DISQUS

People either love or hate Twitter. I am currently in the latter camp, largely due to the fact that I think it is hard to convey something important within their character limits. If the service made slight changes, such as better filtering, I would be more inclined to use it. I think it has some potential for some issues within a company that aren't entirely marketing-related (An engineer & a designer in our company almost got into a fight over the issue).

I think Twitter needs a lot more mass (outside of the tech crowd) before it can be considered a true mainstream application.

Given that I generally don't read as many tech blogs these days, I will explain how I feel about the blogosphere right now...

1. The conversations don't often discuss anything other than tech. How is that very interesting? I would most certainly hope that many of the people that do engage in some way lead lives not entirely related to the internet.
2. Headlines seem to be:
Google is doing this.
Yahoo did this.
Apple did this.
Microsoft is doing this.
Twitter is doing this.
(Insert blogger name here) said this.
I don't like this (insert company name) anymore because they did XYZ.
Use product xyz or you suck.
etc., etc.

A key problem with the blogosphere is that it is also not entirely democratic as people would like to think it is. It seems like the whole process has devolved to linking to people you know only & you rarely seem to hear thoughts from some of the "regular" guys out there.

"For example, the recent hype surrounding FriendFeed and its enormous growth seems to be entirely focused on growth among the Technorati. I love FriendFeed, but 99% of my friends aren't on it, which diminishes (but does not eliminate) its utility. Who cares if all the "A-listers" and tech-bloggers are on it? Its enormous promise won't be realized until normal people start using it."

I couldn't say the above any better:) The true test of a product is if the general public accepts it; while you can have a serviceable niche product, many of the things we get told we *should be using* don't carryover well to the general populace.

"Jason also told me about two employees who’d be outside smoking while the rest of the company was working hard during lunches. He fired those two. Why? They weren’t team players"

Actually, that shows very poor management skills. The right thing would have been to pull the employees aside & discuss the matter with them. In addition, the whole point of a lunch is to take a break & shouldn't count against the employees.

I may smoke but there's not a person in my company that would question my productivity because of it. I've seen people do a lot worse, start-up or not, such as chatting on the phone with friends, sending countless personal emails, wasting time on social networks, checking their eBay auctions, etc. I think there were probably other factors at play with the employees as well.

Comments like that are one of reasons I largely stopped reading tech blogs...

Robert:

We can disagree;-)

I don't doubt the importance of influencers in any marketplace. But to say that a company will be a success only because of influencers (bloggers, for example) is somewhat shortsighted & somewhat egotistical. There's been numerous companies pumped up by bloggers that have fallen well short of the measuring stick because the products lacked mass appeal for the general marketplace & I think that is missed in your somewhat defensive comments supporting blogging. You need to have a working product first that fills a need for many people(ICQ, PayPal, eBay & other successes all filled needs for the online market).

"Now the fast adoption track is owned by iLike, which got six million users on Facebook in a couple of weeks."

I would argue that this success is largely due in part to other people seeing what other people were adding via the status updates on Facebook & not key influencers pumping Ilike. The appeal of Ilike is that is a self-expression tool (music that I enjoy) & that's why it works. The same goes for Flixster & many of the applications put out by Slide or RockYou.

Note: I already mentioned that blogging can obviously help in the beginning stages of a company & getting early adoption by people. I think your comments are somewhat defensive & miss the general statements that I was making about what else is needed to make it *work* (a working product & the potential for mass appeal). Friendster didn't fail because it wasn't nice to bloggers...the system problems at Friendster is what brought about their fall from social networking grace (I know of very few people in the tech industry that would argue this point).

Hi Robert,

I do think bloggers can be influential in the early stages of a company. But I also think there's a ton of online companies out there that have done quite well w/o the overall support of bloggers and/or other influencers (many of the "1.0 companies, for example, didn't have to worry about courting bloggers at all & probably don't do so now).

The bottom line is that there has to be mass appeal & working functionality for it to be embraced by the average person & that user attrition will happen with any service that has scaling issues that aren't addressed quickly enough.

Note: I personally don't find the limitations on Facebook to be annoying. Not many people actually have 5000 "real" friends, after all. Most of the folks that I have on Facebook have between 100-300 friends...which is generally in the range of what most normal human beings could maintain as some sort of friendship. I think you're in a fairly unique position because of your notoriety & willingness to be open with various social platforms.

I have to disagree with Friendster re: bloggers. What killed Friendster in the domestic market was a plethora of site access issues over an extended period of time. Many folks actually enjoyed the service until the site kept going down...

Note: Friendster, along with other social networking sites like Hi5.com, are actually doing quite well outside of the USA. The primary problem is that the marketing dollars are in the more developed countries...so it will be harder to monetize the traffic like Facebook & MySpace can.

Hi Folks,

I actually work for Mint as a consultant & some of the concerns about passwords can be addressed here:

http://forums.mint.com/showthread.php?t=703

Additional note: Having worked for PayPal in the past, I think that most folks should know username & password issues actually occur due to phishing.

" I’d rather listen to Ethan since he DOES have a blog. Thanks for trying so hard."

I think this is where Ethan is talking about the self-importance displayed by many bloggers. Since when did having a blog make anyone smarter than everyone else? Some of the smartest people I know DON'T blog.

After reading Ethan's post, I think the main point is that technology still has a great potential (not being fully utilized) to help change the lives of people that need help. Does our having technology help us understand these issues? Yes. Will it change it directly in the developing countries, countries that have more dire concerns (food, water) than internet access? Not right now.

And while the music industry certainly does have issues, I would actually argue that music is much more of a universal item than a blog...which means it has more potential to create the changes he was talking about.

Note: I have a blog. I' not under the delusion that I am going to change the world because of it. If you want to focus on some companies that are trying to change the world, I would recommend checking out sites like kiva.org or unitus.com (micro finance). Perhaps that could be the focus of one of your shows? You could also encourage your fans/readers to join some of the organizations found in Facebook causes. Is 10.00 donation to a cause a lot of money to either one of us? Not really. But 1000 people donating that much money to a cause will actually help someone...

I personally don't understand why folks can't tackle some of these conversations in private. Perhaps more importantly, I think conference organizers are somewhat responsible for setting the guidelines about what kind of material is/isn't acceptable during a presentation.

At the same time, I don't know how you could ask a speaker NOT to talk about their company & experiences...

Damon: yeah, I know lots of people find value in LinkedIn for jobs and such, but that’s EXACTLY why I don’t like it.

Facebook is already being used for that and is so much more.

Yes, but I think the primary advantage for LI is that they do have a jobs/recruiting focus. Until Facebook makes more of their service for business folks - even if some are already using it - it won't have the same rate of adoption.

As stated, I do think Facebook is a very legitimate threat to LinkedIn. As it stands right now, I would say that it currently can't beat the LinkedIn product (my professional profile is much more robust on LinkedIn). I've had a lot of potential job offers because of LinkedIn (being a Community Manager/Evangelist is still somewhat of a niche role, so folks find it easy to find folks like me there).

What Facebook could do:
Allow you to segregate business and personal contacts. Now that would be something that could be highly disruptive (99% of my Facebook friends are actually people I know through work!).

My guess is that Facebook will adopt the site to support social & business networking, which would separate the two items from one another.

Despite the crtiques of a walled garden, I actually prefer it to something more open. Why: because I get less spam.

LinkedIn: I have to disagree with you here. While some bloggers might not find as much value in it, the people that use it to accomplish something (recruiters & employers) do find value in the product (disclaimer: I know a lot of folks over there). Just because some bloggers might not like it these days, it doesn't mean that other people won't find value in the product (bloggers, after all, aren't the only folks in the universe).

As LinkedIn is a different niche, I think it would be silly for folks to compare it to the other social networks. But I also think LinkedIn has to pay very close attention to the very real threat that Facebook does pose...

While I am a recent Facebook convert, I can assure you that most of the people on my list of friends are past 30. I think a lot of the other social networks should be nervous...

One thing that Facebook has done well w/apps: People are more inclined to stay on the site & have fun with the apps that folks are developing. In addition, the apps make it much easier to add things than some of the other social networks, such as photos and things that I like. My favorite apps are:
Slide, Flixster, and My Flickr.

From an evil perspective: A massive amount of marketing data could be mined from apps/Facebook. If anything, I think the developers and Facebook should have some sort of privacy policy more clearly designed when downloading an app to your profile. Opting out should most certainly be an option...at least when it comes to aggregating certain data points.

I would also point those folks to LinkedIn (I've received a number of leads because of it).


I don't know if you have a list of Community Marketing folks around. If not, Jeremiah Owyang (web-strategist.com/blog) might name a few folks for consideration.

"Know that your customers are already a community."

And many organizations seem to miss the fact that Customer Service contacts should be considered "community". Just because they aren't operating on a public forum when contacting you doesn't mean that these folks aren't part of the broader definition of community.

I personally don't see how one could compare twitter to blogging. Most of the blog posts I see require some degree of thought and/or intelligence, whereas twitter seems more involved with "inane" thoughts that one might share w/o that "lightbulb" moment.

Having read through some twitter posts by friends, I can honestly say that I am really not that interested in what they had for lunch, what they watched on TV, or what plans they have for the weekend (unless they want me involved, of course).

I am personally a fan of del.icio.us, Flickr and LinkedIn. Most of the other products, while interesting, aren't things I would use on a regular basis.

I found Twitter to be highly disruptive from a professional standpoint. If they make a few changes to the product, it *might* become a more valuable tool down the road. I just read a post about a guy that turned it off after receiving a 60.00 SMS bill & it points to the need for stronger settings & filtering by the service.

Looks very much like my personal travel map for the US (been to a few more states than you). What about other countries?

That should be "is"


"web technologies it totally against"

Hi Jake,


I personally look at the rant as being just a tad bit ridiculous;-)



"My understanding is that he's saying we're all "enslaved" by our desires and that we simply don't know what we don't know."



Aren't we all?



I still don't understand why he decided to attack you on a personal level.



"OH, and that apparently I'm a modern day slave trader for trying to woo people into this soul sucking process."



Nah, I think we need more customer-centric folks around the web to make an actual difference. Even if we disagree on some items, I do feel that you have a genuine love for making "customers" feel like more part of a particular company. That's important...



Comparing you to a slave trader is totally out of bounds. Slaves didn't exactly have a choice, something that the newer web technologies it totally against (consumer/personal choice).

" After all, you work for a financial services firm, for crying out loud."


Now that's interesting:) Wouldn't it be easy to say most of us are enslaved to the companies that provide financial services?



I don't get what the point is that he is trying to make. The whole thing about the issue is giving the customers what they want. There's a strong argument about customers giving suggestions/feature requests because it makes their lives easier, something that I think is being missed in his philospohical rant.

New media does have apparent flaws. At the same time, however, I think there is more real accountability with old media than new media.

I like the fact they tend to balance one another out, not that one is better than the other.

Is new media threatened by the fact that old media is starting to use new media? Many major old media orgs are starting to use new media quite effectively.

Hi Jake,


It was very nice meeting you at the event.



"A community manager isn't a VP of advertising, it's the one who will argue with the VP of advertising on behalf of the community"



Indeed a great quote. The primary role of a Community Manager is that of being a customer advocate. It can be hard to win over the VP of Advertising, however...

Yeah, kind of surprising given the success of a lot of niche social networks.


I think people are just waiting for the "fracture" of some of the larger social networks, or when people start to shift to the niche networks to find value (for example, will people shift from myspace-facebook-linkedin as their lives progress).

I find that Google is definitely more reliable performance-wise.

I agree with some of the sentiments expressed & I am glad Snap is working on it. However, I do like the product on blogs because it gives me a preview of the site(s) before I click over to them.