Mr.Tweet: All Hype?
A few weeks ago, I was excited to find out about a new personalized Twitter ‘consultant’ of sorts called Mr.Tweet. I immediately started following the company on Twitter (@MrTweet), and anxiously anticipated the report that I would be sent. A week or so later, I still had not gotten my DM. Did I crash Mr.Tweet?
As it turned out, the company lost a whole slew of Twitter followers (I, of course, was one of them). I got a friendly note informing me of the debacle and shortly after, finally received my report. When I think of an assistant, I imagine the little Word paper clip or a virtual video guide. Mr.Tweet wasn’t exactly that.
The report, which Mr.Tweet apparently updates every two weeks, is broken down into two categories: followers I am not following, but should be, and influencers beyond my network. Looking over the list, I saw a lot of familiar names: journalists with 10,000 followers that never follow you back, social media experts, tech company founders (including Evan Williams — @ev and @kevinrose) and some prominent food bloggers (@bakingandbooks, @candyblog). Mr.Tweet offers up interesting statistics alongside it’s list of users: Tweets per day, follower to followee ratio, percentages of links and conversations, Web sites and locations. Also, Mr.Tweet points out users that “usually follow back” — eliminating potential feelings of rejection.
I was interested to see what I (@kfleisher) offer to the Twitterverse: I update about 3.2 times/day, am “talkative” (44 percent of my Tweets are conversational) and link generously. Apparently, I usually follow folks back, too (so don’t be shy!).
Generally speaking, I wasn’t very much surprised by most of the recommendations. Sure, Mr.Tweet recommended a folks that are worth checking out, but most of them could hardly be missed in the Twittersphere if you’re already following at least a dozen influencers. Perhaps I’m not spending enough time analyzing my results — my immediate reaction was to follow all 238 people in and out of my influencer network. But, in the end, I followed a few people back and left the list starred in my Gmail. I’m still learning about the etiquette of Twitter and look forward to seeing what other features Mr.Tweet will add to its service, as well as what other services might continue to pop up. At this point, it looks like most of us are still trying to figure out what all of this information means and how it can help us personally and professionally.
Social Gaming Communities Continue to Evolve
I Come From the Water…
The focus of video games always moves towards more collaborative play starting off with simple games for a single player, to two-player cooperative or competitive games, to 4 person party games like Mario Party or all-out brawls in Super Smash Brothers, and finally to online gaming communities of tight knit groups of friends.
Up until now these communities have centered on the few console game titles that enable multiplayer. For instance, an online community around Halo 2 multiplayer would form; another community would form around Half Life multiplayer, etc. Each network of players is only cognizant of the communities surrounding particular games they own, split up into virtual lifeboats or silos (pick your metaphor).
Who’s Gonna Drive you HOME…
Welcome to the new era of all-encompassing online communities based on the consoles themselves. The New Xbox Live Experience (NXE) and the newly released PlayStation 3 HOME turn the previous network-building model on its head by giving players an online presence first and foremost, then tying in the games and media each player owns. If games were like unconnected cities and towns before, these online platforms are like Grand Central Station on steroids, a central hub for comparing game achievements or rankings, playing free games, downloading free content, and meeting other players that might not even own the same games.
Xbox Live recently implemented a new layout including the addition of player avatars and a re-tooled party system. Now it’s easy to invite other gamers to join your party and romp from game to game seamlessly as one cohesive unit.
PS3 HOME provides players with a whole virtual world a la Second Life, although PS3 states the intent isn’t to compete with them. Gamers can create their own virtual spaces and invite friends or journey out into the virtual HOME world to meet other random players to build out their friends list.
One for you…
How do you turn online communities like this into increased revenue? Content creation is the name of the game, offering players extras they can purchase like demos to full game downloads like the Xbox Arcade, customizable layouts, extra multiplayer maps, music videos, free HD movie trailers, streaming Netflix accounts, episodes of TV shows like the Office and Scrubs, and even extra in-game content that players can purchase, download, and show off while destroying their less experienced online counterparts in one of the latest shoot-em up games.
Creating a platform-centric community also means players are more aware of the niche communities surrounding other games they don’t own, games their friends might have or, worse, games the rest of their party might have. Heaven forbid you’re the odd man out when your party wants to switch from Halo 3 to Gears of War 2 at a whim and you’re left in the dust without a copy to call your own. Xbox Live adds to the flame by showcasing community events centered on specific games like giving members the chance to play Rock Band 2 online with Tenacious D or join a cross-platform battle with Xbox and PC players in Lost Planet: Colonies. PS3’s new collaborative title LittleBigPlanet (one of the top 3 games in a new Networked Insights study based gamers’ interactions online) is almost exclusively based on user-created content and levels that players can download and either run through with a party or join in editing things together as they see fit.
These new twists on virtual communities may not have come early enough to bolster console sales of either the Xbox 360 or the PS3 against the Wii’s family-centric holiday onslaught, but both consoles are starting to see increased revenue from their burgeoning content download areas and game purchases. It won’t be long before players can record their games and upload them seamlessly to YouTube, tie their online profiles to Facebook, and text with fellow gamers about an upcoming jam session on Rock Band 2.
Mr. Tweet, At Your Service
This weekend, I noticed the New York Times’ Jenna Wortham’s Tweet about Mr.Tweet, a new service that claims to be ‘a personal Twitter assistant.’ It seems that while Twitter hasn’t yet figured out how to cash in on their user-base, others are trying to figure out what to make of this massive collection of talent, conversations, relationships and knowledge.
At first glance, Mr.Tweet seems like a service for people that already know what it means to have 10,000 followers. To me, PR folks like myself, as well as social media experts broadly encompass this category, as do innovators like Tim O’Reilly and Robert Scoble (who crashed Mr. Tweet’s site, just like he did Twitter’s).
The need for a service such as Mr.Tweet definitely makes sense. After all, most of us are still trying to navigate the site to figure out exactly how to make the best use of it. I often find myself browsing other people’s followers to see if there is anyone worth following. Having someone else do this for me and weed through irrelevant Twitter accounts based on my current network sounds like a pretty good deal, especially if the service is free.
Mashable certainly found the service useful. According to the post, Mr.Tweet sends you a DM (direct message) shortly after you start following him/it and sends you a two part report suggesting who you should be following based on what you’re Tweeting, as well as your current network.
I’ve also been checking out their blog, whose aim also seems to be helping people figure out what factors contribute to increasing their influence level, how to build relationships and how to differentiate who they should and shouldn’t be following. The site is only two weeks old, so I’m interested to see where it will go and what its business model is.
I haven’t gotten my DM with my report yet, but I imagine that Mr.Tweet is going to be a little confused. I follow three kinds of people: journalists, tech influences and food bloggers. Wonder what they’re going to come back to me with? I’ll keep you posted.
Martha Parties On
We might be in a downturn, recession, and facing difficult economic times, but it seems that we’re still ready to party. According to VentureBeat, Martha Stewart’s media network, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, last week threw $2.8M toward Pingg, an invitation and event management software company.
The company integrates a variety of social media capabilities, including distributing invitations via social networks and sending out invitations to various locations (email, mobile device and Facebook) in one single swoop. Pingg also allows users to create real invitations that it will print and mail out. Or send out via text. With the new partnership, Pingg will run Martha’s content (which includes a variety of digital properties) and also add its capabilities to MarthaStewart.com
evite is probably the most well-known company in this space, but other event-focused tools have definitely tried to make a name for themselves by conceptualizing slicker sites and increased social media cross-functionality. Over the years, evite has proven to be a solid tool for me–from birthday dinners to parties, holiday gatherings, happy hours and even small movie nights, it’s delivered no-fail results. I like the little reminders it sends, telling me not to forget I’m scheduled to make an appearance somewhere the next day. And I particularly enjoy logging in to my own invites and seeing how many times people have viewed my evite (stalkers beware, I am aware!). The idea of having prettier pictures and also bringing in an aspect of integration between my digital universe and the one I actually live in, kind of sounds fun. And we could use a little more fun these days.
I Know Where You Are
Ever since I purchased my 3G iPhone, I have been amazed at just how handy the location-based service applications are. Being lost in Bodega Bay a few weeks ago, I was happy to find a crab shack using Yelp and being swayed away from the many little 2-star rated restaurants on the main Highway 1 stretch.
Suddenly, I found myself being thrown into a whole new generation of “tracking.” In college, it was all about checking friends’ away messages on AIM. Then came Facebook with its News Feed. Now, services such as Loopt allow users to know exactly where friends in their network are. So you know, you can randomly show up at a bar where you know your friends are at. Creepy? Maybe slightly. Way too intrusive? Perhaps.
Recently, another company called Pelago, has created a new social network allowing users to “share real world adventures and discover places.” They’ve forged a partnership between this new service, Whrrl, and HBO to let devoted fans of the popular show “Entourage” track where their favorite stars hang out. Correction – not the stars – rather, the characters. The relationship will allow users to share opinions and recommendations. Interestingly, Vincent Chase, the lead character in “Entourage,” actually writes reviews. Seems like now, we’re not only interested in friends in our network and reality television star tracking – we’re now becoming active players in the fictional lives of our favorite TV personalities.
It’s clear that as mobile devices becoming more ubiquitous, software companies will continue to find new ways to make location-based offerings more intuitive and creative. Advertisers, it seems, are not too far behind.
Managing Your Personal Brand Online – Or at Least Your Rep
The recent and frantic digging into the lives of Sarah Palin and her ilk has made me ponder the importance of managing one’s online persona – especially given how easy search engines and social networks have made it for complete strangers to get information about each other.
Although most of us don’t have the vice-presidency hanging in the balance of our online dirty laundry, almost all of us will have relied on our Web persona for a job sometime in our professional lives. Those jobs will almost certainly be worth more than “a warm bucket of spit” as well.
Long ago, when I graduated from college and was looking for a job in the real world, I began to seriously consider how my online presence may help or hinder my attempts to secure gainful employment. At the time, this simply entailed cleaning up a few areas of my Facebook account.
According to the results of a recent survey conducted by Careerbuilder, this was a good move on my part. The report found:
“Of those hiring managers who have screened job candidates via social networking profiles ([22 percent of all hiring managers surveyed]), one-third (34 percent) reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration.”
This content included the following:
- 41% – candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs
- 40% – candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
- 28% – candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee
- 27% – candidate lied about qualifications
- 22% – candidate used discriminatory remarks related to race, gender, religion, etc.
- 22% – candidate’s screen name was unprofessional
- 21% – candidate was linked to criminal behavior
- 19% – candidate shared confidential information from previous employers
These are all fairly simple – not to mention obvious – mistakes to avoid when it comes to your web-presence. This is especially true with social networks where the user is the one who controls what content appears on his or her profile. Facebook’s granular security controls put the onus squarely on the user to ensure that their profile reflects well of them.
It’s a slightly different game when the content isn’t so directly controllable, as is the case with much – if not most – information online. I found some good tips for managing this kind of content/information:
- Ask the owners of the site to remove or amend the questionable content. A friend of mine was mortified to discover the first hit for his name on Google was the results from a less-than-reputable athletic competition from his college days. He simply asked the site owners to remove it and offered a brief explanation why and the site was happy to comply.
- Crowd out the bad results by posting comments in blogs or forums using your full name. This is most effective with popular sites that are likely to have a good online ranking themselves. *hint* Make sure the site doesn’t require a login.
- Make online profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and other networking sites. Not only will these help to drive the less-glowing elements of your online persona lower in the search rankings, but a prospective employer is likely to start their information-gathering campaigns on these sites. While crowding out negative content doesn’t eliminate it, for Internet searches, out of sight truly is out of mind. Think about it: when was the last time you went beyond the second or third page of results for a query? Instead of worrying about expunging all negative content, just try to push it onto that fourth page.
- Set up Google alerts for your name. This may sound megalomaniacal (and it is) but you’d be amazed at the variety of old content that gets crawled and dredged up every day. If you see it, it means others can too. At least this way you can be prepared.
This all may be moot if more countries follow Finland’s lead. Finland has dealt with this issue with the simple – if draconian – approach of banning employers from conducting Google searches on potential employees.
The best advice is simply to exercise prudence online – and in real-life situations that may be documented online. Either that or regularly change your name…
Social Networking with Mario Batali? Yum.
I have to admit I thought I was pretty done with newfangled social networks.
Having at one point or another joined every network that seemed even marginally relevant, I had decided to commit to a select few in an effort to control what was a growing addiction. Despite my best intentions, however, my inner foodie was unable to resist the recipe lust inspired by CookEatShare.
A social network for chefs (be they of the professional or very unprofessional variety), CookEatShare aims to create connections between people based on a mutual love of food. Launched in June, the site bills itself as “the world’s largest kitchen” and already boasts chefs such as the eminent Jeremy Fox and Nate Appleman as members.
Whether you sign up or prefer to remain an outside observer, CookEatShare allows users to become “friends”, create, share and review recipes, form groups and start discussions. Truffle-crusted beef tenderloin anyone? I’m partial to the banana split pop.
Intriguing recipes aside, what makes the site unique from the multitude of food blogs and discussion sites out there is the close involvement of professional chefs. CookEatShare creates a valuable link between amateurs stumbling along with their dry pastry crusts at home and the chefs serving dark chocolate tortes to discerning diners. Chefs are able to drum up PR for their restaurants and interact with their fan base while aspiring cooks like myself have the opportunity to try our hands at recipes and actually interact with the pros that painstakingly developed them.
So while I won’t be going to Babbo anytime soon, here’s to hoping Mario Batali joins the site’s ranks and hands over the recipe to his famous papardelle bolognese. It’s unlikely that my attempts will compare to his much lusted after version, but no doubt that disappointment will be tempered by our new online “friendship”.
NHL Goes Interactive, and Social
For those who don’t know me from Adam, I’m a bit of a hockey fanatic. Over the past few years, it’s been exciting to see the National Hockey League undergo some pretty significant changes and growth, especially in the wake of the heartbreaking loss of the ‘04-05 season due to a labor dispute. I recently had an interesting conversation with old friend/colleague Mike Dilorenzo, who works in the NHL communications deptartment, and discussed some things the league is working on as they prepare for the ‘08-09 campaign.
The NHL is in a unique situation among the major team sports. On one hand it has perhaps the most loyal and energetic fan base of any sport; the league played to over 93% capacity last season despite very high ticket prices, and more than 260 million watched their hometown teams on local TV. However, hockey remains a largely regionalized sport that has failed to capture the imagination of the casual American sports fan.
Another huge factor the league faces is the displacement of a large percentage of its fans. According to Dilorenzo, between 40-60% of a given team’s fans no longer live in the market their team plays. “For example, Hartford Whalers fans living in San Francisco,” Mike says, a little dig at yours truly. “If we are only reaching the fans on a local level, we are missing out on half the audience. So it’s important to take a more national approach where the league is the overarching brand and we are building off the local passion we have.”
The league has a very deliberate strategy to increase exposure and revenues that is focused on getting their loyal fans to interact more with its various properties and products, especially those on the web. “We’re focused on building incremental behavior off of the behavior that’s already shown to be quite strong,” says Dilorenzo, a former prep hockey player and high school coach. The league is developing new platforms and refreshing or enhancing old ones, such as last season’s launch of the NHL Network in the U.S., a 24/7 cable television network that now reaches 80 million households and broadcasts a nightly wrap-up show during the season, documentaries and classic games.
The wrap-up show was desperately needed in my opinion; coming out of the lockout the league switched from ESPN as its primary TV rights holder to upstart Versus (then known as Outdoor Life Network/OLN). While Versus has gradually improved its exposure and broadcast quality, one huge negative impact was a loss of attention from the world’s top sports media property (remember NHL2night?), especially from its flagship SportsCenter program. Despite outrageous claims by ESPN to the contrary, SportsCenter has sadly evolved into a marketing vehicle for its (and its sister networks) other content. In the last few years, the amount of time spent on NHL highlights and news has fallen drastically, while exposure for its newer properties such as the NFL, NBA and NASCAR has skyrocketed. Hmmm, very curious. In any case, the NHL is looking to provide direct access to its fans and ratchet up the engagement through its own network where it has control over content and distribution. Smart move: hockey goals, saves and hits provide some of the most exciting highlight footage and I really missed seeing it on SportsCenter.
NHL.com is also in the midst of a significant overhaul that will be launched in conjunction with the upcoming season. Two specific programs are the launch of what Dilorenzo calls “the Holy Grail of fantasy games,” as well as some significantly expanded social networking features that will make it easier for fans to interact with each other and enable popular content to bubble up to the surface. A new live streaming game product will also be unveiled.
Ok, so what’s the NHL trying to do to win over new fans – a constant challenge given the fact that hockey is just not ingrained into most Americans lives, which makes it difficult to follow the flow of play (esp on TV) and appreciate the incredible athleticism required to excel at the game? The main approach is to develop new programs such as the immensely successful New Year’s Day Winter Classic (v2 of which will take place at Wrigley Field between the Hawks and Wings), and a first-of-its-kind kick-off event to take place in a to-be-named Original Six city this fall when the season opens.
“As we build out additional products, there is a novelty factor that we think can also pull in casual or new fans,” says Dilorenzo. “We also want to develop more pervasiveness with our messages, online through all of our inventory, through broadcast rights holders, and also through corporate marketing sponsors.” One example to look for is a national hockey-themed crossover promotion from Bud Light, one of the league’s top sponsors (hopefully this does not include that new lime-infused “beer”).
Of course as with virtually any modern business these days, technology is at the heart of the NHL’s growth strategy. The league has deployed an industrial strength customer/fan database, analytics from Omniture and commerce capabilities from GSI Commerce to become much smarter about how to engage with its fans and create those always-elusive one-to-one relationships.
Says Dilorenzo, “One of the most important things we’ve done is the formation of NHL Direct [the direct marketing group] and the creation of our relational database under one roof. Our fan database grew by 30% last year, and the quality of the information is also growing. More people are giving us their email, postal address, favorite team. Even for casual fans when we can get that from them and apply some analytics then we can serve them more relevant messaging.”
The NHL sure has come a long way since the pre-Gary Bettman era when marketing meant throwing free pucks in the stands after the pre-game skate.
Why Facebook Is Such a Big Deal
The way I see it, there are four types of people when it comes to Facebook:
1) Those that use it for fun and to stay connected to friends (“The Kids”).
2) Those that use it for both fun and practical purposes (“The Pros”).
3) Those that try to use it in a half-hearted way and just don’t get it (“The Cynics”).
4) People who will just never use it (“The Naysayers”).
I’m in the Pros group, and way off to the practical side of things (please please don’t SuperPoke me, send me flair or buy me a gift that I can do nothing with, although thanks for thinking of me). When I started getting into it last year, I quickly got excited about the long-term implications that everyone being on Facebook would enable. It seems that barring some huge disaster (like one 10 times worse than the Beacon fiasco) Facebook is going to become a central portal – for virtually everyone that uses a computer and has an email address anyway – for connecting and communicating with the people you know. Nonetheless, I still struggle to successfully explain this to The Cynics and The Naysayers, of which there are still many tens of millions.
So the other day, I had a very simple Facebook experience that really highlighted to me how powerful this social networking thing is. I was getting ready for the day, turned on my iPhone and went to my Facebook app after checking email. I have some problems with what Facebook has made available on the iPhone app, and how they have formatted things, but that’s another story. In any case, the home page basically lists the recent status updates (or Tweets) of folks I’m connected to. While it’s fun and oftentimes amusing to read through what people are up to or thinking about that day, I was amazed at how much useful information I got in a matter of just a minute or two. For example, I learned:
- A client was on vacation.
- A friend was about to have a second child (ok, so not a great friend) and he set up a Twitter account to use from the delivery room. Great idea.
- A high school pal runs a fantasy hockey league and is looking for new managers. Sign me up!
- I missed my friend’s birthday. Whoops.
- I was reminded that I needed to get in touch with a potential client.
- Apparently my cousin has a Harley. Who knew? Need to catch a ride next time I’m in Connecticut.
- Brussel sprouts and pancetta is a great dish. Should try that out sometime.
Facebook may never find a profitable way to monetize that huge user base, at least not to the tune of a $15 billion valuation, but man is it a great everyday tool. The imminent ubiquity of social networking (and I think perhaps even just Facebook) will have as profound an impact on behavior as email and web commerce did.
The Return of Scrabulous? Introducing Wordscraper
When one of Facebook’s most popular applications is mysteriously taken down, the crowds react. And they react fast.
Tuesday, the Calcutta-based brothers who started the instantly popular Facebook application, Scrabulous, finally removed the application from the site because of increasing legal pressure and threats from Hasbro, the creators of the original Scrabble game.
The bitter feud dates back to January 2008, when Hasbro and Mattel, joint owners of the board game, asked Facebook to remove the application citing copyright infringement. 400,000+ Scrabulous addicts instantly rushed to the defense of the game in the form of status updates and supportive Facebook fan groups, and over the coming months the application managed to stick around.
This week, however, Scrabulous finally bowed out as Hasbro introduced its own official Scrabble game to Facebook, which despite a rough (and very buggy) start has already drawn 50,000 users.
The makers of Scrabulous, however, not to be defeated, this morning announced Wordscraper, a very similar game to the original with a completely different look and feel. Whether or not these changes will satisfy the gaming giants remains to be seen, as does whether original Scrabulous users will migrate over to the official Hasbro application or try their hand at the knock-off.
What is clear is that the game’s popularity (and the controversy that surrounds it) has certainly drummed up interest in a board game that many argue had faded into obscurity amongst the Facebook generation. I understand Hasbro’s frustration with not creating the application first, but I can only imagine that Scrabulous has done great things for sales of the original game.
Meanwhile, the saga continues. Certainly, Wordscraper still treads somewhat on Scrabble’s toes…but the question is how hard, and whether Hasbro will continue to fight two guys whose efforts seem only to have benefited the gaming giant — finally lifting the almost 100-year-old game into the Internet age.