DygiScape

Web Communities Need Transparency (and some tips on how to be transparent)

The last time I saw Chris Pirillo was probably 1998 on TechTV (before they were later acquired by G4TV). That’s a long time, but I encountered an interesting video blog entry (vlog) that he did discussing the transparency of online communities. The principles he discussed are useful for social networking leaders, social media experts and online media mavens to embrace as they build and facilitate online community. More »

Tags: customer service, Engagement, social media, Social Networking

Nielsen scraps Page Views (Or Why You Shouldn’t Measure Success with One Metric)

Nielsen, one of the most respected audience measurement companies, decided page views are no longer relevant in today’s Web. AJAX technology being the primary cause of some provider’s drop in page views has prompted Nielsen to implement tracking of time in front of a Web site. More time generally means more engagement, and thus, more money.

This should come as no surprise. I’ve ranted went on a tangent about how Web 2.0 companies measure success – [sic] page views aren’t everything.

If you think this change is a bullshit move, I introduce call centers. Most call centers measure success based on call time (or SL — service level availability for customers). Well, after several frustrating years, that definition of success has evolved to resolution rate, satisfaction surveys and possibly sales made on contact. Here’s a breakdown of goals and the effects:

The purpose of this image is to explain that in the call center industry, they simply can not focus on one goal (e.g. Call Time, Resolution, Sales); rather a combination of all three elements. You win some, you lose some — it’s business.

I imagine that this theory holds true for the Web. You can’t focus on one element of success, you need to seize all the opportunity you can and balance your goals. Every Web site has different goals and ways to measure them. As a helpful tool, companies can elect to have services like Google Analytics or Omniture to measure their [aggregate] user tracking on their sites. To illustrate what I envision a company being successful online today, it would balance the following attributes:

I conclude with my opinion that Nielsen made a wise choice in measuring Web sites. I believe that other metrics are crucial to measure a Web site’s overall rating — not just the quantity of page views or minutes spent on a particular site.

What are your thoughts?

Tags: Engagement, internet, Metrics, social media, Success, web 2.0

4 Ways to Fight Boredom on the Web

Every now and then I get bored, like immensely bored with too much time. To stave off these cravings for something wild to do. I’ve got four ways to can fight boredom online, check it out.

• StumbleUpon - StumbleUpon is considerably new Web site that lets you “channel surf” the Web. You start out entering in your interests like news, video, blogs, etc. Then you start “Stumbling.” This method of discovering new sites is excellent since it blends both Web 2.0-styled feedback and gratification of changing channels on the TV. It’s totally free and the Firefox addon works perfectly.
• Digg, Netscape, Reddit, Fark - Scour these sites for interesting news and dish out your opinions. Be careful, after only a short period, they will become addictive to comment and submit news. These sites are infamous for citizen journalism, so if you’ve got something to share (or leak), go ahead and post it there.
• Del.icio.us Popular - If you’re bored and want to see which sites are gaining popularity among Web users, check out the Popular pages on del.icio.us. On a side note, you can join and add your bookmarks to it as well. It helps better organize your bookmarks for finding them later. What’s not cool about sharing your favorite sites with other users?
• Start a Blog - It’s not just for kids anymore. Start a blog about any topic you like. Some interesting topics that people would like to know is political views, geeky stuff, non-geeky stuff, and just about anything else you’re expert in. You don’t have to even be cool or popular to start one. You can start a free blog at Blogger, Wordpress, AOL, MySpace, and more. You can compare the features of them here if you like that sort of thing.
• YTMND - You’re The Man Now Dog, a popular creative website that enables users to create funny (and some NSFW) web sites usually at the expense of another person. This Website is infamous for popular memes such as PTKGS (”Punch the keys for God’s sake!”), the Emo Song, the Blue Ball Machine, Bat Man Ualeualeua…, …Doesn’t change Facial Expressions and more. As you can plainly see, YTMND can account for hours of wasted time. Here’s one that I made a while back, it’s quite a good laugh about a customer demanding a new mouse.

There’s more ways to kill the boredom online. If you know of a great Web site to browse, go ahead and post it in the comments. If posting a link, and it’s not appropriate for work, please label it appropriately with NSFW on it.

Tags: Boredom, Engagement, internet, social media

Digg Users Fight Back (and Win)!

Some of you may have heard about the recent drama that occurred on the popular social news website, Digg. Well, I’ll share my two cents about it, at least from my perspective with community management.

Essentially it started out when there was a story about decoding HD-DVD with a code (hex characters). The social news service was issued multiple cease-and-desist orders to remove those stories. In response, Digg momentarily shut the site down to remove the said stories that users posted. It didn’t stop there.

Once the site was re-opened, users grew infuriated. A mass of users was commenting on every story they could find in an effort to raise the awareness of Digg’s actions. Since the crowd spread the word virally, it was only a matter of minutes before the front page was sacked with anti-Digg and HD-DVD anti-piracy code related stories.

I thought the community reaction was amazing. For all this time, I figured people practically pledged allegiance to Digg considering there were numerous other pro-Digg stories in the past that garnered thousands of Diggs.

As you would expect, the crowd (or rather, mob) won. In a statement [blog posting] by Kevin Rose, he concedes his position in a unusual PR-style in his blog. He appeased the angry mob, while explaining why Digg removed such stories. This proved valuable since he communicated with his users.

The Consumerist has more details on this, in a live-blog style with before and after screenshots. As you can see, users were peeved.

So I thought, what if the users I manage did this to me — convince the crowd to fight back against the enforcement or removal of content? I firmly believe that it is about expectations that are set. The users don’t expect stories that are “grey-area” illegal to be removed. This conflict of interest between Digg’s legal/business needs and the users’ interest for technology has climaxed with this event.

Another thought comes the legality issue. Why would Digg be held responsible for their user’s content? Could they really be shut down? In a legal precedent in the past, AOL was found not legally responsible if users author offensive content. I’m no legal expert, but as long as reasonable action is taken, then the provider can not be held responsible. The users are.

I suggest that Digg re-evaluate their Terms of Service/Acceptable Use Policy, making clear some expectations regarding removal of stories. Then, to remind the users of the changes, make an informative blog posting on why the changes were made and send a message to users after they sign in about the changes in the TOS/AUP.

The fault in this matter was communication. If Digg appears as if they are arbitrarily removing articles without communicating it, it’s no question that users will be upset. The key to managing the response is to anticipate the response. When you anticipate the community response, you can effectively respond to it citing both sides of the matter instead of appearing on defensive.

What do you think about Digg removing stories? Share your feedback in the comments.

[tags]Digg, Community, Technology, People, Censorship, Management, OpEd[/tags]

Tags: community, Engagement, internet, social media, web 2.0

I’m All Twittered Out (or Why Twitter Fails to Engage Users)

The buzz since SxSW (I didn’t go, but the blogosphere wraps it up nicely) is that Twitter is the next “big thing” to hit the Web since MySpace. I beg to differ. Anytime someone says this is gonna be the next big thing, it never is. I created my Twitter account a few days ago and used it as much as I feasibly could and here’s why I already lost interest.

Twitter fails to engage users to connecting by not making it clear how to interact with each other. Even as I joined, I got the feeling I was talking to myself. I even added it on my AIM Page with their widget, but still I couldn’t find an easy way to connect with others. Why not have forums or a spot to find other users?

On the good side, I will say their interface is simple. There is nothing I dislike more in a social network, is a complex Web site. However, I believe the sidebar can be a little more robust. Having the ability to customize the page with simple CSS (it guides you though it) makes it perfect for people who are picky with their digital color palette.

Online versus Real-Life? I’ve yet to convince my girlfriend to create an account because of the “why?” factor. We can classify my girlfriend as the above average Web surfer - she will join a site if her friends are, she downloads music, watches online videos, and occasionally blogs. Not a total geek like me — far from it. So I’ll make a brief case study based on her expectations. Aside from the busy person who does a lot of daily (or hourly) accomplishments, Twitter lacks the “reward” for noting their status. What’s the reward for most social networking users? Popularity. Twitter doesn’t really focus on that probably due to privacy or other reasons.

Judging from O’Reilly’s definition of Web 2.0 online services, Twitter doesn’t build strength based on their user’s contributions or network size. In fact, this evening (Internet-Prime-Time), it appears users killed it. They were pulled down for maintenance — another phrase for “Oh Ish! The Webservers are melting!!1” Twitter isn’t as scalable as once previously thought. Twitter doesn’t build strength from their user-generated content, except for the homepage.

I’m not alone. Many other Web 2.0-aware folks are interested in Twitter and have debated whether or not Twitter will die or have proclaimed this the Web’s diamond in the rough, or are countering both sides and sharing their opinions on Twitter. I concur with the praise of Twitter’s interface. They nailed that one all the way, it’s rather innovative that users can read and post their events on the same page.

Anyhow, I’ll still try to stick with Twitter as long as I can, but frankly, they need to add more features. I’d love to see it track your Instant Messaging status, so I go away on AIM and it posts my away message to my Twitter page. Their verification for my AIM screen name didn’t work either, so they need to work on connecting to open IM services such as AIM more effectively ::cough:: Open AIM ::cough:: Open ID ::cough::

What do you think of Twitter? Share your thoughts in the comments.

[tags]Twitter, Internet, Social Networking, Web 2.0[/tags]

Tags: Engagement, OpEd, Rants, social media, Social Networking, web 2.0

Blogging: Effectively Responding to Negative Comments

One quality that make good bloggers into great bloggers is the ability to handle critical feedback. Reviewing the tips below, you should be able to seize the opportunity that is found in negative blog comments. Negative comments often carry on a few similar monikers such as hate-mail, complaints, critical feedback, opportunity to improve, etc. Generally, the old theory is that negative comments are bad comments — Not any more …

The underpinnings of blogging is the factor of a conversation and honesty. If you want a one-way conversation, go ahead and use a billboard. Two-way conversations with a vast audience will result in differing opinions, that’s a fact. Providing the ability to give feedback and comments is one thing; maintaining the conversation while remaining professional is another story.

Most blog feedback can be classified in seven main categories:

• Positive - Agreement with your perspective
• Negative - Disagreement with your perspective
• Positive - Enjoyed your presentation
• Negative - Displeased with your presentation
• Positive - Enjoys your agenda/purpose
• Negative - Dislikes your agenda/purpose
• Neutral - General questions about your content

So, how does a blogger balance the positive, neutral and negative commentary on their website? The keyword is balance. A blogger must be able to handle all feedback equally, without censorship. Censoring comments will only infuriate your audience more and your trust is gone.

Tips to Respond to Negative Feedback:

• Thank them — Thank the commenter for their time to share their thoughts. Not often do blog authors acknowledge comments from their upset audience. Thanking them shows sincerity that you take feedback seriously.
• Engage them — After you thanked them, make an attempt to engage them in the conversation. This can be done either just in the comment dialogue or in an entirely new blog entry responding to their comments. Be careful not to intimidate them, you are trying to engage them in a discussion.
• Learn from them — What are they trying to say besides “you suck?” Take a moment to read between the lines and find out their arguement.
• Correct your mistakes – The biggest one. If you make a mistake, let your readers know about it. This can easily be done by using the Strikethrough tag to “cross out” lines of text you made an error. Then add why you made the changes. This coincides with thanking your critics for credit and acknowledgement.
• Acknowledge a mass quantity of comments — Do a lot of people hate your blog entry? Well, take a moment to summarize them and make a new blog entry discussing them. Don’t get rude or obnoxious, rather take a moment to consider this a great blogging opportunity.

These tips will help you at engaging your audience even further. However, these tips aren’t complete since it will vary based on your audience.

A helpful tip is to moderate (remove) comments according to a set of guidelines. Make the guidelines clear, but flexible. You only should be remove comments that are spam or have an intent to disrupt others (like racist comments). Enforce your blogging comment rules, otherwise readers won’t respect the guidelines. The goal is to balance negative comments, not to silence them. Having negative comments is good because you can attract a wider audience and thus, more page views, uniques, and potentially more revenue.

What blog commenting tips do you have to share? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Tags: Engagement, Lists, social media, Social Networking, web 2.0

What Holds You Back From Blogging?

Yesterday, we had a Web 2.0 conference internally at work and it was went quite well. I had the opportunity to network with several others and discuss blogging, online trends, and monetization of the Web.

This woman and I were talking about blogging and she was new to it — she asked the rhetorical question, “Why on earth would anyone talk about their life online?” Well, I’d like to extrapolate on that today.

First, I want to preface and smooth over the Web 2.0 buzz-word that everyone loves to drop. The main difference between Web 1.0 is that large conglomerate sites like CNN and Yahoo used to control the circulation, creation, and control of content online. After the “Dot Com Bomb,” a lot of innovative individuals saw there was a void to fill in the Internet — participation of Web users. Then, came what we call “Web 2.0,” where users make their own content (user-generated content). The more users participate in an online service, the better it is. Simple as that.

Why do people blog? Well, in this transformation, users have learned that the Internet is a level playing field. Everyone has a voice, everyone can listen, and there are no limits. Nothing stops them from talking about their night at the club, their dislike for their in-laws, or their love life. One of the best tricks in sales is to enable someone to let people talk about themselves. If you make the tools easy to use, coupled with the need that people want to share their life online, and now you have a surge.

Now, for the people who don’t blog, my understanding they have these internal conclusions about blogging:

• It’s a young thing to do.
• It’s time consuming or they don’t have time.
• They live a private life. (Or wish to preserve anonymity)
• Not sure what to blog about if they had a blog.
• Not sure of the capabilities of blogging.
• Assume all blogs must pertain to personal life.
• Don’t fully understand the definition of a “blog.” This is apparent when surfers label a general website a “blog”
• They are generally unsure what is needed to make a blog.

So, how do we (as Web 2.0 Evangelists) open up these barriers? Perhaps, traditional communication methods are needed to set some facts straight about social media in general such as Blogs, Networks, Mobile tools, etc.

I’m sure many of you will agree that the TV media sensationalizes the Internet and how it affects people. In almost every story I watch that pertains to the Internet, they rehash the fear, the predators, the crime, the hackers, the spam, the pop-ups. No one wants that, so they tune it out and conclude the Internet and Web 2.0 doesn’t involve them.

Yesterday we had TV. Now we have the Internet. Yesterday, we had pen pals, now we have MySpace. Yesterday, we had FM Radio, now we have Podcasts. I believe this sums up the social media in a nutshell.

We can’t run from it, we must embrace both worlds and attract new users from the traditional mediums, and simplify it.

I want to get some honest answers on what you think. If you don’t blog, why don’t you blog? It’s okay, you can leave anonymous comments. Share some ideas on how to attract new people to blogging!

[tags]Blogging, Internet, Web, Blog, Blogosphere, Web, Web 2.0, Media, Television, Newspaper, Print, News, People, ProBlogger, YOU[/tags]

Tags: discussion, Engagement, OpEd, social media, Social Networking

Social Networking Safety Tips

It’s no question that social networking Web sites are growing rapidly everyday. This growing trend of sharing yourself more and more online; safety is often overlooked. Setting forth some safety guidelines will benefit the users of social networks, parents and children.

Social Networking Safety Tips

• Review the Web site’s safety notifications, standards, and learn how to report violating content. Most often it will be disclosed at the registration phase. Otherwise, might be noted at the bottom of the site. This information will educate users about the function of their web site in regard to Internet safety.
• Parents: Talk to your children about social networking. Suggested topics to discuss would include not posting private information; explaining what information is private and public, pictures, and declining requests to meet people.
• Understand that people are not who they claim they are. You wouldn’t reveal your personal details to just anyone, would you? Don’t post it on your profile unless you want everyone (including bad people) to see it. Don’t agree to meet anyone online unless you specifically know that person.
• If you wish to meet someone, do it safely. This discretion can be a difficult one to judge, but if you do choose to meet someone online, make sure you’re in a safe location. I suggest meeting them in a large mall mainly because: it’s public, indoors, safe and provides either of you the option of “running errands” if you wish to not meet. Bring a friend with you just to be safe and have a good time.
• Be careful — Social Networking is a double-edged sword. It’s okay to have fun and connect with other people on social networks, but just be alert to the fact that criminals may prey on others. Take precautions to prevent possible negative outcomes.
• Setting your profile ‘Private’ to screen outsiders. Most social networks will permit you to set your profile private to prevent outside individuals from viewing your profile. This enables you to reach out to other’s who you are friends with, but exclude incoming profile requests. I suggest parents enforce that their children’s profiles remain private.
• Maintain your computer’s defenses. As a general precaution, it’s important to make sure you have an updated anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware and operating system updates. It’s been noted previously, some MySpace advertisements contain malicious code and can infect your computer system. I’ve listed four ways to prevent spyware, check it out.
• Consider using a fake name or alias. There is no need to use your real name on social networks. Get creative and take a look into Social Security Administration’s popular names database and find one you like.
• Don’t get ‘Phished’. Phishing is a common tactic of spammers to compromise some else’s account and send messages purporting their products. Take a moment to understand how to properly login to the social network. Don’t click links you didn’t ask for or expect. If a link prompts you to log in again — it’s most likely a phishing scam.
• Research other online internet safety resources. There are plenty of other resources to help you learn more about Internet safety. CERT has a security tip all about social networking. Plenty of additional resources for parents are freely available too from the SafeKids.com Web site. Also, check into ProBlogger, blogs about his blog stalker and his tips for blogging safely.

I did my best to make this list comprehensive, but keep in mind it doesn’t cover all aspects about online safety. I wanted to convey awareness and some solutions to problems with online safety and social networks. What tips do you have about social networking safety?
[tags]Social Networking, Internet, Safety, Tips, Parents, MySpace, Blogging[/tags]

Tags: Engagement, Lists, Safety, social media, Social Networking, web 2.0

The End of Google Answers

Google’s been good to us lately, they gave us the best search, email, spreadsheets, news aggregator; but they closed down Google Answers. I don’t understand why, as it was quite successful and it helps to find your own question that you just typed in the web search, being answered on Google answers. I’ll be honest, Google Answers wasn’t the best looking Q-and-A apparatus, but a little CSS here and there and it would be leading the pack of online Q-n-A services (Mainly, Yahoo and MSN are competitors).

We hope Google will re-incarnate a similar service!

[tags]Google, Answers, Google Answers, Web 2.0, Internet, FAQ[/tags]

Tags: Engagement, Google, News, social media, Social Networking

Open Suggestion to Netscape: Navigators, Karma, Anchor Notes

I have a suggestion for Netscape concerning a few observations on their Netscape Anchors and Navigators; which are essentially moderators and paid contributors. In light of reading C.K.’s informational news about how Navigators will have the ability to kill off duplicate articles raises my concern about the quality. In addition, C.K. highlights the new trackers to track Anchor activity/comments.

I want to explain why I have a concern about the quality on Netscape. I’ve seen numerous (hundreds) of articles that have been posted by a regular user, get overruled by a Navigator posting their syndicated article and essentially shutting out the lil’ guy. I won’t name off specific Navigators, but rather the group as a whole needs to seriously focus on quality over quantity. Over 40% of my duplicate post reports are of the Navigators themselves. Now, if I place myself in the visionary’s shoes, paid contributors must post quality, unique, rare articles. I would not waste my time, nor their time to repost stuff someone already did for free. Essentially; my argument is Navigators need not worry about their post count, and focus on the novelty of hot articles that let people become interested. As added clarification, and equality, C.K. has elaborated on this, in the commentary:

“…we’ve discussed the dupe closing policy with the Navs and it is very clear cut. Whichever story came later gets closed. Even if it is a Navigator story. The only exception to this rule is when the linked to story by the original source is a broken link / a site trying to break the middleman rule by quoting heavily and not linking to the original story.

That being said, I should also note that the Navigators are not employees of Netscape, but freelance contractors working on a work for hire basis. Yes, they should be held to a higher level of editorial and moderator quality, but the Anchors are the definitive editorial presence on the site, so if you notice any issues feel free to contact any of the Anchors, myself, or Jason. That’s the feedback methodology for Netscape. We are open to messages. We read them. Contact us with your issues and we will do our best to look into them and resolve them.“

(Note, I didn’t necessarily imply the Navigators worked FOR Netscape, but they are getting paid, therefore supplemented with income from Netscape. I’m doubting Calacanis himself is cutting personal checks for paying them. Hence, if you are earning the Netscape dollar, it should be earned with quality and integrity — which generally a majority of what I see is that the Navigators do earn it.)

Now, how should Netscape rate Navigators/users and collect feedback? Great question. (Aren’t I good at the 2-person dialogue in my mind?) Netscape should institute a Karma system. Karma meaning the overall rating of a user’s comments and contributions to the Netscape Social News website. Karma will carry the same “One user, One Vote” as Calacanis describes, and will merely be utilized for FEEDBACK to Netscape Staffers on their Navigators/users on who is favored, who is causing a ruckus. My suggestion is to institute the Karma system. I made a mock-up of what I am suggesting:

1a. The original, current look of Netscape homepage.

1b. My suggestion with Karma ratings next to the post author, and on the user’s main page.

The benefit of the Karma rankings is to empower the users to give feedback to the user on the posting, and also give feedback to Netscape staffers on the quality of the posts. Anonymous of course, and again only used for feedback and review. In addition, it can also give a chance for people to reward contributors who offer valuable insight (comments) and also story submitters that are authoritative in their view. This lets Navigators and regular contributors be judged equally and on the same plane.

My next suggestion is to segment two forms of Anchor follow-up into two main categories: Actions and Commentary. This will help add validity and closure when Anchors merge similar stories, pinning, and other “actions” to a given story. Also, this yields the opportunity to cleanse the Commentary section for follow-up, interviews, and even their personal opinion. Reading articles quicker, faster, and more efficiently is a benefit for all. I have a mock-up of my suggestion on this:

2a. Original, current story article layout

2b. My suggested, modification in segmenting Netscape Anchor contributions

2c. Now same thing, but with commentary as well. (No change in the commentary format)

So what do you think? I suggest that Netscape does this to better serve their users for quick reading, and also accountability on which stories got merged; why things got pinned, and generally a check and balances system. I think Netscape is great; and I just want to keep it real and have it be a hopping social news portal on the web.

P.S. - I mean no offense to the Navigators that do an excellent job posting stories, keeping Netscape a hot spot on the net. I just want to make it clear that if you post a story; please verify that there are no duplicates. Aside from that, Keep Scapin’!

[tags]Netscape, Calacanis, Social News, Social Bookmarking, Editors, Moderators, Suggestions, Opinions[/tags]

Tags: discussion, Engagement, OpEd, social media, Social Networking