Recommended Reading: The Facebook Era
It’s so easy to set up an account on Facebook or Twitter pretty much anyone can do it.
Knowing how to effectively use those sites for business purposes? That’s more complicated.
Different social networking sites present different opportunities — and challenges.
You can try and figure it out through trial and error. Or, if you prefer to minimize mistakes, read The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff
A cut above the rest & especially for business
Of course there’s an abundance of books about social media marketing. Why pick this one?
Well, few go at it so sharply from a corporate perspective, and fewer still are written by someone who has as much first-hand experience as Shih, who created a successful Facebook business application (Faceconnector). Her highly informative book goes deep with details, to include case studies and a plentitude of screen shots that help make things crystal clear.
It’s about more than Facebook
FYI, the book’s title tells but part of the tale. Sure, it’s full of tips on how to leverage Facebook — still, Shih delves into other social networks, too, as well as associated tools and applications. In fact, it’s an eye-opener in this regard.
Shih covers corporate-centric tools like Hoover’s Connect, which helps sales reps understand complex organizational structures, and Yammer, for intra-enterprise microblogging. Much attention is paid to salesforce.com offerings — Shih was working for the company when she wrote the book. If The Facebook Era sometimes feels like an ad for that company, well, so it goes.
The how and why of social networks
The book details how the online social graph — the world wide web of interconnected people — fundamentally changes ways we relate, both personally and professionally. It examines the intricacies of how and why social media works the way it does, including sociological factors that come into play. “We are moving from technology-centric applications to people-centric applications that conform to our relationships and identities,” Shih declares. ” It is the death of the anonymous Web.”
Building better business processes
Shih then breaks down how online networks can be a boon to the sales process. For instance, a sales rep can use LinkedIn to search out qualified leads and mine all kinds of information available on that site in order to prepare sale calls that are personal and relevant to individual prospects.
Other sections cover how to leverage social media for recruiting and product innovation, and again, Shih clues you into handy enterprise tools, like Connectbeam, a collaborative platform for building employee expertise profiles.
Step-by-step Facebook guide
When considering how online networks change the ways we receive information about brands, Shih writes, “The new mantra is don’t advertise to people, advertise between people.”
That’s the heart of the matter when it comes to social marketing. Here’s where Facebook takes center stage. Shih shines a bright spotlight on the site, via a step-by-step guide that digs into strategies, best practices, methods of interaction, hypertargeting and more.
Facebook applications get a fair amount of attention. “Apps are the new ads,” Shih writes. “The idea is people tend to spend more time on apps — such as playing games, looking through slideshows and taking surveys –than traditional advertising, so apps might provide more memorable and lasting interactions with your brand.”
Shih adds that creating your own app from scratch is risky business. You may be better off with sponsorship opportunities offered by existing apps that are popular with your target audiences. To help determine what these might be Shih conveniently lists Lookery — which provides a directory of ad network publishers, including Facebook apps, with analytics, demographics and other useful data.
This is mighty meaty material. Shih covers a tremendous amount of ground detailing how to power-up your business’ social media presence with a clear plan of action.
Now, if you want additional info, visit The Facebook Era’s Facebook page.
- Deni Kasrel
What are your thoughts on The Facebook Era? Have you read the book, too? If so, what’s your take on it? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )How To Fire Up Your New Product Launch
How do you ensure a product still in development catches fire come launch-time?
Keep things largely under wraps, while simultaneously spilling a bunch of the beans.
A neat trick that takes finesse to pull off; one recent example is the rollout of Google Wave.
Limiting who gets to test drive
Not quite ready for prime time, there’s already gobs of chatter about the Wave, which is in limited preview. You must be asked to give it a test drive.
Invitees include developers and influentials — tech writers and bloggers being a big block here — who are in turn allowed to ask 20 additional individuals to join the fold.
Google’s tactic of limiting who gets a preliminary trial ensures invitees are quick to spread the word. To clue people in on the Wave, of course, but also, it’s an opportunity to infer, without really saying so, “I’m one of the chosen people.” It’s a status symbol.
Anyone can peek under the hood
You can get a gander of the product by visiting the About Google Wave web site.
The site includes a long (80 minute) video presentation, originally given to developers, about this new collaborative communications platform that appears to be a souped-up combination of email, chat, photo sharing and other social media tools, with considerable real-time capability.
FYI, you don’t need to watch the video all the way through. The first part has demos and explanations in plain English. The rest is for developers who may want to build apps and other tools to work with the Wave.
If you’re not into tech talk stop after the first segment: You’ll still see what the ruckus is about.
Buzz builds
Meanwhile, buzz about Google Wave continues to build.
Mashable and TechCrunch have guides to the product. Lots of journalists and bloggers, including Mr. Web 2.0 himself, Tim O’Reilly, are getting the word out.
Computerworld claims the Wave is indeed innovative, but wonders if it’s truly useful in the real world.
As yet another tantalizer, you can request an invitation to Google Wave.
Follow the leader
Few businesses have a footprint as big a Google, where this kind of rollout has such immense impact.
No matter, you can still follow the leader. Here are the basic steps.
- Unveil your upcoming product to select influentials. This group includes members of the media (both traditional and social media), prominent existing and/or potential customers, people who will eventually market your product, and others who communicate to audiences that can derive benefit from your product.
- Inform invitees of their exclusive status.
- Tell the general public you are giving pre-launch test drives to invited individuals (to elevate the status factor even more).
- Post limited information about your new product, that anyone can view, showing how it works. The “you can look but not touch” approach creates anticipation and desire.
- Tell invited influentials you are not simply looking for free PR, but want authentic feedback on how they perceive the product.
- Listen to and absorb the feedback, both positive and negative.
- Dangle a carrot to the uninvited indicating that you might let them take the product for a spin.
- Gradually increase the number of invitees.
- Launch product and watch the sparks fly.
Time will tell if Google Wave is a tsunami (or not).
Until then, the fire lighting up public interest continues to burn.
- Deni Kasrel
Have you heard about Google Wave? Are you one of the chosen few who gets to test the Wave? What do you think about Goggle’s limited preview? Can you see it working for other products? Please offer your thoughts. Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Why Failure Is Good For You
Would you attend a talk titled How and Why I Failed?
Many of us are programmed to shirk that one off without a thought.
We want to learn how to succeed.
What about a panel on failure?
A person on a panel I attended at the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit 2009 suggested the event should sponsor a panel on failure.
He noted there is as much, if not more, to be learned in knowing why a project didn’t work out as there is in hearing why one succeeded.
It’s a great point — especially if your aim is to innovate.
Most attempts at innovation fail. If it were easy everyone could do it.
Experimentation is essential to innovation
Experimentation is fundamental to innovation. Testing to see what does or does not work is an ongoing part of the research and development process. There’s an implicit hope that an experiment may uncover heretofore-unknown knowledge that may lead to a new discovery. If not then testing continues.
We should all thank scientists for having this attitude; otherwise we’d suffer from a multitude of ailments that have been eradicated due to dogged trial and error research.
No one bats 1000
In business the fear of failure leads to paralysis and a play it safe mentality, where no one wants to stick his/her neck out and propose something new. You don’t want to be the one who came up with a faulty idea.
Unless your goal is innovate. Then you’re not afraid of failure because you know that’s part of the deal.
No person, or enterprise, bats 1000.
Failure can lead to smashing success
In the late ‘80s early ’90s Apple introduced its infamous Newton. The device was a PDA (personal digital assistant) before anyone knew what these were or what to do with them. A product ahead of its time, it was also buggy and the Newton failed in the market; big-time.
Two developers of the Newton went on to create the operating system for the first iPods.
The iPhone includes certain elements of the Newton and the rumored Apple tablet, if it is indeed coming to market, will (reputedly) incorporate concepts first introduced via the Newton.
Famous people’s thoughts on failure
Woody Allen, a man whose broken cinematic conventions (and social ones too, but we won’t get into that) said:
“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”
If Allen isn’t lofty enough for you, then how’s about this one from the great inventor Thomas Edison, who was awarded in excess of 1000 patents:
“I have not failed, not once. I’ve discovered 10,000 ways that don’t work.”
And for good measure I’ll include a quote by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. It’s from a commencement address Jobs gave at Stanford University where he spoke about his ability to learn and move on from failure:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
The secret to success is to learn from failure
I soaked up a lot of information at the Creative Economy Summit, from people who talked about how to succeed through business strategies, social media and new technologies.
But I think that comment about needing to acknowledge and learn from failure may be the most useful insight of all.
– Deni Kasrel
Do YOU think failure is a critical factor to achieve innovation? Is it a secret to success? Comments welcome.
Related posts
Who And What Drives Innovation and Creativity
Creative Economy Summit Converges In Philadelphia
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 9 so far )How To Captivate An Audience
If you’re giving a presentation and want the audience to hang on your every word here’s a tip: Announce you’ll give away free stuff to people who answer questions correctly during your talk.
Trust me, it works like a charm.
I saw it in action during Peter Shankman’s keynote address at the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit 2009 sponsored by Innovation Philadelphia.
Reel ‘em in
Shankman is the founder of Help A Reporter Out, a.k.a. HARO, a free service that connects reporters to sources for articles.
He gave a breakfast talk, and though the caffeine had barely kicked in, Shankman held the crowd in rapt attention, because from time to time he’d ask a question and then toss out a small box to whomever gave the correct response.
No one knew what the heck the freebie was, but no matter. Shankman deemed it a “cool new toy” — ‘nuff said.
The Poken: It’s huge in Europe
At the conclusion Shankman revealed the cool toy was a Poken — which like David Hasselhoff, is huge in Europe. This small USB-enabled device lets you transfer your contact information, including social network info, to someone else’s Poken, and vice versa. It’s an electronic social business card that plugs into your computer to download the information collected.
Shankman predicted the Poken would soon be a big deal in the States, too. Time will tell on that score, but the point is, the chance to win a nifty mystery thingamabob kept all ears riveted on the speaker.
This is not to suggest that he’d have otherwise lost the audience; Shankman is an entertaining guy and worth hearing in any event. I’m just saying the freebie factor made the desire to listen all the more intense. Also, by asking questions there was audience interaction — another good way to reel folks in.
How to succeed in business (using social media)
As for the content of his address, “Social Media, It’s Simply Trust,” Shankman declared that to succeed in selling through social media you must not only build a better mousetrap, but build one that’s hard to copy. Because things get passed around fast and imitators abound.
He then revealed the four rules he employed to build HARO into a successful service (it has in excess of 100,000 members).
Be transparent
A fundamental rule of social media is to be who you say you are — don’t be a poser.
Shankman says don’t lie about anything. If you mess up, admit it, accept the blame and make it right.
The web makes it easy for people to dig around and uncover buried information, hence he advises:
“The biggest mistake is not making a mistake. It’s attempting to cover it up and think you won’t get caught.”
Be relevant
Beyond saying or passing on something of value you need to know how your audience wants to get information. Web site, mobile device, video, podcast, blog, press release, email — however your audience wants to receive information, you need to serve it up.
If you don’t know what they want, ask. Shankman observes:
“If you’re not reaching your audience the way they want, they’ll go somewhere else. And not only that, they have the ability to bitch about it to all their friends, which they will do.”
Brevity
Along with being the soul of wit, brevity is essential in a society where simple text messages, microblogging and short attention spans rule. Keep it concise and relevant and be sure there are no spelling and/or grammatical errors.
Stay top of mind
Keep in touch with the people in your network just to say, “Hey, what’s up?” Or, do something like Shankman does, which is to send out birthday wishes to everyone in his Facebook network.
The emphasis here is to have an interest in the person you’re contacting (it’s not about you). Shankman’s wise words:
“Studies show we talk to roughly three percent of our network on a regular basis. All you have to do to be great is be a half a percent better than everyone else.”
- Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think of Shankman’s ploy to keep everyone interested? What about his four rules for business success through social media? Comments welcome.
Related posts:
Who And What Drives Innovation And Creativity?
Creative Economy Summit Converges In Philadelphia
Who and What Drives Innovation and Creativity?
This same time last year our nation was reeling from a financial system in freefall. We’re still in recovery mode, however, if necessity is indeed the mother of invention, then the situation will ultimately spur a windfall of ingenuity.
Such was the spirit of the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit 2009, held earlier this week in Philadelphia.
The agenda featured numerous panels and workshops. I often wished I had the ability to be in two places at the same time. Perhaps someone will be creative enough to figure out how to make that happen.
I still packed a lot in. Here’s Part 1 of my condensed notes, plus one of many memorable slides seen at the conference:
A cool slide
Let’s begin with that slide, screened at the panel on Regional Creative Economic Strategies. It’s from the deck of Karen Gagnon who’s the dynamic program manager of a major urban revitalization project in Michigan called “Cool Cities”.
Gagnon stressed that the success of “Cool Cities” in part relies on the fact that it does not enforce mandates. Instead, the program finds allies in individual cities that are able to gain the input and buy-in of local groups and communities. Get a look at how Gagnon illustrated her point here:
Man, you gotta love that one.
Now here’s more snippets from speakers and panelists at the conference:
Welcoming remarks: Peter Kageyama, Partner, Creative Cities Productions
- The creative economy is all about whales and krill. Google is clearly the whale, but so much of the creative economy is about smaller companies that are the krill in the water, and in aggregate the krill are far bigger; it’s just harder to see.
- We are the most overly marketed to generation ever, yet we believe almost none of it.
- Green is the new black: To attract members of the creative class organizations and cities must reflect their values. Green (in the context of sustainability) is no longer a nice to have, it’s a must have.
Keynote address: Elizabeth Gilbert, author, Eat Pray Love
- The expectation in our society is that we must constantly outdo ourselves, and in this relentless drive, we cannibalize our ability to be true artists.
- We are pressed to be innovative but we must also be gentle and patient with ourselves.
- Follow curiosity wherever it takes you; and for writers, take a line for a walk across the page.
Workshop: Get to ‘Shiny Penny Hell’ and Back
- Shiny Penny Hell is when you have great ideas but you are paralyzed by not knowing how to turn them into things of value.
- Be a possibility thinker.
- There is such a thing as productive conflict — seek out divergent viewpoints that challenge your ideas.
- Explore the outrageous.
- Obsess over value creation.
- To avoid tunnel vision have focused flexibility, don’t lose your peripheral vision.
Keynote Address: The Global Promise of Entrepreneurship, Randall Kempner, Executive Director, Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs
- Innovation is the generation, development and implementation of new ideas that create social value.
- Entrepreneurship is often born out of dire circumstance.
- Entrepreneurship = prosperity
Panel: ABC’s of Mobile Technology
- Mobile is about where you are and what you are doing at a certain time.
- When designing for mobile one size does not fill all; but there are in excess of 20,000 devices, so it’s impossible to design for every one.
- The three most important platforms are the iPhone, Blackberry and flip phone.
- Mobile web designs must be stripped down to essential needs; keep it simple in terms of tasks and navigation.
- Marketing tactics that that work well with mobile include coupons, news alerts/reminders, sweepstakes, text voting polls and surveys.
- The reach of mobile marketing is limited because it’s an opt-in method, but this provides a highly targeted audience that’s receptive to receiving your messages.
- Mobile and social media, perfect together.
OK, that’s a quick glimpse of insights from the Summit. Stay tuned for more.
- Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think of these ideas from the Summit? Anything spark your interest or imagination? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Creative Economy Summit Converges In Philadelphia
Whenever I hear the word “summit” in reference to a meeting or conference my mind harkens back to a childhood memory.
A Cold War event
This particular Summit — that occurred in my hometown of Glassboro, New Jersey — brought together President Lyndon B. Johnson and Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin.
The Summit was intended to improve diplomatic relations following the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six Day War. The two leaders were to talk about limiting the spiraling military arms race between the U.S. and Russia.
The Summit was a big deal for Glassboro, which back then, was best known for its delectable Jersey peaches and tomatoes. We had a parade, news teams came from around the world, and the whole thing was the talk of the town.
The event put Glassboro on the map — for a New York minute, at least — however the Summit wound up being more symbol than substance.
A creative Summit
Now I’m excited about another Summit. This one doesn’t include high-ranking national officials, however, it will have scads of substance.
It’s the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit 2009. Hosted by Innovation Philadelphia, the two-day affair is packed with panels, discussions and workshops.
A new supply and demand curve
FYI, the creative economy; not to be confused with creative accounting; is one where ideas, innovation and the power of invention are the coin of the realm. It concerns the web (2.0, 3.0 and beyond), the changing dynamics of the workplace, and other shifts that are occurring with increasing speed.
John Howkins, who wrote the book, The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas
“The creative economy is based on a new way of thinking and doing. The primary inputs are our individual talent or skill. These inputs may be familiar or novel; what is more important is that our creativity transforms them in novel ways. In some sectors the output value depends on their uniqueness; in others, on how easily it can be copied and sold to large numbers of people.”
Creative convergence
As the title of the Summit in Philadelphia implies, it’s all about convergence. Taking a big-picture look at the creative economy the event brings in entrepreneurs, professionals from technology and creative sectors, business and cultural leaders.
The agenda explores elements that drive the creative economy including sustainability projects, public and private initiatives, business ventures, changing workforce models and emerging technologies.
There’s a diverse array of presenters, of which there are way too many to mention. Here’s a small selection to convey the scope of those represented:
- Gary Ackerman, President and Co-founder, M3Mobile
- David Bookspan, Founder, DreamIt Ventures
- Katherine Gajewski, Director of Sustainability, City of Philadelphia
- Elizabeth Gilbert, Author, Eat Pray Love
- Sallie Glickman, CEO, Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board
- Jacqueline Hill, Director, Pennsylvania Minority Business Enterprise Center
- Randall Kempner, Executive Director, Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs
- Jane McGonigal, Director of Game Research and Development, Institute for the Future
- Hilmar Sigurdsson, Managing Director of Icelandic animation studio CAOZ
- Gary Sorin, Director of Operational Excellence, NRG Energy
- Kevin Stolarick, Research Director, The Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management
- Melissa Thiessen, Co-Organizer, Twestival
- Branimir Vasilic, CTO, superfluid
- Paul Wright, Executive Vice President, Operations & Business Development, Micco World, Inc.
Online references
If you want the full skinny, it’s listed on the Summit web site, where you can also find a downloadable pdf.
Summit-related conversation is encouraged both in-person and online. Of the latter there are several ways to keep up what’s happening at the confab, including the official blog, Facebook, Twitter (and the Summit hashtag is #GCECS2009), YouTube, Flickr and mobile updates.
I’ll be attending on both days and will be reporting my take on things, once it’s over, via this blog. So stay tuned for more on the substance of the Summit.
-Deni Kasrel
What do you think about this Summit for the Creative Economy? Will you be attending? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Will You Please Retweet This Great New Blog Post.
Have you noticed that more people are including “please retweet” in Twitter messages?
This is interesting because in certain circles it’s considered bad Twetiquette (boorish) to request a retweet.
Joel Comm in his bestselling book Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time
The reason for retweets
A retweet is akin to forwarding an email. If you receive a message you like so much you want to pass it on to your followers, just do a retweet, or RT.
There are many reasons for an RT, such as to let others know about breaking news. News about Twitter is especially RT worthy. For illustration purposes here are a few RT examples from my account:
This one earns a double RT. The message links to a terrific resource for search rank marketing information. Many of my followers are into SEO, so it gets an RT.
Quotes/words of wisdom comprise a good deal of Twitter traffic. I like the sentiment in this message and think my followers will, too.
This news item caught my eye and it provides entrée for a little humor. I like to give followers a chuckle now and again.
Report: The Science of Retweets
About the recent rise in people asking to be retweeted — I have an idea why it’s happening.
Earlier this week Fast Company posted an article titled Report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted On Twitter. It gave a sneak peek of a paper by Dan Zarrella, a noted marketing scientist and web developer who’s into scrutinizing all things Twitter.
Zarrella then posts the full report, The Science of Retweets, on his blog.
Zarrella says his interest in retweets is inspired by the notion that the web enables us to see how an idea catches fire and goes viral: “For the first time in human history we can begin to gaze into the inner workings of the contagious idea.”
Hmmm, sounds a lot like the tipping point.
Retweets have implications beyond the idea that those who get RTed are flattered to receive a virtual stamp of approval. They’re word-of-mouth marketing. They play a role in politics, as happened when talk about death panels and the health care debate got RTed around the twitosphere.
Those two letters pack a lot of heat.
OK, so what’s the secret to getting an RT?
Zarrella’s report presents statistics on several aspects of retweeting to identify what he refers to as “contagious traits.” His findings include the following:
- Messages containing links are three times more likely to be RTed than those without.
- It’s good to be first out of the gate; novelty/newness accounts for many RTs.
- Punctuation is preferred, and top RT getters include a colon, period, or an exclamation point.
- Negativity and potty-talk are out — religion, work, money and celebrities are in.
- The highest daily volume of RTs occurs on Friday.
And then there’s these last two items; the top list likely accounts for the recent upsurge in RTs:
Take another look at most RT-able words and phrases and then take a gander the title of this post. See why it is how it is?
Will you please retweet this great new blog post?
- Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think of the science of retweets? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )What’s Wrong With Being Real?
Last week I posted a piece about trends that are getting lots of attention. Which, in case you missed it, are real-time web, crowdsourcing and latent semantic indexing.
Another trend I thought about including is augmented reality.
A greater reality
If you break it down linguistically, there’s “augmented,” which according to the American Heritage Dictionary means “to make (something already developed or well under way) greater, as in size, extent, or quantity.” And there’s “reality,” defined as “the quality or state of being actual or true.”
Basically you’re making something that’s actual and true even greater.
007 would love it
One consumer-friendly version of this futuristic innovation applies to next-generation electronics, where if you point a device that’s augmented reality-equipped, it instantly processes what’s being viewed and sends graphics and text specific to that scene. Point the gizmo while standing outside a restaurant (for some reason restaurants are a common example to illustrate this advancement) and you get the skinny on the eatery; a view of the interior, menu, reviews and hours of business.
In another iteration, when you walk though a historic site, as you amble around, the apparatus continuously provides a video-version of what happened way back when, superimposed over the real environment.
The military is hot for augmented reality and there’s talk of serious applications for science.
A tracking device, too?
It’s a ways off till all this hits the market. And while clearly an intriguing concept, which I’m admittedly over-simplifying, augmented reality represents yet another means of digitally tracking our movements: One more instance where we’re giving up privacy for the sake of cool technology.
GPS systems are great, however details that get collected and analyzed in order to give us the information we want are also a record of our travels.
We acknowledge that there’s ultimately no privacy on the web. We can clean our cache and crumble our cookies, but the data remains on a server somewhere.
Give to get
Search engines accept our queries and then display ads based on our input. Our seemingly private emails are processed. I was both humored and surprised a few weeks ago after sending a message to a pal whose nickname is Beanie, when beside her reply, my gmail client dished up ads for bean bags and beanie hats.
One common defense for the latter intrusions is that search and gmail are free services. The quid pro quo is that they get to turn us into chunks of data to mine for advertising and other purposes. It’s out in the open. I get it. It still creeps me out.
Keep it real
The promise of augmented reality is exciting. The privacy trade-off gives me the willies. Makes me wonder, what’s wrong with being real?
- Deni Kasrel
Are you concerned about how new technology affects privacy? Your comments welcome.
Related post:
Three Fast Growing Trends You Need To Pay Attention To
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )Three Fast Growing Trends You Need To Pay Attention To
I enjoy listening to people postulate what will be the next big thing. These conversations make me feel like I’m in that scene from The Graduate where Mr. McGuire tells Benjamin Braddock he has just one word to say to him: “plastics.”
So what’s the word of today that’s got a great future?
Social media comes to mind (yeah, I know, that’s two words). But it’s really one of many trends that have broad implications for business and communications.
Here are three more to pay attention to:
Real-time web
This is so new there’s no agreement on a proper definition. It concerns the creation, search and conveyance of information in real time to enable instant interaction. Twitter is an example of the real-time web; which similar to instant messaging transmits back and forth almost asynchronously, only with Twitter the stream is made public.
Real-time web impacts the search industry. All major search engines employ indexing and there’s some lag time till information gets recorded and ranked. Meanwhile, Twitter offers real-time search. Analytics firms are venturing into the real-time realm to deliver instantaneous monitoring and metrics.
Crowdsourcing
A type of distributed collaboration that calls upon the collective wisdom of crowds. A company takes something that’s normally performed in-house, or by a third-party provider, and instead asks the public to do it.
Problems are announced in the form of an open call. Participants often create online communities, or crowds, to work on potential solutions. What’s interesting is that those who successfully offer input need not be experts — they just need an idea that works. Non-technical individuals can solve computer engineering problems and an absolute amateur may have the best concept for your next product innovation.
Crowdsourcing can be cost efficient: Fees may or may not be paid for services rendered — prizes and recognition could be the only compensation — and even if they are, they’re usually well below the expense required to do the same thing in-house. Businesses also benefit by receiving ideas from many sources rather than from just within the organization. Jeff Howe is credited with coining the term for a 2006 article in Wired.
Latent semantic indexing
I wrote a post about latent semantic indexing in early August. The techy terminology relates to how search engines index and subsequently rank web pages.
LSI is important to understand for search engine optimization purposes.
Keywords are currently king with SEO, but they may need to share the throne with LSI, which is a way of scanning a page that takes into account both keywords and related terms. For example, a web page about lighting fixtures might also logically include the words lamp, chandelier, dimmer, fluorescent and bulb.
The idea is for the search engine to take a holistic view of content and analyze it in a way that reflects real human thought rather than simply zero in how many times a particular keyword appears. One aim of LSI is to reduce faulty results that occur when searches are conducted for words with multiple meanings.
While search engine companies keep their special sauce (algorithms) close to the vest, word is that Microsoft’s Bing heavily relies on LSI.
For those who create web content, the takeaway here is that besides prominently featuring pertinent keywords, a web page must also include alternative and related terminology. Beyond creative writing skills a thesaurus comes in handy here.
- Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think of these fast growing trends that we need to pay attention to? What’s missing? Comments welcome.
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Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 7 so far )
Is This The New Model For Local Journalism?
Posted on February 11, 2010. Filed under: Commentary, Trends | Tags: analysis, Commentary, democracy, end of journalism, informed citizenry, innovation, investigative journalism, Metropolis, new model, news web site, news website, newspaper, Philadelphia, Tom Ferrick, Tom Ferrick Jr., traditional journalism, traditional media |
After all, he asserts, democracy is a form of government that relies on an informed citizenry.
So what happens if our sources of investigative news coverage die out?
It’s a scenario he’d rather not live to see.
Tom recently launched a website called Metropolis, with in-depth news, analysis and commentary for the Philadelphia region.
I’m a former journalist and the concept of Metropolis piqued my interest. So I gave Tom a ring and we chatted about his new venture. Here are highlights from our conversation.
Interview with Tom Ferrick, Senior Editor for the website, Metropolis:
What’s the impetus for Metropolis?
Tom: You’re seeing the decline in traditional media. Journalism is still sound but the economic model is failing. And my argument is we’re still fine with breaking news — TV and the newspapers do a good job with breaking news. But it’s the other stuff they used to do — the analysis, the investigations — those kinds of things that are broader. The real hard work. That stuff is diminishing and we sort of end up with this news and information gap.
Locally and regionally, it’s declined, … so my argument is we’ve got to find a way to fill that void and that’s what this is designed do.
Do you have a content strategy?
Tom: The content is very much local, or regional. It’s a combination of commentary, good analysis, in-depth stories and investigations. That’s the portfolio.
Right now, if you look at the site it has four main components. There’s a main story, a commentary called Publius, which is about politics and government and commentary and analysis of that. VoxPop, which is more personal essays and reflections — people’s voices that reflect life in Philadelphia today. And then I have New and Recommended that points people to other interesting articles. I’d like to expand that over time.
And you picked those four main areas because they are personal interests?
Tom: I spent my whole life covering politics. I played on my strengths. I would not put up a sports site — let’s put it that way. It’s not where I’m at.
How are you getting contributors?
Tom: I advertised on Craig’s’ List and that was mostly for the VoxPop personal essays. I’m getting some of the political commentary that comes over the transom, and rest is people in the business I’ve known for years whom I’ve recruited to write stories. I don’t pay much… $50 for the first article, $75 for the second, and $100 for the third… For the bigger pieces, I can’t pay these people what they’d normally get. But I’ll pay them 400 to 500 bucks. My feeling is free is the new model, but I think if you’re going to ask people to do professional quality work, you can’t ask them to that that for free… If it’s a professional writer, I think you should pay them. Even if it amounts to an honorarium.
Is it self-financed?
Tom: Yes, at this stage.
You’re not soliciting for ads?
Tom: Not yet. I think I have to have an audience before I start charging people [laughs]. It’s a radical idea.
So what’s the economic model?
Tom: My hope is, because this is a non-profit that I’ve established, called the Public Media Lab, there will be a foundation or wealthy individuals who see the value of it and want to see it expand and sustained, and will step forward to provide some funds to operate it.
Well there has been talk of non-profit foundations stepping in to save traditional journalism, as we now know it. Just as an idea; not that a foundation has said they’re going to do it.
Tom: Right. And I think the other side of that is, the economic model for making these kinds of sites go forward has not yet been found. It’s all a process of discovery. I don’t think it’s a good idea in the long run for foundations to pay for news operations. But I think it’s a good idea to provide the research and development money. The seed money.
What’s the case you make? Why should they support you?
Tom: The simple case is this: Good journalism is really important to a good democracy. You need it. It serves a public purpose in that sense. And if we’re sort of headed into the dark ages through the collapse of the big news institutions, you have to ask yourself, what is going to replace it, if anything?
So what do you see as the damage being done? What’s lost?
Tom: The information that citizens need to not only monitor the politicians who are supposed to serve them but can also help the neighborhoods they live in.
One could argue that people just don’t want to read that kind of thing and that’s why you see so little of it nowadays.
Tom: My argument is there is a market. I think this kind of stuff will find a niche.
Do you think what you’re doing can serve as a potential model that may be picked up in other cities?
Tom: I think there is a core of people who see value in what I call American style journalism — which is independent of political party, fact-based, verified. As opposed to a state-run paper or infotainment. And I think the people who practice that type of journalism are going to have to look for new venues to continue to practice that.
As the old ones fall you’re really emerging into an era of experimentation as to what new venues you can find. This is what I am trying to do. There’s a lot of this stuff going on like this around the country.
- Deni Kasrel
Do you think Tom is on the right track with his new venture, Metropolis? Do you think it’s a good model to help save the future of local hard-news journalism. Please share your thoughts. Comments welcome.
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