Tag - mistakes

Wishing is not a valid strategy

October 26, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Whoda thunk it? Apparently wishing is not a valid business strategy.

My friend Mike Wagner at Own Your Brand just posted a delightful little baseball parable. Here’s the moral:

Stretching your organization by aiming high is admirable – even desirable. However, it must be done in a truthful and realistic way which is supported by actionable plans.

So, when asked for next year’s sales projections, just remember: Wishing is not a business strategy.

The applications are many, and they go way beyond sales projections:

  • Projects – completing
  • Committments – fulfilling
  • Promises – keeping
[tags] mike wagner, wishing, business, strategy, john koetsier [/tags]

I am not Judge Glenda Hatchett

October 18, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Just to clarify matters, I am not black, female, a lawyer, a judge, an American, a celebrity, a TV personality, or a big-bucks keynote speaker.

Other than that, Judge Glenda Hatchett and I have a ton in common. In fact, we might as well be the same person. To many, apparently, we are.

(If you’re wondering why I’m posting this odd denial, please see the comments on this post published earlier in the year.)

[tags] glenda hatchett, john koetsier, mistakes [/tags]

Techmeme: because no-one actually searches anymore

October 17, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Am I a newbie Techmeme user who just doesn’t grok it, or is it truly crazy that Techmeme does not have a search function?

I mean, I get the Archives thing, but I find it a little cumbersome to be switching out dates manually, typing in when I think the story I’m looking for might have been on the front page. It’s a little archaic, frankly.

When I know exactly what story I’m looking for, and I have two or three keywords that I can search on to find it … why should I have to manipulate Techmeme space and Techmeme time just to find what I want?

That’s what computers are for. That’s what search is for.

…
…

See also: Scoble’s recent Techmeme comparison, Steve Rubel on Techmeme and language, Read/Write Web on Techmeme vs. TailRank, Frank Gruber on how TailRank is competing with Techmeme, speculation about a Techmeme blacklist, and a review of Techmeme’s well-regarded new ad format.

[tags] techmeme, search, usability, john koetsier [/tags]

Edelman, Wal-Mart, Steve Rubel: head, meet sand

October 15, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Update Oct. 16. Edelman has finally broke the silence: Steve Rubel’s post; Richard Edelman’s post. No word on what exactly went wrong, or why the “process” that Steve talks about took over a week. More later …

It’s been almost a week. The blogosphere is talking about Edelman, Wal-Mart, and the fake blog. I added my three cents a few days ago.

In short, we’ve been waiting, listening, and watching for the explanation. Or the mea culpa. But none has been forthcoming.

Steve, you need to speak up
I hate to put this all on Steve, but sorry, you’re the best-known highly-placed Edelman blogger. And it’s not like you haven’t posted recently.

Your blog’s about page identifies that you are Edelman’s thought leader on social media:

Rubel is charged with helping Edelman identify, test, incubate and champion new forms of communications that get people talking across new platforms and channels.

Well guess what – no one needs leadership when everything is fine. Leadership is required when the smelly stuff hits the fan. And yes, right now it is hitting the fan – hard.

Yeah, it is conversational media
Steve, your blog also claims that you are “widely viewed as an expert on conversational marketing.” I think most people in the blogosphere would agree wth that assessment.

But what happens to the conversation when one participant doesn’t speak?

When that happens, there is no conversation. There’s no communication. And you have no chance to even influence or affect the thoughts and actions of your potential clients, your potential allies, your potential listeners.

We’re making it up as we go along
Just because you’re not talking doesn’t mean we won’t talk. And if you won’t tell us your side of the story, it won’t be told. This is strikingly similar to the Marshall Manson incident, which raised questions about Edelman, Wal-Mart, and proper disclosure of interest.

In response to that incident, Richard Edelman said the following:

Let me get the disclosure out of the way. Edelman is the PR firm working with bloggers as part of a Wal-Mart corporate image campaign. Edelman is transparent about its relationship with Wal-Mart in our communications to bloggers. It’s clear who we represent.

So get the disclosure out of the way
As I noted in my first post on Edelman and Wal-Mart, Jaffe Juice has said that “this is the SECOND time they’ve been outed for lack of transparency with the SAME client.”

How transparent is Edelman? How much disclosure is there? How clear is it who you represent? Your silence is deafening. The answers to those questions is unclear.

My suggestion: make it clear. Now.

Consequences: blowback
This will hit TechMeme, and the consequences could be severe.

For example, how effective do you think any further social media campaigns sponsored by Edelman will be if bloggers don’t trust you? And how successful will Edelman be if it cannot deliver social media PR results to its clients?

The answer to both questions is, obviously: not very.

. . .
. . .

Other blogs discussing this issue:

Scoble’s video podcasts: half a show

October 13, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Scoble is talking to all the most interesting and cool people in the business. Too bad he’s only letting us get half the show.

For instance, today he mentioned that he’s talked to Even Krauss of Cuts, a movie editing service. The video is great quality, and Evan is interesting and articulate. Great. Excellent.

But I can’t hear Scoble to save my life.

Which effectively means that when I watch the Scobleshow, I can hear precisely half of a conversation. Or I can turn up the volume so that Evan is screaming and Scoble is just barely audible.

That’s a little annoying.

[tags] scoble, scobleshow, video, podcast, cuts, evan krauss, john koetsier [/tags]

Blogs, splogs, & flogs: Edelman & the Wal-Mart fiasco

October 12, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Update Oct. 16. Edelman has finally broke the silence: Steve Rubel’s post; Richard Edelman’s post. No word on what exactly went wrong, or why the “process” that Steve talks about took over a week. More later …

If Edelman is the PR agency that “gets it” about blogs and social media, why did they set up a fake blog for Wal-Mart?

Blogs are weblogs. Splogs are spam blogs. Flogs are stealth PR blogs. And as far as we can see today, Edelman set up a flog for Wal-Mart that has now been outted: Wal-Marting Across America.

It’s a sweet story about Jim and Laura RV-ing across America from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart – staying in store parking lots overnight. The only problem is that Jim and Laura don’t exist … at least not in the way presented in the now-closed blog.

“Laura” is Laura St. Claire, a freelance writer. Jim is James Thresher, a professional photographer and Washington Post employee. Freelancing, apparently, is against his contract with the Post, which has ordered him to return Wal-Mart’s money and remove his photos from the flog. According to that AP story:

Wal-Mart outfitted the RV and turned it over to Thresher and his partner, Laura St. Claire, who drove it cross-country,

What’s shocking is that Wal-Mart is a client of Edeleman, which is the PR agency is supposed to be the one that “gets it” with regard to social media. But this isn’t “getting it,” and in fact is causing the worst kind of nightmare for a PR agency: blowback on its media-bending efforts.

Not only is the Examiner writing about the issue, so is MediaPost and Editor & Publisher. And the bloggers are not being silent.

What are bloggers saying?
In a word: lots. Here’s a sampling …

Jaffe Juice:

This post is not about Wal-Mart. They’ll figure out social media sooner or later.

This post is about Edelman. I’m kind of surprised and a bit amazed quite frankly…as this is the SECOND time they’ve been outed for lack of transparency with the SAME client.

Strategic Public Relations

I’m giving Edelman the Goofus and the Gallant on furthering the use of social media in the public relations industry. This tactic could have worked using full disclosure, just interview the customers and get their stories. It might not have resulted in effusive praise for the giant smiley face, but it would have been interesting nonetheless.

On Message from Wagner Communications:

Pro-Wal-Mart Travel Blog Screeches To A Halt.

Toughsledding:

International social media champion Edelman Public Relations finds itself the target of accusations it created “a phony blog” as a front for client and retail giant WalMart … Arrived home a few minutes ago (8:45 EDT) and have been unable to find a response on the Edelman website, or any of Edelman’s numerous bloggers.

PR Squared:

This is wrong on so many levels. And it is Strike 3 for Edelman (not Strike 2, as Joseph Jaffe suggests). Edelman, the self-described leader in me2, in transparency, in Social Media PR strategies. (Or, maybe not.)

Thunderous silence from Edelman
Richard Edelman says that “the business community … must recognize a new axis of communications, the horizontal peer to peer conversation.” How peer-to-peer was the Wal-Mart blog? And why is he not responding to the issue?

Steve Rubel is probably the best-known Edelman blogger. He posted twice today … but not a word about the Wal-Mart account.

The Edelman Landing Blog appears to be a conglomeration of all Edelman blogs. Once again, not a word.

Summing it up
Learn the lesson of Scoble, who humanized Microsoft while being honest about the fact that Microsoft paid his mortgage. Learn the lesson of all the other successful corporate bloggers.

  1. You want to start a corporate blog? Great. Be upfront about it.
  2. You want to start a marketing blog and get paid for it? Great. Be honest about who you are.
  3. You want to start a PR blog for your client? Great. Tell us who you are and who your client is.

You want to do that fake stuff? Keep it where it belongs, in mainstream media.

Blogrolls and sex: what does gender have to do with it?

October 10, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Would it be OK if I suddenly established a policy of only linking to male bloggers? What if I only added posts by men to my list of interesting links?

I’m extremely reluctant to blog about this. I want to do it with the utmost respect and integrity. But I can’t just ignore what I see, and I want to publicly ask some questions about it.

I recently followed a link to Charlene Li’s Calculating the ROI of Blogging. It’s a great exploration of how to measure the return on investment for blogging, particularly for PR and marketing managers.

Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.”
– Henry Kissinger

But I happened to notice her blogroll. It’s the type of blogroll that is generated and/or managed by an external site – in this case, BlogHer. And every single blog in the blogroll is a woman’s blog. Is that kosher?

Well, yes!
In a lot of ways, of course, that’s completely kosher. People – any people – can choose to link to anyone they want to. Conversely, they can choose not to link to anyone they don’t wish to link to.

A natural extension of this is that people – Charlene Li in this case – can promote any particular person she wants to, and not promote others.

Fine and good – on a personal level.

What about other insights?
I should note, however, that Charlene’s blog is not a personal blog. It’s a business blog. She works for Forrester – a research and business intelligence blog. In fact, the content is copyrighted by Forrester – it’s an extension of their business.

With that in mind, is she saying that no matter which blogger of whatever gender has excellent and insightful comments … she only going to link to those without a Y chromosome? If so, I have less respect for her and less respect for her opinions. She simply isn’t valuing a certain fraction of the intelligence out there.

But it’s not that simple
However, that’s not quite the case. A cursory examination of her recent posts reveals links to TechCrunch and PoliBlog … both blogs by men.

So she doesn’t have a kneejerk blanket policy against linking to men. Far from it.

Ambivalence
Essentially, then, I’m ambivalent about Charlene Li’s blogroll policy. Ultimately, any blogger has the right to do what she wants, but his or her choices may reflect on her business credibility.

I wonder what would happen, however, if a prominent male blogger published a blogroll from BlogHim containing only links to male bloggers. (Devil’s advocate: would anyone notice?) But I realize that traditionally – and in technology-oriented fields – women have been under-represented in public life. So it’s not quite the same thing.

People are people
All the same, I wouldn’t do it if I were her. I just don’t like the idea of dealing with people based on classification or categorization. I much prefer to deal with each individual as an individual.

But then again, I’m not Charlene Li. And I’m not a woman – and I’ve not had to deal with what some women (all women) have had to deal with on their path through the business world. Or the world itself.

What do you think?

Much ado about nothing? A valid sense of unease? Or clear evidence of an unreconstructed male chauvinist?

[tags] blogher, women blogger, blogroll, charlene li, links, john koetsier [/tags]

Aww shucks …

October 10, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Leo Bottary at Client Service Insights said some really complementary things about this blog today. Thanks – and I’m humbled.

I’m in awe of blogs like bizhack, for example. John Koetsier teaches me something new about the medium nearly every day. And there are certainly other blogs that fall into this category as well.

The most important thing I can bear in mind about the world we live and do business in today is that the only constant is change. Which means that we are all learning, all the time. My goal is simply to keep learning.

The only certainty is that I’ll make mistakes. Say something wrong. Misplace a fact. Underestimate a trend. Dispell a rumor that turns out to be true.

But I refuse to stop thinking, talking, drawing conclusions, writing … out of fear of error. That way lies paralysis.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
– Wayne Gretzky

What I will do is be open, honest, humble, admit mistakes – and correct them when I make them.

To me, that’s the beauty and the magic of blogging.

. . .
. . .

(By the way, Leo has some great insights of his own. In particular, I thought his best client service lesson ever was one of those great foundational principles that we need to embed in our bones before we’ll ever, ever be able to understand what great client service is for our specific clients. Hint: truly understand the client first!)

[tags] bizhack, leo bottary, client service insights, blogging, mistakes, john koetsier [/tags]

worst. clickpath. ever.

October 6, 2006
John Koetsier
news

The site: Mini.ca. The task: schedule a test drive of a Mini Cooper. The clickpath: long, convoluted, and wrong.

Step one: Homepage

Step two: events

Step three: some event blah blah

Step four: more event blah blah (in a pop-up)

Step five: pick a time

Step six: enter life history

[tags] mini, cooper, mini.ca, design, ia, usability, clickpath, john koetsier [/tags]

Google: money talks louder than a dead black guy

October 3, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Google’s sacred algorithm can’t be changed or even have its results filtered … even though the first search result for Martin Luther King is a hate-filled white supremacist pack of lies.

(See also Nicholas Carr and Elinor Mills at C|Net.)

What the site says
The site includes typical anti-Semitic nonsense (“who really owns America,” and so forth) as well as accusations that MLK was a plagiarist, a cheater, and a “sexual degenerate, an America-hating Communist, and a criminal betrayer of even the interests of his own people.” It also refers to MLK as “the beast.” This is not exactly the site that you want kids going to for resources on Martin Luther King.

Google won’t adjust the results
There’s always going to be crap online … it’s the nature of the beast. The problem in this case is that the crap is not buried down in the pile, it’s the first link from Google. Implicitly, then, Google is saying that this is a trusted link.

The algorithm is king. The results stand.

But even upon multiple requests – including one from AOL – Google will not adjust the rankings, or remove the hate site from its listings. Elinor Mills reports that a Google representative responded with “in this particular example, the page is relevant to the query and many people have linked to it, giving it more PageRank than some of the other pages. These two factors contribute to its ranking.”

The algorithm is king. The results stand. Google won’t artificially change search results – even when they’ve been gamed by neo-nazis linking to propaganda.

Or will they?

What about Google China?
If Google won’t change its algorithm, and if the algorithm’s search results are sancrosact … what about China? Isn’t that exactly what they’ve done in China?

Google China routinely and continuously self-censors search results to keep things that the totalitarian Chinese government doesn’t want its citizens to know secret, hidden, burried.

Is this evil?
What’s the difference? Could it be all the money that Google hopes to make in China?

And if so, could that possibly be just a little bit evil?

[tags] google, evil, china, MLK, martin luther king, hate, white supremacist, nicholas carr, c|net, john koetsier [/tags]

humble pie

October 3, 2006
John Koetsier
news

The worst righteousness is self-righteousness. I know this from personal experience, since today, in recompense, I had to eat a wacking plateful of humble pie.

This morning I sent a fairly energetic letter to David Sifry. It wasn’t rude, but it was intense. The perceived problem? For the last 3 days, Technorati has not been indexing my content. I was not happy about it – especially since Technorati has been fixing its problems lately.

However, Technorati was not at fault
Three days ago, I added a RSS feeds link to my blog’s top-level navigation. Unfortunately, I named it simply “feeds.” When WordPress creates a page, it gives that page a URL that is exactly the same as the title of the page … unless a page already exists with that name.

Well, in WordPress, one does. But it’s not a user-created page … it’s the default location of your RSS feeds when you have full-text URLs turned on – as I do. So my new page was the exact location of WordPress’ RSS feeds. And it took precedence.

So when Technorati was trying to index my site, it did. It indexed exactly what it should have indexed: a page with nothing on it but but some subscribe to my feed information.

David Sifry to the rescue
So here David – CEO of an important corporation – gets this not-nasty but not-very-happy email. And here David goes and checks my site. Checks source on my site. Discovers the issue, which is that the place WordPress stores feeds at has been over-written by my new page. Emails me back – nicely.

I’d send you a longer message, but I’m extremely busy right now and wanted to get back to you quickly. Did you know that your feeds don’t currently point to your content?

http://www.sparkplug9.com/bizhack/index.php/feed/rss/
http://www.sparkplug9.com/bizhack/index.php/feed/atom/

These are the feeds that you point to in the of your blog, and since they are broken, Technorati isn’t indexing your blog.

When you fix it, please ping again, and things should work fine. For example, if you are using feedburner, then put this in your element:
< link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS 2.0″ href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/bizhack&#8221; / >

and take out the other ones. Then re-ping.

(I also had to delete the feeds page – just changing its title does not change its URL – and create it again with a new name: get fed. But Dave’s comments were the clue I needed.)

I feel about 2 inches tall. Thanks, Dave, and sorry for the trouble.

Humble pie is very much like Fisherman’s Friend – tastes awful … but it’s probably good for you.

Signal without noise, ego without limit

October 2, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Guy Kawasaki has replaced his incomprehensible Latin blog name with something that is, at least, comprehensible. But is it an improvement?

Guy’s blog used to be titled “Signum sine tinnitu.” I have searched, but cannot find an exact translation of that. “Signal without ringing” is the closest I can get. I know Guy has tinnitus – ringing in the ears. So that fits.

And it illuminates his new blog title as well – he’s essentially translated it with a left-handed nod to 37signals‘ excellent blog, signal versus noise.

But saying something cute in Latin is very different from stating it baldly in English. And stating that you are all signal and no noise is very bald indeed. Maybe too bald.

Signum sine tinnitu is a great blog, and I’ve enjoyed Guy’s books. But nobody’s that good.

[tags] guy kawasaki, signal vs noise, 37signals, blog, ego, john koetsier [/tags]

5 reasons blogrolls are so 2002

October 2, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Remember blogrolls? Those annoying lists of me-too sites that used to be a staple of every blog?

They are so yesterday, and here’s why …

  1. Too many! too many!
    Anyone who does anything in the blogosphere reads way too many blogs to list them all in the blogroll on their sidebar. Even when you use Blogrolling.

  2. It’s all just politics, anyways
    Ummm … how many people have BoingBoing in their blogroll? Seth Godin? Guy Kawasaki? Enough already – be a little original. There’s millions of blogs, and at least tens of thousands of really good blogs. Find some!

  3. Put it in the posts
    Find something cool? Post about it. Find something else cool for tomorrow. And next week. And next month. If you really need to keep track of something (yeah I like Seth Godin too) use RSS. That’s what it’s for.

  4. You need less of more
    Your blog has 5 million doo-dads hanging of the left sidebar, right sidebar, topbar, bottom bar … you name it. I know – I just redid my blog theme and killed about three quarters of what I had. Clean house. Leave what’s important. Kill what’s peripheral.

  5. Purposelessness is bad
    What’s really the point of blogrolls, anyways? Are you actually going to go there to click on the links to sites you like – not likely. So what are you trying to do with it? Unless it advances your blogging goals, it’s crud. Crud inhibits your progression. Scrub it.

Are all blogrolls in all cases bad? Of course not. Are most of them? Definitely.

Decide which yours is, and act accordingly.

[tags] blogroll, blogging, blogrolling, john koetsier [/tags]

Bloggers care enough about Technorati to want it to be better

September 30, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Update: Technorati CEO Dave Sifry has responded in the comments. Thanks!

Technorati board member and venture capitalist Ryan McIntyre is the only upper echelon person associated with Technorati who has even commented on the quality of service that Technorati has NOT been providing lately.

Kudos. But why aren’t we hearing from Dave Sifry about it?

When I saw McIntyre’s post which mentions the issues, I posted the following comment on his blog:

If you’re on the board, are you able to affect the situation at all?

Technorati’s service has always had great PROMISE, but always been greatly “spotty,” as Liz Dunn quaintly referred to it.

First of all: some major effort to solve the problem with the million$ that Technorati has recently raised should be a number one priority. And secondly, some honesty and openness about the situation would be greatly appreciated.

I mean … the arbiter of the blogosphere has what, 2 posts on its blog all of last month – a horrible month, when it’s been up and down like a yo-yo? This is ridiculous: be upfront, be honest, be real.

(This is something that Dave Sifry should take to heart too … as I’ve tried and tried to bring a few issues to his attention via email, links to his blog, and comments on his blog … all without the least sign of success.)

The issue is not only being up or down, or the notorious, infamous “Technorati is experiencing a high volume of searches right now and could not complete your request,” which I’ve seen on the HOME PAGE.

It’s also data integrity as the service appears to wildly swing between mutually inconsistent datasets. Links appear and disappear with disconcerting frequency.

Some kind of information about what the company plans to do about it would be nice. How about telling bloggers the plans for ensuring that it won’t happen again? A little PR wouldn’t be out of place.

As a member of the blogosphere, I suggest that could start on the Technorati blog.

Why am I doing this? Why am I harping on this?

I care about Technorati’s service. I care about what they do. And I keep getting corroborating comments ever so often, weeks and weeks after writing various articles about Technorati’s woes.

Bloggers care about Technorati. Enough to want Technorati to be better.

[tags] technorati, Ryan McIntyre, sifry, john koetsier [/tags]

AdSense funnies

September 29, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Sometimes context is not enough. Sometimes smart machines are really dumb.

Want proof?

Take a look at the Google AdSense ads on this post. It’s a post about a book by an online acquaintance about project management. And it happens to have the word forest in the title.

Now, Google’s got some of the smartest machines in the world, performing millions of calculations each and every second, figuring out what billions of pages across the web contain, and matching ads to that content.

Clearly, however, some subtleties are beyond Google.

Two cheers for serendipity, however. Now I’ve got to find out why trees are better than stocks (see the screenshot at right, third ad).

Without, of course, clicking on my own ads.

[tags] google, adsense, funny, context, john koetsier [/tags]

Podcasting dead, long live Zunecasting!

September 23, 2006
John Koetsier
news

I swear, Apple Legal does its level best every single day to do whatever it can in every way to do the maximum possible damage to Apple Computers Inc.

How can ostensibly smart people – I mean, they passed the bar, right – be so absolutely, abysmally, galactically stupid?

Now they want to take over “podcasting.” Find the details at Calacanis’ blog, the Wired blog, Scobleizer, ZDnet, and MacNewsWorld .

“Podcasting” as a term for personal audio publishing online is a term that does nothing but good for Apple, the iPod, and the whole iPod economy. Conversely, coming down with the legal fireworks ticks off potential clients, alienates Apple Computer Inc., and provides fodder for rivers of bad press.

Imagine the alternative: Zunecasting.

Perhaps Apple would prefer that?

[tags] podcasting, apple, legal, lawyers, IP, trademarks, zunecasting, john koetsier [/tags]

Blogged with Flock

Belgian idiocy, Google sacrilege

September 22, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Since Google lost the crazy newspaper lawsuit brought by Belgian papers that didn’t want free links and free traffic being sent their way by Google News, the Belgian courts have decreed that it has to put the text of the ruling on its Belgian site.

It’s a google desecration. As TechDirt says, so much for Google’s clean, barren look.

I wonder what the guy who used to email Google with the number of words on its home page every few weeks would do now. You almost wish Google would just axe its Belgian site in protest.

[tags] google, belgium, newspapers, lawsuit, john koetsier [/tags]

Will Technorati ever come back up?

September 22, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Technorati has now been down, on and off, for the past two days. Unbelievable.

I remember begging Google to buy Technorati almost a year ago because of ongoing technical issues … and this has not changed.

The service Technorati promises is so great – its actual delivery is so incredibly buggy.

What do they have to do to make it right?

. . .
. . .

[ update ]

What I don’t understand is that Technorati has a blog … which is almost never updated with information on what’s going on. It’s like they think nobody notices that they’re down.

The second-last post is from 23 or 24 days ago, and it’s about how nice people are to Technorati. Umm … whatever.

Besides the irony of a company that absolutely lives off the blogosphere only updating its own blog every month or so, why not tell us what’s going on? Why is the service down? What is the problem?

And why does David Sifry still have a job if he:

  1. can’t put a service together that works with reasonable (not perfect, but reasonable) consistency
  2. can’t tell the people who depend on his service what’s going on

It’s beyond me.

[tags] technorati, bugs, downtime, john koetsier [/tags]

Gmail down …

September 19, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Gmail’s down … isn’t Google supposed to be as reliable as a utility?

I guess it is as reliable as utilities – California utilities. In the summer.

[tags] gmail, google, error, utility, network computing, john koetsier [/tags]

The browser hijackers: how aggregators don’t share the love

September 16, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Whose browser window is it, anyways?

Link aggregators like Digg, Newsvine, Shoutwire, Fark, Delicious, Reddit, and Spurl are increasingly popular ways to find and track news … but there are some differences between them. Especially regarding how they treat your browser window.

Digg: mine, mine, mine
Digg likes your browser window – a lot. Just like the seagulls in Finding Nemo. So much so that clicking on links in digg opens up a brand new window. After all, why share when you can just have your own?

NowPublic: it’s … my … p-r-e-c-i-o-u-s!
Sharing does suck. But NowPublic would rather share the pie – even the bottom slice- rather than let everyone have their own pie. All is fair in love and war (and aggregating) and memories are short. Maybe you’d forget where that un-freaking-believably great link came from, if you weren’t constantly reminded.

Netscape: mommy, mommy, look at me!
Sharing doesn’t suck if you get the best piece. Why take the bottom of the totem pole? The side – especially the left side – is much more imposing, prominent, and lickable. Err … clickable.

Shoutwire: what do you mean, “your” window?
The bottom of the totem pole? The side of the totem pole? Are you joking? Shoutwire has nothing against sharing … as long as it gets top billing. Right across the top, baby, and yes, that’s our Flash ad making your CPU race. Click on it. Now.

Newsvine: other sites? What other sites?
Aggregator? What’s an aggregator? The news is here – we have the news. We are the news in fact, and there’s no reason to go anywhere else. Just vote already. OK? Or, if you really must, post a comment.

Some context for this post
I wrote this post because I’m tired of going to an aggregator, clicking on a link, and getting my browser window spammed, or new windows generated.

Aggregators, their value, their revenue
Aggregators are supposed to collect news or cool links. Social aggregators apply some mob logic to the equation, but it’s still news or cool links.

The value that aggregators bring is filtering.

There’s a lot out there on the long, long tail of the world wide web. Too much for any one of us to find everything. Too much for any one of us to find everything we’re interested in. And too much for any one of us to find the best of what’s interesting.

Filters let the cream rise to the top. (At least, that’s the theory.)

Since aggregators add value by filtering, they’re entitled to rewards. Money, not to put too fine a point on it. As our eyeballs dangle on strings, fixated on the flickering lights of our favorite filters, they paste ads on our brains. Occasionally, we click on one of them. The aggregator aggregates a few pennies.

That’s OK. That’s cool. That’s good. They’re happy, we’re happy. But. (Isn’t there always a but?)

But.

The map is not the territory
Aggregators are the map. They show us how to get from Bush bashing to techno-hippy news. And we appreciate it. But aggregators are NOT the territory. They’re not the Bush bashing or the techno-hippy news.

The pipe is not the water.
The lense is not the view.
The artery is not the blood.
The reporter is not the story.

When aggregators forget this, they try too hard. They want to be too much. Then they do things like Netscape and Shoutwire and NowPublic: trying to control your browser window.

More than they deserve
When they do this, they are trying to extract more value than they ought.

These aggregators are behaving like old media. They are acting like About, where links always circle the wagon and lead visitors on a merry-go-round inside the walled garden. They are framing other sites’ content … something that I thought we had shunned into nonexistence almost a decade ago.

They are trying to package and profit from others’ work. This is taking more than they deserve. This is hijacking. This is an ownership mentality, not a partnership mentality.

Bottom line: it’s not right.

. . .
. . .

The good guys
Reddit, Spurl, Simpy, and Delicious all open links in the existing open browser window. This is what they should be doing, and they are to be commended for it.

A final note:

I can’t get too worked up about aggregators that open links in a new window. It’s annoying, but those of us who are not newbies know how to open links in new tabs, or already have our browsers set up to do that. It’s the aggregators who try to control our browsing experiences that annoy me.

It’s worth noticing that popurls, the aggregator of the aggregators, also opens links in the same existing window in which the link was clicked. Way to go.

I welcome feedback, on your blog or in the comments below.

We don’t need contracts to converse

September 12, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Progress is forward movement, right? Not backwards? OK, I was thinking I had that wrong for a moment.

Yesterday – the 5th anniversary of 9/11 – I visited Think Progress to see their side of the Path to 9/11 story.

As I was about to post a comment, I noticed that doing so would obligate me – in their eyes – to agree to their terms and conditions:

I stopped dead in my tracks. This is a blog. Putting terms and conditions on it is wrong. We don’t need contracts to converse.

Blogs are conversations. They happen to be separated in time and space, but they’re conversations. Do you force people you’re chatting with in a cafe to agree to a multi-page list of terms and conditions? No!

Here are their terms and conditions. I’ve put them in a textarea block so they don’t take up 5 pages:

Social networking sites: you don’t own the community

September 11, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Social media is huge. Community-building is in. And web 2.0 is the chariot of fire that’s going to take us all to web/business/marketing nirvana.

Rigghhht …

A couple of years ago my company introduced a quasi-Mahon methodology for our sales force. It’s a way of finding out what the client wants, and then presenting an exact solution that meets his or her needs. One of the things I remember from the training they gave the marketing and leadership groups before implementing the program was this:

“Intent counts more than technique.”

In other words, you can mess up on the technique a little if your heart’s in the right place. You can miss a word now and then as long as you’re really, truly, trying to meet your clients’ needs.

But it doesn’t go the other way.

You can’t screw up the intent but have great technique, and hope that everything will be fine. Because people will find you out. If you’re just a money-hungry commission-seeking sales machine, sooner or later it will catch up with you. Sooner or later your clients will be ticked off that you sold them product they don’t need, that you played footsies with the truth, that you don’t really care about their needs and goals.

This is true in the web 2.0 social networking world too.

That came to mind when I read The Facebook Lesson. The Facebook lesson is that the owners aren’t the owners … they’re the sponsors. They pay the bills, and they reap the lion’s share of the profits. But they don’t own the community. And if they ever start feeling like they do … there won’t be a community for long.

As we were settling in for a chat earlier this year with Threadless co-founder Jake Nickell so we could profile his company for Citizen Marketers, Jake said something that stopped us cold: “Our community could destroy us if they wanted to.”

. . .

During our chat, Jake was still a bit shaken from what had happened several days earlier. While redesigning the site, he accidentally deleted a good part of the content created by the community. Poof, it was gone and unrecoverable. Jake feared the worst: a community so angry that it would harm the company.

The Threadless community did NOT destroy the company … Nickell had the right intent. His technique – at least in this one case – sucked. Hard. But his heart was in the right place. And so the community accepted the error – and even helped them recover from it.

Threadless knew their “business” was all about the people who participated.

Contrst that with Facebook’s recent privacy gaffe. It doesn’t help Facebook when the inevitable mea culpa comes with a paternalistic “calm down.”

The point: the community is in charge. If you don’t like that, don’t start a social networking site. Don’t try to build a community in your own image.

Go sell tires instead.

[tags] social, media, social networking, web 2.0, myspace, facebook, threadless, community, participation, john koetsier [/tags]

Rent-a-community

September 5, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Yerch. This is ugly.

If you don’t have a community, you can now buy one.

Forums at your company site slow? No comments on your blog? No problem: you can get 100 posts for only $24.50. And 700 posts for only $145!

Astroturf, fake virtual communities … where will it end?

The good thing is, something like this will never be successful in the long term. It’s just not sustainable.

I hope.

[tags] astroturf, community, social media, forums, paid posts, john koetsier [/tags]

Gmail, Gmail, I love Gmail

September 4, 2006
John Koetsier
news

It’s free – that’s good. Lots of space – also good. And its spam-filtering is second to none. Very good.

But, really, please, couldn’t they hire one cheap just-out-of-college usability professional?

Imagine only using Gmail once a week or so, and then mostly for checking, not sending. Where is the Reply button?

Not as big as it should be, that’s for sure.

[tags] gmail, send mail, google, usability, HCI, john koetsier [/tags]

Disneyland, fingerprints, and invasion of privacy: 1984

September 1, 2006
John Koetsier
news

If only Walt were around to see this: DisneyWorld is scanning customer’s fingerprints. (Story also at BoingBoing.)

I’m posting this not because it’s really within the scope of this blog. I’m posting this because UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT NOW, THIS IS THE FUTURE. And yes, I’m shouting.

How’d you like to be fingerprinted at the mall? In the grocery store? When you vote? In order to buy gas? When you drop off and pick up your kids at school? When you walk into the park?

We already have the “papers, may I see your papers, please” here in North American airports that we used to associate with spy movies set in iron curtained Eastern Europe. How far will it go?

Post this. Talk about it. Raise a stink.

Most importantly, vote with your feet. Vote with your dollars. Refuse to patronize any company that demands privacy violations as a cost of doing business with it. Who is the bloody customer, after all?

When my wife Teresa and I took our kids to Sea World in San Deigo earlier this year, they wanted to fingerprint us as well. I refused, just out of principle. They agreed to just look at my ID. And look in our bags in case we were carrying bombs or guns.

But even that is an invasion of privacy. What we give up arguing becomes the next standard modus operandi. And then the next thing comes along. Pretty soon, we wake up in what looks very much like a police state … just like the lobster who never jumped out of the pot.

The water temperature went up too slowly. They took away our freedoms just one at a time. Death by a thousand tiny cuts.

You want to change that? Start now.

Don’t care enough to resist? Then our children will live in Amerika. In Kanada. In Oceania.

1984, baby.

[tags] disneyland, police state, fingerprinting, privacy, sea world, 1984, george orwell, john koetsier [/tags]

Why existing clients don’t matter (as much)

August 30, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Kathy Sierra makes me gag.

How can one person have so many great ideas that (once she’s said them) seem like the commonest of common sense? I’m envious.

Why do so many companies treat potential users so much better than existing users? Think about it. The brochure is a thing of beauty, while the user manual is a thing of boredom. The brochure gets the big budget while the manual gets the big index. What if we stopped making the docs we give away for free SO much nicer than the ones the user paid for? What if instead of seducing potential users to buy, we seduced existing users to learn?

Let’s take the whole damn ad/marketing budget and move it over to product manuals and support. Let’s put our money where our users are. If we’re in it for the short term, then sure–it makes sense to do everything to get a new user, while doing as little as possible once we’ve got them. But if we’re really in it for the long haul–for customer retention and loyal users–then shouldn’t we be using all that graphic design and pro writing talent for the people we care about the most? Our users?

The answer, of course, is no.

In spite of common sense … in spite of the fact that the cost of winning new clients is much higher than satisfying the ones you have … in spite of the fact that it is in a company’s best interests to ensure that clients are getting full value from their products.

Why? Many companies ARE in it for the short term. That’s not what they’ll SAY, of course. But it is what they’ll DO. And behavior is a much better predictor of belief than language.

  • Sales leaders want to know how much they’ll sell next month.
  • Investors are asking: what have you done for me lately?
  • Wall Street is looking for next quarters’ results, not 2 or 3 or even 4 quarters from now.
  • C-level executive compensation – and bonus plans throughout an organization – are built on short-term results.
  • Sales consultants begin their year assuming most/all of their existing clients will stay in that category.

How do you fix it?

Short of rejecting Wall Street and taking your company private, I don’t know if there’s a good answer. Here’s a few I think might help. Feel free to add more on your blog.

  • Focus on annual results over quarterly results
  • Compensate based on client longevity instead of “capture”
  • Start your sales strategy plans with existing clients, not prospective clients
  • Commission sales people on how well clients use your products, not just how often they sell
  • ???

The truth is: to most organizations, existing users/clients are less important than new ones. At least, if you go by behavior.

And frankly, behavior is what counts.

[tags] users, clients, kathy sierra, sales, marketing, manuals, john koetsier [/tags]

Kiko: who’s having the last laugh now?

August 26, 2006
John Koetsier
news

This whole past week we’ve been hearing that Kiko being eBayed was:

Well, looks like the people behind Kiko are having the last laugh: Kiko sold for over a quarter of a million dollars.

Let’s put that in perspective: 2 guys, a year, and $50,000 investment. Not too shabby? Not too shabby!

[ update: Scoble agrees ]

Stupid blog traffic scheme

August 24, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Hmmm … no sooner had I written Foolproof Blog Traffic Scheme than this comes up: One million lonely bloggers

It’s a paid blog link site. Yup, you heard right: a paid blog link site.

Step right up, pay yer buck, get a link. (You can also become one of One Million Lonely Blogger’s “best friends” for an additional payment of only $50.)

This is wrong is so many ways. Let me list two:

  1. Paying for links? Come on, you’re supposed to beg like everyone else.
  2. Err, seriously, this distorts the whole more-links-to-more-valuable-stuff theory of the blogosphere (even more than imagine a-lister clubs)
  3. One link? One link won’t do anything. OK, if your blog is 1,234,567th in popularity on Technorati, one link might get you to 900,000. Hip hip hooray. That still sucks.

    (And you can’t fix it by buying 100 links, ’cause they’re all from one site, and Technorati wisely counts links from separate blogs as more important than multiple links from one blog.)

Yerch. The things people will do to make a buck (and get a link).

[tags] blog, traffic, scheme, scam, technorati, ranking, a-lister, blogosphere, paid, million lonely bloggers, links, john koetsier [/tags]

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