Apr 17 2008

Buzz Meter: Socialthing!

April 17, 2008 – 8:26 am

Socialthing When you belong to different social networks, it can be hard to keep track of who in your network is saying what. There is a lot of background noise and static that you just don’t need.

Socialthing! is a first-of-its kind Digital Life Manager that makes it easy to see what’s going on in all of your networks at once, keep a consolidated friend list and post content to multiple sites at once. It was created to help ease the noise and focus on what you really care about. I was able to secure some private Beta invites (DM me on Twitter if you would like one) and check it out.

How It Works

Signing up for Socialthing! is easy, and after a quick confirmation, it takes you to a page where you can fill in your information (securely) to whatever social network you choose. You can pick which ones to integrate. I chose Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr so I could see when friends post status updates, links, and new pictures.

After registering for what social networks you want to include, your Lifestream is generated. User updates are shown as they happen, no matter what network they come from. You can also click directly to links, profiles, and reply to updates within the Lifestream (it will open in another tab/window). You can easily click a button to refresh your friends’ updates, and direct messages on Twitter show up in a different color to easily identify them. Multiple updates from one person are grouped together.

Lifestream

(Click for full view)

The Future

Since it is in Beta, you can easily share your thoughts and suggestions for improvement. They also have a cool option where you can vote for what functionality they will add to the site. The list can be sorted from A-Z or through number of votes. From picture and video websites to bookmarking to blogs, it has it all. And if you don’t see the service you use, you can request it.

The top votes are for:

  • RSS
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Reader
  • Wordpress
  • Tumblr
  • FriendFeed
  • Blogger
  • Google Calendar
  • Amazon
  • StumbleUpon
  • Picasa Web Albums

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(Click for full view)

For updates on Socialthing!, check out their blog or friend Socialthing! on Twitter.

General Overview of Socialthing!

Description: Socialthing! creates a “lifestream” of updates for all of your social networking profiles. Currently it supports Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Pownce, LiveJournal and Vimeo. They are still working on del.icio.us, Digg, Last.FM, MySpace and YouTube; among others to be designated by popular vote.

Usefulness: Overall, this is a good service that allows you to see all of your friends’ updates in one place. This alleviates the hassle of switching back and forth between websites and logging in and out. It makes it easier to manage the “stream” of conversation happening within different social networks.

Buzz Meter Ranking: 2 out of 4 Buzz Bees

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Positive: This tool has potential. It’s cool that you can see everything in one place. The option to post your status at once to Pownce, Twitter and Facebook is cool (although using the Twitter application in Facebook offers the same service). It has a clean, user-friendly interface and offers lots of room for feedback and growth.

Negative: When you get to having 500+ friends, it may offer a more streamlined service, but not necessarily cut down on the noise. Some say it’s also quite similar to the popular FriendFeed and other aggregators.

Conclusion

I will have to check out Socialthing! again when it’s out of beta, to compare features and functionality.

For more reviews on Socialthing! and similar applications, check out: Website Magazine, ReadWriteWeb, Lifestream, TechCrunch, ThePete.com, DownloadSquad, Publishing 2.0, WidgetsLab, Propeller, Process of Change and Lifeblog.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Larissa Fair | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (3)
Apr 16 2008

Finding Value in Social Networks

April 16, 2008 – 1:06 pm

In the old days (and by old, I mean not even a decade ago), people used social networks in its simplest form, most often for one-on-one interaction. Then instant messaging grew to group chat and e-mail turned into groups, listservs and chains.

Today we have even more interactive tools and networks that allow us to build our business, find out information, create online communities, raise money for a cause or non-profits, connect with friends and loved ones, and make new connections based on common interests or mutual relationships.

friendwheel The question is, now that we have all these uses and ideas for how to maximize interaction on social networks, what is the value you get when you have 500+ friends on Facebook and Twitter?

(Photo Credit: My Friend Wheel on Facebook)

Do people who have that many friends and/or followers have the time to develop true interpersonal relationships? Or does it become more of a marketing and branding tool, displaying your credibility through how many people are linking back and friending you?

I have found that since turning my personal Facebook page into a professional link, that I have less time to actually interact with my “real-life” friends. I use it as more of a tool – to promote events, share information and links, add contacts I meet at networking events, etc.; instead of a way to stay in touch or reconnect with old friends, it’s just another platform for promotion.

What have you found? Does the value of a social network increase or decrease with the number of friends and followers you have?

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Larissa Fair | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (8)

SMC-DC: Personality Not Included with Rohit Bhargava

April 16, 2008 – 7:49 am

personalitynotincluded_cover_6 Come join SMC-DC for the official Washington, DC area book launch for Rohit Bhargava’s new book Personality Not Included. Maybe you caught him at Blogger Social, or maybe at one of his other book tour destinations. But, if not, now is your chance!

Personality Not Included was recently released by McGraw-Hill and serves as a guide for companies on how authenticity is the new standard that brands need live up to in the social media era – the book has received significant early praise and features a forward by bestselling author and entrepreneur, Guy Kawasaki.

We will kick off the festivities with a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Arlington from 5:30 – 7:00 pm. From there, please feel free to join us for an informal dinner and drinks gathering at Whitlow’s on Wilson from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.

Books will be available for purchase on-site at Barnes & Noble. There is ample garage parking, some metered street spaces, and both locations are metro accessible at the Orange Line’s Clarendon stop.

Please RSVP to Larissa Fair via e-mail no later than Monday, April 28.

Please designate if you will be attending the book signing, dinner, or both.

Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=11709537599

Hope to see you there!

DATE: Thursday, May 1, 2008

BOOK SIGNING

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Barnes & Noble – Arlington

Clarendon Market Commons
2800 Clarendon Blvd. Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22201

DRINKS AND DINNER

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Whitlow’s on Wilson (beach bar, to the left in the back)

2854 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22201

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Larissa Fair | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (4)
Apr 15 2008

Product Marketing Drives Online Success

April 15, 2008 – 1:47 pm

85911467_3bb9fc0e39 So much of today’s discussions about blogs, social networks, content, etc., gets bogged down in tools and nomenclature.  It’s easy given all the scattered hubris out there.  Forced with creating social media content, applications or even social networks, communicators can chase many red herrings.  But the answer lies in throwing the noise to the side and treating the outreach like a product for your customers.  Because at heart it is (image by kevinthoule).

In an interesting round of tweets on Sunday night, Rich Becker, Ike Pigott and I all agreed there is no one size fits all solution for social media. Instead we have to focus on basic tenents to succeed. That gets back to understanding specific communities and stakeholders, and serving them with well engineered content.

That’s where the product analogy works. By treating online communications and tools as products designed for a specific stakeholder(s), there’s a much higher chance for success.  It’s built to serve.

A couple of months ago, I published 14 step open source social media content generation process on Now Is Gone. This entire process revolves around focusing on core stakeholders and their needs to drive development.

Example: IceBreaker

Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote an interesting article yesterday on whether or not mobile applications are really dead. Many commenters said no. I agree. Many of the apps that have failed (like the cited Yahoo! Mobile) are traditional products designed for the computer screen. They are then repackaged for the mobile phone.

Thome_logohe problem there is the lack of product marketing that goes into creating a truly mobile application. Enter IceBreaker’s Crush or Flush social network with more than 700,000 users.

Crush or Flush was designed specifically for the mobile phone.  It has special features created to protect women who are uninterested in their crushers (and as a result boasts more than 40% female membership). It’s mobile platform agnostic, and has also evolved to allow for mobile advertising. Now the company is moving towards the PC to expand reach with the socially savvy.

In a phone interview last week, Icebreaker VP of marketing Josh Levine said the basic foundation for their success was intelligent product marketing. Josh told me IceBreaker literally aimed to build a social network for the handset. “We didn’t take an existing social network and tried to make it fit. Crush or Flush was built from the ground up  for its users so they would feel natural and comfortable with it.”

And so there you have it.  Success is predicated on having something to be successful with… Without a great product — content, application or network — winning will be elusive.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (2)

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

April 15, 2008 – 6:36 am

2008blogsoffire3 Undercurrents addressed the power of social media through new voices of class, race and economic status-citing past events such as massive demonstrations organized through Facebook, as one of the examples. The overarching point is that even “powerful national governments and clients” cannot control the message anymore. “Instead, they must learn to adapt and respond.”

Mario Sundar talked about providing the easiest way to monitor conversations around your brand through his blog Marketing Nirvana. Sundar discussed Twitter’s TweetScan and Google Alerts as his favorable tools.

Brandstorming’s Jim Durbin talked about Careerbuilder’s newest ads and their coined phrase “Start Building.” Unlike the search engine’s competitor, Monster – who sells “hope”, they create ads that convince people that their current occupation sucks. Durbin provides videos that exemplify Careerbuilder’s efforts to persuade the workforce of the “disgruntlement” in jobs.

David Taylor of brandgym went back to the bare essentials and discussed how Apple successfully promotes their brand through efficient packaging for their products. Taylor stated that if companies need secondary packaging, “than why not make it more of a branding tool?”

Anne Simons of Brandeo discussed how many corporate companies do not connect with a growing portion of their U.S. multi-cultural consumers. “Running multi-cultural campaigns and speaking to multi-cultural sensibilities, while excluding multi-cultural customers in general market campaigns is superficial and short-sighted. And many corporate websites do not reflect the diversity of their customer base.”

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (0)
Apr 14 2008

Democratizing Location

April 14, 2008 – 12:58 pm

Once in a while I get a client who will let me talk about our work.  Tomorrow my client FindWhere starts a beta for a free buddy finder service at Livecontacts (actually the lights are already on). The special thing about this launch is it changes a paradigm, making GPS location information on smart phones available to its users for free, a natural evolution from Web 2.0’s democratization of content.

livecontacts

The successful integration of location data into social applications could have far-reaching implications for the web. Everything we do will have context, suddenly providing real geographic presence to our activities. Tweeting that you are going to Barnes & Noble could result in an informal meet-up. Conferences like SxSW could become veritable geek-meet fests. Finding teenage children?  Locating lost phones? Location-based social ads?Etc., etc.

Buddy finders and find-me, follow-me services have been talked about for some time. There have been several barriers to success, which have now been overcome:

1) Freeing GPS location charges.  You cannot underestimate how important this is.  Because Internet users expect location information for free, pay-for-use plans have dramatically inhibited the growth of location-based applications.

2) Phones did not have GPS chips enabled

3) Social networks were not as predominant a concept. Now social web technologies make networking mobile phones together a real possibility.

Several other companies are trying to do this, too, usually for a small fee (Loopt, Rummble, and Whrrl).  All systems have their challenges and limitations based on the technology they use to track and to visualize.

For example, Livecontacts has a global approach using GSM networks (based on more than 200k apps tracked with FindWhere’s main service), but in the U.S.A. that means cdma users (Sprint and Verizon) are out of the picture.  You can thank a bad FCC decision in the early 90s for that one. Also, the phones that are actually capable of GPS location tracking are also limited, though expanding all the time.

Livecontacts will evolve over the next few months, making it a much more socially catalized application.  Badges for blogs and widgets for social networks plus the ability to see Livecontacts maps from your handset (currently on PC only).

It’s going to be exciting to see how far this location movement can go. To me, mobile and localization represent significant aspects of the true next generation of the Web, and I’m thrilled to be part of it. Anyone who wants to join in can friend  me on Livecontacts.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (1)

If Obama Talked to the Pope About Social Media…

April 14, 2008 – 1:18 am
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The pope will visit Washington, DC this week. Of course, DC gets all atwitter when such an event occurs. Last week, ScienceLogic CEO (and client) Dave Link quipped to me, what if Barack Obama talked to the Pope about Social Media (image by jurvetson).

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What if indeed? Obama’s use of social networks to drive a grass roots groundswell has been impressive, and noted by political media.

I imagine he would tell the Pope these three things:

1) ObamaSocial.gifFor big organizations like ours, it’s all about distributed communications. While you are the Pope and lead the Catholic church, you have to understand it’s about being local. So a Pope blog won’t really make a huge impact. What can you do to enable your local diocese? Power in social media comes from the bottom up.

2) Social networks are critical to getting the word out. We are part of more than a dozen social networks and use those to activate our people on the front line. The Catholic Church has a great opportunity to connect with millions of people on many social networks. Get out there and speak with people on their terms.

3) You can’t be the center of the effort. The Church is more than the Pope. My campaign is more than me. I don’t pretend to write my own posts. I don’t make my voice the center of our social effort. As the presidential candidate, I am already out front representing my entire team. And when I do need to use social media, I often use other blogs, like the Huffington Post. So let your people do the talking, and make appearances only when necessary and in the right venue.

Of course, Obama might just say this:

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (3)
Apr 11 2008

SMC-DC: Nobody Went Solo

April 11, 2008 – 2:49 pm

There was a great turnout at last night’s Social Media Club DC event featuring Ann Bernard of Why Go Solo. We had a lively discussion about social media platforms, and Ann shared a bit more of her vision of where Why Go Solo was headed.

Thanks again to Viget Labs for offering their space to host the event, and to Aaron Brazell for streaming the presentation.

If you’re posting about the event or have pictures to share, please comment, message me on Twitter or e-mail me.

Many old and new faces were in attendance, including:

Thanks to all for attending. Some additional photos can be seen on Flickr.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Larissa Fair | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (3)

Ten Ways to Make a Better Web

April 11, 2008 – 1:20 am

464886670_0c37eed68a Sometimes it’s good to remember that there are means within our grasp to better our Web Communities (image: happiness #1 by letneo). And those means are actionable by each and everyone of us. Here are ten ways to make a better web today:

1) Cross-link to others.

tweet 2) Suggest friending someone on Twitter.

3) Use your Twitter feed to highlight others’ links.

4) Use the Creative Commons on Flickr for your images with full attribution.

5) Create a speaking spot for someone you know.

6) Highlight another blogger or social network member you admire.

7) DM that person when you see the typo and let them know (thanks, folks).

8) Remember your social friends birthdays (one I could do much better at).

9) Comment on three posts a day.

10) Instead of criticizing, make a positive suggestion to resolve perceived issue.

In short, give, and then give some more. Plant trees on other lawns. Build legends.

What suggestions would you add to this list?

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (17)
Apr 10 2008

Buzz Meter: ITtoolbox

April 10, 2008 – 10:55 am

As discussed yesterday, it’s imperative that ALL communicators (PR professionals, social media marketers, etc.) learn about and engage with the tools we have.

ittoolbox A majority of my clients are IT companies, so ITtoolbox is a great place to integrate them into the community. With over 1 million members, it’s a truly targeted social network.

Signing up is easy and your profile also serves as a resume (think LinkedIn) with fields for your bio, employment history, expertise (such as 3 years of Java experience, 2 years of PHP), links to your work, accomplishments (certifications, books authored, papers and articles), and more.

After your profile is created you can go into the Connection Manager and narrow your focus by picking what topics you are interested in located in the Area of Interest section.

What you choose in the Area of Interest section is important, because it determines your interaction with people through group posts and e-mailed questions that get sent to the entire group distribution list. With one touch of a button, you can reach hundreds or even thousands of experts!

Area of Interest categories include:

  • CRM
  • Data Management & Analysis
  • Enterprise Back Office
  • Networking & Infrastructure
  • Development & Integration
  • IT Management & Trends

Toolbox

You can drill down even further by subscribing to blogs and joining a variety of groups designed to help users communicate to solve problems and make decisions. Recommendations for groups are based on the areas of interest you choose above, but you can also search for groups or view all to see the entire offering.

The largest group is the Technical & Functional group which covers a range of products and technologies.

Groups include:

  • Strategy & Planning (agile project management, FISMA compliance, security-risk planning, etc.)
  • Vendor Selection (networking, firewall, voip, servers, etc.)
  • Technical & Functional (Cisco, Citrix, Dell, EMC, Hyperion, IBM, etc.)
  • Career (system administrator, security, storage, project management, etc.)

Obviously joining a career group is a great way to network and find out about new opportunities in your field.

Not only can you follow a variety of posts from group subscriptions, but you can also subscribe to hundreds of different blogs. Blog topics include:

  • Business Intelligence
  • C Languages
  • CRM
  • Database
  • Emerging Technologies
  • ERP
  • Networking
  • Project Management
  • Security
  • Web Design

There is also an ITtoolbox Wiki that provides thousands of articles for IT and business professionals to exchange knowledge by collaboratively defining IT terms and best practices.

To further expand your connections, you can go into the Member Connections section of your profile to search for members to connect with and build a network. You can search by expertise, area of interest, or by name.

ITtoolbox manages all of your subscriptions by giving you the option to subscribe to various alerts and newsletters, and notifications from blogs that you subscribe to.

In addition, when someone in a particular group (designated in area of interest) wants to ask a question, they are able to using a simple form that is then distributed to the group.

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If you’re searching for a vendor, ITtoolbox has a Vendor Research Directory where products are highlighted and some products are even reviewed by the community as it links information and mentions of products through the posts, blogs, wikis, and groups. Vendors are broken down into categories for easy browsing and you can also search for a specific vendor or product name.

General Overview of ITtoolbox

Description: ITtoolbox is an online community, enabling peers to share professional knowledge about information technology. The goal is to help professionals make IT decisions and stay current in the rapidly changing technology market through peer collaboration.

The ITtoolbox platform incorporates a professional network, 28 knowledge bases, more than 200 blogs, 800+ discussion groups, and a wiki to facilitate targeted community interaction.

Usefulness: ITtoolbox provides a platform for collaboration, interaction, and knowledge sharing across multiple IT disciplines. It serves as a community to reach out to when you need help, either through research or posing questions to a group. You can also develop more personal relationships and networks through the Member Connections function. The Vendor Research Directoy is handy both for companies who want to be listed, and for companies searching for a particular solution.

Buzz Meter Ranking: 3 out of 4 Buzz Bees.

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Positive: Easy to use, great interaction factor (sending Q&A to groups, establishing member connections). Search function combs through blogs, white papers, discussion groups, wikis, and more.

Negative: Some may think it’s a bit “spammy” when you subscribe to too many groups and blogs. If that is a problem for you, it’s best to set up a separate e-mail folder (or account) for ITtoolbox.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Larissa Fair | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (2)