Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > March > 14
Saturday, March 14, 2009
SXSW: Core Conversation: The Organic Audience: Growing a Fanbase by Communicating
Date/Time: Saturday, 5 p.m.
Panelist: Victor Agreda Jr., Programming Mgr. for Weblogs at AOL
The gist: Dealing with trolls and negative comments in an even-handed, positive way and encouraging thoughtful posters is the best way to foster an audience for any blogs.
Agreda knows dozens of posters on AOL’s various blogs by name and has a very personal relationship with them, even if he’s never met them in person. Turning visitors into fans is a long-term process but it makes them evangelical in their appreciation of the blog and very likely to spread the word.
Quotes: “Even lots of the biggies in the blog world are in there everyday commenting back and forth with their users because they care and they realize that that close interaction is valuable to know their users. It also lets them deal fairly with the negative stuff, which is often just a knee-jerk reaction anyway.” — Victor Agreda Jr.
Takeaways: Being engaging and involved with users is more powerful than churning out piles of content when it comes to cultivating and maintaining a dedicated blog audience.
And hard as it maybe to regulate, a policy that deletes and restricts as few scofflaw users as possible is best because it makes the blog seem like an open, free-flowing community where people can express their opinions without fear of punishment.
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SXSW: Panel: Feed Me: Bite Size Info for a Hungry Internet
Date/Time: Saturday, 3:30 p.m.
Panelists: Ari Steinberg, Engineering Mgr. for Facebook Inc.; Eric Eldon, Editor of VentureBeat; Dare Obasanjo, Program Mgr. at Microsoft; David Sacks, CEO of Yammer; Paul Buchheit, founder of FriendFeed
The gist: The constant content “feed” format of Twitter (which was conspicuously absent from the panel) has transformed the way users consume most social media products, so much so that Facebook’s recent overhaul has turned it into a “Twitter clone,” as Sacks noted.
Facebook’s Steinberg said the acceptance of feed-style content has succeeded because it’s intuitive and easy to comment on, add to and spread updates and offerings from friends. Obasanjo said changing to more of a feed system for Hotmail has created problems for its users, who tend to be older and less savvy and don’t understand why they’re seeing other people’s content and worry that all of their online material may be on public display.
Sacks said the evolution of feed and its popularity is turning it into “email 2.0” since it’s becoming an almost instant way to spread information and the short format makes it easier to consume.
The entire panel pretty much agreed that Buchheit’s company, which combines feeds from multiple networks into one place for a user, is pointing feed in its eventual direction where, like email and instant messaging, feeds won’t be specific or proprietary.
Quotes: “We are in the process of creating email 2.0 with different filters on an inbox to tailor what you’re seeing right away. If we’re creating a new form of social messaging there eventually develops a winner-take-all situation. Within a year pretty much everyone who’s on a computer is going to have a Facebook account, so it’s not hard to see how this is going to play out.”
Takeaways: Feed is quickly overtaking profile pages and email as the most desirable way to relay information electronically and companies all over the digital landscape are retooling themselves to offer some sort of feed feature. self-contained corporate feed systems are also overtaking company email as the best way to communicate company information.
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HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility!
Date/Time: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Panelists: John Gruber (DaringFireball.net) and Merlin Mann (43Folders.com)
The gist: Blogging — you’re doing it wrong. The wry and entertaining Gruber and Mann offered some ideas on what doing it right means.
Quotes: “Getting an account on Twitter does not make you Zappos.” — Mann
“Social media is not what you have to say. It’s your tolerance for what people have to say about you.” — Mann
Takeaways: — Think about how to become a go-to person on your topic.
— Set an out-of-reach goal, like becoming better than 80 percent of the people writing on your topic or making your writing New Yorker quality. You might not meet the goal, but even aiming for it will improve your work.
— Whom do you want to delight with your writing? Think about someone you respect or whose work you enjoy and aim to write things that person would love. This makes your writing more meaningful than if you’re just thinking about reaching a big audience or having a certain number of posts per day.
— Don’t do things with your blog that seem profitable but might mess up the reasons that people like you. Think less about short-term gains and more about the long-term goal of showing that you are awesome at what you do.
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Panel: Designing the Future of The New York Times
Date/Time: 5 p.m. Saturday
Panelists: Tom Bodkin and Khoi Vinh (The New York Times)
The gist: Bodwin and Vinh talked about some of the philosophies behind their work at the Times, including:
— The belief that there will be thousands of micropublishers and a handful of global news platforms.
— That to be one of these global platforms, the Times has to reconsider all the traditional approaches to journalism and try new approaches.
— The belief that content should be agnostic and go where customers want it to go, from the printed page to iPhones.
— To deliver news in as readable and usable form as possible.
— To deliver news with elegance in design and minimal ornamentation.
Quotes: “It makes me crazy.’— Bodwin, about the amount of content on the Times home page
Takeaways: Bodwin and Vinh discussed where Web design might be headed. Bodwin pointed out that news sites often look like the story-packed front pages of 19th century newspapers and wondered if they, like the printed product, might become more streamlined over time. Vinh was more of the belief that the crowded pages are an inherent part of monetizing the content that news sites give away.
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Core Conversation: Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer
Date/Time: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Panelists: Pam Mandel (Writer, Nerd’s Eye View); Sheila Scarborough (Blogger, BootsnAll Travel Network)
The gist: Travel blog guru Pam Mandel shared her starter guide, which was echoed by co-panelist Sheila Scarborough. Among the dos and don’ts:
— Use details. Be as specific as possible in your writing (for example, instead of “T-shirt”; say “a sweat-stained, light blue T-shirt”)
— Make your blog easy to read. Skip the weird colors and small type. “If I can’t read your blog, I’m gonna click away.” (Mandel).
— Don’t list your itinerary. Too easy. Capture your readers with the story, not your schedule.
— Tell us who you are. What’s your age, gender, cultural background? Saying so builds credibility. Everybody has biases and preconceived notions. So, what are yours?
— Take pictures. People love them — but don’t go overboard. (You’re still a writer, after all).
— Avoid MySpace or LiveJournal as your blog host. They rarely show on Google searches. She recommended Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad.
— Leave the diary at home. Focus on the location — not your insecurities or romantic troubles.
Quotes: On what not to say: “We’re better; they suck” — Pam Mandel
Takeaways: Be aware of your surroundings; Look for opportunities to blog. Write with as much detail as possible. And network! Leave comments on other blogs; go to forums; get a Twitter account. “I can’t spread my arms wide enough to express how important this is” (Mandel).
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Panel: Friendship is Dead
Date/Time: 6:30 p.m., Saturday
Panelists: Russ Unger (Director of Experience Planning, Draftfcb), David Armano (VP Experience Design, Critical Mass)
The gist: Technology is changing the way we define friendships. With Facebook friends, Twitter followers and Linked In connections, we are constantly being asked to categorize our friends, which we already do in our day-to-day lives, just not as formally. The panel quickly turned into a discussion, with lots of questions and comments from the packed room in the Hilton. One person in the audience said it would disastrous if those categorizations (inner circle, business acquaintances, family, BFFs) became public, while others pointed out that it’s difficult to categorize many people because they fall into several categories.
A lot of real world relationships don’t translate into your online world, another member of the crowd said. At Christmas, you don’t get cards and updates mailed to the mailbox nailed to your house from your 550 Facebook friends.
Networks like Twitter, where you haven’t met many of the people you follow and who follow you, become platforms to make really good online friends because they are hearing the details of your life. You don’t call your childhood friend to tell her you tried that great new restaurant downtown.
Takeaways: Create categories for your friends to keep them organized. Use different networks for different purposes if you feel the need to separate personal and professional. Use the groups option in Facebook to keep track of relationships. Set business rules about your relationships online so you don’t end up embarrassing yourself with too much information.
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Panel: Comedy on Television and the Web
Date/Time: 5 p.m. Saturday.
The gist: Though the panel was surprisingly serious and not laugh-out-loud funny, the “Comedy on Television and the Web” panel (known in our office as “The B.J. Novak Panel”) covered a lot of ground, including content distribution, quality of Web shows, how future comedy stars will rise up and whether social networks like Twitter might bring back appointment-viewing with live commenting. Though few definitive answers were presented (Hollywood is apprehensive; comedians are using the Web to get on TV then get back online, like Lonely Island), there was agreement that there’s a lot of good creative experimentation going on and that the best content will reach an audience. Sardino of “The Colbert Report” likened YouTube-style comedy viewing to sharing her old VHS tapes of her favorite stuff with friends. Novak said, “Comedy is like music. That’s why it’s successful on iPods more than drama.” There’s a quick payoff and you either like it or you don’t.
Scardino said that “Colbert Report” is good about egging its online audience to create content and then spinning that content into fodder for the show. Moderator Van Veen didn’t offer much of his own insight, which might have been great, and instead asked vague, rambling questions that sapped the energy out of the panel. Most interesting, surprisingly, was Ronen of Boxee, the Web content delivery app, who seemed to have the most insight on how things will change. He said people are canceling or downgrading cable to watch shows online, but that cable won’t go away anytime soon. He and Novak amusingly sparred over Ronen not knowing what night “The Office” airs because he always watches it online.
Novak spoke briefly about directing Webisodes of “The Office”: “Everyone’s trying to figure that out. We just figure they’re funny and popular. We do it for creative reasons.” He said shooting one costs about the same as a day of shooting the TV show.
Quotes: “My favorite site is Hulu.com. (Laughs.) We love it. We love it so much we can let it go.” — Ronen. “I think they could take the Luxembourg army” — Scardino on the Colbert Nation. “If it looks great and it’s HD, people don’t care where it’s coming from.” — Ronen. On how content will be delivered — it will be the way people will want it: “Nobody’s gonna shove anything down anybody’s throat (that’s what she said).” — Novak. On fear of Web content in Hollywood: “Of course it’s the wild west. That’s why some people are drawn to it and why some people are afraid of it.” — Novak. “I know a guy who looks online to see if people liked his jokes” — Scardino. “Was is Colbert?” — Novak
Takeaways: Nobody has really figured out how “Webisodes” and Web-to-TV shows are going to work when it comes to making money. On “The Office,” they’re more creative experiment than moneymaker, says Novak. Comedy clips seem predisposed to work as online media because they don’t require too much character development and are “Get-it-or-don’t-get-it” much like whether or not you like certain songs. Those who are multitalented (writing, acting, producing, tap dancing) are most poised to rise to the top as these changes play out.
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Panel: A Brief History of Growing Up Online
Date/Time: 5 p.m. Saturday
Panelists: Anna Genoese (Aleuromancy), Maria Diaz (Writer), Mark Shrayber (Girl Detective, Louise Miller Enterprises), Sarah Wulfeck (National Community Producer, CBS DMG), Gala Darling (iCiNG)
The gist: In the mid 1990s, teen girls (and a few boys) started journaling their lives as a way to connect with teens with similar interests, express themselves and, admittedly, to get attention. The attention wasn’t always good; Anna Genoese almost got kicked out of high school because of her online journal. Mark Shrayber couldn’t go to the prom because of something he said in his journal. Then password-protection became available and suddenly, the bloggers — before blog was a word — they could control who saw their writing.
For some of the panelists, real life now trumps online presence. Others still blog every detail of their lives online. Gala Darling says in the future, people will get a more realistic version of what your life is like by looking back on your life through online journals.
The backlash against oversharing isn’t new, says Sarah Wulfeck. Some people are secretive, and not everyone is a performer.
Genoese says the act of keeping her blog made her braver to go out and meet people. “It got me out of my shell,” she says. “There’s nothing to talk about when you’re lying on your back staring at the ceiling for 6 hours a day…Every single friend I have is someone I met online.”
Quotes: “Oversharers today don’t have a sense of the line between oversharing and putting things up that shouldn’t be on the Internet.” — Anna Genoese
Takeaways: Use password protection judiciously.
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Panel: Everything I Needed to Know About the Web I Learned from Feminism
Date/Time: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Panelists: Heather Gold (founder, Subvert.com), danah boyd (researcher, Microsoft Research), Betty Flowers (director, LBJ Library), Julia Angwin (author)
The gist: The nature of Web 2.0 and social networking lends itself to tasks traditionally associated with women: maintaining a circle of friends and contacts, sharing information (gossiping) both superficial and profound and tweaking your public image.
Gender differences are as prevalent online as they are offline, says danah boyd. Social networks just formalize this process. What used to be too personal to be shared publicly is getting smaller and smaller.
Privilege has a lot to do with our online identities. Julia Angwin says she thinks it is a privilege to be able to live your life so publicly online, but the problem is that there is no way to tune your online identities. There are too few protected spaces, where everyone shares the same rules of engagement, for conversation and interaction. Another issue of online identity is that you aren’t allowed to be as multifaceted as you are in your real life, which is a right Second Wave feminists established. Unitary identity, Angwin says, means you’re forced into what a Google search of your name turns up.
Quotes: “”If you do not take diversity (gender, sexual orientation, race, economic background) into account, then you limit yourself on a building and business level.” “The act of being yourself is what makes the world safe.”—Heather Cole
Takeaways: Hire people who think differently than you. Honor the safe spaces that do exist online.
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Panel: Politics, Technology and Pop Culture
Panel: Politics, Technology and Pop Culture
Day/time: Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 5:00 p.m.
Panelists: Mark McKinnon, vice chairman of Public Strategies, Amber Ettinger (Obama Girl), Tom Serres of Pyrx Inc., Alex Wollen, deputy political director of digital content for CNNPolitics.com, Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School, Dan Patterson, ABC News.
The gist: The SXSW description said this: A shift is occurring in the world of politics. Campaigns are feeling a growing need to move online - learning to compete in a new world, a world where technology offers the average political entrepreneur a whole new level of empowerment. What it really was: praise for Obama’s use of technology, a debate about how good or not so good Twitter is, and Amber Ettinger’s story of becoming the viral sensation “Obama Girl.”
Quotes: “I’m not a political expert.” - Ettinger. “Obama brought people in who weren’t politically inclined.” -Patterson. “We shouldn’t over-romanticize what happened in the last election.” -Lessig.
Takeaways: McKinnon said it is “profound” to look at what is happening with cyber politics. He said working on his first few campaigns, “we didn’t even have Blackberries.” The campaigns lose control of their message and anybody has an opportunity to participate in the process, thanks to the Internet and new technology, McKinnon said. President Obama and Sen. John McCain understood how to harness this technology, he said.
Wollen said CNN is focusing on integration. Meaning integrating television with other new technologies and the Web. The “holy grail” is to have a parallel experience, he said, using the Web and TV, or your phone and the Web.
On Twitter: McKinnon said more communication isn’t better communication. (A guy in the audience starts shouting bull—-t at this statement.) “We have to be able to understand messages about quality and not quantity,” he said.
But Patterson disagrees, saying it is in your individual responsibility to use sites like Twitter in ways that are productive for you. “There is good quality information out there, it’s how you use it,” Patterson said.
Lessig also got a dig in at CNN, criticizing them for obsessive coverage of “small” issues. Wollen responds by talking up iReport, CNN’s citizen journalism tool.
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Zappos CEO wows Interactive audience
By the end of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s keynote speech at the South By Southwest Interactive Festival, you could see the Zappos logo on computer screens and murmurs from audience members saying they wanted to start working at the online retailer.
Hsieh wowed the Web-savvy audience with tales of how his Las Vegas-based company went from zero sales in 1999 to over $1 billion in sales last year.
Zappos.com may be known for its superior customer service, but Hsieh said building a great company culture is more important.
Hsieh said what makes the online retailer so successful is spending much more time and energy on hiring the right people and focusing on the culture.
For instance, Zappos will pay new hires $2,000 to leave after the five-week training period as a test to see how committed to the company they are.
So what is Zappos’ culture? Hsieh said they have 10 core values, which include items like being open and honest and pursuing growth and learning.
Reporters and anyone else who takes a company tour is allowed to talk to anyone in the company, from the call center employee to a warehouse worker or buyer.
This is extremely unusual for a company - most don’t allow reporters to question employees without prior approval.
Hsieh gave a few great examples of his company’s focus on customer service. One customer once left $150 in a wallet she returned and it was mailed back to her by a warehouse employee. Hsieh said call center employees aren’t required to spend a certain amount of time on the phone or even make a sale. The longest phone call ever at Zappos was four hours.
And the best example was saved for last: A woman Hsieh encountered in Santa Monica wanted a pepperoni pizza in the middle of the night and she called Zappos to help her out. They call center representative gave her a list of five places she could order pizza. “If you get the culture right, most of your other stuff, like your brand and customer service happen naturally on its own,” Hsieh said.
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Facebook introduces Connect for iPhone at SXSWi
At a Saturday morning panel, Facebook made news by announcing Facebook Connect for iPhone, which will extend the reach of applications on the iPhone and iPod Touch, allowing users to connect with people they know on Facebook.
On the panel, the company announced several well-known apps that have added the feature and are already available on the iTunes App Store. People using them could use their already-existing Facebook login information and find their Facebook friends in these apps. They are:
- “Who Has the Biggest Brain” by Playfish
- “Movies” by Flixster
- “iBowl” and “Agency Wars” by SGN
- “Urbanspoon”
- “Tap Tap Revenge 2” by Tapulous
- “Whrrl” by Pelago
- “Live Poker” by Zynga
- “Binary Game” by SayEight
At last year’s South by Southwest, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made a personal appeal to developers to create applications for the Facebook platform. As the site has ballooned worldwide, it looks like that strategy is paying off: Zuckerberg showed up on “Oprah” Friday to discuss the phenomenal success of the social-networking site.
Below: a look at “Who Has the Biggest Brain”:
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SXSW: The Search for a More Social Web
Panel: The Search for a More Social Web
Date and time: Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 11:30 a.m.
Panelists: Dave Morin, Facebook Inc.
The gist: So there’s this Web site called Facebook and it, like, totally roX0rs! Glibness aside, the session was a barely disguised pitch for the positives of Facebook’s newest incarnation of Facebook Connect, which spawned another site redesign that’s been met with decidely so-so reviews and the usual petitions for either improving or ditching the new look.
The climax of the session came when FB platform manager Dave Morin announced the launch (as of that moment) of Facebook Connect for iPhone, which links iPhone apps (mostly games right now but due to expand) with users’ friends. Also, data from apps will have a home on users’ Facebook accounts and one user identity will run consistently through all apps. Head over to Gizmodo for a deeper review of the announcement and its merits.
Quotes: Uh, none that weren’t pure sales pitch.
Takeaways: Facebook. Is. Awesome.
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SXSW: Panel: Is Privacy Dead or Just Very Confused?
Panel: Is Privacy Dead or Just Very Confused?
Date and time: Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 10 a.m.
Panelists: Danah Boyd, researcher at Microsoft Research; Judith Donath, MIT Media Laboratory; Siva Vaidhyanathan, Assoc. Prof. at University of Virginia; Alice Marwick, PhD Candidate at New York University
The gist: More than ever before, the concept of privacy is open to interpretation as people share more of their lives online. Debates included what should and shouldn’t be expected to remain private, what material is reasonable for governments and marketers to aggregate and dispense about us and how to understand the consequences beforehand of making too many aspects of our lives available for public consumption.
There was also plenty of talk about context, social currency and zero-sum transactions that, frankly, seemed a little heady for 10 a.m. the day after the start of one of this city’s drunkest weeks of the year. Really SXSW, this seemed like the best scheduling option? And no one thought to dispense coffee and aspirin at the door?
Quotes:“In the seventies there was a very public moment where people stood up and demanded protection of their privacy from the state, and that resulted in things like a much better credit rating system and better protections. It’s no coincidence that this was right after Watergate. Since then we’ve kind of taken that privacy for granted and now the entire interface has changed.” Siva Vaidhyanathan
Takeaways: Privacy means different things in just about any situation depending on age, authority involved and a host of other factors. To a teenager their home isn’t necessarily a private place (because they lack authority) while to their parents the home is the most private place they can imagine.
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Panel: Emerging Trends of Mobile Technology
Date/Time: 11:30 a.m. Saturday
Panelists: Rob Gonda (Director of Marketing Strategy & Analysis, Sapient), Juan-Carlos Morales (Creative Director, Sapient Interactive), Ryan Stewart
Around the world, there are three times as many mobile subscribers (3.38 billion) than Internet and twice as many people use mobile devices than television. In a few short years, the vast majority of people will access the Web on a mobile device instead of a computer.
In Asia, people are more trusting to use their phones to buy everything, from groceries to take-out. Added security on phones will happen, but only reactively, not proactively, Gonda says.
One thing that impedes the U.S. from advancing with mobile technology is that phone carriers have so much control over the user interface and experience online, Gonda says. In other cultures where mobile use is so advanced, carriers simply provide devices, not dictate usage. Flash is a core part of Internet usage, and phones will have to be able to display Flash in order for people to want to use mobiles to access the Web. Gonda said that it doesn’t make sense for developers to have to redevelop sites for mobile phones.
Quotes: “It’s so easy for us to spend 99 cents, Morales says. … You can’t buy a whole lotta things with a dollar. $2.99 for an app is too much.” — Juan-Carlos Morales
“(Mobile use is about) rehashing, remapping, reusing the same technology with new creative uses and experiences. Technology isn’t just a commodity, but it’s a facilitator, and what really sells it is experience” — Rob Gonda
Takeaways: Even though there are already 200,000 mobile applications, with the introduction of more open source phones, we will see hundreds of thousands of more applications in the future. The price will stay low.
Image recognition will also quickly advance. Morales foresees that users will be able to take a picture of an avocado and a recipe for guacamole will pop up. Image recognition can be mixed with public sources of information like Wikipedia, so you can point your phone at a monument and it will tell you information about it.
You’ll be able to use your iPhone as a navigation system, hanging it from your windshield and it will act as a GPS device.
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Panel: Change v2
Date/Time: 11:30 a.m. Saturday
Panelists: Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law School, change-congress.org)
The gist: Lessig says that we have lost faith in the integrity of government because we see all decisions as being influenced by lobbyist money, not by a desire to do the right thing. Even in situations when an official was not “bought off,” we are skeptical of his motivations because of the pervasiveness of lobbyist money. He says this situation is caused because Congress members are constantly concerned with paying for re-election (either getting themselves re-elected, or ensuring their party keeps the seat). Further, he says politicians on both the right and the left want the lobbyist system to continue because they want to become well-paid lobbyists themselves after working in government for a few years.
Takeaways: Lessig says the only way to restore our lost faith in government is through the citizen funding of elections. He says candidates should get their money in two ways: 1) from donations of $250 of less from individual citizens. 2) from a public financing fund. He is a co-founder of change-congress.org, which encourages people to go on “strike” by refusing to donate to national candidates “unless they support legislation making congressional elections citizen-funded.” HIs talk got sustained applause, and many in the room gave him a standing ovation.
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Core Conversation: Join the Coworking Revolution
Date/Time: 11:30 a.m. Saturday.
Panelists: Alex Hillman (Co-founder, Indy Hall)
The gist: Coworking is an issue we’ve been interested in for a while, especially with one space in Austin and another on the way. In this Core Conversation, the room was filled with current coworking space owners and several who plan to open such spaces in the coming months with their own unique takes on the concept of working in a public space with others. One audience member wants to open a “Hip hop” coworking space in Brooklyn, for instance. Coworking could have been something that was created, then franchised after it started taking off in 2006, but instead it has become an open-source movement with space owners sharing their business plans online and helping each other get off the ground.
Quotes: “You know, bring in the bling, all of that.” — Hip Hop Coworking audience member. “If you get a bunch of smart people in a room, good things are going to happen.” — Audience member. “This group happens to be one of the most kind and gracious when it comes to their time and resources.” — Hillman on coworking space owners, who communicate online and are represented in about 30 countries. “I can travel to almost city in the world and I know somebody there through coworking.” — Hillman
Takeaways: San Antonio has a space called C4 Workspace that is scheduled to open in June. A good coworking space makes people feel like they’re working at home. No two coworking spaces are alike — business models vary and people are finding all kinds of ways to get them started, from putting their house up for mortgage to finding corporate sponsors. Culture is key in a coworking space.
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Panel: Blog on Company Time and Get Promoted
Panel: Blog On Company Time and Get Promoted
Date and time: Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 11:30 a.m.
Panelists: Daniel Hope, consultant and CEO of Tracksuit. Hope is also an instructor at the University of Texas where he teaches corporate blogging.
The gist: How many bloggers are underutilized in their day jobs? This session shows bloggers how to take over or start their company’s blog for instant promotion and industry-wide fame. Learn tools and techniques for taking on the title of Chief Blogging Officer and then making your company’s blog a massive success.
Quotes:“The beauty of it is you don’t have to be a programmer.” - Hope. “If you know how to email, you can run a blog.” - Hope.
Takeaways: Re-define blogs as Web sites. Stop thinking about them as social diaries. You don’t need a lot of computer or programming expertise to run a blog, Hope said.
He took a lot of questions from the audience, including someone from FedEx, which just started their own blog. One woman said she started a blog without permission from her employer and it was so successful that competitors wanted to be mentioned on the blog. Hope called this “going rogue.”
A lot of companies want a way into social networks and a good way in is through blogs, Hope said. He reveals that he got free tuition through UT by offering to start up a blog for them. He also recommends using Word Press Multi-User.
Hope also offered up his 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the corporate blog should be relevant to the business. Twenty percent can be a photo of a company party or something more personal.
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More social networking awkward situations
In today’s paper, we ran a story about how social networking can get awkward, with advice on how to deal with specific situations.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to fit all the questions and great answers that Austin social media expert Connie Reece and Emily Post Institute etiquette expert Anna Post provided to us. Here are the remainder questions, the bonus rounds:
An acquaintance you’ve never worked with asks you to write them a professional recommendation on Linked In. Should you do it?
Anna Post: On the whole, it’s a bad idea if you haven’t worked with them professionally. Your reputation is at stake here. The person reading the recommendation is expecting you to know this person in a professional capacity. You could if you knew qualities about them that spoke to the job. You could say, “Is there some other way I can help you?. I don’t know you in a professional capacity.” That leaves the door open.
Connie Reece: Recommend only the expertise where you have first-hand knowledge. If you’ve never worked directly with a person in a business capacity but have volunteered with the same nonprofit, you could write a recommendation based on their abilities in that role. But never, ever, fabricate a professional relationship where none exists.
Some of your significant other’s exes are listed as friends on their Facebook or MySpace profile. Fair or foul?
Post: Completely depends on the situation. Even within a relationship you might disagree on what’s fair or foul. You’ll need to talk this out with your significant other. My recommendation is that if either person feels threatened, which is more important? The person you’re with or the person you chose to no longer be with? It may speak to something deeper in the relationship and it’s far beyond etiquette at this point.
Reece: How significant are those exes? A previous spouse? A broken engagement? A high school romance? The real issue is not whether they are simply listed as friends but how your significant other interacts with those exes. And that’s a matter of the trust level in your relationship, whether it’s in regard to online communication or personal encounters.
A person who treated you badly in high school has requested you add herthem as a friend on an alumni group or Web site. Should you feel obligated to let bygones be bygones?
Post: Again, this is a case-by-case. It can be a great way to let bygones be bygones and to move on and discover this person who haunted your past is really not such a big deal. It can also be someone who hurt you too much and you don’t need to have them in your life. What you don’t do is engage in some new drama. Either say yes or no and leave it at that.
Reece: No obligations. Feel free to ignore the request. Or, if it’s for Facebook, you could accept the request and then throw virtual sheep, chicken or cows at them every day, send the zombies to bite them, buy them as a pet, and invite them to install several hundred worthless applications. Small revenge, but sweet.
Your favorite social network allows you to highlight your “Top 10 friends.” How do you choose 10 among the many friends or family members on your social network?
Post: You don’t always have to. Just let the site choose for you and cycle through. If you have some of your favorite faces you’d like to see when you come to your home page, it’s perfectly OK. You might think about rotating them now and then if someone got upset, that way it doesn’t feel so set in stone.
Reece: Quick—disable this feature! There is no win-win situation when it comes to naming “top friends” on social networks.
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Screenburn panel — Strong Gaming Communities: Text vs. Speech
Date/Time: 10 a.m. Saturday.
Panelists: Matthew Bellows (VP Consumer Services, Vivox, Inc.); Amy Jo Kim (shufflebrain.com); Joe Miller (VP, Platform/Tech Dev., Linden Research, Inc.); Dmitri Williams (USC, via “Second LIfe”), Richard Vogel (Co-Studio Director, Bioware).
The gist: In Massively Multiplayer Online Games and virtual worlds like “Second Life,” there’s a big distinction with how relationships form and how things are communicated when written as text versus when you hear them as speech. One person in the audience mentioned that she met her husband online and that when they fight, they take it to a text conversation, which can be more precise, and less emotional. The issue of intimacy over voices raises all sorts of questions about intimacy in virtual worlds and how they should/shouldn’t take the place of real-life relationships. Some talk about the Facebook-ization of online relationships — we’re becoming more comfortable sharing photos, personal details and other info.
Quotes: “People can certainly have intimate relationships with text. What you wind up is giving more information with voice and with tone.” — Williams. “In voice, they trust people more when they hear a voice than when they read text.” — Vogel
Takeaways: Not a lot of conclusions, but much of the preference for speech versus text has to do with that the world is where it’s being used. For “World of Warcraft” voice is essential for team tasks. But in some instances, it may be too intimate for the task at hand. Some of it may be generational, too. Young people are more used to putting it all out online. Voice loses an element of anonymity online that some people still really enjoy.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: SXSW 2009, Videogames
Panel: Emerging From A Recession
Panel title: Emerging From A Recession With Emerging Media Intact
Date and time: Saturday, March 14, 2009
Panelists: Patrick Moorhead, director of emerging technologies for Razorfish and David Polinchock at Brand Experience Labs
The Gist: Experience emerging technologies revolutionizing the digital world and glimpse what today would look like if we hadn’t developed emerging technology from a few years past. This panel is sponsored by Razorfish.
Quotes: “We take a lot of technology for granted today. Five or eight years ago we barely knew what iPods were.” - Moorhead. “The coolest function of the original Palm Pilot was beaming your business card.” - Polinchock. “Suspend disbelief in order to get smart.” -Moorhead
Takeaways: Innovation happens regardless of whether times are good or bad.
Broadcast that what you’re doing is new or an experiment, take a look at Google’s Gmail, which is still officially in beta testing. Moorhead asked people in the audience to raise their hand if they had an iPod and pretty much everyone did.
Both panelists talked about some new technologies, such as T-shirts that communicate in code or ordering your favorite sandwich through a text.
Technology can be used to let people engage the brand when they want to instead of inundating then with ads. For example, using your phone to scan RFID codes and order the product you want. Polinchuck mentioned a new technology called Poken which is like a digital business card that allows you to share your information with someone you meet instantly.
Moorhead said clients have a hard time figuring out how to use new technology and don’t want to use a cool new gadget or Web site just for the sake of it. But the recession is the time where you can experiment with new technologies. Throw caution to the wind, Moorhead said, and be prepared to suspend disbelief.
The best part: Towards the end Polinchuck showed an fun new game for MSNBC that he is calling “participatory advertising” that forced members in the audience to lean right or left to hit a ball on the screen, similar to the Brickbreaker game on the Blackberry. It was like getting the entire panel audience to do the wave.
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SXSWi Friday parties: soggy, cold, crowded (still cool)
When I read that the growth of this year’s SXSWi fest might be as much as 20 percent I was skeptical, but that was before I was face-to-back at several parties. Seriously. It was crowded, y’all. Even though I’m all the way at home in New Braunfels, I think part of my body might still be back in Austin trying to get out of The Belmont.
The parties (and a few crowded panels) were a testament to how big this festival is getting. Friday and Tuesday are usually not such busy days. People are still arriving or leaving on those days and it’s not at full capacity. Could have fooled me. There’s Interactive attendees EVERYWHERE and spreading parties across several venues has only meant there are multiple crowded, noisy party venues. And I imagine it’s only going to get worse.
Party-by-party, from what I saw:
Mix at Six — Six was very crowded last year and the plan was to have additional parties going at the same time so Six (on 4th Street) wouldn’t get overloaded. Didn’t work. The line for Six still snaked around the corner when I got there around 7 p.m. and it was cold, rainy and miserable for those who were waiting to get in. Lots of people around me gave up and headed to The Belmont or other parties instead. Once inside (about a half hour later), things were already starting to die down and I only saw a few people I recognized, including one of the Texas Social Media Award Winners, Michelle Greer. Before I chatted with her, though, I was stopped by a woman I didn’t know who offered me the rest of her beer as I walked by. I swear to you, this is exactly how the conversation went:
LADY I DO NOT KNOW: Do you want the rest of my beer?
ME: No! I mean… no, I don’t think so. I mean, I’m very susceptible to… like… Hepatitis C and such. NOT THAT YOU HAVE THAT!
LADY: I see how it is. You think I have Hep C?
ME: No, not at all. I could get Hepatitis from… myself. You never know is all I’m saying. I’m very sorry.
And then I walked off. Later on, I was thinking I should go back for the rest of that beer, but she was gone. Sorry, lady.
Apart from that, Six was a bit of a bust, at least for me.
The Belmont TechSet party — Another cold, rainy line. But inside, the party was bustling. Lots of people downstairs, upstairs, in nooks, in crannies, probably hiding in the wainscotting. It was very crowded is what I’m saying.
The line near The Belmont
Upstairs, in the giant party room and the nearby, more intimate party room, it was again wall-to-wall. Tough to navigate, but lots of friendly folks, all using iPhones. (iPhone cell and Internet service has been crappy, by the way. If you’re not near a Wi-Fi zone, you’re in for some sad times at SXSWi.)
Inside The Belmont
I stayed for quite a while. It was a good party and the place that people who couldn’t get into other parties (like the one at Six) gravitated toward. It was a long line, but the venue was much larger.
Emo’s for Pasties and Pastries Burlesque and Cupcake Party — I’m a Kitty Kitty Bang Bang fan and I love cupcakes, so this seemed like a win-win in more ways than I can count. Unfortunately, I got there so late that all the cupcakes were gone (NOOOO!) and the Kitties were finishing up the last bit of their first set. I lose. Sadness. Now I really want a cupcake. This one also had a line and was also packed.
No cupcakes!
AMODA at Mohawk — I got there just as the laptop DJ battles were going. I went upstairs and met up with a friend from Hawaii, but by this time I was pooped and just wanted to go home. Like the other parties, it was packed. No line, but very busy. I left around midnight.
That’s it. See you all tomorrow.
These heaters are everywhere. Because it is cold.
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