Grounded In Reality

TechCrunch writes a great post about how social media (particularly Twitter and FriendFeed) is becoming too much to handle… so much so that Robert Scoble is even cutting back on his number of Twitter subscriptions. The TechCrunch post concludes:

“So where is the startup that is going to be my information filter? I am aware of a few companies working on this problem, but I have yet to see one that has solved it in a compelling way. Can someone please do this for me? Please? I need help. We all do.”

In a response to this post, Maple Leaf 2.0 seems to differ. Their stance is that TechCrunch just isn’t using the tools right. Another differing opinion comes from Alexander Van Elsa’s blog. (I like his stance best.) He posts that the truly cluttered sensation from ‘too many updates’ only affects the Tech elite. Most users are able to join the conversation when they like, then pop out and smell the roses of the real world.

My personal take on this?

Twitter has been the most recent addition to my social media mix. I had a hard time using the service at first, but after adding the Twitter Facebook application, having Twitter updates sent through my Google Talk (or GChat) account, and being more selective with the users I follow, I find I use it more.

As far as update overload goes, I think I had a taste of that with Twitter. When I first signed on I only followed my friends and co-workers (the few who have joined the service). I then decided to follow a few high profile bloggers on Twitter (who shall remain nameless) because I liked their blog and figured I’d want to see what they twittered about. This is where the trouble came. My Twitter page was always so busy that I found I couldn’t keep track of conversations and quickly lost interest. I think this is what Elsa was talking about in his post: the ‘tech elite’ I was following was too active for my lifestyle.

Just this week I decided enough was enough and I stopped following them. I find I get much more joy from the tool by keeping my feed to a smaller number of users who post at a rate I can handle. Only time will tell if I truly become an adopter of Twitter, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Summary: If you are worried about information overload the answer is simple, edit-edit-edit. Keep your lists/feeds/subscriptions/follows down to manageable level.

I just returned from day 1 of Ad Age’s Digital Marketing Conference. The morning kicked-off with 2 great panels on the topic of branded entertainment and content creation. The majority of the conversation focused on how brands are increasingly building their own content platforms or aligning with media properties to develop branded experiences.

Key points about content included:

• Ownership: Ogilvy Entertainment’s Doug Scott made the point that “brands should own content rather than rent it.” His reasoning is that the Web gives brands a platform to create long-term engagement with consumers vs. the quick burst model of display ads and 30-second spots. Once display ads are gone, they are gone…whereas branded content lives online forever. I agree with his POV, but would add that marketers must be willing to experiment and fail. Brands turning into media properties overnight is no easy task (a la Bud.tv).

• Quality: Nothing new here, but the point was hammered home: creating exceptional content must remain the top priority. Relying on distribution and promotion will only make a campaign go so far. Frank Cooper, VP of Marketing for Pepsi, commented that “there’s a lot of roadkill out there” when it comes to online video (both professional and user-generated). He talked about the importance of finding the right producers, writers and actors who can create compelling, relevant content that’s built for web consumption and sharing.

  As my colleague Rachelle Spero always says, “comedy can’t be cooked up in a corporate conference room. If you want to be funny, hire a comedian.” Daman Wayans, founder of WayOut TV (“Living Color 2.0” as he calls it) echoed this POV during a panel titled “Talking Talent.” Wayans said the vast majority of UGC is actually LGC – or “loser-generated content.” His message to brands: work with the pros who know how to source, produce or filter content that’s going to resonate and be passed along in an exponential fashion.

• User Experience: several speakers stressed that the internet can’t just be another medium for repurposing TV content bits. The web enables community and dialogue, therefore storylines should involve consumers and be as participatory as possible.

I’m looking forward to Day 2, which has an awesome line up of speakers including NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, David Armano of Critical Mass, and Tom Nicholson, founder of interactive agency Icon Nicolson.

In what could be seen as ‘user generated search results,’ Yahoo is adding a service to its search capabilities called Buzz. Users will be given the option to vote on articles; promoting news they like or demoting news they dislike, that will directly affect what appears on the coveted page 1 of search. An excerpt from an article yesterday on NYTimes.com:

“Yahoo is combining users’ votes with information it gathers from its Internet search service, so that when search traffic spikes for an item or topic, it will get more ‘buzz.’ Yahoo editors, not computer programs, will decide whether an item will be placed on the portal’s front page, which receives more than 90 million visitors in the United States each month.”

BusinessWeek.com also weighed in with a story this morning clarfiying more specifics on how users will interact with Buzz:

“More than 100 major news sites have agreed to place Yahoo “Buzz Up” buttons next to their articles and other content. The partners include Gannett’s (GCI) USA Today, News Corp.’s (NWS) Wall Street Journal, and Time Warner’s (TWX) Entertainment Weekly. A click on the button is tallied as a user endorsement and sent to Yahoo’s Buzz page. Those with the highest scores are considered for placement on Yahoo’s front page. But Yahoo is retaining some editorial control: An internal team will have final say over the stories featured on the main home page. Yahoo says this is to guard against articles deemed lewd, violent, or capable of exposing the company to legal liability…”

Can a service like this really work? What are the implications for businesses that (as a result of Buzz) appear at the top of search results? A demonstration by Yahoo proved to have a surprisingly weighty outcome. An excerpt from the aforementioned NYTimes.com article states:

“In a test of the service this year, Yahoo linked from its front page to content from Esquire magazine for just three hours. In that brief period, traffic to the Esquire.com site, which already allows users of Digg and Reddit to vote on its stories, doubled for the month.”

So the real question is: Will online customer relations now be a company’s SEO strategy?

Services like this one just further implicate that companies must take an interest in what is being said about their brand online. The example above shows a positive spike for Esquire, but what if there were an article about a brand or service that wasn’t so popular? Could developments like these keep your client forever buried in search results?

Late last week, Paul Walker spoke to the New York office about crowdsourcing and the general open source mentality that is further perpetuating itself in marketing communications, interpersonal communication and technology development. I got a chance earlier in the same week to witness a unique model of the “open source philosophy” in action.

On February 12, I attended a Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in New York City hosted by Pat Coyle, Executive Director of Business for the Indianapolis Colts. The concept of a sports marketing summit itself is not unique. How it came together, though, is distinctly “2.0.” Nearly 60 communications and technology professionals met in Manhattan, many of them for the first time. Most had come to know Pat through his blog at PatCoyle.net which discusses issues in sports marketing now that “fans are in charge.” Pat also created his own companion social network at Sportsmarketing20.com using a platform from Ning.

Over the course of a half day, there were panel discussions on measurement, engagement, communication and socializing that included representatives from a host of technology, sports and marketing entities from Rick Wolf (Business Development, RotoWorld/NBC) to Takkle.com CEO David Birnbaum to Hooman Radfar, founder of widget giant Clearspring Technologies. Conference attendees included ad agencies, companies developing social networking platforms and technologies, email marketers, as well as representatives from individual teams (New York Jets, Washington Redskins) and leagues (NBA, NFL).

Overall, it was a great learning experience and more (albeit unnecessary) evidence that the environment for marketers has changed. Many discussions centered on how to engage consumers online, how to measure engagement, how corporate sponsors can integrate content and monetize their online efforts and ways we’re interacting with certain technologies. A solid summary is offered by event attendee Brian Litvack from wRECK Sports here.

Below are a few other interesting examples of engagement referenced during the course of the day. I’ve got a complete list of attendees and would be happy to further discuss with anyone interested.

Dunder Mifflin Infinity: virtual home for fans of NBC’s “The Office”

Takkle.com: bringing the challenge concept to life with high school athletes

NBA.com Suns: an NBA franchise offers fans a peek inside the locker room

MyColts.net: Online community for Indianapolis Colts fans

——
Steve Bonsignore
GCI Sports

Over the past week, Dell has been the topic of many conversations in the blogosphere, spurred by a Forrester Groundswell Award and BusinessWeek article discussing the company’s transformation from digital bystander to leader.  In reading these posts, I am incredibly proud of the GCI team that helped make this happen. (NOTE: Dell is a GCI client)

Below are a few highlights from the blogosphere:

• BusinessWeek: Dell Learns to Listen: Jeff Jarvis takes a guest columnist role to discuss his two-year relationship with Dell and an overview of Dell’s social media initiatives. The online version is complete with a 25-minute video of an interview with Michael Dell (also available on Jeff’s blog: BuzzMachine).   He also posted the un-edited version, which notes a very measurable impact of Dell’s programs:

“Thanks to this new relationship, the company learns about issues online before they do in the press or sometimes in-house. They are stanching the flow of bad buzz. By their measure, negative word of mouth in blogs has dropped from 49 to 22 percent. And my Dell Hell posts, which used to come up third on a Google search for the company, are now relegated to second-page search-engine Siberia. ‘That change in perception just doesn’t happen with a press release,’ Menchaca says.”

• Direct2Dell - Dell’s Blog: Lionel Manchaca did an interview with Jeff near the end of the day and posted the vlog that resulted on Direct2Dell.

• Forrester’s Groundswell blog also mentions Dell’s transformation when referencing the Forrester Groundswell Awards that were given out last week.

Company transformation. Dell.
We created this new category to capture the powerful changes happening across all functions at Dell. The Dell Customer Advocate program, which pursues fast resolution of support problems, decreased the negative share of online comments about Dell by 25%. Direct2Dell, Dell’s frank and informative blog, generates 3.5 million page views per month. Ideastorm, Dell’s innovation community, tallied 500,000 votes for over 7,000 ideas and generated a new product, Dell PC’s with Linux pre-installed. And Employee Storm, an internal idea community, has generated 2,700 ideas and seen visits from 22% of Dell’s employees.

• From Geoff Livingston at The Buzz Bin:

Relationships and RELATIONS are about being human — not God. Together as humans we experience life and grow together. Mistakes happen, and good PR can overcome this. Consider Dell’s incredible lesson in admitting wrongs, listening and changing. This week’s BusinessWeek story is a celebration of relations.

• Our own Paul Walker mentioned that he is “really proud of the people and programs mentioned in the article. Thanks, Dell, for letting us be a part of it.” 

On behalf of GCI, I want to give the entire team a big pat on the back! The consistent creativity and innovation in new media waters is something to be extremely proud of.

An interesting new crowd-sourcing site appeared recently, still in Beta, of course, from The Nielsen Company and is (not-so-cleverly) called: Hey! Nielsen.   The site requires that you register to participate and share your opinion, but without registration, you can search through the results of other folks recommendations.  Feels to me like a mix of Digg, IdeaStorm (for Dell, a GCI client), and TV Guide.

There are a couple of things to look at on the site:

• Opinions
  In topics labeled TV, Movies, Music, Personalities, and Internet, members can post opinions about current shows, bands, songs, people, Web sites, etc.  Then the crowd gets to agree or disagree and add additional comments.
• Rankings
  “Each topic (TV show, Movie, etc.) earns a Hey! Nielsen Score, determined by user opinions, comments, and ratings. Calculated daily, the Hey! Nielsen Score also factors in internet buzz via BlogPulse.com.  There is currenlty about a 7-hour avg for updating statistics information.”
• Calendars
  Soon enough this will be the “TV Guide with opinions”…but it will have to launch first.
• Members
  Looking similar to other social networking profiles…and very similar to Digg’s latest ‘profile’ launch, you will be able to click on a member to see which shows, music, etc they like and dont like.  The earlist member date I saw was in May for NatGuy who claims “I’m one of the folks involved in helping to build this site.”  Nielsen lists how many recommendations they have made and lists all their posts.
• Widgets
  What would a site be if you couldnt see if scrolling on your blog? :)  Therefore, they have created a nice scrolling widget for you to keep up with the latest and greatest recommendations on the site.  Hopefully this will become customizable.

Naturally, if you are related to the entertainment industry, this would be an ideal place to gather consumer insights and responses to your content.  However, it would not be an ideal place to promote your entertainment client unless you are extremely open and transparent in your role.

Eventually, Nielsen sees using the information as statistical evidence in each catagory, but personally I think you will need to let the site live for a good amount of time before you can qualify the information collected as valid.  I am also still stuck on the problem of the ‘online demographic’ setting the opinions of a whole set of humans.  I still feel like it is skewed unless mixed with other forms of information collection.

I am interested to see how others respond to the site and the use of the information as statisical analysis.  Would you believe what they say, just because its Nielsen?

Wikipedia, the so called “in-flux” or “open-source” encyclopedia, has become one of the most interesting phenomena in the short and robust history of online media.  Wikipedia is a “.org” and refers to itself loftily as a “project.”  With over 2 million articles in English alone, it is 20 times larger than most traditional encyclopedias and can be found in “approximately 250 languages,” according to the site’s own estimates.  It is by far the biggest and baddest of all wikis out there.

Wikipedia is an example of “collective intelligence” and sometimes also given as an example of Web 2.0.  It has become THE starting point for information on everything from the “John F. Kennedy assassination” to “Cancer” to “Copenhagen.”

Whatsmore, the open nature of the “project” doesn’t seem to have detracted from its credibility.  Studies have shown Wikipedia’s accuracy to be relatively close to that of professionally edited encyclopedias.  But an encyclopedia it is not.  Not in the traditional sense.  Consumers are also increasingly relying on Wikipedia (or are “Googled” towards it) for information on products, brands and services.

This is presenting some serious and interesting challenges for the way companies manage their overall corporate identity.

Case in point: An article in Wired magazine last week profiled a new addition called Wikipedia Scanner. The Wikipedia Scanner allows users to trace the IP addresses of those who make anonymous edits to Wikipedia articles. This salacious little tool is just the kind of thing that can give communications managers nightmares – and in several cases it already has.

The article reported that in a search of 34.4 million anonymous edits on the site, 2.6 million organizations were found to be directly linked to edits related to their own company.  The edits run the gamut - from benign press releases to deletions of entire sections of unflattering material.  The latter has led to the involved companies suddenly being named alongside the CIA and the Vatican (rumors abound about how those two organizations have made heavy edits to their own Wikipedia articles).

In these times where corporate social responsibility and transparency are not only considered important but essential to a company’s good image, it seems natural that the same principles in communications should follow suit.  Wikipedia Scanner is another sign that if companies do not address Web 2.0 media outlets with the same vigilance – and ethics - as other media, that their reputations stand to suffer.

So when you think about “upgrading” your communications strategy, don’t forget to “mind the wiki.”

———-

Brian Woodward
Senior Consultant
GCI Mannov

With automobiles being such a community driven and brand loyal product, it’s encouraging to see a car manufacturer finally jumping at the chance to offer a digital media hub for its enthusiasts.

Chevrolet launched a comprehensive social media campaign with the release of Chevynation.com. The site features user-generated as well as branded videos, links to MySpace pages of fellow Chevy owners and six distinct channels of content aimed at different segments of Chevy drivers—all compliments of the Warren, Michigan-based agency, Campbell-Ewald.

OMMA magazine interviewed three digital creative managers about Chevynation.com in their July issue. The trio consisted of Agency.com’s Mat Zucker, Mick O’Brien of Digitas and Atmosphere BBDO’s Arturo Aranda. The results were positive for Chevrolet.

Here are some notable excerpts:
OMMA: What are your initial thoughts?
O’Brien: It’s got a really cool vibe – the feel is almost one of nostalgia. This isn’t the right reference, but it almost has this American Graffiti feel to it where cars are king, and your car is an extension of yourself.
OMMA: Each channel offers a link to a MySpace page. Is this the best vehicle for community, or should Chevy have built a community of its own?
Zucker: I think it’s smart for brands to integrate with existing communities rather than create their own. The Web is an open, interconnected network of communities, and brands are smart to connect. The more you do that, the more successful you’re going to be.
OMMA: Do you see potential for this site to grow and evolve?
O’Brien: Definitely. What’s interesting about the city metaphor is you can put up a new building and take one down. Cities are living, breathing things.
Aranda: Yeah, that’s what’s great about building this idea of community, embodied within a city – it’s modular, you can keep on updating areas and nobody is going to question if a whole building or a whole storefront starts to shift or evolve.

Not only did Campbell-Ewald create a community atmosphere, they did it with such amazing graphics and attention to detail that it would make any true car lover grasp their shamee in delight.

Christy Leger
Austin, Tx

Unilever announced last week a 12-episode, weekly broadband series on Yahoo! Food called “In Search of Real Food.”

The shows feature Food Network personality Dave Lieberman as he travels across the country talking to people about their favorite recipes for “real food.” The site has a lot of cool features, including a real food blog, user-generated videos, recipes, local dining guides and more.
I actually learned about the campaign through a commercial that aired during “The Today Show” this morning. At the end of the ad, the voiceover read, “Go to Yahoo! and search ‘real food’ to join the conversation.” Interesting. Unilever is reportedly spending between $1 million and $2 million in ads on Yahoo!, as well as driving traffic through print and TV ads and jar caps.

The campaign has received a lot of attention from advertising/business press and bloggers, but it will be interesting to see if consumers can get excited about mayonnaise. I don’t like mayonnaise, but I’ll check it out.