Open The Dialogue

• Nope, you're not the only one who believes that email may be the bane of your existence
• If you hadn't noticed the sponsorship news at Techmeme, clearly you're living under a rock. In any case, check out what the fine folks at Socialtext had to say about getting on that train early.
• BuzzLogic has released a $500/month web-based application that uses a variety of metrics such as inbound links and others to track conversations online, including among bloggers. It’s being sold as a product that will make online influencer research by big companies easier by identifying the most influential members of any given niche so that they can be more finely targeted.
• At the DEMOfall 2006 tech conference, companies are showcasing software and hardware that extend the functionality of cell phones significantly. Not only can users take pictures, but some services will take those pictures and turn them into web-accessible documents that can be emailed or faxed. Other services are offering their own ways of manipulating pictures before sending them to friends, services that go well beyond today's snap/email process. A company called FonPonds is letting customers subscribe to podcasts that are automatically delivered to the user's phone. That could up listener number significantly without going through the sometimes painful education process.
• Is Google good for your brand? It can be, depending on whether or not the company has and actively cultivates a good online reputation. Basically your brand reputation what people say it is so it’s important that that be focus of a company’s efforts. Google – and other search engines – are how a good many people are going to begin their interaction with a brand name so, as I’m fond of saying, your reputation is only as good as Google says it is.
• To promote the new budget transparency act just signed by the White House, the Office of Management and Budget has reached out to bloggers of all political stripes to promote the bill, which creates a searchable database of spending appropriations. This is kind of huge since it was bloggers who got the bill, which had been on an anonymous hold by a couple members of Congress, out into the open and eventually passed.

Posted by Tom Biro at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Nick Bradbury explains how to use the YouTube search tools in FeedDemon 2.
• Bloglines has added package tracking for DHL to its stable of services
• If you were wondering how to pay attention to things while using your BlackBerry, it turns out that Dilbert, err Dogbert has just the tip you need. [via Joël Céré]
• Wondering why your AdSense account is suspended? Well, maybe someone did that to you on purpose. Jennifer Slegg got some scoop in an interview with a blackhat spammer on how all that works.
• The Arizona Republic's Erica Sagon is writing about where consumers are "flocking" to online to discuss where they will be getting the best deals this holiday season. Are the retailers paying attention to the fact that this is happening?
• Yahoo! is taking a page out of factory and ad agency worlds, choosing to close its U.S. offices in the final week of 2006.
• Enough already. You thought Web 2.0 was bad, now we've got C&Ds going to companies with "pod" in their names or URLs, from you guessed it, Apple.

Posted by Tom Biro at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I present to you, without further comment, the "Meta of the Day."

Posted by Chris Thilk at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If some of the blogs you're looking for are suspiciously quiet this morning, then you might be dealing with a bit of BlogOrlando fun and excitement. Chris and I weren't able to attend this event down in Florida that Josh Hallett is coordinating along with a host of other awesome folks, but we're expecting to be able to pay attention to what's up via the event's blog along with a host of others through the attendees of the event. Head on down there and check it out, if you can!

Posted by Tom Biro at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wednesday night I had the distinct pleasure to meet up with some of the best and brightest in the blogging community. Some are native Chicagoans and others were in town for a Ragen Communications conference. Despite the fact that the original location I had chosen, which was just down the street from the hotel many of them were staying at, wound up being closed we found an alternate location. It was a lot of fun to sit around a table with a stuffed pizza and geek out with others who are on the forefront of the new media landscape. It's always nice to meet some of the people who I have gotten to know virtually via blog comments, links and emails. Kevin Dugan, Robert Scoble, David Armano; Jeremiah Owyang, Jeffrey Treem, Joe Thornley and others came in and out over the course of a couple hours. As Jeremiah says in his write-up of the get together, you could tell this was a solid bunch of guys because there was far more money left by those of us who had to duck out early than was needed for the check. It's also exposed me to a bunch of new blogs to subscribe to in order to follow what these guys are talking about. Absolutely a great time.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Some of what's out there in terms of consumer-generated content does, I agree, fit in with the stereotype forwarded by Robert Samuelson of being "exhibitionist" in nature. But like all such statements, it doesn't apply to all members of a community. He conveniently ignores all the good journalism being done and valuable input being contributed by bloggers and others in favor of yet another story about how everyone thinks their life is just so interesting it has to be shared.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: These articles are all about scaring people away from taking blogs seriously. They're motivated by a sense of self-preservation by mainstream journalists who see themselves being marginalized as people find voices that previously had no outlet due to the laws of limited production facilities. And these stories sound more and more desperate each time a new one comes out.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fast Company has a post up on the topic of "post-modern marketing." Their definition of that is marketing in a world where not only is the audience hip to the marketing communities moves but the marketing community knows that the audience is hip to it. It's all very meta. The point is that marketers must continue to find new and innovative ways to not just hard sell people but get them to care about the marketing efforts.

That's why, if you ask me (and I know you did), companies need to embrace consumer-generated-content, but in its authentic and pure form. Don't just give people a couple of video clips and sound effects that they can play with and arrange. That's a corporately sanitized version of CGC. No, they need to really get down and dirty and engage with the bloggers talking about their products, the video makers creating their own commercials and others like this.

To my mind "post-modern marketing" means doing something that's extraordinarily scary to most companies: letting go of complete control. Companies can no longer hope to control the conversation that's going on regarding their brands, products and corporate entities. They can participate in that conversation in meaningful ways, sure. But control? Forget it. Those corporately-endorsed CGC sites can be fun and be a valuable way to spur the conversation along, but that can't be the extent of the entry into it. It just can't be. If it is, or if the company decides to sit out the conversation entirely, they're going to find themselves behind the eight-ball in a very real way.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last Friday I spent an hour or so in Second Life with a dozen or so other PR and other communications professionals talking about the virtual environment and how brands can and should be integrated within that world. Kami Huyse served as moderator at the Comms Cafe (owned by Lee Hopkins) and the big man himself Jeremy Pepper was the featured speaker, fielding questions the rest of us, in avatar form were asking. It was really interesting to get together with so many people and listen to their ideas on branding and establishing a corporate presence in-world. You can see some screen-grabs and write-ups on the event from David Parmet, Kami and myself.

The reason I bring this up is yesterday's news that adidas had entered Second Life to promote its new Microride shoe. As Tom Biro said to me yesterday, the fact that their presence is limited to just one shoe seems to indicate their just dipping a foot in the water. (I apologize for that. He said it and he's my boss. I'm contractually obligated to find it funny. Let's move on.)

Jeremy said something in the session that I thought was the most important take-away point there. He said the most value a brand is likely to derive from being in Second Life is by simply enabling people to use and otherwise promote. Just like people wear t-shirts by "X" company in the real world they may want to do the same in their Second Life. It's not that the company is paying these people to be brand evangelists, it's that the citizens of SL are simply being empowered to do there what they're already doing here. Giving people the tools to spread the word free of other corporate interference.

It's the same sort of approach that some marketers are taking toward bloggers who cover their company or larger industry. By making creating resources and tools which citizen journalists can draw upon that help them do their job better, the company is more accurately and fully represented in that world. That same logic can be extended to Second Life. Jeremy gave as an example a popular drink. If someone is a fan of that drink they should be able to carry it around with them in Second Life as a way to express their preference for that drink.

Marketers should explore ways they can enable and empower their existing fan community, a community that is passionate and which is moving into Second Life in droves. The key is to do so in a way that adds value to the environment instead of being obtrusive and destructive. That's a fine line to walk and will take a lot of work, but it can be very much worth it.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

• The Google Base homepage now has a new look, in case you didn't notice. It's much more like the other Google product pages.
• Robert Scoble suggests not sending product to bloggers for review and commentary if your product isn't good in the first place. The only hitch there is that everyone *thinks* their product is good, don't they?
• On Slashdot, there's a discussion about whether MMOG's (massive multiplayer online games - sound familiar, anyone?) are a "third place" where people can "socialize and feel comfortable." Welp, if anyone's hung out with anyone who's into Second Life at all, you'll know that's certainly the case for the non war-focused game.
• Speaking of virtual environments, MTV has created its own second world. Virtual Laguna Beach is an extension of their "Laguna Beach" program and a way for the network to keep those hip young folks interacting with the MTV brand instead of going elsewhere.
• Jack Schafer at Slate loves the new online New York Times Reader, calling it among the first actually readable online newspaper.
• Ryan Anderson (one of two that I know, which is kind of odd) asks "What makes a successful blog" and finds the answer lies in its ability to establish a presence in the community.
• Al Gore is interviewed by BoingBoing on the advent of CurrentTV's new partnership with Yahoo.

Posted by Tom Biro at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Following Keith's post yesterday regarding how to improve magazines comes one from Adrian Holovaty that takes a ground-up approach at re-imagining newspapers. It's not so much the delivery that Holovaty takes on but the whole purpose of the newspaper and its role in society. I think he's right on in saying that newspapers need to make sure they have a clear idea of how they fit into and serve the community they live in. Once that happens than the readers will come because they've added value to those readers. It's only after that when the discussion of delivery method can take place.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

David Armano has an absolutely fantastic graphic up that lays out the daily schedule of someone who might not be an average blogger but which definitely spoke to me.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Chris Thilk at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• MySpace is talking about replacing what YouTube and other sources of "content" on the site are doing with their own, so they can have all the traffic. That's a good idea, one stop shopping is fantastic, but howabout taking two things into consideration - people like using YouTube the way it is, and second, it's probably important to get the non-super technical features you already have to work on a consistent basis. If you can't scale on a totally regular scale to the 100 million accounts you already have for messaging, IM, and profiles, how do you expect to do so for thousands (if not millions) of bits of video?
• Shel Holtz writes about how political marketing these days has changed, on the Web. Well that was fast. At least someone's adopting different technologies.
• Our own Chris Thilk thinks he's cool because he's now Web 2.0 Compliant. How cute.
• FeedBurner has a look "under the hood" of the more than 100 thousand subscribers to TechCrunch's RSS feed.
• On Monday, Jeremy Zawodny had a few things to say about recruiters who think they're all slick by finding potential job candidates online. It's one thing to utilize new tools on the 'net (beyond Google, thankyouverymuch) to find talent, but a completely different one when you're wasting people's time. And the best part is that said recruiter probably doesn't even realize what happened here.

Posted by Tom Biro at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The viral online campaign for The Blair Witch Project was both an outstanding success as well as the worst thing to ever happen to the marketing profession. The good was that it created a popular groundswell of interest in a movie that no one had heard of on a then nascient medium, the internet. The bad is that ever since then everyone has tried to replicate it, with very few of these repeats going well. Most simply involve company-paid trolls who post glowing reviews on message boards or sites that are supposed to be "fan created" but, unless that fan as a $50,000 marketing budget, just doesn't pass the smell test.

So too, now the saga of LonelyGirl15 has salted the once-fertile earth of consumer generated content. If the reports are true - and they seem to be - that the teenaged cutie who's the embodiment of every teenaged guy's fantasies (which should have been a tipoff right there) and she is someone's viral marketing project - then marketers everywhere are screwed. Moreso than merely paying bloggers for covertly mentioning brands and products, the abuse of legitimate consumer-generated content is something that simply can't be recovered from. This isn't just the killing of your own reputation, as is the case with accepting money for blog mentions. This is casting consumer suspicion over an entire media format. Whenever a video blogger now mentions a product or becomes a grassroots sensation the way LonelyGirl15 did the audience will now be wondering if it's real or part of a corporate strategy.

You can never unring a bell and it's hard to earn back trust once it's broken. While the people who created LonelyGirl15 should be commended for doing such a fantastic job of reaching such a large audience and waiting so long before tipping their hand, we also need to hold them responsible for changing the climate for the rest of us. It's yet another thing the rest of the online marketing community will need to overcome when trying to bring authentic messages to the audience there.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

• Nick Bradbury gave props over the weekend to Microsoft for putting in some pretty good security to the latest IE RSS reader. He also points out that while they get kicked around for security flaws, they deserve to get credit when they do something smart.
• BusinessWeek Online has a report saying that while there was an Internet boom and bust, that doesn't mean that people aren't being entrepreneurial anymore - and succeeding with new ideas. (Well, outside of the usual "Web 2.0" spiel)
• Social media has changed not only how we do things but how we think of them and Brian Oberkirch passes on the shift in thinking and naming that's gone on.
• Blogging is not only a fun and exciting way to make your voice be heard but can be an important tool for expanding your skill sets as not just a writer but also planner and overall media thinker. Chris and I completely agree.
• Solid PR now also means a solid working knowledge of how to monitor and engage with the blogosphere.
• Josh Hallett showcases how the University of Florida has now integrated video podcasts into its already robust online new media offerings.
• Here's a revolutionary thought: Blogs and the people running them can actually help mainstream reporters do their jobs and do them better.

Posted by Tom Biro at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The "new vs. old media consumption" debate has flared up again. Scoble says he only reads RSS feeds. Others say they still read newspapers.

What if you're reading the RSS feeds from newspapers?

Here's my take on all this: A well rounded media diet, just like a good nutritional diet, contains everything in appropriate portions. A scoop of newspapers, a serving of magazines, a portion of blogs, a helping of TV, a bit of radio and some podcasts to fill in the edges. How much of what will largely depend on what industry you're in. For Scoble, it makes sense that his media consumption is mostly RSS feeds. That's his industry. For others it's vitally important that newspapers make up the bulk of their reading. Others need to focus on trade mags in their niche. Find what works best for you and who you're working on behalf of and go to it.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

- If you're still wondering why people are misspelling the word "dig" by using two "g"s, Valleywag has a primer on Digg and social bookmarking in general.
- Bloggers aren't asking for the world but when a story, like the one about the altered picture of Katie Couric , originates because of a blog writer's sleuthing, they definitely deserve some credit when the story goes mainstream. That's true from a journalistic point of view but also because it's just, you know, polite. (Side note: MediaPost has precious little high-ground to stand on considering they rarely if ever link outside they're own site. I'm just saying.)
- Former Virginia Governor - and aspiring Presidential candidate - Mark Warner is appearing in Second Life. That splashing sound you just heard may have been the shark re-entering the water.
- Constatin is right (shocking, I know) when he says communicators need to get together and come up with a clear set of guidelines for editing client-related entries in Wikipedia and most other interactions with social media. Right now this conversation is happening without us and it's important for us to not only have a voice in the process but also show that we're erring on the side of transparency.
- People have spent more than 9,300 years worth of time watching video on YouTube. Of course Steve doesn't add the 5,200 hours people have spent discussing whether or not LonelyGirl15 is a fake or not.
- The L.A. Times has taken the wraps off its branded RSS reader. Called "Los Angeles Times Newspoint," the reader comes pre-loaded with LAT and other WB-related feeds.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)