I like to review books I read. You can see all of them here. If you’d like me to review you book, contact me.

Marketing Outrageously: How to Increase Your Revenue by Staggering Amounts! is one of the best marketing, wait, it IS the best marketing book I’ve ever read. I could go on and on… Well, just watch the video.

Failure can be a good thing. In fact, failure can be a great thing! In life, and in business, failure is a very important part of the learning process. Everyone fails, it’s inevitable.

The question for you as an entrepreneur is are you going to get back up on the horse and try again and do it better, or are you going to give up? Many people try once and fail and get scared into not trying again. Personally, every time something happens that fails in my world, I try again, and again until I get it right. Watch this video to get a few more insights, and hopefully a little inspiration for you about failure and how it can help you. I reference Mark Cuban in this video.

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TheDailyFlip.com is a web show about online marketing and being an entrepreneur. Jim Kukral is an award-winning and long-time blogger, as well as speaker, writer, online marketer and web entrepreneur. You can read more about Jim Kukral here.

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Head on over and read this amazing series that sums up how Mark MADE himself a success. Again, he MADE it.

I particularly like this part from the end of part 3 where he talks about just finding out that his secretary ripped off his entire bank account ($83k to be exact)… Bold is mine.

I got back to the office, told Martin what happened at the bank, and then I realized what I had to do about all of this. I had to go back to work. That what was done, was done. That worrying about revenge, getting pissed at the bank, all those “I’m going to get even and kick your ass thoughts” were basically just a waste of energy. No one was going to cover my obligations but me. I had to get my ass back to work, and do so quickly. That’s exactly what I did.

Indeed. Leave the negativity behind. Go back to work, follow your passion and believe and move forward.

In talking about his past, many, failures…

With every effort, I learned a lot. With every mistake and failure, not only mine, but of those around me, I learned what not to do. I also got to study the success of those I did business with as well. I had more than a healthy dose of fear, and an unlimited amount of hope, and more importantly, no limit on time and effort.

Great stuff.

It seems Mark Cuban and I have something else in common. Neither of us want to use Facebook to “socialize”.

I met Mark Cuban when I introduced him at the Blog World Expo in the fall of 2007. Video below. Am I his Facebook friend? I think so. I remember adding him after that because he was asking people to connect with him, so I did.

Do I want to socialize with Mark Cuban? Not really, and I’m guessing from this post that he doesn’t want to really socialize with me either. I like to know him, and contact him, but I don’t feel the need to send him personal notes.

See, according to Mark, I’m in his “Power Layer”.

These are people who in whatever industry they are in , retain some level of power. Having them as FB friends, although very simple and non committal, gives me some level of access to them, and them to me. These are people that if they sent me a FB mail, i would certainly read and respond to , and I think they would do the same.

Now, I’m not “powerful”. But I am influential in my niche, so that’s that I think he means about “power”. I’ve interacted with Mark several times in the past via email, not by phone yet, and I certainly don’t feel he’s my “close friend”. So I get what he’s saying here.

This is the exact same view I have with Facebook. I use it as a big fancy contact database that allows me to stay connected with people I “may” need to get in touch with every once in a while.

He also describes the “power level” friend as the “one shot layer” of friends…

Its what I could also call the one shot layer. If you have an idea or thought, you get 1 shot, per year to get their attention. Anything more than that probably could and would get me deleted. Everyone at this layer gets pitched continuously. Myself included. If you abuse it, you lose it.

Right. I get that, and I’m glad he admits that, no b-s’ing around. I have many things I’d like to talk to Mark about in terms of my businesses. I’d like to ask him to invest in some of my ideas. I’d like to ask his advice about business ideas I have.

But I don’t.

I get that for someone like him (as famous as him), to EXPECT that from him is silly. I have his email, and I can also send him Facebook messages, but I don’t, and I won’t.

Mark gets Facebook like I get Facebook.

Note: Found this video over at Eightblack.com. Thanks! Although the first part of my intro was cut off.

I am still riding the high of introducing Mark Cuban at the Blogworld Expo event the other day. Hopefully I can get video of it. For now though, here’s a copy (.ppt) of the short .ppt presentation I did that got some big laughs, including Mark.

Funny story before I get into the description of my intro. I was told by Rick (the BWE show owner) to meet at the show office at 4 to meet up with Mark Cuban and pitch my intro to him. But 4pm came and went, and Rick never showed, either did Cuban. So I stood there and waited, and waited.

About 2 minutes before his keynote was supposed to start, I see Cuban walking past me alone, and in a huge rush (he was late) and I figured I’d just take charge so I said, “Hey, Mark” and he stopped and I said “I’m introducing you now, it’s this way” and he just looked at me and said, “Great, let’s go, just be brief”. Said in a very nice way, not jerky.

So I followed him down the hall and past the HUGE line to get into the keynote room. He was walking at a quick pace. The dude is taller than I thought he would be. About an inch taller than me and I’m 6′2. A few minutes later I grabbed the mic and did my thing. I think it went over pretty well, although I was nervous as heck.

I started by showing the differences between Mark and myself entitled “Mark vs. Jim”.

Like… Mark has a billion dollars, Jim does not.
Mark owns a major basketball team, Jim drove past Lebron’s house once.
Mark has a private jet, Jim owns a lego Millennium Falcon.

Etc… Got some really good laughs.

Then I lead into… “But, we’re the same because we’re both bloggers.” Ahh, clever eh? I thought so.

Then I told my Markcubanpleasecallme.com story and he laughed some more. Although he commented that he never said he hates me, but I swear the reporter told me that on the phone.

That was that. I wrapped up saying something like… “I couldn’t think of a better person to close out the first Blogworld Expo than Mark Cuban, blogger.” Smooth, eh? Again, I thought so.

His keynote was great, and he stayed for 15 minutes at least to take pictures and meet people. Here’s a video of the swarm of people that got him after he was done.

Mark even referenced me again in his talk talking about the pleasecallme bit. I believe he even said the idea was “genius”. Alright, now my head is really getting big.

Overall though, I was honored to be asked to the intro, and it was a great experience. Funny thing is, I wrote the intro an hour before during a session. I usually do better last minute.

I had the pleasure of introducing Mark Cuban this evening for his keynote presentation at the end of the Blogworld Expo. I have to find a way to get a hold of the video of my introduction somehow. Gotta have that. Zac is going to send me some pictures he took of me and Cuban from the audience.

Want to see a bit of the presentation and what happens when he comes off stage? Watch till the end. He’s, um, popular!

Yet another reason why Jason Calacanis is successful. He knows how to get attention and brand himself, just like Mark Cuban.

The word is on the street that he’s going to try and take on Google and build a search engine.

So what’s the idea? It’s a cross between Wikipedia and Google. Calacanis’ new site will create more digestible search results for popular queries such as the names of Hollywood stars, and tech products. The pages will be seeded, initially, with content gathered automatically from the web and other sources. But they will be open to contributions by readers. Sounds like Wikipedia? Yes: except Calacanis will employ paid editors to oversee the pages.

C’mon, we all know nobody could pull this off. You’re not going to beat Google? So what is he really up to?

What Jason is doing is classic branding association. You associate yourself with the types of business/people/projects that you want to attract. The laws of attraction anyone? Anyone realize he works for a venture firm?

I gotta give Jason credit, again, he’s a big name, and it was going to be hard to get to the next level. This is a step in the right direction.

What about you? What’s your branding goals? Do you associate yourself with brands that help your cause? It can work.

More on this story at Techmeme.

Is Mark Cuban right? Is a publisher’s decision to run a “low-quality” ad a brand killer? In other words, if you’re a TV station, and you run penis pill ads, are you killing your brand through this association? All for the quick buck?

Very interesting questions, and can go on multiple levels of media publishing, not just television.

I would argue that this is really about expectations. I believe that television viewers “expect” to see penis pill ads and the like at 2am. Therefore, they’re ok with it.

What about the web? What about print? Radio?

What about your blog?

Ask yourself… What do your readers/listeners/viewers EXPECT from you?

Deviate from that expectation, and your brand will suffer.

So, Technorati is alive and well according to Dave Sifry, and Google Blog Search is growing too (how could it not?).

But what about Icerocket.com? It appears as though they are dead. Look at this chart.

Nothing, nada, zip. No movement? It appears… dead?

I wrote about the top ways to fix Icerocket.com last year here. Here’s what I said then.

If you want to know the current state of Icerocket.com, (Mark Cuban’s search engine), all you need to do is look here at Google News (one result) and here at the Icerocket blog (two posts in the last 30 days).

Did you look? If you did you saw what everyone else sees… Nothing. No news, no moves, nada. So what’s up? When Icerocket first launched it was primed to be a fast mover. See this techcrunch report from July 2005. Last we heard was that the deal for THK to close on them was dead in the water.

It’s easy to see why they appear to have taken an extra long walkabout. Either they are secretly plotting their next big move, or, they have simply given up the fight? If it’s the latter; what a waste of a good thing.

A company spokesperson named Blake Rhodes left this comment on that blog. That was in November 2006.

We have some stuff in the works that I think you will like.

But you know what? I just revisted the Icerocket blog just now and there hasn’t been a new post in 16 weeks, 1 hour. Is that “stuff in the works?”

I think Icerocket is dead. Too bad, it coulda’ been a contender. Mark Cuban, why are you letting this gem die?

I can fix it, call me.

Today over at my BlogKits blog I wrote about how 5 of today’s big top bloggers are leaving close to half a million bucks on the table by not monetizing their blogs. The piece was interesting because I enlisted the feedback from several expert online marketers who provided detailed advice and projections about the topic.

Even Seth Godin himself left a comment on the blog entry, check it out.

If Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban, Guy Kawasaki & Seth Godin monetized their blogs and let an online marketing expert professionally optimize them, they could collectively earn half a million dollars a year. Or at least that’s what BlogKits estimates, along with some other top online marketing/blogging experts. View all of that data below.

Oh yeah, I launched the BlogKits BIG Blog $$$ Survey today. If you have a blog, take a minute to add your thoughts?

Have a blog?
Please click to take short survey.