I Wrote an Article for A List Apart, OMG

I recently had the distinct pleasure of writing an article for the esteemed A List Apart website: "'Like'-able Content: Spread Your Message with Third-Party Metadata."

The article is the result of a need for a definitive guide for the creation and implementation of third-party metadata. Now that Facebook and Twitter have their own proprietary metadata schemes, the time had come to look at how those schemes impact the creation and overall message of online content.

Frustration with scattered resources and a lack of editorial guidelines led me to believe that other folks might like to learn about this as well. (I'd been thinking about third-party metadata quite a bit, as a part of a work project.) MY PAIN = YOUR GAIN.

Have a look-see. Let me know what you think!

Coke Fiends and Content Strategy

The Coca-Cola Company has unleashed a new type of soda fountain into the world. They've put some online marketing muscle to work to promote it. But is it enough?

My wife is an unapologetic Diet Coke enthusiast. When she breathlessly told me about a new sort of soda fountain at the local Dairy Queen, I was curious.

What could make a soda fountain new? Isn’t it just soda? Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, and maybe lemonade and root beer?

I was in for a surprise, as this was no ordinary soda machine. This was a Coca Cola Freestyle machine.

The Coca Cola Freestyle soda fountain

Warren Buffett, Freestylin'

This thing is kind of a big deal. Most soda machines offer 8-10 choices. That is it. I’ve seen some convenience store fountains with more exotic options, like a shot of cherry flavor. Beyond that, the soda fountain world has been fairly static for decades.

This soda fountain changes all of that.

With a footprint smaller than a regular soda fountain, this one boasts not only a touchscreen, but a MIND-BLOWING array of options. Over 100, in fact.

Thirsty patrons touch the screen to choose a brand (Coke, Sprite, etc.) and then choose an optional flavor. Brilliant. Did I mention that there are over ONE HUNDRED OPTIONS?

How has the Coke Freestyle machine been marketed?

Well, there is a sign in the window at the DQ. And another at the cash register. But what is happening online?

They have a slim microsite set up, primarily to point people to these three things:

They've set up a Twitter account, @ccfreestyle:

• Listening for terms like "drink machine" "100+" etc. in addition to the brand names
• @ replying to mentions of those terms, asking "What did you like?"
• Getting little to no response (I've been there. It can be tough.)

They've also established a Facebook page.

• Running a "Fan of the Week" contest
• Offering lots of "What's your favorite?" questions
• Allowing users to post images in a largely unfettered fashion (not going to link to that one)

They have apps for Android and iOS.

• Primary function: a memory game mimicking the Freestyle's touchscreen
• Also includes a Freestyle machine locator map, via GPS
• Game-ified badge rewards for high scores and use of the Freestyle locator
• Apps can link to users' Twitter and Facebook account to share scores/badges

Looks nice. Game play? Check. Direct interaction? Check. But, I can't help but feel that they've stopped a bit short.

Coke fiends and their friends

Many real-world Coke fans are more than enthusiastic. Fiendish, even. They already devote status updates to the brand. I've seen more than one person add it to their social network bio. With this level of devotion, a does a considerable opportunity await? YES.

The Freestyle machine begs for deeper engagement. It already has a touchscreen and an OS, for Pete's sake. Just think of the possibilities. A couple of examples:

• Challenge drinkers to try all 100+ choices, track progress and share
• Award badges for different achievements, share them via Twitter and Facebook
• All Coke flavors tried
• All sodas in orange flavor tried
• Number of different machines visited
• "Mayorship" of machines (to borrow from Foursquare)
• Facilitate the invitation of friends for competition
• Issue QR codes from the machine send status updates via the app to Twitter and Facebook ("Drinking a Pibb Zero from @ccfreestyle.")
• Create a Freestyle Re-mix: make-your-own mix of sodas, name it, and submit it

These things go one step beyond brands interacting directly with the consumer. They allow people to have a conversation facilitated, originated, and/or augmented by the brand that bridges the gap between the real world and the online world.

B2C interaction is VERY important. But, the brand-facilitated consumer-to-consumer interaction is more organic. It's happening between one brand advocate and other potential brand advocates.

Cue the QR code

Bridging the gap between online and offline

Tosca Fasso, Content Strategist at Razorfish, recently wrote a blog post about the blurring of online and offline worlds. She writes:

"Publishers are creating linkage points between offline and online media to build an ecosystem of opportunities for audiences to connect with their brands."

There is a major shift happening. It's already having a significant impact on content creators and those tasked with content governance.

The technology now exists to make these online/offline connections in a swipe or two on a mobile device. How does that fit within the core strategy and business goals, if at all? How can these advances be shared across department lines? Shared across other spaces? How can they be best put to use?

Ms. Fasso continues with this in her closing paragraph, detailing the impact this has on content strategy:

"It’s time to start thinking about handoff opportunities, places where our work can pass the baton. Done right, these integrated efforts can help build optimal experiences for users while helping brands meet users where they are..."

Coke has built some of the foundation for bridging the gap between online and offline worlds with the Freestyle soda fountain. They are engaging people on Twitter and Facebook. They've got social-graph connected apps with game layers and rewards.

By further fostering that online/offline connection, Coke could enjoy even greater brand loyalty and engagement.

Not all brands can do this. Not all brands have 100+ of anything worth sharing. And not all brands have Coca-Cola's brand recognition.

As any wise content strategist will tell you, it is not about the tactics. It's about the approach. Tackle those content strategy and social strategy projects with an eye on bringing real-world experiences to the now-ubiquitous social graphs. You'll be even closer to fulfilling those core business goals.

Or one step closer to the Borg. Either way...

URL Shorteners: Are They Part of Your Social Media & Content Strategy?

How can a URL shortener impact your overall content strategy?  Don't they just shrink URLs?

I remember the appearance of the first URL shortener, TinyURL, shortly after their debut in 2002.  It seemed like a novelty.  There were times that I wanted to share a link that got broken with page breaks in emails.  Beyond that, what was the use?

Then Twitter arrived.  A world that lived and died by the value of character counts.  Every single character became precious real estate.  Finally, the solution of URL shorteners had found their problem.

Tons of these services soon popped up, each with their own selling points and clever names.  Several have already folded.  Like many other web services, they are made or destroyed by The Default. 

Until May 2009, the default URL shortener for Twitter was TinyURL.  The new default, Bit.ly, has ridden Twitter's wave of popularity to become the dominant service.  To get an idea of the scale of the operation, ponder this:  Bit.ly shortened 2.1 billion links in November 2009, as reported by TechCrunch.

At the end of 2009, Google got into the game by putting a URL shortener into Google Toolbar, FeedBurner, and their web browser, Chrome.  (It's not currently available outside of those places.) Other sites have exclusive shorteners, too, like Facebook (fb.me) and YouTube (YouTu.be).  When you share a link from those places, those short, branded domains will be used.

Not to be outdone by a Google announcement, Bit.ly announced that it was partnering with some serious heavyweights (New York Times, AOL, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, etc.) to offer a Pro service in limited private Beta. Benefits include: Custom URLs (ex.: nytm.es) and analytics in real-time.

The option to bake a shortener into your CMS that allows you to create a short URL of your choice, domain and all.  This is considerably more heavy lifting than the free services already out there, but offers its own set of benefits.

Why does any of this matter?

Something as seemingly innocuous as a URL shortener must figure into the social media portion of a comprehensive content strategy.  There are many, many options, and the decision on which one to use must be carefully considered.  While not as important as a content audit or the choice of a CMS, the benefits of choosing the right URL shortener are clear:

• Solid, useful metrics
• Contribute to (rather than hamper) your SEO strategy
• Prevention of link rot
• Provide the best user experience
• Reinforce branding
• Security/confidence

The metrics component alone may be the make-or-break feature.  Most site analytics suites can track in-bound traffic from Twitter.com.  Since 30% of Twitter-related link-clicking traffic comes from third-party applications like TweetDeck or Tweetie, tracking the links from the shortener end becomes considerably more important.  Some of the services offer more analytics features, and they are quickly improving them.

Certain shorteners use different types of HTTP traffic redirects to point to your original URL.  Some properly refer the traffic and maintain your hard-fought SEO efforts, others do not.  Most of the major players play by the rules and refer the traffic on a permanent basis and do not recycle links.  Watch out for those.

What constitutes the best user experience is always up for debate.  Certain shorteners like the Diggbar and HootSuite's ow.ly shortener use frames.  While there may be some UX benefits with frames for users, they can also confuse and distract.  There is the potential for the frame-based shorteners to cause metrics and SEO issues as well.

Shorteners are only as trustworthy as those using them.  We've been taught to avoid unfamiliar links in emails for as long as phishing has been around.  Selecting a service that uses a familiar or custom-branded URL domain will give people the confidence to click without fear of spam or malware.


So, indeed, it does matter.

What may have been something destined to be a footnote in the history of The Internets is now something vital to a strong social media strategy, and by extension, content strategy.

Speaking of shortening...

( "some people say I am obsessed with my lawn" image from Jez Page / Flickr (cc:by-nc-sa))

Privacy, Facebook, and Social Media Strategy

A lot of dust has been kicked up in the past couple of weeks surrounding three announcements from both Google and Facebook about search, status updates, and an old favorite of The Internets, PRIVACY.

#1. TechCrunch reported that Google, a popular search engine, has chosen to include "public" Facebook status updates in the special, Real-Time place in regular Google search results.  MySpace and Twitter updates are already showing up.

#2. Facebook just rolled out changes to their privacy settings.  Upon login, people have been presented with a prompt, asking them to confirm their privacy settings to the default, recommended settings, or to keep their old ones.  The default setting for status updates is "everyone," meaning that people's updates of "I'm eating a waffle" are now set to be indexed by Google.

Facebook claims that this is a reaction to the way that people are using the service in this interview on ReadWriteWeb.  Barry Schnitt, Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook, gives this somewhat veiled explanation:  "Because the site is changing, our userbase is changing and the world changing."

What ever the official stance may be, it is clear that both companies stand to benefit from more updates being made publicly available, and having those updates showing up in search.

#3. The final announcement, as reported by MediaPost, will have an impact upon those that use the Facebook Pages.  From the start, all status updates from a Page have shown up in the news feed of Fans of that Page.  Soon, Facebook will be inserting an algorithm into that process, giving preference to Page owners that have a higher level of engagement with their Fans.  (Engagement, in this case, being people "Liking" and commenting upon updates.)  Simply stated, the more interaction a Page has, more of those updates will appear in Fans' News Feeds.

What does this mean for those that operate Fan Pages on Facebook?

If your strategy has been to set one up and wait for people to make it viral, then you have your work cut out for you.

If it weren't already clear, it should be blindingly so now: your social media strategy is a content strategy.  Status updates are content.  Links and Notes in Facebook are being indexed.  Photos on your Page will soon show up in search.

No need for alarm.  If dealt with properly, it can be cause for celebration.  Reach can now be extended outside of the walled garden of Facebook and into the wide open world of search.  More traffic can potentially be driven to Pages and sections of Pages, like Notes, Photos, and Video.

There will be some work involved. Page owners may need to take a new approach to the content they publish to those pages.

Facebook's new News Feed insertion rules depend on the mojo granted from comments and "Likes."  Page administrators will need to curry the favor of those Fans.  To do this, publishers and content creators should apply the same SEO-friendly rules to their Facebook content and updates that are likely in place for other content:

• Clear, descriptive titles
• Concise summaries
• Relevant images, video, audio content
• Proper metadata attribution
  
• Hooks!

For other content creators and publishers, these changes may be a wake-up call.  Maybe the updates that have been published up to this point haven't been that appealing.  Perhaps they were posted just to post something, to stay in front of Fans.  Now may be the time to look at a larger content strategy.  Or, ask bigger questions, such as "What are we doing here?"

As more outlets [and changes in those outlets' policies] present themselves, they'll need to be incorporated into strategies, workflows, governance, and metrics.  Unlike other, more static components of a content strategy, the rules and tactics in social media are more likely change week to week.  User agreement changes, acquisitions, and partnerships with competitors can all force a re-examination.

Even what seems to be a relatively minor change in a single channel may turn out to have a sizable impact.

["Self Noir" image via Flickr user Jeremy Brooks (CC: by-nc)]

Is your content ATOMIC CONTENT?

According to Wikipedia, the concept of physical things being constructed out of smaller, indivisible units, or elements, has been around for about 2,600 years.  Science confirmed this about 200 years ago.  Atoms can be broken down further, but any division past that atomic level and the element ceases to be an element.

Why the science lesson?  What does this have to do with content?  I have taken us all back to the science classroom because elements and atoms are a rather fitting analogy.  This element is not on the periodic table: it is known as...Content.

From a production point of view, content has almost always started from the single, discrete piece.  From there, each piece has been combined to make a larger component.  For example, think of a newspaper article: an election story might appear in the politics section of the Monday edition of the local paper.

For newspapers, selling single stories at the newsstand was a tough proposition.  Selling the politics section was too narrow of an appeal.  But, if you put that into a larger framework, a whole newspaper with sports scores and weather and classifieds and advertisements, it starts to make more sense.

The same hierarchy existed for many years on public radio.  A six minute feature was produced, then included in the larger framework of an hour-long show, and on a select day, broadcast on a radio station.  The production direction from small piece to large framework was it.  That was before the advent of on-demand listening and podcasts.

For some, peeling off one layer of that hierarchy to adapt to online consumption habits was seen as enough.  If producers took an hour-long show and placed it online, the work was done.  No additional production required.  Easy.  Take the same hour-long chunk that airs on radio stations and make it available online via on-demand and podcasting.  But that is not serving the needs of the people that actually consume the content.

Using the newspaper example again, imagine that you want to share an article with a friend.  Do you point them to the stack of old newspapers in the garage from the last month? Or the whole newspaper from Monday?  Or the Politics section from Monday? The easier way would be to clip the article out, and give them that specific thing you wish to share.  Your friend will know exactly what you want them to see.

The same thing happens in public radio.  Some programs are two or more hours long, built out of smaller segments.  Wouldn't it be ideal to have those segments in an easy-to-share format online?  And wouldn't it be great if you could comment on those individual segments?  Of course.  There are plenty of reasons to publish content at the segment level for consumption online:

• Accurate, focused metadata can be attached
• Proper taxonomy can be applied in the CMS
  
• It is SEO-friendly, increasing discover-ability
  
• It becomes much more easily shared via social media
  
• Easier to output via API, RSS, podcast, widgets, etc.
• Quickly becoming industry standard and convention
• People are beginning to demand it of content producers
  
• It just makes sense

There are reasons NOT to do it, too.  Some obstacles you may encounter:

• Not in current workflows
  
• More attention is required
• More steps in publishing process
• Current CMS not equipped to handle it
  
• Current outputs not configured to handle it [website, feeds, etc.]
  
• Greater opportunity for user-input error

The benefits are far too great not to put forth the effort to overcome the obstacles in the way of segment-level nirvana.

Author and blogger Seth Godin has made a mantra out of the phrase "Ideas that spread, win."  If your idea, in the shape of content, can spread, it can win!  Not a jackpot lottery win, but the kind of win that content wants: to be consumed and shared easily.

Atomic segment-level publishing, FTW!

Happy Twitter Accidents

As some of you may know, I am on Twitter under not only one, but two aliases: @wd45, my personal account, and @PRI, for my company.

Anyone that manages multiple Twitter accounts will tell you that the third-party applications out there, like Seesmic and TweetDeck were a godsend for easily managing them. Mostly. TweetDeck makes is almost too easy to make a...mistake.

I maintain a firewall between these two accounts for more than one reason -- I am interested in maintaining my own identity on the @wd45, with ridiculous pictures [see this and this and this] posted to Twitpic, the easy Twitter-linking, photo posting service. Things that I post there might not interest someone that follows the @PRI account.

The @PRI account services the needs of the company, and I have been quite diligent about what makes the cut and what does not. People expect certain things from the company, and they will be expecting that same level of quality and consideration from the @PRI tweets.

This has been a super-successful venture, with two happy mistakes.

Once, a follower had sent a real direct message (a DM, in Twitter parlance), to which I responded via the same, private channel. Or so I thought.

She had offered a note of praise for the company. I looked at her profile page to ensure that the account was real, and noticed that the URL in her bio was yoga-related. In the interest of forging that personal, real-person connection, I said:

Thanks for listening. I practice yoga twice each week as well as daily meditation. I don't know what I would do without it.

That was not a DM.

It went to the 5,000 or so followers the account had at the time.

Realizing my misstep, I quickly evaluated my options:
-erase it, hope noone notices
-send out an 'oops' message and hope that folks ignore it

I chose the latter, but folks did not ignore it. The first response said, "Yeah, I thought that was pretty random. :)" About a dozen people were thrilled by it. Some even said "It is nice to know that you are a real person."

This could have been an isolated incident, meant as a heuristic tool. Never again would it happen. Vigilance must be maintained!

It was, until this week. I was excited to post a somewhat personal thing to @wd45. September 23 was John Coltrane's birthday. I was going to show my jazz acumen to my followers by saying this:

You might notice that it is on the @PRI account. Oops again.

There were seven re-tweets, and one other related response.

Again, this reinforces the notion that people want that personal, real-life connection with those they follow in the social media realm; even brands.
.

Peerless Iowa Flood coverage

The floods of 2008 have been covered in a way that those of 1993 and 1999 were not. This has been close to my heart, as I have family that was affected by these floods. My grandparents' home was rendered uninhabitable by the flood waters, so naturally I wanted to know what was going on in the state.

I turned to the site iowaflood.com upon the suggestion of Public Radio International's mroning news show The Takeaway. Andy Brudtkuhl, a consultant from the Des Moines area, set up a site that drew upon the strengths of citizen journalism and user generated content [UGC]. [In two hours, no less.]

Rather than exclusively posting content of his own, he tapped major media sites [TV, newspaper], services like releases from government officials & the National Weather Service, and feeds of user-generated content from YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter to create a much more comprehensive resource. Other tools included Yahoo Pipes and WordPress. He gives the full details here.

This, to me, represents what citizen journalism can really be. In situations where people need up-to-the-minute coverage of events that change as quickly, custom aggregators like this have no peer. The local TV stations don't have the manpower or editorial jurisdiction to place unedited feeds on their sites. Conversely, the average Joe doesn't have a helicopter for those aerial views of the flood damage.

At certain times like this, the power and resources of the masses, with their cameras and mobiles, comes to the fore to complete the coverage. The media goes on about its business most of the time, with UGC trickling in to augment coverage, but switches gears when significant events deem necessary. I don't think one will not supplant the other; we have proof of a symbiotic relationship in iowaflood.com.

This may well prove to be a model to be followed for future catastrophic events.

Wait for it... *pop*

[ image courtesy of Paul J. Thompson / Flickr ]

This delightful image from Paul J. Thompson on Flickr shows a bubble bursting in a mudpot at Yellowstone National Park. Here, gases flow up from the ground and percolate through the mud. Like many bubbles, they are intermittent, unpredictable, and quick to burst. The ones at Yellowstone are often caused by hydrogen sulfide; when the bubbles burst, they stink!

I have been to Yellowstone to see these stinking bubbles burst, and I was a part of another bubble burst that stank -- the Great Internet Bubble Burst of 2000. My employer, once flush with venture capital, was forced to downsize and I was left without a gig. After that, things leveled out for teh Internets, and I found gainful employment once again.

Ever since folks have been chattering about Web 2.0, there have been murmurs of "here are the makings for yet another burst-bubble situation." This sentiment has been echoed in a recent article from the NY Times. It explicitly calls out the signs of an impending burst -- tons of venture capital, funny company names, and questionable or non-existent business plans. From the article:

“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, an Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability,” he said.

Speculation is no new concept, and no one is asking it to cease. The thing that might set this apart from other business analysis situations is the concept of the ghost user. Best described as the registered yet non-participating member of a site/service/community, these users are often curious [as a result of reading an article in the NY Times or WSJ]. A username is selected, password entered, and ghost user is now officially considered another hash mark on the all-important tally of "total registered users." Of the seven Second Life users I know, I am aware of at least six of them are ghost users, not including myself. I did configure that avatar, after all...
.

Stalled, or not?

I snapped this pic with my camera phone this morning, and I thought it to be quite apropos. The writing on the side of that van says "WCCO News 4." They are a local CBS TV affiliate, and their van has stalled right out in front of their studios. Hoods are up, jumper cables in place. They are trying to jump-start the news [van]. There it sits, on the side of the road, in a tableau fit for the topic at hand today.

Harvard Business School professor John Deighton authored a paper with Canadian entrepreneur Leora Kornfeld titled, "Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers." It is an illuminating piece that codifies some of the chatter related to the corporate insertion into the world of social media.

Two things resonated in the paper for me. The first was this, pertaining to the attitude companies must cultivate in order to avoid alienation:
"...If the marketer wants to thrive it has to be by becoming an ally, someone who is welcomed into social or cultural life and is, perhaps, even sought out as someone with cultural capital."

The second will likely frighten some marketers away:
"...marketing in this paradigm aspires to be an author in the culture of its customers."

Do yourself a favor and view this quick read: .pdf here.

Todd Mundt, at his blog Converge, points us to an interview with Merlin Mann and America's Radio Sweetheart & host of "The Sound of Young America" Jesse Thorn. This interview [or segment, one of six] is of interest because Thorn is one of these cats who is young, gets it, and has the faculty to articulate what it means to try to bring technology and content and the users together.



All of this points to the direction we shall point ourselves in: not to be the broken down old media, stalled in front of our office, not to be the media that is still on the road, but to be the media that is traveling in places that people want to see.
.

Since we are on a theme of sorts this month, what say we keep this whole social network thing rolling? Two more niche social networking sites have popped onto the SuperFly radar in the last week. One, focused on the 40-60 age demo, and the other on "creative people."

TeeBeeDee is going after the older age demo in a way that other social networking sites have not. A criticism that other boomer+ sites have dealt with is the "AARP factor." This has been leveled at Eons, which endured some hard times earlier this month due to staff cuts. Basically stated, it is hard to keep the conversations that occur on these sites out of the cane-and-pill chatter and focus more on the business of living a vibrant life. TeeBeeDee states this explicitly on their site: "Learn from others, share what you know, and connect with people who want to keep on growing."

Quarterlife has an even more difficult assignment: launch & maintain a social networking site AND internet television series without becoming mired in over-hipness. It will be tough, given that their self-selected demo is that of "creative people." From their site:

quarterlife.com is a social networking site for creative people. Whatever your interest - photography, writing, music, filmmaking, dance, design - quarterlife.com will help you go to the next level. Connect with like-minded people, gather information about schools, grants, and internships. It's a place to explore the issues in your life, where changing the world is as real as the friends you meet.

There is a connection with MySpace, as their series makes its premiere there one day before the launch on the Quarterlife site. [The series, BTW, is produced by the minds behind "My So-Called Life," a show that did its own battles with over-hip-itude, IMO.]

These services are launching into a world not-yet-completely saturated with niche social network providers. Will the participants [possibly already users of MySpace, Facebook, etc.] take time from their identities elsewhere online to go into these spaces? Is the value proposition strong enough?

Facebook in the Flesh

[ image courtesy of laffy4k / Flickr ]

Forgive me for yet another post about Facebook. The rest of the media / blogosphere has not given me a respite on the 'Book, so I must continue to comment upon it.

The media that sparks this entry was the old-school format of teh magazine. The New Yorker from September 17th, to be specific. I read it on my electronics-free commute today. [Normally, I am tethered to my iPod for the duration.]

I don't mean to be the nay-sayer, but I think the overwhelming waves of praise of the 'Book could use a small bit of tempering. Not because of what is can do, but rather, what it cannot. The article spoke specifically about NYU students and a seminar offered as a part of orientation titled, "Facebook in the Flesh." Author Michael Schulman begins with the observation that many students now arrive at campus with many "friends" in place. Friends in the I-have-added-you-to-my-Facebook sense of the word. These Freshmen may have some familiarity with each other in the pixelated sense, but the face-to-face interactions and the resulting awkwardness must still be overcome. Oh, how well I remember it...

The fact that this interaction comes at a time when people are first making a go of it alone for the first time makes this seminar all the more relevant, and maybe even representative of the population at large.

Social media in its still-evolving form serves to enhance communication & relationships, not to obsolesce. It simplifies and enriches, connects and enlivens these connections to others. As with other social media, it does not fuel itself, regardless of the sophistication of the application.

Facebook and other social media bring the relationship back to the fore; now replete with widgets, tweets and sundry.

Facebook: just another outlet for the 'chattering class?'

[ image courtesy of ireallylikecake / Flickr ]

The fab BBC news podcast NewsPod from September 12th featured a report that first aired on the BBC Radio 4 service. This report asks the question, "Is Facebook the playground for the chattering class?"

Some weeks ago NPR launched an application within Facebook that allows members to play their favorite NPR podcasts on their Facebook page. As of the writing of this post, just 59 people have started using it.

Are we at the usual small & slow start of a revolution, or is this just another flavor-of-the-moment enjoying its 15 mB of fame?

[Listen to the BBC report below; the segment about Facebook starts about 17:30]


powered by ODEO

Social media is the answer [?]

Radio 2.0 blogger Mark Ramsey highlights today an announcement from Philadelphia's WXPN; they will be gathering the 885 Most Memorable Musical Moments. [885 corresponds with WXPN's FM frequency 88.5 -- clever.]

He posits that which may be on other people's minds as they see more and more social media vehicles emerge: "One of the toughest parts of integrating social media tools into a radio station website is plugging in those tools which listeners actually want to use on a radio station site as opposed to wherever they're accustomed to using them now."

As some major media companies spread themselves thin over all platforms to little effect, this becomes more apparent. Separate YouTube & Flickr accounts, Facebook and MySpace pages go only as far as the effort put in will take them. The decline in corporate interest in Second Life presence, both fiscally and in actual presence, points to a collective realization that perhaps the wrong tactics were used. The "L.A. Times" recently featured an article about this exodus.

Presence is not the only factor; being at the cool party doesn't necessarily make you cool. Being able to make use of social media in a manner apropos the community and tool itself is key.

To Facebook or not?

Social Network giant Facebook is having the best year ever.

(Except perhaps for that unfortunate name that those frequent users have for it: Facecrack.)

Much glowing press was heaped upon the resurgent provider on social networking tools after their big announcement earlier this month. They will be opening up their platform to the world of widgets. [Widgets in this case meaning little, embeddable applications that users can build to bring content automatically from one place to another.]

Blogger Rick Skrenta ponders in the context of that; specifically about the fickle demeanor and MTV attention spans of users of Facebook and other social networking sites. He notes a "flash mob" mentality of web users which can help some social media tools whilst harming others. These users go to the site with the most people in exodus from the other. That is so five minutes ago, yeah?

Skrenta goes on to note that Facebook had an early lead on MySpace. The open-sourcing of some of Facebook's functionality has likely served to bolster this resurgence in their popularity.

Are widgets enough? MySpace is busy hinting at possible deals with more established companies like eBay in hopes of offering another layer of service & function to the hummingbird users, perhaps luring them to stay a while longer. We have noted in the past here that the world of social media is growing more and more fragmented; a trend that may give these more generically-focused providers reason for alarm.

See this vid for a fine explanation, and an example of a Facebook widget:

When the big guys Tweet

[ image courtesy of gisarah / Flickr ]

The PRPD blog [Public Radio Program Directors, for those unfamiliar] features a post about the phenomenon of Twitter. As you may know, Twitter is the latest efficiency for posting content to the web. Users sign up, and they are offered a space of 140 characters to explain what they are doing right then and there. These little entries are archived in a linear manner, and are out there for all to see. The social media aspect comes into play here when users get friends to join the site to "tweet" along with them [they have made a verb of it, already].

I learned about this over the shoulder of a fellow attendee of the Beyond Broadcast meetings at MIT this past February. I jotted down the url and signed up. Much like MySpace, this concept doesn't have much excitement without a few friends to make it more than just a sub-140 character chronicle of existence. It gives users a chance to be quirky and off-the-wall and ironic, and it could possibly yield one second's worth of fame via mashups like twittervision. Widgets allow your twitterings to be fed onto your blog, and you can tweet from your mobile--they are 100% web 2.0 compatible.

The PRPD post points out the fact that NPR is now set to tweet. They are tweeting as I type, likely. NPR has set it to tweet their new blog posts. Something that their RSS feeds seem to do just fine already. The NY Times is guilty of the same.

Barak Obama tweets, but John Edwards does more frequently. So do the folks at the fun internet newscast Rocketboom. Even I do it. Look over on the left-hand side for that widget on this blog!

The appeal to the tweeters is in the instant posting of your own life and seeing what others are up to, for fun. When major communication companies do so just to thrust out in front of users with little other sensitivity or effort, I must say the end result falls flat.

Here is a mashup with R&B star Tweet and the Black Crowes...

Are you a digital immigrant?

The ever-intriguing Media Post published an article about the divisions within the digital world. This is not the usual "digital divide" we hear of, the "haves and have-nots" issue that gets press. Instead, this addresses the division between the "Digital Natives" [DNs] and "Digital Immigrants" [DIs].

The article states that the two groups are divided by experience and sophistication. Age usually plays the biggest role, as it does here. [The kids get it.] The people in high school and college are the focus; they are using email the least of all of the digital technologies. In a world of SMS text, Twitter, and IM, it is no wonder--communications are simple, near instant, and convenient. Especially convenient as all three of these are available on most mobile phones. Rarely are the next generation more than a few moments from e-communication.

Highly recommended reading.

Clear Channel tries social networking

Mark Ramsey at Hear 2.0 points out that media juggernaut Clear Channel is launching a social networking service on some of their large-market youth-oriented radio stations. They are doing this via a white-label social network provider.

As you can see in the photo above, there is now a user by the name of Superfly on the Clear Channel Top 40 Hits station KDWB in Minneapolis, one of the stations in the beta group. They are calling it KDWB V.I.P. You can ask me to be your friend, if you sign up...

This is a variation on the venerable MySpace concept in both thought and execution. It is all there, profiles, photos, friends, etc. OneSite.com, the provider, has given them a very basic setup with some templates and features. It looks passably effective, but is that enough to sustain a community?

There are fewer users [about 90 signed up so far, but it launched only yesterday], and those numbers are going to be limited primarily to local users. There is an advantage for the station inplacing the DJs and on-air personalities prominently. After all, this is taken on by Clear Channel not as a charity but as a promotional vehicle. That level of promotion would be a more labor-intensive project on one of the existing social networking sites; creating a universe of your own eliminates that. That's good for the station, but does it translate into a sustainable community?

If there were a way to connect these members with the members of users at other stations in other cities, this would have a greater chance of success. If there were a content base outside of the 3 minute pop songs they play, they might have a chance. Are the local talents and remote events enough to sustain a community?

Is Clear Channel over-estimating the brand loyalty of their Top 40 Hits stations?

Am I missing something?

I think even NBC's upcoming social networking venture has more of a chance. At least they have some content, be it produced or distributed.

Otherwise, this looks to duplicate the efforts of the existing communities out there.

If you build it, will they come?

[ image courtesy of prupert / Flickr ]

PaidContent.org reports that Eons, the social networking site for the 50+ set, just received second round of funding in the amount of $22 million. The Guardian reports that Reuters has announced their intent to create a MySpace-like social networking site for the financially inclined. USA Today released a major revamp of their site that takes advantage of several social media components.

Here is where the question lies, as asked by MediaPost in a superb article: Does the standard phrase "If you build it, they will come" apply here? Will these communities be able to sustain themselves?They posit that the best way to grow and maintain a living community is to provide consistent content that will keep folks coming back. User generated content is a part of this ecosystem, but not the only part. Making the experience rich and easily shared with other communities will prove to be make-or-break touchpoints.

.

$10 million dollars vs. local relevance

[Citizenship in the Community merit badge, from Boy Scouts of America.]

Mark Ramsey writes that stations need to be alert, if they weren't already, to the intense need for effective websites that keep people coming back.

In almost-related news, Gather.com has gathered [sorry] $10 million in funding from an array of sources.

I see a disconnect between these two.

Gather wants to be involved in the community, but has yet to gain serious traction, and nets $10 million.

Yet many stations, often deeply involved in their communities, can't extend a web presence that would show that relationship or commitment. This can be a complicated issue with staffing, university politics, and legacy momnetum [or lack thereof] being the mitigating factors.

If there were some way to make the connection...
.