This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... An underground blob of oil in NYC
Ok, nix Greenpoint of my list of places in NYC I'd like to move to....
Big Media, Web 2.0, Meet your young users: A NYC conference/non-profit idea
Some unfiltered thoughts that bubbled up at the gym this morning:
- Anyone who has any interest in the future of NYC as an innovation center recognizes the importance of education--not just at the University level, but in high schools and elementary schools as well. We can't just be a town that attracts smart people from elsewhere to educate them in technology... we need to foster the seeds of technology innovation from a very young age.
- Couple that with the idea that internet, mobile, and digital media related companies want better inroads into younger generations, for not just marketing, but for feedback and ideas.
- High school kids need jobs... and ideally more interesting jobs than working at McDonald's.
So, what about some kind of a program whereby startups and large companies alike targeting the high school/college audience engages the schools in an educational manner, in terms of talking about the technology, the business, product management, etc. of their products, and then "hires" these students for both feedback and marketing purposes during the summers. So, maybe during the year, they do a six week program about all the aspects of their service, and then the students spend the summer providing feedback, helping to market, etc.
Is there anything out there like this?
Bloggers can't write... Sphere flattening?
I was talking to Shri the other day about blogs and we both agreed that some of the most widely read blogs out there aren't actually particularly good writing and are getting less and less informative. Nate echoed similar sentiment and said that few of the blogs that he reads have a lot of traffic. He figured that, if something was important enough, it would filter through to the small niche blogs that he reads.
More and more, I'm hearing anecdotally of people unsubscribing from "A-list" blogs and meanwhile, I've noticed the RSS subscriber numbers of the rest of us trending up. Is the blog world becoming more flat?
I agree with the whole bad writing thing, though... and if anyone has any really well written blogs they read that they'd like to share in the comments, feel free.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
Gizmoz new offering makes me feel good about some of our Voki features. Yup, I now have another avatar on my sidebar... a photorealistic 3D avatar created from a photo. You can even comment on a Gizmoz. Commenting on an avatar? Really... wow, I wonder where they got that? Still, kudos for adding that feature after the Voki launch. I also like the way they did it without a popup. We'll have to add that ourselves.
Still, I have to ask... what do people think about photorealistic avatars? Frankly, I think they're a little creepy. We've added them as part of the Sitepal service, but I've gone from using my custom drawn one, to a cartoon one, to one that's even more cartoony? I love my little bigheaded cartoon Voki guy and I think that one of the best parts of an avatar is that it's a representation of you... not actually you. We have this debate internally a lot and I've never been a big fan of 3-D photo conversion and am just fine sticking to my flat little 2D avatars.
PS... New commentary on StumbleUpon and Mahalo at Walken's site.
links for 2007-05-31
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Christopher Walken's Web 2.0 blog on the Last.fm acquistion
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Best. Bio. Ever.
I have nothing to say about the last.fm aquisition, but I know someone who does...
Blogging is all about personality, right? Getting yourself out there with your own unique voice in the world...
...but in the Web 2.0 ecosphere, there's a lot of crowd following. Everyone posts about the same thing and says the same stuff.
Until now...
I just discovered a gem of a blog that you absolutely have to take a look at. Who knew that the Continental had a moment to put down the cowbell and talk social media?
That's right, it's Christopher Walken covering Web 2.0. (Please feel free to tag and digg liberally as a favor to the creator... ;) )
I am a feed.
I am negotiated lunches.
I am softball invites. I am blog reading clickthroughs. I am del.icio.us saves.
I am multiple daily e-mails to Mere. I am last.fm plays.
I am IM.
I am blog posts. I am book purchases. I am Fresh Direct orders. I am tech spec changes tracked. I am live fantasy baseball updates.
I am boathouse photos. I am biking times. I am trailers watched. I am phonecalls to Nana.
I am nextNY join requests. I am EZ Pass withdrawls. I am sunny forecasts.
I am concert tickets by e-mail. I am Regis Business Network listserv responses. I am NYSC ID scans. I am paycheck deposits and mileage card purchases.
I am electric bills. I am bits transferred.
I am a feed.
Two more thoughts on Facebook: On Accel, Amazon, and Microsoft
1) What Accel did by investing in Facebook was the equivalent of spending $100 on a old painting at a yardsale that later appraised on Antique Roadshow for $5000. That was BEFORE the creation of this developer network. The way they've built this thing is like coming home and discovering that, hidden in the frame of your old painting is one of ten known original copies of the Declaration of Independence.
What I'm saying is that, a few years ago, Accel invested a lot of money in a very hot social networking property. However, there's no way in hell, and no way that anyone could really convince me, that they foresaw Facebook's eventual prominence in the social application ecosphere as the OS. I'm sure they just saw pageviews and signups and all sorts of nice charts with hockey sticks on them and wanted to be a part of that. Now, maybe this is what Mark Zuckerberg had in his head... that's a possibility... I don't know the guy, but I seriously doubt he pitched the social OS concept to them before anyone really even gave any thought to what that meant.
2) If Microsoft wanted to spent that $6 billion of agency M&A money more wisely, they would have bought their way into the web OS by buying Facebook for half that. Google, Adobe... someone who wants to be in that layer should seriously consider throwing $3-5 billion their way.
Actually, to be honest, I think the acquirer that makes the most sense is Amazon. Amazon store+S3+Facebook would mean that you have a place to host your app, spread your app, ways to sell stuff in a whitelabeled way through your app, and a social network to integrate into a "Your friends bought this" concept. Imagine how powerful it would be if when I buy stuff, all my friends get notified.
Jeff Bezos... are you listening? Buy Facebook!
Facebook is Windows, MySpace is DOS
It would be hard for me to say anything that hasn't been said about Facebook's new developer platform.
So, just a few thoughts:
- If you are any kind of direct to consumer application developer, developing for Facebook needs to become a priority... RIGHT NOW.
- Facebook Widgets, or whatever you want to call them, work because they add in what most web widgets lack... broadcast. All that stuff sitting in my sidebar, it isn't any good to anyone if it doesn't get "in the feed"... Now, what feed, whose feed, where, how, etc... those are great questions, but the idea of getting in the flow of social data is incredibly important.
- I wonder if when Facebook came up with the NewsFeed, they realized how important it would be to their application platform. Just think about it... when I pick up my Twitter app for Facebook, now all my mainstream friends (all the ones who don't know how or where to subscribe to my RSS feed) can see it, grab it, and learn how it works. Facebook basically integrated RSS into their platform in a social way and now they're using it to fuel the spread and functionality of their apps. Incredible.
Let's think about a comparison between MySpace and Facebook and how they approached third party applications in their environment:
- MySpace allowed you to paste a piece of HTML code onto a page. That's it. No hooks into the service. No way to discover new widgets other than random browsing. Then, they tied one hand behind the back of their apps by disabling linking through Flash. On top of that, they made a big stink when others tried to monetize their creations, banned some folks, etc. There's no developer network. No notifications. No nothing.
- Facebook is encouraging development. It is giving apps hooks right into Facebook, enabling the pulling of various parts of my profile, and publishing right back into that profile and publishing notifications and various application output to friends. They even allow publishers of services competitive to Facebook features, like Twitter. There's a developer site, documentation, rules, etc.
Guess which one is the future of web based social application development and which one isn't.
I'll give you a hint, the future of app development rightly turned down a billion dollars for their company.
Brilliant. Anyone know who architected this? I'm so impressed. I want to pick that person's brain.
Sen. Schumer being treated for Lyme... softball in his future?
Noticed this story on how Sen. Chuck Schumer contracted Lyme upstate.... it was sent to me by one of my teammates on my softball team, which is aptly named: Four of Us Had Lyme Disease.
In fact our jersey has a tick in the O...
Just wanted to let Sen. Schumer know that he is absolutely welcome to throw out the first pitch at any of our upcoming games (or play a few innings, if he’d like). The great thing about the acronym is that it scales... allowing for “FIVE of us...”
Here's our schedule, Senator...
5/30 Wed 8:45pm Col. Charles Young #3
6/5 Tues 7:45pm Asphalt Green #2
6/17 Sun 6:30pm CP North Medow #2
6/20 Wed 7:15pm Riverside 107th #6
6/26 Tues 7:45pm Asphalt Green #1
7/11 Wed 6:15pm Col. Charles Young #3
7/18 Wed 6:45pm Riverside Park #8*
7/26 Thurs 5:45pm Roosevelt Island
And yes, I was one of the four.
We understand social marketing, we're special, you don't, nanny nanny poo poo: On the Public Flogging of Blog Pitches
I get pitched all the time. Please link to me. Please read my book. Please read my client's book. Please use my service.
And you know what, most of 'em are bad... like, really bad. Usually, I try to give them advice on how to pitch.
Once I got a pitch that started with:
"I've just begun to get acquainted with your terrific website, thisisgoingtobebig.com, and thoroughly enjoy reading it."
To be honest, I don't even think my site is terrific. I think I'm a terrific guy, but this site is kind of crap. I mean, look at all these silly widgets on the side... and theme? What's the theme? It's a snarky Web 2.0 and kayaking blog... which goes together like peanut butter and eggs. So, don't tell me it's a good site, b/c I know you've never read it.
BUT... that's totally ok. You're just doing your job. So I responded by e-mail with a story on a book that I bought b/c a blogger recommended it:
"... the web and the tech community is such a small world that isn't hard to break into at all... and so when something comes in from completely outside of my circle, it just goes in a big pile of unfiltered stuff that I'll look at later. So, this will probably come off as snarky, but I really don't mean it that way at all... Just trying to be honest and give you my honest reaction."
And then, I invited the pitcher in question to a nextNY event. In other words, I engaged her like an actual person... you know, the way that we bloggers say we want to be treated.
"Let's talk more about it more Wednesday. Again... just trying to be honest and helpful... not meaning to bite your head off at all."
I got another one the other day... one that I responded to in a similar manner:
"This whole blast e-mail in a can thing wasn't very "Next Big Thing". A tag for me in del.icio.us or a blog comment on my blog or a Twitter or a Facebook or MySpace add or just about anything else would have been a lot more appropriate. "
The person pitching responded in a very polite way:
"Thanks so much for checking out the site, even if my email rubbed you the wrong way... ...thanks for the suggestions, feedback is ALWAYS appreciated."
Not all the bloggers she wrote to where so friendly.
Some people took to their little soapboxes and called her out:
Blah blah blah blah silly little marketing person we know more than you blah blah.
The only person who seemed to recognize that Alison was just trying to do her job was this blogger, Ed Schipul:
""Ya, I took the email link bait. From a Fleishman-Hillard blogger outreach email from Allison Mooney...I still get my daily TrendCentral Intelligence Report, but I welcome new relevant content. Just please please please be sure it is relevant."
Pretty constructive, I'd say. He knew what he was getting.
Here's the thing that's easy to forget in the blog world... blogs, e-mails, tags, IM, are made out of PEOPLE. Real people who try to do a good job and have feelings and friends and all sorts of stuff. Do you know how I know that in this case?
Because, as it turns out, Allison is a real person. As it turns out, she was at nextMadisonAve, nextNY's discussion of the future of digital advertising and she just wrote about it in the blog she was pitching in her e-mail. So, she does participate in the community... and she wasn't doing someone else's PR dirtywork... she was actually pitching the blog that she writes for. Social media kudos for being a part of nextNY and pitching your own stuff. It also turns out we know more than a few local NYers in common and I found that out because I actually approached her like a real human.
Did her approach need a little work? Sure? Do most of our own approaches to social media need work? Absolutely. Does we need to tear someone a new one in public by name? I don't think so.
I mean, what if she got fired for her pitch gone awry? Is that what these bloggers wanted to see? Would they have felt bad if she did?
I can't say that I'm necessarily blameless in the snarky callouts department, but the next time you want to call someone out like this, you might consider the following:
- Respond directly to them by e-mail first, because that's the way they contacted you. No reason to elevate. When someone blogs something you don't like, it's more appropriate to blog about them, but keep the response to the medium it came in.
- What is the big picture of how I should judge this person? Do they participate in the community in other ways? In Allison's case, she does... she's a blogger, a nextNYer, Flickr user, etc, etc...not someone from the "outside" who needs to be taught a lesson.
- Is there added value to calling them out by name? Can you pull out useful pitch lessons from an e-mail without needing to embarrass someone?
- What position is this person in? Are they a VP of such and such... a prominent thought leader that makes their living by headlining conferences, etc. or just a worker bee trying to make their way up the chain who could do without you kicking them in the head because you happen to be three rungs higher up the ladder?
- Who the hell do I think I am? This is something I probably don't ask myself enough and frankly, few bloggers do. Saying stuff like, "I've been working in the social media space since 2004" is a good indicator of the need to ask this question more often. Wow, 2004, huh? That was like, even before YouTube existed. Jeez, what was it like back then? Did you have electricity?
links for 2007-05-24
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The earlier version of this is the one I dropped in the Hudson River!
Wait, I know her
Seeing Caroline on TV makes me feel like we're grownups.
People on the news are supposed to be adults... wait, damnit... we're adults! Fuck! When did that happen?