It’s official. Everyone in the country has high speed Internet access now. How do I know that? Because my mom is getting it (tomorrow to be exact) and I’ve always known she would be the last person in the country with broadband access. She’s finally leaving the world of dial-up and as we were talking the other day I realized there’s a lot of stuff she’s going to want and/or need to do now that she’s got a good connection.

Here’s my list of ten things she’s going to need to do. (By the way, mom, when you read this I’ll walk you through it. This is just our list to get started.)

1. Download Firefox. Forget Internet Explorer as your web browser. Firefox is the way to go. It’s so much more stable than Explorer, has great add-ons, uses tabs for multiple pages (though the new Explorer actually does this now), and doesn’t make that clicking sound all the time.

2. Update your anti-virus software. If you already have an anti-virus program, make sure you’re running the latest version and set the auto update feature to update automatically. If not, you can use a free version of AVG to give you basic coverage.

3. Set up a Google account. Google is more than a search engine. Much more (with more on this below) but you’re going to want a Gmail account to get started even if you want to stick with your current email. Once you have that you’ll be able to fully utilize the world of Google (again, more on this below.) I’ll send you the Gmail invitation to get started.

4. Get a webcam. I have Logitech webcam but there are other good brands too. With free services like Skype, Tokbox, and ooVoo we’ll find one that works for us to connect via live video so you can talk with the grandchildren.

5. Download iTunes. This will become your music and download destination. You can listen to online radio stations, create playlists from CDs you have, download podcasts (I recommend you get mine first of course), and purchase new music. When you get an iPod we’ll talk more about this too.

6. Upgrade programs. It’s likely that you’re not running the latest version of Windows, so we’ll check that out along with your Adobe Reader version too. Even though you won’t use Explorer and Windows Media Player much we will make sure you’re up to date there as well.

7. Discover Google Maps. You’re going to love this…maybe. Be sure to look up your address first and check out the satellite view. Ok, now relax. It’s okay. Pretty cool, huh? It’s really helpful and once you’ve used it a few times you’ll be hooked on it for all future direction needs.

8. Discover iGoogle. We’ll be setting Google as your default homepage in Firefox and with that and your Google account you can customize your hompage to include several of the things here in this list plus news, weather, and many other things you might want to see right off the bat when you open your browser.

9. Discover Google Reader. I’ll explain RSS feeds and all that stuff when we talk…but all you want to know is that there’s a way for you to bring the content of blogs and many websites to you rather than going through your bookmarks to visit all of them. Google Reader can make that happen. Now you see why Google is more than a just a search engine (as noted in #3 above.)

10. Discover Wikipedia. Remember that Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia set you got us when we were kids. This is like that but bigger and easier to find stuff. You personally can add to it too. You may find that you can provide some insight on American literature for instance, and you contribute by signing in. I’ll explain when we talk.

Any MicroExplosion readers have additional thoughts?

Earlier this week I started this series called “content is the new promotion strategy.” Today I’m going to begin with the first question some may have for understanding this promotional paradigm shift…

What is content?

The Wikipedia definition for content is: “information and experiences created by individuals, institutions and technology to benefit audiences in contexts that they value.”

For our purposes I expand on this definition a bit to say that online content for promotion is any information, idea, experience, or digital good that will have value to the consumer without the perceived primary objective being an advertisement, offer, proposition, or call to action.

For instance, a series of videos on the website of a home improvement magazine with short “how-to” videos would be content. A banner ad on the same site that simply says, “Order now and save 30%!” is not. This is not to say, however, that at the end of the how-to video there couldn’t be an offer to order now to save 30%. The difference is that the content (in this case it’s a video) is primary and the offer is secondary. The content earns the attention for the offer. In essence you’ve given them something now so you can ask for something in return that benefits you (even if you ask it in such a way that you’re telling them it’s a good deal for them too…like 30% off.)

Content is only as good as its value to another person. High value content is therefore considered high quality content so the opposite is true as well. Low value content is low quality content. The correlation between value and quality is inescapable. The million dollar question then is this: “What is valuable content?”

Valuable content will mean different things to different audiences so an understanding of your target audience is paramount. I was recently talking with a photographer friend about this concept of content as a promotion strategy. At first he wasn’t sure it applied to him. He thought it meant he might start a blog about photography tips or something along those lines. Though that’s one route he could go (and it may very well be a good one) he could also look at creating digital goods or showcasing his photographs in a form that would be valuable to people who may later be interested in his services. For instance, he could use his pictures as a series of free custom desktop images or inspirational e-cards. Maybe he could take some pictures of children and put music to it to create a funny and touching video about kids. If the video is done well I can just think of all the moms and dads who will want to pass it along to friends/family/coworkers and all the while be promoting his photography in the process. Any of these ideas would be viewed as valuable to people who are potential customers for him and he’s promoting himself by giving away content. By giving any of these away, he’s not asking for anything in return yet. He just knows he’s credited with each photograph that goes out and for now he knows it is more valuable to gain people’s attention than to make a hard sell. After all, it’s a promotion strategy not a sales strategy.

There are three easy categories to remember for valuable content that can be remembered with this question: Is the content helpful, hopeful, or humorous? This is certainly not an exhaustive list of all the types of content that could be beneficial, but I’ve found it to be a quick reference to gauge whether something will be perceived as valuable.

• Helpful - Is the content you’re going to create going to help someone in any way. Maybe it’s going to help give them knowledge or perspective they didn’t have before. Maybe it will teach or train them to do something they want to learn. Helpful content helps people. It’s not a difficult concept to understand but it could be easily overlooked as a content option. It’s not an accident that Lifehacker is the sixth most popular blog in the world.
• Hopeful - Content that is encouraging, touching, or in some other way has an emotional appeal more easily lends itself to being appealing to your audience (assuming this is appropriate for your audience) and then being passed along as well. It’s the same thing Hallmark has done for years and more recently Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has been successful with this approach. Kleenex’s Let it Out campaign was all over this too.
• Humorous - Let’s face it, we’ve seen more than our fair share of funny online videos, stories, or pictures and we’ve probably recommended a bunch too. Whether it’s some guy dancing around or a baby laughing, humor is one of the easiest ways to create valuable content. Making people laugh is valuable. Last summer eMarketer studied this topic and showed that the most watched online videos are humorous. The band Ok Go got the break of a lifetime with this approach.

The next part of this series will talk in depth about why content is the new promotion strategy.

I’ve been a Firefox user for about two years now and I love it. I can’t even remember what it was like to use MSN’s Explorer browser. The default homepage for Firefox is a modified version of the Google homepage and that was all I ever really needed but a while back I got to messing around with Google’s personalized homepage to see if I would like it. I didn’t. Actually, it wasn’t that I didn’t like it, I just didn’t know if I needed it. I was interested to know how Google’s personalized homepage compared to some of the competitors in that market so I also looked at Netvibes and Pageflakes but none of these really seemed to be of significant value to me either for the same reasons. There was anything wrong with any of them, I just wasn’t ready to use them. Now, however, things have changed.

In an effort to continue to consolidate information as much as possible I’m officially a Google personalized homepage user and am really liking it. I’ve got my Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Notebook, Google Reader (do you see a trend here?), and weather widgets all arranged on the page just like I want it. I’ve got a few other widgets there too like a Wikipedia search bar and a Bible verse of the day. I’ve created a tab with all the “news” stuff I’m interested in from numerous outlets so I can just jump over there and see the top stories from those areas.

With all the information we have available to us today the issue is no longer content, but filters and context (I got that from The Long Tail). A personalized homepage is serving to be a great filter for me to see a lot of information in a short amount of time with very little effort once it’s all set up.

If you find yourself visiting the same blogs and news outlets on a daily basis you might want to do yourself a favor and roll it all up into one location with a personalized page. Since it’s a web application so you can have it both at home and the office too. What else could you ask for?