Kuhr Strategies

New Travelocity Travel Daily Deal Flash Sale

2011-08-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

New Flash Sale Site O' The Day
It seems that Travelocity is now in the daily deal / flash sale business too. It took a while. They were clearly taking their time to think of a great name, and have decided on "Dashing Deals". Nothing like name-choice-by-committee to really create a zinger.

So, what does it do besides tap into the millions-strong Travelocity customer base? Oh, something totally different: “Travelocity’s Dashing Deals program provides customers with deep discounts at great hotels,” said Carl Sparks, President and CEO, Travelocity Global.

Thanks Carl - that's nifty. (Sarcasm is 100% mine)

Oh, and they show you if the room is actually available before you buy. Read more here. Nice job!

With all that going for it, there's no way I'll miss out on signing up for this "me too" "also ran" daily deal. On second thought, I'm sure I'll avoid it.

Keeping track? Here's a complete list of Travel Flash Sale Sites.

New Flash Sale Site for Travel: Orbitz Insider Steals

2011-06-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Only a matter of time before all the OTA's get into the travel flash sale game. They have emails of millions of customers, why not put them to use?

Insider Steals from Orbitz is the latest in travel sales, you need to register your email address in a normal Orbitz account to sign up. Exclusive? No. Good deals? Probably. Leading the market? Not at all.

I think the Expedia / Groupon combo Groupon Getaways has more potential for success.

CheapTickets.com has also launched weekly (not daily) members-only flash sales called very creatively: “Members Only Prices.” So original.

Who's next?

Travelocity? Hotels.com? Lastminute.com? My money's on Travelocity.

Keeping score? Here's a complete list of Travel Flash Sale Sites.

Modular Social Features - The Time Has Come

2011-06-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

How many websites are built with social functionality from the ground up? I have an answer (of course): very few.

I'm not talking about "friends" and "social networks" - things that only Facebook really needs to do at this point, but social features - the things we're starting to take for granted on the market-leading sites across all verticals, like Amazon, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Huffington Post. User-generated content (notes / blogs, etc), ratings, reviews, content sharing, top ten lists, photo galleries, recommendations, etc. are all social features.

When the CEO says 'we need some of that social stuff on our website', what do most web teams (that aren't Amazon) do? Spend a lot of time and money building the same functions that everyone else has, of course. There's very little innovation because just replicating this functionality is hard enough, and there is very little ability to "bolt on" this functionality for 2 reasons:

Social is built around users, and every website has their own interpretation of a visitor, user, login, and account.
Social needs to be built into the fabric of the site. It needs to bring life to a one-way conversion. It's not suitable, appropriate or successful when a company builds a social area that's completely separated from the site content, so seamless integration is a must.

"Social" to me means focusing on people instead of pages. Expecting that everyone is the same just isn't good enough anymore - people are different and websites should recognize them as such.

Some sites already do a great job at this, including a past customer that rhymes with Bluffington Host. Understanding the behavior of their logged in users and rewarding them and incentivizing them is key to their success. Analyzing deep behavioral data is a different challenge, but getting the mechanisms on the site to push people in the right direction is the first step, and is too hard to do today. I'd call this advanced functionality, and it's a key strategic advantage for this publisher. Unless you have really smart people on your product team thinking about this strategically, it's not going to happen. The reality is people working on most 'normal' websites, including ecommerce sites, just aren't those people.

Basic social functionality, however, doesn't need to be the re-creation of the wheel each and every time. There's a science to social, paradigms to be followed for the best results, and the modules / widgets / functions can be very similar from site to site. It all depends on how they're "built in", and that's why just about every website that "adds social" has to do it internally as part of their proprietary code. If this part were easy, more people could devote time and resources to the deep data analysis and the advanced part of social.

I think the time has come for a modular system to solve this problem. Most websites that are making money or driving leads today are not clean - they're messy, with years of code behind them. Starting from scratch or re-architecting is not an option, so integrating functionality that's actually designed for spaghetti code is required.

A framework that developers can work directly with that uses object-oriented concepts and enables developers to take pre-designed but configurable and skinnable modules and plug them into their site is the next step in the evolution of social as part of everyday life. Such a framework would create the required database tables, and integrate directly with proprietary user data, transaction data, and visit/event data through a robust and open API. The calls within the code must would be able to display statuses and activities and actions of each visitor, and be modular so they can be accessed across heterogeneous sites, different coding languages, and different levels of formatting and styling.

Integrating social functionality is increasingly important - if you don't have social functionality yet, you're already behind (and, just to clarify, this does NOT mean displaying a 'Follow Us on Twitter' button).Building it efficiently, quickly or cost effectively is hard while you're trying to keep your current site working and re-writing isn't an option. Making it easy is what I'm thinking about now.

Complete List of Flash Sale / Private-Sale Sites for Travel

2011-06-16T13:46:00.001-07:00

More flash sale sites focused on travel & hotels every day

How easy is it to start a flash sales site or private sale site focused on travel? Pretty easy, apparently. Let's see how many of these flash sale travel sites are still around in two years as:

Consumers get burned out on too many daily deal emails in their inbox
The economy improves and the lowest deals with their accompanying restrictions aren't sought after quite as much
Hotels and travel suppliers find that dealing with some of these companies just isn't good business.

What's the difference between Flash Sale and Private Sale you ask? A 'private sale' means membership is exclusive - you to be member to get access to see the deals. Membership can be exclusive where you need to get an invitation from the site or from a friend, or it can be open where anyone can join by filling in a form.

A flash sale is a limited-time sale with limited inventory that can get sold out. But access to see the sale isn't necessarily restricted - some sites are open, some are members-only. Private sale sites are generally flash sale sites, but not the reverse.

This is a definitive list of flash sale and private-sale travel sites, and the list is continuously appended as I find more (I'll add a date next to new additions). I might even write more about each as time permits. The list is split between travel-only sites and sites that also sell goods and products as their primary business.

Top Travel Private Sale / Flash Sale Websites (dedicated to travel)

Vacationist - private sale site focused on luxury hotels - both domestic and international - that has exclusive membership and isn't open to the general public. Vacationist is a joint venture between Travel+Leisure and Luxury Link and is by far my favorite.
TravelZoo - the original flash sale, these guys have been sending lists of 'curated' deals (paid for by vendors) out since the 90's. They don't have exclusive offers, but rather connect consumers directly to suppliers.
Jetsetter - flash sale site focused on upscale travel, owned by the Gilt Groupe
SniqueAway - part of the TripAdvisior / Expedia group, this flash site offers more local, drivable US destinations.
Voyage Privé - division of the largest travel private sale company in Europe, based in France. Now growing their membership in the US. Now partnered with Ideeli.
TripAlertz - members-only travel site where prices go down as bookings go up. "Groupon for Travel"
Tablet Hotels - some nice upscale and trendy properties, but prices aren't super discounted. More hip than substantial.
Overstock Vacations - with text big enough for a senior to read without glasses, Overstock's vacations and prices are visible to the public.
Off&Away - Private Sales, launched July 2010. Discounts of up to 50%. Fewer sales each week (3-5), thin descriptions of the hotel - very focused on booking. Calendar looks like Vacationist. (updated 7/10/2011)
Itinerie - a specialized site that offers savings on customizable luxury vacations in South America. Good looking site, complete tour packages - not just hotels.
Travesse - another 'me too' private travel site with "luxury" hotels and holidays focused on UK residents.
Trazzler - a website trying to be a bit more hip and social, they provide info as well as deals. Membership required only to book.
Trippo - exclusive getaways, half the price. With a hippo as a mascot, doesn't look too upscale, but hasn't quite launched yet.
Yuupon - seem to be positioning themselves like the Walmart of flash travel. Downscale accommodations in all areas of the US. Anyone can see prices, anyone can book. I'm sure this will do well, but I'll never use it. Just like Walmart.
Trippr - it was coming from Tippr, but haven't seen anything yet. Tippr requires a minimum number of buyers in a local market to 'unlock' a deal.
HotelTonight - not quite a flash sale, but a way to book highly discounted last minute travel on your mobile. You need to download their app. Perfect for road warriors without admins, or people stranded in airports.
InsiderTrips - Out of Business. This site is now for sale - whatever traffic they have goes to the best offer. (update: June 23, 2011).
HotelYo - my favorite name so far, yo. No, not really. They say discounts of up to 80% on 4- and 5-star hotels, for UK and Italian customers.
SecretEscapes - discounts of up to 70% off each week, focused on UK customers.
Vamoose.in - travel for people on the Indian sub-continent. Prices public and in rupees.
Spire - NEW! (June 23, 2011) Travel flash sale site, run by the people behind Perfect Escapes and Travel Intelligence. According to them: guaranteed lowest prices with a minimum of 30% off prices found than anywhere else. Also allow cancellations for up to 72 hours after a trip is booked, minus a $29 fee.
Orbitz Insider Steals NEW! (June 27, 20011) is the latest in travel sales, you need to register your email address in a normal Orbitz account to sign up.
CheapTickets.com Members Only Prices launched weekly (not daily) members-only flash sales. Not separate from normal registration.
Travelocity Dashing Deals NEW (August 29, 2011). Discounted hotel rooms shown on the Travelocity website. Big differentiator: not a voucher, but actually like a travel flash sale.

Top Flash Sale Sites (with a travel component / brand)

Living Social Escapes - moderately priced, upscale hotels, part of the growing Living Social kingdom.
Groupon Getaways - Groupon announced a partnership with Expedia, we're waiting for this one to launch in July. It could be big, most likely it will continue to fuel the revenue growth in ponzi-scheme-like style for the daily deal 8,000 ton monster.
HauteLook Getaways - acquired Bonvoyou then was acquired by Nordstrom. Not sure if travel is key for Nordstrom, we'll see what happens.
Ideeli Travel - created a new division with partner Voyage Privé, launched today: "Up to 100 of the most-wanted domestic and international destinations each month, all at ideeli members-only pricing of 30% to 75% off" (Updated: June 21, 2011)
exclusively.in - for residents of India, offers both travel and consumer products (and saris).
Bloomspot Travel - more local deals, with some decent upscale hotels
Rue La La - partnered with the Virtuouso luxury travel agency to provide travel deals next to their designer fashion products.
Facebook Travel Deals - no, not quite yet, but it's just a matter of time until they add travel as a category to their new Deals section.
Mamapedia - a site focused on, you guessed it, Moms! Hotel deals are part of the everyday mix of goods.
FamilyFinds - another Mom focused site, with lots of local deals & some actually great travel deals designed for families.
Zozi - local deal site focused on activities, not products, with a travel section. One of the only sites with a money-back guarantee. Most others are no-refund deals.
Vaniti - not yet launched. I'll keep an eye out.

Your site not listed here? Let me know.

Social media #FAIL #2 - Social Media is Constantly Changing

2010-07-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Why Marketers and Companies Continue to #FAIL at Social Media Execution

Social media can be defined as communication by people using digital tools to have conversations with one or more known or unknown parties - individuals, groups, companies, brands. These conversations take place on social media sites like Facebook, but also on millions of blogs through comments, on microblogs (like Twitter), through smartphones, through mobile apps or Facebook apps, and even through “old school” tools like discussion boards and forums.

Many marketers who have excelled at traditional advertising – online or offline – have a hard time getting their arms around social media and what it means to them and their business.

Not just because it’s a different channel. And not just because it’s a discussion rather than a one-way push of information.

For many marketers, the difficultly exists because the definition of social media and associated tools are morphing and changing and being used differently on a weekly basis. And they're proliferating.

Getting your arms around the world of social media is a challenge that requires constant attention, constant change and constant learning – very unlike any other form of marketing or advertising.

Advertising has become pretty structured. Take TV, print, radio, outdoor, and even online display. There are agencies, buyers, creatives, producers, ad sellers. They all have their place in a tightly integrated world, delivering their piece of the puzzle and taking a cut along the way. Measurement is straightforward - there are standard metrics, measurement tools and services at the ready with comparisons to well-defined baselines.

Search engine marketing was the first push in a very new direction – where the rules of the game are dynamic, in motion, and can change on a dime. Search engine marketing (both PPC and SEO) needs constant attention by experts to get any sort of decent result. Marketing through search engines isn’t just about producing a creative, buying space, and running the creative for a month or two. It requires designing and developing many creatives (ads and landing pages), dynamic bidding, growing a network of links, and optimizing results based on metrics. Incorporating changes every day. It's a marketing campaign with no end date (except when your PPC budget runs out).

If Google changes their ranking algorithm, page rebuilding ensues.
If a competitor bids double what you’re paying for an effective keyword, new thinking and restructuring is a must.

If you thought search engine marketing caused you grief, social media is will be a monster.

How many social sites are there? Facebook, LinkedIn, Live, MySpace (yes, still there), Orkut, sure. But what about the millions of blogs out there, and microblogs like Twitter? What about new group sites like Gravity that gather people with similar interests? Yelp, where you might be interested in only one listing? YouTube, and the Break Media sites that encourage community feedback and conversation? Yahoo and Google Groups? Specific interest sites like OleOle.com focused on a single, but controversial topic, where multi-media contributions are part of the fun?

How are they different? How many are completely unique? What can be carried across them? What is the new one that just cropped up this week? What device(s) are people using to access them?

Your brand might be discussed on any one of these sites or tools. It might be important to you to get into that discussion, or maybe just monitor it. There are so many different places that people can have a digital conversion, and they are new sites every week, new iPhone apps, new IPTV services.

The first step in getting a grip on social media is to go into learning mode. Learn about the sites you need to understand. Learn how advertising works on those sites, what type of voice you need, how friending or ‘fanning’ works. How people exchange information. Each site is somewhat unique. Learn and read every week. Setup profiles. Make "friends". Know what's going on with each tool. And then keep learning.

Then, once you know how a social media site really works, develop a plan for monitoring, setup KPI's, understand that this list will continue to change, and most likely continue to grow.

Social media’s “unstructured-ness” is why people like it so much. The new sites are the new cool, and the trendsetters are always looking for that “cool” factor they can introduce to their circle of friends. Some sites will catch on, some won’t, but there will always be a new offering out there as entrepreneurs and VC’s look to find the next thing to entice those people looking for the new cool.

Working with social media requires a child’s curiosity to continually explore, learn, challenge, and adapt quickly to the results. Keep reading, keep learning.

PART 2 in a series.

Part 1: Social Media is NOT A Marketing Channel Unto Itself

Social Media: Why Marketers and Companies Continue to #fail at Social Media Execution

2010-06-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

One of the things I’m seeing now as the buzz on social media marketing and measurement is increasing in volume (not quite a vuvuzula levels but close) is that people (marketers in particular) are treating social media as a new distinct marketing channel. Of course we’ve seen some companies run single-channel social media campaigns, but the medium wasn’t “designed” that way, and only a few hip B2C brands can actually pull that off.

I see five primary reasons why social media is so disruptive to marketing departments, and difficult to get a grip on for so many companies - both large and small:

Social media is not a distinct marketing channel unto itself (below)
Social media is constantly changing
The marketing department is no longer in charge of messaging
Social media requires entire businesses to become more transparent and truly authentic
It is both less and more measurable than any broadcast advertising

There are plenty of articles out there on the tactics of social media, social media suicide, and the top things that marketers need to not do when trying to leverage social media, but these are symptomatic of these big picture problems.

I’ll cover each of these big picture items in subsequent posts, starting here with #1:

Social Media is NOT A Marketing Channel Unto Itself
It’s an Extension of All Channels and Departments

Social media is a direct conversation with the public. It is an extension of the entire business and it complements every other channel and every other department. This is a huge distinction from traditional media, email, outdoor, print, etc. It’s all about two way communication, not defined one-way messaging.

I just read this MediaPost article recapping a survey that found that most companies that are ‘doing’ social media don’t have a social media strategy. Having a strategy where social media efforts compliment other integrated marketing efforts through direct conversation is just as much of a plan as running a distinct social media campaign. In fact, that is probably better for most companies. But, I’m not that nuance was captured in this survey.

Social media should alert people to things the company is doing, from promotions, to product, to customer support, to partnerships. It’s the voice of the company, and it doesn’t require a ton of money to use effectively. Even worse - it requires internal coordination and communication! It’s much harder for companies to agree on a single voice than it is for them to spend gobs of money to overcome public perception or competitive pressures.

The first thing that marketers should do is educate their company that using social media means that whoever’s in charge of the social media team needs to know what’s going on – company-wide. In that way, it’s very much like PR, but the information has to flow at both the macro (company to customer) and micro level (customer service rep to customer).

Getting this information to the social media group in a timely manner is critical so discussion that compliment print, coupon, banner ad promotions can be timed effectively. Customer service information can be incorporated intelligently into conversations. So that special social media-only promotions can be run in conjunction with campaigns of any sort. So customer raves can be posted. And so that any backlash, criticism or crisis control can be effectively discussed, without backlash or additional controversy.

To set an example for the company on communicating effectively, marketers should plan a social media component into every campaign (no matter how small the campaign or component) until it becomes second nature. The CMO should also ensure that someone in each channel has a direct line of communication to a centralized social media team, again providing a clear example of how he's like this function to work with other departments.

Social Media is changing the landscape of the company, and it starts with the marketing team. More to come...

The Future of Media

2009-09-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

The future of media isn’t about technology or channels, it’s about delivering an experience.

As I was sitting eating a couple of slices of authentically good mushroom pizza in New York, and reflecting on the panel discussion I heard earlier that morning at Ad Week on the “The Future of Media” (thanks for the invite Jon @Mediapost) I realized that content and technology are the wrong things to pay attention to – the future of media isn't technology or advertising, it's bringing exceptional experiences closer to normal people.

It wasn’t just the endorphins released by the pizza, but the things going on at the same time. In my quest for good Italian pizza, I just happened to wander past Grand Central to 3rd Avenue where there was a throng of cops, FBI agents and other protectors of the commonwealth ensuring stability, as the UN and Obama met to hash out the same old things. I wandering into a throng of Iranian demonstrators on the side sidewalk chanting “Hey, Ho, Ahmadinejad has to go!” and a small collection of Tibetans holding polite signs telling China to leave their country. They were eating pizza, too.

But it was actually seeing a picture of Neda, the woman who was shot and killed while peacefully protesting in Tehran, on one of their signs that jolted me – the media, including new technologies and crowd reporting, brought these people around a central topic of interest and made them closer to it - almost part of it. And when I say media, its TV, radio, print, Twitter, YouTube and every other technology and distribution channel.

The disruption that’s happening to ‘big media’ isn’t on content, it’s on speed of delivery. It’s not about print v. video, it's about personal experiences. It's not about any one technology, it's about how technology is becoming immersive and personal and connects people directly. It's still broadcast, but it's not mass market. Monetizing a special experience will continue to drive media, just as it's driven entertainment.

On the prestigious panel were Mark Cuban, Martha Stewart, Reid Hoffman and Judy McGrath the CEO of MTV. McGrath explained how they leveraged technology the MTV video music awards this year to actually increase their audience size as the program went on, due to the now famous Kanye incident. She saw people in the audience like Pink start Tweeting as soon as it happened. Videos were posted to YouTube immediately. New technologies have enabled the speed of the message (experiences happen in real time), and provided the appearance one-to-one personalization (individuals are now empowered to be their own broadcasters every media - text, video and audio).

Separately, Mark Cuban spoke about how the Internet and social media are mature from a platform perspective and there is nothing new going on. While that’s true technically, the adoption of technology across the mass market is different. He's kind of right, the Internet and social media were here a long time ago, but it's not connecting to the masses yet. But what he actually focused on is how cool the new Dallas Cowboys stadium's massive video screen is, and how that is the next platform that media companies should be looking at to deliver their content. That's super for the 10 $40M screens in the next 10 years, but isn't the near future. What he didn’t say explicitly, but described nonetheless, is that the immersive experience that the display creates / provides is a huge differentiator.

People want to be a part of experiences that don’t directly involve or even pertain to them. In another great presentation I saw at the IAB / MIXX conference by MeVIO, its founder Adam Curry, former MTV vee-jay, described the growth and success of MTV as bringing people closer to icons and rock stars (and brands). Commentary and interviews and simply video of stars performing, rather than just audio, was a new experience that fundamentally changed music. This is a diferent spin on the same thing - immersion and connection through media. You could even argue that the Beatles and Elvis on Ed Sullivan was the start of this connection, but MTV brought it to the masses 24 hour as day.

Not to say that the paparazzi and glamorization of celebrities is a ubiquitous goal, but sharing an experience in a way that enables us to have a deeper understanding and deeper comprehension of what it's like to be there is the key. Entertainment understands this, the challenge is for non-entertainment media to provide deep connections while being neutral, and monetizing their unique, special experience.

The more senses we immerse, the more we feel like we know it. It’s escapism just as much as it’s realism. We can’t be everywhere, we can’t be part of everything, but media will continue to get us closer and closer. If media can embrace this and deliver it better than individuals, people will pay for it. Bring them into a conflict, be part of a demonstration, eat lunch with a movie star. And that, delivered in an easy-to-consume format, is worth paying for, regardless of the technology or platform.

The Future of Media?
Maybe the world timeline of media looks like this, where media is both the creation / editing / delivery of content, entertainment, rumors, and news. Taking a look at the world, you can see different groups aspiring to move from one level to the next, and the historic events that shaped each step like the 1st amendment and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

No information
Word of mouth information
Single source “official” information
Multiple source “official” information
Approved information
Multi source, multi-channel information
Too much information!
Information I want to see only
Recommended information
Becoming part of the events that drive the information

If the Web is Now Real-Time, Where are the Real-Time Analytics?

2009-07-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

If the web is going real-time (seems that way according to all the recent hype) why are marketers and Internet companies still using old, slow data warehouse technology to analyze interactions?

If Web 1.0 means replicating "old" systems online - a push of information from originator to consumer, then Web 2.0 is the next step - a back and forth discussion between originator and recipient.

Web 3.0 is here, and it's subtly different on the outside (which is why there's no fanfare), but it's impact on Internet infrastructure is massive - the conversation goes from originator to user, to groups completely outside of the originator's understanding, intent or control. Conversations are completely decentralized, and rise and fall based on networks, not the source. Twitter, re-tweets, and completely asynchronous, unorganized group messaging is a new paradigm and makes interactions hard to follow, and the data they generate much more difficult to capture and understand at a high level.

Web marketers, online advertisers, and content distributors can't rely on data warehouses to provide analysis of these conversations - they are very complex and unbounded events. Business intelligence systems were designed as back-office applications and meant for data mining well-known data well after the fact. They are completely unsuited for this role. But we're using 'em because "that's what we got and that's what we know."

When you think about it, it's silly that you can have a million users visit your website in a day, but you have no idea what happened until a day later.

Business intelligence is much different from "Internet intelligence" or "social web intelligence" (you heard it here first). On the now social Internet, you need to know what's happening now to make an impact, optimize, or re-target based on activities. The next day, when a data warehouse could deliver that insight, is far too late.

Open-source projects like Hadoop and MapReduce that eschew relational database storage techniques are a different way to tackle the problem. They break data up into manageable chunks that distribute and speed processing. But the basic idea that data must be pulled out of production systems to process and analyze across dozens or hundreds of servers - then re-centralized and shoved back in - still doesn't fit with the need to process data as it's generated. These systems still have significant lag times (hours or days), and are really complicated to manage. Internet intelligence requires analysis within the production environment, in real time - whether or not action is actually taken in real time.

There are a lot of smart people out there, so why hasn't anyone been able to solve this problem? Well, to be fair, it's only gotten to be a real problem in the last few years. Before that, in Web 1.0 and 2.0, the volume of data being generated was manageable and understanding interactions could wait until tomorrow.

Today, many well-funded vendors are trying to solve this problem (getting immediate analysis from massive amounts of data in a cost-effective manner), but it's a very hard problem to solve. Some Internet companies are building their own stuff (Facebook, Google, YouTube, Yahoo!), some are leveraging the fastest third party data warehouse products (Teradata, Netezza, even Oracle). But, whether it's all based on the idea of batch processing, and whether it's being built in-house, or it's one of the super-scale data warehouse vendors, it's REALLY expensive ($2 - $10m just to start off with a Teradata system), and it goes up the more data and the faster you want results.

I found one company, Truviso, that stands out from these other vendors - they are actually able to deliver real-time data analysis in a production environment in a cost-effective manner. They haven't figured out how to make a data warehouse faster, but instead they process data in a different way.Truviso's Continuous Analytics software processes data in real time before it's stored in a database, so it completely eliminates the lag time in batching and loading and indexing, or chunking and distributing data across clusters. Analysis is done on the fly, decisions based on data can be automated, and people can actually see what's happening on their websites - and across conversations - at any time.

Truviso has created a scalable data analytics system for Internet production environments with real-time data analysis problems. Online ad networks, CDN's, social networks, and online video companies are producing massive amounts of data that they need to analyze to deliver better experiences for their users or customers. Their business depends on the analysis of this data for revenue generation - it's vitally important to them. If they can make a change today instead of tomorrow, that could result in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue.

This type of Internet intelligence analysis is going to change the status quo. Once companies realize they don't have to wait for analysis anymore, there will be no going back. They'll expect it. They'll want it all the time. And that's the right way to go, especially since the group-discussion that defines Web 3.0 aren't going to go away.

Die IE6, Die. Everyone's Got To Go Sometime...Your Time Was 2 Years Ago.

2009-07-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

Dealing with people still using Internet Explorer 6 is a nightmare - so much extra coding and QA to get even basic webpages produced. I can't agree enough with Ben on his recent Mashable post.

Engineering productivity levels wouldn't double but it would probably go up by 35% - 45% to accommodate these 20% of Internet users who just won't upgrade. There are much faster ways of coding, doing quality checking, and assurance that teams can't use because of IE6.

The lowest common denominator of IE6 users is hurting progress in developing great, useful, fast and high-interaction AJAX pages. Maybe the seeming immortality of IE6 is one of the reasons we're still looking at pageviews and CPM for measurement in advertising. Everyone knows that with AJAX and FLASH, pageviews become meaningless since a page can be refreshed over and over, and a user can be shows dozens of ads without actually changing the URL of the page. So, a single pageview, but a complete user experience. But AJAX is very very slow and doesn't work a lot of the time on IE6, so as the browser that just won't go away, IE6 keeps development and user experience restricted.

Web developers - stop building for IE6, and throw up a huge note to tell users to upgrade. If content disappears, IE6 users won't have any options.

A call to all IE6 users - UPGRADE! IE8 is out now, nevermind the fact that IE7 is actually OK. Or use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. They're both better than IE anyway.

You were great at one time, but please go away IE6, it's time.

Goodbye Geocities, cu l8tr

2009-06-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry To See You Go, Free Personal Website

All good free things come to an end, and Geocities (part of whatever the hell Yahoo360 was supposed to be) is next on the list. I've had my Geocities site up since 1998 or so. It first held my first website ever, all about my wedding, and had tons of great pictures of guests wearing funny hats.

I used it to learn the basics of HTML and creating beveled, multi-state buttons in Photoshop, as much an exercise in fun and learning as it was about making my wedding viewable by all (can you remember when Flickr and the Kodak Gallery didn't exist?).

Next, I created an 'about me' site and learned advanced table syntax and even some Javascript. That pushed the boundaries of my scripting ability and reconfirmed that I was meant to market and find value in technology, not create technology. How can developers remember where everything is? Anyway, my personal profile site has been up for 9 years or so I think. Not sure what to do now, but I think I'll just copy my bio and published articles into a new blog post, take a few screenshots, and have a sorry and mournful goodbye.

What's Worse than Yahoo360? Well, the new Yahoo Profiles.
But, before I get the tissues, I wanted to heckle (scold?) Yahoo! for what could have been a great transition to get everyone to their 'new' preferred platform. They've failed miserably! Why would anyone commit to a platform that sucks all the way back to 2002?

This is is the hilarity, directly from their blog:

First you shut down Mash, now you shut down 360—why should I give profiles a shot?
We understand you might have doubts—in the past few years, you’ve seen a couple of social sites come and go, and it means a lot to us that you’ve stuck around while we’ve tweaked each experience. Know that we’re committed to having a universal profile across Yahoo!, and we’re committed to working with you to improve and evolve this profile to make sure it’s what YOU want to use. That doesn’t mean we can implement every piece of feedback you provide, but it does mean we’re listening, and we are going to do our best to make sure your interests are incorporated into future releases and versions of your profile.

What about customization and photos? On 360 I can change the look and feel and upload multiple photos—can I do this with profiles?
At this time, your new profile does not have all the features and functionality of your 360 profile. However, we are looking at incorporating new ways of expressing yourself through your profile.

In regards to uploading multiple photos, your profile on Yahoo! allows for only one primary photo for now. This is also something we’re looking at improving/expanding based on your feedback.

OK, you don't have nearly the same featureset, you can't upload multiple pictures, but we're working on it? You can do better than this, Melissa Daniels (and you NEED to do a lot better than this Carol Bartz)

So, after July 13, this blog is the new official freestylin' home of Tom Kuhr...until Google decides blogging shouldn't be free either...

Good Feedback is a Product Managers Best Friend - UserVoice

2009-05-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

I ran across a company called UserVoice today and it looks like they've got their act together. I don't know how long they've been in testing / beta but have done a great job with making their website clear and their customer validations prominent. Apart from website envy, the concept of the company is great and I hope they're able to monetize it and stay in business.

UserVoice makes it easy for companies to collect user feedback in an organized, social way. How many times have you received the same feature request over weeks or months, only to lose it in the feature prioritization shuffle?

UserVoice lets users discuss features and bugs but submit their own, and rate (vote for) features that others have suggested. It's leveraging the power of the crowd to do feature prioritization for the product. Of course, this is still customer feedback and needs to be evaluated alongside product portfolio and market strategy, but its certainly much better than anything else I've seen.

UserVoice started off selling its service to start-ups but has expanded to big clients such as Intuit Inc., the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Facebook Inc., Nokia Corp., Nielsen Co., Genetech Inc., Blackbaud Inc. and University of Wisconsin. - WSJ Online

Generally the "developer tools" market isn't sexy or that profitable unless you're catering to large companies, but this seems targeted to organized marketing and products groups rather than small startup software development groups where the technology is the innovation. This is funded by the ubiquitous Dave McClure and the Founders Fund, who see this problem all the time from the boardroom - what do customers really want and how can we really be sure? Credible, first hand data would certainly help VC's call BS on those CEOs hiding behind the curtain of personal bias.

I'll use UserVoice on my next web project and see how we get on.

Text Search v. Structured Search - The Difference Between Facebook and MySpace?

2009-05-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

Talking through the current success of Facebook and the defection of users from MySpace, it occurred to me that the way users search on both sites has a lot to do with the changing of the guard. So here's a functionality view rather than a strategy view.

Facebook's structured search, with the ability to find different types of pages based on
1) auto-complete
2) form-field searching is designed to find and identify specific people
3) search results grouped by content type

When you type a name of a friend or a Page, you get an 'auto-complete' which gives you a list to choose from of all your relationships. This is a very structured search, pulling real (and guaranteed) results from the database. Having a real ID in Facebook helps this immensely - first, last and location are required, where on MySpace your real name is quite optional. Structured text search and structured results allows you to search for specific information in specific fields, and see the results in content-groups. Friends, Apps, Pages, Networks are all groupings of results by content type. So if you're looking for a Bob Marley Group, you don't have to look through Apps or Profiles to find it.

MySpace was designed to connect people with bands, and enable people to meet online and new friends. The Search function, for better or worse, leverages Google's free-text search to find people based on name, phone number or alias. I'm not sure the choice of Google was thought out from a product perspective, but it was definitely driven by a 3 year Google ad revenue deal.
Using Google's free-text searching finds results based on an entire page of text, so the search picks up main profile info and URL keywords, but also friends' names on the profile, comments, descriptions, etc. This leaves the user with a large, unstructured list of potential matches, which has to be picked through. There's no way to say "the name field is the most important." All results are weighted using Google weighting parameters - inbound links and keyword relevance, the same stuff that's tweaked in search engine optimization. For example, my name might be Tom Kuhr but if if my hero is James Bond and I write about James Bond all over my profile. When a user searches for James Bond - presumably intending to find a friend of that name - my profile will show up much higher in results than James Bonds just because of this keyword repetition, even though that's not the searcher's intent.

There is a Browse function on MySpace, which enables a structured search based on profile parameters, but you can't look for a specific person this way - it only allows browsing on attributes.

Finding a friend becomes immensely easier and faster on Facebook. When I sign up as a new user, I'm able to quickly identify friends and build my lists. On MySpace, I can hunt around in Search, but the experience is challenging and slow and I need to page through results, constantly refine my search, and my network grows much less quickly. I think the use of Google for search on MySpace has contributed to the company's inability to maintain the leadership position as a social network, and is further driving its move to become an "interactive" entertainment company rather than a network.

Don't be Dogmative - Be a Great Listener

2009-04-04T22:24:00.001-07:00

I've identified a characteristic of managers that has been discussed many times before, but I don't know if it has a name so I'll just make one up: dogmative. A dogmative person that only cares about their black and white view of the world, their dogma. (As an aside, it sure is hard to come up with a good domain name nowadays!).

You know these people. It could be the CEO, a product manager, the VP of marketing or director of engineering. A dogmative person forms opinions very quickly and does not want to discuss, debate or understand different viewpoints. However, they're not confrontational about it. In fact, unless you think about it, you might not even notice that they're so set in their thinking, because they are always asking others what they think!

This ingenious strategy (I think most do it without thinking about it this way, so its more of a personality trait than a strategy) let's them seem like the best team players. They form an opinion, and go around and ask everyone what they think. Rather than looking for consensus or new ideas, they are only looking for someone to validate them. They will hunt far and wide for one other person who agrees, and they'll use that validation to continue to perpetuate their own thinking. It's certainly easy in a company surrounded by Yes Men, but should be a lot harder to get away with it a meritocracy like an early stage tech company. I still see it more that I'd like.

I worked with a CEO once who is the very definition of dogmative. He has no real basis for UI design or functional requirements, and could barely read a spec. But, he wanted to be involved in just about every UI, navigation and screen design. He would pay consultants, contractors, and design firms to come in and do (expensive) work. Experts in their field. But, when they differed in opinion, he'd find a new one. We churned through contractors and burned through money. Smlarly, he listened to new employees for a week, maybe two, and after that started ignoring their input, as if they didn't actually have the expertise they were hired for. Like they just lost it somewhere. It was a very frustrating and pointless work environment, devoid of any delegation. Every decision rested with the CEO; morale was horrible; the company burned through about 3x the money it should have. Most dogmative managers aren't this bad, but in the extreme, this behavior is poisonous like a hemlock shake.

In product management, dogmative behavior wastes time and leads to products that don't solve problems. Thinking that you know what an end user is going to think or want without asking them is a huge mistake. No matter how much you talk to users, the very moment you stepped into a role as a product manager, you separated yourself from a real user. Be humble. Don't pretend you know the answers. Don't let your ego get in the way of gleanng customer insight by listening to real customers.

Social Media is Based on the Real World - MySpace is Starting to Get It

2009-03-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Future of Social Advertising? MySpace and Citysearch jointly announce "MySpace Local"

Social media, especially social networing sites like MySpace, started as an deluxe online forum or bulletin board and just took those concepts to the next level. They are based on the concept that people went online with aliases and met and interacted with other people online. It was all about the cyber-world, not about the real world.

While MySpace has been trying to become the social entertainment capital of the net, Facebook (and now Twitter) has seen lightening growth based on a different model - the real world. People of an older generation, more practical people, and teens (it seems like just about everyone who's not a geek) have embraced the concept of using their real name and their real connections to real friends, real networks, real businesses, real schools and are voting with their mice and signing up in droves. It's the online version of you, rather than an online avatar or what you wish you were.

MySpace, because you don't have to be you, is anchored in a previous era (6 years is an era?) and just wasn't built on that real-world network of connections...of course you can add friends, of course you can indicate your hobbies, of course you can use your real name, but you can also be friends with pretenders, rockers, and movie stars and parts of cyberspace groups. The premise of Facebook is you are somehow validated as really being who you say you are. It's not a virtual world or bazaar, it's a representation of a person's real life, something that I daresay more people are comfortable with.

Where am I going? I think MySpace has made a move in the right direction - to the real world. They just announced a partnership and integration with CitySearch to enable the combination of social commentary on the real world listings and information of a very comprehensive contained in the CitySearch yellow pages. And your interaction with these listings will show up in your activity feed - letting others know immediately what you like, what you don't, what you recommend. It's a pre-cataloged slice of Twitter - talking about your preferences when it comes to activities, restaurants, hotels - without the inundating stream of consciousness of Twitter. A practical application - and what could be a model for social advertising. This isn't what page I joined or whom I'm a fan of, this is me and my experience recorded around a real thing, a real place, a real preference.

I really like the concept - I hope it's one of many steps in this direction that MySpace takes to become relevant again.

What Kills Site Conversion? Focus on Content, Usability and Empathy

2009-03-03T08:45:00.001-08:00

I wrote a few thoughts on what kills website conversion for Patrick Neeman on his great blog Usability Counts. Patrick used LinkedIn to solicit answers from his network, which I thought was a great idea to come up with blog material.

You can read my thoughts here.

http://www.usabilitycounts.com/2009/01/29/the-linkedin-edition-what-kills-site-conversion-2/

Use Cases: A MUST HAVE for any internet or software company

2009-02-07T08:33:00.000-08:00

"Everything for Everyone" = Nothing

Use Cases seem so obvious to me but are commonly overlooked by so many technologists, entrepreneurs, and even VC's. A few companies I've worked with recently have built products without any clear picture of who the buyer is or who will actually use the product. Sure, they want all IT directors, or all marketing managers to jump at it, but these are market segments, not users. Use cases are built from personas, and personas are built from market and user research, and are VERY specific. (If you haven't read this book on personas and use cases, you simply must.) Without both an understanding of one or more users and the specific detail on what they need to do / what they want to do, products end up doing "everything for everyone", rather than solving specific problems (with actual value) for certain types of people under certain conditions.

Use cases aren't easy to come up with, and they can be very narrow. They require someone to sit down with 5-20 people that match the persona, and understand how those people are solving their problem today - what steps do they take inside software, on the internet - but most importantly what steps do they take outside of technology to solve their problem. Technology is best applied when it can automate or assume the duties of haphazard or time consuming offline tasks. Understanding all the choices, decisions, variables and time frames that go into problem solving or goal achievement is the only way to develop a clear picture of how a technology can fit into those peoples' lives in a meaningful way. People don't like to change, and making the product or service"fit" better by describing a single use case will focus the development team on a path of least resistance for adoption, regular use and word of mouth marketing.

But, "everything for everyone" sounds great on the surface. Why wouldn't we want to build it for as big a market as possible? Why would you want to limit the number of potential buyers? I had a (insane) CEO tell me his product WILL be designed for ALL people in every country around the world - as if each citizen, as if each language, as if each culture were exactly the same. Those coarse gradations are obviously different, but even people in the same community, the same company, the same department are different - personas and use cases must be very specific to build a great product.

The R&D group typically loves "everything for everyone" because the product will be a big hit, and any features that they think up will only make the product better. Investors love looking at the huge market segments that the product will appeal to. Upper management thinks that with 'all my friends' and family validation they're on the right track ("Sure, sounds like I'd use that" couldn't be more different than "Yes, that would solve a problem I have right now and I'd pay $XXX for it because my alternative would cost 5x times that much"). But, in reality a broad product scope and an "everything for everyone" mentality translates to nothing quite right for anyone. In essence, zero mindshare and market share.

If a product only 1/2 solves a problem for a specific type of person, or 1/4 or even 7/8ths, it's not a complete solution. It might as well be labeled incomplete and not come out of alpha. If it can't take the place of an entire problem set, or at least specific section of a linear problem set, solving A to C or F to M rather than the full A to Z, it just isn't going to see the adoption that the company expects. It won't succeed if it solves A, D, and G. In the eyes of the intended user, which are the only eyes a company should use to evaluate its products, it doesn't solve a problem. I, as a user, am not going to mess with something, and especially won't pay for something, that doesn't meet my needs.

How do you change this? Usecases. Develop personas for the people you expect to seek to and the people you expect to use the product. Outline in detail what they do, what their challenges are, what makes them tick, how much time and patience they have, how much technology skill they have - everything that would influence their ability to use a product in a real situation. Frame the persona so well that the development team understands them to be a real person, NOT a demographic. Building for a demographic, or target market, leads directly to "everything for everyone". Here's the hard part - the thing CEO's and VC's hate to think about, and don't ever want to embrace: focus on one persona and don't worry about the rest of the market.

That is a huge step for anyone - an entrepreneur with dreams, a CEO with ambitions, a VC with committed funds. It makes sense because once you fine-tune the product to solve a complete problem for a specific type of user, you'll see the target adopt extremely rapidly and tell their friends. There will be incredible overlap with other types of users that haven't been considered. Those users will adopt too. They'll also need slight changes, additions, and new functions. That's OK - they're using it! And, you'll be selling so well to the original target, you'll have time to build the additional things to appeal even better to your additional (prioritized) personas. The fear of not being appealing to an entire, diverse market segment at launch has been the downfall of countless companies. This is really product focus - ensuring that the personas and use cases you start with are well thought out in the beginning, and the product meets those expectations and guidelines at launch.

Valuation Lessons: Market Makers v Product Sellers

2009-01-21T14:41:00.000-08:00

I attended a fantastic presentation at an Access Executive Network event last night. This is a great group of technology leaders who want to better themselves and also give back to the Southern California tech community. The speaker was a former Clearstone VC partner, Phil Ressler, who is now the CEO of BigStage Entertainment, a pretty cool personal avatar company just starting to get some market traction. Phil, as it turns out, is one of the only VC's (or former VC's in this case) that I've had the privilege to meet who understands software company operations, but more importantly understands how to find and appeal to a buyer.

I wrote about buyer personas last week and how I thought most VC's just didn't do enough homework before investing to determine if a company's product is sellable, and if so, who exactly they'd be selling it.

Phil Ressler, in his talk entitled "Communications are Strategic", went into quite a bit of detail about his personal experiences at three different software companies (Nantucket, Gupta and Callidus) and how he was able to transform these companies at a very early stage by changing their focus in the buying process, and using clear messaging and communications to creating a market need. He explained that at all three companies, the founders and early exec teams were very technology focused and understood marketing to be product marketing - talking about products, performance, and features. He was able to add a messaging layer on top focused on creating a bond with a buyer. These communications described the brand and tied prospective buyers to the company emotionally, rather than descriptively. It gave them the 'big picture' of the company.

Phil outlined very eloquently what I've always described as the promise to the customer. When you take away the debate about product features, speeds and feeds, and instead focus on understanding a customer's real problems, you position yourself as a trusted partner to help them solve them. That promise to the customer is something that most tech companies don't have, and can't possibly think of because they haven't identified the real buyer of their product or their motivations for buying. The promise is the 'big' vision that the company has, and it's also usually the most simple and clearest elevator pitch - it's not too detailed and conveys the end benefit to just about everyone.

Ressler provided 14 separate tips to help the audience understand how to become a 'market maker' and create demand, rather than remain a product-centric company selling into an existing, well defined space. A few things really stood out for me:

First, startup success isn't about selling a product really well, it's about creating market value. I've not heard it phrased quite so simply, but companies that have more buzz, more market presence, more mindshare, and more vocal customers get sold for a much higher valuations than companies with great technology or who are building a solid business quietly. That means creating company value, not just product value. It means providing solutions to solve a problem, including product, services, support, and a partner ecosystem. It means keeping that promise to the customer and exceeding expectations.
Next, successful market makers invest about 10% of their resources in engineering and technology and 90% into making the market - public relations, market education, public speaking, business development, awareness and becoming the perceived market leader. Market makers build the perception that their company is much larger than it really is, and talk about a problem as if everyone needs to solve it. If prospects think their peers are working on something, they won't want to be left behind. Creating a market need will drive business to come to you, rather than you having to seek the business.
Companies that are focused on creating value also understand that value has a time limit, and value actually goes down at some point. I think that inflection point is when buzz and mindshare about the company is at its highest. Its at the time of the greatest percentage in growth, rather than greatest real-dollar growth. The growth trajectory is the most important - it will level out at some point, but the most value is right before that when the company is 'hot' and seemingly unstoppable. At that time it becomes an emotional sale for the buyer - they've got to have it - and there's less attention paid to revenue, customers, and products due to this intangible aura of success. Companies who know their end-game is an acquisition must sell at this point and not continue to build an empire in the hopes of getting sold for more. Founders who think they will get more money later because they will have more revenue do an extreme disservice to shareholders.
Lastly, companies that build value offer multiple products. Even if the different products are varieties of the same core product, cutting out features is a great way to create an instant product portfolio and multiple price points. This is interesting because it does a few things: It gives customers a choice, it enables the maximization of revenue , it allows the sales team to close more deals that would have been lost due to price points (improving that growth trajectory), and it makes the company seem bigger than it is. Companies with one product can't go it alone at some point, especially in enterprise software - it becomes to hard and expensive to scale. Companies that have multiple products become a) more appealing to potential buyers b) have a greater chance of stand-alone success which in turn c) makes them even more appealing and valuable to potential buyers. Companies who have the choice to continue stand alone become more coveted, increasing their value in the eyes of a buyer.

Thanks for a great talk Phil, I hope I captured your thoughts accurately!

Advertising Growth Challenged Because of Social Networks? Rubbish.

2009-01-15T16:07:00.000-08:00

If this is a problem we're all in real trouble. I read this article in the Financial Times yesterday with disbelief and awe that someone could draw such a ridiculous conclusion. The report seems to be asking the wrong questions to come to this statement.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, which will publish the “Social Media Futures” report compiled by Future Foundation next week, has warned that advertising agencies face growth of just 1.2 per cent a year by 2016 if the industry fails to tackle the changes to the media created by sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Of course the landscape is changing! Social networking and personal recommendation for products is ensuring that word of mouth "advertising" is becoming a much much larger factor in product evaluation and decision making. That does NOT mean that less money will be spend on brand promotion, but it does mean that agencies that don't know how to market in the new world will get much less of it. Darwin's law will prevail again - there are agencies that have/will adapt and they will thrive and grow on that same hoard of cash. Industry growth will not be hampered, but wealth will be redistributed.

Movie studios have known about word of mouth and its direct influence on product success for years. That's why there is so much drama about release dates, pre-release advertising, pre-release availability, limited distribution, press screenings, etc. If your movie is going to suck, you want as many people as possible to pay and find that out first-hand rather than hear it from another source.

Online, personal recommendations are nothing new either. It started with eBay's seller ratings, CNET's gadget reviews by customers, and Amazon's comment system. It's been going this way for years. Just because social media has accelerated it and made buyer recommendations more trusted and more personal doesn't mean that word of mouth hasn't been influential, it just means that ad agencies are in denial and too comfortable to do anything about it.

Agencies who can't adapt or haven't started to adapt to this should go out of business. Advertisers that think creating a 'brand' is about commercials, imagery, spokespeople, graphics and point of sale communications are done. Even in Marketing 101 they teach you that a brand is the whole product experience, but in so many companies, this is completely forgotten. Branding means spending advertising dollars the "right" way to gloss over any product deficiencies, to ensure that products that are just OK have equal time in the eyes of potential buyers. In the 1960's (or maybe I've watched too many episodes of Mad Men) this worked - products relied on awareness and distribution to be successful. Today, distribution is free and awareness through traditional channels isn't the same - there's too much noise, too much hype, too many Tivo's, and people have become cynical about the promise of a brand. Rarely does a product or brand live up to it's billing, so everything is taken in with filters. And when a brand does keep it's promise, you want to tell everyone you know about it - it's that exceptional!

Where'd the FT dig up this guy? He's clearly clinging on tightly to his pension, and should be canned immediately:

“I don’t think [social media] is a replacement for paid-for media, it is just going to be a challenger for [consumers’] time and attention.” - Moray MacLennan, IPA president and chief executive of M&C Saatchi Worldwide.

Social media is not going to compete with anything - everything online (and soon on TV) will BE social media. There will be no alternative, it will be pervasive - it's already starting. And it will cost just as much to market successfully - but the spend will be on skilled people and interaction, not on broad media buys.

Advertising (promotion of a product) isn't going to stop, it's not going to decrease, but its going to change. Promotional dollars will move out of 'traditional' advertisers hands and to ad agencies that 'get it'. Ad placement is definitely going to go down online, and probably offline - it will hurt both publishers and agencies that make significant income on media buying.

Agencies that "get it" understand that they need to become the first-person voice of the brand, not the third-person. They know they need to become a partner with the company they represent and actually contribute to closed-loop product improvement. Interactions with customers are centered around building trust - building web presences that provide authority and interest beyond the product, that create discussions about the high-level problem with transparency and authority.

Successful brands will become trusted advisers for their domain. Consumers will turn to brands for answers that are honest, even if they means that the brand calls out deficiencies or weaknesses in their product, or actually admits they have competition. This is the transparency that consumers crave, and agencies that can drive companies towards this will be hugely successful. Marketers will get honed feedback about their products that they can then incorporate into the next product version and improve their market share. Customer feedback and iteration will happen much much faster than it does now with CPG brands, much more like the software that makes rapid networked communication possible.

I see a bright future for agencies that understand things are quickly moving toward a "personal" trusted relationship with a brand. Projects will be different (the report the article quotes points to consulting services, creating new forms of web content, and analysing data). Social marketing won't look like display advertising. It won't be interruptive. It will be communicative and transparent, and results will make for better products and more loyal customers. This will in turn lower marketing and promotion cost by reducing brand 'switchers', and make forward-thinking agencies tomorrow's heroes.

Imaginary VC Investment Criteria: People, Market Growth, and Technology

2009-01-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

One of out three is the best you're going to get.

After rummaging through quite a few business plans lately, looking at new startup ideas, and chatting with investors about what they're looking for in this crazy market, it became pretty apparent that VC's aren't telling the truth about their investment criteria. They say one thing, but it always turns out differently.

The thing startup executives hear over and over again is that VC's invest in:

The Management Team (first and foremost)
The market and market growth
The technology or product

I hear quotes like:
"If the management team is solid, they can innovate through anything"
"The first version of the product is rarely the version that sells"
"The technology has to be just 'good enough' if the market is the right size"

When is someone going to call BS on VC's when they spew this stuff? Venture capital investors understand financials, leverage, and some even understand technology. Most do not understand how to interview or hire good people, and most (using extreme blog liberty to make sweeping generalizations) don't understand operations or how to launch a new product successfully. How can I say this with so many successful investments? Precisely because there are so many more unsuccessful investments. VCs say they look at people, market and lastly technology - but it's really the other way around. It's apparent as evidenced by their investment criteria and their investment track record.

Market Size
Vetting a typical deal involves market sizing and potential growth - calling on industry analysts, market leaders, and other investors to determine whether they think there's a market and how big they expect it to be in 3 years. 19 times out of 20 these numbers are optimistic (at best) or just plain egregious. The accurate representation of market size or growth for a new technology or new or nascent market is virtually impossible. But having analyst or expert validation somehow makes it all OK.

Speaking with initial customers / reference customers / prospects is also a common evaluation exercise. This is better as a determinant of a company's success, but it's much more complicated than that. VC's call their friends, CTO's they've developed relationships with, and people at big consulting companies to talk about the validity and usefulness of the product. Good investors get some pretty good information. But, calling on these people can also be misleading, since they might not be representative of the market as a whole. Calling on a company's early customers is a problem as well. Any founder worth his salt can sell a product to a friend or colleague or two. Almost anyone can sell one product to an enterprise for less than $50k - under the budget approval radar - and that's the sweetheart deal that so many technologies get 'proven' at.

VC's go back to their board rooms and say "Yes, people will pay for this" because Joe at Fortune 500 bought it, so others will too. This unfortunately doesn't lead to any understanding of whether the sale is repeatable by a non-technical (scalable) sales team.

If investors REALLY and truly cared about the market or market potential, they'd do a ton more work here. Work that takes more than a few phone calls and a few days to complete. They'd have the company do real market research, prospect calls and focus groups, and they'd demand that the company put a product marketing pro in place as part of the executive team.

Understanding a Market
In doing what I call a "360 Degree Analysis" you can really determine whether the market is ready for a new technology, who the buyer is and what their motivation is, what the use case is, and what budgets they can pull from. This analysis is a rigorous, scientific assessment that combine qualitative and quantitative data from surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Without in-depth understanding of potential customers and potential buyers in different departments of target companies - across industries - market readiness will just be a guess.

The most important result of a 360 Degree Analysis is a Buyer Persona. A buyer persona is different than a User Persona, but similarly it's a picture of a "real" person and all the influences on that person. It will answer questions like: Who is the buyer? What do they look like, who do they work for, what problems are they trying to solve? How do they get budget, how big is the problem, and how visible is it inside and outside the organization? How much budget is currently allocated, and where is the project on the year's list of things to do? Most importantly, what are the buyer's motivations?

Market size isn't enough - to really understand whether a technology can be sold, a clear picture of the ideal customer and buyer, the sales cycle, buyer's needs and timeframes must be painted.

The bottom line: if more companies vetted their exact buyer persona BEFORE funding, I would bet a dollar that more than half wouldn't get funding at all. Probably more like 60%. They wouldn't find a repeatable buyer, they wouldn't find usable budget, or they wouldn't find the "problem" they're solving exists or is painful enough (yet) to do something about it.

CAVEAT: In the B2C web space, where there is very little buying cycle involved, its really really hard to do any sort of pre-market testing of an idea. Consumers can't typically understand or explain whether they like something or would pay for something without seeing it first, so the 360 Degree Analysis can only go so far without a Beta product. But for a B2B enterprise software or SaaS solution, there is no excuse.

Executive Team
The most likely reason this exercise isn't done before or during due diligence is the team. Although a strong executive management team is the first on the list of criteria most VC's will say they're looking for, it's almost always the last.

Most technologies are built by technologists who call on one reference point in building a product - their own personal experience or that of a family member. Some technologists have more connections and a broader understanding of users but in my experience there are very few that understand the motivations of buyers. Someone with product marketing or product management experience is required to do this type of extensive market research, and usually those people aren't sought until after an A round, or even after a B round. Many executives expect sales people to have the knowledge to hunt and find buyers armed with only a description of the technology and what it does. It takes a rare salesperson who used to be in a buyer role, or a very experienced (very expensive) salesperson to talk about buyer problems in such depth that they can glean motivations. Even more rare is a salesperson who can talk to 10 prospects and extrapolate commonalities about buying patterns and be able to communicate that back to the executive team, especially R&D.

Not having a strong, senior product marketing executive as part of the founding team adds directly (and significantly) to the time and cost of selling a new product - it takes between 6 months in the best case and 3 or more years of continuous funding in the worst case for some companies to a) find the right buyer and buying situation and b) be able to replicate that across multiple customers.

What about the CEO? you say. Typically a CEO comes with this type of understanding of a market and market motivations, but rarely does a CEO have time to do all the work required for a good 360 Degree Analysis, never mind document a persona and create all the collateral to train and arm a sales team. But, a great CEO will recognize this and will find someone quickly to get it done. Maybe that's what they mean about a "great executive team" - a group that understands what they don't know, rather than what they do.

Great Technology
So, where does that leave VC's? Investing in great technologies. Things that they think are cool, are game changing, market disrupting innovations but aren't necessarily products that can be sold for a reasonable amount of money. And some of them are successful...but not because anyone knows for sure before the investment, but because the VC "feels it" and can convince their partners it's a good bet.

Great technology is why most companies, especially B2B companies, get funded. VC's bet that someone somewhere will think it's as cool as they do, and be willing to pay for it. I'd like to think that the investors that want to build a more solid portfolio will realize this. 'Home runs' in this market just aren't possible anymore, so putting together a portfolio of 'singles' and 'doubles' is the real way to provide a solid return to limited partners. I see venture capital firms moving this way, and I predict that the best ones will start to bring product marketing expertise in house to do formal, rigorous, scientific analyses and create buyer personas to help them understand the real buying cycle before investing millions.

Tom Kuhr in the News: Articles, Posts, Comments

2009-01-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

Tom's quotes, comments and articles have appears in dozens of
publications worldwide. Below are a few samples.

Los Angeles Times
OleOle! A Beverly Hills company helps you follow the Euro
by Alana Semuels
June 19, 2008

Marketingberater - Web 2.0
Podcast-Interview: OleOle - Das Social Network für Fussballfans
Interview by Sebastian Voss
October 10, 2008

TechZulu
OleOle: Viva Futbol!
Interview by Cristina Cinque
August 27, 2008

Download Squad
CircleUp Answers Your Questions
By Brad Linder
July 13, 2007

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal
After the Auditors Leave: Demonstrating 404 Compliance On Demand
By Tom Kuhr
April 18, 2005

SC Magazine
Debunking the Security Tool Myth
By Tom Kuhr
September 2004

New York Metro ISSA
Enterprise Security: You Can't Fix What You Don't Know About (PDF)
By Tom Kuhr
December 2004

CNET
The Internet as a corporate power tool? (PDF)
By Tom Kuhr
August 14, 2001

Integrated Solutions
ECM: Enterprise Content Mania
By Jay McCall
April, 2002

Windows / .NET magazine
Planning, Clear Thinking Important to Success of E-Commerce
Initiatives
Tom Kuhr - Interview
May 19, 2002

US Tech
Euro Launch Needed Special Web Attention:
Launch of the European Central Bank's Euro Site
By Tom Kuhr
January, 2002

Transform
"Content Goes Global"
February 2002

Internet World
Spotlight on Day Software
January 22, 2001

ServerWorld & Unisys World
"Key Points for Managing Content"
By Tom Kuhr
April, 2002

Content Wire
"...Like Fishing in a Swimming Pool"
By Tom Kuhr
August, 2001

eCompany
"[CIO's and Unified Business] Information als zentrale
Aufgabe"
von Martin Ardt und Tom Kuhr
April 2002

Information Week
"Click-And-Mail Services Cancel Post-Office Hassles"
(Stamps.com competitive overview)
July 24, 2000

Social Network Advertising: Social Media is not Media

2008-12-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of discussion recently about social networks and advertising, advertising models and poor performance. What everyone is finally starting to realize is that traditional advertising pushed onto social media /social networks isn't working. This Wired blog post outlines the backlash from advertisers who are frustrated that their spend on social networks isn't effective. But why would marketers expect to effectively apply an old model to a new channel in the first place? Because MySpace and Facebook are internet sites with a lot of visitors? The use cases for users on these sites disagree, and any marketer that understands how to apply a use case will get this immediately.

Social networks are places to connect with friends, family, and colleagues - they're places to have discussions, conversations, to find out what's going on in other people's lives. "Traditional" online advertising (its been around only 12 or so years) has seen success in two different contexts - search and editorial. Search ads, as we know, have built Google's wealth and power, and editorial ads (mostly banners but also some new media) mimic traditional media print ads in newspapers, magazines and the like. Let's think about the user experience and use cases and why these ads work well today.

When I'm using Google to search for something, I'm actively looking to do research, to buy, or to find out more about a specific topic. I'm highly motivated by relevant information, and if an ad looks like its relevant, I'll click it. I'm in search and explore mode, and if something is helpful to me, it makes sense to follow a link to find out more.

When I'm reading an online magazine like Wired, a blog post, or checking sports news the site knows what I'm interested in, my general demographic, and specifically what I'm reading. If I've set up a site profile, I even have history and more specific demo information, and if I've used on site search, the site knows exactly what I'm looking for. If I can be presented with an ad that makes sense in context to that learning and knowledge intake, something that can be valuable to me as an information consumer then I'll click it. The key here is the ad adds value to my experience and what I'm trying to accomplish.

So, both advertising contexts take into account what I'm looking for - the content I'm searching for or have found - and both add additional value in that context. On a social network, the content is people and peoples' actions, and that's where the trouble comes. You can't look at Facebook's pageviews and calculate clickthroughs on ads. You can't display demographically targeted ads in the middle of a conversation on MySpace. It's out of context, it's intrusive, and completely irrelevant (in that moment) to the user. John Battelle does a nice job of summing this up.

A good real life example of what happens on a social network can be found when examining a pub or bar - you're having conversations with people, new and old, getting acquainted, pulling photos of kids from your wallet. Maybe you're playing pool or watching a game on TV for more entertainment, but the discussion continues - about the pool game, or about the sporting event. Maybe you want to order a drink, or order some food. That's when you ask your friend what type of beer he's drinking, or look at the bar or taps to see what's on offer, or look at the neon signs behind the bar to see what the bar makes money on. It's not until that moment when you're looking to do something outside of a conversation that a brand really matters. And perhaps you chose the beer because you like it and have had a good previous experience with it, or its on special, or the bartender recommends it, or because you just saw an ad for it on TV while watching the game. All those factors contribute to your buying decision. But none were at all relevant while looking at your friend's newborn baby pictures, or discussing your day at work.

I think marketers and social media players have a semantic problem with the word 'media'.

From Advertising Age: "I think when we call it 'consumer-generated media,' we're being predatory." "Who said this is media? Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces." - Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co.

Apart from the fact that this guy's title is ridiculous, he's bringing up the crux of the problem. Media to an advertiser means print, radio, TV, outdoor and internet. Social media, or user-generated content is not media the same sense - it's more akin to "multi-media" in the computer world, meaning not just text, but photos, videos, audio, etc. So, if a marketer is expecting social media / consumer-generated media to have the same "blank spaces" to insert ads as other advertising media, they will continue to be sadly disappointed.

But the big question then is, are social networks worth advertising on if traditional media doesn't fit? The two-part answer is: a) no, they are not worth advertising on using either of the two proven online methods, but b) because users are there and they're engaged, there are many opportunities to talk about products and services at the right time, in the right context. The opportunities are endless, and can actually impact a buying decision much more than a traditional "read me" advertisement. I can see Facebook working towards this outside of the display ad context, but they still don't have it quite right.

But, social media advertising won't look like advertising as we know it today, and we'll be faced with standardizing new vehicles and new methods - all things marketers and agencies are just finally getting used to. This new social advertising will take on the form of a conversation, recommendation, sponsorship and/and the product validation. The same things we see in bars today - word of mouth, vendor credibility, and maybe even (in all seriousness) the Bud Light girls. All methods of adding immediate value for the user in the context of what they are trying to accomplish.

Can Apple Products Be Better? New Product and Feature Ideas

2008-12-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

New Apple Product Ideas: iPod and iPhone Use Cases
So, what could make some of best designed, most beautiful electronics products on the market even better? Apple's products have outsold the biggest, most powerful brands on the market because they solve specific problems for specific people. They aren't created because the technology is available, but because the technology is useful. Apple products are built by product marketers that understand that people want to accomplish things, not just have technology for technologies sake. Steve Jobs is indeed a master at this, and although he needs a serious wardrobe update, the products speak for themselves.

How could we make a 'perfect' product better? In proper product management, style, I've evaluated very specific personas and use cases, I've found a few product improvements that will increase usability and revenue opportunities for Apple through additional user segmentation and competitive advantage.

The iPod
After using an iPod Mini for running the past few weeks, its clear that the people at Apple want you to create a long playlist like a DJ and not have to touch your iPod at any tie during a run. This just isn't me - I like to listen to albums, and if an album ends, I need to select a new one quickly so I don't loose my momentum. Also, I don't wear a watch when running so having a timer / stopwatch available would be very helpful.

New product: iPod Sport
Horizontal Use. The iPod was designed vertically - which is perfect when you're holding it in front of you and looking at it, but horrible when its on your armband and looking at it sideways. It's impossible to see the screen because of the angle and the glare. So Apple, put the circular touchpad on a bezel. Enable the user to turn the bezel and touchpad 90 degree to either side of vertical to accommodate lefties and righties. When the bezel is turned, the orientation of the touchpad changes 90 degrees, and the screen orientation also changes 90 degrees. This would enable a user to use the iPod horizontally just as easily as vertically, and taking care of problem #1.
A Button. How about that, the introduction of a button to change modes. the iPod menu is very deep, and having to scroll up and back from a song to the main menu to check the clock or adjust the equalizer is a huge pain, especially when on the move. For this version of the iPod, include a single hard button to toggle functions / modes from music selection to stopwatch or clock. Enable the user to program the functions that the button cycles through. Put the button on the iPod edge, in the middle, so its easy to push, but recess it so its hard to push by accident.
The iPod Sport could lead a new category of iPod specifically designed for athletic activity and make the iPod line a must-have for all athletes (maybe introduce some new sporty colors, too). Would people pay a premium if it matched their needs better? Yes! Would existing iPod users upgrade? Yes! It could be the biggest 'single button' product improvement of all time.

The iPhone
I can't take all credit for this one, but at a party the other day my mates were discussing the pros and cons of the iPhone v. the new Blackberry Storm, as guys tend to do. The one feature that would make people use the iPhone more for business and emails actually appears on the Storm - the horizontal keyboard. Blackberry got this right from the beginning - the form factor for thumb typing. I will say that the iPhone isn't focused on email or SMS, its really focused on web browsing and graphics. Many function on the iPhone, however, were built to re-orient the screen vertically or horizontally depending on how the device is held, seeming except for typing. Typing with fingers v. thumbs is a BIG deal, and Apple didn't get the memo on this. So, enable emails to be crafted with the iPhone on its side, turn the keyboard, and let those thumbs go to town. Email volume will increase, SMS volumes will increase, use will increase and the competition will lose a very big advantage it has. Both business people and teens will find the typing much more efficient, opening up these market segments even more.

Great design can always be improved after analyzing use cases post-launch, and taking a look at specific personas and what specific problems they are trying to solve.

Mini-Applications Are the Future of the Social and Mobile Internet

2008-11-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

The age of min-apps is here, creating a new set of problems and opportunities for the entire internet supply chain - from developers to VC's. With the announcement of the Facebook Verified App program, we've clearly entered a new level of social ecosystem. The amazing number of 48,000(!) applications available for the Facebook will continue to force the platform to adjust and change in ways they could never predict. As a corollary, the mounting number of applications available for smart phones / mobile platforms like the iPhone and the new Blackberry Storm are pushing new boundaries in application availability. With the Storm setting a MySpace record for application downloads, and MySpace's focus on all mobile platforms, the age of applications (min-apps) built for multiple platforms is apparent. If the social leaders on driving mobile use, the mini-apps will surely thrive there, too.

What does this mean? Well, a little something for everyone.

Platforms
Facebook is leading the charge here, but even after the '5,000 apps and counting' announcement a year ago, it was clear that for a normal user to find and sort through that many available apps was going to be a challenge - even at that time. With boundaries to app development getting lower and the ability to monetize getting easier, the challenge of creating a user-friendly experience for finding apps has only grown. Facebook's Verified App program is a great step here, giving credibility to hopefully some outstanding apps, and verification is something I've been discussing for a year now. But, that's not going to be enough. The FB app directory needs a huge overhaul (OpenSocial directories need this too). Every provider, from Apple to Bebo to MySpace will need to provide more detail to users about each app as they search and browse, so installing the app isn't required to figure out what the thing really does.
Hmm...where else are there tens of thousands of products?
Let's take a look at software download sites like CNET's download.com, eBay and Amazon for some examples of 100k+ items for sale. App listings will need to be filtered and results sorted / refined by multiple factors, including verification, popularity, user-ratings, and maybe a few new factors like a 'usefulness' rating, 'virality' (do people recommend it to their friends on purpose?), and a SPAM rating, and maybe some categories (productivity tool, utility, personals, game, group management, time-waster, etc.). User comments are there today, but a way to quantify these would be more helpful for the fast-reading user. Maybe the app canvas page needs more screenshots, a video demo, and some good usage data (installs v. un-installs is an interesting metric). The more ways to differentiate the app, the better for both the developer and the user.
Better directories mean more users will look for and find apps that are useful to them, driving up time on the site and ad clickthroughs.

Developers
You could see this coming like a train wreck - it's too hard for 'useful' applications to stand out from the crowd on Facebook and other platforms, and just developing a good app isn't good enough. (When I say 'useful' I mean the apps do something other than make you invite your friends to join - a pretty low bar, I know.) Developer emphasis on app virality has been capped in FB and other networks, and is not the way to propagate an app on any mobile platform. What's a developer to do?
I'm predicting that over the next 2 years, we'll see more 'app factories' that roll developers and their apps together under a single company name, much like the organic way that Slide and RockYou developed, but with freelance developers instead of employees.
These 'App Studios' will be able to market the apps on behalf of the developers and split revenues. They will have much more success due to the volumes they can manage and the brand association / credibility they'll be able to create. We'll see an app built for one platform, then under this movie studio model be adapted to multiple platforms and marketed and cross-sold as an incremental addition to a brand portfolio across networks. You'll be able to install an app on your iPhone and Facebook profile, and maintain your single data profile between the two interfaces. This concept really makes sense from a user, developer and investment perspective, it just needs a bit of juice.

Users
Platform users have benefited so far, and will continue to benefit as the platforms and developers make it easier to determine what's good, what works and what doesn't - and what fits the specific needs of each individual. With future programs like 'Recommended Apps' based on demographics, usage and preference selection, platforms will be able to deliver a lot more value through their developer network directly to the user, because, of course, they have the data. They can offer a product they don't own to their users, with a direct benefit to them - a very unique concept and a true ecosystem at work. Maybe by recommending apps instead of ads, then advertising in the apps, they'll see a more effective model for monetization. You get a specific usage scenario, a more specific set of profiles, and a user who's doing something, not just socializing. Users would feel more catered to and have a better experience wherever they are. (Platforms: leverage these apps to gain the hearts and clicks of your users.)

Investors
The venture capital community is already transforming to respond to the new world of mini-apps . It's faster and much much cheaper to develop an app when you don't need to develop the platform, the user database, or do the same amount of marketing to find users. VC's continue to raise large funds, and it seems they need to seek later-stage investments to put the 'right' amount of money to work. Small apps aren't home runs, and they aren't going to use enough capital with a $100 - $350k launch range. Just enough to keep a developer or three happy for a year. Again, the 'App Studio' concept with an aggregation of apps, "ownership" of the user, and marketing of a product portfolio makes a lot of sense - the scale of such an operation fits more inline with a $2-5M 'A' investment. There will be 3 trends: a) existing VC's will continue to only invest in game-changing platforms b) mini-funds will form, with much lower investment parameters c) VC's will see the App Studio concept as a viable option.
An App Studio acts like a proxy for the VC to diversify and invest in multiple apps. It makes betting on any one app a risk, but with the main focus being operational expertise and distribution, the risk is much less. We'll probably see a few VC leaders start (if you've seen any, please comment!) and the rest will follow soon after like sheep and saturate the market...

Applications that reside within networks (social or mobile or both) are the new Chinese menu model of the internet - use what you want, where you want it, wherever you are. This is the intention of Facebook and the concept of the social utility - it's actually becoming a platform and a new operating system. Mini-apps are going to be here for a while - this is just the beginning.

New Media, Social Publishing or just Social Media?

2008-11-18T15:18:00.000-08:00

I get asked quite frequently what makes OleOle different from a 'social network'. The concept of tracking your online or offline network of friends, family and colleagues was never the driver for the OleOle site design, even though 'networking' features are available. It was the ability for amateur or professional writers to instantly find an instant audience of people interested in the topic they were writing about. Publishing and immediate delivery of relevant content, from multiple sources, personalized for each individual, delivered in the way they want it.

Publishing through social media, or Social Publishing, is really that ever elusive "New Media". Everything a newspaper does offline leveraging everything possible online in a true crowd-driven, automated fashion. New Media still in relative infancy and continues to undergo transformation as technology and understanding of crowd behaviour and the social network matures. The idea that blogging is dead - don't beleive the hype- is related. We're seeing a change, and blogging as we know it is evolving as rapidly as it's appeared. We're seeing far fewer independent blogs and more commercialized blogs and blog networks. Not only that, but the standard web-based blog post is changing shape - into iPhone app snippets, Twitter tweets and - get this - ListServes. There are still millions upon millions of blogs, but there are fewer independent blogs making it out of obscurity. Not because it's any harder to setup and write a blog - that's getting easier every day. Rather, it's much more difficult to get an individual blog (like this one) read. Bloggers are now finding that the laws of big numbers work, and blog networks are able to pass along Pagerank, a captive audience, and 'recommended reading' to visitors in a way that a stand-alone blog cannot. Not to mention the ex-old media writers, left to wither on the street in the past two years, are bringing their organizational maturity and editorial skillsets to the web.

So we're seeing a professionalization (not sure that's a word but we'll go with it) of blogging; networks are better able to monetize their readers in aggregate, and able to pay the blogger a bit of that. Blogs and 'collectives' are still working at generating any significant ad revenues, but lumped together with an audience around a single theme, it gets a lot better. Writers are banding together, and we're seeing publications that are challenging 'old media' sites as they grown in prominence, reliability and even scope - even without that offline "doorstep" delivery.

OleOle takes the social media concept to this new level of Social Publishing. Where it's possible to have enough content on a site about dogs or cats or maybe even cars created by a team of 5-20 bloggers, it is impossible to have enough content about a topic as big as soccer / football with a paid writing staff. Covering 6,000 professional soccer teams - around the world - would be far too cost prohibitive. Big media companies haven't done it, and will never do it - TV, radio, newspaper, magazines - nobody. But, find one (or more) passionate fans per team who are basically literate, and you've got a global publication that covers the entire sport. Fans are out there, otherwise the teams wouldn't exist - it's a matter of time before they stop relying on the AP for their news.

But how do you organize posts from 6,000++ independent blogs? Throw in millions of photos, videos and other user-generated content - how do you find it all? Its not reasonable to be 'friends' with all 16 mllion fans who follow Manchester United. Social networks aren't geared for this for sure.

Social publishing takes the concept that everyone in social network (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc) can publish things to their profile and pushes that to the public arena. Social network blogs are only available at the profile level - so you've got to know the person or have access to their profile to read the content. With organized blog publishing (TechCrunch, Huffington Post) everything is public but there's a high standard of editorial - someone manually arranges content, features it on the right page, and even commissions it in the first place. Again, impossible to do at reasonable cost for 6,000+ bloggers speaking 20 languages in 200 countries. Social publishing enables individual bloggers to self-organize their user-generated content for public consumption leveraging an underlying publishing framework. Social publishing relies on the concept of "Topic Centers" that visitors can easily find and access, and individual contributors can push their content to. Topic centers can be built around any topic the site anticipates - in the case of football it's players, competitions, teams, leagues, WAGS, etc. Finding a topic center must be easy for the user (accessible directly from their homepage) and it must be easy to navigate to, and find new ones. This requires something big - a reversion to what web 2.o brought to the world - the sidelining of those uber-cool things called 'tags'.

Tags, by their very nature, are personal. They are used on blogs to group and classify content around a specific keyword, and that keyword is completely variable based on the author's preferences. A topic center requires centralization and sharing of keywords, so that every author has equal access to publish to where their best audience is visiting. A Topic system is at the heart of the OleOle publishing platform - providing a way for authors to publish and visitors to find the right content - outside of profiles, outside of user idiosyncrasies. The topic system also drives site navigation, page generation, menus and SEO - it's the fabric of the platform matching publisher and visitor together invisibly. However, just because topics are site-wide doesn't mean they need to be static, although in the case of football they are hierarchical to some degree due to the complexity of the sport. So, you're not really giving up the personalization of tags (which can still be employed to filter submissions made by a single user) - but tags are now "personalized" for the collective editorial team, and evolve as needed.

Social publishing is the organization of social media. It's the next step in Web 3.0, social aggregation and smart filtering. Social publishing means leveraging the power of the crowd and the individual writers to publish. The organization is automated, not human, and visitors and volunteers stand in for a managing editor to both rate content and correct things published to the wrong topic centers. Where social networking is useful for keeping tabs on people you know, social publishing is the maturation of social media and user-generated content enbling groups rather than individuals.

Top 10 Must-Have's When Hiring a Product Manager

2008-10-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

Hire the Right Product Manager: Skills and Experience to Look for Beyond a Job Description or Resumé

A smart man asked me last week, "What do you look for when hiring a product manager?". A great question, and one I'm not sure I answered fully at the time because there's so much to consider, and so much at stake. An average product manager vs. a great product manager can make such a huge difference in a product and its market success, it can translate to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars difference in revenue. How could a company ignore putting a product manager through the interview wringer?

Product management is the science of distilling a real, immediate customer problem into a solution those people will pay for (in time or money). In the world of technology, where I live, that means specifying the target market, target buyer, features, functions and customer experience for software, hardware and/or internet sites. The Must Have traits are crucial for making that happen and getting a timely result that resonates with the buyer. Most are personality or behavioral traits, rather than specific skills, and therefore are much overlooked during interviews which tend to focus on skills and domain.

Here are the top things that, after 16 years of interviewing hundreds and working dozens with product marketers and product managers, that I've come to look for when making a hiring decision. The product management interview is much more like an hour with a psychiatrist (you) - finding out what makes them tick and how they work with and relate to people. Being able to uncover these traits during an interview process is exceedingly difficult, so in upcoming posts, I'll be talking about the different ways I've found to evaluate these attributes.

Top 10 Things to Look For When Hiring A Product Manager
(ordered from least to most important)

10. Domain Knowledge
9. Verbal and Written Communication Skills
8. Organization
7. Goal-Driven Motivation
6. Analytical Thinking
5. Ability to Make a Decision with Limited Information
4. Selflessness / Lack of Ego
3. Problem Solving Skills
2. Social Skills
1. Empathy

10. Domain Knowledge
Understanding your market is something that will help any product manager when starting out at your company, but too many hiring managers put far too much emphasis on this. They say
nobody can just learn my industry". Of course if a product manager (PM) "gets" the market and the customer, their ramp speed and usefulness will come much faster. But, having experience within a market doesn't make a great product manager. In many cases, someone who thinks they understand everything about a user or a market becomes closed-minded, stops listening, and creates a barrier to developing good products. Or, applies the same "knowledge" to every problem.

In many cases, someone with strong PM traits and a solid understanding of the product lifecycle process can make a bigger impact with a new product because they're listening 100% to the user - they have no choice. I've seen so many companies hire a product manager - even at a VP level - because they come from a competitor or from 'the industry', and so many times that person fails to make a difference. So, when interviewing for a product manager, weight domain knowledge the least important of all attributes. A great product manager can start making an impact in 1-2 months in any domain (as long as its not super-super-technical).

9. Verbal and Written Communication Skills
Product managers are the evangelists for a customers, potential customers, and for the company. They must be able to quickly and clearly articulate plans, goals and processes to many different personality types, all the time. Many times they'll be in sales situations directly interfacing with prospects or customers. They take executive feedback to the engineering team, and take engineering feedback to the marketing team, and customer insight and data to all teams. They've got to be able to speak well, create excellent, readable and influential Powerpoints and product specifications. They represent the company to the press, to industry analysts and to everyone at tradeshows.
A great product manager is a great communicator and naturally becomes a central hub of information flow about a product. A superlative product manager takes this one step farther, and creates an automated hub of information about a product that removes him from the day to day as much as possible. The superlative product manager understands the importance of communication as well as the fact that he's only one person, so intranets and portals, or at least document shares, are critical for keeping communications moving without personal involvement.

8. Organization
Product managers must juggle dozens, hundreds or thousands of moving parts - feature lists, schedules, names, faces, data, specs, customers, developers, sales people, special customer requests, bugs and fires and more. A product manager must be able to triage issues and move quickly through the items (bullets) that other constituents send (fire) at him every day - so he can tackle the things that are actually on his own To-Do list. The product manager must be constantly classifying and organizing things for immediate projects and also for reference and for future projects. Not everything is immediate, so having an an excellent storage system / scheme (and excellent memory) is critical. If a product manager isn't organized and can't move through the hundred emails they get before 10am, they'll never have time to make an impact and will get put into 'reactive' mode very quickly. They become pawns of the organization, rather than leading the organization to new revenue opportunities.

7. Goal-Driven Motivation

A goal-driven product manager is a self-motivated person, and most of the time a very competitive person - they like to win. They see and understand what the end result needs to look like, what it needs to achieve, and they have the mental fortitude to motivate themselves and others to reach that goal, step by step. Goal-driven product managers can persevere and do the many things along the way they need to hit goals, going above and beyond any job description. These are not 9 to 5ers, these are people with the dedication and focus to get to the prize, the launch, the release, or whatever the goal is. Goal-driven product managers work independently with little day to day oversight and naturally feel a sense of responsibility and a sense of urgency that they pass onto others. Goal-driven PM's also understand that aligning a team or organization around a goal is the best way to get everyone working in the same direction. Starting with the end in mind is the only way to ensure the team focuses on what matters, and acts as a filter against everything that inevitably pops up on the way.

6. Analytical Thinking
Product managers must be able to acquire, organize and analyze data and come up with solid conclusions. Like any science, there are theories and there are controlled experiments to test those theories. Theories can be created from customer feedback, market feedback or ideas from executive meetings, but having the ability to run a multi-variate test or experiment to prove or disprove the theory is the difference between a market leading product and a dud. Great products are developed according to data - qualitative and quantitative - from multiple sources. There are budgets, there are feature priorities, there are time constraints. Good math and the ability to extrapolate, work back, and identify the big wins is simply critical.

5. Ability to Make a Decision with Limited Information

Almost as a caveat to #6, a product manager can't be overly analytical or completely reliant on data. There is always the risk of analysis paralysis, and often the data isn't available, isn't available for a reasonable price, or something just needs to get done without the time for good analysis (yes, it happens!). Product managers must think on their feet and make good, decisive and quick actions based on the data at hand. Product managers are not bean counters, not statisticians - they're going with what they've got and are comfortable with that.

4. Selflessness / Lack of Ego

You can't listen to customer problems if your opinion gets in the way. Period. Product managers must have ideas, of course, but can never let their personal opinions take the place of real buyer / customer feedback and data. I like to compare product managers to CSI investigators - they have to know where to look and why, they've got the training and understanding of good processes, but the evidence they uncover must be irrefutable and speak for itself. If an ego gets in the way, this objectivity flies out the window and the data is no longer unbiased, the decision to go or not go is unsound. A product manager with an ego is not doing anyone at the company a service, they are merely guessing - and even someone in the mailroom can do that. There are a few things that I love about Pragmatic Marketing, and this quote is one of them: "Your opinion, although interesting, is irrelevant." It's true.

3. Problem Solving Skills

This is a talent that can get you through school, but you just can't learn in school (or even an MBA program). This is "street smarts" - using your experience and common sense to overcome a challenge or obstacle. You can be a 4.0 student, a Harvard MBA, and not have any of this. I've seen them out there, and there's almost nothing more frustrating.
Problem solving is critical - finding a solution from the data and resources you have at hand. Figuring out what features to cut if the deadline slips. Determining if priorities need to be juggled. Handling 100 requests at the same time. It's all in a days' work. Product managers must be able to solve problems that are 'outside the book' without running to their boss for help. Much of this is natural or 'nurtured' intelligence but a lot of it is being able to see the big picture, envision multiple scenarios, then frame each in context - 'what will be the most effective way to reach my goal?'. Problem solvers get things done without burdening other staff, complaining, or delaying projects.
Problem solving is also critical when dealing with a customer problem. A product manager has to come up with one on more ideas on how to solve the problem they identify. They have to be able to envision software before its built, screens and interfaces before they're designed. They've got to be able to solve the customer's problem FOR them. Even the best customer /user / buyer will never be able to describe the best way to solve a problem, that's the key to what the product manager does.

2. Social Skills

Product managers that make a difference can communicate internally with just about every department within the company. To define an ideal customer experience, they have to work with everyone. A technical, geeky product manager might be able to write a great spec and put it in front of the development team, but making things happen in an organization, calling in favors to get work and work product from people that you don't directly manage, is a social art. Much like a salesperson, the product manager must be able to get along with multiple personality types, to work on the level that those people like to work on. PM's are chameleons and can talk at a high level to execs and 4 minutes later be in the engineering department translating the same message at a low level. They have an ability to "change gears" instantly depending on their audience. I don't want to say product managers must be friends with everyone - that is rare; but if they are friendly and get along well with different groups, they tend to be much more effective at getting the organization to change (for the better).

1. Empathy

Empathy is the most important product management trait. Without empathy, the ability to put oneself in a potential customer's shoes and find a solution for their problem, a product manager is superficial. A deep understanding of the problem, and the ability to say 'if i had that problem how would I fix it?' are the essence of the product management function. An empathetic product manager can walk through a problem with a customer, uncover sources of frustration or inefficiency, and really identify with the problem. Empathy is extremely difficult to learn - some people are born with it, some aren't. This is probably the biggest constraint on salespeople. Most are thick skinned - they get No quite a bit and are naturally insensitive to this. Empathetic salespeople have a much harder time with No, but make much bigger sales. They solve problems for their customer because they take the time, and have the skill to understand the motivations and the drivers involved.

So, that's my Top Ten list. I'm sure there's more, and related items, but you can only look for so many behavioral or personality traits during an interview. The thing that's not on this list is execution - has a PM successfully done this before. That's a leading indicator that they can do it again, regardless of domain.

Is the Network The End or Is Productivity The End?

2008-10-28T16:24:00.001-07:00

Yahoo! just blogged that they have completely opened up their platform - the "Yahoo Open Strategy". You can read about it all on the Yahoo! developer blog and of course on TechCrunch, but the really interesting thing is the entire content and application platform is now (theoretically) social. Much different from adding applications (productive or not) on top of a social network, Yahoo has taken almost the reverse position and is allowing OpenSocial applications to be built on top of its own (extremely popular) applications, content and tools.

Yahoo really didn't have a choice in the matter, since they control no specific social network other than MyBlogLog (which is pretty small and targeted). So, this approach is probably the most practical approach, but it might just be a soc net killer. They've ended up building the network into the tools that millions already use and are comfortable with (especially email which I think is personally the best free email out there). That means much much less work for a casual user, and a ton more benefit.

Jay Rossiter the Head of Yahoo Open Strategy referred to the opening of the network as the "big bet" and I'm sure every yahoo hopes he's right. I'm sure they're still wrestling some big big problems like getting each of the very different Yahoo segments to work together around the new authentication scheme and the Universal profile. Yahoo has had some practice with this, as they've been able to integrate profiles pretty seamlessly as of last year (with MyBlogLog), but that's still a huge data mess - gone long without cleanup (the organization could probably use the same cleanup and streamlining (I'm available BTW)).

From a developer perspective, the key to success here is monetization. The impact of this from a technical standpoint is amazing, opening up the levy to access all 40 million monthly unique MyYahoo users, in addition to Mail, Travel, Jobs, Personals, etc. etc. The difference from MySpace apps is the My Yahoo users are there to get information and be productive, where MySpace not so much (last time I checked). So, developers have an engaged audience trying to be (generally) productive. So, as long as Yahoo doesn't mess with its current advertising requirements for applications developers should be able to make some great ad revenue. And, MyYahoo users are used to adding portlets / gadgets, so if adding apps is virtually the same, the install rates should be very high. Users know what they know, and will be comfortable with the concept of adding new and better "things" to their page.

The big picture: the first ad network that enables contextual advertising based on the Yahoo app the person is using, in combination with the developer app, profiled against whatever user data is available is going to do quite well. A tricky equation, but that's what computers are for. If Yahoo was REALLY smart, they'd do this segmentation and ad serving themselves and take a cut. I think this could be the magic formula for improving CPM that just doesn't exist in the social part of social networks - because it's centered around context and real subject matter.

Yahoo has a ton of content, and with the Y!OS 1.0 platform has created a way to really segment audiences for advertising in a way the giant portal just hasn't been able to do on its own. It's very early, not everything is ready yet, but I think this just might really bring Yahoo back to life. And save Jerry's neck.

Multi-Function Phones: Old School Incompatibility

2008-10-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

So, here I am trying to contact a VERY important person, but someone who's not so important that they don't have an assistant or receptionist actually answer the phone. Cost cutting has given us a very dependable but very inflexible voicemail attendant. So, here's me without the person's direct extension calling from my Blackberry Pearl. Dial by name directory. Great, no problem. Oh yes, problem.

My Blackberry has a keyboard with numbers and letters on it, but it's sure not the same layout as a touch-tone phone - different numbers, different letters. The touchtone has 10 numbers and 26 letters, the Blackberry has the same, but many more actual keys. And, a standard touch-tone phone is nowhere in sight, as I'm in my car. I try my best to remember which letters are on which number keys - does A, B, C start on 1 or is it 2? and where's the Q? and the 9 has four letters, W, X, Y, Z?
Old school technology, meet cool, new school technology. Same for the iPhone, same for the new G1. As phones get to be more like computers and less like phones, we'll need to rethink voicemail systems and the antiquated touch tone technologies that drive them.

Its basic stuff, but I had to wait until I got to my office before I could call the person back. So, for everyone out there who's trying to convert their Blackberry keyboard to standard phone keyboards, here's a touchtone helper image. It's tough to do in your head.

More MySpace: the right moves fast enough?

2008-10-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

So, after a bit more poking and exploring, it turns out the MySpace is doing some great things to stay ahead of that Zuckerberg rascal. I missed this the other day, and it could be poor PR coverage, "just another biz dev deal", or it could be me too busy. The social network announced that they are working with HP to complete that photo lifecycle and get users' uploaded photos printed. Definitely the right direction. Hopefully the product team can make it better than anything else out there, including the vast myriad of photo sharing sites.

In other relevant news, MySpace launched an Android app with the Google G1 phone, to mediocre reviews, but its there right at launch anyway. Again, good biz dev, we'll see if either catches on. Maybe the G1 will actually sell, but iPhone and Blackberry will be tough to beat and I didn't see anything super compelling about the G1 other than a keyboard. It's the start of a long slog, and probably the downfall of incumbents Nokia (too bad, once a great product, they just stopped improving usability and utility) and Motorola (finally! their software is just horrible).

So, there are some good things going on over at MySpace, but will these little things make a difference in spurring growth or just retaining existing users? The clutter of the site (just too many things to see and do and navigate) and the fact that professional adults aren't using it as their primary network are still big problems that will have to be tackled.

And, do people really click on those Adsense ads? Those things are as ugly as they are annoying...

Social Network Growth: becoming Real-World centric

2008-10-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

I think the trend in Facebook's growth and activity over MySpace's continued stagnation (and decline?) is worth a look, as social networks are going to continue be a major part of shaping the the Internet. Monetization and advertising aside, what's driving this Facebook growth? Reported by Nielsen, the Facebook continues to add unique users, and they are moving steadily towards MySpace's #1 position.

Being a slightly older technology enthusiast (geek?) - I'm not Gen Y - I've seen way too many of my non-technology friends create Facebook profiles in the past few months. None would ever have considered creating a MySpace profile, so there's something in Facebook that's "grounded" enough for a 30-50 something adult to want to put in the effort. Now, most of my friends in this age group, especially business colleagues, have a LinkedIn profile, and probably some sort of default Plaxo profile. These are business tools, and make life a bit easier by not having to maintain an address book or a stack of business cards, so its a lot easier to see how both could save a lot of time. But Facebook? It could be a trend or a could just be the top of the hype cycle - how many of these people will continue to use it on a regular basis in 2, 5, 8 months? That remains to be seen, but these older folks are driving FB growth today, alongside newly minted college kids.

MySpace has alienated this group either by design or by accident. And high schoolers are now creating profiles on both networks - one for friends, one for family. Anyone making it to college simply must move to Facebook. They might continue both, but from what I've seen, they maintain MySpace for their friends back home, and build their future in Facebook.

Here are some of the key differences in why the older generation (30 is old?) feels like Facebook is right for them and MySpace just isn't:

Use of real identity - user names are for entertainment, real names are serious
Granular control over privacy and information - even for friends and friends of friends
Clean design - it just looks more professional. Although the new MySpace layout is much much better, it's still clunky.
Pictures - pictures seem to be driving tons of Facebook activity - more than any single photo sharing site.
Initial focus on college students, not high school. College students are more serious? More mature? No, I think college students are compelled to have a Facebook profile. It's so closely linked with their campus identity - belonging to The Network - that there are very few that don't.
At the root of this, it seems that Facebook is grounded in the real-world. It takes offline activities and friends into online and mobile. MySpace is all about online friends and doing things online - it has very little bearing or relevance in a user's offline world.

Facebook brings our offline worlds online - real names, real geographic locations, real friends. MySpace is not really about your real friends, it's about making new friends or connecting with a band that's in another country, or watching videos. It's about entertainment. Facebook users connect to family members to stay in touch, to share pictures, videos, and news. MySpace users don't have this same need or desire - it's escapism and entertainment as much as it is socializing.

I do believe that this "grounding" is a trend with all social networks. Facebook will continue to move in the offline direction - enabling more real-world groups to organize online - with Events, Groups and future functions. FB could just about eliminate LinkedIn with a simple migration function and by adding a Degrees of Separation-type app and/or an "blind introduction" app (more on this later). Right now, they're pretty focused on keeping the site up with the massive amount of traffic, but this is the trend - organizing offline activities online. Something that is useful, saves time, and compliments somebody's real life instead of adding to it. That's what computers really were built for, isn't it?

What's going to happen to MySpace? The company has been adding some innovative entertainment to get more traffic (and try to monetize) with the launch of MySpace Music. I'm sure this was no easy feat pulling together artists and distributors, and it probably took a ton of resources to get it off the ground. But, to drive increased registrations and social pageviews, the only option is to become more of a real-world compliment - to expand to a more mature audience and to make MySpace ageless - so when middle and highschoolers hit college or jobs, they don't feel like they must create a Facebook profile. MySpace could keep users from "defecting" as they get older, but the company needs a network that's appropriate in form and function for connecting with families and business contacts. Without a detailed user segment ion analysis, here are a few ideas:

Ability to have one or more version of a profile - one for friends, business, and one for family - to keep all aspects of life centered, but appropriate for different audiences.
Build out photo-sharing. That's driving FB, take it a step farther. Integrate photos with Groups and how about building in a Kodak gallery to get photos developed after they're uploaded? Get the whole supply chain in there.
Add more granular privacy to enable a wider variety of "friend-types" and profile depth
Build LinkedIn-like degrees of separation - this could really trump Facebook
Enabling really great group functionality - private and semi-private group centers that are truly useful with calendaring, announcements, media sharing, listserves, membership control (membership revenue management!) and page customization. Maybe buying something like Meet-Up. If a real-world group uses MySpace for veryday communications and registration is required, that will drive growth.
There's no reason MySpace can't include Ning-like walled garden functions and make it better. Ning is being used to create mini-networks to organize real groups. As networks go, Ning stinks, but it's definitely filling a niche.
Become verticalized - build on top of the social network and enable users to participate in vertical discussions. Groups start to do this, but are so functionally limited. Vertical discussions elevate the site - making friends is cool but having discussions and finding people with similar passions and opinions is bonding.
Vertical content should also help with advertising, where people are more likely to be searching for information or services in context.
Seriously promote their iPhone app to keep users engaged all the time. Making the platform mobile is critical in keeping up user engagement. The more touchpoints, the harder it is to leave.
Enhance the friend feed (and buy some very social users) with Twitter.
Make a big commitment internationally - non-US markets are still open (China anyone?), but each one must be attacked aggressively and specifically. Translating isn't enough - other cultures are picky, finicky and want local, local local - built just for them.
Keep the cool factor. MySpace can't let itself fall out of cool, it must be constantly reinventing on the network side. The site has a real opportunity to be cooler and have a broader audience than Facebook since its users start at an earlier age, but balancing "cool" for young kids and "useful" for everyone else is a balancing act.

Adding more entertainment is great, but the core of the "social" part of MySpace must be moving faster than Facebook or the balance of power will change - quickly. Right now, based on the aggregate numbers, MySpace seems to have stalled. Whoever adapts the most quickly to the real needs of real people as they grow up and go through life transformations will stay on top.

Tom Kuhr Bio

2008-10-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

Presentation to the Software Council of Southern California

"Successful Product Launch Strategies"

Tom is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at OleOle the world's largest social media web platform for football (soccer) fans. He was brought on board to redesign the website to cover more than 6,000 professional football teams and 57,000 soccer players in 10 languages through the eyes and ears of the fans. OleOle launched in May 2008 and has seen tremendous growth since then. The social media platform currently hosts some of the world's most popular football blogs, and let's fans do the reporting through photos, videos, podcasts, live game blogging and history. OleOle is a social publishing platform, pushing the boundaries of social networking and social media.

Before OleOle, Tom launched CircleUp, a venture-backed consumer-focused social communications service and scaled that to 100,000 users in 3 months. Prior to getting back into consumer-focused products, Tom was vice president of global marketing for Telelogic, a $220M public enterprise software / SaaS company acquired by IBM. Tom managed marketing operations and field marketing strategy across more than 38 countries, and oversaw online and offline marketing campaigns and promotions, field marketing, sales training and sales enablement.

Before Telelogic, Tom was vice president of marketing and product management for Preventsys, an information security software vendor. There he increased lead acquisition by over 500% and helped increase revenues by over 40% through the introduction of a disciplined sales process, product marketing and sales training. Preventsys was successfully acquired by McAfee in 2006.

Tom also served as vice president of Stamps.com's international business unit, where he initiated the adoption of Stamps.com's technologies and services by postal organizations and shipping carriers outside the US. He was integral to the design and launch of the world's first online stamp printing service - one of the first software applications delivered as a service. Stamps.com was the most secure non-government software as a service (Saas) ecommerce system on the Internet, and Tom helped to build the customer base to over 300,000 in the first years of operation.

Tom has proven experience creating new B2B and B2C products and services, transforming start-ups into viable growth companies, and excels at technical product marketing, corporate expansion and building repeatable marketing and sales processes. Tom has managed regional offices across the US, Europe and Asia and marketed products and internet services around the world. He has lived in Mexico, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where he developed a passion for football. Tom graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he majored in aquatic biology, of all things, and still lives near the sand in Hermosa Beach, California.

Referral Traffic From Search Engines - How to Use Internal Links

2008-08-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

SEO Tip #3 - Build traffic to your blog through internal linking

Google, as you probably know, looks at how many inbound links a page has to determine how to rank it in search results for any given term. Inbound links can come from outside your site or from within the site. External sites that link to your blog or a page on OleOle have more strength but internal are also extremely important - and can be controlled more easily.

This post is about YOUR blog, and how each and every day you can help build traffic by just adding a few links. That's it - just add a few links to your daily post to club, team, league, or player sections on OleOle (also called Topic pages or Topic communities).

Please add links in the body of EVERY post. Not once in a while - every time. This is in addition to choosing the right Topics for every post. And, tell other bloggers in the community to do the same - it will help them build their readership, too. I'll pick on Harry Hotspur to give you an example of how this should work, then explain the theory.

EXAMPLE
On Harry Hotspur's post: http://www.blogger.com/blogs/harryhotspur/posts/david-villa-too-expensive-said-tottenham. In this post, Harry uncovers the fact that Tottenham can't afford David Villa, the Spanish star (or are just too cheap - not sure which exactly). There are no text links in the post, except to an offsite blog. What would help build traffic to both OleOle and the blog is if Harry (names have been changed to protect the guilty) linked the body text "David Villa" to the David Villa main page on OleOle, "Spain" to the Spanish Team page, "Valencia" to the Valencia page, and "Tottenham" to the Tottenham page.

Now, notice that the text is linked to the name of the topic - this is really important. This is "anchor Text" and it give the link relevence. If I linked to David Villa with: click here for David Villa - I have not provided any relevance to the link. "Click here" is useless, and unless its you're first time online, you know what a link looks like so you don't need instructions on what to do. SO, always use anchor text. The links above in this post (to club, team, league, player) are actually NOT helpful because they don't contain relevant anchor text.

So, in summary, that's 4 links in the body of the post to other sections on OleOle, nothing more. It took me less than a minute while writing this.

THE THEORY
How in the hell does that work to help build traffic? Every link - both internal and external - to a page on OleOle helps build the credibility of that page, or its PageRank (as Google calls it). The more links to that page from other pages, the higher the PageRank, and (all things being equal) the higher the ranking that page will have in search engine results. In this specific example, the link to David Villa (and any player in general) would have helped the David Villa page the most. But, since Harry selected "David Villa" as a topic, his post is displayed on the David Villa community in the Recent Blog Posts widget for all to see.

We have ~5,800 teams on the site, and ~57,000 players. For any one section to get highly ranked by Google, it needs many many inbound links. When a search engine ranks an OleOle page higher in search results, that section gets more visitors, and your blog post will get read more. OleOle gets more members, you get more interaction and more famous. Its that simple.

In addition, linking contextually using "anchor text" is MUCH more powerful than links on menus. Search engines give more link relevance to links in body text so they weight those links higher. (Google might also look at the surrounding text to establish context - but this is unproven).

Internal links (links from other pages on the same site) do not have as much weight as external links, and external links with anchor text are the absolute best. But, all links help!

So, if you link to a few topic pages (or history pages) from the body of your blogs each and every day, we will gradually increase the page rank of the topics you're writing about, increasing our listing status in search results, which in turn increases new site visitors, and directly increases the number of people reading your blog.

DO IT - ITS EASY
How hard is it? NOT HARD! Our cracker-jack development team has made it super-easy, in fact with a an easy Quick Link Helper. When writing your blog post, in 'Visual View' just:

Highlight the term that you want to link to with your mouse. (in this case 'David Villa')
Click CTRL-Q (works best with Firefox) or click the Hyperlink button on the function menu. You'll see the Link Helper pop-up, and if your text is spelled correctly, you'll see a list of topics appear. If the list doesn't appear, type a variation of the keyword (e.g. delete the 'AS' from 'AS Monaco').
Choose the correct topic from the list - the link will automatically be found and visible so you can check it.
Choose Main page or History page with the radio buttons
Click INSERT and you're done. It's really that easy.

The CTRL-Q Link Helper function also works in Wiki history pages to make linking on those pages fast, too.

NOTES: only one (1) link is necessary for any one (1) topic per post. If you link to Tottenham 18 times in a single post, that will actually hurt pagerank, not help it, since search engines will recognize this as 'link spam'. So, just link once or twice per keyword. Also, don't dilute the links by linking to everything in the post - try to link to no more than 5 topics per post. Generally, any Topic you choose for the post should also have a link in the body text.

Internal Linking: It's good for you, it's good for your readers, it's good for OleOle!

Social Fantasy Football Game

2008-08-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Football has been around for a while in the UK, but fantasy soccer is really starting to take off in other countries like Brazil and Italy. The game is becoming more social, too, with sites like OleOle integrating fantasy football leagues into a social setting where players can communicate through groups outside of the structure of the game. Players can make fun of their mates when and how they want. What point are Monday mornings if you aren't berating someone because their “super star” striker couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo?

Ever wanted to show your mates you really are more intelligent than the buffoons that actually manage professional clubs? Wouldn’t it be brilliant if you could put together a victorious squad of Europe’s best players and win great prizes? Well, get your manager’s hat on because OleOle’s free Fantasy Football game has just begun.

OleOle’s Fantasy Football game features six different games – six different professional football leagues - including an OleOle exclusive European Super League. The Super League combines all the top leagues in one game so you can pick players from any of the clubs in Europe and put them in a single team. Fans have the opportunity to manage a team of players from the 2008/09 Bundesliga, English Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A.

The players you purchase for your team score points based on all league games played over the season – and you as a fantasy team manager have the chance to win monthly and seasonal prizes as well as the top prize - a trip to the Champions League 2009 final in Rome!

Fans can catch up on the latest trade rumours, injury reports and player stats through OleOle’s exclusive Fantasy Football reports and blogs. Fantasy team managers can also play against their mates in private mini-leagues and compete directly against their inner circle of friends to see really who has the best insight into the beautiful game.

Football is social, fantasy games are social, now fantasy football games are social too, thanks to OleOle.

Build Blog Traffic - Social Network Groups and Fan Pages

2008-08-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

SEO Tip #2

Finding new traffic on social networks

All social networks have groups that are intersted in a topic. These groups behave much like forums with discussion boards and members join the groups since they are intersted in a specific team or player.

Bring them better information! That's what they're in the group for in the first place.

The same for social networks. Each network (Orkut, MySpace, Facebook) has a group page or fan page for the most popular team and clubs - in every language. We've had some success during the Euro in driving users from Facebook groups (the national team group pages range anywhere from 200 - 50,000 members) to our MatchCentre. We even had a Netherlands fan start his own (very biased and entertaining) live blog.

So, just as you should look for relevent forums, add links to OleOle blog posts and specific upcoming MatchCentre pages from groups. Don't have a MySpace or Facebook profile? Make one.

Add yourself as a friend on OleOle's MySpace profile. http://www.myspace.com/oleolefootball

Become a Fan of OleOle on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/pages/OleOle/19770964736

Join all the relevant team / club / player groups you can on each network and see what's going on, then add to the conversation.

Spend some time on a social network, join the club and team groups, and take part in the discussions there. Link to relevent, timely content on OleOle. The more timely the news and the more enticing you make it, the more traffic you'll generate.

You need to build up some credibility, so add other information besides links. Make jokes. add real comments, become a respected participant. Do it every day!

Build Traffic to Your Blog - Post Inbound Links on Other Sites

2008-08-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Blog Tip #1

We're all working towards the same goal - making OleOle the largest, best football site on the internet, so this blog is an open comment forum for hints, tips, tricks that we can all share.

The more we help each other promote individual blogs, the faster we'll get there.

There are a few things you should be doing EVERY DAY with your blog posts on OleOle. The OleOle Football Platform is built from the ground up to get the right content to the right football fans, but we;re growing the site - we need to get fans to visit us from other sites, including Google.

As a blogger on OleOle you need to focus on promoting your blog at least this at least 25% - 50% of the time it takes you to write your posts.

Background

The OleOle platform is constructed around Topics, which are players, clubs, teams, leagues, etc. Each topic main page is hub for everything that has to do with that topic - photos, wallpapers, news, history, and blogs. The topic main page (see Real Madrid for example) is the easiest to promote in search engines because it is entirely about that one topic. Your Real Madrid blog post will appear in the Recent Blogs section of that page as soon as you post it, as long as you assign Real Madrid as a topic. If visitors land on the main page, they'll have the opportunity to read your post. In essence, its easier to promote one page about Real Madrid than it is to promote 100 separate pieces of content, so when you promote that one page, you're helping to promote yourself, too.

Inbound Links

Posting links on other sites that go to OleOle. Inbound links help OleOle tremendously with getting new visitors to the site who click those links, and they also help our search engine optimisation strategy (which in turn drives new visitors).

To get traffic from other sites, you have to visit other sites and be interactive there, too. Any site, especially football sites, that allow you to post a link to your blog or to OleOle is a great target for your activity. A link to OleOle can provide value in 2 ways: first, anyone on Site B that clicks it will be brought to OleOle. No surprise there. BUT, that link can also add value to the page it links to, moving it higher in Google's search results. Inbound links increase the popularity of that page, and Google values inbound links very highly when considering where that page ranks in results. And of course the higher your blog is listed in Google results, the more visits we'll get from searchers.

Some sites (like ours and most forums and good blogs) mask 3rd party links with a 'nofollow' tag in the HTML so Google spiders won't, like it says, follow that link.

You can do this yourself too:  BBC.

So sites with nofollow links won't help you with SEO because the link is basically invisible to Google. If you're using Firefox, download and install this plugin http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/ and turn on 'Highlight No Follow Links' to see if the link is a No Follow link or not. Try to find sites that don't mask links!

Here's a recent example: A Harry Hotspur post about David Bently rumours received hundreds more visitor just from one single post on the BBC website forum. Someone (maybe Harry himself?) posted a link to the blog post as an alternate point of view of what was being discussed on the BBC site. And clearly other BBC users were clicking on that link. It was posted in such a way that it wasn't marked as spam or removed by a moderator - helpful, relevant content. Obviously, you or I don’t want to spam boards with OleOle links, but when relevant and useful to visitors on that other site, this is a good way to get quality traffic. Unfortunately the links are No Follow on the BBC forums, so they don't help with SEO, but if other people link their blogs to Harry's post because they refer to him or quote him, that certainly does.

Tip #1 - post links on other sites to good, relevant content on OleOle - blog comments, forums, wherever you can.

Social Network Commotidization

2008-05-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

We'll look back at Facebook and think it's cute.

Charlene Li from Forrester is really on top of things. She's watching the convergence and commoditization of social networks happen in the very near future. All the talk of Facebook and MySpace and how they're huge and growing and which one is going to "win" is irrelevant. Like cars, there will be many different companies and types, allowing you to do different things - each will have its own unique aspect. And like cars, where you can move your cellphone / PDA / address book from one to the other, your profile on social networks will be portable.

Her blog point to the fact that social networks are starting to be commoditized. It doesn't matter which you pick, they'll all allow sharing of contacts. Its just not that hard now to create a network to keep track of friends. OleOle's position as a social media platform elevates us from that discussion - people are coming to OleOle to share a passion - to discuss a Social Object. Making friends is nice, but it’s the commitment and passion and interest in the sport that brings them together - the same way it does in the real world at stadiums, pubs and in front of the TV. OleOle is a publishing platform - publishing the views and opinions of football fans in the way that they see fit. We've got the environment and infrastructure to do that in an organized way - and enable discussion instead of just pushing information one way.

What's OleOle's position on OpenSocial / Data Availability / OpenID / Data Portability? YES, we will build for these protocols (maybe when they're standardized a BIT more) so users don't need to create a separate profile on our site - they can login with the profiles they've created other places. The purpose of our site is great content, not being the sole location for personal information.

That's something the big social networks like MySpace are starting to grapple with - what unique social objects can they add to differentiate themselves? And what social objects will get people clicking on ads? It's tough because of the complete heterogeneity of the user base - there is no commonality other than people have friends.

"You Can Never Underestimate The Passion of the Fans"

2008-03-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

Ever!

That's what Philadelphia found out recently as the city was chosen to support the next MLS franchise in 2010.

These "Sons of Ben" were apparently a deciding factor in choosing the city for a Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise. The Sons of Ben is a supporters' group with more than 1,600 members.

"You can never underestimate the passion of the fans," said Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. "You can't measure it. The Sons of Ben have been waiting for soccer in this area for so long. Now they have it and they're going to be loud and give this team a true homefield advantage. Believe me, this group's excitement and desire had a lot to do with why we're here announcing this franchise."

Thinking forward a few months to the UEFA Euro 2008. OleOle wants to make this competition the pinnacle of online interaction from fans at the matches, and those that can't make it to the matches.

How can OleOle capture this passion, this fervor? How is football - even in the USA (the least football-oriented country in the entire world) - how is it that this sport incites such passion?

Can it be bottled? Canned? How can we capture even a a piece of that passion online for the Euro? That's the magic that OleOle needs - we don't have it today, we might have it tomorrow as we overhaul the site for the Euro, but what are we missing? What is key to the overhaul? What kind of things can we pull from our readers, fans and from the competition itself? Its more UEFA Euro news, than facts and scores...its the drive to get fans to contribute, to interact, to talk to each other.

Media Relations - creating a great Press Room on your website

2008-02-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

Why can't a B2C press room be a blog? Why not indeed?

A blog would enable comments on press releases, links to important items like logos and fact sheets. It would provide RSS feeds for those so Interested to catch the latest. Enabling trackbacks and sharing, posting in multiple languages are all positives. Why aren't more companies doing it? Are they scared that their news will invite criticism? Is their news not good enough?

And how many companies who's media rooms are or contain a blog don't allow comments? If you don't have good news and don't want honest feedback that it's not good or press worthy, don't publish it in the first place. There's too much press spam, too much noise. Being a bit self-critical, or letting your readers provide feedback - and listening to them - has got to happen.

I don't see a drawback - let's do it.

New York Times - taking small steps in Social Media

2008-01-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

My last post pointed at all trditional media and publishers. Apparently, The New York Times is becoming a leader in the industry and taking at least a few steps to increase traffic.

There's a lot of promise in this - the content is there, and if it can be structured for SEO it will kill other papers.

Search Engine Land

This goes for other media sites, too - optimization is key regardless of how the content gets to the site. OleOle's concentration on linking, sharing and optimization is a huge advantage for our content contributors and bloggers. More people will read their thoughts here than anywhere else on the web - because they care about football.

Newspapers Can't Find the Right Business Model

2008-01-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

New Media means changing old media. Really.

Newspapers and traditional media seem to just "not get it". This article by David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times clearly identifies the problem - newspapers are treating online like it’s the same publishing medium as a hardcopy paper.

I visited the LA times site to view David’s article online and see what was going on. Having the print copy delivered to me every day and not reading the paper online, I'm very old school and like to touch the paper and wrestle it to the ground when it doesn't fold.

I know where he’s coming from – I’d be worried about my job and my future if I saw newspaper revenues continue their decline. And, of course nobody is going to pay for the same article online that's in the paper – its just not the model people are used to. I’m positive, however, that advertising can support a newspaper – even one as big as the LA times. Rupert Murdoch is betting on it by intending to what I think is the world's most successful (most profitable?) online subscription content – the Wall Street Journal – available for free. He surely gets it – why can’t everyone? I bet at $60M a year in subscriptions, and with 980k current subscribers, revenue at $10CPM is around $20M/year. That's not the same, of course, but open it up and make it interactive, the audience could grow to 2M+ and the # of pageviews would also increase, driving up ad rates. In 2.5 years, the WSJ could be making $100M+ online just through CPM ads.

For the LA Times specifically, it’s a great paper (top 5 in the US) but there's no just value in the online edition. Reading David’s this article online contains nothing Web 2.0 at all - it’s merely a paper reprint. This is death-by-smothering from a traditional media company, and I certainly see the cause for concern.T

Traditional Media Death 2.0: On the LA times article in question, there's no ability for readers to comment on the article or have a discussion, submit viewpoints or even link to the article. There’s no social bookmarking or sharing the article (except via email), no hyperlinks in the article to sources or related stories, and no simple way to get RSS feeds for that column / author. No submitting to Digg or any other site that would lead more readers back to the article. For interaction, there's just a link to the author's email address, which will result in the poor guy to get included in every spam list in the Ukraine and Romania. The article was clearly written for print – not for the web, and that’s just not what the web generation expects from anything online – there’s no personalization or interaction. And that's exactly how to stop online readership from expanding.

The old model of write & publish is over. If the LA Times was serious about online, they'd stop treating it as a bastard stepchild of print. Yes, there would be a difficult transition period as it would be impossible to support 900+ staffers with online revenues at this stage. But assuming a transition could be worked out and an upfront investment in the future was made, the end result would be an interactive site that fuels itself - an accredited reporter posts an article (doesn't have to wait for press time - it can go up at the right time) and that article, if deemed valuable, will be passed to others by the international community. It’s not just about servicing Los Angeles, it’s getting the news of Los Angeles and the world out to everyone who's interested – faster than any other pub.

But, it takes discipline to see an article get trashed, mocked, or relegated to the heap of articles if not valuable. Comments, ratings, and user feedback will do that – it’s a consumer-driven economy now and the good (greater distribution) comes with the bad.

However, exclusivity is really key here - articles that come from the AP are now a commodity – there’s zero value in reposting something that everyone else posts as well. News that everyone else is covering – without having a specific angle or a unique feature, source or contributor – are a dime a dozen, and only weigh down the cost structure of a paper. Cut the ‘me too’ stuff – use a feed to pull in AP articles with minimum cost and overhead – and focus only on the stuff nobody else has (or can have).

Leverage those news desks around the world - break some news - see it spread and see the credit get linked back directly to the reporter. This will drive pageviews and unique users from outside the normal geographic market, which will in turn drive advertising appeal and ad rates.

And, alongside of that, change the ad model - the advertising team must be stand-alone and not have every deal linked to the print side. The current ads on the site seem like freebies thrown in by the print ad department. Create sponsorships for sections, use non-standard ad sizes, and adios the low-revenue text Google ads and replace them with higher rev direct ads - the Google stuff is crap and it makes the site look cheap, too.

One thing David's article mentions is the Little Guy – small newspapers won’t be able to support online because they’re entirely the wrong structure. Small papers would need a new low cost back office structure to survive. Most just can’t or won’t make this transition – it would require laying off too many people – or they just wouldn’t recognize the skills sets that they need to find or keep. Good reporters, however, can and will survive – even as bloggers. The world will continue to need journalists with integrity and the ability to find news – those are not skills any technology can replace. As long as there is exclusive news, people will pay for it in one way or another.

Today’s publishers are right to say that the internet side of their business can’t support the business. But, that doesn't mean it can't forever. Publishers must make the commitment, investment and effort to build the right online experience for readers – not dangle it as a loose thread from their flagship. Until then, I expect we’ll hear thousands more stories, tragedies and complaints from traditional media who, as many entrenched industries have done in the past, can’t make the transition to the future because they're too entrenched in the past. It won’t be easy, but there is a clear path forward, and it is possible.

New in Social Media

2007-12-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

So, here's my first blog entry, a narrative of all things social media (and football).

The trend in social media isn't going to stop - people are starting to understand that they can be involved and will start to demand it in the next few years. Users, fans and supporters are going to continue to push the traditional media to be included, to be a part of the story. Supporters want a deeper connection to teams and players - something meaningful and as 1to1 as possible, and old media just can't do that. OleOle is leading the charge here. In the next few months we're going to be blowing the doors off old media and soccer supporters worldwide will be able to connect with their favorite teams, players and other like-minded fans.

Social media will become pervasive - a part of everything, not a special thing. Just a matter of time.