Growth of Social Media Infographic

There's been a lot of talk about the growth and significance of social networking. The new, technology-driven communications and connectivity platforms are indeed very powerful phenomenon that changes culture from the bottom up. It is impossible to argue with the rapid growth and utilization of Facebook, Google+, Linked-In, Twitter and other related online services.  I personally love Infographics. Here's a good one that explains where we at with the growth and expansion of SOCIAL NETWORKS.  (Apologies, nothing is wrong with your eyes. Readers will need to click on the image to read it.)



Source: The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic

Political Organizing for 2010 & Beyond

Reaching and Activating Voters with 

Social Media and the Next Web

by Mica Cardillo

Introduction

Political campaigns are beginning to tap into the social graph, and they are doing so with a variety of  new technologies which leverage the supporter’s unique digital IDs (email addresses and/or mobile phone numbers) of supporters.  In conjunction with a strong Facebook program, individual campaigns can use these technologies to improve campaign efforts and build long lasting connections with supporters.  

Once the campaign has its supporter’s email addresses, cell numbers, and/or Facebook connections,  a whole new world of targeting, social media outreach, and polling is possible.  Organizing for America has mastered the art of collecting and leveraging this key information by couching it as a pledge of support for a particular issue, cause, or even to sign the President’s birthday card.  See latest example.  Notice that in addition to collecting the supporter’s name, email, mobile phone, they also ask for the address information needed to geo-code the supporter’s location.  Geo-location comes into play for targeting, blended events, and looking for patterns in data.  Additionally, the more data that can be appended or merged with an email address and/or mobile phone number, the greater the ability to micro-target messages on social networks and digital advertising networks.  

Expected Benefits of Social Organizing to Campaigns:

• Improved awareness, trust, and lasting connections with voters.

• Improved targeting.
• Improved communication between supporters.
• Increased ability to quickly reach supporters when and where they hang out online.
• Reduced the overhead costs of collecting donations and encourage more frequent giving and smaller donations from those who might not otherwise give.
• Increase efficiency and effectiveness in GOTV efforts.
• Create a community that has lasting value (decrease costs of re-election).
• Build something that does not end after Election Day (improves the candidate’s public relations and positive constituent involvement).

The Facebook Factor

If the campaign has not been actively collecting the digital ID (emails) of its supporters, another avenue for connecting with new supporters on the web is to deploy a comprehensive Facebook program.  The program should involve a personal Facebook account, a political Facebook fan page, Facebook advertising, proper frequency of messaging, timing of those messages, commenting on other people’s posts in the News Feed, “liking” other people’s posts, and proactively posting to the walls of the most influential supporters.  Additionally, one can send direct messages to “likers” that take on a more personal, urgent, or exclusive nature, such as to offer VIP tickets to an exclusive campaign event.

There are many technical quirks and points of confusion to contend with in maximizing one’s impact on Facebook.   Keep in mind there are two categories of connections in Facebook, “friends” and “likers.”   When someone “likes” a fan page, they are essentially subscribing to anything that occurs on that fan page wall.  When someone “likes” a post from someone’s personal account, however, they are not automatically becoming a friend of that person.    

Many of the candidates already have connections with hundreds or thousands of friends on Facebook  The challenge for the campaign is to reach and leverage both “friends” and “likers.”  One quirk with Facebook is that when a personal account has administrative connection to the campaign fan page, he/she takes on the persona of the fan page when posting updates or response to activity generated from that page.  In order to have fan page activity show up in the News Stream of the candidate’s personal friends, we need to remove the administrative connection between the candidate and the campaign fan page.   

The Roll of Social Networking and the Social Web

In the past, a lot of effort has been spent on building and then driving traffic to campaign’s official website.  However, the social web is changing this equation.  With Facebook, having friends and “likers” provides a powerful opportunity to stay fresh in the supporters News Feeds .  The News Feed has become one of the best places to have conversations and extend awareness of the campaign.  The News Feed is also the place where a compelling piece of content is more likely to go viral.  Every post in the News Stream includes an opportunity for people to comment and “like” the post, which in turn makes the post visible in his/her network of friends.

While everyone seems to agree that social networking is important, the majority of campaigns and businesses are doing a really poor job of being social and building relationships with their followers.  To address this problem for our campaigns, I am recording a series of short video tutorials on how to best use Facebook for political organizing.  These tutorials will help our campaigns and volunteers better understand, embrace, and leverage Facebook.  Additionally, I am providing hands-on coaching sessions to both individuals and groups.  Once we have actually learned Facebook really well, then I will start coaching campaigns on how to get the most out of other social networks such as Twitter.

Social network organizing should start out by leveraging existing contact database of supporters.   Here are notes on the subject:

• Send reasonably short email blasts with social features embedded (the “Like” button) and other hyperlinks to the candidate’s social network accounts.  Do not pack everything into a long email newsletter.  Instead, publish extra information as a series of blog articles, Facebook notes, or custom Facebook tabs.   Then, use Hootsuite’s dashboard to update the Facebook walls and Twitter accounts with titles and shortlinks to the URLS where the content was published.  
• Use existing bank of email addresses to do internal invites on Facebook and Twitter.  For supporters already on Facebook, this will decrease the friction of becoming a friend or “liker” down to a single click.
• Make it easier for friends, “likers,” and followers to participate in conversations and share information with their friends.  Create fluid social experiences on the web.  Start by making sure the visitor can easily hop back-and-forth between all of the candiate’s online resources (blog, Facebook, Twitter, website, donation page, etc).  
• Implement social plugins on  the campaign blogs and websites (commenting, ShareThis button, the “Like” box, and Tweet box)
• More social network updates should occur during peak traffic volume (Facebook = weekend, Twitter = lunchtime on weekdays).
• Note that social media does not occur in isolation from other marketing efforts.  The campaign is best served when it has a team that is tightly integrated across the entire marketing effort.  

Acquire New Friends, “Likers,” and Followers in Social Media:

• Be social (participate in two-way conversations with friends and followers on social networks).  

• Frequency of posting, comments, links, videos, and other content is critical to making sure the candidate remains visible in people’s News Feeds (Facebook) and Timelines (Twitter).   This is critical for enabling supporters to comment on the candidate’s posts.  Each time a supporter comments on an post in Facebook, it becomes visible in the newsfeed of all her/his friends.  Likewise, each time a supporter re-tweets a message, it shows up on the Timelines of all his/her followers.  However, depending on how many friends someone may have, your social update will flow downstream quickly and get lost.  The average Facebook follower has 140 friends, meaning that something fresh should be posted each day, and ideally when peak traffic occurs for that particular social network.  Twitter is an entirely different animal than Facebook, and requires a greater frequency of posts.
• Post updates frequently, but not too frequently.  We must avoid annoying our followers, or they may unfollow the candidate or unlike the campaign.

• For our local campaign efforts, at least one update or post per day.  Can alternate between candidate’s personal wall and campaign fan page.
• Have your personal Facebook account do proactive socializing with at least two or three interactions per day.
• Focus interactions during peak volume (Saturday, Sunday, and early weekday evenings).

• Collect emails along with other useful targeting data via a custom “Subscribe” or “Join” tab on the campaign’s FB fan channel.  Of course, also collect email information on the campaign’s website and blogs.

Social Content Strategies:

• Cater to the type of experiences people expect on a specific social networks.  Facebook, for example, should involve the use of images and videos as much as possible.  Twitter, on the other hand, should focus on making impact with just a few words or phrases, shorthand, Tweet lingo, texting lingo, abbreviations, shortlinks, and publishing a series of updates (in which meaning is derived from following the tweets over a period of time).
• People on Facebook don’t necessarily want to leave the Facebook experience.  Provide supporters on Facebook with many opportunities to “like” and comment on your updates (thereby showing up in more people’s News Feeds) without always linking it to a website.
• Another element of social is humor and fun.  Avoid being serious all the time.   Also, try to make it as fun as possible, when ever possible.  
• Help steer “buzz.”
• Build recognition, familiarity and trust with audience by posting regularly.

Social Advertising

Advertising on social media is an important part of a social media program.  Facebook ad campaigns are best leveraged if the focus is on getting the target audience to click the “like” feature.  The like feature is the number one priority when ad bids are reasonably priced.  If campaigns are expecting to use social ad platforms to activate key votes, the cost of those ad bids may increase as it gets closer to the election.  My recommendation is to get as much of your target audience on board as likers, way before you need to activate the vote.  Once you have them as likers, you can send direct messages in Facebook to remind them about specific actions, events, deadlines, etc.  Facebook’s ad platform offers at least eleven different targeting options, so the best thing is to just start testing ads with very specific audiences and then start re-allocating your budget to the ads that work the best.  If your ad is not adding to your rolls of likers after reaching 25 unique impressions per person, stop running the ad.   Its a waste of your impressions.  To dive any further into ad targeting on Facebook and/or mobile devices, I encourage you to contact me to discuss your unique campaign.


Data Management and Social Targeting for Local Elections

Campaign email and SMS management services have yet to be integrated with VoteBuilder or other GOTV tools, making it logistically inefficient for small campaigns to track, merge, and utilize social network data in GOTV efforts.  However, this should not preclude the campaigns from gathering the data and building community in social networks.  The data and social connections will certainly pay long term dividends.   I am confident that political strategists and technologists will get together soon and address the need for an integrated tool that helps campaigns manage everything from a single dashboard.


The Roll of Email and Email Management Services

The campaign with the most success in collecting and managing emails from existing supporters will have the best foundation for building community on social networks and reaching new voters throughout the campaign.  Emails are not just about sending out the latest news.  Email newsletters and “E Blasts” should be used strategically in terms of timing, frequency, the email’s title, the “calls-to-action” within the body of the email, the hyperlinks in the email, and now the integration of the “Like” button.  Campaign emails should be coordinated with social network messaging so that one does not detract from the other.  

The continued innovation of email management services and tools such as MailChimp are also making it possible to gather additional data and send out very targeted E Blasts to sub-sets of the email lists.   For example, MailChimp’s integration with RapLeaf gives the ability to automatically recognize which email subscribers are already on social networks, and which of those supporters have already started following the candidate on one of the big social networks.   This integration also allow for further segmentation by the specific social network (ie, Twitter).   People ascribe certain relationships and behaviors to different social network accounts, and those typical behaviors usually vary from one type of platform to another.  With Facebook, the average person expects photos to be a part of the core experience.  Twitter, on the other hand, involves only text and shortlinks to other resources.  The type of person who actively uses Twitter is more likely to expect and respond to text messaging on their cell phones.

With fragmentation will come focus. Inboxes are everywhere! From Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and the Web, more inboxes will increase competition [for their attention]. But this will also create opportunity for marketers to create targeted experiences as subscribers delegate certain functions and habits to different inboxes. – Stephanie Miller, on Clickz

As mentioned earlier, emails are also serving as unique digital IDs.  Emails are the key information needed to send out a mass group of friend requests from inside of a social network and is extremely valuable for seeding the candidate’s online community.   Large email databases present some technical challenges and must be broken into smaller chunks of data, formatted as a tab-delimited .csv files, and carefully uploaded to Facebook.  For Twitter, all of the above is true, except all of the contacts must first be uploaded to a major cloud-based email service like Gmail.  Twitter will then extract the emails from Gmail and determine which of those emails already have accounts on Twitter.  There are limits (determined by the way Gmail and Facebook have set up their databases) to the amount of emails and friend requests that can be activated at a given time.  Also, when uploading emails to Twitter, the entire Gmail contact list is brought over.  If uploading emails in chunks to Gmail, be sure to delete those Gmail contacts before uploading the next chunk of email data.


The Roll of Text Messaging

Effective mobile marketing brings a rich, personalized experience for voters.  Text messaging reaches over 85% of all mobile phones, and nearly 90% of those who receive a text message will read it.  SMS blasts are effective with campaigning, campaign events, polling, crowdsourcing, and activating the vote.  Campaigns who are not already collecting mobile phone numbers from supporters should begin doing so immediately on their website, Facebook, and event sign-ins.  Another possibility is running a phone bank via SMS.  A service from realGood Technologies already enables campaigns to run phone banks through a network of supporter’s cell phones, which reduces the need for volunteers to be physically present at phone bank location.

The ability to leverage text messaging with supporter’s smart phones is becoming more and more significant.  Google recently released numbers indicating the number of Android smart phones being activated each day is in excess of 200,000 units per day.  As smart phones begin to proliferate the market, text messaging becomes an even more important tool for calls to action and pointing voters to strategic campaign resources on the Web.


Surveys/Polling

I recommend the use of SurveyGismo because it integrates with MailChimp and has an API for web developers.   There are other similar options also available.  There are also several options for SMS surveys, but more research needs to be done on which service provides the best polling options and API for integration with a future “social bank.”  I will publish an article specifically on this subject once I’ve done the groundwork.


Concluding Thoughts

This article only scratches the surface, as I could probably write an entire textbook just on using and leveraging Facebook.   Hopefully, I have provided some of the ammunition needed for political strategists, campaign managers, and candidates to embrace the social web.  Additionally, I want to start a conversation between political strategists and web technologists about the architecture of the tools we need to integrate real-time social data into voter targeting efforts.   I also highly recommend that campaigns start looking at social networking as a place to actually be social.  Too many small businesses, small political campaigns, and marketing professionals think of social media as simply an opportunity to publish highly scripted outbound messages and links to the campaign’s website.  


About the Author:

Mica Cardillo is Marketing Director at Trilobyte Games and the founder at Grizzly Peak EdVentures. He was previously the social organizing samurai at McHenry & Associates.  He lives in Phoenix, Oregon with his wife, daughter, and dog.  When he is not working, Mica enjoys getting outside with the family, learning about places, and learning new things.  He only reads non-fiction because he says “I’m literally never bored.  I never have enough time to satisfy my curiosity about how and why things work.  Its all just too interesting...more interesting to me than any novel.”

Internet Blocking Pervasive & Spreading

So you think the Internet is open and free? Think again. Evidence is mounting that virtually all governments and many ISPs are blocking content, restricting access and generally trying to slow and control the evolution of The Net. A bad thing. A very bad thing for democracy, for citizen oversight and journalism, and for freedom of research and speech.

So just how pervasive is this trend? Well, we all know about the dictatorships around the world that are so frightened by free expression they've clamped down on Net access. China, N. Korea and a variety of conservative Muslim countries all block many sites and significant portions of Net content. Read the Economist article on the subject here. And then there's US Cable provider Comcast, blocking streaming video sites at peak hours in the name of preserving bandwidth. Enhancing profit and annoying supposedly valuable customers is more like it. Read about recent Comcast hearings at this site.

And for really cool, interactive maps highlighting countries that block various kinds of content including social network sites, check out Open Net's fine mapping page. You'll be blown away by the data. And check out the organization's blog here. I'm adding this important site to my blogroll.

The news that Japan is planning to control all non-corporate news sites is particularly unwelcome and distrubing. After all, the rest of the free world just doesn't expect this kind of behavior from a country with such sterling high-tech roots. But then again, Japan also has the most robots on the planet - which some citizens and politicians seem to prefer to resident immigrants according to news reports.

The Wikileaks shutdown and US Air Force block (source) on any sites with the word "blog" in their title brings this trend home, to the "...land of the free and home of the brave." Well, not free enough to provide open access and not brave enough to embrace blogs it seems. Now that's a disappointment.

Wikileaks, a website that allows whistleblowers to post government and corporate documents anonymously, was shut down recently after a concerned Swiss bank got a dummie federal judge to abandon the constitution. Their principal concern? The site was uncensorable. In other words, out of their control. So much for promoting transparency in our workplace, government and society at large. The ACLU & EFF have come to the rescue with a number of other concerned parties (source). In an even more stupid and insidious move, the US Air Force has determined that blogs represent a threat to the readiness of our servicemen. Uh huh. Like I'm buying that. Read the WIRED report about it here.

Is Wikipedia Down?

I can't load Wikipedia. I just get 404 error (page not found) after error. I sure hope this is a very temporary situation, or perhaps a local ISP routing problem. There is no doubt The Author depends on the fine, bottom-up encyclopedia for many links on this blog - and on Wiki Commons (logo pictured) for a large percentage of the public domain images used here. Which reminds me, the Wiki Foundation can always use another few bucks to help their geeks get by. The Author donated modestly last year - to ensure this valuable resource stays available and continues to grow. I'm hoping that some of the big foundations, or maybe George Soros, can add some serious scratch to the pot to take this organization to the next level. But I'm not counting on it, so we'll all need to ante-up soon.

Tagging Cyberspace - One Year On

Pop Impulse is approaching its first anniversary. Though I am still struggling with navigational and design issues, almost 170 posts later, I am generally very happy with the site and the opportunity to tag cyberspace with my own mark.

That's what bloggers do, we TAG cyberspace with digital grafitti just as a Home Boy with a can of spray paint marks a boxcar or bridge. Some of our grafitti is unexpected and beautiful, some is stark and angry, and much of what I discover is the record of many mundane lives, dreams and aspirations. Almost all is worthwhile in some way to someone. What I really appreciate about the Blogosphere is its bottom-up architecture, which gives voice and admin authority to all. In a previously top-down world, that has been a most refreshing new direction.

In a way, I feel like I've been here before. In the mid-90s I was the publisher and executive editor of Southern Oregon Magazine, the first online regional travel WebZine. That pioneering site was 365 pages deep, contained original maps and a staff of editors headed-up by John Enders, a former award-winning AP correspondent. My two partners have moved on from that venture. John Fricker is an IT manager at Musician's Friend (a Pop Impulse recommended vendor); and Gary Roberts, who was responsible for the design, look-and-feel and maps in the publication, has become a master of Flash animations and advertising. The magazine, alas, was ahead of its time and though it won four awards our attempts to monetize the asset fell short of our needs. It didn't help that we all had day jobs as well.

Pop Impulse has become my refuge and my soapbox. From this blog, I stand and rant to Net surfers about all the stuff that I find interesting and important. At this writing, I have about 500 regular readers. I write to give voice to my wonder, my opinions, and my discoveries. But you keep me going. Three-to-four posts a week. I am grateful for my readers, and agree to keep the content flowing as long as there is interest. At some point, I will better organize the several subjects that Pop Impulse covers. And as all bloggers, I'd like to increase the amount of comments, diggs and subscriptions that I get...so I'm working on that.

In conclusion, I'd like to wish a Happy New Year to all. May the new year bring peace on earth and healing to the planet. I trust that all who celebrate at this time will have a safe and memorable passage into 2008. After a dinner at Meriwether's, my partner and I will be joining Portland, Oregon's hometown band Pink Martini at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to mark the event. I'll return to this blog the first week of January, the same time-frame that I first lit it up in January of last year.

Last Minute Gifts Online

If you're like I am, you've left some loose ends and some holiday shopping until the last minute. So here are my unsolicited recommendations for great gifts that are easy to find and order online.

This holiday season, consider recognizing family and friends through a donation to leading organizations in their fields. For example Partners in Health is making an invaluable contribution to the health and welfare of the Western Hemisphere. Under the guidance of Dr. John Farmer, PIH started in Haiti, moved to the slums of Peru and is taking on major threats such as HIV/AIDS, drug-resistant TB and chronic illness. They do very good work for very little money and turn almost all of your donation into direct action. Or consider funding a specific project in a third-world county through a micro-loan. Just you and the entrepreneur. What a concept. Kiva.org makes it all possible. And a stunning 85 percent of loans are paid back in full. We're talking $50-to-a few hundred dollars. Way cool.

The Donors Choose site, here, allows users to pick a single classroom project in a US school to fund. Sure, this is something we pay taxes for and the government should rightfully fund, but the reality is that the current administration is spending all of its tax money on various wars, military projects and enriching private companies. So we need to step up and 1) change the administration; and, 2) fund worthy projects ourselves in the interim. This site has a lot of projects in the $50 range.

Another forward-looking gift for your activist friends is a carbon-offset credit. TerraPass has made this quick-and-easy to do online. So do what Al Gore does, buy offsets for your family and friends, and party with a clear (well, a bit clearer) conscience.

Delirium on YouTube Trumps La Scala

I posted some time ago about a stunning new operatic tenor who brought down the house at La Scala. Delirium, the critics said of the crowd response to Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez. Read about it here.

I recently came across the now legendary YouTube video of Welsh mobile phone salesman Paul Potts' performance on the BBC's Britain's Got Talent show, an American Idol predecessor. The crowd that night was delirius as well. But more importantly, the net became crazed as the video of Potts' performance went totally viral. Now, almost 17 million views of the original video have been recorded. Potts, produced by Simon Cowell, has gone on to perform in New York and to release two CDs. So I'm going to argue that, thanks to the net, the most celebrated new tenor since the late Pavarotti is Paul Potts.

Take a Vocab Quiz & Help End Hunger

Here's how it works. Point your browser to Free Rice and take a quick vocab test that will definitely increase your wordpower and make you smarter. For each correct answer you submit, some rice is donated to feed the hungry worldwide. You could configure a personal improvement program involving a few minutes per day, and help feed a starving family in the process. What's not to love? If you want to know more about world hunger, and the individual people who are dying today from starvation, cruise by the sister site, poverty.com. And thanks to the BBC World News service for this article - my source of wonder and inspiration in this matter.

Google's Blogger Play Rocks

Google's new Blogger Play widget for your Google home page is surprisingly fun and way addictive. If you're not already using Google as your home page, you should be IMNSHO. If you are, you can easily add the Google Play widget. Just go here. The widget auto-loads and displays images that are being uploaded, right now, to blogs all over the planet. In Google's words, "You can watch the blogs go by..." And of course, there are hundreds of millions of blogs at this point. If you see a pic that arouses your curiosity, you can simply click on the image and the parent blog loads in a new window. Way fun, very addictive. I've gotten lost surfing for thirty-minutes at a time.

Happy Halloween & Do Not Track

First, happy halloween - or should I say: All Hallows Eve. A significant day for Druids and followers of the "old ways." In any case, there seems to be less controversery around this fun and historic day than in recent years when hoards of threatened religious zealots (a lot scarier than a few kids dressed as witches mind you) clammored for an end to it all and the substitution of perfectly horrible harvest festivals. Yech, enough already. Back to the fun. (Image source)

I was very pleased, especially on Halloween, to discover that a group of consumer and technology advocacy organizations have come up with a legislative concept around a much-needed, Internet "Do Not Track" list. It's about time. We've got "Do Not Call" lists, we certainly need an enforceable "Do Not Track" list as a complement. So let's see if we can't build some momentum behind this laudable effort. If you're unclear on the issue at hand, just consider this: the profile that can be accurately constructed from tracking your surfing patterns is a very "intimate" one that reveals way more about your thinking and behavior than most all other data mining efforts. That means a marketing (or government) researcher somewhere tracking your Internet activity could know you a lot better than your friends and family. Now that's a scary thought.

Net Neutrality IS Important

There's been a lot of talk around net neutrality in recent months. As a former Oregon Telecommunications Forum Councilor, I wanted to post a note about the importance of this issue to all of us who rely on the Internet for information, communication and data aggregation. Large corporate ISPs are already restricting user access to some sites and to some downloads. Just review the recent news on Comcast's decision to penalize users deemed to be large downloaders, without defining what constitutes a large download in the first place. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you value your connection, your freedom to surf whatever sites you chose and to download without restriction, then it is time to push back. I found this great explanatory video on Open Left today, and if you are unclear on the issues involved in this argument, check it out.

YouTube Debate - An Unqualified Success

As a Summer intern blogging for CBS put it: I am, like, so not bored watching this. And that's the point, right? New media speaking to a new audience, bringing them into the process.

I do a lot of political organizing in southern Oregon. These days, all of our work is data-driven. There is one precinct in our region that has consistently undervoted for decades, reflected in election-cycle record keeping. That would be the precinct that encompasses Southern Oregon University. Local candidates generally don't even bother to work this neighborhood. Why would they? That's why the YouTube debate was historic. It spoke to Gen X and Gen Y in a way that no other media could. Pundits who have cast the event as a gimmick are wrong in that regard. No, this was a milestone in participatory democracy.

Web 2.0 - Brave New World for Marketeers

The blogosphere is buzzing with posts about viral marketing. No surprise there. The whole marketing world is undergoing profound reconfiguration. Every part of the equation is changing, often 180 degrees. The changing complexion of marketing reflects larger changes in culture, connectivity, media and technology. Welcome to Web 2.0.

We've reached that disruptive moment when a new technology actually creates tectonic movement, displacing traditional topographies with entirely new landscapes. Wow. Bloggers are riding the crest of the wave, and I must say it is certainly exhilarating. At the same time, traditional media and information providers are in serious decline. Network television is loosing viewers to YouTube and IPTV; metropolitan daily papers with very famous names are hemorrhaging subscribers; glossy monthly magazines are in decline, and the very future of broadcast radio is in doubt. Now that's a sea change.

Many observers have identified the bottom-up, inside-out dynamic involved in this ongoing process. For marketeers, that is a key concern as well. Marketing has traditionally been a top-down proposition; driven by display advertising, radio and television spots, direct mail and public relations. Now, marketing is all about bulletins and buzz; instant messaging and "friending" practices; and consumer participation. I'm particularly impressed with the musings of social network marketing maven (and web Vamp) Danah Boyd - who pens apophenia - on bulletins and buzz.


These new marketing and consumer context development techniques are often referred to as "Viral Marketing." With respect to my colleague Mack Collier at "The Viral Garden," one of my favorite business blogs, I think we're better served by viewing the new market as "neural." Viruses, from my recollections of pathobiology, have only their DNA in common with their point of origin. Sure, there is a network of infecting vectors, but the connections aren't very permanent and it's difficult to talk infrastructure around the viral construct.

I think the nervous system model works so much better for visualizing the challenges and opportunities ahead. Nerves can create semi-permanent pathways that are strengthened by use and can interact in complex ways with surrounding systems and topographies. And nerves have trigger thresholds that are useful metaphors for creating and measuring the effects of buzz. When a key nerve nexus is engaged and fires, it sends impulses (bulletins) to all of its system connections ("friends"). Nerve pathways loose strength and system-wide relevance with disuse. The human brain is a content aggregator that does a remarkable job of tagging, weighting, organizing and storing data. These assets are made available to the rest of the body's systems not only on-demand, but in anticipation of need. Turns out the body doesn't have a rigid hierarchical structure with a top-down design and central authority - it is, rather, a collaborative cooperative. That's what web 2.0 marketing will look like, IMO.

I've had a few decades - on corporate and agency sides - to develop sensitivities to change in this arena. Since a lot of those years were spent in high-technology settings with latest-and-greatest products, I feel qualified to offer some observations and opinions.

I'm currently using some of the new tools, employing a number of web-based strategies and working in social networking spaces for a major project destined for PBS. As executive producer for operations and promotion, my day-job includes hours of online work, research, contact and tracking. Producer Mark DuMond recently interviewed me for a two-part podcast about emerging new marketing models and techniques. You can listen to part one and then part two for about a half-an-hour overview from my perspective.

Web 2.0 in a Box

My friend at SUN forwarded me this news, and I thought I'd share. Think Web 2.0 in a box. Yup, and a mighty big box at that. You plug in a really big pipe with mega-bandwidth, another with power; and, a third with water for the cooling system. Then flip the switch and turn the puppy on. Instant data center, in a shipping container. If you don't have a GooglePlex at your immediate command, which isn't out of the question at some point, then this is an awesome, portable solution. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the gear is uber-industrial strength SUN hardware running, well, whatever you want: Solaris, Linux, la ti dah. Sweet. Good work, Scott.