The highly anticipated Las Vegas Pubcon 2007 has come and gone, and I can tell that everyone is waiting for Pubcon ‘08 from the enormous success of this conference. First, some educational takeaways:

• Social media is the “new” medium for businesses to communicate with consumers in a way that is interesting to them.
• Craig Newmark isn’t altruistic, but he sure created a damn good website.
• Every conversation shifted to Twitter, as folks recognized that they can brand themselves and their businesses through a Twitter identity. On that note, if you’re so inclined, you can follow me on Twitter too.
• Good content and copywriting will win over new readers and customers.
• Make sure you have good pockets (or a wallet) if you are carrying cash in Sin City.

I’ve been tagged against my will by Jane and Jason in one of the latest memes: do you respect media snackers?

Well first, what the heck is a media snacker? Watch this short video to see:

Here’s the transcript for the video-phobes:

Media Snackers. What’s it all about? Well, you see the world has changed and it’s not turning back. Media snackers are young people. No longer is there a set menu of mass media delivered at specific times and to the masses. Print, radio, [and] television is now “push the red button and go interactive,” “text in your request,” or “let us tell you a story.” The internet and technology ownership has changed everything: digital TV, mobile phones, iPods, weblogs, instant messaging, [and] social networking. The media landscape has shifted from the linear to one of many layers consumed by creative and empowered individuals. Young people of the new WWW generation snuck in whenever, wherever, and on whatever they like. Crucially, their expectations have changed. Everything is multi: multi-screens, multi-channeled, multi-conversations, and multitasking. Totally connected groups are average sharers, creating as much as they can consume and using free sites to display it all. Whereas before when computers were only found in banks and offices, media snackers have access at home, in school, or in libraries — all for free. Remember visiting arcade centers to play games? Media snackers play at home and against the world. How about taping your favorite tunes off the radio? Media snackers simply download them from the web and carry their whole music collection with them. Previously, to have a mobile phone, you needed a large bank account. Media snackers just have pockets. Media snackers are young people.

As many of us alluded to earlier this month at SMX Social Media, viral content is king. Viral content is what people look for. Viral content is what people bookmark. Viral content is what people talk about. Viral content can spark memes. Viral content is the foundation for linkbait. Indeed, viral content is a wonderful concept and especially important when you’re looking for traffic or attention. But if you’ve never traversed along the road to viral content, where can you get started? What is makes good viral content? I’ve talked briefly about great lists. I’ve talked about videos. I’ve talked about pictures. Now I’m going to talk a bit more about six solid foundations upon which you can build viral content and I’ll illustrate how they’re used in today’s social media.

The Motherload of Lists

Let’s face it. People like lists. Lists win for a variety of reasons: they’re easily digestible, they’re typically short, and they contain a lot of good information in one single article. Lists also take a great deal of research, and the return is typically a resource that people will turn to time and time again.

Here are some example lists that totally rock:

After writing my piece on why the new Digg just isn’t what it used to be, I already started listening to community feedback regarding the social network that I thought was worth sharing. Since the Digg submission of my story was already buried, I sincerely hope that Digg listens to what their community members have to say.

1. By trying to make Digg more social, it really became less social. (Michael via Twitter)
2. [Today is] the day that Digg died. (Lyndon)
3. I also can’t see if I have Dugg a story until I open it. (webcure)
4. I don’t like that I have to click 2 times to see an article. (webcure)
5. If friends are deemphasized, why does the algorithm still continue to penalize the “top submitters?”
6. WTF, you can only go back 3 pages of friends submissions now? (Alex)
7. It’s ironic that Kevin Rose said that he likes to “build things you click on.” Is that why we have to click twice?
8. Talk about memory leaks in Firefox now that I have to open more windows. If this is a way to thwart blind digging, it’s not working.

I have about 20 minutes to give my initial impressions on the new Digg profile redesign but have arrived at my conclusion: it sucks.

A few things come to mind based on everything I’ve used Digg for in the past:

1. Digg took a step backwards in social news and took a step forward on social superfluity. Digg is now letting you send shout outs to your friends but doesn’t emphasize the initial foundation upon which the site was created: Digg is a social news site. I already turned off shouts; I use Digg for news. Not for Facebook-Myspace-Yahoo! Mash-like social networks. Merging the two when there’s already too much of it in the open is totally unnecessary.
2. Where did the descriptions go? Now, I can’t see descriptions of the stories I’ve submitted nor can I see descriptions of stories that my friends have submitted. Since most of us use descriptions from the article text itself, it’s rather pointless to remove story descriptions because now I cannot easily discern if I’ve read the story or not before.