Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 328

March 22, 2012

How To Start A Blog In 2012

Starting a Blog is easy. Starting a Blog in 2012 is a little bit more complex.

There's a Blog about anything and everything out there, right now. It's hard for someone considering a Blog to come up with a new and/or different angle. The topic can be as obscure as your brain can fathom, and odds are that a Blog covering that exact topic already exists. Pushing that further, it's somewhat hard to even define what, exactly, a Blog is in this day and age. Afterall, you can Blog on your Facebook page, you can micro-Blog with Twitter or video Blog on YouTube. You can even Blog using tumblr - which is a hybrid online social network and Blogging platform - or you can Blog for an existing online publisher like The Huffington Post. For this post, I'll define a Blog as an online journal that you either house on your own server or is being served via the Blogging platform's servers. Lately, I've been sent links for a lot of new and freshly-minted Blogs, and there are some "best practices" that may help others down this fuzzy path.

How to start a Blog in 2012:

Choose the right platform. The default choice for a great Blogging platform is WordPress. My recommendation is to go with it (full disclosure: this Blog is powered by MovableType and it's way too late in the game to make the switch to WordPress, but I would if it could happen seamlessly). Do the hard work of figuring out if a hosted solution is best for you. My general recommendation is to use the free version until you start seeing uptake by the community. No point in spending the money if you're not generating readership and/or going to stick with it.

Design matters. While we do live in a world of RSS feeds and links tossed around via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, the best Blogs are designed well. The look good and red well. WordPress makes this (somewhat) easier because you can buy and customize themes. If you're serious about Blogging, get very serious about having it look great. It's hard for people to get excited about a plain Blog. Design matters. Always.

Great names. It can be funny, quirky or a play on an existing meme, but figure out a relevant, cool and timely name for your Blog. I believe that people like saying, "Six Pixels of Separation" much more than, "Mitch's Blog." Finding a name is never easy, but when it's done well, it makes the Blog that much more shareable. People like sharing things that not only sound cool, but that make them look smart. Your name matters. Try to avoid names with a number in it ("is it '2' or 'two'?" - it can be confusing) and watch out for a multiple word title, where one word's last letter is the same letter as the next word (like: mikesstand). You're trying to make it easy, not confusing for people to find you.

Secure your domains. In a world where finding a domain name can become an expensive and frustrating endeavor, refer to the last bullet point as your guiding light: the more unique, strange and funky the title, the more likelihood you'll have of being able to secure the URL. A trick would be to use one of the more reputable domain name websites to see if your choices are available prior to choosing it (and, if it is available, please make sure to grab it on the spot - you don't want to come back a week later and find that someone else already grabbed it).

Write a full bio. I've seen countless WordPress bio pages that are simply left blank. Write a full bio and make it as robust as possible. People want to know who they're reading. Make it crisp and clever. A great bio is critical.

Read first. Most people will tell you to start writing. I would argue that if you want to start a Blog in 2012, start with reading. Read everything. Blogs, books, newspapers, magazines, tweets, etc... Get a feel for the industry that you're going to Blog about and form a perspective. Along with that perspective, it's equally fine for you to start commenting in other online spaces before starting your own Blog. Commenting in other (more heavily-trafficked) spaces will give you insights into how people feel about your way of thinking (especially if your comments get other people excited about commenting and adding to the discourse).

Write. Write. Write. If you want a successful Blog, you have to write. You have to write a lot and you have to post frequently. You have to do this, not to cram content into a Blog, but because only through the frequency and habit of writing will you get good. Only through the frequency and habit of writing will you begin to find a voice. Only through the frequency and habit of writing will you begin to build an audience. Here's a truth: you won't find your voice over time. I simply don't believe that a writer arrives at this strange destination called "their voice." I think a strong voice simply evolves over time. But none of that happens without writing. You're not writing for writing's sake. You're writing to exercise your critical thinking skills. When you do that often enough, great writing will start to flow.

Watch what you write. Spelling and grammar count. I recently came across a new Blog that was started by a lawyer (it said so in their bio). It was littered with spelling and grammar mistakes. I type fast and I make mistakes (and there is a great group of people who send me notes and leave comments, so that I can correct my mistakes), but overall, the flow of the writing has to be readable. I'm not talking about the random misspellings or grammatical burps (it happens). I'm talking about text that is both unreadable (and somewhat laughable). Poor spelling and bad grammar undermines your content and your critical thinking. Take the time to either proof your own work or find someone who will take pity on you and do it. Spelling and grammar mistakes will directly impact your credibility. Trust me on this.

Don't be shameless about your self-promotion. Whenever it's time to self-promote, I get a pit in my stomach. I love Blogging, I love sharing, but I hate beating my own chest. Choose how you're going to self-promote, but before you do anything ask yourself: "if this message showed up in any one of my streams, how would I feel about it?" As a way to not feel too self-promotional, I use my other social media spaces for self-promotion by asking a question in hopes of provoking some kind of reaction. This feels like I'm adding value to someone's stream without it being a "look at me! Look at me!" moment.

Don't be scared of analytics. Most Blog platforms offer some kind of analytics. You should also be running Google Analytics as well. If the thought of web analytics scares you, please go and check out the work of Avinash Kaushik (his Blog, Occam's Razor, is treasure trove of great insights - as are his two books, Web Analytics - An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0). You should be measuring everything from readership and referral traffic to keywords. I particularly like keyword analysis, because this can give you some immediate insights into the type of words people use to find your content. Write more with those keywords in mind.

Take it slow.

It is quick, free and easy to build a Blog, but building an audience and finding that elusive voice is a long, hard and desperately lonely journey. Make sure you are ready for it. There will be times when you will question if anybody is reading your Blog and if anybody cares. It's not easy, but keep at it. If you believe that you have something useful to share, odds are that there are others - just like you - out there as well. It will be a decade that I have been Blogging and still, to this day, I wonder if anybody really and truly cares (like, what would happen if I stopped Blogging tomorrow?). It's fine and normal to have those feelings, but keep at it. Why? Because if you care enough to Blog, it means that you have something to say. If you have something to say and you're Blogging it, it means that you want to share and connect. Ultimately, the world needs more people like that.

What would you add to this list?

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Published on March 22, 2012 11:30

March 21, 2012

When The Going Gets Tough

"This will be my last day shining your shoes."

I like getting my shoes shined. I don't do it often enough, but I do my best to keep my shoes (and yes, even my leather sneakers) as clean and scuff-free as possible. Lump that value system into my own, personal "measure of a man," but to me, dirty shoes is a leading negative indicator (while I'm no snob, I realize this may make me a little vain). My favorite place to get my shoes shined is at the airport. I typically do this prior to departure, and it's always the same person at the shoe shine stand. He's never happy. I've known him for close to a decade and he spends his time shining shoes by complaining to every patron who sits in his station. He'll complain about politics, the weather, the airline, the airport, the security and the shoe shining session usually ends with the line, "this will be the last day that I am shining your shoes... I'm closing this stand down on Monday." It's almost become laughable. I once jokingly said to him before getting started, "will this be my last shoe shine?"... he didn't think it was a funny joke at all. He became beet red and didn't say a word to me. I felt very bad.

Going out of business sale.

It's like the running joke when you're in New York City and see those "going out of business" signs at the retail level on stores that have been there for years. Being trapped in a job or business that you do not like is a terrible experience. I did a short stint in a service-based industry that made me miserable several years ago. It got so bad, that towards the end (right before I quit), I would actually get a physical reaction to being in the office (I affectionately called it, "scratchy throat"). I knew it was time to go when I was having physical reactions to a job that just wasn't for me. I could not imagine being there another month (let alone for the rest of my life).

How to control misery.

As a business owner, I've seen people be unhappy. It's never pleasant. Odds are that you know several people - right at this exact moment in time - that are struggling with their work. They're not fulfilled, they're not happy and they're simply not achieving. Who is to blame? This is the tough part, but it's the cold hard truth: the business will rarely change to align with your value-system. If you feel like you're not able to accomplish something because of your teammates, your supervisor, the boss, the clients or whatever, guess what? It's not them... it's you. Don't get mad straight away and start leaving nasty comments below. Think about these last few lines, internalize them, let them baste around in your brain. My friends at Bazaarvoice have a very interesting human resources policy that they call, "the ride home": if someone no longer wants to work at the company, they pay them a couple thousand dollars to leave. Why? They're not just trying to find the right person who meets a criteria for a list of job responsibilities, they're looking to hire people who are suited to work with their team.

What works here does not work there.

People often take work for the wrong reasons (a lot of it has to do a self-perceived desperation): more money, trying to pad a resume, a feeling like they have no other options, etc... It's very hard (and intense) work to figure out what you really want to get out of life. Sadly, most people think that a job's main raison d'être is to keep them out of poverty, and that becomes the main focal point: survival. I've seen people perform very poorly in one environment, change jobs and work for a similar company (in a similar position) and they thrive like never before. We see this in the marketing industry almost daily: a client/agency relationship falls apart, the brand does an agency review and finds a similar company that offers similar services with very similar people, but it's simply a better fit and they all thrive.

Think about thriving.

Are you thriving? What will it take for you to thrive? These are core questions that will shift the focus from the work and the supervisors to you... and only you. Personally, the minute my professional career and trajectory changed and become that much more positive (in all aspects of it) was when I shifted my mindset from it being about the work and my bosses, to me and my personal responsibility - instead of whining about my lot in life. BTW, I'm still working on it. Life isn't perfect, but accepting that it's not perfect also enables me to spend the better part of my time self-evaluating instead of blaming it on everyone else.

What's your take?

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Published on March 21, 2012 08:05

March 20, 2012

Are Those Robots or People Clicking on Your Site?

The robots have landed.

It should come as no surprise to you that some of the traffic to your websites and mobile apps are not a real human being. There are spiders out there crawling websites to index them, there are malicious hackers poking and prodding away to find a moment of vulnerability and, of course, there are technologies in place to track people and their usage. It sounds a little too George Orwellian for some, but it's a functional part of the digitization of media.

The bigger question: is all of this non-human traffic getting to be a little too much?

Last week, Tom Foremski had a post over at ZDNet titled, Report: 51% of web site traffic is 'non-human' and mostly malicious. The title of the news piece tells the entire story. Before looking at the two major issues that need to be thought about moving forward, here is how the website traffic is broken down (according to a study done by Incapsula - a company that provides cloud-based security for websites. The study is based on a sample of 1000 websites/clients of Incapsula):

5% is hacking tools searching for an unpatched or new vulnerability in a web site.

5% is scrapers.

2% is automated comment spammers.

19% is from "spies" collecting competitive intelligence.

20% is from search engines - which is non-human traffic but benign.

49% is from people browsing the Internet.

The high cost of living.

Who pays for this traffic? You do. Along with the server and usage costs, all of this non-human traffic is also affecting overall performance as well. The more people and technology sucking bandwidth, the slower the response time is of your servers. If over half of this traffic isn't even real people, just imagine what your bandwidth and server costs could look like. Above and beyond that, what is likelihood of this non-human traffic decreasing? Marketing is become that much more sophisticated and technologically inclined, so these types of pings and pokes are clearly going to increase over the next short (and long) while. Once this gets to the point where more website owners are aware of this intrusion, the government will step in and legislate this. Nobody wants government intervention here, but this is another prime case of technology and new media companies stepping over the line by the sheer act of overdoing it.

The third-party problem.

It's one thing for websites to be tracking their usage and allowing non-human crawlers from search engines to index their websites in order to rank higher. But - if you look at the list above - you'll note that scrapers, automated comment spammers and spies are all third-parties trying to leverage the website for its own, personal marketing initiatives. This makes up over twenty-five percent of all traffic. This allowance of third-parties to infiltrate and leverage website traffic is only a small fraction of the issue. What about the other third-parties that the website has partnered with and allows them access to the website and their users? It's probably unimaginable to think about what that combined piece of website traffic may look like. We have to remember, that most consumers simply don't understand the terms and conditions of a website and have little knowledge and understanding into all of this tracking that is happening. The number must be nothing short of astounding.

It's time for fair play.

If we, as the New Media collective, do not start self-governing ourselves, you can rest assured that public outcry will increase and the government will step in. What information are we keeping and what information are we tracking and do we need it all? Understandably, it will be next-to-impossible to stop the malicious spies and infiltrators that are leveraging this information for spam (and knowing that this clocks in at over twenty-five of all website traffic, it should come as a rude awakening for publishers), but the crawling and sniffing that we can control, should be looked at with a discerning eye. The use of robots to crawl the Internet is nothing new. The use of robots to crawl the Internet to grab as much information for possible in a malicious way is nothing new. The ability for website owners to get smarter and ensure that they are protecting their consumers (from both the robots and third-party deals) is nothing new, either... but the numbers are getting out of control and they're only going to increase.

It's time to act. What are we going to do about it?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

The Huffington Post - Are Those Robots or People Clicking on Your Site?

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Published on March 20, 2012 07:42

March 18, 2012

Creativity Takes A Lot Of Hard Work

Episode #297 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

How does creativity happen? Does it take a lot of time? Can brilliant creative just happen? What inspires creativity? Who is a creative? These are the questions and thoughts that we all engage and connect with as Marketing professionals in one way, shape or form at multiple times during our careers. We often lament the creatives as those who get to play all of the time or go to movies and grab coffees waiting for that moment of inspiration. Scratching beneath the surface, we begin to realize that those who we would hail as being the most creative are usually very hard and complex workers. It's a topic that is near and dear to the heart of Julie Burstein. In 2000, Julie created Studio 360 with Kurt Anderson for Public Radio International. It was a show that looked at creative people through in-depth conversation. Her first book, Spark - How Creativity Works, was one of those books that I just could not put down. Currently, she is the host of Pursuit of Spark - a Podcast that continues the conversations she started with her book, Spark. I had the pleasure of watching Julie present at this past TED conference and she was kind enough to spend some time with me, after her presentation, to discuss the topic of creativity and work. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #297.

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Published on March 18, 2012 11:08

March 17, 2012

The Early Days of Hashtag Marketing

Tweet this, get that.

It's disruption marketing at its finest. Companies are now using hashtag marketing strategies as a way to create attention by rewarding those who are willing to shill for them (more on that here: DigiDay - Has Hashtag Marketing Arrived?). With so many people connected and sharing on Twitter, what's the big deal if a handful of those tweets are people telling us about a brand and - in doing so - they get some kind of rebate? The issue is one of filtering. I may very much like following you, but should you start tweeting because you're benefitting from a marketing program and I'm getting the spam, it may be grounds for a social media divorce.

You only get one chance to make a great digital impression.

Not to be hard on this type of marketing, but does anybody feel like this is the future of digital marketing? Do we really think that leveraging individuals and compensating them for blasting their social graphs is the way to build any semblance of brand loyalty and love? I could be a lot harsher on these types of initiatives, but there's another mitigating factor at play here: it is early (very early) days. This is the time of experimentation. Brands don't know what to do with hashtags, and Twitter probably hasn't figured out a clear program to help these brands find a definition.

We're just trying stuff.

When we execute with a "we're just trying stuff" type of mindset, we have to be ready for the backlash as well. Brands are (for the most part) highly unprepared for the backlash and negative engagement that these types of marketing campaigns come with. Consumers that are polarized or that have a semblance of ill-will toward a brand see public opportunities - like a hashtag marketing campaign - to newsjack the situation and inject their story into the brand's. Not only does this cause a negative brand experience for everyone who is following along (including members of the media), but it usually derails the management team who are now focusing on running the hashtag marketing campaign while doing their best to not enrage the individuals who have invaded the scene.

It sounds complicated.

If it sounds complicated, that's because it is complicated. The reason a lot of these hashtag marketing initiatives go awry is because the brand is blinded by their own perceptions (which many of us would define as delusional). They figure that the offer is fair and people interested will share and share alike. They figure that because they're engaged in these channels, that they can interact and defuse the newsjacking. They fail to understand that if their products and services were not polarizing and people had a genuine interest in sharing the brand narrative with their social graph, that they would already be doing it (and, perhaps, the real opportunity for the brand is in figuring out how to become a better and more connected part of that engagement). This is complicated because the brand creates a message that it can't control and the initiative is one that only benefits if everyone falls into the narrative that the brand wants them to. That never happens. This doesn't mean that we have to write off hashtag marketing, but it does mean that we have to think of better ways to make this work, and that starts with ensuring that everyone who connects with the campaign benefits... not just the individual tweeting that first tweet.

What do you think about hashtag marketing?

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Published on March 17, 2012 04:16

March 16, 2012

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #91

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Forget Your Past - Timothy Allen . "This travelogue-cum-photo-gallery describes photographer Timothy Allen's remarkable visit to an abandoned Bulgarian communist monument. He slogged through hip-deep snow and braved low-lying clouds in a freezing ultralight to get a glimpse of a cold war monolith in Bulgaria. The story is nearly as amazing as the resulting pictures." (Alistair for Hugh).

What the media can learn from Facebook - The Guardian . " Jeff Jarvis skewers the traditional media's disdain of social networks in this excellent Guardian piece. Rather than not valuing content, he argues, giants like Facebook and Google see content as something abundant, from which to learn and grow. When newspapers close their doors, they need look no further than this post to understand why." (Alistair for Mitch).

Working with the Chaos Monkey - Coding Horror . " Netflix keeps its systems on their toes by releasing a program called 'The Chaos Monkey' whose job it is to randomly kill instances and services within the Netflix architecture." (Hugh for Alistair).

I Like Words - Letters of Note . "Fabulous letter sent by a New York copywriter to everyone he could find an address for in Hollywood, when he was looking for a job as a screenwriter, circa 1934." (Hugh for Mitch).

We Don't Need No Stinking Seal of Approval from the Blog Police - Gawker . "Do you think that the Bloggers of this world need a Council on Ethical Blogging and Aggregation? That's what some Bloggers (who, for the most part, are really just traditional journalists who Blog as well) think, according to Gawker . Is this stuff for real? I think this Gawker piece does a great job of stating the obvious: the only Bloggers who need to better understand ethics are, usually, the ones who are scummy. Yes, it would not hurt if more people in our world took some basic media training, but the majority of the more well-known/established Bloggers seem to understand and know what makes for a compelling and ethical read... or am I way off base here?" (Mitch for Alistair).

Why Finish Books? The New York Review of Books . "When I read a book on my Kindle , there is usually a point of no return. At about the twenty percent mark, my mind goes into this strange state of, 'I'm already in this deep, I may as well finish it!' - even when the book is not all that good. There's another point of view on this topic and it's a simple line: 'life is too short to read crappy books.' So, what should you do? Should you finish a book that you're not enjoying? Is there some kind of value in finishing a book that you're not getting anything out of? Before you stop reading that book on your night table (you know, the one that has been sitting there for well over a year), you may want to read this article..." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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Published on March 16, 2012 17:48

10 New Books Worth Checking Out

There is a ton of great stuff that you should be reading.

The first quarter of this year is coming to an end, and there has been a plethora (yes, big word!) of great books for you to read and enjoy.

10 New Books Worth Checking Out (in alphabetical order):

Abundance - The Future Is Better Than You Think by Steven Kotler and Peter H. Diamandis. In a world of doom and gloom, Kotler and Diamandis take us on a bullish ride about technology, the environment and humanity's ability to not only survive, but to thrive, in a world where we should be able to not only solve - but overcome - some of the challenges that have held us back for centuries.

Gutenberg the Geek by Jeff Jarvis. It's an Amazon Kindle Single... no reason not to read the latest thinking from the always poignant (and credible), Jeff Jarvis (What Would Google Do? and Public Parts). This one is short, fun and to-the-point. It's $0.99... don't be cheap :)

Inside Apple - How America's Most Admired - and Secretive - Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky. If you have yet to read the Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson, you really should. Inside Apple is another side to a company that most of us marvel and lust after. It's not always pretty, but it is a specimen and testament to entrepreneurship.

The Power of Habit - Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. As human beings, we resist change. It's a fact. The question then becomes, why do we need habits and why do we follow them?

Quiet - The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Believe it or not, I am extremely shy. I'm much better alone with a book than I am standing in a crowd trying to make small talk. Until I read Quiet, I didn't understand why I was so introverted. After reading Quiet, I still don't know why, but I'm much better at being able to accept who I am... and embrace it.

Return On Influence - The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing by Mark W. Schaefer. You know Mark. He's frequently a guest on the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast. We often don't agree and we often debate, but with his latest book, I can credibly state that: we're on the same page. Individuals are now being indexed like brands and companies. Not only is it important to know where you stand, but it's equally important to know who, exactly, your customers are, what they're talking about... and how much influence they really have.

Social TV - How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media, and Mobile by Mike Proulx and Stacey Shepatin. I often make the argument that TV is a passive media and as media and technology companies try to make it more social, they may uncover a bigger challenge: how do we make a passive media an active one? In Social TV, you will begin to uncover the many ways that technology and social media re making TV a much more social type of media.

Stop Stealing Dreams (What Is School For?) by Seth Godin. Seth Godin wrote a book about education. Once again, Godin nails it. The reason we invented school is no longer the reason why we need school. So, what is school for? Read this short book and find out. It's especially a gem if you have a young family... oh, did I mention that it is free?

Too Big to Know - Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room by David Weinberger. People often ask me who I turn to when I need to learn more about these new digital media channels and platforms. The answer is, naturally, David Weinberger. Most know him as one of the co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, but I prefer to think of him as a modern day technology philosopher. Like Clay Shirky, Weinberger's books are meaty, insightful and take a lot of time and thinking to get through.

Uprising - How to Build a Brand - and Change the World - By Sparking Cultural Movements by Scott Goodson. I've been a fan of Goodson's agency, StrawberryFrog, for some time. Ads, a great Facebook page or a smart sponsorship won't mean anything unless your consumers become part of a movement. While you may have heard that notion before, Uprising breaks it down into a strategic plan. If you don't have people behind your brand, then this is the book for you.

What new and noteworthy books are reading or interested in reading?

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klout

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social scoring

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steve jobs biography

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stop stealing dreams

strawberryfrog

susan cain

technology

the cluetrain manifesto

the power of habit

too big to know

uprising

walter isaacson

what would google do

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Published on March 16, 2012 13:03

March 14, 2012

Death To The Page View

Are the days of measuring page views as an advertising metric slowly (or quickly) coming to an end?

When banner ads first came on the Internet (we now call it "display advertising"), I remember thinking to myself, "is this the best we can do?" While I sold them and many big and powerful companies bought them, I never understood why anybody would take action. For the most part they felt like they were interrupting a reading experience (what, with all that flashing and stuff) and because they had to be so light, there wasn't much happening within the small square in terms of creativity, innovation and technology. As the ad platform matured, it seemed like the name of the game became all about cramming as many of them as possible on to one web page, or coming up with a variety of different sizes and splattering those all over a page. After the dot com implosion, there was a brief moment when it felt like we may get a chance to reboot, but it never happened. Now, we have online publishers roping consumers in with compelling content and then spreading the one story out over multiple pages to generate as many page views (which equal more ad impressions) as possible. Personally, I try not to read any content online from a publisher that doesn't have a "read as a single page" feature.

There's still something inherently wrong with the page view model.

I'm not the only one who thinks so. Yesterday, Ad Age published an op-ed piece titled, Breaking Free From the Page-View, Display-Ad Prison. In it, Eric Farkas from appssavvy says: "If you look at some of the most popular sites and apps (Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Pandora, Instagram), none of them generates advertising revenue through page views. Of course, many have yet to figure out how they're going to monetize their site from advertising. With that being said, I'm fairly confident that none of them will be turning to 300x250 display ads and other standard ad units. These sites are primarily concerned with the user experience and are exploring ways to monetize their sites and apps by providing value to advertisers by intertwining brand messages within people's activities. Facebook is bringing your social graph into the ad equation and is turning brand content into one of its primary sources of advertising. Twitter is placing promoted messages within your stream of tweets. The trick for each of these companies is providing premium advertising at scale, without disrupting the user experience."

Old thinking to new media?

Page views are a form of traditional media thinking. One page... one (or more) ad(s). What we've done is looked at a web page and said, "this is no different than a page in a magazine or a newspaper." In fact, when publishers talk about trading analog dollars for digital pennies, it's proof and validation that we're applying traditional thinking to new media... and that's at the core of the problem. Love or hate Google (I happen to be in the "love" camp), they cracked the DaVinci Code with Google AdWords - everything from how they're bought to how they are displayed. The advertising became a part of the page and the media guts of the ad was a form of content. Affiliate marketing, leveraging content to build a targeted email database and other forms of marketing seem inherently more strategic and powerful than a simple display ad driving page views as a formal revenue model.

User experience is the other big thing here.

Is experiencing a web page or a mobile app the same as reading a newspaper or a magazine? No. How a user engages with the content in the digital format is so fundamentally different than print that it's almost laughable that we're still even thinking about page views as an advertising metric at this point. Few people sit and read a web page or mobile app. They graze, click, move and play with it. Disrupting that experience is no way to gain a new and loyal customer. Brands, agencies and the media companies need to dig down deep to figure out how to create content as media that becomes additive to the experience and not a disruption (no easy feet).

Be brave.

If this thinking isn't enough to rattle some cages, think about this: is the Internet content we see published - in all of its current and glorious forms - based on a scarcity model? A newspaper and magazine sells advertising on a very limited amount of space (only one advertiser can grab the coveted back cover placement, etc...). Online content is all about abundance. You can add as many pieces of content as you like. You can do images, audio and video to supplement the text (let's not even get started on linking and more). There are - literally - no boundaries (with the exception of your server bandwidth). Page views are an advertising model driven by the scarcity model, but the Web and mobile is a space of abundance and choice and motion.

No clear solutions to this problem and massive challenge. I just have one more question: what are you thinking?

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Published on March 14, 2012 19:14

The Tragedy Of Comments

Is the discourse dying?

Nick Denton - the founder of Gawker - generated a heap-load of comments the other day when he announced at the South by Southwest conference that the way blog comments are published has failed to boost the quality of public discourse or to enhance the opportunity for collaboration between readers and writers. In the AdWeek news item, Nick Denton on the 'Tragedy of the Comments', he says: "For every two comments that are interesting, there will be eight that will be off-topic or toxic." The news item goes on to state: "that some have been so toxic that he's seen comments bring some writers to tears."

What's a Blog to do?

In Gawker's case, they will be launching a new commenting platform that will empower selected commentators to become moderators. People will still be able to post anonymously, but Denton is looking to create layers as a filtering, monitoring and curation middle-play to see if the quality and focus of the comments can improve. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in a world where fewer and fewer people comment on Blogs and even less will take the time to sign-up and leave a comment (which is a massive barrier to building audience). We have to remember, that Gawker is major media portal and - for years - online newspapers have grappled and struggled with their on commenting systems due to a combination of anonymity and people's pre-disposition to rant in those spaces.

Not all Blogs are created equal.

My personal take is this: a Blog receives the kind of comments it deserves. Beyond this being a highly generalized statement, the Blogs that I tend to follow always have thoughtful, long and salient comments attached to them. Is there an oddball comment that gets through? All of the time, but those comments are usually ignored or shun to the side by both the Blogger and the people adding to the discourse. I struggle with Blog comments here, on this Blog. Sometimes, I'm very active (responding to each and every comment), other times I jump in if there's something to add, and there are instances when it simply slips (like the past few days). That being said, I believe that the quality of the (majority) of the comments on Six Pixels of Separation are a reflection of the content. If people take the time to deep-dive into the content, they're also taking the time to add, question or comment on it in a very helpful way. This didn't happen over night (it has been nearly a decade of Blogging) and it's not something that would happen if the content of this Blog became more superfluous (like: "7 Ways To Rock Twitter" or "The 10 Things Every Marketer Must Know About Facebook").

Comments are a reflection of the content.

Newspapers and other massive media organizations hate to hear that line, but it's true. If the Blogging is done by a holier-than-thou writer who is simply copying and pasting their articles online and want nothing more than to move on to their next writing assignment, the people reading and consuming that content will feel subservient. They will (naturally) rage against the machine. Go read the Blogs of people like Mark W. Schaefer, Gini Dietrich, Valeria Maltoni, Jay Baer, Avinash Kaushik, Nilofer Merchant and a host of others. What do you see when you read the Blog posts and then the comments? There is no tragedy in those Blog comments. It is a rich trove of information, debate and additions. It makes the post come to life in a three-dimensional way. The content and the comments flow because of the mutual admiration between the Blogger and the people commenting. The quality of the comments is in direct relation to the quality of the content.

Do you think that Blog comments should be a democratic process or is moderation the key to success?

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Published on March 14, 2012 10:38

March 13, 2012

Rise Of The Indie Brand

The art of marketing is a fascinating beast.

Last week, I had the pleasure of delivering the opening keynote address at The Art of Marketing in Toronto. With over 1500 business professionals in attendance, I shared the stage with people like Martin Lindstrom (author of Brandwashed, Buyology, etc...), Randi Zuckerberg (former head of marketing at Facebook and brother of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg), Scooter Braun (music industry professional and the person who discovered and manages Justin Bieber) and many others. The day long, sold out event featured seven top-of-their-game speakers and marketing professionals, but one individual stole the show. Eric Ryan is the co-founder and Chief Brand Architect of Method. Along with his business partner, Adam Lowry, Method is on a mission to change the consumer packaged goods business, as we have known it to date. Their cleaning supplies are green, non-toxic and are so aesthetically pleasing that people display them with pride, instead of hiding them under their sinks. They brand the company as "people against dirty" and leverage their indie brand street cred to push the envelope with everything from how they recruit (they give potential employees homework assignments), to their marketing (very clever and inventive uses of media with lots of humor), to their innovative product lines (check out their laundry detergent - it requires only a couple of squirts per load). How well has it worked out for Method? Check out their best-selling business book, The Method Method - Seven Obsessions That Helped Our Scrappy Start-up Turn an Industry Upside Down (Portfolio 2011), which Ryan and Lowry co-wrote along with Lucas Conley.

How does an independent brand like Method rise in a business world where 800-pound gorillas like Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson roam the jungle?

The answer is both complex and simple. The simple part is that our world has changed. Technology (and, more importantly, the Internet) has not only connected us all, but it has opened up many new channels to better understand the nuanced needs of the modern consumer. The complexity comes is breaking down what all of this means. We now live in a world where online platforms like Kickstarter (a website that enables individuals to post their independent business ideas and have them funded by individuals interested in buying what these businesses are selling) are now funding more businesses in the creative space than the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States (I also Blogged about Kickstarter here: Kickstart Your Own Economy). We're quickly moving into a DIY (do it yourself) culture, where businesses can, literally, do everything and anything because of the power of the Internet - from sourcing production facilities to securing funding to cheap and effective direct to consumer marketing. All of this is giving rise to more individuals who are opting for entrepreneurship over the grind of nine to five.

The rise of the indie brand.

The rise of independent companies developing and growing into world-class brands became a topic that fascinated Amsterdam-based communications professional, Anneloes van Gaalen. For the past three years, van Gaalen has been researching the rise of independent brands on a global scale and just last week published her findings in a book called, Indie Brands - 30 Independent Brands That Inspire and Tell a Story (BIS Publishers 2012). "The term 'indie brand' means a lot of different things to different people," said van Gaalen via Skype last Friday. "To me, this is about brands that are started by entrepreneurs that are independently funded and they have an independent spirit. These are the brands that go left when everyone is turning right. These are brands that make use of storytelling as their primary form of marketing... not advertising. They also make smart use of the available marketing channels. The brands that are in this book are people who started a business out of pure passion and they tend to opt for the road less travelled. This usually makes for an interesting story, and this case we published thirty of these interesting stories."

What an indie brand looks like.

Riffing on the indie band movement, van Gaalen tells the story of thirty brands that manage to tell a very different narrative. From companies like OAT Shoes (the world's first fully biodegradable sneaker that has seeds embedded in the tongue of the shoes, so when they are worn out, they can be buried and plants will grow) to Montreal's own Yellow Bird Project (an organization that collaborates with indie bands to raise money for various charities. They have also published two best-selling books - The Indie Rock Coloring Book and The Indie Rock Poster Book). "We built this company from the ground up, without having to get any upfront investment," said Casey Cohen, who along with Matthew Stotland founded Yellow Bird Project in 2006. "This means that we're able to run this company on our own terms. We don't have partners to answer to, so any decisions that we make are final. This gives us the freedom to explore new directions, or even turn down opportunities that we think are not a good fit. At the end of the day, we spent so much time developing our brand that we're in a very fortunate position now to have complete control over it. Our charities and bands trust us, so we know that to them it just wouldn't feel right to be putting their trust into the hands of other people."

This is a very different business world.

The brands that wins are the brands that not only have a story to tell, but they're the brands that are transparent, credible and have something unique and different for their consumers. Indie brands are born and bred on these values and principles, so it's no surprise that the major corporations who dominate Wall Street are now trying to figure out how to act more like Method, OAT Shoes and the Yellow Bird Project.

Indie is the new big.

The above post is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here: