Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

By now most of you probably have heard about Google's latest assault on the social network front: Google Friend Connect. It promises every Webmaster and site designer the addition of social features to his or her website with minimal effort. No server software to install, zero configuration, and no programming required, all one has to do is to embed snippets of code provided by Google on the target webpages. Once the Google Friend Connect becomes part of your site, users of Facebook, Orkut, Google Talk and other compatible social networks can start interacting on your site engaging in various social activities.
 
This is indeed a great boost to small/independent site developers. It is also an exciting time to many social network observers: No one is too surprised that Google, being an uncharacteristic underdog in this realm, attempts to disrupt the marketplace with an open strategy. But considering that MySpace also announced its Data Availability, followed by the Facebook Connect revelation, the data portability movement seems finally gaining steam and heading toward realization. So what would be the implications of meta social networking?
 
The "Long Tail" phenomenon may become even more pronounced
Chris Anderson's The Long Tail article on Wired Magazine illustrated the power of niche communications tailored to personal tastes and interests. Ubiquitous social networking features have the potential to penetrate each and every imaginable niche markets. The "tail" would only get longer and fatter.
 
Social networks may gradually turn into a commodity
The long decline of the PC industry is well-documented. Over the years, the PC market has transformed from one filled with unique products to a low-margin business selling undifferentiated generics. Should the personal data on social networks become fully (or close to) fully interchangeable, it'd be very difficult to prevent the eventual commoditization.
 
Valuations of social network companies may start to deflate
While no one took it seriously when the MySpace's ousted founder Brad Greenspan declared the valuation of his creation to be $20 billion, YouTube was indeed sold for $1.65 billion and Rupert Murdoch also said MySpace might be worth $6 billion. The climax came when Microsoft paid $240 million for only 1.6% share of Facebook, effectively giving it a jaw-dropping $15 billion valuation. If the aforementioned commoditization of social networks starts to take place... watch out.
 
Fang-Yu Lin

Since its entrance into popular culture, the internet has always worked to empower consumers, just by the innate nature of the medium. The wealth of data and improved tools to access that data gave consumers access to information more efficiently than they ever had before. Web 2.0 introduced a new culture of passionate empowered consumers. Their desire was to not only extract value from the internet, but to contribute to an ongoing dialogue with other like-minded consumers. More recently, those conversations have extended beyond user to user, and consumers are able to collaborate directly with the brands they are passionate about.

Consumer collaboration is one of the booming social sectors of the year with numerous branded collaboration tools launching daily. Dell's IdeaStorm and My Starbucks Idea are commonly used examples of how consumers can help influence product or service improvements. But, the more comprehensive list of brands involved in crowdsourcing and "white label" social networks is immense. In fact, the list is probably far shorter for brands not currently involved or planning to become involved in some form of consumer collaboration.

Brands are not just collaborating with consumers to gain insights for product improvements. Forrester has broken common objectives into 5 specific categories. Brands are using online communities to listen, to talk, to energize advocates, to support customers, and to embrace consumer ideas. Recent brands to "energize advocates" include SeaWorld and Nike. SeaWorld nurtured rollercoaster enthusiasts with rich video content and Nike featured a top community member in a commercial.

With such a huge growth in consumer collaboration tools, it was just a matter of time before the free, "create your own My Starbucks Idea" tool came forward. Enter UserVoice:

"UserVoice is a way to harness the innovation and ideas of customers and potential customers. It's a way to improve the signal-to-noise of user opinion, and to moderate the ideas of one against the opinions of the many. It's Satisfaction meets Digg. It's focus groups for companies that can't afford focus groups."

Although UserVoice hasn't been put to the enterprise level traffic challenge, it does offer much in the way of simplicity and integration into other useful tools, such as Google Analytics. The clean design is reminiscent of a 37Signals product, which makes the learning curve pretty manageable. This makes it an attractive solution for many companies with or without a product, who might not have otherwise got into consumer collaboration. One example is Jeremiah Owyang, who is using UserVoice to take suggestions on how to improve his blog.

This is just further proof that it is a great time to be a consumer. Whether it is big brands using robust collaboration tools with large communities or micro-niche brands engaging smaller groups in a more intimate conversation, there seems to be a movement on all fronts to truly give every consumer a voice.

Marta Strickland

Burma has been on everyone's mind in the last few days as a result of the catastrophic cyclone that struck on Friday, killing as many as 10,000 people.  It's a tragic way to bring the appalling human rights situation in Burma back to the forefront of the collective consciousness after the monk-led anti-government protests of September 2007 failed to bring about any changes.

My mother is Burmese and I have plenty of family living in Rangoon/Yangon.  One of my cousins was arrested and beaten by the Burmese government for his association with opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.  For me and for anyone concerned about the Burmese political situation, it's hard not to feel powerless in the face of an immovable military regime.

The U.S. Campaign for Burma is taking an interesting and provocative approach to making Burma relevant, refusing apathy and sending the message that collectively, we can do something about the situation.  In conjunction with the Human Rights Action Center and social shopping site Fanista, they have created a 30-day campaign that uses short celebrity videos to raise awareness of the plight of the worlds only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the atrocities occurring in Burma.  Some of the spots are serious (Julie Benz), many are humorous or irreverent (Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston).  Each is unique and worthy of pass-along.

The goal is gather a million signatures of support for Burma in 30 days.  Welcome to social action, new media style!  As Human Rights Action Center founder Jack Healey writes:

"I've thought long and hard about how to create a new paradigm, a new thrust, a new energy, a new force. I am bored by public service announcements and feel that they have lost their effectiveness. I set out to create a new genre...A big or small non-profit can now define themselves without raising tons of cash through direct mail, cutting down trees for the paper, and can go up online and get the world to respond in a new way."

Proctor & Gamble Productions, the entertainment arm of P&G that sponsors and produces the two longest-running soaps on TV (each on the air for more than 50 years!), has come under fire for a same-sex storyline on As The World Turns.  Specifically, for a kiss that occurred between two gay teens on the show.

It's hard for me to believe that the same week The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story on young gay rites (describing them as a natural outcome of the mainstreaming of homosexuality), groups like the American Family Association can still plumb outrage over "open mouth kissing" and try to organize a boycott.  Talk about your two Americas.

What does a mainstream marketer like P&G do?  In the days before social media, they could  provide a fragmented response that would (appear to) cater to the needs of each constituency.  This time, they decided to listen.  P&G has set up an automated hotline to tally the national pulse on the issue.  (1-800-331-3774)

We appreciate you taking the time out of your day to share your thoughts with us.

If you are in support of the Luke and Noah storyline, press 1
If you have concerns about the storyline, press 2

Callers can also voice their opinion on another proposed boycott of MTV and BET's profanity-laced hip-hop programming.  It's not a full conversation about the direction of the brand (and honestly, post-Ellen, where is the controversy about depictions of gays on TV?), but it's a start.  Even Perez Hilton was shocked.

Misha Cornes

Perhaps Dilbert is a little passé, but they recently released an updated version of Dilbert.com that has some new and improved features.  Here are some highlights of the new features that make it exceptional.

What would make it more exceptional?  Searching the comic archive by keyword.  The current search is by date range only.
 
What's not exceptional?  Dilbert's incessant use of pop-under ads.

http://www.dilbert.com

Richard Liechty

Spike Lee is teaming up with Nokia to direct a movie pieced together from user-generated cell phone video footage.

"You are seeing first hand the democratization of film," Lee said in a statement on Thursday. "Aspiring filmmakers no longer have to go to film school to make great work. With a simple mobile phone, almost anyone can now become a filmmaker."

It's an ambitious idea that ties together the classic elements of social media, (particularly public voting), with the stamp of celebrity.

Organic explored a Spike Lee mobile film festival several years ago, with Sprint as the sponsor. The idea was ahead of its time - pre-YouTube - and didn't include the element of shared media. We were going to call it "Fifteen Seconds of Fame"!  I think the social component is a big improvement and shows how fast we are moving in terms of the adoption of user-generated content.

http://www.nokiaproductions.com

Misha Cornes

Ever since human interaction migrated to the world wide web, people have been trying to describe the effect the technology has had on social behavior. New phrases have become part of the strategist vocabulary: social media, social messaging, social currency, social gestures, social markers, social objects. In order to simplify the discussion, there are really only three words marketers should be concerned with...

1. Nouns / Social Objects
Lorcan Dempsey summarizes the evolving discussion of object-centric sociality better than I can in this post, but the basic idea is this:

The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that "node" in the social network, is what we call the Social Object. - Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid.com

Social networks cannot exist solely on the idea of being social alone, there needs to be something to be social about. Traditionally, people don't have conversations about having a conversation. And while the nature and tone might be influenced by the type of relationship, the subject of the conversation is not limited to being someone's friend, boss, mother, classmate, etc. Which is a long way of saying that people talk about things, and thus people are connected by things.