I thought the page would come up with a random (but flattering) dollar amount, just like the "how much is your blog worth widgets", but sadly it contained real information - presented in the form of WORDS! - Andy Murdoch
Research --> Listening e.g. DelMonte's I love my dog community-- wanted to hear what customers were saying -- package testing as well - Shey
Marketing --> Talking (2-way communication) e.g. Blendtec and blending the iPod -- $50 worth of materials = over 5,000,000 views on YouTube. Sales jumped by 20%. e.g. 2 = P&G BeingGirl.com -- getting customers to talk about uncomfortable subject (tampons) -- P&G says the community is 4x as effective reaching their market. e.g.3 Tivo joining an existing, vibrant community instead of creating their own. - Shey
Sales --> Energizing (getting your most passionate customers to do the selling for you) e.g. Brides.com = a MySpace microsite about being a Bride -- getting Brides and their friends involved. Countdown widget on Myspace page. Link from widget back to Brides.com microsite, easy to add. The people most passionate are selling the service. e.g3 -- ExpoTV uses reviews to energize customers. Some customers more technical than others, bargain hunters vs shopaholic -- ExpoTV lets you find like minded ppl - Shey
Support --> Supporting (support provided by your own customers) e.g. Dell community -- 1 member has 473,113 min, 22,508 posts -- saving Dell a chunk of change -- because he loves helping. e.g2. Best Buy - Blue Shirt Nation support front line workers -- employees talk to each other -- saving time by sharing info - Shey
Development --> Embracing (allowing customers to give their ideas) e.g. Starbucks - My Starbucks Idea. Community submits ideas and vote on them (Wi-Fi) -- they also get feedback on ideas they go through with. e.g.2 - French bank puts up suggestion box. Put up a few on the site to get feedback - Shey
ROI of executive blog - year 1 - total costs: 285K - total value: 353K - Shey
Dell Hell (re: Jeff Jarvis) and Dell laptop on fire. (caused 75% of all comments about Dell were negative) -- started blog resolution program. Complaints on blog were address much quicker than usual avenues - Shey
Dell eventually decided to join the conversation and improve their communication and image. Michael Dell gave it support -- managed to address flaming notebook. - Shey
Dell executives review and implement customer suggestions - IdeaStorm. Decided to ship Dells wit Linux based on feedback. - Shey
Dell also uses a blog to talk to investors - DellShares. - Shey
Overall Dell's customer contact has grown and 75% negative comments are now 50/50 and getting better. - Shey
Keys to sucess: Start with your customers. Choose and objective you can measure. Line up executive backing. Romance the naysayers. Start small, think big. - Shey
This was really cool Shey - thanks for doing it! - Hutch Carpenter
@Shey - awesome recap and an interesting use of friendfeed. - Rob Diana
thanks, no problem. I found it really informative - Shey
Very cool Shey! Thanks for the creative idea. I tried to take notes during yesterday's Scoble/FriendFeed video, but I only thought of it half-way through. - Mitchell Tsai
From post: "I have seen this vividly in my own life. I used to read three newspapers a day. I also never missed the local 11 o'clock news every night. I excelled at current events quizzes in school. No more. Since I started living in my feed reader, I became blissfully ignorant about the world, facing an ever-pressing need to stay current in my domain of expertise." - Hutch Carpenter
Speaking as a Renaissance Man: We have to adapt. Actively seek different inputs and interests, rather than assuming they'll just show up on the nightly news or whatever. - Brent Newhall
Excellent post, Steve, and proof that you're more of a polymath than you think. ; ) With all due respect though, seems to me the solution is to stop living in your feed reader. Force yourself to leave the computer at the end of every day and watch the nightly news. Turn off Twitter and crawl in bed with Newsweek or a good book. Subscribe to the NY Times on the weekend - and actually read parts of it. I've noticed I miss out on a lot of online conversations that happen at 9pm on a Sunday but I am more than okay with that. - Carla Thompson
I read all the same stuff on my feed reader and still consider myself a Renaissance man, - Francine Hardaway
Newspapers and TV exist in virtual reality. I haven't subscribed to a paper in years, and yet I read more global news now than ever in my life. I don't think paper is required for "renaissance", I think that Renaisance has just morphed - Michael VanDervort
""Twitter needs to be decentralized and standardized because it’s as important as the DNS system behind the Internet."
say it with me now... I-R-C" - engtech
...easy as 1-2-3, that's how easy chat should be - Andy Murdoch
This is almost as good as the "Google circa 1960" typewritten sheet. - Ontario Emperor
"I am openly amused." Great "historic" thread. - tagami
Nice job Corvida! Hilarious. Check out Honest_Ape's (the artist) comic strip http://mixxingbowl.com Thanks Ontario for the "Google circa 1960" picture - Mitchell Tsai
I got one of these kits too. This kind of PR works, but only because it's different. If everyone did it I'd really be pissed. It's stupid PR, if you really think about it. Build a relationship with me, don't pull stunts! - Robert Scoble
But we've already got a relationship, Robert. The package is a stunt, but it's a stunt that says "we value your attention, so we went to all this trouble to get it". At least that was our thinking. - Darren Barefoot
For those that want the "feel" of a newspaper but with information from the web. Same idea as Zinio did for real magazines in a way. Good post, but some of the other news readers are grabbing my attention right now - Chris
don't know who would ever pay $30 for a newsreader. - Nishith Shah
why pay when you can get free... hmmmn, there is really something? - Jack
Mac users are generally happier to pay for software than PC users. - Andy Murdoch
Good post Robert. I wrote a story today on why people should be Lifestreaming. you cover one of the reasons in your post, but there are many others. You can read it here: http://lifestreamblog.com/why-... - Mark Krynsky
Ok, this is seriously cool. I'm starting to like Friend Feed more and more. - Don MacAskill
I use my "Comments and Likes" page as a newspaper, to see what's happened on these articles/posts/Twitters since I last saw them. Without the Comments/Likes, stuff would get totally buried (even only following 50-80 people. How do people follow 10,000? Ouch.). 2 weeks ago, I barely used "comments" and "likes" and stuff moved so fast on FriendFeed, that in a few hours, everything was so far down the pages...lost. Good post. - Mitchell Tsai
I may put a "like" on something interesting, so I can (1) come back in a few hours (2) see if any cool discussion is going on (3) remove the "like" if it's boring (4) gives me time to Del.icio.us the article if I was too lazy/busy when I first saw the article. (5) Remove the "like" if I make a "comment" so I don't hit that FriendFeed "like" limit .... uhhh speed bump. :-) - Mitchell Tsai
What Robert Scoble and Louis Gray really nailed in their two posts. - If I like person X, I can easily see what person X also likes. Waaaay better than reading one blog. Better than a set of RSS feeds. Combines (1) the power of "light-weight communication" - interaction without e-mail/phone (2) the ability to make "50 million personal newspapers" (3) the building of a community with multiple layers for everyone (e.g. asymmetric links, you don't have to follow your fans) (4) imaginary friends - Mitchell Tsai
@Mitchell Shaulis: I am clearly not in the big league on FriendFeed as I didn't realise there was a limit to how many posts I could Like. I need to up my involvement clearly! Great post Scoble, I enjoy reading both yourself and Louis Gray! - Joe
This is great thnx for the heads up - John Spencer
We should ALWAYS remember that blogo-something is a two-way road. Commenting helps keep stuff healthy. Not commenting is unhealthy to the network. - Cesar Cardoso
It is apparent that FriendFeed is one of those services that you should know very, very well. - Alex Williams
I'll try to comment on the original blog post rather than FriendFeed. If they're not using Disqus my comments won't show. - Andy Murdoch
Andy: what you doing commenting here then? - Robert Scoble
The power of blogs over traditional publishing is the two-way communication channel. Many times the post is just the jumping-off point for the good stuff. Those that forget that intrinsic fact usually are suffering from a fit of an inflated sense of self-importance. - Morgan via twhirl
I didn't realize this page existed - wow! cool! and it has its own feed. circle of life. nice - Sarah Perez
Excellent tip!! I did not know you could do that. I am checking my subscriptions and really, very few "famous" people take the time to discuss. Sad but true, it seems that the communication is only one way. - Arturo Servin
This is why FF keeps me coming back, is all about the great conversation and the discovery of interesting articles that keeps me interested. - Gadiel Rivera
I have a list of URLs for all the apps if you want it. Tried to post it as a comment but "An error occurred". Maybe too long or too many URLs. - Andy Murdoch
Scratch that, looks like the comment worked despite the error message. - Andy Murdoch
When I read the title on FriendFeed I thought it said "Google AppEngine Hacks". I was about to commend the author for amazingly speedy writing. - Andy Murdoch
Thanks.. Heading there with Visa card in hand.. cheers.. - Johnny R
Yahoo is really working to stay relevent in today's market. It will be interesting to see what happens with Microsoft because that is really going to determine where Yahoo ends up in terms of relevence. - Michael Koby via Alert Thingy
I'm excited for Yahoo at the moment, they seem to "get" social media and are starting to experiment with the semantic web in ways that are leaving Google behind. Good for them, their homepage still sucks though. - Andy Murdoch
I just hope it's not too little, too late. - Jason Kaneshiro
What took them so long? Seemed to be a natural thing to do with things like flickr, delicious, MyBlogLog, Y! Anwers, etc. Lets see how they execute. - Daniel Feygin
