Happy Thanksgiving to all. This holiday is not only a great day for family, friends and feasts, but also an important time to reflect on everything you have to give thanks for. Enjoy!

Scrolling through Bloglines this morning I came across another hilarious spoof of the original “Subservient Chicken” concept. This time its dubbed Subservient Donald, yes a complete and total spoof on the Donald. Check it out, the responses are off the wall depending on what you type in for a command. Go ahead and give it a try :-)

per The Presurfer

Interesting new offering from Motorola and Skype - the new Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit, a bluetooth enabled calling kit for PC and internet phone calls. Includes 30 minutes of SkypeOut time for Skype heads:

With up to approximately eight hours of talk time and a lightweight, ergonomic fit, the Motorola H500 lets Skype users wirelessly connect for Internet calls — up to 30 feet away from a Bluetooth-enabled PC. Skype users can also have calls automatically forwarded to their compatible Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones when away from the PC and use the Motorola H500 Headset to wirelessly conduct cord-free conversations on their mobile phone.

per PodcastingNews

This is pretty slick, a new app dubbed “immedi.at.” A trick new app that offers instant message alerts for any RSS or Atom enabled content you are interested in. Certainly an interesting way to be alerted to fresh content on a favorite feed.

Use immedi.at to be notified instantly when:

* news on a certain topic is posted
* your competitor does something of interest
* something interesting happens with a favorite sports team
* your name or company is written about
* you receive new email

Check it out - a simple addition to your bookmarks (no installation required) allows you to tag or “monitor” sites when you come across something you want to stay up on. For example, I scrolled to one of my favorite online marketing blogs - which offers me timely, informative and highly relative content continously. When I get to the site I hit the “monitor this” button and pick a IM service, type in my username, and I am done. Now when there are new posts I am instant messaged on that particular account. Simple, but cool.

per the ever cool Tim Yang

The growth and hype around podcasting just doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all. The demand and growth of consumer generated media is growing at astounding rates. Just like the rapid fire growth of blogs, the recent shift to audio and video content is driving hosting and media storage models to change as well. Here is an interesting article that goes over the positions of the major players and who is doing what. Interestingly enough, I learned some news about future plans for both Yahoo and Google to get into the game beyond search:

“..the shift also prepares the web hosting industry for high-volume media hosting challenges from Yahoo and Google. At a podcasting trade show Friday, Yahoo confirmed that it is developing a service to publish and host podcasts. The show was also awash with rumors that a similar project is in development at Google, and it seems logical that Microsoft’s new push into web-based services will eventually include a podcasting component.”

David Vise wrote a very interesting article in last Sunday’s Washington Post titled “What Lurks In its Soul?”. Its a fairly comprehensive overview of the culture, innovation and amazing drive that the company is built on.

“The soul of the Google machine is a passion for disruptive innovation.”

Check it out.

per Bruce Eisner

Google has just announced that it will make its popular web analytics software Google Analytics (formerly Urchin), FREE for use. All I can say is wow, talk about a category killer. When you look at the web analytics market, the leaders of the likes of Web Trends and Web Side Story have got to be sweating it. I have seen all three platforms in detail and the Urchin platform is no joke - we are talking serious analytics for marketers. Other market leaders like Omniture have a good leg to stand on, but will no doubt be impacted by this highly strategic decision by Google. I already know one colleague of mine who was about to sign a $10k deal with Web Trends this week and just backed out. Where would the sense be in signing? I am really curious to see how this plays out in this particular market. Oddly enough, my company has been looking for a solid web analytics program to integrate with so that we can offer advanced clickstream metrics for our clients email campaigns. We may have just found a solid solution - we are researching that now. Google is always full of surprises…..

I am sorry I was unable to make it out to the Portable Media Expo this last weekend. From what I read and heard it was a very successful event. Congrats to Tim Bourquin and his team for putting it together. Looks like there will be another on in September of next year. Nice work.

Here is a link to posts about the expo and plenty of pictures. Next year I am there.

Back in Baltimore, MD USA! After 6 flights and 3 cities in Europe, I must admit its good to be back home. At the same time I would have loved another week in Europe. We had a great time traveling through the Netherlands, Czech Republic and England. I got a chance to catch up with a few friends in Amsterdam, and met a great group of new friends as well. Before heading over, I had the idea of chartering a boat to take us through the city on a 2.5 hour cruise last Sunday evening. I looked no further than Mr. Amsterdam himself, Todd, to bring it all together, and that he certainly did. I recommend hiring a boat very much for anyone visiting Amsterdam, seeing that beautiful city from the canals is amazing - day or night. It was also great seeing the one and only Bicyclemark who is keeping it real and podcasting up a storm.

Prague was next on the initerary and was absolutely beautiful, the history there is so rich. There was so much to see and learn that we hired a walking tour guide for 3 hours one day so we could take in as much as possible. I recommend that as well, our guide new the most intricate details about the history of the city, the churches, down to odd facts about some of the paintings on the walls and the statues in the streets. Lots to see. Oh, and by the way, Czech’s brew some incredible beer! Pivo as they call it.

London was the last leg, short and sweet - we we’re there this past weekend, just in time to catch up with some friends for a long night out on Friday, and for Fireworks Night or Bonfire night on Saturday as they call it. We caught the fireworks display at Battersea Park close to the Thames River, and I have to admit it was a SUPER weak display given the way I have seen Britons celebrate this day. Last year we were in England at the same time and went to the city of Lewes where they REALLY celebrate Guy Fawkes day in a hardcore fashion. If you don’t know about the history of the celebration you can check it out here. That was an entirely different scene, and one worth checking out. We also hit the famous Portobello Road Market - one of our absolute favorite markets to hit when traveling. Its one of the most famous markets in the world, always full of interesting people and lots of unique finds, from antiques to young aspiring fashion designers, a must see in London. Check out the history of the market.

So thats a wrap and cap, back in the states now. In the next week lots happening. Look out for a new commercial podcast most likely next week and some new music related stuff I have been messing around with. Also, my company is launching a blog and I will post about that once we are ready to roll. More later.

Hello from London! I neglected to mention prior to leaving that there would be no blogging commencing this week due to travel. We are wrapping up a 3 city tour in Europe this week. We started out in Amsterdam, then Prague and are now back in London. Great times, we’ve been checking out some new sites and visiting with friends. We return to the States tomorrow afternoon. Now, its off to the Portobello Road market. Happy Saturday!