LISTEN, CONNECT, INFLUENCE

The Top 209 of 2009

by Sherry Heyl

I have over 30 Google alerts set up and subscribe to over 50 different blogs. I use Delicious to save articles that I want to refer to later.

It seems Twitter vs Facebook (or is Facebook mimicking Twitter) and using Social Networks for Job Search dominated the news. There also was an abundance of views about the ROI of social media. And in 2009 we all put our heads in the clouds (or at least started finding ways to put our data in the cloud). We debated the demise of newspapers and sought out employee guidelines for our new media. Oh yeah, we also elected a President who seems to "get" all of this and Iran took a stand. 

This morning I decided to review the various posts I have collected in 2009 and pick out 209 favorites (in approximate chronological order).

Why 209? Because 2009 would be too many and 9 would be too few.

1. Presentation: Barack Obama's Internet Strategy by ReadWriteWeb

2. 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them by Mashable

3. Tapping the Portable Social Graphs by Adage

4.Social Media ROI for Non-Profits – A Case Study By Aaron Bramley

5. How to Attract and Influence People on Twitter (The Ultimate Twitter Resource) by Prevential

6. Social Networking for Social Entrepreneurs and Base of the Pyramid Entrepreneurs by Compassion in Politics

7. The Importance of Focus: A Guide for Social Media Brands by Mashable

8. Throw away your television: How to watch all your TV on the internet by Obsessable

9. Social networking for pros by The Vancouver Sun

10. Key attitudes for Enterprise 2.0 success by Social Media Today

11. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn: Security Pros Warm to Web 2.0 Access by CSO

12.How to use social media in the newsroom by SocialMedia.biz

13. What Makes a Social Network Valuable? The Answer Might Surprise You by Customer Think

14. Which social media ads are right for you? by iMedia Connection

15. Facebook and the Future of User Generated Governance by Brian Solis

16. CIOs getting serious about social networking by ZD Net

17. The Future Agency Of Record Will Be Social by MediaPost

18. 7 Tips to Getting SEO Value Out of Your Social Media Efforts by 4realz.net

19.The Future of Mobile User generated content by Life2oons

20. 9 lessons Obama taught us about brand identity by iMedia Connection

21. For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents by The New York Times

22. Time Management in the Age of Social Media by Business Week

23. Social Media and Search by MultiChannel Merchant 

24. New research: B2B buyers have very high social participation by Groundswell

25. Lockheed Martin gives homegrown social-networking platform a spin by Network World 

26. How Social Media is Changing CRM by Enterprise Systems 

27. 10 ways to turn angry consumers into brand advocates by iMediaConnection 

28. Despite Recession, More Than 50% of Marketers Increase Spending on Social Media by Read Write Web

29. Four Things Your Ad Agency Should Know Before Jumping Into Social Media by Fuel Lines 

30. Is Social Media an Industry? by Mashable 

31. 4 masterfully integrated campaigns by iMedia Connection 

32. Being a Director of Community by Altitude

33. The Ancient Psychological Roots of Facebook Behavior by Harvard Business

34. Google Makes Finding Friends on Social Sites Safer, More Secure by Wired

35. Google Rolls out Semantic Search Capabilities by PC World

36. Why Following Too Many People Will Cost You $ by twitip

37. Etiquette in the Age of Social Media by Chris Brogan

38. Future of PR: When Agencies Represent Communities –Not Brands by Web Strategist

39. The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis

40. Social Media Marketing Can Succeed for Leaders -- and Laggards by Destination CRM

41. The Five Pillars of Cloud Computing by Web 2.0 Journal

42. Stop counting impressions, and start making them by VentureBeat

43. To Newspaper Moguls: You Blew It by The Huffington Post

44. Leveraging Human Networks to Accelerate Learning by Chief Learning Officer

45. Social Media Networks Are Music’s Curse and Salvation by Wired

46. Rebuilding Trust with Enterprise Social Networking by Wall Street & Technology

47. 3 reasons that data will save online advertising by Venture Generated Content

48. All of 2009's Web Trends, on One Handy Map by Fast Company

49. Remote Controlled Lawnmower Steered with a Wii Mote by Switched

50. Unreleased 'X-Men' Movie Already Surpasses 1M Illegal Downloads by Switched

51. Fun is contagious by Church of the Customer

52.Google Adds GPS-Like Functionality to Search by Mashable

53. Five Phases of Social Media Marketing by Social Media Journal 

54. The Reasons for Twitter's Success by Suite 101

55. Gaming Industry Seeks Big Returns From Micro Payments by Red Orbit

56. Strategies: Consider keeping your business in the 'clouds' by USA Today

57. Web 3.0 and Mobile Technology Can Revolutionize Healthcare and Inspire Meaningful Behavior Change Sensei CEO Says by Enhanced Online News 

58. The Future of the Semantic Web by Suite101

59. Three Secrets to Make a Message Go Viral by Fast Company

60. Six reasons why no one likes you online by The Viral Garden

61. Instant Messaging Improves Workplace Productivity, Study Shows by Switched 

62. The Difference Between Enterprise 2.0 and Social Media by Social Computing Journal

63. How to do a Better Job of Project Collaboration Using a Wiki by Future Changes 

64. Coke Taps YouTube, Facebook For Sprite by MediaPost

65. Word Of Mouth Visualized: The Winning Entry by Logic + Emotion

66. 5 Predictions for the Future of Collaboration by Cisco

67. How to talk to your boss about social media (so she’ll approve the budget) by Comet Branding

68. Understanding the role of Enterprise 2.0 and moving towards a Social Business by FASTForward blog

69. How do you get to Carnegie Hall: Upload Upload Upload!! by Cool Cat Teacher

70. One Ning to Rule Them All by The Buzz Bin

71. 63% of Businesses Fear That Social Networking Endangers their Corporate Security by Read Write Web

72. Social Networking Tools Stimulate Government Operational Efficiency and Transparency by Web 2.0 Journal

73. "Prosumers" take over by Alpha Galileo

74. Measuring Engagement and Return on Relationships by Beth's Blog

75. The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media by The Social Path

76. 10 technologies that could change the way we work and live by itbusiness 

77. How Brands Balance Their Diet With Social Media Supplements by Web Strategist 

78. Army jumps on Twitter bandwagon, tells some personnel to tweet off by OhMyGov

79. Using Mashups to Create a More Efficient Government? by Programmable Web

80. ROI In Social Media & Social Networking – Lets Call A Spade A Spade!’ by Social Schmoozing

81. Can Your Brand Design this Kind of Conversation? by Social Media Today

82. 10 Cool Niche Social Networks by PC Mag 

83. Implementing Enterprise 2.0

84. Social Media Analytics & the Five-Step Social Media Program by Gauravonomics

85.NYTimes Appoints First Social Media Editor by Read Write Web

86. Social media: Whose job is it anyway? by iMedia Connection

87. The Rise of Social Music: How the Web Transformed Audio by Mashable

88. Delivering Happiness the Zappos Way by Business Week

89. Social Media Giving: Target’s Smart Facebook Campaign by Mashable

90. How Game Design Can Revolutionize Everyday Life by Wired

91.Best Buy: A social media case study by We Are Social

92. Enterprise 2.0 is coming: 30% of executives see social networking belonging to their business strategy by Marketing 2.0

93. Top 5 reasons online community building trumps old-skool-marketing by Tweetpr

94.Why NPR is the Future of Mainstream Media by Mashable

95. Xbox 360 To Get Facebook And Twitter, Still Breaks by Consumerist

96.Time Spent on Social Networks Doubles in a Year by PC World

97. Mayor finds yet another use for Twitter by City Insider

98.A Brief History Of Social Media by Social Media Rockstar

99. Journalists Should Customize Social Networks to Maximize Experience by Media Shift

100. 40 Years Later, Woodstock Launches as a Social Networking Site by AppScout

101. The Four Facets of Web 2.0 in Government by Gartner

102. The GPS Revolution: Location, Location, Location by Business Week

103. The Seven Deadly Sins of Public Relations 2.0 by The Harte of Marketing

104. Nine worst social media fails of 2009... thus far by ZD Net

105. Top Ten Reasons Why Your Company Should not Have a Blog by Conversation Agent

106. Told you so: eMail is now second to communicating via Social Networks by Media Futurist

107. 10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media by HuffingtonPost

108. Social Media and Politics – From Obama to Iran and Onward…by FASTforward blog

109. Corporate Social Media Roadmap by Half Rose blog

110. Understanding Why Twitter Excels in Iran Protest Coverage by PJ Net

111. Enterprises and Social Media: 5 Must-Haves by Read Write Web

112. How Participatory Culture and Mass Collaboration are Shaping Our Culture by Thought Economics

113. Consumer reporting: Broken guitar viral video gets airline's attention by examiner

114. Click here to find out more! Does Google Know Too Much About You? by CIO

115. Social Media and New Roles For Employees by Business Week

116. Online PR and Social Media Content Strategy Map (A New Cut Out & Keep…) by Content and Motion

117.Did Twitter Cost Brüno Millions? by Web Pro News

118. 71 Percent Say They Can't Live Without Facebook by MediaPost

119. Personal Branding Becomes a Necessity in Digital Age by MediaShift

120. When ‘Free’ is a business model… by Kate Lundy

121. The Most Engaged Brands on the Web by TechCrunch

122. 20 Things Job Seekers Shouldn’t Say on Twitter by Resume Bear

123. Five 3D Applications for the iPhone by Read Write Web

124. Social networking is next big thing for gaming by San Francisco Chronicle

125. Inspire Employees at the Grass-Roots Level by Harvard Business Review

126. Atlanta wine blogger lands 'dream job' in California by AJC

127. Obama, open source & healthcare by ComputerWorld

128.20 Expert Tips on Running a Contest Powered by Social Media by Spark Minute

129. The future of enterprise data in a radically open and Web-based world by ZD Net

130. 4 unlikely brands that won with gaming by iMedia Connection

131. 5 Steps to a Humane Social Media Policy by iMedia Connection

132. How to create a social media department by iMedia Connection

133. Executives See Value And Danger In Social Media by WebPro News

134. Why HR Should Care about Social Media by E2.0 Summit

135. How 3M Encourages Collaboration by Business Week

136. 10 PR Lessons UPS Has Learned from the Fedex “Brown Bailout” Campaign by Social Media Today

137. How exactly is Facebook making money? by Guardian

138. 5 Essential Enterprise 2.0 Whitepapers by Content Management Connection

139. Move over Enterprise 2.0, it's now Social Business Design by ZD Net

140. Word-of-Mouth Key for Video Game Industry by eMarketer

141. 4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business by Mashable

142. The social media country club by Business Grow

143. The HR Department Should Own Social Media by 1 Good Reason

144. The Challenge of Customer Retention in a Web 2.0 World by TMCnet

145. NBA Social Media Policy: No In-Game Tweeting by Mashable

146. Report Reveals:15 Best Practices of Social Media Implemented by the Top 100 Brands by Jeffbulla's Blog

147. Top 10 Web Collaboration Tools (That Aren't Google Wave) by lifehacker

148. Will Politics 1.0 Swallow Government 2.0? by Gartner

149. 10 Questions to Get You Started Using Social Media for Your Nonprofit or Do-Good Project by Have Fun, Do Good

150. Content is No Longer King by Blogging Innovation

151. 10 Reasons Social Media isn't Replacing Email by WebPro News

152. Is Behavioral Targeting coming to the Social Enterprise? by Pretzel Logic

153. Five reasons corporations are failing at social media by Mengel Musings

154. Be Your Own Social Media Director by Practical eCommerce

155. Fans help rock stars write music by CNN

156. CMO Poll: Social Media Better Done In-House by Business Week

157. Web 3.0 Concepts Explained in Plain English (Presentations) by digital inspiration

158. A Nerd's Take On The Future Of News Media by Huffington Post

159. Top Ten Social Shopping Networks (Just In Time) For The Holidays! by Investor Spot

160. Social networking security concerns top of mind for businesses by itbusiness

161. Why Twitter Scares the Hell Out of Hollywood by gawker

162. Ford Spending 25% of Marketing on Digital and Social Media by Business Week

163. Classification of Enterprise 2.0 use cases by Enterprise 2Open

164. 3 Ways for Businesses to Take Full Advantage of Facebook by Duct Tape Marketing

165. Google's 3-D Urban Maps, Built by You by Fast Company

166. Did Augmented Reality Just Get the Real World Database It Needs to Thrive? by Fast Company

167. When "funny" goes right (and wrong) for a brand by iMediaConnection

168. Five Tips To Avoid Getting Burned When Starting Social Media Campaigns by Search Engine Land

169. Why Bars and Soccer Games Are Key To Government 2.0 by Gartner

170. Social Games: How The Big Three Make Millions by TechCrunch

171. Google competes for the future; Microsoft, the past by cnet

172. The Cost Of Tweets And Pokes by Forbes

173. Google Social Search aims to make social networks more useful by ComputerWorld

174. Enterprise 2.0: Challenging Economy Pushes Businesses Toward Better Tools by Information Week

175. Integrating Social Media into Your Presentation Process by 10e20

176. How Pandora can become the New "Radio" by Hear 2.0

177. Happy 40th birthday, the internet: 20 milestones in the net's development by Telegraph

178. Online Shopping Goes Social by AdWeek

179. Innovation ROI – Why Every Enterprise 2.0-Enabled Connection Counts by cloud ave

180. Google's Creepy Social Search by PC Mag

181. Foo Fighters playing live concert on Facebook by cnet

182. Seven Ways To Tap Social Shopping by Clickz

183. Banning Social Media Is Counterproductive by Search Engine Watch

184. iTunes May Offer Pay-TV Service by MediaPost

185. Five Levels Of Social Media Responses by Dave Fleet

186. Twitter Lists in Action: NHL Builds a Social Network for Fans by Mashable

187. Best Buy partnering with CinemaNow to stream first-run DVDs to 'all web-connected devices sold' by engadget

188. New Income Streams for the Digital D-I-Y Musician by Flip the Media

189. Second Life Takes Virtual Reality Behind the Firewall at IBM, Navy by eWeek

190. Shop Smarter With Social Media by Forbes

191. The Basics of Social Media ROI by Future Lab

192. 6 Innovative Ways Businesses are Capitalizing on Foursquare by TheNextWeb

193. Four trends that will rattle retail this Christmas by The Social Path

194. Can social media save the radio star? by Smartblog

195. Ning Reaches 37 Million Users, Launches Developer Appathon by Tech Crunch

196. Social media changes everything, except the need for creativity by Creativity Unbound

197. Should Social Network Marketing Be All About the Deals? by eMarketer

198. Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands by Web Strategist

199. 3 Flavors of Social Search: What to Expect by Read Write Web

200. The 5 Potholes on the Road to Enterprise 2.0 by Destination CRM

201. CMOs Need Greater Engagement Internally and Through Social Networks for Their Brands to Thrive by PR Newswire

202. Why Your Social-Media Expert Should Be an Improv Comic: 7 Reasons by Will Video for Food

203. The Three Waves of Enterprise 2.0: Climbing the Social Computing Maturity Curve by ebizQ

204. How Social Computing enters the enterprise? by Marketing 2.0

205. Six factors driving B2B social media marketing adoption by Chris Koch's by B2b Blog

206. LinkedIn Finally Opens Platform: The Good & Bad News by Read Write Web

207. Study: Inc. 500 CEOs Aggressively Use Social Media for Business by inc

208. Foursquare may bounce social media into money-making mode by Chicago Tribune

209. 30 Interesting, Useless and Pointless Social Media Observations by Jeffbulla's blog

Now...bring on 2010!

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 8 - The Semantic Web

by Sherry Heyl

This is the final post of the Very Near Future of the Web series, and possibly the most intimating for me to write. The reason is the crystal ball is still very fuzzy when it comes to the Semantic Web as far as how close we are and how it will evolve. 

What is the Semantic Web? It is what many refer to as Web 3.0. It is the vision of computers or machines that has existed long before we all had computer technology in the palm of our hands. 

The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing, and combining information on the web. (Source Wikipedia)

It is all the sci-fi plots of the past coming to life.  

So how close are we to allowing computers work and think alongside of us?

This past week Semantic Web The Blog posted interviews with some well-known thought leaders in this space and each one of them had a different idea of how far we've come. 

Like many of the other innovations that have been discussed the past several weeks on this blog, I believe that the semantic web will seamlessly become part of our lives.

Why?

Let's look at what the web can do for us already.

• Amazon.com and Netflix can make pretty good recommendations based on past purchasing behavior of you and people who "are most like you."
• Pandora.com has an amazing engine that allows you to create a custom radio station by inputing songs or artists that you like and then giving songs a thumbs up or down, adjusting the algorithms so that you get your own personalized station.
• StumbleUpon does the same thing, but for the entire web! You can customize your web surfing experiences, or narrow it for just images or customize you video surfing experiences. Beyond that, StumbleUpon now takes your social network's preferences in consideration and tells you how similar you are to other people in their network. I do believe people who want to see the future of the web need to pay more attention to StumbleUpon.
• Delicious can recommend which tags you should use when you save a link.
• Ads are being served based on who we are and what kind of mood we are in. We will be seeing the same thing with search in the very very near future.

Basically, the web is learning about who we are and what we want.

I first heard of the Semantic Web a few years ago and ever since have been trying to wrap my mind around it. However it seems that in the past several months the ideology has been getting more and more mainstream attention.

Earlier this year, the ABC launched three new socially networked digital radio websites — ABC Dig Music, ABC Jazz and ABC Country — which aggregate content from several different sources, including MusicBrainz, YouTube, Last.fm and Wikipedia. It is not only a new approach for a content-rich organisation such as the ABC, it illustrates the possibilities of Semantic Web technology. The artists pages on the site, which form the core functionality, automatically pull in content from around the Web. (Source Computer World)

Read Write Web has been doing a great job of covering the evolution of the Semantic Web. A few weeks ago they listed their picks for the top 10 Semantic Web products. Most likely the only one on the list you would might heard of is Google.

So we have reached the point where the concepts of the Semantic Web are not just in theory or in sci-fi plots, but are rapidly being integrated into our lives.

What does that mean as far as how we related to the web?

1. Information will be interlinked throughout several pages. As a marketer you must be part of those links, which means being part of several communities.

2. Your community connections will greatly impact your web experience.
What that means for a marketer is they have to be part of several communities if they are going to get any attention on the web.

3. Your web experience will be personalized based on how you use the web and what information you chose to share on the web. What that means for marketers is they have to know what is important to the people they are trying to reach.

Basically, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and other such communities have only the appetizers for what is to come... in the very near future

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 7 - Mirror Worlds and Augmented Reality

by Sherry Heyl

Even if this sounds too sci-fi for your taste, I highly recommend that you read on. 

I first heard of Mirror Worlds and Augmented Reality just over 2 years ago. My friend, Timothy Moenk, was volunteering with the Accelerated Studies Foundation on a project called the Metaverse Roadmap. At the time we were all starting to be introduced to Virtual Worlds such as Second Life and the concept of LifeLogging (letting the world know what we are doing all of the time). 

Tim wrote about those two subjects in part 1 of his introduction to the Metaverse Roadmap on June 17, 2007. 

In part 2 he introduced us to the concepts of Mirror Worlds and Augmented Reality. Concepts that were so "sci-fi" that even I smiled and thought "well maybe in ten years or so". 

Today I went back to re-read that post and I realized everything he wrote about 2 years ago I now have on my Android phone. 

Our mobile devices are beginning to become geospatially aware and it's only a matter of time before most mobile phones are equipped with gps capabilities. Google Earth/Maps is a cornerstone technology that is enabling these developments to move forward

Last week I mentioned that I now have Google Navigation on my phone. 

Imagine walking past a restaurant and pulling out your mobile device to see which of your friends have been there before, and also if anyone has written any reviews.

If you haven't already, check out FourSquare.com. Foursquare use GPS technology on your phone to allow you to see what in near you, which places your friends have been to, what they had to say about it, and it encourages you, through game play, to check in and provide your own tips and insights. You can find my profile here.

I am waiting for the day when the Starbucks that I am Mayor of begins to give me my due respect, or as Tim put it:

there is huge potential to tap into the social aspect of Mirror Worlds to present how brands relate to people and places within society. Being able to appropriately build relationships with people around key places and times will take marketing to a whole new level!

So as I read on through his post about Mirror Worlds and Augment Reality I noticed that even Tim thought Augment Reality was a little ways off. To describe Augment Reality he refers to the image of what the Terminator sees through his goggles. Tim appropriately guesses that

For the most part, I don't see people in the mainstream wearing goggles for this type of application.

However, as soon as I read the word "goggles" I remembered the latest google app that is now on my phone, google goggles. That's right, no need to wear the goggles yet, get the data you need through your phone.

Granted the bigger picture of what is to come in the near future of Augmented Reality is not yet fully realized, but the future is definitely flying at us faster than even those who try to keep up can even begin to guess.

Around the web, Augmented Reality is starting to create some mainstream buzz.

Last week Tech Generation posted some additional uses of Augmented Reality that we are already starting to see in our daily lives such as:

When you meet a person professionally, in a business event, in a meeting, at a bar or a party, exchanging traditional paper business cards looks as archaic as vinyl records today.

Those of you with iPhones are already using Bump to swap information. 

I also recently came across a YouTube video about an app called Fashionista where you can leverage Augmented Reality for your online shopping.

If you are in need of getting out of the house but not sure where your friends are hanging out, check out their tweets with Twitter's new app that uses GPS technology to tell you where they are (yes, that creeps me out a little too).

We are not too far from being able to go out on a venture to a new place, hold our phone up and check out all available data (think Terminator). According to Venture Beat;

Augmented reality startup AcrossAir, which makes apps that help you find nearby subway stops and restaurants, turned profitable last month and is launching a bar finder this week. Augmented reality is a new field that lets you overlay 3-D graphics and information over the space around you through your phone’s viewfinder.

I know that for many people this all seems too much too fast, but the changes are entering into our lives seamlessly. It was only when I sat down to write this piece did I realize that Augmented Reality was already in the palm of my hand when hold my phone. The world is moving fast and each new innovation seems to be a game changer. I wondered to myself why I asked Tim to write the piece on Augmented Reality 2 years ago even though I thought the technology was a long way away. The reason was because although I was skeptical, another part of me had already reached the point of realizing that we live in a world where anything is possible and success in such a world requires keeping an open mind and developing a passion (or at least a keen interest) in Science Fiction.

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 6 - Free - dom

by Sherry Heyl

My father was the type of person who always had to have the latest entertainment or tools of convenience as soon as they were released to the market. I recall having one of the first Microwave ovens, VCRS, On TV (before Cable), then we had cable, then Satellite (the really big dish), and so on and so on.

What I learned from all those years of watching my dad buying the latest inventions as soon as they came to market was the value of waiting. If you wait it out the latest new inventions will become better and cheaper.

However I never imagined that we would live in a world where such inventions would become better and FREE!

I have a G1 Phone. I bought it last Christmas. The GPS on  the phone was definitely lacking in precision and although it integrated with Google Maps, it did not provide turn by turn directions like a Garmin GPS did. It also did not tell me what attractions and shops were near by.

How I longed for a Garmin. But I waited.

Last week I saw a commercial about Google's Map Navigation; voice activated, turn by turn directions.

I immediately grabbed my phone and downloaded the Free application. Now, no matter where I am at I can get turn by turn directions to  the closest coffee shop simply by saying coffee and clicking on Navigate. 

My life is complete.

...and I did not have to pay a thing.

The concept of free has been up for debate for many years. More recently we have heard Rupert Murdoch whining about how quality news is worth paying for and the very successful Arianna Huffington telling him, his thinking is a bit outdated.

We are now living in a free economy. 

I just finished reading Chris Anderson's book on the topic, Free: The Future of Radical Price. (Highly Recommended)

Chris points out a number of reasons for the new free economy.

Today there are three other technologies that touch nearly as much of our economy as electricity does: computer processing power, digital storage, and bandwidth. ANd all three really are getting too cheap to meter. (page 77)

the cost of anything built on these three technologies will always go down. And keep going down, until it is as close to zero as possible. (page 78)

Which accounts for organizations being able to give away content and data for free. But even if an organization does not make that choice, piracy often forces free upon organizations, and the cost to fight piracy is often too high.

The Internet has disrupted pricing models across almost all industries. But at the same time free has made Google a tremendous amount of money. How can this be so?

Economics is often defined as the science of "choice under scarcity." Bits of data, applications, content, information, are no longer scarce, in fact we have an overwhelming abundance such things. This abundance has made our attention and time more scarce than ever, and that is where we will find our new revenue models at.

If an organization begins to use free as a way to build community of interested participants, capture their attention and loyalty, and create ways to capture information about what is valuable to them, that organization will be able to deliver services that is relevant and timely to the needs of their community, something most people would be willing to pay a premium for.

In the offline world we see it as product placements on our grocery store shelves and in the goodies that are strategically placed for our impulse buying needs. To successfully capture our attention and dollars, marketers spend LOTS of money to research the needs and behaviors of their targeted consumers.

In the online world, all the organization has to do is offer free apps and information that can be provided at near zero cost and track the behavior of the customers. As Anderson explains;

The act of using the service creates something of value, either improving the services or creating information that can be useful somewhere else (page 29)

A start-up software company can launch with little overhead and offer it's services for free. As the community grows and the company gathers feedback both directly and through observation, they can create enhancements that will be incredibly valuable which can then be offered at a premium price. This revenue model is often referred to as a freemium. 

Services that enable their users to add content often generates revenue through relevant advertising, such as Google's ad-sense. 

We are also seeing revenue models that grow from affiliate marketing programs, or complementary product offerings. For example free photosharing sites that sell personalized merchandise such as mugs or calendars.

These online lessons of free can offer be transferred to the real world. One of my favorite case studies in Chris Anderson's book was that of SampleLab (Page 60)

At SampleLab, a boutique in Tokyo's teen-laden Harajuku district, customers get up to five free items each time they visit -- everything from candles, noodles, and face cream to the occasional $50 videogame cartridge. The gratis-only "sample salon" attracts 700 visitors a day. How can SampleLab not charge for every item it stocks?

• Charge for entry - Only "members," who pay $13 in registration and annual fees are admitted. With 47,000 members, SampleLab is so hip, teens now have to make reservations one week in advanced.
• Charge a "rental" fee for shelf space - Due to the store's popularity, companies give SampleLab products for free and even pay $2,000 to stock one item for two weeks. SampleLab can carry 90 products at once.
• Charge for feedback - By offering extra free goods, SampleLab turns most of its members into a focus group. Teens fill out product -specific surveys online, on paper, or via cell phones. Companies pay $4,000 for that data. If 20 percent of its clients pay for the feedback, SampleLab earns a little less than half the monthly revenue it does renting shelf space.

What can you offer for free and how can you monetize free? This is an important question that all organizations in every industry should be asking themselves.

The trend of legitimate free offerings will continue to grow and will continue to disrupt revenue models of the past. However the one thing all these models have in common is the need for a large engaged audience, which is where the ROI of social media will be seen most clearly.

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 5 - Enterprise 2.0

by Sherry Heyl

I have the great privilege to be the founder and Chair of the TAG Enterprise 2.0 society. We are currently in the process of planning our 3rd year. Yet each planning meeting still starts with the question "What is Enterprise 2.0?"

Is Enterprise 2.0 about

• the tools?
• the way organizations interact with their customers?
• the way employees interact with each other?
• the way organizations develop new ideas for products and services?
• the way sales people find new leads?
• emerging revenue models?

I personally am in agreement with Dion Hinchcliffe's image of Enterprise 2.0

Over the past few years we have witnessed a tremendous increase in organizations integrating social media tools and trends within their marketing mix.

Inc. recently posted a survey that found;

social media usage by companies on the Inc. 500 has grown in the past year, with 91 percent of companies reporting that they use at least one social media tool, compared with 77 percent of companies surveyed in 2008.

The increased adoption of social media can be attributed to many forces, including;

• Reputation management as more and more customers talk about brands online.
• Perceived reduction in cost for marketing during the recent economic downturns.
• Peer pressure as more and more companies boast of success from their social media efforts. 

However the adoption of social media tools for internal collaboration has not been as widespread as social media marketing, yet.

The pressures for people to change how they communicate internally have not been as strong as they were when customers began openly voicing their ideas and opinions externally. Internally employees are focused on their task at hand with the tools that are available to them with little time to experiment with new tools or processes. Not to mention the need to get executive buy-in to change processes or even buy-in from the team.

Most enterprise adoption of social software for internal collaboration has come after the sell of a "solution" from the various vendors. Although there are various success stories such as Transunion saving $2.5 million is less than 5 months using social software, often organizations find their new social platforms are ghost towns. The reason is it takes time, effort and a compelling reason for people to change their behavior, and to date, the compelling reasons have not been well known.

So, what is changing that puts Enterprise 2.0 as one of our "Near Future of the Web" topics?

The unemployment rate. 

This year unemployment went into the double digits. Everyday there was news of mass layoffs. New jobs were hard to find and many new jobs that were listed were asking for some knowledge of social media. People joined sites such Twitter, Facebook, and of course LinkedIN to find the hidden job market and to update their skills. The masses on the job market had both the time and very compelling reasons to learn new skills that would change their behavior.

New hires of experienced professionals are now becoming as savvy with social software as the Millennials entering the job force. Any organization that has not begun to implement a strategy and guidelines for social software behind the firewall may find themselves facing grassroots efforts that happen with the best of intentions, but may ultimately sacrifice the organizations intellectual property, reputation, as well as create a culture of cliques that include those who are "in the know" and those who "do it the way it has always been done."

This is why unlike social media, which had its origins as a grassroots movement, Enterprise 2.0 needs to be led from the top. Social software is free and readily available to be implemented by employees for the personal or project based uses. More often than not, there is not need or desire to let potential detractors know about these efforts. This in turn, increases the number of knowledge silos, compromises intellectual property, and potential could cause irrefutable damage.

The benefits of an Enterprise 2.0 initiative are numerous including;

• Deeper insight into who the talent is within the organization
• Ability to immediately dispel rumors and misinformation
• Collaboration among the various departments
• Capturing and nurturing innovative ideas
• Increasing knowledge retention
• Creating a sense of community within the organization

However, an Enterprise 2.0 initiative is not going to be successful without the right purpose and strategy moving it forward. These initiatives need to be aligned with the direction of vision of the organization, and that typically comes from the top.

The biggest challenge organizations face right now is not the fluctuating stock market or the lack of productivity from your employees hanging out on Facebook.

The biggest challenge organizations face right now is lack of timely insight into the needs of their employees and the needs of their customers.

The future is flying toward us at an unprecedented speed and without the tools needed to see what is ahead as well as what is right in front of us many organizations might find themselves lying in a landfill of fossilized businesses.

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 4 - Personalization

by Sherry Heyl

The web has an unlimited number of choices of content; from information to entertainment to networking connections. The only way anyone can manage so many choice is if the choices are limited to just the type of content that is most relevant to us. More and more web services are tracking our online behavior to do just that.

In the next year we will see more and more of our personalized online life integrated with our offline life (if there will be such a thing as an offline life).

Recently Google announced that they signed a licensing agreement with TiVo. Now, many people might shrug their shoulders at that and move on with their life. I see this as another step toward integrating our online and offline lives.

Already Google enables personalized search results by tracking the history of the user and Google is the master of service up behavior based advertisements.

At TiVo, Todd Juenger, vp, gm, audience research and measurement, said, "Working with Google is an important milestone and represents a shared approach to developing innovative products and services to help the media industry better understand the effectiveness of ad campaigns in an evolving TV landscape."

The more data that is collected the more personalized our experiences will be. And data is not just collected as we sit in front of our desktops or laptops, Google Mobile enables you to find what you want based on where you are at.

Overall, mobile technologies are growing rapidly because they have become our portable set of preferences.

For the holiday weekend we rented an SUV with Sirius radio. This was our first experience with Satellite radio and it was fun, for about the first 2 hours of our 6 hour trip. Before long we found ourselves flipping through hundreds of stations and finding nothing of interest.

This is the same with all of the cable television channels we pay for each month. We spend more time looking for something of interest to watch than we do being entertained.

Our solution has been to turn the television off in favor of web surfing. We hook the laptop up to a projector and surf through StumbleUpon video. StumbleUpon allows their community members to select categories of interest and then as it serves video, web pages, or photos, the user can give the content a thumbs up or a thumbs down, thus continuously personalizing their web surfing experience.

We also have a membership with Netflix which streams video directly to our laptop or our XBox360. We have ranked the videos we have watched and based on our rankings Netflix makes recommendations of what we would like to watch next.

As I buy and rate books on Amazon.com the sea of unlimited choices is narrowed down to recommendations of books that people like me like. 

As I write this post, I am listening to the only country radio I could ever listen to, the one Pandora has customized for me based on my feedback.

This is the world we live in, a world where the choices we make online help our web services personalize our experiences.

As far as my family's dilemma with too many stations and nothing to listen to on Satellite radio, my husband commented that he wished Satellite radio would allow him to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on the content it was serving...or we could just go to our Mobile Pandora stations.

Yes, the Internet and especially social media has provided us with an overwhelming amount of information and entertainment, but we are increasingly able to set our personal preferences as well as receive personalized recommendations.

As our experiences become more personalized, how will our behaviors change moving forward? Will we get tunnel vision and only focus on the few things that are comfortable for us or will our experiences expand as we find people who share the same interests as us but are also able to introduce new experiences? What new information will we be open to being exposed to and what information will we choose to tune out?

These are not only interesting social questions but also have rapidly become important questions for businesses to ponder.

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 3 - Social Commerce

by Sherry Heyl

I have an 8  year old son who wants it all! He sincerely believes that Santa Claus is very wealthy and can deliver him everything is asks for including an iPhone and a laptop, just because that is what he is asking for. 

As his mom I am challenged with providing him some perspective on reality as well as capturing some of his best requests and sharing them with our family members who would like to know what to get him. My solution this year has been to create a Delicious account for our wish lists. Each time he tells me what he wants, we look it up on the Internet, compare prices and tag (categorize) the links accordingly; such as "appropriate" and "not_reality." We are then able to share our ideas and research with family members. 

According to recent data published by eMarkter, I am part of a growing number of people turning to the social web this holiday. 27% of online shoppers are looking to social networks for gift hints and 45% are using social sites to research items while 60% will be looking for discounts.

Is 2009 the year for social commerce?

Wikipedia defines social commerce as employing collaborative social media tools to assist in online purchasing and selling, typically referring to recommendation engines and review sites. 

According to the above definition, social commerce is nothing new. The Internet first revolutionized our shopping habits when sites such as eBay, Amazon.com and Priceline.com were introduced in the mid-late 90's.

What has changed recently is where the reviews and recommendations are happening, which is away from the store and into our virtual communities.

In April 2007 I wrote a piece titled The Corner Store in the Global Community which explored how social media was helping brands create real relationships with their customers; the kind of relationships the old corner store owner's  had back in the day. These relationships are not happening at a brand's eCommerce site exclusively, but throughout the social web, wherever the brand is welcomed. More and more, brands are being welcomed throughout the web.

The Performics and ROI team surveyed 3011 social network users and found that 4 in 10 talked about brands on social networks and that 1 in 4 have gone directly to an eCommerce site after learning about a new product or brand in social media.

With more and more brands being welcomed into the various trusted communities throughout the web, it seems that retailers should begin to start thinking of ways beyond word of mouth marketing to increase sales and build loyal customers.

I recently came across a whitepaper (Download Mashery_Retail Whitepaper) which explores ideas and trends of using open APIs to drive sales directly from the social sites that brands have a presence in. What that means is you would no longer have to get your customers to your site, you can sell directly to them where they are hanging out!

Imagine the possibilities!

You do not have to go far to imagine them actually. Just reflect back to how retailers have leveraged eBay and Amazon.com to increase sales through their affiliate sales model. Now extend that model to blogs and social networking sites.

Not only will a retailer be able to sell to their audience in their immediate virtual locations, but through the rise in various location-based mobile apps, retailers will be able to sell to consumers wherever they may be in their physical world. Imagine I check in on my Four Square network at my local Starbucks on Northpoint next to Barnes & Noble and then Barnes & Noble informs me that they have one of the books I have on my wish list in stock and on sale and all I have to do is walk next door and pick it up. 

Through mobile apps such as Four Square, retailers can get better insights into who their best customers are and provide incentives for them to become their most vocal advocate, and perhaps even their best virtual sales person.

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 2 - Gaming

by Sherry Heyl,

At my house the weekend starts at 4:30 on Friday. This is when my teenage son comes homes from school, shoves something completely unhealthy in his mouth and heads downstairs to play his Xbox 360.

This past Friday I came home and saw my teenage son proudly holding up a $20 bill his Nan gave him for his birthday. He said "you know who this is? This is Andrew Jackson, and he did a lot of bad things. But do you know what is good about him?" I smile and inquire "what?" He tells me that "Andrew Jackson wants to go rent Modern Warfare (a new game) as much as he does." So off to Blockbuster we went.

The past few generations alive today grew up with computer games. I do not recall how old I was when my family got our first Atari console, but I was young. The only game I was able to play was a car game that ate numbers. Eventually my family allowed me to play a little table tennis with them and finally I graduated to Combat.

Combat is no Modern Warfare. 

My teenage son gets to play with friends he has made all over the country and the world. Together they create mini movies called Machinima. The games he plays look like movies, and in fact, they play as though you are a character in a movie.

These gaming consoles are also starting to integrate with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm.

While my teenage son was engaged in battle my 8 year old son was playing with his friends virtually on the Build a Bear website. By the end of the night he informed me which new Build a Bear animal he wanted for Christmas.

The moral of the story of my family's typical Friday night is that gaming has a huge impact on our lives. The members in our online gaming communities are as much a part of our lives as our actual neighbors. Through that community, brands are able to raise awareness about new products and influence purchase decisions or other various calls to action.

Whether we like it or not, social gaming has also invaded our social networking sites. From Farmville a social game created for Facebook to the popular gaming company, Electronic Arts launching an extension of it's popular game "Spore" to Facebook. 

There is also no shortage of Branded Games online such as:

Build a Bear

Cartoon Network

Nabisco World

Coca Cola

and many, many more.

There are even examples of unlikely brands  successfully embracing gaming such as:

State Farm

Dyson

IKEA

Visa

And then there is the accelerated growth of in-game advertising which according to Wikipedia was a $56 million industry in 2005 and is estimated to be a $1.8 billion industry by  2010.

There are many various reasons for the growth of gaming. Gaming by it's very nature is social, interactive, and engaging. In a world where our attention is being pulled in a million different directions, gaming provides us an escape by enabling us to immerse ourselves into an activity.

Brands have also caught on to the idea that by capturing our attention in a game, they have the ability to enhance brand awareness, leverage peer influence purchasing decisions, educate their audience, and develop brand loyalty by enabling their audience to be emotionally, and oftentimes financially, invested into the brand.

Virtual games have become our children's reality and will rapidly become a reality in almost every aspect of our lives, from how we make purchasing decisions to how we learn. We are even going to be immersed in games such as FourSquare that will help us decide where to have dinner on a Saturday night.

The Very Near Future of the Web Part 1 - Niche Networks

by Sherry Heyl

Halloween has past which means we are officially in the midst of the holiday season. With the holiday season comes visions of the New Year. With visions of the New Year come predictions of what we will all need to pay attention to in the upcoming year.

Over the remaining 8 weeks - yep that's it, 8 weeks of 2009, I will be posting future trend predictions that are up for discussion on our Facebook Business Page. 

Each week I will dedicate a blog post to one of the trends that I believe we REALLY need to pay attention to. This week the focus is on Niche Networks.

Admittedly, I might be biased. Three of my clients are building their own Niche Networks; ATL Insider, Lens on Atlanta, and eRollover. However, there are several reasons why I sincerely believe that the future of the Internet is a web of interrelated Niche Networks. 

Some recent statistics I have read suggest that 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology and 93% of social media users believe that a company should have a presence in social media. What that tells me is that the web is social!

As many of you know, this did not happen over night. It started with grassroots blogs and the uprising of the MySpace generation. We then saw Facebook explode and grow to boast of a population that is larger than almost any country in the world and Twitter becoming the place where we get the latest breaking news.

Each of these sites have gone mainstream and become household names. These sites have rapidly changed the expectations of and behaviors on the web.

At the same time, as each of these mainstream sites have grown in popularity, they have been bullied to try to become everything to every one.

Last week I wrote a post about my impression that Facebook is going through puberty. I pointed out that:

There are people who are on Facebook for business reasons, but their business connections are using Facebook to play with friends and family, and some of their friends and family are trying to use Facebook to promote their grassroots causes or political agendas.

Many social media advisors, myself included, have often consulted that our clients need to be where their audience is. I have adjusted that advice recently. I suggest that my clients need to be where their clients expect and want them to be. Although your clients may be hanging out on Facebook, they may be there for reasons other than to hang out with you.

This begins to open up the MANY reasons for brands and industries to develop their own niche social networking sites. 

Other reasons include:

• Brands are dependent on the existence and enhancements of mainstream networks. Consider the trouble that those who developed Facebook Groups went through when Facebook Pages became the better option. 
• Currently changes and enhancements to mainstream sites come too frequently for most people and often disrupt the brands effort to build a community.
• It is not comfortable to have confidential conversation on sites such Facebook or LinkedIN, even if you do set up the appropriate privacy settings.

Already many organizations have jumped off the mainstream networks bandwagon to develop their own network. Last week Tech Crunch reported:

Ning (a DIY Network) has reached an impressive milestone of 37 million users and 1.6 million social networks using its platform. Growth continues at the rate of one million users every two weeks. 20% of these networks are running at least one Ning app, while the average is two. That's an audience of over 9 million users.

One of the most valuable features of Ning is the ability to pull in content from mainstream networks. Beyond that the develop can chose which feature they want to include based on what makes sense for the community they are building.

In 2010 we will see more platforms developed with the ability to integrate and interconnect with other networks, whether they are niche networks or mainstreams. People will no longer concern themselves with how many networks they belong to because users will log in with one sign in and only have to maintain one profile. 

I do not predict the demise of mainstream social networks, instead I predict that mainstream networks will continue to act like a global market place, meanwhile brands and industries will set up niche networks that will act as their local store fronts.

Surprise! Social Media Should Be Handled In-house!

The October 1-7  CMO Weekly Poll asked "which of your groups is best equipped to help you with your social media efforts today?"

The overwhelming answer was in-house 65.6%

15.6%Interactive Agency
9.4%PR Firm
9.4%Social Media Agency
0%Creative/Ad Agency

Business Week has a few quotes that explain the thought process behind the CMOs answers.

I have been telling clients this for years! When a client ask if they can outsource their social media efforts to me, I often ask them if they would be willing to send me to networking events on their behalf? to conferences? to sales meetings? Because in essence, if you are outsourcing your social media efforts, it is similar to outsourcing those key sales activities.

So, what kind of help can you get to be successful in social media?

Your PR agency can and should integrate social media channels into their efforts. This can include creating and managing a social media press room, identify and developing relationships with what I call "institutional bloggers" these are bloggers who act more like a journalist as opposed to "day in my life" bloggers, they can monitor for reputation management concerns and create a strategy for managing when things go wrong or leveraging the opportunities of when things go right.

Your Interactive agency can and should be optimizing your web presence for social media. This would include re-designing your email newsletters to include your social media presence, setting up and optimizing your social networking sites, making sure your social media efforts are working hand in hand with your SEO efforts and creating a web site that is dynamic, interactive and buzz worthy. 

Your creative/Ad agency has the opportunity to position ads where your audience is most engaged with their peers about topics related to you. They can create ads that are buzz worthy and positioned to go viral.

What about your social media agency? What is their role?

From my perspective, a social media agency should work with all of the above departments to ensure that everyone is on the same page and there is a unified presence and message throughout the web. A social media agency should stay up-to-date on the latest tools and technologies that weave the web together. A social media agency should be able to research the web and identify where your audience is hanging out, what they are saying, and how they are feeling. A social media agency should be able to check out your competition and report what they are doing well and where their vulnerabilities are. A social media agency should be able to train your team on the hows and whys of social media, what each person's role and responsibility should be when hanging out on the web, and how to best manage their time. At their best, a social media agency can also enable a company to leverage social software tools internally to make sure that right information is getting to the right people at the right time.

By providing the intelligence, roadmap, and structure, social media agencies can empower their clients to be successful in this ever changing noisy world. But ultimately, client interactions and engagement really cannot be outsourced.