When Daniela told me she was going to bring her Executive Clare Hart from Dow Jones to meet with Robert, I was thrilled. I used to be a customer when Clare was the President of Factiva. At the time she was a blogger who was part of the conversation. At one time, she reached out to me via email, a very thoughtful touch from someone at the higher echelons to a customer.

Robert’s interviewed Clare here right in the PodTech headquarters, and has the story. There’s a few other pics I captured.

I encouraged Clare to consider doing a video show, she’s very personable, real, and down to earth. Video could be a good solution for her to communicate to the world, given the time it takes to blog, I’ve written tips on how to do that here.

Thanks for stopping by Dow Jones and Factiva folks!

It’s no mystery that I write this website for Corporate Marketers who use the web (that is my background for 7 years, this is my first time at a small startup), there’s a real need for sharing and learning as a single community. A few weeks ago, I wrote a very lengthy post, it was really a white paper of sorts, where I discussed the Impacts of Social Media on Customer Reference Programs.

I’m very excited to go into details about that post, as well as related tactics and strategies as a speaker at the Customer Reference Forum. If you know someone at your company that’s involved with Customer References, Loyalty, Customer experience, or General Marketing, I encourage you pass them the link to their site. The Customer Reference Forum event is on April 23-25 in Berkeley, CA (just outside San Francisco), looks like I’ll be joined by Ben and Jackie, (among others) both whom I can’t wait to meet.

(Update: Bill Lee of the Customer Reference Forum has a unique blog on the topic, including some Q&A of some thought leaders in the space)

Also that week, I’ll be speaking at Ad-Tech, invited by Rohit on a business blogging panel. Steve Hall of Adrants will also be on that panel. More news of that to come.

Last year, PodTech hosted the first annual Vloggies awards show, all in the honor of videobloggers. If you’re a videoblogger, there’s a couple of ways to get involved to submit your video to be part of the grand awards. If you didn’t go to the last vloggies (I couldn’t attend, as I was in China) you can check out some of Laughing Squid’s photos.

At SXSW, you can enter the contest at the PodTech booth, where you can meet Scoble and Irina!

Here’s what you need to know to get involved:

“Seagate is sponsoring a contest to kick things off for us: the SXSW-Vloggies Show Challenge: we’re inviting ANY VLOGGER to show their stuff at SXSW. Open to anyone in the world, we’re inviting you to create and showcase your video coverage of SXSW 2007 on The Vloggies Show site for some cool prizes.” -Irina Slutsky tells you more about the contest and the Vloggies event!

If you’re not familiar with the Vloggies, Scoble has a list of the best videobloggers check out last year’s coverage of the ceremony and party:

If you can’t see the embedded flash player in your feedreader, you can access the file directly, or see all the posts tagged Vloggies on PodTech.

Social Media isn’t always pretty. Sometimes things happen in the news, that hit social networks and spread at rapid pace. So fast that it forces corporations to wake up and pay attention to how the internet is connecting people at a rapid pace. I’ve noticed a pattern today in my feedreading, and although I don’t have a lot of time, I wanted to highlight what I’m seeing as a Web Strategist.

This week, KFC is is the news as this bad press hits YouTube. The president promptly responded, and even did an online video, good job Gregg and KFC. View video remarks from KFC President Gregg Dedrick (although they need a direct link to the video, I had to splice this code together in order to link to it directly). I hope they keep this open transparent dialogue going, have you read my Web Strategy on Why Online Video is good for your Corporate Executives and How to Deploy?

Brand Hijacking is when customers and the marketplace take your brand and create their own messages, experiences, and share with others. For most corporate marketers, this is scary stuff. This WalMart Watch blog is taking on Walmart Corporation as well as Edelman. They’re calling for video submissions to support their cause. Even Wikipedia has an extensive section focused on some public shortcomings.

Related: Sean’s added a comment below that really should be elevated, he’s provided some coverage of Jet Blue’s execs humble and sincere video apologies and customer bill of rights.

I’ve some other examples of some videos that were created on YouTube against Starbucks. Today, I find it interesting that Dave Winer is calling out some recent online activities. It’s disappointing to some that Dell is saying to Linux users: Not so fast. I was hoping they were on to something, the saga is still not over.

Update: I’ve had my eye on this book, Citizen Marketers I hope to get a chance to read it in the near future. They’re doing a book tour, and will be at the Customer Reference forum, where I’ll be presenting.

I feel guilty. Guilty that I don’t have enough time to spend sharing on this blog.

Posting has been light lately, and it will likely stay light. I’ve not had time to focus on some real analytical pieces that I enjoy sharing like The many forms of web marketing, the impacts of social media on customer reference programs, contraversial online data storage predictions, or indexing all the white label social network apps, etc.

Recently, in addition to a lot of personal and work things, today I was having lunch with a Googler, tomorrow I’m having lunch with the CTO of Hitachi Data Systems and some data storage pioneers, tomorrow night, we’re hosting some upcoming professionals, I’m also writing a white paper for a well known social media measurement company (stay tuned) and lastly, in case you can’t tell, I’ve started to do more video, so there’s a learning curve there.

If you’re hungry for content, I recommend cruising the Web Strategy category, most of these posts are designed to tell how to, case studies, or other resourceful information on web strategies.

Yes, been busy, so thanks for your patience.

Update: Oh yeah, I’m still sharing my items that I think you’d like to read in my Google Reader shared feed. If you haven’t subscribed yet, I encourage you to do so. Also subscribe to colleague Robert Scoble’s who I suspect reads more feeds than any other human. His shared feed is here.

Some of the footage from the unconference that Doc Searls invited me to is finally up. Check out the text and picture capture of this Mobile Identity Workshop. I’ve been hearing a lot of Doc, recently hosted a great talk with podcasts, the one with Dave Winer on this NPR podcast both of which provide some very important messages.

In the following video, Doc tells us why Mobile Identity is so important, and why the format of the event as an unconference is undesigned to help promote dialogue from the mind trust of those attending.

If you’re reading this in a feedreader, check out the media post.

I’m friends with Intuit folks, really great team over there. I read Avinash’s web analytics blog frequently, and spoke on a panel about Business Blogging with Paul Rosenfeld of Intuit. Great folks who get the web.

We all know about Intuit as having a successful online community. They’ve done quite a bit in the form of blogs, forums, and other types of community outreach programs.

The elusive SMB market is hard to identify, yet even to provide a web marketing strategy for. Quickbooks has done it, and is one of the great examples of how a thriving community is there. I even know of some small businesses that actually communicate and have done deals on the Intuit network. Intuit is an example of an online marketplace for the small and medium sized business.

You can hear how Scott Wilder (who also writes a killer blog) discusses how to navigate limited resources, the legal landscape, and internal and community cultures.

If you’re responsible for building or understanding online communities at your workplace, I recommend listening in. Scott discusses how they want to add video to their upcoming sites, I hope they reach out to PodTech to assist.

If you’re reading this in a feedreader, access the player directly. This player is sharable, and you can embed in your site as well. (click the Share button)

A few days ago, I gave my media consumption diet. It’s interesting that a lot of my stuff is on Demand, and has few ads. Loren’s responded with much love on his video:

I’m still waiting for Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, and Chris Pirillo share their diets. Martin did, and a few others says Technorati.

Oh, and my last name is pronounced Ow-Yang. I’m not Irish Loren.

Chronicling the Dell Social Media Saga
I’ve been watching this Dell story for quite a while, even been on a panel with blog expert Shel Israel, author of Naked Conversations discussing it.

Gone to Hell, Cursed, and Exploded
Dell’s taken a freaking beating in the past years due to social media bloggers. you can do a search on Dell Hell, and at one time, if you did a Google Search on the term “Dell Support” bloggers not happy with their support come up. (Today’s Google results show it’s still on the first results page)

Joining the Conversation, Cautiously, then with Gusto
Dell launched their One to One blog, which was met with mixed feedback. While some didn’t think they did an authentic job at joining the conversation, others supported them for the effort. A few weeks after the initial launch, Dell started to publically recognize their faults. At CES, I had the pleasure to hang with Michael Dell himself, (thanks to Lionel) where Dell said they were going to start embracing Social Media, watch the video yourself.

Turning it up with Customer Collaboration
Just a few days ago, I helped to announce IdeaStorm, the idea was for Dell to create a Customer Feedback/Collaboration web tools that will let customers and employees create products together. Marshall Kirkpatrick at Techcrunch, wasn’t sure if I was completely right that employees were fully onboard. Engadget cleverly modifies the tagline as they state that Dell Wants You to Make It Suck Less with Digg Clone.

Acknowledging the Voice of the People
Well it appears that Dell corporate (which I hope includes some employees) that they are on board and that they are taking IdeaStorm seriously. On this summary list, Dell demonstrates they are listening to what customers have been saying. A very strong meme is leaning towards open platforms (or none at all). It’s even moved it’s way up Digg, a popular user voting site. Not sure if the solution is worked out, as the costs may be even higher to get a wiped hardware machine.

Saga Timeline

Blindsided from ignorance
Learned how to listen
Built tools to join the conversation
Learned the right way to interact
Reached to community
Acknowledged customer requests

Next Step (and most important) For Dell:
This is the most important part, the final leg of this cyclical journey is to get Dell to give the products that the people ask for.

Document and Measure
It will be very interesting to see if there’s a reduction in Product Research costs from these tools. Could be a very insightful case study on Social Media ROI for corporations, I hope Dell shares this info with me. Keep at it Lionel Menchaca (the Community Manager), Michael Dell and the rest of the Dellions. By the way, if this whole concept is very new to you, I recommend you read the Cluetrain Manifesto.

Update March 2: The saga continues with IdeaStorm injures scores at Dell — “sounded like a freight train”. Apparently, Dell will not be building what the people asked for in IdeaStorm. Ars Technica speculates the many reasons why it doesn’t make sense for Dell. For what it’s worth, either way, the market knows what the market wants, and it’s documented, in addition for great buzz for Dell.

Update March 13th:
Dell has made an announcement that it plans to offer Linux to customers, the flavors will depend on how users answer the survey. I met with Lionel yesterday, and knew about this in advance. I was able to interview him for my video Web Strategy Show, he’ll be up soon.

Update March 29th:
After reviewing over 100,000 survey submissions, Dell is now offering it’s Linux flavored offerings. The company is listening.

Update April 3rd, 2007:
Lionel Menchaca visits in person with Jeff Jarvis, who first coined the business blogging case study “Dell Hell”. This community relations in real life was a success.

Update May 24th, 2007
Ubutu, a flavor of Linux is finally released as a product. Lionel uses video to tell his story.

Update June 16th 2007
The consumerist releases an ex-employees 22 tips on how to buy the best computer, although Dell demands a retraction. Jeff Jarvis sympathizes with Poor Dell, Lionel of Dell responds from the Dell one to one blog.

Update October 18, 2007
Dell’s continued push to reach to customers has paid off, relationships, communication and conversations are starting to be the very fabric of their company. Business Week runs this story, praising Dell for all that they have done. A few times people have told me they are tired of hearing about Dell as the case study of success, the problem is, few or no other companies have moved this far in such a short time. The deserve our applause.

I don’t know this guy that’s being talked about, but after two posts from personal friends over time, I’m noticing a trend:

Martin McKeay: What sets off your alarms? (Martin is a Network Security Expert, so if he says something, I listen)

Brian Oberkirch: Is Marc Freedman Like Herpes? (Brian’s also a trusted friend, so this really set off my alarms)

ValleyWag calls him out too:

Valleywag: Linkslut lifestyle: the pickup artists of networking

From Pew Research’s selected trend data:

Daily Internet Activities: Using the internet, email and search are top daily tasks

Activities on the web: notice that (41%) read blogs, more importantly: Research a product or service before buying it (78%)

From 20% - 70% adoption of Internet usage from 1996-2006 (PDF)

Who uses the internet: Stats by age, sex, race, income and education. Looks like most Americans do, although there’s a significant dip in those with low advanced education and low income.

Please note that Pew’s research is only American centric. I’ve some other data on global usage, and quite a few posts tagged “Web Usage” This data is helpful, I’m actually blogging it really more for my own personal archiving purposes, as I sometimes have to pull these stats up for our clients. I can recall when I was asked; “so how many people really read blogs”, this would have been helpful.

Social Media Monitoring Firm Cymfony has been acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres says Paid Content. I’ve updated the list of Companies that offer Social Media Measurement.

According to Forrester, Cymfony and Nielsen Buzz Metrics are market leaders in this space (read PDF Analysis)

I was hesitant to even blog about this, but I was so struck when I saw this, as it’s a very unique form of Web Advertising.

Has the internet really become so invasive that it follows us everywhere? This system in the left image was seen at the Illusions Superclub in Palo Alto, CA at the STIRR event this week.

Although there were no ads in rotation, apparently this advertising system pulls content from the internet, and I’m sure it could be easily customized for the crowd of any given event.

For those who’ve been in the bay area a few years, Illusions used to be the “edge” nightclub, which I went to (but only once, ok maybe twice, but don’t tell anyone) while in college. Apparently I’m not the only one who found this interesting, Joe did some research too.

If I were to give this system the ol’ Web Strategy treatment, I could say:

“The Eye Spy Advertising client is a unique web-based contextual delivery channel that engages captive users with disruptive content with 0% user opt-out”

So what do you think? Brilliant or Invasive?

At PodTech we love videobloggers. We love them so much that we even created an awards show called the Vloggies. This week at STIRR, I saw Justin, who had a camera in his hat. I immediately approached him and wanted to find out more. He let me interview him, in which I learned that he’s creating a 24/7 reality show in SF where he’s going to live cast his life to the web. His site is not quite live, but the premise is sure interesting.

Click To Play

(Left: Scott McNealy, Co-founder of Sun shares with web startups the secrets to his success)

Sun continues to aims for Web Startups
As someone focused on the Enterprise Web Space, I’ve been watching this market, in fact I was on point for this on behalf of Hitachi Data Systems before I came to PodTech. I helped to coordinate a dinner with the CEO and CTO of Hitachi and some local Web 2.0 companies, and I saw what Sun was doing, they’re moving fast.

Wed night Scott McNealy the former CEO and co-founder of Sun gave his insight, tips, and advice to a few hundreds folks at STIRR in Palo Alto. (Here’s coverage the last time I attended) There was also a drawing for one of the SunFire servers. Sun’s got a full blown marketing program call Sun’s Startup Essentials –brilliant!

Scott insisted how their OS is open, free, and there is no lock down or lock in. They want the emerging web marketing to grow into their systems. Although Scott’s time was limited he was very engaging, warm and human in his presentation. One of this first lines was “wow everyone looks so young”. Perhaps in response to Valleywag’s thrashing of chains.

I remember when Sun launched the Thumper server (part web and storage server) and did some creative marketing, but I don’t think it took off.

STIRR Event and Demos
Thanks to the STIRR (The Emerging Technology Network) folks for putting on such a great event. There were demos from Attendio’s Gerardo Capiel, Collaborative Drug Discovery’s Barry Bunin, Confabb, Salim Ismail, (who promised to buy drinks for the next event, yup we’re holding you to it dude) and JobCoin’s Keith Schacht. It was pretty funny, if you weren’t on the invite or RSVP list, you had to pay $200 dollars to get in (picture is proof), I suspect that’s more of “scarecrow” than anything.

As a speaker and panelist, Confabb was interesting to me, as the audience can rate me and provide me with feedback on how I did. I’m not in the systems yet, but I see that 1/1 rating has given Marc Canter (one of my favorite speakers) a 5 star rating. (Marc, now show that to the SXSW organizers!)

JobCoin looks like a widget play for job listings. They’re not the only ones as SimplyHired also has a widget.

For additional coverage, check out bub.blicio.us’s videos and pics. (Update: As usual, they’ve done the comprehensive wrap up of the event, Rafe shares his experience, including some interesting discussion between him and Salim) Learn more about the STIRR event on their about page.

Update March 2nd: Colleague Scoble interviews Sun’s VP of Market Development about their approach to helping startups.

Yesterday, I shared my Media Consumption Diet with everyone, (and I encourage you too as well) and a few others have joined in to share such as Martin McKeay, Chris Saad, Brian Keith and Zac

(This Technorati query shows everyone who’s pointed to the post) Hopefully those from the Media 2.0 group will share what their media diet is before we work on interesting projects telling the world of the next generations of media to come.

Peter Kim notices that for those that participated in the informal survey that we’re inversely related to where advertising is spent”

“What’s notable is the fact that these early adopters are engaged with media channels in inverse relationship to the amount of advertising money being spent therein. In other words, they’re spending the most time where the least amount of advertising dollars are focused….

* TV: $47 billion
* Magazines: $21 billion
* Newspapers: $20 billion
* Radio: $8 billion
* Internet: $7 billion

Yup, Peter, you are so right, in fact, I may have subconsciously or consciously chose media where there is little noticeable advertising (although I see non-stop marketing and storytelling). One other factoid Peter, in the workplace in North America, Internet is THE primary medium. At home, TV is one, closely followed by the Internet. I wouldn’t place too much money on TV however, Internet Uncle Steve Gillmor says TV is Dead. I predict they are both engaged and will bear a new child, that resembles both mom and dad.

Why is there less Ad dollar burn for the mediums I consume? This could mean that there’s a tremendous opportunity for advertisers to spend money on the internet, OR, it could mean that internet advertising is very efficient and lower costs may yield higher success.

Yahoo hosted Lunch 2.0 (a migrating community event for the emerging web market in silicon valley) It was held at one of Yahoo’s newer campuses in Santa Clara, at the former Exodus buildings (where I used to work, in many ways, Exodus helped to pay for these gorgeous towers during the first boom). Ian Kennedy (update: his other blog is here)acted as the Community Evangelist and set this up (great job man).

I saw a lot of familiar faces such as Tantek, Mark Jenn, Joseph Smarr (who tells us the history of Lunch 2.0), Terry Chay, bub.blicio.us/, Bess Ho, Daniela Barbosa and a ton others.

The community that gathered had the opportunity to meet with some great product teams from Yahoo Publisher Network (which can make you money bloggers), MyBlogLog (which I use), and Yahoo Pipes (which I compare and contrast) group. There were some interesting conversations (a few pushbacks). I learned that MyBlogLog doesn’t pull reader data, and apparently “RSS never took off”. (and in some ways, I agree) I was able to cruise to the cafeteria and cafe, and check out this building, I’ve not been there since 2003, it was really a blast from the past.

Thanks Yahoo! for hosting us!

Bonus Pics: I took pics of my friends Lotus at this same campus a few years ago.

Here’s where I get all my information for this blog Web Strategy:

This is a viral video that was created by PushOn, A Web Marketing company in the UK, that appears to focus on Search Marketing. Being an American some of these terms like “Bollacks” are funny. Spinning logos.

I’m number one on the google for Jeremiah Owyang, rockin’ huh?

Good video, as a reward, I’ve subscribed to their blog.

I sometimes do a search for Web+strategy to see what others are writing about, and found this this article by Amanda Kooser, Rev Up Your Local Web Marketing Need to drive more business to your door? Use our practical guide to rev up your local web strategy.

I focus on Corporate Web Strategy (having been involved with that all my career) so it’s good to see some examples and tips for the small business often in hyper local markets.

Key Points:

Get listed.

Understanding and starting a search strategy

A big trend is convergence websites

Refinement through trial and error

Advanced Search Strategies

Websites That Do The Work For You

Once a business gets a bit more advanced in their web strategy, I recommend reading the Many Forms of Web Marketing for the 2007 Web Strategist. I would also consider inviting those that create media (traditional media, bloggers, reviewers, and others) to your business and encouraging them to review one’s business.

I’m hoping to start this meme, that others will join in and share their media consumption diet, in hopes, that we’ll start to learn how they get information or be entertained. I’ve sort of mixed up mediums, and media types, but after some thought, that’s the best way to organize it.

My Media Consumption Diet (most used at top, least used at bottom):

Web: This is primarily where I get most of my news. I get my news from my Feedreader, I’m plugged into 160 subscriptions, but some of those are news feeds, techmeme, digg, and scoble’s shared feed (an incredible filter). I rarely go to ‘news sites’ like CNN, MSNBC, NYT, like I used to, although for a while, I was subscribed to Al-Jazeera and BBC to get other perspectives.

Music: I listen to Pandora at work, sometimes at home. I play CDs in the car most of the time, rarely listen to the radio. Used to have XM radio but canceled it in my car as the sound quality was crap. (I have ‘dog’ ears, after playing music starting at the age of 4) Sometimes I plug in the iPod while driving (but haven’t done that as much as the sound quality is not that great)

TV: I rarely turn on the TV, in fact, I only watch it if my wife has it on at home. I’d prefer to turn it off and turn on music (rarely radio, most often MP3, or Pandora, as I have my computer hooked up to my PC). We recently got comcast ondemand at home, that’s interesting. We don’t have Tivo. I really don’t watch TV, it was just last year that we got cable. Like most Gen Y (I’m Gen X) I use the computer in the foreground, and the TV is on in the background.

Communication: I access my email via my laptop. I have a 3G card now (thanks PodTech), or wifi at home. I have a LG phone where I check techmeme and personal mail while mobile. I’ve removed IM from my life as much as possible. I’m experimenting with Twitter but don’t think to use it all the time.

Update March 15, 2007:
I’ve starting to use Twitter more and more, and it’s cutting into my feedreader consumption.

Movies: We sometimes like to watch movies at theaters, which I tend to focus completely on, as they tend to be higher signal to noise, minus the ads forced during a theater experience. We used to rent movies from netflix and even the in-store blockbuster, but now that we have ondemand, we may just shift to that.

Magazines: I get Business 2.0, Wired, Forbes at home, and like them as they help to give summaries, and sometimes in-depth stories. I sometimes like the ads, as I can determine who’s got budget (A marketing hunt trick). I rarely find the news as ‘breaking news’ but often a symbol that the buzz I’ve already been reading about for a month or two is actually getting traction.

Books (Just added this as an update)
Yes, I read about 6-12 books a year, most are web or business related, I rarely read fiction. Yes, I find these books enjoyable, and many authors send me copies, which I often review from my blog. Often, I read these books while on travel.

Newspapers: What’s that? I was in the New York Times two days ago, and I didn’t even buy the physical paper.

What’s your Media Consumption Diet?
I’m signaling to Calacanis, Loren, Scoble, Martin, Pirillo, and all my contacts at the Media 2.0 workgroup to share how they get their information. Or if you don’t have a blog, leave a comment to your media consumption diet.

Update: Quick Analysis by Peter Kim shows that our diets are void of advertising dollars, does that mean that web advertising is efficient, or that I’m avoiding it?

Update Feb 27th: Folks are sharing their diets, you can see all of the blogs linking to this post from Technorati. Not a surprise that bloggers consume most of their content via the feedreader or the web, and overwhelmingly, most have newspapers at the bottom of the list. Over time, we should be able to see some real patterns in media consumption, this really will help those in the web and media industry to deliver the right tools.

Technorati Tag: Media Consumption Diet