March 26th, 2010
I gave a talk at SXSW at Social Media Club Austin entitled how Social Media is Like Porn. I crowdsourced the quotes and attributed everyone who contributed. There was much more to my talk (you had to be there to truly know). Some may have been offended by the visuals included but I say this to them, social media is offensive, it doesn’t cater to everyone and if you aren’t offended then you’re consuming too much of your own dogma. Get offended, get riled up, challenge others. Social media is a discussion and a fight at times. If everything felt good all the time then we’d be drinking the kool-aid. Enough of that, on with the show:
Tags: kool aid, presentation, social media, social network, social networking
Posted in analysis, featured, social media | 1 Comment »
March 21st, 2010
(Originally published on Lunch: How @anywhere became @everywhere.)
Know how you’re really excited to hook up with the smoking hot girl in the corner only to realize that she kisses like a wet fish? That’s exactly how Evan Williams’ interview by Umair Hague went. The session started off with much tension hanging in the air as whispers of Twitter announcing a new product swept through the Austin Convention Center halls. The main keynote room quickly became packed and rooms all over the convention center were being turned into overflow rooms. I happened to get ushered in to the main room and find a seat pretty close up front.
And so the talk begins. Ev starts out by announcing @anywhere, which is Twitter profile rollovers enabled outside of Twitter on the rest of the internet. Exciting! At least it was to most of the attendees there. Our minds started reeling – what are the implications of this? what does the implementation for businesses look like? what are the analytics? can i customize it? what else can it do? Unfortunately none of those questions were answered and neither did they delve into @anywhere any deeper than just announcing it. From there they went to talking about Twitter ad nauseum.
I like Twitter as much as the next person but let’s be honest – your average person who has never heard of how Twitter was used in Haiti or other newsworthy situations will not be attending SXSW. SXSW is for tech-savvy people who want to learn about things on a deeper level. I knew early on that their conversation was not heading back to @anywhere, hence it went @everywhere. Some others knew this too as they started filing out of the main keynote room. At this point this was not the mass exodus everyone experienced. I’m not exactly sure what tipped other people off but I experienced it firsthand. I happened to sit down right opposite of the exit because my friend Lane was charging his phone by the Pepsi Podcast lounge. All of a sudden about 10 minutes later mass amounts of people started filing out of the auditorium. No, the talk wasn’t over – there was still 10 minutes left.
I’m not sure exactly what triggered the mass exodus but my guess is that it’s the old adage ‘nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd’. Here’s the bottom line: when you have a group of savvy internet people in one large room don’t tell them about your service that they’ve been using for a while already. Go into details about the new announcement. Doing so makes them feel special as they are witnessing history. Rehashing history live makes them feel like they’re wasting their time and ultimately they did. That’s why many people walked out. People vote with their feet and if your presentation isn’t up to their standards they will decide very quickly.
Tags: friend lane, mass exodus, overflow rooms, wet fish, williams interview
Posted in analysis, social media | 1 Comment »
February 13th, 2010
Social media is an amazing medium that has allowed businesses of all kinds to connect with customers in a direct targeted real way. While it’s great it’s not a panacea. Social media isn’t a band-aid.
Social media is only as helpful as you are. What do I mean by this? As an addition that amplifies your original business efforts and customer service it is amazing. Once it starts taking center stage over your original efforts that’s when you run into problems. That’s socialwashing.
The icing on a cake may taste amazing but if the actual cake part is horrendous no one is going to eat it regardless of how tasty the icing is. If your business operations are shoddy and your customer service is flagging there’s only so much social media can do. There’s also only a certain amount of time you have to fool people that everything is alright with your sleight of hand magic tricks.
The danger comes into play when your original supporters – your evangelists – abandon you because you become too obssessed with social media and lose sight of your most important customers needs. It’s a sad day when you as the customer realizes that you must part ways with what has come to be a good friend.
A good friend isn’t someone who ignores their friend’s basic needs and is only cares about fun. That’s a fairweather friend. That’s exactly what socialwashing is.
Tags: business efforts, business is business, fairweather friend, sleight of hand magic tricks, taking center stage
Posted in business, featured, social media | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
Click on “Settings”, scroll down to the bottom to “Linked Accounts”. Click on crap. Boom. You’re now able to access Facebook when you’re signed in to other services. You’re welcome.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: email, Facebook, Google, login, Myspace, social media, social networks, Yahoo
Posted in featured, social media | No Comments »
December 8th, 2009
Is Facebook promoting Google’s Gmail Connect service as a way to get more users onto Facebook? Or is Google taking out ad space to promote their connect tool? More than likely it’s an internal Facebook effort as the logos of Yahoo, AOL, Windows Live and Gmail are all represented in the ad. So why now?
As
Mashable and
GigaOm both report Facebook’s growth is slowing. As they both point out Facebook has refocused their strategy by eliminating regional networks in place of a global focus and added new products such as Facebook Lite and
Facebook Touch Mobile. One thing is for sure – the users Facebook already has aren’t going anywhere, as there are no clear alternatives to the social network behemoth (at least in the US).
The question on my mind is this – will Facebook start creating ads to start pulling in your Twitter and LinkedIn friends to your Facebook network? They’ve created a fan page post to Twitter tool so it’s not that far of a stretch, especially concerning the strength of their network. Only time will tell but this is a move that Facebook would clearly benefit from if they implemented it.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: ad space, AOL, aren, behemoth, clear alternatives, Connect, database, download, effort, email, Facebook, fan, fan page, focus, gallery, GigaOm, global focus, Gmail, Google, growth, linkedin, Lite, Live, logos, mashable, mind, mobile, mobile one, move, network, one thing, page, place, point, post, question, regional networks, report, service, space, strategy, strength, stretch, thing, time, tool, Touch, twitter, US, way, Windows, Yahoo
Posted in branding, featured, social media | 1 Comment »
November 10th, 2009
A strong brand pays attention to details. A smart brand connects with the connectors in memorable ways that may not be readily quantifiable. A savvy brand knows that there are many factors involved in making something a hit or miss. Motorola is all of these and more when it comes to Droid.
On Android day, Cake Group put together an amazing event for Motorola’s Droid release. Their efforts went beyond the day of with connecting with various influencers beforehand to seed articles after the fact.
The branding brilliance comes into play with the attention to details. Customized shortened urls were created just for the event:
Press Release for Droid: http://bit.ly/MotoDroid
Link to Droid specs/product info: http://bit.ly/MotorolaDroid
Pictures from last night: http://bit.ly/MotoLaunchParty
The invitation was elegant, simple and overall top-notch:
What really set them apart was Motorola’s use of Foursquare in a relevant and timely way:
If that wasn’t enough, the piece that pulled it all together was the fact that the launch party took place in Morimoto, the famous Japanese restaurant. MoriMOTO, MOTOrola - very slight but very intentional and very effective.
With Motorola the attention is in the details. At every turn there was a robot, or droid, to reinforce that we were there in fact for the DROID launch. By the end of the party none of the robot droids were left, as they were almost as coveted as the DROID itself. Another small detail was the DROID branded photo-booth downstairs, which came with props like a giant inflatable 90′s-era cellphone and a raygun, as well as an alien backdrop.
Attention to details doesn’t stop after the party: I have it on good authority that Cake Group also added tips to every Verizon store on DROID day (11-6-9) to clue people in to the new Motorola DROID. While Foursquare may not be completely mainstream yet one thing is for sure – the people that ARE using advanced social networking services are the ones who are buying these new mobiile computing “phones”. With the proliferation of these advanced communication devices it’s only a matter of time before everyone is using one. Until then we have companies like Motorola and Cake Group who are using branding purposefully to guide us along the way.
Tags: android, attention, authority, backdrop, brand, brilliance, Cake, cellphone, clue, computing, day, detail, downstairs, droid, droids, end, event, fact, Foursquare, giant, giant inflatable, Group, influencers, info, invitation, japanese restaurant, launch, launch party, link, mainstream, mobiile, Morimoto, motorola, networking, networking services, new motorola, night, none, party, photo booth, Pictures, piece, place, play, Press, product, props, raygun, release, restaurant, robot, seed, social networking, something, store, thing, top notch, turn, Use, verizon, way
Posted in branding, life, social media | 1 Comment »
October 26th, 2009
A necessary and brilliant move, Apple has added suggestions to their receipt to give a valid call to action. The only problem is the suggestions are based on what others who bought my selections also bought. While this is helpful in giving more suggestions I’d actually like suggestions based on what I bought that’s relevant to me.
Semantic technology may still be in it’s infancy but relevancy can be given based on many other factors. I personally don’t need an app to view my pet pictures on my Mac remotely (Clarus), a separate app to read a blog (Pali Research), and I certainly don’t need to track my neuroses (SymTrend). If Apple knew me they’d know that I don’t have a pet, am reading my blogs via my6sense now and have overcome neuroses long ago.
Tagging is a very simple technology that is successfully implemented by many brands. Foursquare has taken descriptive tagging to another level by crowd sourcing this task and rewarding for levels of input. If the ‘Give Work’ app was properly tagged it would’ve been able to suggest other apps that are similar in the social good, social change categories and crowd sourcing categories. I would even accept most recently added app suggestions, most popular in category, or even what other users in my area downloaded [which they can do because they have my address].
Suggestions are a step forward but these aren’t enough for me. For now I’ll keep archiving my iTunes receipts so I can search through my download history, as Apple doesn’t allow you to do that easily. If apps like my6sense can learn my preferences then surely a large company with vast resources like Apple can figure out how to do the same.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: action, address, address suggestions, app, Apple, apps, area, aren, blog, blogs, brilliant move, call, category, change, change categories, Clarus, company, crowd, database, doesn, download, email, Foursquare, history, infancy, input, iTunes, level, Mac, move, neuroses, Pali, pet, pet pictures, problem, receipt, receipts, relevancy, Research, Semantic, sense, simple technology, step, store, Suggestions, SymTrend, tagging, task, technology, the, vast resources, Work
Posted in branding, featured, social media | No Comments »
October 23rd, 2009
Facebook recently released a touchscreen optimized interface for phones such as the iPhone and android models. It’s interesting that even though Facebook is one of the most downloaded social networking iPhone apps that Facebook is still continuing to optimize the mobile web on many different fronts.
Considering they just launched their newly redesigned homepage in a more streamlined newsfeed focused way it makes me wonder if this addition is within their overall brand vision for their user interface and user experience.
One thing I DO like about the new Touch interface is the Phone section (Also notice the new notifications red icon in the upper left corner). It focuses on who you can call, as opposed to the mobile interface which focuses on all your friends and pointing out who has their phone number listed with a phone icon.
What do you think about the differences? Not enough? Too much? What other changes should be made?
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: android, brand, branding, email, Facebook, iphone, iphone apps, mobile interface, mobile web, models, network, networking, notifications, phone icon, phone number, social, social media, social network, social networking, social web, touch interface, touchscreen interface, user experience, user interface, Web 2.0
Posted in branding, social media | No Comments »
