I wish that 2012 could be the year that every soldier from every country came home for good. (vote and be active in your country's choices)

I wish that 2012 could be the year that every human being on the planet had an equal chance for dignity and self-determination that would bring food and shelter to their families and make the world a better place for all. (participate in http://kiva.org)

I wish that 2012 could be the year when we could give up the notion that we alone are worthy and understand that all deserve a chance, the same chance that we, the privileged, were born with through no inherent qualities of our own doing. (get over yourself, collectively, we've been brainwashed)

I wish that 2012 could be the year that people who have kids would become patient, ardent and inspiring teachers to their own children in the hours they could be spending on that responsibility. This alone would change the quality of life for the entire world. (got kids? Think about the time you spend with them and the effect you need to have on what and who they will become)

I wish that 2012 could be a year where the quality of life of every being on this planet would improve, just a little. (Stop selfishly wasting resources)

You may notice that these were my wishes for 2011. Little has changed, unfortunately.

Brough Turner, founder of Netblazr which he describes as "a radically new form of wireless ISP." 358: Brough Turner of Netblazr by VoIP Users Conference

Don't believe the image, it's beautiful out here right now! Will this new app save Twitter? twitter.com/randulo/status…

— Randulo Zeeek (@randulo) December9, 2011

Randall, Google Plus is waiting for you and here's why:

• Your Tweets that you consider throwaway during chronic insomnia are not disposable at all, but they're recycled a lot. You're a great writer, you know it, we know it. 
• There is no law that says you have to post things longer than 140 characters, but you'll never be stopped by that limit.
• There's no law that says you have to post a photo, but should you care to, you can post one or more
• There's no law that says you must post links, but you can post them and they will usually be  presented in an interesting inline fashion at the bottom of your post.
• Posts on G+ can be edited and deleted forever, should you care to. Same with comments.
• Public posts are indexed in Google's search results. Don't want that? You have full control of it.
• In fact, you can aim your posts at anyone you like, from the full public + future public who sees search results to one person.
• There's plenty of noise on G+, but just like on Twitter, you don't circle (follow) noisy people, you won't see them.
• Yes it takes some work and time to get it working right. Making wine doesn't? Raising kids? The Time Crossword Puzzle? Nothing worth doing does it self.
• Hangouts. I won't get into this here. Just Hangouts.
• Serious discussion? It's up to you, once you've made your environment, you can be serious or just a desperate insomniac at will.

What's in it for you?

Let's face it, of those 
356,663 followers
you have, how many are interacting with you? At night when you can sleep? Sturgeon's law, my friend.

Thinkup 1.0 is released! @ginatrapani and the crew talk about how they got here and where they're going.

Thinkup Talk Podcast is also available on iTunes

Social media is not for everyone. Does your butcher shop even need a web site? 

But here's the thing. If you are going to do something, put your heart, soul and possibly money into it and do it right. I'm looking at two Facebook fan pages. I call these brand pages. One has many thousands of followers, the other about 10% of the first, yet these represent equally well-known luxury brands with a nearly identical consumer demographic. They were created at about the same time. There is only one reason why there is a ten-to-one ratio of activity and followers. Can you guess what it might be?

Page A is open to fans posting photos, videos, and comments. Page B is not. Page A has a dialog going on week after week. Page B has a continuous feed of vanity posts, liked by people either from the company or from their agencies. Page A wants to engage with you. Page B wants to preach and blurt. Not by coincidence, the same two have Twitter accounts with the same comparison of engagement level. Page B does a little better on Twitter, because it started earlier and Twitter is more forgiving. Why? Because your posts are not usually read all lined up like they are on Facebook, so the lack of engagement isn't obvious. If you could examine the Twitter activities of of the pages on a tool like Thinkup, you'd see a huge difference: Thinkup calls Page B a "broadcaster". It's really just a news feed with no dialog at all.

Take a long hard look at what your company (product, brand or service) is doing out there. Is it possible you don't get it? One of the first things you need to do is to put yourself in the place of a visitor. Why do they come? How easy is it to find what they've come for? If you can honestly say that you've answered those two questions and that your page or site meets those expectations you've determined, you're good. If not, you'll need to decide whether it's worth continuing.

Podcasting is now, and a lot of high visibility talents have adopted it with a passion. Kevin Smith has a whole network of comedy tailored to the taste of Silent Bob fans.

Of that group, Jay Mohr, who I first noticed on his series Action, explained to comic buddy Patrice O'Neal on a recent episode of Mohr Stories, how he started and what he sees as the benefits of podcasting. Someone told Mohr about how podcasting would help fill up his live gigs, and he says this works. I don't doubt it. I'm really happy to listen to Mohr - if only he'd talk a little about Action, which had so many qualities and was so ahead of its time on TV. Mohr told Patrice O'Neal he's seeing better crowds at gigs already, and tried to explain how people listen to audio podcasts while commuting, traveling, etc. They talked about Louis CK as well, another pioneer, this time in self-produced TV Louie. It's all proof that the future is now. What are you waiting for?

I really like this product!

You can make free calls between units, so if you have family at a distance that costs money to call, you can effectively set up free calls between the units.

Got Google Voice? You need one of these ObiHais at home or at the office to connect it to a phone and not need to have a computer on all the time.

Check the Amazon link for pricing on the Obihai. (support the VUC buy buying it through Amazon if you care to)

While the ObiHai product is a geek's dream with a zillion parameters to tweak, an ordinary mortal can set it up in a few minutes.

There are already too many channels, but I can't find a channel that everyone is listening to, and it's a problem. I will cross post this on at least 5 of them: email, Facebook, Google Plus, IRC, and the Unblog.

While at Astricon, every single night there were ad hoc groups forming to go to dinner. Some had American cells, some got the wifi cut off and had no data, etc. So how were we to keep in touch? The irony of a large conference entirely about telecommunications, convergence, VoIP and telephony is surely not lost on you, gentle reader. We really need a single channel if we want to keep in touch. That channel, for my part and until something better comes along is Google Plus.

If you want to be included in future dinners, wine tastings, lunches, breakfasts, strip clubs, poetry readings or whatever comes up when we get together in meat space or virtually, please get on Google Plus. It matters not if you do not follow anyone or are not active, but it does matter that that channel is the most flexible at the moment. Adding my prejudices, Facebook isn't good for this, IRC is too old school, email too iffy. Assuming you have a cellphone and data, Google Plus is the way to go. If you eschew social networks - of which Google in NOT in my opinion - fine. But don't be surprised if you don't hear about things in a timely fashion.

I was looking at the statistics from two podcasts I've produced over the last 5 years, the current VoIP & Tell (the VoIP Users Conference) and the New Wine Consumer which hasn't recorded a new eposide for about 18 months.

What's interesting to me, is that these are very targeted sessions, something akin to presentations at a trade event. When you do a presentation at the typical trade show or convention that I have attended, you'll be talking to maybe 25-80 interested people.

During the 18-month hiatus of the New Wine Consumer where no new material is being produced, we still see about 1,500 unique IP downloads each month of the 250 existing recordings. Suppose a single sponsor had a mention at the beginning and end of each of these. That sponsor would have reached an audience of over 160,000 very narrowly-targeted people. Compared to the scatter approach of TV, radio and newspapers, you might start to see why this is so impressive.

The case of VoIP & Tell (VUC) is much different, because each week we gather between 35 and 100 live callers. Those who are unable to call live will usually listen to or download the recordings. The current average of downloaded VUC recordings is 5,000 to 6,000 per month. In one year of sponsorship, about 60,000 listeners are listening to guests and regulars discussing this very vertical market.

I look forward to meeting many of them at Astricon, Digium's Asterisk product showing in October of this year.