Traveling in Beijing This Week. Limited Blogging and Social Media Output

I'm in Beijing this week, so there will be limited blogging from me. The Chinese government has blocked access to Blogger, Facebook, and Twitter from regular Internet access which is annoying. I can only access these sites through my iPhone, which can be tedious especially for blogging. So my overall social media output will be limited this week.

"Social Media Cheat Sheet"

HatTip to TheNextWeb.com

Record Labels, Old Media Don't Get New Media, Online Videos and Embedding

I came across this op-ed by Damian Kulash ("WhoseTube?", NYTimes), lead singer and guitarist of the band OK Go. And then this morning I received this article from Fast Company:

"OK Go Ditches Label Over YouTube Embedding Rights" by Dan Nosowitz

The article basically covers Damian's prior piece and tells about the conclusion of their conflict with EMI, who wouldn't allow them to have the embed code active for their YouTube videos. Once EMI blocked embedding their video views went from 10,000 per day to 1,000 per day. After OK Go left EMI and turned back on embeddable videos "digital album sales tripled and digital tracks sales have jumped more than sevenfold."



This brings me back to my days at GoingOn Networks when we were working with Forbes.com on various projects. In early 2007, our first project was to help them with an online video contest. It was going to be an "office pranks" contest where people could upload their videos and get rated by the Forbes' readership and a panel of judges.

Since I was leading this project and the product development, one of the first issues I had with Forbes.com was that they didn't want to allow video embedding. I remember strongly warning them that they would limit the viral effect if they didn't offer this. As typical old media people, they stated that they didn't want eyeballs off their main page and lose ad dollars. Our team explained that ads could be inserted into the videos and it would be a greater loss in terms of the video views. We didn't have hard numbers, such as OK Go's 90% drop-off rate, but it was clear anecdotally it would be a major hindrance to their viewership and audience growth.

Working hard to please our client and make this is a successful contest, I introduced Forbes.com to our contact at CAA, who was extremely helpful. One of their talent agents introduced them to a couple film producers and they seeded the Forbes.com Office Pranks site with some great content. We launched and their numbers weren't great. In my eyes, it was a flop and as a startup we were hoping for a home run. There were a couple other issues we warned them about, but the driver was that they weren't willing to allow the blogosphere to run with their content. They thought people would run away with their content and their ad dollars. This was 2007, but today is 2010 and it's amazing to me that many old media companies still don't get it.

Digital Tourettes

My friend, Dave, and I were talking about one of our friends who lives in the realm of too much information on his social networks. It's to the point where a person might say:

"Is his wife going to divorce him?"
"What?!?"
"Man, his wife is going to beat his ass."
"Did I really need to know that?"

Dave would classify our friend as having "digital tourettes." This is a syndrome where people uncontrollably cross social boundaries that the vast majority of a society won't cross. It's not simply posting too many details of your life's activities or daily habits, but those activities that people don't need to really know. This involves unnecessary information about bowel movements, flatulence, sexual activities, details about strip club visits, bachelor party escapades, stupid college adventures, etc.

I really hope this doesn't become a growing syndrome due to this new digital era of micro-blogging, 24/7 online presence, and wannabe stardom. Seriously, if you know anyone that might have these symptoms, please conduct an intervention and get him/her some psychiatric help.

Social Media Revolution

One of the better videos that provides an overview, facts and insights into how social media has changed our world.

Twitteleh, Twitter for Your Jewish Mother

HatTip to Net J. Love this. Someone should make one for Korean mothers called "Twittuh-ah." Their main questions would be:

1. Have you eaten yet?
2. Are you married yet?
3. Did you know Mrs. Kim's son... (e.g. got a 4.0, going to Hopkins Med)?

Portable Social Graphs Imagining Their Potential (FB Connect)

Presents the potential of portable social graphs with Facebook Connect as the primary example. Good presentation by Razorfish's Jesse Pickard.

Portable Social Graphs Imagining Their Potential (FB Connect)

View more documents from Bernard Moon.

CNBC: Power of Social Networking

"Social media is leading the biggest transformation in communication and advertising since e-mail. CNBC's Julia Boorstin takes a look at the power in social networking for companies and individuals." (embed code from their site is off since there is so much space here)

Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

My op-ed at Mashable is up, "Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk"

My first tech op-ed in 6 months! This correlates with our newborn girls sleeping through the night :) One of my hobbies had to give over these past six months.

Anyway, there were some minor edits to my piece, but one that I was sad that was taken out was my second poke at "joint venture marketing":

(Mashable post)
Do they even realize a joint venture is just a type of partnership a company might form with another company? That it isn’t a concept that deserves a whole category within marketing or corporate development? I was thinking of some equivalents to “joint venture marketing” in other fields. It would be like a chef trying to sell “deep fried cooking” or “charbroiled cooking” in an infomercial.

(original draft)
Do they even realize a joint venture is just a type of partnership a company might form with another company? That it isn’t a concept that deserves a whole category within marketing or corporate development? I was thinking of some equivalents to “joint venture marketing” in other fields. It would be like a chef trying to sell “deep fried cooking” or “charbroiled cooking” in an infomercial. Or claiming a “new” concept such as “foreplay sex.”

:)

Visualizations: Social Networks in the World (June 2009)

Social Media Venn Diagram Tee: Unlocking the Awesome Potential of Behavioral Disorders

This t-shirt by Despair, Inc. is hilarious and awesome!

FriendFeed Back On My WidgetBox Badge

A few months ago I took off my FriendFeed account from my Widgetbox badge in my sidebar since it wasn't doing anything for me. It wasn't interesting, it wasn't an active community. I decided to have my blog badge just promote my Linkedin, Digg and Twitter accounts.

Well, FriendFeed is back. They obviously changed their site, became more Twitter-like, and increased the activity within their community. Over the past few weeks, I've been doing nothing and getting several FriendFeed follows a day. It has continued to this day, so I thought it merited a place back on my "ID" badge.

USATODAY Launches New Blogs

I received an email yesterday from USATODAY announcing their "new communities" since I filled out their profile once to comment on an article. I was expecting a news site with social networking elements, but all of them were just blogs. I guess "blog" sounds too casual or beneath them :)

eMarketer's Twitter Tally

eMarketer has their latest projections on Twitter:

Tweety Bird would never believe this.

If media attention is any indication, Twitter has exploded into an all-out phenomenon. Celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, business leaders and everyday users are flocking to the service en masse, generating a frenzy of activity and attention.

Everybody is talking about Twitter, but what do the numbers say?



All I can say is that I predicted Twitter would go mainstream last May :) I would estimate that it really didn't go mainstream until winter of 2008 when major media outlets began using it to interact with their viewers. If I only had more time to write my trend pieces :)

"Twitter, Tina Fey, and the Future of Micro-Blogging" Mashable

UPenn's Global Environmental Sustainability Collaborative... Join the Conversation & Courses!

The software company I co-founded, GoingOn, has recently launched an initiative of UPenn's College of Liberal and Professional Studies (LPS).

The Global Environmental Sustainability Collaborative is an online forum and course that is open to the general public. Join if environmental and sustainability issues interest you! More from their site:

Please join faculty and students from The University of Pennsylvania, Kyung Hee University, and Ritsumeikan University, in a global, multi-continent discussion of issues around Global Environmental Policy and Sustainability led by Dr. Don Kettl, Professor of Political Science and Robert A. Fox Professor of Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania. On this site you have access to the course syllabus and reading list, as well as have "real-time" access to course lectures and discussions as they unfold. We invite you to join the conversation at no charge as a member-at-large. Create a profile, and join the course conversation as it evolves. As a member you will be able to add your thoughts to the course Comment Wall, Blogs and Forums. Members can also network with each other via email and instant messaging using the "Facezone" on the right. Offering a Penn course in an open online forum is an exciting new initiative at Penn. As you participate in the course this Spring, please share with us your thoughts and feedback on the experience.

If you're interested in bringing a similar initiative and collaborative platform to your academic institution, contact GoingOn's CEO, David Popler, at davidp[at]goingon.com

"New Media Douchebags Explained"

HatTip to Jennifer. Spot-on and amusing...

Noovo and Plinky... Next Wave of Publishing Tools for Lazy People

I recently got an invite to Noovo, which is an interesting content publishing play. ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus aptly called it "tumblr on steriods." When I first tried it out, I immediately thought "the child of Tumblr and Digg."

I like where Noovo going because it provides a filter for the growing streams of content from the vast digital world along with a publishing platform that you can share with your friends or the general public. It allows for lazy people like me to easily find and share their discoveries from the web or personal content from their blog, Twitter, Flickr and other multimedia services. One way they make it easy is on their "cover" page where you can see a list of articles, choose one that you want to post and share, and then just click to add it to your Noovo profile. For an example, you can view my profile here.

Founded by Slovenian entrepreneurs, it seems they have angel money from Esther Dyson, or she at least sits on their advisory board. Noovo's user interface isn't as simple as Tumblr's and they need a critical mass but are worth tracking.

Another lazy man's publishing tool is Plinky. Founded by Jason Shellen, a former Googler and Blogger guy. Plinky presents questions for you to answer, and then you can share them on Facebook, Twitter or your Plinky profile. They label these questions "prompts" and have a "Prompts" page that presents a new question every day. Again I like where this is going because it helps you generate content.

Interactive TV in the 90's was all about "lazy interactivity" because they discovered people (at least U.S. consumers) are lazy asses who didn't want too much complexity in their viewing choices or feature sets. Not many people really wanted to shop while they watched TV, pause, click on an actor's sweater, and then order it. You can still have a thousand channels and keep things simple. With a good filter and clean user interface, choices can be easily made and you can have a happy, lazy customer.

So Noovo and Plinky brings Web 2.0 back to this "lazy interactivity" model of consumer behavior since it syncs with the majority of web users and not the ten percent of users that like to work at their content creation.

GoingOn Networks New Launches... Brocato, In Search of Rastafari, Forbes

My old social media company I co-founded, GoingOn Networks, had some new client launches over the past few months:

Brocato, a national online community for hair styling professionals.


In Search of Rastafari: A Soul’s Journey, a community site for a movie.

I posted about Forbes CEO Network before, but David Popler, GoingOn's CEO, reminded me of a couple other executive communities they did for Forbes. The Small Business Exchange community and the Forbes Life Executive Women community.


If you're seeking a social media solution to deliver a platform for socializing the business internet that low cost, easy-to-implement, and professional grade just visit GoingOn here.

@ Blog World Expo & GodblogCon 2008

I'm attending the Blog World Expo and GodblogCon 2008 this weekend. Primarily going for our media company, InsideWork, which discusses the intersection of faith and business.

Thanks, Blogs.com... But Please Correct the Name

The people at Blogs.com, Six Apart's new blog directory, were nice enough to add my blog to their directory. It's edited by a team of 5 human editors (TechCrunch's coverage, "Six Apart To Relaunch Blogs.com As Yet Another Blog Directory") which similar to Blogged.com.

As with the Blogged.com people, they placed Silicon Moon's posts under their "Business" subcategory of "Marketing/Small Business." I guess anything about startups is placed under "small business." Anyway, definitely appreciate the inclusion and links. Thanks!

I did send in a request to Blogs.com already to correct the name they have listed. Instead of "Silicon Moon" they have "Growthology." Here's a screenshot with my recent "Building A Billion Dollar Business" post and the wrong blog name below it.


Hopefully this will be corrected soon :)