NESTA hosted a lovely panel discussion yesterday with Stephen Fry, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who discussed Twitter as a force for good - see a video of the event here.
Biz talked about the way Twitter was developed, like so many other interesting services, as a side-project, which then quickly evolved into something remarkable thanks to its sheer simplicity and malleability. He said that early reactions from potential investors suggested they couldn't see past this simplicity, and this was echoed by Reid Hoffman, who was told by VCs in 2003 that social networking would be a feature of dating sites, recruiting sites and other existing destination web sites, but not a meaningful service in its own right. Talking about future social networking services, Reid said "You ain't seen nothing yet," and suggested we have only just begun to explore the power of people, connected. How we connect with other people gives us meaning in life, and he thinks there are many more ways in which we will explore this notion with future products and services - with the next wave of web innovation being about what we do with the massive amounts of data and ... read more >>
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Source: Shutterstock
A recent study revealed 20 percent of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives. Now we learn that Twitter users are actively paying attention to brands on the popular information network. According to research conducted by Performics and ROI Research, about half of Twitter users who were introduced to a brand on Twitter were compelled to search for additional information. The companies studied the activity of 3,000 users of social networks in the U.S. Of those polled, 70% use Facebook, 40% use YouTube, and 22% use Twitter. Participants were presented with roughly 100 questions that explored how they discover products in social networks and also their thresholds for advertising and marketing. The survey found that 48% of those who came into contact with a brand name on Twitter went on to search for additional information on search engines compared to 34% on other social networks, which to be clear, is also an impressive number. The inspiration, it seems, was tied to a desire to surface additional information about a product, service, or brand with 30% claiming they wished ... read more >>
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The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) has published its Internet Barometer Report (via Marketing Charts), which shows that 83% of European marketers plan to up their online ad spend in 2010. One in three (33%) organisations are now including mobile in their strategies confirming the increasing importance of the mobile Internet. But at the same time,one of the key drivers for marketers, in addition to changing consumer habits, is the perception that you get more bang for your buck online, with 31% citing cost efficiencies as a factor behind their decision. There’s of course a very important health warning with that, namely the on-going debate about click through rates in online advertising.  In fact, in the Summer Double Click (via Indolent) published research about engagement with Internet advertising and found that the UK performed worst with a 0.08% click through rate compared to the US (0.1%), France (0.12%) and Germany (0.13%) .
However, at the same time Comscore has results out showing that when combined with a social engagement, people are more than twice as likely to search for brands online. In that sense maybe on and offline ... read more >>
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This is another in a series of notes from the 2009 KM World. It is titled: Is Semantic Technology Real? It is moderated by Rob Gonzalez, Platform Product Manager, Endeca Technologies and include: Michael J. Cataldo, CEO, Cambridge Semantics, Daniela Barbosa, Business Development Manager, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones & Company, Lorenzo Thione, Founder / Principal Program Manager, Powerset / Bing Microsoft, Inc. Here is the session description. “Semantic technology is all the rage, sometimes even dubbed “Web 3.0.” However, many people—especially those making technology decisions for enterprises—wonder whether semantic technology has meaningful applications in the enterprise. Based on hands-on experience working with semantic tools, this panel of experts will establish the boundaries between reality and hype and help you understand what enterprises can gain from semantic technology in the here and now.” Cambridge Semantics provides semantic development tools. Dow Jones Client Solutions helps clients with taxonomy solutions, as well as other information needs. Powerset was acquired by Microsoft. It is Web semantic search tool. Rob ...
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by B. L. Ochman
While thousands of companies have either experimental or well-established presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites, those communities remain invisible on all but a tiny fraction of company homepages. Why do companies hide their social media efforts from visitors? My guess is that their reasons include
o fear that they'll lose control of their brand if too many people know they can have a say;
o lack of cooperation between marketing and IT;
o and perhaps pressure from lawyers who are nervous about new-fangled new media. It's hard to find a company website whose homepage easily and clearly allows visitors to see all of the its social media initiatives. You'd have to be Nancy Drew to find the company blog on most websites, or its Facebook page, or all of its YouTube videos.  Starbucks new homepage, recently re-designed, stands head and shoulders above the rest for clarity, ease of use and organization. Clean and clear, it has a community heading above the fold, and clearly lists Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, among other links.
A few companies try to curate their content effectively, including:
o Dell ... read more >>
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This is the first in a series of posts that Vanessa DiMauro and I will publish over the next few weeks, highlighting the more significant findings from The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks study that we recently conducted as part of our fellowship with The Society for New Communications Research. Please visit both Vanessa's and my blog regularly for latest analysis.The emergence and dominance of the popular Internet sites LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have taken shape as vibrant professional networks of mass “individuals” sharing experiences and collaborating around personal and professional issues, ideas, and interests.These “networks of people” or Social Media Peer Groups (SMPG) as we have defined them are changing the dynamics of social and professional influence. - More than nine in ten respondents form the New Symbiosis of Professional Networks research study indicated that they use LinkedIn and half reported using Facebook
- Interestingly, Twitter and blogs were frequently listed as ‘professional networks’
- Hundreds of other networks were mentioned, many by only one or two respondents
 Note: N = 356. Respondents were asked to fill in top 5 professional ... read more >>
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Metaphors and stories are powerful things - far better than numbers at showing how powerful human interactions can be and how much they impact the world at large - or sometimes in the small. When it comes to Social CRM, one thing that we've been saying over and over is that Gen Y drove the changes but they aren't exclusive to their effects or use. In fact, the generation that follows Gen Y is even more savvy than the echo boomers themselves. They are multitaskers who didn't know a day without the Internet or a computer - not a single day. So, due to an extraordinary circumstance and Facebook, I'm going to let one of these younger-than-Yers tell you a story about something he did. This is Rio Bowerman, folks. Rio is the son of Elissa Amoroso Bowerman who was a neighbor of mine when we grew up as kids in East Meadow NY. Due to Facebook and fortuitous circumstance, I had the opportunity to meet with Elissa and hang out with her for awhile when I was at the Gartner Summit in Scottsdale a few months ago. In the course of this lovely hour or so, I got the chance to meet her son Rio who has quite a history already though he's only 18. He was Chef Rio and on national TV from the ages of ...
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We wrote here about LinkedIn’s groups, and how to network through them. An associate of mine told me that it didn’t work for him. When I asked him why, I understood his that he came in too strong by putting a link immediately after joining. This was considered spamming, and he paid the price. Here’s a lesson for all of us. 
Spam- by David, on Flickr. Joining a LinkedIn group gives you the opportunity to communicate with other members of the group and also to post your content there. My associate was thrilled to find another place to put links to his site. While this can indeed be a nice platform for receiving quality traffic, from a well targeted group of professionals, this approach doesn’t always satisfy the group administrators. The big mistake that he did was not to read the rules. The group rules strictly stated no links! I believe that if you’re a veteran member of such a group, and you make such a sin as leaving a link in the discussion board, you’ll probably be forgiven. Well, my associate was not only hasty not to read the rules, but posted the link within hours of joining the group. This behavior was considered spammy by the group’s administrator, that used the ... read more >>
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 Recently, I was invited to give a talk to a small group of managers about KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) used to measure social media (SM) campaigns.
Some of the points we discussed that evening are outlined below. Harsh reality 1: Goals attempt to be strategic BUT…
John F. Kennedy once said: “In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.” For corporate strategy, this means once employees understand it they need to put their heart into reaching the targets. Our first attempt to master this challenge resulted in failing in our first strategic objective. Attempt 1: Reaching out to customers with the help of SM. We learned a few months down the road that we had not spent enough time developing a strategic goal suited to us. We tried again as shown below. Attempt 1a: SM should help improve client and potential customer engagement. Harsh reality 2: Developing comprehensive objectives takes time
The revised objective above made more sense, but the next reality check came with having to formulate up to three KPIs that would align with our SM strategy. For ... read more >>
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 Amidst a surging global economy, rising environmental challenges,poverty and food crisis ,corruption continues to pervade most human societies.This is revealed in the annual global corruption and country indices report prepared by Transparency international. The 2009 Transparency international Corruption Index released on Tuesday in Berlin,Germany indicates " that no region of the world is immune to the perils of corruption". As usual this blog has always taken an interest in the corruption index and makes it a point to discuss the report on annual basis. In this years Corruption Index Kenya has improved with a point from 2008 where its corruption perception index was placed at 2.1 to 2.2 in 2009.Indicating that there has been some relative improvement. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is used in measuring the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. The CPI is a "survey of surveys", based on 13 different expert and business surveys.The survey involved a random sampling of 3500 households between April and May 2009. It is good to note that among public institutions that have drastically improved include ... read more >>
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