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by: Guy Kawasaki
Continuing on the theme of Duncan Watts and the demise of influencers and A listers, CNET Networks conducted a three-part study called "The Influencer Study from CNET Networks: Challenging Perceptions." It explored the structure of social networks, the motivations for giving advice, and methods of acquiring information.
Continue reading "Twitter in Plain English (and Visual Thinking)" »
by: Scott Goodson
Ever since the Brian Morrissey, Adweek piece came out last week stating that "Agencies 'Don't Get' Social Media" there has been heightened desire by major consumer advertisers to know what social media is, who is doing it best, and how can they benefit from it.
Continue reading "Social Media and Social Network Marketing" »
by: Scott Goodson
Fred Wilson points out in his blog that Facebook is not experiencing a decline but rather it has reached a plateau in the USA. Look a few feet outside the US border and we see a very different picture.
Continue reading "The Communist Manifesto of Chris Anderson" »
by: David Armano
I'm updating some thinking on the "3 U's". The word and idea of "Unity" doesn't quite work even though there is some overlap in my thinking. So here's another take swapping the idea of "ubiquity" for "unity". Seems more appropriate. Let me know what you think.
by: David Armano
BusinessWeek's Bruce Nussbaum recently wrote a terrific post in which he dissects the effects of social media in the business world. In part of his write up, he analyzes the My Vegas effort. While of course I think that's great--what he says here really stuck with me:
Continue reading "The 3 U's: A Model for "Advertising" in the App Economy" »
When
I was last in DC, I had lunch with Daniel Solove and we were talking
about book publishing. He had been thinking of making his book
downloadable under Creative Commons and I was like DO IT DO IT! This is
the kind of book that is sooo relevant so many different audiences who
would never hear about it through traditional advertising. My thought
is that if it were available online, it could whet folks appetite
before buying it
(cuz printing it out is painful and reading it online is not wonderful
either and your Kindle doesn't support PDFs). Introducing...
Continue reading "The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet" »
by: David Armano
I've described tightly knit online communities as "clusters" and manifestations of social media such as blogs (or widgets) as "connectors". In recent weeks I've read a couple of perspectives that emphasize preferences for one over the other. Some of us like forums:
by: danah boyd
Last fall, I did an interview for Discover Magazine about my research. I still think that I look strange in video, but I figured others might appreciate it.
by: David Armano
Over at Forrester's Groundswell blog, Josh Bernoff recently wrote this in the context of social applications doing well in a recession:
"Best of market trumps first to market"
Continue reading "Alan Cooper: "Best of Market Trumps First to Market"" »
by: David Wigder
Today, dozens of social news sites exist where users bookmark content for the site's community to view and rate. Specific content related to the environment is available on both general news sites such as Digg, Newsvine, Propeller (AOL) or Reddit and green vertical sites such as C2NN, Hugg, Five Limes and plant change (Aus). Squareoak Media provides a fairly comprehensive list of social news sites categorized by vertical.
Continue reading "Green Content Syndication: Part III - Activating Diggers" »
Continue reading "just because we can, doesn't mean we should" »
by: David Armano
"...Journalists and PR professionals, the influence brokers of traditional media, have lost a huge degree of influence on the web in large part because they don't link to anything. While traditional media brands are still powerful channels on the web, they are losing influence everyday to the link-driven web network -- journalists and PR professionals can no longer depend on controlling these former monopoly channels to exert influence online."
~The New Influentials (PSFK)
I got the latest Fast Company nearly a week ago. I browsed the cover and noticed the "Un-Tipping Point" headline on the cover. I then packed the magazine in my bag planning to read it on the train.
I never did.
Continue reading "Influence Ripples, Tipping Points + Toast" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
You've got to read "Is the Tipping Point Toast?"
by Clive Thompson in FastCompany. The gist of Thompson's piece, based on the work of Duncan Watts of Yahoo Research, is that the theory that a select few "key influencers" matter more than "the rest of us" when it comes to viral and word-of-mouth marketing campaigns is flawed.
by: David Armano
The question isn’t if we’re heading into a recession. It’s how bad will it be—and what we learn from it? As marketing budgets feel the squeeze of the housing crisis and a slowing U.S. Economy, now is a good time to think about opportunities. That’s right. Opportunities. It just happens that the digital medium could be your best friend in a time when belts tighten. Here’s a few starters for how digital can help your business or brand thrive in a recession:
Continue reading "10 Ways Digital Can Help You Thrive in a Recession" »
by: danah boyd
In writing Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, Nicole Ellison and I wrote many iterations of the definition of the term "social network sites" and why we chose to use this instead of "social networking sites."
Continue reading "let's define our terms: what is a "social networking technology"?" »
by: danah boyd
The Economist is doing an "Oxford-style debate" on the following proposition:
Given that MySpace and Facebook are ubiquitous, can social networking be defined as the "collective power of community to help inform perspectives that would not be unilaterally formed" or is it simply a distraction for students? Can these tools could be used in the classroom?
Continue reading "The Economist Debate on Social "Networking"" »
I
had just finished giving a talk about youth culture to a room full of
professionals who worked in the retail industry when a woman raised her
hand to tell me a story. It was homecoming season and her daughter Mary
was going to go to homecoming for the first time. What fascinated this
mother was that her daughter's approach to shopping was completely
different than her own.Continue reading "Technology and the World of Consumption" »
Continue reading ""Spamturitis" and Facebook's Signal to Noise Factor" »
Continue reading "remix culture and fair use: a new study" »
Continue reading "B2B Public Relations & Blogs: Policy, Resources, Process & Promotion" »
by: Jon Miller
Here are 50 more blogs about business-to-business marketing, bringing the total on the complete Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs to 138 blogs.
B2B marketing still lags far behind other categories of marketing blogs, so please keep letting me know via comments if you find any B2B blogs that I missed.
As always, here is the updated B2B marketing blog OPML file.
Continue reading " Lists of social networking sites – mainly for the 50-plus" »
Continue reading "A Few 2008 Predictions (Not Exhaustive) and Happy New Year to You All!" »
Continue reading "Pew on teen social media practices (with interesting bits on class)" »
by: David Armano
Update:
I'm having a real-time Twitter conversation with Adweek's Brian Morrissey who, as an avid runner is not a fan of the site and offers this opinion:
"the content is one-size-fits-all lame, the redirect to forums sucks out loud and it's still nike talking at me."
) Matt pointed out that Wordpress was mostly pre-optimized for search
engines - the latest versions reduce duplicate content issues, page
structure, titles, etc., fit Google’s recommendations, and keyword URLs
are easy to generate. We’ve been blog advocates for years, but Matt’s
blunt recommendations was still a bit of a surprise. Let’s look at why
adding a blog to a new (or even old) site can be a good idea.by: Christian Smagg
There are risks and challenges associated with adopting any new technology, and Enterprise 2.0 is no different.
It is quickly becoming evident that successful implementation is arising from business strategy, aligned with clearly defined outcomes & objectives, and supported by organisational structures, company's culture and adapted technologies. Like any other project, it requires thought, preparation, support, energy, and communication.
Continue reading "Driving successfully web 2.0 into the enterprise" »
Continue reading "adults' views on privacy (new PEW report)" »
Continue reading "valuing inefficiencies and unreliability" »
by: danah boyd
I've been watching the public outcry over Facebook's Beacon (social ads) program with great interest. For those who managed to miss this, Facebook introduced a new feature called Beacon. Whenever you visit one of their partners' sites, some of your actions were automagically sent to Facebook and published on your News Feed. The list of actions is unknown, although through experimentation folks have learned that they include writing reviews on Yelp, renting movies from Blockbuster, and buying things on certain sites.
by: danah boyd
Last month, I participated on a panel at Pearson Publishing along with three others from MacArthur's digital learning initiatives. I gave a talk there about the future of information access and I wanted to make the crib available for all who might find it of interest:
Continue reading ""Information Access in a Networked World"" »
by: danah boyd
Advertising is the bread and butter of the web, yet most of my friends claim that they never click on ads, typically using a peacock tone that signals their pride in being ad-averse. The geekier amongst them go out of their way to run Mozilla scripts to scrape ads away, bemoaning the presence of consumer culture. Yet, companies increasingly rely on ad revenue to turn a profit and, while clicking on ads ?may? be declining, it certainly hasn't gone away. This raises a critical question: Who are the people that click on ads?
Continue reading "Who Clicks on Ads? And What Might This Mean?" »
by: danah boyd
In 2005, I penned an article in Salon ("Turmoil in blogland") to address my concerns over Six Apart's acquisition of LiveJournal.
When Six Apart bought LiveJournal, it did not simply purchase a tool -- it bought a culture. LJ challenges a lot of assumptions about blogging, and its users have different needs. They typically value communication and identity development over publishing and reaching mass audiences.
by: danah boyd
::giggle:: While I was off the grid, Cory Doctorow created a law of social network sites and named it after me:
Continue reading "Must see video: "We Think" vs."The Cult of the Amateur"" »
by: David Wigder
Participation in social networks continues to grow seemingly without bounds as more people seek to connect, share and collaborate with likeminded individuals online. Today, hundreds of millions of online users have already signed up, with an increasing number belonging to more than one network.
by: David Armano
A couple of weeks ago, I asked a simple question. Should digital agencies be blogging? I mean, we are out there advising clients on "social media" and how it's evolving the way we interact with brands and each other. Some folks felt that the question was silly. Isn't this a no brainer? Well, not exactly. The best part of the post came in the comments (no surprise) and the post itself got picked up by several agencies who use internal blogs to discuss issues like this. This means that they are having conversations in private vs. publicly. And there's nothing wrong with that. But wouldn't you like to be fly on that agency's wall? I would.
by: Eliane Alhadeff
A web based virtual shopping mall launched in New Zealand, allows users to navigate a three dimensional space to browse and buy products, bringing what the company says is the same shopping experience as in the real world. http://www.themallplus.com/ is not a portal that redirects consumers to third party websites, instead creating an online virtual shopping mall.
Continue reading "Serious Games Bring the Mall to Web Browsers" »
by: danah boyd
It gives me unquantifiable amounts of joy to announce that the JCMC special theme issue on "Social Network Sites" is now completely birthed. It was a long and intense labor, but all eight newborn articles are doing just fine and the new mommies are as proud as could be. So please, join us in our celebration by heading on over to the Journal for Computer-Mediated Communication and snuggling up to an article or two. The more you love them, the more they'll prosper!
Continue reading "It's Live! New JCMC on Social Network Sites" »
by: David Armano
Everyone's talking about Social Graphs and Jeremiah Owyang recently penned a wonderful and brief synapsis of what a Social Graph is and what it means to your business.
by: David Armano
"When you think “social media” a few names and images come to mind. You might think of Robert Scoble who is essentially a “Weblebrity” or Jeff Jarvis who leveraged his blog to amplify his gripes with Dell’s customer service creating “Dell Hell”. But there’s a new reality that’s much less dramatic and becoming more pervasive if not mainstream in the modern day office. Some of your employees may be leading double lives which often blurs the lines between personal and career—they are “super-connecters” who leverage social media tools to amplify their communications and conversations with hundreds and possibly thousands of people across the globe…
by: Dominic Basulto
One minute you're the CEO of one of the most powerful Internet companies in the world, the next you're a "moral pygmy" being disgraced by media publications all over the world. Reputation on the Internet can be difficult to measure, and even more difficult to protect.
Continue reading "Yahoo, the "Moral Pygmy" problem and reputation on the Internet" »
by: Yann Gourvennec
In a Wall Street Journal article entitled Web Scammer Targets Senior U.S. Executives is an amazing account of a Mr Stewart’s chase for the uncovering of a Romanian scammer, complete with Mr Stewart’s extraordinary biography (a guy who 15 years ago was mopping the floor is in McDonald’s restaurants and had barely a dime and couldn’t even buy a computer, and has now become a world leading expert in computer security).
Continue reading "Social Networks Used as Back-doors by Scammers for Online Fraud" »
by: Danah Boyd
In June, I wrote a controversial blog essay about how U.S. teens appeared to be self-dividing by class on MySpace and Facebook during the 2006-2007 school year. This piece got me into loads of trouble for all sorts of reasons, forcing me to respond to some of the most intense critiques.
by: Karl Long
And myspace might be saying “Thanks for the add” to google as well.
I had initially thought this story from Tech Crunch was like a formation of a “coalition of the willing” with the other social networks, but I’m begining to think it might have much bigger implications.
Continue reading "Open Social - the Social Network For Companies Scared Of Facebook" »
by: danah boyd
For over a year now, Nicole Ellison and I have been working on putting together a special issue of JCMC on "Social Network Sites." Not all of the pieces are live yet, so I'm going to wait until they are before highlighting them and encouraging you to go there. (But! If you want to get a taste, their abstracts are all up on the site as temporary holders.)
Continue reading "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship" »
by: danah boyd
In business, the economic concept of "externalities" has tremendous salience. In short, an externality is a cost that a third party must bear due to the actions of others. For example, air pollution is considered an externality of manufacturing. In theory, as protectors of the public good, reasonable governments should regulate corporate externalities through imposed taxes. (In reality...) More and more, discussion of environment externalities is a core part of business.
by: danah boyd
For this year's Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) conference, I put together a paper reflecting on my methodological choices in pursuing an understanding of how youth engage with networked publics. In it, I try to lay out my decisions, my successes, and my failures. This paper is written in loving memory of my advisor Peter Lyman.
Enjoy!
Original Post: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/10/25/choose_your_own.html
by: C. Sven Johnson
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my primary interest in tracking the intellectual property issues currently plaguing the music and movie industries, waiting in the ebook wings for book publishers, and even frustrating hordes of bloggers whose content is appropriated and used to create spamblogs, is that at some point their problems become my problems; becomes the problem of anyone who designs and fabricates real products for a living.
Continue reading "The Looming Dark Horizon: When the IP Mess Hits Industrial Design & Co." »
by: Dominic Basulto
The Japanese Web site Information Architects has once again created a wonderful graphical representation of the most popular Internet destinations. (click to enlarge)
by: Karl Long
Todd linked to this excellent viral homage to some of the notable viral videos of the last few years. Believe me they list a hell of a lot, but what I found interesting was the number of deliberate commercial “virals” for want of a better word. These are the companies/people that managed to achieve what I believe is quite a feat, to launch a deliberate campaign that “goes viral”.
Continue reading "We Didn’t Start The Viral - Commercial Successes" »
by: Lynette Webb
Ta da... after a stupidly long delay, finally the book is ready. :-)
Ironically the hold up wasn't getting the content together, it was finding a cover image and binding that I liked - it took me 3 goes to get right!
By: Stefan Kolle
Although we usually tend to steer clear from pure news related events, as these tend to be discussed in so many other places, I do want to add a few quick comments on the Microsoft / Facebook deal. (In the rather unlikely case you have missed it - here's the story)
I'd like to make two seemingly contradictory obervations:
A. Facebook will be a disappointment in the long run, particularly from an advertisers perspective
B. Microsoft did a brilliant deal and will make it's money back several times over.
Continue reading "Some Comments on the Microsoft / Facebook Deal" »
by: Idris Mootee
Web 2.0 is a loaded term that is unarguably subject to enormous amount of hype but now also a lot of serious corporate interest. Different people define Web 2.0 in different ways, which are often confusing and is understandable (same as branding, strategy and many other words). I have written a lot the last few weeks on Web 2.0 and Media 2.0.
by: Karl Long
Someone on LinkedIn just posed this question “How can one make Blogs more enjoyable or What is that you do to maintain the popularity/readership of your blog?“. Here are my thoughts on this, this may not be all that leads to a successful blog, but these are for me pretty essential ingredients: Focus, Passion, and Originality.
Continue reading "Three Traits of Successful Blogs - Focus, Passion, and Originality" »
by: Karl Long
At the Forrester Consumer forum David Armano successfully goaded me into doing a podcast, with his promise of creating a logo for me, and the condition that he can be my first guest i acquiesce. His suggestion was to call it “The long and the short of it”, which I kind of like, it plays nicely off my last name, and seems like an appropriate homage to one of my favorite podcasts, American Copywriter. The connection is of course the infamous American Copywriter drinking game which is you take a drink any time someone says “The long and the short of it” amongst other things.
Continue reading "Interactive Agency Blogs and “the long and the short of it” Podcast" »
by: Danah Boyd
This morning, I spoke on a panel at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. The day before, a guy from Unilever gave a presentation on what happens when users take up your content and spread it all across the web. He was invited to be on the panel at the last moment because of a cancellation and because his presentation was so well received wrt Web 2.0. Right before we go on, I'm informed that the guy from Unilever was talking about the Dove Evolution campaign that was spread all over YouTube. This is the moment where I went white.
"Password to Marketers' Meeting: Digital" as reported in a headline today by Suznee Vranica of WSJ. Wonder how many marketers have those secret passwords? In this crazy business environment, marketing is ready to be reinvented. No one is sure to who is taking the lead to drive this change. I have some ideas. I am sure you do too.
Continue reading "Ad Agency's Disruptive Future? Can the Old Dogs Survive It?" »
by: Ilya Vedrashko
AdWeek runs a kind of post-mortem on the two nearly identical Facebook back-to-school campaigns by Target and Wal-Mart. Nothing really new here; Target's was apparently successful, and Wal-Mart's became a board for voicing broader anti-company concerns.
Continue reading "AdWeek on Target's and Wal-Mart's Facebook Efforts" »
by: Christian Smagg
Many organisations aspire to be customer-centric, yet few have figured out the recipe for successfully transforming their business. It seems like it was just yesterday that companies were discovering the importance of implementing CRM technologies and strategies aimed at acquiring new customers, managing effectively customer interactions, selling more to current customers, analysing the effectiveness of marketing activities and providing better customer service. All in the name of building stronger, longer lasting business relationships. Well, today is a new day, and the customers now decide who they do business with, as well as how and when they will do so.
Continue reading "The Shifting Balance of Power: When CRM becomes CMR" »
by: Karl Long
So this is some early experimental thinking here so feel free to poke holes, call bullshit, or add your own take in the comments.
I’m using the term co-creative marketing here as I think it’s a better more holistic term than “viral”. I still think viral is a totally valid tactic, but I don’t think it’s a strategy. Viral in most cases is not much better than a 30 second spot except it’s distribution is cheaper, I guess that’s why marketers and advertisers are so generally comfortable with the concept.
Continue reading "Beyond Viral: 3 ideas for Co-Creative Marketing" »
by: Roger Dooley
Every community operator knows that it takes different kinds of participants to be successful. Some people come looking for answers, others come to help. Some like to expound at length, while others say little. Some are lurkers, others are prolific contributors. Researchers from Cornell and Microsoft have produced some interesting research that graphically represents different community roles.
by: David Armano
Unlike Jarvis, my journey on the road to Dell didn't start as a customer—it started as a blogger.
by: Joel Makower
You wouldn't think that the world of green business would need much more publicity, given all the media stories, blogs, websites, TV shows, billboards, events, and other shout-outs plugging green companies, products, and services.
Continue reading "The Greening of P.R.: Read All About It" »
by: Eliane Alhadeff (also see Business & Games)
TechCrunch, among several other sites, recaps the rumors of a Google powered virtual world based on Google Earth which surfaced in January; over the weekend there was word that Google might be testing their virtual world at Arizona State University (ASU).
Continue reading "Google Powered Serious Games: A New Virtual World? " »
by: C. Sven Johnson via Business & Games
Well, there’s been so much buzz about the possibility Google is creating a multi-user virtual world it’s kind of hard to miss. What’s equally hard for me to miss is the apparent surprise being registered by so many people. Hello? Are Google and Microsoft investing time and money in creating 3D representations of the Earth so that we can simply be impressed? so that we can download their applications and wander around them in social isolation like some modern version of The Omega Man… minus vampires? C’mon, already.
Continue reading "A Collection of Virtual World News Items" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
Chris Brogan is a social media expert specializing in building communities using digital tools. He is co-founder of PodCamp
, a free unconference exploring the use of social media like podcasting and videoblogging to build relationships. He produces the Video on the Net conference for Pulvermedia and blogs at Chrisbrogan.com
by: David Jennings
My book is out in the UK. If you buy it from Amazon.co.uk
Continue reading "Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll is published" »
by: Christian Smagg
Blogs, podcasts, video-sharing sites, social networks ... You will find below great graphical representations of Forrester's Social Technographics® research
results … a very informative set of charts as to the demographics of Internet users and how they spend their time online.
by: Roger Dooley
Online community builders love to toss around gross numbers - twenty thousand members, two million posts, and so on. Amid all the statistics, it’s important to recognize that all community members aren’t created equal - some are a lot more prolific.
Continue reading "Taking Care of Your Best Community Members " »
by: Ilya Vedrashko
This is too meta. Koinup, a social networking site for avatars from across all virtual worlds, just sent a press release about its launch: "In Koinup you can create your profile and publish pics, videos (machinima) and stories you created in virtual worlds as Second Life, World of Warcraft, IMVU and also games as The Sims 2 and many others.
Continue reading "Social Networking Site for Avatars Launches " »
by: David Armano
Next Wednesday I find myself on a social media related panel at Promo 2007. Why am I going? Event Marketing is a little out of my range, but Herb Sawer from Carmichael Lych put together an interesting line-up including Noah Brier from Naked Communications and Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy PR.
by: Christian Smagg
While Enterprise 2.0 is often described as “web 2.0 meets the enterprise”, what Enterprise 2.0 encompasses is much bigger. Enterprise 2.0 represents a radical change in the way businesses operate and is as much about the people, the culture and the processes as it is about the technology, tools and platforms.
by: Roger Dooley
A key aspect of Web 2.0 is letting users create or enhance a site’s content. This sounds great, but in practice can be hard to achieve. The Web is littered with dead forums, unreviewed products, spammed-out wikis, and other failed attempts to build user-created sites.
by: Danah Boyd
A few days ago, I lamented the tech crowd's Facebook fetish. Scoble raised the bar by responding to all of my nitpicks. Now, it's my turn again. Tehehe.
Continue reading "SNS visibility norms (a response to Scoble)" »
by: Danah Boyd
In the last month, I've received almost a dozen panicked emails from people who had commented on my blog at one point or another and were horrified to find that their comment was at the top of Google's search for their name.
by: Karl Long
In the last couple of years the idea of reaching out to bloggers as a PR/Marketing tactic has started to become a mainstay for companies looking to engage early adopters and technology leaders. I’ve personally been amazed at the sophistication and scale of programs that I have been privy to.
Continue reading "Code Of Ethics For Blogger Outreach Programs" »
by: John Caddell
No, she wasn't caught partying with Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. She wasn't arrested or sent to rehab.
As described in a front-page article in today's Wall Street Journal (link - $$), musician Marie Digby made simple videos of herself singing cover songs, posted them on YouTube, got millions of views, and parlayed that into gigs on the Carson Daly show, local LA radio, and general buzz as a true YouTube discovery.
by: Karl Long
I was just reading a post on Scoblizer where Robert is talking about the iPhone price drop and in the middle of the post I came across this statement:
Continue reading "Evangelism, Transparency, and Integrity in the blogosphere" »
by: Danah Boyd
Social network sites have become powerful tools and platforms for all sorts of content and cultural producers. Starting with Friendster, artists leveraged the network capabilities to communicate with their fans. This took on a new level with MySpace, resulting in the explicit creation of artist profiles. Even within the constraints of Facebook, artists built groups and found other ways to collect and communicate with their fans.
by: David Armano
Many of the senior folks who work at a variety of agencies (design, advertising, PR,—take your pick) are actually digital immigrants vs. digital natives. This means folks like myself (30-somethings) knew what life was like before the digital revolution. Digital natives, however have grown up with digital technologies from birth—some have never seen a tape cassette.
by: David Armano
Analog Networks
When I was a boy—I can remember how my Mother would spend a good part of her Sundays. She would take out her phonebook—a tattered collection of names and numbers written in handwriting you could barely read, and re-connect with her personal network—an intimate collection a family and friends. She didn't create media other than the pictures she took or the video my father shot on his 8mm video camera.
by: Danah Boyd
Jo Guldi and I were musing last night about architecture and I got to thinking about Lawrence Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. He lays out a framework that there are four regulatory forces operating in society: law, market, social norms, and architecture. The core of his argument is that code (the programming matter that makes up all things digital) is architecture.
by: Roger Dooley
The good news is that companies, even big ones, are waking up to the power of online communities, and that they are taking steps like starting their own communities for discussion, ratings, reviews, and social networking as well as participating at other sites. The bad news is that sometimes they get carried away.
Continue reading "PR Disasters Lurk in Web 2.0 Chicanery " »
by: Karl Long
I read a great article in the SF Bay Guardian written by Annalee Newitz who blogs at techsploitation.com (awesome name). Anyway, the article is called And the real anonymous trolls online are . . . . In this article she skewers the very un-anonymous troll Andrew Keen, who’s been crying about how the internets is undermining his word view of authority and modernity (maybe he should check out Bioshock).
Continue reading "Anonymous Edits To Wikipedia Revealed Through Wikiscanner" »
by: Ilya Vedrashko
In this blog's spirit of bridging the gap between geekdom and advertising, witness the plight of a guy who decided he'd had enough of Firefox ad-blocking add-on users ripping ads off his blog and blocked access for anyone using the browser.
by: Danah Boyd
Earlier this month, I had the great fortune to go to Australia as a seminar speaker for Education.AU. Everyone warned me that it was winter and would be frigid, but to my delight, the weather in Melbourne and Brisbane was not any colder than a San Francisco summer day. I didn't get to see much of Australia (saving the 'roos for next time), but I did have a fantastic time. The people were wonderful, the food was delicious (go Melbourne), and it was just so great to be around so many folks invested in education who were not afraid of technology.
by: Karl Long
Hugh over at gapingvoid raises the interesting point that even though the market for companies to create and deliver one way “messages” is dissapearing, demand for PR, marketing, and advertising professionals is growing. The question is now that we don’t control the “message” what are we doing?
by: Josh Hawkins
Last week, Phil Leigh, host of the video blog "Digital Media Thought Leaders," posted a two part interview I did on broadband media distribution and marketing. In the interview, I touch on a number of strategies I believe are necessary for content owners to run a successful broadband video business and for marketers to take advantage of the fast-changing and self-selecting consumer media behavior.
Continue reading "Blended Distribution Strategies & New Marketing Opportunities" »
by: Ilya Vedrashko
The newest batch of MIT Comparative Media Studies grad theses is up. Lots of good stuff on transmedia storytelling, engagement, convergence, and mobile MMORPGs. Great job, guys, and good luck.
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/08/mit-media-studies-grad-theses.html
by: Alain Thys
Not so long ago, David Armano suggested that someone forgot to send me the memo that Social Media weren't what I made them out to be. But when I look at the Futurelab 100 which we're publishing today, I think I've completely lost my in-tray. The first time I looked at it, I thought ... OK, interesting. But when Stefan came up with one extra piece of information, I was simply blown away.
Continue reading "The New Futurelab 100: Have the Brand Gods Gone Crazy?" »
By: Marina Natanova
The Russian blogosphere (ca. 2 million journals) is going crazy about the recent Rexona ad campaign. A new TV ad (click here to see video) together with a promo-site announced that Russian women... er... were less attentive to themselves than Polish or German ladies.
by: Idris Mootee
Luxury brands are finally joining the social network parties. Remy Martin, a cognac that sells for over $1,500 a bottle, Remy Martin's Louis XIII's customers are looking beyond traditional media for marketing. They are planning a big marketing push with a by-invitation-only social network aSmallWorld for an experiential campaign that extend into offline events targeting clients with a fifth over $1 mm annual income.
Continue reading "Luxury Brands Should Jump on the Social Network Parties" »
by: C. Sven Johnson (via Business & Games)
A few days back additional details were revealed about Sony’s new “Home” virtual world. Since then I’ve been trading comments over on Raph Koster’s blog (Link); some of which might be of interest.
by: Roger Dooley
These days, people are spending a lot of time online, much of it in Web communities and social networks. Second Life is a virtual world in which users create avatars to represent themselves and interact with others.
by: Dick Stroud
This Reuter’s article is an interesting reflection on the 50-plus and their tech literacy.
by: Danah Boyd
While the Attorneys General are off demonizing social network sites, the National Schools Board Association has been collecting data on all of the good things that teenagers are doing with the sites, including learning about colleges, talking about homework, engaging in collaborative projects, and otherwise operating as active learners.
Continue reading "National School Boards Association pushes for SNS adoption in schools" »
by: Danah Boyd
Le sigh. I lost control over my Facebook tonight. Or rather, the context got destroyed. For months, I've been ignoring most friend requests. Tonight, I gave up and accepted most of them. I have been facing the precise dilemma that I write about in my articles: what constitutes a "friend"? Where's the line?
by: Dick Stroud
Thanks to Brian Scholz for highlighting an item, posted to his blog thesavvyboomer, that is dedicated to the space where Boomers meet all things Internet and consumer electronics.
Brian like me is amazed at the explosion of social networking web sites targeted at Boomers/50-plus. This is part of what he had to say.
Continue reading "Yet another missive about age neutral social networking" »
by: Karl Long
Also check out their introduction to wikis. Reminds me of the wonderful series of posts on Lifehacker called UltraNewb that are basic lifehacks for the non-nerds.
Continue reading "Brilliant Video On Social Bookmarking Even Your Mother Will Understand" »
by: Karl Long
Reading the Wired “Slap in the Facebook: It’s Time for Social Networks to Open Up” combined with my experience on various social networks makes me wonder if any of them can really be sustainable in the long run.
The idea of mobile social networking first came to my mind three years ago when I was traveling with my colleague Keith Liu from Dulles after meeting with AOL. I was preparing a speech for an upcoming conference on "social computing". We talked about the business idea of launching a dating service based on some social network ideas and location-based services. We were so excited and thought that it'd be a killer idea to use a cell phone as a device for matching that's linked to a social network database. Imagine you walking into a Dean and De Luca and your cell phones scan the database and prompt you how many people there are your type. You can instantly check their profile and decide whether you want to send them a short message.
Continue reading "Mobile Social Networks - Random Thoughts" »
by: Dick Stroud
Future Lab is one of the blogs that republishes some posting from this blog. It published my musings about the way that social networking sites for the 50-plus are mushrooming and one cause is the surge in traffic volumes of sites like MySpace and FaceBook.
by: Dick Stroud
Anybody who reads this blog will know that I am always going on about the way that social networking web sites for the 50-plus are growing like mushrooms on a fine fresh damp morning. This research from Comscore is the metaphorical fertiliser that is stimulating this growth.
by: Christian Smagg
One of the key benefits every organisation should consider when planning a corporate blogging initiative is how this could participate in its efforts to develop strong website awareness as well as build and sustain traffic.
Continue reading "Plugging your company into the Blogosphere!" »
by: Alain Thys
Spoiler alert: This post gives away a key plot point of the final Harry Potter book. So if you've haven't finished the book, do not read on.
Last week Monday (at 1:30 AM) I finished part 7 of the Harry Potter series and after sat through the young man's wizardry adventures for thousands and thousands of pages, the end of the series felt like losing a friend.
by: Lynette Webb
I've come close to buying the book "Cult of the Amateur" a few times now, but have shied away as I sensed it was going to be one of those books I threw at the wall every few pages in frustration.
Continue reading "Decisive Factor Is Not how We Create but How We Consume" »
by: Roger Dooley
A survey of technical professionals shows a startling level of reliance on Web communities by IT professionals. The report from King Research includes these key findings:
Continue reading "Online Communities Plus Google Equal Value " »
by: Danah Boyd
One month ago, I put out a blog essay that took on a life of its own. This essay addressed one of America's most taboo topics: class. Due to personal circumstances, I wasn't online as things spun further and further out of control and I had neither the time nor the emotional energy to address all of the astounding misinterpretations that I saw as a game of digital telephone took hold. I've browsed the hundreds of emails, thousands of blog posts, and thousands of comments across the web.
Continue reading "responding to critiques of my essay on class" »
by: Lynette Webb
There was a great article a few months back in New York magazine which I’ve only just stumbled across. It was called “Kids, the Internet and the End of Privacy - the greatest generation gap since rock and roll” and included this great quote from Clay Shirky. It’s long but well worth a read if you haven’t already seen it:by: Lynette Webb
This was the title of an article I stumbled across, a review of a book about AI and the way minds work. www.emcp.com/intro_pc/reading12.htm. I can't vouch for the book yet, although I've just ordered it... (I have SO many books piled up now, it's getting ridiculous!)... But something about this phrase just really grabbed me.
Continue reading "If 2 Minds Are Better than One Then How about 2 Thousand?" »
by: Lynette Webb
Often the terms “open source” and “open API” get lumped together, as part of an overall web 2.0 type philosophy of “open-ness” and decentralisation. Although spiritually they seem to sit well together, in practice they refer to distinctly different things.
Click image to enlarge.
by: Roger Dooley
My fellow FutureLab blogger, danah boyd, wrote an interesting and controversial essay about the social network migration of high school students: Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.
Continue reading "Facebook Eats MySpace’s Cafeteria Lunch " »
by: Danah Boyd
I'm trying to track down a list of all major non-English social network sites (definitions below). My interest in collecting this information is for an academic article on social network sites, but i suspect this information would be useful to others as well.
Continue reading "list of non-english social network sites" »
by: Idris Mootee
Everyone is talking about Facebook during the last two weeks. Social networks are becoming commodities just like web-based email accounts such as Hotmail or Gmail. This game isn't about the next upcoming killer features or cool widgets. The value of any social networks are based on:Continue reading ""Social Networks" and "Social Identities"" »
by: C. Sven Johnson
While reading something yesterday concerning marketing in virtual worlds I resisted the urge to comment. Last night and again early this morning, I further resisted the temptation to post something here regarding what I’d read. And I’m now resisting the urge to slip something in. I won’t.
by: Danah Boyd
As promised, i've uploaded the crib from my talk at Cannes for your enjoyment (and critique). It's about film, DRM, remix, MySpace, youth, fandom, film consumption, and other good things.
Enjoy!
Original post: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/05/30/film_and_the_au.html
by: David Jennings
Here are some chapter headings from a book I read on holiday:
The Theory of Spontaneous Order
The Dissolution of Leadership
Harmony Through Complexity
Topless Federations
by: Lynette Webb
I used this quote in one of the earliest Flickr slides, paired with a screenshot but I was never happy with it. A while back I resurrected it with this much nicer photo and just realised I hadn't posted it to the set - so here it is.
Continue reading "Some Players Call WoW the New Golf (v2)" »
by: Dominic Basulto
This video clip from 1973 is an oldie but goodie. New York Magazine recently profiled sculptor Richard Serra, who is currently the subject of a new 40-year retrospective exhibit at MoMA.
by: Ilya Vedrashko
When the word about Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur" first got out last winter, I was hopeful. Finally, I thought, we'd have an informed and comprehensive antidote to the poisonous hype around all things two point oh: all those conversationalist wise crowds of long-tailed lonelygirls-15 blogging their ride on the participatory cluetrain.
by: Karl Long
It seems that SAP, one of the biggest suppliers of software that help run big businesses is working on a research report to help understand what’s really happening in the world around social media. They have got Shel Israel (co-author with Robert Scoble of Naked Conversations) to help in this and Shel is taking a similar research approach as well, talking to people. one of the great things about Shel’s research is he’s publishing interviews as he goes on his blog, here’s his conversation with Doc Searls, and again with Robert Scoble.
Continue reading "SAP Global Survey on Social Media/Web 2.0" »
by: Idris Mootee
With the rising popularity of social networks and user-driven online services McKinsey conducted a survey on how businesses are using web 2.0. Respondents show widespread but careful interest. Expressing satisfaction with their Internet investments so far, they say that Web 2.0 technologies are strategic and that they plan to increase these investments. However this is not going to be an easy one for these large corporations.Continue reading "The 7 Basic Rules of Social Network Design for Marketers" »
by: Dominic Basulto
One result of the popularity of Wikinomics has been the number of collaborative wikis that have been launched by organizations and corporations in order to share ideas around the world.
Continue reading "Nokia and Vodafone: Mobile Knowledge for Social Change" »
by: C. Sven Johnson
I just got off the phone with Coca-Cola’s David Vanderpoel. You might recall his earlier comment regarding the Coca-Cola VirtualThirst campaign in Second Life that came as a result of my critique of the competition rules.
by: Dominic Basulto
Ok, so I admit it -- I picked up the latest issue of Business Week at the newsstand because I was seduced by the Children of the Web ("How Business is Cashing In on the Global Youth Culture") cover story.
Continue reading "How to write an innovation cover story for a major business weekly" »
by: Lynette Webb
I love this quote… not only does it so perfectly capture what they do, it also has the lovely juxtaposition of the term “widget” (which makes me think of very unsexy sprockets & spanners) and “bling”! It’s from a May 2007 Business Week article. www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2007/tc2007052...
by: Danah Boyd
Over the last six months, i've noticed an increasing number of press articles about how high school teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. That's only partially true. There is indeed a change taking place, but it's not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking to Facebook. Which go where gets kinda sticky, because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.
Continue reading "viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace" »
by: Idris Mootee
Continuing on looking at the development of social networks along its lifecycle, search is definitely the next thing that changes its very idea. Whether it's just a manual search (with automated grouping or member-recommended groupings) will depend on the concept models of how each of those social network sites. It's no question search will be the killer feature for social networking sites.
By: Idris Mootee 
One big
challenge marketers face all the time is the ROI of developing online
communities or social networks. The question is what's in it for them as a
brand/company and this is always a little tricky. The second question is how
close/distant this community needs to be from the company site.
by: Idris Mootee
I was planning to compile a comprehensive list of social networking sites (complete with taxonomies) and it's quite the challenging task. I started with "business" related sites (see the list below) and soon I realized it would be hard to differentiate between a business social networking site and a business "who's who" search engine.
by: David Armano
I'm a sucker for successful communication whether it be visual, written, or oral. So take a look at this presentation from Scott Gavin titled "What is Enterprise 2.0"? It uses a persona based approach to tell a story.
by: Lynette Webb
Danah Boyd gave an interesting talk recently at Blog Reloaded about the significance of social software. I really like her writing style and she’s great at picking out key aspects and expressing them in down-to-earth terms. You can read the full transcript of her talk here: www.danah.org/papers/BlogTalkReloaded.pdfContinue reading "Social software is a movement not just a technology" »
by: Jon Miller
I believe social media has an inherent bias against the realities of B2B marketing. This is the topic of my new article "What’s Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing", now available as part of Search Engine Land's Strictly Business column.
Continue reading "What's Wrong With Social Media For B2B Marketing" »
by: David Wigder
Online retailers find that consumer-generated content such as product reviews and ratings have a significant influence on consumer purchasing behavior.
Continue reading "Consumer-Generated Content: An Underleveraged Opportunity for Green Retailers" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
Because of Truemors
, I’ve learned a lot about launching a company in these “Web 2.0” times. Here’s quick overview “by the numbers.”
by: Lynette Webb
I really like this quote because, to me, it explains in a nutshell how “tagging” - which has emerged as one of the Web 2.0 standard functionalities - is connected to the broader long-term direction of web development.
Click image to enlarge.
Continue reading "web 2.0 is messy way the semantic web is happening" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
Anastasia Goodstein covers Generation Y in her blog YPulse
. She has worked for Current TV, AOL, and Oxygen TV. She recently published a book that will help you understand the online activities of young people called Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online
Continue reading "Ten (Nine) Questions with Anastasia Goodstein" »
by: Danah Boyd
Last fall, i spoke at BlogTalk Reloaded. They've turned a bunch of our talks into full papers packaged and published as a book titled: BlogTalks Reloaded. My piece is The Significance of Social Software. I look at the culture surrounding, technology of, and practices embedded in social software. It was a fun keynote and it's a fun piece in print so i hope you enjoy! The Significance of Social Software
Original Post: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/05/19/significance_of.html
Continue reading ""Significance of Social Software" in BlogTalks Reloaded" »
by: John Caddell
John Jantsch's blog "Duct Tape Marketing," focused on the small businessperson, pops up with a killer post on occasion (the rest of the time, it's a bit too commercial, with lots of plugs for his book and others' products). One of the really good posts was yesterday: "Are You Investing in Long Term Marketing?"
Continue reading "Strategic marketing leverages content, connection, community" »
by: Alexander Osterwalder
This week I was invited to do a presentation on social media for the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). While preparing the slides I thought I'd through in a little extra and added a quickly done tool (I see it as a prototype): A Web2.0 Business Readiness Self Assessment Canvas.
Continue reading "Web2.0 Business Readiness Self Assessment & IABC Presentation" »
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Playboy Island in Second Life is opening soon. Look for Playboy in group search, join, and you too can be a playmate (that's the title group members get automatically). I bumped today into someone who said the island was actually open, but when I tried, the teleport failed.
by: David Armano
The headline of this post is borrowed from my good friend Mike Wagner who I felt captured the significance of the business blogging event also known as SOBCon 07. Here's the presentation I gave which can be downloaded from Slideshare.
by: David Jennings
Andy Aldridge, who created one of my favourite fan sites, and whom I interviewed for the book (notes to appear here when I get round to it), is asking whether such sites are on the way out.
