Fellow 515ers Chris Punke and Andy Brudtkuhl have teamed up to create Tech in Iowa — a show that highlights the people, companies and advancements within Iowa’s tech community.

I was invited to participate in the inaugural episode, which can be viewed via the embedded video above, or by heading over to YouTube. In this episode Andy and I discussed social media marketing, viral marketing, and (of course) Whopper Freakout. This is the first of many shows; look for them to be aggregated in the future at TechinIowa.com.

Andy and Chris will surely be accepting ideas for future show content, so feel free to drop them a line on Twitter (@abrudtkuhl and @chrispunke) and make your voice heard.

Scrabulous is one of the more popular add-on applications inside Facebook with over 500,000 users per day. (Count me as one of them.) On January 11th, Hasbro/Mattel — makers of the original Scrabble board game — sent Facebook a cease-and-desist order, citing copyright infringement.

Facebook apps (Scrabulous included) are created by third-party developers on top of the social networking site’s open API. Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the Calcutta-based developers who created Scrabulous, are apparently also included in the cease-and-desist letter.

While the copyright infringement issue is certainly understandable, I’m inclined to think that Hasbro/Mattel is more upset that they aren’t profiting from the 500,000+ people who interact with their product every day. Here’s another example of how companies must adapt and adjust their revenue streams to work in tandem with social mediums, and quickly.

If I’m Hasbro/Mattel, I immediately hire the Agarwalla brothers, full-time or via consulting contract, and put them in charge of getting the entire brand portfolio (Battleship, Monopoly, Jenga, Stratego, Clue, etc.) built upon the Facebook API and Google’s OpenSocial movement. I’d use this as an opportunity to create communities around my products, turn my users into distributors, gather data via opt-in methods to learn more about my customers, sell ad space and ultimately promote brand loyalty.

Starting your own video blog couldn’t be easier, because you only need two things:
A $125 pocket-sized Flip Video camcorder and a way to publish your content online. That’s pretty much it. (Oh, and something interesting to say.)

I’m recommending the Flip to all Lava Row clients who are engaged in blogging efforts. Sure, you’re not going to have the polish of a high-end studio production, but you will have immediacy. Today, there’s simply no reason to not have a video component on your blog.

Since my Flip arrived in the mail I’ve been toying around with various publishing tools — Seesmic (still in beta), Blip.tv and ye olde stand-by, YouTube.

Here are some pros and cons:

• Seesmic – There’s been a lot of buzz and early adoption of this app among Twitter users, but I can’t get past the all-Flash interface and FLV format limitations. Converting files to FLVs before uploading is the last thing I want to waste time on.
• YouTube – This is by far the most mainstream and widespread publishing tool, but the audio and video quality is still lacking. I expect it can only get better over time, especially with Google’s war chest behind the R&D.
• Blip.tv – It takes longer to get your file uploaded, but the output quality is very good. (So that settles it, I’m using Blip for my first vlog post!)

I realize there are dozens of other great video-sharing apps out there — which ones have you been successful with?

The business world is brimming with Big-Talkers — a slippery personality type that aggressively initiates contact, makes bold statements and promises, but never actually does anything. These people exist in every type of business, government and organization, and at all levels of authority.

Be wary. Getting involved with Big-Talkers will waste your valuable time, and at the very worst can damage the reputation of you and your business. After dealing with enough of them, I’ve started to develop a “spam filter” (if you will) so that I can efficiently weed them out.

If the following criteria apply, you’ve likely sniffed out a Big-Talker:

Do they talk about large budgets in the first conversation?
Do they feed you lines like “I’ve got a big-time client that I need your help with” or “We’re devoting lots of money to this” or “We’ve spent $X already.” In most legit cases, people won’t reveal budget specifics until further into the relationship.

Do they contact you from far away, but never inquire about where you’re located?
This means they didn’t do their homework when looking you up, and are probably in panic mode, looking for somebody to clean up their messes.

Do they want to “pick your brain” for suggestions and strategy before entering into a contractual agreement, or at the very least, a face-to-face meeting?
Your experience and knowledge should speak for itself. I firmly believe that ideas are intellectual property, and should be treated as such — especially if your livelihood depends on it. When putting forth spec ideas in a proposal, make sure to include the appropriate legal verbiage to protect yourself.

Do they suddenly go very quiet, and sometimes disappear, right after you propose your fees?
If this happens, don’t waste your time following up — they were never serious.

Can they be found in Google searches, or on LinkedIn?
If there’s no trace of them online, there’s probably a reason.

Do contracts and work orders make them sweat?
Big-Talkers will say things like “Oh, we work without contracts all the time” and will push you to start projects before everything is signed off. Always get signatures.

Do they contact you from a weird e-mail address?
Seriously, it’s harder to trust catlady1799@aol.com as a serious business prospect.

Avoid these types at all costs. Even as minor annoyances, they steal precious time that could be better spent elsewhere.

Everyone sets personal resolutions for the new year, but it doesn’t hurt to do this for your biz as well. I despise PowerPointy words like expectations and objectives, so here’s my List of Things I’m Obsessed With Making Happen for Lava Row in 2008. Each one of these will serve as the basis for future blog posts:

1. Make clients famous. 
2. Get smarter every day.
3. Attack new ways of making money.
4. Open a headquarters. (Lava Row currently operates from various rooms in my house and coffee shops.)
5. Hire another brain.

Simple, digestible and challenging. What are you seeking to accomplish in 2008?

I love how social media has shaped the 2008 presidential campaign and the broadcast of raw information. Tonight I’ll be participating in an exciting citizen journalism experiment: Twittering results and observations live from my caucus precinct, alongside hundreds of other Iowans. Instructions on how to follow these streams can be found in this Townhall.com blog post, or by following @IowaCaucus. As always, my Twitter feed can be accessed @nathantwright.

Twitter is just one of many “as-it-happens” social mediums (YouTube, blogs, vlogs, etc.) that will be heating up with frenzied activity this evening. Google will even be publishing caucus results as they come in, mashed with their mapping technology (the Iowa Caucus Map).

Happy caucusing!

I’m inexcusably late to this meme, but here are my wishes for Twitter improvements in 2008. (Jeremiah and Garrick have already crafted great posts about this topic.)

1.) Let me track conversations.

Today, Chris Brogan asked his Twitter friends if private social networks would be big in 2008.
I want a page that shows me that original tweet, plus all the public responses packaged together in a nice little threaded discussion. Right now we can track individual users, “@responses” to users, and keywords, but not conversations. Somebody please build/hack this.

2.) Let me discover more friends nearby.

Twitter has allowed me to make connections that likely never would have materialized in meatspace. Help me make more, relevant to the zip code I’m currently in. I don’t wish for Twitter to become a “friend-finder” social network, but some slightly-improved location search tools would be nice. At the end of the day, I’m still in charge of who I friend/follow.

3.) Let me broadcast in new spaces.

Imagine a Twitter / bumper sticker mash-up! I’d love to have my Twitter stream scrolling across my bumper or back windshield for everyone to see. Or my office window. What about wearable Twitter? Somebody could easily mod the Scrolling LED Belt Buckle and solder on a Wi-Fi antenna to accomplish this.

4.) Build Twitter micro-networks into airplanes.

These would be specific only to the plane and its passengers: a real-time, Twittervision-style display on a digital screen built into the seat-backs, letting passengers share who they are, where they’re going, and why. Yes! This is awesome, somebody get on this immediately.

5.) Don’t ever get too big.

I hope that Twitter stays light, fluffy and resistant to mainstream appeal.

How do you want Twitter to evolve in 2008?