There are two apps that make most of the other apps on my phones (I have both a Samsung Moment and a Palm Pre) seem almost useless. One is Stitcher (which lets you stream podcasts) and the other is Pandora. This is because audio is essential to me. Without something to stream on the way to work, while walking in Manhattan, or simply while relaxing at home, I would go a little crazy.

I’ve heard some people say that some of this year’s SXSW Interactive presentations were too “101.“ All I can say is that I attended some presentations/sessions/panels that were solid good. Some were technical in nature and others were more about the stories behind-the-scenes.

One of my favorite stories was that of Pandora, as told by their CTO Tom Conrad.

I opted not to go to Gary Vee’s presentation, the live Buzz Out Loud (I’m a huge fan), and many other ones at the same time because I wanted to learn more about Pandora. It was worth it.

Charlene Li has the gift of understanding social technologies and developing insights about how people interact online. For SXSW Interactive 2010, she talked about “Open Leadership.” Her presentation started on how people have embraced a new culture of sharing and how the web has made this frictionless. While the new culture has changed our relationships, organizations continue to work in the same way that they have in the past. Charlene thinks that social is “hard” for companies because they are unwilling to give up control. Their inability or desire to have conversations is but one example of this. Still, “real relationships require you to give up control.”

Charline defined “Open Leaderhip” as “having confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control.” If companies are not really in control, then Charlene’s concept of “open leadership” makes sense. She continues by adding that while companies need to give up control, they need to “be in command.” Watch the series of videos below (I apologize that there are so many!) to learn more about the elements of openness, the engagement pyramid, a new customer lifetime value calculation, failure, and the competitive advantage that comes from being social plus open.

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Louis Pagan is a content producer and co-founder of Latinos in Social Media. As one of the first latino voices in the blogosphere with his blog Latino Pundit, Louis has now rebranded himself as an entrepreneur.

While he still blogs, Louis also owns a company called Lat3G Media and he has helped launched projects like the LATISM Heritage Tour. Being a Latin American guy myself, it was very fun to talk with Louis about the bond that unites all latinos and hispanics, as well as topics such as old and new media, and the “social” part of social media in the 25th episode of “The Social Nerdia Show!”

You can listen to the interview in its entirety on the Flash player below, and we would highly appreciate it if you check out our other shows by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes, and streaming it live every Thursday night on blogtalkradio!

Louis and I started the show talking about the fact that October 15th is the last day of Hispanic Heritage month, a tradition that has been around for many decades. Not many know this but Hispanic Heritage month starts on Septemeber 15th because it is the day of independence of many Central American countries, like my very own Guatemala. “It’s like a virtual month, right between the calendars,” Louis said as we spoke about the 4 weeks that have been designated to celebrate our heritage. “I don’t know if it’s the food, the culture, the way we look, the music, the way we dress, speak, we have a common bond and we connect on all different levels, it’s a celebration,” Louis expressed. (more…)

Bob Knorpp is the host of The BeanCast, a weekly round table podcast that gathers advertising and marketing thought leaders (aka actual ad experts) to discuss industry issues and current events. After many years in the ad industry, he started The Cool Beans Group, a marketing consultancy that provides B2B and B2C expertise in branding, strategic thinking, social media, and more. I had a great time talking to Bob on The Social Nerdia Show! and you can about our conversation, including 7 social media insights, below.

You can listen to the show in its unedited greatness using the BlogTalkRadio player, subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and/or streaming it on your mobile phone using Stitcher.

Podcasts are now everywhere and there is one for everything. Bob explained that “the competition (in podcasting) is really steep and there are so many choices… the chances of getting noticed are minuscule.” And yet, The BeanCast has made quite an impression on a lot of people in the ad industry. The show’s forward-looking slogan “The Best Marketing Podcast Anywhere,” is becoming a reality with every weekly show. With only a year and a half of being on the online airwaves, the show has gone from a water cooler experiment to an influential conversation that is a must-listen for anyone even remotely interested in marketing. As Bob told me, “you don’t need to build a huge audience to have impact, you just need to reach the right people.”

Reaching the right people is not enough though. To truly create an impact on a growing audience, Bob makes sure that The BeanCast is entertaining. “As much as I try to present a forum for smart people to present their ideas, my primary objective is to have an entertaining program.. that stimulates conversations.” The payoff of the show is a combination of information, entertainment and relevancy. And that’s probably why The BeanCast is one of my favorite podcasts: it showcases the thought-provoking views of experienced people in the ad industry, without being boring. (more…)

After befriending children with no shoes in Argentina, Blake Mycoskie decided he wanted to help. He started TOMS Shoes in 2006 with a simple idea: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One.” The shoes were designed after the Argentine “alpargata” and 10,000 pairs were sold in the first year. The company has given away over 150,000 pairs of shoes to kids all over the world.

At the young age of 33, Blake has not only created an admirable brand, but he has also built a platform that allows anyone to provide a basic need to those that are often forgotten and ignored.

1. I love your quote: “I don’t want to be remembered for what I did, but what I gave away.” Have you always had this philosophy or did it develop over time?

As you grow and have different experiences, you learn what you want out of your life and what direction you will pursue. The things I have learned and people I have met over time have shaped my philosophy and have guided me to where I am now.

2. Designing a new type of shoe, starting a non-profit and building a brand that incorporates both seems like a lot to take on, did you ever consider partnering with a brand that already existed?

TOMS was such a unique model from the start, and we broke the mold in some respects of how most businesses operate, so we wanted to show others that this idea of incorporating giving could work on its own. It’s great now to be at a point where we can do some amazing collaborations with other brands like Ralph Lauren, Element Skateboards and even Dave Matthews Band. (more…)

Doug Aamoth is the Reviews Editor for CrunchGear.com, a TechCrunch blog that covers gadgets, gear, and computer hardware. TechCrunch started in 2005 and CrunchGear was added to the network in 2006 when Michael Arrington expanded the site to include a blog that focused on gadgets. Doug has been with the CrunchGear team since 2007 and he now also hosts the CrunchGear live podcast on Wednesdays at 3pm Eastern.

Doug spends a lot of his time reviewing products so I asked him about some of his favorites. He mentioned the Acer netbook 751h and he also told me that he just got iPhones on a family plan with his wife. “It’s hard not to talk about the iPhone. It’s still so far ahead of other phones.” But not all of his reviews are about phones and computers. I’ve noticed that he often writes about random things and deals, from sandals with metal detectors to left-handed underpants. “We try to have something up at the very least every half other so it’s hard to fill a day some times.” CrunchGear as a site does about 50 posts and Doug writes about 5-10 per day.

A lot of Doug’s work is reactive. 10% of the time Doug contacts a company, while they will contact him the other 90% of the time. Doug wakes up every day without really knowing what he’s going to write about because about 90% of what goes up on CrunchGear is reactive. And reactive can mean hard work. “It’s not the picture that most people get of bloggers waking up at noon. I wake up at 7am and work full steam.. until about 9 at night.” (more…)

Facebook has finally done it. The company not only reached the 300 million user mark but it also achieved its positive cash-flow milestone last quarter (ahead of schedule), according to Mark Zuckerberg’s blog posting on Tuesday. Here’s a look at five smart things they did right  to get to where they are today.

1. Opening Up to Everyone

Facebook started as a social network for Harvard students in 2004. After signing up over half of the Harvard undergraduate population in one month, the site opened up to other Boston and Ivy League universities. The site continued to spread through schools around the nation (including my very own SMU) and opened up to High School students by 2005. Today, Facebook is not only open to anyone around the world, but it has also opened itself so that its users are searchable by nonmembers. More importantly, Facebook grew in both features and popularity by opening itself to others. Mobile web sites and apps are available on all major mobile OS platforms. Developers have created apps like iLike, Scrabulous and Fan Check. Companies like Apple and Microsoft have leveraged Facebook’s API to connect to the site through products like iTunes and the Xbox 360. Thousands of web sites like Hulu and blogs like Mashable have allowed users to leave comments using their Facebook accounts via the now multilingual log-in system that we’ve come to know as Facebook Connect. And let’s not forget that it was Facebook Connect that enabled the last push for Facebook to surpass MySpace’s traffic in the U.S.

2. Becoming the Anti-MySpace that Doesn’t Sell Itself Short

Michael Arrington once said that Facebook had become the “Anti-MySpace” by deciding to open itself up. Just as Facebook didn’t follow in MySpace’s paranoid footsteps (remember how MySpace was so threatened by PhotoBucket that it acquired it in 2007?), it also did not flirt with large corporation that would swallow it. With rumors of Friendster being interested to pay upwards of $10 million, the News Corp. acquisition of MySpace in 2005, and Yahoo!’s offer of up to $1 billion in 2006, Facebook must have felt a little tempted. Still, Facebook focused on its site and its users and Zuckerberg’s words on July 17, 2007 have been proven to be true: “We’re not really looking to sell the company… We’re not looking to IPO anytime soon. It’s just not the core focus of the company.” With 1000 employees and a predicted $500 million in revenue for 2009, it is clear that MySpace is history. (more…)