February :: 2010 :: Thinking Home Business | Practical Tips For People Who Work From Home

Testing the online movie-making tool Xtranormal

This morning I had a direct message (DM) on Twitter with a link to a YouTube video advertising a Superbowl-related service. I clicked through out of curiosity and watched the short video.

If you watch that, you’ll notice the credit that comes up at the end for Xtra Normal, with the intriguing tagline “If you can type, you can make movies”.

I tried it out.

Signup was easy and free.

The interface and the various pre-fabricated scenes, avatars and so on reminded me a bit of Second Life (who ever talks about Second Life these days? Is it still there?) but at a really basic level.

I proceeded to type in a conversation about a topic that has been buzzing along in a forum on LinkedIn, viz. how can you tell if someone is a real social media expert.

Out of a bunch of quite bizarrely attired avatars I chose a couple of conservatively dressed types who looked more like humans than the avatars in the football item above. The result will not will me any prizes. It’s corny, not easy to see or hear, and I am including it here just to illustrate.

No matter what I did I could not get the avatars to the front of the scene as they are in the football item.

So there is a lack of flexibility in being able to mix and match avatars and settings.

No doubt a more skilled user would do something much more interesting and I’m inferring from the text accompanying the exhortation to download the desktop version that it may be possible to be more creative with that. But I looked at the resource specifications and decided I did not need the aggravation of my computer possibly seizing up or slowing to a crawl.

There is a link from the Xtranormal site for uploading to YouTube, but after following the instructions and trying several times, I gave up.

Verdict. Interesting, and I really like the idea of telling stories in novel ways like this, but at this stage Xtranormal is not a good use of my time.

New Third Tribe community offers an interesting option for online marketers

It seems I’m not the only one who has been feeling less than comfortable about the options for promoting products and services online.

Hence the subject heading for this post, asking whether “ethical Internet marketing” is an oxymoron.

I am passionate about how the Internet especially now with the power of social media (but even long, long ago before even the Web! but that’s another story) helps us create and enhance wonderful relationships and link up with various communities of interest. I love the generosity and sharing I experience every day. Trouble is, all that relationship building does not of itself generate a lot of income. Which is ok if you have a well paid job or very rich and indulgent other parties – spouses, parents, etc – who cover your expenses. But not so ok if you would like to complement your love of being online with a nice, steady income stream.

But of course there are all those courses you can do to make money online.

The trouble with that option is that, if you are not one of those people who are born able to sell ice to people living in the frozen north, or if you baulk at telling lies and tricking people and don’t regard that as “just business”, you may have found a few of the lessons you’ve paid for not so easy, or practically impossible, to put into practice.

Now I hasten to say there is no question in my mind that there are actually quite a lot of very ethical, decent people who have become financially successful online and who are teaching how to make money online ethically.

But there is also no question in my mind that it is not easy for people new to the scene (or even, sometimes, for some of us who have been around for a while) to spot the difference, to be able to tell who is ethical, truly social and truly interested in providing quality service and products from the, shall we say, less ethically challenged players.

A new option: Third Tribe

So what if there was a community where you mingle and learn, with structured courses and useful resources, and forums to compare notes, a place where you could start to feel some confidence about doing business online and still be able to look family and friends in the eye and tell them proudly how you have managed to buy that new house, or take that long-planned holiday cruise?

Well, it’s early days, but from where I sit, The Third Tribe looks like the genuine article, and may even prove to be in due course the veritable bee’s knees and the cat’s pajamas.

The Third Tribe’s tag line is: Internet Marketing Strategies That Work – (Without Being Obnoxious) .

There are good people involved, some of whom I know and have met, including the legendary Problogger, Darren Rowse, also Chris Brogan the social media wiz, and Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame (I haven’t actually spoken with Brian but I did introduce a panel he was on at BlogWorld Expo in 2008, so I think that counts as having “met”, sort of – the point is, he is real).

As to the general body of members starting to gather to this tribe, I am already amazed and frankly somewhat in awe, seeing from the forums the range and depth of business and Internet-related experience of members. This is looking like a seriously interesting place to be able to hang out and have good, productive and enjoyable conversation, as well as learning from the courses and using other resources to be provided.

For the first week, which we are half way through, so until Feb 5th, there is an offer for Charter membership at $27 a month, with a 100% refund of the first month fee if you are not satisfied.

There is no affiliate program so there is no link here to earn me any financial benefit. (Update: an affiliate program was introduced after this post was written – it still won’t benefit me as I’m not part of the community now.)

I just believe this new community could make a huge difference, especially to people working solo or in couples from home and not sure whom to believe and whom to trust in the sometimes confusing world of online marketing. Here’s the (no affiliate) link: Third Tribe.

If you decide to give it a whirl, I hope you will comment here, however the experience turns out for you.