Our online presence – a digital extension of us. We’ve known that for a while. If you’ve been at the edge you know that the hemorrhaging has brought great benefit.

Frustratingly, with the exception of walled social networks (“MySpace is the AOL of blogging”), a key component of our offline presence has been slow to make the transition to the online world: the ability to create (and join) communities based around… well, us.

Until you can build a community of you (think: life) the real benefit of our digital extension won’t be fully obtainable. Community catalysts are filling this void. Offering a range of features, MyBlogLog, a leading community catalyst, is bringing the promise of community to individual blogs. This is huge. It’ll be “bigger than the Beatles and bigger than breast implants“. Really.

Until recently the service has been about possibilities. The recent readers (now in my sidebar – see photo below) and community features, out for a while, are nice but offer small tastes of what could be.

That’s why when I read Fred’s post I was excited about the new feature announcement – photo comments within blogs. This adds great value and brings blogs that much closer to a community.

I’m happy to say that after being invited to the beta program your comments will now have your smiling face alongside it. We can all be mini real estate agents!

This first card being played is one of many cool things to come. That’s great news.

Even better is: (1) Stowe raising the concerns that I had; and, (2) MyBlogLog’s CEO Scott Rafer’s response to Stowe’s post.

Best news yet is MyBlogLog’s understanding of community.

If you follow the links throughout this post you’ll see just how active MyBlogLog has been with the community. I want the builders of my community’s catalyst to have a thorough understanding of community. It’s apparent that MyBlogLog definitely does.

Branding, as we’ve known it, is evolving. Actually, it’s not an evolution. That implies forward change.

Branding is being torn apart. Broken into fragile pieces.

And the whole, when pieces reassemble, is stronger than the sum of the parts.

You’re the uniting force. “A brand is now only as influential as its consumers.”

You are no longer defined by the brands you choose. The brand is becoming you. You are now the brand.

Ripped apart. Reassembled. You.

Branding occurs concurrently with the construction of you. You’re building you; you’re building brands.

Want the rush of power and control? Manage brand you and you’re the brand manager for the entire Fortune 5,000,000.

Expression through products. Identity through the structural (social?) integration of brands into… identity.

Ripped apart. Reassembled. You.

You are the king’s horses AND the king’s men. You won’t be able to put the brand back together the way it was. It wasn’t you then.

I had a discussion w/ Umair of Bubblegen on the subject that you can read here.

It’s a failure to conclude that traditional media will not succeed with new media strategies simply because, to-date, many have struggled to fully utilize and benefit from the edge.

Anyway, I’d be interested in hearing what some of you think.

Plenty of discussion about online video since the sale. Regardless of whether or not YouTube is already wildly profitable I agree with my friend Howard that YouTube is worth a considerable amount in our changing world.

I’m sticking with my points that I raised w/ Umair. For the price, a rounding error for Sony really, the purchase is:

(1) a nice technology buy (as Pete Cashmore describes)

(2) an opportunity to experiment (and play in the sandbox a little bit)

(3) a chance to work their way, incrementally, towards new media strategies

That being said, I’m sure given what we’ve seen from Sony in the past few years that they will fail both with strategy and with execution

Rarely do I find a book so engrossing that I can’t put it down, finishing it in a single sitting.

The Frog King was one of those books.

Rarely do I pass around a book with reckless abandon, thrusting it upon everyone, promising them that they’ll like it.

The Frog King was one of those books.

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My friend Howard has a nice post up on the community that will develop around financial bloggers/readers.

Howard mentions three tools that will help the online financial-heads form a community – MyBlogLog, coComment, and Feedburner.

It’s interesting to note that it was these three apps’ efforts to nurture community that started me thinking about what I want in a community.

Specifically, I’ve been thinking of, currently, MyBlogLog and coComment as community catalysts.

Here are some thoughts:

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