Jeremiah Owyang

I’ll be at LeWeb London with brands, and the agencies and software vendors who serve them as a keynote and co-host on the social track with Cedric Giorgi , I hope you’ll join us!

I’m pleased to attend LeWeb this June in London (new venue, new date, same quality show) it’s one of the highest production conferences in our space at scale. One of the fantastic things of the high-production global show is the focus on the future of how the web is moving the world, business, and ourselves forward.

I’m glad that Loic has selected the theme “Faster Than Real Time” based on Altimeter’s research themes (Adaptive Org), which will stem the many speeches at the event, and I’ll be there to speak with brands on stage, and conduct research live from these sessions.

What does Faster Than Real Time mean? It means predicting what people want –based on signals, data, and computing.

The amount of data being shared by consumers, and objects around the world is staggering. From body data from Nike+ and Nike Fuel Band, to checkins from consumers on Foursquare to the data rendered in Instagram pictures from mobile devices everything is being captured and shared. Even non-digital items and goods will soon have a digital signature as Google roles out Goggles that allow us to overlay data on everything and anything.

As a result, this data can be processed by machines, allowing us to anticipate and eventually predict what people will want and do, giving rise to an incredible opportunity for brands, governments, and peers to serve up needs before you actually know you need it. For example, Target’s recent example of predicting a young gal was pregnant before her farther actually knew is a bellwether of this future change.

Loic and Geraldine have offered a 100 Gbp discount to readers of the Web Strategy blog, register here and use “JEREMIAH” as the discount code.

See you at LeWeb, London, June.

ps: If you’ve my business card you’ll find the back says “For organizations, real time is not fast enough”

I just love this, I first saw some tweets, from Joshua Salmons a social strategists at USAA (along with Augie Ray), the report coverage starts at minute 14.

This is valuable as we can hear directly from Josh his point of view and what others were saying at this Social Media Breakfast. What’s valuable is hearing from Joshua who actually have this role so I could understand their perspective on the two paths of the corporate strategist. You can read the whole report, to follow along with all of the talking points from Josh, and get the further details. I’ve embedded the key framework, which he references.

Just a point on clarity, the “social media helpdesk” wasn’t clearly articulated, we’ve changed the term to “Social Media Sanitation” as this is a role when strategists will be just cleaning up social media accounts for out-of-control business units (read a report addressing this pain), or constantly responding to customers haphazardly without a scalable strategy for social support (webinar here on how to build a scalable program).

Video streaming by Ustream

We just love how our Open Research reports can spread and impact the good folks work at the world’s largest corporations.

Over the past few years, I’ve tracked the emergence, rise, and growth of this new role within corporations. I see some interesting career opportunities for this powerful role within a corporation. First of all, about this role, while we’ve published a detailed research report on their demographics, psychographics, challenges and aspirations, this role is a major influencer within the corporation, and has a small but growing budget, typically stemming under the CMO or head of corporate communications functions.

Without a doubt, this role is in high demand:  few are qualified, those that are are easily found by recruiters and I’ve heard of some positions with a total comp beyond 200k+ in regulated financial services.  I’ve also been tracking how some folks are switching jobs to respond to the demand, although I’ve cautioned a few to put in a few years before doing this, as it could set a bad record on one’s resume.   Despite the intense demand for this role right now, it’s always important to look towards the future on what’s on the horizon for this talented bunch:

Three Future Career Opportunities for the Corporate Social Strategist:

• Rise into the Head of Customer Experience. That’s right, we’re going to return to customer experience and looking at the entire customer journey (what we call at Altimeter the Dynamic Customer Journey). This role is one of the few in the organization at the business level (not infrastructure or operations) that can span multiple business units and see the entire customer journey from awareness, consideration, purchase, support, and beyond. The opportunity? The Corporate Social Strategist is one of the few that could re-create or lead the customer experience group –or even become a Chief Customer Officer.
• Foster or Lead a New Role in Content Strategy: Working closely with my colleague Rebecca Lieb, she’s illuminated the path on how a new editorial role is emerging in corporations which we’re calling the “Content Strategist” which is part editor-in-chief, orchestra conductor, and herder of pregnant cats (buy the book Content Marketing to get a headstart in your career). With so many business units adopting social, we’ve found the average enterprise corporation has a whopping 178 social media accounts, the number of opportunities –and risks that come with it– are requiring a company to need a new role to tell a consistent story across all channels, all voices, and all tools, in fact Rebecca tells me “It’s critical to note that while this role certainly encompasses social, its purview goes way beyond it: web sites, white papers, events – content is much broader than just social”
• Move into Program Coordination –Or Dissolve The Role Competely: Much like the ‘web master’ role if the late 90s has now become a business function or dedicated social or digital strategist, this role knows that if they can get orginization on board to conduct social in a safe and systamatic way, they’re role becomes more of a coordinator. We’ve discussed at length when this role could potentially go away. The opportunity? Help the company norm to social, and eventually move on to the next technology and help the company re-invent and change, just as they likely helped with the adoption of web, and before that digital communications.

Like all change agents in corporations, sometimes called ‘intra-preneurs’ for their willingness to stick their neck out to advance the company, these folks will certainly find new opportunities in business and lead this wave and the next. Don’t expect this group of calculated risk takers to sit still.

Related Resources

• Open Research Report:  Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist
• See who got hired in this role, I’ve been tracking “on the move” since 2007.
• List of Corporate Social Strategists 2012:  See this updated list of who actually has the role.
• Organizations to meet these peers:  WOMMA, Marketing Profs, SocialMedia.org, Dachis Group Council
• Here’s conferences and webinars I’m attending, where I see these roles.

In a stunning early finding of interviews with nearly a dozen social media agencies and software providers, I’m seeing a new trend: Social media agency of record (SMaoR) are now moving into advertising buying.   I’ve just spent a week interviewing a number of social agencies here in Manhattan as well as taken briefings from around the globe (see below for source info)

Why this dramatic change from social media purists who once declared war on advertising?

The new advertising features from both Facebook and Twitter (Such as sponsored tweets and trends) encourage earned content to become advertising units and give an opportunity for social marketers to get into the advertising game. This also means the opportunity for ads to perform at a higher level because they’ve been ‘approved’ by the crowd is a unique opportunity afforded to the social media agencies vs the ‘carpet bomb’ approach of yesteryear.  This results in three distinct impacts to the industry:

• Advertising is Limited to Social Networks: The advertising units that these agencies are purchasing are often limited to Facebook or Twitter –not broader banner and skyscraper ads across media and Google serp.  In fact, in most cases they’re analyzing which earned content performs the best, then using the features like Twitter’s sponsored tweets to amplify this earned content to reach new audiences and drive attention or call to action.
• Social Media Agencies Don’t Have Solid Case Studies, Yet. Most of these pure play social media firms lack an advertising background and are staffed for engagement.  They also tend to have a longer term approach for community building –not six week ad block flights.  As a result, it doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be able to outperform traditional digital advertisers although most say they’re working on case studies to show higher engagement, and conversion.
• Expect a Battle Between Digital Agencies and Social Media Agencies. Now, there’s going to be a fight over advertising budget as social media agencies battle for small shares of advertising dollars.  We’re also seeing digital agencies develop social competencies and battling the social pure plays.  In the end, I believe we’ll get rid of the term ‘social’ or ‘digital’ as a prefix for any agency as they’ll all have the same competencies, esp after a mass M&A that biz dev execs are already starting to sniff.

Sources: As an Industry Analyst, I’m fortunate to speak to many in the industry for research purposes, In the past few weeks I’ve spoken to Adobe, Attention, Banyan Branch,  Big Fuel, Buddy Media, Converseon, Deep Focus, Edelman, Google+, IBM (Social Products), LiveWorld, SocialFlow, VaynerMedia, We Are Social, and many others.   Our analyst focused on agencies is Rebecca Lieb (Blog, Twitter), although we’re both talking to many-in-the-industry for our upcoming joint report on Paid Owned and Earned integration.

Update: Fast Company’s Francine Hardaway has answered this post discussing how Agencies are Going the Way of the Dodo.

Both the submissions on this job announcement board, as well as available social media positions at corporations continue to pour in. In this continued digest of job changes, I like to salute those that continue to join the industry in roles focused on social media, see the archives, which I’ve been tracking since Q4, 2007.

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People on the Move in the Social Business Industry:

• Tyler Altrup joins EMC Corporation as Senior Social Media Engagement Manager Manages all efforts in social measurement, monetization, and gamification.
• Techcrunch hires or promotes Peter Ha, Frederic Lardinois And New Co-Editor Alexia Tsotsis
• Adam Swart joins iQU as Director of Social Media Responsible for Social strategy and marketing
• Tony Obregon joins Avanade Inc as Global Social Media Manager Develop corporate social media strategy and partner in tactical execution with PR, online/digital, marketing, recruiting and internal communications teams.
• Chris Heffer joins SAP as Social CRM sales Positioning the SAP social CRM offering accross the UKI
• Ken Comee joins Powerreviews as CEO Responsible for vision, strategy, and operations at PowerReviews.
• Marcy Cohen joins MasterCard Worldwide as VP Social Media and Media Relations Focused on advancing MasterCard’s social strategy as well as corporate storytelling via mainstream media.  I’ve worked with Marcy, she’s fantastic, congrats to the MasterCard team.
• Alex Beal joins Accenture Interactive as Marketing Director Driving Digital and Analytics marketing strategy, great to hear, I’ve respected Andy’s work for years.
• Sandy Adam joins ANSYS Inc. as Manager of Social Media Marketing Defining the Global Social Strategy and educating the employees in all things social, from content creation to execution. http://www.linkedin.com/in/sandyadam
• Delphine Remy-Boutang joins www.thesocialbureau.com as founder & CEO Social Business Consultant, Delphine is charming and has been a wonderful practice leader for years, we’ve shared the stage in London.
• Chris Hoskin joins Artesian Solutions as Chief Marketing Officer Responsible for redeveloping Artesian’s brand strategy and aligning marketing with the company’s business strategy

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Submit a new hire:

• Submit a new hire that’s ‘on the move’ with this easy-to-use online form.

Seeking a job?

1. See the Web Strategy Job Board, which includes paid submissions from the top brands in the world.
2. Social Media Jobs Facebook Group
3. Social Media Jobs by Chris Heuer
4. Social Media jobs, filtered by SimplyHired
5. Social Media Job Network by James Durbin
6. 25 places to find social media jobs by Deb Ng

Additional Resources:

• Community Manager Facebook Group
• Community Manager Appreciation Day (Every 4th Monday of Jan, yearly)
• List of corporate web strategists and community managers for 2010
• Social Media Headhunter: Career advice, job postings and services
• New Media Hire community by Jim Long and team

Please congratulate the new hires by leaving a comment below.

I originally posted this on Techcrunch, and cross-posted here on the Web Strategy blog.

If you’re like me, you may have noticed that Twitter may be arbitrarily, randomly, and haphazardly, unfollowing people you fully intended to follow. Similarly, if you’ve ever noticed your friends and contacts unfollowed you, it may have caused a sense of confusion, dread, or self-insecurity. Before one spirals into a series of apologies or deep-depression, it’s likely not your fault, (whew!).

What’s causing this? I’m not sure, so I asked my proper contacts at Twitter who responded “This is a bug, and our team is working to fix it.” They also sent me a link to their support FAQ, which indicates the known issue. I’ll leave it to the team at Twitter to get this resolved, but in the meantime, let’s discuss how we can cope with this industry phenomenon.

Imagine this bug in the physical world: Your dear Aunt Margaret wasn’t invited to your wedding due to mail parcels gone missing, or your executive wasn’t invited to your big presentation meeting because your address book deleted him, or you couldn’t call your best friend to let them know about your funding announcement because his contact info went missing.

The act of following someone in Twitter is an important social indicator for at least three reasons: 1) A follow suggests the individuals content is worthy of listening to and you want to hear their thoughts –even the most mundane ones 2) It’s an important indicator that you’re willing to engage in deeper conversations by receiving direct messages and 3) At a broader social perspective, this is a gesture this person is in your broader social clan, your kin, your affinity.

Importantly, in my line of work (and probably in yours too), direct messages have become a mainstay of communications with clients; in fact, some overloaded executives ask me to DM them, rather than email them. In more than one case has a qualified business request come by direct messages requesting my research and advisory services. Unlike the overloaded email channel, direct messages are an important opt-in business communication channel of higher quality signal.

Despite the business communication opportunity losses, there are broader social impacts that may relationships around you. Just a few days ago, one of my dear colleagues Susan (@Setlinger) pointed out that she wanted to send me some information, but noticed I had unfollowed her and half-jokingly wondered if she’d offended me. This wasn’t any passive-aggressive maneuver by me, I had full intentions to follow her, and quickly apologized and refollowed her.

Yet, I wonder how many business, personal, and casual relationships are strained by the bug haphazardly unfollowing. It causes us to give pause and question the stability of the Twitter infrastructure, usage of my personal data and social network, and what important messages I may have missed from my trusted Twitter network.

So what can you do? If you find that you’ve arbitrarily unfollowed someone in Twitter (or maybe you need an excuse to escape the ex), and you’re in a potential embarrassing situation, I recommend bookmarking this blog post, and sending it your apparent victim, explaining the situation was out of your hands. Hopefully no relationships were damaged, and we can continue happily twitter-ing with relationships salvaged.

I’d love to hear from you, have you been a victim of the bug? How are you coping?

Related Links: My findings spread to Telgraph, Huffington Post, Mashable, Verge, cnet and many others.

Companies should empower their employees to safely use social networks by first guiding, training, and rewarding

While love struck teens are quick to share their Facebook passwords with each other, now a rash of corporations, colleges, and even government employers have been requesting that current employees and future candidates share their personal information by exposing their social networking accounts. Why do companies require access to this information? They seek to find out exactly how the individual behaves, or represents the company or previous company. Imagine being an interview and getting to the final stages then the recruiter offers a job offer with the only requirement access to personal social networking sites, “If you’ve nothing to hide, then its not an issue, right?”

Facebook made statements on how individual privacy was important, and released a statement on how they would: “We’ll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action”.  They then followed up that they would not take legal action by clarifying that: “While we do not have any immediate plans to take legal action against any specific employers, we look forward to engaging with policy makers and other stakeholders, to help better safeguard the privacy of our users”.   No clear solutions were provided, other than a shaking finger.

Companies Should Examine How Advanced Corporations Prepare for Social Business
Facebook didn’t clear up the solution, so here’s how I would approach the situation if these were clients I was working with, instead I would reference Altimeter’s recent research on How Advanced Corporations Prepare for Social Business (Report) and highlight how companies like Intel, Dell, Adobe, HRBlock have prepared their companies through a series of programs including governance, policies, training, and beyond. Companies should follow the social business hierarchy of needs, and should:

• Start with Governance via Policies that are Easy to Understand. Provide Clear Policies on what’s expected in employee behavior on social networking, and what’s not expected. A clear FAQ, like Cisco’s social media program guidelines, should be offered free of legalese.
• Offer an Internal Training Program for Existing and New Hires. Secondly, offer training programs, both like Intel’s Digital IQ online course for employees, supplemented with an online quiz in order to be a certified Social Media Professional (SMP. As well as offer ongoing training programs, and in person peer based learning sessions like Dell’s social media and communities (SMaC) university.
• Reward Good Behavior and Foster a Culture Of Safe Enablement. Finally, rather than penalize employees for bad behavior, instead reward them like Salesforce has rewarded internal employees, dubbed the “Chateratti” for helping each other, and the top 25 were invited to a leadership offsite event.

A knee jerk reaction of companies is to either ban access to social networks (an ineffective strategy due to proliferation of mobile devices) or to break down trust by not empowering employees to do what’s right by demanding access to social networks.

Update: Augie Ray has similar thoughts, broken out by viewpoints for Employer and Employee

Altimeter Groups’s latest Open Research report (available on creative commons for you to download, use, and share) is now available from analyst Brian Solis. This report, which challenges the way that companies measure influence points out how tools like Klout, Kred, Empire Avenue and beyond.

[Physics Measures Both Potential and Kinetic Energy. Similarly, Digital Influence must measure Both Social Capital (Potential) as well as Actual Influence (Kinetic)]

In fact, companies are quick to add influence metrics into their social support systems, and marketing prioritization despite having full understanding of how these measurement tools actually create their indexes. This report, written as a playbook for businesses focuses on how to benefit from desirable effects and outcomes through social media influence. The report also helps consumers and academics understand how influence is scored and how these scores affect online reputations.

Open Research Highlights:
We practice Open Research, and hope you use it, share it, which enables us to create more. Here’s some key insights from the report, that drew my attention.

• Influence is largely misunderstood, in fact the report makes a nod that these tools like Klout, Kred actually measure social capital — not your influence but instead, your potential for it.
• None of the vendor services evaluated in the report measure true influence. Today’s software algorithms track social capital and topical authority based on online activity
• The report helps companies understand how influence spreads, and includes case studies in which brands partnered with vendors to recruit connected consumers for digital influence campaigns.
• The report evaluates 14 Influence vendors, organizing them by Reach, Resonance, and Relevance: the Three Pillars that make up the foundation for Digital Influence as defined in the report – not every service is designed to provide a total solution for every business need.
• The report includes an Influence Framework and an Influence Action Plan to help brands identify connected consumers and to define and measure strategic digital influence initiatives.

The Rise of Digital Influence

View more documents from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare

The report demonstrates a path how businesses should properly measure the impact of influence –not just look at an index number. Note how the further to the right, it actually demonstrates the outcome of the influencer, their network, and what actually happened.

Above is a sample: Dive into report to see feature comparison of all vendors, which breaks down feature comparison by: Score, Reach, Influencer Relationship Management, and beyond.

Related Discussions
I’ll cross-link to thoughtful discussions reviewing the report below

• Techcrunch: Klout and PeerIndex Don’t Measure Influence. Brian Solis Explains What They Actually Do
• All Things D: Turf War in SOMA: Klout vs. Kred
• David Armano: Thoughts On Altimeter’s Digital Influence Report
• Brian Solis: Report: The Rise of Digital Influence
• Fast Company: The Rise Of Digital Influence In Marketing
• Mashable: Klout doesn’t really measure influence
• Vendor POV: Traackr: Brian Solis’ “The Rise of Digital Influence” – a bit too shallow?
• eCairn: Digital Influence Rennaisance
• Janson Group: Is Klout a Crock?
• Rebecca Lieb (Altimeter): How to Influence Influencers
• bub.blicio.us: What’s In A Score? Altimeter Group Explains What Brands Really Need To Know About “Influencers”
• Emmanuel Vivier: The Rise of Digital Influence
• Ragan: Klout Doesn’t Measure What It Claims
• Movable Content: The Truth About Klout & Social Media Influence
• Paid Content: The Difference Between Popularity and Influence
• Never Stop Marketing: Focus on Digital Influence, but not solely
• Greenough: Is Klout-Score Marketing the Path of Least Resistance?
• Bostinno: Does Social Influence Matter?
• Bradley Leimer: The Rise of Digital Influence by Brian Solis

Learn about Altimeter’s three business disruption themes and upcoming report agenda to learn how our research will the industry forward.

Edit: I updated the post to include the phrase about potential and kinetic energy based of a conversation with Richard at Dell.

Both the submissions on this job announcement board, as well as available social media positions at corporations continue to pour in. In this continued digest of job changes, I like to salute those that continue to join the industry in roles focused on social media, see the archives, which I’ve been tracking since Q4, 2007.

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People on the Move in the Social Business Industry:

• Congrats to long time Tech blogger Eric Eldon now the Senior Editor at Techcrunch, which is part of the AOL family. I’ve known Eric for a number of years and his rise within the blogosphere has been the rising trajectory. Congrats Eric.
• Sameer Patel joins SAP as an Executive focused on advancing Social Enterprise Strategy, congrats to SAP, it’s been great knowing Sameer and we’ve interacted on a number of ocassions.
• Adam Singer joins Google, as Product Marketing Manager of Google Analytics.  I’ve known Adam for a number of years and he’s been a thought leader in his space, and I’m excited to see this move, congrats.
• Jessica Lee joins Marriott International as director, digital talent strategy. Jessica has joined Marriott International in a newly created role to lead digital strategy for all talent related initiatives. With a toe dipped in the water of all things digital including leveraging social gaming for recruiting, Jessica will help Marriott jump in fully to explore all the possibilities of engaging potential talent in the digital realm for its 17 brands, presence in 70 countries and nearly 4000 locations.
• Julio Viskovich joins HootSuite as Corporate Sales Trainer responsible for developing and delivering a successful sales training program for HootSuite Media Inc.
• Stephanie Schierholz joins Raytheon Company as Social Media Manager Stephanie will serve as the day-to-day liaison between the Raytheon brand and its external, online communities.
• Tiffany Monhollon joins ReachLocal as Senior Manager, Content Marketing Manager focused on company and product social media presence; manage company blogs; oversee social media policy for employees; manage content marketing team in creation of learning center and premium content like infographics, ebooks, videos, presentations; support marketing of company social media and web presence service
• Donna Itzoe Long joins Raytheon as Interactive Media & Design Senior Manager develop comprehensive online and social media strategy for the company’s IIS business.
• Tiffany Monhollon joins ReachLocal as Senior Manager, Content Marketing Manager company and product social media presence; manage company blogs; oversee social media policy for employees; manage content marketing team in creation of learning center and premium content like infographics, ebooks, videos, presentations; support marketing of company social media and web presence service.
• Alicia Boknevitz joins 7Summits as User Experience Designer creating compelling community experiences that engage target audiences by meeting their special needs
• Richard Ciardo joins 7Summits as Senior Software Engineer developing integrated collaboration and community solutions inside and outside the experience
• Kent Heberling joins 7Summits as Developer producing cutting edge user interaction implementation with JavaScript, HTML5 and more
• Eric Porres joins Rocket Fuel as CMO oversight for marketing operations
• Jeff Cowen joins 7Summits as Strategic Account Director Developing lifetime custom relationships in higher education, Financial Services, and Healthcare
• Frank Nichols joins 7Summits as Strategic Account Director Developing lifetime custom relationships in Manufacturing, High Technology, Telco, Consumer Products, and Retail
• Denise Terry joins RingCentral as Head of Social & Corporate Communications Transform us into a social enterprise, enable engagement within and with customers
• Baochi Nguyen joins RingCentral as Senior Manager of Social Strategy Manage social strategy and the Social Center of Excellence
• Kevin Daniels joins Mass Relevance as Director of Product Management drive forward product strategy and roadmap
• Shaun Dakin joins EDF – Moms Clean Air Force as Social Media Director All social media strategy and tactics for this groundbreaking advocacy program
• Bill Piwonka joins Janrain as VP Marketing Bill will oversee all marketing activities for Janrain.
• Jonathan Nafarrete joins Blitz Agency as Director of Social Outreach Will lead social outreach and digital PR.
• Cullen O’Brien joins 7Summits as Vice President of Account Services In his role, O’Brien will work with clients to understand their business objectives and apply 7Summits’ industry-leading social business services and knowledge to craft solutions that meet those objectives.
• Ashley Quincey joins Agency Oasis as Business Development Director Ashley is spearheading all the new business development efforts for Agency Oasis; A full service digital marketing agency that specializes in interactive marketing campaigns, website design and website development.
• Bryan Sise joins Lithium Technologies as Director of Product Marketing, Social Media Bryan will be responsible for marketing and product strategy for Lithium’s social marketing solutions, LevelUp Facebook applications, and social media monitoring technology.
• Michael DiLorenzo joins Rue La La as Vice President, Audience Development Recruited to acquire, activate and monetize retail consumers through social, mobile and extended digital networks.
• Christopher Fleener joins The New School as Social Media Director As Social Media Director, I plan and oversee a comprehensive social media strategy for The New School in New York City.

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Submit a new hire:

• Submit a new hire that’s ‘on the move’ with this easy-to-use online form.

Seeking a job?

1. See the Web Strategy Job Board, which includes paid submissions from the top brands in the world.
2. Social Media Jobs Facebook Group
3. Social Media Jobs by Chris Heuer
4. Social Media jobs, filtered by SimplyHired
5. Social Media Job Network by James Durbin
6. 25 places to find social media jobs by Deb Ng

Additional Resources:

• Community Manager Facebook Group
• Community Manager Appreciation Day (Every 4th Monday of Jan, yearly)
• List of corporate web strategists and community managers for 2010
• Social Media Headhunter: Career advice, job postings and services
• New Media Hire community by Jim Long and team

Please congratulate the new hires by leaving a comment below.

This Week in Tech by Leo Leporte is one of the top shows featuring tech trends, new gadgets, and business and social trends. In addition to our host Leo Leporte, it featured Jeff Jarvis, Gina Trapani, and myself. The timing was great, I was invited as the only member of this group to give a recap of SXSW, which Leo proclaimed it’s “too much”. Gina and Jeff chimed in, and we discussed the location based apps, celebs, brands, and even how I stopped a fight with an LED flashlight (I often carry this 300+ lumen Fenix) in a dark alley (minute 25) until Leo started to distract me by wiping pie all over his face.

Overall SXSW is getting really large. Too big? Hard to tell. If you’re going there to network, meet others, and experiment with new technologies in an active petri dish, this is a good place. If you’re there to foster intimate discussions, launch products, or host large events where you have mindshare, this is not it. I often say SXSW is the physical manifestation of Twitter fleeting conversations in a rabid manner leave your head spinning. This is also a great time to kill off a product, as Gowalla shuttered their doors, and no one noticed. On the other hand, this is a sign that the industry is maturing, as more brands, large software companies move into this space. If you want to learn about the four observations at SXSW, here’s my wrapup.

We even discussed the internet of things, around Samsung’s Wifi fridges, Nike FuelBand, and data coming from watches and beyond. At Altimeter, we’re researching this disruption and label this trend as the “Sentient World”

Beyond the SXSW coverage, we discussed Google trends, privacy, and new forms of body data, you can see the embedded video below, or view the Twit site. Later, Leo gave me a tour of the most sophisticated podtech studio (they’ve over 6 sets) and a very sophisticated setup, deep programming, and a professional –yet fun– staff of 20+ folks. If you’re a company seeking to reach tech enthusiasts, it’s worth taking a look at their partnerships, this is a sophisticated operation.