Global Neighbourhoods

Dell--What really burns ...

... are the flames shooting out of yet another Dell. This from Gizmodo .  Maybe, next year, instead of a Burning Man event, we could have a Burning Dell somewhere out in the desert.

I would almost feel sorry for those Dell folk until I remember all the people sitting and waiting, and waiting for help on the Dell support lines. Dell Hell has no flames.  It is actually more like limbo, where you wait and wait for the help that never comes.

This is only the second burning Dell, at least to be photographically captured. There are many more burned customers.

Do Comments Help?

Now that I have had my comments restored on this blog, I've had some very interesting back channel discussion. One corporate friend asked me if I could give any examples of comments making much of a difference for companies enterprises under assault my unhappy blog denizens.

He emphasized that the issue is comments, not links or posts.  Without it being said, my assumption is that corporation is not certain they are worth the trouble of the spam and scorn they might endure.

My answer is resoundingly yes. I cited three examples from Naked Conversations.  My retrospect is that my favorite example did not apply.

1. Guided by History.  When the Wells Fargo blog launched, the first reaction was to call it lame. A Wells Fargo spokesperson placed comments on just about every posting that came out.  He showed they were listening.  People got more polite.  Guided by history got better and has now evolved into a disaster preparedness cause blog. If the comments had not been used, Guided might not have had the chance to evolve.
2. Kryptonite.  When the story of the BIC-pickable lock first emerged, Kryptonite chose to ignore the blogosphere, thus becoming the first poster child for the foibles of ignoring the newly emerged force. Nine months later, when Robert and I wrote about Kryptonite in that manner, Donna Tocci, the company's PR person, jumped onto our4 postingf with a series of comments that passionately argued Kryptonite's case.  This resulted in a dialog that persuaded us to write a more balanced version of the incident and more important changed considerable number of minds about the little lock maker's sensitivity to customers.

These are but three examples. I'd like to hear more and so would my friend. Do you know of an example of how comments were used to help a corporation improve their position in a difficult time?

Please post them here. With a little luck Typepad will allow them to go through.

Global Neighborhoods Interview: Martin Green

Something nice happens to me every now and then as a consultant.  My client becomes my friend, and the relationship endures beyond the duration and scope of the consulting gig. This is exactly what happened with Martin Green, general manager for CNET communities who I consulted about blogging and presentation back in April-May.

Martin has not only become my friend, he has inadvertently helped me to shape Global Networks and has earned his place in it.  This Q&A will be used in part in the book.

Here just about verbatim are the results of my recent interview with him. I think parts reveal why I like and respect him so much:

1. For the benefit of our studio audience, could you tell me a bit about who you are and what you do a CNET?

I've been with CNET in various capacities since 1996.

I manage the acquisitions, operations and growth of our businesses in lifestyle areas such as food, parenting, and a bunch of areas like travel and sports through our photo sharing community Webshots.  My focus is on launching or growing social media brands for lifestyle categories.  We currently run Chow, Consumating, UrbanBaby and Webshots.  .

2. I owe you no small amount of gratitude. It was during a discussion with you that I got the concept of Global Neighborhoods. You discussed online neighborhoods with a great deal of passion and vision. Your perspective had more to do with the safety and familiarity of online neighborhoods.  Could you describe this concept and how this impacts people online?

I live in a neighborhood where I walk my dog every morning.  We drop into together to the local coffee shop where we say hi to a guy called Ismael.   The neighborhood evolves, but a social framework gives it continuity, a set of expectations and a shared human experience.   

Within cities like New York, there are many rich, vibrant neighborhoods. Each stands for something - and neighborhoods such as Williamsburg attract new people who want to participate and add to that experience.

Online, I can join neighborhoods that are about my interests - not where I live.   There are neighborhoods around cars, travel, food or almost anything else. Members are there to talk, share, learn and commune.  CNET believes branded social media properties can be built around these neighborhoods.

Many portals and start ups are not building neighborhoods - they are building platforms for everyone to use together or for people to use to connect or search based on their friends.  Their focus is on size and marketing to their user base - I think discriminating people ultimately are looking for the best experience for themselves as community members.

3. How does this neighborhood concept impact what you’re doing as CNET Communities general manager?

A lot - online neighborhoods are built by members - not the company. Lots of companies want to build communities - that's backward - it's like a planned real estate development - it feels hollow. But you can create the conditions.  We try to moderate the community to keep it on topic.  And we hire from the community so the people working full time on the brand experience are authentic and part of the community.  We are also working to blend interactive video, audio, editorial and programming with community social media.  If we are able to do that well, it's a better media experience for members and marketers.

4. Can you describe for me how the neighborhood works in Webshots?  Consummate? And Chowhound?

The central idea is that for every interest there's a place where people know they can come to hang out and share with each other around that topic.   Everything else is built on top of that. Webshots has 10 channels and thousands of topics and tags within those channels ranging from gardening, cycling and travel.  Chowhounds are passionate about food.  Consumating has attracted a group of interesting urban twenty somethings.  UrbanBaby provides a community for new moms.

5.  You’ve argued that your community concept gives everyday people a greater voice than do blogs. Can you expand upon that a bit?

People in a community are there to share. Blog services don't provide an audience - the blogger does. If I post on my blog about a restaurant I went to, you, my friend Mike, my wife and a few other people will read it - that's it. 

Publishing a restaurant review on my own blog is akin to me standing on a street corner in New York trying to attract people to listen to me for my restaurant review.  The readers of my blog aren't there for my food reviews. Aside from a handful of people like you, the vast majority of bloggers haven't got many people listening to the topics they blog about.  Communities give people a place to go to listen to and participate in an existing conversation with other people who care to converse about that hobby, sport, interest or life experience.  Communities provide a stage and audience as well as the production equipment.  Most blog tools only provide the equipment.  And a community gives you the ability to be an performer or be part of the audience at different times within a social framework that has some familiarity from day to day. 

If I post on Chowhound, I'll get many responses from people I know and respect in the context of food - and I'm sure that one of them will share back something that I didn't know.  Communities shape social altruism.
 
6. Play this forward a bit. How do communities impact online communications 3-5 years from now? How about neighborhoods?

That's a big ask. Here's a take: I think personal blogs will be used like a combo digital name card/resume/journal - and most people will join digital versions of trade shows / book clubs neighborhoods in the form of online communities - ie: they will double blog - and services will need to support that the content belongs to the members not them. 

Some blogs run by uber bloggers will look more like community sites.  If you look at the comments on posts on TechCrunch - it's starting to feel like a branded community and I think that makes TechCrunch even better.  I bet that many commenters are more read for a given TechCrunch comment than anything they've blogged about.  I suggested to Mike that he run moderated threaded message boards on TechCrunch - he could give the frequent posters a thin profile that also is a widget on their blog.  Unclear how profile pages on community sites end up working with personal blogs - however I think that widgets and APIs are starting to mean that they are profiles and blogs are being integrated by member/blogger.  I like that notion.

7.  Are all neighborhoods safe?  How does one know?

All neighborhoods are not safe - and of course you shouldn't post certain info even on the safe ones if you don't control who sees the content because it becomes part of the searchable web. Not dissimilar to real neighborhoods - you need to check them out first, see if you fit in and will be accepted, conduct yourself responsibly and be very careful putting personal info out there.   

Every neighborhood provider should educate their membership.  Earlier this year, we started a Websense campaign to educate our members to be careful on a handful of issues - like not public ally posting personally identifiable info of minors.  Neighborhood providers can also give members features to control who sees what parts of their content.   You need to provide both education and control to members.  For example, many Facebook users think their neighborhood is de facto private and therefore safe - not necessarily - Facebook needs to educate their members about that.

8. In your view, who should set neighborhood standards?

The overall tone or standards are set equally by the moderators and the members.  It's a handshake.

9. How do online neighborhoods differ from tangible ones?

The best part of online neighborhoods is the ability to "congregate" the specific.  If I'm a new mom, and I'm researching car seats and I have an C Class Mercedes, a good online global neighborhood for new moms is going to have someone with that car who can tell you that the car seat you're looking at won't fit.  Try asking that of your friends or the people down the street.

10.  Is there a danger that one can accidentally stray into a dangerous online neighborhood when they are part of such a large community?

Of course - but online you can put a big sign saying - down this street is the XYZ neighborhood - if that's sound good to you, click here. I'm a fan of community sites that have a stance on what they'll accept - say R or PG content - and publicizing and strictly enforcing that.

Comments Have Been Fixed

Well, it's Day Four and finally Comments have been finally repaired. I never figured out just went wrong or why it started or whether or not it will return.  I did manage to get attention from the good folks at Typepad, but only after a I became a wheel squeaky enough to be heard fairly high up.

Most people could not have done what I did. I happen to know some senior Six Apart players and we get along pretty well. This is unfortunate and is not the way it should be.  In the past, Six Apart response speed and quality support has been first rate, after I just filled out one of their Help tickets. I would not characterize my experience of the last four days in that manner. I hope that it was a mere speed bump for a company growing in the fast lane but I must admit the my confidence is a bit bruised.

That being said, I received about a dozen enotes from Naked readers who had tried to leave legitimate comments here only to be blocked and told they were spammers. I hope that some of you circle back and post them now.

I missed the cnversation.  I really did.

I apologize again for the frustration some of you experienced.

Give Free Advice. Win $600 Phone

My client Pat Phelan has an offer you can't refuse over at his Free Roaming blog.  Tell him what you think of his new Web page.  Give him the best advice and you'll win a $600 Nokia super duper cell phone. Personally, I think the page can use some help.

Cheap Cellular Competition: The User Wins

Jimmy Durante was a popular performer when I was a kid. One of his most frequent lines was the complaint: "Everybody's getting into the act."

I'm working with an Irish company, Roam4Free, helping Pat Phelan with his blog strategy. In the past few weeks, not one, but two other companies have made interesting launches into this same reduced-cost cellular space.  To make matters worse, both JaJah and Rebtel seem to have great products.  To make it even more ironic, I have friends in senior positions at both companies as well.

The thing is that at this point in history, Roam4Free, JaJah and Rebtel don't seem to be competing.  They are each too new.  The opportunities far too great. none knows what the future brings and two or more of them may all end up playing on the same team as well as the same field.

So who are the wins and loses, when you look at the newly crowded playing field? Well the incumbents lose, because their entire business models depend upon high rates to customers.  Then they use a portion of their revenue to support government lobbying efforts that protect them. They will remain powerful for a while, but these three companies, plus VOIP players like Skype will bypass the many incumbent-imposed barriers and get to users who greet these new cheaper, better services with open arms.

Skype and other VOIP carriers will also lose I think, because most of us really don't like to be tethered to our computers when we talk. We prefer the mobility of cell phones.

There is a huge pool of winners here, however, even if all three of these new players fall by the evolutionary wayside and that is the end user. Cheap-to-free services always benefit users as do disruptive competitive challenges.

This is nice for people in economically developed countries.  This is a huge liberation to people in developing nations.  My client Pat has blogged about his strong connection to Bangladeshis working in Ireland who miss their loved ones back home.  Very Cheap Cellular allows them to stay connected.  It allows people in these countries to have greater access to the rest of the world.

This is a good thing.

No &*&%* Comments

Well, we are now in our third day in which people trying to Comment get response that they have been blocked because they are suspected spammers.  I am still getting messages when I try to log in telling me that my access is denied because I am not authorized as an author at Naked Conversations.

This is not of my doing. It all happened while Typepad was changing the Author's view to a new look. What is really annoying is that it has now been three days and I have sent support notes twice that remain unanswered.

If you do have a comment on anything I've posted, please send it to me. I really miss the conversation.

Maggie's SunnySpot is a great Small Business Case Study

If we were writing Naked Conversations right now, Maggie Knowles SunnySpot would very likely be used as a great example of a very human small business blog. Maggie, is a residential real estate broker in Souther California, hardly a topic that gets my passion twanger clanging.

But Maggie's blog is a lot better than the brochure type delivery you might fearfully anticipate from a ReMax franchisee. But Maggie is wise enough to understand that we do business with people we know and that's because we trust people we know.

Maggie has her Remax sign well-placed in her banner, but her topics are on all sorts of things, such as global warming.  She interviews people in her industry with a definite attempt to get them to give information that is relevant to potential home buying/selling readers. She figures people with similar values to her own will seek her out.

It's too soon to call her interesting attempt a success. It only started in March. In fact, she's new to the profession having only started in January 2005. In her first year she sold nine houses, but to accomplish that, she told me she

"...spent a lot of money advertising on the radio, newspapers, with a web site, and got no return for my money. I produced a public access show about real estate and even though I was well prepared, the equipment at the cable company was very old and the interns very inexperienced.It took months to get studio time and weeks to get the show on the air.

I was looking for an inexpensive way to market myself as a real estate agent. Blogging seems to be the answer."

She gets the essential Cluetrain concept of the conversation generated through her blog

"I hope to get sellers calling me to list their house and buyers calling me to find them a house to buy. I hope to use it to meet successful people in my industry and create content for my blog via interviews with them. I hope that it will be a place that people can go and learn about me and what I value, to help me gain their trust. I hope it will help me attract clients who share similar values. I hope that I get to meet people all over the world. I hope that it will create opportunities for me to move away from the congestion of the Los Angeles area to somewhere closer to nature. Wow, I didn't realize I was hoping for so much!"

Maggie told me that on a recent day she had about 75 visitors, only one who became a prospect.  But then, the cost of acquiring the prospect was incredibly low. Someone, please remind me to circle back to Maggie in a few months to determine of she becomes an example of a measurable ROI, something that most corporate decision makers are still struggling over.

Maui Internet Cafe & Surf Shop

Since I'm going bonkers with this photo thing tonight, I thought I'd go back to that "primitive Internet Cafe" I spole about in my previous post about the changing culture of Maui. I think this photo tells you it would have taken me over a thousand words to descibe in my previous post. And then it still would not be as clear.

Jeremiah Gets me Flickring

Two posts ago, was the first time that I displayed photos that came out in a way that did not embarrass me. I am now using using the HTML code that Flickr offers you in a certain one if its many photo views.  I would not have figured out how to do this on my own very easily except for the patient and persistent help of a blogging buddy, Jeremiah Owyang.

I needed to get photos going. Without them, audio and video clips, my posts are starting to look so yesterday, but that's not the point. The point is that I could not easily figure this out by using Flickr and not asking someone to advise me. Maybe, I'm becoming an old dog, but I don't think so. If Flickr wants to realize the huge potential so many of us see in it, then it needs to make some of its most valuable functionality a LOT easier.

Is it it me or is it them?  You guys tell me.