I am preaching from the pulpit so to speak and I am preaching to the choir perhaps, but I need to update more often here.  I am trying to get more and more content on here and those that are slinging arrows at me the most may be asked to also contribute now and then to what we are doing at One By One Media and Bloggers For Hire.  I am also on Twitter quite a bit, and I am trying out Posterous, and I am about to start Social Mediasphere TV again.  Of course, you can always come and hear what we are doing at our new radio show at Blog World Expo Radio.

Now that BlogWorld & New Media Expo is over for 2009 I have a few minutes I can breathe, and I will be using that time to try to be more involved here rather than out on the road or on the phone trying to convert the latest in small medium or large business to jumping into the social media pool.  I guess I am like that life guard that actually never swims!

Photo via LeMonde1

Tags: One By One Media, Bloggers For Hire, Twitter, Posterous, Social Mediasphere TV, Blog World Expo Radio, Blog World Expo, Business Blogging, Evangelism

Some of the information in this video is already obsolete.  Social Media is moving at a rate that none of us can keep up with, and I for one sometimes must take a step back to look at the big picture to keep up with the rate of growth.

For the most part, sponsored conversations or updates or tweets or whatever the case is mostly about reach.  Part of that reach and probably what is most important to advertisers and brands is the amount of eyeballs.  Let’s face it, they are not banging my door down to put up banner ads here as I am not getting the reach they require, and that is exactly why Facebook’s idea of banning the practice of sponsored updates is sort of a moot point.

With the limits they have on "friends" there will never be the huge amount of eyeballs that brands and media buyers are looking for in a property.  My Facebook page will only ever have 5000 friends at the most.  That is not what they want.  They are looking for the biggest bang for their buck.  I do understand and argue that its not about the number of followers it is about the number of conversions, or how or who you influence, but that thinking has not reached the heads of the people that are signing the checks.  I think if I were to ask Ted Murphy the best way to sell the sponsored conversations it would be about your number of page views over the number of cool people you know. 

I think this has to do with a preemptive strike and more about what they have for plans down the road.  I do think however that with the addition of FriendFeed now in their crown jewels, it may also be a tell of what they have in store for a plan to for future looks of their new acquired service. As the FTC becomes involved and we see more and more of a crackdown these types of maneuvers will be quickly reversed or adopted but I applaud Facebook for taking a stand in this part of the controversy.

UPDATE:  I forgot to mention something I thought I should get into this post.  With the banning of sponsored conversations this also make it difficult to cross pollinate all of your networks with a sponsored post which in turn keeps the walled garden feel to Facebook which I think also helps their business plan.  Keeping third party applications from sending out a mass tweet/update/status message to all of your "friends" at once makes it also difficult.

Tags: Facebook, TechCrunch, Sponsored Status, Sponsored Conversations, Sponsored Tweets, ROI, Marketing, Social Media Advertising

Now it has a war chest behind it to become bigger better and more usable I hope.  We are already hearing about the demise of blogs for Life Streaming, and this moves into that game as well.  I hope to get a better feel for the implications behind this.  Good luck to Facebook and congrats to the guys at FriendFeed.

We will see if this becomes a game changer, but for now I think that it strengthens rather than changes things.  To be sure, Facebook is becoming a player that now Google needs to be careful of in the long run.  Twitter needs to catch up if they want to keep up.

The press release from Facebook will be looked at quite a bit.

Tags: FriendFeed, Facebook, Social Networking, Social Media

OK, most of you probably never have used tr.im to shorten your URLs so they fit into Twitter. But I did. I liked the URL better than bit.ly, which is the service that Twitter has “blessed.” Oh, how I hate Twitter’s “blessing.”

Pete Cashmore, of Mashable has another quote in his post that gives me the feeling all over again:

“…we just can’t justify further development since Twitter has all but annointed bit.ly the market winner.”

That from the Tr.im closing statement.  That is far too much power for one company, but I know that is part of doing business.  Google carries the same type of power and I have heard the likes of Michael Gray talk about the wielding of their power and how they can arbitrarily damn some sites and rise others to the heights of heaven.  I use that metaphor because that is nearly godlike in its functionality.  Google wants to be for good but not for evil and I suppose your definition of good and evil depend quite a bit on the way the ball bounces for you or against you.  In this case it seems that the ball has bounced against the folks at Tr.im.

We see applications come and go and in this particular instance it has implications that might hurt people in one camp over another.  To pick and choose who wins, who loses and how the game is played is far too much power in my opinion to give to companies.  The FTC is dabbling in the game with blogging and "sponsored conversations" and I would assume that some constituents will be contacting their authorities for some regulation of companies that have the power to bless.

Photo via polishamericancenter.org

Tags: Twitter, Techememe, Robert Scoble, Corporate Responsibility, Google

Many colleagues out there are expert strategists.  Many charge a pretty penny to come up with a strategy.  In fact, I too charge for that, and some would say (you know who you are) not nearly enough, but that is for a another post.  There are some great plans drawn out on the whiteboard of board rooms, and there are some bar napkins that I would like to have in a shadow box case as many of our greatest companies started there.  My company in fact was sort of started as a dare I think one night after having had too many drinks.  Having a good job and a stable company to work for, why would I ever jump into the entrepreneurial pool? I blame the alcohol.

“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

All of us have the best mousetrap. That is our strategy.  We have the best way things can be done and the way that they should be done according to our extensive research and study. For my extensive study and research, (please see the archives here for a start) I have tried and failed and taken those ideas that have been most successful.  Some of it is still theory after all social media has been around less than some of my young children.  Given what we know of facts and how they are applied to each circumstance, all of the strategies seem to be close to the same Plan A or Plan B depending on which consultant or agency you happen to speak with about your company and needs.

I have noticed a trend based on some of the ideas and strategies implemented.  When companies are happy with a certain strategy it is only after the execution stage.  Most of them are all excited and gung-ho when the strategy is discussed and laid out in front of them, but the truly satisfied are not such until after the plan has been put into place and the results come to fruition.  Be it as simple as starting a company blog, setting up a comment policy, providing a podcast, or research on community outreach and providing that service and seeing your first conversion, the elation comes when the plan is executed.  It can be even more rewarding when a multifaceted and long and expensive journey has been commenced.

I am known for providing a sports metaphor now and then and this is not much different so I apologize for this ahead of time if you hate those. If I draw a play in the sand and at the snap of the football all goes to hell in a hand basket, the best laid plan pf x’s and o’s is not going to get me points on the board.  But when you truly make a plan, draw out a play and then deliver the ball to the end zone, all are happy and we get to celebrate with high fives all around.  Seems pretty simple.  The problem has always been execution.  As consultants or strategist are you executing your plan?  When was the last time you were in the end zone?

Tags: Social Media, Better Mouse Trap, Emerson, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Consulting, New Media

I won’t get into the merits of the case, nor will I try to discuss the legal issues as I had plenty of the legal world after working there for 22 years.  I do want to comment on the somewhat short sightedness I see on behalf of Mike Arrington and TechCrunch as it relates to the lawsuit.  I know that Mike Arrington is giving this lawsuit less than a nuisance value and sees no merit to the claims and perhaps wants it to carry it on for more page views (which of course I am adding to albeit a small amount). I’m afraid that this is just the beginning of something that will give Mr. Sethi more fuel for his feud and make this debacle continue.

Mike has stated that he will not participate in the litigation and that they will ignore it, not planning to subject himself to the litigation process in the UK.  I think that is not a bad strategy from a legal standpoint as it carries with it somewhat of a "no harm, no foul" consequence.  California Law does not really give much weight to the UK and its judgment, be it a default judgment or otherwise. I should note that a default judgment might have  less weight than a judgment on the merits, but I digress.  From a business standpoint, I think this might be a bad move.

According to Mike his legal costs could exceed £500,000, to win the case which the experts indicated should not have been a problem.  The court would then have awarded Mike his legal costs, but that is like squeezing blood from a turnip as I assume Sethi is not in a position to pay that type of money, given what I know of the Blog Nation debacle.  The part here that is troublesome is giving life or a breath or two of life to Sam Sethi and his continued efforts to gain the upper hand and make him appear to be in a better position in his case against Mike Arrington and TechCrunch.

In addition, now Arrington must watch how he works around having this judgment against him in the UK.  I am assuming at some point it may be necessary for him to do business there or to collect from advertisers there or to get money from the UK.  I am assuming that any funds due to him or his company from that jurisdiction can be attached or to some effect, garnished to satisfy the judgment.  He has already canceled to speak at an event he told the organizers he would be a part of and who knows how many other ventures he must cancel or at least not appear for in the UK.  I am not sure the limitation on satisfying judgments in the UK, but I can assure you that Sethi will be waiting at the opportunity to get his shot in to collect if only a dollar of the judgment.  The time to put this to bed is now.  The time to finish it is here.  If not, this could drag on for some time.  As I stated above, that could be what we are looking for from someone that wants to sensationalize it.

If you are a person that is owed money as a result of the Blog Nation debacle, it might provide fruitful to see if you can attach your own judgment to funds related to the Sethi’s judgment.  Who knows it might work.  It is by far more than you will get if you are waiting for an old paycheck to clear.

Photo above via CrunchNotes*

*I wanted to point out the labeled photo on CrunchNotes is "sethiissuchadick.jpg"   Classic.

Tags: Mike Arrington, TechCrunch, Sam Sethi, Tris Hussey, Oliver Starr, Marc Orchant, Libel

I decided I would sit down and do that this time as i had a special reason for thanking this person.  I pulled out my fourth pen amongst the crayons on the junk drawer before I finally found one that would mark a mark, and sat down with pen in hand and began to write.  Yes that type of "write".  I suddenly realized that I was way out of practice with writing.  I realized that I only write chicken scratched notes while on the phone with people, and it has bee months since I actually wrote a check. I am out of practice and not sure I can even read my own writing.

I decided I need to practice this a little more otherwise I can’t look my kids in the eye with a straight face when I scold them on their penmanship at school.  Who knows, perhaps they won’t actually have writing in schools anymore. They may have texting 101 or shorthand for mobile 101.  Sad.  Now the next problem I have is actually finding an address for someone that does include an @ symbol.

[Photo via Wikipedia]

Tags: Handwriting, Mail, Technology, Social Media, Letters

SPIEGEL: Your local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is fighting for survival. If it was to disappear tomorrow …

Anderson: … I wouldn’t notice. I don’t even know what I’d be missing.

In a word, OUCH.  Up to this point I was forming an argument in my head that the print media was another form of consumable information we all rely on for another take of a news story, but to say that a newspaper’s disappearance has not bearing on your world is a mind-numbing thought.  I wondered what Anderson would think if a statement about Wired would make him have talk differently if it were to shut down tomorrow?  I think he goes into the real reason why that wouldn’t happen, and a take similar to what I inferred with the remaking of BusinessWeek. His take on the cost of old media:

Anderson: The math of profit is pretty easy, revenues minus cost. You do your best on the revenue side and if you are not making money you lower your costs. The problem is not that there isn’t money to be made online, it’s just that our costs are too high.

This seems like a no brainer but for some it seems that this is the mountain they cannot climb.  The problem is that there are people out there giving away the cow for free which is of course the book Anderson released.  He goes into the economy issue:

Anderson: Attention and reputation are two non-monetary economies. The vast majority of people online write for free. We’ve tried paying some of our bloggers and they thought it was insulting. They’re not doing it for the money, they’re doing it for attention and reputation, or just for fun. For example, two years ago, I started this Web site called geekdad.com. It’s about being a dad and being a computer geek. We’re writing about how to do things that are fun for kids and fun for dads. It’s a community project, everyone contributes for free but we now have an audience bigger than many newspapers. And there are an infinite number of sites like this out there.

Not only are there an infinite number of sites out there that are doing just as he states, but they are doing it on budgets that most expense accounts could not cover in the traditional industry.  They are providing the news and they are doing it with close to nothing, which is completely game changing in this economy. 

I do like the end of the interview when Anderson is asked about charging for his book and they talk about "time is money."  This is somewhat of a dichotomy since nothing seems to be actually free.  This could be part of the reason we are in this situation to begin with, someone did it for free.

[photo via LA Times]

Tags: Spiegel Online International, Chris Anderson, Free, Old Media, New Media, Traditional Media, Newspapers, Blogs

I wanted to take am moment to congratulate Jeremy and the folks at b5media and also welcome their newest CEO Elaine Kunda.  The funny thing is I was not sure this was going public until I had actually read it on one of my own client’s blogs.  Strange how you found out about news.

Jeremy, as always you have been someone that has led the way in the blog world, in the social media world and now we are looking towards some big things from you in the near future with netmobs.

Tags: Jeremy Wright, netmobs, b5media

Twitter launched today their Twitter 101 pages and of note was their "Key Resources" page which is contained under the domain related to http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/.  I quickly glanced at the people that were listed on the page, and noticed right away that TechCrunch had been snubbed.  Not a single time was TechCrunch mentioned.  You would think with 38 pages of info on the company and some of the best Twitter evangelists on the planet, they could have worked a link back to TechCrunch somewhere.  Some of the best Twitter information contained anywhere is contained on the TechCrunch site.

Now this could just be a matter of numbers or it could be that they could not find a good snapshot overview of their service or it could be some other political reason that Twitter was quick to leave TechCrunch off the list as I mentioned above and wrote about in the TechCrunch and the Twitter Documents post.

This is not going to be too unlike the "Suggested Users" list and I am sure there will be plenty of folks that will be screaming about why they were not one of the featured resources that are listed.  Congrats to Chris Brogan for getting on this page with his 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business.  Okay, their might only be 10 in there but 50 was a good number.

Sorry TechCrunch I can assure you that the folks at Twitter are not going to cut you much slack from here forward, but keep up the good reporting and evangelizing!

[Hat Tip to Laughing Squid Links for beginning the inspiration for this post through the photo above.]

Tags: TechCrunch, Twitter, Twitter For Business, Twitter Business 101, Chris Brogan

I now work in a virtual office out of my home.  I actually have a dedicated office and it has not one but two desks and computer equipment and printers and a dead fax machine and not unlike many offices.  The only thing is the noise that surrounds me is beeps and clicks, blips and many other application noises.  Yes, even the chirp of the Tweetdeck that everyone wonders about while I am on the phone.

This is my virtual Cube Farm.  I used to work in corporate America for about 17 years and at a private law firm for 5 years before that, and I understand what that is like.  I was not the greatest fan of cubicles and white button down shirts.  Even after the adoption of "business casual" I still did not fit in completely.  I guess it comes from my younger years working outside and loving fresh air an sunshine.  The scene from Joe Versus the Volcano best described me as the light fixtures sucking out my soul.

I love working virtually from the comfort of my own home.  I am much more productive.  My commute is very green friendly and my uniform, well, let’s just described it as somewhere south of Business Casual.

I still have the whack a mole type conversations that I used to see happening the cube farm atmosphere, but they are preceded by a whistle or a beep or a bing as it were.  I talk and chat virtually with my co-workers all day long.  If you can hold on a second I need to quickly have a meeting with my financial advisor and counselor (yes, my three year old fills this role for me).

Mr. Waturi: "And what’s this lamp for? Isn’t there enough light in here for you?"

Joe: "The florescents affect me. They make me feel blotchy and puffy. I thought this this light would…"

Mr. Waturi: "Get rid of the light. This is not your bedroom, Joe. This is an office. Maybe if you start treating this like a job instead of some kind of a welfare hospital, you’ll shape up!"

Photo via MShades

Tags: Virtual Office, Community Office, Cubicle Farm, Corporate Working, HR

I can see why Amazon would want to put this jewel in their own crown.  They are a decent company on the trust scale in my opinion, but they don’t have the customer in mind when making decisions.  They are a publicly traded company that has one thing in mind, making profit.  That is not always the first thing in the minds of the folks at Zappos.  They were able to be a profitable company because they were a decent seller of goods.  Amazon consumes them and perhaps snuffs out the reason Zappos was a retail darling of the Internet.  Now I may be wrong on this account but if Amazon takes the approach of Zappos in how it does business and its customer focus, watch out.

You can read the release and judge for yourself.  Can you buy the goodwill and trust?  I like the quote:

“Zappos is a customer focused company,” said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “We see great opportunities for both companies to learn from each other and create even better experiences for our customers.”

From that I hope they adopt the Zappos culture and way of dealing with customers.

UPDATE:  I wanted to add this video that has surfaced since my post.  I think it tells me a lot about how Amazon may approach this brave new merger.

Tags: Amazon, Zappos, Internet Retail, Customer Focus

Now with the likes of Twitter we get more of a situation of more noise less signal.  It is difficult to be heard. 25 Million people all hoping their 140 characters get in front of someone to read.  You may have the best ever 140 characters in the history of the world, but to broadcast it to Twitter is to cast it into the sea of information hoping to find a home. I liken it to casting an SOS note in a bottle into the ocean and hoping someone finds it.  Chances are it may never get read by the person that matters.  Twitter can be the same way.  It seems that many online marketing types believe this a great way now to broadcast their message.  They think a message in a bottle is a good way to broadcast.  Cast a net big enough and sooner or later someone may hear what you have to say.  This is not the best case scenario unless you get on someone’s list or in a group.  Instead of blogrolls, we now can put our Twitter friends or followers into groups.  I use the popular application Tweetdeck, and I have many groups of my followers distilled into readable tweets.  I have my social media colleagues and I have technology people and parenting bloggers and no, even though I joke about it quite a bit I do not have a "Hottie" Twitter group. This is how I track what is being sent via Twitter by those I want to listen to and want to hear. I want to hear all 250 Million people out there but I have yet to figure that out sans some special paid for application.

This is how I read most of the important stuff on Twitter.  I go through a specific group and see what they are talking about and what they have to say.  It may be an hour after the fact when I re-tweet something or I comment or take notice, and the reason is, I don’t have time to scan the river of noise going by at 10,000 people a minute. In the instance I am talking about you get added to my group if you provide me good thoughts or value. I don’t want to miss your tweet.  The only thing is, my groups are not public.  I need to find something that allows me to show you my groups.  I need a public app that shows my Twitter groups, my blogroll of twitter friends. I need to develop this as a widget for blogs or web sites.  You can get on my group in in my Twoops (URL taken I checked)?  Anyone? 

Photo via Mykl Roventine

Tags: Twitter, Blogrolls, Web Apps, River of News, Noise vs. Signal