Deloitte says Branded Social Networks are a Bomb

Courtesy of ReadWriteWeb this afternoon, “Corporate Social Networks Are A Waste of Money, Study Finds“, original post at the WSJ here.

In summary, Ed Moran at Deloitte did a survey of 100 major brands that have online communities. They all suck. What does “suck” mean in this case?

Thirty-five percent of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members – despite the fact that close to 60% of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects. “A disturbingly high number of these sites fail,” Moran tells us.

This tells me a few things. First, these companies have spent WAY too much money on their community software. Part of the magic of building a community network lies in using tool that are familiar and easy to use for the largest number of people. Since the vast majority of successful communities use similar forum and photo sharing tools that are largely open source, rolling your own makes less sense, particularly for a million bucks. That is to say, go where the people are.

Second, they don’t actually have anything worth talking about. That’s not to say that they don’t have great brands, or great products. But they might not have great brands or products that inspire conversation. For example, the Purina hard-to-classify-as-”network” network has only four paltry pages of user comments. It’s just hard to talk about odor control at any length.

In contrast, Mercedes-Benz has an incredibly successful community at BenzWorld.org, offering a place for user support and discussion on the cars — even premium membership for the high-dollar owners.

The Mercedes example gets to one of the key points in the survey: offer a community only when it provides a service to the community — not to you.

Third, the survey ignores companies making great use of existing tools. Back on my first point, if you are really going where the people are, then a network on Facebook or MySpace allows you to tap into known quantities, vast numbers of connected users, on an (arguably) stable platform.

The upshot is this: in spite of the doom and gloom from Deloitte, don’t shake down the social networks just yet. We’re entering an era of connectedness unlike any we’ve yet experienced. If you know your customers — if you truly understand them — a community might be your next best home run.

“Poonovation”

Announcing the Air Poo. Available Summer, 2008

http://www.airpoo.com

“F*** Planet Earth”

Here’s something that’s NSFW: a viral video picking up steam on YouTube that reveals what the animals are really saying on the BBC hit documentary series, “Planet Earth.”

Put on those headphones and proceed at your own risk!

DeVry sponsors Webb Alert, shows big ed has nose for new media after all

One of my favorite podcasts is WebbAlert, a technology news show hosted by Morgan Webb, highlighting daily tech news and social media memes. It’s daily, no more than about six minutes per episode, and Webb does a good job of covering the geek news I need with a ripe sarcasm I crave.

For the last few weeks, WebbAlert has had a compelling new sponsor: DeVry University. It’s a perfect match — while I know very little about the place, I know they have technical and gaming programs that fit the market of the show. But more important than that, it shows that the adult education industry is dipping its toes into some more progressive waters.

[Read more]

Leo’s Song

Here’s a wonderful piece showcasing the purity of art taking place in online media. Think of it as “Johnathan Livingston Seagull: Redux”.

Leo’s Song from impactist on Vimeo.

Christopher Nolan on Heath Ledger

Maybe it’s because I’m a child of the 70’s and 80’s that I have a deep personal affinity with actors and celebs I’ve never met. I’m a Reagan-era kid, after all, the actor-politician cemented for me a sentiment that the most important work of all is that of telling stories, pressing enthusiasm, fueling emotion.

It’s why I get to say things to myself like, “Man, if Will Smith only knew me, we’d be buds. Best friends.” [Read more]

Social and Mainstream News Interests are Different — says Project for Excellence in Journalism

This came in courtesy of Irina Slutsky’s Pownce feed this morning:

The Project for Excellence in Journalism compared stories on user-news sites with content from traditional news sources. A key finding: The news agenda of the user-sites — Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us — was markedly different from that of the mainstream press. Many of the stories users selected didn’t appear anywhere among the top stories in the mainstream media coverage studied.

Shock and awe indeed. This is covered in full at journalism.org. The cognitive dissonance here stems from news organizations’ need to keep the lights on, while the populace is, in most cases, interested in being informed. The challenge: a cursory glance across any of the social sites bears little in terms of news I need to know. Let’s see… top “World & Business” headlines right now on digg.com…

OK, so I’m interested in Ron Paul and Castro. But 7 Underwater Wonders of the World? You build me an underwater city as a weekend getaway at the foot of the Mariana Trench, and we can talk.

Blogging and the voice of journalism

From Dave Weinberger’s blog — he attended the New Media Academic Summit and caught a snippet of the end of a blogging and journalism panel with Jodi Kantor, Dan Gillmor and Steve Rubel.

I asked whether the rhetorical voice of blogging is changing the reportorial voice. Jodi replied that that voice has been getting more informal for years, and not just because of blogging. But, she said, when you can see how your readers are taking what you say, you try to write even more clearly and precisely.

“Another example of how blogging is improving journalism,” said Dan.

The same argument could be made inversely. The fact that the reportorial voice is becoming more casual, more approachable, may be what makes more people return to words in the first place. It’s a different time. I had a conversation with Mark Alexander who brought up an interesting point vis Marc Prensky. The gist of it is this: we have to be so careful to understand why we chose to teach what we teach. Just because the papers I grade today don’t conform to the rules of yesterday, does that make them any less appropriate? Content-rich? Accurate? We thought video games would destroy civilization. Now we’re using them as teaching tools.

I don’t want to agree. There’s something deep in me that pushes, rallies against this. But as educators, we have to own what’s ours, and fight the battles that really need fighting.

Coming Soon: Bart Ferguson and the Band

To the gents of The Bart Ferguson Band — Dave, Bart, Mike, and Ben — hat’s off to you. We just nailed down our second episode of Acoustic Conversations with these guys and not only are they fantastic all-around guys, they’re bang-up musicians. We’ve got five fresh takes on some of our favorite tunes coming very soon, so check back here or over at the site through the weekend.

AC: The Bart Ferguson Band

To the gents of The Bart Ferguson Band — Dave, Bart, Mike, and Ben — hat’s off to you. We just nailed down our second episode of Acoustic Conversations with these guys and not only are they fantastic all-around guys, they’re bang-up musicians. We’ve got five fresh takes on some of our favorite tunes coming very soon, so check back here or over at the site through the weekend.

Next Page »