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How does your audience access the information you create? How does it effect the way you do things — or does it at all?

Mentioned in this episode:

• One Degree: “Add 2.8 Million Readers With Accessible Writing”
• Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at University of Toronto

 

 Episode #24 - Who Are You Communicating To?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 73% [?]

It’s been a few months since I received my review copy of “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” and this review is LONG overdue.

Groundswell is co-authored by Forrester VPs/analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (Li has recently left Forrester) and focuses on strategic direction for companies looking to take part in the “groundswell” of social media to further their business goals.

Quite simply, I LOVE this book. In my role as strategist at a digital agency, I’ve already found a number of opportunities to refer to the cases contained in Groundswell, as well as the “Technographics” overlay of demographic data and online social activities.

Here are a few things I feel Groundswell has going for it over many other social media strategy books:

• Clear methodology: Li and Bernoff outline what they call the POST approach to social media (evaluate your People, determine your Objectives, create your Strategy & select your Technology,) which I feel has tremendous value far beyond social media projects.
• Actionable analytic analysis: The aforementioned Technographics data uses Forrester research to show how different groups are more or less likely to take part in particular social media activities. For example, young American males are more likely to create and upload media such as photos or videos than are middle aged American women. While many of us who work in new media might find this kind of insight obvious, it’s incredibly useful to have actual data to back up our hunches when we are going to clients to pitch an idea.
• Well-organized and relevant cases: That case studies make up the bulk of the pages of Groundswell is neither surprising nor original for a social media strategy book, but what I found helpful were the indexes of these cases. Anyone who has dealt with a clients knows that it’s great to be able to quickly pull out a case study in their industry or country when they start on their “well, that might work for X but it will never work here” speech.

My only real beef with Groundswell is that, despite the fact there are a couple of very good Canadian case studies, there is no Canadian Technographics data. However the folks from Forrester (including Josh Bernoff) explained in answer to my question on their forum that the Canadian data had been omitted due to their publishing schedule, and would be added to the online Technographics tool as soon as it becomes available. Great to see Bernoff and his colleagues are practicing what they preach when it comes to listening and responding to customers.

Popularity: 73% [?]

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What motivates YOU to participate in social media?

 

 Episode #23 - Social Media Motivation: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 75% [?]

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW (playing time 9:52)

Just because we’re proponents of one medium doesn’t mean we have to bad-mouth others, does it?

Mentioned in this episode:

• Mitch Joel - “Google Not Optimistic About The Future Of Newspapers”
• Jose Leal from wikiDOMO - “Why do we want newspapers to survive?”
• Shel Holtz - “The future of newspapers (and the $100 I’m going to take from Jose Leal)”
• Steve Rubel on AdAge - “New Generation of Phones Is Game-Changer for Radio”

 

 Episode #22 - Fostering Respect Between Media: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 74% [?]

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Do you think someday there will be an Oscar for “best DVD extras” or a Grammy for “best original song for a video game?”

Like radio, television, movies, 45s, LPs and CDs, will new media formats create new creative formats?

Love to get your comments, as always!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Dave Delaney
• Guardian story on Guns’n'Rose track in Rock Band 2
• Amarok by Mike Oldfield on Wikipedia

 

 Episode #21 - Will New Media Formats Drive New Creativity?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 84% [?]

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW (playing time 14:39)

What makes a blogger? A podcaster? A musician? An artist? What do YOU consider yourself to be, and why?

Mentioned in this episode:

• W.A.R.: The Unauthorized Biography of William Axl Rose
• Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation Episode #111
• Bryan Person
• Wikipedia article on “Chinese Democracy”

 

 Episode #20 - What makes you an "X"?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 88% [?]

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW (playing time 10:13)

With so much data shared with third-party services, how much privacy do we really have nowadays? What are the limits to what YOU share online?
Mentioned in this episode:

• Jeremiah Owyang: “Who has more data about Gen Y: Facebook or the US Government?”
• Tommy Vallier
• Podcamp Toronto 2008 Media Archive with video from Tommy’s “Living On The Cloud” Presentation

 

 Episode #19 - Privacy: Do We Still Have Any?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 88% [?]

I rarely make predictions. That is ‘cus I am usually wrong. For example, in the early 80s when some of my friends were talking about the band U2 (whom you might have heard of since) I remember saying something to the effect of “yeah U2 are okay, but they’ll never be as popular as The Alarm.”

(Ahem.)

That being said, I’m going out a limb today. Something in a piece that I spotted via Cynthia Turner’s Cynopsis today might (MIGHT) be a game changer. Apparently Family Guy creator and general smart-ass Seth McFarlane is teaming up with a little company called Google to distribute his new show “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy” via the AdSense network.

In other words, rather than using TV or even a “traditional” Internet distribution strategy like setting up a website or a video podcast, these new animated shorts will be distributed to sites as part of their advertising inventory.

Now, I’m assuming there is some kind of sponsor attached to these shows who are footing the bill for distribution, but it’s definitely an interesting idea. This isn’t just video ads that are trying to be compelling as content, these ARE content, distributed via a network usually reversed for ads.

Think about it. I certainly will.

Popularity: 100% [?]

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW (playing time 14:13)

Sometimes media creators get paid for creating. Sometimes they don’t. When SHOULD you get paid?

Mentioned in this episode:

• Chris Brogan on why “Making Money Isn’t Evil”
• Podcasters Across Borders pab2008
  

 

 Episode #18 - Getting Paid (Or Not) for Media Creation: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 80% [?]

On the most recent Media Bullseye podcast, Aaron Brazell (a.k.a. Technosailor) stated “If FriendFeed is going to have adoption (in the) mainstream, there’s going to have to be a name change. FriendFeed sounds tremendously creepy.”

This made me flashback about 10 years. I was reading Jakob Nielsen’s useit.com blog (in the days before we used the word “blog”) wherein he mentioned a new search engine. He described what had started as a university experiment and had evolved into a a new kind of search, where relivance was determined by the number and quality of sites linking into a particular site. This sounded like a great idea, but I didn’t think this search would ever take off because of it’s silly name.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the search site in question was Google.

Google is a silly name, but that name does appear to have been a barrier to its tremendous success. Ditto Yahoo. And Facebook. Facebook?!? There’s a dumb name if there ever was one.

If someone can give me an example of a truly great product or service that has been killed by it’s silly name, I’d love to hear it.

Popularity: 84% [?]