Archive for August, 2007

What’s in your bag: Web Strategist Edition

Categories: Ruminations, Social Media, TechnologyPosted on August 31st, 2007

I don’t need a TV truck, radio station, or printing press to reach thousands of people, and neither do you.

The Mobile Media Platform
In my current role at PodTech, much of my job was to be out in the field where the people are, and use social media to demonstrate how PodTech could deliver to clients. The tactic? I was a walking media platform, and at any time, anywhere, I could publish text, video, audio, or pictures to thousands of people within minutes. I could break news, live stream events, live blog, twitter from my mobile phone, send emails to the influentials, kick start conversations or most importantly, just listen to the network.

Over my time at PodTech, I uploaded close to 8,000 pictures, hundreds of videos, over 1,000 blog posts, and did at least 2 weeks of live streaming. I surprised folks by my rapid ability to post session notes, pictures and even video within 30 minutes of a conference. I want to record how life has been over the last year as things change. See all my posts tagged event or conference to learn see the output (please note most was in real-time or within 12 hours of an event).

Here’s what’s in my bag(s)

In the spirit of the popular “whats in your bag” flickr meme, here’s my response.

(click on picture to see notes in flickr)

Mobile Social Media Platform Inventory (Basic Kit)

Backpack: I just love this rugged and stylish backpack, it should be able to hold up to my abuse, with lots of utility.

Laptop: Thinkpad Lenovo T60 was issued to me

3G Wireless card: Important, as public WiFi is unwieldy

Power charger: For Thinkpad

Power extension cord: (in black mesh bag) important at conferences where supply is limited, and a great way to meet new friends

Moleskine notepad and pen: This is how I stay organized, and it’s in an easy to grab bag with pen

Extra DVR tapes for video camera

Webcam: On loan from Ustream

USB Extension Cord: Critical for live streaming, as the cam often goes on a tripod

Digital Camera (not picture): SD700IS. While only $350, my photos are in the SJ Mercury

Camera case on backpack: see small black pouch on front lapel of backpack, strateically situated for rapid access

Camera spare battery

Camera USB Cable: The gray one

Camera Lens wipes

Wallet: Need money, store parking passes, BART tickets, and business cards (picture of wife too)

Business Cards: Both mine and new contacts

Expense Bag: I throw all my receipts from business trips in that bag and sort out later, a good way to start organized

Reading material (varies week to week): Super Crunches from friend David Berkowitz, and Social Computing Framework

Various personal items: Gum, energy bars, breath mints, and some strange bandaids and hand sanitizer that a conference organizer handed out

(click on picture to see notes in flickr)

Mobile Media Platform Inventory (Show Kit)
If I’m going to do interviews for the PodTech’s Web Strategy Show, I would bring this kit:

Camera Case: compact, and can fit inside of backpack

Camera Case: compact, and can fit inside of backpack

Camcorder: Sony camera (DVR) for interviews

Xacti: Backup camera, USB

Battery Charger: Important to have spare battery on hand

Line Charger for direct power

Extra Tapes: DVR

Remote Control: For when camera is on tripod (not tripod)

Sling: Extra tether for camera, if going mobile

I have this phone on me, although outdated, it gives me access to the web, text messaging, with a powerful speakerphone. Why don’t I use a smartphone? Because I’m often in front of a computer.

What will future tools look like? Many of these will consolidate and become smaller, hopefully without the cost of quality

Alight, I’m tagging bloggers Robert Scoble, Mario Sundar, Chris Pirillo, Scott Squid, and Thomas Hawk to open up and show me what’s in their bags, give an inventory list, your strategy.

Posted in Ruminations, Social Media, Technology | 10 Comments »

Top Discussions in the Web Strategy Community

Categories: Community MarketingPosted on August 31st, 2007

Community is important, it means the needs and output of the many are greater than the few. One of the hardest things for companies is learning how to kick-starting a community, just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come.

A few weeks ago I kick started the Web Strategy Group in Facebook, it’s an extension to this blog, but the difference is the topics and lead by the community –not some boring top-down blogger.

[Unlike other Facebook groups, the Web Strategy Group has active discussions among those who make decisions for the modern website]

Unlike other dead groups in Facebook, the Web Strategy Group, is filled with conversations, discussions, debates and sharing. It was important to me that it not just be a ‘badge’ or ‘affiliation’ group but a thriving eco-system where people connect ideas, jobs, and maybe new customers. I seeded it with conversations, gave it love, and thanked the top contributors, gracious strategists Tinu and Connie.

Here’s a high level scrape of some of the top discussions within the Web Strategy Group forum (out of 46):

What Do You Do? Where Are You From? Why This Group? (72 posts by 56 people): A standard introductory post, folks are getting to know each other.

What’s your official Title? What makes you a Web Strategist? (23 posts by 21 people): Another prompt at encouraging everyone to say “hi”

Sharing your “Web Strategy” (13 posts): Learning a lot from others as they share how the get programs started.

What do you want from a Facebook strategy event? (13 posts by 8 people): Teresa who’s hosting a conference where I’ll be keynoting on Communities is getting community feedback from the folks who are likely to attend, a savvy tactic.

How do you drive traffic to a branded social networking site? (6 posts by 3 people): In this classic challenge a strategist has been asked to fix a program where a website was built without first finding the community where it exists.

What comes first? determining the priority of your website (13 posts by 8 people): It’s sometimes hard to balance between your business stakeholders, users, and your boss, hear how others get started.

What’s your methodology for understanding User Needs? (17 posts by 13 people): The members share how they learn to understand their communities

If you can add to these conversations, I encourage you to join the group and get involved, you’ll need to join Facebook first.

Posted in Community Marketing | No Comments »

Facebook to rank applications by Interaction –not Engagement

Categories: Social Media Measurement, Social NetworkingPosted on August 31st, 2007

Facebook announced that it will be ranking it’s applications not by total number of users, but by engagement. Certainly an evolutionary step forward. Early on, I was trying to define the formula of engagement, so I’ve got a pretty good sense of what it is and what it’s not. Venture Beat covered the story, but I think they got the attributes mixed up between attention and interaction.

[Facebook is confusing Engagement with Interaction, which is a completely different attribute to measure behavior, our industry needs to come to agreement on terms]

Facebook isn’t really measuring Engagement, they’re measuring Interaction.
The four attributes they mentioned are elements of a user interacting with the site:

These touch points are:
- Canvas Page Views
- Link Clicks in FBML
- Mock-Ajax Form Submission
- Click-to-Play Flash

Facebook measurement, an incomplete formula
There’s a few other attributes that Facebook is missing in it’s measurement, this is NOT an Engagement measurement. They’re missing Attention (how much time was spent on a particular widget app, Alex agrees) and Velocity (did the application get shared and spread among a network, and Influence, who share it with who? For example, if Scoble shared with his 5000ish friends, it’s certainly a higher weight than someone with 20.

As an industry, it’s really important that we start to come to agreement on terms and attributes. For what it’s worth, I predict they will release an engagement index, that will help them be the industry standard when it comes to defining a successful application. More thoughts on this topic from the Web Analytics Guru, or check out all my posts tagged Social Media Measurement.

Once I move into my new role, I may have the reach to standardize terms, give me time.

Update: Judah at Web Analytics Demystified (an authority) agrees.

Posted in Social Media Measurement, Social Networking | 11 Comments »

Web Strategy Show: Need to Freshen your Stock Image Portfolio?

Categories: Video, Web Advertising, Web Marketing, Web Strategy ShowPosted on August 31st, 2007

Imagery tied to a brand will still remain important to the corporate marketer, Is your irrelevant corporate website needing a refresh of it’s marketing images? Lucky Oliver uses pro-amateurs to fuel their image library, where they explain it’s about building a concept or image. Recently zooomr has entered the pay-for-image, but it’s suggested that Lucky Oliver has rights and prosumer quality unlike public sites.

Posted in Video, Web Advertising, Web Marketing, Web Strategy Show | 1 Comment »

Forrester Conference: Will answer how Consumers are impacted by Social Media, Chicago, Oct 11-12

Categories: Conference, Forrester, Social MediaPosted on August 30th, 2007

I was impressed with a recent Forrester workshop held in SF, so impressed, that I’ve now decided to join the Forrester team.

Forrester is going to host the Consumer Forum in Chicago on Oct 11-12th. I’ll be in training at Cambridge (HQ) for three weeks, but I’ll be flying out to Chicago to attend this conference. Here’s the high level summary:

“Fueled by cheap devices and pervasive access, individuals are increasingly taking cues from one another rather than from institutions — a phenomenon that creates chaos for traditional brands, sellers, and media outlets. Evidence of this new social structure is everywhere; for example, only 53% of consumers in 2006 believed that ads were a good way to learn about new products, down from 78% in 2002. At the same time, consumers are increasingly seeking each other out for information — 31% of online consumers buy or sell products online from and to other consumers, 26% contribute to discussion boards or submit product ratings, and 11% publish their own blogs or personal journals. Broadening avenues of feedback lead consumers to expect participation in product development, innovation, and advertising — witness the success of Wikipedia and Doritos’ user-generated Super Bowl ads”

Speaker lineup:

Robert J. Bach President, Entertainment & Devices Division of Microsoft

Josh Bernoff, Vice President, Forrester Research

Richard Edelman, President and CEO, Edelman

Ze Frank, Founder, ZeFrank.com

Gian Fulgoni, Chairman and Co-founder, comScore

Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEO, Playboy Enterprises

Henry Jenkins, Co-Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies, MIT

Carrie A. Johnson, Vice President, Research Director, Forrester Research

Kevin H. Johnson, Digital Organization Leader, Services Division, Acxiom Digital

Philip J. Kaplan, Founder and President, Products, AdBrite

Charlene Li, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

Christina Norman, President, MTV Networks

Christine Spivey Overby, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

If you want to discuss or find out who else is going, join the Facebook group, or get updates from the Forrester Twitter account.

Are you going to Forrester’s Consumer Forum? David Armano and his company Critical Mass are sponsoring. The Minnesota Marketing Association says it’s interesting. Leave a comment if you’re going, I want to meet you there.

The last time I went to Chicago I took a bunch of great photos, it’s a wonderful city.

Posted in Conference, Forrester, Social Media | 8 Comments »

Want waves? drop a pebble

Categories: Social Media, Web Marketing, Web TheoryPosted on August 30th, 2007

Media is getting smaller, faster, and more connected, I’m seeing this through the adoption of MicroMedia, niche communities, and intimate conversations with smaller groups of folks. Savvy communicators will realize that using the small “pebble” will cause a ripple effect out to other networks. The less savvy will come with the fleet, causing disruptive waves.

Be sure to understand the different adoption personas: The Pebble, Swimmer, Surfer, Boater, or Fleet. Those close to the epicenter can drop a pebble and watch it ripple out to the others. When I announced my job change on Monday, I did it in Twitter, I left a series of messages explaining my intent, I saw the replies come back by the dozens. I answered an y questions in real-time and the wave grew in energy. As their friends saw people saying “congrats @jowyang” (the “@” symbol notifies me someone is talking to me) it encourages others to click on my name and see what I said. It rippled across the Twitter lake. Finally, I dropped the URL to my blog, and then it spread to the swimmers, then surfers, boaters, and finally the fleet, like this news site (thanks Karl).

[The savvy communicator knows that small, targeted, conversations can yield bigger returns on energy than massive bombardments]

Many brands want to announce products by using the fleet, come in with heavy advertising that links to a flash animation, which points to a product page. Maybe the savvy brands will learn how to use the smaller tools and drop that very small pebble close the center of the lake.

By the way, I’m very pleased to see the comments, and trackbacks suggesting that my new role is a “perfect fit”, as many of these folks have worked with me, read my blog, or know my passion for web strategy. It’s really community confirmation that it’s going to work out. Best of all, George Forrester Colony himself left a comment welcoming me (#124), fantastic. Thank you everyone, really, it means a lot, seriously.

Posted in Social Media, Web Marketing, Web Theory | 6 Comments »

Big companies still don’t get small things

Categories: Community Marketing, EventsPosted on August 30th, 2007

Lunch 2.0: First local, now national, and soon global
The Wall Street Journal covered the Lunch 2.0 community event phenomenon in yesterday’s business section (Read Terry’s thoughts). If you’re not familiar with Lunch 2.0 it’s a grassroots community event where savvy corporations and startups host the web community for a casual meal and opt-in demo or presentation. We have founders Terry Chay, Mark Jenn, David Kellogg, and Joseph Smarr to thank.

Big Brands: “Yeah, we got that”
As the Lunch 2.0 event spreads like wildfire, the savvy corporate marketer realize the huge ROI for hosting these events (some are slower) they’ll be pitching these to their management teams, and penciling it near the product launch on the ol’ launch calendar.

Sadly, not all the companies and brands (some are my clients) are doing it right. By slapping a budget together, informing a few marketing folks, and posting an invite on the Lunch 2.0 site, a brand has certainly gone through the motions but missed a very important component –be human. It’s more than showing up to the party, it’s about interacting and engaging with the guests, really be human. Let down the firewall, drop the branding, and show what your brand can do for the community –not the other way around.

Being human, so tough for big brands
Don’t get me wrong, many brands have hosted a lunch successfully (it’s more native to the start-up, than big brand) so learn from them. I told the WSJ that:

“For companies, keeping the events laid-back and unstructured can be a challenge. “This is a community event — unlike what corporations usually do, which is set up booths and pitch,” says Jeremiah Owyang, director of corporate media strategy at PodTech.net, a media network, and a consultant to Fortune 1000 companies.

Smaller start-ups are more eager to embrace the idea. But larger corporations — especially those that are used to controlling communications flow through a public-relations team — may be reluctant to open their doors to an Internet savvy audience that shares its thoughts through blogs and social networks online. Mr. Owyang says, “I hope they roll up their cuffs and unbutton the shirt a bit.”

Doing it right
Lunch 2.0 is going global, it’s going to spread past the Silicon Valley, it’s started in Seattle, going to Singapore, and Europe. It’s really important that we preserve the true essence of a community event (it’s more about the people in the community than the brand) so please read How to have a successful community event I drafted up a few weeks ago.

Did I practice what I preached? I worked at a big brand (Hitachi) when I hosted the Lunch 2.0, if you were there, you can be the judge, leave a comment below; did we open up in a real and human way?

Posted in Community Marketing, Events | 2 Comments »

Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: August 29th, 2007

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on August 29th, 2007

Due to the feedback, I’m continuing this weekly series of the Social Network Industry (now with masthead). I’ve created a new tag called Digest where you can start to track and access these going forward. The hope? To make it easy for a web strategist to quickly scan the activity in the last week. I strive to make headlines on items categorized and succinct.

Need to make decisions about your web strategy? I’m here to help: subscribe to my blog, sign up for emails (right nav), follow me on Twitter, or add me on Facebook (I’ll add you back).

Web Strategy Summary
Facebook continues to grow, thanks to anticipated releases. Social Networks continue to build around brands using White Label Social Networks, segmentation around many affinities continue. The intersection between corporate life and personal life continue to conflict, both around productivity and privacy. Recommendations? corporations should be analyzing the market, and preparing budget for this must-watch and maybe-participate strategy. Segmentation is your friend, this helps you to find your small, passionate, and engaged audience.

Global: Social Networks all over the World
The August edition of Business 2.0 lists out other types of Facebook SoNets: China’s Xiaoneiwang, France’s Skyrock, Germany’s StudiVZ, India’s Minglebox, Israel’s Mekusharim, Mexico’s Vostu, Netherlands’ Hyves, Russia’s V Kontakte, and Turkey’s Qiraz.

Upgrade: Facebook improves development and user experience
In response to massive growth and development of applications, Facebook announces some changes to protect user data, improve experience, and features for developers, the specifics include: Profile Boxes, Application Directory, Requests, Notifications, and News Feed. The net effect? Great apps will be rewarded, bad ones punished. Facebook announced it’s focusing on ‘engagement‘ based on user behavior, critics suggest that it’s a privacy nightmare.

Privacy and Data: Concerns over Facebook’s data cloud cause stir
Facebook watchgroups, concerned with how information about personal, network and business data stir controversy with this big-brother video, blue never looked so ominous.

Growth: Facebook’s Platform 3 months later
This article gives some great stats about the activity, feeds, applications, advertising, and other information happening on the Facebook platform. Most interestingly enough, I believe we’re still at the start of something –orders of magnitude to come.

Targeted Ads: Facebook drops ‘Smart Bomb’ advertising
Facebook can segment some ads by gender and city, not even Google Ad Sense can be this accurate. Mashable wonders if this is clever or evil? I say clever, and if deployed correctly, the ads may be more relevant to the user –and less disruptive. Imagine if ads became so intelligently contextual that they are as valuable as news items on a feedreader.

Corporate Censorship: Half of Employers block Facebook
I really question the survey and numbers that CNET reports that half of employers restrict social networks for employees. Let’s remember that Social Network, if used correctly, can increase sales, bring marketing intelligence, encourages users to self-support, and build better products. Blocking Facebook? why not block the rest of the web.

Segmentation: Religious Groups adapt SoNets
One of the oldest social networks? Religion is now showing activity in groups on Facebook says Venture Beat: “Myspace, the world’s largest social network, recently told the New York Times it had more than 100,000 religion-focused groups while faith-based sites like Mychurch (its free-standing site), Xianz, Muslimspace and others reported well under that number of total users. New religious sites continue to launch.”

Segmentation: SoNets for different Professions
WSJ reports in that professionals of every career are starting to embrace social networks: Sermo for Medicine, New Reuters site for Finance, INMobile.org for Wireless execs, and AdGabber for advertising folks.

Segmentation: Professional Women Network
New SoNet called Damsels In Success has recently launched, it’s focus on the professional woman. There are discussion features, and job features that can launch women’s careers forward.

Money and Segmentation: Mom’s get their own Social Network
This reminds me of woman.com in the first web phase, as cafemom received $5 million in funding. What is this network? “Users offer tips and practical advice. Other popular groups are “Toddler Moms” and “Raising Boys.” The company says it expects two million unique users in August. Some of that traffic is being bought with advertising on search engines.”

Costs: Sponsored Group in Facebook A million $ a year
Valleywag suggests that the media kits for from Facebook cost nearly a million dollars a year for building a sponsored group. I’ve seen a variety of numbers, I guess the only way to really find out is to go talk to them. Also see the rate cards which they’ve published.

Deployment: Playboy to launch social network to save media brand
Limp media giant needs boost for online strategy “Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire is set to launch a sexy social networking site dedicated solely to college students, its latest online venture as it tries to reinvigorate its stagnant finances.” I wonder if they asked Facebook for entry, if so, changes were they were barred, that’s where the college students are at. To be fair, they should consider a SoNet for Playgirl too. What would be a smart deployment? Dating type widgets for Facebook –but no nudity –think lifestyle (no not the brand). It’s powered by Ning. See Zivity, with a similar approach.

Applications: Google launches Facebook social search widget
Google launches a search widget for Facebook that lets you search the web and share the results with your friends. Sadly, it has errors on the first page on launch. Expect more mainstream features to be ported to Facebook and to sit on top of the social engine.

Be sure to check out previous weekly digests.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | 3 Comments »

183

Pursuing the Web Strategy mission as a Forrester Analyst

Categories: Forrester, RuminationsPosted on August 27th, 2007

For those that read this blog, you’ll know that I’m passionate about the web, I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be furthering the Web Strategy mission by accepting a new role at an amazing company.

Forrester Research, a perfect fit
I’m very pleased to announce that I’ll be joining Forrester Research as a Senior Analyst focused on Social Computing for the Interactive Marketer. Forrester is the leading industry analyst firm focused on this emerging industry, and thanks to luminaries like Charlene Li and team, they’ve produced tremendous thought leadership in the space. They’ve produced a large growing library of resources, and as an analyst, I will also be conducting research, publishing reports, and advising Forrester’s clients. I really believe this to be a perfect fit and am excited to start on October 1st, 2007.

Thank you PodTech Network
Since Sept 2006, as the Director of Corporate Media Strategy, I’ve had the most amazing experience living in the epicenter of social media, and I’m thankful. I’ve met so many amazing people, worked with thought and practice leaders, and been part of amazing events like BlogHaus, PodTech is a training ground for talent. Having informed my colleagues of my change, I’ve received nothing from congratulations and support from James the CEO on down. I’m grateful to John Furrier for launching the company and hiring me on the team. On mutually good terms, I end my time at PodTech on Sept 14th, CEO James McCormick wishes me the best.

Pursuing the Web Strategy Mission
Why an analyst? This is native to me. If you check out my posts tagged Web Strategy, or the various industry lists that I’ve been collecting you’ll find that it’s not too different from what an Industry Analyst does. I enjoy writing, and have published 1,327 posts in the last 15 months (about 3 a day, including weekends). Like my role at PodTech, I’ll also be guiding corporations, helping them navigate the uncharted social computing sphere. I’ll continue to write publications, consult, and speak. Social computing is native to me, before PodTech I deployed the social media program at Hitachi Data Systems, Shel has the story.

Stepping down from Board of Advisors
As an Analyst, Ill be unbiased in my analysis and reports, sadly, I’m stepping down from the Board of Advisors for WaterCooler (a successful Facebook applications company) and UStream.tv (live interactive video streaming).

What will happen with the Web Strategy Mission? It will continue to evolve, and now I’ll be working with the top analytical minds in the industry. For corporations, the journey is just starting, so stay close to me: subscribe to this blog, follow me on Twitter (where I first announced this), friend me at Facebook or find peers by joining the Web Strategy Community.

It’s going to be exciting, I’ll be able to serve the web industry as an analyst at Forrester Research!

I’m going to take a few days off from blogging, see you in Facebook!

Posted in Forrester, Ruminations | 183 Comments »

Conference: Community Building in the Age of Facebook

Categories: Conference, Facebook StrategyPosted on August 27th, 2007

I’ve been asked to keynote the 2007 Web Community Forum will take place in Seattle, WA on December 5-6, 2007. (Update: Read these important changes from the Blog Business Summit)

I’ll be providing a high-level strategy on the opportunities, challenges, and market growth of the tool. It’s being run by the good folks at the Blog Business Summit, we all know Steve Brobeck and Teresa Valdez Klein. I started my social media business path with them, in fact at a summer time conference in SF in 2005. A few years later, they’re still leading the industry with a new conference series on the opportunities the Facebook platform provides, if you’re preparing to deploy in Facebook, you should attend.

What’s a big change how Facebook is impacting web strategies? Users can opt-in to offer information connect with peers, in fact it could even mean the death of the registration page once and for all. As an industry, we’re not there yet, but the savvy will figure out that Facebook is really an identity platform first, followed by media, then applications.
If you want to get up-to-date on Facebook strategies, I’ve created a new tag called Facebook Strategy.

Here’s the description of the session I’ll be leading:

Your Facebook Strategy: Opportunities of a Ready-Made Platform

Facebook is a media, community and application platform that offers an existing thriving ecosystem, scalable growth, and word-of-mouth marketing. The ability to understand users, their preferences, and networks, helps web applications to quickly segment and rapidly grow. Of course, no system is perfect, as we will understand the challenges with data, privacy and the growing conflict as work and personal lives collide online.

By analyzing users, their profiles, networks and affiliations there’s a tremendous amount of rich data that we’ve not seen displayed so readily. The ability to create a targeted web strategy to meet specific needs of the ‘long tail’ is more accessible than ever before.

Facebook provides targeted advertising unlike we’ve ever seen before, the ability to provide messages segmented by location, gender, and or preference gives the ability to accurately market effectively

The recently launched Application Platform gives the small agile web team the ability to quickly deploy a widget, scale and monetize. We’ll explore what’s worked as these mini-applications are launched on top of an existing community.

We’ll learn:

-Demographics and Trend Data of Facebook
-Word of mouth and viral growth using the Newsfeed and Widgets
-Groups, Sponsored groups and other community features
-Harness Personal and Network information
-Contextual and targeted Advertising opportunities
-Monetizing your efforts
-Case studies of success and failure
-Understanding costs, and strategies to measure ROI

I hope to see you there!

Posted in Conference, Facebook Strategy | 3 Comments »

Social News Aggregation delivers bottom up news, and all the challenges that comes with it

Categories: Events, Social MediaPosted on August 27th, 2007

Social Media Club (find a chapter near you) put on yet another great event in last Thursday’s event at the Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale. The theme, a focus on social or bottom up news, traditional news, and citizen journalism.

Each of the respective companies had an opportunity to share their insight, about their products, and a healthy conversation. Presenters included: Karen Brophy, Yahoo! News, Amy Dalton, Topix.com Steve Huffman, Reddit.com, Jay Adelson, Digg.com, Dan Gillmor, Center For Citizen Media. Amy Dalton told me that this list of Silicon Valley events was very helpful for her planning.

“Social News Aggregators offer individuals more than a chance to consume news, they also offer an opportunity to participate, weigh in on it, contribute to it and interact around it. But each site differs and the communities that form around social news sites are unique.
What sparks the growth of an online community around news and current affairs content?

How are online community and user expectations changing? How do site creators and editors maintain a balance between their original vision, and responsiveness to their online community? What can mainstream media learn from users of social news sites? “

[Social news delivers the democracy of information, but with it comes the human instinct to manipulate and 'game' systems, the battle will never end]

Key Trends

-Many communities have rowdy members, users are often anonymous
-It was suggested by forcing users to use real names, it could yield better commentary
-Gaming of ‘voting’ type systems is inevitable.
-Members spend a lot of time, effort to earn points or reputation in systems
-Yahoo News had the largest visitorship
-Reddit team was more worried about users getting negative points than positive, as it was an indicator of something going wrong
-Each of the site has increasing growth, they shared numbers at the end
-Digg and Reddit communities have very similar demographics, often resulting in friction.

Posted in Events, Social Media | 5 Comments »

Computers vs Humans: Who will win the Search War?

Categories: Search StrategyPosted on August 26th, 2007

Colleague Robert Scoble (who doesn’t want to be on Techmeme) suggests that human type systems (like the social graph) will be better at finding and delivering relevant information. It’s suggested that Google is already dead, but doesn’t realize it.

MacroSearch engines are too slow to adopt to MicroSearch engines that are looking at small groups of poeple, their network, and how the share information.

Watch his video and let me know what you think –I really believe he’s onto something again.

(Update: On a related vein, we should also be paying attention to the growing discussion about LifeStreams, a way of aggregating personal information. Done correctly, this could aid the social graph in finally organizing our personal and network data)

Posted in Search Strategy | 11 Comments »

Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required)

Categories: Technology, User Experience, Web Marketing, Web Strategy, Web Theory, Web ToolsPosted on August 26th, 2007

A Web Strategy must balance all three spheres
What’s a Web Strategy? It’s the balance between the three spheres for effective long-term planning of a website. This person is a hybrid of a few roles, and may have emerged from any of the following spheres. A Web Strategist is responsible for the long-term planning and decision making of a website, but must balance ALL of the following three spheres:

1) Community (formerly Users)
The Web Strategist must understand (by using a variety of techniques and tactics) what users want. This is commonly known as User Experience Research which will create and craft a ‘mental model’. In addition, the strategist will need to be in tune with the community in which their website is part of, this is greater than just users, as it will include competitors, partners, and prospects.

Skills: User experience (UX), usability, information architecture, social media skills, customer support, community marketing, marketing, product marketing, ability to listen and be empathetic.

2) Business
The business sphere requires a strategist to understand the long term objective of a website and it’s goals. This sphere also requires ability to internally maneuver within an organization and maximize the persistent limitation in resources. A website that is not aligned to business or market objectives is ultimately doomed to fail. The User and Business requirements will often match, but will rarely ever be a perfect fit. The Web Strategist) will need to obtain business requirements from stakeholders, whether that be execs, sponsors, sales, or even shareholders. Understanding the market, competitors (and key milestones) and other external forces are also required –a business requirements model will be formed, these are your objectives.

Skills: Marketing, advertising, media, management, measurement, ability to evangelize internally, process management, resource management, obtain objectives, product development, product management, savvy in political maneuvering

3) Technology
Lastly, a Web Strategist needs to know how each and every tool and technology work, they’ll need to know the strengths, benefits, limitations and costs. This also applies to human capital, and timelines. Often technical limitations will reduce the scope of User and Business needs, so you’ll need to incorporate this going forward.

Skills: Software Development, Web Development, Web Architecture, Industry Trends, experiments with web technology, but understands how to extrapolate and harness a tool.

Can’t master them all? Be able to Learn or Delegate
It’s unlikely he or she is a master at all, but most importantly, has the ability to learn and delegate. In my career, I’ve tried to have a balance in all these spheres (former UI Designer, Marketing Degree, and worked in software engineering group) keeping up with all spheres is nearly impossible. Therefore two skills become very important: 1) The ability to quickly learn, and extract value, 2) Ability to find talent and delegate, no really, I mean really delegate, which requires trust.

If you have other skills to suggest, please leave a comment, and I’ll add.

Notes:
I originally introduced this concept August 25th 2006, just about one year earlier, and am now making these amendments. This was primarily spurred by Johnathan’s suggestion of looking at the user sphere as greater than just a customer base, thanks Jonathan, you’re an excellent strategist. Also, Robert suggested I try to incorporate more of a visual representation in my concepts, which I think is a great idea.

Additional Resources
Did this post interest you? See all posts tagged Web Strategy, or watch the supplemental Web Strategy Video Show.

Posted in Technology, User Experience, Web Marketing, Web Strategy, Web Theory, Web Tools | 73 Comments »

Web Strategy Reading: August 26, 2007

Categories: Reading SamplerPosted on August 26th, 2007

Web Strategy Reading for the last week, see other archives by accessing the ‘Reading Sampler” link

Amazing technology of Photo ReTargeting

Update on the state of the internet radio industry

Steve Rubel on the Distributed Web “Think web services, not web sites”

Robert Scoble’s Fast Company Article: The Next Email

My Micromedia post has been translated to Danish

Action Habit: getting things done now

Club Penguin, and Social Networks: The kids are online. Whether they are alright remains to be seen

TV views continue to decline, where are the eyeballs shifting? Duh.

Lastly, but not least, is there hope for the return of the Gillmor Gang? We could only hope so. The value? It’s a look deep inside the tent where the Generals plan.

Posted in Reading Sampler | No Comments »

Silicon Valley Sightings: Oracle’s Emerald Towers “The DataBase”

Categories: Silicon Valley SightingsPosted on August 25th, 2007

(Above: The architecture of the Oracle towers cleverly resemble a “Data Base Stack”)

I was in Redwood Shores this last week meeting Singapore’s US Country Director to discuss the web industry in Asia. On the way over, I stopped by their gorgeous headquarters in Redwood Shores to take a few pictures (Map) or check out the 3D streetview. It houses thousands of talented employees, and is known to cause traffic jams on the nearby freeway 101.

Yes, the architecture of the company looks like it’s signature product, the Oracle Database, the “stack” is what you will often see in web application or network architecture documents, they look like a series of ‘hockey pucks’ stacked on top of each other, see examples. This campus can be seen from the major artery freeway 101 from miles away, and was even the set for the movie by Robin Williams Bicentennial man.

I’ve always been impressed with their campus, it’s the former location of Marine World USA (history of Redwood Shores), and they still have a salt water pond, affectionately known as “Larry’s Lake” after the CEO and founder, Larry Ellison (his Japanese “Castle” down the freeway was on the market for $25 million, includes one a kind driveway). I’m told there are still manta rays in the lake, but I’ve never seen one, perhaps it’s only visible from high up in the towers. You can learn more about Larry’s colorful past, he’s quite the Silicon Valley cowboy.

Redwood Shores used to be the marsh and salt farm of the bay area, it was filled in decades ago, and is home to gorgeous homes on the water, and many beautiful corporate campuses. The average home price? Often over one million dollars, median family income is $200,000. Many of the homes have docks connected to their backyard where owners can have boats, and travel about –much like the canals of Venice.

Oracle’s empire has spread past the towers, they now expand to other buildings across the street, and have recently expanded to Pleasanton, with the acquisition of PeopleSoft in June 2005. At one point in my career, I almost worked at Oracle, I was interviewing to the web director of some of their websites. I’ve got a lot of friends who live in the area, or worked at Oracle, it’s really a gorgeous area.

If you know any interesting trivia about Oracle or it’s campus, be sure to leave a comment.

(Silicon Valley Sightings is an ongoing PhotoBlog that captures the intersection of Tech Culture in the San Francisco Silicon Valley Bay Area, check out the archives. All photos by Jeremiah Owyang)

Posted in Silicon Valley Sightings | 6 Comments »

PodTech’s new Gaming Show: The Reboot by Rio Pesino

Categories: PodtechPosted on August 25th, 2007

Damn Rio, you rock.

Rio sits on the other end of the floor from me, but his passion for gaming can be felt from all the way over to my side of the building. He’s launched his new show called “The Reboot” that’s about what’s happening in gaming. PodTech’s stepping up to building better content (we heard you, Andrew of Rocketboom) and here’s hopefully a very great looking show, that has useful information.

Which game do I want Rio to cover? Starcraft 2. I’ve been a big fan of real time strategy games (duh, it’s Strategy) but I don’t think my wife will let me buy it. At least if Rio covers the game, I’ll be able to experience it from a distance.

And yeah, we have a new studio at HQ, ask Robert for a tour.

Posted in Podtech | 4 Comments »

Does Wal-Mart need a Robert Scoble or a Lionel Menchaca? Neither, says the community

Categories: Community Marketing, Facebook StrategyPosted on August 25th, 2007

I try to help companies when it comes to the web, in fact the tagline on this blog is “Jeremiah discusses how web tools enable companies to connect with customers” Consider this free advice from myself and the community for Wal-Mart. I hope Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel see this –this comes from the community that knows this space, don’t pass up our free advice.

There’s a healthy discussion in my previous post indicating that Wal-Mart’s Facebook campaign is not going that great, at first, I thought it was salvageable, but now I’m realizing from the comments that the damage to the brand is causing this rejection. The Wal-Mart brand appears to be so tainted that the social media programs are not accepting (There’s a long history, go look it up, from the MySpace clone, to the astroturfing blogs).

[The Wal-Mart brand is so badly damaged that it's campaigns are not being accepted in the social media sphere, to correct, Wal-Mart needs a trusted evangelist to reach, fix, and be human]

Web Strategist, Connie Benson, suggested in the comments that what Wal-Mart needs is an evangelist. Someone that will authentically, and transparently, and with passion will address the core issues, embrace and build community (even detractors) to provide a linkage and show that Wal-Mart has real live humans. (Update: AdnohrYak was the first to suggest the evangelist should be a woman, thanks to you both!)

Both Microsoft and Dell had damaged brands: The software giant was known as the the “evil empire”, and PC giant was going to “hell“. In response, both of these companies made a smart and strategic move to elevate or hire the right type of folks to change how one-way communications have failed. Robert Scoble (now my colleague and VP) put a human face on Microsoft, and even became the biggest critic of his own employer –forcing the community to join him, and Lionel Menchaca (my video interview with him) who launched the Dell blog, engaged detractors (even in person) and helped to spearhead the revolutionary IdeaStorm. In the end, many of the problems may or may not be fixed, but the perception has absolutely changed.

It’s clear to me now (Thanks Connie and community), that Wal-Mart’s online web tactics in the social mediasphere will not be accepted, in fact they will all be rejected until the bigger problem is fixed. Wal-Mart needs an evangelist to engage real humans, address the issues (and fix ‘em too) and engage detractors head-on, via the web. Both Robert and Lionel had different tactics to change their own mediaspheres, so a unique strategy will have to come from Wal-Mart.

Connie has recently commented again, and doesn’t think that either a Lionel or a Scoble would fix the brand, she suggests that:

“As to what type of person, I agree with Adnohryak that it needs to be a woman. But not a single mom. I think it needs to be a woman that is strong enough to speak out intelligently initially to turn the brand around, but viewed as an avg American shopper. And yes, she needs to appeal to a range of ages & guys too. She will need to have strong leadership skills in order to support & motivate her evangelists because in the beg. it’s going to be a challenge. So the woman should be a cross between Robert & Lionel - someone who knows the tools to use, be out there with a strong message & intelligently utilize both.” –Connie Benson

I know exactly where to find strong, intelligent women, they should start with BlogHer.

By the way, I come from experience, I was a Community Manager at Hitachi (started this way back in 2005), read “How to be a Community Manager“, and am involved with the community event series called Lunch 2.0, here’s how to have a successful community event.

Posted in Community Marketing, Facebook Strategy | 23 Comments »

Attention Hong Kong Web Community!

Categories: Events, Global WebPosted on August 24th, 2007

I’m coming out to Hong Kong for the week of Sept 16th -21st to speak at at the CLSA (CLSA is an award-winning brokerage, investment banking and private equity group in the Asia-Pacific Markets.) conference.

Are you a tech, marketing, or web fanatic that blogs? I’m hoping to connect with you, by organizing a blogger dinner, where we can all meet up. I’m interested in learning about you, your web projects, and or companies, and will doing blogging and video sharing with all my friends in Silicon Valley and beyond. I recently went to Singapore, and did the same, and built some great relationships.

If you’re a tech blogger and want to help me organize a meetup, please leave a comment. Last time, an organization decided to sponsor the drinks and dinner in Singapore. I organized another blogger dinner in Portland, and Jive Software and Intel hosted with their food, in their office and provided drinks.

Who else do I want to meet? If there are any governmental bodies that encourage web companies from the US to expand to HK, I’d love to meet them also. Just yesterday, I had a meeting with Singpaore’s iDA group.

If you’re interested, sign up on the wiki below, or email this post to friends. Oh, and if you want to learn more about me and my Chinese American background, it’s wrote some of the history on July 4th.

Here’s the guest list so far
-Angus Lau has offered to help, read his post!

Posted in Events, Global Web | 15 Comments »

WalMart’s Facebook Strategy Sinking: Analysis and Reccomendations

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Web MarketingPosted on August 24th, 2007

Previously Walmart built a MySpace clone on the corporate website which was pathetically closed after a mere 10 weeks. Having learned their lesson to consider joining existing communities before building their own they’ve saddled up for more social networking. Today, Wal-Mart’s sponsored group in Facebook is aimed at dorm-bound students who need to pimp out their pads –sadly, after 2 weeks in, there’s little to brag about.

Low membership
I’m checking up on the group, and have noticed that the group size is very low, in fact only 934 members. The Web Strategy Group that I promote is at 1500 members in just a few weeks longer, and it’s certainly a much smaller ‘brand’ than Wal-Mart.

Business Week’s blog notice this damage and apologize, Sorry, Wal-Mart. The kids would rather talk labor politics than home decor, followed by GenDigital’s observations of the “Enlightening Conversations”

I encourage you to take at look at the Wall in the Wal-Mart’s Back to School sponsored group to get a sense for what’s happening. I’ve posted the last 20 wall posts, only 10% are positive.

20 most recent wall posts (last names removed, and company names although it’s viewable by any member)

Mark (New Orleans, LA) wrote
at 5:22pm on August 23rd, 2007
why do you lonely retards insist on joining, and writing on this wall, about how “WalMart sucks”? Wouldn’t it be better if you started your own group(s)? Oh….because noone would join and read your crap?
Message - Report

Spencer (UGA) wrote
at 2:06pm on August 23rd, 2007
I HATE WALMART AND WOULD NEVER HAVE JOINED THIS GROUP!! I DONT KNOW HOW I BECAME A MEMBER OF IT, BUT I WANT TO VOMIT KNOWING MY NAME WAS ASSOCIATED WITH ANYTHING HAVING TO DO WITH WALMART!
Message - Report

Kendall (San Diego, CA) wrote
at 1:45pm on August 23rd, 2007
All you people saying “Walmart is a great company” are so full of sh|t. You are obviously getting paid by Walmart to come here and spout off propaganda. Everything at Walmart is made in China and every time you shop there the Chinese will gladly collect your money and give it to the Red Army. So, by shopping at Walmart you are indirectly helping to build the Chinese army. What a great American company!
Message - Report

Barbara (no network) wrote
at 8:21am on August 23rd, 2007
Walmart is a great American company that shows what you can do in America if you only work hard. A woman I know who worked for Walmart recently lost her husband and Walmart did so many things for the family during her trying time. I can’t say enough good things about Walmart. I think the unions are just mad because they haven’t gotten into Walmart and are trying to ruin their business. I love the low prices and I guess lots of other people do too because the parking lot is always crowded.
Message - Report

Brandon wrote
at 12:33am on August 23rd, 2007
Wal-Mart is a great American company that has been extremely successful at what they do. Sam Walton rose from a cashier to one of the richest men in the world, if that isn’t the American Dream, I don’t know what is.

My grandpa worked for Wal-Mart and recently passed away, he loved the people and the company treated him well. Over 200 people from the store he worked at came to his funeral and the manager of the store he worked at brought in workers from surrounding Wal-Marts to work at the store while the local workers went to his funeral.

They may make mistakes like any other company but, Wal-Mart is a good company that knows it’s business and does it well.
Message - Report

Christopher (Kansas) wrote
at 9:14pm on August 22nd, 2007
If you haven’t seen “The High Cost of Low Prices” you need to…its a great documentary of how WalMart is the armpit of society and treats its employees that way.
Message - Report

Dave wrote
at 5:24pm on August 22nd, 2007
Give Wal Mart a Union !

typically hippies and the labor movement, which is what i think wal mart needs don’t get along. Help save our great country and don’t shop at wal mart !
Message - Report

Myles wrote
at 4:57pm on August 22nd, 2007
you hippies need to look at the jobs creation, savings, and fun-ness of wal mart before you attack it. smelly friggen hippies
Report

Janine (UCSC) wrote
at 4:41pm on August 22nd, 2007
http://www.quarantinewalmart.com/

Wal Mart is toxic to communities and livelihoods.

Facebook should take the number of negative comments on this page as a note that we don’t support this company of it’s use of a space for social networking to further horrendous business practices.

And this goes for all companies that profit from human devastation: GET OFF OF FACEBOOK.

This is a space for people talking to other people. Facebook, get your priorities straight.
Message - Report

Mark (New Orleans, LA) wrote
at 1:12pm on August 22nd, 2007
Sara: You would live at WalMart, if you could?!

Wait…..what’s stoppin’ you?
Message - Report

Adam (Dartmouth) wrote
at 10:55am on August 22nd, 2007
one more link for you… my hometown in Maine - and all the small towns that neighbor it - recently banded together to pass legislation that effectively prevented Wal-Mart (or any other big-box retailer) from invading the neighborhood. a documentary was made about the process. it’s a pretty good story/resource for any town that has a similar battle on its hands.

http://www.ourtownmaine.com/
Message - Report

Sandeep (UC Irvine) wrote
at 10:31am on August 22nd, 2007
http://walmartwatch.com/
http://www.walmartmovie.com/
http://blog.wakeupwalmart.com/
http://www.nea.org/topics/walmart.html

=)
Message - Report

John (Clemson) wrote
at 11:14pm on August 21st, 2007
Wal Mart was once the small local store competing against the big guys. What did they do to overcome?
Message - Report

John (Capital) wrote
at 8:00pm on August 21st, 2007
are you kidding me. they are getting rid of every person that owns their own store. yes they found a new way to move products to the consumers and what not. big deal. im apart of a business that found a even better way to do that. but the fact is they are putting people out of business and taking their jobs. wal-mart is a bad business for this country
Report

Matthew (Kettering) wrote
at 5:28pm on August 21st, 2007
Why is it that it takes a company like Wal-Mart to stop the overpricing of goods at other stores?
Message - Report

Nicole (Smith) wrote
at 12:43pm on August 21st, 2007
In case folks haven’t seen it yet, here is the BusinessWeek blog post on the wall posts for this group: http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/archives/2007/08/sorry_wal-mart.html

Also linked to from the Wal-Mart Watch blog:
http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/students_talk_wal_mart_politics_not_pillows_on_facebook/
Message - Report

Sara (UCLA) wrote
at 12:09pm on August 21st, 2007
I adore Walmart. I would live there if I could. P.S., there should be an apostrophe in “Roommates” in the “Mix it up” box — it should either read “Roommate’s” or “Roommates’.” Please fix it.
Message - Report

Stefan (Hillsdale Baptist) wrote
at 1:23am on August 21st, 2007
Grant, you don’t live in the same community that the HQ of Target is located. Of course you aren’t going to see what they do for schools and surrounding neighbohoods.
Message - Report

Stefan (Hillsdale Baptist) wrote
at 1:22am on August 21st, 2007
Don’t do it. Don’t shop at wal-mart.
I know it sucks, my school is less than 2 two miles away from a wal-mart but it can be done. Good luck.
Message - Report

Jamiah (CBS) wrote
at 6:28pm on August 20th, 2007
Organize against Wal-Mart in your community! Don’t contribute to the abuse of American workers. Contact me and I will send you a free DVD of the documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” so that you can organize a community screening in your neighborhood! Educate others about the evil of Wal-Mart.

Web Strategy Recommendations
Is this program salvageable? Absolutely.

The battering of the brand continues on for the next 100 wall posts, and it will likely continue, this is expected. I’ve analyzed all the comments and there’s only a few students and a handful of folks that admit to actually shopping there –they’ve not reached the college segment.

This sponsored group doesn’t have discussion forums, I’d recommend they turn those on, and try to segment the conversations about going back to school, and even consider keeping folks on topic. Continue to allow critics (you can’t stop it anyways) but try to use the forums to guide a discussion about school. I’m not sure why Wal-Mart has not chosen to turn on it’s marketing engines and point people here from their corporate site, using a cross-promotion tactic would certainly drive more folks over to the group.

What’s the great thing about all this? Wal-Mart’s still here, was bold enough to try it again, and hasn’t pulled the site down. I highly recommend that Wal-Mart consider trying a community strategy using a transparent and authentic blog or video blog series that addresses the very brand issues that they are getting slammed on. I took at look online for a “Walmart blog” and didn’t see any from the company, why is this? It’s going to be very difficult to try a community marketing strategy with eCommerce hooks without first addressing the brand detractors.

Update: Connie (in the comments below) suggests that Wal-Mart may need an evangelist, certainly an interesting notion.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Web Marketing | 29 Comments »

Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Archive for August, 2007

Top Discussions in the Web Strategy Community

[Unlike other Facebook groups, the Web Strategy Group has active discussions among those who make decisions for the modern website]

Web Strategy Show: Need to Freshen your Stock Image Portfolio?

Big companies still don’t get small things

Pursuing the Web Strategy mission as a Forrester Analyst

Conference: Community Building in the Age of Facebook

Computers vs Humans: Who will win the Search War?

Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required)

Web Strategy Reading: August 26, 2007

Silicon Valley Sightings: Oracle’s Emerald Towers “The DataBase”

PodTech’s new Gaming Show: The Reboot by Rio Pesino

Does Wal-Mart need a Robert Scoble or a Lionel Menchaca? Neither, says the community

[The Wal-Mart brand is so badly damaged that it's campaigns are not being accepted in the social media sphere, to correct, Wal-Mart needs a trusted evangelist to reach, fix, and be human]

Attention Hong Kong Web Community!

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