It has been a little over a year since I moved to New York(yikes!) and I am excited to head back to San Francisco in a few weeks for a concert that just makes sense. Outside Lands. A 3 day music and arts festival in Golden Gate Park.
The kicker to all of this is my company, Federated Media, will be hosting CrowdFire at the event. John Battelle has a great ode to the whole creation and concept of CrowdFire and how in many respects it is interwoven into the core of our business at FM. Embracing the digital world and it’s platform through the celebration of music at a very special park in San Francisco has a lot of people very excited.
Can’t wait to get some Bay Area activities in me after 12 months on the Alley Side; while using CrowdFire to connect with a whole bunch of folks at and around the event.
Noted: Big congrats to Stacey Foreman, Jonathan Schreiber, Jared Katzman, Matt Jessell, and the rest of the team for taking the concept and creating the event and site in such a short period of time.
Battelle’s post on GData vs. ComScore made me think about how we could potentially really start measuring audiences online.
The data aggregate potential from Google is amazing and also dangerous. It is one thing to favor forecasting the size of an audience based on running Google AdSense javascript, as ComScore claims they are doing, it is another to tweak SERPs based on this javascript. Both of these practices Google denies doing and for good reason. Imagine the down funnel targeting Google could do with SERPs and then also owning the ad inventory on the organic result the user clicks on. I’ve worked with enough big publishers to know of their reliance on Google to aggregate audiences via search; if they thought that running Google javascript could help their search results and maybe even make them more money, they would do it.
The question Battelle posts of what is Google exacltly using to measure uniques could probably best be seen in this patent filing. Patents are generally more transparent than the FAQ’s on a product page. The patent is a little technical for my blood, but my guess is they use unique IPs from searh data, javascript from analyics/adsense, and opt-in tracking. Why would Google network sites show a slant? The chances are high the site runs both analytics and adsense. Again, my best guess.
In thinking about how Google and ComScore are trying to solve a problem as big as measuring the webs flow of information, it got me thinking of who would really be the best at this while also not having the conflicts of interest like a Google. I also wouldn’t say that only Google is the only one conflicted here, ComScore is as well.
My thoughts; what if the browsers got together and agreed to share reader behavior to an open third party system that could provide aggregated data on all the world’s traffic. Let’s call it a coalition and it would be similar to any other open protocol movement. The coalition could also work with websites(who are by their very nature incentivized to get analytics right) to help push their supported browsers over un-supported browsers, similar to the spread firefox movement.
Sampling an audience made sense with older computing technologies, but it doesn’t translate well with the web. The browser, or even the not so friendly ISP level, with a third party open system is one way this could get fixed.
Stay in touch here.
The output from the community is awesome to see.
I have been signed up at Barack Obama for some time but today was the first time I really looked into the site of the person I am hoping will win the presidency. I came away very impressed by the layout of the site, the ability to connect with others, and the overall level of community integration on the My Obama platform. The amount of media on this site is incredible. Main blog, State Blogs, personal blogs, etc. To the tune of over 1.5 million pages indexed within Google.
Here are some of my notes and thoughts as I clicked around.
The clean layout and big text easily allows you to take the necessary steps to action:
Living in New York it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for me to campaign in a state that will swing to the Democrats. The site knows this and immediately suggests that I campaign in Pennsylvania. It goes so far to set up my phone bank and arrange a car pool to PA on a weekend of my choice.
Obama V. McCain
- McCain’s site is impressive as well but it lacks the clean look and sense of engaged community that Barack’s site has. In talking about Barack’s domain pages of over 1.5 million; in comparison, McCain only has a little over 40,000
- Part of that domain page gap can explain the huge traffic lead Obama has over McCain.
- Search is a closer race, but Obama is still winning in the database of intentions. Given the buzz, it makes sense that Barack would win this race as well.
- Google Insight shows us that Obama has international appeal. In the McCain view he hardly has the international appeal that Obama does. (Side note: so cool to see the search traffic from numerous countries within Africa.)
- Rising searches for McCain show the interest in Palin.
- Notice no mention of Biden in Obama related searches. Clinton is there, pointing to the strong need for her in the home stretch.
It would be so cool if the Obama or McCain campaign published their site analytics. I would really like to see how they are optimizing their site for social media and where they are seeing most of their referral traffic coming from. With Obama, they have a Share button on all their posts that include Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Newsvine and StumbleUpon. With Digg, for example, JohnMcCain.com has two homepage Digg Stories. Barack has 32.
There is so much buzz online over these two candidates it will be interesting to watch and see if winning the web strategy will also translate into winning the general election.
CrowdFire, Social Ad Summit, MIXX, Laws of Social Distribution.
A lot of cool things happening,
- As a follow up to CrowdFire/Outside Lands, here is a video by BoingBoing TV that really captures that energy and vision of the event. Next stop, Bonnaroo…….
- Yesterday, I was able to speak at the Social Ad Summit, big congrats to Nick O’Neil for putting on an awesome event. David Berkowitz of 360i somehow captured almost the entire event on his blog. Here are his notes from the panel I was on. One takeway from the event is that application providers and analytics companies are still really focused on Direct Response and Facebook. Social has a huge brand play and a Brand’s Platform is still the key for most marketers, not Facebook’s platform. Facebook is a means to that end, but not the beginning and the end. Seth Goldstein of Social Media made some really good points about essentially trading our publishing brands/applications like pork bellies and we are all to willing to chase DR down the rat hole that has biggest rat waiting for you, Google. I’m paraphrasing here, but I think that is what he is saying, and I agree with him.
- MIXX is next week and we are up for an award around our work with American Express OPEN Forum. If posts like this are any indication, I think we’ve built an experience that is worthy of winning. Regardless, it is an honor just to be recognized.
- Finally, I’m finishing up Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody. One key takeaway is his laws of social distribution and how they apply to multiple forms of building community, from Wikipedia to the creation of an A-List in the blogosphere. I’ve been thinking about ways these laws also apply to larger realm of Social Media and how they can be used to explain Amplification and Brand Equity, namely Search Equity for any platform that you want to build out. More to come on this and we are launching a Conversational Marketing Toolbox here soon that should also visualize and quantify some of what I am talking about.
One Funnel, From Prospect to Customer.
You captured them, they loved your $300,000,000 campaign. In fact, they loved it so much they went to Google to move down your funnel from prospect to customer……
And you didn’t buy the adword “I’m a PC” and now the first Organic result let’s people go to the exact platform(Apple) that you are trying to attack and push people away from.
First example, Google Search: I’m a PC (not so bad, Windows brand site is the second organic result.)
Second example, Google Search: Im a PC (no ownership of the organic results)
Note: The dominate sites in this first page of Google results(outside of the apple.com and windows.com sites) are all blogs or platforms of user generated content(Gizmodo, Apple Insider, SlashDot, Engadget, YouTube, etc.). Google rewards conversations and more and more of a “Brand’s Brand” can be defined by what people say about you online.
I’m picking on Microsoft because they have captured a lot of buzz with their new campaign. My point is Brands are segmenting their funnels, when it really should be one funnel from prospect to customer and their messaging should reflect that in all mediums.
Value is in the uncopyable; Media wants to be liquid.
This is a great slide from Kevin Kelly’s TED presentation.
What does this mean about traditional online advertising?
Should be good for all web companies. I believe this is true, but I don’t think all web companies believe in it. Via Noah, I was pointed to this piece by Umar Haque, entitled, How to Chrome Your Industry. His article puts Method, to what most people think of as Madness, in Google’s overall strategy. In all of Google’s strategy you can see the concept that, “What is good for the web, is good for Google” and Chrome is the latest such project. To Umair’s point, he asks, why are more companies not taking up the same philosophy?
Chrome is a shared resource that ensures the sustainable growth of a larger ecosystem. There are two key words in that sentence. The first is shared. Google is investing in a shared resource because it has the potential to expand the pie dramatically for all, and so Google stands to benefit more than by hoarding it. The second is sustainable growth: through Chrome, Google ensures the ecosystem stays a level playing field, amplifying incentives for innovation, quality, and productivity.
The question from above and this quote exemplify the feeling I walked away with after reading Clay Shirky’s latest book. A few excerpts from that book really struck me, especially in the current climate of our economy and the changing face of many industries. A fundamental flaw we live with in most of our institutions can be seen in this exerpt from page 248 of the book.
The cost of trying things is where Coasean Theory about transaction costs and power law distributions of participation intersect. Institutions exist because they lower transaction costs, relative to what a market could support. However, because every institution requires some formal structure to remain coherent, and because this formal structure itself requires resources, there are a considerable number of potentially valuable actions that no institution can afford to undertake. For these cations the resources invested in trying them will often costs more than the outcome. This in turn means that there are many actions that might pay off but won’t be tried, even for innovative firms, because their eventual success is not predictable enough.
Might pay off but won’t be tried, is a tough one to swallow, and speaks to Umair’s point that:
Rethinking and rebuilding business in a radically better mold is the fundamental challenge today’s boardrooms face. It is what the 21st century demands. Because as a confluence of crises tells us, tired, rusting, obsolete industrial era business as usual cannot go on.
Umair asks: Where is the Chrome in your Strategy?
At FM, one of the original reasons I joined, outside of seeing a major market shift as media and technology continued to collide; was that I funadamentally believed the time had to come to support independent publishing brands online. I wanted to help the dying industries like newspapers and to that effect, journalism. Can it be done? From Clay’s book, the “lump of labor fallacy” speaks to how, in our case, the web, can help break the traditional models while also, and this is important, creating more value than originally existed.
I still see the day when FM “officially” builds it’s own Media Lab, and we help fund innovation that will get us to a place where, “what is good for the web, is good for FM.” Our soon to be released “Toolbox” is a good example of this, in many respects it is a,shared resource that ensures the sustainable growth of a larger ecosystem, as we help define value for web projects that are built with publishing brands and marketers.
I’m rambling a bit here and creating run-on sentences to boot. What do you think, does your company have a Chrome Strategy? Is there a need for one?
I’ve been beating the Facebook Connect drum since it was announced. I even had the opportunity to speak my thoughts on it a bit at the Social Ad Summit on the Alternative Social Advertising Models panel and last week at our CM Summit around Social Media Optimization. Facebook or any social network only gets really interesting when it is open, searchable, and extensible.
Giving that intro, it was awesome for me when I saw Nick O’Neil writing about Scott Rafer’s presentation in Berlin around the Facebook Platform.
In the presentation Scott talks about the death of the Facebook Platform and the “intial” opportunity of Facebook Connect as the place where developers should be focusing their time. I say “intial” because I think Scott is concerned about Facebook having and using the same sort of power over Connect, as they have over their developer platform. A fair assesment, but this time the rules are different given the tradeoff for Facebook with Connect. Now, Facebook has the opportunity to “spread” its code base outside of their network and they also have competition, Google’s OpenSocial/FriendConnect. In my opinion, both of these companies are competing for the Social answer in advertising to what was Google AdSense for Publishers. The winner of this battle should reap the rewards of billions of dollars spent against Social Advertising in the coming years.
The general lesson to think about with the recent platform bust on Facebook is for all developers to not forget about the real opportunity, distribution platform, code base, and community. That is the overall openness of the web. Swallowing the Facebook Juice doesn’t prepare you for the larger offering of all the services of the web. Facebook Connect and Google OpenSocial/FriendConnect offer a way to “connect” the ecosystem of their social graphs while also maintaining your presence in your own ecosystem and code base. Both of these brands get the fundamental long term importance of being open and it Scott’s important message to developers to follow the lead of the big boys.
Barack Obama
I’ve covered this one a bit, but it continues to be great. Now there is news that he is going to take fireside chats to YouTube. Awesome.Nikon D90
It’s by far the best camera I have ever owned. I’m a novice with DSLRs and my hands tend to shake a lot but I’m impressed with how easy it is to use and how good the photos are.
Google Analytics & Google Trends
Neither of them are new, but I find myself using them more and more each day. Great companies make great products.
Yammer
We are using it internally at FM. It’s cool, the collective nature of a simple messaging tool allows for a clean way for people to share thought streams and ask questions. In a smaller company you have a lot of people that are talented in many areas that are far beyond the scope of what they are hired for. Tools like Yammer allows for this to come out.
An iPhone Case
I don’t have one of these but I’m going on my third iPhone. Maybe I should buy one? Steve Jobs: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” I argued the case conflicts with the design and therefore interrupts how it should naturally work. Well, it doesn’t work at all when the screen is shattered.
#hashtag/meme movements
I’m excited about services like Twitter and their ability to capture the spirit of the moment in a very lightweight, extensible way. Hopefully more to come here.
cooliris
Formerly, Piclens, cooliris is just cool. If you have a PC hooked up to your TV it’s even better(larger screen). A fun piece of software to weave your way through a more liquid and media-rich web experience.
I think the biggest issue they are going to have to overcome is how safe consumers feel in entrusting all their passwords to one company. Which begs the question, is it safe?
The application for the iPhone and even the browser is the best solution I have found for managing so many of the toughest accounts to log into. ConEd, TimeWarner, AT&T, etc. It also gives you a snapshot into your balances.
Some photos of the iPhone UI from Lifehacker
For travel it is a great way to look up your itinerary for a flight or hotel check-in without having to crack open the laptop or remember reservation numbers.
The Remixed World
Via Oren, a drawing from Hugh MacLeod on the importance of APIs.
So many exciting, rich applications coming online based on new architectures and platforms. There is a gold rush of potential on platforms like The iPhone, Facebook, Android, OpenSocial, etc. Developers have opportunities that could make them millions, while also offering a meritocracy around their work that keeps them independent and not engineer #1B465D at Oracle or some other software legacy company.
The problem? There are big gatekeepers looking to create an exclusive club, take profits, steal IP, and leverage their scale to crush anything that is competitive. Feels very similar to four years ago when, if you were an independent site looking to create a revenue model, you didn’t have a lot of choices. Ad networks paid $0.10 CPMs and affiliate partners were not interested in valuing your audience for anything else than a CPA transaction.
Who is going to create a model that looks out for the interests of developers?
Refresh.