Posted by: Heather Green on November 11
I'm back at BW and what timing! I'm landing right in the midst of BW's ongoing drama and all of us wondering where we'll be when the deal closes Dec. 1. So, being back on the blog is a bright spot and I really look forward to chatting it up with y'all again.
I took 6 months off for maternity leave. I decided that during that time, I'd stay away from work and focus on my daughter Lilly. And what that meant for me was staying away from blogging and Twitter. I was at the computer about to do some Twittering a few weeks after my daughter was born, but I couldn't type anything in. It didn't feel right to me, though I've done personal tweets before. I realized that my digital persona feels inextricably wrapped up in Businessweek. That there was a real distinction between what was appropriate and what wasn't. Or actually, what people who signed up to follow me would expect. And it felt like it should mostly be things from an official BW person, not a majority of things from Lilly's mom.
I know folks like Fred Wilson have split up where they write about their personal lives and where they write about their professional ones. And I guess I did that as well in a defacto way. Since I'd made the conscious decision not to think about work while I was on maternity leave, the follow on decision was to let my tweets and blog posts go silent. Breaking that silence now feels liberating in a way I hadn't expected. I'm happy to be back on the blog, happy to start thinking about tech in a reporterly way again.
Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 05
With a new Google dashboard, unveiled yesterday in Spain, we'll be able to monitor the information Google has about us in its various applications, from gmail to YouTube. This is the kind of disclosure privacy advocates have been calling for. I think it will enhance Google's reputation--and entice us to share more data with them (which may be the ultimate goal).
I also think this new dashboard will help Google get a better look at each one of us. Here's why. Last summer, I was having a not-for-attribution chat with a senior Google official. I asked him what Google knew about me. He told me that within Google's data centers, there were gazillions of data bits about all of the company's users, their searches, click, emails, YouTube uploads, etc. But he said it would be loads of work to bring all of this data together and build individual profiles. What's more, it would require lots of computing, and there wasn't a clear business model for it.
UPDATE: JUST GOT THIS CLARIFICATION FROM GOOGLE:
Its not an individual profile of the different products and doesn't correlate the data. Instead, the Dashboard was designed to scan the different products and services you use for a summary of the user data they each store individually. The Dashboard does not access raw data from the services, does not correlate any cross services data and it does not collect or store any additional user data. And when refreshing or closing your Dashboard page, all data is removed from the Dashboard.
But now, there appears to be a model. To address privacy concerns, Google appears to be bringing together much of that data. And once they have it, they're much closer to a coherent look at each one of us. Perhaps there's still not a business model for such personalized data. It'll be a while before advertisers can come up with 500 million customized pitches. But who knows what correlations Google will find between our various activities. (NOTE: Google says none.) And if this dashboard generates trust, the pickings should grow even richer.
(cross-posted on TheNumerati.net)
Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 04
I've been carrying out a small experiment in one of the areas of greatest potential abuse of social media: Twitter marketing. If you Google "Twitter buy followers," you'll see lots of choices. One outfit called Quick Online Tips offers 100,000 followers for a mere $3,479.
I didn't want to spend money, so I went to a far tamer site, FastFollowers.com. It functions as a sort of Lonely Hearts Club for Twitterers. Every time you follow a person, you get a point. You give the points back when people follow you. So, if you have lots of patience (I don't), you follow thousands of people, and eventually thousands follow you. (You can take a shortcut by simply buying credits, 5,000 of them for $99.50.)
I set up a new Twitter account which now has 208 followers. (I'll keep it secluded, for now, in my little laboratory. I want it to remain a purely FastFollower beast.)
Those 208 people "follow" me. They appear to pay no attention to my Tweets. They don't respond when I send them @ messages. They're too busy branding themselves to their followers, including me, to listen. Their only communication is spam in my direct-mailbox. Example:
martinbastin
Wishing you health and happiness....I look forward to Tweeting with you....for FREE marketing information check out my blog at http://bit.ly/4OyKe
It would be easy to write off all the people on FastFollower as spammers. But it doesn't appear to be the case. Some are actually sharing observations and links. But they want a crowd.
Why is this? Could it be that having 10,000 Twitter followers gives people the social media version of a face lift? Does it make them more employable? Open doors? All I know is that people are willing to pay for it, and they're not all spammers.
Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 27
For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be writing about consulting, of the Enterprise 2.0 variety. For this I need all the help I can get: suggestions, tips, insights, case studies.
Here's the idea: Enterprise 2.0 is a rage. C-suite execs are hearing non-stop that their competitiveness, agility, innovation, and ability to attract top brainpower hinge on their effective adoption of new social tools and practices. We all know the words. (We've written many of them ourselves.) Transparency. Break down the silos. Conversations. Market research on Twitter. Wikified research.
This boom is attracting hordes of consultants and software entrepreneurs. Many, no doubt, offer valuable advice. But it's a new domain, very short on best practices and metrics. Who's an expert? Opportunities abound for poseurs.
So, what's going on? How can you spot a legit player? Is there any common advice that just doesn't make sense for certain types of companies? Are there bogus metrics? (Twitter followers, perhaps?) Smart ones?
One more question: In Enterprise 2.0, where the community delivers intelligence, answers questions, and solves problems, shouldn't much of this type of consulting be... free? Isn't it weirdly old-school to pay thousands of dollars a day for this type of advice?
I could use all the suggestions you have. I'll be carrying out the research on this blog, and publishing some of what I learn along the way. Thanks.
Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 26
SocialText CEO Eugene Lee argues that Twitter might be a better model than Facebook for next-gen communications within companies, so-called Enterprise 2.0. Facebook's trouble? Reciprocal friending. The problem, he says, is that employees on corporate social networks start collecting friendships of execs. "Because the Rolodex is public, it becomes a matter of VP trading cards."
A preferable model for corporate relationships, he says, is Twitter, where people lend their attention, not necessarily their friendship. In SocialText's Twitter-like corporate offering, Signals, more people are likely to "follow" the CEO--assuming he or she has anything interesting to Tweet.
Lee, who stopped by our offices this afternoon, also had thoughts about enterprise search. Here's the kind of question people ask each other in companies. "You know that slide of the chart with the curve that makes that double-dip?" And answers, Lee says, are almost impossible to find on search engines.
Studies indicate, he says, that knowledge industry workers spend the equivalent of one day per week searching for people or information. Often, the key is to find "the person who knows the person who knows the answer."
Of course Lee's betting that companies will harness social tools to find that information and make workers more productive. The only problem, from my perspective: Sometimes questions are dumb, and it's less embarrassing for employees to pound away on Google and desktop search...
