kenekaplan Marketing, Media, PR, Social Media

Tagging & Currupting Conversations

I finally got to spend some time on Beet.TV and wow!  Found some fresh, insightful video interviews with influencers like Steve  Rubel (, Om Molik (GigaOM), Peter Rojas, Shel Isreal and tons more.

Found this posted by Andy Plesser, who I had the pleasure of meeting over a year ago at a new media breakfast hosted by TheNewsMarket.com (broadcast quality video download services used by Intel’s GCG).  In this interview you get a good sense for the importance of tagging and the benefits of allowing your readers to tag your posts/content.  The most telling reaction here is that people who are paid to comment on blogs are currupting conversations.  A strong opinion for which I feel is limiting.  The sense I got from the ending of this interview: the real power resting in the potential of Internet, not particular tools people will create to make money off it.  

Jeff Jarvis the vlogger! With his great video coverage of Davos under his belt, I asked him to handle some interviews for Beet.TV at the AlwaysOn conference in Manhattan this week.

Here Jeff has a talk with Harvard’s David Weinberger, one of the co-authors of the ground-breaking Cluetrain Manifesto.

David is an author of an upcoming book about folksonomies and tags called “Everything is Miscellanous.”

Jarvisalways

Here’s the rising videoblogger Jeff Jarvis (l) in action, interviewing David Weinberger at the AlwaysOn conference.

P.S.  Note — we are providing transcriptions of our interviews on Beet.TV — the lag is about 5 days since the the transcriptions are done by real human beings who understand and write real English!  So, you should check back at this post to find the transcription in a few days.  Here is our Beet.TV transcription blog.

kenekaplan Media, PR, Social Media

Age of the Link, Helps Us Focus on Our Best

This is something I first found in Tom Foremski’s NewRulesCommunications.  Tom references BuzzMachine.com’s story New rule: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest about how local papers might do better by covering their community and taking wire/Internet stories to report on the world outside their community.  This rule just might help us all in the age of links and aggregation.  Embedded media players are proving that we’re moving beyond just using links.   

kenekaplan PR, Social Media

Social Media Press Release by Shift

Shift Communications was one of the first to create a new way of crafting a press release optimized for sharing and built to be “discovered” online more easily.  Optimizing anything you put out over the Internet helps people find your stuff through search engines.  It also makes it easier for others to cite your press release as a source for thier blog post.

Here’s info from www.shiftcomm.com:

NEW! – Following the wide acclaim for its Social Media News Release template, SHIFT created the first Social Media Newsroom template! The template is free for all, and enables companies to more holistically communicate with key audiences. Check out the presentation. See the press release. Read our blog.

kenekaplan PR, Social Media

Story Tools, Not Polished Pitch

 [podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/02/PID_001990/Podtech_Intel_Teraflops_research.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/2107/intel-scientists-talk-tereflops&totalTime=183000&breadcrumb=3F34K2L1]

This video was produced by my pals in the technology labs.  A simple video with a few snazzy edit tricks, featuring the real scientists describing the prototype 80-core chip.

Seeing this video again made me think about storytelling and storyselling.  I think we’re all in love with great stories — maybe we can blame Homer!  When we talk to people, we tell stories.  When a PR professional pitches a story to a journalist, we sell a story.  But what a journalist may really want are bite-sized storylines and materials they can use to craft an engaging story from their point of view.  That last part is important. 

Today, there is much debate about doing away with the press release as we know it.  I’m enjoying this debate.  Here is a pitch I created for the 80-Core Chip announcement in February 2007.  This was intended to help TV, Radio and online journalists.  Why can’t something like this also stand in the place of a press release?  Maybe we’ll all read this here post in a few months/years and laugh out loud.

SUPERCOMUPTER ON CHIP FOR THE “ERA OF TERA”

  • Intel researchers demonstrate a prototype 80-Core programmable processor delivering teraflops performance with remarkable energy efficiency.
  • A “Teraflops” of computing performance stands for a Trillion FLating-point Operations Per Second

THE STORY

  • The single 80-core chip delivers supercomputer-like performance and is not much larger than a fingernail, yet uses less electricity than most household appliances
  • This 80-core research chip achieves a teraflops of performance while consuming less than 100 watts – (exact – significantly lower — watt consumption will be announced during the demonstration on 2/8)
  • The ability of these chips to perform trillions of calculations a second will play a pivotal role in future computers, helping lead to real-time language translation and speech recognition, photo-realistic games, and even artificial intelligence
  • Intel has no plans to bring this exact 80-core chip to market, but the company’s Tera-scale research is instrumental in investigating new innovations for making individual or specialized processors
  • The prototype 80-core chips were first shown by Intel CEO Paul Otellini at the Intel Developers Forum in late 2006.

  

FUN, INFORMATIVE STORYLINE

  • We see the auto industry racing to create energy efficient cars, but a group of scientists are on another fast track to drive down electricity and battery consumption of your next computer.  Here’s more on the possibilities of a new research chip with 80 brains.
  • It used be that need for speed was met with faster and faster computer chips.  Well today, as we enter what computer engineers are calling “the era of tera,” it’s a completely different game.
  • Energy efficiency has to be built into every chip we make.  It’s essential!
  • At a recent chip industry gathering in San Francisco, Intel researchers showed off a research prototype jam packed with 80-computer engines all on in a single chip.  That’s a huge leap compared to what was possible a decade ago.   
  • This new research chip has about the same performance as the world’s first teraflop supercomputer that Intel built in 1996.  That monster was the size of a house and ate up enough electricity to power a small town!  Now a chip the size of your finger nail can provide same teraflops of performance consuming less power than your toaster.

Another analogy from our research team:

Today’s applications is like a new hire fresh from school.

  • Need specific instructions
  • Must be closely managed
  • Decisions require approval
  • Little or no network
  • Handle limited workloads
  • Must earn trust
  • Limited impact

Tera-scale applications will behave like a seasoned professional

  • Anticipate your needs
  • Require little management
  • Empowered to act
  • Extensively networked
  • Manage large workloads
  • Trusted advisors
  • Deliver solid results

INTEL CTO JUSTIN RATTNER’S BLOG at ZDNet

SOME TECH STORIES/BLOGS ABOUT INTEL’S 80-CORE RESEARCH

  

INTEL LINKS TO RELATED INFORMATION

kenekaplan Marketing, PR, Social Media, Technorati

Technorati’s Peter Hirshberg in WSJ on Ogilvy Alliance

On Valentine’s Day, The Wall Street Journal did a “Questions For…” piece in its The Advertising Report section (B3D) that was all about love.  Smart love.  A marraige based on building out open communication.

“Minding the Blog Is the Next Big Thing in Managing Brand,” read the subhead.  I carried this article in my man purse for a week before reading it.  Glad I got to it!

One evening a while back, I saw that Technorati and Ogilvy North America had created an alliance to provide new services for clients interested in reaching consumers…consumers who are spending time creating videos and blogs rather than watching TV or reading news created by traditional media.

I really dig a great soundbite.  Here’s one from Steve Hayden, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide vice chairman & chief creative officer (now there’s a title!):  “Our whole industry for 200 years has been focused on talking  or broadcasting.  We need more listening.”

Here are some gems from Technorati Chairman and CMO Peter Hirshberg. 

  • If you went to a cocktail party and heard everything everyone was saying about you all the time, and took it all really seriously, it might drive you nuts.  You need to use judgment.  But it turns out that if you read what people are saying, you very quickly get a sense of how you are playing. 
  • Marketers need to be careful to not overreact.  Is there something you could learn (from a blog, a comment, or consumer-generated content)? 
  • The important thing is to read this stuff (blogs, comments) and consider it.
  • Marketing organizations really ought to have somebody on board whose job is to listen to, converse with and ensure the company is engaging with its customers, whether they are on blogs, MySpace, YouTube, whatever.
  • These people, the new 24-year-old person you will hire, you will be amazed by the knowledge they bring to the table.
  • You should respond if someone (online) says something inaccurate.  You should go on to the blog that day and correct it.  If someone says something great, you should thank them. 
  • If a brand pays attention to its customers, wonderful things happen.
  • Prestige, high-concept brands, brands that really put a lot of time into curating and polishing every aspect of it, take longer to get on board, because they think there is more to lose.  In fact, there is more to gain.
  • Until maybe last summer (2006), when you said “the blogoshere” to a brand: it ducked.  The basic reaction was, “I hope they don’t say bad things about me.  I’m not sure I want to advertise on a blog, because I can’t control it, and I’m very nervous about letting my users talk about my brand online because that would be giving up control.”
  • This is until about nine months ago (summer 2006).  Then all of a sudden, I think brands saw an emerging growth of MySpace, of YouTube, and the blogosphere.
  • The brand people got over the control issue.  They actually realized that the next generation of branding involved listening to and including the audience in marketing and building a dialogue.
  • The most interesting action in the blogosphere is really in the hundreds of topic areas where communities coalesce and people are having conversations.
  • Blogs are just one form of user-generated content.  There are Podcasts, video, pictures.  All of this stuff is growing.  We’ll probably see a lot of growth in areas that aren’t blogging, but the blog isn’t going away, because it really does give the audiences a voice. 

Makes me wonder.  There was a time when broadcast was not essential to Intel’s PR department.  But some progressive, forward-thinking people gathered enough insight and momentum to convince the right people it was time to treat broadcasters as a key audience.  Building good relationships with broadcast professionals has been important to Intel for decades now.  We’re now very fortunate to have the opportunity to build helpful relationships with a whole new set of people.  We the interested people.

kenekaplan Marketing, PR, Social Media, Tech, Technorati

Social Media Insight from the Geek & the Gatherer

Here are “marketing voices” that make you ask — are there really any remaining good reasons why people, companies and organizations ought to step slowing into Social Media?  I’m sure there are many, but possibilities seem to trump potential harm.

From the Terry Gross of Social Media, PodTech’s Jennifer Jones give us these great interviews:

Dave Sifry, CEO of Technorati, is the recognized authority about what is happening on the Web at any one moment. He tells how Technorati is changing the news cycle. One way to think of it is this way: instead of a 24-hour turnaround between an event and its coverage (and longer for analysis), it’s more like a 60-second turnaround. Technorati indexes what people post within one minute of its posting. The site tracks 67 million blogs in total, and 1.5 million blog posts a day. It has already changed the landscape of marketing, and it definitely alters what companies that care about “listening” need to do.

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/02/PID_001948/Podtech_MV_Dave_Sifry_CEO_Technorati.mp3&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/marketingvoices/marketing-voices/1251/technorati-the-focus-group-for-the-web&totalTime=1245000&breadcrumb=3F34K2L1]

The best company cultures that work for social media are just like people who embrace conversations and two-way interactions — they are open, trusting and talkative. Jennifer McClure, executive director of the Society for New Communications Research talks to Marketing Voices host Jennifer Jones about corporations like IBM that embrace the idea of blogging employees (more than 25,000 IBM bloggers attest to this) and are willing to talk directly with their customers and employees. McClure also discusses how she would assess a company’s readiness for social media. Fear used to reign in corporate cultures, but McClure sees fear waning, as trust becomes more prevalent in Fortune 500 environments. [podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/01/PID_001922/Podtech_MV_Jennifer_McClure.mp3&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/marketingvoices/marketing-voices/1249/building-a-corporate-culture-for-social-media&totalTime=884000&breadcrumb=3F34K2L1]

kenekaplan Media, PR, Social Media

First Day on The Blog

Rohit Bhargava offers more sound advice based for working with bloggers http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2007/02/read_this_befor.html.  His five principles for marketers interested in getting a product into the hands of bloggers to talk about:

  1. Be selective and choose bloggers for a reason (industry, subject matter, previous posts, etc.).
  2. Tell bloggers why you chose them – and help them understand that it was exclusive.
  3. Require full disclosure from the blogger about what you have given them.
  4. Don’t be afraid to ask them to write about their experience with it (positive or negative).
  5. If they don’t write about it, there is probably a reason – so just let it go.

And PodTech’s Marketing Voices — host Jennifer Jones is the Terry Gross of Social Media — has an interesting interview with David Hornik, general partner at August Capital.  As early-stage investors in companies like Microsoft, August knows what makes great companies, and Hornik serves as its social media expert.

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/02/PID_002021/Podtech_MV_Hornik.mp3&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/marketingvoices/technology/1253/august-capitals-david-hornik-on-social-media&totalTime=1147000&breadcrumb=3F34K2L1]

Long Tail author Chris Anderson blogs “Don’t Confuse Media With Media Institutions” http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/02/the_one_thing_e.html.

“First, let’s agree that “media” is anything that people want to read, watch or listen to, amateur or professional. The difference between the “old” media and the “new” is that old media packages content and new media atomizes it. Old media is all about building businesses around content. New media is about the content, period. Old media is about platforms. New media is about individual people. (Note: “old” does not mean bad and “new” good–I do, after all, run a very nicely growing magazine/old media business.)

The problem with most of the companies Skrenta lists is that they were/are trying to be a “news aggregators”. Just as one size of news doesn’t fit all, one size of news aggregator doesn’t either.

Every day I get most of my news from blogs. I don’t visit “news sites” or use a “news aggregator”. I use a generic feedreader (Bloglines) and a totally idiosyncratic RSS subscription list that includes everything from personal posts from friends to parts (but not all) of the WSJ. When it comes to the web, I have no interest in someone else trying to guess what I want to read or “help” me by defining what’s news and what isn’t. My news is not your news; indeed, you probably wouldn’t call most of it news at all. I will probably never visit any of the sites Skrenta mentions, and never did visit the ones that are now defunct.  

In short, We Media is alive and well. It’s just the would-be We Media institutions that are not. A phenomena is not necessarily a business. That doesn’t make it any less of a phenomena.”