According to the Associated Press and the Mercury News:

PORTLAND, Ore. — Yahoo has won a legal battle over removing nude photos that an Oregon woman claimed her boyfriend posted on its Web site without her knowledge or permission.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirms that Internet service providers such as Yahoo are generally protected from liability for materials published or posted on their sites by outside parties.

Cecilia Barnes had filed a lawsuit in 2005 in Portland, Ore., claiming her boyfriend not only posted nude photos, but also created a fraudulent profile and posed as her in an online chat room to solicit sex.

Although the court says Sunnyvale-based Yahoo isn’t liable for those actions, it left open the possibility that Barnes could sue Yahoo over whether it had promised to remove the photos and the profile.

While I’m happy that Yahoo! won its appeal after stating that the loss “‘threatens significant mischief’ to other Web companies” the final line in the AP release is what has me worried.

it left open the possibility that Barnes could sue Yahoo over whether it had promised to remove the photos and the profile.

Barnes next suit– win or lose– will likely influence and change the way that users interact with companies on a daily basis as one “bad apple” (or in this case, rogue agent) ruined the bushel. Rather than allowing their agents to provide more of a customized experience for each user, it’s possible that agents will be forced to adhere to an even more robotic, contrived speech that compels them to respond only to black and white situations– creating more frustration for users who approach companies with “grey” issues.

Looking for the full story on the Yahoo/Barnes case in Oregon? Find it after the jump.

Yahoo Could Be Liable For Lewd and Libelous Profile

by Wendy Davis, Monday, May 11, 2009, 7:45 AM

From: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105741

When Oregon resident Cecilia Barnes broke up with her boyfriend, he responded by posting a fake profile of her on Yahoo — and a particularly nasty one at that. He included nude photos of Barnes as well as her name, address and phone number.

Barnes complained to Yahoo and a company executive promised to take down the profile. Yahoo allegedly reneged on that promise, spurring Barnes to file suit against the company.

Now, in a ruling that could have significant ramifications for Web publishers, a federal appellate court has held that Yahoo could face liability for breach of contract for failing to delete the post.

Yahoo will still have the opportunity to contest Barnes’ claims in court, and it’s not yet clear that she will be able to prove her case. The company said in a statement that it was evaluating the court’s opinion and anticipates a “swift resolution” in the trial court.

Still, the decision potentially leaves Web publishers more vulnerable to new lawsuits stemming from the posts of users. That’s because the ruling appears to carve out a new exception to the federal Communications Decency Act — a law that many attorneys had long thought immunized Web sites from liability for libelous or offensive user comments. In fact, U.S. District Court, Judge Ann Aiken in Oregon originally dismissed Barnes’ lawsuit for that reason.

But Barnes appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled last week that the Communications Decency Act created only a “baseline” rule that Web companies need not censor posts. Once a Yahoo employee promised Barnes that the post would be deleted, Yahoo was obligated to do so, according to the court.

The decision surprised some observers because other courts had long taken the opposite approach. In one of the earliest Internet law cases, the 4th Circuit of Appeals ruled in 1997 that AOL could not be sued for libelous messages posted by a user. In that case, as in the Yahoo-Barnes situation, an AOL employee said the comments would be deleted.

In another instance, an appellate court in Washington ruled in 2001 that Amazon could not be sued for failing to remove reviews — even though a site employee told the author that the reviews would come down.

Attorney Jeffrey Neuburger, who focuses on technology and media at the law firm Proskauer Rose, said that Web publishers now need to be especially careful when handling complaints about posts. “You can’t say, ‘We’ll take it down,’ because that could potentially form a contractual obligation,” he says.

Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, adds that the 9th Circuit’s decision could potentially leave Web publishers open to lawsuits based on their terms of service.

Many sites’ terms of service ban users from making offensive posts, but courts generally have not allowed users to sue Web sites for failing to enforce those terms by removing particular posts. But if Barnes can bring a case against Yahoo for failing to honor an employee’s promise, then other consumers who feel aggrieved by comments might try to bring cases against publishers who don’t honor their terms of service. “Plaintiffs are going to look through all of the marketing representations on companies’ sites and are going to say, ‘I’m suing you for those,’” Goldman says.

Personally I’m a big fan of the iPhone and shopping. So, when Lucky Magazine (which I also happen to be a fan of) found a way to combine shopping and the iPhone, I was intrigued.

Early last week, Lucky released an app called “Lucky at Your Service” which essentially acts as a virtual personal shopper, and checks the inventories of your local stores. The catch? The only merchandise currently available within the app are shoes featured within the March edition of Lucky Magazine. Perfect if you love shoes, not so perfect if you were looking to snag a handbag or a myriad of other items featured within the pages of Lucky.

At this time, the app is free to download and according to the New York Times:

Lucky [...] has even hired a call center, staffed with 20 to 200 representatives, who will confirm that the shoe is available and set it aside, text-messaging a shopper that, say, Jessie in the second-floor salon shoe department at the downtown Nordstrom has set it aside.

In their article, NYT also addresses a valid point: in an economy where few people are shopping, is an iPhone app that targets shoppers, really a formula for success? My answer: if they incorporate some sort of “sale alert” mechanism, then yes.

Lucky At Your Service

Lucky is one of the few publications that can successfully pull off a mobile application like this, in an economy like this, and that’s due in large part, to their core demographic: shoppers.

Lucky is, and always has been, a magazine targeted towards people who love to shop.

The entire magazine reads like a giant advertisement, and positions itself as the ultimate shopping guide. People who subscribe to Lucky are people who like to shop– they’re not just in it for the fashion, like people who subscribe to other fashion or style magazines. When you couple this with the fact that readers of Lucky actually enjoy shopping, and statistically have more money to “burn” than their average Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Elle, and Glamour counterparts, it makes sense. Releasing a social application like Lucky At Your Service targets this specific demographic in an incredibly unique way, and caters to a niche audience while providing a useful service that no other magazine has done. In addition to this, Lucky has found a way to keep their magazine relevant: by tying in the application to the magazine itself, as opposed to the website, they are promoting consumption of their “bread and butter” as opposed to a free resource, like the website.

And to that, I say kudos– and happy shopping. Now, if they’d only expand it to at least include handbags and other critical “accessory” items, I’d be happy.

A friend of mine used to work for the Los Angeles County Department of Health and would often tell me about their proposed initiatives and how they were working on new ways to spread the message about health issues using social media.

Like many companies, they followed the typical route:  creating a MySpace page and/or a YouTube channel, and would regularly publish content. However, unlike most companies, any Health company or Department has the added luxury of having to sell a “product” that is often incredibly “unsexy,” which often results in lower CTRs and a harder sell. They also bear the burden of marketing a product that people are often unable to interact with or, in some cases, are ashamed to interact with.

Think back. How often do you scan the internet, looking for the latest public service announcements? Probably never. And, if you’re like most people, if you do see one on TV, online, or anywhere else, you probably don’t talk about it with your friends or family because it just doesn’t have the same “appeal” as talking about the latest movie trailer or tv show you watched, right? For the few of you who said that you DO actually talk about the PSAs you see on TV with someone you know, 9/10 chance that the PSA you watched had to do with drugs or alcohol. And the person you talked to? Your child/parent/dependent, right?

It’s not your fault.  Most campaigns are confined to sites that prohibit commenting or fail to stimulate a conversation with the end user or viewer.

It’s because of that absence of dialogue that this snippet about the FDA/CDC, etc, intrigued me, as they’re successfully using social media as a channel for two way communication:

To get the word out about the recent recall of peanut butter and products containing peanut paste, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control launched an aggressive social media campaign featuring blogs videos, and tweets. While it remains to be seen how large a role the CDC’s Second Life island plays in minimizing the salmonella outbreak tied to the peanut products, it is exciting to see the government experimenting with new ways to reach out to people during public safety emergencies. Modern Healthcare (free registration) (02/03)

After checking out the Twitter stream for the FDA, it’s clear that they’re committed to utilizing Twitter as a consistent method of communication (as of posting time, the FDA had 243 updates). And, a quick look at their followers also proves that it’s not just media officials following– they’re regular Joe’s– just like you and me– interested in learning about what’s going on with the FDA.

But for me, the real proof was in the pudding: a tweet nestled halfway down the page:

Holy cow, they care about what you think! They want you to engage with them. Sure, talking about peanut butter recalls are scary, and in fact, many people responded that they felt the tweets were too frequent because they were so depressing and scary, but holy smokes, they care.

For me, though it seems like a small step, it’s a huge leap on the sociability scale: being aware of your presence on and offline is the building block of any good social media strategy. Let’s just hope that as they continue to tweet, they continue to engage: but not just about frequency– but about issues and sentiment, and things that actually matter to their followers. If they can do that, then they will have succeeded in this aspect of their strategy.

All in all, as more and more people find themselves on social sites like YouTube and Twitter, it’s great to see that users will also be finding public services (like Amber Alerts on Twitter, and AdCouncil PSAs on YouTube) there as well. Regardless of the subject matter, it’s important for a social strategy to engage users on many levels– and interact with them on a regular basis by providing relevant and interesting content.

Fortune, like many publications recently published an article highlighting ten unemployed Americans, and their search for a new job “Fortune: The New Jobless“. (Disclaimer: I was one of the 10 featured in the article) Like most articles, Fortune included a link that enables readers an opportunity to “discuss” what they’ve read.

However, instead of discussing the stories that are contained within the article, Fortune opted to encourage readers to engage with the article, and publication in a different way: by sharing their own story.

To me, this creative use of social media enables users to engage with the content in a much more intimate way; and, in turn, creates much more genuine commentary.

After the jump? Snippets from Fortune’s “Talkback: Tell Your Recession Story”

My recession story is sort of opposite everyone else. I am an IT person that survived the dot-com crash and I learned my lesson back then on how to learn and adjust my lifestyle as a result of a recessions. After the dot-com crash there was NO work for IT people but I liked technology work so once my unemployment went dry I decided to go back to school and get my masters degree. To get some income I did small web projects on the side and since I was in school I kept my costs low and rented a small apartment and paid cash for my car. I lived within my means, studied a lot and learned as much as I could and obtained 2 masters degrees (MBA and Computer Information Systems). Now I work at a software company were the pay is very good, I am also involved in 2 projects on the side and my income is very good. But I still live like a grad student and am keeping my costs low and therefore I am saving a lot of money and am well positioned in case something bad does happen.

Posted By Shawn, Denver CO : February 3, 2009 11:19 am

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to chat with a few people about job hunting strategies. One of the most common questions I’ve been asked has been: “How do you stay optimistic?” and, “What strategies are you using?”

After reading a lot of articles on the subject, and doing a lot of searching myself, I figured I’d share my tips here:

• Network, network, network. Find people on sites like LinkedIn who have careers you’d like to have, or are at companies you’d like to work at. If they look as though they’re receptive to “random connections” (i.e. they have a substantial network size, or say they’re interested in making new connections) send them a connection request and outline your interests in the request. Be succinct and polite. Also, people are more likely to connect with you if you have something in common– a past employer, a friend, etc. If you can establish that from the get-go, be sure to include that in your connection request. Meeting and connecting with new people is the best way to find a new job: most jobs are secured through internal referrals. By expanding your network, you exponentially increase your odds of landing your next gig.
• Ask questions. Take this opportunity to learn something new. Check out a Question/Answer board on a job site and see what types of questions employers and potential employees are asking. Check out boards that are specific to your niche/market and answer questions that you know the answer to. But be careful: only answer questions you know you know the answer to, and you know you can provide a solid, clear, and awesome answer to. Think of this as a mini audition/interview. These Question/Answer boards stick around for, well, as long as the Internet is around– if you say something offensive, or just wrong, it could come back to haunt you. Be sure that you’re putting your best foot forward and this could be your ticket to meeting new people, and securing a new job.
• Stay in the game. If you’ve lost your job or are just looking to change careers, be sure to stay up to date on the latest trends in your space. This means reading industry blogs and articles and knowing what’s going on. My tip? Set up a Google Alert for a few strategic key words that relate to your space. That way, at the end of each day, you’ll be sent a snapshot of the industry’s relevant news articles. If you’ve been laid off, be sure to maintain business connections. Keep up to date on the latest products and tools that could help you, should you land your dream job. Then, once you do get into your new role, you’ll know exactly what you need to succeed– and, will blow your new boss away with how prepared and well-researched you are.
• Talk about it. Start a blog, start a Twitter stream, start a Flickr page, start a community outreach group, start something. Just let it be known that you’re into what you do, and you want the world to know. Be multi-dimensional, and prove that you’re capable of communicating in many ways.
• Be a profile troll. Ok, not really. No one likes a stalker (so definitely don’t call them, hunt them down, or email anyone incessantly), but what you can do is identify a few key industry pros that you aspire to be like. Check out their online profiles and see what words/phrases they use to succeed. Do any of them sound like things you’ve done? By no means should you steal their words, nor should you lie about what you’ve done, but think of their profile as a muse. Use it to inspire your own, and reassess your wording and your profile/resume as a whole.
• Be Kevin Bacon. This goes back to the networking thing: in some way or another you’re connected to everyone. Be sure that when you’re out and about (whether it’s online or, gasp, offline) the image you’re projecting is the image you’d want your potential employer to see. You never know who is connected to whom, and how far that great first impression might take you.
• Be positive. No one likes a “Debbie Downer” so even if things are rough (i.e. you’ve been laid off), you keep a positive attitude. It’s going to make it easier to find a job, and easier to transition into your new role.

To everyone looking, good luck! I know looking for a job (especially in this economy) can be rough, but think of it this way: finding a new job (especially if you were laid off) is a chance to reinvent yourself. It gives you the opportunity to truly find out what you’re looking for in a role, and, what you’re not.

More job hunting resources: Guy Kawasaki’s “10 Ways to use LinkedIn to find a Job” and an article on “How to use Twitter to find your next job.” And, check out this great Question/Answer stream from LinkedIn on “How to recover from a layoff.”

Back in July/August of 2008, Huggies launched an ad campaign aptly called “Geyser,” which featured a young father carrying his son into a bedroom for a changing, and then, well, being “hosed” down by a “geyser” of, well, you get the idea. The commercial was a hit online, and according to an article by BrandWeek, published in August of 2008, the ad received 1.3 million aggregate views on sites like “YouTube, Spike and Meetup.com.”

As of late, the commercial has reappeared on cable television as well (initially I thought it was a Superbowl advertisement, which caused me to research the ad– I hadn’t come across it online). While researching the ad, I not only came across the initial advertisement, but also a “mockumentary” entitled, “Inside the Diaper.”

According to the same BrandWeek article:

The success of the initial ad prompted JWT to create a “mockumentary” version, dubbed “Inside the Diaper.” The 2:25 segment is a spin-off developed from B-roll footage taken during the “Geyser” shoot. “We had the foresight of knowing the story we created was an interesting one,” said JWT creative director Richie Glickman. As of press time, the “Inside the Diaper” mockumentary generated about a thousand views on YouTube less, than a week after its initial posting.

JWT’s campaign isn’t just creative traditional marketing, it’s creative and innovative new marketing. Through this campaign, they were able to capitalize on three things: a parent’s shared experience, excess footage, and of course, humor. By combining all of these things, they were able to create a multi-faceted campaign that might not have succeeded offline, but thrived online. Way to go JWT, and Huggies.

Now, enjoy the ads.

Geyser Commercial

Mockumentary: Inside the Diaper

Today, Forbes published an article on the “Top Twitter Celebrities”– featuring the names of both online and offline stars. The lists, which are broken down into two categories: Celebrities (10 on this list) and the Most Influential Twitterers (10 on this list).  The two lists feature a total of two women: Britney Spears and Tina Fey– both in the celebrity category. The parent Twitter article also features a link to The Web Celeb 25, a list which features only one woman– Heather Armstrong.

Let’s take a quick look at Forbes’ selections for females: in one corner, we have a pop-princess (who doesn’t actually tweet herself– her “people” do it for her– we know because they sign the tweets) and a comedian, who tweets sporadic, but funny messages. As a whole, these women neither define the product nor the “active”demographic that Forbes was going for.

According to a Time article, back in August 2008, Twitter’s userbase was rougly 63% male, and 25.9% of the site’s users are between the age of 35-44. (Be sure to read Time’s article for great demographic information on the types of people who use Twitter– it’s not who you’d think).

Based off of this information (and assuming it’s still relatively true six months later) Forbes’ list should have had at least 5 women on the list (15 if you combined it with the Web Celeb 25). Granted there were a few “repeat performers” between the three lists, there seems to be no reason as to why less than a handful of women were considered for the article.

In the article, the author, Andy Greenberg, discusses Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter success, and states “By Forbes’ calculation, he’s the most influential Twitterer in the world,” but fails to define what tools Greenberg and his team used to determine this honor. A quick trip to the popular Twitter-fan site, Twitterholic.com puts Guy at #10, and a woman, Veronica Belmont (who wasn’t even mentioned in the article), at #8.

TwitterCounter also shows Veronica ahead of Guy and Jason Calacanis.

Further down the page? ijustine, a pseudo-celebrity, but the definition of “Web Celeb.” All-in-all, it would have been nice if there was a little more diversity in the list, as it would have made the article feel like it had more substance to it. Instead, it felt like a popularity contest where the team went through and picked a few names that were “buzz worthy” and would get them a lot of press– and tweets (or retweets)– without actually doing any real journalism.

Couple the dog-and-pony show with minor errors like ” Barack Obama, whose Twitter feed has been silent since his election, has the most adherents of all with 144,000 followers” the article just makes you frown and wonder if the reporter even bothered to check Twitter or any of the other Twitter tracking sites before publishing. Although it’s true that Obama hasn’t Tweeted in regular intervals since the election,  he/his staff has posted two messages since the election (aside from the hacked messages) including one about Martin Luther King, Jr., and one about Inaugauration. Both of these messages were most likely available when the author’s story closed, making him just appear lazy.

I love seeing Twitter gain marketshare and garner more press, and know that articles in mainstream outlets like CNN, Time, and The New York Times help achieve this goal, but at the same time, they can sometimes create hurdles. In this case, a glass ceiling, and a negative stereotype.

For more Twitter ranking sites, visit the Twitter Facts blog, where they’ve compiled a healthy list.

Update: Looking for more successful women to follow on Twitter? Try: Ana Marie Cox Erin Kotecki Vest Cali Lewis Liz Strauss Wendy Piersall Sarah Lacy Mari Smith

Last week I spoke with Steve Dodd and Nick Koudas of Sysomos, a social media tracking/monitoring service. They walked me through their product, features and showed me how it could be successfully implemented in a business or even by someone with a successful personal brand. Below is my review. Please note that this review is based on a presentation given to me by the Sysomos team, and I have not had an opportunity to actually try the Sysomos product or implement it firsthand.

Structure of this review: I’ve broken down the core elements of the product into categories and have reviewed them based on their merit. I’ve also included a brief review of additional features that are “added bonuses” or things you’d expect to see in a service like this towards the end of the review.

Search: The initial usage of the Syosomos tool is much like the other social media monitoring tools on the market: you’re able to enter your search terms and adjust your search properties based on those words. Sysomos’ tool has built in help tools to help you craft the ideal search, in case you’re not familiar with boolean search terms or don’t know exactly what to look for, which was a plus. For the sake of the demo, Nick used the term “blackberry bold” throughout to show the impact of the Sysomos tool.

Search results are tagged by geographic location and by language. As a user, you’re able to filter your results to show only results in “English” or “French” or whatever language you’d like. In addition to this, if you come across an article/result that is in another language that you’re interested in viewing, they have a built in translator that will translate the article’s language for you. However, during the demo they ran into an issue translating one article into French but had no issue translating that same article into Spanish.

Demographics: As I hinted to above, the Sysomos tool also has a built in demographics tool that lets you filter your results by region. It also produces graphs based on the self-reported demographic information on each blog/twitter page/site. Since this information is based off of self-reported information and not all blogs or sites report (or have, for that matter) age demographics, this can potentially produce a skewed result. However, for the sites that do report this information, this can provide a valuable snapshot of who (exactly) is talking about your products, and where they’re located.

Buzz Graph: One of the “bells and whistles” that Sysomos implemented into their product that is unique to them is something called a “Buzz Graph.” The graph, which reads much like a social graph of the most commonly utilized phrases and terms in posts or tweets that mention your search phrase. Unfortunately, this is one of those tools that shows well in a sales meeting but has little use in a practical sense, as many of the “Buzz Graph” results return minute product details or attributes, as opposed to words that indicate sentiment or something more constructive or useful.

Text Entities/Top Sentences: With that being said, Sysomos also offers a list of the most commonly used phrases and sentences, which are infinitely more useful when trying to “cut through the noise” and determine what is really being said about your product or service.

Sentiment: Sysomos’ product also offers a sentiment feature that “Quantifies statements that are extremely positive or extremely negative. The product doesn’t count anything that is considered ‘grey [or not extreme in it's sentiment].’” Personally, I’m extremely skeptical of this feature as human language is something that is incredibly difficult to quantify, scale and accurately rate. People are just too clever with language, and it’s incredibly difficult to distinguish all of the nuances of language– and, to distinguish sarcasm from genuine delight. During the demo I asked numerous questions about how they rate sentiment and ensure that it’s accurate, and Nick assured me that it only scores items that are either “extremely positive or extremely negative” and they have a very advanced system that is capable of sifting through the sarcasm.

Without personally trying it out, I’m unable to accurately present how well it works, but instead, am assured that it does indeed, do the job. (If that’s the case, that in itself is worth whatever price they’re charging, as a quick ‘toe in the water’ test of what the general populus is thinking of your product/service/brand saves both time and energy, and, is worth the money).

The Basics

• As far as spam goes, Nick assured me that they rigorously filter out spam and “the content they provide to customers is 99% spam free.”
  
• Once you perform a search/find results you’re interested in keeping/reporting on, you’re able to export the results. (Formats were not shared, though I’d guess you’d have the option of a CSV or a PDF)
• Ratings on blogs are done by their team and through their teams own algorithm. This pushes “more reputable and relevant” blogs to the top of your search results, making your job easier. My issue with this is that this could potentially skew your results: who’s to say their algorithm isn’t filtering out the results you’re looking for? I’d like to see the option of turning the rating/filtering off and performing a “raw search.”
• Provides a wordcloud highlighting the most commonly used phrases/terms
  

Bells and Whistles

• Breaks down different types of social media results into categories (Twitter, Video, Blogs, etc.)
  
• Allows you to preview pages/results within the tool, as opposed to opening up a second tab/browser window
• When reviewing Wiki pages, shows a snapshot of the Wiki page and the page’s activity over time
• Can drill down and show top blog/twitter influencers as well as outgoing links.
  
• Tool also trolls Social Networking pages and allows you to search them for specific profile info, though the options seemed to be limited. Would allow you to examine a person’s network of friends/potential influencers.

Overall thoughts: First off, it’s incredibly difficult to accurately judge a product by a demo, as a demo is always going to present the best features in the best light. I would have loved to have spent at least an hour with the tool, poking around, and running my own searches to see how things actually performed.

With that being said, all in all, the Sysomos tool seemed to perform well. During the demo, there were some delays, which for me, is a drawback as the demo was given by the company’s CEO and presumably was hosted onsite on their own server– meaning it was in the most stable environment it could possibly be in. If it was a little sluggish for him, there seems to be potential for an end user to experience a delay, which can sometimes be frustrating. Granted, Nick selected a high traffic topic (Blackberry Bold) that likely had hundreds of thousands of mentions, it still would have been nice to see it speed along a bit more when performing a search.

As I mentioned there were a few hiccups along the way with translation, but I can’t see that as a major issue for many users, making it a minor problem in the long run. When reviewing demographic or sentiment results, you’re given a final number of blogs/sites that are reviewed. It would be great to see what percentage of total sites this number actually reflects. For example, we know that sites like CNET review products like the Blackberry Bold, so their review/assessment is likely to show up on a search for the product. However, since the site is that of a business, it most likely doesn’t have gender or demographic information associated with it. Therefore, it’s omitted from the demographic results, but not from the general search results. I’d like to see a number stating this when you do a demographic search, stating that X number of blogs were surveyed, and of those blogs, X1 blogs provided demographic information. This provides a much more accurate representation of the data and doesn’t produce misleading metrics.

However, the ability to know your demographic is a valuable tool, and definitely a feature that would be of use to any social media team that implements the Sysomos product.

One of the most valuable features I witnessed in the demo was the Top Sentences and Text Entities features– both provide a great, quick opportunity to briefly asses the current climate of bloggers, and see what people are actually saying, without having to read all of the posts.

As technology progresses, it’s great to see tools like this progressing alongside it. Sysomos does a great job of implementing relevant tools alongside the types of tools that will dazzle in presentations. For more information, I suggest visiting Sysomos’ website.

With the economy in dire straits, it seems as though many companies are turning to hiring on social media strategists as consultants instead of full-time,  full-salary (and benefits) roles. Though this is a bitter-sweet turn of events for the social media field, it’s also a great opportunity for true pros to prove their worth, all while having the flexibility of bouncing from company to company.

Why this is good for social media: By continuing to offer positions (though they’re contract positions) it proves that companies are still willing to spend some of their limited budget on social efforts, and understand their value. By offering the position as a contract role, the company is able to save on their end by not having to pay for pesky things like benefits and contributing to your 401k.

Why this isn’t good for social media: By failing to completely integrate a team member into a brand or company, that team member (or in this case, social media strategist) isn’t given the opportunity to truly embrace the brand in a way a “full time” employee might. They’re also (potentially) seen as a much more expendable line-item in the company’s budget.

(Think back to the recent swarm of layoffs: when you heard Google was laying off, who did you hear was the first to go? Yep, contractors.) Contract positions come off as a bit of a tepid offer– for some companies, it might come with a whisper of uncertainty instead of one of innovation.

For those of you who are social media strategists faced with the decision (or opportunity) of taking a consulting gig, it’s best to look at the company, the position, and the amount of visibility and influence you may (or may not) have over your teams. And of course, always remember: the salary is always going to look better on a consulting gig than a salaried gig, but that’s because they’re not paying for benefits. Before you accept, check out the price of a healthcare plan comparable to your last job’s, and then reevaluate your consulting offer. Still look good? Then I’d go with it.

Check out this great post from Michael Pinto over at Fanboy.com on how Social Media “Experts” are the Cancer of Twitter (and Must Be Stopped)

Here’s a quick snapshot of the article:

Nearly a day goes by on Twitter without yet another social media “expert” choosing to stalk me. At first it started innocently — back in the day (about a year ago) various techie friends started to declare themselves social media gurus because they decided to hang out on Twitter and Facebook all day. And now an army of their offspring monitor Summize in search of human flesh.

Now the first symptom of this disease was what I call “social media deafness”, a state that occurs when a person’s social graph exceeds 500+ virtual friends. The result is that the person is a mile wide, but an inch deep. Suddenly the friend you use to know develops amnesia like symptoms and starts ignoring your direct messages — what was first simple Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder becomes full blown zombie like state.

The zombies then seek each other: You’ll always notice that of the 5,000 followers that a social media expert has that all 5,000 of them are also social media “experts”. Their only form of conversation is to quote each other and live tweet conferences where they gather. Like any good Ponzi scheme the lead zombies can make a good living feeding the hopes and aspirations of the worker level drones who parrot their every blog entry.

Read the full post here. 

Let this serve as a reminder to those of you who are “social media” experts/specialists/strategists that it’s ok to be human. In fact, it’s welcomed.