Category: Uncategorized

Thanks For Flying With Us. Please Give Us All Your Money.

Today I had quite an experience with United Airlines. It has very little to do with much of anything I usually write about here, save one key element: I have posited that to succeed in what I've been calling the Conversation Economy, companies must learn to have conversations with their…

Screen shot 2009-11-15 at 9.55.18 PM.pngToday I had quite an experience with United Airlines. It has very little to do with much of anything I usually write about here, save one key element: I have posited that to succeed in what I’ve been calling the Conversation Economy, companies must learn to have conversations with their customers at scale. (And to do so, they will need to leverage open platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. and, of course, change the way they instrument their business. But more on that later).

Well, here’s a tale of one company failing miserably at doing just that, even while, in the end, due to my own insistence (and most likely, the rising level of anger in my voice), it kind of, sort of, managed to not totally fail.

But first, the backstory.

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Why Did Google Buy AdMob?

Look. Sure, it's a mobile ad platform, and sure, Google wants to play there, more than they already are. OK. Fine. But really. What's the play? Droid. Data. Droid. Iphone App Data. Droid. K? Data. Just to be clear. Data. About what works, on iPhone apps, so they can leverage…

Look. Sure, it’s a mobile ad platform, and sure, Google wants to play there, more than they already are. OK. Fine. But really. What’s the play?

Droid.

Data.

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Hey Mr. Murdoch: It Doesn’t Have to Be Black and White

Sheesh. Just give Google summary text and headlines to index (like the WSJ does now). Then do your best to convert would be readers to your paid model. That's it. What's the big deal? The rest is bluster….

Sheesh. Just give Google summary text and headlines to index (like the WSJ does now). Then do your best to convert would be readers to your paid model. That’s it. What’s the big deal?

The rest is bluster.

6 Comments on Hey Mr. Murdoch: It Doesn’t Have to Be Black and White

Twitter Incorporates Retweeting (Beta Launch)

Saw this greeting me whilst on Twitter.com today (gotta love WiFi on a plane): Nice to see Twitter rolling out so many new things, like Lists, which seems to be taking off (though I find the lack of a discovery interface vexing, for now). Retweeting is integrated in an elegant…

Saw this greeting me whilst on Twitter.com today (gotta love WiFi on a plane):

Screen shot 2009-11-06 at 12.27.35 PM.png

Nice to see Twitter rolling out so many new things, like Lists, which seems to be taking off (though I find the lack of a discovery interface vexing, for now).

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A Step Toward Realizing the Data Bill of Rights Vision

Danny was kind enough to ping me about this story, which breaks the news about Google's new "Dashboard," which is, in essence, a first start toward realizing the "privacy dashboard" I asked for so long ago (and again here), back when I was posting ideas like a madman (I'm…

google-dashboard.png

Danny was kind enough to ping me about this story, which breaks the news about Google’s new “Dashboard,” which is, in essence, a first start toward realizing the “privacy dashboard” I asked for so long ago (and again here), back when I was posting ideas like a madman (I’m going to be doing that again shortly, so watch out…).

It’s a big deal I think, even if most of us never use it. And it’s very smart of Google to lead here. It really had no choice, when you think about it. And it’s kind of cool to see stuff I wrote about here over three years ago happen in the real world.

5 Comments on A Step Toward Realizing the Data Bill of Rights Vision

OK, What the Real Phone Map Should Be

The sphere is abuzz with today’s news that AT&T is suing Verizon over those apparently quite effective ads which borrow heavily from Apple’s tagline – “There’s an App for that…” Verizon has created a map that compares AT&T 3G coverage to Verizon’s, and then uses the tagline “there’s a…

The sphere is abuzz with today’s news that AT&T is suing Verizon over those apparently quite effective ads which borrow heavily from Apple’s tagline – “There’s an App for that…” Verizon has created a map that compares AT&T 3G coverage to Verizon’s, and then uses the tagline “there’s a map for that.” (Above is the commercial, here’s the map.)

Well, I’ve been ranting about a real carrier mapping application (executed as a marketing campaign, natch), for nearly three years, and while I’ve told just about everyone I can about it, so far it’s still not done (I know, I know, we should make it ourselves, right? Well, maybe we will!).

Meanwhile, here’s the idea. If any of you brilliant coder/UX/marketing geniuses want to go do it, just credit FM and I, ok?

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Twitter Lists

There's much to say about Twitter's slow to roll out but much discussed Lists feature. I'm a fan of it, in short, for many reasons. Lists is a pretty simple idea – it lets anyone make and share a list of folks on Twitter. But it's also a powerful new…

Screen shot 2009-11-02 at 7.16.01 PM.pngThere’s much to say about Twitter’s slow to roll out but much discussed Lists feature. I’m a fan of it, in short, for many reasons. Lists is a pretty simple idea – it lets anyone make and share a list of folks on Twitter. But it’s also a powerful new signal that will help Twitter solve two of its most vexing problems – first, that of discovery, and second, that of authority. Not to mention it gives everyone a chance to add value above the level of a single “follower”, more on that later.

In short, if done right, Lists will provide the Twitter ecosystem a third dimension that might just propel it beyond the hype curve and into a long term platform play. Combined (intelligently) with the new traffic coming from Google and Bing, and this could mean Very Big Things for  Twitter.

All this bears further discussion. And I promise to to that, soon. I just wanted to leave a note here that I think this is important, and hopefully, when I stop traveling and start thinking a bit more, I’ll dig in here.

8 Comments on Twitter Lists

What “Tweet” Needs to Become: To Share a Moment

Last week was big for Twitter. After years of speculation about whether the company was going to have a business model, Twitter announced two deals at our Web2 conference – first with Microsoft's Bing, and second with Google. Details of the deals were not disclosed, but as Google's Marissa…

The Twitter Moment.png

Last week was big for Twitter. After years of speculation about whether the company was going to have a business model, Twitter announced two deals at our Web2 conference – first with Microsoft’s Bing, and second with Google. Details of the deals were not disclosed, but as Google’s Marissa Mayers admitted onstage, there were indeed financial terms.  

What those terms might be strike me as secondary to the fact the deals got done in the first place. Sure, they probably consist of some combination of data services fees and revenue sharing, but the fact remains that monetizing a real time search result remains an elusive art, and one that honestly, Twitter does not want to cede to either Google or Microsoft. So while the two battling search giants may toss a not-insignificant amount of Adwords or AdCenter revenue into Twitters’ coffers, what really matters is the the traffic these deals potentially represent, and the validation of Twitter’s role in the real time universe. That, I’d argue, is priceless.

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Web 2 Summit: Microsoft’s Twitter / Bing Deal and Qi Lu

The interview with Qi Lu and Microsoft's Bing – Twitter deal announced at Web 2 last week. I'm working on a wrap post coming soon….

The interview with Qi Lu and Microsoft’s Bing – Twitter deal announced at Web 2 last week. I’m working on a wrap post coming soon.

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Web 2 Summit: Evan Williams

Big week last week for Twitter, two deals with two search powerhouses, new revenue, and new traffic will flow due to both. I asked about the pending search deals deep into the interview but Evan plays coy, the announcements come the following day….

Big week last week for Twitter, two deals with two search powerhouses, new revenue, and new traffic will flow due to both. I asked about the pending search deals deep into the interview but Evan plays coy, the announcements come the following day.

2 Comments on Web 2 Summit: Evan Williams