Posted on Mon, Jan 04, 2010
This is my return blog post after my hip replacement in mid-December. At that point, from my hospital room at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, I wrote about Getting Into S”hip” Shape for 2010. Well 2010 is here, and like many, I am trying to figure out the trends for 2010, not to mention the coming decade. So, in order to begin to navigate the days and months ahead, I looked to the predictions from leaders in the digital media business. Today I focus on John Battelle’s Predictions 2010.
John Battelle, in addition to maintaining an incredibly thoughtful blog, is the Co-Founder of the Web 2.0 Summit with Tim O’Reilly, the Founder and CEO of Federated Media and an accomplished author. Since 2004, John Battelle has been using his blog to publish his predictions for the coming year in early January. In December, John then follows up with an assessment of how his predictions have fared. I started reading these posts back in 2007 and have been very impressed at his record. While he admittedly “whiffs” on a few each year, in general, he is pretty spot on. You can check out how he did with his 2009 predictions here.
So, in light of his track record, here are his top 12 web trends for this year and my thoughts [read his post for further elaboration of his points]:
- “2010 will mark the end of the US dominance on the web.” I spend too much time reading Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman not to agree with that this will be inevitable in this new decade, but I am not sure that 2010 will be the cross-over year.
- “Google will make a corporate decision ot become seen as a software brand rather than as ‘just a search engine’.” With Google’s forays into Chrome OS, Android, Docs and January 5th’s pending announcement of Nexus One. John believes that Google is becoming “a newer, more open version of Microsoft”. I don’t disagree, but I also think Google is also very focused on Apple’s share of the smart phone market. What was most interesting though about this prediction was John’s view that Google will “begin to minimize its efforts in media, including social media, seeking to embrace and partner rather than compete.” While Google has not been very successful at social media to date, they also know that social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are becoming increasingly important for search.
- “2010 will see a major piracy brouhaha, not unlike the AOL search debacle but around social and/or advertising related data.” I couldn’t agree more given the battles amongst agencies, their clients and ad networks on data ownership and the various consumer interest groups lobbying Congress.
- “By the year’s end the web will have seen a significant new development in user interface design, one that will have gained rapid adoption amongst many ‘tier one’ sites, in particularly those which cover the industry.” This sounds interesting and I hope that it comes true. I just don’t know who will be the leader here.
- “Apple’s ‘iTablet’ will disappoint.” As a total Mac aficionado, I never like to short Apple products. Yet, when the word was out today about it costing between $ 900 and $ 1,000, the risk of it disappointing has gone up in my view. I don’t think I will be waiting on line at the Apple store the day it is released – at least not for this version!
- “2010 will see the rise of an open gaming platform, such as 2009 was the year of the open phone platform (Android).” This could be huge. In addition, having spent some time business-wise with game developers in 2009, this prediction seems to fit in with the zeitgeist of the industry right now.
- “Traditional search results will deteriorate to the point that folks begin to question search’s validity as a service.” People are looking for more customized service from search. Securing 10,000 results from a search query where the first four results appear to be relevant is not fully helping people in the way that they want. Services like Mahalo are picking up steam as people are looking for more from search.
- “Bing will move to a strong but distant second in search, eclipsing Yahoo in search.” Of course, they will as Microsoft now powers Yahoo Search! Plus Bing is a pretty nifty service.
- “Internet advertising will see a sharp in, and not just from increased research and social media platform [PPC/PPA] spending.” John believes that a lot of this spending will come from brands. All I know is that I am betting on this myself with my own business so he better be right!
- “The tech/internet industry will see a surge in quality IPO’s.” This sounds highly plausible as many internet companies are reaching break-even and profitability at historically fast rates. It will also be a boon to the economy.
- “We’ll see a major step forward in breaking the man/machine barrier.” He means the integration of “technology and biology.” As the recipient of a new hip in the last few weeks, I get this. Yet, John is also talking about the promise of greater things that are portrayed in movies like “Avatar” which I still have to see.
- “I’ll figure out what to do with my book SOGOTP so to speak” Well, now I know what “SOGOTP” means. Of course, I am feeling embarrassed for not knowing this! Regardless, I loved John’s first book The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Business and Transformed Our Culture and am very much opening he “GOTP” and writes another great book in 2010!
So what do you think will happen in the coming year? Tomorrow I will look at Mashable’s Pete Cashmore’s predictions from a recent article he wrote for CNN.com.
Posted on Sun, Dec 13, 2009
I finally took the time this week to get my left hip replaced. I had been putting the inevitable off for the last several years, always finding an excuse to delay it. So why now? There are the standard answers for this time of the year. Business slows down and I will not be missing much. I will be home during recovery, alowing me to spend more time with my family, especially, my 10-year old daughter during the holidays. However, there is a bigger reason that gets to the core of who I am as a professional, a mom, a daughter, a sister and a friend. As a professional, I advise businesses that they need to get their house in order to take their business to the next level. As a mom, I emphasize with my daughter the need to focus on the things that will make her a better, healthier and wiser young woman. I felt I couldn’t continue to perform those key roles in my life without taking a bit of my own advice! Getting in s”hip” shape for 2010 meant getting the hip replaced.
As I began the rehab journey from my hospital room at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC [an amazing facility, I might add], I saw parallels between my physical rehab and businesses entering into the social media arena:
Search: Initially when I made the decision to get my hip replaced, I scheduled it with an amazing surgeon through a referral. I used the web to research him and felt I had the right guy. Then I met him and he was even more convinced. Unfortunately, my insurance company was not going to give me much credit if I were to use him [so much for Preferred Provider Plans enabling you to choose your own doctor.] Regardless of this hiccup, I leveraged the doctor’s office to get a recommendation on a surgeon that he would recommend. Then I researched the doctor online and found out that he was very accomplished in replacing hips for younger people like myself. He also has given talks and written papers, which further interested me in his services. Then I met the doctor and I knew I was in the right hands!
PARALLEL TO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS IN 2010: The web provides us with so many resources to research potential business partners and relationships. We can check out someone’s LinkedIn profile, their Twitter presence, their website and blog if they have one. We can also find the common points of connection that can help us in our decision process. Also, while we may initially go down one path, we realize as I did that we need to go another path. The web and its resources are there to help you adapt and change course quickly and effectively. As you move into 2010:
- establish a Google Reader account where you can custom create your syndication list of blogs and articles relevant to your business
- use Tweetdeck or Seesmic applications which will help you track real time tweets on topics you need to be up on as well people mentioning your own business
- take advantage of Google’s new real time search capabilities announced this past week. For more information on this development, I recommend reading this post from Hubspot, an internet marketing software company on “What Google’s Launch of Real Time Streaming Means for Marketers”
- check out curated search services relevant to your business that will help you find the information you need
Giving: As a recovering patient, you really need to rely on others – nurses, nurse assistants, physician’s assistants, physical therapists, amongst others to help you. It is somewhat overwhelming to be in a position where everyone is helping you. In order to deal with the overwhelm factor, I have focused on talking with the great support team and getting to know them. It has been fun and more importantly terrific to see how they respond when they feel my genuine appreciation. They work very hard, long hours and deal with humanity at all of its best and worst. Honoring them and their contributions gives them a rush and makes the whole process of being helped all that much easier.
PARALLEL TO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS IN 2010: The best way to develop relationships in the social media world is to honor the people participating and their contributions. Inside most of us, we want our lives to matter. Acknowledging others’ contributions help validate that meaning. It can also help us forge business relationships that can be helpful to our own longer-term journey. Yet these are just by-products of being a good social media citizen. They are not the calculated goals, rather they are recognition that everything goes better when we celebrate each other’s humanity. So as you go into 2010, here are a few pointers:
- make a daily effort to genuinely recognize the people in your networks. Let them know you care and validate their efforts. And don’t be surprised by some unexpected returns!
- utilize your participation in social networks to get to know other business professionals better whose thoughts and insights you express.
- subscribe to some great blogs like Dan Zarella’s and Chris Brogan’s and get regular updates and insights as to how to improve your interaction in the social media universe.
Listening: Listening is critical to recovery. What do I mean by listening? Of course, it is listening carefully to all the health care providers I interact with. They have worked with thousands of patients through the years and know what they are talking about. Yet, there is another type of listening that is critical – listening to your own body. Last night, I was very determined to get this blog post done. I did everything I could do to stay awake to finish it. My body was not agreeing with me. It was telling me that I had had a lot of visitors that day and had done rigorous therapy and it was now time to sleep. As a Type A personality, this is a challenge for me, but I know that if I don’t listen to my body, I will not recover in the way I need to.
PARALLEL TO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS IN 2010: A lot of colleagues and friends like to tell me that they have no time for Twitter, podcasts, facebook, audible downloads or reading books. Then I ask them how much time do they spend traveling into the city every day, how much time do they typically spend in a week
Business success with social media is very different than traditional marketing where businesses broadcast messages to consumers. Social media requires engaging with customers, here are some pointers for 2010:
- start listening to what people are saying about your products in blogs, ratings services, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter
- access tools from companies like Radian6 that allow you to monitor these conversations.
- don’t foget your gut. There is a measure of intuition that to bring to social media to get a real sense of what your customers are thinking.
Use Downtime: In the hospital, there is a lot of downtime in between seeing healthcare specialists and waiting for visitors. Also some time you don’t have the energy to read a book. My ipod has been downtime companion. I am a long time subscriber to Audible and have used much of my time here to listen to Trust Agents, co-written by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith and regarded as one of the top ten business books of 2009. i had already read much of the book before coming here, but was able to continue reading it through great listening on audible! Plus it is read by both Chris and Julien which makes it even more compelling. I have also used the time to catch up on tweets from my friends and colleagues. It has also been fun to receive tweet wishes for my speedy recovery.
PARALLEL TO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS IN 2010: A lot of friends and colleagues tell me they don’t have time to tweet, read and comment on blogs, download podcasts or Audble books, or use Facebook regularly. I ask them if they own PDA devices that enable them to do all these things not tied to a desktop. Most of the time, they own an enabled device. Then I ask them how much time do they spend traveling into the city every day, how much time do they spend driving, how much time during the week do they typically find themselves waiting for someone before a meeting starts, how much time do they spend in the subway or taxis. When they cumulate the time, there is a lot more time for them to do the things they have “no time” to do! So as you get in ship shape for 2010, learn to leverage your time. Here are some ideas:
- subscribe to some great podcasts on topics relevant to your business. They can be very helpful to providing insights on how you can do your business better.
- get an Audible account. Try out a few audio books. I even like to give Audible as a business gift. Once people start using Audible, they find themselves so much “better read” and informed.
- set up a Twitter or Facebook interface on your iPhone, blackberry or other mobile device and use it
- make sure Google Reader is working on your devices.
- read this recent post from Chris Brogan on what to do “if you have an extra half hour“. It was very helpful and the comments add more thoughts about how you can leverage this time.
No Overnite Success: I have a restless attitude. I got the hip replaced and I am ready to go. I sometimes even go to the bathroom on my own here, which is a no-no. I keep asking people how many weeks it will take before I am back to normal? Will I be able to ski this winter? When can I dance again? Mark Cuban was on Dancing with the Stars within three months of his hip replacement a few years ago. So I am ready to go . . . yet, it is still one day at a time. I got up early this morning to finish this post, but my body wasn’t ready. I did one last walk around the hall here and I am in better shape to get it done. Getting my self back to normal is going to take time, patience and hard work.
PARALLEL TO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS IN 2010: Build a program to step your engagement in social media. It can’t happen overnight and once you get involved in it, your progress will be evolutionary. But it is not enough to just know about social media, you really need to do it so you can understand it better. So my advice for 2010 boils down to that great Nike phrase: “Just do it!”.
Posted on Thu, Nov 19, 2009
Thursday Daily Bytes from now on will focus on training and insights about how to use social media tools and platforms to your company’s and/or personal career to the fullest advantage. This first training-focused Daily Bytes will be on LinkedIn.
I think LinkedIn is one of the best tools out there. Before I go to meet with someone for the first time, I check out their LinkedIn profile to learn about them. It helps advance the meeting if we have common connections which can help the pending conversation. I also use it as a resource to find out about information about certain industries or companies. I have joined certain groups which enables me to make connections that cross beyond my immediate connection circle. Finally, LinkedIn is a great search engine prophylactic. Don’t think people aren’t googling you. People meet you and what do they do immediately after?! They check you out online. What if you are doing amazing consulting work since you left your last job and the first search result is a press release from two jobs ago in 2003! I am amazed by how many executives don’t recognize the power of LinkedIn in helping all of us manage our on-line search results! Some of them like to brag at how many LinkedIn invites they have turned down. Then I tell them to google themselves. When they see the initial results, they then change their minds!
So all this being said, here are a few interesting posts on using LinkedIn:
What is LinkedIn?
Common Craft, whose product is “explanation”, put together this video on LinkedIn which is short, to the point and entertaining:
10 Ways to Maximize Your Profile on LinkedIN
Social media expert and blogger Kyle Lacy, through his company Brandswag hosted a seminar yesterday on how to maximize your profile on LinkedIn. The ten ways include:
- Take full advantage of your profile
- Upload your initial contacts
- Recommendations
- Using Groups
- Promotion of Events
- Using Your Status Updates
- Using Applications
- Networking for a Job or Lead Generation
- Search Functionality in LinkedIN
- Using LinkedIN for Lead Generation
In the post, Kyle also provides a link to the seminar’s presentation which provides more in depth information.
33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business
In July 2009, WebWorkerDaily published 33 ways to use LinkedIn for business which also included some good etiquette tips, such as:
- Don’t turn off your contacts: avoid hard-sell tactics.
- Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.
- Request LinkedIn recommendation from happy customers willing to provide testimonials.
Coming Soon: Your Professional Network within Microsoft Outlook
Yesterday in their blog, LinkedIn announced their new partnership with Microsoft which has three key benefits:
- Keep up with LinkedIn connections right from your e-mail inbox
- Email your LinkedIn connections directly from Outlook
- Keep building your professional network from Outlook.
Visual Step-by-Step Instructions to Connect Your Twitter and LinkedIn Accounts
Last week, LinkedIn announced a new feature which links your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile via your status update. It also enables you to send out tweets from your LinkedIn account.
Posted on Tue, Oct 27, 2009
Today’s Daily Bytes focuses on Google’s history in two minutes, musings about what integrated marketing will be in 2010 and what are the right social media directions for your company.
11 Years of Google in Two Minutes
In yesterday’s Daily Bytes, we looked at the history of social media from the 70’s to today. Well today we feature a two minute video put together by Google’s UK You Tube Channel that tracks Google’s history from Stanford to Mountain View. It is a breathtaking ride to think of all that has been accomplished. The video ends with the question of “What Next?” . . . . while I don’t have the answers, I am sure we are in for another exciting journey. Also, there is apparently a mistake in the video which I couldn’t detect. Can you? Clue: you might want to read the comments on this Google blog post to make your own determination. In the meantime, enjoy the video:
Top 10 Integrated Marketing Trends for 2010
The Brand Strategy Insider provides a list of the top 10 integrated marketing trends that they foresee for 2010. They are as follows:
- Less will get done: until we learn to do more with less
- Marketers will mistakenly ‘whack’ a medium of he marketing mix
- Marketers rush to employ ’social networking’ strategies
- More data and even less ‘understanding’
- Lines between media will continue to blur
- Push vs Pull will become less relevant
- Great content will travel at the ’speed of share’ — ‘average’ experiences will evaporate
- The Adult 18-49 demo will become even less relevant as a target cohort
- Symbiosis will create interesting and at times strange partnerships
- The year 2010 will become the year of the ‘good idea’
While the first four points are more than dour [from my perspective] about where things are going, the overall analysis is positive and we are perhaps at a tipping point as to where integrated marketing is going – and to me that means, marketing efforts will become authentically integrated versus a portfolio approach masked as integration.
Are Your Directions Wrong?
The Relationship Economy produced a great blog series that they called The How Series. It is a series of 12 blog posts that focuses on the social media directions a company can take. They also produced a white paper – Social Media Directions – that is dowloadable through this link which goes into further exploration of the directions companies can take. The post referenced here today is the last in the The How Series. The post has some great take-aways: 1) social media is a never ending-process of learning; there is no recipe or formula, 2) social media is “simply a new communications system” and companies should 
focus more on the people engaged in social media than on the technologies, and 3) maximizing the power of social media requires assessing “organizational design, culture, management and communications”. Finally, the post points out that getting your social media direction right requires more than marketing and PR.
So, with some history to consider, some marketing integration predictions for 2010 and food for thought on social media directions, where is your business headed?
Posted on Thu, Oct 22, 2009
Today’s Daily Bytes focuses more on the happenings from this year’s Web 2.0 Summit, including a great analysis of Mary Meeker’s annual state of the internet Tuesday from Read Write Web, advancements in social search as Google and Twitter are in final stages of an alliance and a recap of tweets from the last day of the Web 2.0 Summit.
Emerging Internet Trends: An Analysis of Mary Meeker’s Web 2.0 Summit Presentation
In yesterday’s Daily Bytes, I included a recap of Mary Meeker’s presentation from the first day of the Web 2.0 Summit. Today ReadWriteWeb went beyond a recap and put together a great analysis of the presentation, including Mary’s analysis of this current time period versus the 2001 time frame.
Global Technology Sector Revenue & Y/Y Growth, CQ1: 96 – CQ4: 09E
Looking at this chart, the post goes on to conclude that we can assume that the next great internet wave will be upon us by 2011. Read Write Web also further examines Mary’s comments as it relates to mobile. Lastly, the post points out that Mary’s presentation omitted other important trends, such as “Internet of Things and real-time web”.
RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!
Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience, writes about how Google and Twitter have “have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results.” This puts Google into the world of real-time search or social search. This announcement a day after Twitter and Bing had made a similar announcement. To learn more about Google’s plan in this arena, here is a video of Marissa Mayer talking about this deal at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday. I watched it and am extremely excited about this development professionally and personally. It really has the potential to harness the “wisdom of crowds”. It is just under 8 minutes and is a worthwhile watch if you are interested in where search is going:
We follow Twitter on the last day of Web 2.0 Summit, so you don’t have to
I have been tracking the tweets coming from the Web 2.0 Summit so I could vicariously feel like I was there. The tweet stream has been interesting and illuminating. Plus it forced me to be participatory. For example, today John Battelle tweeted that there was going to be a special guest that was at the first summit 5 years ago to close the summit and invited tweeps to guess who? Tweeps were punching out guesses while I was searching on line to find out who was there at the Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Much to my dismay, I guessed wrong and it wound up being Sergey Brin of Google. To get a more interesting peek at the Twitterverse at the Web 2.0 Summit this year, check out this post from the Industry Standard which provides interesting insights from the conversations at this year’s Web 2.0 Summit.
Posted on Fri, Sep 25, 2009
Today’s Daily Bytes focuses on HubSpot’s Top 5 Inbound Marketing stories for the week, how online is allowing marketers to do more with less, the top 3 ways to damage your brand with social media and ceasing the screaming through social media.
Top 5 Inbound Marketing Stories of the Week: Worthless Meta Tags
Some great articles including one highlighted in this post earlier this week – “The 4 R’s of SEO: Robots, Ranking, Relevance & Results”. However, the most illuminating one of this week’s collection is a post discussing Google’s revelation on its own blog that it is not looking at keywords meta tags when ranking websites! Additional stories are on Google page rank, finding follow links in social networks, and the lack of ROI on most social media programs.
Online Helps Marketers Do More With Less
eMarketer sums up some interesting data from the “2009 ANA/MMA Marketing Accountability Survey”. Needless to say in this recession, the survey found that most marketers were focusing on doing more with less. In addition, 70 % of those surveyed responded that they were shifting investments from traditional to digital media.
Three Top Ways to Damage Your Brand With Social Media
Here they are: 1) start a Twitter account and don’t use it (it is amazing how many companies do that), 2) don’t track your brand in social media using free or paid monitoring tools (by the way, there are a lot of great free tools), and 3) start a social media program, but don’t tell the rest of the company about it. Great post with good anecdotes.
Social Media Is Not Another Way to Scream
Thank you Kyle Lacy for writing this short post. I agree!!! Social Media is a conversational platform not a broadcasting platform!
Have a good weekend everyone!