Brand Reputation Management Is Not a Monday-Friday Gig

The concept of a workweek starting at 8 a.m. on Monday and concluding at 5 p.m. the following Friday is cute, but not all that realistic in most cases. Whether you're in sales or engineering, marketing or technical support, there seem to always be tasks that need your attention outside of the listed business week in the company handbook. With the rise of the Web and realtime response and discussion across social networks, managing a brand's reputation is absolutely a 24 by 7 operation. Sometimes, as a groundswell takes on your company, or your products, waiting until Monday to react is simply not an option, for the damage will already have been done.

Today's victim is the pain reliever Motrin, who posted a condescending ad that had many parents seeing red. The ad, posted on their main Web site, essentially stated that carrying one's baby in a sling or backpack would cause undue pain, requiring their product. While delivering a need and solution makes sense, they unnecessarily mocked babywearing as being in fashion, and making you appear like a real mom. The condescending ad ignored the reality of needing to go "hands-free" simply to function, fashion be darned. As a father of twins, I may not be a mom, but I often carry one of the kids around in a sling or a baby carrier, whether to do dishes, or just to type without having to go one-handed. And Motrin's ad was misguided. After my wife viewed it, she said she was surprised the ad got through a series of reviews and passed.

(See the video archived on YouTube)

While not incensed as many mothers said they were, and in a household that didn't have Motrin in the medicine cabinet anyway, we discovered the ad through the power of Twitter, which was ablaze with mommybloggers slamming the campaign. (See: #motrinmoms)

On a weekend not dominated by major news, Motrin's brand got stomped on, and waiting around until Monday to pick up the pieces would be too late. After almost a day of getting dissed, the Web site finally went down tonight, either through exceeded demand, or by way of the company's intervention.

When I talk to brand managers about social media, I recommend three clear steps:

1. Understand
2. Observe
3. Act

They need to understand that your brand is at the mercy of its constituents. And you need to be using monitoring tools to rapidly discover and act upon how it is being used or mentioned - no matter what day it is.

Some basics to get started:

• Twitter Search - to see realtime mentions of your brand or keywords.
• TweetBeep - sending alerts of keywords or your brand to e-mail.
• BackType Alerts - to see whenever your brand is mentioned in comments around the Web.
• Google News search - alerts to e-mail for your brand.
• Google Blog search - alerts to e-mail for your brand in blogs.

These alerts will be automatically sent to you around the clock, even if the doors to your office are closed and the lights are off. Be aware of these services, monitor what is being said, and after all this, act. Don't just react, but do so thoughtfully.

And if you were curious to see just how I look wearing a baby carrier, check out the photo on FriendFeed.

See also:
Marketing Mystic: In Motrin moms debacle, the winner is Twitter
The Standard: Motrin learns there's a downside to viral advertising

Recording: Emerging Media Event Panel

As mentioned previously, I had the opportunity on Tuesday morning to participate in a panel on emerging media with Chris Heuer and Tom Foremski, put on by PR Newswire in Santa Clara, conveniently between my home and work. The discussion ranged from how to approach new media targets as old media struggles, to how to leverage tags on social sites like Delicious and Flickr, and some basics on how to track client mentions and their brands on newer services, like FriendFeed. Chris helpfully recorded the conversation, and posted it to his blog on Wednesday.

I have embedded the recording here:


To instead download the 30 megabyte file in MP3 format, do so here. The conversation lasted about an hour, and you should be able to distinguish between the three voices, including mine, on the panel. If you have reaction or questions, feel free to relay them in the comments.

It's Not About the Technology, Stupid

This morning, I had the opportunity to speak on a panel with the well-traveled and well-respected Chris Heuer and Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher. The three of us, speaking to a group primarily comprised of PR and Marketing professionals looking to get a grasp on new media and emerging social tools, discussed how to better track your brand online, how to interact with prospects, and how the move toward the semantic Web, including tagging and group-derived suggestions, would pose both new opportunities and challenges.

While the conversation got technical at times, I felt the places where I connected best with the audience was when I talked to them in terms of e-mail, iTunes and spoke their language in terms of understanding how they had to answer to multiple clients, who each wanted to broadest visibility, in a time when media outlets are disappearing.

A few hours later, this afternoon, I was back on the phone talking social media to a group of PR people looking to, again, figure out just what the heck Twitter and FriendFeed are and why they would have any value to their own outreach campaigns. And I could tell, based on their responses, that to take on these new tools sounded daunting.

Frankly, we, as consumers and developers, for the most part, are not doing a very good job of explaining these tools and making them simple enough to comprehend to the average layperson, let alone adopt. In describing these services, we need to do a lot less about talking about 140 character limits, feeds and aggregation, and instead talk more about connections, sharing and community.

What we need to do is help translate these honestly geeky tools into something that makes sense to the mainstream. Instead of talking about how many people you're following, APIs and how you use TweetDeck to follow specific terms in Twitter, start by explaining that the service is essentially text messaging that gets recorded and can be sent to many people at once. As for FriendFeed, I always explain it by breaking up the service into its two pieces. The Feed captures all your activity online. The Friend lets you see what your friends are doing, find new ones and interact with each other's content. Don't talk about 40+ supported services and how you can redirect to Twitter or Facebook. Start with the basics.

At Blog World Expo this September, Chris Brogan famously teased Jesse Stay with a comment I posted to Twitter:

"Look, tech dork, software doesn't solve problems, humans solve problems."

But the mistake is an easy one, especially for people who don't have a background in PR, communications or marketing, because the technology itself can seem so exciting, and to be honest, it can at times be fun to sound more knowledgeable and "elite" above those who don't have the same understanding.

At times, I find myself clenching my teeth and wincing when I hear an engineer or elite technologist try to explain how something works. What users don't want to hear is the process of how things work, but instead what the results are, and how they can benefit. So let's be real clear - these new tools, no matter how many lines of code you have developed, have in most cases been made to offer a solution, so make the story about the user, not about you.

Help use their language and their own frames of reference to make the services less intimidating and overwhelming. Don't throw them into the deep end without a life jacket, but walk them down the steps holding their hand until they get used to the water.

Specialized Perceived Value Trumps Real World Value

If you've attended college, or at least know somebody who has, you know that students are willing to pay hundreds of dollars a term for some of the most mind-numbing texts alive. Students will wait in line for hours, or go store to store to acquire these textbooks, which might only be available in one location, knowing that to not pay these exorbitant prices and, therefore, miss out on the texts, could lead to lower marks, and potentially, decreased success in school and just maybe post-school, could be disastrous.

But these same books, worth hundreds of dollars to an individual, are worth absolutely nothing to me. You couldn't get me to take those blasted tomes for free - because to me, they have no value. They would clutter up my house, and I'd probably never open them up. (Of course, I didn't open most of them in college, and that's a different story.)

Outside of the world of publicly traded companies and market caps, the value of a service is very much like these same textbooks. What might have ultimate value to one person may have no value to another.

Just imagine dropping off iPhones in the Amazonian jungle or Sub-Saharan Africa, where 3G is a lot less important than three meals a day. Think about the plans of the last few decades of delivering one computer per classroom, when class capacities were ballooning to nearly forty students. After a while, it's clear, there's a gap between one person's perceived value, and that item's actual value. The same, is of course true with online services.

Ever try to explain social media or social networking services to people who don't rapidly take to putting their lives online? It's a tough road, especially if they don't have friends who use those services, and see keeping their online life updated as a significant time sink. But to someone who is fully engaged and has thousands of followers or friends at some of the popular services, even minutes of downtime are alarming.

Students who buy these overpriced, one time use only textbooks, and actually read them, are doing so with the expectation that their future lives will be bettered through investment today.

Similarly, I believe that taking the time to blog, or read RSS feeds, and engage with peers on Twitter or FriendFeed or SocialMedian can improve my experience today and tomorrow. Through these services, I've learned new things, I've shared ideas, and helped others. I've found new friends and peers.

It's not always clear how investment of time and energy in social media will benefit you in the long run. As Robert Seidman mentioned in a post here over the weekend, activity on social media landed friend Hutch Carpenter a new job. And since engaging on this blog, I've started receiving a good number of opportunities to meet interesting people, to speak at or attend conferences, and to help contribute to some cutting-edge services.

This weekend, I walked my mother through some of the services I use, and while there was some interest, most of the response was "why would I do that?" or "how would I find other friends who use these things?" Not every service is built for every individual. It's likely the Facebook application developers who are finding themselves snapped up for nine-figure sums would never have gained traction with a significant portion of the market, who saw their products had no value. It's likely many of the services I use every day won't be seen as having value to others. But the important thing is that to some portion of the population, they are crucial. The game is finding out which part of the population it is, and working to make that target larger.

Does Negativity Deliver Credibility? If So, That's Nuts.

Over the last 18 months or so, I've gained something of a reputation for being an early adopter more likely to heap praise on early versions of software with clear bugs than to drag services through the mud, calling out their every hole and flaw. I've stated that I do champion the little guy, and when I've found a service I like, there's no question you'll know, because I'll be consistent in my comments on it, highlighting new tweaks and trying to help you understand why I like what I do, and, in the converse, why I might not like other options.

But does my tendency to be positive and shun negativity make me less believable? Should I maintain a ratio of cranky posts to positive ones for variety's sake or to prove I'm not a paid shill on the take? As far as I'm concerned, no. In most cases, rather than drag down services, or dance on the graves of failed startups, I see sites' potential, and recognize the very real people behind services who are working hard to make their products as good as they can.

Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb jokingly commented on FriendFeed today: "You should write a really harsh review of something tho, just to maintain credibility!"

It's clear my quasi-utopian view isn't held in many corners of the blogosphere. Some revel in negative reviews or tearing people down. Others feel they have a calling to be "balanced", evening out an otherwise positive post by highlighting a service's deficiencies, or if the service happens to be amazing, to pick three random competitors for whom this new arrival will certainly mean curtains. But to be honest, even if I have more readers now than I did three, six or twelve months ago, this is still my personal blog, and should reflect how I feel. When I write up a service, I aim to deliver an accurate portrayal of the news, sites or individuals covered, but I would much rather highlight those companies and services I like than waste my time showing you the services that I didn't like. In essence, my silence in itself can be considered a negative review - and if you think about those topics I do write about, maybe there's a good reason I haven't covered every single service out there under the sun...

This isn't to say I haven't had a few negative posts here and there. I've at times been frustrated with TechCrunch (TechCrunch's Celebrating Failure Doesn't Help Anyone), ValleyWag (Valleywag Thinks My Old Posts are Breaking News) and even TechMeme (Blogrunner Likes Me, TechMeme Hates Me). I wasn't exactly overwhelming in my praise for NotchUp (NotchUp Sells You Out, but Nobody's Buying) and you likely remember my first comments on Fav.or.it. (Fav.or.it Beta Effort is Not My Favorite. Not Even Close.)

But these negative posts are are a rarity.

In fact, Mark Hopkins of Mashable said to one FriendFeed user in search for good PR that it's fairly obvious when I've found a favorite: "Talk to Louis Gray. Forget product evangelist. When he likes something, he's a one man crusade."

If you listened to this week's Elite Tech News podcast, you could probably tell that my positive viewpoints on the Web were frequently outnumbered by those who didn't favor companies, services, or individuals, who feared their content would be stolen, and that tech leaders and bloggers were too money-driven or ego-driven to be trusted. But I would rather accurately portray my intrigue and excitement around new services, even if they're not perfect. I don't think it does me a lot of good to sit down with a service I don't like or can't recommend and put 500 words into it.

You could probably also tell this from the interview Mark Evans posted this morning, Who’s Louis Gray?, which helps explain my background, and shows why I've ended up covering what I do. The tech world is moving faster than just about any market out there which I can think of. There are some amazing folks out there working ridiculous hours trying to make the next big thing. Only a few will make it. But if we tear them down too early, they might never actually reach their full potential, and I don't think it's really worth it, simply to engage in a race for page views.

Our Unborn Kids Will Wear Your Web 2.0 Schwag

Now 23 weeks into our twin pregnancy, it's clear our son and daughter are already doomed. Although they don't even have names picked out, they are already unknowingly marching down the path to geekdom. Still a good few months before they debut, the pair are destined to be branded like the common race car, made corporate shills, through the donning of apparel featuring the logo of some of my favorite technology companies - and they could wear those of your favorites, if you feel generous.


Our Kids Want to Wear Logos. Here's a Starting Pack.
So far, we've managed to procure a pair of onesies featuring the Google, Apple and FriendFeed logos, as well as FriendFeed bibs and Google beanies, and we aren't done by any means. For while seemingly every mother wants her kids adorned in bunny rabbits, flowers and puppies, we'll have nothing to do with it. Similarly, we will push off any Disney and cartoon characters as long as we are able.

So here's the deal. I hereby promise that if you want to see one or both of our children sporting your company logo, whether it be on a onesie, a baby blanket, branded bottles, or any other baby gear, we agree to be sellouts, so long as you are in the technology space. We will not turn down any offers from hardware vendors, software vendors or Web sites. Want our children to mock me with their Windows Vista or MySpace t-shirts? Fine. We promise to dress them up and add their photos to our Flickr account for the world to see.

But rather than have our kids mocked for their poor judgment from the get-go, we already have some favorites in mind. I would love to go weeks without seeing the same logo twice. I want baby clothes from Digg, TechMeme, TiVo, Technorati, Ballhype, Facebook, ReadBurner, and Yahoo!. I'd love to see my kids bearing logos from TechCrunch, Twitter, Mashable, GigaOM and LinkedIn.

If you've got a favorite brand you want promoted, we're here for you. Send me an e-mail or call (my cell phone is on the right of the blog), and I'm more than happy to send contact information which puts my kids in the role of corporate babble-person.

LinkedIn Company Detail Shows Silicon Valley Carousel

How Select Tech Titans Stack Up (Click for larger image)

Last night, LinkedIn rolled out a major upgrade to the professionally-oriented social network and career/recruiting database, adding new company profiles, giving corporations the same kind of dedicated page to their background as their individual employees have had for roughly five years. (Here's mine.) While corporate profiles have been around forever, LinkedIn adds "special sauce" through its large user database, determining where employees come from and leave to, what other companies they are connected to, and who may recently have changed positions or joined the company. Good stuff.

The new company profiles on LinkedIn are a gold mine for reporters who want to get data beyond what the PR guys may want to dish out. (See: LinkedIn Is a Paradise for Smart Reporters)

Want the average age of an employee? A good estimate is on LinkedIn. Want to know if there is a high level of turnover, and people don't stay long? LinkedIn has that too. It also can provide hints as to whether a company is so strong that folks aren't leaving at all, or if they are leaving in exodus. And if you peer closely enough, you can see the Silicon Valley carousel, as employees move from company to company in search for the next big thing.

You can see employees move from PayPal to Google, Yahoo! or LinkedIn. You can see Friendster employees went to Yahoo! and Zazzle, or from Napster to Apple, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google. And if you think Google is getting all the good employees out there, there's no question they get their share, but so far, it looks like Facebook is getting a lot of new hires, and nobody's leaving - a boomtime for the social networking giant.

Interestingly, due to Apple's tenure, and the company's rising from the ashes with the return of Steve Jobs, you can see employees that once left the company have returned, having never lost the Mac religion. You can also see longer median tenures at the more established companies, like Microsoft and Intel, who also feature an older employee base.

Gender-wise, men dominate LinkedIn data for the tech industry, with between 60% and 70% of all employees at the companies I selected. Could that be the case, or is there an overweighting of men who use LinkedIn, compared to the true employee base? Maybe it's both?

LinkedIn opening up this data will keep company marketeers and PR on the alert to see how their data is being portrayed, just as they should be watching their coverage on Wikipedia, for in this case, it's their employees' collective data that is pushing the details, without a filter, and just maybe, the truth will reveal more than they had ever imagined. I know I'll be spending a lot more time poking around LinkedIn now myself.

Forget the A-List? Not Quite Yet.

Well known A-list blogger and technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki says the time has come where prominent bloggers with brand names aren't any more likely to determine a product's success or failure. As he says it, referencing a recent article in Fast Company, "Lousy reviews by them cannot tank your product. Great reviews cannot make it successful."

But to summarily dismiss the most well-known bloggers as ineffective means to get word out around a new product or Web service is flawed. In my belief, there is no binary "right or wrong" answer here. You shouldn't make outreach to the A-list bloggers OR hope to reach users who can virally make your product a success. A good campaign should be more broad, and include elements of both reaching out to the most widely read, and to early adopters.

We can see Web services every day try to get launched through TechCrunch, GigaOM and Mashable, in hopes that the massive traffic spike will carry them through their next venture capital round and long-term success. People often refer to the ensuing deluge of visitors as "The TechCrunch Effect", as they once did about the "Slashdot Effect". And while we know that eventually traffic goes back down, being profiled by such well-read sites leads to smaller bloggers following on with their own take, trying out the product and writing reviews. In effect, rather than starting at the bottom to get a few links and working their way up, going after the big dogs means getting coverage both at the top and the bottom.

As I told Emanuel Rosen, author of "Anatomy of Buzz", following my first comments on his book, there are new ways to gain buzz and interest across the Web these days, from limited invites and private betas to working Twitter and the B-List. There's no question that each of these elements can deliver users. But to ignore a significant portion of a potential campaign on its face and declare it one to "Forget" is silly.

Some of us may wish the A-List concept were dead and gone, but it's not yet, and it won't be for some time, and if one name were to go down, there's no doubt another would rise to take its place. In every marketplace there are leaders who wield an inordinate share of power. Simply wishing them away won't make it so.

Praying at the Tech Geek Altar

So far, I haven't yet tried to convert louisgray.com to any kind of real brand, despite my previous comments that your blog is your brand.

Many of the sites I frequent on a daily basis have done a good job to separate the brand of their blog from the individual behind it. MG Siegler converts to ParisLemon. Jason Kaneshiro turns into Webomatica. And Steven Hodson wears a cape reading WinExtra. But I haven't done it. I've had the domain name forever, and keep plodding ahead.

This gap in my self-branding has opened up the opportunity for others to try and define who I am and what the blog stands for. I saw a few great attempts in the last few days, from some influential blogs.

Mashable was very kind to me Monday night, in their ReadBurner coverage, when Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins said the site "is currently seeded with the linkblogs of several thought leaders in the tech blogging community, such as Louis Gray..."

OK ... Thought leader. I like that.

Then, today, VentureBeat had an outstanding write-up covering FriendFeed, and its growing momentum. The author gave a lot of credit for FriendFeed's rise to its initial users, saying: "It’s used by early Googlers and their many friends. The company was founded (and funded) by former Gmail team members Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh together with Google Maps engineers Bret Taylor and Jim Norris. It’s also getting championed by early-adopter bloggers like Louis Gray."

OK... Early-adopter blogger. That's good too.

And later this evening, Chris Brogan, writing on the challenges of Social Media, reported he often hits a firewall at work, restricting his access to some sites, including mine.

He says, "I’m blocked 3-7 times a day, and almost always with an incorrect blocking message by the firewall company. For example, Louis Gray was blocked as religion. Only if tech geeks are now a religion, and then, I’m praying."

Line up at the altar, Chris. We're right behind you.

So, way back in February of 2007, I was called a friendly neighborhood geek. It looks like the geek label hasn't changed, but now, we're also being acknowledged as an early adopter with a unique approach to the tech blogosphere.

While I haven't worked on enhancing my personal brand, others are setting it for me. Right now, that's okay, and I just might start borrowing their words. Your friendly neighborhood early-adopter tech geek blogger, signing off.

Are You An ACTIVE Hub?

With about 14 hours of airplane time over the last week, I had plenty of opportunity to catch up on books I've been neglecting. One of those I took in was Emanuel Rosen's "The Anatomy of Buzz", which aimed to capture the concept of word-of-mouth marketing, analyzing how some products take off (see: the iPhone and Nintendo Wii), while others stagnate despite tremendous advertising (see: Microsoft Vista).

One of the most important elements of getting a product launch or news popularized, according to Rosen, is to influence "hubs", defined as people who act as references to friends and others, and who, if influenced, can help to spread the word to many people, helping your cause.

Rosen defines these people with the acronym of being "ACTIVE", namely:

* Ahead in Adoption
* Connected
* Travelers
* Information-hungry
* Vocal
* Exposed to Media

This, to me, defines a great number in the tech blogosphere, who are obviously unafraid to share their opinions, reach many people, and suck down as much information as they can, whether from the mainstream media, or hundreds of RSS feeds from fellow bloggers. There's also no question these ACTIVE folks are connected to others and ahead in adoption. It's the tech bloggers who first adopt (and later dismiss) new Web 2.0 technologies, who are the first to download (and later uninstall) beta products, and they are all too eager to announce having gotten their hands on something new.

While this is true, The Anatomy of Buzz amazingly already seems seriously outdated since its writing in 2000. The book tries to talk about how the Internet impacts buzz by mentioning newsgroups, shared opinions sites like Epinions.com and comments on Amazon.com (including his book), but has zero discussion of those hubs that influence buying decisions now - blogs and social networks being the obvious omissions. It's also amusing to see the word Google is nowhere in the book. As a result, I found myself a little less than impressed with some portions of the book, which as a whole does a good job explaining how the Palm Pilot took off, how Nintendo drummed up excitement around the launch of Super Mario Brothers 3, and how Cold Mountain became a best-seller.

Part of being a blogger is knowing that by being ahead in adoption, information hungry and vocal, that through your connections, you can act as an ACTIVE hub. Though authored in 2000, Rosen describes this phenomenon in an offline way but rings true in today's even more fully connected world. If you don't mind the occasional rolling of the eyes over Web 1.0, it's definitely worth a reminder that it often doesn't matter just how many advertising dollars you throw at a product if the end users don't extend your message to their friends and others.

Early Reaction to PlugandPlay Expo

The biggest problem to trying to navigate a few dozen startups in a few hours' time is that there's only one thing guaranteed - I won't get to them all, especially when I'm trying to vie for attention in competition with early-stage investors who could mean the difference between their seeing another six months, or looking for work. I did manage to talk to 10-12 of the companies at reasonable length, and found some services I'll definitely use, while others just simply weren't built for me as a consumer.

The conference, organized by the PlugandPlayTechCenter (yes, all one word) in Sunnyvale, aimed to put entrepreneurs in the same room as VCs and have them make their case in rapid fire. A representative from the three dozen companies was given all of two minutes to deliver their elevator pitch, and based on a vote, four were selected to move to the next round, where they got all of ten minutes to elaborate on their offering, and business model. (Most, of course, were ad-based. Others looked to take a portion of revenue generated from their own users' sales.)

I showed up to the conference around 4, as soon as I was able, and tried to catch up for lost time - visiting many displays and talking to CEOs, CTOs, co-founders and the occasional VP of Marketing. And while some were very pleased with the close quarters and rigid schedule, I did hear complaints. As one exhibitor put it, "If you're the 28th presenter out of 37 companies, the audience is pretty glazed over. You don't even know who the investors are!" You can be sure that he hadn't been selected as one of the final four, and was all too eager to pick apart the process.

Two highlights for me were speaking with Spokeo's Mital Poddar, the company's VP of Marketing, and Jeffrey Tannenbaum, CEO of PhotoCrank. Mital, only a month or so into her new role at Spokeo, did a great job demoing the social network data aggregator, and were we in another situation, I'd have tried to recruit her away from her current job. Needless to say, I'll have a follow-on note around Spokeo shortly. Jeffrey also was all too happy to demo his photo and image annotation tool (now live on this site), and thought of some unique applications for it - which I'll discuss in a bit.

I also enjoyed talking with Leonard Backus, CEO for Datamash, Tomás Zeman of Wirenode, Steve Gibson of CCube.com and Ernstjan Albers of Headr.com, to name a few.

Depending on who I talked to, you could see differing levels of strain or excitement on the exhibitors' faces. Some were hard core geeks who didn't like public speaking and couldn't wait for me to stop asking questions. Others, after finding out I had no money to give them for an "A" round of funding, were all too happy to cut their pitch short. But the good majority seemed to enjoy demoing their service and walking me through, screen by screen, how they planned to change the world. Maybe some will. Many won't. But it was a unique Silicon Valley experience. More soon.

Use Your Blog To Talk To Companies

Most companies would prefer that if you have questions or comments regarding their service, you would send them a nice e-mail to their support staff, or post it to a company-sanctioned, moderated forum. But as we all know, sending e-mail to busy support people can be a guessing game as to how long you'll wait to get a response, if you hit the right person, or if they will answer your question at all. I've found the absolute fastest, sure-fire way to talk directly with people at Web-aware services is through the blog.

Blogs are the future of company to customer communications. Those companies that allow the highest transparency to customers to management or rank and file employees will win the much sought after "hearts and minds of the people." It's already worked on me a number of times in the last few months, with small companies like Technorati and LinkedIn to larger companies like Google and Yahoo! subsidiary MyBlogLog, as you might have seen over the last few days.

Google Reader Example:

In March of 2007, I listed ten improvements I hoped to see from my RSS go-to destination, Google Reader.

A little more than a day later, Google responded, with Mihai Parparita, an Engineer working on Google Reader, writing in the coments, "Funnily enough, the Reader team just had a big all-day brainstorming session about where to go next, and ideas similar to many of your suggestions were discussed."

I've since been told that the post is occasionally referenced within Google and helps add signal to the noise of user feature demands. Though I was initially nervous they would take my suggestions the wrong way, I am glad they recognized I was and remain quite positive on the service.

LinkedIn Example:

Later that month, I offered similar suggestions for LinkedIn, the leading business-focused social network. Steve Ganz, of LinkedIn, later wrote to let me know that some of the suggestions had just been implemented, and more were to come! As he kindly wrote, "These are all great ideas. Thanks so much for the great feedback, Louis! Stay tuned."

Technorati Examples:

Despite Technorati's occasional issues and recent management changes, I enjoy the service. But the downtime can make users weary. In June, I noted another outage, and not too much longer after my post, Ian Kallen wrote to say "We're bringing our systems back online now".

In April, I was eagerly awaiting the new issue of Technorati's popular state of the Web and openly speculated it was imminent. Then-CEO David Sifry took time from his busy schedule to say "LOL, keep your eyes on the blog.", and later returned, after 2:30 a.m. to say "The new State of the Live Web is now up!", which was very cool.

And that leaves one more, for now:

MyBlogLog Example:

On Monday, I discussed what the future of MyBlogLog would be after their acquisition by Yahoo!. While I wasn't overly glowing in my comments, two MyBlogLog employees offered their comments, with Ian Kennedy first saying "We're alive and well thanks and have been busy...", and later, Robyn Tippins coming back, offering thanks for the comments, and unexpectedly, a free Pro account! Of course, I recognize I'm being wooed, but I can take it. Now I'll have an even better chance to look into MyBlogLog's services and can speak more directly to what they're doing well and how they could continue to improve.

Not every company comes by when I make comments. Apple doesn't, and likely won't. Microsoft hasn't yet, and neither has TiVo. That could be due to internal policies on communication, PR, customer service and blogging, or they aren't as in tune to the Web's power to connect customers with companies. I appreciate the extra effort taken from Google Reader, LinkedIn, MyBlogLog, and Technorati to talk to me directly and openly as individuals, and outside of the corporate firewall. I look forward to more, and encourage the rest of you bloggers to be comfortable in analyzing what you use every day and thinking aloud about how you could make change and make a difference.

New Reality: Your Blog Is Your Brand

While many are debating whether bloggers should be considered on par with journalists, if microblogging through Twitter and others should replace standard blogs, or even if Facebook or LinkedIn are the new business cards in a technology oriented age, it seems to me the clearest, newest definition of a blog is that it is your personal brand. Whether you have tens of visitors or tens of thousands, whether you have dozens of comments or none at all, the content on your blog, in total, represents you, and if done well, can define you, to those who know you well, or those who do not.

By blogging about your interests, by sharing news, links and photos, you are helping explain to the world who you are, what you like and don't like, what you represent, and what you do. If you choose to break news or comment on the day's news, you are doing so through a personal filter which covers everything. If you choose to talk about sports and technology, your choices as to what you want to discuss help define your brand. And, more importantly, the quality of your posts, the frequency of your posts, the length of your posts, all those elements help to illustrate your writing abilities, your attention to detail, your ability to stick to a project, and comprehension or adoption of new technology.

A personal blog will always be much better as a brand than your Facebook profile or LinkedIn profile.

A Facebook profile, even with the newest enhancements to the service, shows photos, groups and networks you consider yourself part of, the friends you have, updates you provide, applications you have installed, and a short message board, or "wall". But the Facebook profile does not allow for much personalization of look, feel or content. The Facebook profile doesn't allow for post after post of prose. The Facebook profile allows you to show how you're connected to a friend, but doesn't give you a platform to talk about the relationship. The Facebook profile is not your brand, but instead the Facebook brand with a small helping of your content.

Your LinkedIn profile is an excellent business card and resume, with job history, relationships, and recommendations. But it is not your brand. Instead, it is one, strong, contributing element to your brand.

As important as it is for me to look to LinkedIn and Facebook to know about a new hire candidate, or to research acquaintances, a blog will go far beyond in explaining to me how this person wants to be portrayed. I now expect job candidates to have blogs, and make that part of the interview process, whether it's related to their position or not. Even if the big shots like Steve Rubel of MicroPersuasion and Robert Scoble are successful in moving microupdates away from their blog and to other services, their blog will be the best measure of their personal brand to me, and should not be abandoned, because no other single service can best be owned by and represent the individual.

Thank You For Smoking: Addicting

Now that we've broken through the "Great Netflix Backlog of 2007", Kristine and I are trying to enjoy her summer off from teaching by catching up on some long-awaited DVDs, some which were shows well recommended by others, and some we instead opted to skip when they were in the theater.

Last week, we enjoyed the topical comedy "Thank You For Smoking", which followed a big tobacco lobbyist and his crusade to creatively promote cigarette consumption, while at the same time, maintaining his sanity and being a good role model as a father. At a time when so many communities are becoming smoke free, and headlines of death and disease are common, the lead actor, a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, had quite a tightrope walk to do, to espouse both the purported positives and minimize the evils of cigarettes.

The movie is amusingly done, such that you find yourself rooting in favor of the tobacco lobbyist, and against the political and cultural machines that swing in action to destroy his work. Unfortunately for him, he becomes too tightly entwined with an investigative reporter, who mixes business with pleasure, and costs him his job. But unmatched in his ability to spin out of the situation, he survives.

Surprisingly, the film isn't preachy. It doesn't try to convince the audience that smoking is evil, or in reverse, that the lead actor's spin is on target. Simply by placing us in the mind of one of America's most likely hated people, we find his daily challenge intriguing. He didn't convince me to start smoking, but I'm definitely glad I saw the film.

New TAB Post: Five Steps to Being an Apple Fanboy

It wasn't all that long ago when the rest of the world wouldn't obsess about the latest Apple products. There was a smaller subset of us who watched the Steve Jobs keynotes, bought and sold Apple stock below $15 a share, and knew that despite our low market share, we had made the right choice. Boy, have things changed. With the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iMac, Apple is back in a huge way.

For those new to the platform who want to be good Mac advocates, I noted five lesser-known tips on The Apple Blog, namely:

1. Never Admit Fault With Apple Around Non-Mac People
2. Make Your Apple Usage Visible
3. Present the Apple Logo in a Good Light
4. Don’t Sound Too Eager
5. Do Your Homework. People Will Expect an Expert

That's the background behind my most recent contribution to The Apple Blog, titled Five Lesser-Known Tips on Being an Apple Fanboy. Per agreement with them, I will not be cross-posting the piece, but instead, have provided a link. Enjoy.

The Biggest Blogs Aren't Really Blogs Any More

Though my stance is likely a controversial one, I don't believe that the most successful blogs out there are really blogs in the true sense of the word as they were originally intended. Instead, the uber-blogs, like TechCrunch, GigaOM, Engadget, Mashable, Read/WriteWeb and others, have morphed into a new phase of their lives, mimicking old world media.

While millions of people continue to create popular and less popular Web logs chronicling their thoughts, lives and activities, TechCrunch and the rest have instead turned into product announcement and release launching pads, typically lacking a personal touch or insight. They have evolved from their own mouthpieces to instead, mouthpieces for others.

Gone is the personal touch and feeling that is so embedded in the blogosphere, replaced by an air of elitism and selective news aggregation mixed with startups gleeful over a successful data point of public relations.

It's been proven that popular blogs can retain the very personal one-to-one conversational style. Great examples of this include Robert Scoble's Scobleizer, Dave Winer's Scripting.com, Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion and Jason Calacanis. But especially over the last 12 months, you can see a divergence, as the blog powerhouses are much less about the comments and conversation, and more about them acting like media. Meanwhile, old media, primarily those covering technology, are adding interactive tools made famous through blogging, like comments, and the ubiquitous "Digg This" icons on every story. The convergence of old media and new media is happening before our eyes.

This change isn't necessarily all bad, but I strongly believe the time to refer to these new media sites as "blogs" is gone. TechCrunch, in my opinion, is no more of a blog than is Computerworld, InfoWorld or eWeek, these days. Even InfoWorld has gone solely online, ditching their print magazine equivalent. The site's historical roots are truely embedded in the blog world, but you could say the site has grown up - now with a full network of sites, and even a trade show for startups looking to use the platform as their springboard to fame.

Will all blogs that find success move away from their humble origins? Likely not. But even as we enjoy the scoops, product introductions, reviews and obituaries from TechCrunch, GigaOM and others, we should make a conscious attempt to recognize in this new world of media and the "24 second news cycle", that the landscape is rapidly changing and definitions need constant tweaking.

Technorati's Transparency Should Be Lauded

First the good news: Technorati is back up.

Then the great news: Technorati isn't afraid to tell its users exactly what happened. After the site saw some serious downtime today, the company explained there was a network equipment failure that hit the company's services in a big way. They believe they've come a long way in offering great services and response times, and will be finding out how to avoid the issue in the future.

Best yet, they reached out to those of us affected. I had called Dave Sifry this afternoon to see what had gone wrong, and if possible, what could be done to help. Unlike just about any other CEO I can think of, he answered the phone in the middle of the crisis.

And the company, as it should, hit the blogosphere to respond. Ian Kallen, in the company's core services engineering group, wrote me during the situation, saying "We're bringing our systems back online now."

In what was no doubt a very frustrating time for Technorati, they didn't hide from the situation, but addressed it and will hopefully learn from it, helping bring enterprise class service to an already excellent product.

A Silicon Valley Adventure: Trip to TiVo

I love living and working in the Silicon Valley. Though at times the hours and intensity can be challenging, I do enjoy being around aggressive people with innovative goals, and seeing the sources of development face to face. Today, I got to "look behind the curtain" at one of these companies - TiVo.

Yesterday evening, our TiVo remote stopped working. We've had it for four years, so that was no major surprise. It wasn't the end of the world, but it was certainly annoying, as we had no access to saved programs, and had to manually change the channel by going to the cable box.

This morning, I went to Fry's Electronics to get a replacement remote. No deal. They only wanted to give me one if I bought a new unit (for up to $800).

So at lunch, a colleague and I went to Best Buy. Same issue. They offered that I could possibly use a universal remote, but the universal remotes don't have a TiVo button, and it's questionable if they would work.

I looked online, and while I could get a remote cheap, I wouldn't get it right away unless I paid upward of $35 to ship a $10-$20 product via next day UPS.

I pass the TiVo's corporate headquarters every morning on my way to work, so I had other ideas. I went to the TiVo Web site, called their main number, and hit zero to talk with the operator. I told her of my plight, and after checking with her colleague, she asked me to drive over by 5 p.m., and I could have one of her three they had for customer demonstrations.

I hopped in the car, and less than ten minutes later, I was at TiVo's worldwide headquarters, surrounded by TiVo images, from the clocks to the floormats, to a six-foot TiVo mascot plush toy. I was also in possession of a brand new TiVo remote for free, thanks to the receptionist's generosity. I offered to pay, but she declined. After all, that wasn't the point. It was outstanding customer service, something she knew she could do given our offices were only a few blocks apart.

I was already a TiVo fan for life, but this service went above and beyond, delivering a story only possible here in the Silicon Valley.

Sun vs. Microsoft, Round #293

The Sun vs. Microsoft wars in the 1990s were a delight to watch. While Scott McNealy has yielded his throne to the ponytailed uber-blogger Jonathan Schwartz, the company's distaste for all things Redmond has not changed much with time. As Microsoft sees its monopoly crumbling around it, due to poorly developed software, distaste for security and a poor user experience, it has taken to grandstanding and puffery against all things which threaten its Windows kingdom.

On Monday, a Fortune article revealed that Microsoft stated free software, including the popular Linux operating system, violates up to 235 of its patents, and it wants to get paid. In fact, Microsoft was to bold as to say the reason people are flocking to free software is due to the quality of the Microsoft software they allegedly copied. If successful, the free software would cease to be free, eliminating a very powerful differentiator from it and the software Borg.

The lines have been drawn, and once again, you see Microsoft on the site of litigation and sabre-rattling, and Sun on the other, arguing for openness and anything that doesn't smack of Windows. That's why Schwartz jumped in with a lengthy, intelligent post titled "Free Advice for the Litigious...", where he recounts how Sun adapted to a world of open source software when their Solaris operating system was under attack. Amusingly, Schwartz manages to teach Microsoft a lesson without mentioning the words "Microsoft" or "Windows" even once.

But he offers this warning: "You would be wise to listen to the customers you're threatening to sue - they can leave you, especially if you give them motivation. Remember, they wouldn't be motivated unless your products were somehow missing the mark."

Customers are always happy to pay for premium quality. Witness the iPod, the Nintendo Wii, LCD televisions and the like. If customers are trying to get around using Microsoft products, it's because they are unhappy with their quality and feel they aren't getting their money's worth. While it'd be foolhardy to claim Sun is without blemish, Schwartz is of course right. Microsoft can only lose by taking the free world to court.