What if you just simply shared something of importance? No fancy equipment. No music. Just you and your message.

Texas teen Ben Breedlove sat silently in front of a camera, with some notecards he had written on and held them up for all to read. Nothing fancy. Just his words he needed and wanted to share.

This was a two-part video the 18 year old shared about the heart condition he’s been living with called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He shared how he’s cheated death 3 times and what he remembers from those moments. He ends the video with “Do you believe in angels or God? I do.”

Breedlove died on Christmas Day (December 25, 2011) and these videos titled “This is My Story” were uploaded just a few short days before he passed. His videos now have more than 2 million views.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Ben Breedlove.

He shelled out a ton of money to make it happen, but ultimately saw his investment multiply. And, while I’m sure people are still downloading his special illegally, the $5 price point made it a lot more accessible to fans on a budget.

Louis C.K. might not be a digital mastermind, but I think all of us online content producers can learn a few things from his success. You don’t have to be a celebrity to replicate what he did and find success of your own. Here are a few take-away points I think are extremely important:

1. Don’t clutter your website.

Check out louisck.net, or louisck.com for that matter. They redirect to a purchase page. You don’t get some kind of splashy homepage or profile or store with tons of options. There’s no flash intro, no silly sidebar with links to everything under the sun, no long sales page. You get a link to buy his special. If you look for it, you can get to the news page or watch some videos, but the site isn’t cluttered with a million things to take the buyer’s attention away from doing anything but buying. If you’re going to sell something, don’t distract your potential buyers.

2. Save your fans from dealing with tons of annoying restrictions.

People pirate digital content. I’m not okay with that; everyone deserves to be paid for their work. But making buyers jump through a bunch of hoops to give you their money is just silly. On Louis C.K.’s site, he specifically addresses would-be pirates and talks about why he formatted his content the way he did, even if it does make it easier to share illegally. For him, it’s more about making it easier for the fan than making it harder for the pirates, and I think a lot of people responded to that and clicked the “buy” button because of it.

3. Give buyers a way to stay connected – if they want.

I hate when I purchase something and am automatically added to a mailing list. It’s really just one step above spam, if you ask me. On his site, there’s a mailing list, but you can easily opt out of it when you make your purchase. If you never want to hear from Louis C.K. again, no sweat. In fact the “No, leave me alone forever, you fat idiot.”* option is default. You have to make a conscious decision to add yourself to his mailing list. It’s respectful. Treat your fans that way too – let them decide whether or not they want to stay in touch before you fill their inbox with tons of emails trying to sell other products before they even know if they like the first one.

*his words, not mine!

4. Be transparent.

Most people shy away from talking about their process. They just show you a finished product to buy and allow people to make the purchase. They definitely don’t follow up with sales stats in most cases. At least, not super specific sales states.

Louis C.K. took a picture of his PayPal account balance. He also talked about how much the special cost him to make, what he paid for his website, why he decided to sell his content digitally, and what he planned to do with the money. All of that makes me trust him so much more. It’s almost like your fans get to know you when you’re not only personable, but also transparent about the fact on your website.

5. Don’t be greedy.

It’s easy for your eyes to light up when you see big numbers, but let’s be honest; nobody needs a million-dollar salary to survive. Instead of keeping all the money he made, Louis C.K. was honest about what he really needed. He gave the rest to his employees (along with big bonuses) and charities. As a potential buyer, I’m more inclined to buy when I know that part of the money I spend is going to good causes. And it’s really attractive to know that the artist is deciding how the money gets divided, rather than a Hollywood production company, especially given the SOPA bs happening in Washington right now.

6. Let your fans get involved.

To go along with point number five, I also thought it was very interesting (and smart) that Louis C.K. crowd-sourced via Twitter to decide what charities deserved some of his cash. When you get your fans involved, it not only helps build community, but it’s extra press for your products. Every people tweeting with him was advertising his special to their followers. While I don’t necessarily think it was a marketing ploy on Louis C.K.’s end, I do think that he probably saw another small sales spike around the time he was interacting with people on Twitter, trying to choose charities.

7. Don’t pretend to be an expert when you’re not.

Lastly, if you’re not an expert on something, don’t “fake it ‘till you make it.” People will smell that bs a mile away! Louis, for example, is not technical genius. He doesn’t understand torrenting, and makes that pretty clear on his site (in fact, he makes a joke out of it which is even better). Do what you know how to do; you’ll sell more products and build a more trusting, loyal fanbase than if you claim to be some kind of expert when you’re not.

Even if you’re not interesting in buying you can check out Louis C.K.’s Live at the Beacon Theater page here to see a good example of someone selling their digital content in a positive way.

Image via Wikipedia.

Forbes

Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom, is featured in the 30 Under 30 for Social & Mobile list. It’s no secret Instagram has become a huge success and wildly popular. It was just back in August the site reached 150 million downloads in just 9 months.

Systrom spoke to Forbes about the app saying, “We worked really hard on making it really easy for people to share their lives in a beautiful way. It’s one thing to share a photo. It’s another for that photo to be gorgeous.”

Other names who made the Social & Mobile list include Tumblr creator David Karp, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Pinterest creators Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp.

You can see the entire list here. You also might want to check out their 30 Under 30 list in Media. There are definitely a few names you’ll recognize there, such as Mashable’s Pete Cashmore.

Since the book is doing so well, how do you think a Steve Jobs movie will do? And what about The Social Network’s Aaron Sorkin doing the screenplay?

Sorkin won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network, so it would seem obvious he’s the right man for the job.

At a recent event Sorkin said, ”Sony has asked me to write the movie and it’s something I’m strongly considering.”

Sony has acquired the rights to Walter Isaacson‘s authorized biography of Jobs and Aaron Sorkin is their first choice to pen the film. Sorkin shared that he is still in the “thinking about it stage” and says a Steve Jobs Movie will be huge and great no matter who writes it.

Steve Jobs passed away in October of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56.

Now the question is, who should play Steve Jobs? I’ve heard George Clooney’s name thrown out there.

The Two and a Half Men star tweeted ”How do you fire Jo Pa?” Little did he know the background on the story and exactly why the coach was fired. Needless to say, some of his 8 million Twitter followers were infuriated.

One user tweeted, ”Who is more ignorant? @Aplusk, or the over EIGHT MILLION idiots who follow him?” Kutcher replied back with “honestly it’s me.”

Another person tweeted, “with 8 million followers, you MAY want to reserve your opinions until you know the whole story.” With Kutcher replying with an ”agreed.”

All of these tweets have been erased from his feed.

As most of you probably know, Paterno was fired  over how he handled child sex abuse allegations against an assistant coach. Kutcher somehow missed that part of the story.

So, what does a celebrity do after a huge snafu like this one? He hires a Twitter Management team, which some are calling a huge mistake.

In a post titled “Twitter Management” Kutcher explained the situation and reasoning behind his decision. He talks about the fact that he has posted virtually every single one of his tweets on his own, but feels now that 8 million followers is too hard for one guy to manage.

A collection of over 8 million followers is not to be taken for granted. I feel responsible to deliver informed opinions and not spread gossip or rumors through my twitter feed. While I feel that running this feed myself gives me a closer relationship to my friends and fans I’ve come to realize that it has grown into more than a fun tool to communicate with people. While I will continue to express myself through @Aplusk, I’m going to turn the management of the feed over to my team at Katalyst as a secondary editorial measure, to ensure the quality of its content. My sincere apologies to anyone who I offended. It was a mistake that will not happen again.

One of Kutcher’s latest tweets was “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case.” I guess this is possibly his last tweet done by him and him only?

Is Ashton Kutcher making a mistake and committing Twitter suicide? Sound off in the comments.

Image Source: Twitter

He told parents to tell their kids they ate all of their Halloween candy and film their reaction. What followed was tons of submissions, a lot of crying kids and a video gone viral.

Before I go on, if you haven’t seen it yet, here you go. If you have seen it, you know you want to watch it again.

It’s so mean it’s funny right? The video has done so well and currently has 16 million views and counting. Jimmy Kimmel’s videos usually average around 5 million views a week, so as you can see, this one is a huge hit for him and the ABC network.

Before this Halloween candy fiasco, his single most viewed video was when Justin Bieber surprised a three-year-old fan back in March 2010. Crying kids outrank the Biebs. (For those of you who don’t know, “The Biebs” is a nickname for Justin Bieber. If you already knew that, you’re probably a Belieber.) The Justin Bieber video does have 37 million views, so it will be fun to see if the Halloween candy one can surpass it.

The two kids who stole the show were the ones at the end of the montage – CJ and Jacob. The reaction of “What the heck?” was priceless, as was the little brother trying to add 2 and 2 together. He got 5. So, so close. CJ and Jacob have been invited to Los Angeles to be guests on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” this Thursday, November 10. I can’t wait to tune into that!

So, why did this particular video resonate so well with audiences? It has 16 million views and it just went live November 2nd! I think we all love to be entertained and obviously we all love to see little kids cry. What is wrong with us?!

Long story short, you never really know if a video will go viral or if your idea will take off. As Amber Naslund said in her keynote, “Sometimes you need to take a step on the path before you see where it’s going to lead.” Come up with a creative idea and go for it.

It doesn’t surprise me that news came out today Steve Jobs was working on the next Apple product the day before he died.

PCMag broke the story.

Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank, was talking with Apple CEO Tim Cook the day of the announcement for the iPhone 4S. While they were talking, Cook received a call from Jobs.

Son said, “I visited Apple for the announcement of the iPhone 4S [at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California]. When I was having a meeting with Tim Cook, he said, ‘Oh Masa, sorry I have to quit our meeting.’ I said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘My boss is calling me.’ That was the day of the announcement of the iPhone 4S. He said that Steve is calling me because he wants to talk about their next product. And the next day, he died.”

He was dedicated to creating brilliant products up until the day he died. He had a passion and love for Apple and their products. This latest story proves that.

Now the question is, what was he working on? I can’t wait to find out.

According to Reuters, Apple has decided to close all U.S. stores for several hours on Wednesday. They want store employees to take part in celebrating Jobs’ life.

The event is happening at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino at 10 a.m. PT to 11:30 a.m. PT. Apple employees can use the time off to view the service via a live broadcast.

The celebration is following a private memorial service held at at Stanford University. Silicon Valley luminaries, politicians and celebrities will attend.

For employees in Asia and Australia, they can view a re-broadcast of the event.

Steve Jobs died on October 5th at the age of 56.

Another way for celebrities to connect with their fans is through blogging. They can let us know first-hand what’s happening in their work-life and home-life.

iVillage is using their large reader base of women and launching a new celebrity-centered blog, where the celebrities are the bloggers. They understand how much their readers love to hear about the personal lives of celebrities and want to share in their life experiences.

Angela Matusik, iVillage‘s Chief Content Executive, told The Hollywood Reporter “We know that our readers love hearing from celebrities about what they’re going through in their real life, especially when it comes to parenting and being a mom”.

Kicking off their new blog, called CelebVillage, is Denise Richards. Her very first article is about life with newly adopted daughter Eloise, as well as older daughters Sam and Lola. Denise will write for the blog once a week for the month of October. Singer Alanis Morissette will take over in November, followed by Dancing with the Stars contestant Ricki Lake in December.

Who would you like to see jump on board with CelebVillage and write about their personal lives?

Boing Boing gave their front page a new look yesterday, which I thought was fantastic. It had the nostalgic classic Mac look we all know so well. Now WordPress has taken note and created a free Retro Mac theme.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg commented on the design saying, “Yesterday one of the tributes I noticed was the website Boing Boing switched their theme to one reminiscent of the original Macintosh interface, one of the several times Jobs would make a ding in the universe through his work. It seemed fitting, and we wanted to make it available to all of you, so our theme team worked through the night and here it is”.

Here’s a description of the Retro Mac theme:

A whimsical homage to the days in black and white, celebrating the magic of Mac OS. Dress up your blog with retro, chunky-grade pixellated graphics to evoke some serious computer nostalgia. In all its remembrance and respect, Retro MacOS also supports recent functionality. Read on to learn more.

You can download the theme here.

Do you have a favorite way Steve Jobs was honored yesterday? Let us know in the comment section below.