EP:006 – The Cotton Club Podcast
In this Episode…
My co-host Keith Crawford and I discussed a very popular topic this evening, and that’s the rollout of Google Buzz. In this episode we both give our first impressions of this new social network / aggregator based on our initial 3 or 4 days of testing. Keith has been an authority on FriendFeed for some time now so given the similarities between what Google is trying to accomplish with Buzz and what FriendFeed already does, he provided some excellent commentary.
Also, anytime Keith and I get together for a show we always like to close out w/ a few iPhone application recommendations. This week we discussed Siri™, Waze, SleepCycle, and My6Sense. Keith also discussed Appolicious, which is a resource that no iPhone app junkie is going to want to live without. I also mentioned a story I saw today on CNN where several companies like AT&T and Verizon are getting together to open a competing APP store, you can find that CNN story here…
Since Keith and I are both avid NASCAR fans we dedicated a few minutes at the end of our show to discussing Jamie McMurray’s victory at the Daytona 500. Stay tuned for another post on this blog dedicated to the race.
Win Dinner for 2 on Cotton & Keith’s ‘Name That Podcast Promotion’!
As some of you might already be aware, Keith and I are looking for a new name for our podcast that we host together. We are looking for something unique and innovative that best describes our show. If you are unfamiliar w/ our show, be sure to listen to this weeks episode by clicking on the play button below to get an idea. We typically discuss social media, web services, and iPhone applications. You can enter our ‘Name that Podcast’ promotion by leaving a comment below w/ your suggestions or by posting your suggestion on twitter to @tsudo and @cottonr using the #NameThatPodcast hash tag. Keith and I will go over each entry and select the one that we like the best. If we chose the name you suggested, you will win dinner for two at The Market Place grill here in Conway, Arkansas. You can enter as many times as you like.
Listen to This Episode / Subscribe to The Cotton Club…
Click on the play button below to play this episode on your computer, or you may subscribe to The Cotton Club in iTunes or using Microsoft Zune. For step-by-step instructions for subscribing to this podcast, click here…
Thoughts on the Daytona 500
This past weekend I was so excited about the Daytona 500 and the start of the 2010 NASCAR season that I didn’t know what to do w/ myself. The fact that Mark Martin, my favorite driver, who is also a client, qualified on the pole for the race didn’t help the matter any either. By the time the pre-race coverage was winding down on Speed and it was time to flip over to Fox to watch the race I was literally chomping at the bit, whatever that means I was doing it.
New Rule Changes for 2010
For the most part I enjoyed the race. The rule changes implemented by NASCAR giving us more opportunities to see Green-White-Checker finishes this year as well as the promise to let drivers be more expressive with their emotions are going to make for a fun season this year. Some other changes this year was the re-introduction of the tail-wing on the COT’s and larger holes in the restrictor plates for the superspeedways. I think these two changes to the cars were responsible for a lot of the close racing we witnessed this weekend.
We Have Bigger Potholes than that on I-40…
Honestly the only thing that bothered me about the race this weekend was probably the same thing that aggravated every other racing fan out there, we got to sit there for over 2 hours at 2 different points of the race and literally watch bondo dry on the asphalt while repair crews repaired a pothole in one of the turns. David Reutiman brought up a good point during one of the long red flags, dirt track racers aren’t strangers to holes on the track, you just remember where these holes are and go around them. I think NASCAR should have at least inspected the track before hand and noticed this place prior to the race. It’s hard for me to believe that these cars knocked this hole in the asphalt during the Cup Series race, it had to have at least been started earlier in the week, and somewhat evident during the 24 hour race a few days earlier.
Congratulations to Jamie McMurray…
All complaining aside, the ending of the race was well worth the wait, even though Mark Martin didn’t win. The sentimental winner of the race was Jamie McMurray. Here’s a guy who at the end of last season was released by Roush-Fenway Racing due to the limitations mandated by NASCAR as to how many teams an owner could have under one organization, not even sure if he would have a ride or not for 2010, finally secures a position w/ Ganassi-Sabates-Earnhardt Racing on their team, ironically the team that brought him into the series as a rookie, and low and behold he repays them by bringing home the most coveted trophy in NASCAR.
Emotions Running High in Victory Circle…
When Jamie pulled into the winners circle I knew it was going to be an emotional thing, just given the history of Jamie McMurray. A lot of people, myself included, had more or less written him off after his less than stellar performance at Roush-Fenway. When Jamie got out of the car he was greeted by his dad and then interviewed standing in winners circle. About 30 seconds into the interview he just breaks down and starts balling, a few moments later his wife shows up behind him and they embrace for a few minutes before Jamie returns to the interview. He was so emotional that even I got choked up watching, and that rarely happens. This was the type of show that NASCAR needed to put on to kick off the season in my opinion.
It’s Perfectly Acceptable for a Dude to Cry When He Has Just Won the Daytona 500…
Now, regarding how emotional Jamie was in winners circle, I know that there are a lot of people out there that probably were turned off by that. I can see where you are coming from. Back when we all watched Tim Tebow sit on the sideline while Florida was defeated by Alabama, I told a lot of my Twitter friends that there was only two acceptable times for a football player to cry on the field, one was when you can see your own bone sticking through your leg, and the other time is when you are holding the championship trophy up over your head and the season is over. Well, in that same vein, there’s not a lot of room in NASCAR for men who cry on national television, but given Jamie McMurray’s story I am going to give him a pass on that. In fact, a few of my tweeps and I had a discussion following the race on Twitter and decided to make an amendment to our man code to also make it acceptable to cry when you are in victory lane at The Daytona 500 too.
Did you see Dale Jr.?
One other thing that I think is worth of mentioning about the last lap of the race, Dale Earnhardt Jr., the guy that everyone likes to speculate and worry about, came from 10th place to finish in 2nd place. Let’s all hope that the chemistry is right this season for Dale Jr. to have a competitive season.
What did you think of the race?
I would love to hear your thoughts, be sure to leave comments below…
Be sure to follow @cottonr_nascar on Twitter so we can talk racing…
EP:001 – The Cotton Club Podcast
I finally got around to recording my first installment of The Cotton Club Podcast this evening. My guest co-host for the show this evening was Keith Crawford, you may know him as @tsudo on Twitter. This initial podcast was just a test run to see how things work so that when Keith and I get ready to launch another sideline project called The Social Radar in the very near future we can hit the ground running.
Please keep in mind that this is my first go at podcasting, the quality and content should get better over time. Despite the fact that I have invested in an awesome setup from software to microphones, the audio of me talking didn’t turn out very well at all. You can hear Keith great, and that’s probably a good thing since he is a lot cooler to listen to. 
The topics we covered on Episode 001 of The Cotton Club were as follows:
- Geosocial Applications (Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite, Loopt)
- iPhone Applications (Dragon Dictate, Where R U?, Evernote, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Mytown)
- Social Media Predictions for 2010 (Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed)
- Methods for Archiving Thoughts for Blog Posts (Friendfeed, Wordpress, etc.)
- Crazy Story of The Week from Hell
- NASCAR Withdrawels
- Central Arkansas Refresh Meeting – January 26th (Nick Brewer presenting on PODSCMS for Wordpress)
Thanks for tuning into my first show, I promise it’s going to get better over time, so please bear with me. If you want to subscribe to The Cotton Club Podcast, you can do so on iTunes.
Production Note: The audio at the beginning of the recording isn’t very loud, a few minutes into the recording I finally managed to get it adjusted to where you could hear me a little bit better. Please bear w/ me, this is a work in progress.
Let’s Talk NASCAR – Follow @cottonr_nascar on Twitter!
I mentioned earlier this year that I was going to be adding NASCAR to my list of blog topics for 2010, and the more I think about it, the more excited I am about it. I was talking to Keith Crawford the other night during the first episode of The Cotton Club Podcast about the upcoming Daytona race and it got me to thinking that I needed to setup a dedicated Twitter account for all of my NASCAR trash talk during the season. I went out today and setup @cottonr_nascar (many of my NASCAR friends are already connected since this was an old account linked to a past NASCAR project my partners and I launched last year.)
Something that I am hoping to have locked down very soon is how my blog posts are pushed into my new NASCAR twitter account. Most of the friends that I am going to make this next season on Twitter related to NASCAR will probably share very little or no interest in some of the other topics I discuss like Wordpress, PHP, or Facebook. I am looking at several methods to filtering this blogs RSS Feed Automation for the @cottonr_nascar twitter account, hopefully I will have this locked down very soon!
EP:000 – The Cotton Club Podcast
In the next couple of days I will be launching the first installment of The Cotton Club Podcast. The Cotton Club is one of two podcasts that I am going to be a part of this year, the other is a project that I am going to be working w/ Keith Crawford on called The Social Radar, stay tuned for details on that podcast in the very near future.
Unlike The Social Radar Podcast project, The Cotton Club is going to be a lot less focused and a lot more laid back. The Social Radar will deal mostly with the topic of Social Media and Marketing as to where The Cotton Club could end up being a free for all! I am pretty passionate about what I do so it’s probably a safe bet that a large portion of each show will be dedicated to the web in general, including development, blogging, social media, seo, etc., but since I am also passionate about things such as NASCAR and Football, there is a high probability that there will be a certain amount of trash talking as well.
If you know me very well, you will probably know that I am also somewhat of a joker, and no matter how hard I try, weird occurrences seem to find me. Highlights from these occurrences as well as some older stories will also be a big part of this project.
If you have iTunes and would like to subscribe to The Cotton Club, you may do so by clicking here (iTunes will open in a new window, just hit the subscribe button).
Stay Tuned for NASCAR Posts in 2010
This past year I did a lot of blogging on the topic of NASCAR for a side project that my partners and I launched. I covered probably half of the season and supplied content on a bi-weekly basis related to the drivers and teams involved with the sport. While 2009 was an awesome season, I think that 2010 is going to be even better. With that being said, I just wanted to let all of you that followed my NASCAR posts on other websites that it is my intention to incorporate NASCAR into the list of topics that I blog about here at The Cotton Club.
There is a school of thought that bloggers should stick to one topic and I have to admit I have even bought into this school of thought myself. Since I primarily blog about my business, Pleth, and the products and services that we provide, which include Email Outsourcing, Managed Web Hosting, Graphic Design, Application Development, and Website Design, it literally flies in the face of reason that I would even consider adding another topic to my blog that is as unrelated as NASCAR to my categories. I have to admit that I have given it a lot of thought, and even considered launching a NASCAR only blog separate from The Cotton Club but decided against it.
My reasoning for adding NASCAR to The Cotton Club is simple, my readers come to my blog to hear from me, not necessarily about a particular topic. Occasionally I have blogged about Sports and other topics and for the most part those posts have been all well received. I have also posted a lot of unrelated viral videos to this blog over the years and they have become very popular as well. I looked around at what other bloggers in the industry were doing and noticed that a few of them have already broken out of the mindset that they have to stay on topic. I have seen ShoeMoney blog about UFC fights in the past on his blog and if anything he has picked up readership.
In closing I want to say this, I don’t expect to post near as many NASCAR related posts as I do business posts. In fact, I bet there will be a 5:1 ratio on my posts, if not more than that, I am just hoping to broaden my horizons in 2010 and have some fun. If readership picks up, great. If it drops, oh well.
————————————–
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with NASCAR. I am merely a fan of the sport and any views that I may express on this blog are solely my views and in no way reflect the views of NASCAR or it’s parent company, ISC (International Speedway Corp.).
Thoughts on Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson, NASCAR
Okay, so I watched the race yesterday with the hope tucked away in the back of my mind that there might be some off-the-wall chance that Jimmie Johnson and the 48 team would slip up. Maybe a blow-out or engine failure, something that wouldn’t be serious, but enough to make him finish up in the 30th position, but it wasn’t to be. And it’s not that I didn’t want to see Jimmie make history by winning 4 straight titles, that’s not the case at all, in fact I am a student of history and was glad to witness it, I just really, really, really, wanted to see Mark Martin win the championship.
Now, in the interest of full-disclosure, Mark Martin is one of my clients and I am probably a little partial when it comes to my favorite driver, keep in mind that he’s also a good ole’ Arkansas boy too!
Over time my partners and I have come to know him as more than a celebrity, a lot more so in the case of my partners in Batesville who work a lot closer on a day to day basis with Mark’s organization than I do, but I have still managed to spend some time with him through the years and I must say, he’s just as awesome of a guy off the track as he is on the track. I also consider myself to be a pretty good judge of character, and have met a lot of celebrities over the years, and it only takes being around Mark for just a few minutes to know that he genuinely cares about his fans.
I also know that this is going to be hard to believe too, but I honestly think that the fact Mark didn’t win the championship this year bothers him more that he wasn’t able to deliver this to his fans than it does he won’t have that trophy in his trophy case. He is that driven by the fans. I watched an interview that ABC did with Mark prior to the race and in the interview he was talking about how the fans gave him a standing ovation at his 1000th race start and spelled out his name in the bleachers by holding up cards, he literally got choked up talking about this. That’s just the type of guy that Mark Martin is. If you are a Mark Martin fan you probably already know what I am saying…
On the topic of Jimmie Johnson, what can you say? Jimmie and Chad Knaus, his crew chief, have a special relationship, and they have the best equipment on the track, along w/ his teammates Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., not to mention the other drivers out there with Hendrick equipment, but when it all comes down to it, there is still a driver strapped into a car that has to make split second decisions. With that in the equation, there is no one right now better than Jimmie Johnson, bar none. There, I have said it. Jimmie is as good as it gets right now… And, just like they boo’d Dale Earnhardt, they are going to boo Jimmie Johnson.
Now, let’s all look toward 2010. I have a couple of things I would love to see coming out of the gate, Mark Martin winning the Daytona 500 is one of them. I would also like to see Mark competing at the exact same level he competed in this year, but with the end result being a championship. Let’s all keep looking ahead!!
For a couple of reasons, that I won’t go into, I didn’t do a lot of blogging at my personal blog this past year on the topic of NASCAR and I missed it, especially during the weeks of the chase. Earlier in the season I blogged everyday for another entity, and loved it, even showed up on a couple of podcasts with some really great people. Also, for a long time during the first half of the season I communicated w/ many new friends I made in the social realm on the topic of NASCAR but again, for some reasons that I won’t go into here, I wasn’t able to be as active as I would have liked the second half of the season. Maybe next year we can do that all over again, I am going to be talking about NASCAR regardless, I may as well blog about it. So, when 2010 rolls around, be on the lookout for a lot more emphasis on NASCAR here at the Cotton Club…
Current Projects: Mark Martin Museum Twitter Profile
My business partner Stephen and I have been going back and forth about how buggy the backend of Twitter can be when you go in to load a new background image or even change the color of your sidebar. Several times I would try to upload the background image that I had been working on this afternoon and would get notification that my settings had been saved but when I clicked on Profile I would see the same background that my partner had uploaded several hours earlier. It was a really buggy process!
Fortunately I finally got my photoshop background to line up right on a 1024 resolution monitor, and I think that this will work for now, but at some point I think we will probably add some information for the museum and store to the design.
If you are a NASCAR fan, be sure to follow @diecastcars on Twitter for the best deals on NASCAR merchandise as well as autographed Mark Martin Merchandise. Here’s a screenshot of what we finally decided on for their background image…
Turner to Re-Launch Multi-Platform Race Coverage
I wanted to post something about Turner’s RaceBuddy because I have had no less than a dozen people email me and ask me my thoughts about how this product was going to be repackaged for the Nascar Community starting this next week when TNT takes over. There has also been a lot of speculation as to how RaceBuddy was going to incorporate some popular elements like Twitter into their blanket race coverage. I can say with some certainty that Twitter is going to play a large role in their coverage, and here’s a clue that some other blogs out there are already reporting, be sure to follow @RaceBuddy on twitter…
As a lot of you that follow the industry closely may already be aware, Turner already owns all of the interactive rights to NASCAR, and they have for a while now. Granted, their products haven’t always lived up to the expectations of the NASCAR fanbase, I am willing to go out on a limb this time and say that I think they will hit the nail a little closer on the head this time around, especially since they (NASCAR) have managed to build such a social following. Here’s a press release posted on Turner Sports corporate website that offers a little bit of insight about RaceBuddy:
When NASCAR fans across the country gather this summer to watch NASCAR on TNT, they’ll have one more way to watch the drama on the track unfold – with RaceBuddy, NASCAR.COM’s live online companion coverage for TNT’s six-race NASCAR Sprint Cup Series telecasts, which begin June 8th with the Pocono 500 presented by EA Sports NASCAR ‘09. RaceBuddy is an animated character (click link below for image) who lives on NASCAR.COM, the official site of NASCAR, and also will make appearances on TNT to remind fans of the unprecedented live coverage available on the site during all six of the TNT races, including live feeds from the Pit Road Cam, In-Car Cameras, Battle Cam, Race Robo and Mosaic View. RaceBuddy will ride shotgun with viewers during the race by showing fans how to interact through online chats, answering poll questions and submitting questions to “Ask the Booth” which will be answered during the pre-race coverage and the race telecast by TNT announcers Bill Weber, Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach. From on air to online, RaceBuddy serves as a multiplatform companion designed to bring fans closer to the race action.
“The integration between TNT and NASCAR.COM allows NASCAR fans to become completely engaged in the race before, during and after the television coverage by providing an opportunity to interact with the telecast and with other NASCAR fans online,” said Lenny Daniels, senior vice president of Turner Sports production and new media. “Turner Sports is a leader in utilizing technology to offer fans innovative ways to consume the sports they love via cutting-edge multiplatform experiences.”
TNT will also have an online presence on NASCAR.COM with a page devoted to TNT’s Summer Series of NASCAR racing that offers on-demand features from TNT announcers, bios, TNT’s schedule and replays of pre-race series such as Pride of NASCAR, NASCAR Future Stars, Wally’s World and Lindsay on Location. For more details, click: http://www.nascar.com/promos/tnt/
TNT’s NASCAR announcers include pre-race host Marc Fein, play-by-play announcer Bill Weber and analysts Wally Dallenbach and Kyle Petty. Veteran NASCAR crew chief Larry McReynolds will also join the TNT announcing crew, serving in a specialty role of analyst and reporter.
Finally, the network’s announcing crew will be rounded out by veteran pit reporters Marty Snider, Matt Yocum, Ralph Sheheen and Lindsay Czarniak. Beginning on June 8th in Pocono, TNT revs up for six consecutive races of exclusive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series coverage including races in Michigan (June 15), Sonoma (June 22), Loudon (June 29), and primetime Saturday night races in Daytona (July 5) and Chicago (July 12). TNT’s widely touted Wide Open Coverage will return for the network’s marquee primetime race, the Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona International Speedway.
Turner Sports acquired all of NASCAR’s interactive rights in October 2000 and became the exclusive producer of NASCAR.COM in January 2001. NASCAR.COM is one of the fastest growing sports league sites on the Web, consistently ranking among the top three sport sites on the Internet. In 2003, NASCAR.COM was awarded an Emmy® by the National Television Academy for its TrackPass with PitCommand application and was nominated for an Emmy® in 2007 for TrackPass RaceView.
Turner Sports, Inc., a Time Warner company, presents some of the best and most popular sporting events worldwide and is a leader in televised sports programming. With events airing on TBS and TNT, Turner Sports’ line-up includes NASCAR and NASCAR.COM, the NBA, Major League Baseball, professional golf, PGATour.com and PGA.com.
Turner Network Television (TNT), television’s destination for drama and one of cable’s top-rated networks, offers original movies and series, including the acclaimed and highly popular detective drama The Closer, starring Golden Globeâ winner and Emmy® and Screen Actors Guild Awardsâ nominee Kyra Sedgwick, and Saving Grace, a provocative new drama starring Oscar® winner and Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Holly Hunter. TNT is also home to powerful one-hour dramas, such as Bones, Law & Order, Without a Trace, Cold Case, ER and Charmed; broadcast premiere movies; compelling prime-time specials, such as the Screen Actors Guild Awards; and championship sports coverage, including NASCAR and the NBA. TNT is available in high-definition.
Turner Newsroom: NASCAR.COM and TNT Launch ‘RaceBuddy’ to Provide Multiplatform Race Experience
Martin Running Full Season in 2010
Martin to run full Sprint Cup season in 2010: Mark Martin will return to drive the #5 Chevy of Hendrick Motorsports for the entire 36-race NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season in 2010. It will be the 22nd full-time Cup campaign of Martin’s career and his second with car owner Rick Hendrick. Last July, Martin signed a two-year contract with Hendrick Motorsports covering one full Sprint Cup season in 2009 and one part-time schedule of 26 events in 2010.
The revised agreement was signed this week. "Week in and week out, Mark continues to be one of the best race car drivers in the world," Hendrick said. "He’s already made an incredible contribution to Hendrick Motorsports, and our entire company is excited about running another full season and winning races with him in 2010." With his April 18 victory at Phoenix, Martin became just the fourth driver to record 400 top-10 finishes in Sprint Cup competition. It was his 36th career win in NASCAR’s top series.
"It means a lot to drive the #5 Chevy for Rick and for Hendrick Motorsports," said Martin, 50, of Batesville, Ark. "I’m in the best condition of my life, I’m recharged, and I’m motivated. Going to the racetrack every weekend is still really fun, and that’s the key. There’s more gas in my tank."
Martin will continue to work alongside crew chief Alan Gustafson in 2010. Gustafson has led the #5 team since 2005, recording five wins and two berths in NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup. The #5 team’s sponsorship lineup for 2010 has not been determined.
