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eMarketer reports that by 2012, more than 145 million people—or 67% of the US Internet population—will be reading blogs at least once per month. In eMarketer's latest report, The Blogosphere: A Mass Movement from Grass Roots, eMarketer analyzes the growing social and economic impact of this once niche-communications channel.
I read a great blog post by David Berkowitz today on Blog Search Stuck in Beta and it really captured a long-time complaint I've had about search engines, specifically for blogs and blog content. Whether you use Google or a micro-search specifically for blogs, overall they have been very ineffective in my experience.
Taking a look at the blog search landscape, Berkowitz finds there is a lot missing to the search experience, particularly "a sense of understanding a user’s purpose." (Big cheers! Smiles! Total agreement!)
Ending my day today, I learned of SocialMention, which I feel starts to address the Social Web and how blog and micro-blog content is out there and in the mix. Not unlike other cool search tools, like Lijit, SocialMention really does everything on my "nice to have" wish list for a Social Web search engine. SocialMention provides search results that are organized by blogs, micro-blogs (like Twitter mentions, Brightkite and Posterous posts, etc.), bookmarks, comments and so on.This is not just a search for blogs, but when we searched one of our own, Extraordinique we were so pleased with the immediacy and comprehensive return of results.
Our experience with SocialMention exceeds any results we've ever been able to extract from Google, Google Blog Search, Technorati and others.
In seconds, SocialMention had every post we've done on Extraordinique, all of our micro-blog conversations involving "Extraordinique," social bookmarks in Digg and Del.icio.us, comment threads, including FriendFeed, and the list goes on. It is the next great aggregator of numerous social media sources remixing it into a single stream of really useful and valuable information.
It is a thing of beauty to see all of this information indexed so quickly and so well organized. It will be such a useful tool for brand and community managers to keep up on all "SocialMentions."
Great idea. Great execution. Great results!
I imagine this will show up in SocialMention's "socialmention search query," so while I have your attention -- Thanks! You rock! And why no @SocialMention? Your fans and your critics want to include you in the conversation while they learn about you and endure some of the heavy loads. :)
Tonight's historical acceptance speech by Barack Obama for Democratic nomination for president has been captured in a word cloud by GraphicDesignr. It strikes me because of the meetings we had today covered everything from keyword optimization for search, the art and science of tagging, and then watching this evening's speech with iPhone in hand refreshing Twitteriffic to the max. I was able to experience a historical speech, and monitor as well as participate in the discussion on the back channel for #DNC08.
Experiencing the 2008 Summer Olympics and now this election in the era of Web 2.0, it's clear that we have more access, more organization, more ways to track, convey, collaborate and develop meaning for any given message, event, and opportunity.
I thought instantly, a historical speech captured in a tag cloud, the perfect conveyance of form and function!
I just came across a really refreshing blog by Alexander van Elsas on new media and technologies and their effect on social behavior. He has a ton of really insightful posts, including a recent post where he states some great points on why "the conversation" needs to be kept open and free. In fact, van Elsas asks - Can we have more fragmentation, please! While some argue that "comment fragmentation" is hurting the the ability to keep a coherent conversation alive, van Elsas and others point out that the true essence of conversation cannot be restricted by time, place or community. It's open and once published should have a life of its own.
The fundamental argument over comment fragmentation needs to go back to the original concepts of social media and how "creating conversation" was key. Where it starts to get tricky though, is how do publishers keep the conversation going "attached" to the originator who started the thread. This can be a big issue for "brands" trying to use blogs and social networks to connect with their customers and create conversation in new ways a la Social Media Marketing and PR 2.0.
van Elsas writes:
"While the idea of being able to track and follow a conversation that you might have started sounds good, I personally believe that centralising discussion is not a good thing. Conversations are by definition not bounded by time or space. They happen here and there, now and then. It is an illusion to think we can centralize discussions...
Social media technology and services have ensured that the conversation can take place anywhere. That’s the power of social media. It isn’t about media, content or distribution. It is about being able to interact anywhere we want.
It helps us to move away from destinations. It helps the user and the conversation to be set free. It enables what I call the user centric web. The web where the user, and not the destination is important."
It may be a hard pill to swallow, but any time any one tries to "control" a conversation, it is always doomed to fail. I think van Elsas point on the large scale really show that as we talk about "creating conversation," we also have to be ready for it to change, spread, disconnect and take a life of its own.
At that point, the publisher, then has the opportunity (and perhaps) obligation if wanting to stay connected to the conversation to particpate and co-contribute to the conversations lifespan thereafter.
Related Posts:
Related Tools & Services:
With so many distractions coming in on a day-to-day basis, we are often asked to consult teams on how to manage it all -- email, meetings, project requests.
With the introduction of instant messaging (as a team communications tool), project wikis and a myriad of Web 2.0 and social network tools to keep connected, the interruption factor is at this point detrimental to the productivity it's designed to serve.
In a New York Times article this week, Attention Must Be Paid, Marci Alboher reviews Maggie Jackson's new book, "Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age."
This book takes a look at what working in the Digital Age is like for most of us and how multitasking and other instaneous response actions and expectations are making it tough to have that time to deliberate thoughtfully and "digest ideas" fully.
The "casualties" of our fragmented and distracted attention is deep and significant.
If you are every feeling the struggle to keep up, read this article and the book to understand what is going on here and how to be "attentive" to your actions throughout the day.
Great article. Great book.
Thankfully, it actually inspired me today to take time and reflect, which in and of itself, helped me write a blog post longer than 140 characters. ;)
BtoB Magazine reveals the emergence of “chief blogger” as a corporate job title and the mixed feelings about CEO blogs.
Read the article: Businesses embrace blogging :: BtoB Magazine.
There is a great article published in Adweek, "These Brands Build Community - How these Web 2.0 companies build good relationships to build their brands," that clearly and succinctly sums up what innovative (and successful) companies are doing, like Zappos, Threadless, Etsy, Craigslist and Yelp.
The key, the article clearly points to, is that these companies are "quietly building brands online on the strength of communities." While I would say there is nothing "quiet" about @Zappos interactive dialogue and "Tweet Evangelism" on Twitter or the "voice" of user-generated slogans and design and community ratings submitted for the latest and greatest Threadless T's slogans or the "raving fan base" of Etsy's marketplace, the article has a quote that is so worth stating over and over again...
"Community is not a tactic or marketing plan line item, but core to what [successful Web 2.0 brands] do. It means being hyper-responsive to customers, laser focused on usability, unapologetically human and OK with customers determining the course their businesses should take. The bonus: When they take off, these brands don't need to do much in the way of advertising, instead letting their customers spread the word."
This cannot be expressed enough in every aspect of your interactive/marketing plan. Community is so core to successful engagement today that it has got to be where your message becomes dialogue, your consumers become relationships and those relationships become inter-personal.
In an April report by eMarketer, User-Generated Content: In Pursuit of Ad Dollars, U.S. Internet users are creating content in record numbers, and millions of other users are reading and looking at it. eMarketer studies this surge in user-generated content creation and provides answers to key questions:
The report also aggregates some interesting statistics on content creators and content consumers over the the next five years.
A series of great e-books on Social Media are available for download, including Intro to Blogger Relations 101 and The Art and Science of Blogger Relations.
These e-books are an excellent start in understanding the role bloggers play in the media and marketplace today.
Brian Solis authors these e-books as well as his blog PR 2.0 and is co-author of one of the books we feature on this month's "Viaspire Recommended Reading List," Now is Gone.
Today is a monumental day. It's Super Tuesday and for the candidates who have been tirelessly campaigning, today is a very big day. I like to keep politics out of our business blog, but I have been smitten with how Barack Obama really gets "user experience" online.
In somewhat of a pictorial blog post today, I leave you with this... If you want to understand what an exceptionally executed user experience looks like today... use Obama for President's website as a roadmap for success.
From the emotive visual presentation of the human experience of this man, his family, his vision for America, you get...
Obama for President
From the elemental navigation, providing multiple paths to answers or action opportunities, you get inspiration and direction on how to engage...
From the well organized issue-based verticals of information, you get answers on topics to help you decide on matters important to you as a citizen...
To find video as your first opportunity to see, hear, and learn more. To have "Yes, We Can" looping in your mind hours after your visit, you get impact...
Next, you have the opportunity to read current updates and make comments on the Obama Blog to keep the conversation going...
To fully engage and retain your most loyal followers, Obama for President offers a way to stay connected, to personalize the experience, to store, share and stay completely connected with my.obama.com.
Obama for President puts every best practice in to play here. It is a website, which excels in everything fundamental and simplifies the progressive tactics to make engagement easy and compelling.
Obama for President is a checklist for all things in good user design. In Part II, we'll continue this post to show you how Obama leverages "free media" and understands the value of the Social Web.
Additional Resources:
Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Gottfried Vossen: Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity
Robert Brunner: Do You Matter?: How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company
Bryan Eisenberg: Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi: Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means
Duncan J. Watts: Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (Open Market Edition)
Mark Buchanan: Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks
