Twitter Joins Us on Verio

January 31, 2008

Let me start by saying, I'm dropping in on a conversation taking place at Techcrunch, Twitter and on the Joyent blog regarding the continue server outages at Twitter. I use Twitter but have been too busy this past week to even notice their recent round of outages. I found out today they had been hosting with Joyent and last night made the switch to Verio.

We've been a Verio reseller for over 10 years and all our client websites, and our personal sites, are hosted at Verio. A few years back we put some personal sites on a couple servers at TextDrive and everything was fine for a while. Then TextDrive was acquired by Joyent and we started having more and more downtime. It wasn't too much of a problem as these were just personal blogs. But when Beach Walks started taking off, which we initially hosted at TextDrive, we could no longer accept the outages and moved everything off the Joyent servers and terminated all our accounts.

It's a PITA (pain in the ass) managing servers. I've been doing it for 12 years now. We started way back in 1996 hosting all our own servers in our little office in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When the count of servers grew to 10, and I started sleeping in the office to make sure they stayed online, I knew it was time to look for a datacenter.

I did a lot of research over a three month period, looked at all the big datacenters, some of which are no longer around, and finally decided on Verio. Verio is more expensive and very stingy on hard drive space. But the support it top notch, their bandwidth reliable, and most important, in the past 12 years our sites have never been down for more than an hour in the worst cases. Usually if there is an outage the servers are back up before we even knew about the problem.

Obviously we don't require the resources that Twitter does. And there's a lot of technical discussions and general agreement that Ruby On Rails (RoR), on which Twitter is built, has a very difficult time scaling for applications the size of Twitter. I tend to agree and would love to see Twitter re-tooled on a more stable platform such as PHP. But application server preferences aside, the first thing any company should do is not skimp on their hosting provider. You definitely get what you pay for when it comes to hosting in my experience.

So, we wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Twitter to the Verio family. I'm still not convinced RoR is the platform on which to build a heavily trafficked service such as Twitter. But it is definitely going to help now that Twitter is housed in a world class data center such as Verio.

Filed Under Audio, Gossip 2.0, Tech Tools · 10 Comments

HAF - Links from Roxanne’s Presentation

January 24, 2008

This post is a summary of the conversation we had at the Hawaii Advertising Federation Conference. Please feel free to join in. Tip: Lots of links here, so right-click or control-click to open them in a new window.

Advertising online is fraught with challenges. Most web savvy consumers have learned to tune them out, as people are increasingly displeased with advertising in general. A large part is due to ads getting noisier and more ubiquitous. I was on a US Air flight recently and when it came time for drinks, and the tray tops came down covered in ads, I heard three different people complain out loud. People are tired of the intrusiveness and one-way-ness of most ad messaging. They want to have conversations that are two-way. The nice way to put this, is that advertising is due for an upgrade.

Since my expertise in online, the underlying theme today was to convey how the internet is a foreign country. It has it's own practices, many of which are the opposite of their offline counterparts. The pace is faster, the look and feel is less polished in most cases, the interactivity is high, and there is a good chance someone is talking about you whether you know it or not. You may use email, Google, and have your own website. (That's web 1.0). To be a successful traveler, you've got to leave the Holiday Inn in this foreign country and go out to meet the vocal locals. (That's web 2.0.) The social web is filled opportunities and pitfalls for advertisers.

A Few of Our Group Metrics

Most of the 70 or so people in the room had read a blog before.
Less than 10 had left a comment on a blog.
2 had written in a blog.
About 10 belonged to LinkedIn.
1 person was on Twitter.

Benefits and Buzzwords
Your power comes from joining the conversation. At it's most basic form, by adding a comment, you create a valued in-bound link back to your web site. You also add your point of view. You can in many cases claim thought leadership for your company, for your industry, for your customers, for your vendors. Read my post on how and when to leave blog comments.

Remember relationship marketing? The tools and apps (applications) of web 2.0 are relationship marketing on steroids. People stay longer on sites that allow them to do something other than read some text or look at a some pictures. On blogs and socnets (social networks) people click through to more pages. That translates into longer session times and more page views which are a resource you can sell, or sell ads on. And the relationships you build with your visitors? Priceless.

Accepting comments on your site allows people to tell you what they love, what's not working so you can fixit sooner than later, ideas for new products and services, and most importantly they build trust with you. If you talk back in the comments, it shows you pay more than lip service to the concept of listening. When it comes time to buy, they will come to you first, because you have already established a relationship and possibly market leadership too. All the while you are getting free market research data, if you think of it that way.

And regardless of whether or not you (as the company) are engaged in online conversations, your brand is being discussed, debated, celebrated and parodied online. This brand democratization can be ripe with opportunity as well as fraught with bloopers. Your odds are better the more you are engaged. Here's a "link to the YouTube Mac vs PC" ads, the real ones and the spoofs, some of which Jason Sperling showed to us at lunch today.

Social Networks
Thanks for joining our "analog" social network! Now that you've had practice creating a profile and sharing a few details about yourself with someone you did not previously know, you are ready to go out an join an online social network. Try one under a personal screen name to get some more practice before you start doing this on behalf of your company. And check out Mitch Joel's blog on personal branding to get tips on how to benefit from your participation.

Free Blogging Services: (Set one up and play with it for personal use)
WordPress
Blogger
iWeb - if you're on a Mac (It's part of the iLife software package)

Sites I mentioned:
CNN - Click on "From the Blogs" link below an article to see recent, related blog posts
Honolulu Advertiser - find a news item and look for "Reader Comments"
Technorati - indexes millions of blogs; look for blogs here and claim your blog here once you have one
LifeHacker - popular blog with tips for managing your life
Chris Brogan - Look at the "MyBlogLog": in the orange-bounded box in left column to see recent readers (we left a comment on the Mac Book Air post)
My Sister's Site - pets and kids in southern california
My Mom's Site - Blanche's Art Show

Business Examples:
Mary Schmidt - marketer who grew her service business with a blog
Association for Downloadable Media - Association for Downloadable Media; multi-author association blog
MightyJ Music - local girl band who gets bookings by having a video blog; doubled site traffic after an appearance on Beach Walks with Rox, as compared to zero traffic increase after appearing on local morning television in Honolulu
Legal discussion of Hasbro/Mattel - Scrabble and Scrabulous discussion of Hasbro/Mattel/Scrabulous trademark infringement
Discussion of Ford Black Mustang Fan Club issues

Social Network (SocNet) Sites:
LinkedIn
MySpace.com
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Viddler

Please leave a comment and tell me what you liked, didn't like, and anything I may have missed! I am working on some additional training programs targeted for agencies and business communicators to learn how to use the social web effectively. Let me know if you're interested.

Mahalo nui for inviting me. I had a blast - and hope we can continue learning together.

Filed Under Activism, Branding, HowTo, Social Media, Speaking · 2 Comments

Pep Talk and Talk Prep for HAF

January 24, 2008

I'll be speaking this morning at the Hawaii Advertising Federation's annual "university." This is a day when the ad pros come together to network and open minds to new ideas.

First off, I say congrats. There is this sticky wicket in that the more a person becomes an expert, the more confusing it is to find space for new information. If you are like me, you can hear the echo of a client somewhere saying, "But you're the expert - why didn't you know that already or why are you going to this seminar?"

Of course, true experts and wise people understand that with information being created at an inconceivably fast pace, no one can be an expert for more than a few moments in time. I prefer to think of myself as a lover of knowledge, and that inspires me to learn as much as I can, plus I am interested in sharing it with others. That is my time-saving gift - I will do the research and make some of the silly learning mistakes so I can fast track you with a new tool.

This session is a tour of the deep parts of the tubes. The internet truly is a culture of its own, and I will be your tour guide making the trip inside fun and informative and safe. It will be a living example of how the net works these days, so please expect some interaction, some social networking, some gossip 2.0, and some key takeaways for how this can impact your business and those you serve.

Filed Under Gossip 2.0, Social Media, Speaking · Leave a Comment

Rent or Buy? How Does a Company Decide to Use New Media

January 23, 2008

I just tripped across the Custom Content Conference being held this March in New Orleans. It is targeted at brand managers and ad folks who may be considering creating their own serialized web content or new media/social media channels. I thought I'd mention a few of the companies who have already ventured in to this arena, and hopefully you may have some more to add to the list.

Whole Foods has been doing this for about a year with both audio and video podcasts, all of which are produced using in-house talent. Scott Simons, Regional Marketing Director, hosts the Secret Ingredient show. There has been discussion on the Yahoo Videoblogging List about this show and the opportunities to also integrate both freelance-produced content as well as user-generated content. Word on the street is that Whole Food is not interested, preferring to control the show in-house. It's a full service blog-based site, with comments accepted and RSS. Visitors can manually download the flash version of the episode, though that is not playable on most MP3 devices.

American Express last year launched LX.tv which is a combination traditional web site and video blog, using the "new" part of the media and not so much the "social" part of the media. It is Flash-based, which makes the site a bit slow for my tastes, but does allow the designers to create a very rich, urban mood and feel. They use freelance contributors and the episodes focus on restaurants (AMEX merchants) and celebrity/social life. You can get an RSS feed, and in their grab the embed code for each episode, but the flash programming makes that part very cumbersome and the interface is elusive unless you know what the little icons represent. Viewer comments are not accepted.

Starwood Hotels launched The Lobby as a text blog in 2006. It also hires freelance contributors around the world, sharing local life stories and virtually always ending with a link to a hotel or hotel service found in the region. They have started including YouTube-hosted videos made by their contributors. I really like the widget they have in addition to traditional RSS options.

We are in production with a Fortune 100 company to develop a branded show that is educational in nature. Naturally, the goal is to drive sales for this particular service, but the company believes (and so do we) that creating original branded content that is useful and entertaining using new media (aka your own internet TV station) is a terrific, largely untapped opportunity at this time.

There are many other examples of companies who are doing direct ad sponsorships of independently-produced shows. I discussed the Ford - Amanda Across America collaboration in this post with follow-up in this post. Earthlink was an early sponsor of the Washington Post video podcasts and pharmaceutical companies are pursing this as well.

I definitely have my preferences, based on years of experience as a consumer (!) and also the past three years of being on the forefront of creating audio and video content for the web. Keep in mind as well that the criteria will vary depending on your audience and your product/service - there is no cookie-cutter solution here. And if things go wrong, as they did on the Edelman-managed video for Walmart, do like Edelman did and learn from the experience. It's not possible to know it all - and that's the reason for us to keep talking. For those of you attending the HAF Conference tomorrow, we'll be discussing this in more detail.

Filed Under Branding, Social Media, Strategy · Leave a Comment

HAF: A Message for You from Susan Bratton

January 22, 2008

I am getting very excited about the session I'll be running in a few days at the Hawaii Advertising Federation meeting. I've been addressing the topic here on the blog, and today's post is a personal video message from Susan Bratton, one of the founders of the Association for Downloadable Media a co-founder of Personal Life Media and chair of Ad:Tech digital marketing event, just to name a few!

She has deep experience in the world of traditional advertising and has adeptly moved herself into the center of digital marketing. She also hosts her own audio podcast, so please visit Dishy Mix to hear some of Susan's out of the box interviews with technology and marketing experts.

Now, a few words from Susan:

Video provided by Viddler. Get an account and send me your video comments or leave a comment right inside Susan's video.

Filed Under Speaking · 1 Comment

WebClips for Your iPhone

January 15, 2008

UPDATE: There have been other postings that say making a larger icon, 158x158 for example will produce higher quality results. We haven't found that to be true. BUT, we have standardized on 60x60 for our Webclips icons and until Apple actually produces its own icons for its own website(s), we'll be sticking with the 60x60 size. Thanks to @cdevroe (Colin Devroe) for pointing out the original article that discussed the larger 158x158 format.

There was a new iPhone update today, and Apple is sweetening the scene for those who've resisted hacking their iPhone. One of the coolest new features is the ability to add an icon to the main screen that will take you to a web site of your choice. iPhone will grab a square screen capture of the site and show you the URL under the icon.

Or! You can create a webclip which generates a custom icon for iPhone users. Think of it as a favicon that works with your phone bookmarks.

This feature was released less than 24 hours ago; and I'm happy to brag that our tech guy, Shane Robinson, has already mastered the process and started branding our company web sites. Shane got started with this HowTo from vjarmy:

Create a 57x57 PNG.
Name it "apple-touch-icon.png"
Throw it in the root folder of your website. (Not the root of your server, the root of your web documents.)

More details about iPhone at the Apple Development Center.

Here are the direct paths to our three iPhone WebClips:

Filed Under Announcements, Branding, HowTo, Tech Tools · 2 Comments

Getting Clients to Pay On Time

January 15, 2008

We are a small business. We invoice once a month, for services performed in the previous month. Our payment terms are "due on receipt." Some clients pay accordingly. Others have tended to lump us into the "net-30" category based (my ass-u-mption) on the terms they receive from other vendors. A few others appear to have a "squeaky wheel" folder, aka don't pay until someone is bugging them repeatedly to pay.

Years ago I contemplated putting up a web site called "theydontpay.com" that would serve as a sort of small business Dun & Bradstreet service. Small business owners could post their experiences of companies with a bad record of not paying, so other small companies could check out a potential client in advance. Back in those days, we had a few big names you would think would be an asset to the client list. But in reality, they had a high P.I.T.A. score often based on refusal to pay normal invoices. The concept was very similar to another social media site I recently discovered, RottenNeighbor.com. (I could have some fun there!)

Since I was too busy to do that, and am wary in general of putting out stink eye for all the world to see (I prefer Aloha), I decided instead to offer positive incentives. I've been having fun, but have to report that it has only made the good clients better and not the "bad" clients better. The first month was a 10% discount to the first payment received. We accept and encourage electronic payments so the first payment was delivered in less than 20 minutes by a nonprofit client, NAWBO. I reported that in my next monthly mailing.

The next time I offered a free $10 iTunes Gift Card to anyone who left a comment on our blog. This was to also help our clients get more comfortable leaving blog comments and hey, do any of you not love getting more blog comments?

Guess what? Only one person played. Meredith of HereComesTheGuide.com was stoked, and I extended it some because she actually left two comments! I sent her a 25 gift card that also donates 10% to AIDS relief in Africa. (I hope that link survives outside of my browser cookie settings...)

This month, I am offering a more generic BareFeetShop/Amazon.com $10 gift certificate and link love to all those who tell me about a blog they read and why. (And I even encouraged them to get staff involved.) Early congrats to Andy at Packet Analytics who replied in less than 15 minutes! I'll compile the results here in a few weeks.

Wish me luck. I'd sure like to find out what the tipping point is to get old invoices paid. (You know who you are, though I wonder if you read our blog. Please contact me privately to tell me about your sweet spots.) I am all ears to the rest of you who have fun ways to help clients pay on time and feel so good about it they'll want to do it over and over again.

Filed Under Activism, Aloha in Action, Money Matters, Social Media, Strategy · 3 Comments

Video Podcasting for Unconferenz 2008

January 12, 2008

Here is my talk at Unconferenz 2008 in Honolulu on Jan 12, 2008. I am using the social networking site for slide shows, SlideShare.net. It does not play the embedded video — for that you'll want to be live! UPDATE: Ryan Ozawa has posted this video compilation from the day's events.