Christopher Carfi

Summary: Christopher Carfi and Leif Chastaine review the American Marketing Association Hot Topic series, give an update on the state of the blogosphere via Jupiter Research, Pew, and Technorati, and shine a light on “Charter Street,” the new blog from Paul McNamara and Greg Olsen. (37:42)

Show notes for February 15, 2006

The audio file is available here (MP3, 34MB), or subscribe to our RSS feed to automatically have future shows downloaded to your MP3 player.

00:00 – Intro

01:00 – American Marketing Association Hot Topic overview : podcasting, video blogging, word of mouth marketing, RSS, interactive social networking, Bill Flitter (Pheedo), Dave Evans (Digital Voodoo), Willow Baum Lundgren (Umbria), Randy Moss (ACS), Napoleon Dynamite, Vote for Pedro

06:00 – Jupiter Research, online demographic study, teen influencers, patterns of online/offline usage

11:15 – Pew Internet and American Life, online usage (men and women), difference in online usage by boomers (note: PDF doc)

18:00 – State of the Blogosphere (Dave Sifry, Technorati, Part 1, Part 2), 27.2 million blogs online. 75,000 new blogs per day, Comparison of blogs and mainstream media reach (e.g. NYTimes), Huffington Post, Instapundit

31:30 Importance of tagging as a component of search

32:00 Charter Street blog launched, Versai Technology; SGI; Red Hat; El Dorado Ventures; Paul McNamara & Greg Olsen, startups, virtual companies, and “going bedouin“

37:05 – Wrapup

February 14, 2006

Blogging Power Law Dynamics

Great article on blogs and power law dynamics that showed up on my desk this morning, from New York magazine.

“When [Clay] Shirky compiled his analysis of links, he saw that the smaller bloggers’ fears were perfectly correct: There is enormous inequity in the system. A very small number of blogs enjoy hundreds and hundreds of inbound links—the A-list, as it were. But almost all others have very few sites pointing to them. When Shirky sorted the 433 blogs from most linked to least linked and lined them up on a chart, the curve began up high, with the lucky few. But then it quickly fell into a steep dive, flattening off into the distance, where the vast majority of ignored blogs reside. The A-list is teensy, the B-list is bigger, and the C-list is simply massive. In the blogosphere, the biggest audiences—and the advertising revenue they bring—go to a small, elite few. Most bloggers toil in total obscurity.

Economists and network scientists have a name for Shirky’s curve: a “power-law distribution.” Power laws are not limited to the Web; in fact, they’re common to many social systems. If you chart the world’s wealth, it forms a power-law curve: A tiny number of rich people possess most of the world’s capital, while almost everyone else has little or none. The employment of movie actors follows the curve, too, because a small group appears in dozens of films while the rest are chronically underemployed. The pattern even emerges in studies of sexual activity in urban areas: A small minority bed-hop, while the rest of us are mostly monogamous.

The power law is dominant because of a quirk of human behavior: When we are asked to decide among a dizzying array of options, we do not act like dispassionate decision-makers, weighing each option on its own merits. Movie producers pick stars who have already been employed by other producers. Investors give money to entrepreneurs who are already loaded with cash. Popularity breeds popularity.”

That being said, there are a couple of implications.

If being an A-lister matters to you, you need to write quality, and write it often. And then, make sure that others can find it. As inequitable as it is, the best way to do that is get the notice of the A-listers by linking. It’s an artifact of the way PageRank, etc. works. As I’ve said before, a link is a blunt instrument and the crudest of social gestures. But it’s what we have for right now.

If writing for and serving a particular focused market is the thing that matters, just write, write often, and write on-topic. The search engines will find you.

On the other hand, notice from the above that while the “short head” gets the big traffic, the real numbers are in the long tail. Providing a way to connect those individuals en masse opens up another route to success. More on this soon.

Update: Hugh weighs in as well.

February 13, 2006

Yee-hah! Charter Street Launches!

For the second time in as many months, am thrilled to announce that a new business blog is on the scene; this time it’s the Charter Street blog (“a blog about entrepreneurship, the internet, and the state of the software industry”) from Cerado customer Versai Technology. Charter Street is penned by industry vets Paul McNamara and Greg Olsen, with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to work closely over the last few months. Paul and Greg are jumping into the business blogosphere with both feet, and will be chronicling their new company through its birth, growth and eventual world domination*.

I’m not yet able to publicly say what Versai is going to be doing, but I can tell you it’s very, very cool and very much in line with our belief of where the technology industry is going.

Their first two posts are up as of last weekend, with Paul bringing us up to speed on what he’s been doing since leaving Red Hat in 2001 (hint: it’s a lot), and Greg laying the groundwork of his vision and explaining why “going bedouin” is the right choice for a startup in 2006.

The money ‘graphs from Paul:

As Mark Twain once said, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. As some of you know, I left Red Hat in 2001 to join Hal Covert (another Red Hat alum) at SGI. 2001 was a year that saw lots of the early guys at Red Hat leave.

I have to say that most people think that moving from Red Hat to SGI was a dubious career move. But in truth I found it to be a really rich experience — there’s no better experience than a turn around. There are two really big lessons that I learned from the SGI experience. First, I grew to understand how and why SGI, once an extremely hot company, lost its way in the market. And second, I learned just how hard it is to remake a public company.

My advice to anyone trying to affect a major turn-around of a public company is simple: don’t. Take it private first.

…and some insight from the good Dr. Olsen:

Given peoples’ experience with telecommuting and distributed team projects from the open source community, a neo-Bedouin approach is not as hard to envision as it once may have been. The requirements for a neo-Bedouin business, however, go further and must include support for all business functions (such as sales, marketing, finance, engineering and customer support). A neo-Bedouin approach can be executed through a wide variety of specific choices. Here is a sample recipe:

Subscribed!

* – Of course, the phase after “world domination” is typically an embarrasing VH-1 retrospective sometime in mid-2025, but hey, that’s the price for success.

February 7, 2006

RSS In The Mainstream

The folks at LearField Creative take a swing at simplifying RSS, adding to the conversation started here. (They define it as a “personal media outlet.”) But I still think we’ve a ways to go before adoption is widespread based on that idea.

Dave thinks there are two “barriers to brain-dead simplicity“:

It must be easy to find relevant feeds
Subscription has to be centralized

Those two points are correct, but are not the real barriers to brain-dead simplicity. The two points above are the barriers behind the barriers that are behind the barriers. The first barrier is this, as identified by Fred Wilson:

“When the soccer moms, myspace kids, construction workers, and grandmothers can use RSS, commercial email will give way to RSS.”

I’d even take it a step further than that. When the soccer moms, myspace kids, construction workers and grandmothers can explain RSS to each other, then we’ll be on our way.

I was at a presentation of Richard Saul Wurman’s earlier this year, and the thing that I took away from the discussion was that understanding takes place when a person hearing a concept can connect it with something they already know, and understand the new concept in the context of the known one. The example he gave was explaining the concept of an “acre.” We can say “an acre is 43,560 square feet.” And that sorta gives an idea. On the other hand, we can say an acre is approximately the area covered by a football field. A-ha! Now I have an idea of what it really represents.

What is the football field analogy for RSS?

February 6, 2006

Is Nvidia Exploring The Dark Side Of Viral Marketing?

Consumerist and BoingBoing are indicating that Nvidia may (note: speculation) be working with firm AEG to create faux online personnas to develop positive reputations in online communities to pitch Nvidia products. Consumerist’s unsubstantiated indictment:

“About a week ago, The Consumerist stumbled upon claims made by various gaming websites that graphics chip manufacturer Nvidia, in cooperation with the Arbuthnot Entertainment Group (AEG), had seeded various gaming and PC hardware enthusiast sites with pro-Nvidia shills. That is to say, that AEG would hire employees to create ‘personas’ in various gaming communities, slowly building up the trust of other members by frequent posting unrelated to Nvidia, to later cash in that trust with message board postings talking up the positive qualities of Nvidia’s products.”

Now, one of AEG’s self-proclaimed skills is in:

“Strategic seeding [of] viral assets to ensure they are spread far and wide”

Ok, fair enough. And this post posits that:

“AEG, on behalf of NVIDIA, monitors a number of public hardware enthusiast communities and forums, seeking out some of the more well-respected members of these communities, those that they feel will hold sway among their peers when it comes to discussing product purchase decisions and the like.

These individuals are then approached regarding their interest in joining NVIDIA’s community outreach programme. Those that register said interest are then provided with a free NVIDIA product (graphics cards generally speaking, although as NVIDIA has noted this campaign has been diversified into other product areas) in return for these users providing feedback to NVIDIA for the product they have been given, as well as hopefully evangelising the product to other members of their community. Thus, good word of mouth about the product is spread by a highly valued member of a community among his peers, who then take his sentiments on-board, spread them on to other communities, users, friends etc, and so on – The ‘good news’ spreads quickly, acting as a perfect form of viral marketing.”

If the process above is being followed, and true enthusiasts who happen to be key members of a community are being given samples of product, with no strings or expectations attached, that is good aggressive (and smart) marketing, and is above board. (The recipients do have an obligation, in my opinion, to disclose the freebies, however. One approach is the one that Nokia is following that is covered here, here, here and here.) Now, on the other hand, if shills are being compensated to talk up Nvidia in online forums without disclosing their interests or, even worse, are being compensated to create multiple personalities to astroturf the gaming world, that is an entirely different kettle of fish altogether, and reeks of the issues that have been covered previously in this space and over at Brand Autopsy.

Nvidia, however, horribly flubbed their first attempt to publicly address the situation. After some badgering, Consumerist has received the following email from Nvidia PR Director Derek Perez:

“Hey Joel.

Boy – read your article – you couldn’t have gotten it more wrong.

Do you really not know what AEG does? Did you go to their website? Do you understand their business?

Seems before you write an editorial article on this you would educate yourself.

AEG helps us to manage the online community – we engage with some NV fans to help educate people on the web.

They are NOT hired actors!

They are NOT “shils”!

Happy to answer more questions – but it seems as if you need to do some research first.

Cheers Derek”

This is certainly not the best piece of outreach that’s ever occurred. If Nvidia is NOT engaging in below-board practices, Nvidia would be better served by coming out with a flat, unambiguous statement to that effect. The Perez response is weak and defensive, and not at all what one would expect if they were trying to address the situation in a straightforward and truthful manner. Not good.

Neville, Shel, Steve…what would you advise Nvidia to do in this situation?

(Also of note: the AEG blog is silent on this at the current time.)

Update: Email conversation between Derek Perez and Thomas Hawk on the situation. Hawk:

“I just got off the phone with Derek Perez, Director of NVidia PR, according to Perez, while NVidia has in fact hired third party marketing firm Arbuthnot Entertainment Group (AEG) to market on their behalf, Perez has denied any allegations that either NVidia, or AEG on NVidia’s behalf, has paid money to individuals for posting positive marketing news about NVidia in forums. While Perez has confirmed that NVidia has in fact given hardware to individuals in the mainstream press as well as enthusiasts in online communities, they deny that any cash has been paid to individuals for promoting their products by them or AEG to the best of their knowledge.”

February 3, 2006

The Social Customer Manifesto Podcast 3FEB2006

click here to subscribe

Summary: Leif Chastaine and Christopher Carfi discuss Yahoo’s strategy, Google’s censorship, the remix culture and customer “co-creation” of products, the American Marketing Association’s “Ahead of the Curve” session in Scottsdale, and this week’s RIM/BlackBerry update. (33:06)

Show notes for February 3, 2006

The audio file is available here (MP3, 32MB), or subscribe to our RSS feed to automatically have future shows downloaded to your MP3 player.

00:00 : Intro

01:04 : Yahoo “quits” the search race? Or do they?

09:08 : Google image censorship and strategy

16:30 : The importance of customer “co-creation” of products

27:30 : RIM: “Non-final” judgement regarding BlackBerry is just that

31:45 : Social Networking: Ahead of the Curve (Scottsdale)

32:23 : Wrapup

Links:
Dave Taylor (“What do Yahoo, Apple and Ferrari have in common?”), Yahoo quits, Yahoo gives up, Yahoo content to be Google’s footstool, Yahoo gives up race with Google, Steve Rubel, Google image censorship, Paul Greenberg, BPT Partners, customer co-creation, NTP=”No Tenable Patents?”, RIM patent dispute, AMA High Tech Trends in Marketing

February 3, 2006

The Virtual Concierge

Between two of the sessions at the TechMart yesterday, I slipped next door to the Santa Clara Hyatt to snarf some wi-fi in their lobby, as well as ask for directions. Following the script I’d used a million times before, I went up to the front desk to ask for directions to the restaurant where we were supposed to meet for dinner. The helpful gentleman at the front desk said: “I’m not sure where the restaurant is…but you can ask our virtual concierge across the lobby.”

Virtual concierge? Huh?

I walk across the lobby to see this:

(click to enlarge)

A little bit disconcerting to say the least. But, rolling with it, I walked up.

“Hello, how can I help you?” the woman in the screen asked. (The concierge is real, not an avatar. It’s a video-conference setup.)

I gave her the name of the restaurant.

“They have a number of restaurants in the area. Do you want directions to the one on Santana Row?”

“Yes, please,” I said to the screen.

The fax whirred, and out came my directions.

“By the way, there are two sets of directions printing; you should use the ones for ‘during traffic’ because it will save you some time. Will there be anything else?” she asked, pleasantly.

“No, thank you.”

An interesting exchange all around, but now I’ve got a bunch of questions. Where is the concierge physically located? Is this just for the Santa Clara Hyatt, or does one concierge handle multiple hotels? What was the business driver for doing this?

Anyone know the answers?

February 2, 2006

CRM At The Speed Of Light

Spent yesterday and today at the BPT Partners‘ CRM At The Speed Of Light training session, as a guest of the inimitable Paul Greenberg. Paul and his partners have put together a very interesting program … vendor-neutral from the technology side (good), and it covers all the bases (not just technology, but organizational change and customer strategy). It’s not just “should we buy from Siebel, SAP, or Salesforce? Rather, it’s a cohesive view of how one thinks about, and then implements, customer-oriented business.

The first day of the session was a broad lead-in to the concepts (“What is CRM strategy?” and a solid overview by Bruce Culbert) and a great dive into some of the metrics that can be used from the business side, with plenty of quantifiable rigor added by Dr. Jeff Tanner of Baylor University. (N.B. This rigor extends out of the classroom and boardroom as well; ask Jeff about his laser-straight, six-hundred-foot-long pasture fence if you ever run into him.)

The highlight, however, was Paul’s session this morning, a straight-on, straight-ahead, and utterly clued-in conversation around how we all, as customers, have changed. We all have our own printing presses now, and the companies that haven’t realized that are going to be in trouble. More importantly, the idea of co-creation is fundamental moving forward…early examples such as id Software, and current ones such as CounterStrike and Rome:Total War (click the co-creation link above more more context) are tangible leading indicators of what’s next.

January 31, 2006

New BlogHer Community Launched

In case you ~~are irretrievably out of the loop~~ didn’t see the news, the new BlogHer community launched yesterday, and was ushered in via a fine, fine shindig at the Thirsty Bear.

A couple of things are notable:

This is an incredible example of bottom-up creation of something significant. The idea behind BlogHer did not exist twelve months ago. It’s gone from concept to conference to community in just over a year.
This is not a walled garden. There are over sixty editors covering every topic imaginable…and they are sending readers out of the BlogHer site to individual blogs. Smart.
There are no ruts. For example, I know Toby Bloomberg best for her amazing work at DivaMarketing and our shared work over at the Corante Marketing Hub. Toby is an editor on the BlogHer network…covering Food and Drink.

A great idea, well executed. Nicely done.