DISQUS

I remember the old BBS system from my college days, and I remember the chat rooms and discussion boards of the 90s.

I think that the deeper issue is that people in general are profoundly uncomfortable in their own skin, for reasons that would go too far afield for a blog comment. The same folks who enter an online community and interact with folks as if they're NPCs in a role playing game (great metaphor, BTW) were the folks who interacted with other kids in high school as if they were 2-dimensional secondary characters in a John Hughes movie.

Our ego has a very hard time grasping that the other people around us are living, breathing souls--not mirrors or cameras. Online or off.

Because the copywriting aspect of SEO is probably the most accessible to most bloggers, I'd highly recommend Jill Whalen's High Rankings site. Her approach to SEO is very content-centric.

http://www.highrankings.com/forum/

As usual, a great, actionable, helpful post. And, it appears, very timely for a lot of people. I just put in my first speaking proposal in the last week or two. Will definitely have to add a Speaking page to my blog, and probably knock out a few videos, since most of my previous presenting has been to prospects and clients. :)

Jaiku.

They've done nothing with it except lock it up into an eternal closed beta. Pownce has conceded defeat to Twitter. If Google's dropping poor-performers and bad risks, I think it's only a matter of time before they'll fold Jaiku.

Too cute.

Well done, on this and the previous post on the same topic. Like Suze, I'm one of those "born shy" people who has worked really hard to overcome it--especially over the past few years. In fact, most people who've only known me a few years would laugh if I said I was shy around them.

One thing that is hard to make clear to non-shy, extraverted people is that I really do enjoy being around people and socializing. It's just draining, rather than energizing, for me.

That's fine, when I remember to take it into account and do what I need to do to compensate. It's when I try to pretend I'm a natural extravert (like my boss) that I get into trouble.

Verra kewl.

You might add Writer Dad (www.writerdad.com) to your list of guest-posting prospects. :)

I had similar ponderings about ad:tech Chicago and their social media sessions earlier this month.

I think that the critical issue here is transition. Social media is transitioning from being a fringe, experimental channel into the mainstream. Which means there's a pretty wide divide between the people who adopted it much earlier, and those who are just now (sometimes more or less against their will) jumping into the fray.

I think trying to speak to both audiences, or not being crystal clear about which audience you're speaking to, is going to make or break conferences that deal with social media over the next few years.

I got the chance to see BNL this summer, and was impressed with how genuine and funny they are in person. As good as the music was, their banter in between songs was even more entertaining.

Another handy tip for group collaboration is http://ma.gnolia.com/ If you use their Groups function, you can create a private group, and set up tags for projects.

I'll be the first to admit that I signed up for Identica, another microblogging platform, simply to claim my name/ID, with no intentions of ever actually using the site.

I have "plurk" moments, when I like to jump in there and peek at all the conversations (and the conversations ARE easier to follow there), but as you said, they would get impossible past a certain scale. But I think that's the intent.

It wasn't really designed for the "1000+ follower" crowd, I think. It was designed for the "couple hundred actual friends and acquaintances" crowd--and I think it actually works quite well for that. (Although I still despise the karma thing.)

I think that in addition to knowing what platforms just aren't for you, period, it's good to know what ones you're just going to be a casual, occasional participant in.

Whatcha makit.

As of 2005, according to Consumer Reports, 60% of web users were unaware of the distinction between paid and organic results. http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2005/0...

That number has probably dropped somewhat in the last three years, but it still indicates a substantial number of searchers who don't distinguish between the two.

Nice post, Ryan. I'd been wondering what you've been up to (beyond the whole "not sleeping because of a new baby" thing that both you and Jason have going on this year.)

Thanks for coming by and previewing your insights on B2B branding and SEM. Paid search is still viewed a little askance by traditional advertising folks, but more and more they're catching on that it's definitely not going anywhere and that there really is value, if it's well done.

Jim -

That reminds me of a conversation Jason and I had last week about the fact that social media seems to attract folks who are "jacks of all trades."

Maybe we're the "anti-specialization specialists." :)

The spectrum you've described works on a variety of levels:

Lowest perceived risk to highest.
Lowest investment of resources to highest.
Shortest time frame to execute to longest.

That said, some organizations are never going to benefit much from banners, and some are never going to be ready for relationship marketing.

Also, some will latch onto blogging or content marketing well before they're ready for small groups. In fact, I'm not sure that doesn't happen more often than the other way around.

Of course, you may not have implied a timeline of engagement by proposing a left to right spectrum, but that's what I inferred. :)

Sorry for anyone who fell for it, but any time I hear about a celebrity death, my first thought is "Leg Pull" thanks to Snopes. In fact, I didn't believe George Carlin had actually died till I heard it through MSM.

Geez, how cynical am I?

I think that placement on those big media sites is just seizing the high ground, so to speak. Social news is still young. I would say it's definitely still well on the left side of the bell curve of adoption. As usage moves over to encompass more of those later adopters (bearing in mind there's probably a large slice of the population who'll never adopt it) I think Mixx will be well-positioned to grab that audience, but at this point I think their strategy for growth probably needs to be convincing existing social news users to migrate.

As gregory says, the front page is a mishmash... but on Mixx, I almost never visit the front page--I land on my personal homepage, which is pre-filtered to have only the stories most likely to appeal to me. Which is, ultimately, what I think will convert more people to using social news.