Author: Christopher Carfi

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Bloglines Adds New Functionality

Just noticing in my Bloglines feeds that each post now has a link to the trackbacks and comments associated with it. Cool…another good way to identify the “hotspots” of conversation that are taking place. These links jump outside of Bloglines to the places where the conversation is actually occuring on the source blogs.

Now, there are some folks who have had issues with Bloglines aggregation. The idea that an aggregator could do a comprehensive pull of an entire feed’s contents, and then repurpose that content (say, by potentially wrapping advertising around it) is an interesting issue. This discussion may get even thornier down the line if Bloglines decides to not only provide links to the comments and trackbacks, but spider them and pull them into their own environment as well. Stay tuned on this one.

Update:

It looks like this is actually a function of the Brandshift RSS feed, and not Bloglines. Still very cool.

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WSJ: “Blogs Keep Internet Customers Coming Back”

Nice article in the Wall Street Journal (and at least as of today it’s still not behind a pay wall). The salient quotes:

“…blogs with character are seen as more effective than some more traditional online-marketing strategies, such as static, brochurelike Web sites and electronic newsletters that may get blocked by spam filters.”

“Another strategy company blogs use is to engage in direct dialogue with customers by using a ‘comments’ feature that allows visitors to post remarks. While some companies post comments selectively or edit them first — typically to avoid embarrassment or having to write many responses — others let it all hang out.”

“If you slip into PR lingo, you will lose your visitors. They will know it’s not really you.”

“Blogging is one of a wide range of ways that we can connect with people [and] strengthen what I call our handshake with the consumer.”

and the kicker:

“Communication through a blog is ‘as intimate and personal as somebody sitting in your kitchen. It’s a great privilege to be able to have that kind of dialogue.'”

Good piece.

(hat tips: NevOn, Elisa, Scoble)

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Paternalistic Relations

ZDNet’s David Berlind gives some well-deserved credit to Scalix founder Julie Hanna Farris for her willingness to engage in “public conversation that includes all of her constituents (the press, potential customers, casual onlookers, and even competitors).” I’m in agreement with Berlind on this.

He goes on to say:

“Public relations personnel cringe at the idea of executives diving into the blogosphere and mixing it up with the press and end users. Maybe that’s because of how the blogosphere prevents them from interceding when an executive is about to say something that shouldn’t be said. Personally, I think it makes both the executives and the company seem more open and approachable. When a vendor executive lays it on the line like that, he or she knows that the blogosphere is probably going to respond with brutal honesty. Just that sort of open invitation says something about a person’s belief in what they are saying and willingess to engage–unfortunately, it’s a rarity in our business.” (emphasis his)

Right on.

And then, Berlind’s first sentence in the pull quote seems especially prescient after reading the followup from Steve, who writes

“Let your executives have fun if they want to, ok? But guide them on what works/doesn’t. That’s our role as PR professionals.”

Whoa. Did I misread that? Please tell me I misread that. Steve…”have fun?” As if this is some kind of game? If one was a cynic, one could interpret that as a wink and a nudge…”we’ll let those dotty executives go and play in the blog-box, but we’ll be there to hold their hands in case they get off-message and, heaven forbid, communicate what’s actually on their minds.”

:soapbox:

It’s not about the veneer.

It’s not about a sanitized, perfectly-crafted, and ultimately synthetic message.

It’s about reality, warts and all.

It’s about real people, interacting with other real people.

:soapbox:

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An Oscars / Customer Support Call Mashup

Charles Cooper, Executive Editor, CNET News.com spends two hours on hold with Symantec, and then is asked to pay for the call (and pay a price more than the original cost of the Norton Antivirus 2005 software). My favorite bit:

5:08 How long does it take to answer a telephone? If Clint wins best director, that would make my day.

5:12 Bored beyond belief. Starting to impersonate the Numa Numa guy. My two cats keep their distance.

5:15 How many miles does a phone connection span from San Francisco to India? Mind wandering. I’m picking Hilary Swank for best actress, but Annette Bening was pretty damn great in “Being Julia…

Read the whole thing.

This is the third time in a week someone has posted their experience on a call like this. Instant business plan, for the taking:

1) Set up a call center to call customer support lines on behalf of customers
2) Each person in the call center can be on hold with multiple vendors
3) The call center reps timestamp / document / record the time they’ve been on hold
4) When a live customer support person answers the call, the call center rep connects them with the “actual” end customer
5) The actual end customer has access to the notes made in (3), and further documents the rest of the call
6) There’s something very post-modern about this
7) The revenue model? Competitors can put their ads next to the transcripts of the calls.

(via TechDirt)

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An Attempt To Demystify Podcasting (A Work In Progress)

Ok, I’m going to blaspheme here. For those with “delicate sensibilities,” cover your ears (or monitors, or whatever).

Here goes…podcasting is just a technology.

There, I said it.

The myth-hype-buzz around it has been dizzying. (And more buzz buzz buzz, and those are just from today.) Yes, I’m just as hooked as the next person. And I’m almost through my back-queue of DSCs and Covervilles and Hobson and Holtzs after being off the grid last week. But, like blogging, or wifi, or databases, or the inclined plane, it’s what the end-user does with it that matters.

A while back, there was a sketch put together of the different types of business blogs, from Fredrik, with further commentary here.

The “internal vs. external” distinction is going to be important in podcasting (especially business podcasting). What’s missing from the picture above is a podcast-relevant nod to the “consumer vs. business” implications of how the technology can be used.

Most of the podcasting uses that have gotten all the buzz so far have been the consumer-oriented ones. Here’s where we “kill radio,” etc. Why do people listen to podcasts? For the same reason they listen to radio today:

  • Humor
  • Entertainment
  • Information
  • Community

The great thing about the consumer-facing aspect of podcasting is that, due to its very nature, it’s outside the reach of these jokers. And, since there is a huge overlap between blogging and podcasting, the mores that have grown up around blogging…transparency, disclosure, timeliness, ease-of-creation (and a sometimes-refreshing lack of “polish”), etc…have spilled over into podcasting.

Transparency. Disclosure. Timeliness. Ease-of-creation. Those are all wonderful things. But let’s take podcasting back to first principles. What is podcasting, really? Podcasting is a simple way to (a) distribute and (b) time-shift ones and zeroes …those things that some folks call “content.” (To drive this point home, I know of at least one organization that is using podcasting as a software distribution mechanism. Who should be worried? Companies like Marimba.)

So, in addition to all the consumer-facing genres of podcasts listed here, perhaps we need to take a step back. Maybe something like this:

  • Podcasts
    • Consumer
      • Entertainment
      • Humor
      • Information
      • Community
      • etc.
    • Business
      • Internal
        • Executive Communications
        • Competitive Intelligence
        • Product Rollouts/Training
        • etc.
      • External
        • Branding/Awareness
        • Presentations
        • Product Update News (to existing customers)
        • etc.

(if anyone wants to play with this outline above, here is the OPML file)

Using the outline and context above, it becomes a bit more tangible as to the places where using podcasts may be appropriate. Also, now that there are so many podcast streaming services out there to put podcasts on, companies and individuals alike are climbing onto the podcast train and trying their hand at content creation. Moreover, plenty of companies, like Lower Street, are helping more people (and organizations) come up with their own podcasts, starting from strategy to content to production. While it can be said that podcasts are a great way of disseminating knowledge and information, whether they will catch on and stick for a while is yet to be seen. For now, everyone seems to have their earphones plugged in, listening to their favorite host ramble on about topics they find interesting.

Unfortunately, if past history is any judge, podcasting is going to follow the hype curve shown above. Like blogs, we’ll likely see many millions of abandoned podcasts in the upcoming couple of years. We’ll see a handful of “super podcasts” with huge followings. We’ll see an even greater number of niche, long tail podcasts with a handful of subscribers each. But those numbers are just for the consumer-facing ones. What will be hidden (just like blogs) will be the many millions of internal, business-oriented podcasts locked behind the firewall.

There is a lot of talk about the various business models for podcasts. Like blogs, the short-to-mid run will see the pans-and-pickaxe providers being the primary ones making money. And, also like blogs, I have a feeling that people will be far more likely to make money “because of” their podcasts, rather than “with” them.

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The Customer Remix Culture

“Think back to a book I did in the late 80’s on UUCP – I did it originally as an 80-page pamphlet and I did 10 editions over the next five years, about every 6 months there was a new edition and they were almost entirely driven by user-submitted content. People would say ‘Oh you didn’t cover this-and-this device, and here’s how it works’ and they’d give me 3-4 paragraphs which I’d just drop right into the book. And I think we have a lot more of that ‘book as output of connected conversations’ now, where people are engaged in dialogue…” – Tim O’Reilly

Is it just me, or are we getting to the point where a motivated customer has the ability to dive right in and put his or her own mark on nearly any aspect of nearly any product? Is that what “participating in the conversation” really means? Examples abound from nearly every traditional corporate “department.” (And let’s be clear…this is not just limited to digital goods.)

For someone in marketing, the view may be that customers are beginning to control “the message.” Examples abound.

But it’s not just “the message” where this occurs. Customization, from cars to code, is becoming part of the norm. And smart projects, like SpreadFirefox, take advantage of this trend. In addition to the core application, there are now hundreds of extensions (ranging from RSS aggregators to weather forecasts), all user-created and user-submitted. Anything can be tinkered with.

What’s amazing to me is the number of areas where customers are doing things on their own time, that enable organizations to fill in the gaps of the whole product. Again, examples abound.

Technorati’s tags needed better explanation? A customer who calls herself “Improbulus” comes up with some contributed documentation.

Think that SocialText needs a better demo of its wiki environment? Customer Raymond Kristiansen has created a fifteen minute customer-generated demo.

Want to create a customized training curriculum? Folks are doing that, too.

Support lacking? We’ve entered a place where customers help each other.

The old model is thus (although the paragraph below is focused on digital media, the thought can be generalized to pretty much anything):

“One image of the copyright consumer is as a passive consumer of copyrighted works as entertainment commodities. Call this the “couch potato” view. Under this view, the copyright consumer is really no different from the consumer of any other good. The consumer is primarily interested in getting access to a wide variety of copyrighted works at reasonable cost. The consumer then consumes these works in a largely passive manner. That is, the consumer reads the book, watches the movie, listens to the CD, and does little more. Consuming books or movies is thus little different from consuming potato chips, bottled water, athletic shoes, or any other consumer product.” – Joseph P. Liu

But that view is slipping away, rapidly, thankfully.

The more open a product (or for that matter, an organization) is, the more customer remixes can occur. And this, as Martha says, is a “good thing.”

Update:
Bonus link: Open-source marketing

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The Customer And Identity Management

Way back when, I got to hear Doc Searls speak passionately about Identity Commons. Now, it looks like the folks in Boston are also taking a stab at this. The Berkman Center has paired up with a couple of technology providers to create SocialPhysics, “a new open source project” that aims to “acquire corporate and foundation sponsorship to undertak[e] a series of ‘experiments’ to explore models in digital self governance and alternative intellectual property regimes.”

Big plus: Love the fact that the customer/individual is at the center of this:

“As part of the SocialPhysics initiative we are developing both a software framework, and on top of it, an initial base application. The framework embodies a set of principles that govern natural, real-world relationships. It is based on the idea that a person should have full control over information about themselves and their relationships with others. People participate in multiple groups and systems, each with its own social protocol. Since what people are willing to share and say about themselves depends enormously on the context, there is a need for persons to be able to manage multiple versions of their identity. The framework makes it easy to create and join many different kinds of networks (e.g. groups, teams, and communities), each with its own rules for what is shared, what is private, and what is measured.”

Things to watch:

  • This project was initiated by a stealth-mode startup that aims to “create the software platform and conduct the issues research upon which [the company] plans to base its products and services.” It’ll be interesting to see how they pull this off.
  • Although “YOU” are in the center of the picture above, a deeper dive into the site gives a feeling that the project seems to be very technology-driven (lots of talk of “frameworks” and such). Hope this project doesn’t get too friggin’ “elegant,” if ya know what I mean…
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That Annoying Scorch Of Re-entry

Oh, man. Helluva week. After the new powder beginning of the week, the skies cleared and midweek was ridiculous…postcard-blue skies and springtime temps from first run to last. Tweaked a knee in a futile attempt to keep up with she who skis too fast on Silverado (what the hell was I thinking?), but other than that, no major injuries. The offspring all had fun. Many Cuba Libres were consumed. Aaaaah.

Now for the draining of the email / RSS / podcast queues…