[Image via Textually.org]

I was on Ping.fm, about to ping a status across the board, when I started thinking about the number of Social Networking sites I'm on. Currently on Ping.fm I'm pinging Brightkite, Facebook, FriendFeed, hi5, Identi.ca, Jaiku, kwippy, LinkedIn, Mashable, Myspace, Plurk, Pownce, Tumblr, and last but DEFINITELY not least, Twitter.

I got to thinking, out of all of those sites, which ones do I actually use on a daily basis? If I were to visit ALL of the sites I use in socialMe, it'd be overkill. In fact, it would have to be a full-time job to have to keep up with it all. The main sites I use are Twitter (obviously), Facebook, and FriendFeed. I used to use Brightkite but as-of-late I've started to get comfy with Loopt; once Brightkite makes an iPhone app I'll probably move back. I've also ressurected my Myspace account to reach my Myspace audience, which suprisingly is large; I usually point Myspace to the younger demographic (10-16).

Obviously, this led me to ask, why do I have all of these accounts and not use them? My first answer is to reach a larger audience. Twitter has a large user base already, but there are other users out there that use Plurk or Jaiku more than Twitter. I want to everyone in the world to know my name, so naturally I make an account on those sites. Thinking deeper, my first answer was a good one, but not what led me to sign up for the sites initially. Everyone, by now, has been acquainted with the Fail Whale I assume. So when Twitter goes down, we all flock to another site.

Oh okay, so that's why I signed up!

Yes, one of the reasons, but not the one I was looking for. Then it hit me! After recovering from the blow from the candle falling on my foot, I remembered why I signed up for Plurk. Leo Laporte sent a tweet over the airwaves asking everyone to join him on Plurk. When I saw the "LeoLaporte" name and the words "join me" I quickly launched Mobile Safari. I was sitting in Moe's eating lunch, surfing as fast as EDGE would let me. Ignoring the conversations that were going on, most of which were directed at me, I was tapping away at my iPhone signing up for my account. Finally when it was all over I went back to my conversations, setting a reminder to check out Plurk when I get home. It was a similar situation with FriendFeed. I got Robert Scoble's tweet about how he was ignoring Twitter and moving almost exclusively to FriendFeed. Two minutes later I had a Friend Feed account. Both of these tweets, by the way, were done when Twitter was experiencing (almost expected at the time) the fail whale.

So, for most of the sites that I now don't use, I signed up almost instantaneously because big names in SocialMe and New Media mentioned them. I do somewhat feel like a sheep, but I do have readers that use other services more than Twitter and reach my media from there. I also move to these sites when Twitter experiences downtime, thankfully not as often now. Even though I do have all of these accounts, I like many always move back to Twitter.

Why do I use Twitter? I feel it's a great service with an already large - and may I add extremely loyal - fan base, there are many tools for bloggers and socialMe fiends like myself that integrate seamlessly with it, and there are many native programs for both Mac and Windows for the service. Yes, Plurk is more stable and has a different take on the time-line, Brightkite has location based services, and FriendFeed binds all of the services together, but I'm always going back to Twitter in the end. So, for now, I'll stick with it and Ping.fm.

What are your thoughts on the socialMe circuit?

By the way, the new Ping.fm beta code is "thispingsforyou" :)

Vivaty Scenes is launching today in public beta on AIM and in Facebook. These are realistic rooms that act as virtual personal environments—a 3D version of your personal page. You can set the theme, decorate with furniture and other virtual goods, and chat with the avatars of friends who enter your room (they need to install the app as well). The best part is that you can bring in photos from Flickr and Facebook, or videos from YouTube and display them on screens in your room. You can play MP3 songs as well.

Here's a Video that gives an example of what Vivaty is and what you can do with it:

Should be interesting once the platform gets to be more stable - I can see putting in quite a bit of time and effort to customize my own house, buy virtual objects - etc.  I think Vivaty can be a winner.

While Vivaty is hosting all the rooms to begin with, its technology is architected to become distributed, like the Web itself. Vivaty Scenes are created using standard Javascript and PHP, and can be hosted on standard Web servers. McCurdy doesn’t want to create another walled garden. He wants to bring the Web into the 3D world.

The way he plans to make money is to become the virtual “cash register” for all the virtual goods he expects will be traded between Vivaty users. He also thinks there are obvious advertising opportunities, including videos on the in-room screen, posters, and billboards, virtual product placement. It would be similar to video game advertising, except that it need not be disconnected from ad campaigns on the Web.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of metrics can be built around this virtual world and how much of it stays in Facebook, or can be extracted out of it.  Stay Tuned.

Interestingly enough, some big brands, like Target, have already embraced Vivaty - very interesting:

The big money, though, could be in branded scenes and Websites. For instance, today Target is launching its own Vivaty-powered Facebook application called the Target and Coke Zero Virtual Dorm Room. It’s a back-to-college thing where students can play around with furnishing and decorating their own rooms. The gallery of virtual items features products that can be found at Target, of course.

This sorts of virtual-world advertising hasn’t worked that well because it was disconnected from the regular Web and people’s social networks. Vivaty hopes to prove that, given the right context, this kind of branding can thrive. We’ll see.

- Apple got a new VP of Product Design - Doug Field from Segway. Tim O'Reilly has an interesting observation about this move.

- Friendfeed is under fire:

• Om calls it FakeFeed
• CenterNetworks Shows that the guys who are followed most are not necessarily the ones who contribute to the conversation.
• Scoble believes that conversation really matters there.
• My view - Friendfeed is a hyped application. It has novelty by showing which topics are the most discussed among my friends, but it is nothing more than that. Maybe after the hype, now comes the phase of sad realization...

- HeySpread provides cool service for multisite video distribution and encoding. Business model is similar to wordpress.com - users buy credits for encoding, watermarking etc. Read more at their blog

Have a great day!

Even U.S. President George Bush sent out his 1st Twitter with the help of Sen. John Culberson when Sen. Culberson was showing the President both Twitter and Qik. You can see it here!

Government Agencies

For government agencies, most often, the Twitter account is in conjunction with the government's related blog. So, now, we're getting government agencies who are not only blogging, but using TwitterFeed to promote the posts through Twitter. I am still rounding up info. to find government accounts on Jaiku and/FriendFeed.

@dipnote - The U.S. Department of State

@govgab - USA.gov, component of their blog, GovGab

@greenversations - The Environmental Protection Agency

@TSABlogTeam - Transportation Security Administration, Based on TSA's Evolution of Security Blog

@USAgov - USA.gov

@GobiernoUSA - USA.gov's Spanish Portal

@womenshealth - Womenshealth.gov

@NASA - Well, it's NASA =) Check out NASA's Twitter box and find various other NASA Twitter feeds about certain missions including @MarsPhoenix, @nasacolab, and 13 other NASA related feeds!

Government Officials

@BarackObama - Barack OBama

@joebiden - Sen. Joe Biden

@JimDeMint - Sen. Jim DeMint

@SenatorDodd - Sen. Chris Dodd

@ChuckGrassley - Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa)

@frankwatson - Sen. Frank Watson

@jiminhofe - Sen. Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)

@johnculberson - Congressman John Culberson

@MarkUdall - Congressman Mark Udall (Colorado) On his website, he is even implementing his own mini-social network for citizens to join, blog and join county groups!

@TomLatham - Congressman Tom Latham (Iowa)

@neilabercrombie - Congressman Neil Abercrombie (Hawaii)

@ThadMcCotter - Congressman Thad McCotter (Michigan)

@CongJoeWilson - Congressman Joe Wilson

@schwarzenegger - California Gov. Arnold Schwarsenegger

@GovernorGibbons - Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons

@govgranholm - Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm

@johncherry - Michigan Lieutenant Gov. John Cherry

@PeterKinder - Missouri Lieutenant Gov. Peter Kinder

U.S. States

@coloradogov - Colorado Government

@kygov - Kentucky Government

@vermontgov - Vermont Government

@UtahGov - Utah Government

@SCGOV - South Carolina Government

@www_maine_gov - Maine Government

@rigov - Rhode Island Government

Other

@TheWhiteHouse - The White House

@HouseFloor - U.S. House of Representatives

@SenateFloor - The U.S. Senate

@NRSC - National Republican Senatorial Committee

@secgen - The U.N. Secretary General

If I missed any, please let me know and I'll add them to the list!

Ok, what are your thoughts? Is this a good thing? What does this mean, and how will it affect or impact constituent and government relations? LOVE to hear, =)

photo cred: Flickr, vagabondrhythm

I have always enjoyed spirited exchanges of ideas - 9 different schools from  K - 12th grade, brought on by a move approximately ever 2.5 years growing up tends to blunt one's willingness to disassociate with someone because they don't see eye-to-eye with you. Even so, we tend to congregate with like-minded individuals and eye dissenters warily making it difficult for us to meaningfully interact with a truly broad range of opinions.

Enter social media.

To say that the Twitter and FriendFeed landscapes are dominated by those with a left-of-center mindset would be an understatement. As a result I wasn't the least bit surprised when my attempts to widen the nozzle on my information stream brought with them a slew of interactions with other users who looked at Republicans the same way Jaguar Paw looked at the strange wooden objects coming ashore at the end of Apocalypto. This is to be expected, its human nature - the less we have in common with or understand about another person, the more likely we are to distrust them and jump to hasty conclusions about them.

The power of social media is that it allows us to find and interact with one another based on common interests. The Twitter and FriendFeed communities are largely made up of social media types - some who work in social media and others, like myself, who are drawn to the new avenues of communication it opens up. Either way there is a common bond that allows us to build a relationship based on a mutual understanding.

Want an example of how powerful this is? Tech blogger Robert Scoble posted a message on his FriendFeed account that Republican Congressman John Culberson uses Twitter sparking a flurry of excited reponses, many of which indicated they would now follow the Texas Congressman as well. I can guarantee you that many of them are not predisposed to enthusiasm over anything that has to do with Republicans - especially when they come in the form of Republicans in Congress. Had Scoble posted something about Representative Culberson's stance on an issue the comments would have very likely been dominated by generalizations disparaging Republicans but since a common interest was shared Representative Culberson just found scores of new friends on Twitter.

This past Sunday I received an IM from HuffPo/BlogHer/MOMocrat blogger, Queen of Spain asking if I was interested in jumping on her web show later that evening to discuss current political topics including the FISA re-authorization. She runs in a different world than I. A few months ago I didn't even know she existed (and vise versa) but through our interactions on Twitter we were able to prove to one another that, despite completely different ideological approaches, we both wanted the same thing: to make the world a better place.

I joined her that night and had a blast trying to convince the shows participants that my views (or conservative views in general) were not the result of some nefarious desire to wreak havoc on the lives of others - who knows if I succeeded. What I do know is that, like many voters, I have grown tired of a climate that prevents me from expressing my reasoning for holding a certain position or hearing the reasoning of someone who disagrees. I am thrilled to see that social media is doing exactly what I hoped it would: restoring our ability to disagree without being disagreeable (sound familiar?).

Probably one of the worlds best known and most respected "corporate evangelists" is Robert Scoble. In the early part of this decade Scoble was tasked with the job of addressing certain issues that Microsoft had with regards to their online reputation. Through tackling the issues head on and engaging in open discussion with Microsoft's core market he helped facilitate a huge turn round in public opinion.

By not responding businesses leave themselves open to being subjected to exaggerated and deliberately misleading customer testimony. In a call review recently I discovered that a customer who had described our sales agent as being rude and abusive before he "calmly hung up" was actually the one being abusive before he abruptly ended the call.

After 20 months of being the public face of the Cusotmer Street and UFindUs accountability department I can say that there has been a huge difference to how the public perceive us. The reason for this is twofold. As a business we have invested huge amounts of time and effort in retraining staff and relocating our core support and billing functions. Obviously having a market leading product has helped too.

Our staff, from our sales force to our support teams, are so customer focused and all of them want to achieve  results for the customer by making sure that our customer service is the best that it can be.

The level of complaints coming in or being discussed on the internet is at an all time low, and I am pleased to say people who are reading postings from around the net and can actually see the significant changes that we have made. Each week I will get a few people who take the time to write to me directly as a result of seeing a posting that I have made instead of adding their own posting onto the web.

Of course paying lip service is no good at all, instead we are happy to acknowledge the issues and we are also prepared to deliver the goods. Many of our processes have been redesigned with the customer in mind and we try to make their dealings with us as easy as possible. As long as customers want to engage in discussions with us we will be there. We have also set up our own Customer Street Forum where people can come along and have their own say on things, good or bad.

I hope to see you there.

When I walked into the Speaker of the House’s press room and saw a staff member (Jesse Lee, Senior New Media Advisor for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi) typing a blog into WordPress, I knew the world had changed (I remarked that I knew that Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic which makes WordPress, was a smart guy from the first time I met him). That’s Jesse on this post typing into his WordPress-run blog.

The event is now sold out! But many of us social media types in DC are going to go, and I am one of them. If you're there, I'd love to put a face to the name!

Flickr: urlgrl and chasingfun

Robert Scoble is the social media guru who works at FastCompany TV and runs the infamous blog Scobleizer.

Gary Vaynerchuk runs the highly successful WineLibrary TV.

Not a big deal, Robert Scoble (@scoblizer) has over 5,000 Friends, and 20,000+ Twitter Followers - I'm late in this game, the early adopters, who have a large network have really leveraged Facebook and Twitter, and probably will leverage the next platforms they jump onto.

But I can honestly say that both Facebook(Marshall Sponder) and Twitter (@webmetricsguru) have improved the quality of my life the and connectedness of it - and I can't imagine going forward without applications like these or their successors.

But one thing I do want to say ..... for those of you who are thinking of getting into Twitter.  Without a Mobile Device that is capable of good, easy text input, without an internet browser capability, getting involved with Twitter on a limited mobile device is next to a whase to time.

In other words, if your going to adopt the Internet, adopt Web 2.0 tools, at least, go out and buy yourself an iPhone, a BlackBerry, a Nokia, or even what I use, a Tmobile Sidekick Slide (though I'm beginning to sour on the Tmobile platform because they're not keeping up with newer developments fast enough - and the network coverage is slow and spotty - and there isn't even at build in application for Twitter or Facebook, and many other platforms have this, and more).

If your not going to at, the very least, have a mobile phone that allows participation and interaction, Twitter is almost a waste of time, because they only time you can see what's going on is when you'd be on a desktop or laptop, but not so much when your walking around - where the asynchronous communications, locational events, sudden "Tweet-ups" have the potential to happen.

And honestly, I haven't gone as far with Social Media, as I'd have liked ... and I don't focus on LinkedIn, whereas I see many still do - more for professional contacts.

Anyway, I'm now working on my next 500 friends, maybe I'll get to that number by early next year.... we'll see.

P. S. If I missed any, leave me a comment and let me know! If I didn't miss any, leave me a comment and let me know!

---

Earlier, I was sure Kyte would fit the needs for video blogging my polyphasic sleep adaption. However, instead of taking Robert Scoble's word for it, I did a little research of my own.

To be able to video log my naps, I was looking for a few things:
- Streaming via wifi for when I'm at home (At home, I don't have 3g reception)
- Streaming via 3g for when I'm not at home
- A way to video blog when there's no internet connection available
- Streaming for 8 hours straight
- Download link for my streamed videos available to the public

On Sunday, I emailed my top 3 choices which consisted of Kyte, Ustream, and Qik.

I got a reply from Qik Monday morning, and they can do all those things if I have a compatible phone which I don't have.

I got a reply from Ustream Monday afternoon, and they don't do streaming from a phone, just webcam. Also, it looks like they only have a download link available for videos that you streamed yourself.

I got a reply from Kyte Tuesday Morning, and they only allow 1 hour of live streaming. Also, they do not offer any kind of download link.

So it looks like I'll be in the market for a new phone, so I can use the feature filled Qik service. I'll probably wait till the new Nokia N96 is released, then buy a used Nokia N95 8GB from craigslist.

Besides features, I like Qik because they are focused on consumers first. Qik had better customer service overall.

Qik's quick replies to my emails before the other guys was a plus. Jane was great except for her typos.

There wasn't a name for the person I was corresponding with at Ustream.

Kyte responded last, 2 days after my email was sent. Also, they did not see a reason why I would want to be able to download my videos. They would have my only copy is the main reason. It seems their main focus is business to business and not consumers.

Complete transcripts of my emails to all 3 companies below.

- Adventures in Polyphasic Sleeping

---

Forwarded conversation
Subject: A Couple Questions about Features
------------------------

From: Jorel Pi
Date: Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 4:17 PM
To: info@qik.com

Hello!

I had a few questions about your service:

1. If I don't have a phone, can I do a live stream from a webcam streaming over wifi?
2. What is the maximum length that I can record?
3. I see flv and 3gp as downloadable formats. Will there also be h.264 mp4 video available?

Thanks for any help!

Jorel

--
http://jorel314.wordpress.com ----------
From: Jane Fu
Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 11:11 AM
To: Jorel Pi

Hi Jorel\
1) Qik only do live streaming from phone while you can use justinTV, mogulus, uStream, blipTV,seesmic for streaming from webcam
2)there is no maimum length,as long as your phone battery last
3)we dont have any plan generating mp4 format yet.

Regards
Jane

----------
From: Jorel Pi
Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 11:29 AM
To: Jane Fu

Hi Jane!

Thanks for your answers. I emailed several other video services with similar questions, but you guys are the only ones to respond so far.

One more question. If I have a phone that has wifi (iPhone or N95), can I stream over wifi instead of 3g?

Jorel
--
http://jorel314.wordpress.com ----------
From: Jane Fu
Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 11:31 AM
To: Jorel Pi

Yes sure you can , most of powerful users stream via Wi-Fi on N95
----------
From: Jorel Pi
Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 11:35 AM
To: Jane Fu

Thanks for all your help Jane!
--
http://jorel314.wordpress.com ----------
From: Jorel Pi
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 11:43 AM
To: Jane Fu

Hi Jane!

One more question. If I'm somewhere and I can't get any reception, can Qik record to the internal memory of my phone, then upload the recording when it detects a 3g or wifi connection?

Jorel
--
http://jorel314.wordpress.com ----------
From: Jane Fu
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 11:46 AM
To: Jorel Pi

Ya, as long as your phone memory is big enough

---------- Forwarded message ----------
On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Jorel wrote:

Contact Email!
Name: Jorel
Email: jorel314@gmail.com
Message: Hello! I had a few questions about your service: 1. If I have a phone, can I do a live stream over 3g? 2. What is the maximum length that I can record? 3. Can I download my recorded video back to my computer. If so, will there be h.264 mp4 version available? Thanks for any help! Jorel

From: Ustream Support
Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: Contact email: Hello! I had a few questions about your service
To: jorel314@gmail.com

Hi,

Thanks for your interest in Ustream. 1. At this point in time, no 2. You can record as long as you like 3. The download option appear at the bottom of the window after you go to My Videos.

All the best,

Ustream Support

--
While we help resolve your issue, please utilize the Ustream Message Board (http://www.ustream.tv/forum ). Often users provide solutions to technical issues others have encountered.

Forwarded conversation
Subject: Maximum Video Length and Downloadable Video
------------------------

From: Jorel Pi
Date: Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 6:24 PM
To: info@kyte.com

Hello,

I just signed up for your service. I was wondering what the maximum video length is for streaming. Also, after the video is done streaming, is there a way for me to download it to my hard drive?

Thanks for any help,
Jorel
----------
From: Marius Kueng
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 7:13 AM
To: Jorel Pi

Hi Jorel,

Thank you for your message.

The maximal length of a Live video is set to 1 hour. This is valid for webcam and Mobile phones under a stable connection.

Unfortunately there is no download possible.
May I ask you why you are requesting this feature?

Stay tuned,

Marius

Marius Kueng | Kyte | Marketing US | www.kyte.com/support

Blogger audiences - half of them, anyway - were stunned. RSS subscriptions dropped precipitously as disenchanted readers abandoned Starbucker like a beached Twitter Fail Whale.

"I can't believe it," cried Claudia Woodstock, sometimes 70's hippie-rocker and owner of the Berkeley T-Shirt Shop, Half-Tees. "I have spend half of my adult life following Terry's half-full philosophy, including subscribing to his blog way back in 1982 when he started out. If I'd had half a brain, I'd have seen this coming."

Past attendees at SOBCon, which Terry helps lead along with Liz Strauss, were nonplussed or, in some cases, half-plussed. Tom Clifford (Director Tom), filmmaker and beret fashion icon, quickly came to Starbucker's defense. "Hey, I once released a film that was only 7/8 complete, and no-one blasted me for it! In fact, no-one even noticed! Of course, I'm better-looking than Terry, but still...you can't be half-full the whole time."

Starbucker was remorseful that his glass somehow managed, for a few brief moments, to be significantly less than half-full. "Honestly, it's never happened before. I always ask the bartender for a "topper" when the glass is at about five-eighths. However, I got to tweeting the Marketing Diva on my half-charged iPhone, and before I knew it, I'd gulped a few eighths too many. Then who should walk in with his video camera to document my embarrassment but Robert Scoble. I'm totally plurked now!"

Asked if he planned to change his blog title to the less specific "Babblings from a Small Snifter Containing an Indeterminate Amount of Potable Libations," Terry was noncommittal. "I'm half thinkin' about it," he mumbled, before leaving 3/4 of the way through an interview.

Oh, and by the way, I'm delivering a webinar on Building Relationships with Social Media on EverythingCU on Thursday. I'll be discussing 7 case studies, among other things. I'm really looking forward to it, and am very excited we have 36 credit unions signed up so far.

Because this list is long, I've split up the Do's and the Don'ts into two entries:

Do’s:

1. Do become well-versed with all of the available social media tools before diving in. (Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, podcasting are great starting points.)
2. Do start your social media marketing strategy planning by thinking about what your TARGET AUDIENCE is interested in.
3. Do make sure that your social media strategy reinforces your CU's overall business or branding strategy, and is designed to, at the least, create awareness of what your CU is great at.
4. Do feature your online initiatives in a computer kiosk in your lobby. That way your members will not only learn about what they can do remotely, they'll also associate what they see online with a tangible presence.
5. Do learn the basics of how RSS and blogs work.
6. Do give guidelines to anyone who will be contributing to your CUs blog.
7. Do put your rates into RSS format.
8. Do comment on your members' blogs. They LOVE that, and will share the love in return. That's the best way to increase readership of YOUR blog.
9. Do put valuable information that is currently in your print letter ALSO onto your blog so that your members can comment. Feel free to inform that online commenting is available at the end of the print newsletter articles that are also featured on your blog.
10. Do feel free to blog your newsletter articles before they appear in the print version. Many people aren't paying attention to your blog, and will be reminded to go there when receiving the print version in the mail.
11. Do write down your social media strategy so that the rest of the management team can see the cause and effect chain from your marketing efforts to how its helping the CU generate awareness, leads, new referrals, new members, and new sales, or in general reinforcing the CU's brand.
12. Do start with the overall campaign concept, then figure out what social media tools are the best fit.
13. Do reinforce your traditional marketing campaigns with your online efforts and vice versa. These are not separate silos.
14. Do build up a network of friends among your members BEFORE you start trying to "market" to them.
15. Do use social media to start conversations among your members about your CU and ask for honest feedback.
16. Do monitor discussion about your CU on third-party sites using Google Alerts.
17. Do create a business fan page for your CU on Facebook.
18. Do be a real person and use real language in all social media venues. Be as polite and professional as you would face-to-face.
19. Do always make sure your blog posts are attributed to the author, and not to the faceless credit union.
20. Do only write a blog post when you have something important to say to your members.
21. Do put your fun and interesting CU events onto Facebook.
22. Do write your blog posts in a way that invites your members to comment on it. We've been so used to one-way communication with our members, that we have to retrain our brains to write in a way that invites dialogue.
23. Do realize that for the most part, your members are more interested in other members’ comments on your blog, than on the article you originally wrote. Feature comments front and center.
24. Do optimize your web site and online banking to work on mobile phones, Blackberries, Treos, and iPhones.
25. Do call your core processor's rep every day until she gives you a mobile banking offering for your members.
26. Do attend the nearest PodCamp to you to learn more about what this social media thing is all about.
27. Do understand that your members expect you to be present in the online conversation about you. They'll interpret a lack of presence as a lack of caring about their concerns.
28. Do understand that you'll have to hold many of your members hands if you want them to participate in your online efforts. But each time that you do, you will be earning their gratitude, and perhaps loyalty. Everyone likes to learn how to do cool new things, without being made to feel like they are stupid.
29. Do read web sites and books about it: The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble, and The New Influencers by Paul Gillin
30. Do read blogs about it: this one right here, OpenSource CU by Trabian, Marketing Whims by Ron Shevlin, NetBanker by Jim Bruene, Currency Marketing by Tim McAlpine, CU Hype by Tony Mannor, and scores more.
31. Do realize that your members know better your CUs strengths and weaknesses than you realize.
32. Do realize that your front line staff are your best and most important allies in social media marketing. They are far more familiar with it, and trusted by their own friends than you are.
33. Do involve your front line staff with your social media efforts every step of the way.
34. Do involve your members at every step of the way with your social media efforts.
35. Do realize that the relationship your members have with each other is often as important, and sometimes more important, than the relationship they have with you or your credit union.
36. Do involve your members in competitions and let them see how they stand. Members love that, and will check back often if you do!

Here are the 27 Don'ts.

For my Social Media class we are tasked with reviewing blogs from a country that begins with the first initial of either our first or last name. The Global Voices website gave me 22 choices for the letter S, including the Caribbean nations of Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and St. Kitts. Maybe I was dreaming of a beach vacation when I decided to explore the online conversations in those countries. Surprisingly, or maybe not, there were very few blogs, irregular posts and limited topics.

In their book, Naked Conversations, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel write that culture plays a key role because "Some countries are conducive to the openness required in a successful blog. Others are less conducive." Economics and politics are also important factors.

Since I have always wanted to visit South Africa, I decided to tour that country's blogosphere through Global Voices. Again, I saw that economics and politics are key influencers. On one hand I was surprised to find limited posts in general but not surprised that the blogosphere heated up around political topics including the Spring elections in Zimbabwe and the recent spate of attacks on foreigners in South Africa. One regular blogger, Muhammad Karim wrote on May 31 that bloggers need to do more than just write about xenophobia. Karim is a freelance writer and South African blogger who dishes on a number of topics including Playboy's 'Hottest Blogger' contest.

Some of the interesting items I discovered was that South Africa has its own answer to YouTube. Zoopy was launched just a few months ago and has already attracted 120,000 visits a month (compared to the 120 million monthly visits to YouTube. Even the Cape Town mayor has gone digital: http://www.zoopy.com/helen.

A posting on the annual South African blog awards took me to thought leader, winner of both the best political blog award and Blog of the Year honors. The blog is affiliated with the Mail and Guardian newspaper, supporting Scoble and Israel's claim that the most interesting blogs reside in either very large or very small companies.

Politics, religion and criticizing the media were all popular -- and frequent -- topics. Maybe our cultural differences aren't so far apart. Even in advertisements. On one post discussing religious issues there was an ad for an online Muslim marriage service followed a few paragraphs later by an online dating site for Jewish singles.

Bloggers Robert Scoble via the aid of Andrew Feinberg contribute to the breaking of a NYT piece today on the usage and issues around the usage os microblogging and life streaming tools Twitter and Qik. The controversy is around whether or not members of congress should be allowed to use these new social lifestreaming tools. The focus of the piece is on Representative John Culberson, Republican of Texas, who is an avid Twitizen and wrote on his Twitter.com profile, "I just learned the Dems are trying to censor Congressmen’s ability to use Twitter Qik YouTube Utterz etc — outrageous and I will fight them,” The way the article is written one would have to believe that the democrats are in favor of regulating the usage while the Republicans are all over Twitter! However Nancy Pelosi came back with a 'friend me' type response, and replies, “I have a blog, use YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Digg, and other new media to communicate with constituents” and that the Dems proposal would "relax rules that prohibit members from posting on sites other than the House.gov domain."

One of the best and promising parts of the article is the involvement of Culberson's followers. NYT says,

But Mr. Culberson, after taking suggestions from hundreds of online “followers” on his Twitter site, drew up a counterproposal on Friday, calling on House leaders to lift nearly all restrictions on external content.

Qik Video by Feinberg with Culberson

I don't follow a huge amount of people, only those I've mentioned above, friends, acquaintances, and a few of the Twitteratti (big shots like Kevin Rose and Robert Scoble). I follow about 50 folks, and about 60 follow me. I'm always flattered when someone decides to follow me. After all, they must thing what I'm Twitting is interesting right? Recently I began to receive a few follows that got me curious. Usually someone uses a Twitter handle (mine is mdurwin, I use it everywhere, just Google it!), their name, nickname, combination of first and last name or initials, etc. I've seen very few Tweeps (or Tweople, or whatever us Twitter geeks come up with next) using first names and numbers, a common practice with AOL chat and other IM services.

Lately I've been getting follows from users with names like Valerie434, or Stella214. I just excepted them and moved on. Then, in one day, I received follows from Lisa1961, Tammy1961, Jessica1986, Angelina1986 and a few more. Twitter spam had caught up with me. Most of these users had a personal page with a link, most to bizrotator.com and a picture that looked like it was either stolen from a MySpace college girl or a Russian bride site.

So, it's here, Twitter spam. Luckily the most they can do is follow you and hope you click on their link. Only if you follow them will you allow them to push anything on you. The lesson learned: you know it's gone mainstream when spammers start using it. Here's a complete list of my spam followers so far:

Valerie434
Jasmin534
Sarah717
Stella214
Bethann35
Lisa1961
Tammy1961
Rhonda1989
Jessica1986
Angelina1986
amymlmer
bethbaker

I'd love to hear from other Twitteratti on this. Is it just me?

True, it's been a long wait. Our neighbours to the south have had access to that sleek, touch-screen goodness for almost a year.

And frankly, like most Apple products, it is a beautiful, stylish piece of technology. Just look at it.

As with most of the items masterminded by brilliant British-born industrial designer Jonathan Ive, so deservedly feted by the Design Museum in London for his body of work, the result is innovative, clean and instantly covetable.

But like many others living in Canada, I will resist the siren song of this particular piece of technology.

Why Resist?

It's not because of Apple. Indeed the powers-that-be at Apple are very canny about promoting the brand and making their products must-haves.

As noted by the still-in-beta-site BrandDoozie, Apple's brand is powerful and has an amazingly loyal following:

"From their iconic logo to iPod’s campaign of gyrating silhouettes against a kaleidoscope of color, Apple is more than a brand—it’s a culture."

And the fact they've managed to do that generally by buzz rather than by expensive marketing campaigns.

[Tangent: For an alternative take on Apple's brand that is quite intriguing, take a look at what Robert Scoble had to say last winter in a post entitled The Brand Promise of Apple.]

So, Why Resist Again?

Two words: Rogers Communications.

Rarely has a company with exclusive rights to a product managed to generate so much negative buzz for a hot commodity so quickly.

Because it is the only phone provider in Canada that uses the GSM network required by the device, Rogers is the only provider that can carry Apple's 3G iPhone.

And unlike in the United States where unlimited data plans are offered, Rogers decided to lock iPhone purchasers into a three-year contract. And according to CTV.ca, the initial pricing was...less than ideal.

"The cheapest plan under that structure includes 400 megabytes of data, 150 minutes of weekday talk time and unlimited evenings and weekends for $60 per month plus fees and taxes."

The Result?

A Major backlash. A website called ruinediphone.com sprang up and led to massive online petitioning, the organization of a protest rally and a campaign to get many Rogers customers to drop the corporation as a provider.

The protest has had an impact. As noted by the blog Load This with Steve Tilley, earlier this week Rogers decided to offer iPhone buyers the chance to choose their own standard voice plan and then add on a data plan allowing for 6 GB of mobile data a month for an addition $30.

But this has been a bit like throwing a bucket of water on a three-alarm fire. Gillian Shaw, of The Vancouver Sun, noted that this appeasement has not been entirely effective:

"The numbers of disgruntled consumers voicing their ire at www.ruinediphone.com continued to climb in the wake of Rogers' announcement, aimed at cooling the controversy before today's launch of the new phone."

Who Was Smart About This?

Bell Canada. They looked at the negative publicity that Rogers was receiving and did something clever.

As of August 8th, they're going to offer Samsung's version of the iPhone, the Instinct (currently available in the US via Sprint), and they're going to offer it with reasonable rates. Look at the comparison that the Globe and Mail offered on the two phones:

"The Samsung Instinct, which has many of the same features as the Apple iPhone, differs from the iPhone in one major way: Its monthly price plan, which will dramatically undercut the iPhone plan announced last week by Rogers Wireless.

A subscriber can...pay less than $40 a month for a modest voice plan accompanied by an unlimited Internet on Bell's high-speed data network."

Conclusion

So despite my love of Apple's blend of solid technology and superior design, it looks like in this case, I'm going to have to wait and follow my Instinct instead of biting into Apple's latest.

Part of it is the better pricing- that's for sure. But a company clever enough to be responsive to another company's disgruntled customers and to generate good PR by being more reasonable about rates?

They just seem smarter than the other guys. And a tad more reasonable.

What about you? Would you go along with Rogers's terms to get the new iPhone? or would you be satisfied by a Samsung? What would/will you do?

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Succeed by virtue of FEAF's prodigious post-office car as proxy for the specifics.

That means that I am in unchartered water without a life preserver as I experiment to find my blogging voice for this blog which is part of my Social Media coursework . Each week I wonder where the conversation will take me as I ruminate on the weekly readings. I am grateful that there are no "blogging police" and that I have free reign to make it up as I go along...as long as I am having fun (class requirement!).

And, with the semester just about half over, I realize that I am having fun. I was skeptical early on about "this whole blogging thing," and I still think there are a lot of random posts and a lot of random comments out there--in the blogosphere--that make me shudder and say, "who cares?" But then I think that there are a lot of talk radio stations (and people who call in to those shows) and tabloids (The Weekly World News was once a favorite in my office). We all have choices about what we read and what we listen to. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where freedom of speech is our right, and I am fortunate that there are no blogging rules that I have to follow as I seek my own style; my own voice.

Of course, naked conversations tries to guide us so that we won't to it 'wrong.' Or so we won't do it wrong for our company. Since my first blogging efforts are for my self, I can only hope that I will avoid the "forced and selfish" -- or worse -- Elvis on black velvet catagories! Moving forward, I will try to "be linky (Tip #9)" and engage in more conversations (so classmates: PLEASE COMMENT!).

Just read two excellent posts on the advantage of long term video. I first read Robert Scoble's analysis who then pointed me to another good article by Mark Cuban.

Robert says that long video will win over short video big time. The reason for this is engagement. If someone is willing to sit out a long video, he must be engaged with the topic:

But why is YouTube going longform, which is what Silicon Alley Insider just reported?

Easy: it’s much tougher to monetize short videos of, say, kids doing skateboard tricks, than it is to put some ads into a long video like the ones I do at FastCompany.tv.

Advertisers also will pay a lot higher rates for those long-form ads.

Why?

Because someone who’ll watch a 30-minute video is HIGHLY ENGAGED. They are far more likely to become a customer than someone who just watches a two-minute entertaining video.

Robert is making a valid point here. Watching a video on the web for 30 minutes needs engagement. So assuming that the people that watch them have a genuine interest in the topic at hand is probably a good guess.

Mark Cuban approaches it from a bit of a different angle. He notes that Hulu is kicking YouTube's ass in two ways. First, Hulu uses YouTube as a free distribution platform for short teaser video's which are pre- and postrolled with Hulu bannering. This free service of YouTube drives traffic to Hulu. But more importantly, Hulu can actually generate revenues on each video on the Hulu Platform:

Which leads us to the one area, OK lets say two areas that Hulu is just stomping all over Youtube;
1. Revenue Per Video
2. Revenue Per User

Hulu has one HUGE advantage over Youtube, it has the right to sell advertising in and around every single video on its site. It can package and sell any way that might make its customers happy. Youtube on the other hand, has that right for only the small percentage of the videos on its site that it has a licensing deal with. For probably 99pct or more of the videos on the site, Youtube isn't supposed to know what they even are.

Mark is probably right about that too. It sounds like the best business model a video service can have.

The thing that nags a little here for me though is that both Robert and Mark are talking from the service provider's point of view. Robert produces video's for Fastcompany and notes that they can monetize advertisement much better on those video's because of this engagement of the user. Mark syas basically the same thing. But what about the user?

Just because he is engaged and is eager to watch a video for 30 minutes or more, that doesn't mean he is also interested in watching advertisement. From the perspective of the investor, the entrepreneur and the advertiser it seems obvious that the engaged watcher is the to go for with profiled and contextual advertisement. But for the user point of view, it might just be someone interested in the video, not in possible ad harassment to go along with it. We have seen this business model a long time ago BTW. It's called tv, and most of us use a TiVo-like service or the remote control to get around those advertisements.

It is such a difficult balancing act. Advertisement and customer engagement. I am convinced that on-line advertisement ONLY makes sense if the advertisement itself provides the watcher with value. Robert provides the perfect example of this.

Oh, and don’t even start thinking about the buying process. If you do, you’ll see why Gary Vaynerchuk is the most brilliant marketer out there right now for starting Wine Library TV. I’m going to do a whole post soon just on what Gary is getting that even Google and Facebook aren’t getting.

Watching someone talk passionately about wine (or food in general ;-) ) makes anyone remotely interested in the subject hunger for it. So providing wine advertisement there makes perfectly sense. It monetizes the direct need of the user to get his hands on a great bottle of something.

But that example doesn't hold for a lot of the more tech oriented video content Robert produces. People might enjoy watching them, they are produced with fun, passion and craftsmanship. But I doubt it makes the user crave for something immediately. Technology makes us gadget lovers tick, but it hits the fourth step in the Maslow pyramid. Wine or food addresses our basic need for survival. No competition there.

In the case of Hulu it's worse. There are engaged watchers there, but these are not targeted the way Gary Vaynerchuk's audience is targeted. These are TV lovers, they merely switched their behavior to an on-line environment. And when they get advertisement that in itself doesn't provide the watcher with any value? They will either use the remote control or get a TiVo like service to get rid of the advertisement.

So, from the perspective of the advertiser and the service provider I get the business model. But from the user's perspective? Who am I to say Robert Scoble and Mark Cuban are wrong?

Kyte and Qik engaged in neck-and-neck streaming video race
Robert Scoble created quite the social media stir last weekend with his TechCrunch guest article on why he thinks Kyte will win the cell phone video race over Qik and Flixwagon. But is there really a race?

Read more at the ZDNet Feeds blog.

The Scobleizer (at FastCompany) recently interviewed Mitch Grasso, CEO of Sliderocket. I don't know about you guys, but I am really excited for a social networking version of powerpoint. It is gonna be great. I hate powerpoint and all its limitations. I can't wait till they go public beta, I have been on the list for months. I am going to give a class on social media and I would love to present it in a social media medium.

Here is Scoble's

You've seen Microsoft's PowerPoint. But you've never seen an Internet-enabled, collaborative presentation tool like Sliderocket -- until now. Here Mitch Grasso, CEO and founder, tells us about Sliderocket the company and then shows us a demo. 

Wordpress won't let me embed the video interview, but watch it here: http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/sliderocket-empowers-a-new-kind-presentation.

Hope you enjoy,

Will Flavell