Web 2.0 Maven

No random play... sighs

2008-07-23T13:46:00.004-06:00

I meant to post about this when I read the article... but then forgot until I had a discussion about it last night. Evidently - when you sign up for Facebook - if you admit to being over 30, you aren't given the option to be interested in "random play."

Old person options:

Friendship
Dating
Networking
A relationship

But if you're under 30 you get all those PLUS:

Whatever I can get (for geeks)
Random play (geeks fantasize about girls who check here)

Clearly this is some sort of age discrimination, or else the kids over at Facebook think they are going to grow up and out of their party ways.

I gots some news for you kiddos. Based on what I'm seeing in my advanced age group, you need to add those options back in. Just take a walk around the warehouse district any weekend night. There's a whole lotta "whatever I can get" and "random play" going on. In actual real space. With people over 30. Gasp!

Note: It looks like they are actually yanking that option from everyone now. Don't they know that hooking up is like - the second biggest use of use of the Internet? The sadness.

Don't blame ebay for your cheapitude...

2008-07-16T14:53:00.004-06:00

Don't want to run the risk of buying counterfeit goods?

Buy it at a real store. Not on ebay. Not on craigslist. Not from someone on the street in Chinatown. Want Tiffany earrings? No one every got fake ones at the Tiffany store.

It's pretty easy folks.

Don't blame ebay if you're too cheap to do the right thing. Tiffany should focus on promoting the right outlets and discrediting "suspect ones," instead of bothering ebay about enforcing their brand.

Endless Information via the Internet

2008-07-15T11:37:00.003-06:00

I look at real estate listings from time to time and think... why in the world would they include that picture? And how in the world do people live in messes like that?

This person made a blog about it.

Ewww!

online manual of style? NEVER!

2008-07-08T08:27:00.006-06:00

Disclaimer: I'd like to start of this post by saying that I have both an undergraduate and a graduate degree in English. I've worked for a major publishing house and as the managing editor for a magazine.

What's my point? My point is... I *love* grammar. I love style manuals. These things totally get me going.

Observation/Opinion: The web is not print. Casual online conversations are not formal academic treatises. And even more, in the online realm, content is superior to form. Blogs are conversations.

Situation: I watched a blog flame war yesterday (I refuse to distinguish this fiasco with a link back). The flame war was NOT about the post or the content - but about the blogger's misuse of the term "elude" when he should have used the term "allude." This turned into a tit for tat during which the blogger and the commenter totally dissected each other's comments, posts, and track record as human beings. It was completely ridiculous. The misuse of the word was also kinda funny in the context of the article. :)

Here's what I think. I think that whether we like it or not, the web is loosening up grammar rules. When I write, I hear what I write in my head, and try to map that conversational tone via punctuation, grammar, and overall style (I love me some sentence fragments). To me, it seems friendly - and I'm a very friendly person. I'm also a big fan of not capping things... perhaps because I love ee cummings. Perhaps because caps are associated with shouting. I try not to make careless grammar mistakes, but things happen. And when they do, we should fix them.

But the web isn't print. And it's ok to loosen up. The web is changing the way we communicate: style and all.

UK Says: Social Networking Offers Learning Opportunities

2008-06-30T11:20:00.005-06:00

A government-funded body in the UK just released a report claiming that schools that block access to social networking sites are missing out on a multi-faceted educational opportunity. From better understanding kids and how they use technology, to interacting with them in a comfortable place, to using the innate capabilities of social networking to encourage collaboration and teamwork--there is a lot of good to be had via social networking sites.

The report was done for Childnet International, and funded by Becta, the government body for technology in learning.

"...[I]t's vital that all of us really take the time to understand the way students are using the latest technology, the various features of these new services, and appreciate how these new tools can aid good social interaction and learning," says Says Stephen Carrick-Davies, the chief executive of Childnet International.

I, for one, wholeheartedly agree.

Protecting Ourselves from Ourselves

2008-06-27T09:04:00.003-06:00

There's been some recent talk about how we need more regulation around product placement in TV programs.

Seriously?

Don't we think consumers are savvy enough to understand that product placements are designed to sell more stuff? From the Coke cups on American Idol to the dresses worn by actor and actresses... don't we all know and understand that those are all product placements? Isn't that how TV started in the first place? As one big product placement venue?

Is it just me, or does it often seem like we spend a lot of time regulating in the wrong areas?

Less Social Media in China

2008-06-23T07:18:00.002-06:00

It's both sad and not surprising that China recently shut down 56.com. I saw the writeup in Friday's WSJ, but evidently, the shutdown happened on June 3. 56.com is basically the Chinese YouTube, and like our YouTube, it's extremely popular. According to the WSJ over 77% of internet users in China watched online video last year (and considering there are 225 million internet users in the country, that's a lot of people!).

A December ruling required that companies providing Internet video streaming to be state owned, but authorities say some sites might be given licenses to continue. We know what this means don't we... if they want to continue providing service, they must in either name or in practice, become government run.

This reminds me of the day of the recent earthquake. I was in China, and we had rented a car and driven out to an infrequently visited portion of the wall. We actually paid someone to walk through their back yard and climb up a homemade ladder up onto the wall. There was *no* one up there where we were - far as you could see - in either direction. Pretty neat. Anyway, coming back into the Beijing, crowds of people were standing around outside the office buildings, patiently waiting. We asked several groups of people what was going on. No one knew. We turned on the radio - no news of what was going on. It wasn't until we got back to the hotel and logged onto CNN that we were able to find out about the earthquake. It's completely unimaginable that we wouldn't have access to information like that in the US, but in China, no one really seemed to expect to know what was going on. They just evacuated the buildings, like they were told to do.

I wonder how long this will continue. The old hacker adage "information wants to be free" is really a universal truth. People want to know. That's why, in the lack of knowledge, we speculate and gossip... I don't think you can suppress information or free will, especially as the rest of the world continues to become more open and China so desperately wants to play a big part in global economy (but on it's own terms).

Is the Internets Making Us Stupider?

2008-06-18T05:53:00.006-06:00

Somehow, I recently ended up with a subscription to the Atlantic Monthly. This month, Nicholas Carr wrote an article about the possibility that Google and the Internet in general is making us stupid. His point is generally grounded on the observation that he can't focus enough to read long novels, articles, or whatever, whereas in the past, he could.

I have this problem too.

He has lots of friends who profess to have this problem.

I have lots of friends who profess to have this problem.

He blames the Internet and the ready availability of skimmable information.

"And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

He quotes scientists that back up his observation, and cultural experts such a the playwright Richard Foreman, who recently wrote that we risk "turning into pancake people--spread wide and thin as we connect with the vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button." We had a guy in my MBA class who was the epitome of this, we referred to him as, "oh yes, R is an ocean of information, but only one foot deep."

So, having just graduated and during school being forced to read LONG BORING HUGE BOOKS, I have an opinion on this:

I have felt this happen.

I don't blame the internet.

It's about discipline.

If you feel that skill fading--go get a book. Turn off the tv. Sit down, make yourself focus. Harpers just ran an Ursula Le Guin article that quoted some really dire statistics about how many book Americans read. (Only 56.6% of Americans had read any book). It's not Google making us stupid, it's our own laziness.

Rapport, Dissonance, Experience, and Ecommerce

2008-04-27T07:52:00.003-06:00

In most companies, the people that do outbound marketing - even marketing that drives website traffic - are not the same people that build websites. In fact, it's often two different vendors... with little or no integration whatsoever. Taking this one step further... think in the general sense, about people who build websites and people who create ads. Generally, they aren't the same types of people.

It makes sense then, that customers that respond to the language and feel in certain ads, will not feel the same rapport once they reach your site. Of course, best practices say we should have "integrated marketing," but in this case, I'm referring more to the overall "experience" than just the simple messaging.

Some shoppers love recommendations. Others can't stand them. Some like to see lots of choices and variety, others just want to find what they are looking for, buy it, and be gone. Even more... people are not the same person on every site, and in every shopping experience. They may want to browse on Amazon, but shop and be done on drugstore.com.

So, if your outbound marketing leads users to think you're going to offer one type of experience, but you offer something entirely different... what happens? Dissonance: that's what. The end result is a high number of bounces and nonconversions, frustrated customers, wasted marketing dollars, and lost opportunity for building instant rapport.

What to do? This is what I've seen work: determine the intent of your customers, and align your site accordingly. What did they come to your site to do? And how can you support those tasks? What do they need to make a decision? Whether it be a certain online experiences, certain information, or certain site components: build it. Then, make sure your outbound marketing indicates the "feeling" of the online experience. Better yet, offer various paths for various intent and decision making types.

If we think of our customers as people with various styles rather than clicks on pages, it's a lot easier to understand them.

oh... i love the way you talk to me

2008-04-23T15:40:00.004-06:00

I'm in the market for a new car.

In this process, I've noticed a lot of situations that pertain directly to what I'm doing professionally, that is, behavioral optimization of the online experience.

For example, when I go to buy a car, and the salesperson says, "everyone loves this car... it's a top seller." I find, (borrowing the sage term of Playboy Playmates...) this is a turn off. Note: I drive a large European wagon. I am single and childless. I don't do what other people do.

Ok then. What I do like is, "What kind of car can I show you. Do you have any questions? Let me answer them." The astute saleperson knows I'm not up for any bs... and that I've done my homework. How do they know this?

They know this by the way I act when I get to the dealership.

When a salesperson talks to me like this, it makes me feel all happy inside. It makes me want to spend time with him, and give him large sums of money. It makes me feel rapport.

When people are on your website shopping, you can tell what kind of shopper they are by... wait for it... the way they act when they are on your ~~dealership~~ site.

You want to know more don't you? I know you do. Tune in tomorrow...and I'll tell you what I've seen working lately...

back to blogging

2008-04-19T10:53:00.002-06:00

I'm officially back to blogging today. My MBA is done!

There is much jubilation and celebration to come.

What if online shopping was like real space shopping?

2008-04-18T12:00:00.004-06:00

That prospect sounds delightful. The alternate... is quite revealing...

Viral videos... for your viewing pleasure

Add to Cart
Proceed to Checkout
Foot Lotion

How do we fix it? With a new twist on behavioral optimization... I'd love to hear your feedback...

Another sign the economy is really good

2008-03-26T08:58:00.003-06:00

I'm looking for a UI firm to redo the UI on my first product. Right now, it's pleasing and usable enough, but going forward with this and our other products, I'd like our products to have a unique, company-specific "personality" (most people would call this look and feel) . I call it personality because I want it to be a bit more pervasive and a lot less surface level than simple look and feel. But that's not the point of this post.

So far, I've written 4 firms.

One called me immediately. They totally and absolutely "got it." But, I need more bids before I just blindly go with the first group I talked to.
Another one wrote me back after 2 days and said they'd routed my RFI but they weren't sure if they really did that sort of work, but they'd let me know (doesn't sound promising does it).
Two others - not one peep. Seriously. Not one.

I find it somewhat amazing that companies won't follow up on leads. However, I know that at my last large company, they basically tossed all the leads that came from the web. But small companies... especially companies that deliver web-based products... wouldn't they be interested in talking to a new business prospect?

Apparently not.

Please send recommendations my way... The two that haven't responded are no longer contenders. I will not be ignored!

As bad as they say...

2008-03-12T12:51:00.004-06:00

Despite the comments on the version linked below, the Zuckerberg/Lacy interview is as bad as they say.

This is a better quality version.

The YouTube version is here but not quite as well recorded:

Lacy is clearly at fault... she forgot they are having a keynote, and clearly thinks they are on a first date.

Hair twirling
Posture/body language
Giggles
Inserting herself into the story
Vocabulary/adulation
And when the audience demands Q&A so they can ask some *real* questions, she puts on a petulant face and looks like she's about to cry. Poor thing.

Overall verdict? Painful to watch.

sxsw - so much goodness - so much tiredness!

2008-03-12T10:06:00.005-06:00

For the last few days, I've been attending SXSW. Having spent a while in Dallas and CA, I haven't been to the festival in a few years and well... it's different. Here's a photo from 2003 - the last time I/my company was involved with SXSW. We had a booth, we all attended the conference, and we handed out the web awards. Now they have famous people handing out the awards, the conference is packed, and booths are mostly big companies (not a boutique interactive firm to be found). Yay Austin. Yay SXSW. The parties were excellent, and having a houseful of guests and seeing people from all over the country that we all know and love has been so much fun. As one person said, "it's like a big class reunion," and he's right, it absolutely has that feel. I was talking with some Five Runs folks at their packed event and we all agreed - the social part of social networking is really our favorite.

Posts on actual insight from the conference... coming soon.

Indepent Film Site - My Latest Project is a Go

2008-03-02T07:24:00.003-06:00

And... we're live.

The Jackson Hole Film Festival Contest, brought to you by MovieHatch

We've all very excited to see this project go live and we wish Jackson Hole a ton of success with the contest and the festival.

The Project Management Series

2008-03-02T07:17:00.004-06:00

I stopped writing the PM series... because the project I was writing about came to a standstill. There were internal logistic issues with the client, but those seem to be resolved, the series, like the project will resume. At this point, we (the designer, developer, and myself) are trying to figure out where we left off. From the looks of our basecamp site, it appears we have about 40 hours of dev work to do.

Basecamp is a fantastic thing. If you haven't used it, it's definitely worth a try. It's structured to easily manage Agile projects, and it allows really granular to-do lists, message categories, and generally keeps everything really nice and tidy.

More on that project as we go.

Friends... such a difficult thing

2008-02-20T11:56:00.003-06:00

I've posted a lot in the past about the uncomfortable situation of having to dump a FB or LinkedIn connection. It happens, and it's very uncomfortable.... and so my policy has been not to friend people I don't actually know pretty well. After use-testing - I've broadened that policy to be:

I don't friend people unless I know and like them well enough to want to meet them for coffee.

Just yesterday, someone from my high school sent me a FB friend request. I graduated in a very small class from a very small school. Strangely though, I do not know this person. I searched my brain... but I just don't know him. So I sent him a note asking him if he might help me remember who he was. I feel like that move (not my note) was pretty bitchy.

The online world needs an etiquette manual.

Target didn't really diss bloggers...

2008-02-18T16:09:00.005-06:00

I've had this bookmarked for over a month - planning to blog about it. But I haven't been blogging. I've been working full time, consulting, and doing that pesky MBA. It's a lot. And it's pretty stressy. But it's almost over (not the job part, but the school parts).

So this isn't very timely, but I'm going to blog about it anyway. The link references a post on Consumerist--evidently a nice feminist blogger wrote Target to complain about an anti-woman/offensive billboard. In response, Target told her:

"Good Morning Amy,
Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.

Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day."

This response garnered a lot of bad press for Target - evidently people saw this as Target dismissing the power of bloggers.

I think everyone might have missed the point. At first read, I was going to say Target should know better than to say it doesn't care about nontraditional media outlets... but then when I read it again, I realized that the Target person was was saying they didn't think Amy's concerns or her organization were a very big deal.

So, the lesson here is probably not that Target has an issue with bloggers, but that Target doesn't care what Amy thinks about their ad. The "new internet" is all about honestly. I wonder what Amy would have thought if Target had been bluntly honest. Hmmm.

Twenty Years Ago was a Long Time Ago

2008-01-23T09:19:00.000-06:00

In 1990, Michael Porter, who is evidently a guru for marketing folks (though I'd never heard of him until I started my MBA) - wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled, "The Competitiveness Advantage of Nations." You guessed it, I have to read it for class.

It's amazing how much things have changed in the two decades since it was published, but it gives an interesting window into "the way it was" and the way it is "transitioning to be." In the article, he talks about what makes certain nations global players in an industry, while other nations, try as they might, just can't get in the game. In true Porter style, he has some interesting things to say (if not a very engaging way to say them). His points center around this: competition encourages excellence, and communication between companies, competitors, and the marketplace is paramount to innovation.

Makes sense. Yet, in his day, this relied on geographical proximity.

Here's an example of his thoughts:

"Suppliers and end-users located near each other can take advantage of short lines of communication, quick and constant flow of information, and an ongoing exchange of ideas and innovations."

Clearly, you don't have to be located near each other to experience that benefit anymore. The world is our marketplace. Global feedback can be immediate. Online communities offer a marketers pre-established focus groups - ready and willing to give feedback on ideas.

It's really very exciting.

itunes movies and you know you're a geek when...

2008-01-19T09:02:00.000-06:00

Last night, we tested out itunes movie downloads. It's great. Unlike Amazon Unboxed, it's fast, you can start watching the movie before it's fully downloaded, and the whole process is "Apple elegant." The movie we chose wasn't very good, but we can hardly blame Apple for that (Spiderman 3, avoid it, you have been warned). The comment was made that it is "frustrating" that you can't get new movies until 30 days after their dvd release. Really though, who are we kidding? I am not exactly current with new releases. I'd call that one a nonissue.

And in a slightly off-topic comment... you know you're a geek when... you take unboxing photos of your new light. I got this Le Klint light for my office, and it arrived in an enormous box, with a box inside, and yet... another box inside. The anticipation of lighting goodness was great...

Why Virtual Isn't Always Better

2008-01-17T09:54:00.000-06:00

I've had a goal to move my life online. Not my life... so much.... really... as my data. The idea is to not depend on one machine, but to be able to log in and get to everything I need virtually. "Anything, anywhere, anytime." So, all my project docs are kept online, all my mail is webmail, all my photos are in ofoto, etc.

This seems like a very mobile way to live.

Unless...

I just started a new jobby job and I've been applying that same lifestyle to my work life. As part of new product dev research, we're doing a survey project with a major research firm. That's all I can tell you, as the rest is in SSM (super stealth mode). By doing this survey, somehow, our hosting company decided we were running a phishing opp and cut us off.

It's a big political nightmare. We weren't phishing, of course, but trying to navigate the bureaucracy and get our hosting back is going to take some time. And.. in the meantime... I have lost all my work mail.

Note to self: ~~this is a quick way to clean out my in box~~ this is a pain in the....

Overwhelming Information

2008-01-13T14:47:00.001-06:00

I just saw this on Good Morning Silicon Valley - it's worth a look: zipskinny.com. Just put in your zip and see what's going on, census-wise, in your hood.

I found out that in my zip, there is not a single person involved in Farming and Forestry. We don't have any Native Americans either. We're mostly a white (75%), middle-aged hood. Almost half (44%) of people in the zip have a college degree and 45% of them have been in the same house for 5+ years. All the data is from the 2000 census.

I also found out that everyone living in Achilles, VA is below the poverty line and that everyone in a zip in Columbia, SC is married. There's just endless info for your researching pleasure.

Off Topic: My MBA Course Has No Ethics

2008-01-13T07:54:00.000-06:00

It's back to school time for me. And that means, posts about school for you!

This semester (which is our final one) we have a course entitled "Business Law and Ethics." However, yesterday our prof told us that we would have only one class in which we talked about ethics, but he didn't think that "ethics is a thing that can be taught" so we wouldn't go into it in depth.

I'm still really troubled that this program thinks like that. If you can't teach ethics, then how will people learn? If you can't teach ethics, why do so many top-tier business schools make it a core course? And finally, if you don't even make an effort, are you contributing to the problem?

I think so, yes. I think that just by *saying* that you can't teach ethics, and glossing over it like my prof did yesterday, it trivializes the topic. Ethics are an ENORMOUS issue in today's business environment... I don't even need to cite examples, we all know of dozens.

People just don't spend time thinking about where they stand and what they will do when presented with a sticky problem. Nor do they have a safe place (like an academic setting) to discuss scenarios and implications.

I keep thinking about that guy in my class and his famous line, "If it's legal, it must be ethical."
Leaving ethics out of our course is a real disservice to us, and our business world. And that's what I think about that.

Mmmm Mashups

2008-01-09T10:52:00.000-06:00

I found this yesterday - rottenneighbor.com. I love the concept, but the site is new and in beta - so there's not much content yet. Nonetheless, it's just a great idea for a mashup.

The site merges Google Earth and tags about good or bad neighbors in your area. You can search on locations to see what's up with the neighbors in your prospective new hood.

Love it. I am fine with my present neighbors, but I could have written a book about the axe-wielding homicidal maniac that lived next to me in the loft I bought a couple years ago. Scarrrryyyy!