Blogging/Social Media
February 28, 2006
A Blogosphere of Lies
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Yesterday at lunch, David Gammel asked me if we were going to do a blog for our organization’s conference this year. I said, “No, I just don’t have the time right now.”
(Actually, after going through our blogging panel and then sitting in on a few other workshops, I thought, jeez, how can we not do a conference blog, particularly since our theme this year is “Break the Rules,” and what’s more rule-breaking than blogging, right? … Okay, so it’s not really all that rule-breaking anymore.)
Cross your fingers, we may even do some podcasting on it …
February 19, 2006
Blogging Is Over; Long Live Blogs
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How do we know blogging is over? As Daniel Gross points out in Slate, it’s the subject of too many magazine articles, media conglomerates are spending too much money on it, early investors are gleefully cashing out, and “the clueless and the greedy” are rushing to the trough in hopes of grabbing a few leftovers.
To which I say: thank god. This whole “Web 2.0″ bubble has been an irritating sideshow, a tired retread of the mid-90s being played out by people who should know better.
The problem is that too many people are associating “blogs” — a simple interactive publishing tool — with “blogging,” the overhyped media sector. And then it all gets lumped in with all these other so-called Web 2.0 tools.
And then those people completely miss the point that what’s interesting about all this is a change in mindset toward user-created content — how they do it (through blogs, “tagging” applications, vidcasts, whatever) is almost immaterial. Tools are going to come and go. We can talk about del.icio.us and Technorati and Flickr and blogging platforms until we’re blue in the face.
But the only really interesting phenomenon out there right now — what’s bringing it all together — is MySpace. It has over 56 million members and growing. It has 50% of the web community market (10 times more than any other single site, including Yahoo, Craigslist, and LiveJournal). Its traffic is neck-and-neck with Google. (reference here)
It brings all that other stuff — photo sharing, blogging, videos, audio — into one place. And the ease with which it allows groups to form puts other web community sites to shame. (Think MySpace is just a place for teens to hang out? Then check the “Business & Entrepreneurs” category in groups. Sure, lots of junk, but also some rather active groups for business owners and professionals.)
MySpace doesn’t get a lot of respect from the Web 2.0 types because it seems like a lot of juvenilia (and it was bought by Rupert Murdoch) but they don’t seem to have noticed that it’s already done much of what they want to do — on a huge scale. Whether it lasts and grows, or completely falls apart, doesn’t even matter. It’s created an experience that is going to shape the expectations of an entire generation.
January 22, 2006
Does Design Matter?
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With the advent of RSS and syndication — technologies that divorce “content” from the “container” — many folks have decided that design, in particularly blog/webpage design, doesn’t matter that much anymore. People are only going to read your content in their newsreader (or Bloglines page, or MyYahoo, or whatever), so what difference does it make if your site looks terrible (or your blog looks like every other blog template out there)?
Except, of course, in order to read your content in their newsreader, they first have to decide to subscribe to it … and new research shows that web viewers decide on a site’s credibility in 1/20th of a second. They’re not evaluating your content in those 50 milliseconds. (Hat tip: Andy Wibbels.)
December 2, 2005
3 Things in 3 Minutes: 3 Bad Reasons for Blogging
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Okay, boys and girls, here it is: my first podcast, the first episode of “3 Things in 3 Minutes.” The editing software was cheap, the microphone was cheaper — but hey, at least it’s short, right?
I’m heading to Orlando this weekend (knock on wood) for the Great Ideas Conference, and will be hosting a session on blogging for associations on Monday. In honor of that presentation, the first episode of “3 Things in 3 Minutes” is entitled, “3 Bad Reasons for Blogging.” That’s right — these are not the reasons you should have if you are considering a blog for your organization.
Download “3 Things in 3 Minutes” episode 1 mp3
Why three things? Well, it’s the old rule of three. Call me superstitious.
Why three minutes? I have a short attention span.
Are there any good reasons for blogging? Yes. There are three. That’s the next episode.
November 30, 2005
Blogging Tragedy
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Via Paul Chaney: small business owner and blogger Patti Thompson lost her jewelry store to a fire on November 1, the start of the holiday shopping season. They’ve set up temporary quarters thanks to the generosity of a local tire store, have begun rebuilding, and she’s been blogging through the whole experience. Reading through the posts that go from shock and surprise to persistence and optimism, you truly get the sense of the power of businesses and organizations to connect with their customers and communities, person to person … the power of blogging done well.
November 21, 2005
People Who Should Blog
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There are some people in the association community whose opinions I’d love to read regularly in a blog (and lots more I’ve never heard of who would be just as insightful, I’m sure.)
In no order, here are the people whose blogs would go right to the top of my feed, if they had one:
Mark Levin — membership consultant, speaker and author Mark Levin has admitted to being a bit of a technophobe in his speeches, which is one of the reasons blogging would be perfect for him: it’s easy. Plus, Mark has lots of engaging opinions and insights that I, for one, would like to read regularly.
Chip Deale — Chip is the head of membership for the CFA Institute, and one of the most active participants in the ASAE membership listserver. With broad-ranging experience of what works and what doesn’t — and being a pithy and interesting writer, based on his emails — Chip could offer some valuable advice and opinion in a blog.
Kevin Whorton — another frequent contributor to ASAE listservers, Kevin’s another seasoned association exec with very interesting thoughts on communications and markets. I think Kevin has crossed over to the consulting world now, but he’d still be a welcome addition to the blogoclump.
John Graham and Susan Sarfati of ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership — Go ahead, let it all hang out.
Those are a few off the top of my head — and I’m sure there are lots of other voices that could make a difference to the association community by sharing their wisdom through a blog. Maybe you?