Neil Creighton, CEO of RatePoint

In this histori interview, Lon speaks with Neil Creighton, the CEO of RatePoint email marketing, how he founded GeoTrust which was later acquired by VeriSign. Neal talks about how he combined e-mail marketing with a complete review survey platform so businesses can get reviews from their customers and republish those out in different places, and a lot of that is social. Neal tells us that e-mail marketing is the base part of their service and a lot of businesses use email marketing. He says the ROI on it is very, very high and that for every dollar you spend you get $43 back. Email Marketing is a very effective way to reach your customers.Neal says "A lot of it has to do with social media but the number-one thing people look out for before they transact with a business, whether it's calling a landscaper or plumber is, I buy from businesses reviews. And they generally start at Google and they generally look up the business name and reviews pop up. 70 percent of people believe reviews or they trust reviews from people they don’t know.

Tony Mamone, Founder & CEO of Zimbio

In this podcast Lon Safko speaks with Tony Mamone, the Founder & CEO of Zimbio, the interactive on-line magazine. Tony tells us how his magazine caters to four basic pop-culture categories of news; Style, Entertainment, Current Events, and Sports. Zimbio covers more than just stories, it highlights the people making the stories.In this 30 minute interview Tony shares his ideas about social media, user generated content, and on-line publishing. Tony explains how Zimbio is “self policed and added to” and about “the democratization of publishing”. Tony also tells us how his small 15 person company built Zimbio to more than 13 million readers every 30 days, with the help of 35,000 volunteer contributors, offering a combination of “citizen journalism & paid traditional media”. Zimbio publishes more than 10,000 articles and 5,000 photographs every day!

George Strompolos, Content Partnerships Manager for YouTube

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with George Strompolos, Content Partnerships Manager For Google’s YouTube about companies from around the world who are using YouTube to market their company’s products. George tells us that “YouTube isn’t just about teenagers watching videos of dogs on skateboards”. It’s about Fortune 500 marketing and companies like Blendtech and their “Will It Blend”, which caused a 300% increase in sales due to these YouTube videos.In this 25 minute interview George describes how YouTube’s members are uploading 13 hours of video per minute and more than 1 billion video downloads per day! George tells us that YouTube has the same number of users under 18 that they have over the age of 55. He also shares how some of their video content providers are actually making a living from their contextual advertising associated with their videos. One such rising star is “Fred”, a 15 year old pretending to be 6 with anger management issues. You just have to see Fred to believe Fred.

Stephanie Ichinose, Director Of Communications for Yelp

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Stephanie Ichinose, Yelp’s Director of Communications about how Yelp helps! Stephanie explains how “Yelpers” are rating restaurants, auto mechanics, dentists or any company right in your home town.In this 34 minute interview Stephanie describes how Yelp has received more than 3.5 million reviews of services all over the United states, and how Yelp.com has more than 14 million unique visitors every 30 days. Stephanie further describes how the mobile phone has changed the way people access Yelp information. Imagine you’re out to dinner, wanting a good pasta restaurant; turn on your mobile phone, type in pasta, and Yelp returns all of the rated pasta restaurants that’s closest your GPS cell phone and shows their five star ratings!

Patrizio Spagnoletto, Senior Director of Marketing Yahoo! Search Marketing - Advertising Your Business with Yahoo! – SEM

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Patrizio Spagnoletto, Senior Director of Marketing Yahoo! Search Marketing where he discusses how easy Yahoo! makes it to create multiple keyword advertising campaigns. He explains how they provide a step-by-step on-line process and even have customer support that will help you over the telephone. Patrizio explained how by choosing more specific two & three word keyword phrases that you can actually target a much more specific customer and at a lower cost.In this 17 minute interview Patrizio describes how many of their 100’s of thousands of customers such as Lending Tree & Amazon manage 100’s of keyword campaigns and how 20% of your keywords can generated 80% of your revenues.

Matt Mullenweg, Co-Founder of WordPress

In this podcast Lon Safko speaks with Matt Mullenweg, Co-Founder of WordPress and president of Automatic. Matt discusses how and why he created WordPress just to fulfill a need for an easy to use blogging platform and how he had no idea how popular WordPress would become.

In this 23 minute interview Matt shares his ideas about how social media and blogs are being used and about his hope this “open source” software platform is improved and maintained. Matt discusses how people are using WordPress within the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and Ford Motor Company.

Gary Vaynerchuk, Host & Founder of Wine Library TV

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Gary Vaynerchuk about his success with building community and Wine Library. Gary tells us how he built his brick and mortar liquor business to more than $50m by building his on-line community.In this 23 minute interview Gary talks about how he built his following using video to more than 80,000 video views everyday of his now 600 videos. We also discuss his “How Do You Monetize A Blog” video, book & TV offers, how to “Network Virtually”, Word Of Mouth On Steroids, and his simple formula to success; PHCC, Patience, Hustle, Content, and Community.

David Treadwell, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Live Platform - Azure

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with David Treadwell, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Live Platform. David discusses Microsoft is all about building connections with people, devices, and data, and how Live can help businesses and individuals “sync to the cloud” (you have to listen to hear what this means), get access to 5gb of on-line virtual storage, and 25gb of photo storage for free.In this 23 minute interview David explains how more than 460 million (nearly a half billion) are currently using Microsoft’s Live Platform and how Microsoft is strive for an open architecture to allow developers access to all of the Microsoft Live tools. David also speaks about the value of Microsoft’s new program called “BizSpark”!

Dharmesh Mehta, Director of Product Management for Windows Live Messenger

In this podcast Lon Safko speaks with Dharmesh Mehta about Windows Live Messenger. Dharmesh explains how Windows Live Messenger is designed for IM, Photo, and video sharing and you can go from your desktop to your laptop then your mobile phone all seamlessly.In this 23 minute interview Dharmesh shares his insights about why 325 million people are currently using WLM and how 85% of its users are outside of the United States using 55 languages. He further explains how WLM works on three levels, SMS, WAP, and Client Apps and offers features applicable to the entrepreneur and the Fortune 500 enterprise alike. Dharmesh discusses how all these service and 25 gigabytes of virtual hard drive space is yours free. He also speaks about the 10 billion messages sent each day using WLM and how more than 10 million messages were sent using WLM just in the time it took to do this interview.

Peter Booth Wiley, Chairman of The Board of John Wiley & Sons Publishing - Wiley – Knowledge for Generations

In this historic interview Lon Safko speaks with Peter Booth Wiley, Chairman of The Board of John Wiley & Sons where Peter describes how Wiley, a 201-year old company, has been in the forefront the technological revolution in publishing. That’s right, John Wiley & Sons celebrated their 200th anniversary in 2007. John Wiley was publishing books when Thomas Jefferson was president. Peter explains how Wiley began experimenting with computers in the 1950s while thinking about how they would impact their authors, their customers and the way they published. He describes how Wiley took this experimentation to the next level in the 1980s with the creation of a sales training program on an interactive videodisk with assessment capabilities.In this 39 minute interview Peter explains how the secret to Wiley’s success is two fold; they create an internal culture that encourages creativity and they listen to their authors. Among those they have listened to were J.D.R. Licklider and Robert Sproull, both of whom played important roles in the development of the DarpaNet, the mother of all internets. When a subject matter expert comes to them with a new concept, Wiley is willing to take a carefully calculated risk and publish their work. And more…

Jack Herrick, Founder of WikiHow

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Jack Herrick, Founder of WikiHow. Jack discusses his passion for creating the world’s largest on-line how-to manual. This consummate entrepreneur shares his moment of inspiration which lead to WikiHowIn this 26 minute interview Jack talks about how his Wiki was created, how it is edited, and how it is maintained by passionate volunteers, viewers, and contributors. Jack shares some awesome insights on how he built WikiHow to more than 40,000 “How-To” articles and how he plans to grow WikiHow from there.

Vint Cerf , “Father Of The Internet” & Futurist - WIRED interview with Vint Cerf

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with “The Father Of The Internet” or as Vint corrected me, one of many developers who created the Internet. In this podcast Vint discusses many of his insights on how the internet was created, his views on the affect of social media on the Internet, and where he thinks the Internet will be in the future.In this 29 minute interview Vint shares his enthusiasm for how far the Internet has come from their original governmental project, his support of “standardization”, and he cautions us about Internet misuses. Take a few moments to hear about how Vint is currently working on taking “The World Web Web” and making it “Interplanetary” through a collaboration with NASA. Hear how it all started from an original American Pioneer in his own words. After hearing this exciting interview, you will have a whole new perspective on “Cerfing” The Web.

Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter

In this historic interview Lon Safko speaks with Biz Stone the Cofounder of Twitter where Biz describes Twitter as more than just a microblogging tool, but as a general communication utility. Biz tells us how people are using Twitter for everything from “What are you doing?” to immediate disaster reports, from “Where is there gas in Atlanta” to a TV producer’s immediate feedback on a new television pilot.In this 31 minute interview Biz describes how Dell has made $500,000 using Twitter last year and how other companies such as Comcast, Whole Foods, and even NASA is using Twitter to make science more accessible. Biz talks about how in an emergency when all of the cell providers go down, Twitter’s SMS technology allows your “tweets” to still go through. Biz explains the immediacy of Twitter in that during the recent earthquake in L.A., more than 3,600 tweets went out within the first minute, while it took A.P. more than 9 minutes to send out their wire. Biz also explains how Twitter is being used in the presidential candidate debates, and that reliability is their 100% focus.

Stephanie Bryant, “Videoblogging For Dummies”Listen to historic interview interview with Lon Safko and Stephanie Cottrell Bryant the author of “Videoblogging For Dummies,” published by John Wiley & Sons.Stephanie shares her insights into the world of videoblogging and her passion for getting it right in this 24 minute interview. Vlogging Play Podcast Download Transcript

Scott Clough, Avid On-Line Gamer, Scott Clough

In this podcast Lon Safko speaks with Scott Clough about on-line gaming and community building. Scott shares his insights about how on-line gaming or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) has grew from the simple board game to the P.C. to on-line with more than 10 million players in one game alone.In this 32 minute interview Scott explains how role play, collaboration, teamwork, strategy, and ultimate success of a quest can be exciting and habit forming. Scott explains “cheats”, “hacks”, exploits” “griefers” and how they affect the game and the community. Scott further tell us about “farming” or “harvesting” gold and swords, the “casual” versus the “hard-core” player, why on-line gaming builds such a huge faithful following of gamer community and why businesses should watch the $1 billion+ multi-million player industry.

Robert Scoble, Famous Blogger, Scobleizer, & Author - Fast Company, Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Robert Scoble the Famous Microsoft Blogger, The Scobleizer, and the author of “Naked Conversations” published by John Wiley & Sons in the airport on his way to Berlin, Germany. Robert discusses the importance of “content”, sincerity, and the different ways to communicate with your target audience.In this 16 minute interview Robert emphasizes the importance of “listening” to your customers, prospects, and other potential readers of your blog, audio podcast, and video blogs. Robert shares some amazing insights and some personal stories of a few of the incredible people he has interviewed over the past several years, including presidential candidates, congressmen, and even Bill Gates. (Oh yeah, Robert even Scobilized me!)

Leah Culver,Co-Founder, PownceIn this historic Lon Safko speaks with Leah Culver, Co-Founder of Pownce about what Pownce is and how people from around the world are using Pownce from everything from marriage proposals to how to make bacon. Leah shares her thoughts on how Pownce can be used to send real time messages, links, music, photos, […]

Kevin Marks, Technology Advocate, Google for OpenSocial

In this historic interview, Lon Safko speaks with Kevin Marks, Technology Advocate for Google who is working on the international multi-corporation project, OpenSocial. Kevin discusses the purpose of OpenSocial and how it is going to change the way “trusted networks”, work.In this 41 minute interview, Kevin talks about how competing companies from around the world came together to cooperate in creating a standard on how personal profiles, data bases, and trusted networks will begin sharing information while protecting the 350 million users from repetition and password fraud.” This interview is longer than most, but it is filled with incredible insights on how the Open Social Project is going to change the world and how we interact with it on-line.

Kyle Ford, Director, Product Marketing, for Ning

In this historic interview Lon Safko speaks with Kyle Ford the Director, Product Marketing for Ning. Kyle describes how easy and cost effective to set up your own MySpace / FaceBook social network. Kyle shares some insights into how Ning works to allow a drag and drop interface so anyone can create their own site, even his grandmother. Kyle explains the “Freemium” business model and how inexpensive it is to brand your own social network site and how Google Open Social is implemented in NingIn this 29 minute interview Kyle tells us about how individuals are using Ning and even Fortune 500 Companies are having incredible success with their own network. Kyle tells us how Saturn Car Company, Fuji Film, WD 40 are just a few of the nearly ½ million Ning social networks.

Angela Courtin, SVP Marketing Entertainment & Content for MySpace

In this historic interview Lon Safko speaks with Angela Courtin, SVP Marketing Entertainment & Content for MySpace. Angela discusses MySpace is different things to different people, over 70 million people in the U.S. and 120 million people worldwide.In this 16 minute interview Angela clarifies the misconception about MySpace being just for teenagers. Angela tell us that 85% of MySpace Users are over the age of 18 and that 40% of all moms on-line, are on MySpace. Angela talks about how MySpace and Disney teeamed up to Launch High School Musical 3 and enganged more than 4,000 schools and had an opening day box office of over $40million. She also shares how small businesses are benefiting from MySpace MyAds and where one small business increased their revenues by 200%!