Disqus - Latest Comments for dalelarson

Re: Google Forced to Reveal Identity of Offensive Blogger

dalelarson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:44:43 -0000

Mean people suck.

Anonymity is abused too often online, and in the US, or any country with good human rights including free speech, shouldn't be a legal protection to wrongdoing.

For criminal acts, one fully expects ISP and web companies to respond to a subpoena in an investigation for an anonymous subject. Why should the standard be any different for tortious acts?

Re: Market research vs. gut instinct

dalelarson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:27:19 -0000

Exactly right and well put!

Both market research and gut instinct are needed, and you should apply both every time, no excuses.

All too often, people skip the easy step of calling up some customers (potential customers, competition's customers, etc.) to ask some questions. What you get from those conversations is always interesting and useful, no matter how much you think you know already.

What's difficult is knowing when to ignore what the research says, to make that leap when what people say and what they will do are not aligned.

Re: Skittles goes all in on Twitter

dalelarson — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:47:48 -0000

Jay:

Yeah, Laughing Squid mentioned Modernista their Skittles/Twitter post last night. Sounds like they deserve credit for the idea (if that matters to anyone).

What do you think of the Logic + Emotion post I commented on in Update 2?

More sites will start having a list of social media links on the home page and side bar and maybe clients/brands will finally get more comforable giving up control now that the precedent has been set.

Re: Skittles goes all in on Twitter

dalelarson — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:26:32 -0000

Ken:

I seriously doubt that market research was an issue at all in asking for age. I've had to deal with the lawyers many times when doing promotions. Minors are a concern they always have, both for appropriateness of content and for COPPA issues (if any data kept). So this single question is probably the thing that made the lawyers comfortable enough (if still kicking and screaming) allowing display of content that Skittles has no control of whatsoever. They were right to expect that some of it wouldn't be suitable for children.

Isn't it great that Skittles gets all this free consulting to tell them what their implementation should look like?

By just throwing it up quickly and iterating on it based on feedback. Finding out in the trenches what works and what doesn't. No more endless discussions of what's safe and what might go wrong. Doing things Silicon Valley startup style. Just the advice many have been giving brands for years.

Re: Best iPhone Twitter app comes down to Tweetie vs. Twittelator Pro

dalelarson — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:38:52 -0000

Cool, I'll have to find that! One of the things about both of them is that the advanced functionality just doesn't seem that intuitive, and even after I've found it, I don't always seem to be able to easily do it (touch areas too small?)

Re: Could Twitter’s transcendent clarity trump Facebook?

dalelarson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:58:26 -0000

Thanks to all the commenters for sharing so many great thoughts, and my apologies for not continuing the conversation with replies as they came in... something I plan to improve in the future!

Re: Do brands belong on Twitter? Yes and no

dalelarson — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:07:59 -0000

If we think there is a single Twitter audience to address therefore a single best way to do it, we've already made a big mistake.

There is no such thing as "how you're supposed to use Twitter." They intentionally leave it very open ended (part of Twitter's "Transcendent Clarity" I've blogged about before). Even look at the Twitter streams of Twitter founders and employees to see very different styles and use cases.

So of course some folks would follow a Twitter stream that is really just an RSS feed, while others never would, and some would like both.

In much the same way, while you and I might prefer only to interact with a human face, for some brands sometimes, some people might really think it was neat and get a kick out of following, @reply'ing or getting a message from the faceless brand, especially if it is not overdone.

Re: Do brands belong on Twitter? Yes and no

dalelarson — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:15:24 -0000

That sounds exactly right. The account name is descriptive of why I'd want to know or interact with the real person behind it and the photo (and hopefully bio) show me that I can interact with a real person, not a faceless corporate entity. It seems like plenty of blogs already work this way, having a twitter account in the blog name but clearly being the person of the blog's founder.

Re: In many ways, Twitter is a re-incarnation of the... - kortina's tumblog

dalelarson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:17:51 -0000

Two senses of open and closed are important to distinguish here.

The sense of whether the graph itself is more open or closed and the sense of whether access to the graph is more open or closed.

Facebook's graph itself is closed. I agree that is useful (at least sometimes).

That access to Facebook's graph is so tightly controlled has kept it from reaching its potential. It remains to be seen whether Facebook Connect goes far enough to fix that problem -- I suspect that much more will be needed. In fact, it appears that Facebook Connect doesn't open any access to their social graph, it just pulls external web sites into Facebook.

Twitter's open graph (itself) is interesting. Twitter's open access to that graph is far more compelling, and may have more to do with Twitter's success to date.

This is what I meant when I wrote Twitter vs. Facebook: Will Twitter's Transcendent Clarity Trump Facebook

Re: How NOT to screw up Email Marketing (if doing it yourself)

dalelarson — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:34:49 -0000

Good to point out some of the pitfalls of doing it yourself and ways to avoid them. As someone who's worked in a direct marketing agency handling email for clients, I can say the best approaches have less to do with whether it is in house or outsourced to specialists, but whether the client (and agency, if involved) have the right attitude in how they handle the whole process managing a list and mailings to it.

Perhaps the most important rule is the Golden one. Ask yourself how you would want to be treated as a customer or prospect and act accordingly. Make sure each time you send something that you can clearly answer the question "what value does this email provide to each and every recipient?"

Re: Tweetsville, A Straightforward iPhone App For Twitter

dalelarson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:56:02 -0000

Downloaded Tweetsville. Beautiful interface. Seems like a nice step from Hahlo or Twitterific (I never did take a liking to Twinkle, but haven't looked at it in a while).

On first glance, doesn't look as full-featured at Twittelator Pro and the neat things it does to make life just a little easier away from the laptop but still wanting to forward/retweet and the like...