Deb's SM Survey:

“Hulu-baloo” has been used already many times, even though the site has been officially live and open to the net-surfing public for just over a month.

I’ve been watching BattleStar Galactica (and other things) on Hulu, the new NBC and News Corp online video site, and enjoying it, even with the ads. I ditched my cable a long time ago, and get my TV from the net and DVDs. But when you want to really engage with a show and the fan community, you need to watch it as close to the time of original airing as possible. BSG comes out on Hulu a day or so after it aired on the Sci Fi channel, which is the way it should be.

Or maybe it needs to be sooner, as this Wall Street Journal blog post suggests. In my opinion, the goal is to make the online content not just available, but convenient. Streaming is faster than downloading and more convenient (provided your computer is set up correctly), so get them hooked on your online site and hopefully they won’t go seeking out the torrent anytime soon.

Things change very quickly, and who knows where online TV will be by the time Hulu celebrates its first birthday. But finding the right mix of easily accessible content, carefully targeted ads, and possibly special perks for members should make it possible for networks to keep a decent share of the online TV viewer. Make it easy, and they will come.

… and she is 8 years old.

We were visiting friends Sunday, and their daughter – along with most of her classmates – has discovered Webkinz, the pet-based virtual world created by toy company Ganz. Buying a Webkinz toy provides you with a code to enter this virtual world, where you must keep your pet healthy and entertained. There are things to buy, games to play, and limited chat and social networking features to allow interactions without creating privacy concerns.

Of course kids (who have access to them) are using computers younger and younger, and they’ll grow up not only familiar with technology but expecting certain things from it. While virtual worlds exist for adults today – ranging from Second Life to game-based worlds like World of Warcraft – I think we’ll see a fundamental shift in the way these worlds are used as the Webkinz generation grows up.

Many of these kids will do the majority of their online social networking in these worlds, graduating from Webkinz to tween- and then teen- oriented sites, and eventually go looking for the “grown up” version. Facebook will seem dull to them, and my suspicion is even MySpace will look too, well, “flat.” Of course they will play games, but they won’t be looking for a MMORPG: they’ll be looking for a world where they can continue the relationships they’ve had with their (usually real-world) friends in other virtual worlds.

I don’t know what that world will be yet. Will Second Life overcome some of its difficulties
and become the virtual destination of these youngsters in 6-10 years? (Second Life already has a teen version.) Will one of the current kid or tween sites branch off a version for older users? Or will it be someone completely off the radar right now?

I do think we’ll see more – and more popular – virtual worlds. But when – and who – I don’t have an answer for.

Lisa Stone, co-founder and CEO of BlogHer spoke last night as part of the Berkman Center’s Berkman@10 event series.

BlogHer has grown from a 2005 grassroots conference with 300 attendees to an online network of women bloggers that gets 8 million unique visitors a month. They have 22 full-time employees, plan 8 conferences this year and run an ad network that shares revenue with participating members. Their growth has been facilitated by venture capital from Venrock.

Stone began her talk by emphasizing the power of women as consumers (they control the overwhelming majority of the household budget) and as users of social media, including social networks and text messages. Women use blogging not just to express themselves, but also to take action, responding to a wide spectrum of issues. Stone was especially excited to see so many bloggers who don’t normally write about political issues becoming engaged and excited by the current election season.

After surveying BlogHer members on how the Presidential candidates’ campaigns had (or had not) reached out to women, she provided four conclusions that are equally valuable for advertisers:

1. Reach out to established women’s networks, don’t start your own and force us to come to you.
2. Don’t market to women, talk with women.
3. Don’t use stereotypes to break women down into simplistic or offensive groups (soccer moms, sexy singles, etc.). We’re more complicated that that.
4. Health care is the new number one “women’s issue” – although women are concerned about all issues, including the Iraq war, the economy, etc.

Stone spoke about their advertising program, noting that about 40% of advertisers want to develop a customized program (like giving away free samples). The companies approaching BlogHer are much more savvy about online marketing than they were in the past and want to engage in an authentic interaction with the BlogHer members.

One of the 2008 BlogHer conferences will be in Boston in October, and I’m looking forward to it even more after this introduction to the BlogHer network. Will I see you there? (And yes, men are welcome!)

The blog’s been wallowing, lonely and unloved – and un-updated. Sadly, procrastination has a ripple effect, and the delay in rewriting my résumé spilled over to other projects. But now the résumé is done.

Within the same week that the New Rules of Marketing and PR was recommended to me, I discovered that the author, David Meerman Scott, is on Twitter and I’ve been following him there, and taking a look at his excellent blog.

David has some free e-books on his site, and in another push toward convergence some career-related events have put me in a position to need some info on PR and new media.

The e-books are a great primer, since I don’t have time right this second to read his print book. The New Rules of Viral Marketing e-book is especially helpful. The analogy to a venture capitalist’s investment strategy when preparing viral marketing campaigns made the most sense of anything I’ve read about viral marketing. Since success is not guaranteed, launch several:

Many will be duds that won’t spark any interest; a few will generate some notice and basically pay back your investment of the time required to create them; and a handful will go viral and make the entire program of ten or twenty viral marketing campaigns worthwhile. (pg 19)

The old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies equally well to virtual baskets, it turns out.

I went to hear Clay Shirky speak about his new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. Shirky explores the “ridiculously easy group forming” inherent in the internet, and how this has the potential to radically change society. Now that many groups can assume that all their members are online, these groups can use the internet to assist in more complicated activities.

Shirky sets up a hierarchy of online group function, with increasing levels of coordination required. The first is simple sharing, then conversation, then collaboration, with collective action the final rung on the ladder. In his talk, Shirky gave fascinating examples of online collective action, from a movement to create an airline passengers’ bill of rights to the use of flash mobs for political protest in Belarus.

This stage is in its infancy, however, and there is still no formula for successful online-based collective action. (In fact, as the subtitle of Shirky’s book suggests, successful online collective actions right now are not spearheaded by traditional organizations which might have the ability to formalize the process.)

The potential for new ways of initiating successful collective action was one of the dreams that got me interested in the internet and social media to begin with, and its exciting to think that the journey is just beginning.

Another beginning that I’m keeping an eye on is Totspot, a new social publishing site for babies and parents that just announced its private beta. I met some of the Totspot team through the local Web Innovators group, and its exciting to see their launch, complete with a write up yesterday in Techcrunch. Good luck, Totspot.

Reading the comments on the Techcrunch article, including parents who buy domain names for their babies and start blogs there (hoping the kids will take them over someday), really drives home the changes that are occurring. We already have a millennial generation with different norms around privacy, technology, and work. Once we have a generation in which online group forming and participation has literally been part of their lives from birth, will we see an even more radical shift toward constant networking, openness and immediate content gratification? What will the discussion of internet-based collective action look like in 2026, when the first Totspot kids are 18?

(Will they laugh at today’s fledgling efforts? Or celebrate today’s pioneers? I can’t wait to find out.)

What could be better than spending a post-snowstorm Saturday in the company of friendly people who are excited about social media? NewBCamp in Providence, Rhode Island, was a great experience on many levels. It was great to connect with friends old and new, like Len Edgerly and Maria Thurrell.

As usual, there were too many presentations I wanted to attend and not enough time. Organizer Sara Streeters’s “speed mentoring” was a great idea and I got some great advice in a very short time.

I found Steve Malloy’s presentation on the pros and cons of privacy vs openness online thoughtful and a topic of great interest.

Sadly, I missed Christopher Penn’s presentation, but he has video on his blog post recapping the day, so I watched the second hand version this morning.

Beth Dunn had a great point about the democratic nature of UnConferences like NewBCamp in her write up:

It’s telling that one of the first “spin-offs” of Podcamp was not to create a more advanced version, not to rope off the elite and create some sort of VIP section, but to create a less advanced version, to welcome the newcomer and encourage the beginner. It’s in keeping with the underlying ethic of widening the gate, of lowering the barriers to entry, that is so pervasive in the world of social media.

I’m honored that my presentation got a mention in Beth’s entry as well. It was my first time speaking in public about social media and I enjoyed the opportunity and the interest of the audience. Len Edgerly streamed the video live on UStream so I had a couple of remote viewers as well.

At the after party it was great to hear Matthew Ebel live at last. Sadly my ride was leaving early, so I missed much of the show. Still, I have no doubt I’ll be catching up with the wonderful people I met both virtually and in person in the near future.

I’ve fallen victim to the dreaded cold/flu season, so all my brilliant ideas have been blown out my nose in one of my multitude of sneezes. Instead, here are some quick hits from the week past:

Yahoo still independent as they turn down Microsoft’s bid, but pondering other offers.

The Boston-area Social Media Breakfast was great fun, with several local luminaries discussing how Twitter has changed their life. Tech PR gems has video. Also attending was videoblogger extraordinaire Steve Garfield, who has been experimenting with live streaming video from his cell phone using a service called Qik.  (Note: corrected the spelling of Qik)

Steve also caught video of the conversation between Berkman Center fellow David Weinberger and Canadian independent musician BradSucks about the future of the music industry that took place on Monday, February 11th. It’s fascinating to hear the opinions of people who have grown up with digital technology. Brad has a very different attitude toward his work – he’s not as possessive. If someone did a cover of one of his songs and made a it a hit, he would be amused, not litigious. And he may rightly consider that there would also be benefits coming his way from that kind of publicity. It was also exciting to learn that one of Brad’s songs, via a remix and a video, was the inspiration for the character Milgrim in William Gibson’s novel Spook Country.

In another transmedia twist, the Poetry Foundation has been asking graphic novelists to interpret poems. There are currently six installments of this project online.

Have friends who just don’t get what social media is all about? Bring them to NewBCamp, held Feb. 23, 2008 at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode island. I’ll be presenting some cases studies based on my “Marketing Your Media on the Web” project and demonstrate how they can be applied to anyone. Hope to see you there!

Couldn’t resist the title. This is a week in review, since I’ve somehow become busier than I intended.

Too busy to keep an eye on Twitter properly, but I did make it out to the local Boston “Tweetup” Tuesday night. Close to thirty people in the social media scene were hanging out, from videoblogger Steve Garfield to presentations consultant Laura Fitton to multi-talented musician and artist Matt Searls. I bowed out early – I was useless once the Super Tuesday results started coming in and went home to read the blogs like a good political junkie.

Twitter and Google Maps had teamed up for a Super Tuesday results map that popped up tweets about voting or the election as they came in. In addition to the map, I had my regular Twitter feed open, Daily Kos in another tab and flipped between various other blogs and boston.com for a mix of local and national results. I loved the sense of community, knowing I was watching and speculating with so many others about the path our country will take. What did I do for election coverage before the internet? I guess there’s that rectangular box called a television.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I attended the Web Innovators group event in Cambridge. This was my first WebInno event, and I was very impressed. Hundreds of people were gathered to see the featured companies present, to schmooze, and to network.

Three companies were the “main dish” presenters: MakeMeSustainable, SpotScout and Urban Interactive. MakeMeSustainable provides users with information about their carbon footprint and allows them to create a social network for support and to see the ripple effect of their community. They have a Facebook application and are targeting that user group. There is a definite need for community-based environmental applications that connect and encourage people as they change their lifestyle and MakeMeSustainable has a great chance to fill that need.

SpotScout creates an online/mobile market for parking spaces. Their demo resonated with the crowd, who voted SpotScout their favorite of the three presenters (using a text message short code based voting system). The details about nearby parking garages and the occasional private spot for use could easily become popular.  I’m not so sure about the market for “information” about when a driver is leaving an on-street spot. (I’d also have some safety concerns about spots in private driveways…)

Urban Interactive creates interactive “adventures” for tourists and curious folks to follow. These are cell-phone based. The demo didn’t impress me, but in a few years with more robust mobile technology widely available a more complex game could be created with multimedia and GPS attributes. Beware, geotaggers, the masses are coming.

There were also six companies who gave 30-second mini-presentations. These ranged from mobile platform technologies to the non-profit Glassbooth which presents information about candidates to voters. The variety and creativity of the presenters was really amazing to me.

The Web Innovators Group holds regular events in the Boston area. The Boston Twitter user community regularly attends and gets together afterward as well.

The class I completed in December 2007 was an independent study on “Marketing Your Media On the Web.” It looks like this material will be used to teach a Media Studies in the Fall 2008 semester at the New School, which makes me very happy.

You can see the majority of the material I posted, in the form of a class syllabus, on the social media project wiki set up by my advisor.

After examining the ways various media makers used the web and social media for marketing, I also came to several overall conclusions:

The basics are still important. A web page that is attractive and easily navigable is still important, although a blog can be used as an effective home page. In addition, search engine optimization (SEO) is still a priority to ensure that search engine requests find your site or organization. A frequently updated blog adds to one’s search engine rank as well as providing new content, both reasons why a blog is an extremely useful tool. As a supplement for those who can afford it, some Search Engine Marketing (SEM) ads can also be helpful, but are not necessary. Marketing that’s not web-related, like attractive and complete press kits, are still also important (although the web helps with distribution).

Social media is not just a trend and must be utilized. Especially for the independent media creator or small business, getting the word out through social media channels is required. As more and more sites add social components – from comments to user profiles to user reviewing features – learning how to navigate through these types of systems is increasingly important.

Cut out the middleman. Digital distribution and social media for promotion allow independent media creators to deal with the world on their terms.While record labels, book publishers, movie distributors and art galleries still have value, it’s now possible to build a reputation and a career without dealing with them. While social media marketing takes time (although not much money), the rewards for artists who value their independence (or don’t want to sign away any rights to their work) are available. Having the option to succeed independently increases the negotiating power of artists who choose to work with the more traditional model, especially those who can bring a significant audience of loyal fans with them.

Fans and enthusiasts have never been more important. Fans’ word of mouth have always been an important component of marketing, especially for independent media creators. With the power of the web, fans can form more extensive communities, spread the word more efficiently, and be more creative in their support of the artist they admire. Whether it was musician Matthew Ebel’s (http://matthewebel.com/) fans creating a collection of his live shows for purchase (with money going to Ebel’s PayPal account, http://virtualhotwings.com/), writer Scott Sigler’s (http://www.scottsigler.com/) fans bumping his book to the top of the Amazon horror charts by all buying a copy on the same day, or painter Duane Keiser’s (http://duanekeiser.blogspot.com/) fans who bid on his small “Painting a Day” paintings and supply him with a steady income, I was continuously surprised by the dedication of the fans. One of the core features of social media is putting power back into the consumers’ hands, and these media consumers have used that power to give the artists they admire a reputation and an ability to make a living.

Not money, but time, required. Most social media tools are accessible at low to no cost. However, building up the connections with fans and creating online community around an artist’s work takes a great deal of time. Many forms of social media are still new, and the early adaptors, especially those with a creative idea, are able to stand out. The tools and platforms available are still in flux, producing more opportunities for creativity, but requiring time spent keeping up with trends (and learning tools). While very little technical skill is required, time and persistence are resources that some artists may not want to use to devote to marketing rather than their craft. (However, depending on the medium, signing with a professional middleman doesn’t guarantee that they will spend sufficient funds or time in promotional efforts, either. For example, most authors are advised to hire their own publicist to supplement the small amount of marketing a publisher will provide.)

What do you think? Anything to add?