Twitter Quitter Not Bitter

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Over on Authenticities, the Edelman Digital weblog, I wrote about Hugh Mcleod's abrupt, yet cordial departure from Twitter and whether a mass exodus is brewing. If you're not subscribed I highly recommend it. We're blogging daily. I and I have been posting there weekly. You can get the feed here.(On an unrelated note, I picked up this great book on how the New York Post writes headlines. I want that job in my next life. The headline on this blog post was my first attempt. Like it?) Go to site

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» Digital Nomads Rising
The following is also my column in Advertising Age next week.As I write this column, all the talk is about the recession. There were nearly 40,000 stories in Google News in the last week mentioning the R-word. In addition, a gallon of gas, now at four dollars, may hit seven bucks by 2010, according to CIBC World Markets. Meanwhile, layoff announcements are up 21% in 2008, Challenger, Gray and Christmas reports.Recessions often accelerate social shifts that are already percolating under the surface. One of the key trends I have been watching is the growing number of Digital Nomads.If you spend as much time on the road as I do, you’re likely to run into Digital Nomads. This sector of the workforce includes both independents and corporate workers. They use web-based tools like Twitter, wikis, Google Docs, social networks and Skype to collaborate and work wherever, whenever and however they want.Digital Nomads are already extremely influential. Many of them blog and hang out on sites like Web Worker Daily. In addition, they shun traditional communication tools like email.Luis Suarez is one such corporate nomad who I met recently at a conference in Brussels. Suarez has a successful career in knowledge management with IBM. He lives in the Canary Islands and has virtually eliminated all business email in favor collaborating via social networks. Suarez has chronicled this extensively on his blog.Others are declaring free agency. Charlene Li, an influential Forrester analyst who tracks digital trends, blogged that she is leaving the research firm to become go independent. Some believe that the growing ranks of free-agent analysts may spell trouble for traditional research firms.The reality is that many of the tools that workers need to do their jobs are becoming free or low cost. This extends into verticals as well. For example the Google Ad Planner, which launched last week, theoretically could allow anyone to become a nomadic media planner.Digital Nomads are growing in numbers and they will create ripples. This trend will accelerate use of Web 2.0 technologies in the workplace. Over time, this may slow the efficacy of email marketing and accelerate the reliance on social media engagement in marketing.However, it goes deeper than that. If you don't allow your employees to become nomadic, they may do so and even compete against you in the process.
» Should You Rent or Buy Social Real Estate?
Photo: Abandoned farm shed by serendipitypeace2007, modified under a Creative Commons license.Anyone looking for a place to live invariably needs to first answer this question: "should I rent or buy?" Each has pros and cons. If you rent a house or an apartment, you control your own destiny. It's easy to get out if you want to move. Then again, you're limited in what you can do to remodel.On the other side, owning real estate has advantages too - a tax break, flexibility and potentially a lot income if you flip it later on. The downsides? Lots. You can't easily sell in a down market and you're on your own when it comes to repairs.The same can be said about choosing where to participate online. I had this discussion recently with a colleague who asked me why I am investing all this time in building Twitter's "equity" rather than doing so on my own blog, which I have been writing for four years now. It was a rather thought-provoking question.Running a blog on your own domain (even if you use a hosted provider like TypePad, as I do), carries with it lots of perks. I can remodel pretty much any way I want as long as I follow proper blog protocols. I can track my returns - Google Juice, subscribers, comments, traffic, leads, press quotes, etc. TypePad really doesn't realize the same kind of benefits that I do personally by writing this blog. Then again, it has downsides too. Namely, Twitter has community built in.Investing time on Twitter, on the other hand, truly is starting to feel like renting. When the landlord is doing a good job, everyone is happy. When the landlord is negligent, the tenants get testy and threaten to move. I now view Twitter like a summer rental that you hope doesn't get hit by a hurricane while my blog is casa de Steve. I may be alone here.It seems to me like "renting" online equity is now what's in vogue. Long-form blogging is less prevalent because the competition for attention from pro-bloggers is step. That's why I love the Friendfeed model. It's like a co-op. I can invest in my blog and realize benefits not only here but also on Frienfeed. Or, I can invest in Twitter and see the same return on Friendfeed, though certain provisions apply. You're still beholden to the landlord.I remain a fan of all of these services. However, the big question on my mind of late is this: where should we invest our time and sweat equity online? Will people continue to build equity in sites like Twitter that have community today, but most likely will be gone one day? Or should we look for hybrids like Friendfeed where we can take control? If the marketplace for online equity is as cyclical as the real estate biz, then change is a given.
» Measure Traffic with the Google Web Site Trends Bookmarklet
Google yesterday added a significant feature to Google Trends. You can now enter in URLs and get back rather rich site traffic data. Barry Schwartz has a great rundown. I will have more to say about this shortly as I play with it over the weekend. However, in the meantime, I wanted to share this bookmarklet I created. All you need to do is drag the link below to your bookmarks. If you're on a web site and you want to know its traffic is, just hit the link and if it's big enough to be in the Google Trends database you will get back data.Google Web Site Trends This!
» How Friendfeed will Change PR and Marketing
If it feels quiet here and even on my Twitter stream you are right. It has been. The reason is Friendfeed. I have become hopelessly addicted to the site. I am sharing a lot of links there that I don't pump into del.icio.us or Twitter, so I recommend picking up my aggregate lifestream feed here. However, if you just want my blog posts, no worries, that feed continues to syndicate.(By the way, one advantage to subscribing to my lifestream is that the feed includes comments from other Friendfeed users. I may start to aggregate replies from other services too. To be revisited.)Despite what some think, I am not being paid by Friendfeed to endorse their service. Rather, I have been playing with it extensively... and thinking about it deeply.  Like veteran web watcher Robert Seidman, I too am incredibly excited about its potential.Over the last 12 months two quotes really got me thinking in a whole new way ..."Content finds you." - Dan Scheinman, Cisco Systems"If the news is important, it will find me." - unnamed college studentNow add one more nugget to this cake mix: 58% of opinion elites 35-64 in 18 countries said they trust "a person like me," according to the Edelman Trust Barometer. This has been growing steadily since 2003.People are increasingly turning to their peers for news, information and recommendations. And Friendfeed is more than an aggregation site or a community that's layered on top of others. It's a recommendation engine that surfaces content (both pro and amateur) via your peers - and that's huge. Sure there are things wrong with it, but I believe Friendfeed is the next big thing online for consumers. It could even become the nextGoogle. Still, even if Friendfeed can't monetize and someone else supplantsit, like Blogger, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter before it, it has already made a huge impact on the Web.In the next couple of posts I will focus on how Friendfeed is going to change PR and marketing, even if should fade away. In short, it's big. Stay tuned.
» links for 2008-06-08
RSS Advertising Shows Signs of Life - ClickZ"A mounting body of evidence suggests in-feed ad delivery is a growing opportunity for marketers and publishers alike"(tags: rss Advertising Stats)European Online Ad Spend Gains on U.S. - ClickZ"Online ad spend in Europe grew to $17.4 billion in 2007, according to the results of the IAB Europe's annual AdEx survey, released today."(tags: Advertising Stats Europe)MediaPost - Email Preferred Communicator by Consumers For Business Dealing" 67% of consumers prefer email as a primary method of communications in their personal and business capacities, and 65% will continue to prefer email in the future (despite Web 2.0)"(tags: Email Trends Stats)Indystar - Get set to have advertising along for the ride in your car"The digital revolution long promised for your car - known in the automotive business as telematics - has arrived."(tags: Advertising automobiles Telematics Trends)Backlinks Tag Cloud Widget - Show Who is Linking to You as a Tag Cloud (Beta)(tags: Widgets Tags Blogs)Who Blogs Now? - eMarketer"Blogging has gone mainstream, and what was once a quirky hobby based on sharing intimate details with the world has morphed into something used by major corporations and media outlets. "(tags: Blogs Stats emarketer)iPaper@Scribd - Email Attachments Made Simple and Safe | Scribd(tags: lifehacks scribd Email)Convert Your Paper to iPaper | Scribd(tags: lifehacks scanning paper)
» links for 2008-05-21
YouTube Adds a Video Channel for Citizen Journalists(tags: CitizenJournalism youtube)Why I???m kissing Tumblr a sad, sad good-bye ?? 16th letter ?? Blog ArchiveApparently, Tumblr doesn't get a lot of love from Google.(tags: tumblr lifestreaming SEO GoogleJuice Google)Techmeme SearchTechmeme adds search.(tags: techememe memetrackers Search Blogs)Google LatLong: Extra! Extra! Discover the world's news in Google EarthLike chocolate and peanut butter all in one.(tags: GoogleEarth googlenews Google Mashups)
» Why Your Car May Soon Be Driving Digital Advertising
Photo credit: Really Simple Syndication by Shira GoldlingThe following is also my column this week in Advertising Age.If you think there's already enough to distract you in your life, just wait. With Americans spending 100 hours a year commuting, according to the Census Bureau, the internet is coming to your car in a big way -- and not just to the front seat either.Dashboard navigation systems provide a natural entry point. Year-over-year unit sales of GPS devices grew nearly 500% during the 2007 holiday season, according to NPD.Several GPS manufacturers such as Tele Atlas, which supplies systems to the automakers, already display the logos of nearby fast-food restaurants' gas stations. However, the screens are quickly getting more useful -- or cluttered, depending on your point of view. Navigon's high-end model, for example, features helpful restaurant reviews and ratings from Zagat.Soon, devices that can both send and receive data will hit the market. Dash, for example, is integrating Web 2.0 crowdsourcing into its systems, allowing cars to send information back to the company to improve traffic calculations. As mobile broadband becomes more ubiquitous, it's conceivable that these devices will soon talk to your cellphone via Bluetooth and, thus, talk to social networks as well.With send/receive capabilities and overall bandwidth improving, local contextual advertising, perhaps rich-media-based, is just around the corner. Google already allows users in Europe to send directions from the web to maps on connected dashboards. Microsoft is working on a system through its Sync technology to provide ad-supported, location-based information for which users would normally pay. (Disclosure: Navigon, Microsoft and Zagat are clients of Edelman, my employer.)The back seat offers perhaps more immediate promise for TV advertisers in search of new venues. In March Sirius and Chrysler launched an in-car video network called Backseat TV. The subscription service carries kids programming from Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. Kids weaned on the service will surely demand more as the technology gets more sophisticated, perhaps to the chagrin of parents.And therein lies the rub: Marketers will need to strike a careful balance to protect privacy and to not push into a space that many consider sacrosanct. However, given the size and captive nature of the in-car audience, the digital-advertising potential is becoming very clear.
» Open Files: Nine Digital Trends for the Future
Every day a new social network is born and yet another dies. This makes spotting digital trends and tracking them to be challenging at times. However, I have found a system that works really well called Open Files. It was developed by George Stalk at the Boston Consulting Group (an Edelman client). It's become the framework for my latest talk, which I have been giving around the world.Stalk tracks trends by breaking them down into three distinct buckets - faint signals that are here and now trends with real consumer movement and business models, a watch list - new directions that are emerging but may not be ready for primetime, and hallucinations, flashes that, if you squint, might vanish.You can read a description of the nine big trends in my Open Files and peruse my deck over on Authentcities, the Edelman Digital blog. The trends include:Faint Signals: The Cut and Paste Web, The Attention Crash, Digital Curators, Super Crunching and CollaborationWatch List: Living Room 2.0. and Geek MarkterersHallucinations: Digital Nomads and Data Leaking
» Is Friendfeed the Next Big Thing or are We Just Bored 2.0?
Over the last several weeks I have become utterly addicted to Friendfeed. If you're not tracking me there already, you might want to. You can pick up the feed here or just hit this page.Friendfeed aggregates all of my content, including my Twitter updates and Google Reader shared items. I am also using it to share my favorite YouTube videos and Flickr photos, something I haven't done elsewhere. It's basically the mother of all social networks because it can capture everything from you and your friends - real or imaginary.While some complain about the noise, I have found that Friendfeed can be very helpful f you keep it confined to a small group of people who help you accomplish what you're trying to do. Part of this lies in hiding certain social sites and taking full advantage of the powerful but simple feature set. In my case, I use it to keep up with my colleagues and people who generally share valuable links.Still, as great as Friendfeed is, there's a question that keeps gnawing at me: are we looking at the next Twitter or the next Jaiku? What I mean here is Friendfeed going supernova or is that that we are simply bored and looking for the next big thing. Remember, we have a habit of this!I posed the question over on the site this morning: Is Friendfeed the next big thing or are we just bored? Discuss. Eager to hear your thoughts either here or on Friendfeed (or here or here, or wait, here - yikes too many comments in too many places).
» Why Your Car May Soon Be Driving Digital Advertising
Photo credit: Really Simple Syndication by Shira GoldlingThe following is also my column this week in Advertising Age.If you think there's already enough to distract you in your life, just wait. With Americans spending 100 hours a year commuting, according to the Census Bureau, the internet is coming to your car in a big way -- and not just to the front seat either.Dashboard navigation systems provide a natural entry point. Year-over-year unit sales of GPS devices grew nearly 500% during the 2007 holiday season, according to NPD.Several GPS manufacturers such as Tele Atlas, which supplies systems to the automakers, already display the logos of nearby fast-food restaurants' gas stations. However, the screens are quickly getting more useful -- or cluttered, depending on your point of view. Navigon's high-end model, for example, features helpful restaurant reviews and ratings from Zagat.Soon, devices that can both send and receive data will hit the market. Dash, for example, is integrating Web 2.0 crowdsourcing into its systems, allowing cars to send information back to the company to improve traffic calculations. As mobile broadband becomes more ubiquitous, it's conceivable that these devices will soon talk to your cellphone via Bluetooth and, thus, talk to social networks as well.With send/receive capabilities and overall bandwidth improving, local contextual advertising, perhaps rich-media-based, is just around the corner. Google already allows users in Europe to send directions from the web to maps on connected dashboards. Microsoft is working on a system through its Sync technology to provide ad-supported, location-based information for which users would normally pay. (Disclosure: Microsoft and Zagat are clients of Edelman, my employer.)The back seat offers perhaps more immediate promise for TV advertisers in search of new venues. In March Sirius and Chrysler launched an in-car video network called Backseat TV. The subscription service carries kids programming from Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. Kids weaned on the service will surely demand more as the technology gets more sophisticated, perhaps to the chagrin of parents.And therein lies the rub: Marketers will need to strike a careful balance to protect privacy and to not push into a space that many consider sacrosanct. However, given the size and captive nature of the in-car audience, the digital-advertising potential is becoming very clear.
» links for 2008-05-26
InformationWeek - FriendFeedGood example of how the media is moving into Friendfeed.(tags: Journalism Media FriendFeed aggregation informationweek)Is FriendFeed Down?This site says it all. These guys know how to scale.(tags: FriendFeed Fun)YackTrack.com: HomeInteresting tool for tracking conversations across the web. It's not perfect. Also needs RSS.(tags: Search aggregation Comments conversation mashup Tools)Comcast Q&A - FriendFeedComcast customer service is using Friendfeed Rooms. Smart.(tags: comcast CustomerService FriendFeed)BIGGEST DRAWING IN THE WORLDUsing GPS and DHL someone found the "man in the Earth."(tags: DHL GPS geotagging fun)PRWeek - FriendFeedMore media on Friendfeed.(tags: Journalism Media aggregation RSS FriendFeed PRWeek)
» Is Friendfeed the Next Big Thing or are We Just Bored?
Over the last several weeks I have become utterly addicted to Friendfeed. If you're not tracking me there already, you might want to. You can pick up the feed here or just hit this page.Friendfeed aggregates all of my content, including my Twitter updates and Google Reader shared items. I am also using it to share my favorite YouTube videos and Flickr photos, something I haven't done elsewhere. It's basically the mother of all social networks because it can capture everything from you and your friends - real or imaginary.While some complain about the noise, I have found that Friendfeed can be very helpful f you keep it confined to a small group of people who help you accomplish what you're trying to do. Part of this lies in hiding certain social sites and taking full advantage of the powerful but simple feature set. In my case, I use it to keep up with my colleagues and people who generally share valuable links.Still, as great as Friendfeed is, there's a question that keeps gnawing at me: are we looking at the next Twitter or the next Jaiku? What I mean here is Friendfeed going supernova or is that that we are simply bored and looking for the next big thing. Remember, we have a habit of this!I posed the question over on the site this morning: Is Friendfeed the next big thing or are we just bored? Discuss."" Eager to hear your thoughts either here or there.
» iGoogle to Get Ads This Summer, Is Google Reader Next?
Google developer Dan Holevoet published the roadmap for the forthcoming changes to the iGoogle personalized home page. You can check out the presentation here.The site, which anecdotally I can tell you is getting very popular, will get a new canvas view (below) starting in June and social features over the summer. However, what's most notable is that iGoogle is getting ads. They have not shown yet what this will look like visually. However, there is more info posted in an official FAQ.iGoogle Canvas.jpgAccording to the Google deck and FAQ, ads will appear embedded in the widgets themselves and only in the new canvas view - offering developers a way to monetize. In addition, Google will solicit feedback from users as they go. However, I wonder if this is going to add to the clutter of the site. Further, I would be interested if the developers use Open Social features to make the ads as social as the widgets promise to become.Meanwhile in related news, Google Reader is closing in on Bloglines, according to new data from Hitwise. The site is currently free of ads but with Google's purchase of Feedburner I wonder if a Gmail-like model is in the works for this site too - particularly as its use increases. Ideally this would encourage feed owners to join Feedburner's ad networks and share in the monetization in and Adsense like model.
» links for 2008-05-18
Five Basics for Building a Solid Financial Future - New York Times(tags: finance lifehacks)Minddriven: The fastest ToDo List is a ToDo Album ...Photos are faster than text sometimes.(tags: lifehacks todolist Photography iphone Mobile)Robert Scoble on the Best iPhone Applications | Fast Company"Eighteen programs that add skyrockets to your 'genius phone.'"(tags: Scoble iphone Blego)They’re All Connected - New York Times"Electronic communication in residential buildings has gotten a lift in the New York region in recent years with so many new condominiums hardwired for the Internet."(tags: community realestate NYC)This is Spinal Tap (iTunes Store link)This movie "goes to 11" and it's now available for rental and sale!(tags: movies iTunes)FriendFeedLinks | Most popular links shared on FriendFeed(tags: memetrackers FriendFeed aggregation)TweetWire.com Twitter News"TweetWire.com is a neo-newspaper that grabs the freshest links posted to Twitter. "(tags: memetracker news twitter mashup Journalism)Generation Y For Dummies: We Trail Early Adopters | SheGeeks(tags: geny Trends demographics technographics)It's a small world, thanks to Google Earth - USATODAY.comWalt DIsney World invades Google Earth come next Tuesday.(tags: GoogleEarth Disney Travel tourism Mashups)Texting Services - Mobile - New York Times(tags: newyorktimes SMS Mobile)
» The Promise and Peril of Ubiquitous Community
The following is also my column in next week's AdAge.Over the last five years I have been asked countless times: "Steve, what's the next hot online community?" It seems as though everybody is on the lookout for the successor to MySpace, Twitter or Facebook. Nobody, even in a difficult economic climate, wants to be viewed as a latecomer.Perhaps as a defense mechanism to avoid being wrong myself, I now give a boilerplate answer that I believe can last. In short, the next big community is not a single destination. Rather, it is going to be everywhere. To paraphrase Forrester analyst Charlene Li, social networking is becoming "like air."She writes on her blog:"I thought about my grade-school kids, who in 10 years will be in the midst of social network engagement. I believe they (and we) will look back to 2008 and think it archaic and quaint that we had to go to a destination like Facebook or LinkedIn to 'be social.'"Instead, I believe that in the future, social networks will be like air. They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be."This represents a significant shift. For the past 15 years, online communities have primarily existed as stand-alone destinations rather than the web's equivalent of running water or electricity.The problem, however, is that this model can't scale. Tastes change and people are always migrating to trendier sites-especially as their friends do. As a result, the Internet amber is littered with fossilized communities that once dominated. These former stalwarts include AOL, Angelfire, TheGlobe.com, GeoCities and Tripod.Community today is a different animal. People now expect it to be part of virtually every online experience. Most media companies now allow users to leave comments or even create profiles. Hundreds of thousands of brands, NGOs and individuals have set up their own social networks on Ning.com. The entire web is going social.Now, however, connective tissue is emerging to bring these individual points of lights together as virtual constellations. Google and Facebook have each launched systems that allow sites to plug into their architectures to turn them social. The tools equip site owners to enable visitors to tap their existing networks and connections in a way that adds value to the total experience. So imagine a Facebook user who can easily see on Digg.com which stories his or her friends voted up. Or a non-technical site developer who, with a few small lines of code, can add utilities such as reviews, members' galleries and message boards to their sites or applications.As exciting as this is, the transition of community from a handful of big reach sites to a ubiquitous platform is incredibly disruptive for marketers. It essentially makes social network advertising, which according to anecdotal evidence is already a mixed bag, even more difficult. (And thus monetizing social networks.)The end result is that marketers will need to shift the way they approach communities. Static advertising is no longer viable. The solution is collaboration. Marketers will need to tap these emerging social operating systems to build meaningful connections through their sites and others before competitors do.Participation is no longer optional and the fist movers who dedicate resources will win.
» Friendfeed's Business Model Will Look Like Google's
I love Friendfeed. However, I am far more enthusiastic about the platform's robust RSS and search capabilities than its current value proposition as a universal social aggregator. I find it generates too much noise at times, but when you tap its search/RSS tools you have a killer app.As I recently noted Friendfeed's imaginary friend feature is incredibly powerful. In addition, so are its advanced search capabilities. Combine them and this is where things get interesting.Here's an example. I haven't tried this yet. But my gut is that you can actually use Friendfeed to create a Google Coop-like scoped search tool just for Twitter. Simply take the Twitter public timeline feed and add it as an imaginary friend. Now you can scan the full text of every tweet - even if Summize should go belly up one day. In addition, you can generate RSS feeds against this imaginary for any term you want to track. The public timeline too much for you? No problem. Just take your personalized Twitter friendstream feed and now you can data mine just your peeps.This is just the beginning. Friendfeed benefits immensely from the network effect. The more individuals that aggregate their social streams with the service, the more it can be data mined and thus monetized - and its power grows.So, for argument's sake, let's say in a year that even 50% of people who actively publish online aggregate their streams with Friendfeed. Suddenly you have a competitor that in utility could eclipse most of the vertical social search engines like Technorati, Google Blog Search and Summize. Friendfeed doesn't index the full text of blog feeds yet but I suspect one day they will give publishers the ability to opt-in.Now, what if Friendfeed were to wrap Google Adsense contextual ads around keyword searches just as it becomes the de-facto source for searching the social web. Think that's big? I do. And that fact that Friendfeed's founders come from Google probably bodes well for such a model. Stay tuned.
» What's the Future Like for a "Renaissance Man" in a Connected World?
leo.jpgAnyone who knows me well would never call me a Renaissance Man, which from here on in I will call a Polymath to keep this post gender-neutral. A Polymath is "a person with encyclopedic, broad, or varied knowledge or learning." It's an individual who knows a lot about a great many things. Leonardo Da Vinci and his famous notebooks, naturally, spring to mind. I may know a lot about the digital landscape, but I could never be a Polymath. I blame the Internet.Even though the web makes it easier than ever for an individual to stay reasonably informed about a great many subjects, my gut is that people go deep into their interests at the expense of being well rounded. The implications are significant for business and society overall. The web is deepening specialization and giving rise to experts that become highly successful in a given domain. This is a trend that Seth Godin champions in his great book The Dip. In addition, it's what Markus Buckingham recently talked about with Oprah as a ticket to success in one's career and life. (For more, check out the podcast on iTunes.)I have seen this vividly in my own life. I used to read three newspapers a day. I also never missed the local 11 o'clock news every night. I excelled at current events quizzes in school. No more. Since I started living in my feed reader, I became blissfully ignorant about the world, facing an ever-pressing need to stay current in my domain of expertise. Case in point: when three New York City cops accused of killing a newlywed were recently set free and it made national news, I had no idea that there was even a trial going on. Worse, I hadn't heard about the crime itself, which took place back in 2006.So my question to all of you is - what is the future for the Polymath? Once this was a ticket to success. Now is it equally a way to fail in an increasingly specialized world? Do you know any Polymaths? They seem to be dwindling in number as we spend more time online.
» links for 2008-05-05
How to tag nearly anything anywhere in Leopard | Dennis Best(tags: OSX Leopard Tags spotlight lifehacks)Geek Tip: Keep Your iPod Cords Untangled For Free | geeksugar(tags: ipod iphone lifehacks)Is Your Consumer Using Social Media? - Advertising Age - Digital"Nine Profiles of Who Your Targets Are and Where They Might Be Online"(tags: Advertising socialmedia Marketing demographics psychographics)
» links for 2008-05-03
Chart of the Day: A Breakdown of Facebook ApplicationsIt's all about fun.(tags: Facebook Widgets Stats SocialNetworking)Nielsen: Mobile Internet Causes 13% Jump in Web Site Audience - ReadWriteWeb(tags: Mobile Stats)Free online photo editor with printing and slideshows(tags: Flickr Mobile Photography Web2.0 webapps)How-To: 10 Tips for Launching a Solid Podcast - MarketingVOX"These tips for launching an engaging podcast will help you build a loyal and responsive brand audience."(tags: Podcasting Tips)Five ways to improve your blog right now : Dave Caolo(tags: Blogs Tips)Web Worker Daily » Archive Email Tips & Tricks for Your Blackberry «(tags: blackberry Email Tips)
» Even if Twitter Just a Geek Haven, It's Still Very Influential
There's been an interesting discussion over the last few days about Twitter's reach. WSJ reporter Kara Swisher surveyed her dinner party and found out that no one there uses the micro-blogging site. Meanwhile Gina Trapani on Lifehacker is running a survey asking if Web 2.0 benefits only the tech elite.Now let's look at the data. According to figures just out from Hitwise, Twitter is the 439th largest social networking site and 4309 overall. To be sure, growth is booming. But the site is still niche.So all of the signs generally point the same way. Most of the social networking and online communities are definitely geek havens. MySpace, Facebook and YoutTube are three that have gone mainstream. So does that mean these smaller sites, like Twitter, are not worthy of a brand's time? Hardly.Geeks are by far more influential than any other online contingency, except the big media. Geeks pass the puck from Twitter to blogs back to Twitter. Eventually it hits Techmeme, Saul Hansell at the Times takes notice and then the whole world knows. That's why smart companies like JetBlue and Zappos are legitimately engaging on Twitter. It's becoming a front line for customer service. At a minimum, every consumer facing company should be monitoring the chatter. Even better, participating can cut problems off at the pass or even better foster evangelists. The numbers may never tell this story.