Category: New media

Well now. This is a new twist. MySpace and Google have teamed up on OpenSocial, making the list of OpenSocial API services considerably more interesting.

Engage.com, Friendster, Hi5, Hyves, Imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, Orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart (the parent company of TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, and Vox), Tianji, Viadeo, and Xing.

Think for a moment what this means. You write an OpenSocial App for LinkedIn and it will run on Vox or LiveJournal. It will run on MySpace. It will run on Plaxo. Google’s OpenSocial API will give you the ability to cross social network platforms easily as a developer, and if you have the choice of writing for Facebook alone or writing for 12 platforms at once, including the most populous network on the planet, where will you allocate scarce development resources?

Google has declared all out war on Facebook with this coup, and hats off to them. Will Facebook join? Even if they don’t, it’s inevitable that someone will write middleware connecting the OpenSocial API to the FBML/FQL API. What does this mean for your Facebook development projects? Put ’em on the back burner the moment OpenSocial’s API is published and goes live; assume that Facebook will -need- to be compatible with it to survive.

Here’s an even more striking thought: tools for marketing written for MySpace will be tools written for marketing on OpenSocial. Social media marketing pros, get ready to rock the web. A peek inside the API documentation reveals:

• Name
• Postal address
• Email address
• IM
• Phone number
• Profile traits

The ability to market based on targeted, self-identified data AND have contact information makes OpenSocial a Facebook-killer from a business perspective if they don’t jump in.

Early bets: if you’re a musician, put your money on iLike having an OpenSocial app early out of the gate. They rocked it hard with Facebook and will be looking for a repeat performance for sure. If your music isn’t pimped in iLike, you have a lot of work to do and soon. Expect Connection Cloud style apps early out of the gate, and the ubiquitous, if stupid, vampire/werewolf games.

Take a look at who seized the day on Facebook’s development platform and bet on them and their most agile competitor.

Want to make an early power play? Clone popular Facebook apps.

Another early bet: you know everyone who put a lot of work into Google Gadgets and wondered what the hell Google was going to do with them besides iGoogle? Betcha a doughnut that there will be some portability mechanism to leverage the Gadgets directory in OpenSocial.

Update: I’ll take that doughnut now, thanks.

One last thing for the non-developers: you know that MySpace profile you’ve been neglecting? You might want to dust it off real soon.

I’m thrilled to see so many people running with flash mob ideas, like Joseph Jaffe and his new book, Join the Conversation; Joseph’s campaign was called Bum Rush the Amazon Charts, inspired by Scott Sigler and the original Bum Rush the Charts. That said, I want to reiterate something – the inspiration behind, the creator of Bum Rush the Charts is not me. Never was, never will be. That honor, and the ideas that went along with it, belong to Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff and Michael Yusi, when they announced it on February 16, 2007.

These two gentlemen did a fine job of creating and launching the idea, and bringing in lots of people to participate in it, making it one of the biggest flash mob events in podcasting. I was glad to help and be a part of that team, but please understand that it was not my creation, and any credit, praise, etc. belongs to them, not me.

Looks like a busy morning on Facebook. Rather than try to reply to everything there, I thought I’d have some fun here instead.

Sorry, Steve Webb, I won’t be at PME. Equally sorry, Bill Sobel, for not being able to make it for another NYMIEG. Wayne Cook, I’m still not attending any of that stuff. Most of it isn’t relevant to me, as I’m American and your invitations are largely Canadian. Maybe look up Amaya Thompson? She’s Canadian.

Chris Johnston, cool app idea for the business card thing, but also, no on that. I’m trying to cut down on Facebook apps. They scare me a little. Same is true for TV Trivia, Jaan Lutter. No offense intended. Jeffrey, no on Top Friends as well. Top Friends is too elitist for my tastes. Aruleba Grace: no, I’m not going to become a werewolf, pirate, vampire, zombie, or sandwich. And I’m already a ninja in real life.

Bob Rains, thanks for the tequila in the Booze Mail app, but I’m still not installing it, and besides, tequila is too generic a term to send me. There’s a difference between Cuervo and El Tesoro de Don Felipe. Same for the coffee. There’s a huge gap between Folger’s and a Sumatra Mandelhing 2005.

Neda, no need to compare us. You’re WAY more attractive than I am, probably smarter, and 12 years my junior.

Mohammed Naser, you don’t strike me as the type to go to luaus often, but thanks for the invite nonetheless.

Did I answer everyone piling onto my Facebook page today? Except Kfir – dude, I RARELY check Facebook’s messaging system. Email me instead! I rarely check any social network’s messaging system, actually, because 99% of the messages are garbage.

Is PodCamp Too Corporate? or, Welcome New Folks!

Bill Weye on his blog asks a great question – has PodCamp Boston, in effect, sold out, with its huge list of attendees from corporations?

Gosh, I hope so. But not in the sense he’s thinking. In terms of sponsors and vendors, there are so far three – VON, Blue Sky Factory, and Jay Berkowitz. You’ve heard VON’s commercial pitch – attend Video on the Net for 200 instead of1,695. Blue Sky Factory hasn’t gotten their sponsorcast stuff to us yet, but they’re a mailing list service, the one that powers PodCamp Boston‘s outreach efforts.

Here’s my thinking about all the corporations, venture capitalists, media, and marketers coming to PodCamp Boston:

Welcome! Please go meet some new media people, and learn all about new media.

In the year that’s passed since PodCamp Boston 1, there have been a number of success stories about new media folks being able to make a living doing what they love to do most. At the same time, there are orders of magnitude more stories about people wanting to get connected to resources (money, media, marketing) to share their work who haven’t been able to. At PodCamp Philly, Brian Conley from Alive in Baghdad mentioned very publicly that AIB is desperately looking for donors/sponsors. He and his organization are doing great, very important work telling stories that the mainstream media aren’t.

It’s my hope as one of the organizers of PodCamp Boston that if we put folks like Brian and AIB in the same room as producers and directors from media buyers, venture capitalists like Openview and Masthead Venture Partners, that new media experts with legitimate, great content can get connected with resource partners. It’s not about selling stuff to PodCamp attendees at all, but rather connecting new people and new media together to make exciting partnerships and friendships.

If PodCamp Boston didn’t invite people with resources to the new media community, we’d be doing the community a disservice. As Bill Weye pointed out, people come to PodCamp to collaborate and meet others doing exciting things. I hope that idea and feeling extends to new people who want to know more about new media, and isn’t just reserved for people already in the community.

Finally, I’ll remind EVERYONE of this: the Law of Two Feet – meaning you walk away from what doesn’t interest you – doesn’t just apply to sessions. In every interaction at PodCamp, you have the right to walk away, and should do so immediately. With so many people of so many different backgrounds, you can find plenty of people of similar mind if you choose to do so. I hope you don’t. Corporate or evangelist, early adopter or conservative, I hope you meet some new friends and find ways to help each other in whatever best suits your needs in new media.

I recently had the experience of throwing a block party in my neighborhood, and was amazed at the number of neighbors who showed up. It was a great experience, and I attribute a major part of its success to one factor: my wife and I take daily walks through our neighborhood. We don’t necessarily interact with everyone or even a significant minority of people along the route on a regular basis. But our consistent presence helped us achieve a level of recognition in our neighborhood, enough to bring everyone together for a party.

What does this have to do with marketing and new media? If you want to achieve a baseline level of presence and recognition, go for new media walks in the digital neighborhood. Jeff Pulver calls it a social media sunrise. What does that entail?

Make sure you have presence in major social neighborhoods. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Obviously, vet the neighborhoods before you move in or you could move into a sleazy place like Quechup.

Maintain the properties you set up. Accept friend invites as appropriate, and leave footprints. Update your status, write a little something here and there on people’s bulletin boards or other presence notifiers.

Check in daily. Again, not a huge commitment, just make sure you’re logging in so that you can stay in touch. If someone posts a question of interest and you have an answer of value, contribute it.

Go to block parties. Conferences and conventions like PodCamp Philly and PodCamp Boston are the equivalent of block parties, when everyone in the neighborhood shows up, except for the crazy disgruntled neighbor who is always out in the yard grumbling at the other neighbors. Some conferences cost money, while others like PodCamps just require you to get to them – the actual event is free.

Throw your own block party. If you live in a neighborhood where there aren’t block parties, or they’re exclusive little ones that not everyone is invited to, throw your own. Amber Rhea is throwing a block party for the sex and erotica community called Sex 2.0, based on the UnConference model. It’s a great idea, and a great way to bring community together.

The most important thing is to go for a walk regularly. Even if you don’t run into a lot of people each day, your consistent presence will help you be recognized and be able to bring together your community.

Where will you go for a walk today?

The buzz this weekend was clearly about Q – the first TRUE viral marketing product I’ve seen in new media. It’s viral just like a real virus – it spreads to everyone you’ve come in contact with, and the power of its infection is multiplied by the level of contact you have with others. We’ll probably talk about this at length during this coming week’s best marketing podcast, Marketing Over Coffee.

My first read on Q is this – good. Good that it happened, good that the payload was relatively innocuous (so far), good that it demonstrated a flaw in social networking without obliterating the network in the process. I’d still change your password if you’re a current or former Q user on any email account you’ve used it with.

Just how bad could the Q Trust Virus (trustvirus? is that even a word?) have been? Consider this: how many times have you synced your online web mail’s account information with an address book or other utility? I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that if you’re in the social space, you’ve used a tool like Plaxo or LinkedIn or another sync tool that promises to bring together all your data, and you’ve done so.

I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts right now that in your address book on XYZ service as well as on your personal computer, you not only have friends’ email addresses, but their real names, physical world addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, and more.

Imagine a Q-style TrustVirus (it’s officially a word now) that aggregates all of that, but doesn’t tell you, nor does it mass email all of your friends. Instead, it stores it in one large data warehouse, and cross-references people in your network with the same people in other networks, until it develops a comprehensive profile of an individual based on fragments gathered from that individual’s many friends. CC Chapman may not have my birthdate in his address book, but Chris Brogan might. Steve Garfield may know my cell phone number, and someone might know my work address. Put the sum of my friends’ knowledge about me together, and you’d have enough for a profile of reasonable accuracy.

What to do with such a profile? Well, selling it to an identity theft ring would probably be lucrative and almost impossible to trace. Selling it to marketing data firms, selling it to just about anyone who wants top-notch, qualified personal profiles (three letter government agencies?) would be profitable.

Think about it – not only would a trustvirus gather a lot of information quickly, but it would be highly accurate most of the time, because you’re hijacking trust relationships across networks. Bryan Person trusts me enough to tell me his birthday, and I have no incentive to put inaccurate data in my address book. I trust Anji Bee with my mailing address, and chances are very good she’ll record it accurately. A trustvirus knows this and therefore the data it collects will be highly trustworthy.

What’s the lesson in all this? Think carefully about the information you put online. Think carefully about what you share with whom, even close friends, because they are human and therefore susceptible to trustvirus hijacking. Encourage your friends, if you’re of a sufficiently paranoid mindset, to not record sensitive data that could be used for identity theft (name, SSN, and date of birth is the magic trifecta that unlocks most doors) and be very careful about how you store data about them.

The easiest benchmark of all is to ask yourself this: what don’t you want the world to know about you – and who else knows about it?

Beware the trustvirus.

This is the New Media Fishbowl. A commenter on Mitch Joel’s blog pointed out a Facebook Application that could draw a hyperbolic map of your friends in your network and how they were related. I was stunned to see a true, graphical, and clear representation of the New Media fishbowl, the echo chamber, whatever you want to call it.

The inner ring of hyperconnection is the fishbowl. It’s new media. Everyone in the outer ring? Financial Aid Podcast community members for the most part. These are all the people that the folks in the fishbowl are NOT connecting to – and there’s a lot of them. Most are college students.

Believe it or not, I’m happy with how my map looks, because the outer ring signifies that I’m trying to reach outside the fishbowl.

What does your map look like?

iPhone. Bacn. Chocolate Rain. LOLcats. Copybot. Bum Rush the Charts. Lonelygirl15. What do all these have to do with each other?

They’re all “viral” memes – high speed, high attention, sticky microcontent that spread like wildfire in various online communities. Just a mere mention of them on a blog can, if caught early enough, drive a tremendous amount of traffic to a blog, podcast, or web site, simply by virtue of obtaining good placement in early search results.

Right now, it’s kind of a free-for-all in online memes. Things appear and disappear like so many flashes in the pan, but if you can time the meme market just right, you can ride the waves of attention like a surfer, as Justin Kownacki pointed out about the city of Pittsburgh and its two recent hits.

How, though, do you make use of this? Enter a career of the near future: meme jumper. Working in concert with a Community Developer, a meme jumper is the person who coordinates tying content and products into relevant memes and promotions.

Case study: Virtual Thirst, the Coke campaign conducted by Crayon New Marketing. As a contributor to Matthew Ebel‘s Second Life live album, it was no mistake that it was named Virtual Hot Wings and tied into the Virtual Thirst promotion. At the same time, we tried to add as much value as possible to Virtual Thirst by offering a tangible good to an intangible campaign.

How to be a meme jumper? Connect. Connect, connect, connect. Use tools like Twitter for near-real-time monitoring of what’s getting people’s attention. Use Yahoo Pipes to aggregate a list of URLs from the Twitterstream into a format that can be parsed, then look for the most common URLs in a 24 hour period. Technorati and Google Blog Search will keep you on top of blogged items, but check them frequently. Find a meme to latch on to that’s appropriate, then tailor your content to match the meme as best as possible, adding value to it and propagating it.

What’s the goal of a meme jumper? Build lots of short bursts of high intensity traffic to a web site to garner attention and eyeballs. It’s then up to the Community Developer and other marketing staff to convert those eyeballs into subscribers, reader, and customers.

A meme jumper is different than a brand hijacker. The latter just plugs into as many buzzwords as possible with standard link baiting strategies without adding any additional value. It’s less symbiotic and more parasitic.

How do you apply for such a job? It’s all about the track record. Start with small organizations and volunteer work – find charities to plug into that desperately need the help, and make them powerful presences online for fundraising drives. Once you’ve done a few, take your show on the road.

A funny thing happens when there’s excess liquidity in a financial market, as has been the cases in the past 6 years due to housing. First, a quick primer. Liquidity is any asset that can be converted to cash quickly and with minimal loss of value. A blue chip stock – like Coca Cola – is a good example of a liquid asset. Barring a complete collapse of the stock market, you can sell your Coca Cola stock relatively quickly with minimal friction. If you had a doctor’s bill you had to pay, you could sell your Coke stock today and have cash to pay with tomorrow.

An illiquid asset is something like a house – you can’t really trade it quickly or easily. It’d take weeks, if not months, to sell that house and get the proceeds to pay off a doctor’s bill.

Excess liquidity is when there are too many dollars chasing too few goods or services. A nation’s central bank can print more money, and when they do, those dollars have to go somewhere. The same is true on Wall Street for investors. A sudden influx of money means they have all this extra money to play with and nowhere to invest it. This creates great investment opportunities, but it also creates a bubble that will eventually burst.

Enter new media. Investors looking for the Next Big Thing have been dumping tons of money into new media companies. Podshow, for example, received 8.8 million in round 1 of its financing and15 million in round 2. Plenty of other companies and web properties have been funded partly through all the play money generated by the excess liquidity on the market.

The market, however, is being called. People are cashing out and it’s causing both a liquidity squeeze and a credit crunch – loans at absurdly low interest rates aren’t available any more, investors aren’t buying portfolios where the value is just a guess, and available cash to play with is going away fast.

What does this mean for you? If you’re working at or running any kind of new media or Web 2.0 company – or a company that relies on them for cash flow – it’s time to bootstrap. Forget VC money, forget private equity, dismiss thoughts of being bought out and everyone getting a fat chunk of investor proceeds, and get down to business. Get cash positive, nuke your debt, and build the business. Not only does your survival depend on it, but so does new media’s.

If you’re a member or a part of a new media company, for example a podcaster at a podcasting network (pick any one), you’d better have a Plan B. Make sure you have archived copies of all your shows on a few data DVDs or an external hard drive. Back up your blog, show notes, and site. Make sure you have copies of everything, including emails, because Plan B assumes that one day, you’ll go to upload your show or edit your blog and there will be a big 404 there – and nothing else.

I’m not saying it’s going to happen like that, but for a couple hours’ work, it doesn’t hurt to plan for it. Anything less than that and you’ll feel smugly overprepared.

What are YOUR plans for Bubble 2.0’s bursting?

Another reason new media folks may not like to leave the fishbowl?

When you market outside your community, the rejection rate gets a LOT higher, and the rejections themselves can be a lot more vicious.

If you’re a nice, kind, easy-going person, as many in new media are, dealing with skyrocketing rejection rates can really sting.

As Clarence says, let it marinate.