In the mid-1990s our friend Dave Allen published a zine called “The Clutter of Pop” (followed by a record of the same name). In one of them he wrote an essay about the glut of entertainment media choking our attention spans. I’ve long since lost the zine and I can barely remember Dave’s insights, but I do keep thinking about it in light of the ever increasing glut since its publication.

It is often said that  we only use ten percent of our brains. While that’s not exactly true, we often do only use about ten percent of its capacity at any given time. Another way to look at it is as a giant sieve. When we’re awake and alert, our brains are filtering out a vast majority of the stimuli around us. Don’t check my math, but think of it as only ten percent of the world getting in. Contrast that idea to idea that when we’re asleep and dreaming, the filters are only partially on or completely off. This makes using less of your brain — or stimulating less of it — not only an advantage, but a necessity to your sanity.

As amazing as the human brain is, it still has plenty of limitations. Some of its limitations are what have created the aforementioned glut. We externalize our knowledge and the processing thereof to free up our internal bandwidth. Hieroglyphs, language, books, keyboards, archives, databases, cassette tapes, websites, and iPods are all products of our mental offloading. We’ve emptied our heads so much that now it’s difficult to find a signal among the noise. The digital shift from bits to atoms only exacerbates the issue, problematizing the filtering process in altogether new ways.

For instance, with the impending demise of the printed page the debate regarding digital books is in full swing, following closely after that of the compact disc. Though the nature of reading the printed word and listening to music lend themselves to digitization in very different ways, there is a major overlooked similarity in the transition: The organizing principles of both are being irrevocably reconfigured.

What is a book but an organizing principle? What is an organizing principle but a filtering device? The book works for printed language just as the album does for recorded music: it filters and organizes it in a meaningful way for mental consumption. As David Weinberger pointed out, analog media like books and albums filter first, whereas digital media like websites and MP3s filter last. That is, by the time you read a book it’s been through a thorough rigorous organizing, writing, editing, proofreading, and design process. When you run a search on Google or Wikipedia, what you end up reading is filtered and organized on the fly as you request it (Wikipedia actually has an ongoing organizing process, and Facebook and Twitter are filtering digital information in still new and different ways).

None of this filtering and reorganizing means that the book as we know it is going to go away anytime soon. What all of this means is that some things that were never meant to be books will now have a place to be themselves. Let’s face it, just as some records only have one good song, some books would be better off as blogs.

Time is the one truly finite resource. If we are to optimize it, we need better filters and better organizing principles. Instead of slogging through a whole book on a topic that would’ve just as well made a decent magazine piece, we’ll read it as it develops on the author’s blog. When we want to get lost in some convoluted alternate reality, we can still read a thousand-page Thomas Pynchon novel on good ol’ paper (his newest came out yesterday and is roughly half that long).

These changes change the way we think. They literally change our minds. With more and more choices for our filtering pleasure, I believe it’s mostly for the better.

The folks at Twitter have put together a fine deck of slides for businesses who are still struggling with how to use the Twitter platform. The same insights can be used for personal tweeting too but I prefer to see Twitter as a very effective business tool. Below is one of the slides that explains you don’t even need a Twitter account if you want to listen to what people are saying about your brand. The slides are a must read for all businesses or business owners. Download the PDF here.

Portland Bike Art Pic by PortlandGround.com

Recently Josh Catone wrote an article on Mashable entitled ‘Why NPR is the Future of Mainstream Media.’ In it he points out how NPR has been adjusting and preparing for the coming digital landscape that will affect news media – radio, TV and newspapers. To avoid the fate of other news media, NPR has embraced the triangulation of local content, social media [in its true form] and ubiquitous access.

Local: Catone quotes new NPR CEO Vivian Schiller – “To me, local is the big play, because local commercial radio has abandoned the local market. Local newspapers are withering or sometimes dying. The big national media companies, including excellent ones like The New York Times, cannot afford to be covering every single community. So that leaves a big, gaping hole to serve Americans’ local coverage,” she told mediabistro.com in April.

The Social Web: Catone points out that “NPR’s Twitter account has over 780,000 followers, making it one of the top 25 on the social network (and third among news organizations behind only the New York Times and CNN). Their Facebook Page has over 400,000 fans.”

The tools now available for social web activity give news media of all stripes a way to connect, communicate and share information with their audience, attracting new listeners and retaining existing ones. NPR has taken this all the way with blogs, podcasts and mobile apps. Here in Portland, OPB Music is one of the few stations that focuses on local music and music from the Pacific Northwest. Given Portland’s rich and diverse music population there is never a shortage of great new music yet you will be hard pressed to find it on any local commercial stations. And as the audience for music fractures and spreads far and wide across the internet, online radio will be the biggest winner.

Even the face of music concerts is changing – as bands perform house parties or shows in other spontaneous locations local mainstream media should be jumping all over it working with local bloggers to bring access to live streams or reviews. Yet so far they haven’t, it’s been left to local alternative outlets such as OPB Music or local alternative newspapers like the Willamette Week or the Portland Mercury to cover. Even the New York Times has belatedly jumped in on local music activities with an article entitled ‘Indie Rockers, 90210.’

There appears to be no end to the bleeding for local mainstream radio and TV – revenues are set to plunge 15% according to this report. On the other hand NPR’s audience continues to grow. They had 23.6 million people tuning in weekly at the end of ‘08.

In a strange twist, in what I presume is a response to the obvious downturn in advertising revenues, Portland radio station 94.7FM KNRK recently laid off one of its more popular radio personalities, Tara Dublin. Byron Beck a local reporter, and himself the victim of layoffs at the Willamette Week, broke the news. It appears that Dublin does have a local fan base – her ‘Save Tara’ Facebook page is garnering support from her fans. Those fans are complaining that 94.7 won’t let them leave comments in support of Dublin on the station’s forums. If true, that is bad social web practice. There is also the opposite view – Save Tara? Save Us From Not Having Tara on the Air – that is not as negative as it sounds; people are pointing out that if commercial radio continues its decline why would Dublin want to go down with the ship? This is the social web in action – people listening and joining the conversation; NPR understands this and embraces it.

Mobile Ubiquity: It is not just the success of the very popular iPhone that now gives people far-ranging mobile internet access from handheld devices, but the new, faster iPhone S does make it even easier and is a significant driver of mobile web traffic. RIM’s Blackberry, the Google Android device and the new Palm Pre are all in the race to be the web access mobile device of choice too.

Catone mentions Happn.in a new site that tracks trends locally on Twitter in 52 different metro areas around the world. This is a very useful tool and as Twitter search begins to be a popular way for people to find trending events and news, hyper-local will be incredibly important – searching for local events and news at the zipcode level is getting easier and easier. All local media outlets need to take note.

Related articles:

SEO and SEM Will Be Dead As You Know It in 6 Months
Authenticity and Authority on the Social Web
Hyper-Local News and Portland’s Hillsdale District

Palenists photo by ahockley

On Thursday June 4th here at Nemo we hosted a discussion in partnership with Group Y, with the tongue-in-cheek title Who Killed Social Media. [Audio stream of the event is here.]

The panel comprised of myself, Dave Allen (@DaveAtFight : Fight – [Update] Co-Founder, Fight LLC : James Todd (@jwtodd : twine.com) – Software Engineer at Radar Networks, for Twine, Matt Savarino (@Ridertech : ridertech.com) – Lead Information Architect at K2 Sports and creator of Ridertech, Lee Crane (@leecrane : leecrane.com) – an action sports online veteran along with Tony ‘Frosty’ Welch, Web, Community and Social Media Strategy Personal Systems Group at HP, Community Manager for theNextBench.com (@frostola : frostyland.com). The panel was moderated by Marshall Kirkpatrick, VP at ReadWriteWeb (@marshallk : readwriteweb)

We had a very lively discussion based around my belief that the term ‘Social Media’ is best left for marketers to use as they mistakenly consider social media a sales ‘channel.’ I prefer to think about the ‘Social Web’ starting with the premise that anyone who opens up a browser is participating in it. It is no longer about platforms such as Facebook or MySpace, it is not about confusing Twitter as a social network, it is about how Reputation Management is now critical and necessary and also how you handle your brand’s ‘Experiential Awareness’ as I call it. Google is moving into the social web space – as Frosty notes in a follow up post after the event: “You may ask yourself why Google has decided to add more weight to the social web. The answer in my opinion is that they realize that when a viral event is happening, people aren’t using Google to find out about it. Instead they turn to the searches on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube.”

A glaring example of what people are saying can be found by looking into the eMusic fiasco. I believe that the firestorm of criticism that eMusic came under from its subscriber base could have been avoided entirely if the company had simply taken out an insurance policy in the form of a Community Manager. Think about that next time you try to persuade reluctant executives that Community Manager is a real job, and if they still baulk tell them its not a salary but a business expense – online community insurance! eMusic failed at Reputation Management on the Social Web. I sensed that the audience in the room resonated with the idea of insurance – especially post the Dominos pizza melt down.

The most contentious point of the night, one that caused audible groans in the audience, came from Frosty – “SEO or SEM, in my opinion, will be dead as you know it within 6 months.” It was a powerful statement that he backed up later in a post – “I didn’t make this statement for a wow or shock factor, but because it’s something I believe. Also I don’t believe its a new revelation. If you keep up with Steve Rubel (@steverubel : Micro Persuasion), Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang : Web Strategy) and others, you can see where the social web is heading, and what impact it is going to have. Especially on search.”

Clearly Frosty has opened the bottle and the genie can’t be put back in. Read all of his thoughts on the subject here.

More links:
Semantics Killed Social Media
Social media kills SEO
Transcript of the Panel

Search the thread on Twitter: #whokilledsm

GROUP Y PARTNERS WITH NEMO ON ACTION SPORTS ONLINE MARKETING AND THE SOCIAL WEB EVENT
“Who Killed Social Media?”—A Panel Discussion On Social Media Vs. The Social Web

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Carlsbad, CA. – May 19th, 2009 – Portland, Oregon-based integrated marketing agency Nemo today announced their partnership with group Y of Carlsbad, California, to host a panel discussion in Portland on the evening of June 4th, 2009. The discussion will focus on incorporating and effectively implementing social web strategies in the marketing mix.

The June 4th panel marks the first nationally-produced event for group Y. Co-Founder and CEO at group Y, Elizabeth Randall commented, “We are very much looking forward to holding our first national group Y event at Nemo HQ. They are a perfect partner for group Y—not only as a result of our long-standing relationship with them, but because they truly understand the action sports and youth markets, and are constantly pushing the boundaries of creative marketing and online strategies. Nemo’s headquarters will be the ideal gathering place to tackle the ins and outs of social media as well as do some group Y style-socializing.”

Nemo’s Founder and GM, Trevor Graves added, “We’re excited to have the action sports industry at Nemo to learn about the Social Web. Our friends at group Y have helped set up an expert panel to explain what all the fuss is about. Using the Social Web to communicate one-on-one with our customers can help achieve the holy grail of brand loyalty.”

Included on the panel are Tony Welch, Web, Community and Social Media strategist from Hewlett Packard; action sports industry veteran Lee Crane, James Todd of Twine, Lead Information Architect at K2 Sports and creator of Ridertech, Matt Savarino, and Nemo’s own Dave Allen, founder of the music site Pampelmoose.com, Director of Insights and Digital Media and Community Director at Nemo and founding member of the band Gang of Four. The moderator Marshall Kirkpatrick, Vice President of Content Development, and lead writer for ReadWriteWeb, will navigate the panelists through the world of the Social Web as it is today, and where it will lead in the near future.

To register for the event, please click here.

About group Y
group Y is the original collective of professionals focused on Action Sports, Youth Marketing and Entertainment. Based in Southern California with a growing national reach, group Y boasts an active membership of the best and brightest these industries have to offer. Sharing insights from key decision makers at key brands, past speakers have included experts from companies such as Quiksilver, Burton, Oakley, MySpace, and ESPN. Through our events, outreach and on-line presence, group Y takes the work out of strategic networking and strengthens our entire industry in the process. Please visit us at www.groupYnetwork.com

About Nemo
Nemo means Nobody. Highly collaborative, integrated marketing that is media agnostic. The biggest ideas, the best context, and the deepest impact are all we’re concerned about as we build visionary brands. We use (or invent) whatever media and tools will resonate within a culture. “Does it change the game?” is our collective mission as we evolve interactive design, social networks, PR, environmental design, print design, photography, entertainment and original content.
For more information on Nemo click here.

For more information please contact:
Becky Singh
Communications
503-734-5094
becky@nemohq.com

Pampelmoose, Nemo, DJ Joelskool and Lincoln MKS- Part 4 from Dave Allen on Vimeo.

Once again we road test the Lincoln MKS. This time, celebrated Portland DJ, DJ Joelskool gives the rig a once over testing the gadgets like Bluetooth and the navigation console as well as the pounding stereo system..

Previous episodes:

A Lincoln MKS and Von Von Von – Part 1

A Lincoln MKS with Von Von Von – part 2

Von Von Von Critiques the Lincoln MKS back seat – Part 3

Pampelmoose, Nemo, VON VON VON and a Lincoln MKS- Part 3 from Dave Allen on Vimeo.

The test drive continues as Von Von Von plays his ’slow music’ as we get the Lincoln MKS down to 3 MPH on the way back from the airport en route to Nemo.

On Wednesday, May 13th at 6PM, at De Anza College Cupertino, CA, Dave Allen, Nemo Community Manager and Director, Insights and Digital Media, joins James Todd of Twine, Owen Linderholm of Move.com, Beth Blecherman, Co-Founder of Silicon Valley Moms Group and Founder of TechMamas and Rachel Luxemburg, Community Manager for Adobe and blogger at Fiat Lux, for a Social Media Panel entitled: Where Do We Go From Here? The panel will be moderated by Tony Welch, the Community Manager for Hewlett-Packard

This is a free event and you can register here.

Event Details
From Facebook to Twitter, social media has become an extremely popular medium for corporate communication programs. The impact of social media on corporate attitude and customer expectations is far reaching. Customers are no longer happy filling out forms or waiting on hold. They want faster and more engaging access to information and corporate representatives.

Tony Welch, the Community Manager for Hewlett-Packard, is hosting a panel at De Anza College titled: Where Do We Go From Here? The panel will examine the current relationship between social media and corporations, and discuss how the relationship might evolve in the future. Come by and participate in a lively discussion about new media trends with some of the most knowledgeable minds in the industry. Refreshments will be provided.

Parking is available near the Campus Center in Lot A and Lot B. There will be a $2.00 charge and machines are available to take cash and coins.

Map of De Anza College.

Click image to play

As Dave continues the test drive he took the Lincoln MKS out to Portland International Airport to pick up his friend, the acclaimed Belgian electronic artist, Von Von Von, who has just returned from exile in Europe. Hear what Von has to say about coming out of exile and what he thinks of the Lincoln MKS…

Click image to watch the video.

.

The Lincoln MKS (left) the acclaimed Von Von Von (right)

The Ford Motor Company and their Lincoln division have chosen Nemo’s Dave Allen as a ‘digital influencer’ and handed him the keys to a fancy red Lincoln MKS for a few days. Dave was tracked down by Ford through his highly trafficked music blog, Pampelmoose, that he runs for Nemo. Dave will be in full Top Gear mode for the next three days as he runs around Portland. Yesterday Dave used the car to pick up the acclaimed Belgian New Wave electronic artist, Von Von Von, from Portland International Airport and we will shortly be posting a video of that trip. Stay tuned for all the pics and video and a final overview of the driving experience from Dave.

Ok, this is a fascinating rant from Robert Scoble. His list of the newspaper industry’s woes, and in some cases unforgivable missteps, when presented like this could take your breath away. Yet all is not quite what it seems – e.g. the Huffington Post is a news aggregator and walks a fine line in repurposing other news outlets’ content. Google and Yahoo are search engines linking back to the newspaper’s sites etc, etc, but there is a point here – the newspaper industry [rather like the music industry] would have preferred that the internet would have just curled up and died – unfortunately it didn’t and it won’t….plan B anyone?

All the text below this line is from Scobleizer the blog:

The newspaper industry just gave away another free meal, er Twitter: do they have any left?
I’m listening to Dave Winer and Jay Rosen “reboot the news.” Jay is a journalism professor and Dave is a geek that helped either birth or bootstrap all sorts of publishing technologies including blogging, RSS, OPML, XML-RPC, and more. So, hearing the two of them do an audio podcast every Sunday is very interesting.

I’ve been pretending in my head that I’m a newspaper exec. When I do that I keep beating myself around the face. Why? Because the newspaper industry keeps giving the geeks free meals. Let’s study the free meals:

Free meal #1. Giving away classified advertising to Craig’s List.
Free meal #2. Giving away photography to Flickr (look at the photos from the Chinese Earthquake, why didn’t this happen on a newspaper branded site?).
Free meal #3. Giving away front page news to blogs like Huffington Post.
Free meal #4. Giving away “small” community news like births, deaths, birthdays, etc to Facebook.
Free meal #5. Giving away real-time news to Twitter.
Free meal #6. Giving away news distribution to Google News and Amazon Kindle, among others. With new sites like Kosmix coming on strong (hundreds of percent of growth month over month).
Free meal #7. Giving away restaurant reviews to Yelp.
Free meal #8. Giving away traffic information to Google Maps.
Free meal #9. Giving away celebrity news to Facebook and Twitter. (Why is Oprah on both of those, and why didn’t the newspaper industry lock up Oprah and keep her on a newspaper brand?)
Free meal #10. Giving away local news to Topix (at least that was funded by a newspaper brand).
Free meal #11. Giving away business news to Yahoo Finance and Google Finance (and something new that will get announced tomorrow).
Free meal #12. Giving away news ranking to Memeorandum.
Free meal #13. Giving away astrology to Astrology.com.
Free meal #14. Giving away comics to Comics.com.

What is their latest giveaway? Crowd-sourced news. I visit Twitter Search every day to find out what is “hot news.” That’s something I used to look at newspapers and older media for (radio, TV) but Twitter is just plain better at telling me what is trending.

OK, so now my face is bloody because I’m seeing all the things the newspaper industry gave away. Do they have anything left to give away?

YES!

Read the rest of this very lengthy post here….

Leave it to Billboard Magazine, a scion of the fading music industry, to resort to old media tactics. This editorial on their web site is worthy of discussion but unless you happen to subscribe to the magazine for $24.95 a month you do not have the ability to comment. Clearly what happens as a result of this madness is that Billboard’s music business subscribers can hold up this editorial as a sign of “things aren’t so bad after all chaps…” and then continue to ignore the future of their business whilst looking backwards at the good old days. [Ironic note: check the image above and note the arrow in the right corner and the line 'Teen music spending drops.']

It’s not my ego nudging me to write that I can’t help thinking Steven Wilson is talking about my article, ‘The End of the Album as The Organizing Principle‘ when he sarcastically writes about ‘industry experts’ here – “Reports that CD sales continue to decline—they fell 14% in 2008 compared with 2007—have once again inspired a pundit-led roll call of the music industry’s dead and dying institutions: major labels, record stores, terrestrial radio and the CD itself, to name but a few. Recently added to the obituary page is the album itself, thanks to industry “experts.” However, I’m happy to say that the reports of the album’s death are greatly exaggerated.”

I am pleased to say I don’t consider myself an ‘industry expert,’ at least not a ‘music industry expert.’ Although I have had a long career as a professional musician [Gang of Four, Shriekback] and have run record labels etc, I would rather be remembered for jumping feet first into the future of music by joining eMusic.com as GM in 1998.

Unfortunately Wilson’s editorial completely ignores what is actually happening at the MP3 stores that he mentions – Amazon MP3 Store and Apple’s iTunes – music fans are buying more single tracks and not so many albums. He recognizes that the vinyl album is making inroads into the market place once again but he misses the point about the end of the organizing principle whilst admitting that people don’t have the attention span these days – “When the computer becomes a listener’s main source of listening to music, it’s hard to focus for 40 minutes, let alone 70.” It’s not about the computer Steven, it’s all about the Cloud and what Rio Caraeff, EVP of Universal Music’s eLABS understands when he says “the browser is the new iPod.” The browser is everywhere on almost all mobile devices, millions of them around the world – and users are not listening to album after album on them, most likely they are listening to their own playlists.

And here’s Wilson’s killer ‘make the recording industry feel better’ moment – “…. the argument that technology killed the album is a diversion—the mere availability of downloadable music is irrelevant to the question of the format’s viability.” The part of that statement that I have bolded out is simply an idiotic statement.

Technology doesn’t kill anything. In fact it moves things forward. For artists, technology and the advent of almost ubiquitous broadband has brought unparalleled freedom of expression. I wrote in my article, with regard to the early technologists who devised the album-length organizing principle, that – …..musicians and bands were not part of that decision in the first place then why would they complain of what modern technology now brings – their craft has been unchained from early technological limitations and they now have endless amounts of time and bandwidth to spread their creative message far and wide; along with unfettered artistic control.

I also wrote –
How music was delivered used to be in the hands of the few – bands, concert promoters, record companies and their retail distribution companies, radio, and video shows such as MTV. In tech-speak this system embraced ‘push’ – we the mighty and powerful will “provide you” [at a price determined by "us"] with access to our treasures when “we” feel like it. These days that system is rapidly breaking down as music fans now ‘pull’ what “they” want to listen to.

Control has moved from the few to the millions of many. Dull labels and dull bands offering dull, flat, non-experiential product – e.g. a CD, will go the way of the CD as it goes the way of the Dodo. Consider what Cirque Du Soleil provides as an experience compared to Barnum and Bailey’s circus. Or Burning Man compared to your average music festival. Even the Las Vegas Beatles-themed show ‘Across The Universe’ wipes the floor with most rock concerts these days.

If these ideas and opinions, not to mention the debate around them, are ignored, then the recording industry and Billboard Magazine will definitely follow the CD into extinction…

This is becoming common news these days because of the ability to immediately update your followers via Twitter. Story from the Daily Telegraph.

“The playing out of major events in the world of blogs and social media is becoming an ever more familiar tale. Today’s plane crash just outside Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam broke first on Twitter, the popular microblogging service. Jonathan Nip, who lived near the scene of the accident, was one of the first to tweet about the crash. “Looking at a crashed aeroplane near Schiphol,” he wrote, just moments after the plane came down.”

From Travelution.co.uk found on Twitter from @alisamleo

What happened when a blogger decided to take on Ryanair

February 23, 2009

Here is an amazing tale from late last week, when an Irish freelance web designer/developer, Jason Roe [and Twitter], found himself involved in a extremely strange tête-à-tête with everyone’s, er, favourite low cost carrier, Ryanair.

It all started when Roe wrote a blog post about how he’d discovered a usability error in ryanair.com booking process.

In short, he says he found a bug in the system which allowed users to obtain a 0.00 charge for their flights.

There was some disagreement in the comments section as to whether it worked at the time. Roe claims it does.

Nevertheless, some people at Ryanair HQ decided to chip in. The comments are not what one would expect of a large company that has decided to engage with social media, to say the least.

This is just one of many from a succession of commenters under the ‘Ryanair staff…’ tag on the same post.

Crikey.

[NB: We have seen the IP addresses of the commenters and they all trace back to Ryanair HQ]

So, most people would say that the best method for dealing with a provocative post like Roe’s is to be measured and calm.

But then again, Ryanair – lest we forget – doesn’t exactly play by the same rules as others when it comes to dealing with customers, complaints, partners, etc.

[Read the full post - and it really is worth reading all the comments from Ryanair...]

Post by Kevin May on February 23, 2009 04:33PM
Permalink | Comments (11) | Trackbacks (0)
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: What happened when a blogger decided to take on Ryanair.

Image from Blog of Mr Tweet.

Recently on the blog known as MrTweet a question was posed – “How are you using Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter differently?”

If I had been asked I would have responded as follows: Those three networking platforms can be grouped into a historical context – Facebook past, Linkedin future/present, and Twitter future.

Facebook is the past. I have been a member of Facebook for what seems like an eternity but in fact it has been a little under two years. I have 1,472 “friends” as of writing and it’s fair to say that I only know about 15% of these “friends” very well. As a minor music celebrity I have attracted a lot of musicians, bands and labels. As Director, Insights & Digital Media at Nemo and as someone who speaks regularly at conferences on social media as well as online music issues, I have attracted those cohorts too. Just this past week my sister and brother who still reside in the UK joined Facebook and brought along with them various nephews, nieces, cousins, aunts and uncles. I now have no excuse for not being in touch with my family more regularly – technology shortens the distance between us. On Facebook that is not necessarily a good thing.

The author centre, tagged in a picture from the early 80’s

Facebook is historical white noise to me. I am constantly tagged in pictures and videos and more often than not in an unflattering light. There I am at a wedding in 1987 clearly drunk, and there I am in some unnamed establishment sitting next to some old girlfriend who is probably mortified to see that photo in such a public forum after all these years. [Insert landscape and memory essay here.] I have spent many hours un-tagging myself in photos and videos just to have someone tag them right back after I’ve moved along. One day soon I fully expect to find a video of myself dancing naked on a table at a party. And that’s what is wrong with Facebook for me; the complete lack of control of message, my message.

Facebook really is for college students who want to catalogue images and videos of their crazy drunken selves for all the world to see; images they will live to regret when applying for a job. Closing your account is the only means of control on FB.

For the more mature types on Facebook [apparently there has been a surge of new members in the 40+ demographic] there is the shock of discovering that all those folks in high school or college -the ones that you had left behind and wiped from memory – are now waiting in your email inbox as “friend” requests. There was of course a reason for leaving all that behind. I could go on. Clearly Facebook is best left to the young who actually seem to enjoy being stalked across social networks.

Linkedin is Future/Present. Linkedin I term as future/present because I use it to store current details about my career activities [present]. I have built a decent network of like-minded business people with whom I can share job opportunities and details of event activities and/or my role within Nemo [future client work.] There are useful forums where I can post a topical question and via the crowdsourcing effect of Linkedin I often receive a lot of very intelligent answers [I wouldn't try this on Facebook for e.g.]

Linkedin is a dry world whereas Facebook is a week at the beach in Mexico during Spring Break. Linkedin is quiet time in the study where you get things done. It really is all business.

This brings me to Twitter. Although millions of users are on the Twitter platform its audience is in the low millions compared to FB and LI. Many of my peers who open a Twitter account leave me a message soon after joining that invariably includes the phrase “I don’t get it…” Fair enough, but hey everyone what is it you want to get? If you want to have a tool that is the perfect blend of Facebook [without Spring Break] and Linkedin [without retiring to the study] then Twitter is for you.

Twitter put simply is micro-blogging. Used wisely Twitter gives your followers a real-time window into your social, business and working world down to the minute. Use it unwisely you will find yourself in a lonely corner of Twitter twittering to yourself with a dunces hat on. I put Twitter in the future column even though other social media types put it in the present because I believe that when it is used purposefully it has a transcendental power and therefore we will see it being used much more widely in future.

And by purposefully I mean by intent which then leads to a question – what are your goals when using social media? Remember, we have to put technology to one side, this is not about technology it is about doing something that comes very naturally to all human beings [sociopaths excepted,] – it’s called socializing. Technology has shortened the distance between us but it hasn’t changed why we socialize. It is worth noting that Twitter is arguably more successful than any other social network platform for helping to get offline groups organized around conferences and such – they are known as Tweetups. And for e.g., I know of someone tweeting upon arrival at PDX airport asking for a ride downtown who within minutes was picked up and given a ride from a fellow tweeter – Twitter can be that hyper-local.

On a grander global and political scale, Wikipedia notes: Twitter has been used as a “social justice tool” to connect groups of people in critical situations. On April 10 2008, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at UC Berkeley, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest. On his way to the police station Buck used his mobile phone to send the message “Arrested” to his 48 “followers” on Twitter. Those followers contacted UC Berkeley, the US Embassy in Cairo, and a number of press organizations on his behalf. Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his “followers” while being detained. He was released the next day from the Mahalla jail after the college hired a lawyer for him.

Should you be arrested or simply lost just remember Twitter is always at your fingertips – text 40404.

So what’s different about Twitter vs Facebook?

Here’s an answer to that question based on my own use – I see Facebook as a vessel that contains your past – landscape and memory again. FB informs you of your friends’ activities via your email inbox when they change their status. One then links back to FB [unless you happen to always be on your FB account constantly refreshing your browser window,] logs in and reads the status or message. In other words many actions are required to keep in touch with your friends. On the other hand Twitter is a constant feed of information from those that you have chosen to follow. There is an important distinction here – on FB I choose to accept a “friend request” and your request is at the mercy of my keystroke, yes or no? If I key yes then we are “friends” and in my case that decision is made on a whim – I may or may not know you but we’ll see how it goes [sounds like a one night stand in college, right?]

The author tweets

With Twitter “friending” permission is not required – you can follow me if you like, I can follow you if I like. The decision to be or remain followed or un-followed is out of my hands or your hands. The content of our messages or tweets is all that makes us worthy [Think dunce Twittering in the corner..] and Twitter restricts those Tweets to 140 characters. And best of all, if I don’t check in for a day or two I miss the conversation and that’s fine – I am not obliged to be responding to some request ala FB. Nor do I get poked or bitten by a vampire and no one sends me Valentine bear requests. I mean, c’mon!

Twitter profiles are simple too. They consist of 160 character bios and links to the person’s web site. Twitter protocol suggests that having an avatar is more pro than not having one and being anonymous on Twitter creates suspicion.

Twitter has some user practices that are carefully followed unlike other social networking platforms. There is an etiquette in place that may have provided an atmosphere of decorum in what looks at first blush like a frenzied space. Here are some Twitter basics:

If you tweet using a company name, i.e @NemoHQ, don’t tweet only about Nemo – you have an obligation to tweet informative posts that have nothing to do with your company. You should share the sharing. You will gain more respect from your followers that way. Also your tweets will not be considered spam.

To reply to a Tweet that you like just reply to the persons address e.g. @pampelmoose This can keep the conversation moving as other people can look up that users profile to find the thread.

Re-Tweeting – Add the letters RT to the front of the original tweeter’s address and include the original message. For e.g. if it was a message from me that you are RT’ing you would put RT: @pampelmoose Again this keeps a conversation moving. By Re-Tweeting you are getting the conversation in front of your followers and they in turn can RT to their followers creating an exponential audience.

If you want to contact someone directly through Twitter you can Direct Message them as long as they are following you. At Twitter.com you add D in front of the username to message people directly – D @pampelmoose

When someone follows you on Twitter it is good practice to DM them and say thanks for the follow.

It’s ok to ask your followers to spread the word for you by re-tweeting. If they like your tweet content they will, if they don’t they won’t.

By using the # sign you can create search terms that other users can access. For example if I were to write about Nemo I would type #NemoHQ then users can click through to all of the conversations on Twitter that include #NemoHQ You can also monitor what the most popular conversations are by using the Twitter search link.

I recommend reading Guy Kawasaki’s blog as he has great insights into using social network platforms wisely including Twitter.

As this post was inspired by Mr Tweet’s questions we can now come full circle back to his blog and two comments on this subject that he highlighted:

Featured Comment by Heather Rasley

They’re vastly different platforms with vastly different goals. Here’s how I use each:

Facebook: Have been on it since undergrad, and have a large network. It was once more important to me, but now I don’t check in too often and don’t take it seriously.

Sometimes I’ll have wall exchanges with friends, which are almost exclusively based on inside jokes. Status updates are rarely related to anything I’m actually doing. I’ll add someone new when I meet them, if only to feel more “connected.”

Sometimes I’ll send messages to folks I don’t have other contact info for. It’s great for rekindling old/lost connections. I don’t share anything there (or anywhere) that I would be ashamed of.

LinkedIn: Purely professional, and not used often. Very rarely send messages or take part in other social activity, aside from adding new coworkers / associates / friends to my network and replying to any requests sent to me. Any actions I take there are explicitly toward the end of building my professional persona / furthering my career. To me, it feels cold. Interactions there typically aren’t very rich.

Twitter: Used for a blend of personal/social and professional use. I’m highly aware of the public and repostable nature of my tweets.

Content posted varies from where I am at the moment, to work-related links, to tweets about personal projects, to quotes and other links that I personally enjoy. I like it because it’s malleable.

I think people tend to understand that what they’re seeing is a glimpse of me as an entire person. @s and DMs are effective for quick, asynchronous communication between acquaintances.

I’ve met lots of new people in the real world through Twitter (”Oh, you like that, too? Let’s meet.” “Oh, you’re there, too? Let’s meet.”)

Featured Comment By Dean Kakridas

Here is how I currently utlize the ‘Big 3′:

Facebook: ‘rekindling and repurposing the past’.

Primarily used with close friends, family and colleagues I interface or have interfaced with in the physical world.

Twitter: ‘present day by day social stimulus for personal and professional betterment.’

Here, I am actively looking for key inputs to drive my lifestyle design while reciprocating the same with friends and followers.

LinkedIn: ‘all about future interactions with people and parts unknown‘.

This is the shiny and professional looking profile that stays consistent and concrete–hopefully a buoy and beacon for perpetual professional good standing and hope for financial prosperity.

So past, present and future aspects of my life are well served by these three bastions of digital social connectedness.

Although Twitter has been around since March 2006 it has recently erupted in popularity and is covered in the media almost daily. In other words Twitter has become the buzz word du jour and with that comes scorn and derision as well as support. Those that don’t get it dismiss it is a gimmick, and those that do, use it as a very useful business tool.

The social media arena is fast-moving and ever-evolving but the one constant is people. Without people there is no such thing as social media. As the Philippines-based web site Mindanao Examiner points out: …social media today is a pure mess: it has become a collection of countless features, tools, and applications fighting for a piece of the pie. and goes on to say We’re moving away from “users,” “customers,” and “shoppers”: social media is bringing back the human element to all digital interaction. People now deliberately seek meaningful connection, self-expression, and a relevant and receptive community.

That sounds a lot like Twitter to me.

Here’s a few stories I found on Twitter about Twitter in the media on February 21 2009:

Politico – Conversion of a Twitter Skeptic
The Oregonian – Portland Twitter’s the Oscars
Forbes – Travel Portland Creates Nation’s first Twisitor Center
COED Magazine – 406 Bands Who Twitter
Guy Kawasaki – How To Get ReTweeted
San Francisco Examiner – Twitter Helps You Make Friends With Shaq
Idaho Statesman – Visit Idaho Now on Twitter
The Orlando Sentinel – Twitter and NASCAR Go Together Like Kyle Busch and Auto Club Speedway
San Francisco Chronicle – Mayor Gavin Newsom has a Twitter Account

Follow Me:

Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Nemo
Pampelmoose
Social Cache

More essays from Dave Allen – Thoughts On Social Media

By now, you’ve probably heard about Dabagirls.com. Dating A Banker Anonymous is a supposed support group for women who are sharing the pain of their rich Wall Street boyfriends’ job losses. Or, better put, they are mourning the loss of their regular trips to Bergdorf’s. In one article, the writer professes that “This whole messy ordeal has advanced my Botox start date by at least two years.”

If this whole thing seems ridiculous and like a total put-on, Linda Holmes of NPR thinks that’s because it is. She has noted that the women behind Dating A Banker Anonymous (two writers and an attorney) are drumming up publicity (even landing a much publicized article in the NY Times) with a bigger goal in mind like a possible book deal.

What do you think? Is Dating A Banker Anonymous a legit site or a publicity stunt?

Navigating the murky waters of social networking sites and blogs becomes tricky when an avatar morphs into a less than accurate representation of your real life self. You get to decide what you’d like to add, modify and delete.

With your online representation, you’re in control which photos you’d like to upload, who you’d like to friend and which bands and movies to claim as your favorites. In a way, you get to cultivate a persona that may (or may not) mesh with who you really are.

VOYEURISM

In Sharing is Creepy, Nicholas Carr says that “Your online self … is entirely self-created, and because it determines your identity and social standing in an internet community, each decision you make about how you portray yourself…is fraught, subtly or not, with a kind of existential danger.”

Carr claims that there’s an inherent arrogance to sharing so many details of your life with total strangers. In some ways, he says that it has a sadomasochistic quality because the exchange can become similar to that of a celebrity and a fan. And, when you think about it, there are a group of “A-listers” for almost every blogging niche imaginable.

I understand his assertion and we’ve all witnessed blogs where the person posting receives hundreds of positive and praise-filled comments with barely an opposing opinion in sight. At the same time, there are some bloggers that are posting solid content with a genuine interest in creating a balanced, two-way conversation.

GUILT

Another factor that plays prominently in the cultivation of an online persona is guilt. In The Burden of Twitter, Steven Levy says:

Guilty. I feel guilty that I have a blog and haven’t contributed to it for seven months. Guilty that all my pals on Facebook post cool pictures, while the last shots I uploaded were of Fourth of July fireworks—from 2007. Guilty that I haven’t Dugg anything since, well, ever.

It seems odd that one would feel guilt, not out of something they did or didn’t do in real life, but because they didn’t contribute enough to their social networking activities. But, if you blog, tweet or visit multiple social networking sites regularly, there can be a sense of not being connected if you can’t log in to deliver regular doses of content.

Though, Levy’s guilt of not contributing enough can easily flip when he finally does update.

The more I upload the details of my existence, even in the form of random observations and casual location updates, the more I worry about giving away too much. It’s one thing to share intimacies person- to-person. But with a community? Creepy.

He has a valid point. Do we spill these (sometimes overly personal) details to other random strangers that we know in real life? Do you wax poetic about your new shoes to the mailman? Do you tell the person occupying the seat next to you on the bus about your hot date last night? Probably not. So, what compels you to dish out these voyeuristic details online?

WHY SHARE?

It’s human nature to want to share what interests us. At the same time, we enjoy tiny glimpses into the lives of others who may have talents, personalities (or a hot pair of shoes) that we admire.

The bottom line with social networking is that you’re responsible for what you decide to share online. You have the freedom to share as little or as much about yourself as you’d like. As sociologist Duncan Watts notes, “Now everyone is used to the idea that we are connected [through the internet], and that’s not so interesting. If I had to guess why sites like Facebook are so popular, I would say it doesn’t have anything to do with networking at all. It’s voyeurism and exhibitionism.”

Do you feel that your online profiles accurately represents you? Or, are they part of a cultivated persona? Is this a conscious decision that you’ve made?

Seriously, how is this not dreck? Can the folks at Magpie not understand that the minute any of my followers on Twitter spam me with Magpie I will simply unfollow them? Which, on second thoughts, means that I would then have a filtered list of folks to follow who understand that spamming your followers is uncool….

The folks at Magpie may also want to consider the folklore of the winged version, it is not considered a benign bird:

Folklore

In Britain and Ireland, there are a number of superstitions regarding magpies
A single magpie is associated with bad luck
One should make sure to greet magpies when they are encountered in order to either allay bad luck or encourage good luck as related to the number of birds and therefore their place in the Magpie poem. Common greetings include “Hello Mr Magpie” “How is your wife/where is your wife?”, “Good Morning/Evening Sir” and other marks of respect.
Upon seeing a lone magpie one should repeat the words “I defy thee” seven times.
On seeing a lone magpie one should pinch the person they are walking with, if they are alone they are to pinch themselves.
If a lone Magpie is seen, one should salute it to show you respect it. This formality can be forgone if the Magpie looks directly in your eyes, which shows it respects you

Nemo recently completely overhauled the web site for Oregon’s historic Timberline Lodge and Wordpress.org featured the site as a showcase. Go Team Nemo or is that Meat Omen?

Click image to hear Tina Fey spank her internet critics. The critics then spank her back.

Found on Gawker.

The idea of creating a full time position for social media Community Managers is gaining pace. Any executive that is resisting the idea of expanding their company’s brand awareness via social media should take time to read Amber Naslund’s post on landing the Community Manager position at Radian6

“Today, I officially accepted the opportunity to join my long-time client, Radian6, full time as their Director of Community. You’ve heard me say that I’m all about figuring out in nitty-gritty terms how all this social media stuff applies in a business context, and now I’m going to experience that first hand. I was honored that the team at Radian6 thought enough of me that they wanted me as a more permanent part of their team.”

Read the rest of Amber’s post here.

Found on Read Write Web.

Adpulp appears to be the unlucky recipient of a brand jack.

Twitter as a social media phenomenon has many people baffled. It simply doesn’t make sense and that’s mainly because most people who decry it don’t understand its considerable potential. One good place for Twitter neophytes to begin would be with Guy Kawasaki’s blog post, How To Use Twitter As A Tool.

Click image to find out

As a tool Twitter has many uses. For instance, one enterprising young woman used Twitter to get a job – “Looking for a new job, Alexa Scordato didn’t email or call her contacts about possible openings. Instead, she messaged them via the social-networking Web site Twitter.com. Her brief message: “Hey there! Looking for a Social Media job up in Boston. Are you guys doing any entry level hires?” Within a week, she had an interview. Within two weeks, she had a job.” But be careful about what you post [or tweet as they say..] to Twitter.

“I would rather see someone who posts good-quality information than what they had for lunch,” said Lindsay Olson, who uses Twitter to recruit for Paradigm Staffing, a staffing agency that focuses on public relations and marketing.” Read the Wall St Journal story here.

And if you have already embraced PR 2.0 at your company then you can discover and follow media people on Twitter here.

Before you know it you’ll be impressing friends and colleagues by your knowledge of TweetDeck.. Follow me on Twitter to see how I use services such as FriendFeed and Tumblr to make using Twitter even easier.

Red is the new black? Nope – less is the new black

Everywhere one looked recently on the blogosphere, especially social media blogs, the ever-so-informed pundits were banging out their year end lists around mid-December and by today the 2009 predictions/trends/forecasts lists were rapidly turning from a flurry to a blizzard. [US-based bloggers, especially on the East coast, are panicking as the clock ticks down to Midnight.] So I give thanks for two forecast contrarians – Ana Andjelic and Fred Wilson.

Ana Andjelic runs the I Love Marketing blog where she posted ‘The Problem With Forecasts.’ When a post begins like this: “The end of the year is known for releasing “best of” / “worst of” lists, forecasts, & trends that will “shape” the next year. While I heart lists, it’s the trends that I found real dumb. And no, I am not alone in this. Predictions usually go from plain ridiculous to rather obvious and to those that are there for shock value – “blogging is dead”, “podcasting is dead” that no one but Armano really takes seriously.” You know you’re in for a fun read. She’s spot on.

From there I linked to Fred Wilson’s A VC blog where he posted not a forecast list but a wish list of what he’d like to see happen in 2009. Two interesting wishes are 1. a $1.50 gas tax which I agree with and 2. a request of Apple – “I just want Apple to come out with an aggressively priced touch screen mobile computer that can be used to read books, blogs, watch movies, listen to music, and work as a home remote too. This is a huge opportunity for them and others too.”

And by the way, I found both these blogs via Twitter which I have been using more and more as a business tool lately – finding I can’t live without it these days..

So, having written the above I will now throw caution to the wind and present you with a 2009 forecast that is only marginally tongue in cheek. Here’s my baker’s dozen:

Malcolm is thinking about a new book

01. Malcolm Gladwell will publish another book.
02. The New York Times print edition will continue to arrive on my doorstep.
03. It will be cold and wet when I arrive at the Oregon Coast tomorrow.
04. “Feels free” will take a hold. [I've been waiting for this since my time at Intel in 2000.]
05. The CD business will continue to shrink but the music business will grow.
06. Art will be smaller, leaner, cleaner.
07. Consumer products will be simpler – see the Flip.
08. Socially conscious projects such as public housing will thrive under Obama.
09. Blogs will not die.
10. Twitter will see a huge growth spurt and continue to have growing pains.
11. U2’s new album will be as boring as the last 3 or 4 have been but will sell millions.
12. The rich will continue to cut back on their mistresses.
13. And finally, less is the new black.

Got your own 2009 trends, forecasts or wishes list? Post it in the comments section…

Portland electronic duo, Little Hunks

Social Cache is but one window into the world of Nemo HQ. The multi-talented Nemo designer, fashionista and blogger Nubby Twiglet and myself post up to Social Cache as often as time will allow between posting to our respective blogs NubbyTwiglet.com and Pampelmoose. The Nemo blog world also includes StudioNemo and Roger Bridges’ Strange|Beautiful and all these blogs feed the Nemo cultural hopper.

Another spin-off is the Pampelmoose New Music Hour that airs twice a week on 94.7FM KNRK, Portland’s biggest alternative radio station. The show is dedicated to bringing the on-air audience as much of the best new music we can squeeze in to an hour as well as playing as much local Portland music as we can. All the songs are then posted to Pampelmoose and archived for streaming or downloading.

This is the final 2008 Pampelmoose edition of the New Music Hour on Portland’s 94.7FM and it’s time to take stock of all the great music that I’ve been able to play from Portland’s vibrant music scene. I have 14 songs from some of Portland’s finest. They are by no means ranked in any order, nor are they songs necessarily from ‘08 releases, just a selection from many songs that I could have played. The choice was difficult but having room for only 14 bands forced my hand. To those that didn’t make the list be assured that in ‘09 you will be played on the show and maybe the list will be longer next year and I can accommodate more bands…just keep the great music coming.

Hockey – Song Away
Starfucker – Holly
Little Hunks – Came To Party
Lackthereof – The Columbia
Holy Sons – The Feral Kid
Peter Broderick – With The Notes In My Ears
The Mint Chicks – 2010
Red Fang – Reverse Thunder
The Shaky Hands – We Are Young
James Low – American Dream
The Wherewithals – The Point
Bark Hide and Horn – Change It
Loch Lomond – Blue Lead Fence
Microfilm – Fox And His Friends

Stream or download all the previous Pampelmoose 94.7FM shows here.

Wired Magazine’s Paul Boutin recently penned an article claiming that blogs are so 2004 and therefore, totally irrelevant. His argument hinges on the assumption that cut-rate journalists, underground marketing teams and stale corporate blogs have flooded out the authentic and fresh voices that once ruled the blogosphere. There’s no denying that it takes a huge amount of dedication and time to craft amazing content. But, he argues that your time is better spent networking on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

Boutin notes that a quick scroll through Technorati’s Top 100 finds a list of mostly professional blogs resembling magazines that employ a staff of writers. A single blogger just can’t keep up with these massive sites that sometimes produce dozens of posts in a single day.

The web’s 2008 answer to blogging is supposedly Twitter, the new darling of bloggers everywhere. It operates faster than blogs and can be searched immediately for content (there’s no wait for indexing by Google).

I would argue that while Twitter is a powerful micro-blogging device, it works even better when paired up with a traditional blog. Services like Twitterfeed feed direct links from your new blog posts to legions of Twitter followers every hour and can have a serious impact on traffic. Twitter has a purpose, but a limit of 140 characters per tweet can never replace the content or value of full-length articles.

While Boutin has some fantastic points, I would argue that some bloggers genuinely love what they’re doing and enjoy the sense of community their blogs garner. It’s not all about the fame, getting into the Technorati Top 100 list, or even earning a healthy living from ad dollars. If you’re truly passionate about blogging, you’ll stick it out through the rough patches, inconsistent traffic and hecklers. Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, while great for sharing content and networking, just can’t fully replicate the blogging experience.

eMarketer has just confirmed our suspicions with its recent report that social networkers frequent sites like Myspace and Facebook to communicate with each other, not with brands.

More than one half of the U.S. population uses social networking sites, yet massive ad revenues have yet to materialize. Selling ad space on social networking sites was already an uphill battle before the economic downturn, but now it’s getting even more difficult. While 79% of all internet consumers have clicked on an advertisement in the past year, only 57% of those frequenting social networking sites have done so.

Barak Rabinowitz has described the challenge of monetizing social networks as the “elephant in the room” of online advertising. He claims that “It’s 400 million social networkers creating and consuming content, clustering around shared interests and activities—all who have yet to be tapped in any major way by Web marketers.”

With a deepening recession and millions of social networkers avoiding online ads by all means possible, what is the answer? How will these sites continue to remain in business if the ad dollars don’t start flowing?

Here’s a thought… Saturday Night Live viewers surely must consist of a few Becks beer drinkers. Maybe Darius the blogger could take a cue from the show [start by watching it Darius] and notice how successful SNL and NBC have been about getting cool content online really fast…, no blog required, just great, great content. Becks I give you J**z In My Pants from SNL:

Find a way to humanize your brand, use your personality, and take your brand
from good to great. -Guy Kawasaki

Do you envision your blog as a brand? If you do, try embracing the concept of brand personality. To understand what brand personality is, envision your brand as if it were a person. It would have values, beliefs and interests. These attributes are what would make it unique.

Groundbreaking package designer Walter Landor felt that everything you project into the world goes toward creating your brand. Each little piece is of equal importance, equal weight, and has to be appropriate to the audience it is reaching or the message that it is trying to promote.

The energy that you put out on your blog will be directly related to what you receive in return. Since your blog is a brand and you are the central driving force behind developing its personality, it is further defined by every action you take and every post that you create.

THE KEYS TO TURNING YOUR BLOG INTO A SUCCESSFUL BRAND

1. Determine what your goals are. These goals will pull you through the tough times, give you a focus and ultimately, a way to measure your success. Defined goals that can be measured (specific traffic levels, rankings, make it much easier to see if you’re hitting the mark.

2. Find out what your readers want and need. How does your brand fit into their life? The best way to determine your reader’s needs is to ask them. Develop a direct connection between your blog and its readers. Do some old fashioned research, whether it’s through polling, emails or a survey post.

3. Clearly communicate your blog’s personality. This can be facilitated through being trustworthy, relaible, developing a unique slogan and having a memorable blogging voice.

WHY THE PERSONALITY BEHIND YOUR BLOG IS SO IMPORTANT

Marketing has become a mass-produced commodity that lacks authenticity. Our saturation point has been reached and the old rules no longer work. Though used mostly for products and services, branding can also be applied to people. The key to developing an authentic brand is to be true to who you are and to follow your own, unique path. Give some thought to the one thing that makes your brand unique, the one attribute that no one can take away from you. This is where you should focus your energy.

The characteristic that many of the most successful blogs share is that people are following the BLOGGER, not the BLOG. A blog’s theme can be replicated, but the personality behind it cannot. There may been hundreds, if not thousands of blogs in a saturated niche. So ask yourself, why do you repeatedly go back to the same blogs when you can probably get the same information from another site?

As Tom Dorresteijn notes, “The concept of brand personality combines inside-out and outside-in; identity and image. A personality has its roots in the identity but is strongly externally focused. It is not ‘be who your are’. Personality is: Become who you should be.”

DEVELOP A SOLID BRAND IDENTITY

If your blog was a living, breathing person, what adjectives would you use to describe it?

The world belongs to those who stand out, stand up and stand for or against a cause which they can strongly defend, those who can talk crowd and keep their virtues or walk with kings and not lose the common touch – their identity. An independent mind is a frontier of change in the world. -Tayo Korede

Just in case you need further proof that blogging is here to stay, Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 offers some captivating statistics:

1. There are now over 77 million unique visitors frequenting blogs in the U.S. while 77% of active internet users are reading blogs.

2. Bloggers are collectively creating close to one million posts every day.

3. Three out of four U.S. bloggers are college graduates (and overall, U.S. bloggers are more educated and affluent than the general internet population).

4. One in five bloggers are self-employed.

5. Four out of five bloggers are personal bloggers while 12% of bloggers blog in an official capacity for their company.

6. Two-thirds of bloggers openly expose their identities on their blogs, while one-third are concerned about readers learning their true identity (mainly due to safety, job and family related issues).

7. Half of bloggers attend events (e.g., movies, conferences, sporting events) for their blog with one third doing so for free.

8. One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week.

9. More than eight in ten bloggers have a commenting system in place along with archived posts and built-in syndication.

10. 37% of bloggers have been quoted in traditional media based on a blog post.

Canon G10 review – New but not improved from Dave Allen on Vimeo.

Now those of you who know us well at Nemo, and particularly StudioNemo, would surely understand that we take our cameras very very seriously indeed… Well, we have lived with and loved the Canon G9 for some time now. In fact we loved its ability to be a basic blogger’s work horse so much that it became standard issue around the shop. So naturally we were waiting with baited breath for the new, shiny updated G10 model…. uh oh… read on and watch the video, it gets ugly.

From Nemo’s Trevor Graves – “This is the review I have been excited to write for months. I have read the rumors on the blogs about Canon discontinuing the G9 and all the new and improved features for the G10. I pre-order the rig on Amazon and sure enough it’s delivered today October 3rd, 2008. With the excitement of a 10 year old I ripped open the box and unleashed the new toy.

That is where the excitement ended.

Being intimately familiar with the G9 I intuitively reached for the Video function of the G10 as I have heard about the new and improved DIGIC 4 chip and the ability of it to produce HD quality video on an SLR. How exciting to have better video!! Wait, what’s this, small video format and NO TIME LAPSE feature. WTF??? I pay $50 more and Canon drops features that turned me on to the G9 in the first place. WTF!!! I am pissed! Who was the genius at Canon that is living in a bat cave to lose sight of what makes the G9 wonderful in this new world of bloggin! Was the decision maker a frustrated SLR engineer that wanted to get their rocks off on a 14.7 megapixel CCD sensor? Why even have the G10 at all. Other point and shoots are smaller and have a large enough meg for decent prints, the larger SLR have better quality and better everything so why go with this G10 product that has nothing more to offer than less noisy images in low light and a faster processing speed that is negligible to the end user any way. WTF??? The over under dial is handy and more convenient but come on guys, I can tweak that exposure on the back end in photoshop and the G9 over/under function wasn’t that horrible. Shit even the lens cover looks cheaper than the original G9 lens cover. I bet this one scratches the lens in its poor construction too. WTF? You could have at least made that better for $50.”

Well, Canon, seems like there’s some ’splaining to do….

If you run a blog, do you consider yourself a blogger? Or, do you feel like the term is too limiting?

Yesterday, Dave Allen and I got into a discussion about the term blogger (a contraction of the words web and log). Is it still considered cool and relevant? Or, has it lost some of its appeal now that everyone’s doing it (there are currently over 110 million blogs in existence)?

Dave relayed the thought that since many people still don’t know the difference between a blog and a website, the label blogger can be off-putting. Many times, if you ask someone if they read blogs, they’ll reply no. But, after some further quizzing, they’ll admit that they do read blogs. They just didn’t realize what these sites were called.

During the time my site has been live, I’ve always used the term blogger fairly loosely to describe what I do without much thought. My main career is in graphic design; I simply use my blog as a way share my work and thoughts with others. My frequent postings about design, style and marketing could get tricky and convoluted in another format, but a blog with categories and tags makes finding related subject matter a cinch.

TRENDING AWAY FROM BLOGGER

Some folks like Problogger’s Darren Rowse are inching away using the term blogger because it can be too limiting.

Writers can be especially sensitive to being categorized as just bloggers. It’s easy to see why the term can be viewed as downplaying their talent and craft. Though, as Mark Glaser points out, these worlds have started merging over the last few years:

The time-worn debate of Bloggers vs. Journalists has finally run its course. For years, traditional journalists scoffed at bloggers as pajama-wearing screamers, while bloggers have pointed to MSM (mainstream media) as secretly biased and obsolete. While the extremists in this argument have had the stage shouting at each other loudly, what has happened quietly in the background has received less attention: Mainstream media reporters have started blogging in droves, while larger blog operations have hired seasoned reporters and focused on doing traditional journalism.

DOES YOUR TITLE MATTER?

On the other side of the argument, categorizing oneself as a blogger can make the discussion of what you do for a living less taxing. Entrepreneur Kevin Muldoon relays a common experience:

One of the things I have found about working through the web is my inability to correctly give myself a title, ie. a name which explains what I do for a living. Lots of people online seem to be using the term ‘Entrepreneur’ but I really hate it, it’s kinda pompous in my opinion. With blogging taking up most of my time now I am more than happy to use the title ‘Blogger.’

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION

The blogger label is hip and cool now, but where will it be in five years? Will it still have merit? Will using a different term really make a difference in how you’re perceived by your audience?

Blogging will probably always exist in one form or another. It’s not surprising that there are over 175,000 new blogs popping up every day. Blogging is an easy way to connect with a much larger audience while investing very little upfront in the process. And, because of this, the number of blogs will continue to grow, whether a niche is already saturated or not. The appeal of sharing your views with the world and receiving instantaneous feedback (with the prospect of earning a decent income in the process) is highly seductive.

In reality, the people reading your blog probably don’t care what your title is. They are visiting your site regularly because it offers a perceived value. Whether you’re a writer, an information architect, a blogger, a web publisher or a content developer, what really matters is that your readers love what you’re creating.

Scanning Technorati’s Top 100 list, it’s easy to be bowled over by the success some blogs have achieved. But, Royal Pingdom has done some digging and shows us that 11 of the world’s most popular blogs weren’t always so polished. Gizmodo is a prime example:

View the entire history of the 10 others here.

Every year, a social media conference called the Blogworld Expo takes place at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It’s the largest blogging conference in the world and includes more than 50 panels, seminars and keynotes featuring social media’s brightest personalities. Topics range from how to sell more advertising on your blog to taking smart risks with your online personality.

Last weekend, I attended the expo on behalf of Nemo Design and absorbed tons of valuable information. Below, I’ll detail everything you need to know about the convention and why you should consider going next year!

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND A CONFERENCE DEDICATED TO SOCIAL MEDIA?

Blogging has grown into much more than an idle hobby. It’s a way of life and a viable way to make a living. According to Blogworld’s stats:

* Over 12 million American adults maintain blogs (and more than 57 million read them).

* 22 of the world’s 100 most popular websites are blogs.

* There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.

* 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.

* Over 120,000 new blogs are created every day.

MY THREE FAVORITE CLASSES AT THE CONFERENCE: WHAT I LEARNED

1. Beyond Blogging

With social media, marketing is essential. Unfortunately, everyone thinks they can perform marketing tasks well with no training.

Transparency can be difficult for corporations dabbling in social media because as they get larger, they don’t necessarily know who they are any longer. The overall vision (and truthfulness) can get lost in a sea of PR and marketing teams trying to craft a visibly perfect image. Successful bloggers within corporations are authentic, passionate and know what they’re talking about.

2. Taking Smart Risks with Your Online Personality

There’s a difference between pure risk and smart risk online. Smart risk is about having a plan. There are many great things that can come out of showcasing your personality and letting people know who you are. Think about how you want your intentions to play out in the long run and develop a corresponding plan.

A very finite number of negative outcomes can arise when you put yourself out there (on the internet) and most of them can be controlled. In contrast, there’s an infinite number of great possibilities that can happen and they usually outweigh the bad. Examples include job leads, networking and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Remember, it’s up to us as our own personal brand managers to control our image. Be aware, consider the persona you’re projecting and your reactions / responses. The residue can last forever. Figure out what your boundaries are and give some consideration to your personal image before you step out publicly.

3. Opening Keynote

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek and Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park had some really inspiring, basic advice during the keynote.

First of all, it’s important to give fans a brand that’s consistent with what you’ve promised them.

Secondly, you don’t want to fight the battle of competing with everyone else. Don’t be an asshole. You’ll meet everyone on the way down that you met on the way up. Being nice isn’t the same thing as being passive. Being cordial and direct and assertive doesn’t cost you any extra time and pays off.

Timothy advised us to “talk to your readers the way you’d talk to your friends after two drinks.” Cut out the nonsense and show them what they want to hear. Don’t avoid offending people; it comes across as fake.

He also related that It doesn’t matter how many times you’re rejected or how many people don’t get what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s about how many do.

IS THE BLOGWORLD EXPO RIGHT FOR YOU?

If you’re serious about blogging, either as an individual or for the company you’re employed by, Blogworld is for you. With up to seven seminars to choose from a few times each day, there’s a huge variety of topics on varying levels ranging from introductory to professional.

Meeting Steve Pavlina!

Beyond receiving the opportunity to learn everything there is to know about blogging, Blogworld is a fantastic place to network! I was able to meet Timothy Ferriss (totally approachable), Steve Pavlina (he’s hugely inspiring and even showed his raw food stash of snacks to us!), Darren Rowse and I came very close to meeting Guy Kawasaki on a few occasions (next year, perhaps?!)

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

1. The convention hours are early (9 a.m. on average), so unless you’re a ‘morning person,’ staying out all night and partying on convention days is not recommended!

2. The cost ($400.00 for an all-access pass) is only worth it if you stick to a pre-planned, class-packed schedule. If you plan on taking extended breaks to nurse your hangover, don’t bother attending.

3. The food options at the convention center are exorbitant and not very tasty. Plan ahead and bring tons of snacks!

4. Sign up for a Twitter account in advance. It’s the preferred way of communicating at the convention. (See the live Blogworld 08 Twitter feed here).

…

Are any of you planning on attending the Blogworld Expo next year?

I have a friend who is studying journalism at a decent university. Before she started the course and took on the financial burden it would entail she had asked me for my opinion about the value of having a journalism degree versus just diving in and finding a job as a writer. Tricky question.

Here we are in 2008 where ‘citizen journalists‘ abound and they are here to stay as Wikipedia shows. Although getting a good degree is a worthwhile endeavor my gut tells me that my friend should be writing; every day, everywhere. A degree in journalism may no longer be the prerequisite to being gainfully employed.

As more businesses begin to embrace radical transparency (as they should) then new job positions are opening up that do not follow the old tried [tired?] and tested methods of ‘corporate communications.’ In the new world of PR/Communications I suggest that the following list of abilities/talents would be a very large part of the job description. See how you score:

01. Do you have a personal blog or website? [ Yes? - good. 10 points. No? - start one.]
02. Are you an influencer? [Do your peers look to you for advice and insight into how people are snapping up the latest gadgets and are immersing themselves in music, fashion and technology? Do they ask you what your opinion is before they make a decision themselves?] 10 points.
03. Are you a trusted source? [Do people trust your opinions on subjects in your area of expertize? For instance, if you are a devout environmentalist do you think the Toyota Prius is a boon or a bust? Explain.] 10 points.
04. Are you a thought leader? [Do you contribute articles and essays that outline your thinking on subjects that you are well versed in? Do people care?] 10 points.
05. Are you a filter? [Do you carefully distill content, media and messages into relevant posts for your readers?] 10 points.
06. You are, of course, well versed in the art of Google Alerts, right?
[No? deduct 10 points.]
07. You use Twitter, FaceBook, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Flickr, MyVidoop, LinkedIn, Twellow, Ma.gnolia and faithfully follow Daily Candy, BuzzNet, Idolater and Perez Hilton. [Good. Award yourself any number of points.]
08. You understand that a Combine Harvester is not a competitor to Yahoo! Pipes?
09. You understand the function of memes in the cultural sociosphere? [If you can understand the relationship between Richard Dawkins, his writings on natural selection, Darwin and John Gray's thoughts on The Human Animal, award yourself untold amounts of points.]
10. Finally. You understand that there is no reason whatsoever for a company to have a FaceBook Page, yes? [Good.]

Ok, so my points system is lame but hey, if you scored more than 50 points you can now apply for any position that includes the following in the job description – Social Media, PR 2.0, Web Content Editor, Blogger, Web 2.0 Communications Director, Online Evangelist, New Media Communications Director, Online Guru…etc, etc, etc…Or you could follow your heart and get that journalism degree.

Updated to include that Telligent was not acquired. Intel Capital is an investor in the company.
Perhaps this has stepped up the B2B social media game. Intel Capital has increased its investment in the social networking platform company Telligent for $20 million according to reports. This deal will not bring us yet-another-social-network, this one is about helping businesses have the right tools at hand to help their brands with customer relations and marketing. In other words Telligent helps those businesses to own their own message online. The platforms software allows two-way interactions between a company and its customers and clients. Telligent manufactures a product called Community Server, which provides clients with blog, forum, wiki, and other collaborative and social software; those clients include the Associated Press, MySpace, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Visa, Honda, Dell, and the NFL.

As more companies embrace radical transparency and open themselves up to two-way communication with their clients and customers we may see more deals of this kind very soon. The space is becoming competitive.

Pic ©Losanjealous.com

We live in a world of constant updating. News moves swiftly from PDA to mobile phone to laptop to desktop in seconds. We Twitter, we text, we temper our every moment if we are not careful; we modify our immediate world-view for consumption online to passive recipients who make what they will of our digital discourse. Who owns the information that you have set free? Dwell on that a minute as I move on.

Google is your friend for research and your archenemy if you don’t own what Google’s spiders discover as they crawl every nook and cranny of the web. The information that others post about you or your company should reference content that you have delivered, written and posted yourself and preferably be content that can be verified easily from third party sites and other online sources. Own your message, if you don’t someone else will.

Today I received an email from the publicists for the indie rock band, The Airborne Toxic Event [we'll leave the Don Delillo reference aside for now,] which contained an open letter to a ‘music critic,’ Ian Cohen, who works for the indie music fans’ online bible, Pitchfork. In short, in his review of the band’s new album, he eviscerated it as a work of musical plagiarism.

Cohen is of course entitled to his opinion, his purview as a critic demands it. He is a filter and an influencer and he writes for Pitchfork which in turn operates within those same modern parameters; Pitchfork has taken on the mantle of challenging the once-hallowed print journals of music criticism and therefore its responsibility does not end at the node of an ISP. Within that responsibility lies a problem – the print magazines had editors. Editors who once were the filters and influencers, soft blocking and often hard balling writers who turned in weak copy, guiding and counseling writers who had the metaphorical fish on the line and teaching them how to land the story. The internet has swept that aside and Pitchfork has happily built and attached its business to those loose moorings.

Worse still, Pitchfork does not embrace openness – you cannot comment on any of the posts – it’s a good old-fashioned web site, so communication is restricted and readers opinions will never be taken in to consideration.

And that’s why The Toxic Airborne Events’ open letter to the music blogs of the world was a very smart move. They were able to calmly and sensibly challenge Ian Cohen’s review without stooping to the same low levels that his review had reached. They took the high road. They accept his criticism but challenge the presumptions he has formed about the band – “You’re wrong about our intentions, you’re wrong about how this band came together, you don’t seem to get the storytelling or the catharsis or the humor in the songs, and you clearly have some misconceptions about who we are as a band and who we are as people.”

And they don’t hold back as they defend the music scene in Silverlake and Los Feliz that was once much lauded by writers such as Cohen – “….it also seems to have very little to do with us. Much of your piece reads less like a record review and more like a diatribe against a set of ill-considered and borderline offensive preconceptions about Los Angeles. Los Angeles has an extremely vibrant blogging community, Silver Lake is a very close-knit scene of bands. We’re one of them. We cut our teeth at Spaceland and the Echo and have nothing to do with whatever wayward ideas you have about the Sunset Strip. That’s just bad journalism.”

In the face of a negative online story The Airborne Toxic Event did exactly right thing – they responded immediately and intelligently. No Pitchfork swift-boating for them.

Over the last several years, blogging has grown from a casual hobby to a full-blown phenomenon. The Blog World Expo was created to assist and educate the increasing number of bloggers and will be hosted in Las Vegas from September 19th through the 22nd, 2008. This convention is unique in that it is the only industry-wide tradeshow, conference and media event dedicated to blogging and new media. Included in the expo are over 50 seminars and panel discussions that aid bloggers in becoming more prolific and successful within their niches.

According to Blog World’s stats:

* Over 12 million American adults maintain blogs (and more than 57 million read them).

* 22 of the world’s 100 most popular websites are blogs.

* There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.

* 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.

* Over 120,000 new blogs are created every day.

Besides providing a stable platform for individuals and companies to express their views, promote products and connect with the public, blogs are ripe with social networking opportunities. According to Synovate, though more than half of adults in 17 countries don’t know what social networking is, it’s blazing along in the U.S. with an expected participation rate of nealy 45% of internet users by the end of 2008.

Wikipedia claims that “The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers.” Early incarnations of the blog were usually integrated into personal websites and coded by hand. The popularity of blogging quickly spread in the late 90s when hosted blog tools like Open Diary, Live Journal and Blogger began offering free, user-friendly services.

Now, many bloggers use blog software that they have installed on their personal domains since they can more closely control the customization, track stats and monetary opportunities. Popular software options include Wordpress, Moveable Type, Textpattern and Drupal.

The future of blogging is bright: 89% of companies surveyed say that they think blogs will be more important in the next five years. Companies are seeing the potential in running blogs now more than ever before because they give fans and consumers a way to connect directly with the products and services they love. And, individuals are capitalizing on blogging as well. Some are now earning enough advertising and sponsorship dollars to blog full-time.

In only ten years’ time, blogging has revolutionized the way we get our news, network with like-minded individuals, gather product information and share our views. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it…

How has blogging impacted your life?

The feed reader was packed this morning with the buzz about Google’s new open source web browser, Chrome. Or rather the comic book about it, written and drawn by Scott McCloud. From the Google source – The browser will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8, built from scratch by a team in Denmark, and open-sourced as well so other browsers could include it. One aim of V8 was to speed up JavaScript performance in the browser, as it’s such an important component on the web today. Google also say they’re using a “multi-process design” which they say means “a bit more memory up front” but over time also “less memory bloat.” When web pages or plug-ins do use a lot of memory, you can spot them in Chrome’s task manager, “placing blame where blame belongs.”

Found on Twitter via @MarshallK – Link to story on ReadWriteWeb

Chasing the story, chasing the numbers. This presidential campaign season is a tricky time for the TV networks. It seems that the network evening newscasts and network news divisions are struggling to pin down any hard stories. The media pundits are flailing around as the Democratic Convention didn’t go the way they had predicted, [Clinton this, Clinton that, disaffected feminists revolt etc,] and now with Hurricane Gustav hitting the Gulf Coast the Republican Convention has been downsized and all the top journalists and commentators have decamped to the storm zone.

It’s very telling, and yet still amazing, that here we are in 2008 with the networks covering the presidential race while looking longingly over their shoulders at the 2000 race, a time when YouTube had yet to make its mark. They have not been paying attention. The networks are still looking for ratings and are judging their results based on the number of viewers they attract. Yet, as Frank Rich writes in his op-ed article on Sunday, Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum, which monitors the intersection of politics and technology, points out that when networks judge their success by who got the biggest share of the television audience, “they are still counting horses while the world has moved on to counting locomotives.” [Rasej also runs TechPresident, a group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web.] The Web, in its infinite iterations, is eroding all 20th-century media.

On cable, CNN consistently beat ABC, NBC and CBS in the ratings last week according to Nielsen, but as media are being transformed cable news channels may not last much longer either.

it was laughable seeing the networks fall over themselves as they struggled to understand how Obama got to the nomination. Obama’s supporters didn’t have that problem. As Rich says “the Obama campaign has long been on board those digital locomotives.” The Obama campaign has been telling its story online well beneath the radar of the mainstream media. When the networks focused on how many people turned up at Invesco Field to watch and listen to Obama they were counting horses. Meanwhile the real story lies in how many people are following the candidate’s every move online. Obama’s fund-raising and organizational networking online is unknown. That might give the networks another big surprise come November.

And then another fast-moving story breaks. As Hurricane Gustav moves over land and dies down the networks can switch their attention to the Republican VP nominee, Sarah Palin, whose 17 year old daughter is pregnant. That’s one that will have them horse counting.

Here at Nemo, we swear by Wordpress, a state-of-the-art blogging platform that encompasses thousands of free themes and plugins to customize your experience. Wordpress was founded in 2003 and since then, it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging device in the world.

If you decide to use Wordrpess, you’re in great company. Well-known users of the platform include The New York Times, Ford, People Magazine, Delta Airlines, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, BoingBoing and Xerox.

Some benefits of the Wordpress platform:

1. The install is fairly quick and painless. Simply download the newest version of the platform here and follow the detailed install guide.

2. There are over 2,000 free plugins available from the Wordpress site that allow you to customize your experience down to spam filters and comment formats.

3. The admin panel in Wordpress is web-based; as long as you have an internet connection, it’s possible to update from anywhere in the world.

The beauty of Wordpress is that it’s an open source project; hundreds of people around the world are constantly working to make it more efficient and it’s totally free to use. Nearly 200 themes can be viewed directly on the Wordpress site. Additionally, some of the best, most professinal looking themes out there include:

1. Modicus Theme:

2. Futurosity Theme:

3. The Morning After Theme:

4. Overstand Theme:

5. Fontella Theme:

6. Modicus Remix Theme:



Are you a WordPress user? What are some of benefits that you’ve gained from using this platform?