By now we have all heard of crowdsourcing and crowd funding – the concept of social collaboration on specific projects or networks. But what about taking it a step further and putting a voice to that crowd to actually empower change?

There is a new social media phenomenon emerging called “crowd wisdom.” I think that it could be collectively tracked and connected to form an alert system or call-to-action system that calls attention to when consumers are getting ripped off. Think of the concept of “most popular tweets” or Tweetmeme’s filters but as a vertical application aggregated together into a true social awareness system instead of just a popular news source.

I would love a system that is better than just reviews or a simple product warning, but would rather cause manufacturers to think twice before releasing a product that suits their criteria. A crowd wisdom system would motivate them to instead release it the way the crowd wants the product to function. I think Apple tested the waters on the price point for their new iPad by leaking pricing info ahead of the launch, but even that doesn’t go as far as I would like.

TED speaker and The New Yorker contributor James Surowiecki writes in his book “The Wisdom Of Crowds” about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group.

I like where that thinking is going, but instead of just making decisions, why not use the crowd to rebel against commerce, when the machine tries to rip off consumers? I kind of like the sound of that.

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is soon to be released on Blu-ray. This is long overdue. When originally release to DVD, the studio first released the theatrical version, then finally the director’s extended version. Fans were upset with the need to purchase two versions because the studio did not release the “best” version first. We all know this is a ploy to make more money. iPad is being released without many features that could have been included in the first version, but that wouldn’t make Apple the same amount of revenue that a multi-stage roll out could.

Fans of the Lord Of The Rings took matters into their own hands and collaborated to drag down the product review for the upcoming Blu-ray release over at Amazon. If you read the first few posts: “We won’t get fooled again…”, “Why do you want to rip us off?” and “You will be disappointed with this theatrical version!!” you will see the power of crowd wisdom in action.

Once again Amazon, in an indirect way, is pioneering a crowd wisdom system that gives power to the consumer. It communicates directly to the manufacturer and tells them to change their tactics or else. I hope Amazon will see this and use it to fight for the consumer. None of us want the “theatrical” versions of any type of product. It is simply waste.

The message from the crowd is that we want the best any product can be right from the start. Mark my words, there will be a social media startup that will leverage this concept into such a powerful pre-launch feedback system that no company will dare release anything without first consulting the wisdom of the crowd.

I hope that day comes soon. Until then, I am waiting for the extended Blu-ray version.

I love fresh brewed coffee. I use a french press every morning and brew a super strong cup using different small batch roasters that I find from all over the web. Old Bisbee Roasters is by far the best coffee I have had – period! Bisbee supports family-owned farms and co-operatives that produce the finest tasting varieties in the coffee-growing world. Small farm coffee is rare, delicious and unusual. I prefer the organic blends because they have zero hints of pesticides or chemical taste.

At Old Bisbee Roasters their goal is to allow you to experience small farm coffee “roasted to taste” and delivered fresh. And I mean fresh. When I order a few pounds, they roast and ship it the same day. It usually arrives one or two days later. The experience of walking out to the mailbox it quite amazing. From 30 feet away you can smell the coffee. I am not kidding. The fresh roasted aroma is so amazing and so strong all you can smell, even when you are outside, is roasted coffee beans. It overwhelms your senses and the taste buds explode.

You will taste the pride, love and devotion of Bisbee’s coffee growers in every cup. Whenever possible, the coffee growers family or farmer’s co-op name is printed on the label, as well as the growing region and country of origin. Bisbee’s roasts these intense and unusual coffees by taste, not to color or brewing style.  For this reason, you will find there are no “French Roasts” at Old Bisbee Roasters, only the roast that develops the most flavor from each bean.

Everything I have ordered has been unique and incredible. There is nothing like it. Some types of beans brew to a liquid consistency of thick dark chocolate. Much thicker than a traditional brew, but not overpoweringly strong. This is because the oil content in the beans is higher since you get to brew it only a few short days after being roasted. It is so good, you can feel the love.

Roasting “to taste” allows you to experience the joy of small farm coffee. Bisbee’s is passionately devoted to quality, and finds the best coffee is often available in very short season. Your coffee will be custom roasted in a 10 lbs. drum, packaged with your name and roasting date on the label, and shipped while still warm by USPS Priority Mail. Almost all orders shipped within Arizona are delivered next-day, while orders shipped coast to coast within the US are delivered within two days.

I believe you will find nothing in this world compares to the taste of a truly good coffee from a small family farm. Bisbee’s is beyond compare in the quality and care they show during the roasting process and they are equally as serious about getting those wonderful beans to you as soon as possible. Experience something beyond the typical franchise coffee chains and frou-frou boutiques. Try something that supports the small family farmers and makes a positive impact on the world around us. You won’t be sorry, Old Bisbee Roasters will take you to a whole new level of appreciation for the magical brew that keeps us geeks fueled each day. Enjoy!

Twitter just launched its new “retweet” feature in limited beta rollout. Below is the screenshot of the feature when first enabled in my Twitter account. As mentioned in Twitter’s recent blog post “Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will spread quickly through the network making its way efficiently to the people who want or need to know.”

There is a handy new icon that shows if a tweet was retweeted. There is also a new link in your right hand navigation menu called “Retweets”. This is a simple feature upgrade but one that was long overdue. Now retweeting is a one click process. Click the image below to see a larger screenshot of the welcome screen as the feature is enabled in your Twitter account.

One other cool point to note, at this time, you only see the RT icon from other users who are part of the BETA. Kinda neat to see a mix of old and new RT formats in your thread and see who the beta was enabled for.

Few of us 30-40 somethings haven’t been impacted in some way by the Star Wars movies. Who didn’t play Luke Skywalker or Han Solo as a kid, saving their Princess Leia from the evil Empire? However, as most of us grew into our teens and on into adulthood we left a galaxy far far away, far far behind. Notice, I said MOST of us.

I was recently introduced to an entire community, many in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s, who haven’t left their childhood dreams behind and who continue to embrace the magic and wonder that is the Star Wars universe. Some people collect stamps. Some people work to fine tune their car. Others search for the finest whisky on earth. This group of individuals spends their free time reverse engineering the original costumes of their favorite characters from the Star Wars franchise and building their own Star Wars costumes. Some of them even wear these costumes to birthday parties and conventions such as Comic Con!

While the naive would dismiss these individuals as “geeks,” the artistry, talent, and attention to detail are undeniable. Take “The Dented Helmet” for example, a site that is primarily dedicated to the Star Wars character Boba Fett. This site not only explains that there were multiple Boba Fett costumes used throughout the films but has broken each costume down to its most basic components and identified many of these pieces and parts individually as a number of “found parts” were used to create the costume.

Found parts are real world items which have been re-purposed as a detail on a costume. Did you know that parts from record players, cameras, horse girths, army tents, calculators, dark room equipment, scuba gear, and dental equipment are all found on the Boba Fett costume?!? Neither did I, but The Dented Helmet not only know them but have them identified, categorized, and can even tell you where to buy them!

This fan group dissects the smallest details of the Boba Fett costumes, catalogs every last little detail and are a “family-friendly” group who just wish to pass on their love of Star Wars and passion for creating costumes to the next generation!

While you may be too “old” for this sort of thing, it is never too late to build a costume with your kids who can recapture the same passions you enjoyed as a child. If nothing else, give The Dented Helmet a quick look to see a whole world of creativity and talent that often is easily overlooked.

On April 1st a good friend of mine, Andy Edinborough, and I launched a new website, namechk.com. Namchk helps visitors check the top social network sites for their desired username availability. Visiting the top 100 social sites one at a time would take a lot of time, but Namechk queries all of them in about 12 seconds.

So far the traffic to the site has far surpassed what Andy and I had expected. We did this as a fun project because we thought the service was needed and no other site was providing a quality service similar to this. We have been pleasantly surprised with how well the site has been received by the media and especially by users. You guys rock!

It is amazing to see how things evolve that you never even think about before launching a project. For example, namechk has received hundreds of tweets about the site on Twitter in different languages from people all over the world. Namechk is not “language specific.” You can enter a username in French and it will tell you if it is available. International traffic and props from international users was definitely a cool surprise.

Andy is the best .NET developer I have ever worked with. Developing Namechk only took Andy a couple days in his spare time. We have a lot of useful ideas for the site and plan to add additional features in the near future.

Now that the site has been so well received there have been a large number of requests by users for additional features such as auto-registration on all the sites we query. We are looking into this to see how it could be achieved in the best user experience possible.

Andy and I realize the need for efficiency in securing your username or vanity URL across the web and we hope Namechk helps in that regard. We would love to hear your feedback so please connect with namechk on Twitter and let us know what you think.

More news will follow in the weeks to come. Thanks everyone!

Local search engine developer WeAreNetwork, Inc. has been incorporated in Nevada and headquartered in Las Vegas since 2003. However, we just finally launched the human edited Las Vegas local search engine this month.

The WeAreNetwork is a national network of local search engines built to power vertical portals that need a local search engine added to their own website. We feed the directory and results via an API that our clients integrate directly into their websites. Since the content is human edited, the results are far more relevant than traditional Yellow Page local search models and the majority of the results served by WeAreNetwork include local website URL’s, not just a phone number and street address.

To find out more about why human edited search results are better than traditional algorithmic ones, check out this article “The Human Touch That May Loosen Google’s Grip“.

Over time, the Las Vegas search engine will power a large number of local Las Vegas portals and should see significant search volume.

I must say I am completely twitterpated with Twitter. I only recently joined Twitter but I am smitten. I love the incredibly relevant industry related information that can be learned from tech and social leaders on Twitter. Since joining Twitter, I have helped a number of friends, family and work associates become familiar with Twitter and because I always get questions about what the best apps to use with Twitter are I thought I would write a simple post with my top 5 recommendations.

Twitterpated: Best Twitter Apps

1. Tweetdeck – this is probably the most popular Twitter app. It provides a modular user interface that can be customized to display various Twitter data in an all-in-one display format. You can also setup groups to only follow a sub-set of those most important to you instead of seeing tweets from everyone you follow.

2. Socialtoo – is also one of the most popular twitter apps which sends you a daily email with information on who follows and unfollows you.  It can also be set to send an automatic response when you are followed/unfollowed as well as automatically follow or unfollow those who follow/unfollow you.

3. Power Twitter – is a Firefox extension that embeds rich media (Flickr, YouTube, etc.) and open web lifestreams into twitter browsing.

4. Twilert – is a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.

5.Twitterfeed – can post directly to twitter, identi.ca, custom laconica installations, and via Ping.fm, simultaneously to the many services supported by Ping.fm. Good for connecting the blog you author content for to Twitter directly.

If you want a more comprehensive list of the best Twitter apps, the site below lists them based on popularity.

The 100 Most Popular Twitter Applications

A wise friend of mine, the founder of Carfax.com Ewin Barnett, recently gave me some great advice I would like to share. It is sound financial advice that is universal and one of those classic tips that most of us simply never do…

Buy some gold coins.

I am not going all doom-and-gloom here, but it really is awesome advice. I mean, how many people don’t have a written will? The numbers would surprise you – over 66% of Americans still do not have a last will and testament. Well owning some gold coins is another important thing many of us continue to overlook.

Since the primary purpose of holding gold coins is for potential barter (secondarily to preserve wealth), the difference in value between “random year” coins and “brilliant uncirculated” coins of a specific year will not matter. So why not buy the one that costs the least? It will preserve wealth just as well as any other gold bullion coin.

The issue with preserving wealth via holding gold (or silver) coins boils down to the spread between buy and sell. APMEX openly posts their “sell price” and their “buy price”. This, and the shipping/handling fee is the total “cost” of converting money into gold. You will notice that the total cost per ounce and the cost of buying 1/10 oz coins is higher than for 1/4 ounce coins, but in a barter situation, it will be harder to “make change” for a larger coin.

These folks have fees that are as low as I’ve seen elsewhere, and their delivery is prompt and consistent.

I would direct your attention to 1/4 and 1/10 oz coins, like the entry “(1/4oz) Gold American Eagle – Random Year” (and its corresponding 1/10 oz version), which I think is the best value.

Try picking up a few thousand dollars worth of small denomination coins over a period of time. Similar to investing in the stock market over any given period of time. Try to account for a few months worth of barter purchases. Then just store it in a secret place for safe-keeping and forget about it. Then congratulate yourself for getting one more of those “responsable” items off your to-do list.

I follow a good number of the top 100 on Twitter.  They are typically individuals who have a lot of media exposure, but who also work hard to maintain a high level of “social media” exposure.  I think that second aspect is what makes these individuals even more interesting.  You can be on the top 100 of Twitter because you are Obama and simply have a huge following, or you can be like Robert Scoble or Jason Calacanis who specifically use Twitter and other social media marketing tools for what they are intended.

The content tweeted by the best authors on Twitter is relevant, interesting, “late-breaking”, helpful, funny and focused. As I mentioned in a recent post, the 10 best people on Twitter in my opinion provide me with more information in a day than I can absorb in a week of visiting normal news and information sites on the web.

CNN.com or Google News compared to Twitter, is now like the proverbial “trying to watch a kettle boil” scenario. I mean, traditional news sites are now so yesterday and so boring it is laughable. Refresh Google News every 5 minutes? – forgetaboutit.

So join the action. Keep up with what is really happening “live” in the world. Find people or companies that you share an interest with and follow them on Twitter. A whole new web experience will open up for you.

To start, setup you free account on Twitter. Then follow someone, like me David Gosse, by clicking the “follow” button below my user icon. Then take a look at who I am following and click-through to their Twitter profile accounts. Many profiles will list their personal blog or company website which helps you determine if they are into similar things that interest you. Also visit sites that rank the top people on Twitter to find even more people you may want to follow.

You can even search Google using someone’s name and the word “twitter” to see if their profile is indexed by Google. I have added a number of people I follow like Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google by searching for them on Google. Twitter also has its own search feature which can help locate users you are looking to follow.

I predict that Twitter will be the major marketing and communication medium for the next few years. Be sure to register your user profile ID immediately so that someone else doesn’t steal your notoriety. After that, enjoy.