Apologies to our readers for not having posted in a while. We are working hard on another very exciting project! Watch this space.

WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious” (named in honor of jazz giant Thelonious Monk) has just been released and is now available for download or upgrade. It features the merger of WordPress MU with WordPress, a lighter Dashboard interface, the new default theme Twenty Ten, plus 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements. Version 3.0 marks the first full number update since 2.0 was launched five years ago.

Below is a video that explains all.

In a book entitled “What Would Google Do?” Jeff Jarvis has written a compelling book on how Google has used the internet to impact culture, marketing, and advertising.  The phenomenal success and rapid growth of this company is integral in his using Google as a model.  Trends are also identified…customers are now in charge, the mass market has been replaced by a mass of niches.  The economy shift from one of scarcity to one of abundance is eye opening.  Openness is a key to internet success.   Networks, and the platforms upon which they are built, enable customers and users to create products, businesses, communities, and networks of their own.  Ultimately, it’s NOT about Google though, it’s about YOU.  That is exciting news to me…we too can become internet giants and pursue our dreams and visions, reaching incredible success by following some basic tenets.

The author says that those reaching pinnacle success utilizing the internet, see the world differently than the average person.  Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Jimmy Wales co-founder of Wikipedia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Kevin Rose creator of Digg, are just a few examples of innovative thinking.

Jeff Jarvis offers further advice, especially for those in business.  Adages such as “your worst customer is your best friend” or “your best customer is your partner” are food for thought.  Google yourself.  You need a search presence.  Use blog search engines such as Technorati, Icerocket, Blogpulse, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook.   Blog, interact with bloggers, enable customers to critique and share ideas…it’s all about people and making new connections and developing relationships!   The author tells us to do what we do best and link to the rest, as the link brings forth specialization and fosters collaboration and demand for high quality.

One of the authors’ most prolific statements is that Google has spawned a new business model of FREE!   In order to be truly competitive today, offer as many free services as possible, because that is impossible to compete against.  Build a following, maximizing value, and later profits thru advertising will come.

Jeff Jarvis uses the prime example of a retailer, Gary Vaynerchuk, who used many of the lessons illustrated in this book to grow and propel his wine merchant business to huge success.  With branding and online positioning, an internet empire was built.

The last several chapters of this fascinating book are used with examples of what other industries could be like if they modeled Google.   The airline industry, manufacturing, education, cable and telephone, real estate, etc. are all given a new future with innovation and change, Googlethink style.

Jarvis concludes his book by saying this is only the beginning, an exciting future awaits in the Google era.  Are you thinking of how to make your company better, develop new products, offer better value to your customers?  I’m wondering about mine, how to employ Googlethink in my business model, and using such an innovative mindset to reach new pinnacles of achievement.

Are independent retailers missing the social media train?  Many firms are putting a lot of effort in social media but independent retailers are slower to pick up the trend. However this form of online customer engagement can benefit all types of business, including high street shops, restaurants and pubs. How? These 5 tips might help you give you a jumpstart.

Yes a great copywriter is invaluable, especially if he/she is creative and has a deep understanding of brand.

Meet Mike. He’s our word guy.

He’s a bit more than that too.

We’re a pretty liberal bunch in Social Gloo. Being open-minded about new ways to connect with people and new ideas about how things could work differently is what we’re all about.

Which is why we jumped at the chance to work with The Alliance Party’s Naomi Long.

She is the shining light in a political party that doesn’t appeal on religious, historical or sectarian tribalist lines. Naomi and her Party are a breath of fresh air amongst the choking division of the ‘main’ parties in NI. They think in a new way for NI and offer an alternative vision.

Although Naomi was already an MLA in NI and the Lord Mayor of Belfast, she faced a massive hurdle in yesterday’s election.

The First Minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson, was an imposing opponent in the battle for the MP seat representing East Belfast that Naomi wanted to win. He’d held it since 1979. He is basically Northern Ireland’s PM. Our Gordon Brown, if you like.

But Naomi won.

She beat Robinson and by quite a way. It’s perhaps the biggest story of the 2010 election in NI. Last night, I heard it described as a ‘Portillo Moment’ – remember the famously unexpected loss of Michael Portillo’s Enfield seat in 1997, live on British TV? He was literally gobsmacked. Do you think it’s as big a surprise as that?

The Social Gloo team got involved with Naomi and The Alliance Party with just three weeks to go to General election D-Day. Not much time, but we managed to write some of their direct marketing material and also created an online film that differentiated them – and Naomi in particular. It gave them a unique online presence and presented a fresh alternative to the dowdy, grey politics of Mr Robinson.

We’re realistic enough to know that most people voted for Naomi today because of the hard work she’s put in locally and because of the great campaigning work her team have done: Chris Lyttle and Judith Cochrane in particular.

But we’d like to think that Social Gloo played a part in getting Naomi elected. A small part yes, but one that we are very proud of.

What do you think about Naomi’s success?

And what do you think about Social Gloo’s involvement?

This is a link to the final piece of publicity that was posted out - Naomi Flyer

and below is the video we put together to highlight why people should vote Naomi

We’d love to hear your comments.

An important update for Joomla 1.5 has been released.

The update called ‘Wojmamni ama busani’ is the first update in 6 months and includes various security patches and bug fixes. See details below. It is vital to upgrade to head on over to Joomla to download. If you need help with install just get in touch.

Security

Four security issues were fixed in this release:

• Moderate Priority – Core – Negative Values for Limit and Offset. More information »
• Low Priority – Core – Installer Migration Script. More information »
• Moderate Priority – Core – Sessation Fixation. More information »
• Low Priority – Core – Password Reset Tokens. More information »

For additional information, visit the Joomla Security Center.

Components

• Fixed error in contacts with SEF enabled (17235)
• Fixed SQL error when sorting news feeds by section. (18648)
• Fixed problem showing URL for image files in Atom news feeds. (18936)
• Fixed problem where author alias was not escaped correctly. (19009)
• Fixed bug in pagination of category blog menu item. (19245)
• Fixed display of image captions in some situations. (19405)
• Fixed caching problem with com_contact. (19435)
• Added framework validation to com_media file. (19763)
• Fixed PHP notice when enabling or disabling a user. (19798)

Modules

• Fixed caching for related articles module (17000)
• Fixed notification error in login module (17762)
• Fixed problems with upgrade method in module installation (17878)
• Fixed typo in mod_latestnews. (18403)
• Fixed HTML validation problem with mod_search. (18619)
• Fixed problem with some news feeds not showing. (18672)
• Fixed problem in mod_login where trashed menu items show in redirect list. (19831)

Plugins

• Fixed problem saving content in TinyMCE when editor is toggled (17936)
• Fixed bug in email cloaking that added an extra space (17986)
• Fixed problem saving valid attributes for some HTML tags. (19055)

Legacy

• No legacy issues were fixed for this release

Templates

• Fixed problem loading template files for RTL languages. (18614)
• Fixed beez template to show correct Itemid after a search. (18683)

Language

• Added missing translation strings in installation. (19604)
• Added sr-YU language for installation. (19627)
• Added Phnom-Penh to timezone files. (19715)
• Added missing language strings in installation files. (19816)
• Added Arabic Unitag installation language ar_AA (19836)
• Added missing language strings for is-IS language in installation. (19864)
• Added missing strings in installation ini files. (19871)
• Added new hi-IN install language (19966)
• Added updates on installation ini files (20024)
• Fixed language bug in Menus (20055)
• Added language credits update (20195)

Administrator

• Fixed display problem in back end with RTL languages. (18570)
• Fixed problem where Menu Item types for disabled components still showed when adding menu items. (18617)
• Fixed problem with display of module position in Module Manager. (18848)

System

• Fixed JFolder::makeSafe method to not remove dots in path (16506)
• Fixed problem that prevented using a cache in some cases (16974)
• Remove PHP warning message on some versions (18612)
• Fixed problem installing modules in update mode. (18987)
• Fixed problem with Yagoon and Norfolk timezones. (19555)
• Fixed problem with return value when saving polling components. (19655)
• Fixed problem in JToolbarHelper class media_manager method. (19680)
• Fixed incorrect URI for IIS platforms (18046)
• Improved handling of failing Apache plugins (19859)
• Added Reykjavik in timezone (20025)
• Fixed JApplication::redirect() to not use 301 code (20043)
• Fixed SEF search URL’s for cross-platform compatibility (20184)

‘Oh no’, you’re probably thinking, ‘another post about Tiger Woods.’

Fear not. This is not about his many and much reported transgressions. This is my theory about why Nike has stood by him and why they had no option.

When Nike signed up Tiger and wrestled him away from the stalwart of golf equipment, Titleist, it was a big deal. Remember, Titleist had paid a reputed $20M per year to rookie Woods when he turned pro and he didn’t disappoint. US Opens followed Masters, followed Opens, followed USPGAs.

Nike upped the ante by reputedly doubling the fee and took our breath away. The fact that the Nike clubs TW played were actually created by a manufacturer (who I cannot name) in Japan and then branded with the Nike swoosh, or the fact that the balls he played were made by a popular ball manufacturer then branded under a different guise, is neither here nor there. The golfing public bought into the Nike golf brand, especially those new to the game.

Success followed success. Brilliant ad, followed brilliant ad. And when his ball hung over the lip of the 16th cup at Augusta in 2005 (see below) the Nike tick played centre stage in a brilliant piece of sporting drama that sponsors and brand managers can only dream of.

Then came the fall.

You all know about it so I won’t go into detail.

And the sponsors started jumping ship. Gatorade cancelled their TW sports drink. Accenture declared ‘he is no longer the right representative’ for their brand. TAG Heuer dropped him from their American ad campaigns, but continued to support his golf foundation. They said “we have to take account of the sensitivity of some consumers in relation to recent events’.

And who could blame any of them?

Only Nike stood firm. And here’s my take on why they did.

The Nike brand has ‘Victory’ as its central organizing principle.

Their advertising and marketing, indeed their whole company is focused around the idea of ‘winning’.

‘Nike’ is the mythological winged Greek goddess of victory.

The Brand ID, the tick, is an affirmation of winning and of being right.

‘Just do it’ is a rallying call to arms to go out there and win.

Their advertising famously celebrates victory. The iconic ‘Michael Jordan 1, Isaac Newton 0’ poster demonstrates the brand beating even the laws of physics.

So, was this company that has ‘Victory’ at its core going to be defeated by media tittle-tattle? By sex? By human frailty?

No chance.

If a brand can beat gravity it can certainly beat The New York Post, The Sun and even Sky News.

That’s why dumping Tiger would have gone against their brand essence.

It must have been a hard decision, hammered out during board-room table sessions long into the night. In branding terms, it was the right decision. Morally, I’ll let you make your own mind up.

The post-script to all of this is of course the new Nike commercial launched on the Wednesday of Masters’ week.

At first, I hated it. I thought the timing was exploitative and the usage of Earl Woods voice, crass.

On reflection, I still think the timing was poorly judged and perhaps the use of Woods’ father to question his son from the grave was bad taste. Very bad taste in fact.

But I think it shows that TW is willing to publicly atone. The Earl Woods voice over hauntingly asks his son ‘…did you learn anything?’

Hopefully he has. But one thing I’ve learned from whole debacle is that Nike, with all its faults, has stuck to its brand’s core principle and perhaps, just perhaps, it may come out the other side stronger. Even if Tiger doesn’t.

Nestlé might be in the middle of a PR crisis thanks to Greenpeace, but some of its biggest issues this week have come from its response through social media.

Last week Greenpeace launched a full-on attack on Nestlé’s KitKat brand by creating a somewhat shocking video and website highlighting its concerns over how the chocolate bar’s maker sources palm oil.

What can or must we learn from this?

Below is a great post from Scott Gould who is one of the UK’s finest social media thinkers. Scott kindly gave me the permission to repost on SocialGloo.

The 7 Things Nestlé Should’ve Done

The latest Social Media disaster happened last week as Nestlé got literally slammed on Facebook. Here’s how it happened, what lessons we can glean, and what Nestlé should’ve done:

1. A Social Media presence doesn’t inherently fix your offline problems and perceived questionable ethics.

It began with a Greenpeace campaign attacking Nestlé who are pupportedly purchasing palm oil from companies that destroy rainforests. Greenpeace created a video (which is sitting on their homepage) that rebranded the popular Nestlé chocolate bar brand, Kit Kat, into ‘Killer’, with the slogan ‘give the orang-utan a break.’

Nestlé asked YouTube to pull the video under copyright infringement, but the video had already gone viral. The summary in this comment by alecast gives an excellent and succinct order of events.

Takeaway: Be prepared for Social Media to amplify offline opinion.

2. People don’t mind if you don’t get it right, but they do mind if you get it wrong.

Mass protest then began on Nestlé’s Facebook page, which as you can imagine, quickly became swamped with not only outrage against their use of this palm oil, but also their pulling of the video.

As the Facebook hate piled in, Nestlé updated their Facebook page to reflect the sentiment of ‘we’re still learning’. As much as people say that it’s ok to get it wrong, in the Social Media mob’s eyes, it isn’t.

Takeaway: Like Eurostar, if you don’t have all the answers, people don’t care about your reasons. Have the answers ready.

3. Do Not Censor

Censoring the video in the first place is what exacerbated this war. People started making the Killer logo their profile picture, at which point Nestlé repeated the intial mistake by issuing the following update on Facebook:

please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.

The Streisland effect is used to describe the phenomenon when censorship causes something to become even more widespread. Don’t do it. And especially don’t do it twice. The net is at such a place that whatever you delete is pretty retrievable – and even if it isn’t – the whole thing with mass protest is that it is based in perception far more than reality. Censoring fuels this emotion.

Takeaway: Had Nestlé not censored, this would not have reached this size. Don’t censor.

4. Old Media Does Not Understand Social Crisis Management

Old Media thinks that removing a comment because the user’s profile picture is infringing and damaging your brand is the way to go.

Old Media is stupid. Old Media doesn’t consider that digital and social means will make two profile pictures spring up in the place of every deleted one. And Old Media doesn’t understand that text is more powerful than images when it comes to Google search and Facebook comments.

Even worse is telling users you will delete their comments – as if that will make people stop. If they were so concerned about their brand, they should’ve deleted the comments without telling anyone.

Takeaway: Social Crisis Management never takes the form of censorship or editing. It takes the form of creating new solutions.

5. Do Not Retaliate

The biggest mistake Nestlé made was by the person running the Facebook page who appeared to take every criticism personally. Just scan through this screenshot on this post.

Retaliation also invokes the Streisland effect.

Takeaway: Nestlé should’ve not responded to anything. Nothing they could say would make it right anyway, so rather say nothing.

6. The Truth Doesn’t Matter: Perception Does

Nestlé issues a press release on Wednesday, “assur[ing] you than Nestlé does not buy palm oil from the Sinar Mas Group”

It’s irrelevant – whether true or false.

When you get it wrong be censoring and retaliating, you reinforce the perception that you are trying to cover your tracks.

Takeaway: Don’t focus on facts, focus on perception.

7. Respond With The Same Weight

A press release does not combat screaming hatred against a brand. You must match fire with fire. The only way Nestlé can turn this around is to carry out something that has the same weight as the criticisms and viral nature that attacked it.

Takeaway: You cannot respond with traditional methods. You must match viral protest with viral solutions.

Conclusion

All of this, in my opinion, was Nestlés terribly misguided attempts at managing crisis through censorship of reach. Crisis management of spreadability is totally different.

When creating a Crisis Management process, you must never censor. You must create. Simply because spreadability requires us to create new media, as you cannot censor what has already been spread!

You can read a great summary from start to finish of what happened here.

Do you have any more points to add?

I recently met Andy Clayton through our @simplybusiness twitter. He manages two stores – Newark and Lincoln – within the Printing.com empire. Andy talked about his strategy about opportunities for using social media to communicate with and atract local customers for our printing service. It shows that social media for local companies is finally taking off.

What role is social media taking in your business?

We find that the use of social media for business is a growing part of our marketing mix. In the last year we have seriously upped our usage and now have active business accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and a printing advice blog on blogger. It fits in well with the other activities we do and has helped us re-affirm current relationships and also develop brand new contacts whilst reinforcing our knowledge as a brand.

It is important that small businesses see that social media is a very useful tool but only if it is used in the correct way. It is great for creating interactions with clients, prospects and suppliers but it is essential not to use it only as a direct way of selling or else it will turn people straight off. This is not to say that work won’t follow as we can trace that we have gained clients directly from our @LincolnPrinting Twitter account.

Do you think online marketing tools are important for your business?

Absolutely, we recognise the way that marketing is constantly changing and we adapt our marketing plan regularly to include new technologies and online tools. The prime example is our use of twitter – it allows us to keep regular contact with like-minded businesses and make connections through an online presence that can then be linked directly with other tools such as our website and blogs, all of which can be updated at the touch of a button. The great benefit of online marketing is that the message you give can be changed instantly. It is still important, however, to utilise a broad range of marketing tools including both online and offline marketing mediums, especially as some customers and businesses are not versed in the online world!

Below is a great blog post from an old school pal that I recently reconnected with on Twitter:

Having been on Twitter for a year, I thought I should mark the occasion with a short post on my experiences. It’s been a interesting year, where I have gone from pure newb with poor 140 character skills to mentoring individuals and companies on their use of the platform. It’s been a interesting year, where I have gone from pure newb with poor 140 character skills to mentoring individuals and companies on their use of the platform.

What I have discovered though, is that you only get out what you put in. In truth, you need to spend time talking, listening, engaging, encouraging and being encouraged. Only by doing so will you start to see any kind of return on your Twitter investment. I see plenty of people who use it as a broadcast medium and never seem to engage in any form of conversation.

Some use it as a passive news stream, allowing them to keep on top of a myriad of news sources. Others seem to spend most of their time moaning about their pitiful lives (my advice here is to get off Twitter and do something positive). However you use it, it’s up to you and frankly, I don’t care. If you bore me, offend me or spam me, I can chose to unfollow you. And that is fine too.

Read the full post at Nico’s blog