Gdgt is gorgeous!

The social network for gadget-owners, supposedly for the 95% of the relationship that follows that 5% of lust. Great graphics, blessedly non-techie simple language in the site navigation and messages — but it seems to overlap some with getsatisfaction.com (for product complaints), at least on day two.

Deep dives in the deep web

A Santa Fe company that’s made a nice living building custom search tools for the databases generally inaccessible to Google for such clients as Intel, has recently unveiled a set of specialized search sites that are open to the public: scienceresearch.com, mednar.com (medical) and for business research, biznar.com.

Intro to Social Marketing for B2B

A good intro to uses of Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. from the point of view of a smaller business that sells to other businesses.

Personality-based advertising coming soon to a site near you

It’s not enough that they (okay, we, since I’m in the biz) are tracking where you go and what you do, but not they/we want to understand your motivation. Harvard Business Review has a nice intro by venture investor Anthony Tjan of Cue Ball: http://tr.im/nkGe

One tip: “…a technique we used at Thomson Reuters
called the three-minute rule; we observed what users were doing three
minutes before and three minutes after each interaction with the
product.”

If you measure it, will it grow?

IAB Doc Seeks to Nail Down Social Media’s ROI – MarketingVOX

We are what we read

Which would suggest that we are liable to pretty wide swings, depending on how much we read: I’ve just finished The Palace Council by Stephen Carter, which overlays a plot to control the country over the lives of the black middle-upper class from the fifties through the seventies; The Broker by John Grisham, really about how wonderful the city of Bologna is; The Way We’ll Be, by John Zogby, pollster extraordinaire (and current business partner), who lays out the remarkable changes in the 18-29 generation. So who am I? Well, luckily, the reading is cumulative, so take a rolling average: I’m a white liberal interested in cultures and milieus other than my own…What do you think?

Advice for any business not satisfied with their web efforts

From Jay Small. Newspapers are all asking the wrong question: they’re asking what other newspaper is doing the right things. Better, in fact, the only smart thing to do, is ask what other businesses are doing the right things: smallinitiatives.com.

Rule #6

From The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander (paraphrased):

Two prime ministers are discussing grave matters of state when a staffer for the host minister bursts in, screaming hysterically, gesticulating wildly, whereupon the minister admonishes him, “Peter,” he says, ” kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to calm, apologizes and withdraws.

The ministers resumed their discussion, but were interrupted again by another high-level aide, apoplectic, pounding on the desk. Again the intruder is greeted with the words, “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Marie is instantly restored to calm, thanks the prime minister and apologizes to his guest, and withdraws.

The visiting prime minister says, “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my too-long career, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?”

“Very simple,” replies his host. “Don’t take yourself so goddamned seriously.” Ah, says his guest, “A very fine rule.” He ponders it for a moment more, then asks, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?”

“There aren’t any.”

Is America Falling off the Flat Earth? Competitiveness measures say, “Oops.”

The U.S. is like the man falling from the 25th floor, asked how he was doing as he passed the 15th, “Fine so far.”

Well, that’s not news to frogs in pots all over the world.

Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, chairs the “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” committee for the National Academy of Sciences. He wrote the report the committee issued last year under the title I used for this post. His not very politically-correct conclusion: “It is unreasonable to expect that in a broadly prospering world any single nation can maintain indefinitely the broad dominance that America has enjoyed in recent decades. But America can, if it wishes, maintain a position of considerable strength, overall prosperity and constructive leadership.”

Um, “if it wishes?” To be fair, Augustine and his anonymous committee (members not named in the report itself, or on the National Academies site) apparently can take credit for legislation passed and signed into law fast fall, complete with funding. On the other hand, the report itself says, “during the past 3 years alone, at least 16 significant reports on America’s growing competitiveness disadvantage have been issued,” and those were preceded by many more.

But America doesn’t need to be number one, do we? Here’s some of the evidence:

<ul><li>The U.S. share of the world’s leading-edge semi-conductor manufacturing capacity dropped from 36% to 11 percent in the past 7 years. </li>

<li>There are now 12 energy companies in the world whose reserves exceed those of the largest U.S. energy firm, Exxon-Mobil.</li>

<li>Nearly 60% of U.S. patent filings in information technology originate in Asia.</li>

<li>The United States ranks 17th among nations in high school graduation rate and 14th in college graduation rate.</li></ul>

The NAS convened a followup meeting at the end of April to report on progress, but I haven’t found any coverage of the meeting. In an article in “Innovation” Augustine notes that the media also did not cover the hearings and the passage of the America COMPETES Act.

“Online Community ROI” conference notes

Centers for Disease Control trying just about everything. About to open island in Second Life. Fred Smith

Trish Barber: iBelong Networks. “Lead, involve and organize your active group.” Keywords in your profile trigger news feeds, can share anything by widget; hierarchy of groups, 4 levels deep.

Online Community Research Network: Online Community ROI Models, 150 responses.

Lithium: rating/reputation system, SAAS: Sprint combines multiple services in single.

Jenna Woodul, LiveWorld: old-timers get out of control: best practices: feature best of comments, behavior; offer old-timers new place; announce stricter rules: turnover of core posters, increase in posts.

Mzinga: Barry Libert. Starbucks  has 48 people triage 100,000 suggestions within week or so. Wrote a book: The Idea Share Tool: “Wearesmarter” site: vote along with comments. Get cred for doing what people really want. (Dell: put Linux on desktop.)

Solutionset, Mike Lee: widget platform: surveys, tips, video, articles, highlighted posts, promotions: measurable.

David Silver: author of Smart Startups, angel investor, www.sfcapital.com. Offline group revenue streams: exhibitors, admission fees, sales of recordings, sponsors of cups, etc. Online revenue streams: sponsorships (static); affiliate ad networks (Scott’s affiliates are retail seed sellers, etc.), TV and Web Content, set up a  non-profit; subscription newsletters, tip-jar, review/recommend, (”Sermo” (sp?) sell stream of comments to companies); JD Powers (slice and dice stream and beat JD), Currency Exchange, Affinity Credit cards.

Loyalty-builders: great theater => great passion. Must be passionate to bring in new members, keep paying. “Lockers” keep stuff; voting records kept; alerts.

Aaron Strout, Mzinga: just acquired Prospero, ran ABC site for “Lost.” Theories board.. during writers’ strike. Sponsored by Jeep. Also Tripadvisor: All user-generated content, sell advertising.

BestBuy: community for employee to find out what customers are saying, then discovered 8% turnover for engaged employees, vs. 60% turnover for all employees.

Question: how about ranking resumes publicly?  (For those whose searches are public.) A. sure!

Q: combine social lending with community?

A. Great idea.

Q. Will users feel ripped off?

A. Must give value back. Don’t have to get all of public valuation if get enough value.

MQ. network fatigue? A. Opensocial? Friendfeed, social feed…no more walled content — widgets “disintermediation of site from content.”

Deepen relationship with customers: will be willing to work with you. P&G working with Tremors (mothers) and teen groups. 42% products from outside, 80% success rate because talked with community throughout process.

Portable social graph will help, but Facebook ad problem. Caution!