Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Spreading the love February 13th, 2007
Spread the chilibean love, insert our flash banner on your site! Just copy the code in the text file into your blog template:
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The ROI of Blogging February 11th, 2007
Forrester has released a paper researching the “why” and “how” of what they call “external blogging accountability”.
Many large companies stand on the brink of blogging, yet they are unwilling to take the plunge. Others, having dove in early, now face the challenge of managing existing blogs without the ability to show that they effectively support business goals. While blogging’s value can’t be measured precisely, marketers will find that calculating the ROI is easier than it looks. Following a three-step process, marketers can create a concrete picture of the key benefits, costs, and risks that blogging presents and understand how they are likely to impact business goals. This, in turn, enables marketers to answer the key questions, such as whether to blog or not to blog, or to make smart choices about an existing blog.
The paper investigates the need for measuring the return on investment (ROI) of organisational blogs and the limitations to these calculations. In addition to the actual calculation Li et al have identified three factors to determine the return:
- Quantify and value the key benefits of blogging
- Estimate the costs of blogging
- Incorporate the risk calculations in the ROI model
The measurement of ROI of technology within the organisation has always been a key factor in the motivation for its cost of ownership. As blogs, and new media in general, are more intensively marketed to, and adopted by, organisations the measurement of the total cost of ownership and their return on investment will be critical. Whilst the “cost of ownership” of the research paper itself is inhibiting at US $379.00, it will be interesting to observe the various permutations of the blogging ROI model as organisations gain experience with this technology.
Another article of relevance published by Forrester is one which explores a case study on the calculation of the ROI of blogging. The case study takes a look at General Motors‘
implementation of corporate blogs. What I found most interesting though, was the ROI model used by GM. Instead of making use of a traditional monetary-value measure, or the popular “page hits” used by most bloggers, GM measure their value of return by “the number of press mentions” metric.
Forrester used the process outlined in the associated Best Practices document, “The ROI Of Blogging,” to calculate the ROI of General Motors’ FastLane blog; but, this is not merely an exercise to generate a number. Using scenarios, General Motors can understand the risk and impact of increases and decreases of a key metric the number of press mentions on the value of the blog. With this knowledge in hand, General Motors can make critical businesses decisions, such as whether to invest heavily in innovations that will rekindle press attention.
Tags: ROI, blog, general motors, forrester, research
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So what is social media? February 5th, 2007
The Social Media blog has a list of characteristics of social media to help distinguish social media from old media:
- Communication in the form of conversation, not monologue.
- Participants in social media are people, not organizations.
- Honesty and transparency are core values.
- It’s all about pull, not push.
- Distribution instead of centralization.
Quite a nice list actually!
Tags: social media, characteristics
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Just a quick mention January 30th, 2007
I just want to mention something quickly. There seems to be something buggy going on with my WordPress blogs (at least these are the only blogs manifesting this issue). If you have left a comment here you know what I am talking about. Unfortunately this bug seems to be having an impact on notifications of new comments and that means our response times to comments is a little slower because we actually need to log in to the backend to find the comments that you leave.
The comments are, notwithstanding the error message you see when you comment, being posted. We’re just not being notified when you do so we apologise if it takes a little longer to respond to your comments.
I am curious is anyone else has experienced similar strange issues after upgrading to WordPress 2.1?
It turns out these errors were due to a classic case of RTFM (read the frikkin’ manual). One of the things you have to do when upgrading from a previous version of WordPress to WordPress 2.1 is actually delete all the WordPress files in your directory and upload a fresh set of files (just make sure you backup the directory first and restore all your customisations in the WP-Content folder as well as your wp-config.php file too - don’t delete these or you will have a completely empty blog). The instructions are here. Follow them to the letter!
Tags: notice, errors, wordpress 2.1, comments, responses
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Gregoogle relaunched … as Groogle January 30th, 2007
Gregor has relaunched his blog under a new name: Groogle.
It is easily one of the more exciting WordPress implementations I have seen for a while. The site really feels like a new media site with a variety of content visible as soon as the page is loaded without the site feeling like there is a ton of content being hurled at you from every available space on the blog.
All the best for the new blog Gregor. Oh, Andy, if you read this, Gregor’s blog was migrated from Blogger to WordPress … 
Tags: gregor, groogle, wordpress, blogspot, new media, blog
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Bill Marriott starts blogging January 22nd, 2007
Bill Marriott, chairman and CEO of Marriott International (the hotel/lodging company) has started a blog with some honesty and history:
I’m venturing into uncharted territory as I launch this blog. A year ago, I didn’t even know what a blog was — until my Communications team began telling me about all the blog traffic on travel and tourism. Now I know this is where the action is if you want to talk to your customers directly — and hear back from them. Soon we’ll add an audio version of the blog. That’s how I’m most comfortable: telling stories and listening.
I’ve checked out Jonathan Schwartz’s blog at Sun Microsystems and "Randy’s Journal" at Boeing. I’ve listened to Senator Barack Obama’s blog podcasts. I know blogs will be a hot communications tool in the 2008 Presidential campaign.
Truth be told, I’m not very good with computers, although I couldn’t do business in today’s fast-paced economy without my cell phone, and my grandchildren have gotten me hooked on my iPod. I know our guests expect the very latest technology when they check-in to our hotel rooms and we’re moving quickly to provide that. I’ve also hired the most talented and innovative team of leaders in the lodging business, and they’re helping me move into this brave new world of communications technology. Ten years ago when my people first started talking about selling room reservations over the internet, I was a skeptic. Today Marriott.com is not only the biggest website in the hotel industry, it’s also our fastest growing reservations channel. I’m a convert!
His first post attracted 118 comments as I write this post and these comments includes questions about smoking and feather pillows. It is clear that there is a very loyal customer base and this blog gives those customers an opportunity to communicate their concerns and praise to Marriott. While he doesn’t seem to be responding to some of the questions and concerns himself, people from his "team" are doing that so there is some feedback from the company. This is a pretty good illustration of the value of a blog. The customers feel they have a direct line to the person who makes the decisions and he talks to his customers in his own voice and about the things that are important to him adn which interest him.
There is a lot of hype surrounding blogs and blogging and to an extent, that hype is unwarranted. At the same time, blogs are really valuable tools. I have spoken about blogs as conversational tools and I have heard them described as conversation starters because they facilitate the real conversation. That conversation is being conducted, in part between you and your customer (if you are doing it right) and between your customers themselves. Make sure those conversations are positive.
(Via Micro Persuasion)
Tags: bill marriott, marriott, blog, blogging, ceo, corporate
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Yahoo! buys MyBlogLog January 10th, 2007
A number of us South African bloggers have started using MyBlogLog quite a bit lately. It seems like someone else signs up virtually every day. Well, Yahoo! has just bought MyBlogLog in a sale that was on and off for some time.
Om Malik has a great story about the sale and the company that is run by Scott Rafer, a good friend of his, which was developed without venture capital and which has apparently been in talks with Yahoo! since late last year. I love this introduction to Om’s post (reproduced with Om’s kind permission), it really gives an insight into the human side of the sale which we often miss when we get caught up on the parties and the cash passing hands:
A few minutes after we had ordered our dinner at Mehfil Restaurant in San Francisco’s SOMA district, Scott Rafer, chairman of Orlando, Florida-based MyBlogLog, checked his Blackberry Pearl, and broke into a smile.
An unusually intense man, it was an unusual sight to see him smile. He typed out his response, and asked his lady friend to press the little Pearl to send the email. It’s done,? he said, referring to the sale of MyBlogLog to Yahoo.
MyBlogLog was founded by Eric Marcoullier and Todd Sampson in 2005 who connected via LinkedIn (which many of us use as well) with the intention of building a traffic measurement tool. Rafer apparently came up with the idea to create a distributed social network and we soon found ourselves with MyBlogLog.
Of course TechCrunch also has a post about the deal. According to Michael Arrington, MyBlogLog will now be part of the Yahoo! Developer Network and the talk is that, as with Flickr, Yahoo! users will soon be able to log in to MyBlogLog with their Yahoo! IDs which will expand the user base quite a bit. With this acquisition, Yahoo! will now hold the keys to some pretty impressive social sites like del.icio.us, Flickr and now MyBlogLog. That doesn’t include its own offerings.
I have this notion that Yahoo! is buying up these smaller companies (this deal is rumoured to be in the region of $10 million) and, at the same time, building up quite a nice portfolio of Web businesses. I wonder what Google is going to do to catch up, assuming it has plans in the same space?
Anyway, all you MyBlogLog users, welcome to the broader Yahoo! family.
Tags: mybloglog, yahoo!, yahoo, purchased, om malik, gigaom, techcrunch, sale, scott rafer
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Interview with Steve Rubel on Folksonomy.org January 4th, 2007
There is a great interview with Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion on Folksonomy.org. The interview covers how Rubel got into blogging and how he uses blogging at Edelman, his employer.
My favourite part of the interview is the part where Rubel speaks about the importance of being passionate about what you do. This is not new advice and you can barely throw a rock in the blogosphere without coming across this advice. Nonetheless, I like the way he expressed it:
The best advice I can offer - and this isn’t just for blogging - is to find a passion for a dream and then develop the work ethic to make it come true. My life and work passions are aligned so I never feel like blogging is work. I pound the blog rock every day because it’s aligned with my personality, lifestyle and interests. That’s true for many people who have been successful.
(Permission to reproduce this extract granted by Folksonomy.org. All rights to the content remain reserved by Folksonomy.org)
I really recommend Micro Persuasion if you don’t subscribe already. There is some fantastic content on the blog and it is certainly worth being added to your feeds.
Tags: interview, steve rubel, micro persuasion
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Build it and they will come - user generated porn January 2nd, 2007
It isn’t all family friendly on the new Web. TechCrunch has a post about a new photo sharing site that has launched to cater for the more adult market. Eroshare is to Flickr was the porn video sharing site Pornotube is to YouTube. Basically it is a site for people to share their own porn (although I suspect the site will soon be inundated with commercial porn if it isn’t already).
Want to know more about the service? According to the site:
Photo hosting:
In the era of digital photography and high speed internet eroshare offers an easy way to upload your photos and store them safely. No matter if you simply want to share your photos or access them from different locations. eroshare is the right choice!
Key service:
- 2GB free storage capacity (enough space for 2.000 to 5.000 photos!)
- unlimited views/downloads of your photos
- original photo size is saved for everyones viewing pleasure
- organise your photos into galleries
- give your photos titles and comments
- and so much more!
Private or public:
It is your choice if you want to keep your photos to yourself, share them with your friends at eroshare only or make them public. 25% of your storage capacity can be used for non-public photos.
Photos have meanings.
Thats why we give you the possibility to give your photos titles, comments and ratings. Put your photos into context by creating galleries. Also photos are taken at a distinct location at a certain point of time. If your camera supports it (most do) we will extract the point of time when the photo was taken and show it next to the photo. In addition to that you can define the location where the photo has been taken on a map (google-maps).
Organise:
The organizer helps you edit attributes such as access level, tags, license, location, etc for many photos at once.
eroshare the social platform:
Explore other members photos and comment them. You might find new friends my joining a group that fits your interest by joining eroshare.
Friendly and promt support:
We are a social platform! So we try to answer any questions as fast as possible. You can post about your problems in our forum (coming soon!).
Basically this is really social media and a place for people to store their more explicit content. There are some risks with such a public service though. As Michael Arrington points out:
Porn obviously continues to be a lucrative Internet business, and user generated stuff is apparently a healthy category if PornoTube’s growth is any indication. Just realize that the innocent photo you took with your boyfriend, girlfriend, ex-spouse or random stranger may very quickly end up in front of millions.
Accounts are free so if you have been looking for some place to store all your, um, content, this could be the place for you.
Tags: user generated, porn, images, eroshare, pornotube, flickr, youtube, social media
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new media - the evolution December 31st, 2006
I found this interesting article on Economist.com this morning, as I was researching new media solutions. The article explores the history of media from the discovery of the technology of movable type in 1448 to new media as it is today, and in particular the “reincarnation” of movable type.
These two incarnations of movable type make convenient (and very approximate) historical book-ends. They bracket the era of mass media that is familiar to everybody today. The second Movable Type, however, also marks the beginning of a very gradual transition to a new era, which might be called the age of personal or participatory media. This culture is already familiar to teenagers and twenty-somethings, especially in rich countries. Most older people, if they are aware of the transition at all, find it puzzling.
The article is definately a worthwhile read. What I find exciting is the discussion of how new media is participatory, providing for new business models where the “audience” or “consumer” actually input information and knowledge instead of just sitting pretty at the receiving end.
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