All Things Cahill

Great LA Times Piece on Revision3

I’ve said it before - they’re changing the way broadcast media is done…check out the LA Times piece on  Revision3.

nd so far, people are. Revision3 was started in 2005 by Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, the guys behind Digg.com, the popular site where users vote on the best news stories of the day. Rose co-hosts the show “Diggnation,” a weekly rundown of the site’s top stories, which Revision3 beams out to about 200,000 viewers per 40-minute episode. He has become a model for the kind of smart celebrity the technology scene loves — people who are entertaining while the camera’s rolling, and enterprising when it isn’t.

“What’s working are these host-driven shows,” said Revision3 Chief Executive Jim Louderback. “The ones where you’ve got an engaging host with a proven ability to aggregate social networks around them online, and who are great at talking about their passions.”

I don’t miss a single episode of Tekzilla and Systm - great shows, and they work very well downloaded right onto my Iphone - I no longer fear waiting rooms.  They are there when I’m ready to watch them - utterly convenient, as opposed to traditional broadcast

The real thing to get out of this article is this: online video is the place to be right now.  The rules are being written and the frontiers are being explored.  Look at the stuff that Leo Laporte’s doing at Twitlive.tv and definitely take a very close look at Revision3 - this is the next wave and it’s happening now.

(Disclosure: Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback is a friend from college - but that had nothing with my decision to run this post, although I am extremely happy for him and the Revision3 crew…)

Tags: Broadcast Media, jim louderback, kevin rose, la times, leo laporte, online video, patrick norton, revision3, technology scene, twitter

Twitter, FriendFeed and Overexposure of the Personal Brand

I’ve said it before, but this post especially requires that I state it clearly again: I am a New England Yankee.

That means that I possibly have a heightened sense of propriety and generally would consider a lot of things marketing-wise as crossing the line that some of you might not have a problem with.

I’m noticing lately that a lot of marketing types are spending a lot of time on micro-blogging tools such as Twitter, FriendFeed (the new darling), Plurk, etc. I’m sure many have convinced themselves that a lot of what they are doing is “creating social media brand awareness” for their products. The truth is that Twitter is more about branding for the personal brand, and as such I find in most cases, it creates a level of over exposure that’s downright harmful to your personal brand.

Think about Jason Calacanis, who was for a while offering all kinds of contests, giveaways, etc. via Twitter, trying to increase the awareness of the Majalo Search Engine (disclosure: I signed up to contribute when it first started, but honestly never did produce any results for them). For a time, it seemed that the Twitter stream I was getting was all Jason, all the time. “I’m going to have lunch with xxx here. Burritos, yum” or something like that. The signal to noise ratio was so high that I really began to dislike what Calacanis was doing. I didn’t even know him and I was starting to develop a strong dislike.

Jason mentioned on the This Week in Tech podcast this week that he has a lot of people who can’t stand his online persona, but actually become good friends when he meets them. And for the record, I really enjoy hearing Calacanis on podcasts, and I’m sure I’d like him if we were to sit down for a beer sometime. However the Twitterati Calacanis was, for a time, utterly annoying.

Similarly Jeremiah Owyang - he’s been a perennial link in my posts, but when Forrester did their conference in March this year, I had to un-follow him for the time being, I just didn’t need to know whenever anyone decided to go to the bathroom at the conference, or what specific CEO he was talking to.

On the other side, I see a lot of the Twitterati catering to prurient interests to build their following. Yes, sex sells, for the most part, you’re selling yourself here. Do you really want the interest that brings? If you’re even thinking about that, you might want to talk to Ariel Waldman, community manager at Pownce, who’s now got her own stalker, with all the fun that brings. Oh joy!

The problem we have is that so many of us are making the mistake off blending our personal and our professional lives. In business, I prefer not to be known for my ability to consume Mojitos…although personally I really like them. Yet, I blend my Twitter posts with a weird mix of both professional and personal information (yeah, do as I say, not as I do).

I think too many of the Twitterati are making the fundamental mistake of overexposing their personal brand via social networking, to their personal and professional detriment. Your thoughts?

Tags: ariel waldman, blogging tools, brand awareness, crossing the line, jason calacanis, jeremiah owyang, personal brand, signal to noise ratio, twitter

The Shine is off Social Networking

Say it ain’t so, Joe! Over the past few weeks, it’s begun to look like Social Networking, the current darling of the conference and consultant set, might have jumped the shark.  I personally would peg the exact point where it went careening off track as the day that Waste Management (the guys that probably run your local honey truck) opened their own social networking site.

But it goes far beyond that.  Earlier this week Om Malik wrote a very interesting piece showing that social networking may have flattened out, or even may be decreasing. He notes:

Today there are numbers out from comScore that indicate plateauing growth for the big two — MySpace and Facebook — in the U.S. Last week, Revision3 canceled “SocialBrew,” an online video show dedicated to social networking. Meanwhile, Monster killed its Tickle social networking service (first reported in April by TechCrunch), following closely on the heels of CondeNast’s shuttering of Flip and Verizon’s decision to close up its virtually unknown network, which had managed to garner a mere 18,000 members. (Verizon has shifted its community to Facebook.)

And these just might be the tip of the iceberg, for there are way too many me-too networks out there failing to find the traction, and hence the volume, needed to grow their revenues. The lack of monetization will only accelerate this process.

I’ve also been detecting a subtle change in the “conversations” on Twitter lately, with some brave few actually taking a stand against the social networking Kool-Aid.  In one telling argument, it came down to a final comment from the prime Kool-Aid drinker that “You just never got Social Networking,” reminding my of my favorite line from a movie I dearly love, The Duellists, in which the lead character, D’Hubert, (a Napoleonic era officer who has served from Spain to Russia and back) is condemned with the single statement “You never loved the Emperor.”  Indeed, one might as easily be condemned for “Not being Politically Correct,” or whatever the actual flavor of the moment is.

Also, I find the current “Proactive Customer Support” wherein companies monitor social networking apps to create a two tier service network, in which the middle to upper income have a vastly different support experience than the lower middle to poor do.  Think about “Comcast Cares” on Twitter, a Comcast rep, who actively searches out support issues to help fix them.  I’ll bet he’s finding most of the problems are centered in Bel Aire, not in Compton.

Social Networking wasn’t invented by the current crop of Powerpoint wielding wannabes, and it’s been around a lot longer than most would suggest.  Honestly, I see it actually predating the internet, going back to the days of computer bulletin board services (Do you remember them?).  Most of the basic fundementals of Social Networking were really polished in online forums, on IRC, and in the first Instant Messaging Apps.  It’s not utterly new, in most cases, this is just a better presentation.

Some general Social Networking notes:

• “Join the Conversation” - I’m growing tired of hearing this.  If you already aren’t talking to your customers, then maybe there’s a reason.
• Just because Facebook says we’re friends, it doesn’t mean I will loan you money…
• Why is it the GuruVangelistPerts on Social Networking seem to Twitter from bars or about going to bars so often?

What is new, is that there is now a widespread understanding of Social Networking and it’s overall importance in both web design in particular and marketing in general.  I realize many readers may be rather upset at my saying the Emperor has no clothes, but indeed, that is not what I am saying. I am saying it’s a waste of time to talk about the clothes, rather than the more substantive issues about the Emperor, like taxes, etc.  When the medium is the subject of the message, there is a problem with that medium.

I’ve said it before, I say it again here.  Social Networking and Social Media are not ends unto themselves.  They are aspects of good web design, and should be employed as such.  To use Social Media for Social Media’s sake is a waste of time.  There is a limit to the number of Social Networks I want to be a part of, and I personally would prefer to have more in common with my fellow users than simple ownership of a computer.  Niche communities are the way to go…as Om so brilliantly notes.

Tags: comscore, condenast, facebook, kool aid drinker, social networking service, social networking site, techcrunch, twitter, waste management

Revisiting the Implied Responsibility of Comms Providers

Regarding my post yesterday about the Implied Responsibility of Comms Providers, two things happened over night that bear mentioning.

• Twitter again was down for a couple hours starting at 4pm EDT, or so.
• Users were a lot less charitable in their comments.

I really think they’re at stage 2 in the matrix I provided, but I’ve seen the first signs that they’re moving from step 2 to step 3, which is a very bad thing for Twitter. Jeremiah Owyang tweeted this morning:

Hey are you on Friendfeed? It’s more reliable than twitter, and there’s a meta-conversation there http://friendfeed.com/jowyang

And that, my friends is how things start to go down hill.

(BTW, I re-read yesterdays post - I definitely would have benefited from more coffee and from a copy editor’s assistance. I may clean it up over the weekend…)

Tags: friendfeed, twitter

The Implied Responsibility of Communications Providers

Okay, I promise to go Twitter free next week, but for now, an interesting observation…

Yesterday, Twitter went down for about 3 hours. The general experience provoked a few thoughts. Firstly, I thought of the Twitter addicted, jonesing at their keyboards, hitting refresh endlessly in a forlorn hope the service will return.

But then I thought more on the idea of what happens when your communication means becomes a part of peoples lives.  I’ve been here before, since the Reel-Time.com Forum literally reached that level for New England Saltwater Fly Fishermen, who are, like most Twitter users, type A obsessive compulsives.  It’s a special kind of feeling to know that your important service has become a singular point of contact for many people.  That suggests that if it goes away, you’ve put those folks out of touch.

In my experience, services that provide such a commjunications will face a known, predictable response when are repeated failures:

1. To begin with, everyone thinks of it as an abnormal situation and don’t push to hard.  Oh gee, there was an outage…
2. Subsequent outages provoke concern.  Users ask where they can send get well cards.
3. From there, we move on to anger.  You get phone calls…at night…on unlisted numbers, and they’re not utterly pleasant.
4. From there, if the problems continue, the noise quickly subsides.  No more calls, no more emails from users.  You’ve reached the point that your users simply don’t care anymore, either that or you just don’t have any users anymore.

Th critical litmus test is this: people will not complain if they don’t care about you.

I’m generally concerned about using a communications means that’s provided by a single source, not knowing how scaleable their own infrastructure is.  They’ve also got a very open api that allows most users to access using tools other than the standard Twitter homepage.   That disparity of tools also creates a disparity in user experience.

Tags: social media, Social Networking, twitter

Social Media - Shark Jumping?

One of the outcomes of my testing of Twitter lately is that I’ve come to question whether or not Social Media has jumped the shark (props to David Churbuck who tweeted on social media jumping the shark this morning - I initially left the attribution out to save the fall out, but since he linked, no need to save him…)

What I am finding is that most of the people I am finding in my general circle on Twitter are social media types. That’s to say, folks that attend a lot of conferences, and have generally drank fully of the social media Kool-Aid. The thing that calls it all into question for me is the number of people who are generally ex-online marketing folks now using strange titles like “Social Media User Guru” or something equally ludicrous. It reminds me of a networking group I once attended that turned out to be a room full of sales people, each hoping to sell something, and none realizing there weren’t any real customers there.

Now I’m not certain that this isn’t a function of my very own profile (apparently in Twitter, like objects attract each other, while differing opinions repel with remarkable force). It could be that it’s become like a bad cocktail party with people that know each other standing in one corner, doing their best to ignore the other strange groups.

One thing I know for certain - when the consultants move in so heavily to a space, such as they have in social media (and believe me, there are tons of newly minted “social media consultants” out there), it denotes a fundamental change in the ecosystem.

So where to from here? I think we move on in the direction which I have always said social media should go. It’s not an end to an end, or even a standalone solution in my mind. This is simply good web design, online marketing practice or branding. Call it what you will, let’s just lose the Social Media moniker and take a more holistic viewpoint.

(For the record, I’ve been doing niche community work since 1996, was one of the first bloggers, and date back to the days of Compuserve accounts that came with user numbers, not usernames. I too have fully drank of the Kool Aid, but I’m not so ready to take my advice from those who haven’t been dancing the dance for more than a couple years.)

Tags: conferences, good web design, guru, kool aid, marketing, media consultants, shark jumping, social media guru, twitter

The Right Medium for the Message

Having used Twitter for a few weeks now I’ve come to the realization that it’s a viable communications means. It’s just that I’d never realized the appropriate messages to fit in that medium, which are short comments or conversations. I think of it as yelling over the cubicle wall at the folks around me. It’s good for a short blast, but any substantial conversation needs to move to a more appropriate communication means, be that a blog, an email, IM, the phone, or even the dreaded meat space.

There’s one usage I’m still coming to grips with and I think it’s a good one, the use of hashtags. This allows you to Tweet using a #myhashtag and then that tag is picked up and aggregated by Hashtags.org where you can go and see a stream of any tweets with that hashtag in them. This has a tremendous potential impact on niche communities. Think of a community of saltwater fly fishermen, who can use their phones to send a short tweet from the water, noting that the fish didn’t come in on the tide, or that their hitting on a particular fly. Or how about “the bluefish are blitzing at Sagamore Beach”? Tremendously useful…

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

Other mashups with Twitter I question. Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts from BrightKite noting the exact address someone is at. I absolutely don’t want to be reporting my whereabouts via my cell phone, I have enough people trying to track me as it is. However, on the face of it, think of that group of saltwater fly fishermen again. They’d probably want to know where their friends are and be able to catch up. Well, at least you’d think that, but the my experience tells me the exact opposite, they’re more territorial than wolverines, and absolutely would take the locations of their favorite spots with them to the grave rather than devulge them to anyone.

Think about how hash tags could be used at a major event, like, say the Kentucky Derby, which is a multiday affair.  You could use has tags to aggregate what everyone is saying, and also to direct them to the events you want, such as your brand sponsored cocktail party.  “Meet at the ShillCo Pavilion for mojitos…”  If I were planning a major marketing event, I’d definitely be thinking how to incorporate this, provided I could be assured they’re be enough Twitter users around (and of course I’d tie it in with a blog, email, etc.).

That said, there are communities that BrightKite would fit nicely into.  Think of Crafters at a Craft Fair, or perhaps members of the same car club at a Car Meet.  You know you’re buddies arrived, and you can meet up.

I think that Twitter is hurting the blogs though. Now it seems to me that rather than linking on a blog, people are sending out a tweet about a good post. The truth is that blog links have legs, and tweets have very limited range, only to your followers, and there, only to the followers who are actually looking at the screen at that time. Twitter is kind of like a stock ticker, the information fades fast. I really only see trackbacks from sploggers now.

The diaspora that’s hit online media, with so many disparate tools, has got to stop.  Segmentation and tribalism won’t work for us.  We’ve got to move towards aggregating, not compartmentalizing.

Tags: brightkite, conversations, flickr, fly fishermen, hastags.org, mashups, niche communities, twitter

Unintended Consequences

From Tom Willmot via Twitter and the Telegraph.co.uk

OGC Unveils Logo to Red Faces

It cost £14,000 to create, but clearly no-one at the smart London design outfit that came up with the new logo for HM Treasury thought to turn it on its side.

The logo, for the Office of Government Commerce, was intended to signify a bold commitment to the body’s aim of “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement”.

Instead, it has generated howls of mirth and what is likely to be a barrage of teasing emails from mandarins in other departments.

According to insiders, the graphic was already proudly etched on mousemats and pens before it was unveiled for employees, who spotted the clanger within seconds.

Tags: clanger, hm treasury, london design, mousemats, office of government commerce, ogc, twitter, willmot

The Web 2.0 Paradox

As readers know, I’ve been testing Twitter.  It’s fun, but for me the jury is still out.

One of the things I’m noticing is the preponderance of New Media Gurus inhabiting Twitter.  And inevitably, many feel the need to constantly evangelize on the issues of Web 2.0.  News flash: if you have to talk in broad terms about Web 2.0, Social Networking or Social Media, you’ve probably already missed the boat.  This is not some abstract concept that is coming down the pipe someday, it’s a trend that’s here.  If you’re a designer or a developer, it is not a trend, it’s a wrench your toolbox to be employed where it fits.  No more and no less.

Let me say that more clearly: the whole social networking thing is an extension of web design and development, not a radical departure from it.  It is an iteration, one more bit to add on and be aware of.  Think of it as a stop on the bus route of development.  This is all an evolutionary step, as will be the *next big thing*.

When I see “new communication tools” like Twitter, I have one standard that I apply.  If the discussion in the tool is mostly about the tool, it is a failed experiment.  I am not currently certain if Twitter has risen above that level of primordial ooze yet.  As John C. Dvorak noted, I don’t really want to know that you’re having a cheese sandwich for lunch…

Tags: abstract concept, cheese sandwich, communication tools, failed experiment, john c dvorak, media gurus, primordial ooze, radical departure, Social Networking, twitter, Web Design

Epic Post - How to Monitor Social Media for Free

Okay, we all know that social networks are out there and that we should be making use of them.  But how do you monitor what’s going on in the vast ecosystem of Twitterverses, MySpaceDoms and FacebookVilles?

David Churbuck has been doing just that for Lenovo for the past two years and he’s sharing the lessons learned in this post: “Try to Detect It” which I consider a must read for any web marketing pro or business owner/senior manager.

Free: yup. It costs nothing to detect the chatter about your company. There are two solid solutions for blog search – perhaps you’ve heard of Google? Thought so. Google Blog search is a good thing. And then there is Technorati, which sort of defined the space. Both are great tools, but you can automate searches of specific keywords and phrases and then syndicate those searches as RSS feeds out into a blog reader such as Bloglines or (in my case) Google Reader. Then you just need to remember to scan the blog reader a couple times every day.

The best part is that it’s true, unlike so many “Free’ claims.  You can measure a lot of this stuff in some very novel ways.  I’ve been doing some of this back channel to detect mentions of some new sites I’ve just launched and it works.  Plus it’s always great to walk into a meeting armed with facts, especially when everyone else is essentially unarmed.

The media landscape has changed, if you hadn’t noticed.  Trade magazines are dinosaurs and if you’re relying on them to tell you what’s going on in your industry, you’re woefully out of touch.  Not only should you be monitoring what’s said on websites, you’ve got to find a way to monitor what’s happening in the social networks like Twitter, when product talk can affect you without your ever knowing it.  If you’re not monitoring, now is the time to start and Churbuck has given you an excellent primer to jump start your efforts.

Tags: bloglines, business owner, dinosaurs, google, great tools, lenovo, marketing, media landscape, online marketing, social networks, technorati, trade magazines, twitter