From BlogPotomac: KD Paine's Speaking Notes and Frank Gruber's List of Bright Shiny Social Media Tools

There was no PowerPoint at BlogPotomac, the unconference held here in DC last week. But two of our speakers have posted their presentation notes.

Measurement queen KD Paine posted her outline of 6 basic steps to measure communications online. Be sure to read also her post on "a new un-standard for social media measurement." She's one of the best out there when it comes to explaining - in persuasive, business terms - how to measure social media.
 

AOL's "Somewhat Frank" Frank Gruber posted an annotated list of social media tools (aka "bright shiny objects") that he uses on a weekly basis. Frank is a product developer for AOL. As such, it's his job to play with cool stuff. Lucky guy.

What's interesting about his list is that he divides the tools or apps into a number of categories beyond "video" and "photos." These include Communications, Storage, Content Discovery & Sharing, Analytics, News & Information Management, Search & Alerts, Lifestream Aggregators, Travel, Finance and Project Management.

There are a number I was not familiar with or have heard about but never tried. Note: some are still in beta. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Travel

TripIt (also see demo)

Lifestream Aggregator

SocialThing

To Do List

Remember the Milk (I used this a while back; am going to try it again. Frank notes that you can pull the To Do lists into your gmail account or iPhone with a pro account.)

Microblogging

Tumblr (Frank's write-up about Tumblr)

Content Sharing

Shareaholic (Firefox browser extension; more details in Frank's write-up)

Search

Lijit (blog search engine with search analytics; more details from Frank)

FiltrBox (better than Google News Alerts, says Frank; still in beta. Use Frank's invite a friend code to sign up: https://www.filtrbox.com/signup.php?code=somewhatfrank)

Read Frank's complete list of "bright shiny objects" here.

The end of the U.S.-centric Internet? ICANN to experiment with domain names in native scripts

Riddle: they're a global phenomenon. But most of them are in English and in Roman characters. What are they?

Answer: You guessed it; domain names like www.debbieweil.com. 

The U.S. has long been accused - rightly so - of digital colonialism. Interestingly, the technology for creating multilingual domains was created ten years ago. But it's never been put to the test.

This week ICANN decided to start experimenting with domain names written entirely in native script or characters. So instead of reaching the Google China blog by typing in www.googlechinablog.com you would type in: [Chinese text].[Chinese text].

I'll try and post a URL typed entirely in Chinese characters when I get to China. Can't do it from here.

[via A Script for Every Surfer - The Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2007]

Useful Link

The ICANN blog on new top-level domains

If I'd been Twittering this past week...

If I had been broadcasting 140-character tweets this past week I would have announced that I was in Milwaukee to be with my husband's family and to attend a lovely graveside service for my mother-in-law, who died Sept. 24, 2007 at age 83.

I won't type out her name because she was an extremely private person. I will tell you that we shared the same first name (Deborah), that she was old-fashioned and admirable in every way and that I was privileged to know her for over 35 years.

10 Ways Blogs Are More Effective Than Message Boards

The perennial question surrounding blogs vs. message boards (aka discussion forums) is one worth revisiting. Namely:

Blogs vs. message boards

• how are blogs different?
• why are they better??

My post today is the result of a gentle prod from a fan of The Corporate Blogging Book. Ryan writes:  "Let me start by saying I loved your book..." (Note: always a good way to start an email to an author.) He asked that I not reveal his full name or his company. Suffice it to say he's a would-be corporate blogger working for an established B2B company in a scientific field.

He writes:

"... there is one criticism that I haven't been able to come up with a convincing argument against. No one is fighting me on this, but I feel I need to overcome this criticism for my own piece of mind.  How does a blog differ from a discussion board that is moderated and updated by one (or a group of) individual(s) in a company?"

Then he answers his own question:

"The reason I ask is because we have had discussion boards...and while they have had mild success, they aren't really shattering or changing our industry, marketing, sales, customer support, etc. People say, “I don’t see how it is different. These forums are conversations too….probably a better platform than a blog which is very one-sided.” I think the registration requirements and the dependence on a message board community is a key element that prevents message boards from taking off. Admittedly that is one of the major reasons I think our boards have struggled to be successful."

Here's my take on the pros & cons of blogs vs. message or discussion boards. They are specifically written with big companies in mind, where control over "the message" as well as maintaining decorum are often a concern.

10 Pros for a Blog:

1. Blogs have one publisher who controls what is published on the blog
2. Comments from readers can be pre-screened and even blocked (i.e. not published) if they are deemed inappropriate
3. Good blogs have a distinctive voice and personality
4. That voice tends to make good reading and to invite a real "conversation" with readers
5. A blog gathers steam, gains traction and can get better and richer over time
6. Blog entries are easily searchable (by date and category/topic)
7. Individual blog posts are findable on Google (each has its own unique URL)
8. RSS (i.e. a Web feed) is a highly efficient way to read updates to a blog
9. Blogs don't require registration and logging in (a stumbling block - or an irritant - for some users)
10. Blogs can host other (compelling) forms of social media, including video clips and  podcasts

10 Cons for a Message Board:

1. Message boards are a free-for-all
2. No one is in charge so there is no one dominant or distinctive voice
3. Discussions tend to be in the form of Q & A rather than a conversation
4. No one talks about the "personality" of a message board
5. In general, message boards are useful but not "compelling" or "must read's"
6. Message boards work *if* enough people in your intended audience participate
7. They sometimes suffer from overzealous (i.e. annoying) participants
8. Or... just as often... from not enough participation
9. Having to log in to post to a message board can be a pain
10. Comment threads let you dig down into a particular discussion BUT you can do the same thing on an individual blog post that has multiple comments and trackbacks

(Note: can message boards be RSS-enabled - ?)

Useful Links & a Chart

DeathMatch: Bad, Bad Leroy Blog vs. Mean Mr. Message Board (Lee LeFever)

Read Dave Pollard on the pros & cons of blogs vs. wikis vs. discussion boards, etc.

Lee LeFever's excellent chart below. Also read his blog entry on message boards vs. Weblogs.

Need inspiration for your next presentation? Try SlideShare

SlideShare is still in beta but it looks cool - and very useful. Search on corporate blogging, for example, and you'll come up with dozens of recent presentations you can look through for inspiration.

As on YouTube, you can see how many times each presentation has been viewed, if anyone has left comments, what tags (keywords) have been used, pointers to related presentations, what the URL for the slide is, the code to "embed" the presentation on your site or blog and more.

There's also a Popular category (Halloween 2006, What Women Expect From Men, etc.). And of course a SlideShare blog. (Yes that's a Halloween bottom, at left. Very un-PC.)

The file formats are limited thus far to PowerPoint and OpenOffice. Darn... and just when I'm getting addicted to Keynote for the Mac. BTW, you can't really "copy" graphics or images out of the presentations. But, ahem, if you use a tool like Snapz Pro (to which I'm also now addicted), you, er, can.

Yet another example of what the "social" in social networking and social media means and how powerful it is.

Nirvana for conference organizers

Of course one of the coolest uses for SlideShare is to direct your conference attendees to one link where all your presenters have uploaded their slides. Just as with Flickr photos, you tell your presenters to tag their decks with a specific keyword. Here's an example: Dreamforce06 (a Salesforce.com conference).

The Corporate Blogging Book is TypePad's Book of the Month

Now this is cool. The Corporate Blogging Book is TypePad's book of the month for October 2006. If you're one of the first 50 new customers who signs up for TypePad you'll get a copy of my new book.

Note that TypePad offers a free trial of their blog hosting service (and yes I highly recommend it).

Skypecast interview with TypePad's Michael Sippey

TypePad's VP and General Manager Michael Sippey will be interviewing me via a live Skypecast call on Thursday Oct. 12th. Hope you'll tune in! I guess we'll talk about the book but feel free to ask me about anything related to social media. I'll try and pontificate... just kidding.

To sign up for the Skypecast call, register here (it's free). Starts 2 PM Pacific; 5 PM Eastern; 10 PM London.

Have you thought about using video clips in your blog?

I just watched the funniest video clip starring Steve Crescenzo, a corporate communications guru who also writes a very funny blog, Corporate Hallucinations. It's a Rocky take-off (the 1976 movie starring Sylvester Stallone) set to the theme music, showing Crescenzo running, stopping to drink a beer, running, etc. etc., finally running up the steps... and collapsing in an exhausted heap.

He teaches advanced writing workshops for Ragan Communications. The mini video, accessible via this link through Ragan's home page, is a promo for his workshops.

Well the guy is just... funny. And the clip is very effective as a marketing strategy.

I was thinking today about how your personal appearance can be so much a part of your schtick if you're a speaker or presenter. Steve is a big guy and he's bald. It works perfectly - even for a corporate audience. I wish I were something... more distinctive than the woman you see at left. (Yes, that's me. My daughter says I look like a car salesman in the color version of the photo.)

I'm currently working with a tremendous speaking coach, Clarice Scriber, to take my speaking skills to the next level. It's humbling, a little painful... and fascinating (in a weird way) to watch yourself on video and realize how many ways you can improve your delivery. (Clarice insisted I tape a recent speech I made to IPRA/PRSA-NCC.)

But I don't think bald will do it...

Useful Link

Speaking of Ragan, I'm running a workshop on Corporate Blogging 2.0 [scroll down - last item on the page] at Ragan's mega 15th annual Corporate Communicators Conference in Chicago on Thursday, April 27, 2006. Give me a holler if you're in Chicago and want to meet up for a drink the evening of Wednesday April 26th. You can email me at wordbiz(at)gmail.com.

Corporate blogging platforms: 5 top contenders

If you're wondering what platform to use for your corporate blog, you might consider the following contenders.

iUpload took the top prize in Datamation's 2006 awards for corporate blogging platforms. Followed by WordPress 2.0, Marqui, Traction Software and Movable Type.

If you dig around on these sites, you'll find that pricing varies widely - from FREE for the open sourcee WordPress to an inexpensive license for Movable Type.

I don't know about the exact ranking but this is a solid list of apps to review. I'll add some names of other blogging platforms and services to this entry later. And if you want to make a suggestion, leave it in a comment below!

P.S. I noticed that McDonald's new Corporate Responsibility blog is running on iUpload.

Blogs vs. wikis vs. IM vs. email vs. discussion forums vs. in-person

As far as I can tell, Canadian blogger Dave Pollard is brilliant, eccentric and unbelievably prolific. A literary and technology geek/genius, he writes a blog for Salon called How to Save the World with essays on topics ranging from "environmental philosophy" to, well, everything you can think of. His entries are sprinkled with complex charts and beautiful photographs.

Ran across a recent entry he made on "virtual collaboration" tools. He's created a great chart that compares blogs vs. wikis vs. email vs. mindmaps vs. videoconferencing & skype vs. whiteboards, etc. It includes comments on advantages and disadvantages of real-time (synchronous) vs. asynchronous, for example, as well as what each tool is best suited for (conversations vs. projects). But when all is said and done, in-person collaboration works best, he says.

Amen.

Niall Kennedy's podcast interview with Anil Dash about TypePad's problems

Read and/or listen to Niall Kennedy's exclusive interview with SixApart's Anil Dash about TypePad's recent outage and what it means to the future of business blog hosting - and to SixApart. (I'll listen when I get a chance. Still writing... ) Niall works for Technorati, BTW, which is down the street from 6A in San Francisco.

Also, read Steve Rubel's provocative "this too shall pass" post about this latest TypePad episode, yet another in a string of frustrating experiences with the service over the past few months. Steve says The Day is Darkest Before Dawn and uses eBay's early scaling problems as a parallel.

For the record, I tend to agree. Like Steve, I remain a SixApart fan and hope they figure out how to make TypePad bullet-proof.

And yes I was one of those leading the cry for an explanation of the problems when I wrote Listen up SixApart: some of your TypePad customers may switch.

I'm not giving up on TP yet. But for heaven's sakes guys, throw a ton of that venture money you got (how much was it??) at this problem and get it fixed.

Related:

Silence of the Blogs (Forbes' Technology)

Slashdotted

[via BlogHerald]

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