DISQUS

Awesome video, Gary. Hit it right on the head once again. Everyone is always asking to do what their competitor is doing because it's so successful. But you're right...what your competitor does, isn't going to be the same with you. Wonder if people will think you're copying them because you don't have any original thoughts?

But it's all about you engaging your customers...anything else would be...well...not keeping it real.

You make an excellent point about how to make it your own page, but no matter what you do online, it'll come back to haunt you later in life...whether you're applying for college, looking for a new job, networking, or simply running for office. Look at what happened with the future speechwriter for Barack Obama!

But social pages on Facebook, Myspace, etc. are fundamentally "personal", but at the same time, it's "professional" as well. Unfortunately we're not all psychics and can't predict what will happen in our lives, so while there are people who'd wanna post compromising photos for their friends to see from that last beer bash party, it's unfortunate that they'd have to just simply resort to email or printing it out to share.

Will privacy settings help? Chances are they will minimize the risk of things you don't want others to see being leaked, but nothing online is tamperproof.

Great post.

You make an excellent point about how to make it your own page, but no matter what you do online, it'll come back to haunt you later in life...whether you're applying for college, looking for a new job, networking, or simply running for office. Look at what happened with the future speechwriter for Barack Obama!

But social pages on Facebook, Myspace, etc. are fundamentally "personal", but at the same time, it's "professional" as well. Unfortunately we're not all psychics and can't predict what will happen in our lives, so while there are people who'd wanna post compromising photos for their friends to see from that last beer bash party, it's unfortunate that they'd have to just simply resort to email or printing it out to share.

Will privacy settings help? Chances are they will minimize the risk of things you don't want others to see being leaked, but nothing online is tamperproof.

Great post.

When I replied to your Tweet earlier today, I never thought of Wal-Mart's addition of the iPhone to it's low-cost repertoire as something that cheapens the Apple brand - mostly all about accessibility. I do see what other folks have said in their @replies to you and agree that it could "cheapen" the brand, but maybe that's not necessarily true? Rather than reaching out to those who can only afford the $199+ phones at the AT&T or Apple stores, maybe Apple's thinking that it can reach another market segment by focusing on those that are cost-conscious BUT they WANT an iPhone. Apple probably realizes that these folks don't want to wait 4 years until the iPhone drops to something more affordable for them. They want something NOW and affordable. So Apple drops the price of some older iPhones to $99 and markets it at Wal-Mart because they know that's where the cost-conscious folks are. The really nice upper class iPhones are still found at the Apple & AT&T stores. This is no difference than having large fashion manufacturers/designers create luxury clothes for Nordstrom but make low-cost clothes for Wal-Mart.

Novel idea to rename the government 2.0 "experiment". But is it all about rebranding this notion for people to feel like their federal government is being more transparent? I'm not sure that it's that simple by giving it a new name, although they all still share the same message - the government is not about the politicians but rather the people who vote & are citizens.

How would you consider this "rebranding" to be anything different from Change.gov? Do you consider change.gov to be more Obama-centric & now more bureaucratic since his election to the presidency? Or is your premise based on creating a campaign that the government could use to help bring in citizens to educate them that their government is being more transparent now with the new administration?

If I had to choose amongst the winners (excluding the one written by your interns whom I feel sorry they get more work as a result of their contribution), I'd choose WeGov rather than iGov because it has a connotation of being more pluralistic rather than singular in nature. Government shouldn't be about just an individual but about the community and if we're spinning 2.0, then it's all about the network & community.

RE: the Government Vista example - very hilarious, but I'd like to add to that. Once people grow tired of Government Vista, the government will release a new version and call it Government Mojave and fool the public once again and then reveal it to be an improved version of Vista, much to the anger or chagrin of the US public. Hey, it worked for Microsoft, right?

Great post...as a Blackberry addict, I'm in total agreement that Obama shouldn't relinquish his Blackberry, but I do think that it's somewhat sensible for him to stop for four years. As President, he's going to have EVERYTHING be part of the public domain...including emails that he would potentially send to his friends and family. Even those that are "Merry Christmas from the Obamas" or "Are you going to the White Sox game tonight?", etc. that would be subject to public scrutiny.

I think that if the public saw that, it would give people the sense that Obama is more human than the past administration, but then again, where's the privacy issue for Obama's personal life? I think it's a delicate balance for how the White House can stil integrate with the web-generation.

Chris - Congratulations on the news! Much success to you in the future!

Joe - this is a great post and offers some great insights into how to use Twitter for marketing usage. I agree that you need to interact and be yourself. Twitter and social media are not one-way means of communication. It's just another way to have a conversation. Thanks for the post!

Nick, I've installed Disqus on my blog and I think it's nothing new to the commenting world. It's more of a personal preference, I believe. The only difference is that if you use Disqus, it'll be spread virally from there too. So you can comment on a blog and someone from the web who hasn't read the blog post can comment on your comment. It's comment proliferation!

Video comments I think of as being a novelty, similar to what Twitter used to be in its infancy before mutating. I see it more for mobile use first and maybe later from the desktop. I'm sure we're not all THAT lazy we can't type in our comments from our desks, are we?

I think perhaps big-time advertisers are probably pursuing sponsorships on ads, but what about authenticity and transparency on blogs? Do these things play a factor in how the blogger decides who they can have on their site IF their blog becomes a high-traffic domain? Will people criticize the blogger for succumbing to the "greed of corporate America"? How can a journalist (professional or citizen) truly write about stuff sans bias without the issue about transparency lingering over their shoulder?

Of course I agree that brands probably don't want to get mixed in with bloggers who trash each other and slander their compatriot's good name to get a leg up on the competition.

Great article Anthony...err..Nick :)

Well said...

Congratulations Adam! I've been prone to constantly relying on Twitter for my feed updates or simply visiting multiple sites to check out the latest news, but something that has all of that in one place is great. Looking forward to seeing it.

Great points you make. I wasn't at SXSW but I saw the video of the interview on the AllFacebook website and I was kind of baffled about the "types" of questions that were being asked. I'm in marketing so some of those would relate, but you're right that the audience needed to hear more about what related to them as opposed to Sarah Lacy reporting from a journalist standpoint. She wanted to make it more newsworthy than it probably was and talked about what you'd see on the ABC Nightly News or even on CNN.

I think that it's the audience's responsibility to voice their disagreement if such a highly anticipated event tanks as soon as it begins (approx. 15 minutes in it, according to what I read from your blog). If you're paying big bucks to attend, you might as well get your money's worth. I would say it's equivalent to paying money for a cruise, but having the ship stay docked in the same port for 7 days. Where's the value? Thanks for your insights!