Archive for September, 2008

Do I need a blog redesign?

Categories: Feedback, User ExperiencePosted on September 11th, 2008

I’ve had this blog redesign for a few years now, and it may start to show its cracks. For some, they like the simple layout and design, easy to scroll, for others, they may want a more updated look and feel.

I’ve noticed quite a few blogs have been changing their designs lately, they are more media centric, have more of a front page newspaper look, esp for high volume blogs. Who’s done it? Techcrunch, Scoble, Teresa Valdez Klein, Shel Israel, I think I first noticed this a few months ago from Ars Technica. In fact last night I was evaluating quite a few premium wordpress themes that are available for purchase.

Curt Monash of Network World reviewed a few blogs, and gave me some feedback when I asked how I can improve, (read comments) then extended it to his own personal blog with practical recommendations. He gives me and other bloggers some food for thought on effective blog design for 2008.

I believe in full feedback loop (part of the reason I ask so many questions), and in fact have done surveys’ before to find out what folks want (I now know the majority of my readers are interactive marketers). I keep in mind that I write for a business audience, often a corporate, that’s making decisions about how to use web tools.

Perhaps one of the most important thing about user experience is to remember the users, so I’d like to turn it over to you:

Do you think I need a redesign?

If so, what should change?

Any examples of blogs that you like?

Posted in Feedback, User Experience | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Sept 10, 2008

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on September 10th, 2008

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an Industry Analyst –a good way to get in my head.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column.

Web Strategy Summary
Lot of deals, partnerships, and wins announced this week, I’m getting more submissions for PR firms who represent white label social networks. Perhaps most interesting is three separate studies indicating how non-universal social networks really are, important to note as brands approach social networks and communities with a global reach –don’t overextend yourselves.

Research: Social Networks not Ubiqutious
eMarketer, a leading research firm states that social networks are not yet universal, they compare to studies marking awareness, but also note that “44.3% of Internet users in the US will belong to social networks by the end of 2008″ Synovate Research shows similar findings.

Press: Communispace announces growth
This announcement touts 11 new clients for the year for this ‘insight community vendor’ which include MTV, Chili’s Grill & Bar and Verizon Telecom and including a deal with InterContintental Hotels.

Communications: MySpace useful during hurricane
Like many social media tools, social networks are a key communication tool before, during, and after disasters for citizens and local and national recovery groups, MySpace has proven effective in this last hurricane.

Deployment: US Gov has Facebook for Spies
Speaking of government, the CIA and other government agencies have their own social network for spies, called A-Space, I wonder if they have scrabulous!

Competitor: Groupsites takes aim at Ning
Another easy to get started white label social network has appeared called Groupsites, which is in the same market as Ning, the key differentiator? productivity is at the core of the use case.

Applications: Context launches Applications
In it’s quest for creating applications for Facebook, Context creates facebook page for Top Bartender (Absolut) Today I’m toasting (Miller) and Got Pies (Microsoft’s IE), all interactive marketing.

Deal: Pluck wins Sun Times
Media site The Sun-Times News Group uses Pluck to power social elements to their site. Pluck Social Media tools bring reader forums, blogs and feed tools to the media site.

Deal: eBay selects ONESite
White label social network wins ebay sustainability community for World of Good site. I know other competitors are within eBay, which is not uncommon for large enterprises to be disparate with vendor selection.

Acquisition: iSkoot gobbles Social IM
Consolidation in the mobile and voip space as iSkoot acquires social networking client Social.IM. What’s in store? Dean Takahashi says: “Social.IM’s platform will work well with iSkoot’s own upcoming mobile web push services”

Analsyis: Adoption rates of Faecbooks Redesign
Compete has an interesting analysis marking the adoption rates of Facebook users to the slow to roll out redesign, as well as how many users reverted.

Partnership: NBC and LinkedIn clinch deal
A combination of content and social feature deal allows NBC viewers and LinkedIn members to share information, and connect with each other between these two sites. good marriage.

Services: Lithium gets serious about services
With this announcement of enterprise class services and support teams, they hire a VP of client services to lead the teams forward. Services, Strategy and Support account for 80% of the enterprise buy in my opinion.

Impacts: Reactions of bad behaviors
How not to get banned from commenting link via colleague Nate Elliott, and are comments more like Slander than Libel?

Index: List of Community Platforms
Dion has a great list of community platforms, I’m also resesarching this market and will put forth a list of enterprise class community platforms for interactive marketers at Fortune 5000 companies in late Oct. It’s hard to segment as the actual list is so many vendors.

Movement: Protests gain new fuel through Facebook
Movements often start small, and with social networks, the snowball effect can quickly add many new members, shows this article about protesters who organize online –often in Facebook.

PR professionals that have clients in this space, should subscribe to this blog, and ensure their clients are put on this digest by sending me an email, or better yet, leave a comment. If you work for a white label community platform, keep me updated, I want to know of your wins.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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Should Analysts use Twitter?

Categories: Analyst, MicroMediaPosted on September 10th, 2008

I was recently asked this by a fellow analyst: “I don’t get Twitter, should I use it?” Well first of all, the mechanics of the tool are pretty simple to use, you simply share with others like you would in a chat room. In fact, despite my heavy volume, I’m strategic in my usage, see how I use Twitter.

Often, analysis do a great job of analyzing and researching their assigned market, they forget to look inwards, this guide should help.

Survey your environment
Since you’ll never understand microblogging till you try it, to truly understand, you’ll have to dive in. Since analysts tend to be calculated in their ways (understatement) here are three questions to answer that will help you make your decision to dive in, add one point if you say yes to any of the following three criteria:

1) Is your research market using microblogging tools? For example, at Forrester, we’re role based research, this means I’m conducting research for the Interactive Marketer, and others may be researching for the Enterprise Architect, or the Security & Risk professional. For those that are industry focused (see twitter packs), you’ll have to conduct a survey (or use the search tools) to find out who’s using them. BusinessWeek reports that the CEOs of Mzinga and SocialText (companies in my space) are connected with me.

2) Are your clients using microblogging tools? If your customers (those that buy your reports or services) are using these tools, then as a responsible product manager you’d best understand your customers by listening to them, conversing with them, and understanding their needs. For example, I know my clients (interactive marketers) at tech companies here in Silicon Valley are using twitter, and it’s spreading to other industries. In fact, I’ve made it a habit to ask at my inquiries if folks are using twitter, and for now, after asking 20 clients, the rate is over 75% (estimate)

3) Is it your job to analyze communication technologies or their impacts? If your job as an analyst is to understand and measure the impacts of technologies on communication, then you’d better add a point to this assessment. My job is to cover social technologies and how they impact business and relationships with customers so there really is no question.

The simple scorecard
Twitter is simple, and so shall this scorecard:

If you scored one point, then you should experiment with these tools, perhaps create an account that doesn’t reflect your full name and experiment with the mechanics.

If you scored two points, you should do the previous experimentation, then begin a trial period of at least 30 days to test the tool out. Add folks in your market to follow, and start to converse.

If you scored three points, you should take a proactive approach and plan on integrating this tool within your work life. This isn’t suggesting that you tweet 20 times a day, but you should at least take an active approach on monitoring and observing the market you cover –and those that are buying your research and services from.

Caveat
Despite having a base of 11k followers, I never use Twitter for quantitative research, instead, I rely on Forrester’s survey methodology. Read more about how I use –and don’t use– social technologies for my own research.

See this list by Carter Lusher, a list of analysts that Tweet. It would be helpful if Carter had another column for the analysts coverage area.

Posted in Analyst, MicroMedia | Comments

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How PR Can Help Some Startups: Perspective of one Industry Analyst

Categories: Analyst, PRPosted on September 9th, 2008

There’s been a lot of trash talk about the PR industry (again), this time a small group of successful CEOs (and VP bloggers) claim they don’t need public relations efforts. When you look closely, you realize, this is true, as they’ve primarily made it part of their ongoing effort as media experts –they’re using their own tools to reach out to folks. On the other hand, most companies don’t have CEOs that can afford to constantly be part of ‘the conversation’ or have time to be interacting with influencers all the time.

I’m a faithful listener of For Immediate Release Podcast Series with Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, and they’ve been discussing this on the last few episodes.

Having observed this for a few years, it’s become very clear to me that the PR industry suffers the cobblers’ children syndrome. PR, an industry designed to help companies and industries have an improved reputation is inflicted with a bad reputation of their own. Why doesn’t the PR industry self promote their own value? Physcian, heal thyself! (I added this paragraph after I posted)

As an industry analyst, here’s where I’ve noticed a difference between companies with PR and those who don’t:

Ability to hire PR services is sometimes an indicator of maturity
I’m mainly looking for briefings from companies that are ready for prime time. They are established, have a solid product, and are ready for adoption by Fortune 5000 enterprise companies. These companies don’t have time to deal with a startup that may not last the test of time, or have weak infrastructure. As a result, often established companies may have significant funding, or a revenue stream and thereby are able to afford a few thousand dollars a month for PR services. Having PR services is one indicator that a startup is beyond the garage (but not always)

Outsource listening, but don’t replace –enhance
Secondly, some PR folks at companies have an actual job to follow all the tweets and blogs posts of analysts (wow what a job, yikes), but they don’t just have to watch analysts but also, media, press, bloggers as part of their full time job. Since a lot of what we do (myself included) is likely noise to any specific person, the role of PRs job to listen makes them a valuable filter, who can bubble up key findings to the client. The only caveat being is that startups should of course monitoring and part of the conversation, you can’t completely outsource this.

Sometimes, they have successful pitches
Setting up meetings and the pitch. PR folks are professionals at pitches (granted, many of them are sub-standard) and going to be pitching to me, I’ve found that many who get me to respond know my coverage area (social networks, community platforms, applications, widgets) also pay attention to my schedule and know when to reach to me. Some savvy PR folks know that they can automatically submit to my weekly digest of social networking events –making their clients happy

Benefit from refined communications
Also, I’ve found that during briefings, companies that have PR services often do a better job at communicating to me. How is it different? The entrepreneur without professional communications help may often yammer about how great their technology is, or spend time sharing his passions. The entrepreneur who has professional communications help often focuses on business solutions, able to talk at the market level, and puts the value statement right up front. They’re trained, rehearsed, and more refined in presentations.

Truly successful PR pros become –then lead– the community they represent
Some PR folks have become their own hubs. What’s this mean? They should up to so many tech events, that they’ve developed real relationships with influencers regardless of who their client list is. There’s a handful in silicon valley you can identify at any event or party, they literally are “hubs” and people are constantly surrounding them. These folks throw their own parties (regardless of who their client set is) introduce folks (regardless of who their clients are) and are active members of the community, as a result, they are trusted, connected, and more effective with their relationships. I’m much more likely to respond to them as they are here for the long term, and I build a real relationship with them over the years.

This is just my perspective, as one industry analyst, so you’ll have to do your own research on how to spend your marketing dollars. It is very important to note: no company, regardless of how busy they are, should completely outsource listening and talking to the market, they way I see this is PR is a competitive edge over those that don’t, or if your communication skills need improvement.

Posted in Analyst, PR | Comments

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List of Enterprise Microblogging Tools: Twitter for the Intranet

Categories: Enterprise Web, Industry Index, MicroMediaPosted on September 8th, 2008

With the popularity to Twitter and other Microblogging tools, we should expect to see a flurry of simliar tools for project and program mangaement for the enterprises.

Stemming from commodity technology, I’m sure I’ll have a hard time keeping this list up to date over a few months –expect IM vendors, blogging vendors, community platforms, enterprise 2.0 vendors, and a flurry of startups to offer similiar features, first read up on the pros and cons as well as some potential use cases.

It’s interesting to see the need to justify enterprise needs of such tools that are already being adopted by consumers, typical of enterprise settings (I’m a former enterprise intranet manager). With that said, let’s start the definitive list.

List of Enterprise Microblogging Tools
I’ll be making lots of updates to this post as comments come in.

Prologue, by Automatic, makers of Wordpress
Announced in Jan 08, Prologue allows users to, “…can post short messages about what they’re doing”, even in a secured environment GigaOm has adopted it for his news network, recently covered by Venturebeat.

Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment (ESME)
This pet project which was given birth by the “Demo Jam” at SAP labs (This is an SDN Community Project initiated by SAP Mentors, not part of SAP), was recently covered by Read Write Web.

Yammer
Simply detailed as: “What’s happening at your company? Share status updates with your co-workers.” recently reviewed by webware. This in depth review answers many questions. Launched in Sept 08.

SocialCast
A friendfeed and twitter tools for the enterprise, this has been covered by Webware.

Laconica – The Open Microblogging Tool
This open source application can be installed on servers and potentially used within the firewall. Link via Nick Cowie via comments.

Status
“Status is part of a new trend of LIGHTER communication tools. When you need to get up to date with your group, a single screen shows what everyone is doing and where they are. This means you can stay in touch on your own terms, without using heavy attention-stealing tools like email.” link via Frank. added Sept 9, 08.

Trillr
“Trillr is a service for co-workers, partners and customers to communicate and thus stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What’s on your mind”. By CoreMedia. Link via Pistachio Consulting (focused on Micromedia), added Sept 9, 08.

I Did Work
This task based update tool provides teams with abiity to leave status messages. “The work log that shares Keep a history of your work, and share it with your team” Link via Ralf via comments.

OraTweet -Oracle
Oracle’s launching a Microblogging tool internally, then for external clients: “…OraTweet is seeing companies, universities, and organizations running their own OraTweet instance, allowing them to keep their information private yet strengthening their own internal communities. It should be the same way we do email and instant messaging: We manage our own information, which allows us to broadcast messages safely in our own microcosm.” Added Sept 9, 08.

Joint Contact
This collaboration suite has microblogging features, and hooks into titter: “…A better way to Twitter. As a small business owner you’ve added micro blogging to your list of daily marketing activities. In the past few months you’ve come to appreciate how easy and effective tools like Twitter can be to communicate project status and to inform followers of upcoming events. You currently manage your postings using a desktop Twitter client. It would be great if you could somehow link your “Tweets” with your project management system.” Added Sept 9, 08.

BlueTwit-IBM
An internal only twitter client has been deployed for some time, and has been providing some colleagues with relief from email flare-ups. It was recently covered in BusinessWeek (link via pistachio) –BlueTwit has been around since 2007.

Present.ly
“Present.ly is a micro-update communications tool for your company. Give your employees the ability to instantly communicate their current status, ask questions, post media, and more.” Via comments of Pistachio, added Sept 11, 08.

Mixin
Spanning both the internal and external worlds, Mixin: “… lets you share your daily activities and intentions
to get together more often with your friends”

Headmix
“HeadMix has powerful messaging and social networking features that promote the capture, sharing and discovery of the knowledge trapped inside employees’ heads.”

I’ll stop managing this list after a few weeks, I know an onslaught of features will appear in just about every imaginable software package, you can leave comments below, as always, if someone creates and index, I’ll point to it.

See this list of opensource twitter vendors. Also, Laura “Pistachio” has now started a form to populate her database of vendors. She’s now published a spreadsheet on mashable.

Also, I should add that Forrester is watching this space, aside from our CEO and many employees using these tool, we’ve a report with data showing use of microblogging tools.

Have you deployed this at your company?
Rafe of Webware and I would love to know, please contact me if you have, my email is on my contact page.

I already know of a some community platforms that are experimenting with similar tools, expect this to be a bolt of feature that many will provide in the next few moons.

If you know of others, leave a comment below, oh and if you like this list, you’ll love these.

Posted in Enterprise Web, Industry Index, MicroMedia | Comments

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Physical and Digital Security for our Online Lives and Businesses

Categories: Web ToolsPosted on September 8th, 2008

I use to work at Exodus (my story here), which became Cable and Wireless, which is now Savvis. Back in the first web boom Exodus was a high flying web host, for premiere brands. We had the top web brands, ya know: Yahoo, Weather Channel, eBay, Pets.com, and a ton of porn sites (little known secret).

We emphasized uptime, fat pipe, and hardened security, both digital and physical. As a result, we installed countless devices from bioreaders of palms, to ‘man traps’ that would trap someone in a tube if their exiting weight was greater than their entering weight.

I recently found out during one of my lab days (full day evaluation of a vendor –including scenario testing) with community platform vendors, that some brands are putting them to the test when it comes to security.

This one particular community platform vendor was being evaluated by a large Fortune 1000 company, who was very concerned about security. As a result, they tried to break into the building where the servers were, the Colocation center. The tried various tactics from manipulation, giving excuse to get in, or looking for unlocked doors.

On a related note, one of the vendor employees told me about his experience where he saw that an air conditioning unit was plugged into the outside of the colo, which he unplugged, and it stopped functioning. I guess the system was not redundant with backup fail safes.

Given that our personal data is all over the web in Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Docs, Peoplesoft, Siebel, SalesForce, your bank, what have you done to test the security and ensure the physical realm is secure? Not much I’ll bet, we just rely on blind faith as users in many cases to ensure we’re protected. I trust my bank (but cannot confirm) that my data is truly safe.

Posted in Web Tools | Comments

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People on the Move in the Social Media Industry: Sept 7, 2008

Categories: Career, On the movePosted on September 7th, 2008

This is a busy week, I’ve received more submissions than ever before, if this pace continues, I’ll have to figure out a new way to let folks self-submit. Be sure to include a link to your announcement, if it doesn’t exist on the web, it’s hard to verify, and it’s really what we’ve come to expect in this space. Lastly, while social media is certainly easy for folks to offer, I’m seeking examples of folks who really are offering this as their core expertise –not a side offering. As a result, I’ll be filtering to those that are truly living and breathing in this world.

I’m starting this post series (see archives) to recognize and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks:

Highway 12 Ventures Gets Serious about Social Media and hires Tac Anderson, ~~formerly~~ of HP (who’s commented that he’s still with HP), keep an eye on Tac, he’s a fast mover, he’s on Twitter too.

Starting August 25th, James McNally became the Tucows/OpenSRS Community Specialist, a brand-new position for this internet services company based in Toronto.

Congrats to Kathy Jacobs who is now the Community Manager for AllVoices, a group focused on citizen media at its best

UpDown.com, the leading social platform for virtual investing, today announced that Joe Ranft has been named Vice President of Product.

Jesse Stay is making a move, but had yet to reveal the details of the specifics. I’ve met Jesse, and had a great time talking about Facebook at the FB Developers conference. One could only expect his move to be Facebook or widget/application related.

How to connect with others (or get a job):
Several people have been hired because of this blog post series, here’s how:

Submit an announcement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, leave a comment below, or if you’re feeling shy (it’s cool to self-nominate) send me an email. Please include a link to your announcement, and ensure you’re really living and breathing in the social media world –this is not a small aspect of your role.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

List of Enterprise Social Media Professionals
This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals.

See Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, fees pay for my hosting)

Connect with others in the community manager group in Facebook

Check out Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

See Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community

Teresa has a few jobs, some around community

New Media hire has an extensive job database

Social Media Headhunter

Social media jobs

Jobs in social media

Social Media HeadHunter

Hiring? Leave a comment
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, or I’ll delete it)

I’m seeking folks that are related to full time hands on social media strategy and community managers, to be on this list, so let me know if you see these folks, and please submit them. Also, I probably will not include executive management changes on this list at social media companies, as the list would go on and on, but you can feel free to express yourself in the comments!

Posted in Career, On the move | Comments

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The Problem With SaaS: Lack of Flexibility

Categories: Challenges, Social Networking, White Label Social NetworkPosted on September 5th, 2008

I’m deep into the Wave research (read my latest status update) for nine community platforms (big list here), in fact, this week and next, I’m in 5 and a half to 6 hour meetings with vendors getting to know them very well. Of course, that’s just one side of the story, I’m interviewing up to 27 of their customers (brands) to get the ‘other’ side of the story. You’ll see me pop up online for “Twitter breaks” here and there, surfacing for air, then submerging back again.

I wasn’t surprised to hear from a few brands that not everyone is a fan of Software as a Service (Saas), in fact, for some, on-premise software makes a whole lot more sense. What exactly was the pain point with Saas?

Of course, the most obvious points continue to come to mind: conservative companies, or those with truly critical data wanted to have the data on site, or wanted to self-support their own architecture, or wanted to modify the software at their choosing, yet I learned about something that I hadn’t even considered:

Some brands felt that being tied to SaaS meant they were at the mercy of the vendor when it came to the software architecture. While this is certainly the case not just for SaaS but all non-opensource software, when a vendor would upgrade a version, some brands were forced to accept the changes. In some cases, some brands were not aware/prepared of some upcoming upgrades to the SaaS software and were blindsided to the changes.

Furthermore, these brands felt that the larger customers who wanted specific feature upgrades were able to influence the vendor through direct pressure or even fueling the R&D work through feature requests. What’s wrong with that? Alot, if the feature requests of the larger customer don’t reflect the needs of a smaller SMB customer. Since the software is delivered over the web, there was little recourse for the smaller brand to deny the changes, they pretty much had to suck it up.

Now you may ask, isn’t this a problem with all software, SaaS or on-premise? Yes but vendors are more likely to allow customers to use multiple versions of on-premise software, of course there’s a date when they will no longer support it. Yet vendors who provide SaaS are far more likely to provide only one version, forcing clients to swallow the changes on demand.

Have you had a bad experience with Software as a Service? Leave a comment, let’s explore this further.

Related reading: Community Platforms: Here comes the CIO.

Update: As usual, the conversation has also splintered into FriendFeed.

Posted in Challenges, Social Networking, White Label Social Network | Comments

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URLs will be an Anachronism

Categories: Social Media, Web TheoryPosted on September 4th, 2008

The search box circumvents the address bar
After playing with Google’s Chrome browser for the last few days, I noticed the “Address” bar, which is just called a “Omnibox” (corrected from just “box” via comments) is really a search field. Anything entered into it will deliver a webpage (it first looks at your historical activities) or renders Google search results (or search of your preference, including twitter search). As a result, it’s become apparently that I no longer need to enter in URLs to my browser for 99% of all tasks.

[Chrome is a nod to the future, the address bar is really a search bar. URLs will be an anachronism]

…is what I mentioned in Twitter with a flurry of agreements back from the community. Lori MacVittie expands further on the idea and agrees that like engine parts in our car, or IP addresses, they mainly go invisible as we drive to our real world or online destinations.

What’s next: content to be found and served through context
I have an odd habit of counting how many TV advertisements don’t have a URL somewhere in it, on average, I only count 1-2 per hour, nearly all are signaling to viewers to learn more on the web. If I’m curious about a product, I can manually enter in the URL, or do a search to find the site. Given that Google has experimented with active listening to TV programs through the mic on your computer, there’s ways to serve up contextual information at any point of your TV watching experience, thinking further, when TV and the web truly marry, entering in URLs will truly be an extinct activity.

Of course, URLs will always be there, but like signs on the road, they move into the background and let you focus on what’s really important –your destination.

For me, I’m happy to say good bye to URLs and move on to more contextual ways of finding, or serving information through digital spaces, the next phase of information navigation is starting.

Love to hear your thoughts:

1) Will URLs go away?

2) At what point will URLs be an Anachronism?

3) What is needed to make this happen?

4) How will be find (or be served) information in the future?

Can you answer the above 3 questions without saying the “S” word? (semantic), try to, it’s good for ya.

Posted in Social Media, Web Theory | Comments

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Social Marketing from Democrats and Republicans

Categories: Politics, Social Media, TechnographicsPosted on September 3rd, 2008

Above: The Social Technographics of Voters, read Josh Bernoff’s Analysis which further segments the behaviors of McCain vs Obama supportersa

In this post, I’m going to make some observations from my network, but my only caveat is, this is not representative of the whole tech industry. First, we should ask some questions about what I’m seeing:

Does the Social Media Space tend to skew Democratic?
I’ve noticed for some time that the web industry tends to skew very liberal and democratic, you certainly see elements of this within Digg, for example, I did an advanced query of dugg (voted) stories that got on the front page, (title only) and McCain has 42 pages (many stories are negative), and “Obama” has 65 pages (mixed bag of content).

Does sentiment tell us much?
Yet frequency isn’t telling, and sentiment is. Last night, I asked the community around me in Friendfeed to list out three keywords what come to mind in this association test for both parties. You can read the Republican, and Democratic responses –nearly opposite.

Update: I’ve asked my Friendfeed network to think about why there’s strong liberal sentiment in FF, read their responses.

Why does the social space (or at least my network) tend to skew so left? It could be a number of factors from age, willingness to adopt change, or that the ideology of the very social web in it’s essence could be core to liberal beliefs. In fact, if you read a book on blogging or social media marketing, you could quickly transplant the words “company” for “government” and the book would still read very logically.

Is it because there may be many Republicans in Silicon Valley?
Yet despite this lean from the left within my social media network, I do remember during the last election that a great deal of republican votes came from the Silicon Valley. I remember my friends who worked at NASA, Boeing, Lockheed, that were strongly encouraged by their management to vote Republican, as it would increase the eventual spending in the aerospace and hi-tech sector. Many of these companies have large headquarters in the Mountain View area, with thousands of companies supporting this eco-system, in fact read this 2004 article from the last election which profiles ’sheepish republicans’ in Silicon Valley, it’s an interesting mix here in the valley as while folks make swing left in ideology, many are very wealthy.

Is it adoption of Obama and McCain Social Media?
Not all is lost by the Republicans in this space, this article by Techpresident (Which is indexing and commenting on the the digital marketing efforts of each candidate) suggests that even though Obama may have a grass roots lead within social media and dedicated staff (including Facebook co-founder), McCain’s supporters could master the tide by creating an API and encouraging the movement to create their own applications.

Or is it speed of adoption of these tools?
If speed is any type of indicator of adoption of social marketing, McCain just launched their online community on the campaign domain, called McCain Space, Yet Obama’s campaign has been up and running with MyBarackObama for some time.

So what is it that fuels the social media space to appear to be more active for the Democrats vs the Republicans? Let’s focus on data:

Some Answers May Lie with the Technographics of Voters (see above graphic)
In Josh’s analysis, he points out that the tendency to Join (be in a social network) between Obama supporters and McCain supporters is nearly a margin of 13%, which isn’t a lot but given that across the board Obama members are more particiaotpry in soical technographics than McCain supporters they’re more able to energize their base. Perhaps the most telling is the Spectator behavior, which indicates which support group is more likely to consume citizen created content. Nearly tho-thirds of Obama, (59%) consume social content, and less than half of McCain (44%) supporters will consume social content, a margin that straddles the half way mark.

Data about overall existing behaviors of users (technographics) are perhaps a key indicator that demonstrates why one party may have an advantage in social marketing.

In typical internet humor, a meme called “Little known facts about Sarah Palin” continues to spread throughout twitter. Given her largely unknown background, the twittersphere has had fun creating her background for her.

The above is just cursory observations, had I more time I would love to do a more formal study on this specific vertical, maybe in four years.

Posted in Politics, Social Media, Technographics | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Sept 3, 2008

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on September 3rd, 2008

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an Industry Analyst –a good way to get in my head.

You can subscribe to this digest tag only, which filters only these posts tagged digest.

Web Strategy Summary
A smattering of small announcements his week ranges from new features, acquisitions and John McCain launches his own version of MySpace. Sometimes, quiet weeks are good weeks.

Feature: LinkedIn builds community with ‘Groups’
Now launching this groups feature (similar to Google Groups and Yahoo Groups) it’ll help users build more of a discussion to self support each other online.

Features: Facebook’s Newsfeed improved
Nick O’Neill has a live video showing the interactive and dynamic features of Facebook’s “Live Feed” feature, a real-time life streaming aggregation tool.

Sunset: Yahoo shuts down SoNet ‘Mash’
Listed as Yahoo’s fourth failure at social networks, they’ve now shut down Mash. Where should they look? Yahoo mail is one of the largest social graphs around

Virtual Goods: Facebook creates virtual currency
This analysis suggests that Facebook’s virtual goods are creating virtual goods as currency upwards in the $35 million range, yet we must remember it’s only worth as much as what people buy it for.

User Experience: Facebook puts brakes on Wall Spam
An interesting dilemma, this popular social network encourages developers and brands to participate, yet they’ve got to control the user experience above all else, and look to control wall spam.

Deployment: Marriott launches communtiy using LiveWorld
Interesting how hotels are getting on the bandwagon as Marriott launches online community for Marriott Rewards. Link via Henry Harteveldt. Congrats to Liveworld for earning the customer, I had to go hunt online to find out who the vendor was.

Acquisition: Book based SoNet Shelfari gulped by Amazon
Amazon to move into the social networking arena with this recent purchase of Shelfari a community based application that let’s people create virtual ‘bookshelves’ to share with others.

Mobile: Hi5 moves to mobile
Expect Hi5’s online growth to fuel it’s recent launch of 26 languages of it’s mobile version of it’s social network, given that many cultures lean on mobile communications over US based browser, this could be a medium for growth.

Security: MySpace Login Held Ransom to Music Artist
Not sure how to react to this, but Soulja Boy hip hop artist had his logins to MySpace and YouTube held ransom from a 12 year old boy demanding 2500 dollars.

Awards: Neighborhood America receives accolade
Insight community vendor, Neighborhood America receives award at the Always On AO ‘Global 250 Winners’ for innovation.

Deployment: McCain launches community via Kickapps
McCain launches his online community, in sync with the announcement of his new VP. This online community (the URL indicates it’s from KickApps) energizes young republicans to connect to each other, and then spread word of mouth.

Features: Blogger.com launches profiles
This trend, in which blogs like blogger.com are now becoming more like social networks emulating MyBlogLog features or even SixApart’s intention to make blogs more ’social’. Expect to see a more formal announcement for wordpress.

Advertisements: Contextual ads spit insults
This reporter isn’t happy being called “muffin top” in her contextual Facebook ads. We shouldn’t blame Facebook for this, it was likely the advertisers choice, and besides…it worked.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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Thinking Long Term: Google’s New Browser ‘Chrome’

Categories: Web ToolsPosted on September 2nd, 2008

With nearly every tech blogger pontificating on the cartoon, firefox vs IE vs chrome, or expressing love for the ‘cloud’, only a few folks are thinking about the long term implications to Google’s new browser called ‘Chrome’.

Harry McCracken does some forward thinking and raises 10 questions that need to be answered, mainly around conversion and partnerships. I’ve got to add a few more ideas that I’m not seeing asked by others, Google’s new browser could mean:

More accurate web analytics. Although not mentioned in the announcement nor cartoon, the opportunity for Google to develop better web tracking from actual users spanning multiple websites is at hand. Now that Google has it’s popular web analytics trackers are in many websites, they could potentially increase data gathering by using a browser –of course opt-in would be necessary, perhaps like the attention trust.

Any website can now be social Google’s browser could eventually make any website social –even if the website owner chooses not to participate. How? A plugin could be created that allows your gmail, gtalk, and other network to join you wherever you surf on the web, essentially your social graph could go with you as you travel the web. Coupled with Google Readers’ aggregation ability, this is a way to beat Facebook using a more ‘open model’.

A default browser on the Android mobile platform. If you’re not familiar, Google has announced it’s intention for it’s Android, a mobile platform suitable for software developers who want to incorporate their websites using Chrome. Expect to see a lightweight mobile version be available. Eventually coupled with geo-specific location gathering, (of course, opt-in) this could now empower Google with information about location based marketing.

Other methods to monetize. Other than the obvious ability to create more categorization of the web and offer ads, let’s think creatively on how Google could use this to enhance their bottom line. With more accurate data (combine analytics and location aware scraping) Google can now return more intelligent search results to users –in fact, each person could receive a customized search results page, advertisers would follow suit to quickly achieve higher rankings.

Peer into closed networks. This browser is a direct threat to closed social networks that do not allow Google to search or scrape like on the openweb. Social Networks that require a login to see data like Facebook potentially can be flanked if Google is the browser is the browser rendering the pages. Of course, this brings all kinds of privacy issues into play, but attention trackers with opt-in agreements could help Google to map these out.

No, this is not an IE killer, history has shown there’s plenty of room for multiple browsers, different users have different needs.

There are so many echos on Techmeme, so let’s try to have some original thoughts, I’d love to hear your long term insights on how this browser will impact the web space, leave a comment.

Posted in Web Tools | Comments

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Social Punishment: The “Bozo” Feature

Categories: Community Marketing, White Label Social NetworkPosted on September 1st, 2008

We’re all social creatures, and we thrive on the interactions of others, in fact, these interactions are the primary drivers for troublemakers in communities.

I’ve read stories about how babies that are given all the proper medical attention, food, shelter to deem them ‘healthy’ whither away to near death if they don’t get human contact and love and care. The same applies to prison, perhaps one of the more dreaded punishments is sending inmates to the ‘hole’ for isolation from all social contact. POWs can muster the strength to survive knowing that a series of Morse code taps can signal to fellow inmates that they’re ok and cared about. How does this apply to online communities?

[The 'Bozo' Feature renders the troublemakers' activities invisible to everyone else, naturally severing what they most crave from others --attention and reactions]

One of my primary coverage areas is on community platforms (also known as white label social networks) that are used by brands to deploy their own social features on their corporate domain. I’ve come across both Mzinga and Pluck that offer this feature, leave a comment below if you also have this feature.

Community managers have a few options when dealing with troublemakers, the first is to take them on head on, either in private or public, sometimes it leads them to banning them. Banning them (removing their account) often doesn’t solve many issues, instead they may choose to create new accounts, or figure out how to cause additional trouble in subvert ways.

Some community managers who can’t deal any further with these troublemakers are left to only one option, by rendering the troublemaker as a “Bozo” using the communtiy software. What’s the “Bozo” feature? It renders the troublemaker invisible to everyone else.

Troublemakers thrive on the attention they get from others and enjoy stirring up fights, but they won’t know that no one else can see them, and therefore assume everyone is ignoring them, or their ploys hold no weight. As a result, they’ll slowly move away, sometimes never realizing that they’ve been labeled a “Bozo”. This gives the community manager a way to defuse the situation, in a non-confrontational manner, allowing for the troublemaker to quietly move on their own.

Posted in Community Marketing, White Label Social Network | Comments