Andrew Lark

Loving Wikipaterns - Are you a Gnome or a Leech?

Patterns as a lens through which to look at your Wiki and its users is a very cool idea.

Over the years I've consulted to all shapes and kinds of organizations on social media - on ethe of the things that participating forces is the need for organizations to actually learn how to have a conversation. Within this notion is the need to understand the role you might be playing at any given point - and the role others are playing. This is where the "patterns" come in - things like:

• People Pattern | Leech: A leech takes content out of the wiki and sends it to people another
  way, usually by email. This reduces peoples' inclination to visit it,
  and potentially creates confusion because information is coming from
  multiple sources.
• Adoption Pattern | Magnet: The magnet pattern involves having some content exclusively on the wiki to draw users to it.

Think about using Patterns to educate and manage your next Wiki or blog project - it will definitely help drive its success. Thanks to Mike for the pointer...

US Bloggers Set for Journalistic Shield

From El Reg...

A US bill that would shield journalists, including bloggers, from revealing their sources has cleared the House Judiciary Committee, an important stage in becoming law. There is already legislation in the UK which protects journalists and bloggers.

The US Free Flow of Information Act protects journalistic sources generally, but does include several exceptions regarding terrorism, national security, imminent death and trade secret leaks.

How The New Opinion Leaders Drive Buzz On The Web...

Another interesting piece, this time on how opinion leaders drive buzz...

Bloggers, discussion-board denizens, and social networkers are courted by marketers, who believe they build buzz that can make or break new products and Web sites. But there's growing controversy surrounding such efforts, and debate over just how much sway these opinion leaders really have...

... The notion that a small subset of individuals has disproportionate influence was formulated more than 50 years ago by academics Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz in their book Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. But it was Malcolm Gladwell's 2002 best-selling The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference that popularized the notion. Gladwell divided people into connectors, people who bring other people together; mavens, who get a kick out of passing along knowledge to others; and salesmen, who like to persuade others of the validity of an idea or product. When taken altogether, Gladwell argued, these archetypes create "epidemics" that spread like viruses throughout the population, triggering massive trends that couldn't be achieve by traditional top-down imposition of messages on the general public. The Influentials, by Jon Berry and Ed Keller, published a year after The Tipping Point, comes to many of the same conclusions.

It's critical to understand, however, that all these proponents of opinion leaders as drivers of social and commercial trends aren't talking about media stars or personalities, but about otherwise seemingly ordinary members of a community who, through accumulation of knowledge or number of connections with others, act as catalysts for change.

Blog Censorship...

The Blog censorship raises its ugly head not once but twice today.

First, from GMSV, the US military is clamping down on bloggers requiring that superiors approve of Blog posts. There are a large portion of US employers that require this if the blog is on company time and about company matters. This clearly doesn't work for the Military who have a far broader reach.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging. No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- its most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced." -- Retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology, on a new Army directive requiring soldiers to submit the contents of blog posts, message board comments and e-mail to their superior officer for a security review.

I read a few of these blogs and have been surprised that they have been able to post so freely. But then, isn't free speech one of the things we are fighting for?

Second, Digg removes posts with code in order to avoid legal action - and then says they'll stop doing that and bear the consequences. Some call this move to keep the site up an act of commercial imperative over community responsibility. I call it commonsense expediency. The notion that bloggers can post whatever they like, anytime they like, is nonsense.

In a post, founder Kevin Rose published the key himself and said: "We've always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code. But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying."

Soundbites & Links

• Are blogs headed for a slowdown? "Research by Gartner, according to the magazine, found that the number of blogs will top out at about 100 million this summer. But it also noted that some 200 million blogs are no longer being updated--many of them abandoned by their authors." What a terrible measure of the health of blogging. Lets look at the growth of posts, comments, video content. This is the equivalent of measuring the health of the Internet on the basis of URL registrations. Garbage.
• I've got some Joost beta invites if you'd like one. Still can't get it to work on Vista though.
• Interesting: Scribd. Scribd is a free online library where anyone can upload. Use our embeddable PDF player to publish and view documents right in your web browser.
• Like this from Nick:

"I like to think of the blogosphere as a vast, earth-engirdling digestive track, breaking down the news of the day into ever finer particles of meaning (and ever more concentrated toxins). Another word for "parasitic," in this context, is "critical." Blogging is at its essence a critical form, a means of recycling other writings to ensure that every nutritional molecule, whether real or imagined, is fully consumed. To be called a literary parasite is no insult. It's a compliment."

• Rod Launches Xero (beta) and scores a Kiwi sports star. Brilliant move.

Dialogue-Driven Communications

Great story in AdAge this morning on P&G moving to dialogue-driven communications. They get that it's no longer about "telling and selling".

Procter & Gamble's Jim Stengel described a major cultural shift that is turning the world's largest marketer into a starter of conversations and a solver of consumers' problems rather than a one-way communicator. "It's not about telling and selling," said the chief marketing officer of the company that once lived by that simple mantra. "It's about bringing a relationship mindset to everything we do."

Too often the focus is on a "digital or nothing" strategy - with an emphasis on moving into the interactive realms. Stengel is right that the imperative needs to be different: "the need for brands to be authentic, trustworthy and generous".

And I like this view: "Market share is trust materialized."

Getting Back On Deck... Thoughts On Corporate Blogging

Haven't been blogging much later - just very busy and on the road in Europe for a week with customers and partners.

Interesting pointer from Stowe to an interview by Paul Dunay with Jack Welch about corporate blogging. Jack's advice? Be authentic.

[from Buzz Marketing for Technology: EXCLUSIVE: Jack Welch Discussing Web 2.0 by Paul Dunay]

Buzz Marketing: So what is your advice for companies adopting new Web 2.0 technologies like RSS, social networking, podcasting and videocasting?

Jack: Just be authentic. Be clear in your vision, and have one message and one view that are authentic. I worked somewhere once where they had different messages for employees, analysts and the press. There should be only one message for everyone, and fight like hell to get that message across everywhere you go.

I was asked some similar questions on corporate blogging (which I've always thought was a bit of an oxymoron).

1. Is "ghost-blogging" a no-no: At the heart of any blog is authenticity and the writer's voice. Ghost-writing runs against the very point of a blog which is to engage in a conversation with the community that surrounds you and your company. You can't ghost a conversation...
2. Is there a place for anonymous corporate blog posts (like the Economist?): No. It's hard to have a conversation with an anonymous person. The intent of a blog is not to publish but to converse. I do see room though for participatory blogs where a diverse range of bloggers blog to a single site. I think this is practical for most companies and more interesting for the readers. The Economist is an anomaly in the publishing world.
3. PR person says blogging is “reputation management”. Right or wrong? That PR Person doesn’t understand blogging or the blogosphere – they are contextualizing it through their own lens. And, they are taking a relatively hackneyed descriptor – reputation management – and applying it to a world in which it has little relevance. Various marketing niche’s have tried it with their thesis – brand managers are doing the same with “brand management”. You only have a reputation in the sense that others assign it to you. You earn it. Of course, it could be argued that everything a company does from a communications standpoint is “reputation management” – and that is the problem with the notion. You would hope that blogging would improve and not destroy your reputation right? But does that mean blogging is in fact reputation management in disguise – not at all.
4. How about internal editing of blog posts? This is common. I encourage executives to keep others involved in their posts. They have legal and HR risks associated with every conversation so why not mediate some of that risk. What they do need to do though is time-bound others involvement and be clear on the kind of feedback they are looking for. Blog posts are like bananas – they bruise easily and are best served ripe. They need to let folks know they have but a couple of hours to respond – or a day. This shouldn’t be a highly iterative process that people take a week or so to get done. Too many companies treat the blog post like a press release – at least initially.
5. Other tips: First, participatory media and platforms – from blogs to wikis and podcasts – represent one of the most significant opportunities available to companies to transform their relationship with customers. They represent one of the most significant transformational opportunities since the Internet. Don’t constrain your engagement. Drive it into every corner of your business. Many of the companies I’ve worked with have seen as much value internally as they have externally.

Second. Just do it. Get going internally and let it evolve. If you get it, get going. Don’t spend hours on consulting fees or hanging with PR people, web teams and lawyers. The technology is available as a utility. A blog can be created in minutes.

Third. The rewards significantly outweigh the risks. But the biggest rewards come not from writing blog posts but rather the comments and resulting dialogue. You shouldn’t look at this as a publishing mechanism but rather a “conversation machine”.

Other tips:

• There are no corporate bloggers – there are just bloggers. Be real. Be authentic.
• Blogging is a conversation. You need to move from transmitting to participating.
• You don’t need a blog to be blogging. Start contributing to others blogs with comments and thoughts.
• Never, never, never spin, lie or pour smoke into the blogosphere. Straight-talk will win you kudos.
• Give it time. Don’t expect raving fans at day one. In fact, expect the opposite for a bit. The blogosphere is very critical and self-correcting. Take feedback and tune accordingly.
• Have fun. This is a relatively informal medium. Revel in it.

Thoughts... Comments...

Ten Stories The Media Are Ignoring

Some surprising stories in here including this one:

Halliburton charged with selling nuclear technology to Iran

Halliburton, the notorious U.S. energy company, sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The story is particularly juicy because Vice President Dick Cheney, who now claims to want to stop Iran from getting nukes, was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s, at which time he may have advocated business dealings with Iran, in violation of U.S. law.

Source: "Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team," Jason Leopold, GlobalResearch.ca, Aug. 5, 2005.

Southwest CEO Contributes to SWA Blog...

I think it's a first but Southwest's CEO clarifies recent remarks on their seating policy on the "Nuts About Southwest" blog. This is a good move - gets the message out unfiltered, start's up a conversation with customers, and delivers more transparency.

disclosure: Southwest are a Group Lark client and did some consulting awhile back on the blog.

When Employees Blog...

Interesting look at the ethical issues associated with employees blogging... Brad Rawlins also has some interesting research looking at how much attention stakeholders deserve. More to come...

The Age Gets It...

The Age has hired big blogger downunder, James Farmer, to run its community initiatives. Great move by The Age and good move for James. Congrats. James has been a huge help to me in getting content distributed to the Education audiences I frequently speak to.

Edelman Gobbles Up A&R Partners

A&R are one of the most highly regarded independent PR agencies in the Valley. At least one part of that statement stands, but not the independent bit. Edelman is the new owner, completing a much needed strengthening their tech capabilities that makes them a real force now in the Nth American tech market. Bizarrely the story is running on PRWeek and on Steve's blog, nothing on Edelman or A&R.

Edelman's tech footprint also includes Zeno with long-term clients like Oracle. So it's now Next Fifteen with brands like Bite, Outcast and Text 100 pitted against Edelman with Zeno and A&R. Are we looking at the two break-away holding company brands in tech worldwide?

While Edelman will have to deal with the inevitable integration issues that come with any merger(retaining clients and staff, and dealing with conflicts - the big three), what it looks like they are going to do is similar to Next Fifteen - that is, keep the brands independent and fuel their growth. Merging Edelman's tech group into A&R solves another issue - the conflict with Microsoft.

More than anything though, this looks to be about fueling growth through talent acquisition. I meet with plenty of agency heads and they are all saying the same thing. Can't find great talent, can barely find good talent. This is a talent starved market.

Good move by Edelman.

Ah, The Peace & Tranquility Of The Blogosphere...

One of the things I enjoy most about Nicholas Carr's blog is his honesty. No punches pulled there.

And this morning he slammed a post by Edleman blogger, Steve Rubell on comments by Yahoo bloggers on stuff that buggs them about their products... Steve says:

I like companies and products that have the guts to say "we suck" or something close to it. It's very un PR. It says to me, "hey, we want a best of breed product and we're going to work our butts off to give it to you."

Nick says:

Do companies actually pay for this kind of knuckleheaded advice? The last we thing we need is companies getting in touch publicly with their inner suckiness. Just give me something I want to buy and shut the hell up. I have enough friends.

Frankly, I don't have the time to hang about reading companies navel gazing on their own products. As Steve says at the end of his post, actions speak louder than words. And, as a Yahoo shareholder I'd rather see focus on execution than dissent. Just cause Microsoft is doing it doesn't mean it is right for others.

The problem with this kind of internal activism is it mostly points to problems and not solutions. In fact, they probably can't even speak to the solutions. All this has done is encouraged me to stick with iLife for all my personal stuff and not continue to play with Yahoo 360. Is that what Yahoo wanted - Less participants?

At the end of the say I'm OK with a company talking about its shortcomings so long as it is talking about what it is doing about them and not whineing. Make your 'bitch lists' action lists and we would all be thrilled. The tone and nature of this kind of dialogue is rich and important to internal teams - IMHO, it adds little externally.

I'm glad Steve feels better for it. I feel worse, worse for Yahoo - a company with products I really like.

Okay Dave...

For me, this is the benchmark for all brand consultants self promotion activities. Brilliant.

Updated: Edelman In Deal with Technorati

Steve has provided answers to my questions in the comments section - so here goes a quick update:

Rubel reports that Edelman has a deal to "fast-track the development of localized versions of their offering in German, Korean, Italian, French and Chinese." I'm not sure what this means so a couple of questions for Steve & Co.:

• Is Edelman paying or funding software development at Technorati? What specifically does fast-track mean? Or to use Peter's words "support"? Is this a case of simply paying to lock-up Technorati for a period of time? Or as Stowe alludes to, is this about getting Technorati some needed cash for global expansion? Edelman is paying to accelerate Technorati's deployment in Europe - as such the probably deserve the short exclusive they are getting.
• What does "exclusive" mean? Does this mean the only way to get access to pre-beta Technorati in those countries is via Edelman? The success of so many Web2.0 properties - Technorati included - has been predicated on getting not particularly robust products into the market allowing people to participate. Isn't this going to turn a public tool into a proprietary one for a period of time - is it about, at least initially, supporting the growth of the blogosphere for Edelman clients? Why not open it to everyone? Reading between the lines of Steve's remarks it seems unlikely that Technorati could have done this as quick without Edelman's support - so, fair game on the exclusive. Ultimately we benefit from a faster time to market on Technorati services.
• Doesn't this call into question Technorati's independence and neutrality. I'm sure its just a coincidence but Steve's favorite blogs are featured on Technorati's home page this morning. In fairness to Steve, this is a rolling banner. Fair response from Steve. This will be an issue for Technorati going forward.

It is great that Edelman is lending its weight to such an important initiative. I'm a big fan of Richard and Steve. But fortunately they aren't the only ones so this does seem to run counter to the notion of "participatory" and open.

While a propriety lock-in to Technorati's international versions is a terrific coup for Edelman - and I am sure is a very profitable commercial relationship for Technorati - doesn't it leave bloggers and other companies as deeply engaged in the blogosphere out in the cold? Steve's comments point to this accelerating the availability of services - Edelman's price is cold cash. Our price is that they get a bit of an exclusive for something we have to wait less for. Seems fair in the context of the commercial realities of the blogosphere.

More reading at PR Squared.

Ten Blogs | PR & Marketing

I'm frequently asked what blogs I follow regularly. The simple answer would be to direct people to my blogroll - but I haven't updated that in ages. Another item for the "to-do on a rainy day" list. So, I'm going to start a short series of posts with my top ten blogs in different categories.

My blog reader is a bit like the New York Times Sunday edition - very diverse. I enjoy the serendipity of stumbling across all kinds of relevant content. So I'm going to start with the practical - the marketing and PR blogs I scan daily.

I keep my hundreds of feeds in different folders - these are pulled from my "Read Today" folder and are the ones I spend time on most.

1. Micro Persuasion: I look at Steve's blog mainly for breaking Web2.0 and PR news. I'd say I read it less as a blog and more as a source of news. I also like what Jeremy as to say over at PopPR and also Johnnie Moore.
2. Richard Edelman - 6 A.M: Great views and opinions. I like Richard's perspective on the industry. His postings aren't that frequent but I also enjoy reading Harold Burson.
3. KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog: Katie is the pioneer of so much of what we see today in measurement. If you are into accountable communications and marketing, you should start here.
4. Keith O'Brien: I like his writing in PRWeek and like the blog.
5. Holmes Blog: I breathed a sigh of relief when PRWeek launched in the US - it just seemed so wrong that all the US PR Industry had was a facsimile newsletter. Saying that, Paul's writing on PR issues and trends is unmatched - the .pdf Holmes Report is a must to subscribe to.
6. Armadgeddon: AR is the least appreciated element of the communications and marketing mix - yet the analysts are as, if not more, influential than the media. The dialogue is good and the observations relevant - if not a tad AR-biased. Some of the posts on transparency and the relationship between Analysts and paying companies are off the mark in my mind.
7. James Governor: Not a marketing or PR blog but James' observations on AR and marketing are very thoughtful.
8. The 463: A tech policy blog. We need more of them. Also read Tim Dyson's blog - leader of Next Fifteen, the mother ship for brands like Bite and Outcast.
9. The Long Tail & Gladwell: Again, not strictly marketing blogs but that is the lens through which I look at them.
10. Marketing Headhunter: Lots of good thoughts from Harry.

OK - so there is more than ten... Ooops, forgot one for all PR and media types. Read Jay Rosen whenever he posts.

Good Reads

• Boeing drives towards greater transparency using blogs...

Boeing's early results suggest that the rewards outweigh the risks. The company's two public blogs give Boeing a direct link to the public, something the 91-year-old company has never had before. And executives are starting to use internal blogs to get conversations going and allow employees to raise issues anonymously. "I've always been a big believer in open and honest dialogue that gets the issues on the table," says James F. Albaugh, the chief executive of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). He championed using blogs at the defense unit's meeting of 1,000 executives in February. "I was a little concerned and I had no idea how it would turn out, but I'm sold on it." - BusinessWeek

• Richard Edelman on the future of PR. You can listen if you like. Or, read the transcript.

• You can listen to Nicholas Carr here

• On Publishing and The Long Tail.

Share Your Feeds

I'm often asked for what RSS feeds I subscribe to - this normally results in me sharing my OPML file. It's really easy to export it from NetNewsWire. Steve has a good overview of this in a post this morning so I'll let you read that.

Like Steve, I agree there is going to be lots happening in the coming year in relation to sharing RSS feeds - including this effort. Putting together an OPML file of feeds for their respective communities is one thing that every marketer should be doing.

I'll get mine loaded in the next few days.

China Sees 60m Bloggers

According to cnet:

China is the world's second-largest Internet market after the United States with more than 110 million users. A survey by Chinese search engine Baidu.com put the current number of blog, or Web log, sites at 36.82 million which are kept by 16 million people, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

The number of Chinese bloggers is expected to hit 60 million by the end of this year, Xinhua said, quoting a report on China's media industry by the prestigious Tsinghua University.

Participation Power Laws

Ross has a fascinating post on Participation Power Laws - along with an interesting diagram. What Ross is getting at is what so many companies miss in creating blogs. It isn't about the posts and publishing as much as it is about engagement with the community.

When users participate in high enagement activities, connecting with one another, a different kind of value is being created. But my core point isn't just the difference between these forms of group intelligence -- but actually how the co-exist in the best communities.

Congrats to The Southwest Team...

Angela and the crew at Southwest Airlines launched their second blog this week - Nuts About Southwest. It comes close on the heals of the Adopt A Pilot blog which provides a voice for this neat community initiative. Congratulations gang!

The Lark Group provided a helping hand on both projects - but all the credit goes to Angela for having the drive and enthusiasm to get the project off the ground. (And the crew at RD2!)

The blog is getting plenty of attention and feedback. I know Southwest is going to listen to the feedback so keep it coming.

Participatory Product Reviews...

One upon a time the only way you could get a product review was through a print rag or through an analyst firm. James pointed me at this review of Sun vs. Dell. This is an end-user giving a pretty technical view of performance and the like.

Reviews like this are all part of the participatory movement - they differ from the conventional recommendation found on Amazon in that they are far more authentic and detailed. In some respects the person doing the review is passing their intellectual property back into the community.

MarketingProfs Daily Fix...

MarketingProfs has launched a blog - Daily Fix. Lead story falls into the current story trend of "why not to blog". In this case, some of the reasons not to blog are the very reasons to blog:

10. You can't control every message on a blog. (But message control has always been an illusion.) Right. So might as well blog. At least the loose creative act will result in more authentic messages with real-time feedback.

9. You'll have to decide when to respond and when to ignore comments. Isn't that the whole point? Don't do it if you don't want dialogue. And plenty of blogs simply turn-off comments all together, or, only turn them on for topics that they want feedback on.

8. It's hard to build an audience. It takes time, effort, and skillful promotion to build an audience for a blog. So get started now. Immediately. It's just as hard using any other medium. If the point here is that it isn't as simple as it might seem, I agree. But just because it is hard, doesn't mean you shouldn't take a swing at it.

And... 3. Blogging is addictive. You might not be able to stop. It's also lots of fun. I agree!

Countering Conventional Marketing

In the upcoming war for Soccer mindshare, Nike isn't countering Adidas with conventional marketing. Adidas is set to spend upwards of $200m on ads - some of which sound very creative. Rather than match them dollar-for-dollar, Nike has launched a MySpace style network for Soccer nuts:

The site, which launched on Mar. 15, will roll out to 140 countries in 14 languages. Hoping to make Adidas wonder why it spent all that money on mere ads, Nike is making the site a replica of top social network site MySpace.com (NWS ) for soccer-mad fans to commune with each other over their favorite players and teams, download videos, create discussion groups, and the like. - BusinessWeek

Nice move. Both strategies are probably right. Where one zigs, the other zags.

Go Forth & Blog...

OK - that's pretty close to the headline from this morning's GMSV which reports:

The freewheeling days of political blogging will roll on thanks to a Federal Election Commission ruling that grants media exemptions to bloggers and other pundits, allowing them to politick online without fear of federal interference. In a 6-0 decision, the commission left unregulated almost all political activity on the Internet except for paid political advertisements.

Blogs Give Employees An External Voice

And there is no better example than this:

People need to be fired and moved out of Microsoft today. Where's the freakin' accountability?

InformationWeek picks-up on the story and gives it some legs. 350+ comments later.

Nev's Got A New Blog...

PR Blogger Neville Hobson has got a new blog. It's lovely.

(btw: I'm totally with him on his comments re: Plaxo. Never send me a Plaxo invite)

Brand Over Matter...

In another terrific example of "brand over matter" - the media are pointing to Google's new finance site as a potential competitor to the likes of Yahoo, and in some cases, Bloomberg.

I wonder of any of them actually looked at the site in any detail (that is rhetorical - I know they did, I know...). At best it is Yahoo extra-lite. (IMHO, based on what you can look at today, Yahoo's is infinitely better). It doesn't even come close to what a Bloomberg or Reuters offers. So I'm lost... interactive charts are meant to be really, really exciting news?

And here is an interesting point from the WSJ: "Unlike many other finance sites, Google doesn't have its own editorial staff."

This kind of coverage either points to the power of the Google brand over any kind of matter or substance. OK, now I'm ranting... sorry... but what is right for Google isn't necessarily right or needed by consumers. Maybe they should stick to their own truisims (thanks for the pointer GMSV):

2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
"Google does search. Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat."

-- "Ten things Google has found to be true," circa June 2004

Burson Blogs...

PR legend, Harold Burson is blogging. (via Joel)

Big Bloggers Move To Big Agencies...

Steve is off to Edelman, the second A-list blogger to sign with a big agency. Having spent many years in large agencies I am sure he will enjoy the scale and scope of the work you get to do. Congrats...

Why I Don't Care...

That Google acquired Measure Map. Their home page sure looks pretty. But given I haven't/can't use it I don't care - why all the buzz about something so little have experienced?

What I do care about though is integrated communications measurement - for that I'll turn to the likes of Biz360. The ability to correlate performance across mediums, competitors, industries and topics is vital to getting a grip on marketing performance.

If Google imbeds Measure Map into it's new reporting tools, that would be great. And then if they launch those new reporting tools, that will be greater. But if Biz360 can aggregate that reporting, that would be better.

And here is a whine, rather than Google running around making "interesting" acquisitions, I wish they would dramatically improve the utility and interface of their current reporting tools - the stuff in the public domain that the rest of us have to live with.

SLI Systems Blog

My buddies over at SLI Systems have their blog up and running... Welcome! Eurekster is over here.

The New York Mag On Blogs

A big story from the New Yorker. Steve has a great summary.

As you read it, you see the continued focus on what makes the A-list tick. I wonder how much bloggers really care about whether they are making the lists or not. I could care less. I'm sure some care lots.

What would be really interesting is a story on what makes bloggers tick - what we care about. For me it's about the creation, exchange and archival of ideas. And, the simple utility of staying in touch with friends and folks with a similar interest that aren't in my daily circle.

Olympics Blogs...

With the Olympics a day or so away, take a look at these two blogs. Both are excellent implementations from different directions.

The first, Visa's Journey to Torino blog engages Visa Olympians in the run-up. Rather than purely a branding event, Visa is showing the depth of its work and relationship with the athletes.The other, Coke's, is from the perspective of people attending the games. It's great to see blogs being used by such large marketers as an integral part of their communications efforts.

Southwest also made it's first forray into the blogosphere today - their "Adopt A Pilot" blog supports a great community effort they have underway in which pilots engage actively with students in classrooms. It shows lots of promise.

disclosure: The Lark Group provided counsel to Southwest on this blog at its early stages and we work closely with RD2 - a terrific brand and design agency based in Dallas. And, per my previous posts, The Lark Group worked closely with Visa and their agency, Fleishman-Hillard on The Journey blog.

State Of The Blogsphere

David gives a great update on the momentum in the Blogsphere... This says it all:

We track over 75,000 new weblogs created every day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every second of every day - and 13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created. In other words, even though there's a reasonable amount of tire-kicking going on, blogging is growing as a habitual activity.

In October of 2005, when Technorati was only tracking 19 million blogs, about 10.4 million bloggers were still posting 3 months after the creation of their blogs.

Attention vs. Search

Om makes a really interesting point: My.Yahoo.Com is no longer a portal page, but instead an "attention page" which can be and should be leveraged to become the aggregator site for complicated digital life.

I doing so he says in a much shorter form what I was trying to get at yesterday on why Yahoo is heading in the right direction. Google doesn't hold my attention. Yahoo does.

List Of The Fortune 500 Blogging

This site began as a collaboration between Chris Anderson (Wired Magazine) and Ross Mayfield (Socialtext). A post giving the background of the project is here. Original data compiled by Wired Magazine. You can read the list here.

Getting to #1 On Google...

Read Harry's post on how he got to be #1 on Google. Lots of SEO wisdom and smarts:

"I'm telling you this so that you will:

1. Integrate your weblog into a coherent and scalable sales process that tightly conforms to how your ideal prospect actually buys, and ...
2. Invest in a URL that clearly telegraphs your unique selling proposition to that prospect..."

    Technorati : PR, SEO

Tom On Things Learnt...

Tom has a great list of things learnt in 2005. I especially like his first three:

1. Blogging is the most honest form of self-promotion bar none because if you can't walk the talk you won't get the clicks.

2. Content will be king because all those links have to point to something of value--otherwise they are pointless.

3. Every company is part media company--it is both publisher and publication and tells stories all the time.

Aside from being a pretty good bloke, Tom was one of the first hacks to jump ship and become a fulltime blogger.

Technorati : Blogging, PR

Big Brand Campaings On The Way...

Will be interesting to watch how SBC/ATT and Intel handle their new brand efforts and what, if any, role Participatory Communications will play in that. The WSJ covers how Intel is about to embark on a major transition:

The changes include a new version of the company's blue logo -- without the dropped "e" that has long been a part of Intel's branding -- along with a new tagline "Leap ahead," which emulates such campaigns as "Think different" from Apple Computer Inc. or "Just do it" from Nike Inc.

Intel will no longer use the well-known "Intel Inside" logo but is keeping the related marketing program that provides incentives to companies for using its products. - WSJ

Technorati : BLogs, Brand, PR

Alaska Air's Near Disaster Unfiltered...

I Hope Jeremy has big bandwidth and a big server because his account of the Alaska incident is scarry - and it's going to attract zillions of eyeballs. Via Jeff Jarvis. Compare his account with news reports- some of which are featuring Jeff's photos.

"Citizen Journalism" in action. Jeremy P makes a really interesting point that one lesson for any PR practioner facing a crisis is that you are going to need to manage transparency. It seems that Alaska employees are going nasty-comment-happy on Jeremy's (the Jeremy on the plane) blog. Assuming he would never know I guess, they commented away. Jeremy simply looked at the originating IP addresses, which were from Alaska. And he was gracious enough to suggest that they might have been hackers using Alaska's IP addresses. Not likely mate!

So, if your communications policy doesn't cover commenting on blogs as an employee - then you might want to make sure it does.. and then make sure employees know it. And, if your crisis communications plan doesn't feature monitoring of and communications with the blogosphere - better get on that as well.

Technorati : Alaska, Blogs, PR
Del.icio.us : Alaska, PR, Travel

The Other Side of Kryptonite

Slowly but surely the other side of the Kryptonite lock picking story is coming out. OK, some of the bloggers got it wrong - nothing new there.

I still maintain Kryptonite handled his terribly. Any crisis can be mitigated through effective communication. The vacuum of silence will be filled by misrepresentation, drivel and poison (I think Schopenhauer said that).

All the interviews reinforce for me is that as a business they responded well (except it turns out the problem had been flagged years before and they did nothing then). As communicators, they did lousy. If they knew about the commentary, but didn't respond, it's pretty much the same as not knowing and not responding. No response is no response.

And for the record, about that time I bought a neat new mountain bike. I needed a lock. The blog coverage specifically caused me not to buy their product. If they had communicated what they are communicating now, I might have done so.  To answer the question posed by Kryptonite: "here are millions of blogs, but what are the audiences of these blogs?" - it's me, the bike owner. The interview gets worse, reinforcing further cluelessness about the blogosphere: "We know that lots of teens and college students have blogs and, mainly use them to communicate with friends and family. These are our customers, but are they going to corporate blogs? Not so sure about that."

And then, worse still, they correct the misperception that they only found out about the problem in last year when bloggers started getting into it. Oh no, they knew about it in 1992 - and it would appear they did nothing? That's meant to inspire confidence?

I had the privilege of working around some of the best crisis communicators in my agency days. I once asked why there were so few case studies on this type of thing. I got an interesting response - post crisis, all you want the focus to be on is how the business is moving forward - you don't want to get into the mechanics of the crisis, it just casts further light on your problems.  A pretty good idea in my book.  Seems like Kryptonite is determined to teach us what not to do pre, during and post crisis.

Dan's Center for Citizen Media

Dan is staring a "non profit Center For Citizen Journalism":

Why do this? We need a thriving media and journalism ecosystem. We need what big institutions do so well, but we also need the bottom-up -- or, more accurately, edge-in -- knowledge and ideas of what I've called the "former audience" that has become a vital part of the system. I'm also anxious to see that it's done honorably and in a way that helps foster a truly informed citizenry. I think I can help.

This is a nonpartisan initative. I aim to help anyone, regardless of political views, who has a constructive project and who is interested in expanding the reach of citizen media in an principled way.

Technorati : Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations

Blogger Destroys Business

A tale of pain for one business - PriceRitePhoto - that incurred the wrathof a blogger after skewering him on a sales call. Having just been through a tragic experience ordering Christmas cards (the expensive kind) I don't feel an ounce of pitty for the business. But more on that later. The blogosphere will favor the honest businesses that meet and deliver on their promises. Those that don't, perish.

Technorati : Communications, PR, Public Relations
Del.icio.us : Communications, PR, Public Relations
Ice Rocket : Communications, PR, Public Relations

Ahhhhhhhhh... Meebo

TypePad has been down - they are slowly republishing posts. I guess this means you will all get new old feeds from Larkey... Sorry.  Stuff happens. Zoundry still not working either - I'm guessing that has something to do with "the TypePad thing". I know the TypePad team is probably working hard to fix this.

I'm remain a big recommender of TypePad - they should have me on commission. Is it that bad? Not really - especially given I can't hold a mobile phone call between the office and home. I can't hold a Windows session for more than a day. And my Sony VAIO is as noisy as the neighbors air conditioning system.

Saying that, basing service level satisfaction on how bad others are is never a good thing. So my message the TypePad is simple - the bar is low, stop letting it hit you in the head. We are with you and love what you enable us to do. But you've got to start leaping over that bar. Otherwise we will become users, not evangelists.

So, to brighten up my day I've been playing with other things and I do like Meebo. This, unlike TypePad, is a beta so it has some quirks (if you close the browser you have to re-enter all the usernames and passwords... + more)... But then TypePad has some quirks now and then. Meebo has a ton of promise.

Cool Skype Phones...

One of these for Christmas please...