Staffing for Social Computing

More and more companies are starting to understand the benefits of social computing. If not the benefits, at least they're starting to understand the risks of not getting serious about social computing because, increasingly, their customers are demanding a two-way discussion with them (and the companies that do offer this two-way discussion stand out).

However, the companies that want to get into social computing/media/networking [1] don't always know how to go about doing that. From my personal experience I've noticed that when companies have gone in to "the whole social media thing" without any real experience, expectations, or strategy around social computing, they've often made a mess of things.

What Mess?

One typical outcome is that they start by not doing the research on what their consumers want, how their consumers want and prefer to communicate, and what kinds of communication the company itself can and wants to support. Because of this, they end up doing something inadequate like installing a message board on their website and, well, leaving it at that. Then they wonder why it's not working.

At this point they either fix things -- usually by doing some research and getting an idea of what is and isn't working in their industry -- or they give up.

Why Does This Happen?

In my opinion, this mess-up happens because they haven't really thought through their objectives of getting into social computing or even what the point of social computing is. A major factor in this lack of planning -- or, worse still, a lack of awareness -- is that they haven't hired the right marketing and communications people (ultimately, all of this is a marketing exercise) and this is where the Forrester Research report called 'How to Staff for Social Computing' comes in.

Two Crucial Roles

As Jeremy Owyang, the report's author, mentions in his blog, staffing for social computing boils down to two crucial roles: (1) the Social Media Strategist who pushes for social computing internally (convinces management, gets resources, etc.) and (2) the Community Manager who actually runs the community itself (which he wrote more about in an earlier post).

Of course, all of this sounds pretty simple when put like that -- you have to pay $279 or be a Forrester client to get the full-detail version -- but, at one level, it really is that simple. You need the right people -- who will do the right planning, the much-needed internal advocating, and the crucial open and honest external communications -- to get the job done properly.

I'm glad Forrester has published this report because something like this is much needed and will be really helpful to people like me who advocate the use of social computing in organizations and, often, simply end up banging their heads against a wall.

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[1] Or, if you want to use the unfortunate buzz word, "Web 2.0".

Digital Space Around Australia (BRW Report)

Ross Dawson, in his 'Trends in the Living Networks' blog, points to last week's BRW feature on the digital space in Australia and comments on how doing this kind of analytical journalism is cool in an industry that is typically hard to put down on paper:

Foad Fadaghi, the technology editor of BRW, has come to the media business from the research industry, having held senior analyst and director positions at Frost & Sullivan, Jupiter Research and IDC. This way of looking at the world results in the BRW Digital issue showing how journalism at its best is becoming a lot more like analysis, creating real value-add and insights that can’t be found elsewhere.

Why is the Web 2.0 space to difficult to analyse? Dawson answers (quoted from the article):

The costs involved in web 2.0 development are so low it has spawned a large number of small one and two-person companies that can be profitable with a small user base, Future Exploration Network chairman Ross Dawson says. This means web 2.0 development is unnoticed by venture capital and other investors.

Which makes articles like this doubly useful since there isn't much else out there in terms of hardcore research and analysis on this industry sector.

Melbourne Business School on Dopplr

I came across Dopplr in June last year via Web Worker Daily ('Social Networking Dopplr Connects You When You Travel' by Stephen Collins) and thought it was a great networking tool for people who travel a great deal:

How often have you thought to yourself, “I’m going to <insert random conference/city/event here> next week. I wonder who else I know is going.” At this point, there’s invariably a chain of ill-timed emails, inevitably missing someone who is actually going to be in the same place as you at the same time. Dopplr aims to resolve this issue through providing a way for those serendipitous moments to be under your control, rather than left to random chance.

After signing up for Dopplr, you enter your upcoming travels, building a list of your movements. As you add connections with people you know, Dopplr comes into its own, letting you, and your connections, know when you will be in the same place at the same time.

Yesterday, while searching for MBS-related blogs, I discovered that in November last year Dopplr opened up its then-in-beta website to business school travellers from a hundred global b-schools (called its 'MBA 100') and that Melbourne Business School was included in that list.

Dopplr's service has since been launched to the public and, from what I've heard, it's pretty good. I don't have much use for it myself -- I don't travel much, at least not yet...maybe I will once I get a job -- but I'm sure others will find it useful. And who knows, maybe our faculty and Alumni department already use it. I guess I'll ask.

For more on Dopplr, read this Webware.com post by Josh Lowensohn.

Media & Marketing: Old School vs. New School

Web 2.0 has changed the marketing landscape. However, not all people agree with that and one of the traditionalists that falls on this old school side is Simon Hammond. Laurel Papworth, meanwhile, teaches people about the power of social media and falls very clearly on the new school side.

Recently, Hammond was quoted in an article in AdNews written by Nina Lees:

Web 2.0 obsessive uptake of social interaction, user generated content control and unbridled interactivity has meant the lunatics are running the asylum. That's according to Melbourne adman Simon Hammond, chairman of Photon-owned communications agency Belong.

And Papworth...well, responded.

Closing vs. Disabling Your Facebook Account

The New York Times' Maria Aspan has written an article on how hard it is to really delete your Facebook account:

Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data.

While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely. Indeed, many users who have contacted Facebook to request that their accounts be deleted have not succeeded in erasing their records from the network.

[...]

The technological hurdles set by Facebook have a business rationale: they allow ex-Facebookers who choose to return the ability to resurrect their accounts effortlessly. According to an e-mail message from Amy Sezak, a spokeswoman for Facebook, “Deactivated accounts mean that a user can reactivate at any time and their information will be available again just as they left it.”

But it also means that disenchanted users cannot disappear from the site without leaving footprints. Facebook’s terms of use state that “you may remove your user content from the site at any time,” but also that “you acknowledge that the company may retain archived copies of your user content.”

And thus privacy and data ownership continue to be the most important debate 'n discussion topics in the evolving social media space.

Microsoft & Yahoo!

By now, everyone's heard of Microsoft's $44.6bn bid for Yahoo! and everyone's talked about it as well, though Yahoo! isn't saying much for the time being.

Here, in my opinion, are some of the most interesting articles currently published on this topic:

In fact, if you're only going to read one article on this topic, read Thurrott's. Though it would be good if you checked out the comparison table in Zheng's article as well.

Finally, in light of all this merger talk, check out Josh Lowensohn's article on Dot-com pioneers -- where are they now?. It makes and interesting read.

Responses to Common Objections to Social Media Adoption

Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote a really good article in ReadWriteWeb today in which he talks about the ten most common objections to the adoption of social media and how you can respond to them. Though not an exhaustive list or a complete set of responses, it's a good start to an important discussion on important and highly relevant subject. As Kirkpatrick says:

[This] is just a conversation. Please feel free to add your thoughts in comments and check out the comments to read what others suggest as talking points when faced with these objections.

If you're interested, join in on the conversation. Joe Manna did and, in fact, took the discussion a step further by writing his own top 10 list.

Life! at Yahoo!

As sneak-peaked by Jerry Yang and David Filo at CES yesterday, fun things seem to be happening at Yahoo!. Dan Farber writes about their keynote address on his 'Beyond the Lines' blog at ZDNet:

Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang made his inaugural CES appearance, outlining how he plans to evolve his company ahead of the curve and to become an indispensable starting point for consumers’ Web experience, which has become richer and more complex over the last decade. “We call this Life with an exclamation point,” Yang said. “At Yahoo we want to be most essential starting point for your life,” and “take the complexity of the Web and simplify your life through very powerful technologies.”

Basically, Yahoo! is integrating craploads of stuff -- including third party applications -- into Yahoo! Mail and making that the hub for what you do on the Internet.

To me, that's a brilliant idea. Yahoo! Mail is, by far, my favourite webmail service (I've been using it since 1999), and though I now POP my mail from there (some years ago I upgraded to the paid Yahoo! Mail Plus), when I'm not sitting at my laptop, Yahoo! Mail is generally the centre and the starting point of my web browsing experience [1]. In fact, when I'm not on my laptop (e.g. I'm at work) I POP all my other e-mail accounts into Yahoo! because I like it so much. (Can you tell I'm excited by these new developments?)

I'm also a fan of Yahoo! itself. Yahoo! was the first website I visited on the web (back in '96) and I've been using it regularly ever since. I also do most of my online shopping through Yahoo!. Okay, I should stop now. I'm sounding like a Yahoo! fanboy. Still, this is good news and I await further developments.

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[1] For completeness' sake, my non-laptop web experience revolves primarily around Yahoo! Mail, Google, my own Page o' Links, and these days, Facebook.

Facebook Issues: Who Owns Your Data?

Over the last few days there's been a lot of discussion on the 'net on the topic of data portability among social networking sites. It all started when blogger Robert Scoble got his Facebook account suspended for violating Facebook's Terms of Service (ToS). He was running a script (which was the violation) from Plaxo that goes to all your friends' profile pages and collects (scrapes) their contact information from them (i.e. the pages). [He's since been let back in.]

There are a couple of issues here: (1) who owns your contact data, which is the bigger issue and (2) how you are allowed to access it, which is the more immediate issue.

The data ownership issue isn't very clear since you can argue it in different ways and can come up with different, but still reasonable and logical, conclusions. eWeek's Clint Boulton talks about that in more detail in his recent article, 'Who Owns Your Social Data? You Do, Sort of':

Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang said the issue is a sticky one because according to the terms of use, Facebook owns the data, but many people detest that control.

"Robert is breaking the terms of service, but it's also unclear if he owns those e-mail addresses," Owyang told eWEEK Jan. 3. "People said, 'Yes, you can be my friend,' but they never said, 'Robert, you can take my e-mail address and use it elsewhere.' Some people might feel like that social contract was broken by Robert and Plaxo."

I don't quite agree with Owyang since people probably wouldn't be upset if, for example, I was to copy their e-mail address from Facebook and store it in my mobile phone's address book (which is about as portable as Plaxo's address book is). But, like I said, there are lots of sides to the story.

And then there's the second issue which, for the moment, is more contentious. That's because, while Facebook itself runs an automated script to scrape your contact data from other social media and e-mail sites -- that is, it has a script that will automatically import your data -- it doesn't let you do that the other way round -- that is, it doesn't let you run a script to export your data (to other social media and e-mail sites). And that, people argue, is unfair.

But the thing is: it is Facebook's platform and they can do with it whatever they want. Unless Facebook signs on to Google's Open Social or to the Data Portability project, it has no obligation to make it easy for you to export your data. By the way, doing this is called locking users in since this policy makes it difficult for users to switch to a different service or vendor.

The End of Lock-In?

Dave Winer over at Scripting News argues that this lock-in policy won't last very long in the social media space:

... These companies don't want to empower the users, but if they studied history, they'd see that the evolution of computers always comes in fits and starts. A period when the technology is new and people are snowed by the companies and let them have full control. Gradually people understand what's going on, and figure out they're being screwed but they accept it. And then explosively the whole thing disintegrates in a new layer of technology.

It's a big effin loop we're in. One of these times around one of the companies that feels (incorrectly) that they have a lock on their users, will voluntarily give it up and be a leader in Generation N+1. I've never seen it happen, but in theory I think it could.

And he's right. Remember the days when you couldn't transfer your e-mails or your address book between e-mail clients? Or when you couldn't export your browser bookmarks to another browser? Or when you couldn't export the news feeds you subscribe to into an XML file and, therefore, couldn't easily switch news readers? Or when you couldn't export your blog data to a different blogging software package or service? In this day and age, data portability and interoperability are key.

As Winer says at the end of his post:

So Facebook has the opportunity to be a crossover company, part of the next generation -- or a last gasp of the generation that's about to run out of gas. It's their choice.

But will it be Facebook that Crosses Over?

Grant Robertson from Download Squad, meanwhile, argues that Facebook will never let you export your data:

... The simple fact is, as the market leader, there is no benefit for or strategic advantage in Facebook making your data available to you in any format you wish. Those are young company ideals; the things you do in the beginning when you're desperate for users.

Open access to data is like the starched shirt, expensive cologne and bouquet of roses you take on a first date; it's a courting display, not a permanent way of life.

Facebook won't offer you open access to your data for one simple reason; if they did, they couldn't compete. They aren't innovative, they aren't the first mover, and they don't have a stable of hot talent designing any "next generation" of the social web. Facebook is simply a company that was in the right place at the right time, with a lucky strategy which happened to work.

In his opinion, it won't be Facebook that "opens up" your data:

So, whatever side of the debate you find yourself falling on, remember this. If the data wars truly have begun, victory won't come in the form of an "open" Facebook; it will come from a new generation of services who fail to find an exit strategy from their own courting ritual.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see which side of the fence Facebook falls on.

As for myself, I try to rely of Facebook as little as possible because I tend to agree with Robertson: Facebook will not give me easy access to my data to with as I please. At least not in the short term. As a result, I try to minimize my serious conversations and discussions (i.e. the kind I'd want to archive and maybe refer to later) on Facebook. In fact, whenever possible, I try to e-mail people so, at the very least, I have a way of contacting them outside of the Facebook platform.

That said, I am hopeful that, over the next year, things will change and that social media user data will become a lot more portable and/or a lot more interoperable. Here's hoping.

Why the US News Media is, well, Crap

John Hockenberry, a former NBC Dateline correspondent, writes a fascinating article in the January/February 2008 issue of MIT's Technology Review in which he talks about how the US news media actively chooses to go with emotion-centred news stories (that appeal to as many people as possible) as opposed to more relevant, hard-hitting, and (dare I say) real news stories.

Networks are built on the assumption that audience size is what matters most. Content is secondary; it exists to attract passive viewers who will sit still for advertisements. For a while, that assumption served the industry well. But the TV news business has been blind to the revolution that made the viewer blink: the digital organization of communities that are anything but passive. Traditional market-driven media always attempt to treat devices, audiences, and content as bulk commodities, while users instead view all three as ways of creating and maintaining smaller-scale communities. As users acquire the means of producing and distributing content, the authority and profit potential of large traditional networks are directly challenged.

It's a long article, though, so if you want a quicker version, read what Jacqui Cheng has to say about it over at Ars Technica. Both are great to read, by the way.

Leo Laporte on Social Media

Leo Laporte, of TechTV and TWiT fame (the latter being home to two of my favourite audio netcasts), was one of the keynote speakers at the Blogworld Expo held in Las Vegas in November this year. You can find a video of his excellent keynote speech, with a rather inspirational introduction by Six Apart's Anil Dash, here on In Business TV's Brightcove channel.

Leo talks about the new face of media, where he sees new media going, and what it'll take to get it there. If you have the time, make sure you take a listen. It's a large file and takes a while to download, but it's worth it.

P.S. Apologies for the long hiatus from blogging. The last three weeks of term (including exam week) were really busy and since end of term I've been on vacation. I'm back now and should get back to posting regularly very soon.

Netflix Moves into Online Television

A few weeks ago I talked about how Netflix is planning to move into the online video space. Well, it launched its first big foray into that this week by signing up with NBC Universal (press release here). Netflix subscribers will now be able to watch NBC's shows (like "Heroes" and "The Office") on Netflix the day after they're aired. All this is only for the US, of course.

Meanwhile, this now becomes the third distribution channel that NBC has signed up with (post iTunes) in order to distribute its content. The fourth is still in private beta. Last 100's Daniel Langendorf is keeping score.

Things I Detest About Facebook

I haven't really weighed in on the social media sites are bad vs. social media sites are good debate. Nor do I intend to...especially the whole Facebook bashing and Facebook worshiping debate. Everyone else is already doing enough of that for my liking, thank you.

Still, when Hugh MacLeod from gapingvoid posted the following sentiment on his blog, I had to jump in and agree with him:

So what's stopping Facebook from putting in a small, tickable box that says, "Please do not let my 'Friends' send me any more of these REALLY ANNOYING Vampire/Zombie/Super wall/Super Poke/Whatever invites. I really, really don't want them etc..."?

...

[If] they want to fix the problem, they can easily do so. If they do not, they're sadly just consigning themselves to the slushpile of history.

I couldn't agree more. Those incredibly annoying applications are nice for a while -- like the noisy, roll-up blowouts that you get at parties -- but they get very old, very quickly. I should repeat that. They get very old, very quickly.

Still, "friends" keep inviting other "friends" to sign up for those "applications". A commenter on MacLeod's post said that some blogger had called these invitations "fram", which is "spam from friends". I like that.

I also really like Hugh's Third Law:

"If you piss in the soup for long enough, eventually it stops tasting like soup."