New Comm Biz

And why it will stay there.

The simple answer is, network effect. Yes, I am stating the overly obvious answer that Twitter is surviving because of it’s network. But not just any network, the fact that Twitter, like the rest of the Web is a scale-free network, is saving it.

For background on this episode of drama, Marco and Louis have some excelent posts about the most recent Twitter drama.

In the book Linked: the New Science of Networks by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi he points out that scale-free networks can survive a full scale assault because the connections are shared across so many hubs.

Where scale-free networks fall apart is when a handful of key hubs fail.

When the entire west coast went dark back in 1996, it was because a few key hubs went out and the other hubs were not able to support it.

No matter how hard Twitter tries they have been unable to unseat Scoble, Arrington, Calacanis, Owyang and others. If the hubs (these and others) would really leave and not just talk about it, their networks would leave with them.

Basically no matter how many of us *average* people leave, Twitter will stay #1.

FriendFeed saved Twitter

Despite all the talk about FriendFeed killing Twitter it actually saved it.

Because FriendFeed is not actually a replacement for Twitter but instead supplements it, when Twitter has issues the hubs go over to FriendFeed (everyone else actually gets some work done) and when Twitter’s up everyone finds their way back.

If FriendFeed hadn’t come along when it had and a handful of the Silicon Valley A listers had really left for Pownce or Plurk, Twitter would have been the next Friendster.

Why Twitters Problems are probably helping it?

I think one of the reasons Twitter is still doing as well as it is is because of it’s problems. It gives everyone something to post about. It keeps things interesting. It’s like the crazy girlfriend. You like being with her because she’s hot but you really love telling your friends the crazy stories.

Marco has an updated post about this last topic.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, FriendFeed, A List, Louis Gray, Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, Jeremiah Owyang, Marco Nunez,

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I think it’s well established that I geek out about weird things when it comes to content/communication on the Web. So I hope you’ll bear with me while I yet again show my geeky side.

For those of you not familiar with URL shorteners; A URL shortener is a servive that takes really long URL’s and turns them into much shorter URL’s, making it easier to share a URL without it getting broken.

TinyURL is the first URL shortener I was familiar with. With the rise of microblogging services like Twitter, which limits your posts to 140 characters, URL shorteners have seen a tremendous up take in use.

bit.ly is the most recent URL shortener to hit the market and has packed some tremendous innovation into its service. For a full report check out Read/Write Web’s glowing review.

Example: When I want to share a blog post from my HP blog, which, like many corporate websites has insanely long URL’s, I can either try and send this URL
http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/marketing/archive
/2008/07/22/farewell-vince-hp-s-1-blogger.aspx

Or I can use bit.ly and share this URL http://bit.ly/2I0DwA.

Among the many cool features with bit.ly is the ability fo you to see how many people are clicking the link and where they are comming from. bit.ly is also supposed to generate a thumbnail of the site but that doesn’t seem to be working at the moment.

As you can see from this photo, most people clicked on the link in Twitter, which is where I shared the link. The link was also accessed via Twiiter app betwittered and URL tracking site twitturly. The link then flowed on to my FriendFeed page where another peson accessed it and then went onto Facebook via the FriendFeed app I have on my Facebook profile where yet another person accessed it. There are also about 16 people that clicked the link that bit.ly couldn’t track.

To me this is fascinating (like I said, I’m a geek about this stuff). bit.ly is a free service and only stores the last 15 links you shortened. I would gladly pay for a premium service that stored more URL’s and gave me a time line for when people clicked.

I can’t wait to see what other features bit.ly comes out with.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, bit.ly, FriendFeed, Facebook,

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• Social Media is about being Tactically Strategic » Conversations Matter: Bridging the Social Media Gap

  This is my most recent post on Conversations Matter. I firmly believe that there is a lack of marketing people (especially at large companies) that are Tactically Strategic. There are many people who are one or the other and I think this leads to the social media failures we see.

  tags: social media, conversions matter, marketing, strategy, NCB

• Farewell Vince, HP’s #1 blogger - Marketing Impressions

  Here’s my most recent post on Marketing Impressions. Wishing Vince farewell and sharing some of my insights in helping to build HP’s most succesful blog.

  tags: HP, LaserJet, blogs, marketing, NCB

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• Upgrading WordPress « WordPress Codex

  OK well I think I’m going to finally take the plunge and update all of my sites. I’ll start with my neglected.. er, less active HyperBored site and then if I don’t screw that up I’ll update TechBoise and NewCommbiz. So if the site has issues you’ll know why. Of course if the sites down you won’t see this anyway, so, whatever.

  tags: wordpress, upgrade, tutorial, blog, howto, codex, NCB, HyperBored, techboise

• Blackberry is Not Microsoft (Sorry Apple) - ReadWriteWeb

  In all fairness to Microsoft, You can’t compare Windows XP or Vista to Windows Mobile. I’ve been using the BlackJack 2 with Windows Mobiloe 6 and haven’t missed by Blackberry once. In fact I’ve enjoyed the fact that many Mobile 2.0 services like Qik and BrightKite work on my BlackJack while my BlackBerry friends are SOL.

  tags: readwriteweb, NCB, mobile, iPhone, Blackberry, WindowsMobile

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In my last post I mentioned that there were several reasons I was going to be posting to this blog a little less. Here’s one big reason:

Back in February I launched the Marketing Impressions blog at HP. The blog started off being focused on tips and tricks to help the average Small and Medium Business (SMB) market themselves. The blog was off to a decent start and then a series of events have left the blog dormant.

First we migrated to a new platform, which halted any posting during the down time. The migration was much needed though. We were using a 3 year old, unsupported .NET platform. The new Community Server platform is much more friendly for the bloggers and the readers.

Then there were some re-orgs at work that ended with me moving from LaserJet, where I was largely focused on our SMB initiatives, to our Global Enterprise Business, now called Worldwide Sales & Services (WWSS), where we are focused on enterprise accounts.

So after approx two months of silence I have relaunched the Marketing Impressions blog with a focus on covering various marketing and social media activities going on at HP. This was a topic I covered to some extent here but for some reason it never felt natural to devote too much time to that here. I summed up my thoughts this way:

This isn’t something I’m doing as part of my roles at HP, it’s something that I feel passionate about. It’s something people have asked me to do on my personal blog but I didn’t always feel comfortable doing. Not because of anything I might say but because I kind of felt I was robbing HP of an opportunity to engage with their customers about their brand on their home turf. That may sound weird but it’s the best way I could articulate it.

So, while I may be posting less here, I won’t really be posting less. I hope you’ll grab the RSS feed and not be shy about commenting over there as well.

Technorati Tags: HP, Marketing Impressions, blogging, marketing,

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I haven’t been as active on this blog lately for a lot of reasons and it may get even quieter for a while.

I’ve been blogging a lot on my locally focused tech blog, TechBoise.
I’ve still been relatively active on Twitter, FriendFeed and BrightKite.

But mostly I’ve been thinking.

There’s a lot of noise out there and it’s growing exponentially. (BTW, I believe that’s a good thing.)

Unfortunately most of the noise in my world (Marketing/Web 2.0) sounds the same. It’s just repackaged versions of the same ideas from 4 years ago.

I turn 36 this month and while it’s not a huge milestone it has me thinking.

I made a choice 4 years ago to pursue new media wholeheartedly and I have never regretted that decision. It was the best professional decision I’ve ever made. I only wonder where this road will lead me next?

I think the time for talk is over. I’m tired of talk. I find myself getting bored (not overwhelmed) with all the noise.

The shift has happened and while everyone else is sitting around
wondering what that shift is or what it means, the competitive
advantages are already being taken advantage of.

If you’re still sitting around talking about it someone’s eating your lunch and you don’t even know it.

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If only I could recreate corporate email. <sigh>

What you’re are seeing here is TweetDeck overlaying my Outlook. I only use Outlook at work because I have to. I love the simple fact that TweetDeck let’s me divide Twitter into groups. I’ve organized this by my local friends and everyone else. TweetDeck automatically separates replies and direct messages.

If you could send files through Twitter much like you can through Pownce and have group chat functionality, I fail to see any reason why a Twitter *like* client wouldn’t work for corporate email.

This of course doesn’t handle calendering or contacts but it’s not hard to see how Web 2.0 could replace our current corporate communications tools.

And I won’t go into it here but my mind is spinning with additional benefits around knowledge sharing and cross silo collaboration.

Technorati Tags: E 2.0, Twitter, email, TweetDeck, Pownce, Social Networks, Collaboration, Knowledge Management,

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• Colbert Bump - Firefox 3 Proves its Existence < Blog of Metrics

  Rethinking PR

  tags: colbert, FireFox3, PR, NCB

• Social Media: Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane)

  This is such an important topic and the problem isn’t going away, it’s only going to get worse.

  tags: sane, lifehacker, socialmedia, rubel, NCB

• Data Walled Gardens for Agencies | Balihoo Kennel - Advertising Media Insiders

  I could see this being valuable even inside large corporations

  tags: balihoo, agencies, media buying, NCB

• List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008

  I’m often asked which companies have one of the two emerging roles, (companies love to benchmark against their peers) so I’ve decided to start a list, not only to back my research, but also for those wanting to show to their companies “hey this is starting to happen for real”.

  tags: socialmedia, enterprise, jeremiah owyang, NCB

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I first met Andy Sernovitz at a WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) event many years ago. He instantly struck me as a genuinely nice guy. I’ve continued to follow his blog, read his book and in general stalked kept track of him over the last few years.

When I found out that he was coming to Boise back in April, I had to pull together a blogger lunch. We had a great lunch and we all walked away having learned from the Word of Mouth (WOM) master.

What makes Andy a WOM master? Well for one, he wrote a book but more importantly he embodies all the principles he teaches.

• At the lunch Andy gave away several copies of his book.
• He gave away bookmarks, business cards and fun little “I love my job” buttons.
• He shot a video on his camera at the lunch that he later posted on his YouTube account.
• I learned about his YouTube account from his out of office email response. (He never misses a WOM opportunity.)
• Weeks later I got a package from him of the best popcorn I’ve ever had from Dale and Thomas Popcorn.
• Dale and Thomas’ motto is “Share Some.” Which made me wonder if they read Andy’s book.

The amazing thing is that Andy does all of this effortlessly. This isn’t something he tries to do. This isn’t something that he goes out of his way to plan.

In my opinion that’s the kind of consistency that companies need to strive for.

Here’s your chance!

Andy is hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar. Usually he only does private training for companies at a very large price, so this is a rare chance for 50 people to get the best introduction to word of mouth that there is.

We’ve arranged for a $250 discount for our clients. Use code “welovehewlettpackard” when you register.

This is a very practical, hands-on course. In one intense day, you will:

• Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
• Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
• Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received — for a fraction of what they paid
• Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
• Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)
• Learn from Andy Sernovitz, the guy who literally wrote the book on word of mouth marketing

Andy promises you will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute, affordable, and provides measurable results within 60 days.

More information: http://events.gaspedal.com

Technorati Tags: WOM,Word of Mouth,Andy Sernovitz

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I don’t usually talk about my religious view here on this blog. But in this situation I find it particularly relevant to the usual discussion here.

I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saint also referred to as lDS or the Mormons.

In this months Church publication, The Ensign, one of our Church leaders, M Russell Ballard, talks about how members of the Church should be using new media.

There are conversations going on about the Church constantly. Those conversations will continue whether or not we choose to participate in them. But we cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the Church teaches. While some conversations have audiences in the thousands or even millions, most are much, much smaller. But all conversations have an impact on those who participate in them. Perceptions of the Church are established one conversation at a time.

He even goes on to talk about how members should conduct themselves.

There is no need to argue or contend with others regarding our beliefs. There is no need to become defensive or belligerent.

I wish more organizations and companies would take this wide open approach. Don’t try and staff up to respond to all the blogs, forums, micro-blogs etc. Instead empower your current employees/members to go out engage with the world.

The Church has always been really good about using new media. Their News Room has been RSS enabled for the past two years. They even have their own branded YouTube channel.

Louis Gray has a few posts talking about the Churches use of online video, here and here.

Technorati Tags: LDS,Mormon,new media,YouTube

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