I received beta codes for both socialthing! and Ping.fm through the social web, yet both experiences couldn’t have been more different, and yet so similar at the same, again proving that the social web is about interactions that are platform agnostic in intention, but directly tied to the platform or forum that becomes the channel. We met Matt Galligan, founder and C-E-Oh! of socialthing! at SXSW for an interview about the launch of the beta, and how they see themselves in the social media space. After the interview, he gave us a few beta invite codes as well as an invitation to the socialthing! party later that next evening (which we greatly enjoy Matt, thanks!). I received my invite code to Ping.fm from reading my twitter feeds, and although I wasn’t fast enough to get the codes that @chrisbrogan provided, Sean at Ping.fm was kind enough to shoot me off one and I am stoked that he did.

After only a couple of days on both, I am really excited about what I see. To me this is the closest combination to my killer social app that I have used. It is the Pushmi-Pullyu of the social web.

Ping.fm was very easy to hook up. After acquiring my credentials, It was a very simple process to associate my variety of “channels” into my Ping account. I am especially happy that they have added an AIM component as well, so that I can use iChat as my broadcaster. Ping.fm solves attempts to solve the problem of multiple social applications by allowing me to “ping” all of them from one interface, and an interface of my choice. I can text or email into my ping account and have it distributed to my many social footprints.

socialthing! approaches the problem from the other direction. After signing into socialthing! one of the first things i notices was the clever UI that they have used to associate my Twitter, Facebook and Flickr accounts. Once connected, socialthing! provides for me a Lifestream, an aggregated view of the services I have identified, and allows for a display order that is either time based or user based. A side benefit of socialthing! was that I quickly saw how many “friends” I had collected on Flickr that now, unintentionally, were clogging up my Lifestream. A quick run through of my Flickr friends will clean out those that no longer participated in an active conversation with me, or were no longer of particular interest.

I was recently having a conversation with Brooke, a banker friend of ours, and explaining to her  my perspective on social media applications like socialthing! and Ping.fm. The combination of these two applications fit neatly into her “moment of clarity” when she proclaimed social applications to be a social GPS of sorts. The push distribution of Ping.fm and the pull of socialthing! combined with the triangulation of the content and context of the messages provide for a time, a place, and a perspective based on your knowledge of the author. It tells you exactly “where they are” in a near real-time fashion.

I am clearly going to continue using these services, and will speak with both companies to see if we can acquire a group of invite codes for our readers. Are you using either platform? What are your thoughts? We would love to read your comments. 

As the Creative Director at MediaTrust I am often asked to participate in meetings that will define the impact of the user experience in our ads, campaigns, and interfaces. In fact, later today I have been invited to review the impact of a few changes to data acquisition screens for one of our platforms. Kudos to the engineering team for having the insight to include another perspective before coding changes begin. So often in our industry we see companies focusing on the system, and not the experience of the customer. Which brings me to the story of United Airlines Flight 7326 from Austin to Santa Barbara, connecting through Denver.

If you have been following the blog, you know that Scott and I recently went to Austin for SXSWi. Final day for us there required, of course, that we fly home. We arrived at the airport early,  bought last minute t-shirts from the Waterloo Records outpost, and some snacks and water for the flight. Boarding was typical, with no surprises. And then we sat, waiting at the gate for no apparent reason. And sat. And sat. And sat. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes into the wait that other passengers began to power back up cell phones and make changes to their Denver connections, as most of were going someplace other than the Mile High City. The man behind me loudly proclaimed “They aren’t telling us anything” as he asked his assistant to secure him a later flight back to Seattle.

Why is this important to a blog about media and advertising and community? Over the next 30-40 minutes, we learned that there was an equipment failure. The repair would take about 10 minutes and we would be underway. 15 minutes later we were told that indeed it was an equipment failure and that it would take another 10 minutes to locate the appropriate part, but that they would repair it and get us on the way. Another 10 minutes go by and another status report that the part had been fixed, but it would take another 10-15 minutes to file paperwork regarding the repair. Again, so why is this important to discuss here?

Clear and concise information delivered to the customer as soon as possible and as inclusive as possible would have driven an entirely different brand experience for United Airlines. Passengers were vocal about their complaints of the situation, and began to tell stories of similar experiences with United. That punctuated those bad stories with the good experiences from other carriers. I even overheard passengers changing their already missed connections to other airlines due to the recommendation of disgruntled passengers.

Back to the story. Scott and I landed in Denver, certain that our flight was already gone, and concerned that we would not get into Santa Barbara that night (there tends to be limited fights in and out of the airport there). Lucky for us our connecting flight was delayed due to equipment failure. A part of the landing gear system was being replaced and the plane was being test flown to insure our safety. So we breathed a sigh of relief, sat back, charged our laptops and phones, and ate a quick burrito, again listening to the incremental updates as to when we would board. And true to form United never gave us an inclusive time window for take off. Once we were on the plane, we were again delayed for paperwork reasons, instead of being allowed to wait in the lobby until paperwork was finalized and the plane then boarded. And again, the bashing of United Airlines was the primary conversation in the surrounding seats.

I am a big believer in conversational marketing, and the impact of social media on brands and the branded experience, and certainly UA was getting its share of bad press on Twitter, via email, and on overheard phone calls. We all agreed that we felt relieved that safety was a very big concern from UA, and was actually surprised that they informed us of repair status as it progressed. But their handling of the messaging and the impact of the delays to travelers left much to be desired. We were not greeted by the mythical “gate agent” to inform us as to the status of our connecting flights, instead having to dash down the terminal to find a check-in counter that was a.) manned and b.) without a line of passengers before we understood that our flight was delayed. A broadcast of connecting flight status while we taxied up to Denver would have been helpful. A clear honest evaluation of the time of delay would have also allowed us to plan our wait time much better, and given us a chance to make calls, eat without rushing, or just relax while the mechanics did their thing. Again, a simple exercise in managing the customers expectation would have gone a long way to making a return to the “friendly skies” of United Airlines.

I would love to stop here, and tell you that all was well as we landed in Santa Barbara. We were tired, but grateful that Scott would not miss another night away from his newborn daughter, and that I would be able to make the 90 mile road trip home before midnight. But, it seems that no one notified the baggage crew that our flight from DEN was delayed, and they re-directed our bags to SFO, with the intention of shipping them down to SBA on the first flight in the morning. When we approached to lost baggage counter, the CSR there already knew the status of the misdirected bags and it did not take her long to let us know that we would have the bags no later than one hour after the first plane from SFO had been serviced in SBA. Well, everyone but me of course. 

The following day, at 1 pm, the exact time that I was informed that my bags should have been delivered to my door, I spend the next 40 minutes on hold with the UA lost baggage line, being informed that they did indeed have my bags in SFO and would be sent to me on the next flight. They also told me I could track the bags online from the UA website, which by the way, never showed an update of my bag status during the next 24 hours that it took for me to get my bag to my home.

Repeated calls into the lost baggage service we answered with the same identical transcript. I was meet with the same disinterested inflection from the CSR that they have identified my bag, that it is somewhere in the system and that they are uncertain if it is being delivered by car or if it is still at the airport. Mind you that it is now my wife’s birthday, and her present is securely safe in my bag somewhere in the UA infrastructure, yet they have no way of telling me where, or when I will get to it. I ended up being the guy at the party without the gift from Austin for his wife.

I finally ended up with my bag early Saturday afternoon, the day after my wife’s birthday. I had arrived in SBA Thursday evening. During that time my experience with UA continued to rely on the “status reports” from a set of systems that never seemed to detail current data, that did not take into account my needs or concerns as a traveller, nor was able to provide a timely resolution to the problem. Never once did I demand anything from United Airlines except timely delivery of my luggage. I never once asked for free flights, apologies or drink coupons. I was only thanked for my patience, and told that I should check back in a few hours to see if there is any more information regarding my luggage. I was never offered a solution, a pair of tickets to anywhere in the continental U.S. or a phone call from a department supervisor.

Managing the customer expectation of your brand is one of the most important things any company can do today. This includes what happens after the ticket is sold, at every touchpoint in the value chain of a brand’s customer experience lifecycle at every interaction, whether online, offline or on the phone.

A member of the cabin crew made an announcement shortly after we arrived in Santa Barbara. They said that they recognize that I had choices in my selection of an air travel partner and thanked me for choosing United.

Personally, I felt like I chose wrong.

Just wanted to provide a quick update on Day 3 of SXSWi. Earlier today I spoke with David Merkoski,the creative director of the SF office of frog design. David invited us over to the Austin offices where we spoke about the impact that design and the design process has on  the future of social media.

What really impressed me was that even though David had an open forum to plug his company, his focus of the conversation was all about the strategic thinking regarding products and services, and about the opportunities in the space that using a design language can reveal. His company obviously gets it. It is bright people like David, who are engaged in the design of the future of social media, whether it is integrated at a industrial design level, or in the development of a tag line for an emerging technology that continues to drive innovation in the this space. Look for this interview shortly, and for more insight into the convergent design philosophy of frog, visit the frogblog.

One of the companies that we interviewed today was Kyte.tv. After the interview, Gannon, the CMO at Kyte noticed my badge, and noticing we were from Santa Barbara, asked if I have ever heard of Web Associates. In fact, I was the first creative director at Web and took my Environmental Design degree from UC Davis with Tom Adamski, the CEO at Web Associates. I worked with Tom for many years, eventually becoming his Director of Strategy and guiding such clients as Apple, Beam Wine Estates, and Philips. So Gannnon said I probably know Daniel Graf, Kyte’s CEO. And there he was, doing an interview with some tech analysts. I worked with Daniel when he was head of the Streamium team at Philips, and with a variety of projects that supported the Streamium platform. Daniel is one of those amazing guys that have not only vision and insight, but has the technical skills to guide a team to successful execution. Knowing that Daniel is at the helm of Kyte only increases my interest in working with them in the future.

WOW! Day 2 at SXSW has been fantastic. We have had the opportunity to meet with quite a few new companies, and some of the old guard that have begun to re-invent themselves to stay relevant in this always-on, hyper media industry. We will be producing another daily diary later today. Upcoming is the People Power party, hosted by Moo, Etsy, Timbuk2 and Threadless. This will be a great opportunity to meet with some of the leading companies that really learned how to harness the power of the communities in order to become a distributive force in their respective industries.

We were also added to the guest list for the socialthing gathering later tonight, and received an invite code to their closed beta. For that have yet to hear about them, socialthing is a connector and a transit layer for all of your social applications and tools. In short, it connects your Facebook with your meebo, with your Flickr with your twitter. Word on the street is that they will be the breakout product of SXSWi. We will keep you posted on our experience with them.

Also on tap for this week is chats with Kyte.tv, Zappos, and a slew of other companies that understand that the value of the community based conversation, and how to really impact their revenue, product design and customer acquisition using social media tools and methods.

We’ve arrived at SXSW and started the week right. We met up with people from Federated Media, PC Magazine, Henry Grey PR, and Blurb. We kicked it at the frog design party and stayed out later than we should have.

We’ll be finding our feet as we do these diaries. In the meantime, enjoy Christopher’s first update from our hotel room.

Just over two years ago, myself and three other lead generation practitioners formed the Online Lead Generation Association (OLGA). We immediately began talking about best industry practices at a time when no one was talking about such things. Two years later, lots of people are talking best practices, particularly since the federal government and various state attorneys general have gotten
into the act.

So, after a few high-profile enforcement actions, the latest being that of ValueClick, where do things stand? Over the last month or so, OLGA and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) have collaborated on the IAB’s recently published Best Practices  document and the two groups are still discussing OLGA’s insistence on stronger consumer protection regarding the marketing of personally identifiable information.

Meanwhile, regulatory officials have picked up the pace. Last fall, at the OMMA East Expo in New York, OLGA hosted a panel discussion on regulatory issues. One of our panelists was Leonard Gordon, Regional Director of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). While Len was very circumspect in what he could say, owing to the FTC’s ongoing probes, he did say several times that the feds would very much prefer that the lead generation industry police itself. Failing that, he allowed that the FTC would go after those entities involved with sketchy incentivized lead generation offers who have the deepest pockets, namely advertisers and big Web sites. After all, the FTC reports to Congress and must justify its activities and budget, so the FTC will go where the most money is.

Following the OMMA conference, the office of the Florida Attorney General said in an interview with ClickZ.com that it would be going after not only deceptive lead-gen companies, but advertisers and Web sites involved in any way with deceptive lead-gen offers. Think about it: potential lawsuits against companies like Facebook and Netflix. Now think about the chill this could have on the lead-gen space, as advertisers decide to pull back, in knee-jerk fashion, because they don’t always know where their offers are running and don’t want to put the effort into finding out, which is their right and duty. This is why industry self-regulation needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Call me a skeptic, but regardless of what guidelines the IAB or OLGA publish, I believe there will always be “black hat” lead-gen operators raking in big money while trying to stay one step ahead of the regulators. After all, some of the settlements we’ve seen with companies like Azoogle and World Avenue—a million dollars here, a million dollars there—are very small beer when you look at the revenue side of these operations. (I’d pay $1 million any time in exchange for the liberty of taking in $100 million.) As I write this, the FTC hasn’t released the final documents on its investigation and settlement with ValueClick. ValueClick has announced it will pay $2.9 million without admitting any guilt. So it looks like ValueClick will move ahead while promising that it will not do in the future what it denies having done in the past. Sure, we’ll get some new guidelines about the size and color of terms and conditions for “free” and other incentivized offers, and hopefully a company as prominent as ValueClick will lead the way to a better future.

I don’t think this takes the game far enough. My company routinely comes across incentivized offers that look for all the world like the same kind of offers with which the FTC and others consider misleading. These offers invariably bear the names of some of the country’s biggest marketers. As a result, I spend a fair amount of time explaining to advertisers what kind of due diligence they should be doing when planning and executing lead generation campaigns. Education is also one of the reasons OLGA exists. It is my personal opinion that OLGA needs to take the next step and lead the way to industry self-regulation. This could involve publicizing the most egregious incentivized offers and alerting advertisers of their presence within those offers. Lead generation has grown enormously over the years and has the potential to evolve much further. One reason for this future growth is because lead-gen works. Another is the eventual development of technology that will enable the smallest Web publishers and the smallest, most local advertisers (pizza parlors, car dealers, furniture stores) to manage their own lead-gen activities. Call it the “long tail” of lead generation. It’s bound to happen, but we all stand to reap the most benefits if our industry shines a spotlight on the Worst Practices at every opportunity.

It’s official -  MediaTrust will be attending South by Southwest in Austin this year. Scott Parent, our VP of Social Media and I will be in the lobbies, conference halls, venues and streets capturing conversations with a large variety of attendees as to how they use social media tools to solve whatever problem they might feel they have. Some of the issues we will be exploring are how bands use communities such as MySpace to build a following, or how marketing managers use a combination of YouTube, Digg and StumbleUpon to increase brand awareness. The combinations are potentially endless and Austin presents the single most diverse audience of any festival in such a small period of time.

We would like to extend an invitation to YOU to talk with us while we are in Austin. We will be continuing our podcast series, begun at ad:tech last year in New York, and would encourage you to become part of the dialogue. I can be reached at csmith at mediatrust dot com. Stay informed as to our travel plans, interviews and experiences by adding this to your RSS reader. Scott and I will continue to bring you up-to-date on the journey over the next few weeks, and we will be adding our podcasts to this blog in a near real-time fashion.

Looking forward to seeing you at SXSW, and to your online interactions as well. 

I just finished reading Steve Rubel’s opinion on the concept of Digital Curator. What struck me as interesting is his comment that “curators are not editors.” I would disagree with that whole heartedly. While his premise that “the notion of an editor inherently implies that space is finite. Online it’s not” does make some sense, the role of being a curator is that the audience is expecting you to edit based on perspective. Again, this points to our belief at MediaTrust that relevance is the first and foremost point of reference to our audience. It is our responsibility to edit the amazing volume of information that is available to us and only present what is of value to the community that we are establishing and guiding.

While I couldn’t find the actual publishing date, sometime in the pre-fall of 2006, frog design’s Strategy Director Adam Richardson wrote a very forward thinking article titled “From the Information Age to the Recommendation Age” He sites many of the drivers that have created this role of “digital curator”, but positioned as a trusted advisor. “The key to recommendations are their trustworthiness - the track record and perceived objectivity and competence of the source is paramount.”

In my role as a creative director I am continually asked for my insights, opinions, and recommendations because I can edit a large variety of influencers and trends, and establish a curated view of these items to my staff, my company and my clients. It is this ability to present a collection of information that is relevant and useful that makes me a “digital curator”, as well as the trust that I have built over time with my audience and the usefulness and value of the information I present to them.

Steve Rosenbaum over at Always On seems to agree, and makes a very interesting observation about the changing role of the curator - no longer neccessarily an institutional voice, but an individual one. As he writes its “the passionate individual voice. The single editor-in-chief. The hands on editorial manager who’s taken it on as his or her mission to discovery, sort, and promote the best of the best content within an individual curator’s area of interest.”

As always, we would value your opinion and comments on this and any topics we discuss here on Relevantly Speaking.

By way of introduction, I would like to share with you this video of Redwood’s interpretation of Web 2.0. As the Creative Director of MediaTrust, I am always interested in the variety of ways that the industry has been redefining and visualizing Web 2.0. What I like most about this instance is that, aside from the Rolling Stones meets Rocky Horror Picture Show lips, Redwood decided to step into the customer’s shoes for a change.

 
So a little bit about me, as I plan on being a more active contributor to RelevantlySpeaking and it might help frame up my point of view, and why I post the things I do. My informal education really began at age 19 when i started tending bar in NYC in the early 80’s. Talk about jump starting a career in social media. My formal education came 10 years later when I went to University of California at Davis. I took my degree in environmental design and started my career as a designer with an exhibit design firm in California. Since then, I have worked for HP, frog, webassociates and with clients such as Apple, Quiksilver and RIM.

My interests are quite broad, but for the purpose of this blog, and our audience here, I will try to post things that are relevant to social media and the impact that design has on media and advertising. I would also encourage comments and crosslinks to items that you might also consider as important to this growing community here at RelevantlySpeaking.

My name is Christopher Smith. I can be reached at csmith at mediatrust dot com.