Social Networks Archive
Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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In my screencasts for Radian6 the example I used was the current Presidential election. I created a basic topic profile to monitor all 'conversation' involving the four major candidates at that time, McCain, Romney, Clinton and Obama.
It's been interesting to watch the level of conversation related to select topics within the profile. Here are two trend graphs looking at the past 30 days. Looking at the first, guess when Romney dropped out :-)
Looking at the second, it's interesting to see how conversation involving states with primaries rises and falls in somewhat perfect time. At the far left, we were just coming off of the South Carolina and then Florida primaries. It's interesting to see the dip for Texas and Ohio come before the primary next week. Perhaps people are tired of talking about it :-)
Over at work we've been using Radian6 for quite a while for a variety of clients. Yesterday we sent out one of those 'announcement' releases, but more importantly we put up some information on our approach to social media monitoring and measurement.
As part of the monitoring/Radian6 content, I created a series of screencasts on Radian6. You can check them all out here. The first one is shown below:
Some companies are loved, others are hated. That general perception carries over to media coverage and public discussions of their mistakes. At the recent PRSA International Conference panel on ethics in Philly my colleague Rick Murray pointed out this double-standard when it comes to Wal-Mart and Target. People generally hate Wal-Mart and love Target.
Granted, Wal-Mart has made a few social media mistakes and has been raked over the coals for it, but how about Target?
Recently Kaye Sweetser posted about a situation with Target's Rounders program and one of her students. You can read the entire post to get all the details.
In short, Target instructed their Rounders to keep their relationship with Target a secret. When one of her students questioned this on Target's Facebook wall the thread was removed.
Was there a mass outcry over this? Not really. A front page article on the New York Times? Nope. Why? A double standard? What do you think?
(Cross posted from the VoceNation)
Social media strategy doesn't always involve blogging or launching a social network. I always say, why start your own, when you can join an existing one? Social media/commuity initiatives can start out small and focussed....and use existing networks. A great example is the recent Flickr photogroup created by the Georgia Aquarium.
The Georgia Aquarium is fortunate that their location is often photographed, and the results are usually quite stunning. A number of amateur photographers and just regular users upload their aquarium photos to Flickr....why not join the party? Or at least help cultivate the interest? That's what the Georgia Aquarium has done.
Back in October I received the following e-mail invite via Flickr. Of course I joined the group, and as of today there are 89 members with close to 400 photos. Why only 400? The aquarium has asked members to submit their best five photos. I don' agree with that entirely, but I can see their point.
The photo collection was part of their web site relaunch slated for November (which is now up). The plan is to feature the photography and stories of visitors from around the globe. Not a unique idea, but it still works well with destinations. Below is a screenshot of the new site featuring one of my photos.
The 'how-to' section instructs users to join Flickr, then join the Georgia Aquarium group...then upload their photos into the group. The description on the photo will be used as the 'story'. This use of Flickr is similar to what the University of Florida did with GoGatorNation.com. Rather than creating some proprietary and hard-to-use photo-upload system, why not just use something that everybody is using already? Smart.
Let's recap. Finding the photos is simple, just do a Flickr photo search for 'Georgia Aquarium'. As of this post there are 43,574 photos, not bad, but it pales to the 883,000+ you'll find for Disney. Once you've found the photos, create a group and begin to invite the users to the group. Of course you need a purpose or strategy for the group. In the aquarium's case it was to build out a sharing/story function on their web site.
What's next? You have a community, but you need to provide something of value to the community. I'm not sure what their plans are, but here are some ideas:
1. Host a private function at the Aquarium for the photogroup members and invite in a professional aquatic photographer to host an instructional seminar. Then give the photogroup access to the aquarium for a few hours all to themselves (before of after normal hours). I can't speak for everybody, but if they offered that, I'd fly to Atlanta on my own to take part
2. Provide photogroup members access to behind-the-scenes area for pictures.
3. Feature select photos on the primary home page of the Georgia Aquarium Site.
4. Take the best 12 shots (determined by a user vote) and produce a calendar.
What other innovative campaigns have you seen built upon user photos? For me the Nikon campaigns come to mind..how about you?
In the previous post I talked about how corporations that are creating social media programs inherently need to rely upon the individuals involved with those initiatives. But what about the individuals? Quoting from the previous post:
On the flip side, what about an individual that becomes associated with a brand. In some cases they're not an individual, they're the company's blogger. I've seen it happen at conferences, "Oh hey, John....you're X's blogger?" They're always introduced as John, X's Blogger, never just John. It's like without that qualifier at the end they wouldn't be anybody.
What happens when they want to move on but the corporate brand overshadows their own?
It's a double-edged sword. The major brand is what has put them in a position to possibly move on to other opportunities, but that brand can also obscure them.
Sometimes you also get lost in the crowd at large corporations. Would you want to hire the PR person that 'oversaw' the blog or the person that actually wrote the blog? Executives taking too much credit for their staff's work is nothing new.
What do you do if you're the company blogger and want to establish your own identity? In smaller circles this is easy since the majority of the people you interact with via the blog will hopefully know you. It's a natural effect of the blog and the interaction between individuals. In many cases that might be all you need. If you're looking to move on, often it's the folks in the small circle that are your best resources.
Recently Jeremiah talked about his career blog, or a blog that moved with him from job to job. It's part personal, it's part professional. Striking the balance is the challenge though.
In my case, I'm fortunate because my name and brand, Hyku, are somewhat synonymous. But then again I work for myself :-)
A number of 'corporate blogging' friends I know also have personal blogs. Some are open about this, as in it's easy to find them and the connection. A few others like to keep thing separate and on the DL. It's only their friends that know the address. However, we all know that keeping something hidden in plain sight doesn't always work.
One little issue is the simple Google search of their name. Many times the corporate blog will be the first result. The only way to gain control of that is to get out there and start blogging/linking, etc. Taking on too much of a personal presence could cause tension at work though.
Facebook might be the solution. A number of corporate bloggers I know are my friends on Facebook, it's a great way to network.
Getting back to the question, what should/can a corporate blogger do to establish their identity?
First off, own your name, create a basic site/blog that is your personal brand. What you do there is open for debate, but it's important that friends know how to locate/interact with you outside the corporation you work for.
What else should one do? Comments?
A somewhat belated congratulations to Alex Hillman and the Philly co-working group. Alex recently signed the lease for Independents Hall a cool co-working initiative in Philadelphia. The local paper did a big piece on the launch of their space last week.
Alex Rudloff is testing the waters to see if a similar thing would fly in Orlando. (I guess you have to be named Alex to do this). Even though I'm not based in Orlando anymore I told Alex I'd support any space he launched.
So have you heard about the Twitter? All the kids are big into it now. It seems like SXSW was the big tipping point for Twitter. While SXSW is a big cultural event, I look for bigger adoption signs.....like the man upstairs.
Yes, Jesus has a Twitter account: twitter.com/jesus/ As of now he hasn't posted anything which seems right, since it's not 'time' yet. I guess it's fitting that in these technological times that Jesus will announce his return via Twitter.
On a related note, it seems strange that he only has 9 followers as of this post. I guess Christianity ain't what it used to be.
Jake McKee is one of the smartest guys I know when it comes to community. The name of his blog is Community Guy, so I make a joke with the Dictator Guy headline. DictatorGuy.com...is that domain taken?
It's with a sense of interest/humor that I read over his recent dealings with a spirited community advocate about the relationship between corporations and a community of users. The debate started on another blog with some interesting discussion:
The Community Guy wants a community he literally owns in which the slaves work happily for him for free creating intellectual property that will attract more slaves in a virtuous circle, until The Community Guy is filthy rich.
Jake opens up the debate on
his blog and in the comments.
My take? A community is something that benefits all involved. If a company/organization is doing nothing but treating the community members as 'slaves' then why would the community members stick around? People continue to contribute to a community because they feel they're getting something out of it. What they're getting and how rewarding that 'get' might be is relative to the individual. I may look at one example and say, "Why are you doing all this for that?" But to that individual that reward might be just what they want. Who am I to judge?
What are your thoughts?
You should know by now I am a big fan of Plazes. But have you ever wondered what a plaze actually looks like? Well, here is a photo of an actual plaze from their Flickr photostream:
Alister Cameron posted a brief he had crafted for a client about the differences between traditional web content and relational web content:
One of the things I spend quite a bit of my time doing is helping clients and prospects understand the difference between a “regular” website and a social network. I spend a lot of my time arguing in favour of “social media”, in the belief that a social media approach is at the heart of what we call “Web 2.0″ and is closer to how humans naturally function in “real life”.
I wrote a version of what follows for a prospective client today, and I have reshaped it a little for my blog. Whether or not you’re considering building the next MySpace, YouTube or Flickr, I encourage you to “immerse” yourself for a few moments in what I describe below, so you can perhaps come to a deeper understanding of how the web’s move towards a more deeply immersive “social” experience is a reflection of our innate relationality, and therefore in keeping with how we naturally function, and therefore a good thing.
Alister is of course talking more from a business aspect rather than a personal blogger standpoint. On the personal side I just tell folks to blog what they want, after all page views or revenue is not their motivation.
One of the underlying points Alister makes is that organizations should go out a learn first before embarking on a program of their own. Learn about the community and 'your' community. This is along the same lines as a post I wrote last year.
I always enjoy my conversations with Shel Israel, you never know what nuggets you'll walk away with. Driving around Miami yesterday we talked about a number of things. One comment sticks out in my mind though, "My friends aren't virtual!"
I'm not sure how we got there, but the topic of 'virtual friends' and 'virtual connections' came up. Shel said, "I hate the term virtual friends, my friends aren't virtual, they're real people."
The issue relates to online interactions and online communities. You might have 'virtual friends' or people you interact with only online, but they're still real people.
Update: Shel talks a bit more about this subject on his blog.
Somebody sent me the URL for a new photo aggregator from the Atlanta Journal Constitution: http://i2i.ajc.com
More thoughts soon.....
Well I was going to say a bit more, but Rex wrapped things up nicely in his comment. Like he says, why create your own, when there are other solutions out there that the majority of people use.
A great example of this is GoGatorNation.com. When the site launched they used a proprietary photo upload tool. As Rex references, you'd have to upload your photos to Flickr then to their site. Duplicating work is something that not many people want to do. Now the site directs user to use Flickr.
GigaOm reports that Plazes has received $3.5 million in funding from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. I've been a user of Plazes for quite a while now.
Some people say, "aren't you afraid of people stalking you?" Not really, but you can always turn if off :-)
Stowe Boyd sets forth his ideas for defining social media, social computing and all the related spheres.
I may seem to be splitting hairs, but my purpose here is to simply clarify things. The most general category is social tools, social software, or social applications. For all intents and purposes these are synonyms. These tools are characterized by a variety of features: reliance on social media principles and techniques, tags, an emphasis on the individual rather than membership in organizations or groups, and a sharing model derives from social networking principles.
So the topology of social computing — which is the best term to denote the activity of building and using these tools — is like a moebius strip: the applications are characterized by features which are themselves categories used to characterize the apps.
I agree with most of what he's saying. One of the issues is that the vast majority of the PR/business world that is just coming to grips with this stuff doesn't need any more terms. The term Stowe uses is social computing, which is what Forrester calls this space as well.
This is one of those exciting/frustrating things about this space, we're taking part in the creation/evolution of the terms, but to outsiders it's very confusing.
Of course the speed of discussion, adoption and abandonment in the social computer world far out-paces the real world. So perhaps by the we agree on something and the rest of the world begins to adopt it, we'll be revising things again.
Most bloggers have an ego-feed to monitor links to their site and mentions of their name. One of the feeds I monitor is any mention of 'hyku'. For the past few years it's been mostly mentions of my company name.
Recently though, with Technorati and other blog services indexing MySpace blogs, the results are mostly MySpace users misspelling the word haiku. Sad.
A big congratulations to Scott, Eric, Todd and the rest of the MyBlogLog gang on their Yahoo! deal. MyBlogLog is an Orlando-based firm, so hurrah for the home team! (MyBlogLog that has ties to Cloudspace)
I met Todd last month at the Orlando Blogger dinner we had at HUE, great guy. It's always good to see hard work and determination pay off.
At dinner I asked Todd about any plans they had to integrate their service with something like Twitter, well it looks like Yahoo!'s MIXD might fit the bill, however most of the people I know use Twitter. With MyBlogLog, Yahoo! has an interesting collection of social network tools available, now the key is to better integrate all of them. Sort of like Yahoo Vox.
Did I mention they are an Orlando firm?
Update: Here is the Yahoo! post on Yodel about the deal.
Mplanet 2006 featured a dozen spotlight sessions for the late afternoon slot. I attended the session on Social Computing which was lead by Brian Kardon of Forrester Research. Brian might be the lesser known partner-in-crime with Charlene Li who blogs quite frequently in the social media/computing space.
Brian started by talking about how technology changes everything, from health, education, etc. He talked briefly about the One Laptop Per Child initiative and how technology is/can changing the world. More important to this audience though, is how does technology changes business or marketing?
Brian reviewed some of the most recent examples of social computing and consumer generated content. First up was the famous Mentos/Diet Coke marriage. His next example was the Dell exploding battery and how Dell used their blog to respond to users directly, even over the objection of the legal department.
Things change fast though, there are already signs that MySpace is on the decline within early teen adopters. There is a large amount of transience going on within the medium.
Brian talked about the AOL canceling issue, and how a single person's bad experience with a brand can become a bigger issue. It's not what you might want to hear, but take your marketing dollars and invest that in better products and better services.
Social computing: A social structure in which technology puts power in communities and not corporations.
Why is this taking place? 1. Technology has lowered the cost. 2. People are more willing to trust non-traditional sources 3. PC usage is increasing. 4. In the future everybody will be famous for 15 people.
One of the questions Brian says he is often is asked is, "who are these people and do the have a life?" (sound familiar). As a great exercise Brian asked the audience, "How many of you have written a review or posted a comment about a product or service?" Quite a few of the people in the audience raised their hands. Brian's response, "Well, there are quite a few of you, and as far as I know, you all have lives." So they are real people.
One of the questions focused on the B2B aspect of of social computing. Brian commented that traditionally 100% of people are lookers or lurkers, but 1% are commenters, so in a small B2B space just one person commenting is a lone voice.
The theme is listening to, and nurturing individuals talking about your brand - even if you aren't in control.
User generated content is created by individuals/customers/consumers and viewed by them without being sanctioned by an organization.
Customers will learn about your brand from individuals outside your organization.
In summary:
- Social Computing is here to stay. Accept it.
- Focus on relationships, not the technologies.
- Get started using the tools.
- Embrace a culture of generosity in your Social Computing efforts.
A copy of Brian's presentation can be found here: www.forrester.com/mPlanet
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is releasing a series of guidelines for interacting with bloggers. The guidelines are not 'official rules' by any stretch; they are merely meant to provide guidance for firms just learning about social media.
Of course firms are free to ignore them (and some will) but hopefully many will follow the guidelines since WOMMA reminds us: Consumers come first, honesty isn't optional, and deception is always exposed. The guidelines are listed below:
- I will always be truthful and will never knowingly relay false information. I will never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
- I will fully disclose who I am and who I work for (my identity and affiliations) from the very first encounter when communicating with bloggers or commenting on blogs.
- I will never take action contrary to the boundaries set by bloggers. I will respect all community guidelines regarding posting messages and comments.
- I will never ask bloggers to lie for me.
- I will use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
- I will not manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income.
- I will not use automated systems for posting comments or distributing information.
- I understand that compensating bloggers may give the appearance of a conflict of interest, and I will therefore fully disclose any and all compensation or incentives.
- I understand that if I send bloggers products for review, they are not obligated to comment on them. Bloggers can return products at their own discretion.
- If bloggers write about products I send them, I will proactively ask them to disclose the products’ source.
I like what I see so far. You can read all the details on the initiative at: http://www.womma.org/blogger/
While some argue that the markets and community will decide what is successful, i.e. PayPerPost, there are ethical issues at hand for PR professionals. Many of the colleagues that I work with are members of either FPRA, PRSA or IABC. Each of those associations strive to represent an industry which often is dragged down by less than ethical or professional behavior. It's that type of behavior that the professional associations are trying to stop.
When you join a professional association such as FPRA you pledge to adhere to a set of ethical guidelines. Those same guidelines apply to the blogosphere. As we've seen recently, if you don't follow the guidelines, chances are you'll be caught....rather quickly.
Companies often want to build online communities themselves rather the joining an established one (if one does exist). They think that by building their own community they will have some level of control. That's not a community, that's a cult.
Of course with some brands the loyalty their fans show is often compared to a cult. So perhaps a cult is the right type of society.
Some companies get social media, others do not. The title of this post is a question I receive often while talking with corporations:
Do people actually get paid to monitor this stuff?
or on a similar thread
This is actually somebody's job to monitor this stuff?
There are two important things with that question that speak to corporations' thoughts on social media.
First is that fact that they're even asking it. Too often organizations see the world of social media as something that isn't worth their time. Or in this case paid time. Why would they pay somebody to do this? This speaks back to my 'Who are these people, and why should I care?' post. If they do have an interest in social media it's a viral thing. It's the, 'let's put out a crazy video and let the kids share it' thing that rarely works.
The second thing is a bit more subtle. It's the word 'monitor'. Using 'monitor' rather than 'participate' speaks volumes about their perception of the situation. It's hands-off. They recognize the fact that they have fans (or detractors) that are discussing their company, but they wouldn't dare talk to them (See: Corporations Visiting Blogs, but Not Commenting = Prank Calling?).
When I give corporations examples of other firms that are actually paying (GASP!) people to work as evangelists or community builders many still can't believe it. Perhaps it's the region of the country I work in, around here Community Relations is purely and offline thing.
One thing that Jackie Huba and other folks that deal with loyal customers will tell you is that a big fan can quickly become a big pain if they feel they aren't getting the attention they feel they deserve from the company. In many cases all they want is some basic acknowledgment for their loyalty. A simple e-mail or blog comment would work wonders in any situation.
Why aren't more companies climbing aboard the community express? Perhaps it's because many organizations neuter the social skills of the their employees via policies and legal barriers..."Don't ever talk to anybody about anything!"
About a month ago I was at a school event and a local school board member talked about how they had completely blocked MySpace and other social networking sites. I asked why? Their stance was mostly based upon lack of knowledge (doesn't that sound better than ignorance). My first response was something like this:
In a simplistic view, your students are your customers (as well as their parents). Your job is to educate them. So you're telling me that there is a place where all your customers go, hang out, communicate and interact with each other and you don't want to be a part of that. In fact you want to ban it and discourage it. What does that say about you and your commitment to your customers (students)?
I told them I would be more than happy to speak with the school board or any other local officials to educate them on the world of social media and social networks. You would think they'd want to know. Alas nothing has come out of it yet.
The Orlando Sentinel ran an article today about Facebook's new feature that allows members to list their preferred candidates in political races.
The popular online meeting place for college students recently unveiled a new feature that allows users to list the political candidates they support alongside their pet peeves, favorite quotes and goofy or inappropriate pictures of themselves and their friends. The site then takes users' political preferences, totals them and displays them in a poll that shows the support candidates are getting among Facebook users.
The new feature is the latest sign that everyone -- from corporations to universities to political candidates -- is tapping into social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. And though it might not be popular enough yet to have a major impact on this election, one expert predicts it could become a crucial tool in future campaigns.
This past Monday, I spent some time talking to Etan Horowitz, the reporter responsible for the article. None of my quotes made the story, but much of what he and I talked about echoed the comments by Phil Noble of
PoliticsOnline.
In Florida you can review who supports Jim Davis (D) or his opponent Charlie Crist (R) in the Governor's race
On Tuesday afternoon, Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist had 54 percent of the Facebook vote, while his Democratic opponent Davis had 46 percent of the vote. A little more than 3,000 Facebook users have listed their preference in the governor's race.
Some of the local campaigns are looking at the poll data from Facebook, but the percentages are not the real power of this new tool. Campaigns can now quickly identify individuals that support their candidate. The next step is to begin the outreach program. How does a campaign convert somebody who supports a candidate enough post it publicly on Facebook to an on-campus resource?
Now, who should do this? Well they shouldn't be over 30 to start with. The campaign outreach programs via social networks should be led by people in the same peer group as the users. Like any blogger relations program, the goal is to build a relationship and not to pitch news or events.
This new feature and story really highlight the research/listening power of social networks. Previously, to identify people interested in a particular topic you needed them to come to you, or spend some serious $'s on research. Now with a few minutes on Technorati you can find a few dozen or a few hundred people that share a common interest. Now all you have to do is connect with them.
Community is the word this year. Organizations everywhere are trying to figure out how to build or become involved with communities surrounding their brands. The University of Florida it taking the 'build' approach.
This weekend UF will officially launch a community site for the Gator Nation at GoGatorNation.com. The site allows University of Florida alumni and friends from around the globe to upload photos and videos of themselves, sharing their Gator pride. There is also a discussion board for users to connect, see events, post jobs etc.
The site is currently in a soft launch now, so there are only a few photos and one video, but expect things to change over the next few days. The marketing campaign for the site begins with this weekend's football game versus Tennessee. I exchanged e-mails with Joe Hice, Associate Vice President, Public Relations & Marketing with UF earlier this week. Here's a quote from Joe:
The plan is pretty simple, our new :30 second television spot will air nationally during the Florida vs. Tennessee football game on CBS. The television spot encourages viewers "to continue the story, visit goGatorNation.com."
The new ad will also begin running on the Coach's Show, rebroadcasts of the game, Gator Beat and other athletic programming on Sunshine, Jefferson Pilot and other television affiliates. It will appear during every Florida football game this season as well as on televised basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball games and other UF sporting events. The university is not charged for the placements and we estimate the overall value of this program to be in excess of $4 million.
In addition, a new :30 and :60 second radio spot will begin airing during the game. The spot is designed to cut through the clutter of most of the other radio advertising during the game and it features a UF grad who is also an astronaut trying to paint the space station orange & blue, placing a Florida bumper sticker on the shuttle and playing the Gator Fight Song back to Mission Control. Like the television spot, we also receive radio time at no charge.
The Gator Nation campaign is part of a multi-year program to re-brand the university. Joe recently appeared at the FPRA Annual Conference and spoke about the UF/Gator Nation campaign.
At the University of Florida their focus is the 'Gator Nation'. All universities produce great research and great graduates, but the one thing that UF produces that nobody else does is Gators. The 'Gator Nation' has become the focal point for their branding efforts. Luckily, UF has a sports program that gets some national TV exposure. The university can use this free promotional airtime during games to air commercials to reinforce that brand.
Andrea Weckerle tagged me as part of a new meme. Clicking on the link I also discovered that her blog has a new look.
Andrea asks what are the top five social media tools/sites that I use. These are in no particular order:
Flickr - photo sharing that is dead-easy to use. The majority of images I post to my blog are hosted via Flickr.
MySpace - A way to connect/interact with friends that don't blog.
YouTube - Like David, it allows me to get my fix for Joy Division and Ninjas
Technorati - I use it daily, almost hourly for searches, plus the watchlists make up a large portion of my RSS feeds.
Quimble - simple online polls that you can cut/paste into your blog.
This is the part where I am supposed to tag some other folks: David vs. Brian - blogger deathmatch.
Here is the audio from the breakout session on Structured Blogging.
Syndicate-Structure.mp3
On the panel were:
Jen Consalvo - AOL
Eli Chapman - Mediatronica
Constantine Gus Spathis - PubSub
Chad Dickerson - Yahoo
Scott Abel - The Content Wrangler
Here's the audio from the morning keynote by Steven Schwartz of Reuters.
Syndicate-Reuters.mp3
Here is the audio from the Syndication and Community Development session.
Syndicate-Community.mp3
On the panel were:
Pete Blackshaw - Nielsen BuzzMetrics
Bill Schreiner - AOL - AIM
Jason Levitt -Yahoo
Update: Turns out I do have the audio, here it is.
Syndicate-SMS.mp3
I jacked into the audio panel to record this session, but the line level was nill so I have no audio from this session. I didn't take any notes since I was intent on listening/participating.
On the panel were:
Dave Panos - Pluck
Peter Negulescu - San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Horam - AllBusiness.com
I have uploaded two MP3 files from this morning's Syndicate keynotes. Both of them were simple recordings with my iRiver. Luckily I was right next to the speak the the sound quality is pretty good. There are some jumps as the microphones turned on and off. I think the most interesting one is the conversation with Richard Edelman:
Syndicate-Edelman.mp3
Syndicate-Jarvis.mp3
Update: I've posted audio from Jeff's session.
For the next two days I'll be posting short items from Syndicate Conference in New York City. First up this morning is Jeff Jarvis. I've got a photoset going. Or you can check out other stuff here.
Jeff is opening up his keynote focus to a vote. He presented four ideas and had the audience vote, Money and Syndication won out.
Part of measurement is not the tracking of links, it's the tracking of the knowledge of the crowd. Why are people linking? Is it linking to friends or knowledge?
Towards the end of the session it has devolved into a Technorati love/bash fest, not very productive and much like the AV kids arguing. I've posted the audio from the session.
For now Rick Klau's has some good notes on Jeff's session. Other notes:
- David Weinberger
Spurned on by Shel's comment on my last post about personal media vs. corporate media here are a few more thoughts about the impact of blogs on society (not just media). I put a version number on this post because I'm really not done with it yet, but I want to get feedback from others. Then perhaps we can get to v 0.9.
The Social Media Revolution v 0.8
During her keynote presentation at New Communications Forum in March, 2006, Rebecca Blood, discussed how the industrial revolution is remembered just as much if not more so for the social changes during that era than the mechanization of industry. Of course during that time in the early 1800's everyone was amazed at the 'new-fangled machines'. In the moment they couldn't see the far-reaching changes that the society was going thru. A hundred years removed it became easier to see.
Like Shel (and many others) I think that the current social media revolution and to some extent the 'blog bubble' we're in right now will be remembered more for the social changes than from a technological/tools aspect. When I speak to groups I always say that one of the higher goals of blogs and all citizen's media is for people and organizations to act more responsibly. Is that what this era will be remember for?
The Renaissance was characterized by the spread of knowledge that led Europe out of the dark ages. Today, the internet allows for an untold ability to share knowledge, but the new part of the equation in this social media revolution is voice. We can all contribute. In a hundred years will the the history books (or e-books) title a chapter: The Social Media Revolution?
They say history is made by those who write it, well the bloggers are the ones doing the majority of the writing now, 1.2 million posts per day at last count. To put things in perspective think about the Civil War for a moment. The letters written by soldiers and early photographs offer a glimpse into their lives as well as society in the mid-1800's. Historians told us what the major events were, and in most cases it was the winner of the war writing this 'history'. Those soldier's letters often let us know what 'real life' was like. Who the people were that participated in that history.
Now back to the present. Today, hundreds of thousands of people will blog about what happened to them and to others. They will upload thousands of photos and video to sites like Flickr and YouTube. The social lives of millions of teens will be chronicled on MySpace. Events, social issues, etc, can all be seen from different perspectives. We don't have to rely on one source for information.
Imagine what historians will be dealing with a century from now when they look to frame this era. Their job will be to sort through these millions of posts, photos, and videos to piece together not only what happened and why, but perhaps more importantly who we were and how the events we saw affected us.
Yes, the overwhelming majority of blogs posts are personal in nature and intended only for a small audience, but so were those soldier's letters.
The past few times I have spoken as part of a panel or a program at a PR or media event a similar thing happens. Somebody speaking before me that represents what we can loosely term the 'old guard' complains about the current trends related to blogs, new media, citizen's journalism, etc.. The issues are (choose all that apply)
- The youth don't read/watch newspapers/traditional media
- Paid subscriptions are down
- Blog aren't credible
- There is no fact-checking
- We can't make money
- Only a few people read blogs
- (insert your own choice here)
Media worries about revenue, page views - PR worries that they can't just deal with the same contacts/journos they've always dealt with, plus how do they bill for this stuff?
What is my response to the 'old guard'? Depending on the audience I am speaking to it's either: a) Deal with it or b) Like it or not they're not going away. Of course that's not all I say. What I begin with is something like this:
As we've just heard from X, these are the major issues that face your industry. But guess what, these problems, (problem, being your word, not mine) are not going away. You need to learn to work in this new reality. I understand that identifying the problem and acknowledging it is the first step, but consistent complaining about how things are changing (for the worse in your minds) isn't solving anything. Let's start by learning about this new world and how you can live in it.
People fear what they do not understand and many don't understand blogs. But far worse than the unknown, is the known that conflicts with an established business model. That's what corporate media fears.
Will corporate media be able to adapt? Should they? When talking to groups here is an anecdote I always use:
In the early 1900's I used to make a ton of money delivering ice to homes in the city. People needed it for their ice boxes. Then one day some jerk invented the refrigerator and I'm out of business. What do I do?
Let me think. I have all these trucks driving all around the city. Maybe there is something else I can deliver? Like refrigerators!
It's something I just made up, but it's probably based upon some fact. The important thing is that it illustrates to many that these changes have always occurred. Just ask the passenger rail system about that. Hmm, let me think, I have all these right of ways across the US but no trains to run on them? What if I buried fiber optic cables along those right of ways?
Brett Lider users the acronym YASP - Yet Another Social Profile to define the reluctance to create another account on another new social network tool. Specifically Brett was talking about creating a Facebook profile, perhaps to go along with a MySpace profile and now a new AIMPages profile.
Looking at my IM accounts for: YahooIM, AIM, MSN, .Mac, GTalk, Skype... I tend to agree.
No, your local congressional representative will not be joining your network of friends (nothing worse than creepy old guy on MySpace). But what Congress is looking at is banning access to MySpace and other social network sites from schools and libraries. From the News.com article:
Now MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are facing a new threat: a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users...
Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation (click here for PDF) that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.
That's a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google's Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features, and Microsoft's Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat.
Fitzpatrick's bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA, is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to address topics that they view as important to suburban voters.
Why?
In response to my post yesterday about the candidates for Florida Governor needing to track social media I set up a Blogdigger page to aggregate all blog and news content that mentions their names.
For some reason though, the Blogdigger account is not updating often enough so I created a NewsGator account that features the same information. Go to: http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/WebEd2.aspx and use the following information to login: U: FloridaGovernor P: fl2006
If you want to subscribe to the individual RSS feeds here they are:
Charlie Crist - Technorati / Google News
Jim Davis - Technorati / Google News
Tom Gallagher - Technorati / Google News
Rod Smith - Technorati / Google News
Reading Steve's recent post about the future of newswire services such as PR Newswire and BusinessWire I can't help but think of Bob Wyman's recent post about edgeio and structured blogging. In his post Bob talks about how edgeio is differentiating itself from 'walled garden' services such as Craigslist by collecting public data and aggregating it.
This is very s
