If you want to see a company who knows how to work the blogosphere, it doesn’t get any better than what I’ve been seeing over here at Vinny Carpenter’s blog.

David Friend, CEO of Carbonite is all over the blog post answering questions and solving problems for people - and impressing the hell out of me.

I can’t use his products so I cannot say much about them… Why? I used external fixed disk drives and Carbonite doesn’t support right now.

I use Mozy - but now have a far better opinion of Carbonite since watching this guy and if they ever add the support I need, I’ll be in the right mindset to give it a try. It looks to me like they are taking care of consumers and that is terrific to see.

But I now have a new example of doing this right.

People from all over the country have enjoyed a music or sports event held in the Rupp Arena, a place that Kentucky Wildcats basketball fans consider sacred ground. But Arenas and other large venues have a very tough job, with many to please. They must excel in services for promoters to emerging as a winner in the highly competitive tour-date market, and assist with the tremendous physical challenges that changing an entire arena facility from basketball to tractor pull to wresting match sometimes in just days. Companies like Rupp are at are at the crossroad of fans, artists, record labels, sports promotion, and live concert companies – each with special needs. As the music industry changes towards higher end live shows and advanced merchandising, they will be in an increasingly important position

While record companies will probably transform themselves in the next few years, bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails led the industry by releasing recent albums directly to fans, while performing lucrative concerts and striking high-priced merchandising deals. In fact, as I write this, both of these bands are rumored to be headlining the gigantic Lollapalooza concert in 2008, where some tickets are expected to cost as much as $300 each and sell out in a few minutes. Just this week, I read where REM is releasing its latest album on the social site iLike.

Arenas Tap Fan Energy

By understanding and conversing with fans, venues can begin to take advantage of the tribal otaku of music and sports. Starting with a blog and Twitter presence, Rupp has embraced authentic, participatory media as a way to get closer to sports and music fans. But challenges, some unique to this business, particularly adhering to the protocols of promotion, licensing, and tour managers. Another logistical challenge is posting in a timely manner, especially while so busy and with events that often run late into the night. People will expect activity ahead of, during, and after events happen, as social media has no patience. I’m hoping they build up a list of guest bloggers to keep the energy alive.  If they have flexibility to do so, there are an infinite number of ways that artists can use social media too.

For most businesses, confusion abounds in social networking, but the team at Rupp seems to have hit the ground running, embracing the conversational nature rather than just making another way to pitch their wares. My friend and Social Media consultant Jason Falls noticed this about their efforts as well. Arenas may use Twitter / Blogs to answer questions, send out announcements, and run contests interactively, and since Twitter a mobile-friendly system, live event activities such as pre-event parties and more may take root as long as they don’t turn it into spam.

People close to the industry had some excellent commentary

Dave Brooks, writer with Venues Today, told me “Everyone is moving towards the various social media platforms, but I think it will take a while for them to hit their potential. Many venues are still reacting, exploring platforms and so on. We’ll have to wait and see the real impact.”

Connie Chesner, Wake Forest University Communications Instructor and Marketing Researcher with OTM Partners pointed out: “For ongoing relationships such as fans or sports enthusiasts, it provides an opportunity to build online/off-line relationships in a larger social context. The cohesive nature of event attendance provides fertile ground upon which to build socially dynamic experiences for visitors….. For ongoing relationships (university sports teams), it provides a massive opportunity to build an online/off-line relationship for a fan base where attendance at events becomes a larger social context than previously. Now, a ticket holder is not just going to the game with their friends they are driving with, they are meeting up with the group they’ve been interacting with online for days or weeks.”

Some Ideas for Arenas and Live Venues

Jack Powers, of IN3.org gave this excellent list of ways Social Media can be used in this industry:

• Post repositories of professionally created photos,video clips, text files, logos and sound clips that authors can use in their work
• Provide some “blogger-only” content
• Set up chats with performers, give links to relevant sites.
• Distribute widgets that provide always-fresh branded content about the artist, venue and event.
• Create a Twitter channel for pre-event updates, and an on-site channel for minute-by-minute tweets.
• Make a billboard page where users can post their own links to their blogs, Meet-Up groups. Flickr steams, YouTube channels, Facebook Groups and all the other user-generated gathering points.
• Organize the masses editorially with recommended keywords, folksonomy tags, content guidelines, parental ratings that professionalize the fan content.
• Distribute digital content that only ticket holders at the event can get: Bluetooth-ed music videos, phone cam photos of the performers with the audience, live shots of unique concert happenings — sort of an electronic autograph for the folks who showed up.
• Promote user links with contests and prizes; sell sponsorships in the user content and share the wealth
• Negotiate all this content freedom with the agents, lawyers, record labels and stars.

Seth Godin further examines the tribal nature of these events

The next thing is this idea that people care very much about who is sitting next to them at the concert. They care very much about the secret handshake. They care very much about the tribal identification. “Oh you like them, I like them”. The Grateful Dead is an amazingly successful paradigm for many of the things I’m talking about. They didn’t make any money selling records compared to the way they made money doing everything else. Part of it was, you knew if you met someone at a dead concert, they had some things in common with you. The secret handshake, the clothes, whatever it was. And that was important and you were willing to pay money to be with those people. And after Jerry died it was very interesting. Because obviously there was thousands of hours to listen to but that’s not what the people missed. The people missed the place they could go to meet the people like them. At Facebook, it’s all about that. 64 million people who go there every day so they can meet people like them because [Facebook] is very good at dividing people up. ….And the last one is back to this tribal thing. It’s really important to people to feel like they are part of that tribe, to feel that adrenaline. We are willing to pay money, we’re willing to go through huge hoops, trampled to death in Cincinnati if necessary, in order to be in the environment where we feel that’s going on.

What do you think???

arena photo credit: Sonnett
reflections photo credit: code poet

… my column from Business Lexington this month…

With increased Internet use and widespread broadband connectivity, the shift from old to new media is influencing the way people participate in elections, according to a recent report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Not since John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated in front of 70 million new television watchers in 1960 have we seen such a change in political media. A wave of changes brought on by Web sites, blogs and social media is being led by the 18- to 30-year-old demographic and is spreading to reach Americans of all ages and backgrounds.

The number of Americans who received political information using the Internet in 2004 was around 13 percent. In the 2008 survey, that number had doubled. In the same period, younger voters using the TV as a major source dropped from 75 percent to 60 percent, while the percent using the Web soared from 21 percent to 46 percent. Daily newspapers have held steady for most of the population, but those under 30 use them half as much as they did in 2004.

And people are getting more active. The system got a taste of this during Congressman Ron Paul’s 2007 campaign, where the Internet’s power to mobilize grass roots efforts (if not votes) was convincingly demonstrated. A powerful, virally energized operation emerged that may form the template for an entirely new way of campaigning. Competitors scrambled to take note of Congressman Paul’s campaign tactics as he broke single-day fundraising records and went from silence to viable effort in the shortest time ever seen.

As impressive as it was, few think Web-based participatory media such as bloggers will move voters to the polls on their own. But the effect on regional, grassroots campaigning is beginning to show its strength. This “final mile” blogger-to-activist effect uses the Internet for efficiency but eventually depends on old-fashioned campaigning like rallies, petitions and meet-ups to actually affect primaries and elections. As was demonstrated, decentralized and passionate young voters, savvy in use of social networks like MySpace and Facebook, began to reach individuals in their community who pick up signs and knock on doors for the first time in their lives.

The “Big 3″ phenomenon lives on today’s Internet, but with a big twist. The largest election news sites include MSNBC, CNN and Yahoo News, together earning 54 percent of all traffic. Unlike television, however, the remaining 46 percent exist in a “long tail” with hundreds of others, from the Drudge Report to Youtube to individual blogs.

One of the most impressive Web sites to emerge is Political Base a brain-child of CNET co-founder Shelby Bonnie and recently joined by Kentucky political veteran and former BluegrassReport.com blogger Mark Nickolas. “We’re trying to capitalize on an electorate that appears energized to change the system by giving them a place where they can learn the issues, explore multiple viewpoints, engage in debate, and mobilize others around their ideas,” explained Nickolas.

On many sites, participation changes conversations from “one to many” into “many to many,” often keeping controversial issues “alive” long after mainstream media has moved on. Watchdogs spot and post candidate inconsistencies and gaffes before campaign managers have a chance to do anything (and long after they’d rather forget.) Last summer, Senator George Allen, a Virginia Republican, was caught calling a college student of Indian descent a “macaca.” The student, who was videotaping, subsequently placed the tape on Youtube, where it was viewed over 250,000 times and was partially blamed for Senator Allen’s defeat. (more…)

I was swindled last week.

I poured my heart out about a post (this is the “copy”) I found at creativebits.org being one of the best I’d seen in 2007. And today, I realize it was a knock-off. Others tried to express their concerns, as well, in the contents area of the post, but it appears they were ignored.

The original post, 10 Absolute “Nos!” for Freelancers, written about 60 days ago by Samuel over at the “Sleeping Late: Freelancing, Online Income, and Sleeping Late” blog, is A BRILLIANT list of guidelines that would serve any consultant well. Print and memorize it if you’re in web development (or related ventures) and you will find more success with less heartache. Nice work and Great Blog. 2800 Diggs and counting and it deserves the attention.

Fooled …I shake my head, but earlier I even went over and gave the copy a vote at Mixx.com. I wonder if CameronLow or the other 56+ voters knew it was a copy? I’m betting that Joshua, James, and Thomas didn’t know. The tiny little attribution links or mentions at the bottom doesn’t cut it. In my mind, creativebits had written, sorry, pasted the article on their fully-monetized blog with the intent of enhancing the blog’s reputation and ringing the cash register.

(ps: It appears in several other autoblog sites and and in another, obscure blog that somehow reminds me of those pictures you see of Chinese knock offs that say “Sone Playstaten” - this one even disabled the links. Ug.)

Lastly …

I’m not used to this in the blogosphere I circulate in. A blog is mean to be authentic, transparent, and to help us learn about the very essence of the organization or person writing it. It builds trust that is returned through through comments, links, and attribution. To copy posts from those who spend the time and energy to create great stuff is to break trust, and people are getting called out about it. This stuff wouldn’t be tolerated in print, so why would it be online?

It’s not that they had a RSS feed, forum posts, or blog excerpts, which can be done in a respectful way that in my non-attorney opinion invokes “fair use.” They copied the whole damn thing.

I’ve been told the readership of creativebits is a “small group” - but I ask, what is a “small group” on the public Internet, and does that matter? The post shows up in Google, in Technorati, and other search engines. So, please find a better excuse.

So, have I missed something about the blogosphere, fair use, and what has transpired? Do you agree with my point of view?

As I had review creativebits.org, I find great content, some very interesting posts, and a lot to like. But until they start giving authors their due, they’ll have to do without this Kentuckian’s participation and link equity.

If this is happening to you, there are some great resources on the issue you should check out. But most importantly, keep your cool and enjoy life.

We are all busy, but most of us love blogs. Finding, filtering, and selecting blogs is something that must be done by hand. because it requires that we personally evaluate an author’s efforts and give them enough time to show their stuff. It’s my blog audition, borne from necessity.

At one point I had 1400 blogs in Google Reader, haphazardly picked. Even with nicely developed folders, filters, and so on, I found myself wasting far too much time. So one day I got fed up. I did the equivalent of “touch bloglist.opml” and started over.

And, what evolved afterward was a very simple and effective method for narrowing down the thousands of blogs without impacting your daily flow.

(more…)

If you’re thinking a blog is too much work for your marketing efforts, check this out…. More than 8 of 10 business journalists (84%) say they have used or would use blogs as primary or secondary sources for articles.

This from the 2007 Arketi Web Watch Survey: Inside B-to-B Media Usage of Web 2.0

• One-quarter (25%) said blogs make their job easier
• 18% said instant messaging makes their job easier.
• 97% said they enjoy using new technologies
• 30% said they use some type of instant messenger for professional communication.
• 60% of journalists said they spend more than 20 hours a week on the internet.

Hat tip to Lee Oden for the Twitter.

Weather, Newspaper, TV Stations, and other news-specific blogs should have “full posts” selected in their RSS feed settings. No exception. This way people can actually keep up-to-date via non-broadband devices.

If you are publishing such a blog:

It is ridiculous to use exerpt-posting for these types of weblogs. It undermines your reputation as a news provider and makes you look stupid. Weather blogs and “Breaking News” blogs are prime examples. In these cases, forcing people to hit your bloated, banner-covered home pages to read the rest of the information does nothing but make you look greedy IMO. It’s fine if you want to do this for broadband users, but RSS readers shouldn’t have to deal with it. If you must pacify your sponsors, why not intermingle sponsored messages within your feed, where it makes sense, rather than proven-not-to-work banners on your regular web pages?

Bad weather was around Lexington so I put in the WKYT weather blog RSS into my mobile google reader. I tried to keep up to date using RSS, but it was impossible.

The weather blog excerpts looked like this:

Hey gang… I decided to start a new post as the amount of comments in the last one were slowing it down a bit. Please keep up to date with my live blogging in the comments section. Be sure to post your weather and thoughts on this severe weather outbreak …

Trying to load the “video-enhanced” home page of the Blog Page (and its fat banners) using dial-up or blackberry was simply out of the question.

Not very helpful.

My blog has a mix of topics, all generally related to web business consulting. But I also put a few humorous topics as well as a few relevant (business web) posts about Lexington, KY.

I receive casual comments all the time about people saying they like it, but my subscriber counts are stuck and often fall off dramatically after one post or the other.

So, should one split up topics into different blogs, or is the categorization within a blog enough? What would YOU prefer?

Please continue discussion at Sphinn.

With increasing competition from a swarm of inexpensive stock photography shops and changing patterns in image purchasing, Getty , the market leader in stock images in the world, is offering its entire collection of photography with flat-fee $49 licensing.

• Royalty-free images may be used multiple times for multiple projects.
• Rights-ready images may be used in web or electronic media for commercial or editorial projects such as websites or email for three months.
• Rights-managed images may be used in one commercial or editorial website, email or mobile project for three months.

This makes it possible for web developers, email marketers, and bloggers to use the best stock in the world in their work at very good pricing. Landing pages can be tested at affordable rates without spending a fortune on the images, and if a particular image scores a home run, a longer term license can be negotiated.

Photographers are not very happy about this. Such price changes, while here limited to web resolution images, will have a trickle-up effect on the higher resolution marketplace as buyers get used to the model. Acceptable license fees last year will now seem exorbitant, specially as x-gen media buyers begin to make decisions. (more…)

If you’ve tried setting up your Blogrush widget, you may run into the “Invalid URL” bug where your widget doesn’t appear but “Invalid url” shows instead. Here’s the simple fix.

The fix is simple

When you get the code:

<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
blogrush_feed = “”;
//–></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://widget.blogrush.com/show.js”>
</script>

Just adjust the line:

blogrush_feed = “”;

…so it reads

var blugrush_feed = “XXXXXX”;

…where XXXXX is the ID for your blogrush account.

You can obtain that from your direct feed link

http://www.blogrush.com/rXXXXXXX…. just remove the “r”

Postscript:� Meh.� I removed blogrush.� I may remove this post, too.