Web 2.What?

I recently finished reading Groundswell by Forrester’s Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li.  I was particularly excited about it because about a year ago I was interviewed by Josh Bernoff for it as an active participant of Constant Contact’s user community. (The company I worked for was major business partner of CC) At the time I was just starting to get excited about social media as a business function and I was dying to know what these top notch analysts had to say about it. Especially since a big challenge of social media so far is (in my opinion) some excuse a lot of it for noise or time-wasting, and have a hard time seeing business value.

Well what else can I say but “Wow!” Josh and Charlene not only clearly explained theories, strategies and tactics, but also assembled a fantastic mix of real life case studies. I was even happy to see a few Canadian examples in there–Bell Canada and Loblaws.

I also love how they’ve put some easy to remember names for developing strategies, like the POST method. (Stands for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology and dictates the method & particular order for developing successful social media strategies). Also the book flows in the different stages of interacting with the Groundswell — First you listen, then you engage, then energize. (I think I’m missing some steps, but you’ll have to read the book to fully understand anyway)

One thing that really irked me, however, is that throughout the book they really pump up the social technologies profiling tool, developed by Forrester, and available free on the site. Sounds fantastic? Well it looks like it is, until you realize while it includes data from South Korea, Italy, Australia… There’s no Canada! Almost insulting as we are one of the more connected countries (ahead of the US!) and that I would suspect we have a proportionally higher ‘creator’ population (just my hunch though). Plus, of course, being attached to the US we do have a bit of a complex.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Jay Moonah of Toronto actually spoke up in the Groundswell discussion board. Josh replied and said that because of bad timing they were unable to include Canadian data, but it’s coming… Keep your eyes peeled!

Overall, however, a fantastic book I recommend picking up. Have you read it? What do you think? Let me know!

It’s no surprise where I sit in this debate. One need not look further than the address bar! We all type it the same, but some say it differently, so please answer this poll and let me know which you say. AND if you’re really passionate about it, please drop a comment and make your case!

My justification is pretty simple… You don’t say “Google[POINT]com do you?? Dot dot dot. It just sounds better.

If you pay attention to some of the social media buzz out there, surely you’ve already heard of Plurk. Plurk is like twitter, but takes it a step further by laying out posts on a visual time line and when you want to reply to someone’s post, instead of the @username, you can actually drop down someone’s message into what can best be described as an IM chat box and keep the conversation going. Anyone–fans or friends–can jump in as well. It’s hyper-interactive, and a lot of fun.

Why will it stick?

Now I’m certainly not ready to give up Twitter–I worked hard to build up my followers–but I could definitely keep coming back to plurk, and that’s because on top of it all it they build another dimension of fun in with your Plurk Karma. The more you post, the more karma you earn, and when you invite people into plurk you earn more karma–this point is key because any type of social site’s success depends on it’s ability to continuously expand. And we all know friend referral is the best way to do that. Anyway, what does plurk karma do? Earns you cool stuff of course! The more karma you get, the more you can customize your profile. As well you earn new and cool smileys. These obviously become “Cool” status symbols and those of us who don’t have them yet are just dying to get them!

So, if you dare, give plurk a try, and don’t forget to add me as your friend!

PS-Are you on Plurk? What do you think about it? Have you not tried it yet? Why not? Keep the conversation going below…

Unless you’re in consumer-packaged goods or fashion, you probably worry too much about your brand. Especially if your efforts are focused online, you most definitely are worried too much about your brand.

Now I will admit I *could* sit on both sides of this argument, but my real peeve is pulling the “brand” card like your brand makes a big difference in people’s lives, because chances are, it doesn’t. What *really* makes a difference - excellent customer service, open and honest communication and respecting your customers/prospects/stakeholders as real people.

Considering that you spend a lot of money “protecting your brand” only to have people reading your blog in an unbranded reader, or getting your emails as text or mangled HTML, or maybe just mis-read or represented by others. Is it really worth it?

Ok, obviously we need to track our brand’s activity in social media, but do we need a brand new tool to do so efficiently?

I’m not sure. The majority of my experience has been with small companies who wouldn’t pay (or even have the need for) media monitoring services. Instead I would set up Google Alerts, read industry publications and blogs, and just really do all the monitoring myself. And then if I had time I would do my own analysis.

However, in a larger organization, obviously this is more than one person can manage. Media monitoring services are thorough, experts in the field and can provide a third-party perspective on your media coverage. Tools available online often take a self-serve approach but look like they provide a lot of great easy-to-understand info.

I’ve decided I’m going to take a closer look at a few of the players in both the traditional media monitoring services which are adapting to social media needs, as well as new tools strictly for managing social media monitoring. In the meantime, however, I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and ideas on the topic…

I’m just on my way out to CUBA, for a much-needed vacation. I wanted to be all fancy and schedule some posts for next week, but alas, I have an hour until I’m at the airport, and I haven’t started yet. Oh well. I will see you on April 5!

With so many social media tools out there, how do you find the right one for you?

The answer–and I’m sorry to say–is I don’t know… Or let’s go with the famous ‘marketing’ answer: It depends. However, I’ll document a few I use and why I chose to use them:

Micro-blogging
I’m a Twitteraholic. No doubt about that. However, I will admit I have yet to try out the competitors (Namely, Pownce and Jaiku, as well as Utterz I believe). Usually I like to try out a few before I commit, but I’m so in love with Twitter (aka addicted), I just don’t have time for the others! I’ll admit–I also love how the name lends itself to cute wordplays like twitterverse and twitterati etc., but that’s just one of the many reasons.

*Update*

• Pretty much everyone agrees, Twitter rocks!

Blogging Platform
First I started out my blogging life using Blogger, because it seemed the easiest for beginners. I wasn’t completely thrilled and contemplated switching, right until Google bought it out and re-vamped it. I fell in love, but when the company I worked for was acquired, Blogger wasn’t flexible enough. So I learned Wordpress and I have never looked back. Recently, however, I began blogging over at Ottawa.Cityguide.ca, which uses Moveable Type. I’m no expert yet, but so far I’m liking it a lot. However I’m only a contributor on Moveable Type, so I can’t say for sure how they templates, set up, etc. work.

Therefore my favourite would have to be Wordpress. It’s easy-to-use and I was able to set it up on my own domain quickly and easily. Though I have yet to use Typepad, which I know many swear by.

*Update*

• Johann Burkard recommends a service called blojsom, I’ve never heard of it, but apparently Apple uses it for one of its web servers.

RSS Readers
I started out using Newsgator, not even sure why, but I noticed that a large majority of my subscribers were using Google Reader–I was intrigued–so I checked it out and sure enough, fell in love. I’ve also tried managing some feeds through my iGoogle page, but I think I consume too much for that to be a viable option. What I would love is a reader built into an app that could sit on my desktop and scroll through new headlines for all my feeds. I’m not even sure if it exists-but I would love it.

*Update*

• Dave Barger recommends Outlook 2007’s built in reader. I’ve never used it, but I’ve heard lots of good things from others. So if you have ‘07, it’s worth checking out!
• @heatherforce says she loves Attensa, which I’ve never heard of before. According to the web site it looks like an enterprise RSS reader. Heather particularly likes the plug in for Outlook. (Come on now, who’s really surprised we want to read our feeds with our email?!)
• Johann Burkard uses Bloglines, which is another popular choice, but has also used Rojo & found it to be great, but unreliable.

Social News/Sharing Sites
Ok, this is probably a vague area, as it could cover a lot, but I’m thinking of Digg, Mixx, Reddit, and even del.icio.us and StumbleUpon might fall into this category. However there’s tons of niche sites that could be included like Sphinn and PlugIM, for example.

Out of all of them, I’d say Stumble is my favourite. Actually, by far. It is a killer tool for driving traffic to your blog, AND it’s hours of fun hitting the “Stumble” button. My Stumble is also integrated with my Facebook, so all my friends can see the sites I like. It’s a fantastic tool

(Fun fact: I actually heard about Stumble over two years ago from my hair stylist, she was complaining that her husband stayed up all night ’stumbling’ and I was intrigued to learn more)

I know I could probably go on for days, but I’d love your input: What tools do you use? Why do you use them? What else have you tried?

I’ll update this post with your comments.

*Update*

• Colin brings to my attention that I missed a very obvious category: social networking. (duh!)

Social Networking
I’m still hooked on Facebook, because it’s my primary means of communication with some of my good friends. However, like Colin says in the comments, LinkedIn is a rocking place to be. I’ve pretty much abandoned MySpace. I’ve also joined and played around in a few niche sites like Chapter’s Book Lover’s Community as well as Group Recipes, but they just don’t have the ’stickiness’ of the big guys.

*Update*

• Linda Bustos points out some great niche sites for marketers: Gooruze, Sphinn, and SEOmoz. I’ve been involved a little in all three, so I’ll second the great choices.

As much of an early adopter I am, I sometimes miss the boat on some big crazy trends. One of them was the iPod. No, I’m not kidding. I just got my first iPod ever (a pink nano video) about 2 months ago.

Boy am I ever glad I held out. I mean I feel like I missed years of music listening opportunities, but having video capabilities is just amazing. My favourite thing to do is load up some video podcasts and head to the gym. Before I used to watch TV at the gym and get de-motivated during commercial breaks (Poor attention span sometimes), but now I can watch the content I choose interruption and commercial free!

Here are a few of my fav podcasts (both video & audio) on a variety of topics:

• Ask A Ninja - A classic! It’s a silly show for Ninja enthusiasts.
• Generally Speaking Production Network’s Lost podcast - All Lost fans need to listen to at least one podcast & this one I particularly enjoy!
• Jaffe Juice - Conversation marketing podcast with Joseph Jaffe of crayon. Always loaded with useful information (in fact, that’s how I found out about the GSPN Lost podcast) and he’s got a delightful accent as well which always helps!
• Six Pixels of Separation - fellow Canadian Mitch Joel talks about social media and all sorts of cutting edge marketing stuff
• Wired News - Alt Text Podcast. Seriously, host Lore has made me burst out laughing numerous times. The first episode I listened to, he was dissecting the lyrics to “La Isla Bonita” specifically how it makes no sense.

This is really just a random sampling… but I’m always on the lookout for great new podcasts (especially video ones!) Please tell me your favourites in the comments…

While Facebook still dominates social networking, and LinkedIn/Plaxo for the professional world, as the excitement of social networking peters off (which may not be for a while) we’ll see Facebook slowly fade out, and niche sites slowly take over (though not as noticeably)

If you look closely, a lot of niche sites are already established. However these sites are driven by interests, not mass appeal, so unless you stumble across one, or hear about it from someone else, you may never find them.

One I found today that I’m already in love with is Group Recipes. It’s social networking for foodies and I love it for a few reasons:

1. It’s all about sharing recipes - something foodies love to do!
2. It allows you to not only share, but tag, rate and post your own recipes for a killer online recipe database.
3. When you sign up, you rate a bunch of different ingredients/food types to determine your tastes, that way the content you see is relevant to you.

I think Group Recipes will do well in the ‘foodie’ space. What niche SN sites do you love??

Have you checked out all the browser bling Firefox has lately?

There’s always new stuff going up, and very cool stuff too. Today when loading up my new computer, I threw on the StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter tool bars you know… All the usual.

However, then I searched around, just to see what’s out there. Now what I think will likely become my favourite and most useful tool is BlogRovr. You can individually add blog feeds you like, or upload your OPML file from your reader (might sound complicated-but it’s dead easy. In GoogleReader I just clicked ‘manage subscriptions’ and then ‘Import/Export’ and then BAM! Good to go…)

So anyway, BlogRovr ‘fetches’ your feeds and pops up relevant blog activity when you visit a new page. For example I went on to Twitter, and the tray appears in the bottom corner of the screen with three blog posts talking about Twitter. If you’re a information junkie, distraction-loving multi-tasker like me, it’s pure genius!

It’s only been a day, so I’m still in the honeymoon phase, but I’ll give you an update in a few weeks or so.