Web Strategy by Jeremiah

I have permanently moved to a new blog --so please do come and visit!

2006-07-18T04:47:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading my last few messages, I've been discussing my migration and move to my new blog. I may turn off the comments from this blog too --I don't have time to manage the majority of spam comments that come in.

Well this is it! My last post on this blog --I've moved over to web-strategist.com [feed] or [site] please join me there!

Also, if you're linking to me in your blogrolls (or came from someone that was) ask them to please update the URL to web-strategist.comI REALLY appreciate it.

Thanks so much for stopping by --don't worry, I'm still chatting up a storm about Web Strategy, Social Media, and the changes it has on our world.

I have permanently moved over there, so please do come and visit!

If you're reading this message in a feedreader --kindly update your feed

2006-07-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

No, don't worry you didn't break the Internet --this time.

If you're seeing this message in your feedreader --pretty please update your feed to the link below.

Either you subscribed to this blog before I had feedburner, or you knew how to subscribe to this blogger atom feed to bypass feedburner --either way you're more clever than I am.

My Shiny New Feed is here on Feedburner

Really sorry to bother you, but I don't want to lose you, please rejoin up --this blog will self destruct in 30 seconds. One love to the bloggers.

Tell the Security Guard the Secret Code to get in the Vault

2006-07-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

If you're seeing this message in your feedreader --you need to update your feed please. My new feed is here on Feedburner

No, I haven't fallen off the blogosphere, I've actually moved the secret vault of web strategy to a new bank...Here's some examples of what's been going on:

Amanda quit Rocketboom, so is the Brand Equity of Rocketboom –Amanda or Andy?
Did you know that Angry Customers Use Web to Shame Firms using Blogs andVideos??? You don't say...
YouTube Conversations –Video to Video (V2V) watch Daniella's response to me --clever.
What are the attributes of a killer photo? Web Strategy: Selecting Photos for Web Advertising.
A bit of bragging: Migration to new blog success –little loss in Traffic.
Is TechMeme for Wasps? or is truely a Representative Democracy.
Doing some homework regarding Social Networking Analysis.

Tell the Bouncer You're with Me...

2006-07-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

We've moved the party ! But it's hard to have a real event with out you! I want you to join while I'm migrating over to my new blog.

When you get to the party, tell the bouncer you're with me --he'll let you in --don't cop any 'tude, or he won't let you in.

Just so you know what you're missing, hjere's some of the highlights of what's going on inside the party...

A really angry web nerd for a large web company in San Jose calls me/you Noobs, check out: Irate Software Engineer says it should be called Noobcasting –Challenging this new Web Movement
I've uploaded my first YouTube video --I was at Stern Grove in SF.
Jeremy Zawodny has a "Therapy Session" at Gnomedex --I've responded to some of the complaints.
Did you know my tire blew out? I've uploaded some pics and tell the story --it ties back to web strategy of course.
Robert Scoble left a comment on my blog --I gave light to his self question and answer style of writing. Maybe he was bored, as he recently got banned from Second Life.
There's more, much much more, but you'll have to swing by at the new blog.

In a few weeks, I'll probally stop posting here --so I really want you to join me at the new party!

Updated my Feed via Feedburner

2006-07-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

As you know, I'm migrating slowly to a new blog over on my own domain at web-strategist.com

Please update your bookmarks (favorites folders)

Since I've been using feedburner to push out my feed, I just cut over my feed on feedburner, so you won't have to update a thing, I just got over the feedburner feed to pull from the new blog on Web Strategist.

No action required for you, but please update your blogrolls, favorites, and sticknotes that I'm moving --hopefully you'll come with me --thanks

I'll be posting on here a few more weeks before making the complete cut.

An Issue of Credibility: OpinMind vs PayPerPost

2006-06-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

Oh wow, this has really turned into a real freaking feces storm, I saw that PayPerPost and Opinmind are starting to get compared.

Well as fate would have it, I know both CEOs of PayPerPost and OpinMind, and have provided them with reccomendations on my new blog here.

By the way, this is a link to my NEW blog --as I've mentioned before, I'm slowly migrating over here in the next few weeks. They look the same, and that's intentional.

Feel free to leave me feedback --I really appreciate it.

I'm Moving

2006-06-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

Over the next few weeks, I'll be moving to new Domain --don't worry the feed will stay intact and improvments to come!
Yes, it's true, I'm packing up my bags and am moving to a new domain. I've decided to move on to Wordpress (although I really like Blogger and it's simple and easy to use features) I've purchased another domain that's tied to my focus area.

I've started a new blog at Web-Strategist.com --I'll be growing out my blogging there, as well have some other interesting sections --you'll hear more about that soon.

For the next few weeks, I'll be publishing on both of these sites to make the migration smooth (When possible try to change the water a little bit at a time in the fishtank) I don't want to lose my beloved audience --you.

I'll be cutting over the feed, so you won't have to update your feedreader, if anyone has any specific suggestions on how to smoothly migrate, please let me know. (Is there any way to merge my Technorati rankings of both domains?)

I'm thankful for the couple hundred of you who visit me daily --I'm migrating to offer even bigger and better things for you as I grow.

I'll certainly miss my Google page rank, (I come up high for searches on "Jeremiah" and "Web Strategy") and Technorati rank (I moved up very quickly to 7k range in just 9mos) I'm sure I can do it again --if not faster now that I've learned.

Give me Feedback on my new blog
As such, I'd love to get your feedback on my upcoming beta blog, you can check it out here and leave some thoughts and suggestions. (Hopefully this also proves my preaching on the voice of the users and customers come first)

MindComet launches Blogger Mercenary Program

2006-06-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

I met Ted at the Frost and Sullivan Internet Strategies Symposium a few months ago, he's a creative and fun guy, we even recorded a well received podcast on Business Blogging together. Heck, we're even hosting a Blogger dinner in Boston together in a few weeks. I like Ted, he's got a lot of good things going for him.

Hopefully he won't take it personally, as I tend to agree with Business Week's assumption that Mindcomet is attributing to Polluting the Blogosphere. You see, Ted is launching the Pay Per Cost program --their site says the following:

"You've been writing about Web sites, products, services and companies you love for years and you have yet to benefit from all the sales and traffic you have helped generate. That's about to change. With PayPerPost™ advertisers are willing to pay you to post on topics. Search through a list of topics, make a blog posting, get your content approved, and get paid. It's that simple."

If you don't fully disclose your affiliations when talking about a product, you run the risk of reducing credibility to providing truthful reviews about products or services to customers. And that's wrong --very wrong.

The beauty of the blogosphere is that free speech, spirit, and ideas can flow. I always knew that Marketers would figure out how to get involved, the risk however is corrupting the purity.

Ted, please make sure that reviews provide full disclosure, and I'm more likely to support your program.

Full Disclosure: Just to prove a point in the spirit of transpareny and being 'naked', Ted told me about this article, and encouraged me to blog about it with no pay --Obviously, I don't fully agree, this is my honest and open opinion --ahh that feels better.

Edit:

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

Exodus Alumni Party

2006-06-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Exodus Alumni party that was held last night at the Hulikau in Palo Alto is being covered, blogged, with pictures to it from here.

Oh, and I'll be slowly migrating to this new blog over the coming weeks, please leave some feedback if you've any suggestions.

Jumpcut: Edit movies via your browser

2006-06-28T05:47:00.000-07:00

Media is really going to the masses --anyone can journalist with a blog, anyone can be a photographer with a 350$ Sony Cam and now anyone can be an award winning movie director/editor/producer.

Jumpcut can let anyone take control by

If creating a movie or a slideshow and publishing it to the web seems like a challenge, we think you'll find that jumpcut makes it easy and fun. If you've been wondering what to do with the video you shoot with your snazzy new camera (or your phone), jumpcut is the perfect place for you to be creative. If video isn't your thing just yet and you just want to make cool slideshows with your pictures, jumpcut is still the best place. -Jumpcut site

I saw both Marc and Nick last week at Supernova and Bloggercon. Now you can see how Nick's mashed up Marc's vidoe

See Valleywag's rendition of Cantor's People Mover App --oh Nick, you're a riot, where do you get this stuff.

After watching ValleyNick's piece you and edit it to your own flavor --try the remix option.

Corporate Leader uses web tools to reach

2006-06-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

Andrew Martin of New Marketing has checked out my notes from Supernova regarding the conversation between Kevin and Jonathan Scwartz.

This article about John believing that global conversations using web tools is a competitive advantage. Notice I wrote this whole post without saying the "B" word.

My Eyes on the Internet Research by Online Publishers Association

2006-06-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

My colleague David sent me this link to OPA's study and its Ball State's work.

"A Day in the Life: An Ethnographic Study of Media Consumption" --please access the powerpoint presentation.

Key points:

Slide 20: focuses on web

"The Web Has Taken a Strong Position Among the Major Media"

Slide 21: The Web Shows Fewer Age and Gender Differences Than Traditional Media

The Web Joins TV and Radio in Achieving Significant Reach in All Major Dayparts

Tv is primarily accessed during evenings

The Web Is the Second Leading Medium For all of the Age/Gender Groups Reached at Home
The Web Is the Leading Medium For All Of the Age/Gender Groups Reached at Work
Slide 29: The Web is the Essential Complement to a Magazine Based Plan That Must Also Reach A Number of Key Targets, Example: Young Parents
Slide 34: The Web Dominant tend to be in higher retail spending groups
the Web’s position dominant has been created in only 10 years (I've been heavily involved since 1999)

The OPA has some other research available --check it. Some of these stats I've seen before, It's important to remember that while web may be taking leadership as the primary medium now --this will change, and a new medium will evolve --maybe wireless devices, maybe devices that enable eTelepathy (I'm not kidding).

CoBrandit Vlogs from Womma

2006-06-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

Owen Mack launches the CoBrandit videos --interviews from WOMBAT Womma conference in Orlando. The CGM site also discusses this --I like Owen's tips here with NewComm.

Check out the WOMMA Videoblogs by Owen Mack
Interviews with Robert Scoble, Ryan Berger, Gary Stein & Julian Aldridge and others. Check out their archives here. Womma has even posted about it on their blog.

It's great to see more video blogging --I attended the Vloggercon a few weeks ago --I've been a podcaster for a while, and plan to get into Videoblogging by end of year, if not sooner.

Intranet 2.0: Will Enterprise IT Departments adopt Web 2.0 strategies?

2006-06-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

Having started my web career in IT, I know the grueling pains that Information Technology folks go through --most of them time they're never thanked and the business owners often get the praise.

Now that I'm in Web Marketing Career (still 100% web geek) I see the values of both business and tech --I stradle both sides. A few months ago respected and noted IT proffessional Dr. Dennis McDonald and I wrote a White Paper (PDF) discussing how IT departments can adapt to the Web 2.0 concepts. (Edit: see Dennis's thoughts on this topic)

A few days ago, Zdnet published this article titled Corporate America wakes up to Web 2.0. In summary, enterprise corporate IT is JUST starting to see the light, of what Dennis and I we're preaching nearly half a year ago. Here's how the article kicks off:

"Big companies have for years installed industrial-strength content management systems in the hope of sparking collaboration among workers. There was just one problem: People didn't use them." -Martin LaMonica, ZDnet

I'm currently working on my fourth Enterprise Intranet and I've used several different CMS systems: Microsoft CMS (twice), Microsoft Sharepoint, Stellent, Plumbtree, Interwoven Teamsite --and a flurry of homegrown systems. By far, and waaay far, the best and easiest to use CMS system is this blog software by blogger --yup, and it's free.

These future Intranets will be bottom up and organic, the new big is small. Some companies are deploying wikis and blogs --individuals can create this organic 'garden' with little rules set in place as the collective will help guide and self correct the growing body of knowledge.

Key Subject matter gurus will be given blogs where they can spurt out their 'official' knowledge or just rhetoric --individuals and groups will publish their weekly status reports on their blog for all to see. Topics will cross link and mash --collaboration to create new ideas from the masses will take form and materialize as one large group becomes one mind.

Of course, not everyone will agree --some will fight, some will argue and that's ok (in fact encouraged, damnit! isn't that how innovation can just surface to the top?) as long as it's in the spirit of productive collaboration. Fantasy, unrealistic? Companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Sun, and Yahoo, are already doing this --who's next? (oh last thing --these software tools are cheap if not free)

Related Links:

Internet Advertising Blogs and Resources

2006-06-27T04:45:00.000-07:00

Involved in Internet Advertsing? Don't walk blind, get resources to guide you.

A recent study by Nielson/Norman group has done a study that show many are blinded by internet ad banners.

Internet Advertisting won't go away, so check out what industry analytst James Gardner from Adverlicio.us has done. He's built an online advertisting rating site --it's an archive and he rates and tags ads as good and bad --if you're in that business, it's worth checking out.

I also signalled for Steve to attend from Adrants, he's a Boston native as well. Steve writes a daily column of Marketing and Advertisting news --he's got the practical experience to back it up.

I often check out Mediapost --sometimes they send me newsletters (typically the news is a day or two later than when it hits the blogosphere) but that's ok, because it's often confirmation of the rumormill.

I've invited both James and Steve to the upcoming Boston Blogger Dinner. Ted and his team have created a cool looking banner for the blogger dinner at Internet Marketing Voodoo

Edit: Do take a look at Federated Media as well (link via James Gross). Leave a comment if you can suggest others --I'm sure there's tons.

Reading Sampler June 27th, 2006

2006-06-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

Intersting Reads

I've added Blue Anvil's Color Theory and Emily Chang's Design 2.0: Minimalism,
Transparency, and You to my ongoing list of Design, Font, Color, and Logo 2.0.
Did you know the average tech salary is up 31% since a year ago --the average salary is 85k in Silicon Valley reports ZDnet.
I'm intersted in hearing Senator John Edwards keynote presentation at Gnomedex on technology --apparently he's a supporter of blogging and podcasting, I would fully believe that if he actual were a personal blogger or podcaster. His site has a 'diaries' section, and even has a support site for bloggers. I was just talking about how Nokia has catered to bloggers recently.
Video: Jason Fried from 37 Signals says to think small (Seth Godin would agree). He also says that meetings are waste of time --do you think face time is a waste of time? Sometimes communication happens in non-verbal ways, not just by text. Jason only has a few folks in his company (under 7) and their really engineers, developers and designers, does this apply to the rest of us?
View Scoble's house in Seattle --it's up for sale. They just bought a place in Half Moon Bay.
Enoch Choi and I met at bloggercon, he's a medical blogger --pretty neat.
From this top ten list, I was able to find this piece onf the ten best designed blogs. They've even a list of the 10 innovative web 2.0 applications from last year in 2005.
Is RSS the new intranet protocol? In this video the Sharepoint team discuss how blogs, wikis, and RSS will be used in their upcoming Sharepoing 2007 release.
Just for kicks, Julio sent me this link to Yo Gabba Gabba, an upcoming kids show, they've got a few silly videos --this all from the design master Paul Frank. Warning Warning! the theme song to YoGabbaGabba is infectious. (yes, and that's Biz Markie)

Podcasting can be an Ambient Medium

2006-06-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

Scoble is challenging Peter on Podcasting being an efficient vs inefficient medium. Some discussion on techmeme as well. I believe that podcasting is an ambient medium enabling listeners to perform other primary duties while consuming audio content. Typical podcasts consumers will consume audio content on a mobile MP3 device, or direct from a browser --both consumption styles enable users to multitask more of my thoughts about Podcasting as an Ambient Medium --details here.

Sometimes I play podcasts while driving, or while getting ready in the morning, or while going for a walk, It's rare I devote all of my energy to listening to podcasting. Podcasts allow me to be efficient, as to consume content in an ambient medium, while doing a primary activity. I'm a podcaster too --check out the PodcastRoundtable, or view some of my favorite podcasts I've participated on.

Edit: I like Mario's take on it --very thorough

Web Strategy: Blogger Relations Program

2006-06-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

Roland was sitting behind me at the Bloggercon4 conference last Friday, after I cruised the photos in flickr, I asked about the Nokia phone that was used in taking my pic. The quality is not bad.

Nokia is catering to the blogger and mobile bloggers, podcasters and has created this microsite Nokia's Blogger Relation Program. It reads:

Welcome to the Nokia Nseries N91 Blogger Relations Blog site. Here you will find blogger and media information that you can repurpose and utilize in your blog postings about the N91.

The homepage is using a Blog platform, and they're pulling in customer testimonials such as from Adam Curry. Check out ZDnet's review on the phone and mention of the Blogger Relation Program. There's even a blogger support page --they're really catering to the segment.

Web Strategy: (This is really a Marketing Strategy)

Create a program that caters to the connectors and amplifiers
Bloggers tend to be "Sneezers", they spread word fast, convince others and are advocates and detractors
Create a resource site so it's easy for them to connect and build a relationship.
Give them tools to spread the word, images, snippets, etc they can add to their blogs or podcasts promoting your product
Reward them --give them access to new products, discounts, they're becoming your sales force.
Listen to them, engage them in your product lifecycle from design to development
Consider creating a Community Marketing strategy, and empower the community around your company and products.

Now, if Nokia could figure out how to make a website that's a little less on the Design Experience and more on the content, they'd be in a better situation --this site gave me a headache -- I quit pretty quickly, I don't want to have to learn the UI.

Anyone else have any examples of companies that have blogger relation programs?

Students abandon Printed Yearbooks for Social Websites --MySpace, and myYearbook Thrive

2006-06-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Another example of how the web is changing how we communicate, interact, and now how we choose to remember each other. No longer are the days of printing a record of your high school experience, getting your "keep in touch" autographs and parting ways until the 10 year reunion.

Students now maintain these networks and continue to communicate throughout college, their first jobs, marriage, kids, grandkids and beyond. MySpace generation preserves memories online, from MSNBC reports that:

"John Shin refuses to buy a copy of his high school yearbook. Instead, he’s turning to the Internet to preserve and share memories of his sophomore year."

Students rely on MySpace to preserve their mememories. Somewhere in the middle we're starting to see other services are starting to appear such as myYearbook, the young founders tell their story. Students can put their class schedules online, share notes, put stuff in their virtual locker, vote for folks and even leave 'signatures' in each others yearbooks.

"It all started during Spring Break 2005, flipping through a yearbook in my room and realizing it sucked. This is 2005 - why the hell is anyone buying yearbooks anymore?..."
"...It could reinvent real life. It could make real life better. Making it easier to meet the people you see every day. Making it easier to approach the cute girl in a different class."

The next generation will take their social networks with them. I've been talking about the MySpace generation hitting the workforce and the impacts that will have --it's going to continue and be a significant change how companies will need to reach, communicate, and grow with their audience --it's a two-way transaction. We can see this shift occur as MySpace and SimplyHired (a job aggregating site) start to partner and offer job listings for MySpace users.

The web continues to impact the former way of printing static paper records that are now evolvig to living, dynamic two-way relationships.

Recognizing Bloggers in Unexpected Places

2006-06-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight my wife took me to see a comedy skit called Asian Bird Flu over the Cuckoo's nest in San Francisco produced by the Asian American Theatre Company. It was an asian american themed show that bounced off stereotypes, made fun of asians and other cultures, and was a pretty good time. I've even posted a few pics that I took from flickr --she's posting quite a few great shots here.

During the usual pre-show callouts, I was surprised to hear the following: "We'd like to recognize Min Jung Kim, a Blogger"

My wife and my sisters looked at me, in surprise, we were all shocked to hear that a blogger was getting recognized in a non-tech event such as this. Min Jung works at abazab, I think we first met at Hotel Utah blogger dinner (I think she was surprised by my roving podcasting style I'm known for) I saw her at Vloggercon a few weekends ago --and she'll be at Webvisions where I'll be a panelist on Social Media and Community Marketing.

Way to go MJK! The geekgirls are everywhere --and bloggers are becoming more and more known and accepted.

Supernova Video Interview: Web will be the Platform for Video Delivery

2006-06-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Click to view Video Interview of me and Josh

Josh Kinberg from Fireant & Jen Myronuk from Storyfield interview me at the Supernova Conference. I just got out of the Video Session, where I discuss that 'traditional' media companies in the television and movie industry will need to release control of their media in order to reach the masses.

The web is going to be the platform of choice for consuming Video --the web and the TV will marry and give birth to a new child.

Media companies that want to survive will have to let go:

1) Let go by releasing rights so their media programs will be spread virally though social networks (blogs, forums, social sites, etc)

2) Let go and harness Peer to Peer networks. It will be difficult for a single company to transmit these rich and heavy media files --use a strategy to depend on the network of users transmitting the content.

3) Let go of content control: Users will mash, mix, rehash and alter media into new forms --the companies that let go and encourage this will have the greatest exposure.

Supernova and Bloggercon: Different Events for Different Purposes

2006-06-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

Bloggercon and Supernova are very different experiences the crowd, energy, topics, and interaction --were nearly opposite --and that's ok. These are different conferences for different purposes.

I did both in one day --here's my observations

Thoughts on Supernova
I attended Supernova on Thursday and much of Friday Morning, as there was a steap price of admission, it gave the ability to hire some of the best speakers in the industry, and be at a great location (the Palace hotel in SF) aside from the wifi issues throughout the conference. The crowd reminded me of business folks, a few educators, and an occasional ninja. (Ask a Ninja Site)The conference was very 'top down' where a presenter or panel would speak from the stage. The audience had the opportunity to ask a few questions. Great presenters, great information, and great venue. View my Flickr set on Supernova or check out Valleywag's summary to learn more. Pretend you went to Supernova

Thoughts on Bloggercon
Bloggercon smelled like Geek (kinda like Vloggercon did) both literarly as well as figuratively. The focus of bloggercon was to put the people in charge in an active way --everyone had a chance to grab the mic and voice their opinion --very grassroots. I like Nick's observation that "involving the "audience" in the conversation results in far more interesting and unpredictable event". Vendors were not discouraged from pitching products, in fact Dave Winer yelled at folks that kept on pursuing conversations with vendors in the room about their industry. The venue was smaller, there was no cost, so it gave the chance for 'regular' folks to jump in and participate. View my flickr set on bloggercon or Check out Valleywag's summary to learn more: Pretend you went to Bloggercon

Two wildly different tech conferences in one day --what a contrast, one of the best days in my conference experiences.

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

Correction on My Statement --please forgive

2006-06-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

I boo boo'd --and must apologize publicly.

Yesterday at Bloggercon, I discussed in Chris Pirillo's session about User's Taking charge by being part of the development process. I discussed how I collected feedback about Flickr, and sent it to the product teams. In public I voiced that I'd not heard anything back, that was actually incorrect, the person I sent it to responded to me.

" Thanks Jeremiah - I had a look and will share it with the team :) Cheers, "

The individual on the flickr team who I sent it to to did respond to me --however it was unclear if our recomcendations will be implemented. Do I sound demanding? Sort of, I'm passionate about product that I love and promote. (Kind of why I continue to advocate Flickr and have encouraged many of my friends and family to use Flickr)

Just to set the record straight: I did receive a response, and I did not state the event correctly. What I should have said was the following:

"I collected user feedback and presented recommendations to the product team, although they've acknowledged receipt of my recommendations, it's not clear if they will be considered"

I just want my/our reccomendations to be implemented for a service that I pay for --I guess I'm pretty vocal about products I'm passionate about. Upon further communications, the Flickr team is way understaffed to accommodate all feature requests, and they've already assembed much feedback in their forums. I'll continue to be a Flickr user and will continue to advocate products I'm passionate about (providing something better doesn't come around) I just want my voice and recommendations to be heard and action taken.

I'm making a public apology, and adding the finite detail needed --Hopefully any harm is quickly undone and we can move forward by building a bettter product both with developers and customers together. Sorry Flickr Team --Jeremiah

Watch Bloggercon Live

2006-06-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting right next to Kevin Marks; he's broadcasting a live video --if you watch carefully you'll see me (and sometimes I hold the camera)

Live Streaming Video

I'm getting a real kick out of this --people are really cutting lose --jokes, real conversations, a ~~few~~ lot of swear words.

Chris Pirillo Causes Sleepless Nights for Developers --Dang User Advocate

2006-06-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on the ground floor at Cnet in San Francisco --live at Bloggercon IV.

Chris Pirillo Causes Sleepless Nights for Developers , as he's a loud consumer that excercises his writes as a consumer, customer and blogger. When something is wrong --he'll voice it. Dave is inviting people to listen in --even if you're not here!

Chris is leading the discussion at Bloggercon about Users in Charge, he's scripted a few notes in advance --the discussion is really around 'customers taking charge'. He's super vocal about problems that he finds --believeing the customers are in charge.

"You have every right to contribute to a product or service, just as a developer or engineer is --are you taking advantage of that?" -Chris Pirillo

He's certainly on the cluetrain soapbox --users and customers are in charge. His first question was "What are you passionate about?" One response was, I don't like it when companies take my data and suck it into their black hole. Openness and trust is important.

I had to jump in voice my thoughts (Doc Searls took notes of my thoughts and others)--I recently gave a review of Flickr with some other users --(some of them power users and advocates) and I've yet to hear from the Flickr team to take these need into consideration. I also expressed (on the side of flickr and other companies) that maybe bloggers are outliers --the vocal few with passionate needs --ya know the stuff Jakob was talking about *ahem* yeah call me a flip flopper ;)

Making up for being a bad student --Heading to Bloggercon

2006-06-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

I wasn't the best student in High School or College --too much of a free thinker I guess.

I'm trying to make up for it now by taking notes of interesting conferences for the whole world to read.

Nick at Valleywag offers that you can Pretend you went to Bloggercon.

"Blogger Jeremiah Owyang took studious notes from yesterday's talks, replacing six hours of talk with ten minutes of nitty-gritty" -Valleywag

I've moved to Bloggercon down the street, and Martin Mckeay has forced me to sit in the front row --Doc Searls and Dave Winer are 3 feet from me --I'm getting smarter and geekier every second! Pictures are already being uploaded. Dan Farber, Scott Beale and I defected from Supernova --it's a different vibe here for sure.

--Look ma! Eye can rite gud now!

Upcoming.org --Event finder, Organizer, and Social Site

2006-06-23T04:03:00.000-07:00

Left: Tantek (bearing his superhero logo --you can't see the cape to well) of Technorati and Andy Baio, upcoming.org. More pics here.

Sometimes we only give credit to the huge social sites that have millions of users like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, and Flickr --let's take a look at a small but robust web application called Upcoming.

I've been exchanging messages online with Andy Baio the founder and creator of Upcoming.org, and event management and social media tool. I've been starting to rely on Upcoming as it's the tool to find out where others are heading to which events --it's an event aggregator of sorts. We met yesterday, funny thing is, I didn't recognize him at first, (as I don't think he looks like his profile picture). Upcoming is useful for headcount, centralizing attendee lists, and can have a large listing of venues. It's easy to use, piggybacks off my Yahoo ID, (Since it was acquried by Yahoo) and has a bevy of search features, profiles, and comments.

Evite is somewhat ok for closed events --it lacks the ability to easily invite others for open and public events (or at least I don't percieve it that way). Upcoming 2.0 is quite the open social model --much in the lines of the web 2.0 movement. Meetup.com is focused on regular events that meet, perhaps on a monthly schedule --much different than Upcoming's quick fast and one off events. I've used it with ease to coordinate blogger dinners --such as this one in SF and Boston. I do think that upcoming.org is Evite 2.0

Conference in a Conference in a Conference...

2006-06-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

Supernova pulled off the Conference inside a Secondlife conference for our worldwide guests that could not attend in person. A video was played inside of Secondlife, that demonstrated the mixture and mash of virtual worlds with real worlds.

Listen to my podcast with Robert Scoble and Chris Salazar reviewing Second life --I predict that Secondlife will replace Webex.

Edit: I reccomend that web developers and designers consider learning how to develop in Secondlife --you can pull in RSS, Video, create objects, vehicles etc. It's really an interactive multimedia platform.

See the pics here:

Video in Second Life,
Here, here, and here.

My Flickr Pics are up for Supernova Day 1

Boston Blogger Dinner: July 12th: Mongolian BBQ

2006-06-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

Shel's had the great idea to host another blogger dinner, this time in Boston on Wed July 12th. Ted Murphy chose the place; Fire and Ice an Improv Grill (Mongolian BBQ), fun and yum --Red Sox Fan David Berkowitz will be there as well (last time he and Shel were together they got violent). I've invited Miss Ginevra to attend --maybe she'll bring some of her pals from Six Apart --heck, maybe they'll pay for dinner? (In all reality, I probally owe her dinner for her excellent customer support she's provided my company )

>>Sign up at Upcoming<<

Also, Shel writes in Scoble, Arrington and Blog Traffic:

"Jeremiah is a new guy on the block with a consistently positive view and a passion for building communities."

My response: "I hate people --all of them. die die die."

Yahoo/Flickr to offer contextual auto tags to photos

2006-06-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

Frank is sitting right in front of me --thanks for the picture.

I'm sitting in Supernova, and Usama Fayyad from Yahoo and his colleague have just announced that Yahoo (ie Flickr) will provide auto tags to photos based upon contextual metadata from photos. They did a demo --but I don't think it worked...

They suggested that the photos will get autotags by looking at a mobile phone's location, context, your calendar (reading into your personal data) and eventually have some artificial intelligence.

I stepped up to the mic and asked if they are planning on doing any OCR or going to do any facial or image recognition --they didn't give me too much feedback.

Speaking of Flickr, Photobucket leads in photo sharing apps. Some are surprised that flickr is low on the list --I'm not it's an advanced tool for advanced users. That's why I say it's athe Mercedes over the econo-apps out there. Get over it guys, serious!

Edit: Dan Farber Reports from ZDnet

Notes from Supernova, SF- June 22, 2006

2006-06-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

Pic of John Schwartz, CEO of Sun from Frank

I'm here to learn, and I'll pass on the knowledge to you:

I'm at Supernova, sitting in the fourth row, on the aisle --I'll have some great shots of the panelists and speakers. Some others are already posting pictures here. It's been a while since I've been to a large structured conference (Syndication in Dec?) most of the events I attend are free, or I speak at smaller conferences --this one is full blown. (edit: The wifi here is spotty reports Valleywag)

The crowd here at Supernova is much different than the blogger vlogger geek events I sometimes attend, probably because of the price of this conference --it's really intended for those with deep pockets, or in my case a corporate enrichment pool that I can draw from.

As always, I'll be taking detailed notes and findings from the conference to share with you all, and to serve as a reference point in my professional career and for my employer.

Observations:

It's Romantic in here...because it's dark in here, I think Kevin Warbach is trying to get Romantic with the crowd, or the Palace is running low on power. ;)
Kevin says it's a 'conversation of conversations' huh?

The internet is in a supernova --it's exploding. Kevin warned the room to be respectuful of bandwidth. Some of the videos will be streamed into Second Life. There is a Supernova lounge where you can hang out virtually and watch the videos. Kevin showed a video from Ask as Ninja made a guess video, for "SuperNinja Conference (movie)" this was clearly in response to the Bloggercon conference --great comeback. A cool guy next to me Adam Broitman is playing Second life at the conference--he's attending a virtual conference at a conference.

Johnathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun.

"100% of companies are looking to IT, as they did a hundred years ago to electricity"
"Search is a commodity"
"Particicipatory Media"
More Nokia camera phones than actual cameras made by traditional camera manufactures --prolific as everyone can participate.
Sun puts consumer reviews of prodcuts, he'd rather they critisize the product in front of them, rather than behind them.
Kevin asks "should CEOs blog?"

John, refers to ceos 5 years ago not getting email, the job of every leader is to communitcate the vision of the company, to all audiences. Blogs are very efficient mechanisims to communicate. CEOs make fewer and fewer decisions every year, the developers are making decisions, and they don't use NYTimes or WSJ. They're using digg.

Kevin asks "Scoble suggests it's good that Bill Gates doesn't blog"

John suggests that it's ok for CEOs to blog, and he's not the most popular blogger, there are 1000s of blogs, specific java audiences may prefer developer blogs.

How many OS are you carrying with you? Your watch, camera, phone, PC.

Craig Newmark, Founder of Craig's List and Customer Service Rep

Craigslist is one of the 10 most popular websites on the internet
Focus on serving the community
Doesn't like the term UGC
Says his site is a 'flea market' not just to buy, but also to talk to others
Turn the control as much as possible over to the people that use it.
People are trustworthy percentage wise, help out the good guys, and they'll take control
He prefers the title Customer Services Rep
Democracy is the worst kind of government but better than the rest
Craigslist is in the center of changing the way newspapers are doing business.

Panel: Power to the people
Mena Trott, Six Apart | Craig Newmark, Craigslist | Saul Klein, Skype | Tina Sharkey, AOL | Gil Penchina, Wikia.

What do you do to reach out to the community

Craig: we dont do much, rely on word of mouth, build communities
Saul: Bring voice to the web. Groups are organizing skypecasts (group voip) around events that happen, such as on tv, or political.

What's the importance of users?

Tina: center of everything, AOL just provides the context, the users create the conversation.
Mena: Most of the product are build by users, many of the current employees were heavy users previously.
Craig: Prefers the term 'People' over 'Users'

Scale of Communmities:

Mena: It's ok to have small converations as well as larger groups
Tina: Many people don't like to be in larger communities, they want the small focused experiences.
Tina: Each person has their own community
Gil: Prefers the larger scale of community, wants the larger common
Craig: Provide a platform and allow emergent behavior to occur.
Mena: many folks don't realize they're reading blogs

Will you introduce Voice (voip) into your apps?

Craig: nice to have, maybe later, as limited resources
Tina: AOL will launch a 'phone' later this fall
Mena: Not a big podcasting fan, she likes to Skim content via text. People are adding little audio or video snippets.
Saul: Synchronus vs Asynchronus
Craig: Markets are Conversations (from cluetrain), "get out of the way, people are pretty good at things"

Reffering to Nick Carr's post on Democracy, it's really more structured than free

Saul: We're more like a participotory democracy, issues are escalated up the hieaarchy. Anyone can go in an edit and delete pages --if you get enough good people, you can police the bad people, small communities that get involved in the media.
Mena: Has noticed difference cycles and patterns. Some of her friends are getting tired of blogging, as they're getting tired of the noise.
Tina, deploys reputation management, that's important (think ebay profile and raplife)

Question from Mark Stahl: "Most people are not good?"
he brings up examples of spaming phishing, spamming, prostitution on craiglist, sex chat on AOL. Refers to the story of a stolen sidekick.

Saul: Backs up that his experience at ebay that most people are good
Tina: Tries to build a platform for the community. Tries to put the tools of the users --and let them self regulate. Serve the good people.
Saul: Analogy of gardens that users are building, sometimes users weed, sometimes the gardener does it.

What about massive noise from all the CGM?

Answer: people will find trusted networks and word will be passed on through there.
Frank's done a great job covering the panel

Panel: Innovation in Established Corporations
Linda Sanford, IBM | Sean Park, DrKW | Kim Polese, Spike Garden

Abstract: "The same forces driving consumer Internet innovation have consequences for large, established organizations, whether corporate or governmental. How can these organizations take advantage of collaborative tools, mobility, open source, ubiquitous connectivity, real-time interactivity, rich media, and other developments, rather than being left behind?"

Kim: The lines between user customer and employee begin to blur. A new type of company is emerging to aggregate data, (like technorati)
Sean: Change is difficult for cross generational management
Sean: Could use some better names than 'wiki'. Great time shifted collaboration tool.
Linda: IBM has an island on second life already. There's been an explosion of people building online communities
For effective innovation, encourage failures
Good coverage by Mark at 3point3 on Linda's presentation on virtual communities

Yahoo
Usama Fayyad (Yahoo!)

12 terabytes of data are collected each day and growing
Yahoo has a better daily reach larger than the super bowl
Search, Community, Personalization, Value of Keyword power!
If you expose a brand ad a week before on Yahoo users are 139% more likley to click on algoritmic and sponsored links
249% more likely to clcik on sponsored search clicks
Driving 91% more activity on a site
They demonstrate contextual pictures, by taking a photo from the mobile phone. It will be uploaded to flickr, and contextual information can be approved. It will suggest some tags based upon the context
Flickr will suggest some tags.

Panel: More than just a game
[Moderator: Dan Hunter (The Wharton School), Amy Jo Kim (Shufflebrain), Doug Failor (Joint Futures Lab, DOD), Charles Moore (Reuters), Michael Zyda (USC Gamepipe Lab), Philip Rosedale (Linden Lab)]

hardware devices are being created that can read emotion, and video games will respond.
This can be applied to the workplace as well.
Second life, showing it as non-entertain ment features
Teachers can stream video in second life. This high school teacher built a planterium to teach his students to learn about astronomy --cool.
Interscope created a listneing loft for "Regina Specter" you can listen to her album there, as well as see her pictures
The department of defense, is playing video games in order to learn how to apply video games to combat arts.

Bonus Fun

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

Supernova Pictures and Blogging on Flickr

2006-06-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

Left: Robert Scoble, pic by Laughing Squid

I won't be at Supernova until tommorow (Thur and Fri) however I see some of Laughing Squid's photos already going up. Check out his flickr slideshow.

There will even be second life events that you can attend that are related to Supernova. Check out Kevin's blog the founder of Supernova. The official event blog is here.

You'll be impressed (or not) with the lineup of speakers --learn about the Bloggercon, which purposely conflicts with Supernova and is free.

There are other pics to the sold out conference being put up by others. I'll be blogging and taking pics live tommorow. I'm seeing some posts from Frank, and his pics.

Jakob Nielson on RSS and Blogging --Does he get it?

2006-06-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Andy (Who's website is disabled) for this article that interviews usability guru Jakob Nielsen: "For Web-Design Expert, Ease of Use And Clarity Are Essential for Firms "

Andy told me to tell you all that he agrees with everything Jakob said and wrote --well, I've got some different thoughts.

Help us to settle the debate.

Summary:

Jakob thinks RSS is a bad term --I tend to agree, it's still emerging so give it time. 'Syndication' or 'Newsfeeds' would be better terms (Although not all feeds will be 'news')
Jakob believes in customer newsletters rather than RSS. The answer lies by likely using both --but first understanding your audience needs and preferences. It's pretty cheap to offer RSS, and it can be integrated within the Newsletter. RSS (when done right) can offer far more real time contextual information that a Newsletter may not.
He suggests that blogs cannot tend not to meet the needs of Newsletters --I disagree. The strength of a blog is that it can have an active dialogue that can help your news get out in a converational way --in fact it could even enable the conversation to travel farther in this by word of mouth
Jakob says bloggers (and those who read blogs) are fanatics. I agree --but everyone is fanatic about something --and there in lies the communites that will join and alighn around those passions. Oh, and there are about 40 million fanatics and growing.

I certainly give him credit for his offering to the web industry --but it seems like he's not really getting the social media movement. So what do you think?

Edit: Andy Beal offers some suggestions.

Increase in adults online --read the report

2006-06-21T04:41:00.000-07:00

I'm keeping track of trends of my industry (web) and am always looking for usage numbers.

Saw this report showing the increase in adult users on the web from The Center of Media Research.

Adults Online Grows From 9% in '95 To 77%

Here's a few of the highlights:

Harris Interactive calculates that 77 percent of U.S. adults are now online
More young than older people, and more affluent than low-income people, are online
Eight percent of those online are now age 65 or over (compared to 16% of all adults who are 65 or over)
39 percent of those online (compared to 47% of all adults) did not go to college
14 percent have incomes of less than $25,000 (compared to 19% of all adults)

Also, I reccomend reading the report from Cnet that Web is the Primary Medium at Work, and the Second Medium at home.

Bless Me! Clint Ivy calls me his 'Sneezer'

2006-06-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

Left: Clint's cumulative record of all referrals "Sneezers"

Clint Ivy, a Web Analytics professional that works for a very famous Mouse, has been tracking and analyzing his web traffic. Not too different than what Avinash has been doing as well. A Sneezer is one that is 'infectious' and passes on messages in this complex word of mouth network we call the blogosphere.

At first, Clint thought I was a major contributor to his blog --as far as referrals go. He coined the term Sneezer at that point
You can see the cumulative record of all referrals into his post by time --interesting graph.
As it ends up however, I'm really only 1.7% of his overall incoming traffic.

Remote Control Jokes --Search Engines and Managers

2006-06-20T20:54:00.000-07:00

Funny parody post regarding If websites were remote controls.

This sorta reminds me of this cartoon from Ok Cancel (a great site for UX/UI pros)

They've got some clever cartoons such as this one on Yahoo vs Google vs Lycos vs Ask Jeeves vs MSN.

I think we've all seen this joke (or a variation of it) for a remote control for a woman's better half.

I was in LA this last weekend for Father's day --my dad told a joke that I've been telling everyone.

My Father: "Jeremiah, did you know your mother is my manager?"
Jeremiah: "Oh yeah? how's that"
My Father: "She's a Man-nagger" (edit: added extra 'n' thanks dad)
All: "*groan*"

Heh --I think he may only be allowed to get away with a joke like that on Father's day.

The Many Forms of Social Computing (See Diagram)

2006-06-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

Left: Click to see Social Computing Image

Mark sent me this very interesting social media diagram of all the tools available. Good Grape appears to be on the cluetrain/hughtrain (maybe they know Stormhoek wines?) and links to this diagram. It appears it was created by Forrestor.

I don't agree that Open Source belongs on this diagram (or if it does it should be on the bottom with a notation) as it's not true 'social software' in the fact that anyone can access and use it. Those who use and develop are a specific niche vs the common geek users (who can use much of the other tools)

Diagram is not complete...

It should also have Web 1.0 Forums and chat rooms. These started back with AOL in the mid 90s --it's still Social Computing.
VOIP, embedded Flash audio recorders, and multi use tools like Skypecast or Waxxi (add video to this soon --webcams and mobile phones)
Cell phones and Text Messaging --often are tied to browser or WAP.
Lastly, the diagram should have Video Games, and Massive Multiplayer Games (MMORPG) check out the podcast review I did with Chris and Scoble about Second Life.

In any case, Doug a colleague of mine printed it out and posted in on my cube wall for me --it's certainly going to be a reference point for weeks to come.

I'm looking forward to the panel I'll be on with Brian, Kit, and Dan that will relate to this: "Let Go, Jump In: Community Marketing Strategies for Empowered Customers"

BlogSitters --for those who can't blog

2006-06-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

I've often thought about trusting my blog to a trusted friend to manage my comments, and even post pre-written drafts by me when I'm on vacation. Why? because I have an ego (like most bloggers) and don't want to lose my beloved audience. I know I'm not really that important, so I probally will not blog when on vacation.

Some folks (perhaps proffesional bloggers) can rely on Blogsitters --a term I learned from Andy Couch today. Blogsitters are proffesional bloggers that will temporarily blog on your behalf while you're gone

"Do you face some no-internet-days, holidays or something else that keeps you from updating your precious blog? And you know that a blog without daily updates dies very fast?"

Ego Addict suggests that many blog packages will offer a way to blog on timer, but for some bloggers that's not relevent enough to many conversations. Blogs are often conversations -putting them on timer may not be effective enough. It may make blogsitter to create a service that no only lets you hire a blogger but also allows you to submit text, so individuals can hire you as a blogger. To be succesful, a temp blogger will have to know your subject material, but passionate about it, emmulate the voice.

This breaks all the rules when it comes to authenticity or transparency --which are part of the foundation blocks of business blogging. Interesting concept, but I think I'll pass.

Social Media Empowers and Spoils the Education System

2006-06-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Left: San Francisco State University

As social media creeps into the mainstream education process, students connect, communicate in real time, and share knowledge in a collaborative nature. Chris Salazar, a student at Santa Clara University (and known as the 'intern blogger") asks College students prefer wikipedia, but is it ok?
He poses this question, not just as a student or user of Wikipedia, but also in light of recent policy changes by Wikipedia to tighten down who can author and edit and contribute --Wikipedia is no longer a free for all collective.

"I am not sure about schools outside of the Bay Area, but wikipedia is highly used by colleges and universities (especially Santa Clara University). AND, these new rules and guidelines will limit the expert's subjective opinion, and instead become more objective, which will benefit them in the long run!"

I question if students should be using Wikipedia (which is really the consensus of the crowd and the last editor) for performing research --there's no way to confirm all the written knowledge is fact.

I've often discussed that the MySpace Generation is entering the workplace --they are sharing and collaborating and will take their networks with them. It's assumed they're sharing now so how else are papers in college and school written? BBC reports that students are copying from each other --and sometimes not aware this is unethical:

Students of the "Google generation" often do not understand what plagiarism is, says an expert on the issue.

Too funny, The "Google Generation" I'm glad my Generation (Gen X) is not known for a search engine, I kinda like the fact we've got no particular distinction at all.

Supernova and Bloggercon

2006-06-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

Two major Social Media and Blogging conferences are happening later in SF this week --being a local resident I'll take BART in. I'll be blogging and taking a lot of pictures

Supernova: Formal Top Down Conference --Expensive
Nick at Vallewag (Nick, are those sponsored ads a recent addition? ) gives some great execuses for not going to Supernova, I'll be at Supernova Thursday and Friday. On Friday, I'll probally attend bloggercon, and meetup with some friends. (if they can get off work --ahem) The lineup of speakers at Supernova is incredible.

Bloggercon "Unconference": Casual Bottom Up Conference --Free
This is a grassroots, participants take charge, the audience owns the stage event. The lineup of participants at Bloggercon is incredible --it's one big 'forum' where everyone gets to chime in. Learn more about Bloggercon. Bloggers like Mario and Les, (and any other bloggers) should try to go, but I can't guarantee they'll get in.

I'll be attending both --there will be some parties and events over the weekend that I may attend as well.

Podcast Interview With Shel Israel --Your Global Neighbor

2006-06-19T22:09:00.001-07:00

I consider Shel one of the visionaries of social media, a friend, a mentor, and someone who's helped me a tremendous amount. (and a pretty damn good BBQ artist) Shel graced Martin and I from the Podcast Roundtable with the fantastic opportunity to interview him.

Learn about his recent travels, his upcoming global tour, and his book in development "Global Neighborhoods". Shel and I really 'clicked' since we first met, waaaay back in Dec at the Syndication conference.

Shel, we'll have to podcast interview you again while you're half way around the world. Many thanks to Martin who's also participated in the podcast, and is our chief sound technician.

Check out Shel's interview with us from the Podcast Roundtable (MP3)

Thomas Hawk to Zooomr

2006-06-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Niall to Microsoft, Scoble to Podtech, Hawk to Zooomr

Can't say enough good stuff about Thomas, he's one of the most admired photographers in the blogosphere, you can check out his pictures on Flickr (which he'll probally migrate now to Zooomr) and may even take a following with him if the APIs can't get opened up. Check out some of his favorite photos

There was a pretty intense discussion here on Techcrunch about Flickr, Zooomr, and APIs, still a lot of noise, so I haven't sorted it all out. Ian asks 'Whose data is it anyways', I fired off yesterday it was about data management --it could be more about corporate openness now that I think about it more.

Thomas gave me some excellent suggestions about Flickr, so I suspect he'll be a great 'voice of the people' for Zooomer.

Wetpaint Wiki

2006-06-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

Chris and Jason from Wetpaint noticed my frequent discussions and reviews on PBwiki such as my obsservations on the strange search results I've been seeing from Google vs Yahoo for PB.

Jason's emailed me to let me know of a competing product that will be moving out of beta today --check out their homepage redesign at WetPaint

"We're out of beta now so if you go to our homepage you can start your own free wetpaint site. There's a flash demo you can watch and you can see a bunch of sites that have already been created during out beta at www.wetpaint.com/more."

I find the homepage of Wetpaint to be interesting, there's a large index of community based wikis. Some of the wikis have keyword based "Tag Clouds". There's a significantly richer User Experience on WetPaint vs PBwiki as users can easily add images, graphic headers. This is starting to remind me of Yahoo's GeoCities.

"Combining the best of wikis, blogs, and forums, Wetpaint is the canvas where everyone gets a brush. From personal expression to collaboration, Wetpaint empowers you to connect with others on whatever you're passionate about" From Flash Demo

The search features appear to be pretty rich --I'll check it out more as I get time. Here's the flash demo Jason Referenced.

There are so many Web 2.0 companies, it will be interesting to see who lasts at the end --ultimatly, there's only a room for 3-4 in each niche --if that. See this massive list of Web 2.0 companies. There's several other wiki services, and it doesn't include Wetpaint, or PBwiki.

Data Management Is the Key to the Web App Revolution

2006-06-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

Scott Karp published an article with a simliar title Data Storage Is the Key to the Web App Revolution --Good stance, however I believe Data Management is the core issue.?

Let's take for example the Flickr, Zooomr, Yahoo Photos and Google Picassa issue. All of these gallery providers have interesting and unique feature sets. Each of them have different repositories of information.

For the Rich Media Web Industry, Data Storage is not the issue, Data storage is cheap and accessible. Data Mangement is what's needed, perhaps an industry standard to pull data from one source (sometimes called a "Storage Cloud") and share among all web apps. Riya just announced they will be crawling some of these photo sites --what could come out of that? There's a lot of online storage vendors, I'm keeping track here.

We, the web industry, need the ability to track, organize, and collectively share data. Those that don't share may become useless islands.

Speaking of Flickr, I'm collecting reccomendations for Flickr, quite a few comments have already come in --please add your own.

Reading Sampler: June 17 2006

2006-06-17T04:04:00.000-07:00

Interesting Stuff I'm reading.

Dave "500 Hats" McClure Presentation on Web 2.0 (he links to his powerpoint presentation). I've put together a list of Design, Font, Color, and Logo 2.0
Zooomr was announced on techcrunch, it mashes with Maps, has tags, trackbacks, and users can even leave audio such as a description about this blender. Zoomr has some bugs and errors --don't say I didn't warn you.
Social Networking sites continue to attract record numbers.
Interesting dicussions in the Web Analytics crowd, Start with Avinash's ranking of top bloggers, Eric's Response, and back to Avinash. I think it's kind of funny how Avinash is so into his stats --oh yeah, that's what he does for a living.
Teresa has some interesting thoughts on Social Networking, and how it impacts our careers --she responded to one of my thoughts on MySpace and SimplyHired.
Club Penguin team has responded to my review, although one commenter doesn't really like the social site.
Netscape makes a comeback as meme aggregator --reports Richard
Chris has some observations on the MySpace advertisting, such as this Superman Tie-in. Hey where's there's eyeballs there are advertising opportunities.
I'm taking more ownership of Google Keywords, check out "Jeremiah" or "Web Strategy" (I'm 1-3rd depending on time of day)
Podcasts I listen to: Web 2.0 Show, For Immediate Release (The evolving PR industry), and Detroit Sessions by DJ Kage (house/trance).
The blogging dinner was a success, I'm glad to hear feedback from people that went for the first time such as Chris, Mario, and Les --all of which are my friends and I've had some impact on encouraging them to blog. The network expands, grows, and intersects.
Citizen Agency is starting, will it be like a PR firm, or more like Adaptive Path, or a consortium of talent? (or all?)
And just for fun Here's some pics at Mongolian BBQ, Shabu Shabu, Mark's Whiteboard art board entertains me through the week --I try to capture most of it before it morphs or get erased. His portrait of me.

Recommendations for Flickr --You add your own!

2006-06-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

The Live Flickr Focus Group by Jeremiah
(updated 6-16-06)

Andy (who's site is down) and I have some feature requests for flickr --leave comments below of your suggestions. I'm a big fan of Flickr, and even see the potential opportunities as a social media tool for companies.

Flickr has recently done an upgrade --its working pretty well, however there's a few other requests we'd like to see from this pay for service. I add people's names next to the feature request, and if it's requested more than once, I'll add the names next to the request. I'm sure some people didn't make a suggestion as it was already mentioned, so some requests could have more weight than they really show. Feedback from: Andy, Heather, Mark, Julio, Thomas Hawk, and ?

Here's what we came up with --the following will be modified as comments come in.

1) Permissions, or ability to create groups (Andy, Heather, Julio, Jeremiah)

The ability to have more permission groups, (such as coworker) or create new groups. (Andy, Jeremiah)
Be able to specify the size of the image that can be consumed by each permission group can download. (Andy)
Link control "How about being able to prevent people from linking to your photos on Flickr?" (Heather)
"Better Permissions" (Julio)
Ability to quickly see all of my own photos marked public, or private.

2) Link Tracking to your photo

Trackbacks or backlinks to determine if someone is linking to your photo. (Currently I use talkdigger.com to find out who's linking to my photos --always interesting)

3) More Analytics

While I'm not seeking enterprise analytics reports, it would be great to get a daily report of visitors, or some type of way to track movement to and from my photo sets --Feedburner gives a simple dashboard that may make for an interesting model.

4) Prominent Description (and links) at Header

I'm a blogger, and would like a link from my header or avatar directly to my blog or site of choice. I'd also like to give my profile a subtitle such as 'Web Strategist' that links to my blog.

5) Export Photos with Tags intact (Thomas Hawk's comment)

"I'd add the ability to export your photos with your tags intact"

6) Spell Checker (Thomas Hawk's comment)

"Built in tag spellchecker."

7) Monetize Images (Thomas Hawk's comment)

"A method of monetizing your images through both stock photography and fine art prints.
Great point Thomas, maybe Flickr can become the next 'Getty Images' by the people. I've already heard of book publishers creating books from photos just from Flickr. (With permission from the photographers of course)

8) Better Search Features (Thomas Hawk's comment)

"Better indexing for search engines."
"Ability to track specific users conversations in groups."
"I'd like to be able to see all of the public posts made by any comment that I choose."
"Much better search functionality. Most interesting should be the default not most recent or most relevant."
"You should also be able to slice and dice search through smart filters in many more ways. Filter all images with over 100 favs for instance. You should be able to do tag search for any user not just your contacts."

9) Customize the User Interface and Look over Flickr (Heather)

"Different background colors such as black, gray, etc."

10) Image Sizing and Display (Heather, Julio)

Enhance Size of Resized Images (Heather)
Resized images are a tad small. (Heather)
more thumbnails per page. (Heather)
Allow people to customize more options on their photo pages (Julio)

"number of photos"
"order; recent, most comments, most views"
"color"
"number of columns, 1, 2, 3"

11) On Flickr homepage show "comments and activity" every time (Jeremiah)

Currently, only the comments, or all comments, or activity will show --it's not consistent.

12) Homepage Improvements (Julio)

"They need to make the member home more a portal into the flickr community."
"display the latest photos from groups, friends, contacts, tags, favorited, interestingness, popular"
"display the latest topics from your groups discussions"
"display the hot topics from your groups discussions"

13) Do Nothing --keep it simple (Mark)

Mark's got an interesting and very relevent comment, see here

13) Usability, Consistency (Dennis)

"I do think that the basic image management functionality (sorting, naming, organizing) is good but the organization of functions and subfunctions could be improved."
"It takes a while to figure out answers to questions like "why can i creat a slideshow here but not there?" There are several instances of that, and the grouping and naming of controls seems arbitrary at times."
"The use of tabs as metaphors for the grouping of functions also seems somewhat inconsisent, and it took me a while to figure out what ""home" meant."
"The visual appearance of tabs and buttons is also inconsistent, and sometimes so small that I had difficulty figuring out where a "next" command could be found for a group of pictures."

More feedback will be added as it comes in. I don't work for Yahoo or any group to do this, as a Web Strategist, I'm very much interested in understanding the needs of users.

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

Suspicious about Google Rankings of PBWiki

2006-06-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

I’m a PBwiki fan, I’ve setup a wiki for my employer's industry the Data Storage Wiki, and I often frequent other wikis, such as the Pinko Marketing wiki.

I recently noticed that the Google Results for searching for these items (as this is how I frequently find information, and check for relevance and rankings) that Google is serving the PBwiki site results much lower this week.

A few things could be leading to this:

The PBWiki team has altered their code (likely be mistake) so it’s not being crawled
I suspect this is not the case, as by using Yahoo results, I see PBwiki results much higher
Google changed it's search, crawl, or result methods --(and it's not working well)
Could Google purposely showing PBwiki results lower? If so, why? I could easily start a rumor here, but I’m above that.

I’ve informed the good people at the PBwiki team and hopefully will hear back from them –perhaps they’ve got some clues. Try the following links today and see if you see what I am...

Google Results:

Google Search on "Pinko Marketing Wiki" (doesn't even show up on page one)
Google Search on "Data Storage Bloggers" (doesnt't show on page one, although I know for SURE last week it did)

Yahoo Results

Yahoo Search on "Pinko Marketing Wiki" (Boom! the top result)
Yahoo Search on "Data Storage Bloggers" (Boom Boom, another top result)

...something's not right here

Yahoo 360 to Launch New Features

2006-06-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Yahoo 360 team has recently announced that their website will be slowing down, if not be not available as they are rolling out new features today.

"As one of the engineers on Yahoo! 360º, I can tell you the whole team has worked really hard on this release. We’re really excited about it, and hopefully, you will be too. Thanks for coming along for the ride!" From Yahoo 360 Team blog

I'm curious to see what they are rolling out --maybe it will be in response to Vox (previously called Comet) from SixApart? Hopefully they'll have more integration with the other Yahoo Properties, as well as 'blog features' that Yahoo 360 was not providing.

By the way, I think for a product or team blog, they can be doing a lot more with their blog to engage the users, and discuss features --they should really be making it the center of their universe, much like the IE7 team blog.

Picassa low to mid range photo sharing --it's not the Flickr killer

2006-06-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

Picassa Online launched
Google launched Picassa, a middle range photo sharing application. I didn't see any tagging, social sharing, advanced commenting or other features that let users collaborate and share (like flickr) so that was a clue it was for the mid range audience. Check out this album to try for yourself.

I was right --Picassa is not a Flickr killer
Back on June 7th, many other intelligent commentors wondered if it was going to take on flickr: Google's answer to Flickr? Next up — Google takes a run at Flickr Watch Out Flickr, Google Is Coming Google to compete with Flickr? see more at tech meme archives I wasn't as sure it was aimed at flickr, I thought they were going midrange -- and for once --I was right!

If Google enhances it with more pictures, then we'll see a direct lineup of flickr competition. (what if Picassa online ties with blogger?) Read what Yahoo 360 is doing.

Related Updated at Riya
Interesting to see that Riya's made some changes to their homepage based upon my feedback, as well as the CEO Munjal is asking for the public to submit homepage redesigns --the award could be 1000 shares of Riya stock.

Podcast Roundtable, HP Workers on Site, Marketers Extinct, and Too many Internet Logins!

2006-06-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Latest Podcast Roundtable Podcast
by Martin McKeay, Dan Sweet, Robyn Tippins, Dennis McDonald and myself, Jeremiah Owyang

Listen to the Podcast, June 2006

1) HP Demands Workers on site, Smart or Stupid?
we’ve tackled issues on the new policy that HP has demanded on reduced Telecommuting. Is this an effective way for employees to work? or does the office 2.0 empower and enable workers to connect online and by using collaborative technologies?

2) Are Corporate Marketer's going extinct?
With the ability for customers and prospects to connect and build networks and communities, are Corporate Marketing Departments, even relevent? If possible, what can corporate marketing departents do to stay relevent? We explore this issue from multiple sides and issues –dial in to hear.

3) Exactly how many logins and IDs do we need to use the web –is there a solution?
Too many gateways mean we all end up with far too much information to keep up with. When a beta tester and geek like Ismael Ghalimi ends up getting frustrated, then you know it’s time for Identity 2.0. Rather than having to keep up with 30+ passwords/logins and having to worry about APIs and the technical specifics of multiple platforms, Identity 2.0 would streamline all of this into one gateway that shared your data with the applications you allowed. Martin seems to think we are up to 10 years off from this. The discussion goes from why Passport didn’t work (um… it was from Microsoft) to the possibilities of a web without walls. Dennis asked if there were enterprise implications here. All in all it was a fascinating discussion of a fairly complex subject. We’ll devote a future full podcst to the topic.

You can find other PRT podcasts and subscribe at PodcastRoundtable

Hotel Utah Blogger Dinner, June 13th, 2006

2006-06-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

Left: Historic Hotel Utah, SF

Just got back from the Blogger Dinner at Hotel Utah that Shel Israel initated in honor of Jackie and Adriana. While approaching, Martin called me expressed there may be a conflict in schedule some were concerned that the live band (we didn't know this was booked) would drown us out --it was clearly the other way around.

We put some names up on upcoming, and I would guess 40-50 people showed up tonight (hard to tell as there were other groups in the bar). I posted some pics on flickr, tagged SFBlogDinnerJune06, you can also view what other people had posted with the same tags. Martin and I were roving with this iRiver pipe and we'll publish some interviews.

I had a chance to interview Nick from Valleywag, Shel Israel, minjungkim, Kevin the CEO from Tailrank, Mario Sundar, Chris Salazar, Les Chui, Martin Mckeay, James Gross , Tracy the CEO of Waxxi and a ton of others. Seen we're Michael Arrington of Techcrunch, Jeremy Pepper and a bunch of other bloggers--too many to list. (Even my wife Shirley came and enjoyed herself --serious)

We lost a little bit of data (my fault) so some of these interviews may not come out at all. Not a problem since I run into quite a few of these individuals frequently. Brian Oberkirch will hopefully post some pictures of him squashing Jackie's head --no really, they really had it in for each other.

~~Martin and I from the Podcast Roundtable will post the podcast interviews in the next few days --stay tuned~~ (Edit: Unfortunatly, we had some data loss on the MP3 recorder and were not able to recover the interviews --we'll do it at the next party for sure, my apologies.

View all public photos tagged SFBlogDinnerJune06 in Flickr

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

The Redcouch, Knife Fights, and Hotel Utah

2006-06-13T06:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Shel and Paula for the wonderful evening! I got to sit on the famous 'Redcouch 2' in his living room, if you check out the back cover of Naked Conversations, and you'll see the authors sitting on it. As the inscription reads, it contains magic blogofabric, when I got home I found my Technorati ranking dropped 3300 points --it works, it really really does!

Knife Fight at Shel's house!
Jackie's already thanked Shel for his gracious hospitality for a wonderful dinner at his home. I also met Adriana, Alex, Brian, and a few masters of the backyard. I enjoyed the wine, sun, garden, and blog chatter (it's amazing how bloggers just can't stop talking shop). Brian's taken a few pictures, as has Jackie, however things got a bit rough at dinner read her account if Brian attacking her with a knife! --it's not over, the fight spills out into the night.

Round Two: Hotel Utah Tonight
They will resume this fight tonight at the Hotel Utah tonight if you'd like to join us. Some of us can't get there too early, so if anyone can make it at 630pm to reserve the spot that would be great.

See who's coming to the dinner tonight at Hotel Utah--sign up for yourself.

BlogBurst --What have you done for me lately?

2006-06-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

I signed up for blogburst a few weeks ago, I went through the entire process (wasn't that simple) to fill out the forms, categorize my feeds, describe my blog and myself in the hopes that my feed would be re-synidcated into other sources, maybe even 'mainstream' sources.

I've asked several of my blog peers that also signed up for it, and they've not received anything either. I even sent an email to them last week asking them what's up --no response as of yet.

Has blogburst done anything for you? Or should I cancel the membership and call James Gross at Federated Media?

SimpleHired and MySpace Wed for online Job Resources

2006-06-12T07:51:00.001-07:00

Smart move by both SimplyHired (a vertical search engine and job aggregator) to marry with leading Social Network Site MySpace (who many of their users will be graduating this month or in coming years). Check out my analysis on the MySpace growth.

MySpace careers launches Sunday night says Techcrunch. The MySpace Careers page, shows job listings, and points to the Community sites such as Simplyfired, the Simplyforums, and of course will lead users to their premium job search engine. They break it down for their audience by having internship, retail, and even outdoor jobs.

Young bloggers need to realize the impacts of blogging and the interview process, as one. This young intern didn't realize his soon to be employers would check out his facebook content he created --he wasn't hired.

I wrote about the impacts of this migration of young bloggers Wait till the MySpace Generation hits the Workplace.

Smart moves for Simplyhired, MySpace, and the workforce bound community.

My Predictions on the Scoble Effect (Now that he's moving on, what will change?)

2006-06-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

As you know, Scoble has quite MS to join PodTech, and move to Silicon Valley --he told me in on Sat with a big grin, but I was still shocked.

The news is still spreading, and he's searched more on technorati than many other topics says Dan Farber. but will be the actual and tangible outcome of the Scoble Effect?

Here's my predictions --straight from the web prophet's mouth.

Microsoft not changed, the goodness stays and thrives

Channel 9 will not die (read the thread started by Scoble)
Maybe Niall Kennedy will become the voice --he's got the ability.
No impact to MSFT stock price
No press release from MSFT
Robert will still break news for MSFT, and will maintain and grow his relationships.

Scoble will be THE Tech Reporter

Focus on being a technlogy analyst and reporter
Background in Journalism (graduated from SJSU)
Back to his Valley Roots

May rent a room from Arrington? ;)

Has many, many connections
Has existing audience

Podtech to go multimedia, multichannel,

Podtech is primarily podcasts (audio) and will expand to Multimedia
Will use Multimedia (video, blogging)
Podcasts are very 'one-way' Robert will make the news 'two-way'
Cnet, Wired, Business 2.0, and Techcrunch in for some competition.

News and echo effect

Traditional News sources are slowly catching on board, and will finally get the story out by end of day today. (it's not even on NYtimes yet, although BBC is listening)
Those that don't publish the Scoble story by Tuesday are not listening to the blogosphere (first person news)
Wikipedia will be properly updated by today

The World

Companies will be more aware of their star bloggers
They will try to distribute the value among multiple bloggers
They will reward star bloggers and entice to stay at company
More bloggers will emerge, more conversations will take place --life goes on.

Scoble Happier

Closer to family, new job, time to start fresh.

Bonus: Oh, and I posted this survey BEFORE I knew about Scoble leaving.
Who would you want to have lunch with? Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Robert Scoble, or ?

Hate Teens? Use High Pitched Sounds to Dispel Youth.

2006-06-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

Get rid of those pesky teens.

The high pitched noises that are only audible by kids are being used as a ring tones --for students in class who don't want their teachers to know they're getting an incoming call.

Listen to the tone yourself
Paul's posted a link to an example MP3 if you want to hear it. Or access the high pitched MP3 --can you hear it? Being in my early 30s, I can clearly hear it. I wonder if others at the meme can as well? I always knew when my parents were watching TV as a kid, as I could hear the TV on, even volume was at mute.

Companies using high pitched noise to rid of teen infestations
If you've got a teen infestation, you can use this same technology against them, reports Compound Security is selling this as a product to get rid of teens. (link from ringtonia). Here's a potential application: If you're a web marketer and really want site segmentation, apply this high pitched sounds to websites you DON'T want pesky teens wasting your valuable bandwidth. (I'm kidding)

The Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent is the solution to the eternal problem of unwanted gatherings of youths and teenagers in shopping malls and around shops. The presence of these teenagers discourages genuine shoppers and customers’ from coming into your shop, affecting your turnover and profits. Anti social behaviour has become the biggest threat to private property over the last decade and there has been no effective deterrent until now.

Is there such a sound that can get rid of adults? oh yeah, it's Lil Jon --krumpin.

Do we like the term "Vlogger"?

2006-06-12T02:56:00.000-07:00

My good friend and colleague Lisa asked about my trip to Vloggercon, I summarized the experience, below saying it's still emerging and feels 'raw'. She (and probally others) arn't hip to the name vlog --doesn't it sound geeky and self made?

How will mainstream america adopt to the name vlog? Since we're at an emerging point, do we really want to name it "Vlog"? What's wrong with "Videocast", "Webcast", "iTV" or even "Vidcast". Jason at the Unauthorized MS weblog agrees.

Whadda ya think, should we keep the name Vlog, (which sounds like Count Vlogula, or even Vlod the Impaler) or move to something different --it's not too late to change if we do it collectively.

I guess it could be worse, like a company centric name like "videopodcast"

VloggerCon 2006

2006-06-11T04:21:00.000-07:00

Vloggercon in SF, June 10th

Aside from Robert Scoble's shocking me with his news, it was interesting. Vloggercon (~~this being the first one ever~~ This is actually the second one, thanks Shawn, who says you can learn more here) was very raw, grassroots and showed signs of an emerging industry. Shirley and I observed that many of the videobloggers were trying to ‘change things’ with 'radical' missions: Filming protests, interviewing homeless, or the squeegee kids of Toronto. They were giving the voices to those who have none, or provide stories that the traditional media could not provide. There were a few business folks, and sponsors from intel, yahoo, and cnet. Boing Boing announces partnership with Rocketboom creators, creating an upcoming video blog.

I ran into Brian again, and we're sporting the same shirt. (I swear that guy is everywhere –and he lives in Texas), Finally met Dave (nice guy) [Edit: Dave's wife is a Jazz Musician, check her audio samples from her latest]. Jeremy Pepper wondered if Shirley is my sister, I let him know it was my wife –sorry bud, she’s mine! ;) (yes, web geeks can marry wonderful women, so don’t be so surprised. It’s fun to break stereotypes –been doing it all my life.) Michael Butler was seen about, he's the Rock and Roll Geek. Even God showed up and gave a presentation about his video blog.

The biggest draw at the conference was Rocketboom, they create daily TV shows and have viewers in the 100’s of thousands daily (Although it’s difficult to track). They mentioned their advertising model is over 80k per month from site ads, as they grow in fame this will increase as well.

Pics:

Scoble Shocks me at Vloggercon

2006-06-11T03:37:00.000-07:00

Breaking News.

I didn't want to say anything till it hit the blogosphere, Robert thought it would be on Tuesday. Yesterday Robert waved me to come talk to him and pulled me aside and told me the very shocking news. That was THE most interesting thing of the day, and it took me a while to digest as I think of Robert as part of the MS brand --see this survey

Congrats Robert, I'm sure you're going to make a big impact, bring video to podtech (I hope) and be a tech reporter in the valley. He told me he's going to move to the valley, which is great --we'll have to do sushi more often.

People around him discuss the change as Brian reports, Niall reports, and Dave Reports as well.
Read Robert's thoughts here --setting the record straight.

Edit: Additional Thoughts...
I think this is a great move for Robert, he'll be back in the Valley closer to friends and some of his family. Also, he's got a strong background in journlism, this tied with his videography passion will make him a strong asset for Podtech. I believe Robert will be THE premiere tech reporter in the Silicon Valley.

Web Strategy: Social Networking site for 8-14 year olds --Club Penguin

2006-06-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

As a Web Strategist, I'm facinated by online social sites, and have done reviews on Second Life, and even thought about MySpace in the workforce, and viral marketing tactics.

My former manager Peter told me yesterday that his son is big time into a new social networking experience called Club Penguin. Not only is his son interested but I am too (at from a web strategy perspective of course!)

I think I'll reccomend this to some of my nephew's and niece's. Of course it makes sense that I check it out first, to make sure it's appropriate.

Each player chooses a penguin, gives it an identity and explores Club Penguin, interacting with other penguins by chatting, playing games, sending greeting cards, or using emotes (emotion icons) and actions (ie. wave, dance, sit, walk or throw a snowball). By helping other participants and playing games, players earn virtual coins that allow them to buy clothing and accessories for their penguin or furniture for their igloo.

Some of the unique features of Club Penguin:

Users become penguins and interact with each other. Customization and animations are available, much like Second Life
Flash application, no downloads.
Easy to use controls, 'cute' experience.
There's a parent section, (and it's very easy to find).
There are various safety features built into it, such as safe chat.
It's free although users can upgrade so they can upgrade their Igloo!
Users can go to the city, nightclub, play hockey.
Map of the Island.
Users can play games to make 'coin' which can be used for other things.
Users can interact with each other, in a collaborative spirit. even raise pets
I even was throwing harmless snowballs at others and dancing.
Opinmind (Sentiment tracker) rates it very high
They've a blog to show what's new.

This unique social site provides an appropriate medium for 8-14 year olds to share, play, and beonline in a collaborative area.

I'd love to do a podcast with the creators with my podcasting group at podcastroundtable --if the creators are reading this, feel free to send me an email with the Subject Line "Penguin Podcast"

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

2 Question Survey: Who would you lunch with, Gates, Ballmer, or Scoble?

2006-06-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

I'm conducting this survey to measure the impacts of Social Media on corporate reputation and personal reputation.

If you know my background, I'm into companies using web tools to delight customers --web is my passion, and I want to know how these tools impact customers.

I'll post up the results in a few weeks, once the curve of responses starts to diminish.

This is just a personal survey for my own benefit (although I'll share the results with the world), and I'm not using it for any ways to directly profit.

(edit: heh, this survey is not quite as relevent anymore)

Take the two question survey:
Who would you rather have lunch with? Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, or Robert Scoble or ?

Or
Or
Or

The Internet Critical to Purchase Decisions

2006-06-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

Nastasha, who writes "That Girl from Marketing" has lead me to this interesting press release from Yahoo:

Yahoo! and OMD Study Reveals Online Research Plays Critical Role in Consumers' Offline Purchases; Online Price Comparisons and ''Communal Shopping'' Create Trust and Drive Decision Making

"According to the study, a large majority of consumers look online for information as a core part of the purchase decision process for products of all kinds. In particular, the Internet offers a collaborative environment where consumers turn for advice and the experience of others in weighing brands, discovering alternatives and distilling prices, as they weigh their purchase decisions."

Key Extrapolations:

Nearly two-thirds (62%) use a combination of online and offline sources to gather information before they buy.
The Internet is far more than just another point of purchase; its biggest impact lies within the awareness and consideration process
The Internet serves as a price leveler, has helped create a communal shopping experience
Trusted information. Consumers say the Internet is the most trusted shopping information source (54 percent),

followed by magazines (34 percent)
and TV (23 percent)

On average, consumers consider three brands before making a purchasing decision. Many comparison shop using the Internet, but 38 percent of consumers still want to be able to see and touch products before they buy.
Price. The research shows that 61 percent of people consider themselves to be serious bargain shoppers.
Consumers Travel Four Distinct Paths

QUICK: This path involves little consideration. Consumer packaged goods are often quick paths.
WINDING: Comparison shopping between different channels, including online and offline retailers, typifies this path. Retail goods are often winding paths.
LONG: This path involves researching various options over an extended period of time. Technology purchases are often long paths, particularly if the price tag is high.
LONG AND WINDING: This path requires investing a considerable amount of time researching across several channels. Many big ticket items -- including automobiles and financial services -- follow a long and winding path.

From Purchase "Funnel" to "Tumbler"
As the most trusted source for information, the Internet also offers "communal shopping

I knew this was all true, it's good to have it validated --Thanks Natasha!

Web Analytics Rockets

2006-06-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Avinash continues to blast value added post after post. I've enjoyed his latest Top Ten: Signs You Are A Great Analyst. Avinash really looks up to Guy, who provides insight and often helpful lists --many simularities.

I agree with his thoughts that: Data Quality Sucks, Let’s Just Get Over It, as a Web Manager, I'm looking for the overall trends and changes. Mountain tips and valleys, long term trends from changes. This could prove a good method for web managers providing the reporting methods are consistent.

He's setup some goals for his blog too --(there are other ways to measure success as well Avinash, not just links to).

Lastly, Avinash has credited me for helping him get started blogging --I was impressed when I met him and thought he had some great ideas. After hearing him speak, as well as his podcast I realized he had so much tacit knowledge it had to get out --the web analytics world is better now that' he's blogging --hopefully if there are others with different thoughts they could add on. Here's what he wrote in his about section:

"Coincidentally I met Jeremiah Owyang at the same event and the pace at which he blogs is amazing (I have to admit over time I have come to believe that Jeremiah is really three people becuase no one person can possibly have so much time)."

Too funny --I just consider this activity an email to the world. I send out hundreds of emails a day at work, so this is not too much different. There are so many ideas running through my head, I have an ongoing list of post ideas that sometimes never even make it. In case you can't tell Web is my Passion, so this really is more fun than work.

>>>>>

Edit: Marshall wonders if Avinash is talking about him --maybe...

Blogger Dinner Tue, June 13th, Hotel Utah

2006-06-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Sloshcon was fun, busy, crowded --but still fun. On Sat, I'm going to vloggercon (even though people at work make fun of me) it will be pretty action packed. That's why I'm looking forward to the casual Blogger dinnner this coming Tuesday.

Shel Israel is running around the world, so I'm spreading the word on his behalf --he started the idea here.

It will be pretty casual event, focus on beer, burgers, conversations and people. Old friends will meet new friends and all are welcome. I know that Chris and Mario will be coming up from the Valley. Shel will be back, and will arrive with his friends from out of town Adriana and Jackie. Looking forward to meeting Tracy, as well as old friends like Brian, James, Will, Jeremy, Jeff, Juan, Mike, and Jenn. There's others too...see the full list at upcoming:

>>>Sign up at Upcoming for the Blogger Dinner<<<

Tags will be: SFBlogDinnerJune06

Martin McKeay will be bringing his gear and doing a live podcast for those who want to partake.Until then, see you at the Utah!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Edit: An amazing post by Chris, read his expectations are of the blogger dinner.

SloshCon: House of Shields

2006-06-08T22:49:00.002-07:00

Left: How to Kill Startups --Warning or Promise?

Brian IMd me (thanks) to invite me to Web Infinity Plus One Sloshcon also known as the Valleywag party. Met bud James Gross (I see him everywhere, I swear) at AdBrite at Fluid. Had drinks, saw lots of people. Lots of sponsors and advertisers. Met Jennifer Ritchie from Adbrite --walked to H.O.S.

We went to House of Shields, met Jeff Veen (he's tall), Dave Hoffer (Awesome IA), marveled at interesting (but mean) signage. Saw Michael Arrington, and James. Brian convinced Sean (edit: who has a blog here) to give me a shirt, he and his friend wore it as well --it makes me feel bad, as I've killed at least 15 startups in the last 2 hours. Met the DJ, who was angry at me or very hungry. AdBrite has horrible/great advertisting placement. Bathroom has interesting walls. A chair had butts in it. Met Anna Billstrom from Ofoto. (edit: who has a personal blog here)

Interesting conversations, free drinks, good times. If you like that kind of stuff, blogger dinner this Tuesday at Hotel Utah --Sign up. This Sat, I'll be at Vloggercon, (I convinced my wife to come, told her it was a fashion show --please don't tell her the truth...)

Edit

Brian's photo of MeasureVeen, ValleyNick and MikeCrunch got on valleywag
Valleywag blogs the event, and even links to my flickr photos (which caused an explosion in visits and requests to be contact, etc)

Google to launch simple Album Sharing --We still need to organize Better and Faster

2006-06-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

I take a lot of pictures, and feel I spend too much time organizing them.

Interesting 'finding' by Google Blogscoped that Google may have an competing product much like Flickr. You know I'm a big flickr fan, and even analyzed Riya (who the CEO actually appears to actually be making some changes based upon my feedback).

Google could offer Low to Mid Range Photo Sharing product
They're going to offer an online sharing tool that could allow users to create either a mass database of images organized by folder, and/or will offer some type of 'auto-synch' that pulls existing Picassa images from one's local drive to the network. Judging by Picassa's low-to-mid range feature set, they'll be targeting a less sophisticated user than Yahoo's Flickr --It's unlikely they will compete with the same audience.

Google is likely to allow users to share photos (and integrate with their others services), and will sit in the middle and monetize off 'transactions'.

Doesn't mean that I'll be able to organize our photos any better
I wrote a few days ago, the number of photos being taken will continue to grow (in part from our mobile phones), however our time will stay the same. Simply put I/we don't have the resources to tag each of my photos. (and batch tagging only effectively works for small uploads) I believe that Photo Management --Photos Increase as does Time to organize.

According to the Picassa site, Here's the primary benefit:

"Picasa organizes your entire collection while you watch, scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date."

Nothing spectacular. Flickr does a damn good job of allowing one to upload and share photos --it's fun but it's very consuming --it's almost like another blogging effort. It's not for everyone, as it takes a passion, time and advanced usage to correctly harness all of flickr's features

Effectively organizing photos in meaningful ways takes too much time
I like to share my photos with friends, each photo, set, or tag tells a meaningful and rich story. --that's why we take them right? The process of photo management for the avid user is the following: Capture photo, upload, organize or label, and then share. The biggest time killer is the effort to organize (tagging, sorting, labeling, describing).

Sorting photos just by album (which by default is often a time segment) is not enough --people want to access photos from a variety of different slices, not just in structured taxonomies.

Flickr is great for the advanced user who has time, Picassa will be great for the novice user but we've still not answered the time issue. I've played with Riya (which does facial recognition, but that takes time to 'train' it and it's yet another place to put photos --but yet again, I don't want another repository)

As humans take more and more photos, (as cameras will be integrated in many devices) we need a better way to collect, sort, and organize photos --not just creating some mass database of unstructured images.

It sounds like Google's rumored photo albums will allow users to share photos, but will be able to effectively sort through all of them? I'm already got a few thousand photos on flickr already --I've sunk so many hours into photo management, the photo tools needs to make life easier to organize and then share.

>>>>

Update: June 8th, Yahoo to Launch "Yahoo Photos" according to Techcrunch (Maybe I'll do a comparison of all later)

Cnet Reports Web is the Number one Media --Stay Flexible Jeremiah

2006-06-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

Cnet reports that at the workplace, web is the number one media --at home it's second. No surprises there...This means a lot to me, as I'm a Web proffesional (a career I chose by intent) it really validates my efforts and belief in the web (read my bio to understand more)

"I hear more and more from marketers that they have shifted their business to be more responsive and realign. There is an active movement by traditional advertisers to be able to explore platform strategies," Horan said. She believes that research studies are attracting the attention of advertisers and media buyers and may result in a faster shift in advertising dollars to match the actual statistics of consumer media usage." -Cnet reports

Someday, I realize this will change, (nothing lasts forever, nothing stays the same) and another medium will eventually surpass the web, a technology like 'etelepathy' where humans can communicate without any noticable tools or devices. (I'm not joking, serious) I'll be prepared to morph and change when this comes --I promise to myself to stay flexible

Collaborative Platform? — What's still missing in Google's online OS

2006-06-06T01:49:00.000-07:00

Rumors flying regarding Google to release their version of Excel.

"Google Spreadsheet? — What's still missing in Google's online OS?" asks Google Blogscoped --A collaborative platform.

With Google announcing it's offering of an online spreadsheet and their recent acquisition of writely the word app, they've got a full range of office 2.0 applications from IM, Calendar, the only pieces left are the following:

A tool that will connect desktop or local apps to an online platform (like gdrive?)
A tool that will not only search but upload local files to online versions, kind of like Microsoft's Groove. (Google desktop?)
Synch ability with local, online, and peer documents and version control (?)
An online desktop that can be accessed anywhere --think mainframe again.
Security for work groups to feel confident using these tools.
An Online Storage Strategy (although there are strong rumors --see this list of others in this space)
A paperclip that asks annoying questions.

Collaborative Platform
Once these final feature properties are in place, Google will have the resemblance of an online collaboration platform, a place where individuals can work, communicate, share, and gather.

Is this going to be the MS Office killer? how about the Sharepoint killer? Whatever happend to the Sun Google partnership/agreement last fall? How come Sun is not in this equation (0r are they too busy dealing with involuntary attrition)

The biggest question raised will be:
Aside from Internet Access, do I really need my IT department anymore?

I've answered this question with Recognized IT consultant Dr. Dennis McDonald in our White Paper: Business and I.T. Must Work Together to Manage New "Web 2.0" Tools (PDF)

Most WOM positive

2006-06-06T00:49:00.000-07:00

Sam Decker who is recognized for his work leading Dell as a leading ecommerce company as well as an author has posted some interesting facts about Word Of Mouth from Keller Fay: Most Word of Mouth is Positive. Here's What it Means.

Does this contradict with the common notions that 'bad news travels' fast? If most word of mouth are positive reflections of brands and products, how does this measure? Maybe the human psyche just focuses on the negative rather than the positive?

I've been asked to join in a joint blog for the Internet Strategies Forum with Sam (who's currently at Bazaar Voice), Steve Gehlen, Dan Leeds, Chas Martin, Janet Johnson, and Tim Peter. All are recongized marketers or web strategists like myself.

Photo Management --Photos Increase as does Time to organize

2006-06-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

After cursory analysis of the Riya homepage, I've been thinking more about photo management. I'm still a being called a Flickr zealot, as I really think it’s the best way to manage, share and build communities around photo and life experience enthusiasts.

I’ve uploaded over 2000 photos in the last few months (view all my sets) –that’s a lot. I’m currently assigning group tags to each of the Sets that I upload. I often upload them by event or location but I don’t have the time to individually tag each one with names of individuals, and or unique objects.

Here’s an example of my flickr hiking trip on Saturday to Mount Diablo in Contra Costa (about an hour east of San Francisco). I started to label a few –but only a few photos I decided to label and tag –it’s too consuming.

I'm going to continue taking more and more pictures (as will my friends and family with their cell phone or digi cam) the need for fast photo management will increase. I take my camera to nearly every event, and it’s often with me (or my cell phone is). I’ll bet that more and more folks will be like me, wanting to document their experiences, their life on the web.

more personal photos (which is increasing) = more photo management

For those of you following along and checking out my flickr photos, please forgive if I don’t tag them all the time. On a similar note, I cracked open Riya for the first time. Having uploaded my New Communications Set, (here's a Riya collection of mine and others) I was able to test out the features with a well known blogger community. I’m still playing with it and experimenting to provide a comprehensive review --deployed correctly, the community can assist to train faces to names and tags.

The issue for me is that I’ve purchased two years of Flickr Pro, (which allows more bandwidth to upload more photos), and I don’t have any intentions on switching to a different photo application --there's got to be a way to get the best of both worlds.

(In a few years, this same model will apply to online video sharing as the barriers to publish videos continue to decrease)

Product --Check! Launch --Check! Communities --ummm...

2006-06-05T05:33:00.000-07:00

Michael Arrington (who throws great book parties) reports that some companies are closing shops. He reports (and other discussions on techmeme) that:

"a few new web startups are starting to close up shop as they find that building an application is a lot easier than getting users to try it out, and keep coming back."

Building an interesting (or even copycat) product is becoming easier and easier, the costs to a launch a web 2.0 company are easier than a web 1.0 company. Even the barriers to launch and announcing these products are easier with the aid of social media tools.

I used to do UI Design at Exodus Communications (A great example of a company that folded --and folded hard) and had friends at Yahoo, Google, Excite, Ebay, Beenz, Stamps, Pets, and a crap load of other startups not worth mentioning. Over last few years of conversations, we concluded there is only enough room for 3-4 players in each market segment. That's the maximum shares of a pie that can be distributed to allow specialization, positioning, and enough to sustain an business model (notice I didn't even say revenue/profit model).

Launching a product with great user zeal requires more than being mentioned on the countless of company launches occurring. Look how many Web 2.0 companies are in existence, (countless list of everything web 2.0) a handful of companies in each category will make it difficult for users to select, and then use. The influencers of any community will guide users toward one or two categories but ultimately, there will only be enough room for 3-4. Retrospective analysis demonstrates that the companies that did survice the first shakeout harnessed communities --ebay, yahoo, google, msn, amazon.

Through partnerships, mergers and acquisitions we'll start to see companies start to migrate --networks will form of categories from each of these categories --and new 'portals' (I hate using that overused term) of well tied products or loosely assembled features.

Aside from Product and Launch Companies need to deploy a Community Program I talk about defining community marketing, as well as did a podcast where I was quickly challenged to the notion of the perfect product. (I was even thinking about this back in Sept 05) Eric was right, even the 'perfect' product will falter without such a marketing effort (Although I still believe there is no such thing as a perfect product). I believe that:

In addition to product and launch strategies, companies in competitive segments must devote as much energy to cultivating communities around product and company.

This doesn't mean you have to only build your own community, but also discover and harness existing communities. For long term sustainability, each of these companies in the list needs to deploy a Community Marketing program --the goal of such as program is to cultivate a thriving, ongoing community around your product or company for the ongoing future.

Riya's New Homepage: Features and User Feedback

2006-06-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

Another Web Strategist Review by Jeremiah
Although I'm an avid Flickr fan, I've noticed some interesting developments from Riya. As a Web Strategist, I often 'review' websites --just last week I critiqued Kikkoman's "MyTeriyaki" launch, as a rule, for every criticism, I always include a suggestion.

Riya is known for it's facial recognition technology, it appears they've recently upgraded their homepage interface, a smart move that enables users to consume their library. Munjal the CEO is even telling his story on his blog. Here's what I've noticed as an observer and my own user feedback.

Homepage redesign: It appears they've created an index of photos, using major topics as the top level taxonomy: people, cars, heavy metal (which could be better labeled as transportation) and misc. My initial reactions to the homepage:

After speaking with my wife, it would be cool if they added a 'fashion' or 'outfits' tag so fashion forward people could find 'like' clothing. (helpful for when I want to dress like a celebrity geek like Scoble, or when she wants to dress like Adriana Lima)
There are various sort tools they could deploy from this stage --adding ability to sort by most frequent, alpha, dates, etc.
When clicking into a specific category, it would be helpful if the tags were displayed on each of the images. (either below it or on mouse hover --the browser status bar is an indicator this can easily be deployed).
Although a very minor nit pick (hey I'm thorough --as a former UI designer the details add to the overall experience and impression) some of the images are inconsistently displayed in regards to width. (see example)
A tag cloud would be useful for determining data and tag spikes. (my thoughts on tag clouds)
There is a 'most popular searches' category, if Riya was able to tie this to digg, and other meme trackers to query results from relevent conversations on the web, they will essentially have created a 'photo meme'. Since they provide RSS feeds for every query, there could be some unique mashups that will occur. (even without the API)
The homepage could benefit by allowing users to create custom homepages categories, and then share with other users. For example, I'd love to see a category called 'Owyang' and would display all images tagged with that.

Viral widgets: I'm really into deploying viral tactics (read my thoughts on Viral Chicklets in MySpace), I was pleased to see they've made it easy for bloggers and myspacers to extend snippets into their posts. You'll find at the bottom of each query page small icons that allow you to import a 'badge' into your post.

I tried to insert a badge on my post but got an error for blogger about unclosed html tags --attention support team.

Search by Location: Location Tag Search provides an interesting mashup of google maps that searches tags of locations. When one zooms in, the ability to show the actual image should be displayed on the map, Also "create URL to this map" would be a nice future feature. Lastly, a map slider to max zoom in and out would be beneficial for users.
Sort by Time: Sort by date of picture I'm assuming it captures the metadata from the image when it was taken, rather than 'upload' date as Riya did not exist in 1999. (FYI that should be labeled on the page)
Connect to other Applications: I'm not the right audience for this, but there's a link to their API.
Online Demo: It would be cool if there was an online demo that could tour through the different features of the homepage --oh snap, did I just do that?
Here's some pics that I uploaded tagged "Jeremiah Owyang" --handsome devil.

Strong rollout Riya team --looking forward to seeing how this develops over time.

Seth Godin tells why he doesn't like comments --Here's my version

2006-06-04T06:13:00.000-07:00

Left: Seth's big on megaphones, the evolved and rotated sales and marketing funnel.

I met Seth face to face at THE Conference on Marketing a few months ago in Vegas. You can read my extensive notes and analysis, I even challenged one of Seth's ideas and he wrote back to me. (I gave a presentation at the same conference with my friend Rebecca from Accenture on aligning automated systems under a common user experiece --voice systems and web)

Seth is a master marketer, and in his latest post he suggests the following reasons for not having comments enabled. (This is carry on from yesterday's conversation) and it's still being discussed on TechMeme.

"First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning.

Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them.

And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. "

Although everything Seth writes above is true --I believe there's another reason not listed. I've read a few of Seth's books, and also have heard him speak, he's got a strong strategy around developing word of mouth programs. I believe one of Seth's primary reasons for not enabling comments is so that his 'remarkable' (a Seth term) posts will be spread virally to other blogs, by individuals creating new nodes of discussions and spreading his word. I recall him say at his presentation is that:

"The Thing about Word of Mouth Marketing is that it's not your words"

Seth is just living out his Word of Mouth philosophy. By not not enabling comments, Seth forces those who want to participate to grow the conversation off his own home and onto other blogs. As a result, he spreads his ideas to other communities --I'm living proof as here I spread his own words to my own readers.

Additional Resources for the Fast Lane Blogger

2006-06-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

Seth Godin posted a brilliant list of blog tips.

Although I've only been blogging for 9 months, (and don't have celebirty status like Scoble, Seth, or Guy), I've figured out by observing and participating regarding the art of blogging.

Here's a few that I've been collecting...

A few of my tips:

Resources around the web:

Books:

Web Strategy: Flickr for Marketing, PR, and Online Demos

2006-06-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

The modern day professional often merges their personal life and their work life online, the lines between personal and business cross between IM, Email, blogs, and even online photos.

Some product managers or technical evangelists proudly embody their work as part of how they define themselves, and in some extreme cases, some marketers will utilizes web tools for marketing.

Let's take a look at how communities and marketers are using Flickr as a Marketing, PR, an Online Demo tool. (and some may not even know it)

About Social Media tool Flickr
Flickr is a social networking tool, a media sharing tool, a collaboration tool, and interactive tool, I talk about flickr and it's greatness here. Flickr is not just self contained, as it's images return in google results, and Technorati even serves up flickr images. Individual bloggers display flickr badges from their blogrolls --this is part of online sharing.

Communities Upload Content and Spread Messages (and may not even know it)
In some cases, communities where passion product exist, individuals will start to upload images of their products --see how passionate users are about ipod. I would guess less than 1% of these uploaders are actually from apple.

Online Offline Events
Yesterday I discussed how Conference organizers can benefit from Tagging. I even heard about an offline/online event at SXSW where individuals were encouraged to take pictures of attendees badges, and then upload to flickr with specific tags. This is a form of viral event marketing --I'll be some of the participants didn't even know they were part of the marketing process!

Social Sites are where the folks are --marketers will engage
I've been discussing the term of community marketing, which is intended for a company to seek or build existing communities and be part of the conversation. For some communities, they use web tools to connect by using blogs, forums, wikis, email lists, and maybe even social media sites like flickr, myspace, riya, or yahoo groups. Along the lines of social sharing, Steve Rubel (a well known PR blogger) agrees that Marketers Will Soon Find a Home in Social Bookmark Sites.

Flickr as an Interactive Product Demo
Robert Andrews reports that on the very extreme end, Product Marketing Managers at Hypergene have put up images of their product (with URLs to their public web site) and let users leave comments, leave notes and interact --It's really using flickr as an online demo tool. Is this invasive or clever? Brenden thinks that flickr is a good viral marketing tool.Hypergene is very forthright about their activities, and on their own blog, that announced that they are: "Using Flickr for product marketing".

Employees post product photos
The Technical Evangelist at Microsoft, Robert Scoble, frequently uploads pictures of products that he's passionate about --Microsoft products, see yesterday's photo. There are SO many other examples, just be aware of it going forward --this is a form of PR (which means relating to the public), whether it's realized or not.

Online Branding
This interactive mural on flickr of Web 2.0 companies is using image maps hyperlinks to allow users to click through from logos to websites. If you hover over the images, it's interesting that the contributors are often different users.

So we've walked through many of the examples how flickr is being used for marketing --whether it's intentional or not. Ultimately, this is just another tool (like email, IM, blogs, or websites) that can be utilized in a variety of different ways. One thing is for sure, where communities form, marketers will follow. The savvy user and savvy marketer will be aware and harness.

>>>>>>>>>>>
Edit: Even Churches are using Flickr for marketing!

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

Podcast: Community Marketing with Eric Mattson (The man of 1000 podcasts)

2006-06-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

I had the privy to be interviewed by Eric Mattson (Sweden), who is conducting an experiment to conduct 1000 podcast interviews.

"I'm currently in the middle of conducting 1,000 podcasted interviews of marketers, innovators, entrepreneurs and other interesting people"

(the post that started it all is here)

Marketing Monger Podcast with Jeremiah and Eric I'm number 37/1000 --nice.

We had a good conversation, although I missed a curve ball about the nature of sales and marketing when a product is 'perfect'. Alas, that's the rawness of podcasts.

Aside from that, I encourage you to listen to my thoughts on Community Marketing, which is a concept that is not new, but should be revisited now that individuals can form communities with ease using online tools --I really want feedback, so please leave a comment, even if you don't agree.

Quite a few of my respected peers, contacts, and friends are on this series such as Jen McClure, Easton Ellsworth, Avinash, Andy Beal, Steve Rubel, and John Cass.

He even has interviews with Jason from 37 Signals, and Richard Edelman. There's quite a few others, (see the index) and you can expect more to come in the future.

Finally, Yahoo Groups Email to get a facelift

2006-06-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Left: Screen shot of upcoming email improvements for Yahoo Groups

I just got an email from yahoo groups uncovering a sneak preview of their upcoming improvements for Yahoo Groups --it's much needed and very overdue. They appear to be focusing on the strength of their email list group (I consider it more an email list group than an actual online forum)

I own and moderate a handful of Yahoo groups (such as the Intranet User Experience Group, and a couple for my family members) and really see the value, however find the feature set to be very lacking.

Here's the link they sent me:

Get ready for a new look for your Yahoo! Groups email.

We've made your Daily Digest and Individual group emails easier to follow and more engaging than ever.

And this is just the beginning. Be sure to keep an eye out for more great additions to Yahoo! Groups.

Web Strategy: Harnessing the Web for Conferences, Events, and Venues

2006-06-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

I've been talking to a few conference coordinators, many of which I now consider a contact if not friend, and see an emerging trend.

Some conference coordinators are doing a great job harnessing the web (which is often cheap or free) and some need a gentle nudge to get going --I'm writing primarily here for the latter group, I hope this helps.

(all of these strategies also apply to user groups, events, and all organized in person and online meets)

Tagging to build Community
I was glad to hear from Kit yesterday, she approached me with some questions about tagging for the upcoming webvisions conference. They report as "tagging is underway"

I encourage all conference organizers to please determine the tags for their venue and event ahead of time.

I've been at a few conferences where the tags were never defined, as a result information was spread across multiple tags, as well when we were told two different tags by the managing folks of a conference --this certainly isn't a sin, but it could help your community to unite around your conference and furthering your mission.

Maybe the event tag could be prominently displayed on conference homepages, It makes sense to use easy to use names as well as the date of the specific event, I like how Webvisions for this year has chosen "webvisions06", when I head into flickr, technorati, or other type of index, it will be easy for me to find the collective thoughts and history of the event.

Embrace Bloggers
I’ve spoken at a few conferences (and even have one booked for 2007 already) and know some of the speaking circuits in my industry. One recommendation I gave to a conference organizers of a traditional Marketing conference, was to provide a discount to well known industry bloggers (or let them attend free).

The exposure and press that a blogger would bring to the event is well worth the cost of admission. They will document the speaker presentations, connect with the community, takes notes, provide PR, and be your ‘press’. It’s worth considering extending this type of program to one or two well known bloggers of releated subject matter.

Secondly, build tools that will enable Word of Mouth Marketing for your conference, several organizers have banners, ads, and 'chicklets' that can be added to blogs that will help get the word out. Some web conferences focus on WOM as the primary marketing effort to increase attendence --smart move.

Oh, and conference websites can easily afford (it's free if not cheap) a conference focused blog (and RSS) --worth considering.

Online Forums, Wikis
These tools are a great resource to extend the community after or during the sessions. At most web conferences, wikis are provided, but in my opinion with mixed success. Are these primarily populated by the group organizers, or do users really jump in and take control during and after the event.

I've attended one 'traditional marketing' conference circuit a few times, (over 5) and noticed a particular repeat visitorship, they have a constant following that returns to each session every year --they are regulars. I approached their management and suggested they create a forum, or maybe even a 'linkedin' badge that will help unite the community in between the sessions --I hope they take to it, because some of the reason I wish to attend these events is purely to see previous contacts and peers.

I've purposely decided not to talk about 'live back channels', although every conference organizer should consider with care.

Balanced Conferences
I’ve attended some conferences where there is a mixture of Keynotes, Speakers, Case Studies, Workshops, and Panels. I’ve also been at conferences where there a non stop drone of speakers presenting their case studies --zzz.

Please, Please conference coordinators, try to include a mixture of interaction it will make the event more interactive, interesting, and will help the word getting out about a fantastic conference. I know it’s more work to organize a group of panelists than a single speaker, but it will pay off in the long run.

I've been to one conference where they had 'speed dating' for vendors, where all prospects and vendors would spend 60 seconds talking to each other at tables before a buzzer was rung and users moved on. This was exciting, active, and prospects could easily 'escape' with ease, as well as understand all the options present.

Other Resources
I enjoy Guy Kawasaki’s post on How to kick butt as a panelist, How to be a great Moderator, and How to get a standing ovation. A must read for all who are participating. Perhaps he should write one on how to be a good audience member.

The conferences and events that harness these low cost, high impact strategies will benefit as being viewed as an outstanding conference, in addition to being easily found and documented by your community online.

Just a bit of Web Strategy from Jeremiah

>>>>>>>

Additional Thoughts from James Durbin

Cited in ComputerWorld | A Resource for Ted's upcoming book

2006-05-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

David Strom of ComputerWorld has used some of my advice for business blogging in his latest article: "How to be a better blogger -- and still keep your day job" Thanks David!

"Be prepared for negativity. Develop a thick skin, be prepared to respond to attacks and help to clarify the root issue and corporate commitment to resolving issues -- do so quickly and sincerely," said Jeremiah Owyang, who writes a blog about corporate marketing called Jeremiah the Web Prophet.-via computerworld.com"

I'm glad that my journey as a blog evangelists (which is now shifting to something different) and the mistakes I learned have helped others.

Speaking of publishing, Ted Demopoulos has asked me to submit some content to his upcoming book What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting : Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere (Paperback)

I sent him a mini essay on my thoughts on the future of society as a result from self publishing tools like blogs, podcasts and vlogs --should be an interesting book, I hear it comes out this fall, more news as we approach his launch.

Online Data Storage Companies (an ongoing list)

2006-05-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty familiar with the traditional Data Storage Industry (learn about my day job) and consider myself a web guy.

I've decided to keep a running list of all the companies offering Online Storage, (some lists collected from Techcrunch) Soon, this list will be hard to manage as online storage is/will be a commodity.

In fact I predict at some point storage providers will figure out how to pay YOU to host content on their spaces. (resuse of content business models, etc)

Cnet's All you can Upload (reports techcrunch)
Omnidrive
Amazon's S3 (Simple Storage Service)
Xdrive
AllMyData
Box.net
eSnips
Freepository
GoDaddy
iStorage
Mofile
Mozy
Openomy
Streamload
Strongspace
iBackup (submitted by Joe --see comments below)

Unconfirmed or not launched

Google's gDrive? Rumors here.
Microsoft's Live Drive

Mark's analysis on lifetime hosting plans --these spaces will intersect in the near future.
Niall is hosting an Tech Sessions: Online Storage Even June 15. 2006

Second Life Import Exports Images --Hope to see Video/Podcast next

2006-05-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

Left: A Snapzilla postcard from Second Life: look at all the fun Nylon and i are having Toast

Matt Biddulph of Hack Diary has figured out how to port in flickr images into a virtual life 3D Setting, be sure to check out the video which he's left at his post. It can go two ways as snapzilla can publish post cards from second life to your blog.

New to Second Life? I've been playing with it, even gave a friend a tour, and did an interview with Chris Salazar and an informal interview of Robert Scoble on this podcasts.

Besides publishing flickr images to second life, what else could be ported in?

YouTube
Google Video
Dumpalink
iTunes Podcast Directory
Garageband
Podsafe
Techmeme News to a blimp
Importing rich data and profile info from MySpace or Linkedin to pre-create your network of avatars

Create unique and 3D interfaces for any of the above, virtual stores, bands, or conferences. I prophesize that these applications at some point will share data and create unique mashups. When individuals start to communicate by email or IM, they're online avatars in Second life will also begin to interact or build relationships with others.

Kikkoman Launches Interactive Web Initiative for Teriyaki Product

2006-05-30T03:11:00.000-07:00

Kikkoman, which is known for it's soy sauce brands, has recently launched Your Teriyaki focus site with the aid of FCB Advertisting of San Francisco, reports a Forbes Press Release.

I've decided to give some exposure to this campaign, as it's both local and a product that we may use at home. The "Your Teriyaki" site deploys a popup flash experience that focuses on 'fresh' (asian california style) recipes that can created from their product. They integrate recipes via video as well as provide downloads for the recipes.

As a Web Strategist, here are some of my observations:

I enjoyed the fresh interactive design, the videos are download recipe are helpful, maybe extend to monthly cooking videos using their products?
Why is there no link or reference to "My Teriyaki" site from Kikkoman proper website, if such heavy resources were invested for the focus site, shouldn't there be cross linking?
I reccommend that they give an option to download all receipes to PDF, as you currently would have to open and print each one.
Also, I was prompted to go to the Kikkoman website from the Your Terikyaki site to "View More Recipes" I was expecting to see ratings by users of these recipes, as well as the apparent ability to submit receipes. Bonus points would be provided if it enabled user submitted pictures and tags --and even a subscribe feature. (FCB should propose pro)
Another idea would be to create an export data format (XML or RSS) that would export these ingredients to a safeway shopping cart or other local grocery chain for immediate pickup or delivery. (Why not a simple link to Amazon, who already sells the product here)
If Kikkoman really wants to engage it's audience online, consider building a community, a network that promotes both usage of it's product from 'recommended' recipes as well as community submitted. These communities will bond, and even form in real life --this is how I define Community Marketing.

Decent start Kikkoman and FCB, It would be great to see you both take it to the next level.

Speaking of cooking, last night I grilled Smoked Salmon on a Cedar Plank with fresh herbs, lemon juice, with Italian Squash, and Aspargus. (I don't do justice to my wife's cooking however) I think I'll make the Steak Salad with Fresh berries for my wife sometime --I think we'll both enjoy that on a hot summer day in the Bay Area.

More discussions about this
-Robyn Tippins Review
-Jason the Content Librarian

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

Ballbug.com and I saw Bonds blast 715 (see pics)

2006-05-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

Ballbug.com (the basebal version of tech meme) reports that Bonds passes Babe with 715 homers. I was there, see my flickr pictures there was a lot of streamers, fireworks, and happy people.

Bonds hit the HR into the center areas, no one in the stands caught it, however I suspect someone in the concession stands below got the ball. I find it interesting that my news now is found primarily from bloggers --even sports.

IE7+ and Windows Vista Beta 2

2006-05-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

Are these names of droids in an upcoming Star Wars film?

Sounds like it, but it's not. The IE team has decided to announce that "that we will be naming the version of IE7 in Windows Vista “Internet Explorer 7+”. This primarily due to the release of Vista Beta. I attended the IE7 Beta Release Party: Product Teams, Editors, Podcasters and Bloggers party a few weeks ago -- we even recorded a podcast

I'm still keeping track of my use of IE, and tracked a few bugs, that appear to be working much better now.

I use IE7 at home to access my webmail, as well as a few other sites, I say I use firefox 80% of the time and IE 20% of the time.

Speaking of Science Fiction Films, I saw Xmen 3 last night and I really like it. There were even people protesting the Da Vinci code.

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

SF Blogger Dinner June 13 at Hotel Utah

2006-05-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

Want to meet some fellow bay area bloggers and geeks?

I copied Shel's exact title, because I can't do it better. I could add that geeks could come too, not just bloggers.

<<Sign up at Upcoming>>

According to Shel's post and comments, the following will be coming out.

I'll update the list as it grows. Who's Coming:

We had fun the last time at Hotel Utah, although Shel got a little bit crazy with the face paint. they have some good burgers, decent beers on tap, and a great area to hang out.

There's even a small stage with a piano on it --if you buy me enough beers, I may play some jazz for you --I'm rusty, but I'll give it a shot.

Webvisions, Panelist, Portland, July 20-21

2006-05-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Webvisions, Panelist, Portland, July 20-21

Our Panel "Let Go, Jump In: Community Marketing Strategies for Empowered Customers" will be driven by Kit Seeborg (who runs Design for ROI) Among my peers will include Brian Oberkirch, (super cool guy at Weblogs work, we met at NewComm) Dan Saffer (blog) from Adaptive Path --A leading UX shop in SF.

I'm excited about the topic focus "Community Marketing" as I've been giving it much thought both in theory and practice. I'm planning to record the session, I know it will be fun, interactive and insightful.

"Social media tools have entered the traditional marketing sphere, allowing customers to create and evolve their own user communities. Is this a nightmare for traditional marketers? Are barbarians at the gate? Or is this a priceless chance for companies to leverage their most powerful marketing tool of all... the customer.

Handing over power requires a leap of faith. We'll share our experiences of letting go, then joining, and eventually leading the community. We'll discuss specific ways in which you can integrate and design community marketing into your company's business and see customers as your new partners.

Let go. Jump In. There's beauty in the breakdown."

My wife and I will be enjoying Portland for the weekend, we've never been before, it'll be fun to explore and check out the local art and music scene during the summer. Thanks to Kit for the invite --looking forward to it.

Job: Web Strategist Needed at Ford Foundation, NY

2006-05-25T15:57:00.000-07:00

Ford Foundation Seeking Full Time Web Strategist, E-Products Manager in Manhattan.

It's very rare when I promote a job from my blog, ok, we'll this is the first, and I really don't want to get into the habit of doing this. However the Ford Foundation does good works and I want to do my part to help.

They are seeking a seasoned web strategist to define the role of web for their organization this person will build a great web program that will help them to grow, share, and maybe build web communities --ya know, the stuff I love.

The Ford Foundation is a private philanthropic institution that serves as a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide. Our goals are to: Strengthen democratic values; reduce poverty and injustice; promote international cooperation; advance human achievement. This has been our purpose for almost half a century.

The position is Full Time, and in Manhattan NY, (A perk right there) and they are willing to relocate the right individual (they also have a pretty good benefits package). Here's a brief summary:

The Web Strategist reports directly to the Communications Director and will play a lead role in conceiving and implementing a strategy for the Foundation’s website and e-based external communications. Under the supervision of the Director of Communications s/he will design a blueprint for overhauling the Foundation’s website, introduce e-based communication tools that support the Foundation’s evolving communications plans and goals, and guide the Foundation’s thinking on creative and mission-driven uses of the web and other interactive media.

Rather than I post her email up on my site and she get spammed from dawn to evening, please send me an email, and I'll connect you to her at jeremiah_owyang@yahoo.com.

Please make the subject line say: Ford Foundation, if not you run the risk of getting junked.

Podcast: Waxxi Innagural Kickoff live

2006-05-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

Waxxi Podcast Live

I've got my hands on the Waxxi Innagural podcasts before it will be published to the whole world. Yup, I had to pull some eStrings for this one.

"Hundreds of people globally come together to have a global conversation with Robert Scoble, one of Microsoft’s Technical Evangelists and best-known blogger and Shel Israel, Writer, Consultant, Speaker. Robert and Shel co-authored the book Naked Conversations: how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers."

You can listen to Scoble, Shel, CEO of Waxxi Tracy Sheridan, and a bunch of other participants (like me) in this first interactive podcast. Tracy has posted the links on the Waxxi Site.

Or you can listen to them directly from here:

Attention: I've moved to Web-Strategist.com --you'll find more of my thoughts there. I've selected specific posts to add this link to.

My 'Best of the Best' Photos Flickr Photo Set

2006-05-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've been raving about flickr (although James continues to tease) and have been uploading photos like crazy. I've uploaded at least 2000 photos in the last few weeks.

Last night at the podcast meetup, one kind attendee asked me while she had the mic "you've been taking a lot of pictures, what are you doing with them? uploading them to flickr"

I realized that my flash had been going off , and many didn't realize what a blogger and photo freak I was.

Best of the Best Photo Set
I've completed my favoriates photo set entitled "Best of the Best Photos Flickr Photo Set" , please realize that 99% of the photos were taken by me, exception of the wedding pictures.

Try the Slideshow version, if you want to kick back --best enjoyed with a glass of wine and good music.

Enjoy, leave a comment if you've any questions.

Podcast Meetup in SF

2006-05-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

Left: Martin McKeay, Shel Holtz, Me.

I've taken quite a few pics of the event last night, here's my flickr set. I attended the Podcast Meetup in SF at Sauce. (they have a nicely stocked bar, and Trumer Pilsner) Interesting session, everyone went around the room introducing themselves and the podcasts they work on. Of course I told about my involvement with the podcast roundtable with Martin Mckeay. I ran into Shel Holtz (he was on the Waxxi podcast last weekend).

An interesting debate opened up between Jon Hammond, Jazz musician, and Michael the Rock and Roll Geek regarding rights and use of music in podcasts. We've heard this before debate before "should podcasters be allowed to reuse musicians music to promote, etc".

Thanks Jon, who gave me his latest CD --a pic of us, I listened to it on my drive to work, I told him I used to be a Jazz Performance Major before switching to a web career.

There were a few prizes given away such as books signed by authors, and an airclick. Got a chance to check out Shel Holtz recording device an M Audio Microtrack

I gave Shel Holtz a ride to the Bart station, I didn't realize he actually has a web consulting business helping corporations with Intranet Content Audits --a practice I've done several times.

Podcasters I met:

Michael (pic), the host of the event is at Rock and Roll Geek Show.
Raphael (pic) from the Retro Podcast, interesting podcast and show, they review/discuss retro furniture --it's a podcast with pictures to view
Jon Hammond (pic) here's his main site or check out some of his CDs on Amazon.
Ran into Deirdre Kennedy who is the Executive Producer and host of Animals Aloud.
Grabed the cards of Joe and Pam who run A guy, a girl and a bottle (a wine podcast)
IODA is the industry-leading digital distribution company for the global independent music community.
Think Future Radio Show: "Like Limbaugh, Savage or Franken? You'll LOVE Chris Future."
Of course, there is Shel Holtz and his well known podcast series
Podshow Podcast Network (just added this)
Lastly, I'm a founding member of the Podcast Roundtable: Discussions on Tech, and interviews with Tech Leaders.

You can view other pictures tagged podcastmeetupsf or sfpodcastmeetup in flickr

Lunch at Google with Christine from Blogger Team

2006-05-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

I've been writing about blogger lately (and why I use it) and was very thankful to be invited as a guest at Google's Mountain View campus, invited by Christine of the blogger team. I

She was gracious enough to invite me to the famous Café 150, which is a unique corporate campus cafe that only prepares food from a 150 mile radius. Obviously, as one would expect, fresh produce, cultural flavorings yielded a modern, California style cuisine.

Over dining in the sun, we enjoyed discussing our history at Exodus, blogging, and our interests in music, arts, and the challenges of bay area real estate.

I met some of the other friendly folks on her team like Graham. He's got an interesting blog, and I believe this is him playing guitar(mp3). I've offered to be a beta tester for any future blog enhancements to the blogger product

– Thanks again for lunch Christine!

Cheap laptop revealed, a question raised...

2006-05-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

I've been following the cheap laptop story, and even discussed this a while back in April. I'm fascinated by the thought of global enablement of the internet --I guess it ties back to me being a web strategist. I even got into a heated debate with Rick Cooper about global conversations and thought pollution.

SFgate has just asked if you would pay 100 dollars for this laptop. Pete Barr-Watson has put some pics up on flickr, or view the set here.

Alan Saracevic of the SFgate asks "Again: Why does everyone need a laptop?"

I think I've stated my case plenty of times, anyone else have an answer?

Technorati, Sphere, Feedburner and Blogburst

2006-05-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

I've been having a few discussions with James Gross about feed syndication, and republication, he's recently posted some of his thoughts on Sphere, Feedburner and Blogburst (which I've signed up for) RSS search evolving to directories, and the future.

James used to work for Feedster, that is known for feed syndication, Technorati has just announced that it's going to

"Today, as a first step, Technorati is now connecting bloggers to the more than 440 AP member web sites in the U.S. that take the AP's Hosted Custom News product, taken by local papers such as the Buffalo News or the Sun Journal. "

Be sure to check out Time's implementation of the contextual and relvent use of sphere on their site. Click on any article, and then you'll see a link to Sphere it.

Sites like Time are mixing CGM and EGM --going purple like CBS and NYtimes have done.

Unique Blogs Update

2006-05-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be doing this series of "Unique Blog Update" and tie them into one post.

I think it's just as important to think about Web Strategy as it is to look at how different individuals are using blogs for their own unique strategy.

In particular, I like to focus on the career or professional blog that don't relate to web.

Here's a few unique blogs:

Confessions of a Chiropractor
Dr. Les Chu is a recent member of the blogging community, and has built this blog to reach out to other chiropractors. Interesting intersection of blogging and his focus area. Here he discussed public opinion of his profession in the blogosphere.
Taxi Vignettes
Joan the Taxi Lady shares her experience as a bay area taxi driver, in this post she gives us a nice picture of SF, and wonders why someone took part of her taxi!
e-Bizz by Christopher Salazar
Chris is one of the most well known intern bloggers, and is sharing his journey being an intern, he recently wrote this post about how to make the most out of a business trip.
Travel Log
BizNet provides some tips, special deals and other travel information from their perspective as a travel agent or traveler.
THIS IS FUN TO MAKE A BLOG ON THE COMPUTER WEBSITE
Mark showed me this one, it's a real 'riot' --I think you'll agree. My Aunt Chris rolls over laughing when reading this one. Be sure to start from the bottom --it's not random, there is really a story that evolves and some sort of strange character development.

That's it for now, if you know of any unique proffesional blogs of individuals that are sharing their experiences with the world, or are using blogs as communication and networking tools, please let me know!

"Community Marketing" Opportuninties for Google or Microsoft regarding MySpace

2006-05-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

MySpace is ready to step up to the partnership block. I remember just a few weeks ago when facebook was discussing it's value of about 2 billion? The world is catching on to the value of online communities. The Financial Times reports that:

"MySpace, the fast-growing “social networking” site, is in talks to forge a internet search link with either Google or Microsoft, in a move that would confirm the emergence of Rupert Murdoch’s internet site as a significant new power online."

Last week I compared some of the Top Sites in March 2006, (which by the way is based off ZDnet's measurement of unique visitors not logins --that myspace claims 80 million registered)

Site | Unique Vistors (by thousands) | Average Time spentonline

Microsoft | 99,368 | 0:50:16
MSN | 5,124 | 1:52:10
Google | 93,244 | 1:00:56
MySpace | 36,373 | 2:09:04

If either Microsoft or Google partners with MySpace, they will clearly have access to at least a third more eyeballs than they currently have for online advertisting, marketing and research.

To the Victor: Mutiple Web Strategies can be applied
Let's also not forget that online advertising isn't the online benefit to the equation, but whoever can harness the opinions of the youth thought leaders and key decision makers will be able to provide intelligence that could persuade markets to shift adoption. We're really talking about mass consumer intelligence and opportunities for control if done correctly. Sophisticated and highly targeted (and viral) marketing campaigns can be unleashed in myspace (see how one skate shop figured it out, and how radio stations have already harnessed community) Lastly, don't forget that the MySpace crowd is not just going to be about kids, teens and college students, but many of them (and I know several) have already hit the workforce.

What we're really talking about is the opportunity for Community Marketing.

Dell to mimic Apple stores --But do they have brand zealots?

2006-05-23T05:48:00.000-07:00

Dell to build Offline Click Stores
I like Dell, my home PC is a Dell, and I even configured and helped with the ordering process for my Dad's and Sister's Inspirons. PC pro reports that Dell is going to open two live click stores. I agree with Dell's analysis that:

"The company has always insisted that retail stores would be loss making, but Apple's success in generating over $1bn worth of sales in a single quarter through its network of more than 100 stores appears to have presaged a change of heart"

A Late Start to a Difficult Problem
It will be difficult for Dell to gain traction for profit, but by making a unique, interactive product showroom that encourages community interaction may yield long term results. I feel Dell products are a different market segment than the Creative Apple thinker crowd --many ties over to business sectors, both small and medium. Let's be sure not to forget about Gateway, that slipped quietly into the night with the cows --Dell has to be sure not to replicate those mistakes.

I even noticed my cousin's new laptop the Dell XPS, it's a real indicator of change in the Dell lineup. hipper, powerful, for gamers and less 'corporate' design.

Is Social Interaction and Community Marketing a component of brand zealotry?
This is how Web 2.0 is different --computer manufactures are going Offline as well as Online for an multi channel customer experience.

Social interaction is a core foundation of Web 2.0. Does social communinication assist in customer zealotry and thriving brands? Do Apple customers like to communicate, converse, and build communities? Is this the source of the brand loyalty for boxes filled with wires and chips? Do these communities need to socialize offline and online?

I just talked about how loyal customers can be created from unique 'dumbed down' customer experiences and products such as Trader Joe's, do the same rules apply to computer manufacturers?

Questions:

Does Dell have the same unique brand as Apple?
Does the Dell brand create customer zealotry like Apple?
Is Social Interaction and Community required to build brand zealotry?
Does Dell provide Social Interaction and Community?
Is Dell late to the game?
What do customers say about Dell? Try a Google Search on "Dell Support" and you may find this: (ouch)

Jeremy Z's (Top blogger at Yahoo) on Dell Support
ZDnet's conversations on Indian outsourcing mistakes

Trader Joe's: Unique Customer Experience "Dumb, Organic, & Faster"

2006-05-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Just got back from our weekly trip to Trader Joe’s an unique American Grocery Store that is known for loyal customers

"My wife describes Trader Joe’s as Organic Faster Food”

She also likes the diversity of products and that it’s often easy to prepare (we’re both busy professionals). Unlike traditional brands (like Safeway or Albertsons, Trader Joe’s has unique products that it’s difficult to predict what one will get.

As such, it’s an experiment and a experience to try new foods to bring home. I noticed how they try to 'dumb down' their advertisting and marketing, and make each store unique to it's biome, and staff are taught to be helpful and friendly. By "dumbing down" their brand and marketing they bring a 'local grocery store' feel from a very revenue intense corporation.

Forbes indicates in their most recent article "Cheap Gourmet" that

"The chain (Trader Joe's) posted sales of $4.5 billion last year, estimates trade journal Supermarket News, closing in on Whole Foods, with sales of $4.7 billion from more-expensive items"

Seth Godin listed a few reasons why Trader Joe’s has been successful, he writes that

They target a consumer that cares a great deal about what they buy at the supermarket.
These customers are big mouths.
Most of what they sell is private label.

I suggested we start a blog on reviewing Trader Joe food, with ample pictures, descriptions and ratings of food, but we quickly decided it’s probally been done before, and I really don’t have time to start another blog.

Upon some research, I’ve found that there is already a Tracking Trader Joe’s blog (not aflliciated with the company it says) as well as the Candy Blog, that often reviews product from Trader Joe.

What are your experiences with Trader Joe? Are you a Consumer? Zealot? Don’t care? Or even dislike Trader Joe’s?

Intranet Resources

2006-05-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

I've worked on four different enterprise Intranets during my career, so I'm pretty familiar with the ins and outs of corporate intranets.

A while ago, I published these thoughts on the Corporate Intranet and Health Inspectors --I noticed a trend between the design of Intranets and corporate cultures.

The Intranet Review Toolkit (managed by James Robertson, who I've communicated with several times) has published the following list of bloggers that discuss intranets:

James's excellent list of Intranet Blogs

(Special note, it should be known that I had originally copied the links and descriptors from James list and pasted here on this blog, However as an oversight I didn't put the quotes on it, so rather than adding the quotes, I'm just linking back over to James site where you'll find many other resources as well)

Also, I should note that I'm the moderator and owner of the Intranet User Experience Group --if you want to network with a larger group of intranet practitioners, this is the place for you.

Thanks James for the great list.

Blogging Native to IT Analysts | Massive ROI

2006-05-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Information week discusses that Blog-Based Analysts Shake Up IT Research: A new breed of IT analysts is sharing insights over the Internet, leaving traditional research firms trying to catch up using the same methods.

"If you like your IT analysis fast, free, and with a heavy dose of attitude, you're in luck. A new breed of technology analysts has emerged: They use blogs to spread their insights, and they're not afraid to pick a fight with IT vendors or one another. These E-pundits want to shake the foundation of IT analysis and influence the market, forcing conventional firms such as Forrester, Gartner, and Yankee to adapt or get left behind, much the same way the packaging and reach of cable TV newscasts forced network news to rethink its role."

No surprise to me, many analysts have been writing columns, articles, reports, reviews and performing analysis for years, to them, blogging is native to analysts. If anything, it gives them the opportunity to add some spice, opinion, or personal insight that they were restricted to before. Now that users and readers can usually leave comments (some of the analysts listed in the report have clunky comment forms) it becomes more of a discussion.

Let's not forget one of the most famous analyst bloggers, Charlene Li from Forrester, when asked what her ROI was (I was in the front row at Newcomm) she responded that (reports the Marketing Blog)

"So what's Charlene Li's ROI on blogging?

It's, er, over 5,000 percent. That's based on her calculation that her $14.95 / month account with TypePad triggered $1 million in new business for Forrester last year. "

I noticed within some IT industries that analysts were the first to blog --even before many consumers --again, it's native to them

The Participants are Taking Charge (Waxxi and Bay to Breakers)

2006-05-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

Waxxi the interactive podcast
This has been a monumental weekend for me, I was one of the first to participate in a truly interactive two-way podcast with Shel Israel and Robert Scoble –I was able to voice my own opinion in real time on the call as well as interact in the chatroom backchannel, and then blog about it (Shel blogged it as as did Scoble)

SF's Bay to Breakers Parade and Run --expressive to say the least.
Yesterday, I attended the Bay to Breakers run/parade, a 7 mile (plus one mile cool down) run and parade every May in San Francisco. It was interesting as anyone was allowed to participate in the parade, many showed their interesting and creative side, some took the race very seriously, and some just came to have a true naked conversation.

At the Bay to Breakers I saw Brett Crosby from Google Analytics running like lightning ahead of most of the other ruckus, I looked him up he did an amazing 1:11. I was wearing my blogger shirt on and as he ran by, he said "Hey Jeremiah" --too cool. I also saw my buddy Juan, (who needs to update his blog) who posted pics on flickr There are so many more pics on flickr (tag =baytobreakers), you need to view through them –let me warn you however, there are some nude photos that others have uploaded that may offend you.

These to me are both signs that society and information will continue to present the following

The Participants are Taking Charge as the common person has access to publish their own thoughts and express themselves.
Communication and Interaction is two way, as podcasts blogs, and parades allow the audience and spectators to talk back.
The power is in the masses, while a podcast with Shel and Scoble alone maybe interesting, it’s a lot more fun to listen to when there are others participating.
Human will use the internet, blogs, podcasts, and flickr and what's next tools to communicate, the lines of distinction between message controller and participant are blurred.