Disqus - Latest Comments for Joseph Thornley

Re: Rumblings of discontent at MyRagan?

Joseph Thornley — Wed, 23 May 2007 09:22:50 -0000

Hi Lee,
The immediate discussion may end, but I think the important issue it underlines will persist: "...MyRagan is Mark’s site and he can do with it what he pleases, even if it involves changing the rules."

You are right. it is MARK's site. And the community should not forget that "his ball, his rules." This is a serious issue that we should consider when deciding whether to participate in closed communities or to participate through our own blogs - in the open, where "they can't take it away from me."

Re: Anniversaries

Joseph Thornley — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:53:59 -0000

David, Congrats on the 1 year anniversary - and surviving the 2 year one as well. ;-) I love the list of great community events you've supported and participated in. Next year, we've got to get Third Tuesday on your list. :-)

Re: » friendroll and toplinks - Wordpress plugins from Thornley Fallis | StartupNorth

Joseph Thornley — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:59:37 -0000

Hi Jevon,
I'm glad you like the concept. These are first releases. I hope that you'll provide us with your comments on how they work for you and how we can improve them.

Re: » StartupNorth is a year old! How did that happen? | StartupNorth

Joseph Thornley — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:11:43 -0000

Congratulations guys. One year!
I won't be in Toronto on Thursday. So I can't join you. But I'll be there in spirit. Party on.

Re: Great conversation at Third Tuesday

Joseph Thornley — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 07:14:36 -0000

Mathew,
The questions and reponse to you said to me that the PR community is determined to figure out how to operate within the new rules of blogging in order to develop a positive relationship from the outset. Bloggers and PR folks should have a mutually beneficial relationship - if we work to understand the needs of the bloggers. Your presentation provided us with great insight into this.
Thanks for joining us. You definitely contributed to making the Toronto communications community smarter.

Re: Great conversation at Third Tuesday

Joseph Thornley — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 08:33:10 -0000

Hi again Mathew,
I realized after the event that Grazr is in fact freezing only the version of FeedDemon that depends on IE7, not Firefox. Gotta love those folks from Microsoft!

Re: Showdown: Facebook versus the Internet

Joseph Thornley — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:43:40 -0000

Mathew,
As I try to understand the relationship between Facebook and blogging, I come to the realization that SIMPLICITY is the operational factor.

Blogging made authorship simple.

Facebook makes connecting with friends simple.

They complement one another - until the next great development: the open platform that brings the ease of associating with the people you want to OUTSIDE of the closed community.

Just like Compuserve a generation ago...

Re: Do blog comments still matter?

Joseph Thornley — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:37:35 -0000

Good post Mathew.

I'm stunned by the people who blog, but turn off trackbacks or comments. What is this medium about, if not the opportunity for anyone who reads your post to offer some reaction. That's what separates it from the guys who own the printing presses and deign to publish edited "Letters to the Editor."

I don't want to be snarky. But it seems to me that a good portion of the folks who push "trackbacks are dead/comments are dead" memes are the people who have large audiences. Maybe many of them have forgotten that social media is social because listening is as important as talking.

Re: It’s better than good, it’s Twitterific

Joseph Thornley — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:52:45 -0000

Mathew, I personally view Twitter as a vehicle for conversation with the people whose ideas and blogs I find interesting. And this is reflected in the fact that I follow about 80% of the people who follow me.

This isn't a criticism, just an observation. The fact that you follow only 1 in 10 of the people who follow you suggests that you have a different view of Twitter. Combine that with the fact that you tweet about every one of your blog posts and it raises the question: Do you view it primarily as a promotional vehicle - another way to attract attention and promote traffic to your blog?

I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with that. But I think that if you look at the follower/following ratio, it's a quick giveaway of whether people see Twitter as conversation or marketing.

Just a thought. :-)

Re: Loren Feldman vs. Shel Israel

Joseph Thornley — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:29:16 -0000

"Loren is just having fun with Shel"
Mathew, I hope that you never have the experience of someone "having fun" at your expense in this way. Yes, we should all have a sense of humour. But there's a difference between clever and just plain mean.

I think the silence about Loren's tactics is driven by people's desire to stay out of his crosshairs. And to me that's the real indication that he has gone way beyond a healthy sense of humour. If you make fun of someone and they aren't returning the "humour" in the same way, a decent person would back off, not up the volume.

Re: Loren Feldman vs. Shel Israel

Joseph Thornley — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:52:05 -0000

Mathew, I couldn't disagree more with you. It is mean to subject someone to ridicule. No one deserves that.

The longevity of court jesters was directly tied to make their point without causing personal offence, by doing it indirectly and with wit. What's going on here is heavy handed and without finesse.

Re: friendroll and toplinks - Wordpress plugins from Thornley Fallis

Joseph Thornley — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:59:37 -0000

Hi Jevon,
I'm glad you like the concept. These are first releases. I hope that you'll provide us with your comments on how they work for you and how we can improve them.

Re: StartupNorth is a year old! How did that happen?

Joseph Thornley — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:11:43 -0000

Congratulations guys. One year!
I won't be in Toronto on Thursday. So I can't join you. But I'll be there in spirit. Party on.

Re: Third Tuesday with RichardatDELL

Joseph Thornley — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:20:04 -0000

Ryan,
I thin you are absolutely right in your views about the need to transcend the focus on transactions. And it was great to hear them validated by a guy like RichardatDell, whose been at the heart of one of the most remarked upon social media efforts by a Fortune 100 company. We can use social media to build long term relationships that serve both company and consumer alike.

Bringing this discussion into the real world at Third Tuesdays with speakers like Richard gives us a chance to establish stronger relationships. It also should help us to move forward with confidence knowing that we are up to date with the best thinking that the social media world has to offer.

The fact that you that Richard validated a line of thought you already were developing just goes to show that Canadians are in the forefront of thinking and working through the potential of social media.

Re: Crash course on PR & Social Media

Joseph Thornley — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:55:17 -0000

Hi Ryan,
You'll find some suggestions at http://tinyurl.com/3afue5.

Re: Crash course on PR & Social Media

Joseph Thornley — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:57:01 -0000

Oops. That TinyURL doesn't work. I don't know why. Here's the complete link http://www.propr.ca/index.php/2007/joes-social-...

Re: Today is Good People Day

Joseph Thornley — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:09:18 -0000

Ryan, Thanks so much for including me in your post. I think that your post and the good people day is a great example of the gift economy that propels social media. People do things because they feel they will help other people . They don't ask for anything in return - and then along comes a post like yours.

I can tell you honestly that a mention like this is more meaningful to a guy like me than anything else. Thank you!

Re: Social Media Breakfast is coming to Ottawa

Joseph Thornley — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:30:06 -0000

Ryan,

Thanks for the plug for Third Tuesday. For sure, the more opportunities we have to form a community around social media, the better. I'm sure that we can coordinate these things so that all are successful and they each provide value to participants.

Re: Every day I write the book

Joseph Thornley — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:44:05 -0000

Ryan, Congrats on the big move. May it bring you big satisfaction and big success to match.

And I hope that we get a chance to engage in some good, positive co-opetition. :-)

Re: Why Blogging Matters to me

Joseph Thornley — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:36:46 -0000

"blogging can allow you a place to hone your skills, distill your thoughts and generally connect you to a world that has some outstanding citizens who are constantly pushing themselves - and therefore you - to think in new and exciting ways." Right on, Chris!
Thanks for the great post.

Re: Get to know your social media types

Joseph Thornley — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:21:42 -0000

Thanks for the post Chris. I only wish that I would have done this when I was at the dinner you organized the night before the Ragan conference.

Bryan Person has also begun to upload and tag photos of bloggers and podcasters in the Boston area. It would be great if you could do this too (I'm sure your photos will be better than mine!) Flickr tag: socialmediator.

Re: “So apparently blogging is dead. Funny, I didn’t get the memo.”

Joseph Thornley — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:18:09 -0000

"So regardless of how much blogs are growing or who says what about what that growth rate means our lives I believe there's still significant power there in terms of thought leadership and letting the community brainstorm on good ideas and best practices."

Right on Chris!

I can't help but wonder at the corelation between the authors of the blogging is dead meme and the authors of the Second Life is the Second Coming meme.

Re: BlogOrlando is underway!

Joseph Thornley — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:00:41 -0000

Chris,

Tom's presentations was one of the highlights of BlogOrlando. Thoughtful and advanced without hype.

And judging from the applause and chatter in the hall afterward, I know I wasn't the only person who held that opinion.

And, one more thing, you and Tom flew to Orlando for this presentation and your fee was what? $0? Now, that's the kind of spirit of generosity that should be recognized.

Re: Woof

Joseph Thornley — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:25:06 -0000

My daughter has a dog. (but you know who gets to walk him!) Does that count?

Re: AideRSS is growing!

Joseph Thornley — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:22:44 -0000

Congrats on the new gig, Melle.ca. AideRSS's PostRank algorithim is very interesting and full of potential. I hope all goes well, that the company grows and you and the other early employees become rich (in both experience and the green stuff.) :-)

Re: If that is your real name…

Joseph Thornley — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:02:02 -0000

Thanks for the explanation Melanie. That makes the rebranding much clearer.

And let's hope that the comparison with RIM/BlackBerry is even more apt as time goes by. Canada's next great success story? AideRSS? Sounds good.

Re: Ilya recognized for influence in Canadian social media

Joseph Thornley — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:57:46 -0000

Congratulations for sure. Ilya and his PostRank algorithm helps us to understand engagement in a profound way. For that alone, he is one of Canada's most influential social mediators.

Re: A response on how PostRank works

Joseph Thornley — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:15:39 -0000

"PostRank scores in the widget and PostRank scores on the website are calculated slightly differently"

Melle, I think that PostRank absolutely rawks. But I think you can improve it further to make it more useful as part of an enterprise analytics suite.

A basic rule of measurement is that I should be able to compare results against a baseline. A second rule is that I should be able to replicate the results.

Right now, it's not easy to do either with PostRank. It would be great if you could tackle this challenge.

Re: Growing Your Audience- Some Basics

Joseph Thornley — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:35:45 -0000

Break it up in chunks. Use headlines.

Great practical advice Chris that I and many others too often forget.