Online Communities

Facebook Takes on Google Reader: Who Said RSS is Dead?

On February 1, 2010, In New, By Tac Anderson

I’ve been playing around with Facebook. Both how to promote brands on Facebook as well as how users consume content within the walled garden (hint: there’s a direct correlation between the two).

As blogs and media networks extend their reach using Facebook Pages, I noticed something interesting:

Facebook can be used as an RSS reader.

Most people don’t use the groups feature enough but it’s just like using Twitter lists, except you can’t share them. I’ve set up one just for the blogs I follow on Facebook.

It’s like a more graphical version of Google Reader with the shared and comments view shown in the collapsed mode.From here users can like or comment on any post or click through to the expanded “notes” view.

Facebook is a growing source of news for most people. While the geeks among us may still prefer RSS or Twitter your average user will follow a fan page before they subscribe to an RSS feed. I’ve written about a study showing that Facebook members use the social network as a growing source of tech news.

(BTW, feel free to join the New Comm Biz Facebook Page.)

Over on the Facebook blog, Malorie Lucich, has a post about how she’s seeing the rise of Facebook as a news source Creating Your Personalized News Channel.

When the earthquake hit Haiti, victims in the area, news affiliates and people around the world used Facebook to learn what was happening, connect with loved ones and quickly disseminate information. ABCNews.com and France 24 added Facebook live stream boxes to their sites to enable people to share their feelings on the disaster and relief efforts, and publish it back to their Facebook status. Meanwhile, The New York Times created a special Facebook Page dedicated to Haiti coverage, resources and updates from their reporters on the ground.

Malorie then recommends building a group of just the news sources you follow to clear the clutter. The next step in Facebook’s twitterfication will be to make these lists shareable. Facebook could also further this adoption by mimicking Twitter’s now dead, Suggested User List and have a recommended group that people could follow or even recommended groups by category. Companies would pay millions for that kind of reach.

As this kind of use on Facebook grows your Facebook fan numbers could easily eclipse your RSS subscriber numbers. This also poses an interesting challenge for publishers hiding their content behind pay wall or a unique partnership opportunity, depending on how they approach it.

Update: Marshall Kirkpatrick just posted a very similar post on ReadWriteWeb:

Facebook Could Become World’s Leading News Reader (Sorry Google)

Services like MyYahoo and iGoogle saw some traction and many readers here may have a Google Reader account, but dedicated RSS (really simple syndication) feed reading services have never lived up to their potential to become a mainstream phenomenon. These days many people say they just wait until links get shared on Twitter and they never use a feed reader at all. Late last week Facebook threw its hat in the ring and called on users to use its service as a news feed reader. There are a number of reasons why Facebook could be the strongest online subscription option yet.

Join the New Comm Biz Facebook Page or follow the Twitter account.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Social Media [Insert Made Up Buzzwords Here]

On September 30, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

How to really talk about (social media marketing) books you haven't read.

Why do we have buzzwords? What service do they fill? Why do so many people complain about them?

Every sub-culture and every movement needs it’s own language. It doesn’t matter if it’s an art movement, a political party or a fortune 100 company. Having a unique language creates a sense of community and servers as a way to keep others out.

This is actually a very important part of community development. We may complain about it but it’s necessary.

Over the last five or so years the community fought and complained about these buzzwords. That was a natural part of community forming. The language and the terms were being developed to fit how the community saw the space. But today we’re seeing a new kind of problem arise.

The problem is that as we continue to enter the main stream, early majority,Â mass market phase of social media other people start to adopt the terminology. People with little understanding of the terms or meaning want to appear as memebers of this community. Yes I’m speaking of the ever popular, self proclaimed “social media expert.”

This is probably the most hated entity to the community. Other communities use terms like “poser,” “faker,” or “wannabe.” Social media is not the only community to experience this. Remember “wiggers,” white people trying to “act black”? Any subculture that moves into the main stream experiences this.

So what do you do about it? You can get really really mad about it. You can continue to change the language. We’ve already gone from New Media to Web 2.0 to Social Media. Or you can accept that it’s going to happen. Ignore the posers and continue to work for the common goals that bring a community together.

Too often we get so wrapped up in keeping our little community unique and different that we forget that the common goals that brought us together were to spark broader change and that in order for that change to happen our little community would no longer stay little or unique.

Imagine for a minute if the Founding Fathers had stayed a small group and complained when other “posers” started having their own tea parties.

I’m Thinking. (altitudebranding.com)
Where is the Soul in your Social Media? (nettiehartsock.com)
3 things I loved & watched lose their soul: Punk Rock, Skateboarding & Blogging (newcommbiz.com)
The Next Big Thing is… (newcommbiz.com)
Conversations vs Sharing. Where’s the Value? (newcommbiz.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Buzzword • Linguistics • Online Communities • Social Sciences

How to use Posterous for Internal Collaboration

On July 30, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

: Image via CrunchBase

Working in a cross functional team I meet with a lot of teams to share advice, tips and tricks. I then frequently get follow up questions (because I openly invite them). Last night I received one and wanted to share an edited and more detailed version of the email exchange Q&A with you because I think it would be helpful.

Not too long ago I would have recommended setting up a Ning site or a Google Group or even a private Blogger account but Posterous is just so much more simple to use, especially for people who live in their Outlook inbox. Now we just need an enterprise version of Posterous.

Q – Iâ€™m looking for ways to connect micro groups within the agency on social networking platforms such as former interns whoâ€™ve grown through the agency, remote employees, etc. It is for conversations that need to remain limited just to a particular group (like an alias if your thinking email terms) and not exposed publicly for all to see. What do you recommend? I worry somewhat about folks having to go to another app outside of Outlook for discussions such as this, but thereâ€™s a need to tap into some digital exploration here.

A – As long as you’re not talking about confidential information you can have your cake and eat it too.

Posterous lets you have blog type functionality with the ease of email. If you have not tried Posterous yet send an email RIGHT NOW to post@posterous.com. I’ll wait.

Now that you’re set up in Posterous, log in w/ the info they send you and you can set up groups, you can also set it up privately. You can post comments by replying to posts (which show up as emails) and you can share attachments like video, picture, audio and documents which Posterous will embed in the post. You can also set up multiple Posterous accounts. My account is www.tacanderson.com plus I have 2 others.

If that doesn’t work for what you need let me know. FriendFeed also has some similar features but its geekier and not as easy to use for the average person.

Q – This is perfect! So one question is â€“ sometimes we share best practices, which is a little bit exposing and we may not want all account teams to see. Could someone view in?

A – As long as you set it to private no one that is not invited can see it or post to it. If they are invited they have access to see, post and comment.

***But remember just like Yammer or any other social network this is not “secure” so you can’t share confidential or restricted info.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Posterous – What’s it all about? (digital-constructions.com)
Ten Tips to Get the Most Out of Posterous (maketecheasier.com)
Expanding Posterous as a Workflow Tool (newcommbiz.com)
FriendFeed and Posterous Redefine Content Management Systems (newcommbiz.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Collaboration • Facebook • FriendFeed • Online Communities • Posterous • Twitter • Yammer

My Top 10 MVT – Most Valuable Tweeple

On January 7, 2009, In New, By Tac Anderson

This is a really hard list to narrow down. Really really hard to narrow down. How can I possibly pick a top 10? That’s not even 1/100 of the people I follow. Basically the formula I used was a combo of the people who’s tweets I RT (re-tweet) andÂ favorite the most, people that send interesting updates or links and in general the people that have added the most value to my Twitter experience.

Some of these people will probably be familiar to you but many of them might not be so obvious. There is no particular order or ranking to this list I just added people as I came across them in my friends list.

chasnote http://chasnote.com

If you are interested in the advertising industry Chas is a must follow. He doesn’t Twitter a ton but all of his tweets are content rich. I also love following his blog where he chronicles Federated Media’s client work. Besides that he’s just a cool guy.

Name chasnote
Web http://chasnote.com
Bio Chas Edwards is publisher and CRO at Federated Media.

steverubel http://www.micropersuasion.com/

Steve Rubel probably doesn’t need an intro. He isn’t a heavy Twitter user compared to some. He is very purposeful about what he shares on Twitter, he won’t waste your time.

Name Steve Rubel
Location New York
Web http://www.microp…

nipper http://inventblog.com

Steve Nipper is a local IP/Patent attorney here in Boise and probably the geekiest lawyer I know. He’s also very quiet about the work that he’s done for some of the biggest names in blogging (Guy, Robert, Shel). While he regularly shares lawyer related links, better than half of his links are about cool hacks/tips/tricks that any geek would find interesting.

Name Stephen M. Nipper
Location Boise, ID
Web http://inventblog…
Bio Patent/Trademark Prestidigitator — dad, husband, attorney, blogger, g33k, etc.

jowyang http://web-strategist.com/blog

I thought about not including Jeremiah because he’s not using Twitter right now (at least not in the traditional sense). As an analyst he’s experimenting with how to use Twitter w/out really using it. But Jeremiah did give me my first break by early on in my HP career tweeting out for anyone interested in corporate social media to follow me. I got about 200 new users in about 12 hours.

Name Jeremiah
Location Silicon Valley
Web http://web-strate…
Bio Currently employed as Senior Analyst, Social Computing, Forrester Research | How I use Twitter http://tinyurl.com/24lv65

Ross http://ross.typepad.com/

Ross is probably one of the smartest guys I know. He’s almost intimidating, but he’s such a nice and open guy it works out. Always has very insightful tweets and shares great content. If you ever get a chance to attend an unconference he’s hosting it will be better than the actual conference.

Name Ross
Location iPhone: 37.443207,-122.161346
Web http://ross.typep…
Bio Ross Mayfield, Chairman & Co-founder of Socialtext. Social Software, marketing and other stuff

m3mo http://bombasto.wordpress.com/

Most of you are probably wondering who Memo is. To be honest I’ve never met the guy or spoken with him besides on Twitter, even though he’s a librarian here at Boise State. But he’s like the uber librarian, he usually answers my most obscure research questions within minutes with great content.

Name Memo Cordova
Location Boise, ID
Web http://bombasto.w…
Bio Academic librarian. Foosball god.

hundreddollar http://www.bigpaperblog.com/

I’ve been following Carolynn for a while. She has a private Twitter stream so you’ll have to ask nicely. Carolynn is also in the VC space. I’ve followed her as she’s moved from Eastern Idaho to Utah, to Seattle to Portland constantly championing the small startup.

Name Carolynn Duncan
Location Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake C
Web http://www.bigpap…
Bio Geeks, tech, startups, angel investing and VC.

ryanwoodings http://www.metageek.net/

I’m a business marketing guy with a severe interest in technology, Ryan’s a technologist with a severe interest in business and marketing. We also both drive Mazda 3’s, weird. Next to Ross he’s probably the other smartest guy on my list. I’ve loved following the growth of his company MetaGeek. I also had to put him on the list because it’s his turn to buy sushi next.

Name Ryan Woodings
Location Boise, ID
Web http://www.metage…
Bio Geek, runner, biker, and founder of MetaGeek

jessflynn http://idahopublicrelations.wordpress.com/

Jess is an absolute rockstar, she just doesn’t know it yet (or she hides it with humility very well). She’s a total news junkie, winner of an Emmy from her news room days and a founding partner of RedSky PR, she’s a loaded rocket waiting for ignition.

Name jessflynn
Location Boise, ID
Web http://idahopubli…
Bio Storyteller – Journalist turned PR flack / Agency owner trying to find my way

JenHarris09 http://CaffeinatedMarketing.Wordpress.com

Jen is a fireball. She has taken to social media over the last few years like a dingo to a baby. She was doing social media at MPC Computers, publicly blogged and tweeted her job search and runs social media for Tsheets. All with 3 little kids (the youngest two are twins). There’s a reason her blog is called Caffeinated Marketing.

Name Jennifer Harris
Location Boise, Idaho
Web http://tsheets.com
Bio Mom of 3, Wife of 1, Work for TSheets as the Social Media Sales & Marketing gal. Blog @ http://CaffeinatedMarketing.Wordpress.com Love life, can’t complain

Popularity: 5% [?]

Tagged with: Online Communities • Social network • Twitter

Treating your best users like your worst. [Twitter]

On August 12, 2008, In New, By Tac Anderson

Twitter has imposed a new follow limit on it’s users. You only get to follow 2,000 people. Most of you may be thinking, “Seriously? Who wants to follow 2,000 people anyway?” How realistic is it follow 2,000 people? That’s just too much noise right?

Not as noisy as you might think

As of today I currently follow 1,059 people? How is that possible? Obviously I don’t directly engage with every comment my Twitter friends make. I don’t have to. Not every tweet is meant to be engaged with (I would argue most of them aren’t).

And as more brands start using Twitter to engage with their customers many of them are going to need to be able to follow everyone that follows them, even if that number exceeds 2,000.

I use tools

TweetDeck let’s me track Tweets by groups. All Tweets are on the far right. All my Boise friends are in the next column and replies (tweets containing @tacanderson) are in the next column. So really following a whole grip of people isn’t as hard as one might think.

The algorithm did it

So while I don’t have a problem with Twitter limiting the amount of people you follow I have a problem with the way it was implemented. Steve O’Hear has a post about Twitter using an algorithm to limit the number of followers.

The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be much algo behind their rithm. Spammers follow a lot of people for the exposure but don’t get many (if any) people following them back. It doens’t seem to me like it would be very hard to build into this “algorithm” a follow to following ratio.

The result is that Twitter ends up treating their most valuable users, their hubs, (see previous post on scale-free networks) exactly like they treat their worst users, the spammers.

It seems like there’s a marketing lesson in there somewhere

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Steve O’Hear, TweetDeck,

Popularity: 16% [?]

Tagged with: Online Communities • Social Networks • Twitter

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