One Flew Over the Cubicle's Nest

Social Media Club Meeting Explores Enterprise Trends at Intel

Earlier this week, the Social Media Club of Silicon Valley met at Intel for a wide ranging discussion on social media and web 2.0 in the enterprise. Panel members includes:

• Dave McClure, 500 hats blogger,
• Jeremiah Owyang, social media researcher at Forrester
• Jennifer Jones, host of Market Voices, Podtech
  
• Eleanor Wynn (Intel) is an Enterprise Architect, Social Computing and blogger at http://blogs.intel.com/it/authors#eleanor_wynn
• Bob Duffy (Intel) Community Strategist and site manager for Open Port (interesting project)
• Shel Israel, moderator

This turned out to be a great discussion, and confirmed my beliefs about a lot of issues and trends. This includes the rampant rise of  video  online  and, more importantly, the rise of the Greater Conversation.

Israel explained that when he and Robert Scoble wrote  the book Naked Conversations  a couple of years ago, it was about blogging--that was it. Maybe a couple of pages on podcasting. Today social media is much bigger--FAcebook, MySpace, YouTube, and more recently, Twitter and a slew of other social media sites. People are connecting to each other in various ways. This is leading to a much more dynamic environment, with enormous potential--and  greater challenges for Corporate America to deal with. It's not enough to just throw up an executive blog or chase the latest hot fad (witness the problems with Second Life, which companies were rushing into a year ago).

For more details about Monday's meeting, see Stuart Henshall's write-up.

Cisco & Web 2.0

If you're wondering what Cisco has in mind when it comes to Web 2.0, you could have gotten a glimpse today when Dan Scheinman, SVP and GM of the Cisco Media Solutions Group, addressed an audience in his Higher Order Bits talk at the Web 2.0 Summit. 

The way the Cisco blog puts it, Cisco plans to be playing a part far beyond just being a connection or electronic pipeline company.

"...the network is more than a fire-hose of content. The network can ultimately provide a Web 2.0esque entertainment experience by bridging the gap between consumers and content owners...."

What with the explosion in bandwidth, and in options for users, the entertainment industry is struggling to provide the personalized experience people demand. Cisco plans to come to the rescue with something called, "Eos, a software platform that serves as an entertainment operating system enabling consumers to have an interactive, personalized, community-based entertainment experience, WHILE simplifying the administrative experience for content owners in engaging audiences, and distributing and monetizing their content."

There's a lot more to come from Cisco, but this be an interesting indicator.

Social Media and the Wisdom of Crowds

Reading The Wisdom of Crowds, it dawned on me: much of this could be applied to social media and the blogging world. The book speaks volumes as to why social media is exploding--and why the old media is dieing. It could also explain other related issues, such as why corporations are so slow to grasp this movement. On another level, the theories explain why some companies are so badly managed and why some small groups make such stunningly bad decisions. Author James Surowiecki wrote a wonderful book here, on par with The Tipping Point and Freakonomics--with even longer range implications.

On the face of it, the author's theme is simple, that large groups or "crowds" make better decisions under most conditions. It may appear odd--after all, we've been taught that that "average" is mediocre. We've also been led to glorify the "amazing individual"--the super CEO, the star quarterback and so on. But it turns out, with decision making, "the average can mean excellence." And our celebration of super individuals may be grossly misplaced.

The author starts by showing how study after study shows that large groups, on average, will guess, say, the weight of a cow or elephant much more accurately than any individual. Then he builds the case for how these decisions can come into play across government, business and other areas of our lives.

Crowds need four characteristics to be successful: diversity of opinion; independence (your opinions can't be determined by those around you); decentralization (people are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge); and aggregation (some mechanism exists for turning "private judgments" into collective decisions).

Diversity is an interesting ingredient.

Five Top Corporate Blogging Mistakes

It's interesting that two or three years into the social media movement and publication of books like Naked Conversations, and six years after the publication of ClueTrain Manifesto, most companies still don't "get it." Sure, they give it lip service and they may even set up a blog. But they don't really understand this is a different medium, a different voice, a different way of doing things. What's supposed to be a conversation ends up being a bastardized form of traditional PR or marketing in so many cases.

Most of the people we talk to are communication managers at Fortune 1000 companies, and they're smart people. But smart people make mistakes. Here are five examples of misdirected thinking when it comes to social media, particularly blogs.

1) Confusing blogs with traditional articles:  "We can't do blogs, not enough time to do them justice. No way I can write a blog every other day," said one. He, like many, assumes that writing a blog is like writing an article--lot of thought, lot of energy, reporting, researching, finessing, etc. They also see it as a traditional writing style, just another editorial in new clothes (vs a conversational style). It's like reconditioning, teaching people to write in short bursts rather than long winded sentences. Just watch the way the younger crowd text-messages. Make your point quick, then move on.

This leads to...

Facebook & Microsoft--is the Social Media Bubble Peaking?

Quick quiz: How does an Internet laggard catch up?
If you're Microsoft, you throw boatloads of money at the problem and  buy your way in. The company according to the Wall Street Journal is in talks with FB to buy a 5% stake for $300 to $500 million. That would value the private company at $10billion or more. Microsoft may have to fend off Google, which has also shown interest in FB, and the FB owners may actually want more money (yes, $10b valuation is considered stingy). So it's not done till it's done. Yet the scenario says wonders about the state of the social media business--and raises fears that we're looking at hyperinflated model, ripe for a fall ("irrational exuberance" anyone?)

It's not that FB isn't valuable and social media isn't a force. FB is adding 200,000 subscribers A DAY, and social media is here to stay. There's momentum we haven't seen in years. FB pulled off some brilliant moves, opening the doors to developers in May to crank out thousands of new applications and paving the way for the post-college crowd to join--which it has, in droves. But the business (and advertising) model hasn't been proven, and it's unclear how much they can wring out of their members. This isn't Google.

FB's Mark Zuckerberg still needs to figure out how to monetize its product, and as Eric Hippeau, a managing partner of Softbank Capital, say in the article, "It's not that easy to monetize social media."

Right now FB is being subsidized by Microsoft, to the tune of $75 million a year. But when that deal runs out, as Hippeau points out, they're going to have to crank up the ad sales machine--and the advertising model is still in question.

Think about how you use these sites. Very few people click on the ads. They're in it to meet and connect with people, not to buy cameras, deodorant or a car.

The article points back to another hyperinflated model--GeoCities-- as a warning.

Shaking up the Old News Media

So now, with the New York Times caving in and offering their content for free, it's down to the Wall Street Journal (at least among big U.S. news providers) as the last holdout. Rupert Murdoch is already dropping big hints that he will follow suit, ending the Journal's 11 year paid subscription run, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal. Don't expect this to save the old news media, however--major surgery may be required.

  Murdoch has suggested that making the WSJ.com free would bring in enough advertising revenue to offset the lost subscription revenues (the Journal generated at least $50 million in subscription revenues last year, say sources close to the paper). He's envisioning a website reaching tens of millions of people around the clock. But the logic is a bit of a stretch. According to the article the site would have to generate over 20 million unique visitors monthly vs 8.3 million monthly now--that's a big jump.  Meantime the explosive online advertising growth is slowing some.

Yet the paper may have no choice.Newspapers are caught in the perfect storm. Print viewers are declining steadily--sometimes I feel like the only one around reading a newspaper anymore (don't even ask my kids). Competition is coming from every direction--cable tv, iPods, and so on. Meantime, the Internet has turned into a giant information machine and started leveling the playing field, making the big boys like the New York Times compete in new ways.

Digg vs Facebook vs MySpace

Facebook and MySpace are getting more company: this week Digg is launching a host of new social media features, and will be rolling out more the rest of the year. Their goal, according to BusinessWeek, is to "make it easier for users to find others who share their passions by enabling them to form small groups of "friends" and create fuller personal profiles. There will be profile pages where users can post photos, personal interests, and links to personal blogs, web sites, etc. Like Facebook, users will be able to control whether all Digg users can see their info or just their "friends."

Digg's founders Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose are obviously trying to cash in on the social media craze and add some stickiness to their site. Right now less than one of out 5 (est) of the people who visit Digg are registered users; the rest of the 20 million plus users (by Digg's count) swoop in, read an article, and move on. Digg has historically (historical=3 years)been the domain of techies, and is known for a wide range of stories, many quirky, that people submit and vote on--or "digg". Popular stories rise to the top.

Digg may be late to the party with Facebook, MySpace already entrenched, and dozens of other social media sites emerging.  The focus is on creating small communities of 5 to 10 or 15 people, creating connections around like-minded subjects. But that's exactly what Facebook is doing and it has an army of developers cranking out new applications every day. It's also unclear whether Digg will be able to build communities around the "dugg" news items. Last, they also risk annoying their core base of techie users, who now have to compete with business, lifestyle and other topics (one cool facet of Digg are the acid-tongue comments and humor).

Adelson and Rose have a  balancing act in keeping the natives happy, while broadening their base. Still, with millions of visitors and a brand name, you can't count them out either.

Myth of the Web Potato (Fortune Magazine)

  Fortune's Brent Schlender raises some interesting points in his recent (Feb.7) column Dawn of the Web Potato  First off: consumer demand on the web is beginning to outstrip commercial and government usage. So heavy is the consumer use that some are predicting we could be heading into brownouts.

Much of this is being driven by video--and it goes beyond "stupid pet tricks" on YouTube, as he says.Video is exploding across the Internet in many forms, a thousand points of light to (badly) paraphrase a former president. In North America online video transmission has jumped to 18% of all Internet traffic in 2007, from 7% in 2005, and will grow tenfold by 2011, according to a Cisco study.

The article concludes that we're becoming a nation of "web potatoes." Presumably much like the TV generation, this one spends the bulk of his/her time scanning a screen for stuff from the comforts of their office or home, or so this argument goes. When everything, including TV, winds up on your computer screen, you end up with a nation of zombies viewing content, passive as ever.   

But this comparison quickly breaks down when you analyze the facts: indeed, the Internet era is shaping up as the antithesis of TV's couch potato era. While there's plenty of passive viewing going on, today's Net user is far different than the old couch potato.

Facebook and Personal Branding

Nice piece by Brian Solis on the emerging role of Facebook, and how it should be a part of your personal branding. With FB there's the usual cool factor and ALL those widgets; users, as he points out, can easily share a "wealth of integrated activity" including Twitter, Jaiku, Flickr for sharing photos, Meetup for sharing live events, RSS readers can be used to share relevant stories and so on. Then there are the community news streams (the news stream represents the collective activities of all your "friends" or community). These are shared experiences as well.

But the real key is about about how you interact and participate in that community. It's a form of personal branding, using social media platforms. You need to be involved in the conversations, and contributing in a positive way. it's a great way to showcase your activities, skill sets and knowledge--in a careful way. This is participation marketing.

Adding to this is the fact that Facebook will soon be integrating profiles into search engine results, meaning your little FB profile could potentially be open to millions (if you choose--FB wisely offers privacy controls if you want to stay under the Google radar screen).

For the critics and doubters--and there are many--this still sounds a little like High School smoke and mirrors. But as you'll see in the next few months, as FB goes mainstream using its powerful platform and emerging financial muscle, this could easily evolve into a central marketing hub--not just for blogging fanatics and marketers, but for anyone who wants to build a community...and their brand.

 

Social Media, the Wall Street Journal and the Marie Digby Scandal

Another day, another Internet scandal. The latest came to light last week when the Wall Street Journal broke the story that 24 year old singer and guitarist named Marie Digby wasn't a home-grown, girl-next-door, You-Tube wonder after all. Turns out Hollywood Records had signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a You-tube phenomenon, and according to the Journal orchestrated a grass-roots scheme to get her "discovered" online. Ms. Digby played along, once writing in MySpace, "I NEVER in a million years thought that doing my little video of Umbrella in my living room would led to this--tv shows, itunes, etc!!"

Yippee!

The singer's supporters are crying foul, claiming the Journal blew the story out of proportion (See the billboard.com writer's rebuttal and Ms. Digby's angry response here).  They also point out how hard it is for a no-name to get any attention from the big labels; most slave away in obscurity for a lifetime--so, hey, what if she did do a little fibbing?

But in any case, it's pretty clear the innocent online "staging" was more than an accident.

These schemes are hardly new.