as his demands our attention. Lucky for us, he'll be at Mediabistro Circus talking about online video and his efforts launching Fast Company TV. Whether it's shirtless will be entirely up to him.