Open The Dialogue

About half an hour ago, I was forwarded a link to an item on News.com’s News blog, where Matt Asay asked an important question related to Google Apps, “Does Google own your content?” after seeing this post by Joshua Greenbaum on ZDNet’s Enterprise Anti-matter blog.

He’s commenting as a lawyer, and is going to have a much more solid understanding than most of us probably would, and it definitely looks grim. That being said, this comment by someone identifying himself as one of the people behind Writely clarifies that the way it’s worded is done so that the ability for you to forward your information to a third party for review and editing. Also, this person discussing how the grammar in the TOS is used is probably just confusing for the average reader.

We could go on all day about this discussion, but what I wanted to point out here was how Google managed to get slapped around in two pretty big headlines, and these items have probably been passed around quite a bit, and it doesn’t appear that anyone has actually contacted Google PR or the folks behind Apps directly. This is still, unfortunately, one of the things that drives me batty about the posts that go flying up on blogs without a thought to ask someone what the issue is. Even if you are going to post, send an email at the same time, let the PR person (or whomever you’re reaching out to) know you’re posting something, and say that in your post. Instead, we get a ton of pot-stirring.

Whether this is or isn’t an issue for users of Google Apps isn’t even the big thing here in this case, it’s that no one’s taken the time to contact Google directly about it. So, we’ll be doing so this afternoon, and will post an update accordingly.

Ross Mayfield posted today about how he’s looking for the “CEO 2.0″ for Socialtext, and that he’d be stepping into the Chairman and President roles, and is looking to put a new face in that driver’s seat at the wiki service provider. I’m psyched to see where this goes, as it has the potential to a) show some usage of a social network in LinkedIn, which Mayfield has asked people to contact him through in this case, and b) be a solid example of publicly soliciting input on the growth of a business.

Good luck to Ross in his re-fangled role at Socialtext, and if any of you know someone (or are interested yourself) go check it out at Ross’ blog / on LinkedIn.

We have a bad habit in our house of moving stuff to the basement when we can’t quite figure out what to do with it, when the boys don’t play with something anymore or when we replace something but think that it might serve some purpose in the future. This then leads to 1) A full basement of stuff that we never or very infrequently use or even think of and 2) An eventual trip by me to Goodwill.

Right now my online identity is feeling very much to me like a cluttered basement full of stuff I never use and rarely even think about. I’ve got all these social networks that I belong to that I haven’t quite figured out what to do with, personalized radio channels that I don’t listen to and a host of other unused logins. But the latest, shiniest thing is always tempting me via TechCrunch or some other site, beckoning me to sign up and play with it.

So I’m embarking on a project I’m calling Me 2.0 this week. I’m going to try and review all the sites I’ve created profiles on and figure out what is actually of use or interest to me. “What does this add to my online activity and how am I going to utilize it?” will be the question that gets asked over and over again as I review my wants and needs and figure out the tools that satisfy both. That includes a serious pruning of my RSS feeds and other information inputs. I need to get over feeling simultaneously overwhelmed by the information I’m taking in and underwhelmed by tools I’m using.

I’ll post updates as Me 2.0 progresses.

So, while the Pentagon has blocked MySpace and YouTube, along with Photobucket, MTV, Metacafe, Pandora, Live365, hi5, IFILM, BlackPlanet, StupidVideos, and FileCabi from being accessed on its DoD computer network, it is still into promoting itself on these social sharing sites, even to its own. And, as the Think Progress-linked IraqSlogger notes:

Unless the Department of Defense lifts (or doesn’t fully apply) its YouTube ban, US military personnel won’t be able to watch their own Iraq-focused YouTube channel unless they do so on non-DoD computers and via non-DoD Web connectivity.

I’m not going to use this space to say whether or not the DoD is doing the “right” thing by blocking access to these sites, for reasons such as the one that Wired is citing, bandwidth. I thought it much more interesting to note the conundrum between something like the Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) promoting its own YouTube channel at like the same time that the military was banned from using its own government owned computers – or network – to reach it.

On top of that, a friend of mine noted to me today that a relative had just emailed, stating that two days ago, there were updates made to a resume online, at Monster and CareerBuilder, mentioning recent experience using MySpace and other social networking sites for marketing purposes. That was followed by phone calls from not one, but two Army recruiters on Wednesday who were inquiring about those particular services, and if there was any interest in working with the Army on marketing through those channels. If that’s not a testament to the success of something, then nothing is.

[ed: thanks to Luther Campbell for the inspiration for the title of this post]

It’s hard to read Kevin Rose’s complete capitulation to the digg mob as anything but the first chink in the armor of social news.

Let’s back up and go over what happened. A story appeared on digg that contained code that would allow people to break the encryption on HD-DVDs, something the owners of that particular bit of intellectual property didn’t take kindly to. That led them to send a cease-and-desist order to Digg, which the site complied with by taking down the item in question.

That’s when things got out of hand.

People responded by flooding the site with items containing the code, effectively telling everyone else to go take a hike – they’ll do what they like. Kevin Rose then decided it wasn’t worth honking off the entire community and said they’ll fight the C&D, even if it leads to the eventual downfall of digg.

It’s tempting to read Rose’s position as brave, like he’s standing up to the big bad man. But to me it seems more like a “please, please don’t hurt me angry mob” position he’s assuming. He knows that the future of digg lies in its user base and, putting his finger to the wind, he changed course based on the prevailing attitude.

What digg went through yesterday is the same kind of thing any company has to be prepared for: a crisis. If you make lawnmowers you need to be prepared for a rash of accidents and a recall. If you make bike locks you need to be prepared if someone posts an easy how-to on picking those supposedly tamper-proof locks. And if you run a social news site you need to be prepared for when the community you rely on to decide what’s noteworthy picks something that isn’t going to be popular with the subject of the story. This needs to be right there in the crisis communications playbook that every company should have handy.

When in a crisis a company should have one strong and solid voice speaking for it. Having a “bad cop/good cop” dynamic going, as in this case, only serves to confuse the audience and make final decisions look like they’re not motivated by strong principles but by calculation.

Look at Google’s “…and the horse you came in on” response to Viacom. While Google did take down Viacom videos from YouTube, something it did in good faith, it has said that Viacom’s suit alleging copyright violation has no merit. It would have been easy for Google to follow the conventional wisdom and engage Viacom in negotiations, something many felt the suit was designed to trigger. Instead it has picked up its trident (“Brick killed a guy. Did you throw a trident?”) and said it will meet Viacom on the field of battle. There wasn’t a news conference at 10AM saying they wouldn’t fight the lawsuit followed by on at 2PM with Eric Schmidt saying the community had spoken and they would fight it. They got their ducks in order and decided on a path.

Effective public relations should lead to less – not more – confusion among the public and a company’s stakeholders. Even if it takes a little while longer to make sure everyone’s singing the same song it’s worth it since it makes the company look a little less like they’re bumbling along.