january 2008

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Looking at Yahoo's numbers and lack of focus yesterday, gives me pause on Google. They are supposed to report tomorrow.I did 15 searches for the same items on both Google and Yahoo. On 13 of them the same 2 items came on the top. I agree that this is not very scientific but still tells me something:Google and Yahoo search engines are mostly similar if not the same in terms of results.If you ask many Search engine optimization experts they will tell you that MOST people click on the top 3 links (non paid ones), that's why they do heat map analysis.So, still why do people still use Google as their primary search engine? My guess, feel free to add / challenge:1.

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My friend Ann Handley has started a new personal blog. She writes very eloquently and has kids so you know it comes from the heart. The best part of the blog is the name - A N N A R C H Y - very apt.

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Marc points to this really funny YouTube video from Gabe and Max.

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Social Media and Communities as a field is relatively new. If you do get an expert, its very clear that they have been doing it for little time, but not a lot. If you see a resume with "over 10+ years" experience with social media, or communities you ought to think twice. Why?1. Some of their experience with social behavior will be irrelevant. Most individuals would not discuss openly what blogs have allowed them to do. Remember it was considered taboo to even talk about your personal finances until recently.2. The tools and technologies of social media are relatively new (most are less than 3 years old). Any best practice is what's been experienced in 2-3 projects at best.3. The metrics to measure effectiveness of social media are not available for you to determine if you are making any progress towards a goal. In fact if your goal is fairly deterministic, then you might have a problem in itself.What do you think? How many social media experts do you really know of?

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Robert meets Mark Z of Facebook. When you physically allow people to meet, talk, discuss there's a better bond developed. Which helps your online community all the more. In fact most online communities I know got started from a physical, offline event like a conference or symposium.

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From Portio Research as a follow up to missing iPhones and lower iPod growth (only 5%) in Q4 2007.

After six years of steady decline the global music market is set to grow again spurred on by increased consumption of digital music through multiple channels with annual revenues predicted to reach USD$38.8 billion by 2011.

In 2007 over half of the 1 billion mobile handsets shipped will have music playing capabilities, so while worldwide sales of stand alone MP3 music devices will continue to grow, sales will level out by 2012, by which time MP3-enabled mobile handsets will outnumber stand alone MP3 players by approximately 5 to 1.Over-the-air (OTA) music downloads have the potential to be one of the most successful non-voice services after SMS, providing prices remain attractive to consumers.

This battle will take place in the wealthiest and biggest world markets, Japan and South Korea, Western Europe, North America, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and more with some of the biggest youth-sector brands such as McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike, Reebok and Adidas possibly involved in sponsoring and advertising deals.

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I could not say this any better. Read Max's post. Read it again twice if you are looking to start a developer community.

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Forbes Least (pre tax) profitable businesses to start:1. Community Care Facility2. Other support services3. Beverage Manufacturing4. Real Estate Related Services5. Bakery and Tortilla manufacturing6. Amusement and recreational services7. Motor Vehicle parts manufacturing8. Specialty retailer9. Beer and wine retailer10. Travel - hotel, etc.Also look at most profitable businesses to start.Obviously this is for the low tech business side. Pharmaceutical and Software by far (Internet or otherwise) are still among the most profitable.Fastest growing industries are in Internet for the last 5 years.

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Given that the economy is either in a recession or headed towards one, here are some key areas / spots of growth that are still great places to look:1.

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I was invited me to participate in the "8 things you didn't know about me" party by Shiv. Thank you! The rules are fairly straightforward - 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules. 2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself. 3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names. 4. Let them know they've been tagged. So here goes - first the eight random facts about me.1. I am absolutely scared of Lasik. I have made 3 appointments and gotten cold feet EACH time. I only have slight problem in my left eye, so its not a big deal, but Lasik scares the hell out of me.2. I dropped out of the MBA program at Berkeley in 1997. Not one of my proudest moments, so I rarely bring it up. I was working for Cisco then and the trek up to Berkeley from San Jose was horrible. Added to the fact that I felt invincible with Cisco's stock splitting twice each year. One of the dumbest moves that I ever did.3. I have an outline for a book for 6+ years that I have always wanted to write, but never got around to it. Its fiction, about the politics in the Indian subcontinent.4. I learned and played violin for 6+ years. Indian classical. Enjoyed it a lot and am picking it up back again after 15 years.5. During my undergraduate days in India, I actually sported very long hair (Trust me, you look at me now I am sure you wont believe it).6. I hate myself for this, but I prefer my Blackberry to the iPhone. (No flames please). I find the iPhone cool, but its useless for me without the keyboard since I live on text messaging and IM.7. I am a huge fan of John Stewart. The ONLY reason we have cable is his show. The last 2 months, I have turned off cable since I dont watch anything else on TV.8. You can drag me into anything if you make it competitive. I hate taking photos, but since my sister made it a competitive thing, I am taking more photos, if only to beat her at it.Tagging Nate, Chris Carfi, Izzy, Chris Heuer, Mario, Marc, Lee & Noah.

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My friend Jeremiah pointed me to Forrester's Top Social Computing predictions for 2008. Worth a look, so I followed his link to the Forrester research piece. Here's the MOST AMAZING part of Forrester's piece:A money back guarantee. See the highlighted section. It reads: "If you are not completely satisfied,....

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If you are looking to hire good community managers, there are multiple skills you are looking for obviously. A good community manager is a multi-faceted individual. The skills include: Knowledge of technology, Customer Service, Marketing, Web and Copy Writing, etc.The newspaper industry overall is going through some rough times with readership dropping precipitously. San Diego, Chicago, Seattle have layoffs.I would love to hear any success stories of hiring good reporters, journalists. Feel free to drop a comment. If you are a media person looking for a job, look at the community job board.

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Sooner or later you make a mistake with the community. If not you're not pushing the envelope, is my experience. Shel Holtz has a very good Crisis Communication primer.Notable:

When responding to a crisis, you should…

• Respond quickly, accurately, professionally and with great care
• Treat perceptions as fact
• Acknowledge mistakes (today, we’d say, “Be transparent")
• Tailor messages to address the aggrieved or angry party
• Note the other side’s concerns; don’t be dismissive
• Make no public confrontations
• Emphasize the existing relationships in which you have built capital; they are more credible during a crisis than your own spokespersons

Good piece, recommended reading.

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Its 1030 AM. I want to buy the Macbook Air. Can't do it.

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Tagged by Paul Dunay. My top 3 influences in my life:1. My parents work ethic. I remember my dad would go into work even on days when he was down with fever (during those days that was considered "being a trooper". Not sure now if others in the organization would accept). My mom's known to work even in her sleep. Long hours were the norm for both of them. Since my dad would travel nearly 3-4 months of the year, Mom would help us with homework, schoolwork, etc.2. John McCracken and Yuval Scarlat at Mercury. Probably the two best executives I have worked for / with in my career. Yuval's the person I picked up the "top 3" items to focus on daily. John's known as the person that just plain wont give up. Keep throwing obstacles his way and he will keep jumping through hoops to get where he needs to be.3. Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford. I dont particularly know him or liked him all that much, but his speech was very inspiring. I try and read it every week.Tagging Erik, Aaron and Jake.

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Good interview with John Ridding of Financial Times at Portfolio.com. Excerpts:Quite often for traditional publishers, new technologies are seen as a bit threat or challenge, and there are challenges resulting from it, but I think the opportunities way outweigh the challenges. Video's a really good example. We're now producing about 100 videos a month. Our video downloads have doubled to about 30,000 per week. Editorially, it's fantastic because it gives you that immediacy.

From a commercial standpoint, meanwhile, it's fantastic because you can charge very premium rates, and it also gives us access to ad budgets that we never had access to. People talk about the threat to print advertising, and how it's a shrinking pie and we're all fighting like wildcats for our share of it, which is true, but people forget that new budgets are being opened to us because of new technology, so we can go after TV budgets and video budgets that we couldn't before. So it's important of itself, video, but it's symbolically also very important as an illustration of the kind of opportunities we wouldn't have had five years ago."

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This article is prompted by a good piece at SEMPO on SEM Salary levels.If you are a community professional (Community Manager, Evangelist, etc.) there are several skills you need to be good at. Some (but not a comprehensive list) of related disciplines you need to be business? If you are a 'community driven" provider such as many Web2.0 companies, you get paid better.

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For the last few days and before my vacation I ended up spending 2-3 hours daily (which is a lot I agree) on research (on the web). Some might call it "wasting time". There are 3 different topics I am researching currently: 1. Healthcare communities2. All things viral - viral adoption, viral marketing etc.3. Online Retail communities, retail adoption.Here are somethings I am looking to get answers for:1. Overview of the space2. Which are the key communities3. What are their strategies4. Who are the key players (Names, contacts, etc.)5. How to put these items in a context that is easy to understand6. Relationships (or lack of) between the playersetc.The output of this research is a series of blog posts / articles and I intended to make them available in multiple formats - presentations, images etc.Here are the tools of the trade I am using:1. Delicious for bookmarking2. Google Notebook (Firefox plugin) for taking notes3. FreeMind for mindmap (I have tried mindmeister, but for some reason dont like it)4. Zoho for documents and spreadsheets. I also tried Google docs (We have Google apps for the enterprise), but the lack of offline support pretty much makes it difficult to use5. Twitter for quick questions, polling etc.6. Google Reader (since some items are blog posts that I have starred or shared) over the last year.Here is what I am using even after trying out all these items.1. Google Notebook: Collecting, marking and collating is a breeze with Google notebook. If you dont need to share your links with everyone else as part of the research, there's nothing to beat this. Why? Markup is easy, the note book is a small extension on the bottom right corner of my web browser. This beats delicious any day (again, I assume you dont have to share with anyone else). What's missing: 1. contacts is a pain. I want a contact object in Writer so I can collect Name, Email, blog / website and ...

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Shara Karasic has a good and extensive list of online community resources. Took me some time to find her - wonder why?

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Back from Hawaii and Carribean after a long trip, I noticed I have several more FTCLTL on this blog. Why?1. Topic variation: Most topics unrelated to Communities are getting the comments.2. New year's resolution: Four (4) people mentioned to me that ONE of their new year's resolutions was to comment more on other blogs. That something I have never heard before.3. Topics are worth commenting. This is a new one Anyway I notice that if you want to get more comments on your blog, then make more friends (personal connections). That is unless you are a A-lister.

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Off for vacation, 10 days of beach fun.