Special thanks to Kyle for reaching out to non-geeks about Strands and Technology, he won the second prize in the Operation mainSTREAM contest which was 2 iPod Touches.   One for him and one for a friend.  Congrats!

Kyle's mainSTREAM

You can follow Kyle on Strands here.

We say it a lot here at Strands, and it’s our “tagline” of sorts.   But it’s not just a tagline, it is the true crux of what we’re all about.   We are working on and giving you tools to discover things, share things, and find new things based on people’s tastes.

Today I experienced a perfect example of Strands potential and example of real People Powered Discovery.

So I was chillin out on the lovesack last night at the house in SF where a few of us Strands folk live, and I was watching Letterman kind of.  I was half paying attention.   Then he announced the music act for the night and my ears perked up.   It was an artist named Sia that I had never heard of.   The song she was playing “Soon we’ll be Found” was remarkable…as was her voice.    I went right to the iTunes store and bought her album “Some People have Real Problems”.

Personally, when I discover a new artist or song that I really like, I play the crap out of their stuff.   iPod, computer, wherever.

Someone that follows me on Strands picked up on the new music taste of mine and checked out the song.   She dug it too:

Operation mainSTREAM is gaining steam and we kicked it off with a contest.

We asked people to invite their non-geek friends to Strands, and the people who invited the most folks during the month of October won some prizes. One for them and one for their non-geek friends.

Today, we know who the winners are, and we’d like to thank them for joining our Operation mainSTREAM efforts and for showing folks how rad Strands is.

It was so close, and you all kicked serious ass.

Special Super Congrats to:

5th place winner (2 Flip Cams) - hardaway

1st place winner (2 Macbook Airs) - KathleenLD

Email me at drew at strands dot com to claim your prize!

We’ll be doing more contests, don’t you worry. Keep spreading the love of technology to non-geeks and please keep spreading the Strands love! Never worry, we love you back even more.

There is still much work to be done. Stay tuned.

So we announced Operation mainSTREAM last month with a search for non-geek contest, and y’all responded and invited some of your friends…hopefully some of them being not so geeky and online savvy.

While you’ve been doing that, I’ve been reaching out to startups all over the US about how they are planning to get more of a mainstream audience using their site or service. And when I say mainstream, I mean people aren’t your typical web user, the Anti-Scoble if you will Robert knows I love him so I can say things like that.

I talked to Evan and Biz from Twitter, Daniel from Disqus, Tim from Pandora, all of which I’ll be sharing as we go along.

The most interesting story that I wanted to share came from a sitdown I had with Pownce’s Leah Culver. We talked a little bit about what makes Pownce different and why/how someone like my mom could use it to make things easier for her or weave it into her normal non-geek web experience.

Leah and I agreed that it’s not always realistic that someone would sign up for Upcoming to share events, Twitter to share updates, Flickr to share photos, and some other unknown file sharing service to spread your friend’s indie MP3. That’s where Pownce comes in, because it does all of that. Not only that, it’s really simple to use and it’s easy to get started.

That’s the type of thing I’m looking for when I talk about mainstream. Facebook is mainstream because it sets up real life interaction and relationships. Pownce is similar. If you follow me on Pownce you can see the events I’m attending, images that I’m sharing, an mp3 I like, a link I want to share, and my micro mini status update or message. You can also see my Pownce updates on Strands!

It’s useful, it’s easy, and it’s awesome.

While the geek community always compares Pownce to Twitter and either kills it or promotes it more because of Kevin Rose’s involvement, the broader goal for anyone involved in technology is getting people outside of our normal circle using what we spend all of our time and passion on building.

Leah and her team have the right idea with Pownce. Maybe it’s not getting a mention on Techcrunch every single day, but they’re working hard on making the system stronger and easier to surf around and use, and with their AIR app…fun to interact with without having to even using your browser.

That’s mainstream.

That’s the spirit of Operation mainSTREAM, and that’s where we need everyone’s help. Stop, look and listen. Stop talking to each other, speak to some non-geek friends, look at things how they look at things, and listen to what they have to say…maybe it’s frustration or maybe they just don’t understand what you’re showing them. But listen. Spend the extra time explaining how something like Pownce can help and entertain THEM…not how you use it.

Keep up the great work! We’ll be announcing the contest winners this weekend, keep on inviting….you can still win!!!!

(photo of leah culver by brian solis)

There’s a difference between actually educating people on new technologies and social media, and just talking about it.   Right now, a lot of people are just talking about it.   I would include myself in that group up until about 8 months ago.

I’ll tell you what, I’ll never look back…because educating people about what they can do and share online is a far more rewarding experience for you and for them.

For example:

“Do you use Twitter?  It’s awesome”  “No, whats that?”  “Oh, you’ve never used it, you have to!”

This is what I see and hear a lot.   It’s bad and counterproductive and rewarding for no parties involved.

Try this:

“Do you use Twitter?”  “No, what’s that?”  “It’s a site that lets you put up short little messages about your day or things you’re thinking about.   My mom reads mine and she always knows what I’m up to”  “I don’t have time for that” “Oh it’s super easy to use, want me to show you?”

Ok so maybe that takes 30 seconds longer to do, and maybe it’s more effective in person.

But, it’s awesome.   And it works.

Try it.  It’ll make ya feel good, it’ll make ya feel good.

So we’re halfway into the month of October, and that means the contest that is searching for Non-Geeks is halfway over. Or halfway left. It’s kind of like the cup thing. Or whatever. This is just phase one of Operation mainSTREAM.

Basically, invite all of your friends to Strands, and talk to them about other services like Twitter and Flickr and get them to geek out a bit. Explain in a way that they’ll understand!

If you’re one of the top inviters on Nov. 1 (just for the invites you sent and were accepted from Oct 1- Nov 1) you can win 2 Macbook Airs. One for you, and one for your non-geek friend or family member, or your dog…or whomever. 2nd place prize is 2 iPod touches, and 3rd is Flip cams! w00t!

Read the rules here.

So get to inviting and get to educating non-geeks on geeky things.

But wait, that’s not all…(best Steve Jobs impersonation)

Send us your non-geek stories, how you’ve converted them to use something like Twitter. Take a video, or some pictures, send us their shiny new twitter URL’s or whatever, talk about how you explained it to them to make it click, and we’ll give you a $10 iTunes gift card. That’s 10 songs. 10 songs you can listen to and share on Strands with the Strands Tracker.   Send those to drew @ strands dot com with the subject line “Non-Geek story”.   If we use it, you get the gift card.  Simple.

Badass huh? Get out there, get active and lets go mainSTREAM baby!

_drew

So we just put out a bunch of new features and fixes.   It’s a mini release that packs some big punches.

How did we know what to work on and fix up? You of course. The past few weeks have been hella rad, because your feedback, your interest, and your suggestions are what is driving us to make Strands really kick ass.

So first we’d like to thank our team for really digging in and taking care of business. Then we’d like thank you, our Strands community for going above and beyond. Take a bow, you deserve it.

Now onto the awesomesauceness.:

* added “invite friends”/import address book to registration flow (and improved from the “people” tab too) - This means that you can now easily invite and add people from your Gmail/Yahoo/MSN email accounts. It’s so easy, my mom can do it. If she had any contacts.

* gave everyone unlimited invites - Yep. To go with Operation mainSTREAM’s contest (You have until Nov 1st to get in on the action!), we’re giving away prizes to the top inviters for the month of October. You can win a Macbook Air for you and your nongeek friend. You’ve been asking us for more invites and well…you got em. Unlimited Power up!!@#!@#!@#

* when someone registers from an invitation, they automatically follow their inviter - Invite your dad, and they accept? They’ll auto follow you. W00t!

* members can now explicitly “block” other users from following them - Someone pissing you off? Block that fool.

* members can delete their own accounts - Don’t want to stay around? (sadtrombone) you can delete yourself if ya want. But come back now ya hear?

* numerous bug fixes - Wonky stuff we caught and you caught, and now they’re fixed. Keep the feedback coming to feedback @ strands.com

WHEW. There you have it.

We love you guys, keep on truckin’ with us!

_drew

Geeks vs. Mainstream. Mainstream vs. Geeks.

All Geeks have some mainstream in them and all Mainstream has a little geekyness in them.

If you ask someone what they like, they have difficulty saying it. Strands lets you express your tastes. The internet allows you to express yourself easily in a number of ways….as you can see

http://www.strands.com/drew

Sign up at http://www.strands.com and use the promo code “drew”

Then show us what’s in YOUR Strands. Send the video links to drew at strands dot com.

(music by darude)

Louis and MG discuss FriendFeed and Twitter for the masses, plus our mom’s, babies, Strands, and more!

http://www.parislemon.com
http://www.venturebeat.com
http://www.louisgray.com
http://www.momsofgeeks.com

It’s time y’all.

Start educating nongeeks on stuff like Strands, Twitter, Pandora, Blogging, Teh Facebookz (thanks Schlomo), and more.

Invite them to Strands. If they sign up, it counts towards your Strands Tally. On November 1st, whomever has the most successful friends sign up for Strands between Oct 1-Nov 1 can win a Macbook Air for them, and their nongeek friend. Or an iPod Touch for them and their nongeek friend, or a Flip cam…you get the idea.

So how do you educate nongeeks on tech? Share your ideas and stories here.

Me? I tell nongeeks that Strands brings together your digital life so you can share your tastes with friends and other likeminded folks. Easy enough huh?

But talking won’t get it done. Break out the iPhone or the laptop and SHOW people how to use stuff. Listen to their interests and needs and match them up with cool services that they’ll find useful.

Do it and win!

Operation mainSTREAM is now officially in full effect yo.

(Contest Rules and info here)