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A woman tracks down one thief, calling  on Facebook friends to help  and another thief builds up a Fanpage, literally and metaphorically giving the finger to authorities. Why do we resent social networking sites assisting China but cheer when they help British authorities? Is it because China is “bad” and Britain is “good”? Or veiled racism? Do value systems clash on different social networks because of the different communities (countries) they represent?  Don’t look at me, I don’t have the answers to – I just know that “right” and “wrong” have all sorts of grey areas. The ‘net loves grey. Everyone is an amateur lawyer. A couple of New Year Cheer stories. Oh ok, not really. Story #1 Woman retrieves stolen items by using Facebook. Yes really. A woman, Carla Pillo Mote, had her bag and wallet stolen by a drunk guy at a bar. She asked the barman who the guy was (credit cards FTW!). Woman puts out an APB (All Point Bulletin, should be called ASB All Social Bulletin) on Facebook. They track the guy down, get into his apartment, retrieve goods, make friends on Facebook. Police relieved. You really have to read the full story at MediaBistro . Story #2 Thief laughing at police while building Facebook Fanpage For three months now, Craig ‘Lazie’ Lynch has been on the lamb (ed: lam?) from London authorities after escaping from a Suffolk Bay prison in September. The convicted thief has been using Facebook to taunt his pursuers, posting pictures of his various exploits — which include activities like sex and cooking. You can follow his exploits here on Facebook . Also some anti-Craig Lynch pages. This is for the HATERS out there who are starting up some fire with the fans about me hitting or robbing an old lady get a fuckin life you worthless shits, i got respect and haven’t touched or robbed an old lady. now move on and find a life ya shits Such a charmer… I am concerned about Facebook helping out the British police. Why do we cheer when social networking sites stymie the Chinese yet insist they help British/UK police? Is that raciscm? Or is it just that we have a different value system in different cultures/communities?  One rule for all, or two rules – one for those who we agree with and another for those who are different? … and thus the New Year starts. Facebook Detectives and Citizen Investigator is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy Technorati Tags: Carla Pillo Mote , citizen , craig lazie lynch , Detective , Facebook , investigator , theft , thieves Tags: Carla Pillo Mote , citizen , craig lazie lynch , Detective , Facebook , Facebook , investigator , Online Communities , privacy , social media , social networks , theft , thieves , Uncategorized Related posts WowOWow Women on the Web (0) Working with me, and Flying Solo (11) Wonderwebby Microfinance request (2) Who’s Watching Media Watch? (8) What NOT to publish – Mag staff’s Facebook faceoff (3)

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Facebook Detectives and Citizen Investigator

United Airlines broke a guitar. What ensued online was comprehensively a brand trashing and demonstrated what happens if you don’t pay attention to social media – even just monitoring it – it can cost your company $180,000,000. This is a follow on from my posts on Cost of Inaction , also Steak and Shake and Apple vs Engadget . Dave Carroll’s guitar got broken on a United plane flight. If you watched the video, you’ll know he got the run around before being told NO. So he wrote this song, recorded it, made a video and popped it up on YouTube. 3 million views within 10 days, 5 800,000  views now – and 36,500 ratings (5 out of 5), 22,700 comments . ( Mashable ) In Google search, just under 20 million returns for “United Breaks Guitars” ( Google ) Number one downloaded song on iTunes ( Toronto Star ) after only a week When I scanned through, BoingBoing, Mashable, The Huffington Post, and traditional media like the Telegraph (UK), Rolling Stone, LA Times, and Australia’s Crikey, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, etc  had picked up in the story. $180 million dollars lost in share price. (see later) I think UnTied the anti- United community is an interesting development (was around before this incident though). The Times claims that it cost United 180,000,000 smackeroos because the share price plummeted. Meanwhile, within four days of the song going online, the gathering thunderclouds of bad PR caused United Airlines’ stock price to suffer a mid-flight stall, and it plunged by 10 per cent, costing shareholders $180 million. Which, incidentally, would have bought Carroll more than 51,000 replacement guitars. The Huffington Post disputes that claim: it’s borderline silly to suggest that a something like a cheeky web video could move such a prominent stock 10 percent. United is an enormous, struggling company, with a stock price that has been on a downward trend since last fall. In other words, it’s a typical airline stock.What do you think? Is there any way Carroll’s song could have cost United $180 million? What kind of damage did it do to United’s brand? How do you value bad PR like this? Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/united-breaks-guitars-did_n_244357.html My response? Apple lost 4.6 billion dollars market cap when Engadget blogged something negative withing minutes of the blog post. Not exactly the same as a silly YouTube video but you can never be sure of the market… C.O.I – the cost of sitting there saying that social media is for people with too much time on their hands, and that no one need  pay attention to Loser Generated Crap. A dangerous place to sit, indeed. COI: Cost of Inaction United Breaks Guitars is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy Technorati Tags: anti community , apple vs engadget , coi , cost of inaction , dave carroll , Online Communities , social media , social networks , steak and shake , United breaks guitars Tags: anti advertising , anti community , Anti Marketing , anti-branding , anti-PR , apple vs engadget , coi , coi , cost of inaction , cost of inaction , dave carroll , Online Communities , Online Communities , social media , social media , social networks , social networks , steak and shake , United breaks guitars Related posts WOMMA – wrong (0) WOM: AntiMarketing triggers (0) White Paper: Social Networking Primed To Go Mobile (0) Web 3.0, RocketOn and Living Web (1) Web 2.0 is a bust – Advertising doesn’t work (5)

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COI: Cost of Inaction United Breaks Guitars

This post was collaboratively written on a wiki by  Charlene Li , ( cross posted ) who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the  Altimeter Group . Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams.  Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing.  This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and social web for marketing, support, and competitive strategies.  There are several impacts to the ecosystem, here’s what you should know: Deal Fills In Technology and Relationship Gaps for Twitter. Twitter lacks the computing power of a premiere search engine, as their current Twitter search results are littered with spam, duplicate tweets, and are only sorted by time.   Leveraging the sophisticated engineers at Microsoft and Google affords Twitter an opportunity to focus on their platform –not search.  From a business aspect, this deal makes sense is that Microsoft and Google both have relationships with advertisers and brands, with trained sales forces to cut deals. Although the terms of the deal aren’t public, it’s suspect there was an exchange of material goods, it’s likely that Twitter will benefit from revenue share in the near future. Social Search to Serve Results Based On Time, Authority. Expect real time data to merge with existing search engines, as a result we should see Google Search and Bing to serve up search results based on: 1) Real time information based on what Twitter users are saying, including memes from trending topics , 2) Preference given to links and URLs that are tweeted by users with more followers or authority, 3) Geo location of tweets to influence search results.  As users seek “Thai Restaurants in San Mateo”  location based tweets could provide additional context.  4) Eventually results will be served up by your friends.  Google has given a nod to serve up information based on your social graph (your friends) using Google Profile. To Compete, Facebook Must Make More Content Public. For closed social networks like Facebook, this means they need to continue to offer up more data that can be searched in public by search engines.  With default settings in Facebook set to ‘friends only’ this will continue to be a challenge as Facebook’s community prefers the filters and privacy settings that this closed social network provides. Twitter’s Future: Seamless Integration with the Web. Success for Twitter isn’t about becoming a destination site, but instead about becoming a data protocol that’s embedded everywhere.    Like “ Air “, microblogging features are already present in multiple applications, desktop and mobile clients, and the bite-sized information is becoming available in context wherever it’s needed. Customers Influence Search Results An even more amazing impact of these announcements is that for the first time, consumers will be able to directly impact web search results. Although companies spend thousands of marketing dollars controlling their search results by using Google’s advertising services, customers and competitors can quickly and cheaply impact search results using simple tools like Twitter.  Consumers, empowered using mobile devices as a publishing platform can link to content and influence search results. Now, a simple tweet with a picture of a plane landing on the  Hudson from a mobile phone will show up at the top of search results. Key Takeaways: Customers Impact Brand Search Results Using Twitter Even if your company is not active on Twitter, your customers can influence the search results related to your company –you must pay attention to this trend.  Just as your company likely already has a search strategy through search optimization or paid search terms, you’ll need to extend micromedia to your strategy.  In order to be prepared for this change, companies must: Develop a Listening Strategy That Starts With Roles and Process .  Every business and market is now moving faster and faster as information spreads around the globe in minutes –if not seconds.  Companies must be ready to quickly identify flare ups, be ready to respond, and correct incorrect information.  Develop a listening strategy that has internal roles set in place, a process to respond and the right tools like Radian 6, Visible Technologies, BuzzMetrics, or Cymfony. Change The Marketing Mindset –Legacy Methods Ineffective. Search marketers must understand that blasting marketing information through Facebook or Twitter won’t be effective, as search engines will filter out irrelevant messages that nobody listens to. Instead, marketers should allow content on all web properties and email marketing to be easily added to Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites by offering icons that encourage people to share. Providers like  ShareThis and  AddThis make this simple to do. Develop Influence Marketing Programs. Since these search engines have all noted that they will rank real time information on a person’s authority and not just traditional page ranking, marketers must double down on building these relationships.  More than ever, brands will need to foster discussions within Twitter as retweet, replies, and linking behavior will influence what is served up on results pages.  It takes time to build real relationships that develop into public conversations so get started now. Related Links: For a  list of social networking stats (including Twitter) we’ve a 2009 collection we keep up to date.

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Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands

This post was collaboratively written on a wiki by Charlene Li , ( who’s cross-posted ) who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the Altimeter Group . Google has quietly been launching a social network right under our own chins. No, it’s not about Google extending Orkut, a social networking platform they developed a few years ago, or growing Google groups, or even launching their own version of a Twitter. Instead they’ve been releasing small bits of social networking features, little by little. Previously, we’ve made the case that email is already the largest social network , however Google’s plans go beyond Gmail. First, let’s define what to look for, in order to identify what Google is concocting. Defining Social Networks To start with, we define a social network as having three baseline components: 1) A profile that contains a person’s information; 2) The ability for people to connect to each other via those profiles, often called a social graph; and 3) the ability to do something useful or valuable they couldn’t have done otherwise. Features such as discoverability or public access are often cited as social network features, but we believe that the common denominators across most social networks are the three characteristics we listed. Now that we agree on the definition, we can see that Google is launching each of these features with little fanfare. Let’s break down what’s happening. Google allows people to: Maintain a Rich Profile. Google recently launched new features called Google profiles which allows users to upload profile pics, include personal information and preferences, and allow it to be discoverable on the web. These are coupled with a Google account such as gmail, and is at the core of these efforts. Connect and Communicate With Others. Individuals using the Google profiles can connect to each other and share information using a variety of tools, not all of them necessarily social. For example, Gmail and Google Talk contain not just your contacts, but also understand with whom you communicate the most . Google doesn’t explicitly ask if you’re a ‘friend’ or ‘fan’ of someone, but rather, allows people to connect to each other in a variety of communication tools. And most recently, Google launched Google Sidewiki , which allows anyone to add comments to any page on the Web with just a Firefox plug-in. Centralize Information In A Useful Way. Allowing people to build profiles and communicate with each other isn’t of much value unless it can provide a more useful experience not previously available. Google provides a number of tools like Google Wave , a collaboration tool we’ve started to experiment with, Gtalk instant messanger, and Gmail which rivals Facebook’s newsfeed, chat, and inbox respectively. Google’s Stealth Threat The difference between Google and destination social networks like MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook is that Google doesn’t have a specific URL. Instead, it is creating elements that envelope the web, by enabling every online (and mobile) activity to possibly be social one –then running it all on their own centralized platform. Google isn’t going after a frontal, brute force assault on Facebook and the other social networks — it simply can’t win at that game on a global basis. Instead Google is pursuing a softer approach, a zen-like attach much like water flowing around a rock. It is using its strengths — ubiquity and open platforms — to put “social” into every corner of the Web. This is the stealth threat — that today’s social networks won’t really be losing share to the “Google network”, but rather, that they will become slowly less relevant as EVERYTHING gets social thanks to advances by Google. Their end goal? Google’s social network is designed to exist everywhere –not be centralized in any one location. By the way, two can play at this game and we see Microsoft making similar moves in the future. (Edit: It was pointed out to Charlene that Yahoo! is also making similar moves with its social APIs ). Key Takeaways Enveloping The Social Web Is Core To Google’s Strategy . This is inline with Google’s traditional strategy of organizing the world’s information –then serving up monetization options around it. Although a few years late to the game, Google’s move is crucial as they already have large amounts of information about what you look for, who you know, and the activities you do. It’s a natural step for them to also organize and make sense of the social and behavioral information that people create. In addition, Google — who already has long term relationships with agencies, brands, and marketers — will be a natural place for companies to look to for advertising and marketing opportunities around social data, rather than new players and start-ups. Google’s Recent Moves Threaten Incumbent Social Networks. Facebook and other competitors will need to quickly spread it’s Facebook Connect platform and evolve it to something that doesn’t even require APIs or registrations. The challenge with Facebook Connect is it requires the website owner (publisher) and the user to opt-in and allow for content to become social. With Google’s SideWiki, only the users need to opt-in, which will cause adoption to spread must faster. Facebook will need to extend it’s inline browser (surfing the web within the context of facebook.com) or developing their own browser to counter Google’s moves. Facebook’s core conundrum is balancing personal and often private information of its community with the need to expose information in public in order to be relevant in search and eventually advertising. Despite Privacy Concerns, Users Will Continue To Use Google. Although privacy concerns will continue to be the mainstay of objections, the benefits to the common user will outweigh any critics. We know that people will verbally object to their privacy being an opportunity for another company, yet they continue to behave in a way opposite to their objections. Why? For most, they’ve grown to trust players like Google . Or they are willing to give up control of some information in exchange for convenience, such as having social data conveniently show up on Google Maps on your phone. And for others, the price of privacy can be measured by what information they will give up to get ‘free shipping’. The root concern isn’t broadly about privacy, but specifically about privacy in the context of when you’re not in control of it. Google is highly motivated to maintain the trust of users and will do everything possible to continue earning and deserving that trust. We’re not the only ones to notice this trend, Search Engine Watch also characterizes Google as a social media company . We hope our viewpoint sheds light to where Google is heading, and hope to hear your viewpoints too.

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Revealing Google’s Stealth Social Network Play