Micro Persuasion

Could Twitter One Day Replace Email PR Pitches? Maybe

Over the last few months as I travel the country I have noticed that lots of people in PR that I meet are giving out their Twitter IDs in lieu of their email addresses. Many feature it front and center in their email signature. There's even a site that will generate a graphical version for you, which I have embedded above.

On a related note, more of my inbound and outbound communication these days is in the form of Twitter direct messages or, sometimes, public replies. The direct messages arrive through email, but I find myself often reviewing or responding to these in one of my preferred Twitter clients - either Tweetie or TwitterGadget.

At first I despised the bacn. Now, however, I embrace it. What's more, I have come to see the benefits of direct messages and its potential for PR. It has me wondering: can direct message pitches become an accepted practice that journalists can live with? There is upside for them.

For starters, just like with RSS, journalists are in complete control of the relationship. A PR pro can't direct message a reporter unless he/she is following. This means we have to earn our way on to a reporter's screen by providing valuable content, which many of us but not all of us do. Robert Scoble alluded to this in his recent note to PR pros. 

The key benefit here is that a journalist can always un-follow any PR professional who abuses the relationship. Still, with spam weaving its way into Twitter though replies, it threatens to put the whole kibosh on the plaform's potential for media relations (I am drawing a distinction here from direct to audience engagement via Twitter, which is very different).

Second, for the journalists and bloggers that do encourage PR pros to pitch them via Twitter they can streamline the process by keeping missives down to 140 characters. That's less than the three sentence format some are embracing. It ensures people make their point quickly. This makes it more mobile friendly too.

Now some pitches could be public tweets, others will have to be private direct messages depending on their nature. And of course Twitter will never replace email pitching entirely. 

Despite all the growth and hype, Twitter is still small. Pre-Oprah, Harris Interactive found that in the US, even among the ever-wired 18-34-year-olds, only 8% of those surveyed said they use Twitter. Other demographics break out down as follows: 35-44 (7%), 45-54 (4%) and 55+ (1%). Net, email is ubiquitous, Twitter aint. 

Nevertheless, more journalists are using Twitter. So this makes it increasingly attractive to PR professionals. It also makes it essential that we behave ourselves. A few bad eggs will kill this fast.

What's your view? PR pros, have you built relationships with reporters and/or enhanced them using Twitter? Journalists, I am sure you're worried about any such trend, particularly since many of you use Twitter for both personal and professional communications purposes. Weigh in with a comment below or reply to me on Twitter @steverubel. If there are interesting responses, I will round them up in a subsequent post.

Google's New "What's Popular" Feature Aims to Clone Digg

Google's personalized home page, iGoogle, added a new feature that basically clones the core features of Digg and StumbleUpon by embedding them into a gadget that is easily accessible from right within the web desktop.

The feature, which Google started highlighting in its directory this week, is called "What's Popular." Using the widget consumers can submit links either anonymously or publicly and rate whether they like or dislike other submissions.

According to Google's description, the What's Popular gadget "uses algorithms to find interesting content from a combination of your submissions and trends in aggregated user activity across a variety of Google services, like YouTube and Google Reader." 

That's just the half of it though. When you click on the maximize link the gadget expands into a canvas view that sorts submissions into different categories - e.g. stories, videos and images.

This won't be the last we see of Google adding social services to iGoogle. They are slowly adding such features to many of their products. Eventually I expect they will also follow Microsoft's lead in rolling up your friends' social content from around the web on Windows Live. (Microsoft is an Edelman client)

How to Become a Super Tweeter in Just 15 Minutes a Day with iGoogle

Do you want to become a Super Tweeter that everyone is dying to follow? Who doesn't? The good news is that it's really easy. Here's the formula: find stuff that people don't have time to on their own, link to it, talk about it and engage in interesting relevant conversations around it. That's all there is to it and this is a snap using iGoogle.

First, if you don't have an iGoogle page. Go sign up here. Then add a tab for Twitter and bolt on these four Google Gadgets to your page: Google Mini Search, Google News, Google Reader (assuming you're a Reader user) and TwitterGadget. If you click on the "edit this tab" link in the sidebar you can reformat the page so it's two columns. 

If you look at the above screenshot you will see what my page looks like. The left-hand side is where I graze for content. The right side is where I share. I have customized my gadgets so that they cover topics that both my followers and I are interested in.

Now here's where this gets fun. 

All you need to do is use the left to find stuff and the right to share and comment on it. The mini search widget lets you search the web for related links. The Google News and Google Reader let you track topics. And the a-mazin' TwitterGadget is for searching for Twitter topics (type a word and it ctrl-q to search for it on Twitter), tracking the people you follow and for re-tweeting. You can even drag links from the left into the right, as I did in the screenshot above.

That's all there is to it. Do this for 15 minutes a day around a topic that people are passionate about and you will be on your way.

Twitter is Peaking

Twitter traffic data from comScore (via TechCrunch)

I have been active Twitter user since January 2007. And it's been remarkable just how much it has changed since.

In the last six months, Twitter has gone nuclear. There are three reasons why and I explore them in this post. However, they also point to why Twitter is about to jump the shark and we should begin asking ourselves what's "the next big thing."

As long as Twitter maintains a following I feel every business should join it and converse with their customers - just as I said a year ago. Still, it's always important for everyone to see the big picture. That's why predicting a market top is something I thoroughly enjoy doing. In part, it's what I am paid to do - think about what's next. This disicipline keeps me and others like Robert Scoble like from getting stale.

In December 2006 when Evan Williams first showed me Twitter in the back of a cab in Seattle, I thought it was going nowhere. But after I played with it, I got hooked. My early fascination with Twitter began because, like now, I was scanning the horizon for what's next. I sensed that in late 2006 that blogging was cresting. Twitter replaced it for me and, later, millions. Now the same can be said about RSS, which many of the early adopters who first embraced it have also now ceremoniously dumped. (More on RSS in a subsequent post.)

As I have written before, no community has ever had staying power. Twitter right now is poised to fall victim to the same trend. Let's take a look at three reasons why Twitter has witnessed incredible growth, all of which point to why the service is peaking right now. (Note: Many of you will disagree. Daniel Terdiman today wrote that at SXSW, Twitter was the new Twitter.)

1) Celebs Flocked to Twitter - Just six months ago, the list of the top 100 users on Twitter read like a who's who of geeks. That's what made it a draw, for many, initially. Now, however, the list looks like People or US Magazine. Twitter is losing it's geek creds as celebs flock to the service.

Historically, as the geeks go, so goes social media. I believe that the Founding Fathers and Mothers of Twitter - people who gave the service it's wings, will soon tire of it and seek the next shiny object. Already, Dave Winer is playing with Jaiku. Scoble is deep into Friendfeed. I am finding a lot more value these days in both Friendfeed and Facebook, which leads me to my next point.

2) Twitter is Disorganized - Twitter attracted a following because it's disorganized. Since replies are not threaded, celebs and corporations do not feel they have to respond to every Tweet. It's a tree in the forrest thing. There are no comments to moderate. And this makes it more attractive than blogging.

However, what was once "a feature" could begin to be seen as "a bug" and lead us to seek more organization. As Jeff Jarvis explains in his book What Would Google Do, other services like Facebook and Google provide elegant organization. This is something Friendfeed does well too. It's also a big reason why Tweetdeck is succeeding. Twitter would be wise to acquire Tweetdeck now before someone else does, especially as it adds more social tentacles.

3) Twitter is a Mile Wide but an Inch Deep - Brevity rules on Twitter. And this has encouraged time-starved celebrities and corporate types to jump into Twitter much more so than blogging. It also supports anonymity. You can be "a corporation" on Twitter, which you really can't do with a blog. Here people want to see the faces.

However, as Twitter grows and people begin to crave reading Tweets from personalities and others they trust, I wonder if they will want a deeper relationship - one with less anonymity. This is something other services, notably Friendfeed and Facebook, do well. You can use either to create a community around all your stuff, not just 140-character tweets. Also, I suspect they will want to weed signal from noise. Right now that's tough to do.

So you heard it here first, folks. Twitter is peaking. Now I believe Twitter can get through "the dip" that stares them in the face, but it will need to adapt by: keeping its core users intact, remaining attractive to corporations and celebs and by becoming more organized. Search will help with the latter, but expect a battle as Facebook and Friendfeed both make a concerted push to become the place for all your social stuff.

The Amazon Kindle is the Great White Hope for Monetizing Print Media

Dear media companies,

Thank you for making so much content available for free online for 15 years. I am sure you're eager to monetize it all beyond ads. 

The good news is your great white hope has arrived. It's the Amazon Kindle. My unsolicited advice is to jump in now. This could be your last chance to monetize content. Please do so now before tangible media evaporates.

Let me share with you one media junkie's experience - mine.

As a huge fan of books, magazines and newspapers, I was enthralled when Amazon launched the Kindle digital reader in late 2007. However, unlike other occasions, I did not jump in as an early adopter. I was put off by the many negative reviews and I did not want another device to carry. When the Kindle 2.0 debuted last month, however, I decided it was time to get one. Even then I was skeptical it would stick with me.

Now that I have been a Kindle owner two weeks, I am sold. I believe the device and seamless user experience is a winner - particularly as it synchronizes across phones. However, more importantly, the Kindle 2.0's debut is a watershed moment for print media. You have one last solid shot to monetize your digital content - if you move quickly. 

The iPod was the last digital great white hope. And thankfully, the music and movie companies (reluctantly) jumped on board. 

The Kindle, like the iPod, is an emerging critical mass device that actually encourages people to pay for content rather than get it for free. When Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, people were skeptical that people would shell out cash for music they could snag for free from file sharing networks. They did. The same was true when Apple, and later others, rolled out movies. However, today millions rent or buy movies online.

The Kindle offers a similar experience in a much larger market - text. This one is tougher to monetize. In the digital age books have managed to remain premium content. However, beyond books, magazine and newspaper content is available in abundance online for free. Yet, I still believe that people will pay to receive some of their favorites on their Kindles or their Kindle-enabled phones. Meet them there now while you can.

Consider this piece in the Statesboro Business Magazine by a 43-year-old individual who bought his first newspaper subscription in 43 years. Or the fact that now Instapaper is available in a handy offline version for the Kindle. Both remind me of the early days of the iPod when it was still geeky, yet a game changer.

My advice to you is to offset part of the cost of the Kindle and get them into the hands of your loyal readers with your content pre-loaded. Imagine, TIme Warner, if you gave readers $100 off a Kindle that came with a year of digital subscriptions to Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune. I bet a lot of people would jump in and stay with you for years.

The Kindle, like the iPod, overcomes the hurdle required to get people to pay for content. The secret sauce is easy and instantaneous delivery of content as soon as it ships. This need not be limited to daily, weekly or monthly publication schedule but also for breaking news.

A little over a year ago, I converted all my media to bits. However, it's work. Even with RSS, I still have to go out and get the content I care about. Now with my Kindle, the media comes to me and it's available offline. I love that Fortune magazine shows up on my device whenever a new issue is published. The same is true for the New York Times. Eventually, Amazon will extend publications to the iPhone and other devices.

So, media companies, please jump in now. Embrace the Kindle. Subsidize it. Create value-added content for it, such as e-books. Or even partner with advertisers to offer advertorials. This could be your last shot at getting people to pay for your content. Don't miss the next iPod.

Sincerely,

Steve (a media junkie)

Three Ways the Media is Innovating with New Interfaces

Several months ago I had lunch with a major media company executive who told me that, in the future, content will not be subsidized by banner ads splashed liberally on news pages. This is something that the current economic situation is hopefully accelerating as display ad quality plummets to new lows. I remain convinced that the media must innovate their way out of this situation from both editorial and sales, but no one seems to be really doing so on the advertising side.

If you want a glimpse of what's next for media then you need to really look to the editorial side of the house. As we've seen, that's where all the innovation is happening these days - and its changing how we engage with content. Here a look are three promising approaches and their potential implications.

Throwback Interfaces

Most news web sites all pretty much have the same look and feel - the same one they have utilized since 1994. The interface in some ways closely resembles a traditional newspaper. Usually, the most important story is at the top and it carries the largest headline. Other, less important stories, follow. However, that's where the similarities to old media ends.

Some media brands, though, are dabbling in new models that are a throwback to print - and with some success too. Take the Sporting News, for example. The venerable sports daily, which to some degree sits in a commodity market, last summer launched Sporting News Today. The free, opt-in service attracted 75,000 subscribers by the time it launched and probably has a significantly higher circulation today.

Sporting News Today delivers to your inbox either via RSS or email a beautifully designed virtual newspaper - and on weekends too. The content is fully searchable and it is supported by full-page ads similar to what you would see in the print publication. You can also bookmark and share individual pages. The reading experience is terrific.

Watch for more magazines to try a similar approach and to port this to sophisticated mobile devices like the iPhone or Amazon Kindle.

Hyper-Vertical Navigation

In the old days newspapers and magazines were limited by space in the number of sections they could legitimately offer - e.g. news, sports, business, entertainment, etc. However, that's not true anymore as the Long Tail and infinite space of web allows millions of niches to bloom.

Media companies are recognizing that some readers/viewers want to drill down deep into very specific areas of interest. They are slowly adding topical navigation features or creating APIs that allow independent developers to do so.

The New York Times is among the more notable innovators here. Times Topics classifies and categorizes every single article (even older ones) into thousands of topical pages. Some of these get very specific. For example, you can track a single company- like PepsiCo or GE, two of our clients.Every page has an RSS feed too. Here's the feed for the PepsiCo page.

In addition, through their developer network, the Times offers a rich library of APIs that are spawning all kinds of new creations. The latest is the NYT Explorer (above). This tool not only makes it easy to search the Times archives but then to do so by drilling down further using the same topical taxonomy.

Mobile Apps

Finally, while the web browser remains our primary entryway to digital content, some power users are particularly attracted to applications. This is particularly true among smart phone users. Many media companies are filling the void with own smart phone applications. Variety, for example, just launched an iPhone app powered by Newsgator (below). People magazine will roll out one powered by ScrollMotion later this spring.

As a next step I would expect media holding companies to roll up several of their premiere brands into a single app so that you can say get content from Entertainment Weekly and People via one interface. In addition, I bet they will let you subscribe to RSS feeds as well.

These are some of the editorial and user interface innovations that are on my radar. What's on yours? What have you seen that's novel when it comes to news delivery? So far it seems like the editorial side is way ahead of anything on the advertising front these days. At some point they may catch up. However, if they don't it could spell trouble for ad-supported content.

Five Digital Trends to Watch for 2009

This has also been cross-posted on the Edelman Digital blog.

In my role as Director of Insights for Edelman Digital I am writing monthly white papers for clients on key trends. Sometimes we will release these broadly. For the first one, I drew on members of the Edelman team, as well as third party research, to highlight five digital trends to watch for 2009. Each includes specific recommended actions.

Even though the economy is slowing, all signs show that audiences are still spending a lot more time on the web. Marketers need to invest to meet them there. However, what's changed today they are smarter about where they focus their time, dollars and energy. Experimentation is giving way to tactics that deliver ROI. These include public engagement, search and social networking — three themes that connect the major macro trends.

There are five trends covered in this white paper...

Satisfaction Guaranteed - Customer care and PR are blending as consumers use social media to demand service

Media Reforestation -  The media is in a constant state of reinvention as it transitions from atoms to bits

Less is the New More - Overload takes its toll. Gorging on media is out. Selective ignorance and friends as filters are in

Corporate All-Stars - Workers flock to social media to build their personal brands, yet offer employers an effective and credible way to market in the downturn

The Power of Pull -  Where push once ruled, it’s now equally important to create digital content that people discover through search

You can download the full paper here(PDF) or simply browse or read it below. I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Research Business & Legal marketing media

The Newspaper Reporter of the Future is Here Today

The word newspaper is really a misnomer today. Or at least it will be soon. Increasingly news is delivered digitally and it's interactive. People are certainly writing newspapers off for dead, but I think they have a bright future (in digital form) and it's right in front of them.

Everyone's looking for a solution to the newspaper problem. But the answer is right under their nose. The picture is slowly evolving through the breakthrough work of individual reporters who are using social media to build a stronger connection with their audience (and their own personal brands in the process).

There are tons of examples. Dwight Silverman is one. But here's another that's also near and dear to my heart. It's so spot on that it's noteworthy as an example of where the news business is heading - or where it needs to go.

In the US baseball spring training is getting underway in full swing in Florida and Arizona. I am a Yankee fan and have been paying close attention to what Peter Abraham has been doing. He should win awards for breaking ground in sports journalism.

Abraham is the Yankees beat writer for the Journal News in Westchester county (a NYC suburb). According to Burrelles Luce, it's the 94th largest newspaper in the US with a daily circ of 100,000 readers.

Abraham is on the scene in Tampa where the Yankees are training and he's doing it all - in addition to filing regular reports for the paper that appear in print. Here's an inventory of his social media footprint....

First, he has a blog with a full-text feed that includes several posts/day and hundreds of comments/day from readers. It dates back to 2006.

In addition, Abraham has a Facebook group that has about 1600 members.

He is posting photos from spring training using his iPhone. Note the gear the others are using by comparison.

There is a podcast up on iTunes that right now is updated daily with audio.

FInally, today he was using both CoverItLive and Mogulus to have a live video/text chat with readers.

All Abraham is missing is Twitter, YouTube and maybe Flickr but he seems to be doing just fine with what he has here.

Now imagine for a moment that Abraham wasn't a Yankees beat writer but instead covering your company or industry for the business section. Or imagine she is the newspaper's food columnist. This multi-platform method of engaging is right for all of them. If every reporter did this on staff they can build not only a more engaged audience, but also redefine local media since it's all potentially global.

For PR professionals, this is a boon. More content creates more opportunities for us to tell our stories and to also engage journalists using these same channels. If we're not there as individuals and companies then we won't be top of mind.

What Abraham is doing represents not only the future of journalism but also what PR professionals themselves need to do to build connections in the years ahead.

Build a Super News Ticker with Gmail

NYC Times Square - Motron by Wallyg

One of my favorite sights in New York City is the Dow Jones news ticker in Times Square. It's known as the zipper and is over 80 years old. Edelman's primary New York office is across the street so whenever I am on on the way or out of the building I get a quick update on what's happening.

Using Gmail's Web Clips feature you can re-create the same experience on your computer. Since I use Gmail as a database and notetaking tool (a substitute for apps like Evernote, Yojimbo or Devonthink), I always have it running in a tab. Whenever it's active, Web Clips keeps me in the know and helps me manage the Attention Crash.

The trick to Web Clips however is to think about how you consume information and configure it with RSS feeds that are really useful. Here are five that can help you track news and memes...

• The New York Times Home Page - my go to source for news (RSS)
• Digg Home Page Direct Links - converts the Digg home page into direct links (RSS)
• Top Trending Topics on Twitter - a real-time view of the most popular microblogged words (RSS)
• Techmeme Firehose - All stories that make it to Techmeme (RSS)
• Google Trends - A Yahoo Pipe mashup with direct links to the hour's top 100 searches (RSS)

The rest of my feeds are in Google Reader. When all is said and done here's what it looks like. What's in your Web Clips? How do you keep up with the news and memes?

Bloodbath in the Clouds Continues as RSS Email Service Shutters

Every day it feels like I am hearing about another cloud computing service that is shutting down. This time it's RSS FWD, a neat tool that let you read RSS feeds in your email account. The site just rolled out an upgraded offering in September.

They won't be the last. Beware, there's a bloodbath in the clouds!

In the months ahead we're going to see a slew of web apps fold. Many won't be spared. I suspect the massacre will claim some high profile sites. This will include apps that are VC backed, ad-supported and/or available only via a paid subscription. The good news is that those that do survive will be players for the long haul.

Years ago I used an awesome time tracking app called Red Gorilla. It went belly up in 2000. Since then I have been very careful about where I keep data that I care about. I even scrutinize tools from big companies.

As we saw with Google this week, you always need to keep an eye on the ball. I feel confident that Gmail is going to be around so I am glad that I have adapted my workflow to make it fit. However, even Gmail is slowing the amount of storage they are adding to its free service. So you never know.

This is exactly why I won't invest time or energy in a lot cloud-based apps today like Remember the Milk or Evernote. Yes, both are awesome and they have income. Evernote got funded and has paying subscribers. Remember the Milk too charges for many of its best services (like its iPhone app). However, I suspect many stick with the free versions - especially nowadays. And that could be problematic in a year or two if things continue. The good news is that these sites make it easy to sync or export your data. 

I do think, however, that strong players like Salesforce.com and 37 Signals will be around. Basecamp, for example, has tons of paying customers. Time will tell if 37 Signals can keep some of its weaker services going.

Beyond the bigs, however, you can be sure that if a service is home-spun it will fold, just as co.mments and now RSS FWD did. The founders are wisely focusing on their careers and/or more viable opportunities.

My advice to everyone is look for high ground. Think hard about where you store data that you care about. If you don't care about the information, then you're fine.

IceRocket Live Web Search Rolls Up Twitter, Blogs, News and More

IceRocket is a jewel of a site that has slowly been improving. I highlighted it recently in my post on the state of blog search. Today they unveiled a cool new feature that blends tweets, blog posts, news stories, videos and images. The feature is called Ice Rocket Big Buzz. Founder Blake Rhodes pinged me about it earlier today. (A larger view of the above image is here)

IceRocket Big Buzz fills a void that we desperately need - a real-time view of news events and memes. This feature gets us closer to such a utopia by pulling together live web sources into a single page. Take, for example a newsy search for plane crash. As I write this post it's filling up with lots of very current information all about today's top news story. This includes videos from YouTube and images from Flickr. Plus you can track all of it via RSS with a link at the top right. Sounds like a dream for journalists.

This is a great first start. I would love to see the page automatically refresh and have a mobile version. In addition, an open API would be helpful too. That way, should I wish, I can add a feed from Friendfeed for items that users are only sharing there. 

Still, I am glad to see that someone is out there trying to solve the live web search problem because, as Scoble shows today with the plane crash story, it's where the action is. Google is sleeping at the wheel here.

With Google Killing Products, Is Reader Next?

UPDATED 1/15/09: Google exec Jeff Huber says there are no plans to shut Google Reader. However, I think the monetization issue is still out there for fodder. 

In a move that's been rumored for awhile, Google tonight said they shutting down or ceasing further development on five products: Google Video, Catalog Search, Notebook, Jaiku (once a promising Twitter competitor) and Dodgeball. None of these products makes Google a dime and it has me wondering what the future is for Google Reader.

In tough times, even the most stable Internet business focus on their core products. I recall back in 2000 or 2001 that Yahoo in its heyday shut down a bunch of products that weren't performing. Now Google is doing the same. If the products don't drive the big G's core businesses -  search, apps and ads - then they're at risk. These five clearly are in that boat.

Enter Google Reader, one of my favorite products and by far the best RSS reader on the market. However, Google Reader is completely un-monetized. Further, RSS adoption aint exactly a robust growth market. It's still for geeks. So I wonder if the economic storm intensifies what Reader's future is. My bet is that they will either shut it down, cease development or start to monetize it the way they are doing with Google Finance. More likely it's the latter. Even Google Maps now has ads.

If Google chooses to run ads in Google Reader, that creates an issue. Lots of publishers run ads in their feeds. If Google is competing against these with its own contextual ads in in Reader then what? It might just be easier for them to shut it down. Thank God for OPML exporting. 

All I am saying is: don't bet that Google Reader will stay the same.

Why Text Remains King of the Web

My friend Robert Scoble has a problem. He produces terrific videos on technology companies for Fast Company. They're a little long sometimes, but they're almost always interesting.

So what's Scoble's problem? Well a lot. The videos don't generate a lot of in-bound links from bloggers, conversations on Twitter or mentions on aggregators like Techmeme. "None of my 1,000+ videos has ever made it to Techmeme," Scoble said. 

He's right. A quick analysis reveals some get no links, others get a couple. However, when he surrounds them with text, it's a different story. Why? Text! It provides context and I suspect for many it's a proxy for the video.

I am starting to believe that despite all the hype around online video, text remains King of the Web. Why text? There are at least five reasons...

• It's scannable - according to Jakob Nielsen users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average site visit and 20% is more likely

• Three letters: SEO - For all that Google Universal Search has done to elevate video, search results are still largely made up of text and everyone wants better SEO

• The workplace - It's much easier for cube-based workers to read text on the screen and get away with it vs. watching long videos. Watching videos (even work related vids) screams "slacker"  

• Mobile Devices - Yes, of course you can put a video on an iPhone. But it's work and requires planning. Text is easier to pull up in a nanosecond  

• Distribution - Nothing flies like text. It's so easy to cut and paste it and send it somewhere or to clip and re-syndicate it via email, RSS or social networks

I don't know about you but I love text. Now I have always been a reader. Today I am a scanner. So for me it comes natural.

Still, think about just how much of what you consume and share online remains text-based. Twitter - it's all text. Friendfeed - mostly text, but augmented by images. Facebook - a mix but certainly a ton of text. Even what makes YouTube hot is the metadata and commentary around the vids. So I don't see any big threat to King Text. 

So what does this mean? Well, if you're creating video you better pay attention to the text you put around it. Without text, you're dead. You won't be found. Further, if you want to influence you must have a command of the English language and know how to write for the web in sound bites. More on that in a subsequent post. I believe marketers and PR pros are well positioned to succeed.

What's your view?

Build an Annotated IM Feed Reader with Friendfeed

In my day dreams at least, one of these days I am going to write a O'Reilly book called Friendfeed Hacks. As they keep adding features, I keep finding new uses for the service beyond the obvious.

I have explained in the past on how to maximize the imaginary friend feature and how to turn it into a real time ticker. Now here's a quick tutorial on how to turn Friendfeed into a cool instant messaging-based feed reader. This uses a new feature they turned on late last year.

First set up one or more imaginary friends that either include RSS feeds and/or Twitter streams. You can find a nice list of media sources available on Twitter here.

Next, roll these imaginary friends into a list.

Then, log into your Friendfeed account and activate IM updates for that list in your settings.

Now whenever there are new feed items or Tweets that hit your list, you will get a ping in your IM client. What's great about this (other than real-time distractions woo hoo!) is that you can take notes on your feeds by leaving comments over IM! All of your feed items and notes are stored on Friendfeed where they can be searched. However, if you use Google Talk in Gmail, they're accessible under Chats as well.

In my case, I pull a mashed-up feed of my Faves that I created with Google Reader and into a Friendfeed list called Feeds. Very handy! Plus, I can always turn it off with a the pause command if I need a break.

Who Joined Twitter When? Twitterholic Knows

Twitterholic added a couple of neat features.

First, they now sort Twitter users by when they joined.

They also now sort Twitter users by location. So, for example, you can now see who has the most followers among San Franciscans or New Yorkers.

In addition, you can also sort Twitter users by the number of updates or by how many they follow.

Finally, you can combine these. So now it's easy to find out who in New York has been on Twitter the longest. In addition, you can also now track the overall top 100 list via RSS. Here's the feed.

WhosTalkin Launches Social Media Search Aggregator

One of my hopes for 2009 is that we'll see greater innovation in the social media search space - both free and premium. I have a bunch that I am trying out now: SM2, Zuula, Blogscope.net and Wikio and others. What follows is a first look at a new site called WhosTalkin that launched its public beta yesterday after seven months of development. (Hat tip to adthinktank.com)

WhosTalking is a metasearch engine that in one place aggregates results from the major free tools for scanning blogs and blog comments, news sites, social networks, video hubs, image, forum and tag sites. It rolls up results from over 60 sites, such as BackType, Technorati, IceRocket, Google Blog Search, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Twitter, Board Reader and many more.

The site has a nice interface that displays results using frames. Just click on the navigational links on the left hand side and they show up on the right. The quality of the results, I find, is hit or miss depending on the source. For example, Bloglines and Backtype results feel very fresh. However, Twitter search results are lacking compared to what you get from search.twitter.com.

In addition, there are two other major limitations. First, you can't view all results in a single view, even by channel (e.g. blogs, social networks, etc.). The other is that you can't save searches or generate RSS feeds - at least yet. These and other services are forthcoming for paid subscribers. There is also a URL API for developers.

At first glance, I am excited about WhosTalkin. There was a ton of innovation in the social media search space in the middle part of the decade. Then it seems like a lot of people talk their eye off the ball once Google Blog Search launched and when Twitter bought Summize.

Given that WhosTalking is pulling results from other sites, I expect they can improve the quality of results rather quickly. Although you have to wonder how the other sites will feel about having their data scraped.

Still, given the way the landscape continues to expand, I think an aggregated approach like this one is the right way to go. And this is a good first effort. If WhosTalkin can improve the timeliness and relevance across all the engines they crawl, then it could become a serious player since they leverage everyone else's databases.

Popurls is My Pick for the Best Web Site of 2008

There were a lot of web sites I really used actively this year - the entire Google network, Techmeme, Friendfeed, Facebook and, of course, Twitter. There's one though that stood out: Popurls. It's a site that people don't talk about enough and that's a shame because there's so much to tout here. Popurls rocked this year and it's my pick for the the best web site of 2008. (Disclaimer: the Popurls page features a link to my most recent blog post but I am not compensated by them in any way nor does Edelman, my employer, represent or currently work with them.)

Popurls calls itself "the dashboard for the latest web-buzz, a single page that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the Internet." The site was created by Thomas Marban. What it basiscally does is aggregate web sites all in one place - digg, delicious, news sites, Techmeme, key blogs, media sites (Flickr, YouTube, etc) and much more. The great thing about it is that you can easily personalize it to your tastes. As you use it, the site gets smarter and shows you recommendations. You can view stats for the web site here.

So why am I nuts about Popurls? There are many reasons...

• It's a digital curator that helps mitigate the Attention Crash


• It underscores that the world is flat (Thomas is from Austria)


• Popurls added a ton of features this year: you can sign in with Open ID or your Google Account, sharing, a live view and a cluster view, a deep archive, a zeitgeist and much more. He seems to be adding features as fast as Gmail and Friendfeed.


• They're also on Friendfeed, Twitter, Facebook, mobile devices, the iPhone and even the Wii.


• Popurls Live - track it in real-time like Twittervision.


• And finally, killer search - complete with search feeds.

However, there's an even bigger story here that everyone is missing. Thomas Marban is making money.

Popurls has sponsors. More importantly, the site is represented by Federated Media. Together they have come up with some very clever, deep brand integrations. For example, Populrs and Intel created Popurls Blue for IT managers. It also debuted a partnership with Epson.

It's too bad that Popurls doesn't get the props it deserves from the tech blogging community. It's an important site. They had a banner year and it's easily one of my favorites overall. Congrats to Thomas on a great 2008 and I look forward to seeing more innovation from him in 2009. A next logical step for them would be an API.

Retro Scobleizer Will Return to His Roots

Interesting discussion overnight between my friends Robert Scoble and MIke Arrington over whether Robert's personal brand diminished because of his love for Friendfeed. How refreshing and retro that this conversation is actually taking place via blogs instead of just on Twitter and Friendfeed, where I am sure it is also happening.

Arrington opines:

 

So Robert has spent 2,555 hours spent reading tens out thousands of mostly inane Twitter and Friendfeed messages, and has written a few thousand messages of his own. Meanwhile, we as a community lost the regularly entertaining and thoughtful posts of a great writer. Like I said, it’s time for an intervention.

I want Scobleizer back.

 

Scoble responds with pros and cons.

I have to agree with Mike here. I don't follow Scoble as much as I used to. And I am someone who has been reading Robert over five years now. In fact, one of my very first posts was about him. The reason I stopped tracking Santa Scoble was simple - I don't spend a lot of time on Twitter and Friendfeed. RSS is my addiction and I dip into these other streams and then dip out as I have time. I never miss a post in my reader.

In 2009 I think we're going to see a lot of the old guard return to their roots - their blogs. The reason is home field advantage. Why build build Twitter or Friendfeed's equity, when you can invest in the turf you spent so much time on? That said, there are tremendous advantages to doing all of the above.

Louis Gray, Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang all seem to have the right model. They do it all. How, I don't know but they do. I have been blogging more lately too. I missed writing long form. My roof has a leak and I am fixing it. Scoble should do the same and I bet he will.

I wrote a post on this earlier this year: Should You Rent or Buy Social Real Estate. The answer - both. But ask first which helps pay the bills. In my case it's my blog. Twitter and Friendfeed are steroids.

As personal branding becomes a weapon in a down economy, look for blogging to make a return run.

Re-Tweets Comprise Two Percent of All Twitter Volume

Back in January I wrote about the Lazysphere and it's impact on blogging. My point then was that many tech bloggers have become lazy in simply re-blogging links rather than breaking news or writing essays that outline powerful new ideas or big questions. Now there are signs that the same is spreading to Twitter.

As of this writing, approximately two percent of tweets - or a staggering 34,000 Twitter postings per day - are simply re-shared content. I calculated the figure by tracking the number of mentions per day for either RT or retweet using Twist. Then, I compared the data to the daily volume statistics on TweetRush. Below are two charts from the last seven days. Using Thursday as a moment in time, 1.9% of the 1.8M tweets used either the word retweet or RT (approximately 34,500).

My frustrations with the Lazysphere led me to set up a special "Thinkers" folder in Google Reader that I treat like a mutual fund. I love this feed because it's a fountain of new ideas and debate. It's like visiting Ben Franklin's Junto. And it reminds me about what attracted me to first reading blogs in 2003.

Twitter is different that blogging, of course. It's not a Junto. It's more like visiting a party and eavesdropping on conversations between friends. However, if the two percent of the volume overall is re-tweeting it's conceivable that it might be higher within your network.

In my case it is and it's why - for as much as I enjoy Twitter - I take Leo's approach and treat it like a swimming pool where I take the occasional dip. I get far more value out of my RSS reader than I do from Twitter but nothing beats it for getting answers to questions. So each medium fills a role in my information diet. But I wonder overtime what impact re-tweeting or lazy blogging might have on the conversation overall

The Sorry State of Blog Search Engines

Maybe there's no money it. Maybe there's no love to be gained from it from bloggers. But blog search is in a pitiful state right now. There's room for someone to come along and innovate.

Now you can argue that blog search doesn't matter as much these days. Twitter and Friendfeed both have strong search capes. The main Google engine scoops up blogs as fast as Elvis ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches. In addition, paid tools like Radian6 do a very nice job. But, darn it, I grew accustomed to having good blog search FOR FREE. And now it appears to be gone.

Here's a rundown of the contenders and what's currently right/wrong with each. Also, I put each site through its paces by tracking links to my recent post on WIkipedia Mobile.

Technorati - Link searches pull up both blog rolls and mentions. Please give me a choice. Technorati seems to be more focused on rolling up bloggers into ad networks rather than on core search. They are leading right now in results, however. (Links to my post: 18. RSS feeds? Busted)

Google Blog Search - For awhile, Google gave me everything I wanted. Fast results on both keywords and link searches. But then a few weeks ago the plumbing broke. Now it's practically useless because it alerts me anytime a blogger who has me on their blogroll updates his/her site. (Links to my post: 9)

Twingly - They offer spam free results. And they look promising so far. But when you put Twingly through its paces, it is very weak on results. (Links to my post: 4)

Sphere - No longer a blog search engine. Off my list.

IceRocket - This might be the true dark horse. It's slowly been improving and it's got a spiffy new design. Note how each link shows you other posts that are referencing it. Smart. Mark Cuban may have a hit here after all. However, IceRocket Trends is currently down. (Links to my post: 14)

BlogPulse: I stopped using this site circa 2006. It has some nice features, but it's not working for me now. (Links to my post: 5)

Ask.com: I always forget about these guys. Their blog search engine is pretty good. Unfortunately, they include my own site in the search results. (Links to my post: 9. Bloglines, owned by Ask, turns up the same)

Bloggers, what are you using? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Are there any I missed? I am giving IceRocket a serious look again because they seem to be catching up.