DISQUS

The proof that all this talk from Stern is bullshit: He has over 10,000 fans for his page on Facebook. You telling me he's cool with ignoring that many people?

Love the new design, Justin. Well done.

Agreed 100%. I think people just like to be contrary.

I am in the EXACT same situation. I've even looked at moving to Charleston. I was CTO of a marketing agency until about three weeks ago. I'll get in touch with you via one of those social network site thingamajigs, but we might be able to join forces and help each other drum up business.

Good luck!

@Drew - Much worse is that it reflects poorly on the company.

I agree that most marketers underestimate the commitment and work required to maintain a blog. And I'm certainly not one to suggest that every company absolutely needs a blog... Yet. :)

My issue lies with the fact that blogs are only seen as a marketing medium from a corporate POV, when in fact they are a *communications* medium. And they get it all wrong from the start. Morever, attempts to apply old-school-based ROI numbers to them is missing the point.

I think that if old-school numbers are used to evaluate new media, you'll wind up with flawed assumptions and missed opportunities. Do you think Zappos, Comcast, and JetBlue started their successful Twitter presences only after a hard-nosed ROI analysis? I'd guess not.

Which gets to a larger issue, which is that I think many marketers (by way of their CEOs) don't know enough about blogs and social media in general to even know what they are asking for when they ask for ROI on such things.

What's the ROI of more engaged customers and a more active community? What's the ROI of better informed potential customers? What's the ROI of getting direct feedback from your customers? I'm guessing these aren't the sorts of ROI figures they're looking at.

As Forrester says, value and measurement are still being figured out (and the wildly innovative and active vendor space is evidence of this). So, companies are left to figure out the ROI of social media for themselves, and the tough thing for them is that those numbers might not be as easy to plot as their stock price.

Then again, I doubt many of those same CEOs asked (or know) what the ROI of their web site is, and I bet you that cost them a few cents more than dedicating some time to maintaining a blog, monitoring the blogosphere, or figuring out how to use Twitter to help their business.

BTW, hi there, Janet. Long-time, no speak. :)

-- FWIW, the back-button-based spam protection killed my first attempt at the above, which was much better put and thought out. The lesser second version is what we're all stuck with here at 11:30pm. --

IMO, asking for the ROI of blogging is like asking for the ROI of a phone system (can't remember if I thought of this or someone like Maggie Fox or KD Paine did, but...). It's about communicating with your customers!

ROI? WTF?

The interface is definitely hip, and the timeline functionality is cool (something that could be added to Twitter or done via its API), but there just might be too much going on. And with all the dropdowns and options, it takes too much thinking to post.

The Karma points are interesting, but ultimately I don't really care about that kind of thing when it comes to a communication medium.

I like that people are innovating and I appreciate much of what Plurk is doing, but in the end, the whole point of micro-blogging/micro-communication is that it's quick, simple, easy. Plurk just feels a bit bloated to me.

Off-topic, but it's a discussion I recently had with a co-worker:

You say: "Kill the calendar thingy. NO ONE navigates by it."

I am of the same opinion on Monthlyy Archive links, but you and almost every other blog I go to have them. I never use them, and don't understand how/why I would. I'm never going to say to myself, "Oh, I wonder what Chris posted in March!" If I'm just browsing a blog's content, I'm going to go back in time use the next/prev links to see the latest stuff (or go by category, more likely).

What say you? How are these different than the calendar things?

The question people will always ask is, "How can I make my video go viral?" Or a different side of the same coin, "Why did that video go viral?"

Quality is key for a product to succeed, but it's also important for virality (is that a word?). The quality is there in this ad. If there wasn't, why would anyone pass it on?

More importantly, I think, is the content of this video. It's informative. In this case, it's also got the advantage of the subject matter - graffitti - being something that sort of has a shadowy image to it so the content is interesting in that respect and is something people naturally want to hear about.

And the guy's accent doesn't hurt either. :)

People are always looking for some sort of hook, some magic trick, to make something go viral. Focus on the pieces you have the most control over, overall quality and informative content, and let the rest take care of itself.

GREAT photos! Thanks!

Not sure CAPTCHA will do it, but not sure what is required. I've noticed a big jump in spammy commercial followers just in the last 24 hours. But really, who wouldn't want to know about airbrush tanning offers on Twitter? http://twitter.com/jtnt/statuses/789071987

I have gotten more new followers in the last 24 hours than any other period. Woke up today and had 10 noticed sitting in my Inbox. The problem? 8 of them were marketing-only, commercial accounts. They weren't there to join any conversation. They were there to shout over it.

The beauty of Twitter is that they can shout all they want. I'm not interested, so I didn't follow them. So it's almost as if they don't exist at all.

For the record, I'm not against a company being on Twitter across the board. Zappos is innovating there, and lord knows Gary Vaynerchuk is making Twitter his bitch when it comes to WineLibraryTV. But just as I mentioned above, these folks are actively joining the conversation, so I listen. Just like in real life.

Definitely, Gary. People think of others that way, and they also do that to themselves. Sometimes it just makes things easier or happens to do with circumstance, though. Regardless, it's surely unnecessary.

I think that people tend to identify themselves and others too much by their work in general. Conversations rarely start with, "So, what do you do for fun?"

I'm a bit late for issuing a public thank you for this post, but thank you!

And Justin, to make you feel better, we professional photographers rarely select more than 5% of our shots as "keepers" either. I once heard in art school, "What separates the amateur and the professional photographer is quantity." Or something like that. Shoot a lot. You're bound to get something good. :)

Thanks again. Hope to start shooting some good stuff for you again soon as the season ramps up.

Sam, just a heads up about the 2/27 webcast of Wilco's DC show by NPR.

Check out this long and well-produced video from this night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSqlN2ReIgc

Neddy also posted a characteristically passionate and robust review here: http://weeklyned.blogspot.com/2008/02/review-marco-benevento.html

Great idea for this site... I've been trying to get my friend who works at Mexicali Blues in Jersey to procure for me a sweet Bustle in Your Hedgerow poster I forgot to snag at their show there last year. I'm thinking he's just keeping it for himself. :) If anyone can help me with that, I'd love you forever.

Took my awhile to catch up to the news, but really happy to see you're back.

I'll keep visiting and checking the RSS. You run the best live music site on the World Wide Webernet, and I hope it will continue for a long time in whatever form it can. Let me know if you need any help with anything... Weekly photo galleries perhaps? ;-) Thanks for all the hard work.

The SofR Festival is indeed Rocks Off: http://schoolofrockfest.com/

Chicago needs another kick-ass music festival like Amsterdam needs another coffee shop (so, yeah, it's debatable). DC/B'more and the mid-Atlantic in general needs to get a bit more festival love, in my very geographically-biased opinion!

Crap. That first direct link to the announcement didn't work for some reason. Here's the URL, if someone can fix it: http://organanddrums.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1356

Not only is Joe Russo closing Green Apple, he - with Marco - will be opening it as well. Check this announcement at the Duo fan boards:

"We will be playing two very intimate ACOUSTIC performances at Tonic in New York City on April 19th as part of the Official Green Apple Music Festival Kick Off!"

NP. Didn't think you guys were that CST-specific. Thanks for the props. :)