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La Chine à l’assaut des médias sociaux

2009-11-16T19:09:54Z

Leveraging Social Marketing for Business, Sales and Startups

2009-11-16T07:08:11Z

Following on to the post last month on leveraging social networks to build Web traffic, courtesy of YourBusinessChannel, filmed while in the UK with Ecademy, three more short videos have surfaced from our extended interview on the impact that social media tracking and activity can have for companies big and small on the Web - be it through connecting with potential customers, or simply expanding their brand. The three videos are embedded below - proving to me that I sound as tired as I felt, having just completed a five-hour presentation following the San Francisco to London Trip the day before.

Social Marketing Strategies a Boon for Business

Sales Advice for the Social Web

What Can Social Marketing Do for Startups?

More: louisgray.com | RSS | FriendFeed | E-mail | Cell: 408 646.2759

10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.9

2009-11-11T22:36:41Z

Gentlemen, start your engines! WordPress 2.9 is just around the corner. Unlike WordPress 2.8, which Mark Jaquith describes as the Snow Leopard of WordPress since most of the basis of the WordPress 2.8 upgrade was complete rewrites and optimization of the infrastructure that ran WordPress instead of providing lots of new features in the same way Apple’s new OS X release is a focus on improved performance instead of features, WordPress 2.9 brings major new “bling” to the table. As a reminder of WordPress 2.8, you can see the writeup that Jonathan Dingman brought us last time around.

By and large, this release is a plugin developers release with lots of new APIs and abstraction. However, there are significant additions for theme designers and users as well. As a result, unlike previous iterations of this article (I do one for every major WordPress release), I’m going to break this down into sections for each kind of feature.

Themes: the_post_image()

Theme developers have a new piece of functionality that have become extremely popular in themes these days. As blogs have evolved from journal form into entities that can be very magazine-like, the use of thumbnail images has also grown. Typically, this layout is achieved through the use of custom fields that must be manually created and populated. No more!

As of WordPress 2.9, if you use the built in image uploader, then WordPress handle this for you. Theme designers that wish to support this feature can add the template tag the_post_image() to their themes to achieve proper placement as required by the theme layout. The template tag can optionally take a “size”, which is one of the WordPress default sizes: thumbnail, medium, large, etc. If none is provided, it defaults to your preset thumbnail size.

Example:

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<?php
while( have_posts() ) : the_post();
?>
<div class="entry">
<h1><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title() ?></a></h1>
<?php the_post_image() ?>
<?php the_content() ?>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>

Conveniently, if a theme is enabled for post thumbnails, the only “feature” currently offering this support in WordPress, then a new “meta box” will be displayed on the Write screen allowing you to assign a post image.

Themes: Register Support for WordPress Features

This may seem to be an obscure feature, and typically, it’s pretty simple to figure out what I’m talking about just by looking at the header. In this case, it’s a bit more obscure because it suggests a feature that is introduced in WordPress 2.9 and then only for a very niche purpose. I can see this being built out over time, and plugin authors can supply their own use cases.

The concept is simple. If a feature exists — in the core, the only use case is for the thumbnails I described earlier and it is called ‘post-thumbnails’ — then a theme can declare support for the feature using the add_theme_support() function in the theme functions.php. It can only be declared in this file and it requires a feature be assigned a name. As I mentioned, with WordPress 2.9, there is only one feature that is named and that is post-image. Plugin authors can provide their own new functionality using the require_if_theme_supports() function.

1	require_if_theme_supports('my-custom-feature','/path/to/custom-lfeature-library.php');

Themes would then enable support for the feature by including the following in their functions.php file.

1 2	if ( function_exists( 'add_theme_support' ) ) add_theme_support( 'my-custom-feature' );

We’ve used the function_exists() check on the add_theme_support() function to ensure backwards compatibility with WordPress installations prior to WordPress 2.9. Similarly (and possibly confusingly in this context), before you would have to check for the existence of a plugin by using a function_exists() or class_exists() piece of logic and loading it if the class or function did exist, but now there are on/off switches to get it done.

Users: The Trash Can

On Windows, they call it the Recycle Bin. On Macs, it’s the Trash. In both cases, the feature exists to help people recover from accidental deletions. We have all had those moments where we nuked something we had no intention of nuking. With WordPress, accidental deletions have been permanent. In WordPress 2.9, everything is recoverable now with a new Trash feature. When you delete a post, page, category, comment, or any bit of content, it is moved to the Trash where you can decide whether to pull it back at a later date.

The Trash Can view. From here, content can be restored or deleted permanently.

Trash collection is done every 30 days by default, but it is possible to change this by editing your wp-config.php file. Add the following to your config file to change trash collection to every 7 days. Modify as needed.

1	define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS',7);

Users: Image Editing

One of the hot new features in WordPress 2.9 is image editing. Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t Photoshop. And it only support basic functionality at this time. However, image editing will allow bloggers to crop, scale and rotate images from right within WordPress. From the media library, you can edit images by clicking the Edit link under an image, and then clicking the Edit button on the individual image page. This brings up an interface like what is shown below.

The WordPress 2.9 Image Editing Screen

Users: oEmbed

oEmbed, as described at oEmbed.com, is a specification that allows media providers like Flickr, YouTube and others to provide data for consumer applications like WordPress about media. So by including an Embed (Use the File uploader and choose “From URL” and paste the link to the page that contains the media, not the media file itself) in a post or page, WordPress can retrieve the relevant specs on the media file and formulate a properly formatted embed accordingly.

Below is an embed of one of my Flickr photos using oEmbed.

Below, is an oEmbedded YouTube video (which itself is kinda hilarious).

If you don’t want to use the GUI for this stuff, you can simply wrap the URL to the media page in embed shortcode tags like this.

1	[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGp220EQUis&feature=popt00us0a[/embed]

The list of supported oEmbed sites in WordPress are as follows:

YouTube (via oEmbed)
Blip.tv (via oEmbed)
Flickr images and videos (via oEmbed)
Hulu (via oEmbed)
Viddler (via oEmbed)
Qik.com (via oEmbed) — never heard of this site, but it was listed on oEmbed’s website, so…
Revision3 (via oEmbed)
Google Video (via an internal handler)
PollDaddy (via an internal handler)
DailyMotion (via an internal handler)

That said, plugin authors can add new providers if they want by using the oembed_providers filter or override altogether with the WP_oEmbed->providers property.

Plugins: Custom Post Types

One of the strengths of Drupal has been its ability to have multiple types of contents contained in objects that all look alike to PHP. WordPress has supported a variety of content types as well, but it has not been nearly as flexible making WordPress a blog platform with some additional support for pages and attachments. Technically, the only post_types that WordPress has supported have been post, page, revision and attachment. While it has technically been possible to add new post_types (like podcast, mp4, or tutorials – they could be anything, really), it has been a chore and required plugin developers to handle quite a few moving parts in order to make it all work properly.

No longer. Plugin authors now have API to register new post types, opening up the possibility for even more creativity and uses for WordPress.

get_post_type()

The get_post_type() function can only be used in the Loop. It returns the type of post a post is. Keep in mind, I’m using post loosely. All content in WordPress is kept in the posts table thereby inheriting the name “post”, but post is also a kind of content that is associated with blog content (as opposed to page which is a pseudo-static page, attachment which is information about an image or file uploaded with the media uploader, etc).

get_post_types()

The get_post_types() function will return a list of all types of post content. By default, this will be post, page, attachment and revision. Refer to the source code for optional arguments that can be used to control what kind of data is returned.

register_post_type()

As a plugin author, you can use this function to create a new post type. The first argument is the unique handle you want to assign to the post type – let’s call it podcast – and the second argument is an array that contains additional elements. The key one here is an exclude_from_search, which by default is set to true. You actually probably want to set this to false unless you really don’t want this additional content searchable. See below for example usage.

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function wpb_podcast_init()
{
register_post_type('podcast',array('exclude_from_search' => false) );
}
add_action('init','wpb_podcast_init');

There is currently no user interface for post types. There is a patch in for UI that will likely be included in WordPress 3.0.

Plugins: Comment Meta

There has been a variety of meta tables in WordPress. Meta tables, like usermeta or postmeta, are database tables that contain information about the type of data that is stored in WordPress. It allows plugins and WordPress to assign metadata, such as user roles and capabilities, to pieces of data thus extending that data. Now, there is a comment meta table as well.

Though it is unclear how plugin authors will seek to use this table, the fact that it is available is a major deal as it essentially provides meta tables for every piece of content in WordPress now.

Plugins: Metadata API

With the addition of a comments meta table, it has become effectively redundant to duplicate functions throughout WordPress. You have a get_post_meta() function that does the same thing as a get_usermeta() function except they query data from different tables that also look identical except for the data stored in them.

In WordPress 2.9, there is an entirely new Metadata API that can be used to retrieve data from any of these meta tables.

The add_metadata() function takes a meta type (‘comment’, ‘post’, ‘user’, etc), the ID of the content type, the key and value of the metadata and whether the information should be unique or not (true or false).

1	add_metadata('comment', 12345, 'twitter_id', 'someyoungpunk');

You can also use update_metadata(), delete_metadata(), get_metadata() and update_meta_cache() for further wrangling. Refer to wp-includes/meta.php for full documentation.

Themes/Plugins: Theme System Modification

A lot of messiness has been eliminated in WordPress 2.9 theming. For one, new template opportunities exist. Now, instead of looking for a template file called category-x.php, tag-x.php or page-x.php, where x is the ID of one of those types of content types, it will look for these templates second. The first template that is now looked for is based on the slug. So if you have a category, tag or page called foo, the first template to be sought after would be category-foo.php, tag-foo.php, or page-foo.php. If none of these templates exist, then the ID-based template file is looked for.

Additionally, plugin developers can register new directories for themes to be located with the register_theme_directory() function.

System: Database Repair Script

The database occasionally needs a good spring cleaning. Other times, the database needs a repair. WordPress ships with a new script that will do just this. It is housed at /wp-admin/maint/repair.php but in order to use it, you need to create a new (or modify if it already exists for some reason) constant in wp-config.php.

1	define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR',true);

System: Minimum Requirements

PHP 5 is not required yet. That’s coming in WordPress 3.0. But MySQL requirements have been boosted from MySQL 4.0 to MySQL 4.1.2.

Bonus coverage

Other interesting things in WordPress 2.9.

JSON compatibility, before only beneficial to PHP 5.2, has been backported for use in WordPress
New ‘Undo’ button when using the Visual Text Editor
A new sanitization API (with functions like esc_html())
The emoticon system can be altered using the smilies_src hook. :-)
Bulk Upgrading of plugins
Filesystem optimizations pertaining to FTP/SSH etc.
rel=”canonical” for single posts and pages aiding in SEO
Minify Admin CSS making for quicker (and smaller) page loads
Bunny Tags and Jeromes Keywords Importers removed

Top 60 Japanese words/phrases of 2009

2009-11-16T08:07:23Z

Publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha has released its annual list of the 60 most popular Japanese expressions of the year. The words and phrases (listed below in no particular order) reflect some of the major trends, events, and people that captured the attention of the Japanese mass media in 2009. Included are plenty of references to Japan’s recent political shake-up, the ailing economy, and the blurring of traditional gender roles. From this list, a panel of judges will select the 10 trendiest Japanese expressions of 2009 and announce the results in early December.

* * * * *

1. Regime change [seiken kōtai - 政権交代]: The landslide election victory of the Democratic Party of Japan brought an abrupt end to 54 years of Liberal Democratic Party rule. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has promised a host of political and economic reforms and may open a new era in foreign and security policy. [More]

* * * * *

2. The Alien [uchūjin - 宇宙人]: Because of his quirky hairstyle, prominent eyes, and eccentric manner, Prime Minister Hatoyama is known by his supporters and opposition as “The Alien,” a nickname his wife says he earned because of how different he is from old-style Japanese politicians.

Box of Hatoyama Sable Cookies on sale at Tokyo Station

In his book Seicho no Genkai ni Manabu (Learning from the Limits of Growth) published in 2000, Hatoyama claims he is happy to be called an alien. “All humans are aliens. We are earthlings, and at the same time, we are aliens, one existing part in the universe,” Hatoyama writes. “As a human being, I think it is very important to go beyond the bounds of global awareness into universal consciousness.” [More]

* * * * *

3. “…to Venus in a UFO” [UFO de kinsei ni - ＵＦＯで金星に]: Colorful first lady Miyuki Hatoyama drew worldwide attention with her claim to have traveled to Venus aboard a UFO. Her account first appeared in a book entitled “Most Bizarre Things I’ve Encountered,” which features interviews with prominent people about unusual experiences. “While my body was sleeping, I think my spirit flew on a triangular-shaped UFO to Venus,” she said. “It was an extremely beautiful place and was very green.” [More]

* * * * *

4. Herbivorous men [sōshoku danshi - 草食男子]: Coined in 2006 by author Maki Fukasawa, this term refers to an emerging breed of man whose passive nature stands in stark contrast to conventional notions of masculinity. Typically in his 20s or 30s, the herbivore doesn’t earn much money, spends little, takes a keen interest in fashion and his personal appearance, and does not aggressively pursue “flesh” (i.e. romance and sex). Friendly and home-oriented, he tends to favor cosmetics over deluxe cars and would rather eat sweets at home than treat his girlfriend to dinner at a fancy restaurant. [More]

* * * * *

5. Herbivorous/carnivorous [sōshoku-kei/nikushoku-kei - 草食系／肉食系]: Where the herbivorous man is passive, the so-called “carnivorous woman” is aggressive. The words “herbivorous” and “carnivorous” have come to denote one’s level of passiveness or aggressiveness, particularly with respect to sex and romance.

* * * * *

6. Nogyaru [nogyaru - ノギャル]: Nogyaru — a combination of the words nōgyō (agriculture) and gyaru (gal) — is the name of a rice-farming project started by young Shibuya gal entrepreneur Shiho Fujita.

The crops are grown in Akita prefecture with the help of Shibuya gals and marketed under the brand name “Shibuya Rice.” [More]

* * * * *

7. Fast fashion [ファストファッション]: The weak economy appears to have impacted Japan’s fashion world by pushing consumers toward the cheaper end of the market. A “fast fashion” boom has erupted in Tokyo’s trend-setting Harajuku area, where a crowd of cheap chic European and US retailers such as H&M, Forever 21, Topshop, Zara, and Gap are now competing in close proximity to one another. [More]

* * * * *

8. 990-yen jeans [９９０円ジーンズ]: Fast Retailing, which operates the Uniqlo casual fashion chain, attracted attention in March when it began selling blue jeans for a surprisingly cheap 990 yen (about $11) at its g.u. stores. In addition to driving up sales at g.u., the bargain jeans touched off a denim price war as competitors slashed prices in response. [More]

* * * * *

9. 25% reduction [25% sakugen - ２５％削減]: At a climate change symposium in Tokyo in September, Prime Minister Hatoyama pledged big cuts in Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions, saying he will aim for a 25% reduction by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. [More]

* * * * *

10. State-run manga cafe [kokuei manga kissa - 国営マンガ喫茶]: In April, the government fast-tracked plans to construct an 11.7 billion yen ($130 million) National Center for Media Arts — a museum for manga, anime, video games, and other technology-based art.

Illustration of proposed “state-run manga cafe”

In a debate with the now former Prime Minister Taro Aso, new Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama criticized the planned facility as a waste of taxpayer money, referring to it mockingly as a “state-run manga cafe.” After assuming office, Prime Minister Hatoyama put a halt to the project. [More]

* * * * *

11. Eco-car tax breaks [eco-kaa genzei - エコカー減税]: In April, the government began offering consumers a series of tax breaks and subsidies designed to encourage more eco-friendly car purchases. Under the scheme, consumers who buy new electric, hybrid and clean diesel cars are exempted from automobile acquisition and weight taxes, and those who purchase gasoline-fueled cars that meet certain fuel efficiency and emissions criteria are entitled to a 50% to 75% tax reduction. In addition, subsidies of up to 250,000 yen ($2,700) are available to people replacing older vehicles with eco-friendly cars that meet certain criteria. [More]

* * * * *

12. Eco-points [エコポイント]: To stimulate consumption and promote the use of energy-efficient home appliances, the government set up a massive subsidy program based on eco-points, a type of currency that consumers earn by purchasing government-designated air conditioners, refrigerators and TVs. Accumulated eco-points can later be used toward the purchase of other goods. [More]

* * * * *

13. 1000-yen expressways [sen-en kōsoku - １０００円高速]: To help stimulate the economy, the government reduced the maximum toll for passenger cars on expressways across most of Japan to 1,000 yen ($11) for unlimited distances on weekends and national holidays. [More]

* * * * *

14. Convenience store medical treatment [conbini jushin - コンビニ受診]: This expression refers to a growing problem in which patients with busy schedules seek minor medical attention at hospitals during off-hours, when only the emergency room facilities are available. By popping into the hospital late at night as if it were a 24-hour convenience store, these patients end up placing undue strain on emergency room facilities.

* * * * *

15. Change [チェンジ]: Echoes of Obama’s mantra of “change” could be heard during this year’s historic general election in Japan.

* * * * *

16. Ozawa girls [小沢ガールズ]: The Democratic Party of Japan’s landslide election victory in August brought 26 new female members — many of them young and attractive — to the legislature. Japanese reporters and political commentators have nicknamed these women the “Ozawa girls” after former party boss Ichiro Ozawa, who spearheaded the campaign.

A few of the more well-known Ozawa girls include Kayoko Isogai (a 43-year-old unemployed woman), Mieko Tanaka (a former sex-industry reporter who has appeared in provocative photo spreads and starred in the erotic horror cult flick “Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf”), Ai Aoki (a former late-night television reporter), and Eriko Fukuda (a 28-year-old activist who became famous by leading a high-profile legal battle against the government after contracting hepatitis from a tainted blood transfusion).

+ Scene from “Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf,” starring Mieko Tanaka

Opponents have criticized the DPJ for recruiting unqualified female candidates who they say will never actually be given the power to make important decisions. Party leaders have dismissed the criticism. [More]

* * * * *

17. Supplementary income payments [teigaku kyūfukin - 定額給付金]: To help stimulate spending in the sluggish economy, the government offered supplementary income payments to the residents of Japan. Payments amounted to 12,000 yen ($130) per person (20,000 yen, or $180, for children and seniors). [More]

* * * * *

18. Life-sized Gundam [jitsubutsudai gandamu - 実物大ガンダム]: For a few weeks this summer, an 18-meter-tall “life-sized” Gundam statue was erected in Tokyo’s Shiokaze Park to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the “Mobile Suit Gundam” animated television series and to draw attention to Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Olympics.

Over a million people are estimated to have visited the statue while it was on display. [More]

* * * * *

19. Poverty [hinkon - 貧困]: According to a recent survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, nearly one in six Japanese people are living in poverty — one of the highest rates in the developed world. [More]

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20. Temp worker cutbacks [haken-giri - 派遣切り]: When struggling companies are forced to make cuts, temp workers are among the first to lose their jobs.

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21. Temp Workers’ New Year Village [toshikoshi haken mura - 年越し派遣村]: To draw attention to the plight of Japan’s haken-giri poor, a group of 20 organizations set up a temporary emergency camp in Hibiya Park next to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare building. From December 31, 2008 to January 5, 2009, the village provided meals and sleeping facilities to the needy, as well as recreational events and entertainment to help ring in the New Year. [More]

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22. Housing poor [housing poor - ハウジングプア]: Japan’s social safety net has come under increasing criticism for its inability to handle the growing ranks of people at risk of becoming homeless. Particularly vulnerable are people in their 20s and 30s who live in company-provided housing. When these workers lose their jobs, they often end up sleeping in Internet cafes and restaurants before ending up on the streets. [More]

* * * * *

23. Zero/zero apartments [zero zero bukken - ゼロゼロ物件]: Rental properties requiring zero security deposit and zero “key money” are an attractive option for young people on a budget. However, the unfair practices of some zero/zero apartment agents — particularly with respect to the way late payments are handled — have come to light, resulting in a series of legal battles. Tokyo-based zero/zero agent “Smile Service” has been accused of barging into tenants’ apartments in the middle of the night to demand money, charging outrageous penalty fees, changing the locks and confiscating belongings, even when rental payments were a day late.

* * * * *

24. Sexy buchō [sekushii buchō - セクスィー部長]: Sexy Buchō (”department chief”) is a popular character with humorously exaggerated masculine sex appeal who appears in skits on the NHK sketch-comedy show “Salaryman NEO.”

Sexy Buchō, played by actor Ikki Sawamura

* * * * *

25. Home appliance entertainers [kaden geinin - 家電芸人]: Group discussions with famous comedian guests on the weekly late-night variety TV show “Ame Talk” sometimes revolve around the latest in consumer electronics and home appliances. The comedian guests participating in these episodes are referred to as “home appliance entertainers.” Due to the show’s popularity, various electronics makers have reported significant spikes in sales after their products were discussed.

* * * * *

26. “Doll stand” entertainers [hinadan geinin - ひな壇芸人]: This expression refers to the small groups of comedians frequently seen on variety TV shows, who typically occupy a set of tiered seats (resembling a traditional hina-doll stand).

* * * * *

27. Obama administration [Obama seiken - オバマ政権]: The Obama administration grabbed its fair share of headlines in Japan this year.

* * * * *

28. De-bureaucratization [datsu kanryō - 脱官僚]: The new government has promised to break up the entrenched relationships between bureaucrats, big business and the LDP by decentralizing the bureaucracy and filling high-ranking civil-service posts with political appointments. [More]

* * * * *

29. Donations from dead people [kojin kenkin - 故人献金]: This refers to a scandal in which dozens of people, including those deceased, were falsely listed as donors in political funding reports filed by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s fund-raising organization. In June, Hatoyama acknowledged that the bogus lists included 193 donations from 94 people, many of them dead, totaling 21.8 million yen ($240,000). The matter is still under investigation. [More]

* * * * *

30. New flu [shingata infuruenza - 新型インフルエンザ]: About 6 million people in Japan have been infected with the new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 since early July. [More]

* * * * *

31. Pandemic [パンデミック]: In June, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of H1N1 to be a pandemic. [More]

* * * * *

32. 1Q84 [pronunciation - 日本語]: The first two volumes of 1Q84, a three-part novel by Haruki Murakami, were published in Japan in late May (the third volume is scheduled for release in summer 2010). The much-anticipated novel rocketed onto the best-seller list, selling out the first printing on the first day of release. Over two million copies were sold in the first six weeks of publication.

1Q84 is described as a complex and surreal tale that touches on themes of murder, history, cult religion, violence, family ties and love. The title of the work is a reference to the year 1984, which the characters experience in an alternate reality. It is also a nod to Orwell’s 1984, as the Japanese word for the number nine is pronounced “kyū.” But unlike Orwell’s 1984, which concerned the future, Murakami’s 1Q84 approaches the year from the opposite direction, creating an alternate past. [More]

* * * * *

33. Lay judge trials [saibanin saiban - 裁判員裁判]: Japan’s new “lay jury system” — which requires randomly selected citizens to participate as jurors in trials for certain serious crimes — went into effect this year. In the first trial under the new system in August, lay jurors found 72-year-old Katsuyoshi Fuji guilty of stabbing to death his 66-year-old neighbor and sentenced him to 15 years in jail. [More]

* * * * *

34. DNA evidence [DNA kantei - ＤＮＡ鑑定]: In June, a Japanese man who spent over 17 years in jail for the murder of a four-year-old girl in 1990 was released after fresh DNA tests showed he was not the perpetrator. The 63-year-old man had been sentenced to life in jail after confessing to the crime, but he later retracted his confession, saying it was forced. The case has prompted fresh criticism of Japan’s system of police interrogations, in which suspects can be detained and questioned for up to 23 days without the presence of a lawyer. [More]

* * * * *

35. “It happens” [aru to omoimasu - あると思います]: “Aru to omoimasu” — loosely translated as “it happens” — is a line used by comedian Tenshin Kimura each time he finishes singing one of his humorously erotic shigin poems.

* * * * *

36. Tuusu! [トゥース]: This is a popular greeting used by comedian Toshiaki Kasuga of the owarai duo Audrey. [More]

* * * * *

37. Otomen [otomen - 乙男]: Otomen — a play on the word “otome” (乙女), meaning “young lady” or “mistress,” and the English word “men” — is the title of a popular romantic comedy manga centered around a cool, masculine student who excels at martial arts but harbors a secret girlish love for sweets, cute things, cooking, shōjo manga, and sewing. [More]

* * * * *

38. Pork-barrel politics [baramaki - ばらまき]: The Hatoyama government has pledged to put a stop to wasteful government spending.

* * * * *

39. Yamba Dam [八ッ場ダム]: As promised during the campaign, the new government quickly halted construction of the $5.2 billion Yamba Dam in the town of Naganohara, north of Tokyo. Somewhat surprisingly, many residents opposed the government’s decision to cancel the dam because they depend on the construction jobs and compensation payments for their livelihood (even though the dam would ultimately submerge their town under water). Halting the project is seen as a test of the Hatoyama government’s ability to fulfill its promise to revitalize the economy and end Japan’s addiction to massive, often wasteful, government-funded construction projects. [More]

* * * * *

40. Sorting out operations [jigyō shiwake - 事業仕分け]: To eliminate wasteful government spending and trim the budget before next April, the new government is employing an innovative method of reassessment called jigyō shiwake (sorting out operations). Developed by Japan Initiative, a private-sector think tank, the jigyō shiwake method has been used for seven years to streamline budgets and boost efficiency at the local government level. The method involves teams of government employees and outside evaluators — called shiwake-nin — who work together to prioritize government projects and services one by one. The teams assess the necessity of each service, decide whether to keep it or outsource it, and determine whether to change the scale of the service and the way it is provided. [More]

* * * * *

41. Ashura [アシュラー]: In spring, a popular exhibit entitled “The National Treasure Ashura and Masterpieces from Kohfukuji” was held at the Tokyo National Museum. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a 8th-century statue of Ashura, a Buddhist deity.

This exhibit attracted over 940,00 visitors — the most ever for a Japanese art exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum. [More]

* * * * *

42. King of Pop [キング・オブ・ポップ]: Japanese fans of Michael Jackson mourned his death in June. [More]

* * * * *

43. Flying object [hishōtai - 飛翔体]: Despite international appeals, North Korea proceeded with a long-publicized rocket launch on April 5. After the rocket passed over Japan and fell into the Pacific, the Japanese government issued a statement that read: “A short time ago a flying object appeared to have been launched from North Korea.” A strong message of protest was delivered to North Korea following the incident. [More]

* * * * *

44. World without nuclear weapons [kakunaki sekai - 核なき世界]: On April 5, just hours after North Korea launched a “flying object” over Japan, US President Barack Obama spoke in Prague and called for “a world without nuclear weapons.”

CDs of Obama’s Prague speech, a popular English learning tool in Japan

In mid-November, after a summit meeting with Prime Minister Hatoyama in Tokyo, the two leaders issued a joint statement expressing their determination to realize a nuclear-free world and urge other nations to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their security strategies. [More]

* * * * *

45. Complaints [boyaki - ぼやき]: Katsuya Nomura, 74-year-old manager of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles professional baseball team, attracted attention this year for his habit of voicing colorful complaints during post-game interviews. Nomura was replaced as manager by American baseballer Marty Brown after the season ended. [More]

* * * * *

46. Mā-kun, child of god [maa-kun kami no ko - マー君神の子]: “Mā-kun” is the nickname of Masahiro Tanaka, a starting pitcher for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. Manager Katsuya Nomura has called him “kami-no-ko” (child of god) for his remarkable ability to help the team win when he is in the lineup. [More]

* * * * *

47. Players under development [ikusei senshu - 育成選手]: Under the new player development system adopted by the Nippon Professional Baseball League, teams with more than 65 contracted members can sign players to ikusei contracts and allow them to develop at the minor league level. [More]

* * * * *

48. Samurai Japan [侍ジャパン]: Japan’s national baseball team — nicknamed “Samurai Japan” — successfully defended their championship title at the 2009 World Baseball Classic. [More]

* * * * *

49. Katsumaa [katsumaa - カツマー]: “Katsumaa” are fans of Kazuyo Katsuma, a charismatic businesswoman, working mother and author of several best-selling books that have sold millions of copies. She writes mostly about self-management, work-life balance, gender equality, and how women can achieve greater success. [More]

* * * * *

50. Marriage hunting [konkatsu - 婚活]: Konkatsu (”marriage hunting”), which refers to the desperate marriage quest activities among people in their 30s and 40s, was included in this same list of popular phrases last year. This year the phenomenon became the theme of a few TV dramas, such as Fuji TV’s “Konkatsu!” about an out-of-work 30-something man whose family owns a tonkatsu (pork cutlet) restaurant. The character pretends to be married in order to obtain a city hall job devoted to reversing the town’s declining birth rate. [More]

* * * * *

51. Seeking divorce [rikatsu - 離活]: On the flip side of the konkatsu marriage-hunting phenomenon is rikatsu (divorce-seeking activities). The two phenomena became the theme of an 8-episode NHK comedy drama series entitled “Konkatsu Rikatsu” (Seeking Marriage, Seeking Divorce).

The story revolves around the desperate quests of two 40ish-year-old women rivals — one who seeks marriage and one who seeks divorce. [More]

* * * * *

52. Nori-P shock [nori pii shokku - のりピーショック]: Pop idol-turned-actress Noriko Sakai (a.k.a. Nori-P) shocked the celebrity world after she was busted for possessing and using stimulant drugs. [More]

* * * * *

53. “Seaweed salt” incident [nori-shio jiken - のり塩事件]: Nori-shio (seaweed salt) is a play on the names of Noriko Sakai (nori – “seaweed”) and singer/actor Manabu Oshio (shio – “salt”), both of whom were arrested on separate drug charges in early August. The celebrity drug arrests together came to be known as the “nori-shio incident.”

* * * * *

54. Aburi [aburi - あぶり]: Aburi, which ordinarily refers to the act of lightly roasting food, is street-slang for smoking amphetamines. Following her arrest in August, Noriko Sakai confessed to doing aburi with her husband.

* * * * *

55. “I didn’t want to come to this place” [konna tokoro kitou wa nakatta - こんなところ来とうはなかった]: This is a memorable line from the first episode of “Tenchijin,” a 47-part weekly drama about the life of 16th-century samurai Naoe Kanetsugu, which aired on NHK from January 4 to November 22, 2009. The famous line belongs to the very upset 5-year-old Kanetsugu (known as “Yoroku” in his youth), who has been separated from his family and sent to a temple to be educated as a samurai. The young Kanetsugu is played by child actor Seishiro Kato. [More]

* * * * *

56. Child store manager [kodomo tenchō - こども店長]: In addition to playing the boy samurai in “Tenchijin,” child actor Seishiro Kato starred as a young store manager in a series of commercials for Toyota. [More]

* * * * *

57. Silver Week [シルバーウィーク]: In the third week of September, Japan enjoyed a 5-day holiday due to the unusual occurrence of a weekend followed by three public holidays — Respect for the Aged Day (third Monday in September), Autumnal Equinox Day (usually September 23, on Wednesday this year), and the “freebie” national holiday that occurs in between two holidays when spaced a day apart. This string of holidays came to be known as “Silver Week” in reference to the Golden Week holidays in April/May.

* * * * *

58. Girl power [joshi-ryoku - 女子力]: The young women’s fashion magazine (a la JJ and CanCam) version of “girl power” involves the skilled use of makeup, fashion and taste to boost one’s self-image and feminine appeal.

* * * * *

59. Bento men [bentō danshi - 弁当男子]: A trend sparked by the recession is the rise of so-called “bento men” — salarymen who prepare bento box lunches at home and take them to the office. According to a recent survey conducted by a Japanese bank, nearly 10% of Japanese salarymen now take homemade bentos to work to save money. [More]

* * * * *

60. History girls [reki-jo - 歴女]: Japanese history — particularly that of the Warring States period (mid-15th to early 17th century) — has become a hot topic among many young women in Japan. Called reki-jo (history girls), these newfangled history buffs are reportedly flocking to important historical landmarks and buying up history books, magazines, and samurai-themed knickknacks.

Rogin’s “Oda Nobunaga” underwear sells for 9,240 yen ($100) a pair

Tokyo-based underwear manufacturer Rogin, which sales a line of samurai-themed underwear, has also reported consistently strong sales. About 80% of buyers are women, according to the company.

Researcher Tetsuaki Higashida of the Dentsu Communication Institute suggests history girls may be attracted to samurai for their powerful masculinity — something many women may find lacking in their modern male counterparts. “Gender role reversals have been taking place, with men cooking and women playing golf,” he says. “It’s not unacceptable nowadays for women to take an interest in warlords, which used to be an area of interest reserved for men.” [More]

My blogging process–The 2009 edition

2009-09-27T17:30:01Z

Earlier this week I gave you a look at my blogging tools—Tools that rock my blogging that you should try too | Six Easy Blogging Projects Blog—and some of you might have wondered how I actually write the posts I produce. Even though I’ve titled this my “2009 edition”, not much has changed in my whole blogging process since late 2004. Sure I’ve changed blog editors, RSS readers, even operating systems since then, but I haven’t really changed how I gather, sift through, review, and write blog posts.

It starts with RSS

The core of any professional blogger’s toolkit is his/her RSS reader and bevy of feeds. I’ve culled down my nearly 1,000 feeds to a more manageable 330 some odd feeds, but I still look to these information sources as the start of all my blogging. From my feeds I not only learn what is going on in the world and the various tech niches I’m interested in, but I get a sense of the bigger picture of the community and industry as well. Sometimes I’m not even consciously aware of what I’m absorbing, but it’s always there, that little voice in the back of my mind putting all the pieces together.

Okay then, I’m skimming a few hundred posts (I usually check my feeds every couple hours or so), then what? It’s tab-o-rama time.

Wow, that’s a lot of tabs

As I’m “reading” my feeds, I’m making a lot of choices at once. I decide whether I’m going to read the whole post then or later, I decide if this is going to be opened for reference material or just one of those smaller pieces of the larger puzzle, and finally I decide whether to open the post in Firefox or not. As I skim headlines, which makes it pretty important that authors write good, descriptive headlines, I’m going through all those decisions. The end result, sometimes 20-30 tabs open in Firefox at once. Lucky for me, NetNewsWire let’s me open tabs in the background so I don’t have to switch back and forth from NNW to Firefox and back again.

Now the hard part comes, reading and culling the source articles.

Now, later, or never

As much as I’d like to say I use really cool and sophisticated tools as I’m reading through articles to segment them into groups, I don’t. I just go from tab to tab reading the posts. Some of the posts I’m reading just to stay up to date and I don’t intend them to be post fodder at all, but that number is shrinking because I have more posting destinations than I did when I started out. So as I go through the open tabs I’m skimming, reading, and thinking. Some are closed right away, others I leave open because I think they will be part of a larger post, and others I take action on right away.

Twitter and Posterous—new destinations for content

When I started blogging I essentially only had one posting destination—my blog. Sure I dabbled with social bookmarking sites like Delicious and StumbleUpon, but I used those mostly to help my friends promote their posts. My problem then was I could only write so much in a given day. I really couldn’t post about all the interesting things that I was reading because I just didn’t have the time to spend doing it. Then, as now, I feel that if I’m going to write a post, I’m going to write a post. I want to put thought and care into what I’m putting out there for my readers. Today, however, I have Twitter and Posterous which are great places for short-form content. I use Invoke’s Hootsuite to post quick links to Twitter and my Posterous-based lifestream is where I put things that I want to say more than a few words about, but less than a whole post. Because I have these two newer options, I can share more than I had be recently because it takes only a moment to write a few words. Less pressure to write, easier to share.

I still write posts, but maybe not as many as I used to, I think I’m just getting pickier now.

Pressure to Post Perfection

I’ve been blogging for a long time. No, not the longest, but a long time regardless. I’m part of the old guard, those of us who started before blogging was mainstream. Because I’ve been around for a while I feel a certain pressure to write great stuff, just banging out a post because everyone else is talking about something just won’t do. From this self-imposed perfectionism, I’m posting a lot less than I used to. The time factor is also plays heavily here too, since I want to spend time writing something, I need time to do it. If the time doesn’t present itself that day, often the post isn’t really worth posting. The news has past, people aren’t discussing it and my post becomes a “me too” post rehashing everyone else’s ideas.

When I do make the time to write a post, how I do it is simple. I open Blogo, pick the destination blog from the menu, and start. From my source material I’ve usually chosen the quotes I’m going to use or decided to just link to the post. I’m not the “put an image into every post” blogger that I used to be, so most of my posts are just text.

That’s it. No magic. I sit down with a few tabs open, the ones that made the cut for a long-form post, and write it all out. Generally, like this post, I sit down and do it all at once. No stopping, saving, and opening later (most of the time). If I’m inspired (or happen to have a boon of time), I might bang out another post or two, but those are set to post into the future. This post, in fact, is set to post later. I’m writing it at about 6 AM on a Sunday and since a lot of people aren’t reading blogs at the moment, I’m putting off this post going live until 10:30 AM when I think more folks will be around to read it.

Any questions?

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How To: Be Active On Twitter Without Getting Burned Out!

2009-11-15T12:00:40Z

If you are like me, you love Twitter. Since I work from home most days, having my TweetDeck open all day is as natural to me as having my email open.

Since I have sent over 15,000 tweets, I would say I qualify as a Twitterholic. Even though I’ve met some of my very best friends on Twitter, every now and then I suffer from Twitter burn out.

Has that ever happened to you? It’s ok, you can admit it.

After all, between keeping up with the conversations, answering all your updates, checking out all your new followers and commenting on all the blogs your Twitter friends write, it’s easy to understand that anyone could feel burned out!

Since I don’t like to abandon Twitter and all my friends when those feelings of burn-out strike, I decided to come up with some ways that I can still be active on Twitter without getting burned out. These things have worked really well for me, and I hope you will try them and they work well for you too!

1. Filter Your Tweets – In my opinion, it is imperative to have a Twitter app like TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop or Hootsuite to filter your tweets. Make a VIP column for yourself and put your favorite Twitter friends in that column so you don’t miss their tweets in the stream. This will save you time and frustration and will definitely keep the burn out feeling at bay for a while!

2. Don’t Make Twitter a Contest – Twitter is not a contest. There are so many sites that try to rate you on some ridiculous scale and so many people that will make you feel like you aren’t important if you don’t have a lot of followers. Don’t buy into any of that nonsense because the moment you do, Twitter becomes stressful and you’ll invite the burn out feeling! Twitter is a fun way to build relationships, spread joy and share important information. It is not a popularity contest.

3. Build Relationships with the Right People – Ohhh.. this is so important. It is better on Twitter to have a dozen rock solid relationships instead of trying to be friends with everyone. Here is a secret that all power tweeters know: If you have a handful of strong content providers that you’ve built relationships with, you will never be at a loss for great content to tweet. At any moment I can open my TweetDeck and see a ton of high quality information that I can retweet out to my followers. No stress, no searching, it is just there, always. That is what you want.

4. Don’t Feel Obligated – So many times I see people tweet things like, “I’m so sorry I was away for a while, but I’m back now,” and I feel bad for that person because I know they are feeling obligated. The moment Twitter becomes an obligation, the moment it isn’t fun anymore. The moment it isn’t fun anymore, the moment you’ll feel burned out. Sometimes you just have to walk away. Sometimes you forget to thank someone for a retweet and sometimes you get busy and forget to respond to a tweet. It happens. It’s okay. Twitter has to be one of your happy places, and that means, don’t feel obligated.

5. Manage Your Time – Managing your time basically means you have to realize that you don’t have time to read everything in your stream on Twitter. Become a master scanner. Once you are filtering your tweets, this becomes very easy!

6. Be Genuine – I saved the best for last. If you want to keep the burn out feeling at bay, be genuine on Twitter. Be genuinely interested in getting to know your followers. Be genuinely interested in how Twitter works. Get a conversation going! When was the last time you got burned out doing something you were genuinely interested in?

I love my Twitter very much, but I also love my son and my life outside my computer. I think as with everything in life, balance is the key. If you follow the steps above, I believe you’ll be able to achieve more of a balance and be able to be active on Twitter without getting burned out!

My friend and fellow Bit Rebels writer, @arnteriksen, put this video in one of his articles and I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with you here. Please share you own ideas on how to be active on Twitter without getting burned out in a comment below!

The worst question in social media

2009-11-14T01:09:13Z

Chris Walker, on Twitter, asked a question I get often: “Any advice on getting followers?”

It’s the worst question in social media. Sorry Chris for picking on your question.

It’s actually a question lots of people wonder, but it’s the kind of thing that no one really can answer.

Why?

Because we’re not in control of who follows us.

So, I’d rather not think about it.

I rather think about things I CAN control. What are those?

1. What I write about.
2. Who I follow.
3. Who I hang out with.
4. The lists I follow and steal from.

See, the people I follow will inform my opinion. I find I use what I’m learning on Twitter all the time. So, if I follow smarter technologists, I will probably become more informed. At least I’ll be able to @reply to the best thinkers in the business.

Wait a second, did I just discover a way to get followers? Why, yes! See, if you have something smart to say back to people who are smart they just might follow you.

But, really, followers don’t matter anymore. Here’s proof. I just created a new Twitter account to display only my RSS feed (this blog will be on that new account shortly). I told everyone that I would add the first 500 people who followed that account to a list. Guess what? I didn’t need to follow them back. Here’s the list.

This list is useful to me. Why? It gives me a look into what the people reading me (and who are online on Friday afternoon) are thinking about. I might never have followed many of these people. But now I get to see them. I wish I had a list of ALL of my followers but Twitter is lame and only lets 500 people onto a single list.

So, I can “Follow You” (big “F”) without “following you” (small “F”). So, is the new Twitter goal to get me to follow you? Or put you on a list? Help, my head hurts.

Seriously, why else doesn’t getting followers matter? Twitter search. Several times a day I read every tweet that has the word “Rackspace” in it. Every day! Same for “Scoble.” Same for all sorts of different terms. Today I’m tracking “Google Chrome.” Say Google Chrome in a Tweet and I will see it.

Do followers matter in a search scenario? No! I see your Tweet whether you have 1 follower or a million!

Yesterday I was talking with @pistachio, Laura Fitton, who runs One Forty, a great way to find Twitter apps, and she told me that it’s not the number of followers that matters anymore.

It’s the content you write. Oh, geez, I’m doomed!

So, if you want more followers you gotta find a way to write better? Or do better videos?

Now THAT is the best question in social media: “how do I write better?”

Me? I’m too lazy and it’s Friday afternoon so I’m gonna give up on this writing thing and head to San Francisco for a nice meal with Maryam and friends.

In the meantime, good luck with the followers. I’ve been working in online communities since 1985 and I still haven’t figured that out.

Facebook is the New Google

2009-11-14T16:22:26Z

A year ago the venture community scoffed at application startups who were dependent on Facebook. Today, Facebook is not just where you want your app to run, it is also your most important tool (through Connect) for driving traffic to your site.

To my mind, this makes Facebook the new Google.

The power of Google over the web was manifested by the emergence of SEO and SEM as cottage industries in and of themselves. In the early days, SEO was a dirty little secret that sites like About.com and IGN used to build audiences far bigger audiences than could less insightful competitors. But then the rest of the world caught on and SEO/SEM became a standard part of web marketing.

Today, understanding how to leverage Facebook is eclipsing the importance of SEO/SEM as the future of web marketing. Some of our portfolio entrepreneurs are all over this, and those who aren’t are getting an earful from us on this topic.

Gregg Spiridellis, founder and CEO of our portfolio company JibJab, recently posted on Inside Facebook on the dramatic impact Facebook Connect has had on JibJab’s user growth. JibJab was one of the masters of using email to drive viral marketing. But using Connect dwarfed the power of email. As Gregg wrote:

It took us 8 years to reach 1.5 million registered users in the era of email. It took us only 5 months to acquire the same number of users on Facebook.

We used to get 2 to 3 email recipients for every piece of content shared by a user. Today, we are seeing anywhere from 12 to 20 clicks back to JibJab.com for each post into the stream. Because of this, we have completely subordinated email to Facebook stream publishing in our product experience on JibJab.com.

Another portfolio company of ours, LOLapps, has not only learned the power of the Facebook platform but in fact is building a business out of helping app developers publish on Facebook. Originally focused on enabling Facebook end users become app developers, LOLapps recently has launched a platform for game developers to build and publish games on Facebook. While still in its early days, early signs are promising as the first two games launched on the platform were both among the top 10 fastest growing games on Facebook last week.

And yet a third Polaris portfolio company, Sprout, is building a business helping brands build and publish social advertising campaigns on Facebook (and other social networks).

That giant sucking sound you here? It’s Facebook, pulling users, entrepreneurs, brands and web businesses into its grasp.

La tendance des produits les plus achetés et vendus entre particuliers sur Internet évolue

2009-11-14T19:08:25Z

Bookmark this on Delicious - Saved by netintelligenz to étude stats CtoC ecommerce - More about this bookmark

The Future of Marketing

2009-11-11T14:05:18Z

I hesitate to say that the Social Network Race is over – look at AOL, MySpace and Friendster, all of which used to dominate – but let’s face it, all of these former giants now pale compared to Facebook and Google (and Twitter, if we’re also measuring based on buzz).

Unlike those early players, today’s winners are holding a much more winning hand. Google and Facebook are shooting arrows in the backs of those original pioneers.

The reason Facebook and Google will be the long-term winners: it’s not just the fact that they have critical mass, but that that critical mass comes at a time when Social Networks are not just destinations (a la the old AOL and MySpace), but are becoming integral to the holistic Web Experience.

There will be room for niche social networks, too, of course, like Ning and LinkedIn. For as much value as people see in the bang-for-the-buck they receive by joining the biggest social networks, they also don’t like to feel like a member of the faceless hordes. Joining a virtual knitting circle on Ning provides intimacy and smaller-bore friendships.

And your activities on a site like Ning will help refine the experiences you get elsewhere, i.e., the ads or causes or friend suggestions you see on Facebook will skew towards promoting the known behaviors of the “knitter” psychographic profile.

And so, now that we know the presumptive winners of the Social Networking Era, we can move forward into the not-so-distant future, to envision how we’ll handle The New Marketing…

When we surf and when we search, beyond the Social Network sites, we’re going to be taking our Friends with us; we’re taking our known online activities with us. Sites and search engines will re-orient themselves dynamically to match our identities. The entire Web experience will re-architect itself on-the-fly based on where we’ve been, what device we’re using, what we’ve looked at or purchased in the past, who we are friends with, what offers and content our contacts have been sharing and purchasing, etc.

In the future, the Web you know will be based on the Web that knows you.

This is validated, quite easily, by the efforts of Google and Facebook, with their competing “Connect” products, which also vie with the OpenID standard. The Masters of the Web are desperate to lodge themselves in our extended online activities.

We can also feel pretty confident that this will all happen because Social Media has simply become an unstoppable force. When “checking Social Networking sites” trumps “checking email” (Nielsen: Global Online Media Landscape report, April 2009) you know the marketers are on the hunt. According to MarketingSherpa in a 2009 report, Social Media Marketing topped the list of marketing execs’ future spending plans.

The social networks are just going to “follow that money.” Who could blame them?

That might not be such a bad thing, as “following the money,” in this case, could well result in a more custom-tailored online experience that leverages the experiences of friends and connections in a mutually beneficial way.

What will this future of marketing mean for marketers? How will it change our approach?

First off, I suspect a lot of the Long Tail stuff, e.g., making special offers based on known behaviors and connections, will be automated: it’s too hard to scale otherwise, and besides this is not so far removed from Search Engine Marketing techniques, from a tools & mindset perspective.

However, that doesn’t mean that we’ll devolve back to the Influencers-Are-Paramount mindset that led to the PR spam that plagued our industry (and those poor Influencers) for the past 50 years, either. We’ll become more sophisticated: we’ll be able to identify micro-influencers and influencers-of-influencers.

Want examples? You always want examples.

Before delving into examples of human-based outreach, let’s look at how Social Media might be used by marketers to automate the way they interact with consumers online, in a way that syncs with the growing desire for an opt-in (low-scandal) experience.

I foresee a day when consumers will be able to turn on/off disclosure preferences from within their social profiles (or even their browsers), to actively change their daily surfing, e.g., sometimes a consumer will want her entire web experience to re-orient itself around the fact that she is an avid yoga enthusiast: so she’ll activate that detailed keyword on a day when she’s in the market for a new yoga mat or a new yoga partner.

Her travels across the social web on that day will reveal advertisements for Nike’s YoGirl Yoga Mat and the Boston Sports Club — and the advertisements may offer special discounts if this consumer is known to have over 300 friends within her metro. Based on how the “yoga enthusiast” keyphrase has re-oriented her psychographic profile for the day (“she’s healthy, but not hardcore; mindful; probably charitable and green-minded”), she’ll also be invited to participate in a 5K walkathon for a local eco-charity. Her next visit to Yelp will emphasize healthy eating establishments. Once she’s purchased those new sneakers, found a new yoga partner, etc., the consumer will switch off her “Yoga Girl” identity and resume her websurfing in a more generic way…

That’s a pretty awesome vision in and of itself. But marketers crave personal interaction; they want active brand ambassadors; they need differentiation and buzz.

So, looking at the future of marketing outreach in a social age: Let’s say you sell baking supplies. In ye olden days, you’d look to place articles in Modern Baking to reach wholesale prospects and Martha Stewart Living to reach consumers. More recently, perhaps you’d add mombloggers to the mix. Maybe you’d also reach out to one of the baker’s dozen’s worth of active Baking-related groups on Facebook.

But in the near future, you’ll add @ChillieFalls (Jason’s dad) to your list of outreach targets. Why? Because Mr. Falls is a maker of funnel cakes, and he’s active on Twitter. Given that Twitter dominates Google and Bing’s incipient real-time search results, if you’re selling baking supplies you’ll want to court Mr. Falls. His tweets about your product could easily show-up prominently in those real-time results.

Imagine that: the efforts you expended courting a managing editor at Martha Stewart Living are now spent getting to a funnel cake maker in Virginia.

And when you want to reach the notice of Chris Brogan, maybe you’ll use a service like BackType to note the 8 people whose comments Chris wants to keep tabs on, and you’ll try to influence them by initiating a dialogue that they find helpful. Maybe your examination of their public interactions suggests that they have a favorite charity or a quirky interest in exotic cartoon art: knowing this you can figure out a way to satisfy their engagement preferences, and generate content and dialogue worth spreading via their blogs, tweets — or private conversations with Mr. Brogan. Congratulations! — you’ve influenced the influencer of an Influencer.

And that’s how tomorrow’s game is going to be played.

Like this post? Would you consider sharing it on Facebook? Tweeting about it? Forwarding to a friend? Subscribing by email or RSS? Leaving a comment? Sharing is caring!

Hey B2B marketers: It's okay to have fun!

2009-11-13T15:14:13Z

Why is so much business-to-business marketing dreadfully boring?

I think it's because the marketers involved think "business" as in "I am marketing to a business" and this results in an overly serious tone. After all, if you are marketing to, say, technology companies that’s different than consumer marketing, right?

Wrong.

B2B marketers seem to forget that what all marketers need to do is communicate to people. People want to do business with people and the companies that understand that in the B2B world develop a following.

National Instruments is a B2B supplier of measurement and automation equipment used by engineers and scientists. The tried-and-true marketing from companies like National Instruments is to focus on feeds-and-speeds, technical data sheets, specs, and so on. After all its the engineering community, right?

While National Instruments does provide product specs, they also realize that their buyers are human.

"We've always had the motto, both internally and externally, that 'It's OK to have fun," says John M. Graff, VP, Marketing & Customer Operations at National Instruments. That fun-loving attitude has produced many ways to communicate with the technical audience that buys NI products.

For example a video blog done by Todd Sierer, an engineer at NI, called an An Engineering Mind is really great. In the episode I chose below, he talks about the meaning of the word "Marketecture." Direct link here.

"We first debuted these videos two years ago at our annual user conference held in Austin, TX where over 3000 engineers and scientists gather to see and discuss latest technologies for measurement and automation," John says.

"In addition to the usual technical product demonstrations, we also try to have some fun, including inviting an engineer from the Spike TV show, Deadliest Warriors to the stage. We've found that our audience greatly appreciates this approach to communication (as they get plenty of examples of the drab, "speeds and feeds" technical fire hose). We believe it's greatly enhanced our reputation."

Are you a B2B marketer? Are you treating your buyers like humans? Are you having some fun?

Really, it's okay to have some fun. I dare you.

The Next Big Trend? It's All About Curation

2009-11-13T21:02:00Z

Fact: Information sources are exploding. More information will be created in 2009 than all prior years.

Fact: Attention is finite. We're becoming media agnostic, but when we're interested in something we dig down into our interests.

This is why I and others like Robert Scoble are really excited about digital curation. Facebook and Twitter lists are one level of curation. However, there are others. Posterous and Tumblr are fantastic platforms for soliciting contributions from groups of people around a shared interest. And they're platforms that will enable all of us to curate together.

Here are a handful of places where you can see curation at work (more in the gallery below as well) ...

My Parents Were Awesome is a group-contributed tumbelog that honors our elders. It has received national recognition.
PopURLs Brown by UPS curates information all around business news (UPS is an Edelman client but we didn't build this site)
Microsoft and Nissan have built entire brandstreaming sites that showcase conversations around their brand (Edelman built the Nissan site)
Sawhorse Media is creating a next generation media company by curating tweets in different topics like pets and now lists too
IBM is using Tumblr to curate ideas for a smarter planet

Do you agree that curation - both automated and human-powered - is the next big thing? This isn't just aggregation. As I wrote in my initial post on the subject it's about separating art from junk online.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Social Recruiting

2009-11-13T13:43:24Z

I'm giving the keynote talk at the Social Recruiting Summit in NYC on Monday. I've been working on my presentation over the past few days and some themes are worth talking about.

1) Since we started Union Square Ventures in 2003/2004, we have only been involved with one retained search. Our portfolio companies have certainly used search firms, but our use of them has been extremely rare. We prefer to source candidates ourselves using our networks, and increasingly our social networks.

2) We sourced both of our junior investment professionals, Andrew Parker and Eric Friedman, with blog posts at USV.com.

3) We have sourced countless senior hires for our portfolio companies off of this blog and USV.com. I would bet that we've done a couple dozen successful hires that way in the past couple years.

4) Many of our companies have internal recruiters and we work hand in hand with them, sourcing talent, vetting talent, and closing the sale.

5) LinkedIn is a terrific place to find talent and to find references. When I want to check someone out, I invite them to connect to me on LinkedIn, I find who we know in common, and that is my reference list. Charlie O'Donnell taught me these LinkedIn tricks about five years ago and I use them all the time.

6) Tracked.com is also a terrific place to find talent and figure out who they know. Let's say you wanted to find the top execs at LinkedIn. You can find them all in one place here.

7) Hunting for talent is necessary but not always sufficient. You need to get the word out. Like all things on the internet, there are free ways and paid ways to do that.

8) The best free way is get your jobs indexed by Indeed so they can be found by the over 10 million people a month who go there looking for jobs. We feature all the jobs in our portfolio on the front page of USV.com by running an Indeed stored query of all the jobs in our portfolio companies.

9) Social networks like Twitter and Facebook are also great free ways to get the word out. Post the job on your website and tweet it out, get it retweeted, searched, and discovered and the resumes will start coming in.

10) You can also pay to get your jobs "sponsored" in Indeed. You can post job ads via Facebook's self serve ad system and target them at very specific locations and job types. And we'll see more social media/networks offer paid systems like this in the next year.

11) There are all sorts of niche communities on the web you should be hanging out in if you want to find talent. For tech/engineering talent, we like to look at Meetup groups on certain tech topics (there are eight Ruby On Rails meetups within 25 miles of NYC), open source projects, and niche communities like Hacker News and Stack Overflow. You can play the same game with communities for other kinds of job types. The key is you have to hang out there a bit, get to know the community and the people in it, and build trust and add value.

That last point is the big point. Social media is about showing up, hanging out, and earning trust. If you want to use social media to source talent, you can't fake it. You have to really participate in these systems. But if and when you do, they are incredibly powerful and are changing the face of recruiting.

I look forward to talking to the recruiting community about this topic more on Monday. And if you have ideas for other things I should be talking about, please leave them in the comments.

Social Media Before SEO Is Putting The Cart Before The Horse

2009-11-13T14:10:13Z

Everyone is buzzing about social media marketing. You can’t turn your head without hearing about it at a conference. Marketing and PR professionals are either engaged today or thinking about how to engage tomorrow. Everyone is suddenly claiming expert status (by the way: you don’t need a social media expert, you just need a good marketer).

None of this is surprising. Social media doesn’t require knowledge of technology or staying on top of trends and technologies. Not in the same way SEO does. In comparison social media is easy to get right. You just need to know how to market to a connected society, have comprehension in sociology and learn the basics behind some pretty easy to use tools. Some patience helps too.

The truth, though, is social media is not new hasn’t really changed since I’ve been involved in message board and forum culture of the late 90’s/early 00’s. There are just more people. And we’re actually a bit nicer to each other. But it’s still just digital conversations. Tools change, but the way we interact digitally hasn’t – despite the glorification of certain platforms over others and the new found ability to be anti-social in public (or for some, more social) with the proliferation of mobile.

So here’s the truth: digital marketing hasn’t changed as much as some would have you believe. Search is still the number one source of traffic to my web properties by a pretty good margin (yours too, right?). Sure I’m getting lots of social traffic, but guess what – search still wins month over month, it’s far more consistent and it’s just better quality traffic.

And this brings us to the point: despite us early adopters shifting our habits and changing the way we use the web with the release of each new tool because we’re infinitely curious doesn’t mean everyone is like us. Search is still the core function of those seeking content or information.

If you’re engaged in things like content marketing you should become fluent in SEO before social media. Social media and SEO work together, but without having a search strategy locked down first, you’ll never fully benefit from the intersection. Neither happens in a vacuum.

Search engine optimization intertwines with social media and the engines will only continue to look at social signals more in the future as more users participate. Sites like Twitter won’t disrupt the web’s link graph, eventually it could make it even stronger. But your marketing, your media, your brand – by engaging social without comprehension of search means you’re yielding a higher conversion channel to competitors.

Social marketing efforts before SEO is putting the cart before the horse.

It’s shocking SEO isn’t yet a core comprehension of all marketers when you consider the power behind the ultimate pull marketing channel. Yet it’s not, because the truth is it’s work to stay on top of search trends, continuously learn new best practices and relentlessly market your site better than competitors. It’s also an environment where cash is not king, and many tenured marketers who only understand 1-to-many channels don’t know how to participate in that sort of arena.

Unsustainable traffic

Social marketing efforts behind a website that isn’t optimized will produce fleeting returns. You’ll hit peaks and valleys this way. The social web is fickle like that, and users navigating the river of real-time see today’s signal as tomorrow’s noise. Search on the other hand provides infinite life for your best content. Good content makes your website and the search engines equally more valuable, everyone wins.

No one looks at page 2

Social web users look at page one of our favorite social sites. We want what’s new, now. For many, page 2 of Digg, Reddit or even clicking “more” on Twitter might as well be page 50. If there’s some thought given to SEO behind your social participation your ideas can be extended beyond real-time and given infinite life by the engines. If not, when you fall onto “page 2,” you’ll live in archive purgatory.

Your campaigns can and will outrank you

If you engage in social media without having an SEO strategy behind it, it’s possible externalities are going to outrank your own content. I used to be surprised brands would let this happen, but I’ve seen it happen so often that I’m actually surprised when I see the opposite occur. It’s just so rare people put thought behind this stuff.

You’re leaving traffic on the table

Good social media participation earns links – the organic, editorial kind. The kind the engines want to reward you for. But without an SEO program in place, you won’t fully benefit from those links – which are invaluable. Most companies aren’t cognizant of the value of links they’re earning or how to make those links work for them, especially many engaged in social media. And they’re only succeeding in letting competitors crush them.

Quick conclusion…

Be weary of social media marketers who aren’t fluent in SEO – you’ll never benefit from the biggest opportunity the web has to offer. Search may not be as sexy as social, but it still matters more: it brings more traffic, higher conversions and is sustainable.

Thinking about this a bit further, this actually goes beyond social media marketing. I’ll just say it like it is: if you put any marketing or PR before SEO, you’re putting the cart before the horse. There is a nexus between these items, but you can’t uncover it until you are organizationally savvy about search.

image credit: zdjeciarnia via Shutterstock

Social Media Before SEO Is Putting The Cart Before The Horse is a post from The Future Buzz

It’s back. Twitter’s much missed retweet button.

2009-11-13T18:44:50Z

Two days ago we brought you news of Twitter’s Retweet button disappearance.

We discovered, and then Twitter publicly announced, that the feature had been removed due to bugs that needed to be resolved.

You’ll be glad to know the retweet functionality is officially back – at least to those of you had it before. For the rest of you, I’m afraid it’s a waiting game but Twitter assures us the rollout will continue shortly.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read our guide to how Twitter’s new retweet feature works and looks.

Update: We’re being told that the functionality has not returned for everyone who had it before. Again, aside from waiting there’s not much we can say to help.

Let’s Watch Twitter Become FriendFeed

2009-11-13T02:46:11Z

It seems the hot Twitter news of the day is that the service might be slowing in U.S. growth. You can read the Twitter stats story on Mashable and TheNextWeb. Earlier in the week the big news for the so-called social media experts was the on and off status of the new “retweet architecture system”. Twitter turned it on for many users (I was not one of them) but then turned it off so they could fix some bugs.

Apparently there are two camps when it comes to the new retweets…one camp likes the consolidated concept and the other camp hates it because they can’t add their 2-cents to the conversation. My guess is that 90% of re-sharing on Twitter is either direct sharing of something Mashable posted or the addition of “lol”.

This past summer I wrote about how Friendfeed could generate massive income and also reach the mainstream. Sadly that never happened because Friendfeed sold out to Facebook. While it looks like Facebook wasn’t reading, this morning I started to think that perhaps Twitter was. What really got me thinking was something I read on Patricia Handschiegel’s blog. While she discusses the way Twitter defined their service in the beginning, she uses the word forum throughout the column.

Could Twitter be moving towards “threaded conversations” similar to what a forum offers? We know that the new retweet functionality will keep everyone’s “like” below the master/initial comment. We also know users want a way to add their own thoughts to the initial comment. Could the threaded conversation mechanism be a way to please both groups? Just like what any forum offers today. And just like the way Friendfeed and Facebook handle the conversation today.

All of this leads me back to the dip in usage. Forums are very sticky because the conversation is centralized and everyone wants “in”. As I’ve written about until my fingers fall off, the conversation is currently so fragmented on Twitter. If Twitter continues to move towards full-Friendfeed, it could mean increased usage.

CenterNetworks Partner: Check out CloudContacts for your business card transcription and scanning needs.

iPhone or Droid

2009-11-13T05:00:00Z

Body By Victoria

2009-11-13T16:58:11Z

Shared by Matt
Wow. Thorough analysis

Photoshop Disasters recently featured a wonderfully horrible image from Victoria's Secret.

The first disaster is obvious, which is what makes it so wonderful. The model used to be holding a handbag, now she is just holding the straps. In fact, the handbag could be their Ostrich-print logo satchel, stud tote, or embossed leather tote -- all have the same kind of straps.

What is more fun is how the artist erased the bag. Notice how the ground is made of red tiles. The tiles are square... except where the handbag used to be located. Clearly the artist did not pay attention to detail since they forgot the grout when the copied in the tiles.

Just One More Thing

I have a theory that I call the "Just One Principle". Simply put, when someone modifies an image, they never change "just one thing". Since the artist at Victoria's Secret erased the handbag, they must have changed something else. What else was modified?

Say Yes to the Dress

The images at Victoria's Secret are fairly low quality -- JPEGs at 85%. However, just because they are low quality does not mean we cannot see what was modified. For example, the Error Level Analysis (ELA) should have all objects at roughtly the same coloring. If anything stands out as bright white, then it was the last thing modified since it is at a higher potential error level than the rest of the image.

Error Level Analysis

In this case, the ELA shows a couple of things. First, the entire dress was modified. If you visit their web site, you have the option to select a dress color and they digitally add in the color. So the color of the dress is not original.

The ELA also has high values on her eyes and mouth. Those were digitally enhanced. This coloring also shows up in the 2nd and 3rd principal components. Basically, the artist brightened her teeth and tweaked her eye color.

2nd Principal Component

More interesting is the high error level that outlines the entire model. The model was "cut out" of the picture. (We'll get to the "why" in a moment.)

Finally, the entire image has a purple-red pattern around it. That strongly indicates the use of a drawing tool like Gimp or Photoshop. Photoshop generates more of it than Gimp, so this image was likely modified with some version of Photoshop.

Slight of Handbag

The Luminance Gradient is the most meaningful for this image. LG shows a high degree of manipulation all over the place. With LG, the entire image should contain bumpy noise and jaggy lines. If you see smooth blurs or straight edges, then you are likely seeing digital manipulation.

Luminance Gradient

With this image, there are a lot of things that stand out. For example, the background is blurry. The artist artifically blurred the background. But they didn't stop there. You can see the crisp edge that runs all around the model. This is the cut-out line that was seen in the ELA. In order to blur the background, they had to select it first -- that was done by selecting around the model (the cut-out). First they cut her out, then they blurred the background.

It is subtle, but the LG also shows the edges of the missing handbag. Just look for the vertical edges coming down.

Of course, the blurred background and missing handbag are just the beginning. All surfaces should have similar lighting. If her face is dark on one side and light on the other, then her arms should have the same pattern. However, this isn't what we are seeing. None of her body parts have proper lighting. For example:

Her left arm (photo right) has a light arc near the elbow. While most of this arm looks correct (realistic bump pattern), the elbow lighting looks wrong.
Her right arm (photo left, holding the invisible handbag) was totally modified. There are no dark regions in the LG. The arm was likely recolored. Also notice the area under her bicep, above the elbow. The edge contains two sharp double curves. This is from a digital manipulation -- the model must have had a little bit of arm flab and the graphic artist tried to touch it up. The result created a dark region in the LG that looks like two arcs under her arm -- like a wide shark bite.
The coloring on her face is uneven; her forehead does not match her cheeks, and her chin is also different. Looking closer, the gradient shows a ridge on her forehead that should not be there. And her eyes lack the dark/light gradient coloring. The artists completely recolored her face.

Of course, it is one thing for me to accuse Victoria's Secret of recoloring the skin on their model. It is another to prove it. Here are two photos of the same model, in the same general location (similar backgrounds).

The second picture has a mostly natural background (not an artificial blur). Her dress, teeth, and eyes have all been modified, but the luminance gradient on her skin appears natural. The real model (right) has darker skin than the digitally enhanced version (left). And there is one other significant difference...

We Must, We Must...

The first principal component is great at identifying JPEG artifacts from resaves. These appear as rectangular patterns aligned on an 8x8 or 16x16 grid. I have generated the first principal component and applied a histogram to brighten it up.

Principal component analysis, 1st component.

The large squares at the bottom of her dress and in the background are from a JPEG resave. (They also exist on her face, but that was washed out when I applied the histogram.) So those areas were modified and then saved as a JPEG. However, the rest of her dress contains no rectangular artifacts -- those were touched up.

And speaking of touched up... notice the round dark artifact on her chest. JPEG artifacts are rectangular, not round. That is where the artist removed her nipple. (My gal friends tell me that she should have worn a padded bra.)

The min/max values of the image identify one other manipulation. Normally these dots should should look like random noise. There should be no visible patterns in real images. In this case, her face, hair, arms, and dress all have different noise patterns. This matches the other findings that indicate that her dress, face, and limbs were all digitally modified.

Min/max measurements of image noise levels.

Although the dress appears to have a random noise pattern, there is actually one area where there is a well-defined pattern: her chest. Between her breast the dots form a well-organized "stretch" pattern. The modification also appears in a demosaic analysis as a diamond-shape distortion in the middle of her chest, and in the 2nd principal component as a minor color variation. Digital enhancements usually appear in multiple image analysis tests, and this appears in min/max, PCA, and demosaic analysis, among other tests.

Demosaic modification analysis

Not only did Victoria's Secret not like her skin tone, arm flab, and handbag, they also did not like her chest. They digitally enhanced her bust. Compared with the other image of the model, this image appears to be at least a cup larger. (Insert witty pun here.)

Google Chrome OS To Launch Within A Week

2009-11-13T10:23:58Z

Google’s Chrome OS project, first announced in July, will become available for download within a week, we’ve heard from a reliable source. Google previously said to expect an early version of the OS in the fall.

What can we expect? Driver support will likely be a weak point. We’ve heard at various times that Google has a legion of engineers working on the not so glamorous task of building hardware drivers. And we’ve also heard conflicting rumors that Google is mostly relying on hardware manufacturers to create those drivers. Whatever the truth, and it’s likely in between, having a robust set of functioning drivers is extremely important to Chrome OS’s success. People will want to download this to whatever computer they use and have it just work.

We expect Google will be careful with messaging around the launch, and endorse a small set of devices for installation. EEE PC netbooks, for example, may be one set of devices that Google will say are ready to use Chrome OS. There will likely be others as well, but don’t expect to be able to install it on whatever laptop or desktop machine you have from day one. Google has previously said they are working with Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba on the project.

We’ve seen convincing and not so convincing screenshots of Chrome OS over the last several months. The good news is the speculation is about to end, and you can try it out yourself. If you have one of the supported devices, that is.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

3 Flavors of Social Search: What to Expect

2009-11-12T22:30:12Z

With Google's Social Search experiment, Bing's integration with Twitter and Yahoo!'s partnership with One Riot, social search clearly has both potential and momentum. But what will social search look like, and will it help us search better? And if it will, how?

I've written previously about how social search won't replace traditional search, how social relevancy rank can be used to deliver good results, and why the concept of social search is a return to a familiar state rather than something to fear. Today, I'll get more specific about the three flavors of social search that will improve user search experiences.

Sponsor

This guest post was written by Brynn Evans.

Collective Social Search

"Collective social search" is similar in concept to the wisdom of crowds, in that search is augmented by trends shared on a network (a la Twitter Trends) or results ranked against the real-time buzz of a group. Why might this be useful? Well, in some instances, we can't immediately find the information we're looking for; and pooled, aggregated data from the collective may point us to new avenues that expand our discovery process.

As of yet, no major search systems are doing this very well - and we don't know what type of interface would be optimal for sharing this information. The Cloudlet plugin inserts tag clouds (based on keywords) into search results; but tag clouds are known to be more of a distraction than a utility. BingTweets has been touted as such a resource, but it really only offers Twitter and Bing results on two separate pages. OneRiot shows only collective data from the real-time stream, although it may be integrated with Yahoo! results soon. And we are still waiting to see how Google and Bing integrate the Twitter firehose into their traditional search results - as opposed to merely including them as additional document-like resources.

Equally important will be understanding when collective social data should be shared with users: while performing the search or after? And for which types of searches?

My research on search strategies begins to address this question. Collective guidance may be useful when users are exploring a search space, possibly because the search domain is not familiar to them (i.e. they lack knowledge of how to drill down to an answer), or because they are passively exploring a problem. I find myself doing this all the time when I prepare recipes to cook. I want to browse recipes from many different sources before I decide what my own recipe will consist of. I don't have a specific recipe in mind (it's not an urgent, active request), and therefore I don't necessarily know when I've found what I'm looking for.

That said, it's hard to determine from keyword strings how active or passive a user's search is; i.e. it may be quite difficult to determine the type of search they're performing or how far along they are in their search process ("exploring" or "narrowing"?). Furthermore, the utility of collective social data for mainstream consumers will be limited, mainly because it doesn't come from trusted sources, unlike "friend-filtered social search" (see next section).

Friend-Filtered Social Search

Friend-filtered social search is approximately what Google is doing with its social search experiment: providing social data that your peers, friends of friends and wider "social circle" have shared. This data could appear alongside traditional search results (as with Google) or be exclusive results from within your peer network (as with TuneIn).

This is useful if your friends have shared relevant links, blog posts or tweets about a topic that you're searching for. If you were gathering ideas about, say, "the future of the desktop," you would see thought pieces, write-ups and links to projects from the main search algorithm, as well as stuff your friends are saying about applications they've encountered recently. If you trust your friends, they may serve as reliable filters, pointing you to relevant information.

The three major limitations of this approach are:

Your friends may have no archived social content that's relevant (or available) to your query. Searching within your Facebook network quickly demonstrates this problem. For this reason, augmenting traditional algorithms with friend-filtered social data may be better, rather than relying exclusively on data from one person's small exclusive network.
Current implementations are limited to keyword matching; whereas, searches that retrieve related posts based on topic, theme or timeframe might expose a wider set of results and combat the niche-social-network problem. This approach would be computationally harder than keywords alone, and exposing enough of the appropriate context remains a problem (see next item).
Understanding the context in which a post or link was shared is important. Without this, keyword- and even topic-matching might not convey to the user the relevance of a search result. Google provides limited context at the moment (showing only how you know a user, the source of the post and a short snippet). More testing is needed to learn how much and what kind of context is appropriate for social search content.

Similarly there is the issue of when friend-filtered social search would be relevant during a search. My instinct is that it will be useful throughout a search and for many types of searches (it is, after all, just another type of search result). This is critically different from collective social search and collaborative search.

Collaborative Search (a.k.a. Question-Answering)

"Collaborative search" is when two or more users work together to find the answer to a problem. This could look like IM-based question-answering (a la Aardvark ), Yahoo! Answers (which is relatively passive and asynchronous) or over-the-shoulder two-person search. In all of these cases, people speak to each other using natural language, which is incredibly useful for open-ended queries (e.g. "What is 'design thinking'?") or queries about unfamiliar domains (e.g. law, health, business, depending on your background). Such conversations, even not real-time ones, can assist people who don't know the right keywords to use (what's known as the "vocabulary problem").

My research has looked at the benefits of question-answering and at people's processes and preferences during search. Many users report that they want to attempt to search on their own first, or don't wish to interrupt their colleagues before they have given it a shot independently. This suggests that early social support should be passive (as with presenting collective or friend-filtered social data).

But later in the process, if the searcher gets stuck on a problem, they often turn to a colleague for help. If systems had a way of identifying difficult queries or search-process inefficiencies, they could offer more explicit social support to searchers. Perhaps the system could identify a domain-specific expert from the user's extended social circle. Information that this person has shared could be presented to the user, or this person could be suggested as a resource to chat with or email (depending on availability and preferences).

It should be clear by now that these three flavors of social search are complementary. Each has its pros and cons and is appropriate for different kinds of searches and during different stages of the search process. A powerful "social search engine" would be "smart" by making use of all three, while also exploiting the value of traditional algorithms.

Photos by: Who Wants to Be?, Claudia Lim and brewbooks.

Guest author: Brynn Evans is a PhD student in Cognitive Science at UC San Diego who uses digital anthropology to study and better understand social search.

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