Category: Web 2.0/Social Media

By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , ,

This is a company that is confident in its product and comfortable with social media. Go to https://skittles.com/ and you’ll see (Gasp!) the results page for a Twitter search on “skittles,” in real time.

The “real” nav bar is a window superimposed over the Twitter page

Especially remarkable considering that the product is much-dissed in literature as a quick sugar high that too often substitutes for real nutrition (going all the way back at least to a Doonesbury strip that has Mike asking incredulously, “Skittles is your DINNER?”–must be 15 years ago). And one post that’s visible on my screen as I write this is about “skittlefisting.” Abig BRAVO to them on the transparency front!

I can’t remember another example of a major corporation saying to the world, “we’re not going to control or filter what you learn about us on our own website, we’ll leave it to the randomness of the world.” The only control the site is exercising is demanding to know the age of a viewer and acknowledgment that the company isn’t responsible for the messages.

For people who’ve never used Twitter, it must be really weird. But then again, among the demographic Skittles most appeals to, Twitter use is probably very widespread.

How did I find out about this? I saw a Twitter post from my friend Patrick Byers over at the Responsible Marketing Blog. There’s apparently a whole #skittles thread running at Twitter (the hashtag allows people to search easily for topics).

Speaking of transparency, why did I put # at the beginning of my headline? My blog feeds automatically into Twitter (and from there to Facebook). So by putting the # at the front of this post’s title, I expect that this post will be on Twitter’s homepage briefly this morning, until it gets knocked down out of sight. As a grassroots marketer, I want my 15 minutes of fame. 🙂

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with

Fascinating. Paul Smith demonstrated a real-world example of how to use Twitter for powerful real-time research–in product development, marketing, or journalism.

He posed a question on behalf of a client who wanted to launch a Green product that would be made in China, and how that would be received by consumers–and posted several responses at the above link.

I’ve used Twitter to drive traffic to a survey, but this kind of direct and immediate feedback may be even better–because it’s much more human, not to mention faster. Who knew a year ago that Twitter could be used for market research?

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, media-general, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , ,

Four years FedEx took over the Kinko’s copy and office services company, the Kinko brand was dropped entirely in 2008; those services are now grouped under FedEx Office.

When Marketing Sherpa interviewed FedEx’s Director of Global Brand Management, Gayle Christensen, she outlined eight steps the company took to smooth the transition in the public eye and retain/acquire market share. (Note: Sherpa’s content goes behind a barrier, for purchase, after a few days. “Norman,” referred to in the quote, is Eric Norman, of the marketing strategy firm Sametz Blackstone Associates,)

What caught my eye was “Step #6. Set up interviews with bloggers”:

High-profile people (e.g., new chief executives) should do interviews with bloggers, trade publications, and other media outlets to address weak speculations and preclude skepticism, says Norman. “You have to engage folks who are writing about you,” he says. “If you are not engaged, you concede the control of the message to them.”

Find out who’s talking about the merger on social media outlets, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or niche online forums and blogs. Search for the merging companies’ names or set up an email alert, such as Google Alerts, for the company and brand names.

Make a point to comment on blogs or social media sites talking about the merger, especially if something is false.

I’m fascinated that setting up interviews with bloggers warrants a main headline, while traditional media is mentioned but glossed over in the paragraph. It shows how far we’ve come that bloggers are considered opinion molders, while traditional journalists are barely noticed. This is a growing trend, I think, and it has many implications for how we (as a society) deliver and digest news.

I’m a big believer in citizen journalism, including the blogosphere (I’ve blogged since 2004, after all), and participate actively in social media.

Still, I question the decision to pretty much ignore the mainstream press. There’s also a place for the trained and skilled journalist, who knows how to ask deep questions, has a really strong BS detector, and understands the importance of telling a story that encompasses multiple points of view. I, for one, am not ready to give that up just yet.

But I also note that for many years, some “mainstream” journalism outlets have had a very clear point of view, and have thrown objectivity out the window. While in recent years we’ve seen this very dramatically with, for instance, the strong right-wing bias of Fox News or the somewhat less strong liberal tilt of NBC, even during the golden news decade of the 1970s, there were news outlets such as New Hampshire’s Manchester Union-Leader that were unabashedly partisan and sharply opinionated.

With huge budget cutbacks, bean counters making policy decisions, and corporate ownership sometimes casting a pall over the selection of stories and the decisions about how much resources to use in pursuing them, the future of professional news gathering looks a bit shaky from here. I hope it pulls out in the clutch. It’s an important perspective, despite its flaws, and we’d be poorer for losing it.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Customer Service as Marketing, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with

Just yesterday, I blogged about the massive user outcry over Facebook’s new Terms of Use. Last night, CNet reported that the social networking giant had retreated.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the controversy, saying, “we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”

And better still, this time the process will be collaborative–which is especially appropriate, given that Facebook exists because of content its users create:

If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms, you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created—Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input.

I think I’ll sign up for that group!

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with ,

Facebook’s recently adopted Terms of Use are attracting harsh attention in the online world.

Ownership; Proprietary Rights

Except for User Content and Applications/Connect Sites, all materials, content and trademarks on the Facebook Service are the property of Facebook and/or its licensors and are protected by all relevant IP laws and other proprietary rights

OK, no problem so far; user content remains the property of those posting it, and Facebook quite correctly maintains its rights to its own intellectual property. But then a little later, the kicker. An apparent transfer of rights to Facebook, to use your content any way it wants, with no compensation to you.

Licenses

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.
(snip)
Submissions

You acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback or other information that you provide to Facebook (“Submissions”), are non-confidential and non-proprietary. Facebook will be entitled to the unrestricted use of any such Submission for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to you.

Say, what? By my reading, this not only gives Facebook the right to sell our content without even telling us, let alone cutting us in on the revenues, but also could be interpreted–it’s a stretch, but lawyers exist as an industry because of these sorts of stretches–as allowing the company the right to use any content that includes a please-link-back utility that includes Facebook.

Writing in The Consumerist, Chris Walters says this means “anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.”

As Amazon, Google, and other content platforms have claimed in the past, Facebook responds that it’s just claiming the rights necessary to operate the service:

We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload. The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site. That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc…), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend).

Quoted in the Chicago Tribune, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put it this way:

We wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want,” Zuckerberg said. “The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.

Still, like those other platforms, this response seems thin and inadequate. Surely a lawyer could easily create language that fully protects Facebook while at the same time making it completely unambiguous that user-posted content belongs to its creators, who are merely providing Facebook the right to display and link to it. Without sublicensing, monetary or other compensation, or other seizure of rights the company doesn’t need.

Meanwhile, I’m not a lawyer (and this is not legal advice), but here’s my gift to the Internet community. I freely grant anyone the right to use or modify the following paragraph (which will be posted to Facebook, since my blog automatically feeds into Facebook notes):

I hereby note that I was not presented with the option to sign or decline Facebook’s February 4, 2009 Terms of Use revision, and that while I allow Facebook to display my content on any page where I post it or on any page where another Facebook user links to it, I do not transfer ownership of my intellectual property, nor do I agree to allow Facebook to relicense or reprint my content outside these uses without my approval. I am willing to negotiate licensing and revenue-sharing agreements with Facebook, but I explicitly do not grant blanket permission.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics: General, Publishing, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , ,

Someone on a social network forum posted a really great article. The only problem was, it looked like the poster hadn’t gotten permission.

As entrepreneurs, we need to be careful to respect the intellectual property rights of other entrepreneurs, and that includes writers, photographers, etc. It is often not difficult to get reprint permission (I have over 1000 reprinted articles on https://www.frugalmarketing.com and https://www.frugalfun.com, and I have permission for every single one. To simply place a whole article and not get permission or give credit to the source, is an act of theft. If you published a book, you wouldn’t want someone taking your hard work and publishing their own edition.

I’m sure the person who posted was not acting out of malice but of ignorance. Many people don’t think of reprinting an article as stealing, just like they don’t think throwing a toxic cigarette butt on the ground is littering. It’s totally appropriate to quote the first paragraph or two, mention some key points in the article (in your own words), and post a link–or to go get permission from the author.

Let’s not do things that come back to haunt us.

Note: I have posted a whole bunch of articles about business ethics on my ethics site, PrincipledProfit–and yes, I have permission for all of those as well. I’ve also written an award-winning book on success through business ethics: Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Web 2.0/Social Media

Apparently, paying $2,715 a month rent for a two-bedroom apartment doesn’t even come with the slightest bitching privileges.

That’s what Katy and David Griffiths paid to live in a luxury apartment owned by Rockrose Development Corporation. But they were asked to leave, the lease not renewed–apparently because they tried to ask some pretty basic questions in a public forum, like why they were being assessed $600 per year to pay for a gym that wasn’t yet open. When David Griffiths’ post on that topic was refused by the building’s Internet forum administrator, he started a Google group for tenants; he suspects the company was monitoring.

The company claims he was one of only about 10 problem tenants out of 6000 units it controls around the city–but the action created a climate of fear. One tenant is quoted as saying,

Another tenant has circulated a petition asking Rockrose to keep the gym open later. It closes at 10 p.m., too early for some tenants, who pay a mandatory $600 annual amenities fee.

But she is unsure whether to deliver the petition. “I’m scared,” she said. “What if I need to renew?”

Ironically, the building was supposedly set up to encourage community. But this heavy-handed action makes you wonder.

Hmmm, almost sounds like Facebook.

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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , , ,

If you’re under 35 and you watch the video of Steve Jobs introducing the first Macintosh, in January 1984, you might wonder: what’s with all the cheering, it doesn’t do much. But it was revolutionary for its time.

Before that, you talked to computers by typing arcane commands. Text was displayed all in one font, and if you were lucky, the font had descenders (the stalks on the g, p, and q actually went below the bottom of the other letters)–so you could even read it. If you weren’t lucky, it was a squiggly mess. My first laptop was like that (a Radio Shack Model 100, which I bought in 1986). Graphics? You want graphics? They were sooo primitive, and not easy for the casual user to generate. To do that detailed MacPaint picture of a Japanese woman that Jobs shows on an early IBM PC or an Apple II would have been pretty much impossible.

The Mac, from day 1, allowed multiple fonts, bold and italic (and other less useful effects) with a simple click, included a graphics program that anyone could use, and even had sound.

I had one of those early Macs: my first computer, which I bought in April, 1984. It had 124K (not meg, and certainly not gig) of RAM, 64K of ROM, and a single 400K floppy drive. The startup disk included the operating system, a word processor, paint program, and a bit of room for data files. There was no hard drive, and backing up those data files was a major PITA involving multiple disk swaps. Oh yes, and a 9-inch monochrome monitor; color Macs didn’t come along for quite a while. I bought a second floppy drive for $400, and about a year later, a 20 MB hard drive for $700. Now you can get several gigabytes on a thumb drive and pay $40.

And before personal computers, computing was reserved for the specially trained, who talked to their machines by laboriously keypunching a line of code at a time, starting over if they made an error. Processors were in a central location, and you used a terminal to talk to them–a terminal with almost no computing power of its own.

So first, PCs swung the culture away from those centralized computers, to having power on your own desk. But then the Internet reversed the trend. Once again, a lot of our processing is done someplace else. Which means everyone’s personal comptuers have access to enormous resources: the world’s knowledge available in seconds.

And the Internet as a commerce platform means we can shop, pay bills, raise and contribute funds for causes, manage databases far away from the comfort of our own home, or from any far-flung corner of the world

And among the many other things the Internet changed is our definition of community. We’ve completely separated community from geography.

For social change and environmental justice activists, the possibilities are enormous. Especially considering we’re probably at the Model T stage. The Internet as a commercial venture is only 13 years old; the Mac, 25 years old; personal computing, about 30 years old. The practical gas-powered automobile was created in 1886; Ford introduced the Model T (not his first car, by the way; he had at least three earlier models, starting in 1903) 22 years later. Just as no one could have predicted the enormous impact the automobile has had on society, so, no one can predict just how far the Internet will stretch.

Building on the Howard Dean campaign of 2004 (the first to make a serious attempt at harnessing the Internet), Obama’s presidential campaign was greatly helped by his use not only of e-mail and the Web, but of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. And by groups like MoveOn and True Majority, that were able to organize their members to support and fund the campaign, while focusing attention on a progressive agenda.

And of course, the countless blogs, e-zines, websites, and radio programs on the Net, from around the world, are an easy alternative to mainstream corporate-owned media that can no longer tightly control the news–at least not for those willing to be a bit adventurous with their web searches. That, too, is revolutionary.

The future promises to be quite exciting.

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By Posted on Posted in Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with

I had to miss the first Western Massachusetts Tweetup since I joined Twitter a few months ago, because we’re in the middle of a serious blizzard and I live several miles from town on winding, hilly country roads.

And this was a bummer–I was very much looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new online-only friends.

What do I like about Twitter?

I am amazed by the powerful networking on Twitter, and the great resources people constantly post. I’ve also gotten a speaking gig and a serious client nibble, plus continue to build my own brand identity and interest in the book I’m writing. Plus it’s a great source for free advice. After just a few months, I have 509 followers, including some pretty heavy people in the Internet world.

I also love the way spamming is basically impossible. If your page is full of junk, I either won’t follow you in the first place or will unfollow you.

In short, of all the social media where I participate, Twitter has rapidly become my favorite. The way to get followers is to post really cogent content and great links, retweet a lot, and do a lot of @ replies (include context). And the followers will come to you.

You’re welcome to follow me on twitter–I’m at https://twitter.com/shelhorowitz. I promise I’ll visit your page (though maybe not right away) and if I like what you have there and find it relevant, I’ll follow back.

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By Posted on Posted in media-general, Web 2.0/Social Media

Anita Bruzzese’s post on what bloggers can learn from traditional journalists is must-reading for anyone in the social media space. As someone who has done journalism, PR, and blogging (among other kinds of writing), I agree with at least 90 percent of her column.

I especially liked her section on rewriting:

When I wrote my second book, I spent three months writing it and three months editing it. I put on five different hats when I read the copy: 1) as writer I made sure the copy flowed easily; 2) as a reporter, I made sure the copy included solid facts and sources; 3) as a copyeditor, I made sure I used proper grammar, correct spelling and looked for ways to tighten the copy so that it was concise; 4) as a workplace/career journalist, I made sure I was giving people information they wouldn’t find elsewhere; and 5) as a reader, I made sure that even if I knew nothing about the subject, it was still clear. (By the way, don’t try and put on all these hats at once. You’ll lose focus and get confused.)

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