Heartland Technology Solutions Channel IT Summit 2011
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Aaron Booker from Varvid joins Arlin Sorenesen of Heartland Technology Solutions in Harlan, Iowa to talk about HTS‘s Channel IT Summit. Arlin explains he’s seeking a way to deepen the relationship with the Vendors he partners with through the Heartland Technology Group by sharing the experience of what it’s like for VARS to be “in the trenches.” Arlin states “what better way than to invite them to come out here to rural Iowa to experience our business at HTS to share some of the things we’ve learned over the last 25 years.”
Arlin plans to talk about HTG, which has over 260 members that are part of his organization worldwide, and his goal for the summit is for Vendors to get a feel for what it’s like to serve SMB customers out in the real world. Arlin thinks that Vendors will be surprised at how complex the business really is for him and HTG, as they aim to serve a vast array of different kinds of clients. HTG services small micro businesses up to some of the mid-market customers, all of whom have very different needs and these different sized organizations expect very different things. As Arlin says himself “it’s not as simple as it seems on paper and we think we’re going to be able to show this to the Vendors who attend this week.”
The main points that Heartland Technology Solutions‘ Channel IT Summit 2011 promises attendees to come away with are:
• Understanding the roles in a typical VAR company
• Understanding how VAR’s grow and the barriers to growth
• Understanding things you should not do when working with VAR’s
• Understanding how to work effectively with SMB communities
• Understanding some of the frustrations VAR’s experience working with your tools and trying to procure your products and services
• Experience rural Iowa and hear from SMB partners and customers first hand
To find out more, visit:
Facebook’s New Subscribe Button Means More Exposure For Online Video
Facebook has unveiled a new feature called the Subscribe Button that enables users to receive publicly visible status updates from people who aren’t on their friend list. This same feature will also allow users to customize the updates they see from those who are on their friends list, a further elaboration on the current basic feature of being able to block a particular friend’s updates from showing up on the News Feed.
A comparison of a subscription versus a page.
Facebook’s official announcement states that the new subscribe feature can be used to:
- Choose what you see from people in News Feed
- Hear from people, even if you’re not friends
- Let people hear from you, even if you’re not friends
As far as being able to choose what shows up in your News Feed, the Subscribe Button will give you three choices regarding the amount of content you’d like to see:
- All updates: Everything your friend posts
- Most updates: The amount you’d normally see
- Important updates only: Just highlights, like a new job or move
The Subscribe Button also allows you to hear from people who you aren’t friends with, like celebrities, artists, political figures and journalists; which has much more accurate connotations than becoming their friend, or liking them. One way to conceptualize Facebook’s new Subscribe Button is that it’s very similar to following someone on Twitter.
This a huge move forward for Facebook in the individuals control over their own content aggregation. Instead of your news feed being full of your friends’ exclamations of joy about their day off from work, or woes about their procrastination habit, you’ll be able to receive more developed and curated content; like links to news articles, information on newly released films or music, or important political speeches or events. Additionally, any Facebook user who wants to share their public updates with a wider audience than just their friends list can opt in and add a subscribe button to their profile, so this feature is not limited to celebrities or organizations.
An example of Facebook's subscription option
What does this mean for video? Ostensibly, the new Subscribe Button is going to aggrandize the sharing of video via Facebook in a major way. In the past video has been limited to sharing among friends as posts to their wall, or via a private message. Now, users are granted a much higher level of control over who they’re receiving content from, and profiles who have a large number of subscribers will be able to push their content out to a much larger audience. Considering that Facebook is the 3rd highest ranked site for online video views (according to comScore.com) we can expect to see video sharing to increase drastically with the rise of the Facebook Subscribe option.
Catch Our Webcast of Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour Philadelphia!
The entrance hall at the Philadelphia Convention Center
Our fearless leader Aaron Booker is on the road again, this time stationed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to provide IT and webcasting services for the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour tournament! Magic is a nearly two-decade-old collectible card game played by thousands of people worldwide, sometimes with thousands of dollars of prize money on the line. This Sunday’s tournament is sure to be extra-exciting, because the gurus behind Magic are rolling out a whole new gameplay format that promises to level the playing field.
To watch the webcast, head over to this page on Sunday, September 4th by 11am EST. Here’s a handy way to find out what time you can tune in in your time zone:
- Los Angeles: 7:45 a.m.
- Chicago: 9:45 a.m.
- New York: 10:45 a.m.
- Rio de Janeiro: 11:45 a.m.
- London: 3:45 p.m.
- Paris: 4:45 p.m.
- Berlin: 4:45 p.m.
- Rome: 4:45 p.m.
- Moscow: 6:45 p.m.
- Tokyo: 11:45 p.m.
- Sydney: 12:45 a.m. Monday
