When I started speaking about social media in 2005, I used to joke that someday, conferences discussing social media will be about as relevant and well-attended as conferences on the business uses of the Fax machine. I’m wondering if that day has come. About a month ago I attended TC Disrupt, one of the biggest startup…
Category: Social Media
WHY SM CONSULTANTS ARE COMING IN FROM THE COLD
Wherever I turn, it seems one of my many friends who work as independent social media consultants are either looking for fulltime jobs or have recently taken one. I’m not talking about superstars like Chris Brogan. Nor do I include the out-of-nowhere self-proclaimed social media “experts” who usually turn out to be ” know-nothings.” The…
WHY I THINK EMPIRE AVENUE IS A WINNER
When Scott Monty sent me an invite to play Empire Avenue, the social media world’s hot-product-du-jour, I groaned. Why do I need another distraction to distract me from all my other social media distractions, I asked him. He answered with tweeting brevity. “It’s fun,” he said. “It does what Klout is supposed to do, but we rate our own friends. Both…
PIONEERS OF SOCIAL MEDIA–INTRODUCTION
[NOTE: I use social media tools to help me write books. I get insight and feedback from people on this blog, on Twitter and on Facebook. I’ve done this twice before and the result has been a much better book without the help from so many friends. There’s a process. I turn to readers for…
IS “SOCIAL” THE NEW BLACK?
I was on a Social Media Club panel in San Francisco when I ad libbed a forecast that “2011 will be the year in which the word ‘social’ is inserted in front of all other words.” It became my most retweeted comment of the night. While some still complain that the term “social media” is inaccurate,…
TWITALYZER: HOW DOES IT MEASURE UP?
A few weeks back I met with Klout’s Joe Fernandez. I went in to the session skeptical and walked out respecting what the Klout team has achieved and where the company is trying to go. That being said, I still harbor more than a few concerns. This week I had a similar experience with the senior guys at…
MY PREDICTIONS FOR 2011
Well it’s year-end, once again. And a bunch of people are about to embarrass themselves making predictions for the coming year. These predictions usually fall into two batches: the blatantly obvious and the ones that can be explained away when they do not happen. The thing about the future is it’s filled with surprises and…
SM GLOBAL REPORT–DOD’S JACK HOLT PART 1
[This is a restart of my social media global report, an ongoing series of interviews with people from all over the world on how they use social media in work and life. There have been over 350 such Q&A reports since 2005. Many of them became the starting points for content that I’ve used in…
INFLUENCING KLOUT
I have been having a bout with Klout. It’s been constructive and civil and is filled with those social media triangulations I love. It started two nights ago. Noting he outranked me on Klout, the Internet influencing site, Ian Greenleigh challenged the credibility of the free service. Now, Ian is at Austin-based Bazaarvoice, a very hot startup that’s…
TWITTER DAILY NEWSPAPERS. USEFUL OR DECEPTIVE?
You have probably seen a customized “daily newspaper” on Twitter already. Particularly, in the morning, you’ll find these “newspapers” from people who find you in your stream. They are called Whatever Daily News or some more specific name. What’s going on? The virtual publications are aggregations of links that were shared on Twitter in a…