Social Media

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  Building43

• TechCrunch Live Feed – The Real Time CrunchUp

  Rob La Gesse

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:18 am

  Watch here for the real time feed from the Real Time CrunchUp. 9am – 5:45pm Pacific. 20NOV09.

• Special Gillmor Gang – Friday 20 NOV 2009

  Rob La Gesse

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:29 pm

  There will not be a live show today.  Instead, a live show will air tomorrow following the Techcrunch Real Time CrunchUp. Real Time CrunchUp

• Rrripple offers flashy UI and security for group media sharing

  Robert Scoble

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:19 am

  It might seem that Flickr, the photo sharing site, has wrapped it all up, right?  Not yet. The creators of an app now in beta called Rrripple have developed what they say is a more secure, more flexible and easier-to-use approach to sharing a variety of media. In this building43 video interview, Heather Hiles, co-founder and CEO, discusses Rrripple’s philosophy and emphasis on security. Hiles also shows off a flashy new user interface that makes sharing photos and other media (spreadsheets, PDFs, videos) with groups of people easier and simpler. While Rrripple’s target audience…

• Libcloud joins Apache Software Foundation Incubator

  Alex Polvi

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:10 am

  We are excited to announce that libcloud will be joining the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) Incubator. Libcloud has been very fortunate to grow as a community and as a open source project. We hope that by joining the ASF libcloud will continue to gain momentum. The success of libcloud directly adds to the success of cloud interoperability. Here are some quick stats about the current state of libcloud: * First development release on July 23, 2009 * 11 contributors * 2300 lines of python * 7 supported hosting providers * 17 forks, 119 watchers on github Moving forward we will be moving all…

• CitySourced crowdsourcing with smartphone apps

  Robert Scoble

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:48 am

  CitySourced is a remarkable startup story. The company and its product began as an iPhone app to crowdsource routine city problems. Just a few weeks later, CitySourced nearly won the TechCrunch50 2009 technology competition. CitySourced developers almost didn’t make it on stage at the technology competition in San Francisco. Only a last-minute acceptance as an alternate startup (another company dropped out of the competition) put them in the running in the business applications category. The CitySourced team may have cinched the deal when they put a customer on stage during the…

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  TechCrunch

• Knx.To Is Your Social Graph And Address Book Rolled Into One

  Leena Rao

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:41 pm

  Angstro, a 2008 TechCrunch50 startup, launched with a product that socialized the content on the web by tapping into your social graph. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today the startup is launching Knx.to, a real-time search engine capability and API that looks up most recent social information about any of your friends, from their LinkedIn profile to their Flickr account to their Facebook profile. In order to understand Knx.to’s virtue, it’s best to see the technology implemented in an application. Ribbit Mobile, a Google Voice competitor and cloud-based VoIP telephony service,…

• Qwisk Brings Your Social Networks To The Browser

  Leena Rao

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:35 pm

  Qwisk, which is launching today at the Real-Time CrunchUp, is an innovative new way to add a social twist to your browser. The site, which is a product of Y Combinator-funded company Socialbrowse, connects with you with your friends on Facebook and Twitter in real-time as you browse the web. We have 500 invites exclusively for TechCrunch users. You can redeem these invites simply by clicking here. It’s important to note that Qwisk is a browser extension, not a plug-in to a browser. On the site’s page, you sign into your Facebook and Twitter accounts via Facebook Connect and oAuth.

• Seesmic Ventures Into Mobile With Powerful New Apps For Android And BlackBerry

  Leena Rao

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:27 pm

  Seesmic is having a huge week. The startup that develops Twitter and Facebook clients for the web and desktop just unveiled a native Windows client at Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference earlier this week. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today, Seesmic is launching its first venture into the mobile space with impressive apps for both the Android and BlackBerry, which are now available for download here. This is a pivotal moment for Seesmic because the startup is now conquering all the mediums—web, desktop and mobile. I sat down with Seesmic’s co-founder, Loic Le Meur, to…

• Hot Potato Organizes The Stream Around What’s Really Happening Now

  Erick Schonfeld

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:21 pm

  Yesterday, Twitter changed its organizing question from “What Are You Doing?” to “What’s Happening?” But if you want to know what’s really happening now, check out Hot Potato, a startup launching right now at our Realtime CrunchUp. Hot Potato is releasing an iPhone app which lets you create a stream of conversations around events based both on your location and what your friends are doing. Hot Potato is a micro-messaging app that organizes the conversation stream by events. For Hot Potato, an event can be anything that is happening right now: a basketball…

• RealTime CrunchUp: Win A Signed Copy Of Benioff’s ‘Behind The Cloud’

  Jason Kincaid

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pm

  Today at the RealTime CrunchUp Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took the stage to talk about the social enterprise with Erick Schonfeld and Steve Gillmor (he also introduced us to a new real-time Salesforce Chatter platform). Benioff has also signed a pair of copies of his book Behind The Cloud, which we’re going to be giving away to attendees of today’s conference. To win one, just tweet out your favorite moment of the RealTime CrunchUp so far, and include the hashtags #CrunchUp and #Cloud in your tweet (#CrunchUp is the conference hashtag, and #Cloud will let us know who’s…

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  ReadWriteWeb

• 8tracks to Launch Playback API and Developer Program

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  It appears that the time for freemium music services in the US has passed. Earlier this week streaming music site Imeem sold to MySpace for under $10 million dollars while laying off a large number of staff. For a company with all four major record labels signed, more than 15 million uniques a month and well over 5 million tracks in its catalogue, it came as a sobering blow to the industry. While many companies move to a subscription model, 8tracks continues to forge along in what some describe as a convenient loophole. As of this weekend the company is publicly launching its API for Boston's…

• Memento: Protocol-Based Time Travel for the Web

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:45 am

  The Web constantly changes and evolves. That, of course, is what makes the Internet so exciting, but it also means that finding older versions of a website is hard. The current push towards the real-time web is making this problem even more apparent. Memento, a project based at Old Dominion University, wants to make it easier to access older versions of a web page without having to go to the Internet Archive. To do this, the project is using a relatively obscure feature of the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Sponsor The Memento project wants to give browsers a 'time-travel' mode.

• The Future Is All About Context: The Pragmatic Web

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:14 am

  The semantic Web has long been heralded as the future of the Web. Proponents have said that Web experiences will some day become more meaningful and relevant based on the AI-esque computational power of natural-language processing (NLP) and structured data that is understandable by machines for interpretation. However, with the rise of the social Web, we see that what truly makes our online experiences meaningful is not necessarily the Web's ability to approximate human language or to return search results with syntactical exactness. The value of the semantic Web will take time because the…

• FastPencil: Turn Your Blog Posts into a Published Book

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am

  Writing a book will never be easy, but FastPencil's mission is to make things easier for authors by bringing this process online and to collaborate with others. FastPencil takes writers from idea to published book. The service offers features for collaboration, editing and design, as well as professional consulting services for authors. One cool feature of FastPencil is that it can import blog posts and turn them into books and e-books that bloggers can then sell through all the major book distribution channels. Sponsor Features The areas where FastPencil exceeds are online editing,…

• Was Chrome OS a Disappointment?

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:28 am

  It's the morning after the big Chrome OS event where Google executives and engineers revealed a myriad of details about the company's first attempt at creating their own operating system. The highly anticipated news conference was tracked all over the web, liveblogged by technology sites, and Twittered so much that it's still listed as a "trending topic" as of this morning. But now that the news is out, has Chrome OS lost its shine? People had high expectations for Google's new operating system but the end result doesn't look like the revolutionary, "change the world" product many had hoped…

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  Mashable!

• 3 Creative Ways SMBs Can Use Social Media for Holiday Discounts

  Jennifer Van Grove

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:46 am

  This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Every year consumers turn to the web to scour for the best holiday shopping deals. Black Friday has practically become a holiday of its own, with retailers jumping on the bandwagon earlier than ever to satisfy deal-hungry consumers. This holiday season you have an opportunity to leverage social media channels for trackable giveaways and discounts that can not only boost your holiday sales but improve your social media…

• New Moon Reviews: What Twitter Thinks [CHART]

  Christina Warren

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:23 am

  Twilight-mania just won’t stop! More than 400 million “New Moon” videos have been viewed online, the film is expected to beat all midnight opening records, and Twitter continues to be abuzz with “New Moon” chatter. On Wednesday, we reported that more than 81,000 tweets were sent out about “New Moon,” most of them positive. So how did the Twitteratti respond to the debut of “New Moon” last night? Our friends at Crimson Hexagon ran the numbers and this is what they figured out. Out of 4500 tweets sent regarding the film, this was the…

• Target Facebook Page Updates by Location or Language

  Adam Ostrow

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:49 am

  Here’s a neat new feature we noticed on our Facebook Page this morning: the ability to target updates to users in specific locations or users who access the site in a specific language. You can imagine this being useful for situations in which you’re promoting an event, or, posting content in multiple languages. By targeting only those that an item is applicable to, you reduce your chances of overwhelming your fans with unnecessary information to the point that they start hiding your updates. To use it, there’s now a pull-down next to the “Share” button with the option of…

• New Moon Videos Have Already Been Viewed 400 Million Times Online

  Adam Ostrow

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:47 am

  New Moon might go down as one of the biggest movies of the year, but it’s also quickly becoming one of the biggest online events ever, at least in the world of online video. Visible Measures, which tallies what it calls the “True Reach” of an online video (the original, official trailers, copies of the trailers, fan-made trailers, fan commentary, etc.), now reports that New Moon is the second biggest event of all-time, trailing only the omnipotent Soulja Boy in term of total views. In all, the firm estimates that New Moon inspired videos have now been viewed in excess of 400 million…

• Mac Twitter Client Socialite Adds Twitter List Support

  Christina Warren

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:10 am

  In the month or so since Twitter started rolling out its Twitter Lists feature, a number of web and Adobe AIR based clients have added support for it. However, we haven’t seen any native Twitter apps support Lists. Today Realmac Software released Socialite Beta 3 for Mac OS X, including, among other enhancements — basic list support. Realmac acquired Socialite (then named EventBox) back in October and expects to release the first version of the program by the end of the month. Socialite is a multi-purpose social media client, and like Seesmic Desktop, TweetDeck and Brizzly, it…

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  Altimeter Group

• Saleforce.com integrates social with Chatter launch

  charleneli

  18 Nov 2009 | 6:21 am

  At its Dreamforce conference, Salesforce.com announced the launch of Chatter Collaboration Cloud. On the surface, it may look like merely Twitter integrated deeply into Salesforce.com’s offerings, but it’s really a social platform that can integrate multiple inputs that will accelerate the opening up of enterprise applications. I was pre-briefed about the announcement, so will walk you through major highlights and also discuss a few implications. Overview Chatter Collaboration Cloud reflects a recent expansion in Salesforce.com’s offering, continuing where Sales Cloud 2,…

• Altimeter’s Crew: Sales, Research, And Support

  charleneli

  16 Nov 2009 | 6:07 am

  At Altimeter, we take great pride in the people we work with. So I’d like to take a moment and introduce members of the team outside of the four partners. Some of them are new and others have been with me from the start, but each of them is essential to our growth. And boy, are we growing! We’ve added over 25 new client relationships since August 2009, with more on the way. David Stanley will be joining us as Vice President of Business Development and Sales, where he will be responsible for expanding Altimeter Group’s market share through direct sales engagements globally, as well as…

• Wanted: Your opinion on book titles (Part 2)

  charleneli

  27 Oct 2009 | 11:16 am

  Previously, I asked for help in naming the book, and we’re done to the wire in terms of finalists. I’m hoping you can take two minutes to complete a very short survey on our title possibilities. I realize that asking an audience of people who are pre-disposed to being open is probably not the most scientific way to do this! So taking a page from  Tim Ferris, I’m also running the title possibilities against specific search keywords to see which ones get the most clickthroughs. I’ll post the results from both the survey and the search engine test shortly. Book Title…

• International examples of “open” organizations and leaders needed

  charleneli

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:51 am

  I’m wrapping up work on my next book “Open” and am in need of a few examples of organizations and leaders outside of North America. In particular, I’m looking for examples of organizations that have put in place more open information sharing or decisions making processes or technologies, and as a result, have seen substantial business impact. In particular, I’m interested in learning how they went through the journey of letting go of control, and in the process, transformed the relationship they have with customers and/or employees. Here are a few examples: -…

• Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands

  charleneli

  22 Oct 2009 | 9:42 am

  This post was collaboratively written (in real time) on a wiki by Charlene Li who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the Altimeter Group Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams.  Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing.  This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and…

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  SmartBrief on Social Media

• Social nets pose real IT risks

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Social media escapes oversight at many companies, providing security vulnerabilities that can threaten an enterprise network, -More- 

• Each e-contact worth $948 to IBM

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  IBM is embracing social media, but unlike many other firms, it is backing up its efforts with numbers.  -More- 

• Don't spam LinkedIn groups with links

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Newbies to a LinkedIn group need to establish a reputation before they post links, or they will be considered spammers, Doron -More- 

• Game consoles don't quite integrate social sites

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Facebook and Twitter are now on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but the way the tools are implemented renders them useless, Gus M -More- 

• Twitter reports end of Oprah's show before it's official

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Twitter was abuzz Thursday with news that Oprah Winfrey would announce the end of her longtime talk show this morning.  -More- 11 Advanced SEM Strategies Are your SEM costs up, or conversions down? Ben Brutsch explores strategies that can help, such as: - Deep funnel analysis - SEO and SEM synergies - Campaign Fencing Download Now

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  Everywhere | Social Media Marketing and Content Development

• Blogworld Expo Co-Founder Explains BeatCancer Success

  erica

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:33 am

  Video on NBC.com From San Diego to the rest of the world: Rick Calvert with Blogworld Expo 2009 explains the success of the #beatcancer movement in social media after its launch at the annual event in Las Vegas October 16. View more news videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com/video.

• Agency Sets Guinness World Record with Social Media Campaign

  erica

  28 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pm

  By in Tanya Lewis in PR Week ATLANTA: In less than one week, Atlanta-based social media marketing agency Everywhere conceived and executed a one-day pro-bono campaign that raised more than $70,000 for four nonprofit cancer organizations. The effort also set a Guinness World Record for the most widespread social network message in a 24-hour period with 209,771 mentions on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. The campaign ran from October 16 at 9am PST to October 17 at 9am PST during the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas (October 15 -17). Guinness World Record spokesperson, Stuart Claxton…

• #Charity

  erica

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:15 am

  By Pat McCarthy on The WOMMA Word The Twitter phenomenon is still developing and one uplifting use of the microblogging site has come to light, charity. There have been several charitable campaigns that used Twitter’s viral nature to generate awareness and piles of money. World records were broken when #BeatCancer was unleashed for a 24-hour period. eBay, MillerCoors, and Genesis Today pledged one cent for every tweet with the hashtag. Other social media platforms have found ways to benefit charities as well. Fun little games that allow users to buy credits have been used to raise money for…

• Social network updates a friend to charities

  erica

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:30 am

  By Niala Boodhoo and Bridget Carey in The Miami Herald If you’ve had a friend suggest lately that you become a fan of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida, you’re not alone — it’s part of a new strategy by the local nonprofit to get involved in social media. In six months, the group has created thousands of fans and even seen individual giving increase since it established a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Richard Kelly, 42, the vice president and chief operating officer, dabbled in Facebook for a few months to get an idea of what he calls the…

• #BeatCancer Breaks Twitter Trends and Sets Guinness World Record

  erica

  21 Oct 2009 | 10:00 am

  By Angela on BlackWeb 2.0 EVERYWHERE, a Social Media Marketing and Content Development firm based in Atlanta, GA set a record October 16-17th for the most widespread social network message in 24 hours. According to Radian6, the official online monitoring company, the phrase #BeatCancer set the record with 209,771 mentions on Twitter, Facebook and blog posts. This translates into an estimated number of impressions generated during this 24-hour period at over 100 Million. Attendees at BlogWorld & New Media Expo, which featured some of the biggest names in social media, were asked to send…

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  Social Media Today

• Writing makes us free

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:48 am

  NESTA hosted a lovely panel discussion yesterday with Stephen Fry, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who discussed Twitter as a force for good - see a video of the even...

• On Twitter and Social Networks, Brands Benefit from Conversations

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:40 am

  Source: Shutterstock A recent study revealed 20 percent of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives. ...

• European marketers to up online spend, but click throughs still poor

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:05 am

  The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) has published its Internet Barometer Report (via Marketing Charts), which shows that 83% of European marketers plan to up their online ad spen...

• KM World Sessions: Is Semantic Technology Real?

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  This is another in a series of notes from the 2009 KM World. It is titled: Is Semantic Technology Real? It is moderated by Rob Gonzalez, Platform Product Manager, Endeca Technologies and include: Mi...

• Why Do So Many Companies Hide Their Social Media Involvement?

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:16 am

  by B. L. Ochman While thousands of companies have either experimental or well-established presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites, those communities remain invisible on...

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  ProBlogger Blog Tips

• Speech Recognition for Bloggers – The Ultimate Guide

  Darren Rowse

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:45 am

  Speech recognition technology has come a long way in the last few years – in this in depth, informative and inspiring video which Jon Morrow (Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Co-founder of Partnering Profits) shares his first hand insights into speech recognition for bloggers. Jon does all of his blogging via speech recognition so he seemed like the logical guy to ask to cover the topic – in the video (I’m glad he agreed). In the video Jon makes recommendations of software, hardware (the hardware is key) and even demonstrates how he uses them in his everyday blogging. The…

• Review This Blog – Man vs Debt

  Darren Rowse

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:46 am

  Last month here on ProBlogger we ran a community review on a reader’s blog. I posted a link to a blog with some comments from the blogger and then opened it up for readers of ProBlogger to review it. The response from the post was great. 120+ comments were left including some great advice. I also had a lot of emails from readers saying that they learned a lot by reading the suggestions of others – many wanted to see these reviews done regularly. As a result I’m going to try to do these reviews on a monthly basis – today we have another one. As a little bonus to…

• Warning: Watching This Video May Lead to Work! [But It'll Also Improve Your Blog]

  Darren Rowse

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:55 am

  What’s your blogging Vice? Most bloggers that I know have at least one – whether it be compulsively checking blog stats, constantly tweaking template designs, obsessing over plugins and widgets, spending hour after hour ‘networking’ on Twitter, becoming preoccupied with SEO and… even allowing ourselves to become consumed by learning about blogging…. and not doing much of it. The reality is that as bloggers there are many tasks that compete for our attention. Many of them are important and can bring a lot of life to our blogs but most of them can also become…

• 13 Ways I Get Back into Blogging after a Vacation

  Darren Rowse

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:49 am

  Yesterday was my first day back at blogging after a 10 day vacation with my family and on Twitter I commented that I was finding it a little hard to get my brain back into blogging mode. @Mikeachim responded by suggesting I write a post on the daily rituals that I use to get my mind into gear. I thought I’d take his suggestion and jot down a few notes – both as a way of getting my head back into blogging but also because looking at the tweets I received this morning it’s a problem many bloggers face. As my head is a little scattered today (as I readjust) I’m going to…

• Email Marketing is Not Dead

  Darren Rowse

  16 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am

  While at Blog World Expo recently I recorded this video interview with Abby Johnson from Web Pro News. We covered a variety of topics including why email marketing is not dead – internet marketing for smart people – the new FTC regulations and touched on a new project I’m working on with Brian Clark and Chris Brogan. Read other recent email marketing posts on ProBlogger: 6 Reasons Why You Need to Consider Email as a Communication Strategy on Your Blog How I Use Email Newsletters to Drive Traffic and Make Money Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger. Email Marketing is Not Dead…

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  Scott Monty: The Social Media Marketing Blog

• Enough Is Enough

  16 Nov 2009 | 6:07 am

  The spam and other unsolicited DMs I've been getting on Twitter have finally gotten to me. And I'm going to be taking action. A Bit of BackgroundYou know the kind of direct messages I'm talking about, all with spammy links in them:"Is this you on here?""I just gave you a High Five! Check it out""Hey, I got some free ringtones from here""Hey, can you take this quiz thingy?""I found out my IQ. You should too.""I lost a bunch of weight doing this."And many, many more.Lots of the direct messages I get are of the automated sort when people first start following me. Having been someone who used to…

• When Worlds Collide

  10 Nov 2009 | 8:04 pm

  Well, it's finally here. Twitter and LinkedIn have decided to combine forces. This is pretty significant, and I know that it'll make it easier to share job opportunities and other more networking opportunities that are more professional in nature.I won't bore you with all of the details, but you can now update your LinkedIn status via Twitter, and your Twitter status from LinkedIn. If you'd like to see how to go about it, check out the post on the LinkedIn blog.One of the features I like best is how you can select which updates you want posted to LinkedIn - everything or just those posts…

• What's a Brand to Do?

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:03 am

  Say you work for a brand. Customers have more access to you than ever - and you've got a wealth of choices as far as channels go: traditional marketing, online & interactive, gaming, mobile, social media, etc. But for your customers that are interested in interacting online, what do you think they want from you? And what should you do when you connect with them? Look no further! eMarketer Daily has very helpfully published a piece on Lightspeed Research's "Global Web Index." What do customer want from the brands they love? Information, mostly (well, after a good discount, anyway).

• Recent Twitter Statistics

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:50 am

  The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released some statistics about Twitter and other similar services that Americans use to post updates about themselves. The bottom line? About one in five Americans uses such a service.Click here for a larger image.Another interesting phenomenon is that we're seeing more young people using Twitter now. There have been anecdotal reports that young people were shying away from Twitter, but we can see the hard numbers here:The median age for Twitter is now 31, while MySpace is down 26 from its previous 27 in May of 2008; and Facebook has risen…

• No Kidding

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:21 am

  I originally wrote this over a year ago, but I think it deserves another go around, as there seem to be even more social media "experts" out there. Please add your suggestion to the comments section or on Twitter with the hashtag #smbulb and let's see how many responses we can get. Stop me if you've heard this. Yesterday, I asked a question on Twitter - one that Joseph Jaffe rhetorically asked on his blog - I posed it as a joke and asked for responses. The question was: How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb? My original answer on Joe's blog was: "309. One to come up…

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  CenterNetworks

• Twitter COO Costolo: Advertising Coming To Twitter Soon

  Allen Stern

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:40 am

  Twitter COO Dick Costolo was intererviewed today at the real-time crunchup event and part of the discussion centered around how Twitter will (and does) generate revenue. Clearly they are earning revenue from Twitter’s deals with Bing and Google. More importantly, Costolo noted that Twitter will launch an advertising model “soon”. He went on to say that soon means most likely early next year. He continued, “It (the advertising) will be fascinating, non-traditional, and people will love it.” The final comment from Costolo noted that partners like TweetDeck will…

• Today’s Startup and Entrepreneurial Updates

  Allen Stern

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:49 am

  TGIF! Here are today’s startup and entrepreneurial updates Kaltura Integrates its Open Source Video Platform with Artivision’s Video Monetization Technology – Kaltura Use Centrl to pick a place to meet a friend – Centrl Dual Launch: I Love Traffic and I Hate Traffic – Armor Games (these two are very addictive) Major Update to Glue for Internet Explorer – AdaptiveBlue Getsatisfaction.tv: New Look, New Content, New Feed – GetSatisfaction CenterNetworks Partner: Check out CloudContacts for your business card transcription and scanning needs.

• What’s Up With Yahoo Mail Delivery?

  Allen Stern

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:53 pm

  I am a happy Yahoo Mail user. I’ve been a Yahoo Mail user since the early days. I also know that I am a bad tech blogger and early adopter because I don’t use (and make love to) Gmail. I regularly get noogies at tech conferences when others learn about my choice. Lately I’ve noticed issues with email delivery to my Yahoo Mail account. Sometimes emails are delivered on time, but many are delivered late. And the delayed delivery seems to vary – I can’t put my finger on it. Even the exact same email can be delivered in real-time on one test but another test takes…

• When A Competitive Ad Goes Wrong

  Allen Stern

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:23 pm

  This morning we included a link in our startup updates to a post on the VerticalResponse blog. The company provides email marketing services for businesses. VerticalResponse CEO Janine Popick noted, “I’m all about getting new business, but we’ve tried to steer clear of going after our competitor’s customers because we think there are enough businesses out there that need  email marketing services.” I agree with Janine and that’s why you rarely see a post on CN that says x is dead because of y. Janine’s post notes that one of the company’s…

• Today’s Startup and Entrepreneurial Updates

  Allen Stern

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:02 am

  Here are today’s startup and entrepreneurial updates: Scanning Coke or Water? Why? - Big In Japan New advanced features give you absolute control in analyzing your cash flow – moneyStrands The Do’s and Don’ts of Presentation Fonts – SlideShare Profiting Across Search Networks: Expanding Your Reach to Microsoft adCenter – Clickable A Friendly Suggestion to Our Competitor (this is an awesome post) – VerticalResponse CenterNetworks Partner: Check out CloudContacts for your business card transcription and scanning needs.

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  Publishing 2.0

• High-End Brand Publishers Need to Sell Scalable Premium Ad Solutions, Not Commodity Ad Space

  Scott Karp

  26 Oct 2009 | 9:26 am

  Newspaper online advertising has not benefited greatly from the recent upswing in online ad spending, according to the New York Times and most of the recent newspaper company quarterly results. This is no surprise because most newspaper websites sell SPACE for commodity advertising — display ads and classifieds — and thus are hard pressed to compete with ad networks that specialize in selling commodity ad space by the megaton (or giving it away for free, in the case of Craigslist). Back when newspapers where the only game in town for ad space, they could charge whatever they…

• Content Doesn’t Matter Without the Package

  Scott Karp

  16 Sep 2009 | 8:25 pm

  In response to the launch of Google’s Fast Flip, I observed that Google is correctly focused on creating a new user interface for news, when most media companies are not. A lot of people responded that Fast Flip is not an innovative or effective UI for news — which may be true, but that misses the point entirely. It doesn’t matter so much whether Google succeeds or fails with this particular experiment. What matters is that they are trying to solve the right problem. The challenge for media companies is not to figure out what to do with their content — content in and…

• What Google Understands About the Future of News and Publishing That Publishers Do Not

  Scott Karp

  14 Sep 2009 | 5:37 pm

  Google knows a lot about the future of news — more than many publishers. It’s evident in Google’s new product, Fast Flip, which allows news consumers to “flip” through news stories. What’s striking about Fast Flip is that Google is innovating precisely where publishers used to lead innovation. Fast Flip is a new package for news. The publishing business has always been about packaging content. Newspapers. Magazines. Newsletters In digital media, on the web, the news package is now a function of software — which is why Google is innovating precisely…

• The Briefing: Start at Y Combinator, finish at EveryBlock

  Ryan Sholin

  17 Aug 2009 | 1:54 pm

  It was a busy Monday morning in two corners of the hacker journalist community: EveryBlock is acquired by MSNBC, and Y Combinator announces a “request for startups” to address that whole “future of journalism” question hanging out there in the open air. Want to catch up? Start here: Msnbc.com acquires local news Web site MSNBC.com | August 17, 2009 Ryan Sholin says: MSNBC acquires Everyblock. This brief includes a reminder that they bought Newsvine some time ago. Not a bad stable of news sites to have around. Tags: Media & Journalism, EveryBlock, msnbc, Adrian…

• What I Read Today: Facebook Buys FriendFeed Edition

  Scott Karp

  10 Aug 2009 | 5:17 pm

  Why Facebook Wants FriendFeed GigaOm | August 10, 2009 Scott Karp says: Om Malik calls it “the problem of plenty.” Facebook is trying to solve it by acquiring FriendFeed. Will news orgs compete? Facebook Takes FriendFeed To Take On Twitter TechCrunch | August 10, 2009 Scott Karp says: M&A, as always, is driven by startups building what incumbents should have but couldn’t. karaswisher: Now That There’s FaceFeed, Does That Make Twoogle More Inevitable?: http://bit.ly/fET9I Twitter | August 10, 2009 Scott Karp says: Winner – Best FF/Facbook Post Title mathewi:…

• 
  Marketing Voices

• Las Vegas Casinos Using Marketing Partnerships and Social Media To Build Attendance

  podcast_info@ConnectedSocialMedia.com (Jennifer Jones)

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:27 am

  Jake Kahle, principal of Something Gaming Partners (Twitter.com/JakeKahle and phone: 702-481-6954) is working marketing partnerships and leveraging social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to help many Las Vegas casinos. These casinos live and die off their databases which capture the customers contact information says Kahle, and then his firm helps drive more customers to the casinos through games and other marketing programs. Related posts:Nike’s Jordan Brand Uses Social Marketing Strategies To Build Consumer LoyaltyBlogWorld and New Media Expo – Las Vegas 2009Paula Drum and…

• HubSpot: New Marketing Tool with Insights By Scale Venture Partners’ Rob Theis

  podcast_info@ConnectedSocialMedia.com (Jennifer Jones)

  11 Nov 2009 | 12:58 am

  HubSpot is an inbound marketing system helping small and medium sized businesses get found on the Internet by the right people and convert them to new sales. Rob Theis, Managing Director of Scale Venture Partners just invested in HubSpot and joined their Board. He talks about what he feels is so special about his new investment. Related posts:Venture Investing in the Social Media Space: Sharon Wienbar of Scale Venture PartnersSharon Wienbar of Scale Venture Partners on 2009 VC Investment in Social MediaVenture Capital and Social Media Marketing Perspective

• Twitterville: Author Shel Israel Discusses His Book

  podcast_info@ConnectedSocialMedia.com (Jennifer Jones)

  26 Oct 2009 | 1:12 am

  Shel Israel and I sat down at his house and talked about his latest book, Twitterville. So far the book is selling really well, and is on a path to sell at least as well as Shel’s first book, Naked Conversations. Shel feels Twitter has had a transformational impact on the lives of millions. His book delves into stories of businesses, individuals and others who have used Twitter successfully. Related posts:Using Social Media Tools To Launch A Book: Pam Slim Author And BloggerSocial Media Worldwide: Shel Israel’s PerspectivePerspectives From Guy Kawasaki: On Twitter, His Book: Reality Check…

• Guy Kawasaki On Twitter Strategies For Building A Huge Following

  podcast_info@ConnectedSocialMedia.com (Jennifer Jones)

  19 Oct 2009 | 12:01 am

  The legendary Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author and Twitter aficionado talks about the strategies he uses for gaining incredible numbers of people following him on twitter. More than 180,000 people are reading his tweets as of October 2009. He talks about how there is no correct or incorrect way to use Twitter despite the challenging criticisms he gets from his followers on his strategy. He uses Twitter mostly promotionally just to build Alltop, a company he co-founded and loves dearly. Guy talks about how he is a broadcast network—more like PBS– as he educates…

• BlogWorld and New Media Expo – Las Vegas 2009

  podcast_info@ConnectedSocialMedia.com (Jennifer Jones)

  6 Oct 2009 | 11:31 pm

  From Connected Social Media: BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s largest social media conference is coming to Las Vegas October 15-17, 2009. The over 280 speakers includes keynotes by: Guy Kawasaki, Kara Swisher, Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, Jeremiah Owyang, Scott Monty, Brian Solis, Wendy Piersall, Ted Murphy, Chad Vader, Don Lemon, Leo Laporte, Joanna Drake Earl, Kevin Pollak, and Jay Rosen. The 2009 BlogWorld & New Media Expo will take place at the Las Vegas Convention Center, beginning with the exclusive “Social Media Business Summit” conference on October 15th…

• 
  JasonKeath.com

• The Democratization of Advertising

  Jason

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:26 am

  The Democratization of Advertising

• Topless Photos Only

  Jason

  14 Nov 2009 | 10:15 am

  It is hard to beat simple, creative ideas. That is what a sign read over a chair at the first local beach bar we stopped at in Cozumel, Mexico today. We were the first ones there and every group of tourists that happened upon this little reggae bar spent time talking about or taking photos in front of the sign. As photo pops go, mission accomplished. I am currently on the Social Fresh Cruise with a great group of folks (more on that later). Our stop in Cozumel has been amazing and filled with simple pleasures. The water, beaches, and event the guacamole are amazing. This little island is…

• Simply Remember to Take It Offline

  Jason

  14 Oct 2009 | 12:34 pm

  We all know real world relationships are the goal of our networking. We talk to people a world away online. We form relationships with people all over the country on Twitter. But the real tangible benefit of these relationships, personal and business, happens offline. It is important to not get stuck inside of social networks and the virtual interactions they make so easy. Take the conversation to email, call someone, meet them for coffee. When you go to conferences or visit other cities, look for people from your online networks there. Experiences within social media are most engaging when…

• Social Media: The Bad and The Ugly

  Jason

  11 Oct 2009 | 9:09 pm

  In response to Patrick O’Keefe’s ManagingCommunities.com post on his BlogWorld Expo Panel “Social Media: The Bad and the Ugly”. My ugly social media is simply the knee jerk attack responses that I seem to see more and more of each day. I try not to be negative at all online outside of customer service complaints. But especially when a more constructive response or the offering of a solution would be a better response. I hope more people will decide to stay positive when reacting to individuals and companies that are making a strong effort to enter the social media…

• 4 Free Tickets to Social Media Business Forum

  Jason

  8 Oct 2009 | 8:55 pm

  Social Media History Trivia October 9th, 1pm EST Follow @jakrose for questions Random draw from the first 5 correct answers wins a ticket for each question 4 Questions 4 Free Tickets to Social Media Business Forum (October 23rd – Durham, NC)

• 
  Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

• Why Stuck?

  kathryn

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  Todays guest post is from Kneale Mann. Kneale Mann is a writer, a coach and a strategist. With 26 years experience, he consultants on communications, marketing and social media strategy in the private, hi-tech and public sectors. He is also an associate with CEPSM and a member of the TEDxOttawa organization team. We All Have Choices Recently, a friend sent me a copy of Rick Butts’ book “7 Choices”. In it, Rick talks about the time we work on us verses the time we work on what we do or getting customers or what we can offer. In the age of social networking, we can all create profiles and…

• Blogging Your Way Into The Real World

  kathryn

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:59 am

  Todays guest post is from David Spinks. David Spinks is the Community Manager for Scribnia, where the world’s bloggers and columnists are reviewed by their readers. He also blogs at The Spinks Blog about business, young professionals and social media.” Starting a blog takes a lot of guts. Making that leap into the public eye isn’t easy! Even after you get started, maintaining a blog that doesn’t get much traffic or comments right away can be discouraging. It was right here on Liz Strauss’ blog where I got my first dose of confidence in my blogging career. Back in…

• Reaching through the Screen

  kathryn

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:45 am

  Thanks to Richard Reeve for supplying today’s guest post. Richard Reeve is an administrator at the Family Foundation School, a candidate for Analytical training at the C. G. Jung Institute of New York. He blogs at Catskill Cottage Seed. “And the Master said unto the silence, “In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path as you please.” Richard Bach, Illusions, pg.23 Liz recommended Bach’s book to me last month when we shared…

• Let My People Talk

  kathryn

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  Thanks to Lisa D. Jenkins for supplying todays guest post. Lisa D. Jenkins has over a decade of experience marketing festivals, special events, non-profit organizations and small businesses. She speaks, consults and educates on the integration of social media into current marketing efforts, with a focus on measurable results; recent clients include Lewis-Clark State College Community Programs, Idaho Small Business Development Center, Idaho Outfitters & Guides Association, and Hells Canyon Visitor Bureau. In my comment on Amber Naslund’s current post, I referred to a thought pattern…

• Beach Notes: The Beauty of Reflection

  ME Liz Strauss

  15 Nov 2009 | 5:44 am

  by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh I stopped on my way home on Friday to take a photo of the clouds at sunset. My focus had been on the beauty of the clouds and the various shades of grey and yellows. It wasn’t until I downloaded the photo to the computer that I saw the beautiful reflections mirrored in the water. There is often beauty around us that we do not notice at the time.- Suzie Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

• 
  chrisbrogan.com

• The Serendipity Engine – Web 2 Expo Speech

  chrisbrogan

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pm

  This is my favorite keynote speech yet. It’s just 10 minutes long, and I feel pretty good about it. You’ll recognize bits of my storytelling from the last several conferences tucked into here in a new way, I hope. Enjoy this video. (Can’t see it? Click here)

• How Much Time Should I Spend On Social Media

  chrisbrogan

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:33 am

  How much time should you spend on social media? In some ways, the answer is: “how long is a piece of string?” And yet, you can set up some simple guidelines. They might be a bit different than you think. By the way, I’m writing these from a business perspective, but remember that I think of religion and nonprofits and all kinds of other applications as business-related, too. Here’s how I look at it: Social Media Time Management The way I’d do it is to break it up into 4 chunks, and then you decide the amount of hours to devote (2 hours a day is a minimum for MOST…

• Start a Moving Business – Overnight Success

  chrisbrogan

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm

  In this episode of the Overnight Success series, I’ve got an idea about what makes one successful: moving. But it’s not what you think. If you can’t see the video, click here. What do you think?

• Stop Humping My Leg

  chrisbrogan

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:13 am

  Dear people trying to sell me on something new: stop humping my leg. You know what I mean. You’ve seen dogs do this, right? That’s what it feels like when you jump on me breathlessly to share your new product or service when you don’t really much know whether I’m the right guy for your services. I was recently leg-humped at Web 2.0 Expo, by someone I like, and who I think is smart and has a lot of good potential. The thing is, I politely declined a demo, and he persisted. Immediately, I shifted to my back foot. I felt defensive. I rolled up my interest and tucked it…

• Prioritize Your Social Media Efforts

  chrisbrogan

  17 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the chores that social media puts in front of us. The best writing I’ve found on how to manage your time in social media is via Amber Naslund’s social media time management series. Her efforts in crafting this should become a little ebook that you hand around to everyone. If you skipped over that link, go back, click it to open a new tab/window, and then read it when you’re done with this (or skip mine and read Amber’s- it’s that good). If you’re still with me, here’s what I want to say on the matter.

• 
  Logic+Emotion

• KeepVid: Download videos from Google, Youtube, iFilm, Putfile, Metacafe, DailyMotion! [del.icio.us]

  darmano

• Tweeting at the Speed of Scale

  David Armano

  15 Nov 2009 | 7:59 pm

  Originally posted on the CollaboratoryFrom a holistic perspective, we talk about the need for organizations to become more socially calibrated—able to adapt and respond to changes both externally and internally. The three areas where emergent outcomes can manifest are, participation with your customers, collaboration between your employees and optimization in the interactions/transactions between your business and its partners. Digging into customer participation, it’s clear that in a networked economy customers demand engagement, information, support and ultimately, value and ecosystems…

• Overcoming The Obstacles To Social Business

  David Armano

  13 Nov 2009 | 8:06 am

  Originally published on Harvard BusinessWhile social media often commands favorable media attention, the less often told story is that successful initiatives are rare to come by and that there are still a number of organizational roadblocks that managers need to overcome in order to make progress. Still, we are seeing signs of progress in the form of new efficiencies, more direct ways to connect with customers, and ways to make products and services better. From my experience working and talking with people in large, complex organizations, here are a small sample of obstacles to look for with…

• 7 Visualization Groups On Flickr to Find Inspiration | FlowingData [del.icio.us]

  darmano

• How Google Helped Save A Life

  David Armano

  9 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  When my eight-year-old (Max) complained that he wasn't feeling well, we kept him home. On the next afternoon, when he complained about stomach pains, I told him to lie down. Later that day, when the stomach pains persisted and I had left the house—Belinda turned to Google for help. Mother's intuition told her to search for information—specifically where the appendix is located. And after doing so she went up to Max's room and pressed down on the right side of his abdomen. When he winced in pain, she decided to call the doctor. The doctor said go to the emergency room. The ER said, get a…

• 
  trendsspotting blog

• The “unfriend” Social Cycle: Social Networks Beahvior Patterns

  Apurba Sen

  18 Nov 2009 | 6:19 am

  The New Oxford American Dictionary has chosen ‘unfriend’ as its word of the year. To ‘unfriend’ means to remove someone from your friend list on a social network like Facebook or MySpace (and we extend that to a similar pattern of “unfollow”  in Twitter). “Defriend” came in as a  close rival, but unfriend takes it one step further by employing a more active and abnormal “verb sense” of the word ‘friend.’ Earlier we had stated some of the facts on Social networks: An average Facebook user has 120 friend. In general he/she general…

• Twitter users share early adopters symptoms

  Dhivya Subramanian

  12 Nov 2009 | 10:16 am

  Recent findings of a Pew Internet study revealed, Twitter is being extensively used as a status update service to keep in touch. Youth (age 18 -44), social network users and users with access to mobile internet show early Twitter adoption symptoms. The study – Twitter and status update, was conducted in September 2009, amongst a sample of 2,253 adults, 18 and older. The key Highlights of the research indicates: 1. One in every Five Internet user Now on Twitter 19% of internet users say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others (up…

• For a Better (Digital) World

  Taly Weiss

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  In a beautiful thought-provoking project of Jonathan Harris (creator of We Feel Fine – one of the first social web emotion visualization projects), Harris shares some touching  personal insights with artistic inspirations relevant to a digital world. In this “World Building in a Crazy World” – Harris suggests 1-2-3 principals for a world building idea – “a universal idea executed simply, with an element of play, nostalgia or beauty”. Enjoy. Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit Stumble This Post

• Halloween through Location Based Applications

  Taly Weiss

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:11 am

  Google Latitude or other location based applications working through mobile phones can let you track your kids whereabouts during Halloween.   Aside from tracking, many of those applications can be used (note privacy concerns) for sharing the Halloween experience. Locations of retailers selling costumes and decorations can also be found by using applications as Poynt. To improve the Halloween experience, Zillow.com, have created a Trick or Treat Housing Index, which presents the top-five neighborhoods to maximize candy harvesting. The index uses four equally weighted data variables: Zillow…

• Google Wave: Invite Led Viral Campaign

  Dhivya Subramanian

  22 Oct 2009 | 2:24 pm

  Search Engine giant Google, has shown the world how it is reshaping the way communication happens over the internet with the soft launch of Google Wave. And it has done so in a way it knows best – through invite based viral marketing. The internet witnessed tremors of excitement when 100,000 exclusive invites to Wave were sought after by surfers who were curious, passionate, and addicted to Google. A sense of Déjà vu is hard to avoid. Google sent out similar invites when it launched Gmail in 2007, to build hype. Privileged invites led marketing has been a potent weapon that Google has…

• 
  Blog World Expo

• Are Keynotes and Twitter A Bad Match?

  I have been reading about a situation at Web 2.0 Expo that has me as an organizer of speakers a bit befuddled.  Danah Boyd's presentation took a turn for the worst and it turned out to be a bad experience for her and for the attendees. For the long story ...

• The Power of Twitter: How the Blogosphere Came Through for Liz Strauss

  Last week, I learned that my friend and someone who I look up to as a mentor and bloggy role model, Liz Strauss, was in the hospital. "That can't be fun." I thought. So I contacted a mutual friend, Lucretia Pruitt, to see if I could get an address and ...

• Sports Bloggers Continue To Hit It Out

  Blogs With Balls 2.0 Intro from HHR on Vimeo. The guys at Blogs With Balls continue to amaze me with their "mad skills" and the obvous fun they are having when talking about their event. They have been an asset to BlogWorld & New media Expo, and I cannot wait to ...

• Using Social Media To Explain Social Media and Other Concepts

  One of the sites I like to go to often and one that will no doubt get a large amount of traffic over the next few months is Common Craft.  I especially love the way the use video to explain difficult or complex issues.  They did a great job on ...

• The Get Well Liz Strauss Fund

  Friend of the blogosphere, and my idol and inspiration, Liz Strauss, has been under the weather lately and was just released from a hospital in Chicago. While we all want to send positive vibes and good wishes to Liz so she makes a speedy recover, we're also asking Liz's ...

• 
  One By One Media

• Preaching From The Social Media Pulpit

  Jim Turner

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:44 am

  I have been preaching about blogging for a long time.  I have been an evangelist and telling companies that they had to blog more they had to have a place for people to "join the conversation" and making it possible for them to connect with their customers.  Like some of the preachers of the past, I am my own worst sinner apparently.  I was reminded by people in my company that I am the worst person in the world to tell companies that they are not blogging enough or that they are not doing it right. I am preaching from the pulpit so to speak and I am preaching to the choir…

• The Social Media Revolution

  Jim Turner

  11 Nov 2009 | 8:23 am

  I am behind the times on this one but I wanted to get it on my site to refer to it later.  This is a great video and worth the watch. Some of the information in this video is already obsolete.  Social Media is moving at a rate that none of us can keep up with, and I for one sometimes must take a step back to look at the big picture to keep up with the rate of growth.

• The Blogger Protection and Google

  Jim Turner

  25 Aug 2009 | 11:32 am

  This is a great discussion on CNN about the outing of the blogger.  I may have to add to this discussion further.

• Sponsored Status? Not Facebook

  Jim Turner

  11 Aug 2009 | 7:43 am

  I have been a follower of the sponsored conversations and sponsored tweets and the sponsored anything for a while now and I intend to keep on top of it because it does have somewhat of a effect on my business model although indirect. TechCrunch talks about banning sponsored status updates from their application.  This will take on quite a white hat look in many of the purists’ eyes, but in my eyes if seems to be a horse of a different color.  As a social media consultant I always talk about the metrics and ROI of using some of these tools, and the business model given today’s…

• Facebook Acquires FriendFeed – Twitter Beware – Google Looking Over Shoulder

  Jim Turner

  10 Aug 2009 | 8:32 am

  I just read the news about Facebook acquiring FriendFeed.  Many are already shouting "game changer", but not really.  Facebook already has the huge networking, but it does make some ground on the folks at Twitter as a microblogging or communication tool.  I talked a while back about FriendFeed’s new look and feel making it seem much like the already popular Twitter.  Now it has a war chest behind it to become bigger better and more usable I hope.  We are already hearing about the demise of blogs for Life Streaming, and this moves into that game as well.  I hope to get a…

• 
  idaconcpts

• How Does Twitter Spam Happen?

  damiandavilarojas

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:38 am

  Some application developers request access to your Twitter account in order for their applications (e.g. Pandora, Mashable, TweetMeme) to work. Here is an example of the application TweetMeme asking you to grant it access to your Twitter account: After granting an application access to your Twitter account, it will be included in your list of Twitter connections. Here is a screenshot of TweetMeme having access to a Twitter account: Twitter Spam happens when application developers abuse that access that you have granted them to your Twitter account. How do you get rid of Twitter Spam? Follow…

• 4 steps to Get Rid of Twitter Spam

  damiandavilarojas

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am

  On the past 2 weeks, I have received a lot of Twitter direct messages (DMs) with offers about “making money with Google” or “make $500 a day online”. It appears that I am not the only one. These Twitter direct messages are not only annoying but they kill in less than a second all the reputation that we took so hard to build through our tweets. 4 Steps To Get Rid of Twitter Spam Step 1: Login to your Twitter account at http://twitter.com/login Step 2: Go to http://twitter.com/account/connections. Here you will see all the applications that have access to your account.

• How to check if your Google Analytics is installed properly

  damiandavilarojas

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:32 pm

  Installing the Google Analytics code into your website is simple as I showed earlier on the post about how to install Google Analytics a a real state brokerage website. This clear step-by-step guide can be applied to any kind of website. (Note: the  website used in the article is currently under renovation.) Why do we need to check if Google Analytics is installed properly? Because you might be missing on key analytics data from your site! Consider this discussion thread recently posted at the Google Analytics group in LinkedIn: The page in question is http://www.contek-office-tech.com. The…

• How Facebook does E-mail Newsletters

  damiandavilarojas

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:38 pm

  On 10/23/2009 Facebook sent out an e-mail newsletter titled “Ads Manager Announcement” to its Facebook Advertising users. This newsletter is a great example of how to implement permission marketing, how to avoid the brochure mentality, and how to do seamless product placement. How to Implement Permission Marketing Click here for a full explanation of e-mail permission marketing. Facebook provides its users with a check-box so they can decide whether or not to give you permission to contact them. Here is a list of the Facebook ads e-mail notifications: Facebook is asking its users:…

• What Online Marketers Can Learn from Online Educators

  damiandavilarojas

  22 Oct 2009 | 2:04 pm

  A MBA degree is a highly coveted degree for online marketing practitioners because it backs up our professional practice. However, throughout our MBA education we are hardly exposed to a field that is very relevant to our practice: online education, also known as educational technology. The field of Educational Technology (ET) explores the potential use and impact of learning technologies in a variety of contexts, and  determines good practices of curriculum design and technology integration. Educational technology programs such as the Master of Educational Technology at the University of…

• 
  Scobleizer

• Why Google Chrome OS has already won

  Robert Scoble

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  Today InfoWorld’s Randall Kennedy says that Google’s Chrome OS will fail. What he is missing is he’s looking at the wrong field. Google is playing a different game. Google Chrome OS is NOT about killing Microsoft or Apple. What is it about? Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. See, what happens if the world goes to Microsoft’s Silverlight, the way that Seesmic did this week? Google is locked out of such a world. Google is in a war over developers with Microsoft. Google wants developers to build for the open web. Microsoft wants developers to…

• Twitter to turn on advertising “you will love” (here’s how: SuperTweet)

  Robert Scoble

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:22 am

  Twitter’s COO, Dick Costolo, today, at the TechCrunch Real Time Crunchup (live video of the conference is live now on building43, there will be lots of news all day long from this event), told the audience that Twitter is, indeed, going to turn on an advertising model. This is a huge shift in what Twitter is saying publicly. But advertising isn’t something many people love. So, how will Twitter make advertising you love? By building a SuperTweet! How can they do that? Well, yesterday, I talked with Likaholix co-founder Bindu Reddy about just that. You can watch our video we…

• In search of the perfect Facebook and Twitter client

  Robert Scoble

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:57 pm

  I use Twitter and Facebook a lot. Probably more than 99.9999% of people in the world. I am in search of the perfect client that will help me use Facebook and, particularly, Twitter (which I use a lot more than Facebook because that is the best place to network with other technology professionals). I am still looking. The perfect client does not exist. First, I use my iPhone (and now my Droid) for Twitter a LOT. My wife, @maryamie, uses Facebook on her iPhone all the time. So, I must have the best possible iPhone client. This week? That’s Tweetie 2.0 for an app and Dabr for a Web page…

• Ray Ozzie is wrong about smartphone apps

  Robert Scoble

  17 Nov 2009 | 1:59 pm

  Microsoft exec Ray Ozzie, at a lunchtime session with bloggers at its PDC conference told the bloggers that apps won’t be a differentiating factor on smart phones. He is wrong. Totally wrong. Why is Mike Arrington so passionate about his Droid (we argued about it for 39 minutes on the Gillmor Gang last week and then we went to the beach together on Sunday and argued about it some more in private). I’ve talked about this before. Most of what we argue about is apps. Droid is better than iPhone because Droid has Google Voice, Arrington says. iPhone is better than Droid, I say,…

• What is Twitter for? Pimping your blog!

  Robert Scoble

  14 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

  At the Blog World Expo a few weeks ago someone asked what Twitter is for and I answered “pimping your blog.” Hey, it works for TechCrunch and Mashable, why not you? Or me. So, I’ve finally figured out that I was clueless because I didn’t have a Twitter account for my blog. When people say they are unfollowing me because I’m too noisy these feeds are the antidote. scobleblog is for following ONLY my blog. I won’t put anything else on that feed. scoblemedia is for following ONLY when either I post video or am on someone else’s video or audio shows.

• 
  PR, Social Media, and Marketing Mentor ?

• 2009 SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards Submission Deadline Extended to Thursday, September 10th

  Each year, the Society for New Communications Research presents the prestigious SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards. The deadline for application submissions for this year's awards has been extended from September 7th to Thursday, September 10, 2009, to allow applicants who are away for Labor Day Weekend to finish and ...

• Some Social Media Humor for Summer Vacation…

  Occasionally in social media training, some humor is called for, and The Onion Newsfeed video clip above takes on the big issue of search engine privacy rights—specifically, while using the ubiquitous Google—and gives us a tour of "Google's Opt-Out Privacy Village." And then, there's this HubSpot spoof on Twitter ...

• Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — Where is the Web Going, and What is the Semantic Web?

  Sometimes, the best way to learn about something is without using words. Here's a creative example of a video explaining the difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0, by the clever Not in Words producers: Now, back to words and some basic drawings, as we move on to Web 3.0 and beyond. ...

• Join us at NewComm Forum and Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco!

  The 5th Annual New Communications Forum April 27th - 29th, 2009 The Marriott Hotel, San Francisco, California   I just wanted you to know that there are still a few seats available for next week's NewComm Forum 2009. Don't miss this special opportunity to participate in a highly-interactive, exclusive gathering of the most notable ...

• Flutter

  OK, I haven't posted here for a while, due to being SO busy, I've barely had time to eat, sleep or recuperate from one of those annoying seasonal colds that seems to drag on while you're doing everything else. So, even though social media is central to my work (the ...

• 
  Social Media Explorer

• Determining Your Friends

  Jason Falls

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  I’ve been pondering the value and validity of the term “friend” lately. Until a few years ago, we all probably had a couple hundred friends, give or take. Social networking not only incrementalized that number, but changed the definition of the word for many people. I have 1,300 or more “friends” on Facebook. I’ve probably met and spoken with more than you think, but not all of them. There are 18,000 or so people who follow me on Twitter. I follow most of them back. We are “friends” in a sense, too. But online friendships are very different than…

• Sysomos Adds Facebook Feature To Social Media Monitoring Solution

  Jason Falls

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  When businesses are looking for social media monitoring services these days, they normally hone in on two or three capabilities. Because Facebook is this year’s blog, monitoring messages on the platform is a big one. While all social media monitoring services have the same access to Facebook data (it’s all dependent upon what Facebook makes public which is dictated by their terms of service), more creative ways to position Facebook data are surfacing. Image via CrunchBase Social media monitoring service Sysomos launches a new version of their Heartbeat product today which has a…

• The Four Spheres Of Social Media Strategy

  Jason Falls

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  A crowd of 80 or so attended yesterday’s social media boot camp hosted by the Kentucky chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Social Media Club Louisville. I was honored to serve as one of the presenters along with the undisputed queen of measurement, Katie Paine, and The Bad Pitch Blog man himself, Kevin Dugan. Rest assured, lots of learning was had, even if you just count my experience. Part of my presentation, which was focused on developing strategic plans for social media marketing, included my Four Spheres of Social Media Strategy. Until…

• New Study Reveals Surprises In How People Share

  Jason Falls

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  We’re starting to see an interesting by-product of cool social media tools emerge: Research pulled from user data. One such effort, a new study released by SocialTwist, makers of the content share widget Tell-A-Friend, reveals some interesting facts about how people share information online. You can see the report in its entirety on the SocialTwist website. First, let’s set the expectations appropriately. The data behind the study is collected from anonymized user data for people who click on the Tell-A-Friend widget where it is used on blog posts, newspaper websites and more.

• Where Interactive Marketing Dollars Are Going

  Jason Falls

  13 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  Forrester Research has released a new report forecasting interactive marketing spend in the U.S. for the next five years. The report, authored by Shar VanBoskirk, is available in its entirety on the Forrester Research website. The report details how certain industries currently spend, and projects how they will spend, on interactive marketing. It also offers some interesting insights for businesses trying to ensure they are either catching, or keeping up with the Joneses. VanBoskirk talks more about it on the Forrester Research blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals. Current Interactive…

• 
  The Social

• Brizzly opens up...and translates

  Caroline McCarthy

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  The Twitter client has built in Google Translate for quick decoding of international tweets--and also, no more invite codes are required.

• Offerpal revises terms amid continued scandal

  Caroline McCarthy

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:57 pm

  Under fire for running misleading ads on social networks, the offers-and-surveys broker now says publishers can choose how "conservative" they want to be with ads.

• eBay sets Skype loose at $2.75 billion valuation

  Caroline McCarthy

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:40 pm

  The auction site has sold off its telephony unit, finally, after plans to take it public and a legal dispute with the company's founders. Originally posted at News - Digital Media

• More on mobile payment front: Boku steps it up

  Caroline McCarthy

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  Competing for market share with rival Zong and a few others, the start-up says new partnerships give it access to 200 million new user accounts. (But do they all pay?)

• SimpleGeo navigates from stealth to beta

  Caroline McCarthy

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  Start-up hopes to make it easy to bring location-aware features to any Web or mobile service--but we haven't seen it in action yet.

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  Online Community Report

• Forum One Networks Partners with WOMMA

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:21 am

  Forum One is really excited to announce that we've partnered with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. WOMMA is a coalition comprised of hundreds of top marketers who are learning how to encourage and amplify the natural phenomenon or word of mouth marketing, while respecting and protecting its honesty and integrity. Forum One's Online Community Research Network (OCRN) and WOMMA share common interests in that our goals are to build networks of professionals who collaborate on best practices, standards and metrics, and share knowledge among the professionals in our industries. In our…

• Online Community Expert Interviews: Vida Killian of Dell and Mari Kuraishi of GlobalGiving.org

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:49 pm

  This month we're featuring two video interviews Bill Johnston conducted at the Online Community Summit in Sonoma, CA in October. In the first interview, Bill Johnston talks with Vida Killian of Dell about the value of online community at Dell as well as lessons learned from her experience with community and social media. In Bill's second interview with Mari Kuraishi of GlobalGiving.org, Mari share's how GlobalGiving uses online community and social media strategy for global good.

• The Ongoing Discussion Around Community and Social Media Compensation

  12 Nov 2009 | 4:26 pm

  I've worked in a variety of industries in various marketing related roles, including: hardware, community, real estate, software, and now back to community and social media. I must admit, community and social media practitioners may well be the most passionate people I've ever worked with. Just attend any one of our events and you'll meet so many intelligent, motivated, solution-oriented people all in one space, sharing ideas, challenges and collaborating on solutions -- it's pretty amazing. Ironically, many people in the community and social media industry feel that they are under paid,…

• Online Community & Social Media Staff: Satisfaction

  9 Nov 2009 | 7:08 pm

  In addition to studying compensation during our second annual Online Community & Social Media Compensation study (summary here), we also want to dig in to issues related the organizational environment that community and social media professionals work in. One key dimension is overall job satisfaction. As part of the research, we asked the question: Please rate your overall job satisfaction? Of the 370 respondents, most are "somewhat satisfied" with their jobs with an average satisfaction score of 4.1 and a median score of 4. The average satisfaction score was slightly less than last…

• Social CRM Virtual Summit - November 11th, 2009

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:56 pm

  We’re proud to be sponsors of Lithium’s online conference Social CRM on November 11th. The Social CRM Virtual Summit is a five-hour online conference, which includes webcasts by industry leaders in an interactive exhibit hall, a resource center with extensive materials for download, and a virtual networking lounge to chat live with speakers and prospects. Bill Johnston will lead a session on Best Practices: Community, Strategy and Planning with Joe Cothrel of Lithium. Their session includes discussions on: Defining and creating a community strategy by working with organizational and…

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  @NowSourcing.Com » Blog

• What to Expect from PPC Accounts During The Holidays

  Don

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:44 pm

  Best Holiday Movie EVER ‘Tis the season to be selling.  So many sites make a large percentage of their income during these last 6 weeks of the year.  For some, it’s even make-or-break–especially with the year we’ve had.  For those of you who spend your day running a business instead of PPC accounts, here is a brief rundown of what you can expect to see in your PPC accounts when you do have time to check them: More competition:  This is probably the most obvious, but you need to consider what more competition means. Higher costs per click Lower click-through rates…

• Subreddit Takeover: A Social Media Coup

  Admin

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:26 pm

  In what may be the first of its kind in the social media world, the little used and subscribed Football (/r/football) subreddit of Reddit.com was overthrown by the Soccer (/r/soccer) subreddit. Though things seem to have died down, yesterday’s events can only be described as a social media coup. The argument over “Football” and “Fútbol” will go on for eternity, but I never expected it lead to this. The thuggish Redditors (we’re teasing of course) from the disgruntled Soccer subreddit began their barrage yesterday evening, submitting every link relevant to…

• Twitter Adds (and Removes) Retweets (Beta)

  Brian Wallace

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:14 am

  Some of you may have noticed a new Twitter Retweet logo marking your friends’ RT’s. Since users, the originators of the term, have been utilizing “RT” (followed by the author’s @name) almost as long as Twitter’s been around, and applications such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic implemented the feature long ago, what took Twitter so long in adding such a simple and necessary feature? This is something I would have expected to be released prior to Twitter Lists. Let’s just assume they wanted to take their time, ensuring they didn’t leave anything out.

• Plurk Community: You’re Doing it Wrong

  Brian Wallace

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:36 am

  Image via CrunchBase I remember when Plurk first came out.  At first glance its user interface was different but once you got to spending some time on the site, it was pretty cool.  As luck would have it, Plurk also came around when Twitter was having some of its worst downtime in history.  Take that, and some nifty enhanced features (conversations on one page, ability to share images and video, dancing bananas and it seemed as though Plurk really could have taken over the microblogging space. But it didn’t. Why? I would offer that Plurk ultimately didn’t listen to its…

• Facebook Share Released: Facebook Takes on Digg and Tweetmeme

  Ariela Ross

  29 Oct 2009 | 3:22 pm

  As Facebook comes in to become one of the largest population groups in the world, it still finds its own flaws. Thanks to what can easily be assumed to be the influence of other social media sites, such as Twitter and Digg, the folks at Facebook have added yet another new feature. Facebook Share allows a member to post a link/video/image to their wall that they find interesting or useful. Beyond spreading the content around to a broader audience, Facebook Share keeps track of the exact number of times a link has been “shared.” Depending upon the amount of friends that are active…

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  The Internet Strategist

• Blogging for Coin

  16 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm

  click hereto retweet In my last few posts we covered what a blog is, and the benefits of blogging as a technique to boost your business. For any blogging initiative you'll need at least three things: what are you going to blog about (covered in my last post) how will you set up your blog (software & hosting) how will you market your blog Last time we began the discussion of blogging software, focusing on ways you can build and maintain your blog for free using services like WordPress.com, Blogger.com, or Blogher.com. The key with free blogging software is knowing what you're getting. Here are…

• Build Your Blog

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:45 pm

  We are knee deep in the basics of blogging! click hereto retweet In my last few posts we covered what a blog is, and the benefits of blogging as a technique to boost your business. If you've decided you'd like to blog, or if you just want more information before taking the plunge, there are a few more steps, namely: what are you going to blog about (this one's kinda important) how will you set up your blog how will you market your blog Deciding what you'll write about is clearly a highly subjective decision that goes beyond our scope for today (although maybe a good idea for a future feature?

• Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2

  12 Oct 2009 | 2:00 pm

  click hereto retweet From the comments and emails I've received, the benefits I described in the first half of Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs have hit home but also helped you think of new ways that your blog can help you build your business. I liked the issue raised in a comment by SaveMoneyCostCutting from last week. Sometimes it is a fine line between too much marketing and just enough. It is important to establish a position on this that will work based on what you're selling and to whom you're selling it. There's no one-size-fits-all on that one. Blogging is a tool you can use creatively to…

• Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs

  5 Oct 2009 | 9:34 pm

  click hereto retweet In last week's article I discussed what a blog actually is and its relationship to both your business and to your regular Web site if you have one. The purpose of blogging in general, is usually to establish and/or support an existing brand with an understanding of how that brand generates revenue. This week, as promised, I'm getting into the real payoffs. Why does it make sense to spend hours of time each month, writing content, then giving it away for free and if that's not enough, even more hours marketing that free content to make sure people will know it's there?

• To Blog or Not to Blog

  29 Sep 2009 | 1:24 am

  click hereto retweet Outside of the fact that you happen to be reading one right now, I find that there are lots of smart, business savvy folks out there who when placed in the position of having to explain, strategize or build a blog (or decide if one should be built at all) are at a bit of a loss. Blogs are usually easy for most people to recognize but harder for folks to define. When I hosted a free class on the subject (as I do from time to time) it "sold out" (in the way only free classes can!) the room filled to capacity. Even those who can sort of describe a blog, often find it hard to…

• 
  Social Media Marketing

• How To Promote Your Facebook Fan Page

  Naomi Trower

  17 Nov 2009 | 2:28 pm

  Can I tell you how excited I am? I started to write this post and decided to send it to Social Media Examiner as a featured article. Mike Stelzner was very helpful with the editorial process and wouldn’t you know it, Social Media Examiner was named as a Top 100 Small Business Blog right before my post was going to be added to the editorial calendar. It had not even been a complete month since Social Media Examiner’s debut! So you can imagine my excitement at being a featured writer at this moment in time. Well on to my article! Happy Reading…Drum Roll please…My 1st…

• Social Media Strategic Approaches

  Naomi Trower

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:17 pm

  I found these pictures on Twitter and pictures are worth a thousand words. I’ll let the pictures speak in this post! Naomi Trower Real Estate Broker Premier Equity Group, Inc. Real Estate Social Media Marketing “Teaching Professionals Social Media” Share this on del.icio.usDigg this!Share this on RedditBuzz up!Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponShare this on TechnoratiShare this on MixxShare this on FacebookTweet This!Email this to a friend?Share this on LinkedinShare this on FriendFeed

• Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Webinar

  Naomi Trower

  10 Nov 2009 | 10:37 am

  Will you be attending Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Webinar on Nov. 17th, 2009? It is a FREE Webinar for Real Estate Professionals that want to explore various social media avenues to market your business. I sent in a request to be a presenter and I am currently on a waiting list if anyone cancels! Social media is definitely a hot topic in the real estate and mortgage industry. It is very obvious by the rapid pace that people are becoming fans of my Real Estate Social Media Marketing fan page, that there is a definite need for this particular market. As I browsed the webinar schedule, I noticed…

• Which Twitter Lists Define You?

  Naomi Trower

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am

  I need your help in developing my Twitter Lists. As you know, Twitter Lists are the hottest topic in social media right now. I have read several articles on how to define my lists, however I want to hear YOUR feedback. Which Twitter List Defines You? What Category Would Make You Hold Your Head Up High? I have seen some funny names for twitter lists: “Too sexy for their shirt” and yes someone added me to that list. I was super honored to be included on this list: “Entrepreneurs on the fast track” with a number of people following that list. Which leads me to an…

• Welcome To The World of SocialNomics

  Naomi Trower

  1 Nov 2009 | 6:31 am

  This is an AMAZING video of the shift in social media today. I have no more words to add but WOW!!!!! Need I say more??? Naomi Trower Real Estate Broker Premier Equity Group, Inc. Real Estate Social Media Marketing “Teaching Professionals Social Media” Share this on del.icio.usDigg this!Share this on RedditBuzz up!Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponShare this on TechnoratiShare this on MixxShare this on FacebookTweet This!Email this to a friend?Share this on LinkedinShare this on FriendFeed

• 
  FactoryCity

• The death of the URL

  Chris Messina

  16 Nov 2009 | 12:20 pm

  Prelude You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember — all I am offering is the truth, nothing more. In the Matrix, Morpheus presents Neo with a choice: he can take the blue pill and continue his somnambulatory existence within the Matrix, or he can take the red pill and become free from the virtual reality that the machines created to enslave humanity. As you can see from the clip above, Neo chooses the red pill, severing his…

• Don’t make me a target

  Chris Messina

  13 Nov 2009 | 12:56 pm

  The augmented reality view in Brightkite’s mobile app. Brightkite, a location-tracking service, recently launched version 2.0 of their service after merging with Limbo and taking $9M in funding this past April. In recent months I’ve found myself using Foursquare more and more, though I still update Brightkite from time to time since it powers the location status on my personal homepage. In some ways, Foursquare is to Brightkite what Twitter was to Jaiku: a more personal, streamlined experience that builds on a core activity and dispenses will all other distractions. And, through…

• New microsyntax for Twitter: three pointers and the slasher

  Chris Messina

  8 Nov 2009 | 4:25 pm

  Image based on Kevin Van Aelst’s original. Since it’s apparently all the rage to design your own features for Twitter now, I figured I’d build on my success with the hashtag and crank out a few more. All of these are simple conventions for adding more standard metadata to a post in a specific, uniform way. The Slasher First, I’ve decided to migrate from encapsulating my metadata in parentheses to using a slash delimiter (”/”), which, for shits and giggles, we’ll call “the slasher”. This saves you ONE character, but hey, those singletons…

• Open source design and the OpenOfficeMouse

  Chris Messina

  7 Nov 2009 | 6:47 pm

  I admit that my initial reaction to the OpenOfficeMouse (to the right in the above graphic) wasn’t … positive. After all, I’ve been acclimating to my new Apple MagicMouse (seen on the left above) for the past week and really like it, especially in comparison with the previous model with the stubby and malfunctioning nipple (called the “Mighty Mouse” before Apple lost a trademark dispute). To me, the OpenOfficeMouse seems like such a typical product from the open source community. The press release waxes on about the features, implicitly presupposing that more…

• A conversation with Ville Vesterinen about standards and the open social web

  Chris Messina

  7 Nov 2009 | 10:39 am

  I sat down for a conversation with Ville Vesterinen (@vesterinen) — co-founder and editor of the ArcticStartup blog — last week while he was visiting from Helsinki. Following up on the post that Jyri Engeström and I wrote on the web at a new crossroads, we discussed the need for more open standards to create the underpinnings of a web-wide platform for building more personal social applications. At one point in our discussion, I suggested that an HTML tag for a person might make sense — with the ability to include a person’s face or list of friends — without the need for…

• 
  JessicaRandazza

• Refocusing.

  Jessica

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:06 am

  After yesterday’s vague post about feeling like a total Negative Nancy, I wanted to follow up and thank each of your for your support. I’m unbelievably lucky and honored to have such a great network to help cheer me up. While I’m not feeling 100% (I’d say I’m hovering around 37 or so), I made conscious effort this evening to spend time geeking out online in places that I love. And while this may come as a surprise to you, they’re not all social networking sites! In no particular order they are: Cute Overload –  Unless you’re Brian (who is…

• Had a bad day again…

  Jessica

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:08 am

  There are countless songs, movies and novels centered around feeling bad and making mistakes, so I won’t tell you that the way I’m feeling right now is unique. But, after a unfortunate set of circumstances, I can say with absolute conviction that I feel like a total Debbie Downer and don’t like it one bit. Now, I recognize that’s extremely vague and, forgive me, but I won’t delve deeper into my issues or guilt in this post. That would bore you, anyway. What I can say is when you (and by “you” I mean me) feel bad (especially in areas that mean the…

• Real Life Balance

  Jessica

  12 Nov 2009 | 10:55 pm

  One of the things I love the most about my company is their commitment to work-life balance. While I work a lot of hours, it’s certainly by choice, and because I’m just really jazzed about what I do. I work because I love it, because I’m passionate about it, and because I’d like to think I’m good at it. But, for those times when I’m feeling a little worn out, I really like that my company encourages separation. When I’m not working on agency specific projects, you’ll still find me online.  Browsing the Web, catching up on articles, scrolling…

• Social Media: Customer Service or Marketing?

  Jessica

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:10 pm

  After a brief conversation last night with Mona and Kristy about social media being silo-ed into marketing or customer service, I was feeling frustrated interested in the general consensus on social media was for the non-PR/Marketing folks. Mona believes that is and should be utilized as a customer service tool, and as a public relations practitioner…well, I disagree. But, because I’m open to listening to argument, and checking out a different perspective (in case I just happen to be wrong, which may or may not happen more often than I’d like), I looked for a second opinion…

• Find Me on Four Square

  Jessica

  2 Nov 2009 | 11:33 pm

  I have to admit, I’ve become obsessed with Four Square. For months and months I held off on downloading the application. I watched my friends check in and compete against one another, and I resisted. Why sign up for another time suck? And the truth was that I didn’t get the appeal. But a few weeks ago I got curious and headed over http://foursquare.com to see what all the fuss was about. People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling us your whereabouts. You’ll find that as your friends use foursquare to check-in, you’ll start learning more…

• 
  Bokardo

• The Most Important Feature of a Multi-Device Web: Syncing

  Josh

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:24 am

  As the ecosystem of devices proliferates, with the iPhone and Android platforms coming into their own (along with the ever-impending iTablet), we’re seeing a single feature become the most important and critical piece of new technology: syncing. If you sync seamlessly across devices, people will love you for it. It’s why I love the Apple ecosystem. I add a calendar event to my desktop, iPhone, or web app, and it automagically appears on the others. All of my mail is synced in all of these places so I never have to worry about missing email or knowing whether I replied or having to…

• Looking for examples of microcopy

  Josh

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:53 am

  I’ve set up a new Flickr group with the express intent of aggregating examples of microcopy, that tiny copy (often shorter than a sentence) that helps clarify, explain, reduce commitment, or otherwise assuage someone performing (or considering) a task. You can find the group here: Flickr: Microcopy Creating the group was prompted by Relly Annett-Baker, a web copy-writer from England who is putting together some materials on the subject and asked if I had some good examples. I had a few, but most of the good ones have come from other folks who are working on cool things. It occurred to…

• Is Twitter Successful?

  Josh

  21 Oct 2009 | 3:52 am

  The big question everyone has with Twitter is, and the very first one that John Battelle asked Twitter CEO Ev Williams when he interviewed him yesterday, is “What’s the revenue model?” And the answer Ev gave is exactly the same one they’ve been giving for a year now, which essentially is: “We’re not focused on revenue. We’re focused on growth”. When you hear a CEO say something like that, you know a lot of people’s reaction will be “They’re doomed. They’re a flash in the pan. They’re not successful yet, etc”.

• Communicating Value through Cause & Effect on Fanfeedr

  Josh

  17 Sep 2009 | 5:36 am

  A few months ago we held an event called Testcase at Betahouse in Cambridge, MA where we asked four startups to come and user test their web sites with local folks who showed up. Despite the super informal user testing method we used, we clearly saw that each startup struggled with communicating the value of their service. This is a common problem…founders have a really awesome idea but it just isn’t communicated to people clearly. One of the startups, Fanfeedr, was in super-early alpha at the time. The primary finding from testing their site was that people didn’t…

• Feature Development in Action: Broadcast Stream Messages in Socialcast

  Josh

  21 Aug 2009 | 6:20 am

  In which I describe how we discovered the broadcast stream message feature in Socialcast. One of the guiding principles of interaction design is to support existing behavior. This means to figure out what is already happening, what activities, tasks, and interactions people are already doing, and build support for them into software. This may not seem like a glamorous way to approach design, but from my experience it’s the fastest way to make people happy. Let them do what they already do faster/better/easier, and then you’ll have their attention in order to push the envelope…

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  SOMEWHAT FRANK

• Watch the TechCrunch Real-Time CrunchUp Live!

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  Watch the TechCrunch Real-Time CrunchUp Live!

• Social Networks Evolving Faster Than Laws Can Govern Interesting...

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm

  Social Networks Evolving Faster Than Laws Can Govern Interesting article on TECH cocktail by John Guidos about the social networks of the Internet and the laws that govern them. Photo: Social Networks by Beck Tench (via Flickr used with CC license)

• Expert Labs: Can an Outside Incubator Turn Government Tech-Savvy?

  18 Nov 2009 | 6:33 pm

  Expert Labs: Can an Outside Incubator Turn Government Tech-Savvy?: Anil Dash announced today that he’s leaving SixApart to head a new technology incubator called Expert Labs. Expert Labs will be dedicated to connecting technology innovators ready to build tools with government officials who can put those tools to use in the public interest. Good luck Anil with your new adventure.

• Congrats to @SteveCase for selling Revolution Money to AMEX for...

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:54 am

  Congrats to @SteveCase for selling Revolution Money to AMEX for $300 Million. Another big deal in the next-generation consumer financial products space. (via American Express Acquiring Steve Case’s Revolution Money For $300 Million (AXP))

• Gratitude Trumped Attitude

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:07 am

  thankful4: Not sure how I would have otherwise handled the situation, but I’d like to believe that participating in the Thankfulfor Challenge has made me more inclined toward a gratitude oriented mindset and for that I am truly grateful. Another thoughtful post about gratitude by Alexis Rodich in her Washington Post blog Woman Warrior. Read the entire article here. If you’d like to join the Gratitude Challenge, it’s simple. Just check out this page: http://thankfulfor.com/gratitudechallenge.html and contact us if you’d like your photo added to the group. Good stuff. :)

• 
  Collective Thoughts

• Social Media Rigor Mortis: How Behavior Kills Value

  atomicpoet

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:18 am

  We’ve all seen it. What once worked in social media six months ago doesn’t work now. Why, for instance, does a large following on Twitter no longer indicate influence? Or why is blogging no longer as impressive as it was in 2003? Both these examples follow a predictable economic formula: As “x” social behaviour multiplies, its social value approaches zero. Let me break that down for you. The more you do the same thing, people’s appreciation of it lessens. The more you do the same song and dance, don’t be surprised if your audience dwindles. This should be…

• Social Media - Practicing In Public

  markdykeman

  16 Nov 2009 | 5:53 pm

  Social media gives us the ability to practice in public more than ever before.  Is this a good thing or a bad thing? If you’ve ever read The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen (I just finished reading it), you get a pretty clear read on what he thinks of most user-generated content:  very little.  His concerns range from the welfare of professional content creators (who are losing out to massive quantities of amateur content)  to the disintegration of Western civilization by narcissistic neophytes who post amateur videos and pictures on Facebook, YouTube and MySpace whilst reducing…

• The Art of Social Media War

  SilentJay74

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:30 pm

  As a known Social Media enthusiast, I’m privy to a ton of information. I stand on the sidelines of various Social Media realms and watch as drama unfolds. I find that it’s usually the best thing to do when two opposing forces in Social Media go head to head. It’s not that I’m disloyal, don’t get me wrong, but rather that I prefer to not get involved.  “Jay not get involved? Since when is Jay a pacifist? I thought Jay was a Marine!” Well, yeah, I choose which battles to fight, especially when it comes to elite Diggers throwing down on each other. I…

• Social Media: Expertise? Not Required. Sanity is Optional.

  Jamie Mack

  10 Nov 2009 | 10:43 am

  In the grand scheme of things I am but a babe when it comes to social media. A rookie. A noob, if you will, though to spare my fragile feelings I’d just as soon you didn’t, really. Nope, no expert opinions here folks, just me stumbling along, trying to learn what I can. Like some great person of yore once said, “I’m just a worm crawling through the dirt of life.”(Actually that was me, I used it as a tag line on one of the many social media outlets I’ve tried, and may perhaps still use, I’m not really sure, but feel free to use it for your own purposes…

• Collective Thoughts is Back!

  Brian Wallace

  9 Nov 2009 | 12:21 pm

  credit: AFP I’d like to thank you all for your patience through the times that this site has been quiet. Many of the original authors have gone on and are quite busy, but I didn’t see why that had to be the end of our community. After about 2 years of reflection, we’ve seen where our strengths and weaknesses were, and wanted to give you a list of what the new Collective Thoughts will be about: 1 - Updates. Things slowed to the point where we were updating only monthly. Look for many more frequent posts in our new organization. 2 - Focus. While the post focus is still going…

• 
  Community Guy - Jake McKee

• Ant’s Eye View acquires Wabash & Lake

  Jake McKee

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  It seems hard to remember, but it’s only been a year since I merged Ant’s Eye View 1.0 with Sean O’Driscoll’s CGT Consulting to create Ant’s Eye View 2.0. This time last year, Sean and I were just starting to talk through the details of our pending merger. Flash forward to today: Sean and I have built an amazing time, truly world class people generating world class results. Our team is growing rapidly, and today I’m incredibly proud to announce yet another landmark in the short, but rich history of our organization. We’ve acquired Wabash & Lake.

• Ant’s Eye View is hiring!

  Jake McKee

  9 Nov 2009 | 11:09 am

  Here we go again! One of my colleagues at Ant’s Eye View just posted a new job opening on the Community Guy Job Board. That’s right, we’re hiring a Senior Consultant. Interested? Check out the job post, or see the details below. Ant’s Eye View continues to grow and we are looking for the next ant to join our colony. The open position is a Senior Consultant in the Seattle, Washington area to lead client engagements, build out project deliverables, and contribute to internal business operations/processes. Successful candidates will meet the following criteria: 5-7 years…

• Visit us at the Social CRM Virtual Summit

  Jake McKee

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am

  Ant’s Eye View is sponsoring a pretty cool event next week. It’s all virtual and it should be all awesome. From the official AEV blog post, here’s the details: This year there have been a lot of online discussions on Social CRM – what is it? can it work? who is doing it? Now is the time to hear from the informed and thoughtful on how Social + CRM enable new business opportunities. The Ants are proud to be a sponsor at the Lithium Social CRM Virtual Summit on Tuesday, November 11 – the largest online conference for Social Media and CRM professionals. The Social CRM…

• Apparently I’m a Supergenius

  Jake McKee

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:11 am

  If you’re a fan of awesome conferences and events, never pass up a chance to go to one put on by Andy Sernovitz. He’s a master of the fun time. Andy invited me to speak about my LEGO experience at Word of Mouth Supergenius in December, and it’s sure to be one hell of a good time. Here’s the official event description: Word of Mouth Supergenius is where you’ll learn to be a fantastic word of mouth marketer with 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’ll learn practical, hands-on techniques to get started, grow your…

• The Amazon community team is hiring

  Jake McKee

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:45 am

  Sometimes a job description comes across the Community Guy Jobs Board that I simply can’t help but share it’s so cool. As a long time Amazon fan (I remember when the site was a solid tan background and only sold books), I’ve been so very impressed with the way their site and their community efforts have developed over the years. It’s disappointing that they don’t get more credit for the sheer volume of community/social features each and every page of their site has. If you’re looking to be part of an impressive team and an impressive product, check out this…

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  Brian Solis - PR 2.0

• The Social Media (R)evolution: Your Time is Now

  brian

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:23 am

  Source: ShutterstockThe Future of the Social Web is here today and we’re learning that engagement is not a matter of if or when, but to what extent, how and what value can we deliver and derive from it. The Social Web is much more than a window into information and interaction, it is a completely transformative medium that is changing how we forge relationships, interact with one another, and distribute and discover information. In many ways, the online social revolution is reminiscent of the Industrial Revolution.Access to free and expansive media platforms and distribution channels has…

• On Twitter, What Are You Doing Was Always The Wrong Question

  brian

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:18 pm

  What are you doing?Perhaps, Twitter asked the wrong question all along.In all honestly, who cares…it was really never about “what you were doing” that inspired your network to stay connected nor was it the siren for attracting new followers. We chose to follow you because you moved or encouraged us to do so – with every update.For many of the users on Twitter, the question that engendered a response and also also aroused a cultural movement was, “what are you doing?” It was a prompt that, for the most part, was taken quite literally. Its answer served as…

• On Twitter and Social Networks, Brands Benefit from Conversations

  brian

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:40 am

  Source: ShutterstockA recent study revealed 20 percent of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives. Now we learn that Twitter users are actively paying attention to brands on the popular information network.According to research conducted by Performics and ROI Research, about half of Twitter users who were introduced to a brand on Twitter were compelled to search for additional information.The companies studied the activity of 3,000 users of social networks in the U.S. Of those polled, 70% use…

• The Golden Triangle

  brian

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:11 am

  Source: ShutterstockPrior to keynoting the PACA conference in Miami, Maria Kessler, president of the PACA Association, asked me if I had read a recent post by Fred Wilson entitled “The Golden Triangle.” We were deep in conversation as I was seeking an alternate title for my next book that identifies the divide between brands, information, and consumers and how we can, as social architects and engineers, build the bridges between people, contextual relationships, and technology. While “The Golden Triangle” isn’t a contender for the name of the next book, it did get me thinking.In…

• With Klout Comes Influence: How To Find Influencers on Twitter

  brian

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am

  This is the uncut version of my latest post on TechCrunch…Measuring individual influence in Social Media is as coveted as it is elusive. While many tools claim to calculate authority, it is the definition of influence that requires clarification in order to grasp the relevance and differences of existing tools and services.For the sake keeping this discussion on track, let’s define influence. According to Merriam-Webster, influence is having the power or capacity to cause an effect.San Francisco-based Klout is no stranger to measuring influence on the Social Web. The company launched…

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  Social Media Marketing Strategy, Tactics, and Tools

• The Social Business Process

  Jacob Morgan

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:02 am

  Over at Chess Media Group we’ve brainstorming steps that companies and consultancies need to take together in order to really be able to create a social business.  We’ve developed what we consider to be a pretty solid social business process that is broken down into three key areas: strategy, creativity, and results.  The steps we have outline are obviously not set in stone but they should serve as a good foundation or framework for most organizations.  Here is what we developed: I’ve broken down all of the ten steps into high level bullet points to make them easy to…

• My Presentation on Social Media ROI

  Jacob Morgan

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:09 am

  If you missed my keynote presentation on social media ROI from this afternoon during social media tools week, I put it up on slideshare.  It’s also embedded below: Social Media ROI Presentation

• The Players Vs the Game

  Jacob Morgan

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:34 pm

  We’ve all heard the saying right?  “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”  Usually this phrase in uttered in a different context (I hope you know what I’m talking about) but just work with me on this.  Try to look at this from a social business standpoint and ask yourself what’s more important, the players or the game?  The players are the users of the various social business tools and applications and the “game” refers to the platforms and tools themselves. The “game” gives us unique opportunities to connect with people and…

• Doing a Keynote on Social Media ROI for Tools Week

  Jacob Morgan

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:02 am

  From November 16-21st the folks over at the social media academy are hosting an online conference called “tools week.”  The conference is bringing together folks from various aspects of the social media space to address things such as best practices, strategies, and measurement.  The entire event takes place online so you have no excuse not to join!  Speakers include folks such as: Bob Thompson of Customer Think Frank Eliason from Comcast Connie Bensen from Techrigy Margaret Francis from Scout Labs and many more On Wednesday November 18th I’m going to be delivering the…

• 2009 Interactive Budgets are Under 30 Million

  Jacob Morgan

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:17 pm

  Recently Forrester released a report estimating the 2009 interactive budgets for various industries, the estimate puts the total interactive budget at under $30 million.  Take a moment to look at the graph below. There are a few things to note form this graph: Consumer goods companies are spending the most on social media Financial services companies are spending the least amount on social media Display advertising spend is still strong across all of the industries in the report, I suspect we will see this change in 2010 The travel and hospitality industry is spending the most on mobile…

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  Dan Zarrella

• Interview with Craig Newmark: How the Craigslist Meme Spread

  Dan Zarrella

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:00 am

  One of the most ubiquitous and disruptive websites to emerge in the last 10 years is Craigslist. Impacting industries from real estate, news paper classifieds, careers and auctions the site has for the most part remained entirely free to use. A great example of organic, word-of-mouth spread I’ve always been interested in how the meme of Craigslist spread from city to city to become one of the most popular uses of the web. I was lucky enough this week to get a chance to ask the site’s founder, Craig Newmark a few questions about exactly that. Here are his answers: Dan: I think the social…

• Weekends and Afternoons Show the Highest Twitter CTRs

  Dan Zarrella

  27 Oct 2009 | 4:18 am

  Want more clicks? My new data suggests that you should Tweet your links in afternoons, evenings and on weekends. Continuing the study of Twitter clickthrough rates I started last week, I added over 100 more of the most followed Twitter accounts to my database and indexed click data on over 20,000 bit.ly links Tweeted by those accounts. In all of the data below, I measured CTR as the number of clicks a link received, divided by the number of followers the sending account had on the day it Tweeted it. As I noted in my other post, this number can be over 100% due to ReTweets that may use the…

• Modeling ReTweet Dynamics

  Dan Zarrella

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:39 am

  Earlier this year I read a paper called “Modeling Blog Dynamics” in which they propose a method of modeling the spread of links through the blogosphere using zero-crossing random walks and exploitation vs. exploration applied to a logical flowchart model: The authors suggested that the model could be used in influence maximization algorithms which aim to identify key, influential individuals in a given social network for the purposes of viral marketing. I was intrigued by the possibilities and have been tossing around a possible flowchart model of how individuals decide to ReTweet…

• Want More Clicks? Tweet Less

  Dan Zarrella

  21 Oct 2009 | 3:40 am

  Tweet Much? Don’t Expect a High CTR. New data I’ve been working on seems to indicate that the more frequently you Tweet links, the fewer clicks you’ll get. I’ve been working towards a statistical model of how an individual makes a decision to ReTweet a specific Tweet and in that process, I came across an interesting problem: before someone ReTweets something, they have to notice it. If you’re anything like me, you’re only able to actually read a small percentage of the total activity in your friend’s timeline, which means that very few of the Tweets I’m technically…

• To #SaveReTweets, Make Sure Everyone Knows How to ReTweet

  Dan Zarrella

  19 Oct 2009 | 6:11 am

  I wrote a little while ago about how Twitter’s plans to mangle ReTweets with its Project ReTweet, and the danger that poses to the crowd-invented functionality. After having several conversations on the topic and wondering what we could to do save ReTweets, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is make sure that everyone knows how to ReTweet the original way. Then, once (or if) Twitter goes ahead with Project ReTweet, we can all continue to use the old format. If you like ReTweets, help save them by spreading this post around to ensure that everyone understands the…

• 
  Bazaarblog

• Interact, don’t just engage.

  Sam Decker | Chief Marketing Officer

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am

  This year’s Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Study was particularly interesting to me, as its focus shifted to ways consumer interact with brands online. This tells me what we’re seeing more and more – a brand’s online presence doesn’t just exist to “tell and sell”; today’s consumers want more. Razorfish reports that “the overwhelming majority of consumers who actively engage with a brand digitally—whether by entering a contest, “friending” a brand on Facebook, or even watching an advert on YouTube—show dramatic upticks across the entire marketing funnel.” In…

• New “Participation Chain” White Paper – Tying contributions together to gain deeper customer engagement… and results!

  Sam Decker | Chief Marketing Officer

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:39 am

  Ze Frank and I were having dinner a several months ago at a fantastic Thai “hole in the wall” in New York. The conversation turned to a subject we think about a lot, albeit coming from different perspectives. We  started talking about how conversations and ongoing touchpoints really make the difference – when actions build upon each other, it can be incredibly impactful. We decided to call this the “participation chain.” Consider a research study that involved phone calls to Dallas residents from Hunger Relief Committee. One set of residents received a call asking if the…

• Coming soon: How participation chains keep the conversation going

  Sam Decker | Chief Marketing Officer

  12 Nov 2009 | 6:36 am

  Time and money are two sides of the same coin. Why do timeshare salespeople give so many freebies to get 90 minutes of your time? Because they know their chances of converting you to buy a condo on the beach goes way up with that much time. You’re participating in their process. When I managed Dell.com consumer site, I added an interactive financing calculator to a page and saw abandonment drop in half? Why? Visitors were participating in something. After you purchase something on Café Press you are asked to forward an invitation to that store to five friends. That works because people…

• Webinar Wrap-up | Social Commerce Pays Off: Real Stories of ROI

  Sam Decker | Chief Marketing Officer

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:36 am

  Our recent webinar with 1-800-Flowers and JC Whitney was all about results, featuring real success stories from our clients showing measurable ROI through their UGC efforts. Duke Marr, VP of Ecommerce and Product Management for 1-800-Flowers.com, shared examples of the company’s success with customer stories. As a brand selling an emotionally connected product, 1-800-Flowers seeks to connect their customers’ passion with their products and brand. The company launched their “Spot a Mom” Stories campaign leading up to Mother’s Day, asking contributors to share their stories of…

• New home means more collaboration

  Ken Saunders | Chief Financial Officer

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:58 am

  This blog post is guest-written by Kathy Smith-Willman, Director of People Operations at Bazaarvoice. We recently moved (for the eighth time in our company’s history!) to a new office — our largest ever. The plan is to continue to grow into this space and stay here awhile. We did a lot of work planning the space to be bright, open, and have plenty of places for teammates to get together, and it’s really working out well. The new, upgraded space has prompted a lot of ad hoc meetings and hallway conversations that didn’t happen as much in our old space. We’ve…

• 
  Rajesh@Blogworks

• Advertising Age's David Klein on why marketers don't need media, and more thoughts...

  16 Nov 2009 | 10:04 pm

  I spent a good part of the day at a bunch of exchange4media initiatives, starting with the Pitch CMO Summit , followed by an Impact One-on-one between Advertising Age's Publishing and Editorial Director David Klein and Madison World's Chairman and MD Sam Balsara. Later in the evening Pitch magazine felicitated 25 top marketers (actually 28) in an award ceremony. I was able to spend some time with Sam about the social media journey in India. He had some brilliant suggestions but the key takeaway for me was that 'we' - active participants in the social media space - are focusing a lot of energy…

• Think about happiness

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:26 am

  Been reading a lot of messages in self-praise, and been thinking How smart can you be, if you need to tell everyone so? How popular can you be, if you need to tell everyone so? How successful can you be, if you still need to tell everyone so? And; How happy can you possibly be, if all you do is tell people how smart, popular and successful you are? Old fashioned may not be a bad thing sometimes - good 'ol modesty still has some value I think. Yes, I know Google search doesn't favour modesty, but still :) Cheers

• Social Media Wiki; factors impacting social media adoption

  22 Oct 2009 | 10:59 pm

  A couple of weeks ago, Shubhodeep Pal, a student of Singapore Management University - SMU reached out to me with an interview request, as part of an ongoing non-profit project for the university, where, in Shubhodeep's words, "students who take the Comm215 course, Digital Media Across Asia, are required to build and expand a wiki that deals exclusively with the digital media landscape across Asia. By the end of 2009, we aim to create the first social media map of Asia." The wiki has existed for a bit and there are other mentions of Blogworks from earlier and there are 3 interviews that have…

• Walk into illumination this Diwali

  16 Oct 2009 | 9:49 pm

  Here's wishing all of you and your families a joyous Diwali from all of us at Blogworks. May you walk into illumination this year. I loved this picture by Sankarshan on first sight. He is amongst the most wonderful people I know and what a great couple Runa and he make :). These are the things on my mind right now: One Two Three Have a wonderful day and a great year ahead. Cheers

• Social Media Marketing Triads - Slide-deck

  1 Oct 2009 | 5:51 am

  I just converted my Social Media Marketing Triad post into a slide-deck and put it on Slideshare. Even before I knew what was happening it has found its way to the home page and into featured posts. Thought I will share it here: Social Media Marketing Triads - version 1.1View more presentations from rajeshlalwani.

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  Rahaf Harfoush » Blog

• Happy November 4th!

  Rahaf

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:58 pm

  November 2008 It’s incredible how much can change in one year. At this time last year, I was working as a volunteer on Barack Obama’s New Media Team in Chicago. It was Election day and everyone was wound up tight with anticipation, excitement and fear. I had spent the last few months working with some of the brightest minds in digital media and strategy and it all came down to this day. In celebration of that historic win, I am sharing some of my personal videos of my time at the campaign. Sharing Some Down Time: Everyone on the team worked long hours, 7 days a week. It was nice…

• Good Reads: Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel (PART 1)

  Rahaf

  14 Oct 2009 | 1:54 pm

  Since I’ve been spending an increasing amount of time on planes, my Kindle has become my absolute favorite thing. I was quite eager to get my hands on a copy of Mitch Joel’s new book “Six Pixels of Separation.” I first met Mitch at the SES Toronto 2008 conference where I heard him speak on a panel. He was also the first IDEA NINJA that I profiled! I am happy to announce that I officially consider his book a Foushy Good Read! The Book:  (Via Amazon) Is it important to be connected? Well, consider this: If Facebook were a country, it would have the sixth largest…

• Article in the Times&Transcript

  Rahaf

  13 Oct 2009 | 2:04 pm

  An article from the Times&Transcript The laughter and the note taking, the applause for making some of her remarks in beautiful French, and especially the rousing standing ovation at the end of her speech all said Rahaf Harfoush had connected with the more than 250 people who came out to the Delta Beauséjour to hear her yesterday afternoon. Enlarge Photo GREG AGNEW/TIMES & TRANSCRIPT Rahaf Harfoush, new media strategist and former Obama campaign team member, chats with Mayor George LeBlanc yesterday during the Intelligent Communities Summit in Moncton. But the best praise for her…

• Yes We Did to be translated in Spanish!

  Rahaf

  30 Sep 2009 | 8:40 am

  I have some amazing news! “Yes We Did” will be published in Spanish in early 2010! I am so excited to go back and promote the book over there - Spain was one of my favorite places that I’ve visited this past year. This is the third foreign language that has been purchased, the other two are Japanese and Simple Chinese. It is now also available for the Amazon Kindle. Also a very special thanks to everyone who has emailed me to let me know how much they liked the book. It is such a thrill to receive each and every one of your notes and never fails to brighten my day. Over the…

• JK Wedding Dance - The Evolution of Viral Marketing

  Rahaf

  16 Aug 2009 | 11:04 am

  By now, many of you might have seen the the JK Wedding Dance, the latest viral video to hit the web. The video shows couple Jill and Kevin’s creative spin on the traditional entrance of the bridal party at their wedding. Set to the song “Forever,” by Chris Brown (incidentally who was recently charged with assaulting his then-girlfriend) the video soared to instant popularity online. Even traditional media picked it up including CNN and Good Morning America. Here’s the video below: Now the interesting thing is that I have been hearing rumbles about the authenticity of…

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  Soshable

• Social Blitz I, This Week In Social Media (in 2min 31sec)

  JD Rucker

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:28 pm

  A new segment of the Social Blade Show was launched this week. The “Social Blitz” portion of the show goes over some of the news from the week in social media in a short, overview-based report. Here’s the first. What do you think? Read more about social media on this Social Media Blog.

• Tom from MySpace vs Facebook

  JD Rucker

  8 Nov 2009 | 6:23 pm

  This video from Social Blade Theater is a quite hilarious. As a fictional depiction of Tom Anderson from MySpace joining and trying out Facebook, this video takes an offbeat look at the competition between social media giants. See more funny social media happenings on this Social Media Blog.

• Mortified in Real-Time (Comic)

  JD Rucker

  8 Nov 2009 | 12:32 pm

  I was browsing the genius of “Noise to Signal” today and came across a comic that broke down everything new social web users fear. That pretty much sums up Web 2.0 fears, both for individuals as well as business. Find more interesting Web 2.0 content on this Social Media Blog.

• Social Media. You’re Probably Already a Part of It and Don’t Even Know It.

  Erin Ryan

  8 Nov 2009 | 1:02 am

  A Guest Post By Erin Ryan First off, this is not for those mainstream New Media folks that already know that Digg is a news site or why Twitter has nothing to do with a bird. This is meant for those who are new to the Social Mediaverse and are unsure, skeptical and maybe even too old fashioned to be persuaded. As a twenty-eight year old growing up in the so-called “Tech Age”, as computers revolutionized and “the internet” was the coolest thing on the face of the earth, even if dial-up took 3 hours, my generation didn’t care, we would sit there and watch the little earth icon spin,…

• The Twitter Paradox: Why it will likely fail sooner or later

  JD Rucker

  20 Oct 2009 | 10:37 am

  The doom and gloom crowd has been predicting Twitter’s demise for years. “Where is their revenue model?” “It goes down too much.” “Spam is taking over.” “WHERE IS THEIR REVENUE MODEL?” After 2 years of defending Twitter, I’m starting to question whether or not I was wrong and they were all right. Marketers, Spammers, and Bots, OH MY! When Twitter first started making it’s mainstream push around a year ago, the percentage of tweets with links in them was very low. It was possible to get 10k clicks on links tweeted by…

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  Brains On Fire Blog

• People are just amazing.

  Robbin

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:02 am

  “Closeness to customers” is something I have been studying lately. I wrote about the effect it has on your company here. I also believe it is huge part of what we help our clients do. We help our clients create deeper more meaningful, emotional connections to the clients they serve. So in an effort to practice what we preach, I’m in the process of spending time “interviewing” our clients and some of our client’s customers. And here is what I have to share with you: Do it. NOW. If you’re part of company or organization and you have customers or advocates,…

• Patagonia presentation - 2009 WOMMA Summit in Vegas

  Spike

  19 Nov 2009 | 10:12 am

  This morning at the WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas, The VP of marketing for Patagonia, Rob BonDurant, took the stage to talk about one of the most fascinating, word of mouth worthy, mission-driven, cult-like brands around. And he didn’t disappoint. You could call the whole talk a highlight, but here are the tidbits that resonated with me: We would rather inspire than promote. We would rather earn credibility over a purchase. Advertising should be used only as a last resort. The three charters of Patagonia. It’s what they adhere to and live by. We don’t create stories. We publish them. These…

• Stories make Connections

  Geno

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:50 am

  I’m lucky to be the grandson of a storyteller. My grandfather told me a ton of stories growing up; they were a combination of tall tales and family stories. Often the storytelling took place in usual environments - in his garden, or sitting on the hood of his car eating hot dogs on the edge of the Greenville Downtown Airport. And so it goes… I seek out storytellers for our clients. I’m captivated by how people use stories to connect, especially when un-prompted. As fate would have it Brains on Fire is now working with the granddaddy of storytelling… Colonial Williamsburg. The…

• On devoting your time to what works

  Eric

  17 Nov 2009 | 10:17 am

  Spike said in his last blog post that “technology can be a trap.” We rant all of the time around here about how ’social media is a tool’ and how ‘it might not be best for your business’ and on and on. But it reminded me of a real story about technology as a trap. Do you remember way back, well, actually, a short time ago when Twitter first started to grab headlines and brands began to view it as a business tool? Companies everywhere started to question whether they should ‘be on Twitter.’ Some time after that initial uproar I was out to dinner…

• Twitter, you’re not a person

  Spike

  16 Nov 2009 | 5:51 am

  Rumor has is that the panel that’s choosing TIME’s Person of the Year is split between Twitter and and The Economy. Wha? Okay, according to a WIRED article, this isnt’ the first time a non-person might win the award. In 1982, “The Computer” got the nod. Since then a fair amount of non-persons have won: The Endangered Earth (1988), The Peacemakers (1993), The Whistleblowers (2002), The Good Samaritans (2005) and, of course, You, in 2006. I get it. I know that naming Twitter person of the year would get a lot of buzz. But let’s take a look at some of the reality: via…

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  Web Marketing by Mark McLaren and McBuzz Communications

• WordPress Security: Create a New User and Delete the Default “admin” Account

  Mark McLaren

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:02 pm

  This post tells you the simplest way to improve security on your WordPress website or blog. Recently there was a big security scare for WordPress users. A “worm” (a form of automated malicious software) was traveling around the Internet trying to break into unsuspecting WordPress users’ sites. Even high-profile bloggers like Robert Scoble were caught without adequate file and database backups in place. Scoble lost a bunch of posts, and said he felt less certain of WordPress as a result. But the fact is, Scoble should have backed up his site. At the very least, he should have…

• Is Yahoo! Determined to Remain a Web 1.0 Company?

  Mark McLaren

  27 Oct 2009 | 11:17 am

  Yahoo! announced in April that it would shut down its free website service, GeoCities, despite the fact that collectively GeoCites websites get over 10 million unique monthly visitors. This week it made good on the promise. The decision to shut down GeoCities rather than sell it or do something more creative like partner with another business to keep it going is short-sighted, and, in my opinion, sends the message that Yahoo! is willing to put profit before customer satisfaction. It’s probably driven almost completely by the desire to show a profit in the short term. That would explain…

• WordPress, Premium WordPress Themes, and the General Public License (GPL)

  Mark McLaren

  13 Oct 2009 | 12:07 pm

  Of the millions of WordPress users, I’d bet that less than 20% understand the significance of the General Public License (GPL), especially when it comes to premium WordPress themes (custom themes that you pay for). I say this with confidence because only recently did I get a clue myself. This is an excellent video made from a series of interviews with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. Matt Mullenweg gives an overview of the GPL and how it benefits WordPress, why WordPress is licensed under the GPL, how the GPL fosters innovation, affects themes and plugins, and creates value. Here is a…

• My 5 Favorite “How to Use Twitter for Business” Posts

  Mark McLaren

  8 Oct 2009 | 1:48 pm

  The series called “How Not to Use Twitter” is rolling along. I would love your contributions. Meanwhile, on a more positive note, I’ve been thinking about ways to introduce people to Twitter. Laura Fitton has a new book for “beginners” - which is about 90% of us! Twitter for Dummies. There are literally thousands of Twitter how-to’s online. Here are my favorites, in no particular order. I’m hoping to get your suggestions about more. Rowse, Brogan, Stelzner, Owyang, Walling of ReadWriteWeb - these are all some of social media’s best and…

• Review of Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation

  Mark McLaren

  22 Sep 2009 | 2:26 pm

  Over on the Social Media Club Seattle website, they have posted my review of Mitch Joel’s new book: Six Pixels of Separation. Here’s a taste from the review: Today building an online brand is something anyone can do. In fact, even if you are not online, your brand is being created for you by the search engines and by other people who are. The tools that social media superstar Chris Brogan has used to create one of the most successful online brands ever are available to everyone, and most of them are free. In this new media ecosystem, some business strategies that used to work will…

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  a thousand cuts :: adam cohen's blog

• The Marketing Hot Seat: Rachel Happe

  adam

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:33 pm

  If you don’t know Rachel Happe yet, you are missing out.  I’ve had the sincere pleasure of getting to know Rachel in the local Boston social media scene, and it was clear from my first conversation with her that she knows social media and the power of community unlike most.  With a background that includes working as a research manager at IDC and a senior director of social media products at Mzinga, Rachel brings a refreshing, thought-provoking view to what challenges large enterprises are facing with Web 2.0.  Before reading her point of view on the Marketing Hot Seat,…

• 7 Inputs to a Social Media Strategy

  adam

  15 Nov 2009 | 6:57 pm

  Building a social media strategy is not something that can be whipped together overnight.  For context, any company that is looking to develop a strategy for leveraging social media should first check out the POST methodology from Forrester Research.  The “People” part of the approach (followed by Objectives, Stategy and Technology) has a short description: Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you’re reaching out business travelers, consider ratings and…

• The Marketing Hot Seat: Marc Meyer

  adam

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:24 am

  Marc Meyer is one of the few folks who agreed to participate in the Marketing Hot Seat I haven’t had the pleasure of actually meeting in person.  I hope that changes soon.  If you don’t know Marc, his blog is a continual source of thought provoking discussion in social media.  With his experience consulting in both social media and search, his background provides a powerful combo.  Marc is also the co-founder of hashtagsocialmedia, a series of amazing chats over Twitter with folks who are making a big impact in the industry. Below is Marc’s answer to the Marketing…

• Social Media Monitoring: A Glimpse At the Future

  adam

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:18 pm

  Warren Sukernek shared this presentation recently and it hit home on a variety of fronts. As we spend time with clients working through social media monitoring, we find more and more examples of how it’s not a precise science.  Sitting side by side with folks who work every day in detailed web analytics who continually look for ways to optimize PPC spend, our social media team has experienced first hand many challenges outlined in Marshall Sponder’s presentation.  Some points that resonated strongly: Sentiment analysis today is too much like Quantum Physics There is a…

• The Social Media Landing Page Phenomenon

  adam

  30 Oct 2009 | 12:16 pm

  As social media channels become outposts for companies, their websites need to keep up.  The big challenge: the two concepts are diametrically opposed.  Build a compelling, optimized website to bring customers (and potential customers) to you, versus establish social media outposts to go where your customers are.  Enter the new art and technique of the Social Media Landing Page (SMLP for short).  The SMLP is a bridge between the two, both to add legitimacy to social channels like a Twitter account but also risking pulling customers away from your website.  Companies who establish these…

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  Studio Notes by Shai Coggins

• Low-fi Photography: The Return of an Obsession

  Shai Coggins

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:08 pm

  Low-fi photography may seem like a step backward when you look at today’s photographic world. Most people are striving for more “professional looking” photos, what with the rise of high tech point-and-shoot cameras and accessible DSLRs, as well as the myriad of accessories and post-processing tools available. Lately, though, there has been a rise in interest with low-fi photography. Primarily, in analog/film cameras that are considered to be “toy cameras” such as the Holgas, the Dianas, the Lomos, the Blackbird Flys, the Pinholes, etc. Instant cameras like…

• Celebrating: 1st Year of Grad School is Over!

  Shai Coggins

  17 Nov 2009 | 3:05 am

  When I first shared the news about embarking on a new journey back in graduate school here at the Studio, the thought of doing a two-year Master of Teaching programme seemed daunting. Exciting, too, of course. But, I was definitely apprehensive due to a variety of reasons. My First Classroom: This was where I taught during my first teaching practicum Having studied primarily in Asian educational systems, the idea of studying in Australia was something that scared me on different levels. I know that might sound strange to some of you. But, having been raised the way I was, there’s…

• 52WoC #47: Holiday Wish List

  Shai Coggins

  10 Nov 2009 | 2:47 pm

  Yes, it has been sooo long since I posted a 52 Weeks of Blog Community task. I think what held me back is that I wanted to wait for folks to get a chance to put together videos for the 52WoC#46 task (including moi!), so that I can do a decent round-up. Then, I suddenly thought to myself: “Well, hey, silly. Why don’t you just start posting the tasks – and do your round-ups later? This way, you can just let the 52WoCers get their chance to work on whatever task that they’re able to do.” Duh. I wish I thought of that sooner! So, that’s right. I’m keeping…

• … and The Boy Can Play Music!

  Shai Coggins

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:37 pm

  About the same time last year, I shared with you the story of my son’s beginnings as a music learner. Yes, just a little over a year ago, he started taking piano lessons after asking us a few times if he can learn to play an instrument. Back then, my husband and I didn’t know how he’d take to the whole idea of doing piano lessons and practices. But, we figured that since he was showing some interest, we might as well encourage him to try. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing all the way due to a variety of reasons. But, in spite the fact that he had to change schools,…

• Style Studio: A Smile for Spring!

  Shai Coggins

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:34 am

  It’s the people who make you smile that matter most. Who cares about those who try to wipe them away? Just keep smiling anyway. It’s amazing how different emails can make you feel different things within a matter of minutes. Recently, I’ve had the strange experience of receiving a series of emails from different people under varying circumstances that had contrasting effects to my emotions. The first lot of emails made me seethe and weep. The other lot of emails made me smile. Even laugh out loud. Feel excited. All the emails were coming within minutes of each other. If anyone was…

• 
  terrainnova.org

• Respect, fame & money

  Dimitris

  11 Nov 2009 | 4:22 am

  Image by Sara Golemon via Flickr These days everyone seems to be making an app store. I think it all started (or at least became popular) with the iPhone releasing their SDK or – or was it with Twitter opening up their API? And then Android, Facebook of course, Yahoo, MySpace as well as any startup with a few miles behind them are opening up their platform so that 3rd party developers can create value for whatever it is they are making. And soon after that even more mainstream companies like Nokia and Vodafone weigh in by making their own platforms (more) available – something…

• Large followings’ advantage

  Dimitris

  8 Nov 2009 | 3:43 am

  Image by National Library NZ on The Commons via Flickr In a previous post I mentioned that most of the Greek TV channels main asset is live content: sports and music events is content that cannot be found elsewhere (neither online nor in competitors) so it keeps viewers faithful to their brand. But that’s not entirely true: live content is not their only remaining major asset much as TV channels like to think so. They have something else – the effect you get when many people start and keep following a source of information (in whatever medium). It doesn’t matter how bad or…

• Commoditizing live content

  Dimitris

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:46 am

  Image by Monica’s Dad via Flickr As I said in my previous post, Greek TV channels most sought-after content is live events (sports, music etc) which cannot be found elsewhere (neither in competitors nor online). Securing licenses for such content turns out as a major asset for such providers – and I can imagine that this holds not just for Greece but any and all countries. So what would it take for this last castle, which offers possibilities of monopoly to a single (or a few) providers, to fall? What would allow even live events to escape from the stranglehold of large, existing…

• Live content matters

  Dimitris

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:30 am

  A few months back I was talking to a guy who works at the Greek subscription channel Nova and he was telling me that the content most sought after by TV channels is none other than the coverage of live events. In Greece this means mostly football and basketball games and perhaps to a lesser extent other sports and music concerts. Image via Wikipedia And there’s good reason for that. As broadband use and torrents’ downloading increases any type of content other than live offered by the provider can be found online. Films can be downloaded, news and information can be found in many…

• Question search engine

  Dimitris

  29 Oct 2009 | 3:15 am

  Image by Oberazzi via Flickr These days, if you think about it, it’s super easy to find the answer to pretty much any question we can think of – perhaps excluding very exotic and obscure issues. A simple search engine query is all it takes. If you allow for asking questions to other individuals (who might be keepers of such exotic information), email and the social media are also relatively simple tools to employ when getting answers. So if it’s not about having the answers, what is it about? Often, it’s that we don’t know the questions themselves. Picasso said…

• 
  Bare Feet Studios

• Social Media and Spirituality: A Meditation on Change

  Roxanne Darling

  13 Nov 2009 | 10:59 pm

  I am speaking tomorrow on The Tools of Change Panel at Envision Hawaii 2009. It has me thinking about what changes are happening right before our very eyes and how we can proactively embrace them to move this party forward with more intention. Barriers and Gate-Keepers Are Being Removed One of the most exciting accomplishments for me professionally occurred 5 years ago when one of my clients had her blog added to Tom Peter’s blogroll. Mary Schmidt was a marketing consultant who had a common name in a crowded profession, along with the usual limited budget of a solo-preneur. She was also…

• Social Media Events: New School or Old School?

  Roxanne Darling

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:33 pm

  Even though we have these amazing, 24/7 ubiquitous connections taking place on the social web, IRL (in real life) conferences are still booming. I think that many of us still long for those face to face connections, even more so now that our networks have blown way past the indications of Dunbar’s number. He he. This is an opinion piece about things I see happening in the social media space, in short Twitter-sized sound bytes. I am imposing that limit on myself as I am short on time today. With #podcamphawaii & #socialmediaclub we have open tents, everybody’s welcome. (My…

• Social Web Bootcamp – Time to Get in the Game

  Roxanne Darling

  26 Oct 2009 | 9:32 am

  Does it feel like 1999 all over again? Remember when you didn’t think you needed a web site because you had a brochure? Confused by all the hype surrounding blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook? Then Social Web Bootcamp is for you. It’s a one day program that takes you from the 30,000’ view of how things work all the way down to live demos for creating a blog, a Twitter account, and setting up your social networking identity. Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 Time: 9 am – 4 pm Place: ING Direct Cafe – 1958 Kalakaua Ave, Honolulu, HI A decade ago when the internet was really…

• How Do Logos Matter to You?

  Roxanne Darling

  21 Oct 2009 | 8:21 pm

  At a recent meeting of the Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club, I talked briefly with Dr. Bill Haig of Power Logo Design about the shifting sands of brand credibility and how that gets created and managed. He has a successful business and several white papers on the specialty of “credibility based logo design.” He has found it can increase conversion rates by two four times on the home page. He emailed me today talking about how this impacts social web brand building and I offered to create a poll. So here it is after the jump! Please add your vote and share your comments with…

• Get Daily Inspiration & Help Rox Get the Good Mood Gig

  Roxanne Darling

  9 Oct 2009 | 10:46 am

  Vote for Rox to win the Good Mood Gig from SAM-e I have entered the contest to win a 6-month blogging gig to write about “good moods” for Nature Made and their natural mood supplement, Sam-e. No product endorsements required. Seems like a perfect opportunity to share aloha with the world. Voting is open and I am off to a late start. Can you help me get ahead? It’s easy! Just vote for me once a day until Oct 30. Please tell your networks too. I am offering you a daily inspiration and email reminder message to help me out. It will come from Bare Feet Studios. This is a…

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  Social Media Marketing

• Enough Is Enough

  Scott Monty

  16 Nov 2009 | 6:07 am

  The spam and other unsolicited DMs I've been getting on Twitter have finally gotten to me. And I'm going to be taking action. A Bit of BackgroundYou know the kind of direct messages I'm talking about, all with spammy links in them:"Is this you on here?""I just gave you a High Five! Check it out""Hey, I got some free ringtones from here""Hey, can you take this quiz thingy?""I found out my IQ. You should too.""I lost a bunch of weight doing this."And many, many more.Lots of the direct messages I get are of the automated sort when people first start following me. Having been someone who used to…

• When Worlds Collide

  Scott Monty

  10 Nov 2009 | 8:04 pm

  Well, it's finally here. Twitter and LinkedIn have decided to combine forces. This is pretty significant, and I know that it'll make it easier to share job opportunities and other more networking opportunities that are more professional in nature.I won't bore you with all of the details, but you can now update your LinkedIn status via Twitter, and your Twitter status from LinkedIn. If you'd like to see how to go about it, check out the post on the LinkedIn blog.One of the features I like best is how you can select which updates you want posted to LinkedIn - everything or just those posts…

• What's a Brand to Do?

  Scott Monty

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:03 am

  Say you work for a brand. Customers have more access to you than ever - and you've got a wealth of choices as far as channels go: traditional marketing, online & interactive, gaming, mobile, social media, etc. But for your customers that are interested in interacting online, what do you think they want from you? And what should you do when you connect with them? Look no further! eMarketer Daily has very helpfully published a piece on Lightspeed Research's "Global Web Index." What do customer want from the brands they love? Information, mostly (well, after a good discount, anyway).

• Recent Twitter Statistics

  Scott Monty

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:50 am

  The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released some statistics about Twitter and other similar services that Americans use to post updates about themselves. The bottom line? About one in five Americans uses such a service.Click here for a larger image.Another interesting phenomenon is that we're seeing more young people using Twitter now. There have been anecdotal reports that young people were shying away from Twitter, but we can see the hard numbers here:The median age for Twitter is now 31, while MySpace is down 26 from its previous 27 in May of 2008; and Facebook has risen…

• No Kidding

  Scott Monty

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:21 am

  I originally wrote this over a year ago, but I think it deserves another go around, as there seem to be even more social media "experts" out there. Please add your suggestion to the comments section or on Twitter with the hashtag #smbulb and let's see how many responses we can get. Stop me if you've heard this. Yesterday, I asked a question on Twitter - one that Joseph Jaffe rhetorically asked on his blog - I posed it as a joke and asked for responses. The question was: How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb? My original answer on Joe's blog was: "309. One to come up…

• 
  The Relationship Economy

• Are CMO’s Clueless?

  Jay Deragon

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series social media directionsSome of the articles I read make be wonder if the market and marketers are paying attention to their market. Then again since I spend everyday watching markets and the influence of social media on these markets maybe I am one of the few who actually sees what is happening. According to Chief Marketing Officer . com: CMOs Need Greater Engagement Internally And Through Social Nets For Brands To Thrive: More than four out of five (84 percent) chief marketing officers (CMOs) allocate less than ten percent of their budgets to…

• The Power Of Social Distribution

  Jay Deragon

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series social media directionsIn the old days (and they are still around) media was “pushed” upon the masses and shaped our attitudes, beliefs and perspectives on everything. Today our attitudes, beliefs and perspectives on everything are being shaped by a different kind of media. This new media is created by we the people and shared with those we have an affinity with. Unlike the previous power curve of old media new media creates a different, more expansive, powerful and influential curve. The curve has to do with “virtual…

• How Does The Market Move?

  Jay Deragon

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  Markets move when new information enters a market. Today markets are overloaded with new information flooding our minds and vying for our attention. New and old media grabs our attention when it provides relevant and relative information that appeals to our affinities.  Media surrounds us 24/7 both online and off-line. Media moves markets because it influences behavior, thinking, conversations and  actions. Markets are  segmented into four categories regardless of product or service. Each group is influenced by information flooding each segment of the market. Each segment reacts to…

• Is Social Media Shifting?

  Jay Deragon

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  This entry is part 38 of 37 in the series Social MediaI started examining the phenomena of social technology in 2006 and have watched it shift through different phases. Each phase has brought new meaning and as more and more people engage the dynamics have changed. With rapid adoption and interest people and businesses are learning what,where,when, why and how different markets segments are finding utility and value in its use. From the early days of chat rooms, Prodigy, “You Got Mail”, Compuserve, Netscape, Instant Messaging, Napster then networks like MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin…

• What Is The Market’s Intention?

  Jay Deragon

  17 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  This entry is part 16 of 15 in the series Conversational CurrencyMarketers act as though we are all cattle waiting to be herded into a transaction. It seems as though the prevailing thought about all this social technology is that it enables organizations to “herd” us into their community and they use “tricks of the trade” to do so. Ever consider what is the intention of the large social networks? Facebook wants our traffic so they can sell ads to the marketers. The market still fails to understand that we don’t want ads rather we’re looking for…

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  EveryJoe » Social Media

• Who Follows Whom on Twitter

  Jason Bean

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:40 am

  When you spend a lot of time on twitter, you’re probably making lots of friends. One of the features that I think is great on Facebook is the mutual friends display. I use this frequently to determine if I should already know this person or perhaps what the context is of the reason I should know them. Although not quite as easy to do within the twitter interface, there is a similar tool available from the Who Follows Whom website. Who Follows Whom allows you to put in multiple twitter usernames, up to 5, and see who are the people that both people are following and who are the people…

• Job Hunt Tips: Don’t Forget to Network

  Miranda Marquit

  13 Nov 2009 | 9:49 am

  By some estimates, this is the toughest job market in two decades. Indeed, the fact that the unemployment rate just topped 10% indicates how difficult things are right now. Which means that relying solely on the job boards may be a bad idea. Indeed, CNN Money points out that this is not even close to enough if you are serious about succeeding in the job hunt: According to Paul Bernard, a veteran executive coach and career management adviser who runs his own firm, many job seekers make the mistake of relying too heavily on online job boards, particularly at the start of their search. Bernard…

• The NHL Scores on New Twitter Lists

  Jason Bean

  9 Nov 2009 | 4:07 pm

  Twitter, the micro-blogging service, recently release a new feature that allows users to create lists to categorize and group the people they follow. One of the really helpful features of the new twitter lists functionality is that you can set the lists to be public or private. Public lists can be shared with other twitter users and the NHL has taken this functionality and created a very targeted business use for hockey fans. The NHL (@NHL on twitter) has created lists for each of the active NHL teams, as well as some older teams that no longer exist. When the Twitter Lists functionality…

• Why Networking is Good for your Business

  Anna Farmery

  29 Oct 2009 | 8:58 pm

  Business has always been a personal experience as it is people selling, buying, dealing with people. Social media has helped business hugely to connect on that personal level with the investment now being time rather than money. If business need a reason to invest in social networking then look at this fact “According to Brand Reputation, 84% of the consumers they surveyed are more likely to look for online product reviews than they were just a year ago” That fact is powerful enough as you realise that Google is your primary advertising tool but then if you add “And those…

• 5 Tips On How To Use Social Media Wisely

  Kim Beasley

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:32 am

  When using social media, there are a few things that one should keep in mind when connecting with others. Being able to use social media wisely is very important. Image: SXC.hu To help you think about a few things when using social media, I have created a short list below: Respect others and don’t SPAM with links. Don’t always push information our to people, connect with others by responding to others. If you come across helpful information, be willing to share it. Be open to answering questions that you friends may ask. Look at ways where you can automate or manage your social…

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  Ignite Social Media

• American Red Cross - Non-profit Social Media Marketing Example #4

  Kristin Rawski

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:06 am

  For our next post in the social media nonprofit series, I wanted to highlight one of the ways that the American Red Cross has been successful with their social media strategies. I recently stumbled across their website and discovered their “Holiday Mail for Heroes” campaign. I love the holidays, so it’s no surprise that I wanted to find out more. This great program allows people to send holiday cards to service members, veterans, and their families. Amy Grant is partnering with the Red Cross and Pitney Bowes to make the program a success and was at the special kick-off event…

• Facebook Fan Badge: Show love for your favorite fan pages

  Anne Brannon

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:24 pm

  UPDATE 11/19: Keep reading for a quick how-to guide to posting to your Facebook profile. Most people would no doubt lose their jobs if they spent half the working hours that I spend on Facebook. Luckily for me, working at a social media agency means that pretty much IS my job. So, as I was doing my job today, I came across something I've not yet seen: Facebook Fan Badges. I'm more than familar with Fan Page badges that creators of fan pages can use to promote their presence on Facebook across various other social channels. However, this new discovery sparked my interest. Here's what I was…

• Industrial Strength Reputation Monitoring : Pubcon 2009

  Brian Chappell

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:32 am

  Last week was the infamous Pubcon Internet and Social Media Marketing conference held in Las Vegas Nevada. Over 4,000 fellow Internet marketers each year descend on the bright city. This year, I had the chance to speak on a panel about Reputation Management and Monitoring. I was excited to see this year that they had added an extensive amount of panels discussing social media marketing tactics. If you think SEO and Social Media still don't belong together at Internet Marketing conferences, then you are living in the dark. Below you will find my presentation I gave at the conference where I…

• Meet the Good Mood Gig Finalists

  Jeremy Griffin

  17 Nov 2009 | 7:32 am

  If you follow our blog, then you probably recall one of our most recent campaigns for Nature Made SAM-e Complete®: The Good Mood Gig. We had an overwhelming response, as over 800 folks applied, and the collective votes reached nearly 300,000. Thanks to everyone who applied and voted, we’ve enjoyed checking out your entries and essays. Now, we’re highlighting our top 20 vote earners, who created videos to show off why they should be the ones to land the Good Mood Gig. You can (and should) go vote for one of these applicants, because it is going to be hard enough for us to…

• Under the Dome - Stephen King's Newest Novel is a Social Experiment

  Jeremy Griffin

  28 Oct 2009 | 7:57 am

  I'm a fan of Stephen King, even though I find some of his work to be a bit daunting and overwhelming, he is still one of the greatest literary giants of our time. There's really no denying that. His stories are often gruesome and bone-chilling (Cujo, Carrie, The Shining), and some are even heart wrenching and beautiful (Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption). Others are epic works that encompass entire lives and worlds (The Stand). Now, King has embraced the power of social media and adapted a new way of storytelling by sharing peices of his latest story, Under the Dome, all over the world.

• 
  SocialButterfly

• Knowledge + Attitude = Action?

  Alex

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:36 pm

  This was the equation at the center of one of Thursday’s New York Times Articles titled: How Understanding the Human Mind Might Save the World from CO2. The article shared insights gained from the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference this past week in Washington D.C., and wouldn’t you know–highlighted social marketing as a potential solution to leading the climate change movement forward. I believe the main message from the article is best summed up by one of the quotes from researcher Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr: “Social psychologists have now known for four…

• Mr. Roboto is…a Social Marketeer?

  Alex

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:46 pm

  Yes, you heard correctly. Who ever thought you’d hear the word “robot” used in the same sentence of “social marketing?”  Julia Snow of SocialMarketingEast did. Using online technology xtranormal, Snow created three YouTube tutorials about social marketing–each lasting about a minute and a half–featuring robots. The idea is for anyone to create their own videos or to submit questions that can be addressed in future tutorials. Below, you can follow part one of the robots explaining what social marketing is and how it’s different from traditional…

• Focus on Some Inspiration

  Alex

  15 Nov 2009 | 9:52 am

  I am so thankful for community–including those at BlogHer. I woke up this morning and found this inspiring post and video emphasizing a word that I’ve been concentrating on: FOCUS. The video starts with this beautiful quote. I encourage you to take a moment and reflect upon it: “Your real work is to decide what you want and then focus upon it, for it is through focusing upon what you want–that you will get it. That is the process of creating.” The video closes with another thought-provoking quote by Ghandi: “Keep your thoughts as positive because your…

• Transparency Isn’t Just for the Government

  Alex

  12 Nov 2009 | 9:33 pm

  It’s also for non-profits. This was the hottest topic during our first #read4change gathering–fueled by the recent revelations of Kiva and its transparency question. (Background: a NY Times article broke sharing that Kiva, a micro-lending Web site that markets “person-to-person” lending–actually works with third parties to help get loans in the hands of people who need them.) What I find most interesting–is that while this revelation has created an emotional response, most people still choose to support the cause. An additional effect is that it has sparked…

• Building a Web Site: Easy as 1, 2 OR 3?

  Alex

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pm

  Today, I heard that fundamentally there are three main purposes of a Web site: 1) informational, 2) transactional and 3) community-based. AnInformationalWeb site is one that is primarily a resource. A transactional Web site has a desired action, which is usually associated with e-commerce. And lastly, a community-based Web site is one that is designed to encourage people to interact, network and share. I’m not one to put things into boxes and draw hard boundaries, but at first I liked this concept. It’s simple. It’s easy. But, after pondering for a second, I got to thinking:…

• 
  Debbie Weil's BlogWrite for CEOs

• The Mating of Tim O’Reilly, Washington DC and Gov 2.0

  debbie.weil@gmail.com

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:25 am

  New York, NY Had a two-minute conversation with Tim O'Reilly yesterday, standing in one of the wide, wide hallways of the Javits Center where his Web 2.0 Expo took place this week. I knew from his bio that he was a Harvard grad and asked him what year he graduated. '75 or '76, he said, depending on how you qualify it. That's my era at Harvard (I'm class of 1974). But Tim went through in three years, hence the date confusion. He majored in Classics. He lived in ultra cool Adams House. And then moved off campus. OFF CAMPUS! Too cool and, by Harvard standards, daring. Almost all the students…

• The New Measure of Cool: Your Number of Twitter Lists

  debbie.weil@gmail.com

  11 Nov 2009 | 3:57 pm

  I was added to a couple more Twitter Lists today. My total is now 190 200. Small potatoes compared with the likes of Robert Scoble (4,297) or Guy Kawasaki (5,743). But it’s a fascinating new metric. It’s the new measure of cool. How many people are really listening to your tweets? How useful or interesting are you? Do you add any value to the conversation? All those questions are answered, in a way, by the number of Twitter lists you’re on. And by the topic of those lists. I love being included on Female Geek lists, like Social Media Mavens and Femmes Digitales. Then…

• Mashing Up Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for the Average Joe/Jill

  debbie.weil@gmail.com

  10 Nov 2009 | 2:42 pm

  With the announcement yesterday that LinkedIn and Twitter have inked a deal, the gradual meshing of your digital footprints continues. 140-character tweets can now appear as status updates on both LinkedIn and Facebook pages. (Note that you can control which tweets appear on Facebook and LinkedIn by tagging them, respectively, with #fb or #in.) Impressively, an @TwitterName in your tweet is also an active link on LinkedIn, meaning that you can click and go directly to that Twitter page. That's a bit of technology that's ever so clever, as it makes the language of these different platforms…

• Cupcakes and… Social Networking: the Two Dirtiest Words in Gov 2.0

  debbie.weil@gmail.com

  9 Nov 2009 | 6:51 pm

  Do you love cupcakes? Groove on social networking? Don’t miss the next Sweets and Tweets on Nov. 17, 2009. I’ve invited the inimitable Mark Drapeau (Washington Life calls him a Social Media Bon Vivant) to talk about social networking, the two dirtiest words in Government 2.0. Social networking on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is not about being social or frivolous or wasting time. Social networking can improve the process of government.  Mark will talk about why social networking is more than collaboration and how it’s OK that the line between work and play is…

• What Does “Writing 3.0” Mean to You? (Quick Poll)

  debbie.weil@gmail.com

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:14 pm

  Results of my quick poll, "What does Writing 3.0 mean to you?" suggest that most folks (39% of respondents) assign a 3.0 to the kind of concise writing we do for Twitter or Facebook. Others mention co-creation, collaboration, wikis or "nothing." 22% say Writing 3.0 is "the way to lay down your best digital footprint." And 10% say, "Forget writing, video rules." You can still take the quiz here.

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  HorsePigCow

• Oldie: Embrace the Chaos

  Tara Hunt

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:53 pm

  [originally posted August 8, 2006] “Everything was going to plan, then we added people to the mix” – anon Murphy’s law: if anything could go wrong, it probably will vs. Citizen Agency’s law: if anything could go wrong, it probably will, but it will be something you never thought of…so stop worrying about it and embrace the chaos. I’m reading an amazing new book by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstram, The Starfish and the Spider, which discusses what I believe is the future of business: leaderless, decentralized organizations. We’ve seen, first hand,…

• Don’t Worry, Be…Healthy!

  Tara Hunt

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:35 pm

  According to Victoria Stern in an article titled, “Why We Worry” in November/December’s Scientific American Mind, not only does stress and worry do nothing to help us control our situation, but it can also make us LESS prepared for the worst case scenario. Although it is our natural tendency to fret – or feel negative thoughts about a future event – too much of it can actually hinder cognitive processing, lead to cardiovascular issues and even (at its extreme) cause permanent damage to one’s body. The article also points to an article that says a small…

• Win A Social Media Library!

  Tara Hunt

  16 Nov 2009 | 11:58 am

  Steve over at Polar Limited is doing a networked social media book giveaway. Steve has convinced these seven authors Mitch Joel, Tamar Weinberg, Chris Brogan + Julien Smith, Gary Vaynerchuk, Avinash Kaushik, John Jantsch, Beth Kanter and me to offer up free copies of their books. You can win a this set of books, signed and personalized by the authors that will teach you how to be human through your computer, generate tons of social capital, and be a social media virtuoso – plus have some great books to curl up with during the holidays. Here’s how you win: Leave a comment below…

• Who Wants to be an Entrepreneur?

  Tara Hunt

  12 Nov 2009 | 1:13 pm

  Who Wants to be an Entrepreneur? View more documents from Tara Hunt. Presentation I gave at AZEC09. It was a barrel of fun. I called a poor, unsuspecting entrepreneur on stage and put him on the hotseat.

• Relationships are Important – even if you’re Don Draper

  Tara Hunt

  10 Nov 2009 | 3:05 pm

  [Please don't read this if you haven't seen the season finale of Mad Men - serious spoiler alert] For three seasons of Mad Men I watched in frustration as Don Draper seemed to get away with anything and everything. A handsome, well-dressed, privileged, tall white guy that could take everyone in his circle for granted, lie to them, cheat on them and treat them like garbage, yet continue get everything he wanted. It was a frustrating parable for me, a woman who spends a big part of her daily routine trying to make the world a place where people like Don can’t get away with murder. But…

• 
  Technosailor.com

• WordPress and PHP 5: Be the Change You Want to See

  Aaron Brazell

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:46 am

  The other day, I wrote the popular 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.9. As usual, most people are very excited about the new release which is now in beta and available for testing. In the article, I made a few fundamental errors which I have since corrected. Notably, I mentioned that WordPress 3.0 would be going to PHP 5. This was based on conversations I had with a core developer which I now realized I misunderstood. Kinda. WordPress will probably not be dropping PHP 4 support in WordPress 3.0 but as core developer Mark Jaquith suggests: Some things already require PHP 5, like…

• The WordPress Bible: A Writing Redux

  Aaron Brazell

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:07 am

  Back in July, I noted that I had accepted and was beginning the process of writing The WordPress Bible for Wiley Publishing. You can read that post here. It’s now November and almost everything is in the bag for me. I’ve written the book with an average of 20-30 pages per chapter. I’ve gone through Author Review (A.R.), more commonly called “editing”. I’ve taken screenshots. Wrote code. Sifted through pages and pages that have so many changes, from three different editors, that the page appears to bleed. I’ve survived. Sometimes barely. I want to talk…

• 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.9

  Aaron Brazell

  11 Nov 2009 | 2:36 pm

  Gentlemen, start your engines! WordPress 2.9 is just around the corner. Unlike WordPress 2.8, which Mark Jaquith describes as the Snow Leopard of WordPress since most of the basis of the WordPress 2.8 upgrade was complete rewrites and optimization of the infrastructure that ran WordPress instead of providing lots of new features in the same way Apple’s new OS X release is a focus on improved performance instead of features, WordPress 2.9 brings major new “bling” to the table. As a reminder of WordPress 2.8, you can see the writeup that Jonathan Dingman brought us last time…

• Will the Real Tech Community Please Stand Up

  Aaron Brazell

  30 Oct 2009 | 11:39 am

  Our world today is diluted. The lines have blurred. Everyone has bought into this concept of community – that everyone has something for everyone and we’re one big happy family. Specifically, the concept of the “technology community” which is a term that has come to mean anyone who has a blog, uses social media or Twitter and engages online in some way or another. Though this has been a trend that is akin to the frog happily boiling in an ever increasing pot of hot water, the reality struck me today as I saw this Wall Street Journal article about how Facebook and…

• Payola, Extortion and Market Correction

  Aaron Brazell

  19 Oct 2009 | 12:52 pm

  For the last two weeks, I’ve been mulling this concept of market correction as it pertains to the web. There are a variety of stories that have been related, in addition to signatory bubble characteristics that I have observed for some time, but it’s all coming into a lot more focus as time has gone on. A market correction is an economic term describes a natural occurrence when a certain market sector becomes “over sold” or hyperinflated, or when a sector becomes irrelevant to the market and is put out of its misery, or re-capitalized. It is a “coming to…

• 
  Marketing Roadmaps

• Once More, with Feeling: FTC guidelines, bloggers and companies

  Susan Getgood

  16 Nov 2009 | 5:10 pm

  Every time I post about the FTC’s guidelines for endorsements and testimonials, I hope that, this time, the misinterpretations and disinformation will stop. So far, I remain disappointed, but ever optimistic, here I go. Once More, with Feeling. Last week, Blog with Integrity hosted a webinar featuring Mary Engle from the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. We had the opportunity to ask Mary a number of questions about the guidelines. Here are  some highlights of the conversation: The FTC does not intend to pursue individual bloggers. Its focus is on the companies and advertisers…

• A brief diversion: the LOL Bad Pitch of the Day

  Susan Getgood

  11 Nov 2009 | 9:26 am

  Marketing Roadmaps has been pretty serious of late, and likely will be so again as I continue to dig into topics related to the FTC endorsement guidelines. But today, my friends, I received an email pitch I just have to share with you. Here’s the pitch: And here’s the accompanying picture: I guess someone thinks I’ve got a set….

• FTC Guidelines on Endorsements: Analysis of the Examples

  Susan Getgood

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:01 pm

  As promised here is a brief analysis of the examples that pertain to social media and blogging in the revised FTC Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, published on October 5th. These revised guidelines take effect on December 1, 2009. My previous posts have covered the broad  issues under public debate about the guidelines, and I’m not going to revisit that material here.  This is a dive into the examples. If you have questions about the guidelines, Blog with Integrity is holding a free webinar next Tuesday November 10th at noon featuring special guest Mary…

• More on FTC endorsement guidelines re: free speech and journalism

  Susan Getgood

  29 Oct 2009 | 10:52 am

  When the proposed FTC guidelines for commercial endorsements and testimonials first hit the blogosphere last May, I did an analysis of the pertinent examples.  I did a quick re-take earlier this month when the final guidelines were published, and promised to update my analysis  for the new or changed examples. I’m still planning to do this update, probably early next week in preparation for Blog with Integrity’s next free webinar on November 1oth featuring Mary Engle, FTC associate director for consumer protection. In a town hall format, Mary will answer the community’s…

• A little integrity with that PR, please

  Susan Getgood

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:51 pm

  <rant on> I’ve got more than a few posts pending, including part 2 of my analysis of the published FTC guidelines on commercial endorsements and an update on Blog with Integrity, but today I received an email that demanded immediate attention. As many of you know, I collect bad pitches. I use them here on the blog and in my workshops. Someday perhaps they will even make it into a book about community engagement. I get a few myself (and for some reason more lately), but the best source of pitches — good and bad — are my friends and readers. Today’s example, from a…

• 
  VisInsights

• Why It’s Important to Manage your Online Reputation

  Blake Cahill

  13 Nov 2009 | 4:12 pm

  Increasingly brands and individuals are beginning to understand the impact of Online Reputation Management or ORM as some call it. As consumers increasingly use search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to search for information (to the tune of 400M searches per day by the way) the content they view whether company issued, mainstream media [...]

• Making the Connection between Social and Mobile

  Blake Cahill

  12 Nov 2009 | 4:20 pm

  One of the amazing things about many of the new mobile devices that have been created over the past 24 months is their ease of use related to accessing content and information on the internet. This growth of new mobile devices has coincided with the rapid rise and proliferation of social networks and technologies for [...]

• What’s the Value of Social Media for B2B Companies?

  Blake Cahill

  12 Nov 2009 | 11:27 am

  Yesterday, I hosted and spoke on a webcast with analyst Jonathan Block form Sirius Decision’s about the value of Social Media for B2B companies. We recently co-commissioned and executed a study that revealed some very interesting insights about B2B companies and their adoption and use of social media. A key data point was that while 40% [...]

• Your Customers are Talking - are You Listening for Social Media Conversations?

  Blake Cahill

  30 Oct 2009 | 4:08 pm

  Happy customers are often equated with innovative and growing businesses. Companies have long understood that the key to maintaining customer happiness and loyalty comes from listening to where and how customers are talking about specific products and services, and in turn, creating a customer-centric organization. Once companies can leverage customer insight, they can take steps [...]

• New Study: Consumers Expect Brands to Engage with Them in Social Media

  Blake Cahill

  22 Oct 2009 | 4:34 pm

  Well, is that really anything new? Haven’t consumers always expected attention and respect when they walked into a retail store or when they called a companies contact center? The rising chorus of social network users (4 out 5 US adults online interacted with a social site in ‘09 - Forrester) continue to up the expectation [...]

• 
  Emily Chang - Designer

• Creative Barcodes

  Emily Chang

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:33 pm

  You probably already know about my affinity for barcodes. These are particularly cool. D-barcode specializes in turning barcodes into something fun and memorable. In Japan, Even the Barcodes Are Well Designed

• Mockingbird: Wireframes on the Fly

  Emily Chang

  14 Nov 2009 | 10:50 pm

  As a UI/UX designer, I’m constantly looking for new tools and methods to allow me to more rapidly create initial user flows and to prototype an application. Mockingbird is a new online tool that let’s you create and share wireframes quickly and with interactivity.  It uses a simple drag and drop UI library, gives you the ability to link multiple pages together by making elements clickable, and makes it easy to share your wireframes with clients or your team with a simple URL. While I still see the need in many instances for higher fidelity wireframes, Mockingbird has a low-fi…

• The Punch Card

  Emily Chang

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:31 pm

  The Punch Card is a simple and fun example of personalization: The three character say-whatever-you-want card. Punch out the perforated pieces to create your own personal message. Use letters, numbers, glyphs or design your own pattern. Via PicoCool

• Twitter #140art

  Emily Chang

  10 Nov 2009 | 12:01 am

  A simple experiment in Twitter art of my initials with symbols.  More Twitter glyphs @TW1TT3Rart

• UI Experiments by Andrey Yazev

  Emily Chang

  9 Nov 2009 | 9:53 pm

  Randomly came across these great experiments by Andrey Yazev of 389.com. Fluid scrollbars: try it for yourself here (you’ll have to be on Safari 4 or Google Chrome to see it). Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.

• 
  The Social Customer Manifesto

• Fly The Evil Skies

  Christopher Carfi - Cerado, Inc.

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:33 am

  On the subject of frequent flier miles, Gary says:"Miles are evil. They create apathy on the end of the service provider." The he asks the real question:"Have decades of frequent flyer programs instilled institutional apathy on the part of customer facing employees? Perhaps we are talking about apathetic DNA across entire corporations or even within the entire airline industry. If one believes customers won't leave even when treated poorly, where is the incentive to 'step it up?'" Back in the late 1990's, I was flying weekly between Chicago and Palo Alto. 1,846 miles out on Monday, 1,846…

• Kudos to Seth

  Christopher Carfi - Cerado, Inc.

  11 Nov 2009 | 1:09 pm

  Kudos to Seth Godin on fixing the most very broken thing about his 2005 book "All Marketers are Liars."  He convinced the publisher to change the cover on future editions, and the book is now called "All Marketers Tell Stories."Seth says:"So, go tell a story. If it doesn’t resonate, tell a different one. When you find a story that works, live that story, make it true, authentic and subject to scrutiny. All marketers are storytellers, only the losers are liars."I was fairly harsh when I read the book in 2005, and while some of those criticisms still stand,…

• Twitter's "Trending Topics" Bridge Neighborhoods in Social Networks

  Christopher Carfi - Cerado, Inc.

  11 Nov 2009 | 11:12 am

  Had a blast chatting with danah boyd this morning on this week's SupernovaHub Network Age Briefing (disclosure: Supernova is a client).  The link above is to a rebroadcast of the call, which ran about an hour and covered "Class and Connection in the Network Age."  We also had some great conversation with @nwjerseyliz and @evanwolf the others who joined live in the conversation. One of the big "a ha" moments in talking to danah was the fact that, as has been noted in many other places, we typically hang out (more-or-less) with "people like us"…

• The Laws of VRM

  Christopher Carfi - Cerado, Inc.

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:21 pm

  In conjunction with this week's Internet Identity Workshop, a number of folks including @dsearls @deanland @joeandrieu @judico @juliangay @dariusdunlap and others have been thinking a lot about ProjectVRM.  As part of the conversations, an activity this group was doing was trying to distill down to its essence what "makes" something "VRM" (or VRM-like, at least).  We came up with a couple of core concepts, the first of which is that in a system that is VRM-ish, the following holds true: "VRM Law #1: The individual is the point of integration." In other words, instead of myriad…

• Thought of the Day: Single-Sign Off

  Christopher Carfi - Cerado, Inc.

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pm

  Lots of folks have looked at integrating online identities, and there are various types of "single sign-on" (cite) systems around.  Thought experiment for today:  what would single sign-off look like?  In other words, what would happen if an individual had the ability to conceptually "unplug" from the Network?

• 
  Broadcasting Brain

• How to deserve an audience – revisited

  markdykeman

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:03 am

  One year ago today I wrote a post called how to deserve an audience.  The point of the post was to talk about what you as a blogger, social media user, or whatever, should do to deserve an audience.  The conclusion was that the best you can do is to provide valuable content.  There were a lot of points discussed in the post, so as an experiment I’m going to see if I still stand behind everything that I wrote about exactly one year ago. One thing that bugs me about Twitter is that the term followers, the people who elect to see your microblogging updates, sounds like a cross between a…

• A lesson in which words have multiple meanings = communication failure

  markdykeman

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:52 pm

   VS Images by choking sun and psd Hello class. Today’s lesson is about how to communicate poorly while trying to give a humorous speech.  Pay close attention, this could be good for you. As I’ve mentioned before I’m a member of Toastmasters.  Today was meeting day.  I’m working on one of  my Advanced Communicator designations and I’m finally trying to complete all of the requirements.  It’s been dragging on for far too long.  I had an idea for a humorous speech where you’re supposed to tell a couple of funny stories while trying to make a…

• Tweaks not changes

  markdykeman

  16 Nov 2009 | 5:42 pm

  I’ve made a couple of minor changes in my social media profiles and the blog that I thought I’d mention. I decided to retire the classic Broadcasting Brain avatar from my Twitter account, at least for now. I’m now using a real picture of myself.  I figured it was time for a change – may as well go with my real face. I changed the blog’s tagline from “Using cognitive surplus to create uncanny content” to “Different thoughts about thinking differently”.  The new tagline describes this blog better than the old one, I think.  I still like…

• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce

  markdykeman

  15 Nov 2009 | 1:55 pm

  Here’s another link to another TED video.  This one is about spaghetti sauce types, as presented by Malcolm Gladwell.  Interesting listening, as always. I’ve categorized this entry under creativity because I think there’s a valid point here about creativity and innovation.  Sometimes new ideas come from careful analysis of existing data or else from asking the right questions.  It’s a good story.

• A video on creativity, fulfillment, and flow

  markdykeman

  14 Nov 2009 | 4:41 pm

  Taken from a 2004 TED talk, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about flow, creativity and happiness.  I’ve written about Csikszentmihalyi before:  his work is fascinating and illuminating.  I reviewed his book Flow here. Here’s the video:  it’s definitely worth checking out.

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  Koka Sexton dot Com

• I’m Worth More Than $350 and I’m Not For Sale

  Koka Sexton

  9 Nov 2009 | 2:47 pm

  It’s not new information that I have been battling an addiction to buying domain names for a while. Though I have curbed my habit for the most part, I still find myself just checking to see if cool domains are available. I’ve gone from over 60 domain names down to about 40 and I haven’t purchased one in a while. by drurydrama (Len Radin) So with that background, I wasn’t surprised that I got an email last week from CBI Broker a company that says they are ‘The Web Traffic Broker’s’ for companies. All the email said was Hey, We came across your domain and we have…

• I Fell In Love With My Roku

  Koka Sexton

  17 Oct 2009 | 8:47 pm

  I got a Roku from a special someone after visiting their house and being in complete amazement over the technology. I’ve had a Netflix account for several years. First I was crazy and would get 3 movies at a time, rush to watch them all and mail them back to get three more new movies in the mail. I even started adding movies still in the theater in my queue just to get the DVD once it was released. I don’t get to the theater very often so DVDs were the only way to stay on top of the best flix out there. Netflix has had the “Watch Instantly” feature online for a while.

• Concordian Interview

  Koka Sexton

  27 Jul 2009 | 11:39 pm

  Last month I met with a writer for a local Concord Ca. paper called the Concordian. The Concordian has been around a really long time. I should have asked the date they started. I couldn’t find it on the website.The paper was mailed to everyone in the city. It was a free monthly newspaper that talked just about our not-so-little city. Not to be confused with the local blogs like Mayor of Concord or Claycord that fill the internets with news. Recently the paper has had to stop the mailings but still prints thousands of copies and places them in Concord, Pleasant Hill and surrounding…

• 60 Days at Paragon Software

  Koka Sexton

  27 Jul 2009 | 1:46 pm

  After starting with Paragon Software Group in June I have been able to gain a lot of traction internally with my coworkers as well as build on the momentum of creating a better more efficient channel sales experience.Using the principles I developed while writing the Channel Sales Playbook, I have been able to hit the ground running with the new company. In fact, I may be updating the Channel Sales Playbook or putting together a new one just to give a more detailed set of actions that I have tested with positive results. (In my non-existent spare time) Besides the channel stuff, I also have…

• 5 of the Best Twitter Apps I Can’t Live Without

  Koka Sexton

  12 Jul 2009 | 5:42 pm

  After my initial addiction to Twitter, I started becoming fascinated by the growing amount of Twitter applications that were being developed. One of the suggestions I had made about how Twitter can make money was that they charge a fee for validated API applications. I don’t know if they started charging but the recent ‘validation’ of Twitter applications makes me feel much better about using services that I have to identify my credentials through. Between getting my breaking news updates and talking to friends, Twitter has become a staple in my life. I want to share some of…

• 
  Marketing Profs Daily Fix

• Paul Williams: Three Ps For Better Leading: Pace, Process, Pulse

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  One of the characteristics of a great leader—no matter whether that leader is a person, a brand, or a company - is the ability to stay "tuned-in" to the needs of their audience. Are they still "with" you? Do they get where you're going? Do they have confidence in the direction? Out of college, my first job was at Walt Disney World in Orlando. I was a tour guide at the "Listen To The Land" boat ride in Epcot's Land Pavilion. I led Guests on a 20-minute journey through farming methods of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It was one of the easiest "leading" jobs I've ever had. I didn't have to…

• Stephanie Miller: Are Email Preference Centers Worth It?

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:40 am

  Add global compliance and cultural custom to the list of why email preference centers are really hard to sell internally and build well. I had a meeting this morning where we started to list out all the different country and local laws governing choices across various brand service agreements, and it quickly became overwhelming. It was no help that the database guy kept saying, "That'll cost you more."No wonder the director of marketing looked at me and said, "Is this really the best way to spend our precious time, energy and IT resources?!" So many email marketers say that they know a…

• Ann Handley: Innovation Matters: Balancing Sustained Versus Disruptive Innovation

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:06 am

  This is a guest post by Eric Zeitoun, president of Dragon Rouge USA, a leading independent brand and design consultancy. While we struggle to emerge from a full-blown recession, marketers know all too well that advertising and (unfortunately) innovation are the first budgets that are most likely to get cut. So how can marketers continue to innovate?Before we answer this question we need to go back to the definition of innovation since it has become a very popular and often misinterpreted topic. There are four distinct types of innovations: Product optimization (which seeks to optimize a…

• Elaine Fogel: Cash-for-Grades Fundraiser Just Another Marketing Incentive

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  What's all this outrage for North Carolina school principal, Susie Shepherd, for supporting her parent advisory council's innovative use of marketing incentives? Who are we kidding? I used to teach, so I know how some schools operate like they're in the third world, without proper books and resources. This school was just looking for creative ways to raise much-needed money.In my opinion, the outpouring of disdain is hypocritical. The days of doing well in school for the intrinsic value are waning, as more parents offer reward systems. Read Barbara Coloroso. The kindergarten sticker turns…

• Ted Mininni: Taking a Bite Out Of Apple

  16 Nov 2009 | 6:10 am

  Indications are that Apple--long admired for setting the bar high when it comes to beautifully-designed, innovative, game-changing consumer products--may be facing some stiff competition. According to Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey: “Apple is under threat on the brand front in a way they haven’t been in recent years.”A recent Brandweek article: “Amid Transition, Rivals Are Descending on Apple,” questions whether the company’s competitors are finally launching products that might take a bite out of Apple. Apple’s response doesn’t seem reassuring, either. New ads have…

• 
  Digital Trends

• Dell Reveals Pre-Black Friday Deals and Black Friday Ads

  Dena Cassella

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:03 pm

  Dell released its great Black Friday ad deals and pre-Black Friday sales.

• Holiday Gift Ideas: Sumo Gigantor Urban Lounge Chair

  Dena Cassella

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am

  Sumo's Gigantor bean bag lounger is comfortable, resilient, and a great holiday gift idea.

• China Defense Ministry Targeted by Mass Cyber Attacks

  Dena Cassella

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:47 am

  Apparently, China must deal with its own cyber attacks against its defense ministry.

• Audiophile Gear Maker Linn Gives Up on CDs

  Geoff Duncan

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:29 am

  Scotland's high-end audio gear maker Linn says that, starting in 2010, it's abandoning compact discs. But, yes, it still makes turntables.

• California Approves TV Energy Efficiency Standards

  Geoff Duncan

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:49 am

  California is imposing energy-efficiency requirements on new TVs starting in January 2011...but they only apply to sets measuring 58 inches and under.

• 
  Janet Fouts

• Rankings Schmankings-Who ARE You?

  Janet

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:41 am

  Everybody involved in social media in any way has probably done it. You know what I mean. Sneaking a peek at your rankings on Hubspot, analyzing your “reach” or counting the number of followers, friends and connections in an effort to validate the amount of time you spend on social media sites–either to yourself or perhaps, your boss. Here’s the thing. It’s not the numbers that matter. What matters is whether or not you are communicating, creating real relationships and making a difference in some way in the lives of the people you touch. Are you the go-to girl on…

• Socialize Your E-learning Content

  Janet

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:58 am

  I’m presenting on a panel with Dave Peck and Adam Helweh today at Dev-Learn 09, one of the many excellent conferences put on by the E-Learning Guild. As you may know my history in e-learning goes back quite a way, and for me the most exciting thing about my job is that it’s one long learning process. Needless to say I’m happy to present to this group and get an opportunity to find out what their questions and concerns are as well as get my own 2 cents in about how important it is not to limit the learning experience by keeping it all neatly boxed up in a classroom, virtual…

• Twitter and LinkedIn Partner-is This a Good Thing?

  Janet

  10 Nov 2009 | 7:08 am

  Twitter and LinkedIn announced a new partnership yesterday to bring the two apps together for the first time. You’ll be able to update your status on LinkedIn and have it go out to Twitter or send your tweets out to your LinkedIn connections. just as you can do now with blog updates. When I first heard about it I wasn’t so sure this was a good idea. I’m a pretty heavy Twitter user and though I believe in “Putting a little Twitter in everything” (Biz Stone), the noise level on LinkedIn has increased dramatically since the addition of groups and apps and although I…

• Thesis Just Gets Better and Better

  Janet

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:22 am

  I am so stoked about the new version of the Thesis theme for Wordpress. I’ve been hand coding or tweaking other themes for years and Thesis made that a whole lot easier when it came out, but this new version just rocks. Sure, you might want to do some advanced tweaking using hooks or bring in some custom PHP code or widgets and I can help you do that, but with Thesis we can set up a spiffy custom design for a whole lot less than we could before. Take a look at the video below and I think you’ll see why I just love the new Thesis. I’ll be moving this site over to Thesis…

• Are Tweedledee and Tweedledum on Your Twitter List?

  Janet

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:57 am

  I’ve been waiting to wade in on this whole Twitter lists discussion so I could watch and see what people do with it. I already use my own lists extensively in Tweetdeck and Seesmic to sort my connections into more easily manageable groups and I really don’t use the Twitter web site that much, so what’s the point right? There has been huge discussion over segmenting, and even “curation” of lists as a way to manage the flow of information and create channels. Chris Brogan talks about marginalization as one of the possible results, Scoble points out the sheer…

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  SocialTimes.com

• Offerpal Releases New Policies To Quell Critics

  Nick O'Neill

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:16 pm

  Offerpal is one of the primary targets of the recent complaints about aggressive offers on the social web. However following those criticisms, the company brought in a new CEO, and today is releasing a new set of advertising policies which holds the company “to the highest standard of ethics and corporate responsibility.” If you want the full details of the advertising policies, you can read them here. The advertising policies are relatively clear, however the “gray” areas which generate a large portion of revenue for many publishers, still exists. It’s somewhat…

• Lynne D Johnson: Advertising’s New Social Media Conscience

  Ilana Arazie

  17 Nov 2009 | 7:55 am

  As a journalist, former programmer and senior editor at Fast Company, Lynne D. Johnson is a social media maven. She was also a general manager for Vibe and Spin magazines with an award-winning blog. She’s been fusing technology, community and journalism since back in the days of online bulletin boards. It’s no surprise that the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) recently snagged her as their first senior vice president of social media to help guide the industry into the new age of community tools. I recently sat down with Johnson to get her take on how brands should be listening…

• Thanks For The Post!

  Nick O'Neill

  10 Nov 2009 | 11:29 am

  Every morning I wake up and click through my blackberry to see what messages I’ve received. For the most part, I don’t receive anything important between 2 AM and 8 AM but there are still large numbers of messages that I sift through. The most annoying of those messages are the night time spam comments on this blog. Disqus does an absolutely horrendous job at filtering out spam which means 10 to 15 minutes of my morning everyday are spent sifting through spam. All of the spam comments follow the same format. Most often a user will say something to the extent of “Thanks for…

• Electronic Arts Acquires Playfish For Up To $400 Million

  Nick O'Neill

  9 Nov 2009 | 7:21 am

  There have been rumors circulating over the past month about Playfish, the second largest Facebook Platform developer, being acquired by Electronic Arts. This morning the news was confirmed via a press release stating that: EA has acquired Playfish for approximately US$275 million in cash and approximately $US25 million in equity retention arrangements. In addition, the sellers are entitled to additional variable cash consideration, up to a maximum of US$100 million, contingent upon the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31, 2011. The company, which was funded by…

• Bebo Games Official Launch: The Next Frontier for Virtual Goods?

  Kristen Nicole

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:09 pm

  Bebo Games has officially launched this week, with the company reporting successful numbers for developer and user interest. Bebo Games are offered through several partnerships with game developers, and the top-down approach taken by AOL-owned Bebo means a more uniform game experience for end users. What Bebo has done with its game platform is integrate it with several of its existing features, such as chat, messages and other forms of notifications. This means that users can do things like challenge other users to a game directly from their chat window. It also means that developers have…

• 
  Webware.com

• Brin: Google's OSes likely to converge

  Tom Krazit

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Puzzled onlookers have wondered why Google is overseeing two separate operating-system projects. Co-founder Sergey Brin thinks that at some point the two will become one. Originally posted at Relevant Results

• Browser security features compared

  Dennis O'Reilly

  20 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  The newest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and other browsers all protect against phishing and malware attacks, and most also let you browse anonymously, though they implement these features in very different ways. Originally posted at Workers' Edge

• Brizzly opens up...and translates

  Caroline McCarthy

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  The Twitter client has built in Google Translate for quick decoding of international tweets--and also, no more invite codes are required. Originally posted at The Social

• Twitter's geotagging API goes live

  Don Reisinger

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:42 am

  The geolocation tool allows developers to incorporate a user's location in tweets. It's an opt-in service.

• Adobe's Acrobat.com reorganizes, gets mobile app

  Josh Lowensohn

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:01 pm

  The company improves its Acrobat service with a new organizer and a mobile app for the iPhone and BlackBerry that lets users access their files on the go. Originally posted at Web Crawler

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  BIZ GROWTH NEWS

• Online Video Insights From Phil Scott of Kodak

  Krishna De

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am

  At the Content is King conference, Phil Scott, VP of the VP of the Consumer Digital Group of Kodak spoke about the transition that Kodak has made from photography to video. He presented the history of Kodak and a few dates caught my attention: 1975 – worlds first digital camera prototype was developed by Kodak 1997 – they created the world’s first 1.0 mega pixel camera. He then went on to share some thoughts about online video and suggested that before we create our online video we need to start with is defining what success would look like in terms of the number of views…

• The 3 most common issues that people have when looking to implement their website in a different language

  Krishna De

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:07 am

  This is the second in a three part series in conversation with Mark Rodgers, the Managing Director of Cipherion Translations where we discuss the opportunities that the internet presents to us if we wish to expand our business internationally. In the first article we explored under what circumstances we should consider translating our website into another language. I then went on to ask Mark what the three most common issues people have when looking to implement their website in a different language. Mark: I think the first issue is that so many Irish business people seem to have this notion…

• European Study Predicts Online Advertising To Increase By More Than 7% in 2010

  Krishna De

  16 Nov 2009 | 12:38 am

  The Marketers’ Internet Ad Barometer, forecasts that online ad spend across Europe will grow even more rapidly in 2011 with budgets expected to grow by 15% year-on-year. This forecast by the European Interactive Advertising Association – which counts AOL, BBC, MTV, eBay and Conde Nast as members – will raise hopes that marketers are beginning to regain confidence and increase their budgets across the board. EIAA also found that while TV ad spend may be under pressure, websites such as ITV.com that offer programmes online are starting to catch on with marketers. via…

• When should we translate our website into another language?

  Krishna De

  13 Nov 2009 | 8:33 am

  I recently had the opportunity to meet with Mark Rodgers, the Managing Director of Cipherion Translations and we started to talk about the opportunities that the internet presents to us if we wish to expand our business internationally. Mark ’s business provides a translation and localisation service and are based in Dublin. Cipherion Translations regularly work with Irish organisations as they take their first steps in developing a global presence. Mark also heads up the Irish Internet Association’s International Strategy Working Group. I suggested to Mark that he might like to share…

• Dublin Twitterville Tweetup With Shel Israel Thanks To @Twtvite

  Krishna De

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:54 am

  I’ve always wanted to find an excuse to use the great Tweetup platform of Twtvite after I saw an invitation for an event that my friends Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson were organising for a Tweetup in the US. Today I tested out the platform when creating a Tweetup invitation for an event with another Shel – this time Shel Israel author of the new book Twitterville. Long time podcasting pal, Adrian Moss, who I met a few years ago at the Corporate Podcasting Summit where we were both speaking,  dropped me a direct message on Twitter some weeks ago to say that his company Parity…

• 
  Stay N' Alive

• All Your OS Are Belong to Google – Why Aren’t We Worried?

  Jesse Stay

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:09 pm

  I’m following the stories of the Google Chrome OS release today and am a bit concerned about some of the claims that are being made.  Mashable even goes to the extent of predicting Google is going to “destroy the desktop” with it.  Google is banking on the fact that many users use their computers solely for accessing Twitter, Facebook, and E-mail through a browser.  They’re right – we’re becoming more and more of a web-reliant society, and the cloud is rendering much of the fluff that happens on the traditional operating system unnecessary.  However it…

• Kynetx Kills the Portal, Launches Identity Platform for Developers

  Jesse Stay

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:04 pm

  Today at Kynetx Impact Conference Kynetx is changing the future of Web Identity and privacy as we know it by taking the power away from the server and moving it over to users’ desktops, mobile phones, or other client-based technology.  Dr. Phil Windley, company CTO and co-founder in his keynote shared that the web client is the “forgotten edge” when it comes to open software development and identity management.  Currently the traditional model in identity has been one of location base, instead of purpose-based, as Dr. Windley has suggested is the future of internet…

• Phil Windley, CTO and Co-Founder, Kynetx

  Jesse Stay

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:59 pm

  Phil Windley, CTO and Co-Founder, Kynetx In this video I interview Phil Windley about his company, Kynetx, and what they're doing to change the focus of the web from the server back to the client. Phil's expertise in identity makes this change even more interesting. From: thesocialgeek Views: 0 0 ratings Time: 04:53 More in Science & Technology

• Earth Misses Meteor by 13 Miles

  Jesse Stay

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:47 am

  Okay, maybe it’s not that cut and dry (the earth hits meteors all the time – they just disintegrate before hitting ground).  Tonight about half of all my Utah friends all at one time reported a light, as bright as day, ascend in a blue-green aura from East to West.  For some reason I missed it, although I was up during the event.  It turns out Utah got to experience one of the closest calls of the Leonid Meteor shower tonight. Some are saying it was only 13 miles high. Stories are surfacing from Utah to Las Vegas of bright lights, “turning the night to day”.  One…

• Want to Learn How to Write Facebook Apps? Now’s Your Chance

  Jesse Stay

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:48 pm

  On Thursday morning I’m doing a free webcast for Safari Books Online (moderated by OReilly’s Laurel Ackerman) in which I’m going to go into further detail than I have before on how to get started building Facebook apps.  I’ll take you from start to finish, focusing this time on more hands-on coding, and less introduction and together we’ll build a Facebook app from scratch.  I haven’t figured the time yet, but if we have time, I’ll also show you how in just 3 steps you can integrate a simple Facebook login into your own website and apply the same…

• 
  Debs' Blog - technology changes humans don't

• Cocktails, cupcakes and food for thought..

  Debs

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:36 pm

  A quick note to say thanks to Brady, Bre et al - for another great Ignite event.  Cupcakes were gorgeous and the talks were a blast.  I even got to express four years of "alley vs valley" in a compact 5 minutes! Thanks to Sean, Sam, Jeff, Howard and Sarah for the inspiration! NYC Tidbit: The classy theatre venue for last nite was a favorite haunt well over 10 years - it was a second run moving theatre [pre netflix, itunes].  You youngins may ask what the heck is a second run movie theatre? Back in the day movies that had been out for a few months would disappear into…

• Slides: What is The Future of Business?

  Debs

  11 Sep 2009 | 12:29 pm

  The Future Of Business by Altimeter GroupView more presentations from Charlene Li. Thanks to everyone who took the time to join our call yesterday to learn about our approach to the Future of Business [yes, it's a bit grandiose but we aim high!].  Charlene, Jeremiah, Ray & I all have a strongly held passionate belief that the future of business involves a 360 degree integrated approach involving lots of shifts and changes. The real interesting stuff happens when we view new tools and technologies not in isolation but in the context of the behavioral, sociological, cultural, …

• Seven years of reflection

  Debs

  11 Sep 2009 | 12:24 pm

  Once again, as I have for the past four years, I woke up incredibly early, my subconscious prepped for a quiet solitude of sunrise reflection. I exchanged my annual phone and text messages with my fellow volunteers as I have every year on September 11th and then went about my day.  Eight years is an emotional eternity and yet a blip in historical perspective - the world moves on and the event is a now a political pawn. The experiences of those who lived through the day are shared privately vs publicly and perhaps that is as it should be. I am always saddened by America's lack of history and…

• Deb Update: Joining Altimeter Group!

  Debs

  27 Aug 2009 | 9:28 am

  This morning I begin a new chapter in my career - I have joined the Altimeter Group as a Partner running the Innovation Practice.  I am super excited to join forces with Charlene, Ray  and Jeremiah - three extremely accomplished individuals!   In the short time in which we have been working together I have already seen how our experience and knowledge provide a 360 view of the emerging technology landscape and how it impacts business and society.   My work life began in the early 90's when the Internet/Web first made it's presence known both culturally and economically.  I was smitten…

• A fun new project for 2009

  Debs

  21 Aug 2009 | 3:19 pm

   One of the joys of being independent is I get to work with a variety of people on a variety of cool projects.  So at the same time I get to work with a company the size and scale of P&G on loads of innovative stuff, I also get to work with start-ups like My6sense on Digital Intuition  and a group of brilliant animators on a way cool new animated series called The Gloomers. When development on The Gloomers began - the economy was in a much different place - now that we are all belt tightening the shows may take on an entirely new these...stay tuned! In tough economic times - reminding…

• 
  Social Media Mom

• Good Eating on Any Budget

  Ariela Ross

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:34 pm

  While there are dozens of official reports about the economy improving, the general population has yet to feel the effects of it. With unemployment rates hanging in the double-digit percentage points, it’s become apparent to the average family that it is time to modify their budget, and not in the desired direction. Going shopping these days, you may see some sort of common pattern. The department stores and ‘non-necessity’ stores are drastically marking down their prices. The same, however, does not go for grocery stores. Grocers are marking up prices, only to put them…

• The FTC is Now Playing Ball with Bloggers

  Holly Ord

  6 Oct 2009 | 7:05 am

  If you’re a blogger that receives any kind of payment, whether in the form of cash in exchange for writing a blog post or in the form of free products you’re reviewing on your blog, you are now subject to following new guidelines put into rule yesterday by the Federal Trade Commission. For the first time in 29 years, the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising has been amended and specifically targets new media outlets which includes not only blogging, but also Facebook and Twitter. If you have not yet been introduced to the new 81-page document…

• National Grandparent’s Day Twitter Party

  Holly Ord

  8 Sep 2009 | 10:18 pm

  National Grandparent’s Day (September 13th) is one of the most overlooked and neglected days of the year. While I’m sure more people recognize the day much more than other “national days of celebration” like for instance, Flag Day or Secretary Appreciation Day (no, I’m not making this up,) National Grandparent’s Day is one of those days that a great deal of people do not even know exists in the first place. Because of this, Grandparents.com and MomSelect have teamed up to kick off a celebration for Grandparent’s Day by holding a Twitter party. I have a unique…

• Freaked Out About Finances? You’re Not Alone

  Ariela Ross

  3 Sep 2009 | 4:55 pm

  You know that feeling, where your heart starts beating faster, you feel like you can’t breathe, and you just want to avoid the reality? I’m not talking about an anxiety attack, but about getting freaked out when checking up on your finances. You are definitely not alone, even if I’m the only other one with you. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been very independently minded, even from childhood. I even held a job of some sort since the age of 10, cooked, cleaned, looked after others… but I was never fully financially independent. With the opening of my first bank…

• Follow Friday

  Teeg

  28 Aug 2009 | 7:37 am

  I love the idea behind Twitter’s #FollowFriday. Introducing one friend to other friends feels natural, like attending a party where you know everyone and bringing a friend around to meet everyone. The problem on Twitter is that the idea isn’t always the same as the implementation. Receiving a list of people without any description doesn’t tell me much; it especially doesn’t give me a reason that I’d enjoy getting to know the person. A while back I decided to do my own version of FollowFriday. Instead of posting a list of people with perhaps a short description, I…

• 
  Quick Online Tips

• 13 Simple Tactics to Prevent, Detect Content Plagiarism

  QuickOnlineTips

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:56 am

  Guest post by Ramanujam How can you prevent and detect Content Plagiarism? Plagiarism is a serious issue in the blog world and it is a prime duty for all bloggers to prevent their content from getting copied and also take the corrective action when needed. Every blogger gets annoyed when some one copies their content and ranks higher than them in the search engines. While it is highly unlikely to stop blog scrappers and splogs from emerging there are some simple measures that a blogger can do to tackle this effectively. As we always know prevention is better than cure and hence the first step…

• 10 Tips to Make Your Computer Run Smoothly

  QuickOnlineTips

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:43 am

  Guest article by Bob How to to make your PC run smoothly? Personal computers have become an inherent part of our lives and are very helpful in keeping the personal as well as business data safe and secure. To ensure that a PC continues to work fine, it is necessary to perform various maintenance activities. There are numerous tools available in the market like computer maintenance software and tools to help you to keep your computer and data safe. This article discusses some useful tips that will help you keep your computer running smoothly. PC maintenance tips Always protect your PC by…

• 3 Funny Computer Pranks

  QuickOnlineTips

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:24 am

  Guest article by Ivan. Want to play pranks on your or your friends computer? In this post I will show you 3 funniest computer pranks, by my opinion. So let’s begin … 1) Warning Message Here is one of coolest joke programs called Message Manager Lite. This program allow you to setup a message dialog for display on another user’s computer and it is great for making someone think an error has occurred on their computer. How you can use it ? For example, when you have access to friends computer, download Message Manager Lite and install it, write warning message and set the time…

• Second Best Job in the World: International Shopping Consultant

  QuickOnlineTips

  12 Nov 2009 | 9:07 am

  Have you heard about the Second Best Job in the World? Become an International Shopping Consultant – Fly around the world, stay in prestigious hotels, travelling business class and recording your adventure.​ Sound interesting? LetsBuyIt.​com, the online price comparison site, is hiring an International Shopping Consultant. The job benefits say you get €5,000 euro monthly gross salary, €10,000 euro shopping budget, Round-the-world travel in Business Class and presigious hotel stays with Accorhotels.​com. If you missed the best job in the world, this is your chance to grab the…

• The War Between Mediafire and Rapidshare

  QuickOnlineTips

  12 Nov 2009 | 7:11 am

  Guest post byAkif Have you ever heard of Mediafire or Rapidshare? You may have already used them and downloaded many GBs of stuff. These websites offer something called “one-click file storage”. One-click file hosting is an internet based service that allows users to easily upload whatever they want, except copyrighted materials, from their hard drives or from another similar file hosting provider (called remote upload). This is usually free or very cheap. These sites have many users utilising their services every day. So I thought it would be a great idea to explain these…

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  Linas Simonis on Strategy How to Win Marketing Battle in Web 2.0 Age

• Social Media Professionals Are Needed!

  Linas Simonis

  9 Nov 2009 | 12:41 am

  Recently David Meerman Scott wrote about the problem me and many managers and marketers are facing. In blog post entitled When marketing in the Netherlands you need to get Heeves, he pointed to a problem that in different countries there are different leaders in social media platforms. If you want to be successful in such country, you should know local habits very well. Social media professionals are needed! In my consulting practice I work with high-level managers, usually CEOs, on marketing strategy issues in web 2.0 age. Because I am from a small country I understand that if you want to…

• A Business Blog Is Not About Control, It Is About Influence

  Linas Simonis

  7 Oct 2009 | 1:28 am

  The biggest fear of managers to start a business blog is fear. Fear of losing the control of information. “Control” is the wrong word when we are talking about today’s web 2.0 society. A business blog is not about control, it is about influence. And the goal of it is not to control public opinion about you, your company, your brand, but to influence public opinion about you, about your company, about your brand. You can’t control all news about you, you can’t prevent yourself from bad news, even from false rumors. But you can influence society to consider your…

• To Send a Press Release Or to Write a Post in a Business Blog?

  Linas Simonis

  25 Mar 2009 | 6:39 am

  As business blogs will become mainstream, the question is how it will change PR business. Reality seems not so bright for traditional, stubborn PR agencies who deny web 2.0 reality and still live in web 1.0 world. Today news are announced by sending a press release to media. Will it be enough in the future to post a post in a business blog announcing the news? I don’t know. It’s hard to predict the future. The best way to announce news Today the best way to announce news is to post a post in a business blog and also to send a usual press release to media. Chances are big that…

• A New E-book “The 2 Marketing Steps Every Women’s Basketball Team Should Make” Is Released!

  Linas Simonis

  3 Mar 2009 | 2:15 pm

  How to increase the visual appeal of women’s basketball and how to market it using web 2.0 tools - these are the issues that are very actual today in women’s basketball and highly need to be solved. What to do? What general managers of women’s basketball teams should do? The new e-book The 2 Marketing Steps Every Women’s Basketball Team Should Make covers all the answers. The e-book consists of two parts. The first part, where the major contribution is from my co-author Valentinas Navikauskas, is about how to increase the visual appeal of women’s basketball. The…

• The Top 7 Flaws of Business Blogs

  Linas Simonis

  24 Dec 2008 | 1:51 am

  1. No person. A business blog is a PERSONAL blog of a company CEO or founder or other high-ranking executive. Do not let the committee to decide what you must write there and do not hire writers to write posts instead of you. Be personal, include your real photo, bio, let your business blog be the extention of your personality. 2. Too much person. Another extreme of personality – too much of your person – is as bad as the first one. Remember, this is your BUSINESS blog, not personal diary and all stories about your family, kids, pets, hobbies, political issues are needless except when…

• 
  Take A Peck

• Teams Need To Look Beyond Facebook Pages

  Jason

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pm

  There’s more to creating community than Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. Participation and engagement are the easy parts. What you do with it is the challenge. The free social media platforms can be great for teams, but they each have their limitations. Let’s look at Facebook pages. I’m not trying to say teams shouldn’t have a presence on Facebook. Clearly, teams must be there, so they can reach some of the 325 million+ people there now. I’m just saying that if you care about any of the above items, you shouldn’t make Facebook your home base. You…

• Speaking at Triangle Social Media Club

  Jason

  10 Nov 2009 | 8:33 am

  HOWDY! Hope yall are doing well. Now that the Tar Heels have started playing basketball and are still doing some exciting things in football, I couldn’t be happier as a sports fan. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be speaking at the Triangle Social Media Club this week on Thursday night at Twine Interactive. If you live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area and are even remotely interested in social media (who isn’t these days?) you should check out this club. The Triangle Social Media Club chapter was first launched in October 2007 by Ignite Social Media. As the chapter…

• Speaking at York College

  Jason

  27 Oct 2009 | 12:48 pm

  I had a great time at York College and was thrilled to have the opportunity to speak on a panel in front of about 250 sports management and business students last night as part of their first ever professional panel and charity event. Thanks to Erik Eitel for inviting me to speak (and picking me up from DC) and thanks to Madeiline Ludt for driving me to the BWI airport this morning.They both helped put together an awesome event. I also want to thank Dr. Tim Newman, the Coordinator of the Sport Management Program at York College for recommending me to Erik and sharing some of his time with me.

• Interview With Group Story Co-Founder George Junginger

  Jason

  22 Oct 2009 | 5:51 pm

  Last night I had the pleasure to interview George Junginger, who is working on a new startup called Group Story, along with his business partner, Geoff Hamrick. Group Story puts a new twist on photo books for groups of people who have been at the same event, on the same sports team, or share some other common bond. Instead of having one standard book for the entire group, Group Story enables people to pick and choose photos and customize pages so their books match their own experiences. Since Group Story is an NC-based company and since I’ve known George for a little over a year now, I…

• Top 3 Takeaways from BlogWorld

  Jason

  19 Oct 2009 | 6:56 pm

  I got back from BlogWorld in Las Vegas last night. The event was great and the people were amazing. But I’m glad to be home. Four nights in Vegas is equivalent to like 15 nights in other places. You can see some of my notes here and here. Also, you should check out a series of video interviews I did with 10 really smart people talking about their visions of a killer mobile+social app. If you still can’t get enough of my face, you can watch a short video of me being interviewed by Lewis Howes, a star speaker, entrepreneur and author. I learned a ton and met some awesome people at…

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  PR-Squared

• The Future of Movie Marketing

  Todd Defren

  16 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am

  My family recently spent a rainy Saturday morning watching upcoming movie trailers via the “Front Row” app that came bundled with our Mac. I wryly noted that they would likely only see 10% of the actual movies — which led me to wonder if Social Media could be better leveraged to make the maxim, “Hollywood’s business is America’s business” even more of a truism. After all, when it comes to marketing, Social Media’s power is derived from the ability for consumers and brands to directly interact. Yet when it comes to movies, it’s a more significant challenge: you’ve…

• The Future of Marketing

  Todd Defren

  11 Nov 2009 | 6:05 am

  I hesitate to say that the Social Network Race is over – look at AOL, MySpace and Friendster, all of which used to dominate – but let’s face it, all of these former giants now pale compared to Facebook and Google (and Twitter, if we’re also measuring based on buzz). Unlike those early players, today’s winners are holding a much more winning hand.  Google and Facebook are shooting arrows in the backs of those original pioneers. The reason Facebook and Google will be the long-term winners: it’s not just the fact that they have critical mass, but that that critical mass comes at a…

• Curating the Signal:Noise Ratio in the Social Graph

  Todd Defren

  9 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group is widely quoted as suggesting that, eventually, “Social Media will become like air,” i.e., it will be built-in to every aspect of our online lives. I don’t doubt this is true.  Increasingly we will rely on the wisdom-of-crowds approach to decide on activities (“worth it to go to this movie?”), and purchases of all sizes and types (“experiences with this car model? with this restaurant? with this real estate agent? this plumber?”), etc. There are different gradations of support we will want from these crowds.  For example, most folks will…

• 4 Ways to Build Relationships with Web Content

  Todd Defren

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:04 am

  This is a guest post by Shannon Paul (find her on Twitter, too).  A prolific online personality, in her “day job” Shannon is the communications manager for PEAK6 Online. On the PR/marketing side of the equation we know good products go unnoticed without proper promotion, but we’re often reluctant to make the same admission about content. If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to blame this problem on the proliferation of new channels of communication brought on by social media, etc. But, please know that great content does not market itself. Rather than going on…

• “Too Smart For Your Own Good?”

  Todd Defren

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:03 am

  I’ve written more than once in the past about the need for marketers to avoid Shiny Object Syndrome and, more recently, to Think Organically when it comes to Social Media. Guess what?  Not everybody reads my blog. As we have found ourselves increasingly competing not just against PR firms but against different types of marketing agencies, e.g., advertising, marcomm, branding, we have on occassion lost the bid because the Other Guys wowed the underinformed prospect with the snazziest aspects of Social Media. Will these happy-shiny approaches work?  Likely not.  But after you’ve spent a…

• 
  that canadian girl

• Bruges, Barcelona, Paris: On the road again

  Vero

  13 Nov 2009 | 7:02 am

  As you might know, I’m Canadian. You knew that, right? So while I’ve been living in the UK for nearing onto 8 years (minus a few months pottering back and forth to finish University in Canada), it still blows my little mind that I can get from London to Paris in just over 2 hours, or fly to Barcelona in even less. While my travel schedule doesn’t rival the travel calendars of most of my esteemed industry colleagues, it makes me smile that in the course of a month, my Canadian passport will be stamped with Belgian, French and Spanish stamps. In Bruges (with a detour via…

• “Blogs & Social Media in Business” Workshop: 19th Nov in London

  Vero

  9 Nov 2009 | 3:57 am

  As I’ve mentioned before here and there, one of the most successful Pepsmedia activities these days is training courses. It also happens to be something I truly love doing. The next “Blogs & Social Media in Business” introductory workshop day is next week, on Thursday 19th November, at Wallacespace St Pancras in London and due to a change of plans with one company (who have now opted for an in-house training course for their whole team), all of a sudden, I have 8 places available on the course. In order to fill the course and have enough participants to make the course…

• The thrill of the ride & Making your own luck

  Vero

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:15 am

  It’s rare that I start a blog entry by apologising for the radio silence – but it’s also rare that I go nearly an entire month without blogging – so please accept my apologies for going a month without publishing anything. It’s certainly not for lack of things to write about, that’s for sure. The past few months have been some of the most exciting of my life; self-employment is in full swing and Pepsmedia is doing great, we’ve had two fabulous holidays (first was a quirky narrowboating trip with friends, second was a relaxing two weeks in Canada to…

• Your Call is Important to Us: Why customer service must improve

  Vero

  5 Oct 2009 | 3:38 am

  When I started writing this, I was waiting, seething, for someone at Hewlett Packard to pick up the phone to answer a query I had. As I waited, I had to grit and bear, listening to the second most annoying hold music I’ve ever heard. HSBC wins for the worst hold music hands down – I even recorded it last time I was on hold for what felt like a century, so that I could share the pain with you. In HSBC’s defence, I don’t usually have to wait very long with them, but when I do, I get a hell of a twitch. As for HP, there was no excuse for the lengthy wait times I…

• Community building means making members feel special | Community Building

  Vero

  21 Sep 2009 | 7:34 am

  Members of your community do a lot. You rely on them to make the community a success. You can influence the direction of your community, you can influence its content and you even have an influence over the type of members you want in the community. However, when it comes down to whether your community is going to be successful, your members are all that matter. You need to not only attract members that will help your community grow and continue to develop, but you need to keep them. You can do this by making sure they feel special. via communityspark.com Community Spark has turned out to be…

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  jeff lanctot

• This blog

  Jeff Lanctot

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:50 am

  As you’ll notice, I haven’t been updating this blog for some time.  The best place to follow me is on twitter @lanctot.

• The Economy and Digital Advertising

  Jeff Lanctot

  27 Oct 2008 | 12:41 pm

  I was preparing a post regarding the impact that the struggling economy is having on digital marketing.  Then Connie Loizos of Reuters save me the time by running an interview we did last week.  She covered off on a broad [more...]

• Razorfish Publisher Summit

  Jeff Lanctot

  27 Oct 2008 | 12:12 pm

  Every year Razorfish hosts an event to thank the media publishers with whom we work.  It’s a great opportunity to give our partners a look behind the curtain of our business, which helps the publishers to better service our shared [more...]

• Ad Network Consolidation

  Jeff Lanctot

  29 Jul 2008 | 1:06 pm

  Earlier this year, I wrote about the consolidation of spending on ad networks.   We’ve seen increasingly concentrated spending over the last several years, with the top five ad networks (by AA|RF spend) earning 71% of total ad network spending last [more...]

• Quote of the Day…

  Jeff Lanctot

  29 Jul 2008 | 12:27 pm

  From Brian Morrissey:  “so we have learned twitter is excellent for earthquake news. cue web 2.0ites predicting imminent death of NYT.”

• 
  The Responsible Marketing Blog

• The Ringtone from Hell

  Patrick Byers

  16 Nov 2009 | 11:43 pm

  View on YouTube “The Ringtone from Hell” is video six in our series of seven Responsible Marketing web shorts, but you could argue it has nothing to do with Responsible Marketing at all. Truth is, a few of our shorts are about character development and having fun with the angel and devil characters as they go through their days working at Outsource Marketing. We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back on message with video seven in a week or so. Subscribe to this feed.

• Channel strategy: What you need to know now

  Patrick Byers

  27 Oct 2009 | 12:31 am

  By Herman Kwik, Ph.D. When I work with entrepreneurs or inventors who are excited about their new products and eager to get busy “marketing,” I often have to urge caution – for two reasons: Because when they say “marketing” they really mean “selling,” and that’s a different operation altogether. Because entrepreneurs don’t always consider the sequence of events necessary for “marketing” to be properly deployed. In launching a new product—as opposed to offering a service—there is one strategic element that is rarely given its proper due: deciding on the…

• The 7 Keys to Responsible Marketing in 2 Minutes

  Patrick Byers

  21 Oct 2009 | 12:31 am

  Want to know what Responsible Marketing is about but don’t have the time to read our white paper on the topic? Well, here’s “The 7 Keys to Responsible Marketing in 2 Minutes,” featuring the characters you’ve grown to love (or hate) in our Responsible Marketing web shorts. View on YouTube There ya go—with a video that short, now everyone has time to learn about Responsible Marketing. Share away. Subscribe to this feed.

• Climate hype? Where there’s hype, there’s $

  Patrick Byers

  15 Oct 2009 | 4:37 am

  For Blog Action Day, I started crafting a post regarding the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December, but then I realized, hey, this blog is supposed to be about Responsible Marketing! Here’s an interesting Google Earth tour on the topic. Right after I’ll get to my real post. View on YouTube Okay, so I’ve decided it’s time for me to get something off my chest. You see, I’ve been called a tree-hugger. A green-weenie. And most recently, an “eco-lib.” Whatever. Sticks and stones and all that. I doubt I’ll convince anyone reading this blog that…

• We’re going to need to talk about your TPS reports

  Martin Pierce

  8 Oct 2009 | 10:14 pm

  By Martin Pierce Ah, ah, I almost forgot…I’m also going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too. Mmmmmkay? Thaaaaaanks! We here at Outsource Marketing like to think that our office culture doesn’t resemble that of our good friend Bill Lumbergh’s Initech. But we do relate. Don’t know who Bill Lumbergh is? Never heard of Initech? Then you haven’t seen Mike Judge’s 1999 cult masterpiece “Office Space.” You don’t know what you’re missing. Here’s the trailer: View on YouTube A couple months back we took time out of our busy schedules to have a little…

• 
  Web Strategy by Jeremiah

• Matrix: The Four Social Support Strategies

  jeremiah_owyang

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:44 am

  At the Altimeter Group, I cover Customer Strategy, which encompasses not only marketing, but also support, expect our discussion to grow as social technologies impact the whole enterprise. The Social Support movement is afoot (see opportunities), and more companies will be connecting existing marketing and support systems with the social web. Many companies, like Comcast, Wells Fargo, Intel, BestBuy, JetBLue are responding to customers and in some cases, supporting them in near real time. The challenge is that these teams are unable to scale, even a support team of ten full time folks at…

• Breakdown: Lego’s “Digital Box”, an Augmented Reality Kiosk

  jeremiah_owyang

  16 Nov 2009 | 3:51 am

  Augmented Reality provides brands with an engaging experience that merges both the digital and the real world. This 30 second video shows how a 3D animation on the product box enabled me to understand the assembled product. Lego’s “Digital Box” Provides Customers with an Interactive 3D Digital Experience This weekend, I went to the local Lego store here in Silicon Valley (Hillsdale) to see a practical version of Augmented Reality. I was previously briefed by Metaio, the technology vendor that empowers the software for the Augmented Reality kiosks called, Digital Box. This…

• Personal Goals and #OperationBluewater

  jeremiah_owyang

  15 Nov 2009 | 7:58 am

  Most people miss out on life because they don’t have a strategy around personal goals. Most Lack a Personal Goal Strategy Let me lay out some the observations I’ve noticed from some of the smartest folks I’ve watched achieve success in their lives.  Often they first tell me about the challenges, that most people don’t even have a personal goal strategy.  1) Most people don’t even have personal goals, seriously try it,  ask folks you work with: “What’s your personal goal?”   2) Most people think the end goal is a at 65 and do all their…

• Is Your Company Trusted or Do You Have a Digital Comb Over?

  jeremiah_owyang

  13 Nov 2009 | 7:15 am

  Many companies are entering the social/green/community space, with hopes of impressing customers, yet despite their best intentions, they could come across as inauthentic, and be damaging their own brand.  Companies should first take a self-assessment of their brand to see if they’re ready before they decide to enter the social space. Companies should first assess their culture and ask: Is the company ready to talk about the good –and bad– with the market? Is the internal culture ready to embrace customers on their own terms? Is the culture ready to make changes based on…

• Evolution: The Eight Stages Of Listening

  jeremiah_owyang

  10 Nov 2009 | 5:02 am

  As Social Customers Become More Empowered, Organizations Must Have A Listening Strategy As we approach 2010 planning companies need a strategy around listening. Sadly, most companies, and their agency partners don’t know why to listen or how. As a result, they must identify which stage of listening they are at, and then set a goal on which stage they see to aspire in 2010. I originally published this matrix for client workshops and a keynote presentation on developing listening and advocacy programs, and I’m going to continue to share more and blow-out each of my slides. Web…

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  Jon Burg's Future Visions

• learning some humility

  Jonathan Burg

  9 Nov 2009 | 9:23 am

  There is an inherent flaw in living in the online fishbowl.  You begin to think that your opinion is informed.There is a gaping chasm between those who do, those who have done and those who talk.Take this morning's news about Rupert Murdock not allowing Google to index his content.  The web laughs.  Bloggers and tweeters scorn this decision.  And while many of those sharing their opinions are smart, Rupert Murdoch has a track record.  The guy has built a media empire.  I didn't.  You didn't.  He did.We can have an informed discussion around the technical feasibility of "turning off…

• forget tech, think behavior

  Jonathan Burg

  25 Oct 2009 | 8:55 am

  Twitter, YouTube and Facebook may not be the platforms of tomorrow.  We may move on, just as we moved past Second Life, Friendster, AOL Chatrooms, GeoCities and MySpace.  Marketers and agencies that focus on the platform will need to reinvent as our online behavior matures and shifts.  Smart marketers, agencies and brands are not focusing on platforms or current opportunities, they are looking at the behavior driving users and consumers to, within and around these platforms.  Today's tactic has to become tomorrow's strategy.  And tomorrow's strategy cannot be about a shifting platform,…

• how do you excite?

  Jonathan Burg

  16 Oct 2009 | 9:38 am

• a new take on short-form disclosure

  Jonathan Burg

  6 Oct 2009 | 10:21 am

  The industry is abuzz with the FTC's first steps into social.While social pundits have long been advocating the need for full transparency and self-imposed ethics, disclosure statements often feel disruptive within the context of the conversation.  As a result, an alarming number of social participants fail to properly disclose their relationship with brands.  This includes not only celebrities and mommy bloggers, but agency social leads, social consultants and brand marketers.  We need a better, comprehensive way to disclose both our relationships and the nature of these relationships…

• free isn't free : 3 dimensions of Free

  Jonathan Burg

  30 Sep 2009 | 7:41 am

  This whole free meme is pretty hackneyed and sooooo "three weeks ago" but given some recent experiences, I thought I would share some perspective.When there is scarcity, Free is a blessing.  It's 1999, you're in college and you want music.  You're tight on cash and you want an mp3, so you hop onto Napster.  Sure, the first three files you downloaded sounded horrible, but the fourth was the perfect rip.  You waded through the junk to get to gold.  Because there was a scarcity.When there is perceived freedom, Free is an expectation.  We expect pretty much all of our online content to be…

• 
  Crenk

• Top 5 Free Blackberry Applications

  Steven Finch

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am

  We thought we would let everyone know what our favourite five blackberry applications are. Facebook For Blackberry Everyone knows what Facebook is! Facebook lets people share pictures, messages and online applications with their friends. Facebook seems to be everywhere and they even have a Facebook application for the Blackberry. A really neat feature of this app is their recent update which allows you to automatically link Facebook profile pictures of your friends with their contact entry in your Blackberry’s address book. You can download Facebook for Blackberry on your Blackberry’s…

• Amazon Affiliates Prepare for Black Friday

  Dean Sherwin

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:45 am

  Last week I did a post about how the Internet was getting all decked out in preparation for Black Friday. Well this morning when I checked my e-mail I had a newsletter from Amazon Affiliates who I occasionally use on my blog. They were pretty much telling me that if I wanted to make money now was the time to do it. They have prepare special banners such as the one to the left and set up a special Black Friday section. What’s more (I’m sure this will please many bloggers  reading this) affiliates earn 15% for every sale they refer on Black Friday – not bad. Their entire new range of…

• Skype Deal Finally Completed and Worth $2.75 Billion

  Steven Finch

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  So much has happened in the last few months with regards to Skype. eBay which bought Skype for $2.6 million back in 2005 has finally settled its litigation with Skype’s founders, and now the sale and restructure has been finalised. The result: Skype now owns all of its technology, the founders received 14% of Skype and two seats on the Board of Directors, eBay keeps 30% of Skype, and the rest is owned by outside investors. 1. eBay now owns 30% of Skype, outside investors (including Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) own 70%. 2. 14% or so is…

• Twitter au français

  Dean Sherwin

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:20 am

  Twitter have just announced the official release of a French version of the popular micro-blogging service. Over the past couple of months they have been aiming to release the service in Spanish, French, German and Italian. So far, they got Spanish completed and now they got the French version ready just in time for le Web – a massive tech conference in France held annually. They released a blog post on their official blog but fittingly, it was all in French, so here is a rough translation for you: The French twitteurs golds can already track people and companies they are familiar. Whether…

• New Chrome OS Screenshots and Video

  Dean Sherwin

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:04 am

  Yesterday, Google released public information about its new Chrome OS at the official press event. They showed videos of the OS and gave real-time demonstrations to reporters. It looks a lot like the popular browser of the same name. It uses tabs like those in the browser instead of buttons in the task bar. The colour scheme is also very bright with a lack of colour. This may pose problems for laptop users in terms of battery life. Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea: I guess this would be the equivalent of the start menu in Windows. It’s called the applications panel and it’s…

• 
  Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

• The Transforming Enterprise

  Len Devanna

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:10 pm

  Things have been a tad busy of late, and I've been neglecting my blogging duties - Sorry for that. If it's any excuse, I've been working all-out with a very talented bunch of folks to help deliver this, this and this. Which reminds, with this now in the past, I really have to start working on my presentation for this. If you haven't been following, EMC, Cisco and VMware today announced the Virtual Computing Environment coalition. The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, and have given me an opportunity to witness firsthand the transformation of the traditional…

• Innovation Day at EMC

  Len Devanna

  14 Oct 2009 | 11:16 am

  I have the absolute pleasure today of participating in EMC's Innovation Conference. It's hard to imagine a year has passed since our last event. As I type this, I sit in our Santa Clara facility (California) watching a live broadcast from Bangalore, India where EMC CTO Jeff Nick is opening the days ceremonies. Santa Clara is but one of 13 satellite sites across the globe participating in the days activities. Breakthrough thinking, adding value to our customers, adding value to EMC, improving the industry at large and identifying ways to further encourage innovation are all among the criteria…

• New FTC Guidelines and Social Marketing

  Len Devanna

  7 Oct 2009 | 1:48 pm

  On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission approved revisions to the guidelines it gives advertisers on appropriate use of endorsement and testimonial ads. The update includes new examples to reinforce the notion that connections between advertisers and endorsers (connections that may not be obvious to consumers) must be disclosed. These are timely updates with the continued emergence of word of mouth marketing via the social web. From my point of view, this is a welcomed update. We continually work to understand the online behaviors of our audience. Peer to peer content continues to be among…

• Are your ears burning?

  Len Devanna

  9 Sep 2009 | 7:37 am

  Anyone every ask you if your ears were burning? If so, it means they were talking about you in some fashion or another. I often wonder in what context my name came up? Was it good or bad? Who else was in on the discussion? Imagine if I could have a tool that let me know when such conversations were taking place... Letting me know when I'm being talked about and in what vein... I'd use it - you? Readers of this blog know that we're focusing energy on driving awareness and subsequent proficiency within the 2.0 world across our global employee population. No small feat. We've used channels like…

• Cool Opps at EMC

  Len Devanna

  8 Sep 2009 | 9:08 am

  Two really cool opportunities still posted on EMC.com that are likely of interest to readers of this blog. Strangely, links to each results in 'cookies disabled' errors for some so I wanted to duplicate the content here. If interested, use the Requisition ID below to find the relevant opp and submit your credentials. BusinessDocumentumLocation(s)US - California - PleasantonTitleSocial Media ManagerRequisition ID44934BRJob DescriptioncLet’s face it, information and people are the most important assets companies have. EMC’s Content Management and Archiving division is revolutionizing the…

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  Chris Saad - Paying Attention

• Twitter Lists and Tags

  Chris Saad

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:58 am

  In my previous post (written 5 minutes ago) I talk about Twitter Lists in relation to shared namespaces (Hint: They are not in a shared namespace). Another under-reported fact, however, is that lists are also Tags. They are a great way for Twitter to learn how Twitter users are perceived and grouped (As a side note, they are also great for people to see how other people perceive them – one of my favorite lists in which I am listed: @chadcat/unreasonably-talented haha). One could easily see an algorithm that can determine accurate APML data about each user not just by looking at their…

• Twitter Lists and Namespaces

  Chris Saad

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:40 am

  A very important fact that seems to be getting little to no coverage at the moment about Twitter Lists is the issue of namespaces. Twitter’s number one asset is its control and allocation of namespaces. Those little things we call ‘Usernames’. @chrissaad is not just my Twitter Name, it is a short form addressable identity that concretely links to my Twitter inbox any time someone uses it in a Tweet. Addressable, convenient namespaces that can be used in a sentence like this are so interesting and important that facebook went to great lengths to copy them. Nothing on the open…

• Stalqer – Viral Loops and Network Effects

  Chris Saad

  27 Oct 2009 | 11:20 pm

  Today a company I am advising has launched in the press and will soon be available in the Apple App Store. They are called Stalqer and, as Techcrunch writes, they are basically Foursquare on steroids. I think that’s a pretty good description. The fact is, however, the most impressive thing about Stalqer is not what it does but how it does it. Rather than approaching acquisition and retention of users like any typical app , it uses data portability, viral loops and network effects to on-board and engage users on an ongoing basis. Not enough app developers consider this when engineering…

• You get what you deserve

  Chris Saad

  6 Oct 2009 | 10:42 am

  Lately a number of my friends seem to be having great wins and making their mark on the industry in awesome ways. When I first moved out to Silicon Valley (starting with a short trip in 2006) I already knew (by reputation) many of the names and personalities that made up the ecosystem. I read them on blogs, listened to them on podcasts and generally admired their work and learned from their ideas. Once coming out here, I got to know many of them personally. Some let me down, others surprised me with their generosity and still others became wonderful friends. I’d like to highlight just a…

• 5 Things you need to know about Social Media Marketing

  Chris Saad

  25 Sep 2009 | 1:36 pm

  Someone recently asked me to give them the top few tips I could think of about Social Media Marketing. Here’s the first 5 things that came to mind. Conversation is not a buzzword They call it a ‘conversation’ – the meaning is literal - not figurative. Someone speaks, you listen, and you respond appropriately. You try to add value to the dialogue not shout your message. The most common mistakes people make in social media are the same mistakes they make at a dinner party. They don’t listen. They don’t add value. They don’t have something interesting…

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  Managing the Gray

• Army Strong Stories

  C.C. Chapman

  10 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  When I went out to Blogworld Expo , one of the coolest things I got to hear about is what the US Army is doing with their new site Army Strong Stories. As soon as I heard about it I knew I was impressed and wanted to get them on the phone to talk abut it so all the Managing the Gray listeners could find out more. A special thanks to MAJ Mary Constantino for taking time out of her busy schedule to chat with me about the program. As always if you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe in iTunes or leave a review for the show.

• 7th Son – A New Kind of Marketing

  C.C. Chapman

  27 Oct 2009 | 5:49 am

  My good friend J.C. Hutchins new book hits store shelves today called 7th Son: Descent. You should buy many copies of it for every science fiction and thriller lover on your Christmas list! But, today I’ve got something special for you. A special free 10 chapter PDF of the book for your downloading, reading and sharing pleasure. Click on the book cover to enjoy. What I love about this is that is just one part of all the new things that JC is trying around marketing this book. It is being published by a major publishing company, but JC wanted to keep trying new things like this (with…

• When in Doubt, Disclose

  C.C. Chapman

  20 Oct 2009 | 5:40 am

  Blogworld Expo was a lot of fun, but it seemed that every other question in any conversation was, “So what do you think about the FTC announcing they will be fining bloggers?” If you haven’t read about this there is plenty of coverage and here is the actual announcement. For me, it really is simple and not that big of a deal because I personally have always made sure to disclose any relationships. What the ruling means to me is that the people who are NOT doing this will hopefully start doing it or will be fined. I’m not sure the government needs to get involved in…

• Buckets

  C.C. Chapman

  9 Oct 2009 | 5:46 am

  Fresh back from Inbound Marketing Summit Boston 2009 and I’m filled with a lot of energy. The people, the conversations and the learning all filled me up and I’m ready to go. While at the conference I took part in a panel (that should be online soon I hope) and gave a presentation called “There is a Hole in the Bucket” that seemed to really resonate with people and I wanted to talk about it on the show since many of you could not be there and I’m not sure when the video of the speech will actually hit the web. Here are the slides I used to go along with my…

• Personal Price Tags

  C.C. Chapman

  18 Sep 2009 | 5:44 am

  Every person that creates content of any type online is an “influencer” in my mind and it is to you that I’m speaking today. More and more brands are looking to engaged with influencers both long term and for individual programs and I think that too many people are selling themselves short when they take part in these programs and I want each of you to start thinking more about what I am calling a Personal Price Tag. Also, here are the links to the upcoming events that I’m going to be attending. I hope to see some of you there! ANA Conference Inbound Marketing Summit…

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  Robin Good

• How To Remember What You Forgot: Your Internal Google Comes To Rescue

  Robin Good

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:58 am

  How to remember what you forgot? Is there a way to instruct your brain to remember those things that are buried under hundreds of layers of memories? Yes there is, and you have it since you were born. Photo credit: ktsdesign edited by Daniele Bazzano How many times did you find yourself in the situation of wanting to remember something, but the more you tried, the less results you achieved? It is like you focus hard to remember a place, a name, but the answer never comes to your head. It is mainly our fault, as generally after a couple of minutes we give up and say: "This is useless, I am not…

• Future Of Learning: A Video Interview With Curtis Bonk

  Robin Good

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:03 am

  What does the future of learning look like? What is going to change in the future of our education systems? What role will new media technologies play in the way you and I will share knowledge and skills in the near future? If you want to see a glimpse of how you can impact the way in which you and your kids are going to learn in the future, check out this video interview. Photo credit: Robin Good My highly qualified interviewee is this time Curtis Bonk, Professor Emeritus of Indiana University, and one of the most celebrated "hot heads" out there looking at the future of education and…

• Convert PowerPoint To Video: Guide To The Best Free Services

  Daniele Bazzano

  16 Nov 2009 | 12:55 am

  Looking for a way to convert your PowerPoint presentations to video clips? Want to share your presentations with a broader audience, including those who do not have a copy of PowerPoint installed? Your search is over: in this MasterNewMedia guide you can find all of the best free services to convert your PowerPoint presentations to video. Photo credit: Viktor Gmyria Why would someone want to convert a PowerPoint presentation to video? PowerPoint-free: Once your presentation is converted into a video, you do not need anymore to have PowerPoint installed to watch it nor do your recipients,…

• Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - Nov 14 09

  George Siemens

  14 Nov 2009 | 3:50 am

  In this week issue of Media Literacy Digest, open education and connectivism advocate George Siemens, explores and reports about his new media technologies discoveries and their possible impact on how we work, learn and communicate together. Photo credit: Ktsdesign Inside this Media Literacy Digest: LearnTrends - Reminder, next week, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, and I (with support from many others!) are running LearnTrends 2009 Random Social Media Resources - Moving Away from Social Media to Business Focus, Social Learning Examples, Overcoming Obstacles to the Social Business Learning Management…

• 
  Dosh Dosh

• 11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action

  Maki

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:41 am

  Influence can be defined as the power exerted over the minds and behavior of others. A power that can affect, persuade and cause changes to someone or something. In order to influence people, you first need to discover what is already influencing them. What makes them tick? What do they care about? We need some leverage to work with when we’re trying to change how people think and behave. But there’s a problem. You won’t be able to meet and get to know everyone. You won’t have the luxury of learning their life history and what they hate or love. In the online…

• How to Achieve Your Goals by Changing the Way You Surf the Web

  Maki

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:38 am

  Everyone has their favorite way of using the internet. Many of us search to find what we want, click in to a specific website, read what’s available and click out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s efficient. We learn to tune out things we don’t need and go straight for what’s essential. This goal-oriented way of surfing the web is largely based on short-term results. For example, finding facts to write a blog post, doing a comparison before making a purchase and reading a news site to find out what’s happening right now. If you do all…

• An Essential Marketing Principle: Give Before You Try to Get

  Maki

  18 May 2009 | 12:31 pm

  Experts have talked about this before. How many times have you read about the importance of ‘adding value’ for your audience? How many times have you read about ‘building trust’ with your readers/prospects?  Many, many times. You know it well. Every marketing guru has spoken about this topic. I’m sick of hearing it. But it STILL bears repeating. Because some people still don’t get it. What’s the underlying principle for successful online marketing, selling or networking? The art of giving before you try to get. Before you get something from…

• Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users

  Maki

  22 Apr 2009 | 10:34 am

  A few days ago Twitter announced on their status blog that all Twitter users are only allowed to follow a maximum of 1000 people a day. This rule was designed to cut down on ‘follow spam’, the act of following many Twitter users in order to get them to follow you back or click on your links. When combined with the already existing limit based on follow ratios, this means that it will be more difficult for marketers or self-promoters to rapidly increase their Twitter follower count by following many people. The old days of following thousands of users a day to…

• Ad Swaps: A Smart and Easy Way to Get Free Traffic

  Maki

  15 Apr 2009 | 4:48 pm

  After yesterday’s post on marketing without search engines, I decided to follow up with a strategy you can use to get quality free traffic. One of the easiest ways to get visitors to your web site is to spend money. Nothing is more effortless then paying for traffic. But if you can’t afford it or don’t want to pay, there’s an equally simple but free way to get traffic: ad swaps. An advertisement swap or ad swap is simply an arrangement where you agree to put up someone else’s ad on your site or email newsletter in exchange for them doing the same. The goal of an…

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  Metz, The Social Concept

• Live-Blogging: Social Innovation In The Cloud #DF09

  Adam Metz

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:41 am

  I’m sitting in my first workshop of the day, Social Innovation In The Cloud (yes, I slept through my two 7:30s, but I’ll catch the replay). This session is largely populated by non-profits who are using cloud-based applications, workflow and CRM (for fundraising). We began with James Bullard, the director of I.T. for Transfair, the organization behind Fair Trade. They’re the folks that “manage and understand the supply chain complexity” for fair-trade goods, like coffee. Bullard’s key uses of the Force.com product was to manage all internal workflow, using…

• Salesforce Launches Chatter: Full-Scale Social Media For SMB/Enterprise

  Adam Metz

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:40 pm

  If Pink Floyd ran an enterprise software company, it would be Salesforce. If Pink Floyd’s crazed fans ran a social sales and customer service platform, it probably look something like Salesforce Chatter. At about 11:30 a.m. this morning, Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff announced Chatter, a social collaboration platform. It’s likely that the product will ship with the Salesforce February release (a July delay is unlikely). Benioff started off his keynote talking BIG – he introduced the conference coasting sheerly on magnitude: 19,000 visitors, 60-plus countries, and the…

• Top Ten Twitters To Follow at Dreamforce (#DF09) [2]

  Adam Metz

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm

  Here’s a solid mix of analysts, bloggers, brands, and software stakeholders that we’ve been jamming with on Twitter since the Dreamforce Conference began yesterday. Follow them to stay on top of all of the killer sessions and meetings at the conference. 1. DestinationCRM 2. thekenyeung 3. marcbenioff 4. lager 5. marcusnelson 6. rgreenburg 7. Chili_The_Dog (My neighbor Jeremy’s dog, just wanted to see if you were still reading this…) 8. pgreenbe 9. geekgiant 10. forcedotcom

• We Are The F**king Def Leppard of Management Consulting [1]

  Adam Metz

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:44 pm

  It’s a bold claim, I know. Metz Consulting is the Def Leppard of management consulting. Say what you will. You know it’s true. We have substantiated four points below to demonstrate how we have achieved competency at this level of “rock”. It hit me a few nights ago after I got back from Amoeba Records, after my once-a-month Sunday night run. I was on Wikipedia, reading about the making of Def Leppard’s Hysteria), an album that took three years to come together. While reading about the trials and tribulations that the mighty Leps faced (loss of drummers arms, two…

• The Metz Guide To Dreamforce

  Adam Metz

  13 Nov 2009 | 5:34 pm

  If you want to shadow me and basically attend every session that I attend at the Salesforce Dreamforce conference, my itinerary is here . Expect a ton of courses on social media integration and computer telephony integration (CTI), aimed squarely at consumer brands.

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  Des Walsh dot Com

• links for 2009-11-17

  Des Walsh

  17 Nov 2009 | 2:02 am

  Why Government Is Not A Platform Blogger Andrea DiMaio comments on Gov 2.o Summit, September this year. Challenges Tim O'Reilly concept of "government as a platform" as a "new buzzword" ( or buzzphrase?) for government 2.0. Interesting argument for anyone interested in government 2.0 issues, social media in government etc (tags: government20 government gov20 gov2.0)

• Social Media Tools Week Begins

  Des Walsh

  15 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pm

  Social Media Tools Week emphasis on the practical This is a shameless plug for an event, Social Media Tools Week, in which I am one of the presenters, although I was promoting it before I had any any inkling I would be invited to present. I don’t know of any other event this year which is offering so much quality content, so accessibly and so focused on providing practical advice on using social media tools. As I mentioned here a month ago, it’s been instructive for me to notice recently how much appreciation there is by business people who have not been active social media…

• Catching the Google Wave

  Des Walsh

  12 Nov 2009 | 7:22 pm

  A new user guide to Google Wave will hopefully help some of us see how it can be of use Just when I and maybe others started to wonder whether Google Wave was worth the fanfare, and how to use it in any seriously productive way,  a new guide to Wave has been released, which claims to be comprehensive as well as complete. It’s by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash, whose credentials are not to be sneezed at. The guide will be for sale as a PDF soon, it seems, and in dead tree form come January 2010. In the meantime you can read it online. From watching a demo of the Google Wave some months…

• Launching New Talk Show on BlogTalkRadio

  Des Walsh

  29 Oct 2009 | 4:35 am

  “Des Walsh & Friends” show to launch on BlogTalkRadio I’ve been thinking for a while now about having another go at starting my own show on BlogTalkRadio and when I checked my account there yesterday I was a bit startled to realize that the last effort was a couple of years ago. In the meantime I have endeavoured with my China-based colleague, Lonnie Hodge, to put out a regular show about China, China Conversations, but our efforts on that particular platform, while successful to a degree, were thwarted technically: much as we loved the basic BlogTalkRadio setup and the…

• Believing Popular Myths About Twitter Could Cost You Money

  Des Walsh

  26 Oct 2009 | 8:39 pm

  Why smart business owners cut through the noise and get the Twitter business case I’ve been thinking about the comment I heard yesterday morning from an otherwise quite smart presenter on morning television, to the effect that everyone who goes on Twitter gets addicted to it and that’s why she is not on it. I didn’t get the exact words – let’s face it, who hangs on every word from breakfast television? But I suspect that that presenter’s views on Twitter, if repeated in a local book club or at a barbecue would not be regarded as exceptional. From a business…

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  Zac Johnson: Inside the secret life of a super affiliate

• $5000 in Sponsored Tweets Ad Coupon Codes

  Zac Johnson

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:25 am

  I’ve already made hundreds of dollars with Sponsored Tweets. Referred over 500+ new Twitter accounts to their service, and even won a $3000+ vacation to the Dominican Republic. That’s not all… it just keeps getting better… and this time, BETTER FOR YOU! Last week I was talking with Ted Murphy and he thought it would be a great idea to hold an EXCLUSIVE promotion to only my blog readers. I AGREED! I am now in possession of ONE HUNDRED $50 coupon codes for Sponsored Tweets. These coupon codes expire at the end of the month, and are good for new advertisers to Sponsored…

• Easily Search Affiliate Offers from Top Networks

  Zac Johnson

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:02 am

  Earlier in the year I came across a new site called OfferVault, which helped you compare cpa offers across a bunch of affiliate networks. Mark Roth, the owner of the site, recently contacted me and let me know about some of the changes and improvements to the site since then. If you saw the previous site design, you will notice a huge improvement right away. The old design didn’t have much of a color scheme, and I found it a bit confusing on where to signup or access the search area for current members. The new design puts all that confusion to rest and provides much more. What’s…

• Rebill Offers Come Back to Hurt Affiliates

  Zac Johnson

  11 Nov 2009 | 11:17 am

  In the beginning, all the talk was about rebill offers and how bad they are for the customers. Months later and we are seeing the same thing happen to a few networks, affiliates and companies, but in a different backlash. With such a high payout per free trial, the affiliate networks and supplier companies have to pay out a ton in advance… in hopes they can scam keep customers paying for an extra 2-3 months. But what happens when the overflow is too much and it starts to go the other way. In most cases, you the affiliate, or network won’t be getting paid. A friend of mine has been…

• $1000 in Facebook Ads Coupon Codes

  Zac Johnson

  9 Nov 2009 | 11:04 am

  Last week at AdTech, Facebook had a booth and they were giving away $50 free trial coupon codes. I swung by the booth and managed to pick up around 20 of their Facebook Ads Free Trial business cards. I went back to grab more later, but they didn’t have any more out. I knew I wouldn’t be able to use them on my existing account, but I grabbed a bunch to give them away through the blog. You can see the actual card below, and yes, it is an active trial code, but only good for the first person who grabs it. These $50 free trials (x 20 codes =$1,000) are only available on new Facebook…

• Breakdown of a Profitable Facebook Ads Campaign

  Zac Johnson

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  With the latest backlash of articles coming up on TechCrunch about deceptive and scammy ways to make money on Facebook, I wanted to provide you with a full breakdown on how to create a successful CPA Facebook ads campaign. Step and step details on a campaign I had running months ago. The best way to do this, is by looking over an old campaigns that I have on pause and aren’t running anymore. A lot of the offers I have on pause are still available, but I never went on to monetize them enough to bring in a higher ROI. This campaign in particular is just under a year old, but the offer is…

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  Chad Barr

• Scenes and Sounds from the Million Dollar Club in St. Lucia 2009

  Chad Barr

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:27 am

  Below are three videos that will give you a sense of the amazing time I spent in St. Lucia with members of Alan Weiss’s Million Dollar Club. In the mornings, we discussed our businesses, how to reach the next level, we shared our intellectual property with each other as well as shared our interpretation of what the future looks like in our areas of expertise. In the afternoons and evenings we relaxed and enjoyed a great time with our spouse while continuing our fabulous discussions. Listen to what participants had to say about this amazing experience: Our MDC friend, Michael Sheargold,…

• Increasing Your Business Success

  Chad Barr

  2 Oct 2009 | 7:28 pm

  In order to generate the highest successful results for your business, consider the following: Determine the highest impact of what you do for your clients. Who would be most receptive for your offerings.  Who has the greatest capacity to pay.

• Life’s Amazing Gifts

  Chad Barr

  26 Sep 2009 | 3:52 pm

  Reflecting on the Jewish new year I have to admit that this year has been absolutely amazing. Just over 6 months ago I was blessed with the birth of my beautiful granddaughter, Dafna. My daughter Sharon was ordained as a Rabbi. My son Yoni is maturing and becoming a handsome young man. My son-in-law Hillel, still in school and whose main mission in life is to take care of my daughter and his and who has been doing an awesome job at that. And of course my beautiful wife, Laurel, who what can I say, is just amazing. Happy new year to all. May this year bring health, happiness, prosperity and…

• Success Blueprint

  Chad Barr

  19 Sep 2009 | 5:25 pm

  I am constantly intrigued by what generates success for entrepreneurs so I may coach and apply this blueprint for my clients. During a fabulous dinner with Alan Weiss this past Wednesday evening at The Spiced Pear in Newport, Rhode Island and over an amazing 2001 Chateau Margaux, we discussed some of the components of such success: Internalized Knowledge and experience. Intellectual fire power which is gained through additional learning, reading and experience. Innovative and creative ideas. Mental discipline to get out the intellectual capital (between your ears) into products and services…

• New Site - www.LibbyWagner.com

  Chad Barr

  13 Sep 2009 | 8:52 pm

  I am thrilled to announce the new site and strategy we have developed and implemented for my friend, colleague and client, Libby Wagner, President of Libby Wagner & Associates and Influencing Options, located in Seattle, WA. Libby is one of the only poets regularly welcomed into the boardroom. Often called the The Influencing Coach™ by her clients, Libby’s expertise in leadership, strategy, management, and executive team development helps organizations create environments where clarity and increased trust lead to unrivaled results. Here is what Libby just shared with me…

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  Andrew Chen: Futuristic Play

• What I’m reading: Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg

  Andrew Chen

  7 Nov 2009 | 2:57 pm

  Followup to Ning’s Viral Loop article I was recently sent a copy of Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg, which just came out. I was first introduced to Adam in early 2008, when Marc Andreessen wrote us both while Adam was starting to write an article about Ning and their viral loops. That article was ultimately published in April 2008 as Ning’s Infinite Ambition, which you should read if you haven’t. After the article, Adam subsequently spent more time researching the topic, ultimately resulting in the book. I finished it and wanted to share a high-level summary and also talk…

• Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article

  Andrew Chen

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:30 am

  omg she’s getting scammed by a duck! Techcrunch on social gaming scams As everyone knows, Techcrunch recently published a provocative article called Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell. Most people will have already read this article, but just to summarize, Arrington argues the following: Social gaming companies (particularly Zynga) are making their revenues in a “completely unethical” way Users are getting scammed by the offers There’s harmful cycle where the scammiest companies earn more revenue, then buy more ads, then scam more people Similarly, some…

• How Facebook could clean up the offers industry

  Andrew Chen

  1 Nov 2009 | 11:55 am

  If Facebook doesn’t clean up the offers industry, then this guy will As a quick follow-on of my last post on How social gaming offers create value for everyone, it strikes me that what the industry needs to survive for the long-term is for one of the big players to break out of the stalemate of zero information sharing, and start advocating for sustainability. Why all the advertising and leadgen companies hide their information One of the big problems for the advertising and leadgen industries is the massive lack of information sharing between different parties. The reason is that…

• How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook, Zynga, and Offerpal)

  Andrew Chen

  1 Nov 2009 | 11:28 am

  The happy meal is the quintessential version of great product bundling How offers add value There have been a lot of conversations about the evils of offers in social gaming, and one thing that’s getting lost in the conversation is the potential for offers to actually generate value overall. Ultimately, offers are about “product bundling” and it adds value to the economy the same way that any product bundling adds value – by giving people more of what they want, often for less. And naturally, some configurations of different bundles are more effective than others, as…

• Building lifestyle companies versus VC-backable startups: Is it walk before you run?

  Andrew Chen

  27 Oct 2009 | 5:37 pm

  Small profitable companies versus VC-backed startups I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend centered around a key question that’s come up a couple times before: How transferable are the skills you learn from building a small, profitable company versus doing a VC-backable startup? This question came up because part of his life plan was that he wanted to do a “real” shoot-the-moon type startup at some point in his career, but before doing that, he wanted to work on a small profitable company so that he could learn more about the process. We had a discussion…

• 
  Jeff Pulver

• #140conf London - Coverage by the media

  jeff

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:29 pm

  #140conf London took place yesterday at the O2 Indigo in London. In the end, 67 people spoke in 35 sessions during the course of the day. Quite a number of people from the UK media were in attendance. Below are links to coverage the event received in the UK media. - Channel 4: Stephen Fry leads Twitter conference - Financial Times: Stephen Fry and the new kings of Twitter - Guardian: #140con: The Twitter millions create the story, says Stephen Fry - Telegraph: Stephen Fry says Twitter lets celebrities bypass media - BCS: Stephen Fry speaks at Twitter conference - ITProPortal: Stephen Fry…

• #140conf London starts tomorrow

  jeff

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:48 pm

  The 140 Characters Conference London: Exploring the State of NOW, will taking place at the O2 Indigo on November 17th I would like to thank the 60+ speakers, sponsors and delegates attending #140conf London. Special thanks also to everyone responsible with the event operations and special thanks to my friends on twitter who helped contribute to the buzz and who provide a constant reminder to me about the humanity and serendipity one can discover on twitter at any given moment. When you have a chance, please visit the event schedule to get a feel of the number of different people and different…

• Keep up with the Characters from the 140 Characters Conference:

  jeff

  15 Nov 2009 | 5:28 pm

  Two new twitter lists: - Speakers from #140conf Los Angeles (Oct 27/28) - Speakers from #140conf London (Nov 17th) Just click on the links above to follow some pretty amazing characters. Tags: 140conf, social media, 140 Characters Conference, twitter, Jeff Keni Pulver

• Finding Your Angel Investor

  jeff

  15 Nov 2009 | 5:09 pm

  Back in September I was interviewed by Jonna Krotz for her story, Finding Your Angel Investor. Her story offers some good pointers for people looking for Angel investors. If you are a new entrepreneur going out for the first time for Angel investors, you would benefit from reading the story. Tags: Entrepreneurship, leadership, Entrepreneur, Jeff Pulver

• NOW in London

  jeff

  14 Nov 2009 | 6:06 pm

  After the success of the first #140conf in New York City this past June, I made a commitment to produce follow up events. The first was the #140conf event that happened at the end of October in Los Angeles and the second is the event taking place on Tuesday here in London. In the time leading up to the London conference, I continue to appreciate the systemic effects the worldwide adoption of twitter is having on business. We are living in the very early stages of the “State of NOW.” Over the next few years the emerging real-time Internet will have a dramatic effect on the way many of us…

• 
  brandflakesforbreakfast

• ad council ads all in one handy place

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:52 am

  Finally, all of the American Ad Council ads are neatly packed together all in one place. Not that searching YouTube was a real chore, but it's cool that they've created a "channel" for anyone who needs quick access to the body of work. Nifty.

• free legal lets bloggers take on the man

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:40 am

  The Citizen Media Law Project is launching a new program for bloggers who need legal help dealing with copyright, defamation or other legal issues.The program looks to help bloggers who might not be able to afford the support they need on their own. There are income and revenue requirements to qualify, but this is an awesome step to help keep blogger voices loud and proud.(Your lawyer will likely not be sporting a Mexican wrestling mask. But you have to admit that "Chalko" looks like he's ready to take on the man.)

• nothing but sugary goodness

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:18 am

  The Cereal Project is your center for everything breakfast. Browse through the sweetalicious package designs, cornball tv spots and loads of other tasty treats. From Flavorwire and @pete_theECA(Yes, Dinky Donuts was made by Ralston Purina, the same company that's now more famous for Purina Dog Chow. Scrumptious.)

• escalator to heaven

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:14 am

  You've heard of elevator pitches: where you have the time of a short elevator ride to share your pitch with the investor that could change your world.Launch Memphis has taken it literally - with a twist, and created the escalator pitch contest. Eight finalists and three walk on contestants will get a magic escalator ride tomorrow, and a chance to make a pitch to win a $10K marketing package and $1000 in cold, hard cash.Great idea. You should totally try the same thing at the escalator in your local mall, just to see what happens. From @jameshutto

• greenalicious design that tastes great

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Imagine a product design that looks super hot. Then imagine that design could reduce air pollution. And reduce water pollution. And save energy. A product design change that can accomplish all of that?Meet the "naked" coke can. There are 24 billion coke cans produced every year. That's a lot of Coca Cola red paint. Not only does that create boku waste in manufacturing, but removing the paint adds a step to the recycling process. Eliminate the paint and you reduce manufacturing crap, and make recycling easier. Gizmodo has all the math proving this is the most awesome greenalicious package…

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  /Message

• The Coming Real Time Revolution

  Stowe Boyd

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pm

  [originally posted on Get Real, January 19, 2005] [These are the prepared notes for my introductory remarks for yesterday's Get Real Show, largely derived form a report I wrote for Cutter a few years ago, called Time to Get Real: Growing the Real Time Enterprise (still seems fresh though).] To imagine a zero latency organization – with near frictionless communication between applications and people – you have to grapple with an even more difficult idea: a network of companies, linked through a cascade of commercial transactions and communications, which all together represents a real…

• Moving Toward The Real-Time Enterprise

  Stowe Boyd

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:10 pm

  Time to Get Real: Moving Toward the Real-Time Enterprise There is no shortage of reading material on the rise of the real-time enterprise. But it's time to look beyond the verbiage so that organizations can decide what they must do to become "real time." This Executive Report by Stowe Boyd inspects and dissects what's being said about the real-time enterprise and helps you chart a course for your organization. There are two key points to keep in mind: technology is king in real time, and organizations will need it in order to respond quickly to market changes. by Stowe Boyd, April 2003 I get…

• links for 2009-11-19

  Stowe Boyd

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:05 am

  Dash to D.C.! Tech Guru Will Head Gov't Incubator, Digitize Democracy | The New York Observer Anil Dash is now director of Experts Lab, a new thinktank-ish organization started with MacArthur Foundation and the American Association for The Advancement of Science, intended to guide US policy. Hungry Garden Mapping social media. (tags: Technology hungrygarden)

• 19 Nov 2009 | 6:50 am

  Stowe Boyd

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:50 am

  I have enabled reblog for /Message. Take a look!

• links for 2009-11-18

  Stowe Boyd

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:04 am

  Meaning: The new measure of a brand or marketers success | Simon Mainwaring Simon Mainwearing takes the meme 'meaning is the new search' from my recent Defrag keynote and runs with it, taking it into the marketing PR domain. (tags: Technology simonmainwaring meaningisthenewsearch)

• 
  My Test Box: Web Software Reviews

• phpBB, Open Source Forum Software Version 3.0.6 Released

  Srikanth AD

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:19 pm

  phpBB, one of the popular forum softwares which we have mentioned here has released its new version 3.0.6.  This release has some major new features, bug fixes and improvements in stability and performance. Following are some of the major new features implemented in phpBB 3.0.6 Better captcha options and backported 3.2 captcha plugins: Classic and GD CAPTCHA reCaptcha (based on API from recaptcha.net by Mike Crawford and Ben Maurer) Q&A CAPTCHA 3D Wave (by Robert “Xore” Hetzler) Introduced new ACM (Cache) plugins. (Please consult our support forums for help if you need to use…

• Flynax Real Estate Classified Script released

  Mircea Goia

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:34 pm

  Flynax Classifieds, a web software maker specialized in classifieds web software, is presenting a new and long-awaited script – Flynax Real Estate Classifieds. Flynax Real Estate Classifieds is a powerful software makes it possible to run your own free or commercial Real Estate classified ads online agency. They have tried to include all customers’ wishes and request in new Flynax script. SEO friendly optimizing system of Flynax Real Estate Classifieds Script allows you  to make your site more adapted for search engine systems. The multi-functional Administrator Panel and additional…

• EntropySoft releases Standalone Content ETL for Cloud integration

  Serge Guillerme

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:21 pm

  EntropySoft, specialist of the ECI market (Enterprise Content Integration), is releasing a standalone version of its Content ETL product for unstructured data. Standalone Content ETL is specifically designed for SaaS companies that want to simplify cloud integration. By releasing this version of Content ETL, EntropySoft is reinforcing its position as one of the main suppliers of cloud integration products for unstructured data. The development of Software as a Service (SaaS) means that more and more companies work with document repositories that are no longer managed “in-house”. Using…

• Movable Type, Open Source Blog Software, Version 5 RC 1 Released

  Srikanth AD

  7 Nov 2009 | 10:08 pm

  Movable Type, an open source blog software, which we have reviewed here has recently released its new version 5 RC 1. Included in this release is a new theme ‘Pico’ and many other bug fixes. The launch of Movable Type version 5 is targeted for late November. Major Changes in this release, Added a new theme “Pico”. Bundle style repository with a theme. Styles can also be bundled with a theme to easily offer different flavors of a theme. Styles are nothing but a combination of a stylesheet and images to bundle with a theme. Config directive SQLSetNames should be specified as…

• Joomla Open Source Content Management System Version 1.5.15 Released

  Srikanth AD

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:51 am

  The Joomla project has recently announced the immediate availability of its new release,  Joomla 1.5.15 codenamed “Wojmamni ama mamni”. The key features and changes made in this release include, Security Two security issues were fixed in this release: Moderate Priority – Core – Front-End Editing. Low Priority – Core – XML File View. Components Allowed search to use the Itemid of the current Menu Item Removed unnecessary quotes in search results Fixed problem when using relative URL’s in editor with SEF enabled. Fixed formatting problem in Category List layout with Internet…

• 
  David Binkowski

• An Open Plea to the Marketing Community for Help

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:03 pm

  Hi everyone,I would normally never hijack my own blog for something like this but when you have the chance to help someone you just do it. A fellow blogger and friend, Anissa Mayhew, unexpectedly suffered a stroke earlier today and is currently in the ICU. I'm uncertain on how she's doing as we only received an update via her husband on her Facebook status, but needless to say there are a lot of us hoping she's OK. Check out the outpouring of support on Twitter from all of her friends.Her group mom blog, Aiming Low, has a post on how you can help. Due to server issues I'm reposting this call…

• Twitter Integrates with Google, Bing and Yahoo! - Now What?

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:21 pm

  Twitter finally lands a few business deals, but at what cost?

• Truth in Advertising

  9 Oct 2009 | 6:30 am

  Last week Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending, networking, connecting and speaking at the Type A Mom conference in Asheville, NC. Kelby Carr did an amazing job and I was proud to bring my clients to the conference to help support the blogging community.One of my panel sessions was called "Working with Companies", moderated by the lovely and talented Lucretia Pruett, aka GeekMommy. She and I spent quite a bit of time together discussing the industry and where it's going, but I'll save that for another post. The session was a split between a moderated discussion by the panel and an…

• Contest: Vote for my SXSW Panel

  18 Aug 2009 | 6:20 am

  I tweeted this earlier but if you go vote for my South by Southwest panel - and I make it - I'll take you with me. No joke, I have set aside marketing budget and will pay your travel (hotel, flight) and ticket. How can you enter?Click this link to the SXSW Panel picker, then retweet it and you're entered to win. You can enter every day, as much as you'd like until the voting ends.

• What the Twitterfication of Facebook Means

  14 Mar 2009 | 8:06 am

  Facebook unveiled their new home page Wednesday and I have to say - it's awfully Twitteresque. The center well, or "stream", of content on the page is now an ajaxy, auto-updating time line of your network's status updates. The language at the top has changed as well, from "David Binkowski is" to "What's on your mind?". (Twitter's call to action has always been "What are you doing?")I think this signals a "game over" for Twitter for several reasons. I'm not saying they're going under, but the site will never achieve the sort of growth MySpace or Facebook have, and without a suitor it's…

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  COMMETRICS

• Measuring ROI: Why it fails

  Urs E. Gattiker

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Recently, I was invited to give a talk to a small group of managers about KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) used to measure social media (SM) campaigns. Some of the points we discussed that evening are outlined below. Harsh reality 1: Goals attempt to be strategic BUT… John F. Kennedy once said: “In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.” For corporate strategy, this means once employees understand it they need to put their heart into reaching the targets. Our first attempt to…

• Very useful links: Google to Barcamp Liechtenstein via Amazon

  Urs E. Gattiker

  15 Nov 2009 | 10:29 am

  Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. The best way to keep track is by simply following us on Twitter. If you already follow too many people to keep track of, however, this weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous seven days. Our top stories include how Barcamp Liechtenstein outdid most by creating a place to crash for attendees’ kids, how Google is upsetting the privacy-loving Swiss and getting taken to court, how Amazon encourages affiliates to spam…

• 2010 trends: Social media marketing

  Urs E. Gattiker

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Versace, the Italian fashion house beloved by Hollywood celebrities, unveiled a sweeping restructuring in late October that included shedding 26 percent of its workforce. Recently, a fashion celebrity asked us what changes to their social media strategy would most help during the financial crisis and in 2010. We consulted our crystal ball and present you with our 2010 brand and blogging predictions for 2010. This is what we told our luxury-brand fashion designer over dinner. Awareness and consideration of data bias: Test failed Using data from services like Alexa, Omniture, WebTrends,…

• Very useful links: Xing to Picasso via MoMA

  Urs E. Gattiker

  8 Nov 2009 | 10:10 am

  Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. The best way to keep track is by simply following us on Twitter. If you already follow too many people to keep track of, however, this weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous seven days. Our top stories include how Barcelona’s Picasso Museum and the Museum of Modern Art are blazing the social media trail, a great Webinar you’ll definitely want to fit into your schedule, why Google’s Dashboard is not…

• 2010 trends: Data and mobile communication

  Urs E. Gattiker

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  When it comes to data services, social networks, cloud computing, mobile and music, market concentration is constantly on the rise. Could this mean the burst of another bubble, once again requiring taxpayers to foot the bill? Below, we discuss this from a Web 2.0 perspective. In the meantime, to keep up with our latest posts, why not just enter your email below to get the information first? Your email:  2010 will bring more players: Defend your turf! Once upon a time, Nokia released a mobile phone that was basically re-sold by various operators in numerous countries and any subscriber…

• 
  Six Pixels of Separation

• The New Search Landscape

  Mitch Joel

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:11 am

  When you think of search engines and the Internet, it's hard not to think of Google (and not much else). When you think of Google, it's also hard not to think of the classic children's tale, The Little Engine That Could. When Sergey Brin and Larry Page incorporated Google as a business in late 1998 out of a friend's garage in Menlo Park, Calif., there is no way they could have envisioned what the company would become. Beyond being worth billions of dollars, beyond its 20,000 employees, some people don't even call it "searching" any more, they simply refer to it as…

• H1N1 And Social Media (There Is A Connection)

  Mitch Joel

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:40 pm

  Are you going to get the H1N1 vaccine? There are many people who are very on-the-fence about this vaccine (well, actually, all vaccines). One of the better sources that persuaded me to get the shot (got mine today) was this: World Heath Organization: Safety of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 vaccines (hat-tip to Amber MacArthur). Without going into the medical and ethical discussion about vaccines, while waiting in line for my turn to get poked (and I don't mean that in a Facebook kind of way), it got me thinking how connected Social Media and getting this vaccine are. Let's start with this: no, this…

• Digital Marketing And Personal Branding Freebies

  Mitch Joel

  16 Nov 2009 | 10:58 am

  If you have not already picked up a copy of my first book, Six Pixels of Separation, this might be the perfect opportunity... For the next five day (until Friday, November 20th, 2009), if you buy a copy of Six Pixels of Separation (book, e-version, Kindle, audio, etc.... - all versions count) and forward me your receipt, I am giving away two very special gifts for free as a "thank you." Social Media For Business In 6 Simple Steps. This is my first e-book, and it's currently being written, edited and designed. I hope to have it out in January 2010. In this e-book, I walk through six…

• A Marketing Thriller

  Mitch Joel

  15 Nov 2009 | 5:50 pm

  Episode #177 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. This is an important episode. It is not a standard episode of the Podcast, but something very different. This is a conversation with the thriller novelist, J.C. Hutchins. As Marketers, it's important to listen and learn from people like Hutchins. He's an individual who always wanted to be a published author and nothing was going to get in his way. So, after tons of rejection, he took Marketing matters into his own hands, embraced the online channel (specifically Social Media) and…

• The Trigger Finger

  Mitch Joel

  14 Nov 2009 | 12:12 pm

  If the way in which we use the Internet (and mobile) is so different from traditional media, the advertising is going to have to change. How many times have you found yourself sitting in front of the television, watching a sub-par show and saying to yourself, "well, there's only 20 minutes left, I might as well watch and see how this turns out?" It happens all of the time. You're in the car listening to the radio just hoping that something interesting comes on, even though you've endured the same traffic and news updates multiple times in a row. Or, you keep flipping through a…

• 
  Chris Pirillo

• How to Optimize Network Management

  admin

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:28 pm

  This post was sponsored by LANsurveyor. We’ve worked with the folks at SolarWinds many times in the past. They have excellent products to help you keep your network running in tip-top shape (as their own community will attest). LANsurveyor is used by network engineers worldwide to map their networks in mere minutes. According to SolarWinds Head Geek, “getting to know” your network is the first thing you should do when managing any network – and the best way to do this is to discover, map and document it and everything connected to it. If you’re a network engineer, you are…

• How Can Companies Hire Social Media Directors?

  Chris

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:59 pm

  I came across an interesting link today while browsing Twitter. The author writes about how companies who are new to social media are failing miserably when it comes to writing job descriptions for their newly-created social media positions. He goes on to say he used to blame the companies themselves for writing poorly-constructed ads. Then, he realized that it isn’t the company’s fault at all. They don’t know what they’re doing, remember? They are new to this whole social media scene, and may not even know what it is they are looking FOR, exactly. How would you…

• How to Have a Chris Pirillo Live Gadget on your Windows Desktop

  Chris

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:19 pm

  Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed We’ve uploaded several awesome screencasts lately. All of you are sending in informative and high-quality tutorials for us to share with the world. It’s not too late for you to get your screencast on our channels, you know! Get busy and create something wonderful! Gabriel is a fan of our live stream, and has come up with a simple tutorial to show you how to add a gadget on your desktop to make tuning in to my stream even easier! With just a few clicks, you’ll have a widget right on your desktop for our live stream. It…

• Create Your Own WordPress Themes

  Chris

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

  Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed If you have a blog, you have a theme. Chances are, you downloaded a theme off the web somewhere. It’s okay that you don’t know how to code your own customized theme from scratch! Very few people are capable of doing this. You want your blog to say “YOU”, but you don’t want to pay a designer a ton of money to accomplish this. It’s a good thing Artisteer now makes it simple for you to create and customize your own WordPress theme with just a few clicks of the mouse. Everything and anything you can…

• Be Still My Beating Geek Heart

  Chris

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:37 pm

  Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed This is a plush beating heart. Why would you want one? Uh, probably because it’s cool! It has realistic beating sounds, which can soothe a baby… or yourself! This could just be the hottest new item for that impossible to buy for person on your holiday shopping list! What will our friends at ThinkGeek come up with next? Your friends will be oddly fascinated by the beating heart. You can snuggle up with it if you want, and not get all messy and icky. You could give one to your girlfriend (or boyfriend!) to show them that they…

• 
  Common Craft

• Video: Cloud Computing in Plain English

  leelefever

  11 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm

  Today we published a new video called Cloud Computing in Plain English: This title has been one of our most requested and for good reason.  Cloud Computing is a subject that has an explanation problem - people have a hard time understanding it because it's difficult to explain quickly.  Like Social Media, it's a subject that is very broad and lacks broad consensus in terms of clear explanations. Our hope with this video is to lay bit of groundwork so people can see the big ideas. We asked a number of people for input on the video and I want to thank: Tony Wright, Chris Savage, Uri…

• Cloud Computing in Plain English

  leelefever

  11 Nov 2009 | 7:56 am

  Cloud Computing in Plain English Check out all the videos in our "Computer Basics Pack" pack: Cloud Computing in Plain EnglishComputer Hardware in Plain EnglishComputer Software in Plain EnglishPhishing Scams in Plain EnglishWeb Search Strategies in Plain EnglishWorld Wide Web in Plain English Cloud Computing in Plain English

• Libraries and Online Video - Free Online Seminar with TechSoup

  leelefever

  10 Nov 2009 | 11:37 am

  I'm excited to be participating in a free online seminar with TechSoup, an organization that helps non-profits with technology. Details below: Tech Training Made Simple with Online Videos Wednesday, November 18, 11 a.m. Pacific time Wouldn’t it be great if complicated technology concepts were explained in a simple way that’s easy to understand? Imagine how something like this could assist you in training sessions for patrons or staff. Well look no further, Common Craft creates explanatory videos “In Plain English” that cover topics like green, money, society and…

• Video Licensing: The Business of Permission

  leelefever

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:18 pm

  Almost anyone can make a video and put it online, but there are relatively few good models for earning a living from online videos. We've been experimenting over a couple of years and believe more than ever that video licensing is a model that has huge potential. The Current Options Of course there's the advertising model.  A video is made, it attracts eyeballs, eyeballs are distracted by ads. A tiny percentage of people click the ads and the video host and video owner make a bit of money.  It can certainly work and we've experimented with it, but it can be a long, hard slog. For…

• 2010 Census "Count on Change" - Explained by Say It Visually

  leelefever

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:57 am

  Say It Visually!, a member of the Common Craft Explainer Network, recently published this video that explains the impact of the 2010 Census on communities and focuses on encouraging participation among people of color. This format is a new one for Say It Visually and it's great to see them taking video explanation in new directions. I think the hand-painted style fits really well with the voice-over and music by Keb'-Mo'. It has a heart-felt feel that may have been hard with animation. What do you think?

• 
  Reality Overlaps

• Get on Board: The Greatest Marketing Challenge

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:34 pm

  Last February, I got a mail in my inbox from Internet marketer/guru Eben Pagan (yeah, it's a weird link, but that's Eben), which said, "The "hardest" marketing challenge in the world". Now, Eben is an internet marketing guru and I've never met him, but he definitely sends me more e-mail than any of my friends. So I don't read them all. But this one I couldn't resist. This is the interview I heard (click it if you are still interested after reading the rest).And so it started that I got involved in volunteering for P:5Y, one of the most amazing organizations I've ever joined. (Yeah, I know…

• That Syching Feeling

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:51 am

  I'm sitting next to a dear friend of mine at a dinner event, and he says "You were late, so I called you, but you didn't answer.""Do you have my new number?" I ask.He shoots me a dirty look."Wait, I'll call you and you'll get it on your screen." I open the address book on the phone, only to find that his number isn't there. "Um, could you call me?"He shoots me an even dirtier look. "This is looking really bad for you," he says.Later in the week when my kids wanted to call my brother-in-law to wish him a happy birthday, I found out I didn't have my sister's phone number either.BackstoryI got a…

• Cybermom and the Eyes on the Back of the Head

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:53 pm

  1 Farmville Gift request."Who could be sending me a gift request at 3 in the afternoon?" (Nevermind that I'm on FB at work.)Tevel Rachmany has sent you a violet hay bale.(Opening up text chat in FB) "You are supposed to be doing homework, not playing Farmville!""Ok"Tevel Rachmany is offline."That was too easy. I wonder when they'll figure out they can block me."Or when they'll start reading my blog. For now, they think it's reasonable that I have their passwords, because I always have had them, and of course, just in case they want me to harvest their crops for them after I've sent them up to…

• Weekend Networking

  28 Oct 2009 | 11:48 pm

  Way back when formal networking events were just getting started here in Israel, and I was a lowly technical writer, I attended an event of the Israel Technical Writers' Association. I remember a bit of tension there, where we were talking about business objectives and why we needed to boost membership, and at one point, Mark Levinson, the head of the organization at the time said "There's nothing wrong with just wanting to make friends." The tension disappeared.I do a lot of networking. I recently identified networking as one of my most leveraged activities, in terms of the long-term results…

• Genius of Farmville

  23 Oct 2009 | 10:14 am

  I feel kind of stupid, blogging about Farmville. It's not like you don't know, I mean, it's all over my Facebook profile. I'd like to say that I am doing it for the kids, but I think we all know that it's like watching SpongeBob. It might start by being something you do with the kids, but not really. You know you really wanted to do it yourself.As the Farmville craze started, I knew this was something I needed to stay away from. People were posting their achievements on Farmville on their FB profiles in the middle of the day. My thoughts were, "Ok, you are playing this game. We all play games…

• 
  Data Mining

• Navigating Complex Movies

  Matthew Hurst

  16 Nov 2009 | 6:14 am

  XKCD has some interesting (and humorous) graphics describing the paths that characters in movies (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Primer) intertwine.

• Visualizing Differing Articles

  Matthew Hurst

  15 Nov 2009 | 4:37 pm

  An interesting article on BLPRNT which presents a tool for exploring the differences between two articles (think diff for natural language).   Two Sides of the Same Story: Laskas & Gladwell on CTE & the NFL from blprnt on Vimeo.

• Painting with Flickr

  Matthew Hurst

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:18 pm

  Cartogrammar has an interesting post describing using photographs tied to locations to interpolate average colours in a map. By positioning the pictures in space and analyzing them for colour distribution, then taking a function of the colours of pictures in the same area, some quality of the location as a function of photographs, emerges. [HT to Gonzalo]

• If I Read This Book, Will It Make You Happy

  Matthew Hurst

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  Picking up Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, you might be forgiven for thinking ‘another book about goldfish jumping from one bowl to another?’ I’m currently through the first chapter, and while the authors don’t go far enough in terms of setting the scene for their work in terms of basic social network theory and where it comes from (Barabasi is not mentioned until page 265), they do offer some interesting anecdotes about the type of information that passes between the socially connected. With…

• The Low Bar of Socialized Content

  Matthew Hurst

  29 Oct 2009 | 10:24 pm

  In reading this post about using Twitter’s lists instead of a feed (blog) reader it occurred to me that there are two measures one can make about content. Firstly, how well does it pass the time or entertain you. For example I get quite into reading stuff that surfaces on TechMeme – it all seems pretty interesting right? Secondly, how accurate, informed, useful is the content and reading experience in aggregate. I have no reason to believe that what I read on TechMeme is the be all and end all of what I should be reading and what is out there. Like many, my reading habits and channels…

• 
  The Marketing Minute

• A creativity whack for your head...and your iPhone!

  Drew McLellan

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:57 pm

  Roger von Oech is responsible for whacking me upside the head more times than I can count.  20+ years ago, he created a fantastic creativity tool called A Creative Whack Pack.  It's an illustrated deck of 64 creative thinking strategies that will whack you out of habitual thought patterns and enable you to look at your life and actions in a fresh way. It's an awesome way to think different, to see something fresh and to get yourself unstuck. Well, it's 2009 and so of course Roger has created an iPhone/iTouch app for thiscreativity powerhouse.  And...he's…

• You can put a dash of brand just about anywhere

  Drew McLellan

  15 Nov 2009 | 2:51 pm

  There's nothing less interesting or more standard than a bar code, right?  Not according to the people at Design Barcode, where the status quo is anything but!Check out these jazzed up bar codes. (click on the images to see a full-size image in a pop up window)   Lest you think this is a new idea, apparently Rick Tharp was doing it (see his version) way back in 1986.  (Hat tips to Beverly Koehn and Beth Wampler for sharing this Fast Company article on the bar code designs)

• Calling all art directors, designers and logo creators - win $250

  Drew McLellan

  13 Nov 2009 | 5:24 am

  I will try to make this brief.  Last spring, I was approached by a company in the UK called Logo Inn who creates logos and identity packages online.  They wanted to do a contest, demonstrating their services.So I did a series of posts on logo design and offered one organization a chance to win a free logo....as long as the entire process could unfold here on the blog, so we could all learn from it.The series looked like this:. We talked about 5 tips for designing a new logo Announced the contest and gave the rules Shared a creative brief, with questions you should ask yourself…

• Turn your sales letters into workhorses!

  Drew McLellan

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:24 pm

  Neil Sawers, a 25+ year corporate writing veteran can show you how.  In his new book, How to Write Proposals, Sales Letters and Reports, he spells it out in easy to understand, follow and learn examples and guidelines.But don't take my word for it.  Listen to what the Midwest Book Review (one of the most respected reviewers out there) had to say:"Examples, recommendations of common tools to organize one’s thoughts, and a sprinkling of solid business advice fill out this superb, easy-to-use guidebook recommended for business writers of all skill and experience…

• 5 ways to promote internal training and events

  Drew McLellan

  10 Nov 2009 | 11:18 am

  I had a meeting with a client this morning and one of the topics on the agenda was how could they better promote an internal training event that was optional for the employees.When I asked how they would normally promote it, they said...we'd make up a flier with all the information and attach it to an e-mail.  We'd send it out to everyone.  We might send it out a couple times or ask their supervisors to also send it out.There's nothing wrong with what they're doing.  But, there's not enough right. You've got to toss a lot of messages and media into…

• 
  The Steve Rubel Lifestream

• The Apple "Tablet" and Chrome OS are Meaningless - the Phone is the Future of Computing

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:20 pm

  If you're paying any attention to the techosphere today there are two stories dominating the headlines. Both involve non-shipping products. First, Google showed off the first demo of its Chrome OS. Download Squad does a nice job breaking it down.... "So what exactly is Chrome OS? It's an operating system based on a web browser called... Google Chrome. The idea is that you won't have to (or be able to) install a single application directly on your PC. Rather, all of your apps will be run from the web and all of your data will be stored in the cloud." Second, a mythical unicorn called the Apple…

• Ten Common Phrases That Could Soon Be History

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:43 pm

  Earlier this week Oxford University Press declared "unfriend" its word of the year. This got me thinking... now that we are entering an era of media reforestation what common phrases could soon be history? Here's 10 that I came up with. You may disagree but I believe all of these have faded or will be gone soon. (All images are from Flickr via Creative Commons and are credited.) Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Google Fast Flip Nearing Launch?

  15 Nov 2009 | 4:29 pm

  Google Fast Flip appears to be nearing a full integration into Google News. I wasn't able to replicate this in other browsers so right now this appears to just be a cookie test. Stories from Google Fast Flip started appearing at the bottom of my page - even when I logged out of my account. In addition, Google News searches now show links to Fast Flip results at the bottom of the page. This is visible to all users. Update 11/16/2009 - Chris from Google News notes in a comment below that this is indeed a test. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Reviews Stripped from Google Search Options

  15 Nov 2009 | 3:13 am

  I make heavy use of Google Search options in refining my queries. I was surprised this morning to see that the "reviews" option is now gone. This was one of the more handy features. Anyone have any insight here? Search Options before (image via Search Engine Land). Note under that "Reviews" is the last link under "All Results." And now today... Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• The Next Big Trend? It's All About Curation

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:02 pm

  Fact: Information sources are exploding. More information will be created in 2009 than all prior years. Fact: Attention is finite. We're becoming media agnostic, but when we're interested in something we dig down into our interests. This is why I and others like Robert Scoble are really excited about digital curation. Facebook and Twitter lists are one level of curation. However, there are others. Posterous and Tumblr are fantastic platforms for soliciting contributions from groups of people around a shared interest. And they're platforms that will enable all of us to curate together. Here…

• 
  Gravity7: Social Interaction Design by Adrian Chan

• Social search and advertising: Google's endgame?

  adrian chan

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:42 am

  A few weeks back, Jeremiah Owyang wrote a piece "Revealing Google's Stealth Social Network Play." In it he detailed the tactical benefits of a combined of Google Reader, Wave, and Sidewiki in a back-door strategy aimed at social networking. And more to the point, to realizing the advertising opportunities around social networking.Google has been neither a leader nor a even a decent case study in social networking. It's home-grown social network, Orkut, is popular elsewhere but not here. Open Social is still very real, but is largely invisible to the public. And when it comes to making use of…

• Realtime streams: now and then

  adrian chan

  8 Oct 2009 | 8:40 am

  All social media involve a dislocation that de couples the act of communication or interaction from its artifact, which is a text or recording. This is a shame, in some respects, but one that creates possibilities that wouldn't exist if it weren't for the medium. The medium allows us to be always here and now but visible elsewhere anytime. It has a built in "anyplace, anytime."This anyplace, anytime is brought into focus by each of us when we use social media. For us it's always now. When I use twitter, I use it now. If I read your tweet, it's now. Your now, which is now "then," is again…

• Brands, and putting twitter word of mouth in context

  adrian chan

  6 Oct 2009 | 12:39 pm

  An interesting study of twitter's viability for eWom, or electronic Word of Mouth marketing, has been making the rounds (Twitter Power:Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth). The research involved analysis of 150,000 tweets, treated as natural language expressions, or "talk". The aim of the research was to study tweets in which brands are mentioned for a number of attributes relevant to brands, including sentiment, purpose, frequency, and so on.I found this interesting for several reasons. First was that I've been arguing of late that the conversational turn in social media (twitter, status…

• Social media, converging streams?

  adrian chan

  6 Oct 2009 | 8:35 am

  One of my favorite books about community is a work by Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti called Crowds and Power. It's a beautiful and thoroughly insightful study on people assembled in different ways and for a kaleidoscopic set of reasons. I turn to the book often when thinking about how social media both separate and connect us, using it as an imaginary frontier of sorts for what mediated crowds might or could do.A piece by Tim Leberecht reminded me of Canetti this morning. Got me thinking about converging streams and how conversational media sometimes produce that effect of being together at…

• Social Interaction Design: Ratings

  adrian chan

  5 Oct 2009 | 11:35 am

  I had other things in mind for this morning until a client sent me an article in today's Wall Street Journal about online ratings. She, like many others running review and ratings-based sites, is "suffering" from excessively generous end user ratings. The article, which surveys a number of online properties, cites the tendency to 4.3: On the Internet, Everyone's a Critic But They're Not Very Critical. Offering up a number of anecdotes as reasons for the broken state of online ratings, the article's authors pretty much capture what many of us get intuitively about why online ratings really…

• 
  Robin Good: Social Networking

• Future Of Learning: A Video Interview With Curtis Bonk

  Robin Good

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:03 am

  What does the future of learning look like? What is going to change in the future of our education systems? What role will new media technologies play in the way you and I will share knowledge and skills in the near future? If you want to see a glimpse of how you can impact the way in which you and your kids are going to learn in the future, check out this video interview. Photo credit: Robin Good My highly qualified interviewee is this time Curtis Bonk, Professor Emeritus of Indiana University, and one of the most celebrated "hot heads" out there looking at the future of education and…

• Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - Nov 14 09

  George Siemens

  14 Nov 2009 | 2:50 am

  In this week issue of Media Literacy Digest, open education and connectivism advocate George Siemens, explores and reports about his new media technologies discoveries and their possible impact on how we work, learn and communicate together. Photo credit: Ktsdesign Inside this Media Literacy Digest: LearnTrends - Reminder, next week, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, and I (with support from many others!) are running LearnTrends 2009 Random Social Media Resources - Moving Away from Social Media to Business Focus, Social Learning Examples, Overcoming Obstacles to the Social Business Learning Management…

• Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - Nov 08 09

  George Siemens

  8 Nov 2009 | 5:25 am

  In this issue of Media Literacy Digest, open education advocate George Siemens, takes you to news and stories on emergent media, technology and learning, helping you make good sense of the many changes taking place around you and of how these directly impact your daily lives. Photo credit: Victor Habbick Inside this Media Literacy Digest: Future of The Social Web - Of course, the web is not social. Just like technology is not social. Or media is not social. We use these resources for social means, but that is a function of use, not of the characteristics inherent in the web or media. We…

• Facebook Business Guide: How Companies Can Utilize Facebook Pages For Social Media Marketing - Part 1

  The Advance Guard

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:34 am

  Did you know Facebook is a great tool for your business? Is your company utilizing the new features of Facebook pages to do social media marketing? If you are not yet leveraging the power of social media to boost your sales or engaging your customers, it is time you seriously take action on this front. Photo credit: James Steidl Facebook was originally conceived as a place to stay in touch with lost college mates. Time has passed since then, and now Facebook has become the largest social media in the world by far, with more than 300 million active users and a reported growth of 513.7% in the…

• Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - Oct 31 09

  George Siemens

  31 Oct 2009 | 1:11 am

  If you are interested in finding out the key media trends, the events and the new communication technologies that are shaping your future, in this issue of Media Literacy Digest, open education advocate George Siemens, explores and reports on new fascinating stories and insights and their impact on learning, work and society. Photo credit: Robert Mizerek Inside this Media Literacy Digest: Social Media Time - Nielsen's research states that 18% of time spent online is spent on social networking sites and services. Social Search - Google just announced Social Search. The service helps you "to…

• 
  Outrageous Marketing for Remarkable Results

• Dubai Update

  contact@deanhunt.com (Dean Hunt)

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:13 pm

  Hi all, In my last post I said there would be regular new videos from my Dubai trip… unfortunately, the wifi in the hotel doesn’t work, so I haven’t been able to upload anything. So wait a few more days, and then there will be videos galore. We also did a Blistering Success episode from the hotel [...]

• Videos from Dubai

  contact@deanhunt.com (Dean Hunt)

  14 Nov 2009 | 4:09 am

  Hi all, I fly to Dubai tomorrow to speak at two events: a Twitter Convention, and an Online Business Success seminar. So I won’t be doing regular blog posts for a week or so, but what I will be doing is creating a load of great videos from Dubai. Everything from content videos with my Blistering Success co-host [...]

• Free Webinars FTW

  contact@deanhunt.com (Dean Hunt)

  12 Nov 2009 | 3:56 am

  Have you ever seen a webinar before? They are my absolute favourite way of learning new and powerful skills, in fact, they give me a warm fuzzy feeling in my belly… or that could be the fish I had for lunch… anyway… I am going to be doing some new and FREE webinars over the next couple [...]

• The Road to the Oprah Winfrey Show

  contact@deanhunt.com (Dean Hunt)

  7 Nov 2009 | 7:48 am

  The Oprah Winfrey show is perhaps the biggest chat show on the planet, and today starts the journey for me and my Blistering Success show co-host Ciaran Doyle to appear on the show. (seriously) This may sound crazy, but bear with me… The goal here is to see if two down to earth, zero hype and zero [...]

• Let’s Work Together

  contact@deanhunt.com (Dean Hunt)

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:51 am

  UPDATE: I have received over 60 emails thus far, so apologies if I don’t reply straight away Hi all, Would you like to partner with me on a project, business or opportunity? If you have an existing business that you would like to take to the next level, I would be open to possibly working with you. I can [...]

• 
  The Buzz Bin

• Conscious Capitalism/CSR Creates True Fans

  Michael Whitlow

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:05 pm

  The really old school capitalists like to say that the only business of business is to provide a return to shareholders. Long before the concept of “stakeholders” came into being, business was conducted, customers and suppliers were treated fairly or not, and it all somehow moved along. Now, companies need to do better. The concept of “conscious capitalism” is taking hold. Companies concerned with social responsibilities are finding many new places to carry on their activities, and in the process of talking and doing, they are creating Freedigitalphotos.net value for…

• HIPAA: The 800-Pound Gorilla

  Jenn Riggle

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Photo courtesy of Kiwanja by Jenn Riggle Let’s just acknowledge the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Social media gives legal departments heartburn. While this is a problem for all industries, it’s an even bigger issue for health care because of a little something called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA. The irony is that HIPAA standards were created to help hospitals and healthcare providers electronically share patient information. These regulations are so complicated that the Dept. of Health and Human Services needed 25 pages to…

• Should Photographers Rethink New Media Rights?

  Wyatt Wood

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  by Wyatt Wood As a semi-pro photographer I encounter unique situations everyday involving photography, rights management and social media. Note: every locality has their own laws that any person taking pictures should abide by – this post is not about the legality or rights of taking photos as a photographer (while it may touch on these points). Also in this post I am only speaking about legal/regional areas where I have personal experience, please share your own experiences and knowledge in the comments. Thomas Hawk, one of the most respected photographers in arena of…

• Social Media: How Much Is A Good Thing?

  Mike Mulvihill

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:06 am

  by Mike Mulvihill Photo: yospyn.com A survey from the CMO Club bemoans that four out of five CMOs allocate less that 10 percent of their budgets to “experimenting” through social media and non-traditional communications channels.  This is juxtaposed against the rising use of social media – more than 35 percent of adult Internet users have profiles on social media networks up just eight percent in 2005.  Just to add to add more fuel to the fire, Oxford Dictionary just named “unfriend” as the 2009 Word of the Year.  As a marketer, I just shake my head wondering why we keep…

• Should We Trust the Crowd?

  Geoff Livingston

  16 Nov 2009 | 3:48 am

  Overexposed crowd image by Victoria Peckham by Geoff Livingston One of the strangest aspects of newfound freedom is the want to run riot over everything. You can see this with attitudes towards free content, popular theories, unconference and crowdsourced conference content, and general crowd-sourcing initiatives. In reality, these initiatives bring great creativity to bear (many outweigh the one or the few), but they require management. Unfettered crowdsourcing leads to hit or miss wisdom. One of the more interesting articles or blog posts I have read on the topic came from the Harvard…

• 
  Greg Verdino

• So ya wanna start a blog...

  Greg Verdino

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:48 am

  Just a friendly reminder that I'll be co-presenting a free blogging basics webinar tomorrow afternoon (11/19/09). The event is hosted by Target Marketing magazine and sponsored by Compendium Blogware, and takes place online at 2pm ET. There's still time to register (or refer your clients and friends who could use a primer), and I hope some of you will be able to tune in. My portion of the agenda explores the building blocks for creating a compelling, sustainable corporate blog that the people you're looking to reach will actually want to read (basically an updated version of my…

• Tim Goggin: looking for love in all the social places.

  Greg Verdino

  9 Nov 2009 | 9:28 am

  Meet Tim Goggin.  He's a single 32-year old entrepreneur who is (if you believe his pitch) the "most interesting  man in San Diego." He's also pretty frustrated with the tried-and-true dating scene and thinks social media may be good for more than just a poke. A couple of months ago, Tim created a mock-infomercial and posted it to YouTube, in hopes of attracting the woman of his dreams to a site where she might claim her "free date." Now, I'm not all that interested in single guys in San Diego but I am interested in some of the creative, low cost ways…

• Upcoming speaking: free blogging basics webinar

  Greg Verdino

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:23 am

  You're probably not a blogging n00b but you probably know someone who is -- a client, a coworker, someone new to the industry or your mom perhaps. If so, you should let them know that I'm taking part in a free blogging basics webinar at 2pm ET on November 19th. Target Marketing magazine will be hosting an hour long conversation (part presentation, part Q&A) featuring Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott and me sharing everything we know about how companies can get started with corporate blogging and what this means for their SEO programs. Look for practical tips about how to…

• Podcaster J.C. Hutchins has killed the president

  Greg Verdino

  27 Oct 2009 | 2:30 pm

  Not the real president and not in real life. And technically speaking, J.C. didn't do the deed -- but he dreamed up the child/assassin who takes down America's main man in the opening lines of his sci-fi thriller 7th Son: Descent.Regular readers know that I have a bit of a mancrush on J.C., who has the social media chops so many brand managers can only dream of. His last print novel, Personal Effects, was a participatory, multimedia tour de force (learn more) and with 7th Son he does it again.Now, for those of you who haven't been poking around the social media space for the…

• What's the price of five dollars?

  Greg Verdino

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:57 am

    That wasn't meant to be a trick question, but rest assured the answer isn't five dollars.Here's the scoop. I drive a Nissan Altima and I've been reasonably happy with it. It's neither the best car I've ever owned nor the worst, but I'm not a car guy so if it gets me from point A to point B safely without costing me an arm and a leg in gas money I'm satisfied. The Altima more than fits the bill.I don't mind telling you that the lease runs me about $315 per month and I'm pretty diligent about paying right on time, almost always by check…

• 
  Invisible Inkling

• Yankee debriefing

  Ryan Sholin

  9 Nov 2009 | 3:37 pm

  Last week, the Yankees won the World Series. You may not know this about me, but I, yes, I am a fan of baseball’s New York Yankees. After weeks of Paying Attention To Baseball, which I haven’t done with any real passion or regularity since Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, it’s been over for days now, and I’ve gone back to spending free time in the evenings (after the toddler is asleep) puttering around, doing little bits of work, or obsessively playing games on my phone, among other distractions. But I’m still paying attention… So, here are a few links and notes to…

• My advice to journalism students

  Ryan Sholin

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:26 pm

  I’ve been through most of this before, either in blog posts or in person, whenever I get the chance to talk with journalism students, but it’s worth repeating. A few tweets this week seem to have proved that, so I’m putting this updated compendium of my advice together for posterity. My advice to journalism students starts with this: Blog. That doesn’t mean you have to blog about journalism, or build a rabid political audience, or chronicle every step the Googles and Twitters and Apples of the world take. It just means that you maintain a Web site where you write on a…

• The diaspora of information

  Ryan Sholin

  13 Oct 2009 | 8:32 am

  Given: Dan Gillmor famously stated (and I’m paraphrasing from memory): “My readers know more than I do.” I like to take it an order of magnitude up into the branches of the tree, along these lines: “The diaspora of information (having been set free by the Web, mostly) knows infinitely more than I do.” So here are a few links to some of the latest advances in what I think of as the tools, techniques, and tricks to surfacing the valuable information out there in the diaspora. How Yelp deals with everybody getting four stars (on average) Published at…

• Grad school update

  Ryan Sholin

  12 Oct 2009 | 4:02 am

  Remember when I went to graduate school at San Jose State University to get an M.S. in Mass Communications? Well, I finished. Here’s the proof, which arrived in the mail a few days ago: PreviouslyGrad school update: I think I’m doneSpartans, you rock my worldSuzanne Yada recommends you grow a pair

• ONA09 debrief and the swagger

  Ryan Sholin

  6 Oct 2009 | 12:24 pm

  Well, it’s been a pretty awesome week. I spent most of last Thursday through Sunday at the 2009 Online News Association conference in San Francisco, and if you follow me on Twitter or spotted a short post on my blog over the weekend, you know that Publish2, my current employer, was honored with a rather pleasant award on Saturday night at the Online Journalism Awards. And earlier that day, I helped lead an unconference session on “Context and the Coming Link Economy,” which turned out to be one of my favorite conversations of the weekend, with help from Matt Thompson, Elaine…

• 
  SocialFish

• Doing Social Media for your organization?

  Maddie Grant

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  We’ve had some great discussions, feedback and interest around my recent interview of 3 new community managers and this post about hiring for social media roles, so I would like to do a series of interviews of people currently in social media roles for their organizations.  PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD, thanks! I really want to get a sense of what’s really going on out there.  Surveys to me are pretty pointless (I know that’s just me).  I feel like there’s been a bit of spreading of doom and gloom lately, about whether social media roles are really being taken…

• In Socialnomics we trust

  Maddie Grant

  16 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Thanks to Jeff Hurt for the hat tip on this fabulous follow up* video on social media ROI from Erik Qualman. This video has some great stats – check out the Socialnomics blog for a full list. * “Follow up” meaning to this, the Social Media revolution video you’ve probably all seen. This was played at the ASAE social media workshop, in case you were there and wanted to see it again.

• Social Impact Nonprofit Social Media Survey

  Maddie Grant

  14 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am

  Social Impact Nonprofit Social Media Survey View more presentations from Weber Shandwick Social Impact. Beth Kanter has some good analysis of this and another recent survey.  Check it out – and see the comments especially.

• On Hiring for Social Media Roles – Get It Together, People.

  Maddie Grant

  13 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  There’s a lot of talk in the blogosphere right now about hiring social media managers – what the roles and responsibilities should be and how much current community managers and socmed managers are being paid. We have to tell ya, what we’re seeing is not encouraging. Hiring for Social Media: The Ugly Side (Amber Naslund) Hiring For Social Media: Good Moves (Amber Naslund) Amber’s two posts frame this issue quite nicely, I think.  A social media manager role is really important for many reasons and she does a good job of illustrating why that is by looking at…

• Getting Started With Clarity: A Homework Assignment

  Maddie Grant

  12 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pm

  So I was going to push back on Jamie’s push back of my original push back about whether getting clarity about what your organization is all about is hard work or not.  LOL!  But whether you think it’s hard work (like Jamie) or not (like me), we all agree it’s a place to start. You can do one of two things here. 1) be clear about your philosophy and core values from the get-go, and write it into your social media guidelines, or live it Zappos- or Netflix-style , or 2) start with your organization’s mission statement, no matter how crappy it might be, and use it as…

• 
  Global Neighbourhoods

• Social Media, Power & Metcalfe's Law

  shel

  16 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

  The question was: " What do you think is more important for attaining power: followers or who you follow?" It was directed at me as I sat on a panel at the Social Media Summit, produced by London-headquartered Lewis PR. It took me by surprise and one live tweeter accused me of skirting the issue and not understanding about power. I disagree with his assessment but that's besides the point.It took me by surprise because most people who follow me know that I see social media as all about the conversation; not power. It involves personal and corporate branding issues, but not…

• So, Just who's a Social Media Expert?

  shel

  14 Nov 2009 | 3:54 pm

  I get uncomfortable whenever I get introduced as a social media expert or guru. First off, whenever I hear someone else called that, I have a tendency to fold my arms and think, "Oh Yeah?" I find myself poised to pounce if that person makes anything close to a mistake.When people call themselves either of those titles, my inclination gets amplified.Judging by the surplus of Twitter and blogs shots being taken at those marketing themselves as coaches, gurus and experts, it appears that I am not alone in my inclinations. But that does not make us right.I think this controversy has…

• Book of Kells: Not Available on eBook

  shel

  8 Nov 2009 | 3:52 am

  It's been my week for hallowed halls of academia.First, I spent a couple of days in the Harvard Faculty Club at the 4th SNCR Symposium, then hopped a red-eye to Dublin where I start a three-city book tour with a pub-based tweet up tonight. Yesterday was my jet lag recovery day and I used the afternoon to walk a strip of this city of 1.4 million. The highlight was my 2nd tour of Trinity College, Ireland's top-rated University, where Jonathan Swift, Samuel Becket, Oscar Wilde and many other giants went to school. First Harvard. Then Trinity. Had I applied for admission to either of…

• Some Social Media Department [SMD] granularity

  shel

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:41 am

  I am heartened that I've received some comments and thoughtful questions that indicate I am not alone in thinking the time has come to establish social media departments in the enterprise. This follow up post offers a few thoughts on just what this department would--and would not--do. And I need to start with a disclaimer. I do not think this new department should own social media in the enterprise. That is as bad an idea as one department owning email and deciding how it should be used, or the telephone and so on. Social media encompasses a set of tools that improve communications by…

• Time to draw a Social Media box into the org chart

  shel

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:52 pm

  I was having lunch with an old friend who has spent the better part of the last four years pushing the social media rock up the enterprise mountain. She was frustrated. Marketing, after disdaining and ignoring her social media team efforts four years ago; after having then gotten angry and tried to shut down the social media efforts two years ago, now wanted to fold the social media team into the marketing department.She is not alone. Almost every enterprise has a small band of social media champions. They have almost operated as a skunkworks operation, one who existed from project to project…

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  CHRISTOPHER S. PENN

• Mitch Joel is New Media’s Alton Brown

  Christopher S. Penn

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:25 am

  Mitch Joel is New Media’s Alton Brown I’ve been reading Six Pixels of Separation, the book by friend Mitch Joel. It’s a terrific read, well worth the $14 or so I spent on the Kindle version, but I’m amused by many of the comments and criticisms of the book, especially that it’s not a how-to book. If you have any familiarity with the food world, you know of Alton Brown. Part Mr. Wizard, part Monty Python troupe member, Alton Brown spends an enormous amount of time in his show Good Eats on the why of food, rather than just the how. How is the individual recipes.

• What casino gambling should teach you about online marketing

  Christopher S. Penn

  15 Nov 2009 | 4:41 pm

  I recently had the opportunity to spend a few hours observing (not playing, I know the house odds!) people at a casino during a business conference. What a superb experience – not as a player, but as a marketer, to see how casinos manage the end user experience for maximum profit. Imagine for a minute that someone put a box in front of you that, on average, will give you 42 cents for every dollar you put in it. No one in their right, rational mind would ever use it. Imagine for a minute that someone built an ATM that gives you exactly 42% of whatever amount you request. That ATM would…

• Financial Literacy presentation at MASFAA

  Christopher S. Penn

  13 Nov 2009 | 5:41 am

  Here’s a recording of a financial literacy presentation I did for the Massachusetts Association of Student FInancial Aid Administrators. Please watch this with a friend or colleague present and do the exercises together for maximum benefit! Video Slides Financial Literacy 2.0 View more presentations from financialaidpodcast. Did you enjoy this blog post? If so, please subscribe right now! Enjoyed it? Please share it! More Get this and other great articles from the source at www.ChristopherSPenn.com

• Inbound Marketing Summit: Social Media ROI

  Christopher S. Penn

  11 Nov 2009 | 5:19 pm

  If you missed it earlier this year, I presented at the Inbound Marketing Summit on the ROI of social media. Here’s the session video. Enjoy! Did you enjoy this blog post? If so, please subscribe right now! Enjoyed it? Please share it! More Get this and other great articles from the source at www.ChristopherSPenn.com

• Punchlines and Personal Quotes

  Christopher S. Penn

  8 Nov 2009 | 7:37 am

  If you’ve spent any time on my personal site, there’s one page I’d like you to think about replicating on your own, either publicly or privately, and it’s the quotes page. Why? Well, the idea for the quotes page came from the father of one of my teachers, the late Ira Hayes, motivational speaker. His son, Stephen K. Hayes, found among his belongings a page of punchlines that he kept as a crib sheet for speaking. What’s funny is that Ira didn’t write down the actual jokes, just the punchlines, so unless you attended his speeches back in the day, no one is…

• 
  Web Apps on Go2Web20

• Typekit: An easy way to use Real Fonts

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Typekit is a subscription-based service for linking to high-quality open type fonts from some of the worlds best type foundries. Fonts are served from a global network on redundant servers, offering bulletproof service and incredible speed. And it couldn't be easier to use. Learn more http://typekit.com Brought to you by Go2web20.net - The web applications index

• BugsVoice: Turn Bugs into Opportunities

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  An online service to which you can delegate serving error pages and collecting user feedback on errors. You can customize your error pages in the browser and be friendlier to your users in case of errors. Learn more http://bugsvoice.com Brought to you by Go2web20.net - The web applications index

• GameClassroom: Game Platform for Kids

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Game Classroom is a one-stop web destination for accessing high-quality educational games, and homework help for K-6 students. Game Classroom offers math games, homework help, worksheets and more. It is a great site for kids, parents and teachers. Learn more http://www.gameclassroom.com Brought to you by Go2web20.net - The web applications index

• CutMyPic: Cut Your Picture

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  This application allows it's users to upload a picture, crop it, round the corners, and add a drop shadow, all in a couple of clicks. You can then either save it or send it to a friend. The site focuses on simplicity and speed. Learn more http://www.cutmypic.com Brought to you by Go2web20.net - The web applications index

• Threadsy: Pull Yourself Together

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Threadsy pulls your accounts together into a fresh experience that lets you discover more about people. Supports email & social network platforms. Learn more http://www.threadsy.com Brought to you by Go2web20.net - The web applications index

• 
  Socialmedia.biz

• HP responds to ‘Why I love public transportation and hate HP’

  David Spark

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:07 pm

  At the beginning of November I wrote an article titled Why I love public transportation and hate HP after a horrible customer service experience with HP where I had to wait two hours for technical service after I had paid for their tier 2 service. I compared it to public transportation in San Francisco because now we have transponders on our buses letting us know how long we’ll have to wait. That information is very valuable, allowing us to make a decision on how to proceed. Should I wait, take another bus, or hail a cab? While I like HP products and the actual service was excellent, the…

• Using Twitter Lists to manage your reputation

  joannalord

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:45 pm

  How to use Lists to monitor your personal & professional brands There’s been a lot of talk about Twitter Lists. How do you use them? How can they be improved? What is Twitter hoping to do with them … down the road? Not to mention the many posts on how pointless or awesome they are. Gotta love the Twitter buzz. Well, I’m going to take a step back and focus on an actual use I’ve found for the new addition to our Twitter bag-of-tricks. Over the past few weeks I’ve started using the lists function in my online reputation management (ORM) endeavors. For those of you not that familiar…

• Sysomos Heartbeat 2.0 released

  Chris Abraham

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:56 pm

  It’s a shiny, real-time monitoring and metrics tool for social Web Back in May, I wrote about a demo presentation I had received from Sysomos and called their new technology alien technology, because it looked like the kind of cool stuff you see in science fiction movies set in the 22nd century. A few days ago, I got a follow-up presentation from Nilesh Bansal, Sysomos CTO and Co-Founder, in anticipation of their release of Heartbeat 2.0, “a cost-effective, real-time monitoring and measurement tool” for the social Web. Not only is the technology still really cool, but the interface is…

• An era of total transparency

  ayeletnoff

  16 Nov 2009 | 8:04 am

  Image by Polyvore.com With the new platforms of openness, all you need is social love These days we’re living a historian’s wet dream. We are consistently recording history through all our social tools. Our actions, feelings, thoughts, our everything, constantly being recorded. From where we are eating to what we are annoyed about to what it is that makes us tick. Not only are we recording the “big” things but we are recording everything. It’s history without hiccups. Ben Parr wrote an excellent post on Mashable on the topic. Parr: ” For the first time in human history, the…

• Guy Kawasaki’s top Twitter tips for businesses

  David Spark

  15 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm

  After a hit presentation at The CMO [Chief Marketing Officer] Club Summit in San Francisco on how to kick ass on Twitter, I asked Guy Kawasaki if he could go over his top three “must do” tips for businesses that want to get engaged on Twitter. One of his tips is to respond to everyone who @ replies you on Twitter. That is really good advice, but I must admit that I’m really bad at replying back to all the people who @ reply me. Most of it has to do with the fact that I don’t want to just say “Thanks for acknowledging me.” I’d want to add some value. And one of my rules on…

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  Gauravonomics Blog on Social Media and Social Change

• Three Scenarios: How Can Indian Firms Leverage Social Technologies Within the Workplace?

  gauravonomics@gmail.com (Gaurav Mishra)

  14 Nov 2009 | 2:01 am

  Gaurav and Gautam collaboratively wrote this blog post on a wiki. This is the first in the series of blog posts where we will explore how social technologies, when used effectively within the organization, can create significant business value for Indian firms. A TYPICAL CONVERSATION Ever since Gautam joined 2020 Social three weeks back, we have had several interesting conversations with Indian firms of all shapes and sizes on how to use social technologies within the workplace. The typical conversation starts when someone fills the “Ask Us How” form on our website: “I am…

• Bloggers Remember TEDIndia: The Good, the Bad and the Quirky

  gauravonomics@gmail.com (Gaurav Mishra)

  13 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am

  When the legendary TED conference came down to India, Indian bloggers were expectedly excited. In the run up to TEDIndia, a few Indian bloggers got together to interview TEDIndia fellows and Geetha Krishnan put together a compilation of the TEDIndia fellow interviews. During the conference, the TED blog fed the excitement by posting session-wise roundups (session 1, session 2, session 3, session 4, session 5, session 6, session 7, session 8, session 9) and reactions to the most popular talks (Hans Rosling, Devdutt Pattanaik, Tony Hsieh, Scott Cook, Pranav Mistry, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev,…

• Ideas Rediscovered at TEDIndia: The Importance of Storytelling

  gauravonomics@gmail.com (Gaurav Mishra)

  13 Nov 2009 | 8:50 am

  Last week, I had the good fortune of spending four days at the TEDIndia conference in Mysore as a TEDIndia fellow. The talks weren’t consistently inspiring, but the people definitely were, and I especially enjoyed bonding with the 100 other TEDIndia fellows. TEDIndia reinforced three ideas in my mind: live many parallel lives, tell stories to inspire others, and stay open to inspiration in unlikely places. In this post, I’ll talk about the importance of storytelling for individuals, organizations and cultures. Let me start with some of my favorite stories from TEDIndia: - Hans…

• Mail Today Story on the Launch of the International Version of Kindle

  gauravonomics@gmail.com (Gaurav Mishra)

  22 Oct 2009 | 7:22 am

  I was quoted yesterday in a Mail Today story on the launch of the international version of Kindle. I have the US version of the Kindle. It has more than 100 books on it and I totally love the paper-like reading experience. When I was in Washington DC, I could download books from the Amazon Kindle Store directly to my Kindle, in seconds, through the wireless service. I remember a one-week Spring Break trip to Miami when I downloaded and read half a dozen books on my Kindle while I was sitting on the beach. When I moved back, the only books I carried with me were the ones on my Kindle. Since I…

• Announcement: Gautam Ghosh Has Joined 2020 Social to Build our Enterprise Practice

  gauravonomics@gmail.com (Gaurav Mishra)

  21 Oct 2009 | 11:35 pm

  I have a big announcement to make: Gautam Ghosh has joined 2020 Social to build the enterprise side of our Social Business Strategy practice. Gautam will join Dave, Upasana and myself in the core 2020 Social consulting team. 2020 Social is presently working with clients to leverage social technologies to achieve five types of strategic business objectives — increase revenue, decrease cost, design better products and processes, enable stronger relationships and increase productivity. Instead of focusing on specific tools and technologies, we use a structured methodology to tap into the…

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  OnDemand Beat

• Salesforce Unveils Chatter At Dreamforce

  Ameed Taylor

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:42 am

  Marc Benioff unveiled Salesforce.com’s Chatter application on the opening day of the firm’s annual DreamForce conference in Moscone Center In San Francisco. Salesforce Chatter is a secure, private social network intended for enterprise use. Chatter has social computing features along the lines of Facebook and Twitter and is composed of a Chatter App and a Chatter Social Development Platform. The Chatter App includes standard social computing features like Profiles, Status Updates, Feeds and Content Sharing.  Users of Twitter and Facebook will see familiar functionality and social…

• V2 of Cloud Computing Use Cases Published

  Ameed Taylor

  9 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pm

  Version 2 of the  Computing Use Cases White Paper has just been published.  V2 of the Cloud Computing Use Cases focuses on developer roles and what is necessary for Open API’s to work with Cloud Computing. V2 of the Use Cases series follows the release of the the initial Cloud Computing Use Cases document in August 2009 that focused on requirements that need to be standardized in a cloud environment to ensure integration, portability and interoperability. The Cloud Computing Use Cases Group is now soliciting input on V3 of the Cloud Computing Use Cases series and has identified the…

• OnDemand Speed Links 28 October 2009

  Ameed Taylor

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:26 am

  Amazon Launches Relational Database Service Amazon this week launched its Relational Database Service.(RDS) Amazon RDS is a MYSQL 5.1 database offering that will compete directly with Joyent’s recently announced MySQL Accelerator and indirectly (but not at an enterprise level) with Microsoft SQL Azure. Cloud Wars Begin Amazon also announced a 15% drop in pricing for all EC2 instance families and sizes. This is significant due to the fact that one can expect EC2 competitors like GoGrid and Softlayer to follow suit and lower pricing as well. Stephen Baker Researches Enterprise 2.0…

• Microsoft Makes Windows Azure Push

  Ameed Taylor

  26 Oct 2009 | 1:23 pm

  Microsoft has recently made a strong push into consolidating mind share amongst Cloud Developers with a relaunched Windows Azure Platform developer portal and targeted adverts on LinkedIn and other social networking sites. Microsoft technical strategist  Steve Marx outlines the  Windows Azure Platform for developers in the following video.

• SaaS Bill of Rights To Be Published

  Ameed Taylor

  9 Oct 2009 | 1:14 pm

  The Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang will publish a SaaS Customer’s Bill of Rights next week. The Bill Of Rights is a collaborative effort that has input from a veritable who’s who of SaaS providers and thought leaders. The SaaS Bill of Rights follows similar efforts/reports that have been created for Cloud Computing and ERP customers. The timing of the SaaS Bill Of Right’s is fortuitous as new SaaS deployments are gaining more traction by the month in both large and SMB enterprises. The document will be published under Creative Commons so that should…

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  GigaOM

• 4 Big Gambles Google Is Taking With Chrome OS

  Sebastian Rupley

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  You’ve gotta hand it to Google: The company is never shy about throwing the proverbial spaghetti against the wall to see if it will stick. Over the years, it’s introduced countless projects that have gone through long beta cycles only to fail miserably — or achieve a degree of success far below what was expected. Google Docs, for example, was supposed to topple Microsoft Office, and is still predicted to do so, but if that ever happened, I missed it. Next year, Google will introduce one of its most ambitious projects yet: Chrome OS. There are quite a few misconceptions going…

• Air Canada Will Offer In-Flight Wi-Fi, Too

  Stacey Higginbotham

  20 Nov 2009 | 11:48 am

  Air Canada is testing an in-flight Wi-Fi service from Aircell on its flights between Toronto and Los Angeles and Montreal and L.A. From now until Jan. 29, passengers can plunk down $9.95 per flight to surf on a laptop and $7.95 to access the Internet on smaller devices such as a smartphone or WiFi-enabled media players like the iPod touch. AirCell also provides its GoGo in-air Wi-Fi service on Delta and American Airlines flights in the U.S. And because Aircell currently only has regulatory approval and the antenna coverage that enables airlines to offer Wi-Fi in the U.S., Air Canada…

• What to read on the GigaOM network

  Edit Staff

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:34 am

  BitTorrent after The Pirate Bay: Do you still need trackers? (NewTeeVee) 3 next-gen applications for Smart Grid 2.0 (Earth2Tech) Microsoft’s bad image should be a warning to Apple (TheAppleBlog) 4 open-source file shredders that delete data forever (OStatic) How to get a Magic Mouse to touch-scroll in Windows (jkOnTheRun) Finding web worker gear deals on Black Friday (WebWorkerDaily)

• Twitter: “Really Cool” Ads and Commercial Accounts Coming Soon

  Liz Gannes

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:26 am

  Twitter COO Dick Costolo, speaking today on a panel at TechCrunch’s Real-Time CrunchUp event in San Francisco, shed some light into the micromessaging service’s revenue plans, promising that it will begin taking a cut of its partners’ advertising revenues “early next year.” Meanwhile, it will “foster mechanisms that allow partners to do more sophisticated things” with its APIs. Twitter also plans to offer commercial accounts that contain premium features like analytics dashboards and multiple authors, according to Costolo. Achieving the seemingly…

• Windows 7 Will Throw Down, But Not Just Yet

  Sebastian Rupley

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:04 am

  The Windows 7 trumpets are blasting with gusto, with Steve Felice, president of the small and medium-sized business (SMB) division of Dell, claiming that Microsoft’s new operating system is fueling a surge in demand for PCs, according to Computerworld.  “As soon as Oct. 22 hit, both our consumer business and our SMB business had a very healthy increase in demand,” Felice is quoted as saying. Meanwhile, David Coursey reports that with Vista on the sidelines and a well-reviewed new OS, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer “has a new ‘f’ word” to describe…

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  The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online

• New tools: CompanionLink, SP400 Smart-Pointer

  David Teten

  9 Nov 2009 | 12:24 pm

  I want to make a quick plug for two new tools that I’ve been using. CompanionLink Software gave me a trial copy of CompanionLink, which synchronizes PIM/CRM data with your phone or other supported desktop applications and web-based services (like Google, Act, Goldmine, etc.).  I use it to sync my iPhone with Act 2009 Premium.  I find that syncing tools are particularly hard to get working smoothly, but this product worked smoothly and consistently from my first use of it.   I also recently purchased the Satechi SP400 2GB Smart-Pointer 2.4Ghz RF Wireless Presenter with…

• New York Entrepreneur Week: Nov. 16th-20th, 2009

  David Teten

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

    I’m honored to participate in New York Entrepreneur Week (NYEW), the largest entrepreneurial movement in New York State.  Thousands of entrepreneurs across the state will have the opportunity to actively engage with the foremost entrepreneurs, investors and dealmakers both in the State and from around the world.   Gary Whitehill and his team have done a fantastic job pulling this together.   Taking place from November 16-20th, 2009, NYEW will hold over 350 (!) events.  Among the many noteable speakers are:   Gil Beyda Managing Partner at Genacast…

• Sharpenz: Better Sales Meetings = More Sales

  Scott Allen

  13 Oct 2009 | 12:37 am

  I’ve been working for the past few weeks with sales trainers Alice Kemper and Nancy Bleeke on the launch of their new product, Sharpenz, which launched today. (Congrats, ladies!!!) As disclosure: yes, they’re clients; no, this post isn’t part of my consulting engagement with them – I just think they have a really cool product some of you might be interested in, plus it’s plain good business to promote your clients, even when they’re not paying you to do so, right? As a student of entrepreneurship, I’m always fascinated when someone comes up with a…

• Financial Executives Oct. 8 Event: Using Expert Networks and Social Media

  David Teten

  6 Oct 2009 | 5:34 pm

  Image via Wikipedia The Financial Executives Networking Group New York Chapter’s next meeting may interest you: When: Thursday, 10/8/2009 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM Where: Lee Hecht Harrison 200 Park Avenue (MetLife Building) 26th Floor, 212-557-0009 Agenda: “Using Expert Networks and Social Media” The declining economy has caused considerable growth in niche outsourcing segments, one of which is for specialized expert consultants. This niche is for professionals with very specific and salable expertise, sought by companies active across a wide range of industries. Ironically, it is…

• Los Angeles Speaking Engagements, October 6-7: CFA Society, Keiretsu Forum, and Harvard Business School (Updated)

  David Teten

  24 Sep 2009 | 9:52 am

  I’m visiting Southern California October 5-8, and I hope that some of you will be able to attend one of my presentations there.  I’ll be discussing the results of my research project on "Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds’ Best Practices in Deal Origination".  A preview of my slides is here. I’ll be speaking in three semi-public events (scheduled so far): _______________________________________________________________________ Tuesday, Oct. 6: noon-1:30 pm (presenting at 12:30pm approximately), boxed lunch and refreshments provided CFA Society…

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  Brent Csutoras

• Digg Trending: Does This Belong on the Homepage?

  Brent Csutoras

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:07 pm

  On October 28th, TechCrunch released a screenshot of the new Digg Trend feature they had acquired. Digg Trending ‘identifies and highlights upcoming stories that have a high volume of activity (think Diggs, comments, favorites, shares, etc.). When we detect a new trending story, it will appear on the homepage for ten minutes. Based on the Digg [...]

• SMX Interview About Using SMM for ORM

  Brent Csutoras

  19 Oct 2009 | 8:27 am

  While at SMX East in NYC earlier this month, Neil Rodriguez caught up with me and did a quick interview to discuss my presentation from the Social Media for Reputation Management panel. Here is the interview: You have to admit, Neil has probably some of the best interview introduction around. Related Posts:SMX's Social Media for Reputation Management RecapSocial [...]

• The New StumbleUpon V4… Less Content, More Social

  Brent Csutoras

  13 Oct 2009 | 1:36 pm

  I have raved a lot over the last year about the changes that StumbleUpon has made since it launched it’s 3rd version of the site in November 2008. The new design brought in a more content focused StumbleUpon, with category pages, recommended content on the review pages, easier discovery of content, share features, increase friends cap, [...]

• SMX’s Social Media for Reputation Management Recap

  Brent Csutoras

  13 Oct 2009 | 8:52 am

  It seems more and more that social media has become a part of the conversation whenever there is a panel or discussion on reputation management. So it was interesting to see SMX put together a panel dedicated to how you can use social media to help manage your reputation online. The panel turned out to be [...]

• SEOktoberfest 2009… PROST!

  Brent Csutoras

  12 Oct 2009 | 8:56 am

  SEOktoberfest really blew me away this year… and that is saying something considering I spoke there last year as well. Maybe it was because the sessions were a little more organized and we were all able to really learn some interesting new things, maybe it was that I had so many of my closest friends around, [...]

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  Sphinn: Hot Topics

• How AdWords Can Be The Best SEO Tool In Your Arsenal

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:17 am

  There are literally thousands of SEO tools out there. Some paid, some free, some good and some not so good. There is one tool that is often overlooked when it comes to SEO, yes, search engine optimisation, and that’s AdWords. While most people see AdWords as simply a paid traffic generation tool, many fail to realize the organic SEO benefits a tool like AdWords can provide. I’ve touched on this subject briefly before but below, I have outlined a few more detailed ways that AdWords can (and should) be used for SEO.

• Google Tackles Its “UI Jazz” Problem, Tests Streamlining Search Options Feature

  19 Nov 2009 | 11:14 am

  From the article by Danny Sullivan - "Sometime later today, a small number of Google users will see a new look to Google’s Search Options feature. If all goes well, the cleaner display may be launched across Google after the New Year. And it’s all because Google’s vice president of search product and user experience Marissa Mayer doesn’t like jazz."

• How to use multiple sitemaps on one domain for geo-targeting

  19 Nov 2009 | 4:24 am

  Working with websites that targets several countries is always challenging, especially from an SEO point of view, people just don’t seem to get that doing SEO in different countries goes way beyond different languages. Lisa Myers adresses this topic with an interesting angle of using multiple sitemaps.

• Facebook Application Project Management for Marketers

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:18 pm

  So You Wanna Build A Facebook Application? First things first. You need to know some basics before you run of all half-cocked ready to create your first Facebook masterpiece. Let's talk briefly about some basics when it comes to building a Facebook application.

• Why Twitter’s New Retweet Feature Sucks

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:01 am

  Lisa Barone's thoughts on Twitter's new Retweeting feature. It's intrusive, badly thought out and counter-intuitive to the way people use the system #TwitterFail

• 
  E-consultancy

• Q&A: Dennis Mortensen on Yahoo Analytics

  Meghan Keane

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:14 am

  Dennis Mortensen has worked in the analytics, optimization and online marketing industry since 1996. He is an Associate Web Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, the Author of data driven insights with Yahoo! Web Analytics, and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing. Mortensen joined up IndexTools in 2004 and worked as COO until the company was acquired by Yahoo! Inc., in May 2008. Today he is the Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! and sits on the Board of Directors at the Web Analytics Association. He also writes the popular analytics blog,…

• How to use Google Voice to increase reorders

  Bryan Eisenberg

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:48 am

  I just received an email from nutritional supplement retailer Jigsaw Health, about a new program they offering their existing customer base. After speaking to President and Co-Founder Patrick Sullivan Jr, I learned that 80% of their monthly revenue comes from returning customers (and they don't even offer an auto-ship program). How? By setting up Google Voice so that repeat customers can place orders via text message. Let's take a look at how this works... Patrick came up with an idea to make it simpler for these customers to re-order from him, knowing that most people don't spend all their…

• 12 reasons Chrome OS will fail

  Patricio Robles

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:33 am

  Yesterday, Google held a press conference at its Mountain View headquarters to provide the world with an update on its new operating system, Chrome OS. A lot of new details were forthcoming, which have have been well-covered by others. The questions on everyone's mind: is Chrome OS the real deal? Where does it fit in? How will it impact the OS market. My answers: it isn't, nowhere, it won't. Here are 12 reasons why Chrome OS is going to fail. The web matters, but so does the desktop. With Chrome OS, Google is betting that desktop apps don't matter to the average consumer. Is that a good bet?

• Search marketing stats round up

  Graham Charlton

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:37 am

  Here's a selection of recent social media stats, taken from a range of sources, including Econsultancy's Search Marketing Statistics document, which forms part of the Internet Statistics Compendium, and other reports... US search engine rankings (comScore) Americans conducted 13.8bn searches in September 2009, with Google accounting for 64.9%. Yahoo was next on 18.8%, followed by Microsoft on 9.4% and Ask on 3.9%. UK search market share (Efficient Frontier) Google's share of UK search spend was 86.5% in Q3 2009, Yahoo was next on 9.1%, while Bing took 4.3%. Search and branding (Google /…

• Q&A: Gerrard Dennis of Simply Group on e-commerce

  Graham Charlton

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:33 am

  The Simply Group operates seven e-commerce sites in the UK, from SimplyScuba, to the recently relaunched SimplyBeach. I've been talking to founder Gerrard Dennis about the challenges if running seven separate sites... How long have you been operating?We started out in 1995 with the Scuba shop and, around 2000, we decided to branch out into other avenues, feeling that specialising in just scuba gear left us too exposed to possible changes in the market.By offering ski gear as well as scuba, we were covering all year round in terms of leisure activities, and we have continued to add more since…

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  Convince and Convert Blog: Where Social Media and Email Collide

• More Is More – A Social Media Case Study

  Jay Baer

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:23 pm

  The last in a 3-part series this week on social media case studies. Sometimes, your customers should be the star of your social media show, not the brand. Such is the case for Spellbinders Paper Arts, a five year-old manufacturer of tools for the paper crafting enthusiast. If you’re looking to create the all-time greatest holiday card from scratch, Spellbinders is your outfitter. Based in Peoria, Arizona, Spellbinders sells primarily to papercrafting stores and craft chains like Hobby Lobby. They also sell direct to consumers on the Spellbinders Web site. Follow the Customers…

• The Art of Social Media – Crowd Sourced Photography

  Jay Baer

  17 Nov 2009 | 7:51 pm

  Part 2 of this week’s 3 post series about social media case studies. Tyson Crosbie is not your ordinary photographer. Since stumbling upon Twitter nearly two years ago, he’s ignored the norms and customs of commercial photography, and found a way to incorporate social media into every element of his work. As a food photography apprentice, Tyson observed how closed and parochial photographers were about their work, and aimed to make photography an open and educational process. Social Media Customer Acquisition Shortly after moving to Phoenix, Tyson saw a tweet from the sublime…

• 11 Must-Dos for the Serious Blogger

  Jay Baer

  17 Nov 2009 | 3:54 am

  First in a three post series this week about social media case studies. 11 Must Dos For The Serious Blogger View more documents from Jason Baer. If your blog is essentially a post-modern diary where you share your deepest, personal feelings about life in a cathartic way, this is not the post for you. However, if you blog (or want to) because you are trying to build or grow your business, read on. For my presentation at the recent PodcampAZ, I boiled down everything I’ve learned about blogging in the 16 months since launching Convince & Convert into 11 must-dos. You, the readers of…

• What Do Twitter Lists Say About Your Personal Brand?

  Jay Baer

  12 Nov 2009 | 10:29 am

  Taking a long overdue page from the Seesmic and Tweetdeck playbook, Twitter.com recently launched Twitter lists, enabling you to segment the people you follow on Twitter into groups. This is particularly useful in organizing people by industry, geography, or even the type of content they typically tweet. But what’s more interesting is that Twitter Lists help define your personal brand. You Are What You Are. Not What You Wish You Were A long-standing tenet of search engine optimization is that the search terms that people use to find your Web site reflect the reality of how your site is…

• The Geometry of Social Media – Why Triangles Rule

  Jay Baer

  11 Nov 2009 | 3:56 am

  Whether it’s your Facebook page, your blog, your Linkedin group, or your private brand community, your social media home base operates like a sports bar. You first go to a sports bar for the amenities. The TVs. The food. The beer selection. But you return again and again not for the elements that brought you initially, but for the people. The regulars. The characters. The waitresses. In my pre-fatherhood days, I used to go to a place called Big Daddy’s in north Phoenix. It was a little sketchy, but the food was decent, the beer was cold, and it was within walking distance. Then…

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  Go Big Always

• State Farm won’t underwrite social software?

  sam

  17 Nov 2009 | 2:26 pm

  State Farm doesn’t want to connect people. We got this letter from State Farm today. They proactively canceled our policy out of nowhere with the explanation that: State Farm does not write businesses that develop social software that allow people to meet online.  The size and scope of the operation does not meet our underwriting quidelines It’s hard for me to believe that State Farm wouldn’t underwrite Facebook, Twitter or any of the bajillions of consumer and business-facing companies making or using social software. That said, here’s the rejection letter we got…

• Numbers we track in our online/offline life

  sam

  24 Aug 2009 | 11:40 pm

  The antiquated, “eyeball” media model is screwing with our online behavior. I had a fun brainstorming session recently with Pierre Omidyar (@pierre). One of the things we talked about was how social software’s design has impacted how we behave online. The metrics companies choose to put in front of us are really meaningful since people optimize their behavior around those numbers. In the consumer space–because most companies decide to follow Google into “free” land– they fall trap to optimizing for the dusty, century-old media business model: get a…

• 10 things not in Blackbox Republic

  sam

  12 Aug 2009 | 12:26 am

  1. Labels One of our Founding members told me that “labels create drama,” and we agree. If there’s one thing we’ve overwhelmingly and consistently heard is that sexpositive people don’t want to be labeled. They don’t want checkboxes, or to live inside someone else’s rules. So inside Blackbox Republic you won’t find yourself having to put yourself in buckets. If you want to label yourself, fine. Do it. But we don’t make you. Sometimes you don’t know how to fit in until you break out. — Michael Baczynski 2. Profiles Profiles are…

• Why risk being eaten?

  sam

  20 Jul 2009 | 12:04 am

  At one point I blogged about “What it takes to Go Big.” I’ve learned a lot since that post. Especially about bravery. By bravery, I  mean, pulling away from the crowd to face serious danger or pain. It’s one of those things, like most, that’s easy to armchair quarterback from the pack, but until you’ve done it– professionally or personally– you can only pretend to know it. New companies face this every hour. The rest of the market says, “stop. you will get eaten.” You must be crazy, you will fail, close, never make it. Sometimes…

• Out of Stealth: Welcome to Blackbox Republic

  sam

  14 Jul 2009 | 8:56 pm

  Social Nicheworking is the next big thing. What’s a social nichework? It’s (a) choosing a target market and (b) building social software that’s tailored for them. “Social networking” is a technology meant for everyone. Social nicheworking software, isn’t. And there’s a pretty big chance that the first niche we’re building for, isn’t for you. Blackbox Republic: Where do we (some of us) put our personal life? Here comes the part where I lose some of you. Maybe even most of you. Why? Because I’m going to say the word, “sex.”…

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  Future Changes

• Milestones: 4 Years and 1,003 Articles

  Stewart Mader

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

  Last night at dinner Sameer Patel asked me when I first started blogging. I started to experiment with weblogs and online publishing sometime in mid-2003, but the question reminded me of another milestone that happened late last month: Future Changes is four years old. I started it in October 2005, and have been steadily writing ever since (for you history buffs, the site’s first title from 2005-2007 was Using Wiki in Education, then Blog on Wiki Patterns from 2007-2008). Including this note, the blog has 1,003 articles. 4 years and 1,003 articles. A nice moment to reflect. Now, back to…

• Salesforce Chatter: Integrated, Homegrown “Collaboration Cloud”

  Stewart Mader

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  Salesforce is making headlines today with their announcement of Chatter, an enterprise collaboration platform that ties into their existing customer relationship management (CRM) product. Besides the name – Chatter is as risky a term as social in the business world – the product announcement is notable for two reasons: Chatter is integrated with Salesforce’s Sales and Service products. For instance, when you update an object (opportunity, contact, account) created in another part of the environment, that update will be posted to a feed that others can follow to keep track of…

• WSJ: Why Can’t I Pick the Technology I Use in the Office?

  Stewart Mader

  16 Nov 2009 | 9:47 am

  Nick Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal on the gap between the technology we use at home vs. the office: Some forward-thinking companies are already giving employees more freedom to pick mobile phones, computers and applications for work—in some cases, they’re even giving workers allowances to spend on outfitting themselves. The result, they’ve found, is more-productive employees. There’s a reason professional chefs bring their own knives to work, rather than using a dull set of blades lying around the kitchen. The article paints consumer technology as innovative and…

• “A Willingness to Let the Process Take its Time”

  Stewart Mader

  15 Nov 2009 | 9:14 pm

  Andrew Sullivan on Barack Obama’s decision-making process, shown consistently in his handling of the biggest, most contentious and vexing problems so far in his 10-month old presidency – health care, Afghanistan, and Israel-Palestine: Obama encourages the process but hangs back, broadly – and persistently – pursuing certain objectives without tipping his hand on specifics or timing. What strikes me about this is the enormous self-confidence this reveals. Here is a young president, prepared to allow himself to be portrayed as “weak” or…

• Neglected Keystrokes

  Stewart Mader

  14 Nov 2009 | 11:23 am

  (Via Amo Lixo Electronico)

• 
  Feverbee

• Retail Buyers

  Richard Millington

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:01 am

  Getting retail buyers to join your online community is a hard sell. They’re pushed for time, they’re hard to reach and they don’t especially want to talk to each other. Worse, you could be competing against every other company they buy from. This isn’t to say that a community for retail buyers is a bad idea. I’m sure it isn’t. It’s to say that a community solely about your brand for retail buyers is a bad idea. What can you do? You can be a bit player in a larger online community. Think carefully, if you were a retail buyer what would a dream online community look like? You can…

• A Simple Example Of A Great Online Community

  Richard Millington

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:30 pm

  Most businesses would kill to have a community like this. Nearly 400,000 posts by less than 10,000 members. It’s exactly the sort of engaged, highly active, online community most businesses crave…and never get. It’s a perfect combination of general chatter, advice and events. But note the three most popular forums, ‘General discussion, ‘stories and pictures of finds’ and ‘off topic’. Stop forcing members to talk about you. Encourage members to talk about their passion, talk about themselves and talk about whatever they like. The results will be stunning. There is another clear…

• Your Dream Community

  Richard Millington

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:46 am

  Most businesses trying to create communities are deluded. They assume they matter far more to their customers than they do. They assume people want to hear about their latest news and products. Most fundamentally, they assume people want to talk about them, that’s horribly wrong. If you made a list, right now, of a community you would love to join, it might look like this: It will be a community about {your interest} It will have a few hundred members, possibly a thousand. Not too few, not too many. You will have fun, conversations wont be too serious not restricted You will get to make new…

• Write An Epic History

  Richard Millington

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:42 am

  You should document your online community’s history. Don’t just document it. Make it an epic story. Your community should sound as interesting as possible.Talk about the motivation behind it’s founding. Who were the first members to join? What were the big issues? Where was the conflict and drama? Who fought who, what opinions divided the community? Who became the most popular members? What events brought the community together You should also update your epic history every 3 months. 

• The Best Person

  Richard Millington

  16 Nov 2009 | 1:12 am

  Who do you pick to run the community? We usually advise against the intern. They simply don't know what it takes to develop relationships between members. The problem is the intern is often the best available choice. Note: available.Given a choice between an intern who will commit their entire time to building a community or an experienced marketer who will spend half their time on the community, pick the intern. You want someone that can focus their full efforts to cultivating an online community. Very few professionals can handle the change. It's hard to be planning a PR…

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  FaceReviews: Facebook Applications Reviews and Facebook News

• NYC Social Media Event for Business

  Rodney Rumford

  9 Nov 2009 | 8:42 am

  Gravity Summit NYC is an event that I am producing on November 16. This event is unlike most social media events as it is focused on the business world with real case studies and best practices from brands that are doing it right. Register NOW 8:30 AM — Registration - Prepare for the day (please be on time) Join us for a scrumptious breakfast and lots of networking. 9:00 AM — Welcome and Introduction Co—Hosts: Beverly Macy, Rodney Rumford Setting the stage for a full day, we’ll introduce the core concepts of social media and review the speaker agenda. The take aways from this event…

• Facebook Jumps the Walled Garden to Twitter

  Rodney Rumford

  20 Aug 2009 | 6:34 pm

  Facebook has had Twitter envy for the past 6 months.It was only a matter of time before facebook got it right and allowed actions on their site to jump over the facebook wall. Facebook just announced that you will be able to publish from facebook pages to twitter. Smart move for a variety of reason; the best of which it simply leverages a more friction free ecosystem to drive users back to facebook. I just hope that Twitter does not crush under the weight of these new flurry of tweets that are certain to come flowing from facebook. This also makes Twittter even more valuable as a…

• Michael Jackson and Facebook: U Can’t Beat It

  Rodney Rumford

  7 Jul 2009 | 10:02 pm

  Here is a quick rundown of the final stats after today’s Michael Jackson Memorial service for the King of Pop. You were able to see users status updates that were entered on the CNN site and connected back to users facebook accounts. At one point in the morning users were posting Approx 6,000 status updates per minute. There were a total of about 1 million users posting approximately 800,000 status updates on Facebook related to the live online broadcasts by CNN, E! Online, ABC and MTV of the Michael Jackson memorial service. Here is a breakdown by website: CNN: 733,000 status updates…

• Facebook Launches Persian Version Amongst Iranian Unrest

  Rodney Rumford

  18 Jun 2009 | 8:47 pm

  Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared on Facebook related to these events has been in Persian - the native language of Iran - but the users have had to navigate the site in English or other languages. Today Facebook will be making the entire site available in a test version of Persian, so Persian speakers inside of Iran and around the world can begin using it in their native language. Persian was already in translation before…

• A Must Attend Social Media Event For Business: Gravity Summit

  Rodney Rumford

  11 Jun 2009 | 12:48 pm

  This is an event that I am producing. We have had 2 previous events at UCLA and Stanford that sold out and the feedback from attendees was phenomenal. We educate, inform and empower the attendees by having tier 1 presenters that share actual case studies, best practices and lessons learned. This event is different from any “social media event” that you might have attended previously. This is why I created www.gravitysummit.com It is designed to address what I felt were the short comings of most social media conferences. It is held at the faculty club of universities because our…

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  Daily Blog Tips

• How To Get Your Pages Indexed By Google

  Daniel Scocco

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:29 am

  This post is part of the Friday Q&A section. Just use the contact form if you want to submit a question. Irman asks: I want to know how many blog posts in percentage normally Google indexes from a blog. I have been running a blog for a year, and I noticed only 30% of my posts are indexed by Google. What steps should I take to improve that? Provided that you respect some basic SEO guidelines, 100% of your posts should be indexed by Google. The basic SEO guidelines are: 1. All your posts must have unique and quality content. By unique I mean that the content of your posts should be found…

• Looking To Get More Twitter Followers? Then Check Twitfever.com

  Daniel Scocco

  19 Nov 2009 | 8:29 am

  Twitter is probably the largest Internet phenomenon we have seen in a while. Everyone is using it these days. Affiliate marketers are using it to promote their affiliate offers. Companies are using it to sell products and services. Webmasters and bloggers are using it to drive traffic to their websites. You name it. There are even people making money directly with their Twitter accounts by tweeting sponsored messages. Now you could be doing the same thing. The only detail is that you need to have a decent amount of followers on your account. A mere 200 or 300 followers won’t cut it.

• Optimize and Speed Up Your Wordpress Blog

  Guest Author

  17 Nov 2009 | 7:22 pm

  This is a guest post by Vlatko. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here. If your blog is on shared host but starting to get some serious traffic, then you are probably having problems with slow database queries, and in the future you might even be suspended because of exceeded CPU quota. The outcome will be frustration on your side and annoyed visitors on the other side. The first reaction will be to file dozens of support tickets with the hosting company. After that you might consider moving to VPS or Dedicated Server, but before doing that you should try some…

• On Negotiating Pay Rates with Freelancers

  Daniel Scocco

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:01 am

  A couple of weeks ago I was negotiating with some freelancers who were interesting in writing for a new website I am developing. We were discussing what kind of articles I needed, the length of each article, frequency and the like. The main point of the negotiation was the pay rate, however. Most of the freelancers were replying to me asking if I knew how much the market was paying for similar gigs, or how much I was already paying to my other writers. Initially I replied to these emails with a number, but that made me a bit uneasy, because the first person who throws out a number usually…

• Linking Out Will NOT Reduce The Google PageRank of Your Pages

  Daniel Scocco

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:36 am

  It is a Google’s world, and as webmasters we live and die by our search rankings, right? One of the factors that both influences search rankings and that most people seem to care about is the Google PageRank. More specifically, we want as much PageRank as possible! Now aiming to increase the PageRank of your pages is fine, the problem is when misconceptions around the PageRank algorithm affect the way webmasters behave. One of these misconceptions is to assume that when you link to external websites you will be losing PageRank from the page where the link is placed. I call this the…

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  Poetslife

• Pat Tillman's Spirit Lives

  Poetslife

  14 Nov 2009 | 6:18 pm

  "There are some menwho should have mountainsto bear their names in time..."Leonard CohenFor me, Pat Tillman, and all those who have given life and limb to fight the war on terror, are the kind of men described by Leonard Cohen in his poem, "There are Some Men."Pat Tillman knew his life and the lives of his loved ones were threatened by jihadi's...and he took up the cause.Here are some photos of the new Pat Tillman bridge near the Hoover Dam. To all our enemies, foreign and domestic, I ask you to consider: American's built this and we are not done yet. Despite what you may believe or what the…

• Pow Wow

  Poetslife

  10 Oct 2009 | 3:54 pm

  Ever since I first saw a Pow Wow at St. Elizabeth's in Rockville, MD about 22 years ago, I've always found them of great interest. My latest was the October 10-11 - 1ST ANNUAL FREDERICK TRADITIONAL POWWOW at the Frederick Fairgrounds in Frederick, Maryland.What always moves me is in the opening ceremonies when the MC invites all vets from WWI Afghanistan and Iraq to dance and be honored in the center dance as the audience is invited to applaud as all warriors who guarantee our freedom are honored and respected. Were that our larger society honored these men and women the same…

• Scarecrow Family Problem Solving

  Poetslife

  5 Oct 2009 | 3:17 pm

  I was a volunteer at the 2009 Mt. Airy Fall Festival with St. Michael the Archangel Church handing out materials to make scarecrows. It was a blast.Mostly, it was families who paid the $5 to get twine (for suspenders), nylons (the head), a shirt and jeans, safety pins (keeping the parts together) and instructions. It was great to watch each family attack the task differently. Each learned problem solving skills and how to get along.Other things were going on as well, as you can see in the photos below.I had my picture taken with the mayor and his wife took the picture. That's whats great…

• Great Frederick Fair Business

  Poetslife

  20 Sep 2009 | 4:30 pm

  Yes...the Great Frederick Fair is also about business. Money. Trade. Exchange. My most intriguing find was two energy products: a pressurized wood brick fuel heating blocks (Merit Builders, Inc., James. L. Badger, 9330 Appolds Road, Rocky Ridge, MD 21778, jim@meritbuilders) and a thin film solar strip for horse barns that can be used anywhere (P.H. Drayer Co Inc., Buildings Barns Fencing, Jefferson Maryland 21755, 301 473 4466http://www.phdrayerco.com/The John Deer Company, as represented by the Gladhill dealership, has a large presence at the Great Frederick Fair (see photos below). Check…

• Great Frederick Fair Networking

  Poetslife

  20 Sep 2009 | 2:52 pm

  State and country fairs, like the Great Frederick Fair, have a strong networking component. Here are some examles presented at the 2009 fair.http://www.dnr.state.md.us/http://www.mde.state.md.us/http://www.co.frederick.md.us/index.aspx?NID=194http://www.dnr.state.md.us/watersheds/surf/proj/wras.htmlhttp://www.watershed-alliance.com/http://www.nps.gov/cato/index.htmhttp://www.heartofthecivilwar.org/http://www.cunninghamgambrill.org/

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  Context Over Dogma

• Twitter Fail

  Alex Tanskey

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:22 am

  This bird hates Twammers Improper Following on Twitter You’ve seem them on Twitter. Their messages that they’re “now following you” clog up your inbox. In fact, the only safeguard is not having a twitter account at all. Who am I talking about? Twammers. Twammers, or twitter spammers, can be classified as having a succinct, direct marketing strategy. Not known for their subtleties, or their beat-around-the-bush tactics, these twammers actually achieve a pretty high success rate – that is, the rate they successfully turn you away from their product. Joking aside,…

• Social Media: From the Fringe to the Front Page

  Megan Weintraub

  15 Apr 2009 | 6:12 am

  In recent weeks, I’ve found myself in a staggering number of conversations with family, friends and coworkers about social media. I attribute this not only to their recent adoption of new technologies, but also to the surprisingly ubiquitous presence of social media in our regular news stream. These days it seems as if the New York Times can’t grant enough front page real estate to stories about Facebook’s fabled founders or how Snickers is taking advantage of the social media revolution. Running parallel to the coverage of social media has been analysis of the precipitous fall of the…

• How quickly does your news spread?

  Eric Pratum

  3 Apr 2009 | 7:44 am

  Being able to call yourself a blogger is great.  It does not matter whether you post many times each day like Chris Brogan or if you post every few months like the folks over at Where is Bob? When you do post though, how do people find your posts?  Even if you are a personal blogger like Paolo Jr, you at least have a small group of dedicated readers… be it your immediate family, circle of friends, or Second Life buddies. But, how do new people find your posts? In your blog design, you need to make it very clear how people can subscribe.  Look at the big RSS button with “subscribe”…

• Have a Question? Tweet the Crowd

  Megan Weintraub

  27 Mar 2009 | 5:55 am

  Thanks to social media tools, marketers are finally learning the value of sharing the spotlight with their customers. In the old days, product information flowed directly from the brand to the customer. Marketers would put their heads together and develop the story they wanted to tell, the narrative that would (with any hope) stay in the mind of the customer when the purchase window moved from locked shut to wide open.  Of course, branding in this sense still exists; we need only look at the most recent Super Bowl to see advertisers jockey for attention and spend exorbitant funds on…

• Taking advantage of Social Media ? Taking part in Social Media

  Eric Pratum

  24 Mar 2009 | 5:55 am

  If you’re reading this blog, chances are that you take more advantage of social media than your average internet user.  You’re likely on Facebook and maybe even Twitter.  You might have a blog or check out Reddit and Digg once a day. Do you simply use those tools?  Or, do you participate with their communities? Personally, my favorite internet tool is Twitter, but I have a hard time dealing with tweeple, who only tweet about what they’re doing and thinking without ever interacting with their followers or the tweeple they follow. Take a look at Twitterholic.  Even if you have…

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  sarahintampa

• New App Links SkyDrive to Windows Explorer

  Sarah Perez

  13 Nov 2009 | 10:02 am

  There’s a new application that integrates the Windows Live SkyDrive service into Windows Explorer. Simply called “SkyDrive Explorer,” this software turns your SkyDrive folder into just another location you can access directly from Windows. Once installed, as with local folders, you can drag-and-drop files into your SkyDrive folder or you can copy files hosted in SkyDrive back to your PC. Using SkyDrive Explorer After running the downloadable executable, you have to connect to SkyDrive by clicking on the icon that appears in your Windows Explorer window and signing in with your Windows…

• A Windows 7 Theme Using Bing Background Images

  Sarah Perez

  1 Oct 2009 | 11:37 am

  The daily background image used on the new search engine Bing.com often features beautiful and stunning images of scenes from around the world. Many people have wanted to use these images as their desktop wallpaper, leading some to go so far as to develop utilities that help you capture the images and save them on your PC. Another popular blogger, Long Zheng of I Started Something, even created an online digital archive which hosts the Bing images from all the localized versions of the Bing.com homepage. Soon thereafter, the MakeUseOf blog provided instructions on how to craft a Windows 7…

• Get Windows 7 for $99.99

  Sarah Perez

  30 Sep 2009 | 8:09 am

  Looking for a deep discount on Windows 7? Popular online retailer Newegg.com (and Bing Cashback participant) is selling copies of Windows 7 starting at just $99.99 The reason they’re able to sell the OS for so little is because they’re selling the OEM version. That means instead of getting a boxed copy in fancy retail packaging, you typically get just a cardboard sleeve with DVD. However, the most important thing to note is that the OEM copy is tied to one machine, specifically the motherboard of one machine. It’s the perfect choice for those who build their own PCs from scratch, a…

• BumpTop’s Multi-Touch Version

  Sarah Perez

  27 Sep 2009 | 11:32 am

  BumpTop, the 3D graphical overlay system designed for Windows computers, recently released a new version of their software which now includes support for multi-touch gestures. The software, which transforms your desktop into something more like a “real” desk complete with stacks of files, sticky notes, and the like, gives you a more personalized computing experience where you can have things like desktop-based photo frames for viewing friends’ image feeds and customizable themes where you can control the walls and background of the interface. Now, with the multi-touch support, such as…

• Like Photosynth for Entire Cities

  Sarah Perez

  17 Sep 2009 | 11:30 am

  The University of Washington, who, along with Microsoft Live Labs, gave us the 3D photo-browsing technology that is now called Photosynth, has come up with a new algorithm that could expand on Photosynth’s capabilities. In fact, it takes the 3D rending of Photosynth and uses it to model entire cities using tens or hundreds of thousands of photos. To demonstrate what the new algorithm can do, the researchers used the search term “Rome” on the digital photo sharing site Flickr. The results returned more than 2 million photos. In this group, every popular landmark, facade, interior,…

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  louisgray.com

• The Chrome OS Release Is Not About Now, It's About Next.

  20 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pm

  Yesterday, as most tech outlets noted, Google previewed their much-awaited Chrome Operating System - and in parallel released the code for the operating system to the open source community. By the end of the day, sites like Gdgt had compiled virtual machine capable installs of the early alpha system, and geeks, including me, were tinkering with the system. Unsurprisingly, there were near-immediate reviews, and some calling the news a disappointment. But for me, the news was not so much about Chrome OS being ready to go, but instead Google delivering on a promise, and showing its cards, before…

• Technology, Community, Relevancy: The 3 Social Pillars

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:06 am

  Why do some social sites thrive while others fail? Why do you find some networks have you dedicating hours every day to participate, while others couldn't get you to raise an eyebrow? And why don't your friends see with you eye to eye on what the best services are, even after you've told them about your favorites time and again? The more I am exposed to new sites and social services, it becomes clear to me that there are three core elements that need to be solved to deliver a killer social service - and falling short in just one can mean rapid closure. Meanwhile, even if all three of these…

• Open Web Foundation Speeds Protocols' Legal Contracts

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  On Tuesday, the Open Web Foundation released an agreement aimed to speed new specifications' ability to be adopted by downstream users, with the intent of spreading open tools throughout the Web. Though occupying the always-complicated intersection of both the legal world and the tech world, the agreement is very interesting. The non-profit organization, featuring leading geeks from many of Silicon Valley's best known and most-respected companies, is hoping to promote data portability and open Web standards, no matter their source. Tuesday's agreement makes it easier for others to implement…

• How Facebook's News Feed Failed Me (And My Family)

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:32 pm

  As more and more people are turning to social networks to share their information, practically all of us are connecting to an ever-increasing number of people, and for the most part, we are updating more frequently, and sharing content from different sources in multiple places. The resulting increase in velocity, often termed noise, has led to practically all tools to try and assist us to find the "most relevant" data, or the "best" information, based either on activity from others in our social graph, or through our own past activity. Sometimes, this works very well, helping to make signal…

• Streams May Impact E-mail, But Won't Kill It Any Time Soon

  16 Nov 2009 | 8:52 am

  As trendy as it can be at times to say that the new social "activity streams" are set to be the future of our communications, including most social networks and the nascent Google Wave, it is clear that e-mail has some serious life ahead of it. While many can complain about the growth of e-mail messages, the replacement of actual messages from people with simple notifications by robots, and a march toward "In Box Zero", this form of transmission is not going to be deleted for the foreseeable future, even if it morphs to adopt more social functionality. In an intriguing discussion at last…

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  SheGeeks.net

• How To Eliminate Social Media Distractions And Get Work Done

  Corvida

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:01 am

  Social media is such a huge distraction sometimes. New followers, new replies, new private messages! Oh look, there goes a new Twitter list. It starts to become easy for us take our eyes off the real ball: our work. We struggle with getting out of the conversations and content to get back to what we’re supposed to be doing. As naturally social creatures, we can’t help ourselves. Well here are a few techniques I use to get back to the money as they say. Make A Work Flow (And Stick To It) Inside of my Google Calendar I have a workflow that I try to stick to everyday no matter what. I set…

• What Everybody Ought To Know About The Future Of Twitter

  Corvida

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  IBY #1: This is the first in what will be a series of content written by me, but Inspired By You. I’ll be calling one of my Twitter followers every week to talk to them for 15 minutes over the phone. What will we talk about? Whatever comes to mind. Honestly, I just want to get to know you. If you’re wonder why I won’t keep the conversation on Twitter, keep reading to find out. The point the is I want to show just how much inspiration can be produced from a single conversation. This week’s IBY was made possible through: Peggy Dolane (@FreeRangeMom Make no mistake about it, Twitter is…

• 7 Twitter Clients To Watch Rise In 2010

  Corvida

  12 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm

  When I started using Twitter 2 years ago, outside of the site itself, Twhirl and Twitterrific were two of the top Twitter clients available. Twhirl even went as far as incorporating other platforms like FriendFeed and Seesmic Video, making it one of the most popular desktop clients for managing the latest social networks. Fast forward to 2009 and we have leaders like TweetDeck, Twitterific, Hootsuite, Cotweet, and Seesmic dominating desktops, while their mobile counterparts, Tweetie 2, UberTwitter, and Twidroid dominate mobile devices. I have no doubts that they’ll maintain strong holds on…

• Tracking Social Engagements Like A Pro With PostRank Analytics

  Corvida

  10 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm

  It never fails: I get tired of visiting post after post to keep track of all my content’s social engagement metrics like retweets and social bookmarks. The process for tracking social engagements has never been a simple one. It always ends with a ton of tabs open and indigestible information. Now I’ve had the pleasure of simplifying this problem through beta testing PostRank Analytics. Admit it, you need an easier way to keep up with all the number of engagement metrics you can track. There’s hundreds of communities out there potentially sharing your idea, your product, and your…

• Twitter Tip of The Day: A Shortcut To Share Your Twitter Lists

  Corvida

  10 Nov 2009 | 9:57 am

  Today’s Twitter Tip was brought to you in part by Josh Bancroft (@jabancroft on Twitter). If you find value in this tip, stop by Josh’s site or leave him a thanks in the comments!    The Easy Way To Tweet Your Twitter Lists Tweeting my lists was a bit of a hassle before one of my friends pointed out there’s an easier way. Before I would open my list in a new tap and use Bit.ly to shorten the link. I had the option of sending it from bit.ly or copying the link to share somewhere else. Some of you probably used this same method or something similar. Here’s a much easier way to…

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  TheDreamInAction.com

• I do.

  Ryan Graves

  16 Nov 2009 | 6:04 pm

  @mollstar just made me the happiest man in the world. Now we’re headed to Costa Rica for 2 weeks. See ya on the flip.

• Learning Companies

  Ryan Graves

  12 Nov 2009 | 12:35 pm

  I’ve been thinking a lot about customer development over the past few months. It’s a new way of thinking as a company, it’s a new way of approaching marketing, product building, and customer service. It’s changing, or maybe already has changed, the way companies think about the relationships with their customers, and it’s never been easier to employ this strategy than in early stage technology companies. And that’s exciting. One of the smartest pieces of startup advice I’ve heard in a while was Andy Rachleff of Benchmark Capital saying, “The…

• This video is sick. Intro to Matt Meola.

  Ryan Graves

  11 Nov 2009 | 9:23 am

  Click on any image to watch the full video. Do you even realize how difficult this trick, a flip, is to do on a surfboard? Unreal. Full video here: http://surfermag.com/av/flash/introducing-matt-meola/

• Casual writing, the new age of media. Good or bad?

  Ryan Graves

  10 Nov 2009 | 4:48 am

  This blog post is not meant to be insightful or meant to share an opinion on any particular topics. It’s sole intent is to ask you your opinion. I have a question. Is the casual style of writing that comes along with blogging a good thing or a bad thing for society? Some times I still have my parents read over my writing and usually their reaction is that it’s too informal. I write like I speak and often times that means grammatical errors, slang terms, and off the cuff remarks. What’s the big deal? Well, recently there was a phenomenal blog post on the Fake Steve Jobs blog…

• The new way to fundraise, and avoid the man

  Ryan Graves

  7 Nov 2009 | 10:02 am

  Thursday night I had the pleasure of meeting Charles Adler, one of the founders of Kickstarter, the New York based group funding platform. Kickstarter serves as a way for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, and explorers (as they say on the site) to make their dreams come true, post a project, and collect the necessary funding for it. Similar to others like it, projects much reach their goal in order for any of the funding to be collected upon. Kickstarter has taken off because of the quality of projects they host and the high success rate for projects that do…

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  Everyone's Blog Posts - PitchEngine

• What Is The Market's Intention?

  Jay Deragon

  Marketers act as thought we are all cattle waiting to be herded into a transaction. It seems as though the prevailing thought about all this social technology is that it enables organizations to "herd" us into their community and they use trick of the trade to do so. Ever consider what is the intention of the large social networks? Facebook wants our traffic so they can sell ads to the marketers. The market still fails to understand that we don't want ads rather we're looking for conversations that have an affinity to our own intentions. What Is Your Intention? Doc Searls writes: My thinking…

• Why You Shouldn't Use Social Media

  Jay Deragon

  Using social media just because everyone else is does not mean you should, at least not yet. Before jumping into all the chatter and all the advertising organizations would be better served by asking themselves a series of questions. Finding the answers to the questions will require you to "think" about critical issues which will have serious impacts on the use of social media. First you need to understand what it should be used for vs. what it shouldn't be used for. To answer these questions you must think about how effective are your current communications, internally and externally. Why?

• Public Relations can be Social, Imagine That...

  Jason Kintzler

  PitchEngine member, Esther Steinfeld, interviews the founder and CEO of PitchEngine, a social media platform that supports communication between public relations individuals, journalists and bloggers. And isn’t PR about communication anyway? Could this be a return to the way it always should have been? Esther poses the tough questions and Kintzler replies with no fear. (“Press releases suck!”)

• Are Your Directions Wrong?

  Jay Deragon

  Social media doesn't come with directions. Instead it is a never ending process of learning what, where, when, who, how and why you individually and your entire organization should use it purposely. Social media doesn't come with a manual and it isn't something you should learn by simply copying others. Social media is simply a new communications system and instead of thinking about social media people should think about how communications has changed as a result of social media. What Has Changed? In the past communications was a one way marketing system aimed at getting people's attention.

• Face to Face

  Maria von Losch Rohloff

  Does anyone meet face to face anymore? With all the social networking going on, it seems that meetings are now being handled virally. I'm not putting down technology or all these new platforms (I'm a closeted tech geek) and I love that it's convenient and time efficient. I miss the good 'ol days of meeting face to face. I understand that people are busy these days, heck, I'm busy too but I'm never too busy to meet someone in person if they ask. I'm fully aware there are networking groups that meet once a month at a designated place for mixing and connecting but most of these cost a small fee…

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  THINKing

• The Forgotten P

  Harry Hoover

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am

  Graduates of Marketing 101 all know about the Four Ps of marketing - product, placement and promotion seem to be top of mind. But the forgotten P - in my opinion - is price. Pricing can be an excellent way to differentiate yourself. I’m not talking about low-balling your competitors either. I’m talking about using pricing strategically to address consumer pain. Consider how airlines price tickets and then charge you what in essence are nuisance fees. They charge you extra for bags. They charge you for food and drink. These fees are all part of pricing and when done incorrectly can…

• Marketing Spending Pays Off

  Harry Hoover

  9 Nov 2009 | 7:22 am

  Well, here’s a big surprise: small businesses which spend more during a downturn actually do better financially. Marketing professionals have been giving this advice to businesses of all sizes since the first recession. But too many business leaders make marketing their first, instead of their last, cut. It’s nice to have some empirical data to prove our assertion. According to the “Small Business Marketing Health Check” report fromHurwitz & Associates, there is a correlation between small businesses that are doing well and greater marketing spending. Almost two-thirds of…

• Twitter Lists: Twittering Journalists

  Harry Hoover

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:20 pm

  Finally, Twitter is offering a lists function. None too soon.If you need more info on Twitter lists, Mashable is a good resource. We set up the My Creative Team Twittering Journalist wiki last year in order to develop a directory of journalists who were using Twitter. This was not an ideal solution, but it was good enough at that time. With the new Twitter list, we can move that wiki online. This makes it easier on everyone to follow twittering journalists. We have established a USA Twittering Journalist List and a Canada Twittering Journalist List. They are not yet complete, but feel free to…

• Social Media Confuses Businesses

  Harry Hoover

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:10 am

  It seems businesses of all sizes are conflicted about how to use social media effectively. In a recent CitiBank/GfK Roper study, about 75 percent of small businesses said that social networks are not working for them.  On the other side of the equation, Gartner says that most Fortune 1000 companies will delve into social media by 2010 but more than half of them will fail. First of all, small businesses may not clearly understand how social media can help them. Nor, do they know how to measure the impact of social networks.  For instance, friending a brand may not always result in immediate…

• News Media: Your Slip Is Showing

  Harry Hoover

  21 Oct 2009 | 12:46 pm

  You’ve probably read about it by now - the hoax pulled on the media by a group posing to be from the US Chamber. The CopyWrite, Ink blog has a good overview. And it was a hoax on the media, not on the US Chamber of Commerce, as Bloomberg characterized it. Says Bloomberg, The Yes Men, a New York group that pulls pranks on corporations, issued a fake press release and the text of a purported speech by Chamber PresidentThomas Donohueunder the chamber’s letterhead yesterday, said Jacques Servin, a Yes Men member. The imposters also held a news conference at the National Press Club with…

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  Indianapolis Social Media Marketing | Indianapolis Internet Marketing

• Courtney Love gets sued over tweets

  Duncan Alney

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:53 am

  Libel lawsuit hits social mediaIt has been a long-winded discussion in the communications law world: How much control should the government have over the Internet? People argue many of the following: It’s supposed to be the free medium. It’s impossible to control. Even if laws are made, how will they be enforced on such a vast, virtual medium?The feds have been trying to answer these questions since the Internet hit it big. But they have a straight answer concerning libel and defamation claims because those laws are fairly universal across any medium.What is libel? In its most basic…

• Too much flash turns google off

  Duncan Alney

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:19 am

  Search Engine Optimization: Flash doesn't entice googleGoogle is like a hippy girl. More likely to be into your substance rather than your flashy duds. Enjoy!Duncan Alney FacebookTwitter | Naymz | Blip.fmSocial Media Marketing 

• social media marketing's good news

  Duncan Alney

  13 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am

  Interview with Dave Evan, Digital Voodoo and author of social media marketing, one hour a dayHere's a quick recap of the video. Look at your listening results. Fine tune your marketing and PR to focus in on what people are interested in Take the information to the operations side of the house - customer service, R&D - and change the things that are being discussed (make things better for example) The opportunity is for PR people to lead the way that business is done. Marketing is focused on listening and paying attention to what kinds of experience people are having. Which brings us…

• Twitterese — The new way to speak online

  Duncan Alney

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:58 am

  Twitter users are using Twitter terms. Tweet is a popular verb. Twitter is a common noun. They’re used in their Tweets but also in everyday speak. But just because a Twit is using the lingo doesn’t mean he or she is using it correctly.I’ve created a collection of Twitter words and their definitions to help make the Twitter lingo illiterate more able to walk the walk and talk the talk. (list compiled with assistance from Twittonary and Twictionary)     co-twitterer: a partner that tweets on your Twitter account dweet: tweet sent while intoxicated mistweet: a tweet in…

• Time to Elf Yourself for the holidays

  Duncan Alney

  11 Nov 2009 | 8:57 am

  Social Media Marketing helps fuel holiday spirit It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Bells are jingle belling. Carolers are caroling. And inboxes are filling with Elf Yourself videos from bored friends. If you’ve never received one of these videos, you’re missing out. The Web site, created by OfficeMax , is a silly, fun way to spread holiday cheer. All you have to do is upload photos of your friends, family or pets, and Elf Yourself does the rest. You’ll have a short video of grooving elves to share with your address book in no time! And this year, Elf Yourself caught the social…

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  ConverStations

• Brunch n Brains with Yellow Ideas & The Power of Impossible

  Mike Sansone

  9 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  Thanks to Rob Jacobs of Education Innovation for sharing and introducing my eyes to the Power of Impossible and the brainiacs of Yellow Ideas The Power Of Impossible By Mark Raison Yellow Ideas Eaci Ecci Creativity Congress 29 10 09View more presentations from mark.raison.

• Working from Hawaii This Week

  Mike Sansone

  7 Nov 2009 | 5:28 am

  Aloha!I'll be working from Hawaii this week, so response might be slower. I'm promising myself to enjoy the spirit of the islands more this trip.Still, it's a working trip - so...Best ways to reach me this week are via email, text, or Twitter DM.  Or just find me each evening at the Mai Tai Ala Moana Photo on Flickr by Clonny

• Where Have all the Raspberry Jobs Gone?

  Mike Sansone

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:37 am

  I (and you) know a lot of people looking for work.  Or going free agent.  Or both. They are filling out applications. Sending resumes. Talking with their monster every day. Indeed!  Good luck. Times have changed.  That's probably why you're looking. Change with them. Get a visual CV Put up some video - maybe a video "pre-interview" and send it along with the other "stuff" Get your own domain name Create some content on a blog, on slideshare, on twitter -- wherever Be findable.  Just do it. Sometimes the unexpected gets noticed -- even remembered.  Or you can stay stuck in LODBAU (Land…

• Two Weeks of Trash Talking

  Mike Sansone

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:43 am

  Two weeks. Not one.  Not six.  Two. Two weeks of practice (aka rehearsal) before we launch your blog.  That's both a minimum and a desired maximum. Until you write your first blog post, you are perfect. But then, perfect makes practice, hmm? The goal of the two weeks is to get familiar with the blog tools and software. And the only way you're going to get used to the tool is to use it.   When we first set up your account (WordPress, Typepad, whatever...), we make sure to option OUT of allowing search engines to index your site during practice.  At launch, we opt IN for search engine…

• Quotes n Notes: Capabilities

  Mike Sansone

  26 Oct 2009 | 9:57 am

  "If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves." - Thomas EdisonI am amazed at how many of us simply stumble upon our own success. I often hear "Fake it 'til You Make it" or Do it Like You Believe it, Until you Believe it." Especially in the Midwest (what's up with that?)Here's an idea - STOP HEDGING YOUR BETS.  Just go out and do it. Fail? Fall Down?  Fine. Get back up and get 'er done.  Just ask David Armano's Value of Visual Thinking deck (see slide # 57). We can go one of two ways: Learn how to skate by falling on our backside a few times. …

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  RyanSpoon.com

• Facebook Launches Fan Badges / Widgets

  Ryan Spoon

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:22 pm

  Two months ago, Facebook rolled out a series of widgets that showcase activity from from your Facebook account or fan page. Today, it appears that Facebook has rolled out a new kind of widget billed as the “Fan Badge”. It is effectively a small badge that showcases a fan page you are associated with: You can create a badge from a drop down lists of pages that you are a fan of. Badges are currently only available for single pages – I assume that you will eventually be able to share multiple fan pages and customize the widget’s size, layout, etc. As you can tell by the…

• Modelinia Live Streams the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show via Facebook

  Ryan Spoon

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:35 pm

  Just a few weeks ago, Modelinia live streamed the Heidi Klum Halloween Party through Facebook and Facebook Connect. Tonight is the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and Modelinia is doing a live stream on Facebook for the “Pink Carpet”. You can view everything live on Facebook or on Modelinia starting at 6:30pm est. The live stream will be shown here as well: Watch live streaming video from victoriassecret at livestream.com Here are the Victoria’s Secret models themselves asking you to tune in to Modelinia’s life stream: See more videos on modelinia.com

• 7 Great iPhone Apps from Big Brands: From Paint to Coffee to Sneakers

  Ryan Spoon

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:09 pm

  I spend a lot of time using mobile applications – in part to experience what is going on and in part to experience how brands and top players are thinking about mobile. There are plenty of unexciting and uninspired examples, but here are a few great ones. I am highlighting each for a different reason: Sherwin Williams: Color Snap A paint company going mobile… and making it fun and useful? I wouldn’t have guessed – but this application is simple and provides clear, immediate utility. Whereas most applications struggle to be more than their .com experience on a mobile…

• Flip Video Offers “Flip Facebook $15.00 Coupon” to Encourage Becoming a Fan

  Ryan Spoon

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am

  Last week, I described an emerging trend of brands incenting Facebook users to become fans through unique coupons, offers, etc. Flip Video, who is approaching 100,000 Facebook fans, has started a Facebook Ad campaign that offers fans a savings of $15.00 (officially called the “Flip Facebook $15 Coupon”). The offer runs through November 30th and is promoted aggressively in the Facebook ad unit: If you arrive on the Flip fan page and are not a fan, you see a unit promoting a “secret link” to the right which is only revealed to Facebook fans: Become a fan, and the secret…

• Great Perspective on Hiring: Seek “Tiggers”, Avoid “Eeyores”

  Ryan Spoon

  16 Nov 2009 | 1:27 pm

  As much as I rely on Facebook, Twitter and (to a lesser extent) RSS for my daily reading list – email still is my best source for high quality content and ensuing discussions. Email of course is limited in functionality and difficult to manage. Anyhow, via email, I was pointed to The New York Times’ article Are You a Tigger, or an Eeyore? It is part of the NYT’s Corner Office section (always good reading) and is an interview with Mindy Grossman, the chief executive of HSN Inc. Lots of good nuggets on management, building culture, etc – but the Q&A about hiring is…

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  Content Nation ™ - Latest Articles

• The Second Web: Google Wave's New Generation of Collaborative Communications

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:04 am

  The first Web isn't dead. But long live the Second Web.The first Web is without a doubt one of humankind's greatest inventions. Marrying easy-to-use graphical browsing of hyperlinked content on Web servers, simplified publishing tools and powerful search engines, the World Wide Web revolutionized our ability to communicate through electronic publishing with audiences of virtually any scale. Billions of people use the Web every day, and many of those people are in turn Web publishers themselves through the use of social media services and tools. How could we have it better…

• Making Money with Real Time: Twitter Discovers Old Business Models that Still Work

  25 Oct 2009 | 1:40 pm

  It's pointed out in the recently released book The Curse of the Mogul that financial information giants like Bloomberg, LP and Reuters (now part of Thomson Reuters) gained their signature market advantages by creating unique efficiencies in otherwise inefficient markets. Reuters created unique advantages at first by using carrier pigeons to send stock exchange updates across a gap in a telegraph line between Aachen, Germany and Brussels in Belgium and, eventually, by developing systems for the global electronic trading of currencies. Bloomberg's key advantage came from providing…

• Tsunami: Google Wave's Preview Sweeps Social Media into a New Geography

  14 Oct 2009 | 6:06 pm

  A tsunami, an enormous tidal wave created by major undersea earthquakes, can be a devastating phenomenon for people, places and things in its path, often changing lives and landscapes permanently. A tsunami can be difficult to detect, though, as its enormous force lays hidden beneath the ocean's surface until it approaches the shallow waters near land. Within moments a placid, established scene can change into one of total destruction and disarray.So it seems to be with the preview of Google Wave , a new social media publishing technology that was opened recently to people who had signed…

• Seeing Content Nation Through New Eyes: Where Will Augmented Reality Take Us?

  30 Sep 2009 | 10:14 am

  When I wrote Chapter 10 of Content Nation, I felt that I was taking a bit of a chance to spell out the potential future impact of social media 50, 100, 1000 and 10000 years into the future. As Chapter 10 outlines, I see a future in which social media becomes integrated into our very beings, and, eventually, changes not only the DNA of human society but our own physical DNA as well. That's a pretty far-fetched vision, no doubt. Or is it? The more that I look at what people are calling today Augmented Reality technologies and at technologies that are merging computing and organic materials,…

• Cabueñes 2009: Today's Young People Light the Fires that Will Build Content Nation

  22 Sep 2009 | 7:54 am

  Cabueñes 2009 is an annual event sponsored by the regional government of Asturias, Spain that helps young people in their own country and countries around the world interested in applying Web technologies to key challenges in their nations. Originally an event focused largely on representatives from Latin America and other Spanish-speaking countries around the world, Cabueñes is taking on a broader international focus at this year's event. More than 700 representatives from many nations around the world have gathered to hear speakers, learn skills in workshops and, of course, to…

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  Direct Marketing Observations

• danah boyd deserves better

  marc meyer

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm

  Web 2.0 expo is in full swing right now in New York, and so are the idiots that can make social media and Twitter a train wreck.  I’ve been dialed in pretty much this whole week and I wasn’t really going to blog about it until I read this from danah boyd on her blog. Unfortunately, my presentation at Web2.0 Expo sucked. The physical setup was hard and there was a live stream behind me. I knew something was wrong because folks started laughing in the audience. Unable to see anything (the audience, the stream), I found myself closing down. And so I collapsed and read the whole…

• The Facebook Song

  marc meyer

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:35 am

  Are You F*cking Kidding Me? (Facebook Song) LIVE This is a NSFW type of video, but still very very funny.  

• The Duration of a Conversation

  marc meyer

  17 Nov 2009 | 7:28 am

  Chris Brogan recently blogged about the addiction of giving one’s opinion. As I read it a few questions and thoughts entered my mind on why we comment. Do we comment for the sake of commenting? Are we going through the motions of commenting because we know it has an underlying effect on our social media status? We really want to engage in a dialogue. We want to meet this person. We want this person to notice us. We want business We want something from this person We want others to notice us. None of the above. I like reading blogs I think that the nature of why people blog has changed…

• The Ubiquity of Social Media

  marc meyer

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:01 am

    Through the course of  11,000 plus tweets, 2  years of using Twitter, as well as creating, hosting, and participating in some very high level Twitter chats around the business of social media, I have oftentimes been struck with moments of absolute, 140 character clarity when it comes to all things social media. Luckily I have been able to document those moments with the help of Twitter archives and compile them into a manifesto of sorts that hopefully helps the reader think more about the “why it sucks”, the “how” and the “wtf for”, of this maddening space. The clarity,…

• Social Media Rock Star Syndrome

  marc meyer

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pm

  Twankers, Rock Stars & Gurus – Authenticity In A World of Exploding Egos The term “Authenticity” get played out a lot.  I mean – ALOT!  It gets used to discuss personal branding issues like what kind of avatar should you use and how to disclose if you get paid to communicate a product or experience.  Authenticity is used to discuss ethics in business including can you outsource moderation of your community or what if corp communications manages the CEO’s blog?  Most of the discussion comes down to the distaste for people trying to be posers online.  The fact is whether…

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  The Engaging Brand

• Heart to heart - why its good to feel in business

  Anna Farmery

  19 Nov 2009 | 5:40 pm

  Communication has always been the lifeblood of society and the need for communication never changes. Look at me tonight sat by Nana's bedside in hospital and every now and again despite her massive stroke, her eyes tell me she needs love, she needs comfort, she needs me to hold her. Her tool is not social media, it is her eyes than convey that emotion in a way which creates engagement.Communication is vital and social media has in many ways made communication easier. My worry though is two-fold Because there are tools to make it easier, that does not make communication better. In fact I would…

• When You Truly Understand Engagement

  Anna Farmery

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:31 pm

  What is engagement? ...a question which I get asked often and this week I have truly understood the meaning of the word. For those who don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I have not being posting or editing podcasts as my nana had a massive stroke and I have been at her bedside since last Friday - not sure at the moment who looks worse me or her!But during this time I have realised that engagement is just about two words....time and caring. The nurses have been wonderful here at Scarborough hospital, not because they have loads of money to spend on making us comfortable, not because of…

• The True Meaning of Life

  Anna Farmery

  12 Nov 2009 | 9:04 am

  Learning happens, not only through reading and in classrooms, but in everyday life. This week I have had boiler problems (insert your own joke here!) and today a wonderful British Gas engineer came out, as always I got into conversation with him and found he had traced his family tree. At this point he said something which made me take stock of leadership, of marketing, of branding...well of life. He said"When you look back at your family tree, it is not what they did, it is how they lived which teaches you the most"There were three lessons for me You can learn from reading, from teaching but…

• Show 270 - How to cope with change

  Anna Farmery

  10 Nov 2009 | 11:15 am

  Show 270 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcastis ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post and don't forget GotoMeeting hold your meetings online for just $49/mo. Try GoToMeeting FREE for 30 days Today I have a fascinating interview with the wonderful Jim Clemmer who "for nearly 30  years have been inspiring action and achieving results in the area of practical leadership". For more learnings from the book you can sign up for a free webcast on December 3 hereWe talk…

• Why YOU don't matter?

  Anna Farmery

  9 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

  Sounds strange from the person who believes in the power of people, in the belief that each person brings value to this world. However, what I mean is that you mean little on your own. If there was just you, then your power would be diminished. I believe it is our role in society, our connection to others which makes us special. That is why I love social media because it allows you to forge those connections, to develop relationships and to create your own personal brand. It allows you - the individual - to come alive through the value you deliver through your connections.When you think about…

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  Going Social Now

• Book Stolen! A good sign?

  Shiv Singh

  14 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  This email by a co-worker was sent to everyone in the NY Razorfish office on Wednesday. As off Friday evening the book hadn't been returned! I'm flattered that the book is considered worth stealing but I do hope it'll lead to more buying and less stealing. Maybe its a sign that the book will sell well.I'll let you know if that book is ever found.

• Q&A about Social Media Marketing for Dummies, MediaPost

  Shiv Singh

  13 Nov 2009 | 7:31 pm

  I was interviewed by MediaPost about my new book and discussed how its a book not just for dummies but for marketers with all levels of expertise and in organizations large and small. The interview is republished below.Upon the release of Social Media Marketing for Dummies, the latest edition to the "Dummies" series, Online Media Daily posed a few questions to its author -- Shiv Singh, vice president and global social media lead, at Razorfish. Singh has been with the agency since 1999, working in the Boston, New York, San Francisco and London offices. But now that his book is out, brands may…

• Wibya, my new favorite social utility for websites

  Shiv Singh

  11 Nov 2009 | 12:18 pm

  My new favorite utility is the Wibya one. If you look at the footer of my blog, you'll notice the horizontal bar that makes it extremely easy to share the contents of this blog post. But more than that, it also links you to the Facebook community for my book and to my tweet streams. It is a light and easy way to share content, search the blog, connect with me on Facebook or through Twitter and get a better sense of the community. It is the glue that binds my blog to the rest of the social web. Why is this special? Because all of a sudden, it is extremely easy for you to link your website with…

• FEED: We engage with Twitter for the deals

  Shiv Singh

  8 Nov 2009 | 4:51 pm

  FEED, The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report was just published. Primarily authored by @gschmitt who shares the credit for it generously, FEED focuses on how consumers are engaging with brands in an increasingly digital world. Here are my favorite findings. The full report is available here.65% of consumers report having had a digital experience that either positively or negatively changed their opinion about a brand. Yes, we all talk about social monitoring but I'd argue maybe not even enough as yet. You need to understand your consumers beyond the perspectives that they share…

• Tuesday BMA Panel: When Social Media Worlds Collide

  Shiv Singh

  8 Nov 2009 | 3:33 pm

  This Tuesday I'll be on an 8:00am panel discussing how the social media worlds are beginning to collide. On the panel with me will be Todd Defren, (CEO, Shift Communications), Adam Hirsch (COO, Mashable), Mike O'Toole (President, PJA Advertising) and Emily Riley (Senior Analyst, Forrester). This should be a good panel as we're quite a mix of people - from analysts and agency types, to PR  and publishers. You can bet I'll be discussing the different types of influencers and lamenting the fact that we don't pay enough attention to them. This is part of the BMA (Business Marketing…

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  Stage Two's blog

• Client News: Pogoplug Unveils 2nd Gen Device – Pretty Darn Cool In Pink

  KPBrown

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:21 am

  The New Pogoplug! At a great late night event held in their SF headquarters, Cloud Engines – creators of the ubercool award-winning Pogoplug “multimedia sharing device” unveiled the next step in their Pogoplug product evolution (see picture). A very select group of techgeeks got a very special sneak peek and hands-on with the new Pogoplug, which boasts 4 USB ports (a big crowd pleaser), very cool new design, and a bunch of new features: Automatic sync with your music, movies, photos…really any folder you want Bulk uploading Improved data display for media – cover…

• Client News: BOKU announcing 12 major partnerships at once

  David

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:06 am

  BOKU has a big announcement today, which includes 12 major partnerships with some of the biggest names in free-to-play and social / casual gaming.  BOKU offers a direct mobile payments system for virtual goods.  Want some digital alfalfa for your virtual horses in Barn Buddy on Facebook?  BOKU lets you pay for it with your mobile phone. The new partnerships account for more than 200 million (yup, million) new customers with access to BOKU to pay by mobile for their virtual goods.  BOKU is a global outfit with offices in the US, South America, the UK and Singapore. Their release went out…

• Client News: Clicker is live and ready for Prime Time

  David

  12 Nov 2009 | 6:46 am

  Great news for Clicker today – they’re launching out of Beta, making the service available to anyone in the world.  Clicker has also increased their content index dramatically, partly through collaboration with Netflix and Amazon to index all of their video-on-demand content – this brings Clickers content index up to: 400,000+ episodes, from over 7,000 shows 30,000+ films 50,000+ music videos And, they have some great new feature enhancements thanks to all the Beta feedback they received.  This includes features like use of  Facebook Connect (to create an account using…

• Client News: worlds collide as Blake Krikorian joins board of Clicker.com

  Jeremy

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:23 am

  We had a great announcement this morning from one of our newest clients, Clicker.com.  Blake Krikorian, the founder and former CEO of Sling Media (makers of the Slingbox) has agreed to join the board of directors at Clicker.  He’s also investing in the company personally. This has special significance to me as Blake was my old boss back in the day. Blake joins CEO/founder Jim Lanzone (former CEO of Ask.com) on the board, along with Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital and Geoff Yang of Redpoint Ventures.  Clicker’s mission is to be the ultimate programming guide for television on…

• Client News: VUDU Internet Apps are live

  David

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:15 am

  VUDU today releases their Internet Apps for the embedded streaming HD movie service.  This means that VUDU customers on embedded devices like the Mitsubishi Diamond Unisen HDTVs will be able to use some of the hottest Internet apps around, including Pandora, Flickr, Picasa and others.  Owners of the original VUDU box will recognize this as the VUDU Labs feature. Now it has come to VUDU enabled embedded devices. A few folks have picked up the news, which went out via blog post on the official VUDU blog this morning. We will update the list of coverage below as we see it. Engadget Engadget HD…

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  The Common Sense Web... An Entrepreneurs' Blog

• How Consulting Helps our Startup, and vice versa

  Chris Treadaway

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:18 pm

  Had we launched a startup and a consulting business at the same time in 2006 or 2007, we may have taken a lot more criticism than we did.  But even in the middle of 2008 -- before the stock market crashed and many people realized that the salad days were over -- I heard a lot of good things about the model.  The "capital efficient" startup model was just starting to take hold and most people thought that we could effectively balance the needs of both businesses.  I mean, it's better than starving right? It has worked a little better than I originally expected.  Here are a…

• Death and the Startup

  Chris Treadaway

  11 Nov 2009 | 9:29 pm

  Sorry I haven't posted in awhile.  On October 23rd, my mother passed away from complications from breast cancer.  The original cancer diagnosis was good and the chemotherapy was to be as minor as it gets, which is why her sudden death came as such a shock to us.My purpose with this post isn't to share the intimate details about her life, seek anyone's condolences, discuss the outpouring of support from hundreds of people my parents' community of Brandon, Mississippi, or share my feelings about my mother.  I've saved most of that with family and close friends --…

• Capital Efficiency and where we are in the innovation cycle

  Chris Treadaway

  21 Oct 2009 | 8:19 am

  Capital efficiency is a hot topic for Web entrepreneurs these days.  I've outlined a lot of the reasons we've gotten here in prior blog posts... it's a combination of a bad economy, a maturing yet healthy & evolving Web business from search to social media, the fallout of Sarbanes-Oxley and the resulting lack of IPO activity, a weak M&A market, and poor venture capital performance over the last decade. Time marches on and despite the broader macroeconomic climate, entrepreneurs continue to innovate.  I think it's an important distinction to keep in mind at all…

• An Alternative Startup Approach

  Chris Treadaway

  8 Oct 2009 | 9:16 am

  A lot of people have commented on how the economy and lack of "exits" changes the game for entrepreneurs seeking funding for early stage idea.  You need one heck of a personal connection or paying customers to even think about getting funded at a decent valuation today.  The bar is higher than ever to justify an early-stage investment, and for the effort you'll get a modern (i.e. low) valuation to boot.Rob Adams (former venture capitalist and now professor at the UT Business School) said at a recent Texchange event here in Austin that it is "easier for a startup to sell…

• Wordplay re: Incubators, Catalysts, Accelerators, Mentorship Programs, et al

  Chris Treadaway

  23 Sep 2009 | 4:24 pm

  Quick rant today on something that's been bugging me for awhile -- snobbery around terms used by different people who support entrepreneurs.  Some things I've heard lately:"We are not an incubator <chuckle>, we're an accelerator!""Incubators stand the test of time.""Our mentor program is different."For the sake of simplicity, I ignore labels/names.  It isn't productive to get into a sophomoric debate over whether or not you "incubate", "accelerate", "catalyze", or "mentor."  And if folks are…

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  A New Marketing

• Daniel Pink on the Science of Motivation

  Matt

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm

  Saw this great video of Daniel Pink today and thought it was worth sharing. Absolutely worth watching the whole thing. The funny/sad thing is that we KNOW the way we motivate is wrong, but we keep hammering away at it anyway. (Hat tip to Karl Long for his great post where I found this.)

• All Media Is Social - The 4 Levels of Social in Media

  Matt

  20 Oct 2009 | 12:12 pm

  Allow me to start this off by blowing your mind. Just about all media is social media. That being said (and minds being blown), not all media is as intrinsically social as one another. I’ve broken down most types into 4 categories. Let’s take a look! Socially Passive Media This is the traditional stuff. The mass media that everyone’s used to. Most TV shows, movies, books, newspapers, and magazines are one-way streets, but that doesn’t mean they exist in complete isolation. They have to pay attention to the way people “vote” with their money and time. If a…

• The Heat Wave around Castle

  Matt

  16 Oct 2009 | 8:21 am

  I know Tie-ins are nothing new, but even still I think this bears mentioning. ABC’s Castle (which I really, really like) is now in it’s second season and has found a steady, growing following. If you’re not familiar with the show, the basic premise is that Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), a hugely successful crime novelist uses his connections with the Mayor to be assigned as a tag-along with detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) where he helps solve cases in the name of “research” for his books. It’s a pretty unique twist on the old cop show, and I think it…

• Digital + Tactile

  Matt

  30 Sep 2009 | 7:15 am

  Here’s something interesting that I’ve noticed lately. There’s this continual push to have everything digital. Digital TV, mp3’s, e-books, movies on your iPod, etc. It seems as if the goal is to move from physical copies of things to only having them “exist” digitally. That being said, I don’t think actual books are going to disappear anytime soon… but still. The interesting thing is that even as we’re digitizing everything, we still want to interact with it in the “traditional” sense. We want to be able to touch, pull, push,…

• BFG & MattJMcD Living In Perfect Harmony

  Matt

  29 Sep 2009 | 12:25 pm

  I don’t usually do things like this. I just don’t like tooting my own horn for a few reasons: primarily because my mom taught me never to brag, but also because “tooting your own horn” sounds kind of wrong. But there are always exceptions to the rules, especially when a great opportunity comes up. An opportunity like the Assistant Content Manager position at BFG Communications. For this opening, BFG has asked that to apply we use social media, and use it I will. At the risk of flagrant horn-tooting, I believe I would be a great fit for this position. I eat, sleep, and…

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  Altitude Branding

• Effective Criticism

  Amber Naslund

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:57 am

  Criticism can be good. It can be a very healthy way to learn, to grow, to identify flaws in your system – either personal or professional. And now, the internet sure gives us myriad ways to deliver said criticism without much forethought, in a flash, and without making it very helpful. It’s easy to bitch on Twitter or rant on your blog (and if blowing off steam is your goal alone, you can just ignore the rest of this post). But if your criticism is being delivered really with the intent to change something or someone’s behavior, there are ways to get closer to that goal. For…

• Hiring For Social Media: Good Moves

  Amber Naslund

  12 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Yesterday, we looked at some examples of social media job descriptions that were missing the mark in one way or another. But in and among the reams of mediocre, there were a few glimmers of promise. Let’s cover some of those, and start looking to the future for how we can talk with organizations looking to hire folks in this arena. Unlike the less positive stuff in the last post where I kept the companies anonymous (I’m sure you can find them for yourself), I actually called out the companies (and respective job descriptions) here that I think have some of the right ideas. I want…

• Hiring for Social Media: The Ugly Side

  Amber Naslund

  11 Nov 2009 | 2:19 pm

  Wow. A friend (thanks, Ron) sent me today his collection of social media job descriptions that are popping up across the web as more and more companies jump on board the hype train. Needless to say, many of them are underwhelming. Alarming at worst, eliciting a sigh at best. And I actually think the poorly crafted job descriptions and even more poorly considered staffing needs are indicative of bigger, more strategic problems that some companies have really examining a) where they’re headed and b) what they need to get there. But that for another post. Rather than turn this post into a…

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  NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network

• 2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/20

  Annaliese

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:12 am

  Happy Friday! We're getting close to the end of our NTEN Member Appreciation month, when I'm giving out prizes every work day up to Thanksgiving Day.  Be sure to tune in next week when the prizes get really big (including 2010 membership and an NTC registration!). For today, however, I am glad to end the week with a gift of NTEN Gear for one of our current members (randomly selected): Jenny Hezel, from the NY-NJ Trail Conference Thank you, Jenny, for being a member of NTEN and using technology to help your cause!

• 2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/19

  Annaliese

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:49 am

  One thing we're really proud of here at NTEN is the knowledge of the community and the generosity within the community to share that knowledge with each other so that we can all do our work better, which in turn, we believe, makes the world better. This last year we were able to harness that community wisdom and generosity and produce the first NTEN book: Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders.  I am happy to be able to give a copy of this book as one of our Member Appreciation daily prizes to: Annika Billqvist, from Hands On Bay Area And you are…

• 2009 NTEN Community Report -- And 2010 NTC Winner

  Annaliese

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

  Every year we survey the nonprofit technology community (via our members, program participants, and other like-communities) to learn two main things: How are WE doing, as an organization, to make your work easier, and your mission a little closer? How are YOU doing, as someone who works with technology and/or the nonprofit sector, in terms of your job role, tech-adoption, and organizational challenges? Earlier this spring, we collected responses from 1000 folks and have analyzed and reported back that data for you in this report. > Download the report (free) Key Findings Satisfaction with…

• 2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/18 (Multi-Pass!)

  Annaliese

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am

  Last year we introduced a new member benefit for NTEN members: NTEN webinar packages. Many of our members are organizations that have multiple staff accessing NTEN resources and programming. We wanted to make it easier for the staff at these organizations to sign up for NTEN webinars, and at the same time make it easier for the organizations to manage the training for their staff. So, we created two webinar pass options that both increased the member discount on our webinars and made it easier for staff to sign up for webinars when they wanted, without having to get approval for new…

• 2009 Member Appreciation: Daily Member Prize Winner for 11/17

  Annaliese

  17 Nov 2009 | 7:14 am

  With all the buzz about Twitter and Facebook Causes over the last year, I feel like the focus on Second Life for nonprofit organizations and causes has diminished a bit.  But there are organizations and resources for nonprofits who are and want to engage with constituents in Second Life, and we are happy to be able to send a how-to resource on Second Life to an NTEN member today (as part of our Member Appreciation daily prizes): Susan Neuman, of the National Trust for Historic Preservation We're sending you Second Life for Dummies, by Sarah Robbins and Mark Bell, courtesy of…

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  PsyBlog

• The Chameleon Effect

  Jeremy Dean

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:52 am

  Does mimicking other people's body language really make them like us? Self-help books, persuasion manuals and glossy magazine articles often advise that mimicking body language can increase how much others like us. But is it really true that mimicry causes others to like us, or is mimicry just a by-product of successful social interactions? Although it had long been suspected that copying other people's body language increases liking, the effect wasn't tested rigorously until Chartrand and Bargh (1999) carried out a series of experiments. They asked three related question: Do people…

• Self-Study Positive Psychology Courses

  Jeremy Dean

  18 Nov 2009 | 6:27 am

  Sponsored post: Positive psychology self-study courses available at Intentional Happiness How can you live a happier life? How can you discover your strengths and build on them? What is the case for hope and optimism? Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, a happiness researcher and life coach, addresses these important questions in a workbook aimed at helping you understand and apply the lessons from the latest research in positive psychology. The Invitation to Positive Psychology workbook (PDF, $17.95) uses an engaging style to introduce the burgeoning field of positive psychology. This workbook,…

• The Psychological Immune System

  Jeremy Dean

  12 Nov 2009 | 10:36 am

  We get over bad moods much sooner than we predict, thanks to the covert work of the psychological immune system. One of the most incredible things about the human mind is its resilience. Let's face it, life can be pretty depressing at times, and yet people generally push on much the same as they always have, sometimes even with a spring in their step and a smile on their face. How come one day it seems like the world is going to end and the next there's hope? And how come our bad moods lift so unexpectedly, like a brick sprouting wings and disappearing into the clear blue sky? The reason is…

• Why Do People Bother Voting?

  Jeremy Dean

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:17 am

  Why we overestimate the power of our own vote. It might seem like an undemocratic question but it's one that's always plagued me: why do I bother voting? Most people know their own tick in the box is hardly worth it when weighed against the effort involved in getting registered and actually going to vote, let alone when weighed against all the other people voting. Quattrone & Tversky (1984) had a hunch that there was another, more complex psychological reason that people vote, to go along with the usual explanations. Not only, they guessed, do people vote because of their democratic duty…

• The Truth About Self-Deception

  Jeremy Dean

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:56 am

  Can we pull the wool over our own eyes or do we see through our mind games? In theory the one person we should never, ever, lie to is ourselves. Surely lying to ourselves is counter-productive? Like calmly and deliberately shooting yourself in the foot or taking a hot toasting fork and plunging it into your eye? But look around and it's not hard to spot the tell-tale symptoms of self-deception in other people. So perhaps we are also deceiving ourselves in ways we can't clearly perceive? But is that really possible and would we really believe the lies that we 'told' ourselves anyway? That's…

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  Usability Counts | User Experience, Social Media

• Consultant Thursdays: Designer Vs. Client (NSFW)

  Patrick Neeman

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  That’s about right.Similar Posts: Consultant Thursdays: The Vendor Client Relationship Consultant Thursdays: Six Signs Of A Trouble Client Consultant Thursdays: What If Your Client Asks You To Implement A “Crazy” Enhancement?

• Consultant Thursdays: 72 Questions to Ask New Web Design Clients

  Patrick Neeman

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Building a website is easy, right? Uh, no. Most clients are prepared to really handle a website, and don’t limit themselves to what they are capable of within a budget. Here’s the first 10 of 72 questions to ask web clients from bonfx. How does your company handle email? Do you need any password protected areas? Do you have the Pantone numbers for your current company colors? Did you take a look at our portfolio? What is your time frame? Is this a brochure site, or a blog? Who is your audience? Do you have any specifications? What are the website addresses of your competitors? How…

• Form Design And The Fallacy Of The Required Field

  Patrick Neeman

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:05 am

  I was on a mailing list today, and this came across: “Use red asterisks — they’re the standard for showing required fields.” Standards are wonderful, but if I asked my mom with is the international symbol for a required field, she would look at me like I was on drugs (not much different than today, but still). This was something even the great Jared Spool mentioned at an event as gospel, and showed an example in his PowerPoint (which I still haven’t received, but that’s another blog post). He was explaining how another client had used asterisks to show…

• Cool Website Tuesdays: Attention Wizard

  Patrick Neeman

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  One of the way cool, nifty things that you get by working for an online marketing education company is access to great tools that are just a bit beta. That’s just the sort of thing we needed over at Online Marketing Summit as we do usability testing and other analysis work. Enter Attention Wizard. Attention Wizard is a tool that shows possible eye tracking without the human part. The smart folks over at Site Tuners (Thanks Tim, for the invite) have written an algorithm that produces an “attention heatmap”, a way of saying here’s some possible areas that the users are…

• 8 Activities Of Human Centered Design

  Patrick Neeman

  16 Nov 2009 | 10:07 pm

  From Di8it: Similar Posts: Improve Your Marketing Decision Making “Yes On 8″ Political Ads From Google Ads Offensive, And I’m Not Making Money Off Of It The LinkedIn Edition: What Kills Site Conversion?

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  Blonde 2.0

• Learning from Starbucks – One Tweet at a Time

  blonde20

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:58 am

  (Guest post by Dorine Sinigaglia) Brands are using effective social media tools like Twitter more and more these days in creative ways to promote their brand name as a way to reach out to their consumers and attract new ones. Some brands really know how to promote their brand well – and this has been their saving force during the economic downfall over the last year. While thousands of businesses worldwide have closed down or filed bankruptcy as they watched their sales numbers plummet, many businesses actually saw an increase in sales this past year and they can thank their use of…

• An Era of Total Transparency

  blonde20

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:21 am

  These days we live in an era of a historian’s wet dream. We are consistently recording history through all our social tools. Our actions, feelings, thoughts, our everything, constantly being recorded. From where we are eating to what we are annoyed about to what it is that makes us tick. Not only are we recording the “big” things but we are recording EVRYTHING. It’s history without hiccups. Ben Parr wrote an excellent post on Mashable on the topic. Parr: ” For the first time in human history, the day-to-day interactions between people are being permanently…

• The LinkedIn Connection

  blonde20

  10 Nov 2009 | 9:06 am

  (Guest Post by Dorine Sinigaglia) For years, I have been using social networks like Facebook& Myspaceto reconnect with old friends and make new ones. As much as I love my social networking time and devote hours of my day to it, I have become an even bigger advocate of LinkedIn– a social network that I consider covers my “professional side” – and feel that it doesn’t get as much recognition as it should in the social media world. My friend and I recently got into a brief debate about the effectiveness of LinkedIn, where I stated my strong views about this site being a great…

• Foursquare: Make The City Your Playground

  blonde20

  9 Nov 2009 | 9:10 am

  (Guest Post by Ilan Peer) Since I don’t have an iPhone, it rarely happens that I update my location status, or tweeting where i hang out. To top this all off, I don’t even fully utilize this cool app that I’m writing about! Since it really caught my attention, I wanted to share my thoughts on foursquare – an application that allows you explore your city – has unlocked a certain code for location based service engagement and positively affected income of many local businesses. An interesting fact about foursquare is that one of their Founders, Dennis Crowley, is…

• The Brilliance of Twitter Lists and Suggestions for Improvement

  blonde20

  1 Nov 2009 | 3:25 pm

  In my opinion twitter is the best tool we have today to engage with others, spread a message, network, meet other like-minded people, and stay on top of the news, in any industry. The only aspect I’ve always found problematic on twitter was the impossibility of organizing information. This is something that’s changed now with the new twitter lists which allow you to organize people in any sort of list you like. So how have you been using lists? What sort of names have you been giving your lists?It’s quite interesting to see what lists people have put you under and how you…

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  soho-life.com

• Keeping it local

  Kathie Thomas

  10 Nov 2009 | 9:55 pm

  My husband and I have recently shifted to the country from suburban life.  It’s still a suburb of Melbourne but an outer suburb amongst the hills and bushland. It’s beautiful and we look forward to many years here as we head towards retirement and grand-parenthood. While I do run a virtual online business of my own, I find it’s still important to maintain contact with local business operators. There are just some things that need to be done on a local basis.  And it’s a great way to get to know the locals and let them know I exist too. I woke up in the morning…

• Beware the Tax Office Scam

  Kathie Thomas

  29 Sep 2009 | 4:41 pm

  I noticed in my spam filter two messages that are supposed to be from the Australian Tax Office telling me about a Tax Refund. I don’t believe for a moment that they would contact me that way – I still get mail direct from them or via my Accountant, however just to alert you to some other things about this email. It is not personally addressed. Any correspondence from the tax office would include my tax account number details. Email is not secure so why would they anyway? Why does it list AUD? I didn’t think the Australian Tax Office dealt in other currency with Australian…

• Doh! Did it again!

  Kathie Thomas

  5 Sep 2009 | 11:40 pm

  I forgot to check the amount of webspace available for a multi-user blog before upgrading it and the thing has crashed.  I had to backtrack to find out what I did when a similar incident happened earlier in the year.  And then I remembered.  I had to get it restored to a former backed up version by my IT guy and then add webspace and then upgrade the thing.  Forgot, forgot, forgot! So hoping he can fix it for me soon so I can increase the space and then re-run the upgrade.  Doh!

• Blog or post?

  Kathie Thomas

  11 Aug 2009 | 5:40 pm

  You are viewing a blog – a series of articles or posts that make up the blog.  This particular piece you are reading is a post or blogpost. One of my pet peeves, although only little, is people who ask about writing blogs when they actually mean posts or articles. It’s just a little thing but I feel it important to educate people – a blog is a collective of posts, thoughts, articles, entries, whatever but the individual items are the blog posts – not the blog. What do you think? Blog or post?

• Beware the TradeMark Scam

  Kathie Thomas

  4 Aug 2009 | 2:02 am

  I received two of these letters this past week and was shocked to receive bills I wasn’t expecting. They were for my trademarks and I couldn’t recall having to pay bills of that size before. It worried me and was unplanned/unexpected. Needless to say, research online shows that there are warnings about these letters which are not official.  Below is a link from a legal organisation and the other is ‘hidden’ information I found on the website of the organisation that sent the letters.  I say ‘hidden’ because that page is not linked in their menus and not…

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  Media Culpa

• Audi taps social media for car design

  kullin

  14 Nov 2009 | 1:59 am

  For this year's Los Angeles Design Challenge, Audi turned to social media for ideas and input on the design of new cars. Audi invited the community of nearly 400,000 Audi fans on Facebook to interact and come up with suggestions for the design of a Youthmobile that would come out in the year 2030. Designers engaged with fans in a numbers of ways, such as discussion threads, polls and feedback on photos and videos. "With its nearly 400,000 fans, the Audi Facebook audience is composed of passionate brand enthusiasts who have a mutual affinity for automobiles. They yielded feedback for the…

• Health care site named best Swedish site

  kullin

  11 Nov 2009 | 11:33 am

  Internetworld tonight presented the list of the web sites it ranks as the 100 best in Sweden. The winning site this year was the health care site OmVård (www.omvard.se) which presents statistics from different health care providers so that patients can make an informed decision about where to turn for health care. As a curiosity, it's interesting that the top Swedish site only has links from 7 other sites (in Google).Among the traditional media companies, these were the ones that made it to the top 100 list.2. SVT : Best media site5. TV47. DN.se : Best news site19. Aftonbladet.se21. SvD69.

• The 25 most valueable U.S. blogs

  kullin

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:28 am

  24/7 Wall St. lists what they believe are the 25 most valueable blogs in the U.S. The latest ranking estimates that the top 25 US blogs are worth $729 million in total. That is a considerable increase since the previous ranking in February 2009 that valued the top blogs to a total of $482 million. For the analysis, the site has moved up the multiples assigned to blog revenue and operating profits because of the recovering economy, so that the blog value better reflects the increase in prices paid for online media properties. 1. Gawker Properties, $300 million. 2. The Huffington Post, $112…

• Foursquare comes to Stockholm

  kullin

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:47 am

  Foursquare is a location-based social network with gaming elements, and it is the latest hype among tech savvy social media users. Its mobile app lets you check-in at different venues and find out where your friends are. Today the site added 15 new European cities (not 14 as published on TechCrunch) to the two existing, London and Amsterdam. Stockholm is one of the new cities that is available as of today. The other cities are Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Geneva, Madrid, Munich, Manchester, Paris, Prague and Rome. Tags: foursquare, mobile apps, stockholm,…

• Swedish Volkswagen video the most viral ever

  kullin

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:30 pm

  Volkswagen turns to social media when promoting new cars. In a recent Advertising Age article, Volkswagen of America says it is launching the next generation GTI exclusively on an iPhone app, because it is a cost-efficient marketing tool. Compare that with the $60 million Volkswagen spent on TV commercials on the 2006 launch of GTI.And in Sweden, Volkswagen has produced three videos that have gone viral, to the extent that one of them has become the most viral video ever made (even more viral than Susan Boyle, thank God), at least according to the Viral Video Chart. "Pianotrappan" (the piano…

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  B.L. Ochman

• Why Do So Many Companies Hide Their Social Media Involvement?

  BL Ochman

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:16 pm

  While thousands of companies have either experimental or well-established presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites, those communities remain invisible on all but a tiny fraction of company homepages. Why do companies hide their social media efforts from visitors? My guess is that their reasons include o fear that they'll lose control of their brand if too many people know they can have a say; o lack of cooperation between marketing and IT; o and perhaps pressure from lawyers who are nervous about new-fangled new media. It's hard to find a company website whose…

• Three Top Reasons Why Social Media is Still a Tough Sell

  BL Ochman

  9 Nov 2009 | 6:47 pm

  By B.L. Ochman Big companies have moved cautiously for eons. While many are corporations are making forays into social media, very, very few are taking huge risks. Instead of jumping in, they're still standing on the edge of the pool, diipping a toe in the water. As a result, getting companies to add social media into the marketing mix is still a hard sell. Here are three of the top reasons why. 1- Consultants make social media sound scary. Consultants, eager to prove the viability of social media in the marketing mix, are overwhelming stodgy companies by making social media sound more…

• Think There Are No More Real Heroes? Meet Zoe Koplowitz

  BL Ochman

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:13 am

  I hope you will show this post to someone you love. This morning, at 9:30 a.m., I had the great good fortune to meet up with Zoe Koplowitz, as she approached mile 24 of her 21st NYC Marathon - on purple day-glo crutches, 27 hours after the start of the race. She, and a team of Guardian Angels who acompany her as she keeps her pace of approximately one mile per hour, were on course to finish her race in just under 29 hours. She told me she felt "fine," and we talked about her dog, as Benny - clearly recognizing a great soul - bowed before her (his best trick.) I told her she was a great…

• 10 Things Social Media Can't Do

  BL Ochman

  31 Oct 2009 | 11:30 am

  By B.L. Ochman Amid the endless pronouncements about social media -- often shortened to "social" these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about -- is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet. Social media can't: 1. Substitute for marketing strategy A Twitter campaign, or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy. 2. Succeed without top management buy-in Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback, and trust employees to…

• Top Five Reasons Why Free is a Good Business Model & How We Plan to Use it to Retire Before We're 90

  BL Ochman

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:21 am

  Pawfun, the site I hope will one day allow me to say "I used to be a corporate social media consultant", is one year old this month. My partner, Caimin Jones, and I started out thinking we'd sell a ton of t-shirts, customized photo note cards, and personalized pet photo greeting cards to pet lovers. We've sold a bunch, but not enough to allow us to retire from consulting before we're 90. Then, Eureka! We realized that we weren't using the very community-building tools we've spent the last 10 years cajoling our Fortune 500 clients into trying. Pawfun's new focus: free We're changing our focus.

• 
  Regular Geek

• ChromeOS Will Fail, Unless Its Purpose Is Not To Succeed

  Rob Diana

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:33 am

  Google sort of released ChromeOS yesterday. I say “sort of” because they released the source code, but the official release of the OS is supposed to be in a year. Even the Chrome Blog hedged a bit, “Today we released Chromium OS, the open source project behind Google Chrome OS.” So, they released the open source project Chromium OS. As has been stated from the beginning, ChromeOS will be focused on Netbooks and people who mostly just use the web for everything. As with all things Google, the release has been all over the blogosphere, but there has not been the typical…

• YackTrack Server Maintenance

  Rob Diana

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:23 pm

  YackTrack will be taken offline soon as the servers are being patched by my ISP. I have been told that they will be offline tonight from 12AM GMT-7 until 5AM GMT-7. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. I will update this post when I receive a notice that the servers are available again. UPDATE: The servers are up again and YackTrack is back to normal. Thank you for your patience.

• Yahoo Slowly Slimming Its Services

  Rob Diana

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:39 am

  Yesterday we saw some news that Yahoo is discontinuing Yahoo Go. In case you did not know, Go is a mobile application for mail, news and other assorted Yahoo services. This is a logical move, and Yahoo admitted as much: The reasoning behind shutting down Go is simple, says Yahoo. As Yahoo unrolls individual apps in verticals and boosts its mobile site, Go was becoming obsolete. By itself, this is not big news. However, it was about a year ago that I talked about how Yahoo Needs Focus. This was still during Jerry Yang’s leadership and Yahoo looked like they were floundering. Like many…

• Google Makes A Bid To Control The Internet

  Rob Diana

  15 Nov 2009 | 5:49 am

  A few weeks ago, I wrote about the possibility of Google going evil. At that time, I was talking mostly about the fact that Google has free or cheap applications in many different areas. However, I did not really talk about standards they were developing. One commenter, Ed Richardson, mentioned this as a reason why they were not evil: The interesting situation is whether they abuse their position in relation to the setting of standards for the industry… At that time, there really was no evidence of this kind of thing except for their development of Google Wave, PubSubHubbub and the new…

• Want Women In Tech, Find The Role Models

  Rob Diana

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:28 am

  The Next Web has an interesting set of posts regarding women in technology. The first post by Boris makes the accusation that women are holding themselves back. He even includes this inflammatory idea: The longer I work in our industry the more I’m starting to think that most women never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Thankfully, the next day we see a counterpoint from Sarah Stokely. Disappointingly, she admits that it is tremendously difficult to keep women in tech for various reasons. In many cases, I can summarize the idea as technology tends to be a “good old…

• 
  Measurement Matters

• "Scorcher" at the AMEC Awards

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:51 am

  The great and the good of the PR measurement industry gathered last night for the annual AMEC Awards, and it was a "scorcher" of an evening, as a tabloid-inspired Nick Grant put it. With winners from as far afield as Australia, Germany, Dubai and right here at Metrica towers, our industry seems in rude health.  Trevor Morris, Visiting Professor of Public Relations at the University of Westminster and chair of AMEC's judging panel, noted the high quality of entries put before the judging panel. His opening remarks served as a great reminder of the attributes that make good…

• PRSA 2009 off to a great start

  8 Nov 2009 | 10:22 am

  I'm in San Diego over the weekend for the 2009 PRSA International Conference - the largest international PR gathering in the world. Many of the thought leaders of our industry our here to share their thoughts on the future of communications, to teach, to learn and of course to network.The networking began in earnest last night with a tweetup named in honour of surely one of the world of PR's leading networked communicators Shonali Burke. Shonali used to run the PR for the ASPCA, the USA's equivalent of Britain's RSPCA where her leadership and forward…

• Insight 1 (part 2) – The beginning – a very good place to start...

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:26 am

  After Metrica's exciting news last week regarding our acquisition by Durrants, it’s back to business as usual on the blog.  So, on with our introductory post from Metrica Insights...   With solid PR objectives sorted, the next thing to think about is how they will be measured.  Do you need to do pre and post research?  Do you need to feed into a marketing mix model that the advertisers are running?  Do you need to measure your media output? A wise man once said, “not everything that counts can be counted, and not…

• Best of breed media monitoring, PR measurement and social media analysis unites

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:24 am

  According to a survey in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, Monday October 26th is the most unproductive day of the year as workers struggle with morale owing to the darker evenings that the clock change brings about.Nothing could have been further from the truth for all of us at Metrica however as we announced to our clients, the press and the industry at large the exciting news that Durrants, the pre-eminent media monitoring agency, has purchased the share capital of our business.   Bringing the strength of Durrants'…

• Metrica Insights (Week 1, part 1) – The beginning... a very good place to start

  22 Oct 2009 | 10:03 am

  Hello and welcome to the Metrica Insights series.  The data fuelling these posts is a long running study of the UK PR industry’s measurement practices.  Since 1998, Metrica has been interviewing a large group of PR professionals every two years* to gauge their thoughts and actions around all things measurement.  Using the latest results as a springboard for thought and discussion, these posts will focus on the main issues facing PR practitioners in an increasingly ROI-centric world. This week we’re looking at the basics.  As someone once said, the…

• 
  mizz information

• Forget Traits--4 DSM Diagnoses of Social Media Mavens

  Maggie

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

  Social media people love them some lists. 5 Qualities of a Good Social Media Manager. 3 Qualities to Look for When Hiring a Community Manager. Social Media Folks to Watch in 2010. Twitter lists...for chrissake--don't even get me started on Twitter lists. In short, there are LOTS of lists out there related to social media people...so I thought I'd add one of my own.Something I've thought about for a long time (and blogged about at least twice) is the connection between success and mental illness. No, I'm not being facetious--I mean it--I think if you really want to be scientific about…

• Association Social Media #Fail

  Maggie

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:18 am

  There's no shortage of buzz about what associations should be doing with regard to social media. Workshops. Webinars. Blogs. Tons of sources of information for crafting social media policies, setting up a Facebook page, using social media in conjunction with events. Somehow one association seems to have missed all these helpful resources, or else just ignored them. Because surely, had this association partaken of any of the above advice, they would never have dreamed of setting up a Twitter account, locking it, then offering to sell access to journalists for $10 each. Yet, that's exactly what…

• The Chicken and Egg Problem With Social Media Hiring

  Maggie

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:53 am

  Some great posts this week about hiring for social media jobs: one by Amber Naslund and one by Tom Humbarger.My favorite quote from Tom's post:"There are only so many social media gurus and rockstars – If you specify that you are seeking a social media guru or rock-star, then expect to pay a premium as these people are rare and they have many options. If you are not willing to pay for this type of expert, then don’t use these descriptors in your job posting."And from Amber's:"Companies still don’t know why they need or want social media."Short and sweet and right on ; )Here's the thing:…

• A Third Sure Thing In Life: Death, Taxes and Facebook Page Admin Rights

  Maggie

  9 Nov 2009 | 5:09 pm

  Facebook public profiles--they're a good thing, right? Why would your brand NOT create one? All those millions of Facebook users will be able to interact with your brand, your messages will go effortlessly viral via the every-improving News Feed feature...and it's free. Well, unless you want to run a contest on your page....but I digress. Creating a page is simple...but heaven help you if you ever want to transfer ownership of that page to someone else should you, say, leave that company. At this time there is NO WAY to transfer ownership of a Facebook page. Seriously. So that intern you hire…

• The Facebook Free Ride is Over

  Maggie

  7 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm

  Remember Facebook--the free platform you can use to post whatever you want, in whatever format you want, for free? Remember all the limitless possibilities for engagement it promised brands? Yeah, well stick a fork in that memory because it's done; Big Brother Facebook just announced some new rules that require you to get their approval before doing any kind of contest or promotion.Huh?I'm still wondering if I'm reading the post on Inside Facebook wrong because there seems to be almost no reaction anywhere to what I find to be absolutely intrusive and ridiculous rules. Since when do users…

• 
  Twitter / jonpetersen

• jonpetersen: RT @paulgoda: See Google work from behind the screen. HA! www.insideyoursearch.com

  20 Nov 2009 | 10:06 am

  jonpetersen: RT @paulgoda: See Google work from behind the screen. HA! www.insideyoursearch.com

• jonpetersen: NYT: NPR, Politico, The San Fran Chron have joined YouTube Direct, a new method for managing vid submissions from users http://bit.ly/2aneXU

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:35 am

  jonpetersen: NYT: NPR, Politico, The San Fran Chron have joined YouTube Direct, a new method for managing vid submissions from users http://bit.ly/2aneXU

• jonpetersen: RT @tjtedesco: Social Net Users Ready to Be More than Just Brand Friends: Study http://bit.ly/1huPMH they're open to coupons & hard sales

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:42 am

  jonpetersen: RT @tjtedesco: Social Net Users Ready to Be More than Just Brand Friends: Study http://bit.ly/1huPMH they're open to coupons & hard sales

• jonpetersen: CBCnews: http://bit.ly/3YxlQK about 1/3 of texting teens in the US admit to texting behind the wheel

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:13 pm

  jonpetersen: CBCnews: http://bit.ly/3YxlQK about 1/3 of texting teens in the US admit to texting behind the wheel

• jonpetersen: CNN: Online churches draw believers, critics http://bit.ly/1rnKuO critics believe virtual worship lacks spiritual essentials, e.g. community

  16 Nov 2009 | 1:40 pm

  jonpetersen: CNN: Online churches draw believers, critics http://bit.ly/1rnKuO critics believe virtual worship lacks spiritual essentials, e.g. community

• 
  Matt Singley | Social Media Optimization

• Embrace The Crowd Or Die

  Matt Singley

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:04 am

  If I were to ask you what social media is, you would probably pause for a moment then give me a pretty decent description of user generated material; you would use words like listen, engage and share…and more than likely you would mention (or at least think of) Facebook and/or Twitter.  Do you think it would be difficult to describe social media without these two services? Although social media is so much larger than any one company, there is no doubt that many companies make up a critical portion of this ever growing, ever changing landscape. Imagine then what social media would be…

• FTC Guidelines For Social Media And My Disclosure

  Matt Singley

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:18 pm

  December 1 is soon upon us, and that means that the FTC will be watching social media (I think bloggers particularly) very closely as it is related to disclosure of products and services. In a nutshell, don’t shill online if you haven’t disclosed that you got something for it, money or otherwise.  Good news for me, I am an open book and simply don’t talk about stuff that I don’t want to and really talk up stuff that I like…paid or not.  However, if I have not made it perfectly clear, just wanted everybody to know who has paid my bills at one point or another,…

• How Twitter Can Fix Direct Message Spam

  Matt Singley

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:19 am

  Phishing spam on Twitter Dear Twitter, You have done an incredible job of responding to a massive influx of new users, especially over the last 8 months.  With growth reaching 1400% month over month, the need to react and support quickly has been critical, and for the most part I would say you have done so better than just about anybody else has that has seen such rapid growth on their platforms.   With the recent roll out of Twitter lists you have also added value to the community by providing a tool that people can use to pull some signal out of all of the noise.  Many are finding the…

• Viral Friday: Volkswagen Dog Fish

  Matt Singley

  30 Oct 2009 | 11:17 am

  I love this one minute spot…it has everything I think a viral advertisement needs.  First, it isn’t overbranded.  I think in order for a video to be successful (at least from a commercial perspective) it must only include product and brand mentions, not shove it in our face. Second, it’s not too long; one minute is just about the max that I would go these days in order to capture the most attention.  Third, and perhaps most importantly: it has a dog fish in it. Disclosure: I am professionally associated with Volkswagen.  That said, I had absolutely nothing to do with…

• Why Foursquare Is The Next Social Network

  Matt Singley

  21 Oct 2009 | 7:00 pm

  If you’ve been following me on Twitter for any length of time you’ve recently seen some funny updates like, “I’m at LAX Terminal 3″ or “I just became the mayor of Finnegan’s Wake on @foursquare”.  Some people know what this is, most do not.  These updates are being pushed over to Twitter from the new social network Foursquare, a service that I signed up with a couple of months ago.  I believe it is the next service to watch, and I want to tell you why. First of all…I referred to Foursquare as a social network, but inside the business…

• 
  Sharing at Work

• Salesforce announces the latest “internal Facebook”. Is this Facebook cofounder’s enterprise spinoff still coming?

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is still working on his own business collaboration startup, Asana Today’s announcment of Salesforce “Chatter” as a SaaSy enterprise Facebook product adds another option to the red-hot market for enterprise social platforms modeled on Facebook.  Regular readers will remember that I called out  ”Internal Facebooks” as the #1 collaboration trend for 2009 in a post last month. We’re still waiting to hear from Asana, the business collaboration company started by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz after he resigned from…

• Presenting at tomorrow’s BarCamp Memphis!

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  13 Nov 2009 | 10:55 am

  @BlakePalmer presenting for @Lunaweb at last year's BarCamp Memphis The second annual BarCamp Memphis is finally here! Tomorrow I’ll be heading to the MASE building to listen in to soome good presentations, panels, and wide-open discussions (”core conversations”) about technology development, new media, and entrepreneurship. My two scheduled sessions are: “Social Tools in the Enterprise” with Ryan Hinricher.  Ryan and I are going to get into the how and why of using collaborative software to improve team work.  Ryan’s perspective is that of a realtor…

• Formatting as code: Haml versus embedded Ruby

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  11 Nov 2009 | 8:48 am

  David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails Digging deeper into Rails programming styles The last Sharing at Work post showed how to set up a Rails development environment using a Ubuntu Linux virtual machine.  This week, I’m in the midst of developing my first ground-up public-facing web application using Ruby on Rails. Learning a new way to dynamically generate HTML My Rails development has already been aided in several places by kind folks in the #rubyonrails IRC channel on Freenode.  One interesting thing they’ve directed me to is an alternate templating language…

• Get started building web apps with your own Ruby on Rails virtual development server

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  19 Oct 2009 | 11:12 am

  Image via Wikipedia Today we’re going to take a detour into web programming using Ruby on Rails.  The hardest part for me has been getting the development environment up and running.  Some guides will walk you through setting up Ruby and then Rails directly on your Windows machine, but I abandoned that pretty quickly.  You’ll soon grow tired of having to translate 99% of the Rails articles you read from Linux to Windows.  I’ve found that running a development server in a virtual machine (more on that later) is a better way to go.  It was a somewhat hairy process so…

• Found: “What problems does Google Wave Solve?”

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  15 Oct 2009 | 12:45 pm

  Image by nauj27 via Flickr I‘ve not really had much to say about Google Wave yet aside from my initial roundup of Wave articles.  So far it looks like early adopters are disappointed and collaboration enthusiasts are still optimistic.  Early adopter tech blogger Louis Gray shared a really interesting post on the topic by Daniel Tenner that you really ought to read.  I’ve included a few choice quotes to whet your interest: What problems does Google Wave solve? A matter of perspective Being Robert Scoble probably doesn’t require you to spend days working on a specification…

• 
  Samir Balwani

• 5 Common Mistakes Businesses Make Online

  Samir Balwani

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Welcome to web 2.0 — a world where consumers are online looking for your business. Most brands realize the importance of engaging online consumers. The companies recognize the buying power online customers represent, but most brands continue to make the same mistakes when engaging online. So what are these mistakes and how can you keep from making them as well? The Business Doesn’t Invest In Their Website The most common mistake is the lack of investment in an inviting website. Finding a talented designer may be expensive but when considering the potential ROI, a professional…

• What is Resultant Marketing and Why Does it Matter?

  Samir Balwani

  9 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Online media has introduced a number of new marketing concepts — one of which is resultant marketing. Resultant marketing is the marketing value that inadvertently occurs from a brand freely adding value to the consumer. Brands that have created a social culture of giving, where the consumer comes before the bottom line, are more likely to employ a resultant marketing strategy. When the brand dedicates itself to putting the consumer above all else, it creates an atmosphere where the consumer puts the brand first. credit Understanding The Shift in Marketing Thought Social media marketing…

• Copywriting and Social Media: Making the Connection

  Samir Balwani

  28 Oct 2009 | 7:00 am

  This is a guest post by Angie Haggstrom, an exceptional copywriter, coach, and content consultant. You can spend years crafting the perfect social media strategy, and you can network the hell out if it, but if you don’t incorporate the right copywriting techniques, all will be lost. No, I’m not saying you have to create all your content like a sales letter, but copywriters use several methods to woo a target audience that can help you significantly. credit Decide What You Want Now you’re likely screaming at me ‘Traffic! Traffic! Traffic!’, but are you sure…

• Why I Added Google Friend Connect

  Samir Balwani

  26 Oct 2009 | 2:10 pm

  Some of you might have noticed that over the weekend I added a Google Friend Connect members widget on my blog. You may be wondering why and I expect to fully explain it. I didn’t add it because the widget because it looks good or to just take up space. Instead, it was a calculated decision and one I would recommend you follow. credit Google Social Search is Coming The first reason for adding Google Friend Connect, is the simple idea that Google Social Search is coming. Taking the time now to position this blog as one connected with a number of fans should help increase the site’s…

• A Social Marketer’s Emergency PR Workflow

  Samir Balwani

  20 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am

  Imagine a scenario where the shit just hit the fan. A stupid mistake or a simple misstep leads to a PR nightmare. How do you handle it? For a social marketer, there’s a number of ways to diffuse the situation, it simply depends on what the best strategy is for you. I’ve put together two potential strategies for a brand that is experiencing some kind of PR backlash. credit Scenario 1: A Simple Misunderstanding Sometimes a PR backlash just starts because of a simple misunderstanding, or rumor. It’s not always true and it’s up to you to clear it up quickly. When something…

• 
  Weber Media Partners | Impressions Through Media

• No Social Media Strategy is an Island

  Debbie Hemley

  13 Nov 2009 | 11:24 am

  No social media strategy is an island, entire of itselfInstead, good strategies are integrated. The question many people have when starting out is where they should be social media-wise? Some of the four key players to consider are blog, facebook, linkedin & twitter. Depending on your goals, a good place to begin is with a blog. Metaphorically speaking, its like a strong rooted tree with lots of branches. One of the primary reasons why it has so much importance is that it can be anything you want it to be. Posts can be short, medium or longer in length. They can be original ideas, or can…

• Ideas Worth Spreading about the Internet

  Debbie Hemley

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:09 am

  It’s surprising in a way that in all the time I’ve been using the Internet, I’ve only recently discovered TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). Catherine Weber told me about it awhile back and with so many things to be checking out and keeping up with a daily basis, I never made my way over. I’m so glad I did. If you’re not familiar with TED, Wikipedia describes it this way: “TED is famous for its lectures, known as TED Talks, which originally focused on technology, entertainment and design, but have now expanded in scope to a broad set of topics including…

• Social media profiles: A disconnect in the corporate strategy?

  Debbie Hemley

  30 Oct 2009 | 11:45 am

  I’ve been wondering lately about the concept of integrated social media strategies for businesses. There’s no mistaking it but some social media will work better for certain types of businesses and industries than others. Some will excel with the use of videos, and some with the written word. Some will adopt the use of multiple social media— running the gamut of blogs, twitter, linkedin, youtube, and facebook. So here’s the question which has been plaguing me for a while: Who’s doing it well? I mean, who’s doing a good job tying them all together, cross-linking and integrating…

• What’s your policy…er, I mean, guidelines?

  Catherine Weber

  23 Oct 2009 | 11:54 am

  Recently, we have been working with clients to develop their organizational social media policies.  We have seen dozens of examples and read many blog posts about what they should include and how they should be presented. Some were developed collaboratively by employees, sometimes using a wiki, and posted online to share with the general population. Since we’ve seen many companies approach their thinking about this process ineffectively, we’d like to share our thoughts on how to do this well. What is the purpose of a social media policy? Social media policies are intended to make…

• 3 Tips for Something or Other Social Media Related

  Debbie Hemley

  22 Oct 2009 | 1:10 pm

  Three social media tips which may seem obvious on the surface, but can easily be overlooked. Tip #1: Our Minds aren’t Computers or Smartphones Like great writers of all times, carry a notebook with you wherever you go. 
When an idea or a line comes to you, write it down, otherwise you may lose the pearls of wisdom you had been writing in your head. 

My favorite notebooks are moleskin. I have them in lots of different colors and sizes. If you’re not familiar with moleskin their claim to fame is how for two centuries they’ve been “the legendary notebook of artists, writers,…

• 
  BusinessCasualBlog.com

• Live Blogging - ASTD Orange County's November 2009 Meetup With CEO of WD-40

  mel

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:20 am

  In this morning's post, I mentioned that I was considering liveblogging this evening's keynote with Garry Ridge.  I'm still thinking... thinking... (don't pressure me!)... thinking... okay, yes!  Unless you're attending in-person at the meetup venue (registration required), feel free to join us here instead at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, November 18.  (Note:  Dinner served only at the live meetup.)  :) <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=b1d789d525" >ASTD-OC (Orange…

• The Learning Moment

  mel

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  Training isn't something that you look upon as being an accessory... it's part of the main wardrobe.  Any CEO who doesn't believe that...doesn't accept that...who doesn't have the guts to try that, (then) their business will not be sustainable over time.  The power we have isn't ours... it's in the people around us.  And our role as CEOs has got to be to not mark people's papers, but to help them get an 'A'."  While the quality of speakers we've enjoyed at our local ASTD chapter (Orange County) has been phenomenal,…

• A 7-Step variation on the tried-and-true brainstorming technique for new ideas.

  mel

  17 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  Sometimes I just want an alternative to the same 'ol brainstorming session. Here's a simple alternative that I learned during my good 'ol days as a consultant with Andersen Consulting. (Now Accenture.) It's called the 5-3-5 method. (Don't ask... I'm not sure who came up with that name. But, in case you're wondering, "5-3-5" supposedly derives from the concept that this variation to brainstorming requires "five people (though this can vary), three ideas, five minutes."Purpose:Use this as an alternative to the traditional brainstorming session. It…

• Busy weekend - REBarCamp San Diego - NAR Convention - ASTD-OC Leadership Meetup

  mel

  16 Nov 2009 | 9:18 am

  The weekend's activities started last Thursday with RE BarCamp. Then, there was the NAR Convention that ran through the weekend. And, of course, the ASTD-OC Chapter leaders transition meeting last Saturday.RE BarCamp was a hit with over 500 people in attendance at the Stingaree in San Diego's Gas Lamp District. In a nutshell, in addition to getting a whole buncha folks in the real estate profession together for a day to learn from each other about various topics ranging from Facebook, video blogging and social media to Google Wave, professionalism and legal issues of social media…

• About our next videobook project

  mel

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:05 am

  When Stefan and I wrote the Swanepoel Social Media Report 2010: A Field Guide for Real Estate Professionals, one of the things we originally envisioned was to include tutorials for each of the social media platforms we mention in the book.  Some of these were the usual suspects: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging.  But, additional honorable mentions also include:  twellow.com, hashtags, tagalus, hashtags.org, alerts, RSS and a slew of others.   Given all the number of tools, platforms and quick-start activities we mention in the book, we saw early on the…

• 
  Community Building

• Improve your online community in five easy steps

  Martin Reed - Community Manager

  19 Nov 2009 | 9:03 am

  I get a lot of people contacting me for help with their online community. Most of the time, they are unhappy with the amount of activity taking place – they want to see more. Most of the time, I see the same (or at least similar) problems. Therefore, in this article I want to outline five ways you can easily improve your online community. 1. Make the community prominent. Don’t hide your online community behind a link. Bring it right up to the front page. Anything less, and you aren’t giving your community the respect it deserves. If you are serious about your online…

• What is an online community manager?

  Martin Reed - Community Manager

  9 Nov 2009 | 11:02 am

  The precise description of an online community manager varies from organisation to organisation. Some companies will describe the responsibilities of an online community manager very differently to others. Some will offer roles with very similar job descriptions but very different job titles. The issue is this – there is no standard definition as to what an online community manager is, or does. We are all still ‘feeling our way’. In this article, I’m going to outline the role and personality of an online community manager. The role of an online community manager A…

• How to deal with bad apples in your online community

  Martin Reed - Community Manager

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  No online community is perfect – there will come a time (if it hasn’t happened already) when a member becomes abusive or confrontational. Dealing with these bad apples can be a challenge – they will often stir up emotions and lead to a huge spike in member engagement and discussion. However, it’s unlikely that this is the kind of activity you want to see in your online community. Arguments and controversy The Just Chat message boards used to see more than their fair share of arguments and controversy – and it led to a great buzz in the forums. However, over time…

• Invigorate your online community by closing it down

  Martin Reed - Community Manager

  21 Oct 2009 | 2:29 pm

  Remember that community building takes time. That being said, sometimes an online community just won’t get off the ground. If you are struggling to encourage activity or if you want to build more of a buzz around your site, sometimes closing it down is the best course of action. Close your online community down completely Most online communities fail. Normally this is due to one of two reasons. Firstly, starting an online community is easy, so many rush to build and release a community site without a plan or strategy. Secondly, many businesses think that if they invest enough money in a…

• How to build and maintain trust in online communities

  Martin Reed - Community Manager

  12 Oct 2009 | 11:09 am

  A vital element of a successful online community is trust. Without it, your community won’t be as strong as it could be – trust brings people together; it encourages people to share information and the more they share, the more others will share. Strong bonds result in a strong community. In this article, I’ll outline some of the ways you can build and maintain trust in online communities. Who needs to be trusted? As a community manager, it is important that your members trust you – after all, you’re the official ‘authority figure’, even though you…

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  Social News Watch

• Digg Trends Beta: So Far, Not Bad

  JD Rucker

  8 Nov 2009 | 12:43 am

  Digg normally rolls out new features poorly. The debacle that was the “new and improved” dupe detector has yet to show signs of improvement. The Diggbar changes are still a sore spot for many, especially in the way that it was rolled out, changed, and re-rolled out. Digg Trends is, for now (crossing fingers), a new feature that seems to be doing what it’s supposed to do. I was terrified when I saw the story below listed as a Trending Topic and held this blog post until it had finished it’s 10-minute trial. Thankfully, Digg Trends (and the Digg community) kept this…

• Digg removes avatars, raises Digging limits

  JD Rucker

  8 Oct 2009 | 11:00 am

  No more looking for spades, street signs, or red faces. Digg has gone to text links rather than thumbnails of the avatars on submissions.  A few days ago, they raised the limit from 200 to approximately300, then apparently back up to “unlimited” (even though there is one report of a user banned because of Digging too much). Server performance aside, is this an effort to reduce the rate of “blind digging” while not hurting their page views? Blind digging has always been an issue and will continue to be even if this change sticks, but it does make it less convenient to…

• Digg Ads: Less than 2 Weeks Old and Breaking their Own TOU

  JD Rucker

  17 Aug 2009 | 9:59 am

  That didn’t take long. Looks suspicious, but sex sells, right? Maybe there was nothing against TOU. Maybe it was all just language and innuendo which are perfectly fine for Digg. Nope. If you can imagine that image without the purple strip, you’ll get the picture. To Digg’s credit, they either pulled the ad altogether quickly or stopped serving it to me. Either way, they did the right thing. Let’s hope that future Digg ads will be screened more closely. Read more on this social news blog.

• Are You Really “Ghost Banned” on StumbleUpon?

  Tammy Rucker

  16 Aug 2009 | 1:27 pm

  I have had a lot of good comments about the article “How to not get Banned on Stumblupon“, and I appreciate all of them. One issue that has received a lot of attention is the “ghost banning”. I want to clear something up for those of you who are now afraid to thumb up your friends stuff, or who think they can no longer thumb or review their favorite sites. I am going to explain how the process works from my knowledge in hopes of putting your mind at ease. First of all, when you go to check one of your recent discoveries and find that it says “discovered by…

• RT if you’re #notabot – Pass it on

  JD Rucker

  12 Aug 2009 | 11:44 pm

  Bots on twitter are getting more clever. Accounts can be automated to seem as real as you or me. Believe it or not, there’s actually a place for bots on Twitter.  For many, they can be effective for certain things such as RSS feeds for blogs, tag retweeting, etc.  The problem is with the automated accounts that are nothing other than ways to accumulate followers to spread whatever spammy message the botmaster wants spread either now or in the future. We will be tracking the hashtag #notabot going forward and listing accounts that claim to be, well, not a bot. Accounts that tweet it…

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  SitePoint » News & Trends

• Bing Partners with WolframAlpha to Take on Google

  Craig Buckler

  16 Nov 2009 | 8:44 am

  In their ongoing attempt to lure users away from Google, Microsoft have teamed up with WolframAlpha to improve results in the Bing Search engine. Both Bing and WolframAlpha were launched in 2009: Bing appeared in June and received a largely positive response from the Internet community. The results are relevant and fast, plus it has a few interesting features such as text and image previews. It’s been slowly chipping away at Google’s market share but is yet to achieve worldwide appeal. WolframAlpha was launched in May and was billed as the “knowledge engine” which…

• SitePoint Roundup #1: RIP Dan Schulz, Google Closure Debate, and the Podcast Turns One

  raena

  15 Nov 2009 | 8:35 pm

  Our community is the heart and soul of SitePoint. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening in our community over the last little while. In Memory of Dan Schulz We were very sad and shocked to learn that a well-loved SitePoint Forums member, Dan Schulz, passed away suddenly last week. Dan was a member of our community for a long time, and his posts helped all kinds of people. He won several community awards, including our Member of the Year award in 2007, and was an Advisor in the Design forum. You can read more about what happened, and see some of the reactions to this…

• EU Object to Oracle’s MySQL Takeover

  Craig Buckler

  11 Nov 2009 | 3:09 am

  Following a recent investigation, European anti-trust regulators have formally objected to Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The main issue is MySQL, the world’s most popular open-source database: the EU believes that the takeover could harm competition. The $7.4 billion Oracle-Sun deal was announced in April 2009. Although US regulators have not raised objections, the EU investigation could put the merger plan at risk. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes is known to support open-source technology and Oracle have posted a statement responding to her concerns: [The EU…

• Happy 5th Birthday Firefox!

  Craig Buckler

  8 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Mozilla Firefox is 5 years old today. Firefox 1.0 was released on 9 November 2004. The browser quickly gained the adoration of web developers and their enthusiasm spread throughout the world. Firefox has been downloaded more than one billion times and is the world’s second most popular browser after Internet Explorer. (You could make the case that Firefox 3.x is the most-used browser since IE’s market share is split between IE6, IE7 and IE8). Firefox’s history goes back a few years further and it rose from the smoldering ashes of Mozilla’s buggy and bloated browser…

• ICANN Approve International Domain Suffixes

  Craig Buckler

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:46 am

  SitePoint is fortunate to receive visitors from all over the world. However, the vast majority are from the US, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. As native English speakers, it’s easy to forget the billions of Russian, Chinese, Arabic and other computer users who do not speak the language. OS manufacturers make considerable efforts to internationalize their systems, yet entering a web address requires everyone to use the same 26-letter Latin alphabet for domain name suffixes such as .com, .org and .net. All that will change on 16 November 2009. The board of the Internet…

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  danny brown

• Friday Five

  danny@dannybrown.me (Danny Brown)

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Last week I introduced you to Friday Five and how I was looking to offer a diversion into the weekend. So, without further ado, here are five random offerings for you. Cheers guys, have a great weekend! Blogger Corner. One of the blogs that has been springing up on my radar recently is that of Jackie Adkins. In the words of Jackie himself, it’s “a street corner where you can… talk about marketing, the business world, social media and life in general.” Jackie’s not afraid to call out BS when he sees it either, and for that (as well as his easy style) he gets my…

• Listening Posts

  danny@dannybrown.me (Danny Brown)

  18 Nov 2009 | 7:37 pm

  When was the last time someone asked you what you want? What you’d prefer to have, over what their perception thinks you’d like to have? Are you looked after by the services you use on a regular basis? If not, why not – isn’t it about time you were? I’m a business owner, but I’m also a consumer and a customer. So why am I told what I need instead of being asked what I need, as a customer? When I go to a store to buy goods or services, I’m offered AirMiles as an incentive. But if I don’t fly often, what good is that to me? When I receive an email to fill out a business survey…

• Blogging, Transformer Gloves and Integrated Solutions

  danny@dannybrown.me (Danny Brown)

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:58 pm

  In preparation for the upcoming winter fest, my wife bought me some Thinsulate gloves. These things are the coolest ever – transforming gloves! Basically they’re fingerless and have a strip of velcro attached to the back of each glove. Attached to the velcro (and sewn to the glove itself) are mitten tops. So, I get the best of both worlds. I have driving gloves if I want them, or simply fingerless gloves if the weather’s cool but not too cold for full-on gloves. Yet when the cold snap comes in, I just flip a (velcro) switch and pull the mitten part over, and I have full…

• Navigation Made Easy with Headway 1.5 WordPress Theme

  danny@dannybrown.me (Danny Brown)

  14 Nov 2009 | 7:17 am

  Most people know by now that I love the new Headway 1.5 premium WordPress theme. If anyone asks what theme they should go with on their blog or website, I always recommend Clay Griffiths’ theme. Now that Headway 1.5 has been officially released, however, the real power behind it will start to show as more people start exploring its engine room. This goes for normal bloggers like me as well as hardcore developers and coders. For example, one of the features that some WordPress theme developers are talking about is the drop-down navigation menu. This is a really useful option to let you…

• You’re Not That Big a Deal

  danny@dannybrown.me (Danny Brown)

  13 Nov 2009 | 1:36 pm

  So you’re on a couple of thousand Twitter lists. So you write for on online social media news portal. So you got a couple of hundred Diggs of your latest blog post. So what? In the grand scheme of things, you’re not that big a deal. If I share your name with Joe Public, they raise eyebrows and look puzzled. If I compare your “claims to fame” with those that are really famous, there’s a huge difference in perception. You may own a little piece of the Internet, but the Internet’s a pretty big place and your little piece is swallowed up by it. So… get…

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  Twitterrati

• A Way to Cheat With Follow Friday

  Mark Evans

  20 Nov 2009 | 4:15 am

  Follow Friday (aka #followfriday or #ff) is a great way to give a public shout out to people who you know, do business with, or simply enjoy their work, blog posts or tweets. A problem with Follow Friday is that it happens on, well, Friday, when you’re fried by a long week of work. Unless you are disciplined, thinking about who you want to put on your Follow Friday list can be a challenge. For those of you who fall into this camp, an interest short-cut is The Twitter Tag Project’s Follow Friday! service, which automatically generates a #followfriday tweet that contains people. The…

• What’s Happening? Huh?

  Mark Evans

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:39 pm

  The oh-so-mysterious Twitter threw everyone a strange curveball tonight with some big news: It’s changing it’s tagline from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?” In a blog post, Biz Stone said: Twitter helps you share and discover what’s happening now among all the things, people, and events you care about. “What are you doing?” isn’t the right question anymore—starting today, we’ve shortened it by two characters. Twitter now asks, “What’s happening?” It’s a small change but figure a…

• What Will Twitter Premium Offer?

  Mark Evans

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:26 pm

  According to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, the company plans to launch premium accounts that will provide customers with enhanced features and analytics. (Source: ClickZ) So, the question is what will enhanced features and analytics mean? In terms of analytics, Twitter could offer data such as how many times a tweet has been retweeted, how many times a link within a tweet had been clicked on, geo-location information now that the geotagging API is officially available, as well as information about how often a corporate name and brand has been mentioned over a certain of time. While this…

• RIP: Twitter’s Suggested Users

  Mark Evans

  18 Nov 2009 | 11:09 am

  It took longer than it should have but Twitter has finally decided to kill the suggested user list – the one that automatically added 20 high-profile people to follow for all new Twitter users. The list was sophomoric because it was all the cool people culled from a master list of about 500 celebrities, athletes and politicians on Twitter as opposed to provide new users with a useful tool that would help them find people who met their specific interests. In the end, all that suggested users really did was artificially promote the popularity of certain Twitter users such as Ashton…

• Measuring Your Importance on Twitter

  Mark Evans

  17 Nov 2009 | 4:30 am

  Earlier today, I stumbled across a really interesting Twitter service called TweetLevel, which was created by Edelman that “measures an individual’s importance on Twitter”. TweetLevel determines your importance by using four metrics: influence, popularity, engagement and trust. Here’s how each metric is defined: - Influence: A combination of the number of posts made, and the number of retweets.- Popularity: The number of followers – the more followers, the higher the score- Engagement: The amount of talk spent responding and talking to other Twitter users- Trust…