web - Adam B on Diigo

5Expand

Bill would penalize companies for aiding Internet censorship

US-based companies could be held liable for helping officials in other countries censor the Internet, if a bill proposed by House Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) is approved. Smith recently announced his plans to push the Global Online Freedom Act (HR 275) to the House floor for voting after having lobbied human rights organization Reporters Without Borders for support. Among other things, the Global Online Freedom Act will bar US companies from disclosing personally-identifiable information about a user, except for "legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes."

Tags: censorship, privacy, web, legislature, law, internet on 2008-05-03 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromarstechnica.com

Yahoo was embarrassed by human rights group Dui Hua soon thereafter after the group published a translation of the Chinese government's request for one dissident's information that clearly stated the nature of the investigation. This infuriated members of Congress, as it appeared to show that Yahoo had lied about what it knew. Yahoo apologized for the "misunderstanding," but Congress remained unimpressed.
Among other things, the Act appears to be a direct response to the furor over Yahoo's involvement in outing a number of Chinese dissidents to the government, resulting in their arrest and imprisonment. At least two Chinese pro-Democracy advocates have filed lawsuits against Yahoo for turning over their e-mails to the government, but Yahoo has said repeatedly that it simply complied with the requests of local law enforcement and was not aware of the nature of the investigations.
The Global Online Freedom Act would not only prevent companies like Yahoo from giving up the goods to totalitarian regimes, but would also prohibit US-based Internet companies from blocking online content from US government or government-financed web sites in other countries. When it comes to non-government sites, the Act would require companies to disclose to the newly-created Office of Global Internet Freedom the terms that they do filter, and for the Office to continually monitor these filtered terms.
econdly, you guessed it—the bill has a convenient exit plan for anyone who tries to apply its rules to the United States. The President would have the authority to waive the provisions of the Act as long as "the important national interest of the United States requires the exercise of such waiver authority."
As TechDirt points out, the US has done its own share of requesting data for questionable purposes, such as when it subpoenaed Google for 1 million random web addresses and all search records from an unspecified one-week period. It wouldn't be surprising to see the US waive the Act in the name of national security at the drop of the hat, so it seems dubious that our government would be take on the responsibility of holding others to these standards.

10Expand

Social media's future looks bright, apply sunscreen | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Tags: social media, advertising, marketing, business, web on 2008-05-03 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.news.com

"It's really an evolution of media from a one-way direction to a highly interactive model, where people are developing relationships around content. That drives engagement...and creates a whole new opportunity for business," Mike Jensen, director of technology group at Credit Suisse,
One opportunity for new business is in e-commerce.

Dave McClure, an angel investor at 500 Hats, believes the future of the business will be in so-called social commerce, or the intersection between online shopping and socializing. Netflix might be an example of early social commerce because it encourages members to recommend movies to friends. But he envisions social commerce going much further.
"Social commerce is where (the business is) headed. Companies that have mined enough social graph data and can combine shopping to it--whoever figures that out, they will be set," McClure said during a panel.
more developers should be working on applications that provide utility to people, rather than just entertainment. For example, spin-offs of Twitter for health care or emergency workers could hold promise
Thanks to social networks like MySpace and Facebook, companies are armed with much more data on people's habits, preferences, and social behavior. Executives believe that data, if used right, can build the next advertising giant.
Still, social networks have long been challenged to sell their inventory to mainstream advertisers for several reasons. For one, advertisers are squeamish about putting their brands next to a user-generated video of high-school band practice, for example. Another reason is that salespeople from social networks don't speak the same language of metrics that traditional advertisers and agencies speak.
"The promise for this space is that you've got this engaged audience--people spending 20 to 40 minutes talking to each other in a way they haven't before--and if you put these ads in front of them, what do you call it and how do you sell it to agencies?"
MySpace is seeing early success for its advertising service called hypertargeting, which lets advertisers reach customers by their behavior on the social network. Oberfest said people are responding more positively to those ads.
Seth Goldstein, founder of SocialMedia Networks, an advertising platform for social networks, said that he envisions an open system from Facebook or MySpace that would allow companies to look at a person's social graph, or collection of their friends. Then the company could extract who is most influential to that individual in areas like travel or movie recommendations.

"If I can select the right person to have influence over you, I can choose that person to send you a message," he said.
Nicolas Kardas, senior product manager at Microsoft's Windows Live Platform group, said despite the forward twist on social media, the business models aren't that different than those of years past. It's just that with social networks, companies know much more about the consumer, and that information delivers the option of a much bigger premium for advertising.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web in infancy, says Berners-Lee

Tags: berners-lee, web on 2008-04-30 and saved by5 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromnews.bbc.co.uk

apophenia: MacArthur Forum talk on "Teen Socialization Practices in Networked Publics"

Tags: danahboyd, teens, socialization, web on 2008-04-28 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.zephoria.org

Twelve Horses | Web Design, Development, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Tags: twelvehorses, design, web, advertising, marketing on 2008-04-28 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromweb.twelvehorses.com

15Expand

Drew McLellan - The Marketing Minute: What social media tools are a must for business?

Tags: social media, marketing, advertising, web on 2008-04-28 and saved by3 people -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.drewsmarketingminute.com

Specialised forums - our 'forte' are the DIY forums where we give out free advice, using our business name as nickname - again a great webtool. Investment is more in time than money but works a treat for us.
A blog - it's becoming essential.
LinkedIn - builds online credibility & good opps with Q&A
Measurement tool - I just started researching social media monitoring tools and I'm convinced to really demonstrate ROI and worth, you need a specialized tool. I just reviewed Social Radar on my blog & there's many others popping up everywhere.
I think internal tools are going to be a huge necessity in the coming years - wikis, CMS, internal blogs, IM etc, etc. In fact, I would go so far to say that internal tools for employee collaboration will be the leading edge of the social media wave for businesses. The generation of workers coming through the ranks now are going to be able to wield these with incredible effectiveness. I see it happening in a lot of businesses I deal with.
flickr
Find your key audiences on technorati, build multiple blogs to focus and talk to each audience, post good copy and throwin a few flickr images and youtube video's.
The reality is...today's 20-something is entering the work place already using this stuff. Employers are wise to tap that natural gift.
the companies that can harness the collaborative power of some of the social media tools are going to have a huge advantage.
We've become regulars at two very different DIY-forums (found them when I did research for my own website - they were already well established forums - means high ranking incoming links when I manage to add a link in our reply - only when it's appropriate otherwise it might be considered advertising).
In the last two years we gained 6 -7 clients (for large floors) directly or indirectly from these forums - and it only costs us a bit of time to respond to the questions there - 'easy money' ;-)
I think it is best to focus on just one good, strong blog. There are hundreds of different ways of promoting that blog through a mixture of SEO, traditional marketing, PR, much smaller blogs, social networking, and more.

Social networking to promote your business but, also, you main blog. Your blog is like the heavy cavalry and your social networking tools: like the scouts or the light infantry.
But your example is perfect one. I think the trick is think different. See what the others in your industry don't see.
The utilities category is a great one. Don't talk to me about utilities...talk to me being green or keeping my family safe at home. One of the things I believe most businesses miss when it comes to social media is that it's not really about them or what they want to talk about.
Depends on the relationships you're trying to build -- where are they hanging? What tools are they using? Who will be the face of your business?

It's not about the tools, but it IS about the talk. That said,

For listening (which always comes first), FriendFeed. For quick chat, Twitter. And of course....a blog site.

kiss2: When web marketing ideas pop-up (or over)

Tags: marketing, web on 2008-04-28 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.thekissbusiness.co.uk

1Expand

How To Speed Up Firefox (Helpful Vanity)

Tags: firefox, tweaks, web on 2008-04-27 and saved by17 people -All Annotations (2) -About

more fromwww.freerepublic.com

Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen: Viral marketing, activation, and retention metrics - commentary on Dave McClure's Web 2.0 presentation

Tags: social media, marketing, advertising, viral, web, internet on 2008-04-25 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromandrewchen.typepad.com

6Expand

Businesses told to exploit social media

Tags: social media, business, marketing, advertising, web, internet on 2008-04-25 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.tradingmarkets.com

9Expand

Social Media still on rise: Comparative global study

Tags: social media, web, internet, research, statistics on 2008-04-24 and saved by3 people -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.trendsspotting.com

sian markets (not including Japan) are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region
Asian markets (not including Japan) are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region
57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content: 55% of users have uploaded photos, 22% of users have uploaded videos
23% of social network users have installed an application – 18% of bloggers have installed applications in their blog templates
Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and a collective rival to traditional media (184m bloggers world-wide, China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers) – 73% have read a blog, 45% have started a blog
Social media has strong impacts over brand’s reputation – 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog – 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs
Interestingly, comments on news websites show almost no increase
Estimated 272m users world-wide.
Users are posting variety of content – 55% uploaded photos – 21% installed applications – 23% uploaded video • Social Networks becoming social utilities for managing peer to peer relationships: 74% use them to message friends

5Expand

IndustryWeek : Four Steps to Understanding the Blogosphere

Tags: social media, advertising, marketing, web, internet, blogging on 2008-04-24 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.industryweek.com

the goal is to establish long-term relationships with your customers -- and that's what bloggers are: your customers.
It's about the relationship over time, not overnight. Do you want a one-night stand, or a commitment? If you want a commitment, take the time to get to know them.
Do Your Homework. Since bloggers are your customers, you should have a pretty good idea of what matters to them, but don't simply rely on the mass media approaches you may have used in advertising and direct marketing -- demographic analysis, segmentation, "targeting," models of consumer behavior and so on. These tools aren't sufficient to build a relationship. Building a relationship with a blogger is much like making a friend. You don't make your friends based on their demographic profile; you make friends by getting to know them.
Your products only matter in as much as they connect with your customers' passions.
Be Transparent. When you reach out to a blogger, he or she is also part of a social network, of which the blog is one piece. Everybody e-mails everyone else. They are also on microblogging platforms like Twitter and social nets like Facebook. Nothing snowballs faster than bad news. If something does go wrong, whether it is with a product or a program, get out in front of it fast. Don't wait for other people to tell your story. Tell it yourself.

8Expand

IndustryWeek : The 'No Excuses' Plan for Online Marketing

Tags: social media, advertising, marketing, web, internet on 2008-04-24 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.industryweek.com

According to analyst firm IDC, the online advertising segment grew 27% in 2007, and yet when considering if and when to invest in online marketing efforts, many manufacturers go through a litany of excuses.
"If your company doesn't have an online presence that can easily be found in search engines, product review sites, industry Web sites and user forums, you can be assured that these searchers will find one of your competitors," warns Komack. "Even if you're already well entrenched with a customer, your lack of online presence has just given a competitor a window of opportunity to establish a dialogue that may eventually lead to a shift by your customer to that other vendor."
If your Web site doesn't serve at least two primary purposes -- acting as a lead generation vehicle and providing technical resources for users -- you're losing half the battle, observes Komack. "Even if your primary sales channel is a dealer network, your Web site should serve as a means of generating leads to pass on to your dealer network."
Not only should your Web site serve as a means of capturing leads (which also can build a nice in-house mailing list), a manufacturing Web site should also provide excellent, up-to-date content about technical specifications and, ideally, provide content that will help end users utilize your equipment more efficiently (this goes for finished products as well as OEM products, says Komack). "This additional content will help build loyalty to your brand and will drive search engine traffic in a variety of ways."
"online marketing allows for a high level of tracking capabilities, so you can associate spending choices online with leads generated and sales that come later in the sales cycle."
Another payoff comes in the form of gathering marketing intelligence about your industry, assures Komack. "You can gather valuable information about how people search for your products, such as keywords used in search engines, and leverage that information to other marketing efforts such as creating marketing collateral and identifying customer needs that you may not have been aware of in the past."
Komack tells his manufacturing clients to consider that "every time a prospect finds you online, that is one more opportunity to keep that potential customer from your competitors."
Manufacturers that do not use their Web sites effectively and do not build an online presence, Komack concludes, are missing significant opportunities for generating leads, building customer loyalty, gathering marketing intelligence, and keeping prospects from competitors.

4Expand

IndustryWeek : Four Tips for Social Media Marketing

Tags: social media, advertising, marketing, web, internet on 2008-04-24 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.industryweek.com

7Expand

Study: Majority Use Social Media to 'Vent' About Customer Care - ClickZ

Tags: social media, marketing, advertising, internet, web on 2008-04-24 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Online identity research, Social Media Marketing

more fromwww.clickz.com

the online study found that 72 percent of respondents used social media to research a company's reputation for customer care before making a purchase, and 74 percent choose to do business with companies based on the customer care experiences shared by others online.
59 percent said they regularly use social media to "vent" about their customer care frustrations, suggesting that consumers looking to make a purchase decision first wade through a mass of negative commentary.
Savvy consumers "will not support companies with poor customer care reputations, and they will talk about all of this openly with others via multiple online vehicles,"
Only 33 percent of respondents said they believe companies take such online complaints seriously.
As for which industries made best use of social media, technology and retail ranked highest, while insurance, utilities and healthcare ranked lowest.
"Search allows consumers to find their information without being tied to the company, and now we have social media, where the customers voice is not only heard, it's louder. A customer's voice can now be global," she said. "If companies provide that care it can impact the reputation of the company itself."
conducted online with 300 respondents who voluntarily opted in.

4.07: The Teachings of Bob Stein

Tags: bobstein, wired, web on 2008-04-21 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Online identity research

more fromwww.wired.com

2Expand

Open Reasoning: Some data points on social media

Tags: social media, data, web on 2008-04-19 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Online identity research

more fromopenreasoning.blogspot.com

U.S. Lags in Social Media Creation, per Survey

A new global study of social media use reveals that the U.S. severely lags behind Asian and South American countries in participation rates.

Tags: social media, Internet, web, usa on 2008-04-18 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Online identity research

more fromwww.adweek.com

Swift Kick Central: Teaching The Google Effect and Digital Identities

Tags: identity, google, information, internet, web, privacy on 2008-04-09 and saved by4 people -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Online identity research

more fromblog.swiftkickonline.com

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop - New York Times

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Tags: blogging, health, economics, web on 2008-04-06 -All Annotations (0) -About

in list: Online identity research

more fromwww.nytimes.com

Adam B's Bookmarks tagged web → View Popular

Bill would penalize companies for aiding Internet censorship

Social media's future looks bright, apply sunscreen | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web in infancy, says Berners-Lee

apophenia: MacArthur Forum talk on "Teen Socialization Practices in Networked Publics"

Twelve Horses | Web Design, Development, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Drew McLellan - The Marketing Minute: What social media tools are a must for business?

kiss2: When web marketing ideas pop-up (or over)

How To Speed Up Firefox (Helpful Vanity)

Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen: Viral marketing, activation, and retention metrics - commentary on Dave McClure's Web 2.0 presentation

Businesses told to exploit social media

Social Media still on rise: Comparative global study

IndustryWeek : Four Steps to Understanding the Blogosphere

IndustryWeek : The 'No Excuses' Plan for Online Marketing

IndustryWeek : Four Tips for Social Media Marketing

Study: Majority Use Social Media to 'Vent' About Customer Care - ClickZ

4.07: The Teachings of Bob Stein

Open Reasoning: Some data points on social media

U.S. Lags in Social Media Creation, per Survey

Swift Kick Central: Teaching The Google Effect and Digital Identities

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop - New York Times

Adam B's Related Tags

See More Top Contributors

Related Groups on Diigo

Related Lists on Diigo

Funny things found on the web

web 2.0 research

Web Worker's Firefox Extensions

Diigo - Highlight and Share the Web!