Disqus - Latest Comments for mvermut

Re: SEE WHAT’S NEW FOR 2015!!!

Marc Vermut — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:55:20 -0000

Does the waterslide mean there isn't a driving range anymore?

Re: Bodymedia, Nike Fuelband, Jawbone Up, Fitbit One Activity Tracking Roundup Update

Marc Vermut — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:30:13 -0000

Are you wearing the devices where they are recommended?

Re: Bodymedia, Nike Fuelband, Jawbone Up, Fitbit One Activity Tracking Roundup Update

Marc Vermut — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:45:54 -0000

Much larger variance than I expected.

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

Marc Vermut — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:47:07 -0000

Doug led a similar panel to great response at the Silicon Beach Fest. Interesting intersection between art and business.

Re: Voting Fatigue

Marc Vermut — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:05:50 -0000

Happens with everything in life because attention and time are limited. As a result we optimize (theoretically) how we spend them. As for these online contests, much like banner ads and the newest music trend, the novelty attracts our attention; for a while.

Re: Voting Fatigue

Marc Vermut — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:25:42 -0000

I wonder how the dynamics for SXSW would change if getting your panel selected and/or being on a panel didn't result in free admission. The other problem is one of curation, as you mentioned. If I don't know about a subject that may interest me, no way to even begin searching for the topic.

Re: SXSW Postgame: All The Web’s a Game

Marc Vermut — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:00:29 -0000

Michael, I was also at that talk (one of the more interesting ones out there). What struck me more was how much of these social design and gaming mechanics are being applied in work settings (albeit those that tend to be repetitive and tasked based). But what is to stop consulting companies from formulating gaming strategies around productivity? And link this to one of the other talks touching on game rewards integrated into the real world for brands (virtual points for purchasing and interacting with products).

It's not surprising given that the basic American condition seems to be about leveling up in the real world.

Nice piece.

Re: This Is Why I Want To Have A Paid, Premium Section Of Mixergy. What Do You Think?

Marc Vermut — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:22:44 -0000

Andrew, first, congratulations! You have just demonstrated the strength of your audience and their interest in what you are doing with the volume of comments and conversation here.

I'll just echo some of several comments with the packaging ideas. People will pay for convenience and time saving. So, maybe charge for access to transcripts (one-off and/or monthly), since it's easier/faster to read an interview than watch. Or, edit the biggest nuggets of wisdom from across interviews into categorized blocks and charge for that (e.g. best ideas for affiliate marketing, best ideas for staffing up, best ideas for funding). The value is people don't have to search out the "best" information.

Oh, and This American Life uses the free for a week, pay via Audible/iTunes for archived episodes. Wonder how successful that is. The alternative is the Financial Times model of allowing a certain number of articles for free each month and then a flat subscription beyond that amount. That allows for trial from search/new viewers.

And the courses/conferences route is more work but very viable as you grow the brand.

Re: Backstory on the Umair Haque hang, plus: why social media is underhyped

Marc Vermut — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:16:50 -0000

Serendipitous timing, because I just read the Wikipedia page on memetics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... the other day, which (if you ignore the Internet application, though still valid) is the study of how culture is shared, passed, propagated and sustained. The best example was those little fortune telling origami things that schoolchildren make. They are passed on from grade to grade without any material changes (I guess that fairytales also fall in this bucket).

Ethan, nice post. Also hit on the idea that there is value in becoming an expert in a 'tool' (contrary to those social media consultants who declaim single platform experts), because it is in implementation of an idea or strategy that success is found or lost. And that success (at least with "social media") depends upon the mechanisms of interaction enabled by those tools.

Re: Hyperlocal Goes Mainstream: CNN teams up with Outside.in

Marc Vermut — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:52:40 -0000

Funny, I immediately thought the opposite about this. And thought back to Neil Postman's rant in "Amusing Ourselves to Death" that the progression of mass media outlets/platforms exaggerates the importance of the national/global beyond its true impact on our lives, distracting us from what is relevant in our neighborhood that we can act upon.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't be aware of national/global issues or act/participate in some way to create impact, but that it shouldn't be to the detriment of their own neighborhoods. And this becomes the case increasingly as local mass media outlets that are owned by conglomerates reduce local content for wider coverage that drives down costs.

We are entering into a space where web-based tools of mass customization can make it easier to report on/publish the local at no greater cost. And with lower barriers of entry to content creators.

One can hope.

Re: Are Business Plans Still Necessary?

Marc Vermut — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:07:53 -0000

Amen. Always direct companies that I work with to build up to their initial forecasts and think through user/customer acquisition and conversion. "(Only) X% of a market" is a goal, not a foregone conclusion of magical marketing.

Re: Social media: the attention economy explained

Marc Vermut — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:16:44 -0000

Sorry for the typo Adrian, way too late for me.

Re: Social media: the attention economy explained

Marc Vermut — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:41:09 -0000

Another meaty post Aidan, and some really great contemplation fodder. Most of my thoughts are already reflected in Adina's comment.

A couple of additional points. I keep calling "social capital," or "whuffie," "potential currency": you don't really know what you have in the "bank" until you go to make a withdrawal. And that's the result of the phenomenon you describe above re invisible observation.

There's no real way to determine actual attention paid to a tweet...it's more like a commercial on television. Even if played to a tuned in audience they may not even be watching it (although DVRs provide a decent proxy as to engagement: if you don't fast forward through a commercial, it's probably interesting, at least to you). That's why all of the analytics focused on @'s, mentions and RT's provide a decent measurement of engagement and relevance. I'd also say that relative follower growth (as compared to overall service or category growth) would be a measure of the "value" of your content, attention or presence.

Re: Brizzly: Taking Twitter To The Browser In Real-Time.

Marc Vermut — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:08:04 -0000

Yeah, I prefer interacting with Twitter via an application (Spaz for me) than a web page...it gets lost in the tabs.

Re: Brizzly: Taking Twitter To The Browser In Real-Time.

Marc Vermut — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:39:30 -0000

Nice review Ken. What's more interesting is that after playing a little with Brizzly, it's clear that they are working hard to avoid the mistakes outlined by Andrew Baron in Twitter's user interface (http://dembot.com/post/1822..., which should be a required read for anyone designing a website. Oh, plus groups is a cool feature. Wish I could sink them to Social Scope.

Re: Who wants to build a “find a date using Twitter” service?

Marc Vermut — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:20:12 -0000

For that, you should check in with Brynn Evans who uses Mechanical Turk a bunch for her research.

Re: Who wants to build a “find a date using Twitter” service?

Marc Vermut — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:50:11 -0000

Yesterday, after reading about Thread (http://mashable.com/2009/09... it crossed my mind that Facebook has a more richer set of personality and social network data (what you like, what you've seen, who you know, how often you communicate with them, where you've been) via all of the applications. And then I saw this Twitter analytics article (http://mashable.com/2009/08... and a description of TweetPsych.

TweetPsych (http://tweetpsych.com) was built by by Dan Zarrella, and:
"uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates."

Re: An introvert, in the wild.

Marc Vermut — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:44:04 -0000

Well to the first, we were only so lucky, because our trip was organized by a professional travel organizer (friend of the family) who had deep relationships in the cities we traveled to. That may take some serendipity out of the equation, but our daily schedules were flexible with good guides. And we stayed in cities/towns and facilities that matched our desired experience.

As to local information, well, language becomes a problem, but I'd think there are a number of websites for each geography that provide "local information," though of a temporal nature (e.g. LA Weekly events section and reviews).

Re: Is Speculating On What Private Companies Are Worth A Good Idea?

Marc Vermut — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:39:18 -0000

Quick question, but aren't you (also) looking at valuation from a forward perspective of its ability, given the round and potential follow-on dilution, to bring appropriate return given a potential future exit value?

Re: An introvert, in the wild.

Marc Vermut — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:10:16 -0000

Have to disagree wholeheartedly (but with reservations) on hiring a guide while traveling. The most interesting and local experience I've ever had was with a guide in Dali, China, who stopped by his parents' house, in which we received a tour and education on orchids and thieving in that part of China, then took us to a very local Ma restaurant (tasty, but otherwise inaccessible to random tourists) and tailored our explorations to our interests, while providing a depth of information, lore and cultural facts not otherwise obtainable on our own or in tour books (e.g. that China often rebuilds Buddhist temples and monasteries for tourists without disclosing the true age/authenticity).

So, I'd say, with the right guide, the right directions/relationship, in the right place, you can experience more and more deeply.

Re: Breaking News: Twitter Debuts New Front Page

Marc Vermut — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:41:04 -0000

Well, that leads to whole other conversations, such as designing environments that enable and promote this type of behavior and relationship building that is different from how people interact IRL. Which requires study and strong integration with UX/UI design. And I see you quietly referencing the 90-10-1 rule of thumb (Slide 9 from Charlene Li's presentation http://www.slideshare.net/c....

Re: Breaking News: Twitter Debuts New Front Page

Marc Vermut — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:59:35 -0000

"Digital extrovert" really jumped out at me. Does that imply that those people are not typically extroverted IRL? Would that make them "shy"?

Oh, and nice post, it's about time Twitter took some ownership of supporting and growing their userbase by demonstrating how to use a new tool.

Re: Startup Hotbed Inferiority Complex

Marc Vermut — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:31:55 -0000

Fred, great, timely piece. Was just discussing this the other day regarding the location of a startup. I do think though that different cities provide support and greater likelihood of success for different types of startups (social software versus media versus hardware versus telecom, etc), simply by dint of existing robust ecosystems already in place. That is, different cities are likely predisposed for greater success for specific types of businesses.

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

Marc Vermut — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:59:29 -0000

Totally agree. Curation, point of view and community within a trusted destination (even if that includes syndicated widgets and conversations) is where value lays for consumers.

I do wonder, though, if there might not be a larger advertising pie (than currently) available on the local level with more efficient advertising models for small business. And/or for virtual businesses that can service beyond a single geography.

Re: Five cultural and technological frames shaping new business opportunities.

Marc Vermut — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:46:29 -0000

Thanks for the kind words. Best part of Twitter: non-committal platform to send out micro-thoughts of genius.